theintercept--2020-12-01--Health Officials Face Death Threats From Coronavirus Deniers

was attending a virtual American Medical Association discussion around the “ Mask Up ” initiative one evening in July when she began to receive frantic messages from her parents begging her to confirm to them that she was alright .
“ Somebody obtained my father ’ s unlisted cell phone number and spoofed him , making it look like it was a phone call coming from my phone , ” she told Des Moines ’ s Business Record for a November profile .
“ Essentially they insinuated that they had harmed me and were on the way to their house @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , made possible by doxxing Srinivas ’ s private information , was only the most severe instance of abuse and harassment she had endured since she became a more visible proponent of mask-wearing and other mitigation measures at the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic .
A Harvard-educated infectious disease physician and public health researcher on the faculty of the University of North Carolina , Srinivas currently lives and works in Fort Dodge , her hometown of 24,000 situated in the agricultural heart of northwest Iowa .
Srinivas is not just a national delegate for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Covid-19 spread prevention locally , appearing on panels and local news segments .
Fort Dodge itself is situated deep within Iowa ’ s 4th Congressional District , a staunchly conservative area that simply replaced white supremacist Rep. Steve King with a more palatable Republican .
“ It was startling at first , the volume at which [ these threats were ] happening , ” Srinivas told The Intercept .
“ I know people get very heated about politics and the issues that people advocate for in general , but especially on something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to provide a public service , a way people can protect themselves and their loved ones and community based on medical objective facts .
That ’ s surprising that this is the reaction people have.
” “ I have trolls like other people , I ’ ve been doxxed , I ’ ve gotten death threats , ” she said .
“ When you say anything people don ’ t want to hear , there will be trolls and there will be people who will try to argue against you .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could say were new , but when I ’ ve done things like this in the past , I ’ ve had people say not-so-nice things in the past when I ’ ve had advocacy issues.
” At the same time , as an Iowa native , Srinivas has been able to gain some trust through tapping into local networks like Facebook .
Though she has encountered a great deal of anger , she ’ s also seen success in the form of a son who ’ s managed to convince his diabetic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off on reopening his church thanks to her advice , and through someone who ’ s been allowed to work from home based on recommendations Srinivas made on a panel .
“ At this point , almost everyone knows at least one person that ’ s been infected .
Unfortunately , it leads to a higher proportion of the population who knows someone who ’ s not just been infected , but who ’ s had serious ramification driven by the disease , ” Srinivas said .
“ So it ’ s come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are experiencing the impact of the disease closer to home , they ’ re starting to understand the true impact and starting to be willing to listen to recommendations.
” Without cooperation and support at the state level , however , what Srinivas can accomplish on her own is limited .
Even as the number of Covid-19 cases grew and put an increasing strain on Iowa ’ s hospitals over the past few months , it took until after the November election for Iowa ’ s Republican Gov .
Kim Reynolds to tighten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ board members in Webster County , where Srinivas lives , only admitted in November that she had been right to advocate for a mask mandate all along .
Though Trump lost the election nationally , he won Iowa by a considerable margin , which Reynolds has claimed as a vindication of her “ open for business ” attitude and has continued downplaying the pandemic ’ s severity .
“ The issue with her messaging is it creates a leader in the state that should be trusted who ’ s giving out misinformation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who don ’ t necessarily realize that this is misinformation because it ’ s not their area of expertise want to follow what their leader is saying .
That ’ s a huge issue under the entire public health world right now , where we have a governor that is spreading falsehood like this.
” The embattled situation in which Srinivas has found herself is the new normal for public health officials attempting to stem the tide of a deadly viral outbreak , particularly in the middle of country where the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simple , potentially lifesaving measures has become a politically significant act , working to inform the public means navigating conflicting regulatory bodies , and doing your job means making yourself publicly vulnerable to an endless stream of vitriol and even death threats .
The result across the board is that an untenable pressure has been placed on public health workers thrust in a politicized health crisis — and that pressure only appears to be worsening .
that Wisconsin ’ s stay-at-home order was nullified by the state ’ s Supreme Court in May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used its ability to exercise local control in an attempt to install mitigation measures that go beyond those statewide .
By issuing a mask mandate ahead of a statewide rule and advocating for education and compliance efforts , the department currently considers itself in a good place regarding health guideline compliance .
These actions have drawn a lot of ire from those unhappy with the regulations , however .
According to a communications representative for the department , anti-maskers have held a protest on a health officer ’ s front lawn , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a gas station parking lot ( an incident that prompted the department to advise its employees to only wear official clothing to testing sites ) , and employees performing compliance checks on businesses have been told to never perform these checks alone after “ instances of business owners get a little too close for comfort.
” They ’ ve also received a number of emails accusing health workers of being “ Nazis , ” “ liars , ” “ political pawns , ” and purely “ evil.
” In Kansas ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city in the state — has been considering new lockdown measures after a November surge in coronavirus cases has threatened to overwhelm its hospitals .
Though Democratic Gov .
Laura Kelly attempted to instate a mask mandate in July , 90 of the state ’ s 105 counties rejected it , including Sedgwick , though the health board issued its own directive and Wichita had installed its own at the city level .
Now , with cases surging again , just as Srinivas saw the number of believers rising as more got sick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mask mandates are changing their tune after Kelly announced a new mandate .
But Sedgwick County health officials see an intractable line in the sand when it comes to who ’ s on board with mitigation measures and are focused more on what those who are already on board need to be told .
“ It seems like a lot of the naysayers are naysayers and the supporters are supporters , ” Adrienne Byrne , director of Sedgwick County Health Department , said .
“ There ’ s some people that are just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just remind people to wear masks , it does make a difference .
As we ’ ve gone on , studies have shown that it works.
” “ I think it ’ s important to acknowledge to people that it is tiring , to acknowledge and validate their experience that people want to be over this stuff , but it ’ s important to reinforce that we are in a marathon , ” she said .
“ In the beginning , we all wanted to hear that we would reach a magical date @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stuff.
” Sedgwick has managed the streams of angry messages but has seen her colleagues in rural counties endure far worse , including death threats .
She knows of one public health worker in Kansas who quit after being threatened , and others who have cited the strain of the politicized pandemic as their reason for leaving the public health profession .
“ We ’ re certainly losing some health officials , there ’ s no question about that , ” said Georges Benjamin , president of the American Public Health Association .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , public health officials are pretty resilient .
And while it absolutely will dissuade people from entering the field , we all need to do a better job of equipping them for these issues in the future.
” Benjamin would like to see institutional and public support for public health workers resemble that given to police or firefighters , government professionals who are well-funded , believed to be essential to the functioning of society , and wielding a certain level of authority .
“ For elected officials who are charged with protecting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message to officials then is that they should protect their employees , ” Benjamin said .
, the situation has presented even more complex challenges to public health workers .
Outside of Omaha , the rural expanse is ruled by a deeply entrenched conservatism and , like Iowa ’ s governor Reynolds , Nebraska ’ s Republican Gov .
Pete Ricketts has resisted a mask mandate .
The Two Rivers Public Health Department , which oversees a wide swath of central Nebraska and its biggest population center , Kearney ( population 33,000 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Interstate 80 travel corridor and home to a University of Nebraska outpost .
Prior to the pandemic , Nebraska ’ s decentralized public health system had seen significant atrophy , according to Two Rivers Health Director Jeremy Eschliman , and was wholly unprepared for this level of public health event .
There were few epidemiologists to be found outside of Omaha , though the department was able to hire one earlier this year .
It also became clear early on that , despite the department ’ s traditionally strong ties with local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an uphill battle to get people to adapt new habits , especially when the president was telling them otherwise .
“ There was one clear instance I remember when I caught a bit of heckling when I said , ‘ Hey , this is serious .
We ’ re going to see significant death is what the models show at this point in time , ’ ” Eschliman said .
“ [ The station said ] , ‘ Are you serious ?
That seems way out in left field ’ or something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a very conservative following and that was the information they received.
” Eschliman has taken a realistic stance to promoting mask-wearing , thinking of it as akin to smoking .
( “ You could walk up to 10 people and try to tell them to quit smoking and you ’ re not going to get all 10 to quit , ” he said .
“ Fun fact : You ’ re not going to get more than maybe one to even quit for a small period of time.
” ) Over the summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s southern border into Colorado , where he was struck by the night-and-day difference between his neighbor state ’ s adoption of mask-wearing and Nebraskan indifference to it , each following the directives of their state leaders .
Home rule is the law of the land in Nebraska , and there ’ s been strong rural opposition to mask mandates , despite more liberal population centers like Lincoln and Omaha installing their own .
It ’ s taken Kearney until November 30 to finally install its own after outbreaks at the college and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers have also been left on their own to make controversial decisions that have caused political friction .
