truthout--2020-10-19--Trump Has Stoked White Supremacy and Led Police to Act Outside the Law

As the 2020 presidential campaign enters its final two weeks , we look at the past four years of the Trump presidency with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept .
His podcast “ Intercepted ” has just released the fourth chapter in a seven-part audio documentary titled American Mythology , which critically examines the Trump presidency and places it within a larger historical context .
Scahill says Trump has empowered white supremacist vigilantes and given permission to law enforcement to act extrajudicially to enforce a racist status quo , but he cautions that “ Donald Trump is not an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but he ’ s a very overt representation of many of the absolute most violent , destructive , racist , xenophobic trends in U.S. history.
” 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 .
President Trump campaigned in Michigan , Wisconsin and Nevada over the weekend as he scrambles to pick up more support in critical swing states in these last two closing weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Muskegon , Michigan , Saturday , President Trump demanded Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer reopen the state .
The crowd soon started chanting “ Lock her up.
” Trump responded by saying , “ Lock them all up.
” AMY GOODMAN : Trump ’ s remarks came just less than two weeks after the FBI and authorities in Michigan arrested 13 men with ties to armed right-wing groups , including six men who allegedly plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer and take her hostage .
A seventh man was arrested in connection with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspicion of material support in an act of terrorism .
Over the weekend , federal prosecutors released videos of training exercises carried out by the men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer .
The videos show heavily armed men in tactical gear firing assault rifles and Taser weapons .
In one video , one of the arrested men talks about killing , quote , “ government thugs.
” AMY GOODMAN : On Sunday , Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer appeared on Meet the Press and criticized President Trump .
AMY GOODMAN : FBI Director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racially motivated violent extremism ” is the primary threat of domestic terrorism .
President Trump ’ s call to “ lock them all up ” is part of a pattern where he openly calls for the arrests of his political opponents and critics , including the Democratic presidential nominee , former President Obama — who ’ s going on the road to campaign for Biden on Wednesday — and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton .
As the presidential campaign enters its final two weeks , we ’ re spending the hour looking at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years of the Trump presidency , from his crackdown on immigration to his use of racialized fearmongering and incitement to run the country .
We ’ re joined by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept .
His podcast Intercepted just released the fourth chapter in a seven-part audio documentary series titled American Mythology : The Presidency of Donald Trump .
Jeremy Scahill is the author of several books , including Blackwater : The Rise of the World ’ s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars : The World Is a Battlefield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Jeremy , welcome back to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us .
We want to talk about a number of the issues you ’ re covering in this really comprehensive documentary series you ’ re doing , looking at the past four years .
But let ’ s start with what happened this weekend .
Let ’ s start with , once again , President Trump this time not saying “ liberate Michigan , ” but joining in a chant as the people around him call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Governor Whitmer , who was just the target of a plot to be kidnapped and perhaps lynched , brought to Wisconsin , where you grew up , to be tried .
Respond to what ’ s taking place right now .
JEREMY SCAHILL : You know , Amy , I think that what ’ s become very , very clear over these four years is that Donald Trump is not an aberration of U.S. history or some anomaly , but he is a very overt representation of many of the absolute most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trends in U.S. history .
Now , we can talk about the way that he has empowered white nationalists , white supremacists , encouraged their violence , but I think that it ’ s important to set that in a broader context of Trump being essentially a Trojan horse for the most extreme policies of the Republican Party .
The Republican Party is one of the most dangerous political bodies on the face of the Earth today .
And so , while it is important to focus on the activities of individual militias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the use of vehicles to try to murder protesters , we can ’ t do it at the expense of recognizing that these are sort of the unofficial shock troops of what is a long-term Republican agenda that has at its center white supremacy , anti-worker policies , anti-women policies and , certainly with Mike Pence in the White House , a right-wing Christian supremacist theocratic ideology that ’ s manifesting itself right now in the court system .
So , what we ’ re seeing is Trump using a tactic that was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for centuries , where you have these unofficial forces that are doing the lynching and then those in power are saying , “ Oh , well , we didn ’ t do that .
You know , we ’ re going to rustle up those good old boys and put them on trial ” — if they would even do that .
The reality is that there is this nexus between the white supremacist unofficial forces , the shock troops of this administration , and then Trump cultivating so-called law enforcement as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police nationwide to also come out front and center as his racialized shock troops .
So , all of this can be traced to the throughlines of white supremacist politics in official Washington , as well as the broader racist , xenophobic culture in the United States .
That ’ s what we ’ re seeing right now , is a manifestation of what Donald Trump has now made clear , that these strands of American history are alive , well and very , very deadly .
AMY GOODMAN : Last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ordered U.S .
Marshals to carry out the extrajudicial killing of the anti-fascist activist Michael Reinoehl in Washington state on September 3rd .
He had been accused of killing a far-right activist during a protest in Portland .
This is Trump .
AMY GOODMAN : Can you respond to this , Jeremy ?
JEREMY SCAHILL : Look , there ’ s a word for what it appears happened there , and that ’ s “ assassination.
” And it appears to be certainly the way that Trump is bragging about it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of the details , but Donald Trump is speaking about this as a political assassination of an American citizen on U.S. soil .
And it appears that they have lied or at least dramatically misled the public into believing that there was some epic shootout that took place .
It sounds , based on the president ’ s own description , that this was an assassination .
And I think as we all watch in horror at the kidnappings that have taken place of protesters , at the murder of unarmed Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ramming with vehicles of police , that , again , we are a nation that has long assassinated its own people when they become politically inconvenient or when we consider them to be less-than-humans getting too uppity .
I recall the murder , the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago .
We ’ ve had civil rights leaders and presidential candidates assassinated .
We ’ ve had a president assassinated in this country .
And I think that this tendency to sort of act as though Trump has crossed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dark part of American history that we have never fully reckoned with .
And we have both parties in this country have continued to empower Donald Trump .
The Democrats , for all of their constant harping on Trump being the worst president in history , this great threat to democracy as we know it and the future of the republic , should be asked : Why have you consistently voted to give this dangerous tyrant , as you characterize him , sweeping surveillance powers , the ability to spy on American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Democrats are backing in the Congress that have to do with surveillance and paramilitarization of law enforcement , that these are somehow disconnected from the fact that we now have a president openly celebrating the assassination of an American citizen on U.S. soil ?
The powers of the executive branch have been so radically broadened , beginning really in the Ford administration , but particularly after 9/11 .
And when we had a constitutional law professor as president for eight years , instead of moving to radically rein in the powers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was Obama utilize them himself .
Now , Obama wasn ’ t running around whacking U.S. citizens on American soil , but he did assassinate citizens overseas , including a 16-year-old American citizen who was never accused of any crime of terrorism , who Obama had killed in a drone strike .
So , you know , the dangers of Donald Trump — I ’ m not trying to minimize anything about Donald Trump .
I think this is a dangerous , dangerous despot .
But if we refuse to recognize how we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what he ’ s doing as president and that it is rooted in American history , if we don ’ t reckon with that , then voting Donald Trump out of office is just one step .
We still have this rotten system that can be exploited by another Trump , or even by a Democrat who claims to be hoping and changing , left and right .
AMY GOODMAN : Jeremy , back on the issue of the white supremacists , the Michigan attorney general also warned , when people talked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cops-esque and we see the video of them practicing shooting , tasering , the terrifying idea that they would not stop at kidnapping her , but , as they had promised in the past , lynching her — the Michigan attorney general said this is just the tip of the iceberg .
You have President Trump ’ s own FBI , even if Christopher Wray is not exactly his ally , and the Department of Homeland Security , Chad Wolf , coming out with this report saying that white supremacist violent extremists are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country .
Far more than international threats to the United States are white supremacist , right-wing extremists .
JEREMY SCAHILL : You know , I mean , and clearly , the Trump administration , if they ’ ve even looked at that information , have taken that and said , “ OK , this is a good thing .
Let ’ s continue to encourage them.
” Donald Trump is doing what authoritarians throughout history have done .
When they ’ re asked to condemn the violence of unofficial forces , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same time saying things like , you know , “ Stand down and stand by ” — in other words , “ Wait and see.
” But I really want to emphasize that you can not separate these white supremacist militias ’ alleged plots to kidnap Democratic governors in this country from the fact that Trump has cultivated law enforcement as a political class , and he has openly and repeatedly encouraged them to act extrajudicially , to beat people harder , to not respect their rights .
Trump threatened to send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Black Lives Matter protests .
Trump encouraged mayors and governors to beat them harder in the streets .
We have a paramilitarized state of law enforcement in this country that also often acts as a white supremacist gang , particularly when facing down African Americans or Brown people or people of color .
You know , that is something that I fear , that if we focus too much on the threat of white supremacist private actors at the expense of recognizing how the taxpayer-funded official forces also serve that same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the White House , that we ’ re sort of being misdirected here .
This is a systemic problem .
And the Proud Boys of the world and the Ku Klux Klans of the world and the militias of the world , they essentially are auxiliary forces for official government forces that often function as effective white supremacist militias , particularly in Black communities .
