vox--2020-08-20--The new guilty plea in John Durham’s investigation, explained

US Attorney John Durham , appointed by Attorney General Bill Barr to review US officials ’ handling of the investigation into the Trump campaign ’ s ties to Russia , landed a guilty plea on Wednesday for the only charge stemming from his probe so far .
Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith , part of the team that prepared applications to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page , pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement .
Specifically , Clinesmith admitted altering the content of an email from another official used in internal decision-making .
Clinesmith ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Horowitz in a report last year , and it stood out as the most egregious instance of widespread problems with how the FBI handled Page ’ s surveillance .
Yet despite the hopes of some conservatives , including Donald Trump , there ’ s no indication that Clinesmith ’ s actions were part of any larger political plot against the president .
Clinesmith ’ s conduct was clearly inappropriate — and he now admits it was criminal .
But he was never a leading figure in the FBI ’ s Russia investigation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his misconduct was limited to a relatively minor part of the overall probe ( the fourth surveillance application for one person , Page , who didn ’ t end up being charged with anything ) .
We don ’ t know yet whether Durham will find more evidence of criminal wrongdoing , or whether this charge has broader implications for his investigation .
The former FBI attorney ’ s plea agreement did not include a requirement that Clinesmith cooperate with a wider probe , suggesting he has not been “ flipped ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials .
And Clinesmith and his lawyers have made comments implying his offense was more about bureaucratic corner-cutting than a nefarious attempt to advance a political agenda .
Overall , though Trump has frequently suggested that the Russia investigators committed crimes while investigating him , so far the Clinesmith example stands out as an exception , rather than being characteristic of the larger investigation .
The charge relates to the troubled effort to surveil Carter Page Soon after the FBI opened its investigation into the Trump campaign ’ s Russia ties back in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign officials for particular scrutiny — one of them was Carter Page .
Page had been plucked seemingly from nowhere to become a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign .
Media coverage soon focused on his pro-Russian and pro-Putin views , particularly after Page traveled to Moscow that July .
And behind the scenes , Christopher Steele ’ s infamous dossier contained various claims that Page was central to a Trump-Russia conspiracy .
After Page was ousted from the Trump campaign , the Justice Department applied for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s communications .
It renewed that request three times , stretching its surveillance into mid-2017 .
However , Page was never charged with any crimes — by Mueller ’ s team or anyone else — and Steele ’ s allegations about Page seem to have been inaccurate .
Later , Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz harshly criticized the FBI for its handling of Page ’ s surveillance .
In a report released last December , Horowitz argued that the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were rife with factual errors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be simple sloppiness , but his most egregious finding was that one FBI lawyer — Clinesmith — altered an email from a CIA official about Page before forwarding it to an FBI official .
The issue arose in June 2017 , when the FBI was preparing its application for a fourth round of FISA surveillance on Page .
Because of Page ’ s public comments , an FBI agent in charge of the application wanted to review whether he had , in fact , been a “ source ” for the CIA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentioned in any of the applications submitted to the FISA court .
Clinesmith was tasked with getting an answer on this .
And a CIA official responded to his questions by email with a good deal of agency jargon .
Here ’ s Horowitz ’ s presentation of the email , which is difficult to parse because it obscures the exact terminology the CIA used : Basically , the CIA official listed a two-letter combination term ( a “ digraph ” ) to clarify how the agency categorized Page .
She also presented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official did not say clearly whether Page was or was not a “ source “ — because , as she later told Horowitz ’ s office , that just isn ’ t terminology the CIA uses .
Then , a few days later , Clinesmith reported back to the FBI agent that Page was “ never a source , ” suggesting the FISA application renewal should be good to go without that information .
Clinesmith was asked if he had that in writing , and he said he did , and also that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before forwarding the CIA official ’ s email , he personally added four words to it , which I ’ ve bolded below for emphasis : That satisfied the FBI agent , who soon signed off on the fourth round of surveillance for Page .
But this is what Clinesmith was charged for — false statements , and specifically for making and using “ a false writing and document ” in a governmental matter .
Why did Clinesmith do this ?
Altering an email is obviously quite bad — it ’ s serious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agree Clinesmith deserved to lose his job over .
So why do it ?
Clinesmith ’ s version of events is essentially that this was a shortcut .
While under oath , he insisted to a judge Wednesday that he believed the claim he added — that Page was not a CIA source — was actually the truth .
The implication is that he failed to get this in writing as the FBI wanted , so he cut some corners by adding it in himself .
Yet the CIA official involved would tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s addition was , in fact , misleading .
She said that Page had indeed provided information to the CIA .
So even though the agency doesn ’ t officially call him “ a source ” ( because it doesn ’ t use that term ) , it would be inaccurate to declare he was “ not a source , ” she said .
( Page had been approved as an operational contact for the CIA from 2008 to 2013 . )
Additionally , while reporting back to the FBI , Clinesmith made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his motivations .
The result meant , he said , that “ we don ’ t have to have a terrible footnote ” in the new application to the FISA court .
Basically , Clinesmith was worried that if the FBI had to belatedly admit that Page was a CIA source , a FISA court judge might wonder why in the world it took so long to disclose that information , since Page had already been under surveillance for months .
So his alteration of the email could be construed as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Some conservatives , though , have questioned whether Clinesmith may have had political motivations for this — in part because back in 2018 , Clinesmith was criticized in an earlier inspector general ’ s report for sending some instant messages on the FBI ’ s chat app that “ raised concerns of potential bias.
” The messages were brief , and some were tongue in cheek .
The day after Trump won the election , Clinesmith messaged another employee that he was “ numb , ” “ devastated , ” and “ sad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FBI “ broke ” Clinton ’ s “ momentum.
” He also worried that “ my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff ” and opined that “ Pence is stupid.
” His most infamous message , sent to another FBI attorney , read “ Vive la resistance.
” In context , it doesn ’ t seem to be about any actual effort to resist the Trump administration ( the discussion is spitballing about how Trump might cut FBI pensions to pay exorbitant salaries to his campaign aides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigators that the messages reflected his personal views and didn ’ t impact his approach to his work .
In other words , no , he ’ s not saying he was part of a literal internal resistance to the Trump presidency , and the “ vive la resistance ” comment was just a joke .
And overall , Durham hasn ’ t revealed any information suggesting otherwise .
What does this mean for the Durham investigation ?
It may not mean much .
Even Barr somewhat downplayed the significance of the Clinesmith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fox ’ s Sean Hannity as “ a development ” but “ not an earth-shattering development.
” Some conservatives have hoped that Clinesmith would “ flip ” and spill the beans on other malefactors , but his plea agreement contains no mention of a cooperation requirement , which would be expected if the government wanted his testimony .
It seems so far that this was an isolated instance — a case of very bad judgment by an FBI lawyer , not a broader conspiracy .
Durham has been at work investigating the Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half , and this is the only fruit of his labor so far .
But Trump , Barr , and other conservatives have repeatedly hyped the idea that there is much more to come .
And the hope among some on the right is that some big-name officials in the Obama administration or at the FBI will be indicted for yet-to-be-revealed crimes against the president .
Recently , though , Trump made comments that may imply some concern that Barr and Durham won ’ t deliver what he wanted .
“ Bill Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general in the history of our country , or he can go down as an average guy , ” Trump said during a recent interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business .
“ Bill Barr and Durham have a chance to be — Bill Barr is great most of the time , but if he wants to be politically correct , he ’ ll be just another guy , ” he added .
Barr responded by telling Hannity : “ If I was worried about being politically correct , I wouldn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get the story of what happened in 2016 and ’ 17 now out .
That will be done.
” Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
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US Attorney John Durham, appointed by Attorney General Bill Barr to review US officials’ handling of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, landed a guilty plea on Wednesday for the only charge stemming from his probe so far.
Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, part of the team that prepared applications to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page, pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement. Specifically, Clinesmith admitted altering the content of an email from another official used in internal decision-making.
Clinesmith’s misconduct was initially revealed by inspector general Michael Horowitz in a report last year, and it stood out as the most egregious instance of widespread problems with how the FBI handled Page’s surveillance.
Yet despite the hopes of some conservatives, including Donald Trump, there’s no indication that Clinesmith’s actions were part of any larger political plot against the president.
Clinesmith’s conduct was clearly inappropriate — and he now admits it was criminal. But he was never a leading figure in the FBI’s Russia investigation, and as far as we know, his misconduct was limited to a relatively minor part of the overall probe (the fourth surveillance application for one person, Page, who didn’t end up being charged with anything).
We don’t know yet whether Durham will find more evidence of criminal wrongdoing, or whether this charge has broader implications for his investigation. The former FBI attorney’s plea agreement did not include a broad requirement that Clinesmith cooperate with the government or testify in future court proceedings — though he agreed to “be personally debriefed” by the FBI regarding its review of FISA matters. And Clinesmith and his lawyers have made comments implying his offense was more about bureaucratic corner-cutting than a nefarious attempt to advance a political agenda.
Overall, though Trump has frequently suggested that the Russia investigators committed crimes while investigating him, so far the Clinesmith example stands out as an exception, rather than being characteristic of the larger investigation.
The charge relates to the troubled effort to surveil Carter Page
Soon after the FBI opened its investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties back in 2016, the bureau singled out several campaign officials for particular scrutiny — one of them was Carter Page.
Page had been plucked seemingly from nowhere to become a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. Media coverage soon focused on his pro-Russian and pro-Putin views, particularly after Page traveled to Moscow that July. And behind the scenes, Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier contained various claims that Page was central to a Trump-Russia conspiracy.
After Page was ousted from the Trump campaign, the Justice Department applied for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Page’s communications. It renewed that request three times, stretching its surveillance into mid-2017. However, Page was never charged with any crimes — by Mueller’s team or anyone else — and Steele’s allegations about Page seem to have been inaccurate.
Later, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz harshly criticized the FBI for its handling of Page’s surveillance. In a report released last December, Horowitz argued that the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were rife with factual errors and omissions.
Many of them seemed to be simple sloppiness, but his most egregious finding was that one FBI lawyer — Clinesmith — altered an email from a CIA official about Page before forwarding it to an FBI official.
What Clinesmith did
The issue arose in June 2017, when the FBI was preparing its application for a fourth round of FISA surveillance on Page. Because of Page’s public comments, an FBI agent in charge of the application wanted to review whether he had, in fact, been a “source” for the CIA — something that had not previously been mentioned in any of the applications submitted to the FISA court.
Clinesmith was tasked with getting an answer on this. And a CIA official responded to his questions by email with a good deal of agency jargon. Here’s Horowitz’s presentation of the email, which is difficult to parse because it obscures the exact terminology the CIA used:
[The U.S. government agency uses] the [digraph] to show that the encrypted individual ... is a [U.S. person]. We encrypt the [U.S. persons] when they provide reporting to us. My recollection is that Page was or is ... [digraph] but the [documents] will explain the details. If you need a formal definition for the FISA, please let me know and we’ll work up some language and get it cleared for use.
Basically, the CIA official listed a two-letter combination term (a “digraph”) to clarify how the agency categorized Page. She also presented documents for further clarification. But the official did not say clearly whether Page was or was not a “source“ — because, as she later told Horowitz’s office, that just isn’t terminology the CIA uses.
Then, a few days later, Clinesmith reported back to the FBI agent that Page was “never a source,” suggesting the FISA application renewal should be good to go without that information. Clinesmith was asked if he had that in writing, and he said he did, and also that he’d forward it. But before forwarding the CIA official’s email, he personally added four words to it, which I’ve bolded below for emphasis:
My recollection is that Page was or is ... [digraph] and not a “source” but the [documents] will explain the details.
That satisfied the FBI agent, who soon signed off on the fourth round of surveillance for Page.
But this is what Clinesmith was charged for — false statements, and specifically for making and using “a false writing and document” in a governmental matter.
Why did Clinesmith do this?
Altering an email is obviously quite bad — it’s serious misconduct that even skeptics of this prosecution agree Clinesmith deserved to lose his job over. So why do it?
Clinesmith’s version of events is essentially that this was a shortcut. While under oath, he insisted to a judge Wednesday that he believed the claim he added — that Page was not a CIA source — was actually the truth. The implication is that he failed to get this in writing as the FBI wanted, so he cut some corners by adding it in himself.
Yet the CIA official involved would tell Horowitz’s investigators that Clinesmith’s addition was, in fact, misleading. She said that Page had indeed provided information to the CIA. So even though the agency doesn’t officially call him “a source” (because it doesn’t use that term), it would be inaccurate to declare he was “not a source,” she said. (Page had been approved as an operational contact for the CIA from 2008 to 2013.)
Additionally, while reporting back to the FBI, Clinesmith made a comment that may have shed light on his motivations. The result meant, he said, that “we don’t have to have a terrible footnote” in the new application to the FISA court.
Basically, Clinesmith was worried that if the FBI had to belatedly admit that Page was a CIA source, a FISA court judge might wonder why in the world it took so long to disclose that information, since Page had already been under surveillance for months. So his alteration of the email could be construed as an attempt to avoid this ugly disclosure.
Some conservatives, though, have questioned whether Clinesmith may have had political motivations for this — in part because back in 2018, Clinesmith was criticized in an earlier inspector general’s report for sending some instant messages on the FBI’s chat app that “raised concerns of potential bias.”
The messages were brief, and some were tongue in cheek. The day after Trump won the election, Clinesmith messaged another employee that he was “numb,” “devastated,” and “sad,” and that he worried the FBI “broke” Clinton’s “momentum.” He also worried that “my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff” and opined that “Pence is stupid.”
His most infamous message, sent to another FBI attorney, read “Vive la resistance.” In context, it doesn’t seem to be about any actual effort to resist the Trump administration (the discussion is spitballing about how Trump might cut FBI pensions to pay exorbitant salaries to his campaign aides).
Clinesmith told Horowitz’s investigators that the messages reflected his personal views and didn’t impact his approach to his work. In other words, no, he’s not saying he was part of a literal internal resistance to the Trump presidency, and the “vive la resistance” comment was just a joke. And overall, Durham hasn’t revealed any information suggesting otherwise.
What does this mean for the Durham investigation?
It may not mean much. Even Barr somewhat downplayed the significance of the Clinesmith charge last week, characterizing it to Fox’s Sean Hannity as “a development” but “not an earth-shattering development.”
Some conservatives have hoped that Clinesmith would “flip” and spill the beans on other malefactors, but his plea agreement contains no mention of a cooperation requirement, which would be expected if the government wanted his testimony in future court proceedings.
There was, however, a requirement that Clinesmith be “debriefed” by the FBI regarding its review of FISA matters. What Clinesmith will say in this broader debriefing isn’t clear. When it comes to the alteration of the email, though, Clinesmith’s sworn public comments suggest this was a case of very bad judgment by an FBI lawyer, not a broader conspiracy.
Durham has been at work investigating the Russia investigation for nearly a year and a half, and this is the only fruit of his labor so far.
But Trump, Barr, and other conservatives have repeatedly hyped the idea that there is much more to come. And the hope among some on the right is that some big-name officials in the Obama administration or at the FBI will be indicted for yet-to-be-revealed crimes against the president.
