The Refugee Issue Is a Religious Liberty Issue →

Late last week, nonprofit and charitable organizations around Texas received atroubling letter from the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Dated November 19, the letter instructs all refugee-related agencies in the state of Texas to report any plans of resettling Syrian refugees to the commission, and asks that if they are in the process of resettling Syrian refugees, to “please discontinue those plans immediately.” The commission’s letter followed a separate letter sent November 16 by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to President Barack Obama, wherein the governor informed the president that Texas would not be accepting any Syrian refugees.

If Abbott’s discomfort with Syrian refugees had remained at the level of gubernatorial grandstanding—keeping in mind the fact that governors lack the authority to deny specific religious or ethnic groups entry into their states—then it would likely not have been more newsworthy than similar reservations expressed by a host of other American governors. But with the letter to nonprofits and other private agencies with refugee resettlement programs, Texas moved into direct opposition to federal law and, some say, threatened the religious liberty of numerous Texan faith groups.

State sues prisoners to pay for their room, board →

21st century 1st-world slavery. Only in the U.S.

Either way, critics say the lawsuits make it harder for paroled prisoners to get back on their feet, defeating the department’s goals of rehabilitation and cutting recidivism. Because financial stability and a job are key to not returning to prison, taking away an inmate’s financial safety net increases the odds they return to crime or, at least, be dependent on taxpayers, as Melton was when he went on food stamps. Lawmakers around the country, and even President Barack Obama, have focused recently on such re-entry issues.

In a few cases the lawsuits seem punitive, if not retaliatory, to inmates, and could have a chilling effect on the incarcerated asserting their constitutional rights. After one inmate received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the department for failure to properly treat his cancer, the department turned around and sued the inmate for nearly $175,000 — even though the department already had agreed in writing not to try to claw back the settlement money.

Why ISIL Will Fail on Its Own →

Deciding how we think about ISIL is critical to deciding how to fight it. President Obama said he plans to stay the course by intensifying his current policy, which you might call containment plus: contain the group’s expansion in Syria and Iraq, and hasten its demise with steady air strikes and support to regional allies. His critics, meanwhile, call for a range of options, from allowing local forces to defeat the group, to easing the rules of engagement for airstrikes, to deploying U.S. special forces, to a large-scale campaign using 20,000 or more U.S. troops in direct combat ground roles.

Which is right? The answer depends at least in part on what kind of an enemy we think ISIL really is. Is it a tremendously well-resourced terrorist group that controls substantial territory, which it uses to plan attacks, vet operatives and manage a complex financial network? Or is it a fledgling nation-state that sponsors terrorist attacks? If we view ISIL as the former, then containment seems like an odd strategy, since even if contained it could continue to support terrorist attacks. But if we view it as a state, then it looks very different: a desperately poor nation trying to fight a three-front war—Iraq to the East, the Kurds to the North and Syria and other insurgents to the West.

Cash squeeze maims Venezuela's pre-election food imports →

In July, President Nicolas Maduro smiled as he sealed a multimillion-dollar food import deal with his Uruguayan counterpart designed to combat shortages ahead of Venezuela's legislative elections.

But instead of paying the $267 million as agreed, Maduro's government deposited in November under a fifth of that amount, according to Uruguay's government.

That put a brake on the shipments to Venezuela.

...

Yet five sources who work in Venezuela's two main ports say total imports are in fact down about 60 percent from last year.

Maduro says Venezuela has lost more than 60 percent of the hard currency it enjoyed in 2014 due to the oil crash. Those losses have punctured the tried-and-tested election strategy of supplying cheap goods to its largely poor voting base.

Anger is mounting over worsening shortages, now Venezuelans' No. 1 worry according to polls, and threatens to erode Maduro's support among the poor, who spend hours in line for scarce products.

Want to help the Islamic State recruit? Treat all Muslims as potential terrorists. →

Many excellent scholars — both before and since 9/11 — have produced research that tells us about the relationship between discrimination and counterterrorism.

Here’s what we know. To be most effective, counterterrorism policies need to make an explicit distinction between the individuals who genuinely threaten others with terrorism, on the one hand, and on the other, the broader populations those terrorists claim to represent. Counterterrorism efforts — especially using force — should narrowly target only the former, as much as possible.

Groups that commit terrorism often hope to provoke a violent overreaction against the community they claim to be defending. Even though most people in that community are nonviolent, such a reaction might force them to turn to the terrorist group for their own defense, swelling its ranks and realizing its ambition for greater political power.

A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois →

The rich families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory, legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns. Economic winners in an age of rising inequality, operating largely out of public view, they are reshaping government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics. In the 2016 presidential race, a New York Times analysis found last month, just 158 families had provided nearly half of the early campaign money.

Burkina Faso votes to choose first new leader in decades →

Burkina Faso voted on Sunday in an election to choose the country's first new president in decades, a year after longtime leader Blaise Compaore was toppled in a popular uprising in which demonstrators faced down the security forces.

A successful election would establish the country as a beacon for democratic aspirations in Africa, where veteran rulers in Burundi and Congo Republic have changed constitutions to pave the way for fresh terms in office.

It also represents a turning point for a West African nation which, for most of its history since independence from France in 1960, has been ruled by leaders who came to power in coups.

Compaore seized power by that route and ruled for 27 years, winning four elections, all of which were criticized as unfair. He was ousted in October 2014 when demonstrators protested against his attempt to change the constitution to extend his tenure.

It’s Getting Better All The Time →

We'll never stop complaining (nor should we). Because we're not perfect, there's always more to work on. But it's important to recognize that we've improved.

Because of these two trends — richer information about abuses and changing standards for what constitutes an abuse — human rights reports released today may sound as dire as those from earlier decades, even in cases where the underlying practices have actually improved. So, when scholars convert those reports into numeric scales, countries that have made significant gains may appear to have stalled or even regressed.

...According to Fariss’s best estimates, once we account for these underlying changes in the information available and standards applied, we see that practices on many of the human rights tracked by existing data sets have improved significantly since the early 1980s. On some issues, such as political imprisonment, Fariss finds that there hasn’t been much change. On other core concerns, however, including torture and political killing, the adjusted data show substantial gains over the past 30 years. So, the trajectory varies across issues and countries, but in most cases the arc has continued to bend toward a better world.