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State Department's Effort to Cherry-Pick Rights Is a Dangerous Stunt
Responding to a report issued today by the Commission on Unalienable Rights, Tarah Demant, the director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Program at Amnesty International USA said:
"The U.S. government cannot unilaterally redefine which human rights will be respected and which will be ignored.
"The U.S. State Department's effort to cherry-pick rights in order to deny some their human rights is a dangerous political stunt that could spark a race to the bottom by human rights-abusing governments around the world.
"The administration is seeking to create a hierarchy of rights, where it gets to decide which rights are 'unalienable' and which rights are what it calls in the report 'divisive social and political controversies,' a category which predictably includes sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights.
"Human rights are not a choose-your-own-adventure in which the U.S. government gets to pick a different ending because it doesn't like a particular set of rights. This report, made through an illegitimate process, only further shows the contempt this administration has for human rights and its desire to excise certain rights."
Background and context
It its submission to the U.S. Department of State's Commission on Unalienable Rights, Amnesty International called on the U.S. government to renew its commitment to human rights, not only by halting its heinous violations of human rights at home, but also by re-engaging the international community through United Nations (U.N.) and regional human rights institutions.
The U.S. government has recently abandoned its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, refused to respond to letters of concern by U.N. human rights experts, and now is seeking to deny reproductive rights and LGBTI rights, which the report categorizes as "political preference," by trying to redefine the definition of human rights.
In advance of the U.N. Human Rights Council's upcoming review of the United States in November 2020, Amnesty International submitted a list of concerns and recommendations on how the United States should urgently improve its human rights record.
This statement is available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/unalieablaerightscomissionreport/
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Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400New Funding Bill Shows House Republicans 'Want Monopolists to Win'
"House Democrats must take a firm stand against this problematic proposal and offer an amendment in markup to give the Antitrust Division the resources necessary to enforce the law," said one campaigner.
Anti-monopoly campaigners on Tuesday blasted House Republicans over a bill that would dramatically reduce funding for the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and impose caps on how much the crucial agency gets from merger filing fees.
The House Appropriations Committee
proposal contains sweeping spending cuts, including a $40 million reduction in the DOJ Antitrust Division's budget. The $192.7 million allocated for the division is $95 million less than requested by U.S. President Joe Biden.
"House Republicans are not fully funding the Antitrust Division—this is a pro-Ticketmaster, pro-Google, pro-Apple, and pro-UnitedHealth agenda," Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), said in a statement.
"This is a pro-Ticketmaster, pro-Google, pro-Apple, and pro-UnitedHealth agenda."
In addition to the budget cut, the bill contains one rider that would cap the amount of fees the Antitrust Division gets from the bipartisan Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act and another that would effectively ban the agency from hiring more staff.
The proposed bill "would openly and deliberately disregard the will of Congress by limiting the DOJ's access to these funds," AELP said, arguing that House Republicans "want monopolists to win."
"With cases against some of the biggest monopolies in the economy already in progress or looming, the additional funds would allow the division to hire more attorneys and staff to effectively enforce the law," the group added.
According to Harper:
Despite having even fewer attorneys than it did in the 1970s, [Assistant Attorney General] Jonathan Kanter's Antitrust Division is securing unprecedented wins to turn the tide on market concentration across the economy. Appropriators should be bolstering the Antitrust Division in this moment, not kneecapping it by limiting hiring and reducing funds Congress authorized through the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.
"House Democrats must take a firm stand against this problematic proposal and offer an amendment in markup to give the Antitrust Division the resources necessary to enforce the law," Harper added.
The GOP proposal comes amid a flurry of antitrust action by the Biden administration, whose DOJ has investigated UnitedHealth Group, the world's largest health insurance company, and sued Apple, Google, and Ticketmaster. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan has taken on Amazon and other corporations.
"The DOJ Antitrust Division has won victories in court against employers that sought to suppress workers' pay and blocked harmful mergers in the airline industry," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said while addressing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland during a hearing earlier this month.
"You're working to lower food prices by targeting anti-competitive practices and mergers in the grocery industry and the meat processing industry, and the Antitrust Division successfully ended a price fixing scheme in DVD and Blu-ray sales and prevented video game companies from suppressing wages in e-sports," she continued.
"These are incredible accomplishments, and you're also working to promote competition in the live music industry," Jayapal added, referring to the lawsuit
filed last month by the DOJ and 30 state attorneys general against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary.
Analysis Shows Climate-Fueled Flooding Threatens Millions in US
"Even if their homes stay dry, disruptive flooding of vital infrastructure could leave people essentially stranded within their communities or enduring intolerable and even unlivable conditions."
As Americans endure extreme heat and wildfires exacerbated by fossil fuel-driven climate change, an analysis revealed Tuesday that rising seas threaten infrastructure critical for millions of people in hundreds of U.S. communities.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report notes that "the nearly 90 million people living in U.S. coastal communities depend on an array of critical infrastructure," which the group defined as "assets and facilities that provide functions necessary to sustain daily life," including "schools, hospitals, public and affordable housing, energy infrastructure, and wastewater treatment plants."
"We also include known sites of industrial contamination that, if they were to flood, could expose people to toxic or hazardous pollutants," UCS explained. "The resulting list of critical infrastructure analyzed here is in some instances more expansive than the types included in the U.S. government's definition but does not include all the types that are likely of concern to individual communities."
