Photos of the Week: Ghost Ship, Greek Spring, Naked Festival

Dog catchers in Cairo, luge championships in Russia, flooding in parts of England, a crash at the Daytona 500, London Fashion Week, heavy rains in Australia, continued fighting in Syria, demining in Colombia, Carnival in Venice, and much more.

Facing Improbable Odds in Nevada, Elizabeth Warren Goes on the Attack Against Mike Bloomberg

Elizabeth Warren rose to stardom slaying villains. The first time she was widely noticed on the national stage came with a gavel in her hand, as she pounded then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for his mishandling of the Wall Street bailout. Elected to the Senate in 2012, she quickly transformed her perch on the sleepy Banking Committee into a public studio that regularly produced viral videos of her slicing hapless banking regulators and Wall Street executives to pieces. And her damning interrogation of Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan was widely credited as leading to his “resignation.”

That combative spirit fueled a draft-Warren campaign for president, which she resisted in 2016. But in the 2020 cycle, she largely sheathed her knife until Wednesday, foiled by the muddled intra-party politics of a Democratic primary in which there was no obvious villain who could match a Geithner or Sloan. Even though she had spent a decade as a law professor tangling with Sen. Joe Biden over bankruptcy reform, she largely left him alone. Despite having been a leader in the Senate of the push to expand rather than cut Social Security, she allowed Sen. Bernie Sanders and his campaign team to fight it out with Biden over the program.

When Mike Bloomberg sauntered onto the debate stage, the old Elizabeth Warren reemerged, turning in a historic debate performance that left the former New York City mayor a politically bloodied mess. Bloomberg, it turned out, was the foil Warren needed.

Warren opened with a heavy hit against Bloomberg, listing his similarities to President Donald Trump. “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’ I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg,” she said, to roaring applause. “Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of supporting racist polls like redlining and stop-and-frisk. I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.” She went on to attack Bloomberg in waves throughout the debate.

Warren’s strong performance may turn out to be a murder-suicide: It might already be too late for Warren herself to recover in the race. In Nevada, where the debate was held, 70,000 early votes have already been cast, compared to 86,000 total in 2016. She’s polling in the single digits here, in South Carolina, and in many Super Tuesday states. And hundreds of thousands of people have already seen Bloomberg’s ads, thanks to the $233 million he’s spent so far on digital and TV, many of which could give the impression that he’s been endorsed by former President Barack Obama. And he racked up a number of endorsements from black congressional leaders and majors in the days leading up to the debate.

Sanders, the favorite in Nevada, stood to be a major beneficiary of Warren’s assault on Bloomberg. The Vermont senator is threatening an upset of Biden in South Carolina and has the potential to pick up roughly half of the delegates on Super Tuesday, building what could become an insurmountable delegate lead.

Earlier Wednesday, Bloomberg’s campaign warned of just that possibility, suggesting that to avert it, Biden, Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg ought to drop out of the race and let Bloomberg focus on Sanders one-on-one.

Klobuchar took immediate offense to Bloomberg’s suggestion, and it quickly became clear that nobody on the stage planned to take his advice. Asked at the end of the debate whether the candidate with the most delegates, even if short of a majority, should be the nominee going into the convention, all but Sanders demurred, seeing their path to the nomination in a contested convention.

Bloomberg made it to the debate stage for the first time after the Democratic National Committee changed its qualification threshold in January, allowing him to qualify by funding his own campaign.

Buttigieg, too, was hit hard by Warren, who said he “makes it unclear what he stands for other than his own advancement.” Klobuchar later seconded her, telling him, “You have memorized a bunch of talking points and a bunch of things.”

Warren took on the role of fact checker on Bloomberg’s attempts to bat away criticisms of his stop-and-frisk policy and numerous allegations of sexual harassment.

On stop and frisk, Bloomberg noted his apologies, and said he was worried and embarrassed about the impact the policy had on black and brown New York City residents. “There is no great answer to a lot of these problems. And if we took off everybody that was wrong off this panel, everybody that was wrong on criminal justice at some time in their careers, there’d be nobody else up here,” Bloomberg said.

“Listen very closely to the apology,” Warren said. “This isn’t about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning.”

Warren wasn’t the only one who got in shots on Bloomberg. NBC’s Hallie Jackson asked Bloomberg about repeat allegations that he oversaw a hostile work environment for women and that he had admitted to making sexually suggestive remarks. The former mayor responded feebly by touting the percentages of women who work at Bloomberg Foundation and in his mayoral office. “None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,” he said.

The exchange gave Warren another opportunity to go after Bloomberg. “We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements,” she said, referring to the unknown number of women who worked for Bloomberg who have agreed not to speak publicly about their claims of gender discrimination or sexual harassment.

