With six conservative justices, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Catholic group in its dispute with the city of Philadelphia over LGBTQ couples and foster care.

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With six conservative justices, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Catholic group in its dispute with the city of Philadelphia over LGBTQ couples and foster care.

Erin Schaff/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Catholic Social Services in a battle that pitted religious freedom against anti-discrimination laws in Philadelphia and across the country. The court declared that the private Catholic agency was entitled to renewal of its contract with the city for screening foster parents, even though the agency violated city law by refusing to consider married LGBT couples.

The court’s decision marks a revolution in the law, for the first time declaring explicitly that anti-discrimination laws, at least those meant to protect the LGBT community, play second fiddle to religious views under the Constitution.

The decision also marked a triumph for a new brand of conservatism on the court, which is putting the Constitution’s guarantee to the free exercise of religion at the highest level of protection, while dramatically decreasing the traditional approach based on separation of church and state.

The conservative majority, however, did not explicitly overturn a decision (Employment Division v. Smith) written more than three decades ago by Justice Antonin Scalia, himself a conservative trailblazer. In that decision, Scalia wrote for the court that when the government has a “generally applicable” law or regulation and enforces it neutrally, the government’s action is presumptively legitimate, even if it has some “incidental” adverse impact on some citizens.

Writing for the court majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said: “The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless CSS agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”

“CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,” Roberts wrote.

In three concurrences, the justices questioned Smith or outright called for its overthrow.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a former clerk to Justice Scalia, admitted that the arguments for overturning Smith were “serious” and “compelling,” but backed away from calling for Smith‘s demise.

In sharp contrast, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that he was “disappointed” that the court had failed “to stand up for the First Amendment” and urged the Court to throw the three-decade-old precedent into the trash heap.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was also adamant that Smith be scrapped. He pointed out that six sitting justices have questioned the decision’s validity, predicting that cases like this one “will keep coming until the Court musters the fortitude” to overrule Smith.

The dramatic nature of Thursday’s decision was underlined by the fact that the case involved government contracting — an area of the law in which the court in the past has said that government is at the apex of its power to impose conditions on how the taxpayers’ money is spent.

The city of Philadelphia, which has custody of about 5,000 abused and neglected children, contracts with 30 private agencies to provide foster care in group homes and for certification, placement and care of children in individual private foster care homes.

The city’s contracts ban discrimination against LGBT couples in the screening of foster parents, but Catholic Social Services, citing religious grounds, has a policy of refusing to consider and certify same-sex couples. When the CSS policy was disclosed in press reports, the city ended its contract with CSS for those services in the future. CSS sued, arguing that the city’s position violated its constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.

The Becket Fund, representing CSS, argued that the city was trying to exclude CSS from work that it has done “for two centuries.” But lawyer Neal Katyal, representing the city, countered that “you can’t on Monday sign a contract that says we won’t discriminate and on Tuesday go ahead and discriminate.” And he noted that despite the loss of the screening contract, CSS continues to get millions of dollars from the city for running other kinds of foster care programs, including group homes.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/996670391/supreme-court-rules-for-a-catholic-group-in-a-case-involving-gay-rights-foster-c

The House voted Thursday to repeal the 2002 authorization for war in Iraq as Congress moves to rein in presidential discretion on using military force.

The chamber passed the measure by a 268-161 margin. Forty-nine Republicans joined all but one Democrat in supporting it.

The bill heads to the Senate, where the GOP will be split over whether to support it. The chamber’s Foreign Relations Committee plans to move forward next week with its own plan to revoke the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

President Joe Biden supports the House bill to repeal the Iraq War authorization. His Office of Management and Budget said this week that “the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations.”

Lawmakers from both parties have worried that leaving the authorization in place will give presidents a legal backstop to justify unrelated military strikes. The Iraq War ended nearly a decade ago.

The House voted in January 2020 to repeal the measure after the U.S. launched an airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The Senate, then held by Republicans, did not pass the bill. The Trump administration cited the authorization measure as the legal basis for the airstrike.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., led the legislation the House passed Thursday. A longtime antiwar advocate, Lee was the only House member to vote against the 2001 war authorization in Afghanistan.