Recently, though, Trump made comments that may imply some concern that Barr and Durham won’t deliver what he wanted. “Bill Barr can go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country, or he can go down as an average guy,” Trump said during a recent interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business. “Bill Barr and Durham have a chance to be — Bill Barr is great most of the time, but if he wants to be politically correct, he’ll be just another guy,” he added.
Barr responded by telling Hannity: “If I was worried about being politically correct, I wouldn’t have joined this administration. We need to get the story of what happened in 2016 and ’17 now out. That will be done.”
This article was updated with further information about Clinesmith’s plea agreement.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-20--What it would take to end child poverty in America

In 2019 , about one in six children in America — 12 million kids nationwide — lived in poverty .
That ’ s a rate about two or three times higher than in peer countries .
And that was before the worst economic and public health crisis in modern history .
The scale of child poverty in America is a disgrace , not only because of the suffering it creates and the potential it drains from our society , but also because it ’ s easily avoidable .
Child poverty is not an inevitability ; it ’ s a policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making the wrong choice for far too long .
So for the second episode of our economic remobilization series on The Ezra Klein Show , I wanted to focus on a simple set of questions : What if we started taking our moral responsibility to America ’ s kids seriously ?
What would that world look like ?
How would we get there ?
Rep. Barbara Lee is the chair of the Majority Leader Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity — and she ’ s someone who raised two kids , as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2015 , Lee and her colleague Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard commissioned a landmark report from the National Academy of Sciences to better understand child poverty in America and what we could do to reduce it .
Released last year , the report lays out a series of concrete policy proposals that would cut child poverty in half while paying for themselves 10 times over in social benefits .
In this conversation , Lee and I discuss the psychological impact that poverty has on kids , why investing in children is one of the best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other countries do right on this front that we can learn from , what it would take to end child poverty as we know it , and much more — including why Lee , a hero to many progressives , was an early backer of now-VP nominee Kamala Harris .
An edited excerpt from our conversation follows .
The full conversation can be heard on The Ezra Klein Show .
This podcast is part of a larger Vox project called The Great Rebuild , which is made possible thanks to support from Omidyar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ works to reimagine critical systems and the ideas that govern them , and to build more inclusive and equitable societies .
You can find out more here .
In 2015 , you commissioned a National Academy of Sciences report on child poverty .
What inspired you to do that ?
When you look at the poverty rates in America , especially for Black and brown children , they ’ re off the scale .
It ’ s shameful .
You ’ re looking at 31 percent of American Indians living below the poverty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children , 23 percent of Latinx children , 11 percent of AAPI [ Asian American and Pacific Islander ] children , 9 percent of white children .
These are statistics from 2018 , which shows that over 12 million children were living in poverty .
And , of course , now because of Covid-19 , the numbers are even worse .
So we wanted the National Academy to conduct a study on how to cut child poverty in half in the next 10 years .
The highlights from the study are very important @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for legislative and funding priorities for the House of Representatives .
One of the parts of the report that I found really striking was that it identified two mechanisms through which growing up in poverty can affect children .
The first one , which I think is intuitive to people , is investment .
Not enough health care resources , sometimes not enough food , not a stimulating environment , not as much support of child care , and on and on .
But the other one is stress — the wear and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of instability , of being evicted that changes children ’ s cognitive development .
Can you talk a bit about that dimension of it ?
My background is in clinical social work , so I really understand how stress weighs on children as a result of these social determinants .
Many children who live in low-income communities , especially in Black and brown communities , are traumatized by their experiences .
Trauma leads to stress , which leads to acting out .
Some young people are having a very difficult time .
You @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young , especially young African American teenagers .
There ’ s a lot of mental health trauma that is associated with the environmental factors of being poor .
And it ’ s a moral disgrace that we don ’ t look out for our children — that we don ’ t address the environmental factors and the social determinants of their lives .
Because you have to do that to make sure children don ’ t get stressed out or have breakdowns or end up getting shot or end up in juvenile hall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outcomes .
Children living in this country , for the most part , if you ’ re not middle income or upper income , you really have a hard time .
You really have a hard time .
And then you have to deal with living in close quarters of the cost of living in some communities .
The cost of housing is so high .
No child should have to live like this .
What would our social policy look like if we truly invested in kids ?
First , I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universal income .
No one should have to live below the poverty line .
And we certainly have enough resources in this country to guarantee income .
Second , we should have universal preschool for every child .
We should make it affordable or free .
Third , we should focus on food security in terms of either increasing SNAP benefits or some type of strategy that addresses food deserts and makes sure that food is easily accessible and healthy .
We need to support Medicare-for-all : universal affordable health care .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot more comprehensive in terms of addressing health care for children .
We need to make sure that our child care workers are trained , that they have benefits and are unionized .
We should start valuing the dignity of all human beings and setting up policies that provide for a basic standard of living , which we do not do in this country .
One of the things that ’ s striking to me about that list is that we already do a huge amount of that for seniors .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program .
There ’ s Social Security , which looks a lot like a universal basic income for seniors .
The people who work with seniors through Medicare are very highly trained .
We have this much more social democratic system for seniors , which we should , but we somehow have not expanded almost any of that to children , or , for that matter , parents of children .
Why do you think there ’ s been so much more success extending this kind of policy to America ’ s elderly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I think we need to do more for seniors .
We still haven ’ t totally stepped up to what we need to do for people in the twilight of their lives .
I think we have to talk about values , the values of human life and human dignity , regardless of how old you are .
The Children ’ s Defense Fund and other organizations have been very active lobbyists for children , but I don ’ t see the type of money being put into lobbying for legislation that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I have seen over the years when it comes to our senior citizens .
And thank goodness our seniors have an active lobby in Washington , DC , through AARP and other senior groups .
I think it all has to do with valuing human life and human dignity .
There are some who just don ’ t think children deserve what they need at the beginning of their lives so that they can move forward and be productive human beings and live healthy lives and take care of themselves .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the policies the report emphasizes that people may not be as familiar with is a child allowance : a universal basic income for kids .
And the report finds that a $ 2,700-a-year child allowance would singlehandedly cut child poverty by a third .
That ’ s a big effect .
And it ’ s something that a lot of European countries have .
Could you talk a bit about that as a policy option ?
This is a guaranteed paycheck .
When you have a child allowance such as this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you pay for child care or help pay some of your utility bills , or help you buy more food .
And when you look at the cost-benefit analysis , it actually reduces the amount of taxpayer dollars that go for the social safety net .
So it makes a heck of a lot of sense for me .
I think we ’ re going to have to get to that point in this country .
I really believe that .
It ’ s going to be a political battle ... they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ names .
But who cares ?
We ’ ve got to take care of children and our families .
The End of White Politics by Zerlina Maxwell Say It Louder !
by Tiffany Cross Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

In 2019, about one in six children in America — 12 million kids nationwide — lived in poverty. That’s a rate about two or three times higher than in peer countries. And that was before the worst economic and public health crisis in modern history.
The scale of child poverty in America is a disgrace, not only because of the suffering it creates and the potential it drains from our society, but also because it’s easily avoidable. Child poverty is not an inevitability; it’s a policy choice. And we’ve been making the wrong choice for far too long.
So for the second episode of our economic remobilization series on The Ezra Klein Show, I wanted to focus on a simple set of questions: What if we started taking our moral responsibility to America’s kids seriously? What would that world look like? How would we get there?
Rep. Barbara Lee is the chair of the Majority Leader Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity — and she’s someone who raised two kids, as a single mom on public assistance. In 2015, Lee and her colleague Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard commissioned a landmark report from the National Academy of Sciences to better understand child poverty in America and what we could do to reduce it. Released last year, the report lays out a series of concrete policy proposals that would cut child poverty in half while paying for themselves 10 times over in social benefits.
