With Roe v. Wade in peril, abortion-rights
activists ask: Where are the men?

Trevor Hughes, 

USA TODAY
Mon, May 9, 2022

Abortion rights activists worried te Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade are increasingly asking: Where are our male supporters?

Although Americans widely support abortion access in the United States, many activists worry about preserving the right to abortion if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade, effectively ending access in more than a dozen states almost overnight.

Last week, the court confirmed the accuracy of a draft ruling that would overturn Roe, although the final decision could change when it is issued in about two months. If and when that decision comes, activists fear the lack of public support from a broad group of Americans may prolong their fight to restore abortion rights.

Some activists say abortion rights have been framed largely as a reproductive health issue, allowing many men to say they support abortion rights without having to actually participate in protecting them — a “disastrous” approach, said Amelia Bonow, founding director of Shout Your Abortion.

“We just need you guys to start trying. It’s going to be scary and you’ll feel vulnerable and you’ll mess it up sometimes. But we need you to try,” Bonow said. “This is something that affects absolutely every person. I don’t care who you are or where you live. Your life has been shaped in a million profound ways by abortion.”

FINANCIAL IMPACT: What the end of Roe could mean in a nation without child care aid or family leave

Bonow’s Seattle-based national nonprofit works to reduce the stigma surrounding abortions, and in December she organized a group of people who took mifepristone, which can be used to end a pregnancy, on the steps of the Supreme Court. Advocates like Bonow point out that if Americans were more willing to stand up, lawmakers would more easily be able to see the wide support for abortion access.

Amelia Bonow, left, Erin Jorgensen, center, and Alana Edmondson, right, show and then take abortion pills to make a statement about how safe and available they believe they are, as they demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, in Washington.

Men played a significant role in ensuring access to abortion rights in the 1960s, but those were primarily doctors who saw the consequences of back-alley abortions performed before the procedures were legal nationally, said Alesha Doan, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.

Doan, who has written numerous books on reproductive rights, said there’s been a clear trend in which many men have stepped back from the abortion rights fight – except for the largely white, Christian men trying to abolish access.

“The biggest reason we see an absence of male voices is the framing of the issue, the framing of abortion as a women’s issue that men don’t have any place in. And that is inaccurate,” Doan said. “When we talk about abortion rights, we’re talking about equality. We’re talking about body autonomy. These are much larger issues than just access to reproductive health care."

Doan said the absence of broad, vocal support for abortion access means anti-abortion advocates were able to occupy that space.

“The male voices who dominate the debate are men in power who want to limit or eliminate those rights,” she said. “It’s men speaking about women, men claiming to be experts on women. Men speak very loudly to curb women’s rights. We hear lots of very loud male voices on that side.”

ABORTION BY PILL: More than half of US abortions are already by pill. Here's why.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, said the disengagement by men represents a sense of complacency among those who have only ever known legal abortion since the court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973.

A poll conducted last week by Washington Post and ABC News found a majority of Americans – 54% – want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, while 28% support overturning it. When broken down by party, it showed 75% of Democrats, 53% of independents and 36% of Republicans want the ruling to remain in place.

Almost 25% of American women will have an abortion by age 45, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute and published in the American Journal of Public Health.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Ziegler said, abortion rights groups used language like “My Body, My Choice,” an approach that attracted men, including some conservatives and Libertarians, who supported the idea that governments should stay out of health care decisions.

But that approach risked alienating poor communities of color, who in many cases needed government-provided health care, she said. She said the shift in advocacy language toward reproductive justice, access to birth control and other health issues allowed men to abdicate their participation.

“There probably was, to some degree, a shift away from messaging that targeted the median male voter, and toward the people who were most affected by this, which is women of color,” said Ziegler. “The idea that this is about what government should or shouldn’t do has been replaced by messages that I think some men felt was less useful.”

'PEOPLE WILL TRAVEL': What Roe could mean for abortions across state lines

ABORTION CLINIC SECURITY: Advocates fear ruling could spur new attacks.

The Supreme Court is considering several abortion-related cases, including a 2018 Mississippi law banning virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Advocates fear the court's conservative majority will use that case to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortions as they see fit.

In light of that pending decision, advocates have been trying to engage more men and enshrine the right to abortion access by law, not just by Supreme Court ruling. Given the likelihood that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade within a year, abortion rights supporters of all genders need engaging, said Kristin Ford, vice president of communications and research for Washington, D.C.-based NARAL Pro Choice America, an abortion rights group.

“Many people, I think, have been nervous talking about abortion. Our society tends to be squeamish talking about topics related to sex. But the reality is that a vocal minority has really focused on that and waged a decadeslong campaign from the bottom up,” Ford said.

ABORTION AND THE GOP: McConnell calls US abortion ban 'possible,' says he won't change filibuster to pass it

Stephen Parlato of Boulder, Colo., holds a sign that reads "Hands Off Roe!!!" as abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, Dec. 1, 2021.

Abortion rights advocates are angry that white men have long been the loudest voices in the anti-abortion movement, and they say all abortion rights supporters, regardless of their gender identity, must pressure legislators to protect access at the state and federal levels.

“A lot of times, abortion is painted as a polarizing issue. And that’s just not true. The overwhelming majority of the country believes abortion should be legal,” Ford said. “This a topic that’s uncomfortable for man people to talk about. And we can’t continue to operate in a culture of shame and silence and stigma.”

Abortion rights groups including NARAL and Planned Parenthood note some male political leaders have been vital supporters, including Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, and U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal and Chuck Schumer. They are all Democrats.

Schumer, the Senate majority leader, promised the Senate this week will take up the House-passed Women’s Health Protection Act, which would effectively codify the Roe v. Wade ruling in federal law. But the proposal is not expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, where 10 Republicans would need to support it. President Joe Biden, another champion of abortion access, said he supports the bill.

'Urgent as it gets': Senate bill protecting abortion rights would bar waiting periods, arbitrary clinic regs

Oren Jacobson, co-founder and co-executive director of the Chicago-based nonprofit Men4Choice, said pro-abortion men have been silent for too long. He said some just don’t understand the harm that comes from banning abortion, while others think there’s no place for them in what has become positioned as a women’s rights movement. He said everyone needs to start flexing their political muscles in support.

“We have to look at where we are and recognize that part of the reason we are where we are is because pro-choice men have ignored the voices of women who are most impacted by this issue for decades,” Jacobson said. “The guys who support abortion are the ones who are sitting quietly on the sidelines. Our entire goal is to move those guys off the sidelines and into the fight.”

Men4Choice, which works primarily in Illinois but has outreach in other states, focuses on teaching men how to support women who are taking the lead. The group does not bother trying to reach anti-abortion men and instead focuses solely on silent supporters. Jacobson said arguments about paying child support or becoming a father are less persuasive than pushing those men to stand up for women.

“We tell them, you have two roles in this: call out the (expletive) who are using their power to rob people of the right to control their own body, and to show up and support people in the ways they ask us to do so,” Jacobson said. “We try to shift their framework away from just being about abortion, to one about freedom. We ask them the question: ‘Can a person be free if they cannot control their own body and their own health care decisions?’ And we remind them, ‘you’re here to be a partner, not a savior.’”

