newrepublic--2020-05-05--The All-Consuming White Pandemic Protester

The images are striking : A young white man in the Michigan state capitol staring blankly ahead , his bare scalp split by a mohawk , the butt of his scoped rifle resting against his carrier vest .
Across the room , a line of state police and sergeants at arms acted as a silent barricade against the throng of protesters demanding the state reopen .
The week before , there had been a similar scene as another group of men , firearms in hand , piled out of the back of a flapped truck parked in front of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by hundreds of right-wing , overwhelmingly white anti-quarantine protesters .
One person was issued a citation .
Last weekend in New York , Shakiem Brunson and Ashley Serrano were approached by four plainclothes cops while chatting outside a bodega .
After ordering them to disperse , the cops pinned Brunson against the window and pushed Serrano to the ground for , the New York Police Department later told Gothamist , allegedly violating social distancing orders .
Video from the scene then shows a cop striking a bystander , Donni Wright , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ribs while he was pinned to the ground .
There is nothing surprising at this point about the deference shown by police to armed white protesters and the violent contempt held for people of color for simply being outside ( or in their own homes ) .
We ’ ve seen it before : After police shot and killed Stephon Clark in 2017 , 84 people were arrested in a subsequent peaceful march against police violence through an affluent white neighborhood .
Hundreds of Native water protectors were violently arrested at Standing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and rubber bullets and high-pressure water hoses in freezing temperatures on unarmed crowds .
Yet police at the deadly 2017 Charlottesville “ Unite the Right ” protest stood by as a member of the KKK fired his pistol in the direction of counterprotesters .
But the heavy policing being reserved ( again ) for communities of color right now also comes at the same time as these communities are dealing with the worst of this virus .
The numbers—at least the ones that are available—have all borne out the same ugly truths and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a preference for capital over human life : Native communities across the country are still cut off from federal aid while staring down steep rates of infection .
In North Carolina , where the state government ’ s response has been relatively adequate , Black people , who make up 22 percent of the population , are still 39 percent of Covid-19 cases and 35 percent of reported deaths .
( Even more sobering , as the News & Observer pointed out , is that this tracks with the trends established in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
And everywhere from Illinois to D.C. to Wisconsin to Iowa , the Latinx community ’ s infection rate leads by a wide margin .

The anti-stay-home protesters, and their political allies who want to “reopen” the economy, will only force people of color deeper into this double bind: They are often the frontline, high-contact workers made most vulnerable during the pandemic. So if the virus, which is predicted to nearly double its current daily death toll to 3,000 by June, resurges in the fall and winter as widely expected, it will again do the most damage to these workers and their communities. And yet, despite this systemic and unnecessary cruelty, thanks to centuries of precedent, it is still almost impossible to imagine a similar occupation of public space by Black, Latinx, or Native citizens not ending in horrific, state-sanctioned violence and paternalistic finger-wagging from both Democratic leaders and the media.
Think about the movements within these communities that have quickly and quietly become background noise: The petitions and sickouts initiated by Amazon workers. The local and national rent strike movements. The protests by low-wage workers forced to enter the petri dishes that are meat-processing plants. These are more representative of the life-or-death decisions facing the working class, and particularly low-wage workers of color, both now and when businesses are reopened. But because they lack striking visuals, the nation’s attention has instead been turned toward protesters who represent a statistically slim percentage of the nation.
This is another version of the invisibility being enforced on vulnerable communities right now, particularly working-class communities of color: The labor actions being staged across the country are life-giving in an almost literal sense. They are workers fighting for safer conditions and hazard pay, both to keep themselves and others safe. The anti-lockdown protests, in contrast, are life-taking. They are, as my colleagues at TNR have written in recent weeks, protests about sending other people back to work.


newrepublic--2020-05-05--Why do Democrats Keep Embracing George W. Bush?

Nostalgia for George W. Bush is at an all-time high .
It has been rising ever since Donald Trump launched his presidential run in the summer of 2015 , and affection for one of the worst presidents in American history may have peaked over the weekend , when his presidential library released a three-minute video calling for unity and an end to partisanship .
“ Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat , ” Bush says , as photographs of Americans wearing masks flash across the screen and a symphony swells .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not partisan combatants .
We are human beings , equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God .
We rise or fall together and we are determined to rise.
” It was a rare public statement from the former president .
It was also a barely disguised criticism of President Trump ’ s erratic , narcissistic response to the coronavirus crisis .
Trump got the message loud and clear , quoting Fox News ’ s Pete Hegseth in a tweet : “ Oh bye [ sic ] the way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush , but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside ?
” For many , the dustup was a civics lesson : Even Bush , a terrible president , understands what the moment calls for .
The Washington Post ’ s Philip Rucker said that the video presented a “ striking contrast to the messages of late from President Trump.
” The New York Times ’ Peter Baker wrote that it “ struck a tone of unity that contrasted with the more combative approach taken at times by President Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of national solidarity in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11 , 2001.
” Former Democratic Representative Katie Hill tweeted , “ In a million years I never thought I ’ d be crying watching this , thinking how much better we ’ d all feel if Bush were president today .
Wtf.
” It was a sentiment echoed by a number of Democrats and Trump critics .

These are valid criticisms of Trump. Trump is abnormal, a freak, violating the norms of common decency on an hourly basis. But it’s not that simple, especially when Bush is involved. In the warm glow of the media’s attention, Bush’s abysmal record—Afghanistan and Iraq, Katrina, the Great Recession, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib—is obscured. It’s not always necessary to wrestle with a politician’s entire career, but in Bush’s case, it deserves more than a passing reference. The fact that Bush publicly pushed back against Islamophobia is important, but less so than the fact that his administration invaded two predominantly Muslim countries.
Lest we forget, Bush was an incredibly divisive president. He brought the country together for a fleeting moment after 9/11—then promptly frittered away all that goodwill by trusting his stupid gut and going his own way. He won reelection by slandering his war-hero opponent and stoking conservative fears about gay marriage. His line about being “a uniter, not a divider” was a long-standing joke. And his successor—who, for better and often for worse, seemed to genuinely believe in the ideal of national unity—rode a wave of anti-Bush fervor into the White House.
That this is the person who now stands for some halcyon political era says nothing good about either the Republican Party or the opposition. In this moment of crisis, there is an opportunity for Democrats to showcase the kind of leadership that they have promised to bring back to the White House. With the exception of Andrew Cuomo, they have failed to do so. Biden has spent the last two months in his basement and has only been in the spotlight to address the sexual assault allegations against him.


newrepublic--2020-05-05--I’m Teaching From Home and Don’t Know How Long We Can Keep This Up

Teachers are constantly left out of education policy and of making decisions about the things that we know best .
We definitely weren ’ t interviewed about how we thought remote learning should go .
But we ’ re still the ones rolling it out .
Right after schools closed , we called up all of our students ’ parents to make sure they were OK .
I made probably four or five hours of calls , checking in on the students ’ mental health and seeing how they were doing .
But there was also a huge push , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Education , for us to get as many students logged on to Google Classroom as we could .
So because none of us teachers had ever used Google Classroom , as we were calling up students ’ parents and checking in , we were also learning the system ourselves and then making video tutorials for students on how to log in .
We also had to get internet-enabled iPads for students without devices at home .
On March 20 , I put in three orders for devices for students , but it wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of April—that all the orders finally came in .
It took over a month for some of my students to get their device—it was just crazy .
I teach fifth grade—reading , math , science , social studies , and writing—at a public school in Sunset Park , Brooklyn .
My class right now is a mix of Latinx students , Chinese students , and some South Asian students , and many of their parents don ’ t speak English .
Luckily , I have some knowledge of Spanish and Chinese , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggling to reach parents because they don ’ t speak those languages and had to find translation .
What I ’ ve also noticed with my students is that their parents have either lost jobs and are now home trying to find employment , or they ’ re frontline workers who are overworked right now , meaning they ’ re not home to help their child with schoolwork during regular school hours .
They ’ re coming home late and only able to work with their child at night , which is when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like , “ Ms .
Tan , my child is having trouble with this .
Can you help ?
” Or , “ There is a glitch in this Google form that ’ s marking my answer wrong .
Can you help with this ?
”

Teachers are constantly left out of education policy and of making decisions about the things that we know best. We definitely weren’t interviewed about how we thought remote learning should go. But we’re still the ones rolling it out.
Right after schools closed, we called up all of our students’ parents to make sure they were OK. I made probably four or five hours of calls, checking in on the students’ mental health and seeing how they were doing. But there was also a huge push, right away, from the Department of Education, for us to get as many students logged on to Google Classroom as we could. So because none of us teachers had ever used Google Classroom, as we were calling up students’ parents and checking in, we were also learning the system ourselves and then making video tutorials for students on how to log in. We also had to get internet-enabled iPads for students without devices at home. On March 20, I put in three orders for devices for students, but it wasn’t until last week—the last week of April—that all the orders finally came in. It took over a month for some of my students to get their device—it was just crazy.


