thenation--2020-09-18--American Athletes Can Decide This Year’s Election

Last year , when LeBron James described some of President Trump ’ s public statements as “ laughable and scary , ” Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham ordered the basketball superstar to “ shut up and dribble.
” LeBron responded thoughtfully by saying that her comment “ resonated with me , but I think it resonated with a lot of people to be able to feel like they can be more.
” Those “ people ” have come to include most of the National Basketball Association and hundreds of other athletes in professional baseball , hockey , football , women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tiers of college sports .
As for that “ more ” they have become ?
They are now active participants in the most significant and inclusive wave of the often crushed or coopted yet ever-breathing “ athletic revolution ” that first took shape in the 1960s .
Thanks to the pandemically isolated “ bubbles ” in which some teams are now living and playing , and driven by Donald Trump ’ s continuing racially based attacks on various sports , some athletes are now communing with each other ever more regularly and making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by their teams and even leagues .
In the process , many of their protests against systemic racism and specific acts of police brutality have gone from messages through their usual social media outlets to acts like forcing games to be postponed via wildcat strikes .
As baseball and basketball , battered by the Covid-19 pandemic , cautiously continue their delayed and shortened seasons and the National Football League and some college football conferences finally launch their own belated starts , more and more questions arise : Will such physically dangerous playing conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a thing as a socially distanced tackle ? )
Will fans accept rule changes meant to take the coronavirus into account and still keep watching ( while their own lives threaten to go down the tubes ) ?
Will former San Francisco 49er Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick , who sparked the current sports revolt by kneeling during the national anthem four years ago and was subsequently abused by the president and functionally banished from football , ever get to play again ?
And above all , what effect will the various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any , on the election ?
The Women Led the Way However it plays out , the most recent victory of National Basketball League players striking during their playoffs over yet another grim death of a black man at the hands of the police was spectacular .
The team owners agreed that in the Covid-19 moment with polling places potentially in short supply on November 3 , pro basketball arenas would be made available as just such sites .
Consider this pathbreaking : It ’ s the first time a player-owner bargaining agreement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from two of the ( previously ) most self-centered groups in America .
Before we cry “ Bravo !
” however , let ’ s cry “ Brava !
” After all , it was the most marginalized of the professional leagues , the Women ’ s National Basketball Association ( WNBA ) , that provided the impetus for the current movement and remains its moral center .
Keep in mind that for years now , women pro basketball players have been protesting against gun violence and police brutality , both individually and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who earn so much more money and possess so much more security , tended to posture and pontificate while putting themselves at much less risk .
Last month , the women upped their game .
The WNBA ’ s Atlanta Dream players donned T-shirts endorsing Dr. Raphael Warnock , the Democratic opponent of Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler , who has disparaged Black Lives Matter and , as The New York Times reported , “ publicly and frequently derided the league for dedicating its season to the Black Lives Matter movement.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s co-owner .
Other teams in the league followed suit and soon most teams were wearing such “ Vote Warnock ” T-shirts , while also proclaiming that Black Lives Matter .
( BLM , by the way , was a group founded by women . )
Soon after , something stunning happened in the male version of pro basketball with the NBA in the first round of its playoff games in a “ bubble ” at Florida ’ s Disney World .
After a white police officer shot an unarmed black man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven times in Kenosha , Wisconsin , the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take part in their next playoff game .
And that protest then produced a cascade of brief strikes by other NBA and WNBA teams and , most surprisingly , by predominantly white Major League Baseball teams .
While the statements of the protesters tended to describe the strikes as a response to recent incidents of police brutality , the underlying cause may have lain elsewhere .
Those angry strikes may really have been side effects of the Covid-19 “ bubbles ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , the usual focus on the game of the moment and the party to follow was replaced by conversations about Donald Trump , racism , and the responsibilities of rich Black sports celebrities to express themselves and act in the interests of their communities .
The New Yorker ’ s Isaac Chotiner conducted a revealing interview with Andre Iguodala , a Miami Heat forward and the first vice-president of the NBA players ’ union , who said : Take the Money or March ?
One of the most poignant expressions of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles Clippers , Doc Rivers , whose father had been a police officer .
“ It ’ s amazing , ” he commented , “ why we keep loving this country , and this country does not love us back .
It ’ s really so sad.… I ’ m so often reminded of my color.… We got to do better .
But we got to demand better.
” What exactly does “ demand better ” mean and what could it achieve ?
In the sports world , at least , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting sites , the sporadic protests of various players over the years for equality and social justice have usually resulted , at best , in yet more discussion about the issues they were raising rather than actual solutions , however provisional—although , over the decades , the integration of baseball , the introduction of free agency , and the emergence of the Black quarterback could all certainly be viewed as progress in the sports world itself .
Today , however , it remains a question whether players will continue pushing for social reform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past , settle for better salaries and pensions .
As Iguodala put it : “ Historically , money determines a lot of our actions .
Do we stand up for something or take the money ?
We will always get caught in those crosshairs .
But I think players are smartening up , and I think that will come into play with a lot of guys.
” Similar optimism has been expressed recently by a number of sporting icons including Hall of Fame basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar who began his career with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in “ the instantaneous support of other sports teams and athletes , ” especially ones from Major League Soccer ( only 26 percent black ) , Major League Baseball ( 8 percent ) , and overwhelmingly white pro tennis .
Times , Jabbar believes , may indeed be changing .
After all , he remembers that “ when I boycotted the 1968 Olympics because of the gross racial inequities , I was met with a vicious backlash criticizing my lack of gratitude for being invited into the air-conditioned Big House where I could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Another long-time sports activist , retired sociology professor Harry Edwards who was instrumental in inspiring the memorable Black power salute given from the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico Olympics by American track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos , is similarly hopeful .
An adviser to Kaepernick , Edwards sees an opening for genuine change in this moment because , he says , it ’ s no longer just about the acts of individual sports figures .
This wave of protest , he adds , “ is distinctively different from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are entire teams that are reacting to this situation and leveraging their power to demand change .
It ’ s not just a Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid or Michael Bennett or Maya Moore .
This one is about an entire organization and I could see this coming from the time the University of Missouri football team protested.
” That was back in 2015 when that football team joined a campus-wide demand for the resignation of the university ’ s president for mishandling racial incidents at the school .
( He did finally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a college sports team in a protest movement was unheard of at the time .
It would take another five years and so many more racial nightmares before that spirit of unity with a larger protesting culture in this Black Lives Matter era , not to mention the willingness of athletes to risk their own brief careers , would bloom throughout sports .
The current reaction of the Trump administration and its allies to such protests has underlined the threat that they clearly feel from wildcat strikes , bent knees , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ normality ” in an unnerved and unnerving world .
