newrepublic--2020-06-18--How Democracy Dies at the Ballot Box

How Democracy Dies at the Ballot Box

On Saturday , April 4 , Wisconsin Republican state lawmakers gaveled in a special legislative session .
Seconds later , they gaveled the session to a close .
With the Covid-19 pandemic rapidly spreading , Democratic Governor Tony Evers had called the special session to postpone the scheduled April 7 spring election and switch to all-mail balloting .
State Republicans wanted to go ahead , risk be damned .
A state Supreme Court seat was up for grabs .
If they could keep turnout low , they figured , they would have a better chance at holding the seat .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ went on as scheduled .
The gambit failed .
Maybe it even backfired , motivating Democratic turnout .
The liberal challenger in the state court race , Jill Karofsky , defeated the conservative incumbent Daniel Kelly , 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent , narrowing the Republicans ’ advantage on the state Supreme Court to 4–3 .
Democratic voters took to the mail to vote , via Wisconsin ’ s no-excuse absentee ballot system , at much greater rates than their Republican counterparts .
Turnout was very high for a spring election .
Perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was an encouraging sign for Democrats .
Even as GOP state legislators risked public health to limit turnout , Democrats could still win in a crucial swing state .
Or maybe it was a discouraging harbinger of a chaotic and disputed November election to come—one in which the future of the country will not be fought over competing ideas and visions of the common good , but will hinge instead on gnat-straining procedural disputes over voting rules , with partisan legislators , lawyers , and judges playing a disproportionate role .
In this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( the Republicans ) deliberately let voting be difficult and even dangerous , especially for those most likely to vote for the other party , as the price of victory .
In this view of things , the April balloting in Wisconsin was yet another example of the kind of hyper-partisan calculus that now threatens the foundational definition of modern democracy—free and fair elections .
This final point poses a dark dilemma .
In a healthy democracy , voting should be straightforward , fair , and equal .
Any such system would make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should believe enough in their ideas to think that the more people participated , the better they would do .
But what happens when only one party acts this way ?
In theory , the answer should be simple : That party should fight like hell to secure and sustain a democracy in which everybody can vote .
In reality , though , it ’ s not so simple .
The electoral rules are already stacked in such a way to make it difficult for Democrats to gain enough power to definitively change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fights over voting are destroying the shared sense of electoral legitimacy at the foundation of American democracy .
Maybe we need not only to think about who is allowed to vote , but also to take a close look at just how we vote altogether .

Why? Perhaps without Obama at the top of the ticket, African American voters were less motivated to vote. Certainly black vote turnout was down across the country in 2016. But the national falloff was just 4.5 percentage points. Why should Wisconsin’s decline in black voting be more than four times the national average? Another far more plausible explanation was that a new voter ID law in Wisconsin, passed in 2011, depressed black turnout.
In approving that measure, the Republican state legislature required all voters to present photo IDs before casting ballots. GOP lawmakers leaned, typically, on a mythical saga of rampant voter fraud, which they claimed had sabotaged their statewide chances in the 2000 and 2004 elections, thanks to electoral mischief in urban Milwaukee. But after three years of litigation, a federal district judge ruled the law discriminatory; the decision found that black voters were roughly 50 percent likelier to lack such IDs. But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision later in 2014, letting the law go into effect in 2016. Political scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison estimated that in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Dane Counties, somewhere between 11,700 and 23,300 voters were deterred from voting—representing between 7.8 percent and 15.5 percent of the prospective black turnout there. A 2018 survey estimated that 5 percent of Wisconsinites said they or someone in their household was told they lacked the necessary documents to vote.
So did the new voter ID law give Trump Wisconsin in 2016? It’s hard to say for sure. Political scientists have struggled to measure the impact of different types of voter ID laws. Some voters may say they were deterred in retrospective surveys. But we don’t know whether they actually planned to vote in reality. And many of the voters most likely to be affected by voter ID laws are those who otherwise tend to be least likely to vote. Conventional political science models suggest that most individual-level voting decisions are not so much rational choices as they are a combination of habit and mobilization. The vast majority of voters are either habitual voters (who almost always vote) or habitual nonvoters (who never vote). Close elections will motivate the more marginal voters (those who sometimes vote) to turn out, both because they are likely to feel that their vote actually matters, and because others around them who care about politics (including campaign volunteers) are doing their best to mobilize them to vote. There’s even some evidence that efforts to limit voting have a backfire effect, encouraging voters to turn out to spite the designs to suppress their ballots, as may have happened this April in Wisconsin.


newrepublic--2020-06-18--How to Survive Supermax

How to Survive Supermax

This work is supported by a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project , managed by Solitary Watch with funding from the Vital Projects Fund .
Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic , the use of solitary confinement has jumped by 500 percent in America ’ s prisons .
As a prisoner , you can find yourself in a “ supermax ” —a facility built for the specific purpose of holding a large number of prisoners in long-term solitary confinement—for a number of reasons .
If you commit a serious rule violation ; if you seek protection or are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population ; if you refuse to work ; if you write or contribute to an article , literary work , or media report that runs counter to the institutional narrative ; if you complain about , or in any other way anger , a prison official ; or if you participate in a work strike , food strike , yard sit-down , or any other type of “ group demonstration ” ( and these infractions will land you in solitary for a very long time ) you can end up in a concrete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You don ’ t know when , or if , you ’ ll be released .
There ’ s no time constraint on how long you can be held ( unless it ’ s for a serious rule violation , or a new crime altogether , because they generally have more-or-less standardized tours in supermax attached to them ) .
Prison officials can keep you there forever if they want , and some prisoners are in precisely that predicament .
Even if you ’ re not one of them , you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” No administrative process , other than the guards ’ “ use-of-force ” authority against prisoners , is carried out expeditiously in a supermax .

If you commit a serious rule violation; if you seek protection or are considered too young for a general prison population; if you refuse to work; if you write or contribute to an article, literary work, or media report that runs counter to the institutional narrative; if you complain about, or in any other way anger, a prison official; or if you participate in a work strike, food strike, yard sit-down, or any other type of “group demonstration” (and these infractions will land you in solitary for a very long time), you can end up in a concrete cell the size of a closet.
You don’t know when, or if, you’ll be released. There’s no time constraint on how long you can be held (unless it’s for a serious rule violation or a new crime altogether, because they generally have more-or-less standardized tours in supermax attached to them). Prison officials can keep you there forever if they want, and some prisoners are in precisely that predicament. Even if you’re not one of them, you’re conscious that you’re “parked.” No administrative process, other than the guards’ “use-of-force” authority against prisoners, is carried out expeditiously in a supermax.


newrepublic--2020-06-18--Lessons From the Long Movement to Defund the Military

Since the beginning of June , mass protests in over 750 towns and cities have decried the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin—and they have remade the possibilities for confronting police brutality in the United States .
By mobilizing behind the slogan “ Defund the Police , ” the protests have compelled Americans to see beyond police reform to a radical reconceiving of public safety .
This has already yielded commitments from municipal politicians—including most Minneapolis City Council members—to disband police departments and redistribute their budgets to housing , education , and health care .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the caveats and reservations among some politicians and media commentators about the utility of “ Defund the Police , ” the mantra speaks to the power of not only the thousands marching in the streets but the demand itself—which links dismantling the untenable status quo with a new reimagining of public spending .
In many ways , the activists making these demands echo the dreams of earlier generations confronting another devastating form of state violence : America ’ s post-1945 national security state .
Since the 1950s , a diverse array of figures—economists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense workers—have aimed to transfer dollars away from “ defense ” to solve domestic problems of national magnitude , from poverty to transportation to climate change , in what they often called “ conversion.
” Like current activists seeking to defund the police , proponents of defense conversion confronted an intractable institution that thwarted democratic processes , suppressed political dissent , and bestowed financial prosperity on a few over the interests of the many .
There ’ s something to learn from this history amid national efforts to defund police departments , both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense conversion onto the floors of Congress and , just as importantly , their failures to convert the warfare state to peaceful ends—which had consequences not only for America ’ s forever wars abroad but for the crime , drug , and domestic “ terror ” wars at home .
As today ’ s activists move to reallocate city police budgets for social welfare ends , these efforts to abolish the military-industrial complex prove instructive .

