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Republicans paid huge, strange sums to Facebook and a mystery company for “list acquisition”

After reporting essentially no payments to Facebook for about three years, the Republican National Committee paid the social media company $5.5 million for “list acquisition” between September and November 2019, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The RNC has also paid about $5 million for contact lists to a mystery company created in January, including a million-dollar buy on the day the Trump campaign sent 88 targeted ads to Facebook users featuring images similar to Nazi iconography.

The RNC’s three Facebook filings have not yet been publicly reported. The payments are not classified as ad buys, but “list acquisition,” suggesting that the end goal was not exclusively promotional, but the extraction of user data.

In an email to Salon, an RNC spokesperson said that the payments were “related to” targeted ads on the platform, and that the classification was a “common and standard” way to categorize advertising purchases for FEC filing purposes.

“These purchases were related to Facebook targeted ads where viewers would click and fill out their information and then be redirected to a donation page,” the spokesperson said. “The use of the descriptor ‘list acquisition’ is a common and standard way to categorize digital spending, as we use this information to build our email lists and cell phone numbers for future fundraising and political purposes.”

But at the time of the first of the three purchases — for $713,070.14 on Sept. 20 — the term was not exactly “common and standard” for the RNC. In fact, the RNC has spent money on Facebook ads for years, but had never previously registered a list acquisition payment to the social media giant, and had never made a single-sum payment to the company of even half that value, according to the party’s federal filings.

The RNC certainly spent millions for Facebook ads during the 2016 election cycle, in a series of payments that extended into December of that year. However, in the nearly three years between the endo 2016 and the spending blitz in fall 2019 — including the 2018 midterm election cycle — the committee only spent about $8,000 on Facebook ads in total, according to FEC records.

Federal filings show that after that drought, the RNC suddenly paid out $700,000, $2.7 million and $2 million to Facebook in three back-to-back monthly sums, the last of those on Nov. 16, 2019. It has not reported any payments to Facebook since.

Throughout those months, Facebook took heavy criticism from Democrats — but not Republicans — for its new policy of refusing to fact-check political ads. Around the same time, the RNC also spent $1.3 million on list acquisition from Google.

Over the last year alone, the RNC has spent about $19 million on contact lists, FEC records show.

“List acquisition” can be a broad term, but generally it means buying personal contact information in bulk to help build mailing or text-messaging lists.

Entities can either buy or rent this data directly from a company that collects and stores such information, or, as in the apparent case with Facebook, can buy targeted ads that lure or convince people to enter their contact information voluntarily.

It’s a standard marketing practice among companies and campaigns, and in itself is neither nefarious nor illegal. The Democratic National Committee has also made extensive investments in Facebook for “digital-acquitision,” per FEC filings. Strikingly, the DNC’s payments have been frequent and regular — unlike the RNC’s — and have alternated between “digital-acquisition” and “internet advertising,” with no similar break in the pattern.

The DNC and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign have both spent millions of dollars on lists, but their payments do not come close to the largest investments of GOP committees. No single-sum DNC payments to Facebook come anywhere near the RNC’s anomalous three large buys in late 2019.

A DNC spokesperson did not immediately respond to Salon’s detailed questions about their Facebook payments and classifications.

For an example of list acquisition, last month Facebook removed targeted Trump campaign ads that critics characterized as “Nazi iconography,” which asked users to take a stand against antifa by signing a petition. The campaign captured users’ email addresses and other contact information, and added it to the campaign database for future fundraising outreach.

Some of the largest RNC payments went to Tatango, which specializes in SMS/text message marketing, and Opn Sesame, a peer-to-peer text-message company run by Trump campaign director Gary Coby. The RNC has paid these two companies millions of dollars over the last year.

Last week, campaign finance watchdog the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC accusing the Trump campaign of laundering nearly $170 million through firms belonging to former campaign manager Brad Parscale and campaign lawyers. The complaint claims that the campaign used one of those companies, American Made Media, to launder money to Opn Sesame without disclosing the spending to the FEC.

The RNC has paid Opn Sesame $7.7 million since October 2018, per FEC filings, including a list acquisition payment of about $1.8 million in December last year.

The RNC is an umbrella group that puts resources behind Republican campaigns across the country, so its lists might also be similarly distributable. Further complicating the flow of payments, the RNC also operates two joint fundraising committees with the Trump campaign: Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again.

Neither the Trump campaign nor Trump Victory have reported paying for lists from any company, according to federal records. However, Trump Make America Great Again has funneled several million for lists through the shell company named in the FEC complaint, American Made Media, but never to Facebook, making the RNC and TMAGA the designated list spenders — and the RNC the designated Facebook list spender.

But perhaps most puzzling of all, the RNC’s largest single list-acquisition payment outside of Facebook went to a mystery company.

Since February this year, the RNC has reported paying about $5.3 million to a company called Digital Consulting Group LLC, per FEC filings. Nearly $5 million of that was for list acquisition. No other political campaign or committee has reported any payments to the company.

Digital Consulting Group LLC was founded in Delaware on Jan. 15, 2020, just one month before the RNC made its first payment of nearly $2 million, according to FEC records.

Additionally, federal filings show that the RNC paid Digital Consulting Group nearly $1 million for “list acquisition” on June 17, 2020 — the day that the Trump campaign ran the “Nazi” advertisements designed to solicit contact information.

There are other companies that share that name, but this particular Digital Consulting Group does not appear to have a website, and a Delaware business entity search did not reveal an owner or location.

The RNC would not say whether Digital Consulting Group was affiliated with the Trump campaign or the Republican Party, but an official told Salon on background that the firm “places targeted acquisitions across all platforms as they work with those with the industry knowledge and expertise to do so.” This, the official said, helps “achieve better market rates.”

The official also recalled that “in August, the RNC announced that we would not be using Parscale Strategy for digital media buys.” That statement was unprompted, as Salon had not inquired about Parscale or general media buys.

The RNC did not respond when asked how the party discovered a company with no web presence one month after it was formed. It also did not respond when asked whether Digital Consulting Group was affiliated in any way with officials of the RNC or the Trump campaign.

What in the world is Trump trying to do with TikTok?

The TikTok saga is proving another deep pool for reflection about the appropriate role for government – this time in private business, the seemingly endless political need to build fear of The Other—the Chinese government, and the flip-flopping from our White House.

So, let’s see what we can learn from this case that might apply more broadly.

Much as we might like to do so, the TikTok story cannot be separated from the flailing around Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Trump grabs for a moment to immigration to urban horrors to a new healthcare system. There is no discussion about effectiveness in government, a subject the White House insists should be handled by only listening to its propaganda, not by results.

Trump first said he wanted to ban TikTok in the United States as a national security threat. He argued, without specific evidence, that the Chinese are using it to harvest tons of personal data of Americans. Then, within a day, he relented to allow U.S. ownership of the company as being sought by Microsoft, even while continuing to wave his powers over all things in America.

TikTok is an object to Trump, useful as a political tool, not an actual service.

For those not familiar with it, TikTok is a social media platform mostly used by young people to post silly videos. Its popularity results from its very silliness, and the ease with which one can distort faces, images and videos—including comedian-author Sarah Cooper’s funny impressions of Trump.

TikTok is the most well-known of Trump’s China-based targets. The app has more than 100 million U.S. users, many of whom joined very recently. That drew the attention of the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which must approve any sale.

Of course, exactly what the Chinese Communist Party apparatus would do with zillions of personal data entries from teenagers is not exactly clear. But in TrumpWorld, we do not want to lose a good chance to bash the Chinese for using technology as low-effort spying on Americans.

Naturally, the idea that the Chinese are building enormous databases of personal information, particularly about our kids, is frightening on its face. But, then, isn’t it just as frightening that Amazon, Google, Facebook and now Microsoft are doing the same?

Funny, neither Trump nor House Republicans in a hearing last week showed any concern about that antitrust issue.

Objections all around

The TikTok case has politicians of all stripes up on their hind legs—providing ways to see this specific case in broader terms.

House Republicans want hearings giving Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a chance to rain on the Chinese, business types are excited that Microsoft might renew itself by entering the social media market and Trump has a re-election cudgel, even if he has taken multiple views here. China is the enemy is the basic message, without regard to how that is supposed to work in this case.

The New York Times’ Peter Baker had a smart piece outlining how Trump has overflowed the usual political riverbanks with a pattern of interfering with American businesses as part of his view of running the government as if he were running The Trump Organization. “The events followed a pattern that Trump set early on in his presidency, in which some of the world’s most powerful companies have found themselves at his whims. . . . Unlike his predecessors, Trump has frequently waded in to berate or praise executives and try to influence their operations.”

That sentiment fits neatly into a continuing concern about Trump’s unrestrained broadening of presidential privilege.

And The Washington Post highlighted Trump’s remarks that the U.S. treasury should collect a portion of the potential TikTok sale for making it possible (or necessary?) – although it was unclear under what authority the White House could demand such a payment. Trump said at the White House that if that sale to Microsoft goes through, the president said, part of the proceeds should be paid to U.S. taxpayers as compensation for operating in America.

Huh?

It is true that companies do routinely pay the costs of a Treasury/CFIUS review of security, though those are capped. Otherwise, someone should remind Trump that we have a system by which companies pay the government to operate. We call it taxes, though since he believes companies should not pay taxes, perhaps he is not familiar with the concept.

Trump said that the United States “should get a very large percentage of that price” of the sale. It would come from the sale — whatever the number is,” the president said. “Which nobody else would be thinking about but me. But that’s the way I think.”

Neither the Treasury nor the White House could offer an explanation.

Lessons?

Maybe this all will just pass away, as most of the Trump talk does. But it does seem important to take note of the directions in which Trump would lead us.

Trump is going to continue to use China as a weapon in the election. Importantly, he is using his ability to make everything an emergency more routine, allowing for a continuing expansion of his powers to tell other countries or U.S. companies what they can or cannot do, and the rest of us that we cannot stop him. Instead, we can appeal to his whim.

What he is doing about TikTok now follows similar pressures a couple of years ago involving ownership of a tech platform called Grindr and the continuing discord over Huawei and ZTE operating 5G networks outside of China.

It does strike me that just on political grounds, the president would be better served if he thought through the issue before speaking. Taking a popular social program from 100 million young people a couple of months before the election might just backfire politically.

It’s all enough to make a video parody. But then that would be posted on TikTok.

The world is drowning in used face masks. We should turn them into fuel

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, medical first responders and health care workers have relied on plastic-based, single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks and gowns to shield themselves from the coronavirus. The result has been a quickly growing mountain of plastic waste.

How to deal with the glut of used medical-grade PPE? There aren’t any silver bullets, and none of the options are very attractive. Under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), trashed PPE is treated like any other medical waste, usually with a sanitation process followed by landfilling or controlled incineration — both of which have significant downsides. Incineration spews millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, for example, and landfills leak toxic pollutants into groundwater.

That’s at least better than unregulated disposal, which can emit toxic chemicals into the environment and create a disease transmission vector.

But instead of these deleterious options, a group of experts from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Dehradun, India, has suggested an alternative: PPE should be liquefied into “renewable” fossil fuels and burned.

It’s a process called pyrolysis — also known as “chemical recycling” — and it uses heat to break down plastic in a deoxygenated environment, turning it into liquid oil that can then be burned for energy. In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Biofuels, researchers said it was the most common and most promising method for degrading polypropylene, a main ingredient in N95 respirators, surgical masks, and single-use protective gowns. Compared to landfilling and plastic incineration, they called chemical recycling an “environmentally friendly” alternative.

“It is an efficient and economical method of recycling polypropylene,” the study said, arguing that chemical recycling can not only prevent plastic pollution that would cause “severe after-effects to humankind and the environment,” but can also create a “clean” liquid fuel to meet increasing global energy demand.

But is it really recycling if the plastic doesn’t get turned back into plastic? Critics from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) said no in a report last week, pointing out that so-called “chemical recycling” doesn’t create a closed loop for used plastic. Once it’s thrown away, it gets burned as a fossil fuel and never becomes another bottle, grocery bag, piece of packaging, or surgical mask, ever again.

In fact, GAIA explained, chemical recycling contributes to climate change and releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere — things like benzene, BPA, cadmium, and lead, which are variously linked to leukemia, reproductive malfunction, lung problems, and neurological degeneration. And since the fuel produced through chemical recycling is often burned offsite at facilities located in low-income, nonwhite neighborhoods, these frontline communities often bear the brunt of this toxic pollution.

