motherjones--2020-10-29--We Escaped a War 40 Years Ago. Now We Might Be Sent Back.

More than 350,000 people in the United States have temporary protected status , a program in which the US government offers relief to immigrants from certain countries who fled civil war , environmental disaster , or an epidemic to live and work here legally .
Typically , TPS can be renewed every 18 months , and tens of thousands of people have renewed it multiple times over the last 30 years , planting roots and raising families here .
But in his first year in office , President Trump ordered an end to TPS .
After a court challenge , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through January 4 , 2021 , for the majority of TPS holders from El Salvador , Honduras , Haiti , Nepal , Nicaragua , and Sudan .
My family came fleeing the civil war in Nicaragua in 1979 , because they served in the military and they had to seek refuge here in the United States .
We saw this country as a defender of human rights , so we felt safe here .
Since I came to this country , I integrated and saw it as my second home .
I haven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I would feel like a foreigner there , and I wouldn ’ t feel safe , because I know that people who go back after living here so long are seen differently , and it could end really badly .
My life is here ; this is my community .
I work doing housekeeping at a university , cleaning offices , and I ’ m also a representative for our union , where we ’ re mostly Latinos .
We work hard cleaning , especially in this pandemic .
We ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be safe .
Every day , we face uncertainty and fear of getting the virus and passing it on to our families , but we ’ re considered essential workers .
Now President Trump is considering us disposable , and I don ’ t think that ’ s fair .
We ’ ve given our lives to this country , and we should be recognized because we ’ ve worked legally and have contributed to the economy .
I used to live in peace , but since Trump took office I feel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me away .
I fear that they could just separate me from my family .
Before Trump , I had safety .
I knew that I had TPS and felt that my work was recognized .
But the uncertainty now is terrible .
One day he says one thing , the next day he says another .
Back in 2018 , Trump said TPS was over—but then it was appealed and instead it got expanded by a year , which would mean it ends January 5 , 2021 .
So all this uncertainty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago , we were told that it was revoked again , but it ’ s being appealed again .
All that keeps us unstable , because we don ’ t know what ’ s going on in the courts .
This year my brother , his wife , and I were thinking of buying a house together .
I ’ m divorced , and I live with them , so we wanted to buy a house to live more comfortably .
But with this situation , we didn ’ t do it because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in January .
Sometimes I watch the news and I see how disparagingly immigrants and Latinos are talked about , and I feel terrible .
At the same time , I get strength because I know there are a lot of people who support us and who recognize the work we do .
We ’ re not living here for free : We ’ re working , we ’ re contributing with our taxes and our culture .
If we ’ re doing good here , why can ’ t we keep doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ll respect whoever the next president is , but the respect has to be mutual .

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More than 350,000 people in the United States have temporary protected status, a program in which the US government offers relief to immigrants from certain countries who fled civil war, environmental disaster, or an epidemic to live and work here legally. Typically, TPS can be renewed every 18 months, and tens of thousands of people have renewed it multiple times over the last 30 years, planting roots and raising families here. But in his first year in office, President Trump ordered an end to TPS. After a court challenge, the administration said it would extend TPS through January 4, 2021, for the majority of TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan.
Maria Elena Hernandez, 60 From: Nicaragua
Lives in: Broward County, Florida Maria Elena Hernandez as told to Fernanda Echavarri
My family came fleeing the civil war in Nicaragua in 1979, because they served in the military and they had to seek refuge here in the United States. We saw this country as a defender of human rights, so we felt safe here.
Since I came to this country, I integrated and saw it as my second home. I haven’t gone back to Nicaragua once. I would feel like a foreigner there, and I wouldn’t feel safe, because I know that people who go back after living here so long are seen differently, and it could end really badly. My life is here; this is my community.
I work doing housekeeping at a university, cleaning offices, and I’m also a representative for our union, where we’re mostly Latinos. We work hard cleaning, especially in this pandemic. We’re keeping the university clean so that students can be safe. Every day, we face uncertainty and fear of getting the virus and passing it on to our families, but we’re considered essential workers.
Now President Trump is considering us disposable, and I don’t think that’s fair. We’ve given our lives to this country, and we should be recognized because we’ve worked legally and have contributed to the economy.
I used to live in peace, but since Trump took office I feel that at any moment they could take me away. I fear that they could just separate me from my family. Before Trump, I had safety. I knew that I had TPS and felt that my work was recognized. But the uncertainty now is terrible. One day he says one thing, the next day he says another.
I used to live in peace, but since Trump took office I feel that at any moment they could take me away.
Back in 2018, Trump said TPS was over—but then it was appealed and instead it got expanded by a year, which would mean it ends January 5, 2021. So all this uncertainty continued. Then, not that long ago, we were told that it was revoked again, but it’s being appealed again. All that keeps us unstable, because we don’t know what’s going on in the courts.
This year my brother, his wife, and I were thinking of buying a house together. I’m divorced, and I live with them, so we wanted to buy a house to live more comfortably. But with this situation, we didn’t do it because of this uncertainty that TPS might end in January.
Sometimes I watch the news and I see how disparagingly immigrants and Latinos are talked about, and I feel terrible. At the same time, I get strength because I know there are a lot of people who support us and who recognize the work we do. We’re not living here for free: We’re working, we’re contributing with our taxes and our culture. If we’re doing good here, why can’t we keep doing so in peace here? I’ll respect whoever the next president is, but the respect has to be mutual.


motherjones--2020-10-29--Trump Admitted Years Ago to a “Little Conflict of Interest” in Turkey. It’s Not So Little.

In December 2015 , Donald Trump , then a presidential candidate , made a casual admission .
“ I have a little conflict of interest ’ cause I have a major , major building in Istanbul , ” Trump told his interviewer , Steve Bannon , who would later take over Trump ’ s presidential campaign , on a Breitbart radio show .
“ It ’ s a tremendously successful job .
It ’ s called Trump Towers—two towers , instead of one , not the usual one , it ’ s two.
” Trump ’ s conflict in Turkey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , more than 150 paragraphs into its 10,000-plus word expose on Trump ’ s taxes , the New York Times revealed that Trump has pocketed “ at least $ 13 million — far more than previously known — including more than $ 1 million since he entered the White House ” through a 2008 licensing deal in which he is paid for his name to appear on two glass towers in Istanbul .
The deal enmeshed Trump in Turkish politics : The buildings are owned by a wealthy ally of Turkey ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And the businessman who helped to negotiate Trump ’ s deal , Ali Yalcindag , now serves as chairman of the Turkey-US Business Council , lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Turkish businesses ; Yalcindag told the Times that he has “ remained friendly ” with Trump since they brokered the deal .
The corruption here became even more clear on Thursday , when the Times reported new details on efforts by the president and members of his cabinet to quash an investigation by federal prosecutors into an alleged sanction-violating scheme by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Erdogan to Trump .
Federal prosecutors alleged Halkbank evaded US sanctions on Iran and believed the scheme “ had helped finance Iran ’ s nuclear weapons program , ” the Times reported .
Trump ’ s effort to help Erdogan on Halkbank “ illustrates how compromised President Trump is , ” says Kathleen Clark , a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis .
“ There is every reason for us to be concerned that he directed the Justice Department to give Erdogan what Erdogan wanted , and that he did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public interest , but instead out of his conception of his own personal interest.
” This major conflict of interest exists because the president refused to divest from his businesses after his 2016 victory .
Critics say this is part of Trump ’ s rampant violation of the Constitution ’ s emoluments clause , which bars federal office holders from accepting gifts , payment , or other things of value from a foreign states .
Now , as Trump closes his campaign to seek a second term , we can clearly see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a host of matters—resulting in well-founded concern , expressed even by Trump ’ s former national security adviser John Bolton , that the president is motivated by personal , not American interests in his dealings with Turkey .
Prosecutors homed in on Halkbank in late 2017 , after securing a guilty plea and cooperation agreement from a participant in the scheme , a gold trader named Reza Zarrab , whose legal team included former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey .
When prosecutors sought to draw up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Attorney General Matthew Whitaker pushed Southern District of New York prosecutors to instead shut down their investigation without charging the bank , according to Times .
Last year .
Attorney General Bill Barr , who replaced Whitaker , pushed Geoffrey Berman , then the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York , to settle with the bank on terms that were favorable to Halkbank and which Berman considered unacceptable , unethical , and “ completely wrong , ” according to the report .
Among other things , Barr reportedly wanted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ties to Erdogan—even though they had not provided cooperation , which would normally be required for such a deal .
Also , at Trump ’ s behest , Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin pushed DOJ not to impose too large a fine on Halkbank .
Bolton told the Times that he was disturbed by the tone of the interactions between Trump and Erdogan with regards to Halkbank .
“ It was so idiosyncratic , so personal to Trump in the pursuit of personal relationships , that it was very dangerous , ” Bolton said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obstruction of justice.
” Last year , Bolton also reportedly told a private gathering of hedge fund investors that he believed a personal or business relationship dictated Trump ’ s positions on Turkey .
Mother Jones has also reported on efforts by Brian Ballard , a lobbyist and major fundraiser for Trump , to help the bank avoid indictment .
Ballard lobbied Vice President Mike Pence ’ s office , as well as Jay Sekulow , one of Trump ’ s personal lawyers who represented pro bono Andrew Brunson , a pastor who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People familiar with Ballard ’ s outreach said it related to Turkey releasing Brunson in a bid to win more favorable treatment for Halkbank .
Turkey in fact released Brunson on October 12 , 2018 , not long before Whitaker and Barr pushed for restricting the Halkbank investigation .
Trump ’ s actions on Halkbank are only one instance where his financial interest in Turkey may have influenced his actions toward the country .