The end of Michael Bloomberg in 2:19.pic.twitter.com/nN0pGwhkBu

— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) February 20, 2020

Bloomberg said that there are “very few nondisclosure agreements,” describing them as “agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that’s up to them.” Warren then shifted the conversation to Bloomberg’s electability, warning against “the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against.”

When moderators pressed Klobuchar about not knowing who the Mexican president is, Warren came to her defense, saying it was just a moment of forgetfulness. “Let’s be clear, missing a name all by itself does not indicate that you do not understand what’s going on, and I just think that’s a mistake,” she said.

The post Facing Improbable Odds in Nevada, Elizabeth Warren Goes on the Attack Against Mike Bloomberg appeared first on The Intercept.

When Bloomberg News’s Reporting on China Was Challenged, Bloomberg Tried to Ruin Me for Speaking Out

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the winter meeting for the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22, 2020.

Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP

I am one of the many women Mike Bloomberg’s company tried to silence through nondisclosure agreements. The funny thing is, I never even worked for Bloomberg.

But my story shows the lengths that the Bloomberg machine will go to in order to avoid offending Beijing. Bloomberg’s company, Bloomberg LP, is so dependent on the vast China market for its business that its lawyers threatened to devastate my family financially if I didn’t sign an NDA silencing me about how Bloomberg News killed a story critical of Chinese Communist Party leaders. It was only when I hired Edward Snowden’s lawyers in Hong Kong that Bloomberg LP eventually called off their hounds after many attempts to intimidate me.

In 2012, I was working toward a Ph.D. in sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and my husband, Michael Forsythe, was a lead writer on a Bloomberg News article about the vast accumulation of wealth by relatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping, part of an award-winning “Revolution to Riches” series about Chinese leaders.

Soon after Bloomberg published the article on Xi’s family wealth in June 2012, my husband received death threats conveyed by a woman who told him she represented a relative of Xi. The woman conveying the threats specifically mentioned the danger to our whole family; our two children were 6 and 8 years old at the time. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos reports a similar encounter in his award-winning book, “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China,” when the same woman told Osnos’s wife: “He [Forsythe] and his family can’t stay in China. It’s no longer safe,” she said. “Something will happen. It will look like an accident. Nobody will know what happened. He’ll just be found dead.”

The experience was especially terrifying because it came just months after the murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who was poisoned by the wife of a senior Chinese leader, Bo Xilai, according to Chinese state media. His body was reportedly discovered in a hotel in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing. While our family spent the kids’ summer vacation in 2012 outside of China, Bloomberg executives kept my husband busy in nonstop conference calls about how to maintain our security. I had recurring nightmares about my young children getting beaten up or killed. I desperately wanted to speak publicly about the death threats, feeling it would give us stronger protection, but Bloomberg News wanted us not to say anything about it while the company conducted its own internal investigation. I had been loyal to the company ever since my husband and I married in 2002, and I didn’t want to jeopardize his job. I stayed silent until October 26, 2012, when another (unrelated) story was published in defiance of the Chinese government. I decided to tweet that we had received death threats after the Bloomberg story on Xi Jinping.

Screenshot: Leta Hong Fincher

Within hours of my tweets — the original and my replies to questions — a Bloomberg manager called my husband and said, “Get your wife to delete her tweets.” I did not delete them, but I also did not tweet or speak publicly about the death threats again. I did not want to anger the company because we needed it to relocate us to Hong Kong, where our children would be safe. As we finished the remainder of our time in Beijing, applying for schools in Hong Kong and preparing for our move, I lived in constant fear. Would someone get to our children while they were on their way to or from school? Who was watching and listening to us? I obsessively pulled down all our window blinds at night in case Chinese security agents were watching us. I was careful not to speak loudly about our plans in our home or on my phone in case we were bugged.

In August 2013, I finally relaxed as we flew out of Beijing and moved to a temporary apartment in Hong Kong. I thought that our yearlong nightmare had ended. But things would soon get even worse.

My husband had been working for many months on another investigative report for Bloomberg about financial ties between one of China’s richest men, Wang Jianlin, and the families of senior Communist Party officials, including relatives of Xi. Bloomberg editors had thus far backed the story. A Bloomberg managing editor, Jonathan Kaufman, said in an email in late September 2013, “I am in awe of the way you tracked down and deciphered the financial holdings and the players. … It’s a real revelation. Looking forward to pushing it up the line,” according to an account published by the Financial Times.

