Daily Archives: August 11, 2021

Activists canvass for the Voting Rights Restoration Initiative in Florida in November 2017. (Florida Rights Restoration Coalition / Facebook)

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My father, Athan G. Theoharis, passed away on July 3. A leading expert on the FBI, he was responsible for exposing the bureaus widespread abuses of power. He was a loyal husband, dedicated father, scholar, civil libertarian, and voting rights advocate with an indefatigable commitment to defending democracy. He schooled his children (and anyone who would listen, including scholars, journalists, and activists from a striking variety of political perspectives) to understand one thing above all: how hard the powers-that-be will work to maintain that power and how willing they are to subvert democracy in the process. His life is a reminder that much of American politics in 2021 is, in so many ways, nothing new.

He grew up poor in Milwaukee, the son of an undocumented Greek immigrant who ran a diner out of the first floor of his home. He returned to his hometown in 1969 as a professor of American history at Marquette University. There, he would take part in political campaigns and local democratic efforts and, of course, raise my siblings and me. After he retired as a professorcommitted as he was to opening up space for new scholars and researchershe remained involved with the Wisconsin ACLU and its campaigns to protect democracy and civil liberties. He became the chair of the board and (how appropriate given this moment of voter-suppression laws) worked to oppose the 2011 Wisconsin voter ID law, while aiding the recall campaign against then-Governor Scott Walker.

Although it seems long ago, in many ways that battle over democracy in Americas Dairyland set the scene for the Trump years and the national crisis unfolding around us now. In 2010, Wisconsin Republicans, fueled in part by a rising Tea Party movement and having gained control of the state legislature and governorship, immediately passed a host of antidemocratic laws, while instituting regressive economic policies. This in a state that had once been a beacon of American democratic experimentation.

As anyone who visited our family would have learned on a driving tour my parents loved to offer, Milwaukee had a first-class park system because of its (rare) history of socialist mayors. Although Wisconsin was also home to that notorious anti-communist of the 1950s Senator Joseph McCarthy, and also the John Birch Society, it had strikingly progressive roots. However, in 2011, at a hearing on the state Senates version of that voter ID law, one political-science expert testified that this version of the bill is more restrictive than any bill weve had in the past. Indeed, if this bill passes, it would be the most restrictive in the United States.

That same year, a major campaign to recall Governor Walker began, partially in response to an austerity budget aimed at poor Wisconsinites. It would slash pensions and health benefits for public-sector workers and impose new statewide restrictions on unions collective bargaining. When that budget was first introduced, Democratic legislatorsand this should sound familiar, given recent events in Texasfled the state to stave off a vote in its Senate, while thousands of protesters besieged the capitol building in Madison. For a moment, Wisconsin commanded the attention of the nation.

That recall campaign unfolded over 18 long, bitter months, with Walker eventually holding on to his governorship. Mitt Romney, then on the presidential campaign trail, lauded him for his sound fiscal policies and swore that his victory over the recall would echo beyond the borders of Wisconsin. And he was right.

More than just a win for a beleaguered politician, the Wisconsin experience signaled a growing antidemocratic strain within the Republican Party and American politics coupled with an extreme economic ideology that benefited the rich and powerful. Even thenin the years when Donald Trump was no more than a businessman and TV show hostthat ideology was already masquerading as populism. And in doing so, it echoed the development of so-called welfare reform more than a decade earlier, when former Governor Tommy Thompsons Wisconsin model laid the basis for ending welfare as Americans knew it.Current Issue

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My father watched the fallout from these events with grave concern. For more than 50 years, he had researched and exposed how the FBIs surveillance programs threatened civil liberties and weakened democratic expression. He knew what was possible when the levers of government power were in the wrong hands and he recognized the emergence of the attack on democracy earlier than most. He taught us that wherever you were was ground zero when it came to voting rights and, sadly enough, the truth of this has only become clearer since his passing. Indeed, right now, amid a wave of voter suppression laws such as have been unseen since Reconstruction and the continued obstructionism in Congress, the fight for democracy is everywhere and, whether we like it or not, were all on the front lines now.

American history is punctuated by eras of dramatic democratic expansion but also of backlash, especially in response to any encouragement of a multiracial electorate coming together to lift society from the bottom up. In the wake of the Civil War, Reconstruction was a first great elaboration of American democracy. To this day, it remains the most radical experiment in popular government since the founding of the republic. After 250 years of slavery, the share of Black men eligible to vote across the South jumped from 0.5 percent in 1866 to 80.5 percent just two years later. In many of the former Confederate states, this, in turn, at least briefly inaugurated a sea change in political representation. In 1868, for instance, 33 Black state legislators were elected in Georgia.

Alongside those newly emancipated and enfranchised voters were many poor white sharecroppers and tenant farmers who, in the rubble of the slavocracy, were ready to exercise real political power for the first time. In a number of state legislatures, fusion coalitions of Blacks and poor whites advanced visionary new policies from the expansion of labor and health care rights to education reform. The development of public education was particularly significant for the 4 million Blacks just then emerging from slavery, as well as for poor whites who had been all but barred from school by the former white ruling elite.

If Reconstruction could be called a second American revolution, the Southern aristocracy and the Democratic Party of that era would soon enough set off a vicious counterrevolution, bloody in both word and deed. A violent divide-and-conquer campaign led by informally state-sanctioned paramilitary groups, especially the newly created Ku Klux Klan (headed by a former Confederate general) terrorized Blacks and whites. Meanwhile, those fusion state governments were broken up and, even though the 15th Amendment couldnt be repealed, new voter suppression laws were implemented, including poll taxes, lengthened residency requirements, and literacy tests.

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Whats often left out of this story is that many of those tactics had first been perfected in the North in response to waves of immigrants from Europe and beyond. Between the Civil War and World War I, 25 million people emigrated to this country. In many Northern states, this rising population of foreign-born, urban poor seemed to threaten the political status quo. As a result, nativist and anti-poor voter suppression laws, including new registration requirements, property stipulations, and voter-roll purges spread widely across the North. For years, white Southern reactionaries studied and borrowed from such antidemocratic trailblazing in states like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Reflecting on this record, historian Gregory Downs has written that when Americans treat voter disfranchisement as a regional, racial exception, they sustain their faith that the true national story is one of progressive expansion of voter rights. But turn-of-the-20th-century disfranchisement was not a regional or a racial story; it was a national one. Then as now, it was about protecting the power of a class of wealthy, white Americans in the face of an urge from below for a multiracial democracy.

