newrepublic--2020-07-21--Green Jobs Can Be Just as Good as Fossil Fuel Jobs

Clean energy companies can certainly do much better by their workers , and climate campaigners shouldn ’ t labor under the assumption that they ’ re necessarily progressive institutions : The fact that they ’ re producing clean power instead of digging up fossil fuels doesn ’ t make them any less likely to exploit their workers .
Renewables companies are , after all , companies with a profit motive just like any other , and have seen their most rapid growth after decades of assaults on organized labor through public policy .
Last year , the solar firm Bright @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what dismissed workers allege was retaliation for their unionization efforts .
Working conditions also vary widely based on the type of work being done , and who ’ s doing it .
Residential rooftop solar in particular tends to be non-union , while utility-scale solar—done by unionized utility workers—often comes with better wages and working conditions .
Fossil fuel companies , however , aren ’ t the worker-friendly safe havens that critics of green energy would have you believe , either .
For decades , coal mines and oil refineries were sites of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to change some of the country ’ s worst working conditions .
Well into the 20th century , workers in coal camps throughout Appalachia were paid in company scrip , and children descended deep underground in toxic conditions .
Organizers were murdered in broad daylight by company thugs , and companies went to great lengths to break up solidarity among broadly multiracial workforces by sewing division among white , black and immigrant miners .
Like much of corporate America , fossil fuel companies spent most of the postwar era trying to break @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can attest—were largely successful .
In more recent years , fossil fuel executives have used bankruptcy filings to tear up collective bargaining agreements and short workers on their healthcare and pensions , all the while ensuring executives are come out with bonuses .
And as The New York Times reported recently , many fossil fuel companies are shirking responsibilities to clean up abandoned wells leaking prodigious amounts of heat-trapping methane and other toxins into the atmosphere and surrounding communities .
Such remediation work could furnish jobs for these companies ’ laid-off workers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are already losing work with no plan for what comes next .
One way to ensure clean energy jobs offer fair conditions and wages is to have them offered through the public sector , where average unionization rates are five times higher than in the private sector .
“ It ’ s much easier to put in wage requirements and Project Labor Agreements , ” said J. Mijin Cha , Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Economics at Occidental College , and a co-author of recent proposal for a Green Stimulus in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we think about doing really big public projects , doing as much through the public sector is best for job standards and job quality.
” Cha points as well to the potential for sectoral bargaining in clean energy , which would set baseline wages and benefits provisions regardless of whether work was happening at the residential or commercial level .
Larger public-led home retrofitting projects , as well , could make energy efficiency work a more attractive for union contractors .
Green jobs also don ’ t end in the power sector .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ where we ’ re thinking a lot bigger about the type of economy we need to survive in the long term , especially in light of the pandemic , ” Amanda Novello , Senior Policy Associate at The Century Foundation , told me .
“ Within this context , there ’ s definitely space to think more broadly about the definition of green jobs , and broaden people ’ s horizons beyond solar installers and wind turbine technicians .
If you counted healthcare , teaching or childcare as green jobs then you would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in green jobs.
” Decarbonizing the United States as rapidly as scientists say is necessary to avert catastrophe will involve disruption .
But painting green jobs as inherently worse than fossil fuel jobs—even going by current numbers—is dishonest .
And punting a transition off of fossil fuels down the line doesn ’ t reckon with the reality that workers are already being unjustly transitioned out of fossil fuels , with a threadbare safety net to catch them .
No unionization numbers are fully static .
Where high wages and strong union contracts in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exist at all , they weren ’ t won without a fight , and won ’ t come easy in wind and solar , either .
What an economy in transition looks like is still very much up for discussion .
Fatalism about the quality of low-carbon work leaves the keys to the future of clean energy in the bosses ’ hands .

Clean energy companies can certainly do much better by their workers, and climate campaigners shouldn’t labor under the assumption that they’re necessarily progressive institutions: The fact that they’re producing clean power instead of digging up fossil fuels doesn’t make them any less likely to exploit their workers. Renewables companies are, after all, companies with a profit motive just like any other and have seen their most rapid growth after decades of assaults on organized labor through public policy. Last year, the solar firm Bright Power fired its solar installation team in what dismissed workers allege was retaliation for their unionization efforts. Working conditions also vary widely based on the type of work being done and who’s doing it. Residential rooftop solar, in particular, tends to be nonunion, while utility-scale solar—done by unionized utility workers—often comes with better wages and working conditions.
Fossil fuel companies, however, aren’t the worker-friendly safe havens that critics of green energy would have you believe, either. For decades, coal mines and oil refineries were sites of brutal and often bloody fights for unionization and to change some of the country’s worst working conditions. Well into the twentieth century, workers in coal camps throughout Appalachia were paid in company scrip, and children descended deep underground in toxic conditions. Organizers were murdered in broad daylight by company thugs, and companies went to great lengths to break up solidarity among broadly multiracial workforces by sowing division among white, black, and immigrant miners. Like much of corporate America, fossil fuel companies spent most of the postwar era trying to break up unions, and—as current unionization rates can attest—were largely successful.
In more recent years, fossil fuel executives have used bankruptcy filings to tear up collective bargaining agreements and short workers on their health care and pensions, all the while ensuring executives come out with bonuses. And as The New York Times reported recently, many fossil fuel companies are shirking responsibilities to clean up abandoned wells leaking prodigious amounts of heat-trapping methane and other toxins into the atmosphere and surrounding communities. Such remediation work could furnish jobs for these companies’ laid-off workers. Instead, hundreds of thousands of workers are already losing work with no plan for what comes next.


newrepublic--2020-07-21--John Lewis’s “Good Trouble” Is Happening in the Streets Right Now

Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , a local study by the Minneapolis Tribune asked Minnesotans whether white Americans should feel guilty following King ’ s assassination .
Eighty-nine percent of respondents answered “ No.
” When asked to explain their reasoning , 28 percent of those people said it was because they had “ No involvement with assassination or with Negro problem in general ” while another 11 percent said the shooting was , “ King ’ s ( Negroes ’ ) own fault—was just stirring up trouble.
” King , whose radicalism has also been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans in his lifetime as a threat and agitator .
“ The historic debate between advocates of nonviolence and self-defense obscures the reality that nonviolent civil disobedience received widespread condemnation by both defenders of segregation and moderates who personally disapproved of Jim Crow , ” Peniel Joseph , the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin , wrote for The Washington Post in 2018 .
“ Both groups criticized the protest tactics designed to eradicate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lewis and their contemporaries in the civil rights movement , their strategy of nonviolence did not shield them from being attacked by white conservatives and moderates alike as incendiary and dangerous .
This same framework continues to be applied today to people still fighting for their lives and basic dignity .
The condemnations of the tactics used and demands made in national uprisings in defense of Black lives are the most immediate and urgent example we have right now , but the recent history on this is long : When protesters rose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s immigration policies , they were asked to “ sit down ” and informed that they were “ not paying attention.
” The water protectors at Standing Rock , outgunned by a militarized police force , were greeted with political inaction by a Democratic White House until global coverage , spurred by the work of Native organizers , forced the hand of the Obama Administration—an ostensible victory swiftly undermined by a new president and bills in state legislatures that outlawed pipeline protests .
For nearly a decade now , the Movement for Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racist and lethal police brutality and state harm against Black people and communities .
They have been met with open contempt and violence to their right and condescension and pragmatic tisk tisking by liberals trying to explain what they really mean or should be doing instead of taking to the streets .
Every time , the call is the same : for justice and equality .
And every time , the institutional response is the same : You ’ re asking for too much , too fast .
This was true in Lewis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
There are movement leaders and regular people in the streets today whose demands are being ridiculed and demeaned on the same terms .
Whose bodies are being brutalized in the same ways .
Even where real progress has been made , with such a heavy debt to be paid to people like Lewis , there is still so far left to travel .
In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd , a Yahoo News/YouGov poll asked whether race played a major factor in Floyd ’ s death .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ did , compared to just 55 percent of white Americans .
And while 78 percent of respondents felt that police officer Derek Chauvin deserved to be charged for killing Floyd , when asked about police brutality more broadly , 35 percent of all Americans and 40 percent of white Americans felt that the police are currently using the proper amount of force .
This is the fight that faces the nation now .
Too many people are content with the status quo when the status quo is still wildly unjust .
And even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American industries and governments were constructed around a foundation of white supremacy , there are clear limitations on what they deem acceptable responses when it comes to dismantling these systems .
It is slowly becoming the norm to call out national political actors , like Steve King for instance , who no longer bother to hide their racism .
What has proven more difficult , though , is the repudiation of the politician that will now publicly state that racism is bad and post a remembrance of Lewis while using their precious chamber @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things Lewis put his body on the line to defend .
This is the work that Lewis leaves us to do , with new hands guiding it .
How will they be remembered ?
What will the history books get right and wrong about this moment ?
Will we let them ?

Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a local study by The Minneapolis Tribune asked Minnesotans whether white Americans should feel guilty following King’s assassination. Eighty-nine percent of respondents answered “No.” When asked to explain their reasoning, 28 percent of those people said it was because they had “No involvement with assassination or with Negro problem in general,” while another 11 percent said the shooting was “King’s (Negroes’) own fault—was just stirring up trouble.”
King, whose radicalism has also been whitewashed posthumously, was seen by white Americans in his lifetime as a threat and an agitator. “The historic debate between advocates of nonviolence and self-defense obscures the reality that nonviolent civil disobedience received widespread condemnation by both defenders of segregation and moderates who personally disapproved of Jim Crow,” Peniel Joseph of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, wrote for The Washington Post in 2018. “Both groups criticized the protest tactics designed to eradicate that evil system.” For King, Lewis and their contemporaries in the civil rights movement, their strategy of nonviolence did not shield them from being attacked by white conservatives and moderates alike as incendiary and dangerous.
This same framework continues to be applied today to people still fighting for their lives and basic dignity. The condemnations of the tactics used and demands made in national uprisings in defense of Black lives are the most immediate and urgent example we have right now, but the recent history on this is long: When protesters rose to decry the shortcomings in President Obama’s immigration policies, they were asked to “sit down” and informed that they were “not paying attention.” The water protectors at Standing Rock, outgunned by a militarized police force, were greeted with political inaction by a Democratic White House until global coverage, spurred by the work of Native organizers, forced the hand of the Obama administration—an ostensible victory swiftly undermined by a new president and bills in state legislatures that outlawed pipeline protests. For nearly a decade now, the Movement for Black Lives has organized a national movement against racist and lethal police brutality and state harm of Black people and communities. It has been met with open contempt and violence to its right and condescension and pragmatic tsk-tsking by liberals trying to explain what it really means or should be doing instead of taking to the streets.


newrepublic--2020-07-21--Unsolved Mysteries Is a Story of American Television’s Evolution

Unsolved Mysteries was made in the opposite style .
Its episodes spooled through schlocky reenactments done by actors ( including Matthew McConaughey , in his first credited screen role ) , extracting maximum drama from minimal fact .
One segment , building on the era ’ s “ Satanic Panic , ” argued that a teenage boy ’ s suicide was a Dungeons and Dragons–based murder plot .
By the time home footage became a part of TV ’ s language ( Candid Camera , etc . )
, those who might have watched Unsolved Mysteries were switching to fiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ UFO-enthusiast market as soon as it aired in 1993 , and helped mold anti-government conspiracy speculation into its own entertainment genre .
Unsolved Mysteries—a show that despite its fantastical mix of genres saw 260 of its featured cases later resolved , sometimes through viewer tips , according to The New York Times—simply didn ’ t feel novel anymore .
Elsewhere on television , a new genre with a different and more compelling spin on blurring fact and fiction would soon undercut the whole mystery genre : reality TV .
From Judge Judy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World , American entertainment in the 1990s took all that was most engaging about mystery documentary shows ( real personalities , real stakes , a constant revolving door of content ) and made it personal .
Where shows like Unsolved Mysteries or Forensic Files had run on a strange mix of voyeurism and altruism , with the viewer at home playing star witness , reality television would run on voyeurism alone—while proving easier and less expensive to make than documentaries .
The rise of true crime in recent years makes a lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nonfiction television programming had become by the end of the 2010s .
In 2009 , for example , when recession and the prospect of perpetual war were rocking the United States , viewers looking for “ real life ” content were offered bafflingly stylized , even surreal shows like Cops , Jersey Shore , Teen Mom , and Toddlers and Tiaras .
Quality documentary television was rare .
The decades-long progression from reenactments to amateur video footage and reality TV is , in part , a history of what makes on-screen events seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But it ’ s also , in Netflix ’ s hands , data for an ever-churning algorithm—a way of predicting the next success .
The new Unsolved Mysteries feels precision-engineered for a 2020 audience—long-form , detailed , and bingeable—but devoid of all the flair and atmosphere that made the original seem untrue and yet interesting to watch .
Now there is no presenter or voiceover , and each hourlong episode focuses on a single , reality-style mystery ; more like the chilling , unbelievable truth of The Jinx than the swirling dry ice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ episodes , five revolve around people whose mysterious deaths were never solved , and one is about a UFO sighting .
We meet the families of murder victims , see photos of their lost beloveds , and in one case hear what it ’ s like to discover your own brother ’ s body rotting in a rural ditch .
Shawn Levy , who made Arrival , Night at the Museum , and Stranger Things—also for Netflix , and also rooted in the genre we could call “ 1980s paranormal ” —is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press notes distributed by Netflix , he wrote that his new program “ is very loyal to the things we all love about the [ Unsolved Mysteries ] brand , ” citing its blend of supernatural with criminal topics and his retention of the old theme tune .
This reference to the show ’ s “ brand ” reveals something hollow at the core of the reboot , a kind of cynical nostalgia out of sync with today ’ s sensibilities .
The final episode , “ Missing Witness , ” for example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother almost certainly killed her .
The dead girl ’ s sister says to the camera that she will devote her life to bringing her mother to justice .
The previous episode was all about a group of people who claim , without much evidence , to have seen an enormous unidentified aircraft in September 1961 .
That contrast—between a murdered child and a spaceship—feels much more jarring than similar contrasts in the original show , in part because this show ’ s new framing is otherwise very serious and intimate .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dark , schlock and the human heart—is just plain strange , as if some robot at Netflix HQ were commissioned to create the most engaging possible TV show but had his empathy screw left loose .
Being unable to choose one documentary approach and stick with it , the new Unsolved Mysteries turns out to be a curiously soulless product that will leave viewers suspecting that one of their basest instincts ( voyeurism ) has been exploited in the name of one of their noblest ( the desire to solve crimes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward justice ) .
There ’ s nothing more ethical or truthful about this show compared to its predecessor—its production is simply “ truthier ” in style .
We ’ re all smarter , more suspicious consumers of true crime than we were five years ago ; we know now that DNA testing is a highly politicized technology , for example , and that Netflix will happily play fast and loose with the facts if it rakes in more viewers .
In today ’ s world , where cold case files are more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the criminal justice system than a tangent on alien abductions , Unsolved Mysteries smacks of yesterday ’ s news .

“What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.” So ran the voiceover at the start of each episode of the classic 1980s Unsolved Mysteries, a pioneer docuseries thriving at the intersection of the factual and fantastical. Now Netflix has revived the show, adjusting its format for contemporary tastes and hoping to capitalize, presumably, on the true-crime revival that has swept podcasting (Serial), publishing (I’ll Be Gone in the Dark), and television (too many to list) in recent years. But TV has moved on from the theatrical ’80s vibe of the original series. The reboot—imitating a show that relied on mass moral panic to justify covering alien sightings side by side with child sexual assault—is fatally confused about where its allegiances lie.
While the original Unsolved Mysteries needed the opening disclaimer to distinguish itself from news broadcasts, news is where it got its start. In 1985, NBC ran a series of surprise-hit specials called Missing: Have You Seen This Person? Several of the featured cases were solved by the American everyman watching at home, and a new kind of television show came to life. Sensing a golden opportunity to expand their hit specials into more profitable long-form entertainment, the Missing: Have You Seen This Person? producers Terry Dunn Meurer and John Cosgrove came up with a formula for a consumer-friendly, somewhat battier weekly version. They added a dignified presenter in a trenchcoat named Robert Stack (whom you may know from his role as Eliot Ness in NBC’s The Untouchables) and mixed the missing persons cases in with UFOs, wild speculation about the Freemasons, and stories about criminals on the run to watch out for in your local supermarket.


