newrepublic--2020-07-10--After the End of Native Mascots

After the End of Native Mascots

So once we have seen the end of Native mascots , a horizon we may finally be approaching , the country will still be left with the erasure , tokenization , and colonization that it was built on—these founding myths and recurring violences .
In order to reconcile those wrongs , Native voices , and the desires of Native communities , must lead the way forward .
“ We ’ ve been trying to , in a very concrete way , say it ’ s not okay for anyone to take unilateral action affecting our land , territories , resources @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , president of the National Congress of American Indians , told me , pointing to the Dakota Access pipeline as a prime example of what happens when tribal nations are ignored .
“ If we can concretely demonstrate how we can turn those who degrade , exploit for profit , and inflict harm on Native people into allies , and how , through that relationship , truth can be told and people can be educated , ” Sharp continued , “ then we can walk a collective path of reconciliation and understanding that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind.
” The end of Native mascots is one piece of righting this historic wrong , but it also has immediate material impacts that shouldn ’ t be overlooked : These mascots are actively harmful to both Native and non-Native youth .
Last month , before the R-word was even on the chopping block , Indian Country Today reported on a recent study published in the journal Race Ethnicity and Education that thoroughly reviewed other studies about the effects of Native mascots on children .
The researchers concluded that , “ Regardless of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Native mascots ( i.e.
, to ` honor ’ Native Americans ) and regardless of opinions about them , these mascots induce or correlate with negative psychosocial outcomes.
” “ I talked to the leaders at the Lummi Nation last year , because there was a young kid who was kicked on the basketball court and the ref kind of high-fived the guy , ” Sharp said .
“ At the same time , a young Native girl was forced to cut her braids by one of her teachers in New Mexico .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I heard all these things happening , Chief Hoskin at the Cherokee Nation announced they were going to withdraw their charitable contributions to the local schools until they addressed institutional racism in the schools.
” Sharp , who told me that she experienced similar forms of discrimination growing up as a child in the Quinault Nation , saw these three concurrent examples as sign of just how deep this mentality has been embedded not just in athletics , but in the Native childhood experience .
“ It ’ s unthinkable that every single @ @ @ @ @ @ @ schools , they ’ re facing that level of hurt , ” she said .
In a recent article for The Wall Street Journal , reporter Andrew Beaton put a magnifying glass over the case of Anderson High School in Ohio , which uses the R-word as its mascot .
“ If the name is changed , it will destroy the community , ” an Anderson alumni said in a video posted to a website dedicated to keeping the slur .
Last summer , the Idaho Statesman reviewed the case of Teton High @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after nearly a decade of debate .
“ We wanted to be as brave , as fearless and as strong as they were , ” wrote one name defender .
“ We are keeping the memories of those who were here actually alive.
” ( On the topic of alive Natives , at a two-hour school board meeting , numerous Shoshone-Bannock citizens , including the tribal nation ’ s vice chairman , explained to the community why they took offense to the name . )
“ We have to have a larger conversation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these iconography and things like monuments , ” Brayboy said .
“ How do we begin to think about people ’ s connections and ties to these things—so much so that it becomes so emotional for them , that they enter into a range the thought of taking it away from them ?
These things are not alive .
They are not our relations .
They serve no purpose except for instantiating often , some false narrative—a myth that has become truth .
We have to reckon with some of that.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though , gets lost when the discussion about the issue is being chiefly viewed through the lens of the Washington NFL team .
The conversation immediately becomes narrowed and flattened—Trump ’ s decision to waddle into the debate all but solidifies the limitations of the conversation ’ s usefulness .
Defending the R-word becomes less about reason and compassion and more about not being “ too PC.
” So look beyond Washington .
Look anywhere .
When you remove the politics of the fight around the Washington NFL team and look at how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local level , where money is mostly removed from the equation , it becomes clearer why it is such a trying task to get people to understand that all Native mascots , not just the particularly heinous ones , are harmful .
And why , long after the mascots are gone , there will be more work to do to reconcile why they lasted as long as they did .

“We have to have a larger conversation about the connection between these mascots and this iconography and things like monuments,” Brayboy said. “How do we begin to think about people’s connections and ties to these things—so much so that it becomes so emotional for them, that they enter into a rage at the thought of taking it away from them? These things are not alive. They are not our relations. They serve no purpose except for instantiating, often, some false narrative—a myth that has become truth. We have to reckon with some of that.”
The active harm caused by these mascots, though, gets lost when the discussion about the issue is being chiefly viewed through the lens of the Washington NFL team. The conversation immediately becomes narrowed and flattened—Trump’s decision to waddle into the debate all but solidifies the limitations of the conversation’s usefulness. Defending the R-word becomes less about reason and compassion and more about not being “too P.C.” So look beyond Washington. Look anywhere. When you remove the politics of the fight around the Washington NFL team and look at how these mascot debates play out on a local level, where money is mostly removed from the equation, it becomes clearer why it is such a trying task to get people to understand that all Native mascots, not just the particularly heinous ones, are harmful. And why, long after the mascots are gone, there will be more work to do to reconcile why they lasted as long as they did.
For the most part, the people who show up at these kinds of school board meetings are not extremists. They’re not on the fringe of society. They are regular, working people who remained in their hometowns and have been subjected to an incorrect education of who Native people are, in a present tense. They maybe hold conservative political views and consume a bit too much Facebook or cable news, as many normal people do, and so rather than take the opportunity to engage with any tribal communities, they follow in lockstep with the right’s desire to declare all critiques against its version of institutional racism cancel culture run amok. (This emboldened mentality is not helped by the fact that these local fights to keep the names are often supported the likes of the Native American Guardian Association, which is paid by school boards to come to board meetings like these across the country to lobby in favor of the names, arguing that erasing the name will wholly erase Native people from the national consciousness.)


No

Hoping to just live quietly unnoticed—holed up smoking pot and listening to old music after work , trying to wait @ @ @ @ @ in exhausted sleep , sick of having to think— Trying the long view—in which years @ @ @ @ @ always turns , but so much damage done as ash and seed change places , @ @ @ @ @ still true ?
When you could see the fires of ending spreading , would you @ @ @ @ @ when No would blossom into Yes and Closed pried—open-hearted -throated -minded , would you get @ @ @ @ @ once did—

Hoping to just live quietly unnoticed—holed up
smoking pot and listening to old music
after work, trying to wait out
the regime—dreaming of tyrants in exhausted
sleep, sick
of having to think—
Trying the long view—in which years breathe
and the Great Wheel always turns, but
so much damage done as ash and seed
change places, as they always do—was that
still true? When you could
see the fires of ending spreading, would you
get to live—in greater days when No
would blossom into Yes and Closed
pried—open-hearted -throated -minded, would you
get to live—as you thought you once
did—


newrepublic--2020-07-10--The Puppet Tiger Masculinity Is

The Puppet Tiger Masculinity Is

When I say tiger : I mean the catatonic one , of William Blake , its roar stalled while rising @ @ @ @ @ uvula .
Or I could mean my Daniel , the flattened , ineffectual puppet tiger @ @ @ @ @ seemed to lack a mandible : the voice spoke feebly from outside his body .
@ @ @ @ @ was Daniel .
His father ’ s name was Daniel .
In the Land of @ @ @ @ @ out to find Blake ’ s Tyger once and for all .
It takes them @ @ @ @ @ age I am now , until they come across it among leaves falling in their @ @ @ @ @ .

When I say tiger: I mean the catatonic one,
of William Blake, its roar stalled while rising
between the diaphragm and the uvula.
Or I could mean my Daniel, the flattened,
ineffectual puppet tiger of my childhood.
He seemed to lack a mandible: the voice spoke
feebly from outside his body. My father’s name
was Daniel. His father’s name was Daniel.
In the Land of Make Believe they all set out
to find Blake’s Tyger once and for all.
It takes them over fifty years, the age I am now,
until they come across it among leaves falling
in their eighteenth-century cursive against the sky.


newrepublic--2020-07-10--your whole body is slanted

your whole body is slanted

why did you touch me there between my fingers “ it feels like a mountain range ” well I ’ @ @ @ @ @ I keep telling my friends I ’ m not a liberal not a conservative what @ @ @ @ @ can be traced back to the tiny dancer Flaubert loved ; he was pedestrian other @ @ @ @ @ painted her so wrong did not know how a nose like hers really looked in @ @ @ @ @ eight then nine then dead what I would give to not be read as a @ @ @ @ @ I agree to be a textbook for you and your whole dumb family my people @ @ @ @ @ stay alive well anything is easy if yr existence is wanted admit you want me @ @ @ @ @ you can ’ t imagine someone touching you the way you touch me you don @ @ @ @ @ or sold and what I must tolerate you have never ever

why did you touch me there
between my fingers
“it feels like a mountain range”
well I’m very sick these days
I keep telling my friends I’m not
a liberal not a conservative
what are you then?
I can be traced back to the tiny dancer
Flaubert loved; he was pedestrian
other canonical men knew my mother
painted her so wrong did not know
how a nose like hers really looked in profile
I was seven then eight then nine then dead
what I would give to not be read
as a means of instruction
when did I agree to be a textbook
for you and your whole dumb family
my people make history if they just stay alive
well anything is easy if yr existence is wanted
admit you want me to have a function
admit you can’t imagine someone
touching you the way you touch me
you don’t like being bought or sold
and what I must tolerate
you have never
ever


newrepublic--2020-07-10--What Was the Dive Bar?

