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Javier E

Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting AG - The New York Times - 0 views

  • When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.
  • Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.
  • Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.
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  • But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.
  • As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.
  • As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.
  • As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign this month.
  • Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.
  • Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.
  • Unwilling to step down without a fight, Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.
  • Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue pressed ahead, informing Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, about Mr. Clark’s latest maneuver. Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.
  • Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.
  • The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law
  • Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.
  • After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay
brickol

Supreme Court to Rule on Trump's Power to Fire Head of Consumer Bureau - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would hear a challenge to the leadership structure of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, agreeing to decide whether the president is free to fire its director without cause.
  • The bureau, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, then a law professor at Harvard and now a senator and presidential candidate, was created as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed in 2010 after the financial crisis. In an effort to protect the bureau’s independence, the statute said the president could remove its director only for cause, defined as “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance.”
  • That limit on presidential power has been repeatedly challenged in court by businesses that say it violates the separation of powers.
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  • Republicans and business groups have long accused the bureau of regulatory overreach. In 2017, President Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney, now his acting chief of staff, to be the bureau’s acting director, and he promptly suspended much of the agency’s enforcement activity, halting investigations, freezing hiring and stopping data collection.
  • In February, after Ms. Kraninger took over, the bureau eliminated tough restrictions on payday lenders that had been set to take effect later in the year. In September, though, she announced that the bureau would continue to publish a database of consumer complaints about financial companies, something Mr. Mulvaney had suggested he might eliminate.
  • “A single-headed independent agency presents a greater risk than a multimember independent commission of taking actions or adopting policies inconsistent with the president’s executive policy,” Mr. Francisco wrote. “Unlike a multiheaded commission, which generally must engage in at least some degree of deliberation and collaboration, a single director can decisively implement his own views and exercise discretion without those structural constraints.”
  • “It is for such reasons that the framers adopted a strong, unitary executive — headed by the president — rather than a weak, divided one,” he wrote. “Vesting such power in a single person not answerable to the president represents a stark departure from the Constitution’s framework.”
  • Mr. Francisco wrote that “the proper remedy for the constitutional violation is to sever the provision limiting the president’s authority to remove the bureau’s director.”The law firm, by contrast, wrote that striking the contested provision should have practical consequences. “Parties do not seek this court’s review on constitutional questions for kicks,” its brief said. “They do so in order to obtain meaningful relief.”
brookegoodman

Trump Says Turkey Will Make 5-Day Cease-Fire 'Permanent' | Time - 0 views

  • President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will lift sanctions on Turkey after the NATO ally agreed to permanently stop fighting Kurdish forces in Syria and he defended his decision to withdraw American troops, saying the U.S. should not be the world’s policeman.
  • Trump warned that if Turkey does not honor its pledge for a permanent cease-fire, he will not hesitate to reimpose sanctions.
  • Trump halted negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey, raised steel tariffs back up to 50% and imposed sanctions on three senior Turkish officials and Turkey’s defense and energy ministries.
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  • Trump earlier in October ordered the bulk of the approximately 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria to withdraw
  • The U.S. pullout was seen as an abandonment of Kurdish fighters, who have incurred thousands of casualties as they fought with U.S. forces against the Islamic State militants.
  • More than 176,000 people have been displaced by the Turkish offensive and about 500 IS fighters gained freedom during the conflict.
  • Under the new agreement, much of that territory would be handed over to U.S. rivals.
  • The biggest winners are Turkey and Russia. Turkey would get sole control over areas of the Syrian border captured in its invasion.
remystewart

Trump Claims Credit for a Syria Cease-Fire to Be Enforced by Turkey and Russia - The New York Times - 0 views