newrepublic--2020-05-06--Bipartisanship Won’t Save Us

Bipartisanship Won’t Save Us

In a rare public statement on Saturday , former President George W. Bush urged Americans to come together in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic .
“ Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat , ” he said in a brief video .
“ In the final analysis , we are not partisan combatants .
We are human beings , equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God .
We rise or fall together and we are determined to rise.
” This was met with predictable responses : praise for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ condemnations of that praise and his legacy from the left , and whining from our current president .
Contra Trump , the choruses calling on Americans to set aside their differences in any given political situation are never really in need of additional members .
And Bush is simply echoing a strain of commentary that has been popular since the coronavirus pandemic reached our shores .
In a March Politico Magazine package , Columbia psychologist Peter Coleman speculated that the crisis could be the cure for political tribalism .
“ The extraordinary shock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus pandemic is bringing has the potential to break America out of the 50-plus year pattern of escalating political and cultural polarization we have been trapped in , ” he wrote , “ and help us to change course toward greater national solidarity and functionality.
” Representative Justin Amash , the ex-Republican and historical footnote-to-be , has justified his run for the Libertarian Party ’ s presidential nomination as a stand against a “ partisan death spiral ” that the pandemic has further exposed .
Last Wednesday , New York Governor Andrew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masks donated to New York from around the country .
“ A little bit more of this and a little less of the partisanship and the ugliness and this country will be a beautiful place , ” he said .
But signs abound that polarization remains deep and strong , from the disparity in responses to the pandemic by Democratic and Republican state governments to the disparities in the measures Democratic and Republican voters have taken against the virus in their own lives .
Still , extraordinary things have been happening on Capitol @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gridlock and intractable partisanship have been muted in celebrating .
Democrats and Republicans have come together to allocate nearly $ 3 trillion to the coronavirus relief effort , the largest economic stimulus in American history .
Tense sparring and argument has given way , four separate times within the last two months , to bipartisan agreement on wide-ranging , expensive , and consequential legislation—each bill reaching final passage with negligible opposition .
The last was sent to Trump from the Democratic House on a 388–5 vote .
Exactly one Democrat , Representative Alexandria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disarray of the White House ’ s response and amid all the uncertainty the crisis has brought about , we ’ ve been treated to a legislative process straight out of a grade-school civics book .
Democrats came into each negotiation with broad and expensive asks on relief programs and other priorities but compromised to get money out the door to the American people quickly .
Republicans opposed to broadening eligibility for full stimulus payments and the generosity of the CARES Act ’ s unemployment benefits voted unanimously for the bill anyway .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ long time , Democrats and Republicans sat down , agreed to policy compromises a little disappointing to both sides , and passed a series of massive bills addressing significant problems facing the American people .
This may be bipartisanship ’ s finest hour in at least a generation , and members of Congress would have been within their rights to expect high hosannas from every editorial board in the country .
They haven ’ t arrived .
Why not ?

There’s always a shyness about talking up what bipartisanship actually manages to achieve, and for good reason. Its other major accomplishments over the last quarter-century or so in federal policymaking include the Iraq War, the crime bill, cuts to welfare programs, financial deregulation, and the Defense of Marriage Act. Adding the coronavirus relief effort thus far gets you a list of initiatives that have been subpar at best and unfathomably destructive at worst. Conversely, many of the developments that we now recognize as progress in this country—grants of freedom, dignity, and equality to various groups, the creation of many programs and policies we now take for granted—were the products of overwhelming partisan or ideological majorities, executive actions, and court orders as often (or more often) than they were the products of mutual, willful compromise between bitter opponents. Of all the lies politicians tell, the notion that progress can only happen if we come together as moral and political equals is possibly our favorite. It is the lie we most want to be true because it is the lie that brings the rest of the lies we tell ourselves about our country and our history into coherence.
As long as it serves that purpose, appeals to bipartisanship and compromise will continue to pad out columns and fill out the speeches of figures with nothing else to say—those who need to convince voters, readers, and themselves that they bear commitments to loftier, more flattering ambitions than the ones implied by their actions and the policies they support. However mediocre or actively counterproductive the average politician’s platform might seem, they can always claim that they want to bring about a united America—one of the few grand projects most Americans agree with. Since the pandemic struck, more and more voices in the press have tried to merge it with a more substantive project—repairing the inequities and deficiencies the crisis has exposed in our economy, our institutions, and our way of life.
But what we build after the crisis, if we build anything at all, won’t be built together. Ideological differences entirely aside, there’s no particular reason why a party led by a man thinking aloud about the merits of bleach injections should have a hand in crafting the next New Deal or Great Society. A recent Times column from Frank Bruni, perhaps the thousandth in its genre, asked whether the Republican Party’s willingness to indulge the president might truly be bottomless. “[F]rom the start of his presidency, I have waited, in all my optimism and innocence, for a pause in the cycle,” Bruni wrote. “For the moment when Republican lawmakers realize that to prop up Trump is to take down America.” While he and similarly minded pundits continue their wait, the rest of us should hold fast to reality. Nothing worth happening is going to happen without an epochal realignment of political power in America—one that sees the Republican Party defeated and disempowered in November, in the next decade, and forever. We’ve tried bipartisanship. We’ve tried conservative governance. Now we must work to give progressive hegemony a chance.


newrepublic--2020-05-06--Thomas Piketty’s Plan to Fix the Economy

The greatest lie of our political system and the essence of proprietarian thought is that investment is somehow neutral .
That somehow it makes sense that people with capital get to make all the decisions in our society : where an apartment gets built , where a sports team plays , what a museum shows , what technology gets researched .
Yet the truth is that access to capital , to real estate , to assets , to education , and to any number of advantages has long been unequal .
If we are ever going to resolve persistent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need shared social ownership in many areas of public life .
The alternative is dire .
Without serious reform , the current economic shutdown will extend the inequality regime that currently rules the United States , making the divide between those who wield economic and political power and those who do not even harsher .
While the shutdown is an exceptional event , it is also an amplification of the problems Piketty noted in 2014 and ventures to resolve today .
The propertied , wealthy classes will weather the storm ; everyone else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the primacy of private property left the country exceedingly vulnerable to an economic shock : Among other things , an obsession with the legitimacy of private wealth and low taxes has stranded cities , states , and the nation without the resources to respond in an emergency .
While states like New York might be able to provide some assistance to unemployed workers , small businesses , and hospitals , it will likely come at a cost of steep budget cuts to education and public transit subsidies .
The federal government , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it wants to , but there are few mechanisms in place for getting that deficit spending in the hands of people , no free public banks to disburse cash into , or dedicated Federal Reserve discount lending windows for small businesses .
( By contrast , the Fed has plenty of ways to quickly divert spending toward financial institutions and big corporations . )
In Capital and Ideology , Piketty has put forward proposals for long-term , permanent change , but impressively , they would also be immediately useful in speeding along the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wealth would free up cash for workers who have been furloughed or whose employers were bankrupted .
Placing a significant number of workers on the board of every corporation could make sure the low-interest , government guaranteed loans are put to good use .
While inequality is deep-rooted and persistent , Piketty is an optimist : He points out that we often think things are unchangeable , when a careful study of history reveals otherwise .
In the beginning of the book , he warns that we should be wary of anyone who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not exist , because he finds that humans have routinely “ demonstrated an astonishing capacity to imagine new institutions and develop new forms of cooperation.
” Piketty ’ s own imagination of new worlds is grounded in a rigorous and detailed analysis of the institutions that have existed in the real world .
His proposals , he insists , are limited to those based “ primarily on the historical lessons presented in this book.
” He is uncovering ideas that have worked before .
They could work again .

Piketty became famous with his blockbuster Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which, unbelievably for a book about economics, had sold over 1.5 million copies by January 2015. The book described the extent and dynamics of wealth and income inequalities. It theorized that when the returns on capital exceed the growth of the economy, inequality grows exponentially. It’s not hard to see how the book and its rapturous reception were spurred by the experience of the financial collapse of 2008: As the crash exposed long-running inequities, Piketty’s book gave theoretical weight and form to a problem many could see, but didn’t yet have the words to describe. Today, his observations are ubiquitous, and it is almost mandatory for any book about economics to have the word “inequality” somewhere in the title.
Piketty’s new book is a sequel. It ventures to trace the origin of inequalities and propose methods of eradication that the first book only hinted at. Unlike Capital, the new book lands on the world’s doorstep in the midst of an unfolding economic crisis, when the shutdown required to prevent the spread of the coronavirus is sending the world into a spiraling recession, with the wealthy fleeing to secluded second homes, while millions are thrown out of work or forced to do dangerous jobs. To come out the other side better off, the world will need new ideas. The path to a more durable, more tolerably arranged society, Piketty argues, lies in rethinking private ownership.
Individual property rights were not always at the heart of society. Up to the eighteenth century, many were what Piketty calls “trifunctional.” In these cultures, there were effectively three classes: the clergy, the nobility, and the people who worked. The clergy were the intellectual and spiritual leaders, while the nobility were the military power and the agrarian landlords. These two classes, to varying degrees, shared power and owned all cultivable land, which was the root of power in societies dependent on agriculture. The masters of the land were masters of the people, whether they were, as Piketty lists, “French seigneurs, English landlords, Spanish bishops, Indian Brahmins or Rajputs.”


