First on CNN: DHS inspector general told Jan. 6 panel he went to Mayorkas about Secret Service cooperation

Zachary Cohen - 

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general on Friday briefed all nine members of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack about the Secret Service erasing text messages from the day of the riot and the day before.

The inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, met with the committee behind closed doors two days after sending a letter to lawmakers informing them that the text messages were erased after the watchdog agency asked for records related to its electronic communications as part of its ongoing investigation around the Capitol attack.

The committee now plans to reach out to Secret Service officials to ask about the erasure of text messages from the day of the US Capitol attack and the day before, including the agency’s process for cleaning out files to see if that policy was followed, the committee Chair Bennie Thompson told CNN.

January 6 committee members expressed concern after the meeting about the different version of events between the inspector general and Secret Service and stressed they wanted to hear from the agency itself.

Cuffari told the committee that the Secret Service did not conduct its own after-action review regarding January 6 and chose to rely on the inspector general investigation, according to a source familiar with the briefing. The inspector general told the committee that the Secret Service has not been fully cooperative with his probe.

Cuffari’s description left the impression that the Secret Service had been “footdragging,” the source said. The inspector general told the committee they were not getting full access to personnel and records.

Cuffari said he brought the issue to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas more than once and was told to keep trying to get the information. Ultimately, Cuffari decided to go to Congress because he could not get anywhere within DHS with his concerns. Separately, a law enforcement official told CNN about Cuffari going to Mayorkas.

DHS did not immediately comment on the matter.

Thompson told CNN the IG said during their meeting that the Secret Service has not been fully cooperative.

“Well, they have not been fully cooperating,” the Mississippi Democrat said, adding: “We’ve had limited engagement with Secret Service. We’ll follow up with some additional engagement now that we’ve met with the IG.”

Inspector General: Secret Service deleted requested Jan. 6 texts

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Thompson said that the committee will work “to try to ascertain if those texts can be resurrected.”

The congressman previously told CNN after the meeting that the committee needs to interview Secret Service officials to get their take on what happened with the text messages that got deleted on January 5 and 6, 2021.

“Now that we have the IG’s view of what has happened. We now need to talk to the Secret Service. And our expectation is to reach out to them directly,” Thompson said. “One of the things we have to make sure is that what Secret Service is saying and what the IG is saying, that those two issues are in fact one and the same. And so now that we have it, we’ll ask for the physical information. And we’ll make a decision ourselves.”

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who serves on the January 6 committee, told CNN that there seem to be some “contradictory statements” between the Homeland Security inspector general and the Secret Service about whether the text messages from the Secret Service on January 5 and 6, 2021, are actually gone.

The inspector general originally notified the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees in a letter that the text messages were erased from the system as part of a device-replacement program after the watchdog asked the agency for the records.

“First, the Department notified us that many US Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device-replacement program. The USSS erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol on January 6,” Cuffari stated in the letter.

“Second, DHS personnel have repeatedly told OIG inspectors that they were not permitted to provide records directly to OIG and that such records had to first undergo review by DHS attorneys,” Cuffari added. “This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced.”

In a statement Thursday night, the Secret Service said the inspector general’s allegation regarding a lack of cooperation is “neither correct nor new.”

“To the contrary, DHS OIG has previously alleged that its employees were not granted appropriate and timely access to materials due to attorney review. DHS has repeatedly and publicly debunked this allegation, including in response to OIG’s last two semi-annual reports to Congress. It is unclear why OIG is raising this issue again,” the statement said.

After initially asking for records from more than 20 people in February, the IG then returned to request more records for additional people, according to the law enforcement official. There were no text messages for the new request because they had been lost in the system transfer, the law enforcement official said. The official also said the agency was informed about the transition and sent guidance about how to preserve phone records from the IT department.

CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Wackrow, who worked for the Secret Service for 14 years, said it would make sense for the inspector general to be doing the review after January 6. From the Secret Service view, both the President and vice president were kept safe, so the agency would not consider that an incident to review in an after-action report, Wackrow said.

This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agenda

Adam Gabbatt and Martin Pengelly in New York and Chris Stein in Washington -

Joe Biden has promised executive action on climate change after Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry, refused to support more funding for climate action.


© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters

Related:Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests?

In another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, the West Virginia senator also came out against tax raises for wealthy Americans.

Manchin’s opposition became clear on Thursday night. On Friday, with Biden in Saudi Arabia, the White House issued a statement.

Biden said: “Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.

“So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.

“My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.”

Biden and Democrats hope to include environmental measures in a $1tn version of the $2tn Build Back Better spending bill Manchin killed last year in dramatic fashion.

Then, the Biden White House angrily accused Manchin of breaching “commitments to the president and [his] colleagues in the House and Senate”. Bridges were rebuilt but on Thursday night Manchin appeared to reach for the dynamite once again.


Joe Manchin with Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

According to a Democrat briefed on negotiations, Manchin told Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, he would oppose legislation if it included climate or green energy provisions or higher taxes on the rich and corporations.

The Democrat also said Manchin told Schumer he would support a new spending package only if it was limited to curbing pharmaceutical prices and extending federal subsidies for buying healthcare insurance.

Manchin disputed that version of events in a call to a West Virginia radio show. He said he told Schumer he would not commit to environmental or tax measures until he saw the inflation rate for July, which is due out on 10 August, and the size of the expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve at the end of July.

“Let’s wait until that comes out, so we know that we’re going down a path that won’t be inflammatory, to add more to inflation,” Manchin said. “I can’t make that decision … on taxes … and also on the energy and climate because it takes the taxes to pay for the investment into clean technology that I’m in favor of. But I’m not going to do something and overreach that causes more problem.”

Related video: Dems scramble after Manchin deals blow to climate bill (Reuters)

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Manchin said he asked Schumer for time.

“I said, ‘Chuck, can we just wait. How much more and how much damaging is that going to be?’ He took that as a no, I guess, and came out with this big thing last night, and I don’t know why they did that.”

In Riyadh, Biden told reporters: “I’m not going away. I’m using every power I have as president to continue to fulfill my pledge to move toward dealing with global warming.”

Asked if Manchin had been “negotiating in good faith”, Biden said: “I didn’t negotiate with Joe Manchin.”

In his earlier statement, Biden also promised progress on healthcare.

He said: “After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

“Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.”

To pass legislation, Democrats are dependent on Manchin’s vote in a Senate divided 50-50 and controlled by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.

