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Right now, the Chinese government is carrying out genocide against the Uyghur ethnic minority. A report from the nonpartisan Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy (formerly the Center for Global Policy) details the past six years of this genocide: 

“In 2014, China’s Head of State, President Xi Jinping, launched the ‘People’s War on Terror’ in XUAR [Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region], making the areas where Uyghurs constitute nearly 90 percent of the population the front line. High-level officials followed up with orders to ’round up everyone who should be rounded up,’ ‘wipe them out completely … destroy them root and branch,’ and ‘break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.’ Officials described Uyghurs with dehumanizing terms and repeatedly likened the mass internment of Uyghurs to ‘eradicating tumors.’” 

The U.S. government names this persecution as genocide. The Chinese government denies it, of course. That denial lacks all plausibility.

Two years ago, Stockton, California began a “basic income” experiment. The privately funded Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) gave 125 randomly selected residents of poor neighborhoods $500 per month—no strings attached—for two years. A just-completed study of SEED’s first year showed dramatic results:

• “Guaranteed income reduced income volatility, or the month-to-month income fluctuations that households face. 

• “Unconditional cash enabled recipients to find full-time employment. 

• “Recipients of guaranteed income were healthier, showing less depression and anxiety and enhanced wellbeing. 

• “The guaranteed income alleviated financial scarcity creating new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.” 

Some of the benefits were intangible: “I can breathe,” said one participant who, like others, said she could now spend more, and calmer, less anxious time with her children. For program participants overall, more than one-third of the monthly $500 was spent on food. 

I remember an old and possibly apocryphal story about Benjamin Franklin and the framing of the Constitution. Supposedly, someone accosted him after the 1787 Constitutional Convention and shouted, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” 

Today, the republic is threatened by Republicans attacking voting rights a cross the country. They propose state voting legislation targeting people of color and poor people. Some proposals also aim to disenfranchise any other population that might be more Democratic-leaning than Republican, such as college students.

Even in the best of times, meat-packing and poultry-processing workers face astronomically high risks of injury. Now COVID has made those industries much more dangerous, and government agencies charged with protecting workers have utterly failed them. 

After a week of electricity blackouts, heat failures, and frozen water pipes, many Texans now face thousands of dollars in unexpected electric bills. The reason: a conscienceless rip-off by an unregulated electric utility. For Texans who have an auto-pay arrangement, that means bank accounts emptied or thousands of dollars already charged to their credit cards. 

Ripple effects of the Texas disaster will reach almost every Minnesotan. Demand for natural gas, in Minnesota and across the country, was higher than normal because of February’s subzero temperatures. Supply was dramatically smaller than normal because the irresponsible inaction of Texas natural gas producers and public utilities led to failure of production and delivery systems. When supply is low and demand is high, producers can and do hike their prices. 

Texas produces huge quantities of natural gas for the national market. Texan natural gas and public utilities largely ignored warnings from 2011 and failed to winterize natural gas production and distribution facilities. They froze up, leaving Texans out in the cold, literally freezing to death. When Texas natural gas producers froze up, national natural gas prices shot up—as much as 100 times the pre-freeze level. The cost to Minnesotans for the February price spike is estimated at $300 to $400 per household. 

Power failures, burst water pipes, carbon monoxide poisoning, car crashes, drownings, house fires and hypothermia: look anywhere and you see that Texas is a deadly mess this week. But tragic stories and political failures are not the only story. Amazing grace, generosity, and goodness also deserve recognition. 

Black Minnesotans, Asian Minnesotans, American Indians, and Latino Minnesotans are far more likely than White Minnesotans to become infected, to be hospitalized, to suffer severe cases, and to die of COVID. That is the grim truth reported by the Minnesota Department of Health in its weekly COVID report. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that this disparity exists across the country, with Black and Latino Americans nearly three times as likely to die from COVID as White Americans.

Originally published in Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

That might suggest that Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian Minnesotans should be a priority for COVID vaccination. That is not happening. In fact, the way that vaccines are targeted—both in Minnesota and across the country—suggests that the opposite could be true.

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The filibuster is a long and undemocratic Senate tradition that needs to end. Using the filibuster, a small minority can block Senate passage of legislation that is supported by a bi-partisan majority. 

Historically, filibusters blocked civil rights and voting rights legislation. Filibusters blocked anti-lynching bills in 1922 and 1935. In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act. The filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act ran on for 60 days, with Southern Senators holding the bill hostage despite majority support. Finally, a bi-partisan coalition mustered enough votes to end the filibuster, and the Civil Rights Act passed by a vote of 73 to 27. 

President Obama called the filibuster “a Jim Crow relic.” In 2010, that relic killed the Dream Act. A majority of Senators supported the Dream Act, but they could not get it to a vote. In order to stop the filibuster, they needed 60 votes: they had only 55.

President Joe Biden has proven to be anything but “sleepy,” filling his first week with a pile of proclamations, plans, and executive orders. I’m finding it hard to keep up with the news—but in a good way. So here’s my recap of recent developments:  

“What we’re inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined,” says Jeff Zients, President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator. Basically, some Biden administration officials say, there was no plan. Now there is.

President Biden characterizes his plan as “a full-scale war-time effort.” The 200-page National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness outlines seven goals: Continue reading →