In a phone call with Erdogan last October , Trump okayed Erdogan ’ s request to send Turkish troops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kurds , who were allied with US forces and were longtime foes of the Erdogan regime .
Unexpectedly , the decision backfired on Halkbank after Trump , stung by bipartisan criticism in Washington , threatened to impose economic sanctions on Turkey over the invasion .
This acrimony appears to have led the Justice Department , in an October 15 , 2019 decision it has not explained publicly , to give prosecutors in Manhattan approval to file charges against Halkbank .
The same day , Southern District prosecutors indicted Halkbank for money laundering , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran sanctions .
This fall , Trump has not publicly faulted Erdogan for Turkey ’ s extensive support for Azerbaijan ’ s war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region—an ethnically Armenian , functionally autonomous area within Azerbaijan ’ s borders .
Turkey has provided weapons and training for Azerbaijani forces widely seen as aggressors in the conflict .
Armenia has also charged that Turkey has dispatched fighter jets , drone operators , and even mercenaries from Syria to help Azerbaijan—claims the Turks deny .
Backed by Turkey , Azerbaijan has resisted US efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly impossible to know to what extent Trump ’ s personal interests motivate his conduct toward Turkey .
But we don ’ t need hard proof to know Trump maintaining a source of income in Turkey is corrupt .
“ We shouldn ’ t have to wait for some memo indicating that is what caused him to ask the Justice Department to act that way , ” Clark says .
“ The presence of financial interests , conflicting interests , is enough to be a problem .
”

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In December 2015, Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, made a casual admission. “I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump told his interviewer, Steve Bannon, who would later take over Trump’s presidential campaign, on a Breitbart radio show. “It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two.”
Trump’s conflict in Turkey is actually not little.
Last month, more than 150 paragraphs into its 10,000-plus word expose on Trump’s taxes, the New York Times revealed that Trump has pocketed “at least $13 million — far more than previously known — including more than $1 million since he entered the White House” through a 2008 licensing deal in which he is paid for his name to appear on two glass towers in Istanbul.
“There is every reason for us to be concerned that he directed the Justice Department to give Erdogan what Erdogan wanted.”
The deal enmeshed Trump in Turkish politics: The buildings are owned by a wealthy ally of Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And the businessman who helped to negotiate Trump’s deal, Ali Yalcindag, now serves as chairman of the Turkey-US Business Council, lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Turkish businesses; Yalcindag told the Times that he has “remained friendly” with Trump since they brokered the deal.
The corruption here became even more clear on Thursday, when the Times reported new details on efforts by the president and members of his cabinet to quash an investigation by federal prosecutors into an alleged sanction-violating scheme by a Turkish state-owned bank following personal pleas from Erdogan to Trump. Federal prosecutors alleged Halkbank evaded US sanctions on Iran and believed the scheme “had helped finance Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” the Times reported.
Trump’s effort to help Erdogan on Halkbank “illustrates how compromised President Trump is,” says Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “There is every reason for us to be concerned that he directed the Justice Department to give Erdogan what Erdogan wanted, and that he did that not out of his conception of the public interest, but instead out of his conception of his own personal interest.”
This major conflict of interest exists because the president refused to divest from his businesses after his 2016 victory. Critics say this is part of Trump’s rampant violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars federal office holders from accepting gifts, payment, or other things of value from a foreign states.
Now, as Trump closes his campaign to seek a second term, we can clearly see a record of the president appeasing Erdogan on a host of matters—resulting in well-founded concern, expressed even by Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, that the president is motivated by personal, not American interests in his dealings with Turkey.
Prosecutors homed in on Halkbank in late 2017, after securing a guilty plea and cooperation agreement from a participant in the scheme, a gold trader named Reza Zarrab, whose legal team included former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. When prosecutors sought to draw up charges against the bank, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker pushed Southern District of New York prosecutors to instead shut down their investigation without charging the bank, according to Times.
Last year. Attorney General Bill Barr, who replaced Whitaker, pushed Geoffrey Berman, then the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to settle with the bank on terms that were favorable to Halkbank and which Berman considered unacceptable, unethical, and “completely wrong,” according to the report. Among other things, Barr reportedly wanted to grant immunity to key Turkish officials with ties to Erdogan—even though they had not provided cooperation, which would normally be required for such a deal. Also, at Trump’s behest, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin pushed DOJ not to impose too large a fine on Halkbank.
Bolton told the Times that he was disturbed by the tone of the interactions between Trump and Erdogan with regards to Halkbank. “It was so idiosyncratic, so personal to Trump in the pursuit of personal relationships, that it was very dangerous,” Bolton said. “And it does look like obstruction of justice.” Last year, Bolton also reportedly told a private gathering of hedge fund investors that he believed a personal or business relationship dictated Trump’s positions on Turkey.
Mother Jones has also reported on efforts by Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and major fundraiser for Trump, to help the bank avoid indictment. Ballard lobbied Vice President Mike Pence’s office, as well as Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal lawyers who represented pro bono Andrew Brunson, a pastor who was imprisoned in Turkey in 2016. People familiar with Ballard’s outreach said it related to Turkey releasing Brunson in a bid to win more favorable treatment for Halkbank. Turkey in fact released Brunson on October 12, 2018, not long before Whitaker and Barr pushed for restricting the Halkbank investigation.
We can clearly see a record of the president appeasing Erdogan on a host of matters—resulting in well-founded concern that the president is motivated by personal, not American interests in his dealings with Turkey.
Trump’s actions on Halkbank are only one instance where his financial interest in Turkey may have influenced his actions toward the country. In a phone call with Erdogan last October, Trump okayed Erdogan’s request to send Turkish troops into Syria, a move that endangered Kurds, who were allied with US forces and were longtime foes of the Erdogan regime. Unexpectedly, the decision backfired on Halkbank after Trump, stung by bipartisan criticism in Washington, threatened to impose economic sanctions on Turkey over the invasion. This acrimony appears to have led the Justice Department, in an October 15, 2019 decision it has not explained publicly, to give prosecutors in Manhattan approval to file charges against Halkbank. The same day, Southern District prosecutors indicted Halkbank for money laundering, bank fraud, and conspiracy to violate Iran sanctions.
This fall, Trump has not publicly faulted Erdogan for Turkey’s extensive support for Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region—an ethnically Armenian, functionally autonomous area within Azerbaijan’s borders. Turkey has provided weapons and training for Azerbaijani forces widely seen as aggressors in the conflict. Armenia has also charged that Turkey has dispatched fighter jets, drone operators, and even mercenaries from Syria to help Azerbaijan—claims the Turks deny. Backed by Turkey, Azerbaijan has resisted US efforts to broker a ceasefire.
It is nearly impossible to know to what extent Trump’s personal interests motivate his conduct toward Turkey. But we don’t need hard proof to know Trump maintaining a source of income in Turkey is corrupt. “We shouldn’t have to wait for some memo indicating that is what caused him to ask the Justice Department to act that way,” Clark says. “The presence of financial interests, conflicting interests, is enough to be a problem.”


motherjones--2020-10-29--As Election Day Nears, Trump’s EPA Chief Gives Georgia Cotton Farmers the Gift of a Nasty Pesticide

The Georgia electorate has swung to Republican candidates in every presidential election since 1996 ; but this year , Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has edged ahead of President Donald Trump in polls there .
Sen. David Perdue ( R.-GA ) —first cousin of USDA chief Sonny Perdue—also faces a fierce Democratic challenge for his seat .
On Oct. 27 , a week before the final day of voting , Andrew Wheeler , administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency , alighted upon this unexpectedly contested electoral territory to to deliver the agency ’ s much-awaited verdict of a controversial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s cotton and soybean farmers , including Georgia ’ s .
At an outdoor presentation at cotton farm in Bulloch County , Georgia ( video here ) , with cotton ripening in the sun behind him , the chief US environmental regulator and former coal lobbyist delighted a socially distanced crowd by announcing he had decided to greenlight , for five years , two versions of a weed killer called dicamba that have been tweaked by chemical giants Bayer ( formerly Monsanto ) and BASF .
These products are specially designed to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genetically engineered by Bayer to withstand them , leaving crops pristine but slaying weeds .
The seed-and-herbicide combo , known as Roundup Ready Xtend , has emerged as a major profit center for Bayer and now dominates the vast US soybean and cotton plantings .
But there ’ s a problem , noted by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco back in June , ruling on a lawsuit filed by environmental and progressive farm groups : dicamba has a lavishly documented tendency to drift off-target and damage crops and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BASF ’ s formulations , originally approved in 2017 , were supposed to solve that problem , but didn ’ t , the court asserted .
Citing the drift problem , the court vacated the EPA ’ s previous approval of the Bayer and BASF products , making them illegal to use going forward .
That ruling wasn ’ t the only legal misfortune visited upon the two chemical giants by dicamba ’ s wayward ways this year .
In February 2020 , a federal jury awarded a Missouri peach farm $ 265 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In June , weeks after the 9th Circuit Court ’ s rebuke of the EPA , Bayer settled another lawsuit , by agreeing to pay $ 400 million to farmers whose crops were damaged by the chemicals .
Dicamba also suffered a setback on the public-health front .
In a paper published on May 1 , a team of US government scientists found that people exposed to dicamba show heightened risk of liver cancers .
Wheeler ’ s Georgia announcement ensures that dicamba will be back in action 2021 .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drift problem by requiring farmers to mix a “ an approved pH-buffering agent ” with their dicamba before spraying it .
These additives , an agency spokeswoman said on a press call after Wheeler ’ s Georgia ceremony , “ makes [ dicamba ] dramatically less volatile.
