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Ukrainian ambassador on Texas school shooting: ‘Should not happen in US’

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova on Tuesday expressed solidarity with Americans following the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, saying that such violence “should not happen in the U.S.”

“For us, the pain of losing children, especially of that age, is something we live for the past 90 days non-stop, and our condolences go to the American people,” she said.

“This should not happen anywhere. It should not happen in the U.S. and it should not happen in Ukraine.”

Markarova said that Ukraine’s condolences are with the American people, describing the “horrible tragedy” in Texas, where at least 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting rampage by an 18-year-old on Tuesday. The age of the victims is not yet released but the elementary school included second, third and fourth grades.

“This cycle of hate and brutal shooting and shooting children and civilians in general, should be stopped.” 

Markarova spoke with reporters briefly before addressing the American Jewish Committee’s Diplomatic Seder, where she thanked Washington diplomats, representing dozens of countries, and the American Jewish community for supporting Ukraine in its more than three-month, defensive war against Russia.

Hundreds of Ukrainian children are believed to have been killed amid indiscriminate and alleged targeting of civilian areas by Russian forces during the unprovoked invasion of the nation.

Markarova later tweeted that losing children to gun violence “in a peaceful time is a tragedy beyond understanding. Ukraine knows too well the horror of growing number of lost children.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Texas lieutenant governor on school shooting: 'We have to harden these targets'

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) said late Tuesday that the shooting at an elementary school in his state that left 19 children and two adults dead was “pure evil,” adding that leaders “have to harden these targets” to prevent would-be shooters from getting into schools.

During an appearance on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Patrick explained that Texas “had done a lot of things” after the Santa Fe High School shooting near Houston, which left 10 dead and more than a dozen injured in 2018. However, he said more must be done.

“We have to harden these targets so no one can get in, ever, except maybe through one entrance,” Patrick said. “Maybe that would help, maybe that would stop someone.”

However, he added that the issue is “bigger than that.”

“We’re a coarse society,” he said. “We’re a society that is just at each other’s throats all the time and we’re better than this as a nation.”

Authorities said an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary School on Tuesday and killed 19 children and two adults in the deadliest shooting at a U.S. school since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, which killed 20 children and six adults.

Patrick also said he hopes President Biden will attempt to unify the nation after the tragedy.

“This is something that goes to the core of our soul, all of us, and I hope the president tries to unify and not divide us on this because we as a nation will always remember this.”

The Texas school shooting and another recent mass shooting that killed 10 people in a Buffalo, New York supermarket have increased pressure on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring gun-control legislation to the floor before the July 4 recess.

Source: TEST FEED1

Zelensky offers condolences on Texas school shooting

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is offering condolences to the families of the victims in Tuesday’s school shooting in Texas.

“Deeply saddened by the news of the murder of innocent children in Texas,” Zelensky said in a tweet as his country battles Russian forces that invaded Ukraine in February.

“Sincere condolences to the families of the victims, the people of the US and @POTUS over this tragedy. The people of Ukraine share the pain of the relatives and friends of the victims and all Americans,” he added.

His comments came after 19 children and two adults were killed in Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Authorities also said that the suspected shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was also dead. 

The shooting took place at Robb Elementary School, which has students in the second, third and fourth grades. It was the largest shooting to take place at a U.S. school since 20 children and 6 adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, Dmytro Kuleba, also offered his condolences in a Wednesday tweet.

“Horrible news from Uvalde, Texas,” he said. “Our deepest sympathy is with the victims and their families. As a nation that goes through the pain of losing innocent young lives, Ukraine shares the pain of our U.S. friends.”

At least 257 Ukrainian children have died since the beginning of the Russian invasion, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. However, the agency has said it “believes that the actual figures are considerably higher” beyond those reported.

The Texas school shooting, which follows another mass shooting in which 10 people were killed in a Buffalo, New York supermarket, has increased pressure on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring gun-control legislation to the floor before the July 4 recess.

