Birthright: President Donald Trump wants to remove by executive order the right to U.S. citizenship for children born to noncitizens on U.S. soil, he suggested in a new interview. (Reminder: We’re one week out from the U.S. midterm elections.) Any move to revoke birthright citizenship will ignite debate over interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (can it even be revoked by executive order?). Here’s one legal view of the citizenship clause—that it means exactly what it says about birthright.
Messing with Mueller: A company apparently run by a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist seems to have reached out to a couple of women, offering them money to fabricate sexual-misconduct claims against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The full story gets odder.
Mourning: “When one person dies, members of the Jewish community often step in to care for the body and the family,” writes Emma Green in a gutting dispatch from Pittsburgh, days after a gunman opened fire during morning services at a synagogue there. “When 11 people die, the whole community becomes part of the mourning process.” Here’s what teachers at Jewish schools are telling their young students about the shooting. Plus: Adults, stop fetishizing this Mr. Rogers refrain intended to comfort children, writes Ian Bogost.
Snapshot
More women than men suffer pain from their footwear, according to podiatric surveys, and similarly, more women than men say they’ll suffer for the sake of their shoes. Why should women expect to have to “break in” their shoes, especially office-friendly ones? Olga Khazan explores this blister-filled problem. (Image: Toby Melville / Reuters)Evening ReadAmanda Mull looks at a bevy of new products out of Silicon Valley that approach weight loss and dieting as a problem of personalization and optimization:
Viome and other start-ups in its market don’t characterize themselves as diet companies, but weight and other nutrition-adjacent health concerns are the chief things around which many of them are oriented. 23andMe wants to help you eat and exercise according to your genetics. Bulletproof wants you to change your morning coffee routine to increase your work performance and reduce hunger. Habit promises to study your personal biomarkers to tailor a nutrition plan just for you. Need a few hours of supposedly superhuman mental acuity and calorie burning? Pound a ketone cocktail and keep it moving. Can you control your body’s need for fuel through “intermittent fasting”? There’s an app for that.
Where bodies might have previously been idealized as personal temples, they’re now just another device to be managed, and one whose use people are expected to master. We’re optimizing our performances instead of watching our figure, biohacking our personal ecosystem instead of eating salads.
What Do You Know … About Family?1. Two major recent studies have reached opposite conclusions on whether premarital ______________________ leads to a higher or lower likelihood of divorce.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
2. By one measure, just ______ out of 10 mothers in the U.S. take maternity leave, and affordability is the biggest factor that prevents them from doing so.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
3. Americans’ spending on pet food has increased from $18 billion in 2009 to $______ billion in 2017, which far outpaces the rate at which pet ownership rose during that period.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
Answers: cohabitation / 4 / 30
Urban DevelopmentsOur partner site CityLab explores the cities of the future and investigates the biggest ideas and issues facing city dwellers around the world. Gracie McKenzie shares their top stories:
Amazon still hasn’t chosen the metro area that will host its second headquarters—and its dillydallying has given real-estate investors more time to speculate.
“Millennials have killed yet another thing. In this case, it’s something so fundamental that it may have seemed unkillable: ... knowing how to be an adult.” Here’s what happened when a writer signed up for “adulting classes.”
How can you stop a CVS takeover of a local, immigrant-owned grocery store? Punk bands. At least, that’s (part of) the strategy in one Washington, D.C., neighborhood.
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PITTSBURGH—Cecil and David Rosenthal were buried in matching caskets made of wood, each adorned with a single Jewish star. The brothers, 59 and 54, were two of the 11 Jews killed in Pittsburgh on Saturday, remembered by all as irrepressibly friendly synagogue regulars. But they were also vulnerable in a different way from the other victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue: The brothers lived with mental disabilities. Cecil, for example, could neither read nor write.
The Tree of Life building is still closed, so other synagogues in the area have opened their doors to host funerals. A letter from a friend of the family’s was read at the brothers’ funeral on Tuesday at Rodef Shalom, a historic reform synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was from a Catholic priest. Addressing Cecil and David’s parents, he wrote that God had “created your sons in his image,” a sentiment that captured the core theme of the funeral. Pittsburgh turned out en masse to pay its respects to two men whose family referred to them throughout their adult lives as “the boys.” In the face of a dehumanizing shooting, the community resolutely reaffirmed the dignity of every individual.
[Read: The Jews of Pittsburgh bury their dead].
David Rosenthal loved everything about police forces and fire departments. His brother-in-law, Michael Hirt, said that David’s favorite “toy” was a scanner radio, which he carried with him everywhere; when it broke recently, he insisted on getting it fixed quickly. He loved to get new sunglasses as a present, and always wanted the same kind of pair: severe and reflective, just like what a state highway patrolman would wear.
At the funeral, Pittsburgh’s police repaid David’s admiration. After the room quieted down and everyone took their seats, the ceremony began with a procession of officers in full uniform, each carrying his hat in his left hand. One by one, they approached the two caskets at the front of the synagogue and saluted. The last man in line wore a Jewish skullcap, or kippah.
Cecil Rosenthal was different from his younger brother, said their sister Diane Hirt. Cecil would have loved seeing himself all over the television, she joked; her husband described Cecil as sociable in the way of a small-town mayor. For years before the Hirts’ daughters had their bat mitzvahs, the ceremony that marks entrance into Jewish adulthood, Cecil spoke of his anticipation of the big events, Michael said. He loved a good party, Diane said.
His funeral was nothing like a party, but it was a testament to how much his community cared about him. Hundreds of people filled the sanctuary of Rodef Shalom, which is cavernous and lush. Light poured in through stained-glass windows that stretched high up to the ceilings. Community members greeted one another with long hugs and red eyes. Perhaps they exchanged some of the benign gossip that Cecil apparently loved so much: updates on births or engagements or recent recoveries from illness, the local news that runs a community.
[Read: A prayer for Squirrel Hill—and for American Jewry]
Jews across the country have been deeply shaken by the shooting in Pittsburgh. But many people seem to have connected to Cecil and David’s story in a particularly visceral way. One group of about three dozen people from the Washington, D.C., area set out for Pittsburgh on a bus Tuesday morning after their daily prayers to come to this funeral—specifically this one. People who have children with special needs told me they were deeply affected by the thought of these two men being attacked in synagogue, one of the few spaces where they might be fully welcomed. Diane described her brothers as “gentle giants” who embraced joy and love and happiness. It was awful to have to eulogize them, she said, but especially when they died in such a horrific way.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who leads the Tree of Life–Or L’Simcha congregation, said it often seemed like the brothers were always there, no matter how long he stayed at the synagogue some days. They were the community’s greeters and straighteners, always tidying up the stacks of prayer books and shawls. Myers said he wasn’t sure what he was more proud of: who the Rosenthals were, or how his congregants treated them. “They just loved being in the building,” he said. “And they were loved by everyone in the building.”
There were all kinds of people at the funeral on Tuesday, each with differences that may or may not have been visible to the eye. Elderly attendees were escorted to their seats by their elbows. A baby cried in the back. People wore clergy collars and hijabs and kippot of every color, in black and white and patterned and green.
What they shared was a common reason for being in that room, at one of the first of many funerals to come in this city. As the community prepared to say goodbye to Cecil and David, a man slowly sang “Mizmor L’David,” Psalm 23, which famously begins: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The melody was haunting and longing, an expression of both faith and deep vulnerability. The room was silent, except for the quiet sounds of people’s gasps and tears.
Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey), Madeleine Carlisle (@maddiecarlisle2), and Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal)
Today in 5 LinesIn an interview with Axios, part of which aired Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he plans to sign an executive order that would end birthright citizenship—a move that would spark a fierce debate over the Fourteenth Amendment. He did not provide a time frame.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, along with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, traveled to Pittsburgh to offer their condolences following Saturday’s shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. Earlier in the day, the first funerals were held for victims of the attack.
The FBI has been asked to investigate claims that women have been offered money to fabricate sexual-harassment allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke used his office for personal gain.
James “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous Boston mob boss, was killed in a West Virginia prison a day after being transferred to the facility.
Today on The AtlanticDon’t Forget the State Level: Democrats are poised to win big next week in gubernatorial races and state houses across the country. “It’s a story that the Democratic National Committee has, until recently, utterly failed to tell,” writes Rahm Emanuel.
How a Community Mourns: As the Jewish community of Pittsburgh prepares to bury its 11 members killed last Saturday, it has turned to a cherished pillar: tradition. (Emma Green)
The Fourteenth Amendment Is Clear: Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship “flies in the faces of more than a century of practice,” writes Garrett Epps.
