theintercept--2020-07-23--Shahid Buttar's Bid to Unseat Nancy Pelosi Roiled by Accusations of Staff Mistreatment

The campaign of Shahid Buttar , a democratic socialist challenger to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , is stumbling amid allegations of sexism and mistreatment of staff in the workplace .
The allegations , which former staffers described to The Intercept , prompted the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America to consider a draft resolution rescinding the organization ’ s endorsement of the candidate .
Buttar ’ s campaign has faced a period of personnel turmoil since the March 3 Democratic primary , with at least 10 staffers and contractors departing .
That includes his top three staffers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director Emily Jones , and field director Otto Pippenger .
Most staff on Buttar ’ s current team started after the primary , and he no longer has a campaign manager — a change he attributed to a restructuring toward a distributed leadership model .
His previous staff , he said , were resistant to empowering volunteers .
In an interview with The Intercept , Buttar denied the allegations and argued that the former employees were dressing workplace disputes in the language of harassment and discrimination .
“ The allegations that I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respect to the campaign , are not gender-related .
… It ’ s a staff performance issue , ” he said .
“ What has been characterized as staff turnover is ultimately staff improvement.
” Complaints about the campaign ’ s culture came to a head this week , when 44 members of the DSA SF chapter — including three former Buttar campaign staffers , Patrick Cochran , Raya Steier , and Sasha Perigo — signed on to a proposed resolution to rescind their endorsement of him .
The resolution cited a sexual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which was made public Tuesday on Medium , and which Buttar has denied — and “ a pattern of abuse including but not limited to sexual inappropriate behavior with his staff and volunteers.
” The Intercept could not independently corroborate the accusation by the former acquaintance or the charge of sexually inappropriate behavior .
The proposed resolution goes on to state that Buttar “ mismanaged his campaign by treating his campaign team , specifically the women , in a belittling , demeaning , hyper controlling and abusive manner .
The Shahid Buttar campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Shahid ’ s behavior with many key staff positions still not filled.
” On Wednesday , the chapter ’ s electoral committee passed the resolution by a vote of 36 to 6 .
The proposed resolution , which also calls on Buttar to “ participate in restorative justice by engaging in group conflict resolution to fully acknowledge the harm he has caused , ” will go to a full vote on August 4 , according to a Monday email sent by the chapter ’ s steering committee .
The “ resolution can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voted upon and either passed or not by the membership , ” according to the email .
Asked about the proposed resolution , which was initially posted in a public Google Doc to which access has since been restricted , the committee ’ s co-chair Faye Wang declined to comment , saying that they were still in the process of gathering information and couldn ’ t talk about internal processes until the chapter issued a formal decision or statement on behalf of members .
“ Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are antithetical to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are issues that DSA San Francisco takes seriously , ” Wang wrote in an email .
In tweets posted Tuesday , Buttar rejected staff complaints about gendered discrimination , saying they were muddled and amplified by the sexual harassment allegation , and amounted to a misunderstanding of his style of management .
“ These claims have been amplified by former staff who have conflated our campaign ’ s attempts to manage concerns with their performance with gender-based discrimination , ” he said .
The San Francisco Berniecrats are looking into the accusations against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Facebook post Tuesday .
The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters , which endorsed Buttar in 2018 , said Wednesday on Twitter that it was aware of the allegations and taking them into consideration for its November election process .
San Francisco City Supervisor and DSA SF member Dean Preston rescinded his endorsement of Buttar following the allegations from Croydon , the San Francisco Chronicle reported .
He did not respond to a request for comment .
Buttar , an activist and constitutional lawyer who is well-known in San Francisco ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the November general election following the March primary , in which he obtained 13 percent of the vote .
Under California ’ s primary system , the top two candidates advance to the general election , regardless of their party affiliation .
He previously challenged Pelosi in 2018 , when he came in third in the primary and did not advance to the general election .
Still , Buttar is the first serious left-wing challenger Pelosi has faced in her 30 years in office , and the race is a broader test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organize to replace her ahead of her potential retirement in 2022 .
The Intercept , seven former staffers and contractors on Buttar ’ s campaign described a pattern of public berating and insults toward staff regardless of gender , but particularly toward women on the campaign .
They said Buttar was a tough boss , but his treatment of staff crossed a line .
On Tuesday , Mission Local reported that a number of former staffers said they had signed nondisparagement agreements and that Buttar “ denied the existence of the NDAs.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign contract that included a nondisparagement clause and in a Wednesday interview , Buttar acknowledged that some staffers , including his former campaign manager , Wilde , had signed such contracts .
“ I can vouch for the culture of misogyny that existed in the campaign , ” said Raya Steier , a DSA SF member and a former full-time field organizer for Buttar ’ s campaign who joined the campaign in May and resigned in June .
“ I have experienced it personally.
” Steier said they ’ d seen Buttar publicly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Wilde and Buttar ’ s former campaign finance director , Emily Jones .
Steier , who came to the U.S. from India , helped start the # MeToo movement there by releasing the name of academics accused of sexually harassing students at universities around the country .
Following university investigations , at least four professors were fired .
“ These are patterns of abuse that I know very closely , ” they said .
Steier said they left for those reasons , as well as concerns that Buttar ’ s campaign was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about workplace culture , Buttar said skilled volunteers felt alienated by former staff and were made to feel like they couldn ’ t participate .
He pointed to a number of campaign metrics to show that performance had improved following the staff departures .
The campaign more than doubled its fundraising between March and June and made more than 110,000 calls after the primary , “ roughly all of them ” after the staff changes , said Patricia Brooks , a communications volunteer for Buttar ’ s campaign , compared to roughly 7,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the primary .
Brooks said the campaign also grew its email list by 110 percent , with 37,300 emails on its list , and added at least 2,200 volunteers after the primary , for a total of 3,000 .
Some staffers pointed to Buttar ’ s salary as a point of contention .
According to Federal Election Commission filings , Buttar is making just under $ 100,000 a year , about one-tenth of the $ 1.1 million his campaign has raised so far .
It ’ s legal for candidates to pay themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a reform that was fought for so that candidates who are not wealthy enough to go without income for a year or more can make bids for office .
Staffers were nonetheless surprised .
“ When people found out , there was a huge amount of frustration in our circles internally , ” said Sasha Perigo , a local columnist and DSA SF member who worked part-time on contract doing email fundraising for the campaign .
“ People were like , are you fucking kidding me ?
” Buttar noted that his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation .
“ The idea in any way that I ’ m benefitting is frankly preposterous , ” he said .
Jones told The Intercept that Buttar lashed out at his staff , and at women staff in particular , both in public and private .
She began consulting for the campaign on a freelance basis at the end of December and joined the staff on February 19 .
By May 15 , she submitted her resignation .
Jones said her entire team , including an email fundraiser @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the public relations team , quit “ because Shahid insulted them at some point or another .
… It is more diabolical when a man in hippie pants is a misogynist.
” “ Everybody quit , ” she said .
“ Imagine people have a $ 4,000 , $ 5,000 salary during a pandemic and they quit their job .
Imagine that.
” following the March primary , Buttar attempted to mend relations with frustrated campaign staff , according to Jones and an internal email obtained by The Intercept .
During @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a campaign “ intervention ” with staffers , the campaign ’ s public relations firm the Worker Agency , and other unofficial senior campaign advisers , Buttar apologized to staffers for his past actions .
Buttar , in an interview , described the meeting as a breaking point between the campaign and the staffers who ended up leaving , with major disagreements over strategy .
( The Worker Agency , which dropped Buttar ’ s campaign in April , declined to comment . )
The next day , Buttar apologized directly to Jones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve come to understand that my impatience and preoccupation has made you feel disrespected , and I owe you an apology for that .
I am truly sorry , and did not realize how my actions were impacting you , ” Buttar wrote , going on to describing “ unfortunate dynamics ” between him and Jones , and him and Wilde .
“ If you have the patience left to give me another chance , I would like to do the same with you.
” Patrick Cochran , former volunteer coordinator for Buttar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ member who signed the proposed resolution , joined the campaign on January 15 and left May 15 , citing “ Jasper and Emily being treated like shit , ” he told The Intercept .
“ Also , I just thought the campaign was directionless , and Shahid was not a viable candidate , ” he said .
“ Something in the campaign was off.
” “ As a male staffer , I felt like I never was treated bad by Shahid , ” Cochran said “ He treated Jasper and Emily terribly.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of difference between my interactions and their interactions , which led me to believe he was misogynistic , ” he said , referencing Wilde and Jones .
“ We had a weekly meeting , and it was pretty frequent for Shahid to kind of belittle or brush aside any points they made .
And especially Emily , it would get into really uncomfortable and just downright misogynistic and just mean how he would treat Emily whenever she brought up a point in our meetings.
” “ He ’ s tried to use the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tough boss , ’ which is completely not true .
… There are demanding bosses that are like that .
It wasn ’ t like that , ” he said .
“ Because if he was a tough boss , he would have been tough to me.
” “ We always just thought he was doing this for his own personal profile , ” Cochran said .
“ If you ’ re gon na attack Nancy Pelosi for her freezer and her ice cream , ” he said , “ you better make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” In the Monday meeting with DSA SF , Buttar responded to concerns about staff turnover by pointing to performance issues , according to Jones and another staffer who attended .
“ I had a lot of frustrations with the campaign staff that was , you know , frankly , challenging to manage and did very much have their own ideas about what was in the campaign ’ s best interest , ” he said .
“ Due process is important , ” Buttar told The Intercept when asked about the meeting .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ here that should come out .
And I would love for DSA to explore them.
” Perigo told The Intercept that Buttar publicly berated her work and treated his employees poorly , sometimes along gendered lines .
“ I ’ m receptive to feedback on my work , ” she said .
“ I ’ ve had a lot of bosses before , and I ’ ve never had this problem with any of them.
” Perigo left the campaign in April at the same time as other staffers “ in solidarity with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resigned .
“ I just felt that the campaign was a vanity campaign , ” she said .
“ There were a lot of times where he would berate me to the point where I was like , should I be here ?
Like what is the point ?
This isn ’ t a huge moneymaker for me .
It ’ s just part-time , ” she said .
“ I noticed a pattern where Jasper was constantly made to apologize for Shahid ’ s very brash behavior .
And I felt that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she added .
“ And that is part of why I signed the DSA resolution.
” “ What kind of socialist candidate are you if you ’ re mistreating comrades in your own chapter ?
” she said .
Correction : July 23 , 2020 , 7:25 p.m .
ET A previous version of this article misstated the number of volunteers who have joined Buttar ’ s campaign since the primary .

