newrepublic--2020-09-28--Donald Trump’s Taxes Aren’t Surprising, But They’re Still a Huge Deal

What would it take for a story about Donald Trump to be surprising ?
This is , after all , someone who has , in the past few days alone , refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power in November and demanded that his opponent take a drug test before an upcoming presidential debate .
The release of the pee tape , an actual murder on Fifth Avenue—these might raise an eyebrow .
But at this point , the most surprising thing Donald Trump could do is not act like Donald Trump—not be a venal cretin for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sunday evening , The New York Times published a bombshell report based on 15 years of the president ’ s tax returns , documents that he has fought to keep from the public .
They reveal that Trump is either one of the greatest failures in the history of American business or one of its greatest frauds—and that he is likely both .
He has paid almost nothing in taxes over that period and only $ 750 the year he became president .
He has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on failing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in loans will come due over the next four years , raising the possibility that his creditors could attempt to foreclose on a sitting president .
Should he lose the election , he may face prosecution for a host of charges , including tax fraud and money laundering .
It ’ s damning , but , as the conventional wisdom rang out not long after the piece was published , hardly surprising .
We ’ ve long known that Trump was a phony and a fraud .
The Times ’ earlier reporting had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income taxes for several years in the 1980s and ’ 90s , while his reported net worth is widely considered to be dubious .
Even without the facts , it seemed likely that he was hiding his taxes for good reason : In one 2016 presidential debate , Hillary Clinton made the case that Trump ’ s tax returns likely showed that he was bad at business and deeply dependent on unsavory characters and foreign governments .
She was right .
His supporters didn ’ t care .
Trump , the thinking goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always does , decrying the fake news and boasting , as he did in 2016 , that cheating on his taxes proves that he ’ s a good businessman .
But the presumption that Trump will remain Teflon drastically undersells the content of the Times report .
The deep cynicism that has set in about Trump and the American electorate—that nothing he does is surprising , that no revelations about his conduct and character will damage him—is misguided .
The Times report is not only incriminating in a way that could have profound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the latest contribution to a mass of evidence that will weigh heavily on Trump ’ s chances .

Much of the hand-wringing about the Times report has focused on its potential impact on Trump’s base and right-wing media. Fox News has covered the disclosures about Trump’s finances in predictable fashion, highlighting the president’s denials and attacks on the paper’s reporting. Trump’s allies in both the media and in Congress have also seized on another narrative, that the returns do not reveal the kinds of financial ties to Russia that many speculated would explain the president’s chummy relationship with Vladimir Putin—as if the president would declare an illegal foreign income stream on his tax returns.
Then there’s the base. Since Trump declared his candidacy more than five years ago, people have been searching for the revelation that will break the intense loyalty that tens of millions of people have for the president. So far, any number of damning stories that one would expect to affect conservative voters—Stormy Daniels, Trump’s denigration of soldiers who died in the line of duty, his manifest disdain for any kind of religious feeling—have failed to make a dent. And there is little reason to believe that the tax story will be thing to break the fever. In 2016, Trump dismissed questions about his failure to pay taxes by claiming that he would use his cheating expertise to unrig the system. It would not be surprising to hear him make a similar case in Tuesday’s debate.
But there are many voters out there who are not loyal Democrats and do not belong to the president’s base. The con artistry revealed in the Times report is particularly effective in reaching these voters. Trump maintains a polling advantage over Joe Biden on the question of who voters believe would better handle the economy. Trump’s tax returns reveal a businessman adept only at losing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. He might literally be the worst businessman in America; as the Times notes, in some years, “Trump lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer.” It got so bad, and Trump got so desperate, that he may have run for president just “to shore up his disastrous financial situation.”


newrepublic--2020-09-28--Trump Lies, and the Media Abides

Trump Lies, and the Media Abides

Whenever I mix up words or forget what I was trying to say , I make fun of myself by saying “ words are my craft , you know.
” It ’ s funny because it ’ s true : I have one job , and it is to use words well , which doesn ’ t seem like much of a tall order .
Yet political reporters seem to struggle with this constantly , having been confounded by President Trump ’ s unprecedentedly wily ways : He lies all the time and is also quite dumb .
Four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ norm-smashing combination of absolute ballsiness and the possibility that he doesn ’ t know when he ’ s wrong ; hence the general reluctance to call Trump a liar , even after all this time , even when it is the only correct word to describe what he ’ s doing .
This is how we end up with stories about Trump ’ s latest attempt to look busy on health care that fail to convey exactly how little he ’ s accomplished .
A Washington Post story last week reported that Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abolish and replace the Affordable Care Act ” —alright , a good start !
— “ by signing an executive order Thursday that aims to enshrine the law ’ s most popular feature while pivoting away from a broader effort to overhaul the nation ’ s health insurance system.
” Ah .
No .
Not quite .
The executive order did not aim to enshrine Obamacare ’ s most popular feature , the protection of preexisting conditions .
It simply stated that it “ has been and will continue to be the policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeking healthcare more choice , lower costs , and better care and to ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates.
” Obviously that first part will be news to millions of Americans who still pay hundreds of dollars a month for health care that would wipe out their bank balance if they actually tried to use it .
But the latter part is the non-news here : In no way can it accurately be said that this executive order aimed to enshrine the ACA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You have to read quite a bit further down the Post story to find out what turns the executive order from pointless into fraudulent : The ongoing lawsuit , filed by the Trump administration and 18 Republican states , that seeks to invalidate the entire ACA , preexisting condition protections and all .
The executive order Trump signed would not magically protect patients if that lawsuit is successful at the RBG-less Supreme Court ; that is not how law works .
It can not be said , therefore , that the executive order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it aims to do is deceive them .
Why is the president and his party so determined to lie to the public on the ACA , helped along by a media that struggles to accurately explain what is happening ?
It ’ s quite simple : The party is committed to repealing the ACA because it fundamentally does not believe that insurers , even as they make hundreds of billions of dollars a year , should be restricted in how they make money .
But it recognizes that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It recognizes that it can not possibly defend making things so much worse , because the situation as it stands now is already so utterly intolerable .
So it squares the circle in a very neat way : by lying , all the time .

The Republicans’ attempt to actually repeal the ACA once they got in power was a catastrophic political decision. After spending all of Barack Obama’s two terms fuming that his health care plans were Marxist death panels, Republicans only barely failed to repeal the law entirely, and spent the 2018 midterm elections claiming they had actually always loved protecting preexisting conditions. They were punished by voters for this, though many Republicans who had embraced this particular lie still won. The lie has persisted to this day: While the GOP is trying to repeal the law that protects preexisting conditions, its members up for reelection claim the party will protect them. How is that possible? Sorry, can’t hear you, going into a tunnel now.
The politics of the ACA have undergone a fascinating shift in recent years. As the Post wrote, Trump’s executive order was an example of “rebranding” rather than repealing the law—that is, he has decided to co-opt the law rather than reject it. “Obamacare is no longer Obamacare, as we worked on it and managed it very well,” said Trump, adding that “we got rid of the worse part of it—the individual mandate.” Trump has done many things to undermine the law, including expanding the sale of “junk” health plans that cover almost nothing. Republicans did not exactly “get rid of” the mandate: The 2017 GOP tax bill zeroed out the penalty for lacking insurance, setting up conservative litigation to invalidate the law entirely: The Supreme Court will hear the case this fall. Moreover, the elimination of the mandate penalty has not had the catastrophic effect that Republicans hoped for and Democrats feared: As the Times reported earlier this month, there has been no “death spiral” in the Obamacare marketplaces, as health insurance coverage held steady in 2019.
As I argued last year, preserving the broad outlines of the ACA is among the most conservative positions one can take on health care policy today. The ACA left intact gaping holes in the employer-based health insurance system that, amid an economically catastrophic pandemic, have never been more obvious. Millions have lost employer-based coverage this year, and millions more will lose it at the end of the year. Small businesses, only 56 percent of which provided health insurance to workers even before the pandemic, are struggling more than ever to afford insurance—and the ACA does not compel them to provide it. The system as it stands is incredibly cruel, expensive, and stupid. No wonder it might start to look good to Trump.


newrepublic--2020-09-26--Amy Coney Barrett Wants Felons to Have Guns, but Not Votes

Like other journalists , I spent the bulk of this past week reviewing the writings and opinions of Amy Coney Barrett , who became President Donald Trump ’ s third Supreme Court nominee on Saturday .
Her confirmation by the Senate will cement what the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh already achieved : a profoundly conservative majority on the nation ’ s highest court for decades to come .
Though Trump may lose the election this fall , his imprint on the federal courts will endure well into the second half of this century .
Most of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trail is focused on abortion , and for good reason .
Anti-abortion and abortion rights groups alike expect that she will vote in favor of further restrictions on the procedure and perhaps even provide a fifth or sixth vote to strike down Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey .
She is also a public critic of Chief Justice John Roberts ’ s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius , the 2012 case where he cast the deciding vote to save the Affordable Care Act .
That criticism takes on a new light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court before it hears yet another case that could see the ACA struck down .
Her potential impact on cases involving LGBT rights , religious freedom , federal regulations , and other high-profile issues is garnering plenty of public attention as well .
But one of her opinions that caught my eye was Kanter v. Barr , a Second Amendment case decided last year by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals .
Barrett ’ s dissent in that case signaled that she could have an immediate and consequential impact on an entire area @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Roberts court , perhaps consciously .
Her approach to that case also provided some insight into how she thinks about the Constitution and applies those ideas to modern life .
Like most Second Amendment cases , this one starts with a man who wanted a gun but couldn ’ t have it .
Rickey Kanter was the owner and proprietor of a Wisconsin firm that specialized in therapeutic footwear .
In 2004 , he submitted a selection of therapeutic shoe inserts to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for review to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who bought them .
CMS rejected the initial submission but approved a revised version of them .
Kanter , however , sold both the approved and unapproved versions to podiatrists .
When he sent a shipment of the unapproved inserts to a podiatrist ’ s office in Florida , federal prosecutors charged him with mail fraud .
He pleaded guilty to a single felony count .
Though he has now served the rest of his sentence , Kanter ’ s status as a felon excludes him from certain rights and privileges .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a firearm under both federal law and Wisconsin law .
Kanter sued the United States and the state of Wisconsin to challenge both provisions , arguing that they violated the Second Amendment .
A federal district court rejected his claims in January 2018 , and a three-judge panel in the Seventh Circuit upheld the lower court ’ s ruling in a 2–1 decision in March 2019 .