newrepublic--2020-05-06--The Important Debate Planet of the Humans Misses

One legitimate concern the film could have focused on is how utility companies and private developers deploy large-scale renewables on federal land .
That ’ s an issue environmental groups—like those the film attacks as being too credulous on renewable energy—have in fact repeatedly raised .
While renewable energy development is often stymied by dark-money spending at least as much as—if not more than—local resistance , renewables do need to attend to issues of public participation in what gets built , how renewable infrastructure is designed , and who benefits from that development .
Such concerns over democratic input and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laughed off as wingnuttery from either a moral or practical standpoint—especially given that renewables need to expand rapidly if we ’ re to meet urgent emissions targets .
Yet by gathering all his gripes about low-carbon energy into a single , shoddily researched product , Gibbs makes it easier for green energy advocates to dismiss any and all concerns as the work of propaganda artists or crackpots .
Similarly , human rights campaigners and eco-socialists have long worried about the conditions under which minerals used in solar panels and electric vehicles are extracted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sustainably will be vital in coming years as the solar industry expands .
Gibbs ’ s film sloppily insists renewables are bad and will always be bad , making it harder to have a good-faith conversation about how the components of the energy transition are procured .
In the end , many of the film ’ s problems stem from its inability to perceive a crucial distinction—one environmentalists can miss , too—between renewables advocates and the renewables industry .
Gibbs targets a so-called “ green energy movement ” which doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movements currently favor expanding green energy , whether through measures like renewable portfolio standards and campaigns to shutter coal-fired power plants , or as part of more comprehensive approaches like the Green New Deal , to move away from fossil fuels entirely .
Separate from those favoring green energy is the renewables sector itself—now a $ 1.5 trillion dollar industry which operates a lot like any other industry .
Its goal is to make a profit , with competing firms looking to sell their products to as many people as possible and return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cut corners , bust unions , and violate labor law .
In that , the people making money off clean energy and ugly , continent-spanning supply chains are not wholly unlike those that produce cell phones and laptops .
They lobby lawmakers .
Many of them struck a bargain with Congress to support lifting the crude oil export ban in 2015 in exchange for a temporary tax credit extension .
While the levels of regulatory capture and political spending they engage in pales in comparison to the fossil fuel industry , these are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tree-hugging do-gooders .
Climate advocates should pay more attention to how this industry works and stop giving it a free pass for bad behavior ; too often , discussions of 100 percent renewable energy neglect questions of power and ownership , all but assuming that a new class of green entrepreneurs will step in to take the place of today ’ s fossil fuel magnates .
Alas , this is not the kind of nuanced lesson viewers will glean watching Gibbs ’ s ham-fisted explanation of how energy and electric cars worked a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s longtime interest in automakers ’ malpractice , Planet of the Humans ’ snippet on electric vehicles ( EV ) might have been a chance to skewer them for using EV production as an excuse to outsource jobs , one of the grievances presented by workers in a recent United Auto Workers strike .
Gibbs , as director , might have included interviews with union autoworkers that are pushing to retool their factories to participate in the energy transition .
Who benefits from clean energy , and on whose terms will it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in ?
How will they be treated and protected ?
Instead of asking these questions , Gibbs meditates on his cherry-picked , out-of-date factoids , reporting with glee that GM salespeople presenting the Chevrolet Volt in 2010 plugged their car into a grid that still ran on fossil fuels .
“ Is it possible , ” he asks , “ for machines made by industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization ?
” It ’ s an approach more at home in a freshman dorm room than a film with the backing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prominent documentarians .

Similarly, human rights campaigners and eco-socialists have long worried about the conditions under which minerals used in solar panels and electric vehicles are extracted. Procuring lithium and other metals ethically and sustainably will be vital in coming years as the solar industry expands. Gibbs’s film sloppily insists renewables are bad and will always be bad, making it harder to have a good-faith conversation about how the components of the energy transition are procured.
In the end, many of the film’s problems stem from its inability to perceive a crucial distinction—one environmentalists can miss, too—between renewables advocates and the renewables industry. Gibbs targets a so-called “green energy movement” that doesn’t exist. A number of people and movements currently favor expanding green energy, whether through measures like renewable portfolio standards and campaigns to shutter coal-fired power plants, or as part of more comprehensive approaches like the Green New Deal, to move away from fossil fuels entirely. Separate from those favoring green energy is the renewables sector itself—now a $1.5 trillion industry that operates a lot like any other industry. Its goal is to make a profit, with competing firms looking to sell their products to as many people as possible and return value to investors and shareholders. It cuts corners, bust unions, and violates labor law. In that, the people making money from clean energy and ugly, continent-spanning supply chains are not wholly unlike those who produce cell phones and laptops. They lobby lawmakers. Many of them struck a bargain with Congress to support lifting the crude oil export ban in 2015 in exchange for a temporary tax-credit extension. While the levels of regulatory capture and political spending they engage in pale in comparison to the fossil fuel industry, these are first and foremost for-profit firms, not tree-hugging do-gooders. Climate advocates should pay more attention to how this industry works and stop giving it a free pass for bad behavior: Too often, discussions of 100 percent renewable energy neglect questions of power and ownership, all but assuming that a new class of green entrepreneurs will step in to take the place of today’s fossil fuel magnates. Alas, this is not the kind of nuanced lesson viewers will glean watching Gibbs’s ham-fisted explanation of how energy and electric cars worked a decade ago.
Given executive producer Moore’s longtime interest in automakers’ malpractice, the snippet on electric vehicles in Planet of the Humans might have been a chance to skewer the auto industry for using EV production as an excuse to outsource jobs, one of the grievances presented by workers in a recent United Auto Workers strike. Gibbs, as director, might have included interviews with union autoworkers who are pushing to retool their factories to participate in the energy transition. Who benefits from clean energy, and on whose terms will it scale up? Where do workers fit in? How will they be treated and protected? Instead of asking these questions, Gibbs meditates on his cherry-picked, out-of-date factoids, reporting with glee that GM salespeople presenting the Chevrolet Volt in 2010 plugged their car into a grid that still ran on fossil fuels. “Is it possible,” he asks, “for machines made by industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization?” It’s an approach more at home in a freshman dorm room than a film with the backing of one of America’s most prominent documentarians.


newrepublic--2020-05-06--Why Is the Pentagon Still Paying $10 a Gallon for Gas?

As any American who ’ s passed a gas station in the past two months knows , global oil markets are melting down .
Even before coronavirus lockdowns led billions of people to halt their daily commutes , cratering demand for gasoline , Saudi Arabia and Russia had increased production of crude oil , the main component in refined fuels , in an attempt to drive each other out of business .
Oil prices plummeted .
For a brief period last month , the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude dropped 300 percent , to negative $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 20 a barrel—less than 50 cents per gallon—and some experts warn that “ the coronavirus oil shock is just getting started.
” It ’ s a terrible time to be in the fuel business .
Unless , that is , you have the right Iraqi connections , and you ’ re selling to the United States military and its contractors .
On March 12 , the Pentagon ’ s Defense Logistics Agency signed a contract with a Virginia-based war-zone logistics company , DGCI , to deliver 333,000 gallons of jet fuel to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iraq ’ s semi-independent northern region .
Even though crude oil costs less to produce in Iraq than almost anywhere else in the world , the DLA agreed to pay DGCI $ 10.04 per gallon of jet-propulsion fuel 8 , or JP-8 .
That ’ s three to five times more than the worldwide average price , $ 2 to $ 3 per gallon , that the DLA had paid for JP-8 earlier in March .
“ I know the price of gas I ’ m paying ” at the pump , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coalition for Integrity , a Washington-based anti-corruption nonprofit , adding that a $ 10-per-gallon purchase price is “ definitely a strong red flag of mismanagement.
” DGCI representatives did not respond to requests for comment , but the Pentagon said the inflated prices reflect a premium for short-term , emergency deliveries .
“ The subject fuel purchases from DGCI were individual spot market purchases due to interruptions to the supply chain supporting operations in Iraq , ” said DLA Deputy Director of Public Affairs Patrick Mackin .
“ These emergency purchases were required @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manner to prevent mission failure .
”

The DLA sure buys a lot of “emergency” fuel. In March alone, it agreed to buy 1.46 million gallons of JP-8 from DGCI at an average price of $8.08 a gallon, along with millions of gallons of other types of fuels. While rates as high as the usurious March fuel purchases are rare, a review of contracts by the Government Accountability Project, where I work, reveals that the military has paid DGCI inflated fuel prices for years.
That kind of arrangement “is not unusual,” said the former State Department official. “It’s like a giant Mafia.”
The U.S. military shouldn’t consistently overpay for fuel, especially in the middle of a historic oil glut that’s left supplies untapped and devalued. But Iraq and its Kurdish autonomous region are some of the most corrupt locales on earth, a fact that spurred a massive youth protest movement last winter. “Endemic corruption in Baghdad and Erbil, particularly in the energy sector, has gravely afflicted Iraq,” said Stuart Bowen, the former special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who oversaw investigations into misuse of government funds in Iraq until 2013.
This corruption has left the American military vulnerable to fuel price-gouging, with profits going into the pockets of local politicians. “The U.S. government has had a lot of trouble getting supplies of just normal fuel, like gasoline or diesel, because these transportation contracts are very lucrative,” said a former State Department official with experience in Kurdistan, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly about political realities in the region. “What the government doesn’t control is essentially controlled by the big families.”


