Plus: New York might ban masking, Hakeem Jefferies declares war on NY socialists, the EU punishes Hungary's cruelty to migrants, and an antelope with a floppy nose!
June 14, 2024 ❧ SCOTUS rules on abortion and unions, Tennessee's prison labor scandal, and Wallace & Gromit get political
Plus: New York might ban masking, Hakeem Jefferies declares war on NY socialists, the EU punishes Hungary's cruelty to migrants, and an antelope with a floppy nose!
I hear the news a-comin’, it’s rolling ‘round the bend
Last month, the world was captivated by the new official painting of Charles Windsor (known to some as the “King of England.”) The handiwork of artist Jonathan Yeo, it sharply divided public opinion; here at Current Affairs, we felt its ominous blood-red visage captured the nature and legacy of the British crown strangely well. Little did we know, however, that someone was about to sneak into a London art gallery and improve the painting:
Yes, that's beloved claymation character Wallace, one-half of the Wallace and Gromit duo. His smiling mug was plastered over Charles’s by two activists from a group called Animal Rising, together with a speech balloon reading, “No cheese, Gromit. Look at all this cruelty on RSPCA farms!” It’s a funny protest, but a serious issue. The “RSPCA” in question is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the largest animal welfare organization in the U.K. and a personal cause for Charles. The Wallacing of the King was a promotional stunt, meant to draw attention to Animal Rising’s recent in-depth investigation of the Society’s “Assured” program.
Allegedly, this program encourages “higher welfare standards” for animals by giving an “Assured” stamp only to farms that meet certain standards, like “more living space” and “responsible antibiotic usage.” But when Animal Rising dispatched more than 50 investigators to 45 different farms in the program, they found serious violations of the standards at many of them. (They also rescued a pig named Charlie, who had a large abscess and was kept in a filthy pen without medical care.) The group’s eight-minute documentary about their investigation is worth watching, although disturbing:
With their usual perversity, the British press has focused mostly on the Wallace incident, calling it “vandalism” and even an “attack” on the painting. But it’s the atrocious conditions on the farms, and the RSPCA’s fraudulent certification system, that everyone should really be outraged about.
(Oh, and don’t worry, art fans—there was glass over the painting, so old Chuck is fine under there.)
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It’s June, which means that it’s once again time for the Council of Robed Elders—colloquially known as the “Supreme Court”—to descend from their mountaintop of contemplation and shower their wisdom across the land. Many new edicts await us in the coming weeks: Can the president do whatever he wants? Can regulators regulate things? Should domestic abusers get to own guns? Difficult questions indeed. Only these nine transcendent minds are fit to untangle the legal and moral morass.
Let’s discuss two judgments they have already rendered:
❧ The first concerns the abortion drug mifepristone: In a surprising move, the Court unanimously declined to rule on a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion doctors that sought to force the Food and Drug Administration to regulate it more tightly. The drug has grown in importance since the same Court overturned Roe v. Wade abortion protections in 2022. It is now used in around 60 percent of pregnancy terminations nationwide.
Critically, the court’s decision was not on the substance of the case, but on the fact that the doctors who brought it did not administer or use mifepristone and therefore did not have standing to bring a case attempting to limit it. So while we should rejoice that the drug is momentarily safe, this is hardly a signal that the Court is moderating on abortion. Anti-abortion advocates have lots of other cases they are ready to bring forward in an attempt to restrict access to the drug.
Demonstrations outside the Court in March as the oral arguments are heard about the FDA's expansion of the access to mifepristone. (Photo: Victoria Pickering, Flickr)
❧In a more characteristic move, the Court also dealt another kick to the gut of America’s labor movement, siding with Starbucks after the National Labor Relations Board accused it of illegal union-busting tactics.As more than 400 stores have unionized around the U.S. in the past two years, Starbucks employees have filed hundreds of complaints with the NLRB alleging that the company illegally spied on them, fired them, or closed down stores during labor campaigns.
The case in question involves seven union organizers at a Memphis Starbucks who were fired while trying to unionize their store. In 2022, after the NLRB sued Starbucks, a federal judge in Tennessee issued an injunction reinstating the workers while the legal issues were resolved. However, Starbucks argued that the federal judge did not use high enough standards to order the workers reinstated. According to the New York Times:
In its petition to the Supreme Court, the company argued that federal courts had differing standards when deciding whether to grant injunctions that reinstate workers, which the N.L.R.B. has the authority to seek under the National Labor Relations Act.