If the history is so clear, why did the panel’s other two judges disagree with her? According to them, they didn’t need to review it to reach a decision in the case. Rather than delving into the complex history and scholarly disputes, they took what they described as a “prudential approach” to the Wisconsin and federal laws in question. The majority found that the laws served an important government objective of stopping violent crime, and noted that the government provided statistical evidence that people convicted of nonviolent felonies were more likely to commit violent crimes in the future. When Kanter cited his own background as proof the law shouldn’t apply to him, the panel urged him to turn to the executive branch or to lawmakers for personal relief.
In other words, where two colleagues saw no need to undertake a probing review of early American history to reach a sweeping conclusion, Barrett saw an imperative to take a different path. Whatever the merits of her approach may be in this case, it also unearthed a curious approach to Americans’ rights in general. People convicted of felony offenses lose more than just the right to own a gun. In many states, for at least some period of time, they also lose the right to vote. To resolve the Second Amendment matter, Barrett noted that the governments hasn’t “introduced any evidence that founding-era legislatures imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right; such restrictions applied to civic rights like voting and jury service, not to individual rights like the right to possess a gun.”
That distinction, suggesting that the right to vote was not an “individual” right, was no accident. She elaborated on her point later to note that “history does show that felons could be disqualified from exercising certain rights—like the rights to vote and serve on juries—because these rights belonged only to virtuous citizens.” By comparison, she argued that gun ownership was an individual right that could only be suspended based on whether the individual in question was dangerous. Kanter, who was convicted of mail fraud, likely wouldn’t qualify as such. “Civic rights” like voting and jury service, on the other hand, can be denied based on whether the individual is “virtuous.”


newrepublic--2020-09-29--The Elite Sisterhood of Amy Coney Barrett

Sometimes the reason “ women ’ s rights ” feel so tenuous is because the question “ which women ?
” is as central as it is overlooked .
The threat Amy Coney Barrett would pose to women as a Supreme Court justice far exceeds abortion .
That she was nominated by President Trump to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , as a kind of fuck-you to those who saw Ginsburg as legal abortion ’ s last defense , isn ’ t helping clarify the potential damage Barrett could do .
Any opposition to Barrett is about her faith , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her defenders say .
Let ’ s talk about a woman like her , then , and what she believes .
As historian Kim Phillips-Fein wrote in The New York Times on Sunday , while much of the anxious response to Barrett ’ s nomination has focused on “ whether as a believer in originalism and a practicing Catholic she would be likely to vote to reverse Roe v. Wade … [ a ] t least as consequential might be her position on the Social Security Administration.
” On the court , Barrett @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety net , on labor rights , on the environment .
If appointed on Trump ’ s timeline , she would arrive in time to hear his administration ’ s arguments against the Affordable Care Act .
This isn ’ t to say abortion is less important than any of these concerns , or , more disturbingly , somehow a distraction to the Supreme Court ’ s business .
Rather , all of these attacks should be more broadly understood as the court rewriting the legal underpinnings of women ’ s rights , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is : when and how or if she can parent , where and for how much she can work , what or what little autonomy she can have .
And this fight over womanhood is not being carried out by a “ handmaiden ” of the Catholic patriarchy but by a woman who is considerably protected by her own power .
Barrett has been a member of the conservative legal group that has lately functioned as Trump ’ s judge factory , the Federalist Society .
At Notre Dame Law School , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a former colleague there told Politico .
There , she found a group of like-minded law school faculty , which she later joined , who used arguments about “ judicial restraint ” to advance a broader plan to remake the court .
Upending Roe was just one part of that strategy .
Barrett ’ s decisions before this nomination speak to that broader agenda of using “ originalism ” to undercut the decisions of more liberal courts .
How far Barrett will take such appeals to so-called traditional values to undermine women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of concerns about her membership in a group associated with the Catholic charismatic movement , called People of Praise .
Questions about Barrett ’ s role in the group have centered on its views of women and LGBTQ people , like its opposition to abortion and any sex outside of marriage .
But women who were once members say it also involved control of their reproductive choices and sexuality .

One former member told Democracy Now about reproductive coercion she experienced. Barred from using contraceptives, she said, she was “supposed to have all the children God intended for me, no matter what my health was. I had had eight children and three miscarriages and D&C [dilation and curettage, a procedure to remove tissue from the uterus], often when my health was failing.” Another former member said she was exiled from the group after she told some women in the group that she was attracted to women and they reported her to leadership. The woman told The South Bend Tribune she would “absolutely” be concerned if Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court. “Much of it goes back to the concept of obedience, authority and headship.… When you’re a married woman, your head is your husband but it doesn’t go the other way around. A man can never have a female head.”
Barrett’s membership in such a group, one that seeks control over women, has not stopped some of her defenders from holding her aloft as the symbol of a kind of powerful woman. Ross Douthat at The New York Times defined Barrett as possessing a “combination of elite accomplishment with a faith and a family life,” evidence that could be something he called “a conservative feminism that’s distinctive, coherent, and influential.” That is, there is a feminism that can be made small enough for Amy Coney Barrett, and for women like her. With the allegations made by former People of Praise in mind, it’s hard to imagine where they would fit in such a feminism, one that is often advocated by those who may themselves not feel the urgency of their demands because they are not so in need of achieving them for themselves.
Supreme Court cases shape the lives of its justices, in the sense that they live in this country and under its laws. But the court’s most consequential decisions concern the lives of people who will never have as much power: people without health insurance, people organizing at their workplaces, people facing deportation, people on death row. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew this, certainly as it concerned who would be most denied reproductive rights. As she said in a 2015 interview, “We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country.” She knew this was already true, as she also said in 2015: “Poor women don’t have choice.”


newrepublic--2020-09-29--The Right and Wrong Way for Biden to Attack Trump’s Taxes

The bombshell New York Times reporting on Donald Trump ’ s taxes is perhaps too complex a subject for Joe Biden to use as an easy political attack .
For all that led “ Trump ’ s taxes ” to become a sort of Holy Grail among certain Democratic activists , the returns would never have been able to reveal the full extent of his finances and business dealings , for the simple reason that these are the documents he actually filed with the government , not some secret internal ledger .
There was never going to be a line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itemized deductions for expenses incurred in committing financial fraud .
And his returns , as described by the Times , do not tell one simple narrative ; they can be interpreted in different ways .
The Times says , basically , that Trump made a lot of money from his television fame but wasted much of it on money-losing golf courses , and he is now deep in debt , with a ruinous bill coming due very soon , especially if he loses a protracted battle with the IRS over a refund he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in other words , a bad business guy , even though his whole deal is that he is supposed to be a good business guy .
He took a lot of income and turned it into a lot of debt .
But regardless of whether his actual financial state resembles the picture painted by the Times , and even though many Americans are quite morally averse to debt , Trump has never shied away from admitting his reliance on it , in part to , as he did here , avoid taxes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( I am not foolish enough to believe it is indicative of the electorate , but it is certainly representative of a selection of the elite conversation ) , there will be a strong impulse , among Democrats , to attack Trump as a Phony Billionaire , as opposed to the real ones .
People imagine , with glee , Joe Biden standing on stage tonight , pointing to Trump ’ s paper losses , saying “ Dumb Donald is so poor , ” and waiting for the audience at home to shout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” I ’ ve no doubt that some focus group data somewhere or other shows that these taunts could be effective .
( Hillary Clinton ’ s campaign tried a version of this tactic in 2016 . )
It plays on , and heightens , Trump ’ s very real resentments about being disrespected by the power elite .
But it is not challenging or tricky to make Donald Trump feel resentful , and Donald Trump is not poor .
Poor people do not own golf courses in Scotland that lose curious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have access to the trappings of wealth despite being deeply indebted and possibly at the mercy of creditors is still to have access to the trappings of wealth .
Donald Trump is rich until the moment the credit dries up and he starts losing his stuff .