Bonow, the activist, said it’s possible to get more men engaged by separating public support for abortion access from the more deeply personal decision to have an abortion.

She’s frustrated and angry that the Democratic Party hasn’t done more to protect abortion access, despite 20 years of conservative activists reshaping legislatures, and state and federal courts, laying the groundwork for overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I completely understand why it feels scary or vulnerable, and why men’s impulse would be to ‘stay in my lane,’” she said. “But I need every man who cares about equality and parity, about economic and racial justice, to have an opinion. And to have that opinion out loud."

Would Roe v. Wade's demise reshape the midterm elections? Ask that question in October.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion protests, fight for Roe: Where are the men?

CERTIFIABLE 

Trump repeatedly asked if China had secret ‘hurricane gun’ and if US could retaliate, report says

Graeme Massie

THE INDEPENDENT
Tue, May 10, 2022, 



Donald Trump repeatedly asked White House national security aides if China had a “hurricane gun” to shoot damaging man-made storms at the United States, a report says.

The one-term president demanded to know if such a weapon would constitute an act of war and whether his military could retaliate against the nuclear power, three unnamed former officials told Rolling Stone magazine.

“It was almost too stupid for words,” one source told the magazine, which said that the person was “intimately familiar” with Mr Trump’s questioning.

“I did not get the sense he was joking at all,” the source added.

Mr Trump seemingly had a deep personal interest in hurricanes while the occupant of the Oval Office and has suggested that the military should bomb hurricanes before they make landfall.

According to Axios, in 201 the then-president asked national security and homeland security officials about the threat posed to the US mainland by the storms.

“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” he reportedly said,

“They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

Mr Trump, who has denied the claim, was reportedly told by one unnamed official: “We’ll look into this.”

Shortly after Mr Trump became president, National Geographic published an article stating that the idea of hitting hurricanes with a nuclear bomb had been raised over the years.

The article said that it was a “really bad idea” with “a surprising history.”

Mr Trump also discussed Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office, and appeared alongside a National Hurricane Center map that seemed to have been altered with a black pen.

The alteration showed the hurricane’s path hitting Alabama, in an apparent effort to stand up a false claim that Mr Trump had made earlier.

Trump Reportedly Asked Aides If China Could Be Shooting Hurricanes At The U.S.

Josephine Harvey

HuffPost
Tue, May 10, 2022

Donald Trump’s fantastical theories about hurricanes were apparently not limited to nuking them.

During his first year in office, the former president repeatedly asked national security aides if China had secret technology or weapons that could create hurricanes and shoot them at the U.S., according to Rolling Stone.

Citing two unnamed former senior administration officials and a third person briefed on the matter, the magazine reported that Trump inquired repeatedly whether this would constitute an act of war and asked if the U.S. could retaliate.

“It was almost too stupid for words,” one former White House official told Rolling Stone. “I did not get the sense he was joking at all.”

This inquiry was mocked in some official circles as the “Hurricane Gun” thing, according to the magazine.

China has attempted to modify weather to protect agricultural regions or improve major events such as the Olympics. However, there is no evidence to suggest the country has the technology to generate massive storms and then fire them across the world.

During Trump’s first year in office, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico while two major storms hit the mainland U.S., Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

As president, Trump made headlines on multiple occasions for bizarre weather-related antics, including the infamous 2019 “Sharpiegate” incident in which he held up a map of Hurricane Dorian’s trajectory that appeared edited to show the storm potentially affecting a portion of Alabama. (Trump had incorrectly tweeted days earlier that Alabama would likely be in the storm’s path).

The same year, Axios reported that Trump suggested on multiple occasions during his first year in office that homeland and national security officials explore the possibility of using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the U.S.

Trump later vehemently denied ever making the suggestion.

He has also made a confusing patchwork of comments about his position on climate change. He has called it a “hoax” while also claiming it is “very important to me.” Once, in 2012, Trump famously argued that climate change was “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He later claimed he was joking.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

FARMER JOE
Biden sees bigger role for US farms due to Ukraine war


Wed, May 11, 2022, 4:08 a.m.·3 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants to put a spotlight on the spike in food prices from Russia's invasion of Ukraine when he travels to an Illinois farm to emphasize how U.S. agricultural exports can relieve the financial pressures being felt worldwide.

The war in Ukraine has disrupted the supply of that country's wheat to global markets, while also triggering higher costs for oil, natural gas and fertilizer. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its food price index in April jumped nearly 30% from a year ago, though the index did decline slightly on a monthly basis. Americans are also bearing some pain as food prices are up 8.8% from a year ago, the most since May 1981.

The trip to Illinois on Wednesday is an opportunity for Biden to tackle two distinct challenges that are shaping his presidency. First, his approval has been dogged by high inflation and his visit will coincide with the release of the May consumer price index, which economists say should show a declining rate of inflation for the first time since August.

But much more broadly, it's an opportunity to reinforce America's distinct role in helping to alleviate the challenges caused by the war in Ukraine. The trip follows a similar pattern as Biden's recent visit to an Alabama weapons factory highlighted the anti-tank Javelin missiles provided by the U.S. to Ukraine.

“He’s going to talk about the support we need to continue to give to farmers to help continue to produce more and more domestically,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “Just as we are providing weapons, we are going to work on doing what we can to support farmers to provide more wheat and other food around the world.”

The Democratic president noted in remarks Tuesday about inflation that Ukraine has 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn in storage that the U.S. and its allies are trying to help ship out of the country. This would help to address some supply issues, though challenges could persist.

Several House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, met with Biden on Tuesday after having visited Ukraine. They warned that the food shortage meant the consequences of the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin would extend well beyond Ukrainian borders to some of the world's poorest nations.

“It's going to result in a hunger crisis, much worse than anybody anticipated,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern following the White House meeting.

An analysis this month for the center-right American Enterprise Institute by Joseph Glauber and David Laborde noted that countries in the Middle East and North Africa are mostly likely to suffer from the higher prices caused by grain shortages.

There are limits to how much wheat the U.S. can produce to offset any shortages. The Agriculture Department estimated in March that 47.4 million acres of wheat were planted this year, an increase of just 1% from 2021. This would be the fifth lowest amount of acres dedicated to wheat in records that go back to 1919.

Biden will be traveling with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to Illinois. After the president speaks at the farm, he will go to Chicago to speak at a convention for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Josh Boak, The Associated Press

SPECULATIVE CAPITALI$M

History of Bitcoin Slumps Makes $20,000 Realistic Target

Akshay Chinchalkar
Tue, May 10, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- Crypto fans desperate for a floor in Bitcoin’s selloff may have to be patient. Every significant slump in the largest cryptocurrency since 2014 has reached the 200-week moving average. That lies close to $20,000 -- or about 35% below Bitcoin’s current price, which is already down by a similar percentage in 2022.