The president , in particular , has been counting on the return of pro sports and college football to help project an image of him as being in control in this ongoing pandemic .
Weighing in from the White House , President Trump ’ s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner typically dismissed the recent set of basketball wildcat strikes by saying , “ Look , I think that the NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially.
” That snide attempt to separate the athletes from their fan base , itself stricken by a weakening economy , the still-spreading coronavirus , and a mounting sense of political anxiety , soon blossomed into something more like a political campaign theme .
At the right-wing website News max , for instance , conservative radio host Chris Salcedo attacked “ the spoiled rotten millionaires.
” He then added .
“ Pro sports is no longer about unifying us but about shoving left-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearest orifice .
They push social justice , which is the absence of justice.
” For all the right-wing outrage over the basketball protests , football is now the true American national pastime and carries the most weight with Trump and gang .
Several months ago , I speculated that “ if the National Football League plays regular season games this fall , President Trump stands a good chance of winning reelection for returning America to business as usual—or , at least , to his twisted version of the same.
” Despite the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump donors , the league , which did away with pre-season games , has been bending leftward to avoid a NBA-style set of strikes that could cripple the season just as it ’ s starting .
Last month , League Commissioner Roger Goodell professed regret for not paying more attention to Colin Kaepernick ’ s message when he took those knees .
Topping that , earlier this month , Goodell announced that “ End Racism ” and “ It Takes All of Us ” signs will be stenciled in the end zones of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black national anthem , “ Lift Every Voice and Sing , ” will be sung before each opening game .
Political slogans will even be allowed on helmets .
In certain ways , when it comes to the Trump voter in particular , the return of college football—a major multibillion-dollar business that pays most of its “ employees ” nothing whatsoever—with its own cult-like regional passions is of particular importance .
While college football fans tend to lean right and insist on their entertainment , no matter who has to die for it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks of Covid-19 to ramp up their demands for more control over their lives and a share of the revenue that their schools collect from the sale of jerseys with their names on them .
After two of the five major conferences , the West Coast ’ s Pac-12 and the Midwestern-based Big 10 , worrying about the toll that the pandemic might take , called off their fall seasons , the Trump campaign declared : “ The Radical Left is trying to CANCEL college football.
” The electoral implications were obvious : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wisconsin , Ohio and Minnesota—have Big Ten teams and calling off the season in this fashion does , of course , send a message to future voters about the state of Trumpian America .
In reality , the urge to protest playing football in the midst of a pandemic was spreading ( and not just among the usual suspects ) .
Buzz Bissinger , the author of Friday Night Lights , a famed book on high school football in Texas , for instance , called on players in the remaining leagues to boycott @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , been in plain sight for years , but maybe it takes a plague to see it clearly .
College administrators may be no better than Trumpsters in their willingness to sacrifice lives for money and power .
They certainly do fit comfortably with the sort of sentiments Donald Trump Jr. , expressed on Chris Salcedo ’ s show : “ I can ’ t tell if some of this stuff is politically motivated because not going back to normalcy allows you to instill some fear that can be used as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man.
” In other words , the position of the Trump administration as it makes a Covid-19-ignoring scoring drive for November 3rd is distinctly shut up and dribble .
However , the question , in this moment from hell , is : Will the players and fans agree ?
Who will take the next knee ?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Last year, when LeBron James described some of President Trump’s public statements as “laughable and scary,” Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham ordered the basketball superstar to “shut up and dribble.”
LeBron responded thoughtfully by saying that her comment “resonated with me, but I think it resonated with a lot of people to be able to feel like they can be more.”
Those “people” have come to include most of the National Basketball Association and hundreds of other athletes in professional baseball, hockey, football, women’s basketball, and the top tiers of college sports. As for that “more” they have become? They are now active participants in the most significant and inclusive wave of the often crushed or coopted yet ever-breathing “athletic revolution” that first took shape in the 1960s.
Thanks to the pandemically isolated “bubbles” in which some teams are now living and playing, and driven by Donald Trump’s continuing racially based attacks on various sports, some athletes are now communing with each other ever more regularly and making collective decisions as never before—decisions often supported by their teams and even leagues. In the process, many of their protests against systemic racism and specific acts of police brutality have gone from messages through their usual social media outlets to acts like forcing games to be postponed via wildcat strikes.
As baseball and basketball, battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, cautiously continue their delayed and shortened seasons and the National Football League and some college football conferences finally launch their own belated starts, more and more questions arise: Will such physically dangerous playing conditions be sustainable? (Is there even such a thing as a socially distanced tackle?) Will fans accept rule changes meant to take the coronavirus into account and still keep watching (while their own lives threaten to go down the tubes)? Will former San Francisco 49er Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked the current sports revolt by kneeling during the national anthem four years ago and was subsequently abused by the president and functionally banished from football, ever get to play again? And above all, what effect will the various protests of such athletes have, if any, on the election? Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
The Women Led the Way
However it plays out, the most recent victory of National Basketball League players striking during their playoffs over yet another grim death of a black man at the hands of the police was spectacular. The team owners agreed that in the Covid-19 moment with polling places potentially in short supply on November 3, pro basketball arenas would be made available as just such sites. Consider this pathbreaking: It’s the first time a player-owner bargaining agreement has included such a gift to democracy from two of the (previously) most self-centered groups in America.
Before we cry “Bravo!” however, let’s cry “Brava!” After all, it was the most marginalized of the professional leagues, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), that provided the impetus for the current movement and remains its moral center. Keep in mind that for years now, women pro basketball players have been protesting against gun violence and police brutality, both individually and as teams, while their male equivalents, who earn so much more money and possess so much more security, tended to posture and pontificate while putting themselves at much less risk. Current Issue View our current issue
Last month, the women upped their game. The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream players donned T-shirts endorsing Dr. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic opponent of Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, who has disparaged Black Lives Matter and, as The New York Times reported, “publicly and frequently derided the league for dedicating its season to the Black Lives Matter movement.” Loeffler just happens to be the Dream’s co-owner. Other teams in the league followed suit and soon most teams were wearing such “Vote Warnock” T-shirts, while also proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. (BLM, by the way, was a group founded by women.)
Soon after, something stunning happened in the male version of pro basketball with the NBA in the first round of its playoff games in a “bubble” at Florida’s Disney World. After a white police officer shot an unarmed black man, Jacob Blake, in the back seven times in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take part in their next playoff game. And that protest then produced a cascade of brief strikes by other NBA and WNBA teams and, most surprisingly, by predominantly white Major League Baseball teams.
