motherjones--2020-01-15--The Warren-Sanders Fight Dismantled the Worst Myth About 2016

Before the moderators at the Tuesday ’ s Democratic presidential debate got to the issue currently roiling the primary , they offered up a healthy serving of vegetables .
First , the CNN and Des Moines Register journalists asked about the prospect of war with Iran and the use of military force in the Middle East .
Then they asked about trade .
And then , about 40 minutes in , came this : Bernie Sanders was asked about Elizabeth Warren ’ s charge that he had told her a woman could not beat Donald Trump .
“ As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t say it , ” Sanders said , adding that even talking about it was “ what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want.
” “ Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes , ” he noted .
“ How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president the United States ?
And let me be very clear : If any of the women on this stage or any of the men on this stage win the nomination—I hope that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s me—but if they do , I will do everything in my power to make sure that they are elected in order to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of this country.
” “ Bernie is my friend , and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie , ” she said .
“ But look , this question of a whether or not a woman can be president has been raised , and it ’ s time for us to attack it head on .
And I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who can win is by looking at people ’ s winning record.
” Warren then did just that , asking the audience to “ look at the men on this stage.
” “ Collectively they have lost 10 elections , ” she noted , referring to Sanders , Pete Buttigieg , and Joe Biden .
“ The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they ’ ve been in are the women : Amy [ Klobuchar ] and me .
And the only person on this stage who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the past 30 years is me.
” Sanders later jumped in to dispute Warren ’ s claim , noting that he beat a Republican incumbent for a seat in the House of Representatives .
Warren looked confused .
“ And I said , I was the only one who ’ s beaten an incumbent Republican in 30 years.
” Debate stages aren ’ t built for nuance .
Warren ’ s stat about her male opponents losing “ 10 elections ” includes , for instance , Sanders ’ failed campaigns as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1970s—hardly a test of electoral mettle .
And beating a former Cosmopolitan centerfold in Massachusetts with Barack Obama on the ballot is a lot easier than what the candidates are proposing to do next fall .
But it ’ s a significant moment for both campaigns , and a chance for Warren to tackle head-on an idea that has hovered over the primary like a fog—the misplaced fear among some voters that after Clinton ’ s 2016 loss , the party would be taking a risk if it nominated a woman again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren was asked about the prospect of getting “ Hillary ’ d. ” “ Privately , Democratic strategists , candidates and officials say they ’ ve been alarmed by how deeply doubts about female electability have taken hold , ” the New York Times reported in July .
“ I don ’ t think it ’ s right , but I think that the fact that we have the person in the White House that we do , it is evidence that the country is not quite totally ready for a woman , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in April .
Warren and Sanders might not have done much to heal the bad blood ( at least online ) between their supporters .
But maybe Democrats at least took some steps toward dispelling one of 2016 ’ s most pernicious canards .

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Before the moderators at the Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate got to the issue currently roiling the primary, they offered up a healthy serving of vegetables. First, the CNN and Des Moines Register journalists asked about the prospect of war with Iran and the use of military force in the Middle East. Then they asked about trade. And then, about 40 minutes in, came this:
Bernie Sanders was asked about Elizabeth Warren’s charge that he had told her a woman could not beat Donald Trump.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t say it,” Sanders said, adding that even talking about it was “what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want.”
“Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes,” he noted. “How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president the United States? And let me be very clear: If any of the women on this stage or any of the men on this stage win the nomination—I hope that’s not the case, I hope it’s me—but if they do, I will do everything in my power to make sure that they are elected in order to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of this country.”
Warren was asked to respond.
“Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie,” she said. “But look, this question of a whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it’s time for us to attack it head on. And I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people’s winning record.”
Warren then did just that, asking the audience to “look at the men on this stage.”
“Collectively they have lost 10 elections,” she noted, referring to Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden. “The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy [Klobuchar] and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me.”
.@ewarren: "Can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they have been in are the women: Amy and me." #DemocraticDebate pic.twitter.com/2QjVcgzh0k — Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 15, 2020
Sanders later jumped in to dispute Warren’s claim, noting that he beat a Republican incumbent for a seat in the House of Representatives. Warren looked confused.
“When?” she asked.
“1990,” he said.
“Wasn’t that…30 years ago?” she said.
“I beat an incumbent Republican congressman,” Sanders responded.
“And I said, I was the only one who’s beaten an incumbent Republican in 30 years.”
“Well 30 years ago is 1990,” Sanders said.
Debate stages aren’t built for nuance. Warren’s stat about her male opponents losing “10 elections” includes, for instance, Sanders’ failed campaigns as a gadfly third-party candidate in Vermont in the 1970s—hardly a test of electoral mettle. And beating a former Cosmopolitan centerfold in Massachusetts with Barack Obama on the ballot is a lot easier than what the candidates are proposing to do next fall.
But it’s a significant moment for both campaigns, and a chance for Warren to tackle head-on an idea that has hovered over the primary like a fog—the misplaced fear among some voters that after Clinton’s 2016 loss, the party would be taking a risk if it nominated a woman again.
At a town hall last April, Warren was asked about the prospect of getting “Hillary’d.”
“Privately, Democratic strategists, candidates and officials say they’ve been alarmed by how deeply doubts about female electability have taken hold,” the New York Times reported in July.
“I don’t think it’s right, but I think that the fact that we have the person in the White House that we do, it is evidence that the country is not quite totally ready for a woman,” a New Hampshire voter told NPR in April.
Warren and Sanders might not have done much to heal the bad blood (at least online) between their supporters. But maybe Democrats at least took some steps toward dispelling one of 2016’s most pernicious canards.


motherjones--2020-01-15--While the Democrats Debate, Trump Is Complaining About Dishwashers

While the Democratic presidential nominees were in Des Moines debating United States policy toward Iran on Tuesday night , President Donald Trump was at a rally in Milwaukee , riling up the crowd with talk of newfangled household appliances .
“ I ’ m also approving new dishwashers that give you more water so you can actually wash and rinse your dishes without having to do it 10 times—five , six , seven , eight , nine , 10 , ” Trump said , presumably referring to Department of Energy regulations about the amount of water dishwashers can use .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ appliances Trump promised to save .
“ Sinks , toilets , and showers‚ you don ’ t get any water , ” he said .
“ You go into a shower—and I have this beautiful head of hair , I need a lot of water.
” Trump paused as the crowd went wild , then continued , “ And you go into the shower , right ?
You turn on the water .
Drip .
Drip .
Drip .
I call the guy , ‘ Is there something wrong with this ?
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just the restrictor . '
”

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While the Democratic presidential nominees were in Des Moines debating United States policy toward Iran on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump was at a rally in Milwaukee, riling up the crowd with talk of newfangled household appliances.
“I’m also approving new dishwashers that give you more water so you can actually wash and rinse your dishes without having to do it 10 times—five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,” Trump said, presumably referring to Department of Energy regulations about the amount of water dishwashers can use.
Trump's complaints about new dishwashers are nuts and suggest he's never used one in his life pic.twitter.com/D7E6R0TNsQ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 15, 2020
But dishwashers weren’t the only appliances Trump promised to save.
“Sinks, toilets, and showers‚ you don’t get any water,” he said. “You go into a shower—and I have this beautiful head of hair, I need a lot of water.” Trump paused as the crowd went wild, then continued, “And you go into the shower, right? You turn on the water. Drip. Drip. Drip. I call the guy, ‘Is there something wrong with this?’ ‘No sir, it’s just the restrictor.'”
"You don't get any water!" — POTUS transitions from complaining about dishwashers to complaining about sinks, toilets, and showers. He then starts bragging about his hair. pic.twitter.com/o4nHUBkGSc — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 15, 2020
Meanwhile, in Iowa:
"We need to get our combat troops out." @ewarren calls for pulling all combat troops out of Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/C3MfJ1U0b0 — Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) January 15, 2020


motherjones--2020-01-15--A New Figure in the Ukraine Scandal Worked for a Mysterious Chinese Trump Donor