The disparate voices and events nonetheless produced a real moment for defense conversion in the early 1960s, one that forced defense-dependent labor unions to rethink their own ties to the warfare state. In 1964, the California state AFL-CIO laid out a template for “peacetime conversion,” with a national planning agency that would turn defense plants into rapid-transit and hydroelectric producers; it also proposed to replace military dollars with social welfare dollars in defense-dependent areas, including money for low-income housing, schools, community centers, and parks. This motivated South Dakota Senator George McGovern, long a critic of the nation’s arms race, to introduce a bill to establish a “National Economic Conversion Commission” that same year. “We have the opportunity now to apply a greater proportion of our national wealth and the talents of our people to solving some of the social and economic ills that still exist in this land of plenty,” he said. Despite the bill’s broad support, those seeking a leaner military rather than its transformation dominated the debate on the Senate floor. And escalation in Vietnam halted, at least temporarily, questions of conversion.
But the Vietnam War also democratized the possibilities for defense conversion. Mass deaths in Southeast Asia—of both Americans and Vietnamese—brought mass protests into American streets. These demanded not only an end to the war in Vietnam but a reimagining of American foreign policy that might hold political elites accountable for the quagmire and detach the country from the war economy. Anti-war liberals and leftists called out the “military-industrial-labor-complex” for its relentless hold over the political and economic “structure of our country.” Activists in Students for a Democratic Society targeted the draft because it sent Americans to die for an immoral war in Vietnam, but also because it recruited the working class for the war economy. At the same time, Marxist economists made popular arguments for defense conversion to be carried out through a project of socialism, arguing that only “the establishment of a socialist society can eliminate militarist priorities.”
The radical visions for defense conversion in the 1960s culminated with McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign: He proposed a $30 billion cut to the defense budget and a revived plan for national defense conversion. McGovern’s defeat by Richard Nixon—along with rising inflation and unemployment—derailed conversion in Washington.


newrepublic--2020-06-18--John Bolton: American Coward

John Bolton: American Coward

Suppress any gratitude you might feel towards Bolton for bringing these misdeeds to light .
Any of this would have been nice to know last fall when it could have actually affected the impeachment proceedings—a choice that Bolton consciously refused to make .
“ Bolton ’ s staff were asked to testify before the House to Trump ’ s abuses , and did .
They had a lot to lose and showed real courage , ” California Representative Adam Schiff , who led the House ’ s impeachment probe , said on Wednesday night .
“ When Bolton was asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d sue if subpoenaed .
Instead , he saved it for a book .
Bolton may be an author , but he ’ s no patriot.
” Would his testimony have changed the outcome of Trump ’ s impeachment trial ?
The Republican senators ’ behavior suggests that it might not have .
And if the legal battle over a subpoena had delayed the process for more than five weeks , Trump ’ s Senate trial likely would ’ ve been suspended in mid-March because of the pandemic .
Keeping one hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same room for twelve hours each day would have been untenable .
None of that absolves Bolton for his self-serving inaction at the time , however .
As I noted in January , he chose the path of Trumpian grifting over doing the right thing or even simply staying quiet .
For those who enjoy schadenfreude , Bolton ’ s current legal situation should be a goldmine .
The Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against him on Tuesday night for breach of contract and disclosing classified information in the book .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the National Security Council “ has determined that information in the manuscript is classified at the Confidential , Secret , and Top Secret levels , ” and that its publication would “ reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage , or exceptionally grave damage , to the national security of the United States.
” One of the remedies they seek is the seizure of any profits from Bolton ’ s book , thereby preventing him from cashing in on his grift .
Bolton , like many government officials , is bound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he took his former position as national security adviser .
Trump is zealous about using non-disclosure agreements to ensure silence among his subordinates .
At the same time , the agreement signed by Bolton is fairly typical for federal employees who work with classified or sensitive information .
The agreements do not forbid Bolton or other employees from writing about their experiences in general .
However , they do generally require books and manuscripts to be submitted to the government for “ pre-publication review ” to ensure that nothing secret is disclosed .

Suppress any gratitude you might feel toward Bolton for bringing these misdeeds to light. Any of this would have been nice to know last fall when it could have actually affected the impeachment proceedings—a choice that Bolton consciously refused to make. “Bolton’s staff were asked to testify before the House to Trump’s abuses, and did. They had a lot to lose and showed real courage,” California Representative Adam Schiff, who led the House’s impeachment probe, said on Wednesday night. “When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said he’d sue if subpoenaed. Instead, he saved it for a book. Bolton may be an author, but he’s no patriot.”
Would his testimony have changed the outcome of Trump’s impeachment trial? The Republican senators’ behavior suggests that it might not have. And if the legal battle over a subpoena had delayed the process for more than five weeks, Trump’s Senate trial likely would’ve been suspended in mid-March because of the pandemic. Keeping one hundred senators and the chief justice in the same room for 12 hours each day would have been untenable. None of that absolves Bolton for his self-serving inaction at the time, however. As I noted in January, he chose the path of Trumpian grifting over doing the right thing or even simply staying quiet.
For those who enjoy schadenfreude, Bolton’s current legal situation should be a gold mine.
For those who enjoy schadenfreude, Bolton’s current legal situation should be a gold mine. The Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against him on Tuesday night for breach of contract and disclosing classified information in the book. In its filing, the Justice Department claims that the National Security Council “has determined that information in the manuscript is classified at the Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret levels,” and that its publication “reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage, or exceptionally grave damage, to the national security of the United States.” One of the remedies it seeks is the seizure of any profits from Bolton’s book, thereby preventing him from cashing in on his grift.


Republican Phantasmagoria

With the end of the Cold War , and the victory of democratic market-capitalism over Marxist-Leninist socialism , Republicans were set free to concentrate their fire on dismantling the remaining legacies of Progressivism in America .
I refer to Republicans , rather than conservatives , because there is nary a Republican political figure in the country today who sincerely adheres to classic conservative values .
And when I talk about Progressivism , I ’ m referring to the movement that went by that designation ( in fact seemingly invented it ) in the first two decades of the twentieth century—not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while struggling valiantly to be born ( or reborn ) , is still deep inside the womb .
Political science scholar Robert Putnam , in a forthcoming book called The Upswing , credits the original Progressive movement with initiating a process of reform that set the country on an upward course of steady improvement , in virtually every important area of American life , for most of the century .
This trajectory , he argues , was ultimately reversed by fundamental changes in the social order that emerged in the mid-1960s , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in November 1980 .
( Putnam ’ s book will be reviewed in TNR ’ s October issue . )
The holy grail of the Progressive movement , Putnam submits , was an egalitarian community—or one as close to egalitarian as the modern world would permit .
Walter T.K .
Nugent , in his 2009 book Progressivism : A Very Short Introduction , elaborates the point : “ Progressives agreed on many issues , most fundamentally on the conviction that there is such a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a member of it , and that a common good affected everyone and should be sought in every available way .
In this , their outlook contrasted with the rampant individualism and self-seeking that preceded them in the Gilded Age.
” Putnam argues that the years between 1965 and 1980 laid the foundation for a second Gilded Age in America .
In Putnam ’ s view , Ronald Reagan did not therefore inaugurate the era of overweening greed and social disintegration in which we find ourselves today .
Rather , he was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an advanced stage of gestation .
His most lasting positive accomplishment , to the extent he was really responsible for it , was the end of the Cold War .
In 1992 , however , after Reagan ’ s successor , George H.W .
Bush , laid only ambiguous and equivocal claim to his legacy , Democrat Bill Clinton came into office , bringing with him “ an updated version of early 20th century Progressivism , with its suspicion of ideology and heavy reliance on technocratic expertise , ” as Joshua Micah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Washington Monthly .

This was not, to say the least, the approach to government favored by Newt Gingrich, who was elected speaker of the House of Representatives in 1994. Gingrich and his colleagues at the vanguard of the Republican Revolution promoted a set of policy priorities antithetical to classic Progressivism. They believed that “society’s problems could only be solved through a radical reordering, both of government in Washington and of America’s relationship with the world,” Marshall wrote, and they called for measures such as “tax cuts to drain money out of the Beltway; radically scaling back regulation on business; pulling America out of many international agreements.” Marshall observed further that “the Gingrichites were not pragmatists but visionaries and revolutionaries. They wanted to overthrow the existing structure of American government, not tinker with it.”
Gingrich’s ideology anticipated the substance of both the George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump presidencies; indeed, in mapping out the impact of the Gingrich insurgency, Marshall was critiquing the George W. Bush administration. Bush, in line with Gingrich’s views, pursued “an expansive and militarized unilateralism aimed at cutting the U.S. free from entangling alliances and international treaty obligations,” Marshall wrote. This new direction for post–Cold War American foreign policy, which laid the groundwork for the Iraq fiasco, anticipated Trump’s abandonment of the Paris Accord on global warming and his scuttling of the Iran nuclear deal. In parallel fashion, the Bush administration’s circumvention of EPA guidelines for industry foreshadowed Trump’s wholesale abandonment of them. Both presidents mounted full-scale assaults on the social safety net—Bush with his misbegotten attempt to privatize Social Security, Trump in his relentless campaign against the Affordable Care Act.
Marshall’s piece was entitled “The Post-Modern President,” referring to the French school of thought holding that there is no such thing as objective scientific inquiry or even a stable, discernible reality. It became clear that this same view of the world permeated the Bush administration when an official bragged to journalist Ron Suskind that Bush’s advisers were creating their own reality in Iraq; Suskind’s source tellingly contrasted their approach with that of liberals who inhabit a “reality-based community.”


