Ex-U.S. intel operatives admit hacking American networks for UAE

By Joel Schectman and Christopher Bing

2021/9/15 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Three former U.S. intelligence operatives who worked as cyber spies for the United Arab Emirates admitted to violating U.S. hacking laws and prohibitions on selling sensitive military technology, under a deal to avoid prosecution announced on Tuesday.

The operatives - Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke - were part of a clandestine unit named Project Raven, first reported https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spying-raven

 by Reuters, that helped the UAE spy on its enemies.

At the behest of the UAE’s monarchy, the Project Raven team hacked into the accounts of human rights activists, journalists and rival governments, Reuters reported.

The three men admitted to hacking into computer networks in the United States and exporting sophisticated cyber intrusions tools without gaining required permission from the U.S. government, according to court papers released in U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

The operatives and their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

The UAE embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As part of the deal with federal authorities to avoid prosecution, the three former intelligence officials agreed to pay a combined $1.69 million and never again seek a U.S. security clearance, a requirement for jobs that entail access to national security secrets.

“Hackers-for-hire and those who otherwise support such activities in violation of U.S. law should fully expect to be prosecuted for their criminal conduct,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Lesko for the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement.

Revelations of Project Raven in 2019 by Reuters highlighted the growing practice of former intelligence operatives selling their spycraft overseas with little oversight or accountability.

“This is a clear message to anybody, including former U.S. government employees, who had considered using cyberspace to leverage export-controlled information for the benefit of a foreign government or a foreign commercial company,” Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran of the FBI’s Cyber Division said in a statement. “There is risk, and there will be consequences.”

Lori Stroud, a former U.S. National Security Agency analyst who worked on Project Raven and then acted as a whistleblower 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spying-raven

said she was pleased to see the charges.

“The most significant catalyst to bringing this issue to light was investigative journalism - the timely, technical information reported created the awareness and momentum to ensure justice," she said.

The Reuters investigation found that Project Raven spied on numerous human rights activists

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spying-karma

 some of whom were later tortured by UAE security forces.

Former program operatives said they believed they were following the law because superiors promised them the U.S. government had approved the work.

Baier, Adams and Gericke admitted to deploying a sophisticated cyberweapon called “Karma” that allowed the UAE to hack into Apple iPhones without requiring a target to click on malicious links, according to court papers.

Karma allowed users to access tens of millions of devices and qualified as an intelligence gathering system under federal export control rules. But the operatives did not obtain the required U.S. government permission to sell the tool to the UAE, authorities said.

Project Raven used Karma 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spying-karma

 to hack into thousands of targets including a Nobel Prize-winning Yemeni human rights activist and a BBC television show host, Reuters reported.

(Reporting by Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman; Editing by Kieran Murray and Stephen Coates)

Why should we trust GOP leaders and voters who reliably demonstrate their lawlessness?

John Stoehr
September 14, 2021

Florida governor Ron DeSantis. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

They say they'll quit en masse. They won't. They say they won't do what they're told. They will. They will do what they're told, then lie about it.

The day after the president issued a vaccine mandate last week that affects about 100 million workers, CNBC released a poll showing that of a minority of Americans still holding us back from reaching herd immunity, 83 percent said nothing would change their minds. A few days prior to that, the Post released a poll showing 72 percent would quit their jobs if mandates did not provide a "religious" exemption. This morning, a local TV station reported that Republican Governor Ron DeSantis would lead an anti-vaccine rally in rural Florida. All of this has the press corps wondering what Joe Biden is going to do.

Before they ask that question, however, they should be asking themselves another: Why believe anything these people say? They have decided what they will do and what they won't do, and they have rationalized their way toward that already determined conclusion using a grotesque process of intellectual dishonesty that's aided and abetted by grifters and corrupt political leaders. And then there's the anti-vaxxers who have decided against taking a free, safe and effective vaccine in favor of spending their hard-earned money on ivermectin, which might be safe and might be effective, but almost certainly is not, as Lindsay Beyerstein has said. Why are we trusting people who lie to themselves? Why are we trusting people who inject sheep drench?

Convictions are built on rock. Beliefs are built on sand. By ordering a federal vaccine mandate, the president is calling their bluff.