“This authority remains on the books, vulnerable to misuse because the Congress has not acted to remove it,” Lee said on the House floor Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday he wants to hold a vote on revoking the Iraq authorization this year. He said scrapping the authorization will “eliminate the danger of a future administration reaching back into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism.” 

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signaled Thursday he would oppose repealing the war authorization despite some support for doing so within his caucus.

“The fact of the matter is, the legal and practical application of the 2002 AUMF extends far beyond the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime,” he said. “Tossing it aside without answering real questions about our own efforts in the region is reckless.”

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Todd Young, R-Ind., have led the effort to revoke the measure in the Senate.

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/house-votes-to-repeal-2002-iraq-war-authorization-.html

Tropical disturbance 92L in the southern Gulf of Mexico was growing more organized and spreading heavy rains over southern Mexico and Central America on Thursday, and it has the potential to develop into a tropical or subtropical depression by Friday. Regardless of development, 92L will bring heavy rains and dangerous flash flooding to the central U.S. Gulf Coast beginning on Friday, and it could become Tropical Storm Claudette before making a U.S. landfall Friday or Saturday.

On Thursday afternoon, 92L was nearly stationary over the southern Gulf of Mexico. The system had modestly favorable conditions for development, with warm waters of 28-28.5 degrees Celsius (82-83°F) and a very moist atmosphere with a relative humidity at mid-levels of 75%. However, high wind shear of 20-25 knots was inhibiting development. Satellite loops showed 92L with a broad circulation, but poorly organized. Heavy thunderstorms were on the increase, though, with several curved low-level bands developing. An upper-level trough of low pressure over the western Gulf was acting to increase 92L’s heavy thunderstorms, and was also giving the developing storm a more subtropical than tropical appearance.

Figure 1. Predicted total rainfall amounts from the 6Z (2 a.m. EDT) Thursday, June 17, run of the experimental HAFS model, for the period ending at 12Z (8 a.m. EDT) Sunday, June 20. The model predicted that 92L would dump 7-10 inches of rain (yellow-brown colors) over portions of Mississippi and Alabama, and more than 5 inches (orange colors) in southeast Louisiana. (Image credit: NOAA/AOML)

Forecast for 92L

Steering currents are expected to push 92L slowly northwards at about 5 mph beginning Thursday night. The system will then accelerate to a forward speed of 10-15 mph on Friday, which should result in a landfall over the central or northwest U.S. Gulf Coast Friday night or Saturday morning. The landfall location of 92L could range anywhere from the Upper Texas coast to the Alabama/Florida border, according to the latest model predictions. However, the exact landfall location of 92L’s center is relatively unimportant, as heavy rain will be the storm’s main threat, and a wide swath of heavy rain will affect the central Gulf Coast regardless of 92L’s exact track. Because of dry air over the western Gulf as a result of the presence of an upper-level trough, the heaviest rains and strongest winds of 92L will lie almost entirely to the east of the center.

Figure 2. Soil moisture from the Texas/Louisiana border to the Mississippi/Alabama border ranked in the top 1-5% for the date on June 16, meaning that any rains that fall in this region will quickly run off and be likely to cause flooding. (Image credit: NOAA)

Satellite measurements of total precipitable water (the amount of rain that would fall in a column of air if all the liquid, solid, and condensed water vapor fell as rain) showed 92L embedded in a very moist tropical airmass. This moisture will begin moving inland over the central U.S. Gulf Coast on Friday. Even if 92L does not develop into a tropical cyclone, its high level of moisture will likely will lead to rainfall amounts of 5-10 inches along the coast June 18 through June 20, causing damaging flash flooding. Already, soil moisture as of Wednesday, June 16, ranked in the top 1-5% of climatology for the date across the region likely to see 92L’s heaviest rains (Figure 2).