newrepublic--2020-06-18--A Worker Uprising at Planned Parenthood

A Worker Uprising at Planned Parenthood

As Covid-19 hit New York , staff at a number of Planned Parenthood health centers found themselves facing two crises at once : keeping health services going and keeping their jobs .
As some health centers closed temporarily and shifted to telehealth services , staff also saw their hours cut or positions furloughed .
To hear workers describe it , this was not entirely unforeseen .
For more than a year , they had pressed management to improve conditions for staff , particularly for Black workers , and for the patients they care for .
Some on staff have now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ inspired and emboldened by national movements led by Black people holding organizations and institutions accountable and working to dismantle systems of oppression and white supremacy.
” This comes from a letter sent by a collective of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York staff to the organization ’ s board and shared with The New Republic .
Citing alleged “ abusive behavior and financial malfeasance , ” a collective of current and former staff of Planned Parenthood ’ s largest affiliate has called for the “ immediate removal ” of its CEO , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-year tenure , McQuade has “ created a culture of fear and intimidation.
” Their specific concerns include “ years of complaints from staff about issues of systemic racism , pay inequity , and lack of upward mobility for Black staff , ” as well as “ dozens of staff members [ who ] have witnessed McQuade yell , berate , slam her fists , verbally abuse , humiliate , and bully employees.
” All of this , they say , “ fundamentally threatened the fiscal and operational viability of Planned Parenthood ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The letter comes 10 months after staff at PPGNY voted unanimously to unionize with 1199 SEIU , the country ’ s largest health care workers ’ union .
( The collective behind the letter includes both union and nonunion staff , current staff , and recently furloughed staff . )
In that time , under McQuade , Planned Parenthood New York City merged with several other affiliates to become PPGNY , with plans to accommodate 200,000 patient visits each year across 28 health centers .
The affiliate grew while outside attacks on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ restrictions to Federal Title X funding—which Planned Parenthood lost when it exited the program rather than cease offering abortion services—to a pronounced increase in threats to abortion providers nationwide , fueled by disinformation flowing from the White House .
In the best of political times , it would be a challenge for many workers in nonprofit organizations with a progressive mission to voice public criticisms .
When that organization is the subject of the kind of destructive moral panic and targeted political attacks Planned Parenthood has faced , it can feel dangerous .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ used in bad faith by conservatives can inhibit workers ’ ability to seek public support to improve their organization .
This suppression is also something that can benefit management .
“ We are deeply committed to maintaining access to abortion and sexual and reproductive health care ; while acutely aware of the political landscape , we have experienced firsthand how constant public scrutiny perpetuates a culture of silence within reproductive health organizations , ” the collective letter states .
“ This has allowed our leadership to stoke the fear that public expression of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( PPGNY did not respond to The New Republic ’ s request for comment by time of publication . )

As Covid-19 hit New York, staff at a number of Planned Parenthood health centers found themselves facing two crises at once: keeping health services going and keeping their jobs. As some health centers closed temporarily and shifted to telehealth services, staff also saw their hours cut or positions furloughed. To hear workers describe it, this was not entirely unforeseen. For more than a year, they had pressed management to improve conditions for staff, particularly for Black workers, and for the patients they care for. Some on staff have now decided to take their demands public, “inspired and emboldened by national movements led by Black people holding organizations and institutions accountable and working to dismantle systems of oppression and white supremacy.”
This comes from a letter sent by a collective of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York staff to the organization’s board and shared with The New Republic. Citing alleged “abusive behavior and financial malfeasance,” a collective of current and former staff of Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate has called for the “immediate removal” of its CEO, Laura McQuade. Staff say in her two-year tenure, McQuade has “created a culture of fear and intimidation.” Their specific concerns include “years of complaints from staff about issues of systemic racism, pay inequity, and lack of upward mobility for Black staff,” as well as “dozens of staff members [who] have witnessed McQuade yell, berate, slam her fists, verbally abuse, humiliate, and bully employees.” All of this, they say, “fundamentally threatened the fiscal and operational viability of Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate and its 900 employees.”


newrepublic--2020-06-18--Trump’s Ineptitude Keeps Dream Alive for DACA Recipients

The administration argued that the courts had no standing to review what amounted to prosecutorial discretion .
In June 2018 , then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen released a second memo outlining the administration ’ s rationale for ending the program , after a federal court in D.C. held that DHS ’ s decision could be reviewed by the courts .
While she reiterated the department ’ s belief that the program was on shaky legal footing , she also raised other nonlegal rationales .
The plaintiffs , however , argued that while the government has the power to end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by federal law to do so in a reasonable manner .
Nielsen ’ s ex post facto justifications , they argued , highlighted the original memo ’ s flaws instead of curing them .
At oral arguments last November , the court ’ s conservative bloc signaled it would side with Trump ’ s efforts to wind down DACA sooner rather than later .
“ What good would another five years of litigation over the adequacy of that explanation serve ?
” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Ted Olson , who argued on behalf @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s liberals , for their part , showed greater skepticism toward the administration ’ s shifting rationales .
The justices also appeared mindful of the consequences of their ruling .
While questioning Solicitor General Noel Francisco , who represented the administration , Justice Sonia Sotomayor paraphrased the government ’ s argument in court as saying that “ this is not about the law ; this is about our choice to destroy lives.
” Writing for the court on Thursday , Roberts rejected the administration ’ s assertion that the courts could not review @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ more than simply a non-enforcement policy.
” He then rejected DHS ’ s arguments on the merits as well .
By resting its decision to unwind DACA solely on Sessions ’ s perfunctory analysis , Roberts found that the department made key errors about the program ’ s legality .
Since that analysis largely focused on whether extending benefits like Medicare and Social Security through DACA would be lawful , Roberts wrote , DHS did not offer a rationale for scrapping DACA ’ s protections against deportation .
“ That omission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision arbitrary and capricious , ” he wrote .
Wading through the Trump administration ’ s sloppiness is a familiar role for the chief justice .
Last year , Roberts delivered the fifth vote and the fatal blow to the Department of Commerce ’ s efforts to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census .
While the Justice Department claimed that the question was necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , the move ’ s challengers claimed it was a pretext to reduce nonwhite participation rates .
Roberts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ files from a Republican strategist that validated the challengers ’ arguments , concluded that the government ’ s rationale “ seems to have been contrived.
” The Census forms were later printed without the question on them .

The administration argued that the courts had no standing to review what amounted to prosecutorial discretion. In June 2018, then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen released a second memo outlining the administration’s rationale for ending the program, after a federal court in D.C. held that DHS’s decision could be reviewed by the courts. While she reiterated the department’s belief that the program was on shaky legal footing, she also raised other nonlegal rationales. The plaintiffs, however, argued that while the government has the power to end the program, it is also bound by federal law to do so in a reasonable manner. Nielsen’s ex post facto justifications, they argued, highlighted the original memo’s flaws instead of curing them.
At oral arguments last November, the court’s conservative bloc signaled it would side with Trump’s efforts to wind down DACA sooner rather than later. “What good would another five years of litigation over the adequacy of that explanation serve?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Ted Olson, who argued on behalf of DACA recipients. The court’s liberals, for their part, showed greater skepticism toward the administration’s shifting rationales. The justices also appeared mindful of the consequences of their ruling. While questioning Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who represented the administration, Justice Sonia Sotomayor paraphrased the government’s argument in court as saying that “this is not about the law; this is about our choice to destroy lives.”
Writing for the court on Thursday, Roberts rejected the administration’s assertion that the courts could not review the matter, noting that DACA itself was “more than simply a non-enforcement policy.” He then rejected DHS’s arguments on the merits as well. By resting its decision to unwind DACA solely on Sessions’s perfunctory analysis, Roberts found that the department made key errors about the program’s legality. Since that analysis largely focused on whether extending benefits like Medicare and Social Security through DACA would be lawful, Roberts wrote, DHS did not offer a rationale for scrapping DACA’s protections against deportation. “That omission alone renders Acting Secretary Duke’s decision arbitrary and capricious,” he wrote.


newrepublic--2020-06-19--Turn Rikers Island Into a Solar Farm

Turn Rikers Island Into a Solar Farm

The past and present of Rikers Island can tell you a lot about the United States .
Richard Riker—the owner of the island that had been in his slaveowning Dutch-German family since the 1660s—was an integral part of a kidnapping ring for selling Black people in the North back to slavery in the South under the Fugitive Slave Act .
As New York City ’ s City Recorder , Riker would issue certificates of removal for those captured to be deported without a whisper of due process .
The Riker family sold the land today known as Rikers Island in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its long transition into something much closer to its current usage : a penal colony .
Trash was brought in on barges from Manhattan to build out the island to accommodate a massive jail complex , which took on its first inmates in 1932 .
Today , 80 percent of its land mass is landfill .
Pockets of methane created by decomposing garbage routinely bursts , shaking the island and endangering anyone around .
That ’ s mainly inmates—90 percent of whom are people of color—but guards and prisoners alike have complained about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the island can take on your health .
Heat in the summer can be unbearable , which has lent to its ominous nickname : “ The Oven.
” In a detailed account of the island ’ s environmental justice horror show , reporter Raven Rakia noted at Grist that , as temperatures rise , six of the island ’ s 10 facilities lack air conditioning .
Like other prisons , Rikers has also been a hotspot for Covid-19 .
After decades of lawsuits and controversy and a concerted campaign by former inmates and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finally voted to close down Rikers Island ’ s jail facilities within a decade last fall .
In addition to an ongoing debate about whether the city will build replacement facilities or instead commit itself to drastically reducing the number of people it incarcerates , there ’ s the question of what to do with the island itself .
If Rikers Island has come to symbolize the cruelty of the carceral system , what ’ s built in its wake could help signal a way forward .
As the movement to close Rikers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and criminal justice groups began meeting to discuss plans for what might come next .
“ Rather than get into a battle with real estate titans of New York City , we wanted to get out ahead of that and stake our claim for Rikers to no longer be the city ’ s penal colony , but a resource of clean energy , jobs , and redistributive justice , ” Cecil Corbin-Mark , the Deputy Director and Director of Policy Initiatives at WE ACT for Environmental Justice , told me .
City Councilor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rikers and features some of the city ’ s worst air quality and highest rates of Covid-19 deaths .
Working with WE ACT and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance , among others , he has introduced a series of three bills known collectively as a plan for a Renewable Rikers .
The first bill would transfer the deed for the island away from the Department of Corrections to another to-be-determined agency .
The second and third bills would begin official studies from the city to determine the island ’ s capacity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infrastructure , to replace several outdated facilities throughout Queens .
An initial study by the CUNY Center for Urban and Environmental Reform in 2019 found siting solar on just a quarter of the island would generate enough power for the city to close down all of the the massively polluting gas-fired secondary , or “ peaker , ” plants established decades ago , with scant public input , in the Five Boroughs ’ Black and Brown communities , whose residents have been disproportionately likely to end up on Rikers at some point in @ @ @

