theintercept--2020-04-17--Bernie Sanders Is Staying on the Ballot to Get More Delegates, but He and His Supporters Aren’t Inve

Bernie Sanders Is Staying on the Ballot to Get More Delegates, but He and His Supporters Aren’t Investing Much Into That Effort

ended his presidential bid last week , he conceded that he could not feasibly catch up to Joe Biden ’ s 300-some delegate lead to win the nomination but told supporters that he would stay on the ballot in all the remaining state primaries .
“ While Vice President Biden will be the nominee , we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic convention , where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions , ” he said in a livestreamed video address .
At the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s 1,226 .
Sanders picked up 24 more from Wisconsin ’ s controversial in-person election — which was held the day before he dropped out but whose results were announced this week — with the Vermont senator taking just 31 percent of the vote .
He got seven more delegates from Alaska , where he won 45 percent of the vote .
Alaska ’ s vote-by-mail primary was the first contest held after Sanders had dropped out , but only 15 out of the 3,979 total pledged delegates were up for grabs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to NBC News ’ s delegate tracker .
The party platform will be decided at the Democratic National Convention , which was postponed from July to August due to the coronavirus pandemic .
To have more influence over shaping it , Sanders will need at least 1,200 elected delegates , which will require winning at least 15 percent of the vote in the remaining primaries .
Some delegate-rich states are still up for grabs , like Ohio , New York , Pennsylvania , and Georgia .
( Many of the votes in Ohio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOP Gov .
Mike DeWine postponed the in-person election that had been scheduled for March 17 . )
But it ’ s unclear how hard the Sanders campaign — or what ’ s left of it — will be working to get those delegates .
Sanders has already said he would not actively campaign or spend money on advertising in any of the remaining contests , and he has made clear that he will be campaigning for Biden .
The Sanders campaign , which has laid off the vast majority of its organizing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ a team that works on delegates that is working the strategy ” but declined to provide further detail , including how many staffers are staying on to do that .
As the senator deliberated the future of his campaign in recent weeks , Larry Cohen , chair of Our Revolution , urged Sanders to stay in the race all the way to the convention .
He warned that if Sanders failed to amass at least 25 percent of the total , then all the democratic reforms his supporters had fought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power of superdelegates and making caucuses more transparent , could be lost .
“ The reforms were only put in place for one cycle , ” Cohen told The Intercept .
“ It ’ s not what we set out to do , but it ’ s what we could get passed at the time.
” While Our Revolution , the group that formed from the remnants of Sanders ’ s 2016 campaign , says it ’ s prioritizing turning out voters to rack up Sanders ’ s delegate count , most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders ’ s candidacy aren ’ t planning to direct much , if any , resources to that effort .
Our Revolution will be doing personal outreach to its most active supporters in the remaining states with requests that they volunteer to send get-out-the-vote texts to other voters .
The group is not running any independent expenditures for Sanders .
Other Sanders-supporting groups don ’ t have plans to get involved or are planning to do just minimal outreach over email and social media .
Evan Weber , political director for the Sunrise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told The Intercept that the group hasn ’ t determined whether it will be phone-banking or doing other kinds of GOTV work for the remaining primaries .
“ It ’ s not in our organizing plans as they are developed thus far , ” he said .
A spokesperson for the Democratic Socialists of America said that since Sanders has left the race , the organization has “ shifted our work to focus on down ballot races , ” naming a handful of local , state , and congressional candidates it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focusing on down-ballot primaries , said spokesperson Waleed Shahid , and the Center for Popular Democracy Action is also not investing more in getting out the vote for Sanders .
Jennifer Epps-Addison , co-executive director of CPD Action , said its stance is “ folks can choose to vote for Sanders in the remaining primaries , and Biden should see those votes as an endorsement of the progressive agenda he ’ ll need to make room for to motivate key voting blocs needed to defeat Trump.
” The group ’ s biggest focus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ defeating Trump and advancing bold progressive ideals.
” The Working Families Party , which originally endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren but then endorsed Sanders several days after she dropped out , will be encouraging members to vote for Sanders through email and social media , but is not planning to run a big persuasion effort .
“ We ’ re going to urge WFP members in the remaining primary states to cast a vote for Sanders , in order to send as many progressive delegates as possible to the convention , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Dinkin .
historical precedent for a losing candidate to focus on influencing their party ’ s convention even when their nomination was out of reach .
When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988 , he also used his position to push for rules reform in the Democratic nominating process , which he argued had unfairly hurt black candidates and other outsiders running as progressives .
Jackson successfully pushed for abolishing the “ winner-take-all ” delegate standard , and now delegates are divided up proportionally according to a candidate ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was these reforms that enabled Barack Obama to win his presidential primary in 2008 .
Sanders reaching the 25 percent threshold is important , said Cohen , because under current Democratic Party rules , if a candidate has at least 25 percent , then those delegates can introduce minority resolutions on the floor — a sometimes long and dramatic process that convention leaders work very hard to avoid .
The goal is always to reach a compromise among committee members beforehand so as to avoid that scenario .
Sanders supporters say that having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ floor , even a virtual floor , will be key to winning concessions from the centrist wing .
Five days after dropping out , Sanders endorsed Biden and has since emphasized that he will work to support the former vice president in the general election .
“ I will do everything I can to help elect Joe , ” Sanders told the Associated Press on Tuesday .
“ We had a contentious campaign .
We disagree on issues .
But my job now is to not only rally my supporters , but to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party together to see that [ Trump ] is not elected president.
” Regardless of whether Sanders is able to reach the delegate threshold he seeks , Biden is facing greater pressure to unify the party and court Sanders supporters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 .
This week .
the two men announced that they will be forming task forces to work on issues like education , immigration , health care , criminal justice , and climate change .
On Tuesday night , during an Instagram Live conversation with rapper Cardi B @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the right direction ” on immigration and criminal justice reform .
Under pressure to unify the party , it ’ s unlikely that Biden would come out explicitly against the rules reforms the DNC Unity Commission agreed to in 2017 — especially as Biden ’ s campaign manager Jen O ’ Malley Dillon co-chaired that commission .
The Biden campaign did not return a request for comment .
Cohen , though , has his eye not just on maintaining those reforms , but expanding them and pushing the party to adopt more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said Sanders delegates could push for include allowing employers to join Medicare , which is how South Korea eventually got to single payer , and allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices , like the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can .

