Hospice/Honeymoon

This is the fourth story in this summer ’ s online Flash Fiction series .
You can read the entire series , and our Flash Fiction stories from previous years , here .
Once the word is uttered aloud , there is a seismic shift .
You will feel it .
Like a ( very short ) thread through the eye of a needle , swiftly in and swiftly out .
The air itself becomes thin , steely .
At the periphery of your vision , an immediate dimming .
The penumbra begins to shrink .
In time , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Until the remaining light is small enough to be cupped in two hands .
And then it will be extinguished .
For when “ hospice ” is spoken , the fact is at last acknowledged : There is no hope .
No hope .
These words are obscene , unspeakable .
To be without hope is to be without a future .
Worse , by acknowledging that you are without a future , you have “ given up.
” And so when the word “ hospice ” is first spoken—carefully , cautiously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ physician—neither of you hears it .
Or , if you hear it , you don ’ t register that you have heard .
A low-grade buzzing in the ears , a ringing , as of a distant alarm , an alarm in a shuttered room .
That is all .
For if you don ’ t hear , perhaps it has not ( yet ) been uttered .
For if neither of you hears , perhaps it will not ( ever ) be uttered .
Yet somehow it happens : “ hospice ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the days pass .
And somehow it happens that your husband , surprising himself , begins to speak of his “ final days.
” As in , “ I think these might be my final days.
” As if shyly .
On the phone very early one morning , when he calls , as he has been calling , immediately after the oncologist making rounds in the hospital has examined him .
On the phone , so that he is spared seeing your face .
And you , his .
A new shyness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Finding some way to say I love you .
For some , an impossible statement—I love you .
But your husband managed it , and you managed it , somehow : I love you .
And now , years later , it is “ I think these might be my final days.
” These words you hear over the phone distinctly , irrevocably , yet ( you would claim ) you have not heard them .
No !
But , yes , you ’ ve heard .
Must have heard .
For the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , blood rushes out of your head , leaving you faint , sinking to your knees like a terrified child , stammering , “ What ?
What are you saying ?
That ’ s ridiculous .
Don ’ t say such things !
What on earth do you mean— ‘ final days ’ ?
” Your voice rises wildly .
You want to fling the cell phone from you .
For you can ’ t bear it .
You don ’ t think so .
Not knowing , at this time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all that you can not bear , that nonetheless will be borne , and by you .
For always , each step of the way , you resist .
It is a steep uphill .
It is natural to resist .
Or , if you accept the steep climb , console yourself with the thought that it is only temporary .
The plateau , the flatland to which you ’ ve been accustomed , awaits you , both of you .
You will return there .
Soon .
Until a day , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hour—when you began to speak of hospice yourself .
At first , you , too , are shy , faltering .
Your throat feels lacerated as if by metal filings .
Gradually , you learn to utter the two syllables clearly , bravely—hos-pice .
Soon after that , you begin to say these distinct , deliberate words : “ our hospice.
” Soon , you draw up your vows .
Quaintly state to yourself , as if to God , a formal decree .
It is my hope : I will make of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to make my husband as comfortable as humanly possible .
To make him happy .
To make us both happy .
To fulfill whatever he wishes that is within the range of possibility .
First : a new setting for him .
NOT the Cancer Center .
Our hospice will be in our home , which he loves .
The foreshortened horizon—for the house is surrounded by trees .
My husband can lie on a sofa , staring at the tree line and at the sky .
Comfortable on the sofa with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warm socks ) elevated .
Or , more likely , he can lie on a ( rented ) hospital bed , positioned in such a way that he can easily gaze out the window .
And I can lie beside him , as I have done in the hospital .
Holding hands .
Of course , we will hold hands .
His hands are still warm—strong .
His fingers , when squeezed , never fail to squeeze in return .
As his lips , when kissed , never fail to kiss in return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holding him in my arms , not strong arms , in fact , rather weak arms , which nonetheless can be made to behave as if they were strong .
I will scatter seed on the redwood deck outside the window .
Not ordinary seed but the more expensive “ wild bird seed ” my husband purchases .
Thrilling to watch the birds .
Taking the time , undistracted , really watching , for once .
.
.
And my husband loves music !
I will bathe him in the most beautiful music @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as it is not uncomfortable for him , I will lie on the bed beside him , holding him , listening with him to Beethoven ’ s “ Ode to Joy , ” Rachmaninoff ’ s “ Vespers.
” Falling asleep with him .
Even during the day .
Even with wan sunshine slanting through the window onto our faces .
Head on the pillow beside his head .
From the bookcases in the house , I will select art books , his favorite artists , books from his photography shelves—Bruce Davidson , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Porter .
I will turn the pages slowly , marvel with him .
Old albums , family photographs dating back to the early nineteen-hundreds .
His family , great-grandparents who emigrated from the Pale .
In which he has only recently shown an interest .
His favorite foods .
.
.
.
Well , I will try !
When he is at home , possibly his appetite will return .
When I am the one to prepare his food , his appetite will return , I am sure .
Of course , family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , grandchildren .
Relatives , friends .
Colleagues from the university .
Neighbors .
Old friends from grammar school he hasn ’ t seen in fifty years .
Some surprises for him—I will negotiate with the imagination of a theatre director .
Not merely hospice but our hospice .
Not sad but joyous , a honeymoon .
We will be happy there , in our own home .
Both of us .
For both of us , the “ final days ” will be a honeymoon .
I vow .
In fact , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How could you have imagined it would !

This is the fourth story in this summer’s online Flash Fiction series. You can read the entire series, and our Flash Fiction stories from previous years, here.
“Hospice.”
Once the word is uttered aloud, there is a seismic shift. You will feel it.
Like a (very short) thread through the eye of a needle, swiftly in and swiftly out.
The air itself becomes thin, steely.
At the periphery of your vision, an immediate dimming. The penumbra begins to shrink. In time, it will become a tunnel. Ever diminishing. Until the remaining light is small enough to be cupped in two hands. And then it will be extinguished.
For when “hospice” is spoken, the fact is at last acknowledged: There is no hope.
No hope. These words are obscene, unspeakable. To be without hope is to be without a future.
Worse, by acknowledging that you are without a future, you have “given up.”
And so when the word “hospice” is first spoken—carefully, cautiously, by a (female) palliative-care physician—neither of you hears it. Or, if you hear it, you don’t register that you have heard.
A low-grade buzzing in the ears, a ringing, as of a distant alarm, an alarm in a shuttered room. That is all.
For if you don’t hear, perhaps it has not (yet) been uttered.
For if neither of you hears, perhaps it will not (ever) be uttered.
Yet somehow it happens: “hospice” comes to be more frequently spoken as the days pass.
And somehow it happens that your husband, surprising himself, begins to speak of his “final days.” As in, “I think these might be my final days.”
As if shyly. On the phone very early one morning, when he calls, as he has been calling, immediately after the oncologist making rounds in the hospital has examined him.
On the phone, so that he is spared seeing your face. And you, his.
A new shyness like the first, initial shyness. Finding some way to say I love you.
For some, an impossible statement—I love you.
But your husband managed it, and you managed it, somehow: I love you.
And now, years later, it is “I think these might be my final days.”
These words you hear over the phone distinctly, irrevocably, yet (you would claim) you have not heard them. No!
But, yes, you’ve heard. Must have heard. For the walls of the room reel giddily around you, blood rushes out of your head, leaving you faint, sinking to your knees like a terrified child, stammering, “What? What are you saying? That’s ridiculous. Don’t say such things! What on earth do you mean—‘final days’?”
Your voice rises wildly. You want to fling the cell phone from you.
For you can’t bear it. You don’t think so. Not knowing, at this time, the vast Sahara that lies ahead with all that you cannot bear, that nonetheless will be borne, and by you.
For always, each step of the way, you resist.
It is a steep uphill. It is natural to resist. Or, if you accept the steep climb, console yourself with the thought that it is only temporary. The plateau, the flatland to which you’ve been accustomed, awaits you, both of you. You will return there. Soon.
Until a day, an hour—always there is a day, an hour—when you began to speak of hospice yourself.
At first, you, too, are shy, faltering. Your throat feels lacerated as if by metal filings.
Gradually, you learn to utter the two syllables clearly, bravely—hos-pice.
Soon after that, you begin to say these distinct, deliberate words: “our hospice.”
Soon, you draw up your vows. Quaintly state to yourself, as if to God, a formal decree.
It is my hope: I will make of our hospice a honeymoon.
My vow is to make my husband as comfortable as humanly possible.
To make him happy. To make us both happy.
To fulfill whatever he wishes that is within the range of possibility.
First: a new setting for him. NOT the Cancer Center. Our hospice will be in our home, which he loves.
The atrium flooded with morning light.
The foreshortened horizon—for the house is surrounded by trees.
The flotillas of sculpted clouds.
My husband can lie on a sofa, staring at the tree line and at the sky. Comfortable on the sofa with pillows behind him and feet (in warm socks) elevated.
Or, more likely, he can lie on a (rented) hospital bed, positioned in such a way that he can easily gaze out the window. And I can lie beside him, as I have done in the hospital.
Holding hands. Of course, we will hold hands. His hands are still warm—strong. His fingers, when squeezed, never fail to squeeze in return.
As his lips, when kissed, never fail to kiss in return.
I will sleep beside my husband holding him in my arms, not strong arms, in fact, rather weak arms, which nonetheless can be made to behave as if they were strong.
I will scatter seed on the redwood deck outside the window. Not ordinary seed but the more expensive “wild bird seed” my husband purchases.
Thrilling to watch the birds. Taking the time, undistracted, really watching, for once . . .
And my husband loves music! I will bathe him in the most beautiful music through his waking hours. So long as it is not uncomfortable for him, I will lie on the bed beside him, holding him, listening with him to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Rachmaninoff’s “Vespers.”