Figure 3. Predicted wind speed (colors) and sea level pressure (black lines) for 92L at 11 p.m. EDT Friday, June 18 (3Z Saturday), from the 6Z Thursday, June 17, run of the HWRF model. The model predicted 92L would be making landfall in Louisiana as a tropical storm with 55 mph winds and a central pressure of 1004 mb. (Image credit: Tropical Tidbits)

As 92L moves northwards over the Gulf, it will encounter cooler waters, increased wind shear, and drier air. Given 92L’s current disorganized state, these conditions suggest that the strongest 92L will get before landfall is a 60-mph tropical storm. A landfall of weaker intensity is more likely.

There is strong model support for development of 92L into a tropical depression by Friday, when it will be over the northern Gulf of Mexico. In an 8 a.m. EDT Thursday tropical weather outlook, the National Hurricane Center gave 92L two-day and five-day odds of development of 90%. An Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate 92L on Thursday afternoon.

Bob Henson contributed to this post.

Website visitors can comment on “Eye on the Storm” posts. Please read our Comments Policy prior to posting. Comments are generally open for 30 days from date posted. Sign up to receive email announcements of new postings here. Twitter: @DrJeffMasters and @bhensonweather

Source Article from https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/06/gulf-of-mexico-tropical-disturbance-growing-more-organized-likely-to-become-a-tropical-depression-by-friday/

President Biden raised eyebrows with an odd gaffe during his press conference following a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he appeared to mistakenly use the name of his own predecessor when discussing the Russian leader.

Biden spoke after Putin gave a separate press conference, and was reflecting on what he said about the Arctic.

BIDEN, AT G-7, SAYS US, RUSSIA CAN WORK TOGETHER TO HELP PEOPLE OF ‘LIBYA’ – MEANT TO SAY ‘SYRIA,’ AIDES SAY

“I caught part of President, uh, Tru– uh, Putin’s press conference, and he talked about the need for us to have some kind of modus operandi where the Arctic was in fact a free zone,” Biden said.

House Republicans were quick to point out the error.

Twitter users quickly took notice, with more than 2,900 likes and 1,100 retweets. A tweet observing the mix-up posted by CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins drew more than 17,000 likes and 1,400 retweets.

TRUMP RAILS AGAINST BIDEN’S ‘GOOD DAY FOR RUSSIA’ SUMMIT WITH PUTIN, HIGHLIGHTS HUNTER’S ALLEGED TIES

This was not the president’s first goof of the week. At the G-7 summit Sunday, Biden mixed up Libya and Syria – not once, but three times – while discussing humanitarian aid to countries torn apart by civil war. 

He first discussed possibly working with Russia in providing “vital assistance” to “Libya” – a “population that’s in real trouble.” Then he said Russia had bitten off more than it can chew with its intervention in “Syria” but then added “Libya” to the mix. 

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“As long as they’re there without the ability to bring about some order in the region, you can’t do that very well without providing for the basic economic needs of people,” Biden said soon after. “So, I’m hopeful that we can find an accommodation where we can save the lives of people in, for example, in Libya.” 

Biden’s aides later brushed off the apparent gaffe, saying he had meant to say Syria when saying Libya.

Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-putin-president-trump-press-conference

“Look, to be a good reporter, you’ve got to be negative,” Biden told the journalists gathered around him. “You’ve got to have a negative view of life, it seems to me. The way you all, you never ask a positive question.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/17/biden-putin-cnn-kaitlan-collins/

“We will not only have to arrange the core module, the ‘space home,’” he said, “but also to carry out a series of key technology verifications.”

At 56, he is the oldest Chinese astronaut to fly in space. (The oldest person ever to do so was John Glenn, the first American in orbit, who returned 36 years later aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998, when he was 77.)

Another crew member, Maj. Gen. Liu Boming, 54, is also a space veteran, having been part of a mission in 2008 that included China’s first spacewalk. That feat was accomplished by another astronaut, Zhai Zhigang, but General Liu briefly emerged from a portal to become the second Chinese astronaut to walk in space. The third astronaut, Col. Tang Hongbo, 45, is making his first trip after 11 years of training.

China previously launched two, short-lived prototype space stations, also called Tiangong, in 2011 and 2016. This one is intended to be more durable, serving for the next decade as an orbiting laboratory for the country’s space program.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/world/asia/china-space.html

Cities like Phoenix are struggling to keep up. While the city runs air-conditioned cooling centers, many were shut down last year amid the pandemic. And ensuring that the centers are accessible to everyone is a challenge.

