newyorker--2020-05-02--We Can’t Afford to Lose the Postal Service

I am probably one of the least consequential things my mother has ever delivered .
She has two other daughters , for starters—one ’ s a public servant and the other is a special-education teacher .
But she ’ s also spent her working life delivering love letters , college acceptances , medications , mortgage papers , divorce filings , gold bars , headstones , ashes , and care packages .
In her thirty-eight years as a rural letter carrier with the United States Postal Service , she ’ s delivered just about everything you can legally send through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she ’ s driven the same fifty miles five or six days every week , starting out at the post office and tracing Rural Route 5 , bringing letters and packages to her five hundred and forty-five customers .
Her best advice from all that driving is to carry duct tape , which can fix anything , and can even be made into a leash if you happen to find a lost dog .
Her best day , she says , was a few years ago , when a retirement community got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new customers , with stories and the time to tell them .
The retirement home comes early in her fifty miles , but some days she stops again on her way home for longer visits , or heads back there on weekends for birthdays and anniversaries or to welcome someone home from the hospital .
My mother is so close with so many of the people who live along her route that they have always felt like second or third cousins to me—people I knew I was related to even if I didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mr. R. sent books home with her for me to read ; the E. family pulled her jeep out of a snow drift and towed her back to the post office when her brakes failed ; the F. family lost two children when their house burned down ; Mrs. M. baked her bread and gave her iced tea in a to-go cup ; the B. family had some landscaping work they wanted my father to do—and on and on through the years , a litany of routine or unexpected celebrations and tragedies and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ four decades , my mother has watched babies she saw come home from the hospital grow into adults who mail their parents Christmas letters with photographs of their own children , wondered whether a husband or wife or neither will stay in their house after a marriage ended , and seen grandchildren take over wheat farms from their grandparents .
Being a rural letter carrier suits my mother , and it enabled her to provide for a family like ours : it is a union job , with protections and benefits , insurance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but occasional overtime and reliable , transparent wages .
It isn ’ t all wonderful ; I was an adult before I noticed that the official vehicles she and her fellow-carriers drive do not have air-conditioning , and that her joints are already arthritic , her knees busted , her shoulders and back chronically sore , her gait wobbled by the wear and tear caused by hefting fifty-pound packages of dog food and forty-pound boxes of cat litter that are supposedly cheaper on Amazon than they are at the local store .
Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she thought she would ever have , and it allowed her to keep us in braces , allergy shots , X-rays , books , clothes , and movies .
Eventually , it got her credit good enough to get us savings accounts and credit cards and loans .
My father , who is older and had been working longer than my mother had , was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers ; my mother joined the National Rural Letter Carriers ’ union as soon as she was eligible .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children , they themselves would always be labor , not management .
So we were a union family : my parents spent a few nights a year at local meetings , and if we went on vacation it was to wherever the annual union convention was held that year—usually the beach near where we lived , in Maryland , although one year we drove all the way to Maine .
While we three watched the miracle that was cable television or played mini-golf with Dad , my mother put on her Sunday best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later learned a lot of other people ’ s parents did all the time : attend meetings .
To me , my mother suddenly seemed like an executive .
Unions are the most powerful advocate people like my parents have .
That power is one of the reasons that , although the U.S.P.S .
is by far the most popular government agency , it is the one most often threatened with extinction .
My mother is about to retire , and I worry that the agency she has spent her life serving will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus , which has decimated the global economy , has not spared the Postal Service—and while shipping and package volume are on the rise , standard and bulk mail have plummeted , leaving the U.S.P.S .
with increasing deficits .
But if the coronavirus kills the Postal Service , its death will have been hastened , as so many deaths are right now , by an underlying condition : for the past forty years , Republicans have been seeking to starve , strangle , and sabotage it , hoping to privatize one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in American history .
Before they declared their independence , the American colonists decided that they needed a better way to communicate with one another .
In the summer of 1775 , at the Second Continental Congress , they created the Postal Service and named Benjamin Franklin its first Postmaster General .
Where before letters or packages had to be carried between inns and taverns or directly from house to house , now there was a way for Americans to safely , discreetly , and reliably correspond across long distances .
After the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Confederation , legislators included the Post Office in the ninth of those articles , and later enshrined it in the first article of the Constitution .
The Founders saw the Postal Service as an essential vehicle for other rights , especially the freedom of the press : one of the first postal laws set a special discounted rate for newspapers .
But they also understood that a national post unifies a nation , allowing its citizens to stay connected and connecting them with their federal government .
When Alexis de Tocqueville toured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founding , he travelled partly by mail coach , noting in “ Democracy in America ” how “ the mail , that great link between minds , today penetrates into the heart of the wilderness.
” But the mail didn ’ t just follow American settlers into the wilderness—it also led to the transformation of the frontier .
The constitutional authority that created the Postal Service allowed for the construction of post roads to link faraway cities ; eventually , these ran all the way from Florida to Maine .
A few of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them obvious in their names , like the Old Albany Post Road and the Boston Post Road .
Later , that authority was interpreted more broadly to justify federal investment in railroads and highways .
During its long history , the Postal Service has delivered the mail by pony express , mule train , float planes , ferry boats , motorcycles , skis , hovercrafts , and pneumatic tubes .
There were only seventy-five post offices at the nation ’ s founding , but by the time the Civil War started there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country .

I am probably one of the least consequential things my mother has ever delivered. She has two other daughters, for starters—one’s a public servant and the other is a special-education teacher. But she’s also spent her working life delivering love letters, college acceptances, medications, mortgage papers, divorce filings, gold bars, headstones, ashes, and care packages. In her thirty-eight years as a rural letter carrier with the United States Postal Service, she’s delivered just about everything you can legally send through the mail.
For twenty-seven of those years, she’s driven the same fifty miles five or six days every week, starting out at the post office and tracing Rural Route 5, bringing letters and packages to her five hundred and forty-five customers. Her best advice from all that driving is to carry duct tape, which can fix anything, and can even be made into a leash if you happen to find a lost dog. Her best day, she says, was a few years ago, when a retirement community got added to her route—a hundred and fifty-seven new customers, with stories and the time to tell them. The retirement home comes early in her fifty miles, but some days she stops again on her way home for longer visits, or heads back there on weekends for birthdays and anniversaries or to welcome someone home from the hospital.
My mother is so close with so many of the people who live along her route that they have always felt like second or third cousins to me—people I knew I was related to even if I didn’t see them very often. Mr. R. sent books home with her for me to read; the E. family pulled her jeep out of a snow drift and towed her back to the post office when her brakes failed; the F. family lost two children when their house burned down; Mrs. M. baked her bread and gave her iced tea in a to-go cup; the B. family had some landscaping work they wanted my father to do—and on and on through the years, a litany of routine or unexpected celebrations and tragedies and kindnesses. In the course of almost four decades, my mother has watched babies she saw come home from the hospital grow into adults who mail their parents Christmas letters with photographs of their own children, wondered whether a husband or wife or neither will stay in their house after a marriage ended, and seen grandchildren take over wheat farms from their grandparents.
Being a rural letter carrier suits my mother, and it enabled her to provide for a family like ours: it is a union job, with protections and benefits, insurance and vacation days, only modest raises but occasional overtime and reliable, transparent wages. It isn’t all wonderful; I was an adult before I noticed that the official vehicles she and her fellow-carriers drive do not have air-conditioning, and that her joints are already arthritic, her knees busted, her shoulders and back chronically sore, her gait wobbled by the wear and tear caused by hefting fifty-pound packages of dog food and forty-pound boxes of cat litter that are supposedly cheaper on Amazon than they are at the local store. Still, it is a better job than she thought she would ever have, and it allowed her to keep us in braces, allergy shots, X-rays, books, clothes, and movies. Eventually, it got her credit good enough to get us savings accounts and credit cards and loans.
My father, who is older and had been working longer than my mother had, was a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers; my mother joined the National Rural Letter Carriers’ union as soon as she was eligible. They knew that whatever they hoped for their children, they themselves would always be labor, not management. So we were a union family: my parents spent a few nights a year at local meetings, and if we went on vacation it was to wherever the annual union convention was held that year—usually the beach near where we lived, in Maryland, although one year we drove all the way to Maine. While we three watched the miracle that was cable television or played mini-golf with Dad, my mother put on her Sunday best and spent her days doing what I later learned a lot of other people’s parents did all the time: attend meetings. To me, my mother suddenly seemed like an executive.
Unions are the most powerful advocate people like my parents have. That power is one of the reasons that, although the U.S.P.S. is by far the most popular government agency, it is the one most often threatened with extinction. My mother is about to retire, and I worry that the agency she has spent her life serving will be retired soon, too. The coronavirus, which has decimated the global economy, has not spared the Postal Service—and while shipping and package volume are on the rise, standard and bulk mail have plummeted, leaving the U.S.P.S. with increasing deficits. But if the coronavirus kills the Postal Service, its death will have been hastened, as so many deaths are right now, by an underlying condition: for the past forty years, Republicans have been seeking to starve, strangle, and sabotage it, hoping to privatize one of the oldest and most important public goods in American history.
Before they declared their independence, the American colonists decided that they needed a better way to communicate with one another. In the summer of 1775, at the Second Continental Congress, they created the Postal Service and named Benjamin Franklin its first Postmaster General. Where before letters or packages had to be carried between inns and taverns or directly from house to house, now there was a way for Americans to safely, discreetly, and reliably correspond across long distances. After the Revolution, when Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation, legislators included the Post Office in the ninth of those articles, and later enshrined it in the first article of the Constitution.
The Founders saw the Postal Service as an essential vehicle for other rights, especially the freedom of the press: one of the first postal laws set a special discounted rate for newspapers. But they also understood that a national post unifies a nation, allowing its citizens to stay connected and connecting them with their federal government. When Alexis de Tocqueville toured the young country several decades after its founding, he travelled partly by mail coach, noting in “Democracy in America” how “the mail, that great link between minds, today penetrates into the heart of the wilderness.”
But the mail didn’t just follow American settlers into the wilderness—it also led to the transformation of the frontier. The constitutional authority that created the Postal Service allowed for the construction of post roads to link faraway cities; eventually, these ran all the way from Florida to Maine. A few of those essential byways survive, some of them obvious in their names, like the Old Albany Post Road and the Boston Post Road. Later, that authority was interpreted more broadly to justify federal investment in railroads and highways. During its long history, the Postal Service has delivered the mail by pony express, mule train, float planes, ferry boats, motorcycles, skis, hovercrafts, and pneumatic tubes. There were only seventy-five post offices at the nation’s founding, but by the time the Civil War started there were more than twenty-eight thousand spread around the country.
Two of the most popular features of the Postal Service today were surprisingly late innovations. Before 1847, it was hard to be a philatelist in the United States, because letters and packages were stampless: the postage was paid on sending or on arrival. It took nearly seventy years after its founding for the Postal Service to design adhesive, prepaid postage, in the form of a five-cent stamp featuring Benjamin Franklin and a ten-cent stamp featuring George Washington. For an even longer time, the mail was delivered only between post offices, leaving customers to retrieve it themselves (which is why those offices regularly appear as a central setting in early American literature) or to rely on private firms for door-to-door delivery. But, midway through the Civil War, Congress passed a law providing for home delivery within cities, and Americans suddenly started putting street addresses on their letters, so that carriers could bring them right to the recipient’s door. By 1923, the service was so popular that all patrons were required to have mail slots by their doors or boxes by the road, so that carriers could stop waiting so long for customers to answer the door in order to hand off the mail.
Another one of the Postal Service’s most popular innovations has faded from public memory. For more than fifty years, local post offices functioned as community banks. Starting in 1911, the Postal Savings System allowed all Americans to deposit money at their local post offices, which then reinvested the holdings in local independent banks at set interest rates—originally two and a half per cent, with two per cent going back to the saver, and a half per cent covering the cost of the program. Private banks were the chief beneficiaries of the scheme, but, because they did not want competition for high-level accounts, the deposits were capped at a few hundred dollars. Millions of Americans, most of them immigrants or people without the means for private banking, opened savings accounts with a minimum deposit of one dollar. At the height of postal banking, in 1947, four million people had deposited more than three billion dollars. Many of the communities served by the Postal Savings System were working-class or minority neighborhoods with no private banks. Eventually, though, the caps on deposits deterred customers, the fixed interest rates made the accounts less competitive than private alternatives, and banks lobbied for the end of postal banking. In 1967, they succeeded. While it lasted, though, postal banking demonstrated one of the Postal Service’s founding ideals: serving all Americans without prejudice or favor, no matter their Zip Code.


