truthout--2020-10-20--The US Is Missing a Chance to Tackle Climate Crisis and Pandemic Relief Together

The pandemic crisis has exacerbated existing inequalities and has been an abject lesson in what happens when nations don ’ t prepare in advance for catastrophe .
It has also led many to draw the comparison between this health crisis and the ongoing climate crisis — and the growing and urgent need to tackle climate change now before it spirals out of control .
The U.S. , which continues to lead the world in COVID-19 infections , has taken the opposite approach — rolling back environmental protections , including many during the pandemic , giving tax breaks to polluters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even the ostensibly politically independent Federal Reserve is over-investing in fossil fuels in one of its economic response programs .
By contrast , the European Union ( EU ) is taking these dual crises seriously , combining its pandemic response with work to also blunt the coming climate crisis .
In September , the European Commission ( EC ) — the governing body of the European Union — announced a massive new green bond program .
As a part of its ongoing pandemic recovery , this coming January the EC will sell bonds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or $ 857 billion USD ) .
This EU Recovery Fund will distribute its funds among the countries and sectors in the EU most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic .
About 30 percent ( €225 billion ) of the bonds they plan to sell will be sustainable green bonds .
These bonds will back projects related to tackling climate change .
This will not only make the EU the largest issuer of “ green bonds , ” it will effectively double the size of the international market for sustainable financial products — as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sold globally last year was $ 274.2 billion according to Bloomberg .
As highlighted by the NGO Reclaim Finance , what is considered a “ green bond ” can vary significantly , and a recent report from Bank for International Settlements found that green bond projects haven ’ t necessarily translated into comparatively low or falling carbon emissions .
In order to clarify what it considers “ green , ” the EU developed a green taxonomy that acts as a screening criteria for economic activities , looking at what can make a substantial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while avoiding significant harm to the environment .
Including green bonds in the EU Recovery Fund is hardly the first ambitious climate initiative the EU has pursued .
The European Green Deal is a 10-year , 1 trillion euro proposal that aims to make the EU climate-neutral in 2050 .
While ambitious in many respects , the Green Deal has faced criticism from progressives for its support for natural gas and its failure to address subsidies for coal , with others criticizing it for being an exercise in reshuffling money that will only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commitments over seven years .
The European Commission itself has estimated that Europe would need 260 billion euros annually in order to achieve its 2030 climate and energy targets ; the Green Deal only allocates 100 billion euros a year .
But the scale and scope of its effort remains far more than what the U.S. has pursued .
Europe may not limit climate interventions to the realm of fiscal policy — it looks like the European Central Bank ( ECB ) is open to using monetary policy to fight climate change as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Christine Lagarde said she would consider “ every avenue available ” to combat climate change .
On October 14 , Lagarde appeared to take some steps in that direction , saying the ECB may consider factoring in climate risk when deciding which bonds to buy in support of the economy .
This is in stark contrast to the U.S. approach , where the Fed has bought a disproportionate amount of bonds from fossil fuel companies , including many driving environmental racism .
One of the principles some central banks have adhered to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ markets is that they should not be picking winners and losers in particular industries , but instead should be “ market neutral.
” The U.S. ’ s central bank , the Federal Reserve , has faced criticism not just for failing to be market neutral , but for being more heavily invested in bonds from fossil fuel companies than the rest of the market is , as recently noted in a report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis .
One of the economic rescue programs the Fed has launched during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporate debt of companies .
But more than 10 percent of the Fed ’ s bond purchases are fossil fuel companies , even though fossil fuel firms only employ 2 percent of all workers employed by firms in the S & P 1500 stock market index .
This is in spite of the terrible financial track record oil and gas companies have , and their history of polluting communities of color across the U.S. , such as Marathon Petroleum in Detroit .
European central bankers , meanwhile , are considering moving in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether central banks should pursue market neutrality at all , given their responsibility to boost green industries that will help ensure a livable world in the face of accelerating climate change .
In a talk to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative , Lagarde pointed out that financial markets have “ not priced in the massive risk that is out there ” on climate change , and as a result , asked if central banks should change their approach .
Lagarde said central banks need to think about the “ excessive risks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the same markets that have failed to acknowledge the long-term costs of climate change .
The upshot of Lagarde ’ s comments is that the European Central Bank may consider factoring in climate risk when it decides to purchase for any future stimulus .
As the frequency of wildfires , disasters and extreme weather increases as the climate crisis accelerates , so too do the financial risks governments and private businesses alike face — disaster cleanup is costly .
And as Graham Steele of the Stanford Business School and Gregg Gelzinis of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , climate change is a threat to global financial stability .
These risks should be priced into the costs of all financial securities , from insurance contracts to stocks in oil companies like Exxon — but they haven ’ t been .
This failure of the market to account for these risks was also noted in a September 28 speech by European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel .
Schnabel , like Lagarde , noted that being market neutral “ may not be the appropriate benchmark ” because markets aren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And she argued that because “ policies to mitigate the adverse and partly irreversible effects of climate change are not moving fast enough ” there needs to be collective action both by governments and by central banks .
The Fed has shown no such urgency .
And the Trump administration , which has been nakedly working to boost oil and gas firms while gutting environmental protections , has no interest in a green bonds program .
But should Joe Biden win in November , we will likely see a shift in priorities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2 trillion in green infrastructure and energy .
Market analysts have noted that this significant funding could come through green bonds .
It could also be achieved through a coordinated national investment in sustainable projects .
One such proposal by Cornell law Professor Saule Omarova is for a new agency called the National Investment Authority that could jumpstart a green transition by creating a new , public investment manager with a social mission .
The U.S. should look to Europe for inspiration on the scale of the EU Green Deal , while being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the left that the EU deal has faced .
But the Fed , independent of Congress and the president , could act now .
And the Fed has shown some willingness to explore how it can do more to tackle systemic economic problems .
Three regional Federal Reserve Banks are currently hosting a seven-part conference series discussing the economic implications of structural racism in the U.S. and ways to address them .
At a minimum , the Fed should consider ways that its purchases of $ 315 million in bonds of fossil fuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ record of environmental racism , are exacerbating the problem .
But were Fed Chair Jerome Powell willing to act in accordance with his past statement that he will “ act to ensure that the financial system is resilient and robust against the risks of climate change , ” he would follow the lead of the European Central Bank .
It ’ s time for the Fed to join the European Central Bank in acknowledging the inherent financial risks that climate change brings , and to ensure that the securities the Fed buys to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risk in mind .

Part of the Series Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
The pandemic crisis has exacerbated existing inequalities and has been an abject lesson in what happens when nations don’t prepare in advance for catastrophe. It has also led many to draw the comparison between this health crisis and the ongoing climate crisis — and the growing and urgent need to tackle climate change now before it spirals out of control.
The U.S., which continues to lead the world in COVID-19 infections, has taken the opposite approach — rolling back environmental protections, including many during the pandemic, giving tax breaks to polluters and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. Even the ostensibly politically independent Federal Reserve is over-investing in fossil fuels in one of its economic response programs. By contrast, the European Union (EU) is taking these dual crises seriously, combining its pandemic response with work to also blunt the coming climate crisis.
In September, the European Commission (EC) — the governing body of the European Union — announced a massive new green bond program. As a part of its ongoing pandemic recovery, this coming January the EC will sell bonds in order to raise €750 billion (or $857 billion USD). This EU Recovery Fund will distribute its funds among the countries and sectors in the EU most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. About 30 percent (€225 billion) of the bonds they plan to sell will be sustainable green bonds. These bonds will back projects related to tackling climate change. This will not only make the EU the largest issuer of “green bonds,” it will effectively double the size of the international market for sustainable financial products — as the total of all the green securities sold globally last year was $274.2 billion according to Bloomberg.
As highlighted by the NGO Reclaim Finance, what is considered a “green bond” can vary significantly, and a recent report from Bank for International Settlements found that green bond projects haven’t necessarily translated into comparatively low or falling carbon emissions. In order to clarify what it considers “green,” the EU developed a green taxonomy that acts as a screening criteria for economic activities, looking at what can make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation or adaptation while avoiding significant harm to the environment.
Including green bonds in the EU Recovery Fund is hardly the first ambitious climate initiative the EU has pursued. The European Green Deal is a 10-year, 1 trillion euro proposal that aims to make the EU climate-neutral in 2050. While ambitious in many respects, the Green Deal has faced criticism from progressives for its support for natural gas and its failure to address subsidies for coal, with others criticizing it for being an exercise in reshuffling money that will only generate 7.5 billion euros in new budget commitments over seven years. The European Commission itself has estimated that Europe would need 260 billion euros annually in order to achieve its 2030 climate and energy targets; the Green Deal only allocates 100 billion euros a year. But the scale and scope of its effort remains far more than what the U.S. has pursued.
