“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a sweeping immigration enforcement bill into law.., making illegal immigration a state crime and allowing local judges to issue deportation orders. Once Senate Bill 4 takes effect, Texas law enforcement will be authorized to stop, arrest, and jail migrants—a power that could lead to racial profiling and a costly expansion of policing.
S.B. 4 makes it a state crime, ranging from a misdemeanor to a felony, for an undocumented person to enter Texas outside an official port of entry. Law enforcement will be permitted to arrest people they think entered the state illegally, and not just in the border region. S.B. 4 will let Texas law enforcement “arrest undocumented immigrants anywhere in the state,” reported The Texas Tribune. The law is set to take effect on March 5, 2024.”
https://reason.com/2023/12/19/texas-new-immigration-law-will-lead-to-more-policing-with-less-accountability/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j18YCnFp2W8
“According to a new analysis from the Associated Press, 50,000 children were still estimated to be “missing” from American classrooms in fall 2022—two years after the COVID-19 pandemic caused school enrollment numbers to plummet.
While the number actually indicates an improvement in school attendance—the A.P. found that an estimated 230,000 children were missing in fall 2021—it also shows that thousands of children have nonetheless experienced multiyear disruptions to their educations following COVID-era school closures.”
…
“According to the A.P., while exact causes are difficult to pinpoint, bureaucratic hurdles could be a major factor holding children back from returning to the classroom. Many school districts have stringent policies of unenrolling children after long absences, while others require onerous paperwork proving a child’s residency within the district or complicated medical requirements.
In Atlanta, for example, parents must provide eight separate documents to enroll their children in public schools, including a “complicated certificate evaluating a child’s dental health, vision, hearing and nutrition,” according to the A.P.
One mother of a seventh-grader with autism told the A.P. that she tried to enroll her son in their local public school as soon as the pandemic closures ended. However, she didn’t have reliable transportation and said she couldn’t find a nearby appointment to get him the required immunizations, causing her son to miss five months of school.
“He wasn’t in school, and no one cared,” she told the A.P.”
https://reason.com/2023/12/19/millions-of-kids-left-classrooms-during-the-pandemic-new-data-show-50000-hadnt-returned-2-years-later/
“The Democratic-majority Senate and Republican-controlled House are far behind in carrying out their basic duty of funding the government for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, with lawmakers scrambling to keep the lights on to give them more time to pass a full-year bill.
Schumer and his House Republican counterpart, Mike Johnson, early this month agreed to a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending level for the year that ends on Sept. 30. But in a sign of how bitterly the Congress is divided, the two parties now disagree on that number, with Democrats saying the actual amount agreed to is $1.66 trillion.
The intense jockeying between House Republicans seeking deep spending cuts and Democrats comes amid a $34.4 trillion national debt that is rapidly escalating and has prompted worries in part because of the heavy interest payments now being borne by the Treasury Department.
This third stopgap funding bill, known as a “continuing resolution” or “CR,” would simply extend last fiscal year’s spending levels until two deadlines of March 1 and March 8 for completing action of spending for various government agencies.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-congress-scrambles-pass-stopgap-110511493.html
“Pakistan launched airstrikes against alleged militant hideouts inside Iran on Thursday, killing at least nine people as it retaliated for a similar attack by Iran two days earlier and raising tensions between the neighbors at a time of escalating conflict in the region.
The unprecedented attacks by both Pakistan and Iran on either side of their border appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals. The countries accuse each other of providing a haven to the groups in their respective territories.”
…
“Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks, but analysts say this week’s tit-for-tat strikes were at least partially in response to internal political pressures.
Iran is dealing with unrest against its theocracy and has faced pressure for action ever since the Islamic State suicide bombing. It is also seeking to flex military power at a time when militant groups it supports in the region — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen — are engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pakistan, meanwhile, could not leave Tuesday’s airstrikes by Iran unchallenged, and it faces a crucial February general election in which its military is a powerful political force.”
…
“The Baluch Liberation Army, an ethnic separatist group that has operated in the region since 2000, said in a statement the strikes targeted and killed its people. “Pakistan has martyred innocent Baluch people,” it said.
Pakistan’s military also said the strikes hit targets associated with the Baluchistan Liberation Front, though that group did not acknowledge the claim.
HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people, shared images online that appeared to show the remains of the munitions used in the attack. It said a number of homes had been struck in Saravan. It shared videos showing a mud-walled building destroyed and smoke rising from the strike.”
…
“Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, as well as Iran’s neighboring Sistan and Baluchestan province, have already faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades.
However, the groups targeted this week are different. Jaish al-Adl, the Sunni separatist group that Iran targeted Tuesday, grew out of another Islamic extremist group known as Jundallah that was once alleged to have ties to al-Qaida. Jaish al-Adl has long been suspected of operating out of Pakistan and launching attacks on Iranian security forces.
The Baluch Liberation Army, which has no religious component and has launched attacks against Pakistani security forces and Chinese interests, is suspected of hiding out in Iran. The Baluchistan Liberation Front is similarly nationalistic.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pakistan-air-force-carries-retaliatory-044100312.html
“Ecuador, according to its president Daniel Noboa, is now “in a state of war.” Earlier this week he had announced a state of emergency after the leader of one of the country’s top two gangs escaped from prison. The following day, armed gang members stormed the TC Television news program, broadcasting their hostage-taking and violence live to make an announcement of their own.
It was far from the only act of shocking violence the country has suffered this week.
