New Tennessee Marriage Law Takes Aim At Obergefell

The Anti-LGBTQ Movement Scores A Big Victory In Tennessee

TPM Illustrations/Getty

By Josh Kovensky and Kate Riga
February 23, 2024 

A new Tennessee law undercuts the Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark, closely divided decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, and marks a significant victory for a resurgent conservative movement to restrict LGBTQ rights.

The law, signed by Gov. Bill Lee (R) to little fanfare on Wednesday evening, allows state officials to decline to “solemnize marriages.”

The new law effectively removes half of what is needed under state law to become legally married. In Tennessee, marriage occurs after two events: the issuance of a marriage license, and the formal solemnization of a marriage, which can be carried out by a religious official, a state notary public or a state official.

By targeting solemnization and not marriage licenses, the law allows Tennessee to undermine the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges while potentially avoiding a direct challenge to the precedent. Experts compared the new Tennessee law to the campaign waged against Roe v. Wade, in which many states passed increasingly aggressive abortion bans in the years leading up to the 2022 Dobbs decision, when a majority of justices were willing to revisit and scrap the Roe precedent entirely.

“I think they’re in the process of chipping away at marriage equality now to get to the same result,” Chris Sanders, head of the Tennessee Equality Project, told TPM, comparing it to the anti-abortion movement. He predicted the law would swiftly draw challenges.

The new law is among the first in the country to allow state officials to decline to participate in same-sex marriages or other forms of marriage. It represents a rising, aggressive tide in the conservative social movement: a recognition that after achieving a generational goal with the Dobbs decision, and with a Supreme Court stacked 6-3 in favor of conservatives, they’re in a position to lay siege to marriage equality and other personal freedoms.

“The shift in the way the Supreme Court is structured gives people a lot of leeway to do what they did with Roe: pass a law that’s unconstitutional on its face and see what the new Supreme Court has to say,” Tennessee Senate minority leader Raumesh Akbari (D), an opponent of the law, told TPM.

“It’s being set up intentionally that way the same way the religious right set up challenges to Roe,” Abby Rubenfeld, an attorney who represented Tennessee in a case that was consolidated into the Obergefell decision, told TPM. “They want to overturn it.”

The law does not explicitly mention same-sex couples. Earlier drafts of the law contained a more explicit statement that officials could decline “based on the person’s conscience or religious beliefs.” But even that fell short of stating any of the explicit concerns that someone may have with a marriage, be they of the same sex or different races or creeds.

The fact that the law applies only to solemnization could mean that any challenge might avoid the central holding of Obergefell: that states must license same-sex marriages and recognize same sex-marriage licenses issued by other states.


Rubenfeld, the attorney, argued that the personal beliefs of state officials shouldn’t factor into the duties of an official role. “Once you’re elected, you don’t do these things in your individual capacity. You’re performing the job.”

Solemnization can be performed by state officials, as well as non-state officials including priests, rabbis, imams and other religious figures who have long been understood to have discretion on who and who not to marry.

“The state has a complete monopoly on the issuance of marital licenses, whereas they don’t have that in terms of solemnization,” Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State College of Law, told TPM.

The question would then come down to discrimination, and how courts saw the role of state officials in solemnizing a marriage.

“It would basically be one-off acts of discriminatory administration,” Kreis said. “You wouldn’t be challenging the issuance of a license.”

The bill initially passed through the House in 2023, but bounced around the Senate for a year before passing in mid-February and getting Lee’s signature on Wednesday.

Its passage, a big success for Republicans legislators more hellbent on unwinding LGBTQ rights than perhaps those of any other red state, happened with little pomp. Lee in particular went radio silent on the legislation: no press release or mention of it on his social media feeds. His spokesperson did not respond to TPM’s questions. In a live interview with Politico Thursday morning, he did not bring the new law up and he was not asked about it.

Akbari, then in the state House of Representatives, said she noticed an uptick in the ferocity of her Republican peers’ anti-gay rights crusade after Dobbs.

“The composition of the legislature was a lot different,” she said. Before Dobbs, “bills that were so blatantly against what the Supreme Court had said died in committee. They died a swift death — that’s a big difference.”

Tennessee is able to pass such legislation even after Congress passed a federal law, the Respect for Marriage Act, to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act — which had defined “marriage” as between a man and a woman and did not require states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other ones. (DOMA was still on the books, though unenforceable, under Obergefell.) Both chambers of Congress moved the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, a direct response to Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in Dobbs in which he encouraged a reconsideration of precedents including the landmark same-sex marriage decision.

Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the majority opinion in Dobbs, didn’t have much reassurance to provide either, though he took (wholly unbelievable) pains to limit the fallout from the decision by insisting that his logic — unenumerated rights are only valid if they’re rooted in the country’s history and tradition — somehow only applies to abortion.

While the Respect for Marriage Act was meant as a statutory safety net should the Supreme Court follow Thomas’ lead, it leaves plenty of leeway for states like Tennessee to pass state laws that silo off same-sex couples if Obergefell goes down. The law only requires that states recognize same-sex marriage licenses from other states where it’s legal, not that they issue them themselves. It also, as a concession to get more Republicans on board, exempts nonprofit religious organizations — including churches — from providing “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.”

Under this law alone, the country would, should Obergefell be overturned, likely return to the pre-Obergefell patchwork, where couples had to travel to certain states to get married.

