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911 Is Practically Useless for Millions of People. Here’s Why.

by WilburRomano Posted on March 16, 2017

Mother Jones

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When Julian Singleton called 911 about two years ago, it didn’t go well. It was the middle of the night and his 83-year-old wife, Bernice, had fallen and lay unconscious on the kitchen floor. The retired graphics art instructor wanted to call 911, but because Julian has been deaf his entire life, he knew that he first had to call a video relay service. Once connected, he would sign with an interpreter and the interpreter would then speak to the emergency call center in Maricopa County, Arizona. The responses then would be signed back to Singleton in a laborious process that could rob his wife of crucial minutes of care.

But Singleton still went through it. He had no other options. Once connected with 911, he remembers the operator peppering him with questions. “My wife is laying here on the floor,” he tells Mother Jones through an interpreter. “I can’t be answering these questions…So I gave up and hung up. I picked up my wife and took her to the hospital myself.”

Singleton is one of about 1 million people over the age of five who are functionally deaf. There are also 37.5 million adults who have some trouble hearing, according to the National Institutes of Health, and in the first nationally representative study, Johns Hopkins University estimates that 1 in 5 Americans who are at least 12 years old suffer from hearing loss so severe it could make communication difficult.

Those who cannot easily communicate over the phone—and this includes some people with autism, speech disabilities, cerebral palsy, and other conditions—face sometimes life-threatening barriers when trying to call emergency services at 911. The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act guaranteed direct and equal access to emergency services, and a year later the Department of Justice established rules requiring call centers to be accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. But this all occurred before cellphones became widely used and relies on an outdated technology known as TTY, or text telephone, in which two people who each have a keyboard communicate through phone lines.

“The old US Department of Justice regulations say all 911 centers must be accessible to use by TTY and voice-over,” Claude Stout, executive director of Telecommunications for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing, explains through an interpreter. “But the problem is, not many of us use TTYs anymore.”

That’s why disability rights lawyers have joined with deaf advocates in New York and Arizona—where Singleton is a plaintiff—to sue localities charging that emergency services are out of compliance with the ADA by not providing equal access to 911. In Arizona, two other residents and the National Association of the Deaf, a group that advocates on behalf of the deaf and hard of hearing, are suing the state, some cities, local governments, and government agencies. In New York, New York City is being sued as well as emergency service agencies in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. Both lawsuits are calling on the courts to require call centers to adopt text-to-911 technologies. In a statement to Mother Jones, the National Association for the Deaf says it has “determined that litigation is necessary to effectuate a nationwide solution.”

Stout explains the failure to update the regulations from the early 1990s have left the deaf and those who cannot communicate easily over the phone dependent on others to access emergency care. He knows from personal experience. When Stout thought he was having a heart attack in 2011, he says he’s lucky he wasn’t alone. His colleagues in the office were around to drive him to the hospital.

Even though deaf people can reach emergency services through relay services, the many steps required in the process makes equal access impossible. “The average time is anywhere from three to eight minutes before we’re connected to the 911 center,” Richard Ray, an expert on the issue who works on improving accessibility and ADA compliance for the city of Los Angeles, explains through an interpreter. “Each second counts in those emergency situations.” This wait time is far from “functionally equivalent” to that of a hearing person as required by the ADA, Ray notes. The national standard established by the National Emergency Number Association requires 90 percent of 911 calls to be picked up within 10 seconds.

This isn’t a new problem, but disability advocates argue there is a simple solution: 911 call centers should be able to transmit and receive texts. “Texting to 911 should have been set up yesterday,” Ray explains. “We’re not in a situation where we can wait any longer.” Additionally, texting would provide another option for everyone to reach emergency services when calling might be unsafe, like during an ongoing break in.

One problem with adopting text-to-911 technology is structural. According to Kevin Murray, CEO of Mission Critical Partners, a public safety consulting company, and the former chair of the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies, every new technology requires a workaround because the infrastructure at emergency call centers was developed in the 1970s and 1980s. While text-to–911 can be added, it’s a complicated process. “Imagine you buy the latest 3-D TVs and LED TVs and you bought your home automation systems and you purchased all these advanced technologies,” Murray says, “but then you hooked them up to a pair of outside analogue antennas.” He notes that this is comparable to what is happening with 911 today because “there are no broadband connections that really tie these systems together.”

Call centers are regulated and funded differently depending on the state and jurisdiction, which means access to 911 depends a lot on where one lives. In some states, text-to-911 is available everywhere, but in other states it doesn’t exist at all or access can vary from county to county. Out of the nearly 6,000 call centers nationwide, fewer than 1,000 accept text messages. To ensure universal access, the federal government would have to start enforcing the ADA. Murray says the industry is out of compliance with the law and the current state of access is “an embarrassment to the industry and to the US as a whole.”

Some call centers are using workarounds to integrate text-to-911 into the outdated infrastructure, but there’s also another option: Next Generation 911, a new system that allows people to communicate with 911 digitally. Eventually the technology will allow people to send images to or even video-call emergency services. Some places, such as Vermont, have upgraded already, and public safety leaders are pushing for Next Generation 911 to be available throughout the country by 2020, but Murray says there’s no federal commitment or funding to implement the service and meet that deadline. Even without it, the jurisdictions that have adopted Next Gen have call centers that are funded locally.