Europe may not limit climate interventions to the realm of fiscal policy — it looks like the European Central Bank (ECB) is open to using monetary policy to fight climate change as well. Over the summer, ECB President Christine Lagarde said she would consider “every avenue available” to combat climate change. On October 14, Lagarde appeared to take some steps in that direction, saying the ECB may consider factoring in climate risk when deciding which bonds to buy in support of the economy. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. approach, where the Fed has bought a disproportionate amount of bonds from fossil fuel companies, including many driving environmental racism.
One of the principles some central banks have adhered to when they take action to boost financial markets is that they should not be picking winners and losers in particular industries, but instead should be “market neutral.” The U.S.’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, has faced criticism not just for failing to be market neutral, but for being more heavily invested in bonds from fossil fuel companies than the rest of the market is, as recently noted in a report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
One of the economic rescue programs the Fed has launched during the pandemic is one that buys the corporate debt of companies. But more than 10 percent of the Fed’s bond purchases are fossil fuel companies, even though fossil fuel firms only employ 2 percent of all workers employed by firms in the S&P 1500 stock market index. This is in spite of the terrible financial track record oil and gas companies have, and their history of polluting communities of color across the U.S., such as Marathon Petroleum in Detroit.
European central bankers, meanwhile, are considering moving in the opposite, future-forward direction — by asking whether central banks should pursue market neutrality at all, given their responsibility to boost green industries that will help ensure a livable world in the face of accelerating climate change. In a talk to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Lagarde pointed out that financial markets have “not priced in the massive risk that is out there” on climate change, and as a result, asked if central banks should change their approach. Lagarde said central banks need to think about the “excessive risks” they may be taking by relying on the same markets that have failed to acknowledge the long-term costs of climate change. The upshot of Lagarde’s comments is that the European Central Bank may consider factoring in climate risk when it decides to purchase for any future stimulus.
As the frequency of wildfires, disasters and extreme weather increases as the climate crisis accelerates, so too do the financial risks governments and private businesses alike face — disaster cleanup is costly. And as Graham Steele of the Stanford Business School and Gregg Gelzinis of the Center for American Progress have argued, climate change is a threat to global financial stability. These risks should be priced into the costs of all financial securities, from insurance contracts to stocks in oil companies like Exxon — but they haven’t been.
This failure of the market to account for these risks was also noted in a September 28 speech by European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel. Schnabel, like Lagarde, noted that being market neutral “may not be the appropriate benchmark” because markets aren’t factoring in the cost of climate change. And she argued that because “policies to mitigate the adverse and partly irreversible effects of climate change are not moving fast enough” there needs to be collective action both by governments and by central banks.
The Fed has shown no such urgency. And the Trump administration, which has been nakedly working to boost oil and gas firms while gutting environmental protections, has no interest in a green bonds program.
But should Joe Biden win in November, we will likely see a shift in priorities: Biden has pledged to invest $2 trillion in green infrastructure and energy. Market analysts have noted that this significant funding could come through green bonds. It could also be achieved through a coordinated national investment in sustainable projects. One such proposal by Cornell law Professor Saule Omarova is for a new agency called the National Investment Authority that could jumpstart a green transition by creating a new, public investment manager with a social mission. The U.S. should look to Europe for inspiration on the scale of the EU Green Deal, while being responsive to and addressing the criticisms from the left that the EU deal has faced.
But the Fed, independent of Congress and the president, could act now. And the Fed has shown some willingness to explore how it can do more to tackle systemic economic problems. Three regional Federal Reserve Banks are currently hosting a seven-part conference series discussing the economic implications of structural racism in the U.S. and ways to address them. At a minimum, the Fed should consider ways that its purchases of $315 million in bonds of fossil fuel firms, including those with a track record of environmental racism, are exacerbating the problem. But were Fed Chair Jerome Powell willing to act in accordance with his past statement that he will “act to ensure that the financial system is resilient and robust against the risks of climate change,” he would follow the lead of the European Central Bank. It’s time for the Fed to join the European Central Bank in acknowledging the inherent financial risks that climate change brings, and to ensure that the securities the Fed buys to boost the economy are done with climate risk in mind.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-10-20--Voter Suppression Has Spread Like Fire Across the US — Far Beyond the South

As tens of millions of people across the U.S. cast their ballots in early voting ahead of the November 3 election , we look at voter suppression efforts with journalist and academic Jelani Cobb .
His new Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts examines the long lines , record number of mail-in ballots and the legal fights that have marked voting during the pandemic , with a focus on Wisconsin .
“ This is a state where the presidency was essentially decided in the last election , ” says Cobb , a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a contributor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voter suppression as “ a fire that has spread across the country.
” This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
Today marks two weeks from November 3rd , official Election Day .
Amidst the pandemic , more than 30 million people nationwide have already voted through mail-in ballots or early voting — about a fifth of the total number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s shattering all records for voting .
Early voting begins today in Wisconsin and Utah .
As voters in the United States choose their next president , we spend the rest of the hour with journalist and professor Jelani Cobb .
In the new Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts , Cobb collaborates with Columbia Journalism School , Columbia Journalism Investigations and reporters from USA Today Network to examine one of the first elections held during the pandemic : Wisconsin ’ s April 2020 primary .
This is an excerpt of the film , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Long lines as folks wait for their polling place .
WISCONSIN VOTER 1 : They ’ ve made it so difficult for people to vote here , just asking too much of people to come out with this virus going on .
JELANI COBB : It was a major election in the middle of a pandemic .
WISCONSIN VOTER 2 : There ’ s been confusion around what actually is allowed .
WISCONSIN VOTER 3 : It was difficult to request an absentee ballot .
WISCONSIN VOTER 4 : I didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WISCONSIN VOTER 5 : I didn ’ t know about that option to vote through the absentee voting .
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP : Mail ballots , they cheat , OK ?
People cheat .
Mail ballots are fraudulent in many cases .
WISCONSIN VOTER 7 : But it didn ’ t come in time .
WISCONSIN VOTER 8 : It never came .
WISCONSIN VOTER 9 : So I was forced to go and vote .
WISCONSIN VOTER 10 : At one of the five polling stations .
JELANI COBB : Voters forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civic duty .
REPORTER 2 : Those lines are long in Wisconsin , despite the state ’ s safer-at-home order .
WISCONSIN VOTER 1 : It was such a putrid decision .
WISCONSIN VOTER 12 : People are going to die because of this .
REPORTER 3 : Any ballots received after April 13th will be rejected .
REPORTER 4 : Seven hundred fifty ballots so far have been rejected .
WISCONSIN VOTER 13 : I am really frustrated because my vote won ’ t count .
WISCONSIN VOTER 14 : It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
JELANI COBB : Was this all a view of things to come — WISCONSIN VOTER 15 : I just can ’ t imagine that somebody would do that in this country .
I ’ m a journalist and historian .
I ’ ve been studying American elections for years , but I ’ ve never seen anything like this moment , the threat of a constitutional crisis over an election where the votes of many Americans , especially people of color , may not count .
First of all , were you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : You know , I was not .
But I had a absentee ballot .
JELANI COBB : These people wanted to vote this past April in the battleground state of Wisconsin , a primary that would turn out to be a telling dress rehearsal for the election chaos the rest of the country is now engulfed in .
WISCONSIN VOTER 16 : I think we ’ re seeing elected officials , specifically on the Republican side , that are playing politics with people ’ s lives .
JELANI COBB : I started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pivotal and deeply partisan nature .
It ’ s split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats , and it gave Donald Trump the presidency in 2016 by the exceedingly thin margin of 22,000 votes .
It ’ s a microcosm of America these days .
WISCONSIN VOTER 12 : I do believe that there is an attack on our democracy right now .
JELANI COBB : Along with colleagues at the Columbia Journalism School , I began doing remote interviews there when the pandemic was just taking hold .
WISCONSIN VOTER 11 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be trying to have an election in the middle of a pandemic .
JELANI COBB : With reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and USA Today , we examined the voting , especially the absentee ballots , how they were used and counted , and the political and legal fights around them .
AMY GOODMAN : An excerpt from the Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts , premiering tonight , Tuesday night , on PBS .
In 30 seconds , we ’ ll be joined by Jelani Cobb , the documentary ’ s producer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be back with him in 30 seconds .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Song of the Count ” by the Count .