Since Donald Trump ’ s election , Robert F. Hyde , a former landscape company owner and the latest oddball figure to enter the Trump-Ukraine scandal , has attempted to ride the Trump presidency into a new career as a lobbyist , public affairs operative , and all-around GOP player .
A Marine veteran and Trump mega-fan who is currently running for Congress in Connecticut , he has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Trump and a bevy of Republican candidates and entities .
His largesse has earned him invites to the White House ( for a bowling night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fixture at Trump ’ s Washington , DC , hotel and Mar-a-Lago club , Hyde has collected and posted scores of photos of himself mingling with Republican luminaries , including Trump and his adult children , as well as Vice President Mike Pence , Sen. Ted Cruz , Rep. Matt Gaetz , and many others .
Hyde , now 40 , remained mostly a wannabe , though he managed to hook up with Lev Parnas , the now-indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani , and apparently tried to become part of the Giuliani operation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yovanovitch , as it sought dirt on Joe Biden to help Trump .
But as Hyde endeavored to leverage his political contributions into access and influence without great success , there was one real connection Hyde did make—and it was with a mysterious Chinese immigrant named Cheng Gao who donated almost a quarter of a million dollars to Trump and the GOP and who also sought a place in Trumpworld .
Last March , Mother Jones revealed Gao ’ s curious backstory .
Gao , who contributed $ 237,000 to the Trump campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inaugural dinner for Trump in January 2017 .
He has identified himself as a “ Buddhist artist ” who lives in New York City .
But Gao only recently relocated to the United States from China , and he and and his wife , Qingqing Qiu , moved into an apartment in Trump Tower several months after Trump entered the White House .
It is unclear how Gao amassed his wealth .
Several businesses linked to Gao and Qiu showed little sign of activity .
Qiu has an interesting history .
She once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by her well-connected mother , Wang Ping .
According to an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review , “ Wang started her career in academia—earning a master ’ s degree in politics from the University of Maryland and serving as a visiting scholar at the European Union ’ s agricultural division—and then held positions in the International Department of the [ Chinese Communist Party ] , at the Hong Kong investment and brokerage firm BNP Paribas Peregrine , and at the Beijing office of the law firm Cha & Cha.
” One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Communist Party has been described by experts as promoting Chinese influence in the West .
Gao moved to the United States from China shortly before starting his career as a big-dollar donor to Republicans .
That raised an obvious question : Were his donations legit ?
It is legal for green-card holders—foreigners who have permanent residence status—to donate to American political candidates and committees ; foreign nationals who have not obtained this status are prohibited from giving money to candidates .
Gao and Qiu refused to answer questions from Mother Jones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigration status .
Hyde , too , was not upfront about Gao .
Mother Jones contacted him after discovering a 2018 photo of him with Gao on Gao ’ s Instagram feed : We asked Hyde about his connection to Gao , and if he knew anything about Gao ’ s contributions to Trump and the GOP .
Hyde insisted that he barely knew Gao and possessed no information about him .
He claimed he had merely once shared a car with Gao on a ride to Mar-a-Lago .
Yet on a financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ connection with his long-shot congressional bid , Hyde noted that he has been a public relations consultant for Gao .
And a former business associate of Hyde tells Mother Jones that Hyde met Gao at a Trump fundraiser in New York City during the campaign .
So it appears that Hyde , for some reason , was concealing his relationship with Gao .
( Hyde did not respond to a Mother Jones interview request on Tuesday . )
But in November , Hyde told the world about his tie to Gao .
Hyde @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showing how in April 2019 he managed to introduce Gao to Trump at Mar-a-Lago , noting that Gao had become a member at the club under Hyde ’ s sponsorship .
In the clip , Hyde orchestrates a handshake between Gao and Trump .
There are still no answers to key questions about Gao .
And the release this week of documents provided by Parnas to the House Intelligence Committee—which includes text messages from last March in which Hyde , using tough-guy language , appears to inform Parnas that he is secretly monitoring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s shenanigans in Ukraine and about Hyde .
Was Hyde truly involved in underhanded operations in Ukraine that targeted the US ambassador there ?
Did he play any other role in Giuliani ’ s and Parnas ’ schemes ?
These are matters that may even be relevant to the impeachment trial of Trump that is about to commence in the Senate .
( On his campaign Twitter account , Hyde claimed that his text messages to Parnas were just an exchange with “ some dweeb we were playing.
” ) In May , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ handshake for Gao , Hyde was taken into police custody at the Trump National Doral in Miami and involuntarily confined to a medical facility .
At the time , Hyde was apparently undergoing a paranoid episode and told the police that the Secret Service and a hit man were after him and that painters and landscapers at the resort were also plotting against him .
Hyde , according to a police report , said to the cops that “ e-mails he sent…may have placed his life in jeopardy.
” ( The report did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
The night before this incident , Hyde sent Mother Jones a long , rambling text message in which he boasted of his role in helping Trump during the 2016 campaign and implied that his life was at risk .
Hyde noted , “ I paid alot to Facebook for boosting ads for the Trump campaign day one .
One add the day of the election went to 26.2 million people.
” He insisted , “ Never in a million years would I collude with Russians !
!
I love my country.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ something was to happen to me , connect the dots.
” With Hyde , the riddle is , are there really dots ?
Or does Hyde just want there to be ?

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Since Donald Trump’s election, Robert F. Hyde, a former landscape company owner and the latest oddball figure to enter the Trump-Ukraine scandal, has attempted to ride the Trump presidency into a new career as a lobbyist, public affairs operative, and all-around GOP player. A Marine veteran and Trump mega-fan who is currently running for Congress in Connecticut, he has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Trump and a bevy of Republican candidates and entities. His largesse has earned him invites to the White House (for a bowling night) and exclusive Republican events. A fixture at Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel and Mar-a-Lago club, Hyde has collected and posted scores of photos of himself mingling with Republican luminaries, including Trump and his adult children, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and many others.
Hyde, now 40, remained mostly a wannabe, though he managed to hook up with Lev Parnas, the now-indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, and apparently tried to become part of the Giuliani operation in Ukraine that targeted US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, as it sought dirt on Joe Biden to help Trump. But as Hyde endeavored to leverage his political contributions into access and influence without great success, there was one real connection Hyde did make—and it was with a mysterious Chinese immigrant named Cheng Gao who donated almost a quarter of a million dollars to Trump and the GOP and who also sought a place in Trumpworld.
Last March, Mother Jones revealed Gao’s curious backstory. Gao, who contributed $237,000 to the Trump campaign and other Republican groups, attended an inaugural dinner for Trump in January 2017. He has identified himself as a “Buddhist artist” who lives in New York City. But Gao only recently relocated to the United States from China, and he and and his wife, Qingqing Qiu, moved into an apartment in Trump Tower several months after Trump entered the White House. It is unclear how Gao amassed his wealth. Several businesses linked to Gao and Qiu showed little sign of activity.
Qiu has an interesting history. She once worked at a center in China founded by her well-connected mother, Wang Ping. According to an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “Wang started her career in academia—earning a master’s degree in politics from the University of Maryland and serving as a visiting scholar at the European Union’s agricultural division—and then held positions in the International Department of the [Chinese Communist Party], at the Hong Kong investment and brokerage firm BNP Paribas Peregrine, and at the Beijing office of the law firm Cha & Cha.” One mission of the international department of China’s Communist Party has been described by experts as promoting Chinese influence in the West.
Gao moved to the United States from China shortly before starting his career as a big-dollar donor to Republicans. That raised an obvious question: Were his donations legit? It is legal for green-card holders—foreigners who have permanent residence status—to donate to American political candidates and committees; foreign nationals who have not obtained this status are prohibited from giving money to candidates. Gao and Qiu refused to answer questions from Mother Jones, including queries about Gao’s immigration status.
Hyde, too, was not upfront about Gao. Mother Jones contacted him after discovering a 2018 photo of him with Gao on Gao’s Instagram feed:
We asked Hyde about his connection to Gao, and if he knew anything about Gao’s contributions to Trump and the GOP. Hyde insisted that he barely knew Gao and possessed no information about him. He claimed he had merely once shared a car with Gao on a ride to Mar-a-Lago.
Yet on a financial disclosure form Hyde filed last year in connection with his long-shot congressional bid, Hyde noted that he has been a public relations consultant for Gao. And a former business associate of Hyde tells Mother Jones that Hyde met Gao at a Trump fundraiser in New York City during the campaign. So it appears that Hyde, for some reason, was concealing his relationship with Gao. (Hyde did not respond to a Mother Jones interview request on Tuesday.)
But in November, Hyde told the world about his tie to Gao. Hyde posted a video on his Twitter feed showing how in April 2019 he managed to introduce Gao to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, noting that Gao had become a member at the club under Hyde’s sponsorship. In the clip, Hyde orchestrates a handshake between Gao and Trump.
Fun times. Nice wave from President Trump. After he shook a new member I sponsored at Mar a Lago. April 2019. pic.twitter.com/uFN2Tra3Wz — HYDE for U.S. Congress (@rfhyde1) November 12, 2019
There are still no answers to key questions about Gao. And the release this week of documents provided by Parnas to the House Intelligence Committee—which includes text messages from last March in which Hyde, using tough-guy language, appears to inform Parnas that he is secretly monitoring Yovanovitch—has raised new questions about Giuliani’s shenanigans in Ukraine and about Hyde. Was Hyde truly involved in underhanded operations in Ukraine that targeted the US ambassador there? Did he play any other role in Giuliani’s and Parnas’ schemes? These are matters that may even be relevant to the impeachment trial of Trump that is about to commence in the Senate. (On his campaign Twitter account, Hyde claimed that his text messages to Parnas were just an exchange with “some dweeb we were playing.”)
In May, not long after he scored that Trump handshake for Gao, Hyde was taken into police custody at the Trump National Doral in Miami and involuntarily confined to a medical facility. At the time, Hyde was apparently undergoing a paranoid episode and told the police that the Secret Service and a hit man were after him and that painters and landscapers at the resort were also plotting against him. Hyde, according to a police report, said to the cops that “e-mails he sent…may have placed his life in jeopardy.” (The report did not note the subject of the emails.) The night before this incident, Hyde sent Mother Jones a long, rambling text message in which he boasted of his role in helping Trump during the 2016 campaign and implied that his life was at risk. Hyde noted, “I paid alot to Facebook for boosting ads for the Trump campaign day one. One add the day of the election went to 26.2 million people.” He insisted, “Never in a million years would I collude with Russians!! I love my country.” And he wrote, “If something was to happen to me, connect the dots.”
With Hyde, the riddle is, are there really dots? Or does Hyde just want there to be?