” She also claimed that “ many ” such additives “ are available on the marketplace , ” and “ are registered with the EPA.
” Over email , I asked the EPA press office for a list of approved additives ; for research evaluating their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and why , if they ’ re widely available and effective , neither the agency nor Bayer has promoted their use among farmers .
I will update this post when I receive answers .
Bob Hartzler , a professor of agronomy at Iowa State University who works with the state ’ s farmers on weed control , said he was “ disappointed ” in the EPA ’ s decision .
Back in July , he reported that “ dicamba injury across the Iowa landscape in 2020 is the most extensive ” ever .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ convinced ” the additives are sufficient to tame dicamba ’ s volatility problem .
He added that , in contradiction to the EPA spokesperson ’ s claim on the press call , he ’ s not aware of any such additives on the market ; nor has the EPA shared any data on their effectiveness with him , despite his position as the chief public weed scientist in the leading soybean-growing state .
Bayer and BASF are both working on their own volatility-reducing additives for dicamba , the trade journal AgWeb reported on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ need EPA approval.
” The Center for Food Safety , one of the environmental groups that successfully sued the EPA to halt the registrations of Bayer and BASF ’ s dicamba products , vowed to go back to court .
“ Rather than evaluating the significant costs of dicamba drift as the 9th Circuit told them the law required , EPA rushed re-approval as a political prop just before the election , sentencing farmers and the environment to another five years of unacceptable damage , ” George Kimbrell , the group ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emailed statement .
“ We will most certainly challenge these unlawful approvals.
” The move marks the second time the Trump EPA has intervened on the side of gigantic global chemical company to keep a high-selling pesticide on the market over the objections of scientists .
Back in March 2017 , then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signed an order denying the agency ’ s own proposal to ban an insecticide chlorpyrifos .
Its maker , Dow Chemical , had contributed $ 1 million to the president Trump ’ s inaugural committee .
Here ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ piece at the time of the EPA reversal : Wheeler ’ s dicamba ceremony in Georgia also fits into another theme of the Trump administration : officials traveling to swing states to make announcements that please local constituencies ahead of the election .
An October 29 Politico analysis found that of Wheeler ’ s 52 trips from Washington , DC , in 2020 to attend events , 40 have been to hotly contested swing states .
At the dicamba event in Georgia , Wheeler didn ’ t brandish campaign paraphernalia or talk directly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ praise the Trump era ’ s EPA ’ s highly controversial record , boasting to the assembled that “ we have done a lot in the last four years to improve the way environmental regulation and environmental laws work in this country.
” The US Office of Special Counsel is a government watchdog group that enforces the Hatch Act , a 1939 law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in electioneering .
The OSC has cited the Trump Administration for 14 violations of the act , vs. just two violations for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The scale , frequency , and seriousness of violations during the Trump administration is without comparison , ” said Donald Sherman , deputy director of the non-partisan Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ( CREW ) .
Sherman added Wheeler seemed to avoid a direct violation of the Hatch Act at his dicamba ceremony , by not overtly campaigning .
“ In a vacuum , this looks like something that would be on the permissible side of the line , ” he said .
“ But the OSC has found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House has admitted to coordinating official events to help vulnerable Republicans , and is still under investigation for that conduct , dating back to 2018 , up to this election— leads me to believe that this is something that OSC should look at , and that the Trump administration shouldn ’ t be given the benefit of the doubt.
” On Thursday , October 29 , Wheeler turned up in another swing state , North Carolina , to make another controversial announcement about pesticides that will please farm interests .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farm in Goldsboro , the heart of the state ’ s agribusiness-heavy east , Wheeler announced new rules that weaken EPA regulations designed to protect farm workers from being sprayed with pesticides .

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The Georgia electorate has swung to Republican candidates in every presidential election since 1996; but this year, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has edged ahead of President Donald Trump in polls there. Sen. David Perdue (R.-GA)—first cousin of USDA chief Sonny Perdue—also faces a fierce Democratic challenge for his seat. On Oct. 27, a week before the final day of voting, Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, alighted upon this unexpectedly contested electoral territory to to deliver the agency’s much-awaited verdict of a controversial herbicide widely used by the nation’s cotton and soybean farmers, including Georgia’s.
At an outdoor presentation at cotton farm in Bulloch County, Georgia (video here), with cotton ripening in the sun behind him, the chief US environmental regulator and former coal lobbyist delighted a socially distanced crowd by announcing he had decided to greenlight, for five years, two versions of a weed killer called dicamba that have been tweaked by chemical giants Bayer (formerly Monsanto) and BASF. These products are specially designed to be sprayed on patented cotton and soybean strains genetically engineered by Bayer to withstand them, leaving crops pristine but slaying weeds. The seed-and-herbicide combo, known as Roundup Ready Xtend, has emerged as a major profit center for Bayer and now dominates the vast US soybean and cotton plantings.
Of Wheeler’s 52 trips from Washington, DC, in 2020 to attend events, 40 have been to hotly contested swing states.
But there’s a problem, noted by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco back in June, ruling on a lawsuit filed by environmental and progressive farm groups: dicamba has a lavishly documented tendency to drift off-target and damage crops and other foliage in neighboring fields. Bayer and BASF’s formulations, originally approved in 2017, were supposed to solve that problem, but didn’t, the court asserted. Citing the drift problem, the court vacated the EPA’s previous approval of the Bayer and BASF products, making them illegal to use going forward.
That ruling wasn’t the only legal misfortune visited upon the two chemical giants by dicamba’s wayward ways this year. In February 2020, a federal jury awarded a Missouri peach farm $265 million for damage incurred on its orchard. In June, weeks after the 9th Circuit Court’s rebuke of the EPA, Bayer settled another lawsuit, by agreeing to pay $400 million to farmers whose crops were damaged by the chemicals. Dicamba also suffered a setback on the public-health front. In a paper published on May 1, a team of US government scientists found that people exposed to dicamba show heightened risk of liver cancers.
Wheeler’s Georgia announcement ensures that dicamba will be back in action 2021. In the new registration, the EPA acknowledged the drift problem by requiring farmers to mix a “an approved pH-buffering agent” with their dicamba before spraying it. These additives, an agency spokeswoman said on a press call after Wheeler’s Georgia ceremony, “makes [dicamba] dramatically less volatile.” She also claimed that “many” such additives “are available on the marketplace,” and “are registered with the EPA.”
Over email, I asked the EPA press office for a list of approved additives; for research evaluating their effectiveness at keeping dicamba in place; and why, if they’re widely available and effective, neither the agency nor Bayer has promoted their use among farmers. I will update this post when I receive answers.
Bob Hartzler, a professor of agronomy at Iowa State University who works with the state’s farmers on weed control, said he was “disappointed” in the EPA’s decision. Back in July, he reported that “dicamba injury across the Iowa landscape in 2020 is the most extensive” ever. He said he’s “not convinced” the additives are sufficient to tame dicamba’s volatility problem. He added that, in contradiction to the EPA spokesperson’s claim on the press call, he’s not aware of any such additives on the market; nor has the EPA shared any data on their effectiveness with him, despite his position as the chief public weed scientist in the leading soybean-growing state. Bayer and BASF are both working on their own volatility-reducing additives for dicamba, the trade journal AgWeb reported on Oct. 1, adding that they still “need EPA approval.”
The Center for Food Safety, one of the environmental groups that successfully sued the EPA to halt the registrations of Bayer and BASF’s dicamba products, vowed to go back to court. “Rather than evaluating the significant costs of dicamba drift as the 9th Circuit told them the law required, EPA rushed re-approval as a political prop just before the election, sentencing farmers and the environment to another five years of unacceptable damage,” George Kimbrell, the group’s legal director, said in an emailed statement. “We will most certainly challenge these unlawful approvals.”
The move marks the second time the Trump EPA has intervened on the side of gigantic global chemical company to keep a high-selling pesticide on the market over the objections of scientists. Back in March 2017, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signed an order denying the agency’s own proposal to ban an insecticide chlorpyrifos. Its maker, Dow Chemical, had contributed $1 million to the president Trump’s inaugural committee. Here’s more on the chemical from my piece at the time of the EPA reversal:
Wheeler’s dicamba ceremony in Georgia also fits into another theme of the Trump administration: officials traveling to swing states to make announcements that please local constituencies ahead of the election. An October 29 Politico analysis found that of Wheeler’s 52 trips from Washington, DC, in 2020 to attend events, 40 have been to hotly contested swing states. At the dicamba event in Georgia, Wheeler didn’t brandish campaign paraphernalia or talk directly about the campaign; be he did praise the Trump era’s EPA’s highly controversial record, boasting to the assembled that “we have done a lot in the last four years to improve the way environmental regulation and environmental laws work in this country.”
The US Office of Special Counsel is a government watchdog group that enforces the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in electioneering. The OSC has cited the Trump Administration for 14 violations of the act, vs. just two violations for the entire eight years of the Obama presidency. “The scale, frequency, and seriousness of violations during the Trump administration is without comparison,” said Donald Sherman, deputy director of the non-partisan Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Sherman added Wheeler seemed to avoid a direct violation of the Hatch Act at his dicamba ceremony, by not overtly campaigning. “In a vacuum, this looks like something that would be on the permissible side of the line,” he said. “But the OSC has found s that context matters—and the fact that the White House has admitted to coordinating official events to help vulnerable Republicans, and is still under investigation for that conduct, dating back to 2018, up to this election— leads me to believe that this is something that OSC should look at, and that the Trump administration shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt.”
On Thursday, October 29, Wheeler turned up in another swing state, North Carolina, to make another controversial announcement about pesticides that will please farm interests. At an event at a corn and soybean farm in Goldsboro, the heart of the state’s agribusiness-heavy east, Wheeler announced new rules that weaken EPA regulations designed to protect farm workers from being sprayed with pesticides.


