motherjones--2020-09-04--The Moratorium on Evictions Can’t Fix the Disastrous Housing Crisis

The tenants ’ rights lawyers at Lone Star Legal Aid in Houston—who represent low income clients across 72 Texas counties and four counties in Arkansas—referred to August 25 as “ doomsday.
” It marked the end of the 30-day grace period following the July 25 expiration of tenant protections in effect under the CARES Act—the catch-all spending bill designed to keep the country running through the pandemic that included a moratorium on evictions for federally-funded housing .
Time was up for the protected tenants who ’ d been given eviction notices .
Plus , that Tuesday morning , tropical storm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hurricane—slated to slam east Texas with force that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called “ unsurvivable.
” As one literal storm was forcing millions inside to seek shelter , a political and economic one was forcing thousands out of their homes .
Hurricane Laura didn ’ t strike Houston , although it did massive damage to some parts of Texas and Louisiana .
Late summer is the height of natural disaster seasons , with wildfires in California , and hurricanes and flooding across the American heartland and the south—where some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The threat disasters pose is compounded by the coronavirus and its economic consequences .
Amid state-level struggles to enforce safety precautions and prop up protections for the unemployed and for jeopardized businesses beyond the now-expired federal CARES Act , up to 13 million households in the US are at risk of eviction by the end of this year .
That has environmental and housing experts alarmed about the emerging crisis threatening housing insecure people across the south and west who faced not just eviction but natural disasters .
“ The lowest income people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit by disasters , in part because they ’ re least financially able to evacuate before the storm , ” says Diane Yentel , president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition .
“ I ’ ve never seen a moment where the housing crisis and natural disasters and pandemic have collided in this way.
” On September 1 , eight days after the last CARES Act tenants ’ protections expired and clean up from Hurricane Laura had begun , the White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped in .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the eviction moratorium until the end of the year , in order to “ prevent the further spread of COVID-19.
” “ We ’ re going full throttle trying to get the word out to tenants that they should not vacate , ” says Dana Karni , managing attorney of Lone Star ’ s eviction right to counsel unit .
Even though millions of tenants—even those who do not live in federally subsidized public housing—now have protections , they come with caveats .
The CDC moratorium is highly conditional .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who earn less than $ 99,000 a year .
To qualify , tenants need to submit a declaration of inability to pay , confirm that they meet the income requirements , and , perhaps the most difficult , prove that they ’ ve attempted to secure public housing .
Failure to meet all these conditions risks fines and the loss of housing protection .
“ It ’ s incumbent upon legal advocacy groups and service providers to facilitate tenants in preparing those declarations in a way that is ironclad and undeniable , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns that landlords and judges will find whatever way possible to find justification for why a tenant should nevertheless be evicted.
” After all , the moratorium does not end evictions altogether .
It ’ s an uncomfortably narrow protection , Karni explains , that leaves open eviction for reasons beyond the inability of tenants to pay .
She anticipates that people “ will be cited for violating their leases as an excuse for eviction , like trash left outside , rather than evicted for not paying rent for six months.
” Karni @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t unfounded .
When the CARES Act provisions were the primary protection for tenants , Texas courts required landlords who were filing an eviction to state that they weren ’ t in violation of the Act ’ s protections .
Despite the requirement , a South Texas College of Law report on Harris County , which includes Houston , found that nearly a quarter of filings by landlords were patently false in claiming compliance with CARES protections .
And the CDC order doesn ’ t take into consideration the host of strategies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like posting notices on their tenants ’ doors demanding that they vacate .
And in the midst of acute economic devastation and bad faith eviction petitions , Karni has seen “ an entire set of the population that are going through unemployment and as a result potential homelessness for the first time in ways that are mortifying and embarrassing and humbling.
” Under normal circumstances , Texas has been seen by tenant advocates as a state with limited protections .
But when cases of the coronavirus spiked there in April , its supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moratorium on all evictions would be put in place , starting April 27 .
After less than a month , under pressure from the landlord lobby , which includes groups like the Texas Apartment Association , the supreme court opted not to extend the protections .
Now , Karni says , “ it seems like it was ancient history.
” Though state and CARES Act protections offered some stability , there were big cracks .
Since May , Harris County has seen more than 8,000 eviction filings across court precincts , with only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an attorney .
That trends lower than 2019 numbers , when there were about 65,000 filings for the entire year , but more than a third of this year ’ s 23,000 filings through August have occurred during a pandemic with state and federal eviction moratoriums in place .
And between the end of CARES Act protections and the new CDC order announcement , almost 900 new cases were filed .
Without any legal expertise , many people facing eviction leave without a fight .
“ It ’ s imperative that people remain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Karni says .
“ But I ’ m very keenly aware of fact that laws in Texas are not tenant friendly.
” When Hurricane Laura was bearing down on Texas and Louisiana , state officials tried to execute evacuation orders for 500,000 residents ahead of the storm ’ s arrival , but social distancing added a new dimension to an already complex process .
Louisiana ’ s Department of Children & Family Services was racing to book hotel rooms so evacuees could shelter separately , while outfitting conventional shelters with supplies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests .
In Texas , the governor arranged for more than 400 buses to help evacuees , hoping that number would be sufficient to ensure social distancing .
Princella Talley , a diversity outreach coordinator with Citizen ’ s Climate Lobby—an environmental advocacy group that focuses its resources at the local level—was preparing to hunker down for the hurricane near her home in Alexandria , Louisiana , which was in the storm ’ s path .
“ Due to COVID , we sheltered in place , ” she told me via email .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ priority as safely sheltering from the storm , which was frustrating .
At the same time , the idea of possibly being forced to evacuate and shelter with the general public was frightening.
” Some residents in these communities , who would have preferred to prioritize escaping from Laura over the pandemic , couldn ’ t leave even if they wanted because they couldn ’ t afford it .
Packing up and leaving is a resource-intensive endeavor .
“ Many low income renters are holding on by a thread , and on verge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ and with COVID-19 financial fallout , can ’ t afford to evacuate.
” With 36 percent of Louisiana tenants facing eviction without a moratorium , the state is tied for second place amongst states with the highest proportion of jeopardized renters , according to the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project .
And Calcasieu Parish , which was in the center of the storm ’ s path , is home to 30,000 people in deep poverty , another 30,000 with a disability , and 5,000 residents who don ’ t have a car @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only makes things worse .
It ’ s the end of the month—an eternity from mid-month payday—when any discretionary spending dollars are nowhere to be found .
Yentel noted that even as so much of this is unprecedented , the imagery of destruction from a hurricane isn ’ t .
After the storm , Talley drove through Calcasieu Parish , to the south of her home .
The experience brought “ an overwhelming sadness that words almost can ’ t describe , ” she recalls .
The downed power lines and trees—many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Extreme weather events like this at such a high frequency keep us in an almost perpetual state of recovery , ” Talley wrote in an email As electricity and power are still coming back online , the pandemic has made the need for infrastructure is especially pressing .
According to the state governor , John Bel Edwards , testing sites are offline for the time being .
“ We don ’ t have the robust testing taking place across the state right now that we need in order to know if our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have more cases , ” he said in a press briefing last Thursday .
Houston , with 3,000 eviction cases still pending that have been filed this year , was not hit by Hurricane Laura , but that doesn ’ t offer much consolation .
The moratorium retroactively protects some tenants whose landlords filed evictions before September 1 , but cases unrelated to a tenant ’ s ability to pay rent may go one .
And hurricanes can sometimes provide unforeseen options for landlords .
After Hurricane Harvey in 2017 , evictions jumped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voided tenant leases , leaving some residents with only five days to leave their homes .
In one survey of Houston ’ s homeless a year after the hurricane , 18 percent reported that Harvey had unhoused them .
Even with the additional protection , Karni says the situation is more precarious than ever .
Houston is an energy and services economy ; the pandemic has dealt mortal blows to both .
“ People sitting on hefty six digit energy salaries are unemployed , ” she says .
“ People are no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have six months of money saved up , and even if they did , we ’ re there .
We ’ re at the six month mark.
” In May , the city offered its citizens $ 15 million in tenant relief—it was gobbled up within 90 minutes of being made available .
A $ 45 million sequel—a combined forces effort from the city , county , and local advocacy groups—is being finalized now , but Karni says , “ I think the first round was not even a drop in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What ’ s more , the next rent relief package , expected September 8 , only permits tenants to apply for relief after their landlord has , too .
The usual option for those who lose their permanent housing is to move in with family—which is especially likely given some of the loopholes in the CDC order .
And in the midst of natural disasters and the pandemic , that option contains its own problems .
Crowded housing correlates with higher rates of COVID-19 , which would be exacerbated by newly unhoused friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family that has been evicted moves into a family member ’ s home , even more people could be exposed to either the dislocation from a natural disaster or the virus .
“ It ’ s a mess , ” says Karni .
“ Please god may the next hurricane not bring flood water to those people , because that ’ s not two to three people , now , but 12 to 15 .
”