motherjones--2020-01-15--Virginia Becomes the 38th and Final State Needed to Pass the Equal Rights Amendment

Since Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 , the proposal to enshrine gender equality in the Constitution has languished in state legislatures , failing to rack up the approvals in three-quarters states required of Constitutional amendments—until now .
On Wednesday , Virginia became the 38th state to pass a resolution to ratify the ERA in its newly elected Democratic state legislature .
The significance of the ERA lies in its power to strengthen existing anti-discrimination laws—on issues like pay equity , sexual violence , and pregnancy discrimination—by giving them the weight of a constitutional amendment that can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weakened in the courts , its proponents argue .
But the victory , for now , is mostly symbolic .
The deadline for 38 states to ratify the amendment passed in 1982 , and in the intervening years , five states have rescinded their earlier approvals .
These complications mean that the ERA still faces significant hurdles before it could be added to the Constitution , including potential years of legal battles .
In a recent opinion , the Justice Department stated that its belief that the deadline to add the ERA to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colleague Olivia Exstrum reported , the old battles over the ERA have been revived in recent years as women ’ s groups have strategized to reenergize the older movement .
Their efforts have been fruitful : In 2017 , Nevada voted to ratify the amendment .
In 2018 , Illinois followed suit .
Both were part of a modern “ three-state strategy ” to move the amendment forward .
The ERA , which says simply “ equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged…on account of sex , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the height of the women ’ s movement .
The proposal ’ s passage was a joint effort by feminists and labor groups like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations .
In her testimony before the Senate in favor of the legislation , feminist Gloria Steinem declared , “ Women suffer this second-class treatment from the moment they are born.
” Supporters erupted in cheers in the Senate gallery when it was passed .
Because it would have changed the Constitution , the proposal went to the states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States had 10 years to pass the amendment , but conservatives and anti-feminist activists , led by the late activist Phyllis Schlafly—who claimed , among other things , that women would lose financial support from their husbands if the ERA was passed—fought fiercely against it .
By the time the 1982 deadline rolled around , only 35 states had ratified—three short .
The amendment was dead .
But the ERA ’ s demise never deterred women ’ s groups from trying to restart the conversation .
At least 10 state legislatures , backed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steinem as a board member ) and smaller state groups like the Virginia-based Women Matter , have introduced bills to ratify the ERA in the years since it was first approved .
They ’ ve focused on the so-called “ three-state strategy ” : if they can get three more states to pass the amendment , they ’ re hoping Congress will recognize the ratifications that occurred after 1982 as valid and let it pass .
Now , it may now be up to Congress to recognize the late ratifications and push the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Suk , a professor at the City University of New York who is writing a book about the ERA .
“ I think there ’ s a very strong political and moral argument , ” Suk says .
“ It ’ s taken a generation 100 years to get the ERA because there are obvious challenges to getting equal rights when you don ’ t have equal rights .
If Congress were to say ‘ follow the rules , sorry you were late , ’ I think they would be rejecting 100 years @ @ @ @ @ @

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Since Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, the proposal to enshrine gender equality in the Constitution has languished in state legislatures, failing to rack up the approvals in the three-quarters of states required of Constitutional amendments—until now. On Wednesday, Virginia became the 38th state to pass a resolution to ratify the ERA in its newly elected Democratic state legislature.
The significance of the ERA lies in its power to strengthen existing anti-discrimination laws—on issues like pay equity, sexual violence, and pregnancy discrimination—by giving them the weight of a constitutional amendment that cannot easily be repealed, amended, or weakened in the courts, its proponents argue.
But the victory, for now, is mostly symbolic. The deadline for 38 states to ratify the amendment passed in 1982, and in the intervening years, five states have rescinded their earlier approvals. These complications mean that the ERA still faces significant hurdles before it could be added to the Constitution, including potential years of legal battles. In a recent opinion, the Justice Department stated that its belief that the deadline to add the ERA to the Constitution had passed.
As my colleague Olivia Exstrum reported, the old battles over the ERA have been revived in recent years as women’s groups have strategized to reenergize the older movement. Their efforts have been fruitful: In 2017, Nevada voted to ratify the amendment. In 2018, Illinois followed suit. Both were part of a modern “three-state strategy” to move the amendment forward.
The ERA, which says simply “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged…on account of sex,” was passed by Congress in 1972, at the height of the women’s movement. The proposal’s passage was a joint effort by feminists and labor groups like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. In her testimony before the Senate in favor of the legislation, feminist Gloria Steinem declared, “Women suffer this second-class treatment from the moment they are born.” Supporters erupted in cheers in the Senate gallery when it was passed. Because it would have changed the Constitution, the proposal went to the states for ratification after Congress approved it. States had 10 years to pass the amendment, but conservatives and anti-feminist activists, led by the late activist Phyllis Schlafly—who claimed, among other things, that women would lose financial support from their husbands if the ERA was passed—fought fiercely against it. By the time the 1982 deadline rolled around, only 35 states had ratified—three short. The amendment was dead. But the ERA’s demise never deterred women’s groups from trying to restart the conversation. At least 10 state legislatures, backed by the ERA Coalition (which counts Steinem as a board member) and smaller state groups like the Virginia-based Women Matter, have introduced bills to ratify the ERA in the years since it was first approved. They’ve focused on the so-called “three-state strategy”: if they can get three more states to pass the amendment, they’re hoping Congress will recognize the ratifications that occurred after 1982 as valid and let it pass.
Now, it may now be up to Congress to recognize the late ratifications and push the amendment process forward, according to Julie Suk, a professor at the City University of New York who is writing a book about the ERA.
“I think there’s a very strong political and moral argument,” Suk says. “It’s taken a generation 100 years to get the ERA because there are obvious challenges to getting equal rights when you don’t have equal rights. If Congress were to say ‘follow the rules, sorry you were late,’ I think they would be rejecting 100 years of effort by women.”
Additional reporting by Laura Thompson.


motherjones--2020-01-15--Pete Buttigieg’s Top Cybersecurity Staffer Has Left the Campaign

The chief information security officer on Pete Buttigieg ’ s presidential campaign resigned from the campaign earlier this month over differences in opinion about how to best secure the campaign .
The staffer , Mick Baccio , told Mother Jones on Wednesday that he “ had fundamental philosophical differences with campaign management regarding the architecture and scope of the information security program.
” The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal .
Baccio garnered largely positive headlines for the campaign in November after speaking at a cyber security conference about the challenges of his job .
He ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knowing that the work , as with any campaign , could be short term , but he told the crowd that he was attracted by the chance to confront challenges inherent to securing a modern , high-profile presidential campaign , describing it as an opportunity that might not come again .
“ Mick resigned earlier this month and we thank him for the work he did to protect our campaign against attacks , ” Chris Meagher , a Buttigieg spokesperson , told Mother Jones .
“ Our campaign has retained a new security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ digital security and protecting against cyber attacks.
” Meagher did not respond to follow-up questions seeking more information on why Baccio left , or about the firm the he said had been retained to manage information security .
During his November talk , Baccio said his job was “ to make sure 2016 doesn ’ t happen again.
” While he avoided discussing specifics of the campaign ’ s security strategy , he said that information security work on a campaign was “ non-stop , ” and included managing the risks of third-party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as platforms for campaign email , fundraising , and document sharing .
Presidential campaigns have been longstanding and obvious targets for hackers looking to gain intelligence , as in the case of the Russian government in 2016 , looking to access sensitive emails and files and leak them to damage political figures .
“ All campaigns access this ecosystem , ” he said at the time .
“ I ’ m only as secure as [ these platforms and their users ] .
”

