On Voting Rights, Biden's Power to Act on His Own Is Limited

WASHINGTON — 

As Republicans impose new restrictions on ballot access in several states, U. S. President Joe Biden has no easy options for safeguarding voting rights, despite rising pressure from frustrated activists.

Unlike on other issues such as immigration or environmental protection, the White House has little leverage without congressional action as the November elections creep up.

“If there were some sort of easily available presidential power on this, others would have done it,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard Law School professor, who researches election law. “There is no significant unilateral authority here.”

Nine months before elections that will determine control of Congress, voting rights advocates are worried there’s not enough time to fend off state laws and policies that make it harder to vote. They view the changes as a subtler form of past ballot restrictions such as literacy tests and poll taxes that were used to disenfranchise Black voters, a vital Democratic constituency.

Biden did issue an executive order last March that expanded access to voter registration and election information. The order is designed to make it easier for people in federal custody to register to vote, improve tracking of military ballots and provide better access for Americans with disabilities.

But to do more than that, Biden would have to rely on obscure and controversial constitutional provisions that probably could not take effect in time anyway, Stephanopoulos said. And the further Biden were to go to push the issue of voting rights, the more he could face criticism for overstepping his authority.

“It’s very hard for a president to weigh in,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “Everything is being done at a state-by-state level.”

So while Biden may be able to take some small actions around the edges, Brinkley said, “if he tries something extraordinary, it will be tied up in the courts for years.”

Americans have grown accustomed to seeing presidents act unilaterally when they hit roadblocks in Congress. President Barack Obama resorted to a wave of executive actions branded as “we can’t wait.” He flexed his authority to increase environmental regulations and shield from deportation young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally.

There’s no equivalent legal leverage for Biden to advance voting rights policies.

Marc Morial, leader of the National Urban League, was skeptical that executive actions — which can be reversed by a future president as quickly as they were imposed by a predecessor — could be sufficient anyway.

“An executive order or an executive action is not a replacement or a substitute or even a credible alternative to legislation to protect voting rights and democracy,” he said.

But so far, legislation has not been a workable option for Democrats.

Democrats have written voting legislation that would usher in the biggest overhaul of U.S. elections in a generation by striking down hurdles to voting enacted in the name of election security. The plan would create national election standards that would trump state-level laws and restore the ability of the Justice Department to police election laws in states with a history of discrimination.

Republicans said the proposed changes were not aimed at fairness but at giving Democrats an advantage in elections. And Democrats were unsuccessful at changing Senate rules to allow the slim Democratic majority in the chamber to pass the laws on their own.

Republicans last year pushed through 33 laws creating new voting limits in 19 states, and five other states have bills that seek to restrict voting. The effort is motivated in part by a growing and widespread denial of President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Republicans who have fallen in line behind Trump’s election lies are separately promoting efforts to influence future elections by installing sympathetic leaders in local election posts and by backing for elective office some of those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Democrats and voting rights advocates are looking to the Justice Department as their best chance to ensure elections are free and fair. But there’s a political divide over what “free and fair” means in a country where millions believe false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The department has lawyers dedicated to enforcing civil voting statues, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has made it a priority.

But the department is limited in what it can do, following a 2013 Supreme Court decision that dismantled part of the civil rights-era Voting Rights Act, which required states with a history of discrimination to get approval for changes to election laws.

Separately, the Justice Department also has a role in ensuring fair elections but that, too, has been complicated by politics in recent years.

There has been increasing skittishness among election administrators over the department’s role after then-Attorney General William Barr told prosecutors to investigate election fraud claims before the 2020 election was certified. Barr cited concern over potential widespread voter fraud because of an increase in mail ballots during the pandemic, but he later declared there had been no widespread fraud.

Garland’s Justice Department has sued Georgia over the state’s new election law, alleging Republican state lawmakers rushed through a sweeping overhaul with an intent to deny Black voters equal access to the ballot. The Justice Department has also brought a suit against Texas over its newly-drawn congressional districts.

But the Supreme Court this past week signaled a willingness to side with the GOP on such issues.

The high court put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. The court’s action means the upcoming elections will be conducted under a map drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled Legislature that contains one majority-Black district in a state in which more than one-quarter of the population is Black.

The three-judge lower court, which includes two judges appointed by Trump, had ruled that the state had probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the Supreme Court has undercut the ability of the federal government to protect voting rights, and he still believes the best chance for long-term change is to get legislation through Congress.

“The Justice Department is doing as much as they can with one hand tied behind their back,” he said. He noted the Voting Rights Act only became law after previous attempts failed.

“We don’t stop because the first attempt didn’t work.”

How to act before a diagnosis of dementia at home?

A diagnosis of dementia has a great impact on the family. After receiving it, it is important to learn to care for both the affected family member and oneself

A health worker with a mask holds the hand of a resident of an Alzheimer’s home in Pitkovice, Czech Republic. EFE/EPA/MARTIN DIVISEK

Some 50 million people live with a diagnosis of dementia in the world and every year about 10 million new cases are registered, underlines the World Health Organization (WHO). In fact, this entity forecasts that there will be 82 million people with dementia in 2030 and 152 million in 2050.