Echoes from that era could be heard half a century later in the reaction of Republicans and Southern Democrats to the civil rights movement. In the South, since Jim Crow voter suppression had disenfranchised entire generations of Blacks, disproportionately living in poverty, civil rights reforms threatened what some saw as a natural social order. Elsewhere across the country, fears arose that legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would empower poor people across the board. Two Republican congressmen from Michigan and Indiana, for instance, introduced a sham alternative to it that would have allowed states to use literacy tests in election season, a time-honored proxy for restricting the votes of the poor.

Such extremist politicians typicallyand it should still sound all too familiar todaycouched their opposition to the Voting Rights Act in terms of ensuring voter integrity and preventing voter fraud. Beneath such rhetoric, of course, lay an underlying fear of what broad democratic participation could mean for their political and economic interests. During his governorship of California in the late 1960s, Ronald Reagan first began connecting mass enfranchisement and welfare with the specter of poor people destroying American democracy. His future staffer Pat Buchanan highlighted a growing consensus in the Republican Party when he said, The saving grace of the GOP in national elections has been the political apathy, the lethargy, of the welfare class. It simply does not bother to register to vote.

President Reagans hyper-racialized caricature of the welfare queen has endured all these decades later, cementing the lie that the poor dont care about democracy and stoking fears of a changing multiracial electorate. And while it may be true that a sizable portion of eligible poor and low-income voters dont vote, its not because of indifference. Indeed, a recent report from the Poor Peoples Campaign, which I co-chair, shows that typical reasons for lower voter participation among the poor are illness, disability, time and transportation issues, and a basic belief that too few politicians speak to their needs, ensuring that their votes simply dont matter. This last point is especially important because, as the voter suppression tactics of the previous century have evolved into present-day full-scale attacks on voting rights, their concerns have proven anything but unfounded.

In 2013, in Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down the Section 5 preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act. That section had placed certain districts with histories of racist voter suppression under federal jurisdiction, requiring them to submit to the Department of Justice any planned changes in their voting laws. Since then, theres been a deluge of voter-suppression laws across the country.

After a multiracial coalition of voters elected Americas first Black president, 2011 stood as the modern watershed for voter suppression with 19 restrictive laws passed in 14 states. (Barack Obama would nevertheless be reelected the next year.) Today, were at a new low point. Six months into 2021, a total of nearly 400 laws meant to obstruct the right to vote have been introduced across the country. So far, 18 states, ranging from Alabama and Arkansas to Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, have passed 30 of them, including an omnibus bill signed into law in Georgia in March. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, it targets Black voters with uncanny accuracy.

At this very moment, one major front in the battle over voting rights is still unfolding in Texas. There, the state Senate recently passed a massive voter integrity bill that would, among other things, ban 24-hour and drive-through voting, add new ID requirements, and criminalize election workers who dont follow the onerous new rules. The bill would also grant new powers to partisan poll watchers, raising the possibility of far-right militia groups legally monitoring polling stations. Texas House Democrats fled the state before a vote could be introduced and now remain in Washington, D.C., in exile, awaiting the end of the special session called by Republican Governor Greg Abbott and possible federal action.

Those state legislators arrived in D.C. the same day President Joe Biden gave a national address in Philadelphia on voting rights. His rhetoric was certainly impassioned, and he has since affirmed his support for both the For the People Act and for restoring the full power of the Voting Rights Act, which would indeed expand access to the ballot, while placing more political power in the hands of people of color and the poor. And yet he has offered little when it comes to developing an actual strategy for getting that done. Instead, he continues to insist that he is not in favor of ending the filibuster in the Senate, even though its the chief impediment to federal action on the subject. He argues instead that such a move would only throw Congress into chaos.

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Reverend William Barber, my cochair in the Poor Peoples Campaign, recently laid out the hypocrisy of the presidents support for voting rights, even as he justifies inaction on the filibuster:

President Biden, I have no doubt you care and desire to do right, but, as a clergy person, let me say pastorally, when you say ending the filibuster will create chaos that obscures the fact that the filibuster is facilitating chaos. The filibuster caused chaos with anti-slavery legislation, labor rights, womens rights, civil rights, voting rights, and it once again is causing policy chaos by allowing a minority to obstruct justice. The filibuster has already been used to stop your goal of $15/hr. living wage. We believe the filibuster should end. But, at the very least, no one should ever say the filibuster is preventing chaos.

As Barber notes, the filibuster is also obstructing urgent policy struggles around better wages and health care, immigration reform, and the large-scale infrastructure plan that the Biden administration has worked so hard to create. Action on these issues would dramatically improve the lives of millions of poor and low-income Americans and is precisely what a majority of voters support and extremists are so eager to block through voter suppression. Thats why theres been a recent upsurge of grassroots actions meant to connect the fight for democracy, including voting rights, with economic justice and the abolition of the filibuster. This includes a season of nonviolent moral direct action, including a March for Democracy and a Rally in Texas organized by the Poor Peoples Campaign, because its members understand that whats really underway in this country is a struggle between democracy and potential autocracy or, as Martin Luther King once put it, between community and chaos.

Our own choice is the sort of community where everyone has an equal voice in our democracy and, honestly, in that I believe I am simply following in my fathers footsteps.

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Thwarting the Republican Backlash Against Democracy - The Nation

By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Taking serious note of the use of child labour in railway work, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), New Delhi, has asked the General Manager of South Western Railway Zone to submit a detailed report within a week. It has also ordered the Ramanagara Deputy Commissioner to investigate into the incident and submit an inquiry report on the action taken.

On August 2, TNIE had published a report (Contractor held for child labour) regarding a railway contractor employing child labour to carry out hazardous work of placing stones on the railway tracks near Settihalli railway station in Bengaluru railway division. According to a reliable source, the notice was issued by the NCPCR on August 3. The Commission stated that it has taken suo motu cognizance of the report which highlighted seven children three girls and four boys performing a hazardous and risky job.