When Bernie Sanders ended his presidential bid last week, he conceded that he could not feasibly catch up to Joe Biden’s 300-some delegate lead to win the nomination but told supporters that he would stay on the ballot in all the remaining state primaries. “While Vice President Biden will be the nominee, we must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic convention, where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions,” he said in a livestreamed video address.
At the time, Sanders had 911 delegates to Biden’s 1,226. Sanders picked up 24 more from Wisconsin’s controversial in-person election — which was held the day before he dropped out but whose results were announced this week — with the Vermont senator taking just 31 percent of the vote. He got seven more delegates from Alaska, where he won 45 percent of the vote. Alaska’s vote-by-mail primary was the first contest held after Sanders had dropped out, but only 15 out of the 3,979 total pledged delegates were up for grabs. Roughly 1,600 delegates remain, according to NBC News’s delegate tracker.
The party platform will be decided at the Democratic National Convention, which was postponed from July to August due to the coronavirus pandemic. To have more influence over shaping it, Sanders will need at least 1,200 elected delegates, which will require winning at least 15 percent of the vote in the remaining primaries. Some delegate-rich states are still up for grabs, like Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. (Many of the votes in Ohio have already been cast by mail; GOP Gov. Mike DeWine postponed the in-person election that had been scheduled for March 17.)
But it’s unclear how hard the Sanders campaign — or what’s left of it — will be working to get those delegates. Sanders has already said he would not actively campaign or spend money on advertising in any of the remaining contests, and he has made clear that he will be campaigning for Biden.
The Sanders campaign, which has laid off the vast majority of its organizing staff, told The Intercept that there’s “a team that works on delegates that is working the strategy” but declined to provide further detail, including how many staffers are staying on to do that.
As the senator deliberated the future of his campaign in recent weeks, Larry Cohen, chair of Our Revolution, urged Sanders to stay in the race all the way to the convention. He warned that if Sanders failed to amass at least 25 percent of the total, then all the democratic reforms his supporters had fought for after 2016, such as reducing the power of superdelegates and making caucuses more transparent, could be lost.
“The reforms were only put in place for one cycle,” Cohen told The Intercept. “It’s not what we set out to do, but it’s what we could get passed at the time.”
While Our Revolution, the group that formed from the remnants of Sanders’s 2016 campaign, says it’s prioritizing turning out voters to rack up Sanders’s delegate count, most of the other national groups that backed Sanders’s candidacy aren’t planning to direct much, if any, resources to that effort.
Our Revolution will be doing personal outreach to its most active supporters in the remaining states with requests that they volunteer to send get-out-the-vote texts to other voters. The group is not running any independent expenditures for Sanders.
Other Sanders-supporting groups don’t have plans to get involved or are planning to do just minimal outreach over email and social media. Evan Weber, political director for the Sunrise Movement, which endorsed Sanders in January, told The Intercept that the group hasn’t determined whether it will be phone-banking or doing other kinds of GOTV work for the remaining primaries. “It’s not in our organizing plans as they are developed thus far,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Socialists of America said that since Sanders has left the race, the organization has “shifted our work to focus on down ballot races,” naming a handful of local, state, and congressional candidates it is supporting.
Justice Democrats will also be focusing on down-ballot primaries, said spokesperson Waleed Shahid, and the Center for Popular Democracy Action is also not investing more in getting out the vote for Sanders. Jennifer Epps-Addison, co-executive director of CPD Action, said its stance is “folks can choose to vote for Sanders in the remaining primaries, and Biden should see those votes as an endorsement of the progressive agenda he’ll need to make room for to motivate key voting blocs needed to defeat Trump.” The group’s biggest focus now though, she said, is “defeating Trump and advancing bold progressive ideals.”
The Working Families Party, which originally endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren but then endorsed Sanders several days after she dropped out, will be encouraging members to vote for Sanders through email and social media, but is not planning to run a big persuasion effort. “We’re going to urge WFP members in the remaining primary states to cast a vote for Sanders, in order to send as many progressive delegates as possible to the convention,” said WFP’s national campaigns director, Joe Dinkin.
There is historical precedent for a losing candidate to focus on influencing their party’s convention even when their nomination was out of reach. When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988, he also used his position to push for rules reform in the Democratic nominating process, which he argued had unfairly hurt black candidates and other outsiders running as progressives. Jackson successfully pushed for abolishing the “winner-take-all” delegate standard, and now delegates are divided up proportionally according to a candidate’s share of the vote. It was these reforms that enabled Barack Obama to win his presidential primary in 2008.
Sanders reaching the 25 percent threshold is important, said Cohen, because under current Democratic Party rules, if a candidate has at least 25 percent, then those delegates can introduce minority resolutions on the floor — a sometimes long and dramatic process that convention leaders work very hard to avoid. The goal is always to reach a compromise among committee members beforehand so as to avoid that scenario. Sanders supporters say that having the leverage to bring issues to the floor, even a virtual floor, will be key to winning concessions from the centrist wing.
Five days after dropping out, Sanders endorsed Biden and has since emphasized that he will work to support the former vice president in the general election. “I will do everything I can to help elect Joe,” Sanders told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “We had a contentious campaign. We disagree on issues. But my job now is to not only rally my supporters, but to do everything I can to bring the party together to see that [Trump] is not elected president.”
Regardless of whether Sanders is able to reach the delegate threshold he seeks, Biden is facing greater pressure to unify the party and court Sanders supporters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. This week the two men announced that they will be forming task forces to work on issues like education, immigration, health care, criminal justice, and climate change. On Tuesday night, during an Instagram Live conversation with rapper Cardi B, Sanders said Biden was “moving in the right direction” on immigration and criminal justice reform.
Under pressure to unify the party, it’s unlikely that Biden would come out explicitly against the rules reforms the DNC Unity Commission agreed to in 2017 — especially as Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon co-chaired that commission. The Biden campaign did not return a request for comment.
Cohen, though, has his eye not just on maintaining those reforms, but expanding them and pushing the party to adopt more progressive positions. Examples of platform stances he said Sanders delegates could push for include allowing employers to join Medicare, which is how South Korea eventually got to single payer, and allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, like the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can.


theintercept--2020-04-17--FEMA’s Coronavirus Rumor Control Webpage Sidesteps Trump’s Lies

There are no medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration specifically for the treatment of Covid-19 .
But if you tune into President Donald Trump ’ s daily press conferences , you could be forgiven for coming away with a different take .
In March – apparently on the advice of his consiglieri Rudy Giuliani , among others – the president began hyping an anti-malarial medication .
“ Now , a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it ‘ hydroxy , ’ hydroxychloroquine … it ’ s shown very encouraging — very , very encouraging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a game changer , ” Trump said on March 19 .
“ I just hope that hydroxychloroquine wins , ” said Trump on April 5 .
“ I ’ ll say it again : What do you have to lose ?
Take it .
I really think they should take it.
” In the days since , he ’ s continued to tout the drug while offering half-hearted caveats ( “ I ’ m not a doctor , as you possibly have found out.
” ) Trump ’ s chloroquine fixation is just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half-truths , conspiracies , and misinformation the internet is serving up in the age of Covid-19 .
The strange brew includes claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci , head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , is in league with Hillary Clinton and deep-state forces to use Covid-19 to trigger an economic collapse that could undermine Trump , as well as an inchoate idea that caused an engineer to intentionally derail his freight train earlier this month , sending it careening toward the USNS Mercy , a Navy medical ship providing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Luckily , the Federal Emergency Management Agency , or FEMA , has leapt into action with a solution : a webpage titled “ Coronavirus Rumor Control ” that offers the following advice to help “ the public distinguish between rumors and facts ” about the coronavirus pandemic : • Go to trusted sources of information to get the facts about the federal ( COVID-19 ) response .
But in the age of Trump , how are Americans to know which sources can be trusted ?
The president himself lies daily about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Why should anyone believe the other organs of his government , such as FEMA ?
The agency has , for example , pushed back on rumors that it has blocked shipments of ventilators to certain states .
But why would someone who believes that FEMA blocked shipments of ventilators to their state turn to FEMA ’ s Coronavirus Rumor Control webpage for the truth and take the word of FEMA ?
I wondered this , and asked the agency .
They sent this bewildering reply : “ Check our Coronavirus Rumor Control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a rumor.
” The FEMA webpage does include a modest effort to counter some of Trump ’ s misinformation — even if the president isn ’ t mentioned by name .
“ Currently , there are no Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) approved drugs specifically for the treatment of COVID-19 , ” it says .
For more , Coronavirus Rumor Control recommends that Americans “ go to trusted sources of information like Coronavirus.gov or your state and local government ’ s official websites.
” But coronavirus.gov – the government ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — is a joint effort of the CDC , FEMA , and the very same White House whose main occupant helped to influence an Arizona couple to ingest a product meant for ornamental fish .
“ Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure , ” said the widow of the Arizona man who died after ingesting a fish tank additive containing chloroquine phosphate .
“ Don ’ t believe anything the president says — and his people — ’ cause they don ’ t know what they ’ re talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t take on the anti-Fauci fallacies or whatever reportedly convinced 44-year-old Eduardo Moreno , the train engineer , to believe that the USNS Mercy “ had an alternate purpose related to Covid-19 or a government takeover.
” But it is slightly clearer about other misinformation .
Is 5G cellphone technology causing coronavirus ?
Nope .
Do I need to hoard food ?
Negative .
Should I be worried about hantavirus , which spreads primarily through mice and rats ?
Probably not .
So is the president undermining FEMA ’ s authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want him to stop pushing chloroquine ?
FEMA won ’ t say .
The agency ’ s press office declined a request for an interview about countering such misinformation .
But after I sent written questions , including whether FEMA would debunk the president ’ s misleading statements , there was a glimmer of hope .
“ We ’ re working on getting your hardcore official questions answered , ” Alex Bruner of FEMA ’ s press office told me by phone .
But FEMA never did , and Trump ’ s spurious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who take hydroxychloroquine “ aren ’ t catching this horrible virus , ” his baseless claim in January that “ we have [ Covid-19 ] totally under control , ” his February fictions that the virus “ will go away in April ” and “ within a couple of days [ the number of Americans with Covid-19 ] is going to be down to close to zero , ” among many other presidential mistruths , have been ignored by FEMA .
What about Trump ’ s repeated claims that the Obama administration left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stockpile for emergencies ?
“ We took over a stockpile where the cupboard was bare , ” he said in an April 7 White House briefing .
But when NPR ’ s Nell Greenfieldboyce visited one of the government warehouses in 2016 , she reported that “ shelves packed with stuff stand so tall that looking up makes me dizzy.
” At the time , $ 7 billion worth of emergency supplies were distributed among six supersized facilities .
Two years later , when Lena Sun of the Washington Post took a look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the size of two super Walmarts ” — she found “ hundreds of thousands of shrink-wrapped boxes of medicines.
” If medications from all the warehouses were laid flat , she wrote , they would “ cover more than 31 football fields — or 41 acres of land.
” Hardly a bare cupboard .
So where is the FEMA pushback ?
“ We are focused on the spread of the rumor and its relevance to the FEMA response — rather than its source — when determining what we may need to respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FEMA ’ s Ready Campaign , told The Intercept by email .
“ We aim to promptly respond to inaccurate information to minimize concern from the public and reduce anymore uncertainty that may already exist.
” But Trump – who has ramped up a war on government truth-tellers under the cover of the pandemic — continues to make this difficult .
Earlier this month , Dr. Fauci expressed disbelief that every state hadn ’ t implemented stay-at-home orders .
New data and recent modeling indicates that Americans have , however , been diligent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real impact on the pandemic .
“ With the increase and the real adherence to the physical separation … we ’ re seeing rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations , ” Fauci said last week .
“ That means that what we are doing is working , and therefore we need to continue to do it.
” Days later , however , Trump undercut that message with a new , bizarre pronouncement .
The president — who previously claimed that the economic impact of stay-at-home orders would lead to “ far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from coronavirus — seemed to liken stay-at-home orders themselves to the lethality of Covid-19 , which is now the leading cause of death in the United States .
“ Staying at home leads to death , ” said Trump over Easter weekend , while also retweeting a Covid-19 skeptic ’ s call to fire Fauci .
“ If you look at numbers — that leads to a different kind of death , perhaps , but it leads to death also.
” This from a man who has survived numerous business failures and bankruptcies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Coronavirus Rumor Control ” will take on Trump ’ s new home-equals-death conspiracy theory in the days ahead , or simply let it join America ’ s virulent ecosystem of misinformation unchecked .