The tenants’ rights lawyers at Lone Star Legal Aid in Houston—who represent low-income clients across 72 Texas counties and four counties in Arkansas—referred to August 25 as “doomsday.” It marked the end of the 30-day grace period following the July 25 expiration of tenant protections in effect under the CARES Act—the catchall spending bill designed to keep the country running through the pandemic that included a moratorium on evictions for federally funded housing. Time was up for the protected tenants who’d been given eviction notices. Plus, that Tuesday morning, Tropical Storm Laura was upgraded to a category four hurricane—slated to slam east Texas with force that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called “unsurvivable.” As one literal storm was forcing millions inside to seek shelter, a political and economic one was forcing thousands out of their homes. Hurricane Laura didn’t strike Houston, although it did massive damage to some parts of Texas and Louisiana.
Late summer is the height of natural disaster seasons, with wildfires in California and hurricanes and flooding across the American heartland and the South—where some of the country’s poorest residents live. The threat disasters pose is compounded by the coronavirus and its economic consequences. Amid state-level struggles to enforce safety precautions and prop up protections for the unemployed and for jeopardized businesses, up to 13 million households in the US were at risk of eviction by the end of this year by year’s end after the CARES Act had expired. Even with the additional protections, environmental and housing experts are still alarmed about the emerging crisis threatening housing insecure people across the south and west who faced not just eviction but natural disasters.
“The lowest-income people are often the people who are hardest hit by disasters, in part because they’re least financially able to evacuate before the storm,” says Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “I’ve never seen a moment where the housing crisis and natural disasters and pandemic have collided in this way.”
“ I’ve n ever seen a moment where the housing crisis and natural disasters and pandemic have collided in this way.”
On September 1, eight days after the last CARES Act tenants’ protections expired and cleanup from Hurricane Laura had begun, the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped in. They issued a surprising order that reinstated the eviction moratorium until the end of the year, in order to “prevent the further spread of COVID-19.”
“We’re going full throttle trying to get the word out to tenants that they should not vacate,” says Dana Karni, managing attorney of Lone Star’s eviction right-to-counsel unit. Even though millions of tenants—including those who do not live in federally subsidized public housing—now have protections, they come with caveats.
The CDC moratorium is highly conditional. It’s exclusively for tenants unable to make rent, who earn less than $99,000 a year. To qualify, tenants need to submit a declaration of inability to pay, confirm that they meet the income requirements, and, perhaps most difficult, prove that they’ve attempted to secure public housing. Failure to meet all these conditions risks fines and the loss of housing protection. “It’s incumbent upon legal advocacy groups and service providers to facilitate tenants in preparing those declarations in a way that is ironclad and undeniable,” Karni says. “We have concerns that landlords and judges will find whatever way possible to find justification for why a tenant should nevertheless be evicted.” After all, the moratorium does not end evictions altogether. It’s an uncomfortably narrow protection, Karni explains, that leaves open eviction for reasons beyond the inability of tenants to pay. She anticipates that people “will be cited for violating their leases as an excuse for eviction, like trash left outside, rather than evicted for not paying rent for six months.”
Karni’s fears of bad faith aren’t unfounded. When the CARES Act provisions were the primary protection for tenants, Texas courts required landlords who were filing an eviction to state that they weren’t in violation of the Act’s protections. Despite the requirement, a South Texas College of Law report on Harris County, which includes Houston, found that nearly a quarter of filings by landlords were patently false in claiming compliance with CARES protections. And the CDC order doesn’t take into consideration the host of strategies landlords have used to boot tenants, like posting notices on their tenants’ doors demanding that they vacate. And in the midst of acute economic devastation and bad-faith-eviction petitions, Karni has seen “an entire set of the population that are going through unemployment and as a result potential homelessness for the first time in ways that are mortifying and embarrassing and humbling.”
Under normal circumstances, Texas has been seen by tenant advocates as a state with limited protections. But when cases of the coronavirus spiked there in April, its Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: A moratorium on all evictions would be put in place, starting April 27. After less than a month, under pressure from the landlord lobby, which includes groups like the Texas Apartment Association, the Supreme Court opted not to extend the protections. Now, Karni says, “it seems like it was ancient history.”
Though state and CARES Act protections offered some stability, there were big cracks. Since May, Harris County has seen more than 8,000 eviction filings across court precincts, with only 3 percent of the tenants represented by an attorney. That trends lower than 2019 numbers, when there were about 65,000 filings for the entire year, but more than a third of this year’s 23,000 filings through August have occurred during a pandemic with state and federal eviction moratoriums in place. And between the end of CARES Act protections and the new CDC order announcement, almost 900 new cases were filed. Without any legal expertise, many people facing eviction leave without a fight. “It’s imperative that people remain in their homes as much as possible,” Karni says. “But I’m very keenly aware of fact that laws in Texas are not tenant friendly.”
When Hurricane Laura was bearing down on Texas and Louisiana, state officials tried to execute evacuation orders for 500,000 residents ahead of the storm’s arrival, but social distancing added a new dimension to an already complex process. Louisiana’s Department of Children & Family Services was racing to book hotel rooms so evacuees could shelter separately, while outfitting conventional shelters with supplies of masks, gloves, and COVID-19 tests. In Texas, the governor arranged for more than 400 buses to help evacuees, hoping that number would be sufficient to ensure social distancing.
Princella Talley, a diversity outreach coordinator with Citizen’s Climate Lobby—an environmental advocacy group that focuses its resources at the local level—was preparing to hunker down for the hurricane near her home in Alexandria, Louisiana, which was in the storm’s path. “Due to COVID, we sheltered in place,” she told me via email. “Social distancing was as much a priority as safely sheltering from the storm, which was frustrating. At the same time, the idea of possibly being forced to evacuate and shelter with the general public was frightening.”
Some residents in these communities, who would have preferred to prioritize escaping from Laura over the pandemic, couldn’t leave even if they wanted because they couldn’t afford it. Packing up and leaving is a resource-intensive endeavor. “Many low-income renters are holding on by a thread, and on verge of losing homes,” Yentel says, “and with COVID-19 financial fallout, can’t afford to evacuate.”
With 36 percent of Louisiana tenants facing eviction without a moratorium, the state is tied for second place among states with the highest proportion of jeopardized renters, according to the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project. And Calcasieu Parish, which was in the center of the storm’s path, is home to 30,000 people in deep poverty, another 30,000 with a disability, and 5,000 residents who don’t have a car, according to Yentel. The timing only makes things worse. It’s the end of the month—an eternity from mid-month payday—when any discretionary spending dollars are nowhere to be found.
“Extreme weather events like this at such a high frequency keep us in an almost perpetual state of recovery.”
Yentel noted that even as so much of this is unprecedented, the imagery of destruction from a hurricane isn’t. After the storm, Talley drove through Calcasieu Parish, to the south of her home. The experience brought “an overwhelming sadness that words almost can’t describe,” she recalls. The downed power lines and trees—many of which have landed on houses—looked surreal. “Extreme weather events like this at such a high frequency keep us in an almost perpetual state of recovery,” Talley wrote in an email As electricity and power are still coming back online, the pandemic has made the need for infrastructure is especially pressing. According to the state governor, John Bel Edwards, testing sites are offline for the time being. “We don’t have the robust testing taking place across the state right now that we need in order to know if our positivity is inching up or whether we have more cases,” he said in a press briefing last Thursday.
Houston, with 3,000 eviction cases still pending that have been filed this year, was not hit by Hurricane Laura, but that doesn’t offer much consolation. The moratorium retroactively protects some tenants whose landlords filed evictions before September 1, but cases unrelated to a tenant’s ability to pay rent may go one. And hurricanes can sometimes provide unforeseen options for landlords. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, evictions jumped as landlords who declared their properties uninhabitable voided tenant leases, leaving some residents with only five days to leave their homes. In one survey of Houston’s homeless a year after the hurricane, 18 percent reported that Harvey had unhoused them.
Even with the additional protection, Karni says the situation is more precarious than ever. Houston is an energy and services economy; the pandemic has dealt mortal blows to both. “People sitting on hefty six digit energy salaries are unemployed,” she says. “People are no longer drawing federal unemployment…most Americans statistically don’t have six months of money saved up, and even if they did, we’re there. We’re at the six month mark.” In May, the city offered its citizens $15 million in tenant relief—it was gobbled up within 90 minutes of being made available. A $45 million sequel—a combined forces effort from the city, county, and local advocacy groups—is being finalized now, but Karni says, “I think the first round was not even a drop in the bucket—this is maybe a whole drop.” What’s more, the next rent relief package, expected September 8, only permits tenants to apply for relief after their landlord has, too.
The usual option for those who lose their permanent housing is to move in with family—which is especially likely given some of the loopholes in the CDC order. And in the midst of natural disasters and the pandemic, that option contains its own problems. Crowded housing correlates with higher rates of COVID-19, which would be exacerbated by newly unhoused friends and family seeking help. If a family that has been evicted moves into a family member’s home, even more people could be exposed to either the dislocation from a natural disaster or the virus. “It’s a mess,” says Karni. “Please god may the next hurricane not bring flood water to those people, because that’s not two to three people, now, but 12 to 15.”


motherjones--2020-09-04--Trump’s Pick for Afghanistan Ambassador Wants to Withdraw US Troops Immediately