Remember the difference between belief and conviction. Beliefs are cheap and easy. Convictions are hard and expensive. If people who eat horse paste genuinely believed eating horse paste would save them from "tyranny," then the president might really have a problem on his hands, one of his own making. But then again, these people are willingly and freely eating horse paste! It's not out of some sense of conviction, but because someone lied to them, and it felt super-duper good to believe that lie. And since "everyone" is doing it, why not do it, too? Convictions are built on rock. Beliefs are built on sand. By ordering a vaccine mandate, the president is calling their bluff.

It is a bluff, make no mistake. Here's how you'll know for sure. We are going to see two things that should not co-exist, but totally co-exist, because honesty plays a minimal role in these people's lives. Those two things are 1) polls showing resistance to vaccine mandates and 2) corporate reports showing compliance with vaccine mandates -- at the same time. The polls will be of workers. The reports will come from their employers. One of these should cancel the other, but won't.

Remember some of these people are injecting sheep drench. It should not be difficult to imagine an anti-vaccine employee of Disney, say, getting the shot in the morning, because his boss said so, then attend an anti-vaccine rally led by the Republican governor that evening. You might be thinking: You can't do both! You would be absolutely correct -- if we were talking about honest people. But we are already seeing this pattern play out. They say they'll quit en masse. They won't. They say they won't do what they're told. They will. They will do what they're told, then lie about having done what they're told.

 Cheap and easy!

It should be clear to the respectable white people who will determine the results of the coming midterms that they can't trust people who will do what they're told and then lie about it. What they can trust is a president laying down the law. (More on that in a minute.) Grifters, strategists and the most corrupt Republicans are making resistance to vaccine mandates seem noble. They are trying to cast themselves as freedom fighters! They are trying, in other words, to revive the old tea party. While the methods are the same -- billionaires funneling cash to astro-turf operatives -- the spirit is different. The tea party had credibility among respectable white people. Anti-vaxxers do not.

What isn't clear to respectable white people is that there is an honest minority inside the dishonest minority. Both are holding us back from reaching herd immunity, but only one threatens violence. This minority of the minority? True Believers who will quit their jobs in the belief that comrades will be by their sides. These are the people who will feel betrayed on discovering their comrades not only didn't quit but act like they didn't do what they're told. While their comrades are fine with getting the vaccine in the morning before attending an anti-vaccine rally in the evening, this honest minority can't tolerate so much bullshit. They will come to see the bullshit as something that prevents "a hero" from doing what "no one has the guts to do."

If and when the violence comes, it will be tempting to blame Joe Biden. But mandates are no more of a source of violence than regular law and order is. The president is laying down the law for a sizable minority that is fundamentally lawless. (For instance, DeSantis warned Florida businesses this morning that his administration will fine them $5,000 per instance if they comply with federal law.) More importantly, the president is laying down the law to instill public trust. It's for the benefit of law-abiding Americans who have honored their obligations. I hope respectable white people remember two Novembers from now.

John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative; a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet. Follow him @johnastoehr.

The Supreme Court's right-wing Catholics are destroying true religious freedom

Phil Zuckerman And Andrew L. Seidel, Salon
September 14, 2021

Judge Amy Coney Barrett (Screen Grab)

"The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion."

What forthright American declared such words? Bill Maher? Christopher Hitchens? Emma Goldman? No. They come from the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated under George Washington, approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams in 1797.

This early declaration — along with the First Amendment, which Thomas Jefferson solemnly revered "as building a wall of separation between church and state" — illustrates the unprecedented experiment our founders sought to test: a secular republic ruled by democratic laws, not sectarian faith; a nation whose government based its authority upon "we, the people" and not commandments handed down by distant gods. It is a brilliant endowment, given that in a pluralistic democracy such as ours, with people of many faiths and no faiths at all, we purposefully govern ourselves via secular legislation, not religious decrees.

But today, this bold pillar of American democracy is rotting fast. It is under attack by theocrats, especially those who sit on our Supreme Court. Their recent ruling making it nearly illegal for a woman to get an abortion in Texas is the latest terrifying case in point.