Back in 2010, the Department of Justice announced plans to propose new rules to make emergency services accessible with modern technology and accepted comments on the matter for about six months. Disability advocates are hopeful the new administration will continue to move forward with the process and update the rules later this year, as previously scheduled by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice under the Obama administration. The division declined a request for comment from Mother Jones about next steps.

Real change may be forced by the courts. Both of the lawsuits seeking equal access to 911 are in their early stages, but Vargas, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Arizona, doesn’t believe arguments against the lawsuit will hold up. The judge has denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, in which they argued call centers already provide adequate access and follow federal guidelines. “If I were a 911 provider that was not providing text-to-911 access, I would be calling a meeting tomorrow to make it happen because this is not a negotiable issue,” she says. “You cannot choose not to provide 911 access to people because of disability. It’s simply the most profound kind of discrimination.”

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911 Is Practically Useless for Millions of People. Here’s Why.

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Businesswoman Who Bought Trump Penthouse Is Connected to Chinese Intelligence Front Group

by ITJIsla245 Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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When a Chinese American businesswoman who sells access to powerful people recently purchased a $15.8 million penthouse in a building owned by President Donald Trump, the deal raised a key question. Was this a straightforward real estate transaction, or was this an effort to win favor with the new administration? The woman, Angela Chen, refused to discuss the purchase with the media. The White House and the Trump Organization would not comment on it. Further investigation by Mother Jones has unearthed a new element to the story: Chen has ties to important members of the Chinese ruling elite and to an organization considered a front group for Chinese military intelligence.

Chen, who also goes by the names Xiao Yan Chen and Chen Yu, purchased the four-bedroom condo in the Trump Park Avenue building in New York City on February 21. As Mother Jones first reported, Chen runs a business consulting firm, Global Alliance Associates, which specializes in linking US businesses seeking deals in China with the country’s top power brokers. “As counselors in consummating the right relationships—quite simply—we provide access,” Chen’s firm boasts on its website. But Chen has another job: She chairs the US arm of a nonprofit called the China Arts Foundation, which was founded in 2006 and has links with Chinese elites and the country’s military intelligence service.

The China Arts Foundation was created by Deng Rong, the youngest daughter of Deng Xiaoping, the iconic revolutionary figure and Chinese leader. Deng Rong is what’s known in China as a princeling—a term used for the sons and daughters of former high-ranking officials or officers in the Chinese Communist Party who now hold significant sway in business and political circles. Since 1990, Deng has also served as a vice president of the China Association for International Friendly Contacts, which is an affiliate of the intelligence and foreign propaganda division of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). China experts say CAIFC exists to cultivate relationships with former leaders and retired military officials and diplomats of various countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, in order to influence foreign defense policies toward China and the Far East.

To sum up: An influence-peddler who works with a princeling tied to Chinese military intelligence placed $15.8 million in the pockets of the president of the United States.

Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, a Virginia-based think tank that focuses on national security policy with respect to Asia, says CAIFC’s leadership consists largely of retired (and some current) Chinese military and government officials. Stokes, who has written about Chinese political warfare, says CAIFC has become “an important channel of access to Chinese Communist Party princelings.” He adds that “by influencing perceptions” of China (especially in connection to controversial issues, such as China’s stance toward Taiwan), CAIFC hopes to “influence policies of foreign governments, particularly related to defense and national security.”

The China Arts Foundation bills itself as a promoter of cultural exchanges between the United States and China, often involving classical music. The group has a branch in New York, which is run by Angela Chen, and another in Hong Kong. Various members of China’s elite serve on the group’s board, including Wang Boming, one of the founders of China’s stock market; Hong Kong orchestra conductor Long Yu; and Marjorie Yang, a political power broker and textile magnate who’s nicknamed the “cotton princess.” (Yang is reportedly bankrolling the campaign of John Tsang, a candidate for chief executive of Hong Kong, the city’s highest office.) Li Zhaoxing, a former foreign minister, and Guo Shuqing, the chairman of China’s banking regulation commission, were named as board members in a promotional video posted on the website of the foundation’s American branch.

On Tuesday, after Mother Jones made inquiries, the website for the China Arts Foundation International went offline. (You can view an archived version of the site here.)

Angela Chen’s role with the China Arts Foundation has brought her into contact with prominent American and Chinese figures. In 2014, the foundation hosted its Chinese New Year gala at New York’s Le Cirque restaurant on behalf of Deng Rong, and the guests included billionaire Chinese real estate developer Zhang Xin, philanthropist and banker Steven Rockefeller, and Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire investor and CEO of the Blackstone Group. The Chinese consul general in New York, Zhang Qiyue, and former US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman attended a 2015 benefit dinner hosted by the foundation.

The promotional video indicates that there has been a working relationship between the China Arts Foundation and CAIFC. In it, Chen’s group takes credit for sponsoring numerous international summits, including a meeting of international business leaders and think tank experts called the Sanya Forum, which was organized by CAIFC. Several China experts tell Mother Jones that CAIFC engages in legitimate cultural exchange activities but that it has long been seen as part of the Chinese military intelligence apparatus. In a 2002 article published in the China Quarterly, a peer-reviewed British academic journal, George Washington University professor and China scholar David Shambaugh characterized CAIFC as an offshoot of the intelligence bureau of the People’s Liberation Army. He noted that CAIFC’s offices are located in a Beijing compound used by military units.