newyorker--2020-05-02--The New York Renters Who Can’t Pay May

The New York Renters Who Can’t Pay May

Two rent payments ago , Donald Trump announced what he termed some “ really positive things ” for millions of people who were nervous about evictions during the economic shutdown .
“ Landlords are going to take it easy !
” he said .
This was not rhetoric : Trump International Hotel , in Washington , D.C. , soon asked for rent relief from its own landlord , the federal government , which has yet to announce a decision on whether to grant it .
( Evictions continued apace at the real-estate firm owned by Jared Kushner . )
Despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on April 1st for most American renters , and nearly a third of them couldn ’ t pay .
More were expected to fall off the books for May .
“ I have seven hundred and seventy-three dollars in my bank account , ” Winsome Pendergrass , a Jamaican-born domestic worker , said at the end of last month .
“ My rent is nine hundred and fifty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents .
I paid in April , but now I can ’ t .
I call it Can ’ t-Pay May.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a sofa in the two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment in Brownsville that she shares with her daughter , her granddaughter , and a lot of plants .
She is trying to turn missed rent payments into a movement .
She belongs to New York Communities for Change , a group that has organized a rent strike among its five thousand members .
“ We try to encourage our members : Have a conversation with your landlord , ” she said .
“ But many landlords are pushing papers under their doors saying , ‘ Your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York State has banned evictions until mid-June , and a bill proposed in the City Council seeks to extend the grace period to April , 2021 , in the five boroughs , but renters will have to make up missed payments .
Pendergrass and her group have called on Trump and Governor Andrew Cuomo to cancel rents and mortgages permanently for the duration of the stay-at-home order .
Pendergrass was getting ready for a rent-strike meeting , held on Zoom , for renters across the city .
She wore red lipstick and earrings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dinnertime , video feeds started popping up on her screen .
Fifty-eight people attended the last meeting .
This time , there were a hundred and eighty-eight .
People shared their stories .
Peggy Perkins ( 1 BR , $ 1,336 , Hempstead , mold problems ) said she ’ d been homeless , with three children , before finally finding financial stability .
She ’ d just registered a name for a beauty parlor she planned to open : Luxurious LaBelle Hair and Spa .
She was applying for a loan when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , no more income .
She tried talking to her landlord , but he wouldn ’ t negotiate .
( He said he needs the money to pay his employees , such as the building ’ s superintendent . )
Another woman , Donnette ( 1½ BR , $ 1,700 , Canarsie ) , had been working as a home health aide but lost her job on April 12th , when her client , who was ninety-eight , died from the virus .
Donnette stayed with the woman at her nursing home , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in .
“ I refused to leave her , ” she said .
“ It was a choice .
It was no longer employment , but it was duty.
” Donnette said she could get by for a few months , if she zeroed out her savings .
She didn ’ t expect to receive a stimulus check , because she is an undocumented immigrant , from Jamaica .
“ I ’ m trying to do the math , and I can ’ t make sense of it , ” she said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ person , ” Pendergrass said of Donnette , after the meeting .
“ As they say , a Jamaican ’ s always got three jobs .
And is going to school .
But the hammer is over her head.
” Pendergrass is now a U.S. citizen .
She thought her own three-job days were over , but she figures that , without assistance , she ’ ll have to start working extended hours , seven days a week , to keep her apartment .
Recently , she called her life-insurance company to ask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an oversized gray shirt began to speak .
He was nervous about the strike .
“ All the people I know are very scared , ” he said , in Spanish .
“ We ’ re not going to pay rent for two or three months ?
O.K.
, that ’ s fine , but what about after ?
We ’ re going to be in debt.
” Pendergrass jumped in .
If they couldn ’ t pay , she said , they were better off not paying together .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .
“ We are the sufferers.
” People kept talking and listening , and , inside their little Zoom squares , they went about their evening routines .
A woman fried tortillas .
A man wearing a gold chain hugged a Teddy bear .
A woman brushed a girl ’ s hair .
On the walls were portraits of Jesus , graduation photos , and finger paintings .
The sun went down and lamps turned on .
The apartments were neat and messy and nice and dingy , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , home .
♦

Two rent payments ago, Donald Trump announced what he termed some “really positive things” for millions of people who were nervous about evictions during the economic shutdown. “Landlords are going to take it easy!” he said. This was not rhetoric: Trump International Hotel, in Washington, D.C., soon asked for rent relief from its own landlord, the federal government, which has yet to announce a decision on whether to grant it. (Evictions continued apace at the real-estate firm owned by Jared Kushner.) Despite the news, rent was still due on April 1st for most American renters, and nearly a third of them couldn’t pay. More were expected to fall off the books for May.
“I have seven hundred and seventy-three dollars in my bank account,” Winsome Pendergrass, a Jamaican-born domestic worker, said at the end of last month. “My rent is nine hundred and fifty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents. I paid in April, but now I can’t. I call it Can’t-Pay May.”
Pendergrass, who is sixty-two, sat on a sofa in the two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment in Brownsville that she shares with her daughter, her granddaughter, and a lot of plants. She is trying to turn missed rent payments into a movement. She belongs to New York Communities for Change, a group that has organized a rent strike among its five thousand members. “We try to encourage our members: Have a conversation with your landlord,” she said. “But many landlords are pushing papers under their doors saying, ‘Your responsibility is to pay.’ ”
New York State has banned evictions until mid-June, and a bill proposed in the City Council seeks to extend the grace period to April, 2021, in the five boroughs, but renters will have to make up missed payments. Pendergrass and her group have called on Trump and Governor Andrew Cuomo to cancel rents and mortgages permanently for the duration of the stay-at-home order.
Pendergrass was getting ready for a rent-strike meeting, held on Zoom, for renters across the city. She wore red lipstick and earrings in the shape of leaves. Around dinnertime, video feeds started popping up on her screen. Fifty-eight people attended the last meeting. This time, there were a hundred and eighty-eight.
People shared their stories. Peggy Perkins (1 BR, $1,336, Hempstead, mold problems) said she’d been homeless, with three children, before finally finding financial stability. She’d just registered a name for a beauty parlor she planned to open: Luxurious LaBelle Hair and Spa. She was applying for a loan when the coronavirus hit. No more haircuts, no more income. She tried talking to her landlord, but he wouldn’t negotiate. (He said he needs the money to pay his employees, such as the building’s superintendent.)
Another woman, Donnette (1½ BR, $1,700, Canarsie), had been working as a home health aide but lost her job on April 12th, when her client, who was ninety-eight, died from the virus. Donnette stayed with the woman at her nursing home, because her family wasn’t allowed in. “I refused to leave her,” she said. “It was a choice. It was no longer employment, but it was duty.” Donnette said she could get by for a few months, if she zeroed out her savings. She didn’t expect to receive a stimulus check, because she is an undocumented immigrant, from Jamaica. “I’m trying to do the math, and I can’t make sense of it,” she said.
“She’s not a lazy person,” Pendergrass said of Donnette, after the meeting. “As they say, a Jamaican’s always got three jobs. And is going to school. But the hammer is over her head.” Pendergrass is now a U.S. citizen. She thought her own three-job days were over, but she figures that, without assistance, she’ll have to start working extended hours, seven days a week, to keep her apartment. Recently, she called her life-insurance company to ask about taking money out.
A man in an oversized gray shirt began to speak. He was nervous about the strike. “All the people I know are very scared,” he said, in Spanish. “We’re not going to pay rent for two or three months? O.K., that’s fine, but what about after? We’re going to be in debt.”
Pendergrass jumped in. If they couldn’t pay, she said, they were better off not paying together. “We are just forcing Albany to address renters,” she said. “We are the sufferers.”
People kept talking and listening, and, inside their little Zoom squares, they went about their evening routines. A woman fried tortillas. A man wearing a gold chain hugged a Teddy bear. A woman brushed a girl’s hair. On the walls were portraits of Jesus, graduation photos, and finger paintings. The sun went down and lamps turned on. The apartments were neat and messy and nice and dingy, but they were all, for the moment, home. ♦
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-05-02--The Vulgarity and Vulnerability of “Dave”