In a move the could have major implications for the longest running war in US history , the Trump administration is planning to nominate Will Ruger to be the next ambassador to Afghanistan , the Wall Street Journal reported Friday .
Ruger , an anti-interventionist conservative , has long championed an immediate withdrawal of American troops from that country .
Ruger ’ s planned nomination , which a source familiar with the matter confirmed to Mother Jones , speaks to President Trump ’ s desire to remove troops from Afghanistan as quickly as possible .
Though the United States signed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in February , the administration has been hazy about when to expect a full withdrawal of troops .
Trump reportedly wants troops home before Election Day , but the Pentagon has advocated for a much “ slower withdrawal schedule , ” the New York Times reported in May .
Ruger , like Trump , supports a more expeditious departure .
In his role as vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute , Ruger has long pushed for an immediate end to the two-decade-old war .
“ We should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote in response to a Washington Post editorial criticizing Trump ’ s negotiations with the Taliban last year .
“ Staying longer will not magically achieve the broad and unnecessary goals that have eluded us to date.
” In my past exchanges with Ruger , he has even been more blunt about the need for a withdrawal—even without a broader peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government .
( No such peace deal has been reached . )
“ An agreement would be nice but they are separate issues and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a prerequisite for doing the right thing for the US , ” he said in an email last year , after Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg argued similarly for an immediate withdrawal during a fall Democratic primary debate .
If he is confirmed by the Senate—which is no sure thing , given the busy pre-election schedule—Ruger would represent a significant break from the hawkish officials Trump has often installed in key national security posts in the past .
“ The administration has put people in positions that are simply not aligned with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the nominating process told me .
“ Under Johnny McEntee [ who now leads the Presidential Personnel Office ] , that ’ s changing.
” The source added , “ You ’ re going to see more like people like Will Ruger and less people like Brian Hook , ” the hawkish special envoy for Iran who resigned last month .
Ruger ’ s nomination is not only a nod to the Koch empire—which had pronounced disagreements with Trump on trade and other issues even as it financially supported his party—but also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with America ’ s endless foreign wars .
Last year , the libertarian-leaning Charles Koch teamed up with George Soros in a much-publicized move to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , which aims to provide a dovish counterweight to the Washington , DC , think-tank community .
“ We have not had a healthy marketplace of ideas in the foreign policy space , ” Ruger told Politico in January .
“ There should be no opprobrium given to people ’ s desire to find a diplomatic arrangement to avoid or end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some unexpected moments of agreement between the progressive left and anti-interventionist right .
In March , Ruger sat down with Rep. Ro Khanna ( D-Calif. ) —a vocal Trump opponent and critic of militarist foreign policy—and said that Libya , Iraq , Afghanistan , and Yemen were “ places where American military power seems to actually be undermining our national interest.
” “ We certainly have some alignment with Will on the limits of military power and the absurdity of continuing the war in Afghanistan , ” a progressive foreign policy expert who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
But , this person added , “ as progressives , we do believe the US has a role in Afghanistan ” and “ want the US to honor its commitments to not abandoning a country we ’ ve now spent 20 years destroying.
” Where Trump and Ruger differ , the progressive foreign policy expert added , is on the sincerity of their views and the intellectual basis for them .
“ Donald Trump wants to get out of Afghanistan because he doesn ’ t give a fuck about Afghans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ruger , “ there ’ s an intellectual , libertarian mindset that people might disagree with , but is not born of fundamental bigotry , racism , and xenophobia .
”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
In a move the could have major implications for the longest running war in US history, the Trump administration is planning to nominate Will Ruger to be the next ambassador to Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Ruger, an anti-interventionist conservative, has long championed an immediate withdrawal of American troops from that country.
“A peace deal between Afghans shouldn’t be a prerequisite for doing the right thing for the US.”
Ruger’s planned nomination, which a source familiar with the matter confirmed to Mother Jones, speaks to President Trump’s desire to remove troops from Afghanistan as quickly as possible. Though the United States signed a much-criticized peace deal with the Taliban in February, the administration has been hazy about when to expect a full withdrawal of troops. Trump reportedly wants troops home before Election Day, but the Pentagon has advocated for a much “slower withdrawal schedule,” the New York Times reported in May.
Ruger, like Trump, supports a more expeditious departure. In his role as vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, Ruger has long pushed for an immediate end to the two-decade-old war. “We should not equate Afghanistan with Iraq,” he wrote in response to a Washington Post editorial criticizing Trump’s negotiations with the Taliban last year. “Staying longer will not magically achieve the broad and unnecessary goals that have eluded us to date.”
In my past exchanges with Ruger, he has even been more blunt about the need for a withdrawal—even without a broader peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. (No such peace deal has been reached.) “An agreement would be nice but they are separate issues and a peace deal between Afghans shouldn’t be a prerequisite for doing the right thing for the US,” he said in an email last year, after Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg argued similarly for an immediate withdrawal during a fall Democratic primary debate.
If he is confirmed by the Senate—which is no sure thing, given the busy pre-election schedule—Ruger would represent a significant break from the hawkish officials Trump has often installed in key national security posts in the past. “The administration has put people in positions that are simply not aligned with the president,” a source familiar with the nominating process told me. “Under Johnny McEntee [who now leads the Presidential Personnel Office], that’s changing.”
The source added, “You’re going to see more like people like Will Ruger and less people like Brian Hook,” the hawkish special envoy for Iran who resigned last month.
Ruger’s nomination is not only a nod to the Koch empire—which had pronounced disagreements with Trump on trade and other issues even as it financially supported his party—but also a recognition of the growing bipartisan discomfort with America’s endless foreign wars. Last year, the libertarian-leaning Charles Koch teamed up with George Soros in a much-publicized move to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which aims to provide a dovish counterweight to the Washington, DC, think-tank community.
“We have not had a healthy marketplace of ideas in the foreign policy space,” Ruger told Politico in January. “There should be no opprobrium given to people’s desire to find a diplomatic arrangement to avoid or end conflict.” That approach has led to some unexpected moments of agreement between the progressive left and anti-interventionist right. In March, Ruger sat down with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—a vocal Trump opponent and critic of militarist foreign policy—and said that Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen were “places where American military power seems to actually be undermining our national interest.”
“We certainly have some alignment with Will on the limits of military power and the absurdity of continuing the war in Afghanistan,” a progressive foreign policy expert who has worked with Ruger in the past told me. But, this person added, “as progressives, we do believe the US has a role in Afghanistan” and “want the US to honor its commitments to not abandoning a country we’ve now spent 20 years destroying.”
Where Trump and Ruger differ, the progressive foreign policy expert added, is on the sincerity of their views and the intellectual basis for them. “Donald Trump wants to get out of Afghanistan because he doesn’t give a fuck about Afghans,” the person said. With Ruger, “there’s an intellectual, libertarian mindset that people might disagree with, but is not born of fundamental bigotry, racism, and xenophobia.”


motherjones--2020-09-04--White Supremacy Is Deadly for Everyone—Even White People