motherjones--2020-10-29--The Dossier That Destroyed Frank Wilkinson’s Dream of Public Housing in LA

This article is adapted from Stealing Home : Los Angeles , the Dodgers , and the Lives Caught in Between ( published this year by PublicAffairs ) .
The evening of March 4 , 1964 , Frank Wilkinson drove to a private home in Los Angeles to address a local meeting of the ACLU .
This was the kind of thing Frank did all the time .
He was a full-time , professional activist .
Los Angeles was his home , but he gave speeches like this all around the country in big halls and on campuses and even in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anybody who would listen .
He would talk and talk and talk .
His cause was free speech—specifically the abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee .
It was a cause Frank believed in so deeply that he had even gone to federal prison a couple years earlier in an effort to prove that HUAC , by its very nature , violated the First Amendment .
Frank had taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court—and he had lost .
But losing made him a martyr and he was built for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and back into the life of activism he had left behind .
That particular night in 1964 , the people Frank was to speak to were friends .
The house belonged to an attorney named Allen Neiman—vice president of the ACLU ’ s Southern California chapter .
Frank was not aware when he arrived at the Neiman residence that there were two men sitting in a parked car out in front of the house watching the ACLU members file in .
Nor was Frank aware of the fact that these men were federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aware that that very day , the Los Angeles office of the FBI had reported to J. Edgar Hoover himself that the bureau had been “ contacted by an undisclosed source to assist in an assassination attempt on Frank Wilkinson…March four… at 8 p.m. while Wilkinson addresses a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union.
” Frank had a way of steeling himself up for speeches .
He would dress as if arming himself for battle , his shirt and tie a part of the image he wanted to project : one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a silly , social man , but before speeches he would become serious and introspective .
That night he likely would have driven over to the Neiman household in silence , going over the speech in his head as he descended into the San Fernando Valley , parked on the quiet residential street , walked obliviously past the two agents , and knocked on the door .
By that point , Frank ’ s life had been destroyed already .
It had happened a dozen years earlier .
We know the date , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Frank Wilkinson began that day a leading light in Los Angeles ’ housing authority , a man on the verge of the greatest triumph of his career : the construction of 10,000 new units of public housing in Los Angeles , the crown jewel of which was to be called Elysian Park Heights , located in the hills that currently cradle Dodger Stadium .
He would end the day a pariah , the target of an expensive , elaborate , and ruthless campaign of red-baiting that would also bring down his dream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the time , Frank was 39 years old , a father of three , and it had already been a long journey .
Frank ’ s father had been a prominent Methodist physician and anti-vice crusader in Beverly Hills .
Frank grew up among church pews in a house where card-playing , dancing , and especially alcohol were forbidden .
But after college Frank shed his family ’ s conservative politics and religiosity to become a progressive activist and hard-charging advocate for urban renewal and public housing .
Now he was finally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ effective.
” He liked to draw out the pronunciation : eeee-feck-tive .
Everything in his life was geared toward effectiveness .
Everything in his life was geared toward the cause .
In the late 1940s and early 1950s , Frank was the engine driving Elysian Park Heights , an ambitious housing project that would have towered over the downtown Los Angeles skyline ; a project that he believed would change the face of the city forever .
His was a utopian vision .
Frank saw public housing as the key to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He was a true believer .
This was an era in which the future of development in Los Angeles was being hashed out in newspaper columns and city hall backrooms every single day .
The region was in the midst of what seemed like a never-ending population boom that left its leaders constantly looking for— and fighting over—answers .
The fight was not whether LA needed more housing , but whether the bulk of that new housing would should publicly constructed or privately developed .
That August morning , Frank took the stand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tie .
The wire from his hearing aid dangled down from his ear .
He was ready to talk about eminent domain .
But immediately after being sworn in , he was greeted with the question that would change his life forever : An attorney looked over a mysterious sheath of papers and abruptly asked Frank to please list all of the organizations , political or otherwise , that he had belonged to since his freshman year at UCLA .
The subtext of this question was clear to Frank and to everybody in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opponents of public housing had spent years trying to tie the projects to Communism .
The leading group opposing public housing was literally called CASH : Citizens Against Socialist Housing .
Now Frank was being asked the question .
The courtroom was silent .
Frank stalled .
He listed his many innocent affiliations and associations .
The attorney pressed him .
Frank waited for an objection from his attorney .
His personal politics were so far afield from the hearing or the subject of eminent domain—surely his attorney would step in .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refused to answer the question .
But it didn ’ t matter .
By the end of the day , his life was ruined .
He was fired .
He was dragged across the front page of every newspaper in town .
He was dragged before committees , including California ’ s local answer to HUAC .
His wife , Jean , lost her job as a public schoolteacher .
His sons were nearly booted out of their YMCA summer camp because nobody wanted Frank and Jean seen around the facility .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instant political impact .
Frank and the housing authority had spent years working to clear out three communities that were nestled into the hills where Elysian Park Heights was to be built .
Those communities—Palo Verde , La Loma , and Bishop—were largely Mexican and Mexican American .
In order to justify using the site for public housing , Frank and his allies had argued relentlessly that they were in fact slums : unsafe and unsuitable for decent living .
This argument did not sit well with the communities themselves , which were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Los Angeles , and had undertaken their own organized resistance to the public housing program .
Quite simply , the neighborhoods did not like having a bunch of outsiders from the government telling them how they were supposed to live .
This was the very government that had restricted where they could buy property , that had failed to provide them adequate services , that had frequently whipped up anti-Mexican racism .
Of course Frank Wilkinson was not equipped to see any of this : His progressivism was inherently paternalistic .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to see it .
By then most of the homeowners in Palo Verde , La Loma , and Bishop had sold their properties to the housing authority .
Only a few dozen families held out—buoyed by the hope that perhaps the demise of Frank Wilkinson might mean they would get to keep their homes .
As the months passed and popular opinion continued to build against public housing , the odds of actually building Elysian Park Heights seemed to grow fainter and fainter .
But ultimately everybody knew that it would come down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
For now , the office still belonged to a staunch public housing supporter named Fletcher Bowron .
By the spring of 1953 , Frank Wilkinson was barely going outside .
He was wrecked , destroyed , broken down .
He was a father of three , closing in on 40 years old , and he was living off the kindness of strangers .
The world seemed to be working against him ever since that fateful day the previous August .
As a young boy in Beverly Hills , Frank had obsessed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s lawn and the shine on his father ’ s car .
It was a way to channel his angst ; if everything looked right , then perhaps it was right .
Now he was once again throwing himself into housework .
He ironed his daughter Jo ’ s little dresses .
He did the grocery shopping .
In the ensuing months , Frank retraced all his steps leading up to that hearing .
He played out the events over and over .
The mysterious sheath of paper .
The long walk back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ search for an attorney .
The day had ended with Frank in tears , parked in his brother ’ s driveway , so desolate that he had to be given a tranquilizer and carried into the house .
How could this have possibly happened ?
Frank had been in the party for a decade , but that membership was a closely guarded secret .
He had even skipped out on the chance to run for Congress for fear of being exposed .
He had literally burned his Communist Party membership card in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mayoral election in Los Angeles that would determine the fate of Elysian Park Heights and thousands more units of public housing .
Frank ’ s career was finished .
His life was a mess .
But at least his vision of utopia wasn ’ t dead yet .
The issue came down to this : A few years earlier , the city had signed a deal with the Truman administration to build those 10,000 units of public housing .
These units would be paid for with federal dollars .
But in the ensuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city council had been ensnared by Red Scare conspiracies like the one that had ruined Frank Wilkinson and beaten back by private real estate developers .
It was an open question whether the city would honor its deal with the federal government .
The answer would depend on who was elected mayor .
The incumbent , Bowron , was a short , stout former judge who had already served for a dozen years .
Bowron was a coalition builder .
He had been swept into office after a recall .
Bowron had plenty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he wasn ’ t was corrupt .
He was no zealot like Frank , but he supported the implementation of public housing—after all , a deal was a deal .
His opponent was a little-known congressman named Norris Poulson .
Poulson was hand-selected by LA business interests , led by Norman Chandler , the powerful publisher of the Los Angeles Times .
Poulson and his allies ran an aggressive , negative campaign , whipping up Red Scare fears and aggressively tying public housing to Communism .
Frank was at the center of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an anti-housing councilmember invited a Michigan congressman named Clare Hoffman to Los Angeles .
Hoffman was a proud fearmonger and conspiracy theorist—a fascist sympathizer who had tried to start a movement to get Franklin Roosevelt impeached for entering World War II after Pearl Harbor .
He spoke at America First rallies and spread conspiracy theories alleging that fluoridated water , polio vaccines , and the mental health movement of the 1950s were elements of a grand Communist plot against America .
He was also the chair of the House Special Subcommittee on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but in Hoffman ’ s hands a HUAC-style weapon .
Hoffman ’ s committee arrived in Los Angeles weeks before the election .
Officially , they were there to investigate Communist infiltration of the housing authority .
But everyone knew why they were really there : to make a big , messy spectacle of Bowron ’ s support for public housing .
The move was so blatantly cheap that the Democrats on Hoffman ’ s own committee skipped out on the hearings .
And even Poulson—the man most primed to benefit from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
But instead of rescheduling , Hoffman ginned up a televised frenzy .
He delivered subpoenas right and left .
Amid all this , Frank Wilkinson ’ s phone rang .
On the other end was Ignacio “ Nacho ” Lopez .
Lopez—a Spanish-language newspaper publisher and civic activist—had worked closely with Frank in the housing authority .