newyorker--2020-07-30--Bramancing the Braless: Notes on Nine Lingerie Startups

Recently , I have taken my shirt off twice while video chatting .
No , I ’ m not that starved for excitement during quarantine .
In both cases , I was being fitted for a bra .
“ So let ’ s talk bras and boobies and things like that , ” Tania Garcia , my “ fit therapist ” at CUUP , said .
CUUP is one of several e-commerce lingerie startups founded over the past few years .
Most of them were established by women , many of whom , according to their companies ’ mission statements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ill-fitting bras in their drawers that they decided to revolutionize the industry .
Kind of like Moses being fed up with the pharaoh and leading the Israelites to freedom across the Red Sea .
The products featured on these Web sites look comfortable—designed with you and your friends in mind , instead of Barbie , Eleanor Roosevelt , or one of the Hadid sisters .
A few of the companies whose founders I talked to saw an uptick in sales starting in April , particularly of wireless bras and other comfortable styles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report from Adobe Analytics showed that bra sales across the industry ( including at brick-and-mortar establishments ) declined by twelve per cent from March to April , supporting anecdotal evidence that many women have used self-quarantine as an opportunity to go braless .
“ My bra probably thinks I died , ” a Twitter user who goes by AJ said .
( Meanwhile , some companies have been turning bras into face masks—perhaps inevitable , since the idea of the N95 mask was partly inspired by the bra . )
Sooner or later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are again allowed to be within six feet of someone other than your six-year-old or your poodle , and , at that time , you might want to wear a bra .
How different are these newfangled garments from the ones we ’ ve been wearing forever ?
Are they more or less groundbreaking than , say , the spinning jenny or hot pants ?
Cora Harrington , the author of “ In Intimate Detail : How to Choose , Wear , and Love Lingerie , ” told me , “ A bra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bra .
Most bras have the same structure : you have cups , you have straps , you have a band.
” True , the bandeau of wool and linen that the ancient Greeks devised to strap themselves into is recognizably bra-like , as is the backless “ brassiere ” patented in 1914 by the twenty-three-year-old American Mary Phelps Jacobs , who ’ d tied two silk handkerchiefs together with a pink ribbon and wore the contrivance to a dance .
( This invention became more popular after 1917 , when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stop wearing corsets so that the metal could be used for ammunition and warships . )
True , too , that innovations such as the bra that texts you to stop eating or corrects your posture did not take off .
“ What I see from a lot of these so-called bra-disrupter brands , ” Harrington said , “ is that they are making the same thing we ’ ve already had , but they have better P.R .
and marketing.
” If you are on Instagram , Facebook , or Twitter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about .
Bra advertisements—touting body positivity , inclusivity , and mind-altering levels of comfort—are inescapable .
What has also changed is the way in which we buy our underwear .
Until the advent of the e-commerce ventures of the past decade , the default retailers were department stores and Victoria ’ s Secret , both of which now seem as viable as Blockbuster Video and buffets .
There you could try on a bunch of sizes and styles , hate them all , and then consult with a saleswoman for reassuring lies about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go to a bra salon , an unappealing ordeal for some , like Patty Volk , a writer .
“ Oh , my God , I hated going to stores for a bra , ” she said .
“ My first bra was a 32 AAA , and the saleswoman came into the room with me while my mother waited outside .
She saw them .
It was traumatic .
But worst was the famous place on Lex , or Third , uptown .
You ’ d have to get undressed and be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dressing room with a shower curtain for a door .
The woman was the owner ’ s daughter , and she stared in a way that was humiliating and chilling.
” Ann Foley , a former TV executive , was similarly non-nostalgic about buying a bra up close and personal .
“ These stores can be intimidating , as only the generally disapproving salespeople are permitted to go into the drawers , and they pull up one option at a time , and I at least feel bad about rejecting their selection , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I also do not like to be yanked into my underwear , and , despite the fact that I happily eat raw fish of similar cost , am not happy to spend big bucks on an item I will forget to handle properly and find tangled around the sheets in the dryer.
” The notion of selecting your bra virtually might seem cockamamie .
Then again , who ’ d have dreamed , years ago , that you ’ d be ordering a pair of eyeglasses online or receiving a diagnosis of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statistic in the undergarment world estimates that eighty per cent of women are wearing the wrong size bra .
The number seems questionable—who ’ s to say what ’ s wrong ?
—and is based on only a few small studies .
Still , I ’ ve never had success the old-fashioned way ( I am in possession of so many bras that don ’ t fit that it might pay to have breast surgery so I can wear them ) , and I ’ ve spent the past three months effectively under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give nine of these online companies a try .
“ You can exchange all day long , ” Colleen Leung , the director of technical design at the brand Adore Me , told me .
“ We give you a voucher code right away so that you can buy more bras to try before even returning the bras that didn ’ t work.
” Back to the CUUP fitting .
“ So , tell me a little bit about what ’ s going on with your bra situation , ” Tania said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ display .
In her mid-thirties , with hair pulled back tight , ballerina style , she was wearing a loose cardigan over a leotard over CUUP ’ s Scoop bra .
Around her neck hung a tape measure , which she ’ d later use to demonstrate how to take measurements of the ribcage and fullest part of the bust .
This was not as embarrassing as talking about sex with your mother , but close .
( Fun distraction : when the fitter discusses whether you should wear a bra with underwire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ F.B.I .
about taping a mike to your chest . )
I confessed to Tania that I hardly ever wear bras because they feel like “ breast prisons , '' as a cast member on the reality series “ Vanderpump Rules ” put it .
Tania suggested that perhaps my bras did not fit .
She explained “ sister sizes , ” a term used in the lingerie industry to refer to bras that hold the same volume of breast tissue but have differently sized bands .
By this system , a smaller @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or less equivalent to a larger band with a smaller cup .
For example , a 34A is the “ sister ” of a 32B , but , depending on your particular anatomy , one might be a better match than the other .
I pictured a waffle cone and a sugar cone with the same amount of ice cream .