Chief ‘really happy’ to be at the table with Alberta on carbon capture projects


Mon, May 9, 2022

Getting the nod to further develop two separate carbon capture project proposals in Alberta is not too much for the First Nation Capital Investment Partnership (FNCIP), which comprises the First Nations of Enoch Cree, Paul, Alexander and Alexis Nakota Sioux.

“We can take on more, if anything,” said Enoch Cree Nation Chief Billy Morin. “They’re two completely different, separate applications and we’re lucky we got them both in round one, which we were kind of happily surprised.”

At the end of March, the Alberta government announced six potential projects had been selected in the first round of submissions to look at safely storing carbon from industrial emissions in hubs deep underground.

FNCIP is involved in the Open Access Wabamun Carbon Hub west of Edmonton and the Wolf Midstream project east of Edmonton.

The Wabamun Carbon Hub sees FNCIP joining with the Lac St. Anne Métis to partner with Enbridge Inc.

“We do have to walk with some humility and say we do need partners like Enbridge. We do need emitters like Capital Power, which has already signed up with Enbridge and Lehigh (Hanson Materials Limited). We need those industry partners for their expertise, but also to come to the table in a fair and equitable way, and that’s what Enbridge has done,” said Morin.

FNCIP and Lac St. Anne Métis have 50 per cent ownership in the Wabamun project.

In the Wolf Midstream project, which also involves Heart Lake First Nation and Calgary-based energy company Whitecap Resources Inc., FNCIP has 30 per cent ownership.

The Wolf Midstream sequestration hub will serve large facilities in the industrial heartland of Fort Saskatchewan. Initial hub volumes are expected to be between two to three million tonnes per annum with significant expansion capability to support current and future requirements of area businesses. If given the go-ahead, it is expected to be operational by the end of 2024.

Engaging First Nations as these projects get underway is an indication that the province has learned from its mistakes with oil and gas development, said Morin.

“In one way, shape or form I would say they got ahead of the game this time and learned from some of their historic mistakes in not engaging with us developing oil and gas over the last 80 years,” he said.

“This one is a brand-new industry and from the start we’re at the table, having ownership … (and) upholding treaty rights below the depth of the plow…So the government was really proactive … and I'm really happy they did that.”

Companies will be invited to work with government to further evaluate the suitability of each location. If the evaluation demonstrates that the proposed projects can provide permanent storage, companies can work with the government on an agreement that provides them with the right to inject captured carbon dioxide. This agreement will also ensure they will provide open access to all emitters and affordable use of the hub, reads a statement from Alberta Energy.

“It's round two, so we're talking about more regulatory development with the provincial government,” said Morin. “Now it's getting down into the details of ‘let's get a shovel in the ground’ and that is going to take a lot more engineering, technical capacity, community engagements, internally and externally from First Nations. (It’s) another year planning roughly.”

Morin said he sees FNCIP engaging with the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation once they have “structured a deal” with the province.

“It's not the only way we can raise capital, but certainly in Alberta that was exactly what this was designed for. (It) is to engage First Nations in new initiatives with industry in the province itself. Absolutely, we will be at the table with them early,” he said.

The AIOC, created in 2019, was initially set up to provide loan guarantees to natural resource projects. This past February, the mandate expanded to include investments in major agriculture, telecommunications and transportation projects. The AIOC can provide up to $1 billion in loan guarantees. To date, it has backstopped more than $160 million in Indigenous investments in natural resource projects, according to Alberta Indigenous Relations.

Alberta has committed $1.24 billion through 2025 to two commercial-scale carbon capture and storage projects. Both projects will help reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from the oil sands and fertilizer sectors and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.76 million tonnes each year. This is equivalent to the yearly emissions of 600,000 vehicles.

A second request for full project proposals to provide carbon storage services to regions across the rest of the province just closed.

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS  

THE REALITY IS THAT CCS IS NOT GREEN NOR CLEAN IT IS GOING TO BE USED TO FRACK OLD DRY WELLS SUCH AS IN THE BAKAN SHIELD IN SASKATCHEWAN
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-myth-of-carbon-capture-and-storage.html

Marcos presidency complicates US efforts to counter China

By DAVID RISING and JIM GOMEZ

1 of 6

Presidential hopeful, former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator, gestures as he greets the crowd during a campaign rally in Quezon City, Philippines on April 13, 2022. Marcos Jr.'s apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election is giving rise to immediate concerns about a further erosion of democracy in the region, and could complicate American efforts to blunt growing Chinese influence and power in the Pacific. 

(AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election is raising immediate concerns about a further erosion of democracy in Asia and could complicate American efforts to blunt growing Chinese influence and power in the Pacific.

Marcos, the namesake son of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos, captured more than double the votes of his closest challenger in Monday’s election, according to the unofficial results.

If the results stand, he will take office at the end of June for a six-year term with Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, as his vice president.

Duterte — who leaves office with a 67% approval rating — nurtured closer ties with China and Russia, while at times railing against the United States.

He walked back on many of his threats against Washington, however, including a move to abrogate a defense pact, and the luster of China’s promise of infrastructure investment has dulled, with much failing to materialize.

Whether the recent trend in relations with the U.S. will continue has a lot to do with how President Joe Biden’s administration responds to the return of a Marcos to power in the Philippines, said Manila-based political scientist Andrea Chloe Wong, a former researcher in the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.

“On the one hand you have Biden regarding the geostrategic interests in the Philippines, and on the other hand he has to balance promoting American democratic ideals and human rights,” she said.

“If he chooses to do that, he might have to isolate the Marcos administration, so this will definitely be a delicate balancing act for the Philippines, and Marcos’ approach to the U.S. will highly depend on how Biden will engage with him.”

His election comes at a time when the U.S. has been increasingly focused on the region, embarking on a strategy unveiled in February to considerably broaden U.S. engagement by strengthening a web of security alliances and partnerships, with an emphasis on addressing China’s growing influence and ambitions.

Thousands of American and Filipino forces recently wrapped up one of their largest combat exercises in years, which showcased U.S. firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan.

Marcos has been short on specifics about foreign policy, but in interviews he said he wanted to pursue closer ties with China, including possibly setting aside a 2016 ruling by a tribunal in The Hague that invalidated almost all of China’s historical claims to the South China Sea.

A previous Philippines administration brought the case to the tribunal, but China has refused to recognize the ruling and Marcos said it won’t help settle disputes with Beijing, “so that option is not available to us.”

Allowing the U.S. to play a role in trying to settle territorial spats with China will be a “recipe for disaster,” Marcos said in an interview with DZRH radio in January. He said Duterte’s policy of diplomatic engagement with China is “really our only option.

Marcos has also said he would maintain his nation’s alliance with the U.S., but the relationship is complicated by American backing of the administrations that took power after his father was deposed, and a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling in Hawaii finding him and his mother in contempt of an order to furnish information on assets in connection with a 1995 human rights class action suit against Marcos Sr.

The court fined them $353.6 million, which has never been paid and could complicate any potential travel to the U.S.

The United States has a long history with the Philippines, which was an American colony for most of the early 20th century before gaining independence in 1946.

Its location between the South China Sea and western Pacific is strategically important. And while the U.S. closed its last military bases on the Philippines in 1992, a 1951 collective defense treaty guarantees U.S. support if the Philippines is attacked.