While the statements of the protesters tended to describe the strikes as a response to recent incidents of police brutality, the underlying cause may have lain elsewhere. Those angry strikes may really have been side effects of the Covid-19 “bubbles” in which they were playing. In them, the usual focus on the game of the moment and the party to follow was replaced by conversations about Donald Trump, racism, and the responsibilities of rich Black sports celebrities to express themselves and act in the interests of their communities.
The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner conducted a revealing interview with Andre Iguodala, a Miami Heat forward and the first vice-president of the NBA players’ union, who said:
African-Americans are trying to search for ourselves and ask where we stand in the world and where we stand in America. And we don’t know. We shoulder a lot of the burdens of our community, but I think a lot of that responsibility should fall on the majority, and those who are the lawmakers and who are supposed to insure that every man and woman is treated as an equal. But we still haven’t seen that. So we are still searching for our place.
Take the Money or March?
One of the most poignant expressions of that search came from the coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, Doc Rivers, whose father had been a police officer. “It’s amazing,” he commented, “why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. It’s really so sad.… I’m so often reminded of my color.… We got to do better. But we got to demand better.”
What exactly does “demand better” mean and what could it achieve? In the sports world, at least, with the possible exception of those still-must-be-seen-to-be-believed arena voting sites, the sporadic protests of various players over the years for equality and social justice have usually resulted, at best, in yet more discussion about the issues they were raising rather than actual solutions, however provisional—although, over the decades, the integration of baseball, the introduction of free agency, and the emergence of the Black quarterback could all certainly be viewed as progress in the sports world itself.
Today, however, it remains a question whether players will continue pushing for social reform or, as so often in the past, settle for better salaries and pensions. As Iguodala put it: “Historically, money determines a lot of our actions. Do we stand up for something or take the money? We will always get caught in those crosshairs. But I think players are smartening up, and I think that will come into play with a lot of guys.”
Similar optimism has been expressed recently by a number of sporting icons including Hall of Fame basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar who began his career with the Milwaukee Bucks. He found hope in “the instantaneous support of other sports teams and athletes,” especially ones from Major League Soccer (only 26 percent black), Major League Baseball (8 percent), and overwhelmingly white pro tennis.
Times, Jabbar believes, may indeed be changing. After all, he remembers that “when I boycotted the 1968 Olympics because of the gross racial inequities, I was met with a vicious backlash criticizing my lack of gratitude for being invited into the air-conditioned Big House where I could comfortably watch my community swelter and suffer.”
Another long-time sports activist, retired sociology professor Harry Edwards who was instrumental in inspiring the memorable Black power salute given from the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico Olympics by American track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos, is similarly hopeful. An adviser to Kaepernick, Edwards sees an opening for genuine change in this moment because, he says, it’s no longer just about the acts of individual sports figures. This wave of protest, he adds, “is distinctively different from the single athletes who were involved. These are entire teams that are reacting to this situation and leveraging their power to demand change. It’s not just a Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid or Michael Bennett or Maya Moore. This one is about an entire organization and I could see this coming from the time the University of Missouri football team protested.”
That was back in 2015 when that football team joined a campus-wide demand for the resignation of the university’s president for mishandling racial incidents at the school. (He did finally resign.) Such a full-scale involvement of a college sports team in a protest movement was unheard of at the time. It would take another five years and so many more racial nightmares before that spirit of unity with a larger protesting culture in this Black Lives Matter era, not to mention the willingness of athletes to risk their own brief careers, would bloom throughout sports.
“Spoiled Rotten Millionaires”
The current reaction of the Trump administration and its allies to such protests has underlined the threat that they clearly feel from wildcat strikes, bent knees, and other actions disrupting their notions of “normality” in an unnerved and unnerving world. The president, in particular, has been counting on the return of pro sports and college football to help project an image of him as being in control in this ongoing pandemic.
Weighing in from the White House, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner typically dismissed the recent set of basketball wildcat strikes by saying, “Look, I think that the NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially.”
That snide attempt to separate the athletes from their fan base, itself stricken by a weakening economy, the still-spreading coronavirus, and a mounting sense of political anxiety, soon blossomed into something more like a political campaign theme. At the right-wing website News max, for instance, conservative radio host Chris Salcedo attacked “the spoiled rotten millionaires.” He then added. “Pro sports is no longer about unifying us but about shoving left-wing politics down our throat and up our nearest orifice. They push social justice, which is the absence of justice.”
For all the right-wing outrage over the basketball protests, football is now the true American national pastime and carries the most weight with Trump and gang. Several months ago, I speculated that “if the National Football League plays regular season games this fall, President Trump stands a good chance of winning reelection for returning America to business as usual—or, at least, to his twisted version of the same.”
Despite the fact that most NFL owners have been Trump donors, the league, which did away with pre-season games, has been bending leftward to avoid a NBA-style set of strikes that could cripple the season just as it’s starting. Last month, League Commissioner Roger Goodell professed regret for not paying more attention to Colin Kaepernick’s message when he took those knees. Topping that, earlier this month, Goodell announced that “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” signs will be stenciled in the end zones of all stadiums this season and the so-called Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” will be sung before each opening game. Political slogans will even be allowed on helmets.
In certain ways, when it comes to the Trump voter in particular, the return of college football—a major multibillion-dollar business that pays most of its “employees” nothing whatsoever—with its own cult-like regional passions is of particular importance. While college football fans tend to lean right and insist on their entertainment, no matter who has to die for it, college players have used the health risks of Covid-19 to ramp up their demands for more control over their lives and a share of the revenue that their schools collect from the sale of jerseys with their names on them.
After two of the five major conferences, the West Coast’s Pac-12 and the Midwestern-based Big 10, worrying about the toll that the pandemic might take, called off their fall seasons, the Trump campaign declared: “The Radical Left is trying to CANCEL college football.” The electoral implications were obvious: five key swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Minnesota—have Big Ten teams and calling off the season in this fashion does, of course, send a message to future voters about the state of Trumpian America.
In reality, the urge to protest playing football in the midst of a pandemic was spreading (and not just among the usual suspects). Buzz Bissinger, the author of Friday Night Lights, a famed book on high school football in Texas, for instance, called on players in the remaining leagues to boycott their games:
[M]any of the states advocating to play are the same states that find wearing protective masks optional, college football a sacred American right. Football is not like other sports. It is blood, snot, sweat and spit, bodily meals the virus craves. How can these schools even be contemplating the risk when several medical advisers to the N.C.A.A. said it was ill advised? Some coaches have suggested that football players alone should return to campus, which provides additional evidence that they are viewed more like employees than traditional students and should be compensated.
