Catholic Rio Grande Valley migrant shelter wins victory against Texas AG

It's the latest legal defeat for a Republican-led investigation of Catholic migrant shelters.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton makes a statement at his office, May 26, 2023, in Austin, Texas. 

(AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

July 25, 2024
By Aleja Hertzler-McCain

(RNS) — In the latest legal defeat for a Republican-led investigation of Catholic migrant shelters, a Hidalgo County, Texas, judge on Wednesday (July 24) denied a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to depose a Catholic Charities leader in the Rio Grande Valley.

District Judge Bobby Flores denied the petition after lawyers for Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, one of the largest migrant shelters on the U.S.-Mexico border, argued that the nonprofit had already cooperated with the investigation by providing more than 100 pages of documents. The lawyers for Catholic Charities also argued that the attorney general’s request imposed “a significant expenditure of resources” on the Catholic agency and its ability to exercise its faith.

“We hope that we can put this behind us and focus our efforts on protecting and upholding the sanctity and dignity of all human lives while following the law,” Sister Norma Pimentel, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s executive director, said in a statement. Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020 for her three decades of work with migrants. Pope Francis has also praised Pimentel and the work of the nonprofit.

According to filings by both Paxton’s office and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, the attorney general’s office sent a notice to the nonprofit on March 25 demanding that a representative of Catholic Charities sit for a deposition. March 25 was the first weekday of Holy Week, when Catholic schedules are packed with events commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In explaining his request for the deposition, Paxton’s office cited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s December 2022 call for an investigation into the “role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”

Abbott, a Catholic, launched the multibillion-dollar initiative Operation Lone Star in 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden’s election, arguing the federal government was failing to protect the state’s border. The operation deployed thousands of Texas soldiers at the border, where razor wire, pepper balls and patrols with guns and drones have been used to prevent migrants from crossing. Abbott’s office claims the operation is responsible for at least 516,300 migrant apprehensions and more than 45,300 criminal arrests.


Migrant parents talk at the Annunciation House, June 26, 2018, in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Paxton’s office also cited a February 2022 letter by Texas Republican Congressman Lance Gooden to Catholic Charities USA, the national membership organization that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley belongs to, that accuses the national Catholic nonprofit of fueling “illegal immigration by encouraging, transporting, and harboring aliens to come to, enter, or reside in the United States.”

Gooden’s letter is part of a broader far-right campaign targeting Catholic Charities agencies that has resulted in several agencies receiving threats.

“The targeting of this faith-based agency and broader attacks on the Catholic Church should deeply concern Catholics, religious liberty advocates and all people of good will,” Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, told Religion News Service in a statement, referring to Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.
RELATED: Threats to Catholic Charities staffers increase amid far-right anti-migrant campaign

Paxton often participates in legal action through the Republican Attorneys General Association, which has received millions in donations from the Concord Fund, a dark money fund linked to conservative Catholic legal activist Leonard Leo.

Catholics, like Americans more broadly, have split views on immigration. In a December 2023 poll by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, 43% of Catholics said immigration should be decreased, while 23% said it should be increased and 34% said it should be kept at its present level.

Nineteen percent of Catholics said that their Catholic faith “very much” informed their opinions about immigrants and refugees, and 35% answered that it informed their opinions “somewhat.”

Responding to Paxton’s request to the court, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s lawyers said, “The Attorney General’s investigation of CCRGV is based solely on CCRGV’S religiously motivated provision of charitable services to asylum seekers, which do not violate any law.” The nonprofit emphasized that it cooperates closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and that all migrants it serves have been processed by the federal government.

In a back-and-forth after Paxton’s initial request, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley provided sworn testimony in addition to documents to the office, but the attorney general’s office continued to press for a deposition, calling some of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s answers “non-responsive and evasive.”

Saying that Paxton’s office failed to provide any evidence or “even concrete factual allegations” that would show that the benefit of the deposition would outweigh its burden even after the Catholic nonprofit’s “extensive cooperation with his overreaching inquiry,” Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s lawyers said that Paxton’s request represented “a fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”

The attorney general’s filing says that its office is investigating the possibility that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley is assisting migrants who have not been processed by U.S. Border Patrol, a legal violation that the office said would have “a cause of action to strip CCRGV’s right to operate in the State of Texas.”

In February, about a month before Paxton’s office requested the deposition from Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, the office sued to attempt to revoke the nonprofit registration of another Catholic migrant shelter organization, Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas.

Annunciation House had sued the state and sought a restraining order after Paxton’s office’s demanded that it quickly turn over documents about its operations, which would have included identifying information about the migrants it serves. Paxton’s office framed the attempt to shut down the network of migrant shelters as a “consequence” of that legal action.

RELATED: Judge rules against Texas Attorney General Paxton in campaign against migrant shelters

El Paso District Court Judge Francisco Dominguez ruled that Paxton had violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Dominguez said the Paxton office’s request for documents was “a pretext to justify its harassment of Annunciation House employees and the persons seeking refuge.”

Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization that supports migrants across the El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, border, called Paxton’s legal strategy a “troubling attack on religious liberty” and part of a broader “escalation in the campaign of state leadership — not only to criminalize those who migrate but now to go after those who living out our faith seek to offer a compassionate response to those who migrate.”

Now that judges have ruled Paxton “out of bounds” in both El Paso and Hidalgo County, Corbett urged the state to “desist in its attack on what is actually working at the border and pivot to real, humane solutions that work for our state, our border communities and those who migrate.”

In Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley’s statement after Flores’ decision, the organization wrote: “A deposition would have been a waste of time, distracting CCRGV from its work serving all residents of the Rio Grande Valley.”

The nonprofit had previously written in its legal filing that Paxton’s inquiry was harming the individuals that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley serves by taking away resources to serve them. The Catholic organization houses about 1,000 migrants a week, sometimes soaring to 2,000 women and children at once, who usually stay only a few days before moving on. In addition to migrants, the charity aids homeless people, veterans, people impacted by natural disasters, children who do not have access to school lunch during the summer and more.

“CCRGV will always strive to fulfill its legal obligations while continuing to steadfastly pursue its mission, inspired by Sacred Scripture and the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church: ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,’” the organization wrote in a statement, citing Matthew 25:35.

This story has been updated.

Mennonites march 135 miles to White House for Gaza cease-fire

Outside the White House on Sunday (July 28), the core group of about 15 who had walked with Aidan Yoder every day from Harrisonburg, Virginia, had grown 10 times larger, all gathered in prayer for a cease-fire.

Participants in the “All God’s Children March for a Ceasefire" event cross the Potomac River, Sunday, July 28, 2024, entering Washington, D.C., from Virginia. 

(RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

July 29, 2024
By Aleja Hertzler-McCain

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Many of the Mennonites who marched over 135 miles from Harrisonburg, Virginia, to the White House had someone in mind as they walked, nursing blisters and removing ticks as they crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley in 11 days.

For Aidan Yoder, an organizer and college student at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, it was the people he met while visiting the West Bank in Palestine during the summer of 2023 on an intercultural college program. One of them was a dancer from Gaza who could not visit her family due to Israeli restrictions on movement, and another was an Arabic teacher who told him she is afraid that her community will face the same devastating bombings that have decimated Gaza.

Outside the White House on Sunday (July 28), the core group of about 15 who had walked with Yoder every day from the main Mennonite hub in the Southeast U.S. had grown 10 times larger, all gathered in prayer for a cease-fire. The Mennonite tradition developed as a peace church believing that the Gospel teaches nonviolence. Organizers said the group included Mennonites from at least 40 different churches in the U.S. and Canada, as well as interfaith supporters from Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, evangelical Christian and Southern Baptist traditions.

“We need to do something that doesn’t make sense because what’s happening in Gaza doesn’t make sense,” said organizer Nick Martin, explaining the rationale behind “All God’s Children March for a Ceasefire.” Martin continued, “It violates all common sense. It violates basic tenets of human compassion.”

Martin said the group had marched through parking lots, along highways and through suburban neighborhoods. “We felt like we needed to go into places where we would see everyday people and disrupt these spaces where politics supposedly doesn’t exist, but everywhere is political,” he said.

The group had timed their arrival to coincide with the first day of the Christians United for Israel summit, where thousands of pro-Israel activists are expected to gather in National Harbor, Maryland. An interfaith coalition including Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims has planned counter-protests for the duration of the event, which Mennonites plan to join.

In February, an interfaith group led by Faith for Black Lives organized a similar march called “Pilgrimage for Peace” from Independence Hall in Philadelphia to the White House over eight days, starting February 14, a day that commemorates abolitionist Frederick Douglass.


“All God’s Children March for a Ceasefire” participants pose together in front of the White House, Sunday, July 28, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

This July march followed months of other actions and organizing by Mennonite Action, a group formed in November to protest for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

RELATED: As Netanyahu addresses Congress, protests rock Capitol

In January, about 130 Mennonites were arrested after holding a cease-fire hymn sing in the Cannon House Office Building. Song leaders kept the group in time and four-part harmony, even after their arms were zip-tied behind their backs, by stomping their feet. In December and March, local groups across the U.S. and Canada visited their representatives’ offices with quilts and more hymns.

On Eastern Mennonite University’s campus in March, students rang the campus bell for each of the people who had been killed in Palestine and Israel since the beginning of the war. At the time, it took three days of ringing the bell from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day.

Now, more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of Israel’s military campaign, in addition to the 1,200 people killed in Israel during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, according to their respective governments. The students would have to add another day of ringing if they repeated the protest.

In prayer, Sunday’s protesters uplifted current dire conditions in Gaza, where polio is beginning to spread. We repent of “dehumanizing the dead in Gaza, by counting them as numbers, but not as people who have dreams and aspirations,” said one protester. “How long, oh Lord, will this nightmare continue?”

They prayed for Gazans, including Muhammed Bhar, a Palestinian man with Down syndrome and autism, who was found dead by his family one week after an Israeli army dog attacked him. The Israeli military confirmed that soldiers had left Bhar alone after they ordered his family to leave.

For many Mennonites, the Palestinians they thought about as they walked were people they had known from peace and development work.

Mary Yoder, from Columbus, Ohio, thought of a Palestinian shepherd she had been assigned to protect during a mission with Christian Peacemaker Teams, a faith-based nonviolence organization, in the West Bank in the early 2000s. She witnessed an Israeli settler break the shepherd’s ribs in front of her and said that since then, he’s had his ribs broken “all the time,” his arms broken and bruises all over his body.

“So many of the people that I know are being attacked, and so it just leaves me feeling kind of helpless,” Yoder said. But walking with Mennonite Action since Friday has been “invigorating” and “inspiring,” the 63-year-old said. (Aidan and Mary said they were not related. Yoder is a common Mennonite last name.)