Pod Save the Pundits: The hosts of Pod Save America have embraced a bullish political punditry that is more often found on the right. But unlike many conservative talking heads, they’re transparent about their political goals. (David Sims)
Snapshot
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk past a memorial outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. (Andrew Harnik / AP)What We’re ReadingThe Democratic Divide: New York progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did better in gentrifying precincts than she did in working-class neighborhoods. Do blue-collar Democrats really want what the far left is offering? (David Freedlander, Politico Magazine)
Trumpism’s Prejudice Problem: Trump’s willingness to wink at the brash anti-Semitism of many of his followers has brought their hatred back into mainstream political discourse, argues Charles J. Sykes. (The Weekly Standard)
‘It Gives Me Anxiety’: Twelve young people explain why they won’t be voting in the midterm elections. (New York)
What Happens When the Caravan Arrives?: Some Americans want to welcome the group of immigrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border, while others see their arrival as a threat to national sovereignty. The caravan, writes Robert W. Merry, represents an existential crisis. (The American Conservative)
Framing the Story: Last week, after trying, and failing, to break into a black Baptist church, a gunman killed two black shoppers at a nearby grocery store. But instead of reporting on his apparent racism, the media zeroed in on his mental illness. (David M. Perry, Pacific Standard)
VisualizedBattle for the House: Is the number of vulnerable House seats expanding or contracting? FiveThirtyEight investigates. (Nate Silver)
America Warming: In one generation, the weather in cities across the United States will be dramatically different. See what it will feel like in your city. (Umair Irfan, Eliza Barclay, and Kavya Sukumar, Vox)
Just before midnight on November 9, 1938, the Gestapo chief, Heinrich Müller, sent a telegram to every police unit in Nazi Germany. “In shortest order,” it read, “actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with.” Firefighters stood by as synagogues and Jewish-owned homes, schools, and businesses burned to the ground. Within a day, 91 Jews had been murdered, and between 20,000 and 30,000 arrested and sent to concentration camps.
“Kristallnacht changed everything,” says Dr. Ruth Weistheimer, one the nonagenarian Holocaust survivors interviewed in a new short documentary from the Leo Baeck Institute. Indeed, the pogrom—which occurred 80 years ago next week—is widely considered by historians to be the inflection point of the Third Reich, when persecution of German Jews sharply escalated to violence, incarceration, and murder.
In the film, the interview subjects recall their experiences in Weimar Germany and the early days of the Nazi regime. Many escaped by the Kindertransport program; others were lucky enough to obtain visas through well-connected family members or friends in America.
“America did not exactly make it easy,” remembers one woman interviewed in the film. “That’s a myth—the open arms of the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t true then, and it’s not true now.”
Despite the efforts made by emigrants and international-aid organizations through 1938, said William H. Weitzer, the executive director of the Leo Baeck Institute, “nobody wanted to accept the German Jewish refugees.”
Weitzer said his organization is attuned to “similarities and differences” between historical events, such as the Night of Broken Glass and now. “For those we interviewed, Germany of the early 1930s was a model for rule of law,” he said. “In spite of that, they saw the collapse of the democratic system.” He views firsthand narratives, such as this 1938Projekt short film, to be powerful tools. “They teach us that we—like the generations before—do not know what will happen next.”
In 2009, a NASA spacecraft, fresh off the launchpad, drifted into an orbit high above Earth. The Kepler telescope would circle the sun, but its attention would be focused elsewhere, far beyond the edges of our solar system, on the Milky Way’s other stars. As Kepler settled into its perch, engineers on the ground commanded the spacecraft to overheat one of its wires until it snapped apart. The maneuver freed the oval-shaped lid they had placed over Kepler’s mirrors to protect them during the launch. The cover floated away.
Kepler, at last, could see. The light of thousands of stars flooded its mirrors.
But the telescope wasn’t designed to study the stars themselves. It was built to find the planets around them. Astronomers had predicted that there were many other planets in our galaxy, and they had already discovered about 300 exoplanets by the time Kepler launched, using a mix of terrestrial and space telescopes. They expected that the telescope would add more to the catalog.
“We were cautiously optimistic we would find planets,” Jessie Dotson, Kepler’s project scientist, recalled in a recent interview. “We really had no idea we were going to find so many.”
Kepler delivered a bounty: 2,681 exoplanets, with several thousand others awaiting confirmation. Some are massive and gaseous, like Jupiter. Others orbit in a solar system that has two stars, a scenario that astrophysicists had predicted couldn’t exist. Some are rocky and familiar; about 30 planets are the size of Earth and orbit in their star’s habitable zone, a region where temperatures are not too hot or too cold, but just right for liquid water to exist.
Of all the exoplanets known to astronomers today, about 70 percent were found by Kepler. In less than a decade, a mission that cost $600 million in taxpayer money—an incredible bargain for a space mission—became NASA’s most significant astrophysics mission of the 21st century.
[Read: An ode to Kepler, the planet hunter]
That mission has now come to an end. On Tuesday, NASA announced that the telescope had run out of fuel. “This marks the end of science operations for Kepler,” Paul Hertz, the head of NASA’s astrophysics division, said in a press conference.
Like all spacecraft, Kepler launched with a limited amount of fuel. Scientists and engineers knew that the spacecraft would someday deplete its supply and lose the ability to orient itself in space, which means it would no longer be able to watch the stars. They predicted that would happen sometime this year, but they weren’t sure exactly when; the spacecraft wasn’t equipped with a gas gauge. In July, Kepler began to show the first real signs of running very low on fuel. Engineers shifted Kepler between awake and sleep modes several times in the last month, holding their breath each time they tried to rouse it, wondering if this time it wouldn’t work.
Dotson didn’t mind the torment. “I am more than happy to live through this uncertainty, given how fantastic of an instrument it is,” she said. “A small price to pay for the science we’re getting out of it.”
On October 19, Kepler slipped into another sleep mode, this time on its own, and for good.
The Kepler mission was named for Johannes Kepler, the 17th-century German astronomer who proposed three laws that govern the motion of planets around the sun. Kepler’s work relied on the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century Polish astronomer who determined, much to the chagrin of religious leaders, that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but orbited the sun. Centuries later, the Kepler mission continued in these scientists’ footsteps in its own way. With each discovery of a planet around a distant star, the telescope seemed to scream, Here’s yet another reminder that we’re not the center of the universe, not even a little.
“Kepler has really nailed down how ubiquitous planets are,” Dotson said. “We knew they were out there, and now we know they’re everywhere.”
Kepler was the brainchild of Bill Borucki, a scientist who started out at NASA’s Ames Research Center in the 1960s, designing and testing materials for the heat shields of Apollo spacecraft, according to Universal Life, by Carnegie astronomer Alan Boss, a longtime friend of Borucki. Borucki took issue with a 1971 paper in a planetary science journal that proposed detecting exoplanets by measuring tiny changes in the color of a star’s light as a planet passed in front of it. The Earth’s atmosphere, he said, would warp and distort these observations. Plus, there were no telescopes strong enough to detect such minuscule fluctuations. But a space telescope, one that observed changes in the luminosity of a star, and not its color, would do the trick, he said.
Borucki’s idea had to wait for technology to catch up. The Nobel Prize–winning hardware that his particular telescope would require was invented by Bell Labs in 1969, but it didn’t reach the commercial sector until the 1980s.
Borucki eventually proposed his telescope to NASA in 1992. It was shot down, multiple times. It wasn’t until 2001 that the space agency formally approved the mission. On Tuesday, Hertz, the NASA official, praised Borucki for pushing the space agency for decades. “Boy, are we glad he did,” Hertz said.
The Kepler spacecraft blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on a humid day in March 2009. When the lid came off, the telescope stared continuously at about 150,000 stars, waiting for a hint of wobbling in the light.
Kepler searched for exoplanets using a technique known as the transit method. When a planet passes, or transits, its star, it blocks a tiny fraction of the star’s light. Kepler spent years staring at hundreds of thousands of stars, looking for this slight dimming in their brightness. If an alien telescope were aimed at our solar system from somewhere else in the Milky Way, it would observe the same effect as one of the big planets moved in front of the sun.
Three years into the mission, something went wrong. One of Kepler’s four reaction wheels, rapidly spinning devices that keep it oriented in space, failed. Within a year, a second followed. The spacecraft could no longer remain focused on its targets.
[Read: Hubble’s hardware woes and the painful era of aging spacecraft]
But NASA spacecraft are resilient, and their stewards are a creative bunch. When hardware breaks, engineers find ways to keep the mission going. Kepler’s engineers decided to take advantage of the spacecraft’s instability. Instead of staying focused on one part of the sky, the spacecraft would swing around every few months. In this new mode, Kepler could scan only 20,000 to 40,000 stars at a time, much fewer than before. But it was better than nothing.
The plan worked. The Kepler team announced batch after batch of new exoplanet discoveries. When it launched, the mission was supposed to run for about three-and-a-half years. Even with two broken reaction wheels, it lasted for more than nine.
There are many things that Kepler couldn’t tell us. While it could detect the size of an exoplanet and how long it takes to complete one trip around its star, it couldn’t reveal the planet’s mass, density, or composition. These properties are the ones that can help astronomers determine more closely the look of the planet and whether it possesses the conditions known to be conducive for life.