What Was the Dive Bar?

There ’ s no plot as such , just fights and jokes and tears .
So far , so predictable ; Bloody Nose , Empty Pockets initially comes across as a heartwarming story about misfits and community .
But then you start to notice the cameras .
You can see people filming , now and then , in the bar back mirrors .
The cameras are not prominent , but they ’ re there , which doesn ’ t quite fit with the rest of the film ’ s style .
None of the subjects ever speak into the camera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as part of the “ reality ” of the bar , so why not keep them out of frame ?
The presence of the cameras in the mirrors draws attention to the Rosses ’ process , which turns out to be highly idiosyncratic .
The shoot went like this : Over three days , they filmed a group of people improvising in a New Orleans bar , then later cut those scenes with footage from around Las Vegas to make the purported location credible .
The cast are not professional actors , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brothers already knew personally and strangers they ’ d cast after meeting them in situ , at dive bars .
Their job was essentially to be themselves .
They drank , had a good time , sometimes cried , and sometimes fought .
Now and again the brothers introduced prompts ( putting Jeopardy !
on the bar TV , for example ) or made concessions to the actors ’ demands ( playing music , even though it made recording audio harder ) .
This semi-fictional approach has several bewildering effects on the film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it feels like a betrayal to find out that this documentary isn ’ t “ true.
” I felt deceived when I learned how the Rosses had made it—then interested by my own irritation .
The brothers Ross did not write a script , for example , but instead distilled one out of many hours of raw footage .
Bloody Nose , Empty Pockets is a fictional documentary made with techniques more usually associated with nonfiction , such as sifting through hours of archival dross in order to recover two seconds of great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rosses have orchestrated the dross themselves .
Their approach works well for the purposes of comedy .
Scenes end in perfect punchlines that betray obsessive editing .
Moments of almost unbelievable synchronicity occur—as they always will , if you cut out enough of the boring parts of life .
The ethics of filming drunk people are tricky .
Documentaries can be just as artistically mannered as any kind of movie , but they are all implicated in the difficult dilemma of the observer effect , meaning that just by being present , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recording , and inevitably exert some kind of control over the process .
We have long grown used to the idea of documentarians like Errol Morris and Werner Herzog shaping the truth—rather than merely documenting it—but in this instance the Ross brothers are literally enabling the alcoholics to get drunker .
Then they stay to film it , for our entertainment .
Can such a filmmaker claim to be filming reality at all ?
In a Q & A with the brothers circulated by the film ’ s distributor , Turner Ross said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ re not trying to exist under the guise of documentary , ” he said .
“ We want to use reality , naturalism , realism , things that are around us and available to make these hand-made movies together .
... And it happened that the palette that we paint with is gleaned from real life.
” There ’ s no denying the realness of the people in this film , even if they ’ re not quite who they say they are .
The Ross brothers seem to be arguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can still be truthful , as long as they ’ re “ being themselves.
” It ’ s helpful to compare the movie to classic partially-scripted substance documentaries like The Exiles ( 1961 ) or Dusty and Sweets McGee ( 1971 ) , which the Rosses reference in their cinematography .
Like those films , Bloody Nose , Empty Pockets is concerned with a version of truth that lies with the addicts themselves .
Reality is in their humanity , not the world around them .

There’s no plot as such, just fights and jokes and tears. So far, so predictable; Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets initially comes across as a heartwarming story about misfits and community. But then you start to notice the cameras.
You can see people filming, now and then, in the bar back mirrors. The cameras are not prominent, but they’re there, which doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the film’s style. None of the subjects ever speak into the camera, nor are the cameras ever acknowledged as part of the “reality” of the bar, so why not keep them out of frame?
The presence of the cameras in the mirrors draws attention to the Rosses’ process, which turns out to be highly idiosyncratic. The shoot went like this: Over three days, they filmed a group of people improvising in a New Orleans bar, then later cut those scenes with footage from around Las Vegas to make the purported location credible. The cast are not professional actors but rather a mixture of charismatic people the brothers already knew personally and strangers they’d cast after meeting them in situ, at dive bars. Their job was essentially to be themselves. They drank, had a good time, sometimes cried, and sometimes fought. Now and again the brothers introduced prompts (putting Jeopardy! on the bar TV, for example) or made concessions to the actors’ demands (playing music, even though it made recording audio harder).


newrepublic--2020-07-11--The Most Corrupt President in American History

Stone ’ s antics drew intense scrutiny after the election , as investigators probed links between the Trump campaign and Russian meddling .
Congressional investigators questioned Stone at length about his direct interactions with WikiLeaks as well as communications through an intermediary .
Stone chose to lie multiple times to the House Intelligence Committee about what had happened .
He also threatened witnesses who could contradict his version of events .
When radio host and former WikiLeaks intermediary Randy Credico said he would release information about what had happened , Stone bombarded him with angry , graphic messages .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of his emails .
“ Let ’ s get it on .
Prepare to die cock sucker.
” Special counsel Robert Mueller ’ s office charged Stone last year on seven counts , including making false statements to Congress and witness tampering .
Stone did not conduct himself well at trial : Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed a gag order on him after he posted an image of Jackson ’ s face next to crosshairs on Instagram .
A D.C. jury found him guilty in November .
Federal prosecutors initially recommended a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prison .
Then Attorney General Bill Barr and the Justice Department ’ s upper ranks intervened on Stone ’ s behalf , withdrawing that recommendation and submitting a far more lenient one in its place .
“ What I heard—repeatedly—was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president , ” Aaron Zelinsky , one of the federal prosecutors who quit the case in protest , told Congress last month .
“ I was told that the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break , and that the U.S. Attorney ’ s sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations .
I was also told that the acting U.S. Attorney was giving Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was ‘ afraid of the president.
’ ” If the Justice Department showed the same care and concern for the defendants ’ wellbeing in every case it pursued , it could defend its special circumstances for Stone .
If the attorney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zeal in opposing lengthy sentences for every defendant it prosecuted , it could justify its intervention in this case .
If Trump was willing to free federal prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes who weren ’ t his friends or allies , he could claim a fig leaf of credibility here .
Instead , the White House spent the last few weeks threatening protesters with ten-year prison sentences for vandalizing statues .
The Trump administration believes in prison abolition for its henchmen and mass incarceration for everyone else .
Trump ’ s commutation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a way ; the implicit oath of fealty between boss and underling cuts both ways .
In a redacted portion of the Mueller report , the special counsel ’ s office noted that Trump was less than truthful when answering written questions about Stone from investigators .
Mueller ’ s team said it found evidence that Trump “ intended to reinforce Stone ’ s public statements that he would not cooperate with the government when the president likely understood that Stone could potentially provide evidence that would be adverse to the president.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 28 , 2018 , eight days after the President submitted his written answers to the Special Counsel , the President criticized “ flipping ” and said that Stone was “ very brave ” for not cooperating with prosecutors .
Five days later , on December 3 , 2018 , the President applauded Stone for having the “ guts ” not to testify against him .
These statements , as well as those complimenting Stone and Manafort while disparaging Michael Cohen once Cohen chose to cooperate , support the inference that the President intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President and disparaged if they chose to cooperate .
Most people probably imagine corruption taking place in hushed conversations behind closed doors , where it can only be unearthed by tenacious journalists or well-equipped prosecutors .
Trump ’ s greatest innovation is to simply carry out his corrupt acts in plain sight .
Sure , he could have quietly passed along a secret message to Stone or Manafort that promised support if they didn ’ t turn against him .
But why go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Twitter and a casual remark in a TV interview will accomplish the same goal .
Broad daylight also helps obscure the sinister implications .
If it was really so bad , the average observer might ask , why would he do it in public ?
So what is to be done about this ?
A president ’ s decision to pardon or commute is final and irrevocable ; neither Congress nor the courts can overturn it .
And yet Stone ’ s commutation can only be described as a quintessential abuse of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be fully justified in opening an impeachment inquiry into the move .
( A Senate trial may be impossible during a pandemic , however . )
If Barr had any sense of honor or integrity , he would resign in protest .
If Republican senators who aren ’ t Mitt Romney had any self-respect , they would condemn the president ’ s corruption and work to remove him from office .
But Americans should not expect any of these people or institutions to hold Trump accountable in any meaningful way .
The president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survival , and too many people in power care only about satisfying him to achieve their own goals .
If Americans want to see the president punished for his corruption , they will have to do it themselves in November .