  • President Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States has brokered a permanent cease-fire in northeast Syria, taking credit for a tentative deal that will be enforced by Turkey and Russia, and lifting sanctions he had imposed after Turkey invaded Kurdish-run areas south of its border.
  • He made no apology for an accompanying withdrawal of American troops from the area, which left their Kurdish allies facing the Turkish assault.
  • “As a result of the cease-fire, and at the direction of President Donald J. Trump, Treasury is delisting two Turkish ministries and three of the country’s senior officials,” said Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
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  • Mr. Trump said at the time that steel tariffs on Turkey would rise to 50 percent from 25 percent.
  • The crisis erupted after Mr. Erdogan told Mr. Trump in an Oct. 6 phone call that he intended to invade northeastern Syria. Mr. Trump withdrew several dozen American troops in the region to clear them from harm’s way, effectively giving Turkey a green light for the incursion. Mr. Trump’s decision blindsided many senior administration officials.
niicho

California wildfires live updates: Ferocious winds fuel blazes, force evacuations from wine country to Los Angeles - ABC News - 0 views

  • The National Weather Service says this next round of dangerous fire weather could be the strongest of the year for the area and could be the worst wind event since the 2017 Wine Country fires.
katherineharron

James Murdoch lashes out against Fox and Rupert Murdoch's other news outlets for climate change coverage - CNN - 0 views

  • Rupert Murdoch's son and his wife are lashing out against his father's sprawling media empire for how it covers the climate crisis, especially in light of the fires raging in the family's native Australia.
  • In comments first made to the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the couple said "Kathryn and James' views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known."
  • The criticism aimed at Rupert Murdoch's news outlets is also coming from within the company. Last week Emily Townsend, a commercial financier manager for News Corp in Australia, sent an all-staff email accusing News Corp of a "misinformation campaign" in relation to the fires to "divert attention away from the real issue," climate change, according to the Guardian.
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  • The Australian, one of News Corp's papers and a target of critics who say it's been downplaying the link between climate change and the fires, defended itself in an editorial over the weekend, writing "in our coverage, The Australian's journalists report facts about how to tackle bushfires and about how to deal with the impact of climate change. Second, we host debates reflecting the political division that exists in Australia about how to address climate change without destroying our economy."
  • deniers around, I can assure you."And on Monday, the company announced it was donating $5 million AUD (approximately $3.45 million USD) to the Australian bushfire relief, in addition to the $4 million AUD (around $2.76 million USD) that both Rupert and his older son Lachlan Murdoch have donated to relief efforts.
blairca

Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns | The New Yorker - 0 views

  • This spring, we set another high mark for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: four hundred and fifteen parts per million, higher than it has been in many millions of years.
  • Last fall, the world’s climate scientists said that, if we are to meet the goals we set in the 2015 Paris climate accord—which would still raise the mercury fifty per cent higher than it has already climbed—we’ll essentially need to cut our use of fossil fuels in half by 2030 and eliminate them altogether by mid-century.
  • But we’re moving far too slowly to exploit the opening for rapid change that this feat of engineering offers. Hence the 2 A.M. dread.
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  • And the trend is remarkable: in the three years since the signing of the Paris climate accord, which was designed to help the world shift away from fossil fuels, the banks’ lending to the industry has increased every year, and much of the money goes toward the most extreme forms of energy development.
  • Political change usually involves slow compromise, and that’s in a working system, not a dysfunctional gridlock such as the one we now have in Washington.
  • I suspect that the key to disrupting the flow of carbon into the atmosphere may lie in disrupting the flow of money to coal and oil and gas.
  • And, if the world were to switch decisively to solar and wind power, Chase would lend to renewable-energy companies, too. Indeed, it already does, though on a much smaller scale.
  • The same is true of the asset-management and insurance industries: without them, the fossil-fuel companies would almost literally run out of gas, but BlackRock and Chubb could survive without their business.
  • The terminal will spit out the current league tables, which rank loan volume: showing, for example, which banks are lending the most money to railroad builders or to copper miners—or to fossil-fuel companies.
  • we need to do more, for the simple reason that they may not pay off fast enough. Climate change is a timed test, one of the first that our civilization has faced, and with each scientific report the window narrows.
  • The biggest oil companies might still be able to self-finance their continuing operations, but “the pure-play frackers will find finance impossible,” Buckley said. “Coal-dependent rail carriers and port owners and coal-mine contracting firms will all be hit.”
  • “the impacts of that social signal would be significant immediately, while the economic impacts from transitioning off of fossil fuels would happen over time.”
  • But four-fifths of the world’s population lives in nations that currently pay to import fossil fuels, and their economies would benefit, as ample financing would allow them to transition relatively quickly to low-cost solar and wind power.
  • n some ways, the insurance industry resembles the banks and the asset managers: it controls a huge pool of money and routinely invests enormous sums in the fossil-fuel industry.
  • Insurance companies are the part of our economy that we ask to understand risk, the ones with the data to really see what is happening as the climate changes, and for decades they’ve been churning out high-quality research establishing just how bad the crisis really is.
  • The second thing that makes insurance companies unique is that they don’t just provide money; they provide insurance. If you want to build a tar-sands pipeline or a coal-fired power plant or a liquefied-natural-gas export terminal, you need to get an insurance company to underwrite the plan.
  • But it’s both simple and powerful to switch your bank account: local credit unions and small-town banks are unlikely to be invested in fossil fuels,
  • Financial institutions can help with that work, but their main usefulness lies in helping to break the power of the fossil-fuel companies.
anniina03

