Intentional disinvestment: EPA launches civil rights probe of water crisis in mostly-Black Jackson, Mississippi

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
October 24, 2022

Child drinking water - Shutterstock

The Environmental Protection Agency is launching a civil rights investigation into whether the state of Mississippi discriminated against the majority-Black capital of Jackson when it refused to use federal funds to address the city’s dangerous water crisis. Mississippi has received federal funds to address drinking water needs since 1996 but distributed funds to Jackson just three times over this 26-year span. “For years, Black communities have faced intentional disinvestment” in water infrastructure, says Abre’ Conner of the NAACP, which filed the complaint that led to the investigation. Conner says that through the creation of the EPA’s new civil rights office, the government now has “an opportunity to make right the wrongs that have happened to Black communities and to other historically disadvantaged communities for years.”



Intentional Disinvestment: EPA Launches Civil Rights Probe of Water Crisis in Jackson,

 Mississippiwww.youtube.com

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to Jackson, Mississippi, where the Environmental Protection Agency is launching a civil rights investigation into whether Mississippi officials discriminated against Jackson’s majority-Black residents when it refused to use federal funds to address the city’s dangerous water crisis. The EPA said Thursday it is probing Mississippi’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Quality over their role in the crisis that left tens of thousands of mostly Black households without drinking water. Jackson’s main water treatment plant was damaged after flooding in August and viral videos showed brown liquid flowing from taps. In 2021, residents lost access to drinking water for weeks after a deep winter freeze. Even when the water is running, residents have faced months’ long boil-water orders. A complaint filed by the NAACP led to the EPA’s investigation. NAACP President Derrick Johnson lives in Jackson and called the state’s record of divestment “systemic neglect.” Mississippi has received federal funds to address drinking water needs since 1996 but gave Jackson funds just three times.

For more, we’re joined from Jackson, Mississippi, by Abre’ Conner, Director of the NAACP’s Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Abre’. It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you lay out the issue, including the Governor mocking Jackson for its water crisis and what Congress allocated for Jackson and yet it did not actually go there.

ABRE’ CONNER: To your point earlier about Jackson only getting federal funds three of the last 25 years, that really kind of goes to the heart of what is the issue. The water in Jackson has been weaponized against them by the governor, by the state, because often times federal funding for water infrastructure, it flows to the state first. So even though we have the promise of Justice40, we have the promise of historically disadvantaged communities like Jackson, Mississippi, to be prioritized whenever it comes to federal funding, that’s not necessarily always the case.

AMY GOODMAN: Last month, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves came under criticism for disparaging his own capital city, Jackson. This is Reeves speaking during the groundbreaking ceremony for Jones Capital LLC headquarters.

GOVERNOR TATE REEVES: I’ve gotta tell you, it is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It’s also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson.

AUDIENCE: [laughter]

AMY GOODMAN: “Always a great day to not be in Jackson.” Jackson is overwhelmingly African-American, over 80% of the city. Abre’, talk about this.

ABRE’ CONNER: Governor Reeves has mocked Jackson residents. The governor at points it seems thinks that it’s a joke. That was one of the reasons why we felt like it was so important to file this Title VI complaint with the EPA. Because it’s not fair that Jackson residents for decades have seen the disinvestment in their city. It’s the state capital and it’s also 83% Black. But then you have a governor who is making comments like that and individuals don’t even trust their tap water, where they’re spending their tax dollars, where they should be able to have safe drinking water and that is not the case. But this Title VI complaint really demonstrates that we are not going to sit aside and allow for someone who is in an elected position in the state to be able to allocate federal funds to places like Jackson to get away with discriminating against a large Black city.

But this is something that Governor Reeves has been doing for a while. Even in his previous positions, like lieutenant governor, when he was treasurer, he utilized positions to try to harm Jackson residents. So this has been a long time coming. You have had a number of Black mayors who have asked the governor, who have asked the state for funding to fix the water infrastructure issues in Jackson, Mississippi, and because there has been neglect, because there has been intentional disinvestment, quite frankly, for a number of years, the number keeps growing for how much it’s going to actually cost to fix water infrastructure issues in Jackson.

This is also an issue because, again, there was supposed to have been a prioritization of funding, of federal funding, in places like Jackson, Mississippi, by the EPA, by other federal agencies, but because the money flows to the state first, then they get an opportunity to, quite frankly, weaponize these funds that are supposed to be utilized for Jackson against them.

AMY GOODMAN: Last month, Abre’ Conner, you testified at the Hearing on Water Infrastructure. In your prepared remarks, you said “The effect of climate change on Black people has finally come into national focus because Black people experience the most horrific impacts from historic disinvestment in communities.” Can you elaborate on this?

ABRE’ CONNER: What we have known is that for years, Black communities have faced intentional disinvestment. When you look at places like Allensworth that tried to build in California, in the Central Valley of California nearly 100 years ago, the reason that they weren’t able to actually move forward was because the company actually moved the wells that were supposed to be in Allensworth to Alpaugh. That was a majority non-Black neighboring city to Allensworth. We have seen this disinvestment in other Black communities. We’ve seen it in Flint. We saw the crumbling of Rosewood, for example, because the governor failed to respond in a timely manner.

Now we’re finally getting to a place where we see what is happening in Jackson. We see Congress actually also opening up an investigation with Homeland Security as well. Then we have the EPA who is opening for the first time this new external civil rights office, an Office of Environmental Justice, with Administrator Regan. But there were for years a time where the EPA was not even opening up Title VI complaints. It’s not like the environmental justice issues weren’t happening during that time. It got to a place where, quite frankly, groups felt like they needed to actually sue the EPA to get them to do their job, to help historically disadvantaged communities.