Armed with a friendly Supreme Court, a base increasingly invested in culture-war red meat and a protective gerrymander, Tennessee’s Republicans are particularly well-equipped to be the tip of the spear as the right targets same-sex marriage, not long ago thought to be an issue settled both by courts and overwhelming public will.

“There’s a different type of Republican even in Tennessee’s General Assembly,” Akbari said, noting that the “more moderate, business-minded Republicans” are increasingly being sorted out in favor of hard-line partisans. “National trends are completely taking root in the state government.”




Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.

Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) is a D.C. reporter for TPM and cohost of the Josh Marshall Podcast.

Right-Wing Justices Struggle With Culture War Proclivities In Face Of Sprawling Social Media Laws

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito. TPM Illustration/Getty Images

By Kate Riga
|
February 26, 2024

The Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments centered on what’s become a cottage industry on the right: crafting legal and statutory challenges to social media platforms’ content moderation practices.

These cases grew out of endless conservative complaints about “shadow banning” and “censorship,” platforms’ policies that conservatives claim are single-mindedly aimed at tamping down right-wing influence. It’s a natural outgrowth of the Republican Party’s grievance politics, and ramped up after the COVID-19 pandemic, when anti-vaxxer content on social media became a huge point of contention.

Monday’s arguments centered on laws out of Florida and Texas that would guide and restrict the platforms’ content moderation decisions, and demand platforms provide individualized explanations for those decisions to the affected users. The oral arguments over challenges to the pair of laws are just the first on the Court’s docket this term to deal with these issues; another challenging the Biden administration’s practice of flagging misinformation to tech companies will be argued next month.

The Florida law in particular is quite sprawling, including provisions that the platforms cannot “censor” any “journalistic enterprise” or “willfully deplatform a candidate” for office. It also potentially extends beyond the traditional social media sites, prompting many justices to ask how the law may be applied to messaging carriers like Gmail or marketplaces like Etsy.

Questions about the breadth of the legislation consumed much of the hearings, with some justices clearly mulling remanding at least the Florida case to address the further flung applications.

But perhaps the most interesting moments in the proceedings arose when the right-wing justices’ long-held reflexive positioning came into conflict with a newer strain of their ideology: old-school, free market, pro-business conservatism vs. the new age, Trumpian culture wars. The Court’s Republican appointees are a microcosm of the same dynamic playing out in the party at large, as the old guard fights to retain relevance amid the influx of MAGA politicians and their new, often vindictive, priorities.

Justice Samuel Alito was trying to press U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar into admitting that a hypothetical private law school saying that any student who expresses support for Israel in the war with Hamas will be expelled is “censorship.”

She pushed back that the “semantics” — censorship, moderation — matter much less for these cases than what’s being regulated.

“The particular word that you use matters only to the extent that some may want to resist the Orwellian temptation to recategorize offensive conduct in seemingly bland terms,” he quipped in response.

It’s typical Alito, using a hypothetical to make his views clear: that the social media companies are “censoring” right-wing viewpoints, and using terms like “content moderation” or “editorial discretion” to obscure that. This is the culture warrior position — that red states can and should use government to punish companies acting in ways they don’t like. For some on the right, especially of the MAGA persuasion, these companies are no longer cloaked by the shibboleth that corporations are benevolent, economic drivers who deserve the benefit of the doubt and unregulated freedom. Call it the Ron DeSantis thesis.

A rebuttal came from an unlikely place a few minutes later: Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“I just want to follow-up on Justice Alito’s questions,” he said. “I think he asked a good, thought provoking, important question, and used the term ‘Orwellian.’ When I think of Orwellian, I think of the state, not the private sector, not a private individual.”

“Maybe people have different conceptions of Orwellian,” he added, before pointing to “the state taking over the media like in some other countries.”

And here’s our old-school Republican position. Private entities are trustworthy with power, or at least more trustworthy than the tyrannical government trying to regulate them.

Chief Justice Roberts, throughout, hewed to Kavanaugh’s camp.

“I wonder, since we’re talking about the First Amendment, whether our first concern should be with the state regulating what we have called the modern public square,” he said the first time he spoke.

Justice Clarence Thomas, unsurprisingly, seemed to side with Alito, his natural ally. While noting that the attorney for the social media platforms called it “censoring” if the government does it and “content moderation” if done by a private party, he snarked: “These euphemisms elude me.”

For all but the most dedicated culture warriors, the Florida and Texas laws may ultimately prove too sprawling for them to get behind. The justices spent much of the arguments debating the knock-on effects of the laws and of questioning how, if one of these tech platforms chose to opt out of serving Florida or Texas rather than complying with the law, it could even manage to do it.

But the issue isn’t going away. As long as a sizeable chunk of the right-wing legal world cares greatly about punishing companies it views as enemies — and as long as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals happily rubber stamps these suits on the way up — the pro-business justices and the culture warriors on the Supreme Court will continue to be locked into their internecine battles.

“[To whom] do you want to leave the judgment about who can speak or who cannot speak on these platforms?” Roberts asked. “Do you want to leave it with the government or the state, or leave it with the platforms? The First Amendment has a thumb on the scale when that question is asked.”


Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) is a D.C. reporter for TPM and cohost of the Josh Marshall Podcast.