This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
We ’ re joined by Jelani Cobb , the producer [ sic ] and narrator of the — and reporter of the Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts , that premieres tonight on PBS .
He ’ s a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a contributor to The New Yorker magazine .
Jelani , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
You talk about Wisconsin , which begins early voting today , as a kind of microcosm of America .
Why ?
Why did you focus there ?
And what are you most concerned about ?
JELANI COBB : Well , I mean , there were so many things in Wisconsin .
You know , we were looking at all of the potential obstacles .
So , we started this project before the coronavirus hit , and we were looking at all the potential dynamics that could impede people ’ s ability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we were looking around , we saw Wisconsin — just so many of them were happening in Wisconsin .
And it was also important for us to look at Wisconsin not only because of what ’ s happened there in the last decade under Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature and the extreme gerrymandering that ’ s there , the really strict voter ID law , one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country — you know , all of those things that we thought were significant , but also they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the presidency was essentially decided in the last election .
You know , just that sliver of 22,000 votes , and things would turn out a different way .
And so , that was all looking around and saying that this was important .
And then , one other additional factor is that it ’ s a state in the North , where we wanted people to be aware that this is not just the familiar John Lewis story of Selma and Mississippi and Georgia and South Carolina , the places that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspects as it relates to voter suppression .
We ’ re now looking at a fire that has spread across the country .
And we ’ re dealing with voter suppression concerns in safe states that were in the Union , and Wisconsin , which is where the Republican Party was founded by people who were outraged by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Compromise that might have allowed the spread of — the further spread of slavery .
And so you have this bastion of progressivism , this place that is a cornerstone of American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re mired in a situation wondering about whether or not people will have access to the vote .
And one last thing I do want to say before I kind of go to the further conversation is that I ’ m the correspondent and narrator for the film , but my colleagues June Cross and Tom Jennings were the producers for it .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Jelani , I wanted to ask you — you mentioned the history of progressivism .
Wisconsin is known not only as the birthplace of the Republican Party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was also a hotbed of Republican progressivism — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : — of Bob La Follette and also of — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : — the very extensive socialist movement .
There were even — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : — socialist mayors in Milwaukee up until the mid-20th century .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : So , could you — were you able to get at what has happened to have this dramatic shift now into this sort of leading edge of voter suppression ?
JELANI COBB : Sure .
And I ’ ll just say really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s really great to talk to you .
I use your book in my class .
And so , I ’ m glad to be able to have this conversation with you .
Well , you know , with Wisconsin , there ’ s a really good book on this , Dan Kaufman ’ s book , The Fall of Wisconsin , where he traces this .
And one of the real key factors here was the involvement of the Bradley Foundation , which is a foundation that was spun off from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two brothers , who , initially , in the first part of the 20th century , when they began getting into philanthropy , they were doing things that were pretty mundane , you know , supporting local causes and being a boon to community concerns .
And then they kind of veered seriously to the right in the 1970s , 1980s , and began funding efforts , especially around anti-labor union activism .
And so , Scott Walker was , by and large , a product of the Bradley Foundation ’ s largesse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of idea that they wanted to make Wisconsin — after 2008 , in full steam , to make Wisconsin a laboratory for what they wanted to do in the rest of the country .
And so , it almost seems too perfect .
When we look at the issues that are there , it ’ s a kind of checklist of the things that we think about with the right wing and the assault on labor unions , the assault on voter protections , the assault on all the aspects of the social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growing up , we ’ re not talking about Wisconsin as a purple state or a battleground state , but for most of my life we ’ ve thought about Wisconsin as a fairly progressive and safely Democratic state .
And this has been a product of very much a concerted effort over the past decade — well , the past several decades by private philanthropy there .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And your documentary focuses a lot on the battle especially over the legal fights over absentee ballots .
Now , I know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail ballots are fraudulent .
Obviously , there ’ s not a whole lot of — or , very little to buttress that argument .
But there are concerns that , and anyone who has done a mail-in ballot knows that , it ’ s a lot more complicated to fill it out properly .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And it ’ s a lot easier for ballots to be rejected at the time of the count .
I ’ m wondering if you could talk about the potential for significant numbers of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are doing a mail-in ballot , that they don ’ t fill it out correctly and that it then gets rejected at the count time .
JELANI COBB : Well , so , I think , if anything , the last four years have taught us to fairly reliably look at what Donald Trump accuses other people of , and that ’ s a pretty good indicator of what it is he ’ s actually doing .
And so , the allegations that mail-in voting is rife with fraud and , you know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all these — that doesn ’ t hold up , you know , including states like Oregon , where they conduct their elections entirely by mail .
And not only do they have successful elections with no significant hint of there being ballots that are improperly cast or people cheating , but they consistently have one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country — and sometimes the highest voter turnout rate in the country .
And I ’ ll come back to that and the relevance of that for 2020 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this is that we do see there being a disparity in the number of absentee ballots that are rejected , particularly as they come from communities of color .
And that was one of the things that the Columbia Journalism Investigations team found when they delved into the rejected voter rolls in Wisconsin and then traced those down to particular communities .
Communities that were heavily Black and Brown were more likely to have their ballots rejected .
This shouldn ’ t be entirely a shock , if we remember back to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battles around exact-match signature ballots in Georgia and what Brian Kemp was attempting to do in terms of using the exact match between the absentee ballot and the signature that they have on file for you , and if there was any disparity between those two things , they would toss the ballot , or if there was any disparity between how your name was spelled , including having a hyphen in your name that may or may not appear on your driver ’ s license and so on , then your ballot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those same sort of dynamics appear to have been the case on April 7th and could potentially — the real kind of foreboding thing is that they could potentially have the same sort of impact or the same sort of dynamic in the ballots that are being cast ahead of November 3rd .
AMY GOODMAN : Jelani , I wanted to turn to a clip of your documentary Whose Vote Counts , where you interview the Democratic National Committee ’ s top lawyer , Marc Elias , as well as others .
AMY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democratic National Committee ’ s top lawyer , Marc Elias .
You spend some amount of time in this documentary , Jelani , speaking to him .
There are hundreds of these challenges all over the country .
AMY GOODMAN : Can you talk about his significance and these lawsuits , and whether you see , on Election Day , the whole election being thrown into court , of course , which could ultimately lead to the Supreme Court , which might have a new justice on that Supreme Court named Amy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And so , I think the comparison you might make is if you are preparing to watch a baseball game , and then the coaches of the respective teams come out and they start arguing over who ’ s going to bat first , and then they ’ re arguing about how many innings there are going to be , and then there ’ s a dispute about how many pitches it will take to strike out and how many balls it will take to walk , and every single aspect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for dispute .
So , really , the winner will wind up being the team that fares best with only two outs instead of three , or fares best in seven innings instead of nine .
And that ’ s really what we ’ re seeing now .
These lawsuits across the country are fighting about how much early voting there will be , about how long after the election a vote that is cast by mail can come in and still be counted , when they have to be postmarked by .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you can imagine as it relates to this election is being fought over .
And there are — I think the last count , there were 241 lawsuits between the Democrats , Republicans , outside interested parties .
And they ’ re going through dozens of states .
And so , when we get to the tallies on November 3rd , and however long after that it takes for us to understand who has actually won , some part of that will reflect what was won and what was lost in these lawsuits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way through the system for the past several months .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Jelani , you mentioned these battles .
I recall back in the 2000 election , when they were counting ballots in Florida , that the Republican Party fought very hard to assure that military ballots , absentee ballots that had come in from overseas after the deadline would still be counted , and raised the issue : How can you disenfranchise servicemen overseas ?
And they successfully got an extension for the military ballots that were coming in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican Party doing the opposite , trying to prevent — JUAN GONZÁLEZ : — any ballots that come in after the Election Day from being counted .
But I wanted to ask you about Hans von Spakovsky , who you deal with , and the role he ’ s played in shaping the narrative for the Republican Party around absentee ballots and how they ’ re subject to fraud .
JELANI COBB : Sure .
Just as a quick point about your first point relating to people fighting to have absentee ballots from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Armed Forces , still be counted , you know , the entire Republican Party is not a monolith on this , you know , so what Donald Trump says and what other people in the party will tell you , if you kind of talk to them , are not necessarily the same thing , because a lot of older people prefer to cast their ballots by mail , and a disproportionate share of the Republican electorate is older .
And so , when you start hearing the tirades about don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are all riddled with fraud and cheating and so on , there ’ s a quiet panic among a number of people who are Republicans , who are saying , “ Listen , we could really , like , mess around and disenfranchise part of our own electorate here.