In this conversation, Lee and I discuss the psychological impact that poverty has on kids, why investing in children is one of the best investments a society can make, what other countries do right on this front that we can learn from, what it would take to end child poverty as we know it, and much more — including why Lee, a hero to many progressives, was an early backer of now-VP nominee Kamala Harris.
An edited excerpt from our conversation follows. The full conversation can be heard on The Ezra Klein Show.
This podcast is part of a larger Vox project called The Great Rebuild, which is made possible thanks to support from Omidyar Network, a social impact venture that works to reimagine critical systems and the ideas that govern them, and to build more inclusive and equitable societies. All Great Rebuild coverage is editorially independent and produced by our journalists.
Ezra Klein
In 2015, you commissioned a National Academy of Sciences report on child poverty. What inspired you to do that?
Rep. Barbara Lee
When you look at the poverty rates in America, especially for Black and brown children, they’re off the scale. It’s shameful.
You’re looking at 31 percent of American Indians living below the poverty line, 29 percent of African American children, 23 percent of Latinx children, 11 percent of AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] children, 9 percent of white children. These are statistics from 2018, which shows that over 12 million children were living in poverty. And, of course, now because of Covid-19, the numbers are even worse.
So we wanted the National Academy to conduct a study on how to cut child poverty in half in the next 10 years. The highlights from the study are very important because it’s a road map for legislative and funding priorities for the House of Representatives.
Ezra Klein
One of the parts of the report that I found really striking was that it identified two mechanisms through which growing up in poverty can affect children. The first one, which I think is intuitive to people, is investment. Not enough health care resources, sometimes not enough food, not a stimulating environment, not as much support of child care, and on and on.
But the other one is stress — the wear and terror of environmental stressors, a fear of instability, of being evicted that changes children’s cognitive development. Can you talk a bit about that dimension of it?
Rep. Barbara Lee
My background is in clinical social work, so I really understand how stress weighs on children as a result of these social determinants. Many children who live in low-income communities, especially in Black and brown communities, are traumatized by their experiences.
Trauma leads to stress, which leads to acting out. Some young people are having a very difficult time. You see the high rates of suicide with young, especially young African American teenagers. There’s a lot of mental health trauma that is associated with the environmental factors of being poor. And it’s a moral disgrace that we don’t look out for our children — that we don’t address the environmental factors and the social determinants of their lives. Because you have to do that to make sure children don’t get stressed out or have breakdowns or end up getting shot or end up in juvenile hall. That could lead to some terrible outcomes.
Children living in this country, for the most part, if you’re not middle income or upper income, you really have a hard time. You really have a hard time. And then you have to deal with living in close quarters of the cost of living in some communities. The cost of housing is so high. No child should have to live like this.
Ezra Klein
What would our social policy look like if we truly invested in kids?
Rep. Barbara Lee
First, I think that every family should be guaranteed a universal income. No one should have to live below the poverty line. And we certainly have enough resources in this country to guarantee income. Second, we should have universal preschool for every child. We should make it affordable or free. Third, we should focus on food security in terms of either increasing SNAP benefits or some type of strategy that addresses food deserts and makes sure that food is easily accessible and healthy.
We need to support Medicare-for-all: universal affordable health care. I think single-payer would be a heck of a lot more comprehensive in terms of addressing health care for children. We need to make sure that our child care workers are trained, that they have benefits and are unionized.
We should start valuing the dignity of all human beings and setting up policies that provide for a basic standard of living, which we do not do in this country.
Ezra Klein
One of the things that’s striking to me about that list is that we already do a huge amount of that for seniors. There is Medicare, a universal health care program. There’s Social Security, which looks a lot like a universal basic income for seniors. The people who work with seniors through Medicare are very highly trained.
We have this much more social democratic system for seniors, which we should, but we somehow have not expanded almost any of that to children, or, for that matter, parents of children. Why do you think there’s been so much more success extending this kind of policy to America’s elderly and not to American children?
Rep. Barbara Lee
First, I think we need to do more for seniors. We still haven’t totally stepped up to what we need to do for people in the twilight of their lives.
I think we have to talk about values, the values of human life and human dignity, regardless of how old you are. The Children’s Defense Fund and other organizations have been very active lobbyists for children, but I don’t see the type of money being put into lobbying for legislation that directly would lift children out of poverty that I have seen over the years when it comes to our senior citizens. And thank goodness our seniors have an active lobby in Washington, DC, through AARP and other senior groups.
I think it all has to do with valuing human life and human dignity. There are some who just don’t think children deserve what they need at the beginning of their lives so that they can move forward and be productive human beings and live healthy lives and take care of themselves. So many are denied that opportunity.
Ezra Klein
One of the policies the report emphasizes that people may not be as familiar with is a child allowance: a universal basic income for kids. And the report finds that a $2,700-a-year child allowance would singlehandedly cut child poverty by a third. That’s a big effect. And it’s something that a lot of European countries have. Could you talk a bit about that as a policy option?
Rep. Barbara Lee
This is a guaranteed paycheck. When you have a child allowance such as this, then you have the resources to help you pay for child care or help pay some of your utility bills, or help you buy more food. And when you look at the cost-benefit analysis, it actually reduces the amount of taxpayer dollars that go for the social safety net. So it makes a heck of a lot of sense for me.
I think we’re going to have to get to that point in this country. I really believe that. It’s going to be a political battle ... they’re going call us all kinds of names. But who cares? We’ve got to take care of children and our families.
Barbara Lee’s book recommendations
The End of White Politics by Zerlina Maxwell
Say It Louder! by Tiffany Cross
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-20--The post office arrested Steve Bannon. Yes, the post office can arrest people.

The US Postal Service is out to deliver justice against former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon .
It may not have come as a shock that Bannon , often described as a grifter , was allegedly caught up in a scheme to defraud donors to a crowdfunding campaign that promised to construct a wall on the US-Mexico border .
But it was a surprise to some that the USPS , the same agency that President Donald Trump has tried to cripple ahead of an expected surge of mail-in ballots in November , carried out his arrest on a $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coast of Connecticut Thursday morning : These aren ’ t your everyday mail carriers : They are part and parcel of an elite police unit known as the US Postal Inspection Service ( USPIS ) , which has been fighting crime since the mail fraud statute was enacted in 1872 .
There are about 1,200 such postal inspectors who carry weapons , make arrests , execute federal search warrants , and serve subpoenas .
They have even inspired a CBS series , “ The Inspectors.
” All agents must complete a 16-week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fitness , and defensive tactics .
In 2019 , they made 5,759 arrests and 4,995 convictions related to postal crimes , according to USPS .
“ They say , ‘ Oh , you ’ re a lot like the FBI.
’ And I like to tell them , ‘ No , the FBI is a lot like us , ’ ” one USPIS agent says in a recruiting video : They often team up with other federal , state , and local authorities to investigate mail theft , fraud , identity theft , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scams , and more .
Investigations sometimes span years .
In Bannon ’ s case , they collaborated with Audrey Strauss , the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York .
It ’ s not immediately clear why the USPIS got involved since neither of the charges levied against Bannon — conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud — appear to be directly related to the mail , and the USPIS declined to comment on their investigation of Bannon , which is ongoing .
The inspector in charge of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Philip Bartlett , said in a statement that Bannon ’ s indictment should send a message to other fraudsters : “ No one is above the law.
” “ The defendants allegedly engaged in fraud when they misrepresented the true use of donated funds , ” Bartlett said .
“ As alleged , not only did they lie to donors , they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes , showing no regard for the law or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just sell stamps — it also acts to stamp out crime .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we ’ re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ @ @

The US Postal Service is out to deliver justice against former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
It may not have come as a shock that Bannon, often described as a grifter, was allegedly caught up in a scheme to defraud donors to a crowdfunding campaign that promised to construct a wall on the US-Mexico border.