Honoring African Americans in espionage

ABC News' Kyra Phillips talks with Col. Chris Costa and former CIA officer Darrell Blocker about new spy museum exhibit that recognizes top African Americans in espionage.

 

 How some African women are bringing back tattoo traditions erased by colonization

Feb 26, 2024  CNN 

This video explores African women's connection to tattooing and scarification, looking at how that connection was lost as a result of colonization. We follow Jessica Horn and Laurence Sessou on their mission to reverse centuries of colonialism, the erasure of traditional tattoo practices and the impact this has had on women's relationship with their bodies. This story is part of As Equals, CNN's ongoing series on gender inequality. For information about how the series is funded and more, check out our FAQs.

2.9mn heads of livestock dead in Mongolia’s “dzud” disaster

Millions of animals left with no grazing pastures have perished in the big freeze. /

 Severe Weather channel, YouTube, screenshot

By bne IntelliNews February 26, 2024

As many as 2.9mn heads of livestock are thought to have perished so far in the “dzud” weather disaster that has struck Mongolia, the country’s State Emergency Commission (SEC) revealed on February 24.

As Mongolia comes to terms with the still unfolding catastrophe, discussion has turned to how climate change appears to have intensified both the severity and frequency of dzud, a severe combination of a dry hot summer and icy winter that is unique to Mongolia and causes enormous damages to the nation’s nomadic herders.

Officials refer to historical records that show there were 15 dzud in the 18th century, 31 in the 19th and 43 in the 20th. In the past, therefore, dzud were predicted to take place every eight to 12 years. Now they are expected to occur every other year and the climate crisis is widely blamed as it is causing warmer and drier summers and harsher winters in Mongolia. An added difficulty is that unprecedented growth in livestock numbers that has been seen since the 1990s has led to overgrazing of pastures—thus when the dzud covers great expanses of grazing territory in snow and ice, herders are unable to find enough grazing plots for their animals, already weakened by extreme cold.

Authorities expect the already huge toll of dead livestock to continue growing. A plan to collect and dispose of carcasses in the spring before they rot and start spreading diseases is under preparation.

Herders make up about 40% of Mongolia’s population of 3.35mn. The rescue mission taking place amid the dzud not only involves deliveries of fuel, hay and fodder, it also entails clearing roads so that herders can move their animals to pastures less impacted by dzud.

Donations collected for the rescue initiative stood at Mongolian tughrik (MNT) 1.6bn ($473,000) as of February 24.

A smuggling arrest is made, 2 years after family froze to death on the Canadian border

AP |
Feb 27, 2024 

A man accused of recruiting the driver in a human smuggling operation has been arrested, more than two years after a family of four from India froze to death trying to enter the U.S. from Canada, authorities said

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28, was arrested Wednesday in Chicago on a warrant issued in September, charging him with transportation of an illegal alien and conspiracy to bring and attempt to bring an illegal alien to the United States.

Patel allegedly hired Steve Shand of Deltona, Florida, to drive migrants from the Canadian border to the Chicago area. Shand, who allegedly told authorities Patel paid him a total of $25,000 to make five such trips in December 2021 and January 2022, has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges and awaits trial on March 25.

Patel's attorney, Michael Leonard, said Monday that so far he's been told very little about the allegations.

“Based upon the fact that, at this point, we have been provided with nothing more than accusations in the form of a Criminal Complaint that recites hearsay statements, we are not in a position to legitimately evaluate the Government’s allegations," Leonard said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Shand was at the wheel of a 15-passenger van stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol in North Dakota, just south of the Canadian border, on Jan. 19, 2022. Authorities spotted five other people in the snow nearby. All Indian nationals, they told officers they’d been walking for more than 11 hours in frigid blizzard conditions, a complaint in Shand's case said.

One of the men was carrying a backpack that had supplies for a small child in it, and told officers it belonged to a family who had become separated from the group overnight. Canadian Mounties began a search and found three bodies together — a man, a woman and a young child — just 33 feet (10 meters) from the border near Emerson, Manitoba, which is on the Red River that separates North Dakota from Minnesota. A second child was found a short distance away. All apparently died from exposure.


The migrant with the backpack told authorities he had paid the equivalent of $87,000 in U.S. money to an organization in India to set up the move, according to a federal complaint from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Federal prosecutors believe Harshkumar Patel who organized the smuggling operation. The victims were identified as Jagdish and Vaishaliben Patel and their children, 11-year-old Vihangi and 3-year-old Dharmik.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the family was related to Harshkumar Patel, a common name in India.

Federal authorities believe Patel himself entered the U.S. illegally in 2018 after he had been refused a U.S. visa at least five times, the complaint said. Shand told investigators that Patel operates a gambling business in Orange City, Florida, and that he knew him because he gambled there and operated a taxi business that took people there.


The complaint cited cellphone records indicating hundreds of communications between Shand and Patel to work out logistics for illegal trafficking. One text message from Shand to Patel on Jan. 19, 2022, stated, “Make sure everyone is dressed for blizzard conditions please.”

 

Assassination attempts against Mumia Abu-Jamal

February 26, 2024

Pam Africa visits Mumia in the visiting room at SCI Mahanoy prison on Feb. 5.

Excerpts from Guerrilla Intellectual University’s interview with Pam Africa, Noel Hanrahan and Ricardo Alvarez on Feb. 12, 2024, by Kalonji Jama Changa and Joy James 

Kalonji Changa: [We have on Guerrilla Intellectual University] the founder of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa; Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, physician to Mumia; and the founder of Prison Radio, attorney Noel Hanrahan. Good to have you all [share important information about Mumia Abu-Jamal].