AMY GOODMAN : And then you have , for example , Kenosha , where they come together , where you have these white vigilantes come in , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the authorities there , the law enforcement authorities , are supporting them .
And then you have — AMY GOODMAN : — Kyle Rittenhouse — giving them water , saying , “ We support you here.
” And then you have this 17-year-old , Kyle Rittenhouse , who opened fire and kills two Black Lives Matter activists .
President Trump defends him .
AMY GOODMAN : And he is not killed by federal authorities , as we saw happen in Oregon .
JEREMY SCAHILL : No .
And , in fact , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when these vile so-called counterprotesters show up , you know , we ’ ve seen people fire bow and arrow — you know , arrows from crossbows at protesters .
We ’ ve seen the use of vehicles as a lethal or semi-lethal weapon against protesters — more than a hundred cases of individuals using their cars .
And I believe , at last count , eight of them were police officers that actually had used vehicles to ram into protesters .
But Donald Trump , on a domestic level , is saying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of — you know , he ’ s misunderstood , and he ’ s essentially on the right side of history .
And he does the same thing abroad .
You know , Trump has pardoned outright war criminals who have committed massacres against civilians abroad .
And at home , he has , at his rallies , offered to pay the legal fees of people that beat up protesters .
He has encouraged the police to act with more brutality .
He has consistently staked out a position that says that if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the real America — white America — then we ’ re going to be there for you , we ’ ve got your back .
And that ’ s a very , very frightening , overt manifestation of a white supremacy that ’ s at the core of this country , that has never been fully addressed .
And it ’ s why we ’ re seeing someone like Trump able to pull this off .
We do not have a true opposition in the form of the Democratic Party on a legislative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve consistently supported some of Trump ’ s most dangerous tools available to the executive branch .

As the 2020 presidential campaign enters its final two weeks, we look at the past four years of the Trump presidency with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept. His podcast “Intercepted” has just released the fourth chapter in a seven-part audio documentary titled American Mythology, which critically examines the Trump presidency and places it within a larger historical context. Scahill says Trump has empowered white supremacist vigilantes and given permission to law enforcement to act extrajudicially to enforce a racist status quo, but he cautions that “Donald Trump is not an aberration of U.S. history or some anomaly, but he’s a very overt representation of many of the absolute most violent, destructive, racist, xenophobic trends in U.S. history.”
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.
President Trump campaigned in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada over the weekend as he scrambles to pick up more support in critical swing states in these last two closing weeks of the 2020 race. Speaking in Muskegon, Michigan, Saturday, President Trump demanded Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer reopen the state. The crowd soon started chanting “Lock her up.” Trump responded by saying, “Lock them all up.”
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You got to get your governor to open up your state, OK? And get your schools open. Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? Related Story Interview | Politics & Elections Noam Chomsky: Trump Is Willing to Dismantle Democracy to Hold On to Power The fact that Trump’s coup threat is even being discussed shows how effectively he has undermined formal democracy. Truthout CROWD: Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up! PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Lock her — lock ’em all up. CROWD: Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s remarks came just less than two weeks after the FBI and authorities in Michigan arrested 13 men with ties to armed right-wing groups, including six men who allegedly plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer and take her hostage. A seventh man was arrested in connection with the kidnapping plot and charged on Thursday with suspicion of material support in an act of terrorism. Over the weekend, federal prosecutors released videos of training exercises carried out by the men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer. The videos show heavily armed men in tactical gear firing assault rifles and Taser weapons. In one video, one of the arrested men talks about killing, quote, “government thugs.”
BRANDON CASERTA: If this whole thing, you know, starts to happen, I’m telling you what, dude, I’m taking out as many as those mother[bleep] as I can. Every single one, dude. Every single one.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer appeared on Meet the Press and criticized President Trump.
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER: You know, it’s incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States, 10 days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me — 10 days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It’s got to end. It is dangerous, not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere who are doing their jobs and trying to protect their fellow Americans.
AMY GOODMAN: FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned Congress that “racially motivated violent extremism” is the primary threat of domestic terrorism.
President Trump’s call to “lock them all up” is part of a pattern where he openly calls for the arrests of his political opponents and critics, including the Democratic presidential nominee, former President Obama — who’s going on the road to campaign for Biden on Wednesday — and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
As the presidential campaign enters its final two weeks, we’re spending the hour looking at these recent developments and the past four years of the Trump presidency, from his crackdown on immigration to his use of racialized fearmongering and incitement to run the country.
We’re joined by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept. His podcast Intercepted just released the fourth chapter in a seven-part audio documentary series titled American Mythology: The Presidency of Donald Trump. Jeremy Scahill is the author of several books, including Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army and Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, also the name of his film.
Jeremy, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. We want to talk about a number of the issues you’re covering in this really comprehensive documentary series you’re doing, looking at the past four years. But let’s start with what happened this weekend. Let’s start with, once again, President Trump this time not saying “liberate Michigan,” but joining in a chant as the people around him call “Lock he up,” talking about Governor Whitmer, who was just the target of a plot to be kidnapped and perhaps lynched, brought to Wisconsin, where you grew up, to be tried. Respond to what’s taking place right now.
JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, Amy, I think that what’s become very, very clear over these four years is that Donald Trump is not an aberration of U.S. history or some anomaly, but he is a very overt representation of many of the absolute most violent, destructive, racist, xenophobic trends in U.S. history.
Now, we can talk about the way that he has empowered white nationalists, white supremacists, encouraged their violence, but I think that it’s important to set that in a broader context of Trump being essentially a Trojan horse for the most extreme policies of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is one of the most dangerous political bodies on the face of the Earth today. And so, while it is important to focus on the activities of individual militias, the plot against Governor Whitmer, the use of vehicles to try to murder protesters, we can’t do it at the expense of recognizing that these are sort of the unofficial shock troops of what is a long-term Republican agenda that has at its center white supremacy, anti-worker policies, anti-women policies and, certainly with Mike Pence in the White House, a right-wing Christian supremacist theocratic ideology that’s manifesting itself right now in the court system.
So, what we’re seeing is Trump using a tactic that was used against Black people in this country for centuries, where you have these unofficial forces that are doing the lynching and then those in power are saying, “Oh, well, we didn’t do that. You know, we’re going to rustle up those good old boys and put them on trial” — if they would even do that. The reality is that there is this nexus between the white supremacist unofficial forces, the shock troops of this administration, and then Trump cultivating so-called law enforcement as a political class and sort of appealing to the police nationwide to also come out front and center as his racialized shock troops.
So, all of this can be traced to the throughlines of white supremacist politics in official Washington, as well as the broader racist, xenophobic culture in the United States. That’s what we’re seeing right now, is a manifestation of what Donald Trump has now made clear, that these strands of American history are alive, well and very, very deadly.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week, President Trump appeared to admit that he ordered U.S. Marshals to carry out the extrajudicial killing of the anti-fascist activist Michael Reinoehl in Washington state on September 3rd. He had been accused of killing a far-right activist during a protest in Portland. This is Trump.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We sent in the U.S. Marshals. Took 15 minutes. It was over. Fifteen minutes, it was over. We got him. They knew who he was. They didn’t want to arrest him. And 15 minutes, that ended.
JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, Amy —
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to this, Jeremy?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Look, there’s a word for what it appears happened there, and that’s “assassination.” And it appears to be certainly the way that Trump is bragging about it. Now, we don’t have all of the details, but Donald Trump is speaking about this as a political assassination of an American citizen on U.S. soil. And it appears that they have lied or at least dramatically misled the public into believing that there was some epic shootout that took place. It sounds, based on the president’s own description, that this was an assassination.
And I think as we all watch in horror at the kidnappings that have taken place of protesters, at the murder of unarmed Black people in this country, at the ramming with vehicles of police, that, again, we are a nation that has long assassinated its own people when they become politically inconvenient or when we consider them to be less-than-humans getting too uppity. I recall the murder, the assassination of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago. We’ve had civil rights leaders and presidential candidates assassinated. We’ve had a president assassinated in this country. And I think that this tendency to sort of act as though Trump has crossed the Rubicon is ahistorical. Trump represents a dark part of American history that we have never fully reckoned with.
And we have both parties in this country have continued to empower Donald Trump. The Democrats, for all of their constant harping on Trump being the worst president in history, this great threat to democracy as we know it and the future of the republic, should be asked: Why have you consistently voted to give this dangerous tyrant, as you characterize him, sweeping surveillance powers, the ability to spy on American citizens? You think that these votes that the Democrats are backing in the Congress that have to do with surveillance and paramilitarization of law enforcement, that these are somehow disconnected from the fact that we now have a president openly celebrating the assassination of an American citizen on U.S. soil?
The powers of the executive branch have been so radically broadened, beginning really in the Ford administration, but particularly after 9/11. And when we had a constitutional law professor as president for eight years, instead of moving to radically rein in the powers of the presidency, what we saw was Obama utilize them himself. Now, Obama wasn’t running around whacking U.S. citizens on American soil, but he did assassinate citizens overseas, including a 16-year-old American citizen who was never accused of any crime of terrorism, who Obama had killed in a drone strike.