Some apply a looser standard, requiring the labor board to show that there was “reasonable cause” to believe the company had violated labor law. Others use a stricter standard, requiring the board to show that not reinstating the workers would cause “irreparable harm,” and that the board was likely to prevail in the case. (Some courts combine elements of the two standards.)
Starbucks argued that the stricter standard for reinstating workers should apply nationwide. The labor board argued that the apparent differences between the two standards were semantic and that there was effectively one standard in place already, making it unnecessary for the Supreme Court to intervene.
Ultimately, the Court ruled 8 to 1 that the stricter standards needed to apply. (Justice Jackson was the lone dissent, though even she partially agreed with the decision.) This sets a precedent that will make it harder for workers around the nation who are fired for unionizing to be reinstated. Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former member of the NLRB told the Timesthat reinstatements are a critical tool the NLRB uses to prevent union busting and that with higher standards to enforce it, companies around the country may feel emboldened to crack down harder on employees who try to unionize.
Want to learn more about why the "Memphis Seven" wanted to form a union in the first place? Check out this video by More Perfect Union:
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (Or, "What are our politicians and oligarchs up to?")
❧ Hakeem Jeffries, who hopes to become Speaker of the House this year, is at war with New York’s socialists. Jeffries has always been an opponent of the political left, saying that “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism” when he became House Minority Leader in 2022. (The fact that he thinks DSA is the “hard left” is cute.)
But he’s gone further since then. As Jeff Coltin writes for Politico, Jeffries is now “deeply involved in a state Assembly race to stop DSA from increasing its foothold in the historically Black neighborhoods he represents in Brooklyn,” backing the incumbent Stefani Zinerman against DSA-endorsed challenger Eon Huntley. Importantly, Huntley has taken a strong stance on Gaza, sending campaign mailers that oppose “U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine or police brutality right here in New York,” whereas Zinerman is supported by a pro-Israel PAC—just as Jeffries is at the national level. It’s not the only race where Jeffries has intervened against the left, either. As Coltin reports, he’s been “feeling emboldened by taking out Council Member Charles Barron last year, a longtime foe with DSA leanings.”
Frustratingly, it doesn’t seem like the most prominent elected leftists are putting up much of a fight, either. Speaking toPolitico, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the “alarmist rhetoric about socialism” coming from centrist Democrats. But Coltin also notes that she “is not actually endorsing Huntley — presumably a gesture of respect to Jeffries, her oft-uneasy ally.”
Frankly, that’s just weak. When someone makes it clear that they oppose you and your goals, you don’t treat them as an “ally,” even an “uneasy” one. You recognize them as your enemy, and take them down before they can do the same to you. Huntley gets this, talking explicitly about “the enemies we face in the race — from our primary opponent to Hakeem Jeffries to AIPAC” in his campaign meetings. The rest of the elected left should, too.
Donald Trump recently admitted that he still owns a handgun—which, considering that he’s now a convicted felon, is an additional federal crime. (Salon)
Knowing Trump’s ego, it’s probably one of these. (Image: GlockStore.com)
Conservatives like Vivek Ramaswamy (remember him?) have a new conspiracy theory: that Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun charges is somehow an elaborate “sham” to help his father win reelection. (Hindustan Times)
A Democratic pollster set out to figure out why young people are so apathetic about Joe Biden. He found that, "Young voters do not look at our politics or see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.” We could have told him that for free! (Jacobin)
The Christian right wants to outlaw no-fault divorce. (Vox)
More information is coming to light about Elon Musk’s inappropriate sexual relationships with female SpaceX employees, including one whom he allegedly asked to “have his babies.” (Wall Street Journal) Meanwhile, Thom Hartmann explores Elon's weird obsession with “Population collapse due to low birth rates.” (The New Republic)
Art by Eli Valley from Issue 7 of Current Affairs Magazine, May/June 2017
The head of the United Nations refugee agency says that parts of Biden’s ban on asylum violate international law. (NBC News)
Nevada Democrats are suing to keep Green Party candidate Jill Stein off the ballot in the state. (Nevada Independent)
George Soros is bad, but not for the reasons right-wingers say he is. (Some More News)
AROUND THE STATES
❧ A Tennessee sheriff is under indictment for systematically exploiting and profiting from prison labor. A new report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s office finds that Paul Thomas, the Sheriff of Gibson County, founded three for-profit businesses known as the “Alliance Group” along with four other investors, and owned a 20 percent stake which he failed to disclose. At least 170 prisoners under Thomas’ custody were employed by the Alliance Group, which operated as a staffing service for local businesses, and the Comptroller’s report alleges that “Thomas directed $1,417,204.06 in inmate wage fees and deductions to profit the Alliance Group from February 2020 through October 2022.” It also claims he personally “received $181,644.50 in compensation” and other financial benefits that was “derived from inmate labor.”
