newrepublic--2020-05-12--Is Biden Going to Repeat Obama’s Immigration Mistakes?

Last month , President Donald Trump , who has spent an uneasy year botching the U.S. response to the coronavirus , took another page out of his favorite playbook .
In a late-night tweet , the leader of the free world announced he would be signing an executive order to temporarily suspend all immigration into the country .
As with many of Trump ’ s impulsive social media utterances , it was not immediately clear that he was serious about the order , and next-day reports told the story of various government entities scrambling to determine what , if anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was reported that the president had indeed signed an order suspending the issuance of new green cards for 60 days , marking a new extreme in the relentless xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has historically been the lifeblood of his political career .
That proclamation , however , failed to stir the presumptive Democratic nominee , Joe Biden , into action for almost a day after Trump ’ s hateful tweets .
Twenty-one hours later , his campaign released a statement .
“ Rather than execute a swift and aggressive effort to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ Donald Trump is tweeting incendiary rhetoric about immigrants in the hopes that he can distract everyone from the core truth : he ’ s moved too slowly to contain this virus , and we are all paying the price for it.
” Late as it was , Biden was nevertheless smart to point out the way Trump ’ s attack on immigrants was a form of deflection .
Underscoring the way the president ’ s deadly failure to respond in an adult fashion to the pandemic was certainly a more coherent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign ’ s own strange foray into xenophobic fearmongering .
But Biden ’ s statement missed an opportunity to condemn Trump ’ s hateful anti-immigrant policies in stronger terms .
It also failed to advance a clear alternative at a time when one might shine brightly : Amid the coronavirus crisis , immigrants , who make up a large share of essential workers , have been hit disproportionately hard and excluded from much of the relief offered by the various coronavirus stimulus packages—another matter about which Biden had been curiously silent until this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to allow people to cash in Social Security benefits for pandemic relief .
Throughout the indeterminately long campaign season , most of the Democratic candidates shied away from discussing immigration in any detail .
It was a remarkable feat , given who they were all competing to eventually oppose .
You ’ d have to think back to June 2019 to recall the last moment of truly vital debate on immigration policy , a disagreement on border decriminalization between Beto O ’ Rourke and Julián Castro .
Biden ’ s campaign has revolved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is a historical aberration , and two , that the former vice president is the rightful inheritor of Barack Obama ’ s legacy .
Leaving aside the matter of whether either of these premises is correct , it is on the matter of immigration policy where the two ideas that power the Biden campaign ’ s larger rationale begin to blur .

Biden needs the Latino vote to win in November, but his outreach to that community has been “dismal,” according to Lorella Praeli, who led Hillary Clinton’s effort to do so in 2016. Indeed, the presumptive nominee didn’t start racking up endorsements from any major Latino or immigrant rights’ groups until it became clear he would become the Democratic nominee. In recent weeks, the Latino Victory Fund, which endorsed Biden in February, launched the “Latinos con Biden” campaign. Its team did not respond to questions posed by The New Republic about the campaign or how it would respond to Biden’s mixed record on immigration issues.
Erika Andiola, the chief advocacy officer at Raíces Action, told The New Republic that, with Biden as the presumptive nominee, “our number one goal at this point is to defeat Donald Trump,” but she acknowledged that other candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, had much stronger pro-immigrant platforms. When he accepted Sanders’s endorsement earlier this month, Biden promised that he was listening to the concerns of progressive voters, and the two announced the creation of six task forces, including one on immigration. While Biden has agreed to adopt some aspects of Sanders’s immigration plan, such as a temporary moratorium on deportations, his own record reflects his entrenchment within a decades-long system of bipartisan immigration enforcement.
In his own presidential campaign, Biden has recycled much of the rhetoric of the Obama era, such as the shorthand “felons, not families,” which defined his deportation strategy. It meant that the administration focused detention and deportation enforcement efforts on immigrants with criminal records, notwithstanding how minor those records were, following in the vein of his bipartisan predecessors. For Andiola, hearing Biden use the same language made her “cringe.” Without an official government policy that framed millions of immigrants as felons, perhaps it would have been harder for Trump to paint them all as criminals.


newrepublic--2020-05-12--Congress May Hand Bill Barr the Keys to Your Online Life

While the country is facing a daily Covid-19 death toll in the thousands , and the coronavirus outbreak snakes its way inside the executive branch , Congress is currently considering a vast expansion of the Justice Department ’ s power over online platforms and the people who use them .
Should these measures pass , Americans ’ web searching and browsing histories could be collected by the FBI without a warrant .
But that ’ s just the pre-eminent concern .
Should Congress grant the DOJ all the power they are seeking , users may also lose access to apps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Facebook Messenger ) , and the kinds of content they can currently post online may find itself subject to additional moderation and monitoring .
The exposure of search and browser histories would be the result of an amendment to the PATRIOT Act , passed in 2001 and up for reauthorization .
As reported by Spencer Ackerman at The Daily Beast , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing for an amendment extending those powers to the FBI , “ under cover of redressing what President Donald Trump and his allies call the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over collusion with the Kremlin.
” The Patriot Act requires materials that are “ relevant ” to an ongoing investigation be turned over ; McConnell ’ s amendment expands that , as Democratic Senator Ron Wyden told The Daily Beast , so that “ [ Attorney General Bill ] Barr gets to look through the web browsing history of any American—including journalists , politicians , and political rivals—without a warrant , just by saying it is relevant to an investigation.
” As for the possibility that Congress may substantially diminish the rights we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and user encryption , that might come about through the passage of the EARN IT Act— “ Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies .
Introduced by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham , with the support of Democratic senators such as Richard Blumenthal and Dianne Feinstein , the new bill could threaten online privacy by requiring online platforms like Facebook to “ earn ” immunity from liability for user-generated content—something they already are granted under law—by meeting a new set of “ child safety ” requirements .
Compliance in these matters would , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Attorney General .
These requirements would likely necessitate companies monitor their users , including what they share in private or encrypted communications , to ensure that child sexual abuse material ( child pornography ) is not being disseminated on their platforms .
Barr would have authority over the guidelines as well , which are not enumerated in the bill .
“ Together , EARN It and Mitch McConnell ’ s PATRIOT Act amendments would give the most corrupt attorney general of our lifetime unprecedented ability to pry into everything Americans do and say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Republic in a statement .
“ It would be an unconscionable mistake for Democrats to hand Donald Trump and Attorney General Barr these sprawling powers , especially during the Covid-19 crisis , when Americans are spending more and more time on our devices .
”

While the country is facing a daily Covid-19 death toll in the thousands and the coronavirus outbreak snakes its way inside the executive branch, Congress is currently considering a vast expansion of the Justice Department’s power over online platforms and the people who use them. Should these measures pass, Americans’ web-searching and browsing histories could be collected by the FBI without a warrant. But that’s just the preeminent concern. Should Congress grant the DOJ all the power it is seeking, users may also lose access to apps that use end-to-end encryption (like Signal and Facebook Messenger), and the kinds of content they can currently post online may find themselves subject to additional moderation and monitoring.
The exposure of search and browser histories would be the result of an amendment to the Patriot Act, passed in 2001 and up for reauthorization. As reported by Spencer Ackerman at The Daily Beast, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing for an amendment extending those powers to the FBI, “under cover of redressing what President Donald Trump and his allies call the FBI’s ‘witch hunt’ over collusion with the Kremlin.” The Patriot Act requires that materials that are “relevant” to an ongoing investigation be turned over; McConnell’s amendment expands that, as Democratic Senator Ron Wyden told The Daily Beast, so that “[Attorney General Bill] Barr gets to look through the web browsing history of any American—including journalists, politicians, and political rivals—without a warrant, just by saying it is relevant to an investigation.”


newrepublic--2020-05-12--Al Capone, All-American Boogeyman

Al Capone, All-American Boogeyman

Al Capone is a famous American boogeyman and a symbol of that mercifully brief and long-ago nightmare Prohibition .
Boogeymen make good movie villains , and Capone has proved a useful antihero to American cinema in the years since booze came back .
In 1932 , only a year after the FBI finally nabbed the Chicago boss on tax evasion charges , Paul Muni played a Capone-like gangster in the pitch-black precode masterpiece Scarface ( not to be confused with the 1983 “ Say hello to my little friend ” Scarface ) .
It was scandalously violent for the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fitting mirror to a nation in the grip of a chaotic Depression .
In 1967 , as protests against the war in Vietnam erupted across America , Roger Corman made a strange and sour gangster flick called The St. Valentine ’ s Day Massacre , based on the bloody mob hit that turned public opinion against Capone ( the café shootout scene turned out so well that the footage was reused in yet another Capone biopic eight years later ) .
In the late 1980s , when Wall Street fat cats were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Robert de Niro played Capone in 1987 ’ s The Untouchables , sleek as a healthy young seal in pinstripe suits .
This week , a new Capone biopic by Fantastic Four director Josh Trank hits streaming services .
If the gangster was “ untouchable ” in 1987 , he is positively shopworn in Capone , which streams online from May 11 .
Tom Hardy stars as Capone living out his final years at home in Florida , released early from jail due to his raging neurosyphilis .
He ’ s falling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reviews have made much of Hardy ’ s disgusting inhabitation of the elderly gangster : His eyes grow vampirically bloodshot as the movie progresses , and he shits himself at least twice ( in one scene it ’ s unclear what form his incontinence takes ) .
Those reviews have also roundly panned Capone , which is admittedly a sluggish film devoid of much tension .
Many scenes take place inside Capone ’ s own head , as he hallucinates old gangster chums ( Matt Dillon plays the imaginary old friend “ Johnny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solemn little boys ( Capone ’ s own former self or innocent younger versions of men he ’ s had killed ? )
.
In between bouts of nastiness to his wife and son , however , our cognitively declining hero does manage to establish some plot stakes .
Capone is convinced that he buried $ 10 million somewhere on his property and spends the movie hunting his fragmented mind for clues to its whereabouts .