So, you know, the dangers of Donald Trump — I’m not trying to minimize anything about Donald Trump. I think this is a dangerous, dangerous despot. But if we refuse to recognize how we got Donald Trump and the historical context of what he’s doing as president and that it is rooted in American history, if we don’t reckon with that, then voting Donald Trump out of office is just one step. We still have this rotten system that can be exploited by another Trump, or even by a Democrat who claims to be hoping and changing, left and right.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, back on the issue of the white supremacists, the Michigan attorney general also warned, when people talked about them being kind of like Keystone Cops-esque and we see the video of them practicing shooting, tasering, the terrifying idea that they would not stop at kidnapping her, but, as they had promised in the past, lynching her — the Michigan attorney general said this is just the tip of the iceberg. You have President Trump’s own FBI, even if Christopher Wray is not exactly his ally, and the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, coming out with this report saying that white supremacist violent extremists are the number one domestic terrorist threat in this country. Far more than international threats to the United States are white supremacist, right-wing extremists.
JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, I mean, and clearly, the Trump administration, if they’ve even looked at that information, have taken that and said, “OK, this is a good thing. Let’s continue to encourage them.” Donald Trump is doing what authoritarians throughout history have done. When they’re asked to condemn the violence of unofficial forces, they will grudgingly do that, while at the same time saying things like, you know, “Stand down and stand by” — in other words, “Wait and see.”
But I really want to emphasize that you cannot separate these white supremacist militias’ alleged plots to kidnap Democratic governors in this country from the fact that Trump has cultivated law enforcement as a political class, and he has openly and repeatedly encouraged them to act extrajudicially, to beat people harder, to not respect their rights. Trump threatened to send in the U.S. military at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. Trump encouraged mayors and governors to beat them harder in the streets. We have a paramilitarized state of law enforcement in this country that also often acts as a white supremacist gang, particularly when facing down African Americans or Brown people or people of color. You know, that is something that I fear, that if we focus too much on the threat of white supremacist private actors at the expense of recognizing how the taxpayer-funded official forces also serve that same function, and with the full backing of the White House, that we’re sort of being misdirected here. This is a systemic problem. And the Proud Boys of the world and the Ku Klux Klans of the world and the militias of the world, they essentially are auxiliary forces for official government forces that often function as effective white supremacist militias, particularly in Black communities.
AMY GOODMAN: And then you have, for example, Kenosha, where they come together, where you have these white vigilantes come in, saying they are protecting private property, and the authorities there, the law enforcement authorities, are supporting them. And then you have —
JEREMY SCAHILL: Giving them water.
AMY GOODMAN: — Kyle Rittenhouse — giving them water, saying, “We support you here.” And then you have this 17-year-old, Kyle Rittenhouse, who opened fire and kills two Black Lives Matter activists. President Trump defends him.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah. I mean, Donald —
AMY GOODMAN: And he is not killed by federal authorities, as we saw happen in Oregon.
JEREMY SCAHILL: No. And, in fact, at these Black Lives Matter protests, when these vile so-called counterprotesters show up, you know, we’ve seen people fire bow and arrow — you know, arrows from crossbows at protesters. We’ve seen the use of vehicles as a lethal or semi-lethal weapon against protesters — more than a hundred cases of individuals using their cars. And I believe, at last count, eight of them were police officers that actually had used vehicles to ram into protesters.
But Donald Trump, on a domestic level, is saying that someone like Kyle Rittenhouse is sort of — you know, he’s misunderstood, and he’s essentially on the right side of history. And he does the same thing abroad. You know, Trump has pardoned outright war criminals who have committed massacres against civilians abroad. And at home, he has, at his rallies, offered to pay the legal fees of people that beat up protesters. He has encouraged the police to act with more brutality. He has consistently staked out a position that says that if you kill in the name of protecting the real America — white America — then we’re going to be there for you, we’ve got your back.
And that’s a very, very frightening, overt manifestation of a white supremacy that’s at the core of this country, that has never been fully addressed. And it’s why we’re seeing someone like Trump able to pull this off. We do not have a true opposition in the form of the Democratic Party on a legislative level. Quite the contrary, they’ve consistently supported some of Trump’s most dangerous tools available to the executive branch.


truthout--2020-10-19--Michigan Republican Senate Candidate Has Strong Financial Ties to DeVos Family

James has extensive ties to the DeVos family , which has poured money into his race against Sen. Gary Peters , D-Mich. His campaign recently hired Betsy DeVos ’ niece , and his wife has worked at the DeVos family ’ s Amway empire for years .
Members of the DeVos family have directly donated tens of thousands to his campaign .
The DeVos family has also funded the Better Future Michigan Fund , a super PAC which has now spent at least $ 7.1 million to help James defeat Peters .
Dan and Pam DeVos have contributed hundreds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Despite other Republican Senate candidates being outraised by massive sums across the country , James has managed to outraise Peters throughout most of the campaign despite losing his 2018 Senate race to Sen. Debbie Stabenow , D-Mich. , by seven points .
Two recent polls , one of which showed the race virtually tied , suggest that Michigan is one of the few competitive seats where Republicans could pull off an upset next month .
James has spent some of the money he ’ s raised to buy ads downplaying his ties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ released an ad trying to distance himself from Betsy DeVos ’ assault on public education , insisting that he believes a “ quality education is a basic civil right.
” “ You ’ re not running against President Trump , or Betsy DeVos or any other boogeyman , ” James told Peters in the ad .
“ You ’ re running against me .
This may surprise you senator , but no one owns me.
” A Democratic super PAC accused James of backing “ DeVos ’ agenda to cut public school funding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instead.
” Politifact Michigan rated the claim “ mostly false , ” though only because James has repeatedly avoided saying anything specific about his education policy .
James has frequently declined to state his views on education , and he turned down a request to push back on the claim .
His campaign declined PolitiFact Michigan ’ s “ request for any details about his education policies that would rebut ” the allegation .
The campaign did not respond to questions from Salon , as well .
James has generally been supportive of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money away from public schools to private and religious schools .
“ She ’ s headed in the right direction , ” James reportedly said in 2018 .
“ She ’ s got a lot of inertia , I think .
By doing things to get more power back to the states and to parents , I truly believe that if we give parents the resources and the opportunity to decide what ’ s best for their children , they will make the best decision 100 % of the time.
” “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education , I think , is very , very good , ” he reiterated a few months later in audio published by the Democratic Senate Majority PAC .
Those comments came after DeVos sought to cut Department of Education funding while increasing federal grants to private schools .
“ James is very on the record about supporting her , ” Senate Majority PAC spokesman Matt Corridoni told Politifact Michigan , “ and she ’ s very on the record about her positions .
”

Michigan Republican Senate candidate John James attended a fundraiser at the home of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ brother-in-law while trying to downplay the financial help his campaign has received from the family.
James attended a fundraiser at the home of DeVos’ brother-in-law, Dan, and his wife, Pamella, last month. Though James was well-distanced from the crowd, none of the attendees appeared to be wearing masks, according to a photo published (which has since been made unavailable) by former Allegan County Republican Party Chairman Kevin Whiteford to Facebook.
James has extensive ties to the DeVos family, which has poured money into his race against Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. His campaign recently hired Betsy DeVos’ niece, and his wife has worked at the DeVos family’s Amway empire for years. Members of the DeVos family have directly donated tens of thousands to his campaign.
The DeVos family has also funded the Better Future Michigan Fund, a super PAC which has now spent at least $7.1 million to help James defeat Peters. Dan and Pam DeVos have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the super PAC.
Despite other Republican Senate candidates being outraised by massive sums across the country, James has managed to outraise Peters throughout most of the campaign despite losing his 2018 Senate race to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., by seven points.
Two recent polls, one of which showed the race virtually tied, suggest that Michigan is one of the few competitive seats where Republicans could pull off an upset next month.
James has spent some of the money he’s raised to buy ads downplaying his ties to the DeVos family.
James recently released an ad trying to distance himself from Betsy DeVos’ assault on public education, insisting that he believes a “quality education is a basic civil right.”
“You’re not running against President Trump, or Betsy DeVos or any other boogeyman,” James told Peters in the ad. “You’re running against me. This may surprise you senator, but no one owns me.”
James previously declared that he supports Trump “2,000%.”
A Democratic super PAC accused James of backing “DeVos’ agenda to cut public school funding and put it into wealthy private schools instead.” Politifact Michigan rated the claim “mostly false,” though only because James has repeatedly avoided saying anything specific about his education policy. James has frequently declined to state his views on education, and he turned down a request to push back on the claim. His campaign declined PolitiFact Michigan’s “request for any details about his education policies that would rebut” the allegation. The campaign did not respond to questions from Salon, as well.
James has generally been supportive of DeVos’ agenda, which has steered money away from public schools to private and religious schools.
“She’s headed in the right direction,” James reportedly said in 2018. “She’s got a lot of inertia, I think. By doing things to get more power back to the states and to parents, I truly believe that if we give parents the resources and the opportunity to decide what’s best for their children, they will make the best decision 100% of the time.”
“The job Betsy DeVos is doing in pubic education, I think, is very, very good,” he reiterated a few months later in audio published by the Democratic Senate Majority PAC.