In May , the local health board voted not to share public health information with cities and first responders due to what they decided were issues of information confidentiality .
“ Mayors , county board members , and police chiefs ran a sort of a smear campaign against me and the organization , ” Eschliman said .
“ So when we talk about resiliency , that ’ s what we ’ re dealing with .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ do the right thing when you don ’ t have the political support to do so.
” Even having a Democratic governor doesn ’ t necessarily ensure that support .
In Hill County , a sparsely populated region of Montana ’ s “ Hi-Line ” country along the Canadian border , Sanitarian Clay Vincent supports Gov .
Steve Bullock ’ s mask mandate , but doesn ’ t understand why it exists if it ’ s not enforceable .
The way he sees it , if laws are made , they should create @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
But Vincent and the Hill County Health Board also saw what happened elsewhere in the state , in Flathead County , where lawsuits were brought against five businesses who refused to follow Bullock ’ s mask mandate .
After a judge threw the lawsuit out , those businesses launched a countersuit against the state , alleging damages .
In order to bring businesses in Hill County into compliance with the mask mandate , the health board is considering slapping them with signs identifying them as health risks or , barring that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refusal to comply .
“ These are community members .
Everybody knows everybody and [ the board isn ’ t ] trying to make more of a division between those who are and those who are not , but I come back to the fact that public laws are put there for the main reason to protect the public from infectious diseases , ” Vincent said .
“ You have to support the laws , or people sooner or later don ’ t give any credence to the public health in general.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hill County businesses into compliance , the political winds are already changing in Montana .
Republican Gov.-elect Greg Gianforte will take power in January and likely bring the party ’ s aversion to mask mandates with him .
President-elect Joe Biden will take power at the same time , and even if he attempts to install a nationwide mask mandate , it will likely be difficult to enforce and may end up meaning little out in Montana .
It will also likely exacerbate ongoing tensions in communities throughout the state .
The building @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the town of Havre was already closed this summer out of fear that a local group opposed to the mask mandate and nurses doing contract tracing are routinely threatened in the course doing their jobs .
Regardless , Vincent is determined to encourage and enforce public health guidelines as much as it ’ s in his power to do so , no matter the backlash .
He sees protecting the public as no different than preventing any other kind of disease .
“ I don ’ t care if it ’ s hepatitis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these things , ” he said .
“ You ’ re expected to deal with those and make sure it ’ s not affecting the public .
Otherwise you have a disaster .
”

Dr. Megan Srinivas was attending a virtual American Medical Association discussion around the “Mask Up” initiative one evening in July when she began to receive frantic messages from her parents begging her to confirm to them that she was all right.
“Somebody obtained my father’s unlisted cell phone number and spoofed him, making it look like it was a phone call coming from my phone,” she told Des Moines’s Business Record for a November profile. “Essentially they insinuated that they had harmed me and were on the way to their house to harm them.”
This malicious hoax, made possible by doxxing Srinivas’s private information, was only the most severe instance of abuse and harassment she had endured since she became a more visible proponent of mask-wearing and other mitigation measures at the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic. A Harvard-educated infectious disease physician and public health researcher on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Srinivas currently lives and works in Fort Dodge, her hometown of 24,000 situated in the agricultural heart of northwest Iowa.
Srinivas is not just a national delegate for the AMA, but a prominent face of Covid-19 spread prevention locally, appearing on panels and local news segments. Fort Dodge itself is situated deep within Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, a staunchly conservative area that simply replaced white supremacist Rep. Steve King with a more palatable Republican.
Basic health measures promoted by Srinivas in Iowa since the beginning of the pandemic have been politicized along the same fault lines as they have across the rest of the country. Some remain in the middle ground, indifferent to health guidelines out deep attachment to “normal” pre-pandemic life. Others have either embraced spread-prevention strategies like mask-wearing or refused to acknowledge the existence of the virus at all. In a red state like Iowa, an eager audience for President Donald Trump’s misinformation about the dangers of the coronavirus has made the latter far more common, which has made Srinivas’s job more difficult and more dangerous.
Portrait of Dr. Megan Srinivas. Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Megan Srinivas/Erich Ernst
“It was startling at first, the volume at which [these threats were] happening,” Srinivas told The Intercept. “I know people get very heated about politics and the issues that people advocate for in general, but especially on something like this where it’s merely trying to provide a public service, a way people can protect themselves and their loved ones and community based on medical objective facts. That’s surprising that this is the reaction people have.”
“I have trolls like other people, I’ve been doxxed, I’ve gotten death threats,” she said. “When you say anything people don’t want to hear, there will be trolls and there will be people who will try to argue against you. The death threats were something I wish I could say were new, but when I’ve done things like this in the past, I’ve had people say not-so-nice things in the past when I’ve had advocacy issues.”
An untenable pressure has been placed on public health workers thrust in a politicized health crisis — and that pressure only appears to be worsening.
At the same time, as an Iowa native, Srinivas has been able to gain some trust through tapping into local networks like Facebook. Though she has encountered a great deal of anger, she’s also seen success in the form of a son who’s managed to convince his diabetic father, a priest, to hold off on reopening his church thanks to her advice, and through someone who’s been allowed to work from home based on recommendations Srinivas made on a panel.
“At this point, almost everyone knows at least one person that’s been infected. Unfortunately, it leads to a higher proportion of the population who knows someone who’s not just been infected, but who’s had serious ramification driven by the disease,” Srinivas said. “So it’s come to the point where, as people are experiencing the impact of the disease closer to home, they’re starting to understand the true impact and starting to be willing to listen to recommendations.”
Without cooperation and support at the state level, however, what Srinivas can accomplish on her own is limited. Even as the number of Covid-19 cases grew and put an increasing strain on Iowa’s hospitals over the past few months, it took until after the November election for Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds to tighten Iowa’s mask guidance. And board members in Webster County, where Srinivas lives, only admitted in November that she had been right to advocate for a mask mandate all along. Though Trump lost the election nationally, he won Iowa by a considerable margin, which Reynolds has claimed as a vindication of her “open for business” attitude and has continued downplaying the pandemic’s severity.
“The issue with her messaging is it creates a leader in the state that should be trusted who’s giving out misinformation,” Srinivas said. “Naturally, people who don’t necessarily realize that this is misinformation because it’s not their area of expertise want to follow what their leader is saying. That’s a huge issue under the entire public health world right now, where we have a governor that is spreading falsehood like this.”
The embattled situation in which Srinivas has found herself is the new normal for public health officials attempting to stem the tide of a deadly viral outbreak, particularly in the middle of country where the pandemic winter is already deepening. Advocating for simple, potentially lifesaving measures has become a politically significant act, working to inform the public means navigating conflicting regulatory bodies, and doing your job means making yourself publicly vulnerable to an endless stream of vitriol and even death threats. The result across the board is that an untenable pressure has been placed on public health workers thrust in a politicized health crisis — and that pressure only appears to be worsening.
Despite the fact that Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order was nullified by the state’s Supreme Court in May, the Dane County Health Department has used its ability to exercise local control in an attempt to install mitigation measures that go beyond those statewide. By issuing a mask mandate ahead of a statewide rule and advocating for education and compliance efforts, the department currently considers itself in a good place regarding health guideline compliance.
These actions have drawn a lot of ire from those unhappy with the regulations, however. According to a communications representative for the department, anti-maskers have held a protest on a health officer’s front lawn, a staff member was “verbally assaulted” in a gas station parking lot (an incident that prompted the department to advise its employees to only wear official clothing to testing sites), and employees performing compliance checks on businesses have been told to never perform these checks alone after “instances of business owners get a little too close for comfort.” They’ve also received a number of emails accusing health workers of being “Nazis,” “liars,” “political pawns,” and purely “evil.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, left, confers with Clay Britton, her chief attorney, before a meeting with legislative leaders about an executive order she issued to require people to wear masks in public, on July 2, 2020, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Photo: John Hanna/AP
In Kansas’s Sedgwick County, Wichita — the largest city in the state — has been considering new lockdown measures after a November surge in coronavirus cases has threatened to overwhelm its hospitals. Though Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly attempted to instate a mask mandate in July, 90 of the state’s 105 counties rejected it, including Sedgwick, though the health board issued its own directive and Wichita had installed its own at the city level.
Now, with cases surging again, just as Srinivas saw the number of believers rising as more got sick, counties in Kansas that previously resisted mask mandates are changing their tune after Kelly announced a new mandate. But Sedgwick County health officials see an intractable line in the sand when it comes to who’s on board with mitigation measures and are focused more on what those who are already on board need to be told.
“It seems like a lot of the naysayers are naysayers and the supporters are supporters,” Adrienne Byrne, director of Sedgwick County Health Department, said. “There’s some people that are just kind of whatever about it. We just remind people to wear masks, it does make a difference. As we’ve gone on, studies have shown that it works.”