This spring , photos and videos of mostly white so-called lockdown protesters in Michigan acting anything but peaceful went viral .
They demanded that state lawmakers end the public health restrictions designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 .
Though they were armed and taunting police officers , law enforcement officials did not respond violently .
Late last month , a similar scene played out in Boise , Idaho .
Armed and unmasked protesters stormed the statehouse in order to get into a coronavirus hearing .
Even though they were carrying weapons and shattered a glass door while protesting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrest any of them .
Fearing for her own safety , a Democratic lawmaker left the hearing , but state troopers told local media that they didn ’ t attempt to arrest any of the protesters because they feared doing so would escalate violence .
A few days later , Kyle Rittenhouse , a 17-year-old Donald Trump supporter went to Kenosha , Wisconsin , with a gun .
He shot three racial justice protesters , killing two .
Despite the heavy police presence at the scene , Rittenhouse crossed state lines and returned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was not arrested until the following day .
Let ’ s be clear : When violent white people are going unchecked by police , the end result will hurt us all .
Harming Black and Brown people and liberals is central to the Trump presidency , and their hard line approach is considered to be an excellent reelection strategy .
But there ’ s a link between his response to the coronavirus pandemic and to the racial justice protests : Both have been guided by his unquestioning belief in the superiority of whiteness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities .
His white supporters shouldn ’ t believe that they can somehow insulate themselves from mounting violence and an unchecked deadly epidemic .
White supremacy is deadly for everyone—even white people .
The United States has a long history of turning a blind eye to violent white ideology while focusing on scapegoating other communities like Muslims , immigrants , and now Antifa .
Despite years of warnings about white supremacist violence from its own intelligence , government officials seem hellbent amplifying warnings about anti-fascists , even as violence among white nationalists and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration seems to accept violence perpetrated by white extremists—not considering it violence at all , but a form of patriotism—and has blamed any bloodshed on their opponents .
In a recent interview , Attorney General William Barr lied and said systemic racism was not a problem in this country .
He insisted that the notion that Black people are disproportionately killed by police is a false narrative .
Not that he was trying to change anyone ’ s mind .
His objective seems to have been to delegitimize the ongoing Black Lives Matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leap from his comments to giving Trump supporters a free pass to harass , intimidate , and even kill protesters .
After all , they ’ re not really protesters at all—just violent thugs who are out to inflict violence on law enforcement and nice suburban families .
Comments like Barr ’ s are an eloquent bat signal to people like Rep. Clay Higgins ( R-La . )
, who threatened to shoot Black protesters , and to cops themselves .
Not to mention freelancers like Rittenhouse who now faces murder charges .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In May , two officers protecting a courthouse were shot and one killed in Oakland , California , while a Black Lives Matter protest occurred a few blocks away .
After law enforcement official caught the suspect , it turns out he was a far-right extremist trying to foment a race war by using the protests as cover .
A similar incident occurred in Albuquerque , New Mexico , when a militia group showed up to a protest with weapons .
And yet , the right-wing universe is singularly focused on Antifa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread conspiracy theories about a plane full of thugs coming to harm Republicans and their supporters .
Sir , the call is coming from inside the house .
But let ’ s not disconnect escalating violence at protests from the coronavirus , which has infected more than 6 million people and killed approximately 187,000 people in the United States since it began spreading widely earlier this year .
The Trump administration refused to take it seriously , downplayed its severity , and then demanded states lift public health restrictions early .
About the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic was to ban planes from China—which did not accomplish much—where the virus first emerged .
Throughout the overwhelming public health crisis , the president has continued to use China as the scapegoat , referring to COVID-19 with xenophobic terms like “ China virus ” and the “ Kung flu.
” While spending his time demonizing China he could conveniently ignore the devastating toll it was having in his own country .
The virus has disproportionately affected communities of color , which may explain the diminished sense of urgency from Trump and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impacted the kind of people who wouldn ’ t vote for Trump anyway , who cares ?
His supporters were protesting restrictions , going viral on social media for refusing to wear masks at their grocery stores , and—taking their cues from the president—denying its severity .
Yes , Herman Cain , one of his most ardent Black supporters , died from it .
Illustrating with tragic clarity that just because people of color are disproportionately getting sick , doesn ’ t mean that white people or Trump supporters are immune .
Last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , South Dakota for a 10-day motorcycle rally .
Many rally-goers were a good representative of Trump ’ s base : older , white , and plenty of red Make America Great Again hats dotted the crowd .
Attendees eschewed masks and social distancing and gathered in bars , tattoo parlors , and other businesses , largely without masks .
So far , 260 cases in 11 states have been linked to the rally and one man in Minnesota is dead .
At the Democratic National Convention one speaker blamed her father ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Urquiza said her dad Mark Urquiza believed Trump when he insisted that the virus would go away .
“ One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of the president , ” Urquiza said in a video .
“ His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump.
” While Trump and his allies are happy to frame the protests as an unjust war on cops , his own inaction on the coronavirus is killing more police officers than anyone else .
According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund , two non-profits that track law enforcement deaths , 100 police officers have been killed by COVID-19 this year .
That ’ s more than all other causes like gun violence and car accidents combined .
While Trump and his allies make wild claims that Antifa or protesters or looters are out to murder police officers , it ’ s really his own incompetence .
Donald Trump is staking his re-election campaign on inciting violence while ignoring the very real devastation the coronavirus pandemic has caused .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ detriment .
The virus , much like bullets , doesn ’ t care about your little red hat .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
This spring, photos and videos of mostly white so-called lockdown protesters in Michigan acting anything but peaceful went viral. They demanded that state lawmakers end the public health restrictions designed to curb the spread of COVID-19. Though they were armed and taunting police officers, law enforcement officials did not respond violently.
Late last month, a similar scene played out in Boise, Idaho. Armed and unmasked protesters stormed the statehouse in order to get into a coronavirus hearing. Even though they were carrying weapons and shattered a glass door while protesting, law enforcement officials declined to intervene or arrest any of them. Fearing for her own safety, a Democratic lawmaker left the hearing, but state troopers told local media that they didn’t attempt to arrest any of the protesters because they feared doing so would escalate violence.
A few days later, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Donald Trump supporter went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, with a gun. He shot three racial justice protesters, killing two. Despite the heavy police presence at the scene, Rittenhouse crossed state lines and returned to his home in Illinois. He was not arrested until the following day.
Let’s be clear: When violent white people are going unchecked by police, the end result will hurt us all.
Harming Black and Brown people and liberals is central to the Trump presidency, and their hard line approach is considered to be an excellent reelection strategy. But there’s a link between his response to the coronavirus pandemic and to the racial justice protests: Both have been guided by his unquestioning belief in the superiority of whiteness, leading to devastating results for diverse communities. His white supporters shouldn’t believe that they can somehow insulate themselves from mounting violence and an unchecked deadly epidemic. White supremacy is deadly for everyone—even white people.
The United States has a long history of turning a blind eye to violent white ideology while focusing on scapegoating other communities like Muslims, immigrants, and now Antifa. Despite years of warnings about white supremacist violence from its own intelligence, government officials seem hellbent amplifying warnings about anti-fascists, even as violence among white nationalists and other far-right groups escalates. The Trump administration seems to accept violence perpetrated by white extremists—not considering it violence at all, but a form of patriotism—and has blamed any bloodshed on their opponents.
In a recent interview, Attorney General William Barr lied and said systemic racism was not a problem in this country. He insisted that the notion that Black people are disproportionately killed by police is a false narrative. Not that he was trying to change anyone’s mind. His objective seems to have been to delegitimize the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. It is not a big leap from his comments to giving Trump supporters a free pass to harass, intimidate, and even kill protesters. After all, they’re not really protesters at all—just violent thugs who are out to inflict violence on law enforcement and nice suburban families. Comments like Barr’s are an eloquent bat signal to people like Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who threatened to shoot Black protesters, and to cops themselves. Not to mention freelancers like Rittenhouse who now faces murder charges.
But encouraging violence has a high cost. In May, two officers protecting a courthouse were shot and one killed in Oakland, California, while a Black Lives Matter protest occurred a few blocks away. After law enforcement official caught the suspect, it turns out he was a far-right extremist trying to foment a race war by using the protests as cover. A similar incident occurred in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when a militia group showed up to a protest with weapons. And yet, the right-wing universe is singularly focused on Antifa, even going as so far to spread conspiracy theories about a plane full of thugs coming to harm Republicans and their supporters. Sir, the call is coming from inside the house.
Sir, the call is coming from inside the house.
But let’s not disconnect escalating violence at protests from the coronavirus, which has infected more than 6 million people and killed approximately 187,000 people in the United States since it began spreading widely earlier this year. The Trump administration refused to take it seriously, downplayed its severity, and then demanded states lift public health restrictions early. About the only concrete action Trump took to fight the pandemic was to ban planes from China—which did not accomplish much—where the virus first emerged. Throughout the overwhelming public health crisis, the president has continued to use China as the scapegoat, referring to COVID-19 with xenophobic terms like “China virus” and the “Kung flu.” While spending his time demonizing China he could conveniently ignore the devastating toll it was having in his own country.
The virus has disproportionately affected communities of color, which may explain the diminished sense of urgency from Trump and other Republican officials. If it only impacted the kind of people who wouldn’t vote for Trump anyway, who cares? His supporters were protesting restrictions, going viral on social media for refusing to wear masks at their grocery stores, and—taking their cues from the president—denying its severity. Yes, Herman Cain, one of his most ardent Black supporters, died from it. Illustrating with tragic clarity that just because people of color are disproportionately getting sick, doesn’t mean that white people or Trump supporters are immune.
Last month, 400,000 people gathered in Sturgis, South Dakota for a 10-day motorcycle rally. Many rally-goers were a good representative of Trump’s base: older, white, and plenty of red Make America Great Again hats dotted the crowd. Attendees eschewed masks and social distancing and gathered in bars, tattoo parlors, and other businesses, largely without masks. So far, 260 cases in 11 states have been linked to the rally and one man in Minnesota is dead.
At the Democratic National Convention one speaker blamed her father’s COVID death on Trump. Kristin Urquiza said her dad Mark Urquiza believed Trump when he insisted that the virus would go away. “One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of the president,” Urquiza said in a video. “His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump.”
While Trump and his allies are happy to frame the protests as an unjust war on cops, his own inaction on the coronavirus is killing more police officers than anyone else. According to Officer Down Memorial Page and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, two non-profits that track law enforcement deaths, 100 police officers have been killed by COVID-19 this year. That’s more than all other causes like gun violence and car accidents combined. While Trump and his allies make wild claims that Antifa or protesters or looters are out to murder police officers, it’s really his own incompetence.
Donald Trump is staking his re-election campaign on inciting violence while ignoring the very real devastation the coronavirus pandemic has caused. But it’s to his own detriment. The virus, much like bullets, doesn’t care about your little red hat.


motherjones--2020-09-05--I Just Learned More About My Father’s Concentration Camp Experience