There are no medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration specifically for the treatment of Covid-19. But if you tune into President Donald Trump’s daily press conferences, you could be forgiven for coming away with a different take.
In March – apparently on the advice of his consiglieri Rudy Giuliani, among others – the president began hyping an anti-malarial medication. “Now, a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it ‘hydroxy,’ hydroxychloroquine … it’s shown very encouraging — very, very encouraging early results. … It could be a game changer,” Trump said on March 19.
“I just hope that hydroxychloroquine wins,” said Trump on April 5. “I’ll say it again: What do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should take it.” In the days since, he’s continued to tout the drug while offering half-hearted caveats (“I’m not a doctor, as you possibly have found out.”)
Trump’s chloroquine fixation is just one element of the roiling cauldron of half-truths, conspiracies, and misinformation the internet is serving up in the age of Covid-19. The strange brew includes claims that Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is in league with Hillary Clinton and deep-state forces to use Covid-19 to trigger an economic collapse that could undermine Trump, as well as an inchoate idea that caused an engineer to intentionally derail his freight train earlier this month, sending it careening toward the USNS Mercy, a Navy medical ship providing relief to hospitals overburdened with coronavirus patients.
Luckily, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has leapt into action with a solution: a webpage titled “Coronavirus Rumor Control” that offers the following advice to help “the public distinguish between rumors and facts” about the coronavirus pandemic:
Don’t believe the rumors. Don’t pass them along. Go to trusted sources of information to get the facts about the federal (COVID-19) response.
But in the age of Trump, how are Americans to know which sources can be trusted? The president himself lies daily about the nation’s response to the virus. Why should anyone believe the other organs of his government, such as FEMA?
The agency has, for example, pushed back on rumors that it has blocked shipments of ventilators to certain states. But why would someone who believes that FEMA blocked shipments of ventilators to their state turn to FEMA’s Coronavirus Rumor Control webpage for the truth and take the word of FEMA? I wondered this, and asked the agency. They sent this bewildering reply: “Check our Coronavirus Rumor Control page. What you are referencing is a rumor.”
Great, thanks!
The FEMA webpage does include a modest effort to counter some of Trump’s misinformation — even if the president isn’t mentioned by name. “Currently, there are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs specifically for the treatment of COVID-19,” it says. For more, Coronavirus Rumor Control recommends that Americans “go to trusted sources of information like Coronavirus.gov or your state and local government’s official websites.” But coronavirus.gov – the government’s online clearing house for information on Covid-19 — is a joint effort of the CDC, FEMA, and the very same White House whose main occupant helped to influence an Arizona couple to ingest a product meant for ornamental fish.
“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” said the widow of the Arizona man who died after ingesting a fish tank additive containing chloroquine phosphate. “Don’t believe anything the president says — and his people — ’cause they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
FEMA’s rumor-fighting webpage doesn’t take on the anti-Fauci fallacies or whatever reportedly convinced 44-year-old Eduardo Moreno, the train engineer, to believe that the USNS Mercy “had an alternate purpose related to Covid-19 or a government takeover.” But it is slightly clearer about other misinformation. Is 5G cellphone technology causing coronavirus? Nope. Do I need to hoard food? Negative. Should I be worried about hantavirus, which spreads primarily through mice and rats? Probably not.
So is the president undermining FEMA’s authority on this issue? Does the agency want him to stop pushing chloroquine? FEMA won’t say.
The agency’s press office declined a request for an interview about countering such misinformation. But after I sent written questions, including whether FEMA would debunk the president’s misleading statements, there was a glimmer of hope.
“We’re working on getting your hardcore official questions answered,” Alex Bruner of FEMA’s press office told me by phone. But FEMA never did, and Trump’s spurious assertion that “people with lupus” who take hydroxychloroquine “aren’t catching this horrible virus,” his baseless claim in January that “we have [Covid-19] totally under control,” his February fictions that the virus “will go away in April” and “within a couple of days [the number of Americans with Covid-19] is going to be down to close to zero,” among many other presidential mistruths, have been ignored by FEMA.
What about Trump’s repeated claims that the Obama administration left him with an “empty” national stockpile for emergencies? “We took over a stockpile where the cupboard was bare,” he said in an April 7 White House briefing.
But when NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce visited one of the government warehouses in 2016, she reported that “shelves packed with stuff stand so tall that looking up makes me dizzy.” At the time, $7 billion worth of emergency supplies were distributed among six supersized facilities. Two years later, when Lena Sun of the Washington Post took a look inside one of the warehouses — “the size of two super Walmarts” — she found “hundreds of thousands of shrink-wrapped boxes of medicines.” If medications from all the warehouses were laid flat, she wrote, they would “cover more than 31 football fields — or 41 acres of land.” Hardly a bare cupboard. So where is the FEMA pushback?
“We are focused on the spread of the rumor and its relevance to the FEMA response — rather than its source — when determining what we may need to respond to,” Lea Crager, director of FEMA’s Ready Campaign, told The Intercept by email. “We aim to promptly respond to inaccurate information to minimize concern from the public and reduce anymore uncertainty that may already exist.”
But Trump – who has ramped up a war on government truth-tellers under the cover of the pandemic — continues to make this difficult.
Earlier this month, Dr. Fauci expressed disbelief that every state hadn’t implemented stay-at-home orders. New data and recent modeling indicates that Americans have, however, been diligent enough about social distancing to have a real impact on the pandemic. “With the increase and the real adherence to the physical separation … we’re seeing rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations,” Fauci said last week. “That means that what we are doing is working, and therefore we need to continue to do it.”
Days later, however, Trump undercut that message with a new, bizarre pronouncement. The president — who previously claimed that the economic impact of stay-at-home orders would lead to “far greater numbers” of suicides than deaths from coronavirus — seemed to liken stay-at-home orders themselves to the lethality of Covid-19, which is now the leading cause of death in the United States.
“Staying at home leads to death,” said Trump over Easter weekend, while also retweeting a Covid-19 skeptic’s call to fire Fauci. “If you look at numbers — that leads to a different kind of death, perhaps, but it leads to death also.”
This from a man who has survived numerous business failures and bankruptcies.
It remains to be seen whether “Coronavirus Rumor Control” will take on Trump’s new home-equals-death conspiracy theory in the days ahead, or simply let it join America’s virulent ecosystem of misinformation unchecked.