Kepler struggled to find rocky planets the size of our own, which would be the best candidates for this search. “These are really at the limit of what we can find with Kepler,” Dotson said, “but we still found some.” This means, she said, that there are likely many more Earth-sized rocky planets—which means many more chances of alien life. In its final moments, Kepler was trained on a star known to host seven Earth-sized planets.
The loss of Kepler is not the end of NASA’s exoplanet search. In April, NASA launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, into space. Like Kepler, TESS will deploy the transit method in its scan of the skies, surveilling more than 200,000 stars. The mission is expected to last two years. But if it’s anything like its hardy predecessor, it will operate for much longer.
It wasn’t so long ago that there were no known exoplanets, that the only planets we knew of were our own; it’s been only 30 years since the first planet outside our solar system was detected. Dotson, Kepler’s project scientist, remembers this earlier era, which feels both recent and distant. She remembers peering through a telescope during a school outing in second grade and seeing Saturn, one of the nine planets anyone knew about.
“I think back to that little girl on that night,” Dotson said. “I can imagine just standing there next to her and saying, ‘You see all those other stars out there? They have planets around them, too.’”
If a blue wave does not materialize in the upcoming midterm elections, it won’t be for Democrats’ lack of spending on Facebook.
According to an Atlantic analysis of the top 100 spenders, left-leaning candidates and causes spent $9.43 million from October 21 to October 27 alone, the most recent period for which Facebook data is available. The big spenders on the right spent only $2.65 million.
The top 100 ad buyers on Facebook included 55 left-leaning organizations and candidates, compared to just 22 from the right wing. The remaining 23 big spenders focused on state propositions or corporate campaigns.
Some of the Facebook ads were fundraising appeals. Others helped candidates generate lists of interested voters through calls to fill out forms or quizzes. But given that the week in question aligns with early voting, most of the ads were targeted get-out-the-vote messages.
[Read: The biggest story of the midterms is one the Democrats aren’t telling]
In the postmortems of the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s political advertising on Facebook—among other things—was seen as a key part of his victory. Trump continues to be the largest Republican spender on ads. In many statewide races, Facebook ads still play a tiny role, with TV continuing to soak up the lion’s share of political dollars. Meanwhile, among commercial advertisers, digital spending has now surpassed television. If the history of commercial and political advertising is any indication, campaigns are likely to follow the digital pivot sooner or later.
This time around, the biggest spenders are all on the left. News for Democracy, a project of MotiveAI and outside backers, spent $1.16 million. Beto O’Rourke, the Senate candidate from Texas trying to unseat Ted Cruz, spent $939,000. Priorities USA and Senate Majority PAC, both liberal groups, combined to spend $807,000. MoveOn, a progressive advocacy group, spent $541,000. And Tom Steyer’s Need to Impeach campaign spent $378,000.
The only conservatives who appear among the top 25 spenders are Donald Trump and Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas.
While paid media on Facebook slants Democratic, the conservative-news infrastructure continues to dominate organic Facebook views, with Fox News, Breitbart News, and a host of shadier sites routinely at the top of the most shared lists on the social network.
It’s just one more set of crosscurrents that make this midterm election so difficult to forecast.
No pronunciamento lido na noite do domingo, o presidente eleito Jair Bolsonaro mencionou uma vez o substantivo “democracia” e cinco vezes variações do adjetivo “democrático”. Citou 11 vezes a palavra “liberdade” e seis vezes “Deus”.
O marechal Castello Branco falou duas vezes “liberdade” e três vezes “livres” no discurso de posse como presidente, em abril de 1964. Evocou a democracia em cinco passagens. Limitou-se a uma referência a Deus. O orador tornava-se então o primeiro dos cinco ditadores do regime recém-parido. Foi escolhido por um Congresso manietado, e não por sufrágio universal.
Na ditadura, o governo mais liberticida e carniceiro foi o de Emílio Garrastazu Médici. O general reverenciou a democracia (cinco alusões) e a liberdade (duas), em outubro de 1969, ao assumir a Presidência. Proclamou a “garantia dos direitos fundamentais do homem” (em seu mandato criou-se o sistema de tortura e extermínio do DOI-Codi). Para chegar ao Planalto, Médici recebeu 239 votos (de congressistas).
Numa jornada literária, Millôr Fernandes leu como se fosse dele o antigo discurso de Médici ao ser ungido presidente. Aplaudiram-no de pé. Era uma pegadinha do gênio do Méier, contou Luis Fernando Verissimo, que escreveu: “Millôr provou o perigo e a inconfiabilidade da retórica em qualquer situação”.
Noutras palavras: os indivíduos são mais o que fazem e menos o que dizem. Já, já se saberá como Bolsonaro se comportará como presidente. Se mantiver seus sermões extremistas de direita, velhacos de três décadas, será um dos governantes com pregação mais intolerante do planeta. Declarações pró-democracia, depois de sobrepujar Fernando Haddad por 55% a 45% dos votos válidos, contrastam com sua duradoura profissão de fé no golpismo, na ditadura e na violência.
“Vamos pacificar o Brasil”, prometeu o capitão reformado depois de ler o discurso. Uma semana antes, ele ameaçara Haddad com prisão, onde o petista “apodreceria”. Comentaristas da GloboNews e editoriais dos jornais O Globo e Folha de S. Paulo se queixaram do professor por não ter telefonado para cumprimentar o homem que lhe acenara com cadeia perpétua. Parcela do jornalismo que chiou contra Haddad omitira ou não noticiara como grave a truculência intimidatória.
Mais tarde, o ex-prefeito tuitou desejando “boa sorte” ao vencedor. Bolsonaro agradeceu, também pelo Twitter, gotejando ironia pueril: “Realmente o Brasil merece o melhor”.
O mais sanguinário dos ditadores, o ex-presidente Emílio Garrastazu Médici (de óculos escuros e cigarro na boca), também reverenciou a democracia em seu discurso de posse, em 1969.
Foto: Arquivo/Folhapress
O jornalismo brasileiro dominante esteve na mesma trincheira de Bolsonaro, a que se bateu por Aécio Neves, no segundo turno da eleição de 2014. Também na ofensiva para depor Dilma Rousseff. E no empenho para impedir Lula de concorrer em 2018. Por que demorou tanto para investigar com determinação a trajetória do deputado? Porque antes suas convicções editoriais e políticas coincidiam? Opinião é o de menos, cada um na sua. O busílis é: por que, com exceções, no mínimo atrasou a busca por informação?
O mesmo jornalismo vai tratando com leniência os balões de ensaio de Bolsonaro e seu anunciado ministro da Economia, o banqueiro Paulo Guedes. Como se os quase 58 milhões de votos autorizassem uma reforma da Previdência predadora de conquistas dos trabalhadores. Bolsonaro não apresentou na campanha o seu projeto previdenciário.
Agora, não tem direito de impor o que bem entender; não ganhou cheque em branco. Assim como Dilma não tinha – mas impôs – um programa, o do PSDB, rejeitado pelos eleitores em 2014. Bolsonaro escondeu seus propósitos para não perder votos. Carece de legitimidade para um bota-abaixo das proteções sociais e da legislação trabalhista.
Sua administração talvez seja, antes da largada, a mais imprevisível da República. O 1º de janeiro de 2019 não será um 1º de abril de 1964. Não que o novo presidente tenha perdido a apetência antidemocrática, mas o muro constitucional erguido em 1988 é um obstáculo ao Brasil que ele idealiza. Uma equação resume o futuro: quanto mais Bolsonaro levar adiante a agenda que cultiva e não expôs aos cidadãos, pior para o país; e vice-versa.
O porvir é tão incerto que são verossímeis cenários contrastantes.O porvir é tão incerto que são verossímeis cenários contrastantes como: Bolsonaro recuará na voracidade antissocial e se reelegerá; manterá o aparente furor neoliberal e será derrubado pelo Congresso e pelo STF, pressionados por protestos populares; dará um golpe com o Exército e se investirá de poderes interditados pela Carta; comandará um governo desastroso e perderá a eleição de 2022 para uma direita, a de João Doria, com mais afetação e botox; será superado daqui a quatro anos por um oponente de esquerda ou centro-esquerda. Hoje, prognósticos não passam de chute.
Abre-se uma era de hipocrisia exacerbada. No domingo, Bolsonaro recorreu ao apóstolo João: “Conhecereis a verdade, e a verdade vos libertará”. A verdade: nunca a mentira influenciou tanto uma eleição presidencial no Brasil. Há muito a descobrir sobre a operação no WhatsApp que ajudou o bolsonarismo. O “kit gay” que teria sido adotado por Haddad foi invencionice criminosa. As urnas eletrônicas programadas para fraudar só existiram, até o dia 28, como farsa para engambelar trouxas.