newrepublic--2020-07-21--The Ultimate White Fragility

The Ultimate White Fragility

The Public Religion Research Institute has periodically posed this question : “ Today discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities ( do you completely agree , mostly agree , mostly disagree , or completely disagree ? )
.
” In the most recent published survey in September 2019 , 17 percent agreed completely , 25 percent mostly agreed , 26 percent mostly disagreed , and 32 percent completely disagreed .
In their commentary , PRRI researchers said : Approximately two-thirds of Republicans agree both that discrimination against whites has become as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blacks ( 69 % ) and that immigrants are invading the country and changing American culture ( 63 % ) .
Independents ( 43 % and 31 % ) and Democrats ( 21 % and 20 % ) are much less likely to agree with either of these statements .
More than three-quarters of Republicans who rely on Fox News as their primary news source agree that whites face discrimination similar to black racism ( 77 % ) and that immigrants are invading the country ( 78 % ) , compared to smaller @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fox News is their primary news source ( 63 % and 52 % ) .
Nearly half of whites ( 49 % ) , compared to only 23 % of black Americans and 30 % of Hispanic Americans , think so-called reverse discrimination is a big problem… .
A majority of whites without college degrees ( 57 % ) , compared to just over one-third ( 36 % ) of whites with college degrees , agree that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks .
Americans ages 65 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans ages 18-29 to agree that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against black Americans and other minorities ( 46 % vs. 34 % ) .
Also in 2019 , a HuffPost/YouGov poll asked people : “ Just your impression , in the United States today , is there a lot of discrimination against white people , or not ?
” Overall , 36 percent of respondents said yes with 46 percent saying no .
Not surprisingly , 63 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Trump voters agreed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 13 percent of Clinton voters also agreed .
More surprisingly , 20 percent of blacks and 34 percent of Hispanics also said that there is a lot of racial discrimination against whites .
( Of course , many Hispanics identify primarily as white . )
A Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape poll conducted from late May to early June 2020 found a quarter of Republicans saying that whites are heavily discriminated against .
( An analysis of these survey findings is available at FiveThirtyEight . )
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ For each of the following groups , please tell me whether you feel that they are receiving too many special advantages , receiving fair treatment or are being discriminated against.
” Among white voters , 17 percent said that whites are being discriminated against ; six percent of black voters and nine percent of Hispanic voters agreed that whites suffer from discrimination .
Over the last 10 years , the issue of reverse racism and its social and political implications have drawn extensive interest from social scientists .
The most well-known study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ R. Sommers of the Harvard Business School and Tufts University , respectively , in 2011 .
They found that whites increasingly viewed racial prejudice as a zero-sum game—reduced bias against black citizens automatically led to increased bias against their white counterparts .
As the chart from their article shows , perceived discrimination against whites by both whites and blacks rose as discrimination against blacks was perceived to have fallen .
( This analysis is available through Tufts University . )
Further studies in 2014 , 2015 , and 2016 confirmed that many whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zero-sum game .
However , the latest study , published last year , was more skeptical of this trend .
Nevertheless , the idea of zero-sum racial discrimination is very popular in the Republican Party .
Then-Senator Jeff Sessions expressed the widely held GOP sentiment in 2009 when he said , “ Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.
” Former Republican Rep. Michele Bachman put it this way in a 2016 interview regarding LGBT rights : So when you ’ re part of a favored group , then you get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That ’ s the very form of tyranny because when government supposedly gives something — government has nothing to give , they have to take it away from other people .
So when they give it to that certain group , that means , by definition , they ’ re taking it away from you !
The right-wing Daily Mail newspaper in Britain has hyperbolically declared that reverse racism is now killing the careers of every middle-aged white man in Hollywood .
It quoted one unnamed source describing the atmosphere as “ more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and producer Jordan Peele was singled out for declaring that he no longer wished to cast “ a white dude as the lead in my movie.
” However , given the paucity of black directors in Hollywood , even if they all banned white actors from every leading role in their movies it would only have a trivial impact on the employment prospects of such actors .
This is only the latest attack on efforts to improve diversity in Hollywood .
In 2016 , the actress Charlotte Rampling declared that broadening Academy Award @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ racist to whites.
” She suggested that many of the minority actors receiving affirmative action nominations simply didn ’ t deserve them .

The Public Religion Research Institute has periodically posed this question: “Today discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities (do you completely agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree, or completely disagree?).” In the most recent published survey, in September 2019, 17 percent agreed completely, 25 percent mostly agreed, 26 percent mostly disagreed, and 32 percent completely disagreed. In their commentary, PRRI researchers said:
Approximately two-thirds of Republicans agree both that discrimination against whites has become as much of a problem as discrimination against blacks (69%) and that immigrants are invading the country and changing American culture (63%). Independents (43% and 31%) and Democrats (21% and 20%) are much less likely to agree with either of these statements. More than three-quarters of Republicans who rely on Fox News as their primary news source agree that whites face discrimination similar to black racism (77%) and that immigrants are invading the country (78%), compared to smaller majorities of Republicans who do not say Fox News is their primary news source (63% and 52%). Nearly half of whites (49%), compared to only 23% of black Americans and 30% of Hispanic Americans, think so-called reverse discrimination is a big problem.… A majority of whites without college degrees (57%), compared to just over one-third (36%) of whites with college degrees, agree that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks. Americans ages 65 and older are more likely than younger Americans ages 18–29 to agree that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against black Americans and other minorities (46% vs. 34%).
Also in 2019, a HuffPost/YouGov poll asked people: “Just your impression, in the United States today, is there a lot of discrimination against white people, or not?” Overall, 36 percent of respondents said yes, with 46 percent saying no. Not surprisingly, 63 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Trump voters agreed, while 19 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of Clinton voters also agreed. More surprisingly, 20 percent of blacks and 34 percent of Hispanics also said that there is a lot of racial discrimination against whites. (Of course, many Hispanics identify primarily as white.)
A Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape poll conducted from late May to early June 2020 found a quarter of Republicans saying that whites are heavily discriminated against. (An analysis of these survey findings is available at FiveThirtyEight.)


newrepublic--2020-07-21--Trump Has Brought America’s Dirty Wars Home

As many commentators have noted , these moves come right out of the playbook of foreign strongmen .
But the history of the Office of Public Safety , created to support counterinsurgency around the globe during the Cold War , demonstrates that Trump ’ s ardor for authoritarian force has long-standing , homegrown roots .
That history also provides some sobering lessons : Every time the type of operations depicted in the Office of Public Safety ’ s film went awry during the Cold War , and popular insurgencies flared , severe and indiscriminate state violence ensued .
The result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , death squads , forced disappearances , and massacres .
The question before the country today is just how much of this sequence is now unfolding at home .
Counterinsurgency is supposed to be preventive .
Once a full-blown insurgency breaks out , it can be difficult to extinguish .
Occasionally , it even leads to regime change—just look at Lyndon Johnson , toppled by an insurgency in Vietnam .
The security tactics required to control a roiling political movement intent on taking power are necessarily escalatory .
The logic is simple : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to support them .
Therefore , preventing them from gaining adherents among the population is paramount .
In the process , regular people end up becoming the state ’ s targets .
If you support the insurgents , you ’ re a target .
If you seem inclined to support the insurgents , you ’ re a target .
The only way to avoid becoming a target is to offer fulsome support for the ruling regime and its forces .
But , as classical counterinsurgency theory admits , supporting the regime can make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ergo , insurgents ’ terror is met with governments ’ counterterror .
The counterterror is always worse .
After departing Guatemala in 1968 , a State Department official named Viron P. Vaky , horrified by what occurred under his watch , sent his colleagues a pained memorandum titled “ Guatemala and Counter-Terror.
” How , he wondered , had it come to this ?
Was it because liberals ( like himself ) were too credulous of the revolutionary threat posed by the far left that they gave license to the far right and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the consequences were clear to Vaky .
Guatemala ’ s counterterror was “ corrosive , ” “ indiscriminate , ” and “ brutal.
” Counterterror frequently took the form of forced disappearance in cities .
This appalling technique allowed no closure for the family of the disappeared , who were left wondering if their loved one would someday return .
With no body , there was no evidence of a murder but also no possibility of a funeral or mourning ritual .
Guatemalan trade unionists and students were among the first targets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and thought to be persuadable by the hidden Communist fifth column .
In some cases , counterterror came at the hands of state forces .
One government innovation in Guatemala was tossing suspected Communists out of helicopters flying over the sea .
Far-right militants in Portland have been spotted wearing shirts that laud this very tactic .
But increasingly , they are dressing just like the DHS officers , give or take a Hawaiian shirt .
Sometimes counterterror came at the hands of loosely organized paramilitaries , especially in the countryside .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a 2,000-man peasant paramilitary force the Guatemalan government created , “ Although untrained , undisciplined , and indiscriminate in their operations , the amateur deputies were credited with much of the success of the campaign.
” This study concluded , however , that “ heavy-handed techniques ” by other “ undercover agents ” were “ too clumsy to be very effective , and resulted in generating opposition to the government from normally nonpolitical elements of the population.
” Often , it was simply unclear who was behind the counterterror because the shadowy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ squads composed of off-duty police or soldiers ?
Were they employees of elites and landowners ?
Were they people you knew from the neighborhood ?
Across Latin America during the Cold War , particularly in the military dictatorships like Argentina , fears that your neighbor might be a member of a vigilante death squad were more plausible than the propaganda claims that your neighbor could be a Communist subversive .
In Argentina , death squads drove Ford Falcons , the country ’ s most popular car , which meant that one of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ d never see your family ever again , or it could mean nothing at all .
To this day , the sight of a vintage Falcon can cause an older Argentine heart to skip a beat .

In 1963, the U.S. Agency for International Development released a training film for police called First Line of Defense. Designed to teach cops from Third World countries how to recognize the signs of an impending Communist revolution—and to repress this political subversion with alacrity—it depicts an ersatz Communist gang that arrives on the scene by covering the city with graffiti. The film makes it clear that without a targeted defensive intervention by police, this limited misrule could be the first fitful step in a full-blown guerrilla insurgency. Otherwise a sober and didactic affair, the film contained one joke. The gang’s symbol, daubed on city walls, was “O/PS,” which also happened to be the name of the outfit behind the film, the Office of Public Safety, the CIA-linked foreign police training arm of the U.S. government at the height of the Cold War.
In mid-June, when the Trump administration rolled out its executive order in support of law enforcement, the White House referred to police as the “first line of defense here at home.” Ten days later, another executive order proclaimed that “American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues” must be protected from dangerous “Anarchists and left-wing extremists.” Although the orders read more like executive branch shit-posts, these laid the foundation for the Trump administration to use federal law enforcement officers to wage new domestic war against civilians.