The problem is not religion, or even Catholicism. After all, many of our leaders, such as President Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, are themselves Roman Catholics, and they all affirm reproductive choice as a constitutional right. In fact, 56% of Catholics in the United States support this right. Heck, Mexico — a nation of more than 130 million people, over 80% of them Catholic — just legalized abortion last week. And Mexico is only the latest in a long line of heavily Catholic countries to do so, including Argentina in 2020, Ireland in 2018 and Uruguay in 2012, along with Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Rwanda and others before them.

So again, the problem isn't religion, per se. Rather, it is the kind of religion at play. The kind that a majority of our Supreme Court embraces: a crusading, activist, theocratic religious fundamentalism that prioritizes fealty to a particular conservative interpretation of God's supposed will over the democratically-sustained rights of American citizens. It's the lethal mix of religion and politics that our founders sought to restrain. It's Christian nationalism.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a staunch Catholic and a regular lector at his church, opposed the Affordable Care Act because it included a mandate on the provision of birth control. Justice Samuel Alito is a man of strong faith and darling of the Federalist Society, who has consistently ruled in favor of the religious — even supporting their desire to defy data-driven, medically-endorsed, life-saving mandates to thwart COVID-19. Justice Clarence Thomas always goes to Mass before doing his work at the Supreme Court and declared in a 2018 commencement speech at Christendom College, "I am decidedly and unapologetically Catholic."

Thomas might have been the most devout Catholic to ever sit on the bench — at least until Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump foisted Amy Coney Barrett on the country. Barrett has written that Catholic judges must not take any action that conflicts with the dogma of the church. Instead of upholding her secular oath, when such a conflict arises, Barrett has recommended that judges should "conform their own behavior to the [Catholic] Church's standard." When invited to repudiate this statement at her confirmation hearing in 2017, Barrett declined to do so.

Barrett also is (or at least was) also a member of People of Praise, a charismatic Catholic group which teaches that "a married woman is … under her husband's authority … the husband is 'head of the home' or head of the family; he is, in fact, her personal pastoral head. Whatever she does requires at least his tacit approval." Furthermore, People of Praise members take a loyalty oath, which says "We agree to obey the direction of the Holy Spirit manifested in and through these ministries in full harmony with the church." Barrett's opposition to abortion has been public for many years, and she has declared that her "legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God." This wasn't an off-the-cuff remark; it was said at the Notre Dame Law School commencement in 2006. If there is any singular motto of an activist theocrat, surely that is it.

The separation between state and church our founders established guarantees true religious liberty because there is no freedom of religion without a government that is free from religion. And while many religious people — Catholics and others — find deep meaning, solace and inspiration in their faith by exercising that religious freedom in personal ways, they admirably do so without imposing the dictates of that faith onto others. Unfortunately, that is not the kind of faith driving those who now rule on the constitutionality of our laws — even laws that turn citizens into vigilantes, instituting mob rule over the womb.

Our judges certainly have a right to their personal religious faith. But when they impose that faith on all of us, the wall of separation between church and state is truly undermined. Texans' rights to bodily autonomy is but the most recent casualty. With this court, it won't be the last.

Democrats' tax plan would cut bills for most Americans -congressional panel
Reuters
September 15, 2021



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. tax code changes sought by Democrats in the House of Representatives to help finance $3.5 trillion in domestic investments would cut annual tax bills for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year through 2025, a congressional estimate showed on Tuesday.

The bipartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that those in lower-income brackets would pay far less in taxes in 2023 under the Democratic plan, which is being debated this week in the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

At the other end of the income scale, tax collections from those earning over $200,000 would rise slightly in 2023, escalating to a 10.6% increase for people earning $1 million and more, the committee said.

By 2027, however, those earning between $30,000 and $200,000 would start to see slightly higher tax bills, according to the estimate.

Democrats in coming weeks are trying to push the $3.5 trillion bill through Congress to carry out President Joe Biden's agenda of expanding social services for the elderly, children and others and to address climate change.

They have pledged to offset the costs mainly through tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

But Republicans have argued that the Democratic plan will result in higher taxes for middle-class people, as well as the rich.

Amid a wall of Republican opposition, Democrats are maneuvering to win passage on their own through a budget "reconciliation" process that would allow their measure to advance in the 100-member Senate by a simple majority, instead of the 60 normally required.

The Senate is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans.