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“I think it’s important to acknowledge to people that it is tiring, to acknowledge and validate their experience that people want to be over this stuff, but it’s important to reinforce that we are in a marathon,” she said. “In the beginning, we all wanted to hear that we would reach a magical date and we would be done with this stuff.”
Sedgwick has managed the streams of angry messages but has seen her colleagues in rural counties endure far worse, including death threats. She knows of one public health worker in Kansas who quit after being threatened, and others who have cited the strain of the politicized pandemic as their reason for leaving the public health profession.
“We’re certainly losing some health officials, there’s no question about that,” said Georges Benjamin, president of the American Public Health Association. “In the long arc of history, public health officials are pretty resilient. And while it absolutely will dissuade people from entering the field, we all need to do a better job of equipping them for these issues in the future.”
Benjamin would like to see institutional and public support for public health workers resemble that given to police or firefighters, government professionals who are well-funded, believed to be essential to the functioning of society, and wielding a certain level of authority.
“For elected officials who are charged with protecting the officials and their public officials, our message to officials then is that they should protect their employees,” Benjamin said.
Signs encourage the wearing of face masks, on June 18, 2020, at a Sarpy County office in Papillion, Neb., where face covering is recommended but not mandatory. Photo: Nati Harnik/AP
In rural Nebraska , the situation has presented even more complex challenges to public health workers. Outside of Omaha, the rural expanse is ruled by a deeply entrenched conservatism and, like Iowa’s governor Reynolds, Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts has resisted a mask mandate. The Two Rivers Public Health Department, which oversees a wide swath of central Nebraska and its biggest population center, Kearney (population 33,000), is a popular pit stop along the Interstate 80 travel corridor and home to a University of Nebraska outpost.
Prior to the pandemic, Nebraska’s decentralized public health system had seen significant atrophy, according to Two Rivers Health Director Jeremy Eschliman, and was wholly unprepared for this level of public health event. There were few epidemiologists to be found outside of Omaha, though the department was able to hire one earlier this year. It also became clear early on that, despite the department’s traditionally strong ties with local media, messaging around the pandemic would be an uphill battle to get people to adapt new habits, especially when the president was telling them otherwise.
“There was one clear instance I remember when I caught a bit of heckling when I said, ‘Hey, this is serious. We’re going to see significant death is what the models show at this point in time,’” Eschliman said. “[The station said], ‘Are you serious? That seems way out in left field’ or something to that effect. That station had a very conservative following and that was the information they received.”
Eschliman has taken a realistic stance to promoting mask-wearing, thinking of it as akin to smoking. (“You could walk up to 10 people and try to tell them to quit smoking and you’re not going to get all 10 to quit,” he said. “Fun fact: You’re not going to get more than maybe one to even quit for a small period of time.”) Over the summer, he traveled just over Nebraska’s southern border into Colorado, where he was struck by the night-and-day difference between his neighbor state’s adoption of mask-wearing and Nebraskan indifference to it, each following the directives of their state leaders.
“It’s become very difficult to do the right thing when you don’t have the political support to do so.”
Home rule is the law of the land in Nebraska, and there’s been strong rural opposition to mask mandates, despite more liberal population centers like Lincoln and Omaha installing their own. It’s taken Kearney until November 30 to finally install its own after outbreaks at the college and in nursing homes. Public health care workers have also been left on their own to make controversial decisions that have caused political friction. In May, the local health board voted not to share public health information with cities and first responders due to what they decided were issues of information confidentiality.
“Mayors, county board members, and police chiefs ran a sort of a smear campaign against me and the organization,” Eschliman said. “So when we talk about resiliency, that’s what we’re dealing with. It’s become very difficult to do the right thing when you don’t have the political support to do so.”
Even having a Democratic governor doesn’t necessarily ensure that support. In Hill County, a sparsely populated region of Montana’s “Hi-Line” country along the Canadian border, Sanitarian Clay Vincent supports Gov. Steve Bullock’s mask mandate, but doesn’t understand why it exists if it’s not enforceable. The way he sees it, if laws are made, they should create consequences for those who refuse to follow them.
But Vincent and the Hill County Health Board also saw what happened elsewhere in the state, in Flathead County, where lawsuits were brought against five businesses who refused to follow Bullock’s mask mandate. After a judge threw the lawsuit out, those businesses launched a countersuit against the state, alleging damages. In order to bring businesses in Hill County into compliance with the mask mandate, the health board is considering slapping them with signs identifying them as health risks or, barring that, simply asking them to explain their refusal to comply.
“These are community members. Everybody knows everybody and [the board isn’t] trying to make more of a division between those who are and those who are not, but I come back to the fact that public laws are put there for the main reason to protect the public from infectious diseases,” Vincent said. “You have to support the laws, or people sooner or later don’t give any credence to the public health in general.”
Regardless of whether they can push the Hill County businesses into compliance, the political winds are already changing in Montana. Republican Gov.-elect Greg Gianforte will take power in January and likely bring the party’s aversion to mask mandates with him. President-elect Joe Biden will take power at the same time, and even if he attempts to install a nationwide mask mandate, it will likely be difficult to enforce and may end up meaning little out in Montana. It will also likely exacerbate ongoing tensions in communities throughout the state. The building that houses Hill County Health Department in the town of Havre was already closed this summer out of fear that a local group opposed to the mask mandate and nurses doing contract tracing are routinely threatened in the course doing their jobs.
Regardless, Vincent is determined to encourage and enforce public health guidelines as much as it’s in his power to do so, no matter the backlash. He sees protecting the public as no different than preventing any other kind of disease. “I don’t care if it’s hepatitis or HIV or tuberculosis or any of these things,” he said. “You’re expected to deal with those and make sure it’s not affecting the public. Otherwise you have a disaster.”


theintercept--2020-12-01--Comparing Biden’s Administration Picks to Obama’s Is Revealing

Sanders wing of the Democratic Party , the Joe Biden presidential transition is what losing looks like .
It is also , for better or for worse , what incremental progress looks like .
Whether it ’ s enough to match the scale of the overlapping crises or to stave off a midterm wipeout remains to be seen , but a comparison to the transition of President Barack Obama reveals the distance the party has traveled over the past 12 years .
In October 2008 , Michael Froman emailed John Podesta , who oversaw Obama ’ s transition , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from his Citigroup email account .
Froman , who led Obama ’ s transition in the winter of 2008-09 , would go on to become Obama ’ s U.S. trade representative , and his October recommendations would prove far more prescient than his bank ’ s forecast on the subprime lending market ; nearly all of them landed where he suggested .
Froman was part of the Rubinite wing of the Democratic Party — named for Bob Rubin , a longtime Goldman Sachs executive who served as President Bill Clinton ’ s treasury @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wall Street operatives , including Froman as well as Rubin ’ s Treasury Department successor , Larry Summers .
Rubin spent his post-government years at Citigroup , including as chair of the firm as it ran aground , destined for a bailout .
Biden ’ s version of the transition has raised howls for some of his picks , including Neera Tanden , the controversial head of the Center for American Progress , and Brian Deese , whose time at investment firm BlackRock has drawn opposition from some climate activists .
But in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden has chosen a person more progressive and less entrenched with Wall Street than the official who held the same position in 2009 under Obama .
The comparison exercise may do more to reveal the weakness of the early Obama administration , and its reliance on the Rubin wing of the party , than to testify to the strength of Biden ’ s .
And there are exceptions .
On national security and foreign policy , Biden has hewed closer to Obama ’ s approach — and he has backtracked from Obama ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration , putting an Apple lobbyist on his VP vetting committee .
But Biden , when faced with choices so far , has at least made the least bad one on the table , especially when it comes to economic policy .
Start with chief of staff : swapping out Rahm Emanuel for Ron Klain isn ’ t close .
Where Emanuel was outwardly hostile to the party ’ s progressive wing — “ communists ” who were “ fucking retarded ” — Klain , while not himself a fire-breathing Sanders supporter , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s left flank .
( He is also known for a heightened level of organizational competence , a rather important trait in a pandemic . )
Biden ’ s alternative , his close adviser Steve Ricchetti , a longtime corporate lobbyist , was passed over for the job amid progressive opposition .
At the Treasury Department , Obama went with Summers protégé Tim Geithner , and Wall Street was pushing Biden to pick Geithner protégé Lael Brainard .
Instead , Biden tapped Janet Yellen , the former Fed chair , a center-left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one who has dedicated her academic career to understanding how to achieve the fullest possible employment .
That Biden is staffing his White House with fewer ghouls than his former boss is a function of both internal and external factors .
The party broadly has shifted left , with ideas like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal gaining serious traction .
Biden , who has consistently positioned himself in the center of the party , whichever direction the party went , has moved with it , as evidenced by the progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 2008 to 2020 .