In March last year, Manchin backed Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package after tense negotiations during which, according to the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Biden told him: “Joe, please don’t kill my bill.”

But the senator has since stood in the way of much of Biden’s agenda, from the Build Back Better package to measures which would require reform to the filibuster, the Senate rule which requires a 60-vote supermajority for most legislation.

Democrats and progressives have argued for scrapping or reforming the filibuster in order to legislate on key issues under attack from the right, including voting rights and abortion.

But Manchin and others opposed to such moves, prominently including Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are in part aligned with Biden, a former senator opposed to abolishing the filibuster entirely.

Manchin will not face re-election as the only Democrat in statewide office in West Virginia, a state with a powerful coal industry lobby, until 2024. His business, Enersystems, has earned millions of dollars as the only supplier of low-grade coal to a high-polluting power plant near Fairmont, West Virginia.

Related: ‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate action

According to campaign finance filings, in 2021-22 Manchin is the senator who has received most money from donors in coal mining, natural gas transmission and distribution and oil and gas. He is second for donations from alternate energy production and services.

Climate advocates reacted angrily to Manchin’s move.

“It’s outrageous that Manchin and the Republican party have killed climate legislation this Congress,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group.

Norm Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said: “Senators have told me and others that negotiating with Joe Manchin is like negotiating with an Etch-a-Sketch. It appears to be a coal-powered Etch-a-Sketch.”

John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, said: “It seems odd that Senator Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity. But we can’t throw in the towel on the planet.”

Biden promises 'strong executive action' on climate change after Sen. Manchin dooms domestic agenda

Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden vowed Friday to take "strong executive action" to address climate change after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., doomed the president's efforts to revive major pieces of his domestic legislative agenda.

Here are four things you should know about Senator Joe Manchin
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Declaring he "won't back down," the president said he would use executive authority after Manchin on Thursday rejected proposals to combat climate change and raise taxes on the wealthy in negotiations for a spending package with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

What Biden is saying:

"Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever," Biden said in a written statement while he is traveling in the Middle East. "So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment."

Biden did not specify the potential executive actions, but he said it would seek to create jobs, improve U.S. energy security, bolster manufacturing and supply chains, and address climate change. Whether any executive actions from Biden on climate have the same teeth as legislation remains to be seen. 

Biden also called on the Senate to pass legislation before the August recess aimed at lowering prescription drug prices and extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act – the two areas where Manchin and other Democrats have found agreement.

More: Sen. Joe Manchin cools on spending negotiations, citing fears of an 'inflation fire'

How we got here:

Manchin, a moderate Democrat, told Schumer in a meeting Thursday that "he will not support" a reconciliation bill that has provisions addressing energy and climate or raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, according to a Democrat briefed on the conversation.

Manchin told Schumer "unequivocally," according to the source, that he is only willing to support measures to the prescription drug prices and ACA law measures.
Manchin, appearing on the Hoppy Kercheval radio show in West Virginia on Friday, rejected the suggestion he's blown up talks. He said he wants to wait until August, when July inflation figures are released, to decide what can be passed without further spiking consumer prices.

"I said, 'Chuck can we just wait until the inflation figures come out in July?'" Manchin said. "He took that as 'no', I guess." The senator added: "As far as I'm concerned, I want climate. I want an energy policy."

What it means for negotiations

Schumer is hoping to pass legislation before the Senate leaves for recess in August – which Manchin's timeline wouldn't allow. The stalemate comes after concessions from Schumer on the climate package to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles and direct pay for clean-energy developers opposed by Manchin, while lowering the price tag of energy components to $375 billion, the source said.
Schumer's final offer would have retained tax credits to support clean energy, a proposal that Democrats have estimated would reduce carbon emissions by nearly 40% by 2030.
Why the setback is crushing for Biden

Biden and Democrats had lofty ambitions to transform the economy and social-safety net, and to engineer the most significant climate provisions in U.S. history. But what began last year as a $3.5 trillion spending bill – dubbed Build Back Better by the president – is now gutted almost entirely. Omitted long ago were proposals for universal pre-kindergarten, free community college, national paid family leave, extending child tax credits, affordable housing and dental and vision coverage for seniors.

After Manchin torpedoed a slimmed-down $2.2 trillion Build Back Better bill last year, Schumer revived talks with the West Virginia senator in a last-ditch push to save some of the president's agenda, particularly addressing climate, before the November midterm elections. The White House hoped to pass legislation via reconciliation, which would allow Democrats to bypass a potential Republican filibuster with a simple majority, but doing so would require all 50 Democratic senators to be on board.

The reaction

Manchin, citing 40-year-high inflation, said he won't support anything "that causes more problems." He also balked at efforts to scale back fossil fuels, characterizing it as unrealistic to shift to renewable energy in a decade. "I'm not going to be part of eliminating what this country needs to run the economic engine and the lives of human beings throughout America."

The White House, which has refrained from talking publicly about the latest round of spending negotiations, declined to comment. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also declined to say whether Manchin gave the administration a heads up about his position.

Progressives blasted Manchin. "It seems odd that Sen. Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity," said John Podesta, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama and founder of the Center for American Progress think tank. "But we can’t throw in the towel on the planet. Now it’s more important than ever that President Biden use all his authority to fiercely fight for the future."

More: Inflation hits another 40-year high. What does that mean for shoppers and the next Fed rate hike?

Top takeaways

Once again, despite controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats have proven unable to unify behind a progressive agenda. It has become one of the defining trends of the first years of Biden's presidency. And with November's midterm elections around the corner, time is running out for Democrats to pass major legislation.

The outsized role of Manchin – as one of the few Democrats willing to break from party ranks – also emerged again. The moderate Democrat, who hails from one of the country's biggest coal-producing states, has taken more than $730,000 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry during the 2022 election cycle, by far more than any senator, according to Open Secrets.

Schumer and Democrats are left with only bad options. They could put forward a bill to take on prescription drug prices and extend ACA subsidies and claim a victory, but it would come at the expense of many of the priorities that progressives have demanded for years.

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden promises 'strong executive action' on climate change after Sen. Manchin dooms domestic agenda

‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate action

Oliver Milman in New York - THE GUARDIAN

Joe Manchin’s decision to kill off sweeping US climate legislation has been called “nothing short of a death sentence” for younger people and a livable climate on Earth, amid an outpouring of anger and despair from activists, scientists and even many of the US Senator’s Democratic colleagues.