Renewable Rikers is not the only proposal on the table but is the most fleshed out, so far. There’s been talk of making Rikers the home for another runway for LaGuardia Airport, or even real estate development. Because its foundations are so toxic, doing much of anything on Rikers is likely to require extensive land remediation. With many details still to be worked out, Renewable Rikers advocates are keen to see those plans move forward on a democratic footing. “We want as many people as possible at the table,” Constantinides told me. “The most important thing is to have communities that have been overpolluted and overpoliced be the primary voices at that table. Those need to be the voices that we’re hearing the loudest.”
Environmental and climate justice groups have long pushed for this sort of approach, which they hope will inform emissions reductions plans at all levels of government. WE ACT’s expansive Northern Manhattan Climate Action Plan, for example, was drafted through a series of public workshops involving hundreds of community members, meetings with city agencies, and input from partner organizations from around the city and across the U.S. “Our community has a capacity to think holistically, and they do that because it’s necessary for their survival,” Corbin-Mark told me. “They cannot escape the very wicked problems that plague their lives. They also can’t escape the original pandemic, which is racism in this country. And so by necessity when you give to our communities the tools to envision and imagine what the future should look like, […] they come up with visions that are more expansive and resilient, because they are trying to figure out by necessity how to solve the many challenges that this society has laid at their doorstep.”
Following controversies over New York City power provider ConEdison and a series of blackouts last summer, Constantinides has also championed bringing the utility under public ownership. Despite its black and brown residents having some of the highest energy burdens in the country and the supposed reliability provided by polluting peaker plants, Queens has lost power provided by ConEd a number of times in the last year—including when temperatures soared to nearly 100 degrees. Outrage over citywide outages and persistent mismanagement has caused even Mayor Bill De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo to put a public takeover of ConEd on the table. Constantinides called Renewable Rikers the “quintessential public power project,” adding that the investor-owned utility “shouldn’t own this or be dictating how this power would work.” Though details of any renewable development on the island are pending further study, there’s some possibility that energy generated there could fall under the purview of the already-public New York Power Authority.


newrepublic--2020-06-19--America Owes More to Its “Essential” Immigrant Workers

Beatriz knows that the piece of paper she was given by her employer , certifying her as a critical worker , is not what makes her essential .
“ I know they say now we ’ re essential , but we always have been , because we ’ ve always brought the food to people ’ s tables .
If it wasn ’ t for us , right now there would be no food , ” she said .
Like hundreds of thousands of others around the country , Beatriz is risking her own safety to perform vital work during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigration status .
She came to be in such a situation by an odd twist of fate : While she was in the United States on a tourist visa in 2008 , she said , she got a call that her sister in Mexico urgently needed heart surgery , and had no money to pay for it .
Faced with a choice between returning and making $ 7 a day or remaining and earning more than that in an hour , she chose to overstay her visa and work in New York State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ addition to her work cultivating apples , she volunteers taking food and PPE to community members who need it , increasing her risk of exposure .
Yet as things stand now , and even with her officially recognized position as an essential worker , she has no path to any kind of legal status .
This is not a new problem , but stories like hers have prompted a push for a mass regularization program—an opportunity to legalize their status—for undocumented essential workers .
But what would this actually look like ?
Immigration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any immigration lawyer to explain any seemingly simple legal concept .
Small differences in eligibility criteria or evidentiary requirements could yield vastly different outcomes .
In other words , the moral case for such a program is straightforward .
The path there is snaking , multi-pronged with competing visions , and dotted with pitfalls .

Beatriz knows that the piece of paper she was given by her employer, certifying her as a critical worker, is not what makes her essential. “I know they say now we’re essential, but we always have been, because we’ve always brought the food to people’s tables. If it wasn’t for us, right now there would be no food,” she said.
Like hundreds of thousands of others around the country, Beatriz is risking her own safety to perform vital work during the Covid-19 pandemic, all without legal immigration status. She came to be in such a situation by an odd twist of fate: While she was in the United States on a tourist visa in 2008, she said, she got a call that her sister in Mexico urgently needed heart surgery and had no money to pay for it. Faced with a choice between returning and making $7 a day or remaining and earning more than that in an hour, she chose to overstay her visa and work in New York State’s sprawling agriculture industry.


newrepublic--2020-06-19--The Government Can Afford Anything It Wants

If you ’ re like me , once or twice in your life you have jolted awake from the edge of sleep wondering , How exactly does the government pay for the military ?
As we all know , the military is an expensive endeavor .
In 2019 , its budget was $ 716 billion , an increase of $ 80 billion over the previous year .
Does the Department of Defense have a bank account with that $ 716 billion in it ?
If they do , who puts money in it , and where does that money come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for that sexy new air-to-air Peregrine missile ?
And where did that $ 80 billion come from ?
New taxes ?
In 2018 ?
I thought that the only major legislative victory of the Trump administration was a tax cut .
To find the answers , the economist Stephanie Kelton tells us in The Deficit Myth that we only need to look at congressional proceedings .
For any government expenditure that isn ’ t automatic ( like interest expenses or welfare programs ) , the House and Senate debate and then pass bills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2017 the Senate happily voted 89–9 to pass a 1,215-page bill called the National Defense Authorization Act .
It authorized $ 737 billion in spending .
Once this bill passed , the Department of Defense could enter into contracts with weapons manufacturers like Raytheon .
As soon as the ink dries , the U.S. Treasury instructs its bank , the Federal Reserve , to go into its computers and mark up Raytheon ’ s bank account .
Money enters its account and it begins paying its workers , suppliers , and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million salary .
The important thing here is that the Federal Reserve does not dip its hand into a pot of “ tax dollars ” to pay military contractors , nor is it required to check some mythical account where tax dollars live before it wires the money .
In fact , that account doesn ’ t exist .
As former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke once noted , when the government pays for things , it is “ not taxpayer money .
We simply use the computer to mark up the size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernanke ’ s libertarian predecessor at the Fed further clarified , “ There ’ s nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to someone.
” The implication is that if Congress can pass a bill that requires some form of spending , the Federal Reserve can and will spend that money without limit , as is the case with the military .
This directly contradicts ideas about government money espoused by leading politicians .
The most prominent example was in 2009 , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ At one point do we run out of money ?
” to which he responded , “ Well , we are out of money now.
” These statements are mutually exclusive ; only one can prevail .
So who is right ?
The idea that the U.S. government can ’ t run out of money is the bedrock of an idea that Kelton is on the vanguard of promoting : Modern Monetary Theory .
As the name implies , MMT is a set of newish ideas that maddeningly reopen a question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ novice stoner or seven-year-old would dare ask : Where does money come from , and what does it do ?
MMT argues that money is a legal and political construct and that limits to government spending are not monetary and only mildly economic ; they are primarily political .
“ MMT clarifies what is economically possible , ” Kelton writes , “ and thus shifts the terrain of policy debates that get hamstrung over questions of financial feasibility.
” The book combats the limiting myths of economic reality , including the pervasive idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or can ’ t “ afford ” things .

The other way that money is created is not through banks but through fiscal policy, of which military spending and welfare programs are prime examples. When the Federal Reserve marks up a defense contractor’s bank account, here too money originates. Whenever the government directly spends somewhere, money is created. But if money is being created by a variegated, largely uncoordinated bizarre range of actors, what is the limit? The constraint, MMTers argue, is that if too much money enters the system, it can cause inflation. This erodes the value of the currency. Understood this way, MMT argues the limit to government spending is not the amount it brings back in tax dollars, but the amount of inflation that the spending incurs.
The government could be regularly handing out money to people with no ill effects, and yet it almost always refuses to do so.
The problem, for Kelton, is that since the 1980s we have over-relied on monetary policy (that is, Federal Reserve and Treasury actions) to originate, control, and disburse the money supply. We depend almost entirely on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate tweaks to get money into society, but the Federal Reserve really only opens and closes the spigot on credit, which privileges banks and large corporations that fund themselves primarily through certain types of credit. As we have seen during the recent ongoing economic crisis, the Federal Reserve does not and cannot directly intervene in specific areas that need help, such as for instance restaurants or black and brown communities that have been historically denied access to credit and resources. A fiscal method of controlling inflation and dealing with a crisis would be to enact wage controls, welfare spending, or possibly a jobs guarantee. This might remind you of New Deal programs, and for good reason. That was a time when the government stimulated the economy by giving people jobs and paying them money directly, instead of just expanding credit. The federal government created Social Security, an infusion of government money into the hands of retired citizens. As Kelton notes, all of these successful programs of fiscal spending, including the passage of Medicare, were signed into law with almost no awareness of what they would actually cost. The concerns of justice easily overrode petty questions of governmental deficits, and in the face of crisis, the threat of inflation was low.
Today, the threat of inflation is once again extremely low, even prior to the current economic catastrophe. Inflation since the Great Recession has barely crawled up to the Fed’s desirable goal of 2 percent. The truth is that we are further than ever from an activist government that engages in direct fiscal policy to make sure money and resources are distributed in a just way. The government could be regularly handing out money to people with no ill effects, and yet it almost always refuses to do so. (Except, of course, in the case of the paltry $1,200 checks the Treasury cut.) Furthermore, when it comes to averting disaster for working people and changing society, monetary policy has proven itself to be a limited tool. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve had engaged in the extreme limits of monetary policy by lowering interest rates to zero, buying and guaranteeing corporate debt, and in some cases lending money directly to some big businesses. Yet unemployment still exploded, and civil unrest seethes.


newrepublic--2020-06-19--Where Do Black Journalists Go From Here?

