Supporters hold the ‘unconstitutional decision’ flag as they are pleased with the Sapporo District Court's decision that it is unconstitutional to not allow same-sex marriage in Sapporo, Hokkaido prefecture on March 17, 2021. STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP/ Getty Images
“A court in Japan ruled Wednesday that it’s ‘unconstitutional’ to ban same-sex couples from marrying—a landmark, though symbolic victory in a country where LGBTQ rights lag far behind most of the developed world.
The Sapporo District Court found that Japan’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The court, however, dismissed a request from the three couples who brought the case to compensate them 1 million yen ($9,100) for the injustice.
The ruling does not legalize same-sex marriage and doesn’t apply across the country, but it is the first of its kind in Japan. ‘This is a good surprise for me and many homosexuals,’ Yayo Okano, a professor at Doshisha University who specializes in feminist theory, tells TIME. ‘It is a breakthrough… because the idea of ‘the traditional family as a unit of a man and a woman’ has been very strong and shared among people and even reinforced by many lawmakers.’
The ruling is the first in response to a series of lawsuits jointly filed by 13 same-sex couples at district courts around the country on Valentine’s Day in 2019, and LGBTQ activists and advocates hope it will set a precedent for other rulings and increase pressure on the government to change the law.
Japan is the only country in the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations that doesn’t fully recognize same-sex partnerships. A handful of cities and wardsissue ‘partnership certificates’ to same-sex couples which grant them some rights, but they are not available across the country and they fall short of full marriage rights.
NGO Human Rights Watch says that years of campaigning has led to a surge in support for LGBTQ equality in recent years.
According to an October 2018 survey of 60,000 people in Japan by advertising company Dentsu Inc., more than 78% said that they approved or were likely to approve of same-sex marriage. But more than 65% of the LGBTQ respondents had not told anyone about their sexuality….
Activists have been calling for the country to pass an LGBTQ equality act to protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity ahead of the Tokyo Olympics planned for this summer.
Taiwan became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2019. Thailand is also considering a bill that would legally recognize same-sex civil partnerships.” Read more at Time
“The killings of eight people at three Georgia massage parlors Tuesday evening by at least one gunman has left many Americans shocked Wednesday morning. Police are trying to determine a motive for the brazen attacks. The Atlanta Police Department responded to two calls at two spas Tuesday evening and found three women dead when they arrived at the first. Another woman had been fatally shot at the second. Earlier, five people were shot in Acworth, about 30 miles north of Atlanta, a Cherokee County sheriff's spokesman said. The Acworth shooting victims were two Asian women, a white woman and a white man, according to a local news report. The Cherokee County sheriff's spokesman said Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, was taken into custody Tuesday night about 150 miles south of Atlanta. The Atlanta Police Department will hold a news conference Wednesday morning, but there is no word on the time or place yet.” Read more at USA Today
“Roughly 2.4 million Americans are receiving a Covid-19 vaccine each day. This month, the pace of vaccinations surpassed an average of two million a day in the U.S., exceeding the goal Biden set in late January to reach an average of 1.5 million vaccines administered daily. The Journal is also tracking the share of each state’s population that has been fully or partially inoculated as well as the rates at which distributed doses have been administered, using the latest publicly available data. More states are opening up eligibility for receiving shots after the White House set a target of May 1 for all adults to have access to vaccines. Meanwhile, newly reported Covid-19 cases remain elevated nationwide, though they have dropped far below levels registered in early January.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Former President Donald Trump said in an interview Tuesday he would urge his supporters to get the COVID-19 vaccine. ‘I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it,’ Trump said. But the former president acknowledged that some of them may refuse in the name of ‘freedom.’