Such evidence has, of course, been in plain sight for years, but maybe it takes a plague to see it clearly. College administrators may be no better than Trumpsters in their willingness to sacrifice lives for money and power. They certainly do fit comfortably with the sort of sentiments Donald Trump Jr., expressed on Chris Salcedo’s show: “I can’t tell if some of this stuff is politically motivated because not going back to normalcy allows you to instill some fear that can be used as political leverage. Let them play, man.”
In other words, the position of the Trump administration as it makes a Covid-19-ignoring scoring drive for November 3rd is distinctly shut up and dribble. However, the question, in this moment from hell, is: Will the players and fans agree?
Who will take the next knee?


thenation--2020-09-18--Maya Moore and Jonathan Irons: More Than a Love Story

With one announcement , a future gripping documentary became a Hollywood movie .
Maya Moore , one of the greatest basketball players on earth with a closet full of trophies to prove the point , had left her career in her prime to pursue justice .
Back in 2019 , she shocked the world by turning away from the WNBA to take on our system of racist mass incarceration and focus on freeing a man named Jonathan Irons .
At age 16 , Irons was arrested for a crime that he said he did not commit , a home-invasion robbery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence connecting him to the crime , but he was still handed a stunning 65-year prison sentence by an all-white jury .
As fortune and unimaginable luck would have it , Irons had been in the youth choir led by Maya Moore ’ s uncle .
That relationship continued when Irons was locked away to be forgotten , just another number in a system that houses more people behind bars than any country on earth .
But the Moore family fought for his freedom and two years ago , inspired in part by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as her generation ’ s awakening to the fight for racial justice , she walked away from basketball to join the fight .
As she told me in 2017 , her family really felt a connection and compassion to help Jonathan , who didn ’ t have a lot of resources , to stand up and give him a voice to speak out against his wrongful conviction .
The more we got to know him , the more outrage our family started to feel , especially seeing what an awesome person he is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s grown and the things he ’ s trying to do to fight for himself and continue to be a light where he is .
Now , Jonathan Irons is free .
When he breathed freedom for the first time since he was a teenager in March , he said of Maya Moore , “ She saved my life .
I would not have this chance if not for her and her wonderful family .
She saved my life and I can not say it better than that.
” We ’ ve Entered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lives ’ If that were the end of the story , it would be gripping enough .
No star athlete has ever walked away in their prime to pursue the aims of social justice .
But we learned this week that the story has another wrinkle : Jonathan Irons , now 40 , and Maya Moore are married .
Speaking on Good Morning America , Moore said , “ We wanted to announce today that we are super excited to continue the work that we ’ ve been doing together , but doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other words , Maya Moore is going to continue her work fighting for the wrongly incarcerated , but now she is going into combat as half of a dynamic duo .
Moore first met Irons when she was 18 and he was 27 .
Moore was a basketball prodigy and Irons was “ skeptical ” whether Moore would remain in his life as she embarked upon an epic college career for the dynastic UConn Huskies .
But she kept in touch by sending him books and letters , as well as visiting when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family .
Now they are family .
In a year when everything is no unremittingly dark , their story is more than just an unlikely love connection forged in the fires of fightback against an unjust system .
It ’ s a reminder that hope , even when it feels like just a gasping glimmer , still exists .
It is also a sobering reminder : Jonathan Irons was meant to be buried by this system .
He , by sheer happenstance , happened to be connected to a family of guardian angel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ freedom .
One must reckon with the fact that there must be thousands of Jonathan Irons behind bars in this country , living every day behind bars , their days defined by an absence of liberty .
His story and the story of Maya Moore ’ s family should inspire us to redouble our efforts to fight for the wrongly convicted , fight for alternatives to prison , and fight for a country that doesn ’ t warehouse people who can ’ t afford justice .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
With one announcement, a future gripping documentary became a Hollywood movie. Maya Moore, one of the greatest basketball players on earth with a closet full of trophies to prove the point, had left her career in her prime to pursue justice. Back in 2019, she shocked the world by turning away from the WNBA to take on our system of racist mass incarceration and focus on freeing a man named Jonathan Irons. At age 16, Irons was arrested for a crime that he said he did not commit, a home-invasion robbery in Missouri. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime, but he was still handed a stunning 65-year prison sentence by an all-white jury. As fortune and unimaginable luck would have it, Irons had been in the youth choir led by Maya Moore’s father. That relationship continued when Irons was locked away to be forgotten, just another number in a system that houses more people behind bars than any country on earth.
But the Moore family fought for his freedom and two years ago, inspired in part by the Ava DuVernay film 13 as well as her generation’s awakening to the fight for racial justice, she walked away from basketball to join the fight. As she told me in 2017, her family
really felt a connection and compassion to help Jonathan, who didn’t have a lot of resources, to stand up and give him a voice to speak out against his wrongful conviction. The more we got to know him, the more outrage our family started to feel, especially seeing what an awesome person he is despite his circumstances and how he’s grown and the things he’s trying to do to fight for himself and continue to be a light where he is.
Now, Jonathan Irons is free. When he breathed freedom for the first time since he was a teenager in March, he said of Maya Moore, “She saved my life. I would not have this chance if not for her and her wonderful family. She saved my life and I cannot say it better than that.” Related Article We’ve Entered the Era of ‘Branding for Black Lives’ Dave Zirin
If that were the end of the story, it would be gripping enough. No star athlete has ever walked away in their prime to pursue the aims of social justice. But we learned this week that the story has another wrinkle: Jonathan Irons, now 40, and Maya Moore are married. Speaking on Good Morning America, Moore said, “We wanted to announce today that we are super excited to continue the work that we’ve been doing together, but doing it as a married couple.” In other words, Maya Moore is going to continue her work fighting for the wrongly incarcerated, but now she is going into combat as half of a dynamic duo.
Moore first met Irons when she was 18 and he was 27. Moore was a basketball prodigy and Irons was “skeptical” whether Moore would remain in his life as she embarked upon an epic college career for the dynastic UConn Huskies. But she kept in touch by sending him books and letters, as well as visiting when home from college. They became like family. Now they are family.
In a year when everything is no unremittingly dark, their story is more than just an unlikely love connection forged in the fires of fightback against an unjust system. It’s a reminder that hope, even when it feels like just a gasping glimmer, still exists. It is also a sobering reminder: Jonathan Irons was meant to be buried by this system. He, by sheer happenstance, happened to be connected to a family of guardian angel activists, committed to fighting for his freedom. One must reckon with the fact that there must be thousands of Jonathan Irons behind bars in this country, living every day behind bars, their days defined by an absence of liberty. His story and the story of Maya Moore’s family should inspire us to redouble our efforts to fight for the wrongly convicted, fight for alternatives to prison, and fight for a country that doesn’t warehouse people who can’t afford justice.