“The carbon burden is so high and the emissions are so toxic,” said Stephanie Wein, a clean water and conservation advocate for PennEnvironment, an environmental nonprofit.

Lori Hoepner, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, also worries that chemical recycling could incentivize or justify an even greater dependence on single-use plastic in general. “It could potentially lead to an even greater glut that needs to be repurposed,” she said.

But medical-grade, disposable PPE like polypropylene N95 masks is still the safest option for health care workers who are testing and treating patients for COVID-19. For these high-risk personnel, only certified medical-grade masks have a filtration system that can reliably filter out the smallest coronavirus-carrying droplets. Until we can make an effective reusable PPE kit — and there’s research moving in that direction — plastic medical waste will have to be dealt with somehow.

Hoepner says that for these plastics that we can’t do without, the question is how to cause the least harm. “We have to figure out which option has the least hazardous and non-beneficial consequences,” she told Grist.

Ruling out chemical recycling as dangerous and “incompatible with a climate safe future,” that brings us back to incinerators and landfills — and picking between these two options can feel like a Morton’s fork. Incinerators produce much more nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and carbon dioxide. On the other hand, landfills may produce more benzene and pose a greater threat to ecosystems, due to disposed substances like formaldehyde.

Most environmental advocates have come out strongly on the side of landfills. Not because landfills are great, but because it may be safer to try containing toxic chemicals in a landfill than purposefully ejecting them into the atmosphere, as Elena Polisano, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace U.K., said in an interview with BBC. Other environmental activists have cited concerns about incinerators’ disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color.

Plus, incineration produces a toxic ash that must be disposed of in — you guessed it — its own landfill. That’s why the Energy Justice Network says the choice isn’t between a landfill or an incinerator, but between a landfill or an incinerator with a smaller, more toxic landfill.

“There are just better solutions to the waste crisis than creating a ton of air pollution and adding to the climate crisis,” Wein said. For plastic like single-use PPE that can’t be recycled with existing technology — and that doesn’t include pyrolysis, which isn’t real recycling — “the most responsible route is landfilling,” Wein told Grist.

One consolation, however, is that we can still limit the amount of PPE getting thrown away. For everyone who isn’t a health care professional or a medical first responder, health experts from around the world have stressed the safety of reusable PPE like face masks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already recommends a cloth face mask for most people, and the organization provides basic washing instructions that protect against the virus.

“The general public should be using reusable face masks and performing routine laundering at home,” said Jodi Sherman, associate professor of anesthesiology and epidemiology at Yale, in a statement to Greenpeace.

Hoepner agrees. In the short term, we may simply have to put up with a large volume of disposed PPE waste from medical facilities. But that shouldn’t prevent us from moving toward a plastic-free future. “As we emerge from the shockwaves of COVID-19,” she said in a statement, “society must re-commit itself to the reduction of plastic use in favor of reusable materials, particularly in consumer goods, but also by actively seeking safe reusable alternatives to plastic for proper personal protection from COVID-19.”

After a year, Border Patrol has little to say about agents’ misogynistic and racist Facebook group

Brian Hastings, a top Border Patrol official, stared grimly at the television cameras.

It was July 1, 2019, and Hastings was facing down a scandal: News reports had revealed that Border Patrol agents were posting wildly offensive comments and memes in a secret Facebook group.

Agents had shared crudely manipulated images of men sexually assaulting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and frequent antagonist of the Border Patrol; joked about migrants who died while trying to enter the United States; and made racist insults about Central Americans. The group called itself “I’m 10-15,” Border Patrol radio code for “aliens in custody,” and included some 9,500 current or former agents.

Critics of the agency — already concerned about the separation of migrant families and deplorable conditions in detention facilities — saw the vulgar Facebook posts as further evidence that a culture of casual racism and misogyny was festering within the Border Patrol.

On national TV that day, Hastings vowed that any agent who engaged in online misconduct would be held accountable. “We take all of the posts that were put out today very seriously,” said Hastings, who was then the chief of law of enforcement operations for the patrol and now oversees the Rio Grande Valley sector. “Each one of these allegations will be thoroughly investigated.” The internal affairs unit of Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, had already opened an investigation, he said.

Within days, the horrified leaders of the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced a separate probe of the group, whose existence was first exposed by ProPublica.

But now, more than a year later, after one of the most sweeping internal investigations in the history of the agency, CBP has provided little new information about “I’m 10-15” or its efforts to address toxic attitudes within the ranks. Instead, it has released a basic summary of its findings. The agency has not said who was behind the group or its most egregious posts. And it has not explained how such a group — whose members included Carla Provost, then the highest-ranking official in the Border Patrol — had existed for nearly three years without any sort of intervention from patrol brass.

And in Congress, the oversight committee said its work has been derailed by a lack of cooperation from CBP leaders, who have refused to provide congressional investigators with the names of employees who made offensive posts or even identify the agents who’ve been disciplined.

“More than a year after the existence of the group was reported, CBP continues to obstruct a congressional investigation into the results of the agency’s findings, blatantly shielding agents that have dehumanized immigrants and fostered a culture of cruelty and violence,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat representing El Paso, Texas, who was mocked by agents in “I’m 10-15” posts.

Last month, the agency told the Los Angeles Times that it had investigated 138 employees, eventually deciding to fire four of them, suspend 38 without pay and issue warnings or reprimands to more than two dozen. CBP investigators cleared 60 agents of any wrongdoing.

But CBP has not revealed the exact offenses that led to this wave of firings and other sanctions, nor has it disclosed the key facts — such as name, rank or location — about the employees who’ve been disciplined. Such information could reveal troubling clusters of agents or supervisors at a particular station and whether the terms of the discipline were appropriate. The agency has long maintained that it is barred by federal privacy law from identifying employees who’ve been found guilty of misconduct, and it typically does not disclose the names of front-line Border Patrol agents.

In response to questions from ProPublica about the terms of the suspensions it has imposed, a CBP spokesperson would only provide general answers. “We are not able to share specific details, however, suspensions generally range from three to 14 days,” the spokesperson said.

Under the terms of the Border Patrol’s union contract, suspensions of up to 14 days are considered relatively minor punishment, while those that extend beyond two weeks are deemed to be more serious.

While CBP has not named the employees it fired, Border Patrol sources said that one of those who was ousted is Waldemar Ortiz, an agent who worked at the station in Deming, New Mexico. The sources requested anonymity because they had gone outside of the official chain of command to share information.

A former U.S. Marine, Ortiz posted comments suggesting that Border Patrol agents lock undocumented migrants in shipping containers, according to The Intercept, which obtained a huge trove of content from the Facebook group. The specific actions that led to the agent’s ouster remain unclear.

One source said Ortiz, who has enlisted the support of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing the nation’s roughly 20,000 Border Patrol agents, could potentially win his job back at an upcoming arbitration hearing. Ortiz did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica, nor did union President Brandon Judd.

The union has condemned the offensive Facebook posts, saying the “inappropriate content” is not representative “of our employees and does a great disservice to all Border Patrol agents, the overwhelming majority of whom perform their duties honorably.”

ProPublica has not learned the names of the other three employees who’ve been fired or whether they’ll be appealing their firings.

At an unrelated court hearing last year in San Francisco, an attorney for CBP, Laura Myron, argued that documents identifying Border Patrol agents accused of misconduct should not be released to the public. Citing several federal court rulings, Myron told a panel of 9th Circuit judges that government agencies are obligated to protect the privacy of “individual government employees, especially those at a lower level.” (The hearing centered on efforts by the ACLU to obtain Border Patrol disciplinary records through the Freedom of Information Act.)

While CBP has turned over two large batches of documents to the House oversight committee, names and other key information were blacked out, limiting the usefulness of the records, a committee aide told ProPublica. It’s unclear why the dispute between CBP and Congress has dragged on for so many months, since congressional committees frequently receive sensitive — even classified — information from executive branch agencies.

“They are obstructing our investigation by refusing to lift redactions and hiding the names and roles of CBP employees, as well as their conduct,” said the aide. “This severely limits our ability to conduct oversight and determine whether the specific employees who made these threatening and repugnant posts continue to work for CBP in positions of power over immigrants and children.”

On July 20, the committee chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, posted one of the redacted documents online. It’s a three-page “last chance agreement” between Border Patrol officials and an agent who was apparently involved with the Facebook group. The record — which resembles a plea deal from a criminal case — shows that CBP leaders initially recommended that the agent be fired. In the end, though, the agent was suspended from duty for seven days for unprofessional conduct and another charge.

From the document, it’s impossible to determine the nature of the agent’s violation, which patrol commander decided to spare the agent’s job or where the agent is stationed.

Asked about the committee’s claims, a CBP spokesperson would only say that the agency “continues to provide documents to the committee” as disciplinary cases are investigated and closed.

Congressional investigators initially requested interviews with 11 Border Patrol employees, including Provost, the former chief; Rodney Scott, the current chief; and the head of the Laredo sector, a key region in South Texas. However, the impasse over records has led the investigators to cancel all interviews, the committee aide said. The committee has not said why it wanted to interview the 11 employees.

Provost has said she was not aware of the offensive posts and seldom visited the Facebook group.

“I’ve yet to see management and higher officials in D.C. be held accountable for what happened,” said one Border Patrol agent, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media. “You’re telling me they didn’t know what was going on in the Facebook group? I don’t believe it.”

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Matthew Modine on America’s love affair with guns & what people get wrong about “Full Metal Jacket”

Being a person of conscience comes with a cost.

Matthew Modine was offered the starring role of “Maverick” in the 1986 film “Top Gun,” but he declined, rejecting the film’s militarism and Cold War anti-Russian nationalism. “Top Gun” would make almost 360 million dollars. Tom Cruise’s career would be launched to the stratosphere.

Among the other “What ifs?” in Modine’s career is turning down the role of “Marty McFly” (which would be played by Michael J. Fox) in “Back to the Future” as well as Charlie Sheen’s character in “Wall Street.”

Modine would go on to act in smaller more intimate films as well as large Hollywood projects such as the World War 2 film “Memphis Belle,”  playing Dr. Martin Brenner in the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” and of course his very memorable performance as Pvt. Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket.”

The actor has not stopped living a life of conscience and principle, where at age 61 he continues with his public commitment to advancing human and civil rights, secular humanism, and the overall struggle to make American society (and the world) more just, equitable, and good.

To that end, Modine has produced documentaries such as “The Brainwashing of My Dad” which highlights the harmful impact of Fox News and the broader right-wing propaganda disinformation machine on its viewers – and American society as a whole.

In this conversation, Modine reflects on his career and what living a life of principle means in the Age of Trump. Modine also shares his thoughts on white privilege, human empathy, dignity, and the dangers of denying the uncomfortable facts of America’s origins.

He also ponders the enduring power of “Full Metal Jacket” and why so many men fail to understand that the movie is a matter of fact indictment of violence, militarism, and regressive masculinity and not an endorsement of such values.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Given the state of the world with the Age of Trump, the pandemic, economic misery, and other troubles, how are you feeling? How are you making sense of it for yourself?

You can only be here and now in the moment. Therefore, if you are present and in the moment, it helps prevent you from falling into anxiety. Now that does not mean that you and we are not vulnerable to anxiety given all the social unrest in our country. [With] the death and the illness, it is easy to become anxious.

I have been involved with the struggles for social justice since I was a child. I grew up with the civil rights movement and the efforts to empower women. We felt like we had made so much progress in that regard but now we are in 2020 with the Age of Trump and this tumult. We now clearly see that the struggle for progress was far from complete. We have a tremendous journey in front of us as a country for social equality, for racial justice, and for equal opportunities for all sexes. The fight goes on, the journey continues. What I have chosen in my personal life is to be on the right side of history.

We’re in a season of death with the pandemic and Donald Trump and other disasters. There is also the George Floyd protests and people’s uprising. You are a man of conscience. How are you locating yourself in this moment?

I am not a person of color, but I do have the experiences shared with me from non-white people in my life – family members and friends – and what I learned from them. An analogy. Horses wear blinders to cover their eyes so they can only see straight forward. Those blinders are a way to understand white privilege.

David Alan Grier is my children’s godfather. I remember telling him he could use my car when I was out of town. This was before Rodney King. David said to me, “Are you crazy!” I was confused, and he explained that he, a Black man, would be stopped by the LAPD and they would pull him out of the car and assault him because they would assume he had some type of warrant or other violation and he was driving my BMW.  