Republicans argue that the tax proposals and huge new spending over the next decade would fuel rampant inflation, the loss of jobs and an economic contraction.

But the committee's figures do not indicate that middle- and low-income Americans would be hit by the changes, at least in its early years.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

The $3.5 trillion bill corporate America is terrified of

Robert Reich
September 14, 2021

Photo by Ahmer Kalam on Unsplash

Right now, Democrats are working to pass a $3.5 trillion package that will provide long overdue help for working Americans

The final bill hasn't yet been determined, so we don't know the exact dollar amounts for all its policies. We'll probably find that out in late September or early October. For now, the Democrats' budget resolution frames what's in the bill.

First, on families:

The bill would make permanent key benefits for working families, including the expanded child tax credit in the pandemic relief plan that sends families up to $300 per child each month but is now set to expire in December, and is estimated to cut child poverty by half.



It would also establish universal child care, for which low- and middle-income households would pay no more than 7 percent of their incomes.

And provide a national program of paid leave — worth up to $4,000 a month — for workers who take time off because they are ill or caring for a relative.

The $3.5T Bill Corporate America Is Terrified Of | Robert Reich www.youtube.com


Next, on education:

The bill would reduce educational inequality by establishing universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, benefiting an estimated 5 million children, and providing tuition-free community college – essentially expanding free public education from 12 years to 16 years.

It will also invest in historically Black colleges and universities and increase the maximum amount of Pell grants for students from lower-income families.
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On health care:

The bill expands Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits and lowers the eligibility age. It also expands Medicaid to cover people living in the 12 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid, and makes critical investments to improve healthcare for people of color.

The big question is how far it will go to reduce prescription drug prices by, for example, allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. That could reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, and free up more money for other parts of the bill. But Big Pharma is dead-set against this.
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Big corporations and the rich picking up the tab:

In another step toward fairness, all of these are to be financed by higher taxes on the rich and big corporations.

The bill would also increase the Internal Revenue Service's funding so the agency can properly audit wealthy tax cheats, who fail to report about a fifth of their income every year, thereby costing the government $105 billion annually.

In addition, the bill tackles the climate crisis, which also especially burdens lower-income Americans:

There are a range of solutions – subsidizing the use of solar, wind, nuclear and other forms of clean energy while financially penalizing the use of dirty energy like coal; helping families pay for electric cars and energy-efficient homes.

The bill might include something known as a carbon border adjustment tax — a tax on imports whose production was carbon-intensive, like many from China.

The bill would also establish a Civilian Climate Corps, and invest in communities that bear the brunt of the climate crisis.

And the bill helps American workers:

It will hopefully contain much of the PRO Act, the toughest labor law reform in a generation.

Finally, the bill includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
This is all about making America fairer.

Remember: we won't know the exact details of the bill for at least a month, but these are the main areas that it will focus on. The big challenge will be ensuring Senate Democrats remain united to get it passed. All of us will need to fight like hell.

Don't listen to spending hawks who claim it's too expensive or too radical. For far too long, our government has ignored the needs of everyday Americans, catering instead to the demands of corporations and the super-rich. No more.

It's time to get this landmark bill passed and build a fairer America.

Canada's 'Mad Max' stokes anti-vax rage - and could help Trudeau

2021/9/14
©Reuters


By Rod Nickel and Steve Scherer

WINNIPEG, Manitoba/CANDIAC, Quebec (Reuters) - Maxime Bernier, a former cabinet minister nicknamed "Mad Max", is channelling anger against mandatory vaccines into surprising support for his populist People's Party of Canada (PPC) in the country's tight election race.

His efforts may end up helping the man he calls a "fascist psychopath": Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Bernier, 58, who quit the main opposition Conservatives in 2018 after losing a leadership race, was previously most famous for leaving classified documents in a former girlfriend's apartment, leading to his resignation as foreign minister in 2008.

Now, amid fatigue over successive coronavirus lockdowns and simmering anger over mandatory masking and vaccine rules, his right-wing party is rising in polls.

The PPC, which Bernier founded, has 9% support nationally, according to an EKOS poll, up from 1.6% in the 2019 election. That is higher than the Green Party though well below Trudeau's Liberals and the Conservatives, who are hovering around 30%.