Signed by Anu Chaudhary, Registrar, NCPCR, the letter to the SWR General Manager says, You are requested to send detailed report of this case within seven days of issue of this letter along with policies/guidelines framed by the Railway authorities to prevent such type of cases pertaining to child labour.

In another communication to the Ramanagara DC, the Commission has asked him to investigate and submit an action-taken report within three days. Among other aspects, it has asked the DC to take action as per the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, The Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, 1976.

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TNIE impact: Rights body notice to Railway official over child labour - The New Indian Express

Mr. Roger Wadada Musaalo, a Lawyer, human rights activist, researcher, and politician (PHOTO/Courtesy).

MBALE For about three months, I have been following the debate on the mailo land tenure and almost kept my view private until my brother Ofwono Opondo came out with a dossier in his Sunday column that I believe was uncalled for.

With a very harsh headline titled- Kabaka Ronald Mutebi, Ugandans need no favours from you- Im still wondering whether these were Opondos personal sentiments or that of Government or the President.

A deeper analysis of Opondos article goes beyond the subject of the mailo system and makes personal attacks on the Kabaka and his throne. True the Kabaka raised his voice but what do you expect of a man whose Kingdom is under attack; you dont expect him to smile in the face of such an eminent threat.

Frankly, this subject has been long overdue and I think it is time to face it head on. The dictates of colonialism have kept Uganda lagging behind because of the fear to undo some of the unfair historical mistakes they left us in.

For instance, the British entered into agreements forcing Uganda to provide electricity to Kenya at a cheap price. They also signed agreements with Buganda, Ankole, Bunyoro, Toro and they ensured that these agreements remain in force forever.

Whereas other agreements are never heard of, the 1900 Buganda agreement has remained a thorn in the neck and the government believes now is the time to act.

As the debate of I-will-dismantle-you-will-not-dismantle the mailo system rages on, the Kabaka needs to be reminded that the 1900 Buganda agreement was signed between Buganda and the Queen on behalf of Uganda. The agreement is not like the religious books that are not subject to amendment.

Now if it is the same Uganda that wants to verify, modify and amend some provisions of the 1900 Buganda agreement, then so be it.Uganda cannot continue being held by unfair and draconian terms that no longer serve their purpose in the new age. I am not a Muganda and frankly I dont care whether the mailo system was abolished and replaced with something else but what I know is that to destroy the mailo system is an indirect way of destroying Buganda as a Kingdom, for land is the very foundation of their survival and the continued call for ebyaffe. Ebyaffe is land.

When Museveni went to war in the jungles, he invited some Baganda to help him with a promise that he would restore the Kingdom and all its belongings. He has since returned some of the properties but the Baganda have not stopped demanding for the rest which must have agitated him to reconsiderhis promise. Every coronation anniversary has been an opportunity to call upon the central government to honour its promise; the government must have been tired of this call hence setting up a commission of inquiry into land matters and I believe it was a plot to use their recommendation to launch a plan to abolish the mailo land system.

Ugandans should be reminded that on December 8, 2016, the President appointed a Commission of Inquiry into the Effectiveness of the Law, Policies and Processes of Land Acquisition, Land Administration, Land Management and Land Registration in Uganda, (the Commission) headed by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire and a panel of other 6 members.

This debate gained momentum during Heroes Day celebrations on 9th June, 2021 when President Museveni expressed dismay at the century long mailo land system saying it is really very bad and not fair but some people support it. Of course some people meant the Baganda under the leadership of His Royal Highness Ronald Muwenda Mutebi. The President said that land owners should be entitled to full ownership of their land like elsewhere in Uganda and gave an example of Ankole where you cannot mess with somebodys land.

On the other hand, Buganda Kingdom has insisted that the cause of land conflicts is not the Mailo tenure system, but failure by government agencies to respond to the wrangles appropriately. While addressing the Buganda Lukiiko, the Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga, said those pushing for the scrapping of the system are off the point, and instead outlined a seven-point strategy government must adopt to streamline land issues.

It is now on record that President Museveni has promised to dismantle the old and barbaric land laws that for long have hard-pressed Ugandans through rampant illegal evictions. With those remarks, it is apparent that any time soon, there will be serious amendments to the constitution and the land laws to implement the Justice Catherine Bamugemereire report on land matters in order to cure both current and historical land injustices in the country. He cited the Mailo Land tenure that the British colonialists handed to Buganda chiefs and their collaborators.

However, somebody needs to move in very quickly to remind the President that the Justice Catherine Bamugemereire report and recommendation was quashed by the Constitutional Court where the judges condemned the commission as having acted illegally when it convened itself as a court of law in handling land disputes. In a unanimous decision of the court, the five judges of the panel ordered that all disputes relating to ownership, use and/or access to land emanating from the Land Act, the Registration of Titles Act or any other law where such a dispute is not resolved amicably or administratively can only be determined by a court of law.

In the Seven-member commission report to the President, Justice Bamugemereire had proposed that all land in the country be registered to minimize land disputes, enhance tenure security and create avenues for optimal land use. Justice Bamugemereire has since denied having been used as a conduit to abolish Mailo Land but instead backed creation of a single land tenure for Uganda.

And for sure these days it is hard to just rush off to buy land without verifying what you are getting yourself into. To most people, acquiring land in Uganda comes with very serious expenses and risks during and after acquiring property.Land tenure refers to the systems that govern the ownership of land together with the corresponding laws. This notion may seem unhelpful before we understand the principle that underlies real property law in Uganda until one encounters a multiplicity of threats from government and those who own the land in the background.

Mailo Land is a form of freehold predominant in Buganda and some parts of the eastern, with some peculiar historical characteristics. The constitution recognizes this type of land tenure and other forms of freehold available in Buganda and other parts of Uganda. However, the President says this land tenure system sits at the epicentre of the wrangles between the landlords and bibanja owners.