Then Bloomberg killed the story at the last minute, and the company fired my husband in November after comments by Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matt Winkler were leaked. “If we run the story, we’ll be kicked out of China,” Winkler reportedly said on a company call.

Mike Bloomberg, then New York City mayor and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, was asked on November 12, 2013, about reports that his company had self-censored out of fear of offending the Chinese government and he dismissed the question.

“Nobody thinks that we’re wusses and not willing to stand up and write stories that are of interest to the public and that are factually correct,” Bloomberg told a press conference.

Yet, days after Bloomberg made those comments to reporters in New York, Bloomberg lawyers in Hong Kong threatened to devastate my family financially by forcing us to repay the company for our relocation fees to Hong Kong from Beijing and the advance on my husband’s salary that we took out, leave us with no health insurance or income, and take me to court if I did not sign a nondisclosure agreement — even though I had never been a Bloomberg employee.

The law firm representing Bloomberg, Mayer Brown JSM, sent a letter to my lawyer on December 6, 2013, threatening a court injunction if I didn’t agree to their confidentiality terms within seven days.

I told my husband’s lawyer that I did not want to sign a gag order, so Bloomberg summoned me and my husband to a meeting on December 16 at Mayer Brown JSM’s office in central Hong Kong. We sat around a fancy conference table with some Bloomberg senior editors and Mayer Brown lawyers and spoke via videoconference with a lawyer from Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, representing Bloomberg in New York. My husband’s lawyer said that I did not possess any recordings or emails that might be damaging evidence about the company’s practices.

The thought of Bloomberg possibly ruining our family financially if I didn’t give in to their threats made me sick, but I was also infuriated that they had kept us in harm’s way.

“But what about all the evidence that is in her head?” said the outsized man on the video screen. When Bloomberg’s lawyer in New York uttered those words, I suddenly pictured him holding a giant vacuum cleaner, trying to suck all the memories out of my brain. I told everyone that I needed to leave the room and I walked out of the building, determined to go down fighting.

On December 20, they sent a letter to my husband demanding that I sign a nondisclosure agreement. If I didn’t agree, we might owe the company thousands of dollars. I might even have had to pay Bloomberg’s legal bills. The thought of Bloomberg possibly ruining our family financially if I didn’t give in to their threats made me sick, but I was also infuriated that they had kept us in harm’s way after we received threats, forbidden me from speaking publicly about the death threats we received in Beijing, and now were trying to take away my freedom of speech forever.

It was only when I hired Snowden’s lawyers in Hong Kong — Albert Ho and Jonathan Man offered me a low rate because it was a “good cause” — that Bloomberg finally backed off. In the meantime, they had sent me several more threatening letters. One letter from Mayer Brown JSM on January 8, 2014, spelled out that “by virtue of the knowledge that she retains (in her head) of our client’s [Bloomberg’s] Confidential Information she has an ongoing duty of confidentiality to our client.” They demanded that I sign away my right to speak out about things such as “unpublished drafts of an article prepared for our client; documents concerning our client’s newsgathering, editorial processes and editorial judgment …; any emails and other communications (including oral discussions) between and among our client’s employees concerning our client’s newsgathering editorial processes and editorial judgment.”

Ho, a veteran Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator and activist who has been assaulted twice over the years, told me that if Bloomberg didn’t back down, we could hold a press conference to shame them. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that and in February 2014, Bloomberg finally stopped sending me legal threats. I returned to Tsinghua University to finish my Ph.D. and published my first book about women in China. My husband joined the New York Times, re-reported the entire story on the Chinese businessman, Wang, which Bloomberg claimed was “not ready for publication,” and his story was published on the front page of the New York Times in late April 2015.

I never wanted to seek publicity about Bloomberg’s threatening behavior and was genuinely terrified of financial ruin, so in spite of preserving my freedom of speech, I have never written about my experience before. I am speaking out now because unlike so many other women, I am not bound by a nondisclosure agreement. Given the large number of women silenced by NDAs, it’s clear that there has been an environment of sexism at Bloomberg’s company. Bloomberg managers and lawyers treated me as though I were a piece of company property, an appendage of my husband, using intimidation and threats to try to bully me into submission. I agonized over whether to sign the NDA and I remember feeling physically suffocated, as though my mouth were stuffed with cotton balls. I haven’t met any of the other women, but I imagine that they, too, may have experienced the same terror of being threatened by a multibillion-dollar corporation, which could ruin their lives if they did not comply. Even now, I am nervous about the consequences of speaking out. But the more of us speak out, the stronger we are.

Leta Hong Fincher is a journalist and scholar who has won several awards for her reporting on China, including the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. She is the author of “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China” and “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China.” She is a supporter of the presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren, and has both donated to her and volunteered for her.