How different are these newfangled garments from the ones we’ve been wearing (or not wearing) forever? Photograph by Guy Aroch / Courtesy CUUP
Recently, I have taken my shirt off twice while video chatting. No, I’m not that starved for excitement during quarantine. In both cases, I was being fitted for a bra. “So let’s talk bras and boobies and things like that,” Tania Garcia, my “fit therapist” at CUUP, said. CUUP is one of several e-commerce lingerie startups founded over the past few years. Most of them were established by women, many of whom, according to their companies’ mission statements, had been so frustrated by all the ill-fitting bras in their drawers that they decided to revolutionize the industry. Kind of like Moses being fed up with the pharaoh and leading the Israelites to freedom across the Red Sea.
The products featured on these Web sites look comfortable—designed with you and your friends in mind, instead of Barbie, Eleanor Roosevelt, or one of the Hadid sisters. A few of the companies whose founders I talked to saw an uptick in sales starting in April, particularly of wireless bras and other comfortable styles. On the other hand, a report from Adobe Analytics showed that bra sales across the industry (including at brick-and-mortar establishments) declined by twelve per cent from March to April, supporting anecdotal evidence that many women have used self-quarantine as an opportunity to go braless. “My bra probably thinks I died,” a Twitter user who goes by AJ said. (Meanwhile, some companies have been turning bras into face masks—perhaps inevitable, since the idea of the N95 mask was partly inspired by the bra.)
Sooner or later, the day might come when you are again allowed to be within six feet of someone other than your six-year-old or your poodle, and, at that time, you might want to wear a bra. How different are these newfangled garments from the ones we’ve been wearing forever? Are they more or less groundbreaking than, say, the spinning jenny or hot pants? Cora Harrington, the author of “In Intimate Detail: How to Choose, Wear, and Love Lingerie,” told me, “A bra is a bra is a bra is a bra. Most bras have the same structure: you have cups, you have straps, you have a band.” True, the bandeau of wool and linen that the ancient Greeks devised to strap themselves into is recognizably bra-like, as is the backless “brassiere” patented in 1914 by the twenty-three-year-old American Mary Phelps Jacobs, who’d tied two silk handkerchiefs together with a pink ribbon and wore the contrivance to a dance. (This invention became more popular after 1917, when the United States War Industries Board asked women to stop wearing corsets so that the metal could be used for ammunition and warships.) True, too, that innovations such as the bra that texts you to stop eating or corrects your posture did not take off. “What I see from a lot of these so-called bra-disrupter brands,” Harrington said, “is that they are making the same thing we’ve already had, but they have better P.R. and marketing.” If you are on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, you know what Harrington is talking about. Bra advertisements—touting body positivity, inclusivity, and mind-altering levels of comfort—are inescapable.
What has also changed is the way in which we buy our underwear. Until the advent of the e-commerce ventures of the past decade, the default retailers were department stores and Victoria’s Secret, both of which now seem as viable as Blockbuster Video and buffets. There you could try on a bunch of sizes and styles, hate them all, and then consult with a saleswoman for reassuring lies about how you look. Or you could go to a bra salon, an unappealing ordeal for some, like Patty Volk, a writer. “Oh, my God, I hated going to stores for a bra,” she said. “My first bra was a 32 AAA, and the saleswoman came into the room with me while my mother waited outside. She saw them. It was traumatic. But worst was the famous place on Lex, or Third, uptown. You’d have to get undressed and be touched by a woman in a tiny dressing room with a shower curtain for a door. The woman was the owner’s daughter, and she stared in a way that was humiliating and chilling.” Ann Foley, a former TV executive, was similarly non-nostalgic about buying a bra up close and personal. “These stores can be intimidating, as only the generally disapproving salespeople are permitted to go into the drawers, and they pull up one option at a time, and I at least feel bad about rejecting their selection,” Foley said. She added, “I also do not like to be yanked into my underwear, and, despite the fact that I happily eat raw fish of similar cost, am not happy to spend big bucks on an item I will forget to handle properly and find tangled around the sheets in the dryer.”
The notion of selecting your bra virtually might seem cockamamie. Then again, who’d have dreamed, years ago, that you’d be ordering a pair of eyeglasses online or receiving a diagnosis of eczema through telemedicine? A widely quoted statistic in the undergarment world estimates that eighty per cent of women are wearing the wrong size bra. The number seems questionable—who’s to say what’s wrong?—and is based on only a few small studies. Still, I’ve never had success the old-fashioned way (I am in possession of so many bras that don’t fit that it might pay to have breast surgery so I can wear them), and I’ve spent the past three months effectively under house arrest. So I decided to give nine of these online companies a try. “You can exchange all day long,” Colleen Leung, the director of technical design at the brand Adore Me, told me. “We give you a voucher code right away so that you can buy more bras to try before even returning the bras that didn’t work.”
Back to the CUUP fitting. “So, tell me a little bit about what’s going on with your bra situation,” Tania said, exuding warmth, even on a laptop display. In her mid-thirties, with hair pulled back tight, ballerina style, she was wearing a loose cardigan over a leotard over CUUP’s Scoop bra. Around her neck hung a tape measure, which she’d later use to demonstrate how to take measurements of the ribcage and fullest part of the bust. This was not as embarrassing as talking about sex with your mother, but close. (Fun distraction: when the fitter discusses whether you should wear a bra with underwire, pretend you are talking to the F.B.I. about taping a mike to your chest.) I confessed to Tania that I hardly ever wear bras because they feel like “breast prisons," as a cast member on the reality series “Vanderpump Rules” put it. Tania suggested that perhaps my bras did not fit. She explained “sister sizes,” a term used in the lingerie industry to refer to bras that hold the same volume of breast tissue but have differently sized bands. By this system, a smaller band with a larger cup is more or less equivalent to a larger band with a smaller cup. For example, a 34A is the “sister” of a 32B, but, depending on your particular anatomy, one might be a better match than the other. I pictured a waffle cone and a sugar cone with the same amount of ice cream.
Unaccustomed as I am to wearing bras, I enlisted the help of friends to evaluate the goods (or the bads, as the case may be). Each agreed to test-drive a bra or two. The online-shopping process usually begins with a sizing questionnaire, which asks more questions than you’ve ever been asked about your breasts. It can be daunting. Gena, an artist in Washington, D.C., was assigned to try out True & Company, which claims to have created the first Fit Quiz. The company, which has been called the “Netflix of bras,” was founded in 2012 as a startup, but grew up and got rich in 2017, when it was acquired by the PVH Group. On its Web site, Gena encountered a testimonial reading, “The MOMENT I tried this bra on . . . I cried with relief.” Gena said, “I wanted a bra that would bring me that much joy, but I worried I failed the quiz. . . . I felt like I was filling out all C’s on the SAT multiple choice. There were many questions about my cups: Do they runneth over? Dunno.”


Mask for Mask

Listen , I just want you to know , this is nothing personal .
I ’ m sure you ’ re very nice and all , but I don ’ t think this should go any further .
More specifically , you .
.
.
you shouldn ’ t go any further .
Just stay right there .
Six feet .
Maybe twelve , since you ’ re clearly one to play fast and loose with other people ’ s health .
Don ’ t make that face !
Sure , I wouldn ’ t know what face you were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but we ’ re getting off course here .
When we first started seeing each other , it was so much fun , wasn ’ t it ?
Oh , the laughter , the singing , the shouting .
So much shouting .
You sure do love your shouting—spittle flying every which way but mostly , for some reason , on or near me .
We didn ’ t have a care in the world , did we ?
But things have changed .
I have changed .
I can ’ t even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ covering , and yet you insist on being in and out of doors without so much as a ratty old bandanna tied loosely beneath your nose , where it ’ s not helping anyone—but , hey , at least it ’ s an effort .
No , I totally get what you ’ re saying .
Wearing a mask makes you feel “ bothered.
” There ’ s that face again .
It ’ s uncomfortable , I know .
What ’ s worse than wearing a piece of cloth over your face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infectious and potentially lethal disease ?
I mean , getting sick and potentially dying of it is right up there , but you definitely have a point with that whole personal-freedom thing .
This is America , goshdarnit .
And you have the right , as stated nowhere in the Bill of Rights , to .
.
.
I dunno , not inconvenience yourself .
Come on , I ’ m not trying to shame you .
You ’ re clearly way past that point .
And , really , this isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what did I tell you about that face ?
Lighten up and cover up .
It ’ s about all of us .
You may say that it ’ s your right as an American to object to being told what to do , but it ’ s also the right of everyone else around you to not feel terrified by your cavalier attitude toward a global pandemic .
A Fascist ?
Me ?
Whoa , buddy !
That ’ s a little harsh .
A Socialist , sure .
But Fascism ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ take a closer look at President No-Mask McDo-Nothing if that ’ s the ideological tree you ’ re barking up—but let ’ s not bring him into this .
We were having such a good time !
Oh , just me , then ?
Fair .
Well , in that case , I ’ ll wrap it up .
If you come away from this what-I-thought-was-a-lovely conversation with one point , let it be this : You ’ re great-ish .
You ’ re O.K.
, I guess !
It ’ s just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life , I don ’ t think I can really commit to being around someone who doesn ’ t wear a mask in public to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus .
It ’ s not you , it ’ s .
.
.
well , it is you , but maybe it ’ s also a misguided sense of what personal freedom means in America .
I just hope you find what you ’ re looking for .
I believe it ’ s in aisle three , but they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without— Never mind .
You ’ ll figure it out .

Listen, I just want you to know, this is nothing personal. I’m sure you’re very nice and all, but I don’t think this should go any further. More specifically, you . . . you shouldn’t go any further. Just stay right there. Six feet. Maybe twelve, since you’re clearly one to play fast and loose with other people’s health. Don’t make that face! Sure, I wouldn’t know what face you were making if you followed public-safety guidelines, but we’re getting off course here.
When we first started seeing each other, it was so much fun, wasn’t it? Oh, the laughter, the singing, the shouting. So much shouting. You sure do love your shouting—spittle flying every which way but mostly, for some reason, on or near me. We didn’t have a care in the world, did we? But things have changed. I have changed. I can’t even go to the store without a face covering, and yet you insist on being in and out of doors without so much as a ratty old bandanna tied loosely beneath your nose, where it’s not helping anyone—but, hey, at least it’s an effort.
No, I totally get what you’re saying. Wearing a mask makes you feel “bothered.” There’s that face again. It’s uncomfortable, I know. What’s worse than wearing a piece of cloth over your face to mitigate the spread of a highly infectious and potentially lethal disease? I mean, getting sick and potentially dying of it is right up there, but you definitely have a point with that whole personal-freedom thing. This is America, goshdarnit. And you have the right, as stated nowhere in the Bill of Rights, to . . . I dunno, not inconvenience yourself.
Come on, I’m not trying to shame you. You’re clearly way past that point. And, really, this isn’t even about you. Hey, what did I tell you about that face? Lighten up and cover up. It’s about all of us. You may say that it’s your right as an American to object to being told what to do, but it’s also the right of everyone else around you to not feel terrified by your cavalier attitude toward a global pandemic.
A Fascist? Me? Whoa, buddy! That’s a little harsh. A Socialist, sure. But Fascism? In this climate? Also, maybe take a closer look at President No-Mask McDo-Nothing if that’s the ideological tree you’re barking up—but let’s not bring him into this. We were having such a good time!
Oh, just me, then? Fair. Well, in that case, I’ll wrap it up.
If you come away from this what-I-thought-was-a-lovely conversation with one point, let it be this: You’re great-ish. You’re O.K., I guess! It’s just that, at this moment in my life, I don’t think I can really commit to being around someone who doesn’t wear a mask in public to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. It’s not you, it’s . . . well, it is you, but maybe it’s also a misguided sense of what personal freedom means in America. I just hope you find what you’re looking for.
I believe it’s in aisle three, but they’re not going to let you in without— Never mind. You’ll figure it out.