But PPC support may draw votes away from the Conservatives in close district races, helping the Liberals eke out a win.Poll tracker https://graphics.reuters.com/CANADA-ELECTION/POLL/zgvommlbqvd Graphics https://graphics.reuters.com/CANADA-ELECTION/zjvqkjkomvx/index.html

Bernier's rallies have swelled as provinces began requiring proof of COVID-19 inoculation for activities like dining in restaurants or sporting events. Trudeau plans to make vaccinations mandatory for domestic air and train travel, and for government workers.

The PPC supports repealing vaccine mandates and passports, saying the issue is about freedom of choice.

Bernier's support has also grown as his speeches echoed former U.S. President Donald Trump's charged rhetoric.

On Sept. 5, he told a British Columbia rally that "when tyranny becomes law, revolution becomes our duty."

PPC supporters have heckled and shouted profanities at Trudeau's campaign stops, forcing the Liberals to cancel one event last month due to safety concerns. The PPC expelled a local official on Thursday over allegations he threw gravel at Trudeau.

"They're responsible for their own actions," Bernier told Reuters, referring to the protestors that turn up to Trudeau campaign events.

"We need to have an ideological revolution ... I'm not asking anyone to be violent. I'm asking people to stand up and speak out."

Bernier, who is from the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, was himself hit with an egg in Saskatchewan on Sept. 2.

At a Trudeau stop in Candiac, Quebec on Sunday, a lone protester with a purple PPC sign tucked under his arm thrust his middle finger in the air as the prime minister spoke.

"Bernier is the only politician advocating for the end of lockdowns, the end of masking, the end of mandatory vaccination," said the man, who said his name was Marcus but declined to give his last name. "That's all I care about."

The PPC holds no parliamentary seats and Bernier himself lost his seat in 2019.

Even a few hundred PPC votes could influence the outcomes of at least half a dozen parliamentary constituency races to the detriment of the Conservatives, said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at University of Manitoba, adding that he does not expect the PPC to win any constituencies https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/parties-focus-key-battlegrounds-tight-canadian-election-2021-09-07.

Bernier denies that he is snatching support mainly from the Conservatives. The platforms of Trudeau and Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole are so similar, it makes little difference which one wins, he said.

"They're the same. I call them the Lib-Con party, with one leader, Justin O'Toole."

Bernier said his goal is to win 4% of the popular vote, pointing out that organizers did not allow him to participate in nationally televised leaders debates.

Canada has rarely seen Bernier's combination of inflamed rhetoric and substantial support in a politician. Trump's term in the White House created a "cultural spillover" to Canada that emboldened those who have flocked to the PPC, Thomas said.

Bernier’s famous "Mad Max" nickname - after the Mel Gibson movie character - dates back to his losing effort for the Conservative leadership. In a Facebook post with his head photoshopped onto Gibson’s body, Bernier listed things he was "mad about" including government waste and "politics as usual."

In June, Manitoba police arrested Bernier for violating public health orders, including refusing to self-isolate upon entering the province.

"He's now taken on a kind of martyr complex and he's almost daring people to arrest him," Thomas said. "That's what he desperately wants."

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Steve Scherer in Candiac, Quebec; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Trump's unique brand of American fascism is still haunting us

Bill Blum,

 Independent Media Institute
September 14, 2021

WILKES-BARRE, PA - AUGUST 2, 2018:

Donald Trump, President of the United States pauses in concentration while delivering a speech at a campaign rally held at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

Donald Trump was no ordinary conservative American president. Far from it.

But how should we describe his presidency and the Make America Great Again political movement he spawned? Is it sufficient to refer to Trump and his MAGA supporters as anti-democratic or authoritarian, as many in the liberal mainstream press have written for the past five years?

I don't think so.

I believe that is a wholly inadequate and ultimately self-defeating response. We cannot afford to label Trump as just another demagogue or to refer to the MAGA movement as just another rightwing populist upsurge if we hope to preserve American democracy.

It's past time to call Trump and his movement what they are: fascist.

Trump was the first American fascist president. And he remains a fascist to this day.