Kayla and Richard Contreras, who sleep in a blue tent on a baking sidewalk in a homeless encampment near downtown Phoenix, said the cooling centers were not an option because they have a dog and they worried about leaving their belongings unattended in their tent.

They said they knew 10 homeless people who died in the heat last year.

Mr. Contreras, 47, fills water bottles from the spigots of homes he walks by. Ms. Contreras, 56, said she saves food stamps to buy popsicles on the hottest days. “This is what keeps us alive,” she said, as she handed an orange popsicle to a friend. “I feel like I’m in Hell.”

Sundown brings no relief. In Las Vegas, where the National Hockey League playoffs are taking place, forecasters expected the mercury to push past 100 degrees when the puck dropped Wednesday evening.

Last month, the Phoenix City Council approved $2.8 million in new climate spending, including creating a four-person Office of Heat Response and Mitigation.

“That’s a good start, but we’re clearly not doing enough yet,” said David Hondula, an Arizona State University scientist who studies heat’s consequences. Drastically reducing heat deaths would require adding trees and shade in underserved neighborhoods and increasing funding to help residents who need help with energy bills or who lack air conditioning, among other things, he said.

“Every one of these heat deaths should be preventable,” he said. “But it’s not just an engineering problem. It means tackling tough issues like poverty or homelessness. And the numbers suggest we’re moving in the wrong direction. Right now, heat deaths are increasing faster than population growth and aging.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/climate/wildfires-drought-climate-change-west-coast.html

President Joe Biden is set to sign on Thursday a bill establishing Juneteenth, the date marking the end of slavery in the United States, as a federal holiday.

The 3:30 p.m. ET signing event at the White House comes two days before Juneteenth itself, which falls on June 19 each year. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to deliver remarks in the East Room, according to the White House.

Juneteenth National Independence Day will become the 12th legal public holiday and the first new one created since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law in 1983 by then-President Ronald Reagan.

Juneteenth marks the date that the last enslaved African Americans were granted their freedom. On that day in 1865, Union soldiers led by Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in the coastal city of Galveston, Texas, to deliver General Order No. 3, officially ending slavery in the state.

The final act of liberation came months after the Confederate army’s surrender ended the Civil War, and more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865, two months before his proclamation made it to Texas.

The holiday legislation passed this week with overwhelming support in both chambers of Congress. The Senate approved the bill unanimously Tuesday night, and the House passed it in a 415-14 vote. The only votes against the bill came from Republicans.

On the House floor before the vote, some GOP lawmakers complained about the name of the holiday, and others expressed concern about the cost of giving the federal workforce another day off. Some also railed against Democrats for pushing the bill to a vote without first allowing committees to examine the legislation and offer amendments.

Still, most House Republicans, even those who objected to parts of the bill, ended up voting for it.

The Juneteenth legislation was sponsored in the Senate by Edward Markey, D-Mass. The House version, sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, was co-sponsored by 166 lawmakers.

The 14 no votes were: 

  • Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. 
  • Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. 
  • Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn. 
  • Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis. 
  • Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif. 
  • Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala. 
  • Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. 
  • Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas 
  • Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. 
  • Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.
  • Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.
  • Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas
  • Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
  • Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/juneteenth-federal-holiday-biden-signs-bill.html

During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes.

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During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tightknit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up.

He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids.

But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation’s 50-year-long War on Drugs. “What good is it doing for us?” Hinton asked.

As the United States’ harsh approach to drug use and addiction hits the half-century milestone, this question is being asked by a growing number of lawmakers, public health experts and community leaders.

In many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies implemented during the drug war are being scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Hinton, a 37-year-old community organizer and activist, said the reckoning is long overdue. He described watching Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year and swept into the nation’s burgeoning prison system.

“They’re spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up,” Hinton said, shaking his head. “They don’t even spend a fraction of that money sending them to college or some kind of school.”

Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it’s clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction.

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Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it’s clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction.