The U.S. noted their shared history in its remarks on the election. “We look forward to renewing our special partnership and to working with the next administration on key human rights and regional priorities,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

Even though the Biden administration may have preferred to work with Marcos’ leading opponent, Leni Robredo, the “U.S.-Philippines alliance is vital to both nations’ security and prosperity, especially in the new era of competition with China,” said Gregory B. Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Unlike Leni, with her coherent platform for good governance and development at home and standing up to China abroad, Marcos is a policy cipher,” Poling said in a research note. “He has avoided presidential debates, shunned interviews, and has been silent on most issues.”

Marcos has been clear, however, that he would like to try again to improve ties with Beijing, Poling said.

“But when it comes to foreign policy, Marcos will not have the same space for maneuver that Duterte did,” he said. “The Philippines tried an outstretched hand and China bit it. That is why the Duterte government has reembraced the U.S. alliance and gotten tougher on Beijing over the last two years.”

Marcos Sr. was ousted in 1986 after millions of people took to the streets, forcing an end to his corrupt dictatorship and a return to democracy. But the election of Duterte as president in 2016 brought a return to a strongman-type leader, which voters have now doubled-down on with Marcos Jr.

Domestically, Marcos, who goes by his childhood nickname “Bongbong,” is widely expected to pick up where Duterte left off, stifling a free press and cracking down on dissent with less of the outgoing leader’s crude and brash style, while ending attempts to recover some of the billions of dollars his father pilfered from the state coffers.

But a return to the hard-line rule of his father, who declared martial law for much of his rule, is not likely, said Julio Teehankee, a political science professor at Manila’s De La Salle University.

“He does not have the courage or the brilliance, or even the ruthlessness to become a dictator, so I think what we will see is a form of authoritarian-lite or Marcos-lite,” Teehankee said.

The new Marcos government will not mean the end of Philippine democracy, Poling said, “though it may accelerate its decay.”

“The country’s democratic institutions have already been battered by six years of the Duterte presidency and the rise of online disinformation, alongside the decades-long corrosives of oligarchy, graft, and poor governance,” he said.

“The United States would be better served by engagement rather than criticism of the democratic headwinds buffeting the Philippines.”

Marcos’ approach at home could have a spillover effect in other countries in the region, where democratic freedoms are being increasingly eroded in many places and the Philippines had been seen as a positive influence, Wong said.

“This will have an impact on Philippine foreign policy when it comes to promoting its democratic values, freedoms and human rights, particularly in Southeast Asia,” she said. “The Philippines is regarded as a bastion of democracy in the region, with a strong civil society and a noisy media, and with Bongbong Marcos as president, we will have less credibility.”

WHITE SUPREMACIST AMERIKA
1 in 3 fears immigrants influence US elections: AP-NORC poll

By ANITA SNOW

1 of 6

A migrant waits of the Mexican side of the border after United States Customs and Border Protection officers detained a couple of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border on the beach, in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 26, 2022. About 3 in 10 also worry that more immigration can cause native-born Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural influence, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — With anti-immigrant rhetoric bubbling over in the leadup to this year’s critical midterm elections, about 1 in 3 U.S. adults believes an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.

About 3 in 10 also worry that more immigration is causing U.S.-born Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural influence, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to fear a loss of influence because of immigration, 36% to 27%.

Those views mirror swelling anti-immigrant sentiment espoused on social media and cable TV, with conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson exploiting fears that new arrivals could undermine the native-born population.

In their most extreme manifestation, those increasingly public views in the U.S. and Europe tap into a decades-old conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement,” a false claim that native-born populations are being overrun by nonwhite immigrants who are eroding, and eventually will erase, their culture and values. The once-taboo term became the mantra of one losing conservative candidate in the recent French presidential election.

“I very mch believe that the Democrats — from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, all the way down — want to get the illegal immigrants in here and give them voting rights immediately,” said Sally Gansz, 80. Actually, only U.S. citizens can vote in state and federal elections, and attaining citizenship typically takes years.

A white Republican, Gansz has lived her whole life in Trinidad, Colorado, where about half of the population of 8,300 identifies as Hispanic, most with roots going back centuries to the region’s Spanish settlers.

“Isn’t it obvious that I watch Fox?” quipped Gansz, who said she watches the conservative channel almost daily, including the top-rated Fox News Channel program “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a major proponent of those ideas.

“Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions,” Carlson said on the show last year. “In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country.”

Those views aren’t held by a majority of Americans — in fact, two-thirds feel the country’s diverse population makes the U.S. stronger, and far more favor than oppose a path to legal status for immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children. But the deep anxieties expressed by some Americans help explain how the issue energizes those opposed to immigration.

“I don’t feel like immigration really affects me or that it undermines American values,” said Daniel Valdes, 43, a registered Democrat who works in finance for an aeronautical firm on Florida’s Space Coast. “I’m pretty indifferent about it all.”

Valdes’ maternal grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico, and he said he has “tons” of relatives in the border city of El Paso, Texas. He has Puerto Rican roots on his father’s side.

While Republicans worry more than Democrats about immigration, the most intense anxiety was among people with the greatest tendency for conspiratorial thinking. That’s defined as those most likely to agree with a series of statements, like much of people’s lives is “being controlled by plots hatched in secret places” and “big events like wars, recessions, and the outcomes of elections are controlled by small groups of people who are working in secret against the rest of us.”

In all, 17% in the poll believe both that native-born Americans are losing influence because of the growing population of immigrants and that a group of people in the country is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views. That number rises to 42% among the quarter of Americans most likely to embrace other conspiracy theories.

Alex Hoxeng, 37, a white Republican from Midland, Texas, said he found those most extreme versions of the immigration conspiracies “a bit far-fetched” but does believe immigration could lessen the influence of U.S.-born Americans.

“I feel like if we are flooded with immigrants coming illegally, it can dilute our culture,” Hoxeng said.

Teresa Covarrubias, 62, rejects the idea that immigrants are undermining the values or culture of U.S.-born Americans or that they are being brought in to shore up the Democratic voter base. She is registered to vote but is not aligned with any party.

“Most of the immigrants I have seen have a good work ethic, they pay taxes and have a strong sense of family,” said Covarrubias, a second grade teacher in Los Angeles whose four grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico. “They help our country.”

Republican leaders, including border governors Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas — who is running for reelection this year — have increasingly decried what they call an “invasion,” with conservative politicians traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border to pose for photos alongside former President Donald Trump’s border wall.

Vulnerable Democratic senators up for election this year in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada have joined many Republicans in calling on the Biden administration to wait on lifting the coronavirus-era public health rule known as Title 42 that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum. They fear it could draw more immigrants to the border than officials can handle.

LOOK, LOOK, A FLOOD OF MIGRANTS!!! 