The post When Bloomberg News’s Reporting on China Was Challenged, Bloomberg Tried to Ruin Me for Speaking Out appeared first on The Intercept.

Com auxílio de Moro, Bolsonaro e Mourão trabalham para esvaziar poder do Ibama e do ICMBio

Uma série de medidas tomadas pelo governo Jair Bolsonaro está retirando de Ibamae ICMBioa autonomia para ações de preservação ambiental e combate ao desmatamento na Amazônia. Uma fonte que pediu para não ser identificada por temer represálias disse ao Intercept que há um plano em andamento para esvaziar as funções dos dois órgãos federais especializados em crimes contra o meio ambiente.

No despacho 110/2020, a que tive acesso com exclusividade, o ministro da Justiça e Segurança Pública, Sergio Moro, determinou a dez órgãos subordinados a ele – Polícia Federal, Polícia Rodoviária Federal e Funai entre eles – que enviassem, até o último dia 12, relatórios “das atividades em curso, ações realizadas no último ano e sugestões de ações para o desenvolvimento da Amazônia Legal, nos eixos: Proteção, Preservação e Desenvolvimento Sustentável”.

Trata-se de uma resposta a um pedido em que o vice-presidente Hamilton Mourão “solicita que seja encaminhado relatório das atividades em curso e sugestões de ação para o desenvolvimento da Amazônia Legal” e pede a Moro uma apresentação sobre “proteção e preservação de desenvolvimento sustentável” – tarefa que, em tese, caberia ao Ministério do Meio Ambiente.

Moro deverá se reunir com o vice presidente na quinta-feira, 20, para tratar do assunto. Mourão foi nomeado presidente do Conselho Nacional da Amazônia Legal, que irá “coordenar e acompanhar a implementação das políticas públicas relacionadas à Amazônia”.

O conselho foi criado em 1995 e reativado, no último dia 11, com uma mudança crucial: o comando saiu das mãos do Ministério do Meio Ambiente para as de Mourão. Salles será apenas mais um entre os 14 ministros com assento no grupo. Já Ibama e ICMBio estão fora da lista. “Existem várias políticas públicas, nos mais diferentes ministérios, que atuam praticamente independentes”, já disse o vice-presidente. “A criação do conselho é para que a gente consiga ter um comando, um controle dessas atividades”.

Atualmente, a legislação assegura que os servidores ambientais são as autoridades competentes para aplicar multas e abrir processos administrativos contra os transgressores. Mas Bolsonaro, Mourão e Moro trabalham para que isso vire atribuição policial.

O novo Conselho da Amazônia deverá ter como subordinada a Força Nacional Ambiental. Ainda sem previsão para começar a funcionar, a nova força policial anunciada no mês passado por Bolsonaro deverá, na prática, retirar atribuições de fiscais do Ibama como os que prenderam o antropólogo e ativista de direita Edward Luz no Pará.

Governo vai usar policiais para driblar o que considera ‘ideologia’ no trabalho de Ibama e ICMBio.

Mourão já adiantou que ela poderá ser formada com base em um decreto editado em 2008, no governo Lula. O texto, nunca colocado em prática, mas ainda em vigor, criava a Guarda Nacional Ambiental.

Questionado sobre planos para a criação da força ambiental, o Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública afirmou que o assunto cabe apenas à vice-presidência da República, responsável pelo Conselho da Amazônia. A vice-presidência foi procurada, mas se recusou a prestar esclarecimentos. Também inquiri o Ministério do Meio Ambiente quanto ao pedido feito por Mourão a Sergio Moro a respeito de atribuições que, em tese, caberiam a Ricardo Salles. Não houve resposta.

O governo Bolsonaro trava uma queda de braço com Ibama e ICMBio, órgãos recheados de servidores de carreira que tentam fazer o trabalho: combater o desmatamento ilegal de acordo com a lei em vigor. Na visão do bolsonarismo, ao cumprirem o dever que seus cargos exigem, eles agem motivados por um esquerdismo incorrigível. Ao passar parte das funções para policiais, o governo indica que pretende driblar o problema “ideológico”.

“O governo tem mecanismos para fazer a desconstrução [do poder de fiscalização de Ibama e ICMBio] sem alterar a lei. Há coisas que pode não se tirar da legislação, mas se tira na prática. Tem muitos caminhos para isso”, avalia Elizabeth Uema, secretária executiva da Ascema Nacional, entidade que representa os servidores federais ambientais de carreira.