Brian Mann

Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He said Brownsville needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s.

His own family was scarred by addiction.

“I’ve known my mom to be a drug user my whole entire life,” Hinton said. “She chose to run the streets and left me with my great-grandmother.”

Four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescription painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Hinton said her death sealed his belief that tough drug war policies and aggressive police tactics would never make his family or his community safer.

The nation pivots (slowly) as evidence mounts against the drug war

During months of interviews for this project, NPR found a growing consensus across the political spectrum — including among some in law enforcement — that the drug war simply didn’t work.

“We have been involved in the failed War on Drugs for so very long,” said retired Maj. Neill Franklin, a veteran with the Baltimore City Police and the Maryland State Police who led drug task forces for years.

He now believes the response to drugs should be handled by doctors and therapists, not cops and prison guards. “It does not belong in our wheelhouse,” Franklin said during a press conference this week.

Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation’s criminal justice system.

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Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation’s criminal justice system.

Brian Mann/NPR

Some prosecutors have also condemned the drug war model, describing it as ineffective and racially biased.

“Over the last 50 years, we’ve unfortunately seen the ‘War on Drugs’ be used as an excuse to declare war on people of color, on poor Americans and so many other marginalized groups,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement sent to NPR.

On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage.

But in much of the country, disillusionment with the drug war has already led to repeal of some of the most punitive policies, including mandatory lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent drug users.

In recent years, voters and politicians in 17 states — including red-leaning Alaska and Montana — and the District of Columbia have backed the legalization of recreational marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, a trend that once seemed impossible.

Last November, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize small quantities of all drugs, including heroin and methamphetamines.

Many critics say the course correction is too modest and too slow.

“The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior,” said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization.

She said the criminal justice model failed to address the underlying need for jobs, health care and safe housing that spur addiction.

Indeed, much of the drug war’s architecture remains intact. Federal spending on drugs — much of it devoted to interdiction — is expected to top $37 billion this year.

The U.S. still incarcerates more people than any other nation, with nearly half of the inmates in federal prison held on drug charges.

But the nation has seen a significant decline in state and federal inmate populations, down by a quarter from the peak of 1.6 million in 2009 to roughly 1.2 million last year.

There has also been substantial growth in public funding for health care and treatment for people who use drugs, due in large part to passage of the Affordable Care Act.

“The best outcomes come when you treat the substance use disorder [as a medical condition] as opposed to criminalizing that person and putting them in jail or prison,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, who has been head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse since 2003.

Volkow said data shows clearly that the decision half a century ago to punish Americans who struggle with addiction was “devastating … not just to them but actually to their families.”

From a bipartisan War on Drugs to Black Lives Matter

Wounds left by the drug war go far beyond the roughly 20.3 million people who have a substance use disorder.

The campaign — which by some estimates cost more than $1 trillion — also exacerbated racial divisions and infringed on civil liberties in ways that transformed American society.

Frederique, with the Drug Policy Alliance, said the Black Lives Matter movement was inspired in part by cases that revealed a dangerous attitude toward drugs among police.

In Derek Chauvin’s murder trial, the former officer’s defense claimed aggressive police tactics were justified because of small amounts of fentanyl in George Floyd’s body. Critics described the argument as an attempt to “weaponize” Floyd’s substance use disorder and jurors found Chauvin guilty.

Breonna Taylor, meanwhile, was shot and killed by police in her home during a drug raid. She wasn’t a suspect in the case.

“We need to end the drug war not just for our loved ones that are struggling with addiction, but we need to remove the excuse that that is why law enforcement gets to invade our space … or kill us,” Frederique said.

The United States has waged aggressive campaigns against substance use before, most notably during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

The modern drug war began with a symbolic address to the nation by President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971.

Speaking from the White House, Nixon declared the federal government would now treat drug addiction as “public enemy No. 1,” suggesting substance use might be vanquished once and for all.

“In order to fight and defeat this enemy,” Nixon said, “it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.”

President Richard Nixon’s speech on June 17, 1971, marked the symbolic start of the modern drug war. In the decades that followed Democrats and Republicans embraced ever-tougher laws penalizing people with addiction.