Then the Rodney King assault happened, and I said to myself, “Oh, that’s what David was talking about.” Back to the analogy, my horse blinders got opened up a little bit wider. I’m starting to get a little bit more peripheral vision about the inequities and injustice of white privilege. I was in Atlanta talking to a friend who is not white and the police slowed down and shined the spotlight on him. I was indignant and started yelling at the police. My friend did not move, he didn’t put his hands in his pocket, he didn’t reach for his cell phone. Why? Because he knew that if he made any quick movements, if he put his hands in his pocket, those policemen are going to react to a completely different way than they would to me. Those white privilege blinders on my head got opened even wider in that moment.

You never really understand another person until you see things from their point of view. White Americans will never literally be able to live the life of, be inside the skin of a Black American, but we can take the steps to be more conscious and more empathetic of other people’s experiences.

Donald Trump embodies a type of crude, primitive, backwards, violent masculinity. There is public opinion and other research which shows this is part of his appeal to his followers. One would imagine that such people – men in particular – would find “Full Metal Jacket” a very appealing movie. Somehow, they likely think that Kubrick was endorsing war when in fact he was not. Moreover, I have met many people who joined the Marines after watching “Full Metal Jacket.” I would ask them, “What damn movie were you watching?”

It is weird to me when I meet people who say they saw “Full Metal Jacket” and then went and joined the military. Yes, the military can provide life-changing opportunities but “Full Metal Jacket” is not an advertisement for joining up. People – young people especially – should not passively watch a commercial for the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, or other branch of the service. Be active watchers. Think about what you are seeing. Watch what the ad is saying, watch what the direction and the language and the excitement of that video. Are you one of the few? Are you one of the proud? Do you have what it takes to be a Marine? The ad is challenging one’s sense of manhood. This is very attractive to some people.

What we tried to do with “Full Metal Jacket” is to present what happens in boot camp when there’s somebody who doesn’t fit in and then we have to collectively beat his ass until he gets his head screwed on straight. In “Full Metal Jacket” we see the horrible outcome.  

Trump’s fascist appeal is of course tied to guns and nationalism and militant right-wing Christianity. Those themes are omnipresent in “Full Metal Jacket.”

Michael Herr wrote the screenplay for “Full Metal Jacket.” He also wrote the voiceover for “Apocalypse Now.”  He is a great writer. 

We kept guns away from my son for his entire childhood. And then one day we were out hiking and he picked up a stick and held it like a pistol and went “pow pow.” I didn’t know where he learned that behavior from. I asked Michael about it, and he said, “It’s like a virus. It’s in our bloodstream. It’s in the American bloodstream, the gun and violence.” That’s the foundation of our country.

America’s foundation is the slaughter of Indigenous people and the enslavement of Black people. That is what America is trying to build its house on.

America has a love affair with guns that is deeply tied to the country’s past. As a people we have not properly realized and struggled with the real origins of the United States. We have not educated ourselves about the past. Instead, we have largely tried to gloss over it.

You were offered the Tom Cruise role in “Top Gun.” You turned it down because you did not want to endorse militarism. Did you ever regret that choice? Living a life of principle often, as with your choice about “Top Gun,” comes with a great financial cost.

Not at all. Not for one second. Cruise said that he felt that “Top Gun” was a movie about individualism and personal strength. I just thought the movie was jingoistic. I had just come back from East Berlin. That was when I learned about the Russians and their losses fighting the Nazis. I was at the Berlin Film Festival, and they asked me would I like to go into East Berlin. I said, “I can’t go to East Berlin, I’m American.” They said, “No, you can go to East Berlin because you are an American. It’s the Berliners who are the ones that can’t go.” So, I accepted the invitation.

We went across Checkpoint Charlie and saw all the soldiers with machine guns, [and] Russian soldiers touring around. Going to East Berlin from West Berlin was like going from a technicolor life to black and white. It was like a movie.

I went on a tour of sorts, and then they took me to this monument. It was for the millions of Russians who had died fighting in World War 2. In my schooling I was not taught about the Russians involvement in the war and stopping the Nazis.

And then I met these Russian soldiers, and they were just like my oldest brother Mark who had gone to Vietnam. I smoked with them and I gave them some American cigarettes, and they gave me pins from their uniforms. We laughed and joked around. These soldiers were just like young people in America. The Russian people are not evil, horrible monsters. That left quite an impression on me.

You lived during the 1980s and saw the end of the Cold War. How have you negotiated the reality of those years with your role in “Stranger Things” and the heavy nostalgia and grossly distorted view of the Reagan years it depicts?

There is reality, and then there is “Stranger Things.” One of the movies from my childhood was “American Graffiti.” It was about a small pocket corner of America that George Lucas understood and grew up in. He was romantic and nostalgic about his youth. I think of “Stranger Things” in a similar way. In the end, “Stranger Things” is not about reality or politics.

You produced the documentary “The Brainwashing of My Dad,” which is about how Fox News and the broader right-wing echo chamber has damaged so many people. What attracted you to that project?

What we discovered while doing a Kickstarter to fund the documentary was that Jen Senko’s experience was not isolated. People donating to fund the movie would share how their parents and grandparents and other relatives were basically brainwashed by Fox News and the right-wing media. Jen Senko’s story was a national one. As we developed the documentary we learned from psychologists and historians that Fox News and other parts of the right-wing “news” media are indeed using brainwashing techniques to control their audience and change who they are.

Why does “Full Metal Jacket” still resonate more than three decades after its initial release?

As long as there are boot camps for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, fire departments, police departments and the like, anyone who goes through that experience will feel connected to what we portrayed in “Full Metal Jacket.” The genius of Stanley Kubrick is that he created a piece of art that is not timestamped. It is as relevant today as it was in 1987.

 

Why COVID-19 causes patients to lose their sense of smell

A new study sheds light on the mechanisms that cause some COVID-19 patients to suffer from anosmia, or a loss of their sense of smell. It offers hope that — at least in some cases — the unusual symptom may only be temporary.

Neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School led a team of researchers in determining which cells in the upper nasal cavity are most likely to be infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to a research article published in Science Advances. The study specifically looked at cells in the olfactory system of the body, which controls our sense of smell.

“CoV-2 — like SARS-CoV — infects cells through interactions between its spike (S) protein and the ACE2 protein on target cells,” the study explains. 

In the past few months, the ACE2 protein has gone from obscure microbiology term to everyday news topic, as it is crucial to understanding how coronavirus infects humans. “The [ACE2] protein provides the entry point for the coronavirus to hook into and infect a wide range of human cells,” wrote a group of researchers in The Conversation. They speculated that it may be a clue as to how to treat COVID-19. As they write: 

ACE2 is a protein on the surface of many cell types. It is an enzyme that generates small proteins – by cutting up the larger protein angiotensinogen – that then go on to regulate functions in the cell.

Using the spike-like protein on its surface, the SARS-CoV-2 virus binds to ACE2 – like a key being inserted into a lock – prior to entry and infection of cells. Hence, ACE2 acts as a cellular doorway – a receptor – for the virus that causes COVID-19.

ACE2 proteins or something similar occur on the surface of — yup, you guessed it — olfactory neurons, like the ones in our nose. They also appear on stem cells and many blood vessel cells, which perhaps explains why COVID-19 has been discovered to also be a blood vessel disease. 

In other words, it is plausible that the olfactory neurons are prone to infection by the coronavirus, which would explain the anosmia reported by many patients.

“The data to date suggests that many people with COVID-19 lose their sense of smell, and that most (not all) of them recover their sense of smell in something like four to eight weeks,” Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, a Harvard neurobiologist who served as senior author of the study, told Salon by email.

Datta said the findings offer a “possible explanation” for the anosmia suffered by certain COVID-19 patients, many of whom recover their sense of smell “relatively quickly.” He noted that if the virus indeed mainly targets these cells in the nose, then they’re likely to recover after the infection clears. “[Patients’] olfactory sensory neurons are likely intact but rendered temporarily non-functional because the support cells that help the sensory neurons send signals to the brain have become abnormal,” Datta added.

As a result, Datta theorizes that individuals who suffer from COVID-19 and have only recently lost their sense of smell are likely to regain it, “because the neurons ultimately responsible for smell are intact.”

He emphasized that some of the patients who suffer anosmia experience more persistent lasting symptoms.

“In these patients, long-term dysfunction of support cells might lead the olfactory sensory neurons to actually die, and it can take months/years to replace them. These sensory neurons are regenerated by stem cells in the nose, and our data also suggest that these stem cells can be infected directly by the virus,” meaning that it could take sufferers a long time to regain their sense of smell.

People who permanently lose their sense of smell are likely to experience serious psychological trauma as a result. Dr. Alain Corre, an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Hopital-Fondation Rothschild in Paris, told Medical Xpress that individuals with anosmia whose sense of smell never returns suffer “a real change in the quality of life and a level of depression that is not insignificant.” Jean-Michel Maillard, the president of the French anosmia support group anosmie.org, told the publication that “to be deprived of your sense of smell for a month, it’s not serious. Two months, it starts to become a problem. But after six months, you’re all alone under a bell jar.”

He added, “There’s a psychological aspect to this which is very difficult to live with. You need to get help.”

There are also studies which suggest a different type of relationship between being able to smell and being mentally healthy. According to a 2016 article by scientists from the University of South Carolina in Chem Senses, people who suffer from depression often experience a diminished sense of smell. Because anosmia itself causes depression, this often worsens the preexisting medical conditions.

“There is a reciprocal relationship between olfaction and depression,” the authors of the study wrote. “Patients with primary depression have reduced objective olfactory performance when compared with the healthy controls. In patients with primary olfactory dysfunction, symptoms of depression worsen with severity of olfactory dysfunction.”

A new report suggests Facebook fired an employee for calling out pro-right wing bias

A new report claims that Facebook fired one of its employees after the individual compiled evidence of the social media platform giving preferential treatment to right-wing accounts and news sources.

A senior engineer at Facebook was reportedly fired after he collected internal evidence that the company was biased toward major right-wing accounts in helping them remove fact-checks from the material they posted on the platform, according to BuzzFeed News. The former employee had posted his findings in Workplace, an internal communications platform used by the company akin to Slack. Facebook reportedly responded by taking down his post, limiting internal access to the materials that he cited, and firing him.

BuzzFeed News reports that the firing of this Facebook employee has caused others at the Silicon Valley giant to “fear speaking critically about the company in internal discussions. One person said they were deleting old posts and comments, while another said this was ‘hardly the first time the respectful workplace guidelines have been used to snipe a prominent critic of company policies/ethics.'”

That person added to BuzzFeed News, “[The senior engineer] was a conscience of this company, and a tireless voice for us doing the right thing.”

Facebook denied the reason for the firing. “We have an open culture and encourage employees to speak out about concerns they have,” a Facebook Company spokesperson told Salon in a statement. “These individuals were not terminated for that but because they broke the company’s rules. We take appropriate action when employees fail to uphold our policies.”

The site also reports that, according to a journalist who works for one of Facebook’s American fact-checking partners, right-wing pages are more likely than left-wing ones to call a representative at Facebook and complain of censorship and First Amendment violations if they get fact-checked. This individual added that “I think Facebook is a bit afraid of them because of the Trump administration.” By contrast, BuzzFeed News reports that progressive sites are treated far worse: Fact-checkers do not seem to be directly contacted on their behalf, at least according to one inside source, and in general left-wing pages have found Facebook to be much less responsive.

During a Thursday meeting, Zuckerberg apparently did not provide a direct answer to questions about what Facebook would do if Trump tries to delegitimize the 2020 election results should he lose to Joe Biden. Facebook employees have reportedly been particularly concerned about the possibility that Trump will lose and deny that he lost, and the company will not label his posts as misinformation.

A spokesperson from Facebook declined to answer a question from Salon about whether the company believes Trump or any other president should concede if they lose in an election.

The report on Facebook’s alleged right-wing bias is particularly troubling in light of a report Thursday from the Tech Transparency Project which revealed a purported “glitch” on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) that favored pro-Trump content and anti-Biden content. The Tech Transparency Project report  found that Instagram hashtags which were critical of Biden appeared next to his name during generic Instagram searches for Biden, but the same kind of searches concealed hashtags critical of Trump. The company attributed this discrepancy to a “bug.”

The spokesperson from Facebook declined to answer a question from Salon about whether it acknowledges the parallels between the reports on right-wing bias in Facebook fact-checking and the supposed “bug” on Instagram.