Talking about the whiteness of the media isn ’ t anything new but , this time , feels different .
Earlier this month , Black New York Times staffers organized a public campaign to denounce a racist op-ed calling for the use of military force against protesters .
The following week , staff at Bon Appétit led calls for the resignation of the magazine ’ s white editor in chief after a photo of him in brownface recirculated online , which incited an industry-wide reckoning over the treatment of Black people and non-Black people of color in food media .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Post-Gazette barred two Black journalists from covering protests against racist police violence—alleging they could not do so “ fairly ” —which sent the staff union and local advertisers into shared rebellion against the paper .
The list of parallel insurgencies from the last few weeks could go on : The Los Angeles Times .
Vogue .
The Washington Post .
Refinery 29 .
The Philadelphia Inquirer .
This cycle of upheaval only exacerbated the already-existing calls from Black journalists for a new media landscape .
After being hit hard by Covid-19 media layoffs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among coronavirus cases , enduring abuse from both police and publications while covering the George Floyd uprisings , and suffering the seemingly constant discrimination of white newsrooms , Black journalists are tired .
To be a working Black journalist is to live in a perpetual state of exhaustion .
The data here is by now familiar : A 2018 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 77 percent of newsroom employees are white and just 7 percent are Black .
This is pathetic , but tracks when you consider the severe barriers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media workers and the obstacles to advancement once in the door .
Black journalists are less likely to find full-time jobs than their white counterparts .
( And the internships that usually lead to full-time positions aren ’ t always accessible to Black journalists—many may not have the means to do unpaid or stipended work or the housing resources to spend a summer interning in New York or Washington , D.C. ) According to a 2019 survey from the American Society of News Editors , people of color make up only 18.8 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and online-only publications .
( The New Republic , like other magazines , has also been a historically white institution . )
The result of this isn ’ t only slighted journalists but that the nation ’ s diverse public goes underserved .
“ It ’ s gon na come either smoothly or by force , ” Danielle Kwateng , Teen Vogue ’ s entertainment and culture director , told The New Republic .
“ People stepping down and the movement are the force .
But I would hope that , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ higher positions of power critically think about : What do we need to make this newsroom balanced ?
What do we need to tell authentic stories ?
And who are the people that should be behind the pen ?
” Black journalists are demanding industry support , institutional change , and investment—rather than white editors clamoring to find a Black freelancer when police brutality is in the headlines .
But far from being new , this industry-wide revolt echoes demands made by members of the Black press since at least 1827 and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black liberation in the United States .
Even as publications sharpen their diversity policies , and unions work to support underrepresented media workers , meaningful change has been slow to come , if at all .
In response , Black journalists have also turned to launching their own publications , starting newsletters , and trading in draining staff jobs for the uncertainty of freelance work .
While we ’ ve seen versions of all of this before—urgent calls for justice in our newsrooms , alternative models to mainstream press—today ’ s rebellion feels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least it should .
But where do Black journalists go from here ?

Black media workers today are still tasked with filling information gaps with no real industry support. In response to a lack of sustained national coverage of the issue, journalist Patrice Peck launched a newsletter focused on the coronavirus’s impact on Black communities. Nearly two hundred years earlier, Black journalists at Freedom’s Journal, the nation’s very first African American–owned and operated newspaper, launched the publication to serve as the only official voice pushing back against the racist propaganda published in the white journals of the time. “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentation in things which concern us dearly,” the journalists wrote in the very first issue in March 1827.
The 1968 Kerner Commission report noted the same pattern more than a century later. “The journalistic profession has been shockingly backward in seeking out, hiring, and promoting Negroes,” the Commission wrote. “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and white perspective. That is no longer good enough. The painful process of readjustment that is required of the American news media must begin now.”
“Despite the institutional marginalization, trauma, and constant fatigue that accompanies this work, Black journalists continue reporting, writing, and telling stories with nuance, care, and expertise.”
But it didn’t begin then in any meaningful institutional sense. It is difficult to disrupt whiteness in newsrooms when the white supremacy of the nation is so embedded in these institutions that it feels almost impossible to eradicate. Still, despite the institutional marginalization, trauma, and constant fatigue that accompanies this work, Black journalists continue reporting, writing, and telling stories with nuance, care, and expertise. From the Ferguson uprising and the Flint, Michigan, water crisis to the current protests following the killings of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor, and the routine violence faced by Black trans women, Black journalists must report on Black death in spite of the ever-present dread and despair of doing so. Speaking to this experience in 2015, MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee told NPR, “As journalists who are also humans, I don’t think we always do a good enough job of identifying that this does take a toll in some way. We’re taught to be vigilant and courageous and seek the truth and shine light in very dark places. But that means you have to go to dark places and shine light. And that can take a lot out of you.”


newrepublic--2020-06-19--Your Road Trip Is Not More Important Than Indian Country

In an article published last week by The Wall Street Journal , novelist and reporter Mark Childress wrote that he wanted to spend time traveling to “ the parts of the country where nobody is.
” Documenting his pandemic road trip , Childress wrote that he “ felt the pandemic lifting up as the civilization thinned out.
” Having altered virtually everything else about American life , the coronavirus is now having its way with our summer vacation plans .
While demand for air travel is seeing a “ slow but steady ” uptick , airlines are still expecting to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to normal summer rates .
For many people , a road trip is the next best option ; naturally , America ’ s national parks will climb to the top of many lists as prime destinations for a socially distant getaway .
Should this include you , allow me to make two simple requests : Remember that “ the parts of the country where nobody is ” were built atop broken treaties and Native blood .
And respect the fact that Indian Country is still here .
Prior to European colonization , most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the National Parks Service and the National Forest Service were not free of human contact .
The national parks system in the United States , much like the country itself , was created by the federal government ’ s violent removal of Indigenous nations and communities—nations and communities that are still here .
As Montana attorney Isaac Kantor wrote in a 2007 paper reflecting on his visit to Glacier National Park—land long used and inhabited by the now-neighboring Blackfeet Nation—these spaces , “ are built upon an illusion .
They seem to offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continent as it was , to set eyes on a vista unspoiled by human activity .
This uninhabited nature is a recent construction.
” Upon the creation of the first national park , Yellowstone , in 1872 , the lands still belonged to the Crow , Shoshone , Bannock , and Tukudeka peoples , among others , per Kantor .
Within seven years of Yellowstone ’ s creation , the federal government forcibly removed all those inhabiting the new park ’ s borders , as the tribes frightened the white tourists who came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not stop at land theft .
As Native people were erased from the public eye through forced assimilation efforts in the twentieth century—another organized effort to steal all remaining Native land—the national parks began to use Indigenous people , not just their land , as a draw for visitors .

This is further compounded by the fact that in order to enter some national parks, there is no way to physically avoid tribal nations. For instance, Rodriguez-Lonebear pointed out that “anybody who goes to Glacier National Park has to go through the Blackfeet Nation.” Speaking recently with NPR, Blackfeet Covid-19 Incident Commander Robert DesRosie acknowledged the economic damage that the nation’s shutdown has caused tribal businesses, like that of Darrel Norman, who runs a campground for tourists that is on the verge of permanently shutting down. But as DesRosie pointed out to NPR, “it’s his job to look at this as an issue of protecting human life and not an economic crisis.”
The reason that Rodriguez-Lonebear, DesRosie, and others are concerned is because from the very inception of the national parks to the present day, Americans have routinely placed their tourist goals and desires ahead of the needs of Native communities. The national parks are beautiful spaces because Indigenous people protected and maintained them. Although it might be nice, as Childress did, to draw up a trip to parts of our nation that many may consider unsettled or untouched, no matter how comforting that manifest destiny blanket feels, it is still a lie. These lands were stolen and then shielded by the guiding hand of white supremacy: To be able to visit the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or Yosemite or Glacier is a privilege built upon a great sin.
None of this information is meant to serve as a guilt trip: It’s more a reminder to be conscientious of one’s self and place in the world. These are values that should persist at all times, but our present crisis makes them all the more important. It is entirely understandable that people feel the need to get out of their cramped living spaces after being quarantined for three months. If that includes taking a road trip through the communities facing the highest rates of the coronavirus, you damn well better ensure that you are doing everything within your power to limit exposing these communities to the havoc of the pandemic. The absolute least any colonizer can do is go out of their way to ensure that they don’t put the people, whose traditional homelands will be just another page in their scrapbook, at further risk.