O presidente eleito prestigiou no discurso dominical “o direito de ir e vir”. Na véspera um jovem de 23 anos fora assassinado a tiros em Pacajus, na região metropolitana de Fortaleza. O servente de pedreiro Charlione Lessa Albuquerque participava de uma carreata pró-Haddad. Bolsonaro silenciou sobre o homicídio.
O eleito não representa um triunfo solitário da direita, nesse caso extremada. Os Estados Unidos passaram da novidade do primeiro presidente negro ao retrocesso Trump. É tempo de Duterte (Filipinas), Erdogan (Turquia) e Orbán (Hungria). Salvini é vice-primeiro-ministro da Itália.
A ascensão radical é tamanha que a alemã Merkel, de direita ou centro-direita, estabeleceu-se como âncora de sensatez. Na América Latina, a maré também é direitista. Ela vai e vem, assim é a história. Ou, na antiga fórmula de um judeu russo, os países têm desenvolvimento desigual e combinado.
Convite a Moro
É provável ou possível que a Justiça tenha decidido a eleição. Se Lula, condenado sem prova acima de dúvida, tivesse concorrido, Bolsonaro não seria o favorito. No fim de agosto, no último levantamento Datafolha com o ex-presidente como opção, ele alcançava 39% no primeiro turno, contra 19% do deputado. Na segunda rodada, vencia por 52% a 32% do total de votos.
Ninguém pode acusar Bolsonaro de ingratidão. Anteontem ele convidou o juiz Sergio Moro para o Ministério da Justiça ou uma vaga no Supremo Tribunal Federal. Rasgaram a fantasia; escancararam.
Lula sobreviveria à artilharia de mentiras? Impossível responder. Teria certamente mais chances do que Haddad – que sai da campanha muito maior do que entrou. No Estado do Rio, depois do veto judicial, milhões de eleitores trocaram Lula por Bolsonaro. O antipetismo é vasto e profundo, e o PT esforçou-se em dar bons motivos para ele. Mas, se fosse determinante, o ex-presidente não manteria a dianteira até dois meses atrás.
O antipetismo é vasto e profundo, e o PT esforçou-se em dar bons motivos para ele.Bolsonaro foi o grande beneficiário do movimento pelo impeachment de Dilma. E do espírito “contra tudo e contra todos” das Jornadas de Junho de 2013, marcadas pela pluralidade de pensamento. Feriu a esquerda e devastou a direita e a centro-direita tradicionais. Vendeu-se como outsider antissistema, o que está longe de ser.
Envenenou o país com ódio que contaminou a vida nacional mais do que no período pré-golpe de 1964 e na época, os anos 1930, dos galinhas-verdes integralistas. No domingo, entre a multidão que o aclamava na Barra da Tijuca, desfraldaram uma bandeira com a efígie do torturador Ustra. Um gesto infame, como infamante é a veneração de Bolsonaro pelo coronel sanguinário.
Depois de semear a guerra com verrinas fascistoides, Bolsonaro pede “pacificação” para implantar sua política obscurantista. É uma atitude farisaica, como ele demonstrou com o tom beligerante no Jornal Nacional da segunda-feira, ao disparar contra a liberdade de imprensa. Bolsonaro não dará trégua. Diante do presidente eleito, cabe a quem defende mais democracia e menos desigualdade resistir. Um bom escudo é a Constituição. A tormenta está só no começo.
Foto de capa: Ato de comemoração da vitória do presidente eleito Jair Messias Bolsonaro no Parque Moinhos de Vento, em Porto Alegre.
The post ‘Pacificação’, nos termos de Bolsonaro, seria a rendição do Brasil appeared first on The Intercept.
Iowa faith leaders are demanding that backers of white nationalist Rep. Steve King pull their financial support of his re-election bid, as his history of racist rhetoric undergoes heightened scrutiny following a massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue and a wave of pipe bombs mailed to prominent critics of President Donald Trump.
King’s promotion of white supremacist ideology has long been shrugged off by his Republican colleagues, but the recent attacks have renewed national outrage and, under intense pressure, at least three of his donors — dairy company Land O’Lakes, tech giant Intel, and Purina — have withdrawn their support.
A new poll by Change Research found the race between King and his Democratic opponent, J.D. Scholten, has tightened amid the backlash, and there’s just a single point separating the two. The poll also found King’s approval rating is sinking, with just 38 percent of respondents saying they view him favorably and 48 percent saying they view him unfavorably. Prognosticators say that if an incumbent’s favorability rating falls below 50, it’s trouble for re-election.
Hours after the release of the poll showing that King may lose, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rep. Steve Stivers tweeted a general condemnation of King’s recent comments and behavior.
Congressman Steve King’s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.
— Steve Stivers (@RepSteveStivers) October 30, 2018
Jewish leaders from King’s congressional district, in a letter published in the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, denounced the eight-term incumbent’s record of anti-Semitism and called on his donors to follow the lead of the companies that have left him.
“We are writing from the depths of our grief, in horror at the news of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh,” wrote Alan Steckman from Adas Israel in Mason City and John Pleasants from the Ames Jewish Congregation. “We feel we must speak out because our Congressional Representative, Steve King, is an enthusiastic crusader for the same types of abhorrent beliefs held by the Pittsburgh shooter.”
After it was revealed that Land O’Lakes contributed $2,500 to King’s campaign, online critics quickly amplified calls for a boycott of the company’s products. Most of his other donors, which include Berkshire Hathaway and its subsidiary Mid-American Energy Company, AT&T, and the American Bankers Association, have so far remained silent.
“King’s regular meetings with the white supremacist group in Austria founded by an SS officer are not new,” the letter continued. “But the recent discovery, that King used funds from a Holocaust education organization to meet with a notoriously anti-Semitic propaganda site is shocking beyond any previous outrage. King’s latest cynical machinations are intolerable to us as Iowans and as Jews.”
The letter from Jewish leaders was followed by a separate letter from an Iowa interfaith group, which included people of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish faiths. “The Pittsburgh murderer was motivated by anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric,” they wrote in a letter sent to both the Register and The Intercept. “Steve King espouses similar ideas and associates himself with others who share them. He bears some responsibility for inciting the kind of hatred that led to last week’s horrific violence.”
The letter, signed by more than two dozen faith leaders from Ames, Iowa, cited King’s endorsement of a self-proclaimed white nationalist for mayor of Toronto, adding that King has also criticized George Soros, “a target of one of last week’s pipe bombs and frequent focus of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.”
“King cannot refute charges of anti-Semitism by claiming to be a supporter of Israel while associating with a racist, xenophobic movement that includes anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers,” they wrote.
A race Republicans initially expected to be effortless is now looking tough. There’s a week left until the election and King is nearly broke, with just $176,000 on hand, while Scholten has heavily outraised him, without taking corporate PAC money. Scholten has already spent $1.4 million, some which has gone to ads that have been running on air unopposed for two weeks.
Scholten has been holding town halls and meet-ups in each of the overwhelmingly red counties, campaigning on progressive policies like Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage, but leading specifically with a critique of the farm economy, as The Intercept previously reported.
King has also lost the longtime support of his hometown newspaper. On Friday, the editorial board of the Sioux City Journal broke from tradition and endorsed Scholten. “Those were not easy words for us to write,” the board wrote about their decision.
Top photo: Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, testifies during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Sept. 26, 2017 in Washington, D.C.
The post Local Paper, Interfaith Leaders Blast Steve King: “Those Were Not Easy Words for us to Write.” appeared first on The Intercept.
Dizendo-se “honrado”, o juiz federal de primeira instância Sergio Moro deixou aberta a possibilidade de aceitar um convite para ser ministro da Justiça do ultradireitista Jair Bolsonaro a partir de janeiro próximo ou, em 2020, uma indicação ao Supremo Tribunal Federal.
“Caso efetivado oportunamente o convite, será objeto de ponderada discussão e reflexão”, disse Moro, no habitual juridiquês, em nota que sua assessoria divulgou nesta terça à tarde.
Descrito por quem convive com ele como homem de “timidez quase patológica”, Moro tem sido anormalmente falante em sua relação com o militar reformado. Na segunda, horas após a eleição de Bolsonaro, e sem que ninguém lhe perguntasse nada, o juiz resolveu que era seu dever “congratular” publicamente o presidente eleito.
A mulher dele, a advogada Rosângela Wolff Moro, foi bem mais efusiva. Em dois posts no Instagram, celebrou abertamente a eleição de Bolsonaro. Rosângela e Sergio podem, naturalmente, divergir politicamente – acontece com frequência entre casais.
Reprodução Instagram
Mas as redes sociais dela já foram usadas como um canal direto de comunicação de Moro com sua legião de fãs pelo menos uma vez. Não parece estranho supor que, se achasse prudente que seu nome não fosse associado ao do militar de ultradireita, o juiz pedisse à mulher que evitasse a celebração pública.
A sinalização de Moro a Bolsonaro certamente fez a alegria de quem acusa a Lava Jato de ser seletiva e partidarizada – o PT e, em especial, o núcleo duro de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
O raciocínio é óbvio: se aceitar a convocação ministerial (a vaga no STF é algo bem mais distante no horizonte) feita por um político dado a chutar bonecos do ex-presidente em comícios e a se referir a ele como “presidiário”, o juiz dará o sinal definitivo aos críticos de que age mais como acusador que como julgador.
“Creio que o convite é o reconhecimento do trabalho de Sérgio Moro. Quanto à argumentação de que a operação seria maculada, me parece mais fruto da pouca institucionalidade com que esses assuntos são tratados no Brasil. [Isso] não pode comprometer de qualquer forma a operação, pois em nenhum momento teve qualquer influência sobre as decisões [de Moro], já que posterior a elas”, defendeu o procurador Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima, hoje afastado da Lava Jato, a quem pedi um comentário.
Analistas políticos, porém, são bem mais críticos. No UOL, Josias de Souza avaliou que seria “absurdo” Moro trocar a Justiça Federal do Paraná pela Esplanada dos Ministérios. “O juiz passará o resto da vida explicando por que ladrilhou com pedrinhas de brilhante a avenida que levou Bolsonaro ao Planalto. A Lava Jato jamais será a mesma”, cravou o analista.
MordaçaEnquanto Moro e Bolsonaro trocam olhares enamorados pela imprensa, o Conselho Nacional de Justiça vem tentando, sem sucesso, botar um freio nas manifestações político-partidárias dos juízes, que explodiram nas eleições presidenciais. Para o CNJ, responsável por fiscalizar a atuação de integrantes do Judiciário, isso inclui “situações que evidenciem apoio público a candidato ou a partidos políticos”.
O CNJ já abriu nove processos para apurar a conduta de magistrados que se manifestaram politicamente. Na maioria dos casos, seis, trata-se de posicionamentos pró-Bolsonaro.
Responsável pela Lava Jato no Rio de Janeiro, o juiz Marcelo Bretas é investigado por ter parabenizado os políticos Flávio Bolsonaro, do PSL, filho do presidente eleito, e Arolde de Oliveira, do PSD, eleitos senadores. O desembargador Ivan Sartori, do Tribunal de Justiça de São Paulo, por colocar em seu perfil do Facebook uma foto com o slogan do ultradireitista.
O CNJ finge que não vê os saracoteios políticos do astro da toga paranaense.O próprio Moro é alvo de processos no CNJ, todos movidos por integrantes do PT. Um deles questiona a decisão do juiz de tornar pública, a seis dias do primeiro turno, parte da delação premiada do ex-ministro Antonio Palocci. Para os autores – os deputados federais Paulo Pimenta, Paulo Teixeira e Wadih Damous –, houve “escancarada tentativa de tumultuar o processo eleitoral, por quem tem (ou deveria ter) o dever constitucional de preservá-lo”.
Ao CNJ, Moro respondeu dizendo que “agentes do Partido dos Trabalhadores” buscam “criminalizar a atividade jurisdicional” e “cercear a atuação independente da Justiça através de ofensas, mentiras e representações disciplinares”. O Conselho ainda irá julgar o caso. Para o jornalista Elio Gaspari, porém, o juiz “ofendeu a neutralidade da Justiça”.
Antes mesmo de Moro responder ao convite informal feito pelo presidente eleito, o Intercept pediu ao CNJ que se manifestasse a respeito da nota emitida pelo juiz de Curitiba para saudar a eleição do ex-militar de ultradireita. Ainda esperamos a resposta.
Ao juiz, perguntamos se a nota de congratulações também viria a público se o eleito fosse o petista Fernando Haddad (segundo a repórter Cleide Carvalho, de O Globo, é provável que não), e por que ele mudou de ideia em relação a agosto, quando afirmou que não se manifestaria sobre outro convite para ser ministro – de Alvaro Dias, do Podemos – pois “a recusa ou a aceitação poderiam ser interpretadas como indicação de preferências políticas partidárias, o que é vedado para juízes”.
Assim como quando divulgou a delação de Palocci, Moro julgou-se dispensado da obrigação de prestar contas de seus atos à opinião pública. Também calado, o CNJ finge que não vê os saracoteios políticos do astro da toga paranaense.
Imagem em destaque: Sergio Moro, juiz federal de 1ª instância, vota no segundo turno das Eleições 2018, no clube Duque de Caxias, no bairro Bacacheri, em Curitiba, no domingo.
The post Sergio Moro apaga debate sobre sua parcialidade com gasolina appeared first on The Intercept.
The battles within the Democratic Party have played out in high-profile races this year, largely featuring well-heeled establishment figures with years of elected experience challenged by left-wing outsiders running with the support of a national grassroots movement.
Amidst this fight, there has been a strenuous effort from party centrists to drain the question of any ideological content. Party leaders are not pushing any particular agenda, goes the argument, but are merely pragmatists maximizing the chances of winning a general election. Elaine Kamarck, a Brookings Institute scholar and political consultant, put it succinctly. “Party leaders have the job of winning nationally; Democrats are painfully aware that not all congressional districts are Berkeley, Calif.,” she wrote in defense of those party leaders.
Party leaders, however, seem to have missed that memo when it comes to the non-metaphorical Berkeley. Thanks to the state’s jungle primary law, two Democrats will face off in November in Assembly District 15, a state legislative seat which includes North Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond.
Here, it is Jovanka Beckles, the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Sen. Bernie Sanders who has the governing experience and the support of leading local elected officials, and it’s the upstart, Buffy Wicks, who has never held office before. Wicks is running as a business-backed Democratic operative pushing to disrupt a seat long-held by the progressive left.
In the June primary, backed by a groundswell of money, largely from tech executives and Washington, D.C. politicos, Wicks took the most votes.
The runner-up, Beckles, is the leftist favorite, however. Beckles has served since 2011 on the Richmond city council, fighting a larger than life battle against the oil giant Chevron, which owns the 117-year-old refinery that has long cast its shadow over local politics.
The campaign has piqued national interest as wealthy donors have inundated the election with independent expenditures casting Beckles as an angry extremist unwilling to support a practical solution to the housing crisis.
The race is another sign of the economic and cultural changes that have utterly transformed the Bay Area in recent years as a result of the long technology boom — changes that are uprooting the traditional, radical political culture of the region, pitting a longstanding leftist power base against an ascendent brand of technocratic, corporate-friendly Democrats.
The tension in the campaign was apparent in one of the first forums of the race, in a Richmond auditorium filled with senior citizens.
Wicks stood up and gave her stump speech, recounting her experience as a young radical, providing a story well situated for a district rich in activist history.
“I was the girl with the nose ring, the lip ring, the multicolored hair and the bull horn,” Wicks said, recounting her protest history.
Wicks grew up in the foothills of California, in a trailer home. After college, she moved to the Bay Area to organize rallies against the Iraq War. Her opposition to the war in Iraq led to work with the Howard Dean campaign. Later, she took a union-backed job to pressure Walmart to raise its wages and benefits. At the Richmond event, she explained, in heartfelt detail, the shock of learning that her uninsured friend had been diagnosed with HIV. That incident inspired her to make a lifelong push for better healthcare, culminating in her standing beside President Barack Obama to celebrate the passage of the Affordable Care Act, a bill she helped secure as White House aide.
The passionate remarks, however, were met with skepticism from the crowd.
Hand after hand went up, with audience members peppering the candidate about why she isn’t working towards single payer health care and why she opposes the contentious Proposition 10 ballot measure to enable more rent control in California. For several educators in the crowd, they wanted to know how she could square her recent public criticism of charter schools with the fact that pro-charter groups were spending big money on her behalf.
Wicks rattled off the changes she would seek to charter schools, including increased transparency and accountability, but said she would respect the choice of parents who send their kids to one. Besides, she added repeatedly, “I haven’t taken any charter school money.” Many in the crowd murmured.
A man stood up to explain that Govern for California, a Super PAC-style independent expenditure group funded by charter school advocates, had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of Wicks. “We might know a little bit more about it than you think,” he said.
The extent to which influential Democrats and corporate donors have rallied around Wicks is an indication of how much the election has become a bellwether in the ongoing battle to define the heart and soul of the party.
“If a democratic socialist can knock off an establishment Democrat, you’ll have a slew of Berniecrats challenging mainstream candidates,” warned former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, now a highly paid consultant, in his regular column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Those establishment Democrats and their allies have closed ranks around Wicks to a degree almost unheard of in a local race like the one in Assembly District 15.
For a relatively small California legislative seat being fought over by two Democrats, huge amounts of money are being spent, largely to elect Wicks. Independent expenditure groups have spent $1,191,389 on pro-Wicks efforts this year and another $244,160 in negative messages against Beckles. On the other side, a labor union-backed independent expenditure group has spent $391,831 in support of Beckles and $7,412 in opposition to Wicks.