It is very difficult to write about what Joe Biden should do, considering that one of the central themes of his campaign to date has been not caring what people like me think. But if I were advising Joe Biden on what to say about Trump’s taxes tonight, I’d point to the impossible complexity of Trump’s financial arrangements and business dealings, as typified by the circumstances around that audit, and tell Biden to promise that if elected, he would get to the bottom of it.
Biden may be politically obsequious to the financial class, but unlike some other modern Democrats, he is not particularly afraid of class warfare rhetoric, and he is willing to say things about making the well-off pay their “fair share.” What Trump’s taxes show is that we can’t even begin to calculate what certain extraordinarily wealthy people’s fair share is. The accounting is too complex, and the methods of shifting and hiding income are too numerous. Americans detest tax cheats. Biden can promise to restore law and order to the tax code by rebuilding the IRS and directing its attention not at ordinary Americans but at the sort of people who receive incredibly dubious $70 million refunds.
This could even have the secondary benefit of unnerving Trump much more than the claims about his “true” wealth. Donald Trump has always feared any investigation into his whole deal. It seems unlikely that he would be so consistently scared of it simply because the investigation might show, officially, that he is worth less than he claims to be. Another reason a person might worry about their whole deal being investigated is the fear that, if people learn the whole deal, something bad would happen, like pauperization or prison.


newrepublic--2020-09-29--Bret Stephens’s Worst Column Yet?

Bret Stephens’s Worst Column Yet?

In Bret Stephens ’ s latest column for The New York Times , he asks the reader to believe two extraordinary things : that he has discovered a secret pool of voters who might hand a surprise win to Donald Trump in November and that he has done something resembling reporting .
Over the last four years , the Times and other media outlets have been harangued for going on yokel safaris .
Reporters wander into a diner in West Virginia , collect quotes , and report back with patronizing chagrin that the people gnawing on corned beef hash still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative colleague on the op-ed page , David Brooks , once said America was ruined because his friend didn ’ t know what soppressata was .
Stephens has now elevated the game , spotlighting one anonymous New Yorker as the face of a “ discreet base of support ” for the president , one that has escaped the notice of pollsters and reporters alike .
The result is a column that combines the worst of election punditry and the worst of opinion journalism .
“ Chris ” is a fiftysomething registered Democrat .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and well-informed ” lesbian who works as the manager at a “ store ” in Manhattan , where she lives .
She likes Bernie Sanders and has voted for politicians from both parties .
It ’ s unclear how she and Stephens found one another .
What is clear is that Stephens is delighted by her , showing her off the way a nineteenth-century explorer would present an exotic species to an enthralled crowd .
She is presented as an independent , high-information voter who isn ’ t buying what the Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ swing voter—a voter who makes her choices not by tribal affiliation but by studying the issues .
And as it happens , Stephens ’ s fierce independent sounds a lot like a conservative pundit when it comes to the issues , as if Marc Thiessen or Hugh Hewitt had decided to get into retail .
She is , for instance , perhaps the only person in New York who cares deeply about gas prices , citing their steep drop as proof of Trump ’ s financial acumen , alongside jumps in the stock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same time , she is deeply concerned by the cost of Obamacare—proof that Joe Biden lacks a businessman ’ s touch .
“ I was out of a job a few years ago .
Obamacare priced me out [ of private insurance ] , ” she tells Stephens .
“ It was like , $ 560 a month .
Then Obama ’ s website blew up .
He can ’ t get the website right ?
” It turns out that swing voters are especially good at remembering Mitt Romney ’ s talking @ @ @ @ @ @

Stephens walks her through a series of Trump scandals—surely one would give her pause. His treatment of the media? “Whenever I read a front-page story and I get to a disparaging adjective, I stop reading.” The Kavanaugh nomination? “I didn’t believe Christine Blasey Ford for one second. Her lack of recollection; the fact that nobody could [contemporaneously] corroborate her account.” Collusion with Russia during the 2016 election? “The Clintons’ fingerprints are all over this. I’m really glad we have Bill Barr as A.G. to look into it.” Trump’s global leadership? “Everyone kowtows to Iran because they’re crazy. Now we have our own bit of crazy.” Anyway, the Democrats are so much worse, she says—Joe Biden lacks the courage to stand up to the far left on crime.
Two things stand out here. One is that many of these opinions just happen to be the exact same opinions held by Bret Stephens. The other is the dialogue. Either Bret Stephens’s friend communicates in pundit-speak, or the column is proof that, whatever his strengths may be, Stephens’s capacity for writing fictional dialogue makes Aaron Sorkin seem like a master of cinema verité. (I mean, “I’m really glad we have Bill Barr as A.G. to look into it”? Come on!)
The column is held together by a series of omissions. Stephens vouches for Chris’s independence and well-informed views, but we don’t know where she gets her news from. Similarly, we don’t know who she’s voted for in recent years. Stephens says she’s voted for Democrats, but when? (She says at one point that she would have voted for Biden “fifteen years ago.”)


newrepublic--2020-09-29--QAnon, Blood Libel, and the
Satanic Panic

And there are tunnels in 2020 , too .
In June , a viral claim that New York ’ s Central Park was host to some 35,000 malnourished , caged children kept in underground tunnels spread over Facebook .
The source of the claim was a man named Timothy Holmseth , who purports to be affiliated with the nonexistent “ Pentagon Pedophile Task Force.
” Holmseth claims to be an integral part of the Trump administration .
“ There is ONE MAN between Timothy Holmseth and President Trump , ” reads Holmseth ’ s bio on his website .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never seen the light of day , pregnant preteens , deformed babies , piles of little corpses whose bodies were apparently used for organ harvesting , children locked in cages , electro-shocked and traumatized in order to harvest their blood—Adrenochrome for the elites to drink—were being carried out of the tunnels by Marines , ” went one anonymous summary of Holmseth ’ s videos on the website BeforeItsNews.com .
All over social media , QAnon followers prayed for the mole children .
They wrote them poetry .
They were convinced the mole children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s coronavirus field hospital , or spirited away to the military hospital ship the USNS Comfort .
No one with authority would admit they had known about the mole children , but the QAnon followers knew .
The mole children had been rescued by the forces of good .
The fight was ongoing , and they were part of it .
“ Moral panics are cyclical , ” Nathan told me .
This week , I went on a walk in Central Park .
In the North Woods there are meandering paths , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pathways through the dense foliage .
I saw asters and lazy susans , pokeberries and chipmunks and black squirrels .
I saw an archway brimming with freshwater and overhung with ivy .
I didn ’ t see the tunnels where the elite were stashing kids , no splashes of blood or adrenochrome .
Earlier that day , I ’ d been sent a long screed on Twitter by a stranger about the basic truths of QAnon .
“ Q seems to be correct : There is a plan in place to defend America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Insurrection Act , ” the stranger wrote .
We had never interacted .
“ In fact , when Trump unleashes the military to take down America ’ s domestic enemies , as I have stated over and over again over the past two years , you will beg for this action , and you will support it because this is the only way to defeat the enemies of America and save this nation.
” I could expect “ thousands of left-wing pedophiles and child traffickers ” to be arrested ; the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they , too , were arrested and charged with treason .
It would begin the day after the election .
The cover story would be the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine .
I breathed through my mask , looking up at leaves just starting to brown after the long summer .
There was a chill in the air , an eerie whiteness to the sky .
Everyone I passed was masked , and I was grateful : There ’ s a plague on .
There are fires .
Everyone I know is struggling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aid is coming .
Everyone is shadowed by uncertainty and fear .
I thought : Wouldn ’ t it be easier to believe in the tunnels ?
To believe someone is coming to make things better , some righteous , godlike force ?
You could then rest assured that nothing is complex except the cover-ups of evil , that evil is simple , that it can be defeated .
That everything is leading up to one glorious and cathartic rout .
That the nocturnal ritual fantasy is no fantasy , that every phantasm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easier to think this way , to think I was perpetually at the verge of putting together the puzzle .
Everything was pale and confused to me ; to them , all was clear and bright as blood .
There were enemies , so many enemies , blood-drinkers from the dawn of time , but they would be defeated soon and executed for treason .
There was a plan to trust in .
A path to take , fixed , determined .
I walked home by no particular route at all .

“Moral panics are cyclical,” Nathan told me.
This week, I went on a walk in Central Park. In the North Woods there are meandering paths, weathered stone stairs and countless, winding pathways through the dense foliage. I saw asters and lazy susans, pokeberries and chipmunks and black squirrels. I saw an archway brimming with freshwater and overhung with ivy. I didn’t see the tunnels where the elite were stashing kids, no splashes of blood or adrenochrome. Earlier that day, I’d been sent a long screed on Twitter by a stranger about the basic truths of QAnon.
“Q seems to be correct: There is a plan in place to defend America and defeat domestic enemies using the military and the Insurrection Act,” the stranger wrote. We had never interacted. “In fact, when Trump unleashes the military to take down America’s domestic enemies, as I have stated over and over again over the past two years, you will beg for this action, and you will support it because this is the only way to defeat the enemies of America and save this nation.” I could expect “thousands of left-wing pedophiles and child traffickers” to be arrested; the “left-wing media” would protest until they, too, were arrested and charged with treason. It would begin the day after the election. The cover story would be the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine.
I breathed through my mask, looking up at leaves just starting to brown after the long summer. There was a chill in the air, an eerie whiteness to the sky. Everyone I passed was masked, and I was grateful: There’s a plague on. There are fires. Everyone I know is struggling for lack of money, and no aid is coming. Everyone is shadowed by uncertainty and fear. I thought: Wouldn’t it be easier to believe in the tunnels? To believe someone is coming to make things better, some righteous, godlike force? You could then rest assured that nothing is complex except the cover-ups of evil, that evil is simple, that it can be defeated. That everything is leading up to one glorious and cathartic rout. That the nocturnal ritual fantasy is no fantasy, that every phantasm is a sign. It would be easier to think this way, to think I was perpetually at the verge of putting together the puzzle. Everything was pale and confused to me; to them, all was clear and bright as blood. There were enemies, so many enemies, blood-drinkers from the dawn of time, but they would be defeated soon and executed for treason. There was a plan to trust in. A path to take, fixed, determined.
I walked home by no particular route at all.