Anna Johnson carries a sign while marching through Washington, D.C., Sunday, July 28, 2024. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

Anna Johnson, who walked on Sunday with her mother, a Lutheran pastor, told RNS she became Mennonite after learning about Mennonite Central Committee’s work while she was serving with Lutherans in Palestine. Out of her seven years living in Palestine, she served with the Mennonite development and peace organization for three, coordinating learning tours in Bethlehem.

“I communicate regularly with friends in Gaza, and they’re so tired and scared for their children,” said Johnson, now a member of Kern Road Mennonite Church, in South Bend, Indiana.

Johnson said that being in community gave her strength to continue, even as she doesn’t have a lot of hope. “Fundamentally, I continue through fatigue because my friends in Palestine don’t have the choice to stop until they are free. Neither do I,” she said.

Mennonite Central Committee has worked in the West Bank since 1949, just a year after the Nakba, the Palestinian word for the Zionist violence and intimidation that drove about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. The Nakba began a day after Israel declared independence, after British forces withdrew from the region and neighboring Arab states attacked Israel.

In recent years, Mennonite Central Committee has faced a reckoning for its entanglement with Nazi Germany. The organization was in debt to the German government as Nazis came to power. After World War II, the organization resettled some Nazis, including some complicit in the Holocaust, among 12,000 Mennonite refugees. In 2021, Mennonite Central Committee released internal research about this history and committed to develop antisemitism training for its employees.

“Because of complicity with the genocide of the Holocaust is even more reason for me to be in the streets today saying definitively that we will not be complicit in this genocide,” said Johnson.

Johnson expressed excitement about the opportunity to work together with Jews and Muslims through the interfaith actions of the coming week and spoke about the importance of combating antisemitism “in our theology, in our churches, in our organizing spaces.”

Anti-war protesters march through Washington, D.C., Sunday, July 28, 2024. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

Mackenzie Miller, a student at Goshen College, told RNS she sees participating in Mennonite Action protests as another important departure from history, a history of “passive pacifism.”

Historically, Mennonites resisted war by being conscientious objectors and participating in alternative service. But until the 1970s, many Mennonites didn’t vote and avoided involvement in public life, seeking separation as part of the theological imperative to be “in the world but not of it.”

While some Mennonites participated in anti-war protests against the Vietnam War and subsequent wars, Mennonite Action is ramping up an invigorated kind of coordinated activist pacifism that is drawing a broad base of support among the members of Mennonite Church USA, the largest Mennonite denomination in the U.S., which leans to the left on issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion and political involvement compared to more conservative Mennonite groups.

RELATED: Dozens of Christians arrested after shutting down Senate lunch in protest of Gaza famine

They draw on deep political knowledge with organizer Adam Ramer, who resigned as California Rep. Ro Khanna’s political director after the congressman initially failed to back a cease-fire.

Aidan Yoder, an organizer of “All God’s Children March for a Ceasefire,” at the White House, Sunday, July 28, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

“I believe that we need an active pacifism, actively seeking peace, seeking that justice as we care for our neighbors all over the world,” Miller said.

The next generation of Mennonites are embracing that call.

Samuel Miller Gonzalez, a 13-year-old member of Shalom Mennonite Congregation in Harrisonburg, Virginia, told RNS he’d joined the march for four days and camped at farms “to show people in Gaza that we actually care.” His faith taught him that “every single one of us is important. Everybody is the same, so how can you kill somebody that’s just like you?” he said.

Erica Weaver told RNS that her congregation, North Baltimore Mennonite Church, had been praying for a cease-fire. The 14-year-old joined Sunday’s protest because “people’s lives are being taken that don’t deserve it,” she said. “Even kids are getting killed for no reason … kids my age, and they haven’t lived that long.

For Aidan Yoder, these young families of parents and children fighting for the children of Gaza bring him hope, he told RNS.

Dennis Lehmann told the Mennonites outside the White House he had marched for the children of Gaza. “I walked for the children of Gaza who can no longer walk,” he said, speaking of the children who died by bombs or lack of medicine.

“I also walk for the children of Gaza who still live,” Lehmann continued. “May my walking soften the hearts of our president and our congresspeople. May their hearts become so full of compassion that they demand Israel stop the killing,” he prayed.

Doug Luginbill, the conference minister for Mennonite Church USA’s central district, emphasized to those assembled that their walking “with sore feet and knees and hips and thirsting mouths and hungry bellies” was a choice.

“There are so many who did not choose to leave their homes,” the minister continued. “Some are forced by bombs that we paid for. God forgive us.”

After writing prayers on papers to leave outside the White House, the Mennonites again began singing: “There is more love somewhere/ I’m gonna keep on till I find it.”

AMERIKA

Why small business owners want their employees to have affordable healthcare

By Pat Kreitlow
July 29, 2024

Main Street Alliance members know the Affordable Care Act keeps premium prices low so that they don’t lose good workers to corporate competitors.

On a recent visit to Wisconsin, the new national leader for a group representing small businesses explained why their organization lobbies to strengthen the “care economy” and opposes efforts by former President Donald Trump and Republicans to erase progress on health insurance affordability.

Richard Trent, executive director for Main Street Alliance, oversees a group dedicated to giving a larger voice to entrepreneurs with fewer than 50 employees—a group often drowned out by big business lobbyists who oppose pro-employee policies such as paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, access to quality childcare, and affordable healthcare. Each of those factors can play a role in the loss of good workers who either have to take jobs with large companies that can afford better benefits—or leave the workforce and stay home.