theintercept--2020-04-18--We Need to Reverse the Damage Trump Has Done in Latin America. Biden’s Plans Don’t Cut I

We Need to Reverse the Damage Trump Has Done in Latin America. Biden’s Plans Don’t Cut It.

exit from the presidential race , Joe Biden has become the Democratic Party ’ s presumptive nominee .
The almost-octogenarian old-guard white male has nearly 40 years of seasoning in Washington , stewing in the Beltway ’ s conventional foreign policy wisdom .
It ’ s a school of thought that overlooks corruption and human rights abuses when it ’ s convenient , prioritizes aid to police and militaries , relies on international development bank loans contingent upon strict austerity measures , and favors corporate-friendly policies which often include natural resource extraction .
When it comes to Latin America , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uninspiring and , indeed , downright damaging .
No one denies that the Trump administration has been uniquely calamitous for Latin America — both with regards to foreign policy and to Latin American migrants who want to make a life in the United States .
Trump and his acolytes have caged children , slashed refugee and asylum protections , forced people into dangerously squalid camps in northern Mexico , and detained more migrants in the United States than ever before .
They ’ ve also cut aid to Central America , forced regional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clearly unable to offer safety , looked the other way in the face of serious human rights violations and rampant corruption , and emboldened aspiring autocrats like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to lash out at the media and tighten their grips on power .
Slamming the brakes on these policies must be a priority for a Democratic administration , but it won ’ t be nearly enough .
If Biden wins the nomination and the presidency , he will also face a region suffering the impact of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases , by deportations from the United States ) and crippled by economic recession , as well as the drying up of remittances from outside .
Yet Biden , in promising a return to what he recalls as the golden days of the Obama administration in which he served , and in touting that administration ’ s approach to migration and the region ’ s multifaceted crises , all while reaching further back to claim credit for the multibillion-dollar anti-drug campaign Plan Colombia , offers a return to a status quo that was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s rubric of stratagems may not be as bitterly cruel as those of the Trump administration , but it still supports short-term American interests , overlooks serious human rights abuses , relies on militarized “ security ” responses to instability , and promotes an extractive neoliberal agenda .
Biden ’ s plan for Central America — one of 28 “ bold ideas ” featured on his campaign website — dressed up in left-tilting rhetoric for primary season , harkens back to the same , often failing and sometimes flailing , strategies he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senator .
As Biden put it to Politico in 2014 , “ The only thing I know is I ain ’ t changing my brand.
” Nowhere is that clearer than in Latin America .
Though a senator since 1973 , Joe Biden only began marking his “ brand ” in Latin America with Plan Colombia , a massive foreign and military aid package aimed at taking down the illegal drug trade that was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 2000 .
Biden championed the legislation as member of the Senate Foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , the plan was a continuation of the anti-drug measures he ’ d promoted throughout the 1980s as a member of the Judiciary Committee .
Domestically , as a tough-on-crime senator , Biden pushed for more policing , even criticizing Reagan for not locking up enough people .
In Latin America , efforts Biden backed played out as whack-a-mole strategies , with the Drug Enforcement Agency and international partners chasing drug traffickers from one route to another , but doing little to curb total production , demand , or the northward flow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emphasis on a heavy-handed , militarized response to the drug problem , pushing production and trafficking routes from more isolated to more populated parts of Colombia .
As Steven D. Cohen put it recently in The Baffler , “ Plan Colombia was in effect to Global South pacification what the 1994 crime bill had been to domestic policing.
” This past January , during a primary campaign stop , Biden said to the Des Moines Register , “ I ’ m the guy who put together Plan Colombia , ” which , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might sound like a confession , but was certainly meant as a boast .
Though it effectively achieved none of its original objectives , the plan continues to be lauded by some American politicians , including Biden , as an exemplary success — embodying the establishment ’ s tunnel-vision focus on military expenditures and open markets .
John Kerry called Colombia , in reference to the plan , “ one of the great stories of Latin America.
” The plan has also served as a model for other such “ security ” policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Guatemala , Honduras , and El Salvador , the northern triangle of Central America .
María Teresa Ronderos , a Colombian journalist who has written extensively on politics and war in the country , told me the plan was “ a disaster — not something to be proud about.
” Dawn Paley , author of “ Drug War Capitalism , ” explained that the plan was a “ success ” only in “ in terms of opening up the country ’ s economy and laying the groundwork for the Colombia–U.S .
Free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2006 .
In perhaps the most obvious sign of failure , after the implementation of the plan , cocaine flowed northward at higher rates and lower prices than ever before .
The other clear result was an increase in violence : Between 2003 and 2007 , the Colombian army , funded and emboldened by the United States , killed thousands of civilians and falsely claimed they were guerrilla soldiers killed in combat , in what became known as the “ false positives ” scandal .
During the same period , as John @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” explained , more than 7 million Colombians were displaced by the armed conflict .
“ These human costs were never part of the policy calculus for Joe Biden , ” Lindsay-Poland said .
From 2000 to 2008 , as Paley recounts in her book , “ the Colombian military received $ 4.9 billion worth of U.S. State Department and Defense Department assistance , the majority of which was provided under the rubric of Plan Colombia.
” Paley also notes that the CIA operated in the country with a “ multibillion-dollar black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Colombian army were trained to protect oil pipelines belonging to U.S. companies.
” During the same period , there were more homicides counted than ever before in the nation ’ s history .
“ If it was meant to put an end to the guerrilla armies , it wasn ’ t effective .
If it was a plan to stop drug trafficking , it just pushed [ trafficking ] to more populated areas , which was overall worse for Colombia , ” Ronderos told me .
Besides its anti-narcotics focus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other neoliberal reforms .
The International Monetary Fund , along with the World Bank , began working in Colombia to restructure its economy in 1990 ; in the following decade , the unemployment rate went from just over 10 percent to nearly 20 percent .
In 1999 , the IMF loaned the country $ 2.9 billion dollars that was contingent on strict austerity measures , including “ severe cutbacks in public investment in basic social services-health care , education and social security.
” Another $ 2.1 billion loan went through in 2003 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measures , including “ the restructuring of the pension program , cuts to the public sector workforce , and the privatization of a major bank , ” Paley wrote .
( While not officially a part of Plan Colombia , the Colombian government leveraged the plan to push for the IMF loan . )
Paley also traces the benefits reaped from the plan by palm oil companies , mining companies , and major transnational corporations like Chiquita .
Lower-class and especially rural Colombians saw little to none of those benefits , and millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mostly Indigenous communities .
In 2020 , Biden is again promoting , via his campaign platform , the so-called development banks as a key part of his Latin America policy , calling on the World Bank to prime Latin American countries to engage “ with the private sector ” and “ promote foreign investment.
” And he ’ s proudly claiming Plan Colombia as something that “ strengthened that government out for a long while , ” even as the country continues to teeter on the edge of war and the peace process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 2019 , according to the U.N. , there were between 107 and 120 human rights defenders killed in Colombia .
Biden was dispatched by Obama to address the crisis and responded by requesting a billion dollars to supposedly tackle the root causes of migration from El Salvador , Guatemala , and Honduras .
The money — $ 750 million was eventually approved — primarily went to security assistance , which increased from $ 161 million in 2015 to $ 252 million in 2016 .
As Alexander Main , of the Center for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the money was for “ increasingly militarized police forces and military forces involved in countless human rights abuses , including the assassination of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras , ” which involved at least three active and retired military officials .
Frank sees the aid as “ just a front for how U.S. officials want to shore up these regimes … basically giving even more money to the perpetrators.
” She pointed out that there ’ s no way Biden and others in the U.S. government didn ’ t know about rampant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hernández , elected as president of Honduras in disputed elections in 2013 , for example , has since been accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking drug money for both his 2013 and 2017 election campaigns .
His brother has been charged with drug trafficking , his wife has been implicated , and Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “ El Chapo ” Guzmán allegedly gave him $ 1 million in exchange for protection .
In 2014 , in celebration of the Alliance for Prosperity , Biden , bearing his signature alligator grin , posed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ El Salvador .
Biden and Hernández were both giving thumbs-up .
( Last August , Biden called Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro “ a tyrant , who has stolen elections , abused his authority , allowed his cronies to enrich themselves.
” He has offered no such condemnation of Honduras president Hernández , who has done all of the same . )
Despite an ongoing exodus from the region , Biden claims that “ the Biden approach ” to Central America “ reduced violence and helped to ensure that families and children remained in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Central America dipped briefly in 2015 , it has continued at 2014 levels or higher ever since , with record numbers of people seeking asylum since 2014 .
Asylum claims at the southern border increased fourfold from 2014 to 2017 .
And while some statistics point to a decrease in homicides in Honduras , for example , Peter Hakim , president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue , is dubious of that accounting .
“ They fudged figures in the election , ” he said .
“ Why couldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Particularly troubling , ” Main of CEPR told me , “ is the fact that according to a recent Government Accountability Office ( GAO ) report , there has been ‘ no real assessment of outcomes ’ for most of the over $ 2 billion worth of U.S. assistance programs since 2013 , and the few assessments that the GAO obtained showed , at best , ‘ mixed results.
’ ” CEPR showed in a 2016 report that the one study frequently pointed to as proof of a positive outcome from security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis , and its findings therefore had no validity.
” Still , in 2020 , the Biden campaign proposes more of the same : a four-year , $ 4 billion investment plan for Central America , with a few new details thrown in .
In acknowledging the destabilizing and migration-driving effects of climate change in the region , for example , the only response the Biden plan offers is support for unspecified “ clean energy ” and a vague throwaway line about “ adaptation and resilience.
” This relegates one of the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ravaging yearslong drought that is pushing huge tracts of Central America to desperation — to an imprecise talking point .
As with Colombia , Biden claims the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank can develop infrastructure in the region .
To cite Honduras again , the country has relied on multimillion-dollar loans contingent on austerity before , with the government using the money to build infrastructure for export-oriented sweatshops that have since spawned gang-ruled slums in their circumference .
Honduras also succumbed to IMF pressure to privatize energy companies .
In 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in part because their electrical bills have shot up dramatically , ” Frank told me .
It ’ s also revealing to look at what ’ s not in Biden ’ s current proposal for Central America .
“ There is nothing in there about the enormous human rights crisis , and little to offer about building a functional state that should provide health care and other basic services .
It ’ s all about extraction , ” Frank said .
Biden , she said , “ has been a key cause in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is now claiming to address.
” But Biden ’ s ideas for what lies beyond the southern border still prioritize stopping migration over improving lives .
Along with the Alliance for Prosperity , the Obama administration pushed Mexico to establish the Programa Frontera Sur , funding and inciting Mexican officials to crack down heavily on Central American migrants in southern Mexico .
As a result , migrants were pushed into more dangerous territory , where notoriously abusive Mexican agents hounded , arrested , abused , and sometimes killed them with blanket impunity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ though he has threatened rather than funded the Mexican government to crack down on U.S.-bound migration . )
At the same time , though deportations from the United States dropped in 2014 and 2015 , there were still significantly more deportations under Obama and Biden than during any other administration .
If Obama was the deporter-in-chief , as critics and immigrant rights activists took to calling him , Biden was his deputy .
While Trump has deported fewer people in his first three years in office than the same period under Obama , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And yet , as Christina Fialho , co-founder and co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants , told The Intercept , “ The expansion of immigration detention since the early 1980s has been a bipartisan initiative .
Where we are today is the result of three decades of increasingly aggressive policies under both parties ’ leadership.
” Silky Shah , executive director of the Detention Watch Network , emphasized the fact that “ the Obama administration greatly increased the immigration detention infrastructure.
” “ It doesn ’ t have to be this way , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the demand to end immigration detention has become clearer and more urgent .
The billions of taxpayer dollars used to fund ICE ’ s detention system should instead be used to fund critical healthcare , education , and housing programs that support our collective wellbeing.
” As Shah ’ s comment reflects , the Democratic Party during Trump ’ s presidency has moved left on immigration , and Biden has tried to claim that he has too .
His campaign website states that as president , he would “ immediately do away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigration policies , ” listing off the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols , asylum bans , family separation , and expanded detention among other policies he plans to end .
In the last debate with Sanders , he committed to a temporary moratorium on deportations .
But the anti-immigration momentum built up by the Trump administration — with immigration judges , the Supreme Court , and attorneys general locking in xenophobic policies ; the continued construction of wall and fencing infrastructure along the southern border ; and an emboldened ICE and Border Patrol — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away with .
And given Biden ’ s history , advocates are skeptical that he will carry through with his left-leaning promises .
“ If we truly want to be a country that lives by its values of ‘ liberty and justice for all , ’ we can not just undo the Trump administration ’ s policies or revert to the Obama administration ’ s policies .
We must end the whole system , ” Fialho added .
Building a more just and human system of immigration will require ideas outside the Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign policy .
As Paley put it , “ Biden ’ s plan represents the continuation of the same model of military and private sector intervention in Central America that has displaced and harmed so many.
” While there ’ s nothing bold in his plans for Latin America , there is plenty that is old , and Biden ’ s position is clear : He promises more Biden .