So, it is a time that we really have an opportunity to make right the wrongs that have happened to Black communities and to other historically disadvantaged communities for years. But this is really just a first step, because again, this is really an opportunity for the EPA to also demonstrate that through this complaint, it is going to prioritize the communities, it is going to prioritize community groups, who have been a part of this effort, and that we are able to actually get the resources to flow directly to Jackson, Mississippi.

AMY GOODMAN: You have a letter that was written to the governor by Democratic Representatives Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Carolyn Maloney of New York asking how Jackson’s water system is crumbling despite Congress authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars last year to Jackson, and compare that to the white suburbs right outside Jackson.

ABRE’ CONNER: Yeah. It is shameful that the governor has not prioritized actually funding the water infrastructure that is needed in Jackson, Mississippi. In my conversations that I’ve had, not only with the current mayor but with former mayors as well, this is not something that the governor did not have notice of. There has been a long history of Black mayors actually asking the governor to fund the water infrastructure in Jackson, Mississippi.

Just as recently as last year, the governor vetoed $47 million actually going to Jackson, Mississippi, and the funding that Jackson did end up getting ended up having additional strings attached to it. So for the American Rescue Plan funding that Jackson has, it’s the only city in the state that has two different approval processes that it has to go through in order to get projects approved. It has to go through the Department of Environmental Quality and also the Department of Finance and Administration. It’s the only city in the entire state that has to go through this process. There is no actual legislative history as to why specifically only Jackson has to go through this number of processes, but it actually goes to the disinvestment that Jackson has continued to see, the number of hurdles that Jackson has to go through in order to try to rebuild.

It is not like people at the local level aren’t trying, but when they’re faced with a number of hurdles and obstacles over and over again, at the state level, again where they have hundreds of millions of dollars—with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there were hundreds of millions of dollars that were placed into allocation for historically disadvantaged communities, for places like Jackson, Mississippi, and that has not happened. With the most recent Intended Use Plan that the state, for example, submitted to the EPA, it capped loan forgiveness for these infrastructure plans at $500,000, knowing that it’s going to take a lot more than that to fix the water issues in Jackson, Mississippi. The draft plan that the state actually intended to send to the EPA before [inaudible] would have completely removed Jackson from even being able to apply for the money in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

So, when you see these kinds of games being played by the governor, by the state, when you have a Black community who is in the middle of a water crisis—and by the way, the most recent Intended Use Plan was submitted during the midst of this water crisis—then you know that there is a level of intentionality to every single step that Governor Reeves has taken.

AMY GOODMAN: Obviously, this reeks of Flint. It sounds so similar to Flint. We did a Democracy Now! documentary called Thirsty for Democracy looking at Flint where the activists were saying, “This is not just an environmental problem, the lack of access to clean water in Flint, Michigan, another majority Black city. This is a problem of democracy.” How will your complaint, how will your—is it called a lawsuit?—affect cities like Flint?

ABRE’ CONNER: It is an administrative complaint that you’re able to file directly with a federal agency. In this situation, we filed it with the Environmental Protection Agency, and we filed it under Title VI, for purposes of regulatory—oversee what is happening in the state.

This complaint actually is representative of the number of years that historically disadvantaged communities, number one, could not utilize the EPA to help with issues related to discrimination and environmental hazards and environmental racism. This was really an opportunity for the EPA to demonstrate to these communities that it has been silent towards for a number of years that they are also going to prioritize historically disadvantaged communities like Jackson, that they’re going to prioritize the communities that it left behind for almost a decade, and that they’re going to try to come up with a solution that is going to center Jackson residents.

We hope that this not only helps the residents in Jackson, because they have been dealing with this for years, but that it also can serve as a model for other governors who, quite frankly, have also been slow to respond to historically disadvantaged communities, to Black communities across the country, so they can understand that there is a mechanism that we can use to hold them accountable and say that we’re not going to allow for Black communities to be left behind when we understand that safe drinking water, that living in communities where we are bearing the brunt of all of this contamination, pollution, that there is going to be a mechanism that we can utilize and ensure that we are prioritized moving forward.

AMY GOODMAN: Abre’ Conner, thank you so much for being with us, Director of the NAACP Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Next up, we go to Little Rock. We will look at how the ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to overturn an Arkansas anti-BDS law that penalizes companies that support boycotts of Israel. We will speak to the publisher of The Arkansas Times who sued the state to overturn the law. We will also be joined by the ACLU attorney who appealed to the Supreme Court and the director of the documentary Boycott. Back in 30 seconds.

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U.S. Supreme Court turns away case involving birthright citizenship for American Samoans: report

(Xinhua) October 24, 2022

Policemen are seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The three American Samoans challenged the law in federal district court in 2018, arguing it is unconstitutional because U.S. territories, like American Samoa, are "in the United States" under the Citizenship Clause.

NEW YORK, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will not consider a case that sought to confer U.S. citizenship on American Samoans at birth and presented the justices with an opportunity to revisit a series of rulings containing racist language that denied residents of U.S. territories some constitutional rights, reported CBS.

"In turning away the dispute brought by three people born in American Samoa who now live in Utah, the Supreme Court left in place a U.S. appeals court ruling that upheld a federal law declaring that American Samoans are considered U.S. nationals, not citizens, at birth," said the report.