Editor’s note: This article was updated to include additional context around the allegations made by Elizabeth Croydon.
The campaign of Shahid Buttar, a democratic socialist challenger to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is stumbling amid allegations of sexism and mistreatment of staff in the workplace. The allegations, which former staffers described to The Intercept, prompted the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America to consider a draft resolution rescinding the organization’s endorsement of the candidate.
Buttar’s campaign has faced a period of personnel turmoil since the March 3 Democratic primary, with at least 10 staffers and contractors departing. That includes his top three staffers: campaign manager Jasper Wilde, finance director Emily Jones, and field director Otto Pippenger. Most staff on Buttar’s current team started after the primary, and he no longer has a campaign manager — a change he attributed to a restructuring toward a distributed leadership model. His previous staff, he said, were resistant to empowering volunteers.
In an interview with The Intercept, Buttar denied the allegations and argued that the former employees were dressing workplace disputes in the language of harassment and discrimination. “The allegations that I’m ultimately being accused of, with respect to the campaign, are not gender-related. … It’s a staff performance issue,” he said. “What has been characterized as staff turnover is ultimately staff improvement.”
Complaints about the campaign’s culture came to a head this week, when 44 members of the DSA SF chapter — including three former Buttar campaign staffers, Patrick Cochran, Raya Steier, and Sasha Perigo — signed on to a proposed resolution to rescind their endorsement of him. The resolution cited a sexual harassment accusation from a former acquaintance — which was made public Tuesday on Medium, and which Buttar has denied — and “a pattern of abuse including but not limited to sexual inappropriate behavior with his staff and volunteers.” The Intercept could not independently corroborate the charge of sexually inappropriate behavior. However, The Intercept has spoken to several people who recounted having disturbing interactions with Croydon that caused them to question her credibility. A letter signed by more than a dozen longtime members of the left activist community, including Medea Benjamin, said Croydon had “a widely known pattern of making false allegations.” One of those people, Stacey Haines, her one-time roommate, said that the charges made in Croydon’s Medium post looked familiar to her because, in fact, Croydon was repeating stories Haines had shared about her own experiences. Croydon confirmed that she previously lived with Haines, but denied Haines’s claim that she fabricated her allegations by appropriating Haines’s own stories. Previously, Croydon had implied Buttar was somehow implicated in the death of a friend of his, posting last October on Twitter that Buttar’s friend “died mysteriously at a party and he colluded in the cover up.” She also claimed there were “armed pimps” at a different party of his. Neither allegation has any merit. In a previous interview, Croydon denied making accusations against Buttar in relation to his friend’s death. Presented with the tweets, Croydon said she did not intend to implicate Buttar in the death, but that there were questions and inconsistencies, and would only speak to authorities about it. (It has been ruled an accident. “I have no faith in the veracity of her claims of any sort,” said Anna Ricklin, who was the partner of the man who died.) Croydon, in Bay Area press coverage, is described as a comic who has appeared on “The Tonight Show,” but there is no indication in “The Tonight Show” archives or on IMDb that she appeared on the show; Croydon said she was interviewed by “The Tonight Show” while she was appearing on the reality show “Last Comic Standing.”
The proposed resolution goes on to state that Buttar “mismanaged his campaign by treating his campaign team, specifically the women, in a belittling, demeaning, hyper controlling and abusive manner. The Shahid Buttar campaign has had massive turnover for months because of Shahid’s behavior with many key staff positions still not filled.”
On Wednesday, the chapter’s electoral committee passed the resolution by a vote of 36 to 6. The proposed resolution, which also calls on Buttar to “participate in restorative justice by engaging in group conflict resolution to fully acknowledge the harm he has caused,” will go to a full vote on August 4, according to a Monday email sent by the chapter’s steering committee. The “resolution can be amended up until it has been voted upon and either passed or not by the membership,” according to the email.
Asked about the proposed resolution, which was initially posted in a public Google Doc to which access has since been restricted, the committee’s co-chair Faye Wang declined to comment, saying that they were still in the process of gathering information and couldn’t talk about internal processes until the chapter issued a formal decision or statement on behalf of members. “Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are antithetical to the principles of democratic socialism, and are issues that DSA San Francisco takes seriously,” Wang wrote in an email.
Buttar rejected staff complaints about gendered discrimination, saying they amounted to a misunderstanding of his style of management.
In tweets posted Tuesday, Buttar rejected staff complaints about gendered discrimination, saying they were muddled and amplified by the sexual harassment allegation, and amounted to a misunderstanding of his style of management. “These claims have been amplified by former staff who have conflated our campaign’s attempts to manage concerns with their performance with gender-based discrimination,” he said.
The San Francisco Berniecrats are looking into the accusations against Buttar, the group announced in a Facebook post Tuesday. The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters, which endorsed Buttar in 2018, said Wednesday on Twitter that it was aware of the allegations and taking them into consideration for its November election process. San Francisco City Supervisor and DSA SF member Dean Preston rescinded his endorsement of Buttar following the allegations from the former acquaintance, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Buttar, an activist and constitutional lawyer who is well-known in San Francisco’s leftist political and art scene, advanced to the November general election following the March primary, in which he obtained 13 percent of the vote. Under California’s primary system, the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. He previously challenged Pelosi in 2018, when he came in third in the primary and did not advance to the general election. Still, Buttar is the first serious left-wing challenger Pelosi has faced in her 30 years in office, and the race is a broader test of whether the Bay Area left can organize to replace her ahead of her potential retirement in 2022.
In interviews with The Intercept, seven former staffers and contractors on Buttar’s campaign described a pattern of public berating and insults toward staff regardless of gender, but particularly toward women on the campaign. They said Buttar was a tough boss, but his treatment of staff crossed a line.
On Tuesday, Mission Local reported that a number of former staffers said they had signed nondisparagement agreements and that Buttar “denied the existence of the NDAs.” The Intercept obtained a copy of a campaign contract that included a nondisparagement clause and in a Wednesday interview, Buttar acknowledged that some staffers, including his former campaign manager, Wilde, had signed such contracts.
“I can vouch for the culture of misogyny that existed in the campaign,” said Raya Steier, a DSA SF member and a former full-time field organizer for Buttar’s campaign who joined the campaign in May and resigned in June. “I have experienced it personally.”
Steier said they’d seen Buttar publicly berate and humiliate multiple women staffers, including Wilde and Buttar’s former campaign finance director, Emily Jones. Steier, who came to the U.S. from India, helped start the #MeToo movement there by releasing the name of academics accused of sexually harassing students at universities around the country. Following university investigations, at least four professors were fired. “These are patterns of abuse that I know very closely,” they said.
Steier said they left for those reasons, as well as concerns that Buttar’s campaign was all for show.
Jones said her entire team quit “because Shahid insulted them at some point or another. … It is more diabolical when a man in hippie pants is a misogynist.”
Regarding the complaints about workplace culture, Buttar said skilled volunteers felt alienated by former staff and were made to feel like they couldn’t participate. He pointed to a number of campaign metrics to show that performance had improved following the staff departures. The campaign more than doubled its fundraising between March and June and made more than 110,000 calls after the primary, “roughly all of them” after the staff changes, said Patricia Brooks, a communications volunteer for Buttar’s campaign, compared to roughly 7,000 phone calls and 12,000 canvass attempts before the primary. Brooks said the campaign also grew its email list by 110 percent, with 37,300 emails on its list, and added at least 2,200 volunteers after the primary, for a total of 3,000.
Some staffers pointed to Buttar’s salary as a point of contention. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Buttar is making just under $100,000 a year, about one-tenth of the $1.1 million his campaign has raised so far. It’s legal for candidates to pay themselves with campaign funds during the election cycle, a reform that was fought for so that candidates who are not wealthy enough to go without income for a year or more can make bids for office. Staffers were nonetheless surprised. “When people found out, there was a huge amount of frustration in our circles internally,” said Sasha Perigo, a local columnist and DSA SF member who worked part-time on contract doing email fundraising for the campaign. “People were like, are you fucking kidding me?”
Buttar noted that his salary is equivalent to his previous salary working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The idea in any way that I’m benefitting is frankly preposterous,” he said.
Jones told The Intercept that Buttar lashed out at his staff, and at women staff in particular, both in public and private. She began consulting for the campaign on a freelance basis at the end of December and joined the staff on February 19. By May 15, she submitted her resignation. Jones said her entire team, including an email fundraiser, someone who handles social media ads, and the public relations team, quit “because Shahid insulted them at some point or another. … It is more diabolical when a man in hippie pants is a misogynist.”
“Everybody quit,” she said. “Imagine people have a $4,000, $5,000 salary during a pandemic and they quit their job. Imagine that.”
In the days following the March primary, Buttar attempted to mend relations with frustrated campaign staff, according to Jones and an internal email obtained by The Intercept.
During a March 7 meeting Jones described as a campaign “intervention” with staffers, the campaign’s public relations firm the Worker Agency, and other unofficial senior campaign advisers, Buttar apologized to staffers for his past actions. Buttar, in an interview, described the meeting as a breaking point between the campaign and the staffers who ended up leaving, with major disagreements over strategy. (The Worker Agency, which dropped Buttar’s campaign in April, declined to comment.)
The next day, Buttar apologized directly to Jones in an email. “I’ve come to understand that my impatience and preoccupation has made you feel disrespected, and I owe you an apology for that. I am truly sorry, and did not realize how my actions were impacting you,” Buttar wrote, going on to describing “unfortunate dynamics” between him and Jones, and him and Wilde. “If you have the patience left to give me another chance, I would like to do the same with you.”
Patrick Cochran, former volunteer coordinator for Buttar’s campaign and a DSA SF member who signed the proposed resolution, joined the campaign on January 15 and left May 15, citing “Jasper and Emily being treated like shit,” he told The Intercept. “Also, I just thought the campaign was directionless, and Shahid was not a viable candidate,” he said. “Something in the campaign was off.”
“As a male staffer, I felt like I never was treated bad by Shahid,” Cochran said “He treated Jasper and Emily terribly.”
“If you’re gonna attack Nancy Pelosi for her freezer and her ice cream, you better make sure that your house is clean too.”
“There was obviously a huge gulf of difference between my interactions and their interactions, which led me to believe he was misogynistic,” he said, referencing Wilde and Jones. “We had a weekly meeting, and it was pretty frequent for Shahid to kind of belittle or brush aside any points they made. And especially Emily, it would get into really uncomfortable and just downright misogynistic and just mean how he would treat Emily whenever she brought up a point in our meetings.”
“He’s tried to use the defense, ‘I’m a tough boss,’ which is completely not true. … There are demanding bosses that are like that. It wasn’t like that,” he said. “Because if he was a tough boss, he would have been tough to me.”
“We always just thought he was doing this for his own personal profile,” Cochran said. “If you’re gonna attack Nancy Pelosi for her freezer and her ice cream,” he said, “you better make sure that your house is clean too.”
In the Monday meeting with DSA SF, Buttar responded to concerns about staff turnover by pointing to performance issues, according to Jones and another staffer who attended. “I had a lot of frustrations with the campaign staff that was, you know, frankly, challenging to manage and did very much have their own ideas about what was in the campaign’s best interest,” he said.
“Due process is important,” Buttar told The Intercept when asked about the meeting. “There are a great many facts here that should come out. And I would love for DSA to explore them.”
Perigo told The Intercept that Buttar publicly berated her work and treated his employees poorly, sometimes along gendered lines. “I’m receptive to feedback on my work,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of bosses before, and I’ve never had this problem with any of them.” Perigo left the campaign in April at the same time as other staffers “in solidarity with Jasper” and others who’d resigned. “I just felt that the campaign was a vanity campaign,” she said. “There were a lot of times where he would berate me to the point where I was like, should I be here? Like what is the point? This isn’t a huge moneymaker for me. It’s just part-time,” she said.
“I noticed a pattern where Jasper was constantly made to apologize for Shahid’s very brash behavior. And I felt that that dynamic was very gendered,” she added. “And that is part of why I signed the DSA resolution.”
“What kind of socialist candidate are you if you’re mistreating comrades in your own chapter?” she said.
Correction: July 23, 2020, 7:25 p.m. ET
A previous version of this article misstated the number of volunteers who have joined Buttar’s campaign since the primary.


