democracynow--2020-09-16--Continue to Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor's Family Wants Cops Arrested After Historic $12M Settlement

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re beginning today ’ s report in Louisville .
More than six months after police in Louisville , Kentucky , shot and killed 26-year-old Black emergency room technician Breonna Taylor in her own apartment , the city announced Tuesday it ’ ll pay her family a historic $ 12 million settlement and institute a slew of reforms to the police department responsible for her death .
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the news at a press conference with Breonna Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The mayor also named a dozen changes to policing in Louisville , including more oversight from top commanders and an early-warning system to identify police officers accused of brutality .
The settlement is one of the largest amounts to ever be paid for a Black woman killed by the police and comes after the summer uprising in defense of Black Lives Matter .
Breonna Taylor was made a household name throughout those protests .
But the officers who entered her apartment with a no-knock warrant and killed her on March 13th still have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demands of the family .
This is Breonna Taylor ’ s family attorney Benjamin Crump speaking during the joint news conference with the mayor of Louisville .
BENJAMIN CRUMP : It has been so long getting to this day , where we could assure that Breonna Taylor ’ s life wouldn ’ t be swept under the rug like so many other Black women in America who have been killed by police , marginalized .
So I am grateful to the actions of the city of Louisville today .
And it is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which , as I understand , is the largest amount ever paid out for a Black woman in a wrongful death killed by a police in America .
And , Lonita , I believe it may be the largest amount ever paid for a Black person in a police shooting .
We ’ re still trying to verify that .
And it is certainly , Tamika Mallory , one of the largest amounts ever paid out for any person in the way of settlement in a police killing in America .
… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When my great co-counsels from Kentucky , Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar , first talked to me about this Black woman who had been killed in her own apartment by this no-knock warrant , they were very concerned that nobody cared , nobody cared about this Black woman , nobody cared about Tamika ’ s baby .
And that ’ s when I started calling everybody I know to say that Black women ’ s lives matter , too .
… I was saying to anybody who would listen , “ Breonna Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kamala Harris was the first national elected official to go on national television and to say her name , Breonna Taylor .
… With what has happened today , Mayor Fischer , not just with the historic amount , but , equally important , with the reform that attorney Baker and attorney O ’ Connell spoke of , it sets a precedence for other Black women , that their lives won ’ t be marginalized , that they will be valued — lives like Sandra Bland ; lives like Pamela Turner in Baytown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stanley in Detroit , who also was killed as a result of a dangerous no-knock warrant — because we have to speak truth to power when we get an opportunity .
While most of America is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic , we in Black America are not only dealing with that pandemic , but we ’ re also dealing with the 1619 pandemic , the pandemic that started 401 years ago when the first enslaved Africans came to America .
And from that day to this one , we have been dealing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have killed us inside and outside the courtroom .
… Breonna Taylor is a light to help heal what ’ s happening in America , and for all those young people , those celebrities , athletes , but most importantly the people who are on the ground , the people who are the activists and protesters who are saying enough is enough .
… We also need our legislative partners to help transform the protest into policy .
We need Breonna ’ s Law not just in Louisville , not just in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States of America , because her life matters .
AMY GOODMAN : Breonna Taylor ’ s family attorney Benjamin Crump , speaking Tuesday .
Breonna ’ s mother , Tamika Palmer , also responded to the settlement .
TAMIKA PALMER : As significant as today is , it ’ s only the beginning of getting full justice for Breonna .
We must not lose focus on what the real drive is .
And with that being said , it ’ s time to move forward with the criminal charges , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Her beautiful spirit and personality is working through all of us on the ground .
So please continue to say her name : Breonna Taylor .
AMY GOODMAN : Joining Breonna Taylor ’ s family , their lawyer and the mayor at Tuesday ’ s press conference was activist Tamika Mallory .
TAMIKA MALLORY : A settlement is restitution , but it ’ s not arresting the cops .
And we want to say today that the police officers responsible for killing Breonna Taylor must be arrested , in order for the community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has shifted the atmosphere .
She ’ s shifted it not just here in Kentucky , but across the country .
The ban on no-knock warrants was where we begin in terms of great reform .
… The officers — Brett Hankison , Myles Cosgrove , Jon Mattingly , and Joshua Jaynes — must be arrested .
We can not forget about Joshua Jaynes , the man who lied on a no-knock warrant application that sent police officers charging into the home of Breonna Taylor and Kenny Walker .
We can not forget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if this police department is to do right by this community , if you know of other officers who were involved , they should be arrested and indicted immediately .
AMY GOODMAN : That was Tamika Mallory speaking at Tuesday ’ s news conference for Breonna Taylor , whose family will receive $ 12 million in a settlement with the city of Louisville .
When we come back , we ’ ll get response from journalist and author Mychal Denzel Smith , and we ’ ll also talk about the upcoming presidential election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ High : Life After the American Dream .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re beginning today’s report in Louisville. More than six months after police in Louisville, Kentucky, shot and killed 26-year-old Black emergency room technician Breonna Taylor in her own apartment, the city announced Tuesday it’ll pay her family a historic $12 million settlement and institute a slew of reforms to the police department responsible for her death. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the news at a press conference with Breonna Taylor’s family.
MAYOR GREG FISCHER: This settlement includes a payment to Breonna’s estate of $12 million.
AMY GOODMAN: The mayor also named a dozen changes to policing in Louisville, including more oversight from top commanders and an early-warning system to identify police officers accused of brutality. The settlement is one of the largest amounts to ever be paid for a Black woman killed by the police and comes after the summer uprising in defense of Black Lives Matter. Breonna Taylor was made a household name throughout those protests. But the officers who entered her apartment with a no-knock warrant and killed her on March 13th still have not been criminally charged, despite the demands of the family. This is Breonna Taylor’s family attorney Benjamin Crump speaking during the joint news conference with the mayor of Louisville.
BENJAMIN CRUMP: It has been so long getting to this day, where we could assure that Breonna Taylor’s life wouldn’t be swept under the rug like so many other Black women in America who have been killed by police, marginalized. So I am grateful to the actions of the city of Louisville today. And it is not just the historic $12 million settlement, which, as I understand, is the largest amount ever paid out for a Black woman in a wrongful death killed by a police in America. And, Lonita, I believe it may be the largest amount ever paid for a Black person in a police shooting. We’re still trying to verify that. And it is certainly, Tamika Mallory, one of the largest amounts ever paid out for any person in the way of settlement in a police killing in America. …
This is about setting a precedence. When my great co-counsels from Kentucky, Lonita Baker and Sam Aguiar, first talked to me about this Black woman who had been killed in her own apartment by this no-knock warrant, they were very concerned that nobody cared, nobody cared about this Black woman, nobody cared about Tamika’s baby. And that’s when I started calling everybody I know to say that Black women’s lives matter, too. … I was saying to anybody who would listen, “Breonna Taylor’s life matters.” And Senator Kamala Harris was the first national elected official to go on national television and to say her name, Breonna Taylor. …
With what has happened today, Mayor Fischer, not just with the historic amount, but, equally important, with the reform that attorney Baker and attorney O’Connell spoke of, it sets a precedence for other Black women, that their lives won’t be marginalized, that they will be valued — lives like Sandra Bland; lives like Pamela Turner in Baytown, Texas; lives like 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley in Detroit, who also was killed as a result of a dangerous no-knock warrant — because we have to speak truth to power when we get an opportunity.
And these dangerous no-knock warrants are disproportionately executed against Black people in America. And so, I’m very happy that the Metro Council also stood united with Tamika Palmer to pass Breonna’s Law to abolish these dangerous no-knock warrants, because it was foreseeable who was most being put in danger with these no-knock warrants. …
While most of America is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, we in Black America are not only dealing with that pandemic, but we’re also dealing with the 1619 pandemic, the pandemic that started 401 years ago when the first enslaved Africans came to America. And from that day to this one, we have been dealing with systematic racism and oppression, that have killed us inside and outside the courtroom. …
We still are demanding that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron bring charges immediately against the police officers that murdered Breonna Taylor. Immediately. This week. Justice delayed is justice denied. The city leadership has done a significant step today, but now it is on Daniel Cameron and the attorney general of Kentucky’s office to bring charges — and at the very minimum, Lonita, second-degree manslaughter charges. …
Breonna Taylor is a light to help heal what’s happening in America, and for all those young people, those celebrities, athletes, but most importantly the people who are on the ground, the people who are the activists and protesters who are saying enough is enough. … We also need our legislative partners to help transform the protest into policy. We need Breonna’s Law not just in Louisville, not just in the state of Kentucky, but all throughout the United States of America, because her life matters.
AMY GOODMAN: Breonna Taylor’s family attorney Benjamin Crump, speaking Tuesday. Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer, also responded to the settlement.
TAMIKA PALMER: As significant as today is, it’s only the beginning of getting full justice for Breonna. We must not lose focus on what the real drive is. And with that being said, it’s time to move forward with the criminal charges, because she deserves that and much more. Her beautiful spirit and personality is working through all of us on the ground. So please continue to say her name: Breonna Taylor.
SUPPORTERS: Breonna Taylor!