Noel Hanrahan: Mumia Abu Jamal has been in prison now for 42 years. He survived three execution attempts: one on the streets of Philadelphia in 1981 and two literal execution warrants. [It] has been a real struggle for Mumia to communicate with us and to maintain his health. In the last eight years, Mumia has had many health struggles. We as a community have rallied to make sure that Mumia Abu Jamal has survived, just like we rallied when he was under an execution warrant.

He had [severe] hepatitis C, which there was a cure for, [but] the prison was preventing him from getting [the medicine] … [M]obilization literally made sure that Mumia was given that life-saving cure in 2017. Then he had double bypass heart surgery in 2021. He is suffering from a number of medical conditions.

Pam Africa: Mumia has a tendency to not talk about himself when he’s damn near dying. He wanted to talk about other things, but there was no conversation to be had there except his [deteriorating] health. You know what he wants to talk about? He’s doing a new book, “Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader.” 

When Pam Africa visited Mumia and discovered how dire his medical condition had become without his having raised an alarm, an emergency discussion to inform the public and call us to action was scheduled. The participants are (clockwise from top left) Kalonji Changa, Joy James, Pam Africa, Noel Hanrahan and Dr. Ricardo Alvarez.

Ricardo Alvarez: I frame any discussion of a medical consultation with Mumia in the context of “What is torture”? A medical consultation with a brilliant public intellectual, a political prisoner … in prison by virtue of what he says, and not what he did … in this context, to do a medical consultation with Mumia in captivity means that there are nuances to words that he says that cue me into concern. One of the words he said, as it relates to the extent of his skin condition, is that it was [is] “unstable.”

[When] Mumia was transferred out of the facility to see an outside cardiologist … he [was] shackled. He asked the prison guards, “Why am I shackled?” They said, “We don’t know. We just know we’re taking you to this place.” He later said to me, “That’s probably their protocol.” He sees this cardiologist, and the cardiologist says to him: “Why are you here?” [and suggests the shackles have increased his distress and health issues].

Medical systems are so broken and stressful for all of the participants in that system. For patients, it’s a hostile system; we literally describe doing community health work as being on the front lines. … The sense of being on the front line [reflects] the mindset of warfare.

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Noel Hanrahan: They delayed Mumia’s [medical] treatment for two years when they had the cure. And that delay increased his risk of having liver cancer, … exacerbated his underlying conditions, including the skin condition, and extra hepatitis. Your skin is an organ. We went to court and got a third circuit injunction for Mumia to get the fast-acting cure for hepatitis C. That was allowed. That was used by other prisoners across the country. It was the first one. Mumia is one person, but we’re advocating for everyone. 

Mumia had double bypass surgery in 2021. They [the state and prison] have never provided him outpatient care – care for his diet and exercise, which are the two key ingredients for recovering from cardiac surgery. He has been denied that now for over two years. That means he will [likely] have another cardiac event because they are denying him adequate care.

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Kalonji Changa: Do you all feel that this is an assassination attempt of Mumia Abu-Jamal? There’s medical neglect … [but] I don’t buy it that Mumia is just the average prisoner. 

Pam Africa: No, he is not the average prisoner. And yes, they are definitely, and in front of our faces, attempting to kill Mumia, and all for the blood lust wishes of Maureen Faulkner, Officer Faulkner’s [widow], and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). The prison is in cahoots with it. Noel, remind them of the day in court that attorney Bob Boyle came across these papers; and, how we winded up in court dealing with the medical issues. The prison did not do right by Mumia … he filed grievances, and they turned them down.

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Ricardo Alvarez: I’ve had challenging medical consultations all my life, but I will say that one of the blessings of being in relationship to such an expansive, spiritual being, is that [Mumia] draws in community: brilliant philosophers, brilliant historians, brilliant lawyers … brilliant humans and activists. Our capacity [is impressive]. I spoke to him about multidisciplinary struggle. Mumia said something to me that I will never forget. . . .: we need to have a memory that this [state violence has] happened before . . . [in order] to connect with the ancestors. We have to recall that there were examples where disciplines work together. We have to remember that the construction, the literal manifestation from its roots, hands, the construction of mass incarceration required multiple disciplines coming together. Architects, planners, medical systems, legal systems, corporate systems – [it] was multidisciplinary [violence] to put it together. We need to have multidisciplinary [efforts to] deconstruct, de-engineer [the prison]. …

[W]e’re doing the work done by Laura Whitehorn [and] RAPP [Release Aging People from Prison] and others. The released elders have been a huge and powerful voice. There is a clear call: “Liberate our elders; this is institutional elder abuse.” 

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Noel Hanrahan: There is a sea change now in our multidisciplinary, professional society to report elder abuse, if we can come together in a coordinated way, multidisciplinary unity, for mass incarceration abolition. If we can get a Mumia coalition together, and go to our professional societies and hold them accountable, then we can address the identified social determinants of health, specifically, the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police], in Mumia’s case, and address the harms of unqualified immunity, right, or qualified immunity, that gives them permission. We can address those harms of the code of silence. We can identify corporations, an individual, Citizens United, and begin that process of doing a diagnostic analysis of their pathology and bring that out into the public in concrete ways. Then we begin to create a coalition where we correctly put the culprit, the FOP, on trial. That’s what I believe to be the next stage of [struggle].