Those comments came after DeVos sought to cut Department of Education funding while increasing federal grants to private schools.
“James is very on the record about supporting her,” Senate Majority PAC spokesman Matt Corridoni told Politifact Michigan, “and she’s very on the record about her positions.”


truthout--2020-10-19--Fauci Says Trump’s Refusal to Wear Mask Is Due to Belief It Makes Him Look Weak

During an interview on Sunday evening on CBS ’ s “ 60 Minutes ” program , Anthony Fauci , a member of the White House ’ s coronavirus task force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , explained that President Donald Trump ’ s aversion to wearing a mask is based on the desire to be perceived as strong .
Fauci was at times defensive of the president ’ s attitudes , saying his position on masks in general was “ less an anti-science ” viewpoint and “ more a statement ” he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ You know , a statement of strength , ” Fauci said .
“ Like , ‘ We ’ re strong .
We don ’ t need a mask.
’ That kind of thing .
He sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.
” In spite of trying to defend or at least explain Trump ’ s attitudes toward masks , which are largely seen by medical experts as the best way to prevent the spread of coronavirus if social distancing isn ’ t possible , Fauci said he disagreed with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the matter .
“ No , it doesn ’ t ” portray strength to not wear a mask , Fauci said .
“ Of course not.
” Fauci ’ s defenses of Trump , however , were contradicted by the president himself over the weekend .
During a campaign rally in Nevada on Sunday , Trump attempted to demean his Democratic opponent , Joe Biden , by suggesting Biden would hurt the economy by heeding the advice of scientists more than Trump would .
“ He ’ ll listen to the scientists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mocking tone during a campaign rally in Nevada on Sunday .
While Fauci is a member of Trump ’ s coronavirus task force , the president tends to gravitate toward those within that group who hold the minority opinion on the subject of masks .
During his town hall event last week with NBC ’ s Savannah Guthrie , Trump cited his adviser , Scott Atlas , a member of the task force who refuses to wear a mask and holds controversial views on herd immunity .
“ You have , on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You have a story where they want , a story where they don ’ t want , ” Trump said to Guthrie in their conversation on wearing masks .
“ All of your public health officials , your administration , they ’ re in unison about this , ” Guthrie responded .
“ Some .
No … Scott Atkins , if you look at Scott , Dr. Scott , ” Trump retorted , getting Atlas ’ s last name wrong .
“ He ’ s from , great guy , Stanford .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with you.
” “ He ’ s not an infectious disease expert , ” Guthrie pointed out , noting that Atlas is a neuroradiologist , a specialist who deals with diagnosing health issues related to the brain , spine , head and neck , and not an epidemiologist .
Atlas himself attempted to disseminate errant information about masks over the weekend , tweeting on Saturday that he didn ’ t believe in their efficacy to prevent the spread of coronavirus .
Twitter deleted his tweets , stating that the posts had violated their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on COVID-19 .
The overwhelming body of evidence suggests that wearing a mask vastly reduces the possibility of spreading coronavirus when social distancing isn ’ t possible .
Indeed , according to research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine , there would be around 79,000 fewer deaths between now and February 1 if 95 percent of the population regularly wore a mask in public .

One model predicts there would be 79,000 fewer deaths between now and February if 95 percent of the public wore masks.
During an interview on Sunday evening on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained that President Donald Trump’s aversion to wearing a mask is based on the desire to be perceived as strong.
Fauci was at times defensive of the president’s attitudes, saying his position on masks in general was “less an anti-science” viewpoint and “more a statement” he was attempting to convey to the American people.
“You know, a statement of strength,” Fauci said. “Like, ‘We’re strong. We don’t need a mask.’ That kind of thing. He sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.”
In spite of trying to defend or at least explain Trump’s attitudes toward masks, which are largely seen by medical experts as the best way to prevent the spread of coronavirus if social distancing isn’t possible, Fauci said he disagreed with the president’s point of view on the matter.
“No, it doesn’t” portray strength to not wear a mask, Fauci said. “Of course not.”
Fauci’s defenses of Trump, however, were contradicted by the president himself over the weekend. During a campaign rally in Nevada on Sunday, Trump attempted to demean his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, by suggesting Biden would hurt the economy by heeding the advice of scientists more than Trump would.
“He’ll listen to the scientists,” Trump said of Biden in a mocking tone during a campaign rally in Nevada on Sunday.
While Fauci is a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, the president tends to gravitate toward those within that group who hold the minority opinion on the subject of masks. During his town hall event last week with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Trump cited his adviser, Scott Atlas, a member of the task force who refuses to wear a mask and holds controversial views on herd immunity.
“You have, on the masks, you have two stories. You have a story where they want, a story where they don’t want,” Trump said to Guthrie in their conversation on wearing masks.
“All of your public health officials, your administration, they’re in unison about this,” Guthrie responded.
“Some. No … Scott Atkins, if you look at Scott, Dr. Scott,” Trump retorted, getting Atlas’s last name wrong. “He’s from, great guy, Stanford. He will tell you that, he disagrees with you.”
“He’s not an infectious disease expert,” Guthrie pointed out, noting that Atlas is a neuroradiologist, a specialist who deals with diagnosing health issues related to the brain, spine, head and neck, and not an epidemiologist.
Atlas himself attempted to disseminate errant information about masks over the weekend, tweeting on Saturday that he didn’t believe in their efficacy to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Twitter deleted his tweets, stating that the posts had violated their rules on sharing false and dangerous misinformation on COVID-19.
The overwhelming body of evidence suggests that wearing a mask vastly reduces the possibility of spreading coronavirus when social distancing isn’t possible. Indeed, according to research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine, there would be around 79,000 fewer deaths between now and February 1 if 95 percent of the population regularly wore a mask in public.
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--2020-10-19--In Nevada, Trump Mocks Biden for Listening to Scientists

Speaking to a largely maskless crowd of supporters on Carson City , Nevada late Sunday , President Donald Trump mocked Democratic nominee Joe Biden for vowing to “ listen to the scientists ” on the Covid-19 pandemic if elected in November and boasted about his own refusal to heed the advice of experts even as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to surge nationwide .
“ If I listened totally to the scientists , we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression , ” Trump said , neglecting to mention that the U.S. is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an unprecedented economic downturn .
“ We ’ re like a rocket ship , take a look at the numbers , ” the president added , remarks that came just days after the Labor Department reported that another 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending October 10 .
According to data from the Census Bureau , nearly 80 million U.S. adults are struggling to afford basic necessities such as food and rent .
The Biden campaign and allies of the former vice president were quick to respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in line with the president ’ s repeated dismissals of expert recommendations and basic public health guidelines as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the country .
Ronald Klain , Biden ’ s former chief of staff who led the Obama administration ’ s Ebola response , tweeted , “ Trump admits he doesn ’ t listen to scientists .
No wonder the U.S. leads the world in Covid deaths.
” Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates called Trump ’ s remarks “ tellingly out of touch and the polar opposite of reality.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inherited from the Obama-Biden administration by lying about and attacking the science , and layoffs are rising , ” Bates said .
The president ’ s anti-science rhetoric , policies , and personnel moves — which have included the installation of political officials at federal public health agencies — have led nonpartisan publications and groups like Scientific American and the National Academy of Sciences to publicly criticize Trump , in some cases , call for his ouster in November .
“ Policymaking must be informed by the best available evidence without it being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miscommunicated , ” the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine said in a joint statement last month .
“ We find ongoing reports and incidents of the politicization of science , particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and derision of government scientists , to be alarming .
”

The Biden campaign and allies of the former vice president were quick to respond to Trump’s attack.
Speaking to a largely maskless crowd of supporters on Carson City, Nevada late Sunday, President Donald Trump mocked Democratic nominee Joe Biden for vowing to “listen to the scientists” on the Covid-19 pandemic if elected in November and boasted about his own refusal to heed the advice of experts even as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to surge nationwide.
“If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression,” Trump said, neglecting to mention that the U.S. is, in fact, currently in the midst of an unprecedented economic downturn.
“We’re like a rocket ship, take a look at the numbers,” the president added, remarks that came just days after the Labor Department reported that another 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending October 10. According to data from the Census Bureau, nearly 80 million U.S. adults are struggling to afford basic necessities such as food and rent.
Watch Trump’s comments:
The Biden campaign and allies of the former vice president were quick to respond to Trump’s attack, which was in line with the president’s repeated dismissals of expert recommendations and basic public health guidelines as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the country.
Ronald Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff who led the Obama administration’s Ebola response, tweeted, “Trump admits he doesn’t listen to scientists. No wonder the U.S. leads the world in Covid deaths.”
Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates called Trump’s remarks “tellingly out of touch and the polar opposite of reality.”
“Trump crashed the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden administration by lying about and attacking the science, and layoffs are rising,” Bates said.
The president’s anti-science rhetoric, policies, and personnel moves — which have included the installation of political officials at federal public health agencies — have led nonpartisan publications and groups like Scientific American and the National Academy of Sciences to publicly criticize Trump, in some cases, call for his ouster in November.