On the début episode of the FXX dramedy “ Dave , ” the finale of which aired on Wednesday , Dave Burd , a mild-mannered , curly-haired rapper in his late twenties , is at the doctor ’ s office .
He has been noticing some bumps on his groin area that he thinks should be looked at .
Could he be suffering from herpes ?
First off , though , he has something to tell the doctor .
“ I just have , like , a very bizarre situation , ” he says .
He was born with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he had to have an operation on his genitals , so “ as a result there ’ s so much scarring down there.
” The surgeon , he thinks , also had to take some skin from his testicles , which is “ more chicken-skinned , or ribbed , ” and graft it onto his penis .
This means , as Dave says to the nonplussed doctor , that “ my dick is made of balls.
” Burd ’ s monologue seems to position “ Dave , ” from its start , within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Lampoon ” movies and “ American Pie ” —entertainment that solicits viewers ’ laughter by depicting a man ’ s appendage as a site of both need and humiliation .
These are areas that Burd has been mining since 2013 , when he first achieved viral fame on YouTube as the satirical , and satirically named , rapper Lil Dicky .
His first hit , “ Ex-Boyfriend ” —which gained more than a million views within twenty-four hours of its posting—recounted his reluctance to have sex with his girlfriend after running into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But “ Dave , ” which is based fairly closely on Burd ’ s path in the rap world , goes further than a mere crude joke .
( Burd is not just the show ’ s star but also a writer and co-creator , along with Jeff Schaffer , who has worked for many years on smart , anxious sitcoms , such as “ Seinfeld ” and “ Curb Your Enthusiasm.
” ) The show follows Dave—a Philadelphia-born , Los Angeles-based upper-middle-class Jewish guy—in his attempt to find fame and respect as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ station as an Internet curiosity who is beloved by frat boys and mocked by the hip-hop community .
At the show ’ s start , Lil Dicky is already known for his YouTube rap hit “ My Dick Sucks , ” which includes , among its lyrical highlights , the lines “ Even though my dick is shoddy / it sit there like it ’ s gaudy / and it do good work like Gandhi.
” But this type of sweaty , sophomoric energy serves largely as an animating ruse , a kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond it , “ Dave ” ventures into surprisingly sincere , sensitive reflections not just on masculinity but also on race , class , love , and ambition .
As I watched the show over the past several weeks , I was impressed by its ability to consistently and satisfyingly arrive at an amalgam—not easily achieved—between vulgarity and vulnerability .
Like another recent favorite of mine , Netflix ’ s animated puberty comedy “ Big Mouth , ” or the early seasons of HBO ’ s “ Girls , ” “ Dave ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t necessarily mean sacrificing deeper explorations of feeling .
“ Everything I say about my penis on the show is real , ” Burd , who is now thirty-two , told me from his Los Angeles-area home when I interviewed him recently , over Zoom .
“ Finally talking about it was like getting a monkey off my back.
” During our conversation , Burd spoke freely and good-naturedly about a wide variety of topics , among them his O.C.D .
as a teen ( he felt that the only way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was by dedicating elaborate daily rituals to a deity he named Spirit Chief ) and his gratification at having black fans ( “ I can ’ t help it—it makes me happier than having white fans ” ) .
The show , too , feels like a humorous but frank unburdening .
In Episode 3—one of the season ’ s best—Dave ’ s girlfriend , Ally ( Taylor Misiak ) , wants him to express his desires more openly in bed .
He , in turn , is laser-focussed on manipulating the room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth about his genitals from her .
In secret , he seeks abject release with a torso-less “ Fuck Me Silly III ” sex doll , whose orifice he cleans with a twig wrapped in toilet paper .
When he is found out by Ally , he breaks down , admitting that their sex life is hemmed in by his “ life ’ s work ” of making sure she doesn ’ t ever really see his penis .
( “ I love you ; I love it , ” Ally responds , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at him naked . )
What could have been just a repulsive gag pivots skillfully into an exploration of shame and the repercussions it can have on intimacy .
In the course of the episode , whenever Dave ejaculates , the camera pans over to a poster of the rapper Drake , grinning knowingly from the bedroom wall .
( As a half-Jewish Canadian , not to mention a former teen actor , Drake has been dogged by persistent accusations of softness .
But , compared with a white , suburban YouTube personality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as hard as they come . )
Dave yearns to be taken more seriously by the hip-hop community , and to gain clout among black audiences , and the show is clever and honest about portraying this attitude .
Before he became a rapper , Burd told me , his goal was to make it in comedy .
“ I was always a huge rap fan , and I realized that rap was one way to get noticed as a comedian , because the space was wide open .
There was basically just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ referring to the “ S.N.L.
” -adjacent comedic rap trio .
“ So I swung hard.
” Lil Dicky ’ s earlier real-life forays into the genre did often feel like gratuitous provocations .
In the song “ White Dude , ” for instance , which feels like a fratty indulgence , he complains about not being able to say the N-word and expresses relief that he ’ s not black or a woman .
Burd told me that he took “ White Dude ” off his YouTube channel because he finds it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was living in a white middle-class bubble , ” he said , “ without much understanding of the larger context of race relations in America.
” By retreading and lightly fictionalizing Burd ’ s path , “ Dave ” gives us a wider lens through which to view what it means , as a person of privilege , to insert oneself into a culture that is not one ’ s own .
When Dave meets the dreadlocked , South Central-born GaTa , who recognizes him as “ the YouTube rapper with the small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is ecstatic .
“ You have no idea how happy this makes me , ” he tells him .
“ I live my entire life trying to impress people of your .
.
.
” —he pauses for a long beat— “ pedigree.
” ( GaTa , who eventually becomes Dave ’ s hype man , is played by Burd ’ s real-life hype man , Davionte Ganter . )
What saves moments like this from being mere jokey gestures is not just the show ’ s straightforwardness in acknowledging both Dave ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distance from—black hip-hop culture but also its commitment to making GaTa a fully rounded character .
The show ’ s fifth episode , one of its most affecting , focusses on GaTa ’ s bipolar disorder ( a condition that Ganter has also been diagnosed with ) and its intersection with his frustrated dreams of rap stardom .
“ I don ’ t get paid to be calm , bro—I ’ m a hype man , you feel me ?
” GaTa says in one flashback , as his manic antics get him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rapper Pacman Da Gunman .
Later on , in another flashback , a harrowing breakdown in a shoe store gets him hauled off to the hospital .
He , too , is able to unburden his mental load when he finally confesses his struggle to Dave .
“ I never tell nobody this type of shit , bro .
Never , ever .
This shit is embarrassing , ” he says .