newyorker--2020-08-01--What to Stream: Alan and Susan Raymond’s Prescient Documentaries of Police, Prison, and Schools

The documentary filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond burst into the history of cinema in their twenties as the camera-and-sound team that shot “ An American Family , ” a groundbreaking documentary produced by Craig Gilbert .
( It was broadcast in 1973 . )
They became epochal producers in their own right soon thereafter , with the seminal 1977 documentary “ The Police Tapes , ” in which they presciently discerned the making of social and political history in the present tense .
It ’ s not in streaming release , but DVDs are available from the Raymonds ’ own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other films ( such as “ Bad Boys , ” “ Doing Time , ” and “ I Am a Promise ” ) pursue themes suggested in “ The Police Tapes ” ; two recent ones , “ Toe Tag Parole ” ( 2015 ) and “ Hard Times at Douglass High : A No Child Left Behind Report Card ” ( 2008 ) , which are streaming on Amazon , follow both the social through line and the creative methods that “ The Police Tapes ” established .
For “ The Police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to embed—just the two of them , no crew—with police officers in the Forty-fourth Precinct , in the South Bronx , an area that had , at the time , the city ’ s highest crime rate .
The Raymonds filmed over the course of three months , in 1976 , using a relatively new device , a lightweight video camera—tweaked for night filming with no additional lighting—that was connected by cable to a portable black-and-white videotape deck .
( Alan is the cinematographer ; Susan , the sound recordist , also schlepped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much of the film in the back seat of police cars as officers make their nocturnal rounds of the neighborhood , and they embed with officers as they respond to calls that range from relatively minor domestic conflicts ( an elderly woman denting her neighbor ’ s door with an iron ) to homicide scenes and the arrest of a man suspected of rape .
The constant presence of the Raymonds ( who , like almost all of the precinct ’ s officers , are white ) appears not only tolerated but welcome—the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thoughts and feelings about their work , and they do so uninhibitedly , especially in the isolation of their vehicles .
One pair of officers on patrol speak sensitively about the emotional demands of the job , one of them recognizing that the high-stress work in a high-crime area can “ get to ” officers in five to seven years and make them too quick to act violently .
His partner adds , “ They should bring you to a shrink every five years.
” ( These two officers , interacting with gang @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the gang members gather unreservedly around them and talk frankly about those conflicts—while also clowning around for the Raymonds ’ camera . )
Another pair of officers speak callously of their work—one officer refers to the “ animals ” that they ’ re defending society from , and his partner speaks of his readiness to use violence because “ as sad as it may seem , there ’ s people out here who need their ass kicked to haul ’ em back into line.
” The central figure of the film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ borough commander , who , in a pair of interview clips running about ten minutes in all , sets out his philosophy of policing , which is also a radical philosophy of society .
Officers , he says , face a contradiction between their sincere desire to be helpful and the resentment that they face from the communities they ’ re supposed to serve—and the cynicism and callousness that result .
Then Bouza offers a mighty disquisition on poverty and ghettoization that should be inscribed on the walls of every station house in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education and high unemployment in the ghetto for producing violence , and adds that “ rage and frustration have created an emotional gorge that people are permanently endowed with in the ghetto .
.
.
the heat , the misery , the lack of rest , the whole miserable condition of poverty—and Aristotle did say twenty-five hundred years ago that poverty is the parent of revolution and crime ; it is still true.
” He says that the United States both hides and ignores the poor in order to avoid remedying poverty , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if his own work is an inherent failure : “ To the degree that I succeed in keeping it cool , in keeping the ghetto cool .
.
.
am I deflecting America ’ s attention from discovering this cancer ?
” He adds that he considers himself to be nearly “ the commander of an army of occupation in the ghetto.
” Bouza ’ s comments have more than a theoretical resonance with our current moment : in 1980 , he was named chief of police in Minneapolis , to reform a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brutality ; he was forced out in 1989 , largely owing to pushback from the police union .
In “ Hard Times at Douglass High , ” the Raymonds revisit the struggles of a poor and isolated neighborhood from the perspective of education .
It was filmed over the course of the 2004-05 school year in Baltimore ’ s Frederick Douglass High School , which appears to have had only Black students—and mainly ones who ( as Susan says in her voice-over commentary ) didn ’ t display the academic ability to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ghetto .
The stresses of poverty , including the prevalence of gang-related violence , are a distraction for many students .
The school itself has a skilled and dedicated staff ( starting with its principal , Isabelle Grant , herself a 1963 Douglass graduate ) , but it is , nevertheless , at the time of filming , the target of criticism .
That ’ s because of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law , which has a conspicuous and negative effect on the school ’ s educational efforts and on its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which imposed strict numerical standards for student success—and the power to replace administrators and even break up schools if they failed to meet those standards—ostensibly aimed to improve education for students nationwide .
But “ Hard Times ” shows that , in practice , the law was merely shunting the blame for educational problems toward individual administrators and teachers and away from the systemic failures that led some schools , and their students , to be neglected .
Most students arrive at Douglass without having reached ninth-grade levels in math or reading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lag behind .
Douglass ’ s large class sizes make it impossible for teachers to work closely and frequently with students ; shortages of teachers throughout Baltimore leave many classes staffed by uncertified substitutes ; shortages of textbooks leave students unable to study at home ; underfunding leaves counselling and advising departments at pro-forma levels .
And , of course , the community at large is both policed and ignored rather than developed .
The Raymonds are modern documentary filmmakers in the classical sense .
Their immersive practice follows that of Robert Drew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Primary , ” “ The Chair , ” and “ Crisis ” : they aren ’ t detached observers of the filmed action but are a part of it , eliciting the participants ’ interactions through immersive engagement .
“ Hard Times at Douglass High ” is a movie of self-aware self-presentations , in which the filmmakers ’ presence both sparks frank discussions with staff and students and influences some students ’ playful winks and even others ’ rebellious acting-out for the camera .
Yet the Raymonds are not dogmatic or purist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much-needed historical background and societal context , on the soundtrack , through the commentary that Susan both wrote and delivers .
The film focusses on the individual stories of students who succeed or don ’ t , of teachers who achieve good results or don ’ t ( and even one who quits midyear ) , but the film ’ s scope is national and its critique is systemic .