newrepublic--2020-07-22--Donald Trump Is Devouring His Country

Donald Trump Is Devouring His Country

Through it all , Trump ’ s tweets and damply volatile public presence have always been just what they were ; the sheer bulk of the man ’ s damage has always crowded out subtext .
There was never any chance that he would grow with or into his important new job , and he has never even suggested otherwise .
He has had exactly the presidency that his public life would suggest—a brazen win , followed by an inevitable decline born of laziness and pure hubristic dipshittery , and finally a catastrophic and vehemently denied collapse .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story of his presidency .
But the pressures behind Trump ’ s failure did more than reiterate how manifestly incapable he is of doing the job he backed into four years ago .
They brought every discordance that made this moment possible into harmony .
The country has , belatedly and perhaps inevitably , come to mirror its leader .
America itself was as uncanny and arbitrary and disastrously stupid as the president it elected on the day that it put Trump in office—just as angry , just as confused , just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only been in these last few bottomed-out weeks , though , that it has truly come to feel like him .
Trump ’ s monotonous days have proceeded as usual even as the nation has staggered into a slow-rolling slog through preventable illness and death , and economic collapse , and paroxysms of unaccountable state violence .
There has been not just no growth , but no change .
It ’ s unclear at this point whether Trump even likes the things he does most often , which are gossip on the phone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ berate the doll-eyed careerists and clammy grifters who come and go through his offices , watch television , play golf , and eat the sort of high-end catered luxury fare that has been congealing on country club steam tables since Gerald Ford was president .
But this , too , scarcely matters : They are just the things he does because they are what he believes rich men do .
That there is nothing really animating them—no desire beyond the cessation of an unceasing insecurity , no pleasure beyond the knowledge that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everyone else has one—is what keeps them constant and has held them all fast for decades .
There ’ s nothing he really wants , beyond credit and praise , and there ’ s no sense that he even really wants either of these beyond his fear of their opposite numbers .
Still , how much Trump wanted the dumb things he wanted is the single biggest reason he is in office today .
Not wanting anything else , he has mostly just sat there since , watching himself on television and following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And there he stands still , very much at the center of things and with no remarks prepared , canted forward at an unusual angle and squinting .
He can do no other .
It has long been clear that Trump understands the presidency as primarily being America ’ s Boss , and as such , a job to which he was entitled due to all the tremendous success he ’ d been having .
So those CEOs come in with their hosannas , and the executive orders go out with their impatient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the television , and then it happens again , and then again after that until the weekend .
Occasionally he trudges before television cameras gleaming like a caramel apple to talk about how he made the toilets better and more like before , or flutters pale eyelids while blearily reciting misremembered Fox News headlines , but just as often his schedule is blank .
The actual work of the job was not so much abandoned as long-evaded ; the old dopey grievances that fill his days are the only things that fill them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to discredit , the little feuds and grandiose conspiracies he rides and dismounts , the high-summer cable news folderol like the brief and preposterous culture war posturing over Goya-brand beans—a kerfuffle touched off by the company ’ s CEO making an especially obsequious White House visit—are all tasks he transparently cares much more about than managing a pandemic or even overseeing his loyal shock troops ’ progress in teargassing civilians in the Pacific Northwest .
Only the greasy culture war stuff is really real to him , because that ’ s the only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Where slavish devotion to Trump can stand in as a metonym for virtue— “ There are only two options when # CancelCulture comes for you : courage or surrender , ” Heritage Action , the overcaffeinated public arm of the Heritage Foundation , tweeted during the Goya flap .
“ Only one will guarantee that our country and freedom survive .
# Goya ” —Trump is interested .
Where his actions might benefit other people he is notably , reliably , helplessly not .
For decades , Trump has woken up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him the day before and spent his waking hours running from and denying it .
It should have ruined him , but the cushion of his wealth and blithe sociopathy , combined with a culture built to protect people just as defective as him , all conspired to prevent that outcome .
Now Trump ’ s self-imposed regimen of chaos for chaos ’ s sake is doing its best to ruin everything else .
Of course it feels bad .
The thing to do is to fight against it , and it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ; the widespread protests that began after the police murder of George Floyd are by now the largest and most sustained in the nation ’ s history .
Trump and the institutions loyal to him still have it in their power to deal out and evade responsibility for immense and terrifying violence .
Some of the unreality of everyday life in Trump ’ s America stems both from how unprecedented the movement against all this is and the latent threat arrayed against it from a state that can no longer really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But there is also a clue as to how things slipped so devastatingly out of joint buried in Trump ’ s undignified and uninterrupted normality .

But this, too, scarcely matters: They are just the things he does because they are what he believes rich men do. That there is nothing really animating them—no desire beyond the cessation of an unceasing insecurity, no pleasure beyond the knowledge that he has two scoops of ice cream where everyone else has one—is what keeps them constant and has held them all fast for decades. There’s nothing he really wants, beyond credit and praise, and there’s no sense that he even really wants either of these beyond his fear of their opposite numbers. Still, how much Trump wanted the dumb things he wanted is the single biggest reason he is in office today. Not wanting anything else, he has mostly just sat there since, watching himself on television and following various numbers up and then down. And there he stands still, very much at the center of things and with no remarks prepared, canted forward at an unusual angle and squinting. He can do no other.
It has long been clear that Trump understands the presidency as primarily being America’s Boss, and as such, a job to which he was entitled due to all the tremendous success he’d been having. So those CEOs come in with their hosannas, and the executive orders go out with their impatient executive responses to what he sees on the television, and then it happens again, and then again after that until the weekend. Occasionally he trudges before television cameras gleaming like a caramel apple to talk about how he made the toilets better and more like before, or flutters pale eyelids while blearily reciting misremembered Fox News headlines, but just as often his schedule is blank. The actual work of the job was not so much abandoned as long-evaded; the old dopey grievances that fill his days are the only things that fill them. The government scientists he jealously works to discredit, the little feuds and grandiose conspiracies he rides and dismounts, the high-summer cable news folderol like the brief and preposterous culture war posturing over Goya-brand beans—a kerfuffle touched off by the company’s CEO making an especially obsequious White House visit—are all tasks he transparently cares much more about than managing a pandemic or even overseeing his loyal shock troops’ progress in teargassing civilians in the Pacific Northwest.
Only the greasy culture war stuff is really real to him, because that’s the only part that’s explicitly about him. Where slavish devotion to Trump can stand in as a metonym for virtue—“There are only two options when #CancelCulture comes for you: courage or surrender,” Heritage Action, the overcaffeinated public arm of the Heritage Foundation, tweeted during the Goya flap. “Only one will guarantee that our country and freedom survive. #Goya”—Trump is interested. Where his actions might benefit other people he is notably, reliably, helplessly not.


newrepublic--2020-07-22--How to Make a Deadly Pandemic in Indian Country

This is how the cycle of Native invisibility works .
The United States signed treaties with hundreds of tribal nations , offering specific resources and services for the land .
America has failed repeatedly to abide by its own laws , and once again , tribal nations are pointing this out .
But these treaties remain an afterthought to too many in Congress and in the mainstream media , and subsequently the American public , because acknowledging the treaties means acknowledging that they are the foundation of cyclical crises in Indian Country .
The pandemic is just the latest example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic wreaked havoc in Indian Country , killing an estimated 24 percent of the Diné population .
In South Dakota , the Pine Ridge Reservation accounted for 13 percent of the state ’ s deaths despite the Oglala people only making up five percent of the population .
Entire Alaska Native villages , like that of Point Possession , were decimated .
On the whole , Native people suffered a death rate that was reported to be four times the global average .
This trend extended to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 1990s , and early 2000s , when the infection rate among the general Native population was over four times that of the rest of America .
Starting in 2007 , there was a reported syphilis outbreak in a southwestern tribe that required CDC and IHS intervention .
And over the past half-century , diabetes , which was previously never reported as a public health issue in Indian Country , skyrocketed to become the fourth-most leading cause of death for Natives peoples , afflicting double the amount of Native citizens compared to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was no different .
By mid-May , the Navajo Nation , with 23.04 cases per 1,000 people , surpassed New York with the highest rate of per capita infections in the entire nation .
By the end of May , a reported 248 people had died from the virus .
( The following month , the White Mountain Apache Tribe passed the Navajo Nation in per capita infections , with a rate of 64.6 cases per 1,000 people . )
In late May , the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public health experts , including Dr. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear , a UCLA sociology professor and citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe .
Reviewing publicly available data on Native communities in Oklahoma , the article found that lack of indoor plumbing and running water , combined with language barriers , were the top indicators as to why Indian Country was being hit so hard by the coronavirus .
“ It ’ s a preliminary paper , but we also wanted it to be may be made readily available , ” Rodriguez-Lonebear told me .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s findings were particularly shocking—washing your hands has been centered as an essential personal hygiene practice , so it tracks that the lack of running water and indoor plumbing would contribute to higher rates of infection .
Similarly , with much of the public health messaging being distributed in English , tribal citizens that mainly speak and read their language were at a disadvantage .
“ Oftentimes , you know your findings aren ’ t super novel , ” Rodriguez-Lonebear said .
“ But it ’ s important to have them to back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” But , crucially , the article did not stop there .
It also pointed to the reason why these conditions existed .
“ Funding investments in tribal public health and household infrastructure , as delineated in treaties and other agreements , are necessary to protect American Indian communities , ” the authors concluded .
A Washington Post piece detailing the centuries-long history of epidemics striking Indian Country harder than American communities did not mention the factor of broken treaties or trust responsibilities once , concluding merely that “ European colonialism and capitalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of native communities.
” A CNN article looking specifically at chronic underfunding of health care facilities also failed to include a corresponding analysis of the legal agreements that secured health care for tribal citizens .
A splashy feature in The New York Times made sure to note that “ several factors—including a high prevalence of diseases like diabetes , scarcity of running water , and homes with several generations living under the same roof—have enabled the virus to spread with exceptional speed , ” without pointing to the reasons for those factors .