“We need to vote. We need to hold every member of the Senate accountable. Every one of us should be put on the record,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. A Senate subcommittee Blumenthal held a series of hearings last year to address gun violence.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Does Biden want another ‘forever war’ in Somalia?

The Biden administration appears to be leaning back into one of the “forever wars” they wanted  to avoid: in Somalia. The United States has been decisively engaged in this country since “Black Hawk Down” in October 1993 — 29 years now. The troop-contributing countries of the Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have been at it since 2007; Ethiopia has struggled with its neighbor since the late 1940s. While the Biden administration stresses a “policy of disengagement,” it is putting boots back on the ground again — without an end state. 

President Biden authorized the deployment of about 500 troops back to the East African nation of Somalia to combat the growth of al-Shabaab, an African-based al Qaeda affiliate, on May 16. The deployment essentially reverses a decision by the Trump administration to withdraw troops from the war-torn nation.

The justification for the deployment is that al-Shabaab has increased its strength and attacks against the Somalia government since our withdrawal. According to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, U.S. forces would not be “directly engaged” in combat operations; instead, their purpose would be to “enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab, by local forces.” Will this be our response in Afghanistan if al Qaeda and ISIS-K become a threat to the United States again? Kirby said on May 19, “They’re already there, but I mean, you know, growth in their capabilities such that it would threaten our interest.”

Somalia is an entry point into East Africa — one to which Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda can attest. No one denies al-Shabaab poses a serious threat to Somalia and U.S. interests throughout the region. They are a capable, resilient terrorist organization that thrives in much of Somalia’s ungoverned space.

On the surface, going after bad guys is a good thing — but we’ll run out of bullets before they run out of bad guys in Somalia. The definition of insanity, attributed to Albert Einstein, defines the war on terrorism in East Africa as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Something must change, other than the leadership of al-Shabaab. Somalia is a country on paper only; much like Afghanistan, there is a capital city (Mogadishu) and then ungoverned space that is run by clans, tribes, warlords and al-Shabaab. There is no sense of national identity; the lines drawn on maps — a result of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 — are meaningless. Influence and loyalty are bought, sold or taken. 

We can’t want good government more than the Somalis do. Simply going through the motions doesn’t accomplish anything; it just prolongs the end state, and lines the pockets of local leaders.  Twenty-plus years of “nation-building” in Afghanistan that dissolved to Taliban rule when U.S. forces withdrew should have taught the Biden administration a lesson. Somalia is a money pit for the United States; the investment we’ve made in equipment, training, and lives has yielded practically no return. Unlike the tenacity and resiliency demonstrated by the citizens defending Ukraine against Russian invaders, there is no national will in Somalia, only Insha’Allah.

I witnessed this firsthand during my tenure as the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa senior intelligence officer. What capability existed, that which we built and trained, quickly deteriorated shortly after our departure. Our AMISOM partners didn’t leave the security of their base camps and often could not defend them — several were overrun and their soldiers slaughtered by al-Shabaab. The few nationalists who do exist in Somalia are swimming upstream against a current of Islamists intent on establishing a caliphate anchored in East Africa.

Our special forces are extremely good at what they do. There is no doubt they can return to Somalia and deliver the results that Biden asks of them, but limited air strikes “meant to defend partner forces facing an immediate threat” only have an effect when the U.S. adviser is standing there beside them. They can’t remove the cancer; they only suppress it until we leave, and the remission will be short-lived. The military element within the Instruments of National Power must be accompanied by one or more of the other elements — and a clearly defined end state. 

The Biden administration acknowledges the “persistent” military presence that it can deliver will not be permanent. It will evaporate when we depart again, echoing the aphorism by Heraclitus: “The road up and the road down are the same thing.”

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He led the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) Intelligence Directorate in Djibouti from 2015-2016. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.