Richard Nixon Foundation
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Studies show from the outset drug laws were implemented with a stark racial bias, leading to unprecedented levels of mass incarceration for Black and brown men.

As recently as 2018, Black men were nearly six times more likely than white men to be locked up in state or federal correctional facilities, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Researchers have long concluded the pattern has far-reaching impacts on Black families, making it harder to find employment and housing, while also preventing many people of color with drug records from voting.

In a 1994 interview published in Harper’s Magazine, Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman suggested racial animus was among the motives shaping the drug war.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] War or Black,” Ehrlichman said. “But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.”

Despite those concerns, Democrats and Republicans partnered on the drug war decade after decade, approving ever-more-severe laws, creating new state and federal bureaucracies to interdict drugs, and funding new armies of police and federal agents.

At times, the fight on America’s streets resembled an actual war, especially in poor communities and communities of color.

Police units carried out drug raids with military-style hardware that included body armor, assault weapons and tanks equipped with battering rams.

President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse “a national emergency.”

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President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse “a national emergency.”

Harvey Georges/AP

“What we need is another D-Day, not another Vietnam, not another limited war fought on the cheap,” declared then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., in 1989.

Biden, who chaired the influential Senate Judiciary Committee, later co-authored the controversial 1994 crime bill that helped fund a vast new complex of state and federal prisons, which remains the largest in the world.

On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden stopped short of repudiating his past drug policy ideas but said he now believes no American should be incarcerated for addiction. He also endorsed national decriminalization of marijuana.

While few policy experts believe the drug war will come to a conclusive end any time soon, the end of bipartisan backing for punitive drug laws is a significant development.

More drugs bring more deaths and more doubts

Adding to pressure for change is the fact that despite a half-century of interdiction, America’s streets are flooded with more potent and dangerous drugs than ever before — primarily methamphetamines and the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

“Back in the day, when we would see 5, 10 kilograms of meth, that would make you a hero if you made a seizure like that,” said Matthew Donahue, the head of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Now it’s common for us to see 100-, 200- and 300-kilogram seizures of meth,” he added. “It doesn’t make a dent to the price.”

Efforts to disrupt illegal drug supplies suffered yet another major blow last year after Mexican officials repudiated drug war tactics and began blocking most interdiction efforts south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It’s a national health threat, it’s a national safety threat,” Donahue told NPR.

Last year, drug overdoses hit a devastating new record of 90,000 deaths, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The drug war failed to stop the opioid epidemic

Critics say the effectiveness of the drug war model has been called into question for another reason: the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic.

Beginning in the late 1990s, some of the nation’s largest drug companies and pharmacy chains invested heavily in the opioid business.

State and federal regulators and law enforcement failed to intervene as communities were flooded with legally manufactured painkillers, including Oxycontin.

“They were utterly failing to take into account diversion,” said West Virginia Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who sued the DEA for not curbing opioid production quotas sooner.

“It’s as close to a criminal act as you can find,” Morrisey said.

Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. “You know there’s thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers,” Hessler told NPR.

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Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. “You know there’s thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers,” Hessler told NPR.

Brian Mann/NPR

One of the epicenters of the prescription opioid epidemic was Huntington, a small city in West Virginia along the Ohio River hit hard by the loss of factory and coal jobs.

“It was pretty bad. Eighty-one million opioid pills over an eight-year period came into this area,” said Courtney Hessler, a reporter with The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch.

Public health officials say 1 in 10 residents in the area still battle addiction. Hessler herself wound up in foster care after her mother struggled with opioids.

In recent months, she has reported on a landmark opioid trial that will test who — if anyone — will be held accountable for drug policies that failed to keep families and communities safe.

“I think it’s important. You know there’s thousands of children that grew up the way that I did,” Hessler said. “These people want answers.”

A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state.

Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images


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Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state.

Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

During dozens of interviews, community leaders told NPR that places like Huntington, W.Va., and Brownsville, N.Y., will recover from the drug war and rebuild.

They predicted many parts of the country will accelerate the shift toward a public health model for addiction: treating drug users more often like patients with a chronic illness and less often as criminals.