In 2012, the Republican National Committee considered a resolution expressing concern about a cultural exchange program organized by CAIFC because of the group’s ties to Chinese military intelligence. The resolution, which was not adopted, was fueled by a report from a congressional committee that studies US-China relations. The report labeled CAIFC “a front organization for the International Liaison Department of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department.”

CAIFC has also prompted concerns at the US State Department. During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, an aide to Bill Clinton sought the State Department’s approval for the former president to make a November 2012 speaking appearance co-sponsored by CAIFC and the China Arts Foundation, according to government emails released through the Freedom of Information Act. An official at the State Department noted that CAIFC’s leadership included current and former Chinese government officials and wrote to Clinton’s aide, “I don’t believe we’ve approved Chinese gov’t entities in the past and so we will need to further consider this one.” In the end, Clinton’s aide told the State Department that the former president was backing out of the appearance.

In 2015, a high-ranking CAIFC official was detained as part of an anti-graft campaign by the Chinese army. A South China Morning Post story on the arrest described him as “the chief of a Chinese military intelligence agency.” The paper noted that the official “was in charge of overseas espionage and is better known to the West as the vice-chairman of the government-backed China Association for International Friendly Contact, which used to be the Department of Enemy Work.”

Chen’s purchase of the penthouse unit from Trump was the first deal consummated by Trump’s company since he became president. Prior to taking office, Trump claimed he would remove himself from the daily operations of his business empire, but he remains the owner of the limited liability company that sold Chen the unit. How the deal went down remains a mystery. Chen apparently paid cash, and the apartment she purchased, unlike other penthouse units in the Trump Park Avenue building, was not publicly listed for sale. Chen currently lives in an apartment on a lower floor of the building and uses the unit as a mailing address for the China Arts Foundation and her consulting company. Before moving to Washington, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump lived in the same building. (They are currently trying to sell their apartment.)

Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who, along with Trump’s two adult sons, was handed the task of running Trump’s business empire while he is in the Oval Office, signed the sale documents with Chen. He did not respond to a request for comment. Chen also did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the apartment deal or her relationship with Deng Rong and CAIFC. CAIFC did not respond to an email seeking comment.

When Trump became president, the Trump Organization enlisted an ethics adviser, attorney Bobby Burchfield, to vet potential business deals involving Trump. Burchfield declined to comment about the Chen transaction or explain the vetting process for her purchase of the Trump Park Avenue penthouse.

Norm Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s lead ethics lawyer, says the links between Chen, the foundation, CAIFC, and the Chinese government and military raise “a series of very profound and troubling questions.” He notes that there is no transparency regarding the vetting of business deals benefiting Trump. Without such a process, he points out, there are well-founded questions about the true source of the funds used to buy the $15.8 million condo. “When, as here, the public interest is implicated, we’re left at a loss,” Eisen says. “You shouldn’t be asking these questions about a president.”

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Businesswoman Who Bought Trump Penthouse Is Connected to Chinese Intelligence Front Group

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The EPA Used to Tweet About the Environment. Now It Just Tweets About Scott Pruitt

by CalebQ443110 Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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One of the first actions the Trump administration took when it entered office was to crack down on the Environmental Protection Agency, starting with its social media feeds and website.

The agency’s work on climate and energy policy has slowed to a crawl, but it has been replaced with a different focus: The promotion of the new EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt. With one exception, all of the EPA’s tweets and Facebook posts since Pruitt’s confirmation have been about his various appearances or sharing quotes from the EPA chief or President Donald Trump. The only time EPA tweeted about an environmental issue, it was to promote Trump’s executive order attempting to roll back a Clean Water Act rule. (On Monday, outside of the three-week period we used for this analysis, the EPA finally tweeted about a local grant.)

This is unusual. During the Obama administration, the EPA Twitter account certainly publicized and promoted Administrator Gina McCarthy, but it was a far smaller portion of its work. Here’s a comparison of Tweets over a three-week period:

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Social media was then used as a tool for educating the public about public health problems and environmental initiatives, but under Pruitt, public education work is at a standstill.

“We tried to provide regular updates on the wide range of actions we were taking to protect people’s health and the environment all across the country,” Liz Purchia, a communications official for Obama’s EPA, said in an email. “People want to know that they are being heard; and social media is an essential tool for doing that. Right now what we’re seeing is a bunch of posts being thrown at us by Trump’s EPA without any effort to engage with the American people. All you have to do is take a look at EPA’s social media channels since Trump’s team took over and you can visually see the stark shift in control.”

Trump’s team froze all social media accounts and public communications when the new administration took office. The agency is posting updates again now that Pruitt is in charge, but its work on clean air, science, and climate change is far from the focus. The flurry of Twitter activity welcoming Pruitt after he was sworn in has since slowed mostly to promoting his speaking engagements. On Monday, which was out of the range for this comparison, the EPA had one additional tweet about policy, but kept up its Pruitt-focused ratio with one quote and retweet from Pruitt.