I was among the first opinion writers to expose the unique dangers Trump posed to democracy and the rule of law. I was among the first to refer to him explicitly as a fascist. I was also among the first commentators to report on the views of leading mental health-experts who described Trump as a malignant narcissist.
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I sounded these warnings in opinion columns, beginning in 2015, published by such outlets as Truthdig, The Progressive Magazine, AlterNet, Raw Story, Salon, The National Memo, Bill Moyers.com, and many others.

What is Fascism?

Any rational discussion has to begin with a definition, and when it comes to fascism, there are many to examine.

Although it is an emotionally loaded and often misused term, fascism is as real today as a political and cultural force, a set of core beliefs and a mode of governance as it was when Benito Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 and declared himself dictator six years later.

As the celebrated Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1935, fascism "is a historic phase of capitalism … the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive and most treacherous form of capitalism." Trumpism, along with its international analogs in Brazil, India and Western Europe, neatly accords with Brecht's description.

Another instructive definition is the one proffered by political scientist Robert Paxton in his classic study " The Anatomy of Fascism" (Harvard University Press, 2004):

"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism.

A cult of traditionalism.
A rejection of modernism (cultural, rather than technological).
A cult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
A framing of disagreement or opposition as treasonous.
A fear of difference. … Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class—either due to economic or political pressures from both above and below.
An obsession with the plots and machinations of the movement's identified enemies.
A requirement that said enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak, conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism. Life is permanent warfare.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity.
A selective populism, relying on chauvinist definitions of "the people" that it claims to speak for.
A heavy usage of Newspeak—impoverished vocabulary, elementary syntax and a resistance to complex and critical reasoning.

Nor is fascism a foreign phenomenon restricted to South American banana republics or failed European states. As University of London professor Sarah Churchwell explained in a June 22, 2020 essay published in the New York Review of Books, fascism has deep roots in the United States, spanning the decades from the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to the rise of the German-American Bund in the 1930s, the ascendance of Depression-era demagogues like Huey Long, and the election of Trump in 2016.

Churchwell's article is aptly titled, "American Fascism: It Has Happened Here." In it, she offers a working definition of fascism, noting that fascist movements, both past and present in America and abroad, are united by "conspicuous features [that] are recognizably shared." These include:

"[N]ostalgia for a purer, mythic, often rural past; cults of tradition and cultural regeneration; paramilitary groups; the delegitimizing of political opponents and demonization of critics; the universalizing of some groups as authentically national, while dehumanizing all other groups; hostility to intellectualism and attacks on a free press; anti-modernism; fetishized patriarchal masculinity; and a distressed sense of victimhood and collective grievance. Fascist mythologies often incorporate a notion of cleansing, an exclusionary defense against racial or cultural contamination, and related eugenicist preferences for certain 'bloodlines' over others."

Trump's Unique Brand of American Fascism

Looking back on the anti-immigrant rhetoric and scapegoating Trump used in the 2016 presidential campaign, we can see these features at work. We can also see them in his desperate efforts to retain power after losing the 2020 presidential election, in the January 6 insurrection and in his continued adherence to the "big lie" of the stolen election. These are only some of the most obvious signposts of a new American form of fascism.

The good news is that more and more influential voices have come to realize and recognize Trump as a fascist.

In a January 2021 Newsweek article, Professor Paxton wrote:

"I resisted for a long time applying the fascist label to Donald J. Trump. He did indeed display some telltale signs. In 2016, a newsreel clip of Trump's plane taxiing up to a hangar where cheering supporters awaited reminded me eerily of Adolf Hitler's electoral campaign in Germany in July 1932, the first airborne campaign in history, where the arrival of the Führer's plane electrified the crowd. Once the rally began, with Hitler and Mussolini, Trump mastered the art of back-and-forth exchanges with his enraptured listeners. There was the threat of physical violence ("lock her up!"), sometimes leading to the forceful ejection of hecklers. The Proud Boys stood in convincingly for Hitler's Storm Troopers and Mussolini's squadristi. The MAGA hats even provided a bit of uniform. The America First" message and the leader's arrogant swagger fit the fascist model….

"Trump's incitement of the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 removes my objection to the fascist label. His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary."

In a July 2021 article in The Atlantic, David Frum, a longtime Republican and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, put it this way:

"Trump's no Hitler, obviously. But they share some ways of thinking. The past never repeats itself. But it offers warnings. It's time to start using the F-word again, not to defame—but to diagnose."