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The chief information security officer on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign resigned from the campaign earlier this month over differences in opinion about how to best secure the campaign.
The staffer, Mick Baccio, told Mother Jones on Wednesday that he “had fundamental philosophical differences with campaign management regarding the architecture and scope of the information security program.” The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Baccio garnered largely positive headlines for the campaign in November after speaking at a cyber security conference about the challenges of his job. He’d taken the position in July 2019 knowing that the work, as with any campaign, could be short term, but he told the crowd that he was attracted by the chance to confront challenges inherent to securing a modern, high-profile presidential campaign, describing it as an opportunity that might not come again.
“Mick resigned earlier this month and we thank him for the work he did to protect our campaign against attacks,” Chris Meagher, a Buttigieg spokesperson, told Mother Jones. “Our campaign has retained a new security firm and continues to be committed to digital security and protecting against cyber attacks.”
Meagher did not respond to follow-up questions seeking more information on why Baccio left, or about the firm the he said had been retained to manage information security.
During his November talk, Baccio said his job was “to make sure 2016 doesn’t happen again.” While he avoided discussing specifics of the campaign’s security strategy, he said that information security work on a campaign was “non-stop,” and included managing the risks of third-party vendors, such as those that serve as platforms for campaign email, fundraising, and document sharing. Presidential campaigns have been longstanding and obvious targets for hackers looking to gain intelligence, as in the case of the Russian government in 2016, looking to access sensitive emails and files and leak them to damage political figures.
“All campaigns access this ecosystem,” he said at the time. “I’m only as secure as [these platforms and their users].”


motherjones--2020-01-15--States Must Accept Refugees, Judge Rules, Blocking Trump’s Order

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration ’ s executive order that allows states to refuse to resettle @ @ @ @ @ Texas announced that it would stop accepting refugees under President Donald Trump ’ s September @ @ @ @ @ have affirmed that they will continue to take them in .
In a preliminary injunction @ @ @ @ @ federal district court judge Peter Messitte decided that allowing Executive Order 13888 to remain in @ @ @ @ @ Messitte wrote : By giving States and Local Governments the power to veto where refugees @ @ @ @ @ of clear statutory text and structure , purpose , Congressional intent , executive practice , @ @ @ @ @ doctrine to the contrary—Order 13888 does not appear to serve the overall public interest .
@ @ @ @ @ Plaintiffs seek does .
Refugee resettlement activity should go forward as it developed for the @ @ @ @ @ Order 13888 was announced .

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motherjones--2020-01-16--Iranians Would Kindly Like Donald Trump To “Shut Up”

When Iran ’ s military admitted on Saturday that it had mistakenly shot down a civilian airliner , Ukraine Airlines Flight 752—killing all 176 of its mainly Iranian passengers and crew—Iranians started taking to the streets in shock , sadness , and outrage that , for many , at least temporarily overshadowed their anger toward the United States after it assassinated top Quds Force general Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike earlier this month .
Now in their sixth day of protests , demonstrators are condemning the killings and criticizing the government behind them , with some demanding the resignation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social media show Iranians burning images of Khamenei and chanting slogans like , “ They lied when they told us it was America—our enemy is right here.
” Eyewitnesses claim that government militias are firing live ammunition at protestors .
These latest protests aren ’ t the first time Iranians have taken to the streets in recent months .
The country ’ s domestic politics have been volatile in recent years , particularly under President Donald Trump ’ s “ maximum pressure ” regime of military force and extreme sanctions .
In November @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spontaneous rallies after a surprise hike in gas prices , furious with a government often seen as corrupt , incompetent , and invested in Middle East proxy wars at the expense of its citizens ’ welfare .
The uprisings are the results of an “ accumulation of crises ” in Iran , says Peyman Jafari , a researcher and historian at Princeton University ’ s Center for Iran Persian Gulf Studies .
Yet major political change , he says , won ’ t come until students , workers , and middle-class professionals fed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unify their protests and demands .
To understand more about the motivations driving the rallies , and where they might lead , Mother Jones spoke at length to Jafari , who studies Iran ’ s history , social movements , and politics .
Could you give some background on the massive Iranian protests in November and December , and connect them to what ’ s going on now ?
The demonstrations in November were triggered by a socioeconomic issue : the rising of the fuel price .
The middle class had sympathy with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t join .
This time around , we had the crash of the airplane , of course .
And I think it brought two crises of the Islamic Republic together : what I call the crisis of legitimacy , because of the lying—it was not only the crash of the airplane , but also that the government didn ’ t tell the truth for three days , that ignited that wider demand of transparency , of democracy .
The other crisis linked to this event is the crisis of competency : these huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect its citizens , to provide public services , security , and so on .
Shooting down the airplane brought that to the fore—doing this , by mistake , cost 170-plus people their lives .
So this was a huge issue .
The constituency this time around is more middle class , more students .
More generally , there has been an accumulation of crises in Iran .
The crises of competency , of legitimacy , the socioeconomic crisis .
The current establishment has moved away from promises of social justice and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies since the 1990s .
Now we see flexibility in the labor market , lots of precarious jobs , subcontracting .
Wages are basically low .
Lots of strikes we see happening are about unpaid wages or low wages .
And then we have an environmental crisis , particularly in southern Iran , with drought and so on .
All these crises are converging , and the demands are affecting both the lower classes and the middle classes , which have seen a huge drop in their income .
So there is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ converging , but this will not happen automatically .
What you need is actually people , organizations , trade unions , NGOs , activist networks that can make these connections , that can formulate these kinds of demands .
Was there any overlap between Iranians who protested the Soleimani assassination and the people who demonstrated against the airplane attack or the gas price hike ?
Some people have been commenting that these protests mean Iranians were not united by the Soleimani assassination .
But it ’ s important to stress that Iran is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not monolithic .
These can be existing groups , parallel to each other .
Even more so , the same person can be against the assassination of Soleimani and be against corruption and authoritarianism in Iran .
I think the assassination of Soleimani crystallized a nationalism that is still very strong in Iran .
Those things can really exist simultaneously .
There ’ s a lot of Iran-related disinformation on social media , especially Twitter , Telegram , and Instagram , where accounts with few followers sometimes share unverifiable info about demonstrations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be about disinformation as we try to make sense of these protests ?
Disinformation is being sent out by the Iranian government and by the US government , which also organizes a disinfo campaign .