As in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, Florida’s man-eating swamps here represent a mixture of America’s muddy history and the protagonist’s subconscious, which in Capone’s case is swirling with confusion and violence. If his identity is indeed mixed up with that lake, then Capone’s murder of the alligator is a suicidal gesture, which fits with the rest of the portrait: When Capone insults his loving wife, Mae (the excellent Linda Cardellini), for example, he is hurting himself as much as he hurts her. He has no idea where his real treasure lies.
Hardy does an enthusiastic job with his role, but it’s hard to deny that he’s miscast. There are some glowing scenes, as when he sings “If I Were King of the Forest” along with the Cowardly Lion during a home screening of The Wizard of Oz. The projector’s light dances over his face, as Capone melts away into childhood. Hardy also chomps on his cigars (later carrots, on doctor’s orders) with a ruminative, bovine placidity that makes his violent outbursts all the more effective.
The problem is that Hardy is too encased in makeup to move his face properly. Usually actors are aged artificially on-screen when they are playing the same person at different moments in the same lifetime, like Mahershala Ali in the third season of True Detective. But Hardy never plays young Capone in this movie—only the old man. When an older actor could have played this role without prosthetics, why bother dressing up a young actor to do it less effectively?


newrepublic--2020-05-12--Is the Supreme Court Scared of Tribal Sovereignty?

In 2003 , writing a concurrent opinion in United States v. Lara , a case that determined an individual can be charged with the same crime in tribal and federal court , Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described the contradictory nature of federal case law as it relates to Indigenous policy : “ In my view , the tribes either are or are not separate sovereigns .
And our federal Indian law cases untenably hold both positions simultaneously.
” This week , nearly 20 years removed from Thomas ’ s assessment , the high court ’ s institutional inability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once again on full display .
On Monday morning , the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in McGirt v. Oklahoma , a case concerning whether the Muscogee ( Creek ) Nation ’ s 1866 treaty reservation boundaries are still legally in place .
The MCN reservation was never officially dissolved by Congress , meaning that a large swath of what is now Oklahoma , formerly Indian Territory , is still technically under MCN jurisdiction , even if it is effectively governed by the state .
The appealing party , Jimmy McGirt , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crimes he committed against a child .
The case is not concerned with his guilt , which was well established , but rather the jurisdictional issues that arise from the fact that McGirt ’ s crimes were committed on what is still technically MCN land , but he was tried in state court .
( Typically , federal courts have jurisdiction over major crimes committed on sovereign Native soil . )
The issue was initially argued in Murphy v. Carpenter last spring , but because Justice Neil Gorsuch , a Trump appointee , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sitting on the Tenth Circuit , he had to recuse himself , leading to a 4–4 split .
Seeking to bring in Gorsuch to answer the question definitively , the court took on McGirt , which quickly became one of the most intriguing tests of the United States Indian Country legal framework in recent memory .
Listening to the arguments , as the public is now able to do because of the pandemic , it was clear that most of the justices had a staggering but sadly unsurprising lack of knowledge on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The typical partisan lines that get drawn around other political , social , and legal issues in America are completely upended when it comes to matters of Indian Country .
( Which is why I found myself , in a strange moment of dissonance , nodding in agreement with Thomas ’ s 2003 comments and would later find myself smiling at the comments of a Trump appointee . )
And this week , as the arguments went along , it became increasingly clear that , of all the justices on the bench @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Justice Brett Kavanaugh who stood out as particularly misguided on the matter of tribal sovereignty .

This is especially dangerous, as race-based arguments are the weapon of choice for conservative opponents of Indian law. While blood quantum laws still exist for a variety of confounding reasons, citizenship of a given Native nation is not based on race but on political distinction. The race-focused argument continues to be employed by opponents of the Indian Child Welfare Act and was a key point in the infamous Oliphant case, which now prevents Native nations from trying and punishing non-Natives when crimes are committed on sovereign Native land and is a major contributing factor to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.
In question after question, it was clear that the justices were primarily focused on how the non-Native people within the reservation boundaries would feel if the case came down on the side of MCN sovereignty, not on the matter of sovereignty for MCN citizens. “What would you say to those people, if we decide this case in your favor?” Justice Samuel Alito asked Riyaz Kanji, the MCN attorney. “Would they be surprised to learn that they are living on the reservation and that they are now subject to laws imposed by a body that is not accountable to them in any way?” Kanji replied that Alito’s concern would be moot, as state courts would still have jurisdiction based on past Supreme Court rulings.
This inquiry is nearly the exact same insulting line of questioning that Representative Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, raised last fall during a hearing on a bill that would allow the tribal law enforcement to prosecute non–tribal citizen offenders for crimes including sexual assault, sex trafficking, and stalking. He imagined a hypothetical situation in which a non-Native tribal casinogoer sexually assaulted a casino employee and would then be forced to answer to the courts of the sovereign nation. He described, in other words, how laws work, except he presented it as an outrage.


newrepublic--2020-05-12--The Election Will Not Be Judgment Day

The Election Will Not Be Judgment Day

Republicans , for their part , understand that the victory in the cards for the Democrats in November isn ’ t inherently an existential threat to their aspirations given the formal barriers Biden would face .
Those barriers include not only the Senate filibuster but a judiciary now filled with conservative justices .
Trump and individual candidates might face defeat , but the pandemic alone can not possibly cripple the right in any meaningful way .
The Obama years showed what Republicans are capable of doing in the minority , and this crisis may well be a boon for certain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Republicans on the Hill to assist financially strained state and local governments will likely lead to austerity and cuts to programs conservatives oppose down the line .
Hopes from more Pollyannaish commentators that Republicans might act aggressively out of a concern for the well-being of their own voters—who are older and perhaps more vulnerable than Democrats—have given way to the reality that the virus has yet to spread as widely in the most conservative parts of the country as it has in liberal cities and that the most committed Republican voters want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economy .
The people who would be most at risk if the nation acceded to their demands are the people who are suffering the most now—minorities and the working poor .
And Republicans have little political incentive to be concerned about the scantiness of the aid they ’ ve offered to these constituencies thus far .
“ None of the groups slammed the hardest by coronavirus layoffs … went for Trump in the 2016 election , and none give him high approval ratings now , ” Politico ’ s Timothy Noah and Allan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Even now , the sheer magnitude of a nearly 15 percent unemployment rate , with no economic sector untouched , alarms Republicans and Democrats alike .
But congressional Republicans reluctant to spend more dollars on economic relief needn ’ t worry that the workers affected most by the downturn so far are part of the Republican base .
They aren ’ t. ” All that has been said here should already be plain to the politically engaged .
But there remains , across the political discourse , not only an abiding faith that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deliver a climactic victory but that the likelihood of that victory is the sole lens through which our political situation and the actions taken by political figures should be assessed .
This faith is misplaced .
By design , the notion that those who fail to act in the public ’ s interest should live in fear of the public casting them out doesn ’ t correspond to reality in any fundamental way , as true as it might hold in particular cases .
The Republican Party is not accountable to most people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the worst off .
Whatever happens in November , most of the figures in the White House and on the Hill dithering through this crisis will go unpunished .
If Biden wins , most in the same cast of characters will return in January ready to block his agenda if he embarks on the legislative course he says he will attempt .
That ’ s the situation we ’ re in and the line on the horizon .
And that is why the calls to see and hear more and better things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are pushing him to meet an unreasonable standard , but because he has promised to take an extraordinary burden upon himself .

But Biden isn’t a remarkably popular figure. The most recent polls put his favorables at about six points underwater to Trump’s negative 10. Contemporary partisanship will continue to weigh him down. And as has been widely discussed, enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy has been middling even among Democrats. That’s partially because Biden himself, until now, has characterized his campaign as a bid for a caretaker presidency—an administration that would be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders rather than a source of the kind of transformative leadership he’s taking a belated interest in.
Republicans, for their part, understand that the victory in the cards for the Democrats in November isn’t inherently an existential threat to their aspirations given the formal barriers Biden would face. Those barriers include not only the Senate filibuster but a judiciary now filled with conservative justices. Trump and individual candidates might face defeat, but the pandemic alone cannot possibly cripple the right in any meaningful way. The Obama years showed what Republicans are capable of doing in the minority, and this crisis may well be a boon for certain parts of their agenda. The refusal of Republicans on the Hill to assist financially strained state and local governments will likely lead to austerity and cuts to programs conservatives oppose down the line. Hopes from more Pollyannaish commentators that Republicans might act aggressively out of a concern for the well-being of their own voters—who are older and perhaps more vulnerable than Democrats—have given way to the reality that the virus has yet to spread as widely in the most conservative parts of the country as it has in liberal cities and that the most committed Republican voters want their lawmakers and leaders to reopen the economy.
The people who would be most at risk if the nation acceded to their demands are the people who are suffering the most now—minorities and the working poor. And Republicans have little political incentive to be concerned about the scantiness of the aid they’ve offered to these constituencies thus far. “None of the groups slammed the hardest by coronavirus layoffs … went for Trump in the 2016 election, and none give him high approval ratings now,” Politico’s Timothy Noah and Allan James Vestal wrote on Friday. “Even now, the sheer magnitude of a nearly 15 percent unemployment rate, with no economic sector untouched, alarms Republicans and Democrats alike. But congressional Republicans reluctant to spend more dollars on economic relief needn’t worry that the workers affected most by the downturn so far are part of the Republican base. They aren’t.”