” And so , I think that ’ s been a concern , a very obvious concern .
Now , about Hans von Spakovsky , he is an interesting figure .
I would say , arguably , more than anyone else , von Spakovsky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the concern about voter fraud .
You know , this has been his issue .
He has been their guy on this thing .
He created a database with the Heritage Foundation that logs instances of alleged voter fraud .
Our investigation pointed to something else , that many of the cases that were there were simply people who had made — JELANI COBB : — people who made mistakes in casting their ballot and so on .
And so , he ’ s really been more responsible than anyone else for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AMY GOODMAN : Well , we are going to do Part 2 of our interview at democracynow.org .
Check it out , with Jelani Cobb , correspondent and writer for the new PBS Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts , that premieres tonight , Tuesday night , directed by June Cross , produced by Tom Jennings .
Cobb is also professor of journalism at Columbia University and contributor to The New Yorker magazine .
We will speak to him about Biden ’ s moral imperative to safeguard civil rights , and Election Day violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
Thanks so much for joining us .

As tens of millions of people across the U.S. cast their ballots in early voting ahead of the November 3 election, we look at voter suppression efforts with journalist and academic Jelani Cobb. His new Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts examines the long lines, record number of mail-in ballots and the legal fights that have marked voting during the pandemic, with a focus on Wisconsin. “This is a state where the presidency was essentially decided in the last election,” says Cobb, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a contributor to The New Yorker. He describes voter suppression as “a fire that has spread across the country.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Today marks two weeks from November 3rd, official Election Day. Amidst the pandemic, more than 30 million people nationwide have already voted through mail-in ballots or early voting — about a fifth of the total number of votes cast in 2016. It’s shattering all records for voting. Early voting begins today in Wisconsin and Utah.
As voters in the United States choose their next president, we spend the rest of the hour with journalist and professor Jelani Cobb. In the new Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts, Cobb collaborates with Columbia Journalism School, Columbia Journalism Investigations and reporters from USA Today Network to examine one of the first elections held during the pandemic: Wisconsin’s April 2020 primary. This is an excerpt of the film, which he narrates.
REPORTER 1: Long lines as folks wait for their polling place. WISCONSIN VOTER 1: They’ve made it so difficult for people to vote here, just asking too much of people to come out with this virus going on. JELANI COBB: It was a major election in the middle of a pandemic. WISCONSIN VOTER 2: There’s been confusion around what actually is allowed. WISCONSIN VOTER 3: It was difficult to request an absentee ballot. WISCONSIN VOTER 4: I didn’t even know how to do it. WISCONSIN VOTER 5: I didn’t know about that option to vote through the absentee voting. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Mail ballots, they cheat, OK? People cheat. Mail ballots are fraudulent in many cases. JELANI COBB: Absentee ballots delayed in the mail. WISCONSIN VOTER 6: I requested an absentee ballot. WISCONSIN VOTER 7: But it didn’t come in time. WISCONSIN VOTER 8: It never came. WISCONSIN VOTER 9: So I was forced to go and vote. WISCONSIN VOTER 10: At one of the five polling stations. JELANI COBB: Voters forced to choose between their health and their civic duty. REPORTER 2: Those lines are long in Wisconsin, despite the state’s safer-at-home order. WISCONSIN VOTER 11: It is unethical. WISCONSIN VOTER 1: It was such a putrid decision. WISCONSIN VOTER 12: People are going to die because of this. JELANI COBB: Claims of voter suppression. REPORTER 3: Any ballots received after April 13th will be rejected. REPORTER 4: Seven hundred fifty ballots so far have been rejected. WISCONSIN VOTER 13: I am really frustrated because my vote won’t count. WISCONSIN VOTER 14: It was the most blatant form of voter suppression. JELANI COBB: Was this all a view of things to come — WISCONSIN VOTER 15: I just can’t imagine that somebody would do that in this country. JELANI COBB: — in the impending presidential election? I’m a journalist and historian. I’ve been studying American elections for years, but I’ve never seen anything like this moment, the threat of a constitutional crisis over an election where the votes of many Americans, especially people of color, may not count. First of all, were you able to vote? WISCONSIN VOTER 1: You know, I was not. But I had a absentee ballot. JELANI COBB: These people wanted to vote this past April in the battleground state of Wisconsin, a primary that would turn out to be a telling dress rehearsal for the election chaos the rest of the country is now engulfed in. WISCONSIN VOTER 16: I think we’re seeing elected officials, specifically on the Republican side, that are playing politics with people’s lives. JELANI COBB: I started focusing on the state because of its pivotal and deeply partisan nature. It’s split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats, and it gave Donald Trump the presidency in 2016 by the exceedingly thin margin of 22,000 votes. It’s a microcosm of America these days. WISCONSIN VOTER 12: I do believe that there is an attack on our democracy right now. JELANI COBB: Along with colleagues at the Columbia Journalism School, I began doing remote interviews there when the pandemic was just taking hold. WISCONSIN VOTER 11: We don’t need to be trying to have an election in the middle of a pandemic. JELANI COBB: With reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and USA Today, we examined the voting, especially the absentee ballots, how they were used and counted, and the political and legal fights around them.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts, premiering tonight, Tuesday night, on PBS. In 30 seconds, we’ll be joined by Jelani Cobb, the documentary’s producer [sic]. We’ll be back with him in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Song of the Count” by the Count. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. We’re joined by Jelani Cobb, the producer [sic] and narrator of the — and reporter of the Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts, that premieres tonight on PBS. He’s a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a contributor to The New Yorker magazine.
Jelani, it’s great to have you back with us. You talk about Wisconsin, which begins early voting today, as a kind of microcosm of America. Why? Why did you focus there? And what are you most concerned about?
JELANI COBB: Well, I mean, there were so many things in Wisconsin. You know, we were looking at all of the potential obstacles. So, we started this project before the coronavirus hit, and we were looking at all the potential dynamics that could impede people’s ability to cast a ballot. And when we were looking around, we saw Wisconsin — just so many of them were happening in Wisconsin. And it was also important for us to look at Wisconsin not only because of what’s happened there in the last decade under Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature and the extreme gerrymandering that’s there, the really strict voter ID law, one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country — you know, all of those things that we thought were significant, but also they were — this is a state where the presidency was essentially decided in the last election. You know, just that sliver of 22,000 votes, and things would turn out a different way. And so, that was all looking around and saying that this was important.
And then, one other additional factor is that it’s a state in the North, where we wanted people to be aware that this is not just the familiar John Lewis story of Selma and Mississippi and Georgia and South Carolina, the places that we know to be the kind of usual suspects as it relates to voter suppression. We’re now looking at a fire that has spread across the country. And we’re dealing with voter suppression concerns in safe states that were in the Union, and Wisconsin, which is where the Republican Party was founded by people who were outraged by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Compromise that might have allowed the spread of — the further spread of slavery. And so you have this bastion of progressivism, this place that is a cornerstone of American progressive politics, and now we’re mired in a situation wondering about whether or not people will have access to the vote.
And one last thing I do want to say before I kind of go to the further conversation is that I’m the correspondent and narrator for the film, but my colleagues June Cross and Tom Jennings were the producers for it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Jelani, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned the history of progressivism. Wisconsin is known not only as the birthplace of the Republican Party, but deep into the 20th century was also a hotbed of Republican progressivism —
JELANI COBB: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — of Bob La Follette and also of —
JELANI COBB: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — the very extensive socialist movement. There were even —
JELANI COBB: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — socialist mayors in Milwaukee up until the mid-20th century.
JELANI COBB: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, could you — were you able to get at what has happened to have this dramatic shift now into this sort of leading edge of voter suppression?
JELANI COBB: Sure. And I’ll just say really quick an aside, Juan, it’s really great to talk to you. I use your book in my class. And so, I’m glad to be able to have this conversation with you.
Well, you know, with Wisconsin, there’s a really good book on this, Dan Kaufman’s book, The Fall of Wisconsin, where he traces this. And one of the real key factors here was the involvement of the Bradley Foundation, which is a foundation that was spun off from an industrial magnate, a set of two brothers, who, initially, in the first part of the 20th century, when they began getting into philanthropy, they were doing things that were pretty mundane, you know, supporting local causes and being a boon to community concerns. And then they kind of veered seriously to the right in the 1970s, 1980s, and began funding efforts, especially around anti-labor union activism.