Our strategies are to keep Mumia alive, in transition to freedom immediately. If we can do that effectively, including the emerging ethical community, biomedical ethical community, [with] … consensus around abolitionist public health, working communication with the American Public Health Association, the AMA [American Medical Association]. All of these institutions are filled with contradictions. No one is perfect here. Abolition is a humbling journey. But if we can begin that conversation in defense of our communities, I believe we will turn the tide, in effect, and honor the call to liberate our elders. And when we bring them back into our community, in a loving way, then they give us counsel on how to reverse engineer. …

Joy James: Thank you all for your courage and your consistency. … [What you describe] reminds me of COINTELPRO. There are different ways to eliminate people. …

[H]ow do you see the strategy of resistance …  “war resistance” and “assassination resistance” when so much violence is obviously secreted. Prison is a fortress of pain, intimidation and death. You have to be able to get inside to get the narrative [and] … bring it out. What would you like us to do in terms of mobilization and organizing on an international level? People across the globe support Mumia. … What roles should we play in the effort to stop medical assassinations and harm within prison and [beyond those walls]? [Pluto Press launches State Crime Journal with articles on Mumia Abu-Jamal and Palestine in London in March].

Ricardo Alvarez: One of [Mumia’s] lessons that helps [to] expand an understanding of “Love Not Phear” is compassion. There is no monolithic medical prison community, we have to appreciate. … When Mumia was hospitalized and we mobilized around the four-point shackling when he shared that trauma. Imagine being in four-point shackles, and unable to scratch yourself. This beautiful, brilliant, peaceful man [has helped us to] create a language and an understanding of where you can have the trauma … it was difficult for him to communicate … [this] can be happening in settings with compassionate medical personnel who are competent. I asked him: [Who] do you trust? What is your energetic? How do you feel?” [Despite the violent trauma,] Mumia describes people who can be loving and caring. 

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There is care within prison settings and outside; … [there are] competent, caring people who can operate in oppressive systems and do a good job. But there is a deep failure for the professional community. The medical community [has to] acknowledge the underlying oppressive violence that our community, our brothers, our sisters, our loved ones are suffering. The social determinants of health [include] … poverty, homelessness … violence. It is specifically state violence that is so important. 

When we look at medical assassination, there is medical complicity at the highest levels within these oppressive systems. Was that high blood sugar just missed? Quite possibly. Does that happen in outpatient settings? Absolutely. We’re not saying that someone necessarily deliberately [failed to diagnose]. But … where there is objective evidence of an effort to assassinate, it is important that we all voice that. … [S]tate violence is so gross, so deliberate, that we need to be able to stand from a place of defense of our community.

Advocate and author Joy James’s recent books include: “In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love,” “New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the (After)Life of Erica Garner,” “Contextualizing Angela Davis.” With articles and interviews developed with Kalonji Changa, James edited the forthcoming “Beyond Cop Cities: Dismantling Corporate-Funded Armies,” from which the excerpt is taken. Joy can be reached at jjames@williams.edu. 

Kalonji Changa is founder of the FTP-Movement and of RSTV and Black Power Media. He is the author of “How to Build a People’s Army” and co-producer of the documentary “Organizing Is the New Cool.” Celebrating their 20th anniversary, the FTP Movement has launched with Common Notions Press their 2024 political education series: “The Culture of Resistance.” Kalonji can be reached at defendingthepoor@gmail.com.  

West Virginia medical professionals condemn bill that prohibits care to at-risk transgender youth

Hundreds of medical professionals in West Virginia have signed onto a letter condemning a bill advancing in the state House of Delegates that would bar transgender youth at risk for suicide from accessing medical interventions like hormone therapy

ByLEAH WILLINGHAM

 Associated Press
February 26, 2024, 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Hundreds of medical professionals in West Virginia have signed a letter condemning a bill advancing in the House of Delegates that would bar transgender youth at risk for suicide from accessing medical interventions such as hormone therapy.

The bill before the full House would completely ban minors' access to hormone therapy and puberty blockers, removing a narrow exemption passed by lawmakers last year that allows kids at risk for self-harm and suicide to receive such care.

More than 400 people signed the letter published Monday by the state’s only LGBTQ advocacy organization, Fairness West Virginia. They included doctors, psychologists, social workers, nurses and medical students.

“As clinicians, we want to be able to provide best practices in care and follow the guidelines of our ethical principles,” West Virginia Psychological Association President Dr. Chava Urecki said in an interview. “The important thing is ‘Do No Harm,’ so we as a society and a discipline do need to protect the most vulnerable by allowing gender-affirming care and giving them the services that they deserve and need.”

She said clients in the state have told providers that the proposal makes them feel “unsafe, unsupported and violates their right to privacy," adding she fears it will lead to an increase in hospitalizations.

Fairness West Virginia Communications Director Jack Jarvis said the organization planned to present the letter to delegates at the state Capitol in Charleston on Tuesday, the day before the bill faces a scheduled vote.

He said the swell of support the letter has received from medical professionals in the 72 hours since the bill was approved by the House Health and Human Resources Committee is telling.

“Frankly, I’ve never seen this level of support come together so quickly,” Jarvis said. “Healthcare providers all across our state realize just how dangerous this bill is — they understand the stakes.”