You have these bots organized by very small but rich outside groups , such as the MKO [ an armed , US–backed opposition group ] and royalists , that create an echo chamber .
Trump was bragging about his tweet in Persian being the most retweeted Persian-language tweet .
But much of that retweeting happens by these bots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armies like the MKO .
Their activism , now , is basically tweeting .
They have these halls of aging activists sitting behind computers and sending out tweets all day long .
[ On Saturday , Trump issued his first Farsi tweet : “ To the brave and suffering people of Iran : from the beginning of my presidency , I have stood with you , and my government will continue to stand with you .
We are following your protests closely .
Your courage is inspirational.
” ] That ’ s definitely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire reality .
There are other Iranians on Twitter , on social media , both outside of and within Iran , who are very active and taking positions .
One should not dismiss those as not genuine .
There is lots of genuine activity .
Are distortions on social media a major concern within Iran , especially for protestors ?
In Iran , no .
In Iran , people , by this time , know where everything ’ s happening .
When Trump tweeted in Persian , a lot of Iranians ’ reaction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ You have instituted a travel ban .
You have targeted our cultural sites .
You have been sanctioning us.
” People are aware of that .
There ’ s of course the problem of the so-called fake news : which demonstrations are real , what ’ s speculation about shooting on demonstrations .
But that problem is really general .
My sense is that most people are aware and know how to go around that .
In the US , there ’ s been a lot of coverage of the video of protesting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prominent Iranian university , being careful not to walk on US and Israeli flags that have been painted on the ground for propaganda purposes .
What do you think that clip tells us ?
People made a big deal of it , but it ’ s not new .
It ’ s happened in the last few years , but it ’ s become more politicized now .
My interpretation is that students were doing this because they basically wanted to give the middle finger to Iranian authorities , because this [ trampling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But this does not mean that they are blind to Israel or America ’ s foreign policies .
Many of those students are very critical of what is happening in Israel or what is happening with the economic sanctions .
Actually , that university is sanctioned by the US !
Its students haven ’ t been able to travel to the US to study .
But I think the point is that they are refusing to do it precisely because the government and local authorities are forcing them to .
What about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Supreme Leader Khamenei , which happened during the November protests and again this week ?
We also saw it in the 2009 protests .
There has been a growing critique of the Supreme Leader in wider sections of society , because he ’ s ultimately the person responsible for what is happening .
He takes credit for the good things , but doesn ’ t want to be held responsible for what ’ s going on now .
This is a sign of people demanding accountability from the leading figure in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a country of 80-plus million .
This has been done increasingly often , but not by everybody , of course .
On Twitter and elsewhere , Trump and the White House have been trying to involve themselves in these protests .
What consequences could that have for protestors in Iran ?
I think it has actually been totally counterproductive .
First of all , it is strengthening the authoritarian nature of the Islamic Republic , because it gives more power to the Revolutionary Guards .
It galvanizes and heartens the supporters of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatened and think everybody opposing them is an agent of the United States .
After the assassination of Soleimani , we saw the Revolutionary Guards recruit directly from the ranks of young people to draw in new blood .
When we see the reemergence of protests , they will be confronted with increased , militarized repression by the government of Iran .
The second thing is , US economic sanctions cut off the oxygen for civil society in Iran .
I think strikes , which can really affect the government , are much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people will be more tempted to sit on the fence and not join the movement , because they are afraid of the [ economic ] consequences .
So no , I don ’ t think Trump should take credit for what is happening .
Even if there were to be a regime collapse because of this “ maximum pressure , ” the outcome of that will not necessarily be democratic under current conditions .
It could mean more chaos , civil war , the disintegration of Iranian civil society .
Even if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they did to Iraq in the 90s , disintegrating the social fabric , people will fall back on family links , tribal links , sectarian religious links , other groups , instead of institutions like the unions and associations and so on .
When the conditions become militarized , we really do see this shrinking space for these kinds of organizations .
In the last few days , at least two prominent Iranian news anchors have resigned over the plane crash lies .
Tehran ’ s main journalism association released a statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What endangers this society right now is not only missiles or military attacks but a lack of free media.
” What kind of role has that kind of public resistance played ?
I think it is significant .
What this statement basically said was that we haven ’ t been telling the truth as journalists in the last few days , that this is outrageous , and that we should ignore the limitations set for us in the media and do our jobs as journalists .
I see this as a sign of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : associations of journalists , of teachers , of lawyers , particularly in the public sector .
They are demanding accountability .
What do you think Westerners generally don ’ t understand about these demonstrations ?
We should be careful of simplistic pictures .
Every time there is a protest or demonstration , there are voices that say the regime is collapsing .
I do think that since the 1990s , the social base of the state has really shrunk , and that ’ s a real trend .
But we are not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It will still take a while .
We also don ’ t know what the nature of the transformation will be , whether it will come from internal changes and developments or a total collapse through mass protests and a revolutionary movement .
That ’ s one thing .
The other is that people in Iran , for the last 100 years , have been fighting a war on two fronts—against domestic dictatorship and against foreign domination—and that they are fusing these two struggles .
At one moment , they will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at another moment much more about foreign domination .
On a very small scale , we did see this in the last few weeks , with people in the streets against the assassination of Soleimani and then against repression and corruption .
It ’ s in the political culture of Iranians to combine these two struggles .
Are we missing anything else about the protests ?
To add one thing : we do see lots of women at the front of these mobilizations and demonstrations and protests .
If you look at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think that ’ s excellent , and a picture of the future Iran .
The participation of women in the Islamic Republic in the political sphere has actually increased in the last few decades because of the expansion of education .
In the 1980s , participation of women in the labor market was decreasing and discouraged , but since the 1990s , it is encouraged .
But as women are participating , they are also realizing they are confronted with obstacles that limit their participation .
So there is a huge tension @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a political consciousness and activism and a will to take to the streets .
I think that ’ s really a hopeful development .
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity .

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When Iran’s military admitted on Saturday that it had mistakenly shot down a civilian airliner, Ukraine Airlines Flight 752—killing all 176 of its mainly Iranian passengers and crew—Iranians started taking to the streets in shock, sadness, and outrage that, for many, at least temporarily overshadowed their anger toward the United States after it assassinated top Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike earlier this month.
Now in their sixth day of protests, demonstrators are condemning the killings and criticizing the government behind them, with some demanding the resignation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Videos on social media show Iranians burning images of Khamenei and chanting slogans like, “They lied when they told us it was America—our enemy is right here.” Eyewitnesses claim that government militias are firing live ammunition at protestors.
These latest protests aren’t the first time Iranians have taken to the streets in recent months. The country’s domestic politics have been volatile in recent years, particularly under President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” regime of military force and extreme sanctions. In November, tens of thousands of Iranians staged spontaneous rallies after a surprise hike in gas prices, furious with a government often seen as corrupt, incompetent, and invested in Middle East proxy wars at the expense of its citizens’ welfare.
The uprisings are the results of an “accumulation of crises” in Iran, says Peyman Jafari, a researcher and historian at Princeton University’s Center for Iran Persian Gulf Studies. Yet major political change, he says, won’t come until students, workers, and middle-class professionals fed up with economic struggle and political repression unify their protests and demands.
To understand more about the motivations driving the rallies, and where they might lead, Mother Jones spoke at length to Jafari, who studies Iran’s history, social movements, and politics.
Could you give some background on the massive Iranian protests in November and December, and connect them to what’s going on now?
The demonstrations in November were triggered by a socioeconomic issue: the rising of the fuel price. The middle class had sympathy with these protests, but really didn’t join. This time around, we had the crash of the airplane, of course. And I think it brought two crises of the Islamic Republic together: what I call the crisis of legitimacy, because of the lying—it was not only the crash of the airplane, but also that the government didn’t tell the truth for three days, that ignited that wider demand of transparency, of democracy.
The other crisis linked to this event is the crisis of competency: these huge grievances about the government not being able to protect its citizens, to provide public services, security, and so on. Shooting down the airplane brought that to the fore—doing this, by mistake, cost 170-plus people their lives. So this was a huge issue. The constituency this time around is more middle class, more students.
More generally, there has been an accumulation of crises in Iran. The crises of competency, of legitimacy, the socioeconomic crisis. The current establishment has moved away from promises of social justice and equality, and has introduced more neoliberal policies since the 1990s. Now we see flexibility in the labor market, lots of precarious jobs, subcontracting. Wages are basically low. Lots of strikes we see happening are about unpaid wages or low wages. And then we have an environmental crisis, particularly in southern Iran, with drought and so on.
All these crises are converging, and the demands are affecting both the lower classes and the middle classes, which have seen a huge drop in their income. So there is a chance of these [different protests] converging, but this will not happen automatically. What you need is actually people, organizations, trade unions, NGOs, activist networks that can make these connections, that can formulate these kinds of demands.
Was there any overlap between Iranians who protested the Soleimani assassination and the people who demonstrated against the airplane attack or the gas price hike?
Some people have been commenting that these protests mean Iranians were not united by the Soleimani assassination. But it’s important to stress that Iran is a large country, and it’s not monolithic. These can be existing groups, parallel to each other. Even more so, the same person can be against the assassination of Soleimani and be against corruption and authoritarianism in Iran. I think the assassination of Soleimani crystallized a nationalism that is still very strong in Iran. Those things can really exist simultaneously.
There’s a lot of Iran-related disinformation on social media, especially Twitter, Telegram, and Instagram, where accounts with few followers sometimes share unverifiable info about demonstrations and crackdowns. How concerned should we be about disinformation as we try to make sense of these protests?
Disinformation is being sent out by the Iranian government and by the US government, which also organizes a disinfo campaign. You have these bots organized by very small but rich outside groups, such as the MKO [an armed, US–backed opposition group] and royalists, that create an echo chamber.
Trump was bragging about his tweet in Persian being the most retweeted Persian-language tweet. But much of that retweeting happens by these bots, and through these online activist cyber armies like the MKO. Their activism, now, is basically tweeting. They have these halls of aging activists sitting behind computers and sending out tweets all day long. [On Saturday, Trump issued his first Farsi tweet: “To the brave and suffering people of Iran: from the beginning of my presidency, I have stood with you, and my government will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely. Your courage is inspirational.”]
That’s definitely part of reality, but not the entire reality. There are other Iranians on Twitter, on social media, both outside of and within Iran, who are very active and taking positions. One should not dismiss those as not genuine. There is lots of genuine activity.
Are distortions on social media a major concern within Iran, especially for protestors?
In Iran, no. In Iran, people, by this time, know where everything’s happening. When Trump tweeted in Persian, a lot of Iranians’ reaction was just, “Shut up. You have instituted a travel ban. You have targeted our cultural sites. You have been sanctioning us.” People are aware of that.
There’s of course the problem of the so-called fake news: which demonstrations are real, what’s speculation about shooting on demonstrations. But that problem is really general. My sense is that most people are aware and know how to go around that.
In the US, there’s been a lot of coverage of the video of protesting students at Shahid Beheshti University, a prominent Iranian university, being careful not to walk on US and Israeli flags that have been painted on the ground for propaganda purposes. What do you think that clip tells us?
People made a big deal of it, but it’s not new. It’s happened in the last few years, but it’s become more politicized now. My interpretation is that students were doing this because they basically wanted to give the middle finger to Iranian authorities, because this [trampling the flags] is imposed on them.
But this does not mean that they are blind to Israel or America’s foreign policies. Many of those students are very critical of what is happening in Israel or what is happening with the economic sanctions. Actually, that university is sanctioned by the US! Its students haven’t been able to travel to the US to study. But I think the point is that they are refusing to do it precisely because the government and local authorities are forcing them to.
What about the tearing up or burning of photographs of Supreme Leader Khamenei, which happened during the November protests and again this week?
We also saw it in the 2009 protests. There has been a growing critique of the Supreme Leader in wider sections of society, because he’s ultimately the person responsible for what is happening. He takes credit for the good things, but doesn’t want to be held responsible for what’s going on now. This is a sign of people demanding accountability from the leading figure in the government. But, again, Iran is a country of 80-plus million. This has been done increasingly often, but not by everybody, of course.
On Twitter and elsewhere, Trump and the White House have been trying to involve themselves in these protests. What consequences could that have for protestors in Iran?
I think it has actually been totally counterproductive. First of all, it is strengthening the authoritarian nature of the Islamic Republic, because it gives more power to the Revolutionary Guards. It galvanizes and heartens the supporters of the Islamic Republic, because they feel threatened and think everybody opposing them is an agent of the United States. After the assassination of Soleimani, we saw the Revolutionary Guards recruit directly from the ranks of young people to draw in new blood. When we see the reemergence of protests, they will be confronted with increased, militarized repression by the government of Iran.
The second thing is, US economic sanctions cut off the oxygen for civil society in Iran. I think strikes, which can really affect the government, are much more effective than demonstrations. But many people will be more tempted to sit on the fence and not join the movement, because they are afraid of the [economic] consequences.
So no, I don’t think Trump should take credit for what is happening. Even if there were to be a regime collapse because of this “maximum pressure,” the outcome of that will not necessarily be democratic under current conditions. It could mean more chaos, civil war, the disintegration of Iranian civil society. Even if the economic sanctions do [to Iran] what they did to Iraq in the 90s, disintegrating the social fabric, people will fall back on family links, tribal links, sectarian religious links, other groups, instead of institutions like the unions and associations and so on. When the conditions become militarized, we really do see this shrinking space for these kinds of organizations.
In the last few days, at least two prominent Iranian news anchors have resigned over the plane crash lies. Tehran’s main journalism association released a statement that said, in part, “What endangers this society right now is not only missiles or military attacks but a lack of free media.” What kind of role has that kind of public resistance played?
I think it is significant. What this statement basically said was that we haven’t been telling the truth as journalists in the last few days, that this is outrageous, and that we should ignore the limitations set for us in the media and do our jobs as journalists. I see this as a sign of the capacities of institutions in civil society: associations of journalists, of teachers, of lawyers, particularly in the public sector. They are demanding accountability.
What do you think Westerners generally don’t understand about these demonstrations?
We should be careful of simplistic pictures. Every time there is a protest or demonstration, there are voices that say the regime is collapsing. I do think that since the 1990s, the social base of the state has really shrunk, and that’s a real trend. But we are not on the verge of a collapsing regime. It will still take a while.
We also don’t know what the nature of the transformation will be, whether it will come from internal changes and developments or a total collapse through mass protests and a revolutionary movement.
That’s one thing. The other is that people in Iran, for the last 100 years, have been fighting a war on two fronts—against domestic dictatorship and against foreign domination—and that they are fusing these two struggles. At one moment, they will be much more about domestic repression, and at another moment much more about foreign domination.
On a very small scale, we did see this in the last few weeks, with people in the streets against the assassination of Soleimani and then against repression and corruption. It’s in the political culture of Iranians to combine these two struggles.
Are we missing anything else about the protests?
To add one thing: we do see lots of women at the front of these mobilizations and demonstrations and protests. If you look at the pictures, you will see them. I think that’s excellent, and a picture of the future Iran.
The participation of women in the Islamic Republic in the political sphere has actually increased in the last few decades because of the expansion of education. In the 1980s, participation of women in the labor market was decreasing and discouraged, but since the 1990s, it is encouraged. But as women are participating, they are also realizing they are confronted with obstacles that limit their participation. So there is a huge tension there which causes women to develop really a political consciousness and activism and a will to take to the streets. I think that’s really a hopeful development.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.