“I feel like we’re really just starting to connect the dots between what a strong ‘care economy’ means for the sustainability of small businesses,” Trent said. “The fact of the matter is that there’s a big showdown looming, especially around affordable health care for small business owners and American citizens.”

In an interview with UpNorthNews, Trent specifically touted the importance of extending subsidies that help keep Affordable Care Act insurance premiums low for working families.


“They were re-upped during the pandemic and have been keeping premiums low for American citizens for a while now,” Trent said. “They’re slated to expire next year, and it’s going to be a part of this larger tax. debate between Democrats and Republicans.”

While it’s apparent that premium supports have allowed lower-income working families to afford health insurance, they’ve also helped middle class families who might decide to go without healthcare coverage if it’s not offered on the job.

“Just to put things in perspective, if those premium tax credits expire, a 60-year-old couple making around $80,000 a year can expect to pay $17,500 more in health care costs annually,” Trent said. “That’s not me misspeaking. It’s literally $17,500 on the line for working class families, which is unacceptable. And a lot of our members know that when you have to incur those sorts of expenses, it can totally throw your business operations out of whack.”

Trent said he was encouraged to meet conservatives at the Republican National Convention who sounded supportive of other policies that could help protect small businesses and the incomes of their workers—such as stronger antitrust laws.

“I think that’s because so many folks—Democrats and Republicans—have witnessed what actually happens on Main Street,” Trent said. “You’ve got these massive corporations that come into our communities, drive down the prices so that small businesses nearby can’t compete—and then once those businesses are out of the game, then they jack the prices back up.”


Main Street Alliance also has a focus on policies at the state level, like raising the minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, and paid leave, and will be working to get voters engaged, registered, and educated on issues that affect their ability to afford local goods and strengthen local jobs.

Author

Pat Kreitlow
The Founding Editor of UpNorthNews, Pat was a familiar presence on radio and TV stations in western Wisconsin before serving in the state Legislature. After a brief stint living in the Caribbean, Pat and wife returned to Chippewa Falls to be closer to their growing group of grandchildren. He now serves as UNN's chief political correspondent and host of UpNorthNews Radio, airing weekday mornings 6 a.m.-8 a.m on the Civic Media radio network and the UpNorthNews Facebook page.

ANTI FREE TRADE  ANTI GLOBALISM

Majority of Americans take a dim view of increased trade with other countries

 

• SHORT READS

|

JULY 29, 2024

BYSHANAY GRACIA

When considering the costs and benefits of increased trade with other countries, a 59% majority of Americans say the United States has lost more than it has gained, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April.

Overall, the public’s attitudes about trade have changed little since 2021. However, Republicans’ views have become more negative.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now say the U.S. has lost more than it has gained from increased trade. That is 8 percentage points higher than in 2021.

Democrats and Democratic leaners remain divided on this question. Half of Democrats say the U.S. has gained more than it has lost, while 47% say the opposite. Democrats were similarly divided on this question in 2021.

How we did this

Demographic, educational differences in views of increased trade

Americans with at least a four-year bachelor’s degree are more likely than those with less formal education to say increased trade with other countries has more benefits than costs for the U.S.

Nearly half of college graduates (47%) say the U.S. has gained more than it has lost from increased trade, compared with about a third of those with less education (31%). These differences are evident in both parties.

There also are differences in both parties by race and ethnicity as well as family income. And Republicans differ by age on this issue.

Among Democrats

• 60% of Asian and 53% of White Democrats say the U.S. has gained more than it’s lost from more trade. Hispanic and Black Democrats are less positive about the impact of greater trade (45% and 42%, respectively, say the U.S. has gained more than it has lost).
  
  
• Upper-income Democrats (62%) are more positive about the impact of increased trade than are middle- (52%) or lower-income Democrats (42%).

Among Republicans

• White Republicans are particularly critical of the growth in international trade: Just 22% say the U.S. has gained more than it’s lost. About a third of Black and Hispanic Republicans also say this (35% and 33%, respectively), as do 49% of Asian Republicans.
  
  
• There are relatively modest differences among Republicans by income, but upper-income Republicans are somewhat more likely than middle- and lower-income Republicans to view increased trade positively.
  
  
• Younger Republicans are more likely than older Republicans to say the U.S. has gained more than it has lost from increased trade.

Trade is a low-priority issue for most Americans

While trade with other nations is an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, it is not a top concern for most Americans. In our 2024 policy priorities survey, dealing with global trade ranked near the bottom of 20 policy goals asked about.

In our April survey, we asked respondents to weigh the benefits of more trade (“it has helped lower prices and increased the competitiveness of some U.S. businesses”) against the drawbacks (“it has cost jobs in manufacturing and other industries and lowered wages for some U.S. workers”).

Another recent survey by the Center found considerable public skepticism about the benefits from U.S. trade with China, but not with Canada. Nearly half of Americans (47%) said China benefits more from the U.S.-China trade relationship than America does. Only 14% said the same of U.S. trade relations with Canada.

Related: Americans Are Critical of China’s Global Role – as Well as Its Relationship With Russia

When asked about free trade agreements generally – without context – Americans are more supportive: In July, 65% of Americans say that, in general, free trade agreements between the U.S. and other countries have been a good thing. But there are wide partisan differences in these opinions. Roughly eight-in-ten Democrats (79%) say free trade agreements have been good for the U.S., compared with only about half of Republicans (53%).

Note: Here are the questions from the April survey and the survey methodology. And here are the questions from the July survey and the July survey methodology.