Source: TEST FEED1

Freight railroad slowdowns under microscope amid supply crunch

Freight railroads are failing to keep pace with consumer demand, putting additional strain on the nation’s supply chains that have been plagued by trucker shortages and congested ports, among other challenges.  

Trade groups representing energy and agricultural producers say that rail service disruptions are delaying shipments of raw materials and driving up prices that consumers pay for food, gas and other products. 

They chiefly blame railroads for understaffing their operations. Over the last six years, the leading freight carriers laid off 45,000 employees, or nearly 30 percent of their combined workforce, according to the Surface Transportation Board. Most of the layoffs came before the pandemic, which ushered in a huge demand for shipped items.  

“The most important reason why the railroad leg of the supply chain failed over the last year and a half is the fact that they did not have the workforce or the equipment to be able to deal with the demand for goods,” said Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, which represents several railroad worker unions. 

Freight rail giants have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and federal regulators over a series of recent service issues.  

Nineteen senators penned a bipartisan letter to the Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday, urging its members to “examine all constructive options” to ensure the transportation of food and energy commodities. They warned that recent service issues forced energy companies to curtail production and prompted feed mills to temporarily shut down.  

“If these problems persist into summer and fall, significant portions of the world’s breadbasket could be cut off from assisting those most in need, yielding waste rather than solutions,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). “The same applies to the transport of critical energy supplies in high demand across the United States and the globe.” 

The letter comes after the National Grain and Feed Association testified before the board that service disruptions cost the grain industry more than $100 million due to lost revenues and additional freight expenses in the first quarter of 2022. 

“Depending on the market position of the grain industry participant, these extra transportation costs are either borne by the participant, reflected in the grain basis paid to the farmer or passed onto the consumer,” Mike Seyfert, the group’s president, told the board last month. 

Shippers have described the leading freight carriers as “regional monopolies” that lack sufficient competition in their respective markets. The industry is dominated by four railroads: BNSF Railway, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX Corp., all of which recently reported soaring profits.  

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers testified that service disruptions and lack of competition in the railroad industry worsen inflation, stating that transportation and distribution costs account for 11 percent of the price of gas at the pump. 

“Being a ‘captive’ shipper amplifies the negative impacts of service disruptions, like those our members are currently experiencing,” the group said, noting that 75 percent of refiners are served by just one railroad. “To this end, service disruptions that elevate transportation costs not only impact our members but consumers.”  

Consumer prices rose 8.3 percent over the past 12 months ending in April, nearing the fastest rate of inflation in four decades, according to the Labor Department. Fuel and food prices spiked in the U.S. and globally after Russia, a top energy supplier, invaded Ukraine, a major grain and cooking oil exporter.   

Earlier this month, the Surface Transportation Board issued an order requiring freight carriers to report how they plan to improve their service as part of a larger effort to quickly improve rail capacity. 

The big four railroads have defended their practices, stating that they couldn’t have known that demand for shipped goods would spike and noting that the tight labor market makes it difficult to attract new train conductors.  

BNSF said that it has hired 400 new train workers as part of its plan to hire 3,000 employees this year. Norfolk Southern said that it has 930 active conductor trainees and plans to bring in more in the near future. The industry is offering hiring bonuses and incentive payments to move workers to parts of the rail network that are particularly short-staffed.   

“Railroads are not immune to the broader challenges of the labor market, but the industry is confident in its plans to normalize the number of workers to a level consistent with demand,” Ted Greener, assistant vice president for public affairs at the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement. “Over time, this should help improve service.” 

But as railroads push to hire more workers, they’re engaged in a long-running dispute with labor unions that say train conductors are overworked, fatigued and underpaid.  

Regan said that harsh policies are pushing workers away from railroads. Hundreds of BNSF workers quit in recent months over a controversial attendance policy that docks employees for absences, including taking sick days in some cases. BNSF softened the policy last week, but workers say it is still problematic. 

The National Mediation Board, an agency that works out railroad contract disputes, began a three-day negotiation session Tuesday between the leading freight carriers and 12 railroad labor unions.  