But it was a surprise to some that the USPS, the same agency that President Donald Trump has tried to cripple ahead of an expected surge of mail-in ballots in November, carried out his arrest on a $28 million megayacht called Lady May off the coast of Connecticut Thursday morning:
The Postal Service has police? That’s really pushing the envelope. — Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) August 20, 2020
These aren’t your everyday mail carriers: They are part and parcel of an elite police unit known as the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), which has been fighting crime since the mail fraud statute was enacted in 1872. There are about 1,200 such postal inspectors who carry weapons, make arrests, execute federal search warrants, and serve subpoenas. They have even inspired a CBS series, “The Inspectors.”
All agents must complete a 16-week training program that covers firearms, physical fitness, and defensive tactics. In 2019, they made 5,759 arrests and 4,995 convictions related to postal crimes, according to USPS.
“They say, ‘Oh, you’re a lot like the FBI.’ And I like to tell them, ‘No, the FBI is a lot like us,’” one USPIS agent says in a recruiting video:
They often team up with other federal, state, and local authorities to investigate mail theft, fraud, identity theft, narcotics cases, opioid investigations, lottery scams, and more. Investigations sometimes span years.
In Bannon’s case, they collaborated with Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York. It’s not immediately clear why the USPIS got involved since neither of the charges levied against Bannon — conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud — appear to be directly related to the mail, and the USPIS declined to comment on their investigation of Bannon.
The inspector in charge of the New York division of postal inspectors, Philip Bartlett, said in a statement that Bannon’s indictment should send a message to other fraudsters: “No one is above the law.”
“The defendants allegedly engaged in fraud when they misrepresented the true use of donated funds,” Bartlett said. “As alleged, not only did they lie to donors, they schemed to hide their misappropriation of funds by creating sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up their crimes, showing no regard for the law or the truth.”
Clearly, the USPS doesn’t just sell stamps — it also acts to stamp out crime.
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-08-20--The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too

The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China ’ s wet markets , just like SARS before it .
Unsurprisingly , many people are furious that the markets , which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China , have already reopened .
It ’ s easy to point the finger at these “ foreign ” places and blame them for generating pandemics .
But doing that ignores one crucial fact : The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s because we eat a ton of meat , and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms .
In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America ’ s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions .
“ When we overcrowd animals by the thousands , in cramped football-field-size sheds , to lie beak to beak or snout to snout , and there ’ s stress crippling their immune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the decomposing waste burning their lungs , and there ’ s a lack of fresh air and sunlight — put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease , “ said Michael Greger , the author of Bird Flu : A Virus of Our Own Hatching .
To make matters worse , selection for specific genes in farmed animals ( for desirable traits like large chicken breasts ) has made these animals almost genetically identical .
That means that a virus can easily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any genetic variants that might stop it in its tracks .
As it rips through a flock or herd , the virus can grow even more virulent .
Greger puts it bluntly : “ If you actually want to create global pandemics , then build factory farms.
” For years , expert bodies like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been warning that most emerging infectious diseases come from animals and that our industrialized farming practices are ratcheting up the risk .
“ Livestock health is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chain , ” noted the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in a 2013 report .
We know from past experience that farmed animals can lead to serious zoonotic diseases ( those transmitted from animals to humans ) .
Just think back to 2009 , when the H1N1 swine flu circulated in pig farms in North America , then jumped to humans .
That novel influenza quickly became a global pandemic , killing hundreds of thousands of people .
To be clear , scientists believe the novel coronavirus originated in wild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it has awakened us all to the crushing effect a pandemic can have on our lives .
Now that we ’ ve come face to face with this reality , the question is : Do we have the political and cultural will to do something major — changing the way we eat — to sharply decrease the likelihood of the next pandemic ?
What we talk about when we talk about pandemics When we talk about the risk of pandemics , we ’ re actually talking about two different types of outbreaks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ examples include the 1918 influenza pandemic and Covid-19 .
The second is a bacterial pandemic ; the prime example is the bubonic plague , the “ Black Death ” that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages .
Factory farming presents a risk in both these categories .
Sonia Shah , author of the 2017 book Pandemic , worries about viruses and bacteria alike .
“ When I was writing my book , I asked my sources what keeps them awake at night .
They usually had two answers : virulent avian influenza and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” she told me .
“ Both those things are driven by the crowding in factory farms .
These are ticking time bombs.
” Let ’ s focus on avian influenza first .
Bird flu is caused by viruses and it ’ s a massive risk coming out of factory farms ( as is swine flu ) .
That ’ s both because the birds in these farms are squeezed together by the thousands in close proximity and because they ’ re bred to be almost identical genetically .
That ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerge , spread , and kill rapidly .
“ Factory farms are the best way to select for the most dangerous pathogens possible , ” said Rob Wallace , an evolutionary biologist at the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps in St. Paul , Minnesota .
To explain why , he offered a crash course in zoonotic transmission , from the point of view of the pathogen .
“ If you ’ re a pathogen in a host , ” Wallace said , “ you don ’ t want to kill your host @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next host — otherwise you ’ re cutting off your own line of transmission .
So there ’ s a cap on how much of a badass you can be .
The faster you replicate , the more likely you end up killing your host before the next host can come along.
” If you ’ re deep in the wilderness or on a small farm , you ( the pathogen ) are not going to regularly come across hosts , so you ’ ve got to keep your virulence , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low so that you don ’ t run out of hosts .
“ But if you get into a barn with 15,000 turkeys or 250,000 layer chickens , you can just burn right through , ” Wallace said .
“ There ’ s no cap on your being a badass.
” This is part of why factory farms are a bigger risk for zoonotic outbreaks than the natural world or small farms .
The biologist added that because we ’ re increasingly trading poultry and livestock across international borders , we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Strains that were previously isolated from each other on opposite sides of the world can now recombine .
“ Take influenza , ” Wallace said .
“ It has a segmented genome , so it trades its genomic parts like card players on a Saturday night .
Usually , most hands are not too terrible , but some hands come out much more dangerous .
An increase in the rate of recombination means an explosion in terms of the diversity of pathogens that are evolving.
” The world has already seen a really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 2006 , highly pathogenic strains of H5N1 bird flu were linked to poultry farms in China .
“ Our entire understanding of how bad a pandemic could potentially be changed in 1997 with the emergence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus .
All of a sudden , there was a flu virus that was killing over half the people it infected , ” Greger said .
When people became infected with H5N1 , it had a 60 percent mortality rate .
For comparison , experts estimate that Covid-19 ’ s mortality rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 percent to 3 percent , though these estimates continue to evolve and vary widely by country and by age .
( If you ’ re wondering why H5N1 didn ’ t become as big a deal as Covid-19 , it ’ s because it mostly infected poultry rather than people ; it wasn ’ t as good at infecting humans as the coronavirus unfortunately is . )
“ These new bird flu viruses have been tied to the industrialization — the ‘ Tysonization ’ — of our poultry production , ” Greger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ factory farming model to Asia led to an unprecedented explosion of viruses infecting birds and people starting in the 1990s .
It ’ s not only birds we need to worry about .
Remember that pigs are also highly effective carriers of viruses .
A decade before the swine flu struck in 2009 , the Nipah virus emerged in Malaysian pig farms .
It caused encephalitis ( inflammation of the brain ) in hundreds of people , killing about 40 percent of the patients who were hospitalized with serious neurological disease .
Factory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resistance The other pandemic risk associated with factory farms has to do with “ highly drug-resistant forms of bacterial pathogens , ” as Shah put it — that is , antibiotic resistance .
When a new antibiotic is introduced , it can have great , even life-saving results — for a while .
But as we start to use and overuse antibiotics in the treatment of humans , crops , and animals , the bacteria evolve , with those that have a mutation to survive the antibiotic becoming more dominant .