FXX’s “Dave” proves that dealing in sexual humor doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing deeper explorations of feeling. Photograph by Ray Mickshaw / FX
On the début episode of the FXX dramedy “Dave,” the finale of which aired on Wednesday, Dave Burd, a mild-mannered, curly-haired rapper in his late twenties, is at the doctor’s office. He has been noticing some bumps on his groin area that he thinks should be looked at. Could he be suffering from herpes? First off, though, he has something to tell the doctor. “I just have, like, a very bizarre situation,” he says. He was born with a tangled urethra, and as a newborn he had to have an operation on his genitals, so “as a result there’s so much scarring down there.” The surgeon, he thinks, also had to take some skin from his testicles, which is “more chicken-skinned, or ribbed,” and graft it onto his penis. This means, as Dave says to the nonplussed doctor, that “my dick is made of balls.”
Burd’s monologue seems to position “Dave,” from its start, within the gross-out comedy tradition of the “National Lampoon” movies and “American Pie”—entertainment that solicits viewers’ laughter by depicting a man’s appendage as a site of both need and humiliation. These are areas that Burd has been mining since 2013, when he first achieved viral fame on YouTube as the satirical, and satirically named, rapper Lil Dicky. His first hit, “Ex-Boyfriend”—which gained more than a million views within twenty-four hours of its posting—recounted his reluctance to have sex with his girlfriend after running into her chiselled, well-endowed one-time paramour. But “Dave,” which is based fairly closely on Burd’s path in the rap world, goes further than a mere crude joke. (Burd is not just the show’s star but also a writer and co-creator, along with Jeff Schaffer, who has worked for many years on smart, anxious sitcoms, such as “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”) The show follows Dave—a Philadelphia-born, Los Angeles-based upper-middle-class Jewish guy—in his attempt to find fame and respect as a rapper, rather than accept his station as an Internet curiosity who is beloved by frat boys and mocked by the hip-hop community.
At the show’s start, Lil Dicky is already known for his YouTube rap hit “My Dick Sucks,” which includes, among its lyrical highlights, the lines “Even though my dick is shoddy / it sit there like it’s gaudy / and it do good work like Gandhi.” But this type of sweaty, sophomoric energy serves largely as an animating ruse, a kind of honey trap for dirty-joke lovers: beyond it, “Dave” ventures into surprisingly sincere, sensitive reflections not just on masculinity but also on race, class, love, and ambition. As I watched the show over the past several weeks, I was impressed by its ability to consistently and satisfyingly arrive at an amalgam—not easily achieved—between vulgarity and vulnerability. Like another recent favorite of mine, Netflix’s animated puberty comedy “Big Mouth,” or the early seasons of HBO’s “Girls,” “Dave” is proof that dealing in sexual humor doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing deeper explorations of feeling.
“Everything I say about my penis on the show is real,” Burd, who is now thirty-two, told me from his Los Angeles-area home when I interviewed him recently, over Zoom. “Finally talking about it was like getting a monkey off my back.” During our conversation, Burd spoke freely and good-naturedly about a wide variety of topics, among them his O.C.D. as a teen (he felt that the only way to keep his loved ones from dying was by dedicating elaborate daily rituals to a deity he named Spirit Chief) and his gratification at having black fans (“I can’t help it—it makes me happier than having white fans”). The show, too, feels like a humorous but frank unburdening. In Episode 3—one of the season’s best—Dave’s girlfriend, Ally (Taylor Misiak), wants him to express his desires more openly in bed. He, in turn, is laser-focussed on manipulating the room’s lighting to keep the whole truth about his genitals from her. In secret, he seeks abject release with a torso-less “Fuck Me Silly III” sex doll, whose orifice he cleans with a twig wrapped in toilet paper. When he is found out by Ally, he breaks down, admitting that their sex life is hemmed in by his “life’s work” of making sure she doesn’t ever really see his penis. (“I love you; I love it,” Ally responds, after Dave finally allows her to look at him naked.) What could have been just a repulsive gag pivots skillfully into an exploration of shame and the repercussions it can have on intimacy.
In the course of the episode, whenever Dave ejaculates, the camera pans over to a poster of the rapper Drake, grinning knowingly from the bedroom wall. (As a half-Jewish Canadian, not to mention a former teen actor, Drake has been dogged by persistent accusations of softness. But, compared with a white, suburban YouTube personality like Lil Dicky, he is clearly as hard as they come.) Dave yearns to be taken more seriously by the hip-hop community, and to gain clout among black audiences, and the show is clever and honest about portraying this attitude. Before he became a rapper, Burd told me, his goal was to make it in comedy. “I was always a huge rap fan, and I realized that rap was one way to get noticed as a comedian, because the space was wide open. There was basically just Lonely Island,” he said, referring to the “S.N.L.”-adjacent comedic rap trio. “So I swung hard.” Lil Dicky’s earlier real-life forays into the genre did often feel like gratuitous provocations. In the song “White Dude,” for instance, which feels like a fratty indulgence, he complains about not being able to say the N-word and expresses relief that he’s not black or a woman. Burd told me that he took “White Dude” off his YouTube channel because he finds it “embarrassing” now. “I was living in a white middle-class bubble,” he said, “without much understanding of the larger context of race relations in America.”
By retreading and lightly fictionalizing Burd’s path, “Dave” gives us a wider lens through which to view what it means, as a person of privilege, to insert oneself into a culture that is not one’s own. When Dave meets the dreadlocked, South Central-born GaTa, who recognizes him as “the YouTube rapper with the small dick and all that,” he is ecstatic. “You have no idea how happy this makes me,” he tells him. “I live my entire life trying to impress people of your . . .”—he pauses for a long beat—“pedigree.” (GaTa, who eventually becomes Dave’s hype man, is played by Burd’s real-life hype man, Davionte Ganter.) What saves moments like this from being mere jokey gestures is not just the show’s straightforwardness in acknowledging both Dave’s nerdy white middle-class fascination with—and experiential distance from—black hip-hop culture but also its commitment to making GaTa a fully rounded character. The show’s fifth episode, one of its most affecting, focusses on GaTa’s bipolar disorder (a condition that Ganter has also been diagnosed with) and its intersection with his frustrated dreams of rap stardom. “I don’t get paid to be calm, bro—I’m a hype man, you feel me?” GaTa says in one flashback, as his manic antics get him thrown off the tour bus of the rapper Pacman Da Gunman. Later on, in another flashback, a harrowing breakdown in a shoe store gets him hauled off to the hospital. He, too, is able to unburden his mental load when he finally confesses his struggle to Dave. “I never tell nobody this type of shit, bro. Never, ever. This shit is embarrassing,” he says.
Still, the show never becomes overly kumbaya. The finale opens with a nine-minute-long Lil Dicky rap video, which portrays his misadventures after he is jailed for exposing his balls onstage. The song gets Dave in trouble with his record label, which deems its flippant tone about the racism of the criminal-justice system too problematic. Upset that his creative freedom is being stifled, Dave books a visit on Charlamagne tha God’s Power 105.1 radio show, “The Breakfast Club,” where he intends to début the new single, against the wishes of the label. Once he’s on the show, Dave is immediately put in the hot seat about his choice, as a white rapper, to have a black hype man. “Is that cultural appropriation?” Angela Yee, Charlamagne’s co-host, asks Dave, catching him off balance. “I’m wondering now if it is or not,” Dave says haltingly. “Just right now, at this moment, a white rapper is wondering if what he’s doing is cultural appropriation?” Charlamagne asks, in disbelief. “Here’s what I’ll say,” Dave finally answers. “If having GaTa be a part of my rap career is in fact cultural appropriation . . . then I really don’t have regrets. I know that’s a bizarre thing to say, but he’s, like—I got, like, one of the best friends I’ll ever have out of it, so, like, I would do it again. I love this man.”
Yee seems not entirely convinced. “Hashtag relationship goals,” she says, a little sarcastically. And, really, why should she be? Dave’s response isn’t necessarily meant to be the last word here; it’s another remark in an open-ended discussion, and another difficult moment in a work of self-examination. In the end, Dave decides not to premiere “Jail” on “The Breakfast Club.” But, of course, we, the viewers, have already seen the video, and so we get to engage in the critical pursuit of deciding for ourselves how far a white artist can go, in the context of a racist society, when pursuing a traditionally black art form. In this, the show extends the offer of unburdening and self-examination to its viewers.


newyorker--2020-05-01--Streaming Releases Test the Waters of a Changed Industry

In the olden days , which , according to historians , ended a few months ago , people used to do the strangest things .
They exchanged what were known as “ hugs , ” presumably a unit of currency , or else “ handshakes , ” which , judging by the name , may well have been a strain of palsy .
“ Going out for a drink ” entailed gathering at some form of communal well , an obvious source of infection .
There was also something called “ making out.
” Ethnological research has identified this as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
No activity from that far-off period , however , seems as inexplicable as this : humans went to the movies .
Details are scarce , and memories are hazy , including my own .
But I seem to recall that we sat in a blacked-out room , in rows , and frequently in discomfort .
We did so of our own volition , and paid for the privilege , even though screenings began at an appointed hour and—imagine this !
—the content had been determined , in advance , on our behalf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could neither quicken nor freeze the action , and those wishing to follow a narrative in its entirety were forced to develop ferocious bladder control .
Drinks and foodstuffs were allowed , but only if purchased on the premises and guaranteed to promote active dental decay .
Why we tolerated these outrageous restrictions on our personal liberty , and why some of us persisted in venturing out to the cinema rather than staying at home to view a product of our choosing , while snacking on crap from our own fridge , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Perhaps our minds were unsound .
Now , of course , that option no longer exists .
Movie theatres are closed across America , especially in the larger and denser cities .
Even if you stumble upon a venue that has remained open , stop and think .
In all honesty , you should no more watch a new release in the company of coughing strangers than you should visit your grandma and give her a birthday hug .
And , anyway , what is there to watch ?
One of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with our moviegoing habits came with the news that 007 was running scared .
The world première of the new James Bond film , bearing the deeply unfortunate title “ No Time to Die , ” was meant to take place at the Royal Albert Hall , in London , on March 31st .
Oh , to be in England , now that Bond was there !
The plan was for the movie to open in the United States on April 10th , and the publicity machine had been pumping away for months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talk shows were booked ; the Aston Martin was having a final wax .
Then the blow fell .
“ No Time to Die ” will now be released in November—a relief for Daniel Craig , who can throw his tux back in the wardrobe , put on a sweater , and get out the Scrabble board , but a wrenching loss for the rest of us .
The chance to revel gaily in the latest Bond production , and then to lament that it wasn ’ t as good as the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or the one with the Japanese volcano , comes along every four or five years , and is connected to the great circle of life .
Without 007 , how shall we endure the spring ?
As with Bond , so with “ Mulan.
” Disney and other studios have delayed the explosion of their major films .
Marvel has shunted “ Black Widow ” to November 6th , and another of its offerings , “ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , ” all the way to May , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I can wait that long .
“ A Quiet Place Part II ” has tiptoed softly to September , and other follow-ups have taken to their heels ; somehow , we must get through this year without fresh installments of “ Peter Rabbit ” and “ Fast & Furious.
” Maybe those two should cut their losses and merge into one mega-sequel , with Vin Diesel as Mr. McGregor .
Procrastination , though , is not the only game in town .
There has also been brinkmanship , with the studios eying each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first to blink ?
Who will think , Screw it—let ’ s forget about a motion-picture event , scrap the launch , and switch to a streamed release ?
Prophets of a gloomy bent believe that history is curving in this direction anyway : that cinemas are fated to fall into disuse , with tumbleweed rolling in the aisles , and that the future of film belongs online , where the new Spielberg , say , or the new Bong Joon-ho , will have to hold its own against outtakes from “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hats .
If this argument is correct , the coronavirus has merely hastened the inevitable , and we should honor , not pity , the movie that has paid the ultimate price , forgoing the majesty of the large screen for the sake of a digital download .
Such a sacrifice will never be forgotten .
That movie is “ Trolls World Tour.
” The first “ Trolls ” movie came out in 2016 .
It made three hundred and forty-seven million dollars .
If , owing to some tragic oversight , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know that it was a candy-colored , song-stuffed , sparkle-strewn , computer-animated film that hymned the virtues of dancing , hugging , and finding your happy place .
For those of us who assumed that a troll was some gnarly bastard from Norse legend , or a costive hermit harassing celebrities on his laptop , these rebooted Trolls , inexorably genial , came as a surprise .
They made the Cabbage Patch Kids look like the Trojan Women .
The new film repeats the prescription , with a spoonful of scares to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Queen Poppy ( voiced by Anna Kendrick ) learns that Barb ( Rachel Bloom ) , who rules the Rock Trolls , wants to eradicate all other kinds of music , not least the meaningless pop that lends both value and depth to Poppy ’ s existence .
With the aid of her pal Branch ( Justin Timberlake ) , Poppy embarks on a mission to save Trollkind , and to slather us with a message of creamy togetherness .
All yours to rent , for just under twenty dollars .
But will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clear enough .
With families trapped inside by COVID-19 , and children out of school and starting to climb the walls , a hyperactive new movie ought to be just the ticket .
Also , twenty bucks is less than you ’ d pay at the cinema for yourself , your kids , and your silo-size Cokes .
Yet the sum feels extortionate when you ’ re shelling out at home , perhaps because it carries a sweaty whiff of boxing bouts on pay-per-view .
You half expect Tyson Fury , and you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Trolls World Tour ” is a test case .
To date , having earned almost a hundred million dollars online , this proud herald of the streaming age is well on the way to finding its happy place .
Thus far , of all the films that were made with meaty budgets and destined for a wide release , “ Trolls World Tour ” alone has traded the multiplex for a slot on your TV , or your annoyingly cracked phone .
Smaller independent movies , though , are already making the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recouping their costs .
Take “ True History of the Kelly Gang , ” adapted from Peter Carey ’ s novel of the same title and directed by Justin Kurzel .
Set and shot in Australia , it stars George MacKay ( who played the lone hero in “ 1917 ” ) as Ned Kelly and features Russell Crowe , impenetrably bearded , in a minor role .
The total budget , I reckon , might just about have covered the special effects in “ Black Widow , ” not counting Scarlett Johansson @ @ @ @