The documentary filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond burst into the history of cinema in their twenties as the camera-and-sound team that shot “An American Family,” a groundbreaking documentary produced by Craig Gilbert. (It was broadcast in 1973.) They became epochal producers in their own right soon thereafter, with the seminal 1977 documentary “The Police Tapes,” in which they presciently discerned the making of social and political history in the present tense. It’s not in streaming release, but DVDs are available from the Raymonds’ own Web site. Most of their many other films (such as “Bad Boys,” “Doing Time,” and “I Am a Promise”) pursue themes suggested in “The Police Tapes”; two recent ones, “Toe Tag Parole” (2015) and “Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card” (2008), which are streaming on Amazon, follow both the social through line and the creative methods that “The Police Tapes” established.
For “The Police Tapes,” the Raymonds received permission to embed—just the two of them, no crew—with police officers in the Forty-fourth Precinct, in the South Bronx, an area that had, at the time, the city’s highest crime rate. The Raymonds filmed over the course of three months, in 1976, using a relatively new device, a lightweight video camera—tweaked for night filming with no additional lighting—that was connected by cable to a portable black-and-white videotape deck. (Alan is the cinematographer; Susan, the sound recordist, also schlepped the deck.) The Raymonds spend much of the film in the back seat of police cars as officers make their nocturnal rounds of the neighborhood, and they embed with officers as they respond to calls that range from relatively minor domestic conflicts (an elderly woman denting her neighbor’s door with an iron) to homicide scenes and the arrest of a man suspected of rape.
The constant presence of the Raymonds (who, like almost all of the precinct’s officers, are white) appears not only tolerated but welcome—the officers take the chance to express their thoughts and feelings about their work, and they do so uninhibitedly, especially in the isolation of their vehicles. One pair of officers on patrol speak sensitively about the emotional demands of the job, one of them recognizing that the high-stress work in a high-crime area can “get to” officers in five to seven years and make them too quick to act violently. His partner adds, “They should bring you to a shrink every five years.” (These two officers, interacting with gang members, try to defuse conflict calmly, and the gang members gather unreservedly around them and talk frankly about those conflicts—while also clowning around for the Raymonds’ camera.) Another pair of officers speak callously of their work—one officer refers to the “animals” that they’re defending society from, and his partner speaks of his readiness to use violence because “as sad as it may seem, there’s people out here who need their ass kicked to haul ’em back into line.”
The central figure of the film is Chief Tony Bouza, the Bronx borough commander, who, in a pair of interview clips running about ten minutes in all, sets out his philosophy of policing, which is also a radical philosophy of society. Officers, he says, face a contradiction between their sincere desire to be helpful and the resentment that they face from the communities they’re supposed to serve—and the cynicism and callousness that result. Then Bouza offers a mighty disquisition on poverty and ghettoization that should be inscribed on the walls of every station house in the country. He blames failures of education and high unemployment in the ghetto for producing violence, and adds that “rage and frustration have created an emotional gorge that people are permanently endowed with in the ghetto . . . the heat, the misery, the lack of rest, the whole miserable condition of poverty—and Aristotle did say twenty-five hundred years ago that poverty is the parent of revolution and crime; it is still true.” He says that the United States both hides and ignores the poor in order to avoid remedying poverty, and as a result he feels as if his own work is an inherent failure: “To the degree that I succeed in keeping it cool, in keeping the ghetto cool . . . am I deflecting America’s attention from discovering this cancer?” He adds that he considers himself to be nearly “the commander of an army of occupation in the ghetto.” Bouza’s comments have more than a theoretical resonance with our current moment: in 1980, he was named chief of police in Minneapolis, to reform a department with a culture of racism and brutality; he was forced out in 1989, largely owing to pushback from the police union.
In “Hard Times at Douglass High,” the Raymonds revisit the struggles of a poor and isolated neighborhood from the perspective of education. It was filmed over the course of the 2004-05 school year in Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School, which appears to have had only Black students—and mainly ones who (as Susan says in her voice-over commentary) didn’t display the academic ability to get placed in other city schools outside the ghetto. The stresses of poverty, including the prevalence of gang-related violence, are a distraction for many students. The school itself has a skilled and dedicated staff (starting with its principal, Isabelle Grant, herself a 1963 Douglass graduate), but it is, nevertheless, at the time of filming, the target of criticism.
That’s because of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, which has a conspicuous and negative effect on the school’s educational efforts and on its staff’s morale. That bill, which imposed strict numerical standards for student success—and the power to replace administrators and even break up schools if they failed to meet those standards—ostensibly aimed to improve education for students nationwide. But “Hard Times” shows that, in practice, the law was merely shunting the blame for educational problems toward individual administrators and teachers and away from the systemic failures that led some schools, and their students, to be neglected. Most students arrive at Douglass without having reached ninth-grade levels in math or reading, yet Douglass is blamed when they lag behind. Douglass’s large class sizes make it impossible for teachers to work closely and frequently with students; shortages of teachers throughout Baltimore leave many classes staffed by uncertified substitutes; shortages of textbooks leave students unable to study at home; underfunding leaves counselling and advising departments at pro-forma levels. And, of course, the community at large is both policed and ignored rather than developed.
The Raymonds are modern documentary filmmakers in the classical sense. Their immersive practice follows that of Robert Drew in his direct-cinema masterworks, such as “Primary,” “The Chair,” and “Crisis”: they aren’t detached observers of the filmed action but are a part of it, eliciting the participants’ interactions through immersive engagement. “Hard Times at Douglass High” is a movie of self-aware self-presentations, in which the filmmakers’ presence both sparks frank discussions with staff and students and influences some students’ playful winks and even others’ rebellious acting-out for the camera. Yet the Raymonds are not dogmatic or purist about their approach: they also provide much-needed historical background and societal context, on the soundtrack, through the commentary that Susan both wrote and delivers. The film focusses on the individual stories of students who succeed or don’t, of teachers who achieve good results or don’t (and even one who quits midyear), but the film’s scope is national and its critique is systemic.
In “Toe Tag Parole,” the filmmakers immerse themselves in another part of the repressive system that Bouza identified in “The Police Tapes,” the carceral one—a maximum-security California prison that houses men sentenced to “life without the possibility of parole,” which, as the Raymonds acknowledge in an opening title card, is “the alternative death penalty,” a death sentence without execution. The men’s section of the prison is the Progressive Programming Facility, or so-called honor yard, to which they’ve been transferred for good behavior. The facility’s chief officer explains the program’s rationale as a feedback loop: offering these prisoners the chance of improved conditions creates the conditions for their behavior to improve—and these orderly and peaceful prisoners therefore pose no threat to the corrections officers under the chief’s command. (The same cannot be said of the prison population at large.) The idea for the yard, a title card specifies, came from an unnamed inmate, in 2000, who asked the warden for a space that “would break the code of violence that dominates prison life.” Whereas prison life, officials and prisoners alike say, tends to be dominated by “politics”—the gang-like enforcement of racial identification and segregation—a key aspect of the honor yard, and one of its prime rules, is integration, which is the basis for the wide variety of activities that these prisoners take part in together.


newyorker--2020-07-31--The Chaotic Design of Trump’s Mail-In Voting Rants

On Thursday , when Donald Trump casually suggested on Twitter that the November election be delayed because “ Universal Mail-In Voting ” would make it “ the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history , ” he was either setting the stage to contest the outcome or to explain away his impending defeat , or both .
As the President should know by now , in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic is dangerous , especially for older Americans and those with underlying health conditions .
Yet he and his chorus of enablers have made a habit of trash-talking voting by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it promotes fraud .
It ’ s no accident that Trump ’ s tweet specifically assailed “ Universal Mail-In Voting , ” since the word “ universal ” is triggering for anyone who is afraid of the will of the people .
So far , only five states have nearly universal mail-in balloting .
For most of them , it took years of legislative wrangling before it was adopted , and years of preparation before it was deployed .
Additionally , thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have no-excuse absentee balloting ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballot for any reason ) .
And every state has the infrastructure to enable military and overseas voters to cast ballots from afar .
( Inexplicably , according to Thursday ’ s tweet , Trump believes that absentee ballots are good and mail-in ballots are bad , even though they are the same thing . )
All told , nearly eighty per cent of the electorate would be able to vote by mail in November .
Past primaries have offered a preview of the problems that can arise when significant numbers of voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the issue isn ’ t voter fraud . )
Take California , a blue state , where over four million people voted by mail in February of 2008 .
The deluge was so great that election officials were still counting ballots weeks after the election .
( One unexpected wrinkle : they had to iron thousands of ballots that had gotten crumpled in the mail , before they could feed them into the tabulator . )
In New Jersey , another blue state , some voters found their ballots returned to them ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Postal Service scanned the wrong addresses ; other citizens received hastily assembled ballots with the wrong slate of candidates .
In New York City , where more than four hundred thousand ballots were cast by mail in the June primary , election officials do not expect to have a final vote tally for some jurisdictions until August .
A hundred thousand have already been invalidated , some because they arrived too late , others because they weren ’ t signed or had a signature that didn ’ t match the signature on file @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , non-malicious , ways that voters may find themselves disenfranchised .
When there is an exponential increase in the number of absentee ballots , many of which will be cast by people likely to make mistakes because they ’ re unfamiliar with the process , the number of rejections will rise , too .
So will the number of lawsuits challenging the results .
But voting by mail can also be used as a tool for voter suppression .
In 2016 , for example , mailed ballots cast by Black and Latinos in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half times as often as those cast by white voters .
In states with intentionally restrictive “ exact match ” voter-registration requirements , signature rejections are an easy way to cull legitimate voters .
A deluge of absentee-ballot requests may , paradoxically , put pressure on traditional polling places .
In Georgia—not yet a blue state—officials were unable to process the backlog of absentee-ballot requests in time for the primary in June .
As a consequence , many voters ended up voting in person , but the number of available sites was diminished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state-sanctioned voter suppression .
( Sixteen thousand voters were assigned to a single polling location in Atlanta . )
Even in the best of circumstances , voting by mail requires a functional postal service .
Trump ’ s effort to defund and decimate the U.S .
Postal Service is a blunt instrument of disenfranchisement .
Can it simply be a coincidence that the President replaced a Postmaster General committed to facilitating voting by mail with a crony named Louis DeJoy who , according to a recent report in the Washington Post , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As my colleague Steve Coll wrote this week , in states like Michigan , Arizona , and Pennsylvania , where ballots that are not received by Election Day are automatically tossed out , the directive could be especially crushing .
The quick pivot to voting by mail will be expensive , and it ’ s not clear where that money will come from .
One estimate by the Brennan Center for Justice puts the price tag at upward of a billion dollars for postage , printing , drop boxes , processing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The most recent coronavirus stimulus package proposed by Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans allocates zero dollars to shoring up the November election .
In contrast , a House bill would send nearly four billion dollars to the states , not only to assist with absentee balloting but to insure the safety of polling places , poll workers , and voters .
Unfortunately , it is aspirational .
A number of nonprofits are attempting to step into the breach .
An alliance of youth-empowerment organizations , election-protection groups , and corporations have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in order to train and dispatch a new generation of poll workers .
Other groups have been mounting campaigns to help people negotiate the sometimes complicated process of getting an absentee ballot , a procedure that has been exacerbated by the pandemic , which has seen many county clerks ’ offices closed .
One organization has been perfecting a way to insure that ballot signatures and voter-registration signatures match .
Still , without a significant infusion of money , most jurisdictions will be left to shoulder the burdens of running elections on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is by design .
Even before Thursday ’ s tweet , Trump was threatening to cut off funding for states that expanded absentee voting .
Yet even the Republican leadership , which has spent the past three and a half years making sure that the states will not have sufficient funds to secure our elections , found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to face Trump ’ s suggestion to delay the election .
Their responses , though , could not be matched by this simple rebuke levelled by the seventeen-term Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July 17th .
“ Voting and participating in the democratic process are key , ” he wrote in a valedictory essay , which was published on Thursday and timed to coincide with his funeral .
“ The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society .
You must use it because it is not guaranteed .
You can lose it .
”