AMY GOODMAN: Joining Breonna Taylor’s family, their lawyer and the mayor at Tuesday’s press conference was activist Tamika Mallory.
TAMIKA MALLORY: A settlement is restitution, but it’s not arresting the cops. And we want to say today that the police officers responsible for killing Breonna Taylor must be arrested, in order for the community to feel calm. … Breonna Taylor has shifted the atmosphere. She’s shifted it not just here in Kentucky, but across the country. The ban on no-knock warrants was where we begin in terms of great reform. …
The officers — Brett Hankison, Myles Cosgrove, Jon Mattingly, and Joshua Jaynes — must be arrested. We cannot forget about Joshua Jaynes, the man who lied on a no-knock warrant application that sent police officers charging into the home of Breonna Taylor and Kenny Walker. We cannot forget about any of those officers. And if this police department is to do right by this community, if you know of other officers who were involved, they should be arrested and indicted immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Tamika Mallory speaking at Tuesday’s news conference for Breonna Taylor, whose family will receive $12 million in a settlement with the city of Louisville.
When we come back, we’ll get response from journalist and author Mychal Denzel Smith, and we’ll also talk about the upcoming presidential election and his new book, Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-09-16--Headlines for September 16, 2020

Headlines for September 16, 2020

In immigration news , a Cameroonian mother who says she was involuntarily sterilized while held at the privately owned Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia might be deported today .
Pauline Binam has lived in the United States since age 2 and has been detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement prison for nearly three years .
Last fall , Binam was reportedly subjected to invasive surgery on her reproductive organs , without her knowledge .
Binam ’ s looming deportation comes as whistleblower Dawn Wooten , who was a nurse at Irwin , has detailed how the jail performed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Human rights advocates have condemned the disturbing practices , saying forced sterilization amounts to genocide .
In related news , a key witness in an ongoing investigation into sexual assault and harassment allegations at an El Paso , Texas , immigrant prison has been deported .
The 35-year-old woman from Mexico had recently told her lawyers several guards “ forcibly ” kissed her , and at least one touched her intimate parts .
She ’ s one of at least three people who have come forward about the systematic sexual violence at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security ’ s Office of Inspector General launched a probe into the accusations after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune first reported them last month .

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, announced Tuesday it will pay the family of Breonna Taylor $12 million and institute a slew of reforms to the police department responsible for her death, more than six months after police shot and killed the 26-year-old Black emergency room technician in her own apartment. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the historic settlement at a press conference with Breonna Taylor’s family. Attorney Benjamin Crump welcomed the agreement but demanded the criminal prosecution of the officers who entered Taylor’s apartment with a no-knock warrant and killed her on March 13.
Benjamin Crump: “We still are demanding that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron bring charges immediately against the police officers that murdered Breonna Taylor. Immediately. This week. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
As part of the settlement, Louisville named a dozen changes to how its police department will operate, including more oversight from top commanders and an early-warning system to identify police officers accused of excessive force. We’ll have more on the police killing of Breonna Taylor after headlines.


democracynow--2020-09-15--Pandemic Profiteering: Amazon Caught Price Gouging as Jeff Bezos's Wealth Soared to $200 Billion

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
As the COVID-19 pandemic keeps many of us sheltering at home and shopping online , the online giant Amazon said Monday it will hire 100,000 more workers to meet growing demand .
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made an extraordinary amount of money during the crisis .
He saw his personal wealth increase by $ 48 billion between just March and June alone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person in the world to be worth $ 200 billion .
Bezos has made so much , in fact , that Oxfam estimates he could give all 876,000 Amazon employees a one-time $ 105,000 bonus and still come away with as much money as he had before the pandemic .
This comes as a new report documents how Amazon set prices for essential products during the crisis at levels that would violate price gouging laws in many states .
Public Citizen found Amazon marked up some products by as much as 1,000 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sold for $ 40 instead of $ 4 .
Prices shot up amidst shortages for pandemic-related supplies in February and March , and are still high .
This is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing in early March that the state had started using prisoner labor to make hand sanitizer .
AMY GOODMAN : For more on this new report , “ Prime Gouging : How Amazon Raised Prices to Profit from the Pandemic , ” we ’ re joined by Alex Harman , competition policy advocate for Public Citizen .
He ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Democracy Now !
I bet it was extremely hard to get this information , Alex .
Can you talk about how you got it , and the findings of your report ?
ALEX HARMAN : Yeah , it was very hard .
We searched for products on Amazon , and they were price gouging .
This is an ongoing thing .
They are doing this currently .
They ’ ve been doing it throughout the pandemic .
And the “ they ” is the key , the key point .
When this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of talk about — from Amazon and from others , about third-party sellers taking advantage and gouging .
We heard about hand sanitizer , toilet paper , other things .
And then , so we started looking at this to give people guidance on how they could protect themselves , how they could avoid it .
And it became very clear very quickly that , yes , third-party sellers are still doing this , despite Amazon ’ s claims of closing those accounts and removing those products , but Amazon itself is also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , on the website , when a third-party seller is selling , it says “ sold by ” that seller , and when it ’ s Amazon selling , it says “ sold by Amazon.
” And so we focused on products that were sold by Amazon that had significant price increases .
And it ’ s very important to point out , the products we ’ re talking about — and it ’ s a sample of products — are deemed essential , and , that is , under price gouging statutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and then specific products that are essential to that emergency .
So , you ’ re going to have water during a hurricane or during a wildfire , and in this case , hand sanitizer or PPE-type products and toilet paper , we learned .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Could you give some examples of some of the levels of the increases in prices on some of these particular products ?
And also , could you talk about this whole issue of how China became a big source , in the months after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for some of these products ?
ALEX HARMAN : Sure .
And so , one of the things we don ’ t know is much about sourcing , right ?
So , Amazon is not very transparent about where they ’ re getting products , who their wholesalers are .
A given product can flip back and forth between being sold by Amazon and being sold by a third party , and then the sourcing can be all over the place .
And so , we weren ’ t looking at , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the questions of quality , because they just don ’ t make that information available on their — you know , through their search .
But , yeah , the types of products , you know , as I mentioned , toilet paper .
We looked at toilet paper , paper towels , hand soap .
And we were looking for products where there was a significant price increase .
So , price gouging statutes range from state to state .
Most states have them , but it tends to be a minimum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10 % increase is price gouging .
In other states it ’ s more amorphous , but figure 25 % .
And so , the lowest price increase we found on these products that we identified was about 50 % .
And then the highest , as Amy mentioned , was close to — or , slightly over 1,000 % .
But so , for example , an eight-pack of paper towels was over a 500 % increase .
And the type of increase we ’ re talking about , what we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were comparing it to previous Amazon prices .
So it was truly apples to apples .
Where we could , we would find that product concurrently available at another national online retailer for significantly lower .
And then that was — what we called it was the expected price .
So it ’ s the price that others are selling it for or Amazon has previously sold it for .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Now , many people are familiar with the whole idea of war profiteering , but we ’ re talking here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these companies .
What can be done in a situation where you ’ re talking about an international company , clearly , servicing its customers over the internet , and local state price gouging laws ?
What needs to be done ?
ALEX HARMAN : So , if you do business in a state — and while Amazon is online , they are definitely in states with their warehouses and their distribution channels , and so they should be subject to all of the various state laws .
However , we are advocating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gaps between the various state laws and the states that don ’ t have laws .
But also , during the pandemic , in Kentucky , the attorney general there brought some cases against some third-party sellers , in partnership with Amazon , actually .
And a outside group , a D.C.-based group , sued the Kentucky attorney general over their price gouging statute , arguing that its attempt to regulate online prices was in fact unconstitutional , as it basically was Kentucky setting the price for all states .
And that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as it stands , the Kentucky statute is invalid .
Other states have not had those challenges , but it ’ s a reasonable possibility that they could , if they attempt to enforce them .
And so , we believe that it ’ s clearer than ever that we need a federal statute .
And to be clear , there is no federal crime of price gouging currently .
AMY GOODMAN : So , I wanted to go back to this issue we raised in the lede of Bezos becoming , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man in the world , $ 200 billion , right ?
Two hundred billion dollars , he will — he ’ s the first person in the world to have made that .
Bezos has made so much , in fact , that Oxfam estimates he could give all 876,000 Amazon workers a one-time $ 105,000 bonus and still come away with as much money as he had before the pandemic and his price gouging .
Talk more about this and also Amazon saying they ’ re going to hire 100,000 more workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more workers at effectively minimum wage .
Yeah , it is troubling .
And we focused on how Amazon presented price gouging .
Amazon came out very early saying that it was unacceptable to them .
Bezos himself identified this issue in his shareholders letter in April .
And so , our primary concern was : Are they doing anything ?
And we would argue they ’ re not .
It has been a marketing campaign , in our view , not an actual effort to stop this process .
And they would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s millions of products , and it ’ s a whack-a-mole-type process to try to stop this .
Well , you can right now go to Amazon.com and start searching for essential products and find price gouging .
This is not a whack-a-mole ; this is a pervasive problem .
And they are doing nothing .
And so , the only conclusion we can draw is they either don ’ t care or there is a profit motivation here .