But it also involved a long-running research and advocacy campaign that sprang up as a reaction to the failure of the left to influence Obama ’ s transition on personnel .
The Revolving Door Project , helmed by Jeff Hauser , a former AFL-CIO official , was built to influence a Hillary Clinton administration and has worked in collaboration with the group Demand Progress , which has similarly focused on the importance of personnel as policy .
Clinton ’ s loss gave the outfits an extra four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of potential Democratic appointees .
Just on Tuesday , RDP was featured in both the New York Times and Politico .
Progressives have not given the Biden administration a pass on its appointments simply because they ’ re not as tied to Wall Street as Obama ’ s .
As deputy treasury secretary , Obama chose financial services executive Neal Wolin , who had been another protégé to Summers during the Clinton administration .
Biden went with Wally Adeyemo .
The strike against Adeyemo is his recent time working for the financial titan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of staff to CEO Larry Fink , a mark also held against Deese , who led the firm ’ s sustainable development investing , which critics have called merely a cover for dirty investment strategies .
The move from Wolin to Adeyemo is similar to going from Emanuel to Klain .
Wolin , a creature of Wall Street , had no interest in the views of the progressive community , as they weren ’ t part of his support base .
Just as Klain isn ’ t a card-carrying progressive but hears out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Adeyemo .
When Elizabeth Warren was given the job of standing up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 , Adeyemo was foisted on her by Geithner as a chief of staff , but the two quickly developed a strong working relationship .
Born in Nigeria , Adeyemo attended a poor public high school in Los Angeles before rising to where he is now .
Along the way , he joined the board of Demos , a progressive economic think tank , and not a home for Rubinites .
“ Wally is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts of the party , ” said Dan Geldon , himself a former Warren chief of staff .
“ That generally doesn ’ t happen by chance , it happens through a lot of hard work and listening over a long period of time.
” The difference at the Interior Department is also shaping up to be stark : Obama meanwhile tapped Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to be his interior secretary .
Salazar is one of the most powerful advocates of the oil and gas industry in the West , and he oversaw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Office of Management and Budget , where Biden tapped Tanden , Obama went with Peter Orszag , a deficit hawk who consistently hemmed in the party ’ s ambitions , before departing for a job at Citigroup .
Tanden , while the Obama administration was still pursuing a reckless Grand Bargain with Republicans aimed at deficit reduction , publicly distanced the Center for American Progress from the deficit-reduction project .
Biden ’ s alternative had been Bruce Reed , a deficit hawk so fierce he ’ d have made Orszag look dovish .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ starker .
Obama ’ s head of the NEC was Summers himself .
His deputies were Jason Furman and Diana Farrell .
Furman , an alum of the Clinton administration and a Rubin protégé , had been director of the Hamilton Project , which was founded by Bob Rubin .
Farrell , after working for Goldman Sachs , was head of the McKinsey Global Institute .
Biden ’ s head of the NEC , Deese , has progressive critics pointing to his time at BlackRock , but he also has progressive supporters ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number , something Summers certainly neither claimed nor cultivated .
Biden has named Cecilia Rouse as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers , a position held first in the Obama administration by Christina Romer , a progressive economist who was routinely overruled by the men on the economic team .
Rouse served on the National Economic Council at the end of the Clinton administration and on the CEA during the Obama administration .
In a twist of history , the NEC itself was created specifically as a vehicle for Rubin to build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CEA .
Her deputies on the CEA , meanwhile , are Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey , both progressive labor economists .
In the Obama administration , Bernstein served as Biden ’ s economic adviser and was known as the only voice on economics progressive could consistently rely on , though his position with the vice president excluded him from real influence .
On the foreign policy and national security front , the differences are slight .
Where Sanders had pledged an end to forever wars , Biden is implementing a restoration of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Where Obama named Hillary Clinton secretary of state , Biden turned to his longtime aide Tony Blinken .
At the Pentagon , Obama kept in place Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and named Michèle Flournoy undersecretary of defense .
Post-administration , Flournoy and Blinken cashed in to create WestExec Advisors , a lucrative strategic consulting firm that helped tech companies win Pentagon contracts .
Flournoy is the frontrunner for defense secretary , though Biden may be having second thoughts .
For national security adviser , Biden has selected Jake Sullivan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hillary Clinton , where Obama named Marine Gen. James Jones .
Dennis Blair was Obama ’ s first director of national intelligence , where Biden has chosen Avril Haines , who was the administration lawyer who advised on the kill list .
And Rahm Emanuel has yet to be ruled out for a Cabinet post .
Overall , Biden ’ s choices for most positions , from the perspective of the more progressive wing of the party , aren ’ t necessarily good , but they ’ re not as bad as Obama @ @ @ @ @ @ @ millions facing eviction and destitution , and just a decade to turn the global economy around to avert a climate apocalypse , better isn ’ t good enough .

For the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, the Joe Biden presidential transition is what losing looks like. It is also, for better or for worse, what incremental progress looks like. Whether it’s enough to match the scale of the overlapping crises or to stave off a midterm wipeout remains to be seen, but a comparison to the transition of President Barack Obama reveals the distance the party has traveled over the past 12 years.
In October 2008, Michael Froman emailed John Podesta, who oversaw Obama’s transition, a list of Cabinet and personnel suggestions directly from his Citigroup email account. Froman, who led Obama’s transition in the winter of 2008-09, would go on to become Obama’s U.S. trade representative, and his October recommendations would prove far more prescient than his bank’s forecast on the subprime lending market; nearly all of them landed where he suggested.
Froman was part of the Rubinite wing of the Democratic Party — named for Bob Rubin, a longtime Goldman Sachs executive who served as President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, who groomed a generation of Wall Street operatives, including Froman as well as Rubin’s Treasury Department successor, Larry Summers. Rubin spent his post-government years at Citigroup, including as chair of the firm as it ran aground, destined for a bailout.
Biden’s version of the transition has raised howls for some of his picks, including Neera Tanden, the controversial head of the Center for American Progress, and Brian Deese, whose time at investment firm BlackRock has drawn opposition from some climate activists. But in almost every spot so far named, Biden has chosen a person more progressive and less entrenched with Wall Street than the official who held the same position in 2009 under Obama.
Left/Top: Profile of Neera Tanden, chief operating officer of the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 31, 2011. Right/Bottom: Brian Deese, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, speaks in the White House briefing room in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2012. Photo: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post/Getty Images; Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
The comparison exercise may do more to reveal the weakness of the early Obama administration, and its reliance on the Rubin wing of the party, than to testify to the strength of Biden’s. And there are exceptions. On national security and foreign policy, Biden has hewed closer to Obama’s approach — and he has backtracked from Obama’s vow to bar lobbyists from his administration, putting an Apple lobbyist on his vice presidential vetting committee. But Biden, when faced with choices so far, has at least made the least bad one on the table, especially when it comes to economic policy.
Start with chief of staff: Swapping out Rahm Emanuel for Ron Klain isn’t close. Where Emanuel was outwardly hostile to the party’s progressive wing — “communists” who were “fucking retarded” — Klain, while not himself a fire-breathing Sanders supporter, has always been respectful to the party’s left flank. (He is also known for a heightened level of organizational competence, a rather important trait in a pandemic.) Biden’s alternative, his close adviser Steve Ricchetti, a longtime corporate lobbyist, was passed over for the job amid progressive opposition.
At the Treasury Department, Obama went with Summers protégé Tim Geithner, and Wall Street was pushing Biden to pick Geithner protégé Lael Brainard. Instead, Biden tapped Janet Yellen, the former Fed chair, a center-left economist with a mixed record, but one who has dedicated her academic career to understanding how to achieve the fullest possible employment.
That Biden is staffing his White House with fewer ghouls than his former boss is a function of both internal and external factors. The party broadly has shifted left, with ideas like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal gaining serious traction. Biden, who has consistently positioned himself in the center of the party, whichever direction the party went, has moved with it, as evidenced by the progressive drift of his presidential platforms from 1988 to 2008 to 2020. But it also involved a long-running research and advocacy campaign that sprang up as a reaction to the failure of the left to influence Obama’s transition on personnel. The Revolving Door Project, helmed by Jeff Hauser, a former AFL-CIO official, was built to influence a Hillary Clinton administration and has worked in collaboration with the group Demand Progress, which has similarly focused on the importance of personnel as policy. Clinton’s loss gave the outfits an extra four years to continue compiling research documents on dozens of potential Democratic appointees. Just on Tuesday, RDP was featured in both the New York Times and Politico.
Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP
Progressives have not given the Biden administration a pass on its appointments simply because they’re not as tied to Wall Street as Obama’s. As deputy treasury secretary, Obama chose financial services executive Neal Wolin, who had been another protégé to Summers during the Clinton administration. Biden went with Wally Adeyemo. The strike against Adeyemo is his recent time working for the financial titan BlackRock, where he served as chief of staff to CEO Larry Fink, a mark also held against Deese, who led the firm’s sustainable development investing, which critics have called merely a cover for dirty investment strategies.