And to him as the head of state, in order to achieve the planned fusion of the parallel freehold systems in the country, it would be necessary for Cabinet and Parliament to address the contradictions caused by occupancy rights that frequently affect Mailo tenure. These contradictions according to him include separation of rights of ownership from occupancy that has led to difficulties in the smooth operation of the Mailo Tenure System.

Musevenis claim that the public will be given an opportunity to air their views on the proposed amendments before implementation means that we will have a referendum on the matter by all Ugandans and not the Baganda alone. That being the case, it is obvious that many Ugandans will vote against the mailo system even when many dont understand it. It is clear that the referendum will be intended for the public to rubber stamp Musevenis wishes and I see him succeeding. The President, who spoke after Justice Bamugemereire presented her paper on land conflicts, asked the MPs to help him find a permanent solution to the land question. Museveni told the lawmakers that the planned amendments to the Land Act would stabilise the situation.

Mengo says it made its stand clear when Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga appeared before the Bamugemereire Commission on April 25, 2018 maintaining that the current conflicts are not triggered by Mailo Land system but other factors. They insist that their views were derived from what Mr Mayiga called historical and contemporary context of land allocation, land tenure and management in Buganda before and after Ugandas Independence.

As far as Mengo is concerned, the planned abolition of the Mailo Land tenure and introduction of a new regime for the compulsory acquisition of land to suit the interests of some people within government is contrary to Article 26 and 237 of the Constitution in a manner that mostly de-enfranchises land owners in Buganda, which constitutes the most sought-after land for commercial and public interests because it lies at the heart of the countrys transport system, public administration, business and commerce.

In a recent cosmetic show of solidarity Kabaka Ronald Mutebi met President Yoweri Museveni at state Lodge Nakasero. It is claimed that they discussed matters of mutual interest for the development of Buganda and Uganda. However, what the Kabaka said while in Masaka that the Baganda were being hospitable and accommodative to allow other Ugandans to settle in Buganda, is what raised eye brows. Many concluded that the Kabakas remarks portrayed Ugandans as aliens or refugees in their own country.

Ofwono Opondos article which is clearly well researched but misplaced said Mengo is mistaken and will never bring the rest of Uganda to its knees through arrogance. He also implores the Kabaka and his subjects to realize that nobody is being favoured by being permitted to live, work or even own land or any other property in Buganda because this is an integral part of Uganda and the law permits any Ugandan to live where they want without fear of being evicted.

It is a fact that what is called Buganda today is a result of wars of subjugation and annexation which expanded the kingdom beyond its borders. True, by annexing these areas, its people, its wealth, resources and land were also given to Buganda as a gift by the colonialists. That explains why there are so many ethnic groups within Buganda who refused to be assimilated into the ways of life of the Baganda but were held in Buganda as a result of the 1900 Buganda agreement between Buganda and Uganda. By implication, Uganda wants the 1900 Buganda agreement to which it was a party amended to reflect the current wishes of the people using the land.

There is one ethnic group in this country that I fear for, that is the Baganda. They have always packaged themselves in such a way that they use them against each other, they are also used by those who want power and later dumped, an act that they have not learnt from. When Arabs first set foot in Uganda, their first collaboration was with Buganda. These were closely followed by the Protestant missionaries and later the catholic white fathers who also found reason to begin their dubious missions in Buganda and they were all welcomed with open arms.

Having studied the Buganda, the missionaries plotted a move which saw the deportation of Mwanga to Seychelles Island and replaced him with a small boy Dawudi Chwa. No one knows where Chwa came from and the last time I checked, the name Chwa does not belong to Baganda but that is a subject for another day.

After the missionaries had successfully used the Baganda to colonise Uganda in exchange for favours such as helping them fight off enemies and annexing other areas including their land that was later called mailo land to Buganda, they dumped them and moved on with life. The colonialists themselves were aware what it meant to deal with a Muganda, that is why when they were handing over power in 1962, they made sure that the then Prime Minister Obote had more powers than the President Edward Mutesa who was also the reigning Kabaka.

Obote himself had a good time manipulating the Baganda until they fell out with the deportation of the Kabaka. Where he stopped is where Amin Dada picked up. He brought back the remains of Mutesa and became a darling of the Buganda for some time. Infact all the subsequent Presidents before Museveni found it had to rule Uganda without the support of Buganda. When Museveni went to the bush, he again used the Baganda to push through his plans and eventually succeed. He has already forgotten the input of the Baganda and is now working tooth and nail to deprive them of their most important treasure, mailo land.

As the mailo land tenure debate rages on, at the forefront in Sam Mayanja- a Muganda for that matter the new minister of state for Lands whose boss is Nabakooba- also a Muganda. These two ministers have been used to do a dirty job and will be very instrumental in causing the abolition of the mailo land system. Whether they succeed or not, these two will never win a political seat in Buganda forever.

The author, Roger Wadada Musaalo is a Lawyer, human rights activist, researcher, and politician

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ROGERS WADADA: Mailo Land tenure is a creation of the 1900 Buganda Agreement, is it ripe for abolition? - pmldaily.com

Opposition parties and the SNP are clashing over whether or not election promises for the first 100 days of government have been met.

The Conservatives say the SNP is miles off target on a number of promises, while the Liberal Democrats claim many pledges have fallen by the wayside.

Friday August 26 will officially mark 100 days since the government was formed.

But the opposition say a number of key promises such as publishing an NHS recovery plan, launching a Scottish Covid inquiry, producing a womens health plan and vaccinating all adults against coronavirus have not been met.

Annie Wells MSP, shadow cabinet secretary for health, said: Its clear the SNP are miles off target on meeting the pledges in their 100 days document.

Once again, theres an enormous gap between what the SNP say and what they do.

They can talk a good game but they just dont deliver.

This looks like another set of broken promises in the making.

Their failures will have damaging knock-on consequences for our NHS and people across the country.

The delay to publishing an NHS recovery plan is inexcusable.

That should have been one of the SNP governments top priorities.

Its apparent that most of the inaction and missed targets are down to Humza Yousafs lousy performance as health secretary.

So far his most notable action is misleading parents about Covid rates in children.

Instead of focusing on meeting these pledges, the SNP broke their promise to set indyref2 aside and prioritise Scotlands recovery.