U.S. authorities stopped migrants more than 221,000 times at the Mexican border in March, a 22-year high, creating a fraught political landscape for Democrats as the Biden administration prepares to lift Title 42 authority May 23. The pandemic powers have been used to expel migrants more than 1.8 million times since it was invoked in March 2020 on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Newly arrived immigrants are barred from voting in federal elections because they aren’t citizens, and gaining citizenship is an arduous process that can take a decade or more — if they are successful. In most cases, they must first obtain permanent residency, then wait five more years before they can apply for citizenship.

Investigations have failed to turn up evidence of widespread voting by people who aren’t eligible, including by non-citizens. For example, a Georgia audit of its voter rolls completed this year found fewer than 2,000 instances of non-citizens attempting to register and vote over the last 25 years, none of which succeeded.

Blake Masters, a candidate for Senate in Arizona, is among the Republicans running for office this year who have played into anxieties about a changing population.

“What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” he said in a video recorded in October. “They want to do that so they can consolidate power so they can never lose another election.”

___

The AP-NORC poll of 4,173 adults was conducted Dec. 1-23, 2021, using a combined sample of interviews from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, and interviews from opt-in online panels. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 1.96 percentage points. The AmeriSpeak panel is recruited randomly using address-based sampling methods, and respondents later were interviewed online or by phone.

Running an abortion clinic while waiting for court decision

By REBECCA SANTANA and LEAH WILLINGHAM

May 9, 2022

1 of 7

The Women's Health Center of West Virginia Executive Director Katie Quiñonez poses for a photo in Charleston, W.Va., on Feb 25, 2022. Even if Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion is overturned, she is determined that the clinic stay open and continue providing resources like birth control, emergency contraception and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

 (AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

The people who run America’s abortion clinics agree: There’s no job like it.

There are the clients -- so many of them desperate, in need, grateful. There are the abortion opponents -- passionate, relentless, often furious. And hovering over it all are legal challenges, and the awareness that your clinic may be just a judicial ruling away from extinction.

That reality became more urgent last week with a leaked, draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court suggesting a majority of justices support overturning the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion. If that happens it could spell the end of abortion in about half the states.

The Associated Press talked with three women and one man who run abortion clinics in such states about their work. Some came to the work through personal brushes with abortion; for others it started as a job. For all, it has become a calling.

Kathaleen Pittman, director of the Hope Medical Group for Women, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Shreveport, La., Friday, April 15, 2022. Pittman knows the Supreme Court ruling could end abortion in her state. When the draft opinion leaked suggesting a majority of justices support overturning the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion, Pittman says she had a “horrible feeling” in the pit of her stomach. 

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA -- When Kathaleen Pittman was growing up in a small, conservative community in rural Louisiana, abortion was not openly discussed. When she started working at the Hope Medical Group for Women, she sat her mother down and told her.

“To my shock ... she told me then: ‘Women have always had abortions and always will. They need a safe place,’” she recalls. “That moment was kind of a watershed moment.”

She was not drawn to the work as an activist. The part-time job counseling women undergoing abortions was a good fit while she was trying to finish her master’s degree.

But she knew the fear some women feel with an unwanted pregnancy. When she was in her early 20s, a good friend asked for her help getting an abortion. At the time, in the early ’80s, the procedure was legal but they didn’t know where to find someone in northwestern Louisiana who performed it.

Pittman dialed information. It took 20 minutes to find a doctor in nearby Arkansas. Her friend despaired.

“I’m sitting there watching her cry,” Pittman says.

Pittman was counselor, director of counseling and assistant administrator before becoming director of the clinic in 2010. The clinic has survived numerous efforts to restrict abortion, such as requirements for waiting periods or admitting privileges for doctors.

When she started working there, about 11 other clinics operated in the state, and some private doctors performed abortions. Now, Hope is one of three remaining.

To alleviate stress, she does needlepoint. She also texts other clinic administrators. A few times a month they gather on Zoom to compare notes or just to vent.

“It can be very isolating, particularly running a clinic in the South,” she says.

Pittman knows the Supreme Court ruling could end abortion in her state. When the draft opinion leaked, Pittman says she had a “horrible feeling” in the pit of her stomach. But then she took stock, and reminded herself that it was not final. For now, abortion is legal.

And as always, she focused on the women who walk past her office every day, after their appointments.

“They no longer look like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders,” she says.



The Women's Health Center of West Virginia Executive Director Katie Quiñonez walks through their recovery room in Charleston, W.Va., on Feb 25, 2022. Even if Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion is overturned, she is determined that the clinic stay open and continue providing resources like birth control, emergency contraception and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

 (AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA -- Katie Quinonez had the first of her two abortions when she was 17, months after graduating from high school. She was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man seven years her senior.

She wanted to attend college, have a career. “I didn’t want to be chained to this person for the rest of my life because of a mistake that I made in high school,” says Quinonez, now 31.

Ashamed to tell her mother, Quinonez worked at a pizzeria after school to save up for an abortion. Weeks passed; finally, Quinonez broke down and revealed her plight. Her mother was immediately supportive and helped her schedule an abortion appointment.

But by then, she was in her second trimester. The experience was traumatic. She remembers crying in pain as she walked out the door.

Shortly after she graduated college, she found out she was pregnant again, and was ashamed.

But this time, the experience was different. She had a supportive partner — now her husband — who went with her to a different clinic, the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia in Charleston. From the nurses who held her hand to the recovery room with big comfy chairs, it was an “affirming experience.”

“There was no judgment or shame,” she says.

It was that experience that led her to apply in 2017 as the center’s development director. By that time, it was the only clinic left in the state. She became the leader in January 2020.

It was, she says, her dream job.

Every day is a challenge. Bills to ban or limit abortion care are introduced every year. The clinic is nearly surrounded by anti-abortion activists: A pregnancy crisis center moved in next door, and a pro-life organization purchased land across the street and erected a large white cross.

But she and her staff see the clinic as a safe haven from those outside forces. Even if Roe is overturned, she is determined that the clinic stay open and continue providing resources like birth control, emergency contraception and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

And a clinic fund that pays for abortions for those who can’t afford them will continue to do that — and it will also help with the cost of traveling to states where the procedure will be legal.

“I know firsthand how critical being able to get the abortion that you need is,” she says.

HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA -- Dalton Johnson says his mother always thought he’d grow up to work in a dangerous job, perhaps join the FBI or the DEA. But his current line of work -- owning and operating the last abortion clinic in Huntsville, Alabama -- has come with its own threats and dangers.

In fact, when he and his then-partner, a Huntsville doctor, decided to open the clinic, his partner told him that it was hazardous work. The partner felt a responsibility to meet Johnson’s parents first to address any concerns and questions they might have about their son’s new business.

Johnson initially expected to spend a few years at the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives and then move on to something else. But he quickly realized that this was what he was meant to do. He also realized that if he closed down, no one would take his place, and that weighed on him.

“I just really believed that ... we’re really helping women,” he says.

It took roughly two years to get the approvals to open the clinic. And the challenges have not stopped.

The clinic’s doctor -- who would become Johnson’s wife -- was arrested for Medicaid fraud, charges that were later dismissed. There were legal obstacles involving admitting privileges for doctors at the center and the clinic’s proximity to a school. Johnson has been the target of threats; he stepped down from the board of his church to protect it from harassment.