Manchin, the centrist West Virginia senator who has become a millionaire through his founding of a coal-trading company in his home state, dealt a crushing political blow to Joe Biden’s agenda on Thursday night when he made clear he would not support any spending to curb the climate crisis in a proposed bill.

Related: Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests?

The loss of Manchin’s swing vote in an evenly-divided US senate means it’s now probable America will remain without legislation to cut planet-heating emissions for several more years, imperiling national and international climate goals and further escalating deadly wildfires, droughts, floods and heatwaves around the world.

“Given the US’s role as the leading all-time carbon polluter, it is difficult to see global action on climate without US leadership,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, who called Manchin “a modern-day villain, who drives a Maserati, lives on a yacht, courtesy of the coal industry, and is willing to see the world burn as long as it benefits his near-term investment portfolio”.

Biden and fellow Democrats have spent nearly two years trying to get Manchin to agree to a huge package of support for renewable energy and electric cars but now appear to have run out of time, with November’s midterm elections increasingly likely to see Congressional control switch to the Republicans, who uniformly oppose action on the climate crisis.

“The stakes for this midterm election couldn’t be greater,” said Mann. “We’re talking about the future livability of our planet.”

Activists were scathing of Manchin and Democrats’ failure to pass climate legislation during their control of both chambers of Congress and the White House with the advent of the Biden administration.

“Senator Joe Manchin has written his legacy: blocking our best shot at a transition to affordable, American clean energy and a livable planet,” said Jamal Raad, executive director of campaign group Evergreen Action. “Senator Manchin has betrayed the American public and the mandate given to the Democratic senate to act on climate.”

Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led environmental Sunrise Movement, said: “This is nothing short of a death sentence … It’s clear appealing to corporate obstructionists doesn’t work, and it will cost us a generation of voters.”

Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice-president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, added: “There truly aren’t words for how appalled, outraged, and disappointed we are.”

Even some of Manchin’s party colleagues weighed in. Jared Huffman, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, called Manchin a “wrecking ball” and a “very corrupted, compromised man.”

Scientists say the US, and the world, must cut emissions in half this decade, and get to net-zero emissions by 2050, to avoid breaching internationally-agreed temperature limits and push the world into catastrophic climate impacts.

Related: The race to zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050?

Last month was the hottest June on record globally, US space agency Nasa said on Thursday, while record heatwaves are currently ravaging the US, Europe and China. Meanwhile, huge sequoia trees that are thousands of years old are at risk from burning down in vast wildfires in California.

Biden, who has called the climate crisis “the greatest existential threat of our time”, had hoped to pass a major bill to lower emissions via tax credit incentives for wind, solar and other low-carbon energy, as well as support for electric vehicles amid other measures.

But Manchin, who has received more money in political donations from the fossil fuel industry than any sitting senator, sank the broader Build Back Better legislation last year and now has seemingly halted Democratic efforts to revive the climate measures in a new bill. Analysts say without any new bill, the US will fall around halfway short of its emissions-cutting target.

The West Virginia lawmaker has cited concerns over inflation, now at a 40-year high, as to why he has been reluctant to commit to a new climate package that would have totaled around $300bn and stood as a major long-term strategy to stave off global heating.

“Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1%,” said a spokeswoman for Manchin.

“Senator Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”

Biden will now have to face the consternation of other governments, with a major United Nations climate conference set to take place in Egypt in November, and try to craft a series of executive actions to make up the shortfall, although a recent supreme court ruling, in a case out of West Virginia, has limited the scope of his government’s response.

“Manchin’s decision is a bitter pill, for both US and global climate action,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser, now with the Progressive Policy Institute.

“Ironically, the bill he rejected would have created millions of new American jobs, jumpstarting the US clean energy economy while reducing both emissions and long-term inflation, goals Manchin claims to embrace.”

Joe Manchin, who just torpedoed Democrats' climate agenda, has long ties to coal industry

Fredreka Schouten - CNN

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s long-standing financial ties to the coal industry face scrutiny after sources familiar with high-level negotiations told CNN he would not support the climate provisions of his party’s proposed economic package.

The senator has not yet issued a public statement about his opposition, though his spokesperson said Thursday evening that Manchin wished “to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”

But climate advocates on Friday morning were quick to point to Manchin’s ties to the coal industry. Manchin, whose vote is crucial to passage of President Joe Biden’s domestic policy priorities in an evenly divided 50-50 Senate, has holdings valued at between $1 million and $5 million in Enersystems, Inc., the coal brokerage business he founded, according to his most recent financial disclosure form that covers 2020 activity.

In 2020, he made more than $491,000 from his Enersystems holdings, the filings show. That’s more than twice his $174,000 annual Senate salary.

“Manchin is a walking conflict of interest,” Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, previously told CNN. “And what makes it all the more troubling is that he’s the 50th Democratic senator, which gives him enormous sway over climate change policy.”

The debate over Manchin’s coal interests also highlights what critics say are lax congressional ethics rules that give federal lawmakers broad leeway to regulate industries in which they have financial interests. In addition to his pivotal role on the domestic policy bill, Manchin helps set US energy policy as chairman of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He has served on the panel since entering the Senate in November 2010, after he won a special election to replace the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.

Congressional rules also permit federal lawmakers to trade individual stocks – as long as they disclose the transactions and do not financially benefit from insider information.

“We have a system where a member of Congress can be invested heavily in, for example, the coal industry and then be responsible for overseeing climate policy,” Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel for ethics at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, said in 2021. “It doesn’t make sense.”

In a written statement in October, a Manchin spokesperson said the senator “is and has been in full compliance with Senate ethics and financial disclosure rules.”

“He continues to work to find a path forward on important climate legislation that maintains American leadership in energy innovation and critical energy reliability,” the statement added.

The fresh attention to Manchin’s energy interests comes as Biden and Democrats are racing this week to complete a framework for a domestic policy bill that includes many of the President’s priorities on the economy and climate. To avoid a filibuster by Senate Republicans, Democrats are relying on a budget process that requires the support of all 50 senators who caucus with them. That gives Manchin, a moderate member of the caucus, enormous sway over the negotiations.

Manchin has resisted climate provisions since the earliest days of work on the bill – including the so-called Clean Energy Performance Program, which had been a cornerstone of Biden’s climate plan, aimed to reward utilities for switching to clean energy sources, such as wind and solar, and penalize those relying on coal and gas.