And so, Scott Walker was, by and large, a product of the Bradley Foundation’s largesse. And it was really a kind of idea that they wanted to make Wisconsin — after 2008, in full steam, to make Wisconsin a laboratory for what they wanted to do in the rest of the country. And so, it almost seems too perfect. When we look at the issues that are there, it’s a kind of checklist of the things that we think about with the right wing and the assault on labor unions, the assault on voter protections, the assault on all the aspects of the social safety net. And from my lifetime growing up, we’re not talking about Wisconsin as a purple state or a battleground state, but for most of my life we’ve thought about Wisconsin as a fairly progressive and safely Democratic state. And this has been a product of very much a concerted effort over the past decade — well, the past several decades by private philanthropy there.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your documentary focuses a lot on the battle especially over the legal fights over absentee ballots. Now, I know President Trump is constantly talking about that mail ballots are fraudulent. Obviously, there’s not a whole lot of — or, very little to buttress that argument. But there are concerns that, and anyone who has done a mail-in ballot knows that, it’s a lot more complicated to fill it out properly.
JELANI COBB: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And it’s a lot easier for ballots to be rejected at the time of the count. I’m wondering if you could talk about the potential for significant numbers of people who do vote to — because they are doing a mail-in ballot, that they don’t fill it out correctly and that it then gets rejected at the count time.
JELANI COBB: Well, so, I think, if anything, the last four years have taught us to fairly reliably look at what Donald Trump accuses other people of, and that’s a pretty good indicator of what it is he’s actually doing. And so, the allegations that mail-in voting is rife with fraud and, you know, people cheat, and they do all these — that doesn’t hold up, you know, including states like Oregon, where they conduct their elections entirely by mail. And not only do they have successful elections with no significant hint of there being ballots that are improperly cast or people cheating, but they consistently have one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country — and sometimes the highest voter turnout rate in the country. And I’ll come back to that and the relevance of that for 2020 in a minute.
But the opposite side of this is that we do see there being a disparity in the number of absentee ballots that are rejected, particularly as they come from communities of color. And that was one of the things that the Columbia Journalism Investigations team found when they delved into the rejected voter rolls in Wisconsin and then traced those down to particular communities. Communities that were heavily Black and Brown were more likely to have their ballots rejected. This shouldn’t be entirely a shock, if we remember back to just 2018, when we saw the battles around exact-match signature ballots in Georgia and what Brian Kemp was attempting to do in terms of using the exact match between the absentee ballot and the signature that they have on file for you, and if there was any disparity between those two things, they would toss the ballot, or if there was any disparity between how your name was spelled, including having a hyphen in your name that may or may not appear on your driver’s license and so on, then your ballot would be tossed. And so, those same sort of dynamics appear to have been the case on April 7th and could potentially — the real kind of foreboding thing is that they could potentially have the same sort of impact or the same sort of dynamic in the ballots that are being cast ahead of November 3rd.
AMY GOODMAN: Jelani, I wanted to turn to a clip of your documentary Whose Vote Counts, where you interview the Democratic National Committee’s top lawyer, Marc Elias, as well as others.
JELANI COBB: The national parties joined the fight. What they would do here would be a harbinger for the coming presidential election. The Democratic National Committee filed one of several lawsuits to make absentee voting easier, seeking to loosen requirements like voter ID and witness signatures, things that historically have been obstacles, especially for people of color. MARC ELIAS: The DNC filed the initial lawsuit when it became clear that there were going to be serious problems with availability for voting. JELANI COBB: Marc Elias is the DNC’s top lawyer. What exactly is at stake? And I mean this on the granular level. There are multiple and dozens of lawsuits. What’s being fought over? MARC ELIAS: Most of what’s being fought over is the ability for voters to have access to the polls and for their votes to count. A lot of the litigation we’re seeing in 2020 is: Are mail-in ballots going to be rejected for technical reasons, or are we going to enfranchise voters?
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the Democratic National Committee’s top lawyer, Marc Elias. You spend some amount of time in this documentary, Jelani, speaking to him. There are hundreds of these challenges all over the country.
JELANI COBB: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about his significance and these lawsuits, and whether you see, on Election Day, the whole election being thrown into court, of course, which could ultimately lead to the Supreme Court, which might have a new justice on that Supreme Court named Amy Coney Barrett?
JELANI COBB: Right. And so, I think the comparison you might make is if you are preparing to watch a baseball game, and then the coaches of the respective teams come out and they start arguing over who’s going to bat first, and then they’re arguing about how many innings there are going to be, and then there’s a dispute about how many pitches it will take to strike out and how many balls it will take to walk, and every single aspect of how the game is played is up for dispute. So, really, the winner will wind up being the team that fares best with only two outs instead of three, or fares best in seven innings instead of nine.
And that’s really what we’re seeing now. These lawsuits across the country are fighting about how much early voting there will be, about how long after the election a vote that is cast by mail can come in and still be counted, when they have to be postmarked by. But every kind of particular particularity that you can imagine as it relates to this election is being fought over. And there are — I think the last count, there were 241 lawsuits between the Democrats, Republicans, outside interested parties. And they’re going through dozens of states. And so, when we get to the tallies on November 3rd, and however long after that it takes for us to understand who has actually won, some part of that will reflect what was won and what was lost in these lawsuits that have been kind of working their way through the system for the past several months.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jelani, you mentioned these battles. I recall back in the 2000 election, when they were counting ballots in Florida, that the Republican Party fought very hard to assure that military ballots, absentee ballots that had come in from overseas after the deadline would still be counted, and raised the issue: How can you disenfranchise servicemen overseas? And they successfully got an extension for the military ballots that were coming in late. Now we’re seeing Republican Party doing the opposite, trying to prevent —
JELANI COBB: Sure.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — any ballots that come in after the Election Day from being counted. But I wanted to ask you about Hans von Spakovsky, who you deal with, and the role he’s played in shaping the narrative for the Republican Party around absentee ballots and how they’re subject to fraud.
JELANI COBB: Sure. Just as a quick point about your first point relating to people fighting to have absentee ballots from military, military people serving in the Armed Forces, still be counted, you know, the entire Republican Party is not a monolith on this, you know, so what Donald Trump says and what other people in the party will tell you, if you kind of talk to them, are not necessarily the same thing, because a lot of older people prefer to cast their ballots by mail, and a disproportionate share of the Republican electorate is older. And so, when you start hearing the tirades about don’t trust mail-in votes, the absentee votes are all riddled with fraud and cheating and so on, there’s a quiet panic among a number of people who are Republicans, who are saying, “Listen, we could really, like, mess around and disenfranchise part of our own electorate here.” And so, I think that’s been a concern, a very obvious concern.
Now, about Hans von Spakovsky, he is an interesting figure. I would say, arguably, more than anyone else, von Spakovsky is responsible for the promulgation and proliferation of the concern about voter fraud. You know, this has been his issue. He has been their guy on this thing. He created a database with the Heritage Foundation that logs instances of alleged voter fraud. Our investigation pointed to something else, that many of the cases that were there were simply people who had made —
AMY GOODMAN: Jelani, we have 20 seconds.
JELANI COBB: — people who made mistakes in casting their ballot and so on. And so, he’s really been more responsible than anyone else for promulgating the myth of voter fraud.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we are going to do Part 2 of our interview at democracynow.org. Check it out, with Jelani Cobb, correspondent and writer for the new PBS Frontline documentary Whose Vote Counts, that premieres tonight, Tuesday night, directed by June Cross, produced by Tom Jennings. Cobb is also professor of journalism at Columbia University and contributor to The New Yorker magazine. We will speak to him about Biden’s moral imperative to safeguard civil rights, and Election Day violence, a history. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-10-20--Trump Denounces Fauci as a “Disaster” Who “Got It Wrong” About COVID-19

President Donald Trump denounced Dr. Anthony Fauci , the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , as a “ disaster ” and possible “ idiot ” who “ got it wrong ” about COVID-19 — even though the president recently used Fauci ’ s words in a recent campaign commercial .
“ People are tired of Covid , ” Trump told reelection campaign staffers in a call on Monday , according to CNBC .
The president claimed that people are “ tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots , all these idiots who got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ setting off a metaphorical “ bomb ” every time he makes a television appearance and claimed that he could not fire him .
“ There ’ s a bigger bomb if you fire him .
This guy ’ s a disaster , ” Trump said .
He also used hyperbole to insult Fauci ’ s long government career , saying that the 79-year-old doctor has “ been here for 500 years.
” Trump ’ s comments came after Fauci told “ 60 Minutes ” on Sunday that he was not surprised when Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded , no separation between people , and almost nobody wearing a mask , ” Fauci said .