He says he’s also been accused of preying on the Black community -- an accusation that’s particularly galling because he is African American: “They’re pulling the race card on me,” he says, incredulously.

His wife has a ob/gyn practice that is located in a separate facility. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe and his clinic is forced to close, they’ll likely turn that space into another branch of his wife’s practice and transfer the staff there without having to lay anyone off.

But he’s worried about the effect on Alabama women of a loss of abortion services.

“It’s really just sad how so few people can make the choice for so many women,” he says.

 In this Feb. 20, 2013, file photo, Tammi Kromenaker, director of the Red River Women's Clinic, its in the waiting area of the facility in Fargo, N.D. Kromenaker has given over her entire adult life to helping women get abortions. And with the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion, she’s beginning to think the days of the Red River Women’s Clinic are numbered.

 (AP Photo/Dave Kolpack, File)

FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA -- Tammi Kromenaker has given over her entire adult life to helping women get abortions. And with the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion, she’s beginning to think the days of the Red River Women’s Clinic are numbered.

“The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but I think now it’s in ink,” she says.

It wasn’t necessarily a career she foresaw growing up in a Catholic family in suburban Minneapolis, where she attended Christian music festivals with her boyfriend.

But during her freshman year in college in Fargo, a good friend got pregnant. Kromenaker remembers her immediate reaction: Her friend needed an abortion. She sent her money to help pay for it.

In a flash, her thinking had changed. “It was like night and day,” she says.

A professor recommended her for a part-time position at an abortion clinic. That turned into a fulltime job; then, when the Red River clinic opened in 1998, she moved there as the director. Finally, in 2016, she bought Red River -- now the only surviving abortion clinic in North Dakota.

The clinic sits right on the street, and even in frigid North Dakota winters protesters are outside, calling to the women and volunteers who escort them in. There’s never been any violence, she says, but one time a protester did get into the building. Kromenaker confronted him at the top of the stairs.

“I said, ‘You need to go,’” she recalls. “And he did.”

Kromenaker, 50, talked to the clinic staff about the draft Supreme Court opinion, emphasizing that it’s not yet final. And she took solace in a story of a woman who was doing a pre-abortion consultation and took time to tell the staff she’d seen the news and was grateful for the clinic.

Kromenaker worries about her staff if abortion is outlawed in the state. Most employees work there the one day a week they perform abortions, but there are a few fulltime employees. She hopes the draft leak will galvanize Americans to support abortion rights.

But if not, she’s prepared. No state line, she says, will prevent her from continuing her life’s work.

She plans to cross the Red River to Minnesota and open another clinic there.

___

Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal.

Transgender treatment, doctors threatened by new Alabama law

By KIM CHANDLER


Dr. Hussein D. Abdul-Latif, left, and Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, two University of Alabama at Birmingham professors who treat patients with gender issues, speak during an interview in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday, April 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Dr. Hussein Abdul-Latif spent the last week typing out prescription refills for his young transgender patients, trying to make sure they had access to their medications for a few months before Alabama made it illegal for him to prescribe them.

He also answered questions from anxious patients and their parents: What will happen to me if I suddenly have to stop taking testosterone? Should we go out of state for care?

A new state law that took effect Sunday makes it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for doctors to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to trans people under age 19. A judge has not yet ruled on a request to block the state from enforcing the law.

The measure is part of a wave of legislation in Republican-controlled states focused on LGBTQ youth. Bills have been introduced to limit discussion of gender and sexual identity issues in younger grades or to prohibit kids from using school restrooms or playing on sports teams that don’t align with their sex at birth.

Abdul-Latif, a pediatric endocrinologist and co-founder of a clinic in Birmingham to treat children with gender dysphoria, said he is very discouraged by the Alabama law. He said it was already hard enough for families in this very conservative state to come to terms themselves with their children’s situations. They had already faced the social stigma and “the difficult decision of leaving their church family or being viewed less worthy,” he said.

But gradually, he said, trans kids became more visible and there was a greater openness in the state for them to come out.

“They always existed, but they often did not have the feeling of empowerment to come out, or come out to their physicians,” he said. “And now that they are, we’re hitting them back with legal action.”

Abdul-Latif notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society both endorse the treatments that clinics here and in other states are providing for transgender youth.

In contrast, “The state is not only saying I am criminal for prescribing those medications, but it’s saying that my organization of thousands of physicians, pediatricians and pediatric endocrinologists are maybe partners in that criminal enterprise,” he said.

Four Alabama families with transgender children have filed a lawsuit challenging the new state law as unconstitutional. The U.S. Department of Justice has joined the suit. A federal judge heard evidence this week on a request to block the state from enforcing the statute while the legal challenge goes forward. More than 20 medical and mental health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have also urged the judge to block the law. A decision is expected sometime this week.

Alabama maintains the law is about protecting children. “The science and common sense are on Alabama’s side. We will win this fight to protect our children,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said last week.

Now that the law is in effect, families are wondering if they will have to move out of state and doctors are worried about what will become of their patients.

Abdul-Latif, who is originally from Jordan, and pediatrician Dr. Morissa Ladinsky both moved to Alabama years ago to work as instructors and physicians at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 2015, after seeing more families with kids identifying as trans and seeking help for gender-related issues, they decided to found a clinic to treat children with gender dysphoria. They now treat more than 150 young people who are transgender or gender diverse.

Ladinsky, who testified last week as a witness in the lawsuit, told The Associated Press that she felt like she was “walking in a nightmare” when the Alabama Legislature approved the ban. She says the measure is an unprecedented legislative overreach into the decisions of parents and the practice of medicine.

“This is the first time ever that I can remember, at least for pediatricians, that we are literally forced to choose between the Hippocratic Oath we took to ‘do no harm’ and never abandon our patients versus the facing of a potential felony conviction,” she said.

Ladinsky quickly agreed to co-found the gender clinic in Birmingham when Abdul-Latif approached her about it. She had moved to the city from a hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, that had a pediatric gender health team, and was familiar with the treatments.

But that wasn’t all. She also had taken a route to work each morning that brought her by the spot where Ohio transgender teen Leelah Alcorn had stepped in front of an oncoming tractor-trailer in 2014. Leelah left a suicide note that read, “My death needs to mean something. ... Fix society. Please.”

Some of the children Abdul-Latif and Ladinsky have treated in the Birmingham clinic came to them after suicide attempts, the doctors said. One patient tried to kill themselves five times, he said. A 2021 survey by the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth, found that 52% of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 1 in 5 reported attempting suicide.

“In our minds, there is no doubt they saved my daughter’s life,” said David Fuller, whose daughter was among the first patients treated in Birmingham.

Jessica Fuller, now 22, was 16 when she first came to the clinic after telling her father that she was trans. “The dysphoria was awful and I was thinking about suicide more often than I wish to talk about,” Fuller wrote in an email.

She called the new Alabama law “a waste of time and money.”

“It’s terrifying not just for the kids but the doctors and nurses just trying to help kids not kill themselves,” she wrote. “Are you gonna arrest him for something so harmless?”