There have been concerns that Facebook has been appeasing Trump and pro-Trump media outlets in a haphazard attempt to maintain objectivity. Facebook employees protested the company in May because of these concerns and some advertisers have withdrawn support. It does not help that Zuckerberg apparently met with Trump at the White House in the fall of 2019 or that Trump has already made it clear that he will retaliate against social media outlets which do things that he thinks are politically harmful to him. In May he signed an executive order that could exempt social media platforms from the protections of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, something that if followed through upon could leave the company liable to the content posted by its users. He did this in response to Twitter fact-checking two of his tweets.

Trump’s attempts to control social media outlets so that they act in ways that are favorable to his political interests pose a direct threat to the First Amendment.

“The threat by Donald Trump to shut down social media platforms that he finds objectionable is a dangerous overreaction by a thin-skinned president. Any such move would be blatantly unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe told Salon by email in May after the president announced he would retaliate against Twitter for fact-checking two of his tweets. “That doesn’t make the threat harmless, however, because the president has many ways in which he can hurt individual companies, and his threat to do so as a way of silencing dissent is likely to chill freedom of expression and will undermine constitutional democracy in the long run.”

The jobless rate went down slightly as COVID-19 cases rose. Here’s why that’s a bad omen

A report released Thursday by the Department of Labor reveals that almost 1.2 million workers filed claims for new state unemployment benefits last week, marking the lowest total since the coronavirus pandemic struck in March. Yet these numbers came at the cost of lives and infections, which in America have ticked noticeably upward since mid-June, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), roughly corresponding with when individual states began reopening their economies and schools at President Donald Trump’s urging.

“In the week ending August 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 1,186,000, a decrease of 249,000 from the previous week’s revised level,” the Department of Labor explained in its report. “The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 1,434,000 to 1,435,000.” The Department of Labor added that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was exactly 11 percent for the week ending on July 25.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus infection rate accelerated tremendously since June 1, when the 7-day average for new infections was 20,008 according to the CDC. By July 1 it had risen to 43,564; by August 1, it hit 62,519. 

While the recent economic numbers offer welcome good news in terms of the economy, there is the risk that the economy will slide back into recession if premature reopenings cause the virus infection rate to remain high.

“The latest jobless numbers are fairly unsurprising and are similar to what we’ve seen in previous weeks,” Dr. Gabriel Mathy, a macroeconomist at American University, told Salon by email. “The economic crisis seems to have stabilizing but is still serious: we are seeing over a million people filing new claims every week. There is a lot of churn though, with some people finding jobs, and other losing them. Those finding new jobs is not unlikely to be related to reopenings. At this late stage in the pandemic, these layoffs are more likely to be permanent, however.”

He added, “Given that the pandemic is worsening, it seems that any tendencies for recovery are being offset with the negative effects of the second wave, and the economy seems to be stagnant currently. For the near future, the size of the new relief package will be important, as will be if the surge in new cases can be reversed.”

Dr. Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Salon by email that the full context of the jobs report is important, noting that it “is full of rapidly changing developments that will determine whether and how any sort of sustained recovery is underway or will even take place.” 

Wolff pained a picture of a job situation that is affected by events on the international stage, including “worsening US-China quarrels and/or US-EU quarrels, economic crashes in the rest of world hurting US exports, financial debt-related collapses of emerging market countries such as Argentina and their contractionary effects there impacting the US.”

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and former secretary of health in Maryland, had a similar observation.

“I think the basic principle is the same,” Benjamin told Salon by email. “We don’t get back to work until we control the prevalence of community virus [spread]. The fastest way to reduce unemployment is to control the infection; that means controlled, strategic reopenings.”

Dr. Russell Medford, chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation and Global Health Crisis Coordination Center, explained to Salon that there is a direct relationship between America’s ability to defeat the pandemic and its ability to experience a lasting economic recovery.

“The progress (and setbacks) we achieve in defeating the COVID-19 epidemic directly impacts the current and future economic health of the country,” Medford explained in writing. “The greater the confidence the American people and American businesses have in federal, state and local science- and evidence-based policies that recognize that COVID-19 and the economy are intertwined, the greater their confidence will be in safely resuming near-normal activities.”

There are other reasons to be concerned about the pandemic’s long-term economic effects. The influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 led to a depletion of human capital that had long-term economic consequences. Many of the Americans who have lost their jobs during this recession are likely to find themselves permanently unemployed, and Trump’s inept response to the pandemic has left America’s economic situation much worse off than those of countries with more coherent social programs like South Korea, Australia and Germany.

“It makes your heart beat faster”: Documentary celebrates the artistic side of Louisville’s West End

“Black Arts Matter.” These are the words spoken by Edward “Nardie” White, the co-founder (with his late wife Zambia Nkrumah), of the River City Drum Corp (RCDC), a Louisville, Kentucky community organization. The upbeat, immersive documentary, “River City Drumbeat,” directed by Marlon Johnson and Anne Flatté, chronicles the changing of the guard as Mr. White (as he’s known) passes the baton to Albert Shumake, a former member of the RCDC.

The film, which was shot mainly during Mr. White’s last season (2016-2017), shows how being in the drum corps helps empower and motivate youth. Mr. White teaches the kids about African history and culture — such as Kwanzaa — while also providing life lessons about discipline and leadership. By participating in the drumline, teens are less likely to be involved in gun violence or abuse drugs.  

While Shumake has big shoes to fill, he is excited and even a bit intimidated to carry on the tradition. He acknowledges he must be an authoritarian, disciplinarian, music teacher, administrator, cleric, and therapist all at once, and that other parts of his life may suffer as a result of his commitment. But his work has value and meaning, and viewers will appreciate how teens in the program, such as high school seniors Imani and Jailen absorb and benefit from his work ethic and messages.

The musical performances by the RCDC are as impressive as the work being done by White and Shumake. They care about the kids in their community whose lives are impacted by poverty, redlining, and other social ills. One sobering observation in the film is that there are only two grocery stores in the West End Louisville neighborhood where the film is set, but a liquor store is on every corner. 

Johnson and Flatté spoke with Salon about their new documentary and the power of music and the beat of the drum.

How did you discover this program, and what prompted you to make a documentary about it?

Marlon Johnson: Anne and I had each been working on music documentaries. We met in Miami and hit it off and thought there was a chance to do something together. We partnered with producer Owsley Brown who wanted to do something with the [RCDC] organization. When Mr. White knew he was going to retire, it prompted a level of urgency with the story. They brought me out to observe and get to know the potential participants in the film. As a storyteller, you want to make sure it’s a story you want to tell. I explored the organization and members and Mr. White and Albert, and I had a lot in common with them. We knew it was a worthwhile endeavor.

What informed your approach to the subjects? 

Anne Flatté: We are super-interested in real people’s vibes. We’re both parents and we feel — like these people you see in the film — that they are doing something incredible with their ordinary, extraordinary lives. We knew we had a way in with it being Mr. White’s last year. There are a lot of stories that could happen, but as we got to know Albert and Imani and Jailen and discovered the role of Zambia, it was really amazing. What we discovered is how he and Albert were both inspired by Zambia. It’s not a competition film like a lot of docs are. It’s daily life that builds into legacy. We find that powerful, and those are the kinds of films we’re interested in.

Johnson: We made a conscious decision to immerse our audience in the story, but that does make it more difficult because it requires the audience to be participants. There is a certain challenge to telling a story about people who are not famous and non-historical events. But when you look at them and peel back a layer, you see how compelling their individual stories and life experiences are. What Mr. White has been through and is going through and his perspective on it all . . . Their impact is just as important as any famous person in our humble opinion.

Flatté: One of my favorite quotes by Mr. White is, “Your future is not in front of you, it’s behind you in the youth in the community.” They realize human potential is a gift.

The film is very much about Black Arts Matter, and the importance of groups like RCDC to help youth find a sense of self-worth. Can you talk about that? Mr. White says in the film he was discouraged from pursuing something in the arts because that is not what Black men do, which is heartbreaking.

Johnson: We both can relate to this. Me personally, the first 12 years in my life I grew up in a neighborhood in Miami like the West End. It was 100% African American. Heavy with sports team and narrow opportunities. When someone introduced me to the arts, a whole world opened up to me. It changes your perspective. It saved me because I was able to go to a school outside the neighborhood.

I remember how much time and dedication it took to play sports. Imagine putting that time and energy towards arts and science! It would change our country fundamentally. That’s not to knock on sports. 

Flatté: I played piano as a child. It helped me with my emotions. Not everyone is great in sports. I don’t understand why they cut art and music in school. It’s one of the reasons kids like to go to school. It’s all about funding. Mr. White said that he wishes there was equal emphasis given to arts and music as for sports. It’s so important to so many kids and it helps them in school. 

I love the idea that Mr. White is old school and Albert is new school. What are your observations about these two men and their leadership styles?

Flatté: They have a super interesting relationship and I feel that it’s not unusual in organizations like the RCDC that there are challenges in passing the baton. The new school style of Albert is different and seeing how both men navigate that is interesting. 

Johnson: Mr. White’s approach is very tough love. As we’ve been doing virtual screenings, one of the things they said is that anyone taking his class was surprised by how vulnerable and emotional he was in the film. He’s hard-nosed because of what he knows of the world. Albert is a softer touch, and that’s a dynamic based on his age and nature. 

Flatté: Albert respects the old school. His relationship with Mr. White is one of mutual respect. He’s going to do it differently and make it his own organization. He’s incredibly positive and just shines. He’s living proof the RCDC works. He lived this whole path and was saved by the drum corps. He has that confidence which is wonderful to feel when you are around him. 

I like the profiles of Imani and Jailen. Can you talk about including their stories?

Flatté: I met Jailen and Imani before we started filming and they were leaders in the drum corps. Jailen was section leader, and Imani was right there too. Part of the film is about leadership — of your own life, other people, and your community. To us, they were going to be potentially really wonderful to follow around and they were. Every kid in the drum corps would have been an amazing story, but we are doing a feature, not a series. We really wanted to have the younger generation, so Emily also was someone we were introduced to, and we loved Cal, her dad. It’s important to have the moms and dads and give screen time to the parents who are giving to this community which is so important to their children. I like acknowledging that it takes a community. The ecosystem of this organization is a lot of people behind the scenes.

Johnson: From a storytelling perspective, you don’t know what you’re going to get. That’s the organic part of making a documentary. You aren’t sure where the story is going to lead you, and it’s important that we leave ourselves enough space as artists to explore and embrace the unknown.

Mr. White and Albert talk about African history and culture. They teach the kids how to make their drums. There is a discussion of enslavement and the Louisville Lincoln sculpture, as well as a Kwanzaa celebration. How did you perceive the kids processing these lessons?  

Johnson: The learning for them is on a continuum. The younger kids realize they are part of something special even if they don’t understand the nuances of this. Jailen says, “Now that I’m graduating, I’m starting to get what Mr. White taught me all these years.” Each step of the way they are getting better at these life skills and communicating and appreciating the traditions and culture. But it is ever evolving. 

Flatté: I think about what Albert says how important it was to him as a 9-year-old to hear about the contributions of African Americans to this country and the world and how important it was to his sense of self. This history needs to be told, and these stories need to be heard. 

There are discussions of community, with scenes at family homes, at churches, and at RCDC events that emphasize the unity and the “It takes a village” mentality of raising children together. What can you say about the program helping bring community together?

Flatté: The community loves it. One of the things important to the people in the film and to us is the way the West End community is portrayed in the news. It is not their truth. Every night, the West End is on the news, and that’s a misrepresentation of what’s happening in the West End, and everyone knows this. They are living their lives. As one woman in the film says, “Where are the stories of people making a difference in our community on the news?” It’s very meaningful to the community to have the corps around. There are many arts groups in the West End. People outside the West End don’t know what’s happening in the West End. If you are a part of the community represented, or from a community similar to this community, you will see yourself on film. If you are not part of it, you will connect with this community and expand your responses. RCDC shows investing in the community with the people in the community. These are homegrown programs. 

Johnson: My sentiments exactly. We were filming one time at the Palace [Theater] and there are hundreds of people there and we were the only media outlet there. As Mr. White says, “There ain’t no smoking, ain’t no drinking, and it’s not going to be on the 11 o’clock news.” I went back to my hotel room, turned on the news and at 11:02 they reported a shooting in the West End. This is part of the problem. We need an accurate representation of the community.

We wanted to listen to the community, and they wanted to be heard — rather than have people come in and tell them what is best for their community. 

You open with a scene where the kids are being taught the drum is like a heartbeat, and you showcase practices and performances. How did you work on incorporating the music into the documentary and not make this a performance film? 

Flatté: It does make your heart beat faster to listen to this drum music. It’s so powerful. Music is such a powerful force, and a human thing. It connects us all like a heartbeat. And film does too. If you can’t meet them in person, you can connect with them in the film.