Photo illustration: Soohee Cho/The Intercept, Getty Images
With Bernie Sanders’s exit from the presidential race, Joe Biden has become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. The almost-octogenarian old-guard white male has nearly 40 years of seasoning in Washington, stewing in the Beltway’s conventional foreign policy wisdom. It’s a school of thought that overlooks corruption and human rights abuses when it’s convenient, prioritizes aid to police and militaries, relies on international development bank loans contingent upon strict austerity measures, and favors corporate-friendly policies which often include natural resource extraction. When it comes to Latin America, Biden’s campaign platform is particularly uninspiring and, indeed, downright damaging.
No one denies that the Trump administration has been uniquely calamitous for Latin America — both with regards to foreign policy and to Latin American migrants who want to make a life in the United States. Trump and his acolytes have caged children, slashed refugee and asylum protections, forced people into dangerously squalid camps in northern Mexico, and detained more migrants in the United States than ever before. They’ve also cut aid to Central America, forced regional governments to receive asylum-seekers when they are clearly unable to offer safety, looked the other way in the face of serious human rights violations and rampant corruption, and emboldened aspiring autocrats like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to lash out at the media and tighten their grips on power. Slamming the brakes on these policies must be a priority for a Democratic administration, but it won’t be nearly enough. If Biden wins the nomination and the presidency, he will also face a region suffering the impact of the novel coronavirus (spread, in some cases, by deportations from the United States) and crippled by economic recession, as well as the drying up of remittances from outside.
Biden once said, “The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand.” Nowhere is that clearer than in Latin America.
Yet Biden, in promising a return to what he recalls as the golden days of the Obama administration in which he served, and in touting that administration’s approach to migration and the region’s multifaceted crises, all while reaching further back to claim credit for the multibillion-dollar anti-drug campaign Plan Colombia, offers a return to a status quo that was rank with its own problems. Biden’s rubric of stratagems may not be as bitterly cruel as those of the Trump administration, but it still supports short-term American interests, overlooks serious human rights abuses, relies on militarized “security” responses to instability, and promotes an extractive neoliberal agenda.
Biden’s plan for Central America — one of 28 “bold ideas” featured on his campaign website — dressed up in left-tilting rhetoric for primary season, harkens back to the same, often failing and sometimes flailing, strategies he espoused as vice president and as a senator.
As Biden put it to Politico in 2014,“The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand.” Nowhere is that clearer than in Latin America.
Plan Colombia
Though a senator since 1973, Joe Biden only began marking his “brand” in Latin America with Plan Colombia, a massive foreign and military aid package aimed at taking down the illegal drug trade that was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 2000. Biden championed the legislation as member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and, in a way, the plan was a continuation of the anti-drug measures he’d promoted throughout the 1980s as a member of the Judiciary Committee. Domestically, as a tough-on-crime senator, Biden pushed for more policing, even criticizing Reagan for not locking up enough people. In Latin America, efforts Biden backed played out as whack-a-mole strategies, with the Drug Enforcement Agency and international partners chasing drug traffickers from one route to another, but doing little to curb total production, demand, or the northward flow of drugs. Plan Colombia only increased the emphasis on a heavy-handed, militarized response to the drug problem, pushing production and trafficking routes from more isolated to more populated parts of Colombia. As Steven D. Cohen put it recently in The Baffler, “Plan Colombia was in effect to Global South pacification what the 1994 crime bill had been to domestic policing.”
This past January, during a primary campaign stop, Biden said to the Des Moines Register, “I’m the guy who put together Plan Colombia,” which, given the legacy of the plan, might sound like a confession, but was certainly meant as a boast. Though it effectively achieved none of its original objectives, the plan continues to be lauded by some American politicians, including Biden, as an exemplary success — embodying the establishment’s tunnel-vision focus on military expenditures and open markets. John Kerry called Colombia, in reference to the plan, “one of the great stories of Latin America.” The plan has also served as a model for other such “security” policies throughout the region: in Mexico and in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the northern triangle of Central America.
“These human costs were never part of the policy calculus for Joe Biden.”
María Teresa Ronderos, a Colombian journalist who has written extensively on politics and war in the country, told me the plan was “a disaster — not something to be proud about.” Dawn Paley, author of “Drug War Capitalism,” explained that the plan was a “success” only in “in terms of opening up the country’s economy and laying the groundwork for the Colombia–U.S. Free Trade Agreement,” which was signed in 2006. In perhaps the most obvious sign of failure, after the implementation of the plan, cocaine flowed northward at higher rates and lower prices than ever before. The other clear result was an increase in violence: Between 2003 and 2007, the Colombian army, funded and emboldened by the United States, killed thousands of civilians and falsely claimed they were guerrilla soldiers killed in combat, in what became known as the “false positives” scandal. During the same period, as John Lindsay-Poland, author of “Plan Colombia,” explained, more than 7 million Colombians were displaced by the armed conflict. “These human costs were never part of the policy calculus for Joe Biden,” Lindsay-Poland said.
From 2000 to 2008, as Paley recounts in her book, “the Colombian military received $4.9 billion worth of U.S. State Department and Defense Department assistance, the majority of which was provided under the rubric of Plan Colombia.” Paley also notes that the CIA operated in the country with a “multibillion-dollar black budget,” and that “battalions of the Colombian army were trained to protect oil pipelines belonging to U.S. companies.” During the same period, there were more homicides counted than ever before in the nation’s history.
“If it was meant to put an end to the guerrilla armies, it wasn’t effective. If it was a plan to stop drug trafficking, it just pushed [trafficking] to more populated areas, which was overall worse for Colombia,” Ronderos told me.
Besides its anti-narcotics focus, Plan Colombia also helped speed along privatization and other neoliberal reforms. The International Monetary Fund, along with the World Bank, began working in Colombia to restructure its economy in 1990; in the following decade, the unemployment rate went from just over 10 percent to nearly 20 percent. In 1999, the IMF loaned the country $2.9 billion dollars that was contingent on strict austerity measures, including “severe cutbacks in public investment in basic social services-health care, education and social security.” Another $2.1 billion loan went through in 2003, along with another wave of austerity measures, including “the restructuring of the pension program, cuts to the public sector workforce, and the privatization of a major bank,” Paley wrote. (While not officially a part of Plan Colombia, the Colombian government leveraged the plan to push for the IMF loan.)
Paley also traces the benefits reaped from the plan by palm oil companies, mining companies, and major transnational corporations like Chiquita. Lower-class and especially rural Colombians saw little to none of those benefits, and millions of hectares of land were stolen from mostly Indigenous communities.
In 2020, Biden is again promoting, via his campaign platform, the so-called development banks as a key part of his Latin America policy, calling on the World Bank to prime Latin American countries to engage “with the private sector” and “promote foreign investment.” And he’s proudly claiming Plan Colombia as something that “strengthened that government out for a long while,” even as the country continues to teeter on the edge of war and the peace process signed in 2016 continues to unravel. In 2019, according to the U.N., there were between 107 and 120 human rights defenders killed in Colombia.
Joe Biden, as vice president, speaks with then Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno, then Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández during a seminar on “Investing in Central America” at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., November 14, 2014. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Alliance for Prosperity
The other major Latin American policy that, despite its towering failures, Biden boasts of being an architect of, was called the Alliance for Prosperity. It came in 2014, on the heels of an increase in the arrival of Central American children at the U.S.-Mexico border, many of whom came alone, seeking asylum. Biden referred to the children at the time as a “dangerous surge of migration.” Dana Frank, professor emerita of history at University of California Santa Cruz and an expert on Honduras, sees that framing as “fanning the flames of hysteria, and setting the stage for Trump” to invoke anti-immigration sentiment and ride it to victory in 2016.