And it is important to note , we were focused on Amazon as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a greater profit motivation when it is a third-party seller engaging in this .
And so , the fact that third-party sellers are continuing and Amazon themselves are doing this suggests that they do not see this as a problem , because they are looking to maximize profit during the pandemic .
AMY GOODMAN : Alex Harman , we want to thank you for being with us , with Public Citizen , author of the new report , “ Prime Gouging : How Amazon Raised Prices to Profit from the Pandemic.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ ll link to that at democracynow.org .
Democracy Now !
is produced with Renée Feltz , Mike Burke , Deena Guzder , Libby Rainey , Nermeen Shaikh , María Taracena , Carla Wills , Tami Woronoff , Charina Nadura .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
Thanks so much for joining us .
Wear a mask .
Stay safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
As the COVID-19 pandemic keeps many of us sheltering at home and shopping online, the online giant Amazon said Monday it will hire 100,000 more workers to meet growing demand. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made an extraordinary amount of money during the crisis. He saw his personal wealth increase by $48 billion between just March and June alone. He’s now the first person in the world to be worth $200 billion. Bezos has made so much, in fact, that Oxfam estimates he could give all 876,000 Amazon employees a one-time $105,000 bonus and still come away with as much money as he had before the pandemic.
This comes as a new report documents how Amazon set prices for essential products during the crisis at levels that would violate price gouging laws in many states. Public Citizen found Amazon marked up some products by as much as 1,000%. For example, disposable face masks sold for $40 instead of $4. Prices shot up amidst shortages for pandemic-related supplies in February and March, and are still high. This is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing in early March that the state had started using prisoner labor to make hand sanitizer.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: Because you can’t get it on the market, and when you get it, it’s very, very expensive. … Also to Purell and Mr. Amazon and Mr. eBay, if you continue the price gouging, we will introduce our product, which is superior to your product, and you don’t even have the floral bouquet. So, stop price gouging.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on this new report, “Prime Gouging: How Amazon Raised Prices to Profit from the Pandemic,” we’re joined by Alex Harman, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen. He’s author of the report.
Welcome to Democracy Now! I bet it was extremely hard to get this information, Alex. Can you talk about how you got it, and the findings of your report?
ALEX HARMAN: Yeah, it was very hard. We searched for products on Amazon, and they were price gouging. This is an ongoing thing. They are doing this currently. They’ve been doing it throughout the pandemic.
And the “they” is the key, the key point. When this first started, there was a lot of talk about — from Amazon and from others, about third-party sellers taking advantage and gouging. We heard about hand sanitizer, toilet paper, other things. And then, so we started looking at this to give people guidance on how they could protect themselves, how they could avoid it. And it became very clear very quickly that, yes, third-party sellers are still doing this, despite Amazon’s claims of closing those accounts and removing those products, but Amazon itself is also doing this. And the distinction is, on the website, when a third-party seller is selling, it says “sold by” that seller, and when it’s Amazon selling, it says “sold by Amazon.” And so we focused on products that were sold by Amazon that had significant price increases.
And it’s very important to point out, the products we’re talking about — and it’s a sample of products — are deemed essential, and, that is, under price gouging statutes, are defined as during an emergency, and then specific products that are essential to that emergency. So, you’re going to have water during a hurricane or during a wildfire, and in this case, hand sanitizer or PPE-type products and toilet paper, we learned.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you give some examples of some of the levels of the increases in prices on some of these particular products? And also, could you talk about this whole issue of how China became a big source, in the months after the initial outbreak of the pandemic, for some of these products?
ALEX HARMAN: Sure. And so, one of the things we don’t know is much about sourcing, right? So, Amazon is not very transparent about where they’re getting products, who their wholesalers are. A given product can flip back and forth between being sold by Amazon and being sold by a third party, and then the sourcing can be all over the place. And so, we weren’t looking at, you know, the questions of counterfeits or the questions of quality, because they just don’t make that information available on their — you know, through their search.
But, yeah, the types of products, you know, as I mentioned, toilet paper. We looked at toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap. And we were looking for products where there was a significant price increase. So, price gouging statutes range from state to state. Most states have them, but it tends to be a minimum, on the low end, a 10% increase is price gouging. In other states it’s more amorphous, but figure 25%. And so, the lowest price increase we found on these products that we identified was about 50%. And then the highest, as Amy mentioned, was close to — or, slightly over 1,000%. But so, for example, an eight-pack of paper towels was over a 500% increase.
And the type of increase we’re talking about, what we’re comparing to, ideally, we were comparing it to previous Amazon prices. So it was truly apples to apples. Where we could, we would find that product concurrently available at another national online retailer for significantly lower. And then that was — what we called it was the expected price. So it’s the price that others are selling it for or Amazon has previously sold it for.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now, many people are familiar with the whole idea of war profiteering, but we’re talking here about pandemic profiteering or disaster profiteering by these companies. What can be done in a situation where you’re talking about an international company, clearly, servicing its customers over the internet, and local state price gouging laws? What needs to be done?
ALEX HARMAN: So, if you do business in a state — and while Amazon is online, they are definitely in states with their warehouses and their distribution channels, and so they should be subject to all of the various state laws. However, we are advocating for a federal law to fill the gaps between the various state laws and the states that don’t have laws.
But also, during the pandemic, in Kentucky, the attorney general there brought some cases against some third-party sellers, in partnership with Amazon, actually. And a outside group, a D.C.-based group, sued the Kentucky attorney general over their price gouging statute, arguing that its attempt to regulate online prices was in fact unconstitutional, as it basically was Kentucky setting the price for all states. And that, they won in Kentucky. And so, as it stands, the Kentucky statute is invalid.
Other states have not had those challenges, but it’s a reasonable possibility that they could, if they attempt to enforce them. And so, we believe that it’s clearer than ever that we need a federal statute. And to be clear, there is no federal crime of price gouging currently.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to go back to this issue we raised in the lede of Bezos becoming, to say the least, the wealthiest man in the world, $200 billion, right? Two hundred billion dollars, he will — he’s the first person in the world to have made that. Bezos has made so much, in fact, that Oxfam estimates he could give all 876,000 Amazon workers a one-time $105,000 bonus and still come away with as much money as he had before the pandemic and his price gouging. Talk more about this and also Amazon saying they’re going to hire 100,000 more workers.
ALEX HARMAN: A hundred thousand more workers at effectively minimum wage. Yeah, it is troubling. And we focused on how Amazon presented price gouging. Amazon came out very early saying that it was unacceptable to them. Bezos himself identified this issue in his shareholders letter in April. And so, our primary concern was: Are they doing anything? And we would argue they’re not. It has been a marketing campaign, in our view, not an actual effort to stop this process. And they would argue that it is — there’s millions of products, and it’s a whack-a-mole-type process to try to stop this. Well, you can right now go to Amazon.com and start searching for essential products and find price gouging. This is not a whack-a-mole; this is a pervasive problem. And they are doing nothing. And so, the only conclusion we can draw is they either don’t care or there is a profit motivation here. And it is important to note, we were focused on Amazon as the seller, but they have arguably a greater profit motivation when it is a third-party seller engaging in this. And so, the fact that third-party sellers are continuing and Amazon themselves are doing this suggests that they do not see this as a problem, because they are looking to maximize profit during the pandemic.
AMY GOODMAN: Alex Harman, we want to thank you for being with us, with Public Citizen, author of the new report, “Prime Gouging: How Amazon Raised Prices to Profit from the Pandemic.” And that does it for our show. We’ll link to that at democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Libby Rainey, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us. Wear a mask. Stay safe.


democracynow--2020-09-15--Colonization Made California a Tinderbox: Why Indigenous Land Stewardship Would Help Combat Climate

Colonization Made California a Tinderbox: Why Indigenous Land Stewardship Would Help Combat Climate Fires

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We turn to the West Coast , where wildfires fueled by the climate crisis have burned more than 5 million acres , darkened the skies from Canada to Mexico with smoke and ash .
As nearly 90 wildfires burn , Portland marked the worst air quality of any major city in the world Monday , with San Francisco , Seattle and Los Angeles not far behind .
Hazy conditions from the fires has spread as far as New York and Washington , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least 35 people , forced mass evacuations — dozens are missing — laid bare the reality of the changing climate .
But , on Monday , President Trump continued to deny the climate crisis in an exchange with California ’ s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot .
AMY GOODMAN : “ I don ’ t think science knows , actually , ” Trump said .
Well , California Governor Gavin Newsom also addressed President Trump , who has repeatedly blamed the fires in California on forest management .
AMY GOODMAN : Governor Newsom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forests are on federal land , compared to just 3 % that is owned by California , the rest privately owned .
Well , today we look at California ’ s history of forest management and how a century of fire suppression has made the current climate fires even more destructive .
Fire is a natural part of life in California .
For thousands of years , Native American tribes would regularly burn the landscape to steward the land .
But colonization led to the suppression of these tactics and decades of misguided @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how a return to Indigenous stewardship of the land could foster greater climate resiliency , we go to Chico , California , where we ’ re joined by Don Hankins , a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert .
He is a professor of geography and planning at California State University , Chico .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us , Professor Hankins .