“River City Drumbeat” is available for two weeks only in virtual theaters starting Aug. 7

Senator launches investigation into USPS as Democrats demand Trump donor in charge reverse cuts

The top Democrat on a Senate committee overseeing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has launched a probe into service cuts after Trump donor Louis DeJoy took over the agency as postmaster general.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, opened an investigation to “get to the bottom of any changes that the new postmaster general may be directing that undercut the Postal Service’s tradition of effective service,” he said in a statement.

The statement said DeJoy had “failed” to respond to “repeated inquiries” and urged individuals, small businesses and organizations impacted by delays or cuts to report any problems.

“I’ve heard firsthand from constituents, postal workers and local officials in Michigan who have encountered problems with the timely and dependable service they count on to conduct business, get prescription medications and critical supplies and even exercise their right to vote,” Peters said.

The investigation comes after Democrats and the postal workers’ union raised alarms over planned cuts at post offices around the country. DeJoy, who has no experience at the agency, has called for changes which advocates and politicians warn could undermine the expected surge in voting by mail in the upcoming election.

DeJoy has argued that the operational changes were needed at the cash-strapped agency. Democrats have proposed a $25 billion cash infusion to help save the USPS in the next phase of coronavirus relief, but Republicans balked at any funding in their proposal.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., met with DeJoy on Wednesday. They said he “confirmed that contrary to prior denials and statements minimizing these changes, the Postal Service recently instituted operational changes” shortly after he assumed office.

The Democratic leaders said DeJoy further confirmed that the USPS had reduced overtime availability, placed restrictions on extra mail deliveries, begun testing new sorting and delivery policies and reduced the number and use of processing equipment at mail processing plants.

“We believe these changes, made during the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, now threaten the timely delivery of mail — including medicines for seniors, paychecks for workers, and absentee ballots for voters — that is essential to millions of Americans,” they wrote in a letter to DeJoy, calling the cost-cutting measures “counterproductive and unacceptable.”

“Elections are sacred,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting. “To do cutbacks when ballots, all ballots, have to be counted — we can’t say, ‘Oh, we’ll get 94% of them.’ It’s insufficient.”

The concerns come as President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to sow doubt about voting by mail as polls show him significantly trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Trump has repeatedly pushed numerous false conspiracy theories about mail-in voting. However, he recently began to tout Florida’s mail system — which he has used — as “safe and secure,” even though it uses the exact same postal system as every other state.

Along with Trump’s campaign to sow doubt in the vote in a race where he trails in most battleground states, some states have also thrown up roadblocks to mail voting.

The Texas Supreme Court rejected a lower court ruling that would have allowed anyone to vote by mail in June, and the Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled to overturn a lower court ruling that would have allowed voters to cite fears over the coronavirus pandemic as a reason to request an absentee ballot.

Tennessee requires voters to provide one of 14 excuses to request an absentee ballot, but the court ruled 4-1 that people who do not have a “special vulnerability” to the coronavirus or who are caretakers for someone who does cannot claim the pandemic as an excuse.

Justice Sharon Lee criticized the ruling in the lone dissenting opinion.

“All qualified Tennessee voters — like voters in forty-five other states — should be allowed to apply to vote by absentee mail ballot during the unprecedented and deadly COVID-19 pandemic that is gripping our community, state, nation and world,” she wrote, arguing that medical experts who reviewed the state’s in-person voting plan “testified that these measures were inadequate to contain the virus.”

Appeals court rules House can subpoena former White House Counsel Don McGahn for testimony

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the U.S. House of Representatives has a right to enforce its subpoena of former White House Counsel Don McGahn. This ruling reverses an earlier decision in which a three-judge panel held that the subpoena was unenforceable.

House Democrats have been seeking McGahn’s testimony on matters pertaining to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. President Donald Trump asked McGahn to defy the subpoena, claiming that presidential advisers like McGahn are “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony” — and the former White House counsel went along with the president. House Democrats, however, sued in federal court in hopes of getting their subpoena enforced.

Writing the majority opinion in Friday’s decision, Judge Judith Rogers explained: “The Constitution charges Congress with certain responsibilities, including to legislate, to conduct oversight of the federal government and, when necessary, to impeach and remove a president or other executive branch official from office. Possession of relevant information is an essential precondition to the effective discharge of all of those duties.”

Rogers, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, also wrote: “To level the grave accusation that a president may have committed ‘treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’ the House must be appropriately informed. And it cannot fully inform itself without the power to compel the testimony of those who possess relevant or necessary information.”

All seven of the appeals court judges who were in agreement in the majority opinion, according to The Hill’s Harper Neidig, were appointed by Democratic presidents. But the two dissenters, Judge Karen Henderson and Judge Thomas Griffith, were appointed by President George H.W. Bush in the 2000s. And Judge Greg Katsas and Judge Neomi Rao, both Trump appointees, recused themselves from the case.

Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s taxes means defamation suit from rape accuser can go forward: judge

A New York judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to delay a defamation lawsuit brought by a journalist who accused him of rape, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision on his tax returns.

New York Supreme Court Justice Verna Saunders on Thursday said E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit can go forward rather than wait until an appeals court rules on a similar defamation suit brought by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant who accused Trump of sexual assault.

Carroll, a longtime Elle magazine columnist, alleged last year that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store in the 1990s.

Trump, who has also denied Zervos’ allegation, claimed that he had never met Carroll in the wake of her allegation, even though a photograph shows the two appearing side-by-side. Carroll  subsequently sued Trump for defamation.

“We are now eager to move forward with discovery so that we can prove that Donald Trump defamed E Jean Carroll when he lied about her in connection with her brave decision to tell the truth about the fact that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement provided to Salon.

Thursday’s ruling means that Carroll’s attorneys can attempt to seek Trump’s DNA, which they requested earlier this year for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress” she wore the day of the alleged assault.

Trump’s legal team had argued that the case should be put on hold while an appeals court decided in the Zervos case whether state courts should defer cases against the president until he is out of office.

Saunders wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Vance, which rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from local criminal investigations while in office after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office sought his tax returns, was “applicable to all state court proceedings in which a sitting president is involved, including those involving his or her unofficial/personal conduct.”

Though the Vance “decision permits the issuance of a criminal subpoena to a sitting president, its analysis and conclusions address the same issues and questions raised by defendant in this action,” Saunders wrote.

One of the questions, she explained, was “whether the supremacy clause of the Constitution bars a state court from exercising jurisdiction over a sitting president of the United States during his term. No, it does not.”

Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz had argued that the Supreme Court decision “was limited to the criminal context, and its reasoning does not extend to civil actions.”

Carroll’s attorney praised the judge’s decision.

“We are very gratified that Judge Saunders, recognizing the clear holding of the Supreme Court in Vance, has rejected President Trump’s assertion of absolute immunity and has denied his motion to stay E. Jean Carroll’s case,” Kaplan said.

N.Y. attorney general is doing conservatives a favor by going after NRA: They’re its victims

On Thursday, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association, on the grounds that it’s functioning as a massive grift and not, as it bills itself, a “civil rights” organization for gun owners. There’s no way to know how this will play out — the NRA still wields political power, largely because it’s been so useful to Republicans — but the evidence marshaled by James and independent journalists is overwhelming. 

As James said in her statement, the NRA “went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” and the degree of corruption was so broad and deep that the scheme has “basically destroyed all the assets of the NRA.”

Many of the details of how NRA executives treated the tax-exempt nonprofit like a personal piggy bank have been widely reported in recent years, but the lawsuit generated even more astounding details, including allegations that NRA head Wayne LaPierre spent a million dollars of NRA funds on private chartered flights and vacations for his family. The result of this mismanagement and all the legal infighting as various NRA grifters sue each other has hobbled the organization financially, leading to massive layoffs and setting up this effort to disband the group entirely. 

Unsurprisingly, conservatives reacted to the announcement by James with outrage. The most typical talking point was misdirection, with conservatives whining “what about Planned Parenthood?” in such numbers that “Planned Parenthood” started to trend on Twitter.

The answer to this “what about,” of course, is simple: Planned Parenthood is not a fraudulent organization run by grifters who redirect millions in donor contributions into their own pockets. It’s a legitimate medical organization and reproductive rights advocacy group. Comparing the two is a little like saying that if Jeffrey Dahmer had to go to prison as a serial killer,  George R.R. Martin should go to prison for being a serial storyteller. It’s not the same thing! 

More to the point, what this whining fails to understand is that, by seeking to shut down the NRA’s fraudulent schemes, the main people James is protecting are the white conservatives who have supported the group for decades.

It wasn’t liberals, after all, who were duped into writing checks to support what they believed was vigorous political advocacy, only to see their money go toward fancy hotel suites and designer clothes for the LaPierre family. No, it was conservative donors, many of them middle-class or working-class, who’ve eagerly poured money into the NRA, a great deal of which disappeared into what looks like a massive grift.

Of course liberals and progressives are celebrating the possible demise of the NRA, which has done immeasurable damage to political discourse and led to the preventable deaths of many thousands of people by making reasonable firearms regulation impossible. But in the most immediate sense, the NRA must be understood as a predatory organization whose principal target is conservatives.

The NRA’s grift has been almost comical in its bluntness. The group traffics in over-the-top rhetoric designed to play on some of the darkest and most irrational emotions of American conservatives, including racist fears over the nation’s changing demographics, overblown fears of crime and paranoid fantasies that liberals are trying to “take over” the country in illegitimate ways. So much of the hyperventilating conspiracy-theory discourse found on the right, especially the wild fever-dreams about progressive “violence,” starts with the NRA, which sought to convince conservatives that they needed to spend ungodly amounts of money on buying guns and on supporting the NRA itself, in order to protect themselves from the imaginary threat of gun-grabbing libtards and antifa terrorists. 

Far from thanking James for trying to shut down an organization that spreads shameless lies in order to separate conservatives from their money, Republican leaders and right-wing pundits are crying foul. Some of the defenses have been, uh, interesting. 

“I prosecuted organizations or individuals who cheated their organizations, OK,” said Jeanine Pirro, the former New York prosecutor turned histrionic Fox News commentator on Friday morning. “It happens all the time. It’s no big deal, all right?”

The previous night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned that this was a sign of things to come and Democrats will soon “go after pro-life groups, conservative think tanks, conservative radio shows, cable networks, even churches.”

And of course there was the concern trolling, with Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, claiming this lawsuit would backfire and was “one of the dumbest, biggest mistakes an attorney general or anyone can make in an election year,” an argument that ignores that the gun control issue has become a massive rallying point that helped Democrats rack up major wins in the 2018 midterms. 

But it’s easy to see why conservative pundits are panicked. It’s not just that the NRA has been a major player in helping Republican politicians over the years, both in terms of funding and in keeping the right-wing base riled up over imaginary threats. It’s that grifting and con artistry are the backbone of the conservative movement.

If New York is actually successful in dissolving the NRA, it’s quite true that, as Ingraham suggested, similar efforts could follow against right-wing activist groups. But that won’t happen because of their ideology, but because so many of them rely on the same kinds of grifting and fraud the NRA has thrived on for years. The entire right-wing movement is awash in this kind of corruption.

Look at the ads in conservative publications or on right-wing sites: It’s a chaotic dogpile of snake oil pitches, predatory gold-bug scams, and “survivalist” supplies that are drastically overpriced or worthless. Most of the familiar characters in the Fox News pundit universe — as well as Donald Trump’s Cabinet — have their own email newsletters, and subscribing to one means a nonstop onslaught of email pitches for “miracle” cures and get-rich-quick scams. There are countless shady conservative political action committees that promise to help elect Republican candidates, but whose real purpose is to enrich the folks who run them. Onetime GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin ran one such PAC that drew lots of incoming donations and spent very little of it on real-world political campaigns. To a significant degree, the conservative movement exists as a way to compile lists of gullible marks used by scammers and con artists. 

It’s no coincidence that the president all these people love so much is also a lifelong con artist who entered office while settling a lawsuit with people he defrauded through his fake “Trump University.” Swindling other conservatives is what conservatives do. 

Indeed, it’s an open question whether the conservative movement is a political movement with a grifting problem, or if it’s primarily a money-making scam that sometimes does politics. This lawsuit against the NRA represents an existential threat to the way right-wing leaders have operated for decades, by separating fools from their money. Without these grifting operations, it’s hard to imagine what the modern conservative apparatus would even look like. No wonder the people at the top of the right-wing pyramid are in such a panic, and “defending gun rights” has nothing to do with it. 