The move from Wolin to Adeyemo is similar to going from Emanuel to Klain. Wolin, a creature of Wall Street, had no interest in the views of the progressive community, as they weren’t part of his support base. Just as Klain isn’t a card-carrying progressive but hears out that perspective, the same is true of Adeyemo. When Elizabeth Warren was given the job of standing up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010, Adeyemo was foisted on her by Geithner as a chief of staff, but the two quickly developed a strong working relationship. Born in Nigeria, Adeyemo attended a poor public high school in Los Angeles before rising to where he is now. Along the way, he joined the board of Demos, a progressive economic think tank, and not a home for Rubinites. “Wally is extremely effective and has relationships across all parts of the party,” said Dan Geldon, himself a former Warren chief of staff. “That generally doesn’t happen by chance, it happens through a lot of hard work and listening over a long period of time.”
The difference at the Interior Department is also shaping up to be stark:
there are reportedly three people on Biden's short-list to lead @Interior: @SenatorTomUdall , @RepDebHaaland and Sen. @MartinHeinrich all 3 are from New Mexico all 3 are Green New Deal sponsors — Chris D'Angelo (@c_m_dangelo) December 1, 2020
Obama meanwhile tapped Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to be his interior secretary. Salazar is one of the most powerful advocates of the oil and gas industry in the West, and he oversaw a boom in fracking.
At the Office of Management and Budget, where Biden tapped Tanden, Obama went with Peter Orszag, a deficit hawk who consistently hemmed in the party’s ambitions, before departing for a job at Citigroup. Tanden, while the Obama administration was still pursuing a reckless Grand Bargain with Republicans aimed at deficit reduction, publicly distanced the Center for American Progress from the deficit-reduction project. Biden’s alternative had been Bruce Reed, a deficit hawk so fierce he’d have made Orszag look dovish.
The National Economic Council comparison is even starker. Obama’s head of the NEC was Summers himself. His deputies were Jason Furman and Diana Farrell. Furman, an alum of the Clinton administration and a Rubin protégé, had been director of the Hamilton Project, which was founded by Bob Rubin. Farrell, after working for Goldman Sachs, was head of the McKinsey Global Institute.
Biden’s head of the NEC, Deese, has progressive critics pointing to his time at BlackRock, but he also has progressive supporters (including environmentalist Bill McKibben) in significant number, something Summers certainly neither claimed nor cultivated.
Left/Top: Council of Economic Advisers member-designate Cecilia Rouse testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 15, 2009. Right/Bottom: Christina Romer speaks at the Challenges of Job-Rich and Inclusive Growth at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2014. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP; Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images
Biden has named Cecilia Rouse as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, a position held first in the Obama administration by Christina Romer, a progressive economist who was routinely overruled by the men on the economic team. Rouse served on the NEC at the end of the Clinton administration and on the CEA during the Obama administration. In a twist of history, the NEC itself was created specifically as a vehicle for Rubin to build a power center that would undermine the CEA. Her deputies on the CEA, meanwhile, are Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey, both progressive labor economists. In the Obama administration, Bernstein served as Biden’s economic adviser and was known as the only voice on economics progressive could consistently rely on, though his position with the vice president excluded him from real influence.
On the foreign policy and national security front, the differences are slight. Where Sanders had pledged an end to forever wars, Biden is implementing a restoration of Obama’s approach in many ways. Where Obama named Clinton secretary of state, Biden turned to his longtime aide Tony Blinken. At the Pentagon, Obama kept in place Republican Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and named Michèle Flournoy undersecretary of defense. Post-administration, Flournoy and Blinken cashed in to create WestExec Advisors, a lucrative strategic consulting firm that helped tech companies win Pentagon contracts. Flournoy is the frontrunner for defense secretary, though Biden may be having second thoughts.
For national security adviser, Biden has selected Jake Sullivan, now 44, a wunderkind aide to Clinton, where Obama named Marine Gen. James Jones. Dennis Blair was Obama’s first director of national intelligence, where Biden has chosen Avril Haines, who was the administration lawyer who advised on the kill list.
And Rahm Emanuel has yet to be ruled out for a Cabinet post.
Overall, Biden’s choices for most positions, from the perspective of the more progressive wing of the party, aren’t necessarily good, but they’re not as bad as Obama’s either. Still, with millions facing eviction and destitution, and just a decade to turn the global economy around to avert a climate apocalypse, better isn’t good enough.


theintercept--2020-12-01--Biden’s Choice on Julian Assange and the First Amendment

When Joe Biden becomes president of the United States on January 20 , a historic opportunity awaits him to demonstrate America ’ s commitment to the First Amendment .
He can , in a stroke , reverse four years of White House persecution of journalism by withdrawing the application to extradite Julian Assange from Britain to the U.S .
This would be in line with the departures from Trump policies Biden is proposing on health care , environmental protection , and tax fairness .
Assange ’ s liberty represents the liberty of all journalists and publishers whose job is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of prosecution .
We need and deserve to be protected against government control of the press .
President Barack Obama ’ s January 2017 decision to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning , the source for WikiLeaks ’ s revelation that American forces in Iraq were involved in murder and torture , is another indication that the Trump Justice Department ’ s prosecution of Assange was an aberration and not an irreversible policy to threaten journalists and whistleblowers everywhere .
By removing the 1917 Espionage Act charges against Assange , Biden would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration in which he served for eight years as vice president .
President Barack Obama ’ s Department of Justice investigated Assange and WikiLeaks for three years until 2013 before deciding , in the words of University of Maryland journalism professor Mark Feldstein , “ to follow established precedent and not bring charges against Assange or any of the newspapers that published the documents.
” Equal application of the law would have required the DOJ to prosecute media outlets , including the New York Times , that had as large a hand in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If prosecutors put all the editors , publishers , and scholars who disseminated WikiLeaks materials in the dock , there would not be a courtroom anywhere in America big enough to hold the trial .
Obama decided against it , knowing it would represent an unprecedented assault on freedoms Americans hold dear .
Although the Obama administration prosecuted more journalists under the Espionage Act than all its predecessors combined , it pulled its punches in cases that would not withstand scrutiny .
The DOJ investigated and wiretapped Fox News journalist James Rosen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy in 2013 from State Department security adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim , but it avoided a contentious and high-profile trial by declining to prosecute him .
Kim pleaded guilty and received a 13-year sentence .
Biden has signaled his intention to return the U.S. to international cooperation , revoking Trump ’ s withdrawal from the World Health Organization , the Paris Agreement on climate change , and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to control Iran ’ s nuclear program .
America ’ s return to the community of law-abiding nations would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights calling for Assange ’ s immediate release .
Exonerating Assange would also underscore American dedication to Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights , among whose drafters was American former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt : “ Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek , receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received and imparted information vital to the public interest , as hundreds of media outlets , legal experts , and human rights advocates have attested .
It will take courage for Biden to retract the allegation he made on “ Meet the Press ” in 2010 : “ I would argue it [ WikiLeaks ] is closer to being a high-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers.
” Yet voters chose him over Donald Trump this month in the hope that he would show courage .
Biden also said in 2010 that the WikiLeaks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sources .
When WikiLeaks released the Iraq War logs and video of an American helicopter crew gunning down civilians , including two Reuters journalists , Defense Secretary Robert Gates conceded , “ Is this embarrassing ?
Yes .
Is it awkward ?
Yes .
Consequences for U.S. foreign policy ?
I think fairly modest.
” The source who provided the Pentagon Papers on America ’ s war in Vietnam to the New York Times and Washington Post , Daniel Ellsberg , recently stated that government officials “ have not been able to identify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , incarceration or physical harm.
” When the Nixon administration prosecuted Ellsberg for espionage in 1973 , Judge William Byrne dismissed the case “ with prejudice ” against the government for infringing Ellsberg ’ s right to confidential communication with his psychiatrist .
The Trump administration has illegally obtained Assange ’ s privileged discussions with his doctors and lawyers , tainting its case as much as Nixon ’ s against Ellsberg .
Whether Trump-appointed justices will defend the law as scrupulously as Byrne need not be put to the test .
If extradited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ Alcatraz of the Rockies , ” otherwise known as the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence , Colorado .
Its harsh regime would see him in permanent solitary confinement in a concrete box cell with a window four inches wide , with six bed checks a day and one hour of exercise in an outdoor cage .
His fellow inmates would be “ Unabomber ” Ted Kaczynski , Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev , FBI-agent-turned-Russian-spy Robert Hanssen , Oklahoma City co-bomber Terry Nichols , and Mexican drug baron Joaquín @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump may contend that journalists and publishers are no different from terrorists , serial killers , and narcotics traffickers .