If the Justice Department showed the same care and concern for the defendants’ well-being in every case it pursued, it could defend its special circumstances for Stone. If the attorney general’s office showed the same zeal in opposing lengthy sentences for every defendant it prosecuted, it could justify its intervention in this case. If Trump was willing to free federal prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes who weren’t his friends or allies, he could claim a fig leaf of credibility here. Instead, the White House spent the last few weeks threatening protesters with 10-year prison sentences for vandalizing statues. The Trump administration believes in prison abolition for its henchmen and mass incarceration for everyone else.
Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence was inevitable, in a way: The implicit oath of fealty between boss and underling cuts both ways. In a redacted portion of the Mueller report, the special counsel’s office noted that Trump was less than truthful when answering written questions about Stone from investigators. Mueller’s team said it found evidence that Trump “intended to reinforce Stone’s public statements that he would not cooperate with the government when the president likely understood that Stone could potentially provide evidence that would be adverse to the president.” It went on:
On November 28, 2018, eight days after the President submitted his written answers to the Special Counsel, the President criticized “flipping” and said that Stone was “very brave” for not cooperating with prosecutors. Five days later, on December 3, 2018, the President applauded Stone for having the “guts” not to testify against him. These statements, as well as those complimenting Stone and Manafort while disparaging Michael Cohen once Cohen chose to cooperate, support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President and disparaged if they chose to cooperate.
Most people probably imagine corruption taking place in hushed conversations behind closed doors, where it can only be unearthed by tenacious journalists or well-equipped prosecutors. Trump’s greatest innovation is to simply carry out his corrupt acts in plain sight. Sure, he could have quietly passed along a secret message to Stone or Manafort that promised support if they didn’t turn against him. But why go to the trouble? A few posts on Twitter and a casual remark in a TV interview will accomplish the same goal. Broad daylight also helps obscure the sinister implications. If it was really so bad, the average observer might ask, why would he do it in public?


newrepublic--2020-07-13--The GOP’s Murderous Anti-Intellectualism

Although Dwight Eisenhower , Richard Nixon , and Ronald Reagan also adopted anti-intellectualism as a political strategy , for them it was just a cynical way to cater to widespread distrust of expertise and learning as a brand of elitism .
As president , they routinely deferred to experts , scientists , and other intellectuals in developing and implementing their policies .
Nixon famously reached out to Daniel Patrick Moynihan , a professor of government at Harvard and well-known Democrat , to work for him in the White House .
According to Reagan biographer Lou Cannon , he used the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oxford and holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton , as a sort of emissary to the intellectual community .
And George W. Bush had as his vice president Dick Cheney , a man who had pursued a doctorate in political science at the University of Wisconsin , where his wife Lynne got a Ph.D. in British literature .
Bush once explained that he intentionally adopted an anti-intellectual image after losing a race for Congress in Texas in 1978 : “ Kent Hance [ who won the election ] gave me a lesson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ master at it , funny and belittling .
I vowed never to get out-countried again.
” The problem is that adopting faux populism and anti-intellectualism for purely political purposes eventually leads practitioners to take their own rhetoric literally and denigrate expertise as something to be distrusted per se .
This is why the great conservative philosopher Russell Kirk rejected populist rhetoric as a path for conservative victory , even though the populist message might overlap with the conservative program to some extent .
As he explained in a 1988 lecture at the Heritage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Smart Guys .
I am very ready to confess that the present Smart Guys , as represented by the dominant mentality of the Academy and of what [ sociologists Peter and Brigitet Berger ] call the Knowledge Class today , are insufficiently endowed with right reason and moral imagination .
But it would not be an improvement to supplant them by persons of thoroughgoing ignorance and incompetence .
In a forthcoming article in the Public Opinion Quarterly , political scientist Eric Merkley explains how populism and anti-intellectualism lend themselves naturally to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have tied themselves to the pseudo-populist Tea Party movement over the last decade , as well as to evangelicals and other fundamentalist Christians , their trust in scientific expertise has fallen .
According to a 2019 article in the Public Opinion Quarterly , in 1973 more Republicans had a great deal of trust in scientists than did Democrats ( 41 percent of the former , 35 percent of the latter ) .
But by 2016 , those percentages had reversed .
The latest data from Pew show that 43 percent of Democrats have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act in the best interests of the public , while only 27 percent of Republicans do .
Anti-intellectualism also makes people far more susceptible to crackpot conspiracy theories—and such woolly speculations in turn further encourage them to distrust experts and expertise .
According to recent psychological research , those on the right are much more likely than their counterparts on the left to endorse conspiracy theories , thanks in part to their affinity for anti-intellectualism .
The propensity of those on the right to adopt an anti-intellectual , unscientific , pseudo-populist point of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them to accept a highly skeptical , dismissive attitude toward the COVID-19 virus—ignoring the severity of the danger or even disbelieving its existence altogether , and refusing to adopt protective measures such as social distancing or wearing masks .
These attitudes were very much reflected in the conservative media .
Research shows that the higher one ’ s consumption of such media , the more likely people were to reject the scientific consensus regarding the nature of the virus and how to minimize its spread .
As the political scientists Matt Motta @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently wrote : Not surprisingly , consumers of Fox News were particularly susceptible to incorrect and dangerous ideas about the nature of the pandemic .
Studies have long shown that Fox consumers tend to be less well informed and more ill-informed about policy issues .
This effect is compounded when one includes consumers of the foxnews.com website , which is an even more gaudy source of misinformation than the Fox cable channel .
Two recent academic studies have looked specifically at the Fox News effect on coronavirus knowledge and misunderstanding .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic ” found that increased Fox News consumption significantly reduced peoples ’ willingness to stay at home during the pandemic .

Populism is a revolt against the Smart Guys. I am very ready to confess that the present Smart Guys, as represented by the dominant mentality of the Academy and of what [sociologists Peter and Brigitte Berger] call the Knowledge Class today, are insufficiently endowed with right reason and moral imagination. But it would not be an improvement to supplant them by persons of thoroughgoing ignorance and incompetence.
In a forthcoming article in Public Opinion Quarterly, political scientist Eric Merkley explains how populism and anti-intellectualism lend themselves naturally to the rejection of scientific expertise. As Republicans have tied themselves to the pseudo-populist Tea Party movement over the last decade, as well as to evangelicals and other fundamentalist Christians, their trust in scientific expertise has fallen. According to a 2019 article in Public Opinion Quarterly, in 1973 more Republicans had a great deal of trust in scientists than did Democrats (41 percent of the former, 35 percent of the latter). But by 2016, those percentages had reversed. The latest data from Pew show that 43 percent of Democrats have a great deal confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public, while only 27 percent of Republicans do.
Anti-intellectualism also makes people far more susceptible to crackpot conspiracy theories—and such woolly speculations in turn further encourage them to distrust experts and expertise. According to recent psychological research, those on the right are much more likely than their counterparts on the left to endorse conspiracy theories, thanks in part to their affinity for anti-intellectualism.
The propensity of those on the right to adopt an anti-intellectual, unscientific, pseudo-populist point of view is what’s led many of them to accept a highly skeptical, dismissive attitude toward the Covid-19 virus—ignoring the severity of the danger or even disbelieving its existence altogether and refusing to adopt protective measures such as social distancing or wearing masks. These attitudes were very much reflected in the conservative media. Research shows that the higher one’s consumption of such media, the more likely people were to reject the scientific consensus regarding the nature of the virus and how to minimize its spread. As the political scientists Matt Motta, Dominick Stecula, and Christina Farhart recently wrote:


newrepublic--2020-07-13--The Great Germ War Cover-Up

The Great Germ War Cover-Up

There is something about scouring classified documents for long-hidden military secrets that attracts a certain type of obsessive .
Nicholson Baker , who once wrote a 147-page essay tracking an archaic use of the word lumber through centuries of Anglophone literature , is that type .
He somersaulted onto the literary scene in 1988 with The Mezzanine , a heavily footnoted novel about an office worker ’ s uneventful lunch hour .
Baker ’ s learned notes , down-the-rabbit-hole digressions , and verbal flash have invited comparisons with the virtuoso meanderings of David Foster Wallace , though Baker comes off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demons , and , frankly , nicer .
In the late 1990s , Baker ’ s career took an unexpected turn when he got caught up in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal .
The pair had exchanged books as gifts : The president had given his young intern Walt Whitman ’ s Leaves of Grass , and she ’ d given him Baker ’ s Vox , an experimental novel in the form of a phone-sex conversation ( one character reports seeing “ the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ” as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telling .
Clinton offered an erotic but classroom-safe—and thus technically aboveboard—collection in which one of the most famous poems is about loving a president .
Lewinsky , less inhibited and less of a narcissist , tossed back a fresh bouquet of surreal horniness .
Baker has not stopped writing weird sex novels .
But he has also turned to more overtly political investigations with impressive and admirable zeal .
His powerfully argued Double Fold ( 2001 ) took libraries to task for needlessly throwing out books .
In Substitute : Going to School @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he offered a painful account of Maine ’ s public school system , where he worked as a substitute teacher .
In Human Smoke ( 2008 ) , his history of World War II , writing as a pacifist , he excoriated the Allied leaders for their moral blindness .
Soon after Human Smoke , Baker turned to the Korean War , in which the United States faced persistent accusations of having used biological weapons .
Baker researched the topic for nearly 10 years without reaching conclusions as firm as he would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part because whenever he asked for the relevant documents from the government under the Freedom of Information Act , he received nothing .
“ Really , nothing.
” Years went by , “ presidents came and went , ” and he continued to wait .
Some requests were refused , others idled in bureaucratic limbo .
On occasion , documents arrived but were slathered in redactions— “ a devil ’ s checkerboard of blackouts.
” The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to respond to requests within 20 business days or , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ with all practicable speed.
” “ Yet there is no speed , ” Baker finds during his researches .
“ There is , on the contrary , a deliberate Pleistocenian ponderousness.
” Baker waited seven years for one set of documents without receiving them .
Five federal agencies have requests that have been pending for more than a decade , and the National Archives has one that ’ s more than 25 years old .
The issue isn ’ t that we don ’ t know what the government is currently doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know what it has done , and we may never know .
The mists of secrecy swirl particularly thickly around potentially embarrassing topics , such as the use of biological weapons .
This has made the question of germ warfare in Korea nearly impossible to answer satisfactorily .
It ’ s an intellectual briar patch in which well-intentioned scholars have lacerated and ensnared themselves for decades without reaching a consensus .
Nevertheless , there are things we can see through the dark fog of redaction .
To start , we know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the U.S. military in the years following World War II .
Five days after the Korean War started , a committee charged with studying unconventional weapons issued a set of emphatic recommendations , known as the Stevenson Report .
The United States “ must not arbitrarily deny itself ” the use of biological weapons or use them only in retaliation , the report stated .
It should prepare “ to wage biological warfare offensively.
” This view was championed by General Jimmy Doolittle , famed for having bombed Tokyo in 1942 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ just one moral obligation , ” he told his fellow officers at an interservice symposium .
“ And that moral obligation is for us to develop at the earliest possible moment that agent which will kill enemy personnel most quickly and most cheaply.
” Not everyone agreed with him , but the Pentagon nevertheless backed a crash program , spending nearly $ 350 million on biological warfare development during the Korean War .
Scientists were put to work weaponizing diseases , from familiar scourges like plague to epidemiological deep cuts like coccidioidomycosis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At no point while fighting in Korea did the military acquire the ability to wage all-out germ war with dedicated units of trained biological weapons handlers and mass-produced stockpiles of tested weapons .
It could make small , experimental attacks , though .