But ending wars is hard and stigma surrounding drug use, heightened by a half-century of punitive policies, remains deeply entrenched. Aaron Hinton, the activist in Brownsville, said it may take decades to unwind the harm done to his neighborhood.

“It’s one step forward, two steps back,” Hinton said. “But I remain hopeful. Why? Because what else am I going to do?”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us

Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told “Hannity” Wednesday that President Joe Biden politically gave Russian President Vladimir V. Putin “a big kiss” with his overtures during the two leaders’ summit in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday.

NIKKI HALEY: We don’t need to wait two or three months. We’re not going to see anything. Here you’ve got the fact that [Biden] didn’t call him out on the hacking [of the Colonial Pipeline and a major U.S. beef processing plant]. Putin wants to say Russian hackers did it and he wasn’t involved. Guess what? The hackers work for Putin. 

Putin was very much responsible for that he just didn’t want his fingerprints on it he didn’t go and say they were going to hold him accountable for the hacking of the pipeline and food processing company. He didn’t go and talk to them about election meddling the last two elections. 

He didn’t talk about Ukraine, while Biden gave Putin a great big kiss by giving him the NordStream II pipeline. It’s all he’s ever wanted, it’s going to make him a ton of money, it’s going to make him energy independent and it’s set Putin off for the one thing he really wanted. 

They are not talking about the fact that they are going to have the back of Ukraine and say exactly how they are going to do it. I mean, this is something where they talked about climate change, you know, and then you didn’t even talk about the fact they talked about the fact that the new START agreement and they are going to agree on that. The new START agreement allows them to stall their production but guess who wins with that? China because China is not involved in the agreement. So nothing is going to come of this.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/nikki-haley-biden-essentially-gave-putin-a-big-kiss-during-geneva-summit

The Russian fighter jets spotted near the coast of Hawaii was President Vladimir Putin’s way of testing President Biden, Retired Navy SEAL David Sears said on “Your World” Wednesday, and Biden “failed.”

Sears made the comment in response to reports suggesting that the Russian Navy conducted military exercises about 300 to 500 miles west of Hawaii over the weekend, prompting the U.S. to scramble three F-22s to respond to long-range bombers.

RUSSIAN NAVY CONDUCTS MASSIVE MILITARY DRILL BEFORE BIDEN-PUTIN SUMMIT

 A CBS News report said Russian officials called the exercise its largest in the Pacific since the Cold War, which occurred just days before the two leaders were scheduled to meet in Geneva.

“Right before the summit…it’s a test and President Biden failed,” Sears said.

Biden described his Wednesday meeting with Putin as a “good” and “positive” experience saying he made “no threats” to his Russian counterpart, but warned of “consequences.” Biden said that while “there was a lot of hype” around it, the meeting was “straightforward.” 

Addressing critics who accused Biden of going soft to appease the Russian leader, Sears said, “They’re going to continue to push. So regardless of the administration, as a new administration comes in, these bad actors will push around the world. This is how President Putin does things.”

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 Sears said Putin will likely take advantage of Biden in an attempt to  “push-in through South America and Venezuela and Nicaragua… Baltics, Ukraine. The Russians also see…. Nato as a national security threat to Russia, so they’re positioning themselves to make sure that they can counter that threat,” he said.

“They’re doing to keep trying to fracture any alliances in Europe and the U.S.  – and they’re succeeding so far.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/retired-navy-seal-commander-putin-testing-biden-failed-geneva-fighter-jets

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/16/who-14-republicans-who-voted-against-juneteenth-holiday/7722634002/

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Source Article from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/democrats-should-take-joe-manchin-deal.html

Putin made no concessions over his crackdown on political dissent, military intervention in Ukraine or support for the autocratic Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. When asked about his actions, he deflected, bemoaning the gun violence in the United States, the mistreatment of Black Americans, the continued existence of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, drone strikes that kill civilians in Afghanistan, and what he viewed as a harsh prosecution of the pro-Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-putin-summit/2021/06/16/c2592718-ced4-11eb-9b7e-e06f6cfdece8_story.html