motherjones--2020-01-16--Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Movement Is About a Lot More Than Just Congress

For years , tenants in New York ’ s public housing residences had complained about the black mold breeding on the walls , the brown liquid dripping from the ceilings , and the cold water flowing from the faucets .
But the city hadn ’ t made repairs .
One white-skied Saturday this past November , neither New York City Housing Authority head Gregory Russ nor mayor-turned-presidential-candidate Bill de Blasio was present in the crowd of activists and public housing residents who took the 5 train to the Bronx and huddled in a blue-walled basement in the Pelham Parkway Houses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Deal for public housing .
But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat on a folding chair in the front row , listening .
La Keesha Taylor , a resident of Holmes Towers on the Upper East Side , stood on a small stage in front of about 80 people , holding an enlarged photo of her son ’ s bed and pillow , spattered with blood .
She said she recently heard him coughing in his bedroom and found him bleeding from his nose and mouth , which she blamed on the excessive heat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s always a problem , every single year , when we change to wintertime and it ’ s time for housing to give us heat and hot water , ” she said .
“ I don ’ t know why they can ’ t get it right .
Winter comes every year.
” When she complained about the excessive heat at a tenant association meeting , her superintendent told her that if he fixed the heat , he would raise her rent .
“ Now we ’ re being intimidated , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re trying to make me afraid to complain .
You ’ re trying to keep me beholden to this system , this system of abuse.
” This is the system of intimidation that Ocasio-Cortez ’ s disciples sought to combat following her election to Congress .
In 2019 , two of Ocasio-Cortez ’ s former campaign staffers , Ilona Duverge and Gabe Tobias , launched Movement School , a training program that teaches working class activists how to run grassroots political campaigns .
One subset of the organization , Reclaim NYCHA , teaches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocate for themselves in an underfunded public housing system .
When Ocasio-Cortez stepped on stage in the Pelham Parkway basement , she addressed the rapt crowd with the same aspirational energy that has come to define her rise to prominence .
“ Public housing was once regarded one of the best places to live in America , ” she said .
“ It was only when we talked ourselves out of it that things started to erode .
It was only when we decided that it wasn ’ t worth it anymore that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as long as we valued it , it was important.
” Applause pierced the air as she continued , “ And we can value it again .
And we should value it again.
” NYCHA , a city agency that receives both state and federal funding , is New York ’ s largest landlord , housing 1 in 15 city residents .
More than half a million New Yorkers live in NYCHA or in federally subsidized Section 8 housing across the city ’ s five boroughs .
That ’ s a potentially significant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low voter turnout in local elections .
In the 2017 mayoral election , for example , just 1.15 million of the city ’ s 4.6 million active voters cast a ballot .
But NYCHA residents haven ’ t experienced strength in numbers .
Instead , lawmakers at both the state and federal level have been ignoring them .
Most NYCHA buildings are more than 50 years old , and ever since President Bill Clinton signed the Faircloth Amendment into law in 1999 , the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been prohibited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ housing stock .
According to NYCHA , steady federal and state disinvestment in the authority since 1998 has allowed the buildings to deteriorate .
In 2017 , a New York City Department of Investigation report revealed that NYCHA had lied to the federal government , falsely asserting that it had inspected 55,000 apartments for lead paint .
Local news site the City reports that 1,100 children living in NYCHA have tested positive for elevated blood-lead levels since 2012 .
After HUD appointed a federal monitor to oversee the housing authority , NYCHA employees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replacing missing ceiling tiles with cardboard and plugging over rodent holes without addressing the infestations , according to the City .
While the authority can use independent contractors for repairs , it ’ s ultimately NYCHA ’ s responsibility to make sure the apartments are livable .
NYCHA tenants were getting fed up .
So , working from the principle that 400,000 New Yorkers have enough collective power to enact change , Duverge , just 22 , decided to channel their frustration into action .
Duverge knows how it feels to be overlooked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump was elected president in 2016 , Duverge was undocumented , having moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was two months old .
“ To the Trump administration , I ’ m seen as a threat , I ’ m seen as an outsider , I ’ m seen as an infestation to society , ” she said .
“ That really politicized me.
” In 2017 , the same year she gained citizenship , Duverge , then a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a progressive challenging an incumbent Democratic city councilman .
Abreu was unsuccessful , but Duverge ’ s next campaign wasn ’ t .
After working field on Ocasio-Cortez ’ s primary campaign , she became her deputy organizing director during the general election , planning events and mapping out canvassing routes for volunteers .
She called the endeavor “ organized chaos , ” the sort of atmosphere she thrives in .
There , she met Tobias , another field team leader , who would become her partner in running the Movement School .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that launched Ocasio-Cortez to a primary victory over the entrenched Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley , Duverge wanted to make it easier for working class people to get involved in politics .
“ What happens when your candidate doesn ’ t have a Rolodex of millionaire friends ?
” she said .
“ It was really homing in on this ideological view of how to build a true grassroots campaign , and we knew that that didn ’ t exist.
” During Ocasio-Cortez ’ s general election campaign—largely a formality in the overwhelmingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of webinars about progressive organizing for campaign volunteers “ as a way to continue building momentum and taking the time to teach and engage the community in the political process formally , ” Duverge said .
In February 2019 , the duo launched a 10-week Campaign Fellows Program providing online professional development for 71 people involved in political campaigns across the country .
In July , they directed their energy toward public housing and founded the Reclaim NYCHA program , which Duverge oversees .
For 12 weeks from September through November , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program learned about how to get involved in county committees , tenant associations , and individual projects while knowing their rights as NYCHA residents .
Duverge sees the Movement School as part of a larger movement to diversify the voices of the key players in community politics and beyond .
“ You ’ re seeing more people of color , more working class folks starting to find their voice a little bit more , ” she said .
“ That ’ s why the politics in our country as a whole , regardless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shifting .
Because you ’ re seeing these movements spark up backing working-class , everyday citizens as the representatives.
” On a Saturday in October , at one of the group ’ s weekly in-person meetings , eight of the fellows gathered in a basement classroom of the City College of New York in Upper Manhattan to hear communications consultant Christina Hernández explain how to “ amplify their message.
” She clicked through a PowerPoint presentation , replete with gifs , that instructed students on writing press releases , pitching media organizations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At one point , she paused and asked me to tell the fellows how I decide which press releases to read and which to skip over .
I said that they were at an advantage , since none of them represented a soulless corporation .
One student , Kimberly Tyre , was particularly engaged , the first to shoot her hand up when Hernández asked the class to participate .
Tyre , a 52-year-old resident of the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem , has been protesting the rodent infestation , mold , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going on rent strike .
Through the Movement School , she hopes to enlist other NYCHA residents in similar circumstances to join her .
She has already knocked on the doors of every apartment in two of her development ’ s 18 buildings .
“ I got positive feedback from that , ” she said .
“ Making them aware of the rats , making them aware of the issues that we ’ re currently experiencing with NYCHA.
” Tyre told me that she has refused to pay her $ 497 monthly rent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordered NYCHA to repair her apartment , whose problems included a dilapidated cabinet , a damaged front door , loose plaster in the bathroom , black mold on a bedroom ceiling , and a mysterious brown substance in the bathroom she can ’ t get control of .
She said repair workers have come , but their work has been incomplete because they didn ’ t have the necessary equipment to finish the job .
She also echoed a complaint I ’ ve heard from several other NYCHA residents : The hours that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and NYCHA often requires residents to be in their apartments for whole days on weekdays to let them in , which keeps them from their jobs and other obligations .
“ I failed one of my math classes for NYCHA twice , ” Tyre , who earned her psychology degree at Mercy College , said , “ because of giving them access for an exterminator on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
” Tyre says the living conditions have had adverse effects on her and her children ’ s health .
Two of her sons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distress even though they ’ re not asthmatic , and she suspects her alopecia , which robbed her of the long curly hair she had when she moved into her apartment in 2001 , may be related to her living situation .
“ I ’ m trying to remain positive and hopeful , ” she said .
“ But sometimes it gets overwhelming and it goes into a state of emotional distress.
” She said that the Movement School has empowered her in her fight against NYCHA .
“ Now I know the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legal assistants come to teach us the legal rights , ” she said .
“ I ’ m trying to really mobilize people to see , don ’ t let NYCHA and the big fish , a big system , intimidate you.
” Still , Tyre has had trouble finding other people to join her strike , because tenants are afraid that they ’ ll be evicted for non-payment .
In class , Tyre said that her fellow tenants felt “ hopeless , fearful that there is nothing they can do.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for long enough , NYCHA will be forced to make things right .
After class , the fellows spilled out onto Convent Avenue , chatting about the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump .
Duverge , in jeans and a shirt emblazoned with the first names of the four progressive congresswomen who make up the “ Squad , ” ushered the group into two separate Ubers headed to Ellie ’ s Diner in the Bronx , where Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders ( I-Vt. ) were hosting a meet-and-greet with supporters .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Bronx was not only an outlet for tenants fed up with the system ; it was also an effort to garner support for a piece of legislation , introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders , aimed at improving the living situations of public housing residents across the United States : A Green New Deal for Public Housing .
The bill proposes to decarbonize the entire public housing stock in America , and to employ public housing residents to renovate the facilities .
Ocasio-Cortez sees potential for the Reclaim fellows to push legislative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recourse in situations like Tyre ’ s , when individual action doesn ’ t seem to be enough .
“ Grassroots organizing was the biggest force behind getting the rent and tenant protections passed this year in New York state , ” Ocasio-Cortez told me , referring to the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 , which prohibits landlords from evicting tenants for making complaints and limits security deposits to one month ’ s rent , among other reforms .
“ Grassroots movements , I think , are really critical to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and state level on a policy front , not just an electoral front.
” Taylor , the impassioned speaker whose son suffered in the excessive heat , sees the Green New Deal as a “ green new light ” of hope as her faith in NYCHA wanes .
The Movement School has provided Taylor legal help with a petition for repairs in her development , and she ’ s attempting to enlist residents in other developments to file actions as well .
But , she said , “ they ’ re an authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that ’ s the problem .
They have lawyers on top of lawyers on top of lawyers , and the only way to get things done is to go to court.
” “ I don ’ t trust NYCHA , ” she said , at the height of her speech to the crowded basement .
“ The Green New Deal is our hope .
They are going to invest in our developments—not only ours , but all over the nation .
We ’ re going to get brand new things .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They ’ re going to build .
They ’ re going to give us union jobs .
They ’ re going to give us hope.
” Several voices shouted , “ Amen !
” as the audience burst into applause .
Ocasio-Cortez sat cross-legged in the front row , beaming .