newrepublic--2020-05-06--The Backlash Appeal of Mrs. America

The Backlash Appeal of Mrs. America

“ But aren ’ t women really worse male chauvinists than men , I mean , most of them ?
” Warren Beatty asks the poet and director Sandra Hochman , a few minutes into her brilliant , anarchic docu-fantasia about the 1972 Democratic convention , Year of the Woman .
Leaning down toward her , his frown a flirtatious parody of respectful curiosity , he insists : “ Aren ’ t they more destructive to the women ’ s movement , basically , than men are… ?
” He isn ’ t actually talking about the conservative activist and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year began her crusade against the Equal Rights Amendment , and who is played with relish by Cate Blanchett in Dahvi Waller ’ s glitzy new FX/Hulu drama Mrs. America .
Yet Beatty ’ s silken tone does convey a fascination with the anti-feminist woman that retains its grip on filmmakers all these decades later .
From Meryl Streep ’ s admiring portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady , to Nicole Kidman ’ s and Charlize Theron ’ s peppy takes on Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly in Bombshell , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enduringly potent fetish object , for liberals in particular .
Mrs. America seems at first to be a case in point .
It begins in 1972 , when Schlafly starts marshaling her anti-ERA forces .
She ’ s the underdog : At that year ’ s Republican convention , delegates from the National Women ’ s Political Caucus ensured that the party platform declared support for the ERA , as well as for federally sponsored childcare .
Nine episodes span the period up to Ronald Reagan ’ s 1980 landslide , in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which marks the end of the women ’ s movement as a certain kind of visible force in American politics .
The show ’ s scope is ambitious , with individual episodes following Shirley Chisholm ( Uzo Aduba ) , Gloria Steinem ( Rose Byrne ) , Betty Friedan ( Tracey Ullman ) , Bella Abzug ( Margo Martindale ) , and Jill Ruckelshaus ( Elizabeth Banks ) .
The feminists occasionally threaten to run away with the story , but Schlafly dominates—the star antagonist , shaping the narrative throughout .
You can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the crudest level , there ’ s the perverse thrill of villainy .
We see Schlafly chuckling over the notion of public money for women ’ s shelters : “ I think the husband will be more inclined to beat her if he thinks she ’ s going to get a vacation funded by his tax dollars !
” She ’ s also unembarrassed by any apparent contradiction between her opposition to women ’ s lib and her own careerism—rather than stay home to enjoy the attentions of her wealthy lawyer husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law degree to her master ’ s in government , made several runs for public office , gave speeches around the country , and debated her enemies on TV .
Free of the guilty unease that dogs upper–middle-class white feminists , she likes to announce , “ I ’ ve always said that women can do whatever they want.
” As a vehement anti-Communist , she believes in an American individualism that lets you have it all ways at once .
If the protections and privileges of a pampered wife have helped her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s all the more reason to defend and celebrate them .
There ’ s a deeper aspect , though , to the lure of the right-wing woman , and it speaks to Mrs. America ’ s greatest strength .
Such characters lay bare the danger in assuming that your social cause may eventually prevail through the justness of its arguments , that it ’ s possible and sufficient to be—in that notably passive locution—on the right side of history .
Mrs. America is an apt reminder that the achievements of the women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of historical progress .
Gains are contingent .
They must be negotiated , schemed , and fought for .
As Blanchett ’ s Schlafly puts it , “ It ’ s about power .
”

That gamble soon pays off as the show develops. The shifting struggles, machinations, and compromises that activism entails become the heart of the drama, with political disappointments and conflicts informing and sharpening the domestic ones, rather than the other way around. It’s a relief to acknowledge that the way a person engages in politics may tell you more about her than the details of her love life. We see Chisholm fight to stay in the race for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination when supposed allies are insisting it’s time to rally behind George McGovern—and their shamed disillusionment when he nonetheless betrays them over abortion rights. Later, Abzug accuses Steinem of wanting to “preach to the choir” by going to California and discussing wording for sex workers’ rights, while she heads to do battle on Schlafly’s turf, Illinois. To her comrades’ shock, Abzug threatens to drop a promised motion for protections on sexual preference. “You were a bigger radical than me when we met!” Steinem says at one point. “And you were a dilettante,” Abzug retorts, “who wanted to play politics.”
Yet Abzug looks uncomfortable when Friedan reassures her that the only way to win is to abandon what she considers fringe interests, and focus, like Schlafly, on one simple demand: equal pay for equal work. “Does it bother you that no one calls you a radical anymore?” Abzug asks. “The movement is getting down to middle America,” Friedan insists. “We’re mainstream, that’s a good thing.” The question keeps coming up: Who decides which goals are indispensable?
The other side isn’t immune to such problems. Schlafly has to manage the egos of lobbyists and Republican insiders, and coordinate the factions she relies on: the Southern evangelicals and Illinois housewives, the more explicit white supremacists (Birchers, Klansmen) she must publicly disavow, but whose fervor helps her numbers. Even emotional dramas in the Schlafly home serve mainly to illuminate her politics. There’s a family showdown when Schlafly finds out her daughter, just coming to consciousness as an undergraduate, has changed her name from Phyllis Jr. to Liza. Her Princeton friends are feminists, who “all want to be Gloria Steinem” (the ubiquity of Steinem-alikes is a recurring visual gag in the series). She feels like Hester Prynne, an outcast. Eyes welling, face rigid, Schlafly responds with a story about her own youth during the Depression, when her mother, on top of full-time work, took a Saturday job at a Roman Catholic high school so that Phyllis could attend. Classmates laughed, but she says, “I never, ever thought, let alone said, that I was ashamed ... of her.”


newrepublic--2020-05-06--At Long Last, the “Queen of Folk” Gets Her Biography

On the night of May 30 , 1964 , the Alabama-born singer Odetta watched a thunderstorm explode over Brussels from her room at the Amigo hotel .
She was on her first European tour , promoting her twelfth studio album .
From the distance of half a century , her tour guitarist Peter Childs remembers how “ radiant ” Odetta looked as the lightning illuminated her face , rain pummeling the cobblestones below .
Childs remembers the moment well because his boss was not always so happy .
Odetta was one of the most famous singers in America in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Her career was bookended by a hardscrabble childhood and equally tough middle age , although she sang to enraptured audiences into her twilight years .
Now largely forgotten by younger generations , Odetta has never since received the recognition her art is due .
Ian Zack ’ s new biography , Odetta : A Life in Music and Protest , is here to repair that gap in the record .
Sara Marcus wrote in a 2015 TNR piece “ Against Musicians ’ Biographies ” that traditional songs ( she uses the example of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standard ) are more important than the people who sing them , because they gain their value by being handed down over generations .
Zack ’ s book begs to differ on simple musical grounds : Odetta was such a transformatively magnetic performer that she continues to influence the meaning of her repertoire .
Born Odetta Holmes on the last day of 1930 , she took her stepfather ’ s last name , Felious , but dropped it in favor of a mononym as soon as she began performing .
She was ridiculed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tall , and internalized that teasing .
She was trained in opera but hit the big time after falling in with the folk crowd in the early 1950s , singing spirituals and old traditional tunes like “ John Henry.
” In Zack ’ s biography , Pete Seeger recalls coaxing Odetta to join a hootenanny singalong sometime in the ’ 50s .
She was shy at first , but “ when she was persuaded to sing , power , power , intensity , and power !
” Odetta ’ s voice was a @ @ @ @ @ @

Black women were scandalized, inspired, or both by her short, natural Afro, one of the first of its kind to appear on screen (Angela Davis copied her). The civil rights movement in general, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in particular, also found a troubadour in Odetta, who grew up under Jim Crow in Birmingham and bore the psychological scars to match. She became close with Martin Luther King Jr., and her songs became the soundtrack to his mission. Odetta will always be remembered for singing “Oh Freedom” at the March on Washington in 1963.
Her celebrity always had one foot in civil rights and the other in the American folk-revival scene, which, in the late 1950s, was recovering from Joseph McCarthy’s persecution and in need of young, charismatic talents. Those two worlds were interconnected, of course, but Odetta’s influence among white musicians is difficult to overstate. Bob Dylan, whose career would eclipse hers in only a few years, decided to sing behind an acoustic guitar after hearing an Odetta L.P. play in a record shop in 1950s New York. Carly Simon fainted when she first met her.
Odetta’s big problem in the 1960s was musical. The splendid dignity and gravitas of her classically influenced style, so meaningful to the folkies, just didn’t swing the way that rock and roll did. She struggled to find a new sound once folk dropped out of fashion. She didn’t have the gravel or rhythmic flair of Aretha Franklin, who by 1970 had displaced Odetta as the preeminent African American female singer in the public imagination, which didn’t have space for two.


newrepublic--2020-05-05--Why Do Democrats Keep Embracing George W. Bush?