In what appeared to be a coordinated campaign Tuesday — and one with a brazenness that recalled Mexico’s cartels in the mid-2010s, or worse — armed men stormed hospitals, businesses, and universities. Prisons were taken over in violent riots, bombs were set off in multiple locations, and police and prison guards were kidnapped and murdered. At least 10 people were killed in gang attacks, including police, and over a hundred prison staff were taken hostage.
It may seem like an inexplicable turn for Ecuador, a country that many experts, including Felipe Botero, a program head at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, told Vox used to be an “island of peace” in an often-troubled region.
But this turn to violence in an upper-middle-income country of 18 million didn’t happen overnight.
While there are factors that accelerated a spike in crime over the last couple of years, experts say this is a story nearly a decade in the making. Ecuador’s security crisis is the product of years of growing impunity enjoyed by gangs, the influence of transnational crime groups, shifts in global cocaine consumption, and, above all, increasing institutional corruption.
That means even with President Noboa’s promised military crackdown, this chaos won’t be solved overnight.”
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/1/11/24034891/ecuador-drugs-cocaine-cartels-violence-murder-daniel-naboa-columbia-crime
“A 70-year-old woman has been killed and 17 other people injured in what police say was a terrorist attack in Israel.
Two Palestinians from the occupied West Bank have been arrested over the incident in Raanana, about 20km (12.5 miles) north of Tel Aviv.
The suspects allegedly switched between three stolen vehicles and ran over pedestrians in different places.
The attack came as the war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza passed the 100-day mark.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-woman-killed-12-hurt-143334233.html
Lee’s decision to fight for Virginia, and effectively the Confederacy, WAS a moral decision. Whether the south should have the right to secede by itself has moral elements, but so does why the south would risk war to secede. The south seceded primarily to protect the institution of slavery. We know this because they told us at the time that was why they were seceding. That’s extremely anti-freedom and anti-human dignity to think slavery was okay in the first place, so those are negative moral marks right there. U.S. slavery was justified on the belief that blacks were inferior, so based on racism. The south seceded because they lost a presidential election and were afraid the new president would take away their slaves. That’s not how democracy works; you don’t just get to leave when you lose an election, so that is anti-democratic. Finally, by seceding they were in open rebellion against the United States of America, meaning, they were traitors. This isn’t just an ahistorical lookback, they knew they were rebelling. They accepted certain authority of the U.S. and then rejected it, rejected it with the threat of force to defend their new authority. They took over federal facilities. Lee agrees with me on this point. A few months before the Civil War he said, “Secession is nothing but revolution” and implied that it would be “treason”. The way he used revolution seems like how we would normally say rebellion. Lee also seems to be implying that secession itself is resorting to force: “I hope therefore that all Constitutional means will be exhausted, before there is a resort to force.”
A larger quote: “The South in my opinion has been aggrieved by the acts of the North as you say. I feel the aggression, & am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen I take great pride in my country, her prosperity & institutions & would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, & I am willing to sacrifice every thing but honour for its preservation. I hope therefore that all Constitutional means will be exhausted, before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble,4 & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?” ~ Lee
https://leefamilyarchive.org/reference/essays/rachal/index.html
The south didn’t simply secede on the principle of states rights. They weren’t thinking that we must stand up for states rights for the principle of states rights in and of itself. They weren’t inspired by the value of states rights. They wanted to maintain the institution of slavery. That is why the south risked war. That is why they seceded. Lee knew that. Lee knew that the south didn’t like the outcome of a presidential election, didn’t want Lincoln to take their slaves away, justified slavery based on racism, and were rebelling against the United States by non-Constitutional means. Despite knowing this, he chose loyalty to his beloved Virginia above all else. That is not simply a civics question, but a deeply moral choice.
I don’t condemn Lee for his choice. I think we can clearly say that it was the morally wrong choice, but also understand him in his time and his culture and have sympathy with why he made that decision. And understand that he was in many ways a good man despite certain mistakes and blind spots.
“China is warning the U.S. against escalating its attacks on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, as the conflict in the Red Sea increasingly threatens both Beijing’s economic and diplomatic interests.
The Houthis’ months-long campaign to restrict maritime traffic moving through key Middle East waterways is a particular threat to China, which is heavily reliant on the Suez Canal and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to move Chinese products to European markets. China is also more dependent than the U.S. on oil and gas imports from countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Qatar.
“China is concerned about the escalating tension in the Red Sea and calls on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent the conflict from escalating,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters on Friday. “China calls on relevant parties to play a constructive and responsible role in keeping the Red Sea safe and stable, which serves the common interests of the international community.”
China declined to join a U.S.-led coalition of forces, called Operation Prosperity Guardian, which began policing the Red Sea last month.
On a broader level, the growing military exchanges between the U.S. and Houthis threaten China’s Mideast diplomatic interests. Last spring, Beijing stunned Washington by brokering a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Houthis’ primary military backer. The deal was based, in part, on Iran’s commitment to China to cut off military supplies to the Yemeni militia and constrain Houthi attacks on Saudi and international targets.
But Tehran in recent weeks has praised the Houthis’ Red Sea operation, and Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has embedded personnel among the Yemeni militia’s forces, according to U.S. and Arab officials.”
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“The Pentagon announced Tuesday that they interdicted a vessel off the coast of Somalia last week that was ferrying Iranian-manufactured ballistic missile and cruise missile components to the Houthis.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-warns-us-against-escalating-010943571.html