This is how the cycle of Native invisibility works. The United States signed treaties with hundreds of tribal nations, offering specific resources and services for the land. America has failed repeatedly to abide by its own laws, and once again, tribal nations are pointing this out. But these treaties remain an afterthought to too many in Congress and in the mainstream media, and consequently the American public, because acknowledging the treaties means acknowledging that they are the foundation of cyclical crises in Indian Country. The pandemic is just the latest example of this cycle playing out in real time.
The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic wreaked havoc in Indian Country, killing an estimated 24 percent of the Diné population. In South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation accounted for 13 percent of the state’s deaths, despite the Oglala people only making up 5 percent of the population. Entire Alaska Native villages, like that of Point Possession, were decimated. On the whole, Native people suffered a death rate that was reported to be four times the global average.
This trend extended to more recent tuberculosis outbreaks in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, when the infection rate among the general Native population was over four times that of the rest of America. Starting in 2007, there was a reported syphilis outbreak in a southwestern tribe that required intervention from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Indian Health Service. And over the past half-century, diabetes, which was previously never reported as a public health issue in Indian Country, has skyrocketed to become the fourth leading cause of death for Native peoples, afflicting Native citizens at almost double the rate among the non-Hispanic white population.


newrepublic--2020-07-22--The Desolate Visions of Andy Warhol

The Desolate Visions of Andy Warhol

Interviewer : Andy , do you feel that the public has insulted your art ?
AW : Uh , well , I hadn ’ t thought about it .
I : It doesn ’ t bother you at all then ?
I : Well , do you think that they have shown a lack of appreciation for what pop art means ?
I : Andy , do you think that pop art has sort of reached the point where it ’ s becoming repetitious now ?
I : Do you think it should break away from being pop art ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ carry on ?
Wayne Koestenbaum ( who wrote his own Warhol bio in 2001 ) notes that Warhol ’ s caginess is “ poised between happiness and sadness , between a speedy emptiness and a lethargic fullness.
” That ambivalence characterized Warhol ’ s whole artistic approach , as well as his image .
His iconic wig , sunglasses , and leather jacket remixed masculinity and femininity into an asexual drag that nonetheless imparted the erotic subtext of 1950s biker culture .
Thematically , Warhol occupied “ a middle zone between establishment and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being scorned by both , ” Gopnik writes .
Few figures today toggle between high and low , mainstream and alternative , radical and passé with the same fluidity .
This was by design , and was arguably a byproduct of Warhol ’ s sexuality .
As Gopnik suggests , without the “ tensions and complications ” of his homosexuality , Warhol “ would never have become the great and enigmatic artist he was.
” Even as a successful commercial illustrator in New York in the 1950s , Warhol privately produced delicate line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 1952 , when he took that work to the Tanager Gallery , an artist co-op in the East Village , the gallery told him it wouldn ’ t associate with such louche pictures .
( Earlier that year , at another gallery uptown , Warhol had a short-lived exhibition of art inspired by Truman Capote ; the show was panned . )
Like many gay men then ( and now ) , Warhol invented his identity from matinées and Hollywood tell-alls .
He was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh , in 1928 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Austria-Hungary .
His parents were devout Byzantine Catholics , although , as Gopnik notes , Warhol was less religious than some accounts suggest .
( He observed Good Friday of 1977 by screening Carrie . )
Two events from his childhood cast long psychic and artistic shadows .
The first was a bout of rheumatic fever that progressed into Sydenham ’ s chorea ( then called St. Vitus ’ Dance ) , which Warhol suffered at the end of third grade .
The condition caused rapid , involuntary muscle spasms .
According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may also correlate to psychological disorders later in life , including obsessive-compulsive behaviors and body dysmorphia , both of which Warhol manifested .
His splotchy skin , in particular , tormented him .
The other event was the death of his father , when Warhol was 13 .
This potentially contributed to Warhol ’ s lifelong dread of doctors and hospitals ; at the very least , the Carpatho-Rusyn funeral custom of displaying the body at home for three days disturbed the young artist .
( As an adult , he skipped the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his friends . )
The idea of displaying tragedy was one Warhol seized throughout his career , not only in the Death and Disaster series , but also more personally .
After he was shot by Valerie Solanas in 1968 , he posed for photographer Richard Avedon , capturing for posterity the crosshatched scars and dimpled wreckage of his brush with death .
It ’ s pointless to psychologize , but Warhol ’ s early immersion in disease and death surely made those themes more natural creative preoccupations .
Gopnik ’ s book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a student at the Carnegie Institute of Technology .
The budding artist is depicted almost as a prodigy , intelligent and observant , but also “ very shy and cuddly , very much like a bunny rabbit , ” in the words of a college friend .
As for his art , “ He never had the innate talent for realistic drawing that even many minor artists have , ” Gopnik writes .
What he did have was an innate sense of style , and even playfulness , that caught the eye of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Greyhound to New York in 1949 .
Gopnik evocatively chronicles Warhol ’ s heyday as the city ’ s go-to footwear illustrator , but the bio doesn ’ t really hum until the 1960s—the Factory years .
This is when the familiar pop culture iteration of Warhol took root , the pneumatic blonde sphinx who made all those silkscreens and interminable movies , and whose entourage was a roving madhouse of New York freaks .
Although it ’ s cliché to suggest that Warhol ’ s greatest creation was his own persona , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concocted a public image that was “ unstable , incoherent , and often opaque or off-putting to its witnesses , ” Gopnik writes , adding that Warhol ’ s personality itself was a work of modern art .
Gopnik even pinpoints 1965 as the year Warhol transformed from a “ gum-chewing elf spreading smiles through the land ” to the more evasive “ King of Cool ” that still defines his image .
Warhol ’ s personality wasn ’ t art , nor was his performance of personality art ; his performance of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he was more alienating than Salvador Dali , whose outrageous antics and antennaed mustache had made him the century ’ s other madman genius .
Coming right after the boozy machismo of the Abstract Expressionists , Warhol , with his calculated vacuity , was unclassifiable .
Every new gallery show and gnomic utterance seemed to undermine the seriousness of art as an endeavor .
Gopnik connects Warhol ’ s superstars—the raffish groupies who appeared in his movies and accessorized his parties—to Marcel Duchamp ’ s urinal , the readymade object that rocked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as that was a “ found object , ” Warhol ’ s Factory coterie consisted of “ found people .
”

And that brings us to the desolate terminus of Warhol’s project. Under his anesthetized gaze, ethical subtleties collapse: An autocrat and a bottle of soda can hang side by side on a museum wall in a hollow pretense of democratic art. Warhol’s morality was for hire. His late work represents the “anything goes” ethos of capitalism that was his overarching subject, as well as his livelihood. The critic Gary Indiana said it best in his obituary for Warhol in The Village Voice: “An artist of Warhol’s affluence isn’t faced with starvation if he turns down a commission, say, from Idi Amin, or the Sultan of Brunei. Contrary to the Warhol philosophy, modern life still does require choices.”
Gopnik isn’t particularly interested in Warhol’s moral deliberations. Just as the artist leveled ethical distinctions into particolored mulch, Gopnik breezes through Warhol’s indiscretions. In 1969, for example, Warhol bought a studio complex in the Bowery and evicted its artist-tenants; he never used the space himself. When he rented the property to his friend and collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat in the early 1980s, Warhol worried what would happen if Basquiat turned out to be “a flash in the pan” and couldn’t swing the $4,000 monthly rent. Other examples abound: Warhol filmed Emile de Antonio guzzling a quart of scotch in 20 minutes for the 1965 film Drink, a feat that left de Antonio senseless in front of Warhol’s voyeuristic camera. He once wondered if Edie Sedgwick would commit suicide for him on camera. Even after all this, Gopnik concludes the book on an adulatory note: “If we’re tempted to see the common decency of Warhol’s final years as a late-in-life conversion to virtue, that may be because we’ve failed to understand that he was decent all along.”
Gopnik’s bio tends toward hagiography. One minor example: He writes that Warhol’s collaboration with the three transgender actresses Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis, and Holly Woodlawn helped the artist “stake an early claim to a post-Stonewall culture where being swish became swank, as gay culture moved out of the closet and into the disco.” This strikes me as an overly generous interpretation of Warhol’s role in gay liberation. For one thing, Gopnik acknowledges that Warhol treated the trio “as useful social props” rather than as real friends. Warhol’s 1975 series Ladies and Gentlemen, which featured portraits of cross-dressers, drag queens, and transwomen (including Marsha P. Johnson), is arguably more revolutionary. But even here Warhol’s contribution was complicated. The idea for the series came from the Italian dealer Luciano Anselmino, who paid Warhol $1 million for the commission. The artist dispatched his right-hand man, Bob Colacello, to recruit Black and Hispanic subjects from the Gilded Grape bar in Greenwich Village. Each subject was paid 50 bucks for her half-hour sitting.