“Policymaking must be informed by the best available evidence without it being distorted, concealed, or otherwise deliberately miscommunicated,” the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine said in a joint statement last month. “We find ongoing reports and incidents of the politicization of science, particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and derision of government scientists, to be alarming.”
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--2020-10-19--COVID-19 Spikes in Rural Areas While Hospitals Face Financial Crisis

One by one , COVID-19 outbreaks popped up in April and May at meatpacking plants across the country , fanning fears that the infectious coronavirus could spread rapidly into rural states .
Plants closed temporarily in small metro areas such as Sioux Falls , South Dakota , and Waterloo , Iowa , and in smaller towns like Iowa ’ s Tama , Columbus Junction and Perry .
Meanwhile , hospitals near plants were pressed hard in several parts of the country .
The infection rate in North Carolina ’ s rural Duplin County , for example , home to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ processing plant , was close to twice that of urban Mecklenburg County , where Charlotte is located , an analysis by The Daily Yonder showed .
Jasper County , in southwest Missouri bordering Kansas and close to Oklahoma and Arkansas , started reporting a jump in COVID-19 cases at a Butterball poultry plant in Carthage as June began .
Then , almost 500 workers tested positive for the virus at several Tyson Foods facilities in northwest Arkansas , about 80 miles to the south .
“ If you go on down into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospitals down in those areas are starting to become overwhelmed , so that could potentially affect our hospital capacity here , ” Jasper County Health Director Tony Moehr said during the infection peak in June .
Leaders at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake , a northwest Iowa town of 10,500 with a Tyson Foods packing plant , knew their time would come .
“ We just didn ’ t know to what degree , ” said Rob Colerick , the hospital CEO .
“ I mean , you saw it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Waterloo .
You saw it in Sioux Falls .
Certainly , the dynamics were present to have a similar situation here.
” What Colerick and other rural hospital administrators in the United States knew was that they had entered the pandemic last spring facing financial crises so extreme that hospital closings were a real possibility in small towns across the nation .
Most of those at risk were at designated critical access hospitals , small hospitals with 25 or fewer general care beds that people in rural areas depend on for accessible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ estimates that 57 million Americans depend on these hospitals .
Beyond the health benefits , hospitals make a rural community economically attractive for both businesses and residents .
Three out of every four of the nation ’ s critical access hospitals had negative operating incomes going into the pandemic , according to an analysis by a collaboration of news outlets that are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News : IowaWatch , Wisconsin Watch , Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and Side Effects Public Media .
The main reason : It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and patients pay for that care .
The national operating income rate has worsened , from 69 % of critical access hospitals running with negative income in 2015 to 75 % in 2019 , the analysis showed .
Compounding the problem , hospitals focusing on handling the pandemic last spring canceled nonemergency medical procedures that would have produced income needed to deliver patient care .
Federal aid that hospitals received from the Coronavirus Aid , Relief and Economic Security Act and the Paycheck Protection Program filled some of this year ’ s funding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the roughly 60 % of the nation ’ s hospitals willing to comply with rules attached to paying back the advances .
The cash boost was so substantial that some hospital leaders in the Midwest said in interviews that they had stronger income this past summer than in summer 2019 .
But the infusion was only a temporary lifeline , not the permanent fix hospital industry leaders say is needed , most likely from the federal government , to keep some critical access hospitals from closing .
“ The subsidy , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a couple months , ” said Mark Holmes , director of the University of North Carolina ’ s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research , which keeps tabs on hospitals at risk of closing because of financial hardship .
“ But eventually , there comes a time , ” Holmes said of at-risk hospitals .
“ And a very common experience is by Wednesday night , they realize they can ’ t make payroll on Friday .
So it ’ s often a pretty short window when these things are announced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be the type of pattern that we see.
” That scenario could happen within a year at hospitals that entered 2020 already on shaky financial ground without more federal funding , he said .
Moreover , infection rates are rising in several rural states .
Wisconsin had 264 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care on Oct. 15 , the state ’ s Department of Health Services reported .
It already needed more ICU beds than it had available for a surge that could result in needing 750 ICU beds for COVID-19 by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus ’ s impact predict .
The news collaboration ’ s analysis of hospital funding comes at a time when COVID-19 is surging in several states with significant rural populations .
Overall , more than 217,000 people have died from the virus in the United States .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it does not keep a running tally of how many of these deaths were in rural areas , but Johns Hopkins University researchers following the CDC ’ s county-by-county data show that some of the nation ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capita are in rural areas .
Arkansas and South Dakota are among rural states the researchers predict will be out of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients — within a few days in South Dakota and as soon as late October in Arkansas .
Montana , they said , could be short beds in January .
Nebraska , Kansas , Missouri , Indiana and Iowa could fill most , if not all , of their ICU beds around the December holidays , the researchers predicted .
“ It ’ s hard to imagine us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disposition to say , ‘ Oh , wow , we turned a corner , ’ ” said Michael Topchik , national leader for the private rural hospital assessment firm Chartis Center for Rural Health .
“ You ’ ll continue to see more hospital closures.
” The closures could be catastrophic for small towns because they also tend to be the largest or second-largest employer , Topchik said .
“ All of Main Street shutters as soon as one of these rural hospitals close , ” he said .
“ You ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re talking , you know , tumbleweeds-going-through-the-streets-type stuff when that happens .
So I think the cost is far greater than you think.
” In the U.S. , 132 rural hospitals have closed since 2010 , including 15 this year , the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research reports in its database of hospitals at risk .
Meanwhile , the CARES Act has pumped $ 175 billion into the nation ’ s hospitals , clinics , medical practices , cities and other entities treating and testing for COVID-19 , a share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money provided an additional $ 10 billion specifically for rural hospitals and $ 1 billion for specialty rural hospitals , which are suburban hospitals that provide health care primarily to rural areas and which operate on small margins .
Health care and social assistance programs , including some rural hospitals , also collected a total of $ 67.4 billion in Paycheck Protection Program money , the Small Business Administration reported .
Two out of five critical access hospitals in the country lost money after nonpatient revenue was added to their ledgers in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They received an average of $ 3.7 million each in CARES Act funding , according to interviews and analysis of Health and Human Services data from July and hospital financial data from the American Hospital Directory .
One-third of the nation ’ s critical access hospitals earned enough to report net income gains of more than $ 1 million in their last fiscal year ; these facilities received , on average , $ 4.5 million from CARES Act funding .
CARES Act funding amounts were based on formulas that include previous income @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billings .
Hospitals also were eligible for $ 92 billion in accelerated and advance Medicare payments .
The Medicare payments must be paid back to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services .
Critical access hospitals originally had to start paying back that money in Medicare credits one year after receiving the first advances in April and May , but large hospitals had to start 120 days after receiving it .
That would have been now for the large hospitals , but Congress stretched the period for all hospitals to as much as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that kept the federal government open until Dec. 11 .
That resolution also dropped the interest rate for overdue repayment from 10.25 % to 4 % .
Industry groups , including the American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals , have sought forgiveness for the payments .
The Genesis Health System , a 17-county , 75-location operation in eastern Iowa and western Illinois , collected more money than it spent heading out of summer at its three critical access hospitals .
Curt Coleman , Genesis ’ president of critical access hospitals , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lose up to $ 1.5 million per hospital from April through June after canceling nonemergency clinical procedures .
Genesis hospital leaders started meeting in mid-March and continued to do so nearly nonstop through April with one topic : COVID-19 , Coleman said .
During that time , they learned along with the general public not only how the disease spread , but also how best and where to screen people coming into Genesis ’ facilities , how often to screen , when to require face masks and how to staff for dealing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went , hospital leaders believed they had a better grip on treating the virus than they did in March , he said .
Federal government stimulus money helped tremendously .
“ It ’ s just a bit ironic that it took a pandemic to really provide some additional stimulus and support for hospitals that were losing money on a normal business day , ” Coleman said .
“ And it took a pandemic and it took some stimulus to kind of stabilize that out.
” The CARES Act gave each hospital amounts ranging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April and another $ 3.4 million to $ 3.6 million in the second wave of stimulus money for rural hospitals .
When one of them , Jackson County Regional Health Center in Maquoketa , Iowa , qualified for another $ 1.5 million from the Paycheck Protection Program , it could cover three months of salaries , Coleman said .
“ So COVID actually was , from a financial standpoint , helpful to us , ” he said .
“ The last thing I think you want as a society is your health care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a time of a pandemic , especially when you ’ re being asked to slow things down for the good of your community.
” Two of every five critical access hospitals in the country that the news collaborators studied lost money even when nonpatient revenue — aid from foundations , bequests , gift shop sales and the federal government — was added .
Federal aid at Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay , Wisconsin , not only offset a $ 10 million revenue gap between March 18 and May 31 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ June financially than it had in 2019 , CEO Brian Stephens said .
Door County received $ 6.9 million in CARES Act money and was eligible for up to $ 8 million in accelerated and advanced Medicare payments .
It had reported net income for the fiscal year ending June 30 , 2019 , but needed revenue from sources that included investment income , bequests and fundraising events to do it .
