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Between a high-stakes gubernatorial recall election and Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls swelling large enough to attract White House attention, it’d be easy to miss that this has been a major week for civil-rights enforcement at the Justice Department. Here’s what’s happening:
- On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland rolled out new rules for federal monitors tasked with overseeing local police reforms. Since taking over the Justice Department, Garland has launched pattern-or-practice investigations of police departments in Minneapolis, Louisville, and Phoenix. Those kinds of probes can result in consent decrees—federally mandated overhauls overseen by the courts and teams of monitors—but actual implementation of the reforms can often drag on for years, costing taxpayers millions and frustrating everyone involved. Under the new rules, monitors will be subject to term limits, budget caps, and performance reviews, and can’t serve on oversight teams in multiple cities at once.
- On Tuesday, Kristen Clarke, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, announced a much-needed investigation into allegations of unconstitutionally awful conditions at Georgia prisons, which are critically understaffed. At least 26 people died of confirmed or suspected homicide in Georgia prisons in 2020, and another 18 homicides have been reported this year. The investigation will focus on violence among inmates, as well as the abuse of LGBTQ+ inmates by staff members and other inmates. If investigators determine that things are as bad as they look, DOJ can place the Georgia prison system under one of those new-and-improved consent decrees.
- Also on Tuesday, the Justice Department announced new restrictions for the federal law enforcement agencies it oversees, banning the use of chokeholds, carotid restraints, and no-knock warrants—except in situations where deadly force is authorized. Those restrictions apply to the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Marshals Service, but not to immigration-enforcement agencies, which are overseen by DHS, or to state and local law enforcement. A bunch of caveats on this one, but it’s a start!
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That would already be an unusually dense flurry of civil-rights moves, but they’ve kept coming.
- On Thursday, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta announced a 90-day review to determine whether the department was doing enough to make sure it isn’t sending truckloads of cash to racist police departments. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits spending taxpayer money in ways that support or result in racial discrimination, but enforcement is completely up to the Justice Department, and based on the nightmareish state of American policing, it has not been crushing it. DOJ disburses about $4.5 billion in federal funding to police departments, courts, and prisons, as well as victim services groups and nonprofits, all of which would have a real incentive to clean up their acts if Title VI were better enforced.
- For all we know, there may be more announcements to come before the week is out. Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, tweeted that she was gratified to see the “astounding” developments: “I’m remembering AG Garland’s confirmation testimony in which he explained that he needed AAG @vanitaguptaCR & Asst AG for Civil Rights @KristenClarkeJD on his team in particular to help him with critical areas of the work with which he does not have experience. This week feels like an important return on his commitment to assembling this rich team.”
It goes with saying that none of this would be happening if Donald Trump had won the 2020 election, but every now and then you’ve gotta say it anyway. The way to keep these slow, structural changes in motion is to hold onto the White House, and that starts with not letting the House fall to the party with a penchant for overturning elections. If Merrick Garland can do all of this in a week, you can sign up for No Off Years: votesaveamerica.com/nooffyears.
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American Dissected turns 100 episodes old this week! To celebrate, join host Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for a discussion with This Land host Rebecca Nagle on how Native Americans were able to go from being one of the hardest hit communities by COVID to now one of the most vaccinated. Follow to America Dissected on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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A majority of Americans think that democracy is under attack in this country, but not in the cool way that would maybe get us closer to saving it. While nearly all Americans feel that Democracy is either under attack (56 percent) or being tested (37 percent), it appears that GOP voters are way more worried about Donald Trump’s fictional tales of stolen elections than Democratic voters are about Republicans’ very real maneuvering to steal future elections. A whopping 75 percent of GOP voters say that American democracy is under attack, compared to 46 percent of Democratic voters. Who knows what that means in practical terms—for voter turnout in the midterms, say—but it suggests that Democratic leaders’ strategy of making occasional speeches about the dire threat to democracy while calmly pursuing a bipartisan infrastructure deal has given a lot of voters the mistaken impression that the crisis is behind us.
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- Idaho’s health department has declared a statewide hospital-resource crisis, meaning facilities overwhelmed with unvaccinated coronavirus patients will begin rationing care. One state over, Oregon hospitals have started postponing surgeries and time-sensitive cancer treatments.
- In a ludicrous effort to bypass Ohio’s 2015 redistricting reforms stating that maps “must correspond closely to the statewide preferences of the voters of Ohio,” Ohio Republicans have argued they can award themselves 81 percent of the state legislative seats because they’ve won 81 percent of the last decade’s statewide races, with...54 percent support.
- Three moderates blocked House Democrats’ aggressive drug-pricing provision in a committee vote on Wednesday. The provision could make it into the Build Back Better Act anyway, but Democrats’ majority is slim enough that those three could choose to hold up the whole bill in a full House vote.
- Fresh off of attacking President Biden for not doing enough to evacuate our allies from Afghanistan, former Trump officials are working to start a new culture war around evacuated Afghan refugees.
- In other thinly-veiled white supremacy, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has been running Facebook ads claiming that Democrats are seeking a “permanent election insurrection” by expanding pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- The planned Saturday rally in support of jailed January 6 insurrectionists may be lightly attended because a bunch of conspiracy theorists started theorizing that it might be a conspiracy.
- Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has tweeted out audio of his GOP opponent Glenn “Larry ‘Donald Trump’ Elder” Youngkin telling college students to opt-out of vaccine requirements for “whatever reason,” now that we know voters hate stuff like that.
- Tasked with finding all of the wild crimes committed at the FBI during the Russia investigation, special counsel John Durham has gotten a grand jury to indict lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying *to* the FBI, based on one guy’s memory of whether Sussman mentioned who he repped in a conversation one time. Hillary Clinton is finished.
- A Missouri cave containing indigenous paintings from over 1,000 years ago was sold at auction, against the Osage Nation’s wishes.
- In these turbulent and unprecedented times, may it bring you peace to know that Maine has a 101-year-old lobster fisher who is still fishing for lobsters.
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Economic historians have used data forensics to conclude that redlining was already part of federal housing policy in the 1930s, before the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) drew up the infamous “residential safety maps” that are commonly thought to be the basis of systematic housing discrimination. From the time it was established in 1934, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) wouldn’t insure mortgages in low-income urban neighborhoods, where most urban Black Americans lived. The FHA used data collected by the Census and New Deal relief programs to evaluate neighborhoods and exclude Black homeowners before the HOLC maps existed, and didn’t substantially change its lending patterns after they did. In other words, we’ve all had the chronology wrong: The federal government was actively promoting segregation through redlining before creating the maps that eventually helped private lenders do more of the same.
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Cereal was one of the best parts of being a kid, but lots of us had to give it up when we realized it was full of sugar and junk that you really shouldn’t eat. Enter Magic Spoon, healthy cereal that honestly tastes too good to be true. Each serving contains zero grams of sugar, 13-14 grams of protein, and only four net grams of carbs. Magic Spoon comes in four delicious flavors—Cocoa, Fruity, Frosted, and Peanut Butter—and there's nothing to regret: It's keto-friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, low carb, and GMO-free.
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The Minnesota Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that blocked a ballot question about replacing the Minneapolis Police Department, allowing votes for the proposal to be counted.
California is poised to become the first state to ban nonconsensual condom removal.
Progressive Michelle Wu won Boston’s preliminary mayoral election.
Well this is just a terrific idea.
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