Topics

• Global Economy & Trade
• Global Trade

SHARE THIS LINK:
Share

Shanay Gracia is a research assistant at Pew Research Center.

Q&A
How regular voters played an impactful role in urging Biden to step aside

Launched in reaction to the presidential debate, Pass the Torch brought rapid-response organizing and positive messaging to the fight against fascism in the 2024 election.

Alessandra Bergamin 

July 29, 2024

On the evening of June 27, after the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Aaron Regunberg began texting friends and colleagues asking, “What are we going to do?” While Biden had already been polling behind Trump, the debate revealed an unsteady incumbent unlikely to rally Democratic voters ahead of the November election. In the following days, as President Biden reiterated his commitment to running, Regunberg and others hopped on the phone and began thinking through their options: Was there a role for grassroots organizing? And can we cobble together the capacity to do it? The following Friday, just over a week after the debate, Pass the Torch went public.

Helmed by a steering committee that includes Regunberg, Tiara Mack and Wendy Lawton, Pass the Torch is an all volunteer organization that mobilized Democratic voters to urge Biden to step aside. For less than 28 days in the aftermath of the debate, around 50 volunteers participated in near-nightly calls to help mobilize tens of thousands of voters across the U.S. to take action. The day before Biden announced he would be stepping down, Pass the Torch organized a demonstration outside the White House, driving home the demand from regular voters to see a change in leadership.

Less than a week after Biden stepped down, I spoke with Regunberg — a progressive community and electoral organizer for some 15 years. Both during and following his time as a Rhode Island state legislator, Regunberg was involved in crisis response organizing, particularly after the 2016 election and then in the aftermath of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death and the impending confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. Regunberg has been a longtime climate organizer and, as a law student, organized efforts to shut down recruitment events by big law firms that represent Exxon Mobil. He is currently running for Congress in Rhode Island’s first congressional district. We discussed rapid response organizing, the impact of positive messaging and the role Pass the Torch played in Biden’s decision.

Given your background, especially with rapid response campaigns — such as after the 2016 election — were there any lessons you took from those experiences and applied to Pass the Torch?

I think one lesson or similarity from the [post-2016 election] experience was just that there are these moments when you can tell there’s a shared experience across billions of people. There’s a shared response. There’s a sort of pent up energy and a need to do something about it. It’s important that, as a movement, we are ready to step up when that happens and fill the vacuum to help channel that pent up energy and those voices into useful, meaningful action.

In this saga, the last few weeks ended up being particularly important because — and this is honestly one of my biggest frustrations from the whole experience — for whatever set of reasons, none of the progressive movement’s organizational infrastructure stepped up. I was surprised that none of the many big progressive, electorally-focused organizations that have a severe stake in stopping fascism in November were willing to step up and get to work on this.

At the same time, one of the biggest talking points was that this push [for Biden to step back] was just coming from elites and donors, which we know is the exact opposite, right? It was regular voters for months or years who have been very clear that they wanted something new. The debate was the shock that finally got some of the party elites to realize what regular voters had been saying all along. So it’s important that we have structures to make the voices of regular Democrats heard.

Was it part of Pass the Torch’s organizing strategy to counter that line of messaging — that elites and donors were behind the push for Biden to step down?

That was a big part of the whole logic of us organizing. In a lot of ways, so much of what was going to impact the resolution of this were the decisions and actions of folks at the very top of the party, behind closed doors. But because of that specious line of attack, we thought it was really important for there to be a component of this that was making sure the voices of regular Democrats were heard in the process. That’s really what we were trying to do.

What were some of the ways Pass the Torch organized to help make sure voices of regular Democrats were heard?

We thought it was really important that we make sure our Democratic leaders in Congress were hearing from voters — the party base. So we set up a call tool, we set up an email tool, and we generated around 10,000 phone calls to members of Congress and another 20,000 online actions. That was a big piece of it, but we also did some in-person actions, like at the Ohio state party convention. We had some folks similarly in Michigan and Wisconsin.

 

WNV’s guide to protecting and expanding democracy

On July 20, we did a big demonstration outside the White House that came together in just a couple of days. It was one of the most positive actions I’ve ever experienced. It was so nice to see the unity of the message — of everyone saying, “We’re here because we love Joe Biden. We are grateful for him, and it’s time for him to pass the torch.” We had a great group of diverse speakers that I think really spoke to the reality of how much this was not being driven by donors or elites. This [message] was from regular people who have so much on the line in this election.

We were doing outreach to delegates. Although it ended up not being necessary, we were working to identify and support delegates who felt similarly to us that Biden needed to pass the torch. Some of our members in Pennsylvania filmed an ad calling for Biden to pass the torch, and it was actually all volunteers who had worked hard in 2020 to elect Biden. We were going to try to get it directly in front of the president. We had an online support team, because any time a Democratic leader came out and publicly joined the call for the president to pass the torch, they were swarmed by some of these big grifter influencer accounts. We put together a Twitter support team of folks to offer online support when Dem leaders stepped up and did the right thing. So, kind of on the fly, we put together a bunch of different teams working on different angles to the issue.

Given the short time frame, how important was it to organize from multiple and different angles?

We were definitely in all-hands-on-deck, break-the-glass emergency mode — so let’s throw everything we can against the wall. There were dozens and dozens of volunteers who were putting in major time every day on this in our various Signal and Slack threads and at in-person and online actions.