The union coalition is asking the board to release the labor unions from mediation, a move that would give both sides the option to enter arbitration. If one of the two parties declines to do so, it would set the stage for railway workers to go on strike.  

Both sides agree that a strike is highly unlikely, as the White House and Congress could step in to prevent the resulting economic calamity. But railroad unions see the negotiations as a potential pathway to their first contract in several years. 

“If you want to actually improve the supply chain from a rail perspective, then getting a fair contract for workers is the most important thing you can do to achieve that,” Regan said.

Source: TEST FEED1

New Hampshire Democrats spotlight abortion issues in tough Senate election

New Hampshire Democrats are hoping the issue of abortion will work in their favor in the state’s closely watched Senate race in November, where Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) faces a tough reelection bid. 

 Hassan herself has already sought to seize on Democratic anger about the potential end of nationwide abortion protections, releasing an ad and attending rallies in defense of abortion rights. 

 The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, meanwhile, hit Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), on his record on the issue when he visited the state last week, launching a billboard highlighting what they said was a GOP push to criminalize abortion. 

 The strategy reflects a larger nationwide effort from Democrats to galvanize voters around the issue. 

 “This is something we’ve been very aggressive on, but also something that’s been a real part of the conversation in New Hampshire and a real point of concern for Granite Staters for well over a year now,” Hassan’s campaign manager, Aaron Jacobs, said in an interview with The Hill. 

 A Supreme Court draft opinion in a Mississippi abortion case leaked earlier this month suggested that the high court’s conservative majority was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that enshrined the right to an abortion nationwide. National Democrats, particularly at the Senate level, moved aggressively to warn voters that their party’s candidates needed to be elected and reelected in the midterms in order to influence the confirmation of future appointments to the high court. 

But the issue has also played a role in state-level politics in places like New Hampshire. 

 Last year, Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who is running for reelection, signed a state budget that included a ban on abortions after 24 weeks of gestation and mandatory ultrasounds for women before an abortion takes place.  

However, this month, Sununu signed abortion rights legislation that ended the ultrasound mandate prior to most abortions in the state. 

 Sununu earlier this month said New Hampshire would remain a “pro-choice state” and pushed back against the notion that the state’s abortion ban after 24 weeks is too extreme. 

 “I’m a pro-choice governor and as long as I’m governor, we’re going to remain a pro-choice state,” Sununu said, according to CBS News Boston. “The majority of pro-choice individuals do support a ban after 24 weeks. We have it, Massachusetts has it, New York has it. Those aren’t extreme states either.” 

 New Hampshire Democrats have particularly zeroed in on comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that a national ban on abortion would be “possible” if Roe v. Wade is overturned. 

 “McConnell and Scott will stop at nothing to try to get themselves a senator from New Hampshire who’s going to push their agenda,” New Hampshire state Rep. Alexis Simpson (D) said during a press call. “That’s why we have to elect Sen. Hassan.” 

 Hassan’s campaign noted it was the first to put out an ad on McConnell’s comments, linking her opponents to them. 

 The incumbent senator is facing a number of potential GOP opponents, including former state Senate President Chuck Morse, former Londonderry, N.H., Mayor Kevin Smith and retired Gen. Don Bolduc. All three Republican candidates have been vocal about their anti-abortion views. 

 Hassan’s campaign hit Morse over his opposition to bipartisan legislation that would have enshrined abortion rights in New Hampshire. 

 “Chuck Morse, the senator’s opponent, was the deciding vote to kill it, but there were members of both parties supporting,” Jacobs said. “It was not just a party-line vote.” 

Morse helped draft and pass the state budget that included the 24-week abortion ban, which does not have exceptions for rape, incest or fetal viability, according to the Concord Monitor. However, the ban does include exceptions for when the life of the mother is at risk. 

 Meanwhile, Smith has called himself anti-abortion rights with the exception of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. He told Boston-based WBUR that the focus on abortion was being used by Democrats “to distract from what voters will be voting on this fall.”  