newrepublic--2020-09-29--Trump Is Encouraging Big Pharma’s Worst Instincts

Was ever an October surprise so publicly plotted ?
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said , despite nearly all evidence to the contrary , that a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be available before Election Day .
When the heads of U.S. health agencies contradicted him in public hearings , he said they were wrong .
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration planned to release more stringent requirements for approving the emergency use of a vaccine , Trump immediately threatened to overrule the agency .
Now , as Election Day approaches , health experts worry there may not be enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rushing an insufficiently tested vaccine to the public .
The damage from such a move could resonate for years , undermining public trust in vaccines and medical authorities .
And so , in a bizarre and frightening turn , pharmaceutical companies with ethically patchy pasts could become one of the last ethical lines of defense against their own drugs being marketed before they ’ re ready .
Eleven vaccines for the coronavirus , five of which have received a financial commitment or support from the U.S. government , are now in phase 3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efficacy .
Earlier this month , states were told by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for vaccine distribution by November 1 .
A few days later , on September 7 , Trump said at a press conference that the vaccine “ will be delivered very soon .
You could—you could have a very big surprise coming up.… It could be during the month of October , actually.
” His top medical advisers contradicted him : Dr. Moncef Slaoui , the chief adviser for the U.S. vaccine development program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is “ very unlikely ” that a vaccine will be delivered so soon , and Dr. Anthony Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , agreed .
In a Senate hearing on September 16 , Dr. Robert Redfield , the director of the CDC , said he expects vaccinations to begin before the end of the year—perhaps November or December—but only among very high-risk populations .
A week after Trump ’ s unexpected announcement , FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said in another hearing that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any Covid-19 vaccine before it has met the agency ’ s rigorous expectations for safety and effectiveness.
” Last week , the FDA reportedly planned to release more stringent rules for a coronavirus vaccine , intended to make sure it is properly tested : Drug manufacturers seeking an emergency use authorization , which would allow the vaccine to be put into widespread use before official FDA approval , would need to follow participants in phase 3 clinical trials for at least two months , making a preelection vaccine all but impossible .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have not materialized .
And hours after Dr. Hahn ’ s testimony , Trump told reporters at the White House that such a requirement “ has to be approved by the White House .
We may or may not approve it , ” he said .
An FDA official agreed that guidelines are usually reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget , and the FDA plan appears to have stalled after those comments .
It is unclear , from the most recent developments , whether there is any fail-safe impediment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entirely on his own , unscientific schedule .
“ What I ’ m very keen to emphasize , ” Dr. Ruth Faden , founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics , told me , “ is just how terrifyingly awful it is that the president ’ s even raising this as a prospect .
It is such a bad idea.
” There are two challenges to curbing the pandemic with a vaccine , she said : developing safe and effective vaccines very quickly , and getting people to take them .

Was ever an October surprise so publicly plotted? President Donald Trump has repeatedly said, despite nearly all evidence to the contrary, that a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be available before Election Day. When the heads of U.S. health agencies contradicted him in public hearings, he said they were wrong. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration planned to release more stringent requirements for approving the emergency use of a vaccine, Trump immediately threatened to overrule the agency. Now, as Election Day approaches, health experts worry there may not be enough safeguards in place to prevent Trump from rushing an insufficiently tested vaccine to the public. The damage from such a move could resonate for years, undermining public trust in vaccines and medical authorities. And so, in a bizarre and frightening turn, pharmaceutical companies with ethically patchy pasts could become one of the last ethical lines of defense against their own drugs being marketed before they’re ready.
Eleven vaccines for the coronavirus, five of which have received a financial commitment or support from the U.S. government, are now in phase 3 clinical trials to test their safety and efficacy. Earlier this month, states were told by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for vaccine distribution by November 1. A few days later, on September 7, Trump said at a press conference that the vaccine “will be delivered very soon. You could—you could have a very big surprise coming up.… It could be during the month of October, actually.” His top medical advisers contradicted him: Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser for the U.S. vaccine development program known as Operation Warp Speed, said it is “very unlikely” that a vaccine will be delivered so soon, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed. In a Senate hearing on September 16, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, said he expects vaccinations to begin before the end of the year—perhaps November or December—but only among very high-risk populations.


newrepublic--2020-09-30--The Desperation of Donald Trump

The Desperation of Donald Trump

Believe it or not , there once was a time when high-minded thinkers believed that presidential debates would elevate the tenor and add substance to presidential campaigns .
Needless to say , these 1960s intellectuals , even in their most dystopian moments , never imagined a president like Donald J. Trump .
This was the Fyre Festival of presidential debates .
Moderator Chris Wallace repeatedly lost control of the proceedings—and has been rightly faulted for not doing more to restrain Trump .
But in Wallace ’ s defense , even a lion tamer with a whip and a chair would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , who seemed , for much of the evening , to be auditioning for a starring role in Raging Bull .
Trump entered the debate with a stunning gender gap of 31 points in the latest national Washington Post-ABC News poll .
After he stomped and snorted , interrupted and interjected for a full 90 painful minutes , that chasm probably grew to the size of the San Andreas Fault in the middle of a killer earthquake .
In political terms , it is hard to fathom what Trump was thinking .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing to reassure wavering voters or win back Republicans who had abandoned him .

He wouldn’t have needed to do much, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Asked to condemn white supremacists, the president was suddenly tongue-tied. Rather than rejecting the hate-mongering Proud Boys, Trump told them to “stand back” and then menacingly added, “Stand by.”
Joe Biden, who clearly was trying to follow a debate strategy of laughing his way through Trump’s antics, periodically lost it during the president’s sewer-dwelling serenades. At one point, Biden spoke for nearly everyone who had hoped for a remotely dignified debate when he said to Trump, “Would you shut up, man?”
Remember that Biden came of age in the Senate of the 1970s, where even segregationist senators maintained surface courtesies and sometimes displayed personal kindness. Biden, the former seven-term senator, always showed respect for the office of the president, even when the incumbent was Richard Nixon.


He’s Lost Control

No one could have seen it coming : A debate with Donald Trump was a complete disaster .
The first showdown between President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden set a breathtaking new low for an already tired tradition , making previous examples of poorly managed debates look like a WASP wives book group passing around a plate of sugar cookies .
Biden came in with a healthy supply of “ get a load of this idiot !
” grins locked and loaded , but these quickly gave way to genuine frustration and dismay at Trump ’ s repeated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s efforts to regain control of the proceedings were reasonably valiant , but futile .
As it turned out , there was no point in Biden trying to debate this man .
So why did he ?
This debate was the product of a democracy that ’ s gone to seed , replete with examples of our country ’ s politics finally beginning to resemble the sort of cursed , fascist Jerry Springer Show that it was always meant to be .
You could point to Donald Trump claiming that he “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Joe ’ s son , who tragically died of brain cancer in 2015 .
You could cite Trump ’ s refusal to condemn white supremacists , and his decision to instead command the Proud Boys to “ stand back and stand by ” —a message that has reportedly been received by the Proud Boys online with great glee .
You could note that , once again , Donald Trump failed to promise he would honor the results of the election .
Instead , he encouraged his fans to go and “ observe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempt to dragoon his supporters into plans to intimidate Democratic voters on Election Day .
( I wonder if those last two examples are perhaps connected ? )
For all the misery experienced by those who sat through the entire event , it is hard to discern what part , if any , really mattered .
If the extant polling numbers are any guide , Trump came into the evening desperately needing to add voters to his current base of support .
It is inconceivable that any significant number of Americans might now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened during Tuesday ’ s debate .
Anyone who would hoot and holler at Trump ’ s hyper-aggressive , faux-macho shouting , or his half-grasped interjections of lore from the Fox News Extended Universe ( Burisma !
$ 3.5 million ! )
is almost certainly already an avid Trump supporter .
Anyone who sympathized with Biden ’ s impatience or saw Trump ’ s aggression as unhinged and unbefitting the president is likely already a Biden voter .
It is , incredibly , not true that there are zero undecided voters in America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this point in the election season , compared to the last presidential election .
It ’ s anybody ’ s guess whether or not any of these tuned in to tonight ’ s debate , let alone if they saw something amid the frenzy that might change their mind ; even the most seasoned political scientist would be hard pressed to identify that catalysing moment .
The post-debate coverage that followed was of a shell-shocked tone ; more “ what the hell just happened to us ?
” than the usual “ winners @ @ @ @ @

For all the misery experienced by those who sat through the entire event, it is hard to discern what part, if any, really mattered. If the extant polling numbers are any guide, Trump came into the evening desperately needing to add voters to his current base of support. It is inconceivable that any significant number of Americans might now change their planned vote based on what happened during Tuesday’s debate. Anyone who would hoot and holler at Trump’s hyperaggressive, faux-macho shouting or his half-grasped interjections of lore from the Fox News Extended Universe (Burisma! $3.5 million!) is almost certainly already an avid Trump supporter. Anyone who sympathized with Biden’s impatience or saw Trump’s aggression as unhinged and unbefitting the president is likely already a Biden voter.
It is, incredibly, not true that there are zero undecided voters in America, but there are substantially fewer at this point in the election season, compared to the last presidential election. It’s anybody’s guess whether any of these tuned in to tonight’s debate, let alone if they saw something amid the frenzy that might change their mind; even the most seasoned political scientist would be hard-pressed to identify that catalyzing moment. The postdebate coverage that followed was of a shell-shocked tone: more “What the hell just happened to us?” than the usual “winners and losers” pablum.