newrepublic--2020-07-22--Trump’s Polling Decline Is Tying the Conservative Media in Knots

On Monday , Limbaugh added that Biden could also be brought down by unforeseen events , including an unexpectedly rapid recovery from the coronavirus pandemic .
“ What happens if the numbers start reversing and the number of cases goes way down , the number of deaths goes way down ?
” he asked .
“ Anything can happen between now and Election Day.
” There are at least two major holes in these rationalizations .
The first is that to the extent that polls were misleading in 2016 , it was the state polls—like , for instance , Monmouth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not the national polls that have been the subject of so much attention over the last few weeks .
Clearly , Limbaugh and others are happy to suspend their skepticism about survey research if the results in question can be framed as positive for Trump .
The second is that Limbaugh ’ s position is effectively both that Trump is already doing much better than the polls suggest and also that Trump had better hope that the coronavirus situation improves before November .
To hear Limbaugh tell it , Trump both does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the basic paradox conservative pundits are suspended within , although there are different takes on the events that both would and would not be responsible for a Trump victory .
On Laura Ingraham ’ s show Friday for instance , Fox contributor Sarah Carter argued that Biden ’ s climate plan will turn off struggling business owners once they catch wind of it .
“ That ’ s going to initiate a bundle of regulations and really squeeze the small business owner and the workforce , ” she said .
“ And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re talking about .
These are the people—the American workforce.
” On his show Monday , Sean Hannity focused on recent protests and suggested that Biden supports totally defunding the police .
“ In 106 days , ” he said , “ America—you , the American people—you are the ultimate jury .
And if Biden , and Pelosi , and Schumer , and AOC , and Bolshevik Bernie , and Beto Bozo implement their plans , let me ask you a question : Who will you call when the police have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the balance that these inducements to the base have to strike is to keep voters live to the possibility that Trump might lose , without acknowledging that Trump has politically failed in any meaningful way .
Some of the plays in the blame game are quite familiar now—Fox ’ s Lara Logan told Ingraham Friday that the media and pollsters now giving Trump long odds “ just hate this president , ” and “ will do anything to stop him being reelected.
” We ’ ve also heard Trump say on multiple occasions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic have been engineered to tank the economy and hurt him with voters .
But we have not heard Trump say straightforwardly that he ’ s truly in trouble .
If he doesn ’ t , the conservative press and Republican voters won ’ t acknowledge it either and a Biden victory will be seen as the triumph of undocumented immigrants , the liberal media , and ballot shenanigans over the will of the American majority .
The right ’ s pundits are right about one thing , though—Election Day is still a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s possible that the race will tighten .
Whether Trump will do anything himself to improve his situation remains to be seen .
The conservative press , for all their power , won ’ t be able to do it for him .

“That’s going to initiate a bundle of regulations and really squeeze the small business owner and the workforce,” she said. “And that’s the restaurateurs that you’re talking about. These are the people—the American workforce.” On his show Monday, Sean Hannity focused on recent protests and suggested that Biden supports totally defunding the police. “In 106 days,” he said, “America—you, the American people—you are the ultimate jury. And if Biden, and Pelosi, and Schumer, and AOC, and Bolshevik Bernie, and Beto Bozo implement their plans, let me ask you a question: Who will you call when the police have been defunded and dismantled?”
Again, the balance that these inducements to the base have to strike is to keep voters live to the possibility that Trump might lose, without acknowledging that Trump has politically failed in any meaningful way. Some of the plays in the blame game are quite familiar now—Fox’s Lara Logan told Ingraham Friday that the media and pollsters now giving Trump long odds “just hate this president,” and “will do anything to stop him being reelected.” We’ve also heard Trump say on multiple occasions that the shutdowns in response to the pandemic have been engineered to tank the economy and hurt him with voters. But we have not heard Trump say straightforwardly that he’s truly in trouble. If he doesn’t, the conservative press and Republican voters won’t acknowledge it either, and a Biden victory will be seen as the triumph of undocumented immigrants, the liberal media, and ballot shenanigans over the will of the American majority.
The right’s pundits are right about one thing, though—Election Day is still a good while away, and it’s possible that the race will tighten. Whether Trump will do anything himself to improve his situation remains to be seen. The conservative press, for all their power, won’t be able to do it for him.


newrepublic--2020-07-22--Donald Trump Has Permanently Changed the Publishing Industry

Since 2017 , a great number of bestsellers have been published about President Trump .
Michael Wolff ’ s Fire and Fury , published in early 2018 , has sold several million copies .
( Its less splashy sequel , Siege , was also a bestseller the following year , though it lagged far behind its predecessor . )
Bob Woodward ’ s Fear sold 1.1 million copies its first week .
James Comey ’ s A Higher Loyalty sold 600,000 in its first week .
These mega-bestsellers have been surrounded by a host of other , more modest hits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite being available for free—and despite the fact that every news outlet in the country covered its key findings in strenuous detail .
On the anti-Trump front , there have been books like A Warning , written by an anonymous Trump administration official ; A Very Stable Genius , written by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Lenning ; and Unhinged , an account of former Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman ’ s time in the White House .
There have , at the same time , been a great number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Triggered , Gregg Jarrett ’ s The Russia Hoax , and Judge Jeanine Pirro ’ s Liars , Leakers , and Liberals , among a great many others .
Though they are overshadowed by their splashier counterparts , Trump is very much driving sales on the right as well .
“ In the political science area , we ’ ve seen a high level of engagement with these books since the beginning of the Trump administration , ” McLean said .
“ While every administration has books written about and for different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretty strong uptick in the number of books that have been written , both on the right and the left , since 2016 .
Just generally , I think the current polarization of the culture is driving a lot of book sales on all sides.
” The success of a number of other bestsellers—Michelle Obama ’ s Becoming and a host of anti-racist books , including How to Be an Antiracist and the ever-controversial White Fragility—can certainly be tied , albeit only to an extent , to the current president and the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This Trump Effect is even manifesting itself in sales of print copies of the U.S. Constitution .
Sales of our nation ’ s founding document , consistently brisk on the political right—the rise of the Tea Party inspired purchases long before Trump came on the scene—have exploded since Trump took office .
In fact , there have been dramatic spikes among buyers of the Constitution at key moments of Trump ’ s political career : the 2016 Republican National Convention , the presidential election , Trump ’ s inauguration , the white supremacist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the beginning and end of the impeachment hearings .
I once asked a publishing executive why there was no liberal equivalent of the highly partisan conservative imprints that regularly produce bestsellers for conglomerate publishers .
He laughed .
The rest of the publishing world is liberal , after all—what more could you want ?
But the recent slew of anti-Trump tomes may be signaling the emergence of a liberal counterbalance to conservative publishing .
Either way , it ’ s becoming more and more clear that the flood of Trump-related bestsellers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump leaves office in January .
It ’ s not hard to imagine a coming wave of tell-alls , especially from those officials who hung around the Trump White House a little too long and who might require a dose of reputation fumigation .
There will undoubtedly be a goodly number of retrospectives from the Doris Kearns Goodwin set .
Many of these books will be , like many of the Trump bestsellers we have already seen , almost instantly disposable .
The media does tend to report on the juicy bits and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there will nevertheless be a hunger for those ineffable things that publishers theoretically provide : nuanced perspective , valuable insight , and the space to dive into complexity .
( Indeed , when I asked one editor if he had any concerns about the continuing flood of Trump books he pushed back : “ Why should I ?
People should want to know about this stuff !
” ) The silver lining for many in the industry is that the profits raked in from selling pinguid Trump books can be redistributed to more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its reliance on guesswork—many in the industry are fond of comparing it to gambling or venture capitalism , though it is slightly more seemly than either of those endeavors .
But the sales of these books have cannibalized other categories .
“ When we see rises in nonfiction , we generally see that come from somewhere else , ” McLean told me .
“ As a general trendline , it has come , in my opinion , from fiction .
The cultural conversation is so intense , and people are thinking so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves personally and with the larger culture that there ’ s more reading going on in nonfiction.
” This is not irreversible or fatal .
There have been a number of recent positive developments in fiction sales .
Although some still mourn the loss of Oprah ’ s ( original ) Book Club and Jon Stewart ’ s Daily Show , publishers have found valuable partners in Reese Witherspoon and Jenna Bush , whose book clubs have become enormously popular .
But the decline in other areas—particularly what is known as the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ class—is serious .