The hospital took advantage of the stimulus money to prepare for COVID-19 and a feared surge in patients with the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and most of its face-to-face clinic visits .
“ Fortunately , that surge hasn ’ t occurred to this point , but we had the opportunity to set up new patient care areas , to cross-train staff , do a lot of things that we wouldn ’ t have had the ability to do had we not slowed down our services in those areas , ” Stephens said .
Nearly 1 of every 10 residents in Buena Vista County , Iowa — which includes Storm Lake , where Tyson Foods has a pork @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 .
As of mid-October , 12 had died , Iowa ’ s state-run coronavirus database shows .
Four were from the packing plant , said Art Cullen , editor of The Storm Lake Times .
The state and county will not say how many deaths were at the plant .
The county ’ s surge started in late May and continued until early July .
“ We were just knee-deep in COVID here , ” said Pam Bogue , the county public health administrator .
By mid-October , more than 2,100 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her county — half of them ages 18 to 40 — and 10 to 20 new positive tests were coming in daily .
The seven-day averages for the county were increasing slightly in October , with 30 one early October day , Bogue said .
“ It ’ s a bump , ” she said of the recent cases , though “ it ’ s not as bad as it was Memorial Day.
” Mark Holmes , at the North Carolina rural health research center , said the danger is that COVID-19 spreads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a nursing home or a prison .
“ The prison guards go home at night , ” he said .
“ The nursing home workers may have a second job or go out to eat , go to a grocery store .
And the food processing employees live with other people who are also moving .
So the infection in any three of these is going to lead to something that can be spread as well.
” Rob Colerick , CEO of Buena Vista Regional Medical Center , said roughly 7 of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 as of mid-October went to his hospital .
The rest went to specialty care out of town .
Colerick said Buena Vista had enough beds to handle the surge because managers prepared in March and adapted .
“ I hate to say ‘ hurry up and wait , ’ but you saw what was happening around the country and kind of tweaked things as you went , ” Colerick said .
Getting $ 7.6 million in CARES Act funding and additional Paycheck Protection Program money helped the hospital pay its normal bills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of March stopped coming in .
The hospital had ended fiscal 2019 , with a negative 9.2 % operating margin .
But nonpatient revenue boosted net income for the fiscal year so the hospital could report overall net income of a little more than $ 1 million going into the pandemic year , financial records show .
The hospital ’ s census is back to normal this fall , Colerick said .
“ From a management standpoint , it certainly puts new meaning to the term ‘ change management , ’ ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ You ’ re sometimes changing by the hour .
… In my career , I don ’ t think we ’ ve ever managed anything that changed as quickly as this did.
” Thin margins meant small hospitals have had to be creative .
The 25-bed Union Hospital Clinton in Clinton , Indiana , already faced the challenges of being in a hospital desert on the state ’ s west side along the Indiana-Illinois border when COVID-19 started to make things worse .
“ I told my staff , there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up at night , ” said Stephanie Laws , the hospital ’ s administrator .
“ But being able to provide a paycheck and a wage for the over 125 employees that call this organization home to their jobs and their work is very important , very important to me.
” Union Hospital Clinton is among the fortunate .
Connected to the larger Union Hospital in Terre Haute , it operated in the black from 2014 through 2018 , the last five years for which its financial data are on file , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 .
Union Hospital Clinton took no accelerated Medicare payments , but received part of $ 28.9 million in CARES Act dollars sent to the Union network , which parceled out the money to affiliates .
The Clinton hospital has avoided , to date , a big COVID-19 outbreak .
“ I ’ m encouraged , yet despaired , ” Laws said .
“ You really don ’ t know what to expect , really .
I mean , everything changes on a dime.
” While pandemic-related funding helped rural hospitals get through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their stability deal with finding long-term solutions , industry leaders and analysts and hospital administrators said in interviews .
“ What happens when we ’ re no longer in a pandemic ?
” Genesis ’ Coleman asked .
“ How do we fix this reimbursement , the reimbursement issue for our hospitals , and help them become sustainable ?
I certainly think Medicare can play a role on that .
Medicaid , the state can play a role in that .
I would like to see our commercial insurance carriers play a role @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contributing to the problem now.
” Michael Topchik , of the Chartis Center for Rural Health , said he expects hospitals ’ financial struggles to get worse as COVID-19 progresses .
“ COVID absolutely was a curveball , ” he said .
He said the federal government needs creative legislation that gives rural hospitals more long-term financial stability .
Topchik said rural hospitals need something big , on par with creating the critical access hospitals designation in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act , or the 1946 Hill-Burton Act that established ways to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afford it .
Without that , “ you ’ re going to continue seeing the erosion of the safety net , ” he said .
“ You ’ re going to have this division in society of the haves and the have-nots .
The urban versus rural divide will get wider .
And it ’ s very , very difficult to maintain a quality of life in a rural area if you don ’ t have modern , quality health care at an affordable price.
” This story was produced as part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News members IowaWatch , Wisconsin Watch , Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and Side Effects Public Media .
You can read more stories from the collaboration here .

This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the “Reveal” podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.
One by one, COVID-19 outbreaks popped up in April and May at meatpacking plants across the country, fanning fears that the infectious coronavirus could spread rapidly into rural states. Plants closed temporarily in small metro areas such as Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Waterloo, Iowa, and in smaller towns like Iowa’s Tama, Columbus Junction and Perry.
Meanwhile, hospitals near plants were pressed hard in several parts of the country. The infection rate in North Carolina’s rural Duplin County, for example, home to a Butterball poultry plant and Villari Foods pork processing plant, was close to twice that of urban Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, an analysis by The Daily Yonder showed.
Jasper County, in southwest Missouri bordering Kansas and close to Oklahoma and Arkansas, started reporting a jump in COVID-19 cases at a Butterball poultry plant in Carthage as June began. Then, almost 500 workers tested positive for the virus at several Tyson Foods facilities in northwest Arkansas, about 80 miles to the south.
“If you go on down into the northwest Arkansas area, many of the hospitals down in those areas are starting to become overwhelmed, so that could potentially affect our hospital capacity here,” Jasper County Health Director Tony Moehr said during the infection peak in June.
Leaders at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, a northwest Iowa town of 10,500 with a Tyson Foods packing plant, knew their time would come. “We just didn’t know to what degree,” said Rob Colerick, the hospital CEO. “I mean, you saw it in Columbus Junction. You saw it in Waterloo. You saw it in Sioux Falls. Certainly, the dynamics were present to have a similar situation here.”
What Colerick and other rural hospital administrators in the United States knew was that they had entered the pandemic last spring facing financial crises so extreme that hospital closings were a real possibility in small towns across the nation.
Most of those at risk were at designated critical access hospitals, small hospitals with 25 or fewer general care beds that people in rural areas depend on for accessible health care. The American Hospital Association estimates that 57 million Americans depend on these hospitals. Beyond the health benefits, hospitals make a rural community economically attractive for both businesses and residents.
Three out of every four of the nation’s critical access hospitals had negative operating incomes going into the pandemic, according to an analysis by a collaboration of news outlets that are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News: IowaWatch, Wisconsin Watch, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and Side Effects Public Media. The main reason: It costs more to treat people than insurance and patients pay for that care.
The national operating income rate has worsened, from 69% of critical access hospitals running with negative income in 2015 to 75% in 2019, the analysis showed.
Compounding the problem, hospitals focusing on handling the pandemic last spring canceled nonemergency medical procedures that would have produced income needed to deliver patient care.
Federal aid that hospitals received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and the Paycheck Protection Program filled some of this year’s funding gap. So did advance Medicare payments for the roughly 60% of the nation’s hospitals willing to comply with rules attached to paying back the advances.
The cash boost was so substantial that some hospital leaders in the Midwest said in interviews that they had stronger income this past summer than in summer 2019. But the infusion was only a temporary lifeline, not the permanent fix hospital industry leaders say is needed, most likely from the federal government, to keep some critical access hospitals from closing.
“The subsidy, the support helped to keep them afloat for a couple months,” said Mark Holmes, director of the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, which keeps tabs on hospitals at risk of closing because of financial hardship.
“But eventually, there comes a time,” Holmes said of at-risk hospitals. “And a very common experience is by Wednesday night, they realize they can’t make payroll on Friday. So it’s often a pretty short window when these things are announced. I think that’s going to be the type of pattern that we see.”
That scenario could happen within a year at hospitals that entered 2020 already on shaky financial ground without more federal funding, he said. Moreover, infection rates are rising in several rural states.
Wisconsin had 264 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care on Oct. 15, the state’s Department of Health Services reported. It already needed more ICU beds than it had available for a surge that could result in needing 750 ICU beds for COVID-19 by mid-November, University of Washington researchers tracking the virus’s impact predict.
The news collaboration’s analysis of hospital funding comes at a time when COVID-19 is surging in several states with significant rural populations. Overall, more than 217,000 people have died from the virus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it does not keep a running tally of how many of these deaths were in rural areas, but Johns Hopkins University researchers following the CDC’s county-by-county data show that some of the nation’s hot spots for COVID-19 deaths per capita are in rural areas.
Arkansas and South Dakota are among rural states the researchers predict will be out of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients — within a few days in South Dakota and as soon as late October in Arkansas. Montana, they said, could be short beds in January.
Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Iowa could fill most, if not all, of their ICU beds around the December holidays, the researchers predicted.
“It’s hard to imagine us coming back with any type of cheery disposition to say, ‘Oh, wow, we turned a corner,’ ” said Michael Topchik, national leader for the private rural hospital assessment firm Chartis Center for Rural Health. “You’ll continue to see more hospital closures.”
The closures could be catastrophic for small towns because they also tend to be the largest or second-largest employer, Topchik said. “All of Main Street shutters as soon as one of these rural hospitals close,” he said.
“You’re talking Dust Bowl stuff. You’re talking, you know, tumbleweeds-going-through-the-streets-type stuff when that happens. So I think the cost is far greater than you think.”
Temporary Fixes
In the U.S., 132 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, including 15 this year, the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research reports in its database of hospitals at risk.
Meanwhile, the CARES Act has pumped $175 billion into the nation’s hospitals, clinics, medical practices, cities and other entities treating and testing for COVID-19, a share of which reached rural hospitals. Stimulus money provided an additional $10 billion specifically for rural hospitals and $1 billion for specialty rural hospitals, which are suburban hospitals that provide health care primarily to rural areas and which operate on small margins.
Health care and social assistance programs, including some rural hospitals, also collected a total of $67.4 billion in Paycheck Protection Program money, the Small Business Administration reported.
Two out of five critical access hospitals in the country lost money after nonpatient revenue was added to their ledgers in the last fiscal year for which reports exist. They received an average of $3.7 million each in CARES Act funding, according to interviews and analysis of Health and Human Services data from July and hospital financial data from the American Hospital Directory.
One-third of the nation’s critical access hospitals earned enough to report net income gains of more than $1 million in their last fiscal year; these facilities received, on average, $4.5 million from CARES Act funding. CARES Act funding amounts were based on formulas that include previous income and, in some cases, Medicare billings.
Hospitals also were eligible for $92 billion in accelerated and advance Medicare payments.
The Medicare payments must be paid back to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Critical access hospitals originally had to start paying back that money in Medicare credits one year after receiving the first advances in April and May, but large hospitals had to start 120 days after receiving it. That would have been now for the large hospitals, but Congress stretched the period for all hospitals to as much as 29 months in the September appropriations resolution that kept the federal government open until Dec. 11. That resolution also dropped the interest rate for overdue repayment from 10.25% to 4%.
Industry groups, including the American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals, have sought forgiveness for the payments.
The Genesis Health System, a 17-county, 75-location operation in eastern Iowa and western Illinois, collected more money than it spent heading out of summer at its three critical access hospitals. Curt Coleman, Genesis’ president of critical access hospitals, said the facilities had been on track to lose up to $1.5 million per hospital from April through June after canceling nonemergency clinical procedures.
Genesis hospital leaders started meeting in mid-March and continued to do so nearly nonstop through April with one topic: COVID-19, Coleman said. During that time, they learned along with the general public not only how the disease spread, but also how best and where to screen people coming into Genesis’ facilities, how often to screen, when to require face masks and how to staff for dealing with COVID-19. As summer came and went, hospital leaders believed they had a better grip on treating the virus than they did in March, he said. Federal government stimulus money helped tremendously.
“It’s just a bit ironic that it took a pandemic to really provide some additional stimulus and support for hospitals that were losing money on a normal business day,” Coleman said. “And it took a pandemic and it took some stimulus to kind of stabilize that out.”
The CARES Act gave each hospital amounts ranging from $300,000 to $350,000 in April and another $3.4 million to $3.6 million in the second wave of stimulus money for rural hospitals. When one of them, Jackson County Regional Health Center in Maquoketa, Iowa, qualified for another $1.5 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, it could cover three months of salaries, Coleman said.
“So COVID actually was, from a financial standpoint, helpful to us,” he said. “The last thing I think you want as a society is your health care system to be uncertain about its future in a time of a pandemic, especially when you’re being asked to slow things down for the good of your community.”
Two of every five critical access hospitals in the country that the news collaborators studied lost money even when nonpatient revenue — aid from foundations, bequests, gift shop sales and the federal government — was added.
Federal aid at Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, not only offset a $10 million revenue gap between March 18 and May 31, but it gave the hospital a stronger June financially than it had in 2019, CEO Brian Stephens said.
Door County received $6.9 million in CARES Act money and was eligible for up to $8 million in accelerated and advanced Medicare payments. It had reported net income for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, but needed revenue from sources that included investment income, bequests and fundraising events to do it.
The hospital took advantage of the stimulus money to prepare for COVID-19 and a feared surge in patients with the virus by stopping elective procedures and surgery, and most of its face-to-face clinic visits. “Fortunately, that surge hasn’t occurred to this point, but we had the opportunity to set up new patient care areas, to cross-train staff, do a lot of things that we wouldn’t have had the ability to do had we not slowed down our services in those areas,” Stephens said.
Nearly 1 of every 10 residents in Buena Vista County, Iowa — which includes Storm Lake, where Tyson Foods has a pork processing plant — has tested positive for COVID-19. As of mid-October, 12 had died, Iowa’s state-run coronavirus database shows. Four were from the packing plant, said Art Cullen, editor of The Storm Lake Times. The state and county will not say how many deaths were at the plant.
The county’s surge started in late May and continued until early July. “We were just knee-deep in COVID here,” said Pam Bogue, the county public health administrator.
By mid-October, more than 2,100 people had tested positive for the coronavirus in her county — half of them ages 18 to 40 — and 10 to 20 new positive tests were coming in daily. The seven-day averages for the county were increasing slightly in October, with 30 one early October day, Bogue said. “It’s a bump,” she said of the recent cases, though “it’s not as bad as it was Memorial Day.”
Mark Holmes, at the North Carolina rural health research center, said the danger is that COVID-19 spreads beyond confined places like a meatpacking plant, a nursing home or a prison.
“The prison guards go home at night,” he said. “The nursing home workers may have a second job or go out to eat, go to a grocery store. And the food processing employees live with other people who are also moving. So the infection in any three of these is going to lead to something that can be spread as well.”
Rob Colerick, CEO of Buena Vista Regional Medical Center, said roughly 7 of every 10 county residents testing positive for COVID-19 as of mid-October went to his hospital. The rest went to specialty care out of town.
Colerick said Buena Vista had enough beds to handle the surge because managers prepared in March and adapted. “I hate to say ‘hurry up and wait,’ but you saw what was happening around the country and kind of tweaked things as you went,” Colerick said.
Getting $7.6 million in CARES Act funding and additional Paycheck Protection Program money helped the hospital pay its normal bills when funding from procedures canceled at the end of March stopped coming in. The hospital had ended fiscal 2019, with a negative 9.2% operating margin. But nonpatient revenue boosted net income for the fiscal year so the hospital could report overall net income of a little more than $1 million going into the pandemic year, financial records show.
The hospital’s census is back to normal this fall, Colerick said. “From a management standpoint, it certainly puts new meaning to the term ‘change management,’” he said about dealing with COVID-19. “You’re sometimes changing by the hour. … In my career, I don’t think we’ve ever managed anything that changed as quickly as this did.”
Hospitals Using Stimulus Money
Thin margins meant small hospitals have had to be creative.
The 25-bed Union Hospital Clinton in Clinton, Indiana, already faced the challenges of being in a hospital desert on the state’s west side along the Indiana-Illinois border when COVID-19 started to make things worse.
“I told my staff, there’s not very many things that keep me up at night,” said Stephanie Laws, the hospital’s administrator. “But being able to provide a paycheck and a wage for the over 125 employees that call this organization home to their jobs and their work is very important, very important to me.”
Union Hospital Clinton is among the fortunate. Connected to the larger Union Hospital in Terre Haute, it operated in the black from 2014 through 2018, the last five years for which its financial data are on file, and had a 15.1% operating margin for 2018.
Union Hospital Clinton took no accelerated Medicare payments, but received part of $28.9 million in CARES Act dollars sent to the Union network, which parceled out the money to affiliates. The Clinton hospital has avoided, to date, a big COVID-19 outbreak.
“I’m encouraged, yet despaired,” Laws said. “You really don’t know what to expect, really. I mean, everything changes on a dime.”
While pandemic-related funding helped rural hospitals get through the summer, the bigger questions about their stability deal with finding long-term solutions, industry leaders and analysts and hospital administrators said in interviews.
“What happens when we’re no longer in a pandemic?” Genesis’ Coleman asked. “How do we fix this reimbursement, the reimbursement issue for our hospitals, and help them become sustainable? I certainly think Medicare can play a role on that. Medicaid, the state can play a role in that. I would like to see our commercial insurance carriers play a role on that because they’re all contributing to the problem now.”
Michael Topchik, of the Chartis Center for Rural Health, said he expects hospitals’ financial struggles to get worse as COVID-19 progresses. “COVID absolutely was a curveball,” he said. He said the federal government needs creative legislation that gives rural hospitals more long-term financial stability.