What a Mess!

Pity the transcriptionists .
From its very first minute , the first debate of the 2020 presidential election was off the rails .
For 90 minutes , Donald Trump vomited a seemingly endless series of lies and interruptions , resulting in a spectacle that could barely be described as a debate at all .
One struggles to find the right metaphor .
“ Dumpster fire , ” that trusty stand-by of the Trump era , may be both too twee and too contained to actually do justice to the proceedings .
What happened onstage Tuesday night at Case Western Reserve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ profoundly dispiriting distillation of the circus that is the last four years of American politics .
Naturally , this was Donald Trump ’ s strategy .
He came to Cleveland , Ohio , with no real plan except to elbow his way into every question , arguing incessantly with both his opponent Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace .
Whenever he found himself stuck in a spot , he lied—about his administration ’ s coronavirus response , about Joe Biden ’ s record , about his tax avoidance .
For the most part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the gutter with him .
The president didn ’ t want to speak truthfully about the disastrous state of the economy or the 200,000 Americans who have died of coronavirus .
He was more amped to attack Joe Biden ’ s sons ties to China and past drug addiction , to suggest that the vice president was “ stupid ” for attending a state school , and accuse him of being racist and senile .
But for longer stretches , he mostly just flailed wildly , throwing many punches and landing few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s performance was the prevention of any dialogue or discourse .
He might not have vanquished his opponent , but he defeated the debate .
Trump ’ s campaign , underwater on every issue except the economy , is increasingly dependent on painting Biden as the addled marionette of the far left , with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders pulling the strings .
Trump ’ s re-election team will likely cull from Tuesday night ’ s affair enough instances of Biden stumbling over his answers to fuel a thousand campaign videos—it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of interruptions and distractions unleashed by the president .
It ’ s anybody ’ s guess as to whether Trump ’ s many misstatements and lies will prove to be as viral .
If the intention was to stage a high-minded , substantive debate about the president ’ s record , policy disagreements , or ideas , the president put an end to it .
In its place we received the by-now-familiar endless recitation of the president ’ s own pathetic grievances .
Biden had his stumbles , Trump had far more lies—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for wear .
The Fox News anchor has a reputation as a tough and crafty interviewer , someone with a knack for clever traps and unexpected questions .
At times , you could almost discern the shape of the debate Wallace had hoped to moderate ; the contours of some of his ornate stratagems .
He was no match for the chaos .
Within ten minutes he ’ d lost control , struggling to hold the scene for brief snatches the rest of the night .
All he could do was beg the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to intimate that Biden was equally to blame in the repetitive disorder that spilled onto the television screen .
When Trump was asked to condemn white supremacist groups , Wallace let him go with a vague answer—the president will have enough to claim that he repudiated right-wing gangs , even though he did no such thing .

Chris Wallace: "Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down..."
Trump: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left." pic.twitter.com/4vrPocKzcu — Axios (@axios) September 30, 2020
There should have been alarm bells a-jangling earlier this week, when Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., the co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, told CNN’s Brian Stelter, “We don’t expect Chris or our other moderators to be fact-checkers. The minute the TV is off there will be plenty of fact-checkers.” Trump, surely, was licking his chops. Wallace and the Commission surely understood that something like tonight’s train wreck was coming. Trump nevertheless treated them both like doormats: At some points, Wallace was reduced to shouting, “Mr. President, stop.” No one seemed to have prepared for the likeliest of outcomes. In a way, this too was a kind of distillation: Wallace, the debate functionary and guardian of tradition, left alone to impotently plead with the president to hew to polite norms. Trump steamrollered all of this. The Commission on Presidential Debates and the next moderators may now want to consider an option where they can cut the president’s microphone, if only to reduce the number of lies and interruptions.
Because of our infinite capacity for abuse and our inability to ever learn from our most obvious mistakes, there will be two more presidential debates. That is one of the most depressing sentences I can think of right now. There is no indication that those debates will be any different from this one, easily the worst in American political history. There was no good reason for tonight’s debate to devolve into a depressing spectacle. There will really be no excuse for the next two to be as chaotic and unbearable as the first. But it did, and they will.


newrepublic--2020-09-30--The Right Is Blaming Chris Wallace for Trump’s Terrible Debate Performance

Who is to blame for Donald Trump ’ s disastrous performance in Tuesday ’ s presidential debate ?
The easy answer is the person who is to blame for most things : Trump himself .
Both Trump ’ s supporters ( including Chris Christie , who helped him prepare ) and detractors settled on “ too hot ” as a preferred euphemism , which undersells the insanity .
The president was downright rabid , shouting insults and grievances and conspiracy theories over both Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace .
He was deranged , dismissing 200,000 Covid-19 deaths , mocking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug addiction , and generally behaving like a terrible person .
Every available poll confirmed what was obvious : Trump not only “ lost , ” he lost in catastrophic fashion .
But to Trump ’ s supporters , he can not fail—he can only be failed .
While some alleged that Biden was receiving biting one-liners like “ Will you shut up , man ” via an earpiece , the president and his allies have largely laid the blame for Trump ’ s performance on the third old dude on the stage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” conservative pundits , like Washington Post opinion writer Hugh Hewitt , had to scapegoat the Fox News anchor for Trump ’ s failures , particularly his refusal to condemn the far-right gang the Proud Boys , is proof of the ridiculous lengths they will go to placate the president .
Granted , Wallace didn ’ t do a great job .
He gave himself low marks , telling The New York Times that the debate was a “ terrible missed opportunity ” in a Wednesday interview .
“ I never dreamt that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way it did , ” he said .
“ I guess I didn ’ t realize—and there ’ s no way you could , hindsight being 20/20—that this was going to be the president ’ s strategy , not just for the beginning of the debate , but the entire debate , ” a shell-shocked Wallace continued , referring to the relentless chaos Trump unleashed .
Though Wallace did eventually gain a semblance of control , it was clear he had not prepared for an obvious possibility : that Trump would spend the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , lying , and treating both Biden and Wallace with contempt .
For some reason , Wallace anticipated a normal debate and was rattled when Trump started raving about Hunter Biden , Hillary Clinton , and China .

Who is to blame for Donald Trump’s disastrous performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate? The easy answer is the person who is to blame for most things: Trump himself. Both Trump’s supporters (including Chris Christie, who helped him prepare) and detractors settled on “too hot” as a preferred euphemism, which undersells the insanity. The president was downright rabid, shouting insults and grievances and conspiracy theories over both Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace. He was deranged, dismissing 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, mocking Joe Biden’s son’s drug addiction, and generally behaving like a terrible person. Every available poll confirmed what was obvious: Trump not only “lost,” he lost in catastrophic fashion.
But to Trump’s supporters, he cannot fail—he can only be failed. While some alleged that Biden was receiving biting one-liners like “Will you shut up, man” via an earpiece, the president and his allies have largely laid the blame for Trump’s performance on the third old dude on the stage: Wallace. That even “respectable” conservative pundits, like Washington Post opinion writer Hugh Hewitt, had to scapegoat the Fox News anchor for Trump’s failures, particularly his refusal to condemn the far-right gang the Proud Boys, is proof of the ridiculous lengths they will go to placate the president.


newrepublic--2020-09-30--Ivanka Trump’s Starring Role in Her Father’s Financial Troubles

For four years , Donald Trump ’ s tax returns have been the white whale of political journalists and the most sought-after material of any presidency this side of Richard Nixon ’ s Watergate tapes .
Naturally , when The New York Times obtained and published the trove , it was an epochal moment for the media and a major headache for Trump himself .
The material the president said he couldn ’ t and wouldn ’ t release was suddenly out in the world , and it was immediately clear why he ’ d endeavored to conceal the goods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of $ 750 in federal income taxes the year he entered the White House—and none at all in 10 of the 15 years beforehand .
The documents revealed that Trump was facing a possible $ 100 million tax penalty , on top of personal liability to the tune of $ 400 million in loans and debts .
But buried in the details , tucked between the revelations of foreign financing and piling losses , stood another reason Trump worried about the returns leaking into the public arena .
The tax returns pointed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bit of accounting sleight of hand that roped in what matters most to Trump : Ivanka .
Per the Times , Trump ’ s filings showed that some of the millions of dollars in consulting fees listed just happened to line up with filings attached to his daughter ’ s own financial disclosures .
Ivanka , who remains a special adviser to her father , “ had been an executive officer of the Trump companies that received profits from and paid the consulting fees for both projects—meaning she appears to have been treated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deals that she helped manage as part of her job at her father ’ s business.
” With the filings and funds bouncing between the Trump Organization and a Delaware LLC and straight into Ivanka ’ s pockets , Trump appears to have “ reduced his taxable income by treating a family member as a consultant , and then deducting the fee as a cost of doing business.
” Or put another way : Trump appears to have spun Ivanka , a lieutenant in his paper empire , as a mere consultant as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Suffice it to say , the maneuver is not simply highly unethical but likely illegal .
In years past , the IRS has pursued civil penalties against others for devising just such schemes .
Nor would Trump likely be the only party liable .
After all , tax fraud schemes like this always require witting partners on both ends of the payment .
And what better partner in a scam to defraud the IRS—and , by extension , the American taxpayer—than a daughter who appears eager to follow in her crooked father @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past the gilded , airbrushed image Ivanka has spent years cultivating , it ’ s not difficult to discern just how much of her father ’ s essence oozes through her own business practices .
Rather than the manicured professional and golden American princess she professes to be , Ivanka has a track record that illustrates just how willingly she ’ s imbibed her father ’ s fetish for fraud .