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Pandemic Is a Family Emergency

The Pandemic Is a Family Emergency

No one anticipated that when the fabric of society finally unraveled , in March 2020 , everyone would turn into June Cleaver .
People made all their meals from scratch , gloated over their sourdough starter , and sewed their own face masks .
Secular urban professionals scoured Mormon blogs for homeschooling tips .
Actually , a Leave It to Beaver–style arrangement was about the best you could hope for : Most people ’ s lives abruptly deteriorated into far more dystopian scenes than those associated with the iconic housewife .
Some maintained full telecommuting workloads while their kids remained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” faced serious danger of infection , and panic over who would watch their children while they worked .
The chores were never done ; there were no weddings or PTA meetings to look forward to ; no friends stopped by for coffee .
As a friend of mine put it , housework and parenting are hard on the best days .
These were not the best days .
When Covid-19 became a lethal threat to Americans in early spring , debate raged over how to contain it .
Not all considerations were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urged closing public schools—along with any other place where it was difficult for humans to stay six feet from one another—others wondered how parents would manage without school , which doubles as childcare .
Poor families and children are dependent on the public education system to provide basic sustenance as well .
In New York City , the epicenter of the outbreak , students get free meals at school , not to mention access to health care , social workers , and even , for some—crucial given that one in 10 children in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do laundry .
Meanwhile , the safety of those providing this vital care work was systematically disregarded .
Teachers came down with symptoms , and their colleagues were forced to keep teaching .
At Brooklyn Tech , one of New York City ’ s premier specialized high schools , five teachers told their union representative that they had tested positive for the coronavirus .
After closing the school to children , the Department of Education kept it open for faculty and staff for a few more days .
A vibrant 36-year-old school principal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school worker reported to die .
The beloved educator ran the Brooklyn Democracy Academy , a transfer high school in Brownsville , Brooklyn .
( Transfer high schools serve students who have struggled in traditional public schools . )
Before that , Romain had been an art teacher .
A former student told Time , “ She didn ’ t just teach us art ... .
She taught us how to be leaders in our own light.
” By mid-April , more than 60 employees of the school system had died of coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aides , who are paid poorly and tend to be women of color , were hit especially hard , accounting for 41 percent of deaths despite making up just 17 percent of the workforce .
Educators were not the only care workers whose bosses showed indifference to their safety and survival .
Some comparatively well-off families continued to rely on home nanny care well after social distancing was recommended .
Other nannies were told to stay home without pay , or simply dismissed .
As an Atlanta nanny told Slate , “ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say , you can have some money and just take care of yourself .
That ’ s not what ’ s happening.
” Many cleaners suffered ; employers complied with the stay-at-home orders by asking them not to come to work , yet were unwilling to pay them to stay away .
Some were no doubt acting selfishly , while others simply couldn ’ t afford to keep paying .
Since many domestic workers are undocumented and therefore excluded from the federal aid offered to others during the crisis , they have endured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Workers Alliance , which advocates for better pay and working conditions for house cleaners , home care workers , and nannies , raised money for emergency assistance—a “ Coronavirus Care Fund ” —to help these workers safely stay home during the pandemic .
But a series of charitable appeals will hardly be able to support all those facing hardship .

In desperate times,
the difficult work of lifemaking becomes
even harder.
When Griffiths left South Africa, they generalized what they had experienced—it was easy to see the terrible inequities that occur everywhere under neoliberalism as crises of social reproduction. But it wasn’t until the coronavirus pandemic that Griffiths returned to the question of when and how a social reproduction crisis becomes a political crisis. In their view, the challenges of a disaster such as this one dramatically expose the fragility of the whole system, and the intensity and rapidity of the breakage can inspire the kind of political pressure that forces social change. In fact, the potential of this moment has made Griffiths feel that social reproduction theorists like themselves have probably, up until now, been “over-anticipating” the political potential of the struggles that came before.
Nevertheless, those responsible for social reproduction had already been organizing. For the last several years, the global work stoppages every March 8, on International Women’s Day, have in many countries been large and visible, especially among public-sector workers. And women’s labor protests have not been limited to that one symbolic day. Domestic workers in particular have been fighting for and sometimes winning protections. “Neoliberalism has cut these sectors to the bone,” Bhattacharya told me. “It is not a surprise that they would be the first to rise up.” In Morocco, India, and even the often-quiescent United States, teachers, too, have gone on strike and won significant victories. Griffiths, who did fieldwork on the West Virginia teachers’ strikes of 2018, which sparked the national wave of teachers’ strikes that year, now sees those actions as the ultimate result of a different public health emergency: the opioid epidemic. When widespread illness causes families to fall apart and people lose their ability to care for one another as they ordinarily would, teachers and nurses are both on the front lines of the problem. West Virginia “was another hot spot,” Griffiths told me, where a social reproduction crisis turned into a political crisis, “in the Marxist sense of workplace action.”
Have politicians taken any notice at all of these shifts? Matters of social reproduction were almost absent from 2016 presidential discourse, despite the presence of a socialist and a woman in the Democratic primary. But in the 2020 primary, several Democratic candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg, presented detailed plans to offer more childcare, and to make it more affordable and better (in Sanders’s case, free, universal, and public). Sanders, who was criticized last time around for saying too little about K-12 education—the closest thing the United States already has to universal childcare—made the defense of public schools and increased teacher pay central to his platform in the 2020 cycle. Though Andrew Yang was never likely to become president, his presence in the race popularized the idea of the universal basic income, which has many implications for social reproduction, not least by reminding us that all care labor is easier when there is less waged work to perform.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Fraught Realities of Financial Relief During a Pandemic

Just before the Coronavirus Aid , Relief and Economic Security ( CARES ) Act passed into law , Republican Senators Tim Scott , Lindsey Graham , and Ben Sasse issued a press release demanding an “ immediate fix ” to what they regarded as a “ life-threatening drafting error.
” The proximate cause of their hyperbolic concern was the flat $ 600 in enhanced unemployment insurance set to be tacked on to pre-existing state payments .
The senators feared the added benefits , which in many cases would mean recipients would briefly receive higher compensation from the unemployment insurance than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would undermine the economic recovery by creating a perverse incentive for workers to remain unemployed .
They threatened to stall the bill unless it was ensured that “ no American would earn more by not working than by working.
” Democratic caucus members pushed back , with Senator Bernie Sanders issuing a particularly spirited rebuke : “ I find that some of my Republican colleagues are very distressed , they ’ re very upset that somebody [ who ] is making $ 10- $ 12 bucks an hour might end up with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received last week .
‘ Oh my God .
The universe is collapsing !
’ You haven ’ t raised the minimum wage in 10 years !
You ’ ve cut program after program after program and now , horror of horrors , for four months , workers might be earning a few bucks more.
” The ideological schism , borne out in a rejected vote to amend the bill , ultimately ceded to bureaucratic realities : Every state administers its own idiosyncratic unemployment system , and many reported that they lacked the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so as to ensure it wouldn ’ t exceed a recipient ’ s prior earnings .
Prioritizing efficiency amid a fast-developing economic crisis , Congress settled on boosting all unemployment checks across-the-board by $ 600—a figure that , combined with state benefits , would roughly replace the full wages for someone making the median U.S. income .
For a major fraction of the tens of millions of Americans who have sought unemployment insurance amid the coronavirus crisis , the CARES Act ’ s enhanced unemployment benefits have encouraged social distancing while providing much-needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surpass what they had made through work .
But millions of others have found their recent experiences with overloaded unemployment offices to be maddening and stressful encounters with a rusty and sometimes hostile bureaucracy .
From this vantage , Congress ’ s bipartisan coronavirus action has been a revealing example of what happens to government systems—and the public ’ s expectations of those systems—when only those seen to benefit the wealthy are kept lubricated and in good repair .

What’s more, the rules of this ad hoc system, hastily jury-rigged at the last moment by federal and local governments, have made for an awkward fit for those employed as contract labor. An East Coast–based freelance writer, newly eligible for unemployment insurance under the CARES Act, told me he has been making fewer pitches to editors since getting his unemployment insurance benefits, which he thinks would no longer pay out if his income in a given week crossed a certain threshold. But even as he’s struggled to find work on account of frozen freelance budgets, he’s reluctant to stop pitching altogether: His career had been “on an upward trajectory” in recent years, netting him north of $30,000 annually. Thus, despite feeling some initial moral quandaries over adapting his work habits to keep receiving benefits, he’s taken the pragmatic approach and targeted his pitches at “prestige” publications that might offer compensation high enough to make getting knocked off unemployment for a week or two worth his while.
Meanwhile, for those in “essential” lines of work, resentments brew. A medical technician in St. Louis told The New Republic that she makes $13 hourly—but has seen these hours cut as her urgent care clinic receives fewer patients. She recalled talking on the phone with a friend, and over the course of the conversation “it became very clear that this person who was not working and was getting unemployment was making significantly more money than me.” At first, she was “pretty pissed” to make this discovery, but she’s since softened: It’s not that unemployment benefits should be less generous, she says. Rather, she believes that “frontline workers need to have hazard pay.”
And then there is the scenario conservatives fear most: generous unemployment insurance disincentivizing people from getting back to work. One such case was detailed in a widely panned NPR story in April about a café owner who said she is struggling to compete with the CARES Act’s generous enhanced unemployment benefits. The merits of that specific report notwithstanding, these situations are not uncommon and have compounded the woes of many small business owners, who have struggled to square the incoherent rules of the loans they received through the Paycheck Protection Program—another CARES Act initiative limited by the government’s atrophied administrative capabilities—with the generosity of the unemployment benefits their workers would receive on unemployment.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--Reimagining the Post-Covid Economy