In the olden days, which, according to historians, ended a few months ago, people used to do the strangest things. They exchanged what were known as “hugs,” presumably a unit of currency, or else “handshakes,” which, judging by the name, may well have been a strain of palsy. “Going out for a drink” entailed gathering at some form of communal well, an obvious source of infection. There was also something called “making out.” Ethnological research has identified this as ritualistic playacting, often terminating in humiliation. No activity from that far-off period, however, seems as inexplicable as this: humans went to the movies.
Details are scarce, and memories are hazy, including my own. But I seem to recall that we sat in a blacked-out room, in rows, and frequently in discomfort. We did so of our own volition, and paid for the privilege, even though screenings began at an appointed hour and—imagine this!—the content had been determined, in advance, on our behalf. Interactivity stood at zero. We could neither quicken nor freeze the action, and those wishing to follow a narrative in its entirety were forced to develop ferocious bladder control. Drinks and foodstuffs were allowed, but only if purchased on the premises and guaranteed to promote active dental decay. Why we tolerated these outrageous restrictions on our personal liberty, and why some of us persisted in venturing out to the cinema rather than staying at home to view a product of our choosing, while snacking on crap from our own fridge, is a puzzle that may never be solved. Perhaps our minds were unsound.
Now, of course, that option no longer exists. Movie theatres are closed across America, especially in the larger and denser cities. Even if you stumble upon a venue that has remained open, stop and think. In all honesty, you should no more watch a new release in the company of coughing strangers than you should visit your grandma and give her a birthday hug. And, anyway, what is there to watch?
One of the first signs that COVID-19 would play havoc with our moviegoing habits came with the news that 007 was running scared. The world première of the new James Bond film, bearing the deeply unfortunate title “No Time to Die,” was meant to take place at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, on March 31st. Oh, to be in England, now that Bond was there! The plan was for the movie to open in the United States on April 10th, and the publicity machine had been pumping away for months. The trailers were out; the talk shows were booked; the Aston Martin was having a final wax. Then the blow fell. “No Time to Die” will now be released in November—a relief for Daniel Craig, who can throw his tux back in the wardrobe, put on a sweater, and get out the Scrabble board, but a wrenching loss for the rest of us. The chance to revel gaily in the latest Bond production, and then to lament that it wasn’t as good as the last one, or the one before that, or the one with the Japanese volcano, comes along every four or five years, and is connected to the great circle of life. Without 007, how shall we endure the spring?
As with Bond, so with “Mulan.” Disney and other studios have delayed the explosion of their major films. Marvel has shunted “Black Widow” to November 6th, and another of its offerings, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” all the way to May, 2021. I’m not sure I can wait that long. “A Quiet Place Part II” has tiptoed softly to September, and other follow-ups have taken to their heels; somehow, we must get through this year without fresh installments of “Peter Rabbit” and “Fast & Furious.” Maybe those two should cut their losses and merge into one mega-sequel, with Vin Diesel as Mr. McGregor.
Procrastination, though, is not the only game in town. There has also been brinkmanship, with the studios eying each other and wondering: Who will be the first to blink? Who will think, Screw it—let’s forget about a motion-picture event, scrap the launch, and switch to a streamed release? Prophets of a gloomy bent believe that history is curving in this direction anyway: that cinemas are fated to fall into disuse, with tumbleweed rolling in the aisles, and that the future of film belongs online, where the new Spielberg, say, or the new Bong Joon-ho, will have to hold its own against outtakes from “Friends” and videos of cats wearing hats. If this argument is correct, the coronavirus has merely hastened the inevitable, and we should honor, not pity, the movie that has paid the ultimate price, forgoing the majesty of the large screen for the sake of a digital download. Such a sacrifice will never be forgotten. That movie is “Trolls World Tour.”
The first “Trolls” movie came out in 2016. It made three hundred and forty-seven million dollars. If, owing to some tragic oversight, you failed to see it, you should know that it was a candy-colored, song-stuffed, sparkle-strewn, computer-animated film that hymned the virtues of dancing, hugging, and finding your happy place. For those of us who assumed that a troll was some gnarly bastard from Norse legend, or a costive hermit harassing celebrities on his laptop, these rebooted Trolls, inexorably genial, came as a surprise. They made the Cabbage Patch Kids look like the Trojan Women.
The new film repeats the prescription, with a spoonful of scares to help the sugar go down. The dainty-hearted Queen Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) learns that Barb (Rachel Bloom), who rules the Rock Trolls, wants to eradicate all other kinds of music, not least the meaningless pop that lends both value and depth to Poppy’s existence. With the aid of her pal Branch (Justin Timberlake), Poppy embarks on a mission to save Trollkind, and to slather us with a message of creamy togetherness. All yours to rent, for just under twenty dollars.
But will you rent it? The rationale is clear enough. With families trapped inside by COVID-19, and children out of school and starting to climb the walls, a hyperactive new movie ought to be just the ticket. Also, twenty bucks is less than you’d pay at the cinema for yourself, your kids, and your silo-size Cokes. Yet the sum feels extortionate when you’re shelling out at home, perhaps because it carries a sweaty whiff of boxing bouts on pay-per-view. You half expect Tyson Fury, and you get Queen Poppy. In short, “Trolls World Tour” is a test case. To date, having earned almost a hundred million dollars online, this proud herald of the streaming age is well on the way to finding its happy place.
Thus far, of all the films that were made with meaty budgets and destined for a wide release, “Trolls World Tour” alone has traded the multiplex for a slot on your TV, or your annoyingly cracked phone. Smaller independent movies, though, are already making the jump, as if more confident of recouping their costs. Take “True History of the Kelly Gang,” adapted from Peter Carey’s novel of the same title and directed by Justin Kurzel. Set and shot in Australia, it stars George MacKay (who played the lone hero in “1917”) as Ned Kelly and features Russell Crowe, impenetrably bearded, in a minor role. The total budget, I reckon, might just about have covered the special effects in “Black Widow,” not counting Scarlett Johansson’s boots.
The real-life Kelly was an outlaw, a killer, and a rebel in the high style; a fifty-six-page letter that he wrote in 1879, the year before his death, seeking to justify his deeds, is a headlong rush of grandiloquence. His place in Australia’s national mythology seems at once secure and riven by controversy, and Kurzel is by no means the first director to tackle the subject. A full-length feature film, “The Story of the Kelly Gang,” came out in 1906, believe it or not, little more than a quarter of a century after Kelly had been hanged.
Kurzel’s approach, as he showed in “Macbeth” (2015), leans toward the savage and the surreal. The young Ned, born of poor Irish immigrants, sees his mother providing sexual services to a local constable; a hatred of authority glows in the lad’s eyes, and you sense that the age-old Anglo-Irish feud is burning anew in another hemisphere. The adult Kelly is hunted down by the law, and defiantly dons a suit of armor for the climactic standoff. That is no invention; the suit, fashioned from parts of a plow, can still be seen, pitted by gunshots, in the State Library of Victoria. (Ned advanced, as one witness reported, “like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.”) In a famous series of paintings, made in 1946-47, the Australian artist Sidney Nolan returned again and again to the flat black square of Kelly’s helmeted head; Kurzel, by contrast, takes us inside the helmet, so that we glimpse a line of armed police through the visor’s slot.
Cheerless, dark, and deadly, “True History of the Kelly Gang” has nonetheless left me with fond feelings, for it was the last thing that I saw at the cinema, in preview, before the lockdown began. The film was supposed to open theatrically at the end of April, instead of which it was made available for download. Watching it again, in domestic surroundings, I was sorry, though hardly shocked, to find its wildness tamed. That is what home viewing does to feature films: grandeur is squeezed, intensity skirts risibility, the manic becomes the eccentric, and horror, even if you turn off the living-room lamps, melts into cheesiness. Hit the Pause button, mid-thriller, and the thrills will die on you by the time you get back from the kitchen.


newyorker--2020-05-02--Is America’s “One Nation Indivisible” Being Killed Off by the Coronavirus?