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For years, tenants in New York’s public housing residences had complained about the black mold breeding on the walls, the brown liquid dripping from the ceilings, and the cold water flowing from the faucets. But the city hadn’t made repairs. One white-skied Saturday this past November, neither New York City Housing Authority head Gregory Russ nor mayor-turned-presidential-candidate Bill de Blasio was present in the crowd of activists and public housing residents who took the 5 train to the Bronx and huddled in a blue-walled basement in the Pelham Parkway Houses to announce their support for a Green New Deal for public housing. But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat on a folding chair in the front row, listening.
La Keesha Taylor, a resident of Holmes Towers on the Upper East Side, stood on a small stage in front of about 80 people, holding an enlarged photo of her son’s bed and pillow, spattered with blood. She said she recently heard him coughing in his bedroom and found him bleeding from his nose and mouth, which she blamed on the excessive heat in her apartment. “There’s always a problem, every single year, when we change to wintertime and it’s time for housing to give us heat and hot water,” she said. “I don’t know why they can’t get it right. Winter comes every year.”
When she complained about the excessive heat at a tenant association meeting, her superintendent told her that if he fixed the heat, he would raise her rent. “Now we’re being intimidated,” she told the crowd. “You’re trying to make me afraid to complain. You’re trying to keep me beholden to this system, this system of abuse.”
This is the system of intimidation that Ocasio-Cortez’s disciples sought to combat following her election to Congress. In 2019, two of Ocasio-Cortez’s former campaign staffers, Ilona Duverge and Gabe Tobias, launched Movement School, a training program that teaches working class activists how to run grassroots political campaigns. One subset of the organization, Reclaim NYCHA, teaches housing authority tenants like Taylor how to advocate for themselves in an underfunded public housing system.
When Ocasio-Cortez stepped on stage in the Pelham Parkway basement, she addressed the rapt crowd with the same aspirational energy that has come to define her rise to prominence. “Public housing was once regarded one of the best places to live in America,” she said. “It was only when we talked ourselves out of it that things started to erode. It was only when we decided that it wasn’t worth it anymore that it started to hold back. But as long as we valued it, it was important.” Applause pierced the air as she continued, “And we can value it again. And we should value it again.”
NYCHA, a city agency that receives both state and federal funding, is New York’s largest landlord, housing 1 in 15 city residents. More than half a million New Yorkers live in NYCHA or in federally subsidized Section 8 housing across the city’s five boroughs. That’s a potentially significant voting bloc, especially given the consistently low voter turnout in local elections. In the 2017 mayoral election, for example, just 1.15 million of the city’s 4.6 million active voters cast a ballot.
“Public housing was once regarded one of the best places to live in America,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It was only when we talked ourselves out of it that things started to erode.”
But NYCHA residents haven’t experienced strength in numbers. Instead, lawmakers at both the state and federal level have been ignoring them. Most NYCHA buildings are more than 50 years old, and ever since President Bill Clinton signed the Faircloth Amendment into law in 1999, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been prohibited from adding units to the net public housing stock. According to NYCHA, steady federal and state disinvestment in the authority since 1998 has allowed the buildings to deteriorate.
In 2017, a New York City Department of Investigation report revealed that NYCHA had lied to the federal government, falsely asserting that it had inspected 55,000 apartments for lead paint. Local news site the City reports that 1,100 children living in NYCHA have tested positive for elevated blood-lead levels since 2012. After HUD appointed a federal monitor to oversee the housing authority, NYCHA employees continued to cover up hazardous situations, replacing missing ceiling tiles with cardboard and plugging over rodent holes without addressing the infestations, according to the City. While the authority can use independent contractors for repairs, it’s ultimately NYCHA’s responsibility to make sure the apartments are livable.
NYCHA tenants were getting fed up. So, working from the principle that 400,000 New Yorkers have enough collective power to enact change, Duverge, just 22, decided to channel their frustration into action.
Duverge knows how it feels to be overlooked by those in power. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Duverge was undocumented, having moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was two months old. “To the Trump administration, I’m seen as a threat, I’m seen as an outsider, I’m seen as an infestation to society,” she said. “That really politicized me.”
In 2017, the same year she gained citizenship, Duverge, then a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, joined the campaign of Randy Abreu, a progressive challenging an incumbent Democratic city councilman. Abreu was unsuccessful, but Duverge’s next campaign wasn’t. After working field on Ocasio-Cortez’s primary campaign, she became her deputy organizing director during the general election, planning events and mapping out canvassing routes for volunteers. She called the endeavor “organized chaos,” the sort of atmosphere she thrives in. There, she met Tobias, another field team leader, who would become her partner in running the Movement School.
Energized by the “people-powered movement” that launched Ocasio-Cortez to a primary victory over the entrenched Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley, Duverge wanted to make it easier for working class people to get involved in politics. “What happens when your candidate doesn’t have a Rolodex of millionaire friends?” she said. “It was really homing in on this ideological view of how to build a true grassroots campaign, and we knew that that didn’t exist.”
During Ocasio-Cortez’s general election campaign—largely a formality in the overwhelmingly blue district—Duverge and Tobias launched a series of webinars about progressive organizing for campaign volunteers “as a way to continue building momentum and taking the time to teach and engage the community in the political process formally,” Duverge said. In February 2019, the duo launched a 10-week Campaign Fellows Program providing online professional development for 71 people involved in political campaigns across the country. In July, they directed their energy toward public housing and founded the Reclaim NYCHA program, which Duverge oversees. For 12 weeks from September through November, the 20 fellows accepted into the free Reclaim program learned about how to get involved in county committees, tenant associations, and individual projects while knowing their rights as NYCHA residents.
Duverge sees the Movement School as part of a larger movement to diversify the voices of the key players in community politics and beyond. “You’re seeing more people of color, more working class folks starting to find their voice a little bit more,” she said. “That’s why the politics in our country as a whole, regardless of the presidential race, is just shifting. Because you’re seeing these movements spark up backing working-class, everyday citizens as the representatives.”
On a Saturday in October, at one of the group’s weekly in-person meetings, eight of the fellows gathered in a basement classroom of the City College of New York in Upper Manhattan to hear communications consultant Christina Hernández explain how to “amplify their message.” She clicked through a PowerPoint presentation, replete with gifs, that instructed students on writing press releases, pitching media organizations, and taking advantage of social media. At one point, she paused and asked me to tell the fellows how I decide which press releases to read and which to skip over. I said that they were at an advantage, since none of them represented a soulless corporation.
One student, Kimberly Tyre, was particularly engaged, the first to shoot her hand up when Hernández asked the class to participate. Tyre, a 52-year-old resident of the Jefferson Houses in East Harlem, has been protesting the rodent infestation, mold, and lack of heat in her apartment by going on rent strike. Through the Movement School, she hopes to enlist other NYCHA residents in similar circumstances to join her. She has already knocked on the doors of every apartment in two of her development’s 18 buildings. “I got positive feedback from that,” she said. “Making them aware of the rats, making them aware of the issues that we’re currently experiencing with NYCHA.”
“I’m trying to really mobilize people to see, don’t let NYCHA and the big fish, a big system, intimidate you.”
Tyre told me that she has refused to pay her $497 monthly rent since December 2018, when a court ordered NYCHA to repair her apartment, whose problems included a dilapidated cabinet, a damaged front door, loose plaster in the bathroom, black mold on a bedroom ceiling, and a mysterious brown substance in the bathroom she can’t get control of. She said repair workers have come, but their work has been incomplete because they didn’t have the necessary equipment to finish the job. She also echoed a complaint I’ve heard from several other NYCHA residents: The hours that repair workers come are highly unpredictable, and NYCHA often requires residents to be in their apartments for whole days on weekdays to let them in, which keeps them from their jobs and other obligations. “I failed one of my math classes for NYCHA twice,” Tyre, who earned her psychology degree at Mercy College, said, “because of giving them access for an exterminator on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Tyre says the living conditions have had adverse effects on her and her children’s health. Two of her sons, aged 13 and 17, suffer respiratory distress even though they’re not asthmatic, and she suspects her alopecia, which robbed her of the long curly hair she had when she moved into her apartment in 2001, may be related to her living situation. “I’m trying to remain positive and hopeful,” she said. “But sometimes it gets overwhelming and it goes into a state of emotional distress.”
She said that the Movement School has empowered her in her fight against NYCHA. “Now I know the terminology to use, because we had legal assistants come to teach us the legal rights,” she said. “I’m trying to really mobilize people to see, don’t let NYCHA and the big fish, a big system, intimidate you.”
Still, Tyre has had trouble finding other people to join her strike, because tenants are afraid that they’ll be evicted for non-payment. In class, Tyre said that her fellow tenants felt “hopeless, fearful that there is nothing they can do.” But she hopes that if she withholds payment for long enough, NYCHA will be forced to make things right.
After class, the fellows spilled out onto Convent Avenue, chatting about the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Duverge, in jeans and a shirt emblazoned with the first names of the four progressive congresswomen who make up the “Squad,” ushered the group into two separate Ubers headed to Ellie’s Diner in the Bronx, where Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were hosting a meet-and-greet with supporters.
The activist gathering in the Pelham Parkway Houses in the Bronx was not only an outlet for tenants fed up with the system; it was also an effort to garner support for a piece of legislation, introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, aimed at improving the living situations of public housing residents across the United States: A Green New Deal for Public Housing.
The bill proposes to decarbonize the entire public housing stock in America, and to employ public housing residents to renovate the facilities. Ocasio-Cortez sees potential for the Reclaim fellows to push legislative change, which may be the only recourse in situations like Tyre’s, when individual action doesn’t seem to be enough.
“Grassroots organizing was the biggest force behind getting the rent and tenant protections passed this year in New York state,” Ocasio-Cortez told me, referring to the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which prohibits landlords from evicting tenants for making complaints and limits security deposits to one month’s rent, among other reforms. “Grassroots movements, I think, are really critical to getting that immediate change on the local and state level on a policy front, not just an electoral front.”
Taylor, the impassioned speaker whose son suffered in the excessive heat, sees the Green New Deal as a “green new light” of hope as her faith in NYCHA wanes. The Movement School has provided Taylor legal help with a petition for repairs in her development, and she’s attempting to enlist residents in other developments to file actions as well. But, she said, “they’re an authority, and you are a person, and that’s the problem. They have lawyers on top of lawyers on top of lawyers, and the only way to get things done is to go to court.”
“I don’t trust NYCHA,” she said, at the height of her speech to the crowded basement. “The Green New Deal is our hope. They are going to invest in our developments—not only ours, but all over the nation. We’re going to get brand new things. They’re going to revitalize the developments. They’re going to build. They’re going to give us union jobs. They’re going to give us hope.”
Several voices shouted, “Amen!” as the audience burst into applause. Ocasio-Cortez sat cross-legged in the front row, beaming.