It should go without saying that any labor that takes place in the context of a prison is not actually voluntary. By definition, prisoners cannot make free choices. In that light, and assuming everything in the Comptroller’s report is accurate, Sheriff Thomas was effectively acting as a modern-day slavemaster. He’s now facing18 countsof official misconduct, but he’s not the only person in the U.S. carceral system doing this kind of thing. He’s just the one who happened to get caught. The whole system of prison labor is designed to function this way, dating all the way back to itsroots in chattel slavery. The whole thing needs to go.
❧ New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering banning masks on the subway in response to pro-Palestine protests in New York City. Hochul suggested the ban after a video showed pro-Palestine protesters on board a subway saying “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist… This is your chance to get out.” Hochul suggested that protesters were wearing masks “to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior.”
The behavior of these protesters is certainly threatening. But there are plenty of other perfectly legitimate reasons why people attending protests might want to protect their identities. Wearing masks is a common practice among demonstrators of all sorts to protect themselves from being doxxed online or captured using facial recognition software. Pro-Palestinian activists, in particular, have frequently been fired from their jobs for speaking their minds publicly and subject to public blacklists.
In response to last month’s wave of demonstrations, many states have been attempting to criminalize mask-wearing. North Carolina banned wearing them on private property earlier this week. During last month’s campus protests, University of Florida students were charged with, among other things, the crime of “wearing a mask in public.” UT Austin used a similar justification to call the police to violently break up protests, claiming that wearing a mask violated university rules. Other states dredged up rarely used mask laws that had been used to prosecute members of the KKK back in the 1940s and 50s but hadn’t been touched since.
These mask laws are bad in part because they violate the right to privacy and provide a pretext to break up peaceful protests. But they also make it harder for people who want to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases. It’s easy to forget in the year 2024, but COVID is still deadlier than the fluand kills around 240 people each week in the U.S. according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Hochul says her ban will include “common sense exceptions” for those who wish to wear masks for health reasons. But determining the intent behind someone’s mask seems both impossible and highly invasive. And the risk of penalties will probably make people more afraid to wear masks to protect their health. Additionally, the subway might be the very worst place to ban masking, as the closed quarters allow diseases to spread much more quickly. (New York’s subways were one of the places where COVID spread fastest at the start of the pandemic in 2020). Even if it’s no longer widely practiced, masking is still an effective way to prevent the spread of illness, and our leaders should be encouraging it rather than banning it.
A student wearing a mask and a keffiyeh arrested by the NYPD during this spring’s demonstrations (Photo: Zuma Press, via the New York Post)
In other news:
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, an AI is running for mayor—or rather, a human candidate who takes all his policy positions from an AI called VIC (for “Virtual Integrated Citizen”) is. (WIRED)
Art by Aidan Y-M from Issue 38 of Current Affairs Magazine, September/October 2022
A Minnesota woman is facing a first-degree felony charge for possessing... bong water, thanks to an absurd law that treats it the same as methamphetamine and other hard drugs. (Minnesota Reformer)
There’s been another train derailment in Nebraska, which has leaked a synthetic rubber called “polyisobutylene” into a creek. Hey, remember when Joe Bidenblocked that railway strikein 2022? The one that was partly about safety conditions? Probably a coincidence. (KOLN)
A bill brought by the Arizona GOP would make it easier for ranchers to shoot migrants. (AZ Mirror)
Via a ballot measure, North Dakota has banned people from running for Congress if they are set to turn 81 before the end of their term. (NBC)
Trump is terrified of shark attacks. Thankfully, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has an answer to this persistent problem: shark drones. (Twitter)
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Hungary has been hit with a 200-million-euro ($216 million) fine from the European Union for its violation of asylum rules. Under right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the nation has imposed harsh anti-immigration laws against migrants coming from war-torn countries like Syria, erecting a border fence, carrying out illegal deportations, and using violent “pushbacks” to stop them from entering. (For more on how these illegal pushbacks work, check out this investigation by Patrick Strickland and Nick Paleologos in New Lines Magazine.)