theintercept--2020-07-23--An Air Force Special Operations Surveillance Plane Is Lurking Near Portland During Federal Crackdown

At a Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in 2015 , as first reported by the defense blog War Is Boring , Air Force Col. Eric Forsyth detailed the Cougar ’ s capabilities for conducting intelligence , surveillance , and reconnaissance , or ISR , showing off the equipment ’ s potential to aid U.S. troops from above .
“ With jacks for power , Ethernet , GPS and other linkages , engineers can easily install all sorts of gear , ” wrote War Is Boring ’ s Joseph Trevithick at the time .
“ These systems would potentially be able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , high-powered radios , laser range finders and more.
” The aircraft is a twin-engine plane built in a modular fashion that allows it to be outfitted with long-range surveillance equipment suitable for supporting U.S. Special Operations commandos on the ground , according to Air Force documentation and previous public reporting .
It was in Colorado earlier this month , looping over Denver and Boulder , before flying to Portland on July 19 , and has been circling above Portland and its suburbs since July 21 , according to publicly available flight data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The plane , a DO-328 “ Cougar , ” was spotted via the open source flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange , allowing the public to monitor its course .
The Intercept reviewed this flight data , confirming tight , circular flights consistent with surveillance operations in and around Portland .
While anonymous federal agents have thrown protesters into unmarked vans and fired tear gas at Portland ’ s mayor in recent days , an Air Force surveillance plane designed to carry state-of-the-art sensors typically reserved for war zones has circled the Oregon city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cougar that has been orbiting Portland is registered to the 645th Aeronautical Engineering Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio , quite a distance from Portland .
The 645th previously operated under the code name “ BIG SAFARI , ” and was founded in 1952 to centralize the Air Force ’ s covert surveillance programs during the Cold War .
“ BIG SAFARI has long been an alternative acquisition source for certain high priority , rapid-reaction , urgent Combatant Commander needs , ” former Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former BIG SAFARI director Bill Grimes described the entity as “ a secretive Air Force acquisition program for specialized special mission aircraft.
” While the Cougar ’ s impressive potential for wide-area wartime surveillance is clear , it ’ s less obvious why a warplane is flying tight circles — typically a dead giveaway of aerial surveillance — near domestic protests , or on whose orders .
Last month , Motherboard reported similar surveillance flyovers by the National Guard over protests .
It ’ s unclear whether the Air Force is engaging in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing the plane ’ s capabilities to do so or doing something entirely unrelated .
The Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment .
“ Big Safari is all about testing new equipment , so maybe we are seeing the next generation of spy tech being used domestically right now , or they are taking advantage of the situation to improve testing , ” independent investigative journalist and plane-tracking enthusiast Sam Richards , who has been monitoring the flights , told The Intercept .
“ I think it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given the way this administration is cracking down on these uprisings.
” The flights don ’ t seem to have taken place directly over downtown Portland , the epicenter of the protests , but rather at a range of 20 to 30 miles from the city ’ s center .
That could still allow for fine-grained surveillance , however ; a 2016 Bloomberg report on police aerial surveillance over Baltimore noted the small civilian planes used there could surveil an area of up to 30 square miles .
The mere presence near Portland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ SOCOM ’ s aerial spy gear is enough to concern some observers .
“ The apparent use of military aircraft in a domestic operation should set off all kinds of alarm bells , ” said Steven Aftergood , director of the Federation of American Scientists ’ Government Secrecy Project .
“ What is their mission ?
Under what authority are they operating , and who authorized them ?
It seems like the administration is pushing right through what had been established norms of transparency and accountability.
” The vast array of power surveillance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on these flights is cause for concerns over privacy and political expression .
“ These aircraft are believed to carry SIGINT [ signals intelligence ] sensors ; if that is the case , then circling at that distance would probably ( depending on the altitude ) allow the sensors to collect data , ” David Cenciotti , a retired Italian Air Force officer and aerospace journalist , told The Intercept , though he noted that he could only speculate without knowing the Cougar ’ s actual payload .