In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II , The New York Times has been running a series entitled Beyond the World War II We Know .
They describe it as the “ lesser- known stories from the war ” —a collection of narratives by eyewitnesses who were in combat , or were victims , or were innocent bystanders , or covered the action as reporters .
There was a story about a Black soldier fighting the racist Nazis only to return to the systemic racism in his own country ; one with shattering photos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Japan ; another chronicling the life of a Jew in a German displaced person ’ s camp ; and today , a remarkable diary from someone who was imprisoned for five years in Dachau , the concentration camp just outside of Munich .
Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz ’ s was a Polish citizen living in Italy , a loyal ally of Germany , when he was arrested .
He was not a Jew , a Communist , a homosexual , a member of the opposition—all criminals in 1940 Nazi Germany .
His crime was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the Italian and German fascist governments , for which he was arrested .
After a brief stop in an Austrian Gestapo prison , he was sent to Dachau .
For the next five years until he was liberated by the Americans , he kept a diary of the quotidian horrors he and others experienced there .
According to the Times , “ By the time Dachau was liberated by American forces , in April 1945 , Edgar had written more than 1,800 pages.
” Miraculously , they survived .
As the Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kupfer-Kobervitz called it “ a satanic world , ” exhausted prisoners in a camp orchestra would be forced to entertain their guards , they would be hung by their arms strung up behind them in a torture device called “ the Tree.
” They would be forced to undergo medical experiments .
He kept writing for years , the diary eventually becoming so large , [ I ] t was no longer easy to hide—and such a valuable testament that Edgar was anxious for its safety .
One of his co-workers , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ described as “ a thousand percent safe , ” offered to dig a hole in the concrete floor in another part of the factory , where the diary could be buried for posterity .
To help preserve it from damp and decay , Edgar wrapped the manuscript in layers of oil paper , followed by aluminum foil and fabric .
Otto lowered the bundle into the floor and sealed the hole with fresh concrete , in a spot where it was hidden under a rack of hundredweight iron bars .
“ The manuscripts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ were hidden in the womb of the earth.
” Dachau , which had the distinction of being the Reich ’ s first concentration camp , was created by Heinrich Himmler in 1933 on the site of an old World War I munitions factory .
It was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen , nor was it populated mostly by Jews .
This was where homosexuals , gypsies , pacifists , common criminals , and political prisoners were located , a spot where the torture and imprisonment of so-called misfits was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ German press had written about it as a humane place for disposing with these dregs of society .
After the camp was liberated in April of 1945 , and when the trials of those who had created that hellscape took place several months later , this diary became a valuable piece of evidence .
I was drawn to Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz ’ s story for reasons beyond the garden variety historical curiosity that impelled me to read the others .
You see , my father , Aladar Szegedy-Maszak , was prisoner number 125739 at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the political division of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry—Hungary was a German ally—and had tried ( unsuccessfully ) to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies .
After the Germans invaded their rather unreliable ally on March 19 , 1944 , my father was arrested .
He first served time in a Gestapo jail in Budapest until he was moved to Dachau in November .
Within the first few weeks of his arrival , he learned a few survival strategies : Don ’ t drink the water .
Eat slowly .
Avoid transports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts at sorting prisoners who were infirm—they were dispatched to one of the extermination camps— from those who might still have some strength to work .
He ended up being assigned to a medical experiment .
Once the site of some of the gruesome Nazi doctor experiments in which , for instance , prisoners were placed in an altitude simulator where they would be exposed to crushing pressure and then drastic drops in pressure , or hypothermia experiments in which they were strapped in freezing water while doctors measured how long it took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with malaria and left to die , things had become less crazy when my father was a subject .
He was in a blood clotting experiment ; he was injected with a serum to see how quickly his blood clotted .
If it worked , doctors thought , it might be a life-saver on the battlefield .
He also had to make buttonholes in tent canvases .
He also ended up getting typhus and nearly dying .
When the typhus epidemic struck the camp , Kupfer-Kobervitz was working at a factory where he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too would not get sick .
The Times explains : I remember first hearing about the fact that my father was in concentration camp .
I was the youngest of three and my brothers and I were in the back seat as we were driving to some family vacation spot .
He spoke about it in a matter-of-fact way , and though I was very young , it dawned on me for the first time that good people could go to jail .
The themes from his life 75 years ago seem strangely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up for what you believe , innocent people going to jail , coping with an epidemic , leadership intoxicated with its own power , the experience of living in the midst of a terrible time with no clear end in sight .
I wonder what Kupfer-Kobervitz and Szegedy-Maszak might have said were they alive today .
I like to think that given their survival , the message would have been one of hope .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the New York Times has been running a series entitled Beyond the World War II We Know. They describe it as the “lesser- known stories from the war”—a collection of narratives by eyewitnesses who were in combat, or were victims, or were innocent bystanders, or covered the action as reporters. There was a story about a Black soldier fighting the racist Nazis only to return to the systemic racism in his own country; one with shattering photos of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan; another chronicling the life of a Jew in a German displaced person’s camp; and today, a remarkable diary from someone who was imprisoned for five years in Dachau, the concentration camp just outside of Munich.
Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz’s was a Polish citizen living in Italy, a loyal ally of Germany, when he was arrested. He was not a Jew, a Communist, a homosexual, a member of the opposition—all criminals in 1940 Nazi Germany. His crime was for making some less than flattering observations about the Italian and German fascist governments, for which he was arrested. After a brief stop in an Austrian Gestapo prison, he was sent to Dachau. For the next five years until he was liberated by the Americans, he kept a diary of the quotidian horrors he and others experienced there. According to the Times, “By the time Dachau was liberated by American forces, in April 1945, Edgar had written more than 1,800 pages.” Miraculously, they survived. As the Times notes:
While the number of postwar memoirs written by survivors of the Holocaust is enormous, the number of testimonies that were actually written inside German concentration camps is far smaller. The ones that do exist are often fragmentary, and almost none show Edgar’s extraordinary powers of observation in analyzing the unique and hellish universe that was the Nazi concentration camp.
In that hellish universe, Kupfer-Kobervitz called it “a satanic world,” exhausted prisoners in a camp orchestra would be forced to entertain their guards, they would be hung by their arms strung up behind them in a torture device called “the Tree.” They would be forced to undergo medical experiments. He kept writing for years, the diary eventually becoming so large,
[I]t was no longer easy to hide—and such a valuable testament that Edgar was anxious for its safety. One of his co-workers, a man named Otto Höfer, whom Edgar described as “a thousand percent safe,” offered to dig a hole in the concrete floor in another part of the factory, where the diary could be buried for posterity. To help preserve it from damp and decay, Edgar wrapped the manuscript in layers of oil paper, followed by aluminum foil and fabric. Otto lowered the bundle into the floor and sealed the hole with fresh concrete, in a spot where it was hidden under a rack of hundredweight iron bars. “The manuscripts,” Edgar wrote after liberation, “were hidden in the womb of the earth.”
Dachau, which had the distinction of being the Reich’s first concentration camp, was created by Heinrich Himmler in 1933 on the site of an old World War I munitions factory. It was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, nor was it populated mostly by Jews. This was where homosexuals, gypsies, pacifists, common criminals, and political prisoners were located, a spot where the torture and imprisonment of so-called misfits was first systematized by the government. The German press had written about it as a humane place for disposing with these dregs of society. After the camp was liberated in April of 1945, and when the trials of those who had created that hellscape took place several months later, this diary became a valuable piece of evidence.
I was drawn to Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz’s story for reasons beyond the garden variety historical curiosity that impelled me to read the others. In the same way that for some people a whiff of Old Spice or a reference to the Brooklyn Dodgers when they still played in Brooklyn evokes the vivid posthumous connection with a father, for me, it’s Dauchau. My father, Aladar Szegedy-Maszak, was prisoner number 125739 at Dachau. He had been the head of the political division of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry—Hungary was a German ally—and had tried (unsuccessfully) to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies. After the Germans invaded their rather unreliable ally on March 19, 1944, my father was arrested. He first served time in a Gestapo jail in Budapest until he was moved to Dachau in November.
Within the first few weeks of his arrival, he learned a few survival strategies: Don’t drink the water. Eat slowly. Avoid transports. The authorities at Dachau had become experts at sorting prisoners who were infirm—they were dispatched to one of the extermination camps— from those who might still have some strength to work. He ended up being assigned to a medical experiment. Once the site of some of the gruesome Nazi doctor experiments in which, for instance, prisoners were placed in an altitude simulator where they would be exposed to crushing pressure and then drastic drops in pressure, or hypothermia experiments in which they were strapped in freezing water while doctors measured how long it took for them to die, or infected with malaria and left to die, things had become less crazy when my father was a subject. He was in a blood clotting experiment; he was injected with a serum to see how quickly his blood clotted. If it worked, doctors thought, it might be a life-saver on the battlefield. He also had to make buttonholes in tent canvases. He also ended up getting typhus and nearly dying.
When the typhus epidemic struck the camp, Kupfer-Kobervitz was working at a factory where he and the others were quarantined so they too would not get sick. The Times explains:
This new living arrangement afforded Edgar the opportunity to sneak back into his tiny closetlike office and write while his fellow inmates slept. To avoid detection by the guards, Edgar sealed the cracks around the door so that no light would escape. He would write until 2 or 3 in the morning, exhausted, in constant fear of discovery, near collapse in the airless room.
I remember first hearing about the fact that my father was in concentration camp. I was the youngest of three and my brothers and I were in the back seat as we were driving to some family vacation spot. He spoke about it in a matter-of-fact way, and though I was very young, it dawned on me for the first time that good people could go to jail.
The themes from his life 75 years ago seem strangely relevant today: the courage to stand up for what you believe, innocent people going to jail, coping with an epidemic, leadership intoxicated with its own power, the experience of living in the midst of a terrible time with no clear end in sight. I wonder what Kupfer-Kobervitz and Szegedy-Maszak might have said were they alive today. I like to think that given their survival, the message would have been one of hope.