Shortly after noon on Thursday , Dayna Polehanki , a Michigan state senator , was confronted by armed protesters marauding through the capitol , in Lansing , and demanding an end to the coronavirus lockdown .
“ Directly above me , men with rifles yelling at us , ” Polehanki tweeted frantically from the Senate floor .
The accompanying picture , shot from her desk , showed men in fatigues , with assault rifles , in the gallery above .
“ I was a high-school teacher for almost twenty years and I was aware someone could come in and shoot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tough gal , but this seemed all too real , ” she told me the following day .
“ When anger is stoked like that , and people have guns , things can go wrong.
” She said her hands shook as she took the picture .
The protest erupted as the Michigan legislature debated whether to extend the state of emergency issued by Governor Gretchen Whitmer , which was about to expire .
Under Michigan law , all political signs are banned from the capitol , so protesters at the “ American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banners and placards at the door , but not their loaded weapons , which are legal to carry in public , even in the legislature .
“ I ’ m afraid that is the way it is in Michigan right now , ” Polehanki said .
The Michigan legislature , dominated by Republicans , rejected an extension of the stay-at-home order .
It voted instead to initiate a lawsuit challenging the authority and actions of Whitmer , a Democrat , in dealing with the pandemic .
“ We can no longer allow one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , ” Mike Shirkey , the Michigan Senate Majority Leader , said on Thursday .
The governor countered with an executive order extending the state of emergency another twenty-eight days .
“ COVID-19 is an enemy that has taken the lives of more Michiganders than we lost during the Vietnam War , ” she said on Friday .
Whitmer was right .
More than twenty-six hundred Michigan residents died during the decade-long U.S. presence in Vietnam .
In just two months , more than thirty-eight hundred have died in Michigan from COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infected since the first case was confirmed , on March 12th .
“ While some members of the legislature might believe this crisis is over , ” Whitmer added , “ common sense and all of the scientific data tells us we ’ re not out of the woods yet.
” The pandemic has dangerously deepened divisions across America—a nation already riven in recent years by race , class , religion , and trash-talking politics .
The concept of “ one nation indivisible ” seems ever more elusive , even unattainable , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soaring joblessness , and food shortages .
For many , the future seems so uncertain .
So does survival , a privilege taken as a virtual right by the majority of Americans courtesy of economic and medical achievements since the Second World War .
The coronavirus crisis has added new layers to our national divide : the tested and the untested ; the food deliverers and the food receivers ; the mask-wearers and the beach-goers ; the less vulnerable young and the vulnerable old .
Four new classes have been produced since COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Robert Reich , the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration and now a professor at the University of California , Berkeley .
The “ Remotes ” are the privileged professional , managerial , and technical workers still at their jobs , usually remotely and usually for the same pay .
The “ Essentials ” range from medical staff to workers in the food-supply chain , the police , and truck drivers ; many are putting their lives at risk with limited physical or economic protection .
The “ Unpaid ” are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Forty-three per cent of adults said that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a pay cut owing to the pandemic , the Pew Research Center reported last week .
More than thirty million Americans have lost their jobs in just two months .
U.S. unemployment could soon hit twenty-five per cent—unprecedented numbers since the Great Depression of the nineteen-thirties , Reich warned in a piece for Common Dreams .
The final class is the broad range of the “ Forgotten ” —the homeless , migrant workers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elderly , and the imprisoned .
Outbreaks in nursing homes , homeless shelters , and prisons have proved among the most merciless .
The death rate in the Navajo Nation is higher than in thirteen states .
And this may only be the opening phase of the latest political chasm .
Historically , disease has been a divider .
“ Disgust and fear of infection lead people to favor contact with those who are familiar and trigger prejudice toward so-called outsiders , ” including members of minority groups , Ashley Quarcoo and Rachel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace .
In medieval Europe , the bubonic plague led to pogroms against Jews .
In the mid-nineteenth century , cholera widened discrimination against the Chinese in San Francisco .
And in the past decade , Ebola spawned prejudice against Africans .
“ Today , the desire to identify culprits for a public health disaster has already led to global increases in hate crimes and xenophobia , ” the authors noted .
The most dangerous divide emerging from the pandemic is the oldest in American history—over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power of the federal government .
We fought a war over the issue a hundred and sixty years ago ; it has flared again during the pandemic—and now threatens to tear the nation apart in new ways .
Last month , President Trump urged protests in Michigan and told Virginians to “ save your great 2nd Amendment .
It is under siege !
” On Friday , the President demanded in another tweet that Whitmer negotiate over a life-or-death issue—in one of the hardest hit states—with protesters who had swarmed the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and put out the fire .
These are very good people , but they are angry , ” Trump wrote .
“ They want their lives back again , safely !
See them , talk to them , make a deal.
” At a press conference , Whitmer condemned the swastikas , nooses , and Confederate flags that were waved at the protests .
“ We came together as the arsenal of democracy to defeat the Nazis , ” she said .
“ We will not be making decisions based on an arbitrary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I ’ m not here to play games.
” Amid mounting anxieties , Americans are increasingly confused about who is supposed to lead , set standards , determine solutions , provide aid , and ultimately be held accountable .
The President has changed his position on the issue often and opportunistically .
As the pandemic swept the country in mid-March , Trump told governors that they were on their own in finding ventilators and protective gear .
In mid-April , the President claimed he had “ total ” authority over all issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the way it ’ s got to be , ” he said , at a press conference .
Constitutional scholars and notable governors , including Republicans , disputed his assertion .
A few days later , he backtracked in a teleconference with the nation ’ s governors , “ You ’ re going to call your own shots , ” he reportedly said , possibly to avoid being held responsible in an election year if anything went wrong .
The President ’ s exchange this week with the Michigan governor only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is mirrored at a lower level in the divide—between cities and their state governments , notably in Texas .