It helped that we were in this sort of time-bound moment. We all knew we had a few weeks before the door slammed shut on this. We all knew that if and when Biden was officially nominated we were going to shut up and go back to being good Democratic soldiers, and do what we could to support the ticket and drag it over the finish line. It was this short-term moment when the course of American civilization could be decided. So [we thought] it’s time to just throw down and put everything we have in because we’re not going to have another chance.

Given that President Biden largely insisted he would continue to run, were there ever inflection moments when the campaign pivoted or changed organizing tactics to respond to what was being said?

We took on additional tactics and ideas as we went. When it became apparent the DNC was moving forward on this abbreviated timeline for an early virtual nomination, we switched focus onto that for several days until they delayed it. I think, in large part, it was delayed because of a Congressional sign-on letter we worked to draft and circulate. It was this weird time where you’d have one day where it seemed totally, utterly hopeless and the conversation was locked down. Then, the next day, you’d have more public calls, and it’d be like, “Oh, okay, we’ve got a real shot here.” Then, the next day, it would again seem like, “Oh, no, we’re done.” So, there were these big swings between hope and despair. But we all settled on a strategy of: “We can’t know exactly what’s happening, so let’s keep going and do whatever we can regardless of the rumors until it’s either resolved or it’s too late and it’s time to unite.”

You can see that sense of hope in the positive messaging around the Pass the Torch campaign. Did that also play a role in your organizing strategy?

A part of why we were doing this organizing was that we had enough faith in President Biden that he would eventually do the right thing. From the beginning, one of the main lines to try to shut down the conversation and dissuade folks from speaking out was that “Joe’s never going to do this, so all you’re doing is hurting our eventual nominee.” I think we were all coming from a place — in some ways, paradoxically — of having faith in President Biden that he would do what he has so often done throughout his career of public service and put the country first. That was a big part of our framing. In my opinion, and for many of us involved in this, Joe Biden has been the best president in our lifetimes on some of the issues we care about. But he just isn’t the best standard bearer for us in the 2024 election. We did want to have a message and framing for our organizing that acknowledged all of that.

Do you think this kind of positive framing helped re-energize volunteers to get involved with grassroots organizing ahead of an election that has already been somewhat demoralizing?

In any organization, anger and fear can be important motivators for taking constructive action — but they only take you so far, and they leave a gap. You need to have a hopeful vision undergirding your work to keep people involved and engaged, particularly over the last few weeks when it felt like there was a lot of fatalism. I mean, you had quotes from senior House Democrats saying, “We’ve all just resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.” So, part of winning this push had to be saying, “That’s absurd, we can win this. Americans do not like Donald Trump and his radical extreme Project 2025 agenda. Americans are also feeling pretty good about Democrats, right? Democrats have been winning special elections. Our swing state senators are polling great. We’re actually in a strong position to win. We just have a particular problem at the top of the ticket and the good news about that is it’s actually a very solvable issue. So let’s get to work trying to solve it.”

What are some of the strategizing lessons or insights learned from this kind of rapid response organizing?

One important thing for us was being really conscious about our messaging and trying to stick to it. There were always people who would throw out suggestions or there were opportunities to potentially do stuff that would fall outside the frame that we decided was the most useful and impactful. So having discipline on that was important. This was all on the fly, so we left capacity on the table because we didn’t have the best onboarding and plug-in system. We were building the plane as we were flying it, and we knew it was temporary. Planning more carefully from the beginning would have been valuable, but we didn’t really have the luxury of time.

The one lesson from this that I would want folks looking at it to take away is: We didn’t buy into the push to shut this down and say, “It’s never going to happen.” And so we took action. The same goes with everyone else who spoke out on this. It’s a good lesson for every progressive organizer because that is a common tool used to shut down all sorts of important efforts — to say, “Well, that’s never going to happen, so shut up.” I think this was a really good example of that reality. Often things seem impossible right up until the moment that they become inevitable, and I think we saw that in this saga. That’s how a lot of the fights we care about are going to go. They’re going to seem impossible until they suddenly start seeming inevitable. Our job is to ignore the haters on that first leg of the work who are saying it’s impossible.

Support Us
Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today! Donate

Now that President Biden has stepped down, what role do you think Pass the Torch played in making it a reality?

It’s really hard to know. So much of the credit for this goes to people like Nancy Pelosi. Thank God she’s someone who understands the need to win and knows how to pull the levers of power within the party. We don’t want to be taking too much credit. There are people in our group with a lot of experience who said, from a causation perspective, that our organizing had 1 or 2 percentage points of impact. Again, just because no one else was doing this. Showing that this was coming from the majority of Democrats was so important. So I think it’s not too hubristic to say that we were a very small, but still solidly appreciable factor.

During the debrief call with our core crew who took on leadership roles in the group, I said something along the lines of: “This is something to remember and take with you for the rest of your lives. To have played a legitimate role in one of the most consequential few weeks leading to this decision, that could be the most impactful thing any of us do as organizers. That’s not to denigrate everything else we’re able to accomplish in our lives, but this was really an important moment and effort that you all were a part of.”

Going forward, will Pass the Torch continue to organize ahead of the election?

We’re still figuring that out. I think we initially thought maybe there could be some use in helping with uniting Democrats around Harris. It turned out that that just happened immediately and organically, which had been one of our talking points. They were saying it would be chaos and disunity, and we were saying, “What are you talking about?” I think there are some members of the group who are interested in thinking through if there are ways to continue contributing with swing state organizing, but for a lot of us, our thoughts are that this was a temporary thing for one particular moment and we’re going to carry these new friendships with us for the rest of our lives. As a group, Pass the Torch has played its role.