Reimagining the Post-Covid Economy

The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the usual functioning of the national economy with shocking speed and violence .
Now , as states around the country move to “ reopen ” —in most cases far earlier and faster than is safe—and politicians hold forth about how best to restart economic activity , it seems imperative to consider the nature of the economy getting restarted .
Do we really want to go back to the pre-pandemic status quo ?
How can we remake the system so it works better for everyone ?
For Episode 7 , The Politics of Everything assembled an ad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking six guests to offer their best and least expected ideas for reform : Dean Baker , a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research ; Jason Linkins and Katie McDonough , deputy editors at TNR ; Libby Watson , a TNR staff writer ; and TNR contributors Aaron Timms and Liza Featherstone .
• Though the devastation left by the coronavirus is vast , the crisis also reveals something hopeful , Liza Featherstone observes in “ The Pandemic Is a Family Emergency ” : “ Workers and governments can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pressing needs of children and of our whole society , and … our ideas about the proper role of the state can change , too .
”

The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the usual functioning of the national economy with shocking speed and violence. Now, as states around the country move to “reopen”—in most cases far earlier and faster than is safe—and politicians hold forth about how best to restart economic activity, it seems imperative to consider the nature of the economy getting restarted. Do we really want to go back to the pre-pandemic status quo? How can we remake the system so it works better for everyone?
For Episode 7, The Politics of Everything assembled an ad hoc council to address these questions, asking six guests to offer their best and least expected ideas for reform: Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research; Jason Linkins and Katie McDonough, deputy editors at TNR; Libby Watson, a TNR staff writer; and TNR contributors Aaron Timms and Liza Featherstone.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Jared Kushner of the Federal Judiciary

The Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on Wednesday since March , and the coronavirus pandemic made it a surreal affair .
Senators in the chamber spaced themselves far apart from one another ; others contributed by videoconference .
Most of the lawmakers and their staffers wore masks when they weren ’ t speaking .
So did the only witness who appeared before the committee as well as the only spectator who sat in an otherwise empty gallery .
What brought the committee back together wasn ’ t the pandemic itself , or even aspects of it that might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of the virus within federal prisons , for example , or the fierce debate on whether to immunize businesses from pandemic-related lawsuits .
Instead they gathered to consider whether Judge Justin Walker should be elevated to the D.C .
Circuit Court of Appeals , which is generally considered to be the second-most powerful court in the United States .
The answer should be a resounding no .
Walker , who is 37 years old , has served as a federal district-court judge in Kentucky for only about six months .
As I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less experienced than other federal circuit-court nominees , including President Donald Trump ’ s previous D.C .
Circuit nominees , by almost any conceivable metric .
His scant judicial work also falls well short of justifying his appointment .
One senator noted that he has not presided over any bench or jury trials so far , and that he has only written about a dozen opinions during his brief tenure .
The Senate ’ s Republican majority will likely confirm Walker , however , for the same reason that Walker was nominated in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impossible to credibly argue that he is the most qualified or most experienced candidate for the vacancy .
There is no shortage of lawyers , judges , and or scholars in the conservative legal movement who could fit the bill .
What sets Walker apart , however , is that he ’ s simply the best-connected member of that movement—and it ’ s warping the Senate ’ s judgment across the board .

From there, Walker spends 10 pages—roughly half the opinion—recounting the history of religious persecution. He invoked Roman efforts to stamp out early Christianity, the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, the Thirty Years’ War, and the nineteenth-century persecutions of Mormons and Catholics. He referenced American slave-owners who beat pious slaves, Harvard’s quota of Jewish students, and the Ku Klux Klan membership of Justice Hugo Black and West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd. He cited Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and George Orwell’s 1984. One could be forgiven for thinking, based on Walker’s tone, that Louisville’s mayor was going to feed churchgoers to lions.
By the time he wrapped up, Walker’s opinion drifted into self-absorption. “Some who read this Court’s opinion will disagree with the Mayor,” he concluded. “Others will disagree with the Court. And each camp will include some readers who share On Fire’s faith, others whose conscience calls them to a different faith, and still others who profess no faith at all. Each of them, believers and non-believers, deserves at least this from the Court: To know why I decided as I did. You may not agree with my reasons, but my role as a judge is to explain, to teach, and perhaps, at least on occasion, to persuade.”
Josh Blackman, a South Texas College of Law professor, wrote at Reason last month that the opinion reads less like a judicial opinion and more “like something of a law review article.” That is a charitable assessment. Walker’s opinion reads more like an op-ed written by someone who has just read the “Religious discrimination in the United States” article on Wikipedia and has to meet their deadline in one hour. Legal writing can be a joyless exercise, and nobody can begrudge a federal judge for taking some flourishes to liven it up. Walker’s florid and unnecessary prose went far beyond that. It reads like the author thought he was writing a great, historic ruling on a great, historic matter.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--Billionaires Are Eating the Economy

Billionaires Are Eating the Economy

Earlier this week , public health researchers projected that one in four Americans would experience hunger and food insecurity in the coming months as a result of the economic crash and mass unemployment set off by the pandemic .
Even now , up to 71 percent of people who applied for unemployment benefits haven ’ t yet received them , and food bank lines are overextended , with car lines stretching for miles in some cases .
In the new economic downturn , which so far shows every sign of approaching or even surpassing the Great Depression in severity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could reach levels not seen in over half a century .
“ The bills are still coming .
I ’ m approaching $ 2,000 in debt , ” Angi Hampton , a newly unemployed hospitality worker , told The New Republic last month .
“ As soon as this is over , that ’ s going to be three months of rent , three months of phone bill , and you ’ ve been out of work.
” There is a disaster unfolding—and more disaster coming—for millions of people across the country .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks in March and April—right as hospitalizations and deaths were climbing sharply in the U.S.—the country ’ s billionaires managed to increase their combined net worth by about 10 percent .
According to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies , during the same period that more than 22 million people lost jobs , the wealth of America ’ s billionaires rose by an astonishing $ 282 billion .
“ Already , the combined wealth of U.S. billionaires is higher than a year ago , according to our study , ” Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ At least eight of these billionaires have added another $ 1 billion to their wealth during the pandemic.
” Among the billionaires who have gotten richer since the Covid-19 crisis began are a number of health care industry investors , Zoom founder Eric Yuan , and , of course , Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos .
$ 282 billion is a nearly incomprehensible sum of money , but for some general context , consider the following : Last week , New York Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened to cut $ 10 billion in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services , and other programs .
He also applied for a $ 4 billion loan from the federal government to replenish the state ’ s unemployment benefits , now strained by mass layoffs .
In April , the postal service , an institution now embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Trump administration over funding , asked for $ 50 billion to stay afloat .
Several states are now anticipating budget shortfalls ranging from $ 1.1 billion in Arizona to as much as $ 15 billion in New York .
And in 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food assistance benefits cost $ 68 billion in total .
Billionaires ’ earnings on paper over the period of less than one month , in other words , could have covered all of these programs with money left over .

Even in the face of this grotesquely unequal distribution of money and resources, at least one billionaire has enjoyed a recent blitz of good press. In recent weeks, Bill Gates, who warned about the possibility of a coming pandemic a few years prior in a TED Talk and several papers, and has donated at least $250 million through his foundation to coronavirus testing and vaccine research, has emerged as a kind of benevolent billionaire. (Move over, Warren Buffet!) Just this week, in fact, Governor Cuomo announced a new partnership with the Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” through the development of new forms of education technology and digital learning tools in the aftermath of school closures. “The last few months have been an incredibly stressful time full of change, but we have to learn and grow from this situation and make sure we build our systems back better than they were before,” the governor said in a statement.
But public-private partnerships in education have notoriously undermined public schools, and billionaires, judging by all evidence so far, are quite bad at redistributing their own wealth. While a few have pledged small percentages of their fortunes to fight the virus, most have held fast to their wealth. And as Theodore Schleifer recently wrote in Vox, foundations—billionaires’ preferred vehicles for giving away their money—tend to spend only a tiny fraction of their bloated budgets—often no more than 5 percent, or their legal obligation. Philanthropy, no matter what its opportunistic champions might insist, won’t save us.
Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus, though, there was some percolating public interest in soaking the rich—rather than simply pleading for their crumbs—and a number of Democratic candidates, most notably Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, floated plans to do just that. (Even if modestly.) Over the last several years, economists including Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman have risen to prominence for their work on economic inequality and have helped policymakers craft plans for redistributing wealth. In their 2018 book, for instance, Saez and Zucman argued that billionaires paid an effective lower tax rate than the bottom half of American households, and proposed sharp increases in tax rates for both corporations and wealthy individuals to counter growing inequality.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Rise of the All-Seeing Boss