Lebanon police fire tear gas at protesters in violent 'week of rage' - CNN - 0 views

  • Lebanese police fired tear gas and water cannons at hundreds of anti-government protesters in downtown Beirut on Saturday, as the monthslong demonstrations turned violent in what is being called a "week of rage."
  • More than 80 people were hospitalized and 140 have been treated at the scene, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. Demonstrations over one of the country's worst-ever economic crises began in mid-October and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is now leading the country in a caretaker role.
  • Protests have been going on ever since, but had largely been peaceful. They erupted in violence this week as demonstrators began smashing bank windows and ATMs. Clashes with police have left dozens injured.
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  • Protesters have grown increasingly frustrated as the country has been unable to form a legitimate government for more than three months.
  • "The scene of confrontations, fires and acts of sabotage in Beirut Downtown is a crazy, suspicious, and unacceptable scene that threatens civil peace and warns of the most severe consequences," he said. "Beirut will not be an arena for mercenaries and deliberate policies to strike the peacefulness of popular movements."
katherineharron

Anthony Fauci: Trump suggests he might fire infectious disease expert after election - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • President Donald Trump suggested to a Florida crowd he may fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election, escalating his feud with the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases and providing a window into a potential post-November 3 administration purge.
  • "Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election," Trump said to cheers. "I appreciate the advice."
  • Trump claimed Fauci is "a nice guy but he's been wrong a lot."
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  • Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak remains the backdrop of this year's election.
  • Trump has proceeded with rallies in states with rampant coronavirus outbreaks, believing his message of reopening will resonate with voters.
  • Trump has previously claimed Fauci opposed mask wearing earlier in the pandemic, though at the time the administration was concerned about supply levels of medical grade equipment.
  • Trump's comments about Fauci came a day after the White House unleashed on the doctor, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
  • Deputy press secretary Judd Deere said Fauci had decided to "make his political leanings known," though acknowledged he "has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy."
  • While Trump and Fauci put forward a show of cooperation earlier in the pandemic, their relationship has deteriorated significantly. Fauci has said he no longer briefs the President and has been replaced by Dr. Scott Atlas, whom the President has relied on for advice on handling the coronavirus.
  • In public polls, Americans have said they trust Fauci more than Trump to provide reliable information about the pandemic.
  • Trump has held off on any major Cabinet shakeups in the leadup to the election, hoping to avoid negative headlines about administration chaos before votes are cast. But how he acts after the election remains an open question; aides said they expected significant changes should Trump win reelection.
  • Under federal law, Trump doesn't have the power to directly fire Fauci, a career civil servant, and remove him from government. He could try ordering his political appointees to dismiss him, but it would be a time-consuming process that Fauci could appeal.
aniyahbarnett

