(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The bigger picture in Ukraine, one year later [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2023-02-23 Farah Stockman of The New York Times sees the world becoming more impoverished because of the war in Ukraine. When a country is fighting for its survival, as Ukraine is, the ability to wage war is essential. Indeed, it can feel like the only thing that really counts. But it is also true that our collective prosperity as human beings depends upon the absence of war, which gives people the breathing room they need to farm, to trade, to make scientific breakthroughs and art. The economic rewards reaped by not being at war can be hard to quantify. But researchers report that peace is wildly profitable. The Institute for Economics and Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, scores peacefulness according to factors like “good relations with neighbors,” corruption, free flow of information and representative governance. Its recent report shows that countries that saw improvements in peacefulness between 2009 and 2020 also saw G.D.P. per capita rise by an average of 3.1 percent per year. Countries where peacefulness deteriorated saw an increase of just 0.4 percent per year. Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine makes us all poorer, hungrier and more insecure. Although the world has avoided the mutually assured destruction of nuclear war so far, it has not dodged the slow-moving bullet of mutually assured economic degradation. As Mom would say, it’s not as if you can eat something like a sense of national pride. But it does get the adrenaline and passions going, I will say that. Yvette Wingett Sanchez and Isaac Stanley-Becker report, in an exclusive for The Washington Post, that Arizona’s attorney general concealed records that debunked the claims of massive fraud in Maricopa County in the 2020 presidential election. In April, the attorney general — who was running in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat — released an “Interim Report” claiming that his office had discovered “serious vulnerabilities.” He left out edits from his own investigators refuting his assertions. His office then compiled an “Election Review Summary” in September that systematically refuted accusations of widespread fraud and made clear that none of the complaining parties — from state lawmakers to self-styled “election integrity” groups — had presented any evidence to support their claims. Brnovich left office last month without releasing the summary. That timeline emerges from documents released to The Post this week by Brnovich’s successor, Kris Mayes, a Democrat. She said she considered the taxpayer-funded investigation closed and, earlier this month, notified leaders on Maricopa County’s governing board that they were no longer in the state’s crosshairs. The records show how Brnovich used his office to further claims about voting in Maricopa County that his own staff considered inaccurate. They suggest that his team privately disregarded fact checks provided by state investigators while publicly promoting incomplete accounts of the office’s work. The innuendo and inaccuracies, circulated not just in the far reaches of the internet but with the imprimatur of the state’s attorney general, helped make Arizona an epicenter of distrust in the democratic process, eroding confidence in the 2020 vote as well as in subsequent elections. More on The Washington Post exclusive, from Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic: As for politicians like Sen. Wendy Rogers and Rep. Mark Finchem, who loudly claimed to have evidence of fraud and decried the stolen election? The ones who capitalized on their fake evidence to raise millions of dollars in donations? They were silent when the time came to provide their proof to investigators, probably because it’s a crime to make a false report to a law enforcement agency. [...] As state and county election officials received death threats from across the country, Brnovich remained silent. Even after he lost the primary, he remained silent about the findings of his investigators. Count Maricopa County's elected officials among the disgusted, as they and their elections workers remain under attack. Alex Burness of Bolts reports that Minnesota’s legislature has approved of a bill restoring voting rights to former prisoners. … Minnesota’s legislature on Tuesday adopted House File 28, a bill termed Restore The Vote. It would grant ballot access to Minnesotans on parole or on probation, currently estimated to be roughly 50,000 people—though not to the more than 8,000 people in state prisons over a felony. (...) The legislature’s move on Tuesday sent the bill to Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat who has long supported this change. The bill’s lead sponsor, Bobby Joe Champion, the Democratic president of the Minnesota Senate, told Bolts he is certain Walz will sign it. If and when he does, Minnesota would become the 25th state, plus Washington, D.C., to grant voting rights to anyone who is not presently incarcerated. (Maine, Vermont, and D.C., also allow anyone to vote from prison.) That milestone is the result of a rapid shift in blue-run states, with seven making this same move since 2018; North Carolina joined them last year due a court ruling that the GOP-held state supreme court may soon reverse. Fabiola Cinenas of Vox reports on conservatives’ target in their continued attacks on the public education system. Social-emotional learning has long been accepted as part of curriculums across the country, from pre-K through high school. It’s backed by a large body of research and decades of practice. Recently, though, it has become the latest target in the school culture wars. Anti-SEL campaigns led by conservative parent groups, lawmakers, and political strategists are gaining momentum across the country. Since 2021, there have been disputes over social-emotional learning in at least 25 states, according to NPR — from bills that have tried to remove the concept from school curriculums altogether to heated parent board meetings where parent rights’ advocates vehemently denounced it. Social-emotional learning teaches students what are conventionally known as “soft skills”: the social and emotional tools that help students make good choices, manage their emotions, create positive relationships, and collaborate. It's supporters say these skills are more important than ever in the wake of the pandemic, which ushered in new challenges for kids all across Arizona. State test results released over the last two years show that a majority of third to eighth grade students failed statewide exams in both English language arts and math. Arizona, like most