On Thursday, when Donald Trump casually suggested on Twitter that the November election be delayed because “Universal Mail-In Voting” would make it “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he was either setting the stage to contest the outcome or to explain away his impending defeat, or both. As the President should know by now, in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic is dangerous, especially for older Americans and those with underlying health conditions. Yet he and his chorus of enablers have made a habit of trash-talking voting by mail, claiming, erroneously, that it promotes fraud. It’s no accident that Trump’s tweet specifically assailed “Universal Mail-In Voting,” since the word “universal” is triggering for anyone who is afraid of the will of the people.
So far, only five states have nearly universal mail-in balloting. For most of them, it took years of legislative wrangling before it was adopted, and years of preparation before it was deployed. Additionally, thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have no-excuse absentee balloting (meaning that anyone can request an absentee ballot for any reason). And every state has the infrastructure to enable military and overseas voters to cast ballots from afar. (Inexplicably, according to Thursday’s tweet, Trump believes that absentee ballots are good and mail-in ballots are bad, even though they are the same thing.) All told, nearly eighty per cent of the electorate would be able to vote by mail in November.
Past primaries have offered a preview of the problems that can arise when significant numbers of voters choose this option. (Hint: the issue isn’t voter fraud.) Take California, a blue state, where more than four million people voted by mail in February of 2008. The deluge was so great that election officials were still counting ballots weeks after the election. (One unexpected wrinkle: they had to iron thousands of ballots that had got crumpled in the mail before they could feed them into the tabulator.) In New Jersey, another blue state, some voters found their ballots returned to them (and thus not counted) because the Postal Service scanned the wrong addresses; other citizens received hastily assembled ballots with the wrong slate of candidates. In New York City, where more than four hundred thousand ballots were cast by mail in the June primary, election officials do not expect to have a final vote tally for some jurisdictions until August. A hundred thousand have already been invalidated, some because they arrived too late, others because they weren’t signed or had a signature that didn’t match the signature on file.
These are some of the typical, non-malicious ways that voters may find themselves disenfranchised. When there is an exponential increase in the number of absentee ballots, many of which will be cast by people likely to make mistakes because they’re unfamiliar with the process, the number of rejections will rise, too. So will the number of lawsuits challenging the results.
But voting by mail can also be used as a tool for voter suppression. In 2016, for example, mailed ballots cast by Blacks and Latinos in Florida were rejected more than two and half times as often as those cast by white voters. In states with intentionally restrictive “exact match” voter-registration requirements, signature rejections are an easy way to cull legitimate voters.
A deluge of absentee-ballot requests may, paradoxically, put pressure on traditional polling places. In Georgia—not yet a blue state—officials were unable to process the backlog of absentee-ballot requests in time for the primary in June. As a consequence, many voters ended up voting in person, but the number of available sites was diminished, due to both the virus and state-sanctioned voter suppression. (Sixteen thousand voters were assigned to a single polling location in Atlanta.)
Even in the best of circumstances, voting by mail requires a functional postal service. Trump’s effort to defund and decimate the U.S. Postal Service is a blunt instrument of disenfranchisement. Can it simply be a coincidence that the President replaced a Postmaster General committed to facilitating voting by mail with a crony named Louis DeJoy who, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, has instructed postal carriers to slow down deliveries? As my colleague Steve Coll wrote this week, in states like Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, where ballots that are not received by Election Day are automatically tossed out, the directive could be especially crushing.
The quick pivot to voting by mail will be expensive, and it’s not clear where that money will come from. One estimate by the Brennan Center for Justice puts the price tag at upward of a billion dollars for postage, printing, drop boxes, processing, ballot tracking, and other security measures. The most recent coronavirus stimulus package proposed by Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans allocates zero dollars to shoring up the November election. In contrast, a House bill would send nearly four billion dollars to the states, not only to assist with absentee balloting but to insure the safety of polling places, poll workers, and voters. Unfortunately, it is aspirational.
A number of nonprofits are attempting to step into the breach. An alliance of youth-empowerment organizations, election-protection groups, and corporations have come together to create Power the Polls, in order to train and dispatch a new generation of poll workers. Other groups have been mounting campaigns to help people negotiate the sometimes complicated process of getting an absentee ballot, a procedure that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has seen many county clerks’ offices closed. One organization has been perfecting a way to insure that ballot signatures and voter-registration signatures match. Still, without a significant infusion of money, most jurisdictions will be left to shoulder the burdens of running elections on their own during the pandemic.
This is by design. Even before Thursday’s tweet, Trump was threatening to cut off funding for states that expanded absentee voting. Yet even the Republican leadership, which has spent the past three and a half years making sure that the states will not have sufficient funds to secure our elections, found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to face Trump’s suggestion to delay the election. Their responses, though, could not be matched by this simple rebuke levelled by the seventeen-term Democratic congressman John Lewis, who died on July 17th. “Voting and participating in the democratic process are key,” he wrote in a valedictory essay, which was published on Thursday and timed to coincide with his funeral. “The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.”


newyorker--2020-07-31--The Power of Police Unions

The Power of Police Unions

The recent repeal of Section 50-A of the New York State Civil Rights Law was no technical change .
Passed in the wake of the George Floyd protests , it was a big victory for police-reform activists .
Section 50-A shielded the disciplinary records of police officers , meaning that , in an officer-involved killing , for example , nobody—not journalists , lawyers , nor the victim ’ s family—could determine if an officer had a history of disciplinary incidents .
The New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan examines how 50-A came to be a hot-button issue , and how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the demands of the public and the police .
David Remnick interviews Mayor Lori Lightfoot , of Chicago , about the federal agents sent to her city , and how she ’ s tackling the issue of police reform .
Plus , Jeffrey Toobin discusses his newest book , “ True Crimes and Misdemeanors , ” which examines the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump .
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Federal Forces in Chicago President Trump is deploying two hundred federal agents to help Chicago fight crime .
Mayor Lori @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the situation .
William Finnegan on what the repeal of an arcane law reveals about the conflict among police , protesters , and politicians .
The lawyer and New Yorker staff writer discusses his new book , which examines the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump .

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
The recent repeal of Section 50-A of the New York State Civil Rights Law was no technical change. Passed in the wake of the George Floyd protests, it was a big victory for police-reform activists. Section 50-A shielded the disciplinary records of police officers, meaning that, in an officer-involved killing, for example, nobody—not journalists, lawyers, nor the victim’s family—could determine if an officer had a history of disciplinary incidents. The New Yorker staff writer William Finnegan examines how 50-A came to be a hot-button issue, and how Mayor Bill de Blasio has responded to the demands of the public and the police. David Remnick interviews Mayor Lori Lightfoot, of Chicago, about the federal agents sent to her city, and how she’s tackling the issue of police reform. Plus, Jeffrey Toobin discusses his newest book, “True Crimes and Misdemeanors,” which examines the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Federal Forces in Chicago
President Trump is deploying two hundred federal agents to help Chicago fight crime. Mayor Lori Lightfoot gives David Remnick her take on the situation.
The Power of Police Unions
William Finnegan on what the repeal of an arcane law reveals about the conflict among police, protesters, and politicians.
Jeffrey Toobin Explores Donald Trump’s “True Crimes and Misdemeanors”
The lawyer and New Yorker staff writer discusses his new book, which examines the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump.


newyorker--2020-07-31--The Dreamlike Experience of “The Song Is You”