Up to 2% of adolescents in the United States identify as transgender, and in any given year a third of them may attempt suicide, the letter states. Research shows that transgender youth who access gender-affirming hormone therapy have 73% lower odds of considering suicide, it says.

“In many cases, this care can be life-saving," the letter reads.


At least 23 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits.

Every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, supports gender-affirming care for youths.

Lawmakers in West Virginia and other states advancing bans on transgender health care for youth and young adults often characterize gender-affirming treatments as medically unproven, potentially dangerous and a symptom of “woke” culture.

After the bill passed the committee on Friday, Lead Sponsor Republican Del. Geoff Foster said the law would be better, “more clear and concise” without the exemption, saying that will help reduce suicide rates is treatment for depression.

He may not believe in people receiving hormone therapy or puberty blockers, he said, but those 18 and older can make their own decisions, not kids.

Fairness West Virginia Gender Policy Manager Isabella Cortez, who is transgender, said it doesn't feel that way to her: “They don’t want trans people to exist, kids or adults. Their goal is to get rid of us entirely.”

Dr. Kate Waldeck, a pediatric critical care physician at Hoops Family Children’s Hospital in the state’s second-largest city of Huntington, said when she started there in 2017, easily more than half of the children she saw in the PICU after serious suicide attempts identified as transgender or nonbinary. Hoops usually admits one or two serious suicide attempts a week.

“Many of them I would see repeatedly, meaning after repeated attempts to take their own lives,” she said.

She said the research is clear about the benefits of gender-affirming care for children experiencing severe gender dysphoria: “There is no controversy on this in the medical literature.”

Waldeck spearheaded the creation of Huntington’s Gender Affirming Pediatric Clinic in the fall of 2021, which is open one day a month and currently treats fewer than a dozen total patients under 18 with puberty blockers and hormone therapy. She receives no extra compensation for her work at the clinic, but said she does it because she sees the life-saving and changing impact the care can have for kids.

“These children are suffering. They are highly vulnerable,” she said, adding that she never thought she’d do outpatient medicine again after her residency.

She called it “heartbreaking” that it has become a major political issue.

“Most of these kids would give anything to be 'normal’ or ‘under the radar,’” she said. “And now their struggles are being discussed by politicians and it has made life much harder for them.”

Jarvis said that last year's bill has already forced dozens of families with the resources to move out of state to leave West Virginia. He said he knows others who have been denied access because the exemption in existing law is already so narrow. The 2023 law requires parental consent and a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from two medical professionals, both of whom must provide written testimony that medical interventions are necessary to prevent or limit possible or actual self-harm.

The bill's chances of passage are unclear. The House of Delegates passed a similar measure last year, but it was significantly altered by Republican Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, a physician who expressed concern about the high suicide rate for transgender youth.

Takubo, a physician, cited more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies showing a decrease in rates of suicide ideation and attempts among youth with severe gender dysphoria who had access to medication therapy.

Gender dysphoria is defined by medical professionals as severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

Students Walk Out of Oklahoma High School Where Nonbinary Student Was Beaten and Later Died

More than a dozen students have staged a walkout at the Oklahoma high school where a nonbinary student was beaten and later died

By Associated Press
Feb. 26, 2024, 

SUE BENEDICT
In this image provided Malia Pila, Nex Benedict poses outside the family's home in Owasso, Okla., in December 2023. Police in Oklahoma are investigating the death of Benedict, a 16-year-old student who died a day after an altercation in a high school bathroom that may have been prompted by bullying over gender identity. Neither police nor school officials have said what led to the fight. But the family of Benedict says there had been harassment because the teen was nonbinary. (Sue Benedict via AP)

OWASSO, Okla. (AP) — More than a dozen students walked out of class Monday at an Oklahoma high school where a 16-year-old nonbinary student was beaten inside a restroom earlier this month and died the following day.

Students and LGBTQ+ advocates held signs that read “You Are Loved” and “Protect Queer Kids” as they gathered at an intersection across from Owasso High School.

The students are demanding action against discrimination and bullying of transgender and gender nonconforming students after the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old student at the school who identified as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns. Benedict, who died the day after a fight with three girls inside a high school restroom, had been the target of bullying at the school, their family said.

“Students and families are out in force today having to demand the basics: to be safe from bullying and violence," the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD said in a statement. “It is appalling and shameful that Nex Benedict endured a year of anti-LGBTQ harassment, then a brutal beating in the school bathroom.”

The state medical examiner's office has not released the cause or manner of Benedict's death, but a police spokesperson has said preliminary results show the death was not the result of injuries suffered in the fight. Police are investigating the teen's death and will forward the findings of their investigation to the district attorney's office to determine what, if any, criminal charges might be filed.

Vigils honoring the teen have been held across Oklahoma and the nation after news of Benedict's death.

Deleted texts helped convince jurors man killed trans woman because of gender ID, foreperson says

AP |
Feb 27, 2024 

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — When jurors first began weighing the fate of a man charged with murdering the transgender woman he’d been seeing secretly, they had little problem concluding that he fired the gun, the jury foreperson said.HT 

The most difficult task was determining that he was driven by hate, as the Department of Justice alleged, Dee Elder, a transgender woman from Aiken, South Carolina, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now.