Just this week, we heard they are shamelessly planning to ramp up their push for another referendum at their party conference.

Its more of the same from this distracted, divisive SNP government.

The Scottish Lib Dems are also criticising the SNPs performance in the first few weeks of government, adding they are too focused on separatism rather than peoples jobs, health and education.

Alistair Carmichael MP, interim leader of the Lib Dems, said: Nicola Sturgeon has one more week to deliver on her pledges for her first 100 days in power.

Most significantly we are still waiting on the NHS recovery plan to help our health service recover, not just from the pandemic, but from 14 years of her governments mismanagement.

But there are other projects that seem to have already fallen by the wayside too.

After the mistakes made in handling care homes it is no surprise that the first minister is in no great hurry to set up an independent inquiry into her governments response to the coronavirus crisis.

The vaccination of all adults hasnt been completed.

Teachers are being hired on casual short-term contracts and there are still many more without work for August and whose talents will be missed by children.

Still she has found time to appoint Mike Russell to head up another independence push at SNP HQ.

It should be clear to the public that the SNPs priority will never be your job, your health and your childrens education, it will always be separatism.

However, the SNP says opposition politicians are ignoring the good work it has done in the past few weeks, such as giving NHS staff a pay rise and abolishing school music tuition fees.

A spokesman for Covid recovery secretary John Swinney said: It says it all about Scotlands unionist parties that they cant bring themselves to say a single positive thing about the fantastic achievements of the SNP government over the last few months whether thats agreeing a 4% pay rise for our hard-working NHS staff, announcing the abolition of chares for school music tuition or dental charges for 18-25 year olds, completed the transformational expansion of free childcare to 1,140 hours across Scotland or more.

We have always been clear that our plans were to be implemented 100 days from forming the new government not the date of the election, which would of course be nonsensical, given that at that time there was not even MSPs to vote in the new government to carry out its programme.

We are immensely proud of what we are delivering and are continuing to work to our timetable to implement our remaining important commitments.

As people would expect, some of the commitments such as the NHS recovery plan or the next steps on the Covid public inquiry have required extensive and careful consultation in order to ensure we get these important policies right.

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Lousy performance: SNP and opposition parties clash over first 100 days election pledges - The Courier

In a race that he says may shape the fate of democracy and will almost certainly offer clues to the future of the Democratic Party Congressman Conor Lamb formally launched his bid to replace Pat Toomey in the U.S. Senate today.

I think that our democracy is really on the line in this race and in 2022, Lamb said in an interview with WESA prior to his formal campaign announcement Friday afternoon. We really are facing opponents who are willing to try to overturn an election, cancel out people's votes [and] really shake the foundation of this system that we inherited in order to get what they want. And I believe that we have to be more determined than they are.

And I think that the same people that will lie about your vote, lie about the election, will lie about your paycheck and lie about the things that affect you and your family, he added. All of it is on the line.

The Lamb campaign appears likely to turn on the melding of such pocketbook issues with concerns about the plight of American democracy in a hyper-polarized environment. His Friday campaign announcement took place at the IBEW Local #5 union hall in Pittsburghs South Side an anchor location for Democratic candidates and was attended by a number of supporters from both labor and the ranks of elected leaders.

The outcome of next years race to replace Toomey, a hardline fiscal conservative who announced his retirement last fall, may well determine control of the Senate, which is divided 50-50 but where Democrats have a functional majority. The state will be a national battleground a familiar backdrop for Lamb, who vaulted into the national spotlight in a 2018 special election to replace Republican Tim Murphy after Murphys resignation. In a race that was widely seen as an early test of Donald Trumps political might, Lamb campaigned as a Western Pennsylvania pro-union moderate whose first TV ad featured him firing an AR-15 and a pledge not to support Nancy Pelosi for House speaker.

Lamb has in fact emerged as a reliable Democratic vote on many issues, though he has bucked progressives priorities on some issues, like marijuana reform. In the interview, Lamb said he has tried to maintain a bipartisan approach but it hasnt been easy.

If you really want to make something better for someone that only earns $12 an hour and you think they should earn $15 ... if you really want to make things like that better, you need a lot of votes, he said. The relationships that you've built mean a lot about how you can persuade other people to try to come to your position and help your constituents.

Still, Lambs Jan. 6 denunciation of Republican efforts to overturn the election results nearly resulted in a physical confrontation between legislators on the House floor, and he says now that the way I've seen Republicans behave in Washington for these two years, obviously the way Trump conducted his reelection and most of all, January 6th, I think I am much more aware of and wise to the depth of obstruction, disinformation, willingness to condone violence and overall just willingness to lie that exists at the heart of the Republican Party.

HIs entrance into the race was decried Friday by Republicans who accused him of sprinting to the left, once elected to the House.

If Conor is good at anything, its completely abandoning his principles and positions to pander to an electorate, said Sean Parnell, a Republican Senate hopeful who Lamb bested in his re-election to the House last year. Parnell criticized Lamb for alleged hypocrisies such as accepting police union endorsements but marching with radicals who want to defund the police an apparent reference to Lambs participation in Black Lives Matter marches last summer.

Lamb cant expect to find the mood any lighter if he is elected to the Senate, where dysfunction also has been the order of the day. Lamb himself has called for the end of the filibuster a delaying tactic used by the minority party whose abolition is sought by many Democrats after Republicans stopped an effort to create a bipartisan commission to review the Jan. 6 attack.

Still, he said hes running because Things are so evenly divided in the Senate right now that that even one or two additional Democratic votes, I think, would mean a whole lot for our ability to get things done. . [T]here still is a coalition there that is really trying to get things done. And I would like to be part of that because at the end of the day, we have to work together to get things done, especially things for the people who need it the most.

Lamb will have to win the Democratic primary first, and that will mean besting a handful of already declared candidates led by fellow Allegheny County resident and state Lt. Gov. John Fetterman who have a head start.

Asked what separates him from that field, Lamb cited his experience in Washington and a proven ability to weather bruising campaigns.

I've been working in Washington on basically all these issues [and] Ive had the chance to work on them in Congress, build relationships across the whole spectrum of my party, across the aisle, in the administration, he said. We have to have serious legislators that know the history of this stuff and how to get things done.

And then on top of that, I just think that I have run a campaign a lot like what this one is going to be, he said. Trump has been here personally himself, calling out my name, giving me nicknames. They've spent. I don't even know how many tens of millions of dollars against me at this point. ...When I talk to at least Democrats, what they say is we really want someone who can win. And I think I can offer that.

Lamb, a former U.S. Marine Corps lawyer who went on to become a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorneys office, arguably has run the gantlet more in the past three years than some politicians face in a lifetime. His 2018 win over conservative firebrand Rick Saccone came in a strongly pro-Trump district, and with massive spending by Republican groups such as the Congressional Leadreship Fund. In 2020, he narrowly eked out the win over Parnell a Fox News fixture whose campaign was announced and backed by Trump in a year where many down-ballot Democrats fell to Republicans.

But next years race will offer challenging terrain long before November. At a time when the Democratic Party increasingly relies on a racially diverse electorate for its victories and as its progressive wing has been seeking to push it leftward Lamb is seeking to join incumbent Bob Casey as Pennsylvanias second male, Irish Catholic with a strong record on labor but moderate positions elsewhere. But Lamb, who has cautioned progressives against overreach, says Democrats should think broadly about the kind of movement that delivers wins.

If we really believe in getting things done, in assembling coalitions that can win elections and then get all the votes behind legislation that we need on these big topics, we really need a lot of people with us, he said. We can't only use the language that is popular in a college classroom but not in a union hall.

In the first eight months of this year, we have done the most productive and progressive legislating that I know of in my lifetime, he said, citing coronavirus aid and changes to a federal child tax credit that will deliver hundreds of dollars a month to low-income families. We did that because you elected Joe Biden president and you sent people like me back to Congress. I will put those results against the arguments and tweets and speeches of anyone else in this race because I've been part of getting those actual results. And to me, that's what progressive is: It's making actual progress in real life.

As for concerns about representing the partys own electorate, Lamb said that What I have found, talking to voters of all races men and women, jobs and classes and all the rest of it is that they mostly care about who can get results for them. Everywhere I've gone, every different type of community, people have been very open-minded toward me and willing to listen. And I've done a lot of listening to them. That has really paid off for me and a lot of very diverse set of communities. I think it will again.

*This story has been updated.

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'All Of It Is On The Line': Conor Lamb Joins Race For Pennsylvania Senate Seat - 90.5 WESA

The behavior of Christians is often cited as a justification for rejecting Christianity. Whether it is the Churchs involvement in the Crusades, the Inquisitions, or the Salem witch trials, the fact is, such actions betray the very beliefs that Christians allegedly espouse.

Christians commonly respond to such accusations by attempting to divorce themselves from such events. After all,

Of course, one doesnt have to go to the Middle Ages to find such aberrant behavior conducted by the Church. The 20th century has more than its fair share of Christians behaving badly.

One could simply appeal to the fact that the German church almost universally supported Hitler and his campaign against the Jewish people.[1] Of course, that doesnt matter either because, had I been there, I would have been on Bonhoeffers side and resisted the Nazi efforts. It doesnt seem to matter that most Christians in the US remained silent even after Hitlers escapades had become well-known.

One could also cite the plethora of sexual abuse scandals that riddle the churchs recent history. Of course, that doesnt affect me either because sexual abuse is what the Catholics do. It doesnt seem to matter that sexual abuse scandals have rocked many of the major evangelical denominationsincluding the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the US largest protestant denomination.[2] Nor, does it seem to matter that evangelicals and non-evangelicals have had more than their fair share of headlines in the last decade alone.

It is worth noting that the confidence with which many claim, I would have sided with Bonhoeffer or, I would have condemned the crusades is a bit arrogant and self-righteous. I certainly hope that I would have spoken out against Hitler, but I fear that I, too, would have swept it under the carpet or ignored it as just another thing that happens over there.

After all, isnt that what we do with the injustices that the Kurds have been suffering for years? Or what about the injustices against the Rohingyas[3] or the Uyghurs[4]? Do they not warrant a voice because they are over there or is it because they are Muslims?

History does not bode well for those who claim that I would have done differently. Though most Americans todayI wish I could say allconsider the American practice of chattel slavery[5] as unjust, ruthless, and inhumane, one simple look at American history confirms that far more pastors and churches supported slavery than spoke against it. And they used their Bibles to defend it!

Christians throughout the United States not only supported chattel slavery but they firmly resisted the abolition of it. In fact, they resisted it to the toll of a civil war! Christian moms and dads resisted the abolition of chattel slavery so fervently that they willingly sent their own sons to die in a war in order to maintain the unjust, ruthless, and inhumane system.

When it comes to the injustices against the people of color today and the question of systemic racism we must acknowledge, as I noted previously, that the racism that fueled the system of chattel slavery in America did not go away with abolition of slavery. It did not end because the racist views of those in power did not go away!

In fact, the injustices incurred against Blacks intensified in many ways. Hence, Douglas Blackmons scathing report on the tragic history of the treatment of Blacks after 1865, titled, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

Unfortunately, the churchs continued complicity in racism and injustices towards people of color did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation. The injustices against Blacks in particular and all persons of color in general continued unabated into the 20th century. Certainly, there were Christians who opposed racismjust as there are many today who do so. But the fact is that many remained silent. Still othersand, unfortunately, they were plentifulacted, voted, and spoke passionately about maintaining an apartheid system of oppression against Blacks and people of color.

Tragically, during the 1960s and the era of civil rights legislation, many of the very same church buildings in the Southern states, which 100 years earlier were used to house meetings to decide if the members of the state wanted to succeed from the union, were now being used to house meetings to decide how they might resist desegregation.[6]

The fact is that the secular world doesnt look at it this way. And Im not sure the Bible does either.

Pauls theology of the unity of the church affirms that if one member suffers, we all suffer (1 Cor 12:26). We would do well to rcognize that when a large faction of Christians act, we all act. Thus, regardless of your denominational affiliation we are all guilty.

I say all of this for three reasons:

Whether or not you are personally a racist; Whether or not you would have voted to succeed from the Union; Whether or not you would have resisted the civil rights legislation; We must repent.

(Note: Daniel 9:1-19 is a great example of one person praying for the sins of the nation).

Many Protestant whites are responding to the challenges of racism today in a similar manner to the white Christians that suppressed Blacks and people of color over the last few centuries.

One of the means of accomplishing this is by denying their claims. Of course, many whites are tremendously ignorantthough this is routinely deniedof both the claims of racial injustice and their veracity.

This brings me to a third reason for saying all of this:

This will be the subject of the next several posts.

In closing, I would note that the thousands of Blacks that were lynched were often lynched without a trial, they were lynched by individuals and not the state or members of the criminal justice system, they were lynched for crimes that were often manufactured, they were lynched for crimes that were not worthy of death, they were lynched in order to foster fear among Black communities and, as such, they often included torture and barbarity that is hard to imagine,[7] and they were often lynched by conservative Protestant Christians.

What do we say to the critics who refuse to accept Christianity because of the behavior of Christians? Well, unless Christians repent and begin to advocate for justice more vociferously, I am not certain that it matters.

I recognize that some readers of this blog may not agree with the conviction to which I am clearly leadingnamely that systemic racism is alive and well in the US. I only hope that they continue to read and assume responsibility to not merely refuse to be racists themselves, but to oppose racism and racial injustices with vigor wherever they may be found.

That, of course, is my prayer for all the readers of this blog.

Good news: If you wish to view these posts on your smartphone, simply download the tithe.ly church app on your smartphone and insert determinetruth as the church name you wish to follow. Once it is loaded, simply click on the blog icon and they will automatically load.

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If you would like to share your story, or if you have questions that you would like addressed in future posts, you may submit them in the Contact me tab on this site.

[1] It is worth noting that in addition to the 6 million Jews who were slaughtered in the Holocaust Hitler systematically instituted programs against other groups including the mentally and physically handicapped.

[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/february/southern-baptist-abuse-investigation-houston-chronicle-sbc.html

[3] See: https://www.hrw.org/tag/rohingya.

[4] See: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037.

[5] I would like to define chattel slavery but I realize that the fact that I need to definebecause many whites do not know what it meansproves the point of white ignorance when it comes to the injustices that Blacks and all people of color have endured in this country. Those who do not know what chattel slavery means are encouraged to do their own google search.

[6] See: Russell J. Hawkins, The Bible Told Them So, 68.

[7] See: Most Horrible: Details of the Burning at the Stake of the Holberts, Vicksburg Evening Post, February 13, 1904. 34. Most Horrible, Vicksburg Evening Post. 35. Walter White, The Work of a Mob, The Crisis 16, no. 5 (September 1918): 221. 36. White, The Work of a Mob, 222. 37. Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley C. Harrold, African American Odyssey, vol. 1, 7th ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2016), 386. Tisby, Jemar. The Color of Compromise. Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

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The Church's complicity in racial injustice: The Bible, injustice, and race#5; Justice#30 - Patheos

Roughly 100 people descended upon the Halifax Commons on Tuesday evening in an event to honour those who have died while incarcerated.

The Prisoners Justice Day event was organized by Books Beyond Bars, a local organization dedicated to improving access to books, writing, and literature for incarcerated women in Nova Scotia.

The memorial, vigil, and protest allowed supporters to remember the men and women who have died inside prisons.

On this day every year, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people take the day to fast while prisoner justice advocates take the time to discuss the significance of the day and what the current prison system has done and is doing and ways we can help, organizers wrote in a press release.

The annual event marks the anniversary of the death of prisoner Eddie Nalon, who, in 1974, bled to death in the segregation unit of Millhaven Maximum Security Prison in Ontario. The first anniversary of Nalons death was marked by a protest inside the prison, where prisoners went on a one-day hunger strike, refused to work, and held a memorial service in his honour.

This years demonstration sought to discuss the intersections between mental health and prison, the overpopulation of Black and Indigenous people in Canadian prisons, and share resources about prison abolition and reform.

The COVID-19 pandemic effectively resulted in the suspension of programming in prisons across the province and the country. In an effort to abide by public health restrictions, some prisoners were temporarily released from facilities, but have since returned. Books Beyond Bars, for example, are only now returning to regular programming at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside after more than 16 months.

The speakers list included representatives from the Mainline Distribution & Disposal Program, the Elizabeth Fry Society of Nova Scotia, the East Coast Prison Justice Society, the Coverdale Courtwork Society, NOISE Information and Transition Agency, the Seven Steps Society of Nova Scotia, and the North Pine Foundation.

Among the attendees were Lily Barraclough, Green Party candidate for Halifax-Chebucto, who also serves as policy conveyor for the Greens. Barraclough, the only political candidate in attendance, says politicians need to better listen to those who have lived experience with the justice system.

Its crucial that we are providing livable conditions for those who are incarcerated, Barraclough said, adding the province should ultimately take steps toward the abolition of prisons.

Panelists included Georgie Fagan, who has a yet-to-be-published book documenting his more than 25 years interacting with the justice system, and rap/hip-hop artist Corey Writes, who still fasts on this day every year in tribute to those still incarcerated.

One of the featured speakers was Tonia Dawson, whose daughter, Ashley King, passed away last month at the age of 25. Dawson documented her daughters battle with mental illness, and the ensuing experiences with the justice system that Dawson says led to Kings death.

After Dawson spoke, a candlelight vigil took place in honour of Kings memory.

I hope by being here, Dawson said, we can somehow make a difference, to help others who are suffering through drug addiction, mental health and health issues, especially when they're in prison.

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Prisoners' Justice Day event honours those who have died behind bars - HalifaxToday.ca

In this photo reviewed by the U.S. military, a U.S. Navy medical personel stand next to a chair with restraints, used for force-feeding. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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A man thrown in jail over two traffic offenses in Clayton County, Georgia, was allegedly strapped into whats been described as a devils chair for several hours. He was then covered with a hood, beaten, and photographed, according to a new federal indictment against the local sheriff.