thenation--2020-09-18--White Supremacists Are a Threat to Elections, Says the DHS

Last week , a Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) whistleblower told the press that agency officials had ordered him to downplay the threat of white supremacist terrorism .
But a recent DHS intelligence assessment about physical threats to the 2020 election season identifies “ white supremacist extremists ” as the foremost threat to the democratic process this year .
The intelligence assessment , first referenced by Yahoo News and published in full by The Nation , was produced by the DHS ’ Intelligence and Analysis ( I & A ) division .
In an interview with The Nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A intelligence officer corroborated the whistleblower ’ s claims , describing the challenges he had faced to monitoring white supremacists under the Trump administration .
“ As soon as Trump came in , counterterrorism ended , ” the former intelligence officer said , pointing to the Trump administration ’ s decision to dissolve DHS ’ s domestic terrorism division .
Since then , DHS I & A ’ s focus has turned to trivial immigration matters like individuals overstaying their travel visas , he explained .
“ The only immigration we should be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not student overstays and bullshit , ” the former intelligence officer said .
US Intelligence Turns to the Boogaloo Movement The assessment , dated August 17 of this year and marked for official use only , provides an overview of different threats to the election .
Threats are said to include not just white supremacists but also individuals wary of the government ’ s Covid-19 restrictions , Second Amendment extremists , and confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters .
The report reads : “ We continue to assess lone offender white supremacist extremists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with personalized ideologies , including those based on grievances against a target ’ s perceived actual political affiliation , policies , or worldview , pose the greatest threat of lethal violence.
” The assessment links the white supremacist threat to anti-immigrant sentiments , stating , “ Immigration-related grievances contributed to motivations of three separate white supremacist extremist shootings since 2018 , resulting in 35 total fatalities.
” The intelligence assessment contrasts sharply with the Trump administration ’ s characterization of threats to public safety .
Trump has repeatedly inveighed against violent protesters , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has vowed to designate a terrorist group .
While a formal terror designation requires evidence of foreign sponsorship , The Nation recently reported that DHS intelligence officials have quietly sought to tie antifa to foreign militant groups .
Trump ’ s Attorney General William Barr reportedly instructed prosecutors to consider charging violent protesters with sedition , a rarely invoked law that applies to individuals seeking to overthrow the government .
“ The proposal to charge protesters with sedition seems like one more step in the unraveling of constitutional government , ” Steven Aftergood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scientists ’ Project on Government Secrecy , told The Nation .
He added that “ accusing them of sedition adds a preposterous political overlay that itself is a form of incitement by the attorney general.
” “ Antifa , ” short for “ anti-fascist , ” is a largely decentralized movement of far-left individuals motivated by opposition to perceived fascist groups .
While antifa has engaged in illegal activities including property destruction and in some cases violence , no one affiliated with it has been linked to a single murder in the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies .
By contrast , the same study found that far-right extremists in the United States have killed 329 people in that time frame .
Despite the Trump administration ’ s rhetoric , the rise in far-right violence has not gone completely unnoticed .
Last year , FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that the majority of the bureau ’ s domestic terrorism arrests were of white supremacists .
“ Historically , there ’ s a pattern of increasing political violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a former FBI agent .
German , who himself once worked undercover in white supremacist groups , said that one of the problems is the lack of federal data on far-right groups .
“ Since the federal government doesn ’ t collect data on white supremacist violence , we don ’ t really know how much it ’ s increased .
”

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Last week, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblower told the press that agency officials had ordered him to downplay the threat of white supremacist terrorism. But a recent DHS intelligence assessment about physical threats to the 2020 election season identifies “white supremacist extremists” as the foremost threat to the democratic process this year.
The intelligence assessment, first referenced by Yahoo News and published in full by The Nation, was produced by the DHS’ Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) division. In an interview with The Nation, a former senior DHS I&A intelligence officer corroborated the whistleblower’s claims, describing the challenges he had faced to monitoring white supremacists under the Trump administration.
“As soon as Trump came in, counterterrorism ended,” the former intelligence officer said, pointing to the Trump administration’s decision to dissolve DHS’s domestic terrorism division. Since then, DHS I&A’s focus has turned to trivial immigration matters like individuals overstaying their travel visas, he explained.
“The only immigration we should be worried about is a nexus to terrorism, not student overstays and bullshit,” the former intelligence officer said. the enemy within US Intelligence Turns to the Boogaloo Movement Ken Klippenstein
The assessment, dated August 17 of this year and marked for official use only, provides an overview of different threats to the election. Threats are said to include not just white supremacists but also individuals wary of the government’s Covid-19 restrictions, Second Amendment extremists, and confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters.
The report reads: “We continue to assess lone offender white supremacist extremists and other lone offender domestic terrorist actors with personalized ideologies, including those based on grievances against a target’s perceived actual political affiliation, policies, or worldview, pose the greatest threat of lethal violence.”
The assessment links the white supremacist threat to anti-immigrant sentiments, stating, “Immigration-related grievances contributed to motivations of three separate white supremacist extremist shootings since 2018, resulting in 35 total fatalities.” Current Issue View our current issue
The intelligence assessment contrasts sharply with the Trump administration’s characterization of threats to public safety. Trump has repeatedly inveighed against violent protesters, especially “antifa,” which he has vowed to designate a terrorist group. While a formal terror designation requires evidence of foreign sponsorship, The Nation recently reported that DHS intelligence officials have quietly sought to tie antifa to foreign militant groups. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Trump’s Attorney General William Barr reportedly instructed prosecutors to consider charging violent protesters with sedition, a rarely invoked law that applies to individuals seeking to overthrow the government.
“The proposal to charge protesters with sedition seems like one more step in the unraveling of constitutional government,” Steven Aftergood, who heads the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, told The Nation. He added that “accusing them of sedition adds a preposterous political overlay that itself is a form of incitement by the attorney general.”
“Antifa,” short for “anti-fascist,” is a largely decentralized movement of far-left individuals motivated by opposition to perceived fascist groups. While antifa has engaged in illegal activities including property destruction and in some cases violence, no one affiliated with it has been linked to a single murder in the United States in the past 25 years, according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. By contrast, the same study found that far-right extremists in the United States have killed 329 people in that time frame.
Despite the Trump administration’s rhetoric, the rise in far-right violence has not gone completely unnoticed. Last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that the majority of the bureau’s domestic terrorism arrests were of white supremacists.
“Historically, there’s a pattern of increasing political violence during elections,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent. German, who himself once worked undercover in white supremacist groups, said that one of the problems is the lack of federal data on far-right groups.