motherjones--2020-09-05--Mayor Pete Just Joined Joe Biden’s Transition Team

Pete Buttegieg , the former mayor of South Bend , Indiana , and former Democratic presidential contender , is among the newest additions to former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden ’ s transition team , according to CNN .
Buttegieg made history during his presidential run as the first openly gay candidate to launch a serious bid for the presidency .
He ran a strong enough campaign that he pulled out a victory in the Iowa Caucuses , but suspended his campaign in March as the field narrowed .
Now , Buttegieg will be serving on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , alongside former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice and Vivek Murthy , the former surgeon general under President Barack Obama .
Biden is beefing up his transition team as part of laying the groundwork for staffing up the White House if he defeats Trump in November .
Of course , even with that preparation , the team will be presented with unprecedented challenges in addition to an ongoing pandemic , an economic crisis , and civil unrest .
CNN describes Biden adviser Ted Kaufman explaining that it will be the first virtual transition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for this transition amid the backdrop of a global health crisis and struggling economy .
This is a transition like no other , and the team being assembled will help Joe Biden meet the urgent challenges facing our country on day one , ” Kaufman said in a statement .
“ The co-chairs , advisory board , and senior staff are a diverse group of experts who are committed to helping a possible Biden-Harris administration beat the public health crisis and put Americans back to work in good-paying jobs.
” Buttegeig ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another example of just how quickly his star has risen in national politics .
He went from being the relatively unknown mayor of a mid-sized American city in the midwest to the affable “ Mayor Pete , ” a wunderkind who speaks multiple languages and changed the landscape of politics in his own very particular way .
As my colleague Patrick Caldwell wrote during his campaign : An openly gay candidate winning a presidential contest is noteworthy nationally , of course , but it ’ s especially remarkable given Iowa ’ s history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of just three states where same-sex couples could wed when the state Supreme Court legalized marriage in 2009 .
But Iowa opened the door to same-sex marriage through a court ruling , not legislation , and there were signs that the public was wasn ’ t entirely on board .
Three of the seven judges behind the decision were voted out of office the next year , after a vicious campaign by conservative activists .
Suburban and especially rural Iowans led the backlash against same-sex marriage .
Ten years later , Buttigieg ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his performance in many of those same rural counties .
Sanders outperformed Buttigieg in most of the state ’ s urban areas , while Buttigieg cleaned up many of the sparsely populated , historically Catholic counties in eastern Iowa that backed Trump in 2016 and opposed marriage equality a decade ago .
“ He ’ s getting support in the areas where we lost the worst on marriage , ” Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price , who previously ran an LGBTQ rights group that helped sue to legalize marriage , told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the suburban areas , it ’ s the rural areas , that ’ s where he ’ s doing really well.
” During his campaign , Buttegieg leaned heavily on his military experience—he served in Afghanistan with the Navy Reserves—and the childhood he spent growing up in the midwest .
He ’ ll need to do that again as Biden tries to make inroads in crucial states like Indiana , Vice President Mike Pence ’ s home that Donald Trump won in 2016 .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
Pete Buttegieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and former Democratic presidential contender, is among the newest additions to former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s transition team, according to CNN.
Buttegieg made history during his presidential run as the first openly gay candidate to launch a serious bid for the presidency. He ran a strong enough campaign that he pulled out a victory in the Iowa caucuses, but suspended his campaign in March as the field narrowed.
Now, Buttegieg will be serving on an advisory committee for his former rival, alongside former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice and Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general under President Barack Obama.
Biden is beefing up his transition team as part of laying the groundwork for staffing up the White House if he defeats Trump in November. Of course, even with that preparation, the team will be presented with unprecedented challenges in addition to an ongoing pandemic, an economic crisis, and civil unrest. CNN describes Biden adviser Ted Kaufman explaining that it will be the first virtual transition in history:
“We are preparing for this transition amid the backdrop of a global health crisis and struggling economy. This is a transition like no other, and the team being assembled will help Joe Biden meet the urgent challenges facing our country on day one,” Kaufman said in a statement. “The co-chairs, advisory board, and senior staff are a diverse group of experts who are committed to helping a possible Biden-Harris administration beat the public health crisis and put Americans back to work in good-paying jobs.”
Buttegeig’s role on the transition team is yet another example of just how quickly his star has risen in national politics. He went from being the relatively unknown mayor of a mid-sized American city in the midwest to the affable “Mayor Pete,” a wunderkind who speaks multiple languages and changed the landscape of politics in his own very particular way. As my colleague Patrick Caldwell wrote during his campaign:
An openly gay candidate winning a presidential contest is noteworthy nationally, of course, but it’s especially remarkable given Iowa’s history on LGBTQ rights. It was one of just three states where same-sex couples could wed when the state Supreme Court legalized marriage in 2009. But Iowa opened the door to same-sex marriage through a court ruling, not legislation, and there were signs that the public was wasn’t entirely on board. Three of the seven judges behind the decision were voted out of office the next year, after a vicious campaign by conservative activists. Suburban and especially rural Iowans led the backlash against same-sex marriage. Ten years later, Buttigieg’s success in Iowa came thanks to his performance in many of those same rural counties. Sanders outperformed Buttigieg in most of the state’s urban areas, while Buttigieg cleaned up many of the sparsely populated, historically Catholic counties in eastern Iowa that backed Trump in 2016 and opposed marriage equality a decade ago. “He’s getting support in the areas where we lost the worst on marriage,” Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price, who previously ran an LGBTQ rights group that helped sue to legalize marriage, told me last week. “It’s the suburban areas, it’s the rural areas, that’s where he’s doing really well.”
During his campaign, Buttegieg leaned heavily on his military experience—he served in Afghanistan with the Navy Reserves—and the childhood he spent growing up in the midwest. He’ll need to do that again as Biden tries to make inroads in crucial states like Indiana, Vice President Mike Pence’s home that Donald Trump won in 2016.


motherjones--2020-09-05--Trump Administration Calls Government Diversity Trainings “Un-American Propaganda” and Cancels Them

The Trump administration has found yet another way to ratchet up racial tension in the country .
This time , it ’ s by targeting race-related trainings for federal employees , calling anything with a focus on white privilege “ un-American propaganda , ” according to a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget , released late Friday night .
“ These types of ‘ trainings ’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception , but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the memo .
Vought added that all federal agencies will be tasked with coming up with a list of contracts that involve subject matter like “ white privilege ” or “ critical race theory ” and then do everything within their power to cancel those contracts .
The inspiration for this Friday night announcement may have been a Fox News appearance on Tuesday night by Chris Rufo a filmmaker and fellow with the right wing Discovery Institute .
He was on Tucker Carlson and suggested that federal employees were being indoctrinated with dangerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s absolutely astonishing how critical race theory has pervaded every institution in the federal government , ” Rufo said .
“ What I have discovered is that critical race theory has become , in essence , the default ideology of the federal bureaucracy and is now being weaponized against the American people.
” After Friday ’ s announcement , President Trump triumphantly tweeted .
The news comes as another branch of the federal government cautions about the rise of white supremacy .
The Department of Homeland Security is set to release a report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serious terror threat facing the country .
In three drafts of the report obtained by Politico , DHS says hate groups and white supremacists pose a more imminent threat to American safety than any foreign entity—including China and Russia .
“ Foreign terrorist organizations will continue to call for Homeland attacks but probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year , ” all three documents say , according to Politico .
These divergent messages from the federal government clearly appear to be tactics to energize the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They come on the heels of a violent summer , roiled by protests against police violence and confrontations with armed vigilantes .
That “ American carnage ” Trump described in his inaugural address ?
This is it .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
The Trump administration has found yet another way to ratchet up racial tension in the country. This time, it’s by targeting race-related trainings for federal employees, calling anything with a focus on white privilege “un-American propaganda,” according to a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, released late Friday night.
“These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce,” OMB Director Russell Vought wrote in the memo. Vought added that all federal agencies will be tasked with coming up with a list of contracts that involve subject matter like “white privilege” or “critical race theory” and then do everything within their power to cancel those contracts.
The inspiration for this Friday night announcement may have been a Fox News appearance on Tuesday night by Chris Rufo a filmmaker and fellow with the right wing Discovery Institute. He was on Tucker Carlson and suggested that federal employees were being indoctrinated with dangerous left wing ideology. “It’s absolutely astonishing how critical race theory has pervaded every institution in the federal government,” Rufo said. “What I have discovered is that critical race theory has become, in essence, the default ideology of the federal bureaucracy and is now being weaponized against the American people.” After Friday’s announcement, President Trump triumphantly tweeted.
The news comes as another branch of the federal government cautions about the rise of white supremacy. The Department of Homeland Security is set to release a report that identifies white supremacists as the most serious terror threat facing the country. In three drafts of the report obtained by Politico, DHS says hate groups and white supremacists pose a more imminent threat to American safety than any foreign entity—including China and Russia. “Foreign terrorist organizations will continue to call for Homeland attacks but probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year,” all three documents say, according to Politico.
These divergent messages from the federal government clearly appear to be tactics to energize the Trump base just before the election. They come on the heels of a violent summer, roiled by protests against police violence and confrontations with armed vigilantes. That “American carnage” Trump described in his inaugural address? This is it.


motherjones--2020-09-05--Trump Is Trying to Greenwash His Appalling Environmental Record Before the Election