Now he had inside info : Hoffman had his sights on Frank .
And Frank wanted no part of another red-baiting extravaganza .
“ Soon after he called there was a knock on my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staffers coming to issue the subpoena , ” Frank later said .
“ So I dashed out the back door , climbed over a fence to another street and met Nacho.
” López drove Frank to a Russian bath in the Boyle Heights neighborhood .
There , of all places , they figured , nobody would come looking for him .
But they didn ’ t think about the fact that the Russian bath was just down the street from the LAPD ’ s Hollenbeck Station and was a favorite hangout of officers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had managed the Ramona Gardens projects and lived in the nearby Estrada Courts projects .
His picture had been all over the papers for almost a year .
As they walked through the bathhouse in only their towels , with subpoena bearers still scrambling around the city trying to find Frank , one of the cops turned and said , “ Hey , there goes Wilkinson.
” After that , he and López quickly dressed and fled .
They drove out to Sherman Oaks , to the home of a couple Frank knew @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a screenwriter , and she had been an employee of the Writer ’ s Guild ; both had been blacklisted from Hollywood after pleading the Fifth in front of HUAC .
While the hearings got under way , Frank stayed indoors and out of sight .
“ I drank homemade corn whiskey and watched the hearings on television , ” he recalled .
The hearings were a spectacle .
Hoffman yelled and banged on tables .
Frank watched with particular interest when LAPD Chief William Parker took the stand .
Frank and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Parker had provided doctored crime stats to a real estate developer and anti-housing activist named Fritz Burns .
Parker made it clear what side he was on .
As Frank watched , Parker produced a sheath of papers .
This was , he quickly realized , the same document that the attorney at the eminent domain hearings had been referring to on that fateful day in court the previous August .
This was the very document that had signaled Frank ’ s downfall .
On television , Frank watched as Parker testified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this very dossier to Bowron , as well as similar dossiers on nine other housing authority employees .
Parker said he tried to convince Bowron that it would be politically expedient to remove Frank .
But Bowron simply threw the dossier in the trash and said , “ I trust that boy.
” Parker was then asked by the committee to read the dossier on Frank Wilkinson out loud , as long as he could do so in a way that did not compromise any ongoing police work .
Parker said that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all , what do the politics of housing bureaucrats have to do with police investigations ?
“ This information came to me through official channels , ” Parker said .
Parker began to read .
He had a way of sounding both casual and patronizing when he spoke about people he didn ’ t respect : “ The report on Wilkinson , dated January 31 , 1952 , is entitled , ‘ Wilkinson , Frank B.
’ Wife : Jean Benson Wilkinson .
2019 Rodney Drive , Los Angeles , California.
” Coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even the most basic aspects of Frank ’ s life came off as somehow ominous .
He was born in Michigan .
He was raised in Arizona .
The family moved to Beverly Hills .
At UCLA , he made a “ peace action report ” to a left-wing student organization .
In Parker ’ s telling , everybody Frank interacted was a Communist .
Every organization he dealt with was a Communist front—even his church .
The organizations he addressed as a public speaker ?
Communists .
Frank wasn ’ t even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criminal .
Parker referred to Frank not by his name , but as “ subject.
” Frank watched on the black and white TV from his hideout as Parker spelled out his entire life , down to the most inconsequential detail : “ On October 26 , 1946 , subject endorsed an organizational conference of the Congress of American Women ( CP Front Organization ) held at the Friday Morning Club.
” At this point , Parker was interrupted by the committee ’ s questioning attorney .
And on Parker went—the veteran home @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Pepperdine College ?
Not organized by Communists…merely infiltrated by Communists .
Parker saved his best touch for last .
“ Subject has been an active member of the Communist Party , Los Angeles County section , for many years , ” he said .
Parker offered no evidence of any kind .
Nor was he asked to offer any .
He did not even accuse Frank of any crimes .
But it didn ’ t matter .
Frank had now been declared , on live television , by the chief of police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the days that followed , Chandler ’ s Times ran story after story tying Bowron to the Communist Frank Wilkinson and to the Communist housing project .
Later , Frank would learn that the official channel that Parker was referring to was the FBI , which had begun surveilling Frank a decade earlier .
But as he watched Parker on television , he just knew that somebody had been watching him and that this somebody had passed on this “ official report ” to the anti-housing attorneys .
It dawned on Frank that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was essentially a conspiracy .
He had been spied on by law-enforcement officials who compiled a dossier on his private life .
The dossier , which contained nothing illegal , was then passed to persons outside of the law enforcement community who used it as part of a campaign of character assassination that they hoped would advance their own business interests .
They were able to do this because of a climate of fear that they and their allies stoked as owners of influential media outlets .
Now the dossier was once again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforcement and anti-housing politicians in what was essentially a phony hearing meant to strike fear into voters and advance a candidate who had been hand-selected by those same private interests .
Frank felt he had won a small victory by avoiding the subpoena and the spectacle of the hearings .
But he had not avoided it at all .
It was a mind-fuck .
It was dizzying to think about .
But it was real .
On one hand , it was horrible .
All of Frank ’ s work in housing had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself had become the means by which the very thing he loved would be destroyed .
Norris Poulson won the election .
Elysian Park Heights was scratched , and building new public housing in Los Angeles wouldn ’ t be politically viable for the rest of his life .
On the other hand , Frank Wilkinson was at the center of the biggest story in Los Angeles , a martyr to a cause he believed in .
There was something to be said for this .
He had been so eeee-feck-tive at his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and William Parker felt the need to destroy him .
His vision for a slum-free Los Angeles had crumbled , but at least this was a sign that he had been doing something right .
This was something to build on .
One thing Frank did not know was that his friends in the Communist Party had a nickname for him : JC .
Frank had a savior complex , and a martyr complex to match it .
If he couldn ’ t build public housing , perhaps at least he could throw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that destroyed it .
In their own way , the hearings helped lift Frank out of his funk .
They helped give him purpose .
In the years to come , Frank would go on to become a fierce advocate for First Amendment rights—in particular for the abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the kind of politics that had destroyed him .
This fight would take him around the country , and ultimately to federal prison when the Supreme Court rejected his challenge to the legality of HUAC .
It would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , entrenched enemies , a lifetime of looking over his shoulder .
That night in March 1964 , Frank drove over the hill and into the San Fernando Valley .
He parked his car and walked into Neiman ’ s home , oblivious .
The people inside were his friends and fellow travelers .
It was a normal meeting .
The kind Frank had attended a thousand times .
At one point , somebody at the party noticed the two men out front .
Neiman went outside and wrote down their license plate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By the time a patrol car arrived , the two men were gone .
The meeting continued , there was no assassination , and everybody forgot about the strange car in front of the house .
It was just one of those things .
Weird things kept happening to Frank Wilkinson , though .
In the spring of 1969 , a team of armed burglars broke into the small Los Angeles office of Frank ’ s organization , the National Committee to Abolish HUAC ( NCAH ) .
The burglars smashed the doors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assistant , holding her at gunpoint while they tore through filing cabinets .
Finally , they left with a single folder marked “ CORRESPONDENCE.
” Nobody thought much of the robbery at the time .
The NCAH suffered break-ins relatively frequently .
After all , they had spent the better part of a decade organizing to end the House Un-American Activities Committee—this meant they had developed a lot of enemies both inside and outside government .
Then , a few years after the break-in at his office , Frank read a newspaper article @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The story was about the team of burglars who had broken into the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel , Daniel Ellsberg ’ s psychiatrist ’ s office in Los Angeles , and various other locations as part of what would become known as the Watergate scandal .
The burglars who had entered the NCAH office to steal that single folder had been speaking Spanish—just as the Cuban burglars implicated in the Watergate scandal had been .
Wilkinson believed there might be a connection .
He wrote to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promptly and then spent a couple years investigating the Los Angeles break-in .
But then , just before he was fired in the Saturday Night Massacre , Cox came to the conclusion that he could not prove any kind of connection between the Watergate scandal and the break-ins in Los Angeles .
Instead , Cox suggested that Wilkinson speak with the FBI .
As Wilkinson later put it , a pair of FBI agents in matching suits soon appeared in his office .
As a joke , a silly ice-breaker , Frank asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance been responsible for the burglary .
The agents stared back at him , dead serious , and asked , “ What date ?
” Frank was stunned .
He gave the agents the date and then called a friend at the ACLU .
The possibility that the FBI of all people had burglarized his office was outrageous .
But then again was it ?
After all , this would not be the first time Frank had discovered that there were forces at play in his life that he could not see .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ begun to feel like a mystery—a mystery about himself , about his work , and about his country .
With help from the ACLU , Frank decided to file a Freedom of Information Act request about the FBI surveillance of him .
The simple request unspooled into a massive decade-long legal battle .
By the 1980s , Frank learned that the FBI had been surveilling him since 1942—right at the start of his career in housing .
They had continued to watch him for more than 30 years : before , during , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His FBI file ran to 132,000 pages .
All of a sudden , everything made sense .
Reading the files , it was like looking back on the inexplicable and mysterious events of his life with the benefit of a decoder ring .
They had spied on him constantly and worked to subvert him at every turn .
All those resources .
All that manpower , just for him .
He learned that J. Edgar Hoover had taken a personal interest in his case ; that every time he went somewhere to speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life and undermine him , even going so far as to recruit members of the American Nazi Party as counterdemonstrators .
It was all right there in the files .
The dossier that William Parker read at that hearing suddenly had an explanation , too .
Also in the files was the assassination attempt .
There was no mention of any intervention on the part of the FBI .
There was no mention of anyone warning Frank away .