In terms of direct donations, the contrast is similarly stark. Beckles has raised $386,887, which pales in comparison to the $1.3 million raised by Wicks.
The East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America launched a research-driven website highlighting the donors to Wicks and her attendant IEs, noting that many of the donors include right-wing billionaires and consultants for special interests. William Oberdorf, a major Republican donor, has given $150,000 to one group backing Wicks. Ron Conway, an early investor in Twitter and other name-brand tech companies, who has used his wealth to help moderate Democrats defeat a slate of progressives in San Francisco, has also given to Wicks.
The fundraising advantage has given Wicks an ability to hire a professional campaign operation, with modern polling, advertising, and an innovative get-out-the-vote operation that utilizes texting to encourage supporters to remind their friends and colleagues to go to the polls. The Berkeley Democratic Club, one of the local groups endorsing Wicks, received $6,000 from her campaign last week to send its endorsement slate mailer to city residents.
From Activism to Professional AdvocacyThe testy exchange over Govern for California reflected the growing tension in the race. Wicks is wonky and well-read on the issues, reciting California law and legislative history with ease and intensity. In a recent El Cerrito Progressives questionnaire, the two candidates offered similar answers on most policy questions, though Wicks’ responses were far more detailed and nuanced. But Wicks’ campaign stump speech, repeated regularly on the trail and by her supporters, belies a career as an operative for business-friendly elements of the Democratic Party, a transformation that coincided with her rise through the political ranks.
Wicks started her career as a left-leaning critic of the political establishment. Archived images show her on stage with a communist-aligned protest group in 2003. Another video from a few years later, from the early days of the Obama presidential campaign, shows Wicks discussing her own struggles to identify with a political party that would support catastrophic war.
“I got disillusioned with the Democratic Party pretty quickly,” Wicks said, seen in the video clutching a mic.
“Seeing Dick Gephardt, the leader of our party in Congress, sitting in the Rose Garden with George Bush, talking about what a great idea it was to go to war in Iraq, and I thought this just does not speak to me at all,” she continued.
But those days, notably, are behind her. Sitting in a cafe in south Berkeley, Wicks provided a far more subdued view of the Iraq war, and her critiques of the Democratic Party seem to have changed dramatically over the last decade.
“I got in so much trouble for that,” she said, when asked about the clip of her criticizing the Democratic Party’s rush to support the Iraq war.
Left unmentioned from Wicks’ current campaign stump speech is her more recent résumé, which includes two stints managing Priorities USA Action, the Democratic super PAC that went on to spend nearly $75 million in support of Obama in 2012 and $190 million in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, as well as work consulting for other independent expenditure efforts. Emails disclosed by Wikileaks show that she was recruited to the super PAC by senior Clinton campaign supporters.
Wicks worked as a senior advisor to Rahm Emanuel’s campaign for Chicago mayor. In 2015, Wicks moved back to California to manage the Clinton campaign state effort, helping extinguish any chance for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. to clinch the Democratic nomination. Her office featured a poster titled, “Buffy the Bernie Slayer,” a nod to her work. She also worked for a time at AKPD, the prominent political and corporate consulting firm.
Asked if she was troubled by Clinton’s steadfast support for the Libya war, or her backing for Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen, or her vote to launch the war in Iraq — the original issue that once moved Wicks as an activist — Wicks demurred.
“I was very excited about the idea of having a woman president. We’ve never had that,” she said bluntly.
But the call for diversity in leadership — wouldn’t that apply more to Beckles, a black lesbian and immigrant from Panama, over Wicks, a white woman? With the move by Assemblyman Tony Thurmond to run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, there could be no black representatives from the entire Bay Area in 2019, should Wicks prevail in the race.
Wicks pivoted, noting that the “power structure is dominated by white men — no offense.” (When told that both reporters interviewing her are mixed race, she apologized.)
The other elephant in the room has been big money. Several outside groups have formed independent expenditure committees and PACs to spend on behalf of Wicks, flooding the district with mailers and advertising.
Wicks makes clear she would prefer a world without such big money, but stops short of directly condemning the groups. “They can do whatever they wish,” she said, when asked if she would call for shutting down the pro-Wicks outside independent expenditures. “I don’t take corporate money,” she added.
Govern for California, one of the groups backing Wicks, is financed in part by one of the heirs of the Walmart fortune, an irony that somewhat blunts her campaign story of once doing battle with the retail giant.
One of the other groups, formed last month, is the “Coalition for East Bay Health Care Access, Affordable Housing and Quality Public Schools, supporting Buffy Wicks for Assembly 2018.” The group is principally funded by the two powerful healthcare lobby groups, the California Medical Association and the California Dental Association; as well as by EdVoice, a charter school PAC.
Chevron, the longtime nemesis of the district’s environmental and economic justice movements and of Jovanka Beckles in particular, also appears to favor Buffy Wicks. Local lobbyist Eric Zell, who has worked for years to influence local government on behalf of Chevron, recently sent an email to his contact list urging them to vote for her. In a sign of how malleable the term “progressive” has become in the Bay Area’s current political culture, the word was used in the email six times. “In the East Bay, we are united behind a progressive agenda,” the email from the oil lobbyist proclaims.
But it is the lawyers that registered and administer the Wicks IE that may raise eyebrows even more than its donors.
The group is run by attorneys from Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, a notoriously right-wing law firm that serves lobbyists and the Republican Party. The firm provided consulting work for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, as well as many of the most conservative California Republicans, including Darrell Issa and Dana Rohrabacher.
Ashlee Titus, the partner whose name appears on the IE’s filing, is a board member of the California chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association and the president of the Sacramento Federalist Society. Her name appears on an October 3 letter advocating the swift confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. (Titus did not respond to a request for comment.)
The issue of campaign money has been raised relentlessly by the Beckles campaign, who points to her own lack of a big money outside group, and her own direct donors, most of whom have provided small dollar donations and live in the district.
If Wicks was once a radical, storming the barricades of the plutocracy, Beckles never left that role. There’s a reason the business interests that are funding Wicks’ independent expenditure campaigns are determined to keep Beckles away from the seat. She is a strident supporter of Medicare For All, backs a moratorium on charter schools, and she proposes increasing the minimum wage to $20 per hour and reducing the work week to 36 hours.
Little surprise, then, that her candidacy has inspired private health care interests, the charter school industry, and the Walton family to pour cash into IEs cutting six-digit checks in support of her opponent.
“Buffy Wicks is funded by billionaires,” said Keith Brown, president of the Oakland Education Association. “The forces causing the education crisis and the housing crisis are the same forces that are supporting Buffy Wicks.”
Wicks is not entirely without supporters on the labor-aligned left, however. Jim Araby of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, one of the few unions outside of the building trades that has endorsed Wicks, acknowledged Beckles’ embrace of the interests of workers. But he prefers Wicks nonetheless.
“Jovanka would make a fine representative, but there’s a difference between being a good vote and being a champion for our issues,” Araby told The Intercept. “Buffy understands the unique work our members do and the challenges that face them.”
Of the perception that Wicks is less progressive than Beckles, Araby said, “This is another one of those fights based not on reality but on myth.”
Marshall Ganz, one of the masterminds behind Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers in the 1960s and one of the architects of Obama’s 2008 organizing strategy, vouched passionately for Wicks, in an interview with The Intercept, calling her a proven leader “capable of building broad support.” Ganz, who knew Wicks from her early days as an activist and on the Obama campaign, conceded, however, that he was not familiar with Beckles’ record and did not endorse Wicks’ more recent work for the Clinton campaign.
“Sometimes we have conflicting values. I don’t think Buffy’s a perfect person more than any of us are, but in this particular setting I think she will do a terrific job,” he said.
Campaign Gets HeatedIn opinion columns and in social media, supporters of the Wicks campaign have portrayed Beckles as an unstable radical, someone who can’t be trusted to effectively represent the district.
In 2015, Beckles authored a resolution, based on a bill introduced in Congress by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, against the militarization of outer space, an idea that quickly turned into tabloid fodder.
“It is imperative that Richmond adopt this resolution in an effort to stand in solidarity with residents who claim to be under assault from space-based weapons that should be outlawed by the Space Preservation Act,” Beckles said at the time.
After the resolution was reported in the news, the city received dozens of calls from people around the world who claimed to be under attack from mind-controlling weapons in outer space. Wicks’ supporters have pointed to this vote and others to say that Beckles has “turned the city of Richmond into a punchline.”
In February, the Wicks campaign conducted a poll to test themes for the campaign this year, including positive and negative messages about most of the candidates in the first round of the race. “Opponents say she won’t be able to get things done because she lacks the experience and skill to work with people of different beliefs,” was one of the statements about Beckles the poll tested. For several Beckles supporters, the survey appeared to be a “push poll” designed to plant negative ideas about the candidate as abrasive and inattentive, attacks that some felt played to racial stereotypes about black women.