Can you talk about what ’ s happening in California now , Trump saying it ’ s just two words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then Gavin Newsom saying , “ Yeah , we also have to weigh climate change in this , but forest management is a major issue , ” Professor Hankins ?
DON HANKINS : Right , yeah .
Good morning , Amy and Juan .
Yeah , I think the situation in California at present , we have over 3 million acres ablaze over a very short period of time .
And I think that the political jargon that ’ s being pushed around right now is really an unfortunate situation , given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s aspects of both , what the president and the governor are saying , are definitely correct .
It ’ s not just a one-piece solution .
Forest management is definitely a part of the problem , although climate change is something that ’ s happening , and we have to recognize that .
So , when we think about what ’ s going on in our region , particularly throughout the state of California and the West Coast at this point , we have prolonged drought .
The governor mentioned five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s at least going on 20 years of drought .
We ’ ve had some punctuated time periods with some rain that has come in , like 2017 and 2018 , but the rain that we have is not enough to saturate the ground and allow for the groundwater recharge that is so important for our landscape to thrive and be healthy .
And then , when we add to that the accumulation of fuels within that landscape and so forth , and the inability to put fire at the scale that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is such a huge part of this problem .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Professor Hankins , could you talk about the — if you can , about the difference between federal policies , on the federally owned lands , and state policies ?
Because , after all , as Governor Newsom mentioned , most of the forest land is federal land .
In fact , almost half of all of California is federally owned land , and 53 % of Oregon is federally owned land .
How is the federal government dealing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forests ?
DON HANKINS : Right .
Well , that ’ s a really interesting question .
So , when we think about that ownership , when we talk about like state ownership of land , that state ownership is not really owned by the state , but a lot of that ’ s privately owned land .
So , you know , a lot of rural communities , we have a lot of different landowners who are there on those lands .
And within the state ’ s fire responsibility , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the SRA , CAL FIRE , under the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection , is that entity that has the ability to steward over it .
On the federal lands , obviously , Forest Service , National Park Service , Bureau of Land Management , etc.
, all are part of that piece .
And there ’ s different policies in terms of the way that fire is allowed to be used in those places .
So , when we think about the federal fire policy aspect , the National Wildland Coordinating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government allow for the integration of policies .
And so , some of those policies include let-burn policies and allow for wildland fire use , whereas within the state , when fires happen , CAL FIRE is mandated to put those fires out .
So , those are some of the differences that are there between those areas .
But I think the bottom line is really coming down to the amount of acreage that we ’ re allowed to see burn on an annual basis , but then also how much money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And I would say it ’ s pretty minuscule .
For instance , when we think about what the targets were for the Forest Service within this particular time frame of this year , I want to say it was about a half-million acres , so 500,000 acres of land .
Obviously , with these fires , we have 3 million acres currently burning , or more .
But nowhere are we getting close to the scale of being able to put the type of fires that historically have occurred within this landscape @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effects of climate change and make the landscape more resilient .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And could you talk about the history of fire suppression as a tool of colonization ?
There was a piece in The Guardian where journalist Susan Cagle wrote , quote , “ The Spanish were the first California colonizers to prevent indigenous people from burning the land .
In 1850 , the US government passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians , which outlawed intentional burning in California even before it was a state.
” DON @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies .
When we think about the early Spanish colonization in California beginning in 1769 , we have missions that are established along the California coast , and those missions had very specific policies that were put down by the Spanish governor of California that forbade people from setting fires .
The Spaniards were not accustomed to the idea of Indigenous people burning .
They saw it as a risk to their infrastructure and their way of life .
And so , that then put really harsh penalties , upwards of death , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that is a way of life .
That is a way that people have lived in this landscape for millennia .
And that tool began to be removed from the tool box of Native people .
And then , when we add to the American colonization , as you point out , 1850 — the state hadn ’ t even really become a state yet — we had policies within the state that also forbid the use of fire by Indigenous populations , and the same kinds of penalties were applied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , people would not , obviously , be able to set fires if their life was on the line for it .
And so we see a real decline in the use of fire , and the inability for people to access land to tend to those , which had gone on for many thousands of years , through past climate change events .
AMY GOODMAN : So , what has to happen right now , Professor Hankins ?
And talk about your own family , from the Delta area , from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve seen the land change with regard to stewardship , and what you want to see happen .
DON HANKINS : Right .
Well , I think what we need to see happen at this point is the ability for Indigenous practitioners , working with others — you know , it ’ s not just Indigenous people that are able to do this .
We have 40 million people living in the state .
There ’ s only , you know , one , one-and-a-half or so percent of the state ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American , I should say , based on identification .
We have a lot of people from out of the state , too .
But I think it ’ s important that if we all work together and we use the same mindset in terms of process , being able to use fire within the landscape , we can start to put fire back in at the scale that it needs to be for the right ecological and cultural purposes within the landscape to create the same outcomes .
And I think the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that .
So , when we ask the question of , well , you know , “ How can we restore the landscape back to what it was , say , in 1769 or 1850 ?
” that ’ s not what I ’ m asking for .
That ’ s not what I think needs to happen .
What I say is that we — you know , climate change does happen , and the ecosystems that are here at present have a relationship with fire .
And so , if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those systems had evolved in back into them and we ’ re stewarding them in the exact same way , then we ’ re able to ensure that climate resiliency in those landscapes , but also ensure the biodiversity , the carbon capture and all the other attributes of what we maybe call ecosystem services as part of that , to make those beneficial .
So , in terms of the Delta region in San Francisco Bay Area , for instance , we have a lot of landscape change that has happened .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas under that time period of 1850 to the present that was turned under the plow .
So , wetlands , riparian forest , emergent marshes , grasslands , vernal pools , chaparral ecosystems , they all are part of those landscapes , but a lot of those places have been very heavily impacted .
So , one thing that I particularly focus in on in my research is how we can use fire as a conservation tool , which is part of that Indigenous set of ways of burning .
And when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s valued woodlands , where there ’ s only like 2 % remaining throughout the entire state , that ’ s an endangered ecosystem .
And with small pockets of 100 acres here or 200 acres there , if fire gets into those places , we lose the diversity of those forests .
We lose those forests , and we lose the carbon that ’ s captured in them .
So , those are the places that I tend to focus in on in a lot of my work , but that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas all the way to the tops of the Sierras and the mountains that feed into the system .
So , it ’ s an interconnected and interrelated relationship with fire .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , we want to thank you so much for joining us .
And personally , I mean , how are you dealing with the massive — well , right now the pollution in the air ?
You have Los Angeles , San Francisco , Portland , Seattle , the worst air in a major city in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tribes , what are people doing on the ground ?
DON HANKINS : Yeah .
Well , it ’ s a lot of people having to stay indoors at this point .
I will say that on my drive down to Chico this morning , I was happy to look up and see the stars .
So , the constellations are out there .
But I will also point out that within our Native ways of thinking about it , there ’ s benefits to smoke that we have to be aware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That includes cooling of our streams for salmon , and other things like that .
So , while we are dealing with a very toxic load of smoke right now , this is not what our Indigenous fires would have created .
This would have been spread throughout the year .
So , I think , as a society , we need to get used to a little bit of smoke , but not the level of smoke that we ’ re experiencing right now , and hopefully never get to this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Professor Hankins , we want to thank you for being with us .
We want to say we also asked a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service to join us on the program , but they were told by the Forest Service they could not .
They were told this by the Washington office .
Don Hankins , pyrogeographer , Plains Miwok fire expert , professor of geography and planning at California State University , Chico , where he ’ s speaking to us from .
When we come back , as Amazon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the world to be worth $ 200 billion , we look at how Amazon has gouged people during the pandemic , up to 1,000 % .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the West Coast, where wildfires fueled by the climate crisis have burned more than 5 million acres, darkened the skies from Canada to Mexico with smoke and ash. As nearly 90 wildfires burn, Portland marked the worst air quality of any major city in the world Monday, with San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles not far behind. Hazy conditions from the fires has spread as far as New York and Washington, D.C. The fires have killed at least 35 people, forced mass evacuations — dozens are missing — laid bare the reality of the changing climate. But, on Monday, President Trump continued to deny the climate crisis in an exchange with California’s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot.
WADE CROWFOOT: If we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: OK. It’ll start getting cooler. You just —
WADE CROWFOOT: I wish —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You just watch.
WADE CROWFOOT: I wish science agreed with you.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I — well, I don’t think science knows, actually.
AMY GOODMAN: “I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said. Well, California Governor Gavin Newsom also addressed President Trump, who has repeatedly blamed the fires in California on forest management.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: There’s no question, when you look past this decade, looking past almost a thousand-plus years, that we have not done justice on our forest management. I don’t think anyone disputes that. …
And final point, I’d be negligent — now, this is not — and we’ve known each other too long, and, as you suggest, the working relationship, I value. We obviously feel very strongly that the hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier. When we’re having heat domes the likes of which we’ve never seen in our history, the hottest August ever in the history of the state, the ferocity of these fires, the drought five-plus years, losing 163 million trees to that drought, something has happened to the plumbing of the world. And we come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in, and observed evidence is self-evident, that climate change is real, and that is exacerbating this.