Alessandra Bergamin

Alessandra Bergamin is a freelance investigative journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work focuses on the intersection of environmental conflict and human rights around the world. She has written for The Baffler, In These Times, Harper’s Magazine, National Geographic, TheNewYorker.com, The Lily, and DAME Magazine among others. She is currently reporting on the overlap of military violence and environmental activism for The Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting.

No Carrots, Just Sticks: US Bullying Allies on China Chips

By Matthew Eitel
July 29, 2024

The US may tighten export controls on European and Asian companies to prevent China from leveraging old chip technology. It is a bad idea.

It is a stark ultimatum to two close US allies: stop selling and servicing your chipmaking technology in China or we will cripple your industry.

Unless Japan and the Netherlands restrict China’s access to previous-generation machines, the US reportedly could enforce existing — but so far unused — export controls that bar the sale of goods containing even minuscule amounts of American technology. The threat represents the latest effort to harden US restrictions aimed at kneecapping Beijing’s ability to modernize its military by producing or purchasing chip tech.

But Washington may be overplaying its hand. A new export control crackdown could give a body blow to the already strained global chip industry. It would undercut US diplomatic efforts to mobilize allies to confront China — a steep price for policies that are already showing signs of backfiring.

The mere suggestion that Washington was prepared to enforce the foreign direct product rule sent semiconductor stocks reeling. Shares in US chip firm AMD dropped more than 10%. US chip equipment maker Applied Materials stock plunged by 7.8%. Shares in high-flying NVIDIA dropped 6.6%.

US attention is focused on two companies: ASML and Japan’s Tokyo Electron. Both build cutting-edge machines that manufacture advanced semiconductors. In 2023, both the Netherlands and Japan acquiesced to US pressure and updated their export controls to align with US rules.

But gaps allowed China to stockpile massive amounts of equipment before the controls went into effect. ASML and Tokyo Electron continue to sell and service low-end tools in China. Washington views this as exploiting its export controls and believes that Amsterdam and Tokyo are moving too slowly. After Bloomberg reported that the US was considering toughening up its export controls against the two companies, shares in Tokyo Electron dropped 7.5% and ASML plunged 11% — shaving off $46.7 billion of ASML’s market value, the Dutch firm’s worst trading day since March 2020.

China is beating controls by acquiring last-generation tech from Tokyo Electron and ASML through intermediaries and using it to make high-end chips, according to US officials. Tightened export controls aim to keep China from making logic chips below the “advanced” threshold of 14 nanometers. SMIC, China’s chip manufacturing champion, used the old tools to make seven-nanometer chips and claims it can go further to five nanometers. Although that still would be a generation behind the cutting-edge of three nanometers, it would build the US case that the controls are too weak.

Admittedly, the current export controls have slowed China’s chip progress. Huawei and SMIC face severe production limitations. Roughly 80% of the AI chips have defects. Replacement parts for old, faulty equipment are hard to find — as are engineers willing to risk US sanctions to service the tech. Chinese AI firms are also bogged down by switching their AI models to Huawei’s tech, as most were built using NVIDIA’s.

For advocates of the US restrictions: this means mission accomplished. The export controls are making it harder for Beijing to catch up with the Western firms racing ahead in AI innovation.

But Chinese chip firms are not the only ones hurting. So are Western semiconductor leaders. Since 2022, the US controls have wiped out $130 billion in market capitalization for US chip companies. The restrictions deter foreign firms from making deals with US companies, encourage them to not use US tech, and deprive them of capital crucial to R&D. They are bifurcating the global tech industry, forcing firms to split their US and Chinese supply chains.

American chip firms feel they are being punished while others — particularly ASML and Tokyo Electron — fill the gaps. ASML earned nearly 50% of its second-quarter revenue of $5.2 billion in China this year, up from historical levels of 15 to 20%. China drove over 40% of Tokyo Electron’s FY2024 sales of almost $12 billion.

Both the Dutch and Japanese are furious about potential reinforced controls. In an unprecedented move, unnamed Japanese officials are publicly bucking the US, saying they will not comply. In order to protect ASML, the Netherlands could push the EU to impose countermeasures like tariffs or intellectual property restrictions on the US through an untested law passed in response to Trump-era tariffs on steel.

Amsterdam and Tokyo worry that the US tone has toughened. Before, the two countries believed that the US only targeted specific cutting-edge technology. Now they fear Washington is hellbent on forcing ASML and Tokyo Electron completely out of China.

If the US acts unilaterally, it risks reinforcing the narrative that the US is a “bully” over-reliant on extraterritorial measures and intent on decoupling rather than derisking from China.

The US cannot counter China alone. Cooperation with the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and others is critical. When the US imposes export controls without convincing its partners, it gives China time to exploit loopholes: stockpiling older machines, accessing restricted tech through middlemen, improving smuggling routes, and developing domestic production. Piecemeal export controls force the US to play whack-a-mole and infuriate allies with constant rule changes.

China also could counterattack. Beijing dominates global supply chains for raw materials, electric vehicles, solar panels, and less-advanced chips. It also has deeper coffers to offset costs. Beijing so far has refrained from weaponizing this leverage — but that may not last.

Europe and Asia have attempted to walk a fine line between access to the Chinese market and US innovation. The US is trying to push them off the fence with tightened export controls. The hardline risks hurting everyone.