The three American Samoans, John Fitisemanu, Pale Tuli, Rosavita Tuli, joined by the Southern Utah Pacific Islander Coalition, challenged the law in federal district court in 2018, arguing it is unconstitutional because U.S. territories, like American Samoa, are "in the United States" under the Citizenship Clause.

The trial court sided with the three American Samoa natives, but the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the statute. Lawyers for the three said the Denver-based appeals court relied on the controversial "Insular Cases," which were a series of decisions issued in the wake of the Spanish-American War that denied all constitutional protections to the unincorporated territories.

The cases, which date back to 1901, involved Congress's authority to govern U.S. territories, and the decisions were replete with racist language. In one concurring opinion from 1901, for example, Justice Edward Douglass White wrote that the U.S. could acquire an island "peopled with an uncivilized race" and warned against automatically granting citizenship to "those absolutely unfit to receive it."

Bike Libraries Are Boosting Access To Bikes Across The U.S.

Campuses and libraries across the country are increasingly adding bikes to their inventory, increasing access to cycling along the way.

CINNAMON JANZER   OCTOBER 24, 2022

Library card holders can check out a Madison BCycle pass and a bike helmet at any Madison Public Library. (Photo by Macy O'Malley / Madison Public Library)

At Madison, Wisconsin’s nine public libraries, residents can check out books of all kinds, from hardbacks and paperbacks to ebooks and audiobooks. They can check out movies as DVDs and Blu-rays. And since last year, library card holders can also check out electric bicycles.

Madison’s public libraries are part of a growing number of bike libraries in cities and towns from coast to coast. A list of U.S. bike lending libraries curated by StreetsblogMASS reporter Grecia White documents 35 such programs, from Vermont to Texas. While they all look a little different and work a little differently, they all do the same thing — increase free access to bikes.

As a 2021 report by People for Bikes notes, there are a number of social, cultural and physical barriers that keep cities across the country from creating inclusive biking communities, from unequal distribution of biking infrastructure to prevailing perceptions of cycling as an activity for white men. A study in Portland, Oregon, found that car traffic, know-how, and space needed to maintain and store a bike are among the biggest barriers to bike use.

But cost, the researchers found, gets in the way, too. Even the cheapest road bikes still cost a couple hundred dollars, and the cost can go well into the five-figure range. For those who need an extra boost, most electric bikes cost at least $1,000. Municipal bike shares can help with access issues, but their payment infrastructure doesn’t work for those who are unbanked.

Enter bike libraries. In Madison, as long as you’re one of the 62% of city residents who have a library card, you can check out an electric bike from one of the city’s libraries for free. This is thanks to a partnership with Madison BCycle, an e-bike sharing company in the city whose parent company is Trek, a bike company based in nearby Waterloo, Wisconsin.

Last year Bcycle came to the Madison Public Library Foundation with an idea for a Community Pass Program that would give library card holders access to more than 300 electric bikes across the city.

“Making bike share more accessible in our community is a top priority for us,” Madison Bcycle’s general manager Helen Bradley said in a press release for the program’s launch last September. “Launching the Community Pass Program is one way we can ensure that everyone in our community has access to bike share as a transportation option.”

Instead of requiring the use of a credit card or a smartphone to unlock an electric-assist bike from one of the city’s more than 50 docking stations, Community Pass users check out an access fob from the library instead. The fob passes can be checked out for up to a week at a time. Each of the city’s nine public libraries have two passes available. So far this season, from March 15 until the end of last month, the city’s libraries have seen 279 fob check outs.

“We have nearly two million visits a year in our nine libraries in Madison, so it’s a place where a lot of people are coming and going every day,” explains Tana Elias, Madison Public Library’s digital services and marketing manager. It’s an equity initiative she adds, noting that it gives people the chance to rent a bike if they haven’t ridden one in a while as well as the chance to choose a bike over a taxi or an Uber.

“It’s an opportunity to choose to be a little healthier in your day-to-day activity. But also, if you haven’t ridden a bike recently, it’s a good opportunity to get out there and try it without making a huge commitment.”

Because Madison Bcycle’s infrastructure was already in place, including docking stations outside several library locations, there were only a few puzzle pieces to fit into place. In the end, the waiver that riders sign is from Bcycle so they’re handling the liability. In addition to managing the check-out process, the library foundation purchased helmets to complement the program, so users can check those out too if they like.

Because some of the docking stations are older than others, the technology is different between them and sometimes users had trouble getting the fobs to work right away, but the library has solved that with an information sheet that they co-created with Bicycle that explains how to use the fobs at different docking stations. Plus, “they upgraded some of their stations and they tried a new fob. It was definitely a back and forth testing process with a lot of feedback on both sides,” Elias says.

At the Student Government Association bike library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, the process is a bit more straightforward. The program that’s been running since roughly 2011 checks out cruiser bikes — chosen for their durability, accessibility and comfort — to the school’s students, faculty and staff.

The program has been on pause since the pandemic, but Ibrahim Akar, the SGA’s chief of staff, plans to relaunch the program next month. The key to their re-launch has been building out a waitlist and replenishing the bike supply that went from roughly 45 pre-pandemic to 11 today.

In November, Akar plans to advertise pop-up check out events online and on social media for the bikes that can be checked out for an entire semester and eventually a full year before getting an online reservation system up and running next semester. The bike library is free to use, each bike comes with a lock, and repairs are covered by an on-campus bike co-op that the SGA has partnered with.