Kristina Dahl, the report's lead author and a principal climate scientist at UCS, pointed out in a statement that "if these facilities are flooded even just once, it can be incredibly disruptive or even paralyzing to daily life."
"Communities don't have long to prepare before their vital coastal assets are routinely under threat from climate change-caused flooding," she said. "Our analysis shows that by 2030, the amount of critical infrastructure at risk of repeat flooding along U.S. coastlines is expected to grow by 20% compared to 2020 conditions."
The group analyzed three scenarios for the rest of this century—seas rising by 1.6 feet, 3.2 feet, and 6.5 feet—and also found that "between now and 2050, climate change-driven sea-level rise will expose more than 1,600 critical infrastructure assets coastwide to disruptive flooding at least twice per year."
That's "a near doubling from 2020 exposure and a 53% increase relative to 2030 exposure," the report states. "Of those assets, nearly 1,100 are expected to flood monthly, on average, in this time frame."
The states facing the highest threats of disruptive flooding are Louisiana, New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, and California. Already, some insurance companies are bailing on coastal communities due to the rising disaster risk. The new publication says that "future flooding particularly threatens public and affordable housing."
Erika Spanger, a report co-author and director of strategic climate analytics at UCS, noted that "even if their homes stay dry, disruptive flooding of vital infrastructure could leave people essentially stranded within their communities or enduring intolerable and even unlivable conditions."
The document highlights that "this burden is borne inequitably: More than half the infrastructure at risk by 2050 is in communities at a disadvantage based on historical and ongoing racism, discrimination, and pollution."
"The amount of infrastructure in jeopardy late this century will depend heavily on countries' choices about global heat-trapping emissions," the publication stresses. "Policymakers and public and private decision-makers must take immediate, science-based steps to safeguard critical infrastructure and achieve true, long-term coastal resilience."
The report includes sections for six specific recommendations:
- Use science and innovation to plan for near- and long-term risks;
- Scale up public and private sector funding for infrastructure resilience;
- Reduce historical inequities and prevent future harms;
- Protect affordable housing; open just pathways to retreat;
- Start informed, flexible, adaptive planning now for later-century potential outcomes; and
- Cut heat-trapping emissions to limit the pace and magnitude of sea-level rise.
"There is a narrow window of time for federal, state, and local policymakers to provide funding and resources and for local
decision-makers to use this backing to implement changes in their communities in preparation for an inevitable increase of regular disruptive flooding," the document warns. "Investments in resilience, equitably shared, can help build a safer, fairer future for all."
Oklahoma Supreme Court Blocks First US Religious Public Charter School
One coalition said the ruling "safeguards public education and upholds the separation of religion and government."
Faith leaders, parents, and educators on Tuesday applauded the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling against the establishment of the first U.S. taxpayer-funded religious charter school—which was widely seen as a test case for Christian nationalists' broader efforts to break down the barrier between church and state as well as further undermine public education.
The court's decision against St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School came in a case filed last October by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Unlike some fellow Republicans, he argued that the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board's approval of the online institution violated the state and federal constitutions.
"This decision is a tremendous victory for religious liberty," Gentner said in response to the ruling. "The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma's Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the state from sponsoring any religion at all."
"Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism," he continued. "While I understand that the governor and other politicians are disappointed with this outcome, I hope that the people of Oklahoma can rejoice that they will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith."
"If this school is kept alive through appeals, it will continue to present an existential threat to the great state of Oklahoma and to the United States writ large."
The decision was also praised by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Education Law Center, and Freedom From Religion Foundation, which—along with local lawyers—represent Oklahomans challenging the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa's attempt to create a publicly funded Catholic school.
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision safeguards public education and upholds the separation of religion and government. Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and serve all students," the groups—which filed a brief supporting Gentner's suit—said in a joint statement Tuesday.
"St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which plans to discriminate against students, families, and staff and indoctrinate students into one religion, cannot operate as a public charter school," the coalition added. "We will continue our efforts to protect public education and religious freedom, including the separation of church and state."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and AFT-Oklahoma president Mary Best similarly welcomed the decision as "a crucial victory for religious liberty, pluralism, and freedom over the forces of extremism and sectarianism."
"One of the clearest foundations of American democracy is the freedom to practice, or not to practice, religion," they said. "The framers never intended to require public funding of religious institutions or schools, and, in fact, religious freedom itself is reliant on the distinction. Liberty ends when someone is compelled to support another's private beliefs, and if the attorney general had lost, Oklahoma would have been forced to siphon millions of dollars from public schools into private hands."
"The combination of the Constitution's free exercise clause and the concept of separation of church and state underpins our democracy, and this decision preserves that distinction," the AFT leaders added. "This case should never have had to be brought in the first place; a charter school for religious purposes paid for by public money should have been rejected as unconstitutional from the start. If this school is kept alive through appeals, it will continue to present an existential threat to the great state of Oklahoma and to the United States writ large."
The Oklahomanreported that "it's a virtual certainty the ruling Tuesday will be appealed, likely to a federal court," and shared statements from Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley and Tulsa Bishop David Konderla as well as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, a former state education secretary who, as the newspaper noted, "tried—and failed—three times to insert himself into the legal case before the state Supreme Court."