While anonymous federal agents have thrown protesters into unmarked vans and fired tear gas at Portland’s mayor in recent days, an Air Force surveillance plane designed to carry state-of-the-art sensors typically reserved for war zones has circled the Oregon city’s outskirts from above.
The plane, a DO-328 “Cougar,” was spotted via the open source flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange, allowing the public to monitor its course. The Intercept reviewed this flight data, confirming tight, circular flights consistent with surveillance operations in and around Portland.
The aircraft is a twin-engine plane built in a modular fashion that allows it to be outfitted with long-range surveillance equipment suitable for supporting U.S. Special Operations commandos on the ground, according to Air Force documentation and previous public reporting. It was in Colorado earlier this month, looping over Denver and Boulder, before flying to Portland on July 19, and has been circling above Portland and its suburbs since July 21, according to publicly available flight data aggregated by websites like ADS-B Exchange.
At a Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in 2015, as first reported by the defense blog War Is Boring, Air Force Col. Eric Forsyth detailed the Cougar’s capabilities for conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, showing off the equipment’s potential to aid U.S. troops from above. “With jacks for power, Ethernet, GPS and other linkages, engineers can easily install all sorts of gear,” wrote War Is Boring’s Joseph Trevithick at the time. “These systems would potentially be able to run long-range radars, powerful cameras, high-powered radios, laser range finders and more.”
The Cougar that has been orbiting Portland is registered to the 645th Aeronautical Engineering Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, quite a distance from Portland. The 645th previously operated under the code name “BIG SAFARI,” and was founded in 1952 to centralize the Air Force’s covert surveillance programs during the Cold War. “BIG SAFARI has long been an alternative acquisition source for certain high priority, rapid-reaction, urgent Combatant Commander needs,” former Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said in a 2010 address. A 2018 obit for former BIG SAFARI director Bill Grimes described the entity as “a secretive Air Force acquisition program for specialized special mission aircraft.”
While the Cougar’s impressive potential for wide-area wartime surveillance is clear, it’s less obvious why a warplane is flying tight circles — typically a dead giveaway of aerial surveillance — near domestic protests, or on whose orders. Last month, Motherboard reported similar surveillance flyovers by the National Guard over protests. It’s unclear whether the Air Force is engaging in active surveillance of the protesters or merely testing the plane’s capabilities to do so or doing something entirely unrelated.
The Air Force did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a Portland resident who was made aware of the flights by The Intercept’s inquiry to his office, made his own request to the Air Force for information. In a response to Wyden made after this story was initially published, the Air Force denied the flights were surveilling protesters. “This week the Air Force conducted previously planned test flights in the Northwest United States that required the environmental conditions typical of the region. This location was chosen several months ago due to the high likelihood of cloud cover desired for this equipment test,” the Air Force wrote to Wyden. “The Dornier 328 aircraft, assigned to Air Force Materiel Command’s 645th Aeronautical Engineering Group, was not gathering intelligence or conducting operations related to civil unrest in Portland, Oregon.” (According to flight tracking data, the surveillance plane left the Portland area early Friday morning.)
Wyden told The Intercept the Air Force’s response raised its own questions. “The Air Force should know better than to fly circles over American cities when armed federal troops are beating and gassing protesters below,” he said. “Even if this was a test flight arranged months ago, the Air Force’s decision to continue as planned, rather than delaying the flight, raises serious questions about the judgement of the military leaders who approved the flight.” (Wyden, who said would be “totally unacceptable” for the military to surveil protests in the U.S., initially told The Intercept that, in addition to an explanation, he has asked the Air Force “what data it is collecting and who approved the mission” — questions that remain unanswered.)
Other members of Congress were skeptical of the Air Force’s explanation. “Too much coincidence to be credible,” tweeted Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, who suggested there should be Inspector General and Congressional investigations. “More than an IG investigation, it’s time now for the Senate Armed Services Committee to show strength & apply scrutiny. Hold hearings & investigate Trump’s misuse of military against Americans.”
Experts had raised questions about the test flights even before the Air Force made its claims.
“Big Safari is all about testing new equipment, so maybe we are seeing the next generation of spy tech being used domestically right now, or they are taking advantage of the situation to improve testing,” independent investigative journalist and plane-tracking enthusiast Sam Richards, who has been monitoring the flights, told The Intercept. “I think it is naive to not take these flights seriously given the way this administration is cracking down on these uprisings.”
The flights don’t seem to have taken place directly over downtown Portland, the epicenter of the protests, but rather at a range of 20 to 30 miles from the city’s center. That could still allow for fine-grained surveillance, however; a 2016 Bloomberg report on police aerial surveillance over Baltimore noted the small civilian planes used there could surveil an area of up to 30 square miles.
Sam Richards
The mere presence near Portland of a plane designed to stress test SOCOM’s aerial spy gear is enough to concern some observers. “The apparent use of military aircraft in a domestic operation should set off all kinds of alarm bells,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Government Secrecy Project. “What is their mission? Under what authority are they operating, and who authorized them? It seems like the administration is pushing right through what had been established norms of transparency and accountability.”
The vast array of power surveillance gear this plane potentially could be carrying on these flights is cause for concerns over privacy and political expression. “These aircraft are believed to carry SIGINT [signals intelligence] sensors; if that is the case, then circling at that distance would probably (depending on the altitude) allow the sensors to collect data,” David Cenciotti, a retired Italian Air Force officer and aerospace journalist, told The Intercept, though he noted that he could only speculate without knowing the Cougar’s actual payload.
Update: July 25, 2020
This article has been updated to include responses made after publication by the Air Force to the office of Sen. Ron Wyden’s inquiries, Wyden’s reaction, a reaction from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and information about when the Air Force plane left the Portland area.


theintercept--2020-07-23--The U.S.-Supported Coup in Bolivia Continues to Produce Repression and Tyranny, While Revealing How

The U.S.-Supported Coup in Bolivia Continues to Produce Repression and Tyranny, While Revealing How U.S. Media Propaganda Works