newrepublic--2020-06-19--In Miss Juneteenth, a Mother’s Dream Deferred

Among the many schadenfreude-themed reality TV shows popular in America in the late 2000s , beauty pageants , particularly those involving children with capped smiles and unhinged mothers , form their own genre .
On shows like Toddlers and Tiaras , the entertainment factor came from the obviousness of the con played on the moms , who frequently spent more on competition entrance fees than they took home in prize money .
Not only were beauty pageants a scam , it seemed , but they were a scam pitched at a psychological Achilles ’ heel common to many mothers : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life , but perfectly , through your child .
The new movie Miss Juneteenth , which begins streaming today , is about a very different pageant tradition , but its drama radiates from that same tender spot in the mother-daughter relationship .
Instead of little girls in fake teeth , our subject is the Miss Juneteenth pageant in Fort Worth , Texas , a worthier and more old-fashioned beauty queen award .
It is granted each year on June 19 to a young black woman from the city , entitling her to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ special significance in Texas , where the Juneteenth holiday was created in memory of the state ’ s abolition of slavery , two years after 1863 ’ s Emancipation Proclamation .
Nicole Beharie plays Turquoise , an overworked young single mother trying to scrape together the money and the time to enter her daughter Kai ( Alexis Chikaeze ) into the pageant , which she herself won in 2004 .
Turquoise was a young beauty brimming with potential , but we can infer that she lost her scholarship after she got pregnant with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on 15 .
No steady source of income followed for Turquoise .
Black celebrities who have gone from pageants to professional success include Halle Berry ( competitor for Miss World , 1986 ) ; Oprah Winfrey ( Miss Tennessee , 1972 ) ; and Vanessa Williams ( the first African American Miss America , 1984 , a crown she was forced to relinquish after Penthouse obtained nude photographs of her ) .
So there is a pressure weighing on Kai that doesn ’ t just come from her mother but from a much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Miss Juneteenth is the pinnacle of what a young black woman should want to be .

Though the tension between mother and daughter remains center stage, Miss Juneteenth’s broader subject turns out to be the political economics of surviving as a black woman in Texas. Kai is under pressure to perform a miracle to rescue her mother from a system that makes it impossible for her to thrive. Ronnie does not give Turquoise the money she needs and deserves. Her boss doesn’t pay her enough at the bar where she works, and Ronnie won’t look after Kai so that she can take more shifts. She’s in a vise that’s only tightening.
Although Turquoise’s community is strong and supportive, and she’s constantly praised for her beauty, none of that gives her enough money to live on. One serious suitor appears in Miss Juneteenth, who explicitly offers to “take her off her feet” with the profits of his funeral home, but Turquoise is adamant that she won’t be bought. She’s a romantic—as her on-off relationship with Ronnie proves—but she has also set hard and fast boundaries about the relationship between her looks and her finances.
Her almost blinkered dedication to doing things the right way explains how Turquoise could go so long before noticing how much her daughter hates pageant work. The women who staff the pageant are bitchy to Turquoise, as if getting pregnant stripped her of all her value. The whole pageant model of virtue comes to seem like folly, and Kai is too smart to miss it.


newrepublic--2020-06-21--This Is How Trump Plans to Beat Biden

This Is How Trump Plans to Beat Biden

We will be inundated by polls and charts and the sweaty , contradictory pronouncements of serious analysts and hacks alike between now and November , but the fundamentals of the election as it stands are actually quite simple .
The president is just barely matching his 2016 margin with white working-class voters .
He is losing white college graduates again by an even worse margin .
And he ’ s now losing the oldest voters .
The Democratic Party hasn ’ t hit 50 percent with voters over 65 in 20 years .
An average of polls taken in May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 51-44 and a more recent Quinnipiac poll showed Biden winning them 51-43 .
These are the constituencies an Electoral College victory turns on .
If Trump makes up ground with them before November , he can win .
If he doesn ’ t , he will lose .
To the extent that it can be said Trump has a plan for turning things around at all , the recent protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd seem to be at the center of it .
“ The unhinged left-wing mob is trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monuments—our beautiful monuments , tear down our statues , and punish , cancel , and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control , ” he said early in his speech .
“ This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans .
They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new oppressive regime in its place .
They want to defund and dissolve our police departments .
Think of that !
” All of this could be very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump tries to rekindle this moment ’ s anxieties in his campaign advertising .
And it should be well known by now that Republican invocations of political correctness , antifa , and monument toppling radicals did absolutely nothing to stem the party ’ s bleeding with suburban voters ahead of the 2018 midterms .
They and most other voters will head into Election Day with even more pressing matters on their minds than they had back then , particularly if the pandemic intensifies .
Any focus on the protests could also be undermined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s presidency was supposed to bring an end to what he called “ American carnage ” in the first place—what ’ s shaping up is a campaign built around a promise to restore a sense of “ law and order ” that , by his own tacit admission , Trump has already failed to impose .
There were other revivals of old rhetoric on Saturday .
Biden , he charged , has supported “ every globalist attack on the American worker ” over the course of his career and has “ never made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he pointed to Biden ’ s support for the war in Iraq .
This would be potent material in the hands of a normal presidential candidate in a normal election year ; even Trump managed to focus his messaging just enough to make NAFTA and Iraq central to his case against Clinton in 2016 .
But this is far from a normal year .
The central foreign policy issue on the minds of American voters is a global pandemic they believe this administration has mishandled .
The intended Rust Belt audience for trade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whatsoever from Trump ’ s renegotiation of NAFTA , but they are facing down a critically wounded economy at 13 percent unemployment .
And Trump ’ s speech in Tulsa contained little more of an economic program than a promise not to raise taxes and predictions that the stock market will continue to rise .

To the extent that it can be said Trump has a plan for turning things around at all, the recent protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd seem to be at the center of it. “The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments—our beautiful monuments, tear down our statues, and punish, cancel, and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control,” he said early in his speech. “This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new oppressive regime in its place. They want to defund and dissolve our police departments. Think of that!”
All of this could be very old news by the fall, even if Trump tries to rekindle this moment’s anxieties in his campaign advertising. And it should be well known by now that Republican invocations of political correctness, antifa, and monument-toppling radicals did absolutely nothing to stem the party’s bleeding with suburban voters ahead of the 2018 midterms. They and most other voters will head into Election Day with even more pressing matters on their minds than they had back then, particularly if the pandemic intensifies. Any focus on the protests could also be undermined considerably by the fact that Trump’s presidency was supposed to bring an end to what he called “American carnage” in the first place—what’s shaping up is a campaign built around a promise to restore a sense of “law and order” that, by his own tacit admission, Trump has already failed to impose.
There were other revivals of old rhetoric on Saturday. Biden, he charged, has supported “every globalist attack on the American worker” over the course of his career and has “never made a correct foreign policy decision”—there he pointed to Biden’s support for the war in Iraq. This would be potent material in the hands of a normal presidential candidate in a normal election year; even Trump managed to focus his messaging just enough to make Nafta and Iraq central to his case against Clinton in 2016. But this is far from a normal year. The central foreign policy issue on the minds of American voters is a global pandemic they believe this administration has mishandled. The intended Rust Belt audience for trade talk hasn’t seen any benefit whatsoever from Trump’s renegotiation of Nafta, but it is facing down a critically wounded economy at 13 percent unemployment. And Trump’s speech in Tulsa contained little more of an economic program than a promise not to raise taxes and predictions that the stock market will continue to rise.


newrepublic--2020-06-21--Trump Is Terrorizing America

Trump Is Terrorizing America

It is one of the oldest divisions of labor in politics .
The presidential candidate points with pride at the past and waxes inspirational about the future .
The running mate , in contrast , plays partisan attack dog , depicting the rival candidate as the moral equivalent of Vlad the Impaler .
Richard Nixon in 1952 served as the model for this style of VP guttersnipe politics , describing Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson as a graduate of the “ cowardly college of Communist containment.
” In 1976 , Bob Dole , playing second banana to Jerry Ford , decried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twentieth century .
And then , of course , along came Sarah Palin in 2008 .
For all his lapdog loyalty and religiously inspired right-wing beliefs , Mike Pence was the speaker who took the higher road at the campaign launch on Saturday night .
Pence , in a warm-up speech that even Fox News didn ’ t carry , at least said to the almost totally white Oklahoma audience , “ There is no excuse for what happened to George Floyd.
” Pence promptly added , “ But there is also no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and destruction of property that followed.
” The lasting message from Donald Trump ’ s Saturday night death-defying , empty-seated Tulsa talkathon is that somebody else will have to keep hope alive .
Trump has only one reelection theme : fear .
Or what Franklin Roosevelt , in the depths of another economic Depression , called “ nameless , unreasoning , unjustified terror .
”

Like much of the Tulsa speech, these were not accidental Trump improvisations but the fruit of political research by the campaign. Perhaps sensing Biden’s underlying personal popularity, Trump has consistently pretended that his real opponents in November are Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, both of whom he denounced at length on Saturday night. In a particularly ugly interlude, Trump claimed that Omar wants to turn America into a replica of “the country from where she came. Somalia—no government, no safety, no police, no nothing.” Trump certainly reflected the Know Nothing part of that equation.
It is tempting to find a larger message about Trump’s waning popularity with the GOP base in the meager turnout in Tulsa. According to the city’s fire marshal, fewer than one-third of the 19,000 seats in the BOK arena were filled. But it is hard to know whether the seats were empty because of virus fears, teenagers mischievously signing up on TikTok, or just the sensible calculation that there are better things to do on a Saturday night in Tulsa, even in the midst of a pandemic.
A far more valid test of the president’s in-person appeal will be his slated Tuesday speech to a Students for Trump rally in Phoenix, since Arizona, unlike Oklahoma, is up for grabs in November. Even there, though, Trump’s passion for personal acclaim will collide with the realities of the virus. Arizona is the site of perhaps the worst current Covid-19 outbreak in the country, with a nearly 50 percent rise in cases over the past week.