The Rise of the All-Seeing Boss

I ’ m working from home while writing this .
Maybe you ’ re working from home while reading this .
For the workers in this country lucky enough to have jobs that don ’ t require a commute or in-person contact right now , the home office ( or “ office ” created haphazardly in some corner of the home ) has become a new normal .
And while that time has been a chance for many to reconsider whether their physical presence is a crucial aspect of their job—the kind of flexibility long denied to workers who needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think about what other shifts might be coming our way .
Outside of the pandemic , studies have shown that working from home increases productivity , worker happiness , and leisure time .
From afar , the move to this model could be seen as a long-overdue silver lining of an otherwise cruel pandemic .
But , because bosses remain bosses and the four-day workweek and days of worker-owned-and-led companies seem too far away , our jobs—even when done from home—will remain as coercive as ever .
This includes an expansion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as over-zealous managers demand to see each and every physical and digital move their employers make .
Adam Satariano , the European technology correspondent for The New York Times , laid out this new reality by installing the employee-monitoring software used by bosses on his computer and phone .
The software snapped screenshots of the websites he was on , recorded his physical location and productivity levels , and sent daily reports of all this information—as well as a screenshot of an online workout—to his manager , who agreed that the degree @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Dave Nevogt , the CEO of the software company , this is not creepy because , “ Workers know they are being watched , so it does not violate privacy.
” This tracks with what many companies are looking to do as American businesses prematurely reopen .
The Washington Post reported that companies like the trade publication the High Plains Journal are requiring employees to create avatars for a digital office and to have their webcams on around the clock .
The Wall Street Journal—which at the beginning of the pandemic sent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanding they be constantly accessible— found that companies are contracting with app companies that promise to trace the movements of their employees and categorize them by their potential risk for contracting and spreading the coronavirus .
But these micromanaging measures will almost assuredly remain once the pandemic has subsided .
Jason Schultz , a professor of clinical law at New York University , stated the obvious for the Journal : “ Employers don ’ t really have any incentives to remove surveillance once they install it .
”

I’m working from home while writing this. Maybe you’re working from home while reading this. For the workers in this country lucky enough to have jobs that don’t require a commute or in-person contact right now, the home office (or “office” created haphazardly in some corner of the home) has become a new normal. And while that time has been a chance for many to reconsider whether their physical presence is a crucial aspect of their job—the kind of flexibility long denied to workers who needed it pre-pandemic—it should also be an opportunity to think about what other shifts might be coming our way.
Outside of the pandemic, studies have shown that working from home increases productivity, worker happiness, and leisure time. From afar, the move to this model could be seen as a long-overdue silver lining of an otherwise cruel pandemic. But, because bosses remain bosses and the four-day workweek and days of worker-owned-and-led companies seem too far away, our jobs—even when done from home—will remain as coercive as ever. This includes an expansion of the worker surveillance state that already exists, as overzealous managers demand to see each and every physical and digital move their employers make. Adam Satariano, the European technology correspondent for The New York Times, laid out this new reality by installing the employee-monitoring software used by bosses on his computer and phone.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Placekicker With the Far-Right Tattoo

Justin Rohrwasser , a placekicker who played at Marshall University and the University of Rhode Island , was such an obscure prospect by the standards of the National Football League that ESPN didn ’ t have a highlight package on hand to run after the New England Patriots selected him in the fifth round of the 2020 NFL Draft .
Naturally , viewers at home searched online to learn more about the player , and their casual research quickly revealed a rather disturbing fact : Rohrwasser had a Three Percenters symbol tattooed on his forearm .
The Three Percenters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2008 presidential election , is often characterized as a far-right militia , but the activities of the movement ’ s members would justify calling it a terror group .
Most notably , they provided security for white supremacists and neo-Nazis in the 2017 rally in Charlottesville , Virginia , that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer .
They might not have a high body count , but it isn ’ t for lack of trying .
In 2014 , the Three Percenters ’ late founder , Mike Vanderboegh , threatened to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in response to new gun control laws .
In 2017 , a Three Percenter attempted to set off a truck bomb outside a bank in Oklahoma City .
They are Islamophobes , Nazi sympathizers , thugs with guns who stalk around and pretend they ’ re the police so they can harass and intimidate minorities , especially anyone who looks Mexican .
A player with a prominently displayed Three Percenters tattoo would seem to qualify as a red flag , one large enough to cover the field for one of the league ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Rohrwasser nevertheless had made it to pro football ’ s factory line , which was surprising given the league ’ s notoriously invasive scouting process .
The front offices of NFL teams use the annual February yearly draft combine as an opportunity to cosplay as criminal investigators , applying their amateur sleuthing skills to scores of players who have just left college .
These pseudo-detectives will dig into any or all aspects of these prospects ’ lives : They might interrogate a wide receiver about whether his mother is a prostitute or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Maybe a quarterback ’ s hands are too small , or a lineman likes to cook too much .
With a teeming number of possible reasons to cast doubt on a player ’ s future employment potential , it might seem odd that something as obvious as a far-right group ’ s insignia plastered on a player ’ s body made it past all of these gatekeepers .
For those who have paid attention to the ever-expanding world of radical groups who dabble in race-hate , however , none of this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White supremacy is organized behind a hedgerow of white racial innocence , where even a shred of legitimate grievance or plausible deniability is sufficient to wipe the slate clean and begin the process of forgiving , forgetting , and , in the end , legitimizing .

With more time, Rohrwasser built out his story. The following Monday, he had an emotional interview with Steve Burton of Boston’s WBZ-TV and vowed to completely remove the tattoo. The 23-year-old said he got the ink when he was 18 and didn’t know the true meaning of the tattoo until that Saturday, when he was drafted. “It was described to me as, you know, the percentage of colonists that rose up against the authoritarian government of the British,” Rohrwasser said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s such an American sentiment, patriotic sentiment.’”
It is easy to believe a person that age does idiotic things. The rest of it is a tough sell. To believe Rohrwasser’s explanation is to believe that for roughly five years, he had this tattoo visible whenever he wore short sleeves but never met anyone inclined to point out what it represented. (This perhaps says a lot about the bubble in which he lives.) Even though Rohrwasser keeps up with right-wing news, he somehow missed the details of the Charlottesville rally and never saw “Three Percenter” in any of the articles he read about the events of that day. He was, apparently, never interested enough to find out more about the origins or meanings of the symbol he’d committed to a permanent display on his body. Rohrwasser only realized he had made a mistake the day he was picked by one of the most successful sports franchises in the world and given a legitimate opportunity at a professional career.
Rohrwasser’s lack of curiosity was matched by the reporters tasked with chronicling the episode. These were happy to pass along Rohrwasser’s explanations without pushing back, fully accepting the idea that a person could have a terror group’s symbol emblazoned on his body and not know it for five years. Rohrwasser’s tattoo was merely “controversial,” according to one ESPN piece that, largely unmotivated to figure out what the Three Percenters do, instead relayed what the Three Percenters want everyone to believe they do. It takes very little for an uninformed press to euphemize bald hatred.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--The Oil Crash Could Be Geothermal’s Big Break

As oil and gas companies falter under the weight of Covid-19 shutdowns , price wars , and their own massive debt burden , an unlikely beneficiary seems to be emerging : geothermal power .
Ordinarily , geothermal is the runt of the renewable power litter .
But because it uses much of the same infrastructure as is used in fossil fuel extraction , geothermal might offer an appealing off-ramp for some of the tens of thousands laid off in the oil and gas industry , while helping build a low-carbon future .
That said , there ’ s a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less than 1 percent of the country ’ s power , with half of its infrastructure built in the 1980s .
Even so , the United States leads the world in installed geothermal capacity .
Worldwide resources are distributed widely , from Italy to Mongolia , Turkey to Indonesia ; Iceland and Kenya each derive huge percentages of their power from geothermal sources .
In the U.S. , geothermal extraction points are currently spread across eight Western states .
Geothermal potential here , though , is enormous .
The U.S. Geological Survey , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California could provide up to 15,000 megawatts of power—about a fifth of the current capacity of the state ’ s existing power plants .
That capacity grows in tandem with technological breakthroughs .
A 2019 study from the Department of Energy found that geothermal power has the potential to provide between 16 and 20 percent of the country ’ s electricity .
Tim Latimer helped found Fervo Energy in 2017 after starting his career as an engineer in the oil industry in Texas .
“ The skill I had developed to that point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he told me .
“ What I learned in researching geothermal was that I could do that for no-carbon energy.
” Fervo specializes in applying technologies used in natural gas extraction—like hydraulic fracturing and distributed fiber-optic sensing—to geothermal power .
“ We use all the same equipment ” as in natural gas fracking , he says , “ but the systems we design with them are quite different .
”