Psychologist Mary Trump, the disgraced ex-president's niece, unabashedly uses the fascist label to describe her uncle, referring him as such in a September 2021 interview with Business Insider:

"He is a fascist. But he probably doesn't know what fascist means.

"He thinks he deserves all the power in the world just because of who he is. In his mind, he's always at the center of the universe and thinks he should be deferred to even though he's ignorant, the weakest, and the least intellectually curious person I've ever met."

It's time for more of us to recognize, denounce and reject Trump and his most ardent and violent MAGA acolytes for what they: a fascist plague that threatens everything we hold near and dear.

World’s longest cave just got even longer after discovery at Kentucky national park


Chacour Koop

Mon, September 13, 2021

The longest cave in the world just got even longer — at least officially speaking.

Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky said researchers found another 8 miles of passages while mapping the immense underground geological marvel. The new discovery by the Cave Research Foundation brings the total length to 420 miles, officials said.

“When it comes to discoveries in Mammoth Cave, there truly is no end in sight!” the park posted on Facebook.

According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the park estimates up to 600 miles of cave remain undiscovered. Plus, more than 200 miles of disconnected parts of the main cave system exist in the park.

Steven Bishop, an enslaved Black man, was a guide and among the first in modern history to map the cave in the 1840s, discovering new passageways in the “dark labyrinth,” according to the park.

The cave system continues to grow in official size as explorers from the Cave Research Foundation visit for mapping.

Mammoth Cave National Park is about 130 miles southwest of Lexington.

How Delta Air Lines mandated employee vaccinations without losing workers

REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE/FILE PHOTO

A Delta Airlines passenger jet approaches to land at LAX during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 7, 2021.

By Courtney Vinopal
Breaking news reporter
Published September 14, 2021

US president Joe Biden’s Sept. 9 order directing companies with more than 100 workers to require Covid-19 vaccinations or weekly testing has caused concern among some business owners, who worry workers will quit as a result of the mandate.

But at least one company found a way to boost vaccination without losing employees. Delta Air Lines announced on Aug. 25 it would charge employees for their healthcare plans if they aren’t vaccinated against Covid-19 by November.

“The average hospital stay for Covid-19 has cost Delta $50,000 per person,” CEO Ed Bastian wrote in a memo. “This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company.”
Penalty appears to be working in Delta’s favor

The financial penalty appears to have boosted vaccinations among Delta Air Lines employees who were reluctant to get the jab.

In a media briefing on Sept. 9, the airline’s chief health officer, Henry Ting, announced that 20% of unvaccinated employees received their shots in the two weeks after Delta announced the surcharge, bringing the company’s overall vaccination rate to 78%. Additionally, Ting said that no employees resigned as a result of the new policy.

“We’ve seen no employee turnover, resignations—in fact, we’re seeing 5,000 new hires joining Delta Air Lines in the last two months,” he said, adding that the surcharge was effective in “shifting the group that was most reluctant” to get vaccinated.

Vaccine mandates for employers are tricky. Recent research by the firm Qualtrics showed that 44% of US workers would consider leaving their jobs if their workplaces made vaccination necessary, but the same survey found that 38% of workers would consider leaving if their employer did not institute a vaccine mandate. The early success of Delta’s policy suggests that employers may not see mass resignations as they adopt tighter vaccine protocols.

Will more employers look to surcharges rather than incentives?

Given the success of Delta’s approach, other companies may consider similar policies as they think about how to keep employees and customers safe.

A premium surcharge has been one of the less popular approaches taken by business owners to push their employees to get vaccinated thus far. A recent survey of US employers conducted by Willis Towers Watson found that while 17% of organizations offered financial incentives for workers to get vaccinated, just 2% imposed a surcharge on unvaccinated employees, or offered discounts for vaccinated ones. Cash payments from $100 to $199 were the most common financial incentive among organizations surveyed.

Jeffrey Smith, a partner at the workplace law firm Fisher Phillips, told Quartz he believes more companies are starting to consider surcharges now because most have a calendar-year health plan that kicks off in January. Smith said business leaders may be thinking about ways to reduce or eliminate potential group health plan expenses that could be avoided if more employees were vaccinated—an option that wasn’t on the table at the beginning of last year.