One problem, though: The signs of money laundering affiliated with the building were as bright and blinding as anything in the entire Western Hemisphere. Not only were many units purchased in cash or via anonymous shell companies—including buyers linked to Russian organized crime—but many were likewise purchased in bulk, another traditional sign of money laundering. Some sales were even conducted via so-called bearer shares, tools so notoriously affiliated with money-laundering operations that they’ve been banned across multiple jurisdictions. As one of the Global Witness investigators who uncovered the dirty money schemes said, “We found that there were some pretty consistent signs of money laundering.” Or take it from Ventura Nogueira, the man who liaised with Ivanka time and again; as he later confessed, “When I was in Panama, I was regularly laundering money for more than a dozen companies.” Ivanka’s Panamanian “baby” was the locus for all this graft.
And then there’s Azerbaijan. In that country—already steered by one of the most kleptocratic, oleaginous regimes in the entire world—Trump’s efforts at creating a Trump Tower Baku ended up so poorly managed that it became, as The New Yorker dubbed it, “Trump’s worst deal.” It’s not hard to see why. Not only did the Trumps work closely with the family of Azeri oligarch Ziya Mammadov—a man dubbed by American diplomats as “notoriously corrupt, even for Azerbaijan”—but, as reporter Adam Davidson found, the building’s construction may well have been used to launder funds for members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, violating America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act along the way. “The entire Baku deal is a giant red flag,” an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School told Davidson. “Corruption warning signs are rarely more obvious.”
And the woman who oversaw the building’s construction? None other than Ivanka. According to Ivanka, the Trump project in Azerbaijan would “make for an exciting addition to the Trump Organization’s expanding portfolio.” As one Azeri lawyer involved in the project said, Ivanka “personally approved everything.” Ivanka even posted updates from the building directly to her own Instagram, where she described it as “my project.” But when word began getting around of all the corruption Ivanka had apparently overlooked—and when the project itself began falling apart, both physically and figuratively—Ivanka tried to scrub her website of any evidence of her involvement.


newrepublic--2020-09-30--The Cozy Relationship Between Project Veritas and the Proud Boys

For Project Veritas , the 2020 Democratic primaries offered an embarrassment of riches .
A historically large field meant plenty of targets against which James O ’ Keefe ’ s journalism-cosplay organization could deploy its signature tactic of getting low-level political operatives to say something embarrassing into a hidden camera , then hype a selectively edited video for maximum echo-chamber outrage .
As we ’ ve already reported , based on internal Project Veritas documents , the group ran a sting , code-named “ Gold Mine , ” with operatives attempting to infiltrate the campaigns of Bernie Sanders , Elizabeth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hoping to catch candidates or their staff members in a gaffe .
So far , so familiar—this is what Veritas does .
Yet it ’ s worth looking at just who O ’ Keefe recruits to do it .
To infiltrate the Biden campaign in Iowa , Veritas tapped an avowed Proud Boy , while a second operative aligned with the Proud Boys tried to infiltrate the Sanders and Warren campaigns .
Project Veritas employs a Proud Boy who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for his part in a brawl following a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
O ’ Keefe himself has palled around with McInnes for years , and Veritas devoted an entire sting to defending the current leader of the Proud Boys .
The Proud Boys , for those not yet in the know , is an amorphous group of far-right men who claim not to be racists but promote the idea that white men are under siege ; Proud Boys are frequently found in the company of avowed racists , and the Southern Poverty Law Center calls them a hate group .
McInnes has repeatedly called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Proud Boys have been caught planning violent “ rallies , ” most recently in Portland , Oregon .
O ’ Keefe has always implausibly claimed that his organization is nonpartisan , but the proof is in the output : reliably right-wing , and more than a little bit fraught with disturbing racial tensions .
This is to be expected .
Project Veritas has always had a troubling history when it comes to race , and the specific overlap between it and the Proud Boys is increasingly out in the open .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Tuesday night ’ s debate , “ Proud Boys , stand back and stand by , ” he may as well be speaking to Veritas as well .
The Gold Mine document outlines how four Project Veritas operatives were sent to Iowa to infiltrate Democratic primary campaigns .
One of them , code-named “ Sundance , ” targeted the Buttigieg and Biden campaigns .
The document suggests he made contact with people named Joe and Ken in the Buttigieg camp and someone named Cas among Biden ’ s people .
The Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Sundance , and his operation was apparently a bust—Project Veritas has released nothing on Biden from the primaries .
At least , so far .

For his part, McInnes may see O’Keefe mostly as a tool of ideological and financial convenience. After attending a decidedly uncool May 3, 2014, housewarming at O’Keefe’s then-new condo in Jersey City, McInnes groused privately about how lame the party was. Recollecting it again on a podcast years later, McInnes could not help but rag on O’Keefe between bouts of praise, saying James was “a little on the spectrum,” “a little nerdy,” and more “like a work friend.” After losing to O’Keefe in a dance competition on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, McInnes told The New Yorker, “Fuck that guy. He just memorized a bunch of moves. I was dancing from the heart.”
On a personal level, James O’Keefe’s coziness with white nationalists dates back to well before his founding of Project Veritas. In 2006, O’Keefe was photographed at the Robert Taft Club’s “Race and Conservatism” conference, an event headlined by Jared Taylor, the self-styled academic white supremacist and publisher of American Renaissance, a journal devoted to, well, white supremacy. Reportedly, just about 40 people attended the event, so it’s not as if O’Keefe had accidentally wandered into the wrong ballroom. Around the same time, he added white nationalist Kyle Bristow to his Facebook friends, according to an archive of O’Keefe’s early online life—but he was already among his own. The event’s organizer, Marcus Epstein, was at that time O’Keefe’s friend and his co-worker at the conservative Leadership Institute.
Photojournalist Laura Sennett, who documented the event with anti-racist/anti-fascist researcher Daryle Lamont Jenkins of the One People’s Project, remembers seeing O’Keefe hanging with a “clique” beforehand that included Epstein and other future figures on the alt-right. O’Keefe appeared to be particularly chummy with Kevin DeAnna, future contributor to name-brand white nationalist Richard Spencer’s Radix Journal and founder of the short-lived, far-right campus group Youth for Western Civilization. “Marcus was setting up his literature table, and all his little buddies were kind of hanging out around him talking,” Sennett recalls. “DeAnna and O’Keefe were obviously chatting as friends. They were sitting right next to each other, chatting.”


newrepublic--2020-10-01--There’s No Such Thing as Ethical Grocery Shopping

Of all the edible creatures in the sea , America ’ s favorite is the shrimp .
We gorge upon their flesh to the tune of 4.4 pounds per person per year .
Accordingly , the business of shrimp is oceanic : In 2017 , the amount of shrimp imported to the United States grew to 1.5 billion pounds , representing over 1 percent of the nation ’ s entire foreign trade deficit .
Shrimp are perhaps the paradigmatic grocery store item .
They used to be expensive , and now they ’ re not .
They are born animals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meat , then cargo , then merchandise represented by a bar code—a product with a notably high profit yield on the grocery floor because it ’ s a dirt-cheap factory-farmed import .
As Benjamin Lorr notes in his horrifying new book , The Secret Life of Groceries , the “ fishmonger ” at stores like Whole Foods only exists as window dressing , designed to lure the fish-loving customer to the actually profitable frozen shrimp in the freezers nearby .
This kind of casting is true , Lorr explains , of nearly all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away in a heartbeat if the data didn ’ t show that the average American consumer prefers a human touch .
Unfortunately , the shrimp imported into the U.S. food supply are farmed using slave labor .
That ’ s not really a disputable fact : In 2018 , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that shrimp imported from countries with “ poor regulations , ” like Thailand , had 92 percent of the U.S. market share .
According to the relevant NGOs , “ 17 to 60 percent ” of Thai @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in its supply chain .
That might sound “ like a wildly high error range , ” Lorr observes , “ but nobody knows anything in this world.
” None of this is news .
The Guardian broke the story on Thai shrimp industry slave labor five years ago .
And yet nothing happened , with the shrimp business in fact continuing to boom further .
This is because the entire supply chain putting food in our supermarkets has been whittled down to the sharpest edge of profitability by suit-wearing Midwesterners who pride @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s more surprising that anybody put the Thai shrimp industry story on a newspaper front page , Lorr thinks , than it is that we ’ re eating the fruits of indentured labor .

It’s worth reproducing in full what Margie Mason of the Associated Press told Lorr about Whole Foods’ reaction to her Pulitzer-winning reporting on child labor in the Thai shrimp industry, because it demonstrates the gulf between the way Whole Foods must present itself in public and the way it is actually run:
When our story came out … Whole Foods was calling us and pleading, saying none of the shrimp from that plant got into their supply chain. And we were just baffled. “How can you be sure? We are the people who informed your supplier! Are you saying you have closer oversight of your supplier’s supply chain than they do? If so, how? Your exporter had no idea. Your importer had no idea. So how can you be so sure?” But they just kept pleading and pleading. It was crazy making.
Determined to find some certainty at the other end of the supply chain, Lorr goes on a reporting mission to Thailand, where he meets and profiles a laborer from Myanmar named Tun-Lin. He had no idea what he was signing up for when a recruiter approached him in Samut Sakhon and then kept him locked up with 25 other men in a room with no mattresses in it. He’s lost a hand, and years of his life, but considers himself lucky.
The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr Buy on Bookshop
Through the story of Tun-Lin’s career, Lorr proves that there’s no way for a grocery store buyer to trace the origin of all the shrimp they’re stocking because the chain of supply is fractured into nonsense. “Shrimp are raised everywhere,” Lorr writes, “shipped to new, more specialized facilities at each stage, combined with others, then separated back out. The concept of traceability barely makes sense.” Tun-Lin himself barely had any idea where he was when he was working on the boats.


newrepublic--2020-10-01--How Was Rukmini Callimachi Fooled by a Fake Terrorist?