A entrega do conselho a Mourão já é um sinal de redução da autonomia que os servidores têm para definir os locais a serem fiscalizados. O combate ao desmatamento, por exemplo, é feito pelo Ibama a partir de dados como os fornecidos pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, o Inpe. Mas fiscais ouvidos pelo Intercept e que pediram para não ser identificados temem perder a autonomia para atuar tendo que se submeter a um conselho comandado por um militar da reserva.

Bolsonaro, Ricardo Salles e Sergio Moro: o ministro do Meio Ambiente perde espaço para o da Justiça e Segurança Pública em assuntos de fiscalização ambiental.

Foto: Pedro Ladeira/Folhapress

Asfixia de fiscais

A nova versão do Conselho da Amazônia também excluiu da mesa os governadores da região, o que provocou uma série de críticas. Governos estaduais são diretamente interessados no problema porque, entre outros motivos, a Força Nacional Ambiental deverá contar com policiais militares estaduais deslocados de suas funções originais, como já afirmou Salles.

Antes de ser eleito presidente, Bolsonaro fez o que estava a seu alcance para tentar asfixiar o poder de polícia de servidores ambientais. Em 2013, um ano após ser multado pelo Ibama por pesca irregular em Angra dos Reis (RJ), o então deputado federal apresentou à Câmara um projeto de lei para revogar a permissão de porte de arma para servidores ambientais. Dois anos depois, ele mesmo retirou o projeto de pauta, justificando que “o aumento da criminalidade e da sensação de impunidade” exigiam que determinadas categorias profissionais tivessem acesso ao porte.

Outra proposta apresentada do então deputado Bolsonaro foi incluía as polícias militares no Sistema Nacional do Meio Ambiente, o Sisnama, que congrega todos os órgãos federais, estaduais e municipais que podem atuar na área.

Levado ao Congresso em 2014, o projeto de lei caducou ao final da última legislatura, em 2018, mas foi reapresentado no ano passado pelo bolsonarista Coronel Tadeu, deputado pelo PSL de São Paulo. A ideia é legalizar algo que já ocorre na prática. Mas servidores ambientais com quem conversei avaliam que a falta de limites claros para a atuação das polícias pode ameaçar a autonomia dos fiscais de Ibama e ICMBio.

The post Com auxílio de Moro, Bolsonaro e Mourão trabalham para esvaziar poder do Ibama e do ICMBio appeared first on The Intercept.

Bernie Sanders’s Biggest Test Yet With Latino Voters

Bernie Sanders wasn’t physically at a Las Vegas town hall on Thursday hosted by a Latino civil-rights group, but the enthusiasm for his campaign was still apparent. While three of his rivals—former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; and the businessman Tom Steyer—were there in person and got warm receptions, the largely Latino crowd broke out in chants of “Bernie, Bernie” when the senator from Vermont appeared on a live-stream.

Even though the Democratic primary kicked off with contests in two of the whitest states in the country, Bernie Sanders is already winning big with Latino voters. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders claimed an overwhelming victory with Latinos—a validation of his playbook of mobilizing Latino voters that will now face its biggest test yet in Nevada, which is nearly 30 percent Latino and holds its caucus on Saturday. Though other candidates could still chip away at his advantage, Sanders’s success so far sends a clear sign to the rest of his field: His focus on Latino voters is paying off, and they have a daunting amount of work to do to catch up.

While overall turnout in the Iowa caucus was similar to that of 2016, Matt Barreto, the co-founder of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, told me he estimates that Latino turnout at least doubled from four years ago, and that these voters broke sharply for Sanders. He won 51 percent of votes in the state’s 30 precincts with the most Latino voters, and in the 12 Latino-majority precincts, he won 66 percent of caucus-goers, according to an analysis by LPPI.

In New Hampshire, Sanders similarly blew away his opponents with Latino voters. An exit poll by NBC shows that Sanders won 39 percent of those voters in the state’s primary on Tuesday—about 20 percentage points more than any other candidate.

[Read: Democrats should be worried about the Latino vote]

Neither of the two early states have particularly large Latino populations, but in Iowa, which is around 6 percent Latino, the Sanders campaign spent months circulating flyers to Latino voters, partnering with local Latino groups, and recruiting Latino canvassers and staff—a strategy that he has also deployed in Nevada, where a recent poll shows him as the clear front-runner. Sanders’s track record in Iowa and New Hampshire bodes well for his chances with Latino voters in the state—but this time around, he faces more competition.

One potential point of weakness for Sanders emerged this week, when the state’s powerful Culinary Union, whose members are overwhelmingly Latino, criticized the senator for his Medicare for All plan. Several candidates—such as Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, pounced to try to win the group’s support. (On Thursday, the union declined to endorse a candidate.)