To start, we know that waging biological war was not unthinkable for the U.S. military in the years following World War II. Five days after the Korean War started, a committee charged with studying unconventional weapons issued a set of emphatic recommendations, known as the Stevenson Report. The United States “must not arbitrarily deny itself” the use of biological weapons or use them only in retaliation, the report stated. It should prepare “to wage biological warfare offensively.” This view was championed by General Jimmy Doolittle, famed for having bombed Tokyo in 1942. “In my estimation, we have just one moral obligation,” he told his fellow officers at an interservice symposium. “And that moral obligation is for us to develop at the earliest possible moment that agent which will kill enemy personnel most quickly and most cheaply.”
Not everyone agreed with him, but the Pentagon nevertheless backed a crash program, spending nearly $350 million on biological warfare development during the Korean War. Scientists were put to work weaponizing diseases, from familiar scourges like plague to epidemiological deep cuts like coccidioidomycosis, a fungal infection of the lungs. At no point while fighting in Korea did the military acquire the ability to wage all-out germ war with dedicated units of trained biological weapons handlers and mass-produced stockpiles of tested weapons. It could make small, experimental attacks, though.
Within a year of the Korean War’s start in June 1950, China and North Korea announced that the United States had used its biological weapons. There were ultimately two charges: that retreating U.S. forces had purposefully spread disease in their wake in late 1950, and that U.S. planes had dropped infected feathers, insects, rodents, and bacteria bombs on villages in Korea and China in early 1952. Such accusations possessed an obvious propaganda value, and the North Korean and Chinese governments worked with the Soviet Union to plant evidence—including, it seems, injecting condemned prisoners with cholera and plague and then burying their infected corpses at sites of alleged U.S. attacks. As the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union summarized the situation in a note to Mao Zedong: “The accusations against the Americans were fictitious.”


newrepublic--2020-07-13--The Government Is Walking Blind Into the Coronavirus Housing Crisis

While Congress at least attempted to solve their foreclosure blind spots a decade ago , they failed to address the hidden crisis facing renters during the same time frame .
People refer to the 2008 crash as the foreclosure crisis , but it was also an eviction crisis .
Family homelessness spiked .
Private equity firms bought up foreclosed rental properties , leading to consolidation among landlords and predatory practices .
Tenants in rental properties were displaced by their landlords ’ foreclosures .
That housing crisis is still very much with us : A 2018 report by the nonprofit affordable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Housing Coalition ( NLIHC ) found that the average renter ’ s wages are not enough to afford modest rental apartments .
What ’ s worse is that this rental crisis long predates the 2008 financial crisis , and it ’ s one policymakers in the U.S. have ignored for decades .
The lack of eviction data is just one rotted part of a decaying whole .
The government entity tasked with overseeing housing discrimination , addressing homelessness , and managing public housing , the Department of Housing and Urban Development ( HUD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than $ 50 billion a year .
But the annual cost of the mortgage interest tax deduction is about $ 112 billion a year in foregone revenue .
This means that , as a nation , the subsidies for home ownership are more than double those for renters .
This doesn ’ t take into account other external costs like the construction of the highway system , sewer system , and the other infrastructure spending necessary for the construction and maintenance of the suburbs .
And now the existing housing crisis is being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the pandemic .
The Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project , a private effort backed by philanthropic resources and not the government , estimates that 20 percent of the U.S. ’ s 110 million renters are at risk of being evicted by the end of September .
The fallout from these evictions won ’ t just be economic .
In his book Evicted , Matthew Desmond documented how eviction takes a significant health toll on people .
Women who are evicted have persistent signs of emotional distress two years after their eviction .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health impacts of evictions when we don ’ t track the evictions themselves , much less have a federal resource to let tenants see if they ’ re covered by the coronavirus related federal eviction bans .
While the NLIHC has made an effort to create one using what data they ’ ve managed to cull from several government agencies , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not made all of their data publicly available , which means the NLIHC ’ s tool isn ’ t comprehensive .
( NLIHC has urged regulators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the information they need to protect themselves ) .
Advocates have long tried to fill these data gaps left by the federal government .
Community groups like San Francisco ’ s Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and Boston ’ s City Life Vida Urbana have created eviction trackers .
Desmond founded Eviction Lab to build an evictions database in the vacuum left by the federal government .
But the program , whose funders include the Gates Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative , has been criticized for relying on big data brokers and undercounting evictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evictions database and continues to support it .
“ The U.S. government should absolutely be keeping track of one of the most morally-urgent issues facing Americans today , ” he told The New Republic .
To truly track evictions , we need the federal government .
In late 2019 , Senators Michael Bennet and Rob Portman introduced the “ Eviction Crisis Act ” to build such a database , as well as create a set of pilot programs to prevent at-risk tenants from being evicted .
Currently , the bill is stalled in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act , recently passed in response to the pandemic ’ s economic ravages , created a moratorium on evictions at federally-backed rental properties through July 24th .
This moratorium was extended on single family home foreclosures and evictions to at least August 31 .
Regardless , these protections aren ’ t available to everybody .
Undocumented people may not be able to take advantage of the eviction moratorium , because they put themselves at risk when they seek enforcement .
And those with private landlords are dependent on their state to extend any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compiled a scorecard documenting protections by state and when they expire ) .
In Wisconsin , Governor Tony Evers banned all evictions through the end of May .
But once the Wisconsin moratorium ended , Milwaukee saw evictions spike 13 percent compared to last June .
To address the failure of CARES to meaningfully address the looming eviction crisis , Reps. Maxine Waters and Denny Heck , along with Senator Sherrod Brown have introduced a bill to provide $ 100 billion in emergency rental assistance .
Senate Democrats devoted a day of floor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The House also passed an infrastructure bill on July 1 that included Waters ’ “ Housing is Infrastructure Act ” , which allocates $ 70 billion to fully address needed repairs in one million public housing units .
Besides Bennet and Portman ’ s eviction database bill , which Republican Senator Todd Young also co-sponsored , Republicans have expressed no interest in addressing the coming flood of evictions with either rental relief or additional funds for public housing .
The dearth of eviction data prevents lawmakers , activists , and communities from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and advocating for these changes .
Congressional inaction is responsible for the failure to implement the required database to track foreclosures , a failure to provide needed funds for public housing and other solutions for at risk renters , and a failure to prevent evictions during the coronavirus pandemic .
If Congress now bungles emergency rental assistance , people will have to deal with the dual crisis of losing their homes and becoming more susceptible to the coronavirus—an unavoidable consequence of homelessness and housing insecurity .
The lack of a federal system to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we will never fully know the scope of the harm done during this crisis , let alone ameliorate it .
We will , nevertheless , have to live with the consequences .