“A US intelligence report has determined that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2020 election to help Donald Trump and hurt Joe Biden. The report also describes a smaller, covert influence campaign by Iran. One of the biggest bombshells of the report confirms what we had assumed last year: Trump and his closest allies publicly embraced Russia's disinformation campaign against Biden, met with Kremlin-linked figures who were part of the effort and promoted their conspiracy theories. CNN's Stephen Collinson writes that the finding underscores a fundamental truth: ‘The gravest threat to US democracy comes from within.’” Read more at CNN
“Senator Mitch McConnell vowed that Republicans would bring the Senate to a standstill if Democrats changed the filibuster rule. Biden said he supported modifying the rule to require senators to speak on the floor.” Read more at New York Times
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing more and more scrutiny by the day. Over the weekend, investigators met with the first woman to publicly accuse the governor of sexual harassment. Other women have made similar allegations against him, and investigations into those claims continue to ramp up. Cuomo is also dealing with a separate problem involving an alleged cover-up of the number of Covid-19 deaths in the state's long-term care facilities. He now faces increasing pressure to resign, even from prominent members of his own party. President Biden recently said Cuomo should resign if an investigation confirms the sexual harassment allegations against him. Cuomo has denied ‘inappropriately touching’ anyone and has said he never meant to make anyone feel uncomfortable.” Read more at CNN
“The Washington Post: “Republican attorneys general are challenging the new stimulus law’s provisions providing $350 billion to states, counties and cities to cover the additional costs of the pandemic. Twenty-one attorneys general on Tuesday said they want to challenge the government in court for allegedly imposing ‘unprecedented and unconstitutional’ limitations on their states’ ability to lower taxes. Congress in the new law restricts states from tapping the pandemic funds from Washington to finance local tax cuts.” [The Hill]
“News: House Republicans are expected to vote today on reversing their ban on earmarks for upcoming spending and infrastructure bills, according to multiple GOP lawmakers and aides.
If the GOP Conference overturns its ban -- as the leadership expects they will -- this would represent a major shift for Republicans, which banned the practice when they took the majority in 2011. It would also be the most significant shift in Capitol Hill governance in years. And it could put pressure on the Senate Republicans to follow suit, since both House Democrats and Republicans would be putting earmarks in bills.
Here’s how we see the massive shift:
→ Restoring earmarks would give Congress a bigger voice in directing the spending that it appropriates, and it would reassert the legislative branch’s power in Washington. Right now, lawmakers partake in a hazy process in which they try to influence how state and federal agencies spend they money they authorize. The GOP leadership’s argument as it tries to quietly build support for earmarks -- referred to as ‘member-directed spending’ -- is just that: Let’s take control of how the money is spent instead of empowering the Biden administration.
→ Allowing earmarks would potentially help the leadership in both parties build support around spending bills. If members have projects and spending for their districts embedded in bills, they’re theoretically more likely to support them.
→ Leadership would also gain in power, because they’d ultimately have the tacit authority to strip trouble-making lawmakers’ earmarks out of bills. Top appropriators would see their stock rise, as well.
→ Earmarks would also give Republican appropriations lobbyists a new lease on life.
→ Of course, there’s a potential downside. The new earmark process has been designed so that no private companies can get money, only localities and quasi-governmental agencies. But anytime lawmakers have their hands in pots of money, there’s risk of abuse.
There will be limits on earmarks. Members will have to declare publicly it’s their earmark and certify that they have no financial interest in the provision. As we noted, the money can’t go to a private company, just nonprofits or groups carrying out governmental functions. There will be a limit on how many earmarks a member can request. Just one percent of any spending bill can be set aside for earmarks.
‘Major changes have been made,’ said Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee. Granger said she is supporting the use of earmarks again, with the reforms now in place. ‘As long as we have those safeguards in there, I would,’ Granger added.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other senior GOP lawmakers have been pretty quiet on the issue, although the Freedom Caucus and other conservatives oppose lifting the ban. The opposition is not nearly as noisy as it has been in past years.
How it will go down: One member of the House Republican Conference has to offer a motion to change GOP rules and get rid of the earmark ban. Five members would have to support the request. The important thing here is the vote has to be by secret ballot. If that’s the case, then earmarks will almost certainly be approved. There could be some internally maneuvering on this today, but it seems as if all parties want to get a vote out of the way.” Read more at Punchbowl News
“A House committee on Tuesday asked the Biden administration to provide detailed financial records on former president Donald Trump’s Washington hotel — which is located in a federally owned building and must give the government financial data as part of its lease.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which oversees public buildings, first asked for records on the hotel in early 2019. But for two years — while Trump’s administration was the Trump International Hotel’s landlord — the government refused to hand them over.