Today ’ s SYSTEM UPDATE episode on this topic — with guests Kathryn Ledebur , director of the Andean Information Network , who has lived and worked with coca farmers in Bolivia for the last 30 years , and Mark Weisbrot , co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research — will debut at 2:00 p.m. on The Intercept ’ s YouTube channel .
in Bolivia has largely disappeared from western news outlets ever since the November , 2019 massacres of pro-democracy protesters by the right-wing faction that seized power .
But for Bolivians , the repression and tyranny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endures .
And , predictably , the “ interim President ” installed after the coup , Jeanine Áñez , continues to rule the country ten months later , despite no possibility of being democratically elected , while she and her party plot how to prevent an election which all polls show will result in victory for the socialist party of toppled President Evo Morales .
What makes the coup in Bolivia and its aftermath so worthwhile to explore is not just the inherent importance of Bolivia itself : a country of 11 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , cultural and religious diversity , as well as an ample supply of the now-vital resource of lithium .
It is also instructive because of how U.S. discourse evolved in support of the coup , with supposed “ foreign policy experts ” across the political spectrum — the Atlantic ’ s Yascha Mounk , Mother Jones ’ editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery , former Obama official and Stanford Professor Michael McFaul , along with the Economist , the New York Times , and the Washington Post — spouting outright falsehoods to depict the destruction of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Since the coup last October , many of the key claims used to justify the ousting of Morales — most particularly claims by the Organization of American States that the election resulting in Morales ’ victory was fraudulent — have been proven to have been lies .
Yet not a single one of the foreign policy “ experts ” or media outlets have acknowledged their errors or even addressed these subsequent revelations , because they know that there are never any consequences for journalists and analysts as long as they remain subservient @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the New York Times reported on the studies proving the OAS claims to be baseless , they never acknowledged that their own reporting and editorializing treated those claims as true ) .
Bolivia is but the latest of a long line of thriving , stable democracies destroyed with the support if not the outright participation of the U.S. Government , while jingoistic media figures disseminated the propaganda used to justify it all .
And the suffering , violence , repression and tyranny left in its wake are then simply ignored by those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s SYSTEM UPDATE , which debuts at 2:00 pm ET on the Intercept ’ s YouTube channel , explores all of these issues , provides an update on post-coup Bolivia , and dissects the key role played by propaganda from U.S. political and media venues .
I ’ m joined by two of the most knowledgeable specialists on Bolivia : Kathryn Ledebur , director of the Andean Information Network , who has lived and worked with coca farmers in Bolivia for the last 30 years , and Mark Weisbrot , co-director of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first group to debunk the OAS claims of election fraud .
For so many reasons , Bolivia matters , not just to people in the region but also in the U.S .

Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE episode on this topic — with guests Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, who has lived and worked with coca farmers in Bolivia for the last 30 years, and Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research — will debut at 2:00 p.m. on The Intercept’s YouTube channel.
Photo: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters
The U.S.-supported military coup in Bolivia has largely disappeared from western news outlets ever since the November 2019 massacres of pro-democracy protesters by the right-wing faction that seized power. But for Bolivians, the repression and tyranny that replaced their stable and thriving democracy endures. And, predictably, the “interim president” installed after the coup, Jeanine Áñez, continues to rule the country 10 months later, despite no possibility of being democratically elected, while she and her party plot how to prevent an election which all polls show will result in victory for the socialist party of toppled President Evo Morales.
What makes the coup in Bolivia and its aftermath so worthwhile to explore is not just the inherent importance of Bolivia itself: a country of 11 million people with a rich and unique ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, as well as an ample supply of the now-vital resource of lithium. It is also instructive because of how U.S. discourse evolved in support of the coup, with supposed “foreign policy experts” across the political spectrum — The Atlantic’s Yascha Mounk, Mother Jones’ Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery, former Obama official and Stanford Professor Michael McFaul, along with the Economist, the New York Times, and the Washington Post — spouting outright falsehoods to depict the destruction of Bolivian democracy as the salvation of it.
Since the coup last October, many of the key claims used to justify the ousting of Morales — most particularly claims by the Organization of American States that the election resulting in Morales’s victory was fraudulent — have been proven to have been lies. Yet not a single one of the foreign policy “experts” or media outlets have acknowledged their errors or even addressed these subsequent revelations, because they know that there are never any consequences for journalists and analysts as long as they remain subservient to the U.S. government agenda (while the New York Times reported on the studies proving the OAS claims to be baseless, they never acknowledged that their own reporting and editorializing treated those claims as true).
Bolivia is but the latest of a long line of thriving, stable democracies destroyed with the support if not the outright participation of the U.S. government, while jingoistic media figures disseminated the propaganda used to justify it all. And the suffering, violence, repression and tyranny left in its wake are then simply ignored by those who helped bring it about.
Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE, which debuts at 2:00 pm ET on The Intercept’s YouTube channel, explores all of these issues, provides an update on post-coup Bolivia, and dissects the key role played by propaganda from U.S. political and media venues. I’m joined by two of the most knowledgeable specialists on Bolivia: Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, who has lived and worked with coca farmers in Bolivia for the last 30 years, and Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research, the first group to debunk the OAS claims of election fraud. For so many reasons, Bolivia matters, not just to people in the region but also in the U.S.


theintercept--2020-07-23--The Congressional Progressive Caucus Is Trying Something New: Winning Primaries

In a race to replace the outgoing Rep. Nita Lowey , the CPC set up an independent expenditure arm and spent nearly $ 200,000 helping Mondaire Jones clinch the nomination against a field of better-funded , more corporate-friendly candidates .
Now the CPC wants to replicate that success in the race to replace outgoing Rep. Denny Heck , a leading member of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition who is retiring after serving five terms to run for Washington lieutenant governor .
In 2018 , as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used its considerable weight to help centrist candidates beat progressives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stayed on the sidelines .
In New York this year , the CPC finally got into the game — and got a major return on its investment .
The Congressional Progressive Caucus , fresh off a first-in-its-history win in a New York primary , is turning next to an open seat in Washington state .
The CPC , founded in 1991 to organize progressives within the House Democratic caucus , has never previously been an electoral powerhouse , with its political action committee exerting its little influence by contributing $ 5,000 to candidates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which ended on June 30 , Collins raised just $ 22,500 and has largely receded from visibility .
That leaves Doglio , state Rep. Kristine Reeves , and former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland .
Strickland would be the first Black person to represent Washington state in Congress , as would Reeves , who is both Black and Latina , but neither has put up the kind of record that would excite national progressives .
Instead , the CPC just launched $ 140,000 worth of TV ads in support of Doglio ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Green New Deal .
The race was briefly on social media radar thanks to an autistic , democratic socialist candidate , truck driver Joshua Collins .
Known on Twitter as @ Joshua4Congress , he used popular meme formats to try to spread his left-wing message and largely ran his campaign online .
He also cultivated a large following on TikTok and urged these followers to join his Discord server , a chat platform used primarily by gamers — campaign strategies that earned the 26-year-old candidate media coverage in several major outlets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Instagram for a day in May without an explanation , some of his supporters began to turn on him .
Danni Shull , Collins ’ s communications and political director , attempted to shut down the speculation , and said the “ nonstop ” notifications “ make it nearly impossible for him to unplug ” and sleep , so he deactivated his profiles to get some rest .
Though he was originally running as a Democrat , he dropped the affiliation and is now running under the banner of the “ Essential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders , I-Vt. , endorsed Doglio , dealing a mortal blow to Collins ’ s campaign .
The CPC is throwing its weight behind state Rep. Beth Doglio , who backed CPC Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal during her first run for Congress in 2016 in an open primary , and has been her ally since .
Out of a field of 19 Democrats in the primary in Washington ’ s 10th Congressional District , a solidly blue district that includes Olympia and part of Tacoma , Doglio is one of three viable candidates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Washington delegation , has helped organize support for Doglio .
“ She ’ s awesome , ” said Jayapal .
“ Willing to take on power , willing to do the work , willing to push for bold ideas like Medicare for All before they are popular and the only one not taking corporate PAC money in the race .
Only one willing to confront the abysmal state of for-profit healthcare in this country that has been illuminated with COVID .
She will be a fantastic progressive partner for me in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she will also pick up the endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren , according to Doglio ’ s campaign and a Warren spokesperson .
That comes on top of backing she already has from Sanders , Jayapal and her fellow CPC Co-Chair Mark Pocan , Reps. Katie Porter and Jamie Raskin , along with a number of local labor unions and advocacy groups .
She has the backing of the LGBTQ Victory Fund , and if she wins , she ’ d be the only openly bisexual member of the House .
The CPC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the August 4 primary , focuses on Boglio ’ s support of Medicare for All and willingness to stand up to “ corporate special interests.
” “ Only Beth Doglio is bringing people together behind Medicare for All , guaranteeing quality health care for everyone — with no premiums , deductibles , or co-pays , ” a narrator says in the 30-second ad .
One of her major opponents , Strickland , was mayor of Tacoma for nearly a decade and went on to serve as president and CEO of the Seattle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lobbying group that spent exorbitant amounts of money on behalf of Amazon in the recent City Council elections trying to oust a progressive/socialist majority .
As mayor , Strickland fought against a $ 15 minimum wage , and welcomed fossil fuel projects that faced local opposition , including a liquified natural gas project and a methanol plant .
Doglio , before her election to the state House , was a climate activist who helped kill multiple coal projects .
Doglio and Strickland are neck and neck in fundraising , having raised $ 571,651 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most recent FEC filings .
Kristine Reeves , as a state representative , has cast a number of votes that have rankled progressives , including on environmental , affordable housing , and eviction issues .
She has an impressive biography , however , having experienced homelessness and spent time in foster care as a child .
She has the backing of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus ’ s BOLD PAC , as well as a number of unions , including Laborers ’ International Union of North America , the local Teamsters , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the American Federation of Teachers and the Washington Education Association .
Unlike Doglio , Reeves accepts corporate PAC money , as does the CHC ’ s PAC .
Asked about the CPC ’ s back of Doglio , Reeves issued a statement pointing to her endorsements and emphasizing that , if elected , she would be the first Black person to represent the Pacific Northwest in Congress .
“ As a working mom of two , an Afro Latina who grew up in and out of foster care and directly experienced homelessness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefitted thanks to strong investments in progressive programs like Headstart and public schools , so I know that if we are going to really change Congress , we have to start by changing who we send there to represent us , ” Reeves said in the statement .
Rep. Adam Smith , a powerful Democrat in Washington who previously represented portions of the district prior to 2012 , has lined up behind Reeves .
Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger , in its endorsement of Doglio , reminded readers that as a longtime environmental activist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ projects .
“ We are not sending anyone to Congress from a reliably blue district who does not unequivocally support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal .
The only person who fits that criteria in this race—and who actually showed up to our fucking meeting—is Beth Doglio , the two-term House Rep from Olympia , ” the paper wrote , dinging Joshua Collins for missing his meeting .
Doglio is in her second term in the state House , where she has pushed through legislation requiring already completed commercial construction to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through $ 75 million to spend on retrofitting those buildings .
She also passed legislation in response to the Supreme Court ’ s Janus decision ( which gutted public sector unions ) that allowed part-time public workers to unionize , passed a major affordable housing bill , and successfully battled the chemical industry .
The first bill she introduced as a freshman in 2017 was on police accountability .
The CPC PAC ’ s June spending in support of Jones was part of a total of $ 1 million the group has vowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endorsed J.D .
Scholten in Iowa , Georgette Gómez in California , and Candace Valenzuela in Texas , and is planning to spend on some of those races in the general election .
“ We ’ re seeing how critical it can be for progressive candidates to put together the staff , planning , and financial resources necessary to run and win in their districts , ” said Evan Brown , CPC PAC ’ s political director .
“ We ’ ve intensified our efforts to invest in and support the work that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ground to organize in their communities , build grassroots coalitions , and communicate with voters.
” Update : July 23 , 2020 , 3:31 p.m .
ET This article has been updated to include a comment from state Rep. Kristine Reeves that was received after publication .
Correction : July 23 , 2020 , 7:11 p.m .
ET An earlier version of this article overstated the amount of money the DCCC spent directly in primaries in 2018 .