The money went to “increasingly militarized police forces and military forces involved in countless human rights abuses.”
Biden was dispatched by Obama to address the crisis and responded by requesting a billion dollars to supposedly tackle the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The money — $750 million was eventually approved — primarily went to security assistance, which increased from $161 million in 2015 to $252 million in 2016. As Alexander Main, of the Center for Economic Policy Research, put it, the money was for “increasingly militarized police forces and military forces involved in countless human rights abuses, including the assassination of activists like Berta Cáceres in Honduras,” which involved at least three active and retired military officials.
Frank sees the aid as “just a front for how U.S. officials want to shore up these regimes … basically giving even more money to the perpetrators.” She pointed out that there’s no way Biden and others in the U.S. government didn’t know about rampant corruption in the region. Juan Orlando Hernández, elected as president of Honduras in disputed elections in 2013, for example, has since been accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking drug money for both his 2013 and 2017 election campaigns. His brother has been charged with drug trafficking, his wife has been implicated, and Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán allegedly gave him $1 million in exchange for protection. In 2014, in celebration of the Alliance for Prosperity, Biden, bearing his signature alligator grin, posed with Hernández and the presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador. Biden and Hernández were both giving thumbs-up. (Last August, Biden called Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro “a tyrant, who has stolen elections, abused his authority, allowed his cronies to enrich themselves.” He has offered no such condemnation of Honduras president Hernández, who has done all of the same.)
Despite an ongoing exodus from the region, Biden claims that “the Biden approach” to Central America “reduced violence and helped to ensure that families and children remained in their home countries.” Though emigration from Central America dipped briefly in 2015, it has continued at 2014 levels or higher ever since, with record numbers of people seeking asylum since 2014. Asylum claims at the southern border increased fourfold from 2014 to 2017. And while some statistics point to a decrease in homicides in Honduras, for example, Peter Hakim, president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, is dubious of that accounting. “They fudged figures in the election,” he said. “Why couldn’t they fudge homicide statistics?”
“Particularly troubling,” Main of CEPR told me, “is the fact that according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, there has been ‘no real assessment of outcomes’ for most of the over $2 billion worth of U.S. assistance programs since 2013, and the few assessments that the GAO obtained showed, at best, ‘mixed results.’” CEPR showed in a 2016 report that the one study frequently pointed to as proof of a positive outcome from security aid was “based on flawed statistical analysis, and its findings therefore had no validity.”
Still, in 2020, the Biden campaign proposes more of the same: a four-year, $4 billion investment plan for Central America, with a few new details thrown in. In acknowledging the destabilizing and migration-driving effects of climate change in the region, for example, the only response the Biden plan offers is support for unspecified “clean energy” and a vague throwaway line about “adaptation and resilience.” This relegates one of the most severe problems in the region — a ravaging yearslong drought that is pushing huge tracts of Central America to desperation — to an imprecise talking point.
“Many people are leaving Honduras in part because their electrical bills have shot up dramatically.”
As with Colombia, Biden claims the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank can develop infrastructure in the region. To cite Honduras again, the country has relied on multimillion-dollar loans contingent on austerity before, with the government using the money to build infrastructure for export-oriented sweatshops that have since spawned gang-ruled slums in their circumference. Honduras also succumbed to IMF pressure to privatize energy companies. In 2019, “many people are leaving Honduras in part because their electrical bills have shot up dramatically,” Frank told me.
It’s also revealing to look at what’s not in Biden’s current proposal for Central America. “There is nothing in there about the enormous human rights crisis, and little to offer about building a functional state that should provide health care and other basic services. It’s all about extraction,” Frank said. Biden, she said, “has been a key cause in producing and exacerbating the very problems he is now claiming to address.”
Migrants are guided by Mexican authorities through the Ceibo border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala on January 19, 2020. Photo: Jair Cabrera Torres/picture alliance via Getty Images
Migration
Any assessment of foreign policy in Latin America cannot ignore U.S. immigration policy. Remittances from Salvadoran and Honduran migrants living in the United States account for around 20 percent of each countries’ GDP. Overall, hundreds of thousands of migrants are deported to the region every year, and hundreds of thousands also migrate to or toward the United States. Migration from the Northern Triangle “cannot be effectively addressed if solutions only focus on our southern border,” another “bold idea” from Biden’s 2020 campaign website correctly remarks.
But Biden’s ideas for what lies beyond the southern border still prioritize stopping migration over improving lives. Along with the Alliance for Prosperity, the Obama administration pushed Mexico to establish the Programa Frontera Sur, funding and inciting Mexican officials to crack down heavily on Central American migrants in southern Mexico. As a result, migrants were pushed into more dangerous territory, where notoriously abusive Mexican agents hounded, arrested, abused, and sometimes killed them with blanket impunity. (Trump took a similar approach, though he has threatened rather than funded the Mexican government to crack down on U.S.-bound migration.)
At the same time, though deportations from the United States dropped in 2014 and 2015, there were still significantly more deportations under Obama and Biden than during any other administration. If Obama was the deporter-in-chief, as critics and immigrant rights activists took to calling him, Biden was his deputy. While Trump has deported fewer people in his first three years in office than the same period under Obama, he has locked up significantly more. And yet, as Christina Fialho, co-founder and co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, told The Intercept, “The expansion of immigration detention since the early 1980s has been a bipartisan initiative. Where we are today is the result of three decades of increasingly aggressive policies under both parties’ leadership.”
Silky Shah, executive director of the Detention Watch Network, emphasized the fact that “the Obama administration greatly increased the immigration detention infrastructure.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Shah added. “With Covid-19, the demand to end immigration detention has become clearer and more urgent. The billions of taxpayer dollars used to fund ICE’s detention system should instead be used to fund critical healthcare, education, and housing programs that support our collective wellbeing.”
“We cannot just undo the Trump administration’s policies or revert to the Obama administration’s policies. We must end the whole system.”
As Shah’s comment reflects, the Democratic Party during Trump’s presidency has moved left on immigration, and Biden has tried to claim that he has too. His campaign website states that as president, he would “immediately do away with the Trump Administration’s draconian immigration policies,” listing off the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, asylum bans, family separation, and expanded detention among other policies he plans to end. In the last debate with Sanders, he committed to a temporary moratorium on deportations.
But the anti-immigration momentum built up by the Trump administration — with immigration judges, the Supreme Court, and attorneys general locking in xenophobic policies; the continued construction of wall and fencing infrastructure along the southern border; and an emboldened ICE and Border Patrol — cannot be “immediately” done away with. And given Biden’s history, advocates are skeptical that he will carry through with his left-leaning promises.
“If we truly want to be a country that lives by its values of ‘liberty and justice for all,’ we cannot just undo the Trump administration’s policies or revert to the Obama administration’s policies. We must end the whole system,” Fialho added. Building a more just and human system of immigration will require ideas outside the Biden brand.
The same is true of foreign policy. As Paley put it, “Biden’s plan represents the continuation of the same model of military and private sector intervention in Central America that has displaced and harmed so many.” While there’s nothing bold in his plans for Latin America, there is plenty that is old, and Biden’s position is clear: He promises more Biden.