“Working in the SGA, we work towards meeting the needs of students on campus and a lot of students would highly prefer to ride a bicycle than wait for the bus,” Akar says. “When you have a bicycle, you can leave on your own schedule and there’s a lot of fun that comes with riding a bike as well. You get to just enjoy the view and breathe in some fresh air. So obviously, if that’s something that the students want, we’re going to work as hard as we can to be able to bring that to them.”

Cinnamon Janzer is a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, Rewire.news, and more. She holds an MA in Social Design, with a specialization in intervention design, from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Fine Art from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Op-Ed: Here in San Quentin, I see why solitary confinement must end

An inmate looks out a window in his solitary confinement cell at the Main Jail in San Jose. Some counties have restricted use of solitary confinement, but it remains common in California.
(Associated Press)
BY JUAN MORENO HAINESOCT. 24, 2022 3 AM PT

Advocates almost succeeded this year in curbing the use of solitary confinement in California’s prisons and jails. The California Mandela Act, named after the long-imprisoned South African president, received the support it needed in August to pass the Assembly 41-16 and land on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. He vetoed the bill a month later, citing safety concerns.

That must not be the end of the fight against this torturous practice. Lawmakers should try again next year and every year until a governor signs those restrictions into law.

Solitary confinement has never been shown to decrease prison violence. Researchers have found that it leads to higher recidivism rates. It’s also the setting for a disproportionate number of prison suicides.

The numbers tell a damning enough story. I’ve also seen the toll firsthand.

I’ve spent more than 26 years in California’s prison system, including 13 reporting for San Quentin News, Solitary Watch and various other news outlets. I have talked to dozens of people who were subjected to solitary confinement for disruptive behavior, as well as those sent to solitary because they were deemed sick.

Solitary confinement is used for many reasons — although prison officials who defend it are quick to say it is for the “safety and security of the institution.”

Everyone that I’ve interviewed about solitary confinement says the lingering effects of extreme isolation have stayed with them. Michael Sperling, 45, says his life path led him not only to incarceration but all the way to solitary confinement.

“My dad shot me up when I was 12 years old,” Sperling said, who is serving his 11th year of incarceration. He was sentenced to seven years to life for conspiracy to commit extortion. Sperling says his troubles began shortly after his father got him hooked on heroin. He began running the streets, where he found acceptance in a street gang. His incarceration history includes several stints in juvenile hall. While in California prisons, he says gang-related activity got him sent to solitary confinement three times.

Then there’s 36-year-old Terry Kitchen. He’s been incarcerated since he was 14 years old and is serving a life sentence at San Quentin. As Ireported recently, Kitchen was sent to a solitary confinement unit called the Adjustment Center after testing positive for COVID-19 last June.

“The experience traumatized me,” Kitchen said. In his Adjustment Center cell, he said, “There’s a little window [in the cell door] where all you can see is a wall. So your entertainment is watching spiders and ants walk around.”

During his incarceration. Kitchen said he has been subjected to solitary confinement several times for disciplinary events. But being sent to solitary confinement for being sick was the worst, because the Adjustment Center is really like a dungeon.

William “Mike” Endres, 65, talked about being disciplinary action-free during his entire 24 years of incarceration, but lamented that prison officials “found a way to put me in the hole for thinking I have COVID-19 when I didn’t.”

Sperling described the effects of extreme isolation. “In the SHU, it’s very quiet,” he said. “That quiet and stillness becomes your worst enemy. When it’s quiet like that, you can hear people talking about you in your head.”

Sitting alone in a cell for 23 hours a day, for years and months, he added, “I see that I was slowly losing my mind.” He talked about how even a solid person could begin thinking that all his friends were trying to get him, all from how a person looked at him or common gestures like waving or body language.

“Solitary confinement does no justice,” Sperling said. “All it does is deteriorate the great minds of great people. I am witness to it. I have seen it happen. I watched it happen.”

Sperling noted the long-term effects that isolation has had on him. He is constantly paranoid and suspicious of people’s intentions and actions as they move around him.

“I got so used to being alone and it being so quiet, all the noise in the mainline dorms and tiers of cells automatically annoys me,” he said. “I’m always thinking whether a person is trying to harm me or not. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. Someone might be trying to help. But I can’t stop thinking about whether that person is trying to harm me.”

Sperling opposes the use of solitary, “the hole” in prison slang, because he says it’s inhumane to lock someone in a cage all day like an animal. “If someone misbehaves, the longest hole time they should get is a few days,” he said. “Long-term hole time is wrong. It’s wrong in every way. There’s no benefit in it.”

In his veto message, Newsom said he is instead directing prison officials to improve the treatment of people subjected to solitary confinement — an approach that is inadequate, at best, in dealing with a practice the United Nations has denounced as torture. Newsom said he believes the Mandela Act is too broad.

What is actually far too broad, however, is the use of solitary confinement in California.

Juan Moreno Haines is senior editor of the San Quentin News and a contributing writer at Solitary Watch.

The Oath Keepers are using the "we were just kidding" white privilege defense

The January 6 trials expose how white privilege allows domestic terrorists to hide their plots in plain sight

By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Senior Writer

SALON
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 24, 2022 

A member of the right-wing group Oath Keepers stands guard during a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC.