“Since the federal government doesn’t collect data on white supremacist violence, we don’t really know how much it’s increased.”


Facebook Versus Democracy

Facebook , long criticized for facilitating hate speech and incitement all over the world , is finally cracking down on one particular form of incendiary rhetoric : any criticism of Facebook management .
The company has an internal message board that mirrors the platform it provides to users , a kind of private Facebook .
On that forum , employees have been increasingly critical of senior executives for their cozy relationship with Donald Trump and other authoritarian leaders , which often leads the company to violate its own stated policies about disseminating hate speech and political disinformation .
As The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The internal crackdown on speech comes after a period of heightened tension between management and employees .
One source of conflict was the repeated actions of head of policy Joel Kaplan , who had once been George W. Bush ’ s deputy chief of staff , to carve out special exemptions for right-wing speech even when it violates Facebook ’ s rules .
Fires Prove the Climate Catastrophe Is a Constitutional Crisis Too An extensive Bloomberg Businessweek report , also published on Thursday , traced the conflict back to Trump ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s posting in late May , “ When the looting starts , the shooting starts.
” Trump posted these sentiments on both Twitter and Facebook .
Twitter quickly hid the comments from users , with a note explaining that it broke the terms of service forbidding the glorification of violence .
But , as Bloomberg Businessweek notes , “ Trump ’ s post remained on Facebook , sparking a virtual walkout .
Employees began criticizing Zuckerberg openly and leaking to the press.
” The magazine goes on to observe that “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next two months detailing instances that reinforced the suspicions about the alliance between Facebook and Trump .
For instance , media outlets reported that the president had no negative hashtags associated with his name on Instagram , while Joe Biden had lots ; that a Facebook employee was fired after complaining that the company seemed to be allowing far-right pundits , such as Diamond and Silk , to break rules about misinformation ; and that an investigation into Ben Shapiro , whose site the Daily Wire routinely broke the rules to boost its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s policy group.
” In a blog post , Facebook stated its position : “ The people ’ s elected representatives should set the rules , and we will follow them .
There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech , even when we strongly disagree with it.
” According to Bloomberg Businessweek , “ The message was clear : We listen to the government in charge.
” The simplest explanation for Facebook management ’ s actions is business strategy .
The Trump administration can target Facebook for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Google .
Further , alienating tens of millions of Trump supporters would be bad for Facebook ’ s bottom line , especially considering that its business model is to maximize the number of users so it can enjoy a near-monopoly on advertising revenue .
Trump , in particular , is a massive source of revenue .
According to Business Insider , the Trump campaign was by far the biggest political advertiser on Facebook in 2019 , spending more than $ 21 million .
But maximizing profits isn ’ t the only factor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideological affinity between some top Facebook managers and Trump .
Facebook board member Peter Thiel has been among the most vocal Trump supporters in Silicon Valley and delivered a speech endorsing Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention .
With Mark Zuckerberg , one might charitably argue that while he might personally believe in democracy , he finds himself in the tragic situation of running a company that profits from the rise of authoritarianism .
But no such efforts to make excuses are necessary with Thiel , since his own words and records @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little use for democracy .
Ideologically , Thiel has been all over the map , once styling himself as a libertarian and more recently claiming to be a “ national conservative ” who believes a strong state is needed to preserve capitalism .
But the constant underlying all these shifts has been a strong skepticism toward democracy .
As an undergraduate at Stanford in the mid-1980s , he reportedly praised South African apartheid .
More recently , he lamented that extending the franchise to women made libertarian economic policy virtually impossible to implement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘ capitalist democracy ’ into an oxymoron , ” Thiel wrote .
Last Friday , BuzzFeed News reported that Thiel ’ s ties to white nationalism were more extensive than previously suspected .
According to BuzzFeed , “ During the summer of 2016 , Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America—a man who has called for the creation of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the ‘ alt-right.
’ And then Thiel emailed the next day to say how much he ’ d enjoyed his company.
” The man was Kevin DeAnna , described by BuzzFeed as “ an influential white nationalist who pens pieces for VDare and has written many pieces for other prominent publications in the movement like American Renaissance and Counter-Currents.
” During that period , Thiel ’ s association with the alt-right was so extensive that another white nationalist was hoping that the Facebook executive could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems to have pulled back from this group only because of the negative publicity some of them were receiving , particularly after one white nationalist leader , Richard Spencer , was caught on tape shouting “ Hail Trump.
” Lately Thiel seems to have lost faith in Trump , especially after the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic .
But he still remains committed to hard-right causes and generously donated to Kris Kobach ’ s failed bid to win the Republican senatorial nomination in Kansas this year .
Kobach is notorious for his hard-line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As The Wichita Eagle notes , “ In the last year , Kobach has accused Democrats of using the coronavirus pandemic to push socialism , called for military action against Mexican drug cartels and labeled a US Supreme Court decision that keeps the Trump administration from deporting undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children ‘ one of its worst decisions of the year.
’ ” Bloomberg Businessweek suggests that in preparation for a possible Biden presidency , Facebook is preparing to “ adapt ” to a new political reality , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced he ’ d rehired Chris Cox , former chief product officer , who ’ d been active in Democratic politics since leaving Facebook last year.
” But if Facebook does try to cozy up to Democrats the way the company has with Trump , the Biden administration would do well to resist and keep focused on policies to regulate and possibly break up the social media giant .
The last few years have shown how dangerous it is to give so much power to figures like Mark Zuckerberg , Joel Kaplan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guide all future policy .
A Biden victory would mean that American democracy has survived despite Facebook .
The company shouldn ’ t be given a second chance to destroy democracy .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Facebook, long criticized for facilitating hate speech and incitement all over the world, is finally cracking down on one particular form of incendiary rhetoric: any criticism of Facebook management. The company has an internal message board that mirrors the platform it provides to users, a kind of private Facebook. On that forum, employees have been increasingly critical of senior executives for their cozy relationship with Donald Trump and other authoritarian leaders, which often leads the company to violate its own stated policies about disseminating hate speech and political disinformation.
As The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday,
Facebook Inc. is moving to curb internal debate around divisive political and social topics, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday, after a spate of disputes and criticism that has fueled discord among staffers. The steps will include delineating which parts of the company’s internal messaging platform are acceptable for such discussions, and careful moderation of the discussions when they occur, Mr. Zuckerberg told employees at a company meeting, according to a spokesman. Employees shouldn’t have to confront social issues in their day-to-day work unless they want to, the CEO said.
