Random News and Notes 29 April

On this date in 1945, troops from the 45th Infantry Division liberated the Dachau concentration camp. Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. It was the first concentration camp of the Nazi regime.

During its first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners, consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma peoples, homosexuals and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees.

The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments.

As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp. General George Patton personally intervened to prevent an inquiry into the killing of the SS guards.

In the course of Dachau’s history, at least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the subcamps. Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates perished at Dachau and its subcamps, but countless more were shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.

On March 3, 1991, paroled felon Rodney King led police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles County before eventually surrendering. Intoxicated and uncooperative, King resisted arrest and was brutally beaten by police officers Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind. The incident was caught on video and all 4 officers were indicted for assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force. More than a year later, on this date in 1992, all four officers were acquitted of all charges. That kicked off rioting that lasted five days.

The unrest continued, and Korean shop owners in African American neighborhoods defended their businesses with rifles. On May 1, President George Bush ordered military troops and riot-trained federal officers to Los Angeles and by the end of the next day the city was under control. At least fifty people were killed, ten of those deaths being at the hands of police. More than 2,000 people were injured, and upwards of 6,000 people were arrested. Of those arrested, 36% were Black and 51% Latino.

Now, News!

We start in DC where the Supremes have dropped a pair of decisions from the Fall term of the Court.

The first case is the one we’ve been waiting for. Rumor had it that the dissenters were slow rolling their work, and I frankly didn’t expect to see this one until the end of term later this year. However, the decision in Louisiana v. Callais (consolidated with Robinson v. Callais) dropped this morning. For those not familiar, the case involves a Louisiana redistricting map that added a second minority majority district just for the sake of having one. A suit was brought under equal protection grounds and the lower courts ruled the new map was an unconstitutional gerrymander.

A 6-3 Court agreed. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito holds that even having race as a factor in the redraw triggers strict scrutiny under current law. Strict scrutiny is the most rigorous standard of judicial review used by U.S. courts when evaluating laws or government actions under the Equal Protection Clause (or when fundamental rights are burdened). It is triggered in two main situations:

• When the government makes a classification based on a suspect class, such as race, national origin, or (in some contexts) religion.
• When the government action substantially burdens a fundamental right (e.g., voting, interstate travel, or certain privacy rights).

In Callais, the new maps do not hold up under the strict scrutiny test.

The second decision is in the case styled First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport as Attorney General of New Jersey. First Choice is a pregnancy resource center that New Jersey targeted as part of some retarded state law about “reproductive health access”. The Attorney General issued a subpoena requiring First Choice to disclose their donor list. Naturally, First Choice did not want to do so and challenged the validity of the subpoena under 1st amendment grounds. The lower courts ruled they did not have standing because they could not prove an ‘injury’. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a unanimous Court, disagreed. The case now goes back to the District court.

In a media appearance Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins disclosed that 14,000 individual SNAP recipients in a single state possess luxury vehicles, including 3 Bentleys, 3 Ferraris, 11 Lamborghinis, 59 Maseratis, 141 Porsches, 244 Alfa Romeos, 306 Land Rovers, and 2,098 Teslas.

She emphasized protecting nutrition programs for those in need and referenced collaboration with VP Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

Look, all these benefits programs are filled with fraud. The more they get looked into the more fraud and abuse is found.

A new U.S. Geological Survey assessment estimates 2.3 million metric tons of undiscovered, economically recoverable lithium in the Appalachian region—enough to meet 328 years of current U.S. import demands. The deposits split between the northern Appalachians in Maine and New Hampshire (900,000 tons) and the southern areas in the Carolinas (1.43 million tons), with potential to supply batteries for 130 million electric vehicles or 500 billion cell phones.

This is on top of the already known deposits in Nevada and the west.