Gradually , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re left with a disease that we can no longer treat .
The CDC warned in a major report last year that the post-antibiotic era is already here : We ’ re living in a time when our antibiotics are becoming useless and drug-resistant bugs , like C. difficile and N. gonorrhoeae , can all too easily decimate our health .
Every 15 minutes , one person in the US dies because of an infection that antibiotics can no longer treat effectively .
Yet we continue to dole out too many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmers use antibiotics copiously on livestock and poultry , sometimes to compensate for poor industrial farming conditions .
“ We have abundant evidence documenting the fact that when you put animals in crowded , unsanitary conditions and use low-dose antibiotics for disease prevention , you set up a perfect incubator for spontaneous mutations in the DNA of the bacteria , ” said Robert Lawrence , a professor emeritus of environmental health at John Hopkins University .
“ With more spontaneous mutations , ” he explained , “ the odds increase that one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ antibiotic that ’ s present in the environment.
” Those resistant bacteria could become strains that spread all over the world .
“ That ’ s the biggest human health risk of factory farms.
” In fact , factory farming presents us with a double bacterial risk .
Say a bacterial outbreak emerges among chickens .
The poultry can pass that bacteria on to us humans , causing serious infection .
We ’ d normally then want to use antibiotics to treat that infection , but precisely because we ’ ve already overused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bacteria may be resistant to the antibiotic .
If the infection happens to be one that transmits well between people , we can end up with an untreatable bacterial pandemic .
When asked how he ’ d compare the pandemic risks posed by factory farms with those posed by China ’ s wet markets carrying live animals , Lawrence said , “ With factory farming , the opportunity to start a viral pandemic may be less , but the opportunity for acquiring an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection is greater.
” Factory farms also put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including from coronavirus Another distressing reality of factory farming is the way it tends to treat not only animals but also human workers as widgets in a large machine .
The mistreatment of laborers was a problem long before Covid-19 , but the current pandemic has thrown the problem into especially sharp relief .
We ’ ve seen a jump in the number of coronavirus cases among workers at meat plants in the US .
Thousands of people have tested positive at major plants , in states from Pennsylvania to South Dakota .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported that in one case , a city mayor had to actually force Smithfield to close a plant : “ The count of positive coronavirus tests among employees at the Sioux Falls plant reached 350 .
It represented almost 10 percent of all workers at the plant , and 40 percent of all Covid-19 cases in South Dakota.
” Laborers in meat plants are typically stationed very close together along processing lines , which makes social distancing all but impossible .
Some workers have staged walkouts over the working conditions .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but Covid-19 is killing them .
And it ’ s obvious why : They have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their coworkers while the rest of us are six feet apart , ” said Leah Garcés , the president of Mercy for Animals .
Knowing that the country ’ s meat is being produced on the backs of laborers who are mistreated , we ’ ve got to ask : Is it really worth it ?
For Garcés , the answer is clear .
“ It ’ s a ridiculous sacrifice to make for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How can we build a better food system post-coronavirus ?
In the US , where meat has become entwined with national identity and the average citizen consumes more than 200 pounds of meat a year , most people are probably not going to give up meat entirely .
So it ’ s worth asking : Is there a way to do livestock farming that diminishes the threat of zoonotic disease ?
And perhaps , in the process , also diminishes other problems with industrialized farming , like the impact on climate change and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes .
We can absolutely have a meat production system that is better for human health , the climate , and animal welfare — if we ’ re willing to abandon factory farming .
“ The de-intensification of the livestock industry would go a long way toward reducing pandemic risk , ” Greger said .
“ I mean decreasing long-distance live animal transport , moving toward a carcass-only trade , and having smaller and less-crowded farms .
Basically , the animals could use a little social distancing , too.
” Greger said we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where pigs are kept in spaces so small they can ’ t even turn around .
“ Even measures as simple as providing straw beddings for pigs can cut down on swine flu transmission rates , ” he noted , “ because they don ’ t have the immunosuppressant stress of living on bare concrete their whole lives.
” “ The animals could use a little social distancing , too ” We also need to reintroduce more biodiversity into our farms .
Raising animals that are slightly different from each other genetically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) will build in immunological firebreaks to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases , Wallace said , adding , “ On a very practical level , I would farm completely the opposite of how they ’ re doing it now.
” By “ they , ” he means factory farms .
There are plenty of farmers who already prefer other methods , like regenerative agriculture , but who may lack the support they need to execute them because agribusiness has a lock-hold on many rural communities .
“ There ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the system works and object to it but just can ’ t get off the treadmill , ” Wallace said .
He suspects the pandemic is giving the issue new salience .
It may also shift mindsets around existing plans to stop factory farming , like the legislation proposed by Sen. Cory Booker ( D-NJ ) to impose a moratorium on the US ’ s biggest factory farms and phase them out altogether by 2040 .
In March , as the Covid-19 pandemic gained traction , the conservative magazine National Review carried a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this issue with an open mind , you ’ ll agree that ending factory farms is a good idea — even if Cory Booker thinks that it is.
” Moving away from industrialized farming can reduce the likelihood of a zoonotic outbreak , but to really remove the threat , Greger said we should be accelerating the movement toward plant-based meat , milk , and egg products .
Americans were already getting excited about plant-based products before the coronavirus came along , and the pandemic is driving even more interest , both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now under some strain and because of a growing awareness that factory farming is a pandemic risk .
Impossible Foods announced on April 16 that it ’ s expanding sales of its meatless burgers to 750 more grocery stores in the US .
“ We ’ ve always planned on a dramatic surge in retail for 2020 — but with more and more Americans eating at home , we ’ ve received requests from retailers and consumers alike , ” said the company ’ s president Dennis Woodside in an emailed statement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ record sales of Impossible Burger in recent weeks.
” From Garcés ’ s perspective , increased public awareness of the link between factory farms and pandemics is a silver lining to the horrible Covid-19 pandemic .
“ In my whole career , I ’ m not sure we ’ ve had a better chance than this to have the eyes of the nation and the world on the way we ’ re using animals in our food system and the risk that puts to us as a species , ” she said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ alarm bells for a long time .
My deep hope is that now people will make the connection — factory farming is a catastrophic risk to our species — and that this permanently changes our behavior in the long term.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China’s wet markets, just like SARS before it. Unsurprisingly, many people are furious that the markets, which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China, have already reopened. It’s easy to point the finger at these “foreign” places and blame them for generating pandemics. But doing that ignores one crucial fact: The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a major risk factor for pandemics, too.
That’s because we eat a ton of meat, and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms. In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America’s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions.
“When we overcrowd animals by the thousands, in cramped football-field-size sheds, to lie beak to beak or snout to snout, and there’s stress crippling their immune systems, and there’s ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, and there’s a lack of fresh air and sunlight — put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease,“ said Michael Greger, the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.
Sign up for the Meat/Less newsletter course Want to eat less meat but don’t know where to start? Sign up for Vox’s five-day newsletter full of practical tips — and food for thought — to incorporate more plant-based food into your diet.
To make matters worse, selection for specific genes in farmed animals (for desirable traits like large chicken breasts) has made these animals almost genetically identical. That means that a virus can easily spread from animal to animal without encountering any genetic variants that might stop it in its tracks. As it rips through a flock or herd, the virus can grow even more virulent.
Greger puts it bluntly: “If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.”
For years, expert bodies like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been warning that most emerging infectious diseases come from animals and that our industrialized farming practices are ratcheting up the risk. “Livestock health is the weakest link in our global health chain,” noted the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in a 2013 report.