Under McCarthy, the EPA feeds were mostly run by career officials in coordination with the administrator’s political staff. The EPA then took a different tack. Over a similar time period when Gina McCarthy took over as administrator in 2013, the main house account tweeted 16 times about McCarthy herself and retweeted her nine times—most of which were during a public Q&A she conducted on Twitter. The overwhelming number of tweets was about the agency’s work. Here is a sampling:

All this suggests Pruitt and Trump’s team are carefully monitoring the public-facing side of the agency. An EPA career staffer, who requested anonymity, told Mother Jones that edits to the website must be approved first, and the website is “more tightly controlled” than it was before January.

There are a handful of exceptions: Regional offices in particular, where the Trump administration has not yet installed political appointees, are occasionally promoting local grants and cleanup projects.

Of course, the EPA is far more than its social media feeds. Its 15,000 employees are in charge of distributing grants, conducting scientific research, and enforcing the law. But social media is also a rough approximation of the priorities the agency wants to share with the public. The change of EPA’s emphasis on social media has also been more pronounced than that in other branches of the federal government, even ones focused on similar work. The Interior Department, for instance, is still sharing images of the nation’s national parks, and NOAA is still tweeting climate stats. The EPA hasn’t mentioned climate change once since Trump became president.

Some of the EPA’s followers on Facebook and Twitter have noticed the abrupt shift:

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The EPA Used to Tweet About the Environment. Now It Just Tweets About Scott Pruitt

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If Barack Obama Calls You Asking for Money, Don’t Do It

by SilviaBeavis Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama did not record a robocall raising money off the new White House travel ban—no matter what you may have read on the internet.

The report that Obama was asking Democrats for money to fight President Donald Trump caught fire on the right-wing internet over the weekend, inflamed by celebrity Trump supporters such as the actor Scott Baio. The pro-administration subreddit “The_Donald” has even put up a post asking users to report such calls to the Federal Trade Commission. Many of those stories cited a Friday tweet by former North Carolina congressional candidate Thomas Mills, who reported that he had received a call not long after the new Trump order had gone into effect. (Mills, who is a Democrat, confirmed to Mother Jones that he had received a robocall.)

But according to the former president’s office, if you got a robocall with Obama’s voice on it, it wasn’t from him.

“These pre-recorded calls were not authorized by President Barack Obama, have no connection to the former President, and have been reported to appropriate law enforcement authorities,” Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor for and report any misleading or fraudulent uses of the President’s image.”

If you get a robocall from President Obama, record it and send it to tmurphy@motherjones.com.

Update: Thanks to reader Greg Flynn, we have audio of one of these calls purporting to be on behalf of President Obama. (If you follow the prompts, you’ll be asked to donate in increments of $100 or $200.) Here it is:

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If Barack Obama Calls You Asking for Money, Don’t Do It

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Stop Being Shocked That Teen Girls Give a Shit About Politics

by DNDHeikewgp Posted on March 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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Over the last few months, Teen Vogue‘s clear-eyed, accessible coverage of the Trump administration has caught the collective attention of the internet. A major force behind Teen Vogue‘s recent work is Lauren Duca, the magazine’s weekend editor. Her piece on Donald Trump’s gaslighting of the American people went viral back in December, as did her powerful response to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, after he suggested on air that instead of writing about politics, she should “stick to the thigh-high boots.” Cringe.

But Carlson’s comment was actually less annoying to Duca than the fawning masses who seem so surprised that a magazine for teenagers can also produce great news commentary. I talked to Duca, whose new column launched last week, about her role in shaping Teen Vogue‘s work—and why the magazine’s political coverage reaches far beyond its target demographic.

Lauren Duca

Mother Jones: How did you start writing politically opinionated pieces for Teen Vogue?

Lauren Duca: Their mode of coverage has been really rigorous and committed to informing their audience since I started in January 2016, and also earlier. I was on the weekend that the Pulse shooting happened. It was really a high level of support editorially for taking these things on in a way that was unflinching and honest. So it was honestly kind of an organic segue into becoming more political as things took on more urgency. My job on the weekends was just to be deciding what the coverage was for the weekend. So that meant everything from Selena Gomez has a new Pantene ad to Donald Trump is lying to the American public. That was the scope of possibilities.

I think the reason they hired me, too—it wasn’t just a random thing. I had a culture column called Middlebrow at HuffPost and a reporting background. But weekend editor is typically a more starting-level position, and they took someone who they knew did a lot of cultural analysis. And when I say “they,” I mean specifically Phil Picardi, the editorial director. So hiring me was a very deliberate choice. It was kind of like, these are the ethically driven people with skills that are already in place. And this was kind of the work that Teen Vogue was already doing. So people being shocked is a little annoying.

MJ: It seems like just since Trump was elected, Teen Vogue has really ratcheted up the coverage. Was there a particular moment that you felt a real shift at the magazine?

LD: When I came on, it was already the kind of place that was doing that kind of thing. The wellness stuff, for example, is political in a nontraditional way. LGBTQ work and mental health work and being frank about sexuality—all those kinds of areas where they’ve been “woke” for a long time. It’s just taking on that mode of informing young women, and just a natural segue into traditional politics.

MJ: So it’s annoying that everyone is kind of fawning and surprised that Teen Vogue is showing up with political coverage.