Now, the committee has asked Biden’s administration to provide what Trump’s would not, including detailed records on the hotel’s revenue, expenses, profits and losses.
Those records, if made public, would reveal the inner workings of a hotel that became an icon of Trump’s era — a place where the sitting president’s company could be paid by foreign governments, Republican allies and companies with business before the Trump administration.” Read more at Washington Post
“Bernie Sanders targets CEO pay. The senator is to introduce legislation todaythat would seek to apply an additional tax on corporations where the chief executive officer is paid more than 50 times the median worker, but he faces resistance in a closely divided Congress.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Alaska Republican Party has censured Senator Lisa Murkowski for voting to convict former president Donald Trump at his impeachment trial and now doesn’t want her to identify as a GOP candidate in next year’s election, a member of the party’s State Central Committee said Tuesday.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Lives Lived: In 1976, the British wine expert Steven Spurrier organized a blind tasting to compare French and Californian wines. The result revolutionized the industry. Spurrier died at 79.” Read more at New York Times
“White supremacist propaganda reached alarming levels across the U.S. in 2020, according to a new report that the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Associated Press.
There were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hateful messages spread through physical flyers, stickers, banners and posters, according to Wednesday’s report. That’s nearly double the 2,724 instances reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much harder to quantify, and it’s likely those cases reached into the millions, the anti-hate organization said.” Read more at AP
“Documents obtained by NPR show that young migrants are being held by U.S. Border Patrol far longer than is allowed. As of Sunday, the U.S. government had 4,276 unaccompanied migrant children in custody. On average, these children are spending 117 hours in detention facilities — far longer than the 72 hours allowed by law.” Read more at NPR
Civil rights groups are escalating pressure on major Georgia companies including Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines to forcefully oppose sweeping new restrictions that would make it harder to vote in the state.
“The campaign is focused on some of the largest employers in Georgia and some of America’s most recognizable brands. Home Depot, UPS, Aflac, and Southern Company are also among the companies activists are targeting.
The organizations say the companies’ support could help kill the measures, which are championed by Republican lawmakers and would cut early voting in some of the state’s most populous and non-white counties, require voters to show ID when they vote by mail, and limit the availability of ballot drop boxes. Another bill would entirely eliminate a state policy that allows any voter to cast a mail-in ballot without an excuse.
The restrictions come after the state saw record turnout in the 2020 race and surging participation among non-white voters, resulting in the election of two Democratic senators and victory for Joe Biden in the state.
‘It is a dangerous thing for the business community to be silent,’ said Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, to the Guardian. ‘We are obliged at this moment to call for all voices to be lifted up. And for the alarm to ring not only through the communities that are threatened directly, but by those businesses that rely on the durability of our democracy.’
There is precedent for the effort. Corporate pressure has previously helped bring scrutiny to some of the most controversial bills in US state legislatures, including an anti-LGBTQ+ measure in Indiana and a discriminatory bathroom bill in North Carolina.