Bolduc’s campaign referred The Hill to a statement in which he slammed the leak of the draft Supreme Court decision and maintained his position. 

 “I am pro-life, and if the Court rules as indicated, I believe they made the right call,” Bolduc said. “We must understand that this opinion does not outlaw abortion. It returns the decision to the individual states to make the decision they think is best for their citizens. Here in New Hampshire, our state has already passed our own laws well before this Court decision.” 

 Hassan’s campaign pointed to polling from the Pew Research Center that showed 66 percent of New Hampshire adults said they believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The same survey showed that 29 percent of voters in the state say the procedure should be illegal in all or most cases. 

 A separate University of New Hampshire poll conducted last year found 38 percent of respondents thought abortion should be legal “in all circumstances,” while 50 percent said it should be legal in “limited circumstances.” Eight percent said it should be illegal under any circumstance. 

 Hassan stands to be a tough opponent for Republicans to beat in November. The incumbent senator has had a number of impressive quarterly fundraising hauls and has a $13 million reservation in fall airtime ahead of the midterm elections. On top of that, Democrats argue that New Hampshire’s Sept. 13 primary will not give Republicans enough time to unify behind a strong contender. But national Democrats are facing headwinds going into November with rising prices, inflation and poor approval ratings for President Biden. 

 The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as “lean Democratic.” 

 Republican strategists are questioning the strategy behind leaning into abortion access on the Democratic side, citing other major issues like rising inflation. 

 “They don’t have much going on in their favor as we approach the coming midterms, and I think this is kind of a Hail Mary for them,” said Juliana Bergeron, a longtime GOP activist and New Hampshire Republican national committeewoman. 

 When asked how Democrats can focus on economic issues and abortion access, Simpson, the state lawmaker, told The Hill that they are one and the same.  

“Reproductive rights are economic issues,” Simpson said. “People know that. Women know that.”

Hassan’s campaign maintains that the senator is also focused on other issues, like inflation, gas prices and the flow of migrants over the southern border. Last month, Hassan visited the southern border and voiced opposition to the Biden administration’s initial plan to lift Title 42. 

And earlier this month, Hassan released an ad calling for a gas tax holiday. 

“Voters are concerned about more than one issue right now and they expect her to be addressing more than one issue and that’s exactly what she’s doing,” Jacobs said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden walks fine line on police reform two years after Floyd

President Biden is walking a fine line on police reform two years after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement, seeking to balance calls for systemic change with an outward message of support for public safety officials.

Biden on Wednesday will sign a long-awaited executive order establishing a nationwide database of officers fired for misconduct in lieu of bipartisan policing legislation the president had hoped to sign by this time last year. The Justice Department this week also issued a memo requiring officers to intervene if another is using excessive force.

But two years since Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide social justice movement and calls for policing reform, some advocates are left wanting more from Biden.

“I hope that we raise the issue of police accountability and he sets a tone that would say that the George Floyd bill may not have passed, but that the federal government led by the president will make sure that police are held accountable,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview when asked what message he wanted Biden to send on the Floyd anniversary.

Sharpton, who in a statement later said he supports the forthcoming executive order, said he believes the White House needs to adopt a measured message of protecting people from crime and “criminals in blue uniforms.” 

“We’re not anti-police, but we’re anti-police criminality,” he said. 

Bipartisan efforts to enact police reform legislation fizzled among a group of bipartisan House and Senate lawmakers last fall, leading some to fault Biden for not prioritizing the issue as he has other policy proposals. 

“If they really wanted to act, we would have seen pressure on senators and Congress in the first year of the almost first two years now where he basically sat silent,” said Mondale Robinson, the founder of the Black Male Voter Project who has been vocally critical of the Biden administration’s approach to and rhetoric on policing. 

The 50-50 split in the Senate has made it impossible for Democrats to pass most pieces of legislation without the bipartisan support necessary to overcome the legislative filibuster. 