newrepublic--2020-05-13--A Privatization Fever Dream for Post-Crisis Public Education

American public education is not just a platform for coldly disseminating ideas .
It ’ s a living organism .
Since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City , as my students and I have turned to remote learning , it has never been clearer how necessary the physical classroom is to how we learn , and how many people in power fundamentally misunderstand what public education is .
During an interview in mid-March , New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed that , despite mounting pressure to close the schools , “ the biggest union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the health care workers , asked to keep them open because they said our members are dependent , and they need to get to work at the hospitals.
” The implication was obvious to many teachers : We were being mobilized during a crisis as a substitute for childcare , which is a deeply necessary social good but a distinct one from public education .
It ’ s clear students , at least , understand much of what our political leaders can ’ t grasp about public education .
My students miss the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of adolescents , and they miss momentary escape from their defining roles at home .
They know what school is , both what they ’ re there to do and what I ’ m there to do with them .
When I write college recommendations , I ask students to submit a questionnaire reflecting on our time together .
Last year , one said , “ Writing became something you encouraged us to do when we felt most confused or frustrated , times when I was most likely to give up on doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a way to convince people about the things that meant a lot to me.
” Reading students ’ faces , peering over their shoulders , and responding to their frustrations and their breakthroughs is integral to helping them match tools to occasions .
This sounds saccharine , but it ’ s real .
Those relationships are harder to cultivate on a screen .
Cuomo ’ s question about whether we need physical classrooms anymore indicates an impulse to redefine not only the shape but the purpose of education .
Historically , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , agency , and connection have come second to producing data .
The Gates Foundation ’ s role in the state council , while still ambiguously defined , raised alarm among many public school teachers because of the organization ’ s aggressive , mechanical approach to reform , especially its history of pushing Common Core standards , developed for use in every public school classroom across the nation .
The goal for these standards is purportedly college and career readiness , but it ’ s really test prep .
In 2011 , McKinsey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiative ’ s architects and a supporter of the charter movement , explained the writing standards ’ focus on formality and impersonal modes while exposing the movement ’ s ethos : “ As you grow up in this world , you realize people really don ’ t give a shit what you feel or what you think.
” And just as implementing these standards risks turning students into mechanical recipients of knowledge , the Gates Foundation model seeks to turn teachers into much the same thing : The organization has supported linking teacher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practice since debunked as a misuse of the data .
( Cuomo was an ardent supporter . )
This isn ’ t unique to New York .
Over the past decade , under the aegis of both Betsy DeVos and ostensibly progressive Secretary of Education Arne Duncan , governors of Florida , Nevada , New Jersey , Indiana , and other states have proposed or followed through with cutting public school budgets in favor of privatization .
Education is expensive , the thinking goes , and the market can subsidize the cost .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ point to broad standardization and privatization of education .

It’s clear students, at least, understand much of what our political leaders can’t grasp about public education. My students miss the dynamism and zaniness that define a classroom of adolescents, and they miss momentary escape from their defining roles at home. They know what school is, both what they’re there to do and what I’m there to do with them. When I write college recommendations, I ask students to submit a questionnaire reflecting on our time together. Last year, one said, “Writing became something you encouraged us to do when we felt most confused or frustrated, times when I was most likely to give up on doing something. I began to see writing as a way to convince people about the things that meant a lot to me.” Reading students’ faces, peering over their shoulders, and responding to their frustrations and their breakthroughs is integral to helping them match tools to occasions. This sounds saccharine, but it’s real. Those relationships are harder to cultivate on a screen.
Cuomo’s question about whether we need physical classrooms anymore indicates an impulse to redefine not only the shape but the purpose of education. Historically, for the Gates Foundation, notions like growth, agency, and connection have come second to producing data. The Gates Foundation’s role in the state council, while still ambiguously defined, raised alarm among many public school teachers because of the organization’s aggressive, mechanical approach to reform, especially its history of pushing Common Core standards, developed for use in every public school classroom across the nation. The goal for these standards is purportedly college and career readiness, but it’s really test prep. In 2011, McKinsey alum David Coleman, one of the initiative’s architects and a supporter of the charter movement, explained the writing standards’ focus on formality and impersonal modes while exposing the movement’s ethos: “As you grow up in this world, you realize people really don’t give a shit what you feel or what you think.” And just as implementing these standards risks turning students into mechanical recipients of knowledge, the Gates Foundation model seeks to turn teachers into much the same thing: The organization has supported linking teacher evaluation to standardized test scores, a practice since debunked as a misuse of the data. (Cuomo was an ardent supporter.)
This isn’t unique to New York. Over the past decade, under the aegis of both Betsy DeVos and ostensibly progressive Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, governors of Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, Indiana, and other states have proposed or followed through with cutting public school budgets in favor of privatization. Education is expensive, the thinking goes, and the market can subsidize the cost. The writing on the wall seems to point to broad standardization and privatization of education.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--Have A Good Trip Demystifies Psychedelics

In 1955 , Aldous Huxley , author and early champion of the psychedelic experience , returned to reality after the effects of 400 milligrams of mescaline had settled , brimming with , “ the direct , total awareness , from the inside , so to say , of Love as the primary and fundamental cosmic fact.
” Recounting the experience to Dr. Humphry Osmond , the English-Canadian psychiatrist who ran a psychedelic research laboratory out of Saskatchewan ’ s Weyburn Mental Hospital , Huxley almost reflexively backpedaled—like someone who knew they ’ d said something silly and was shamefully trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of course , have a kind of indecency and must necessarily ring false , seem like twaddle.
” It ’ s a problem that has bedeviled even the most gifted chroniclers of the psychedelic experience , Huxley among them .
Michael Pollan , author of the bestselling How to Change Your Mind ( a book that , almost single-handedly , has reinvested psychedelics with renewed seriousness and freshly minted mainstream acceptability ) , had his own struggles recounting his “ LSD epiphany about the supreme importance of love ” without “ dilating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banality.
” It ’ s a recurring paradox in psychedelic literature : the desire to describe an experience that , by its very nature , beggars description .
Have A Good Trip , a frothy and funny new Netflix original documentary , attempts to smash ( or simply ignore ) this paradox by offering a parade of interviews with famous individuals , recounting their own psychedelic adventures .
The late Carrie Fisher describes the embarrassment of being caught tripping in the Seychelles by a tour group of gawking Star Wars fans ; Sting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a calf birthing while peaking on mescaline ; rapper A $ AP Rocky reports , with chilled-out nonchalance , taking acid and watching a rainbow explode from his member during orgasm .
Accompanied by lively , candy-colored animations , these anecdotes cut against the more conventional wisdom that listening to other people ’ s “ trip reports , ” is usually a massive chore , like hearing someone prattle on and out about a dream they had .
The film , however , runs up against a different problem .
Packed with visual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infinitely recursive kaleidoscopic geometry—it brings a hearty smattering of irony to the discussion of altered states .
It opens with a montage of clips from educational films and vintage government anti-drug campaigns ( “ There ’ s nothing grown up or sophisticated about taking an LSD trip at all , ” bleats then Governor Ronald Reagan ) , then cuts into its own mock-institutional framing device , in which a lab-coated scientist played by comedian Nick Offerman offers an abridged history of psychedelics .

But can you really remove sincerity from the psychedelic experience, which has long been vaunted for its ability to facilitate beautiful insights about the power of capital-l Love; insights that may scan like mush when the drugs’ effects have faded but feel, in that exalted moment, absolutely real? And more to the point, should you want to? After all, one of the characteristics of the psychedelic trip is its capacity to obliterate what Pollan calls “the pitiless glare of irony.” It’s that feeling of “openness” or a universal “oneness” that reoccurs in psychedelic literature, cinema, and even the woolly anecdotes of friends. Irony has become a de facto cultural defense mechanism and is rendered vulnerable by drugs renowned for opening (or totally shattering) our psychic defenses.
Irony is perhaps useful in tempering a bit of the cultural bitterness associated with the movements of psychedelia’s last major saturation period: the 1960s. Psychedelic drugs fueled the artistic and political upheavals of America in the “Age of Aquarius,” which collapsed under the bummer-trip heaviness of Altamont, the Manson murders, and the national trauma of the Vietnam War. As author Tom O’Neill puts it in Chaos, his recent history that rethinks the era, “The decade’s subversive spirit had come on with too much fervor. Some reckoning was bound to come, or so it seemed in retrospect; the latent violence couldn’t contain itself forever.” This cultural comedown is often framed, in distinctly druggy terms, as a form of punishment for the ecstasies that preceded it—like a long, blue Monday of the American spirit.
This cultural comedown is often framed as a form of punishment for the ecstasies that preceded it—like a long, blue Monday of the American spirit.
The psychedelic revival’s ironic edge cuts some of this, allowing the curious-minded to savor the hallucinatory fruits of the era without getting swept up in its politics, which, as we all know, were tainted and stupid and hopelessly naïve. (New reporting about the period, including O’Neill’s book, strongly suggests that this sense of hopelessness and naïveté was a deliberate strategy by the powers-that-be to neutralize the energized leftist movements of the 1960s, but that’s another discussion altogether.) A veil of wizened, weary cynicism permits engagement in psychedelia without having to feel all that engaged with its history or its deeper, metaphysical implications.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--For Trump, Following the Law Is an Undue Burden