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, fresh off a first-in-its-history win in a New York primary, is turning next to an open seat in Washington state. The CPC, founded in 1991 to organize progressives within the House Democratic caucus, has never previously been an electoral powerhouse, with its political action committee exerting its little influence by contributing $5,000 to candidates it supported.
In 2018, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used its considerable weight to help centrist candidates beat progressives in open primaries, the CPC mostly stayed on the sidelines. In New York this year, the CPC finally got into the game — and got a major return on its investment.
In a race to replace the outgoing Rep. Nita Lowey, the CPC set up an independent expenditure arm and spent nearly $200,000 helping Mondaire Jones clinch the nomination against a field of better-funded, more corporate-friendly candidates. Now the CPC wants to replicate that success in the race to replace outgoing Rep. Denny Heck, a leading member of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition who is retiring after serving five terms to run for Washington lieutenant governor.
The CPC is throwing its weight behind state Rep. Beth Doglio, who backed CPC Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal during her first run for Congress in 2016 in an open primary, and has been her ally since. Out of a field of 19 Democrats in the primary in Washington’s 10th Congressional District, a solidly blue district that includes Olympia and part of Tacoma, Doglio is one of three viable candidates.
The race was briefly on social media radar thanks to an autistic, democratic socialist candidate, truck driver Joshua Collins. Known on Twitter as @Joshua4Congress, he used popular meme formats to try to spread his left-wing message and largely ran his campaign online. He also cultivated a large following on TikTok and urged these followers to join his Discord server, a chat platform used primarily by gamers — campaign strategies that earned the 26-year-old candidate media coverage in several major outlets. But after he disappeared from Twitter and Instagram for a day in May without an explanation, some of his supporters began to turn on him. Danni Shull, Collins’s communications and political director, attempted to shut down the speculation, and said the “nonstop” notifications “make it nearly impossible for him to unplug” and sleep, so he deactivated his profiles to get some rest. Though he was originally running as a Democrat, he dropped the affiliation and is now running under the banner of the “Essential Workers Party.” In June, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., endorsed Doglio, dealing a mortal blow to Collins’s campaign.
In the last quarter, which ended on June 30, Collins raised just $22,500 and has largely receded from visibility. That leaves Doglio, state Rep. Kristine Reeves, and former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland. Strickland would be the first Black person to represent Washington state in Congress, as would Reeves, who is both Black and Latina, but neither has put up the kind of record that would excite national progressives. Instead, the CPC just launched $140,000 worth of TV ads in support of Doglio’s campaign, which supports Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
“She’s awesome. … She will be a fantastic progressive partner for me in the state delegation.”
Jayapal, the most outspoken progressive in the Washington delegation, has helped organize support for Doglio. “She’s awesome,” said Jayapal. “Willing to take on power, willing to do the work, willing to push for bold ideas like Medicare for All before they are popular and the only one not taking corporate PAC money in the race. Only one willing to confront the abysmal state of for-profit healthcare in this country that has been illuminated with COVID. She will be a fantastic progressive partner for me in the state delegation.”
On Thursday, she will also pick up the endorsement of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, according to Doglio’s campaign and a Warren spokesperson. That comes on top of backing she already has from Sanders, Jayapal and her fellow CPC Co-Chair Mark Pocan, Reps. Katie Porter and Jamie Raskin, along with a number of local labor unions and advocacy groups. She has the backing of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, and if she wins, she’d be the only openly bisexual member of the House.
The CPC ad, which is slated to run through the August 4 primary, focuses on Boglio’s support of Medicare for All and willingness to stand up to “corporate special interests.” “Only Beth Doglio is bringing people together behind Medicare for All, guaranteeing quality health care for everyone — with no premiums, deductibles, or co-pays,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad.
One of her major opponents, Strickland, was mayor of Tacoma for nearly a decade and went on to serve as president and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying group that spent exorbitant amounts of money on behalf of Amazon in the recent City Council elections trying to oust a progressive/socialist majority. As mayor, Strickland fought against a $15 minimum wage, and welcomed fossil fuel projects that faced local opposition, including a liquified natural gas project and a methanol plant. Doglio, before her election to the state House, was a climate activist who helped kill multiple coal projects.
Doglio and Strickland are neck and neck in fundraising, having raised $571,651 and $565,474 respectively, according to the most recent FEC filings.
Kristine Reeves, as a state representative, has cast a number of votes that have rankled progressives, including on environmental, affordable housing, and eviction issues. She has an impressive biography, however, having experienced homelessness and spent time in foster care as a child. She has the backing of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s BOLD PAC, as well as a number of unions, including Laborers’ International Union of North America, the local Teamsters, as well as the state’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and the Washington Education Association. Unlike Doglio, Reeves accepts corporate PAC money, as does the CHC’s PAC. Asked about the CPC’s back of Doglio, Reeves issued a statement pointing to her endorsements and emphasizing that, if elected, she would be the first Black person to represent the Pacific Northwest in Congress.
“As a working mom of two, an Afro Latina who grew up in and out of foster care and directly experienced homelessness as a teenager, I’ve benefitted thanks to strong investments in progressive programs like Headstart and public schools, so I know that if we are going to really change Congress, we have to start by changing who we send there to represent us,” Reeves said in the statement.
Rep. Adam Smith, a powerful Democrat in Washington who previously represented portions of the district prior to 2012, has lined up behind Reeves.
Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, in its endorsement of Doglio, reminded readers that as a longtime environmental activist, she had successfully blocked fossil fuel projects. “We are not sending anyone to Congress from a reliably blue district who does not unequivocally support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. The only person who fits that criteria in this race—and who actually showed up to our fucking meeting—is Beth Doglio, the two-term House Rep from Olympia,” the paper wrote, dinging Joshua Collins for missing his meeting.
Doglio is in her second term in the state House, where she has pushed through legislation requiring already completed commercial construction to meet serious carbon footprint standards and muscled through $75 million to spend on retrofitting those buildings. She also passed legislation in response to the Supreme Court’s Janus decision (which gutted public sector unions) that allowed part-time public workers to unionize, passed a major affordable housing bill, and successfully battled the chemical industry. The first bill she introduced as a freshman in 2017 was on police accountability.
The CPC PAC’s June spending in support of Jones was part of a total of $1 million the group has vowed to spend. The group has also endorsed J.D. Scholten in Iowa, Georgette Gómez in California, and Candace Valenzuela in Texas, and is planning to spend on some of those races in the general election.
“We’re seeing how critical it can be for progressive candidates to put together the staff, planning, and financial resources necessary to run and win in their districts,” said Evan Brown, CPC PAC’s political director. “We’ve intensified our efforts to invest in and support the work that our endorsed candidates are doing on the ground to organize in their communities, build grassroots coalitions, and communicate with voters.”
Update: July 23, 2020, 3:31 p.m. ET
This article has been updated to include a comment from state Rep. Kristine Reeves that was received after publication.
Correction: July 23, 2020, 7:11 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this article overstated the amount of money the DCCC spent directly in primaries in 2018.