Instead, Biden will sign an order that has been workshopped for months with civil rights and policing groups. The measure will also notably restrict the transfer of military equipment to local police departments, and it will require federal law enforcement agencies to update their use of force policies.

Floyd’s murder by now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020 set off a nationwide movement for social equality and policing reform. It also left a mark on Biden, who attended Floyd’s funeral and has hosted the Floyd family at the White House. In a rare move for a president, he weighed in on Chauvin’s trial while the jury was deliberating, saying he hoped it would be the “right verdict.”

The administration has taken some unilateral steps in the absence of legislative action. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a pattern-or-practice investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department after Chauvin’s verdict. The Justice Department has announced similar investigations into a handful of other police departments and last fall banned the use of chokeholds for federal officers.

More recently, the department issued the memo ordering changes to its use-of-force policy, the first such update in almost two decades. Among the changes, the new policy requires officers to intervene to prevent or stop other officers from using excessive force. 

“It is the policy of the Department of Justice to value and preserve human life,” Garland wrote in the memo, dated May 20. “Officers may use force only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist and may use only the level of force that a reasonable officer on the scene would use under the same or similar circumstances.”

Biden’s forthcoming executive order has been under discussion for several months, after a leaked draft irked police groups earlier this year. 

Meanwhile, Biden has rejected some of the rhetoric among progressives born out of the demonstrations that followed Floyd’s death. He has repeatedly distanced himself from calls to “defund the police” during the 2020 campaign and since taking office. In fact, he’s done the opposite — the American Rescue Plan, passed without a single Republican vote, provided funds for local governments to hire more police officers.

Activists who have met with White House officials on law enforcement and criminal justice said they hoped to see the administration mark the second anniversary of Floyd’s murder with actions to advance equitable policing.

“I’m hoping the president and his team will sign an executive order but refuse to allow it to be isolated and be seen as just a nod to the Black community as opposed to an effort to ensure the promises of this democracy for everyone,” said the Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.

Some believe Biden inherited a system that was dismantled by the previous administration. Former President Trump repeatedly suggested officers should be allowed to use excessive force in some cases and sought to crack down on protesters in the wake of Floyd’s murder.

“We are seeing progress in some areas. We’re going to work for progress in other areas. But to fix in a year and a half what was inherited, I don’t think any administration would have been able to do,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP. “So, as we would like to see more, and we’re going to push for more, we also recognize the whole that this administration inherited.”

But Robinson, of the Black Male Voter Project, accused Biden and Democrats of playing into GOP talking points by rejecting calls to defund the police, and warned that Black voters could stay home in the upcoming elections because they feel like their interests have not been prioritized. 

A majority of Black voters still approve of Biden’s job as president, but his support among the key voting bloc has waned in recent months, as it has among other parts of the electorate feeling the pain of inflation and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

A HIT Strategies survey of Black Americans conducted in March found that 74 percent of respondents said they approve of Biden’s handling of his job as president, down about 10 points from November. 

“They’re taking Republican talking points and speaking on them as if it’s a way to motivate our base, and in actuality you are doing more hurt then harm,” Robinson said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Two years after George Floyd’s murder, frustrations growing

Two years after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, the nation is struggling to deliver progress on a host of issues critical to race, policing and inequality in American life.  

Floyd’s killing reverberated throughout the country, leading to protests for change not only in how police in the nation operate, but on a range of other issues including voting rights and representation.  

But efforts in Washington to enact police or voting rights reform have run aground amid deep differences between Republicans and Democrats.  

Just more than a week ago, a lone gunman in Buffalo, N.Y., killed 10 people in a racist shooting at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Yet even an effort to bolster federal monitoring of domestic terrorism — reflected in an anti-terror bill — is stalled, with Republicans arguing that the legislation could lead to bias against the right. 

In an interview on Tuesday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) voiced frustration with how partisanship has tanked a number of legislative pushes that have close ties to the Black community. 