Shortly after noon on Thursday, Dayna Polehanki, a Michigan state senator, was confronted by armed protesters marauding through the capitol, in Lansing, and demanding an end to the coronavirus lockdown. “Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us,” Polehanki tweeted frantically from the Senate floor. The accompanying picture, shot from her desk, showed men in fatigues, with assault rifles, in the gallery above. “I was a high-school teacher for almost twenty years and I was aware someone could come in and shoot things up. I consider myself a tough gal, but this seemed all too real,” she told me the following day. “When anger is stoked like that, and people have guns, things can go wrong.” She said her hands shook as she took the picture.
The protest erupted as the Michigan legislature debated whether to extend the state of emergency issued by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which was about to expire. Under Michigan law, all political signs are banned from the capitol, so protesters at the “American Patriot Rally” had to leave their banners and placards at the door, but not their loaded weapons, which are legal to carry in public, even in the legislature. “I’m afraid that is the way it is in Michigan right now,” Polehanki said.
The Michigan legislature, dominated by Republicans, rejected an extension of the stay-at-home order. It voted instead to initiate a lawsuit challenging the authority and actions of Whitmer, a Democrat, in dealing with the pandemic. “We can no longer allow one person to make decisions for ten million people,” Mike Shirkey, the Michigan Senate Majority Leader, said on Thursday. The governor countered with an executive order extending the state of emergency another twenty-eight days. “COVID-19 is an enemy that has taken the lives of more Michiganders than we lost during the Vietnam War,” she said on Friday. Whitmer was right. More than twenty-six hundred Michigan residents died during the decade-long U.S. presence in Vietnam. In just two months, more than thirty-eight hundred have died in Michigan from COVID-19. At least forty-two thousand have been infected since the first case was confirmed, on March 12th. “While some members of the legislature might believe this crisis is over,” Whitmer added, “common sense and all of the scientific data tells us we’re not out of the woods yet.”
The pandemic has dangerously deepened divisions across America—a nation already riven in recent years by race, class, religion, and trash-talking politics. The concept of “one nation, indivisible” seems ever more elusive, even unattainable, in these anxious days of deadly pathogens, soaring joblessness, and food shortages. For many, the future seems so uncertain. So does survival, a privilege taken as a virtual right by the majority of Americans courtesy of economic and medical achievements since the Second World War.
The coronavirus crisis has added new layers to our national divide: the tested and the untested; the food deliverers and the food receivers; the mask-wearers and the beach-goers; the less vulnerable young and the vulnerable old. Four new classes have been produced since COVID-19 swept from coast to coast, according to Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration and now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The “Remotes” are the privileged professional, managerial, and technical workers still at their jobs, usually remotely and usually for the same pay. The “Essentials” range from medical staff to workers in the food-supply chain, the police, and truck drivers; many are putting their lives at risk with limited physical or economic protection. The “Unpaid” are the growing numbers of the unemployed. Forty-three per cent of adults said that they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a pay cut owing to the pandemic, the Pew Research Center reported last week. More than thirty million Americans have lost their jobs in just two months. U.S. unemployment could soon hit twenty-five per cent—unprecedented numbers since the Great Depression of the nineteen-thirties, Reich warned in a piece for Common Dreams. The final class is the broad range of the “Forgotten”—the homeless, migrant workers, Native Americans, the disabled, the elderly, and the imprisoned. Outbreaks in nursing homes, homeless shelters, and prisons have proved among the most merciless. The death rate in the Navajo Nation is higher than in thirteen states.
And this may only be the opening phase of the latest political chasm. Historically, disease has been a divider. “Disgust and fear of infection lead people to favor contact with those who are familiar and trigger prejudice toward so-called outsiders,” including members of minority groups, Ashley Quarcoo and Rachel Kleinfeld wrote, in a new report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In medieval Europe, the bubonic plague led to pogroms against Jews. In the mid-nineteenth century, cholera widened discrimination against the Chinese in San Francisco. And in the past decade, Ebola spawned prejudice against Africans. “Today, the desire to identify culprits for a public health disaster has already led to global increases in hate crimes and xenophobia,” the authors noted.
The most dangerous divide emerging from the pandemic is the oldest in American history—over the rights and duties of the states versus the power of the federal government. We fought a war over the issue a hundred and sixty years ago; it has flared again during the pandemic—and now threatens to tear the nation apart in new ways. Last month, President Trump urged protests in Michigan and told Virginians to “save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
On Friday, the President demanded in another tweet that Whitmer negotiate over a life-or-death issue—in one of the hardest hit states—with protesters who had swarmed the state capitol. “Give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry,” Trump wrote. “They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.” At a press conference, Whitmer condemned the swastikas, nooses, and Confederate flags that were waved at the protests. “We came together as the arsenal of democracy to defeat the Nazis,” she said. “We will not be making decisions based on an arbitrary timeline, or political or legal pressure. I’m not here to play games.”
Amid mounting anxieties, Americans are increasingly confused about who is supposed to lead, set standards, determine solutions, provide aid, and ultimately be held accountable. The President has changed his position on the issue often and opportunistically. As the pandemic swept the country in mid-March, Trump told governors that they were on their own in finding ventilators and protective gear. In mid-April, the President claimed he had “total” authority over all issues spawned by the pandemic. “That’s the way it’s got to be,” he said, at a press conference. Constitutional scholars and notable governors, including Republicans, disputed his assertion. A few days later, he backtracked in a teleconference with the nation’s governors, “You’re going to call your own shots,” he reportedly said, possibly to avoid being held responsible in an election year if anything went wrong. The President’s exchange this week with the Michigan governor only added to the confusion. The problem is mirrored at a lower level in the divide—between cities and their state governments, notably in Texas.
The impact could outlast the pandemic’s pathogens. The American social contract—based on the “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence—was already eroding; the interpretations were being redefined, a process begun by Reaganism in the nineteen-eighties as part of a sustained attack on the role and meaning of government, David Blight, a Yale historian, told me. From the Civil War to the nineteen-seventies, government expanded its reach to try to insure the same rights for African-Americans, women, Native Americans, the disabled, veterans, the elderly, and the ill. Government grew to fight wars and secure the homeland, improve the economy, advance education, and institute the first environmental protections. “But part of our political culture has never really supported this long and seismic change and done the best to roll it back,” Blight, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, told me. During the pandemic, those opposed to expansive government have decried shelter-in-place orders as excessive and questioned the recommendations of the government’s top health officials. “Only a society with sufficient hostility to government action and regulation could allow the Second Amendment to really authorize people to carry assault rifles into the state capitols while they protest,” Blight said.


newyorker--2020-05-02--Blocked From Testifying, Fauci Plans Zoom Call with Entire Country

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Blocked by the White House from testifying before Congress , Anthony Fauci said on Saturday that he would schedule a Zoom call with the entire country .
The esteemed virologist said that the Zoom call would be an opportunity for all three hundred and twenty-eight million Americans to ask him questions about the White House ’ s response to the pandemic .
“ It ’ ll be just like one of the task-force briefings , only I ’ ll actually be allowed to talk , ” he said .
Fauci acknowledged that there could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the country on the same Zoom call .
“ Our faces will probably look pretty small , and they may freeze if there ’ s not enough bandwidth , ” he said .
“ You might want to tell your kids to get off Fortnite for fifteen minutes.
” He said that it was “ unlikely ” that Donald Trump would be joining the call .
“ We ’ re mainly going to be talking about science , so I don ’ t think it ’ s his thing , ” Fauci @ @

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Blocked by the White House from testifying before Congress, Anthony Fauci said on Saturday that he would schedule a Zoom call with the entire country.
The esteemed virologist said that the Zoom call would be an opportunity for all three hundred and twenty-eight million Americans to ask him questions about the White House’s response to the pandemic. “It’ll be just like one of the task-force briefings, only I’ll actually be allowed to talk,” he said.
Fauci acknowledged that there could be logistical challenges to getting every person in the country on the same Zoom call.
“Our faces will probably look pretty small, and they may freeze if there’s not enough bandwidth,” he said. “You might want to tell your kids to get off Fortnite for fifteen minutes.”
He said that it was “unlikely” that Donald Trump would be joining the call. “We’re mainly going to be talking about science, so I don’t think it’s his thing,” Fauci said.


newyorker--2020-05-02--The Supreme Court Confronts Trump’s Challenge to the Separation of Powers

During his confirmation hearing , in 2018 , Brett Kavanaugh insisted that “ one of the greatest moments in American judicial history ” was the case of United States v. Nixon , in 1974 .
In a unanimous decision , written by Chief Justice Warren Burger , one of President Richard Nixon ’ s appointees , the Supreme Court rejected Nixon ’ s claim of absolute executive privilege , ordering him to comply with a judicial subpoena to turn over the White House tapes that would lead to his resignation .
In an article from 2016 , Kavanaugh wrote , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to the other branches , were not cowed , and enforced the law.
” In the coming months , several cases will test the Court ’ s strength in this regard .
In each of these cases , President Donald Trump is attempting to block the examination of his conduct , by claiming that the chief executive is immune from various forms of investigation .
At stake in these cases is the public ’ s ability to know about , and seek accountability for , misconduct .
But , more important , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system of separation of powers .
As the Supreme Court hears these cases , beginning this month and extending through the next term , it will enter what may prove to be among its greatest moments or its worst .
The most important of the crop is Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn , about whether a court can force the President ’ s close aides to obey congressional subpoenas , against the President ’ s orders .
More than a year ago , the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordering him to testify about Trump ’ s possible obstruction of justice , corruption , and abuse of power .
Trump directed McGahn to disobey the subpoena , and McGahn did not appear before Congress .
( Trump ’ s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and his former national-security adviser John Bolton disregarded similar subpoenas , also on Trump ’ s orders . )
Last August , the Judiciary Committee asked a district court to compel McGahn to appear .
The Trump Administration claimed , in response , that the constitutional power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” for his close aides .
A district court rejected that sweeping claim , stating bluntly that “ presidents are not kings.
” But , in February , a panel of the D.C .
Circuit Court of Appeals vindicated Trump by holding that courts don ’ t have the constitutional power to address Congress ’ s complaint , even if flouting congressional orders is unlawful .
That means that Congress must negotiate with the President to get executive officials to appear or take enforcement into its own hands—although it ’ s been more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sergeant at arms to jail people in the Capitol for contempt ( and the Administration claims that Congress lacks that power as well ) .
This week , the full D.C .
Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case , and appeared to favor Congress ’ s arguments—just as the Administration blocked Anthony Fauci from testifying , this coming Wednesday , in a House investigation on the White House ’ s response to the coronavirus pandemic .
Whatever the result of the case , it is sure to head to the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoena , Trump is pressing lawsuits challenging legislative and judicial subpoenas of his financial and business records , stretching back to 2010 .
Three of those cases will be argued before the Supreme Court by teleconference , on May 12th , after arguments were postponed earlier this spring because of COVID-19 .
Two of them , Trump v. Mazars USA and Trump v. Deutsche Bank , involve House subpoenas for Trump ’ s financial information , which the committees on Oversight , Financial Services , and Intelligence issued to his accounting firm , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Capital One in April , 2019 .
The committees claim that the subpoenas are meant to inform investigations into how to legislate in a range of areas , including government ethics , financial disclosures , money laundering , and foreign influence on elections .
Trump claims that Congress ’ s true purpose with these subpoenas is to determine whether he committed criminal wrongdoing , and that Congress is really engaged in law enforcement , which is an executive function rather than a legislative one .
Two appeals courts , and two district courts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because seeking information in investigations , in order to aid in consideration of legislation or impeachment , has long been part of the role of Congress .
These cases are likely less controversial for judges than the McGahn case , because the subpoenas were directed to private parties rather than an executive official , so the dispute presents less of a direct conflict between Congress and the President .
Also on May 12th , the Supreme Court will hear Trump v. Vance , Trump ’ s challenge to a similar subpoena , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his business dealings by the Manhattan District Attorney , Cyrus Vance , Jr. As part of Vance ’ s investigation , which targets Trump for possible criminal indictment , his office demanded Trump ’ s financial records , including his personal tax returns , from Mazars .
The Justice Department ’ s long-standing position is that the President can not be federally indicted while in office , but , as a state prosecutor , Vance is considering indicting Trump under New York criminal law , during or after his Presidency .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chief executive , combined with the Supremacy Clause , which makes federal law “ the supreme law of the land , ” means that no prosecutors may target him while he is President , even for investigation .
Trump is also claiming that a criminal prosecution would distract him from doing his job , an argument that Bill Clinton made to the Supreme Court , in 1997 , in an effort to have Paula Jones ’ s civil sexual-harassment lawsuit halted during his Presidency .
There ’ s certainly something to the idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyone , let alone a President , to perform his or her job while facing prosecution or even a civil suit—but the Supreme Court unanimously decided against Clinton , saying that , while lawsuits over conduct from before a Presidency may distract from executive duties , they are not barred as a matter of constitutional separation of powers .
Criminal prosecutions may be different .
But , while concerns about subjecting a sitting President to criminal indictment seem justified , they are far less persuasive when it comes to merely conducting an investigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoena to a third party , which doesn ’ t require anything of the President .
In his court fights , Trump is repeating a refrain that the only constitutional means to hold a President accountable for wrongdoing is impeachment .
But , of course , we know that Trump was able to hamstring his impeachment last year by directing disobedience of congressional orders , making House Democrats vulnerable to criticism that they proceeded without key evidence .
( The House even attempted to rebuke Trump ’ s defiance by tacking on “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article . )
Then Trump ’ s lawyers said during the Senate trial that the House hadn ’ t tried hard enough to pursue judicial enforcement of subpoenas for the missing evidence .
Trump went on to claim in court , in a bald Catch-22 , that courts can not enforce subpoenas for evidence of his wrongdoing because the proper avenue for Presidential accountability is .
.
.
impeachment .
Now the separation of powers is in danger of being reduced to a nauseating merry-go-round , in which neither Congress nor the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each says that the other should do it .
Solving this dilemma is now thrust on the Court , which will decide Trump v. Mazars and Trump v. Deutsche Bank together by this summer , and Trump v. Vance in the same time frame , and must also be thinking about the likelihood that it will hear the McGahn case next term .