newrepublic--2020-06-22--No Money, No Lawyer, No Justice

No Money, No Lawyer, No Justice

In 1954 , Kevin Green got his Social Security card and started picking cotton for $ 3 per hundred pounds in a tiny agricultural town in California ’ s Central Valley .
He was five years old .
One of seven children , he used the money to buy school supplies .
He kept working—and paying into the Social Security system—through high school , then beyond : for Douglas Aircraft , at a telephone company warehouse , as a messenger at the UCLA hospital .
In 1969 , he was drafted , and spent four years flying in and out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , balancing the weight of tanks and helicopters going in and cadavers coming out .
After his discharge , he worked truck routes around the Bay Area for nearly 25 years , delivering beer , then paper products .
One afternoon in 1997 , while loading a hand truck for his last stop of the day , he stepped onto an uneven curb and fell , injuring his neck and back and shattering his ankle and foot .
In the years afterward , Green underwent repeated surgeries , watched his marriage fall apart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and endured regular epidural drips and shots to mitigate the nerve damage that kept him up at night and made his feet burn .
But he made a new life .
He found an apartment in Oakland ; he joined a Bible study group .
He was able to live , very modestly , on the $ 1,269 he received each month from Social Security Disability Insurance—money he stretched to cover his rent , utilities , car insurance , food , and medicine .
One Friday in August 2017 , Green , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not used to talking about himself , received a letter from the Social Security Administration stating that the next month ’ s check would be withheld because of an alleged overpayment .
The notice—only the second communication he ’ d received from SSA in a decade—didn ’ t explain the overpayment or when it was made .
On Monday , Green rushed to the local SSA office to ask what it all meant .
Clerks sent him to another branch , where he was told he ’ d been overpaid by $ 12,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If he wanted copies of the records proving it , he ’ d have to pay for them to be mailed ; if he didn ’ t want his check withheld , he ’ d have to apply for a waiver .
“ Other than that , ” he said , “ they wouldn ’ t tell me anything.
” Green , who asked that his real name not be used for fear of retaliation , was bewildered .
Ever since he ’ d qualified for disability insurance—the type of Social Security support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d been vigilant about following the rules .
In his community , people knew all too well that when a mistake happens , it ’ s your fault , even when it ’ s not .
After his accident , he ’ d paid a lawyer to ensure that his disability application was done correctly .
When his son graduated from high school , he immediately told SSA so it would stop sending the additional payments that minor children of parents on disability may qualify for .
He kept every piece of mail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from workers ’ comp to the SSA so it could offset his payments accordingly .
Even when his workers ’ comp subsidy was later reduced , entitling him to higher disability payments , he didn ’ t ask for the money , figuring he ’ d rather SSA owe him than the other way around .
“ I swear , this is the main thing I kept straight , ” he told me .
“ I knew what could happen , and it happened anyway .
”

In early 2018, after trying for months to handle the SSA’s overpayment claim on his own, Kevin Green was referred to Bay Area Legal Aid, where he became a client of Steven Weiss. Although Green had previously been talked into accepting a $200 deduction from each month’s check, with Weiss’s help, he composed a budget to demonstrate that withholding any more than $40 left him unable to meet his basic needs, violating SSA policy that overpayment recovery shouldn’t contravene the purpose of Social Security or principles of “equity and good conscience.” SSA officials agreed to the reduced withholding, but still continued to send Green contradictory notices. Sometimes they reverted to their threats to withhold $200, or even the full $1,269 check. In one confounding letter, they told him they’d take $40 and the total amount. Green would call Weiss out of breath, saying, “‘These people are trying to kill me.’ That’s what it felt like to him,” Weiss recalled. “They’re just taking his money and he doesn’t know why.”
Weiss and his colleagues didn’t know why either—until this February, two and a half years after SSA sent Green his first letter. Bay Area Legal Aid had previously requested an administrative hearing, and SSA was finally compelled to send Green’s records, which revealed that, while SSA had offset Green’s direct payments when he informed it of his workers’ comp, the agency had incorrectly offset the payments sent to his son. Years later, in 2016, SSA tried to contact the son, but sent the notice to an old address, and the letter was returned undelivered. Without trying to make contact again, the agency had apparently decided to hold Green liable without informing him—violating, at the least, its duty for timely notification.
The pandemic will exacerbate almost every difficulty facing both legal aid as an institution and the clients it represents.
In late February, Weiss’s colleague Raegan Joern accompanied Green to administrative court, and laid out his case: Green had done everything he was supposed to, had never received any explanation of the overpayment, and, in any case, couldn’t repay it. Joern requested her client be granted a full waiver, and that the funds SSA had taken be returned.
The judge appeared sympathetic, and Green and Joern left feeling hopeful. They had to wait, however, to receive a decision, as written opinions from administrative courts can sometimes take close to a year to arrive. While they were waiting, the Covid-19 pandemic shut much of the country down. Amid the crisis, SSA announced a temporary suspension on new efforts to recover overpayments, although its existing collection efforts would continue. Green’s case stalled. Weiss feared that once the SSA began new collections again, his client would be joined in his plight by a deluge of others similarly cheated, similarly confused.


newrepublic--2020-06-22--Conservatives Might Want to Reconsider Their Love for Winston
Churchill

In recent days , protests against racism in the United States have spread to the United Kingdom , where activists are advocating the removal of statues honoring Prime Minister Winston Churchill because of his racist views .
Conservatives such as current Prime Minister Boris Johnson have come to Churchill ’ s defense , but they might not be so quick to do so if they were familiar with Churchill ’ s largely unknown progressive past .
There is no dispute about Churchill being a racist by today ’ s sensibilities .
For example , in his book , The River @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries !
Besides the fanatical frenzy , which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog , there is this fearful fatalistic apathy .
The effects are apparent in many countries .
Improvident habits , slovenly systems of agriculture , sluggish methods of commerce , and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live .
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement ; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quoted this passage in a speech attacking colonialism .
Said Mbeki , it “ tells the whole story about what our colonial masters thought of us.
” In fairness , at the time , Churchill ’ s support for British imperialism was very widely held among the masses and aristocrats alike .
Conservatives such as the British historian Andrew Roberts still defend it today : “ Africa has never known better times than during British rule where beforehand there was anarchy and all too often afterwards tyranny.
” Tellingly , the quoted passage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Churchill ’ s book , published in 1899 , and was expunged in the 1902 and later editions .
This suggests that he knew he had gone too far , even by the era ’ s standards .

I am of opinion that the State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labor. I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands. We may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed … that the State must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all, of the children. I look forward to the universal establishment of minimum standards of life and labor, and their progressive elevation as the increasing energies of production may permit. I do not think that Liberalism in any circumstances can cut itself off from this fertile field of social effort, and I would recommend you not to be scared in discussing any of these proposals, just because some old woman comes along and tells you they are Socialistic. If you take my advice, you will judge each case on its merits.
In 1908, the Liberal Party took control of Parliament and put forward a progressive “People’s Budget” in 1909, involving higher taxes on the wealthy and the creation of new social welfare programs. Churchill sounded very much like Bernie Sanders in defending this budget:
There are a great many people who will tell you that such a policy, as I have been endeavoring to outline to you this afternoon, will not make our country stronger, because it will sap the self-reliance of the working classes. It is very easy for rich people to preach the virtues of self-reliance to the poor. It is also very foolish, because, as a matter of fact, the wealthy, so far from being self-reliant, are dependent on the constant attention of scores, and sometimes even hundreds, of persons who are employed in waiting upon them and ministering to their wants. I think you will agree with me, on the other hand—knowing what you do of the life of this city and of the working classes generally—that there are often trials and misfortunes which come upon working-class families quite beyond any provision which their utmost unaided industry and courage could secure for them. Left to themselves, left absolutely to themselves, they must be smashed to pieces, if any exceptional disaster or accident, like recurring sickness, like the death or incapacity of the breadwinner, or prolonged or protracted unemployment, fall upon them. There is no chance of making people self-reliant by confronting them with problems and with trials beyond their capacity to surmount. You do not make a man self-reliant by crushing him under a steam roller. Nothing in our plans will relieve people from the need of making every exertion to help themselves, but, on the contrary, we consider that we shall greatly stimulate their efforts by giving them for the first time a practical assurance that those efforts will be crowned with success.
Even long after Churchill rejoined the Conservatives, he maintained his support for an expansive welfare state. As leader of the Conservative Party, Churchill drafted a manifesto going into the 1950 elections that was substantively little different from that of the socialist Labor Party. As The New York Times reported: “In brief the Labor Party program proposes to carry the nation still farther along the road to socialism, but at a reduced speed during the next five years. The Conservative program proposes to recoil somewhat from socialism but not the whole distance.”
The Times quoted the liberal Guardian newspaper as saying that the Conservative program was “hardly distinguishable from the program of the Socialist Government except that there is to be no more avowed nationalization.” The conservative Daily Express agreed, saying, “Plainly, the Tory chiefs see the problem very much as the Socialists do.”