Only a brief , shrugging note in the following day ’ s memo : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nusbaum is the author of Stealing Home : Los Angeles , the Dodgers , and the Lives Caught in Between .
He also publishes the newsletter “ Sports Stories .
”

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This article is adapted from Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between (published this year by PublicAffairs).
The evening of March 4, 1964, Frank Wilkinson drove to a private home in Los Angeles to address a local meeting of the ACLU. This was the kind of thing Frank did all the time. He was a full-time, professional activist. Los Angeles was his home, but he gave speeches like this all around the country in big halls and on campuses and even in living rooms. Frank would talk to anybody who would listen. He would talk and talk and talk. His cause was free speech—specifically the abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
It was a cause Frank believed in so deeply that he had even gone to federal prison a couple years earlier in an effort to prove that HUAC, by its very nature, violated the First Amendment. Frank had taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court—and he had lost. But losing made him a martyr and he was built for martyrdom. He walked out of prison and back into the life of activism he had left behind.
That particular night in 1964, the people Frank was to speak to were friends. The house belonged to an attorney named Allen Neiman—vice president of the ACLU’s Southern California chapter. Frank was not aware when he arrived at the Neiman residence that there were two men sitting in a parked car out in front of the house watching the ACLU members file in.
Frank Wilkinson began that day a leading light in Los Angeles’ housing authority. He would end the day a pariah, the target of an expensive, elaborate, and ruthless campaign of red-baiting.
Nor was Frank aware of the fact that these men were federal agents.
And Frank was certainly not aware that that very day, the Los Angeles office of the FBI had reported to J. Edgar Hoover himself that the bureau had been “contacted by an undisclosed source to assist in an assassination attempt on Frank Wilkinson…March four… at 8 p.m. while Wilkinson addresses a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union.”
Frank had a way of steeling himself up for speeches. He would dress as if arming himself for battle, his shirt and tie a part of the image he wanted to project: one of purpose and effectiveness. Normally Frank was a silly, social man, but before speeches he would become serious and introspective. That night he likely would have driven over to the Neiman household in silence, going over the speech in his head as he descended into the San Fernando Valley, parked on the quiet residential street, walked obliviously past the two agents, and knocked on the door.
By that point, Frank’s life had been destroyed already. It had happened a dozen years earlier. We know the date, in fact: August 29, 1952. Frank Wilkinson began that day a leading light in Los Angeles’ housing authority, a man on the verge of the greatest triumph of his career: the construction of 10,000 new units of public housing in Los Angeles, the crown jewel of which was to be called Elysian Park Heights, located in the hills that currently cradle Dodger Stadium. He would end the day a pariah, the target of an expensive, elaborate, and ruthless campaign of red-baiting that would also bring down his dream of public housing in Los Angeles.
At the time, Frank was 39 years old, a father of three, and it had already been a long journey. Frank’s father had been a prominent Methodist physician and anti-vice crusader in Beverly Hills. Frank grew up among church pews in a house where card-playing, dancing, and especially alcohol were forbidden.
But after college Frank shed his family’s conservative politics and religiosity to become a progressive activist and hard-charging advocate for urban renewal and public housing. Now he was finally his own man. His favorite word was “effective.” He liked to draw out the pronunciation: eeee-feck-tive. Everything in his life was geared toward effectiveness. Everything in his life was geared toward the cause.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Frank was the engine driving Elysian Park Heights, an ambitious housing project that would have towered over the downtown Los Angeles skyline; a project that he believed would change the face of the city forever. His was a utopian vision. Frank saw public housing as the key to racial harmony, to eradicating poverty. He was a true believer.
This was an era in which the future of development in Los Angeles was being hashed out in newspaper columns and city hall backrooms every single day. The region was in the midst of what seemed like a never-ending population boom that left its leaders constantly looking for— and fighting over—answers. The fight was not whether LA needed more housing, but whether the bulk of that new housing would should publicly constructed or privately developed.
That August morning, Frank took the stand wearing a tan suit and a broad tie. The wire from his hearing aid dangled down from his ear. He was ready to talk about eminent domain. But immediately after being sworn in, he was greeted with the question that would change his life forever: An attorney looked over a mysterious sheath of papers and abruptly asked Frank to please list all of the organizations, political or otherwise, that he had belonged to since his freshman year at UCLA.
The subtext of this question was clear to Frank and to everybody in the courthouse. In Los Angeles, opponents of public housing had spent years trying to tie the projects to Communism. The leading group opposing public housing was literally called CASH: Citizens Against Socialist Housing. Now Frank was being asked the question. The courtroom was silent.
Frank stalled. He listed his many innocent affiliations and associations. The attorney pressed him. Frank waited for an objection from his attorney. His personal politics were so far afield from the hearing or the subject of eminent domain—surely his attorney would step in. But that never happened.
Ultimately, Frank refused to answer the question. But it didn’t matter. By the end of the day, his life was ruined. He was fired. He was dragged across the front page of every newspaper in town. He was dragged before committees, including California’s local answer to HUAC. His wife, Jean, lost her job as a public schoolteacher. His sons were nearly booted out of their YMCA summer camp because nobody wanted Frank and Jean seen around the facility.
The blacklisting crushed Frank—and it also had an instant political impact. Frank and the housing authority had spent years working to clear out three communities that were nestled into the hills where Elysian Park Heights was to be built. Those communities—Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop—were largely Mexican and Mexican American. In order to justify using the site for public housing, Frank and his allies had argued relentlessly that they were in fact slums: unsafe and unsuitable for decent living. This argument did not sit well with the communities
themselves, which were prideful and somewhat isolated from the rest of Los Angeles, and had undertaken their own organized resistance to the public housing program.
Quite simply, the neighborhoods did not like having a bunch of outsiders from the government telling them how they were supposed to live. This was the very government that had restricted where they could buy property, that had failed to provide them adequate services, that had frequently whipped up anti-Mexican racism. Of course Frank Wilkinson was not equipped to see any of this: His progressivism was inherently paternalistic.
Even after he was blacklisted, Frank failed to see it. By then most of the homeowners in Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop had sold their properties to the housing authority. Only a few dozen families held out—buoyed by the hope that perhaps the demise of Frank Wilkinson might mean they would get to keep their homes. As the months passed and popular opinion continued to build against public housing, the odds of actually building Elysian Park Heights seemed to grow fainter and fainter.
But ultimately everybody knew that it would come down to the following year’s mayoral election. For now, the office still belonged to a staunch public housing supporter named Fletcher Bowron.
By the spring of 1953, Frank Wilkinson was barely going outside. He was wrecked, destroyed, broken down. He was a father of three, closing in on 40 years old, and he was living off the kindness of strangers. The world seemed to be working against him ever since that fateful day the previous August.
As a young boy in Beverly Hills, Frank had obsessed over the edges of his family’s lawn and the shine on his father’s car. It was a way to channel his angst; if everything looked right, then perhaps it was right. Now he was once again throwing himself into housework. He ironed his daughter Jo’s little dresses. He did the grocery shopping.
In the ensuing months, Frank retraced all his steps leading up to that hearing. He played out the events over and over. The mysterious sheath of paper. The long walk back to his office. The ensuing frantic search for an attorney. The day had ended with Frank in tears, parked in his brother’s driveway, so desolate that he had to be given a tranquilizer and carried into the house.
How could this have possibly happened? Frank had been in the party for a decade, but that membership was a closely guarded secret. He had even skipped out on the chance to run for Congress for fear of being exposed. He had literally burned his Communist Party membership card in the backyard.
Soon there would be a mayoral election in Los Angeles that would determine the fate of Elysian Park Heights and thousands more units of public housing. Frank’s career was finished. His life was a mess. But at least his vision of utopia wasn’t dead yet.
The issue came down to this: A few years earlier, the city had signed a deal with the Truman administration to build those 10,000 units of public housing. These units would be paid for with federal dollars. But in the ensuing years, support for housing on the city council had been ensnared by Red Scare conspiracies like the one that had ruined Frank Wilkinson and beaten back by private real estate developers.
It was an open question whether the city would honor its deal with the federal government. The answer would depend on who was elected mayor. The incumbent, Bowron, was a short, stout former judge who had already served for a dozen years. Bowron was a coalition builder. He had been swept into office after a recall. Bowron had plenty of flaws, but the one thing he wasn’t was corrupt. He was no zealot like Frank, but he supported the implementation of public housing—after all, a deal was a deal.
His opponent was a little-known congressman named Norris Poulson. Poulson was hand-selected by LA business interests, led by Norman Chandler, the powerful publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Poulson and his allies ran an aggressive, negative campaign, whipping up Red Scare fears and aggressively tying public housing to Communism. Frank was at the center of that campaign.
As part of this effort, an anti-housing councilmember invited a Michigan congressman named Clare Hoffman to Los Angeles. Hoffman was a proud fearmonger and conspiracy theorist—a fascist sympathizer who had tried to start a movement to get Franklin Roosevelt impeached for entering World War II after Pearl Harbor. He spoke at America First rallies and spread conspiracy theories alleging that fluoridated water, polio vaccines, and the mental health movement of the 1950s were elements of a grand Communist plot against America. He was also the chair of the House Special Subcommittee on Government Operations—technically meant to oversee governance, but in Hoffman’s hands a HUAC-style weapon.
Hoffman’s committee arrived in Los Angeles weeks before the election. Officially, they were there to investigate Communist infiltration of the housing authority. But everyone knew why they were really there: to make a big, messy spectacle of Bowron’s support for public housing. The move was so blatantly cheap that the Democrats on Hoffman’s own committee skipped out on the hearings. And even Poulson—the man most primed to benefit from the hearings—asked Hoffman to delay until after the election. But instead of rescheduling, Hoffman ginned up a televised frenzy. He delivered subpoenas right and left.