Opinion | We Dared to Assemble. For That, We Were Killed. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • “We the people,” begins the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Section 40 guarantees us the right to freedom of assembly. By Section 41, “we the people,” are guaranteed the right to free movement. So, we assembled. And we moved. For that, we have been killed.
  • Sitting peacefully, a few miles from where I write, the crowd of protesters had resolved to have our government face us, and cease killing us.
  • slap women trying to enter the passport office
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  • they simply ask and networks organized online call volunteer lawyers, who drop what they are doing and proceed to the police station. When protesters need food, water or mobile phone data, they ask and food, water and money from an ever-growing fund of global donations is sent. And when they need ambulances or security guards to protect them from hired thugs, from the state itself, they ask, and private ambulance and security services are sent their way.
  • Don’t
  • SARS has come to resemble the armed thugs it supposedly combats
  • Hours before 9, armed soldiers began firing live rounds into the peaceful crowd of protesters, with fatal consequences.
  • These protests, which continue reinvigorated in other parts of the country, have become about challenging the legitimacy of a defunct political leadership
  • Who gave our so-called leaders the authority they think they have over us; if we are a democracy, who is really in charge?
  • imagine the brutality of the arms behind them.
  • legitimate authority finds its weight in motivating and persuading people without the need to lift a bullying finger.
  • “If we come together in love, they cannot destroy us.”
zarinastone

Trump suggests he might fire Fauci after the election - 0 views

  • President Donald Trump suggested during a campaign rally in Florida on Sunday night that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election.
  • This came after the White House blasted Fauci for saying in a new interview that the U.S. is in a terrible position heading into the winter months.
  • it was "unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President's Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump's actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics."
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  • "We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It's not a good situation," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Washington Post.
  • He has suggested that he would continue in his role regardless of outcome of the 2020 election.
mattrenz16

Voters Are Motivated To Keep Protections For Preexisting Conditions : Shots - Health News : NPR - 0 views

  • As the U.S. grapples with a major spike in new coronavirus cases ahead of Election Day, President Trump is suggesting that he might fire the country's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
  • Speaking to supporters in Opa-Locka, Fla., the president expressed frustration with the media's coverage of COVID-19, saying that after Tuesday's election, "you won't hear too much about it."
  • Of Fauci, he added, "He's been wrong on a lot. He's a nice man, though. He's been wrong on a lot."
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  • Despite a major surge in new coronavirus infections that have hit dozens of U.S. states in recent weeks, Trump has insisted on the campaign trail that the U.S. is "rounding the turn" on the pandemic that has now killed more than 231,000 Americans.
  • Trump has also become more vocal in his criticisms of Fauci, who said in an interview published Saturday by The Washington Post that the administration's handling of the crisis had fallen short.
  • Fauci contrasted the lack of mask-wearing at the White House that likely contributed to a super-spreader event that infected the president and several top aides with the way the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris handled a positive coronavirus test in their camp last month.
  • "In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate," Fauci told CNN.
  • It was not immediately clear whether the president could directly fire Fauci, who is a career civil servant.
Javier E