Abdul-Latif said he understands that some people may be skeptical over the medical treatments for transgender kids.

“But to make it into a law and make it into a felony — that is way beyond skepticism,” he said, adding that the law “basically closes ... a very important dialogue in the country about what is better and what is best for kids with gender dysphoria.”

“I welcome an argument. I welcome skeptical voices. I do not welcome imposing voices that leave no discussion,” he said.

David Fuller, a police sergeant in the city of Gadsden, said he’s angry that the law could lead to officers putting handcuffs on the people he calls heroes and credits with saving his child.

“I’m a police officer and I know what a crime is,” Fuller said. “I know what a criminal is. These people are not criminals. It’s political crap.”

PRISON NATION USA

Abuse-clouded prison gets attention, but will things change?

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO

May 4, 2022

 The Federal Correctional Institution is shown in Dublin, Calif., July 20, 2006. For months, inmates and staff say, their calls for help were ignored. And in this aging prison of deep despair — a place where sexual abuse has been rampant, authorities acted with utter indifference and the work force was deeply demoralized — the cries for help had been many and varied. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) — For months, inmates and staff say, their calls for help were ignored. And in this aging prison of deep despair — a place where sexual abuse has been rampant, authorities acted with utter indifference and the workforce was deeply demoralized — the cries for help had been many and varied.

Just weeks earlier, an Associated Press investigation had revealed a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, a women-only facility called the “rape club” by many who know it. Because of AP reporting, the head of the federal Bureau of Prisons had submitted his resignation in January. Yet no one had been named to replace him, so he was still on the job.

Now he was responding to the problems in Dublin — but only after an angry congresswoman had called him to complain.

So early March found the lame-duck administrator, flanked by a task force of senior agency officials, arriving at the prison after flying in to meet inmates and staff in person. According to Dublin inmates, this was how he faced them as he toured the facility:

“You wanted my attention,” Michael Carvajal said, “so here I am.”

___

‘TRUST HAS BEEN BROKEN’

“It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible. I’ve never experienced anything like this. In my career, I’ve never been part of a situation like this. This is really unprecedented.”

Those words, spoken about the troubled Dublin facility, come not from an activist or inmate advocate, not from any elected official, not from anywhere outside the prison walls. They come from Thahesha Jusino, its newly installed warden.

Her predecessor, Ray J. Garcia, is one of five Dublin employees who have been charged since last June with sexually abusing inmates.

“We’ve really lost a lot of credibility through all of this, which is understandable, because it’s appalling what has happened,” Jusino said in an interview with the AP.

This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the visiting task force’s work, the prison’s operations and the abuse crisis. They include current and former inmates, employees, lawyers, government and union officials. Many spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation or because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The AP visited Dublin, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) east of Oakland, during the same time as the task force’s visit, the week of March 7. Lawmakers, disturbed by reports of abuse, also traveled there shortly after. Carvajal and some task force members returned to Dublin in April. In one sign of progress, the agency replaced both of the prison’s associate wardens.

Carvajal, a Trump administration holdover, submitted his resignation Jan. 5 but said he would stay on until a successor is named. He joined the task force for the first three days of its weeklong first visit to Dublin.

But even as the task force was arriving, and as scrutiny from the outside appeared finally to be at hand, things did not seem to be proceeding in a positive direction.

Officials moved inmates out of the special housing unit so it wouldn’t look as full when the task force got there. And they lied to Carvajal about COVID-19 contamination so inmates in a certain unit couldn’t speak to him about abuse.

Those who managed to get to Carvajal didn’t hold back. In one emotional scene, a woman who said she was abused by prison officials tearfully confronted him in a recreation area as he and members of the task force were meeting with inmates.

The woman shared graphic details of her alleged abuse. She spoke for about 15 minutes and grew increasingly upset, calming down only after prison officials brought her tissues. She was eventually taken out of the room and brought to a prison psychologist, where she was offered immediate release to a halfway house.

She objected. She wanted to wait so she could tell her story publicly to congressional leaders expected at the prison. But people at the prison say she wasn’t able to thoroughly express her concerns.

Bureau of Prisons and Justice Department officials told the woman that because she was a potential witness, she couldn’t talk about the investigation, the people said. The woman was moved to a halfway house soon after the tour.

In another charged moment, a group of Dublin workers lashed out at Carvajal for putting Garcia in charge of a women’s prison when he’d already had a reputation in prison circles as a misogynist.

“You created this monster,” one worker told Carvajal. Asked another: “Why did you create this toxic environment? Why did you pick Garcia as the warden?”

Garcia is accused of molesting an inmate on multiple occasions from December 2019 to March 2020 and forcing her and another inmate to strip naked so he could take pictures while he made rounds. Investigators said they found the images on his government-issued cellphone. His lawyer refused an interview request.

Garcia is also accused of using his authority to intimidate one of his victims, telling her that he was “close friends” with the person investigating staff misconduct and boasting that he could not be fired. He has pleaded not guilty.

Carvajal promoted Garcia from associate warden to warden at Dublin in November 2020, after Garcia’s alleged misconduct but before the agency said it knew about it. Carvajal told the workers that if he had known about Garcia’s reputation or alleged abuse, he would’ve chosen a different warden.

Speaking to inmates about Garcia, however, Carvajal said something a bit different — that he believed in “innocent until proven guilty.”

___

AN UNEASY HISTORY

FCI Dublin is one of just six women-only facilities in the U.S. federal prison system. As of Wednesday, Dublin had about 785 inmates, many serving sentences for drug crimes.

It opened in 1974 as a federal youth center in which men and women ages 18 to 26 lived in a campus-like setting. The concept was later abandoned.

In 1977, the Bureau of Prisons converted the facility into a traditional adult prison — first for female inmates like the high-profile heiress Patty Hearst and then, in 1980, for men and women. It went back to being a women’s prison in 2012.

Throughout FCI Dublin’s existence, it has been troubled by sexual abuse.

In 1996, three female inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, alleging they were “sold like sex slaves” by correctional officers who placed them in a male unit, unlocked their cells and allowed male inmates to rape them. No one was arrested; the agency agreed to settle the lawsuit for $500,000.

Separately, in the late 1990s, four officers were charged with engaging in sexual conduct with inmates. And in the early 2010s, about a dozen Dublin employees were quietly removed for sexually abusing inmates. None was arrested, according to a person working there at the time. One worker was allowed to retire after videotapes were found in his locker of him having sex with inmates.

More recently, two of the five employees charged since last June with sexually abusing inmates have pleaded guilty, and the investigation continues: On March 20, a food service foreman was arrested for allegedly touching an inmate’s breasts, buttocks and genitals in October 2020.

Since March, nine other workers have been placed on administrative leave by the Bureau of Prisons. New inmate sexual abuse and staff employment discrimination complaints were filed during the task force’s visit. FBI agents conducted searches at the prison and an employee’s home in mid-April, and at least six internal affairs investigators have been on site investigating claims.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who is being briefed regularly on issues in the beleaguered federal prison system, said the Justice Department was committed to “holding BOP personnel accountable, including through criminal charges.” Said Monaco: “Staff misconduct, at any level, will not be tolerated, and our efforts to root it out are far from over.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland, asked about Dublin at a U.S. Senate budget hearing Tuesday, said it was Monaco’s idea — not Carvajal’s — to form a task force “to investigate and determine the procedural failures” at the prison. He cited the prosecution of accused employees, an ongoing internal investigation and the selection of Jusino as warden as steps toward improving conditions.