It is the elderly who mainly suffer from dementia. However, it is not an inevitable consequence of aging because “many older adults live their entire lives without presenting dementia”, emphasize specialists from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Alzheimer’s, the most common dementia

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia diagnosis, accounting for 60-70% of cases. However, there are more types of dementia such as vascular dementia or Lewy body dementia, among others.

“Dementia affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning ability, language and judgment. Impairment of cognitive function is often accompanied, and sometimes preceded, by impairment of emotional control, social behavior, or motivation.

World Health Organization

In this sense, it specifies that the first symptoms are usually the tendency to forget things, the loss of the notion of time and spatial dislocation, even in familiar places.

Nicolasa Santiago, a 74-year-old Zapotec indigenous woman who suffers from Alzheimer’s. EFE/ Daniel Ricardez

Nowadays There is no treatment that can cure dementia or reverse its progression. However, there are different interventions to facilitate the day-to-day life of people with dementia, which is why it is important to diagnose it early.

“Receiving a diagnosis of dementia is news that causes a great impact on the affected family. A wide variety of emotions and reactions can arise; Among the first, there is usually concern and insecurity due to ignorance of the new situation that arises. There may also be feelings of anguish at the thought that they will not be able to cope,” he says. Beatriz Canseco de la Rosa, psychologist at Accountants Room Center.

“On some occasions, especially when there is an early diagnosis, confusion and confusion appear, and they even minimize the symptoms and deny the seriousness of the problem. On the other hand, in others, the family feels calm when putting a name to what happens to their relative”.

Add the psychologist.

The specialist emphasizes that in order to assume the diagnosis it is necessary to know the disease. This involves learning about your symptoms and how they are progressing.

“It can be very helpful to contact people who are going through the same situation, as well as going to an association to learn strategies that help manage daily situations in relation to living together and caring for the affected family member,” he says.

Changes in routines, roles and some tips

Likewise, Canseco emphasizes that the new situation implies changes in routines, roles and functions within the family environment.

“The family will have to face the changes and alterations in the behavior and reactions of the affected loved one, in addition to modifying the care and communication guidelines throughout the process.”

Expresses the expert Canseco de la Rosa.

In this sense, the psychologist reminds that the progressive evolution of the disease will worsen the symptoms and the person will require more attention and dedication.

As he explains, for the family, “The most difficult changes to accept are those related to behavior and personality, as well as delusional reactions and behaviors due to episodes of memory loss. In addition, it is difficult to face that the family member will lose their faculties and abilities, ceasing to be themselves”, he adds.

Stock image of old people in a park. EFE/JL Cereijido

For all this, the psychologist offers some advice for caregivers of a person diagnosed with dementia.

1. Try to preserve the autonomy of the affected person in the activities that he is still capable of carrying out on his own.

“You have to adapt the necessary help to their limitations and avoid overprotective attitudes. For this, it is beneficial to establish a daily routine, simplify the instructions and enable the spaces”, he points out.

2. Stimulate the person with dementia with cognitive and leisure activities that are within their reach.

3. Involve the affected family member in the conversations and keep them informed of events to avoid isolation and disconnection with the environment.

“You must not speak for him or speak of him as if he were not present,” he warns.

4. Family members must adopt a flexible, patient and warm attitude towards the affected person.

“When they address the patient, they should use simple language with short sentences and easy-to-understand questions. They have to repeat the information with the same words and make use of non-verbal communication”, he details.

5. In addition, it is very important that family members know how to take care of themselves.

To do this, the expert recalls that there must be unity and cooperation between them.

“They have to be able to ask for help, seek support or delegate some functions among family members. It is necessary that they give themselves time, take care of their rest and preserve their social relationships”.

Concludes Beatriz Canseco de la Rosa.

Ukraine Accuses Iran of Premeditated Terrorist Act in 2020 Plane Shootdown

WASHINGTON — 

Ukraine is sharpening its accusation that Iran played a sinister role in the 2020 shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane over Tehran as the world marks the second anniversary of the tragedy.

“What happened on January 8th, 2020, was a terrorist act committed against a civilian aircraft,” Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council secretary, said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with VOA Persian.

Danilov also expressed frustration with what he said was Iran’s refusal to cooperate in investigating and providing compensation for the downing of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752.

Iran has acknowledged firing missiles that struck the plane and killed all 176 people on board, but it called the incident an accident and blamed it on a misaligned air defense system and human error by the missile operators. The plane had taken off from Tehran minutes earlier, carrying mostly Iranians and Iranian Canadians who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada.

The Iranian forces who shot down the Ukrainian plane had been on alert for a U.S. response to a missile strike that Iran launched on American troops in Iraq several hours earlier. Iran had attacked the U.S. troops, wounding dozens, in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad five days previously.