Liberals might have gotten a taste of what makes Trump so popular - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • moderates had been trying to hold on to a studied neutrality, the arguments for which are twofold: First, in a complicated world, final judgment should be left as an exercise for the reader.
  • the audience for overt, left-wing activism is much smaller than the audience for mainstream fare with a distinct blue tinge. Abandoning any attempt at objectivity would diminish the work’s reach
  • as writer Jon Schwarz once noted in his “iron law of institutions,” people often care more about maximizing their power within their institutions than about maximizing the power of the institution
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  • A corollary of the iron law is that institutions will tend to be controlled by the folks most focused on maximizing internal rather than external power — and already this month, progressives have scored several major victories
  • My former boss, James Bennet, resigned as a top editor at the New York Times over an op-ed he oversaw from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) expressing an opinion that at least one poll suggested was shared by many and possibly most voters. A University of California at Los Angeles sociology professor was investigated for reading Martin Luther King Jr. aloud without bowdlerizing the n-word, and a political consultant no longer has a job after tweet-linking a paper — authored by a black professor — suggesting that violent protest may be politically counterproductive.
  • A few weeks ago, these were not firing offenses. Overnight, firing became necessary for the same reason that academia, the media and Hollywood have been offering more and more overtly political content recently: as a counterweight to the outrages of a Trumpish right..
  • Why, though, does fighting Trump necessitate destroying the moderate wing of your own side?
  • Our cause is under existential threat, and we cannot compromise with evil, so if you are not with us, you are against us.
  • conservatives saw tech employees being fired for opposing gay marriage, bakeries shut down by civil rights commissions, and their own employers “inviting” them to publicly declare themselves allies of various social justice causes, removing even the option of keeping tactfully quiet on the job.
  • they demanded to know what all that power was for, if not to protect them from this sort of thing.
  • Thus, instead of a moderate conservative who would defer to liberal sensibilities on touchy issues such as immigration, they chose a champion whose superpowers were reflexive belligerence and utter indifference to social mores.
  • The civil war that ensued saw Schwarz’s iron law working in both directions: Both the #NeverTrumpers and the Trumpists were willing to lose the election before they’d allow the other side to run the party.
  • It seems likely that the iron law will remain in force, because the purer your own side gets, the more terrifyingly alien are the people who remain outside your carefully constructed defensive perimeter
Javier E

Cancel Culture and the Problem of Woke Capitalism - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • the best way to see the firings, outings, and online denunciations grouped together as “cancel culture,” is not through a social lens, but an economic one.
  • Progressive values are now a powerful branding tool.
  • But that is, by and large, all they are. And that leads to what I call the “iron law of woke capitalism”: Brands will gravitate toward low-cost, high-noise signals as a substitute for genuine reform, to ensure their survival.
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  • Those with power inside institutions love splashy progressive gestures—solemn, monochrome social media posts deploring racism; appointing their first woman to the board; firing low-level employees who attract online fury—because they help preserve their power. Those at the top—who are disproportionately white, male, wealthy and highly educated—are not being asked to give up anything themselves.
  • It is strange that “cancel culture” has become a project of the left, which spent the 20th century fighting against capricious firings of “troublesome” employees. A lack of due process does not become a moral good just because you sometimes agree with its targets
  • We all, I hope, want to see sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination decrease.
  • Activists regularly challenge criticisms of “cancel culture” by saying: “Come on, we’re just some people with Twitter accounts, up against governments and corporate behemoths.”
  • In the United States, diversity training is worth $8 billion a year, according to Iris Bohnet, a public-policy professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School. And yet, after studying programs in both the U.S. and post-conflict countries such as Rwanda, she concluded, “sadly enough, I did not find a single study that found that diversity training in fact leads to more diversity.
  • we should be aware of the economic incentives here, particularly given the speed of social media, which can send a video viral, and see onlookers demand a response, before the basic facts have been established.
  • “Implicit-bias tests” are controversial, and the claim that they can predict real-world behavior, never mind reduce bias, is shaky. A large-scale analysis of research in the sector found that “changes in implicit measures are possible, but those changes do not necessarily translate into changes in explicit measures or behavior.”
  • Diversity training offers the minimum possible disruption to your power structures: Don’t change the board; just get your existing employees to sit through a seminar.
  • the training programs are typically no more scientifically grounded than previous management-course favorites, such as Myers-Briggs personality classifications
  • But when you look at the economic incentives, almost always, the capitalist imperative is to yield to activist pressure. Just a bit. Enough to get them off your back
  • Real institutional change is hard; like politics, it is the “slow boring of hard boards.” Persuading a company to toss someone overboard for PR points risks a victory that is no victory at all. The pitchforks go down, but the corporate culture remains the same. The survivors sigh in relief. The institution goes on.
  • If you care about progressive causes, then woke capitalism is not your friend. It is actively impeding the cause, siphoning off energy, and deluding us into thinking that change is happening faster and deeper than it really is
  • When people talk about the “excesses of the left”—a phenomenon that blights the electoral prospects of progressive parties by alienating swing voters—in many cases they’re talking about the jumpy overreactions of corporations that aren’t left-wing at all.
  • Remember the iron law of woke institutions: For those looking to preserve their power, it makes sense to do the minimum amount of social radicalism necessary to survive … and no economic radicalism at all. The latter is where activists need to apply their pressure.
saberal