If there was one word that defined the Supreme Court ’ s oral arguments on Tuesday , it was “ burden.
” President Donald Trump ’ s lawyers and the Justice Department alike urged the justices to reject a batch of subpoenas from the House of Representatives and Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance Jr. which seek to pry loose Trump ’ s financial records and tax returns .
The arguments covered a wide swath of constitutional territory , including the scope of legislative and executive powers and the presidency ’ s relationship with the states .
But that word was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involved seemed to agree that complying with the subpoenas would burden the president to some degree .
In the eyes of his lawyers , that burden would be so onerous that it would , at the very least , compromise his ability to perform his official duties , if not undermine the executive branch itself .
Most of the debate surrounding these two cases focused on abstract principles like the separation of powers and the rule of law .
But in Tuesday ’ s oral arguments , it was striking how both sides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ existence of this “ burden ” was self-evident .
In truth , it ’ s hard to see how these subpoenas would actually create a tangible hardship for the executive branch were they enforced .
What ’ s more , the presumption that they could actually disrupt the government itself appears to rest on a misunderstanding of how the executive branch actually works—under this president or any other .
At issue in both cases is whether the president is immune from official scrutiny or , if not , to what degree he is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mazars , Trump is resisting subpoenas from multiple House committees seeking his financial and business records .
In Trump v. Vance , he is trying to fend off a similar investigation by the Manhattan district attorney ’ s office through a grand jury in New York .
The queries are well-founded : Trump is alone among post-Watergate presidents in not releasing his recent tax returns to the public , and there is ample reporting that raises questions about potential irregularities within them .

Fortunately for presidents, they do not work alone. Roughly 2.1 million Americans currently work in the executive branch to carry out all the functions that the chief executive cannot personally perform. Those civil servants are organized in various agencies and departments where they can be overseen by members of his Cabinet. Trump can hire those officials, give them a variety of orders, and fire them. (The Supreme Court is even considering a case this term to decide just how far those powers can go.) It’s safe to say that he and his predecessors don’t enforce or execute the laws of the U.S. so much as they supervise those who do.
Indeed, Trump himself shows how little time the chief executive can actually spend executing the laws. On the same morning that his lawyers argued before the court, Trump began his day by opining on an HBO show’s host and ratings and insinuating that a former member of Congress and current MSNBC host may have murdered a congressional aide in Florida in 2001. White House records obtained by Axios last year showed that Trump spends most of his mornings in unstructured “executive time,” during which he calls friends and allies, watches cable news, and discusses it on Twitter. The Washington Post estimated on Tuesday that the president may have spent as much as nine full days of his presidency just writing Twitter posts.
If this president (or Barack Obama, or George W. Bush) spent his mornings processing patent applications or approving small-business loans, I might be more sympathetic to the “burden” argument. But that’s simply not the case. If anything, presidents may have an easier time dealing with civil litigation or criminal proceedings than virtually any other American. The White House employs a sizable staff that prepares his meals, does his laundry, and performs any and all housekeeping duties. A coterie of West Wing aides stand ready to orchestrate his daily schedule and workflow. If necessary, he can even delegate virtually any part of his job other than signing legislation and issuing pardons to handpicked Cabinet members or trusted advisers.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--Coronavirus Is Making Us All Camgirls

Coronavirus Is Making Us All Camgirls

For millions of newly remote workers in the United States , doing your job in this pandemic now involves looking presentable on camera , in a relatively pleasing setting at home .
With bedrooms and basements doubling as offices , the line between work and life has more deeply fractured , maybe permanently .
Even when we aren ’ t strictly working we are just doing different things in the same place with the same technology .
I can “ log off ” from an editorial meeting on Google Hangout to make dinner while FaceTiming a friend or watching a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The internet speeds may be better , but the work-life blur is not that different from the camgirl era of 20 years ago , when some of the only people inviting the internet into their homes were young women with webcams , sharing still images every 30 seconds , sometimes for money .
At the time , this was considered an unseemly thing to do , especially for a living .
Yet in recent months , many more people know what the minimal viable makeup for a video chat looks like , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laundry , learned to perform their job in the frame while life goes on outside it .
Now the coronavirus is making them work like camgirls , too .
The defining platforms of the coronavirus connect us with cameras across millions of private homes , and all that moves is the website or app we ’ re on .
The space between home and work is as minimal as the one , on the same laptop screen , separating OnlyFans from Zoom .
OnlyFans , a platform where theoretically anyone with a fanbase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content , is now Beyoncé-famous after she named the website in her remix of Megan Thee Stallion ’ s “ Savage , ” released late last month ( “ hips TikTok when she dance / on that Demon Time / she might start an OnlyFans.
” ) Scammer–famous writer Caroline Calloway has set up shop there , using the platform made relevant by dancers and porn performers to offer “ emotionally poignant , softcore cerebral porn.
” Adult content creator Heather Jana responded on Twitter , when Calloway attempted to distance her brand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ since we ’ re not your competition i ’ m sure you won ’ t mind if we promote our pages here , thanks babe !
” —and then dozens did , a cross-platform promo on a high-profile verified account , doubling as a deserved ratio .

Whether out of professional deference to career strippers—and some of the women in the IG pop-up clubs were working in strip clubs before this—or to skirt the stigma that comes with dancing, the women now stripping online perhaps for the first time have some good reasons to position themselves apart from “real” dancers. This isn’t to insist, out of some kind of sex-work identity or labor politics, that they call themselves workers. More, it’s just a fact of how so many of us working from home, working online, labor in that same in between. Is this a job? Is this just how I make money? Am I at work now?
While it’s the pandemic now pushing even more life online, these questions about what we’re doing when we’re living so much of our lives online are not new. Before Facebook (a website hatched when the web was already in its second decade), before social media generally, camgirls were some of the first people to live online. Global social media researcher Theresa M. Senft coined the term “microcelebrity” more than 20 years ago to describe these emerging ways of living and/or working online, after her study of (and becoming part of) the online community around camgirls.
To be microfamous, as Senft argues in her book rooted in this time, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks, is a twist on Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame” dictum: It is to be famous to 15 people at a time. It was also a much smaller internet. At that time, in the 2000s, before the internet became available in our pockets, people also hadn’t yet defaulted to using their real names online, as Joanne McNeil observes in her book Lurking. Once any laptop might have a webcam built in, once any mobile phone did, too, technically, anyone could be a camgirl. What killed the camgirl era wasn’t driving them off-line, but getting more people online—people with cameras of their own.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--Don’t Blame the Coronavirus for Quibi’s Failure

Just about everything in the world is going wrong , but it ’ s been a golden age for streaming .
With movie theaters , bookstores , and most forms of live entertainment on ice , we have little choice but to turn to our computers , phones , and streaming sticks .
Tiger King and The Last Dance have become touchstones , dominating the cultural sphere in ways that probably would not have been possible in pre-coronavirus times .
Netflix has emerged as a coronavirus-proof business , adding 16 million subscribers globally in the first quarter of this year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ streaming service , this would appear to be a good time to do it .
Audiences have never been more captive , and life has never been more monotonous .
One can only watch an old YouTube video of , say , Kelsey Grammar falling off a stage so many times .
Quibi , the multibillion-dollar streaming service from former Disney honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg and failed Republican politician Meg Whitman , launched in early March , days before the country shut down .
Fortuitous timing , you would think—but the launch has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free trial , the service has already lost nearly two-thirds of its users .
It claims to have one million active users , which , if true , is no small accomplishment ( though millions fewer than other comparable newcomers ) .
But that number remains a disappointment given its sizable seed capital of $ 1.8 billion .
Katzenberg has refused to accept responsibility for the debacle .
“ I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus , ” Katzenberg told The New York Times .
“ Everything.
” If Quibi ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a good many harebrained schemes funded by venture capital will be blamed on the coronavirus instead of their out-of-touch creators and investors .

Quibi is a pure product of VC logic. Katzenberg and Co. figured out that young people use their phones a lot, particularly while commuting. Quibi is an attempt to monetize the interstitial parts of the day, with the under-35 demographic paying $4.99 a month—that is, if Quibi can hold on to them for longer than 90 free days—to watch Nicole Richie try her hand at comedy or yet another adaptation of “The Most Dangerous Game.” The absence of these moments is what Katzenberg is blaming for his expensive platform’s rake-stepping start.
Some have blamed Quibi’s failure on its name, which is terrible in a way that is almost transcendent. But Netflix, it should be said, also has a dumb name. Quibi is certainly not helped by the fact that it is mobile-only at a time when most of us are stuck at home with access to larger screens. Still, Quibi’s problems run much deeper.
For one, people are not starved for content on their commute. Podcasts, most of which are longer than 20 minutes, are exceedingly popular. It is also possible to watch television on the subway and simply pause it when you have to get out at your stop. And while this may come as a shock to the older members of the chattering classes, there isn’t anything wrong with the attention spans of millennials specifically. Friends, the most traditional of traditional sitcoms, has proven to be exceedingly popular among that demographic.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--It Will Be Needlessly Hard to Get a Coronavirus Vaccination in the U.S.