Georgia activists have bought billboards near company headquarters, full-page advertisements in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, protested outside Coca-Cola headquarters, and have helped 55,000 Georgia voters send messages to company leadership, said Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which is helping lead the effort.” Read more at The Guardian
“Money machine | Wall Street firms are planning to lift a freeze on donations to political action committees imposed after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Robert Schmidt and Bill Allison report that the pause in contributions, which totaled $787 million for the 2020 election, was meant to show disgust with the armed insurrection and the Republicans who supported it.” Read more at Bloomberg
“With the economy now in the midst of a turnaround, Federal Reserve policymakers must walk a fine line as they conclude their two-day meeting Wednesday, economists say. Following the meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell will discuss the board's revised forecasts for economic growth and inflation, which Goldman Sachs expects to be higher than its December estimates. If officials signal earlier and faster hikes in short-term interest rates to cut inflation, it could douse the recent stock market rally and crimp a recovery, economists say. On the other hand, if the Fed is too lackadaisical about inflation, that also could worry investors and inadvertently accelerate rising long-term rates, such as for home mortgages.” Read more at USA Today
“Organizers of an effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday must submit nearly 1.5 million signatures needed to place the proposal before voters. If the signature drive is successful, the secretary of state's office will conduct a review lasting several months. Newsom's popularity has plummeted over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, an unemployment benefits scandal and his decision to attend an opulent party while telling residents to stay home. Newsom and his Democratic allies have cast the recall attempt as a ‘partisan’ power grab. He tweeted Monday that he won't be distracted by the recall attempt, ‘but I will fight it.’” Read more at USA Today
“Dutch elections. Dutch voters begin a three-day voting period today to elect a new parliament following the resignation of Mark Rutte’s government in January over a child benefit scandal. Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) is expected to win the most seats, although polls predict a strong showing from the far-right Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders. If polls prove accurate, the VVD will seek to form a coalition government, the makeup of which is uncertain. In 2017, parties took a record 225 days to decide on forming a coalition.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Samsung Electronics says it’s grappling with the fallout from a ‘serious imbalance’ in the global semiconductor market, becoming the largest tech giant to warn about chip shortages spreading beyond the automaking industry.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Big Tech rose to power and wealth largely union-free. But a wave of labor organizing is catching the giants at a vulnerable moment, when they're being challenged by antitrust suits, hostile regulators and employee doubts, managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes.
A high-profile unionization campaign underway among Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., will culminate in a vote count on March 30 — ‘the digital age's most important labor vote,’ Dan Primack called it on the "Axios Re:Cap" podcast.
In Britain, Uber yesterday agreed to reclassify 70,000 drivers as ‘workers,’ giving them access to government-mandated benefits.
A union effort among Google employees that began in January is taking an unconventional path — remaining a ‘minority union’ for now, foregoing the possibility of collective bargaining but allowing the inclusion of contractors and even managers.
What we're watching: There's a split between conventional organizing pushes among blue-collar employees (wages, working conditions), and the animating concerns of white-collar employees (climate, diversity).
Our thought bubble: Unions are all about worker solidarity, and the two wings of tech labor would achieve a lot more if they worked together. But doing so would require breaking down a lot of barriers — social divides, and the industry's ingrained ideology of individualism.” Read more at Axios
“Three weeks after an early-morning, single-vehicle crash in Southern California that sent him to the hospital, golf champion Tiger Woods announced in a tweet from his official account that he has returned to his home in Florida . The 15-time major tournament winner also expressed his gratitude for the ‘outpouring of support and encouragement’ he's received from friends and fans over the past few weeks.” Read more at USA Today
“LeBron James and his longtime business partner, Maverick Carter, became partners with Fenway Sports Group, which means they now are part owners of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC of the English Premier League. James said he's not done yet either. ‘My goal is to own an NBA franchise,’ James said Tuesday after the Lakers' win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. ‘It'll be sooner than later.’” Read more at USA Today
“St. Patrick’s Day at White House. U.S. President Joe Biden will host Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin virtually in his second bilateral meeting since taking office as the White House celebrates St. Patrick’s Day. Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a virtual meeting between Northern Ireland political leaders Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill as worries over Brexit trade issues put pressure on the Good Friday peace agreement.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“A year of lockdowns may have made you sick of Zoom calls, but our evolutionary cousins are only getting started. Zookeepers at two Czech zoos, worried about the lack of stimulation for their captive chimpanzees, have set up video conferences between their enclosures, allowing the apes to interact from roughly 90 miles away.
‘At the beginning they approached the screen with defensive or threatening gestures,’ said Gabriela Linhartova, an ape keeper at Dvur Kralove, told Reuters. ‘It has since moved into the mode of ‘I am in the movies’ or ‘I am watching TV’. When they see some tense situations, it gets them up off the couch, like us when we watch a live sport event.’” Read more at Foreign Policy