theintercept--2020-04-18--If Trump Thinks It’s Safe for His Followers to Gather at Protests, Why Won’t He Attend O

If Trump Thinks It’s Safe for His Followers to Gather at Protests, Why Won’t He Attend One?

The president , who is pursuing a transparent strategy of encouraging voters to blame the governors of states led by his political rivals for the economic hardship caused by the lockdowns he has endorsed , tweeted his support for the protests he learned about from Fox News .
Several of the protesters who took to the streets this week described the lockdowns as deeply inconvenient .
One man in a crowd outside the home of Gov .
Tim Walz of Minnesota on Friday held a sign reading : “ I need a haircut.
” Protesters in Michigan on Wednesday told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with not being allowed to shop for lawn fertilizer or get their hair dyed .
The few dozen Trump supporters who gathered outside Virginia ’ s Executive Mansion on Thursday held signs with slogans like , “ Stop the madness .
It is just a cold virus.
” One man in a red Make America Great Again cap told The Washington Post the virus was a “ hoax.
” Trump ’ s support for the gatherings , as the national death toll reached 37,000 , raised an obvious question .
If he thinks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to rally in large numbers as the virus still spreads unchecked , why doesn ’ t he leave the White House and join them ?
One possible answer is that Trump is running a sort of clinical trial of his famous theory that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any support .
He never said anything about shooting himself .
Gov .
Jay Inslee of Washington , a frequent Trump target , accused the president of incitement .
“ The president ’ s statements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19 .
His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘ liberate ’ states could also lead to violence .
We ’ ve seen it before , ” Inslee wrote .
“ The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly , and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted , ” he added .
Inslee ’ s concerns seemed justified by images @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that rallied on the steps of the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer ’ s stay-at-home order .
At a press briefing in the White House on Friday , Trump continued his daily effort to take credit for any real or imagined success in the federal effort to stop the spread of the virus , and to deflect blame for its many shortcomings onto Democratic governors .
Asked about encouraging his followers to attend protests that could kill them in Minnesota , Michigan , and Virginia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of his supporters have gathered to protest the lockdowns this week — Trump suggested that the restrictions in those states had gone too far , but declined to say how .
He also said that people in Virginia should protest an unrelated issue : a new gun-control law signed by Gov .
Ralph Northam on Friday , which increases background checks , limits handgun purchases and lets police temporarily seize a gun from a person deemed a danger to themselves or others .
As Inslee pointed out in his statement , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those three states was particularly odd because it came less than 24 hours after he had unveiled new , science-based metrics for determining when it would be safe for states to considering relaxing restrictions .
None of the three states he described as in need of liberation on Friday have met the conditions he spelled out on Thursday .