“ When I saw that on TV , I said , ‘ Oh my goodness .
Nothing good can come outta that , that ’ s got ta be a problem.
’ And then sure enough , it turned out to be a superspreader event.
” Fauci characterized Trump ’ s seeming distrust of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-authority ” streak in modern politics , but expressed mystification at the president ’ s refusal to wear a mask , telling correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook that “ he sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness , ” seemingly in order to send a “ statement of strength , like , we ’ re strong , we don ’ t need a mask , that kind of thing.
” Fauci is not the first expert to note the absurdity of Trump associating mask-wearing with weakness .
Dr. Allan Lichtman , a political scientist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July that “ there is nothing unmasculine about wearing a mask .
It is not a show of weakness to wear a mask anymore than it is a show of weakness not to drive drunk.
” He added that Trump was failing in his responsibilities as president by not wearing one , pointing out that “ it ’ s a horrible message .
It shows he doesn ’ t care about the health of his constituents .
He cares more about his own image than he does about keeping the people around him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fauci and his colleagues “ got it wrong , ” Trump was recorded telling journalist Bob Woodward in February that COVID-19 is “ pretty deadly stuff ” and in March that “ I wanted to always play it down.
” During that same period of time , Trump held large rallies in which the audience members were in close contact , and claimed the pandemic was a “ Democratic hoax.
” He ultimately waited more than ten weeks from the time the virus entered the United States before declaring a national emergency and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by health and economics experts to protect American lives and jobs .
Earlier this month Trump tried to defend his response to the novel coronavirus by quoting Fauci out of context in one of his campaign commercials .
The 30-second advertisement included a clip of Fauci saying “ I can ’ t imagine that anybody… could be doing more.
” Fauci later clarified that he was referring to the White House Coronavirus Task Force , not Trump specifically , and added that “ the way that ad went , where they quoted me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the context that looked very much like a political endorsement , and I ’ ve assiduously avoided that for so many years , like decades.
” This is not the first time that there has been friction between Trump and Fauci .
After the president blasted the World Health Organization ( WHO ) in June , claiming that “ China has total control ” over the group , Fauci told Rosemary Barton of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ( CBC ) that “ the WHO is an imperfect organization .
It certainly has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done a lot of good.
” He added , “ I would hope that we could continue to benefit from what the WHO can do at the same time that they continue to improve themselves .
I ’ ve had good relationships with the WHO and the world needs the WHO.
” Other conservatives have also attacked Fauci .
Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh , for instance , accused Fauci in April of being a “ Clinton sympathizer ” who wants to “ get rid ” of Trump .
“ Can you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the economy being shut down ?
It is stunning to me .
People are being ruined , ” Limbaugh added .

Trump has taken to denouncing and disparaging Anthony Fauci, even as he uses his words in a campaign ad.
President Donald Trump denounced Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a “disaster” and possible “idiot” who “got it wrong” about COVID-19 — even though the president recently used Fauci’s words in a recent campaign commercial.
“People are tired of Covid,” Trump told reelection campaign staffers in a call on Monday, according to CNBC. The president claimed that people are “tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong.” Trump accused Fauci of setting off a metaphorical “bomb” every time he makes a television appearance and claimed that he could not fire him. “There’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. This guy’s a disaster,” Trump said. He also used hyperbole to insult Fauci’s long government career, saying that the 79-year-old doctor has “been here for 500 years.”
Trump’s comments came after Fauci told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that he was not surprised when Trump contracted coronavirus, which causes COVID-19.
“I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask,” Fauci said. “When I saw that on TV, I said, ‘Oh my goodness. Nothing good can come outta that, that’s gotta be a problem.’ And then sure enough, it turned out to be a superspreader event.”
Fauci characterized Trump’s seeming distrust of science as part of a larger “anti-authority” streak in modern politics, but expressed mystification at the president’s refusal to wear a mask, telling correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook that “he sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness,” seemingly in order to send a “statement of strength, like, we’re strong, we don’t need a mask, that kind of thing.”
Fauci is not the first expert to note the absurdity of Trump associating mask-wearing with weakness. Dr. Allan Lichtman, a political scientist at American University, told Salon in July that “there is nothing unmasculine about wearing a mask. It is not a show of weakness to wear a mask anymore than it is a show of weakness not to drive drunk.” He added that Trump was failing in his responsibilities as president by not wearing one, pointing out that “it’s a horrible message. It shows he doesn’t care about the health of his constituents. He cares more about his own image than he does about keeping the people around him safe.”
Although Trump also claimed that Fauci and his colleagues “got it wrong,” Trump was recorded telling journalist Bob Woodward in February that COVID-19 is “pretty deadly stuff” and in March that “I wanted to always play it down.” During that same period of time, Trump held large rallies in which the audience members were in close contact, and claimed the pandemic was a “Democratic hoax.” He ultimately waited more than ten weeks from the time the virus entered the United States before declaring a national emergency and has continued to not take steps proposed by health and economics experts to protect American lives and jobs.
Earlier this month Trump tried to defend his response to the novel coronavirus by quoting Fauci out of context in one of his campaign commercials. The 30-second advertisement included a clip of Fauci saying “I can’t imagine that anybody… could be doing more.” Fauci later clarified that he was referring to the White House Coronavirus Task Force, not Trump specifically, and added that “the way that ad went, where they quoted me at the end, it was certainly in the context that looked very much like a political endorsement, and I’ve assiduously avoided that for so many years, like decades.”
This is not the first time that there has been friction between Trump and Fauci. After the president blasted the World Health Organization (WHO) in June, claiming that “China has total control” over the group, Fauci told Rosemary Barton of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that “the WHO is an imperfect organization. It certainly has made some missteps but it has also done a lot of good.”
He added, “I would hope that we could continue to benefit from what the WHO can do at the same time that they continue to improve themselves. I’ve had good relationships with the WHO and the world needs the WHO.”
Other conservatives have also attacked Fauci. Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh, for instance, accused Fauci in April of being a “Clinton sympathizer” who wants to “get rid” of Trump.
“Can you believe these people don’t care about the economy being shut down? It is stunning to me. People are being ruined,” Limbaugh added.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-10-20--Overdoses Are Skyrocketing During COVID-19. The DEA Is Making It Worse.

Drug overdose deaths have seen an alarming spike as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted treatment and aggravated the underlying causes of drug misuse , according to multiple data sources .
Meanwhile , millions of people in the United States continue to face significant barriers to evidence-based addiction treatment as law enforcement restricts the supply of pharmaceutical opioids , forcing pain patients and drug users toward dangerous substitutes such as heroin and fentanyl that fuel high rates of fatal overdoses .
Reports gathered from across the country show a roughly 18 percent spike in drug overdoses in the two months following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many states began implementing stay-at-home orders , according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program .
Nearly 60 percent of participating counties reported an increase in drug overdoses during that time period .
After rising steadily for nearly a decade , the number of reported overdose deaths finally stabilized in 2018 and early 2019 , only to begin rising again in late 2019 and 2020 .
Nationally , overdose deaths increased by 10 percent from March 2019 to March 2020 compared to the previous year , according to the Centers for Disease Control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported over 12-month periods ending in February and March 2020 increased by more than 5,000 compared to the same time periods a year before , reaching 72,000 for the first time in February and nearly 74,000 in March , according to analysis by the Drug Policy Alliance .
Since March , at least 40 states have reported an increase in opioid overdose deaths , according to the American Medical Association .
While illicit opioids such as heroin and fentanyl continue to fuel the crisis , the data show a slow but steady increase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and methamphetamine , highlighting the need for diverse approaches to reducing the harms of drug use .
Some media outlets have focused on the role isolation and loneliness due to quarantine may play in increasing the number of overdoses in localized areas .
Indeed , a common overdose prevention tactic is refraining from using drugs alone and , for opioid users , keeping the overdose reversal drug naloxone on hand .
However , drug policy reformers and public health experts point to a number of structural factors exacerbated by COVID-19 , including disruptions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to harm-reduction services and addiction treatment .
As Truthout has reported , the Trump administration continues to wage the failed war on drugs and people who use them , while failing to increase access to addiction treatment at levels necessary for reducing overdose deaths .
Less than 20 percent of the estimated 21.6 million teenagers and adults with a substance use disorder received treatment in 2019 , and only 2.6 percent received treatment at a specialized facility , according to federal data compiled by the American Society of Addiction Medicine ( ASAM ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because the federal data often excludes houseless and unstably housed people .