During the meeting , according to The New York Times , Gardner told Trump that passing a public lands bill would be the biggest conservation victory since President Theodore Roosevelt established America ’ s system of national parks , refuges and forests in the early 1900s .
Congress went on to pass the Great American Outdoors Act , which fully funded the LWCF and allocated $ 9.5 billion to address the mounting maintenance backlog at America ’ s national parks .
At last month ’ s signing ceremony , Trump repeatedly compared himself to Roosevelt ( who protected over 230 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ praised Daines and Gardner , and characterized the law ’ s passage as a Republican victory .
At some point people “ will have to start thinking about the Republican Party and all the incredible things we ’ ve done on conservation , ” he said .
Trump earned rare points with green groups for signing the bill into law , effectively hijacking a yearslong fight to secure permanent LWCF funding by senators like Tom Udall ( D-N.M. ) , Jon Tester ( D-Mont . )
and Richard Burr ( R-N.C. ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that all but three of the 132 votes against the public lands package in the Senate and House were cast by Republicans .
The greenwashing event also featured some astonishing , if not downright comical , self-deception .
In hopes of rewriting history , Trump has apparently convinced himself that gutting two protected national monuments in Utah , Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante , was good for his conservation legacy .
Trump has apparently convinced himself that gutting two protected national monuments in Utah , Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ When you add all of this to what we did in Utah , if you remember that … We did Bears Ears , ” he said , proudly referring to cutting the monument boundary by 85 % and opening the door for energy and mineral development .
“ The kind of things we ’ ve done are really record-setting.
” Trump added to his record of dismantling monuments this summer when he opened Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument , a nearly 5,000-square mile sanctuary off the East Coast , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pendley , a conservative lawyer with extreme anti-environmental views and a history of advocating for selling off federal lands , continues to lead the federal Bureau of Land Management .
Punking or Pulling the Plug on Pebble Mine ?
In a letter to the Canadian company behind the project , the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the proposed open-pit copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska would cause “ unavoidable adverse impacts ” to the area ’ s aquatic resources , and gave the company 90 days to come up with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a hurdle that some say could kill the project .
Notably , the surprise decision came a month after the Army Corps concluded the project at the headwaters of Bristol Bay , the most productive sockeye salmon fishery in the world , would have no “ measurable ” effect on salmon stocks or the watershed .
“ The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with , ” Trump Jr. wrote in an Aug. 4 tweet .
The delay and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election , likely pushing a final decision until after Nov. 3 .
Asked about Pebble Mine during a recent interview with The Daily Caller , Trump Jr. said he ’ s “ as pro-business as it comes ” but that some places are “ just sacred.
” He dismissed the idea that Republicans are environmental foes and that his father is governing based on where his son likes to chase salmon .
“ Donald Trump will never get credit for some of the environmental things he ’ s done , ” his son @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his father supported increased funding for restoring the Florida Everglades .
“ You can do good things for the environment without destroying the middle class.
” As HuffPost previously reported , public lands are getting big play in the 2020 elections in the West , much as they did during the 2018 midterms .
And there are plenty of signs that the Trump administration is worried about how its industry-first agenda has landed with Western voters who value federal lands and environmental protection .
“ Donald Trump will never get credit for some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done , ” his son said .
This week , the EPA announced the creation of a new Office of Mountains , Deserts and Plains , located in Colorado , that will focus on cleaning up legacy mine pollution .
“ The West is a special place , with special environmental challenges deserving of its own office within EPA , ” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement .
During a speech Thursday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the agency , Wheeler claimed that under Trump , the EPA has done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under ] any recent administration ” at upholding its mission of protecting human health and the environment―an assertion that drew immediate fire from environmental advocates .
Meanwhile , the steady drumbeat of anti-environmental rules and rollbacks continues as the administration works to cement changes ahead of November .
This week , the EPA weakened an Obama-era rule that sought to limit toxic wastewater released from coal-fired power plants .
The U.S. Forest Service unveiled a proposal to expedite oil drilling on national forests and grasslands .
And the Interior Department is rushing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling , with a lease sale possible by the end of the year .
Asked during an interview last month on Fox & Friends about his effort to green light refuge drilling , Trump offered this : “ I hate to say it .
In theory , I should go down as a great environmental president.
” Rep. Mike Levin ( D-Calif. ) , a former environmental attorney and member of the House Natural Resources Committee , told HuffPost that Trump and his team can attempt to rewrite their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaks for itself .
“ There ’ s so many bad decisions ― anti-environment , anti-science decisions ― that so overwhelms any analysis of Trump ’ s policies with regard to energy and environment that it ’ s really not even a close call , ” he said .
“ It ’ s a direct reflection of what happens when you literally allow fossil fuel lobbyists to run the agencies that are supposed to regulate the fossil fuel industry.
” “ We ’ ve never seen , from a Democratic or Republican administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foundation of environmental law , ” he added .

During the meeting, according to The New York Times, Gardner told Trump that passing a public lands bill would be the biggest conservation victory since President Theodore Roosevelt established America’s system of national parks, refuges and forests in the early 1900s.
Congress went on to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which fully funded the LWCF and allocated $9.5 billion to address the mounting maintenance backlog at America’s national parks. At last month’s signing ceremony, Trump repeatedly compared himself to Roosevelt (who protected over 230 million acres of federal land), praised Daines and Gardner, and characterized the law’s passage as a Republican victory.
At some point people “will have to start thinking about the Republican Party and all the incredible things we’ve done on conservation,” he said.
Trump earned rare points with green groups for signing the bill into law, effectively hijacking a yearslong fight to secure permanent LWCF funding by senators like Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.). He made no mention of the fact that all but three of the 132 votes against the public lands package in the Senate and House were cast by Republicans.
The greenwashing event also featured some astonishing, if not downright comical, self-deception. In hopes of rewriting history, Trump has apparently convinced himself that gutting two protected national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, was good for his conservation legacy. Trump has apparently convinced himself that gutting two protected national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, was good for his conservation legacy.
“When you add all of this to what we did in Utah, if you remember that … We did Bears Ears,” he said, proudly referring to cutting the monument boundary by 85% and opening the door for energy and mineral development. “The kind of things we’ve done are really record-setting.”
It was indeed record-setting: the largest rollback of federal land protections in U.S. history.
Trump added to his record of dismantling monuments this summer when he opened Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a nearly 5,000-square mile sanctuary off the East Coast, to commercial fishing. Meanwhile, William Perry Pendley, a conservative lawyer with extreme anti-environmental views and a history of advocating for selling off federal lands, continues to lead the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Punking or Pulling the Plug on Pebble Mine?
In another recent about-face, the Trump administration delayed a key permit for Alaska’s Pebble Mine―a controversial project that the Obama administration blocked and that Trump revived early in his term.
In a letter to the Canadian company behind the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the proposed open-pit copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska would cause “unavoidable adverse impacts” to the area’s aquatic resources, and gave the company 90 days to come up with a plan to mitigate the environmental damage. It’s a hurdle that some say could kill the project.
Notably, the surprise decision came a month after the Army Corps concluded the project at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the most productive sockeye salmon fishery in the world, would have no “measurable” effect on salmon stocks or the watershed.
So what changed? Several conservative sportsmen, including Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Vice President Mike Pence’s former chief of staff Nick Ayers, suddenly spoke out against the mine development.


motherjones--2020-09-05--The New York Times Has Published Parts of a Remarkable Diary From a Dachau Survivor

In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II , The New York Times has been running a series entitled Beyond the World War II We Know .
They describe it as the “ lesser- known stories from the war ” —a collection of narratives by eyewitnesses who were in combat , or were victims , or were innocent bystanders , or covered the action as reporters .
There was a story about a Black soldier fighting the racist Nazis only to return to the systemic racism in his own country ; one with shattering photos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Japan ; another chronicling the life of a Jew in a German displaced person ’ s camp ; and today , a remarkable diary from someone who was imprisoned for five years in Dachau , the concentration camp just outside of Munich .
Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz ’ s was a Polish citizen living in Italy , a loyal ally of Germany , when he was arrested .
He was not a Jew , a Communist , a homosexual , a member of the opposition—all criminals in 1940 Nazi Germany .
His crime was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the Italian and German fascist governments , for which he was arrested .
After a brief stop in an Austrian Gestapo prison , he was sent to Dachau .
For the next five years until he was liberated by the Americans , he kept a diary of the quotidian horrors he and others experienced there .
According to the Times , “ By the time Dachau was liberated by American forces , in April 1945 , Edgar had written more than 1,800 pages.
” Miraculously , they survived .
As the Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kupfer-Kobervitz called it “ a satanic world , ” exhausted prisoners in a camp orchestra would be forced to entertain their guards , they would be hung by their arms strung up behind them in a torture device called “ the Tree.
” They would be forced to undergo medical experiments .
He kept writing for years , the diary eventually becoming so large , Dachau , which had the distinction of being the Reich ’ s first concentration camp , was created by Heinrich Himmler in 1933 on the site of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen , nor was it populated mostly by Jews .
This was where homosexuals , gypsies , pacifists , common criminals , and political prisoners were located , a spot where the torture and imprisonment of so-called misfits was first systematized by the government .
The German press had written about it as a humane place for disposing with these dregs of society .
After the camp was liberated in April of 1945 , and when the trials of those who had created that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this diary became a valuable piece of evidence .
I was drawn to Edgar Kupfer-Kobervitz ’ s story for reasons beyond the garden variety historical curiosity that impelled me to read the others .
In the same way that for some people a whiff of Old Spice or a reference to the Brooklyn Dodgers when they still played in Brooklyn evokes the vivid posthumous connection with a father , for me , it ’ s Dauchau .
My father , Aladar Szegedy-Maszak , was prisoner number 125739 at Dachau .
He had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Hungarian Foreign Ministry—Hungary was a German ally—and had tried ( unsuccessfully ) to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies .
After the Germans invaded their rather unreliable ally on March 19 , 1944 , my father was arrested .
He first served time in a Gestapo jail in Budapest until he was moved to Dachau in November .
Within the first few weeks of his arrival , he learned a few survival strategies : Don ’ t drink the water .
Eat slowly .
Avoid transports .
The authorities at Dachau @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were infirm—they were dispatched to one of the extermination camps— from those who might still have some strength to work .
He ended up being assigned to a medical experiment .
Once the site of some of the gruesome Nazi doctor experiments in which , for instance , prisoners were placed in an altitude simulator where they would be exposed to crushing pressure and then drastic drops in pressure , or hypothermia experiments in which they were strapped in freezing water while doctors measured how long it took for them to die , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ die , things had become less crazy when my father was a subject .
He was in a blood clotting experiment ; he was injected with a serum to see how quickly his blood clotted .
If it worked , doctors thought , it might be a life-saver on the battlefield .
He also had to make buttonholes in tent canvases .
He also ended up getting typhus and nearly dying .
When the typhus epidemic struck the camp , Kupfer-Kobervitz was working at a factory where he and the others were quarantined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Times explains : I remember first hearing about the fact that my father was in concentration camp .
I was the youngest of three and my brothers and I were in the back seat as we were driving to some family vacation spot .
He spoke about it in a matter-of-fact way , and though I was very young , it dawned on me for the first time that good people could go to jail .
The themes from his life 75 years ago seem strangely relevant today : the courage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , innocent people going to jail , coping with an epidemic , leadership intoxicated with its own power , the experience of living in the midst of a terrible time with no clear end in sight .
I wonder what Kupfer-Kobervitz and Szegedy-Maszak might have said were they alive today .
I like to think that given their survival , the message would have been one of hope .