LD: Yeah, there’s a spectrum of those responses. There’s definitely a mode of stealthy condescension sometimes, where I’m almost relieved by the Tucker Carlson comment in a way. Because the sort of “stick to the thigh-high boots” denial of access to a political conversation is such an explicit version of what I was already kind of itching over with the response. Other versions of the Tucker Carlson comment: “Her last post was about Selena Gomez’s makeup.” And it’s like, yes, it’s possible to do both those things, especially because I was on weekends. That’s part of why I didn’t have a specific beat. But the moment we’re living in right now, a politically active voice is required of everyone, and they’re still allowed to have nonserious interests. And I don’t see why that’s not true for young women.

MJ: Right, it’s just sort of baffling, the idea that teens aren’t political.

LD: It’s so frustrating. Especially because there’s so much political potential for young people. Millennials are now as big of a segment of the population as baby boomers. If we can actually can get everyone to show up and vote and be active, there’s a potential to shape elections for the next 35 years based on those statistics. I think young people absolutely care. They care in different ways. That generational divide, how it shows up in political discussions is especially ugly. It’s all, “Ugh, millennials and selfishness and narcissism, and oh my god, they’re taking selfies.” It’s like, “No, this is how we’re interacting with our world, and it’s different from the way you interact with your world, and by the way, thanks for the mountains of debt.”

MJ: So when you write, are you writing for millennials or teenagers?

LD: The audience for Teen Vogue is young women specifically. I think the reason the Trump gaslighting article did so well was that it wasn’t like, “Hey, teen girls.” It was like, “hey everybody.” I think the idea of political coverage that’s accessible to young women, the reason it took off so much is because so much of political coverage—people feel alienated from it, they don’t necessarily have the news literacy to make sense of everything. Everything is legitimately confusing. I think that things that are accessible to more people are just going to empower more people with information. And I think there are more people reading Teen Vogue now. I certainly get a lot of letters like, “I’m a 64-year-old man, and I certainly never would have read Teen Vogue before.” It’s like, relax. In the column I’m starting, I’m hoping it can be breaking things down and providing resources on what to read and what to prioritize in thinking about all the drain clogging and disinformation from this administration. I would love if that went beyond the typical readership.

MJ: What are you hearing from the actual teen readers of Teen Vogue?

LD: I’m hearing some really cool stuff. I have people doing school projects on me, which is insanely amazing. Yesterday I got an email from a high school junior who was doing a speech on me and my work, and do I have a message for her audience. I was like, this is insane, this is incredible. So yes, it’s reaching the people it’s meant to reach, too.

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Stop Being Shocked That Teen Girls Give a Shit About Politics

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

by KathleeKobayash Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions will recuse himself from any investigations into contact between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Sessions announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon. Sarah Isgur Flores, Sessions’ spokeswoman, told Mother Jones that neither the attorney general nor any of his staff would take part in any internal discussions on whether or not an independent special prosecutor would be appointed to investigate the 2016 campaign. That decision would presumably be left to acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

The hastily called press conference came as lawmakers from both parties called for Sessions to recuse himself from any investigations into Russia’s role in the election. During Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked him what he would do if reports that Trump campaign associates and Russian officials had been in contact during the campaign turned out to be true. Sessions responded by denying that he had any contact with the Russians: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians.” But on Wednesday, news broke that Sessions had twice met with the Russian ambassador.

As reporters waited for Sessions to begin his press conference at DOJ headquarters Thursday, televisions tuned to CNN replayed the exchange with Franken—followed by a segment with the chyron, “Calls grow for attorney general to resign.”

When he took the podium shortly after 4 pm ET, Sessions claimed that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and had not purposefully misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing. “My reply to the question of Sen. Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time,” he said.

Sessions said that he would be writing to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next day or two to explain his testimony. He added that his decision to remove himself from any investigations into the 2016 presidential campaign came following his review of ethics rules and input from his staff. “In the end, I have followed the right procedure, just as I promised the committee I would,” he said.

As for his September meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his Senate office, Sessions said he didn’t recall many details, before naming terrorism and Ukraine as topics that came up. Sessions also said that he and Kislyak had discussed a visit Sessions paid to a Russian church in the 1991 and that Kislyak had told him he was not religious. “I thought he was pretty much in an old-style Soviet ambassador,” Sessions said.

When asked by reporters whether he and the ambassador had discussed the 2016 presidential campaign during their meeting, Sessions joked that “most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy” but then switched into lawyer mode and said, “I don’t recall.”

This is a developing news story that will be updated.

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

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Can Jeff Sessions Be Prosecuted for Perjury?

by LaverneSomers Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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Late Wednesday night, the Washington Post broke the news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential campaign, contacts he failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation hearings. “I did not have communications with the Russians,” said Sessions during his sworn testimony. As a growing list of lawmakers call for Sessions to recuse himself from the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election—and some Democrats demand his resignation—an open question remains: Can Jeff Sessions be prosecuted for perjury?

The answer is not exactly cut and dry. At the time of his confirmation hearings, Sessions was still serving as a senator from Alabama. The Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause shields lawmakers from prosecution for lying during proceedings in the House or Senate. The clause was written with the intent to foster debate in Congress without the threat of lawsuits stifling discussion. So, since Sessions was a sitting Senator when he allegedly misled Congress, does that mean he’s off the hook? Mother Jones put the question to three constitutional law experts.