While Congress at least attempted to solve its foreclosure blind spots a decade ago, it failed to address the hidden crisis facing renters during the same time frame. People refer to the 2008 crash as the foreclosure crisis, but it was also an eviction crisis. Family homelessness spiked. Private equity firms bought up foreclosed rental properties, leading to consolidation among landlords and predatory practices. Tenants in rental properties were displaced by their landlords’ foreclosures. That housing crisis is still very much with us: A 2018 report by the nonprofit affordable housing advocacy organization the National Low Income Housing Coalition, or NLIHC, found that the average renter’s wages are not enough to afford modest rental apartments.
What’s worse is that this rental crisis long predates the 2008 financial crisis, and it’s one policymakers in the U.S. have ignored for decades. The lack of eviction data is just one rotted part of a decaying whole. The government entity tasked with overseeing housing discrimination, addressing homelessness, and managing public housing, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has a budget of less than $50 billion a year. But the annual cost of the mortgage interest tax deduction is about $112 billion a year in foregone revenue. This means that, as a nation, the subsidies for home ownership are more than double those for renters. This doesn’t take into account other external costs like the construction of the highway system, sewer system, and the other infrastructure spending necessary for the construction and maintenance of the suburbs.
And now the existing housing crisis is being compounded by the economic and labor shocks of the pandemic. The Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project, a private effort backed by philanthropic resources and not the government, estimates that 20 percent of America’s 110 million renters are at risk of being evicted by the end of September. The fallout from these evictions won’t just be economic. In his book Evicted, Matthew Desmond documented how eviction takes a significant health toll on people. Women who are evicted have persistent signs of emotional distress two years after their eviction. The U.S. is hardly ready to track the health impacts of evictions when we don’t track the evictions themselves, much less have a federal resource to let tenants see if they’re covered by the coronavirus-related federal eviction bans. While the NLIHC has made an effort to create one, using what data it’s managed to cull from several government agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not made all of their data publicly available, which means the NLIHC’s tool isn’t comprehensive. (The coalition has urged regulators to release this data so renters have all the information they need to protect themselves.)


newrepublic--2020-07-13--Don’t Give Dan Snyder a Stadium

Don’t Give Dan Snyder a Stadium

On Monday , the Washington NFL team announced that it will officially retire and replace its name , a slur originally used to encourage the murder of Native people .
The announcement raises many questions regarding what comes next as it relates to both the franchise nickname and the remainder of professional and amateur sports teams still using and capitalizing from pan-Indian imagery .
But it also raises another question—about land .
The Washington franchise currently plays its home games at FedEx Field in Landover , Maryland .
The team moved to Maryland in 1997 after playing for 35 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is located directly west of the Anacostia River , near the Hill East and Kingman Park neighborhoods in the heart of D.C .
But the land is technically not D.C. ’ s .
The plot that stadium still sits on is owned by the National Park Service and is currently leased to the Washington , D.C. , government through 2038 .
For years , D.C. politicians and community members have called for Congress to pass ownership of the land to D.C. ’ s government .
In a Washington Post column published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joined four of her predecessors in arguing that the current lease is too restrictive , as it prevents long-term planning for the location , which they described as currently being little more than “ 190 acres of mostly asphalt.
” Groups like Fair Budget Coalition and EngageDC have recently pushed Bowser to invest funding in housing for low-income Black D.C. residents in light of the pandemic , while everyone from district council members to Georgetown students have admitted that the RFK campus would be a prime location for affordable housing .
As of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be demolished next year—it ’ s what comes after that demolition , when the Washington NFL team begins shopping around for a new home stadium , that should have the people of D.C. paying close attention to the franchise ’ s long-overdue change of heart .
The decision by team owner Daniel Snyder to change the team name appeared from the outside to be heavily influenced by the financial ramifications that awaited him if he chose again to cling to the racial slur .
Multiple financial partners , recognizing which way the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sprawled out from the police killing of George Floyd , informed Snyder that they would not maintain their business relationships with the franchise if the slur remained .
Money tends to be persuasive that way , so he quickly did away with it .
His reward , in this case , is that he gets to keep the millions of dollars he already reaps from licensing and naming-rights deals with Amazon and Nike and FedEx and add to that pile of money whenever the franchise unveils its new line of jerseys , T-shirts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too good an outcome for someone like Snyder .
Ever since the franchise left D.C. proper , there have been repeated calls by the city ’ s mayors , council members , and fans for the team to return .
For the past decade , one of the major obstacles to this return has been the team name .
As it became a hot-button political topic for D.C. ’ s leaders , pressure built by a campaign sustained by Native communities and groups led many leaders , including the current mayor ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to D.C. as long as the R-word remained .
It also became a political issue , as both local and federal legislators , like Representative Raul Grijalva , who currently chairs the congressional committee that determines what National Park Service lands can be used for , opposed a return with the name intact .
Just two weeks ago , D.C. Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio told the Post , “ There is no viable path , locally or federally , for the Washington football team to return to Washington , D.C. , without first @ @ @ @ @ @

The decision by team owner Daniel Snyder to change the team name appeared from the outside to be heavily influenced by the financial ramifications that awaited him if he chose again to cling to the racial slur. Multiple financial partners, recognizing which way the wind was blowing following the uprisings that sprawled out from the police killing of George Floyd, informed Snyder that they would not maintain their business relationships with the franchise if the slur remained. Money tends to be persuasive that way, so he quickly did away with it. His reward, in this case, is that he gets to keep the millions of dollars he already reaps from licensing and naming-rights deals with Amazon and Nike and FedEx and add to that pile of money whenever the franchise unveils its new line of jerseys, T-shirts, and hats. This is already too good an outcome for someone like Snyder.
Ever since the franchise left D.C. proper, there have been repeated calls by the city’s mayors, council members, and fans for the team to return. For the past decade, one of the major obstacles to this return has been the team name. As it became a hot-button political topic for D.C.’s leaders, pressure built by a campaign sustained by Native communities and groups led many leaders, including the current mayor’s office, to officially oppose any return to D.C. as long as the R-word remained. It also became a political issue, as both local and federal legislators, like Representative Raul Grijalva, who currently chairs the congressional committee that determines what National Park Service lands can be used for, opposed a return with the name intact. Just two weeks ago, D.C. Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio told the Post, “There is no viable path, locally or federally, for the Washington football team to return to Washington, D.C., without first changing the team name.”


newrepublic--2020-07-14--American Individualism Is My Climate Fear

There ’ s been a curious loneliness , for people like me , in working on climate and species extinction threats these past decades .
At first it felt like gaslighting : The scientific evidence for both of these ongoing crises was overwhelming , and their relevance and urgency , not merely to one narrow interest group but to every interest group that lives and will live , seemed painfully clear .
( Some sectors of the military , for instance , have been trying to plan for climate change for ages , recognizing it as a clear and present @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mainstream gave the crises minimal attention .
The matter of planetary life support was a bit of a boutique concern , in many people ’ s eyes .
Like quilting or collecting vinyl , it had its adherents—often poignantly committed to their arcane hobbies—but their doings were of little general interest .
There ’ s a kind of desperate fierceness that grows from such isolation , from such commitment to an unpopular idea .
I ’ ve seen it with other ideas that are widely held to threaten the American way of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each of those cases has its own history and scope .
“ But can ’ t you see ?
” plead their proponents from the sidelines .
“ Can ’ t you see ?
” These days the extended disinformation campaign over what should properly be seen as a life-support emergency has retreated from public and social spaces to the halls of Congress—specifically Republican lawmakers , and their constituent donors in a range of fossil-fuel-related industries—where it ’ s making a last stand in very , very bad policy .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an anti-government executive branch and its cabinet-for-hire , a willfully ignorant cadre of inverted Chicken Littles who run around claiming the sky isn ’ t falling , even as sizable chunks of it rain down awkwardly on their heads .
Climate anxiety should probably be called climate fear .
“ Anxiety , ” after all , is a condition we believe we can and should manage and subdue , maybe with therapy or pills .
Fear , on the other hand , is a motivator—a reflex we developed over the span of deep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to avoid what can hurt or kill us .
When we wish to survive and thrive , we take coordinated , strategic action to keep the object of that fear at bay .
The human capacity for self-preservation through social collaboration is often named as one of our primary and unique attributes , along with the complex language we command and can use to achieve it .
In climate change and mass extinction , we ’ re facing down the most powerful adversaries our kind has ever known .
These are clearly enemies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once-famous political cartoonist Walt Kelly wrote in the 1970s and put in the mouth of a fictional possum : We have met the enemy and he is us .
These are vast , systemic problems that demand a vast , systemic solution .
A touch of personal nervousness won ’ t produce an adequate defense .
Only our superpowers of cooperation will be able to save the day .
What I fear , when it comes to climate change , is the war between the self and the community .
That war is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been winning the fight since Ronald Reagan and probably before—but with climate and extinction at stake , and a time frame that ’ s acutely limited , we ’ re at a crucial inflection point .
The current commander-in-chief is an absurdly perfect embodiment , in fact a caricature , of the side that ’ s pulling for the self .
More than any other factor that has been cited to explain his popularity—including his commitment to a broad corporate license to pollute , profit , and kill ; to white supremacy ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posture—that perfect embodiment is what accounts for the diehard loyalty of about a third of the voting populace .
He represents and repeatedly enacts , with a zealous and triumphal abandon , the notion that one man , an individual and by extension the individual—driven by no impulse or thought beyond pure , inexhaustible self-interest—should spin like the sun at the center of all being .