AMY GOODMAN: Governor Newsom said 57% of California’s forests are on federal land, compared to just 3% that is owned by California, the rest privately owned.
Well, today we look at California’s history of forest management and how a century of fire suppression has made the current climate fires even more destructive. Fire is a natural part of life in California. For thousands of years, Native American tribes would regularly burn the landscape to steward the land. But colonization led to the suppression of these tactics and decades of misguided policy.
For more on this history and how a return to Indigenous stewardship of the land could foster greater climate resiliency, we go to Chico, California, where we’re joined by Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert. He is a professor of geography and planning at California State University, Chico.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Professor Hankins. Can you talk about what’s happening in California now, Trump saying it’s just two words, it’s forest management, and then Gavin Newsom saying, “Yeah, we also have to weigh climate change in this, but forest management is a major issue,” Professor Hankins?
DON HANKINS: Right, yeah. Good morning, Amy and Juan. Yeah, I think the situation in California at present, we have over 3 million acres ablaze over a very short period of time. And I think that the political jargon that’s being pushed around right now is really an unfortunate situation, given the situation in the state. There’s aspects of both, what the president and the governor are saying, are definitely correct. It’s not just a one-piece solution. Forest management is definitely a part of the problem, although climate change is something that’s happening, and we have to recognize that.
So, when we think about what’s going on in our region, particularly throughout the state of California and the West Coast at this point, we have prolonged drought. The governor mentioned five years; I would say that it’s at least going on 20 years of drought. We’ve had some punctuated time periods with some rain that has come in, like 2017 and 2018, but the rain that we have is not enough to saturate the ground and allow for the groundwater recharge that is so important for our landscape to thrive and be healthy. And then, when we add to that the accumulation of fuels within that landscape and so forth, and the inability to put fire at the scale that it really needs to be, it is such a huge part of this problem.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Hankins, could you talk about the — if you can, about the difference between federal policies, on the federally owned lands, and state policies? Because, after all, as Governor Newsom mentioned, most of the forest land is federal land. In fact, almost half of all of California is federally owned land, and 53% of Oregon is federally owned land. How is the federal government dealing with its own policies of managing these forests?
DON HANKINS: Right. Well, that’s a really interesting question. So, when we think about that ownership, when we talk about like state ownership of land, that state ownership is not really owned by the state, but a lot of that’s privately owned land. So, you know, a lot of rural communities, we have a lot of different landowners who are there on those lands. And within the state’s fire responsibility, what we call the state responsibility area, the SRA, CAL FIRE, under the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, is that entity that has the ability to steward over it. On the federal lands, obviously, Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc., all are part of that piece.
And there’s different policies in terms of the way that fire is allowed to be used in those places. So, when we think about the federal fire policy aspect, the National Wildland Coordinating Group and other entities within the federal government allow for the integration of policies. And so, some of those policies include let-burn policies and allow for wildland fire use, whereas within the state, when fires happen, CAL FIRE is mandated to put those fires out. So, those are some of the differences that are there between those areas.
But I think the bottom line is really coming down to the amount of acreage that we’re allowed to see burn on an annual basis, but then also how much money is being put into those efforts. And I would say it’s pretty minuscule. For instance, when we think about what the targets were for the Forest Service within this particular time frame of this year, I want to say it was about a half-million acres, so 500,000 acres of land. Obviously, with these fires, we have 3 million acres currently burning, or more. But nowhere are we getting close to the scale of being able to put the type of fires that historically have occurred within this landscape back into this landscape to mitigate the effects of climate change and make the landscape more resilient.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the history of fire suppression as a tool of colonization? There was a piece in The Guardian where journalist Susan Cagle wrote, quote, “The Spanish were the first California colonizers to prevent indigenous people from burning the land. In 1850, the US government passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which outlawed intentional burning in California even before it was a state.”
DON HANKINS: Right. Those are huge policies. When we think about the early Spanish colonization in California beginning in 1769, we have missions that are established along the California coast, and those missions had very specific policies that were put down by the Spanish governor of California that forbade people from setting fires. The Spaniards were not accustomed to the idea of Indigenous people burning. They saw it as a risk to their infrastructure and their way of life. And so, that then put really harsh penalties, upwards of death, to Indian people who were setting fires. And that is a way of life. That is a way that people have lived in this landscape for millennia. And that tool began to be removed from the tool box of Native people.
And then, when we add to the American colonization, as you point out, 1850 — the state hadn’t even really become a state yet — we had policies within the state that also forbid the use of fire by Indigenous populations, and the same kinds of penalties were applied. So, reluctantly, you know, people would not, obviously, be able to set fires if their life was on the line for it. And so we see a real decline in the use of fire, and the inability for people to access land to tend to those, which had gone on for many thousands of years, through past climate change events.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what has to happen right now, Professor Hankins? And talk about your own family, from the Delta area, from the San Francisco Bay Area, how you’ve seen the land change with regard to stewardship, and what you want to see happen.
DON HANKINS: Right. Well, I think what we need to see happen at this point is the ability for Indigenous practitioners, working with others — you know, it’s not just Indigenous people that are able to do this. We have 40 million people living in the state. There’s only, you know, one, one-and-a-half or so percent of the state’s population is Indigenous, or Native American, I should say, based on identification. We have a lot of people from out of the state, too. But I think it’s important that if we all work together and we use the same mindset in terms of process, being able to use fire within the landscape, we can start to put fire back in at the scale that it needs to be for the right ecological and cultural purposes within the landscape to create the same outcomes. And I think the process is a really big part of that.
So, when we ask the question of, well, you know, “How can we restore the landscape back to what it was, say, in 1769 or 1850?” that’s not what I’m asking for. That’s not what I think needs to happen. What I say is that we — you know, climate change does happen, and the ecosystems that are here at present have a relationship with fire. And so, if we put that same type of fire that those systems had evolved in back into them and we’re stewarding them in the exact same way, then we’re able to ensure that climate resiliency in those landscapes, but also ensure the biodiversity, the carbon capture and all the other attributes of what we maybe call ecosystem services as part of that, to make those beneficial.
So, in terms of the Delta region in San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, we have a lot of landscape change that has happened. We’ve got a lot of areas under that time period of 1850 to the present that was turned under the plow. So, wetlands, riparian forest, emergent marshes, grasslands, vernal pools, chaparral ecosystems, they all are part of those landscapes, but a lot of those places have been very heavily impacted.
So, one thing that I particularly focus in on in my research is how we can use fire as a conservation tool, which is part of that Indigenous set of ways of burning. And when we think about, like, California’s valued woodlands, where there’s only like 2% remaining throughout the entire state, that’s an endangered ecosystem. And with small pockets of 100 acres here or 200 acres there, if fire gets into those places, we lose the diversity of those forests. We lose those forests, and we lose the carbon that’s captured in them. So, those are the places that I tend to focus in on in a lot of my work, but that work also then extends from those wetland areas all the way to the tops of the Sierras and the mountains that feed into the system. So, it’s an interconnected and interrelated relationship with fire.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you so much for joining us. And personally, I mean, how are you dealing with the massive — well, right now the pollution in the air? You have Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, the worst air in a major city in the world. And especially the Native American tribes, what are people doing on the ground?
DON HANKINS: Yeah. Well, it’s a lot of people having to stay indoors at this point. I will say that on my drive down to Chico this morning, I was happy to look up and see the stars. So, the constellations are out there. But I will also point out that within our Native ways of thinking about it, there’s benefits to smoke that we have to be aware of, as well. That includes fumigation. That includes cooling of our streams for salmon, and other things like that. So, while we are dealing with a very toxic load of smoke right now, this is not what our Indigenous fires would have created. This would have been spread throughout the year. So, I think, as a society, we need to get used to a little bit of smoke, but not the level of smoke that we’re experiencing right now, and hopefully never get to this toxic level again.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Hankins, we want to thank you for being with us. We want to say we also asked a scientist with the U.S. Forest Service to join us on the program, but they were told by the Forest Service they could not. They were told this by the Washington office. Don Hankins, pyrogeographer, Plains Miwok fire expert, professor of geography and planning at California State University, Chico, where he’s speaking to us from.
When we come back, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos becomes the first person in the world to be worth $200 billion, we look at how Amazon has gouged people during the pandemic, up to 1,000%. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-09-15--"Mass Voter Disenfranchisement": GOP Ramps Up Assault on Voting Rights Across U.S. Ahead of Election

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : Monday marked 50 days until the November election , and we begin today ’ s show looking at the attack on voting rights across the United States .
In a pivotal decision that could give Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden a big boost in Wisconsin , the state Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Green Party ’ s candidate , Howie Hawkins , to invalidate thousands of already-mailed ballots so that they could be reprinted with his name on them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative justice split with the right-wing majority and allowed Wisconsin ’ s voting process to proceed as planned .
The ruling comes just days before the start of mail-in voting in the state .
Hawkins called it a , quote , “ travesty of justice.
” Meanwhile , in Iowa , a judge sided with Republican incumbent Donald Trump ’ s presidential campaign and voided more than 90,000 absentee ballot requests in the state ’ s most Democratic-leaning county .