“There might be other things he can be prosecuted for,” says Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell University, referencing laws that allow Congress to hold individuals in contempt for providing false testimony. But, says Chafetz, Sessions can’t be prosecuted for perjury.

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe sees it differently. “That would be a laughable misuse of the Speech and Debate Clause,” he says. “He was testifying under oath as an Attorney General nominee, not in the discharge of any Senatorial business of his own.”

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman says he’s inclined to believe that Sessions is not protected by the clause. Still, Ackerman says there’s no decisive case law on the issue, which muddies the waters. “Only one thing is clear,” he says, “Sessions must recuse himself, and it is incumbent on the Administration to appoint a special prosecutor.”

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Can Jeff Sessions Be Prosecuted for Perjury?

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Here’s What It’s Like to Be Muslim in the Bible Belt in 2017

by Reyna8421h Posted on February 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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In August 2012, a mosque opened in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a bustling college town outside of Nashville that is home to students, long-time residents, refugees, suburban families, and everyone in between. The national headlines for the stories about the event suggested some of the conflicts that had led to this moment: The New York Daily News wrote, “Tennessee Mosque Opens After Years of Controversy,” the New York Times wrote “After a Struggle, Mosque Opens in Tennessee”, and NPR wrote “Murfreesboro Mosque Finally Opens.”

But the summer day when it opened was peaceful and harmonious, with the exception of a lone protester, wearing an “I Love Jesus” hat and a shirt bearing the 10 Commandments. The day was one for celebration, and the members of the Muslim community who had gathered were not dwelling on the fact that during court battles over permits, Rutherford County had spent more than $340,000 in legal fees fighting the right to build this place of worship. Or that the lieutenant governor of Tennessee at the time, Ron Ramsey, had described Islam as a “cult” while voicing opposition to the mosque.

The community itself was split between those attacking the approximately 300 families of the mosque for being Muslim and those who banded with their Muslim neighbors. The peaceful community was the target of a bomb threat—the anonymous caller, later found to be a Texas man, promised it would go off inside the office space where the community was worshipping in the interim on Sept. 11. A vandal scrawled “not welcome” across a sign announcing the construction of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Construction equipment used to build the walls of the mosque was set on fire, its charred remains a warning to worshippers that they were not safe. But after two troubled years, the mosque finally opened, and residents began to take its presence on Veals Road for granted.

Then Donald Trump was elected, and the anti-Muslim rhetoric that once inflamed the Bible Belt town of 126,000 was reignited.

Murfreesboro is home to a very small fraction of American Muslims, but it was primed for a backlash in a unique way. Most residents remember the saga of the mosque, and the Baptist church next door made its anti-Islam position very clear by erecting 13 10-foot-tall crosses into the ground “to make a statement.” There are residents of Murfreesboro who stood with their Muslim neighbors, leaving flowers and handwritten cards at the front door of the mosque, but there are increasingly louder voices that threaten the safety of others who happen to be Muslim. It’s a sort of microcosm of what has happened across the country, where tensions and even violence have escalated against Muslims in the wake of the inflammatory rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

“People are afraid, and they won’t tell others about harassment,” says Saleh Sbenaty, a leader in the Muslim community, who was deeply involved in the struggle to get the mosque built. “It’s really scary and dangerous.”

He added that some members of the mosque have told him they are considering not attending services because they are frightened of the possibility of an attack. When news broke that a mosque in Texas had been set on fire shortly after Trump announced an executive order temporarily banning refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries, they prayed for safety. When a shooting at a Quebec City mosque by a 27-year-old white male who was reportedly “a right-wing troll who frequently took anti-foreigner and anti-feminist positions and stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump” left six dead and more injured three days after Trump’s executive order, they felt their worst fears were being confirmed.

The Sbenaty family left Syria because it was unsafe, and they wanted a better life for themselves and their children. His daughter Dima was born in Damascus, but her mother brought her to the United States when she was eight months old to join Saleh, who was earning his PhD at the time. Their son, Salim, was born in Murfreesboro. A week after the election, 20-year-old Salim, was waiting tables at a local restaurant when he was asked, “Son, where are you from?”

“I was born and raised here in Murfreesboro,” he replied.

The response was abrupt. “You look foreign.”

“My parents came from Damascus a long time ago,” Salim said. The man stared.

“I’m going to the car to get my gun.”

Later that night, he told his father, who was horrified, and asked how he responded. Salim said the man had probably never met anyone who looked like him before, and he did not want to deepen his hatred. Saleh says many people in the Muslim community in Murfreesboro would have done the same, although he encouraged his son to report the incident.

During his campaign, Trump went back and forth on a proposal to create a “Muslim registry.” When he was asked about it in November 2015, he said, “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We’re going to have to look at the mosques.” Later, he said he wanted to have a database on Syrian refugees who immigrate into the United States. Less than a month later, in December 2015, he proposed banning all Muslim immigration. Trump has consistently talked about the threat of “radical Islam,” and in an interview with CNN last year, he told Anderson Cooper, “I think Islam hates us.”

Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, has also been vocal about his views on Islam. “We are in an outright war against jihadist, Islamic fascists,” Bannon said in a 2014 speech. He also said the religion was metastasizing—like cancer.