Manchin signaled in October he wouldn’t support that program, saying he didn’t support a program that would push utilities to move to clean energy faster than they were already doing. Manchin had also cited concerns that switching to clean sources of energy could mean energy would be more unreliable than continued use of fossil fuel.

“The transition’s already happening,” Manchin told CNN recently. “So I’m not going to sit back and let anyone accelerate whatever the market’s changes are doing.”

Even without the clean electricity program, Manchin could not get behind the climate provisions in the latest version of an economic package – including tax credits for clean energy and electric vehicles – citing increased federal spending as a main driver of inflation.

Energy interests

Manchin has never made any secret of his ties to coal. He’s a former governor of the country’s second-biggest coal-producing state, and he founded Enersystems before entering politics.

The senator also has a stake in another firm run by his son, Farmington Resources Inc. Its services include “support activity” for coal and metal mining and drilling oil and gas wells, according to corporate filings with the West Virginia secretary of state’s office.

Between 2011 and 2020, the Democrat made between $4.9 million and $5.1 million from coal-related enterprises, according to an analysis by Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

The organization also estimates Manchin’s net worth at anywhere from $4.3 million to $12.8 million. Lawmakers are only required to disclose their assets and liabilities in broad ranges, making it impossible to determine precise values.

Manchin’s Senate campaign also benefited from of a flood of political contributions from the energy industry in recent months. He took more than $400,000 from energy interests during the July-to-September 2021 fundraising quarter, according to a CNN review of that filing with the Federal Election Commission.

Donors in that period included billionaire oil tycoons Harold Hamm, the chairman of Continental Resources; Richard Kinder, the executive chairman of energy infrastructure company, Kinder Morgan; and Trevor Rees-Jones, who founded Chief Oil and Gas.

He also received donations from an array of energy-related political action committees in those months, including those affiliated with ConocoPhillips; utility companies such as Exelon and Dominion Energy; and Texas oil producer Pioneer Natural Resources.

Manchin, who isn’t up for reelection until 2024, raked in nearly $1.6 million in the third quarter of 2021 – as he and another centrist Democrat, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Simena, emerged as key players in the negotiations over their party’s sweeping domestic policy proposals.

Patchwork of ethics laws

Manchin’s energy holdings – and his actions that benefit the coal industry – are legal under rules that police potential conflicts of interest in the Senate.

The rules differ dramatically, depending on the branch of government.

Executive branch employees, for instance, are generally required to recuse themselves from decision making when their financial interests conflict with their official duties. They face potential criminal and civil charges for failing to do so. Those appointees also must abide by additional ethics rules established by the President – such as not engaging in decisions involving their former employers. Appointees in the executive branch can and do seek and receive waivers of ethics rules in limited circumstances.

It is against the law for federal judges to hear cases in which they have any legal or financial interests, but the law doesn’t impose penalties for violations.

In Congress, meanwhile, lawmakers only must recuse themselves from taking official actions in a narrow set of circumstances: If they or their immediate family members are in a small group that would benefit from the legislative action.

But a lawmaker who owns a dairy farm, for instance, can still make policy decisions that affect the entire dairy industry because those actions “also have a broad, general impact on his state or the nation,” according to the Senate’s ethics manual.

And requiring lawmakers to recuse themselves from decisions that benefit certain industries could end up hurting their constituents “who are entitled to have their elected representatives represent them by voting and fully participating in all aspects of the legislative process,” the manual adds.

Watchdog groups are urging Congress to revisit its conflict-of-interest standards.

One bipartisan measure, authored by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, would require House members, for example, to place a broad array of holdings in blind trusts. Investments in widely held funds, such as mutual funds, and Treasury bonds would be exempted.

“The rules are currently insufficient to meet the challenges, particularly if you take into consideration that the American people really view corruption as a huge problem,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight. His group supports the blind trust bill.

“The appearance of impropriety is just as bad as the real thing,” he added, “because that drives the way people feel about politics and government.”

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Joe Manchin is a Never-Ending Nightmare for the Democratic Party
Brendan Cole - NEWSWEEK

Democrats have reacted angrily to Senator Joe Manchin's reported refusal to back his party's spending plans to tackle climate change.


Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on July 07, 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The West Virginia lawmaker told his party leaders on Thursday that he would not support a spending package with either climate provisions or raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations to finance the legislation, The Washington Post reported.

After rejecting last December his party's $2 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) package which included environmental provisions, Manchin had been at the negotiating table with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and a bipartisan group of senators.

The talks aimed to get the support of Manchin, who effectively wields veto power in the 50-50 split upper house, as the legislation requires the backing of every senator who caucuses with the Democrats to bypass a filibuster and pass with a simple majority.

But Manchin said he would only support a package that would include a plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs and extend expanded Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, but not the climate provisions, according to the Post.

It has spurred prominent Democrats and environmental groups to condemn Manchin following his latest move to oppose the agenda of President Joe Biden.

Representative Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat, tweeted that the conservative-leaning senator "is forcing a deal that would abandon our obligation to act urgently on climate, strengthen social services, and prevent mass suffering.

"We must organize inside and outside of Congress—together—to ensure Manchin does not get away with this outrageous, failed leadership," she added.

Former California Governor Jerry Brown tweeted that it was a "tragic day for America—and the world."

"Oblivious to science and our common future, the dinosaurs of coal and their compliant stooge, @Sen_JoeManchin, have now torpedoed an absolutely vital climate initiative. Insane and criminal."

Adviser to former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Julian Castro, Sawyer Hackett, tweeted: "People are going to die because of this. This may be our last chance to invest in climate in a decade. Decoupling infrastructure from reconciliation was a disastrous decision."

Lori Lodes, who worked in the Obama administration, said that Manchin "has taken more money from oil and gas than any other member of Congress in the last year.

"Now, he's condemned our kids and grandkids to a worse future. Just as the oil and gas companies hoped he would."

Manchin's opposition could end any chances of new climate spending for the rest of Biden's presidential term, as it comes only four months before the 2022 midterms which could see Democrats lose their majority in one or both houses of Congress.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley tweeted the article about Manchin's stance, adding that Biden "must immediately use the full scope of his executive powers to address climate chaos, starting by declaring a climate emergency."

Meanwhile, Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund, said that the Senate failed "because Joe Manchin and the Republicans blocked Senate action" and that "the consequences will be profound— at home and abroad."

"This was a squandered chance to respond with strategic investment to confront the climate crisis in a way that would strengthen the economy, create a more equitable society and make the country more secure."

Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey tweeted: "Rage keeps me from tears. Resolve keeps me from despair. We will not allow a future of climate disaster. I believe in the power of the Green New Deal. The power of young people. I am with you. We will not give up."

Newsweek has contacted Manchin's office for comment.

It comes as Americans face soaring levels of inflation which on Wednesday rose to 9.1 percent in June, its highest level in four decades. Manchin's spokesperson Sam Runyon told the Post that the senator believed leaders must "reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire."

"Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1 percent," Runyon added.

Biden intervenes in railroad contract fight to block strike

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday blocked a freight railroad strike that would disrupt shipments of all kinds of goods for at least 60 days by naming a board of arbitrators to intervene in the contract dispute.



The widely expected move will keep 115,000 rail workers on the job while the arbitrators develop a set of contract recommendations for both sides to consider. Biden had to act before Monday to prevent a possible strike. A new round of negotiations is likely after those recommendations are issued.

The president wrote in an executive order naming the arbitrators that he'd "been notified by the National Mediation Board that in its judgment these disputes threaten substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree that would deprive a section of the country of essential transportation service.”

If the railroads and their 12 unions can’t agree on a contract within the next 60 days, Congress would likely step in to prevent a strike by voting to impose terms or taking other action.

The United Rail Unions coalition said the labor unions are preparing to make their case to the board of arbitrators, and believe that current economic data shows the raises they are asking for “are more than warranted when compared to our memberships’ contribution to the record profits of the rail carriers.”

The National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents the nation’s freight railroads in national collective bargaining, cheered Biden's move, noting that it “remains in the best interest of all parties — and the public — for the railroads and rail labor organizations to promptly settle the bargaining round on reasonable terms that provide employees with prompt and well-deserved pay increases and prevent rail service disruptions.”

“Throughout the bargaining round, the railroads have worked to thoughtfully address issues raised by both sides and have offered pay increases that are consistent with labor market benchmarks and reward rail employees for their essential work,” the committee said in a statement.

Any prolonged rail strike could cripple the supply chain that has been slowly recovering from the backlogs and delays that became common during the pandemic because of worker shortages at the ports, trucking companies and railroads as demand for imports surged.

“It’s really in everybody’s best interests to avoid a strike,” Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said.

The group that represents Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern and other railroads and the unions have expressed optimism that this new presidential board will be able to help them resolve the dispute that began more than two years ago.

Business groups had urged Biden to take this step to ensure the railroads would continue operating. They worry about what a strike or lockout would mean for the fragile supply chain because railroads deliver all kinds of raw materials, finished products and imported goods that businesses rely on. A railroad strike could jeopardize the health of the economy.

The board of arbitrators will hold hearings with both sides to learn more about their positions before issuing their recommendations about a month from now. The the unions and the railroads will have 30 days to negotiate a new deal before a strike could be permitted under the federal law that governs railroad contract negotiations.

So far, the two sides have remained far apart because workers want raises that will offset inflation and cover increased health insurance costs while reflecting the current nationwide worker shortages. Railroads maintain that the double-digit raises they are offering over the five year contract that would date back to 2020 are fair based on the kind of raises other companies gave their workers at the time.

The unions are expecting significant raises because the railroads have been reporting record profits in recent years since they eliminated nearly one-third of their employees over the past six years as they overhauled their operations.

The unions also want the railroads to back off their proposals to cut train crews from two people down to one and ease some of the strict workplace rules they have adopted in recent years that workers say make it hard to take any time off.

Agreeing to a new deal would likely help the railroads hire more workers, which they are currently struggling to do. The major railroads have said they each need to hire hundreds more workers to handle the increased demand as the economy recovers and deal with the chronic delays and missed deliveries that have plagued their service this year.

Josh Funk, The Associated Press

MANITOBA

More people relying on food banks

In the face of rising food prices, one Westman food bank is experiencing usage levels it has never seen before.

Amanda Naughton-Gale runs the food bank at the Salvation Army in Neepawa, 74 kilometres northeast of Brandon. In a phone interview with the Sun, she said food bank usage normally drops in summertime due to people gaining seasonal employment and gardening, but this year there has been a marked increase, likely related to the high cost of living.

"The cost of gas, the cost of food … just everything in general. It’s harder to stretch your dollar as much as you were able to before."

Naughton-Gale said the food bank is having trouble keeping up with demand, though it did receive help from the federal government, which in 2020 announced up to $100 million through the Emergency Food Security Fund to distribute to Canadian food banks and other national food rescue organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Thank goodness we had [that] funding," she said. "That’s basically something we haven’t needed to do before."

Typically, the community’s food drive, held in May, would have provided enough donations to last the food bank through the summer. It’s not that people in Neepawa aren’t donating, it’s just that the dollar doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.

"Our community is super generous, but everybody’s feeling the pinch," Naughton-Gale said. "If you would typically set aside $20 to help support the food bank, that $20 is now getting you a few items as opposed to a bagful of items."

Last year the food bank experienced a 60 per cent increase in usage, and this year it’s up 30 to 40 per cent from that. Naughton-Gale said it’s an alarming trend to see.

"We will do the best that we can to ensure that nobody goes hungry in our community, but it is concerning."

Linda Bertram, who helps run the Minnedosa United Church’s food bank, located 48 kilometres north of Brandon, also said usage has grown at their location. Thankfully, donations are still coming in.

Local businesses are also doing their part to alleviate the situation. The Minnedosa Co-op grocery store currently has prepared bags of non-perishable food for sale that go directly to the food bank.

"People are buying those bags, but not to the same degree they would have done it around Christmas," Bertram said.

At the Wawanesa Food Bank, located 53 kilometres southeast of Brandon, Shirley McBurney is doing her best to facilitate food for those in need. She has been running the food bank from her business, Lucy’s Flowers and Gifts, for nearly 10 years. This summer, she said, more people are using the service than ever before.

"Usage has definitely gone up. Even since COVID — it went up during that, and with the prices going up, we’ve seen quite a rise."

Fortunately, people in Wawanesa have been quite generous with donations of food and money.

Guy Smith, a volunteer with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Brandon, said he has noticed a distinct uptick in the number of people who use the service over the last 24 months.

The organization would normally distribute 25 to 50 hampers per week, and now it’s somewhere between 50 to 75.

"We’re still getting significant donations. Obviously we need more … because the cost of the products has gone up dramatically, and also our numbers have gone up dramatically. But we are getting very good support."