theintercept--2020-07-23--Immigrants at Privately Run ICE Detention Center Were Thrown Out of Wheelchairs When They Asked For

Immigrants at Privately Run ICE Detention Center Were Thrown Out of Wheelchairs When They Asked For Medical Help

started feeling sick in early April .
His skin was hot to the touch , he lost his sense of taste , and he vomited continually , unable to keep any food down .
Blanco was terrified .
He had been held at the Stewart Detention Center , a privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in rural Georgia , for more than a month .
It was possible he had come down with the coronavirus , and if he had , it was all but guaranteed that guards in the ICE detention center , operated by private prison @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solitary confinement .
After two weeks of submitting requests for medical attention that went ignored , Blanco staged a one-man protest , sitting at a table in his unit and refusing to follow guards ’ orders to go back to his cell .
He said a guard approached him and told him that he should either return to his cell “ or go die with the sick ones in the hole.
” The guard wrote Blanco up for “ refusing to obey staff , ” according to disciplinary documents provided to The Intercept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : He was taken to Stewart ’ s clinic and given pills for his stomach pain .
When four guards came to get him from the clinic around 30 minutes later , they told him that he ’ d be going to solitary confinement — not because he was sick , but as punishment for having protested .
Blanco refused .
According to the disciplinary records , “ force was used to secure the detainee after he charged in an attempt to break away from the emergency response team.
” But Blanco ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ They grabbed me , they hugged me , and they slammed me to the ground , ” Blanco said .
His head hit the floor and a guard pressed his foot down onto it .
The impact of his head slamming the floor damaged Blanco ’ s right eye .
More than two months after the incident , Blanco said he still has a blood clot in that eye and his vision is still blurry .
Although officials told him that he would see an eye specialist prior to deportation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was diagnosed with Covid-19 on arrival in El Salvador in late May .
Blanco is one of three medically vulnerable immigrants held at Stewart who say they were subject to excessive force by guards amid the coronavirus pandemic .
All three incidents follow a pattern : After detainees demanded medical attention , guards threw them to the floor .
Two of the immigrants were using wheelchairs at the time , and guards hurled them out of the chairs nonetheless .
“ When immigrants use their voice to advocate for themselves , they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of force , ” said Priyanka Bhatt , a staff attorney with the advocacy organization Project South , which has chronicled years of problems at Stewart .
As The Intercept previously reported , during April , a SWAT-like unit of CoreCivic officers twice pepper-sprayed immigrants and shot pepper-ball ammunition in response to protests for better conditions .
ICE has reported 116 cases of Covid-19 among people incarcerated at Stewart , and one Stewart detainee died of the disease in May .
In a statement , CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin said the prison company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to all of those entrusted to our care at Stewart Detention Center , ” but declined to comment on any specific allegations , citing privacy regulations .
“ The claim that detainees are forced to wait to receive medical attention is patently false , ” Gustin said .
An ICE spokesperson said “ all persons in ICE custody receive all appropriate medical treatment , ” adding , “ we generally can not discuss specific medical treatment of any person in custody absent their consent.
” Salvadoran immigrant , arrived at Stewart earlier this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in bad shape .
“ [ PATIENT ] NEEDS INCISIONAL VENTRAL HERNIA REPAIR URGENTLY , ” reads a November doctor ’ s assessment , which Miguel shared with The Intercept .
“ [ PATIENT ] IS HAVING PAIN … .
WILL ATTEMPT AGAIN TO GET APPROVAL FROM ICE.
” ( Miguel is a pseudonym ; he asked to remain anonymous to protect him from harassment in El Salvador . )
After at least two requests , ICE finally approved Miguel for surgery , and he had the operation in March .
But shortly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seemed something had gone wrong during the surgery .
Rather than treating Miguel again , ICE decided to deport him .
On April 8 , detention staff told Miguel to prepare for his deportation flight .
“ Three guards came over and brutally tried to force me into a wheelchair , ” he told The Intercept .
“ I kept yelling that I was in pain .
I almost fell out of the wheelchair because I couldn ’ t even sit ; I had to lie flat.
” That ’ s when Miguel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collar “ practically strangling me , ” he recalled , and made him fall on to the ground .
“ I told them , ‘ You ’ re hurting me , you ’ re hurting me .
You can not wait ?
Just deport me another day , ’ ” he said .
The guards grabbed his arms and legs and carried him away .
Even before the coronavirus made its way to Georgia , immigrants and advocates criticized conditions in Stewart , one of the largest ICE facilities in the country .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2019 , two by suicide after spending prolonged periods in solitary confinement .
ICE previously said it is looking into recent use-of-force incidents .
ICE ’ s Office of Professional Responsibility launched an investigation after the incidents in which correctional staff used pepper spray and pepper-ball ammunition on immigrants .
After both incidents , The Intercept and the advocacy coalition Georgia Detention Watch found social media posts in which members of a special unit of CoreCivic guards — called SORT , for Special Operations Response Team — joked about the use of force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer joked that detainees were so hungry , they were “ eating that spray.
” As a result of The Intercept ’ s reporting , four staff members were fired from the facility and four others remain on administrative leave as ICE continues its investigation .
While testifying before Congress earlier this month , CoreCivic ’ s CEO Damon Hininger denied that pepper spray was used at the company ’ s facilities .
He later retracted his statement , claiming that he misunderstood the question , but noted only one instance in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from April described a man in a wheelchair being hit by pepper-ball ammunition .
He “ felt them mfs , ” the officer wrote .
“ He grabbed his face.
” That detainee was Hugh Tinarwo , a 33-year-old immigrant from Zimbabwe who has been held in Stewart since last October .
According to court filings , guards shot him in the back more than 60 times with the pepper-ball ammunition .
Other court records say he urinated blood after the incident .
Less than two months later , correctional officers at Stewart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him after he protested for more medical attention , further injuring his back .
“ I constantly fear for my life in here , ” Tinarwo told The Intercept from within the detention center .
Tinarwo has a history of medical problems prior to entering Stewart — a previously ruptured spinal disc , paralysis in his legs , hypertension , and an enlarged heart .
He lost his ability to walk after a surgery before entering ICE custody and is using a wheelchair .
After the pepper spray incident in April , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On June 18 , due to the pain from the herniated disc , Tinarwo requested medical attention but was denied .
Frustrated , he made a cynical comment to staff .
“ I was like , ‘ Do I have to say that I am going to kill myself to get medical attention around here ?
’ ” Tinarwo recalled .
Officers rolled him to the medical unit , where a nurse checked his blood pressure , then sent him to the waiting room .
Because of the comment about killing himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , three guards arrived to take him to suicide watch .
At Stewart , that means solitary confinement .
Tinarwo resisted .
According to Tinarwo , he held tight to the wheelchair , so one guard tried to flip him off , while another tried to drag him from the waiting room .
“ My legs was going one way , my body was going the other way , and I started yelling , ‘ My back !
My back !
My back !
” Tinarwo said .
Thrown to the ground , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the guards could not cuff him .
One of the officers pressed his head onto the ground , with another pressing on his neck .
They handcuffed Tinarwo , with the cuffs scratching his arm , he said , and took him to solitary confinement for suicide watch for some days .
“ [ My back is ] much worse now , ” Tinarwo said .
The pain is so bad that he has to ask others to push his wheelchair : “ Every time I push myself , I can feel the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Tinarwo is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice demanding the release of medically vulnerable immigrants detained in Stewart .
“ It ’ s a failure of Stewart Detention Center , ” said Erin Argueta , a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney who represents immigrants detained at Stewart .
Argueta said detention center staff don ’ t take requests for medical care seriously enough : “ To respond to that with violence is so sad , and wrong , and scary .
@