“There’s a lot that goes into a racialized message. It would be my strong hope, anything I would push for, not to racialize this race at all. Period,” Wicks said, responding to the charge.
Campaign fliers have swamped the mailboxes of district residents, claiming that Beckles has missed votes on the city council, played video games on her phone during council votes, and ignored the housing crisis. Records show she has missed a number of council votes, but her campaign says her full-time job as a mental health care social worker prevented her from staying late at council hearings.
In one recent mailer, Beckles is quoted stating that, “We don’t suffer from a housing shortage crisis.” But the quote is cropped, leaving out her following statement, “We are suffering from a housing affordability crisis.”
The quote reflects a roiling debate taking place throughout California and particularly in Silicon Valley. Soaring rents and home prices have become epidemic in the Bay Area, as the rise of the tech industry has transformed nearly every aspect of the region’s economy. Affordable housing activists have bristled at the new wave of high income earners flocking to the region, claiming that unrestricted growth has fueled displacement. Meanwhile, the YIMBYs, a pro-development housing activist movement that emerged from the Bay Area’s tech workforce, advocate deregulation of the real estate market as the way out of the housing crisis.
Beckles opposed the contentious legislation put forth this year by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and championed by the YIMBYs, to prevent local municipalities from blocking dense, largely market-rate housing development near public transit. Many California communities have placed onerous restrictions on new housing developments, even as job growth far outpaces the the creation of new housing stock, exacerbating the crisis. But affordable housing activists criticized Wiener’s bill, which they viewed as a supply-side approach that favored developers and that would only further fuel displacement of the poor. Beckles, in an interview, claimed that Wiener’s measure took “away the rights of communities to be able to say what’s in their best interests.”
Beckles and Wicks also differ on California’s Proposition 10, which would restore the ability of local jurisdictions to expand rent control. Beckles favors the proposition; Wicks worries it will exacerbate the housing crisis by inhibiting new development. The YIMBYs found no consensus on the initiative.
Beckles’ positions on housing have earned her the ire of the YIMBYs, who have endorsed Wicks. One of the leaders of East Bay For Everyone, a YIMBY group, accused Beckles of “siding with segregationists” for opposing policies that might allow for new development in affluent neighborhoods. East Bay For Everyone’s name also appeared on the mailer that took Beckles’ comment on the housing crisis out of context.
The barrage of attacks is nothing new for Beckles. She has fought for years as part of a grassroots effort called the Richmond Progressive Alliance to reshape the political reality in her community, which has long been dominated by politicians loyal to the interests of Chevron.
Since 2003, the RPA, as it is known, has worked to push back against Chevron influence in Richmond. They have fought Chevron’s efforts to skirt local taxes, called attention to flaring from the refinery, and demanded greater fines for the routine pollution that has sickened local residents.
That activism has sparked years of increasingly bitter political fights. In 2014 alone, the oil giant poured more than $2.9 million into an account used to smear RPA supporters, including Beckles, a shocking sum to influence a working class municipal race. A campaign consultant was hired to launch a blog mocking Beckles, falsely accusing her of dining excessively on city taxpayer money and not showing up to meetings. Chevron even hired a public relations expert to launch an entire news publication, the Richmond Standard, complete with bona fide coverage of local events, as a portal to advance political attacks on RPA politicians including Beckles.
Incredibly, the RPA has largely prevailed, despite some setbacks. The coalition, including Beckles, has won reforms in city policing and a $15 minimum wage, among other policy changes. Chevron-backed candidates have repeatedly lost close elections to RPA’s slate. Many of the RPA-backed ideas were eventually defeated, such as a radical proposal to use eminent domain to save homes from foreclosure and an effort to combat obesity through a soda tax.
Closing RanksThe current legislative race has recast many of the old charges hurled at RPA candidates like Beckles: Too out of touch, too extreme. In past years, the establishment Democratic Party in Richmond used the wider network of party figures to tip the scales, with California Treasurer Phil Angelides and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., among others, working to help the Chevron-backed moderates campaign against the insurgent RPA.
The same strategy appears clear in the current race for Assembly District 15. Wicks has touted an impressive list of supporters. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom; and even Obama himself have endorsed Wicks. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has personally donated to her campaign, and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., attended her launch party (Wicks’ husband is a former Giffords aide).
The roster of Wicks donors is filled with names of former Obama campaign alumni and former Democratic staffers, many of whom followed a similar path of gaining government experience, then going through the revolving door to work for industry. More than one in seven in her contributor roll list Washington, D.C., home addresses.
Wicks donor Drew Goesl, for example, worked for years for a number of Democratic lawmakers, before settling into a job as as a lobbyist. For much of the last year, he was paid to represent the private prison conglomerate Geo Group. Lauren Aronson, another Wicks donor and former Emanuel staffer, similarly worked for Obama in the White House, playing a pivotal role helping to pass the Affordable Care Act. She now lobbies for a variety of corporate interests, including Walmart, Verizon, Humana and Chevron.
In many ways, the race also reflects the fast moving shift of national-level Democratic operatives who have beaten the path from the campaign trail, to the Beltway, to the booming Bay Area after serving in the Obama administration.
Wicks’s fellow travelers include, most famously, Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, who took a lobbying job with Uber in San Francisco in 2014 and is now at the for-profit foundation of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. It also includes former assistant press secretary and National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor, who moved to San Francisco to speech write for startup CEOs; former Obama Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, who joined GoFundMe; and former White House advisor Tom Reynolds, who was hired by Facebook, among many others. Plouffe, Vietor, Pfeiffer, and Reynolds are all Wicks donors.
“The generation of Obama staffers, their ideology was always kind of loosely defined in these non-ideological, aspirational ideals,” said Shant Mesrobian, who worked on the Obama campaign’s digital team in 2008 and who lives in San Francisco.
“When you define your politics so broadly about ‘doing big things,’ non-ideologically like that, it’s easy to see why you can make this transition to Silicon Valley, the Mecca of ‘doing big things.’ When you don’t define your politics by specific things like fighting inequality, corruption, things you can be held accountable to, at the end of the day you can justify anything.”
But supporters of Beckles hope to make voters aware that the vast amounts of money represent a wider power struggle in politics.
“The fact that Buffy Wicks is getting so much money from groups such as Govern For California’s IE, which represents the charter industry, this is all like new corporate money that’s coming in that attempts to change the face of the Bay Area, driving out people of color, working class people,” said Keith Brown, from the Oakland Education Association. “This wave is creating communities such as what we see in Oakland and Richmond between the haves and the have-nots.”
Top photo: At left, Jovanka Beckles photographed at Oakland City Hall, Calif., on Aug. 21, 2018. At right, Buffy Wicks photographed on May 27, 2017.
The post A Billionaire-Backed Democrat is Facing Off Against a Democratic Socialist in Berkeley. And It’s Getting Rough. appeared first on The Intercept.
As he mourned for the 11 American Jews killed on Saturday by a gunman who believed a racist conspiracy theory promoted by the president of the United States, the writer David Simon read on Twitter that a senior member of Israel’s far-right government was on his way to Pittsburgh for a memorial service.
“Go home,” Simon wrote in a caustic message to Naftali Bennett, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who serves as Israel’s minister for the diaspora. “Netanyahu’s interventions in US politics aided in the election of Donald Trump and his raw and relentless validation of white nationalism and fascism,” Simon wrote. “The American Jewish community is now bleeding at the hands of the Israeli prime minister. And many of us know it.”
Simon was not alone in his criticism of Bennett’s visit. “NO THANK YOU,” Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace in New York, replied to Bennett’s tweet about his visit. “Your racist worldview has more in common with the perpetrator of this attack,” she told Bennett, who supports Jewish-only settlements in the Israeli occupied West Bank and the expulsion of African asylum seekers from Israel.
“Naftali Bennett has eagerly normalized Trump in exchange for the codification of apartheid in Israel,” the political cartoonist Eli Valley wrote. “He shares Trump’s bigotry, he has boasted about murdering Arabs, and he should not be welcomed anywhere in the American Jewish community.”
The Pittsburgh chapter of If Not Now, a group of young American Jews opposed to their community’s support for the Netanyahu government’s nationalist policies — including the building of a wall along Israel’s southern border to block African asylum-seekers — protested Bennett’s visit at a vigil on Sunday near the Tree of Life synagogue, where the shooting took place. “The inspiration for this attack,” If Not Now member Ren Finkel said, “is the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Trump and other Republican leaders.”
When Trump visited the Pittsburgh synagogue on Tuesday, he was met by thousands of protesters, who could be heard shouting “Words have meaning!” and “Trump, go home!” by reporters with the president.
The crowd at Beechwood and Forbes in Squirrel Hill ahead of a planned protest against today’s visit by President Trump: https://t.co/rtAnIzt0Yd@theinclinepgh pic.twitter.com/4xr1n5NRbl
— Colin Deppen (@colin_deppen) October 30, 2018
"Words have meaning!"