Biden is free to take another view .
Does he want to begin his term of office carrying the burden of that Trump legacy ?
Assange stands in the tradition of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward during Watergate , Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers , Seymour Hersh over the My Lai massacre , Sydney Schanberg on America ’ s massive bombardment of Cambodia , plus hundreds of others who , vilified at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judgment of history .

Photo: David McNew/Getty Images
When Joe Biden becomes president of the United States on January 20, a historic opportunity awaits him to demonstrate America’s commitment to the First Amendment. He can, in a stroke, reverse four years of White House persecution of journalism by withdrawing the application to extradite Julian Assange from Britain to the U.S. This would be in line with the departures from Trump policies Biden is proposing on health care, environmental protection, and tax fairness. Assange’s liberty represents the liberty of all journalists and publishers whose job is to expose government and corporate criminality without fear of prosecution. We need and deserve to be protected against government control of the press.
By removing the 1917 Espionage Act charges against Assange, Biden would be adhering to the precedent established by the administration in which he served for eight years as vice president. President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice investigated Assange and WikiLeaks for three years until 2013 before deciding, in the words of University of Maryland journalism professor Mark Feldstein, “to follow established precedent and not bring charges against Assange or any of the newspapers that published the documents.” Equal application of the law would have required the DOJ to prosecute media outlets, including the New York Times, that had as large a hand in publicizing war crimes as did Assange himself. If prosecutors put all the editors, publishers, and scholars who disseminated WikiLeaks materials in the dock, there would not be a courtroom anywhere in America big enough to hold the trial. Obama decided against it, knowing it would represent an unprecedented assault on freedoms Americans hold dear.
President Barack Obama’s January 2017 decision to commute the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the source for WikiLeaks’s revelation that American forces in Iraq were involved in murder and torture, is another indication that the Trump Justice Department’s prosecution of Assange was an aberration and not an irreversible policy to threaten journalists and whistleblowers everywhere.
Although the Obama administration prosecuted more journalists under the Espionage Act than all its predecessors combined, it pulled its punches in cases that would not withstand scrutiny. The DOJ investigated and wiretapped Fox News journalist James Rosen for publishing information on North Korean nuclear policy in 2013 from State Department security adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, but it avoided a contentious and high-profile trial by declining to prosecute him. Kim pleaded guilty and received a 13-month sentence.
Biden has signaled his intention to return the U.S. to international cooperation, revoking Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to control Iran’s nuclear program. America’s return to the community of law-abiding nations would be enhanced further by adhering to judgements from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights calling for Assange’s immediate release. Exonerating Assange would also underscore American dedication to Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among whose drafters was American former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” (Italics mine.) Assange and WikiLeaks received and imparted information vital to the public interest, as hundreds of media outlets, legal experts, and human rights advocates have attested.
It will take courage for Biden to retract the allegation he made on “Meet the Press” in 2010: “I would argue it [WikiLeaks] is closer to being a high-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers.” Yet voters chose him over Donald Trump this month in the hope that he would show courage. Biden also said in 2010 that the WikiLeaks revelations had endangered the lives of intelligence sources. When WikiLeaks released the Iraq War logs and video of an American helicopter crew gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, Defense Secretary Robert Gates conceded, “Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.” The source who provided the Pentagon Papers on America’s war in Vietnam to the New York Times and Washington Post, Daniel Ellsberg, recently stated that government officials “have not been able to identify a single person at risk of death, incarceration or physical harm.”
When the Nixon administration prosecuted Ellsberg for espionage in 1973, Judge William Byrne dismissed the case “with prejudice” against the government for infringing Ellsberg’s right to confidential communication with his psychiatrist. The Trump administration has illegally obtained Assange’s privileged discussions with his doctors and lawyers, tainting its case as much as Nixon’s against Ellsberg. Whether Trump-appointed justices will defend the law as scrupulously as Byrne need not be put to the test.
If extradited, Assange risks a 175-year sentence in the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” otherwise known as the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado. Its harsh regime would see him in permanent solitary confinement in a concrete box cell with a window four inches wide, with six bed checks a day and one hour of exercise in an outdoor cage. His fellow inmates would be “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, FBI-agent-turned-Russian-spy Robert Hanssen, Oklahoma City co-bomber Terry Nichols, and Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.
Trump may contend that journalists and publishers are no different from terrorists, serial killers, and narcotics traffickers. Biden is free to take another view. Does he want to begin his term of office carrying the burden of that Trump legacy? Assange stands in the tradition of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward during Watergate, Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Seymour Hersh over the My Lai massacre, Sydney Schanberg on America’s massive bombardment of Cambodia, plus hundreds of others who, vilified at the time, have been vindicated by the judgment of history.
Does Biden want to begin his term of office carrying the burden of that Trump legacy?
Those who insist Assange must pay for his actions can be satisfied that he has already suffered severe punishment. He has spent the past 10 years under confinement: first under house arrest, then as a political refugee in Ecuador’s embassy in London, and for the past year and a half in Belmarsh, a high-security prison outside of London, under conditions that U.N. Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer called “psychological torture.” Assange’s health has deteriorated to the point that 117 physicians wrote to British medical journal The Lancet last February that he is suffering “psychological torture and medical neglect.” Expert medical witnesses who have examined Assange at Belmarsh testified at his extradition hearing in September that, if extradition proceeds, his suicide is inevitable.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and other defenders of free expression have repeatedly called for Assange’s immediate release. Ellsberg issued a warning to journalists and publishers about Assange: “If he is extradited to the U.S. and convicted, he will not be the last.”
Biden’s choice on January 20 is between the opposite courses taken by his two immediate predecessors, Obama and Trump. His conscience should tell him which to follow.
Correction: December 14, 2020
A previous version of this article misstated the length of Stephen Kim’s sentence. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to disclosing national security information.
Correction: December 2, 2020
A previous version of this article referred to President Barack Obama’s 2017 commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence as a pardon, and stated that Julian Assange risks a 170-year sentence if extradited to the U.S. and convicted. In fact, he risks a 175-year sentence.


theintercept--2020-12-01--Transport Unions Say Rahm Emanuel Leading DOT Would Be a "Betrayal"

workers who helped elect Joe Biden are outraged about reports that the president-elect is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lead the Department of Transportation , citing his record of clashing with workers while in city government .
“ Rahm Emanuel would be a nightmare .
And a betrayal , ” said John Samuelsen , international president of the Transport Workers Union of America , AFL-CIO , which represents 150,000 workers in more than 100 local unions .
The union endorsed Biden in May and was one of several major transport unions that backed his campaign .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard to get Joe Biden elected , ” he said , particularly in Pennsylvania , where the union represents Philadelphia ’ s SEPTA transit , rail , and bus workers .
TWU recruited transit and rail volunteers in Pennsylvania who knocked doors , did phone and text banking , held caravans and virtual rallies with co-workers , and distributed fliers at work sites .
“ We didn ’ t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation , ” Samuelsen said .
“ He ’ s anti-trade union @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Association of Flight Attendants-CWA , AFL-CIO , said Emanuel ’ s consideration was a “ complete non-starter , ” and pointed to President Sara Nelson ’ s tweets on the news over the weekend .
“ We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation .
That just doesn ’ t reflect @ JoeBiden ’ s deep commitment to workers & our unions , ” Nelson tweeted Sunday .
The union endorsed Biden in October .
Other major transportation unions that endorsed Biden include the International Brotherhood of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Attendants ; the Amalgamated Transit Union ; and SMART , the International Association of Sheet Metal , Air , Rail , and Transportation Workers .
The Teamsters are not commenting publicly on any potential nominees but are sharing thoughts on picks privately with the transition team , said Bret Caldwell , director of communications for the union .
The other unions did not immediately respond to requests for comment .
Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton among union households but underperformed past Democratic nominees .
He won a majority of support from union households in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanded his support from union households in Pennsylvania and Ohio , winning majorities of union homes in those states .
The president-elect ’ s transition team includes more than 20 union leaders .
As mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019 , Emanuel faced off with unions representing teachers and city employees .
Emanuel pursued legislation making it harder for teachers to strike , laid off hundreds of teachers and school staff , closed some 50 schools , and threatened to lay off hundreds more city employees to cut costs in favor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on their first strike in a quarter of a decade during Emanuel ’ s first term , setting off a wave of teacher strikes in a handful of states .
City workers fought Emanuel ’ s efforts to require them to pay more to receive their pension benefits .
Despite this record , Emanuel had some labor support during his 2015 mayoral reelection campaign , with unions split between him and his opponent , now Rep. Jesús “ Chuy ” García .
Emanuel ’ s name has been floating as a potential pick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks , and he was lobbying for the transportation secretary post , The Intercept reported last month .