Some Tennessee lawmakers have spouted similar claims—Tennessee state Sen. Mae Beavers told town hall attendees on Feb. 16 that Muslim terrorists were “infiltrating churches” and planning jihad in the Bible Belt. She also has expressed support for Trump’s “Muslim ban.” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who served as a vice chair of Trump’s transition team, said Trump’s immigration order was a “security test, not a religious one.”

“Our intelligence and security agencies must ascertain the scope of the Islamic terror threat in order to develop proper refugee vetting protocols—if possible,” she wrote in an op-ed for The Tennessean.

And now, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, anti-Muslim hate groups have tripled since 2015.

Ossama Bahoul, the former imam at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, said there is a big difference between what the Muslim community in Middle Tennessee went through when the mosque was being built and what is happening now. Back then, the government was on their side—it defended his people’s right to worship and promised to take swift action against anyone who threatened them. Now, he hears the Islamophobia that used to come from the mouths of protesters coming from the government. “It is really disturbing for me to be talking about this,” Bahloul said. “The people who are supposed to protect us are singling our community out. That’s tough.”

Bahloul and Saleh Sbenaty tell Mother Jones about women who had been threatened for wearing the hijab and sometimes, Bahloul said, people have tried to assault them. Schoolchildren have come home crying because other children asked if their headscarves are hiding a bomb. Other Muslims have told him they have heard mutterings of “it’s about time to clean up America” and “go back home” when they pass by.

Recently, when another student at school referred to one of the children in his congregation as “Bin Laden,” Bahloul found himself at a loss. “Our kids were born in America—they don’t speak any language but English,” he said. “They are American kids, and they will come at a very young age and say, ‘Why do they hate us?'”

The effects of Trump’s comments about Muslims is not restricted to the random acts of violence directed at Muslims in the United States. The executive order he signed banning refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly-Muslim countries—including Syria—mean the Sbenatys and other families fear they’ll be separated from family members for quite some time. Saleh hasn’t seen his mother, who is 83, in 11 years. He wants to bring her to America, but the recent events make that seem unlikely. His siblings got married after he left Syria, and he has nieces and nephews he has never met. Minutes after the Ninth Circuit Court filed a preliminary injunction against Trump’s immigration order, effectively putting it on hold, Trump tweeted, in all caps: “See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake!”

“Now there is no option for me to go and visit or for them to come over here,” Saleh told Mother Jones before the court ruling. “It’s something you cannot explain in words.”

Dima Sbenaty, Saleh’s daughter, is a 27-year-old clinical coordinator for the stroke unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. The week after Trump’s “Muslim ban” took effect, she spoke at a vigil in support of Muslim Americans. Thousands showed up. “Islam taught me to give back…As a Muslim, it is my obligation to you to be strong, to uphold justice, and to protect your rights,” she told the crowd that night. “That is how America raised me.”

Recently, she decided to start wearing a hijab, and because of the outward signifier that she is Muslim, she has encountered some animosity in the workplace. Sometimes, when she’s out running errands, she gets an uncomfortable sensation, like she’s being watched by someone with less-than-friendly intentions. But she’s determined not to let fear rule her. “I’m practicing my freedom by covering my hair; I’m practicing my freedom by saying that I’m Muslim and going to the mosque,” she tells Mother Jones. “That’s my freedom as an American, and I don’t think I should be afraid…Refugees are leaving a place where they’re being dehumanized. They’re coming into America to seek refuge, and they’re entering another hell.”

As for Imam Bahloul, he is still wrestling with how to explain to the community what is happening and how to deal with being targeted. “For a girl to cry and say, ‘I want to cover my hair, but I’m scared,’ that girl must not be scared in America,” he said. “We’re part of the American fabric.”

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Here’s What It’s Like to Be Muslim in the Bible Belt in 2017

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Conservatives Can’t Figure Out Whether to Embrace or Denounce the Alt-Right

by RudolfDeRougemo Posted on February 23, 2017

Mother Jones

As they kick off their biggest conference of the year, leading conservatives from across the country can’t seem to figure out what to do about the alt-right, a movement with close ties to both white nationalists and the White House.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference began Thursday morning outside Washington, DC, with a strange denunciation of the movement by the executive director of the organization behind the event. In a speech titled “The Alt Right Ain’t Right at All,” American Conservative Union executive director Dan Schneider said that the alt-right isn’t really a conservative movement at all. Instead, he said, “a hate-filled, left-wing fascist group hijacked the very term ‘alt-right.'” Schneider called the alt-right anti-Semitic, racist, and sexist.

“CPAC, we have been slapped in the face,” Schneider said. “There is a sinister organization trying to worm its way into our ranks. We must not be duped, we must not be deceived. This is serious business.”

It’s understandable why Schneider would want to distance CPAC from the alt-right. But his organization didn’t seem to mind associating itself with the movement when it created the schedule for this year’s conference. White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon is scheduled to speak early this afternoon, just a few hours after Schneider and on the same stage. During an interview with Mother Jones at the Republican National Convention last summer, Bannon proudly tied Breitbart, the media organization he was then running, to the movement Schneider called racist. “We’re the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon said.

One of this year’s keynote speakers at CPAC was supposed to be Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart writer who called himself a “fellow traveler” of the alt-right. That view didn’t seem to trouble the organizers of CPAC, who rescinded his invitation only after a video circulated online of Yiannopoulos saying he didn’t have a problem with pedophilia.