“I don’t see this as a Democratic problem versus a Republican problem. I don’t see it as a Black problem versus white problem,” Clyburn said. “We have a national problem here. This is a problem for all Americans.” 

Other Democrats have also expressed disappointment with strides made at the national level toward racial progress over the past two years, especially in policing, after bipartisan talks on a sweeping reform bill broke down following Floyd’s killing. 

The No. 2 Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin (Ill.), lamented the failed bipartisan negotiations in remarks on Tuesday. 

 “We have a long way to go. I wish we’d been able to do the bipartisan policing reform bill that Booker and Scott were working on,” Durbin said, referring to Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.). 

He did, though, express optimism on progress lawmakers can achieve in the months ahead, emphasizing that work should be done “in the name of George Floyd and justice.” 

Pressed further on potential progress Congress will be able to secure this year, however, Durbin pointed to the White House amid reports of President Biden’s plans to use executive power as a means for police reform.   

The expected move would build upon actions taken at the administrative level in lieu of legislative efforts to reform policing, which have hit a roadblock in Congress, including steps by the Department of Justice to mandate body-worn cameras for the agency’s law enforcement personnel and limit the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) also acknowledged efforts at the local and state levels to enact some reforms but said “they’re uneven and not necessarily consistent throughout the country.”  

“So, while some communities have really dedicated themselves to working through a process of reforms, others have not and are no further ahead, which is why national legislation is so important,” she added. 

In an evenly split upper chamber, where most legislation requires the support of 60 members for passage, deep party lines over policing, voting rights and other issues connected to race have stood in the way of reform that advocates say is necessary. 

Some argue that nationwide efforts aimed at racial equity have also lost momentum as legislation stalls and amid what they call a growing backlash to the protest movement sparked by Floyd’s May 2020 murder.   

“There’s a backlash that’s being fueled. It’s the replacement theory backlash. It’s the anti-CRT [critical race theory] backlash. It’s the Jan. 6 backlash,” Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said in an interview. 

Morial’s comments come just over a week after the massacre in Buffalo, where 13 people were shot, 11 of whom were Black. Officials said the shooting suspect, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who is white, was found to have pointed to the racist “great replacement theory” in writings ahead of the shooting. 

  Republicans have since taken a stance against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, a bill the House brought up in the wake of the shooting that seeks to establish domestic terrorism offices within various departments throughout the government.  

House GOP leadership urged its conference to vote against the legislation, characterizing it as redundant and a threat to First Amendment rights, but the bill nonetheless passed in a 222-203 vote. One Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), joined Democrats in supporting the measure. 

Senate Republicans are now vowing to stop the bill, falling into a similar pattern of previous legislation aimed at racial equity that failed in the upper chamber, as both sides of the aisle have struggled to find common ground on a path forward. That includes bills that sailed through a Democratic-led House like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, only to be blocked or stalled in the evenly split Senate over party differences. 

“Everything passed in the House. So what can Democrats do? I don’t know how you do any more. You pass it,” Clyburn said, while pointing to failed talks around the policing bill named for Floyd in stressing the need for compromise to secure meaningful change. 

 “If you got agreement on these two or three things, let’s go ahead and do that and come back and get the other two or three things at a later date. So now, we’ve gotten nothing,” Clyburn said. 

NAACP President Derrick Johnson compared the current track to the development of the Civil Rights Act, which incrementally evolved over a number of years. 

“Policy change is slow. It is not [instantaneous]. And even though individuals come to the table with the most righteous approaches to what policy should be in place, oftentimes it is not something that happened overnight or in this case even in two years. There is a process,” Johnson said. 

Clyburn emphasized that the pendulum of change is always shifting forward and backward. The comments came after the 81-year-old lawmaker told The Washington Post last week that the U.S. was “in danger of imploding,” asserted that democracy was at risk of “disintegrating” and argued that “nobody is trying to solve the problem” of race in America. 