Danilov noted that before and after Iran’s pre-dawn missile strikes on Flight PS752, Iranian authorities had allowed other civilian jets to take off from Tehran airport. “We have the impression that they [the Iranians] had been waiting specifically for our plane. We can assume this,” he said.

Danilov said those who allegedly were waiting to strike the UIA jet were senior Iranian officials. “It must have been an order from senior management. No [air defense] operators can make such a decision on their own.”

The Ukrainian security official’s accusations regarding Iran’s role in the incident were tougher and more detailed than his previous ones.

FILE – A general view of the debris of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, which was shot down after takeoff from Iran’s Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran Jan. 8, 2020.

‘Conscious attack’

In an April 2021 interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, Danilov said he believed the Iranian downing of Flight PS752 was “intentional” and a “conscious attack.”

Ukrainian news site Ukrinform later quoted Danilov as saying in May 2021 that Kyiv was “more and more inclined” to call the Iranian missile strikes a “terrorist act.” Danilov was responding to a Canadian judge’s ruling that month that the “missile attacks were intentional” and “the shooting down of the civilian aircraft constituted terrorist activity under applicable federal law.”

The Ontario court’s ruling came as part of a civil lawsuit brought by relatives of six Flight PS752 victims against Iranian officials, whom they blamed for the tragedy. In a further decision announced Monday, the court awarded the plaintiffs $84 million in damages “for loss of life caused by terrorism.”

Iran’s U.N. mission in New York did not respond to a VOA request for comment on Danilov’s latest statements that the downing of Flight PS752 was a premeditated, terrorist act. VOA made the request in a voicemail on the Iranian U.N. mission’s phone line and in messages sent to the mission by email and on Twitter.

In a separate email exchange with VOA on Friday, Ukraine’s former deputy prosecutor general, Gyunduz Mamedov, used even sharper language to describe Iran’s role in the shootdown.

Mamedov, who was involved in Ukraine’s ongoing criminal investigation of the incident while serving as deputy prosecutor general from 2019 to 2021, said the investigation remains in a pretrial stage in which the classification of the alleged crime is being determined.

“The pre-trial investigation is considering various categories of crime, including an act of terrorism,” Mamedov wrote. “It also is likely that the downing of an aircraft will be classified as a war crime.”

Ukraine has not disclosed evidence that Iran’s shooting down of Flight PS752 was part of a premeditated, intentional act.

FILE – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a memorial service for the victims of the shootdown of Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS752, at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Jan. 12, 2020.

‘Full reparations’

Canada, which lost 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents in the shootdown, has not publicly shared Ukraine’s assessments of a sinister Iranian role in the incident.

But Canada joined Ukraine and two other nations whose citizens were among the victims, Britain and Sweden, in issuing a statement Thursday vowing to “hold Iran accountable for the actions and omissions of its civil and military officials that led to the illegal downing of Flight PS752 by ensuring that Iran makes full reparations for its breaches of international law.”

The four nations, which joined together as an International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752, also said that after a first round of talks in July 2020, Iran rejected their January 5 deadline to resume negotiations on their collective demand for reparations. They said they would “now focus on subsequent actions … to resolve this matter in accordance with international law.”

Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov speaks to VOA Persian in an exclusive Skype interview Jan. 5, 2022.

Danilov told VOA that not only has Iran paid no compensation to the Ukrainian victims’ families, but its cooperation with Ukraine’s criminal investigation was nonexistent.

In a statement issued Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran has sent letters to embassies of relevant governments declaring a readiness to pay the families of 30 foreign victims.

The Iranian statement said Tehran was ready for “bilateral” talks with the countries whose citizens were killed in the shootdown. But it accused some of those nations, without naming them, of committing “illegal actions” and “trying to exploit this painful incident and the plight of the survivors for their own political purposes.”

Britain, Canada, Sweden and Ukraine have insisted on multilateral negotiations.

Trial questioned

Iran’s Foreign Ministry also noted that the Iranian judiciary has held several court sessions since opening a trial in November of 10 military personnel charged in connection with the shootdown.

In his VOA interview, Danilov questioned the credibility of that trial. “We don’t know whether these people are really responsible, because the processes that took place in Iran were held behind closed doors and foreign representatives were not allowed inside to confirm that this was a transparent, democratic procedure,” he said.

In explaining his belief that the downing of the Ukrainian plane was intentional, Danilov told the Globe and Mail in his April 2021 interview that Iran might have used it as a pre-dawn distraction to calm an escalating confrontation with the more powerful U.S. military.

He also cited Iran’s use of a Russian-made missile system to strike the jetliner. Ukrainian military experts have said such a system is unlikely to mistakenly shoot down a passenger plane.

This story was a collaboration between VOA’s Persian and Ukrainian services and English News Center. Kateryna Lisunova of VOA Ukrainian and Arash Sigarchi of VOA Persian contributed.