Matthew Eitel is Special Assistant to the President & CEO at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

KA CHING!

Vatican investment office reports $49.6 million profit for 2023


Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service

July 29, 2024

Visitors gather in St. Peter's Square to pray the Angelus with Pope Francis at the Vatican July 21, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)


VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican investment office made 45.9 million euros (about $49.6 million) in profit in 2023, contributing 37.9 million euros (about $41 million) to the Vatican’s operating budget and 7.9 million euros (about $8.5 million) to increasing its assets, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See said in its annual report.

There was an increase of 13.6 million euros (about $14.7 million) in profit compared to 2022, mostly due to markedly improved results in investments, which also offset reduced profits from real estate holdings, it said in the report, published July 29

The administration, which controls most of the Vatican’s portfolio, including real estate, is known by its Italian acronym, APSA.

“These results have been achieved out of the conviction that we need to work steadily to increase the income stream and to cover expenses without eroding the Holy See’s assets and without calling for the sale of institutional properties,” Archbishop Giordano Piccinotti, president of APSA, said in a comment to Vatican News.

After losing more than 6 million euros ($6.5 million) with its investments in 2022, APSA registered “an economic surplus” of 27.6 million euros ($29.9 million) through its investments in stocks, bonds, gold and currencies in 2023, the report said.

While it made more than 52 million euros (more than $56 million) in profit from its real estate holdings in 2022, there was a sharp dip with a surplus of 35 million euros (more than $37 million) in 2023, it said.

APSA, the report said, administers, directly or through third parties, a total of more than 5,000 properties, which include churches, Vatican office buildings, residences for Vatican officials and apartments rented to Vatican employees, commercial office space and farmland. While the majority of the properties are in Italy and the province of Rome, some properties are located in London, Paris, Geneva and Lausanne.

Almost half of the 4,249 properties located in Italy are rented on the open market, it said, while 1,203 of those properties are rented at reduced rates. The remaining 1,028 properties do not bring in rental income and are typically used by Vatican offices or religious orders; these properties are also the largest, making up 70% of the total square-footage of its holdings in Italy.

APSA has implemented a new system for determining a more accurate and up-to-date “fair value” on properties, it said, and it is renovating and putting on the market vacated properties much more quickly.

APSA estimated the total value of the patrimony it controls at more than 2.7 billion euros (about $2.9 billion). That figure, however, includes only a symbolic 1 euro ($1.08) each for properties with a high environmental, historical, religious, cultural or archaeological significance.

The APSA report also said the Vatican paid Italy close to 6 million euros (about $6.5 million) in property taxes on real estate not used strictly for religious purposes and a little over 3 million euros (about $3.2 million) in corporate taxes for commercial activities outside the Vatican walls.

Among the number of new projects APSA is working on, the report said, includes the long-term development of an agrivoltaic system on a Vatican property outside Rome to supply the whole of Vatican City’s energy needs.

'White supremacist manifesto': Report unmasks 'history of racist writing' by Project 2025

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
July 29, 2024

Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Republican vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) appear on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's far-right 900-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency.

Yet many of its proposals have come from Trump allies. And Heritage had a strong presence at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Moreover, Trump's running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote the forward for a forthcoming book by Heritage President Kevin Roberts — who, critics say, threatened violence against Project 2025's opponents when he told Real America's Voice, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

READ MORE: 'Now we crush Trump': Michael Moore unveils 2024 battle plan

In an article published on July 29, USA Today's Will Carless reports that according to some critics, Project 2025 has ties to white nationalists and white supremacists.

Donald Trump touts his wound and goes after Kamala Harris in speech

Carless notes that author Michael Harriot has attacked Project 2025 as a "white supremacist manifesto."

"A closer look at the named contributors to Project 2025 adds to the concern," Carless explains. "A USA Today analysis found at least five of them have a history of racist writing or statements, or white supremacist activity. They include Richard Hanania, who for years, wrote racist essays for white supremacist publications under a pseudonym until he was unmasked by a Huffington Post investigation last year."

Carless adds, "Failed Virginia GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart, another named contributor, has long associated with white supremacists and calls himself a protector of America's Confederate history tasked with 'taking back our heritage.' One Project 2025 contributor wrote, in his PhD dissertation, that immigrants have lower IQs than white native citizens, leading to 'underclass behavior.' Another dropped out of contention for a prestigious role at the Federal Reserve amid controversy over a racist joke about the Obamas."

READ MORE: Trump's dark mental state is growing even 'worse' as election draws closer: historian

Civil rights attorney Arjun Sethi argues that Project 2025's proposals would, if implemented, be highly detrimental to non-white Americans.

Sethi told USA Today, "Project 2025 is a plan about how to regulate and control people of color, including how they organize, work, play and live. It seeks to regulate what they do with their bodies, how they advocate for their rights, and how they build family and community — all while disregarding the historical injustices and contemporary persecution they have experienced."

Harriot argues that Project 2025 is full of ideas that have been promoted by white supremacists and white nationalists.

Harriot told USA Today, "One of the things that you see when you read Project 2025 is not just the racist dog whistles, but some ideas that were exactly lifted from some of the most extreme white supremacists ever."

Although Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, Hariot describes it as an "employee manual" for a second Trump Administration.

Harriot told USA Today, "There's some cognitive dissonance. Trump doesn't get elected by people who are just outwardly racist, and being associated with Project 2025 would dismantle his plausible deniability, because it's so blatantly racist."

READ MORE: Residents symbolically cleanse Michigan town after white supremacist march