During his confirmation hearing, in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh insisted that “one of the greatest moments in American judicial history” was the case of United States v. Nixon, in 1974. In a unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice Warren Burger, one of President Richard Nixon’s appointees, the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s claim of absolute executive privilege, ordering him to comply with a judicial subpoena to turn over the White House tapes that would lead to his resignation. In an article from 2016, Kavanaugh wrote, admiringly, that the Justices “stood up to the other branches, were not cowed, and enforced the law.” In the coming months, several cases will test the Court’s strength in this regard. In each of these cases, President Donald Trump is attempting to block the examination of his conduct, by claiming that the chief executive is immune from various forms of investigation. At stake in these cases is the public’s ability to know about, and seek accountability for, misconduct. But, more important, they represent a gut check for our system of separation of powers. As the Supreme Court hears these cases, beginning this month and extending through the next term, it will enter what may prove to be among its greatest moments or its worst.
The most important of the crop is Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn, about whether a court can force the President’s close aides to obey congressional subpoenas, against the President’s orders. More than a year ago, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to the former White House counsel Don McGahn, ordering him to testify about Trump’s possible obstruction of justice, corruption, and abuse of power. Trump directed McGahn to disobey the subpoena, and McGahn did not appear before Congress. (Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney disobeyed a similar subpoena, and his former national-security adviser John Bolton disregarded the House’s demand for testimony, also on Trump’s orders.) Last August, the Judiciary Committee asked a district court to compel McGahn to appear. The Trump Administration claimed, in response, that the constitutional power of the President entails “absolute immunity” for his close aides. A district court rejected that sweeping claim, stating bluntly that “presidents are not kings.” But, in February, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vindicated Trump by holding that courts don’t have the constitutional power to address Congress’s complaint, even if flouting congressional orders is unlawful. That means that Congress must negotiate with the President to get executive officials to appear or take enforcement into its own hands—although it’s been more than a century since Congress directed its sergeant at arms to jail people in the Capitol for contempt (and the Administration claims that Congress lacks that power as well). This week, the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case, and appeared to favor Congress’s arguments—just as the Administration blocked Anthony Fauci from testifying, this coming Wednesday, in a House investigation on the White House’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Whatever the result of the case, it is sure to head to the Supreme Court.
In addition to fighting the McGahn subpoena, Trump is pressing lawsuits challenging legislative and judicial subpoenas of his financial and business records, stretching back to 2010. Three of those cases will be argued before the Supreme Court by teleconference, on May 12th, after arguments were postponed earlier this spring because of COVID-19. Two of them, Trump v. Mazars USA and Trump v. Deutsche Bank, involve House subpoenas for Trump’s financial information, which the committees on Oversight, Financial Services, and Intelligence issued to his accounting firm, Mazars, and to Deutsche Bank and Capital One in April, 2019. The committees claim that the subpoenas are meant to inform investigations into how to legislate in a range of areas, including government ethics, financial disclosures, money laundering, and foreign influence on elections. Trump claims that Congress’s true purpose with these subpoenas is to determine whether he committed criminal wrongdoing, and that Congress is really engaged in law enforcement, which is an executive function rather than a legislative one. Two appeals courts, and two district courts before them, correctly decided against Trump, because seeking information in investigations, in order to aid in consideration of legislation or impeachment, has long been part of the role of Congress. These cases are likely less controversial for judges than the McGahn case, because the subpoenas were directed to private parties rather than an executive official, so the dispute presents less of a direct conflict between Congress and the President.
Also on May 12th, the Supreme Court will hear Trump v. Vance, Trump’s challenge to a similar subpoena, from a grand jury in the investigation of his business dealings by the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr. As part of Vance’s investigation, which targets Trump for possible criminal indictment, his office demanded Trump’s financial records, including his personal tax returns, from Mazars. The Justice Department’s long-standing position is that the President cannot be federally indicted while in office, but, as a state prosecutor, Vance is considering indicting Trump under New York criminal law, during or after his Presidency. Trump claims that the constitutional power of the chief executive, combined with the Supremacy Clause, which makes federal law “the supreme law of the land,” means that no prosecutors may target him while he is President, even for investigation. Trump is also claiming that a criminal prosecution would distract him from doing his job, an argument that Bill Clinton made to the Supreme Court, in 1997, in an effort to have Paula Jones’s civil sexual-harassment lawsuit halted during his Presidency. There’s certainly something to the idea that it’s very difficult for anyone, let alone a President, to perform his or her job while facing prosecution or even a civil suit—but the Supreme Court unanimously decided against Clinton, saying that, while lawsuits over conduct from before a Presidency may distract from executive duties, they are not barred as a matter of constitutional separation of powers. Criminal prosecutions may be different. But, while concerns about subjecting a sitting President to criminal indictment seem justified, they are far less persuasive when it comes to merely conducting an investigation, and especially with regard to a subpoena to a third party, which doesn’t require anything of the President.
In his court fights, Trump is repeating a refrain that the only constitutional means to hold a President accountable for wrongdoing is impeachment. But, of course, we know that Trump was able to hamstring his impeachment last year by directing disobedience of congressional orders, making House Democrats vulnerable to criticism that they proceeded without key evidence. (The House even attempted to rebuke Trump’s defiance by tacking on “obstruction of Congress” as an impeachment article.) Then Trump’s lawyers said during the Senate trial that the House hadn’t tried hard enough to pursue judicial enforcement of subpoenas for the missing evidence. Trump went on to claim in court, in a bald Catch-22, that courts cannot enforce subpoenas for evidence of his wrongdoing because the proper avenue for Presidential accountability is . . . impeachment. Now the separation of powers is in danger of being reduced to a nauseating merry-go-round, in which neither Congress nor the Supreme Court can check the President, because each says that the other should do it. Solving this dilemma is now thrust on the Court, which will decide Trump v. Mazars and Trump v. Deutsche Bank together by this summer, and Trump v. Vance in the same time frame, and must also be thinking about the likelihood that it will hear the McGahn case next term.
In one or more of the instances of Presidential resistance to legal orders, the Court could find that Trump has overestimated his power. Or it could find, to the contrary, that Congress, or Vance, cannot compel executive-branch officials—or private parties—to provide information about the President. While the Vance case will be the easiest for the Justices to decide against Trump, it could well be accompanied by a win for Trump in the cases involving congressional subpoenas. In those cases, the Court may use the off-ramp that the D.C. Circuit panel took in the McGahn case, saying that the Constitution does not allow a court to decide. Just two weeks before oral arguments, the Supreme Court hinted at the attractiveness of this last option by asking the parties and the Justice Department for supplemental briefs about the Court’s authority to adjudicate the cases. This direction could be particularly appealing to the conservative majority, which may be loath to decide against the President but also doesn’t wish to endorse Trump’s disobedience of legal orders. Even that option, though, would create the unfortunate appearance of acquiescing to a President who has regularly denigrated the authority of both Congress and the judicial system, particularly if the decisions were to split, with a familiar 5–4 conservative majority.
Republicans in Congress have put the Court in a particularly difficult position. President Nixon threatened in advance to disregard a Supreme Court order to hand over the White House tapes. In the end, he complied, because it was clear that, if he didn’t, his impeachment was certain; at that time, Republicans in Congress would not have tolerated disobedience of the Court. But in this hyperpartisan moment, congressional Republicans and their constituents might not condemn Trump’s obstruction of a court order, let alone allow it to become the basis for another impeachment or other political sanction. It’s possible that, in anticipation of that, some Justices might even feel that siding with this President, or not deciding at all, is a better way of protecting the Court’s authority than standing up to him.
During this Presidency, Chief Justice John Roberts has resisted the pervasive narrative of judicial partisanship, famously rebuking Trump’s swipes at judicial independence, by insisting, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges” but rather “judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.” The Chief Justice may want to find a nonpartisan compromise—but, in these cases, one does not exist. That would counsel in favor of the Court standing up to the other branches and enforcing the separation of powers in a merits decision, much as it did in the Nixon case. For those at the top of the judicial branch, there is a motivation that is greater than partisanship: the desire to retain the perception of legitimacy that is most crucial to maintenance of its power. That legitimacy now hangs on the Court’s ability to demonstrate that neither the President nor any party is supreme over it.
A previous version of this piece incorrectly described a House request for Bolton to provide testimony.