As the Democratic contenders descend on Nevada ahead of the caucus, all of them are frantically seeking to woo Latino voters. But Nevada presents challenges for Sanders’s rivals—among Latinos, the senator’s campaign is already light-years ahead of them, says Domingo Garcia, the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the country’s largest Latino civil-rights group.

Warren doesn’t have high name recognition with Latino voters, Garcia and others told me, and the departures of black and Latina staffers in Nevada have elevated concerns that her campaign is not connecting with Latinos there. Meanwhile, Buttigieg and Klobuchar—who have relatively little nonwhite support nationally—have sought to mobilize support from Latino voters ahead of the caucus, but they still have small outfits in the state. Both candidates recently sat down with the Spanish-language news network Telemundo in Nevada; Buttigieg spoke in Spanish.

Sanders’s campaign insists that the senator will prevail with Nevada’s Latino voters because his operation dwarfs that of his rivals. Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser to Sanders, told me that more than 200 staffers, including 76 Latino staffers, are deployed across the state at 11 field offices.

[Read: Nevada’s coveted Latino voters]

“There’s one thing you cannot get back in campaigns, and that is time,” Rocha said. “But like most campaigns have done historically with Latino outreach, with just days left before the caucus, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg go up [with ads] on Spanish TV.” (The Sanders campaign started advertising on Spanish-language television last month.)

Any last-minute outreach to Latinos in Nevada could be too little, too late, Clarissa Martínez de Castro, the deputy director of policy and advocacy at the nonpartisan civil-rights group Unidos US, told me.

“You’ve got to build that relationship, right?” Martínez de Castro said. “No waiting for the last minute—I don’t think that’s the strategy that candidates use with voters that they really are trying to win, so they should not use it with Latino voters either.”

Sanders’s advantage with Latino voters means he could be poised for a big caucus night, but how he ultimately performs could have implications beyond Nevada, too: The state’s demographics make it a bellwether for Latino-heavy states like California and Texas, which vote on Super Tuesday, in early March.

Now that the race has moved beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, every candidate is rushing to court Latino voters. But in Nevada, Sanders’s operation will be tough to beat.

O fiasco da CPMI Fake News revela o método do bolsonarismo para interditar o debate

Hans River, ex-funcionário de empresa de marketing digital, mentiu em CPMI que apura as fake news das eleições.

Foto: Gustavo Bezerra/PT na Câmara

A vida pública brasileira tem se acostumado com os episódios de baixo nível moral protagonizados pelo bolsonarismo. Mas o que aconteceu na última terça-feira, 11 de fevereiro, na CPMI Fake News atingiu o fundo do poço da imoralidade.

Com base em reportagem da Folha que denunciou um esquema ilegal de disparo de mensagens em massa no WhatsApp em favor da campanha de Bolsonaro, um funcionário da empresa de marketing digital envolvida no caso foi convocado pela oposição para depor na CPI. O que se viu foi um delinquente claramente intencionado a fazer o jogo bolsonarista e interditar o debate sobre o esquema ilegal que ajudou a eleger o presidente. Hans River do Nascimento passou a descredibilizar a reportagem dizendo que sua autora, a jornalista Patrícia de Campos Mello, se insinuou sexualmente a fim de conseguir informações. O que se viu na sequência foi uma ação coordenada com o objetivo de jogar areia nos olhos do público e desviar o foco do crime investigado. O episódio é um excelente case do que é o bolsonarismo no poder.

Após a insinuação contra a jornalista, parlamentares bolsonaristas passaram a explorar o caso nas redes sociais. O mote comum era: uma jornalista esquerdista que ofereceu seu corpo a um homem em troca de informações que prejudicassem Bolsonaro. De repente, a CPMI que investigava crimes da campanha de Bolsonaro passou a duvidar da jornalista que denunciou esses crimes. O jogo virou. Bolsonaristas exploraram o caráter machista da população nas redes sociais, conseguiram reforçar o papel de vítimas de uma imprensa que os persegue e concluíram que a denúncia da jornalista era falsa.

A Folha se apressou em publicar uma reportagem impecável, comprovando todas as mentiras ditas na CPMI, não deixando pedra sobre pedra. Os prints das conversas entre a jornalista e a fonte mostram que ele a convidou para sair e foi solenemente ignorado. Mas o cinismo, que não é apenas um traço do bolsonarismo, mas o seu principal método de ação política, fez com que bolsonaristas continuassem cantando vitória.