According to Rukmini Callimachi , the extremism correspondent for The New York Times who has earned wide praise for her work reporting on ISIS , her moment of journalistic epiphany came in 2013 , in a former Al Qaeda building in Mali .
In a 2016 interview with Wired , in which she was dubbed “ arguably the best reporter on the most important beat in the world , ” Callimachi described standing in the remains of an office used by Al Qaeda during its rampage through Timbuktu .
The floor was littered with documents in Arabic .
Suddenly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be able to tell a better story of what happened there than any government official ’ s report .
She started scooping up documents and filling trash bags .
Callimachi ’ s subsequent series of articles earned her a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize , the first of four .
More than that , it catalyzed in her a belief in the power of original documentation to tell stories that otherwise go untold .
It also convinced her that jihadist groups were far more sophisticated than she realized .
As she told Wired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these were just a bunch of guys in a cave in a desert , very primitive and wedded to an ideology for no good reason.
” Along with careful study of jihadist social media , original documents became one of the guiding lights of Callimachi ’ s journalism .
But they also led her to do work that critics describe as credulous , sensationalist , and even reckless .
While she occupies a high-profile position sure to garner criticism , Callimachi ’ s work has been the target of routine objections by scholars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Syrians , some of them frustrated that she depends so heavily on original sources without speaking any Arabic .
Callimachi ’ s most recent scandal concerns the subject of Caliphate , her Peabody Award–winning podcast .
The main interviewee , a Canadian man with the nom de guerre Abu Huzayfah , claimed to be a returned ISIS killer , dispensing lurid stories about his experiences .
But more than two years after Huzayfah ’ s interviews aired , Canadian authorities arrested him on a terrorism hoax charge .
It turns out that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Islamic State at all , much less carried out murders on its behalf .
His supposed expertise on the inner workings of ISIS was all secondhand , if not made up .

No one is claiming Callimachi acted with intentional deception, but a listen through Caliphate reveals a number of red flags regarding Huzayfah’s credibility. That the Times’ principal ISIS correspondent barreled ahead and placed Huzayfah at the center of a highly touted podcast project says as much about Callimachi’s methods as it does about the state of prestige journalism. It also calls into question Callimachi’s sourcing, an issue that has been raised before but now deserves deeper consideration.
A few years after Timbuktu, having moved from the Associated Press to The New York Times, Callimachi began gathering documents from ISIS facilities in northern Iraq. Trailing closely behind the forces liberating Mosul and other parts of the region, she eventually collected more than 15,000 pages of what were called the ISIS Files, part of a lavishly produced report into what daily life and governance were like under the harsh administration of the Islamic State.
Callimachi was by now perhaps the most visible reporter writing about ISIS, and her decision to take so much material—and to present it as a triumph of reporting, one that saved terrorist records from certain destruction—earned a severe backlash from scholars and civil society members. It was particularly galling for Iraqis, who saw the act as another form of colonial “plunder,” as the Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon called it. Maryam Saleh, writing in The Intercept, situated the ISIS Files in a painful history of looting that has harmed Iraqis’ ability to write and study their own history.


newrepublic--2020-10-01--When Your Covid Symptoms Outlast Your Insurance

María had only been in the United States for about a year when the pandemic hit .
She had entered the country without documentation and settled in Brooklyn , finding some work under the table preparing tamales and doing food prep at a restaurant .
It was a brief period of relative calm .
By late April , she was out of a job and experiencing the symptoms she ’ d seen on the news : loss of smell and taste , dizziness , diarrhea , persistent pain in the lungs , loss of balance .
“ I didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have insurance , ” she told me .
“ I didn ’ t have the money to pay.
” She tried to wait out her symptoms , but her condition eventually deteriorated to the point that she needed to go to the hospital .
When she arrived , she was relieved to learn that her Covid-19 testing and initial treatment would be covered by Emergency Medicaid , a federal program that can extend Medicaid coverage to otherwise uninsured individuals if they have an acute medical emergency .
While running other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she had developed diabetes .
It was concerning news .
A chronic illness was something she hadn ’ t planned for , and the medical staff she encountered were concerned about what it would mean for her recovery .
Now , almost four months later , María is one of the many thousands of Covid “ long haulers ” —patients who have officially recovered from exposure to the virus but are still navigating ongoing health issues .
She ’ s also lost her emergency insurance—which is only designed to cover immediately life-threatening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other medication from a local clinic .
Money is tight though , and she ’ s been worried that she won ’ t be able to pay for it much longer .
She recently paid $ 80 for medication for acute gastritis and lung inflammation , while the rent bills keep piling up .
As an undocumented immigrant , she was not eligible for any federal relief programs , and the food she gets from a local aid organization only goes so far .
Last week , María started working again , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so much pain in my lungs as I ’ m cleaning , ” she said .
Still , she doesn ’ t see an alternative .
She ’ s not alone in that predicament .
Many states have clarified that testing and treatment of an active Covid infection must be available to all and can be covered with Emergency Medicaid , but there ’ s been little discussion about what happens afterward .
Under federal law , hospitals and medical providers in general must tend to people facing immediately life-threatening conditions but are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to an uninsured patient who is not in a state of emergency , even if the lack of treatment will trigger just such a situation .
That describes María and other insurance-ineligible immigrants hoping to recover from the long-ranging health catastrophe that is Covid-19 .
Without long-term aid from the state , though , they are essentially left on their own .
The effort to make health care affordable and accessible for immigrants without status has been active and shifting for decades .
Undocumented people were explicitly excluded from the marketplaces created as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and activists were outraged when even recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program were locked out of coverage .
Currently , people without legal status remain ineligible for standard Medicaid , the Children ’ s Health Insurance Program , and the federally funded health insurance marketplaces .
In certain emergency circumstances , they can qualify for Emergency Medicaid , though as cases like María ’ s make clear , the program is inflexible and largely exists as a temporary bandage .

María had only been in the United States for about a year when the pandemic hit. She had entered the country without documentation and settled in Brooklyn, finding some work under the table preparing tamales and doing food prep at a restaurant. It was a brief period of relative calm. By late April, she was out of a job and experiencing the symptoms she’d seen on the news: loss of smell and taste, dizziness, diarrhea, persistent pain in the lungs, loss of balance. “I didn’t go to a doctor because I don’t have insurance,” she told me. “I didn’t have the money to pay.”
She tried to wait out her symptoms, but her condition eventually deteriorated to the point that she needed to go to the hospital. When she arrived, she was relieved to learn that her Covid-19 testing and initial treatment would be covered by Emergency Medicaid, a federal program that can extend Medicaid coverage to otherwise uninsured individuals if they have an acute medical emergency. While running other tests, medical staff also informed her that she had developed diabetes. It was concerning news. A chronic illness was something she hadn’t planned for, and the medical staff she encountered were concerned about what it would mean for her recovery.


newrepublic--2020-10-01--America’s Conspiracies of Profit

America’s Conspiracies of Profit

Over the summer , homegrown American conspiracism surged in tandem with the pandemic .
On edge after months of lockdown , widespread infection and death , and a highly acrid political climate , people across the political spectrum nurtured a handful of increasingly fantastical explanations for the dismal state of things .
On the right , the assorted delusions of QAnon converged with the president ’ s screeds about roving gangs of anarchists to produce new wild theories about antifa committing arson in Oregon .
On the left , a string of police killings of civilians and subsequent aggressive crackdowns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was setting off fireworks in residential neighborhoods as an act of psychological warfare .
As Republic of Lies author Anna Merlan has noted , conspiracy theories tend to proliferate during times of economic instability and political uncertainty .
They ’ re moreover especially at home in a nation that has a very real and gruesome history of government abuses , high-level cover-ups , and impunity for the rich and powerful .
A summer shaped by an out-of-control pandemic and nearly nonstop protests was the perfect petri dish for an unprecedented convergence of multiple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free-floating cloud of distrust , or what Merlan has called the “ conspiracy singularity.
” And while the most poisonous conspiracy theories have taken root on the right , progressives , too , have recently grappled with falsehoods in an anxiety-riddled environment .
Just a few weeks ago , a whistleblower complaint alleged that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention camp in Georgia was performing mass hysterectomies on immigrant detainees .
A nurse at that facility , the Irwin County Detention Center , claimed that a doctor there , whom she dubbed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unwanted and unnecessary hysterectomies on “ just about everybody ” he treated .
Given Trump ’ s spiteful immigration policies and the nation ’ s brutal history of eugenics and forced sterilization , the allegation didn ’ t sound particularly far-fetched .
While several immigration reporters raised early flags about the story and worked to investigate the details , left-leaning social media instantly exploded in horror , and commentators drew comparisons to Nazi Germany .
Yet the allegation of mass hysterectomies was never quite substantiated ( and the whistleblower herself later came under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the facility ) .
Further investigations have suggested that something less sensational—but still shameful—took place at the Irwin detention center .
On Tuesday , a number of women told The New York Times they had received unnecessary surgeries for small or benign cysts from Dr. Mahendra Amin , a gynecologist employed by the facility .
Amin , the Times reported , had been accused in the past of ordering similar unnecessary surgeries in order to bill Medicaid at higher rates ; his overly aggressive diagnoses at Irwin fit the same pattern .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ICE detainees are paid for the procedures they perform with Department of Homeland Security funds , ” the Times stated .
“ Procedures like the ones that Dr. Amin performed are normally billed at thousands of dollars each.
” The story , then , was no less abhorrent but perhaps more banal : moneymaking at the expense of a group of people deemed disposable—and routinely denied proper medical treatment—by the state .
A similar kind of rote profit-seeking appears to have undergirded another recent scandal that initially looked like the product of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats speculated that USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy—a Trump donor appointed to head the agency in May—was attempting to sabotage the postal service in order to undermine mail voting and throw the election to Trump .
Upon assuming control of USPS , DeJoy had instituted a number of cost-cutting measures that snarled the postal system and hobbled mail delivery , including paring back postal workers ’ overtime and reducing post office hours .
In August , mail delays had reached such a volume that social media began to swirl with photographs of what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boxes and rumors that DeJoy was removing mailboxes to hinder people from mailing in their ballots .
“ This is happening right before our eyes .
They are sabotaging USPS to sabotage vote by mail , ” activist Thomas Kennedy wrote in a viral tweet .

