Welcome to Tuesday, July 2nd, wolves and sheep...

CBP & MD

A federal judge has ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to allow health professionals into detention facilities housing migrant children to ensure they’re “safe and sanitary” and their medical needs are being met.

Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California ordered that health professionals be allowed access to all of CBP's facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors in Texas, which are the subject of a lawsuit amidst reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

Last week, a group of lawyers filed a temporary restraining order with Gee to hold the Trump administration in contempt. The lawyers said the conditions in the Texas facilities violate the Flores agreement, which require “safe and sanitary” conditions for children being detained.

“Children are held for weeks in deplorable conditions, without access to soap, clean water, showers, clean clothing, toilets, toothbrushes, adequate nutrition or adequate sleep,” the court filing stated.

Gee set a deadline of July 12 for the parties to “file a joint status report regarding their mediation efforts and what has been done to address post haste the conditions described.”

Should doctors be allowed into migrant children detention centers?

On the Radar

UBI

2020 presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has been receiving attention for his universal basic income (UBI) proposal, Freedom Dividend, which would provide every adult American with $1,000 a month.

Yang, like other proponents of UBI, argue that the inevitability of automation will leave masses of the current workforce without means of income. A UBI, he says, would begin to make up the difference and prevent the expansion of the gap between rich and poor.

"It's analogous to a company giving dividends or money to its shareholders. No one regards that as a waste of money, because the shareholders theoretically are the owners of the company. Are we not, as the citizens of the United States, the owners of this country?" Yang asks in his book, The War on Normal.

But Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, told the Financial Times that “individuals gain not only income, but meaning, status, skills, networks and friendships through work. Delinking income and work, while rewarding people for staying at home, is what lies behind social decay.”

Would you support a universal basic income in the U.S.?

Civil Rights Act

55 years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) into law, which officially outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

As the most significant civil rights legislative reform since Reconstruction, the CRA helped to actively reverse racial segregation in the South. It prohibited “Jim Crow” segregation policies that relegated African-Americans to separate schools, restaurants, restrooms, and even drinking fountains through a comprehensive set of anti-discrimination reforms.

The immediate effects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were significant. In Mississippi, for example, black voter registration in eligible populations skyrocketed from below 7% in 1965 to over 70% in 1967. The bill itself served as a stepping stone for a wealth of addition civil rights reforms; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fair Housing Act of 1968, and Age Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967 were just a few of the policies that piggybacked on the CRA’s success.

How do you feel about the Civil Rights Act on its anniversary?

Under the Radar

Prosecuting Women for Death of a Fetus

A 27-year-old Alabama woman has been indicted on manslaughter charges over her fetus’ death. Police say Marshae Jones of Birmingham was at fault for initiating the shooting that resulted in the loss of her pregnancy.

The grand jury that indicted Jones declined to hand a criminal indictment against Ebony Jemison, the woman who pulled the trigger.

“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,’’ Pleasant Grove police Lt. Danny Reid said in December, shortly after the shooting.

In a joint statement, Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Southeast said the case represented the "criminalization of black women.”

"As a Black woman, despite being physically harmed and losing her pregnancy, the state does not recognize Marshae as a victim — only her fetus," the statement said. "With Alabama’s recent abortion ban, we will continue to see people of color being charged for their reproductive decisions and outcomes."

Should we prosecute women for the death of a fetus?

Reducing Prescription Drug Costs

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced three bipartisan bills aimed at bringing down prescription drugs last Thursday which could be considered on the Senate floor later this month after lawmakers return from Independence Day recess.

We take a look at the three bills here, which include:

Do you support these bipartisan bills to reduce prescription drug costs?