The internal crackdown on speech comes after a period of heightened tension between management and employees. One source of conflict was the repeated actions of head of policy Joel Kaplan, who had once been George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, to carve out special exemptions for right-wing speech even when it violates Facebook’s rules. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
An extensive Bloomberg Businessweek report, also published on Thursday, traced the conflict back to Trump’s campaign in 2016. One pivotal incident was Trump’s posting in late May, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Trump posted these sentiments on both Twitter and Facebook. Twitter quickly hid the comments from users, with a note explaining that it broke the terms of service forbidding the glorification of violence. But, as Bloomberg Businessweek notes, “Trump’s post remained on Facebook, sparking a virtual walkout. Employees began criticizing Zuckerberg openly and leaking to the press.”
The magazine goes on to observe that “a flurry of stories appeared over the next two months detailing instances that reinforced the suspicions about the alliance between Facebook and Trump. For instance, media outlets reported that the president had no negative hashtags associated with his name on Instagram, while Joe Biden had lots; that a Facebook employee was fired after complaining that the company seemed to be allowing far-right pundits, such as Diamond and Silk, to break rules about misinformation; and that an investigation into Ben Shapiro, whose site the Daily Wire routinely broke the rules to boost its audience, was thwarted by Kaplan’s policy group.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
In a blog post, Facebook stated its position: “The people’s elected representatives should set the rules, and we will follow them. There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech, even when we strongly disagree with it.” According to Bloomberg Businessweek, “The message was clear: We listen to the government in charge.”
The simplest explanation for Facebook management’s actions is business strategy. The Trump administration can target Facebook for regulatory oversight, as it has done with Google. Further, alienating tens of millions of Trump supporters would be bad for Facebook’s bottom line, especially considering that its business model is to maximize the number of users so it can enjoy a near-monopoly on advertising revenue. Trump, in particular, is a massive source of revenue. According to Business Insider, the Trump campaign was by far the biggest political advertiser on Facebook in 2019, spending more than $21 million.
But maximizing profits isn’t the only factor at work. There is a real ideological affinity between some top Facebook managers and Trump. Facebook board member Peter Thiel has been among the most vocal Trump supporters in Silicon Valley and delivered a speech endorsing Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
With Mark Zuckerberg, one might charitably argue that while he might personally believe in democracy, he finds himself in the tragic situation of running a company that profits from the rise of authoritarianism.
But no such efforts to make excuses are necessary with Thiel, since his own words and records have made it clear that he has little use for democracy. Ideologically, Thiel has been all over the map, once styling himself as a libertarian and more recently claiming to be a “national conservative” who believes a strong state is needed to preserve capitalism. But the constant underlying all these shifts has been a strong skepticism toward democracy. As an undergraduate at Stanford in the mid-1980s, he reportedly praised South African apartheid. More recently, he lamented that extending the franchise to women made libertarian economic policy virtually impossible to implement. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,” Thiel wrote.
Last Friday, BuzzFeed News reported that Thiel’s ties to white nationalism were more extensive than previously suspected. According to BuzzFeed, “During the summer of 2016, Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America—a man who has called for the creation of a white ethnostate and played a key role in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the ‘alt-right.’ And then Thiel emailed the next day to say how much he’d enjoyed his company.” The man was Kevin DeAnna, described by BuzzFeed as “an influential white nationalist who pens pieces for VDare and has written many pieces for other prominent publications in the movement like American Renaissance and Counter-Currents.”
During that period, Thiel’s association with the alt-right was so extensive that another white nationalist was hoping that the Facebook executive could become “our George Soros.” Thiel seems to have pulled back from this group only because of the negative publicity some of them were receiving, particularly after one white nationalist leader, Richard Spencer, was caught on tape shouting “Hail Trump.”
Lately Thiel seems to have lost faith in Trump, especially after the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic. But he still remains committed to hard-right causes and generously donated to Kris Kobach’s failed bid to win the Republican senatorial nomination in Kansas this year. Kobach is notorious for his hard-line anti-immigration politics and efforts at voter suppression. As The Wichita Eagle notes, “In the last year, Kobach has accused Democrats of using the coronavirus pandemic to push socialism, called for military action against Mexican drug cartels and labeled a US Supreme Court decision that keeps the Trump administration from deporting undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children ‘one of its worst decisions of the year.’”
Bloomberg Businessweek suggests that in preparation for a possible Biden presidency, Facebook is preparing to “adapt” to a new political reality, reporting that “in June, Zuckerberg announced he’d rehired Chris Cox, former chief product officer, who’d been active in Democratic politics since leaving Facebook last year.”
But if Facebook does try to cozy up to Democrats the way the company has with Trump, the Biden administration would do well to resist and keep focused on policies to regulate and possibly break up the social media giant. The last few years have shown how dangerous it is to give so much power to figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Joel Kaplan, and Peter Thiel—a hard-won lesson that should guide all future policy. A Biden victory would mean that American democracy has survived despite Facebook. The company shouldn’t be given a second chance to destroy democracy.


thenation--2020-09-18--In Trump’s America, It’s Cruelty as Policy

This week , immigration-rights lawyers with Project South , along with other groups , filed a lawsuit against ICE citing a whistleblower ’ s allegations that several women at the privately run immigration detention facility in Irwin County , Ga. , were subjected to hysterectomies and other operations on their reproductive systems without their informed consent .
The Intercept reported that the doctor involved in these procedures routinely performed hysterectomies without telling the women why they needed them .
The suit also alleges medical neglect at the facility regarding Covid-19 testing and safety procedures .
ICE has stated that only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there , and that both were medically necessary procedures ; but the lawsuit details far more cases , conjuring up images of America ’ s eugenicist past , when patients were routinely sterilized against their will .
In fact , Azadeh Shahshahani , legal and advocacy director for Project South , says they estimate that more than a dozen women , possibly as many as 17 , underwent such operations .
The whistleblower has claimed that staff at the facility shredded detainees ’ medical records , making an exact reckoning difficult to calculate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are women who had reproductive issues , minor issues ; they were taken to the doctor and the next thing they know , they have a hysterectomy , ” Shahshahani told me .
“ The context is disturbing : women in prison , very vulnerable , not necessarily fluent in English .
They have little control over their bodies.
” Meanwhile , a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status for upwards of 400,000 people .
This opens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mass deportations , possibly starting as soon as next spring , back to impoverished countries , mainly in Central America , that won ’ t be able to absorb the returnees .
There ’ s a cruel irony in this decision ’ s being handed down by the historically liberal Ninth Circuit—a stark reminder that Trump ’ s wholesale reshaping of the judiciary will affect society for decades to come .