Employers looking to adopt a model similar to Delta may have to navigate complex legal questions surrounding such regulations. Smith noted that federal HIPAA rules bar US employers from discriminating against individuals based upon on a health factor—such as whether an employee can get a vaccine—but there is an exception for certain types of wellness programs.

Smith encouraged employers to consider options with “multiple facets” as they think about how to address both vaccination rates and health plan cost concerns.

“An employer should not use the health plan surcharge solely for the purpose of trying to increase workplace vaccination rates,” Smith said, adding that companies should consider both incentives—whether through health plans or cash payments—as well as education campaigns to convince their workers about the importance of vaccination.

AOC SENDS GOP INTO FAUX OUTRAGE

 Who designed AOC's "tax the rich" dress? 

While House Democrats in Washington debate over a corporate tax hike, New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in her hometown wearing a “tax the rich” dress for her first-ever Met Gala appearance on Sept. 13.

Brooklyn-based Aurora James, founder of the label Brother Vellies and a winner of the 2015 CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund, made the dress. On Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud to work with James, a “sustainably focused, Black woman immigrant designer” who first started selling her garments at a Brooklyn flea market.

Fires shut Sequoia National Park, could threaten huge trees

 

California Wildfires

In this Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021 photo released by the KNP Complex Fire Incident Command, smoke plumes rise from the Paradise Fire in Sequoia National Park, Calif. In the southern Sierra Nevada, two fires ignited by lightning are burning in Sequoia National Park. 

KNP Complex Fire Incident Command via AP

Tue, September 14, 2021

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — Sequoia National Park was shut down and its namesake gigantic trees were potentially threatened Tuesday as two forest fires burned in steep and dangerous terrain in California’s Sierra Nevada.

Both fires were projected to advance in the direction of Giant Forest, home to more than 2,000 giant sequoias including the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree on Earth by volume.

The massive sequoias grow on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. The General Sherman Tree stands 275 feet (83.8 meters) and is over 36 feet (11 meters) in diameter at the base, according to the U.S. National Park Service.

“There’s no imminent threat to Giant Forest but that is a potential,” said Mark Ruggiero, fire information officer for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Ruggiero estimated that the closest flames were about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the grove. Sequoia headquarters personnel, about 75 people, were being evacuated, he said.

The Colony and Paradise fires, named for locations where they started, were ignited by lightning last week and were being battled collectively under the name of the KNP Complex. Their combined sizes grew to more than 4.7 square miles (12 square kilometers).

All park facilities were already closed and wilderness trailhead permits had been canceled. The Silver City retreat and the summer cabins of Cabin Cove were under evacuation orders. Part of the community of Three Rivers outside the park entrance was under an evacuation warning.

Kings Canyon National Park, to the north of Sequoia, remained open.

The potential threat to the giant sequoias came just a year after a disastrous complex of fires in the same region.

Part of the wildfire complex known as the Castle Fire destroyed 10% of the population of sequoias, Ruggiero said.

Sequoias rely on fire for such processes as releasing seeds from cones and making clearings in the forest that allow seedlings to grow. The record of burns in the rings of trees thousands of years old demonstrates their relationship to fire.

But changing climate has intensified forest fires and their impact on sequoias.

“Sequoia trees are a fire-adaptive tree,” Ruggiero said. “It’s important to have fire to have sequoias thrive, but when we get such intense fires even the sequoias can’t stand up to them.”

Giant sequoias are closely related to the towering, slender redwoods that grow along the Northern California coast and have the same relationship with fire.

That interaction was tested last year when a huge fire tore through almost all of Big Basin Redwoods State Park on the coast between San Francisco and Monterey Bay.

A week after the fire, an Associated Press reporter and photographer hiked the renowned Redwood Trail and confirmed that most of the ancient redwoods, about 2,000 years old, had survived. Months later there were signs of new growth.

California has had more than 7,400 wildfires so far this year, scorching more than 3,500 square miles (9,065 square kilometers).

California’s second-largest fire on record, the Dixie Fire, remained 75% contained after burning 1,500 square miles in the northern Sierra and southern Cascades region. Near Lake Tahoe, containment of the 342-square-mile (885-square- kilometer) Caldor Fire increased to 68%.