Vaccinations pose a challenge in the best of times .
For example , a majority of Americans do not receive a flu shot each year .
There are many reasons for this , including misconceptions about how it works and why it ’ s necessary .
A 2012 study of flu shot uptake in a low-income community in New York reported that of the participants who intended to get the shot but hadn ’ t yet , 95 percent said the reason was that it was difficult to access the vaccine .
Fewer poor people get the flu shot overall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flu .
Understandable distrust of the medical profession by poorer individuals—let alone members of the thoroughly more bourgeois anti-vax movement , who are sure to decide that the coronavirus vaccine causes autism , too—might well pose a challenge to administering the vaccine .
The one thing we have going for us , where rolling out a nationwide effort to vaccinate the populace is concerned , is that the coronavirus is at least a very visible problem .
You can be pretty sure that everyone has noticed the economy has stopped , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eager to get back to normal .
Yet it seems impossible that a coronavirus vaccine would turn out to be the only thing that is not more easily accessible to the rich in the U.S .
The megawealthy , after all , immediately finagled access to coronavirus testing , while populations at greater risk of infection continue to wait for a testing infrastructure beyond its current threadbare state to be spun up .
It ’ s hard to imagine that some Silicon Valley company named Elixir or PlasMa won ’ t end up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s similarly difficult to shake the notion that fault lines won ’ t just be drawn between multimillionaire 0.1 percenters and the rest of us , but between ordinarily wealthy people and the struggling poor .
You only have to look at the scores of people who turn up for Remote Area Medical clinics to imagine the difficulty we may have .
America does not really have a health care “ system ” at all ; it has a chaotic array of overlapping systems of private and public health financing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This lack of a single system will pose a challenge for administering a vaccine to the entire population .
It ’ s not as simple as adding one more to the list of vaccines that children receive or distributing vaccinations at schools : People of all ages will need one .
Can you name a physical institution that every American interacts with and has easy access to and that is prepared to distribute something universal like this ?
The Social Security office ?
The DMV ?
McDonald ’ s ?
( Starbucks and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only place homeless people can go to freshen up , so it ’ s not like we ’ re not used to substituting chain restaurants for a society . )
The closest thing might be the post office , currently in danger of being left to rot and die because of the virus .
It may be that setting up post offices with government-employed pharmacists to distribute the vaccine would be our best bet , given the lack of universal access to medical settings .
It is far from guaranteed that an eventual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charge .
In this week ’ s Senate hearing on the coronavirus pandemic , health officials declined to say that the vaccine would be free .
Dr. Brett Giroir , who currently serves as the assistant secretary for health in the Trump administration , went only as far as suggesting that the poor “ should have access to it.
” ( To quote Malcolm Tucker , “ should ” does not mean “ yes.
” ) Given the fact that the president believes that the second Iraq War should be paid for with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be under any delusion that Trump will easily give up the prospect of allowing someone to profit from a vaccine .
But even if we imagine that an eventual vaccine might be required by a more benevolent future Congress or administration to be issued for free , the health financing system we have has already eaten away at our ability to distribute a vaccine on a universal scale .

Yet it seems impossible that a coronavirus vaccine would turn out to be the only thing that is not more easily accessible to the rich in the U.S. The megawealthy, after all, immediately finagled access to coronavirus testing, while populations at greater risk of infection continue to wait for a testing infrastructure beyond its current threadbare state to be spun up. It’s hard to imagine that some Silicon Valley company named Elixir or PlasMa won’t end up with early stocks of the vaccine. It’s similarly difficult to shake the notion that fault lines won’t just be drawn between multimillionaire 0.1 percenters and the rest of us, but between ordinarily wealthy people and the struggling poor. You only have to look at the scores of people who turn up for Remote Area Medical clinics to imagine the difficulty we may have.
America does not really have a health care “system” at all; it has a chaotic array of overlapping systems of private and public health financing, clinics, hospitals, and doctors. This lack of a single system will pose a challenge for administering a vaccine to the entire population. It’s not as simple as adding one more to the list of vaccines that children receive or distributing vaccinations at schools: People of all ages will need one. Can you name a physical institution that every American interacts with and has easy access to and that is prepared to distribute something universal like this? The Social Security office? The DMV? McDonald’s? (Starbucks and McDonald’s bathrooms are often the only place homeless people can go to freshen up, so it’s not like we’re not used to substituting chain restaurants for a society.) The closest thing might be the post office, currently in danger of being left to rot and die because of the virus. It may be that setting up post offices with government-employed pharmacists to distribute the vaccine would be our best bet, given the lack of universal access to medical settings.
It is far from guaranteed that an eventual vaccine will be made available free of charge. In this week’s Senate hearing on the coronavirus pandemic, health officials declined to say that the vaccine would be free. Dr. Brett Giroir, who currently serves as the assistant secretary for health in the Trump administration, went only as far as suggesting that the poor “should have access to it.” (To quote Malcolm Tucker, “should” does not mean “yes.”) Given the fact that the president believes that the second Iraq War should be paid for with plundered Iraqi oil, no one should be under any delusion that Trump will easily give up the prospect of allowing someone to profit from a vaccine. But even if we imagine that an eventual vaccine might be required by a more benevolent future Congress or administration to be issued for free, the health financing system we have has already eaten away at our ability to distribute a vaccine on a universal scale.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--The Pandemic That Changed Everything Changed Nothing

Even as the number of documented cases declines , New York City remains the hot spot of the coronavirus crisis in the United States .
It ’ s also , in the months since the pandemic first took hold here , become a case study in how a government ’ s response will only ever be as good or as just as the people in charge of organizing it .
There is no emergency , it seems , that can knock a certain kind of political figure off whatever ideological autopilot they ’ ve been running on .
Last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , based on public arrest data in Brooklyn , of the 40 people arrested by police for social distancing violations , 35 were Black , four were Latinx , and one was white , a pandemic-era iteration of the deeply racist policing that grips the city in normal times .
Later that same day , Times metro reporter Ashley Southall reported that , citywide , Black and Latinx residents made up 82 percent of all social distancing summonses issued .
This prompted a late-night response from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TO do better and we WILL.
” The mayor ’ s response felt achingly familiar .
In the fall of 2019 , the New York Police Department began a crackdown on fare evasion in the city ’ s subway system .
Beyond the cruel absurdity of the campaign , as has been the case with the social distancing arrests , the NYPD followed its historical trend of violently imposing itself on Black and Latinx neighborhoods to carry out its new enforcement mandate .
In January , Vice reported that high-poverty Black and Latinx @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate of well-off white and Asian communities .
Then as now , the mayor assured the city that resolving the disparity was a top priority .
You can go back as far as you ’ d like to find city leadership offer condemnation after condemnation of racist violence while simultaneously doing nothing to change the racist systems that enable it .
In fact , they ’ re feeding those systems .
New York is just one example of how this works : A smiling face put on a bad story .
You can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to justify long-standing ideological projects or more of the same old shit—in the White House , where advisers are eyeing Social Security cuts .
You can see them in Congress , where , as my colleague Osita Nwanevu wrote in April , “ Democratic lawmakers are congenitally inclined toward pragmatism and political conciliation.
” And you can see them in Joe Biden , the presumed Democratic presidential nominee , who , when confronted with the utter failure that is the nation ’ s health care system , doubled down on the failed Affordable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by five years .

That degree of pain will ripple through already vulnerable communities in all kinds of ways. Renters and organizers have been forced to scramble together local, regional, and national responses as state and federal legislators have ignored rent cancellation in the name of mortgage relief. The housing crises that already existed have grown more severe, and the same people who failed to act then are failing to act now. In red and blue states alike, scheduled minimum wage increases, long overdue, have been further delayed. As recently installed work requirements for what should be basic social services have been exposed as the unnecessarily cruel punishments they are, the Trump administration has quietly been telling bosses to snitch on employees who don’t feel safe returning to work.
This is one form of state violence. Another has been the ways that the pandemic has opened the door for further attacks on communities of color. In late March, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took the land of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe out of trust, a shot at the nation’s centuries-long struggle to establish sovereignty. In South Dakota, Republican Governor Kristi Noem, a Trump acolyte, has used the crisis to pick a fight with the tribal nations in her state, threatening legal action against blockades established by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, which are attempting to protect their at-risk citizens from the virus. In D.C., four Republican senators asked President Trump last week to halt work visas for immigrant workers, who are ineligible for unemployment benefits and might soon be subject to deportation—this after Trump used an executive order to halt the issuance of green cards in April. And all of this has been stacked atop the violent and deadly policing of Black and Latinx communities for perceived violations of social distancing measures or for simply being home, while white residents in these same states and cities—protesters and parkgoers alike—have been treated with the utmost deference by law enforcement.
We know the way forward. That hasn’t changed, either. Not since the Great Recession has there been a more urgent political moment to enact structural changes this country already desperately needed: universal health care, housing, supplemental universal basic incomes with no strings attached, jobs guarantees, full tribal program funding, an injection of federal dollars into state public education. But the response so far is indicative of a much larger problem facing the nation as it stumbles toward reopening: bad reruns. As much as we’re hearing right now about how the Covid-19 crisis has changed everything, it’s clear that nothing much has changed at all. There is no new de Blasio or Cuomo that emerges from this crisis. There’s no new Chuck Schumer or Mitch McConnell. These are creatures of desperate habit. Wind-up toys that walk into a wall and stay there when confronted with new circumstances. Until they are stripped of that power, this is what they’ll do with it.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--The Deficit Hawks Are Circling Their Old Roosts