states, showed no improvement in reading scores and showed significant declines in math scores on the 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), which is administered biennially to a sample of fourth and eighth graders in every state. Students in Arizona are missing school more than ever before. A study on the state’s K-8 chronic absenteeism rate — the rate at which students miss 10 percent or more of the school year — rose to 22 percent in the 2021 school year, up from 14 percent in 2019. About 15 percent of children in the state live in high-poverty areas compared with the national average of 9 percent. But Craglow and other advocates and educators who support SEL are in stark opposition to Arizona’s new public schools leader. Moisés Naím writes for El Páis in English that depression and mental illness have become worldwide disorders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly one billion people suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, isolation, dementia, drug and alcohol use, schizophrenia and eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), among other problems. In fact, 14.3% of worldwide deaths each year – some 8 million people – can be attributed to mental disorders. Depression, for example, is the world’s leading cause of disability. And suicide ranks as the fourth leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 29. According to Project Hope, an NGO that specializes on these issues, someone somewhere commits suicide every 40 seconds. Men take their lives twice as often as women. In turn, depression is twice as common in women as in men. Although suicide is a global phenomenon, its highest incidence is in lower-income countries. In 2019, for example, 77% of suicides in the world occurred in low- and middle-income countries. Covid-19 produced a 25% increase in the number of people suffering from anxiety and depression. Avery Schmitz of Bellingcat reports that American militia groups have crossed to the Mexican side of the US-Mexican border to stop people from coming in. Last month, United States Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker released a letter imploring Attorney General Merrick Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Troy Miller to further investigate vigilante activity by Veterans on Patrol. Their concerns surround [militia group Veterans on Patrol]’s verified activity intercepting unaccompanied minors along the US-Mexico border and possible violations of a US law which prohibits individuals from impersonating agents of the federal government. Notably absent, however, is any mention of extranational activity by VoP or any other paramilitary group. [...] Veterans on Patrol is a nativist militia which has been active in Arizona since 2015. Founded as a support network for homeless veterans, VoP maintained camps in Tucson and Phoenix to aid disaffected communities while forging relationships with organisations across the far right. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an independent civil rights watchdog, the group has been under the continued leadership of Michael Meyer, also known by the name ‘Lewis Arthur’. Christian nationalism and nativism are central tenets of the militia’s worldview. Lilia Blaise of Le Monde in English reports that the president of Tunisia has gone the full Donald Trump. At a national security council convened on the subject, President [Kais] Saied spoke of "hordes of illegal migrants" whose presence in Tunisia he called a source of "violence, crime and unacceptable acts." Insisting on "the need to quickly put an end" to this immigration, he equated it with "a desire to make Tunisia just another African country and not a member of the Arab and Islamic world," using rhetoric close to the "great replacement" theory promoted by the far right in France and in other Western countries. Indeed, Eric Zemmour, the president of the French Reconquête party, expressed his happiness that "the countries of the Maghreb themselves are beginning to sound the alarm about the migration surge" in a tweet published Wednesday morning. "Kais Saied has finally appropriated a far-right narrative on migration that he would never have tolerated if it had been expressed in Europe on the irregular migration of Tunisians," commented anthropologist Kenza Ben Azouz, a specialist in racism in Tunisia. "By scapegoating the sub-Saharan community without fundamentally addressing the migration issue, he anchors himself in a populist and opportunistic logic." The latest YouGov poll on voting intention in Britain shows the Labour Party increasing its lead over the Conservatives. x Latest Westminster voting intention (14-15 Feb) Con: 22% (-2 from 8-9 Feb) Lab: 50% (+3) Lib Dem: 9% (-1) Reform UK: 7% (+1) Green: 6% (=) SNP: 4% (=)https://t.co/WMc2U2wZbs pic.twitter.com/NZ9QZygUG7 — YouGov (@YouGov) February 22, 2023 Nicola Sturgeon announced on Feb. 15 that she would resign as both First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, so this poll may have been able to catch some of the reaction (or non-reaction, it seems) to her resignation Finally today: Professor Angela Davis x “Do you know what you’re looking at? That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower.” Our researchers discovered #AngelaDavis’s ancestors traveled to the US on the Mayflower and here is her reaction. #FindingYourRoots pic.twitter.com/G2HhA9BSrT — Henry Louis Gates Jr (@HenryLouisGates) February 22, 2023 Greg Garrison/AL.com Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the PBS program, “Finding Your Roots,” revealed Davis’ ancestry on a show that aired Tuesday night. Davis’ 10th great-grandfather, tracing back through her father’s white father, Murphy Jones, was William Brewster, born in England in about 1570, Gates said. [...] Gates...revealed that Davis’ father, Benjamin Frank Davis, who was born in 1909 in Linden in Marengo County, knew that his father was a white man, Murphy Jones. Davis said her father never revealed that to her. Murphy Jones had a long relationship and multiple children with Davis’ grandmother, Mollie Spencer, who was born in 1869 in Marengo County. Offhand, I wonder if DeSatan wants Angela Davis restored to the AP African American Studies curriculum now. Eh, probably not. I’ve done some research into my ancestors of the 19th century, including at least one that fought for the Confederacy. And that wasn’t even what shocked me. American history (which is also African American history) is complicated (to say the least). Everyone have the best possible day! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/23/2154457/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-The-bigger-picture-in-Ukraine-one-year-later Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/