Like the specter of ICE undertaking mass hysterectomies, the idea of a government official engaging in a ploy to prevent people from voting seemed within the realm of possibility; the United States, after all, is no stranger to disenfranchising segments of the population through tactics like polling station closures and voter ID laws, not to mention more overt Jim Crow–era measures like literacy tests. And the president, quite explicitly, does want to discredit the election and suppress the vote. But as reports later revealed, the USPS boxes in the viral photos hadn’t been seized for the purpose of rigging an election; rather, they had been out of commission for years and were undergoing refurbishing.
As it happens, DeJoy’s restructuring of the postal service likely had more to do with money than with voter suppression. According to a New York Times report in early September, XPO Logistics—DeJoy’s former employer, and a company in which he continues to own a stake of least $30 million—earned approximately $286 million from the USPS over the last seven years for providing a variety of support services. Since DeJoy’s appointment, the Times said, the company had further “ramped up” its business with the USPS. Though DeJoy and XPO have both claimed that DeJoy has recused himself from any dealings with XPO, he nevertheless continues to profit from his ties to the company. In fact, as writer Paul Prescod has put it, DeJoy’s overhaul of the postal system looks very much like “another iteration of a familiar right-wing strategy: degrade the quality of a service, turn the public against it, and then privatize.” That, in the end, isn’t quite the conspiracy that Democrats feared but is an affront to an important public institution that’s been a bulwark of the middle class for decades.
The proliferation of exaggeration and even outright myths at a time of acute precarity is hardly a surprise, and there are depressingly few signs that any of the conditions that enabled the rapid spiral of conspiracism this year will dissipate anytime soon, particularly on the eve of an extremely contentious election with no end to the pandemic in sight. But one unfortunate aspect of the tendency toward conspiracism in these cases and others is that overly lurid claims can often generate a kind of inadvertent numbness toward more mundane forms of violation or corruption.


newrepublic--2020-10-01--Noam Chomsky Does Not Think the Planet Is Doomed (Yet)

This summer saw some of the worst wildfires in recorded history .
Over 3.7 million acres of land burned in California alone , leading a UCLA climate scientist to declare , “ We ’ ve broken almost every record there is to break.
” Twenty-three named storms have formed so far this season , the most ever recorded through the end of summer .
The northeast United States has seen extreme drought for four months straight .
And ice sheets that could cause catastrophic sea-level rise are disintegrating at an alarming pace .
Climate disasters are upon us .
Renowned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devoted his twilight years to thinking about what lies ahead if the world doesn ’ t address climate change .
Now he ’ s released a book , co-written by political economist Robert Pollin , advocating for a solution .
In Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal , Chomsky and Pollin illustrate the catastrophic effects of unchecked climate change and propose a blueprint for a global effort to combat it , based on the Sunrise Movement ’ s Green New Deal .
In a conversation with The New Republic , Chomsky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us about our capacity to address the climate crisis .
You draw a lot of parallels between World War II and the climate crisis throughout the book .
Why focus on this period of history ?
Bob Pollin has done careful studies about the amount and level of national commitment in terms of expenses and other actions that would be required to deal with this truly existential crisis , and has compared it to the mobilization during the Second World War .
His calculations—also Jeffrey Sachs ’ s ; other economists have worked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small fraction of the GDP that was devoted to World War II , we could handle the current crisis .
We could meet the conditions that the International Panel on Climate Change has specified of reduction of emissions substantially by 2030 and up to net-zero emissions by 2050 .
Sachs and Pollin have estimated it would take about 2 to 3 percent of GDP , which is much less than the Second World War and much less in terms of human mobilization .
I ’ m old enough to remember the Second World @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society was geared to war production .

First of all, there isn’t a refugee crisis. It’s a moral crisis of the West, exactly as Pope Francis said. We call it a “refugee crisis”; it’s our moral crisis. But putting that aside, it’s going to magnify by orders of magnitude as a result of heating up the environment. And we’ve already seen it. One of the effects of global warming is much more severe weather events. There was a huge cyclone, unprecedented, in Bangladesh, in East Bengal recently. A large part of Bangladesh was underwater. And that’s going to keep happening. All of this is overwhelmingly striking the poorest, the most vulnerable, the ones who have no responsibility for what’s happening. And what’s your choice if your country is inundated with water? What do you do? You’re going to flee.
South Asia is facing rapidly increasing temperatures and a huge water crisis. Hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of millions in India, don’t have access to potable water. That’s going to get worse. Same in Pakistan next door. They both have nuclear weapons. What’s going to happen when they have a conflict over diminishing supplies of water? Are they going to just say, “OK, you take it, I don’t want it”? I don’t think so. If they move up to nuclear war, it’s not just South Asia that gets destroyed. All of us suffer bitterly. That’s the world we’re heading into.
What do you believe is needed to inspire a bipartisan effort against climate change?


newrepublic--2020-10-01--Trump Never Answered the Debate’s Most Important Question

Joe Biden ’ s best answer during Tuesday ’ s debate was for a question that shouldn ’ t have to be posed .
“ How confident should we be that this will be a fair election , and what are you prepared to do over the next five-plus weeks ?
” moderator Chris Wallace asked .
“ Because it will not only be on Election Day , but also counting some mail-in ballots after Election Day .
What are you prepared to do to reassure the American people that the next president will be the legitimate winner of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rote response : He urged people to register to vote and cast a ballot .
From there , he also took aim at his opponent ’ s many falsehoods on mail-in voting , the phantasmal threat of voting fraud , and his attacks on—well , voting in general .
He also noted that Democrats would be deploying poll watchers to make sure that people can successfully take part in the democratic process .
But then Biden dug deeper .
“ This is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s not going to be legitimate , ” he explained .
“ He can not stop you from being able to determine the outcome of this election , ” Biden went on to say .
“ When the votes are counted , and they ’ re all counted , that will be accepted .
If I win , that will be accepted .
If I lose , that ’ ll be accepted .
But by the way , if , in fact , he says he ’ s not sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , let me tell you something , it doesn ’ t matter , because if we get the votes , it ’ s going to be all over .
He ’ s going to go .
He can ’ t stay in power .
It won ’ t happen .
It won ’ t happen , so vote .
Just make sure you understand , you have it in your control to determine what this country is going to look like the next four years .
Is it going to change , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years of these lies ?
” There is plenty of anxiety surrounding the November election : some based in credible and legitimate concerns about Trump and the Republican Party ’ s authoritarian tendencies , and some based in unrealistic scenarios of imminent national collapse .
But none of it is being caused by Joe Biden .
A healthy , functional president—a healthy , functional human—would probably try to dispute or dispel some of these fears .
They would denounce white supremacists and far-right militants without hesitation .
They would either express confidence in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to their concerns about it .
If nothing else , they would insist that they are committed to the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power .
One candidate managed to do that on Tuesday night ; the other did not .

Why? Because Trump is neither a normal president nor a normal man. He is profoundly unwell. He lacks a moral compass and an ethical core. He is outmatched by and under-equipped for the responsibilities of his office. He is under investigation by local prosecutors in New York at this moment—and may find himself similarly pursued by federal prosecutors next year if he loses in November. He is saddled with eye-popping levels of debt, with more than $421 million in loans reportedly coming due within the next four years. And he is currently on track to lose his bid for reelection after alienating a majority of the country and mismanaging a pandemic that killed 200,000 Americans.
Had Trump wielded all his power and influence to actually fight the pandemic—by encouraging social distancing measures, by modeling proper mask use, by elevating public health officials instead of undercutting them—he would likely be sailing to reelection right now. Many foreign leaders and U.S. governors saw polling bumps during the early months of the crisis as voters rallied around authority figures in an uncertain time. Trump only received a brief, modest one; it quickly eroded once he’d applied his erratic, performative, and self-defeating approach to the pandemic.
With people still dying and the economy still reeling, Trump could only draw upon his own anger and fear. “You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing extremist groups,” Wallace said. “But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?” When Trump asked for a specific group, Biden volunteered the Proud Boys, a right-wing gang known for its violent clashes with leftist protesters, its toxic views on women and masculinity, and its alleged rule against masturbating more than once per month.