Just two months into the United States government ’ s historic multi-trillion dollar response to the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic , leading congressional Republicans have lost their appetite for deficit-financed spending .
On Tuesday , House Democrats , led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi rolled out another enormous rescue package , a $ 3 trillion proposal that includes aid to state and local governments , more direct cash payments to households as well as expanded unemployment insurance , SNAP and vote by mail funding .
But they are already facing growing calls to hit the “ pause button , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put it , in the name of fiscal responsibility .
“ We ’ ve got to figure out now how we ’ re going to pay for it , we ’ re going to ruin this economy , ” Senator Rick Scott of Florida told Bloomberg News .
It ’ s a sentiment that , despite growing calls from many economists that superpowers like the United States can manage large debts , is largely shared by his Republican colleagues in the House , including the powerful Republican Study Committee , which is pushing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new spending with long-term budget cuts .
For the senior Democratic staffers now tasked with pressuring Republicans into supporting these rescue measures , which can ’ t pass Congress without their support , this reincarnated finger-wagging over deficits from conservatives is not only dangerous—especially with unemployment hitting record highs as states and cities run out of funds necessary to support essential services—but also brazenly disingenuous coming from a party that hasn ’ t had a president in office who presided over a balanced budget since Dwight D. Eisenhower .
“ We ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facts , ” a senior Democratic aide close to the leadership ’ s discussions told The New Republic .
“ If they honestly believed in fiscal conservatism , then they wouldn ’ t have voted for the tax scam , ” the senior aide said , referring to the tax cuts passed in 2017 without a single Democratic vote and signed into law by President Trump , which were not similarly paid for and that could cost taxpayers more than $ 5.5 trillion over 10 years .

It was yet another odd twist in this era of alternative facts: The appearance of telling the truth apparently mattered so little to Walker that he had no problem frankly admitting a cynical lie. One would imagine that Republican legislators and Trump might mesh seamlessly over their shared debt opportunism. After all, Trump, a self-proclaimed “king of debt” who has long been understood as both self-interested and ideologically unprincipled, should plausibly have no problem pushing his loyal followers in Congress to use the cover of this emergency to pass bipartisan bills with trillions of dollars in economic support with his shaky reelection prospects on the line and many swing states badly affected. As the most popular Republican in the country, with a cult-like loyalty from his base, just one tweet from him could pressure conservative skeptics in his party to keep up these expansionary fiscal policies.
And yet something different is brewing in Washington. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, a leading voice from the Progressive Caucus, has found there are some aspects within this political moment that suggests the sudden re-emphasis from Republicans on deficit-financed spending may, at least in part, be a genuine ideological expression among their rank and file.
“What I find perplexing,” Khanna said, “is that it’s in Trump’s self interest to be keeping the economy going and not having massive cuts to state budgets, which aren’t just going to affect blue states but also red states.” That’s not happening so far, he explained, because many Republican congressmen are sincerely “anxious” over the sticker shock from the trillions in spending enacted so far. And they are waiting to see how the states currently edging closer to “re-opening” fare economically.


newrepublic--2020-05-13--Have a Good Trip Demystifies Psychedelics

Irony , of course , is the main line to Have A Good Trip ’ s target audience : nostalgic Gen Xers and elder millennials whose interest in high-power hallucinogens has likely been piqued by the so-called psychedelic renaissance .
There is , I suspect , a certain level of knowing irony in other quarters of the psychedelic revival , be it in the popularity of neo-psychedelic rock bands like Tame Impala or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard ( whose names alone suggest forked tongues firmly in cheek ) or the elevation of pilled Grateful Dead tie-dye tour shirts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Modern psychedelic explorers engage with the culture but avoid the effusions of earnestness that made the fizzled cultural revolutions of the boomer generation feel so embarrassing .
The third eye is awakened and already rolling .
But can you really remove sincerity from the psychedelic experience , which has long been vaunted for its ability to facilitate beautiful insights about the power of capital-l Love ; insights that may scan like mush when the drugs ’ effects have faded but feel , in that exalted moment , absolutely real ?
And more to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
After all , one of the characteristics of the psychedelic trip is its capacity to obliterate what Pollan calls “ the pitiless glare of irony.
” It ’ s that feeling of “ openness ” or a universal “ oneness ” that reoccurs in psychedelic literature , cinema , and even the woolly anecdotes of friends .
Irony has become a de facto cultural defense mechanism and is rendered vulnerable by drugs renowned for opening ( or totally shattering ) our psychic defenses .
Irony is perhaps useful in tempering a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movements of psychedelia ’ s last major saturation period : the 1960s .
Psychedelic drugs fueled the artistic and political upheavals of America in the “ Age of Aquarius , ” which collapsed under the bummer-trip heaviness of Altamont , the Manson murders , and the national trauma of the Vietnam War .
As author Tom O ’ Neill puts it in Chaos , his recent history that rethinks the era , “ The decade ’ s subversive spirit had come on with too much fervor .
Some reckoning was bound to come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; the latent violence couldn ’ t contain itself forever.
” This cultural comedown is often framed , in distinctly druggy terms , as a form of punishment for the ecstasies that preceded it—like a long , blue Monday of the American spirit .
The psychedelic revival ’ s ironic edge cuts some of this , allowing the curious-minded to savor the hallucinatory fruits of the era without getting swept up in its politics , which , as we all know , were tainted and stupid and hopelessly naïve .
( New reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Neill ’ s book , strongly suggests that this sense of hopelessness and naïveté was a deliberate strategy by the powers-that-be to neutralize the energized leftist movements of the 1960s , but that ’ s another discussion altogether . )
A veil of wizened , weary cynicism permits engagement in psychedelia without having to feel all that engaged with its history or its deeper , metaphysical implications .


newrepublic--2020-05-13--The Coronavirus Is Making Us All Camgirls


newrepublic--2020-05-14--Building an Economy That Works Again

Building an Economy That Works Again

It also seems that the gap between wages and profits was being closed in the relatively tight labor market of recent years , after expanding greatly in the weak labor market immediately following the Great Recession .
The labor share of national income rose 0.7 percentage points in 2019 , under conditions of near-full employment .
At this rate , we would have returned to the 1979-level share of worker income in another four years .
The wage share typically rises in a recession , but , given the structure of this bailout , that would not be a safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased monopolization is not the main factor in income inequality , there ’ s still a strong argument for reining in the tech giants .
The current regulatory structure—inherited mostly from the 1996 Communications Decency Act—essentially regards them as common carriers .
We treat a typical tech giant as though it were a phone company that has no control over the content of phone calls .
Unlike a conventional phone company or utility , both Facebook and Google exercise control over , and directly profit from , the content they carry .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 230 of the Communications Decency Act , which protects these internet giants from the same sort of liability faced by their counterparts in traditional media .
While The New York Times or CNN can be sued for passing along libelous material , Facebook or Google can not .
If such liability would extend to Facebook , for example , it would mean that if I were to libel someone in a Facebook ad or on my Facebook page , Facebook could be sued as well .
It would likely be impossible for Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ users ’ pages—but the company could be required to evaluate complaints when they are brought to its attention , if the company brass faced a possible libel penalty for their publication .
Creating a team to evaluate the accuracy of published material would be expensive for Facebook—but it ’ s an expense that traditional media outlets already incur to guard against the threat of a libel action .
If Facebook did not want to go this route , it could choose to become an actual common carrier , charging people a flat fee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engineers employing any algorithms to place ads or harvest personal information .
That would be a complete transformation of its business model , and surely a much less profitable one , but the public has no obligation to give internet giants special privileges .
This roster of near-term jolts to a flailing U.S. economy could of course be expanded at great length—key features of a Green New Deal , such as a public works employment program for workers retrofitting buildings and businesses to lower carbon emissions , might emerge out of a dramatically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve focused mostly on actually achievable goals to flatten out long-standing trends of income and wealth inequality , and laying the basic groundwork to expand health care and mitigate climate change on a serious policy footing .
I ’ ve also deliberately concentrated on measures to influence the flow of before-tax income .
That is where most of the upward redistribution within the American economy has taken place , as much research shows .
Many left-leaning critics of the economic status quo focus on the sharp decline in the top bracket for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deeper dynamics that fuel inequality .
Federal income tax rates have indeed fallen sharply , but this reduction in federal tax rates is offset in part by higher state income taxes ( 13.0 percent in California and 11.0 percent in New York City ) and the 3.8 percent Medicare tax that applies to all income .
Many of the richest people in the country still face a marginal income tax rate of more than 50 percent .
We can of course raise taxes on the rich further , but there is less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than many believe .
In addition , steeper tax rates on high earners would provide a big boost to the tax avoidance industry , which itself is a source of inequality and a complete waste from an economic perspective .
A marginal tax rate of 90 percent means that we are paying rich people 90 cents to hide a dollar of income .
Many will take advantage of this deal .
Efforts to make the tax code more progressive are worthwhile , but as we ’ ve seen in this broad overview , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side of the ledger .
We can arrive at a more achievable and just outcome if we work to structure the economy so that it ’ s not redistributing so much income upward .
It ’ s far easier , in practical terms , to prevent the rich from getting another $ 1 billion in the first place , than it is to tax it away after they have it .
And not incidentally , such a program is also likely to be a much better sell politically .
The ongoing fallout from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for progressive change .
That was also true at the time of the housing bubble ’ s collapse .
Let ’ s hope we do better this time .