Amid all this, Frank Wilkinson’s phone rang. On the other end was Ignacio “Nacho” Lopez. Lopez—a Spanish-language newspaper publisher and civic activist—had worked closely with Frank in the housing authority. Now he had inside info: Hoffman had his sights on Frank. And Frank wanted no part of another red-baiting extravaganza.
“Soon after he called there was a knock on my door and I thought it was committee staffers coming to issue the subpoena,” Frank later said. “So I dashed out the back door, climbed over a fence to another street and met Nacho.”
López drove Frank to a Russian bath in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. There, of all places, they figured, nobody would come looking for him. But they didn’t think about the fact that the Russian bath was just down the street from the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Station and was a favorite hangout of officers there. Frank was known around Hollenbeck—he had managed the Ramona Gardens projects and lived in the nearby Estrada Courts projects. His picture had been all over the papers for almost a year.
As they walked through the bathhouse in only their towels, with subpoena bearers still scrambling around the city trying to find Frank, one of the cops turned and said, “Hey, there goes Wilkinson.” After that, he and López quickly dressed and fled. They drove out to Sherman Oaks, to the home of a couple Frank knew named Robert and Ann Richards. He was a screenwriter, and she had been an employee of the Writer’s Guild; both had been blacklisted from Hollywood after pleading the Fifth in front of HUAC.
While the hearings got under way, Frank stayed indoors and out of sight. “I drank homemade corn whiskey and watched the hearings on television,” he recalled. The hearings were a spectacle. Hoffman yelled and banged on tables. Frank watched with particular interest when LAPD Chief William Parker took the stand.
Frank and Parker had history. The year before, Parker had provided doctored crime stats to a real estate developer and anti-housing activist named Fritz Burns. Parker made it clear what side he was on.
As Frank watched, Parker produced a sheath of papers. This was, he quickly realized, the same document that the attorney at the eminent domain hearings had been referring to on that fateful day in court the previous August. This was the very document that had signaled Frank’s downfall.
On television, Frank watched as Parker testified that early in 1952 he had presented this very dossier to Bowron, as well as similar dossiers on nine other housing authority employees. Parker said he tried to convince Bowron that it would be politically expedient to remove Frank. But Bowron simply threw the dossier in the trash and said, “I trust that boy.”
Parker was then asked by the committee to read the dossier on Frank Wilkinson out loud, as long as he could do so in a way that did not compromise any ongoing police work. Parker said that he could read the entire file. After all, what do the politics of housing bureaucrats have to do with police investigations? “This information came to me through official channels,” Parker said.
Parker began to read. He had a way of sounding both casual and patronizing when he spoke about people he didn’t respect: “The report on Wilkinson, dated January 31, 1952, is entitled, ‘Wilkinson, Frank B.’ Wife: Jean Benson Wilkinson. 2019 Rodney Drive, Los Angeles, California.”
Coming out of Parker’s mouth, even the most basic aspects of Frank’s life came off as somehow ominous. He was born in Michigan. He was raised in Arizona. The family moved to Beverly Hills. At UCLA, he made a “peace action report” to a left-wing student organization. In Parker’s telling, everybody Frank interacted was a Communist. Every organization he dealt with was a Communist front—even his church. The organizations he addressed as a public speaker? Communists.
Frank wasn’t even a suspect—to Parker, he was a criminal. Parker referred to Frank not by his name, but as “subject.” Frank watched on the black and white TV from his hideout as Parker spelled out his entire life, down to the most inconsequential detail:
“On October 26, 1946, subject endorsed an organizational conference of the Congress of American Women (CP Front Organization) held at the Friday Morning Club.”
At this point, Parker was interrupted by the committee’s questioning attorney.
“Is ‘CP’ Communist Party?”
“Yes. It is abbreviated.”
And on Parker went—the veteran home buying group? Communists. The meeting at Pepperdine College? Not organized by Communists…merely infiltrated by Communists. Parker saved his best touch for last.
“Subject has been an active member of the Communist Party, Los Angeles County section, for many years,” he said.
Parker offered no evidence of any kind. Nor was he asked to offer any. He did not even accuse Frank of any crimes. But it didn’t matter. Frank had now been declared, on live television, by the chief of police, to be a Communist. In the days that followed, Chandler’s Times ran story after story tying Bowron to the Communist Frank Wilkinson and to the Communist housing project.
Later, Frank would learn that the official channel that Parker was referring to was the FBI, which had begun surveilling Frank a decade earlier. But as he watched Parker on television, he just knew that somebody had been watching him and that this somebody had passed on this “official report” to the anti-housing attorneys.
It dawned on Frank that he had been the victim of what was essentially a conspiracy. He had been spied on by law-enforcement officials who compiled a dossier on his private life. The dossier, which contained nothing illegal, was then passed to persons outside of the law enforcement community who used it as part of a campaign of character assassination that they hoped would advance their own business interests. They were able to do this because of a climate of fear that they and their allies stoked as owners of influential media outlets.
It was a mind-fuck. All of Frank’s work in housing had been taken from him, and he himself had become the means by which the very thing he loved would be destroyed.
Now the dossier was once again being used as a prop by law enforcement and anti-housing politicians in what was essentially a phony hearing meant to strike fear into voters and advance a candidate who had been hand-selected by those same private interests. Frank felt he had won a small victory by avoiding the subpoena and the spectacle of the hearings. But he had not avoided it at all.
It was a mind-fuck. It was dizzying to think about. But it was real. On one hand, it was horrible. All of Frank’s work in housing had been taken from him, and he himself had become the means by which the very thing he loved would be destroyed. Norris Poulson won the election. Elysian Park Heights was scratched, and building new public housing in Los Angeles wouldn’t be politically viable for the rest of his life.
On the other hand, Frank Wilkinson was at the center of the biggest story in Los Angeles, a martyr to a cause he believed in. There was something to be said for this. He had been so eeee-feck-tive at his job that powerful men like Norman Chandler and William Parker felt the need to destroy him. His vision for a slum-free Los Angeles had crumbled, but at least this was a sign that he had been doing something right.
This was something to build on. One thing Frank did not know was that his friends in the Communist Party had a nickname for him: JC. Frank had a savior complex, and a martyr complex to match it. If he couldn’t build public housing, perhaps at least he could throw himself into the fight against the forces that destroyed it.
In their own way, the hearings helped lift Frank out of his funk. They helped give him purpose. In the years to come, Frank would go on to become a fierce advocate for First Amendment rights—in particular for the abolition of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the kind of politics that had destroyed him. This fight would take him around the country, and ultimately to federal prison when the Supreme Court rejected his challenge to the legality of HUAC. It would lead to a lifetime of fighting powerful, entrenched enemies, a lifetime of looking over his shoulder.
That night in March 1964, Frank drove over the hill and into the San Fernando Valley. He parked his car and walked into Neiman’s home, oblivious. The people inside were his friends and fellow travelers. It was a normal meeting. The kind Frank had attended a thousand times. At one point, somebody at the party noticed the two men out front. Neiman went outside and wrote down their license plate number. He called the police. By the time a patrol car arrived, the two men were gone. The meeting continued, there was no assassination, and everybody forgot about the strange car in front of the house. It was just one of those things.
Weird things kept happening to Frank Wilkinson, though.
In the spring of 1969, a team of armed burglars broke into the small Los Angeles office of Frank’s organization, the National Committee to Abolish HUAC (NCAH). The burglars smashed the doors with sledgehammers and tied up an administrative assistant, holding her at gunpoint while they tore through filing cabinets. Finally, they left with a single folder marked “CORRESPONDENCE.”
Nobody thought much of the robbery at the time. The NCAH suffered break-ins relatively frequently. After all, they had spent the better part of a decade organizing to end the House Un-American Activities Committee—this meant they had developed a lot of enemies both inside and outside government.
Then, a few years after the break-in at his office, Frank read a newspaper article that caused him to reconsider the burglary. The story was about the team of burglars who had broken into the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel, Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in Los Angeles, and various other locations as part of what would become known as the Watergate scandal.
The burglars who had entered the NCAH office to steal that single folder had been speaking Spanish—just as the Cuban burglars implicated in the Watergate scandal had been. Wilkinson believed there might be a connection. He wrote to Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Cox replied promptly and then spent a couple years investigating the Los Angeles break-in. But then, just before he was fired in the Saturday Night Massacre, Cox came to the conclusion that he could not prove any kind of connection between the Watergate scandal and the break-ins in Los Angeles. Instead, Cox suggested that Wilkinson speak with the FBI.
As Wilkinson later put it, a pair of FBI agents in matching suits soon appeared in his office. As a joke, a silly ice-breaker, Frank asked them if the FBI itself had by chance been responsible for the burglary. The agents stared back at him, dead serious, and asked, “What date?”
Frank was stunned. He gave the agents the date and then called a friend at the ACLU. The possibility that the FBI of all people had burglarized his office was outrageous. But then again was it? After all, this would not be the first time Frank had discovered that there were forces at play in his life that he could not see. In fact, his entire life had begun to feel like a mystery—a mystery about himself, about his work, and about his country.
With help from the ACLU, Frank decided to file a Freedom of Information Act request about the FBI surveillance of him. The simple request unspooled into a massive decade-long legal battle. By the 1980s, Frank learned that the FBI had been surveilling him since 1942—right at the start of his career in housing. They had continued to watch him for more than 30 years: before, during, and after his stint in prison. His FBI file ran to 132,000 pages. All of a sudden, everything made sense. Reading the files, it was like looking back on the inexplicable and mysterious events of his life with the benefit of a decoder ring.