From a very safe distance on Friday, Donald Trump urged his supporters to risk infection with the deadly coronavirus by attending in-person protests to “liberate” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia from stay-at-home orders issued by their Democratic governors.
Pandemonium outside the Minnesota Governor’s Residence. Horns are blaring. A few hundred people are here. Many chant “Open Up!” pic.twitter.com/xMGUtTjYQB — Theo Keith (@TheoKeith) April 17, 2020
The president, who is pursuing a transparent strategy of encouraging voters to blame the governors of states led by his political rivals for the economic hardship caused by the lockdowns he has endorsed, tweeted his support for the protests he learned about from Fox News.
I couldn't help but wonder as I photographed today's Minnesota protest. 1. How many didn't know they had it when they came here?
2. How many will get it here today?
3. Did I safely avoid it while doing my job?#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/ms9aJEelC1 — Glen Stubbe (@gspphoto) April 17, 2020
The protests spread to Texas on Saturday, with a gathering on the steps of the state Capitol in Austin organized by an Infowars host, where anti-vaccine activists brought their children and Trump supporters chanted “Fire Fauci!” in a scene recorded by Manny Fernandez of The New York Times and James Barragán of The Dallas Morning News.
Lots of protest speakers saying Trump should fire Fauci who they say “made up” the coronavirus. They call him Fascist Fauci pic.twitter.com/HzZBrPuSp7 — James Barragán ? (@James_Barragan) April 18, 2020
Hundreds of the president’s supporters also crowded together in Brookfield, Wisconsin on Saturday, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Those protesters were cheered on by the Wisconsin branch of the Convention of States, a group that aims to amend the U.S. Constitution to make it more favorable to its donors, like the billionaire libertarian Charles Koch.
Lots of Patriots at today's Freedom Rally in Brookfield! pic.twitter.com/RTTHbU2A7o — @COSProjectWI (@COSProjectWI) April 18, 2020
The Convention of States is currently driving a sham “spontaneous citizen movement,” modeled on the fake grassroots Tea Party movement Koch also funded, to demand that government officials ignore public health and “Open the States.” As my colleague Lee Fang reported, Koch’s Americans For Prosperity is also working against the stay-at-home orders.
The Wisconsin protests were also promoted by Bonnie Lee, a Republican candidate for the state legislature, who encouraged people to attend what she said “kinda feels like Fourth of July on steroids” in a YouTube video she later deleted.
Several of the protesters who took to the streets this week described the lockdowns as deeply inconvenient. One man in a crowd outside the home of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Friday held a sign reading: “I need a haircut.” Protesters in Michigan attending a rally organized by an adviser to the family of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, told Fox News on Wednesday that they were fed up with not being allowed to shop for lawn fertilizer or get their hair dyed.
The people protesting stay-at-home order in #Lansing right now are mostly white, wearing Trump hats, and flying Confederate flags. They want more Americans to die just because they are tired of not being able to buy lawn fertilizer. ?#michiganshutdown pic.twitter.com/ZpzlfHf27B — ? (@Anxious_Matt) April 15, 2020
The few dozen Trump supporters who gathered outside Virginia’s Executive Mansion on Thursday held signs with slogans like, “Stop the madness. It is just a cold virus.” One man in a red Make America Great Again cap told The Washington Post the virus was a “hoax.”
Demonstrators gathered outside Virginia's state capitol building to protest stay-at-home orders https://t.co/UIVwteJ1bs pic.twitter.com/Ulp3eJ83CN — Reuters (@Reuters) April 16, 2020
In a move that seemed to give the game away, Trump did not endorse similar protests in Ohio, Idaho and Florida, three states that are run by Republican governors.
Incredible photo of an anti-lockdown protest outside the statehouse in Ohio by @joshuabickel. pic.twitter.com/duVGBJKcFe — Seth Hettena (@seth_hettena) April 15, 2020
Exercising our rights today at the Capital in Boise Idaho! pic.twitter.com/b84fpM0aSQ — Corey Gardner (@Life_with_corey) April 18, 2020
Demonstrators are chanting “open up the state” in downtown Orlando @news6wkmg pic.twitter.com/rtMYiMOXKU — Erik Sandoval (@ErikSandoval) April 17, 2020
Trump’s support for the gatherings, as the national death toll reached 37,000, raised an obvious question. If he thinks it is safe enough for his followers to rally in large numbers as the virus still spreads unchecked, why doesn’t he leave the White House and join them?
The likely answer is that Trump knows the gatherings are not safe but is running a sort of clinical trial of his famous theory that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any support. He never said anything about shooting himself.
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, a frequent Trump target, accused the president of incitement. “The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before,” Inslee wrote.
“The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted,” he added.
Inslee’s concerns seemed justified by images of heavily armed protesters in the crowd that rallied on the steps of the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order.
Going to do a thread of some photos from #OperationGridlock pic.twitter.com/Rj1E8pGTgv — Matt Schmucker (@mtschmucker) April 15, 2020
At a press briefing in the White House on Friday, Trump continued his daily effort to take credit for any real or imagined success in the federal effort to stop the spread of the virus, and to deflect blame for its many shortcomings onto Democratic governors.
Asked about encouraging his followers to attend protests that could kill them in Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia — where crowds ranging from dozens to thousands of his supporters have gathered to protest the lockdowns this week — Trump suggested that the restrictions in those states had gone too far, but declined to say how. He also said that people in Virginia should protest an unrelated issue: a new gun-control law signed by Gov. Ralph Northam on Friday, which increases background checks, limits handgun purchases and lets police temporarily seize a gun from a person deemed a danger to themselves or others.
As Inslee pointed out in his statement, Trump’s call for civil disobedience in those three states was particularly odd because it came less than 24 hours after he had unveiled new, science-based metrics for determining when it would be safe for states to considering relaxing restrictions. None of the three states he described as in need of liberation on Friday have met the conditions he spelled out on Thursday.
Updated: Saturday April 18, 11:02 a.m. PDT
This article was updated with video of protesters in Boise, Idaho on Friday and Austin, Texas and Brookfield, Wisconsin on Saturday and an edited headline.


theintercept--2020-04-18--If Trump Thinks It’s Safe for His Followers to Gather at Protests, Why Doesn’t He Attend

If Trump Thinks It’s Safe for His Followers to Gather at Protests, Why Doesn’t He Attend One?

The president , who is pursuing a transparent strategy of encouraging voters to blame the governors of states led by his political rivals for the economic hardship caused by the lockdowns he has endorsed , tweeted his support for the protests he learned about from Fox News .
The protests spread to Texas on Saturday , with a gathering on the steps of the state Capitol in Austin organized by an Infowars host , where anti-vaccine activists brought their children and Trump supporters chanted “ Fire Fauci !
” in a scene recorded by Manny Fernandez of The New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Morning News .
Hundreds of the president ’ s supporters also crowded together in Brookfield , Wisconsin on Saturday , according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel .
Those protesters were cheered on by the Wisconsin branch of the Convention of States , a group that aims to amend the U.S. Constitution to make it more favorable to its donors , like the billionaire libertarian Charles Koch .
The Convention of States is currently driving a sham “ spontaneous citizen movement , ” modeled on the fake grassroots Tea Party movement Koch also funded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public health and “ Open the States.
” As my colleague Lee Fang reported , Koch ’ s Americans For Prosperity is also working against the stay-at-home orders .
The Wisconsin protests were also promoted by Bonnie Lee , a Republican candidate for the state legislature , who encouraged people to attend what she said “ kinda feels like Fourth of July on steroids ” in a YouTube video she later deleted .
Several of the protesters who took to the streets this week described the lockdowns as deeply inconvenient .
One man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gov .
Tim Walz of Minnesota on Friday held a sign reading : “ I need a haircut.
” Protesters in Michigan attending a rally organized by an adviser to the family of Trump ’ s education secretary , Betsy DeVos , told Fox News on Wednesday that they were fed up with not being allowed to shop for lawn fertilizer or get their hair dyed .
Trump ’ s support for the gatherings , as the national death toll reached 37,000 , raised an obvious question .
If he thinks it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in large numbers as the virus still spreads unchecked , why doesn ’ t he leave the White House and join them ?
The likely answer is that Trump knows the gatherings are not safe but is running a sort of clinical trial of his famous theory that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any support .
He never said anything about shooting himself .
Gov .
Jay Inslee of Washington , a frequent Trump target , accused the president of incitement .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encourage illegal and dangerous acts .
He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19 .
His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘ liberate ’ states could also lead to violence .
We ’ ve seen it before , ” Inslee wrote .
“ The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly , and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted , ” he added .
Inslee ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed protesters in the crowd that rallied on the steps of the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer ’ s stay-at-home order .
At a press briefing in the White House on Friday , Trump continued his daily effort to take credit for any real or imagined success in the federal effort to stop the spread of the virus , and to deflect blame for its many shortcomings onto Democratic governors .
Asked about encouraging his followers to attend protests that could kill them in Minnesota @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crowds ranging from dozens to thousands of his supporters have gathered to protest the lockdowns this week — Trump suggested that the restrictions in those states had gone too far , but declined to say how .
He also said that people in Virginia should protest an unrelated issue : a new gun-control law signed by Gov .
Ralph Northam on Friday , which increases background checks , limits handgun purchases and lets police temporarily seize a gun from a person deemed a danger to themselves or others .
As Inslee pointed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call for civil disobedience in those three states was particularly odd because it came less than 24 hours after he had unveiled new , science-based metrics for determining when it would be safe for states to considering relaxing restrictions .
None of the three states he described as in need of liberation on Friday have met the conditions he spelled out on Thursday .
Updated : Saturday April 18 , 11:02 a.m. PDT This article was updated with video of protesters in Boise , Idaho on Friday and Austin , Texas and Brookfield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ headline .