News that Emanuel was under consideration sparked backlash from progressives , largely in response to Emanuel ’ s handling of the 2014 Chicago police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald .
Emanuel was instrumental in helping cover up the killing and went to court to prevent the release of the dashcam video ahead of his 2015 election .
He maintains that he did not see the video until it was released to the public and has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ After pushback from the left , Emanuel may also now be under consideration for U.S. trade representative , Crain ’ s Chicago Business reported last week .
But this weekend , Axios reported again that Emanuel was being considered for DOT .
Biden ’ s transition team declined to comment on who may or may not be under consideration .
“ I have no doubt in my mind that he would do what any good neoliberal would do , and side with the bosses , ” Samuelsen said .
“ No matter where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in transportation or elsewhere , it ’ s gon na be viewed by the workers that supported Joe Biden as a total betrayal .
And it ’ ll be yet another in a long line of Democratic Party betrayals , ” he added .
“ The truth of the matter is that Rahm Emanuel is the type of Democrat that got Trump elected to begin with .
”

Unions representing transportation workers who helped elect Joe Biden are outraged about reports that the president-elect is considering former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to lead the Department of Transportation, citing his record of clashing with workers while in city government.
“Rahm Emanuel would be a nightmare. And a betrayal,” said John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, which represents 150,000 workers in more than 100 local unions. The union endorsed Biden in May and was one of several major transport unions that backed his campaign. “The trade union movement in transportation worked extremely hard to get Joe Biden elected,” he said, particularly in Pennsylvania, where the union represents Philadelphia’s SEPTA transit, rail, and bus workers.
TWU recruited transit and rail volunteers in Pennsylvania who knocked doors, did phone and text banking, held caravans and virtual rallies with co-workers, and distributed fliers at work sites. “We didn’t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation,” Samuelsen said. “He’s anti-trade union, he’s anti-worker.”
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, said Emanuel’s consideration was a “complete non-starter,” and pointed to President Sara Nelson’s tweets on the news over the weekend. “We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation. That just doesn’t reflect @JoeBiden’s deep commitment to workers & our unions,” Nelson tweeted Sunday. The union endorsed Biden in October.
Other major transportation unions that endorsed Biden include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the Association of Professional Flight Attendants; the Amalgamated Transit Union; and SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers.
The Teamsters are not commenting publicly on any potential nominees but are sharing thoughts on picks privately with the transition team, said Bret Caldwell, director of communications for the union. The other unions did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Striking Chicago Public School teachers picketing as Mayor Rahm Emanuel visits with students taking part at the Safe Haven program during a teachers strike in Chicago, on September 10, 2012. Photo: M. Spencer Green/AP
Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton among union households but underperformed past Democratic nominees. He won a majority of support from union households in Michigan and Wisconsin, but Donald Trump expanded his support from union households in Pennsylvania and Ohio, winning majorities of union homes in those states. The president-elect’s transition team includes more than 20 union leaders.
As mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019, Emanuel faced off with unions representing teachers and city employees. Emanuel pursued legislation making it harder for teachers to strike, laid off hundreds of teachers and school staff, closed some 50 schools, and threatened to lay off hundreds more city employees to cut costs in favor of privatizing city services. Chicago teachers went on their first strike in a quarter of a decade during Emanuel’s first term, setting off a wave of teacher strikes in a handful of states. City workers fought Emanuel’s efforts to require them to pay more to receive their pension benefits. Despite this record, Emanuel had some labor support during his 2015 mayoral reelection campaign, with unions split between him and his opponent, now Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García.
Emanuel’s name has been floating as a potential pick for Biden’s cabinet for several weeks, and he was lobbying for the transportation secretary post, The Intercept reported last month. News that Emanuel was under consideration sparked backlash from progressives, largely in response to Emanuel’s handling of the 2014 Chicago police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Emanuel was instrumental in helping cover up the killing and went to court to prevent the release of the dashcam video ahead of his 2015 election. He maintains that he did not see the video until it was released to the public and has defended his handling of the case.
After pushback from the left, Emanuel may also now be under consideration for U.S. trade representative, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last week. But this weekend, Axios reported again that Emanuel was being considered for DOT. Biden’s transition team declined to comment on who may or may not be under consideration.
“I have no doubt in my mind that he would do what any good neoliberal would do, and side with the bosses,” Samuelsen said. “No matter where he lands, whether it’s in transportation or elsewhere, it’s gonna be viewed by the workers that supported Joe Biden as a total betrayal. And it’ll be yet another in a long line of Democratic Party betrayals,” he added. “The truth of the matter is that Rahm Emanuel is the type of Democrat that got Trump elected to begin with.”


theintercept--2020-12-01--AIPAC Distorts U.S. Policy on Israel, Obama Admits in Book

Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh , likely carried out by Israel with possible U.S. support , is another sledgehammer blow against a legacy project of former President Barack Obama : the Iran nuclear deal .
In 2018 , President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal , which was signed by Iran , on one side , and the U.S. , four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council , and Germany , as part of a broader campaign to undo Obama ’ s achievements in office .
With an incoming Biden administration , chatter about the U.S. rejoining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commentators are openly speculating that the likely Israel attack against Fakhrizadeh was designed to hamstring President-elect Joe Biden and scuttle any possibility that the deal could be salvaged .
If the deal can be revived at all , it will in a severely curtailed form at best .
Full-blown war between the U.S. and Iran was averted by mere meters in January , following an Iranian missile strike responding to the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassim Suleimani .
A lasting detente between Iran and the United States , sought by the Obama administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two countries , now looks more remote than ever .
The Israelis , in other words , could manage to strong-arm their own patron state , the guarantor of their diplomatic security and financier of around a fifth of its defense budget .
This remarkable feat would return things to the dangerous status quo before the nuclear deal and represent yet another shocking deference to Israel ’ s priorities by the United States .
In looking to hold that old status quo at bay , the Biden administration would do well to study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led up to the deal itself — particularly the version told by the deal ’ s ultimate architect , Obama .
The first volume of Obama ’ s new presidential memoir , “ A Promised Land , ” deals with the events of his first term in office .
The nuclear deal was negotiated toward the end of his presidency and this volume doesn ’ t delve into those events .
But the book pointedly describes the difficulties that Obama and , by his own description , any U.S. lawmaker faced in pushing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its allied domestic lobby groups .
Obama paints a stark picture of a U.S. political system that , in a limited but serious way , has been compromised by foreign influence .
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an implacable foe of the nuclear deal , provocatively lobbying the U.S. Congress against Obama on the issue .
But it took the election of Trump , a weak and pliable president whose own political career was launched by a racist grudge against his predecessor , for Netanyahu to make real progress in blowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 2018 , video leaked of Netanyahu boasting about coaxing Trump into pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear agreement .
“ We convinced the U.S. president [ to exit the deal ] , and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement , ” Netanyahu said in the video , aired on Israel television .
Given Netanyahu ’ s famously bad personal relationship with Obama , these words could only pile insult onto injury .
In his book , Obama forthrightly describes his frustrations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as the difficulties that any U.S. politician faces seeking to pursue an even-handed Middle East policy .
“ By the time I took office , ” Obama wrote , in a section reflecting on the troubled U.S. history of mediating the Israel-Palestine conflict , “ most congressional Republicans had abandoned any pretense of caring about what happened to the Palestinians.
” Religious commitments had led many white evangelical Republican voters to blindly support the Israeli government in all matters .
Obama went on to say that , meanwhile , due to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party “ even stalwart progressives were loath to look less pro-Israel than Republicans.
” At the heart of the problem , as Obama described it , stood a nexus of pro-Israel lobbying groups and activists in D.C. that exerted pressure on his presidency at every turn , despite the fact that he considered himself “ fiercely protective ” of Israel and had provided it with strong economic , political , and military support .
Obama didn ’ t seem to think that he was the only one facing this predicament .
As he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee , a powerful bipartisan lobbying organization dedicated to ensuring unwavering U.S. support for Israel.
” As Israel ’ s own political drift to the far right has continued , Obama went on to write , AIPAC has also maintained a forceful insistence that “ there should be ‘ no daylight ’ between the U.S. and Israeli governments , even when Israel took actions that were contrary to U.S. policy.
” This created a serious dilemma for any U.S. politician trying to maintain a commitment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leftward in any real way .
The consequences for crossing AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations could be dire for any U.S. politician .
Obama noted candidly , “ Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘ anti-Israel ’ ( and possibly anti-Semitic ) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.
” Though not covered in Obama ’ s book , the nuclear deal has been a great example of how pro-Israel lobbying and pressure tactics can reshape U.S. politics .
The Netanyahu government and its allies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidency to prevent a negotiated U.S. agreement with Iran .
This effort was funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and only beaten back by Obama at considerable political cost .