Johnson County is now the third Iowa county to have its ballot request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the forms to voters with personal information filled in to simplify the process .
Affected voters will either have to fill out a new blank form to request an absentee ballot or vote at the polls on Election Day in the midst of the pandemic .
In Colorado , a federal judge just upheld a temporary restraining order that stops the U.S .
Postal Service from sending out mailers that the state ’ s attorney general says have incorrect election information on them .
The list of major developments goes on , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to send out ballots due to a slew of lawsuits and other issues , to Florida , where a court on Friday blocked hundreds of thousands of people with fees and fines from past felony convictions from registering to vote .
For more on all of this , as well as concerns about a sabotaged census , we ’ re joined by Ari Berman , senior writer at Mother Jones , reporting fellow at the Type Media Center , author of Give Us the Ballot : The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ titled “ Conservative Judicial Decisions Keep Boosting GOP Voter Suppression.
” Welcome back to Democracy Now !
, Ari .
Let ’ s start in Florida .
Can you talk about what has happened there ?
It was a really pivotal decision in Florida , because in 2018 64 % of Floridians approved a law restoring voting rights to people with past felony convictions .
Before that , Florida prevented one in 10 people , including one in five African Americans , from voting .
Then , the GOP Legislature said that people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off all fines , fees and restitution to be able to vote , which the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals , which now has a Trump majority because Trump appointed five justices to that court , upheld that law .
What it means in practice is that , according to studies , 775,000 people in Florida still owe money on their sentences and might not be able to vote .
And remember , Amy , this was a state decided by 537 votes in 2000 .
So we ’ re talking about hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to vote in Florida , who should have had their rights restored , in a state that ’ s been decided by only a few hundred votes in the past .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to go to Desmond Meade , who is the one who really was the author of Amendment 4 , that was overwhelmingly passed .
We spoke with him yesterday — he ’ s president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and chair of the Floridians for a Fair Democracy — about his response to the ruling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Desmond Meade , the force behind Amendment 4 , that was overwhelmingly passed in Florida , that gave over a million people who had served time in prison for felonies the right to vote .
Can you talk about the significance of him say millions of dollars are available ?
How do people find out about this , Ari ?
ARI BERMAN : That ’ s right .
The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition , led by Desmond Meade , has a fund that ’ s raised $ 3 million to pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So , people can go to their website and donate to that .
The big problem in Florida right now , Amy , is this law passed by the Legislature is kind of like a poll tax meets a literacy test .
And I ’ ll explain why .
It ’ s like a poll tax because you have to pay to be able to vote now .
You have to be able to pay off all the fines , fees and restitution you owe to be able to vote , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars .
It ’ s like a literacy test because Florida can ’ t actually tell you how much money you owe .
There is no centralized database in Florida for someone with a past felony conviction to go to to see whether they still owe money .
So , this is really incomprehensible to people .
Florida set up a law that it actually can ’ t enforce .
And that ’ s why it ’ s going to lead to mass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And it ’ s just incredible to me that a court would uphold something like this , just a few months before the election , that so brazenly overturns the will of the voters who approved this historic ballot initiative in 2018 .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Ari , has there been any — is there any data about how many people have had their right to vote restored , of former convicted felons ?
ARI BERMAN : Yes , there has been , Juan .
Eighty-five thousand people have had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are still eligible to vote .
So that is one good thing about the decision , is that it still allows those 85,000 people that have had their rights restored to be able to vote .
But we ’ re talking about 1.4 million people were set to have their rights restored .
So you ’ re talking about 85,000 people have had their rights restored , but there are still hundreds of thousands of people that have not had their rights restored .
And the question is : Will they be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote ?
Or even if they don ’ t owe money , will they be dissuaded from voting because of what the Legislature did and what the courts upheld ?
So , it ’ s just a really unfortunate situation , because I think that Florida voters made it very clear that they wanted people to be able to vote if they ’ ve paid their debt to society .
The Legislature added this crazy new wrinkle , saying you had to pay off all your fines , fees and restitution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was because Donald Trump flipped the 11th Circuit with five Trump judges .
And this is why Mitch McConnell in the Republican Senate is so intent on confirming judges and doing nothing else .
This week , McConnell is going to confirm eight more judges to the federal bench , but they ’ re not doing anything else to help the American people .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Ari , can we switch to Wisconsin and the situation there with the court decision on the Green Party ?
Could you explain why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even the court to consider this case , given that the election is only 50 days away ?
ARI BERMAN : It went down to the wire in Wisconsin because the Green Party filed late to try to get on the ballot .
So , there was a dispute , first , with the Wisconsin Elections Commission of whether they should be on the ballot .
And then the question was : Should they delay sending hundreds of thousands of ballots to put the Green Party on the ballot ?
And the Wisconsin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re not deciding this on the merits of whether they should be on the ballot .
It ’ s just too late to add them to the ballot.
” Tens of thousands of ballots have already gone out .
Hundreds of thousands of more are going out this week .
There ’ s been over a million absentee ballot requests in Wisconsin .
And this week is the day that they start sending them out en masse .
So , I think this decision adding the Green Party to the ballot would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wisconsin , in that a lot of people who got a ballot would have had to then get another one .
And there was a risk that they would be very confused , that some people might vote twice , or some people might not vote at all .
So , irrespective of the merits of whether the Green Party should be on the ballot , I think election officials in Wisconsin are breathing a sigh a relief that they don ’ t have to print new ballots and they can send the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on time .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And what about the situation in Iowa , with — there , what was the personal information that the court felt — I mean , that officials felt should not have been on the ballot ?
Could you talk about that ?
And why specifically in Democratic counties ?
ARI BERMAN : What happened was , in Iowa , the Democratic counties , in particular , decided to , on their own , send absentee ballot requests to voters .
So , in places like Cedar Rapids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decided to send these ballots .
To make it easier , they filled in personal information , because Iowa passed a new voter ID law , and one of the provisions of that law is you have to have a PIN for your driver ’ s license on your absentee ballot , and a lot of people don ’ t know what that number is .
So , the auditors tried to make this process easier for voters by filling in the information , including their driver ’ s license PIN number , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And instead of saying , “ Hey , thank you for making it easier for people to vote , ” in response to a lawsuit by the Trump campaign , the courts have now invalidated absentee ballot requests in the most Democratic counties in the state .
So , this is very confusing for voters , because imagine that you requested an absentee ballot , and now you think you ’ re getting one in the mail , and now you ’ re going to have to get a — do that whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less before the election .
And so , it just adds more uncertainty into the process .
And people are already confused about how to vote in this election , and these court decisions making it harder to vote are not helping things right now .
AMY GOODMAN : So , Ari , talk also about Pennsylvania .
I mean , it seems like , across the country , if the Republican Party sues , it simply delays absentee ballots from going out , even if they ’ re going to ultimately lose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s happening in Pennsylvania .
Then , in Colorado , if you could explain what ’ s happening there , a federal judge ordering the U.S .
Postal Service to immediately stop sending mailers that contain false information ?
And then talk about McConnell and the U.S .
Postal Service .
ARI BERMAN : So , first off , in Pennsylvania , there ’ s a ton of litigation right now .
The Trump campaign is litigating , for example , to try to prevent voters from dropping off their ballots at drop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s disputes over whether you should be able to start counting mailed ballots before the election .
Right now you can ’ t , which means it could take longer for the votes to count .
And actually , Republicans are refusing to allow votes to be counted earlier , because they want uncertainty in terms of the process .
So , there ’ s a lot of litigation in Pennsylvania .
Ballots have not gone out there , either .
And this is , of course , a really pivotal swing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the post office sent mailers to all 50 states , basically telling people , “ If you request an absentee ballot , request it early.
” The problem in Colorado is that you don ’ t have to request an absentee ballot , that they actually automatically send ballots to all registered voters .
They also can turn around ballots quicker because it ’ s a vote-by-mail state .
So , what election officials were angry about in Colorado and other states is that the post office sent this one-size-fits-all mailer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it state specific , because the voting laws in Colorado are very different than the voting laws in New York .
And election officials told the post office this is going to confuse voters , this is going to end up being a form of voter suppression .
The post office didn ’ t listen .
Now there ’ s an injunction against them .
In terms of what Mitch McConnell is doing , the only thing he is doing in Washington right now is confirming more federal judges for Donald Trump .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Donald Trump .
He has been blocking $ 25 billion for the post office for over 120 days .
He has been blocking legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act for over 280 days .
He has been blocking legislation to prevent foreign election interference for over 320 days .
He is not doing anything for the American people .
The only thing Mitch McConnell is doing right now is confirming more extreme-right-wing judges for Donald Trump , because that ’ s the way Republicans rig the electoral system .
If they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can uphold things like modern-day poll taxes in Florida .
So , this is the Republican Party ’ s game : Don ’ t to anything for the American people , make it as hard as you can to vote , and then put in place judges who will then uphold those new voter suppression laws .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Ari , I wanted to ask you about the bigger picture of this national move , because — especially because of the pandemic , toward mail-in voting .
You know , those of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country for decades know that the old system had many , many problems in terms of being able to deliver a clear count on Election Day .