 (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Jason Dolan was ready to die. As he texted his fellow Oath Keepers in the days before the January 6 attack on the Capitol, there was "no coming back" from what he planned to do, and he would be "lucky" if he got "a bullet" that day. "I think my biggest trouble is trying to convince myself to say good bye to my family," he wrote, having convinced himself that it was necessary to die to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Dolan did not die. Instead, he's turned state's witness in the prosecution of five of his fellow Oath Keepers, who are currently on trial. During his live testimony last week, Dolan, who already pleaded guilty to conspiracy, told the jury he "literally" meant those maudlin texts when he wrote them. Describing his thought process, he said he asked himself, "Is this all just going to be talk, or am I willing to back up my words with actions?"

That Dolan meant to storm the Capitol on January 6 seems, to most outside observers, self-evident. He was, after all, there that day, acting on weeks of planning his right wing paramilitary group had engaged in. But there's a reason the prosecution prompted Dolan to explain how deadly serious he was about this "overthrowing the government" business. The people he's testifying against, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, are defending themselves by claiming their copious plotting was more fantasy role-play than a serious plan of action.

"Oath Keepers defense attorneys have contended that despite the tough talk in private messages, the group was primarily in Washington D.C. to act as security details for VIPs at a pro-Trump rally, and had no plan to enter the Capitol," Kyle Cheney, who has been covering the trial for Politico, wrote last week.

When faced with text messages showing the plan was to force Congress to invalidate President Joe Biden's electoral win, defense attorneys argue it was just "macho" talk, reports Brandi Buchman of Daily Kos, who has been watching the trial daily.

They said the thing and they did the thing. It seems like the prosecution would have an open-and-shut case, right?

The defendants are charged not just with trespassing or trying to obstruct an official proceeding, like so many of the insurrectionists before them. They are facing the more serious charges of seditious conspiracy, so the extent of serious planning matters. To prove the charges, the prosecutor needs to show not just that the defendants stormed the Capitol, but that they conspired together to overthrow the government. The defense wants to convince the jury that the Oath Keepers happened to be in Washington D.C. for reasons other than insurrection, arguing that they only stormed the Capitol because they got swept up in the moment.

Related
Trump's legal troubles mount as Oath Keepers plan to throw him under the bus at sedition trial

They're arguing against a mountain of evidence that the operation was planned. Rhodes, a Yale-educated lawyer, understood that seditious conspiracy was a possible charge. And yet despite his warning to fellow Oath Keepers to speak in coded language, seditious intent appears to leak into their messages anyway. In one text, Rhodes wrote, "we will have to rise up in insurrection (rebllion) [sic] against the ChiCom puppet Biden."

They said the thing and did the thing, so it seems like the prosecution would have an open-and-shut case, right? But there's a good reason the defense thinks an "it was just talk" argument will work. Conservative white people generally get a generous benefit of the doubt when it comes to determining whether they really mean the terrible things they say. Like Donald Trump dismissing it as "locker room talk" when he was caught bragging about sexual assault, the presumption of innocence for conservative white people is so robust it's often extended even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Evidence uncovered by both the January 6 committee and the various federal prosecutions of insurrectionists has demonstrated this. Both the FBI and the Secret Service received tips in the weeks before the insurrection, indicating there were people planning to storm the Capitol, but those tips were ignored. During the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors revealed the FBI was specifically tipped off about this particular alleged conspiracy, but that tip was also ignored. While there may have been more sinister reasons for the Secret Service to blow off the tips, mostly it seems that law enforcement was oblivious. They simply didn't take seriously the possibility that all this online chatter was building toward real violence. They assumed people were just playing around.

"[I]t's hard to get Congress, police, anybody affected by extremism to take this seriously," Andy Campbell, author of "We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism," told Salon last month. "Department of Homeland Security officials said that they thought the Proud Boys were just a drinking club," he explained— until, at least, the Proud Boys led a massive group of insurrectionists into the Capitol.

Even now, Republican leaders and conservative pundits fall back on the "just kidding around" arguments to downplay the seriousness of both Trump's attempted coup and the violence of January 6, claiming it was "forgettably minor" and waving it off as a protest that merely got a little rowdy.

Related
"A fascist march on the country for 5 years": How the Proud Boys got away with it for so long

To get an idea of how deeply ingrained this white conservative presumption of innocence is, check out a recent, lengthy article for Esquire about the plot to kidnap and murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In it, journalist Chris Heath recasts the accused conspirators as a bunch of goobers who didn't mean any real harm. While repeatedly admitting that the FBI had a large number of text messages and testimony to establish that these men were plotting a serious crime, Heath keeps circling around to the idea that, in the end, they were just fooling.

Heath argues that the use of FBI informants and undercover agents to expose the plot is why he's skeptical of the government's case. But it's also hard not to miss how he gets sucked into the white-guyness of the alleged conspirators. He is another white guy, and he sees himself in them. "I somehow felt like I recognized something fundamental about who this guy was," he says of one of the accused, calling him "sincere, open, thoughtful, and curious." This is the same man, Brandon Caserta, who was recorded saying, "The fear will be manifested through bullets." Esquire includes a photo of another man, Daniel Harris, cuddling a puppy. Harris, on the recording: "Knock on the door, and when she answers it just cap her." Heath writes of how another defendant, Barry Croft, enjoyed "a family get-together with food, swimming." Croft, on tape: "A quick, precise grab on that fucking governor. And all you're going to end up having to possibly take out is her armed guard."