Black Lives Matter protesters face potential life sentences in Utah because of “gang enhancement”

A group of Black Lives Matter protesters in Utah are facing potential life in prison for smashing windows and splashing red paint on the street.

CBS News reports that Salt Lake City District Attorney Sim Gill this week added a “gang enhancement” penalty against BLM demonstrators who allegedly committed acts of vandalism, which increases maximum sentences for “offenses committed in concert with two or more person or in relation to a criminal street gang.”

The enhancement means that the protesters could face life in prison if they are found guilty and punished to the maximum extent allowed by the law, CBS News reports.

In a followup interview with the Associated Press, Gill said that he didn’t believe “anyone is going to be going to prison on this” and predicted that the defendants would instead plead to lesser offenses.

28-year-old Madalena McNeil, who was accused of buying the red paint used to vandalize the street during the protest, said that she is nonetheless appalled that sending her to prison for life for her alleged crimes is even a possibility.

“It would be silly to look at the potential of life in prison and not be scared,” she told local news station KUTV.

 

Obama endorses Susan Collins’ Democratic challenger as new poll shows her trailing in close race

Former President Barack Obama threw his support behind Democratic Maine Senate candidate Sara Gideon in his first list of 2020 endorsements this week as a new poll showed her narrowly leading Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, was one of Obama’s first five Senate endorsements in a list released on Monday.

“Our country’s future hangs on this election, and it won’t be easy. But pandemics have a way of cutting through a lot of noise and spin to remind us of what is real, and what is important,” Obama said in a statement. “Elections matter. And we need Americans of all political stripes to get involved in our politics and our public life like never before.”

Gideon said she was “honored” to have Obama’s support in the race.

“During his administration, President Obama expanded access to health care, protected civil rights, and took bold action to address climate change,” she said on Twitter. “That’s what I’ve worked to do here in Maine.”

Collins, who has been in the Senate since 1996, has long had a reputation as a moderate but her vote to acquit President Donald Trump in the impeachment trial — she argued that he had learned a “big lesson” from the ordeal — soured many Maine voters. The impeachment trial came after the self-avowed “pro-choice” Republican cast a pivotal vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who subsequently voted in favor of abortion restrictions in Lousiana. Collins has also voted to confirm dozens of other anti-choice judicial nominees from Trump. 

Collins is one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing re-election this year despite winning her last race by 37 points. A new Quinnipiac poll released this week showed Gideon narrowly leading by four points, though Collins significantly outperforms Trump, who trails presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden by 15 points in the state.

The poll shows potential trouble ahead for Collins. The so-called moderate trails Gideon among independents by four points and has a net -7 favorable rating and a net -9 approval rating. Nearly half of all Maine voters say Collins has been “too supportive” of Trump. Collins previously held a 67% approval rating when Trump first took office.

Collins was ranked as the most unpopular senator in the country earlier this year, beating out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Though Collins previously drew more than 60% support from women voters in the states, polls have consistently shown that more than 60% of women now oppose her.

Saying she could not understand why voters were turning against her, Collins previously denied that she was legislating differently than in the past.

“I am doing exactly the same thing I’ve always done,” she told the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. “I’ve always cast votes with an eye to how they affect the state of Maine and our country.”

But in a state where Trump’s favorable rating hovers around 36%, Collins faces the political fight of her life. Collins has seen a boon in contributions from the Federalist Society, the conservative group which bankrolled Kavanaugh’s nomination, but numerous outside groups, including a crowdfunding campaign which raised millions after the Kavanaugh vote, have poured millions into the race to defeat her.

“Every decision she makes seems to align her more closely with the Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell movement,” Dan Shea, who chairs the government program at Maine’s Colby College, said earlier this year. “Here in Maine, that’s become the anvil around her neck.”

US COVID-19 death toll projected to hit almost 300,000 by December: researchers

An influential novel coronavirus pandemic model now projects that deaths from the disease in the United States could hit almost 300,000 by the start of December.

NPR reports that researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation say that the United States is headed toward a grim fall in which COVID-19 deaths will nearly double from their current level of 160,000 in the next four months.

To put this toll into perspective, NPR writes that it would be “more than four times the number of people who typically die from drug overdoses in the U.S. each year — and more than five times the number killed by the flu in a very bad year.”

Chris Murray, the head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s team, says that he expects the toll to be so high because Americans have shown they quickly grow lax in terms of wearing masks and social distancing as soon as the number of cases in their area starts to go down.

“That creates this potential for [cases] going up, stabilizing, then coming down, [then] people becoming less vigilant, and then cases going up again,” he tells NPR. “I think we will see more of that roller-coaster phenomenon through the fall.”

Trump takes three-day vacation at his New Jersey golf course amid stalled coronavirus relief talks

President Donald Trump arrived in New Jersey on Thursday evening to begin a three-day vacation at his Bedminster golf course.

Reporters shouted questions about the stalled stimulus negotiations, but AP White House correspondent Jonathan Lemire reports that Trump ignored the question.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate adjourned on Thursday, allowing members a three-day weekend.

Thursday was also the 20th week in a row when the federal government has reported that more than one million Americans signed up for unemployment benefits.

Trump claims Joe Biden will “hurt the Bible” in “disturbing” new attack: “He’s against God!”

Few ever accuse President Donald Trump of subtlety. But in a new speech in Cleveland on Thursday, he let loose with a particularly wild rant against his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, that was over-the-top, even for him.

It’s worth just quoting in full:

He’s following the radical left agenda. Take away your guns. Destroy your Second Amendment. No religion! No anything! Hurt the Bible! Hurt God! He’s against God! He’s against guns! He’s against energy, our kind of energy. Uh, I don’t think he’s going to do too well in Ohio.

Many people pointed out that there’s much more evidence that Biden is a committed Christian than there is for Trump. But almost that seems to miss several key points about how wild this is:

  1. This not how politicians usually talk. We’re used to the shattering of norms and inflammatory behavior from Trump, but it’s outrageous and disturbing.
  2. It doesn’t even make sense. Biden’s going to “hurt God”? How would a president dow that? And some passages aren’t even complete thoughts, such as: “No Religion! No anything!” This is incomprehensible.
  3. Trump is gesturing toward right-wing talking points about freedom of religion, but he can’t articulate them.
  4. He’s just rambling — he goes from guns, to the Second Amendment, to religion, and then back to guns again! And then energy! He doesn’t even care enough about his audience to think about what he’s saying before he says it and to organize his thoughts in a structured way. He thinks he can just spout off keywords he thinks his voters like and win re-election.
  5. He would actually be more persuasive if he could make a case against Biden, but all he has are these unrestrained outbursts.

Of course, Trump shocks reporters on a nearly daily basis with some brazen new act or outrageous performance, so this one will likely be soon forgotten. But it’s important to always mark the moment and emphasize that there’s something truly wrong with his behavior.

You can watch the clip below via YouTube:

Will Trump face real consequences for his crimes? The answer will haunt America’s future

If the nation manages to oust Donald Trump from the presidency in November — and he actually agrees to leave in January — the new administration and the Congress will have its hands full just trying to keep the country from falling even deeper into a depression and halting the death toll from the pandemic. Foreign policy will have to be dealt with immediately, as will the assessment of the damage to the administrative state. Our failed public health response to the coronavirus is a deadly wakeup call: The federal government has atrophied under the insane fiscal and political priorities inflicted upon it over the past couple of decades by nihilist Republicans and impotent Democrats. And that’s just for starters.

But one of the most important priorities must be to re-establish democratic and ethical norms in the wake of Trump’s brazen corruption. Congress can make new laws and the president can create executive orders, but if they want to get the job done there must be some accountability for this crime spree.

It’s hard to know where to start, but as you may recall there’s a report that lays out in great detail Donald Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation. It even makes a very strong case that he can be prosecuted after he leaves office for committing these crimes.

If investigators want to look further, there’s the matter of all the taxpayer money that has gone into Trump’s pockets virtually every weekend, when he leaves Washington to promote his properties and play golf. (He has spent a third of his days as president at his own resorts and hotels.) We know that we have been forced to pay him at least $1 million for hotel rooms alone, at prices raised far beyond the “cost” that the Trump Organization claims it charges. That is likely the tip of the iceberg.

We found out in the last couple of weeks that Trump had his ambassador to the U.K. try to convince the British government to steer the British Open golf tournament to one of his resorts in Scotland. Depending on what was offered in return, that could look an awful lot like bribery. It’s certainly something an investigator might want to look into.

God knows how much of that sort of thing has been going on. Trump was impeached for extorting a foreign government to help his re-election campaign, after all. He clearly believes he’s above the law.

Whether the Department of Justice will look into any of that, under some more normal future leadership, is another question. I have my doubts. The prevailing establishment view about such things was articulated by Joe Biden earlier this week:

Joe Biden says that he believes prosecuting a former president would be a “very unusual thing and probably not very … good for democracy,” but he would not stand in the way of a future Justice Department pursuing criminal charges against President Trump after he leaves office …

“Look, the Justice Department is not the president’s private law firm. The attorney general is not the president’s private lawyer. I will not interfere with the Justice Department’s judgment of whether or not they think they should pursue the prosecution of anyone that they think has violated the law,” Biden told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

Biden said the right thing about leaving such considerations to the attorney general. That’s the way these things are supposed to work. But his personal attitude reflects an outdated view of what is and is not “good for democracy.” Once upon a time, we assumed that the only reason any administration would prosecute a former president would be as an authoritarian move to consolidate power, as we’ve seen in banana republics and totalitarian regimes. It was a real concern.

That’s not what we’re dealing with now. Unfortunately, Americans elected a president who is both stupid and corrupt, and his party has acted as accomplices to his crimes. If he is allowed to simply carry on after leaving office, with no accountability for what he’s done, it will just make everyone more cynical about government and enable future Republican criminals to pick up where Trump left off. After all, they’ve been passing that baton to each other since Richard Nixon was let off the hook 45 years ago.

Nonetheless, unless the Southern District of New York really does have something up its sleeve, I don’t expect federal prosecutors to pursue any of this, even though they should. After Bill Barr’s egregious performance as Trump’s Roy Cohn, I would guess any new attorney general will opt to avoid the appearance of partisanship. (Barr’s blatant behavior may have the perverse effect of inoculating Trump’s inner circle against retaliation.)

Maybe the Congress will make a stab at it and put together some kind of joint congressional committee, like the Church Committee that investigated the CIA, NSA and FBI in the 1970s, to untangle the whole Trumpian mess and publish a report about everything that happened. That would be worthwhile and I hope they do it, but I suspect that’s the most we can expect from the federal government.

There is some hope, however, that Trump will be held accountable and possibly even held criminally liable for his corruption. After the Supreme Court ruled this term that Trump could not withhold his tax returns from grand jury subpoena in a state criminal matter, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has jurisdiction over the Trump Organization, revealed that it has already obtained a whole boatload of documents from Deutsche Bank, which loaned the Trumps billions of dollars when no other bank would touch them. According to its filing with the court seeking Trump’s tax records, prosecutors are not simply looking at hush-money payments to porn stars, but at potentially major fraud charges.

We already knew from the New York Times’ 13,000-word examination about the massive criminal tax fraud scheme concocted by Fred Trump, Donald’s father. Considering the lengths to which he’s gone to hide his tax returns, it’s fair to suspect that Fred’s son has adopted similar practices. According to exposés by ProPublica and WNYC for their series “Trump, Inc.”, the Trump Organization may have misled banks, investors and buyers in many of their real estate licensing deals. There are many questions about money laundering and Trump’s odd special relationship with Deutsche Bank.

Much as I would love to see Trump held accountable for his crimes as president, it would be poetic justice to see his business exposed as a scam and see him prosecuted for ripping off taxpayers and clients. Apparently that won’t happen unless Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. can get his hands on those tax returns. Trump will fight that to the end, so there’s no telling whether anything will come of it. But at least someone, somewhere, is trying to bring him to justice. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can have faith in the system ever again if Donald Trump walks away scot-free after everything he’s done. 

Young Black Americans not sold on Joe Biden, the Democrats or voting

Most political analysts define “swing voters” as those who swing their support from one party to the other between election cycles — determining winners and losers in the process.

According to this conventional wisdom, the “swingiest” voters are working-class whites in the Midwest, who supposedly hold the keys to the White House.

Meanwhile, by contrast, pundits often portray Black Americans as an undifferentiated mass — loyal Democrat-supporting foot soldiers who will execute their mission for The Team on Tuesday as long as some preacher provides the right marching orders on Sunday.