Despite such forbidding obstacles, the present crisis makes it clearer than ever that we must envision a different American economy—one that’s less unequal, less vicious, and less prone to force people into unsustainable trade-offs that pit their basic health and well-being against the interests of an elite caste of patent monopolies, private-equity titans, tech moguls, and finance professionals. I should stipulate at the outset that this preliminary sketch of what such an economy can and should look like will not be a standard wish list of social-democratic policy aims, such as free college, universal day care, and Medicare for All. These would figure prominently in my own perfect-world roster of economic priorities, but the immediate task ahead is to sketch out concrete, achievable measures—programs that would be politically feasible while also serving as real steps forward to achieving longer-term goals.
One other caveat is in order: We’ve already seen a number of analyses laying out what the economy will look like in the post-pandemic world. These are best ignored, since the shape of the economy will be determined far more by the course of the coronavirus than by any immediate economic factors.
If, for example, after a couple of months we have developed treatments that bring down the mortality and morbidity rate to levels comparable to a conventional flu—or, alternatively, have improved testing to the point where we contain the spread—we should be able to operate the economy more or less normally. On the other hand, if we have the virus only semi-contained, with new outbreaks constantly arising, forcing new shutdowns, we will face a far worse economic situation. An expert in epidemiology can tell you which of these scenarios is most likely, but economists are just making stuff up when they try to predict the post-pandemic economy without first knowing how these fundamental issues are likely to play out.


newrepublic--2020-05-14--The Nonprofit Grifters Who Want a Cut of the Coronavirus Bailout

On April 14 , a mask-wearing mother sat in the near-empty gallery of the Minnesota Legislature and prayed .
Nicole Smith-Holt was there to advocate for the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act , named in honor of her son , who died three years ago at the age of 26 as a result of having to ration the costly medication he needed to live .
The bill—which establishes safety nets for low-income diabetics at the expense of manufacturers—passed , punctuating a long and grueling battle for Smith-Holt and other volunteers who devoted hundreds of hours to the cause .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the global nonprofit T1International , they complained that they had received scant support from the diabetes organizations with the most muscle : the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation .
“ We did this without them , ” Smith-Holt told The New Republic .
“ It was really frustrating to see , after years of service to the ADA , ” added her colleague Quinn Nystrom .
As Kaiser Health News has reported , the ADA takes in millions of dollars of funding from insulin manufacturers .
Both the ADA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with pharmaceutical companies , have been criticized for their lackluster response to the insulin crisis and , in JDRF ’ s case , for prioritizing technological research at a time when one in four diabetics have admitted to cost-related skipping or underdosing .
For most Americans , large nonprofit patient advocacy organizations occupy a benign space in the health care universe , the hosts of celebrity benefits and races “ for the cure.
” But underneath the familiar public face of such groups , these kinds of conflicts and controversies are par for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such groups have raked in more in donations from drugmakers than lobbyists have earned representing the industry , all while touting controversial treatments and stifling efforts to reform the drug industry .
Moreover , according to a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine , conflicts of interest abound in this world : Of the 104 patient advocacy organizations the NEJM surveyed , “ 37 reported at least one current drug , device , or biotechnology company executive on [ their ] governing board.
” Many have further blurred the line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moneymaking tactics of venture capitalists .
Yet , as “ nonprofits , ” these groups pay no taxes .
While their CEOs earn seven figures , many of their constituents struggle to afford basic treatments .
It ’ s long been important for the public to understand the extent to which these groups have harmed the interests of patients , their families , and wider society .
That mission seems all the more imperative now , as these organizations join the long line of suitors seeking a coronavirus bailout from the federal government @

In conversation with The New Republic, Marston privately elaborated that the organization tends to promote “red herring” and “Band-Aid” measures, which derail more effective reforms. As it happens, the ADA supports congressional bills to expand insurance coverage (as do drugmakers, of course) but not bills like HR-3, which would cap the price of insulin and other essential medications to the median in other leading nations. In response to headlines about dying diabetics, Marston noted that the group has repeatedly touted an older, cheaper version of insulin—one that hundreds of patients have died using and that was the subject of three attempted class-action suits, due to the harms experienced by those who used it.
Some wonder why this controversial insulin varietal is still on the market. The answer has much to do with the ADA, whose efforts to defend the product on behalf of manufacturers paved the way for today’s pricing crisis. The whole sordid saga only underscores the fact that the insulin hellscape that’s now claiming lives isn’t just one that patient advocacy organizations have refused to reform—it’s one they helped to create. And as they turn to venture philanthropy, nonprofits in other disease communities are similarly putting profits above people, with catastrophic consequences for the latter.
In the 1980s, the Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly introduced biosynthetic “human” insulin with the primary goal of gaining a global market. (As the Food and Drug Administration noted, human insulin offered no clinical benefit over existing, animal-sourced products; it was simply easier to mass-produce.) Thousands reported side effects ranging from irritability to loss of consciousness; some pursued legal action as a result. The ADA went out of its way to undermine these plaintiffs, deriding them as “emotional” and defending its benefactor’s flawed product. The organization failed to call upon the FDA to monitor adverse effects, even as children were being found dead in their beds. Eli Lilly went on to withdraw animal insulin from the market and wipe out many domestic producers around the globe, creating a market in which smaller manufacturers couldn’t compete and larger ones could price-gouge diabetics to the point of blindness, amputation, heart disease, kidney disease, nerve damage, or death. Several of these conditions have been identified as markers of mortality from Covid-19.


Mutant Liberalism

“ In times such as these , you always have experts who believe that they know best for everybody .
You have some folks who think that government ought to take over everything in times of crisis—that they , as government officials , know better than individual citizens.
” These were the sentiments of Republican Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves when a reporter asked him to explain his minimal approach to contain the rapid spread of the coronavirus in his state .
Alabama ’ s GOP Governor Kay Ivey also initially rejected any serious statewide action to protect her citizens from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re not California .
We ’ re not New York .
We ’ re not even Louisiana , ” she declared .
California was the first state in the nation to institute a mandatory stay-at-home order , while New York ’ s actions were lethargic and confused ; as a result , as of April 28 , there had been 1,786 deaths from Covid-19 in California versus 22,623 in New York state .
Louisiana , which failed to suspend the annual Mardi Gras festival this year , is one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the planet .
An April Forbes article , meanwhile , bears the astonishing title “ In Idaho , Lawmakers Flout Stay-At-Home Requirements—And Encourage Others To Follow Suit.
” Are these behaviors , even if misguided , ramifications of the vaunted liberal tradition in America ?
John Stuart Mill , who codified the postulates of classical liberalism , held that individual autonomy allowed people to pursue any course of action they wanted , even if it was destructive to themselves , as long as it wasn ’ t injurious to others .
The irresponsible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States—represent a mutant variant of liberalism that , in addition to being self-endangering , is a threat to the entire surrounding community .
There is a chain of ironies that begins with former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice ’ s New York Times op-ed of April 7 accusing President Donald Trump of creating a “ Hobbesian jungle where it ’ s every man for himself.
” She refers not only to individuals and institutions engaged in battling the virus head-on , but also to the 50 states that constitute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ botched handling of the crisis , Trump declared that the national government was to serve only as a distant “ backup ” to the states in this war , not the lead combatant on the front lines .
The chief irony here is that Thomas Hobbes himself had forcefully argued that human nature required the strong hand of an authoritarian government—his famous Leviathan—to guarantee public order and safety .
This was indeed a government ’ s foremost duty ; only by fulfilling it , Hobbes maintained , could political authority create a modest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This last proviso is what gives Hobbes pride of place , in front of the more libertarian John Locke , as the first theorist of liberalism .

Contemporary British political philosopher John Gray, in a recent discursive essay in the New Statesman, “Why this crisis is a turning point in history,” offers pithy thoughts on the theme of Hobbesian versus Lockean liberalism. Gray, during his tenure as a professor at Oxford, specialized in liberal political philosophy and was a reigning authority on Mill. Gray argues that the British state, “at its core,” has always been essentially Hobbesian. The British system has always relied on a strong central government to provide domestic tranquility and protection from the public enemy, though it’s customarily done so with “the consent of the governed” (a Lockean concept, for balance). “Being shielded from danger has always trumped freedom from interference from government” in Britain, Gray writes, evoking a tradition considerably at odds with today’s fiercely anti-state conservative consensus in America. Now, in a situation of extraordinary danger, the once-towering British state, weakened by years of “imbecilic” Conservative Party austerity, is, he submits, being reconstituted and expanded on an unprecedented scale. Gray argues that, thanks to its new crisis footing, the British political system will emerge from its coronavirus ordeal intact. “Not many,” he boasts, “will be so fortunate.”
Gray notes that the greatest successes in dealing with Covid-19 have been in Asia, most notably in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. He suggests that their outstanding record is the product of cultural mores prioritizing collective well-being over personal liberty. By contrast, the uneven liberalism of the United States has produced such large populations of vulnerable people—the medically uninsured, the incarcerated, the homeless, the drug-addicted—that the nation might well have to choose between a protracted and ruinous economic shutdown and an uncontrollable spread of a lethal virus throughout the land.
Gray shows little inclination, however, to abandon the liberal tradition wholesale; he seeks, as do I, a balance between individual liberty and—to once again invoke a prized concept of Benjamin Barber—communal liberty. “It is only by recognizing the frailties of liberal societies that their most essential values can be preserved,” he writes. “Along with fairness, they include individual liberty, which as well as being worthwhile in itself is a necessary check on government. But those who believe personal autonomy is the innermost human need betray an ignorance of psychology, not least their own. For practically everyone, security and belonging are equally important, often more so. Liberalism was, in effect, a systematic denial of this fact.” Thomas Hobbes would no doubt agree.