Topchik said rural hospitals need something big, on par with creating the critical access hospitals designation in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, or the 1946 Hill-Burton Act that established ways to give health care to people who cannot afford it. Without that, “you’re going to continue seeing the erosion of the safety net,” he said.
“You’re going to have this division in society of the haves and the have-nots. The urban versus rural divide will get wider. And it’s very, very difficult to maintain a quality of life in a rural area if you don’t have modern, quality health care at an affordable price.”
This story was produced as part of a multi-newsroom collaboration by Institute for Nonprofit News members IowaWatch, Wisconsin Watch, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and Side Effects Public Media. You can read more stories from the collaboration here.
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.
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truthout--2020-10-19--The TMX Pipeline Threatens First Nations People. It Must Be Stopped.

I come from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation ( TWN ) in what is now known as the greater Vancouver area in western Canada .
In our language , “ Tsleil-Waututh ” means “ People of the Inlet , ” referring to Burrard Inlet .
Our creation stories teach us that the inlet is our mother , who provided our people with nourishment , sustenance and spirituality .
Indeed , studies find that 90 percent of our ancestors ’ protein came from the inlet .
It isn ’ t just our backyard ; it is our kitchen , breadbasket , teacher and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( TMX ) pipeline threatens our vision for the future .
TMX terminates in Burrard Inlet — only two kilometers from our community .
The transportation of nearly 1 million barrels of diluted bitumen per day , and the resulting seven-fold increase of tanker traffic through our inlet , represents an unacceptable risk to our water and to our people .
Without the inlet , who are Tsleil-Waututh ?
The often-forgotten enablers of this environmental and human rights catastrophe are insurance companies like Liberty Mutual .
Without insurance , pipelines — and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be built or operate .
TMX couldn ’ t be built , and existing operations would have to halt .
After a unanimous community vote to oppose TMX , TWN ’ s government created the Sacred Trust Initiative to lead our opposition in the courtroom , in boardrooms , on the streets , and on the land and water .
Over the last six years , TWN has met with TMX ’ s investors , credit ratings agencies and insurers asking them to stand with Indigenous peoples and protect the planet .
Zurich @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy , and we applaud their leadership .
However , Liberty Mutual , Chubb , Lloyd ’ s and W.R. Berkley refused to respond to us and are likely still insuring this risky and destructive project .
Liberty Mutual is one of the biggest insurers of fossil fuels around the world — and has particularly deep ties to tar sands companies and projects like Trans Mountain .
First Nations youth have been on the forefront of this struggle .
They have led sign-on letters and organized protests against Trans Mountain ’ s insurers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the land — not the extractive industry — is their future .
TWN conducted an independent assessment of TMX , grounded in our own unextinguished Indigenous laws and cutting-edge science and oil spill modeling .
The conclusion was clear : Oil spills are inevitable , can not be completely cleaned up , and will cause catastrophic and long-term damage to the inlet , and all living beings who rely on it , including the Tsleil-Waututh people .
Trans Mountain will destroy the future our youth are fighting for .
For this reason , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and informed consent for the project .
In the words of my grandfather Chief Dan George , “ It is our responsibility to be the voice of those who do not have one , like the orca and the salmon.
” For many years , we have discussed our unwavering opposition to the project with the biggest firms on Wall Street , and at Kinder Morgan ’ s Annual Meeting of Shareholders .
Kinder Morgan wisely abandoned the project when the company understood that it was at great risk of becoming a stranded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bailed out TMX by buying the pipeline , and Liberty Mutual and others continue to insure it .
Insurance companies like Liberty Mutual enable pipelines , coal mines and fossil fuel projects — not just in Canada , but globally .
While 19 insurance companies — mostly in Europe — have ended or limited insurance for the coal industry , and eight have done so for tar sands , few U.S. insurance companies have taken action .
The insurance industry can not afford to be climate deniers .
The sector has already lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of climate-related catastrophes such as wildfires , floods and mega-storms .
Today , we are calling on Liberty Mutual and others to choose Indigenous rights , the environment and our global climate over corporate greed .
The insurer has an opportunity to support a better future for our children and all the world ’ s children .
Over 150 years of colonization and industrial pollution severely damaged the inlet we call home , but it is our sacred obligation to protect , steward and restore it .
The Tsleil-Waututh Nation has been working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can once again enjoy the abundance of this land , as my mother ’ s generation did and the generations before that .
We recently had our first clam harvest since 1972 .
Last year , herring eggs were spotted for the first time in a century .
We are building a sustainable economy with our land developments , commercial fisheries and eco-tourism businesses .
Our daycare center is powered by solar power and we are installing more solar capacity for our new , energy-efficient administrative building .
This is the future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tsleil-Waututh — and many other First Nations — have rejected financial offers , challenged the approvals in court and met with everyone we could to voice our concerns .
Now it is up to Liberty Mutual and insurance companies to make their choice .
As a mother and grandmother , this land and the sea is the legacy for all of our children , and their children , and we will never stop fighting to protect it .

I come from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (TWN) in what is now known as the greater Vancouver area in western Canada. In our language, “Tsleil-Waututh” means “People of the Inlet,” referring to Burrard Inlet. Our creation stories teach us that the inlet is our mother, who provided our people with nourishment, sustenance and spirituality. Indeed, studies find that 90 percent of our ancestors’ protein came from the inlet. It isn’t just our backyard; it is our kitchen, breadbasket, teacher and mother.
But the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline threatens our vision for the future. TMX terminates in Burrard Inlet — only two kilometers from our community. The transportation of nearly 1 million barrels of diluted bitumen per day, and the resulting seven-fold increase of tanker traffic through our inlet, represents an unacceptable risk to our water and to our people. Without the inlet, who are Tsleil-Waututh?
The often-forgotten enablers of this environmental and human rights catastrophe are insurance companies like Liberty Mutual. Without insurance, pipelines — and other fossil fuel projects — can’t be built or operate. TMX couldn’t be built, and existing operations would have to halt.
After a unanimous community vote to oppose TMX, TWN’s government created the Sacred Trust Initiative to lead our opposition in the courtroom, in boardrooms, on the streets, and on the land and water. Over the last six years, TWN has met with TMX’s investors, credit ratings agencies and insurers asking them to stand with Indigenous peoples and protect the planet. Zurich, Munich Re and Talanx dropped the policy, and we applaud their leadership.
However, Liberty Mutual, Chubb, Lloyd’s and W.R. Berkley refused to respond to us and are likely still insuring this risky and destructive project. Liberty Mutual is one of the biggest insurers of fossil fuels around the world — and has particularly deep ties to tar sands companies and projects like Trans Mountain.
First Nations youth have been on the forefront of this struggle. They have led sign-on letters and organized protests against Trans Mountain’s insurers. They have made it clear that the land — not the extractive industry — is their future.
TWN conducted an independent assessment of TMX, grounded in our own unextinguished Indigenous laws and cutting-edge science and oil spill modeling. The conclusion was clear: Oil spills are inevitable, cannot be completely cleaned up, and will cause catastrophic and long-term damage to the inlet, and all living beings who rely on it, including the Tsleil-Waututh people. Trans Mountain will destroy the future our youth are fighting for.
For this reason, we are withholding our free, prior and informed consent for the project. In the words of my grandfather Chief Dan George, “It is our responsibility to be the voice of those who do not have one, like the orca and the salmon.”
For many years, we have discussed our unwavering opposition to the project with the biggest firms on Wall Street, and at Kinder Morgan’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Kinder Morgan wisely abandoned the project when the company understood that it was at great risk of becoming a stranded asset. Unfortunately, the Canadian government bailed out TMX by buying the pipeline, and Liberty Mutual and others continue to insure it.
Insurance companies like Liberty Mutual enable pipelines, coal mines and fossil fuel projects — not just in Canada, but globally. While 19 insurance companies — mostly in Europe — have ended or limited insurance for the coal industry, and eight have done so for tar sands, few U.S. insurance companies have taken action.
The insurance industry cannot afford to be climate deniers. The sector has already lost billions of dollars from underestimating the cost of climate-related catastrophes such as wildfires, floods and mega-storms.
Today, we are calling on Liberty Mutual and others to choose Indigenous rights, the environment and our global climate over corporate greed. The insurer has an opportunity to support a better future for our children and all the world’s children.
Over 150 years of colonization and industrial pollution severely damaged the inlet we call home, but it is our sacred obligation to protect, steward and restore it. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation has been working for years to restore the inlet so we can once again enjoy the abundance of this land, as my mother’s generation did and the generations before that. We recently had our first clam harvest since 1972. Last year, herring eggs were spotted for the first time in a century. We are building a sustainable economy with our land developments, commercial fisheries and eco-tourism businesses. Our daycare center is powered by solar power and we are installing more solar capacity for our new, energy-efficient administrative building.
This is the future we want. This is why the Tsleil-Waututh — and many other First Nations — have rejected financial offers, challenged the approvals in court and met with everyone we could to voice our concerns.
Now it is up to Liberty Mutual and insurance companies to make their choice. As a mother and grandmother, this land and the sea is the legacy for all of our children, and their children, and we will never stop fighting to protect it.
hay čxʷ q̓ə siʔem̓ (Thank you, respected people).
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.