motherjones--2020-09-06--“Change Y’all Lives Out There”: Watch Jacob Blake’s Powerful Message From His Hospital Bed

It ’ s been two weeks since Jacob Blake was shot in the back by Kenosha , Wisc.
, police officer Rusten Shesky , reinvigorating an uprising against police brutality and racism that has swept the country since the death of George Floyd in early summer .
On Saturday , Blake spoke about the fragility of life from the hospital bed where he remains paralyzed from the waist down .
“ I just want to say , man , to all the young cats out there and even the older ones , older than me , there ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said in a video posted on Twitter by his lawyer , Ben Crump .
“ Your life and not only just your life , your legs—something that you need to move around and move forward in life—can be taken from you like this , ” he snapped his fingers .
Blake described the pain he now experiences every time he breathes , sleeps , eats , and moves around .
“ Twenty-four hours , every 24 hours , it ’ s pain , ” he said .
But he ended his message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Please , I ’ m telling you , change y ’ all lives out there .
We can stick together , make some money , make everything easier for our people because there ’ s so much time that ’ s been wasted .
”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
It’s been two weeks since Jacob Blake was shot in the back by Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer Rusten Sheskey, reinvigorating an uprising against police brutality and racism that has swept the country since the death of George Floyd in early summer. On Saturday, Blake spoke about the fragility of life from the hospital bed where he remains paralyzed from the waist down.
“I just want to say, man, to all the young cats out there and even the older ones, older than me, there’s a lot more life to live,” he said in a video posted on Twitter by his lawyer, Ben Crump. “Your life and not only just your life, your legs—something that you need to move around and move forward in life—can be taken from you like this,” he snapped his fingers.
#JacobBlake released this powerful video message from his hospital bed today, reminding everyone just how precious life is. #JusticeForJacobBlake pic.twitter.com/87CYlgPDBj — Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) September 6, 2020
Blake described the pain he now experiences every time he breathes, sleeps, eats, and moves around. “Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours, it’s pain,” he said. But he ended his message with a call for change and action. “Please, I’m telling you, change y’all lives out there. We can stick together, make some money, make everything easier for our people because there’s so much time that’s been wasted.”


motherjones--2020-09-06--Report: Louis DeJoy Used Bonuses to Reimburse Employees for Donations to GOP Campaigns

A bombshell investigation in the Washington Post is shedding new light Trump appointee Louis DeJoy ’ s rise to prominence as a Republican fundraiser prior to his May 2020 appointment as US Postmaster General .
According to the report , DeJoy pressured employees of his former business , New Breed Logistics , to donate to GOP candidates ; he then would reimburse contributions using bonuses .
At least seven New Breed employees spoke to the Post , five of whom said they were pressured by DeJoy or his aides to give to Republicans and attend fundraisers .
Two others reportedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , bonus payments were “ boosted ” to offset the cost of the donations .
Campaign finance records show his employees gave large amounts of money to candidates , including George W. Bush , Rudy Giuliani , Sen. John McCain , and former North Carolina Gov .
Pat McCrory , according to the investigation : A Washington Post analysis of federal and state campaign finance records found a pattern of extensive donations by New Breed employees to Republican candidates , with the same amount often given by multiple people on the same day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $ 1 million to federal and state GOP candidates .
Many had not previously made political donations , and have not made any since leaving the company , public records show .
During the same period , nine employees gave a combined $ 700 to Democrats .
Although it can be permissible to encourage employees to make donations , reimbursing them for those contributions is a violation of North Carolina and federal election laws .
Known as a straw-donor scheme , the practice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and obscures the true source of money used to influence elections .
A DeJoy spokesperson told the Post that the Trump appointee was unaware employees felt pressured to donate , and that DeJoy “ believes that he has always followed campaign fundraising laws and regulations .
”

“A VOICE OF REASON.” “A DAILY DOSE OF SANITY.”
“A daily dose of sanity.” “Like chatting with a friend who actually knows what they’re talking about.” That’s how readers describe our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. See why: Sign up today to get reporting that helps you cut through the noise, plus deep dives on underreported topics.
“Like chatting with a friend who actually knows what they’re talking about.” That’s how readers describe our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. See why: Sign up today to get reporting that helps you cut through the noise, plus deep dives on underreported topics.
Close Thank you for subscribing!
By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from Mother Jones and our partners.


motherjones--2020-09-06--A Federal Judge Stopped Trump from Scaling Back the Census

For more than a year , President Donald Trump has been attempting to undermine the 2020 census , pushing legal boundaries to ask respondents about their immigration status and exclude undocumented immigrants , even as the bureau struggled to mount its once-in-a-decade population count during the coronavirus pandemic .
But on Saturday , US District Judge Lucy Koh issued a temporary restraining order to stop Census Bureau officials from winding down door-knocking and online , phone , and mail response collection by September 30—a month early—writing that the shortened census timeline could cause “ irreparable harm.
” “ Because the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an inaccurate count would not be remedied for another decade , which would affect the distribution of federal and state funding , the deployment of services , and the allocation of local resources for a decade , ” Koh wrote .
The US Census Bureau had originally planned to end their count by October 31 , a date chosen to accommodate delays caused by the pandemic .
But on August 3 , the bureau announced that it would stop collecting census responses by the end of September , and was attempting to “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sacrificing completeness.
” At the time , just 63 percent of households had responded .
Immediately afterward , four former census bureau directors issued a public statement explaining that a shortened timeline would “ result in seriously incomplete enumerations in many areas of the country.
” Later that month , the Government Accountability Office , a nonpartisan watchdog , also reported that “ compressed timeframes ” in the 2020 census could undermine the overall quality of the census count .
Now , at least until a hearing on September 17 , the Census @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down its counting operations , such as terminating field staff .
The lawsuit was filed in mid-August by civil rights groups and local governments , as well as the Navajo Nation and Gila River Indian Community in Arizona .
They argued that an inaccurate census would violate their constitutional rights to political representation and put them at risk of losing important federal funding .
“ Today ’ s ruling buys the census some precious and indispensable time by barring the administration from shutting down the count while the federal courts are still considering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wolf , a Brennan Center for Justice attorney representing the plaintiffs , said in a statement to NPR .
Anyone who has not yet responded to the 2020 Census can do so here .

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
For more than a year, President Donald Trump has been attempting to undermine the 2020 census, pushing legal boundaries to ask respondents about their immigration status and exclude undocumented immigrants, even as the bureau struggled to mount its once-in-a-decade population count during the coronavirus pandemic. But on Saturday, US District Judge Lucy Koh issued a temporary restraining order to stop Census Bureau officials from winding down door-knocking and online, phone, and mail response collection by September 30—a month early—writing that the shortened census timeline could cause “irreparable harm.”
“Because the decennial census is at issue here, an inaccurate count would not be remedied for another decade, which would affect the distribution of federal and state funding, the deployment of services, and the allocation of local resources for a decade,” Koh wrote.
The US Census Bureau had originally planned to end their count by October 31, a date chosen to accommodate delays caused by the pandemic. But on August 3, the bureau announced that it would stop collecting census responses by the end of September, and was attempting to “improve the speed of our count without sacrificing completeness.” At the time, just 63 percent of households had responded. Immediately afterward, four former census bureau directors issued a public statement explaining that a shortened timeline would “result in seriously incomplete enumerations in many areas of the country.” Later that month, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog, also reported that “compressed timeframes” in the 2020 census could undermine the overall quality of the census count.
Now, at least until a hearing on September 17, the Census Bureau may not take steps to wind down its counting operations, such as terminating field staff.
The lawsuit was filed in mid-August by civil rights groups and local governments, as well as the Navajo Nation and Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. They argued that an inaccurate census would violate their constitutional rights to political representation and put them at risk of losing important federal funding.
“Today’s ruling buys the census some precious and indispensable time by barring the administration from shutting down the count while the federal courts are still considering our request for relief,” Thomas Wolf, a Brennan Center for Justice attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement to NPR.
Anyone who has not yet responded to the 2020 Census can do so here.