They're really going to tell us the Atlanta shootings weren't about race?

View in browser   March 17, 2021 Last night, a gunman killed eight people, including six Asian women, at three massage parlors in the Atlanta metropolitan area, marking the latest shocking act in the recent wave of anti-Asian violence across the United States. This didn't happen out of the blue. Lest we forget: President Trump spent the last year stoking the fires of anti-Asian hate and incessantly referring to the coronavirus as the "China virus." Still, local police have hesitated to call a spade a spade. A spokesperson for the Cherokee Sheriff's Office said the shootings may have been motivated by the killer's "sexual addiction." On top of that, he said the shooter was "fed up" and "at the end of his rope," and that "yesterday was a really bad day for him." Elected officials have been a little more direct. Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother was Indian American, made a statement this morning in support of the Asian American community, saying, "We stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people, but knowing the increasing level of hate crime against our Asian American brothers and sisters, we also want to speak out in solidarity with them and acknowledge that none of us should ever be silent in the face of any form of hate." And Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate who is now running for mayor of New York City, called for an increase in funding for the NYPD's Asian Hate Crime Task Force. So no, yesterday wasn't just a "really bad day" for the killer. It was a bad day for his victims, their friends and families, and every Asian American who wants to go out in public without being killed. —Abigail Weinberg Advertisement   What We Know About the Atlanta-Area Massage Parlor Shootings Eight people—including six Asian women—were killed. BY INAE OH   Joe Biden's economic recovery has a narrative. Now it needs a legacy. BY KARA VOGHT They're really going to tell us the Atlanta shootings aren't about racism, huh? BY INAE OH The most radical Republicans aren't in Congress. They're in the statehouses. BY MATT COHEN Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock eviscerates Republican voter-suppression tactics BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG Advertisement   All Hail Pop Queen Selena, Who Showed Us How to Belon‪g‬ The "Anything for Selena" podcast is much more than a look back at the life of Selena Quintanilla.   Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. Donate SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE The Senate Confirms Deb Haaland to Be the First Native American Cabinet Secretary in US History In a historic vote on Monday, the Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of the Interior, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, voting 51–40 to make her the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. The vote was largely split along party lines. Of the 51 senators voting in favor of Haaland’s confirmation, just four were Republicans: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). No Democrats voted against the nomination. Nine senators, including three Democrats, did not vote. The confirmation is a victory for environmental advocates. In her two years in Congress, Haaland backed efforts like the Green New Deal and “30 by 30,” a House effort to protect 30 percent of US land and ocean by 2030—positions that earned her a 98 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters. During her confirmation hearing in February, she pledged to be "a fierce advocate for our public lands" and to run a department that makes decisions "based on science."  As I wrote earlier this month, conservationists are hoping that among Haaland’s first priorities will be reversing the Trump administration’s sweeping attacks on public lands and wildlife. "Following up on the Trump administration, it's a tall order," Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told me at the time. "He just did so much to undermine protections for endangered species and wildlife, that there's just a lot of work to do." At the top of Haaland’s to-do list for protecting vulnerable species, environmental advocates told me, should be reversing Trump’s broad rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act:  Over four years, Trump's administration issued five rules that redefined how the Endangered Species Act is interpreted, Greenwald says. The first three came as a set in 2019 and made sweeping changes to how species are protected and the act is enforced. "It was really a broad base attack on the law," says Rebecca Riley, legal director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Nature Program. The changes were so broad—for instance, allowing officials to "compile and present" economic factors in listing decisions—that most species listed under the act or waiting to be listed would be affected in one way or another, advocates told me at the time. Some of those species included the grizzly bear, moose, and monarch butterfly. The two other rollbacks, which were enacted in the final months of Trump's presidency, focused specifically on habitat. As Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice whose work includes Endangered Species Act litigation, explains, the regulations "created more loopholes" for agencies to avoid issuing habitat protections—a change which "really cuts at the heart of the act," Boyles says. "If [at-risk species] need anything, they need that habitat protected more than almost anything else." Environmental groups, some of which have sued the federal government over the rollbacks, are hoping all five rules will be reversed either through litigation or by putting new rules in place. As Interior secretary, "[Haaland] will have a lot of work ahead of her to restore the Endangered Species Act," Riley says. "The Trump administration did everything they could to weaken the law."  You can read more about what conservationists are calling for in my piece here.  —Jackie Flynn Mogensen Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. Donate Subscribe This message was sent to franchmaverickk.secretwords123@blogger.com. To change the messages you receive from us, you can edit your email preferences or unsubscribe from all mailings. For advertising opportunities see our online media kit. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today. www.MotherJones.com PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755