But clearly , the move to mail-in balloting , especially given that every jurisdiction , every state , sometimes every county have their own methods , will mean , inevitably , that we ’ re going to have many , many more problems in terms of being able to actually count votes , not to mention the fact that there will be a lot of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t properly fill out the mail-in ballots .
I ’ m wondering if you could step back and give us a big picture of what to expect come Election Day .
ARI BERMAN : Well , it makes sense that in a pandemic a lot of people would want to vote by mail .
But people have to be careful about mail voting .
There were over 500,000 mail ballots rejected in the primaries , which was a major increase from 2016 , because ballots arrived too late or people didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t sign them at all .
And so , there is a lot of concern with mail voting that while it is a safe way to vote in a pandemic , if you ’ re not careful , these ballots can be rejected at a higher rate than in-person voting .
So , I think if you vote by mail , you have to do it early .
You have to send it back early or drop it off , if possible .
You have to sign it , and sign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are proactive about mail voting , there won ’ t be problems .
But if everyone decides to vote by mail at the last minute and election officials are overwhelmed , if the post office , which has been sabotaged by Donald Trump , is overwhelmed , there could be real problems with mail voting and a real chance of major voter disenfranchisement .
What Republican legislatures are also doing , in states like Wisconsin and Minnesota and Pennsylvania , is they are not allowing the officials to start counting the ballots before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to take longer to count the ballots .
And Donald Trump is going to say , “ Oh , only the Election Day votes should count .
Let ’ s disqualify all of the mail ballots.
” But if you want to avoid that kind of situation , what the Republican legislatures need to do , in Michigan , Wisconsin and Pennsylvania , is say that people should start counting the votes earlier .
Then it won ’ t take weeks to certify the winner .
We ’ ll know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on election night , but in a relatively quick period of time .
So , Republicans are trying to capitalize on the uncertainty and fear around mail voting to try to boost their efforts to make it harder to vote .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to switch the issue to the census .
And we only have a minute to go , but a federal court in New York blocked the Trump administration from excluding undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census , ruling undocumented people , quote , “ qualify as 'persons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must be counted .
Advocates called the ruling a victory for voting and immigrant rights .
This comes as a federal judge in California has temporarily halted the Trump administration from ending its census collection efforts a month early , pending a court hearing later this month .
The Census Bureau is being challenged by a coalition of rights groups , local governments and Native American communities , after it announced it would end its collection efforts at the end of September instead of the end of October , which could lead to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of color .
If you could talk about the significance of this , Ari Berman ?
ARI BERMAN : The Trump administration has been trying to sabotage the census from day one .
Luckily , federal courts and the Supreme Court have pushed back on this .
The problem is that there ’ s a lot of fear among people , particularly immigrant communities , that they shouldn ’ t respond to the census .
And if you look at the numbers , the response rate in 2020 is lower than the response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very low in some immigrant communities , very low on tribal reservations , where fewer than 20 % of people have responded .
So , time is running out .
The count is either going to end at the end of this month or the end of next month .
And the implications are huge .
We ’ re talking about $ 1.5 trillion in federal funding for the next decade .
We ’ re talking about how state and federal voting districts are drawn .
We ’ re talking about how much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , we only get a chance to do this once every decade .
And it would be a real shame if we had a deliberate undercount of certain communities , particularly immigrant communities and communities of color , to try to benefit the Trump administration ’ s aims as opposed to it benefiting all of society , which is what the census is supposed to do .
It ’ s supposed to count everyone and serve everyone , not just a shrinking white minority represented by Donald Trump .
AMY GOODMAN : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you for being with us , senior writer at Mother Jones , author of Give Us the Ballot : The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America .
We ’ ll link to your latest piece , “ Conservative Judicial Decisions Keep Boosting GOP Voter Suppression.
” Then , as fires continue to devastate the West Coast , Trump rejects climate science .
We ’ ll go to California to speak with an Indigenous fire expert about how return to Indigenous ways of caring for the land could foster greater climate resiliency .
@ @ @ @

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Monday marked 50 days until the November election, and we begin today’s show looking at the attack on voting rights across the United States.
In a pivotal decision that could give Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden a big boost in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Green Party’s candidate, Howie Hawkins, to invalidate thousands of already-mailed ballots so that they could be reprinted with his name on them. In a 4-to-3 decision Monday, a conservative justice split with the right-wing majority and allowed Wisconsin’s voting process to proceed as planned. The ruling comes just days before the start of mail-in voting in the state. Hawkins called it a, quote, “travesty of justice.”
Meanwhile, in Iowa, a judge sided with Republican incumbent Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and voided more than 90,000 absentee ballot requests in the state’s most Democratic-leaning county. Johnson County is now the third Iowa county to have its ballot request forms voided because county election officials mailed the forms to voters with personal information filled in to simplify the process. Affected voters will either have to fill out a new blank form to request an absentee ballot or vote at the polls on Election Day in the midst of the pandemic.
In Colorado, a federal judge just upheld a temporary restraining order that stops the U.S. Postal Service from sending out mailers that the state’s attorney general says have incorrect election information on them.
The list of major developments goes on, from Pennsylvania, where election officials are not able to send out ballots due to a slew of lawsuits and other issues, to Florida, where a court on Friday blocked hundreds of thousands of people with fees and fines from past felony convictions from registering to vote.
For more on all of this, as well as concerns about a sabotaged census, we’re joined by Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones, reporting fellow at the Type Media Center, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. His latest piece is titled “Conservative Judicial Decisions Keep Boosting GOP Voter Suppression.”
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Ari. Let’s start in Florida. Can you talk about what has happened there?
ARI BERMAN: Good morning, Amy, and good morning, Juan.
It was a really pivotal decision in Florida, because in 2018 64% of Floridians approved a law restoring voting rights to people with past felony convictions. Before that, Florida prevented one in 10 people, including one in five African Americans, from voting. Then, the GOP Legislature said that people with past felony convictions have to pay off all fines, fees and restitution to be able to vote, which the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which now has a Trump majority because Trump appointed five justices to that court, upheld that law.
What it means in practice is that, according to studies, 775,000 people in Florida still owe money on their sentences and might not be able to vote. And remember, Amy, this was a state decided by 537 votes in 2000. So we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people maybe not being able to vote in Florida, who should have had their rights restored, in a state that’s been decided by only a few hundred votes in the past.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Desmond Meade, who is the one who really was the author of Amendment 4, that was overwhelmingly passed. We spoke with him yesterday — he’s president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and chair of the Floridians for a Fair Democracy — about his response to the ruling.
DESMOND MEADE: We are definitely viewing the recent decision by the 11th Circuit as a blow to democracy. I think democracy is the biggest loser here. You know, at the end of the day, now we’re forced to live in a state where a United States citizen will have to choose between putting food on their kids’ plate or voting, you know, choose between paying rent or their mortgage and voting. And this is not what democracy is all about.
And so, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, we as an organization remain committed, in spite of this recent ruling, to continue our efforts to engage as many returning citizens as possible, through our Fines and Fees Fund, where we’ve had patriots, defenders of democracy across the country, donating money so we are able to help people pay off their legal financial obligations and get them registered to vote so they can be able to participate in what we feel to be the most important presidential election this country has ever seen.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Desmond Meade, the force behind Amendment 4, that was overwhelmingly passed in Florida, that gave over a million people who had served time in prison for felonies the right to vote. Can you talk about the significance of him say millions of dollars are available? How do people find out about this, Ari?
ARI BERMAN: That’s right. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, led by Desmond Meade, has a fund that’s raised $3 million to pay off people’s fines and fees. So, people can go to their website and donate to that.
The big problem in Florida right now, Amy, is this law passed by the Legislature is kind of like a poll tax meets a literacy test. And I’ll explain why. It’s like a poll tax because you have to pay to be able to vote now. You have to be able to pay off all the fines, fees and restitution you owe to be able to vote, which could be tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars. It’s like a literacy test because Florida can’t actually tell you how much money you owe. There is no centralized database in Florida for someone with a past felony conviction to go to to see whether they still owe money.
So, this is really incomprehensible to people. Florida set up a law that it actually can’t enforce. And that’s why it’s going to lead to mass voter confusion, potentially mass voter disenfranchisement. And it’s just incredible to me that a court would uphold something like this, just a few months before the election, that so brazenly overturns the will of the voters who approved this historic ballot initiative in 2018.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ari, has there been any — is there any data about how many people have had their right to vote restored, of former convicted felons?
ARI BERMAN: Yes, there has been, Juan. Eighty-five thousand people have had their rights restored so far, and they are still eligible to vote. So that is one good thing about the decision, is that it still allows those 85,000 people that have had their rights restored to be able to vote. But we’re talking about 1.4 million people were set to have their rights restored. So you’re talking about 85,000 people have had their rights restored, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people that have not had their rights restored.
And the question is: Will they be eligible to vote? Will they decide to vote? Or even if they don’t owe money, will they be dissuaded from voting because of what the Legislature did and what the courts upheld?
So, it’s just a really unfortunate situation, because I think that Florida voters made it very clear that they wanted people to be able to vote if they’ve paid their debt to society. The Legislature added this crazy new wrinkle, saying you had to pay off all your fines, fees and restitution.