What I fear, when it comes to climate change, is the war between the self and the community.
There’s been a curious loneliness, for people like me, in working on climate and species extinction threats these past decades. At first, it felt like gaslighting: The scientific evidence for both of these ongoing crises was overwhelming, and their relevance and urgency, not merely to one narrow interest group but to every interest group that lives and will live, seemed painfully clear. (Some sectors of the military, for instance, have been trying to plan for climate change for ages, recognizing it as a clear and present danger to national security.) Yet the mainstream gave the crises minimal attention. The matter of planetary life support was a bit of a boutique concern, in many people’s eyes. Like quilting or collecting vinyl, it had its adherents—often poignantly committed to their arcane hobbies—but their doings were of little general interest.
There’s a kind of desperate fierceness that grows from such isolation, from such commitment to an unpopular idea. I’ve seen it with other ideas that are widely held to threaten the American way of life—socialism and atheism, say, though each of those cases has its own history and scope. “But can’t you see?” plead their proponents from the sidelines. “Can’t you see?”
These days the extended disinformation campaign over what should properly be seen as a life-support emergency has retreated from public and social spaces to the halls of Congress—specifically Republican lawmakers and their constituent donors in a range of fossil-fuel-related industries—where it’s making a last stand in very, very bad policy. It’s also thriving—temporarily, I like to hope—in an anti-government executive branch and its Cabinet-for-hire, a willfully ignorant cadre of inverted Chicken Littles who run around claiming the sky isn’t falling, even as sizable chunks of it rain down awkwardly on their heads.


newrepublic--2020-07-14--America’s Immigration System Is Fractured Beyond Repair

Among all the ongoing crises currently fighting for prominence in the national conversation , the broad suspension of immigration barely registers , despite the enormous scale of the chaos happening right now .
Green cards are no longer being printed , and U.S .
Citizenship and Immigration Services , or USCIS , has stopped processing requests for new cards , both for people abroad and immigrants already inside the United States .
Work visas have been greatly restricted ; asylum hearings have been suspended .
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has told international students—who are increasingly vital to the financial health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ return to their home countries if their schools switch to online-only classes this fall .
( A group of over 200 colleges has sued ICE over that policy . )
It isn ’ t just that the U.S. has put up a No Vacancies sign ; the Trump administration has effectively shut down the machinery of the country ’ s immigration bureaucracy , which was already an immense , complicated , and oppressive arm of government that reaches into the lives of millions of people .
USCIS is in major financial trouble and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.2 billion from Congress to cover the shortfall .
The agency is almost entirely funded by the fees paid along with immigration applications , and because so many of these applications have been put on hold , it is quickly running out of money .
The situation is so dire that the agency can ’ t complete even the few functions it ’ s still ostensibly performing , like printing replacement green cards .
Though immigration restrictionists sometimes claim they only want people to come to the U.S. the “ right way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lives of those who have already jumped through the network of hoops required to become legal residents .
The grinding slowdown and increase in scrutiny that has occurred at USCIS has affected the uncountable number of people who have applied for any visa , green card , or work permit since Donald Trump took office .
Permits that would usually arrive in under 90 days now take months , during which time the immigrant may be both unable to work and unable to leave the country without forfeiting their application .
Green @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by USCIS ; wait times for citizenship applications have doubled .
If Joe Biden wins in November , he will have an enormous challenge ahead of him in just reversing the damage done by Trump .
As the backlog grows , the task of making things better than they were , instead of just getting us back to where we started , grows ever more difficult .
The task force set up between Biden ’ s campaign and the Bernie Sanders campaign , meant to bring some policy consensus to the two vastly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issued its recommendations , including on immigration .
Understandably , much of it did focus on reversing the damage done by Trump .
The task force promised to reduce application backlogs , though it didn ’ t specify how , and to make immigration “ faster ” and “ less costly.
” This is one lesser-known area in which the Trump administration has made immigration much harder .
In November last year , the administration proposed hiking fees for marriage-based green cards from $ 1,760 to $ 2,750 ( which doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to navigate those complicated forms , a necessity for most applicants ) .
The fee required to become a citizen would increase from $ 640 to $ 1,170 .
And to round out the evil , the administration attempted to make it harder for immigrants to qualify for hardship-based waivers for these fees .
It might sound odd to suggest lowering fees when it ’ s the lack of fee revenue that has hobbled USCIS during the pandemic .
But there is a matter of principle here : It should not cost anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should not be unreasonable financial hurdles to getting a green card or a visa .
Tacking on fees for things that should be core functions of government available to all is a hallmark of the miserly , neoliberal mindset that has dominated American government for the past several decades ; there is no reason why it should cost more than $ 100 to obtain the right to leave the country , in the form of a passport .
But charging thousands of dollars to obtain citizenship is a step beyond this .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of reach for most people , instead of encouraging immigrants to become part of American society .
This is , of course , not what the Trump administration wants ; it wants an oppressed and maligned immigrant underclass to serve the labor needs of wealthy corporations , never as equals to native-born Americans .

Even before the Trump era, immigrants or their family member sponsors had to prove they wouldn’t use benefits, and demonstrate that they made more than 125 percent of the federal poverty level. When I got married to my American husband, he had to sign a form detailing his finances and legally binding him to pay back the government for the costs of any means-tested public benefits programs I ended up using, even if we got divorced. For financially comfortable people like us, this is just a funny quirk of the immigration system and yet another form to fill in; for others, it can pose a serious barrier to the life they would otherwise be entitled to. The mere fact that the possibility of immigrants becoming a “public charge” to the U.S. is considered in immigration applications at all, which it has been for centuries, should end. Biden could be the one to end this.
Borders are a tragedy multiplier. People whose family members are sick or dying abroad must navigate the physical and metaphysical borders put up by the U.S. in addition to the pain of their loss and suffering. Workers who leave their families behind in the hope of earning enough to provide them a better life can’t visit the ones they’re toiling to support. The misery of poverty becomes the misery of separation, too. Throw a global pandemic into the mix, and you have a true nightmare.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Borders are by nature arbitrary and vicious, and America’s enforcement of its borders is exceptionally so, from letting immigrants die in the desert and setting up “checkpoints” miles from any border or shoreline to creating byzantine and expensive bureaucratic systems that keep immigrants out—or, as in the case of ICE’s new requirements for students, force them to leave after they’re already in. We cannot expect the Biden administration to abolish borders, and the American public is certainly not on board with that idea, either. But there is still much it could do to reinvent the immigration system, and it will take much more than reversing the damage of Trump.


newrepublic--2020-07-14--The Pioneers of the Misinformation Industry

As Breitbart ’ s awe for Limbaugh demonstrates , today ’ s right-wing media did not come out of nowhere .
Two new books promise to uncover its prehistory and the widespread sense that it has broken American reality .
Claire Bond Potter ’ s Political Junkies tracks the rise of a broad swath of what she calls “ alternative media ” —both left and right—since the print newsletters of the 1950s , while Matthew Lysiak ’ s The Drudge Revolution focuses more narrowly on the story of Matt Drudge ’ s life and the influence of his early online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are very different books : Potter , a professor at the New School , keeps a ( mostly ) neutral , academic distance from her subjects , while Lysiak has written a sympathetic biography that moves at the speed of a screenplay .
But both illustrate that the descent into misinformation and fake news is not an aberration , but represents the culmination of decades of legal , technological , and economic changes , helped along by canny entrepreneurs who capitalized on them .
Potter does not define precisely what she means by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really only makes sense in opposition to the “ mainstream ” or mass media that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century , in the form of national newspapers and magazines , Hollywood film studios , and radio and television stations .
These outlets grew up with new standards for objective reporting and new federal agencies and laws that forbade broadcasters from engaging in open partisanship .
In 1927 , Congress passed the Radio Act , requiring broadcasters to give political candidates equal opportunities to present their views .
In 1949 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created partly in response to the popularity of the antisemitic radio star Father Coughlin ) established the “ Fairness Doctrine , ” requiring broadcasters of all kinds to provide multiple points of view on controversial issues .
As more Americans tuned in , a carefully regulated Cold War media pushed them toward what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. famously named “ the vital center.
” The consolidation of a mainstream also almost immediately created dissidents and defectors .
This was often no bad thing .
Potter ’ s book opens in New York City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newspapers were rapidly losing advertising revenue to television .
Izzy Stone was a veteran progressive journalist , who found himself at The Daily Compass , the last left-wing , subscriber-funded paper in the city , when it folded .
He and his wife , Esther , took their savings and his $ 3,500 severance check , and launched their own four-page newsletter : I. F. Stone ’ s Weekly .
Stone , whose impaired hearing and vision kept him from participating fully in press conferences , had long cultivated a reputation for getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ documents , or stowing away on a ship with refugees in order to gather details about their conditions .
In his newsletter , Stone developed a distinctive tone of voice , articulating a progressive critique of the U.S. government and the media that kept its secrets .
He and Esther bet that subscriber support would give them independence , and it did ; Stone never worked for an editor again .
By 1960 , most of New York ’ s dailies had gone out of business .
But when I. F. Stone ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it had 73,000 subscribers .
Among them were young admirers who would remake American journalism as the Vietnam War broke apart the 1950s culture of consensus .
Seymour Hersh first encountered Stone ’ s work in 1964 .
At the time , Hersh was working at the Associated Press ; by 1966 , he and Stone had become friends .
Hersh would later recall that Stone helped him recognize how the mainstream media marginalized journalists who dared to embarrass the government , and strengthened his conviction that the public had a right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were trying to keep from them .
In 1969 , a military whistleblower contacted The Village Voice ; the Voice passed the tip , about a massacre in a village in Vietnam that the Army was covering up , on to Hersh , who was then working as a freelancer in Washington , D.C .
In 1970 , he received the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of My Lai .
The Voice was only one of dozens of publications staffed by young radicals during the 1960s—Dissent , The Nation , The Black Panther @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critical energies circled back to influence the mainstream press .
In 1971 , after much internal debate , The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers .
The tone on television was shifting , too .
Potter follows Robert MacNeil , a young Canadian-born news anchor at NBC in the mid-1960s , who found himself increasingly disillusioned about the way the networks were turning the carnage in Vietnam into a sanitized “ living room war ” that families could watch over dinner .
MacNeil left NBC to write The People Machine and freelance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joined PBS .
In 1973 , he convinced his friend Jim Lehrer to co-host gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings .
Their real-time coverage and analysis was a huge success , tripling the membership of PBS affiliates .
Yet liberals were not the only ones trying to use new tools and techniques to build new publics .
In the most interesting chapter of Political Junkies , Potter describes the rise of a class of conservative “ political technicians ” who came together around the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964 .
Foremost among them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the term “ New Right ” in 1973 .
Inspired by innovations in direct-mail advertising , in 1965 , Viguerie founded a political direct marketing company , American Target Strategies .
He built his original databases by hand .
Federal law required that all donations to a presidential campaign over $ 50 be public , so Viguerie went to the office of the clerk of the House of Representatives to write down the name and address of every American who had donated to Goldwater .
By the time they kicked him out , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he had transferred 12,000 entries onto magnetic reels of tape .
This was the beginning of a project of building voter databases that Republicans eventually used to help get Ronald Reagan elected in 1980 .
And in many senses , Viguerie ’ s business model—which gave him co-ownership of the databases that he developed for any client—anticipated the methods of more recent technology companies like Facebook or Palantir .
There were important differences among the figures that Potter groups together as alternative media activists .
Although they each saw themselves as creating alternatives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and radio networks , media entrepreneurs from the left were not taking aim at the notion that national media could be trustworthy .
Figures like Stone , Hersh , and MacNeil shared the ideals of accuracy and truth-telling that The New York Times and the big three television networks professed .
If they criticized mainstream journalism , they did so in the spirit of more fully achieving , rather than abandoning , its mission .
By contrast , conservative media activists were making a more radical claim : that journalistic objectivity itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They also brought considerable financial resources to the fight .
Some drew on deep family fortunes to pay for their projects , while others benefited from the support of the major corporations that they defended against organized labor and government regulation .
The end of the Cold War and the popularization of the internet would create opportunities for them to advance these claims and dramatically expand their audiences .