But CPAC still appears to be just fine with the media organization that serves as the “platform for the alt-right.” As he was denouncing the movement, Schneider spoke in front of a banner featuring the logos of the event sponsors—including Breitbart.

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Conservatives Can’t Figure Out Whether to Embrace or Denounce the Alt-Right

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From Tech Workers to College Kids, Trump is Also Taking on Legal Immigrants

by EmilieSchuler Posted on February 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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President Donald Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration is well known. But since his inauguration, he has also attempted to overhaul legal immigration, most notably with his executive order barring travel and immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Speculation about other ways the president could restrict legal immigration have been fueled by his statements as well as leaked draft memos. Additionally, there are concerns surrounding potential conflicts of interest between the president’s businesses and his immigration policy, since some of the Trump’s companies rely upon visas that he now controls.

Few people understand the United States’ notoriously labyrinthine immigration system. The confusion is understandable. The State Department lists 76 visa categories that fall under two umbrellas: non-immigrant visas, for those seeking to come to the country for a fixed period, and immigrant visas, for those seeking a path to citizenship.

Here are some of the visas issued by the US government and what we know about Trump’s plans for them:

EB-5: The “millionaire” or “investor” visa
EB-5 holders are required to make a minimum business investment of $1 million (or $500,000 in a “high unemployment” or rural area), creating at least 10 jobs. This visa is controversial: Some argue that it allows foreigners to buy citizenship. Others suggest that these visas are processed too quickly, potentially opening the door to money laundering and other security risks. Earlier this month, Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) cosponsored a bill to end the program.

As Bloomberg reported, Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, owns an apartment complex that has taken $50 million in EB-5 funds, mostly from Chinese investors. Trump has not commented on this visa program.

H-1B: Highly Skilled worker visa
H-1Bs allow foreigners who work in a “specialty occupation,” such as technology, engineering, mathematics, or business, to work in the country for three years. (They may renew their visas an additional three years so long as they remain employed.) The worker must have an employment agreement with an American company. The number of H-1Bs is capped at 85,000.

Trump’s stance on H-1Bs has varied. He used harsh language about them on his website, but then in a campaign debate said, “I’m softening the position on his website because we have to have talented people in this country.” He then hardened his position again in a press release, stating that “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.” In his inauguration speech, Trump said, “We will follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.” This has raised questions about how a “hire American” requirement might impact American businesses that rely on skilled foreign employees, particularly Silicon Valley.

According to a draft executive order obtained by Bloomberg, Trump has plans to overhaul this visa program. The draft order sparked a wave of panic in India’s technology sector, whose workers are the top recipients of H-1Bs. According to executive order drafts leaked to Vox, one of the ways Trump could alter this visa would be to stop the spouses of H-1B holders from working in the United States and restricting these visas to companies that are “the best and the brightest,” which presumably means only largest and most successful American companies.

H-1B3: The “model visa”
This visa is a subset of the “highly skilled workers” visa. When the immigration system was reformed in the 1990s, the modeling industry expressed concern that while supermodels were covered by the O-1 visa (see below), non-supermodels were left out. The “model visa” was created.

First Lady Melania Trump originally worked in the United States on such a visa, and has cited it as proof that she immigrated legally and that others should follow her example. Trump’s modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has benefited from hiring foreign models using this visa. However, as Mother Jones reported last year, some of the company’s models say they came to the United States on tourist visas, which did not allow them to work legally. A Trump Organization executive did not deny the claims.

H2: Seasonal worker visa
H2s allow companies to temporarily hire agricultural workers or other workers without advanced degrees, such as waiters and housekeepers, provided that employers prove that they could not fill these position with citizens.

According to the Washington Post, Trump’s vineyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, recently applied for six H-2A visas. As BuzzFeed reported last week, the vineyard applied for nearly two dozen more earlier this month. Similarly, Trump’s Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago resort requested 78 H2B visas for foreign servers, housekeepers, and cooks. When asked about this at a debate last March, Trump said, “It’s very, very hard to get people. But other hotels do the exact same thing…There’s nothing wrong with it. We have no choice.” Perhaps that was a signal that he’ll leave this visa alone.

F-1: Student visas
These visas allow students to travel to the United States to study at high schools, universities, seminaries, and other educational institutions.

Many students with F visas have been affected by the travel ban. As Mother Jones has reported, many college students were stranded by the ban while returning from winter break. Four thousand Iranian students will be affected should the ban remain in place. Fortune estimates that US colleges could lose $700 million annually if these students’ tuition money dries up. Though Trump hasn’t spoken specifically about changes to student visas, during his campaign, he has called for ending the J-1 visa program for visiting scholars and professors.

O-1: The “artist” or “genius” visa
This visa allows “individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement” to come to the United States to work in their field of expertise. This visa covers everyone from athletes and musicians to famous authors and Nobel Prize-winning scientists. (Athletes who are entering for a specific competition may enter on a P-1 “athlete’s visa.”)

If Trump’s travel ban is upheld, celebrities from the seven specified countries could be affected. International disapproval of the ban could affect major events, such as Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024 Olympics, which will be decided in September. According to ESPN, international soccer officials’ disapproval of the president’s travel ban could affect the United States’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2026.

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From Tech Workers to College Kids, Trump is Also Taking on Legal Immigrants

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