Trump Administration Rejects California's Request for Wildfire Relief - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The Trump administration has rejected California’s request for disaster relief aid for six recent fires that have scorched more than 1.8 million acres in land, destroyed thousands of structures and caused at least three deaths, a state official said.
  • The state plans to appeal the decision, Mr. Ferguson said, adding that the state believes it has a “strong case that California’s request meets the federal requirements for approval.”
  • Infrastructure damage estimates from the fires had exceeded $229 million,
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  • While the state did not include a specific dollar amount in its request, Mr. Newsom wrote that because of a recession induced by the pandemic, California went from a projected $5.6 billion budget surplus to a $54.3 billion projected deficit. “California’s economy is suffering in a way we have not seen since the 2009 Great Recession,” he said.
  • California has been smacked in the face from climate change, one scientist said.
  • Over the past 50 years, excluding the last four, wildfires averaged about the same in direct damages: a billion dollars per year, adjusted for inflation.But in three of the past four years, including this one, fires are on track to cause damages in excess of $10 billion.
Javier E

Opinion | California, We Can't Go On Like This - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Such has been the gagging unwinnability of life in the nation’s most populous state in the sweltering summer of 2020, in what I have been assured is the greatest country ever to have existed. The virus begs you to open a window; the inferno forces you to keep it shut.
  • What is California’s fundamental trouble? Neither socialism nor Trumpian neglect and incompetence, but something more elemental to life in the Golden State: A refusal by many Californians to live sustainably and inclusively, to give up a little bit of their own convenience for the collective good.
  • Californian suburbia, the ideal of much of American suburbia, was built and sold on the promise of endless excess — everyone gets a car, a job, a single-family home and enough water and gasoline and electricity to light up the party.
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  • But it is long past obvious that infinitude was a false promise. Traffic, sprawl, homelessness and ballooning housing costs are all consequences of our profligacy with the land and our other resources.
  • In addition to a hotter, drier climate, the fires, too, are fanned by an unsustainable way of life. Many blazes were worsened by Californians moving into areas near forests known as the “urban-wildland interface.” Once people move near forested land, fires tend to follow — either because they deliberately or inadvertently ignite them, or because they need electricity, delivered by electrical wires that can cause sparks that turn into conflagrations.
  • In many ways the 2020 election is shaping up to be a fight over the soul of the suburbs — their role in America’s future, and who they are for.
  • At the Republican convention this week, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who brandished guns at protesters in St. Louis, asserted that liberals want to “abolish the suburbs” by ending single-family home zoning.
  • The liberals who live in California’s suburbs may not identify with the McCloskeys, but their ugly spectacle has helped unmask NIMBYism, one of California’s most reckless ideologies, for the racist vision it has long been.
  • Neither Biden nor his party nor just about anyone else in national or state politics has been willing to honestly discuss the incalculable damage that California-style suburban life has wreaked on our world. In California, if anything is going to ruin the suburbs, it is more likely to be a wildfire than a new president.
brookegoodman

DC protests: Mayor urges 'calm' after protests erupted near the White House for second consecutive night - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • (CNN)DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday that protesters have the right to exercise the First Amendment but should not "destroy our city" after the nation's capital experienced its second consecutive night of protests as well as some looting Saturday night.
  • The DC Fire Department extinguished two vehicle fires in the area north of the White House Saturday night, as well as several small fires in the downtown area. Some protesters also put up graffiti on some buildings.
  • More than 60 US Secret Service personnel were injured from Friday night through Sunday morning near the White House, according to a statement from the Secret Service.
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  • On Saturday, Trump wrongly accused Bowser in a tweet of not allowing the DC Metropolitan Police Department to help the Secret Service keep control of the situation with protesters in Lafayette Square on Friday night. That claim was later refuted by the US Secret Service who confirmed in a statement that the DC police department and US Park police were on the scene.
  • In a press conference Saturday, Bowser noted how Trump's reference to the "ominous dogs" was "no subtle reminder" of segregationists who would attack African Americans with dogs.
  • Some protesters continued to gather in downtown Washington, DC, at Lafayette Square, which is across from the White House, into Saturday evening, but additional protesters were not being allowed in by police.
  • White House executive office staff received an email urging them to stay away from the White House complex, if possible, due to "ongoing demonstrations."
hannahcarter11