We know from past experience that farmed animals can lead to serious zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans). Just think back to 2009, when the H1N1 swine flu circulated in pig farms in North America, then jumped to humans. That novel influenza quickly became a global pandemic, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
To be clear, scientists believe the novel coronavirus originated in wild bats, not factory farms. But it has awakened us all to the crushing effect a pandemic can have on our lives. Now that we’ve come face to face with this reality, the question is: Do we have the political and cultural will to do something major — changing the way we eat — to sharply decrease the likelihood of the next pandemic?
What we talk about when we talk about pandemics
When we talk about the risk of pandemics, we’re actually talking about two different types of outbreaks. The first is a viral pandemic; examples include the 1918 influenza pandemic and Covid-19. The second is a bacterial pandemic; the prime example is the bubonic plague, the “Black Death” that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages.
Factory farming presents a risk in both these categories.
Sonia Shah, author of the 2017 book Pandemic, worries about viruses and bacteria alike. “When I was writing my book, I asked my sources what keeps them awake at night. They usually had two answers: virulent avian influenza and highly drug-resistant forms of bacterial pathogens,” she told me. “Both those things are driven by the crowding in factory farms. These are ticking time bombs.”
Related Our environmental practices make pandemics like the coronavirus more likely
Let’s focus on avian influenza first. Bird flu is caused by viruses and it’s a massive risk coming out of factory farms (as is swine flu). That’s both because the birds in these farms are squeezed together by the thousands in close proximity and because they’re bred to be almost identical genetically. That’s a recipe for a highly virulent virus to emerge, spread, and kill rapidly.
“Factory farms are the best way to select for the most dangerous pathogens possible,” said Rob Wallace, an evolutionary biologist at the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps in St. Paul, Minnesota. To explain why, he offered a crash course in zoonotic transmission, from the point of view of the pathogen.
“If you’re a pathogen in a host,” Wallace said, “you don’t want to kill your host too fast before you can get into the next host — otherwise you’re cutting off your own line of transmission. So there’s a cap on how much of a badass you can be. The faster you replicate, the more likely you end up killing your host before the next host can come along.”
If you’re deep in the wilderness or on a small farm, you (the pathogen) are not going to regularly come across hosts, so you’ve got to keep your virulence, or harm inflicted on the host, pretty low so that you don’t run out of hosts. “But if you get into a barn with 15,000 turkeys or 250,000 layer chickens, you can just burn right through,” Wallace said. “There’s no cap on your being a badass.”
This is part of why factory farms are a bigger risk for zoonotic outbreaks than the natural world or small farms.
The biologist added that because we’re increasingly trading poultry and livestock across international borders, we’re ramping up the danger even more. Strains that were previously isolated from each other on opposite sides of the world can now recombine.
“Take influenza,” Wallace said. “It has a segmented genome, so it trades its genomic parts like card players on a Saturday night. Usually, most hands are not too terrible, but some hands come out much more dangerous. An increase in the rate of recombination means an explosion in terms of the diversity of pathogens that are evolving.”
The world has already seen a really frightening example of this. Between 1997 and 2006, highly pathogenic strains of H5N1 bird flu were linked to poultry farms in China.
“Our entire understanding of how bad a pandemic could potentially be changed in 1997 with the emergence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus. All of a sudden, there was a flu virus that was killing over half the people it infected,” Greger said.
When people became infected with H5N1, it had a 60 percent mortality rate. For comparison, experts estimate that Covid-19’s mortality rate is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 percent to 3 percent, though these estimates continue to evolve and vary widely by country and by age. (If you’re wondering why H5N1 didn’t become as big a deal as Covid-19, it’s because it mostly infected poultry rather than people; it wasn’t as good at infecting humans as the coronavirus unfortunately is.)
“These new bird flu viruses have been tied to the industrialization — the ‘Tysonization’ — of our poultry production,” Greger said, citing evidence that exporting the factory farming model to Asia led to an unprecedented explosion of viruses infecting birds and people starting in the 1990s.
It’s not only birds we need to worry about. Remember that pigs are also highly effective carriers of viruses. A decade before the swine flu struck in 2009, the Nipah virus emerged in Malaysian pig farms. It caused encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in hundreds of people, killing about 40 percent of the patients who were hospitalized with serious neurological disease.
Factory farming and the urgent problem of antibiotic resistance
The other pandemic risk associated with factory farms has to do with “highly drug-resistant forms of bacterial pathogens,” as Shah put it — that is, antibiotic resistance.
When a new antibiotic is introduced, it can have great, even life-saving results — for a while. But as we start to use and overuse antibiotics in the treatment of humans, crops, and animals, the bacteria evolve, with those that have a mutation to survive the antibiotic becoming more dominant. Gradually, the antibiotic becomes less effective, and we’re left with a disease that we can no longer treat.
The CDC warned in a major report last year that the post-antibiotic era is already here: We’re living in a time when our antibiotics are becoming useless and drug-resistant bugs, like C. difficile and N. gonorrhoeae, can all too easily decimate our health. Every 15 minutes, one person in the US dies because of an infection that antibiotics can no longer treat effectively.
Yet we continue to dole out too many antibiotics, driving the resistance. Animal farmers use antibiotics copiously on livestock and poultry, sometimes to compensate for poor industrial farming conditions.
“We have abundant evidence documenting the fact that when you put animals in crowded, unsanitary conditions and use low-dose antibiotics for disease prevention, you set up a perfect incubator for spontaneous mutations in the DNA of the bacteria,” said Robert Lawrence, a professor emeritus of environmental health at John Hopkins University.
“With more spontaneous mutations,” he explained, “the odds increase that one of those mutations will provide resistance to the antibiotic that’s present in the environment.” Those resistant bacteria could become strains that spread all over the world. “That’s the biggest human health risk of factory farms.”
In fact, factory farming presents us with a double bacterial risk. Say a bacterial outbreak emerges among chickens. The poultry can pass that bacteria on to us humans, causing serious infection. We’d normally then want to use antibiotics to treat that infection, but precisely because we’ve already overused antibiotics on our farmed animals, the bacteria may be resistant to the antibiotic. If the infection happens to be one that transmits well between people, we can end up with an untreatable bacterial pandemic.
When asked how he’d compare the pandemic risks posed by factory farms with those posed by China’s wet markets carrying live animals, Lawrence said, “With factory farming, the opportunity to start a viral pandemic may be less, but the opportunity for acquiring an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection is greater.”
Factory farms also put their workers’ health at risk — including from coronavirus
Another distressing reality of factory farming is the way it tends to treat not only animals but also human workers as widgets in a large machine.
The mistreatment of laborers was a problem long before Covid-19, but the current pandemic has thrown the problem into especially sharp relief. We’ve seen a jump in the number of coronavirus cases among workers at meat plants in the US. Thousands of people have tested positive at major plants, in states from Pennsylvania to South Dakota. A few dozen have died.
In April, NPR reported that a city mayor had to force Smithfield to close a plant: “The count of positive coronavirus tests among employees at the Sioux Falls plant reached 350. It represented almost 10 percent of all workers at the plant, and 40 percent of all Covid-19 cases in South Dakota.”
Laborers in meat plants are typically stationed very close together along processing lines, which makes social distancing all but impossible. Some workers have staged walkouts over the working conditions.
“The companies need them to be present, but Covid-19 is killing them. And it’s obvious why: They have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their coworkers while the rest of us are six feet apart,” said Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals.
Knowing that the country’s meat is being produced on the backs of laborers who are mistreated, we’ve got to ask: Is it really worth it? For Garcés, the answer is clear. “It’s a ridiculous sacrifice to make for a chicken,” she said.
How can we build a better food system post-coronavirus?
In the US, where meat has become entwined with national identity and the average citizen consumes more than 200 pounds of meat a year, most people are probably not going to give up meat entirely. So it’s worth asking: Is there a way to do livestock farming that diminishes the threat of zoonotic disease? And perhaps, in the process, also diminishes other problems with industrialized farming, like the impact on climate change and cruelty to animals?