Not so long ago , Uzoamaka Maduka was known in New York as a young editor who did what young editors have done for generations : she and some friends brought to life a literary magazine .
It was called The American Reader .
It lasted for a few years , and then she was gone , off to Los Angeles to write for the movies .
Before the pandemic , she and Alexandra Butler , a poet , novelist , and social worker , wrote a brief , enigmatic script about class , art , and stalking , called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Andrea Longacre-White , the film is thirteen minutes long .
It has the quality of a hyper-vivid dream .
Maduka says that as she and her collaborators were working on the film they were thinking about , among other things , Kafka ’ s parables , aiming to create , as she put it , “ a simple absurdity in service of a complicated thought or investigation.
” Maduka plays Adriana , a young artist who sets up camp in the back yard of a less young and far more prosperous married @ @ @ @ @ @ @ played by Butler , and Michel , played by Hans-Peter Thomas .
At night , Adriana watches through the window as the couple hosts a cocktail party ; they sip wine , they work the room , they trade quips .
She watches them the next morning , too , as they do their languid stretching and check their phones .
Inevitably , Michel spots the young woman in his yard and approaches her .
After some stumbling excuses , she begins to answer the question that viewers will also be asking : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she saw the couple give a talk and had a question , but there had been no Q .
& A. period .
But Adriana ’ s admiration has quickly bypassed mere curiosity : “ Your life is just so beautiful , ” she tells Michel .
She is taken with their enviable lives .
And not just the professional success and artistic existence .
It ’ s the other stuff : “ All the cocktails !
Salads and walnuts !
Rachel Maddow !
” Michel quietly asks her to go , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the one obsessed .
The reversal , half-creepy , half-comic , comes soon .
And then the dream ends .
I watched the film a couple of times late at night recently , finding it at once charming , unnerving , and politically sharp .
I know Maduka only slightly—we ’ ve met just a few times—and I e-mailed her recently to ask how she thought her old New York life connected with her new work in Los Angeles .
“ Acting and editing seem somehow linked to me .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find the truth in something , trying to bring it out , ” she wrote .
The film ’ s politics are subtly unsettling ; the images stay with you .
“ I hold on to the foolish idea that all this listening and telling is what , eventually , changes the world .
I guess the operative question is just how do we tell and how do we listen ?
A magazine is one ( phenomenal ) way of story-telling and truth-seeking and listening .
A movie is another really wonderful way @ @

Not so long ago, Uzoamaka Maduka was known in New York as a young editor who did what young editors have done for generations: she and some friends brought to life a literary magazine. It was called The American Reader. It lasted for a few years, and then she was gone, off to Los Angeles to write for the movies. Before the pandemic, she and Alexandra Butler, a poet, novelist, and social worker, wrote a brief, enigmatic script about class, art, and stalking, called “The Song Is You.” Directed by Andrea Longacre-White, the film is thirteen minutes long. It has the quality of a hyper-vivid dream. Maduka says that as she and her collaborators were working on the film they were thinking about, among other things, Kafka’s parables, aiming to create, as she put it, “a simple absurdity in service of a complicated thought or investigation.”
Maduka plays Adriana, a young artist who sets up camp in the back yard of a less young and far more prosperous married couple—a decidedly arty and self-regarding couple—Cosi, played by Butler, and Michel, played by Hans-Peter Thomas. At night, Adriana watches through the window as the couple hosts a cocktail party; they sip wine, they work the room, they trade quips. She watches them the next morning, too, as they do their languid stretching and check their phones. Inevitably, Michel spots the young woman in his yard and approaches her.
After some stumbling excuses, she begins to answer the question that viewers will also be asking: Why is she there? She explains that she saw the couple give a talk and had a question, but there had been no Q. & A. period. But Adriana’s admiration has quickly bypassed mere curiosity: “Your life is just so beautiful,” she tells Michel. She is taken with their enviable lives. And not just the professional success and artistic existence. It’s the other stuff: “All the cocktails! Salads and walnuts! Rachel Maddow!”
Michel quietly asks her to go, and she does. But now he is the one obsessed. The reversal, half-creepy, half-comic, comes soon. And then the dream ends.
I watched the film a couple of times late at night recently, finding it at once charming, unnerving, and politically sharp. I know Maduka only slightly—we’ve met just a few times—and I e-mailed her recently to ask how she thought her old New York life connected with her new work in Los Angeles. “Acting and editing seem somehow linked to me. It’s the same operation, trying to find the truth in something, trying to bring it out,” she wrote. The film’s politics are subtly unsettling; the images stay with you. “I hold on to the foolish idea that all this listening and telling is what, eventually, changes the world. I guess the operative question is just how do we tell and how do we listen? A magazine is one (phenomenal) way of story-telling and truth-seeking and listening. A movie is another really wonderful way.”


newyorker--2020-07-31--Fauci Would Have Thought Twice About Career in Medicine Had He Known It Meant Someday Talking to Jim

Fauci Would Have Thought Twice About Career in Medicine Had He Known It Meant Someday Talking to Jim Jordan

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Dr .
Anthony Fauci said on Friday that he would have “ thought twice ” about pursuing a career in medicine had he known that it would lead to his talking someday to Representative Jim Jordan .
Speaking to reporters after his congressional testimony , Fauci said that , during his appearance in the hearing room , he had been revisiting the series of life choices that had resulted in his being forced to hear Jordan speak .
“ I could have done so many other things with my life , ” the esteemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been a firefighter .
I was actually a pretty good dancer back in the day .
I could have given that a shot.
” Reflecting on those roads not taken , Fauci added , “ Had I chosen any of those fields , you can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn ’ t have spent today having to listen to Jim Jordan .
Those are minutes I ’ ll never get back.
” Fauci clarified that he was “ very grateful ” for his career as an an epidemiologist but added , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If I were a professional dancer , there ’ s about a zero-per-cent chance I would ever be in the same room as Jim Jordan .
Oh , well—it is what it is .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday that he would have “thought twice” about pursuing a career in medicine had he known that it would lead to his talking someday to Representative Jim Jordan.
Speaking to reporters after his congressional testimony, Fauci said that, during his appearance in the hearing room, he had been revisiting the series of life choices that had resulted in his being forced to hear Jordan speak.
“I could have done so many other things with my life,” the esteemed virologist said. “I could have been a firefighter. I was actually a pretty good dancer back in the day. I could have given that a shot.”
Reflecting on those roads not taken, Fauci added, “Had I chosen any of those fields, you can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t have spent today having to listen to Jim Jordan. Those are minutes I’ll never get back.”
Fauci clarified that he was “very grateful” for his career as an an epidemiologist but added, “Let’s not kid ourselves. If I were a professional dancer, there’s about a zero-per-cent chance I would ever be in the same room as Jim Jordan. Oh, well—it is what it is.”


newyorker--2020-07-31--The Democrats Need a Plan to Fight Corruption—the Usual Kind as Well as the Trump Kind

It ’ s been a year of stunning developments .
Here ’ s another one to contemplate : suppose the Democrats took a stand against the power of organized money .
Picture Joe Biden and his party getting behind a set of serious clean-government reforms .
Imagine a code of behavior tough enough not just to serve as a resounding statement of disgust with the corporate handouts and self-and-crony enrichment of the Trump Administration but to signal a revolt against the routinized , lower-level corruption that was the norm in Washington before Donald Trump and his crew arrived .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easy .
Thanks to a wave of disasters on the Republicans ’ watch , they can be their usual selves and , to judge from the latest polls , be back in control of the White House and Congress in January .
But then comes the job of dealing with the profound problems brought into focus by the events of this momentous year .
At that point , their usual selves will no longer do .
The coronavirus pandemic and its toll of physical and economic suffering ; the flimsiness of our health-care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color ; America ’ s accumulated debt to the victims of slavery and race-based oppression ; the unconscionable maldistribution of wealth ; the rapid heating of the air and the seas—none of these troubles will disappear along with Donald Trump , or with the Republican majority in the Senate .
One after another , they call for a boldness of thought and action that is hard to imagine from the Democratic Party that we have come to know in recent decades .
The stories of the two most recent Democratic Administrations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama brought exceptional intelligence and political talent to the Presidency .
Within the first two years of their eight-year tenures , however , the gulf between aspiration and achievement was wide , and cynicism was resurgent , fuelling electoral reversals and a pile-on of disappointment .
Although both men left office with strong approval ratings , they were ultimately unable to translate their personal popularity into a surge of respect for either the Democratic Party or for the role of government as a tool for the common good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peculiarities of the Electoral College , led to successor Administrations bent on trashing much of the good work that the Democrats had managed to do .
A Biden Administration , facing a more daunting set of problems , could easily fall into the same trap .
Biden has not made light of the job that awaits .
In statements from semi-lockdown , he has spoken of the need for “ transformative ” change and announced the creation of task forces to craft suitably ambitious proposals on the environment , health care , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Biden ’ s words would carry more weight if he expressed a similar determination to challenge the system of big-money donors , revolving-door appointments , and back-channel influence that has shaped the Democratic Party ’ s decision-making in recent decades .
Transformative policies are not likely to emerge from an untransformed process .
The Democrats ’ first assignment , of course , is to win the election .
That means doing all that they can to frame the 2020 contest as a referendum on Donald Trump ’ s unfitness for office—and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out his Administration ’ s miserable handling of the coronavirus pandemic .
A strong anti-corruption message could help there , too .
Biden and his fellow-Democrats have taken plenty of well-aimed shots at the callousness , deception , and pure incompetence of Trump ’ s response to the pandemic .
They have not said nearly enough about the honest professionals ( such as Rick Bright , the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority ) whose warnings were ignored or squelched by corporate-friendly superiors ( such as , in Bright @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the former Big Pharma lobbyist running the Department of Health and Human Services ) .
The Democrats have also been strangely inattentive to the many reported cases of banks , private-equity firms , hedge funds , and connected , cash-rich companies ( including Wall Street-owned hospital and hotel chains ) making off with large sums of pandemic-relief money .
That kind of corruption has a history of getting voters riled up .
In the months leading up to the midterm elections of 2018 , Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen appeared in court , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Trump appointees and intimates caught in career-ending , money-grubbing scandals .
Thirty Republican House members lost their seats that year , many of them to Democratic challengers who had campaigned as political outsiders rejecting corporate PAC money .
Nancy Pelosi , restored to the post of Speaker of the House by that election , cited anti-corruption outrage as a major driver of the outcome .
After the new House convened , in 2019 , its first ceremonial act was to pass an unexpectedly substantial democracy-reform bill .
Its provisions included nonpartisan redistricting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new lobbying rules .
“ It is fundamental to a democracy that people believe that actions taken here will be in their interest , ” Pelosi said on that occasion .
“ That is what this legislation will help to restore.
” Then came the impeachment hearings .
Like the Mueller inquiry , the drive for impeachment diverted the Democrats ’ outrage into a plotline that turned out to be too complicated—and too distant from most Americans ’ lives and concerns—to gain wide traction .
The failure of impeachment left Democrats with both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sense of futility about getting through to Trump-base voters or Trump-toadying Republican senators .
In the frenzy of new issues and opportunities that have come at the Democrats since Trump ’ s acquittal , they have dropped the ball on corruption .
But there is time for them to pick it up .
By embracing a strong anti-corruption program and making it a campaign theme , Biden and his party ’ s congressional candidates can place a spotlight back on the Trump Administration ’ s breathtaking record of quasi-bribery , quasi-extortion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fresh media and public attention , for example , to the under-probed scandal of Betsy DeVos ’ s Department of Education .
Filled with former executives of for-profit college companies , it has catered to the interests of some of the shadier operators of that world , while failing to follow through on a congressionally mandated program of student-loan forgiveness for people in public-service jobs .
That ’ s the kind of betrayal of duty that voters can relate to , especially if they know or are one of the tens of thousands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and other public servants who have been unable to discharge their student debts .
DeVos is just one Cabinet member whose deeds have sometimes flown under the Trump-fixated media ’ s radar .
The Democrats could be reminding voters about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his role in negotiating a deal to export natural gas to China while he still held a stake in a company that owns the world ’ s largest fleet of natural-gas-carrying ships , and about the Commerce Department ’ s ethics officer who was promoted after approving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ airing are the favors dispensed to friends and former associates by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin , Interior Secretary David Bernhardt , and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator , Andrew Wheeler , and the web of conflicts involving Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao , her family ’ s shipping business , and the reëlection campaign of her husband , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell .

It’s been a year of stunning developments. Here’s another one to contemplate: suppose the Democrats took a stand against the power of organized money. Picture Joe Biden and his party getting behind a set of serious clean-government reforms. Imagine a code of behavior tough enough not just to serve as a resounding statement of disgust with the corporate handouts and self-and-crony enrichment of the Trump Administration but to signal a revolt against the routinized, lower-level corruption that was the norm in Washington before Donald Trump and his crew arrived.
The Democrats may be inclined to take it easy. Thanks to a wave of disasters on the Republicans’ watch, they can be their usual selves and, to judge from the latest polls, be back in control of the White House and Congress in January. But then comes the job of dealing with the profound problems brought into focus by the events of this momentous year. At that point, their usual selves will no longer do.
The coronavirus pandemic and its toll of physical and economic suffering; the flimsiness of our health-care system; the over-policing and over-incarceration of people of color; America’s accumulated debt to the victims of slavery and race-based oppression; the unconscionable maldistribution of wealth; the rapid heating of the air and the seas—none of these troubles will disappear along with Donald Trump, or with the Republican majority in the Senate. One after another, they call for a boldness of thought and action that is hard to imagine from the Democratic Party that we have come to know in recent decades.
The stories of the two most recent Democratic Administrations should be a warning to the next. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama brought exceptional intelligence and political talent to the Presidency. Within the first two years of their eight-year tenures, however, the gulf between aspiration and achievement was wide, and cynicism was resurgent, fuelling electoral reversals and a pile-on of disappointment. Although both men left office with strong approval ratings, they were ultimately unable to translate their personal popularity into a surge of respect for either the Democratic Party or for the role of government as a tool for the common good. That failure, along with the peculiarities of the Electoral College, led to successor Administrations bent on trashing much of the good work that the Democrats had managed to do. A Biden Administration, facing a more daunting set of problems, could easily fall into the same trap.
Biden has not made light of the job that awaits. In statements from semi-lockdown, he has spoken of the need for “transformative” change and announced the creation of task forces to craft suitably ambitious proposals on the environment, health care, and criminal justice, among other broad topics. Biden’s words would carry more weight if he expressed a similar determination to challenge the system of big-money donors, revolving-door appointments, and back-channel influence that has shaped the Democratic Party’s decision-making in recent decades. Transformative policies are not likely to emerge from an untransformed process.
The Democrats’ first assignment, of course, is to win the election. That means doing all that they can to frame the 2020 contest as a referendum on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office—and, given the immediate circumstances, to call out his Administration’s miserable handling of the coronavirus pandemic. A strong anti-corruption message could help there, too. Biden and his fellow-Democrats have taken plenty of well-aimed shots at the callousness, deception, and pure incompetence of Trump’s response to the pandemic. They have not said nearly enough about the honest professionals (such as Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) whose warnings were ignored or squelched by corporate-friendly superiors (such as, in Bright’s case, Alex Azar, the former Big Pharma lobbyist running the Department of Health and Human Services). The Democrats have also been strangely inattentive to the many reported cases of banks, private-equity firms, hedge funds, and connected, cash-rich companies (including Wall Street-owned hospital and hotel chains) making off with large sums of pandemic-relief money.
That kind of corruption has a history of getting voters riled up. In the months leading up to the midterm elections of 2018, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen appeared in court, adding their names to a growing tally of Trump appointees and intimates caught in career-ending, money-grubbing scandals. Thirty Republican House members lost their seats that year, many of them to Democratic challengers who had campaigned as political outsiders rejecting corporate PAC money. Nancy Pelosi, restored to the post of Speaker of the House by that election, cited anti-corruption outrage as a major driver of the outcome. After the new House convened, in 2019, its first ceremonial act was to pass an unexpectedly substantial democracy-reform bill. Its provisions included nonpartisan redistricting, public financing of campaigns, and new lobbying rules. “It is fundamental to a democracy that people believe that actions taken here will be in their interest,” Pelosi said on that occasion. “That is what this legislation will help to restore.”
Then came the impeachment hearings. Like the Mueller inquiry, the drive for impeachment diverted the Democrats’ outrage into a plotline that turned out to be too complicated—and too distant from most Americans’ lives and concerns—to gain wide traction. The failure of impeachment left Democrats with both a bad case of investigation fatigue and a sense of futility about getting through to Trump-base voters or Trump-toadying Republican senators. In the frenzy of new issues and opportunities that have come at the Democrats since Trump’s acquittal, they have dropped the ball on corruption.
But there is time for them to pick it up. By embracing a strong anti-corruption program and making it a campaign theme, Biden and his party’s congressional candidates can place a spotlight back on the Trump Administration’s breathtaking record of quasi-bribery, quasi-extortion, and inside deals. They can call fresh media and public attention, for example, to the under-probed scandal of Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education. Filled with former executives of for-profit college companies, it has catered to the interests of some of the shadier operators of that world, while failing to follow through on a congressionally mandated program of student-loan forgiveness for people in public-service jobs. That’s the kind of betrayal of duty that voters can relate to, especially if they know or are one of the tens of thousands of police officers, nurses, firefighters, and other public servants who have been unable to discharge their student debts.
DeVos is just one Cabinet member whose deeds have sometimes flown under the Trump-fixated media’s radar. The Democrats could be reminding voters about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his role in negotiating a deal to export natural gas to China while he still held a stake in a company that owns the world’s largest fleet of natural-gas-carrying ships, and about the Commerce Department’s ethics officer who was promoted after approving that arrangement. Also ripe for further airing are the favors dispensed to friends and former associates by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, and the web of conflicts involving Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, her family’s shipping business, and the reëlection campaign of her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.