And the only reason it was upheld was because Donald Trump flipped the 11th Circuit with five Trump judges. And this is why Mitch McConnell in the Republican Senate is so intent on confirming judges and doing nothing else. This week, McConnell is going to confirm eight more judges to the federal bench, but they’re not doing anything else to help the American people.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ari, can we switch to Wisconsin and the situation there with the court decision on the Green Party? Could you explain why it went down to the wire for even the court to consider this case, given that the election is only 50 days away?
ARI BERMAN: It went down to the wire in Wisconsin because the Green Party filed late to try to get on the ballot. So, there was a dispute, first, with the Wisconsin Elections Commission of whether they should be on the ballot. And then the question was: Should they delay sending hundreds of thousands of ballots to put the Green Party on the ballot?
And the Wisconsin Supreme Court basically said, “We’re not deciding this on the merits of whether they should be on the ballot. It’s just too late to add them to the ballot.” Tens of thousands of ballots have already gone out. Hundreds of thousands of more are going out this week. There’s been over a million absentee ballot requests in Wisconsin. And this week is the day that they start sending them out en masse.
So, I think this decision adding the Green Party to the ballot would have led to major voter confusion in Wisconsin, in that a lot of people who got a ballot would have had to then get another one. And there was a risk that they would be very confused, that some people might vote twice, or some people might not vote at all. So, irrespective of the merits of whether the Green Party should be on the ballot, I think election officials in Wisconsin are breathing a sigh a relief that they don’t have to print new ballots and they can send the ballots that have already been requested out on time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about the situation in Iowa, with — there, what was the personal information that the court felt — I mean, that officials felt should not have been on the ballot? Could you talk about that? And why specifically in Democratic counties?
ARI BERMAN: What happened was, in Iowa, the Democratic counties, in particular, decided to, on their own, send absentee ballot requests to voters. So, in places like Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, the Democratic auditors decided to send these ballots. To make it easier, they filled in personal information, because Iowa passed a new voter ID law, and one of the provisions of that law is you have to have a PIN for your driver’s license on your absentee ballot, and a lot of people don’t know what that number is. So, the auditors tried to make this process easier for voters by filling in the information, including their driver’s license PIN number, which nobody knows what that is.
And instead of saying, “Hey, thank you for making it easier for people to vote,” in response to a lawsuit by the Trump campaign, the courts have now invalidated absentee ballot requests in the most Democratic counties in the state. So, this is very confusing for voters, because imagine that you requested an absentee ballot, and now you think you’re getting one in the mail, and now you’re going to have to get a — do that whole process over again, 50 days or less before the election. And so, it just adds more uncertainty into the process. And people are already confused about how to vote in this election, and these court decisions making it harder to vote are not helping things right now.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ari, talk also about Pennsylvania. I mean, it seems like, across the country, if the Republican Party sues, it simply delays absentee ballots from going out, even if they’re going to ultimately lose. So, talk about what’s happening in Pennsylvania. Then, in Colorado, if you could explain what’s happening there, a federal judge ordering the U.S. Postal Service to immediately stop sending mailers that contain false information? And then talk about McConnell and the U.S. Postal Service.
ARI BERMAN: So, first off, in Pennsylvania, there’s a ton of litigation right now. The Trump campaign is litigating, for example, to try to prevent voters from dropping off their ballots at drop boxes to avoid postal delays. There’s disputes over whether you should be able to start counting mailed ballots before the election. Right now you can’t, which means it could take longer for the votes to count. And actually, Republicans are refusing to allow votes to be counted earlier, because they want uncertainty in terms of the process. So, there’s a lot of litigation in Pennsylvania. Ballots have not gone out there, either. And this is, of course, a really pivotal swing state.
In Colorado, what happened was the post office sent mailers to all 50 states, basically telling people, “If you request an absentee ballot, request it early.” The problem in Colorado is that you don’t have to request an absentee ballot, that they actually automatically send ballots to all registered voters. They also can turn around ballots quicker because it’s a vote-by-mail state. So, what election officials were angry about in Colorado and other states is that the post office sent this one-size-fits-all mailer to all voters, as opposed to making it state specific, because the voting laws in Colorado are very different than the voting laws in New York. And election officials told the post office this is going to confuse voters, this is going to end up being a form of voter suppression. The post office didn’t listen. Now there’s an injunction against them.
In terms of what Mitch McConnell is doing, the only thing he is doing in Washington right now is confirming more federal judges for Donald Trump. He has confirmed over 200 federal judges for Donald Trump. He has been blocking $25 billion for the post office for over 120 days. He has been blocking legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act for over 280 days. He has been blocking legislation to prevent foreign election interference for over 320 days. He is not doing anything for the American people. The only thing Mitch McConnell is doing right now is confirming more extreme-right-wing judges for Donald Trump, because that’s the way Republicans rig the electoral system. If they get the judges they want, they can uphold things like modern-day poll taxes in Florida. So, this is the Republican Party’s game: Don’t to anything for the American people, make it as hard as you can to vote, and then put in place judges who will then uphold those new voter suppression laws.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ari, I wanted to ask you about the bigger picture of this national move, because — especially because of the pandemic, toward mail-in voting. You know, those of us who have covered elections in this country for decades know that the old system had many, many problems in terms of being able to deliver a clear count on Election Day. But clearly, the move to mail-in balloting, especially given that every jurisdiction, every state, sometimes every county have their own methods, will mean, inevitably, that we’re going to have many, many more problems in terms of being able to actually count votes, not to mention the fact that there will be a lot of people whose ballots will be discounted because they didn’t properly fill out the mail-in ballots. I’m wondering if you could step back and give us a big picture of what to expect come Election Day.
ARI BERMAN: Well, it makes sense that in a pandemic a lot of people would want to vote by mail. But people have to be careful about mail voting. There were over 500,000 mail ballots rejected in the primaries, which was a major increase from 2016, because ballots arrived too late or people didn’t sign them correctly or they didn’t sign them at all. And so, there is a lot of concern with mail voting that while it is a safe way to vote in a pandemic, if you’re not careful, these ballots can be rejected at a higher rate than in-person voting.
So, I think if you vote by mail, you have to do it early. You have to send it back early or drop it off, if possible. You have to sign it, and sign it carefully. I think if people are proactive about mail voting, there won’t be problems. But if everyone decides to vote by mail at the last minute and election officials are overwhelmed, if the post office, which has been sabotaged by Donald Trump, is overwhelmed, there could be real problems with mail voting and a real chance of major voter disenfranchisement.
What Republican legislatures are also doing, in states like Wisconsin and Minnesota and Pennsylvania, is they are not allowing the officials to start counting the ballots before Election Day, which means that it’s going to take longer to count the ballots. And Donald Trump is going to say, “Oh, only the Election Day votes should count. Let’s disqualify all of the mail ballots.” But if you want to avoid that kind of situation, what the Republican legislatures need to do, in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, is say that people should start counting the votes earlier. Then it won’t take weeks to certify the winner. We’ll know who won the election, maybe not on election night, but in a relatively quick period of time. So, Republicans are trying to capitalize on the uncertainty and fear around mail voting to try to boost their efforts to make it harder to vote.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to switch the issue to the census. And we only have a minute to go, but a federal court in New York blocked the Trump administration from excluding undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census, ruling undocumented people, quote, “qualify as 'persons in' a 'state'” who must be counted. Advocates called the ruling a victory for voting and immigrant rights. This comes as a federal judge in California has temporarily halted the Trump administration from ending its census collection efforts a month early, pending a court hearing later this month. The Census Bureau is being challenged by a coalition of rights groups, local governments and Native American communities, after it announced it would end its collection efforts at the end of September instead of the end of October, which could lead to a vast undercount of immigrants and communities of color. If you could talk about the significance of this, Ari Berman?
ARI BERMAN: The Trump administration has been trying to sabotage the census from day one. Luckily, federal courts and the Supreme Court have pushed back on this. The problem is that there’s a lot of fear among people, particularly immigrant communities, that they shouldn’t respond to the census. And if you look at the numbers, the response rate in 2020 is lower than the response rate in 2010 and 2000, and very low in some immigrant communities, very low on tribal reservations, where fewer than 20% of people have responded. So, time is running out. The count is either going to end at the end of this month or the end of next month.
And the implications are huge. We’re talking about $1.5 trillion in federal funding for the next decade. We’re talking about how state and federal voting districts are drawn. We’re talking about how much electoral votes and representation states receive. So, we only get a chance to do this once every decade. And it would be a real shame if we had a deliberate undercount of certain communities, particularly immigrant communities and communities of color, to try to benefit the Trump administration’s aims as opposed to it benefiting all of society, which is what the census is supposed to do. It’s supposed to count everyone and serve everyone, not just a shrinking white minority represented by Donald Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: Ari Berman, we want to thank you for being with us, senior writer at Mother Jones, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. We’ll link to your latest piece, “Conservative Judicial Decisions Keep Boosting GOP Voter Suppression.”
Then, as fires continue to devastate the West Coast, Trump rejects climate science. We’ll go to California to speak with an Indigenous fire expert about how return to Indigenous ways of caring for the land could foster greater climate resiliency. Stay with us.