O capanga jornalístico de Bolsonaro, Allan dos Santos, cumpriu seu papel de desviar a atenção da manada. Passou a descredibilizar a reportagem da Folha, insinuando que os prints foram forjados, o que rapidamente foi desmentido. A tática é clara e coordenada: faz-se uma acusação absurda para gerar alvoroço. Prova-se que é mentira. Faz-se outra acusação, que novamente é desmascarada, mas não importa: os bolsonaristas saem cantando vitória de peito estufado mesmo assim. Da mentira do depoente à repercussão nas redes, tudo é articulado. Desse modo, o bolsonarismo consegue se manter sempre na confortável posição de acusador, mesmo quando deveria estar no banco dos réus.

Se você acha que está na pior, lembre-se da jornalista do Folha de SP que oferece SEXO em troca de alguma matéria para prejudicar Jair Bolsonaro.
Depois de hoje, vai chover falsos informantes pra cima desta senhora. Força, coragem e dedicação Patrícia, você vai precisar! ???

— André Fernandes (@andrefernm) February 11, 2020

No final do encontro Patrícia teria se insinuado para entrar na casa de Hans e ter acesso ao seu lap top. É neste momento que o Hans diz que ela toparia até fazer sexo com ele em troca do objeto de seu desejo: o lap top,onde ela acha que encontraria provas p incriminar Bolsonaro.

— Eduardo Bolsonaro?? (@BolsonaroSP) February 11, 2020

Essa operação toda cheia de print FAKE é só para tentar desfazer a possibilidade de uma foda por um furo? pic.twitter.com/PvJKWPJgPY

— Allan dos Santos (oficial) (@allantercalivre) February 12, 2020

O Brasil não leu a reportagem da Folha desmascarando as mentiras de Hans. Primeiro porque a página estava disponível só para assinantes e, segundo, porque quase ninguém lê a Folha. Enquanto nós, na nossa bolha classe média progressista pensávamos que a reportagem havia restaurado a verdade, o Brasil estava no WhatsApp vendo vídeos de deputados lacrando a jornalista e memes a chamando de prostituta, disparados pela mesma fábrica de fake news denunciada por ela.

Toda vez que o bolsonarismo é acusado de alguma coisa, essa máquina coordenada passa a trabalhar para espalhar uma falsa denúncia contra quem o acusou. Foi assim durante a Vaza Jato, quando alardearam a existência de hackers russos. Comprovada a mentira, passaram a questionar o Pullitzer de Glenn Greenwald. Desmascarados novamente, criaram o perfil anônimo Pavão Misterioso para difundir falsas acusações contra os jornalistas envolvidos na publicação dos vazamentos. E assim permaneceram em posição de ataque, pulando de uma falsa acusação para outra.

Quando uma narrativa é desmascarada, já há outra igualmente mentirosa saindo do forno da fábrica de mamadeiras de piroca.

O modus operandi bolsonarista foi cumprido: após a divulgação das mentiras do Pavão, parlamentares bolsonaristas e outras figuras proeminentes do bolsonarismo passaram acusar seus acusadores com as mentiras mais absurdas e inverossímeis. As mentiras não precisam ser sofisticadas, já que eles não temem que elas sejam desvendadas. O único objetivo é forçar uma falsa narrativa, possibilitar a escandalização performática da trupe reacionária e, assim, interditar o debate. É a adoção da canalhice como método. Eles ganharam a eleição assim e estão cumprindo seus mandatos assim — com sucesso, diga-se! Os fascistoides que nos governam deram um nó na política brasileira e nada indica que ele será desatado nas próximas eleições.

A extrema direita brasileira está cumprindo à risca a cartilha do ideólogo de Trump Steve Bannon e nadando de braçada na era da pós-verdade. Quando se fala que o bolsonarismo é um projeto de destruição da democracia, não se trata de exagero ou figura de linguagem. É um fato. Essa máquina articulada entre parlamentares e milícias virtuais segue os ensinamentos de Bannon, que declaradamente pretende acabar com a democracia liberal no mundo.

Eles sabem que a apelação para as crenças, preconceitos e emoções tem um poder de influência muito maior sobre a opinião pública do que a frieza dos fatos. A verdade já não importa mais. O que importa é fabricar a narrativa mais sedutora, que facilite a performance escandalosa de um bolsonarismo que está sempre se vitimizando mesmo quando é comprovadamente o algoz. Quando uma narrativa é desmascarada, já há outra igualmente mentirosa saindo do forno da fábrica de mamadeiras de piroca para servir os robôs e as milícias virtuais nas redes sociais. O baixo clero recém-empoderado conseguiu levar o debate público para o campo da baixaria, um lugar em que ele sempre vai sair como vitorioso.

A Globo, vista pelo bolsonarismo como sua opositora, não destacou o episódio da CPMI na home do G1 nem o citou no Jornal Nacional.