Since Trump took office , along with handing an endless gold rush of concessions to Israel in the occupied territories , the U.S. has completely reversed its Iran policies in accordance with Netanyahu ’ s wishes .
The rapprochement with Iran started by Obama has been discarded in favor of a “ maximum pressure ” program of sanctions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war has not started as yet , but Trump still has two more months in office .
The Israelis appear to be using that time as a free-for-all to target Iran , drawing on the extensive infiltration networks they ’ ve set up in the country .
The Trump administration has not relented on its maximum-pressure policy even as Iran has been among the hardest hit countries by the Covid-19 pandemic .
The U.S. has layered on even more sanctions during the pandemic , including those that could affect medical trade , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military evaluations say that the sanctions campaign has “ left Iran bereft of financial resources to mount an effective public health response.
” The official death toll in Iran from Covid-19 recently passed 40,000 , though the real number could be several times higher .
As described in “ A Promised Land , ” Obama was essentially bullied by Netanyahu and his supporters during his term .
To his detriment , he failed to stand up effectively against this pressure .
His own Jewish supporters were forced to fight back a whisper campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward Israel , supposedly proven by his friendships with a few Palestinian academics and periodic expressions of sympathy for those living under Israeli occupation .
Netanyahu , meanwhile , made little effort to hide his animosity toward Obama throughout his presidency , going so far as to publicly fete his presidential challenger Mitt Romney in the 2012 U.S. elections .
The effect of this campaigning against his presidency clearly stung .
Now out of office , Obama has to watch Trump and Netanyahu work hand in hand to destroy what had been intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign policy .
It ’ s hard not to imagine those observations at the forefront of Obama ’ s mind when he dared to commit to the page an unspoken truth about the U.S.-Israel relationship : that it is unlike dealing with any other nominal partner state .
“ I ’ d delivered on my promise to enhance U.S.-Israel cooperation across the board , ” Obama wrote in his memoir , lamenting the apparent lack of gratitude this support had gotten him .
“ Nevertheless , the noise orchestrated by Netanyahu had the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , putting us on the defensive , and reminding me that normal policy differences with an Israeli prime minister — even one who presided over a fragile coalition government — exacted a political cost that didn ’ t exist when I dealt with the United Kingdom , Germany , France , Japan , Canada , or any of our other closest allies .
”

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, likely carried out by Israel with possible U.S. support, is another sledgehammer blow against a legacy project of former President Barack Obama: the Iran nuclear deal. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, which was signed by Iran, on one side, and the U.S., four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany, as part of a broader campaign to undo Obama’s achievements in office.
With an incoming Biden administration, chatter about the U.S. rejoining the deal had ramped up. Many commentators are openly speculating that the likely Israel attack against Fakhrizadeh was designed to hamstring President-elect Joe Biden and scuttle any possibility that the deal could be salvaged.
If the deal can be revived at all, it will in a severely curtailed form at best. Full-blown war between the U.S. and Iran was averted by mere meters in January, following an Iranian missile strike responding to the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassim Suleimani. A lasting detente between Iran and the United States, sought by the Obama administration to avoid a future war between the two countries, now looks more remote than ever.
The Israelis, in other words, could manage to strong-arm their own patron state, the guarantor of their diplomatic security and financier of around a fifth of its defense budget. This remarkable feat would return things to the dangerous status quo before the nuclear deal and represent yet another shocking deference to Israel’s priorities by the United States. In looking to hold that old status quo at bay, the Biden administration would do well to study the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship that led up to the deal itself — particularly the version told by the deal’s ultimate architect, Obama.
The first volume of Obama’s new presidential memoir, “A Promised Land,” deals with the events of his first term in office. The nuclear deal was negotiated toward the end of his presidency and this volume doesn’t delve into those events. But the book pointedly describes the difficulties that Obama and, by his own description, any U.S. lawmaker faced in pushing through policies opposed by the Israeli government and its allied domestic lobby groups. Obama paints a stark picture of a U.S. political system that, in a limited but serious way, has been compromised by foreign influence.
Tilted Playing Field
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an implacable foe of the nuclear deal, provocatively lobbying the U.S. Congress against Obama on the issue. But it took the election of Trump, a weak and pliable president whose own political career was launched by a racist grudge against his predecessor, for Netanyahu to make real progress in blowing up Obama’s keystone diplomatic achievement. In 2018, video leaked of Netanyahu boasting about coaxing Trump into pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear agreement. “We convinced the U.S. president [to exit the deal], and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,” Netanyahu said in the video, aired on Israel television.
Given Netanyahu’s famously bad personal relationship with Obama, these words could only pile insult onto injury. In his book, Obama forthrightly describes his frustrations with Israeli pressure on his administration, as well as the difficulties that any U.S. politician faces seeking to pursue an even-handed Middle East policy.
“By the time I took office,” Obama wrote, in a section reflecting on the troubled U.S. history of mediating the Israel-Palestine conflict, “most congressional Republicans had abandoned any pretense of caring about what happened to the Palestinians.” Religious commitments had led many white evangelical Republican voters to blindly support the Israeli government in all matters. Obama went on to say that, meanwhile, due to electoral and ideological considerations inside the Democratic Party “even stalwart progressives were loath to look less pro-Israel than Republicans.”
“Members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.”
At the heart of the problem, as Obama described it, stood a nexus of pro-Israel lobbying groups and activists in D.C. that exerted pressure on his presidency at every turn, despite the fact that he considered himself “fiercely protective” of Israel and had provided it with strong economic, political, and military support. Obama didn’t seem to think that he was the only one facing this predicament. As he wrote, “members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful bipartisan lobbying organization dedicated to ensuring unwavering U.S. support for Israel.”
As Israel’s own political drift to the far right has continued, Obama went on to write, AIPAC has also maintained a forceful insistence that “there should be ‘no daylight’ between the U.S. and Israeli governments, even when Israel took actions that were contrary to U.S. policy.” This created a serious dilemma for any U.S. politician trying to maintain a commitment to liberal principles, let alone tack leftward in any real way. The consequences for crossing AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations could be dire for any U.S. politician. Obama noted candidly, “Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.”
A Unique Relationship
Though not covered in Obama’s book, the nuclear deal has been a great example of how pro-Israel lobbying and pressure tactics can reshape U.S. politics. The Netanyahu government and its allies in D.C. fought hard during the Obama presidency to prevent a negotiated U.S. agreement with Iran. This effort was funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and only beaten back by Obama at considerable political cost. Since Trump took office, along with handing an endless gold rush of concessions to Israel in the occupied territories, the U.S. has completely reversed its Iran policies in accordance with Netanyahu’s wishes. The rapprochement with Iran started by Obama has been discarded in favor of a “maximum pressure” program of sanctions, assassinations, and sabotage.
A full-blown war has not started as yet, but Trump still has two more months in office. The Israelis appear to be using that time as a free-for-all to target Iran, drawing on the extensive infiltration networks they’ve set up in the country.
The Trump administration has not relented on its maximum-pressure policy even as Iran has been among the hardest hit countries by the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. has layered on even more sanctions during the pandemic, including those that could affect medical trade, as the disease ravaged Iranians. Leaked U.S. military evaluations say that the sanctions campaign has “left Iran bereft of financial resources to mount an effective public health response.” The official death toll in Iran from Covid-19 recently passed 40,000, though the real number could be several times higher.
“The noise orchestrated by Netanyahu had the intended effect.”
As described in “A Promised Land,” Obama was essentially bullied by Netanyahu and his supporters during his term. To his detriment, he failed to stand up effectively against this pressure. His own Jewish supporters were forced to fight back a whisper campaign against Obama’s alleged private hostility toward Israel, supposedly proven by his friendships with a few Palestinian academics and periodic expressions of sympathy for those living under Israeli occupation. Netanyahu, meanwhile, made little effort to hide his animosity toward Obama throughout his presidency, going so far as to publicly fete his presidential challenger Mitt Romney in the 2012 U.S. elections.
The effect of this campaigning against his presidency clearly stung. Now out of office, Obama has to watch Trump and Netanyahu work hand in hand to destroy what had been intended to be a signal achievement of his foreign policy. It’s hard not to imagine those observations at the forefront of Obama’s mind when he dared to commit to the page an unspoken truth about the U.S.-Israel relationship: that it is unlike dealing with any other nominal partner state.
“I’d delivered on my promise to enhance U.S.-Israel cooperation across the board,” Obama wrote in his memoir, lamenting the apparent lack of gratitude this support had gotten him. “Nevertheless, the noise orchestrated by Netanyahu had the intended effect of gobbling up our time, putting us on the defensive, and reminding me that normal policy differences with an Israeli prime minister — even one who presided over a fragile coalition government — exacted a political cost that didn’t exist when I dealt with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, or any of our other closest allies.”