In 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary had violated asylum rights by requiring migrants to stay in “transit camps” on the border with Serbia. Though it closed those camps after the EU ruling, Hungary passed a law that year requiring migrants to seek asylum in a non-EU nation before entering Hungary, which made it virtually impossible for them to file claims there. The ECJ said that Hungary’s failure to implement its ruling constitutes an “unprecedented” breach of EU law.
In addition to the 200 million euros, Hungary’s government will be expected to pay an additional million euros each day it fails to implement EU laws protecting the rights of migrants. These rules require all member countries to have a common system for granting asylum and declare that people have the right to claim it if they fear persecution back home.
At the height of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, Hungary kept asylum seekers trapped in cramped detention centers. (Photo: Human Rights Watch)
In other news:
In a none-too-subtle case of culinary racism, Denmark has recalled a popular brand of Korean ramen noodles for being “too spicy.” (BBC)
It says “3X spicy” on the bag, with a picture of a crying chicken!
The Danes knew what they were getting into!
With Venezuela’s July 28 elections fast approaching, opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia has a 50 percent lead over Nicolás Maduro in the polls. (Semafor)
Keir Starmer has released the new manifesto for the UK Labour Party, and it’s terrible! (Washington Post)
The Chiquita fruit company has been ordered to pay $38.3 million in damages to the victims of the Colombian death squads it funded from 1997 to 2004. Considering the company made $3.1 billion in revenue in 2023 alone, that doesn’t seem like nearly enough. (Associated Press)
The official Twitter account for the nation of Israel posted a video stating that there are “no innocent civilians” in Gaza (Middle East Eye) and even promoted it as an advertisement on the platform (Prem Thakker, Twitter) before taking it down. Seems like a good idea when your leader is currently facing the dock for war crimes.
The BRICS international alliance—led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has been making moves to “de-dollarize” global trade. In Responsible Statecraft, Michael Corbin explores the possibilities of establishing an alternative reserve currency, including making U.S. sanctions less powerful. We can only hope.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labeled social media a “scourge” and has come out in favor of banning it for children under the age of 16. (The Guardian)
ANTELOPE FACT OF THE WEEK
They said antelopes couldn’t have long, floppy noses…but they were wrong!
Take a closer look at that snout! (Photo: Animalia)
Meet the Saiga, a species of antelope native to the steppes of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, and Uzbekistan, whose bulbous, undulating schnoz helps it weather the region’s harsh conditions by filtering out dust and keeping in cool air during the hot summers. In addition to being incredibly useful, it’s very funny to watch their noses flop around as they run:
According to Fauna & Flora International, saiga “once roamed the steppes of Central Asia in vast nomadic herds, millions strong, a spectacle said to have rivaled the modern-day wildebeest migration in East Africa.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a poaching craze winnowed them down and a mysterious plague killed 90 percent of those that remained in 2015, pushing the species nearly to extinction.
But saiga have undergone a massive recovery in population thanks in large part to the dedicated work of animal conservationists to pass laws in multiple countries banning saiga products and providing more resources to help wildlife rangers stop poaching. As of 2023, there were nearly 2 million of them across Eurasia according to the Saiga Conservation Alliance, and the International Union for Conservation recently upgraded their status from Critically Endangered to Near-Threatened. The Alliance’s E.J. Milner-Gulland cites the rebound of saiga populations as a reason that, “conservation works.” In a blog post late last year, he wrote:
In much of life, we expect quick results – and this is true of conservation too. Project funding usually runs for between one and three years, and often unrealistic goals are set expecting a quick reversal of fortunes for our species. But in reality, conservation involves hard graft, patience, diplomacy and collaboration, over decades. And so it was for saigas. After 20 years, with many ups and downs – including a catastrophic mortality event in 2015 that killed 2/3 of the global population of the species (and 88% of the population in which it happened) in just 2 weeks – we have finally reached the point when the species as a whole can be considered out of the danger zone…
Of course all conservation success is qualified and caveated. In the case of the saiga, there are still many threats to overcome... But it’s important to mark milestones towards full recovery, recognise the contributions that everyone has made towards this progress, and thereby gain strength for the path ahead – which no doubt will continue to be rocky.
The steppe without saiga would be a barren place indeed – so long live the saiga, as the beating cultural and ecological heart of the wild rangelands of Eurasia!
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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