newrepublic--2020-06-22--Behind the Conflicting Advice on Coronavirus Safety

The now-infamous event occurred on March 15 : A choir gathered in Skagit County , Washington , for a socially distanced practice indoors .
One choir member with coronavirus symptoms showed up to sing .
Of the 60 members present , 52 people became infected with the coronavirus , and two died .
In the past few months , those following and researching the coronavirus pandemic have become well-acquainted with this case .
But in mid-May , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that confounded public health messages on the coronavirus up to that point : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ airborne .
This study is now one among several in recent weeks clarifying how and under what conditions the virus is most easily transmitted .
And that in turn drives changes in how experts think about best practices—from the CDC ’ s pivot on mask-wearing to new theories about what sorts of daily activities may be relatively low risk or high risk as states re-open .
Originally , organizations like the CDC and the World Health Organization outright dismissed the idea that the virus could linger in the air in an infectious cloud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoiding large droplets from people coughing , as well as contaminated surfaces .
Much of their advice is still centered on those forms of transmission .
But the CDC report in May confirmed that vocalizations can create aerosols , or tiny droplets that hang in the air , which likely contributed to the wide spread of the virus at the choir practice .
Another CDC research letter in May pointed to airborne transmission as one of the ways the virus was likely transmitted among meeting attendees in Germany .
Several studies have shown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sometimes breathing can produce a cloud of respiratory droplets that float through the air .
Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April found that saying the words “ stay healthy ” in a normal , conversational voice emitted 347 droplets , many of them fairly small—small enough to remain suspended in the air .
Even louder speech releases thousands of droplets that can drift in the air for 8 to 14 minutes in an environment with stagnant air , according to research published in PNAS earlier this month .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments .
”

“Finding stuff in the air is what we expected,” Joshua Santarpia, the lead researcher on that study, told me. “I didn’t expect, maybe, to find quite so much of it.” The researchers found traces of the virus in the air, on windowsills, in air vents, and around toilets in the bathroom—everywhere they took samples. (Research also shows that the virus, like many viruses, can be aerosolized when poop is flushed down the toilet, although it’s not clear how infectious it is.)
The ubiquity of the virus samples makes sense, though, given what we now know about its transmission, Santarpia said. People who have the coronavirus are often contagious before they get sick, and as many as 40 percent of those who have the virus don’t show any symptoms at all. That means this pandemic is being driven, in part, by people who aren’t coughing or sneezing but are breathing, talking, and singing—likely at close distances, often in poorly ventilated spaces.
Scientists’ increasing conviction that airborne viral particles contribute to the high transmissibility of the coronavirus has played a role in several recent public health recommendations, including the increasing emphasis on mask-wearing. Originally, health organizations recommended against most people using masks to avoid the virus. The U.S. surgeon general tweeted in late February that masks were “NOT effective” in keeping the general public from catching the coronavirus. In April, however, the CDC began strongly recommending masks, and in early June, researchers from the United Kingdom’s Cambridge and Greenwich Universities published a study suggesting widespread mask usage could in fact prevent new waves of infections. Notably, in the aforementioned study where people said “stay healthy,” simply putting a damp washcloth over their mouth brought the spray of droplets down to zero.


newrepublic--2020-06-22--The Myopic Fantasy of Returning to “Normal”

At the beginning of March , there were plenty of signs that normal life would soon be upended in the United States : The Chinese government had quarantined a city of 11 million ; the Italian government banned public gatherings and travel .
But in the United States , stores were open , the NBA was in session , and the first stay-at-home orders were still weeks away .
Then , on March 11 , Tom Hanks fell ill in Australia .
The avatar of milquetoast American normality had succumbed to what we were only beginning to call Covid-19 at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it now , after months of social isolation , his fate looms unnaturally large in my memory , like the last night in an apocalyptic movie .
That night , President Trump shut down travel from 26 European countries .
A sensation of crisis abruptly set in , nesting itself within the slow , lurching crisis that was already American life .
It was overnight norm erosion .
In the months since then , Covid-19 has disrupted what we now remember as “ normal life.
” Most of us probably want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but no one really knows what we ’ d be getting back to , whether we can , or if we even should .
In early May , a man protesting Arizona ’ s lockdown order said that he and his fellow demonstrators wanted to “ get to work and lead their lives like normal.
” Here , normality seems at first to be something dull , concrete , and sensible—someone struggling to make rent would , understandably , like his or her lost income back .
But as this protester uses it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the realm of fantasy than to workaday realities .
Linked , as it now is , to reopening the economy , “ normal ” also implies a fantasy of boundless prosperity and convenience , the ability to shop and be served at a large store in the suburbs .
To lead our lives like normal means , in large part , to return to those illusions .
The lure of the normal is that , as lousy as it often was , we were at least used to it .
Familiarity was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political appeal , after all .
He campaigned on a promise to return the United States to a time before Trump pivoted from reality television into politics .
On a February debate stage , Biden told Democrats he didn ’ t understand what was so troubling about the past : “ The politics of the past , I think , were not all that bad .
”

At the beginning of March, there were plenty of signs that normal life would soon be upended in the United States: The Chinese government had quarantined a city of 11 million; the Italian government banned public gatherings and travel. But in the United States, stores were open, the NBA was in session, and the first stay-at-home orders were still weeks away. Then, on March 11, Tom Hanks fell ill in Australia. The avatar of milquetoast American normality had succumbed to what we were only beginning to call Covid-19 at the time. As I reflect back on it now, after months of social isolation, his fate looms unnaturally large in my memory, like the last night in an apocalyptic movie. That night, President Trump shut down travel from 26 European countries. A sensation of crisis abruptly set in, nesting itself within the slow, lurching crisis that was already American life. It was overnight norm erosion.
In the months since then, Covid-19 has disrupted what we now remember as “normal life.” Most of us probably want to get back to “normal,” but no one really knows what we’d be getting back to, whether we can, or if we even should.


newrepublic--2020-06-23--Bill Barr Forgot How to Be an Attorney General

Attorney General Bill Barr had already left few doubts about his commitment—or lack thereof—to the American rule of law before this month , having spent the past year carving out a role as President Donald Trump ’ s long-sought wartime consigliere .
In that capacity , Barr has misled the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller ’ s findings , undermined the prosecutions of presidential allies like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone , and launched investigations that sought to validate Trumpworld conspiracy theories .
For all his previous moves , however , it will likely be June of 2020 that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ service .
As protests and riots over the death of George Floyd spread across the nation , he publicly blamed Antifa and other left-wing groups for most of the violence even as federal prosecutors brought charges against multiple right-wing militants who sought to provoke a civil war .
He made baseless claims about the legitimacy of mail-in voting , elevating falsehoods spread by Trump and conservative media outlets .
He even personally oversaw the crackdown on protesters in Washington , D.C. , wielding the nation ’ s federal law-enforcement agencies like a personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the prelude however , to Barr ’ s latest stunt : The attempted dismissal of Geoffrey Berman , the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan , on Friday night .
Barr ’ s attempt to appoint a new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York ultimately proved to be a fumbling , self-defeating bit of double-dealing .
If Barr wanted to draw more attention to his legacy of misrule , then he succeeded .
If he thought he might create an advantage for the president—or himself—it was a miscalculation .
Berman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acting chief in January 2018 .
Three months later , federal judges in the Southern District ’ s courts used a provision in federal law to keep Berman in the position until the Senate confirmed a successor .
Like most U.S. attorneys in what ’ s often referred to in legal circles as the “ Sovereign District of New York , ” Berman immediately became one of the highest-profile prosecutors in America .
Trump had interviewed him for the post after removing Preet Bharara in 2017 , though he never nominated him—or anyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the job full time .

Berman’s graciousness masked what amounted to a sharp rebuke to Barr’s plot. Though Barr claimed the president had fired him, Berman effectively ignored the assertion and acted as if he had resigned of his own accord. His position was already highly tenuous. Eventually, someone would be able to get Trump’s signature on a piece of paper or provide him access to his own Twitter account. But despite that precariousness, Berman still managed to ensure that a civil servant would take over the district’s sensitive investigations instead of handing them over to Barr’s hand-picked political appointee.
All of this might seem a little inside baseball, but the skirmish had practical consequences. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Saturday that he would not suspend the Senate’s blue slip tradition for U.S. attorney nominees to replace Berman. Since neither of New York’s senators are likely to sign off on Trump’s replacement for the district, the move all but guarantees Trump won’t be able to fill the vacancy before the election. In Barr’s haste to tighten his grip over the most important prosecutor’s office in his department, he only strengthened its tradition of autonomy. He also renewed interest among Trump’s critics in whether the Southern District is conducting investigations that could affect Trump or his allies—with the added clatter and bang of what looked to all the world like a half-baked cover-up attempt.
The episode caps a turbulent and downcast month for the attorney general. It began on June 1 when Barr personally directed federal police to clear peaceful protesters from D.C.’s Lafayette Park by force, moments before Trump walked to a nearby church for a photo op. In the following days, Barr moved the Bureau of Prisons’ riot-control teams and other unmarked federal agents into Washington to impose order upon the restless city. Neither move was particularly popular among Americans, who largely back the protesters. Barr, in a lawyerly evasion of responsibility, later claimed he hadn’t actually given an explicit command at Lafayette Park. “My attitude was get it done,” he said in an Associated Press interview, “but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’”