Christopher Krebs: Correcting Trump's Fraud Claims The 'Right Thing To Do' : NPR - 0 views

  • Christopher Krebs, who led the federal government's efforts to secure the 2020 election, was fired by President Trump last month for saying the election went smoothly and with no signs of cheating or interference.
  • Krebs told NPR he has no regrets.
  • Krebs, a self-described "lifelong Republican," has become something of a symbol for government officials who see their work as nonpartisan even as politicians try to paint them otherwise.
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  • Krebs led an effort to improve communication between state and local election jurisdictions about threat activity and election security best practices.
  • "This was a secure election," Krebs said. "That is a success story. That is something everyone in the administration should be proud of. That's the story I feel we should be telling now."
  • Instead, Krebs' former agency has spent much of the past few weeks batting down baseless claims by the president and his legal team about the security of the vote.
  • CISA launched a website dubbed Rumor Control, aimed at debunking election disinformation spreading on social media.
  • "We certainly saw throughout that a number of people associated with the campaign, were pushing certain narratives that we fundamentally knew to be false," Krebs said, while listing a number of claims about which Trump himself has tweeted. "We knew that it was important to get this information out there."
  • Going forward, Krebs said he is most worried about how misinformation about elections has "seeped into the mainstream" and what that will mean for people's confidence in results.
  • One of the easiest ways government can improve people's opinions of voting, he added, is to invest more resources and money into election administration.
carolinehayter

