DEMOCRATS FAIL 1

Pelosi calls on CDC to extend eviction moratorium unilaterally

BY MIKE LILLIS - 07/30/21 12:01 PM 





As House Democratic leaders struggle to find enough party support to extend an eviction moratorium, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is advocating a temporary fix, urging the Biden administration to act unilaterally to help the nation's most vulnerable renters.

The Speaker said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has instituted a ban on evictions through the end of Saturday, should extend the deadline further, giving House Democrats more time to codify the extension in legislation.

"I think this is something that we'll work out. It isn't about any more money — the money is there, resting in localities and governors' offices across the country," Pelosi said Friday morning during a press briefing in the Capitol. "So we'd like the CDC to expand the moratorium. That's where it can be done."


The remarks come as Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are scrambling to locate the votes to extend the eviction moratorium legislatively — a request that President Biden made only Thursday.

The Rules Committee considered the topic on Friday morning, debating a proposal sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), head of the Financial Services Committee, which initially would have extended the moratorium through the end of the year.

But a number of moderate Democrats are opposed to the bill — one put the number of Democratic opponents at 14 — citing the length of the extension. That opposition led Democratic leaders to shrink the window of the benefit to expire on Oct. 18, although it remains unclear if that concession is enough to win the support of the centrist holdouts.

"It is our hope that we could pass a bill extending the eviction moratorium to that date immediately," Pelosi wrote to Democrats Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Democrats of all stripes are grumbling that Biden waited until Thursday — just two days before the House is scheduled to leave Washington for a long summer vacation — to request that Congress take up the issue.

“I quite frankly wish he had asked us sooner,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the Rules panel, during a Friday morning hearing.

Biden's request came weeks after the Supreme Court, on June 29, had warned that the CDC lacks the authority to extend the moratorium beyond July 31 without congressional action.

Pelosi, however, has a different view. Calling the extension "an imperative," she said the House will eventually work out its differences and pass the Waters bill, which extends the moratorium through the end of the year.

"We are not going away from this issue, whether it's now or shortly thereafter," she said. "We're going to have to find a solution."

In the meantime, however, she's calling on the nation's governors to use billions of dollars Congress has already allocated to help renters — she put the figure at $46 billion in unspent assistance.

"The fact is, almost $50 billion was allocated — $46 billion. Less than 10 percent of that has been spent, around $3 billion," she said. "Why should the renters be punished for the fact that the system did not put money in their pockets to pay the rent to the landlords?

She also argued that the CDC does have the authority to extend the moratorium on its own — Supreme Court ruling or none.

"I think the CDC can," she said.

Scott Wong and Sylvan Lane contributed.

Updated 2:31 p.m.

House panel takes up long-shot effort to extend eviction moratorium


By Emily Jacobs
July 30, 2021 | 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a "Dear Colleague" letter calling on members to extend the eviction ban.Getty Images

A House panel will convene Friday morning to try to push a long-shot effort to extend the federal eviction moratorium after the Biden administration said it would let it expire Saturday.

The group will gather at 8 a.m. ET Friday, not long after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a “Dear Colleague” letter Thursday night calling on her members to honor the president’s request.

Warning that “families must not pay the price” for the slow distribution of congressionally approved funds, the top-ranking House Democrat went on to say, “Extending the eviction moratorium is a moral imperative — and one that is simple and necessary, since Congress has already allocated resources that assist both renters and housing providers.”

The White House confirmed earlier Thursday that President Biden would allow the moratorium to expire, but called on Congress to pass new protections due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the move, arguing the commander-in-chief’s hands were tied by a recent Supreme Court decision that found there would need to be congressional authorization to extend a CDC-imposed ban on evictions beyond July 31.The Biden administration plans to let the moratorium expire this Saturday.Oliver Contreras / Pool via CNP

“Given the recent spread of the Delta variant … Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium,” Psaki said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available,” she added.

“In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the president calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay.”

SEE ALSO
Supreme Court leaves CDC eviction ban in place through July 31

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed the Biden administration over the move to Punchbowl News on Thursday night.

“For the White House to do this right before we’re about to leave [on August recess] is just, it’s ridiculous,” the far-left pol said.

“I don’t want to hear any of the spin about how they’ve been trying this whole time, there has not been the advocacy, the voice, et cetera, that we needed to have on this issue. I sit on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over housing, we have the secretary right there. And we asked about the administration’s stance. And we weren’t getting any commitment on advocacy for extension. So I’m not here for the excuses about how this is the court’s fault. This is on the administration.”

The CDC’s eviction moratorium was set up last year by President Donald Trump after Congress deadlocked on COVID-19 relief legislation that would have extended an initial legislated moratorium.

Although the CDC moratorium was legally dubious, Trump said he had to act due to partisan gridlock. Trump also unilaterally resurrected a federal unemployment supplement and paused federal student loan payments and interest.A patchwork of state and local policies will replace the federal evictions ban.AFP via Getty Images

A patchwork of state and local policies will replace the federal evictions ban, and the White House has said it’s encouraging states to adopt diversion plans for people who agree to get back on track with rent.

A wave of evictions could lower soaring real estate prices and allow owners to get back on their feet by getting rid of non-paying tenants.

But it’s also a political liability for Biden, who regularly emphasizes the effects of the pandemic on lower-income people, especially on mothers unable to work due to increased child care duties caused by schools closing.The CDC’s eviction moratorium was set up last year by President Donald Trump after Congress deadlocked on COVID-19 relief legislation.Getty Images

It is not clear what the outcome of the Rules Committee efforts Friday will be. Even if such an effort was able to pass the House, it would face a bleak future in the Senate.

The Senate is split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, though Vice President Kamala Harris, as Senate president, has a tie-breaking vote.

Still, 51 votes are not enough under current rules to break through the filibuster, the Senate rule requiring 60 members to end debate on most topics and move forward to a vote.

Questions raised about Trump's pledge to donate all of his presidential paychecks

Tom Boggioni
July 30, 2021

Donald Trump on Fox News. (Screengrab)

According to a report from the Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, who has been tracking Donald Trump's financial dealings dating back to when he began his only term as president in 2016, the ex-president's pledge to donate all of his government paychecks seems to have fallen by the wayside during the last six months he spent in office.

With great fanfare when he entered the Oval Office, Trump declared he would not take one penny of his $400,000 annual salary and would instead donate his monthly paychecks.

While the White House under Trump was very forthcoming for most of his tenure as to where the checks went, just prior to the 2020 election that Trump lost, no mention was made to whom Trump bestowed a check and now close aides are refusing to provide the info when asked.

As the report states, "Trump's White House never said where — or even if — he donated the last $220,000 of his salary, covering the final six months of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021. Now, six months after he left office, it's not clear where Trump donated that remaining salary — or if he donated it at all. Trump had given all his previous donations to federal agencies, paying out $100,000 every quarter. But The Washington Post surveyed all major federal agencies, and none has reported receiving anything from Trump after a gift in July 2020."

According to Fahrenthold, recent questions to aides to the ex-president have first been met with a promise to get back with the information and then -- silence.

Trump's last known gift came on July 23, 2020, according to government documents. Trump gave to the Park Service again, 'to support its efforts in repairing and restoring our national monuments," according to a letter that Trump's attorney Sheri Dillon sent the Park Service along with the check," he wrote before adding, "After that gift: nothing. Or at least, nothing public. Neither Trump nor his White House announced any further donations."

"In recent weeks, The Post contacted 15 major federal departments, including the eight that Trump had given to before, plus five agencies whose leaders attend Cabinet meetings. None provided any confirmation of a gift from Trump after July 2020," Fahrenthold reported before conceding, "That is not proof that the gifts were not made, however. Some of the major departments declined to comment. And The Post did not survey every single agency or office of the federal bureaucracy — a list so long that even the government itself has trouble counting it."

However, Trump's former and current spokespeople could clear up the mystery of whether he stood by his promise until his last days in office. But they are not talking.

"The Post also contacted two different spokespeople for Trump's post-presidential office. On June 10, spokesman Jason Miller wrote back, 'Let me inquire and get back to you.' But he did not provide details, and later left Trump's office," Fahrenthold reported. "Liz Harrington replaced Miller as Trump's spokesperson. 'I will try to track this down, she wrote on July 21, when The Post asked again. Since then, Harrington has not responded to queries about the pledged donations."

You can read more here.

Josh Hawley just proposed a deranged law that is little more than a testament to racist hatred

Thom Hartmann, Independent Media Institute
July 30, 2021

Republican senator Josh Hawley. (Screenshot)

Sen, Josh Hawley, of the former slave state of Missouri, doesn't want America's white children to be exposed to the simple reality that slavery was not only legal at the founding of our country but was, in several places, written into our Constitution.

And that the rest of America subsidized the slave-owners' states and continues to subsidize them to this day.

Hawley, of course, is the guy who gave a fist-salute to the armed white supremacist traitors who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to assassinate Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi. He hopes to ride his white supremacy shtick to the White House.

Doubling down on the GOP notion that America is a nation exclusively of, by and for white people, Hawley has now proposed a law he calls "The Love America Act of 2021." The bill is only three and a half pages long. There's a bit of legalese to make it into legislation, defining what "school" means, etc., but this is what it says:

RESTRICTION ON FEDERAL FUNDS FOR TEACHING THAT CERTAIN DOCUMENTS ARE PRODUCTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY OR RACISM — …[N]o Federal funds shall be provided to an educational agency or school that teaches that the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States is a product of white supremacy or racism,

That's it. That's the gist of the entire bill.

In other words, public schools that teach the actual history of our Constitution lose all their federal funds — our tax dollars — and essentially go out of business. It's really just that simple: White supremacist Republicans like Hawley don't want your kids to know the true history of America.

Black children, they say, are old and tough enough to experience racism, but white children are just waaay too young and fragile to learn about it.

Hawley's protests notwithstanding, racism and white supremacy were very much a part of our founding documents. Consider "Father of the Constitution" (and slaveholder) James Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.

It was the third week of August and the issue of America taxing "property" (a code word for slaves) got tied to the debate about how many representatives each state should have in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The five slave states wanted all their enslaved people counted toward representation — even though they couldn't vote or enjoy any of the rights of citizenship — but didn't want to pay any "property tax" on them. The eight "free" states vehemently objected both to counting enslaved people to increase the slave states' representation in Congress and to subsidizing them via tax law.

It produced one of the great speeches at the Constitutional Convention, which Madison dutifully transcribed.

Gouverneur Morris ("Gouverneur" was his first name, not his title) represented Pennsylvania, and single-handedly wrote the preamble to the Constitution. He was 35 years old, a lawyer and a graduate of Kings College (what we now call Columbia University). And he was an ardent abolitionist.

"He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery," Madison wrote, summarizing Morris' speech. "It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed."

Warming to his topic, Morris began an extended rant about how destructive slavery was to the new nation they were birthing. It illustrates how wrong Hawley is in saying that racism and white supremacy had nothing to do with writing the Constitution.

"Compare the [slave]-free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people," Morris said, "with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other states having slaves. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery."

Morris said the enslavement of people was a curse on America that was visible to anybody who simply looked. The free North was prosperous; the South, where people were enslaved, was poor.

"The moment you leave the Eastern [slave] States," he said, "and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys, and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take, through the great regions of slaves, presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings."

But the white supremacist slaveholders representing the slave states in the Convention wanted more power in Congress and lower taxes in their own states, much like today's Republicans. The key to that, they believed, was having some or all of their states' enslaved Black people counted toward representation in Congress, even though they were in chains and unable to vote.

In an echo of this very argument last month, the white supremacists of the Georgia legislature passed, and Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in front of a painting of a slave plantation, legislation that would give Georgia's Republicans the ability to simply toss out the votes of people in largely Black districts with the excuse that they "suspect," with or without evidence, that "fraud" happened.

Georgia has already begun to purge local voting officials in Black districts, replacing them with safe white Republicans who will make sure elections produce the "right" outcome.

It's such a radical law that the CEO of the Stacey Abrams-founded New Georgia Project, Nsé Ufot, bluntly told Politico that unless the law is overturned by ending the filibuster and passing the For the People Act, "we're fucked."

As if we're torn in half through some weird time machine, Madison continued with his transcription of Gouverneur Morris' speech.

"Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation?" Morris demanded of his colleagues. "Are they men? Then make them citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included [in determining representation]? The houses in this city (Philadelphia) are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina."

And then Morris nailed down precisely how and why racism and white supremacy were written into the Constitution with the so-called "three-fifths compromise" (among other places) that gave Southern states more members in the House of Representatives than their white population would justify.

"The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, — that the [white] inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who go to the coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes … than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views, with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice."

It was all about using racism and white supremacy to increase the power of white people in the South, and then force the rest of the country to subsidize them.

Keep in mind that Democrats in the U.S. Senate today represent 41 million more people than do the Senate's Republicans. And, echoing 1787, Georgia and 17 other Republican-controlled mostly-former-slave-states have now put into law the power for them to deny the vote to Black people or simply refuse to count their votes.

But back to 1787: Morris paused to gather his thoughts, and then, Madison noted, continued, this time calling out the Southern oligarchs who flaunted their riches made possible by slave labor while asking the Northern states to pay for their defense and otherwise subsidize them with Northern tax dollars.

"He would add," Madison wrote, "that domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed Constitution. The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy."

Morris was probably shouting at this point; such language is rarely found in our founding documents and may help explain why Madison kept his "notes" secret until his death nearly 50 years later. Morris pointed out how the South was essentially demanding that the North subsidize them financially, something that continues to this day.

"And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States," Morris demanded, "for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity? … The … tea used by a northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave...."

Morris lost the argument and the Southern slave states got extra representation in Congress along with no federal taxation of their "property." But the GOP sure doesn't want you or your kids to know that.

If Hawley's bill were to become law, any public school that taught Morris' anti-slavery speech would lose all federal funding. This is how white supremacy works today and, indeed, has worked in this nation since our founding.

Their strategy is straightforward: Control history (from Texas editing Martin Luther King Jr. out of its textbooks to generations of statues of Confederate generals), suppress the political power of Black people while subsidizing red states, and do it all with a thin patina of legalese.

Northern states generally make it easy for all people to vote while former slave states do everything they can to suppress the Black vote (along with the votes of young people and older Social Security voters).

Former slave states like Hawley's Missouri represent the overwhelming majority of states to have passed voter suppression legislation. And they're still hustling tax dollars from the rest of us, just as Morris complained about in 1787.

Northern states get back a fraction of every dollar they send to Washington, while former slave states get as much as $2 for every tax dollar they send the federal government.

As the AP noted in 2017:
Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.
Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.

White supremacy, racism and the rest of America subsidizing red states weren't just realities in 1787: They're alive and well today.

Hawley and his white supremacist buddies in the GOP want to keep it that way, and their hateful "Love America Act" is just the latest disgusting part of their strategy. We've been tolerating and subsidizing these losers since 1787 and it's time to stop.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Birth of a nation: Jim Crow Republicans seek to repeat America's dark history

Chauncey Devega,

 Salon
July 30, 2021

Ku Klux Klan (Flickr/Martin)

"Birth of a Nation" is one of the most important films in cinematic history. D.W. Griffith's masterwork is considered by many film scholars and critics to be the first "modern" film: Its cinematography, narrative techniques, and technical innovations set the standard for what would come afterward.

There's a lesson here: A work of art can be extremely important, even groundbreaking, while also embodying — and seeking to legitimize — thoroughly reprehensible social and political values.

"Birth of a Nation" is one such example. The film is a white supremacist fantasy, and fable about the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Instead of depicting the truth about how Black people created during Reconstruction "a nation under their feet" by fighting for their freedom, participating in democracy — as elected officials, voters, and organizers — creating civil society organizations and developing government programs that uplifted both Black people and poor whites, "Birth of a Nation" shows Black freedom, multiracial democracy and equality across the color line as something grotesque.

In Griffith's racist fable, Black people are childlike and ignorant, not suitable for self-government and democracy. Black men are animalistic rapists, obsessed with defiling "virtuous" white women, or violent drunks who are elected to government but then act irresponsibly. Infamously, Griffith depicts the Ku Klux Klan -- America's and the world's largest white terrorist organization -- as heroic and valorous. The power and influence of "Birth of a Nation" was so great that it contributed to a national climate in which thousands of Black people were lynched across the United States. It also helped resuscitate the KKK and turn it into a national organization.

In a letter to the president of the NAACP in 1921, scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that "Birth of a Nation" was created "to slander and vilify a race." He considered the movie to be "a public menace … not art, but vicious propaganda." The NAACP would lead protests against the film.

In historical reality, Reconstruction was one of the great experiments in American democracy — until it was sabotaged by white supremacists who worked tirelessly to take away Black people's freedom and impose a new form of slavery.

Woodrow Wilson, one of America's most overtly racist presidents, famously described "Birth of a Nation" as like "writing history with lightning." There was no true history in "Birth of a Nation," but Wilson was correct about the lightning: A hundred years later, "Birth of a Nation's" white fantasies and white lies still carry a type of electrical power and impact across space and time.

The Jim Crow Republicans of 2021 are once again trying to take away Black people's voting rights and civil rights in order to create a new American apartheid. They and their allies are using much the same logic and tactics — and in many cases the same language — as were used from the birth of Jim Crow in the 19th century through to its (temporary) defeat in the 1960s by the civil rights movement and Black Freedom Struggle.

These attacks on multiracial democracy include white supremacist terrorism, as seen during Donald Trump's coup attempt and the lethal attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In the war on Black and brown people's civil and human rights, "Birth of a Nation" now functions as a handbook, as well as a prologue, justification of and insight into the collective mind of the Jim Crow Republican Party and white right.

New polling from CBS/YouGov shows how racist and white supremacist attitudes about Black people's civic responsibility, citizenship, trustworthiness and right to vote are being used to justify Trump's "Big Lie" about the 2020 presidential election and the Republican Party's war on multiracial democracy. In the aggregate, these anti-Black attitudes and sentiments constitute what political scientists and others describe as "modern" or "symbolic racism".

CBS News begins its analysis by noting that most Americans "don't think there was widespread fraud in 2020," but most Republicans still say there was, and perceive "making voting easier" as giving Democrats an unfair advantage:
A closer look at why some still endorse the fraud claim and what specifically Republicans claim happened — despite the absence of actual evidence — shows a strong link to partisan politics. Republicans say fraud predominantly took place in cities and communities that vote Democratic, but much less so in the suburban and rural areas where many Republicans live. They also say it stemmed from mail ballots, which former President Trump long railed against, and which favored Democrats in many places. Meanwhile, most say ballots were counted properly in the states Mr. Trump won.

The CBS analysis continues by noting that those who perceive widespread election fraud "attribute more of it to Black communities" than to predominantly white areas.
Views on voter fraud also differ with regard to how ballots were cast, not just where they were cast. More than three in four of those who believe in widespread fraud attribute a lot of it to ballots cast by mail, a method used disproportionately by voters of color and criticized repeatedly by former President Trump. Among our validated voters in 2020, for instance, voters of color are over 10 points likelier than White voters to have cast their ballot by mail.

These white supremacist fears echo the paranoia felt by many white Americans in earlier centuries about the imaginary threat of "Negro domination."

The CBS/YouGov poll also fits within a much larger context of white racism, racial animus, racial resentment and racial authoritarianism, all of which drive support for the white supremacist agenda of the current Republican Party, and for Trump and his neofascist movement more specifically.

Social scientists and others have shown that hostility toward nonwhites is a key determinant of support for Trump. Republicans are also more likely to be racist and hold other anti-Black and anti-brown sentiments than are Democrats. Fueled by hostility to the civil rights movement and other societal changes that attempted to give equal rights to Black and brown people, the Republican Party has now fully embraced white supremacy and white identity politics as its dominant strategy for winning and keeping power.

On these connections between the past and present, Jamelle Bouie explained in his New York Times column that the infamous Jim Crow laws which disenfranchised Black people in the South never specifically said they were doing that:

I raise this because of a debate among politicians and partisans on whether Georgia's new election law — rushed through last month by the state's Republican legislature and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican — is a throwback to the Jim Crow restrictions of the 20th century.

Democrats say yes. "This is Jim Crow in the 21st century. It must end," President Biden said in a statement. Republicans and conservative media personalities say no. "You know what voter suppression is?" Ben Shapiro said on his very popular podcast. "Voter suppression is when you don't get to vote."

The problem with the "no" argument here is that it mistakes both the nature and the operation of Jim Crow voting laws. There was no statute that said, "Black people cannot vote." Instead, Southern lawmakers spun a web of restrictions and regulations meant to catch most Blacks (as well as many whites) and keep them out of the electorate.

One of the lessons of the South after Reconstruction is that democratic life can flourish and then erode, expand and then contract. Democracy is not a solid state, and we should be wary of politicians who would undermine any part of it for partisan advantage.

It took three decades of struggle, and violence, before Southern elites could reclaim dominance over Southern politics. No particular restriction was decisive. The process was halting, contingent and contested, consolidating in different places at different times. It was only when the final pieces fell into place that the full picture of what took place was clear.

Put a little differently, the thing about Jim Crow is that it wasn't "Jim Crow" until, one day, it was.

Today's Republican Party, with its "Birth of a Nation" fantasies, represent a collective effort to whitewash Black America's history of resistance to white supremacy and American neofascism. In the Age of Trump and beyond, the worst parts of America's past have been reimagined as something ideal and aspirational.

In his 1905 book "The Aftermath of Slavery," William Sinclair wrote:

Here is the kernel of a great truth. The white people of the South have voted persistently and solidly against every measure of great national benefit for forty years. The colored people have voted as persistently and as solidly, wherever permitted to do so, in favor of such measures; so that while the white vote of the South has been inimical to the great interests of the country, these have been saved by the colored vote.
Thus the colored vote has proved a veritable godsend to the nation. Without this vote the most important and fruitful national policies would have been impossible of inauguration. The negro vote is a failure only when it is suppressed by the intimidation, fraud, and shot-guns of the whites.

As the Jim Crow Republicans and the white right continue their assault on American democracy, Sinclair's words offer both caution and inspiration.

In a recent interview with Salon, historian Annette Gordon-Reed explained:
African Americans have from the very beginning been the people who tried to make the promise of America real. They believed in the words of the Declaration of Independence. African Americans have tried to uphold those words, in the face of other people who did not seem to take those words and the values as seriously as they did. African Americans have long tried to uphold the values of the Declaration and the notion of equality in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which brought Black people into citizenship and represent the idea that people should be treated as equal citizens. Yet there are people right now here in the United States who do not take those parts of the Constitution seriously. They are imagined as "true" Americans, and are given the benefit of the doubt when, for example, they attack the Capitol building.

If the American people as a group had listened to Black folks' warnings — and in particular Black women's warnings — about the danger represented by Donald Trump, he would never have been elected president in the first place. If the mainstream news media and other prominent public voices had listened to Black and brown folks' warnings about ascendant fascism and white supremacy, the Jan. 6 coup attempt and lethal attack on the Capitol would not have taken place.

Black and brown folks are now trying to warn the Democrats and Joe Biden that American democracy has been imperiled to such an extreme that the 2022 midterms may be the last "free and fair elections" in the United States — and even that is an optimistic prediction.

Black people are demanding the "urgency of now" to save the country's democracy. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party's leadership have instead chosen to celebrate "infrastructure" and "bipartisanship" while refusing to end the filibuster.

If America had listened to Black people's wisdom and warnings across the centuries, it would be a safer, more secure, more prosperous and more free nation today. America's future depends on heeding that wisdom now. There is no time to lose.

American tourists caught sneaking into Canada with fake vaccine documents -- and get fined $20,000 each

Bob Brigham
July 30, 2021

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 31, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

Canada has fined two Americans for providing counterfeit fake vaccination documents and lying about being tested before traveling, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

"The Public Health Agency of Canada says the travelers also didn't comply with requirements to stay at a government authorized hotel or to get tested upon arrival," the outlet reported. "Canada eased quarantine requirements on July 5 for fully vaccinated Canadians and foreign nationals with an exemption to enter the country, but they must upload their proof of vaccination documents to the ArriveCAN app before entry."

Each traveler was fined a total of $19,720, though the Public Health Agency of Canada noted the two could've been fined $750,000 and sentenced to six months in prison under the country's Quarantine Act.

On Saturday, the watchdog group Media Matters for America reported that Google is profiting from ads for counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards.

"Google Shopping lists a counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination card as the first sponsored result under the search terms 'blank vaccination card,' 'blank cdc card,' 'cdc card,' and 'vaccination card.' The 'sponsored' label on the section indicates that Google is 'compensated for clicks' on the ads and that 'advertiser payment to Google may also influence how items are ranked and grouped' in results," MMFA reported.

"The product appears to carry the logos of the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The product title says, 'Fill the information yourself.' According to the website, all of the most recent transactions come from buyers in the United States. The lowest price for the counterfeit cards is $0.99 for a set of 20," MMFA added.

 

Anger boils over as Turkey has no airplanes to fight wildfires while Erdoğan has more than a dozen

By

 Turkish Minute

 -

 July 30, 2021 

Turkey’s minister of agriculture has said the government doesn’t have proper aircraft to combat wildfires that have been ravaging the country since Wednesday, prompting outrage among the public and the opposition to compare the lack of firefighting aircraft with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 13-airplane presidential fleet.

More than 70 wildfires have broken out this week in provinces on Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts as well as inland areas, Erdoğan said, adding that 14 were still burning. The death toll has risen to four with more than 180 injured as thousands of firefighters battled huge blazes spreading across the Mediterranean resort regions for a third day on Friday.

Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli told reporters during a visit to the affected region that Turkey does not have a firefighting plane in its inventory.

Planes from Russia and Ukraine helped battle the flames, and another from Azerbaijan was joining them. “As of midday, with the arrival of the planes, we are turning in a positive direction,” Erdoğan told reporters after Friday prayers.

However, the admission that the country had no firefighting planes has put Erdoğan’s government under immense pressure.

“While the palace [the presidency] has 13 planes and the agriculture minister travels everywhere in his jet, the government can’t employ a firefighting plane to put out these fires, demonstrating the terrible situation this administration has put us in. One palace plane could have bought dozens of firefighting planes,” pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) spokesperson Ebru Günay said on Friday.

Erdoğan, his family and the government are frequently criticized for waste taxpayer money on luxury and mismanaging Turkey’s resources. He raised eyebrows in 2018 when Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani gave him a specially equipped Boeing 747-8.

Turkish media outlets reported back then that the airplane, which was originally to be sold on the secondary market at a price of $400 million, landed at İstanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport to join Turkey’s presidential fleet.

Turkish ministers also sparked controversy with their use of jets when three ministers traveled to the country’s flood-stricken northeast aboard three planes, drawing backlash from critics who accused the government of squandering public funds.

Mürsel Alban, an MP from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), called on Erdoğan to resign, decrying the damage caused by the wildfires.

“I am addressing the Erdoğan government. ‘You don’t cut corners when it comes to prestige,’ you keep saying. You have a 300-room palace in Marmaris [a Turkish resort town], but you don’t have a plane to put out the fire in Marmaris. That is how [great] your prestige is,” Alban said.

Turks in the coastal city of Manavgat booed Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu when he made a visit to the region. Locals protested Çavuşoğlu after he said three firefighting planes were involved in the effort to extinguish the fires, lambasting government officials for their incompetence in fighting the disaster.

Çavuşoğlu said the Antalya Governor’s Office would launch a national donation drive to help people in southern Antalya province, where wildfires ongoing since Wednesday have claimed the lives of three people and injured more than 100.

“Those who want to donate in cash can contact our governor’s office. Our people are generous. They always do their best to provide the necessary support,” he said.

“Go ask for money from your president who keeps building palaces,” Workers Party of Turkey (TİP) MP Barış Atay tweeted and added, “Go and fund [the effort] with the money you will use for the canal [Istanbul] that you will build for billions of dollars.”

Erdoğan is famous for his love of lavish presidential facilities. His presidential complex in Ankara was at the center of criticism when it was constructed due to its large budget, expensive interiors, more than a thousand rooms and luxurious design as well as the felling of trees in its neighborhood.

Over TL 1.7 billion ($244 million at the time) had been spent on the palace, twice the original estimate, when Erdoğan moved into the palace in November 2014.

Earlier this month, photos emerged showing his summer home in a resort town.

Şefik Birkiye, the architect who designed Erdoğan’s mansion in Marmaris, detailed the interior and exterior of the complex, nearly three years after its completion. The home reportedly cost 640 million lira ($73 million) at a time of increased poverty among Turks.

 

AKP gov’t blamed for poor response to forest fires raging across Turkey

By

 Turkish Minute

 -

 July 30, 2021 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has attracted widespread criticism for its poor handling of major wildfires in western and southern provinces that have so far claimed the lives of four people and injured more than 180 while also taking a toll on wildlife and farm animals.

Fifty-seven fires out of a total of 71 that erupted in 21 provinces since around noon on Wednesday have been brought under control, with cooling efforts underway, while the remaining 14 are continuing to burn, according to the latest statement from Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli.

The harsh criticism targeting Turkish authorities centered around Erdoğan’s inaction and the small number of firefighting planes actively used to respond to fires. According to local media reports, Turkey had only one plane available to respond to the fires so leased two more from Russia for TL 1.3 million ($154,563) per day.

The Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK), a non-profit organization whose planes had been used in firefighting for decades, has been unable to participate in tenders for leasing firefighting aircraft in the last two years due to tender specifications, Turkish media reports said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry stipulates in the tenders that the minimum capacity of the aircraft should be 5,000 liters while THK planes have 4,900-liter tanks.

“Turkey is on fire… The president is nowhere to be found. Where is he, on vacation? Why doesn’t he ask the world for help? Why doesn’t he facilitate the use of THK planes? Are they waiting for the whole country to be burned to ashes?” Yıldırım Kaya, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), tweeted on Friday.

While many social media users slammed Erdoğan for not visiting the regions affected by the fires, the presidency only released a statement late Thursday, saying Erdoğan was in contact with Pakdemirli, Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who are on the scene, and that he wished God’s mercy on those who died in the fires.

Videos circulating on social media also showed Çavuşoğlu being booed by a crowd in the early hours of Friday in Antalya’s Manavgat district, one of the regions most severely affected by the wildfires.

In the videos, a person is heard asking the minister, “Doesn’t the government have any planes to send here?” to which Çavuşoğlu replies, “We have three and all of them were here today. One left the region later on.” The person then says, “Does the Turkish Republic only have three firefighting planes? There are currently 10 sitting idle in the THK hangar.”

Local media also reported on Friday that Muğla Mayor Osman Gürün had called THK on Thursday with the aim of leasing firefighting planes but couldn’t reach anybody in charge. Gürün was told by the operator that all the officials had left at around 3:30 p.m. and that he could talk to them the next morning, according to the reports.

Turkish media reports also said Turkey’s former Customs and Commerce Minister Cenap Aşçı, who was appointed chairman of the board of THK in 2019, drew criticism on social media after he admitted during a TV program late on Thursday to have attended a wedding ceremony while massive forest fires were raging across the country.

Pakdemirli on Friday said in a press statement that the ministry has never had firefighting planes or helicopters in its inventory and that they have started working on procuring planes from THK for the inventory, on the orders of the president.

Wildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the arid summer months, although some forest fires have been blamed on arson.

(Olympics) What pressure? Archer An San makes history with gold medal hat trick in Olympic debut

By Yonhap
Published : Jul 30, 2021 -

An San of South Korea holds up her gold medal from the women's individual archery event at the Tokyo Olympics at Yumenoshima Park Archery Field in Tokyo on July 30, 2021. (Yonhap)

The archery broadcast for the Tokyo Olympics this year has added a new feature, with a small bug at the bottom left corner showing archers' heart rates.

South Korean archer An San, who won her third gold medal here with the women's individual title on Friday, mostly sat around the 80s, which is in the perfectly normal range and is shockingly low for an athlete in the heat of an Olympic competition.

Her opponents on this day, on the other hand, had their beats per minute reading around 140 to 160, the kind of numbers you'd get after a hard run on a treadmill for about 20 minutes.

Even in the final against Elena Osipova of the Russian Olympic Committee, An's bpm never hovered over 120. An's heart rate reached as high as 115 and, as she shot her arrow, it would fall to below 110.

Osipova's bpm reading went all the way up to 152 at one point.

Given the seeming ease with which An swept up all women's archery gold medals here, it was difficult to believe the 20-year-old was making her Olympic debut.

With two gold medals already in the bag from the mixed team and women's team event, An didn't put any pressure on herself to make history with the third one.

"I wasn't all that nervous. I was having fun out there," An said. "Whenever I was about to get nervous, I tried to smile more and shake off jitters."

As for the low bpm numbers, An said, "I felt like my heart was beating pretty fast. Maybe the numbers didn't show it on the screen."

An went through two sudden-death shoot-offs en route to the top of the podium. She squeezed past Mackenzie Brown of the United States in the semifinals with a 10-9 advantage in the shoot-off. In the final, An shot a 10 to Osipova's 8 in the deciding shoot-off.

Ahead of the last shoot-off, An had this message to herself: "Don't be scared. Just go and shoot."

An's opponents and her teammates marveled at the young athlete's ability to maintain a stoic exterior in the heat of the battles. But An said she does have a sensitive side, which revealed itself when she shed tears on the podium during the medal ceremony.

An is now the first triple gold medalist of the Tokyo Olympics and the first archer to win three gold medals at a single Olympics.

She is the first South Korean athlete to reach the top of the podium three times at one Summer Games.

The list of accomplishments is already long and will likely only grow from here. But the magnitude of what she had just done was mostly lost on An.

"It still hasn't hit me yet," An said. "I feel like I have another competition tomorrow." (Yonhap)

Italian community hopes to save fire-ravaged ancient tree

Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

"The Patriarch", as it is known in the west of the Italian island region, was a massive wild olive tree with a trunk about 10 metres (33 feet) around and 16.5 metres (54 feet) high 

Valentina SINIS AFP/File


Rome (AFP)

Scientists in Sardinia are hoping a thousand-year-old olive tree nearly destroyed by recent fires can be saved, mobilising volunteers to stand guard around the remains of the ancient tree.

"The Patriarch", as it is known in the west of the Italian island region, was a massive wild olive tree with a trunk about 10 metres (33 feet) around and 16.5 metres (54 feet) high.

But it was nearly completely devoured by flames that ripped through the area last weekend when over 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) burned in the worst fires seen on the island in decades.

The blaze destroyed homes and killed livestock as it ravaged thousands of Sardinia's olive trees, along with juniper groves, cork trees, oaks and pines.

After an examination of the tree earlier this week, experts said they hoped there might be signs of life in the root system and the side of the trunk that was spared the worst burns.

The community of Cuglieri has organised volunteers to stand guard to prevent people from walking on its fragile root systems on the advice of experts, including botanist Gianluigi Bacchetta of Cagliari University.

"Keeping this tree alive means keeping everyone's hope alive," he said of the specimen, which registered on Italy's list of monumental trees.

Bacchetta said after an examination of the area Wednesday that water added to the soil around the tree had helped lower its temperature.

Another scientist who surveyed the damage, University of Sassari botany professor Ignazio Camarda, wrote on Facebook that all that was left of the mighty tree were "miserable remains that lie on the ground and a few blackened stumps, as well as a section of the base".

But he also noted "a glimmer of life from which a new sapling could emerge".

Firefighters were still on the ground in western Sardinia Friday, extinguishing new outbreaks and clearing areas, even as scorching temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and winds mean that the risk of fire remains high.

© 2021 AFP

Planted art: Japan rice field work marks Tokyo Olympics



Issued on: 30/07/2021 -

The rice field artwork is intended to highlight Japan's cultural heritage

 Harumi OZAWA AFP
3 min
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Gyoda (Japan) (AFP)

From the ground, there's not much to distinguish the rice stalks in a field in Japan's Gyoda. It's only seen from above that a massive artwork marking the Olympics emerges.

The huge, living installation features iconic Japanese images: the famous wave and Mount Fuji of Katsushika Hokusai's woodblock print and a Kabuki actor in striking facepaint, similar to one that featured at the Olympic opening ceremony.

The images are part of a yearly tradition started by the town of Gyoda in Saitama, north of Tokyo, in 2008 in a bid to bring in tourists.

In 2015, they even scooped a Guinness World Record for creating the world's largest rice field artwork: 28,000 square metres.

Each year, a committee comes up with a new design and hundreds of volunteers plant differently coloured varieties of rice to produce spectacular images that can be viewed from a nearby observatory.

A design is selected early in the year, with planting happening around May. In 2019, the theme honoured the Rugby World Cup, hosted by Japan.

This year's image was intended to highlight Japan's cultural heritage, on the assumption that crowds of foreign visitors would be in the country for the Games.

"We wanted to show the Japanese arts of Ukiyoe (woodblock prints) and Kabuki (theatre) in a rice paddy field, which itself is also an important part of Japan's culture," Gyoda city official Shuhei Tagashira told AFP.

"We wanted to present Japan to the world."

It hasn't worked out that way, with foreign spectators barred and most Games events happening without even domestic fans allowed in the stands.

But on Friday, there were still people taking in the view from an observatory 50 metres up that offers a bird's eye view of the piece.

"It's much more dynamic than I had expected," 23-year-old visitor Kiyo Hoshino told AFP.

"I expected something more simple. But it's more complicated in its design and on a really large scale. I was impressed that the art is so panoramic."

Maintaining the piece takes work, and on Friday nearly a dozen officials from the city's agricultural department were weeding the field, pacing across the vast area in rubber boots and armed with sickles.

The work is important to stop the different colours from bleeding into each other or being muddied by other plants.

"Can you see the green, tall plants? Those are not rice, weed them," city official Shuhei Tagashira called out as his fellow workers struggled in the muddy field.

The project is also designed to bring the community together and promote interest in farming.

In an ordinary year, about 1,000 people get involved in the complex task of planting the right varieties of rice in the right place to produce the artwork.

They include volunteers with some farming experience and those with no background in agriculture, including local children.

But the pandemic forced organisers to slash the numbers in half, though people will still have another chance to get involved when the rice is harvested in October.

And everyone gets a thank you gift at the end: two kilograms of rice in late November.

© 2021 AFP

Online trolls targeting transgender Olympian: Kiwi official



Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard 

ADRIAN DENNIS AFP

Tokyo (AFP)

New Zealand Olympic officials vowed Friday to shield transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard from a tsunami of negative social media comments as the weightlifter prepares to make history at the Tokyo Games.

Hubbard is set to become the first openly transgender woman at the Olympics when she competes in the +87kg category on Monday, sparking heated online debate.

The 43-year-old was born male and competed as a man before transitioning to female in her 30s, taking up the sport at elite level again after meeting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines for transgender athletes.

New Zealand Olympic Committee spokeswoman Ashley Abbott said Hubbard was keeping a low profile in Japan, despite the "particularly high level of interest" in her Olympic debut.

Abbott said not all the interest on social media had been positive.

"Certainly we have seen a groundswell of comment about it and a lot of it is inappropriate," she told reporters.

"Our view is that we've got a culture of manaaki (inclusion) and it's our role to support all eligible athletes on our team.

"In terms of social media, we won't be engaging in any kind of negative debate."

While she acknowledged Hubbard's appearance raised complex issues, Abbott also pointed out: "We all need to remember that there's a person behind all these technical questions."

"As an organisation we would look to shield our athlete, or any athlete, from anything negative in the social media space," she said.

"We don't condone cyberbullying in any way."

- 'Challenging balancing act' -

The intensely private Hubbard has been a reluctant trailblazer, insisting during rare media interviews that she just wants to be left alone to pursue her sport.

In a statement released by the NZOC Friday she said: "The Olympic Games are a global celebration of our hopes, our ideals and our values. I commend the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible."

Hubbard entered the Games ranked 16th in the world but is rated a reasonable chance of a medal as the Covid-19 pandemic has prevented many higher-ranked rivals attending.

An International Weightlifting Federation spokesman said that Hubbard would be under no obligation to speak to journalists after her event.

Critics argue Hubbard has an unfair advantage over female rivals due to physical attributes locked into her body during her formative years as a male.

Supporters say her appearance is a victory for inclusion and trans rights.

Under current IOC guidelines, introduced in 2015, a trans woman can compete provided her testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per litre.

Previously, trans athletes had to undergo gender reassignment surgery followed by at least two years of hormone therapy.

The IOC is reviewing its guidelines, which are expected to be published in the next few months.

IOC spokesman Christian Klaue said the new framework would be an "evolution" that was sure to be revised again eventually as more data about trans athletes became available.

"It will be a very challenging balancing act of all the different points we need to take into account - fairness, inclusion, safety," he said.

"There needs to be a sweet spot to achieve what we need and wherever that sweet spot is, it is probably going to be criticised by some -- it's not going to be the ultimate solution."

IOC medical director Richard Budgett played concerns that trans athletes could come to dominate women's sport, saying Hubbard was the only trans athlete to reach the Olympics since eligibility was first thrown open in 2003.

"If you're prepared to extrapolate a bit from the evidence there is (and) consider the fact that there's been no openly transgender women at the top level until now, then I think the threat to woman's sport is probably overstated," he said.

© 2021 AFP