“Motive is just a harder thing to prove,” Elder said. “How do you look between someone’s ears?”

Elder reached out to the AP after she and 11 other jurors found Daqua Ritter guilty of shooting Dime Doe three times on Aug. 4, 2019, because of her gender identity, bringing to an end the first federal trial over a bias-motivated crime of that sort.

Familiar with the difficulties presented by society for transgender people, Elder, 41, said she was compelled to discuss the case given its historic nature.

“We are everywhere. If one of us goes down, there’ll be another one of us on the jury,” she said. “And we’ve always been here. We’re just now letting ourselves be known.”

To prove the hate crime element during the trial, the Department of Justice relied heavily on arguments that Ritter feared he'd be ridiculed if the relationship became public knowledge in the rural South Carolina community of Allendale.

Jurors quickly reached a consensus on the charge that Ritter obstructed justice by lying to investigators, Elder said, and they also felt comfortable concluding that Ritter was the one who killed Doe.

But Elder said that determining the reason for committing the crime is “what took four hours.”

Hundreds of text messages between the pair, later obtained by the FBI, proved key to the conviction, she said. In many of them, Ritter repeatedly reminded Doe to delete their communications from her phone. The majority of the texts sent in the month before the killing were deleted, according to one FBI official’s testimony. Ritter often communicated through an app called TextNow, which provides users with a phone number that is different from their cellphone number, officials testified.

In a July 29, 2019, message, Doe complained that Ritter never reciprocated the generosity she showed him through such favors as driving him around town. Ritter replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn't need the “extra stuff.”

In another text, Ritter — who visited Allendale from New York in the summers — complained that his main girlfriend at the time, Delasia Green, had insulted him with a homophobic slur after learning of his affair with Doe. At trial, Green testified that Ritter told her not to question his sexuality when she confronted him. Doe told Ritter in a message on July 31 that she felt used and that he never should have let Green find out about them.

The exchanges showed that Ritter “was using this poor girl” and “taking advantage” of their connection, Elder said.

"When she had the nerve to be happy about it and wanted to share it with her friends, he got nervous and scared that others would find out, and put an end to it," she added.

Elder said she hadn't even heard about Doe's death until jury selection, something that surprised her as a regular consumer of transgender-related news. Elder believes she was the only transgender person on the panel.

Without going into detail, she added that she understands firsthand the real-world harm caused by the stigma still attached to being a transgender person.

“In my personal experience, it can be dangerous for transgender women to date," Elder said.

—-

Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

California utility will pay $80M to settle claims its equipment sparked devastating 2017 wildfire



 A motorists on Highway 101 watches flames from the Thomas Fire leap above the roadway north of Ventura, Calif., on Dec. 6, 2017. Southern California Edison will pay $80 million to settle claims connected to a massive wildfire that destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in 2017, federal prosecutors said Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)Read More

 Roger Kelton searches through the remains of his mother-in-law’s home leveled by the Woolsey fire, Nov. 13, 2018, in the southern California city of Agoura Hills. Southern California Edison will pay $80 million to settle claims connected to a massive wildfire that destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in 2017, federal prosecutors said Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

February 26, 2024

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California Edison will pay $80 million to settle claims on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service connected to a massive wildfire that destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in 2017, federal prosecutors said Monday.

The utility agreed to the settlement on Friday without admitting wrongdoing or fault in connection with the Thomas fire, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Investigations found utility equipment sparked the fire in two canyon locations on Dec. 4, 2017. The Thomas fire, which burned across 439 square miles (1,137 square kilometers) in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, is the seventh largest blaze in California history, according to state fire officials.

The settlement is a “reasonable resolution,” said Gabriela Ornelas, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison.

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“We continue to protect our communities from the risk of wildfire with grid hardening, situational awareness and enhanced operational practices,” Ornelas said Monday.

Federal prosecutors sued the utility in 2020 to recover costs incurred fighting the fire and for the extensive damage caused on public lands within the Los Padres National Forest. The lawsuit alleged Edison power lines and a transformer ignited dry brush during powerful winds.

The agreement “provides significant compensation to taxpayers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph T. McNally said in a statement.

It’s the latest settlement by Edison over the Thomas fire. The utility has also settled claims related to the enormous Woolsey fire in 2018. Edison estimated in 2021 that total expected losses for both blazes would exceed $4.5 billion.

California has seen increasingly destructive wildfires in recent years, made worse by climate change and drought. Utility equipment has been blamed for sparking some the state’s worst fires.

In 2022, former executives and directors of Pacific Gas & Electric agreed to pay $117 million to settle a lawsuit over devastating Northern California wildfires sparked by that utility’s equipment in 2017 and 2018.

Myanmar: Young people attempt to flee ahead of conscription order

By Kelly Ng

BBC News, Singapore

On 1 February, Myanmar entered its fourth year since the coup

A deadly stampede outside a passport office that took two lives and unending lines outside embassies - these are just some examples of what has been happening in Myanmar since the announcement of mandatory conscription into the military.

Myanmar's military government is facing increasingly effective opposition to its rule and has lost large areas of the country to armed resistance groups.

On 1 February 2021, the military seized power in a coup, jailing elected leaders and plunging much of the country into a bloody civil war that continues today.

Thousands have been killed and the UN estimates that around 2.6 million people been displaced.

Young Burmese, many of whom have played a leading role protesting and resisting the junta, are now told they will have to fight for the regime.