Interest from U.S.-based fossil fuel companies has been comparatively muted, waxing when prospects for incumbent fuels look bleak and waning when they improve again. Despite having been around in some capacity for decades, geothermal in the U.S. remains a relatively small and somewhat undefined industry player. The shape of federal support for domestic geothermal—or the lack thereof—could play a big role in determining whether the industry develops for the benefit of the public or for existing polluters to use as political cover for the continued extraction of dirtier fuels.
If the U.S. were to make decarbonization a national priority, it could shoulder the risk for early-stage geothermal development as it did for upstart technologies during World War II, stimulating private investment. Such a backing could provide not just tax credits and ramped-up research and development, through programs like ARPA-E (the government agency dedicated to promoting advanced energy technologies) but also next-level support like pledging to procure geothermal power for government use. In doing so, the government could also make sure the public benefits from this technology are shared broadly. Federal backing, for example, can ensure that laid-off oilfield workers are hired on geothermal rigs at wages and benefits comparable to those they made digging up fossil fuels. It can also enforce standards on companies receiving federal support for siting, environmental impact assessments, and community input.
All this might sound a little far-fetched at the moment, but given the rapid, in some cases existential, changes underway for fossil fuels, there may now be a bigger opening than ever for newcomers—particularly those that can almost literally pick up where bankrupted oil drillers left off. When they include it at all, green groups tend to treat geothermal as one of several items on a wishlist for the kind of new energy sources that emissions-conscious governments should be investing in; most people simply don’t know much about it. There remain a lot of unknowns about what a massive, thriving U.S. geothermal sector could look like. The Covid-19 crisis could be an opportunity to map one out that’s built firmly in the public interest and align the needs of thousands of laid-off workers with those of the planet.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--Trump’s Coronavirus Task Farce

Trump’s Coronavirus Task Farce

It remains unclear what the coronavirus task force has been doing , exactly , besides attending the press conferences that the president has grown bored of .
They haven ’ t created any sort of national testing and tracing program , though they have devoted some energy to acting as if they had .
( The White House unveiled an eight-part national testing strategy just last week .
Seven of the eight parts were already labeled as completed , and the eighth amounted to asking the states to design , fund , and implement mass testing programs themselves . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ responding to the crisis became a little clearer this week when the press obtained a draft of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report based on modeling done by a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist , who estimated that thousands upon thousands of daily deaths would ensue once states began the “ reopening ” scenarios they are currently discussing .
Some commentators suggested the White House had leaked the report to game expectations , so that any death toll would appear to be a success compared to the worst-case projections laid out in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the administration has released economic adviser Kevin Hassett ’ s “ cubic ” projection of coronavirus fatalities , suggesting that all the deaths would stop in a few weeks , mainly on account of a preset Excel graph function , it seems safe to put to rest any suspicion that the White House is playing a more complex game .
It simply isn ’ t doing anything , seemingly because it isn ’ t sure how to do anything .
In that sense , the story hasn ’ t changed since the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point was less to do difficult tasks than to assure everyone that someone was working on those tasks .
The thing the White House wants you to know—the point of the task forces , councils , and Recovery Groups—is that its top people are on it .
Unfortunately , that may be true .
Like a toddler , Trump doesn ’ t just learn about the world from the television , he also repeats actions he sees performed on television .
One thing a politician does when facing a problem is convene a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mainly made up of people from outside the current administration , or the government in general , because you can ’ t expect people within an administration to solve problems—if they could , the thinking goes , they wouldn ’ t have gone into civil service or run for office in the first place .
Trump is far from the only politician currently relying on a list of names or assembly of serious-looking people to make it appear as though he has the situation under control .
Just about every elected executive at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not one but several concurrently running task forces .
California gets Tim Cook and Janet Yellen ; Texas calls theirs a “ strike force ” ; the mayors of Boston and New York have task forces for the inequality that the virus has revealed and often exacerbated ; and Dubois has put its “ County Task Force ” to work creating a packet full of helpful reopening suggestions for the businesses of Ferdinand , Huntingburg , and Jasper , Indiana .

The White House wants you to know that its top people are on it. Unfortunately, that may be true.
The administration’s actual plan for responding to the crisis became a little clearer this week when the press obtained a draft of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report based on modeling done by a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, who estimated that thousands upon thousands of daily deaths would ensue once states began the “reopening” scenarios they are currently discussing. Some commentators suggested the White House had leaked the report to game expectations, so that any death toll would appear to be a success compared to the worst-case projections laid out in the CDC’s report. But now that the administration has released economic adviser Kevin Hassett’s “cubic” projection of coronavirus fatalities, suggesting that all the deaths would stop in a few weeks, mainly on account of a preset Excel graph function, it seems safe to put to rest any suspicion that the White House is playing a more complex game. It simply isn’t doing anything, seemingly because it isn’t sure how to do anything. In that sense, the story hasn’t changed since the task forces were first announced. The point was less to do difficult tasks than to assure everyone that someone was working on those tasks. The thing the White House wants you to know—the point of the task forces, councils, and Recovery Groups—is that its top people are on it. Unfortunately, that may be true.
Like a toddler, Trump doesn’t just learn about the world from the television, he also repeats actions he sees performed on television. One thing a politician does when facing a problem is convene a task force. A task force is mainly made up of people from outside the current administration, or the government in general, because you can’t expect people within an administration to solve problems—if they could, the thinking goes, they wouldn’t have gone into civil service or run for office in the first place.
Trump is far from the only politician currently relying on a list of names or assembly of serious-looking people to make it appear as though he has the situation under control. Just about every elected executive at every level of American politics currently has not one but several concurrently running task forces. California gets Tim Cook and Janet Yellen; Texas calls theirs a “strike force”; the mayors of Boston and New York have task forces for the inequality that the virus has revealed and often exacerbated; and Dubois has put its “County Task Force” to work creating a packet full of helpful reopening suggestions for the businesses of Ferdinand, Huntingburg, and Jasper, Indiana.


newrepublic--2020-05-07--Did the Military Really Just Ban Coronavirus Survivors?

The official said the new policy would not necessarily disqualify a potential recruit , but would force an additional review where the recruit would need to get a waiver to move forward with the enlistment .
The new policy would mean a past coronavirus exposure would be treated the same as other medical conditions , such as hearing loss , “ that are considered ‘ permanently disqualifying , ’ subject to a medical waiver , ” the official said .
Besides rendering terms like “ permanently disqualifying ” meaningless , there are two serious problems with that official ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disqualifying ” but waiverable medical conditions , there are already robust , thought-out rules to guide review boards ’ decisions .
The Air Force ’ s guidance for waivers of Lasik eye surgeries runs 13 pages , for example .
No such advice apparently yet exists for boards to consider grace for documented coronavirus sufferers : Will virus-genetics tests be given the same weight as antibody tests ?
Will privately administered tests factor the same as public-agency testing regimes ?
How much retesting can a recruit request ?
What even is the aim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ force ?
In the absence of black-letter answers to these questions , review boards presumably will have to defer to a MEPS doctor ’ s decision to bar the enlistees from joining up .
Should answers materialize later , enlistees who were barred earlier will have legitimate questions about how fairly they were treated .
That leads to the second serious problem , one that the Government Accountability Office has been warning about for more than two decades .
In the military ’ s long-standing system of screening out medically unqualified applicants , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self-disclosure of his/her medical history , ” according to a recent GAO report : That “ creates the possibility that an applicant could conceal a potentially disqualifying medical condition ” when they ’ re joining up .
In my brief naval service , I met plenty of shipmates who had successfully covered up broken bones , corrective surgeries , and chronic conditions to obtain their jobs .
In this case , the military is providing volunteers with a powerful incentive not to get tested for exposure to the coronavirus .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at MEPS with Covid-19 symptoms , “ but without confirmation by either a laboratory test or a clinician diagnosis , ” they “ will be allowed to return to the MEPS to continue processing ” after a 14-day quarantine .
It ’ s a perverse , twenty-first-century “ don ’ t ask , don ’ t tell ” : The underlying message seems to be that as long as you survive two weeks—and don ’ t risk taking a Covid-19 lab test that might pop positive—you ’ re good to go .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potentially dangerous to all recruits—par for the course for a military establishment that ’ s adrift after dealing with three years of caprices from Donald Trump and his administration on clemency for war criminals , anti-trans discrimination , anti-immigrant discrimination , relations with South Korea , relations with Iran , withdrawal from Syria , self-edifying military parades , and the creation of a Space Force , among others .

A military official who spoke with McClatchy’s Tara Copp on Thursday stressed that the decision to make Covid-19 a “permanently disqualifying” condition for new enlistees was only “interim guidance,” and any coronavirus disqualifications would be subject to further review:
The official said the new policy would not necessarily disqualify a potential recruit, but would force an additional review where the recruit would need to get a waiver to move forward with the enlistment. The new policy would mean a past coronavirus exposure would be treated the same as other medical conditions, such as hearing loss, “that are considered ‘permanently disqualifying,’ subject to a medical waiver,” the official said.
Besides rendering terms like “permanently disqualifying” meaningless, there are two serious problems with that official’s reasoning. First, for other “disqualifying” but waiverable medical conditions, there are already robust, thought-out rules to guide review boards’ decisions. The Air Force’s guidance for waivers of Lasik eye surgeries runs 13 pages, for example. No such advice apparently yet exists for boards to consider grace for documented coronavirus sufferers: Will virus-genetics tests be given the same weight as antibody tests? Will privately administered tests factor the same as public-agency testing regimes? How much retesting can a recruit request? What even is the aim of the new rule in shaping the force? In the absence of black-letter answers to these questions, review boards presumably will have to defer to a MEPS doctor’s decision to bar the enlistees from joining up. Should answers materialize later, enlistees who were barred earlier will have legitimate questions about how fairly they were treated.