If these depictions have not already expired, they are certainly growing stale. Having studied electoral trends for decades, we can tell you that those undecided voters of the past are an endangered species — in the Midwest and elsewhere. These days, the only choice that most Americans make — indeed, the choice that typically “swings” the election outcome — is whether to vote at all.

That brings us to the characterization of Black Americans as Democratic loyalists.

Our new survey of 1,215 African Americans in battleground states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia — reveals that while those over 60 remain among the most reliable of Democratic voters, and those between 40-59 are still pretty locked in as well, those under 30 (whom we oversampled to comprise half of our sample) are anything but.

Not sold on Biden

Only 47% of those Black Americans under 30 years old that we surveyed plan to vote for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. That’s roughly the same percentage who have anything positive to say when asked what “one or two words come to mind” about the former vice president.

Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies Black youths’ political views, summed up this attitude in a recent podcast: “They’ve seen the election of Black mayors, they’ve seen the election of the first Black president, and they’ve also seen that their lives have not changed.”

Not sold on voting

These young Black Americans may well sit things out in November, just as many of them did in 2016 when their behavior swung that election to Trump as much as anything else did.

In our poll, 31% of Black Americans under 30 say they probably won’t vote in this election. That may sound pretty good, given the average U.S. voter turnout of around 60% in recent elections.

But survey respondents of all stripes tend to wildly overestimate their intention to vote. Indeed, about half of our Black survey respondents under 30 say they don’t often vote because it “doesn’t make a difference,” providing a somewhat more realistic estimate of the percentage who will probably just stay home — and not search for a stamp to mail in their ballot, either.

And that number does not even take into account the turnout-depressing effects of voter suppression efforts taking place across the country, the pandemic or the heavy distrust of mail-in voting that young Black people tend to express. Only 64% of young people in our sample say they trust the state to report their vote accurately, and only 30% say they plan to take advantage of mail-in voting.

Not sold on the Democratic Party

Such cynicism on the part of young Black Americans is reflected in the lukewarm feelings they tend to have toward the Democratic Party more generally.

Only 47% of them say that the party is welcoming to Black Americans, and only 43% say they trust Democrats in Congress to do what’s best for the Black community. Perhaps most strikingly, unlike their older counterparts, only half of those under 30 view the Democrats as any better than the Republicans on these scores.

In both the survey responses and in the focus groups we conducted of young Black Americans in these same states, we heard repeated frustration toward what they view as a Democratic Party that expects their vote but doesn’t really do anything to deserve it other than claim to be “less racist” than the alternative.

As one of our focus group respondents put it, “I think at the end of the day, they all have the same agenda.”

In short, it appears that for Black America, the future is not necessarily “blue.” Electorally speaking, it is not necessarily anything at all. Moving forward, young Black Americans may be the real “swing voters” in the only way that term really makes much sense anymore.

David C. Barker, Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University School of Public Affairs and Sam Fulwood III, Fellow, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

No, Americans aren’t yearning for more and better “objectivity” in journalism

A major new survey of public opinion about the news media is being misinterpreted by its sponsors to suggest that Americans don’t think there’s enough objectivity in journalism anymore.

The survey from the Knight Foundation and Gallup, Inc., did indeed find increasing complaints about bias in the news media.

But a blog post from Knight interpreted that to mean “that Americans’ hope for an objective media is all but lost.” And Sam Gill, the senior vice president of the Knight Foundation, declared on NPR on Monday, “People really do not think media is doing its job as a democratic institution.”

If you look at the data just a bit more closely, though, you see that the bias concerns are primarily from Republicans, who after three years of Trump’s Twitter assaults overwhelmingly and increasingly distrust the mainstream media, with a not insignificant number — 12% — actually claiming to believe it is “trying to ruin the country.”

That’s not a failure of “objectivity” by the mainstream media; that’s a willful departure from reality by a large chunk of the population. If anything, it suggests to me that the mainstream media’s “objectivity” hangup has resulted in a failure to successfully champion the truth.

The survey finds that Democrats, by contrast, remain quite positive about the role the media plays. While 28% of them said they consider bias a “major problem,” it’s reasonable to assume that many had outlets like Fox News in mind when they said that.

That’s not a failure of objectivity by the mainstream media, either. That’s a reasonable expression of concern — arguably one that the reality-based media is not adequately confronting.

The survey did not define what it meant by “news coverage” or “media,” leaving open a huge world of possibilities.

Nor did it define what it meant by “objective” or “neutral,” even while using those terms favorably in its questions. The two key bias prompts, which respondents were asked to rate as “a major problem, a minor problem, or not a problem with news coverage today” were:

  • “Increasing number of news sources reporting from a particular point of view (such as conservative or liberal) rather than being neutral“; and
  • “Too much bias in the reporting of news stories that are supposed to be objective.” (My italics.)

Saying that news stories are “supposed to be objective” is, well, a matter of opinion. And the notion that “objectivity” is the only path to building trust and fulfilling journalism’s democratic mission, I think, is flat wrong. A lot of media critics, myself included, have long criticized newsroom leaders for preaching a version of “objectivity” that manifests itself in false equivalences that obscure rather than expose the truth.

The news industry is now facing a rebellion, led by young reporters of color, who see “objectivity” as having failed miserably to confront overt racism and dishonesty. As I wrote in June, these editors call it “objectivity” when what they’re really trying to do is avoid offending a politically neutral or “moderate” white man who doesn’t actually exist.

It’s not clear who wrote the Knight/Gallup report on the survey. The Knight blog post was written by John Sands, a Knight staffer with no evident journalism background. He wrote that Americans “see an increasing partisan slant in the news, and a media eager to push an agenda.”

He concluded: “As a result, the media’s ability to hold leaders accountable is diminished in the public’s eye.” But I see no support for that conclusion anywhere in the survey’s responses. The only question about accountability found that views about how well the news media is “holding leaders in politics, business, and other institutions accountable for their actions” remained essentially unchanged between 2017 and 2019.

The report advertises that “The full questionnaire, topline results, detailed cross tabulations and raw data may be obtained upon request,” and after multiple requests I now have that information, available at the bottom of this page.

The biggest news I took away from the survey is that young Democrats are souring on the media. From the full report:

While few Republicans in any age group view the media favorably, Democrats’ opinions depend largely on their age; nearly three-fourths of those in the oldest group have a favorable opinion, versus less than a third of those under 30….

Young people are particularly unlikely to say media is supporting democracy “well” or “very well”; 40% of Americans aged 65 and over say this, compared to 22% of those aged 18-29. One-third (33%) of Democrats under 30 respond this way, compared to 54% of Democrats 30 and older.

That is inevitably driven in part by the fact that young people use the internet for news more than older people do, but I also see it as evidence that the news media needs to change — not do more of the same. (The report, without offering any supporting evidence, concludes that young people’s “negative perceptions are likely a function of their increased sense of bias in the news.”)

Another notable finding — not because it is surprising, but because it is so rarely discussed — is that “3 in 4 Americans worry that owners of media companies are influencing coverage.”

The Knight Foundation is the largest journalism-related foundation in the country, with more than $2 billion in assets, and it has been a powerful voice for journalism, the First Amendment, and a better understanding of how news organizations can inform their communities and create an informed electorate.

I frequently quote from the 2019 report by the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy entitled “Crisis in Democracy: Renewing Trust in America,” which concluded:

At its best, journalism informs the public on matters of civic concern, gives citizens a common set of facts, provides context that lends greater meaning to the news, independently monitors and holds those in power accountable, and strengthens the public discourse. Good journalism helps us to understand others whose lives and challenges are very different from our own.

I am personally grateful to Knight for funding my life-changing journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan in 1996. And I would dearly love them to help fund Press Watch.

But the way Knight cast the findings of its own survey to me is symptomatic of its unwillingness to take activist positions, also seen in other major journalism philanthropies. For instance, I’d like to see Knight and other journalism nonprofits make more forceful distinctions between reality-based newsrooms and propaganda outlets that falsely market themselves as news, rather than treat them like part of the same continuum.

(I’d also like to see them invest their massive endowments where they could make the most difference: By buying newspapers.)

Look through the full report, and you’ll see a lot of findings that support the view that the political divide (in terms of both supply and demand) is the overwhelming factor driving complaints of “bias,” rather than an industry-wide loss of objectivity:

  • “Given the choice … more Americans say they are concerned about bias in the news other people are getting (69%) than say they worry about their own news being biased (29%).”
  • “Democrats and Republicans differ greatly in their ratings of the media on every aspect of performance, including providing objective news reports, holding political and business leaders accountable for their actions and helping Americans stay informed about current affairs.”
  • Republicans are apparently using the excuse of too much “bias” in the news to explain why they’ve given up on figuring out the truth. Asked whether they felt that “there is so much bias in the news media that it’s often difficult to sort out the facts” or “Although there is some bias in the news media, there are enough sources of news to be able to sort out the facts,” two out of three Republicans chose the former, compared to only one in five Democrats.

A deeper look at the crosstabs should be fascinating. For instance, the full report notes that “people who name a conservative news outlet as their top news source are more likely to say news media they distrust are ruining the country.”

Nevertheless, there’s lots of valuable information in the survey, if you read it with a grain of salt. And I’ll end with some undeniable good news:

  • “Americans are more likely today to say the media’s role in democracy is ‘critical,’ up five percentage points since 2017.”
  • And “Large majorities say it is ‘critical’ or ‘very important’ for the news media to provide accurate and fair news reports (92%), ensure Americans are informed about public affairs (91%) and hold leaders accountable for their actions (85%).”

Robert Reich on Trump’s dangerous lies about the COVID economy

“The recovery has been very strong,” Donald Trump said last week. Then the Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy contracted between April and June at the fastest pace in nearly three-quarters of a century, which is as long as economists have been keeping track. The drop wiped out five years of economic growth.

But pesky facts have never stopped Trump. Having lied for five months about the coronavirus, he’s now filling social media and the airwaves with untruths about the economy so he can dupe his way to election day.

The comeback “won’t take very long,” he reassured Americans on Thursday. But every indicator shows that after a small uptick in June, the US economy is tanking again. Restaurant reservations are down, traffic at retail stores is dwindling, more small businesses are closing, the small rebound in air travel is reversing.

What’s Trump’s plan to revive the economy? The same one he’s been pushing for months: just “reopen” it.

He wants the public to believe the shutdown orders that began in March caused the economy to tank in the first place, so reversing them will bring the economy back.

Rubbish. It was the virus that caused the downturn, and its resurgence is taking the economy down again. The virus is surging back because governors reopened prematurely, before the virus was under control — at Trump’s repeated insistence.

The sequence of cause-and-effect is clear. The virus has surged most in states that were among the first to reopen, such as Florida, South Carolina, Texas and much of the rest of the Sun Belt.

Because of this resurgence, many states are pausing plans to reopen and some are reimposing restrictions. But these restrictions are not the reason the economy is slowing. They are the necessary consequence of allowing the pandemic to get out of control.

Even the White House’s own coronavirus taskforce concludes that 21 states have outbreaks serious enough to justify more restrictions.

Notably, the economy is sliding again even though the government has pumped trillions of dollars into it. 

What happens when the money stops? We’re about to find out. Senate Republicans can’t agree among themselves, let alone with House Democrats, about more funding, while Trump says “we really don’t care” about reaching a spending agreement.

That means starting this week more than 30 million Americans will no longer receive $600 in extra weekly employment benefits. As a result, tens of millions will not be able to make rent or mortgage payments. More will go hungry, including children. The economy is likely to slide even further.

The White House argues that the extra unemployment payments have discouraged workers from seeking jobs because some are receiving more money in benefits than they would earn by working.

“We don’t want to create disincentives to work,” says Trump adviser Larry Kudlow.

More rubbish. A study by Yale economists finds “no evidence” that people who have lost their jobs are choosing to stay unemployed because of the extra federal aid. In fact, “workers facing larger [unemployment] expansions generally appear to be quicker to return to work than others, not slower.”

People can’t go back to work because there is very little work for them to do. Fourteen million more people are unemployed than there are jobs.

In fact, the extra benefits have been keeping some 3 million employed because the money has gone into the pockets of people who spend it, thereby sustaining economic activity. Shrinking those benefits will put less money into consumer pockets, with the result that millions more jobs will be lost.

Lies about the economy are harder to spot than lies about the coronavirus because the virus’s grim death count is painfully apparent while the economy is complicated. 