As Breitbart’s awe for Limbaugh demonstrates, today’s right-wing media did not come out of nowhere. Two new books promise to uncover its prehistory and the widespread sense that it has broken American reality. Claire Bond Potter’s Political Junkies tracks the rise of a broad swath of what she calls “alternative media”—both left and right—since the print newsletters of the 1950s, while Matthew Lysiak’s The Drudge Revolution focuses more narrowly on the story of Matt Drudge’s life and the influence of his early online aggregator, The Drudge Report. These are very different books: Potter, a professor at the New School, keeps a (mostly) neutral, academic distance from her subjects, while Lysiak has written a sympathetic biography that moves at the speed of a screenplay. But both illustrate that the descent into misinformation and fake news is not an aberration, but represents the culmination of decades of legal, technological, and economic changes, helped along by canny entrepreneurs who capitalized on them.
Potter does not define precisely what she means by “alternative media.” But the term really only makes sense in opposition to the “mainstream” or mass media that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, in the form of national newspapers and magazines, Hollywood film studios, and radio and television stations. These outlets grew up with new standards for objective reporting and new federal agencies and laws that forbade broadcasters from engaging in open partisanship. In 1927, Congress passed the Radio Act, requiring broadcasters to give political candidates equal opportunities to present their views. In 1949, the expanded Federal Communications Commission (created partly in response to the popularity of the antisemitic radio star Father Coughlin) established the “Fairness Doctrine,” requiring broadcasters of all kinds to provide multiple points of view on controversial issues. As more Americans tuned in, a carefully regulated Cold War media pushed them toward what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. famously named “the vital center.”
The consolidation of a mainstream also almost immediately created dissidents and defectors. This was often no bad thing. Potter’s book opens in New York City in 1952, a moment when daily newspapers were rapidly losing advertising revenue to television. Izzy Stone was a veteran progressive journalist, who found himself at The Daily Compass, the last left-wing, subscriber-funded paper in the city, when it folded. He and his wife, Esther, took their savings and his $3,500 severance check, and launched their own four-page newsletter: I. F. Stone’s Weekly. Stone, whose impaired hearing and vision kept him from participating fully in press conferences, had long cultivated a reputation for getting stories from other sources—gleaning them from government documents, or stowing away on a ship with refugees in order to gather details about their conditions. In his newsletter, Stone developed a distinctive tone of voice, articulating a progressive critique of the U.S. government and the media that kept its secrets. He and Esther bet that subscriber support would give them independence, and it did; Stone never worked for an editor again. By 1960, most of New York’s dailies had gone out of business. But when I. F. Stone’s Weekly stopped publishing in 1971, it had 73,000 subscribers. Among them were young admirers who would remake American journalism as the Vietnam War broke apart the 1950s culture of consensus.


newrepublic--2020-07-14--In Defense of Free Stuff During (and After) the Pandemic

There ’ s nothing the American government hates more than handouts , at least those that are intended for anyone who isn ’ t already rich .
In the 1960s , Lyndon Johnson stressed that the War on Poverty was meant to be a “ hand up , not a handout ” ; in 2012 , Mitt Romney famously derided the “ 47 percent ” of Americans living off the government ’ s largesse at a private fundraiser .
More recently , Amy Klobuchar became the voice of “ common sense ” when she dismissed Medicare for All as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Republicans and Democrats alike have maligned most attempts to alleviate the worst harms of capitalism as pleas for “ free stuff.
” The current crisis , however , reveals that the alternative to government intervention is the rise of extreme hardship for the many , alongside obscene wealth for the few .
According to recent estimates , up to 28 million people could soon face eviction , and food insecurity in the United States has doubled .
Meanwhile , billionaires have seen their combined riches increase by around $ 583 billion since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporations have secured swift bailouts while continuing to lay off workers .
Why not fight for some free stuff for the rest of us ?
To put it a bit more elegantly , we could stand to resurrect what the historian Touré Reed has called a “ public-good-oriented domestic agenda , ” or a political platform that guarantees the provision of certain fundamental resources—such as health care , education , and housing—to all people .
These things might make up the much-derided “ free stuff , ” but they ’ re also , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a decent life .
That kind of vision famously defined the federal programs of the New Deal , and throughout the 1950s and ’ 60s , Black labor leaders such as A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin further pressed to expand such a domestic agenda .
As organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and architects of the ambitious policy document “ A Freedom Budget for All Americans , ” Randolph and Rustin called for a jobs guarantee , universal housing and health care , a higher minimum wage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minimum standard of living for all Americans , no matter their income , and achieve civil rights and full political inclusion for Black Americans .
“ It is not visionary or utopian .
It is feasible .
It is concrete .
It is specific .
It is quantitative , ” Randolph wrote in the introduction to the Freedom Budget .
“ And it places the responsibility for leadership with the Federal Government , which alone has the resources equal to the task.
” In a pandemic , you only have to look at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see why leaving basic necessities to the various whims and predations of the market almost always results in disaster .
America ’ s arcane arrangement of private , employer-sponsored insurance and means-tested programs like Medicaid was always inadequate , but it ’ s turned especially nightmarish during a public health emergency where even patients with insurance have been hit with massive bills for receiving Covid-19 treatment or even just getting tested .
As my colleague Libby Watson has pointed out , conceiving of health care as a commodity and not a public good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies like Gilead to charge exorbitant prices for drugs used in the treatment of Covid—which could also include future vaccines—despite the fact that these companies ’ research is funded in part by the government ( that is to say , the public ) .
The same goes for higher education , which , after decades of soaring costs , was essentially unaffordable for most families without taking on debt even before the pandemic .
Recently , several elite universities—including private institutions like Harvard and public universities like Rutgers and the University of California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tuition , despite moving classes online for the upcoming academic year .
And that ’ s while the Department of Education has continued to garnish the wages and tax refunds of around 285,000 people with outstanding federal student loans even though the Cares Act mandated a temporary freeze on student loan payments .
“ These are borrowers who were in distress on their loans already , ” Persis Yu , the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project , told Politico .
“ They ’ re the ones holding the bag with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this done , whatever the department ’ s intentions are.
” Some free stuff from the government , as it were , would not only have spared people from economic misery but could have also staved off the new explosion in Covid cases across the U.S .
Early on in the pandemic , countries like Germany and the U.K. subsidized employers to keep furloughed workers on payroll so businesses could close and workers could safely stay home ; those countries , unsurprisingly , have seen Covid cases decline over the same time period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Americans got a one-time $ 1,200 check and functional threats from state governments and the president to head back to work once that money ran out .
Last week , a group of more than 150 economists called for recurring payments during the pandemic .
“ Direct cash payments are an essential tool that will boost economic security , drive consumer spending , hasten the recovery , and promote certainty at all levels of government and the economy , ” they wrote in a letter .
It ’ s a simple , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only made worse the more we call on people to return to “ normal ” : Pay people to stay home .