The food bank run by the Salvation Army Brandon Corps has been closed since Monday and won’t reopen until July 25. Maria Ducharme, business administrator at the church, said this is because three of the organization’s four employees are on two-week holidays.

Miranda Leybourne, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun

Long lines are back at US food banks as inflation hits high

By ANITA SNOW and EUGENE GARCIA

yesterday

1 of 12

A volunteer fills up a vehicle with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Phoenix. The food banks are struggling to meet the growing need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

PHOENIX (AP) — Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families.

With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot.

Inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll.

The food banks, which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far.

Dozens of vehicles line up to get food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Tomasina John was among hundreds of families lined up in several lanes of cars that went around the block one recent day outside St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John said her family had never visited a food bank before because her husband had easily supported her and their four children with his construction work.

“But it’s really impossible to get by now without some help,” said John, who traveled with a neighbor to share gas costs as they idled under a scorching desert sun. “The prices are way too high.”

Jesus Pascual was also in the queue.

“It’s a real struggle,” said Pascual, a janitor who estimated he spends several hundred dollars a month on groceries for him, his wife and their five children aged 11 to 19.

The same scene is repeated across the nation, where food bank workers predict a rough summer keeping ahead of demand.

The surge in food prices comes after state governments ended COVID-19 disaster declarations that temporarily allowed increased benefits under SNAP, the federal food stamp program covering some 40 million Americans .

“It does not look like it’s going to get better overnight,” said Katie Fitzgerald, president and chief operating officer for the national food bank network Feeding America. “Demand is really making the supply challenges complex.”


(AP video by Eugene Garcia)

Charitable food distribution has remained far above amounts given away before the coronavirus pandemic, even though demand tapered off somewhat late last year.

Feeding America officials say second quarter data won’t be ready until August, but they are hearing anecdotally from food banks nationwide that demand is soaring.

The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown.

More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for an emergency government food box stuffed with goods such as canned beans, peanut butter and rice, said Brown. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets like bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has ticked up since hitting a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest.

Volunteers position grocery carts to fill up vehicles with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic briefly peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds a day, an average of 610,000 pounds is now being given out daily.

That’s up from about 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, said spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations have not eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far.

Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard.

“Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.”

“A lot of these are people who are working and did OK during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices go up beyond their budgets.”

A volunteer fills up a vehicle with food boxes at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix.

The Los Angeles bank gave away about 30 million pounds of food during the first three months of this year, slightly less than the previous quarter but still far more than the 22 million pounds given away during the first quarter of 2020.

Feeding America’s Fitzgerald is calling on USDA and Congress to find a way to restore hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities recently lost with the end of several temporary programs to provide food to people in need. USDA commodities, which generally can represent as much as 30% of the food the banks disperse, accounted for more than 40% of all food distributed in fiscal year 2021 by the Feeding America network.

“There is a critical need for the public sector to purchase more food now,” said Fitzgerald.

During the Trump administration, USDA bought several billions of dollars in pork, apples, dairy, potatoes and other products in a program that gave most of it to food banks. The “Food Purchase & Distribution Program” designed to help American farmers harmed by tariffs and other practices of U.S. trade partners has since ended. There was $1.2 billion authorized for the 2019 fiscal year and another $1.4 billion authorized for fiscal 2020.

Another temporary USDA “Farmers to Families” program that provided emergency relief provided more than 155 million food boxes for families in need across the U.S. during the height of the pandemic before ending May 31, 2021.

A USDA spokesperson noted the agency is using $400 million from the Build Back Better initiative to establish agreements with states, territories and tribal governments t o buy food from local, regional and underserved producers that can be given to food banks, schools and other feeding programs.

For now, there’s enough food, but there might not be in the future, said Michael G. Manning, president and CEO at Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana. He said high fuel costs also make it far more expensive to collect and distribute food.

The USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which included Farmers to Families, was “a boon” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank, providing 5 billion pounds of commodities over a single year, said spokesman Altfest.

“So losing that was a big hit,” he said.

Altfest said as many as 10% of the people now seeking food are first timers, and a growing number are showing up on foot rather than in cars to save gas.

“The food they get from us is helping them save already-stretched budgets for other expenses like gas, rent, diapers and baby formula,” he said.

Meanwhile, food purchases by the bank have jumped from a monthly average of $250,000 before the pandemic to as high as $1.5 million now because of food prices. Rocketing gasoline costs forced the bank to increase its fuel budget by 66%, Altfest said.

Supply chain issues are also a problem, requiring the food bank to become more aggressive with procurement.

“We used to reorder when our inventory dropped to three weeks’ worth, now we reorder up to six weeks out,” said Altfest.

He said the food bank has already ordered and paid for whole chickens, stuffing, cranberries and other holiday feast items it will distribute for Thanksgiving, the busiest time of the year.

At the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello east of Los Angeles, workers say they are seeing many families along with older people like Diane Martinez, who lined up one recent morning on foot.

Some of the hundreds of mostly Spanish-speaking recipients had cars parked nearby. They carried cloth bags, cardboard boxes or shoved pushcarts to pick up their food packages from the distribution site the Los Angeles bank serves.

“The prices of food are so high and they’re going up higher every day,” said Martinez, who expressed gratitude for the bags of black beans, ground beef and other groceries. “I’m so glad that they’re able to help us.”

Volunteers fill up grocery carts with food for distribution into drive through vehicles at the St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix.

—-

AP video journalist Eugene Garcia contributed from Montebello, California.

CANNABIS CANADA
One third of budtenders hired in the last year already left their job: study

Yesterday 

TORONTO — Nearly one third of Canadian cannabis retail employees hired over the last year already left their jobs and 24 per cent didn't even make it past their first month, a new study says.

The data from marijuana analytics firm Headset released Thursday shows 56 per cent of these employees, known as "budtenders," who worked at any point in the last 12 months have left their jobs.

The report covers workers in Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan between June 2021 and May 2022 — a period when cannabis businesses were carrying out layoffs and facing stiff competition as the number of pot shops soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jennawae McLean, the co-founder of Calyx + Trichomes, a cannabis store chain in Kingston, Ont. said budtenders leave their jobs for a variety of reasons.

Many are drawn to the sector because they think cannabis has a "cool factor," but later realize the job can be as tedious and public-facing as other retail positions.

"It can sometimes feel like putting lipstick on a pig," McLean said.

"It's still retail at the end of the day. You still have to do customer service, and customer service is a very demanding job. Not everybody's cut out for customer service."