This Trump Effect is even manifesting itself in sales of print copies of the U.S. Constitution. Sales of our nation’s founding document, consistently brisk on the political right—the rise of the Tea Party inspired purchases long before Trump came on the scene—have exploded since Trump took office. In fact, there have been dramatic spikes among buyers of the Constitution at key moments of Trump’s political career: the 2016 Republican National Convention, the presidential election, Trump’s inauguration, the white supremacist uprising in Charlottesville, the Kavanaugh hearings, and the beginning and end of the impeachment hearings.
I once asked a publishing executive why there was no liberal equivalent of the highly partisan conservative imprints that regularly produce bestsellers for conglomerate publishers. He laughed. The rest of the publishing world is liberal, after all—what more could you want? But the recent slew of anti-Trump tomes may be signaling the emergence of a liberal counterbalance to conservative publishing. Either way, it’s becoming more and more clear that the flood of Trump-related bestsellers is likely to keep flowing even if Trump leaves office in January. It’s not hard to imagine a coming wave of tell-alls, especially from those officials who hung around the Trump White House a little too long and who might require a dose of reputation fumigation. There will undoubtedly be a goodly number of retrospectives from the Doris Kearns Goodwin set.
Many of these books will be, like many of the Trump bestsellers we have already seen, almost instantly disposable. The media does tend to report on the juicy bits and serve them up for free. But there will nevertheless be a hunger for those ineffable things that publishers theoretically provide: nuanced perspective, valuable insight, and the space to dive into complexity. (Indeed, when I asked one editor if he had any concerns about the continuing flood of Trump books he pushed back: “Why should I? People should want to know about this stuff!”)


newrepublic--2020-07-22--For Fossil Fuel Companies, Bankruptcy Is a Bailout

Around this time last year , Jeff Hoops—CEO of Blackjewel LLC—was having a busy week .
On July 1 , 2019 , he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy , abruptly closing the company ’ s Bell Ayr and Eagle Butte mines in Wyoming and laying off 700 workers .
Construction had by that point begun on a $ 30 million “ first phase ” of the new Grand Patrician Resort he was building in his hometown of Milton , West Virginia , set to include a 3,500-seat replica of the Roman Colosseum .
Within days , hundreds of Blackjewel miners @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported money “ disappearing ” from their bank accounts after paychecks had been deposited .
On July 3 , a bankruptcy judge granted Blackjewel $ 5 million in relief funds in exchange for Hoops stepping down as CEO .
Blackjewel workers filed a lawsuit over stolen wages shortly thereafter .
In Harlan County , Kentucky , they held a two-month sit-in on train tracks to block coal from their former employer from getting to market .
Eventually , a court ordered that Blackjewel cough up the back pay .
Many say Blackjewel still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation .
Similar stories could be coming soon to the notoriously overleveraged oil and gas industry , which has been struggling during the current pandemic but is already lavishing its executives with healthy payouts .
In April , Diamond Offshore Drilling asked a bankruptcy judge to let it funnel $ 9.7 million in bonuses to its top executives , the same amount it had just gotten through a tax rebate created by the March stimulus package .
Chesapeake Energy—the company that helped sell fracking to Wall Street—and California Natural Resources , the Golden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company , have each filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy within the last month , amid the Covid-19-sparked downturn in demand and investors ’ cooling attitude toward a sector that has always struggled to turn a profit ; hundreds more could be coming , as investor patience continues to wane and debt obligations come due .
As bankruptcy—often a new lease on life for struggling companies—becomes a ubiquitous feature of the fossil fuel industry , who ’ s looking out for the workers and pensions it ’ s leaving behind ?
Coal ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ common occurrence in that sector and created a wealth of case studies for how fossil fuel executives handle their shrinking prospects .
In addition to the Blackjewel example , coal giant Murray Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last October , potentially allowing it to shirk billions of dollars ’ worth of pension obligations to tens of thousands of miners .
Robert Murray—the company ’ s bombastic , Trump-aligned CEO—collected $ 440 million in new financing through a restructuring agreement that included him resigning as CEO but staying on as chairman of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new financing , and Congress , after pressure from the United Mineworkers of America and its allies , resolved to pay $ 10 billion to save the UMWA ’ s endangered pension fund .
Those funds—which cover a small portion of the pension obligations across the fossil fuel industry—are set to run out in 2023 .
A 2018 study by Joshua Macey and Jackson Salovaara found that between 2012 and 2017 , four coal companies , taken together , used bankruptcy courts to shed $ 5.2 billion worth of environmental and retiree obligations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Effectively , they argue , bankruptcy created various means for companies to externalize regulation and worker costs to third parties , including workers themselves .
Communities surrounding the extraction sites also suffer , with environmental cleanup efforts abandoned : Public money picks up the tab .
Extractive companies are supposed to pay into bonds that help cover these cleanup expenses for abandoned mines and wells , which leak massive amounts of heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere every minute they remain unplugged .
But the industry has grossly underestimated the costs of plugging such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at between $ 20,000 and $ 40,000 per well , a Carbon Tracker analysis in June found that average costs for cleanup are closer to $ 300,000 each .
Combined with already low and outdated bonding requirements , required contributions are therefore too small to cover the actual costs of plugging wells—and some companies have tried to get out of paying even those modest sums .
( A practice known as self-bonding allows larger companies to argue that they ’ re good for the cash , pointing to their big balance sheets as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to pay into state-managed cleanup funds . )
Chesapeake Energy , The New York Times ’ Hiroko Tabuchi reported last month in a detailed look at oil and gas bankruptcies , is responsible for an estimated $ 1.4 billion in cleanup costs—nearly as much as the entire company is worth .
It has set aside just $ 41 million for cleanup .

Bankruptcy also creates low-regulation buying opportunities for other firms. Blackjewel, for example, before filing for bankruptcy itself, had collected 71 percent of its mining permits by snapping up the assets of other bankrupted coal companies, Mary Varson Cromer, deputy director of the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, pointed out in a webinar on Tuesday organized by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “Bankruptcy is a very flawed system. It allows a company that should not exist to continue to exist,” Shannon Anderson, of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin Resource Council, said during the same event. “These are companies that exist solely to get coal out of the ground. Their workers are liabilities and externalities that they don’t really think about.”
After Wyoming’s three biggest coal companies (Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Alpha Natural Resources) went bankrupt, PRBR worked to get state regulators to reform the state’s bonding rules for coal mines and eliminate self-bonding. Ultimately, though, placing meaningful checks on these bankruptcy processes across the country’s fossil fuel industry will require rewriting the law that governs them. Johanna Bozuwa, of the Next System Project, has suggested amending those statutes to place bankrupt fossil fuel companies into government receivership, a practice that’s already been used in municipal bankruptcies. That would mean placing the company under the control of a federal agency that would oversee its restructuring and, in this case, liquidation. Another option would be mandating that fossil fuel companies file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, entailing a court-ordered liquidation where their assets are sold off and used to pay debts, including cleanup, rather than restructuring them to allow the company to still exist. Such a rule would help address the systemic risks posed by their carbon-intensive core business model. “If we are truly thinking about winding down fossil fuels, fossil fuel companies should not be able to file under Chapter 11 unless they are able to reorganize away from fossil fuel extraction,” says Carla Santos Skandier, co-manager, with Bozuwa, of the climate and energy program at the Democracy Collaborative. “Otherwise it makes no sense to give a second chance to companies that should no longer exist in the future.”


newrepublic--2020-07-22--John Yoo’s Twisted Path to Trumpism

John Yoo’s Twisted Path to Trumpism

To prove his point , Yoo laid out one possible maneuver in his article .
“ Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly .
He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws and that a new ‘ Trump permit ’ would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions , ” Yoo hypothesized .
“ Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority , he could get away with it for the length of his presidency .
And , moreover , even if courts declared the permit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep enforcing the program for another year or two.
” It ’ s easy to see why the White House found his arguments appealing .
Along the way , Yoo gave a highly favorable nod to Trump ’ s version of events .
“ This is doubly perverse because Trump supports a legislative solution that would allow DACA and [ Deferred Action for Parents of Americans ] beneficiaries to remain in the country , ” he wrote .
“ Nevertheless , Trump reversed DACA and DAPA because President Obama had no constitutional authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s animus toward immigrants apparently played no role in the matter , in Yoo ’ s telling .
And while Trump has said that he would be open to a legislative fix for DACA recipients , past efforts to pass one have shown that the White House is more interested in using Dreamers as a bargaining chip to fund a wall on the southern border or rewrite federal immigration law to reflect that animus .
The White House ’ s interest in Yoo ’ s legal analysis comes at a fortuitous time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book , Defender in Chief , comes out next week .
I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of it , but the publisher casts it as a forthright defense of Trump ’ s constitutional vision .
“ Far from considering Trump an inherent threat to our nation ’ s founding principles , Yoo convincingly argues that Washington , Jefferson , Madison and Hamilton would have seen Trump as returning to their vision of presidential power , even at his most controversial , ” the publisher claims .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ existing constitutional understanding in order to unseat Trump , but in getting their man would inflict permanent damage on the office of the presidency , the most important office in our constitutional system and the world.
” I am skeptical of this thesis , to say the least .
Yoo ’ s Trumpian turn is far from surprising .
In both government service and academic life , he has advanced an untrammeled vision of executive power that brushes aside most constraints imposed upon presidents by Congress or international law .
His highest-profile work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first term in office , when he worked in the Justice Department ’ s Office of Legal Counsel , which provides legal advice to other parts of the executive branch .
In that role , Yoo helped draft a series of memos that effectively authorized torture of terrorism suspects and justified warrantless surveillance of Americans , arguing that the president ’ s wartime powers trumped almost all other constraints .
The Bush Justice Department later disavowed the torture memos , which did not become public knowledge for years .
In 2009 , ethics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that Yoo and Jay Bybee , who served as the OLC ’ s chief at the time , had committed “ professional misconduct ” in writing the torture memos .
David Margolis , a career DOJ lawyer at the time , later overrode that conclusion while castigating Yoo for his role in the matter .
“ While I have declined to adopt OPR ’ s findings of misconduct , I fear that John Yoo ’ s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to author opinions that reflected his own extreme , albeit sincerely held , view of executive power while speaking for an institutional client , ” he wrote .
There are already signs that the White House is embracing Yoo ’ s mutilated logic .
In an executive order issued on Tuesday , Trump laid the groundwork to exclude undocumented immigrants from the ongoing census when the executive branch reports the numbers to Congress .
The Constitution itself is fairly clear about who gets counted for apportionment in the decennial undertaking : It explicitly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the whole number of persons in each State , excluding Indians not taxed.
” Since Congress automatically granted citizenship to all Native Americans by 1924 , the “ whole number of persons ” now truly means the whole number .
The Trump administration apparently disagrees .
It argues that it retains some sort of power to determine exactly who counts for apportionment purposes .
“ Determining which persons should be considered ‘ inhabitants ’ for the purpose of apportionment requires the exercise of judgment , ” the executive order stated .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Supreme Court unanimously acknowledged four years ago that House seats must be apportioned by total population .
But the White House does not care .
Tuesday ’ s executive order on the census , Trump said in a statement , “ reflects a better understanding of the Constitution.
” Even bolder measures may be on the horizon .
Axios ’ s report came after an interview between Trump and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace over the weekend .
Most commentary on the interview focused on Trump ’ s boast that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used to identify dementia in older patients .
At another point , however , he foreshadowed that his administration would soon be using the Supreme Court ’ s ruling to justify major executive orders on other policy matters , including health care .
Though he did not mention Yoo , his remarks mirrored the National Review article ’ s mangled reading of the DACA ruling .