There’s nothing the American government hates more than handouts, at least those that are intended for anyone who isn’t already rich. In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson stressed that the War on Poverty was meant to be a “hand up, not a handout”; in 2012, Mitt Romney famously derided the “47 percent” of Americans living off the government’s largesse at a private fundraiser. More recently, Amy Klobuchar became the voice of “common sense” when she dismissed Medicare for All as a “pipe dream.” Year after year, Republicans and Democrats alike have maligned most attempts to alleviate the worst harms of capitalism as pleas for “free stuff.” The current crisis, however, reveals that the alternative to government intervention is the rise of extreme hardship for the many, alongside obscene wealth for the few. According to recent estimates, up to 28 million people could soon face eviction, and food insecurity in the United States has doubled. Meanwhile, billionaires have seen their combined riches increase by around $583 billion since the start of the pandemic, and corporations have secured swift bailouts while continuing to lay off workers. Why not fight for some free stuff for the rest of us?
To put it a bit more elegantly, we could stand to resurrect what the historian Touré Reed has called a “public-good-oriented domestic agenda,” or a political platform that guarantees the provision of certain fundamental resources—such as health care, education, and housing—to all people. These things might make up the much-derided “free stuff,” but they’re also, after all, the basic trappings of a decent life. That kind of vision famously defined the federal programs of the New Deal, and throughout the 1950s and ’60s, Black labor leaders such as A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin further pressed to expand such a domestic agenda. As organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and architects of the ambitious policy document “A Freedom Budget for All Americans,” Randolph and Rustin called for a jobs guarantee, universal housing and health care, a higher minimum wage, and other reforms to ensure a minimum standard of living for all Americans, no matter their income, and achieve civil rights and full political inclusion for Black Americans. “It is not visionary or utopian. It is feasible. It is concrete. It is specific. It is quantitative,” Randolph wrote in the introduction to the Freedom Budget. “And it places the responsibility for leadership with the Federal Government, which alone has the resources equal to the task.”


newrepublic--2020-07-14--The Supreme Court’s Unconscionable Rush to Kill a Prisoner

In what would be the final challenge to his execution , Lee ’ s lawyers argued that the single-drug cocktail of pentobarbital sodium would place him at an unconstitutional risk for sudden pulmonary edema , which would create a sensation of drowning as he died .
They produced testimony from a medical expert who concluded the federal government ’ s method would lead to “ excruciating suffering ” as Lee died .
As an alternative , they proposed that Lee be executed by firing squad or by adding fentanyl to the lethal injection because it was less likely to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the district court to reject Lee ’ s claims about pentobarbital sodium and cited other excerpts who concluded the edema was a post-mortem effect .
But on Monday , Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary stay on Lee ’ s pending execution to resolve the dispute .
The D.C .
Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government ’ s efforts to overturn that stay late Monday night and imposed an accelerated timetable to consider the case .
In the early hours of Tuesday morning , however , the Supreme Court intervened in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay of execution .
The court ’ s unsigned order brushed aside the testimony offered by Lee ’ s medical expert and noted that pentobarbital was already widely used in executions .
The Justice Department , the majority noted , “ has produced competing expert testimony of its own , indicating that any pulmonary edema occurs only after the prisoner has died or been rendered fully insensate.
” Instead of letting the lower courts consider or resolve the factual dispute , which might have involved delaying the execution , the conservative justices simply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favor .
The majority went on to chastise the lawyers and the judges for delaying the execution at all .
“ ‘ Last-minute stays ’ like that issued this morning ‘ should be the extreme exception , not the norm , ’ ” they wrote , quoting from Bucklew v. Precythe , an execution-method case decided last year .
“ It is our responsibility ‘ to ensure that method-of-execution challenges to lawfully issued sentences are resolved fairly and expeditiously , ’ so that ‘ the question of capital punishment ’ can remain with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the courts , to resolve.
’ ” The order provoked a sharp response from the court ’ s liberals .
Justice Stephen Breyer , joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , repeated his past calls to revisit the constitutionality of American capital punishment .
“ In short , the resumption of federal executions promises to provide examples that illustrate the difficulties of administering the death penalty consistent with the Constitution , ” he wrote .
“ As I have previously written , the solution may be for this Court to directly examine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Constitution.
” Breyer first raised those concerns in his 2015 dissent in Glossip v. Gross , where the court all but foreclosed legal challenges to execution methods .
Justice Sonia Sotomayor , writing for herself , Ginsburg , and Justice Elena Kagan , took aim at the majority for its extreme deference to the Justice Department .
“ This sets a dangerous precedent , ” she wrote .
“ The government is poised to carry out the first federal executions in nearly two decades .
Yet because of the Court ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an emergency posture , there will be no meaningful judicial review of the grave , fact-heavy challenges respondents bring to the way in which the Government plans to execute them.
” Death-penalty cases have always provoked an unusual level of discord on the high court .
Three of the justices who voted to revive capital punishment in 1976 later renounced their votes and called for its abolition .
One of them , Justice Harry Blackmun , announced his change of heart in a 1994 case with a lengthy , emotive dissent where he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the machinery of death.
” When Breyer wrote his dissent in Glossip questioning the death penalty ’ s constitutionality , Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion that Breyer “ does not just reject the death penalty , he rejects the Enlightenment.
” With Anthony Kennedy ’ s retirement from the Court in 2018 , the balance of power has tipped decidedly in favor of the death penalty .
Justice Samuel Alito asked during oral arguments in Glossip whether the court should “ countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ methods ; his opinion in Glossip made it all but impossible for plaintiffs to do so .
And in Dunn v. Ray last year , the justices rejected a Muslim prisoner ’ s religious freedom claim on factually inaccurate grounds so the state could meet its execution date .
Kagan , dissenting in that case , called her colleagues ’ maneuver “ profoundly wrong .
”

In what would be the final challenge to his execution, Lee’s lawyers argued that the single-drug cocktail of pentobarbital sodium would place him at an unconstitutional risk for sudden pulmonary edema, which would create a sensation of drowning as he died. They produced testimony from a medical expert who concluded the federal government’s method would lead to “excruciating suffering” as Lee died. As an alternative, they proposed that Lee be executed by firing squad or by adding fentanyl to the lethal injection because it was less likely to be painfully botched.
The Justice Department urged the district court to reject Lee’s claims about pentobarbital sodium and cited other excerpts who concluded the edema was a post-mortem effect. But on Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary stay on Lee’s pending execution to resolve the dispute. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government’s efforts to overturn that stay late Monday night and imposed an accelerated timetable to consider the case. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, however, the Supreme Court intervened in a 5-4 ruling to overturn Chutkan’s stay of execution.
The court’s unsigned order brushed aside the testimony offered by Lee’s medical expert and noted that pentobarbital was already widely used in executions. The Justice Department, the majority noted, “has produced competing expert testimony of its own, indicating that any pulmonary edema occurs only after the prisoner has died or been rendered fully insensate.” Instead of letting the lower courts consider or resolve the factual dispute, which might have involved delaying the execution, the conservative justices simply decided it in the government’s favor.


newrepublic--2020-07-14--Ivanka Trump and Lockheed Martin Want You to Reach for the Stars and Stop Collecting Unemployment

Two weeks ago , the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a record 4.8 million people were hired in the month of June .
“ Our economy is roaring back , ” the president said at the time as CNBC marveled that the number “ smashes expectations.
” All of this was , for the kind of person who only cares about The Economy and not the ongoing public health crisis , welcome news : People were finally getting back to work !
( They were also getting sick and dying in the process , but why let a thing like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Magical Happiness of the Markets ? )
Even so , the numbers weren ’ t telling the full story : As CNN pointed out in the wake of that report , 3.7 million people have been permanently let go from their old jobs , another 5.4 million are reported to have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance , and up to 33 million still depend on unemployment to keep them afloat .
And for those people , the ones who actually managed to successfully navigate our labyrinthine garbage unemployment system , the likes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Walmart have an idea : What if you used this pandemic as a time for self reflection and personal improvement ?
What if—and hang with me here—you applied for a completely different , brand-new job ?
What if this wasn ’ t a global crisis so much as an opportunity to find the new you !
On Tuesday , Ivanka Trump unveiled that effort , the “ Find Something New ” campaign , complete with a website that instructs the jobless—those new to the labor market and those who got booted out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ fast track to an in-demand career.
” The site points users to various resources , such as community colleges and retraining programs , that will allow them to fulfill their sacred American duty of placing work above all else .
Corporate partners include Home Depot and Visa .
Joining them were politicians like Charlotte ’ s Democratic Mayor Vi Lyles and Republican governors Eric Holcomb and Kim Reynolds .
The website comes complete with links to an external “ Career Predictor , ” sponsored by Lockheed Martin , where one can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simplistic questions—Would you rather : “ Save the planet ” or “ Save people ” ?
—what their future STEM career should be .
( I apparently am destined to become an ecologist . )
It also comes with links to resumé builders and a page of testimonials from workers who have found new careers in everything from nursing to carpentry to software engineering .

In a vacuum, the effort would be perfectly mundane, another public-facing task for Ivanka Trump, a person perfectly suited to tell people to just try something completely different. After all, going from modeling to lifestyle blogging to cosplaying as a real estate executive and White House adviser requires a certain something. (Wealth. Wealth is what it requires.)
But in the present moment, with multiple states regularly posting record-high cases of Covid-19 and school systems across the country opting for remote learning due to worsening cases of community spread because President Trump has been solely devoted to business leaders before and throughout the pandemic, the campaign is nothing short of appalling. The message the group is pushing—that work equals dignity and that no worker should let something like a global pandemic get in the way of the senseless demand to always be productive—is not just a clumsy misstep but a dangerous one, too. It is another form of reminding workers that even in the face of an extended hospitalization or death, their worth to this country extends only as far as their work does.
It’s also founded on the idea that education, training, and a little grit are the best available tools for people to pull themselves out of poverty. It does not grapple with the fact that the best way to help people out of poverty is not to shuffle them around from low-paying job to low-paying job or offer financially inaccessible higher education as a fix-all, but to give them the material resources they need to care for themselves. In a pandemic, that means a recurring wage in exchange for social distancing and not going back to work, on top of making health care and education publicly funded basic rights.