Many believe that this is a result of the setbacks suffered by the military in recent months, with anti-government groups uniting to defeat them in some key areas.

"It is nonsense to have to serve in the military at this time, because we are not fighting foreign invaders. We are fighting each other. If we serve in the military, we will be contributing to their atrocities," Robert, a 24-year-old activist, told the BBC.

Many of them are seeking to leave the country instead.

"I arrived at 03:30 [20:30 GMT] and there were already about 40 people queuing for the tokens to apply for their visa," recalled a teenage girl who was part of a massive crowd outside the Thai embassy in Yangon earlier in February. Within an hour, the crowd in front of the embassy expanded to more than 300 people, she claims.

"I was scared that if I waited any longer, the embassy would suspend the processing of visas amid the chaos," she told the BBC, adding that some people had to wait for three days before even getting a queue number.

In Mandalay, where the two deaths occurred outside the passport office, the BBC was told that there were also serious injuries - one person broke their leg after falling into a drain while another broke their teeth. Six others reported breathing difficulties.

People gathering outside the Thai embassy in Yangon

Justine Chambers, a Myanmar researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies, says mandatory conscription is a way of removing young civilians leading the revolution.

"We can analyse how the conscription law is a sign of the Myanmar military's weakness, but it is ultimately aimed at destroying lives... Some will manage to escape, but many will become human shields against their compatriots," she said.

Myanmar's conscription law was first introduced in 2010 but had not been enforced until on 10 February the junta said it would mandate at least two years of military service for all men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27.

Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, said in a statement that about a quarter of the country's 56 million population were eligible for military service under the law.

The regime later said it did not plan to include women in the conscript pool "at present" but did not specify what that meant.

The government spokesperson told BBC Burmese that call-ups would start after the Thingyan festival marking the Burmese New Year in mid-April, with an initial batch of 5,000 recruits.

The regime's announcement has dealt yet another blow to Myanmar's young people.

Many had their education disrupted by the coup, which came on top of school closures at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2021, the junta suspended 145,000 teachers and university staff over their support for the opposition, according to the Myanmar Teachers' Federation, and some schools in opposition-held areas have been destroyed by the fighting or by air strikes.

Then there are those who have fled across borders seeking refuge, among them young people looking for jobs to support their families.

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In response to the conscription law, some have said on social media that they would enter the monkhood or get married early to dodge military service.

The junta says permanent exemptions will be given to members of religious orders, married women, people with disabilities, those assessed to be unfit for military service and "those who are exempted by the conscription board". For everyone else, evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine.

But Mr Min doubts the regime will honour these exemptions. "The junta can arrest and abduct anyone they want. There is no rule of law and they do not have to be accountable to anyone," he said.

Wealthier families are considering moving their families abroad - Thailand and Singapore being popular options, but some are even looking as far afield as Iceland - with the hope that their children would get permanent residency or citizenship there by the time they are of conscription age.

Myanmar people step on photos of military junta leader Gen Min Aung Hlaing during a gathering marking three years since the coup

Others have instead joined the resistance forces, said Aung Sett, from the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, which has a long history of fighting military rule.

"When I heard the news that I would have to serve in the military, I felt really disappointed and at the same time devastated for the people, especially for those who are young like me. Many young people have now registered themselves to fight against the junta," the 23-year-old told the BBC from exile.

Some observers say the enforcement of the law now reveals the junta's diminishing grip on the country.

Last October, the regime suffered its most serious setback since the coup. An alliance of ethnic insurgents overran dozens of military outposts along the border with India and China. It has also lost large areas of territory to insurgents along the Bangladesh and Indian borders.

According to the National Unity Government, which calls itself Myanmar's government in exile, more than 60% of Myanmar's territory is now under the control of resistance forces.

"By initiating forced conscription following a series of devastating and humiliating defeats to ethnic armed organisations, the military is publicly demonstrating just how desperate it has become," said Jason Tower, country director for the Burma programme at the United States' Institute of Peace.

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Mr Tower expects the move to fail because of growing resentment against the junta.

"Many youth dodging conscription will have no choice but to escape into neighbouring countries, intensifying regional humanitarian and refugee crises. This could result in frustration growing in Thailand, India, China and Bangladesh, all of which could tilt away from what remains of their support for the junta," he said.

Even if the military does manage to increase troop numbers by force, this will do little to address collapsing morale in the ranks. It will also take months to train up the new troops, he said.

Protesters gather in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand

The junta had a long history of "forced recruitment" even before the law was enacted, said Ye Myo Hein, a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.


"So the law may merely serve as a facade for forcibly conscripting new recruits into the military. With a severe shortage of manpower, there is no time to wait for the lengthy and gradual process of recruiting new soldiers, prompting [officials] to exploit the law to swiftly coerce people into service," he said.

Even for those who will manage to escape, many will carry injuries and emotional pain for the rest of their lives.

"It has been really difficult for young people in Myanmar, both physically and mentally. We've lost our dreams, our hopes and our youth. It just can't be the same like before," said Aung Sett, the student leader.

"These three years have gone away like nothing. We've lost our friends and colleagues during the fight against the junta and many families have lost their loved ones. It has been a nightmare for this country. We are witnessing the atrocities committed by the junta on a daily basis. I just can't express it in words."

Additional reporting by BBC Burmese