The answer is yes. We can absolutely have a meat production system that is better for human health, the climate, and animal welfare — if we’re willing to abandon factory farming.
“The de-intensification of the livestock industry would go a long way toward reducing pandemic risk,” Greger said. “I mean decreasing long-distance live animal transport, moving toward a carcass-only trade, and having smaller and less-crowded farms. Basically, the animals could use a little social distancing, too.”
Greger said we should abolish confinement practices like gestation crates, where pigs are kept in spaces so small they can’t even turn around. “Even measures as simple as providing straw beddings for pigs can cut down on swine flu transmission rates,” he noted, “because they don’t have the immunosuppressant stress of living on bare concrete their whole lives.”
“The animals could use a little social distancing, too”
We also need to reintroduce more biodiversity into our farms. Raising animals that are slightly different from each other genetically (rather than selecting for specific genes) will build in immunological firebreaks to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases, Wallace said, adding, “On a very practical level, I would farm completely the opposite of how they’re doing it now.”
By “they,” he means factory farms. There are plenty of farmers who already prefer other methods, like regenerative agriculture, but who may lack the support they need to execute them because agribusiness has a lock-hold on many rural communities.
“There’s a lot of farmers who completely understand how the system works and object to it but just can’t get off the treadmill,” Wallace said. He suspects the pandemic is giving the issue new salience.
It may also shift mindsets around existing plans to stop factory farming, like the legislation proposed by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) to impose a moratorium on the US’s biggest factory farms and phase them out altogether by 2040. In March, as the Covid-19 pandemic gained traction, the conservative magazine National Review carried a piece arguing that “if you reflect on this issue with an open mind, you’ll agree that ending factory farms is a good idea — even if Cory Booker thinks that it is.”
Moving away from industrialized farming can reduce the likelihood of a zoonotic outbreak, but to really remove the threat, Greger said we should be accelerating the movement toward plant-based meat, milk, and egg products.
Related Demand for meatless meat is skyrocketing during the pandemic
Americans were already getting excited about plant-based products before the coronavirus came along, and the pandemic is driving even more interest, both because the traditional meat supply chain is now under some strain and because of a growing awareness that factory farming is a pandemic risk.
Impossible Foods announced on April 16 that it’s expanding sales of its meatless burgers to 750 more grocery stores in the US. “We’ve always planned on a dramatic surge in retail for 2020 — but with more and more Americans eating at home, we’ve received requests from retailers and consumers alike,” said the company’s president Dennis Woodside in an emailed statement. “Our existing retail partners have achieved record sales of Impossible Burger in recent weeks.”
From Garcés’s perspective, increased public awareness of the link between factory farms and pandemics is a silver lining to the horrible Covid-19 pandemic. “In my whole career, I’m not sure we’ve had a better chance than this to have the eyes of the nation and the world on the way we’re using animals in our food system and the risk that puts to us as a species,” she said.
“We’ve been ringing the alarm bells for a long time. My deep hope is that now people will make the connection — factory farming is a catastrophic risk to our species — and that this permanently changes our behavior in the long term.”


vox--2020-08-20--How to watch Joe Biden accept the 2020 Democratic nomination for president

Former Vice President Joe Biden will formally accept the Democratic nomination for president Wednesday night , issuing an address on the final night of the party ’ s national convention .
Although it ’ s been long settled , Biden ’ s speech will mark the official end of the Democratic primary — and the moment the party will turn its full attention toward defeating President Donald Trump in November ’ s general election .
His address will close out the 2020 Democratic National Convention , starting at around 10:40 pm ET .
Beginning at 9 pm ET , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major television networks , social media sites like Facebook , Twitter , and YouTube , and streaming services such as Apple TV and Roku .
The convention will also be streamed live from the DNC ’ s website .
The theme of Thursday ’ s convention is “ America ’ s Promise , ” which is meant to convey Biden ’ s character and experience , as well as his vision of America .
The evening will also seek to highlight Biden ’ s past not only as a former vice president but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defender .
It ’ s on this record that Biden ran his primary campaign ; as Vox ’ s Dylan Matthews noted , during that contest he “ focused more on personality and the lineage of the Obama administration than on long policy papers of the kind [ Sens .
Bernie ] Sanders and Elizabeth Warren liked to release.
” He also repeatedly stressed that he was running to restore “ the soul of the country , the character of our people.
” While Biden has unveiled a sweeping policy agenda in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ character will be on full display Thursday , particularly as the speakers preceding him work to paint stark differences between Biden and the man currently occupying the White House .
They ’ re expected to do so by speaking about their relationships with Biden — as well as by discussing Democratic initiatives meant to end inequality and expand access to the American dream .
As with previous nights , that speaker lineup will feature speeches by several of Biden ’ s former primary opponents , including Sen. Cory Booker ( D-NJ ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pete Buttigieg , former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg , and entrepreneur Andrew Yang .
California Gov .
Gavin Newsom and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will also deliver remarks — as will Sens .
Tammy Baldwin ( D-WI ) , Tammy Duckworth ( D-IL ) , and Chris Coons ( D-DE ) .
Will you become our 20,000th supporter ?
When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions , we weren ’ t sure how it would go .
Today , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 20,000 people have chipped in .
The reason is both lovely and surprising : Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it , too .
We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy .
That ’ s never been more important than today , during a public health crisis , racial justice protests , a recession , and a presidential election .
But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive , and advertising alone won ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the quality and volume this moment requires .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will help keep Vox free for all .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

Former Vice President Joe Biden will formally accept the Democratic nomination for president Wednesday night, issuing an address on the final night of the party’s national convention.
Although it’s been long settled, Biden’s speech will mark the official end of the Democratic primary — and the moment the party will turn its full attention toward defeating President Donald Trump in November’s general election. His address will close out the 2020 Democratic National Convention, starting at around 10:40 pm ET.
Beginning at 9 pm ET, the Democratic convention will be broadcast on all major television networks, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and streaming services such as Apple TV and Roku. The convention will also be streamed live from the DNC’s website.
The theme of Thursday’s convention is “America’s Promise,” which is meant to convey Biden’s character and experience, as well as his vision of America. The evening will also seek to highlight Biden’s past not only as a former vice president but also as a longtime legislator and public defender.
It’s on this record that Biden ran his primary campaign; as Vox’s Dylan Matthews noted, during that contest he “focused more on personality and the lineage of the Obama administration than on long policy papers of the kind [Sens. Bernie] Sanders and Elizabeth Warren liked to release.” He also repeatedly stressed that he was running to restore “the soul of the country, the character of our people.”
While Biden has unveiled a sweeping policy agenda in recent months, the themes of personality and character will be on full display Thursday, particularly as the speakers preceding him work to paint stark differences between Biden and the man currently occupying the White House. They’re expected to do so by speaking about their relationships with Biden — as well as by discussing Democratic initiatives meant to end inequality and expand access to the American dream.
As with previous nights, that speaker lineup will feature speeches by several of Biden’s former primary opponents, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will also deliver remarks — as will Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Chris Coons (D-DE).
Will you become our 20,000th supporter? When the economy took a downturn in the spring and we started asking readers for financial contributions, we weren’t sure how it would go. Today, we’re humbled to say that nearly 20,000 people have chipped in. The reason is both lovely and surprising: Readers told us that they contribute both because they value explanation and because they value that other people can access it, too. We have always believed that explanatory journalism is vital for a functioning democracy. That’s never been more important than today, during a public health crisis, racial justice protests, a recession, and a presidential election. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive, and advertising alone won’t let us keep creating it at the quality and volume this moment requires. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will help keep Vox free for all. Contribute today from as little as $3.