Protesters await the arrival of Pres. Trump and the first family near the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in the wake of Saturday's mass shooting. https://t.co/20NWyrahhT pic.twitter.com/VcTDgpX5A8
— ABC News (@ABC) October 30, 2018
Large group gathered for @IfNotNowPGH protest as Trump prepares to arrive in Squirrel Hill.
“He’s fostered an administration of white supremacy and he is not welcome here in our time of mourning,” says one of the organizers, Arielle Cohen. pic.twitter.com/LXPD09KWZI
— julia reinstein ? (@juliareinstein) October 30, 2018
Trump is now at the synagogue in #Pittsburgh. Cops keeping thousands of protesters about a block away. pic.twitter.com/f6WDf49maM
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) October 30, 2018
Pressed by supporters of Israel to explain his denunciation of Netanyhau, Simon pointed out that the Israeli prime minister’s backing of Trump had come despite the clear anti-Semitic undertones of the American president’s rhetoric against “globalists,” with its “implications of Jewish financial cabals.”
As the journalist Gregg Carlstrom noted at the time, the villains in Trump’s final 2016 campaign ad — which used footage of Syrian asylum-seekers marching through Hungary to paint a false picture of the U.S. border with Mexico — were all prominent Jews: Janet Yellen, then the Federal Reserve chairwoman, Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, and George Soros, whose image appeared as Trump railed against, “those who control the levers of power in Washington.”
Trump's final pitch to voters is a dramatic reading of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. https://t.co/Nl29D92fIu
— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) November 6, 2016
After Trump’s election, Netanyahu also refused to condemn the president’s repeated incitement against Soros, Simon noted, even as the president and his Republican allies fed their followers “a steady stream of conspiratorist horseshit so acutely racist and anti-Semitic that the name of a Holocaust survivor can now be invoked as a fixed dog-whistle for Jewish conspiracies against white nationalist America.”
The Pittsburgh gunman cited as justification for his massacre of Jews a baseless conspiracy theory about Soros, which has been promoted by Trump’s favorite cable news network, Fox News, and Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican endorsed by Trump — the false claim that, as Simon put it, “a Jewish financier is paying brown-skinned people to journey to our southern border and menace our nation.”
“This specific, vicious and batshit-crazy notion found favor throughout the president’s base and has even been repeated by elected officials in his party,” Simon wrote. “It is the precise preamble to a gunman walking into a synagogue and declaring that all Jews must die and killing people where they worshipped.”
“Netanyahu, and by extension his government,” Simon argued, “stands among those who are now complicit in serving to bring about this experiment in American fascism.”
Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who has called Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem “a disaster,” asked if Netanyahu — whose son Yair thrilled white supremacists by sharing an anti-Semitic meme about Soros — was finally willing “to condemn the systematic, vulgar anti-Semitic assaults on George Soros which you yourself have validated?”
Are you heartbroken and appalled enough to condemn the systematic, vulgar anti-Semitic assaults on George Soros which you yourself have validated?
Are you willing to criticize your own mini-me Yair, who used blatantly anti-Semitic imagery regarding Soros?
No. I didn't think so. https://t.co/I49EBgO9tw
— Daniel Seidemann (@DanielSeidemann) October 29, 2018
As Mairav Zonszein explained last year in The New York Times, Soros, as a supporter of Israeli rights groups like B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence, has become a hate figure to ultranationalist Israelis, including Netanyahu, who have recently bonded with racist European nationalists around a shared hatred of Muslims.
“In his remarks at the weekly Sunday cabinet meeting in the Knesset, Netanyahu referenced ‘new anti-Semitism’ in Europe and ‘radical Islam’ but never mentioned the actual ideologies behind this attack: white supremacism,” Zonszein reported on Tuesday in The Washington Post. “Also conspicuously absent from Netanyahu’s rhetoric has been any mention of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the organization that Robert Bowers, the accused Pittsburgh shooter, had attacked on social media for aiding refugees, which many people have been donating to as a show of support. Netanyahu’s Likud party even reportedly distributed talking points to activists describing HIAS as ‘a left-wing Jewish group that promotes immigration to the U.S. and works against Trump.'”
Earlier this year, when Netanyahu angrily demanded an investigation of the New Israel Fund, a U.S. group that supports civil society projects in Israel, he said it “receives funding from foreign governments and figures hostile to Israel, such as the funds of George Soros.” The specific cause of Netanyahu’s wrath in that case was the New Israel Fund’s opposition to his effort to deport thousands of African asylum-seekers who had managed to make it past his border wall.
By steadfastly refusing to admit that the conspiracy theories about Soros aired by Trump and his allies are anti-Semitic, Netanyahu and the current Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, have made it safe for such wild notions to circulate online and across the airwaves.
Nowhere has that been more clear than in Hungary, where the ultranationalist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly blanketed the nation with billboards and public service announcements falsely portraying Soros as a shadowy puppet-master scheming to flood the country with Muslim immigrants.
Last year, Israel’s ambassador to Hungary, Yossi Amrani, called on Orbán to stop using historical anti-Semitic tropes to demonize Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived the rule of Hungary’s wartime leader, Miklós Horthy — an anti-Semite, recently praised by Orbán, whose government aided in the deportation of 437,402 Hungarian Jews to Nazi death camps in just two months in 1944.
Just one day later, however, the Israeli foreign ministry run directly by Netanyahu formally retracted the compliant, and issued a statement voicing explicit support for “criticism of George Soros, who continuously undermines Israel’s democratically elected governments by funding organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.”
As Talya Wintman, a junior at Barnard College currently studying at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, noted in Haaretz, Netanyahu’s defense of Orbán had culminated in July, when “the Hungarian Prime Minister, who fueled his own campaign on accusations of Soros destroying Christian Hungary, was invited on an official visit to Israel and as a guest of honor to Yad Vashem, helping to elide his anti-Semitic ties. This is 21st century anti-Semitism legitimized by the leader of the Jewish state.”
What Netanyahu’s embrace of Orbán helps to obscure, however, is that attacks on Soros for sponsoring democracy and human rights in his native country have long been characterized by explicit anti-Semitism. As my colleague Peter Maass reported from Budapest in 1992, during Hungary’s post-Communist transition, even as Soros offered educational grants to former dissidents like a young Viktor Orbán and founded the Central European University, he was denounced by the vice president of the ruling party, Istvan Csurka, of secretly acting as an instrument of “official policy in Jerusalem.”
Another member of Hungary’s ruling party, Gyula Zacsek, attacked the philanthropist the same year in an article for the party weekly headlined, “Termites Are Devouring Our Nation — Reflections on the Soros Regime, the Soros Empire.” The end of the Communist system, Zacsek claimed, “began as a consciously planned, well-thought-out course of action — a self-engineered coup by cosmopolitans.” In the Soviet era Hungary had just emerged from, the term “rootless cosmopolitans,” citizens of the globe, was shorthand for Jews. “The Soros Foundation,” Zacsek asserted, “was a vital tool and resource in laying the groundwork for this transition.”
“Leading members of your party have accused me of nothing less than taking part in an international anti-Hungarian conspiracy whose origins can be traced to Israel and whose goal is to extinguish the Hungarian people’s national spirit, and succeed thereby in subjecting them to foreign domination,” Soros wrote to Hungary’s prime minister in 1992. “My foundations seek to promote open societies while they, under the guise of nationalism, are interested in creating closed societies,” he added. “In order for them to succeed, they need first and foremost an enemy against which they can then mobilize an entire nation, and if there isn’t an enemy about, they must invent one.”
In the decades since, Soros has been transformed into an invented enemy by anti-Semites around the globe, and conspiracy theories about his supposedly nefarious promotion of democracy and human rights have become a staple of state-financed propaganda broadcasts in countries like Russia and Iran. During the Trump administration, however, a broadcaster sponsored by the United States government appears to have indulged for the first time in the same thinly veiled anti-Semitism to attack the liberal philanthropist.
Last week, days after a pipe bomb was mailed to Soros by a Trump supporter in Florida, Mother Jones reported that Radio Televisión Martí, a Spanish-language network that broadcasts news and propaganda to Cuba on behalf of the American government, aired a report that described Soros as “a non-believing Jew of flexible morals,” and “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008,” who uses “his lethal influence to destroy democracies.”
“A TV Marti program that was introduced with the phrase, ‘George Soros, a multimillionaire Jew,’ was paid for by the American taxpayer, and broadcast to Latin America last summer, in our name,” Sen. Jeff Flake commented on Twitter. “This is taxpayer-funded anti-semitism.”
Updated: Tuesday, Oct. 30, 6:46 p.m.
This report was updated with images of protests in Pittsburgh against President Donald Trump’s visit to a synagogue where a white supremacist, inspired by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories the president promoted, massacred 11 worshippers.
The post After Pittsburgh Massacre, Netanyahu Faces Backlash for Endorsing Trump and Smearing Soros appeared first on The Intercept.