“I try to stay vigilant and try to do what I can to meet the moment, and I try to encourage others to do the same. But if you think that just because you solve a problem today, that problem is going to be solved forever, you just haven’t learned the history of the country yet,” he told The Hill.

Source: TEST FEED1

Restoring abandoned farms could help mitigate climate change: study

Researchers are calling upon policymakers to invest in the ecological restoration of abandoned farmlands — arguing that doing so could help mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Hundreds of millions of acres of land around the world are being abandoned due to a phenomenon called “rural outmigration,” in which farmers leave for urban centers, scientists explained in a new study in Science Advances.

While some of these croplands regenerate into natural habitats — boosting biodiversity and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere — they are unlikely to do so on a meaningful scale without intervention from lawmakers, the authors found. That’s because much of this temporarily restored land ends up being recultivated, according to the study. 

“Unless countries and policymakers develop better regulations and incentives to allow these lands to recover, this chance to restore ecosystems will not be fully realized,” lead author Christopher Crawford, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, said in a statement.

“It will remain a missed opportunity to fight climate change and biodiversity loss,” he added.

Crawford and his colleagues explored where in the world croplands were being regenerated — and how long they stayed that way — by using land-cover maps developed from satellite imagery that spanned from 1987 to 2017.

They estimated both abandonment and recultivation by tracking individual pieces of land over time, according to the study.

Altogether, the scientists studied images from 11 sites across four continents — including locations in the U.S., Brazil, Bosna and Herzegovina, China, Iraq Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia.

The croplands were abandoned for a variety of reasons, ranging from war to socioeconomic and environmental factors, according to the study.

The extent to which cropland abandonment offered environmental opportunities hinged upon how much land was abandoned and how long it stayed that way.

As they tracked abandonment on an annual basis, the scientists said they were disappointed to find that a considerable amount of the land was ultimately recultivated.

“As people move from rural areas into cities, there is a chance for wildlife and the climate to gain ground — literally — as abandoned farms and pastures revert back to forests and grasslands,” study co-author David Wilcove, a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs, said in a statement.

“Our work shows that this is not happening because the ‘abandoned’ lands are being rapidly recultivated,” added Wilcove, who also is on faculty at the university’s High Meadows Environmental Institute.

Land in the Soviet Union — huge swaths of which were abandoned following the geopolitical turmoil that ensued after the bloc’s collapse — experienced the highest levels of recultivation, according to the researchers.

In certain provinces of China, however, land was left abandoned for longer time periods — likely due to the central government’s “Grain for Green Program,” which incentivizes the regrowth of forests on abandoned croplands, the authors noted.

On average, most cropland assessed in the study was left abandoned for only about 14 years, which is insufficient to offset substantial amounts of carbon or become a suitable home to wildlife, the researchers said.

Their models forecasted that within 30 years, about 50 percent of abandoned croplands will be recultivated — meaning that significant environmental benefits will be lost. The recultivation of such areas resulted in more than 30 percent less area abandoned and 35 percent less carbon sequestered by 2017, according to the study.

Even once abandonment happens, both socioeconomic and political barriers can often pose an obstacle to habitat regeneration, the authors found.

Some such hurdles include policies that require farmers to cultivate land, a lack of funds to protect habitats and a negative cultural perspective of the “messy” landscapes that result from abandonment, the researchers added.

Nonetheless, the scientists said they saw the progress made in the two Chinese provinces as proof that incentivized programs can succeed.

One way of implementing such a strategy is by providing payments to landowners to abandon their croplands, according to the study.

Steps can also be taken to ensure the long-term cultivation of specific sites, so that those fields experience less turnover, the authors explained.

“Without incentives for restoration, cropland abandonment rarely lasts long enough to yield benefits for biodiversity or carbon sequestration,” Crawford said. “For abandoned croplands to reach levels of carbon stocks and biodiversity comparable to more intact natural ecosystems, they typically need at least 50 years of regeneration.”

Source: TEST FEED1