They had spied on him constantly and worked to subvert him at every turn. All those resources. All that manpower, just for him. He learned that J. Edgar Hoover had taken a personal interest in his case; that every time he went somewhere to speak, the agency worked to infiltrate his life and undermine him, even going so far as to recruit members of the American Nazi Party as counterdemonstrators. It was all right there in the files. The dossier that William Parker read at that hearing suddenly had an explanation, too.
Also in the files was the assassination attempt. There was no mention of any intervention on the part of the FBI. There was no mention of anyone warning Frank away. Only a brief, shrugging note in the following day’s memo: “No attempt was made.”
Eric Nusbaum is the author of Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between. He also publishes the newsletter “Sports Stories.”


motherjones--2020-10-29--Trump Is Desperate for a Scary Black Man to Run Against. Instead, He Picked Sen. Cory Booker.

Over the summer , the name Sen. Cory Booker ( D-N.J. ) was deployed by President Donald Trump to be the handy shorthand for hordes of Black people and poor people invading the suburbs .
With his poll numbers dropping , especially among white women who live in the suburbs , Trump tried to appeal to their fragile sensibilities by scaring them with racist tropes .
“ So you have this beautiful community in the suburbs , including women , right ?
Women .
They want security , ” Trump said on Fox News in August .
He claimed that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to increase mixed-income housing in certain communities through zoning laws , but that Biden would bring it back—turbocharged .
“ And you know who ’ s going to be in charge of it ?
” he paused for the punch line .
“ Cory Booker !
That ’ s going to be nice.
” The message was implicit : Nice white ladies , beware .
A Black man is coming .
Since then , the line has been a staple at countless Trump rallies , as the president continues to assume that fomenting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get-out-the-vote motivator .
It seems obvious that Trump wishes he were running against anyone but an old white guy .
None of the attacks he used in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are sticking to Biden , so the president has been forced to invent “ the most frightening Black man in America ” as a way of keeping his mostly white base in a constant state of panic .
Who ’ s afraid of the scary Black moderate ?
Booker first made a name for himself on the national stage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In December 2010 , he went viral during a blizzard in the area after live tweeting his romp around the city digging residents out of the snow .
Meanwhile , Trump was mostly tweeting about his NBC reality show The Apprentice .
In October 2013 , Booker won a special election for the US Senate , and Trump had become a leading proponent of the racist lie that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya .
The two lives of these men never intersected .
But now it ’ s 2020 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Booker gained even more name recognition after launching a presidential bid in 2019 .
Just to be clear , the vegan senator is not a radical .
Despite Trump painting him as a nefarious agent of the far left , Booker ’ s record reveals that he is not even the most liberal member of the US Senate .
Indeed some of his positions on key issues are even GOP-friendly .
As Newark mayor , Booker was a prominent backer of charter schools and oversaw their expansion in the city .
He also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy that critics say led to discriminatory policing , a sharp contrast from the reformer space in which most Democrats operate today .
But it ’ s not just his record as mayor that illustrates his moderate bonafides .
Last year , Booker reached across the aisle and co-wrote legislation with Sen. Tim Scott ( R-S.C. ) on opportunity zones , a program that incentivizes developers with to build in low-income communities .
Trump routinely touts it as one of his many , many great accomplishments for Black people .
Other Republicans have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Booker .
Madison Cawthorn , a Republican running for a House seat in North Carolina , came under fire last week when his website attacked his opponent for working for “ non-white males , like Cory Booker , who aims to ruin white males.
” In August , Cawthorn was criticized after he posted pictures of a visit to Hitler ’ s vacation retreat on social media saying it had been on bucket list for awhile and “ did not disappoint.
” Fortunately for Trump , Biden chose Sen. Kamala Harris ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Finally , he ’ d get to do some fear-mongering about a Black candidate—plus , she ’ s a woman !
First , he encouraged birther lies about Harris .
Then , with the help of the conservative media apparatus , Trump criticized Harris as being a “ socialist ” who was simply waiting in the wings before putting into place her secret plot to transform the Biden agenda into a far left takeover of America .
In a recent 60 Minutes interview on CBS , Harris laughed when the anchor Norah McDonnell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that ’ s because no matter how badly Republicans want the vice presidential candidate to be hellbent on a socialist takeover of the United States , the facts don ’ t add up .
Before becoming a senator , Harris was California ’ s attorney general and before that San Francisco ’ s district attorney—otherwise known as the top cop .
This does not deter the Trump campaign from using Kamala-is-a-Cop as a smear .
But wait ?
Doesn ’ t Trump love law enforcement ?
Aren ’ t the people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good ?
Apparently not that depends on race and gender—not to mention political affiliation .
Trump has been unable to articulate his specific plans for a second term even though the multiple crises he faces , public health and economic to name just two , demand immediate action .
Instead , he just spends his time trying to smear Booker with a bizarre accusation that he will ruin the cherished American suburbs .
But he ’ s not running against Booker and unless there is some kind of seismic shift in the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden will receive New Jersey ’ s 14 electoral votes next week .
So , why the continued fixation on the moderate Senator from New Jersey ?
We already know the answer .
Cory Booker is Black .
And as far as Trump is concerned , running against Blackness is sure to be a winning approach .

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Over the summer, the name Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) was deployed by President Donald Trump to be the handy shorthand for hordes of Black people and poor people invading the suburbs. With his poll numbers dropping, especially among white women who live in the suburbs, Trump tried to appeal to their fragile sensibilities by scaring them with racist tropes.
“So you have this beautiful community in the suburbs, including women, right? Women. They want security,” Trump said on Fox News in August. He claimed that he ended a program that had attempted to increase mixed-income housing in certain communities through zoning laws, but that Biden would bring it back—turbocharged. “And you know who’s going to be in charge of it?” he paused for the punch line. “Cory Booker! That’s going to be nice.” The message was implicit: Nice white ladies, beware. A Black man is coming.
Since then, the line has been a staple at countless Trump rallies, as the president continues to assume that fomenting baseless fears can be his most successful get-out-the-vote motivator.
“Suburban women, you’re gonna love me. You better love me.” — Trump pic.twitter.com/lRXfJsQYfC — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 27, 2020
It seems obvious that Trump wishes he were running against anyone but an old white guy. None of the attacks he used in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are sticking to Biden, so the president has been forced to invent “the most frightening Black man in America” as a way of keeping his mostly white base in a constant state of panic. Who’s afraid of the scary Black moderate?
It seems obvious that Trump wishes he were running against anyone but an old white guy.
Booker first made a name for himself on the national stage as Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. In December 2010, he went viral during a blizzard in the area after live tweeting his romp around the city digging residents out of the snow. Meanwhile, Trump was mostly tweeting about his NBC reality show The Apprentice. In October 2013, Booker won a special election for the US Senate, and Trump had become a leading proponent of the racist lie that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya. The two lives of these men never intersected.
But now it’s 2020 and we are in unusual times. Cory Booker gained even more name recognition after launching a presidential bid in 2019. Just to be clear, the vegan senator is not a radical.
Despite Trump painting him as a nefarious agent of the far left, Booker’s record reveals that he is not even the most liberal member of the US Senate. Indeed some of his positions on key issues are even GOP-friendly. As Newark mayor, Booker was a prominent backer of charter schools and oversaw their expansion in the city. He also oversaw a “zero tolerance” crime strategy that critics say led to discriminatory policing, a sharp contrast from the reformer space in which most Democrats operate today. But it’s not just his record as mayor that illustrates his moderate bonafides. Last year, Booker reached across the aisle and co-wrote legislation with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on opportunity zones, a program that incentivizes developers with to build in low-income communities. Trump routinely touts it as one of his many, many great accomplishments for Black people.
Other Republicans have followed Trump’s lead in going after Booker. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican running for a House seat in North Carolina, came under fire last week when his website attacked his opponent for working for “non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males.” In August, Cawthorn was criticized after he posted pictures of a visit to Hitler’s vacation retreat on social media saying it had been on bucket list for awhile and “did not disappoint.”
Per @Timodc, congressional hopeful Madison Cawthorn's campaign is attacking a local reporter (who is a retired Pulitzer winner) for his "work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males." https://t.co/JVv9YuFpB1 pic.twitter.com/90tOBZlqCy — Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 22, 2020
Fortunately for Trump, Biden chose Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate. Finally, he’d get to do some fear-mongering about a Black candidate—plus, she’s a woman! First, he encouraged birther lies about Harris. Then, with the help of the conservative media apparatus, Trump criticized Harris as being a “socialist” who was simply waiting in the wings before putting into place her secret plot to transform the Biden agenda into a far left takeover of America.
In a recent 60 Minutes interview on CBS, Harris laughed when the anchor Norah McDonnell asked her if she was a socialist. And that’s because no matter how badly Republicans want the vice presidential candidate to be hellbent on a socialist takeover of the United States, the facts don’t add up. Before becoming a senator, Harris was California’s attorney general and before that San Francisco’s district attorney—otherwise known as the top cop. This does not deter the Trump campaign from using Kamala-is-a-Cop as a smear. But wait? Doesn’t Trump love law enforcement? Aren’t the people who dispense “law and order” good? Apparently not that depends on race and gender—not to mention political affiliation.
Trump has been unable to articulate his specific plans for a second term even though the multiple crises he faces, public health and economic to name just two, demand immediate action. Instead, he just spends his time trying to smear Booker with a bizarre accusation that he will ruin the cherished American suburbs. But he’s not running against Booker and unless there is some kind of seismic shift in the political world in the next few days, Biden will receive New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes next week. So, why the continued fixation on the moderate Senator from New Jersey? We already know the answer. Cory Booker is Black. And as far as Trump is concerned, running against Blackness is sure to be a winning approach.