Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The man who destroyed the Voting Rights Act turns out to have been at the Capitol on January 6th. The government is investigating VA workers for grieving a coworker it killed. Republicans cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid and are surprised that hospitals are closing. And 200,000 people who spent years building trucking careers just had their licenses taken away.
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Let’s dive in.
The Man Who Killed the Voting Rights Act Was at the Capitol on January 6th
Last week, the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 ruling. The case, Louisiana v. Callais, struck down a congressional map that had created an additional majority-Black district, ruling it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Now meet the man whose name is on it.
Phillip “Bert” Callais was at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He posted photos and video from the scene that day. His Facebook page is full of claims that U.S. elections are rigged. He has called for hand-counted ballots to replace electronic systems, defended a Colorado county clerk who was convicted of tampering with voting machines, and told a disabled voter who uses mail-in ballots to “find someone to haul you to the polls.”
In the original legal complaint that reached the Supreme Court, Callais is described simply as a “non–African American voter” from Brusly, Louisiana, whose congressional district changed after the state redrew its map.
The Supreme Court would like you to know his personal beliefs had no bearing on its legal reasoning. A nationally prominent election denier celebrated him as a hero anyway. Make of that what you will.
The VA Investigated Employees for Attending a Vigil
Alex Pretti was 37 years old. He was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. In January, he was shot and killed by federal agents. He was a lawful gun owner who had been disarmed just before the shooting.
In the days after his death, his colleagues held vigils at VA facilities across the country. They lit candles. Some of them spoke to local news cameras. Then the VA opened investigations into employees who attended those vigils.
Becky Halioua, a recreational therapist and union leader in Augusta, Georgia, told a local TV station that it was “scary to think about a fellow VA employee being murdered by the same government that they work for.” Shortly after, her supervisor informed her she was under internal investigation for speaking to the press without prior approval.
Investigators emailed her photos of herself at the vigil from press coverage, in which she was circled and labeled. She described the experience as “very stalker-like.”
Halioua said she made sure to attend off-hours and off-campus, and deliberately wore no VA identification — steps she took specifically to comply with the agency’s rules about speaking in a personal capacity. The VA found her in violation anyway.
The government killed a VA nurse. Then it investigated his coworkers for mourning him. Then it withheld evidence from local investigators looking into the killing. If there is a more complete picture of what this administration thinks about accountability, we haven’t seen it.
Nine Hundred Communities Are Watching Their Hospitals Close
Last summer, Congress passed and the president signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which cut roughly a trillion dollars from Medicaid over ten years. Republicans included a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund and said it would protect rural hospitals from the fallout.
It is not protecting rural hospitals from the fallout.
A tracker called Hospital Crisis Watch has now reached 900 pins — 900 communities where access to care is disappearing as the cuts ripple across the country.
In northeast Georgia, a hospital closed its maternity ward. In rural New Hampshire, a community health center shuttered. In Iowa, a Des Moines hospital system laid off dozens of employees and closed a clinic.
In North Carolina, the Medicaid cuts could result in hospital closures and leave hundreds of thousands of residents uninsured. One Republican congressman in Iowa called it a “myth” that cuts would close rural hospitals. The clinic in his district closed in February.
Here is the darkest part. Research shows that when a rural hospital closes, patients travel an average of 20 miles farther for common care and 40 miles farther for specialized care. Rural hospital closures lead to significant increases in mortality.
Rural hospitals are also often the largest employer in their communities. Both problems are now someone else’s problem.
200,000 Immigrant Truckers Lost Their Licenses
In March, around 200,000 immigrants began losing their commercial driver’s licenses after the Trump administration issued a rule barring asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients from holding them. People who had been licensed for years. Sometimes decades.
Jorge Rivera was brought to the United States illegally from Mexico when he was 2 years old. He enrolled in DACA, got his commercial driver’s license in 2014, and started his own trucking company. When he went to renew his license last year, he found out he couldn’t.
The administration’s stated justification was a handful of high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers. What the data does not show is that immigrant truckers drive more dangerously than anyone else.
The administration also mandated that truckers take their licensing tests in English, a requirement separate from the CDL rule. Commercial drivers were already required to demonstrate English proficiency on the road.
The trucking industry moves roughly 70% of all freight in the United States. The administration has not announced who will be doing that now.
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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Boy Snubs Trump’s Effort to Drag Him Into Culture War. Trump invited a group of children to the White House for National Youth Sports and Fitness Month, asked one boy what sport he played, and immediately pivoted to a lengthy monologue about transgender powerlifters breaking an 18-year-old record by 119 pounds. There is no record of this happening. The boy said nothing. Trump then asked the child if he could take him in a fight. The child also said nothing.
Supreme Court Reform Gains Momentum as Long-shot Bill Targets Alito, Thomas. A Maryland Democrat has introduced the ROBE Act, a constitutional amendment that would impose 18-year term limits on Supreme Court justices and immediately remove Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, who have collectively served 74 years on the bench. The bill likely won’t pass the Republican-controlled Congress, and Thomas and Alito have already confirmed they have no plans to retire.
Researchers Discover Boosting a Single Protein Helps the Brain Fight Alzheimer’s. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that boosting a protein called Sox9 prompts star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes to act like a vacuum cleaner, sucking up the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In mouse models that had already developed memory problems, the approach reduced plaque buildup and preserved cognitive function over time.
‘Miracle tree’ removes 98% of microplastics from drinking water. Researchers have found that an extract from moringa seeds removes over 98% of PVC microplastics from drinking water, matching or outperforming aluminum sulfate, the chemical currently used in most treatment plants. Unlike aluminum sulfate, which requires strip-mining, produces toxic sludge, and has been linked to neurological disorders, moringa grows fast, needs almost no water, and pulls carbon from the atmosphere, which is a remarkable number of problems solved by one tree.