Heath portrays these men as victims of social prejudice, pointing to anonymous commenters online mocking the men's appearance. But oodles of social science suggest the opposite is true: that white men get the benefit of the doubt not extended to other people accused of similar crimes. As the Sentencing Project has carefully documented, "African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences." This is true, even when you control for the likelihood of having committed a crime. For instance, drug use rates between white and Black Americans are the same, but Black people get arrested for possession at nearly four times the rate of white people.

I'm only singling Heath out because he wrote such a long and prominent piece for a major magazine. That he would write it and Esquire would publish it shows how truly ingrained this idea of white privilege is. White people, especially conservative white men, get away with so much because people are willing to write off their toxic behavior as mere braggadocio.
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Trump, in particular, has benefited from this. As one anonymous Republican famously told the Washington Post on November 9, 2020, while speaking of Trump's claims that Biden stole the election: "What is the downside for humoring [Trump] for this little bit of time?"

The anonymous Republican then added, "It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20."


Read more about January 6

Trump's legal troubles mount as Oath Keepers plan to throw him under the bus at sedition trial

January 6 was entirely predictable — it was planned in broad daylight

Ginni Thomas and the Oath Keepers signal the "no regrets" phase of January 6 apologia


Amanda Marcotte is a senior politics writer at Salon and the author of "Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself." Follow her on Twitter @AmandaMarcotte and sign up for her biweekly politics newsletter, Standing Room Only.

Russia tests latest underwater warfare technology in the Barents Sea

The “Krasnoyarsk” and “Generalissimo Suvorov” are the most advanced nuclear submarines ever built by the Sevmash yard.


The "Kazan" is the sister vessel to "Krasnoyarsk". Photo: Sevmash

By Thomas Nilsen
September 13, 2022

Protection is ensured by “Dmitry Donskoy”, the only Typhoon-class submarine still in operation, state-affiliated news agency TASS on Tuesday reported.

“Krasnoyarsk” is the third of the upgraded Yasen-M multi-purpose subs armed with cruise missiles, torpedoes, and surface-to-air missiles. The vessel was launched last summer and set out from Severodvinsk to the White Sea for the first sea trials this spring.

For weapons testing and when performing the cat-and-mouse game, hiding and detecting, the larger Barents Sea is more suitable.

The other new submarine currently on sea trials in the waters north of the Kola Peninsula is “Generalissimo Suvorov”. This is the third of the Borei-A class ballistic missile submarines armed with the Bulava intercontinental missile.

“Generalissimo Suvorov” started sea trials about the same time as “Krasnoyarsk”.

When final approvals are given, both submarines are expected to be part of Russia’s Pacific Fleet.

This weekend, the press service of the Northern Fleet said anti-submarine aviation was conducting exercises over the Barents Sea. Il-38 and Tu-142 aircraft, along with Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopters flew tactical search- and tracing training.

Yasen-class is Russia’s 4th generation multi-purpose submarine and is of big concern for NATO in the North Atlantic. Its weapon capacities and ability to sail quietly and avoid detection could pose a threat to both military installations on land and enemy navy vessels.

Last fall, the first vessel of the class, the “Severodvinsk”, made a first-time test launch of the hypersonic Tsirkon cruise missile in the Barents Sea.

Also armed with Kalibr missiles, the Yasen class subs could make big trouble for NATO’s reinforcement plans for Europe in case of conflict by effectively hitting NATO navy ships in the North Atlantic.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/

A spin doctor from Murmansk guides IAEA inspectors at occupied Zaporizhzhya plant

Renat Karchaa was known for conspiracies and intrigues in north Russian media and politics before he became consultant to Russia's nuclear power company Rosatom.


Renat Karchaa worked several years in Murmansk before he was hired by Rosatom. Photo: Karchaa at VK

By Atle Staalesen

The man that last week popped up with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA ) at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant has a long history from the north Russian region of Murmansk. Footage from the plant now occupied by Russian forces and controlled by Russian state nuclear power company Rosatom shows Renat Karchaa in a fancy suit guiding the international inspectors around on site.

The group of 13 inspector on 1st of September arrived to the Ukrainian plant that has been occupied by Russia since early March. They fear a nuclear catastrophe in the wake of Russia’s military aggression in the area.

Renat Karchaa together with IAEA Director-General 

Rafael Mariano Grossi at the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Photo: IAEA

However, according to Renat Karchaa, it is the Ukrainians, not the Russians, that pose a threat to the plant, and they specifically target plant employees, he told the international experts, state media RIA Novosti informs. In a video, he stands next to the remains of a shell, trying to explain how the rocket came from the Ukrainian side and “flipped 180 degrees before landing.”

Karchaa has a long history as PR advisor and political spin maker in several Russian regions. But it was in Murmansk that his career took off.

Not long after he moved from Abkhazia, the Georgian region, to the far Russian north in 2001 he became editor of Nord-Vest Kurier, a weekly newspaper that challenged the rule of Governor Yuri Yevdokimov.

Karchaa might have had plans to himself conquer the Governor’s office, and in 2002 he was sued by Yevdkomov for “slandering his reputation.” But instead, to everyone’s surprise, the newspaper editor was in 2003 invited by Yevdokimov to become deputy governor. In his position, Karchaa worked with relations with the regional duma, political parties, the press and did “information-analytical activities,” Regnum informed at the time.

Karchaa remained in the job only two years. After having successfully managed the election campaign of Yevdokimov in 2004, he was appointed to the job as Head of the Murmansk representation office in Moscow and in 2005 he moved on to become Deputy Director of Kola MMC, the regional branch of Nornickel.

In 2008, he was back in Moscow, now as Adviser at the Presidential Administration where he managed issues of Russian regional policy.