Restraint chairs, which allow law enforcement to pin down a persons arms, legs, and torso, are typically reserved for instances where a detainee has been deemed a danger to themselves, others, and property. But theyve also been used to punish people in jails and prisons across the United States, including at the Clayton County Jail, according to the indictment filed July 29 in a U.S. district court in the civil rights case against Sheriff Victor Hill.

Over the years, several other reports have surfaced of people being mistreated using restraint chairseven resulting in death, in extreme circumstances. As a result, some jurisdictions have banned or restricted the chairs to avoid further problems, while human rights advocates have pressed for their abolition nationwide.

In one of the most horrifying cases, a mentally ill man stopped breathing and died less than an hour after he was released from a restraint chair in the San Luis Obispo County jail, according to the Los Angeles Times. The man had been left naked and shackled for nearly two days after hed repeatedly struck himself in the head and face. After the incident, the county said it would no longer use the chair.

Unfortunately, when you give law enforcement these tools, they will often misuse them and use them in inappropriate ways.

The man detained at the Clayton County Jail was allegedly dropped off in May 2020 after a state trooper arrested him for speeding and driving with a suspended license, according to last months indictment. As sheriff, Hill allegedly ordered officers to put the man, described only as W.T. in court documents, in the controversial device, as hed allegedly demanded with other detainees that year. W.T., who was struck twice by what he believed to be a fist despite not being physically aggressive, was also photographed by one officer who covered the blood on W.T.s jail uniform with a white paper smock, according to the indictment. At one point, W.T. urinated in the chair.

The Clayton County Sheriffs Office policy was that restraint chairs only be used in situations where an inmate was so violent or uncontrollable that it was necessary to prevent self-injury, injury to others or property damage, particularly when other techniques hadnt been effective, according to the indictment. The devices were also never meant to be used as a form of punishment, which manufacturers and other law enforcement officials have explicitly warned against in the past.

Hill approved the sheriffs offices policy himself, according to the indictment against him. Yet he allegedly didnt enforce it. Now, hes facing a total of five charges of violating inmates constitutional rights. (While he was originally indicted in April, the superseding indictment filed last week added W.Ts allegations against the sheriff.)

In 2020 alone, the restraint chair was used against several detainees in the Clayton County Jail, according to the indictment: a man accused of assaulting two women, a 17-year-old whod allegedly vandalized his home during an argument with his mother, a person accused of a domestic disturbance, a man whod gotten into a payment dispute with one of Hills deputies before he was charged with harassing communications, and W.T.

Hill has pleaded not guilty to all of the accusations against him. When asked for comment, Hills attorney, Drew Findling, directed VICE News to statements he'd made about the new charge to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Those comments, which referenced an earlier motion to dismiss the April indictment, also noted that nobody had alleged Hill either assaulted or directed the assault of anyone.

The superseding indictment is a desperate Hail Mary by the government in response to Sheriff Hills powerful motion to dismiss, Findling told the paper. The allegation contained in the additional count was known to the government for over a year and clearly not included by the government in the initial indictment.

Since Hill was first charged and suspended from his post by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, an Instagram page has posted several screenshots of adoring emails and social media posts from apparent fans, including one that describes him as THE BEST SHERIFF Clayton County has ever had!

Two decades ago, in 2000, the United Nations Committee Against Torture urged U.S. officials to outright abolish restraint chairs and stun beltstwo methods of controlling people that the panel thought might ''almost invariably lead to breaches of the international treaty against torture, according to the New York Times. Despite that, restraint chairs managed to proliferate in detention facilities nationwideregardless of whether they held pretrial detainees not yet convicted of a crime or supermax prisoners.

Amnesty International also urged officials to ban restraint chairs, in part because they are so easily deployed, and their use is virtually unregulated in many jurisdictions, according to a paper the organization published on the issue in 2002. That, too, had little obvious effect. By 2006, it was reported that guards at Guantnamo Bay were using the chairs to force-feed detainees who were on hunger strike.

While strapping down a person whos a danger to themselves or others might be helpful in some circumstances, the practice can quickly start to look like torture when combined with excessive force or humiliation, according to Justin Mazzola, the deputy director of research for Amnesty International USA.

Unfortunately, when you give law enforcement these tools, they will often misuse them and use them in inappropriate ways, Mazzola said.

That might include leaving people in the chairs for hours until they soil themselves or tasing and hitting them while theyre strapped down, he said.

Thats where you really cross that line from when something like this could be warranted to where youre actually torturing an individual or subjecting them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, Mazzola said.

In Tennessee, for instance, a Cheatham County corrections officer was caught on video repeatedly tasing a defenseless teenager strapped to a restraint chair. The officer was sentenced to five years in prison last year for the 2016 incident, but the teen was reportedly never the same and died of a drug overdose in his home two years after the encounter, according to WTVF, a CBS affiliate in Nashville.

More recently, an elderly Ohio man alleged in a lawsuit this year that Hamilton County jailers once put him in a restraint chair for several hours after he refused a strip search. While bound to the chair, the man urinated on himself and had to sit in his waste for hours, according to his complaint. He wasnt the only one subjected to that kind of treatment, either: The lawsuit alleged that hundreds of inmates were similarly restrained every year, largely because they were deemed uncooperative.

Even jail staff have, in some instances, appeared to fight back against misuse of restraint chairs. A lieutenant at a New Jersey jail recently sued her director over allegations that she was retaliated against for speaking out after the director ordered a verbally abusive inmate into a restraint chair as punishment.

But Hills attorneys, in their motion to dismiss the indictment last month, argued that detainees werent significantly injured or subjected to violent acts due to the Clayton County Jails restraint chairs, despite the governments claims. Furthermore, since deploying the widely used chairs didnt constitute excessive force under clearly established law, Hill didnt have fair warning that his conduct was criminal, the attorneys said.

This court should dismiss the indictment because Sheriff Hill did not have fair warning that his use of a restraint chair, which is a common law enforcement tool, violated the Constitution, the attorneys wrote, and allowing this prosecution to proceed would work a constitutional crisis all on its own.

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Prisons and Jails Still Use the Devils Chair. Its Been Used for Torture. - VICE