newrepublic--2020-05-14--Trump’s Deportation Flights Are Inflaming the Pandemic

In the midst of a historic pandemic , an ICE Air flight to Port-au-Prince , Haiti , left Alexandria , Louisiana , on Monday morning , with some 50 Haitian nationals aboard .
For James , one of the passengers , the flight was the culmination of a multiyear nightmare in the United States .
( James is not his real name , which we are withholding for the sake of his safety . )
He endured a long and perilous journey to the U.S. border in San Diego in 2018 , where he sought asylum , according to Guerline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Haitian Bridge Alliance , who is familiar with his case .
Unable to access legal representation , James was detained at the Adelanto Detention Center , a notorious private immigrant prison in Southern California , for nearly two years .
From there , Jozef said , he was transported , handcuffed and shackled , to Louisiana , where he was put on the flight heading to Port-au-Prince .
This is a devastating story of a punitive and heartless immigration system in its own right .
But these injustices are now happening against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , having ravaged detention centers , is now being spread knowingly by our government into poor countries by way of our relentless deportation regime .
There is a vicious irony at work : Our government has blamed these very same immigrants for bringing this disease into the U.S. , using it as a pretext to temporarily ban immigration writ large .
In fact , the opposite is true .
There had originally been over 100 people slated for deportation on James ’ s flight , including five who tested positive for the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steve Forester of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti , which had access to the flight manifest .
Stephane Etienne , who has been held at the Pine Prairie Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Louisiana since April 1—and who has tested positive twice for the coronavirus , most recently on April 28—was one of them , according to The Miami Herald .
His name was eventually removed from the manifest , along with that of Mackendy Calice , who tested positive on April 26 , confirmed Forester .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transferred to the Alexandria staging ground on Sunday before their names were ultimately removed from the flight list as well .

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, 117 people deported from the U.S. had tested positive for Covid-19 as of May 4—some 15 percent of the country’s total cases. Guatemala has managed on several occasions to temporarily halt the flights, prompting the Trump administration to threaten sanctions against countries that refuse deportees. As of this week, those flights have resumed. Although U.S. officials have promised to test all detainees for the virus before they board, one ICE official told The New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer that he was “skeptical” that the U.S. would be able to competently perform this task. Guatemalan officials, meanwhile, are under duress to accept the deportation flights. As one adviser to the Guatemalan government told Blitzer, the country does not want “the wrath of the U.S. right now.”
Haiti, for its part, has established a presidential panel to urge ICE to halt the flights, and Florida Congresswoman Federica Wilson has introduced a bill to cease them entirely. But Haiti, which is still recovering from the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, has very little leverage and is reliant on foreign assistance from the U.S. As Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., Hervé Denis, told The World, “This is David and Goliath. So what can we do? We are not even David.”
Naturally, openly bullying less powerful countries into submitting to its will is an American tradition that has contributed to the destabilization that drives migration in the first place. “The U.S. government is obviously taking advantage” of its relationship with Guatemala, said Julio Gonzalez, a project consultant with Te Conecta, a nongovernmental organization based in Guatemala City that provides assistance to migrants who are returned to Guatemala, in an email to The New Republic. “That’s why these flights have been arriving constantly during this pandemic.”


newrepublic--2020-05-14--The Coronavirus and the Republican War on Knowledge

In his appearance before the hearing of the Senate Committee on Health , Education , Labor and Pensions , or HELP , on Tuesday , Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases , reiterated what experts have said about reopening the economy for months : A steady recovery won ’ t be possible if states can ’ t monitor and handle new coronavirus cases .
“ It ’ s the ability and the capability of responding to those cases with good identification , isolation , and contact tracing , ” he said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continue to go forward as you try to reopen America.
” As Fauci knows , the president has done practically nothing to ensure that states will have the resources to perform widespread contact tracing anytime soon , and the country remains well behind where we ought to be in terms of basic testing .
Nevertheless , like the other members of the administration who testified , Fauci was predictably hesitant to criticize Trump ’ s leadership , despite the best efforts of the Democrats on the committee to goad him into candor .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky Senator Rand Paul , didn ’ t hesitate to question his expertise .
“ As much as I respect you , Dr. Fauci , I don ’ t think you ’ re the end-all .
I don ’ t think you ’ re the one person that gets to make a decision , ” Paul told him .
“ We can listen to your advice , but there are people on the other side saying there ’ s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” On his show Tuesday night , Fox ’ s Tucker Carlson was more aggressive , calling Fauci the “ chief buffoon of the professional class ” for statements dismissing masks and the risk of infection in the early days of the outbreak .
“ We are not singling him out or attacking him , we ’ ve certainly made a lot of wrong predictions on this show , ” he said .
“ But we ’ re not in charge of the entire country.
” Of course , the president , Fauci @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in charge of the country ’ s coronavirus response , has repeatedly failed to deliver on promised responses to the outbreak , intentionally mismanaged resources in order to settle political scores , and undermined the recommendations of health officials with his own moronic advice .
To cover for him , the right has settled into a familiar posture : petulance against the supposed arrogance of experts , who , we ’ re told , have hatched a nebulous conspiracy against the freedoms of good , level-headed Americans .

The dominant critique of the right’s drive to reopen the economy has been that commentators and protesters don’t understand the risks reopening too early might pose to themselves and their communities. But it’s likely that some are rejecting the advice of experts like Fauci precisely because they’ve meaningfully assessed the risks: They understand that those who would be most hurt by a rushed return to full activity would be the working poor, minorities, and the elderly—not the business owners, militiamen, and middle-class suburbanites showing up at statehouses to insist that they may well be fine if things open back up.
This calculus is buried underneath the right’s defenses of local control. “A scientist may know a virus’s characteristics, but he doesn’t know a community’s characteristics: how they feel, eat, shop, work, and operate businesses,” Representative Justin Amash tweeted Wednesday. “These items constitute the most useful kind of knowledge—available only locally, and crucial to limiting the virus’s spread.”
One can engage this argument on two levels. You can note simply that states and localities can ultimately take or leave the advice that federal health officials are offering, and that both the White House’s guidance and the CDC’s stricter, suppressed guidelines were tailored to the severity of the outbreaks particular places might be facing. But more abstractly, Amash’s statement can be read as an argument against giving medical professionals a role in advising policy interventions at all, given how wantonly he believes they impinge on the freedom and judgment of everyday people. It should be said, too, that the alternative to federal recommendations isn’t having the American public convene, community by community, to democratically decide what the best course for all might be. Absent guidance, those with the most capacity to exercise choice in the way they conduct their lives, and who are least vulnerable to the ravages of the virus, will do as they please. Many of the rest will get sick and die.


newrepublic--2020-05-15--Obamagate Is the Ultimate Republican Non-Scandal

What is “ Obamagate ” anyway ?
No one seems to really know , least of all Donald Trump , even though he has tweeted about it dozens of times over the last week .
Asked by The Washington Post ’ s Philip Rucker on Monday what crimes he was accusing Barack Obama of committing , Trump kept it vague : “ You know what the crime is .
The crime is very obvious to everybody.
” Obamagate began more than three years ago , with a tweet in which Trump accused Obama of having his “ wires tapped ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the various threads that make up Obamagate have failed to come together in any way that makes much sense .
Former Obama adviser David Plouffe has called it a “ sideshow to distract from a shitshow , ” Trump ’ s attempt to pull the public ’ s attention away from his administration ’ s disastrous handling of the coronavirus .
There ’ s some truth to that , but it may be more useful to think of Obamagate as the culmination of Trump ’ s various obsessions : with his predecessor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , above all , with the sense of grievance that has guided his political project from its inception .
Though the wire-tapping accusation in 2017 had its origins in talk radio , the logic was pure Trump , an inversion of the Russia scandal that was engulfing his administration at the time .
In this version of events , the puppet master was Obama , rather than Vladimir Putin .
Never mind that a slew of Trump cronies and confidantes would go to jail for a variety of offenses connected to the Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cronies , particularly former national security adviser Susan Rice , who had committed crimes by illegally spying on innocent Americans .

With the encouragement of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, Trump has returned to Obamagate during this coronavirus spring because of the Justice Department’s outrageous, politically motivated decision to drop charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn—charges that he had pleaded guilty to.
The problem with the idea that Trump is using Obamagate as a distraction is that it gives Trump too much credit. It may rile up a base that never seems to be unriled, but it does little else for him. It doesn’t help that Trump has trouble articulating the charges against Obama: According to Politico, even Benghazi-happy Republicans in Congress have no interest in running show trials during an election year. Far from distracting the public, ranting and raving about a popular ex-president in the midst of a pandemic only underscores how pathetic and unfocused the administration’s response to the coronavirus has been.
Obamagate is actually the center of Trump’s entire political project of channeling his base’s various grievances. This is the reality that Trump would like to live in, in which he is the victim of a vast conspiracy and his myriad failures are the fault of others, starting with the country’s first black president. For the president’s allies in the right-wing media, it is the latest plot point in a decades-long narrative project, the latest and greatest example of sinister Democrats undermining the country.