“This is another really terrible set of events,” Garland said.

Justice Department spokesperson Kristina Mastropasqua said the task force that visited Dublin had reported allegations of misconduct to the prison system’s internal affairs office, where investigators “opened a case file for each allegation.”

Also during the task force’s visit, numerous complaints were filed by inmates and staff members alleging sexual harassment, misconduct and violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act and federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws.

How many complaints were received? Asked by the AP, the Bureau of Prisons said it couldn’t say.

___

REAL CHANGE, OR PERFORMANCE?

For all the disturbing details the March task force took in, it was hardly the whole truth — partly because inmates and prison workers do not trust the leadership and refused to speak candidly, and partly because officials hid some of Dublin’s problems.

Inmates who’d been in the special housing unit for disciplinary issues were returned to the general population so the place wouldn’t look nearly as full. Officials also lied to Carvajal and told him he couldn’t visit a particular housing unit where inmates wanted to talk to him about abuse. They claimed, falsely, that it was contaminated with COVID-19.

Carvajal did seem taken aback by the lack of security cameras in critical areas — an issue the prison’s union had been raising for six years — and pledged to speed the process for installing them.

Though Dublin does have some cameras, there were none in some of the hallways and rooms that Carvajal toured, including areas where some inmates were sexually abused. Several times the director asked, “Where are the cameras?”

On a recent afternoon, inmates from Dublin’s minimum-security prison camp could be seen congregating on a walking track outside the prison’s fences with no visible supervision and no perimeter cameras. The Bureau of Prisons has faced scrutiny in the last few years after dozens of inmates escaped from its prisons, with many simply walking away from low-security areas.

“Making infrastructural improvements, such as adding additional cameras, to protect the safety and security of inmates and staff is a priority,” the Bureau of Prisons said in response to questions about Carvajal’s visit.

But seven weeks later, not one new camera has been installed.

Precisely what actual progress the task force’s visit produced — and who ultimately had access to its members while they were there — is not entirely clear.

Susan Beaty, a lawyer for Dublin inmates, said advocates had information to share with the task force but were shut out of the visit. Beaty said several abused inmates were immigrants and that predatory prison employees were targeting women facing deportation.

The Bureau of Prisons “is never proactive. They’re reactive. They’re only doing this because Congress is on their ass and they know they have to act,” Dublin union president Ed Canales said.

Canales said the prison’s staff was “not impressed” with the visit and wasn’t expecting any changes, in part because some senior managers who ignored or encouraged abuse are still working at the prison.

Beaty said correctional officers staged a charade during the visit, exhibiting their best behavior while the task force was present and cursing at inmates as soon as the visitors left the room.

Some inmates saw the task force’s visit not as an actual, good-faith way to fix Dublin but as window-dressing ahead of U.S. Rep Jackie Speier’s return to the prison with two other members of Congress on March 14.

One inmate asked: “Is this just for show so that you can say you came before the Congress comes back?” Observed another: “It is just as I thought. The task force was here to head them off and tell them that they were on top of issues that were raised.”

___

CONGRESS IS WATCHING

Congress has been increasingly critical of the Bureau of Prisons, an agency plagued by myriad problems in recent years, including many revealed by AP reporting.

The bureau formed its Dublin task force after the AP investigation in February revealed a toxic culture of sexual misconduct and cover-ups at the prison. Carvajal announced the task force in an internal memo on March 2, just days before its work began. But he did not disclose it publicly until the AP asked about it.

Carvajal wrote that the group — 18 women, including a warden and officials from human resources and internal affairs — was being sent to “observe and assess the climate of the institution” and “assist the agency in redressing identified issues and increasing performance.”

Speaking to inmates, Carvajal acknowledged that pressure from Congress prompted him to act.

He said Speier, D-Calif., had called him after she visited Dublin in the wake of the AP’s reporting. Speier, Carvajal said, was upset with how inmates were being treated and complained that prison officials stonewalled her when she tried to speak with them directly.

Dublin’s union and inmate advocate groups said the bureau and Justice Department had ignored their earlier cries for help. The union said it had been begging agency leaders to visit Dublin since FBI agents raided the former warden’s office last July.

In February, more than 100 inmate advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Justice Department calling for “swift, sweeping action” to address abuse at Dublin, including an independent investigation and the release of victimized inmates to prevent further trauma, but never got a response.

Speier and Reps. Karen Bass and Eric Swalwell, two other California Democrats, visited the facility after the task force and said they were encouraged by its work but still had concerns, including a lack of adequate medical and psychological services at the facility.

They applauded recommendations to add more security cameras and a dedicated email address for inmates to report abuse. They also called for special training for employees in women’s prisons.

“There is literally a culture there that is toxic and one that needs to be addressed,” Speier said in an interview.

Bass, Speier and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced legislation last month to improve the treatment of women in federal prisons such as Dublin, including providing adequate medical care and examining efforts to retain female officers.

Among other things, the Women in Criminal Justice Reform Act would require minimum standards of care and conditions for federal prison facilities where women are held, temporary release of inmates for medical services such as care from a sexual assault nurse examiner and training for federal prison workers in trauma-informed screening and care.

Each one of those changes would improve conditions at Dublin. Together, they could begin to overhaul it entirely.

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WILL ANYTHING HAPPEN?

As the crisis continues at Dublin, questions remain about whether the Bureau of Prisons is serious about fixing it — or even capable of doing so. And the wake of the task force’s visit offers little in the way of optimism.

After the visitors left in March, Dublin officials started enforcing more exacting prison uniform rules and cracking down on inmates’ few luxuries.

Blankets, issued to keep inmates warm in drafty cells, were confiscated. Robes purchased from the prison commissary were banned. Inmates were told to wear bras, cover their bodies and avoid tight pants. Some felt they were being punished to keep prison workers from leering at them.

Inmate advocates say the task force ignored them entirely. Local union officials, seeing the whole trip as a smokescreen to placate Congress, said they’d been begging agency leaders to visit for months, to no avail. Prison workers came away from the week doubting anything would change.

Does the new person in charge offer any hope? Perhaps it’s too soon to tell. Jusino, Dublin’s first permanent warden since Garcia was put on administrative leave prior to his arrest, started a week before Carvajal and the task force arrived.

The daughter of a former federal prison warden, she has worked in federal prisons since 1998. She was an associate warden at two prisons and was the warden at a federal prison in Victorville, California, about 71 miles northeast of Los Angeles, before being assigned to Dublin.

She is adamant that change will come — that it must.

“The trust has been broken with our inmate population, which is beyond unacceptable. It’s been broken with our staff, and it has been broken with the public,” Jusino says. “We need to show that we’re committed to this.”

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