Roberto Blanco-Gonzalez started feeling sick in early April. His skin was hot to the touch, he lost his sense of taste, and he vomited continually, unable to keep any food down. Blanco was terrified. He had been held at the Stewart Detention Center, a privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in rural Georgia, for more than a month.
It was possible he had come down with the coronavirus, and if he had, it was all but guaranteed that guards in the ICE detention center, operated by private prison company CoreCivic, would place him in solitary confinement.
After two weeks of submitting requests for medical attention that went ignored, Blanco staged a one-man protest, sitting at a table in his unit and refusing to follow guards’ orders to go back to his cell. He said a guard approached him and told him that he should either return to his cell “or go die with the sick ones in the hole.”
The guard wrote Blanco up for “refusing to obey staff,” according to disciplinary documents provided to The Intercept. Still, his protest was successful: He was taken to Stewart’s clinic and given pills for his stomach pain.
When four guards came to get him from the clinic around 30 minutes later, they told him that he’d be going to solitary confinement — not because he was sick, but as punishment for having protested. Blanco refused. According to the disciplinary records, “force was used to secure the detainee after he charged in an attempt to break away from the emergency response team.” But Blanco’s account paints a more graphic picture.
“They grabbed me, they hugged me, and they slammed me to the ground,” Blanco said. His head hit the floor and a guard pressed his foot down onto it. The impact of his head slamming the floor damaged Blanco’s right eye.
More than two months after the incident, Blanco said he still has a blood clot in that eye and his vision is still blurry. Although officials told him that he would see an eye specialist prior to deportation, he never saw the doctor. Blanco was diagnosed with Covid-19 on arrival in El Salvador in late May.
Blanco is one of three medically vulnerable immigrants held at Stewart who say they were subject to excessive force by guards amid the coronavirus pandemic. All three incidents follow a pattern: After detainees demanded medical attention, guards threw them to the floor. Two of the immigrants were using wheelchairs at the time, and guards hurled them out of the chairs nonetheless.
“When immigrants use their voice to advocate for themselves, they’re always met with intimidation and use of force,” said Priyanka Bhatt, a staff attorney with the advocacy organization Project South, which has chronicled years of problems at Stewart.
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As The Intercept previously reported, during April, a SWAT-like unit of CoreCivic officers twice pepper-sprayed immigrants and shot pepper-ball ammunition in response to protests for better conditions. ICE has reported 116 cases of Covid-19 among people incarcerated at Stewart, and one Stewart detainee died of the disease in May.
In a statement, CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin said the prison company is “committed to providing high-quality healthcare to all of those entrusted to our care at Stewart Detention Center,” but declined to comment on any specific allegations, citing privacy regulations. “The claim that detainees are forced to wait to receive medical attention is patently false,” Gustin said. An ICE spokesperson said “all persons in ICE custody receive all appropriate medical treatment,” adding, “we generally cannot discuss specific medical treatment of any person in custody absent their consent.”
Miguel, a recently deported Salvadoran immigrant, arrived at Stewart earlier this year from another Georgia detention center already in bad shape. “[PATIENT] NEEDS INCISIONAL VENTRAL HERNIA REPAIR URGENTLY,” reads a November doctor’s assessment, which Miguel shared with The Intercept. “[PATIENT] IS HAVING PAIN …. WILL ATTEMPT AGAIN TO GET APPROVAL FROM ICE.” (Miguel is a pseudonym; he asked to remain anonymous to protect him from harassment in El Salvador.)
After at least two requests, ICE finally approved Miguel for surgery, and he had the operation in March. But shortly afterward, the pain returned; it seemed something had gone wrong during the surgery. Rather than treating Miguel again, ICE decided to deport him.
On April 8, detention staff told Miguel to prepare for his deportation flight. “Three guards came over and brutally tried to force me into a wheelchair,” he told The Intercept. “I kept yelling that I was in pain. I almost fell out of the wheelchair because I couldn’t even sit; I had to lie flat.”
“I kept yelling that I was in pain. I almost fell out of the wheelchair because I couldn’t even sit.”
That’s when Miguel says a guard grabbed him by the collar “practically strangling me,” he recalled, and made him fall on to the ground. “I told them, ‘You’re hurting me, you’re hurting me. You cannot wait? Just deport me another day,’” he said. The guards grabbed his arms and legs and carried him away.
Even before the coronavirus made its way to Georgia, immigrants and advocates criticized conditions in Stewart, one of the largest ICE facilities in the country. Four Stewart detainees died between 2016 and 2019, two by suicide after spending prolonged periods in solitary confinement.
ICE previously said it is looking into recent use-of-force incidents. ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility launched an investigation after the incidents in which correctional staff used pepper spray and pepper-ball ammunition on immigrants.
After both incidents, The Intercept and the advocacy coalition Georgia Detention Watch found social media posts in which members of a special unit of CoreCivic guards — called SORT, for Special Operations Response Team — joked about the use of force. In one post, a SORT officer joked that detainees were so hungry, they were “eating that spray.” As a result of The Intercept’s reporting, four staff members were fired from the facility and four others remain on administrative leave as ICE continues its investigation. While testifying before Congress earlier this month, CoreCivic’s CEO Damon Hininger denied that pepper spray was used at the company’s facilities. He later retracted his statement, claiming that he misunderstood the question, but noted only one instance in New Mexico.
Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants
One of the Facebook posts from April described a man in a wheelchair being hit by pepper-ball ammunition. He “felt them mfs,” the officer wrote. “He grabbed his face.”
That detainee was Hugh Tinarwo, a 33-year-old immigrant from Zimbabwe who has been held in Stewart since last October. According to court filings, guards shot him in the back more than 60 times with the pepper-ball ammunition. Other court records say he urinated blood after the incident.
Less than two months later, correctional officers at Stewart threw him to the ground and pinned him after he protested for more medical attention, further injuring his back.
“I constantly fear for my life in here,” Tinarwo told The Intercept from within the detention center.
Tinarwo has a history of medical problems prior to entering Stewart — a previously ruptured spinal disc, paralysis in his legs, hypertension, and an enlarged heart. He lost his ability to walk after a surgery before entering ICE custody and is using a wheelchair. After the pepper spray incident in April, he was newly diagnosed with a herniated disc.
On June 18, due to the pain from the herniated disc, Tinarwo requested medical attention but was denied. Frustrated, he made a cynical comment to staff.
Three guards arrived to take him to suicide watch. At Stewart, that means solitary confinement.
“I was like, ‘Do I have to say that I am going to kill myself to get medical attention around here?’” Tinarwo recalled. Officers rolled him to the medical unit, where a nurse checked his blood pressure, then sent him to the waiting room.
Because of the comment about killing himself, which he said was meant ironically, three guards arrived to take him to suicide watch. At Stewart, that means solitary confinement.
Tinarwo resisted. According to Tinarwo, he held tight to the wheelchair, so one guard tried to flip him off, while another tried to drag him from the waiting room.
“My legs was going one way, my body was going the other way, and I started yelling, ‘My back! My back! My back!” Tinarwo said.
Thrown to the ground, Tinarwo grabbed onto the chair so that the guards could not cuff him. One of the officers pressed his head onto the ground, with another pressing on his neck. They handcuffed Tinarwo, with the cuffs scratching his arm, he said, and took him to solitary confinement for suicide watch for some days.
“[My back is] much worse now,” Tinarwo said. The pain is so bad that he has to ask others to push his wheelchair: “Every time I push myself, I can feel the disc, like it’s ripping.”
Tinarwo is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice demanding the release of medically vulnerable immigrants detained in Stewart.
“It’s a failure of Stewart Detention Center,” said Erin Argueta, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney who represents immigrants detained at Stewart. Argueta said detention center staff don’t take requests for medical care seriously enough: “To respond to that with violence is so sad, and wrong, and scary.”