Talking of cruelty , on Wednesday evening a whistleblower testified to Congress that the feds sought to use a secretive “ heat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DC ’ s Lafayette Park in June , before Trump ’ s infamous march to wave a Bible outside a church and display his law-and-order and Second Amendment credentials .
The weapon , which makes victims feel like their skin is burning off , is , presumably , the same one that Trump hoped to deploy against migrants on the US-Mexico border a couple years back , prompting then–DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to recoil in horror and order her underlings to never broach the topic with her again .
According to the whistleblower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Black Lives Matters protesters were also accompanied by a request for thousands of rounds of live ammunition .
But in Attorney General Bill Barr ’ s twisted interpretation of these protests , there ’ s not a whiff of federal overreach ; in his view , demonstrators are so devious , so skilled at fostering civic unrest , and so determined to overthrow the government that they merit sedition charges .
Yes , you read that right : On Wednesday , The Wall Street Journal reported that Barr—fresh off his campaign to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the tab for Trump ’ s defense in the defamation suit brought by a woman who alleges he raped her—is suggesting sedition charges , which can carry a 20-year prison term , against anti-police-brutality protesters .
He also reportedly asked prosecutors to find a way to bring criminal charges against the Seattle mayor for her creation of “ police-free ” protest zones in the wake of the George Floyd killing .
Proposing that demonstrators be charged with sedition and that political opponents be jailed is , apparently , the flavor of the week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in a now-viral Facebook Live rant , said that CDC scientists were also guilty of sedition for talking about the pandemic and time lines for vaccination development in ways that undermined Trump .
It ’ s hard to stay focused in these moments of frenzied politicking , when a new lie , slander , or authoritarian hallucination is pushed into the spotlight every few minutes .
But that focus is more important now than ever .
After all , there ’ s more than enough Noise out there to swamp the entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retweet QAnon lies about Joe Biden ’ s being a pedophile , or can share a doctored video to make it look like Biden is playing N.W.A.
’ s “ Fuck tha Police ” rap at one of his virtual events , or can stand up in front of the American people and erroneously say that if one discounts “ blue state ” deaths , America is doing just fine when it comes to coronavirus fatalities , he is thumbing his nose at the entire democratic project .
He is saying , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Noise , facts be damned ; that he ’ s going to continue to deflect blame , pit state against state , and doctor imagery to secure partisan advantage .
It ’ s a strategy of political vandalism and undiluted hubris , deeply damaging both to the country ’ s democratic fabric and its global image .

The Signal: Trump’s unrelenting march toward cruelty-as-policy.
This week, immigration-rights lawyers with Project South, along with other groups, filed a lawsuit against ICE citing a whistleblower’s allegations that several women at the privately run immigration detention facility in Irwin County, Ga., were subjected to hysterectomies and other operations on their reproductive systems without their informed consent. The Intercept reported that the doctor involved in these procedures routinely performed hysterectomies without telling the women why they needed them. The suit also alleges medical neglect at the facility regarding Covid-19 testing and safety procedures.
ICE has stated that only two women had been referred for hysterectomies there, and that both were medically necessary procedures; but the lawsuit details far more cases, conjuring up images of America’s eugenicist past, when patients were routinely sterilized against their will. In fact, Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director for Project South, says they estimate that more than a dozen women, possibly as many as 17, underwent such operations. The whistleblower has claimed that staff at the facility shredded detainees’ medical records, making an exact reckoning difficult to calculate.
“Our understanding is that these are women who had reproductive issues, minor issues; they were taken to the doctor and the next thing they know, they have a hysterectomy,” Shahshahani told me. “The context is disturbing: women in prison, very vulnerable, not necessarily fluent in English. They have little control over their bodies.” More Signal:Noise Trump’s Nevada Rally Is a Mockery to Millions Sasha Abramsky Trump’s Tromperie Plumbs New Depths Sasha Abramsky
Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status for upwards of 400,000 people. This opens the door to another round of family-shattering mass deportations, possibly starting as soon as next spring, back to impoverished countries, mainly in Central America, that won’t be able to absorb the returnees. There’s a cruel irony in this decision’s being handed down by the historically liberal Ninth Circuit—a stark reminder that Trump’s wholesale reshaping of the judiciary will affect society for decades to come. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Talking of cruelty, on Wednesday evening a whistleblower testified to Congress that the feds sought to use a secretive “heat ray” weapon to clear protesters from DC’s Lafayette Park in June, before Trump’s infamous march to wave a Bible outside a church and display his law-and-order and Second Amendment credentials. The weapon, which makes victims feel like their skin is burning off, is, presumably, the same one that Trump hoped to deploy against migrants on the US-Mexico border a couple years back, prompting then–DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to recoil in horror and order her underlings to never broach the topic with her again. According to the whistleblower, those requests to unleash heat-ray weapons against Black Lives Matters protesters were also accompanied by a request for thousands of rounds of live ammunition.
But in Attorney General Bill Barr’s twisted interpretation of these protests, there’s not a whiff of federal overreach; in his view, demonstrators are so devious, so skilled at fostering civic unrest, and so determined to overthrow the government that they merit sedition charges. Yes, you read that right: On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Barr—fresh off his campaign to get the US government to pick up the tab for Trump’s defense in the defamation suit brought by a woman who alleges he raped her—is suggesting sedition charges, which can carry a 20-year prison term, against anti-police-brutality protesters. He also reportedly asked prosecutors to find a way to bring criminal charges against the Seattle mayor for her creation of “police-free” protest zones in the wake of the George Floyd killing. Current Issue View our current issue
Proposing that demonstrators be charged with sedition and that political opponents be jailed is, apparently, the flavor of the week, since political hatchet man Michael Caputo, in a now-viral Facebook Live rant, said that CDC scientists were also guilty of sedition for talking about the pandemic and time lines for vaccination development in ways that undermined Trump.
It’s hard to stay focused in these moments of frenzied politicking, when a new lie, slander, or authoritarian hallucination is pushed into the spotlight every few minutes. But that focus is more important now than ever. After all, there’s more than enough Noise out there to swamp the entire political system.
When the president can retweet QAnon lies about Joe Biden’s being a pedophile, or can share a doctored video to make it look like Biden is playing N.W.A.’s “Fuck tha Police” rap at one of his virtual events, or can stand up in front of the American people and erroneously say that if one discounts “blue state” deaths, America is doing just fine when it comes to coronavirus fatalities, he is thumbing his nose at the entire democratic project. He is saying, in effect, that all that matters is the Noise, facts be damned; that he’s going to continue to deflect blame, pit state against state, and doctor imagery to secure partisan advantage. It’s a strategy of political vandalism and undiluted hubris, deeply damaging both to the country’s democratic fabric and its global image.