But Trump’s economic lies are no less egregious than his coronavirus lies, and, like the coronavirus lies, his economic ones are about to cause a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

Right-wing groups took millions in pandemic aid — and spent millions lobbying for unemployment cuts

Conservative groups whose board members have taken in tens of millions in coronavirus relief from Congress have spent millions to lobby lawmakers to cut aid for unemployed workers.

Negotiations over the next phase of much-needed coronavirus relief have stalled, largely because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have insisted on cutting the federal unemployment benefit created under the CARES Act in March from $600 per week to around $200 — based on a widely-debunked premise that it keeps workers from returning to their jobs.

Just three months ahead of a national election, Republicans inexplicably let the federal unemployment benefit expire last week despite research showing that any significant lapse or cut would devastate the economy.

These negotiations have been driven by a lobbying frenzy, The New York Times reported, and many of the board members of the groups urging Congress to drastically slash the unemployment benefit — such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Club for Growth — have themselves benefited greatly from the CARES Act.

“The ‘stimulus for me, but not for thee’ pleas from wealthy and well-connected right-wing special interests would be laughable if Senate Republicans weren’t marching in lockstep,” Kyle Herrig, the president of the progressive government watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. “McConnell and his allies are mulling drastic cuts to unemployment benefits that will leave struggling workers with even less money to feed their families and avoid eviction. They know but don’t care that amid the worsening health crisis, millions more people are out of work than there are jobs available. Cutting benefits for families in need won’t make jobs magically reappear.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business group that has been blamed for making the pandemic “worse” by opposing government efforts to fight the coronavirus, has been a leading opponent of federal unemployment benefits.

The group spent more than $15 million lobbying on “unemployment insurance” and other issues in the first quarter, according to lobbying disclosures, and another $12 million lobbying on “unemployment insurance and the COVID-19 pandemic,” as well as “workplace liability,” another McConnell pet issue, in the second quarter.

In May, the chamber “joined Republicans in arguing that the extra payments might deter people from returning to work,” The Washington Post reported. This claim has been widely rejected by economists. The group was among several that lobbied lawmakers to reject the unemployment benefit in favor of an “alternative” like a “back-to-work” bonus, Bloomberg Law reported.

Last month, the Chamber of Commerce wrote to Congress demanding the unemployment benefit be “significantly revised,” again echoing the discredited claim that it deters workers from returning to their jobs.

The chamber’s board of directors’ companies have received millions in aid under the CARES Act.

Stephen Johnson, a member of the board of directors, is the executive vice president of corporate affairs at American Airlines, which received more than $5.8 billion in government aid under the Payroll Support Program, according to a COVID Bailout Tracker launched by Accountable.US. Heather Wingate, also on the board of directors, is a senior vice president of Delta Airlines, which received $5.4 billion under the PSP. Terri Fariello, another member of the board, is a senior executive at United Airlines, which received nearly $5 billion under the PSP.

Other board members’ companies received millions under the Paycheck Protection Program. Mark Wilson is the CEO of Chime Solutions, which took up to $10 million in PPP funding. Edward McCoy is the CEO of Eaheart Industrial Service, which took up to $2 million in PPP funding. Karen Olson Beenken is the CEO of Blue Rock Companies, which took up to $1 million in PPP funding. Other heads of companies that took up to $1 million include William Little of the Quam-Nichols Company; Natalie Kaddas, the CEO of Kaddas Enterprises; Maxine Turner, the founder of Cuisine Unlimited; and Maura Donahue, the president of DonahueFavret Conractors.

Business Roundtable, another pro-business group, spent more than $4.8 million lobbying on unemployment and “issues relating to federal response to COVID-19” in the first quarter, according to a lobbying disclosure, and another $800,000 in the second quarter to lobby on “COVID-19 Pandemic Liability Protections” and opposing the HEROES Act, the $3 trillion bill the House passed in May, which would extend the federal unemployment benefit through January.

In May, the group wrote to Congress urging members to “avoid” unemployment insurance, repeating the discredited claim that it provides a “disincentive to work.”

Business Roundtable’s board of directors includes Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, which earned up to $1.4 billion in fees administering PPP loans.

The board also includes Robert Smith, the chairman of Carnegie Hall, which took up to $10 million in PPP funding, Brendan Bechtel and Julie Sweet, who sit on the board of trustees for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which took up to $5 million in PPP aid, Alex Gorsky, a member of the Travis Manion Foundation, which got up to $1 million in PPP aid, and Mark Sutton, who sits on the board of directors for the New Memphis Institute, which got up to $350,000 in PPP funding.

Another group that has been instrumental behind the scenes is FreedomWorks, whose members include Stephen Moore, a longtime Trump economic adviser. The group also helped organize anti-lockdown protests in the spring.

FreedomWorks spent $550,000 in the second quarter to lobby on legislation including the “Getting Americans Back to Work Act” and other issues related to the pandemic.

The group referred to the federal unemployment benefit as a “glaring error in the CARES Act,” repeating the same dubious claim that it would “create a shortage of workers” when in reality there has been a shortage of jobs. FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon has also warned that extending the benefits would drive up the deficit, even though economists warn that cutting the benefit would shrink the economy and cost millions of jobs.

But FreedomWorks had no problem seeking government aid itself, applying for $300,000 under the PPP.

FreedomWorks “made its name opposing bailouts,” The New York Times reported, “but in this case [is] willing to take one.”

Noah Wall, the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, told Salon that the group applied for but did not accept PPP funds after the media reports from the Times and other outlets.

Heritage Action for America, the sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, spent more than $200,000 lobbying on the CARES Act and “issues pertaining to an extension of the bonus $600 UI benefit,” according to their disclosures for the first and second quarters.

The Heritage Foundation opposed the CARES Act, mainly over the unemployment benefits, and later echoed the same discredited claim that the benefit was “incentivizing job losses.” In June, the group pushed Congress to end the unemployment benefits a month earlier than the law required.

Meanwhile, Heritage Foundation trustee William Walton, the owner of Rappahannock Media, received up to $350,000 in PPP funding. It was a curious move for the former Trump transition “landing team” member, who was described by a former colleague as so “libertarian” he “doesn’t believe in government at all.”

Americans for Tax Reform spent $170,000 lobbying against federal unemployment benefits in the first and second quarters. The group argued that the unemployment benefit created an “incentive for Americans to choose welfare over work” even as businesses across the U.S. were shuttered.

But the Grover Norquist-led Americans for Tax Reform Foundation received up to $350,000 in PPP aid from the government.

“Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) did not apply for or receive any grant or loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to keep people employed during the pandemic. ATR never opposed enactment of the program however, viewing it as compensation for a government taking during the shutdown,” the group said in a statement. “Americans for Tax Reform Foundation (ATRF)—a legally and financially separate research and educational 501(c)3—was badly hurt by the government shutdown. It applied for and received a loan and has as a consequence been able to maintain its employees without laying anyone off. ATRF does not engage in lobbying.”

The same trend repeats with several other conservative groups that have urged Congress to cut or end aid for tens of millions of jobless Americans.

Citizens Against Government Waste spent $25,000 to lobby against the HEROES Act in the second quarter. Board member Terry Grace Sears is executive director of Tuesday’s Children, which received up to $350,000 in PPP funding.

Club for Growth called the unemployment benefits “unfair” and demanded Congress end the benefit entirely. Board member Terry Considine also serves on the board of Intrepid Potash, which received a $10 million PPP loan.

The Cato Institute called the CARES Act an “excessive” response and claimed it would disincentivize workers from returning. Board member Nestor Weigand Jr. Is the CEO of JP Weigand & Sons, which took up to $1 million in PPP funds.

R Street Institute called on Congress to “oppose any effort to extend this aid past the point of immediate crisis” while the group itself took up to $2 million in PPP funds. William Gray, the group’s communications director, told Salon the notion that the group opposes individual aid is false, noting that the group has supported recurring cash payments to individuals and opposed unemployment benefits because it views them as insufficient.

Herrig, the Accountable.US president, noted the apparent hypocrisy at work here, with so many entities that were eager to accept government aid demanding that Congress strip it away from laid-off individuals.

“If these groups are concerned the government is spending too much during this historic crisis,” he said, “they are welcome to return their taxpayer-funded bailouts.”

Too much news coverage of Trump is just sound and fury, signifying nothing

In the latest wave of Donald Trump tweets, he was again asking for attention to him rather than to any of the dozens of issues before us, chief of which is that we now are moving toward 155,000 Americans dead because this government has not solidly dealt with coronavirus.

In his statements, Trump attacked the testimony of chief government virologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, to threaten, then back off delaying the elections, throwing shade again at mailed (but not absentee) ballots, threatening to ban Tik Tok (he didn’t) and to announce that his re-nomination ceremony will now be a private affair closed to press and public.

They all will disappear shortly, replaced by new look-at-me vanity tweets that don’t actually create policy, bring Americans together or solve any public problems. Beyond that, I’m left wondering how any of these help his political campaign?

Let’s start with the Republican National Convention, which, like its opposite number, is an outdated, glorified pep rally intended to spread party propaganda on public airwaves for four days running. How does closing the convention to press and cameras help him, other than taking away images that both parties must face that look different from balloon-drop excess of the past, signifying nothing.

It’s clear that Trump hates the press except for his need to preen before the cameras. Somehow, he thinks that closing down coverage will present a problem for journalists.

My take is that finally, journalists and networks need not enslave themselves to promoting the giggles and campaign hats of conventioneers, and that home viewers will be spared days of endless non-news coverage. If only the networks will realize that this is a bonus rather than an obstacle, we’d all be better off.

Indeed, perhaps the networks should not be showing Trump live at five daily unless he actually has something to say that is noteworthy. Of course, by Sunday afternoon, the RNC and the White House were backtracking: They may want cameras. Stay tuned.

Reporting the news

I once worked in local news reporting where a veteran colleague dutifully attended a city council meeting, returned and filed a one-sentence report that editors found unacceptably abbreviated: The City Council met Tuesday night in a routine session. That’s it. Watchdog role fulfilled.

Somewhere along the line in our democracy, things got turned around for news outlets. It used to be that we would go where the news happened, or where reporters could dig into documents and interview enough people to show that there was a gap between what was said and what was actually being done. Lots of that still gets done, of course, but along with cable television news, 24-hour talk radio and social media, we got something else: Endless chatter about the chatter. Meta-politics and Meta-governing, the politics about the politics and policies, not examinations of what actually gets done.

Somehow, because we in the media are there to watch the government and political leaders in action, the assumption is that it must be important. Maybe Trump just provided us with justification to cover his re-nomination tersely too, without bells and whistles, insider conventioneer reports that mean nothing, lots of flashbulbs and videos of hoopla rather than substance.

Write about the speech he gives, and call it a day. The actions of the 366 delegates on Aug. 24 in Charlotte voting proxies for 2,500 colleagues is a foregone conclusion, and there’s no drama about keeping Mike Pence at his side.

But instead of talking about how coronavirus is about to cancel re-opened sports, or frightening parents and teachers across the country about under-prepared school re-openings, we’re served up reports about how this latest Trump move represents the first party nominating convention in modern history to be closed to reporters.

Disregarding the tweets

It was for just such reasons that most serious news outlets started ignoring individual Trump tweets — even though they are now serving as official government recording of what this administration is saying. It had gotten old fast, and quickly had reached a saturation point where no one tweet or statement actually stood out as news.

So, Trump has amped his volatility — the topics are more and more outrageous, less and less realistic ore relevant or believable. In the vast majority of cases, Trump retreats within hours.

Thus, he only wanted to highlight the possibilities of illegalities and fraud in ballots mailed to homes, as opposed to absentee ballots, which are also mailed to homes. Or he needed to remind Dr. Fauci for the 200th time that the virus case count has only increased as tests for the disease have increased — a statement ludicrous on its face since it does not explain hospitalization and deaths, and seemingly more silly for coming just as Science was triumphing with excellent engineering required for a manned space visit and safe return of astronauts. Likewise, Trump’s threats about withholding funds from school districts that do no open have gone flat, and his wishy-washiness about mask-wearing has resulted in the deaths of people he knows.

On the other hand, he is damaging the post office, presumably to help make his mail ballots fraud theories into fact, and he has managed to hide daily updates of coronavirus hospitalizations, per Pro Publica.

OK, I plead guilty to writing about another individual tweet to keep his convention closed. But it seems to serve no one, and I can’t imagine that many people care. It certainly will not prompt any change in voting.

Besides, he will drop this in time to ensure that there are cameras at his re-nomination — so long as all can assure that the lighting will be good for his orange tone.