As instituições, que poderiam frear essa avalanche de crimes e imoralidade, seguem inoperantes sob os olhares de uma imprensa que acredita que elas estão funcionando normalmente. O TSE, por exemplo, prometeu nas véspera das últimas eleições que estava preparado para combater as fake news. Elas “não vão navegar pela internet como antigamente se navegava pelos mares”, disse Luiz Fux, então presidente do tribunal. Nós vimos o que aconteceu. O combate às fake news era fake news. Absolutamente nada indica que esse cenário irá mudar nas próximas eleições.

A Globo, vista pelo bolsonarismo como sua opositora, simplesmente não destacou o episódio da CPMI na home do G1 nem o citou no Jornal Nacional. Um irresponsável insinua que uma jornalista vendeu seu corpo para conseguir informações contra Bolsonaro, a base de apoio do governo repercute a mentira e o jornal de maior audiência do país, que poderia explicitar o funcionamento dessa máquina de difamação, se cala. E, assim, a selvageria bolsonarista vai se naturalizando no país.

Como escapar desse beco sem saída? Ninguém sabe exatamente como, mas já está claro o que não se deve fazer. Os parlamentares oposicionistas seguem numa posição meramente reativa, esperando os governistas escolherem a valsa que dançarão juntos. É preciso adotar uma postura mais propositiva e desviar das cascas de bananas retóricas jogados pelo bolsonarismo, que sempre levam o debate para um campo em que nunca vai perder. A oposição virou o cachorro que corre latindo atrás da moto, enquanto o motoqueiro ri da cara dele. Não é uma situação fácil para os oposicionistas, de fato, mas esse ciclo interminável precisa ser interrompido, senão continuará sendo usado como escada para o avanço da barbárie.

A democracia vai sendo degradada gradualmente pelo modus operandi fascista, que atua aos moldes dos ensinamentos de Goebbels. A apelação às questões morais, às mentiras, buscando atiçar os preconceitos mais sórdidos da população, serve para desviar dos assuntos verdadeiramente importantes para o país. Enquanto se discutia se a jornalista vendeu seu corpo em troca de informações, ofuscava-se o assassinato de Antônio Nóbrega, o amigo da família Bolsonaro que chefiava a milícia acusada de assassinar Marielle.

A impressão que se tem é de que o bolsonarismo está se acomodando no poder e se sentindo cada vez mais confortável. Aqueles eleitores arrependidos do primeiro semestre do mandato parecem já estar voltado para o aconchego do bolsonarismo. Pesquisas indicam que a aprovação de Bolsonaro está estável, sua reprovação caiu e, se a eleição fosse hoje, ele seria reeleito em todos os cenários. Não há como ser otimista diante desse quadro.

O bolsonarismo já não é mais apenas uma filosofia política reacionária. É também um desvio de caráter. Ou interrompemos esse processo ou continuaremos sendo engolido por ele por muitos anos.

The post O fiasco da CPMI Fake News revela o método do bolsonarismo para interditar o debate appeared first on The Intercept.

The Ticket: A Historic Vote on Equal Rights, and Hopes for Gun Control

For the first time yesterday, Jennifer Wexton got to use the gavel. The freshman Democratic congresswoman from Virginia presided over a floor debate on a bill to advance the Equal Rights Amendment.

“This wins the prize for the coolest thing I’ve gotten to do as a member of Congress,” she told Edward-Isaac Dovere on the latest episode of The Ticket: Politics From The Atlantic. Listen to the full episode here:

Subscribe to The Ticket: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher (How to Listen)

Four years ago, when Wexton was a state senator in Virginia, she saw her resolution to ratify the decades-old amendment die under Republican leadership. But the ERA got new life in November after Democrats swept local elections. Soon after, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, thereby crossing the three-quarters threshold of states needed to amend the Constitution.

That was step one of contemporary ERA advocates’ two-step strategy.

Step two moved ahead this week when the House of Representatives passed a resolution removing a deadline Congress had set for ratification by the states. Shortly after Wexton oversaw debate on the measure, she sat down with Dovere in her office.

In the episode:

• Wexton describes her experience of being a woman in politics—from mansplaining in Congress to what her first opponent said in his concession call.
• Two years after the Parkland, Florida, shooting, the gun-violence conversation has not led to the enactment of national legislation. Wexton talks about how the issue motivated her to get into politics.
• Also on the show: an exclusive exchange with Andrew Yang, recorded in New Hampshire as he prepared to end his candidacy.

Voices:

• Representative Jennifer Wexton (@JenniferWexton)
• Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere)