Trump administration steps in as advocacy groups warn of Covid ‘death panels’
Concern about discrimination is rising as the pandemic swamps more states and tests hospitals and health systems in its path.
Questions about allocating ventilators, staff and other scarce resources were circulating long before the coronavirus pandemic. | David J. Phillip/AP Photo
By SUSANNAH LUTHI
08/10/2020
State policies for rationing health care during the coronavirus pandemic could allow doctors to cut off treatment for some of the sickest patients in hot zones and revive the specter of so-called death panels, say disabled rights groups who are urging the Trump administration to intervene.
The effort has recently gained urgency due to guidelines in Texas and Arizona that let doctors base treatment decisions on factors like a patient’s quality of life if they survive, or the odds they’ll live at least five years. The advocacy groups since March have filed an unprecedented 11 complaints with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights, which has mediated four cases and could add more as Covid-19 continues to spread across most of the country.
The administration's point person is Roger Severino, an anti-abortion conservative who heads the civil rights office and has expressed concern about the way health providers measure disabled patients' odds of survival.
"They've been a real partner since the beginning in immediately responding to these concerns — not just considering but immediately responding and saying, ‘This is our issue too,’" said Shira Wakschlag, director of legal advocacy for The Arc. She said Severino's policies have "sent a message to states across the country."
Questions about allocating ventilators, staff and other scarce resources were circulating long before the pandemic and factored prominently in the debate over Obamacare, when conservatives tried to whip up controversy over the idea of bureaucrats on “death panels” deciding who was worthy of care.
But the issue gained new resonance in June, when an Austin, Texas, hospital halted treatment of a quadriplegic patient who contracted Covid-19 and moved him to hospice care, where he died. ADAPT of Texas filed a complaint to HHS in late July seeking an investigation into the decision-making about the patient, Michael Hickson, which ran counter to his wife's wishes.
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HHS' most sweeping action so far centered on Tennessee's crisis standards of care. The state in late June agreed to update triage plans and clarify that providers consider only a patient's chance of survival, not quality of life or issues strictly related to their disability. The policy — which HHS says applies to patients with conditions like advanced neuromuscular disease, metastatic cancer, traumatic brain injury and dementia — is viewed by advocates as a blueprint for other states.
The groups are now setting their sights on Arizona, one of the nation's Covid-19 hot spots, which issued a triage policy in June that critics say allows doctors to reject critically sick patients if they think they won’t live five years after a successful Covid-19 treatment.
Severino, who's been involved in high-profile efforts to lift protections for LGBTQ patients and back health care entities that refuse to cover abortion services, said in an interview that protecting the disabled from discrimination during the pandemic is a defining part of his agenda.
“It sends a message on who we are as a nation, it’s a reflection of our national character — how we treat the vulnerable,” he said. The lack of clear guidelines in some states "puts an unfair burden on medical professionals and opens the door to discrimination.”
The civil rights office is largely limiting itself to instances where advocacy groups file formal protests. Early during the pandemic, it reminded states that it would enforce federal anti-discrimination laws. But advocates say violations still occur, often out of ignorance. And because not all hospitals are open about their triage policies and some states lack clear standards, the groups sometimes have to rely on anecdotal evidence.
Concern about discrimination is rising as the pandemic swamps more states and tests hospitals and health systems in its path.
“Someone like myself who is disabled, who has a job — I contribute to society, I’ve done good things for the world — if I am going against someone who visited the Poconos and got Covid, they’ll automatically assume my life is less valuable,” said Steven Spohn, a 39-year-old disability rights advocate with spinal muscular atrophy.
Most disability rights advocates acknowledge that a national standard for all the country’s hospitals isn't practical, and that states need to act. Their goal is clear guidance that would discourage withholding care based on a provider's idea about a patient's quality of life or guesses about long-term survival. Disabilities should also be accommodated over the course of immediate and follow-up treatment, as guaranteed by the Americans With Disabilities Act and Obamacare, they say.
But many states — even in virus hot spots — are dragging their feet. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to respond to an April appeal to set ground rules for triaging patients, in case hospitalization rates outpace the supply of beds. In early July, as caseloads surged and some overwhelmed hospitals started turning away patients, the groups tried again, writing that “what might have seemed unnecessary in April is, we believe, clearly urgent today.” Abbott's spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment.
It's been left to some local medical bodies to fill the gaps. A health advisory panel for the Dallas-Fort Worth area — home to nearly a third of the state’s population and comprising its second-highest case count — released care rationing guidelines that disability rights groups quickly condemned. Under the policy, doctors could reject outright patients with certain medical conditions, or penalize anyone they think has a grim long-term prognosis — regardless of the person's short-term outlook for surviving Covid-19. Discrimination based on disability, age or race and ethnicity was not expressly prohibited.
The guidelines were pulled without explanation almost immediately after Disability Rights Texas complained to Severino's office late last month. The website of the panel that wrote the policy now says it’s under revision.
Meanwhile, Rio Grande City, a border town with a surge in cases had already decided to adopt those Dallas-area triage measures. Jose Vasquez, the health authority of Starr County, Texas, defended the decision to local media, saying rising infections had made the situation “desperate.” The local hospital is tiny, with an eight-bed Covid-19 unit, but had admitted nearly 30 patients with the virus, including three on ventilators and life support, and Vasquez said it wouldn’t be able to keep functioning at that rate.
Vasquez did not respond to a request for comment, but Kevin Reed, an attorney for the hospital district, said the guidelines aren't being followed and haven't been necessary — even though the hospital is still at capacity with Covid-19 patients — because they've been able to add makeshift bed capacity and the state has sent in contract staff.
Reed noted that the hospital district weighed adoption of the triage guidelines before they'd heard of Disability Rights Texas' concerns — but that they're currently discussing the issue with the advocacy groups and medical experts.
"This is a complex issue and, if the district adopts guidelines in the future, it wishes to do this right," Reed said.
The Arizona triage policy is shaping up to be the next big fight, because of the way it could allow doctors to reject critically ill patients and prioritize people based on their “opportunity to experience life stages.” It also allows health workers to pull ventilators or beds from patients who develop conditions while hospitalized that change their prognosis.
Arizona's chapter of The Arc appealed to to the HHS civil rights office late last month. The state insists its guidelines won’t “categorically” deny care to anyone “based on stereotypes, assumptions about any person’s quality of life, or judgment about a person’s ‘worth’ based on the presence or absence of disabilities.”
But against this backdrop, Arizona’s hospitals also asked officials to waive the state’s discrimination laws so they can’t be sued if they have to start rationing care.
“Giving physicians and triage committees these kinds of predisposed discriminatory factors to ‘break ties’ is going to bleed over into all kinds of situations that are not necessarily in the writing,” said Matt Valliére, executive director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund. “They would be immune from any poor decision-making that’s even more discriminatory than what is in this [guidance], because that’s what happens in crisis scenarios.”
Front-line doctors have become embroiled in the debate. Beyond having to make life-or-death decisions they face the possibility of lawsuits over triage decisions.
“Rationing is already here,” a group of 10 physicians wrote in late May in the New England Journal of Medicine. They argued that priority should be given to the critically ill Covid-19 patients who are young — or as they put it, “who are sick but who could recover with treatment.”
But leaders of the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have taken a different tack, pointing to the way the pandemic has laid bare long-time inequities in the system. The groups rejected any triage measures that could discriminate against whole swathes of people like the elderly as “not ethically defensible.”
“The pandemic has revealed a need for a much more thoughtful and ethically, medically justifiable approach to the clinical aspects of preparedness planning,” ACP President Jacqueline Fincher and AMA President Patrice Harris wrote in a June op-ed in Modern Healthcare.
Amazon’s ruthless business model meets Sweden’s labor unions
Sweden wants Amazon’s cutthroat efficiency to adapt to its labor and sustainability protections.
A sign is lit on the facade of an Amazon fulfillment center. | Kathy Willens/AP Photo
By MELISSA HEIKKILÄ
08/11/2020
It's Sweden's storied worker protections and climate-conscious citizens welcoming Amazon's ruthless drive for low prices. What could go wrong?
Stockholm is preparing for a tug-of-war with one of the world’s most powerful companies — which just announced its entry into the Swedish market — and hopes that its arrival will mean the country of 10 million will be able to change Amazon, instead of being changed by it.
Amazon's plans — dubbed “Project Dancing Queen,” after the hit song by Swedish pop group Abba — don't have a lot of detail, but analysts believe its Swedish store will go live in the fall, in time for November’s Black Friday online shopping bonanza.
“Amazon has been supporting Swedish customers and selling partners across our different European stores for many years, but the next step is to bring a full retail offering to Sweden and we are making those plans now,” said Alex Ootes, Amazon’s vice president for EU expansion, in a statement.
Amazon’s turbo-capitalism corporate culture goes against the grain of Sweden and the rest of the Nordic countries, which pride themselves in their strong labor unions and sustainability.
But the country also has an affluent, internet-savvy market ripe for Alexa, Kindles, Prime and the thousands of items on Amazon's online store, the company believes. Around 68 percent of Swedes shopped online in 2018, and they spent an average of €200 per online transaction. In total, the Nordic countries spent over €22 billion online in 2018, according to a study by PostNord, the country’s postal service.
There's not a lot of competition in online marketplaces, and nobody can match Amazon’s massive cornucopia of goods.
“Swedish e-commerce is still like regular retail without shopping malls,” said Jonas Arnberg, the CEO of HUI, a market research company.
Amazon will change that, and force local players to adopt e-commerce faster than they would have otherwise.
“It’s a perfect storm in e-commerce now. The COVID-19 impact took us two to three years forward in digitalization. With Amazon’s entry it is going to go even further,” said Kristoffer Väliharju, the CEO of CDON, a Nordic online marketplace. Väliharju is optimistic about CDON’s chances of taking on the tech giant, but said companies without a strong e-commerce game will likely take a big hit.
Initially, Swedish and Nordic clients will be mainly served from German warehouses — known as fulfillment centers in Amazon-speak — with trucks driving up to Sweden through Denmark, and a fulfillment center operated by local partner Kuehne + Nagel in the Swedish town of Eskilstuna, near Stockholm.
Analysts believe local warehouses are inevitable if Amazon is to offer one of its most unique selling points: quick delivery.
When in Stockholm
Establishing a local operation will be a major challenge for the company. American Amazon’s anti-union stance and working culture is the antithesis of pro-union Sweden. (Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven's political career is rooted in union activism dating from his time as a welder.)
The Swedish labor market is regulated by collective agreements between companies and unions, giving workers plenty of power over corporate decisions. Approximately 70 percent of Swedish workers belong to a union.
“If Amazon wants to succeed in Sweden, they need to work very closely with unions,” said Arne Andersson, an e-commerce expert at PostNord.
Amazon has not yet contacted Handels, the union representing warehouse workers, its political coordinator Emelie Wärn told POLITICO.
“Amazon is welcome to Sweden, but they have to sign a collective agreement. We will work very hard to get them to do that,” Wärn said.
“The fact that international companies takes interest in the Swedish market place is a positive thing. As an employer in Sweden you are obliged to follow Swedish labor legislation, which includes regulations regarding collective bargaining,” said Eva Nordmark, Sweden’s minister of employment, adding that approximately 90 percent of the employees in Sweden are covered by collective bargaining agreements.
The minimum wage for a card-carrying Swedish warehouse worker is 142.50 Swedish krona (€13.85) per hour before tax, according to Handels. In contrast, Amazon’s Polish warehouse workers who serve the German market earn 20 zlotys (around €4.50). Amazon said its workers in Germany earn a base pay of €11.10 an hour.
But the union is confident it will be able to negotiate with the tech goliath. Handels has done similar deals with Japanese fashion chain Uniqlo, Wärn said as an example.
But Uniqlo is not Amazon, and Handels' confidence might be misplaced, according to Markus Varsikko, a retail consultant at Dash Retail, which helps businesses use Amazon's marketplace.
“Amazon is a realist. If they can operate in Germany, they can operate in Sweden. It is an American company with American culture and thinking, and it is far from what we are used to here,” Varsikko said, arguing that Sweden's companies and workers might have to adapt — not the tech giant.
Handels and Greta
Amazon might also have to polish its sustainability credentials to appease Swedish consumers.
“What makes the Swedish market unique is that there is a great focus on companies to do good, be transparent and sustainable. For many Swedes, this is even more important than a wide range and low price,” said Niclas Eriksson, the CEO of electronics retailer Elgiganten. And thanks to local activist Greta Thunberg, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the carbon footprint of services like next-day delivery.
Plus Amazon's insistence on lower prices might not be its winning ticket.
The foray into the Swedish market by another e-commerce company, Wish, may serve as a cautionary tale. The American online marketplace, which mostly sells cheap items from China, tried and failed to take over the market a few years ago. The company first wooed consumers with dirt-cheap products such as electronics and clothes, only for Swedes to be disappointed by the quality of the products and frustrated by not being able to return products to sellers.
"[Wish] was cheap, it was a great marketplace, but it was also crap,” said PostNord’s Andersson. Wish did not respond to a request for comment.
Amazon's had troubles with quality control too. European consumer groups have slammed the company for selling dangerous and illegal products such as toxic toys and exploding power banks on its platform. The European Commission also put pressure on online platforms to control scammers and price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic.
CDON’s Väliharju said Swedish customers are very quality-conscious, and aware of their rights as consumers. Consumer groups and brands have criticized Amazon and others for not holding sufficient information about their sellers, especially for products that come from outside the European Union that could be dangerous or counterfeit.
“Amazon absolutely could be well met by Swedish consumers in the beginning,” said Arnberg, the CEO of HUI, citing Amazon’s promise of low prices, a big range of products and fast delivery.
“But in the long run they will have to adjust to Sweden."
Germany’s ‘very, very tough’ climate battle
Environment Minister Svenja Schulze aims to steer tough talks over upping the bloc’s 2030 climate goal.
German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze delivers a speech at the Reichstag building in Berlin on Sept. 26, 2019. | Michael Sohn/AP Photo
By KALINA OROSCHAKOFF
08/09/2020
BERLIN — EU leaders last week agreed to increase the bloc's 2030 climate target by the end of the year. Now it's up to German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze to make it happen.
That's a big change for Berlin, which has traditionally been wary of higher EU climate targets.
Germany holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, which means Schulze chairs meetings of environment ministers until the end of December. She'll have to oversee tricky negotiations on raising the bloc’s 2030 emissions reduction goal from 40 percent to as high as 55 percent — something that pits rich countries against poor and East against West.
"We have to deliver an updated [EU climate commitment] in 2020. It's only six months [but] we have to deliver," Schulze told POLITICO from her Berlin office after hosting a first informal meeting with her peers in mid-July. "The pressure is huge ... We need very, very tough negotiations. There are no summer holidays for anyone."
The issue will heat up in late September when the European Commission is due to come out with a plan for reaching the 2030 target, and map implications for the energy sector. The 2030 goal is also part of the bloc's commitment under the Paris Agreement, and there's pressure for countries to submit updated and ideally higher emissions reduction objectives by the end of the year.
"Not to fulfill the Paris Agreement, not delivering, that's a global signal the EU shouldn't give ... It's not an option," Schulze said. "The Paris Agreement is clear, we need to deliver in 2020 ... that's the challenge for the German presidency."
Busy fall
Under a best-case scenario, Schulze wants ministers to agree a position at the formal Environment Council in late October. The European Parliament is due to agree its position on a 2030 target by then; the legislature faces its own fight, with some green-minded MEPs pushing for a goal as high as 65 percent.
But it’s far from certain that Schulze will rally EU countries that quickly.
There's also a big question over whether member countries will be content to have ministers agree on a politically fraught new emissions reduction target — which would only require qualified majority support — or insist on having a unanimous sign-off by national leaders. That could push any deal to the end of the year.
"That's not yet decided," Schulze said.
She'll also need to figure out whether she can muscle an agreement for the 2030 target via negotiations on the Climate Law, meant to make the Green Deal goal of climate-neutrality by 2050 legally binding.
"I think it's going to be very difficult to bring it all together," she said.
Environment ministers from the Visegrad 4 countries — the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia — as well as Romania and Bulgaria made clear they first want to see the Commission’s impact assessment before proceeding with talks. In a letter to EU Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans this month, seen by POLITICO, they say any change has to go through EU leaders.
“We would like to avoid a situation where we are left wondering what are the real social, environmental and economic costs for us all,” the ministers said, calling for credible emission forecasts for 2030.
Split bloc
Although a sizeable alliance, largely made up of Northern and Western EU countries, backs increasing the goal to 55 percent, there's still not enough support to overcome opposition from coal-reliant and poorer nations such as Bulgaria and Poland.
Cash is the big lubricant, especially just transition funds aimed at helping carbon-dependent regions go green.
"I see chances that we can come together, especially with the Just Transition Mechanism, which can help those who are more critical. It can work out but it's going to be a lot of work," Schulze said.
But last week's budget compromise makes Schulze's job even tougher. The Just Transition Fund was whittled down from €40 billion to €17.5 billion, which may not be generous enough to get Warsaw and others to back a 2030 compromise.
That cut came thanks to frugal countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden. All of them are also pushing for higher 2030 targets, but that's balanced against a desire to keep spending in check.
The signal is "climate policy is not that important, what is more important is spending less," one Central European government official said. "In view of that hierarchy of priorities, you can accept the discussion of the [climate] target to unfold in a similar way: rather than spending more, let’s spend less, lower targets."
Complicating Schulze's task, even Germany lacks clarity on 2030. Schulze has come out in favor of a 55 percent goal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed efforts to raise the target, but so far hasn't committed to a number.
That means the German minister faces a massively complex political puzzle in the next months.
"Yes, there are some states who worry how they're supposed to manage it all. They have corona, are dealing with its impacts, they have to revive the economy ... and have to do more about climate protection. To bring it all together isn't easy," Schulze said.
If principals can freak out over Black hairstyles or girls showing their shoulders — they can enforce a mask mandate: columnist
August 11, 2020
By Sarah K. Burris
Each year when school starts a renewed conversation begins over the sexism of dress codes that girls must comply with because schools think it’s a female’s responsibility not to “distract” a male student. Racist principals and teachers end up suspended when they flip out over a Black girl’s hair being natural or a Black boy’s hair having a design shaved into it. But somehow, a mask mandate is too much for schools to handle.
Writing for the Washington Post on Tuesday, style reporter Monica Hesse noted that the Georgia school that was forced to shut down after a COVID-19 outbreak will return to school with rules mandating face coverings the way they mandate girls’ knee caps be covered.
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“Punish mask noncompliance the way many schools have for decades wrongly punished teenage girls for spaghetti straps, shorter skirts and scooped necklines (all prohibited in North Paulding’s dress code), yanking those girls out of class for ‘distracting’ their fellow classmates with scandalous body parts like knee caps,” she wrote.
What Hesse said is probably more distracting to students than shoulders or hair is “being yanked out of class while you’re just trying to learn trigonometry. Hearing that your male classmates’ learning experience is your responsibility. Fearing that a visible bra strap, or the ‘personal choice’ of your clothing will get you called a slut.”
She noted that North Paulding’s handbook also claims the school’s administration “reserves the right to alter the dress code for special occasions.” She noted the pandemic is probably “special” and she advised districts to take masks as seriously as they do girls without sleeves.
This week has just begun and there are already a slew of reports of adults losing their minds over masks, despite them being state-mandated around the country.
Ironically, Republican legislators have suddenly discovered “personal choice” after spending years claiming that the government should regulate the healthcare of women. While the GOP may hate abortion, science has yet to find a case of pregnancy being contagious, much less as contagious as the coronavirus.
“But if that’s the comparison that anti-mask folks want to make — fine,” said Hesse. “Pretend an unmasked face is a woman trying to obtain the birth control that her doctor has prescribed but her employer disavows. You know what to do: Find your inner bureaucrat and go to town. Pretend an unmasked face is a member of the LGBTQ community asking for the same treatment and rights as the rest of the population; you will surely then find a way to enforce some mandates.”
Unfortunately, she closed, ending the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t the “individual choice” conservatives wish it was. It’s dependent on everyone.
Read her full column at the Washington Post. BEHIND PAYWALL
GRIFTER IN CHIEFTrump’s Scottish and Irish golf resorts spur a new round of scrutiny on his businesses
A watchdog group wants New York prosecutors to investigate whether Trump filed false information on his annual financial disclosures.
Donald Trump arrives at Trump International Golf Links on June 25, 2016 in Aberdeen, Scotland. | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesBy ANITA KUMAR08/11/2020 President Donald Trump appears to have inflated the value of his three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland in documents filed with the U.S. government, according to a new examination of six years of financial records in the U.S. and Europe. And the group behind the finding wants the discrepancy investigated as part of a sprawling government probe into the Trump Organization‘s finances.Trump claimed the resorts — Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen and Trump Turnberry, both in Scotland, and Trump Doonbeg in Ireland — brought in a total of about $179 million in revenue on U.S. documents where he is supposed to list his personal income. Records in the United Kingdom and Ireland indicate the resorts‘ revenues were millions of dollars less — about $152 million — and show they actually lost $77 million after accounting for expenses.Trump claimed the Scottish resorts alone were worth at least $100 million total in 2018 on U.S. documents, but the U.K. records indicate that the resorts aren’t worth anywhere near that because the debts exceeded the assets by about $80 million that year.
USPS SABOTAGED
Postal Workers Decry Changes And Cost-Cutting Measures
The U.S. Postal Service has had financial problems for years, but the new postmaster general is making changes and some workers are alarmed.Scott Olson/Getty Images
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's plans to shake up the agency are gathering opposition from some of its workers.
The U.S. Postal Service has had financial problems for years. It lost $9 billion last year. It's not supported by tax dollars; it's funded by postage and services.
DeJoy, who formerly headed a logistics company, said the agency is in a "financially unsustainable position, stemming from substantial declines in mail volume, and a broken business model."
DeJoy has already prohibited postal workers from working overtime. He noted that an inspector general report found billions of dollars spent on overtime costs in fiscal year 2019.
He wants late-arriving mail to be left behind and delivered the following day. On Friday, he announced a new organizational structure for the agency's executives.
Postal workers and their unions are alarmed.
"Mail is beginning to pile up in our offices, and we're seeing equipment being removed," said Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union and a postal clerk in Waterloo, Iowa.
POLITICS
Pending Postal Service Changes Could Delay Mail And Deliveries, Advocates Warn
As a result of the recent changes, Karol told NPR's Noel King on Morning Edition, a mail processing machine was removed from her facility in Waterloo and others have been removed across Iowa.
Of the policy to leave some letters behind for the following day, another postal worker told NPR last month: "I am sick to my stomach," knowing that means medication could be delayed in getting to recipients.
Karol echoed that point: "I grew up in a culture of service where every piece was to be delivered, to be delivered every day." She said the Postal Service's new polices are "not allowing us to deliver every piece every day, as we've done in the past."
Other postal workers "all across the country" agree, she said.
A letter carrier in Cincinnati was told to leave mail behind if it would require using overtime.
"We are already short-handed," she told Government Executive. "We don't have enough people to get all the routes done without using overtime."
Karol argues that the measures won't save money either. "I see this as a way to undermine the public confidence in the mail service," she said. "It's not saving costs. We're spending more time trying to implement these policy changes, and it's, in our offices, costing more overtime."
ELECTIONS
Postmaster General Touts Postal Service Overhaul But Promises On-Time Election Mail
Perhaps the biggest alarms are being sounded by members of Congress, who are concerned about the prospect of big changes at the Postal Service during an election that's expected to see more mail-in voting than ever before.
On this point, however, Karol is confident.
"The Postal Service has been in place for 200 years," she said. "We have a history of being able to process mail, and we've been developing and perfecting our methods for all that time. So although the postmaster general is taking actions that are starting to impact that, by having that preparation in advance of these elections, we still have the system that will do that."
Jeevika Verma produced the audio interview.
USPS SABOTAGED
How Are Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's Changes Affecting Workers?
August 11, 20205
Heard on Morning Edition
Download
NPR's Noel King talk to Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, about changes Postmaster General DeJoy is implementing. Karol, a postal clerk, says mail is piling up in her office.
TRANSCRIPT
NOEL KING, HOST:
Mail-in voting will likely be a big part of this year's election. And the new leader of the U.S. Postal Service is making major changes to that agency. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is a donor to President Trump's campaign, and he made his first public remarks on Friday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LOUIS DEJOY: We are at the beginning of a transformative process. Our goal is to change and improve the Postal Service.
KING: He has reassigned or displaced 23 postal executives. He's changed delivery policies, banned overtime and done other things to cut costs. So what has this all meant for employees? Kimberly Karol is the president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union and a postal clerk herself in Waterloo, Iowa. Hi.
KIMBERLY KAROL: Good morning.
KING: Are you feeling these changes that are being made in Iowa?
KAROL: Yes, we are beginning to see those changes and how it is impacting the mail. Mail is beginning to pile up in our offices, and we're seeing equipment being removed. So we are beginning to see the impact of those changes.
KING: Curious - I hadn't heard about this one - equipment being removed. What equipment?
KAROL: The sorting equipment that we use to process mail for delivery. In Iowa, we are losing machines. And they already in Waterloo were losing one of those machines. So that also hinders our ability to process mail in the way that we had in the past.
KING: Sure. Sounds like it would. You've been a postal worker for 30 years? How do you feel about Louis DeJoy?
KAROL: I am not a fan. I grew up in a culture of service, where every piece was to be delivered every day. And his policies, although they've only been in place for a few weeks, are now affecting the way that we do business and not allowing us to deliver every piece every day, as we've done in the past.
KING: Do you get the impression that your feelings about him are shared broadly among postal workers? Do people agree with you?
KAROL: Yes, all across the country. We are trying to activate people all across the country and notify the public because we will - my opinion is that the PMG is trying to circumvent the rules that have been set in place to safeguard the public by making changes that don't require public comment but have the same impact as closing offices and/or changing delivery standards. And so this is a way to avoid that kind of public comment. And we're trying to make sure that the public understands that they need to make comment.
KING: Is the Postal Service equipped to handle this this upcoming election?
KAROL: Yes. Keep in mind the Postal Service has been in place for 200 years. We have a history of being able to process mail. And we've been developing and perfecting our methods for all that time. So although the postmaster general is taking actions that are starting to impact that, by having the preparation in advance of these elections, we still have the system that will do that.
KING: Last question for you real quick - the Postal Service is dealing with financial pressures. And the argument is, you know, these are cost-cutting measures. We need them. What do you say to that?
KAROL: Well, unfortunately, I don't see this as cost-saving measures. I see this as a way to undermine the public confidence in the mail service. It's not saving costs. We're spending more time trying to implement these policy changes. And it's, in our offices, costing more over time.
KING: Over time, that, we understand, is also one of the things being cut. Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, thank you for your time.
KAROL: Thank you.
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QAnon Supporter Who Made Bigoted Videos Wins Ga. Primary, Likely Heading To Congress
August 12, 2020
CAMILA DOMONOSKE Twitter
Marjorie Taylor Greene (right) poses with a supporter in Rome, Ga., late Tuesday. Greene, criticized for promoting bigoted videos and supporting the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, won the GOP nomination for Georgia's 14th Congressional District.Mike Stewart/AP
A Georgia Republican who has said that Muslims do not belong in government and expressed her belief in the baseless conspiracy theory called QAnon has won her primary runoff and is all but certain to win a seat in the House of Representatives in November.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a construction executive, won 57% of the vote in Georgia's heavily-Republican 14th Congressional District, handily defeating neurosurgeon John Cowan, who had pitched himself as, "All of the conservative, none of the embarrassment."
President Trump congratulated Greene on Wednesday morning, calling her a "future Republican Star" who is "strong on everything."
Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up - a real WINNER!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2020
Many high-ranking Republicans in the House of Representatives distanced themselves from Greene earlier this summer, after Politico highlighted videos in which Greene expressed anti-Muslim sentiments. A spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called her views "appalling."
Facebook took down an ad in which Greene brandished a rifle and threatened antifa protesters, saying it violated its policies against inciting violence. And many media outlets have covered her support for the outlandish QAnon conspiracy theory.
ELECTIONS
GOP Candidates Open To QAnon Conspiracy Theory Advance In Congressional Races
As Emma Hurt of member station WABE reports, "all of it only fueled her message."
"The fake news media hates me. Big Tech censors me," Greene said in a video on Twitter. "The DC Swamp fears me. And George Soros and the Democrats are trying to take me down."
In videos spotlighted by Politico, Greene called the election of two Muslim women to Congress "an Islamic invasion into our government."
In one video message, Greene acknowledged that U.S. laws protect freedom of religion — and then said, "but I'm sorry, anyone that is a Muslim, that believes in Sharia law, does not belong in our government."
"Let me explain something to you, Muhammad," she said in one video. "We already have equality and justice for all Americans. Muslims are not being held back in any way ... what you people want is special treatment. You want to rise above us."
Greene also said that generations of Black and Hispanic men have been held down by "being in gangs and dealing drugs," not by anything white people have done; that both white supremacists and members of the Black Lives Matter movement are "idiots"; and that in seeking the Black vote, Democrats are "trying to keep the Black people in a modern-day form of slavery."
Democrats are the real racists, Greene said, stating that "the most mistreated group of people in the United States today are white males."
Greene made national headlines in early June, when The Washington Post reported on her support for the QAnon conspiracy.
The once-fringe conspiracy has made inroads into the mainstream, with multiple GOP candidates expressing, at a minimum, openness to the QAnon narrative.
The conspiracy includes a wide variety of shifting and often-contradictory predictions and allegations, but it centers on an anonymous figure named "Q" who asserts that a wave of mass arrests are about to take down high-ranking Trump opponents.
POLITICS
What Is QAnon? The Conspiracy Theory Tiptoeing Into Trump World
Followers of "Q" often believe that the world is controlled by elite members of a secretive satanic child sex-trafficking ring.
"Q is a patriot, we know that for sure," Greene said in a video from 2017, in which she recapped some of Q's predictions and why she supports them.
"There's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it," she said, referring to Trump.
Republicans called her videos ‘appalling’ and ‘disgusting.’ But they’re doing little to stop her.
Outside groups haven't worked to squash Marjorie Taylor Greene's controversial candidacy, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is remaining neutral in the runoff.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks to a GOP women's group in March. | John Bailey/Rome News-Tribune via AP
By MELANIE ZANONA and ALLY MUTNICK
08/09/2020
House GOP leaders raced to disavow a Republican congressional candidate who made racist Facebook videos and embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. But less than two months later, the party has done little to block Marjorie Taylor Greene from winning a seat in the House.
Now, Republicans could be days away from adding their most controversial member yet to the conference in a runoff election in Georgia on Tuesday — a scenario that some lawmakers say should have been entirely avoided.
Of the top three GOP leaders in the House, only House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana has helped Greene’s opponent, neurosurgeon John Cowan, raise money and contributed to his campaign. Outside groups have not made any significant investments in the primary runoff for the solidly red seat, despite pleas from rank-and-file Republicans. And there hasn’t been a tweet from President Donald Trump that could signal to his supporters that they should oppose her.
POLITICO reported in June that Greene had posted hours of Facebook videos in which made a trove of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments — including an assertion that Black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party,” and that George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, is a Nazi.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in June — through his spokesman, Drew Florio — that he found those comments “appalling,” and he had “no tolerance for them.” But Florio said last week that McCarthy is remaining neutral and letting the primary process play out — a stance that likely does not signal urgency to donors or outside groups.
“This is the kind of race and kind of situation where you need those groups,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who is actively supporting Cowan. “So often, they only get involved when they have someone that they are trying to get in. But I think it’s just as important they get involved when there’s someone they’re trying to get out.”
2020 ELECTIONS
House Republican leaders condemn GOP candidate who made racist videos
BY ALLY MUTNICK AND MELANIE ZANONA
The lack of intervention from national Republicans — despite their public rebukes of Greene — has frustrated and baffled GOP lawmakers, strategists and donors, who worry Greene’s victory would be a black eye for the party at a time when they are still grappling with a national reckoning over racial inequality.
And it would diminish the impact of the party’s successful efforts in June to oust GOP Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a member with a long history of racist remarks. If Greene, a vocal QAnon conspiracy theorist and businesswoman, earns the party’s nomination in the deeply conservative district in northwest Georgia, she is almost guaranteed to win a seat in the House.
“I have been very involved in the John Cowan race. I’ve pushed House leadership to get involved, without having success,” added one GOP lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.
The reluctance of McCarthy — who could face a leadership challenge if Trump goes down in November — to get involved in the contest underscores the tough position leadership is in: While it wants to distance the party from the deeply controversial views espoused by Greene, it also don’t want to alienate the hard-line conservative voters who are a key part of Trump’s base heading into the election.
And it’s not just Greene’s race that has spooked House GOP operatives. The primary runoff field for Rep. Doug Collins’ (R-Ga.) neighboring open seat includes state Rep. Matt Gurtler, who came under fire after he posed for a photo with a man with white supremacist ties. But that race, which is also on Tuesday, has seen a rush of outside spending by various PACs.
GOP leadership and the party’s campaign arm don’t typically play in primaries, and it can be risky to take a shot at a fellow Republican and miss: GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming recently came under fire from some House Freedom Caucus members and other Trump allies for supporting a primary opponent to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), among other comments that riled Trump's most loyal House foot soldiers. Cheney — who was one of the most vocal Republicans in calling on King to step down — later pulled her endorsement of Massie's primary opponent after past racist tweets from the candidate resurfaced.
When it comes to the matchup between Greene and Cowan, GOP lawmakers and strategists believe that outside help could easily tip the scales. While Greene won the first round of the primary in June by a wide, 19-point margin, the race has drastically tightened in the following weeks: An internal Cowan campaign survey from late July found a tied race between him and Greene.
Plus, Cowan has outspent Greene on TV by about $50,000, according to a source tracking media spending, and outraised her by nearly a 4-to-1 margin in July, signs that point to a well-run campaign.
In an interview, Cowan framed the outcome of the runoff in dire terms, warning that a victory by Greene would endanger Republican candidates who would have to answer for her comments up and down the ballot in Georgia, from the House battlegrounds in suburban Atlanta to the two Senate contests on the November ballot.
“I want to win this race,” he said. “But more than that I want to protect the Republican Party. She is the antithesis of the Republican Party. And she is not conservative — she’s crazy.”
And he warned that Democrats could use her comments to juice up fundraising for their candidates. “She deserves a YouTube channel, not a seat in Congress. She’s a circus act,” Cowan said.
Greene’s campaign did not respond to a request to interview the candidate for this story. Throughout the campaign, she has cast Cowan as insufficiently supportive of Trump because he donated to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the 2016 presidential race. She also has accused him of misrepresenting his role as a reserve deputy in the Floyd County sheriff's office.
Despite the slew of racist Facebook videos uncovered by POLITICO, Greene still has some high-profile support in Washington: She is backed by the House Freedom Fund, the political arm of the Freedom Caucus; Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a top Trump ally; and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his wife, Debbie. When the Georgia seat's incumbent, Rep. Tom Graves, announced his retirement, the Freedom Caucus encouraged Greene to abandon her run in the competitive 6th District, where former GOP Rep. Karen Handel was making a comeback bid, and run for the open seat, which was more conservative, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Greene said in a recent interview with a local news station that she and McCarthy have spoken “several times” since the POLITICO story was published, and they have a “great relationship.” She also claimed that McCarthy’s statement of condemnation — which was distributed by a staffer — was just a “miscommunication.”
McCarthy’s spokesman confirmed that he has “spoken several times on the phone with both Greene and Cowan in recent weeks” and has “a good and productive relationship with both,” but did not comment on the veracity of Greene’s statement.
Cowan described his communication with McCarthy as a “good conversation,” according to Carter. “Now, what happened after that, I don’t know,” Carter added.
But if Cowan was expecting the cavalry, it never came.
In the absence of national intervention, a dozen members have worked to boost Cowan through public endorsements, making calls on his behalf or joining his Zoom campaign events. That group includes Scalise, Carter and Reps. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Rick Allen (R-Ga.), Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), James Comer (R-Ky.), Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) and Mark Walker (R-N.C.).
“John Cowan is a great candidate,” Carter said, but “we are very concerned about the other candidate as well. … And certainly, I don’t want someone making those kinds of comments in my conference.”
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Scalise, who immediately endorsed Cowan after Greene's previous comments — which he called "disgusting" — came to light, appeared at a virtual fundraiser for Cowan in late July. But no help has come in the form of major outside spending.
Walker, a former pastor who is retiring this year after court-ordered redistricting transformed his seat into safe Democratic territory, unsuccessfully lobbied the conservative Club for Growth to get involved, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Club considered playing in the race and polled, but ultimately declined to endorse Cowan or spend. (It is, however, making a large investment in the primary runoff in Georgia’s 9th District for Gurtler.)
A new super PAC, dubbed A Great America PAC, formed in June, and operatives behind the group cut a TV ad casting Greene as a threat to Trump’s reelection. The group reported spending $30,000 on media production — but booked only about $17,000 on a cable buy, according to media buying sources.
Republicans in D.C. and Georgia attribute some of the lack of spending to the worsening political environment. Donors are too distracted by Trump’s flailing poll numbers and the precarious Senate majority to pay attention to a congressional primary runoff for a deep-red seat — particularly because it seems increasingly unlikely that Republicans will reclaim the majority, and McCarthy has not publicly signaled that Greene should be stopped.
Some House Republicans are angry at the Freedom Caucus for boosting Greene’s candidacy in the first place and think the group should have rescinded its endorsement. Only Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) publicly pulled his endorsement; Jordan said in a brief statement he disagreed with her comments.
If Greene wins, she could create a constant stream of headaches — and controversies — for the House GOP. Republican leaders had to strip King of his committee assignments and formally rebuke him on the House floor after he defended white supremacy and white nationalism in an interview with The New York Times last year.
Democrats are ready to pounce on a Greene victory and yoke her controversial statements to Republican House candidates across the country — particularly Handel and Rich McCormick, who is running in an open battleground seat in the Atlanta suburbs. McCormick's wife donated to Greene when she was still running in the 6th District against Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.).
"Marjorie Taylor Greene is an extreme, far-right voice enabled and embraced by Georgia Republicans like Karen Handel and Rich McCormick and her views have no place in Congress," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Avery Jaffe said in a statement. "Georgia Republicans, and Republican candidates running across the country, will have to answer for her hateful views in their own campaigns."
And Greene is already signaling that she has no interest in playing nice with her potential future colleagues, doubling down on some of her most controversial remarks and lashing out at Scalise and Cheney in her recent interview with a local news station.
“Steve Scalise, I was very surprised by, especially since he’s been called a racist and things like that in the past,” Greene said, an apparent reference to the Louisiana Republican's 2002 speech to a white supremacist group. “Liz Cheney, I’ve never met or talked to her. I think that was unfortunate that they were pressured, probably pressured so to speak, maybe by people in the media, to make statements about me and they just hadn’t learned about me yet.”
ASIA
Kamala Harris Pick For VP Is Hailed As 'A Moment Of Pride' In India
August 12, 2020
LAUREN FRAYER
Sen. Kamala Harris is Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden's pick as his running mate — a choice that many are celebrating in India, where Harris' mother was from.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Many Indians are tweeting support Wednesday for Kamala Harris, celebrating their connection to the new presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president, whose mother was from India.
Harris is not only the first woman of color to appear on a major U.S. presidential ticket, but she is also the first person of South Asian descent.
"This is a historical, transformational, and proud moment for... all women of colour, all Black women, and all South Asian women," Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra tweeted. "Pride for India!!" says another.
Harris' mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who died in 2009, was a Hindu whose family hails from Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. Gopalan moved to California for graduate school before Harris was born.
"It is a moment of pride for Indians and Tamil Nadu especially," tweeted the state's deputy chief minister, Thiru O. Panneerselvam.
It is a moment of pride for Indians and TamilNadu especially, as Kamala Harris, the first Indian senator, whose mother hails from TamilNadu has been nominated as the Vice Presidential candidate by the US Democratic party. My hearty wishes to her. #KamalaHarris pic.twitter.com/6le16uS0oV— O Panneerselvam (@OfficeOfOPS) August 12, 2020
While Harris has most often identified herself as Black, and on occasion, as African American, she wrote about her Indian mother's influence on her in her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold. Harris has previously spoken about her family's Indian heritage, including in a giggly cooking video with actor Mindy Kaling. Harris has said she has fond memories of strolling Tamil Nadu's beaches with her late grandfather.
But some supporters of India's Hindu nationalist government also took to social media Wednesday to criticize Harris for her stance on Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority region.
"This is one of the reasons I don't support #KamalaHarris. She's the favorite candidate of those who want to break my ancestral homeland of #Kashmir away from India," one tweet read.
This is one of the reasons I don't support #KamalaHarris. She's the favorite candidate of those who want to break my ancestral homeland of #Kashmir away from India. Kashmir is the seat of Hindu spirituality. I can't support any candidate who goes to bat for Kashmiri terrorists. https://t.co/bUEu9S3VY4— Sheenie Ambardar, M.D. (@DrAmbardar) August 11, 2020
Last year, the Indian government canceled the special autonomy of what was then the state of Jammu and Kashmir and put the region under direct central government control. Afterward, Rep. Pramila Jayapal — a Democrat and Indian American congresswoman — introduced a U.S. House resolution urging India to uphold human rights and refrain from the use of violence in Kashmir. Harris then tweeted her support for Jayapal when India's foreign minister abruptly canceled a meeting with U.S. lawmakers because Jayapal was included.
In September 2019, as a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Harris also responded to a question from a Kashmiri American at a campaign event by saying: "[Kashmiris] are not alone. We are all watching. So often, when we see human rights abuses... the abuser will convince those that they abuse that nobody cares, and that nobody's watching, and that nobody is paying attention — which is a tool of an abuser."
Still, the national general secretary of India's ruling Hindu nationalist party on Wednesday tweeted his congratulations to Harris for her nomination.
First Indian and Asian woman to get the nomination as official VP candidate. 👍 https://t.co/zrGa612Rio— Ram Madhav (@rammadhavbjp) August 12, 2020
Rep. Ilhan Omar Wins Congressional Primary
August 11, 2020
ELENA MOORE Twitter
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., pictured in January, made history in 2018 as the first Somali American elected to Congress.Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Rep. Ilhan Omar has won her primary, informally securing a hold on Minnesota's historically Democratic-run 5th Congressional District, The Associated Press projects.
After a high-profile first term in Congress, the freshman representative faced several primary challengers, the most prominent being Antone Melton-Meaux, a first-time political candidate who runs a mediation company.
Melton-Meaux ran a campaign "focused on the fifth," telling Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik that Omar is "out of touch with the district and has been focused on her own personal pursuits and celebrity to the detriment of the work that needs to be done."
Omar and Melton-Meaux were nearly tied in fundraising totals, both raising just over $4 million — with Omar holding a slight edge. Both candidates were also heavily funded by out of state donors (which made up 91% of Omar's funds and 85% of Melton-Meaux's.)
Omar's 2018 win marked several firsts for the U.S. Congress. She made history as the first Somali American elected and was the first of two Muslim women elected to Congress that same year.
Shortly after taking office, Omar came under fire and then apologized for making comments over Twitter that were interpreted as anti-Semitic. Her tweets sparked a backlash from Republican and Democratic leaders alike, prompting her to issue an apology.
Omar is part of the widely known "squad," a group of four progressive freshman congresswomen of color including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib
.@IlhanMN get it done sis!
We got you. #OurSquadisBig— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 11, 2020
President Trump has loudly voiced his opposition to the "squad" as a whole. He has also aimed his criticism specifically at Omar, referring to her as "an America-hating socialist" at a fall rally last year in Minneapolis.
Omar received endorsements from progressive allies including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Notably, despite policy disagreements within the party, Omar also secured the support of key establishment Democratic leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