Renat Karchaa together with Aleksandr Khmel, member of the Murmansk regional Duma, in the early 2000s. Photo: Blogger51

His career in Rosatom started in 2011 where he first worked as adviser to one of the company’s deputy directors and later with issues related to the nuclear military complex.

Later, he also briefly worked in Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, as well as for the for the President of the breakaway Abkhazia Republic. And he did consultancy for Putin’s United Russia Party in Arkhangelsk.

Renat Karchaa in the early 2000s also shortly worked in the Pskov region where he reportedly assisted the regional governor with a re-election campaign. During the visit, Karchaa ran over a 16 year old boy with his car. The teenager died and Karchaa disappeared from the site of the accident.

For two weeks, authorities in Pskov concealed the name of Karchaa. But thanks to witnesses on site, he was ultimately caught, Izvestia reported.

However, the PR consultant was soon back in normal. And he quickly hit back against critics. In a press release issued by the regional government of Murmansk, Karchaa is described as “a witness.” The crash “could not be avoided,” and the state official cooperates closely with the investigators, the press release reads.

Furthermore, Karchaa and his associates accused political opponents of using the crash for their own benefit.

According to the regional government in Murmansk, the accident in Pskov was actively exploited by political opponents of Karchaa, several of them “known for their connections with the criminal underground.”

“They try to picture an “enemy” of humanity,” the Murmansk Government argued.

Sanctioned Belarusian fertilisers to be exported from Murmansk

President Aleksandr Lukashenko agrees with the Governor of Murmansk about the establishment of a far northern hub for Belarusian fertilisers.

President Lukashenko meets with Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis. Photo: president.gov.by

By Atle Staalesen
September 08, 2022

“Lukashenko gave his principle consent to the export of Belarusian fertilisers through the Port of Murmansk,” Governor Andrei Chibis said proudly after his meeting with the Belarusian leader on the 8th of September.

“This is very important for the Murmansk region, for the development of the City of Murmansk as a logistics hub and base for the Northern Sea Route,” Chibis added in a comment.

A governor visiting Belarus. Photo: Chibis on Telegram

According to the Governor, the project has been discussed by the parts for about a year. It comes in the wake of the introduction of EU sanctions against the Belarusian fertiliser industry.

The EU in June 2021 introduced restrictions on the potash fertiliser export from Belarus following the country’s grave human rights violations. Similar restrictions followed from the USA, Canada and the UK.

In March this year, the EU followed up with an import ban. Previously, up to 12 million tons of Belarusian potash had annually been exported through the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda.

Belarus is normally one of the world’s biggest exporters of potash, most of which is sent to Brazil, India and China. The export has since the introduction of the sanctions been sent to terminals in St.Petersburg.

According to Lukashenko, the alternative route to Murmansk has been discussed with President Putin. He admitted that he has an interest in the Northern Sea Route.

“The northern direction significantly complements our cooperation in the field of logistics with St.Petersburg, and I really believe that some day the northern path across the Arctic Ocean will explosively increase,” he told Governor Chibis.

“It will be like a bomb,” he underlined, and added that Belarusian companies potentially can supply millions of tons of goods along the route.

Also Murmansk is a major producer of fertilisers. Regional company units of Phosagro and Acron produce major volumes of apatite, and ship their products from terminal facilities in the Kola Bay.

In October 2019, a first shipload of fertilisers was sent along the Northern Sea Route to buyers in Asia.

According to Acron Vice President Dmitry Khabrat, the Northern Sea Route helps «cut expenses on logistics and opens new opportunities for delivery of our fertilizers to the countries in the Asian-Pacific region.»

Expanded capacity for exports of fertilisers will come as Murmansk completes the building a the Lavna terminal and adjacent railway line on the western side of the Kola Bay.

Murmansk is Russia's largest ice-free port to the North-Atlantic. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Gazprom's new major Arctic project might be a dead end

On the coast of the Kara Sea, construction workers are in full swing with the building of the Kharasavey natural gas field. It will be one of the country's biggest projects of the kind. But the gas might have nowhere to go.

The Kharasavey field is located on the coast of the Kara Sea.

 Photo: screenshot from video by Gazprom Dobycha Nadym

By Atle Staalesen
September 07, 2022

 There has been a big buzz on the remote Yamal tundra since construction works were officially launched in March 2019. President Vladimir Putin was on a direct televised line from the Kremlin as Gazprom workers brought big machines and equipment across the snow- and ice-covered stretches of the Arctic lands.

“The Kharasaveyskoye field will open new horizons for the development of the industry, for the strengthening of our export potential and further gasification of Russia,” Putin said in his greeting.

The field that is located on the western shore of the Yamal Peninsula has reserves of about 2 trillion cubic meters of gas and is Gazprom’s next step in its big development plan for the resource-rich region.

The Kharasavey will be connected by a 108 km long pipeline to nearby Bovanenkovo, the huge field launched in 2012.

A dredger is operating in the Kharasavey terminal area

During the whole summer of 2022, ships have shuttled to the local Kharasaveyskoye sea terminal, many of them with construction materials and supplies to the several hundred workers on site. Production is due to be launched in 2023.

The Kharasavey and Bovanenkovo are believed to have combined natural gas reserves of seven trillion cubic meters. Several more trillions are to be added to the reserves table as Gazprom continues its grand development program for the region.

Pipelines at the Kharasavey field. Photo: screenshot from video by Gazprom Dobycha Nadym

 

But Russia’s war with Ukraine and subsequent conflict with the EU is hampering plans.