To prove his point, Yoo laid out one possible maneuver in his article. “Suppose President Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly. He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws and that a new ‘Trump permit’ would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions,” Yoo hypothesized. “Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency. And, moreover, even if courts declared the permit illegal, his successor would have to keep enforcing the program for another year or two.” It’s easy to see why the White House found his arguments appealing.
Along the way, Yoo gave a highly favorable nod to Trump’s version of events. “This is doubly perverse because Trump supports a legislative solution that would allow DACA and [Deferred Action for Parents of Americans] beneficiaries to remain in the country,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, Trump reversed DACA and DAPA because President Obama had no constitutional authority to impose the two policies.” Trump’s animus toward immigrants apparently played no role in the matter, in Yoo’s telling. And while Trump has said that he would be open to a legislative fix for DACA recipients, past efforts to pass one have shown that the White House is more interested in using Dreamers as a bargaining chip to fund a wall on the southern border or rewrite federal immigration law to reflect that animus.
The White House’s interest in Yoo’s legal analysis comes at a fortuitous time for the law professor. His new book, Defender in Chief, comes out next week. I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of it, but the publisher casts it as a forthright defense of Trump’s constitutional vision. “Far from considering Trump an inherent threat to our nation’s founding principles, Yoo convincingly argues that Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton would have seen Trump as returning to their vision of presidential power, even at his most controversial,” the publisher claims. “It is instead liberal opponents who would overthrow existing constitutional understanding in order to unseat Trump, but in getting their man would inflict permanent damage on the office of the presidency, the most important office in our constitutional system and the world.” I am skeptical of this thesis, to say the least.


newrepublic--2020-07-23--There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a White Collar Criminal

Consumer fraud , like tax evasion , marks a key arena of malfeasance where further enforcement work would benefit the public good .
Indeed , a more significant commitment of criminal enforcement to consumer fraud would have even more obvious salutary effects than tax evasion offers , since the evidence suggests that Black people are likelier to file consumer fraud complaints..
But consumer fraud is all too easy , in a political sense , for law enforcement officials to ignore—the monetary losses toted up through such scams are staggering in the aggregate , but they are diffuse and relatively small @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s data showed that the median loss from fraud reported to the agency last year was just $ 320 .
That may seem like a small amount to many people—and particularly to the sorts of people ( like me ) who attend elite law schools and move on to become federal prosecutors .
But according to data released last year by the Federal Reserve , nearly 40 percent of households in the country would have been incapable of managing an unexpected expense of $ 400 or more without going into debt or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial and ethnic minorities of all educational backgrounds were “ even less able to handle a financial setback.
” Things are no doubt considerably worse as a result of the significant increase in unemployment this year , which has disproportionately affected Black and Latino workers .
The state of white-collar criminal enforcement is now in such disrepair that it will take years to recover , if it ever fully does .
Even if Joe Biden wins in November , it will take a serious commitment of attention and resources on the part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ try to reverse the damage .
The Biden campaign recently released more than 100 pages of recommendations from the “ unity task forces ” that were asked to find common ground between Biden ’ s supporters and those of Senator Bernie Sanders .
The document contains many laudable and detailed proposals concerning criminal justice reform—including use-of-force guidelines , police oversight reforms , and other measures to address discrimination in the criminal justice system .
But it does not contain anything specific to addressing white-collar crime , a sphere in which incarceration needs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , in fact , much that can and should be done—some of it relatively easy , and some of it requiring serious thought and long-term planning .
To begin with , internal Justice policies governing white-collar prosecutions need to be revised and in some cases entirely rolled back .
Enforcement priorities need to be closely reevaluated in order to ensure that the department is using its scarce resources optimally—and , ideally , in a manner that protects the interests of broad swathes of our society rather than well-to-do individuals and companies that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do even more for them .
Then there ’ s the question of staffing decisions—a critical element in white-collar prosecutions .
Most political appointees will move on , but personnel decisions at the senior career level may also need to be revisited—without veering into political litmus tests—to ensure that hiring and promotions were justified by merit rather than political patronage or personal relationships , and that political appointees have not “ burrowed ” into career positions .
Funding needs to be boosted in order to support the hiring of more prosecutors and law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We must look closely at whether white-collar investigators and prosecutors represent the diversity of the economic constituencies that they are—or should be—protecting .
And the department should consider whether it can cost-effectively take functions in-house that it sometimes outsources—like data collection and analysis—so that American taxpayers are not paying needlessly high private-sector rates .
We also need to take a good look at how best to maximize the jurisdictional reach of white-collar prosecutions .
We need to improve our international law enforcement partnerships to increase the speed and efficacy of overseas investigative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about how we can incentivize countries that drag their feet when asked to provide information or access to people in their borders to do more .
( One way to do this might be by boosting international aid contingent on countries that tend to slow-roll white-collar criminal inquiries showing measurable progress in these areas . )
Some searching discussion also needs to happen about how the stateside federal bureaucracy handles the rise of white-collar crime .
We should ensure greater coordination between the Justice Department and consumer protection agencies like the FTC and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , more broadly , we need to consider whether federal law enforcement institutions , in their current form , are still adequate for the international economic system as it exists today—byzantine , fractured , and opaque .
The Justice Department is by no means the only agency that will require an incoming Biden administration to sift through the rubble of the Trump era .
But the public deserves a dramatic and long-term improvement in white-collar work at the Justice Department , and now is the time to start thinking hard about making that @ @

How much of this reflects actual hostility to white-collar prosecution among senior officials—as opposed to inexperience or ineptitude—is an open question. It is widely known in legal circles that conservative lawyers now in private practice who may once have staffed the senior positions of a Republican Justice Department have been reluctant to join the Trump administration out of fear of becoming permanently tainted (a risk that, in addition, might harm their private sector earning potential). The result has been a conspicuous shortage of conservative-leaning talent—lawyers who wouldn’t stifle or mismanage white-collar enforcement efforts—coupled with the upward ladder-climbing of underqualified and occasionally inept career lawyers.
Some of the people now at the top of the Justice Department are comically unfit. Bill Hughes, one of the high-ranking officials overseeing the department’s work pursuing coronavirus-related misconduct, is an associate deputy attorney general who, according to his LinkedIn bio, came to his position from the White House barely a year ago, with no prior experience working at the Justice Department except for a summer internship as a law student nearly 15 years ago. He appeared at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, but his answers to questions about the department’s pandemic response were vague and vacuous. At one point, a visibly annoyed Senator Dianne Feinstein pressed him about the department’s work pursuing perpetrators of consumer fraud, asking him in frustration, “What is being done to stop them—to arrest and convict?” Hughes told her that the department was “vigorously investigating and using the tools we have, both criminal and civil,” and proceeded to cite the possibility of obtaining forfeiture of fraudulent gains at the end of a successful criminal prosecution—a nonanswer to the question at hand that also betrayed a law-student-level understanding of criminal procedure.
I saw less egregious instances of these sorts of questionable appointments in my own day-to-day work. As some news reports have indicated, this occasionally resulted in me getting into professional disagreements with officials who had been mid-level managers during the Obama administration but had managed to get promoted under Trump. Before his ascension, for instance, Robert Zink, the current head of the Fraud Section, was best known for leading a high-profile prosecution of a trader at the Swiss bank UBS that resulted in the defendant’s acquittal in 2018—the sort of misstep that usually does not result in a promotion shortly thereafter. And Brian K. Kidd, the current head of the securities and financial fraud unit in that office, came to the position after serving as a prosecutor in Puerto Rico and in the public corruption division in Washington—best known for mishandling virtually every high-profile case it has pursued, including the failed prosecutions of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. Kidd’s most notable achievement is having worked on one of the many corporate settlements during the Obama administration.