Like the war on drugs that has fueled mass incarceration for decades , the overdose crisis and COVID-19 both disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color .
“ What we are seeing is the intersection of two different problems that are affecting low-income communities of color in particular , ” said Jules Netherland , a managing research director at the Drug Policy Alliance , in an interview .
“ What COVID is doing is exacerbating problems that were already there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overdose crisis , so that it is even more difficult for people to get access to services.
” Netherland said harm-reduction strategies to reduce overdose deaths must include “ broad-based ” access to naloxone through syringe exchange programs and other sources , as well as broader access to substance abuse treatments , including methadone and buprenorphine , two drugs proven to treat opioid addiction .
The government temporarily loosened some restrictions on accessing methadone and buprenorphine by telehealth to accommodate patients during the pandemic , and advocates argue these changes must be made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government must go further and lift restrictions on pharmacists and doctors who provide these lifesaving medicines , according to the Drug Policy Alliance .
Advocates are also demanding an end to criminal penalties for using and possessing drugs and broad investment in meaningful treatment rather than court-ordered drug “ rehabilitation ” that doesn ’ t work .
When people are arrested by police and dragged into the criminal legal system , they are often incarcerated , another factor that can eventually put people at greater risk of overdose .
Methadone and buprenorphine are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prisons , and people recently released from incarceration are 40 times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the rest of the population .
Incarceration also puts people at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 .
“ To me getting [ methadone and buprenorphine ] into correctional settings is a no-brainer , ” Netherland said .
“ Far better to release folks that don ’ t need to be there , but at minimum we could be providing them with the medication that would help.
” Meanwhile , ASAM reports a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who need addiction treatment and the number of qualified doctors and medical professionals available to provide evidence-based treatment .
The gap is high in several states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act , including Texas , Florida , Georgia and South Carolina , according to a 2016 study by Pew Charitable Trusts .
Medicaid has helped combat the opioid and overdose crisis in states where it was expanded by providing health coverage for lower income people , but there are other factors behind the shortage of addiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stigma around people who use drugs and live with addiction , federal regulations and law enforcement also play a role in discouraging providers from effectively treating drug addiction .
For example , doctors must obtain a special federal waiver to prescribe buprenorphine , a drug proven to treat opioid addiction , and federal law restricts them from providing it for more than 100 patients at a time .
Today , the vast majority of doctors do not have a buprenorphine waiver , but they are legally allowed to prescribe other opioid drugs such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( DEA ) is also waging a nationwide crackdown on distributors and providers of prescription opioids – including on methadone and buprenorphine , which are technically opioids used to temper withdrawal symptoms and cravings .
As a result , more people with chronic pain or untreated opioid addiction may be turning to illicit opioids such as heroin and fentanyl , which are far more dangerous than pharmaceuticals and are a driving force behind the overdose epidemic .
For a decade , the DEA has come under heavy fire for failing to control the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narratives around painkiller overprescribing shaped public perceptions of the overdose epidemic in its early days .
However , rates of fatal overdose from prescription opioids continues to drop while rates of deaths from heroin and fentanyl have skyrocketed .
The DEA and lawmakers have responded to the overdose epidemic by putting restrictions on opioid prescribing and allowing the DEA and other law enforcement to closely surveil patients and their prescriptions through electronic databases set up by most states .
The DEA has raided and shut down pain and addiction treatment clinics as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ erecting massive barriers to care for patients .
In its most recent annual report , the DEA boasts that the number of prescription opioids available at pharmacies has dropped to its lowest level since 2006 .
“ If their ability to address their withdrawal symptoms in a way that is legal is cut off , I would imagine that a lot of people would turn to whatever they can get their hands on to help them get through that pain and discomfort , ” said Molly Doernberg , a project manager at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who studies how people use buprenorphine , in an interview .
The DEA says it ’ s rooting out “ pill mills ” that fuel the overdose epidemic , but well-respected doctors and pharmacists say they have been unfairly targeted , and their patients forced to search for lifesaving services somewhere else .
As a result , doctors and pharmacies are discouraged from serving pain and addiction patients out of fear that they could be targeted by the DEA .
Pain patients have been forced to taper off their medications amid the crackdown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against major retail pharmacies that refused to fill their prescriptions .
In West Virginia , a state hard hit by the overdose crisis , the DEA raided and temporarily revoked a dispensing license for the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy last year until a federal court intervened .
The pharmacy dispenses buprenorphine , and a federal judge agreed that DEA ’ s actions created barriers to lifesaving addiction treatment in an area with few providers .
Martin Njoku , the pharmacy ’ s manager , said the license suspension and legal costs nearly put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We have a lot of people trying to recover from opioid addiction .
The drug I was dispensing was just for the recovery .
It does not enhance the addiction , ” Njoku said in a recent interview .
The DEA ’ s annual report acknowledges that people turn to illicit opioids when pharmaceutical opioids are not available , and some drug traffickers even make pills that look like pharmaceuticals but contain fentanyl and other more dangerous opioid analogues .
The DEA ’ s press office did not immediately respond to a request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that supply-side crackdowns , without changing the environment and providing people with more harm-reduction and treatment options , is probably not going to be a successful strategy , and these data show that clearly , ” Netherland said .
“ As pharmaceutical opioids become less available , rates of fentanyl overdose increase .
”

Part of the Series Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
Drug overdose deaths have seen an alarming spike as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted treatment and aggravated the underlying causes of drug misuse, according to multiple data sources. Meanwhile, millions of people in the United States continue to face significant barriers to evidence-based addiction treatment as law enforcement restricts the supply of pharmaceutical opioids, forcing pain patients and drug users toward dangerous substitutes such as heroin and fentanyl that fuel high rates of fatal overdoses.
Reports gathered from across the country show a roughly 18 percent spike in drug overdoses in the two months following March 19 of this year, when many states began implementing stay-at-home orders, according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program. Nearly 60 percent of participating counties reported an increase in drug overdoses during that time period.
After rising steadily for nearly a decade, the number of reported overdose deaths finally stabilized in 2018 and early 2019, only to begin rising again in late 2019 and 2020. Nationally, overdose deaths increased by 10 percent from March 2019 to March 2020 compared to the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of deaths reported over 12-month periods ending in February and March 2020 increased by more than 5,000 compared to the same time periods a year before, reaching 72,000 for the first time in February and nearly 74,000 in March, according to analysis by the Drug Policy Alliance.
Since March, at least 40 states have reported an increase in opioid overdose deaths, according to the American Medical Association.
While illicit opioids such as heroin and fentanyl continue to fuel the crisis, the data show a slow but steady increase in overdoses from stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, highlighting the need for diverse approaches to reducing the harms of drug use.
Some media outlets have focused on the role isolation and loneliness due to quarantine may play in increasing the number of overdoses in localized areas. Indeed, a common overdose prevention tactic is refraining from using drugs alone and, for opioid users, keeping the overdose reversal drug naloxone on hand. However, drug policy reformers and public health experts point to a number of structural factors exacerbated by COVID-19, including disruptions in the drug supply and reduced access to harm-reduction services and addiction treatment.
Since March, at least 40 states have reported an increase in opioid overdose deaths.
As Truthout has reported, the Trump administration continues to wage the failed war on drugs and people who use them, while failing to increase access to addiction treatment at levels necessary for reducing overdose deaths. Less than 20 percent of the estimated 21.6 million teenagers and adults with a substance use disorder received treatment in 2019, and only 2.6 percent received treatment at a specialized facility, according to federal data compiled by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). These numbers may be an undercount because the federal data often excludes houseless and unstably housed people.
Like the war on drugs that has fueled mass incarceration for decades, the overdose crisis and COVID-19 both disproportionately impact low-income communities and communities of color.
“What we are seeing is the intersection of two different problems that are affecting low-income communities of color in particular,” said Jules Netherland, a managing research director at the Drug Policy Alliance, in an interview. “What COVID is doing is exacerbating problems that were already there when it came to dealing with the overdose crisis, so that it is even more difficult for people to get access to services.”
Netherland said harm-reduction strategies to reduce overdose deaths must include “broad-based” access to naloxone through syringe exchange programs and other sources, as well as broader access to substance abuse treatments, including methadone and buprenorphine, two drugs proven to treat opioid addiction. The government temporarily loosened some restrictions on accessing methadone and buprenorphine by telehealth to accommodate patients during the pandemic, and advocates argue these changes must be made permanent.
Federal regulations and law enforcement play a role in discouraging providers from effectively treating drug addiction.