Europe is taking extreme measures to reduced dependency of Russian hydrocarbons, and Moscow this week speeded up the process as it allegedly for “technical reasons” closed the Nord Stream pipeline.

The natural gas from Kharasavey, Bovanenkovo and other fields in the area now risk being “stuck” in the Arctic as practically all regional infrastructure is aimed at the EU market.

The natural gas from Yamal is sent by the Bovanenkovo–Ukhta pipeline, a northern section of the more than 4,000 km long Yamal–Europe pipeline.

Vast volumes of natural gas will now simply accumulate in domestic Russia. And there is hardly a quick fix to the problem.

Gazprom has ambitious plans to connect the Yamal Peninsula with China, and a new pipeline is projected to connect the Bovanenkovo with existing infrastructure on the eastern side of the Ob Bay. In 2021, Gazprom even launch an underwater pipeline across the great bay.

Gazprom has a sparsely developed grid of pipelines in Eastern Russia. Map by Gazprom

But a connection all the way to China will take years to build. Currently, Russia has only the Power of Siberia pipeline that in 2020 brought less than 5 billion cubic meters to the Chinese market. Capacity will increase significantly over the next years, and Russia also has plans for a Power of Siberia 2 and 3.

But none of it will be able to replace the EU volumes, that in 2018 exceeded 200 billion cubic meters.

During his visit to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this week, Putin highlighted relations with China and underlined that new pipeline infrastructure project will connect the two countries.

In the same conference, Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller participated in a video conference with top representatives of China National Petroleum Corporation. The capacity of the Power of Siberia can be increased to 48 billion cubic meters per year and the Power of Siberia 2 can ultimately deliver up to 50 billion cubic, he explained.

But the Kharasavey and Bovanenkovo fields are located several thousand kilometres away north of the Arctic Circle.

Murmansk eyes sharp raise in hazardous nuclear waste management

Atomflot is the service base for Russia's fleet of nuclear of nuclear powered icebreakers. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Atomflot calls for a tender for a pre-study of a new complex for reloading and handling spent nuclear fuel from Russia’s new generations of maritime reactors used onboard icebreakers and floating nuclear power plants in the Arctic.

Thomas Nilsen

The nearest residential apartment buildings in Murmansk are less than 2 kilometers away. In case of accidental releases, locals will hardly find time to close the windows before radioactive isotopes are spread around. That said, inhabitants in Russia’s largest city above the Arctic Circle are relaxed and used to neighboring nuclear waste management.

At the service base, icebreakers undergo maintenance and repair. After a few years in operation, the uranium fuel rods from the reactors are taken out and new is loaded. This is a high-risk operation.

After cooling down in the storage compartments of service ships or onshore containers, the spent fuel is sent by rail through the city center of Murmansk and further to Mayak, the infamous reprocessing plant near Chelyabinsk in the South Urals.

At Atomflot, all equipment and storage casks are designed for loading and reloading the KLT-40 reactors that since the late 1970ties have powered icebreakers built in Soviet times.

Now, the new generation, much larger, icebreakers have started to arrive in Murmansk. The two first of Project 22220 class, the “Arktika” and “Sibir” are delivered and three similar are currently under construction and will start sailing in the period 2023 to 2026.

Also, the first Lider-class giant nuclear-powered icebreaker “Rossiya” will have Atomflot as homeport when she starts working to keep the Northern Sea Route open for the largest vessels year-round.

The new icebreakers have reactors of the RITM-200 and RITM-400 design with fuel elements different in form and larger in size than those in use with the older KLT-40 reactors.

Atomflot’s tender announcement for the pre-study of a new onshore complex to handle spent nuclear fuel, according to the local news online B-port.

A new building for storing spent nuclear fuel is needed and a huge 160 tons capacity crane has to be placed on the quay. Transport infrastructure and physical protection against theft and terrorists are part of the plan. So are radiation monitoring and fire safety equipment.

Andrey Zolotkov, a nuclear waste expert and former radiation safety engineer with Atomflot, said in a conversation with the Barents Observer that Murmansk region has no alternative location for such spent fuel handling facility than the current icebreaker base.

“No one is even considering the possibility of transferring such nuclear hazardous operations as changing spent fuel from reactors to a place far from the city,” Zolotkov notes.

“Atomflot would be the cheapest and easiest solution as much of the infrastructure is already there.”

With the five new icebreakers of Project 22220 and the Lider-class vessel, the amount of spent nuclear fuel to be managed at Atomflot will increase sharply.

In addition, Atomflot is in charge of handling the spent nuclear fuel shipped to Murmansk from Andreeva Bay, a run-down Cold War dump site for old spent nuclear fuel from submarine reactors.

Russia’s floating nuclear power plants, of which the “Akademik Lomonosov” was first, will also be served by Atomflot for changing spent nuclear fuel.

While the “Akademik Lomonosov” has two KLT-40s reactors, the four next in line will be equipped with the larger RITM-200 reactors.

A new service ship to sail the spent nuclear fuel from the floating NPPs on the north coast of Chukotka to Atomflot in Murmansk. Alternatively, the barge with the plant itself could be towed along the Northern Sea Route to Murmansk for maintenance.

With six new icebreakers, five floating nuclear power plants, plus a few of the existing icebreakers supposed to sail for many years to come, the total amount of spent nuclear fuel to be handled and the number of operations at Atomflot will see a sharp increase in the coming decade.