Trump team looks to box in Biden on foreign policy by lighting too many 'fires' to put out - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • President Donald Trump's order of a further withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq is the latest foreign policy move on a growing list in his final weeks in office that are meant to limit President-elect Joe Biden's options before he takes office in January.
  • cyber and irregular warfare, with a focus on China
  • It is contemplating new terrorist designations in Yemen that could complicate efforts to broker peace.
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  • it has rushed through authorization of a massive arms sale that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East.
  • The Trump team has prepared legally required transition memos describing policy challenges, but there are no discussions about actions they could take or pause.
  • The Trump team's refusal to work with the incoming team stands in stark contrast with the conduct of previous administrations during transitions.
  • It's a strategy that radically breaks with past practice, could raise national security risks and will surely compound challenges for the Biden team
  • that the difference between Trump and Biden isn't a matter of the end goal, such as a departure from Afghanistan or a nuclear-free Iran, but simply a matter of how each leader wants to get there.
  • Other analysts say that damaging Biden's options might come second to a more important goal for Trump, who has floated the idea of running again in 2024.
  • A second official tells CNN their goal is to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.
  • the US will withdraw 2,500 more troops from both Afghanistan and Iraq by January 15, 2021, five days before Biden takes office.There are currently about 4,500 US troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq.
  • "The price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high. Afghanistan risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq,"
  • "We're not going to see in two months a total withdrawal from Afghanistan ... so some of this is just symbolism. ... Joe Biden can come into the White House in 2021 and put those troops back in."
  • China hawks in the Trump administration believe there are actions they can take now that will box Biden in, one administration official said. Steps include sanctions and trade restrictions on Chinese companies and government entities that officials believe will be politically impossible for the President-elect to undo. Axios first reported these moves.
  • Now the White House is building a wall of sanctions meant to prevent that from happening, creating new penalties linked to Iran's human rights abuses, its support for organizations such as Hezbollah and its ballistic missile program -- activities Iran is unlikely to stop.
  • Trump has floated the idea of a military strike on Iran but was dissuaded, according to The New York Times.
  • More visible are the administration's efforts to stymie Biden's pledge to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump rejected in 2018.
  • For Tehran, a central condition of rejoining the nuclear pact would be to benefit from the economic relief the deal promised but didn't deliver because of Trump's maximum pressure campaign.
  • They argue that in contrast, Biden's approach will be effective because he will work with partners to create what China fears most: an international united front against Beijing. That's something Biden allies say Trump has been unable to do. If Trump levies extra sanctions, the penalties will simply provide Biden with additional leverage, they say.
  • The web of new measures "will make it more difficult for Joe Biden to lift these sanctions and persuade companies and banks to return to Iran, especially when any sanctions lifted by Biden could be restored by a Republican president in 2025,"
  • under Trump, Iran has become closer to, not farther from, being able to create a nuclear weapon and that many Democrats will feel it is worth the political cost to return to the international deal meant to prevent that.
  • This month, the Trump administration authorized $23 billion in advanced weaponry sales to the United Arab Emirates that could alter the balance of power in the Middle East -- a deal the Biden team has expressed reservations about. The authorization came less than two months after the UAE joined a US-brokered agreement to normalize relations with Israel.
  • Critics worry the move could set off a new arms race in the region.
  • "That was something the UAE very much wanted the Trump administration to do before leaving office, and they did it very quickly and they notified even a much bigger potential package than what had been expected,
  • Trump's top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, is expected this week to pay the first visit by a US secretary of state to an Israeli West Bank settlement, capping an administration approach that has bucked traditional US policy and international consensus.
  • The President-elect is unlikely to change other norm-shattering steps by the Trump administration, including moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Dunne said. "They're just going to leave them," she said. "You're not going to undo everything."
  • For months, Pompeo has been pushing to designate Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels as terrorists despite pushback from State Department and United Nations officials. He may soon be successful, two State Department officials tell CNN, and if so, the move could handicap Biden's ability to develop his own policy in Yemen, because rolling back a terrorist designation is not easy, the officials said.
  • There are also fears that such a designation could impact humanitarian aid deliveries.
carolinehayter

Tyson Foods Fires 7 Plant Managers Over Betting Ring On Workers Getting COVID-19 : Coronavirus Updates : NPR - 0 views

  • Tyson Foods has fired seven managers at an Iowa pork plant after investigating allegations they bet on how many workers there would get sick from the coronavirus.
  • "The behaviors exhibited by these individuals do not represent the Tyson core values, which is why we took immediate and appropriate action to get to the truth," Tyson Foods President and CEO Dean Banks said in a statement Wednesday. "Now that the investigation has concluded, we are taking action based on the findings."
  • More than 1,000 employees at the plant in Waterloo have been infected by the virus, and at least six have died.
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  • Many of the plant's 2,800 employees are immigrants and refugees.
  • Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson visited the plant along with health officials in April. He told The New York Times that working conditions there — workers crowded elbow to elbow, not wearing face coverings — "shook me to the core."
  • It was around this time, according to a complaint from the family of one employee who died, that the manager of the Waterloo facility organized a "cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19."
  • Tyson had employees move between a different Iowa plant where an outbreak was occurring and the Waterloo plant, and did not adequately test or quarantine them before they entered the Waterloo facility.
  • The lawsuit also alleges that supervisors outwardly denied there were cases of the virus at the Waterloo plant but began avoiding the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus.
  • The complaint says Tyson offered $500 "thank you bonuses" to employees who showed up for every scheduled shift for three months — a policy that the plaintiffs argue incentivized sick workers to keep working.
  • "We're saddened by the loss of any Tyson team member and sympathize with their families. Our top priority is the health and safety of our workers, and we've implemented a host of protective measures at our facilities that meet or exceed CDC and OSHA guidance for preventing COVID-19," Mickelson said, pointing to investments the company has made in testing, temperature scanners, workspace dividers and other safety measures.
  • Tyson eventually announced on April 22 it would suspend operations at the plant. It reopened two weeks later.
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