To reduce overdoses, the government must go further and lift restrictions on pharmacists and doctors who provide these lifesaving medicines, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. Advocates are also demanding an end to criminal penalties for using and possessing drugs and broad investment in meaningful treatment rather than court-ordered drug “rehabilitation” that doesn’t work.
When people are arrested by police and dragged into the criminal legal system, they are often incarcerated, another factor that can eventually put people at greater risk of overdose. Methadone and buprenorphine are still not available in most jails and prisons, and people recently released from incarceration are 40 times more likely to die from an opioid overdose than the rest of the population. Incarceration also puts people at increased risk of contracting COVID-19.
“To me getting [methadone and buprenorphine] into correctional settings is a no-brainer,” Netherland said. “Far better to release folks that don’t need to be there, but at minimum we could be providing them with the medication that would help.”
Meanwhile, ASAM reports a “critical gap” between the number of people who need addiction treatment and the number of qualified doctors and medical professionals available to provide evidence-based treatment. The gap is high in several states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, according to a 2016 study by Pew Charitable Trusts. Medicaid has helped combat the opioid and overdose crisis in states where it was expanded by providing health coverage for lower income people, but there are other factors behind the shortage of addiction treatment providers.
While there is social stigma around people who use drugs and live with addiction, federal regulations and law enforcement also play a role in discouraging providers from effectively treating drug addiction. For example, doctors must obtain a special federal waiver to prescribe buprenorphine, a drug proven to treat opioid addiction, and federal law restricts them from providing it for more than 100 patients at a time. Today, the vast majority of doctors do not have a buprenorphine waiver, but they are legally allowed to prescribe other opioid drugs such as painkillers.
“As pharmaceutical opioids become less available, rates of fentanyl overdose increase.”
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is also waging a nationwide crackdown on distributors and providers of prescription opioids – including on methadone and buprenorphine, which are technically opioids used to temper withdrawal symptoms and cravings. As a result, more people with chronic pain or untreated opioid addiction may be turning to illicit opioids such as heroin and fentanyl, which are far more dangerous than pharmaceuticals and are a driving force behind the overdose epidemic.
For a decade, the DEA has come under heavy fire for failing to control the pharmaceutical supply of opioid painkillers, and narratives around painkiller overprescribing shaped public perceptions of the overdose epidemic in its early days. However, rates of fatal overdose from prescription opioids continues to drop while rates of deaths from heroin and fentanyl have skyrocketed.
The DEA and lawmakers have responded to the overdose epidemic by putting restrictions on opioid prescribing and allowing the DEA and other law enforcement to closely surveil patients and their prescriptions through electronic databases set up by most states. The DEA has raided and shut down pain and addiction treatment clinics as well as specialty pharmacies across the country, erecting massive barriers to care for patients. In its most recent annual report, the DEA boasts that the number of prescription opioids available at pharmacies has dropped to its lowest level since 2006.
“If their ability to address their withdrawal symptoms in a way that is legal is cut off, I would imagine that a lot of people would turn to whatever they can get their hands on to help them get through that pain and discomfort,” said Molly Doernberg, a project manager at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who studies how people use buprenorphine, in an interview.
The DEA says it’s rooting out “pill mills” that fuel the overdose epidemic, but well-respected doctors and pharmacists say they have been unfairly targeted, and their patients forced to search for lifesaving services somewhere else. As a result, doctors and pharmacies are discouraged from serving pain and addiction patients out of fear that they could be targeted by the DEA. Pain patients have been forced to taper off their medications amid the crackdown, and some have filed class-action lawsuits against major retail pharmacies that refused to fill their prescriptions.
In West Virginia, a state hard hit by the overdose crisis, the DEA raided and temporarily revoked a dispensing license for the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy last year until a federal court intervened. The pharmacy dispenses buprenorphine, and a federal judge agreed that DEA’s actions created barriers to lifesaving addiction treatment in an area with few providers. Martin Njoku, the pharmacy’s manager, said the license suspension and legal costs nearly put the pharmacy out of business.
“We have a lot of people trying to recover from opioid addiction. The drug I was dispensing was just for the recovery. It does not enhance the addiction,” Njoku said in a recent interview.
The DEA’s annual report acknowledges that people turn to illicit opioids when pharmaceutical opioids are not available, and some drug traffickers even make pills that look like pharmaceuticals but contain fentanyl and other more dangerous opioid analogues. The DEA’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“What we know is that supply-side crackdowns, without changing the environment and providing people with more harm-reduction and treatment options, is probably not going to be a successful strategy, and these data show that clearly,” Netherland said. “As pharmaceutical opioids become less available, rates of fentanyl overdose increase.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-10-20--Bernie Sanders Cheers Bolivia on “Year-Long Fight to Restore Democracy”

Following socialist candidate Luis Arce ’ s resounding victory in Bolivia ’ s high-stakes and closely watched presidential election , U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday applauded the people of the South American nation for persisting in their “ difficult , year-long fight to restore democracy ” in the wake of last year ’ s military coup that ousted Evo Morales and installed a vicious right-wing regime .
“ The Bolivian people made their voices heard in yesterday ’ s election , ” tweeted Sanders , who was among the first members of Congress to condemn the military coup , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump and Republican lawmakers and abetted by the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States ( OAS ) .
“ As minister of economy , Mr. Arce helped slash poverty and inequality , ” the Vermont senator added , referring to Arce ’ s role in Morales ’ government .
“ I congratulate him on his victory and wish him well.
” Exit polls released Monday showed Arce with such a large lead in the contest that Carlos Mesa , Arce ’ s closest competitor , was forced to concede defeat .
“ The results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very clear , ” said Mesa , who served as president of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005 .
“ It ’ s a result that we accept and it ’ s a result that we believe , because of the difference between the first and second [ finishers ] , will not be modified when we know the final results.
” U.S. Rep. Jesús “ Chuy ” García ( D-Ill. ) joined Sanders on Monday in celebrating “ the triumph of true democracy ” in Bolivia and demanded “ justice for those persecuted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” which seized power following the ouster of Morales and promptly unleashed violent military repression against anti-coup demonstrators .
As The Intercept ’ s Glenn Greenwald wrote Monday afternoon , “ It looks as though the margin of victory delivered to [ the Movement Toward Socialism party ] by the Bolivian people was so stunning , so decisive , that there are few options left for the retrograde forces — in Bolivia , Washington , and Brussels — which tried to destroy the country ’ s democracy.
” “ Anyone who believes in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideology , should be cheering the Bolivians who sacrificed so much to restore their right of self-rule and hoping that the stability and prosperity they enjoyed under Morales expands even further under his first democratically elected successor , ” Greenwald added .

Following socialist candidate Luis Arce’s resounding victory in Bolivia’s high-stakes and closely watched presidential election, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday applauded the people of the South American nation for persisting in their “difficult, year-long fight to restore democracy” in the wake of last year’s military coup that ousted Evo Morales and installed a vicious right-wing regime.
“The Bolivian people made their voices heard in yesterday’s election,” tweeted Sanders, who was among the first members of Congress to condemn the military coup, which was openly applauded by President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers and abetted by the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States (OAS).
“As minister of economy, Mr. Arce helped slash poverty and inequality,” the Vermont senator added, referring to Arce’s role in Morales’ government. “I congratulate him on his victory and wish him well.”
Exit polls released Monday showed Arce with such a large lead in the contest that Carlos Mesa, Arce’s closest competitor, was forced to concede defeat.
“The results from the quick count are overwhelming and very clear,” said Mesa, who served as president of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005. “It’s a result that we accept and it’s a result that we believe, because of the difference between the first and second [finishers], will not be modified when we know the final results.”
U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) joined Sanders on Monday in celebrating “the triumph of true democracy” in Bolivia and demanded “justice for those persecuted and killed under the Áñez regime,” which seized power following the ouster of Morales and promptly unleashed violent military repression against anti-coup demonstrators.
Celebrations for the restoration of democracy in Bolivia at 2am. pic.twitter.com/FOOInqEFhL — Camila (@camilateleSUR) October 19, 2020
As The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald wrote Monday afternoon, “It looks as though the margin of victory delivered to [the Movement Toward Socialism party] by the Bolivian people was so stunning, so decisive, that there are few options left for the retrograde forces — in Bolivia, Washington, and Brussels — which tried to destroy the country’s democracy.”
“Anyone who believes in the fundamentals of democracy, regardless of ideology, should be cheering the Bolivians who sacrificed so much to restore their right of self-rule and hoping that the stability and prosperity they enjoyed under Morales expands even further under his first democratically elected successor,” Greenwald added.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.