On top of the usual retail demands, cannabis workers also have to contend with additional regulations, checking customer identification and working in an environment that necessitates high security.

These sectors have long been known for high turnover and often attract students and other workers prone to swapping roles after shorter tenures.

"I don't think that people start working in retail and expect that they're going to retire there," said McLean.

Now, they're facing even more struggles when hiring new workers and trying to hang onto existing ones because the pandemic empowered people to seek more flexible jobs and roles where it is easier to work from home.

For every batch of 10 employees McLean hires, three stick around for a long time, but the remaining seven often leave after six months.

The Headset report said about seven per cent of Canadian budtenders hired between June 2021 and May 2022 quit during between their 30th and 59th day, six per cent departed between their 60th and 89th day and 10 per cent made it no further than 180 days.

Roughly seven per cent of people hired within that time frame left after the 180 day mark but before they reach one year and almost 46 per cent stayed.

The Headset report showed Alberta retailers tend to have slightly better retention among new employees, but lost a higher number of tenured employees than Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

The report also offered a glimpse at how turnover in the four provinces studied compares to the U.S., where Headset examined patterns in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington pot shop workers.

It concluded Canada's 56 per cent turnover rate was one per cent higher than the U.S.'s.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2022.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

The co-founder of a major crypto wallet says 'putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling

insider@insider.com (Katie Canales) -

© Provided by Business InsiderPeople stand by a Metamask billboard in Times Square during an NFT conference in New York City. Noam Galai/Getty Images

Aaron Davis, co-founder of a popular crypto wallet, says investing in crypto is "gambling."
It's a rare remark from a founder of a major crypto player — MetaMask boasts 30 million users.
The co-founder said it's "extremely dangerous" to say today's crypto is the future of finance.

A co-founder of a popular crypto wallet said investing in digital assets amounts to gambling.

In an interview with Vice, Aaron Davis of MetaMask — which has allowed crypto users a place to store their holdings for six years now — warned people against staking their life savings in cryptocurrency, especially as the industry faces a months-long selloff that's showing few signs of stopping.

"It feels too little too late, but putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling," Davis told Vice. "I'm not saying what we have right now is the future of finance and [you should] move your life savings over. A lot of people are advocating that and I think that is extremely dangerous behavior."

It's a rare admission from someone who has founded or leads a major crypto company.

More Americans are buying and spending crypto-currency, leading to a big spike in crypto-crime
View on Watch

Crypto critics have long likened crypto investing to gambling, dubbing the market an unregulated casino. Others have labeled it a Ponzi scheme, arguing it relies on recruiting new investors to repay early ones that already coughed up the cash.


A former employee at the now-bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius is suing his former employer, similarly calling it a "Ponzi scheme." The lawsuit alleges Celsius failed to hedge against risk, resulting in a liquidity crisis and a suspension of withdrawals that trapped its users' holdings.

Davis's fellow MetaMask co-founder David Finlay said there may be bad actors in the crypto world, but there is only so much MetaMask can do about it.

"We can't stop people from making Ponzis on blockchains," Finlay told Vice. "It's by definition impossible for us to wrap the whole thing into one unified bow and enforce it in a direction."

"One of the ways that we help the ecosystem keep momentum towards better uses is to make the information they're exposed to increasingly consensual," he continued, "so that as there are better, more credible use cases, people have an opportunity to be exposed more exclusively to those. We can't ban ponzis but we can deprive them of the precious oxygen of exposure."

Davis and Finlay also discussed with Vice their company turning six and boasting 30 million monthly active users, the ongoing storm raging in the crypto market and its many failures, and the hope that despite that fact, it may have a bright future.

"We will know that maybe we or somebody else did something right, when we have addressed climate change or there's better social equality," Finlay said. "Those are my two longest term hopes for the ecosystem."

Toronto filmmaker receives backlash, death threats over Hindu goddess poster

Lisa Xing - Yesterday 
This story contains an image of the film poster.

A Toronto-based filmmaker from India is facing death threats and police investigations after sharing a poster for her documentary on Twitter that depicts the Hindu goddess Kali holding a Pride flag and smoking a cigarette.

Earlier this month, filmmaker and York University international graduate student Leena Manimekalai shared the poster to promote a screening of her film Kaali at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

She told CBC News she never expected the poster for the film — which uses an alternate spelling of the goddess's name — to garner this much attention.

"Any artist would expect a discussion, a discourse post her work being exhibited. But I never thought I would be attacked by this type of organized violence," she said.

The post sparked heated debate among politicians and religious leaders in India, including those who support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva, a right-wing ideology that seeks to transform India from a secular democracy into an ethno-religious country.

Some researchers and groups, including Human Rights Watch, say the ideology has led to discrimination and violence against minority groups in India, like Muslims and Christians. They say it is also used to silence academic criticism of Indian politics in Canada.

In less than two weeks, Manimekalai said she and her family have received thousands of messages of hate through her social media pages, including rape and death threats.

She wrote on Twitter that she was thrilled to share the launch of her film, which was hosted by Toronto Metropolitan University and presented at the Aga Khan Museum as part of a larger screening of films on multiculturalism.

The tweet received immediate backlash, prompting the Indian High Commission in Ottawa to urge Canadian authorities to "take action" against what it called a "disrespectful depiction of Hindu gods" after it said it received complaints from leaders of the Hindu community in Canada.

The Aga Khan Museum apologized for screening the film, saying the presentation is "no longer being shown" and it "deeply regrets" that one of the short videos and "accompanying social media post have inadvertently caused offence."

Toronto Metropolitan University distanced itself from Manimekalai as well.

When asked whether it received any correspondence from the Indian High Commission about its concerns with the film and poster, Global Affairs Canada would only say in a statement that "diplomatic correspondences are confidential" and "Canada will always uphold freedom of expression."

Laura Scaffidi, press secretary for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, also responded in a statement: "Threatening to commits acts of violence or rape against someone online is unacceptable and should never happen. We know that what happens online doesn't stay online.… Canadians want social media companies to do more to fix this."

According to local reports in India, there are several police cases against Manimekalai in various states for her depiction of Kali and a lawyer in New Delhi filed a court case, asking the filmmaker and her company be stopped from promoting the poster or videos from the film. The New Delhi court issued a summons to the director and her company, which Manimekalai said she will respond to.

Chandra Arya, a Liberal MP representing the Ottawa-area riding of Nepean, also weighed in. He said it was "painful" to see the poster and welcomed the apology from the Aga Khan Museum. In the past few years, "traditional anti-Hindu and anti-India groups in Canada have joined forces," he wrote, "resulting in Hinduphobic articles" and "attacks on our Hindu temples."

Manimekalai disputes that characterization. "I have a right to claim my text, my cultures, my gods, my sexuality and my knowledge from the fundamentalists."

The filmmaker said the version of Kali in the film is based on the Kali in her southern state of Tamil Nadu — an Indigenous feminist spirit that renounces patriarchy and accepts meat, alcohol and smokes from villagers.

In the short film, Manimekalai embodies Kali herself, as she wanders the streets of Toronto at night searching for belonging. At one point, she accepts a cigarette from a man on a park bench.

It is her take on multiculturalism in Canada and a celebration of its diversity, she said.

"It is my ode to Kali," said Manimekalai.

"I also feel the gaze of brown skin being constantly exoticized, so [the film] is a parallel commentary on what I feel as a brown, queer person living in Toronto and what other people from various cultures feel seeing a person like this."
A sacred figure

While supporters say Manimekalai has every right to her artistic freedom, critics argue the director's portrayal of Kali is disrespecting a sacred figure.

For Arti Dhand, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's religious studies department, specializing in South Asian religions, including Hinduism, seeing the poster was "a little bit personally jarring, but not in a terribly offensive way," because she said she hasn't seen the goddess depicted smoking before.

But, she said, she also doesn't have a problem with the representation, because Kali is a "counter-normative figure" who drinks alcohol and dances naked in the streets.

Hinduism has historically allowed for a considerable amount of flexibility on the images of deities and has been inclusive of various representations, Dhand said. People taking offence is a recent trend.

"There are people more sensitive now about this kind of thing than they would be in the past," she said, adding there are different standards for what deities can do in mythology compared with real women.

"Things like [women] smoking are still shocking in some circles in Indian society."

According to some cultural experts, many of those critical voices are part of an organized political movement that's eroding people's freedom of expression, even beyond India's borders.

"The government in power … uses all kinds of mechanisms — whether it's law, whether it's censorship — to stop any kind of conversation," said Chandrima Chakraborty, an English and cultural studies professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Chakraborty said she understands some of the backlash to the film and adds "creative choices have consequences."

However, she said, the political pressure and the calls for violence are a concerning trend. "It is ironic that you are so concerned about protecting the sanctity of goddesses, but you are not protecting the sanctity of living, breathing women."

Chakraborty said the appropriation of Hindu gods to drive a political agenda has become the norm in recent years.

"A number of gods have been remade in order to meet the agenda … the manifest of this majoritarian Hinduism. It's a huge concern," she said. "There does not seem to be a space where you can be a nationalist, but you can also critique."
'Deeply troubling'

Since the controversy erupted, several Hindu groups have also come out in support of Manimekalai. including U.S.-based Hindus for Human Rights, which issued a statement Monday saying the filmmaker has "every right to explore these [Hindu] traditions through her art."

It called the apologies by Toronto Metropolitan University and the Aga Khan Museum "deeply troubling." The organization wrote a letter to the museum, urging it to consider the "broader social and political context" and explained how the apology feeds into the "Hindu far-right's disturbing and utterly false narrative of a homogenized, monolithic Hindu identity."

Despite the support, Manimekalai said she doesn't feel safe returning home to India until her legal battles are resolved.

However, she said this experience won't stop her from making art.

"I will die if I don't make films I believe in. I will die if I can't defend my films."

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

Russia acquits feminist artist on trial for pornography

Tsvetkova said that “my life has been destroyed completely.” “It's not a metaphor, it's reality,” she told British broadcaster the BBC.


MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Russia's far east on Friday handed a rare acquittal to a feminist artist who was charged with disseminating pornography after she shared artwork online depicting female bodies.


The charges against activist Yulia Tsvetkova, 29, in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur had elicited international outrage, with human rights groups linking her prosecution to the Kremlin's aggressive promotion of “traditional family values.” Russia's most prominent women's rights groups have faced crackdown in recent years.

In a 15-month trial that went on behind closed doors, the prosecution had sought a prison sentence of three years and two months on the charges of disseminating pornography. The charges are reportedly related to Tsvetkova's group on the popular Russian social media network VKontakte, where stylized drawings of vaginas were posted. Tsvetkova is not allowed to disclose details of the criminal case against her.

The judge acquitted the artist on Friday.

“We're glad, but not completely,” Tsvetkova's mother, Anna Khodyreva, wrote on Facebook after the ruling was announced, adding that the prosecution still has 10 days to appeal the verdict.

An acquittal in a criminal case is a rare occurrence in Russia. According to Russia's Investigative Committee, less than 1% of defendants in criminal cases were acquitted by courts last year.

Tsvetkova's trial started in April last year, eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed constitutional amendments that outlawed same-sex marriage and tasked the government with “preserving traditional family values.”

Tsvetkova ran a children’s theater and was a vocal advocate of feminism and LGBT rights. She founded an online group called Vagina Monologues that encouraged followers to fight the stigma and taboos surrounding the female body, and posted other people’s art in it.

She was detained in November 2019 and spent the next four months under house arrest. Her home was raided, along with her mother’s education studio for children. The activist was fined twice for violating Russia’s law against disseminating gay “propaganda” to minors and has been declared a “foreign agent” — a designation with strong pejorative connotations that implies additional government scrutiny and aims to discredit the recipient.

Tsvetkova has maintained her innocence. Khodyreva, her outspoken mother, told The Associated Press last year that “Yulia has always been against pornography. … Feminists are against pornography because it’s exploitation of women’s bodies."

The case against Tsvetkova took a severe toll on her and her family. Khodyreva said that, on top of pressure from the authorities, she and her daughter have received death threats and were repeatedly harassed by strangers. Khodyreva’s education studio for children has lost many clients. Tsvetkova’s children’s theater, Merak, no longer exists — frequent visits from law enforcement were too distressing for the children so it shut down.

In a rare interview last month, a distraught Tsvetkova said that “my life has been destroyed completely.” “It's not a metaphor, it's reality,” she told British broadcaster the BBC.

Many public figures have spoken out in Tsvetkova’s support. Activists all across Russia have protested her prosecution, artists dedicated performances to her and an online petition demanding that the charges be dropped gathered over 250,000 signatures.

Russia’s prominent human rights group Memorial had declared Tsvetkova a political prisoner.

The Associated Press