Did You Know That In The U.S. There Is No Party That Favors Peace

War-mongers Jason Crow (D-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee-- an aggressively devoted tool of the Military Industrial Complex regardless of which party controls Congress-- voted on an amendment by Jason Crow (New Dem-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) to prevent Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. As expected, it passed, 45-11. Think about that: a committee controlled by Democrats voted to prevent Trump from getting U.S. troops-- who, remember, are being assassinated by criminal elements to earn Russian bounties-- out of the 100% pointless and unwinable war in Afghanistan. How the hell did that happen? Maybe you think the Democratic Party is something different than is? Possible? Our troops have been fighting and dying there for 2 decades and we've wasted over a trillion dollars--much, if not most, of it finding its way into the hands of corrupt Americans and corrupt Afs-- and 2,300 American lives and God knows how many Afghan lives.

Do you recall how last cycle one of the DCCC gimmicks was to run military vets and call them heroes? A lot of them got elected and, guess what-- they all suck-- every single one of them; no exceptions. SUCK! Of the candidates who ran by flaunting their credentials as military heroes, each of them has earned a ProgressivePunch "F" score, even the one who pretended to run as a progressive, Maine reactionary Jared Golden (who Blue America was tricked into endorsing and supporting and even persuading Nancy Ohanian into doing a piece of art for!).

BIG Mistake!

There are 31 Democrats and 26 Republicans on the overstuffed committee, where it is extraordinarily easy to earn bribes from the Military Industrial Complex. Here's how the Democrats voted:

• Adam Smith, chairman (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• James Langevin (RI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- stay in Afghanistan
• Joe Courtney (CT)- stay in Afghanistan
• John Garamendi (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jackie Speier (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Tulsi Gabbard (HI)- withdraw troops
• Donald Norcross (New Dem-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Ruben Gallego (AZ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD)- withdraw troops
• Ro Khanna (CA)- withdraw troops
• William Keating (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Andy Kim (NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- didn't vote
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- didn't vote
• Crissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)- didn't vote
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- stay in Afghanistan
• Xochitl Torres Small (BlueDog-NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Veronica Escobar (New Dem-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Deb Haaland (NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jared Golden (ME)- stay in Afghanistan
• Lori Trahan (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- stay in Afghanistan

I spoke with Ro Khanna after the vote and he told me that "It is appalling that the time Congress would choose to wake up from its slumber on matters of war and peace is to mandate perpetual war and restrict bringing our troops home. Let's be very clear what just happened. The Cheney Crow Amendment is to the right of Trump’s foreign policy and it’s scary how many people voted for it."

Republicans who voted against the bill: Mo Brooks (AL), Bradley Byrne (AL), Scott DesJarlais (TN), Jim Banks (IN) and Austin Scott (GA), although I think one or two others who missed the vote added their names in opposition to the Crow/Cheney amendment.

It confuses some progressives when Trump actually wants to do the right thing-- even if it isn't for "pure" reasons. But in this case, Democrats on the committee should have voted against Crow (one of those DCCC military heroes who was elected in 2018 and has done nothing but suck shit since) and Cheney. I mean anyone can get their head around the idea than a Cheney can bewares then even Trump, right? Anyway, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz set out to help Democrats bridge the gap between righteous Trump hatred and getting out of the fuckingwar already: Please Don’t Prolong a Pointless War Just to Show Russia Who’s Boss. He reminded his readers that "Throughout America’s longest war, top Pentagon and civilian officials deliberately misled the public about the endeavor’s likelihood of success in a bid to insulate their adventure from the threat of democratic rebuke. As the Washington Post reported last fall, summarizing the upshot of various confidential government documents it had obtained, 'it was common at military headquarters in Kabul-- and at the White House-- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.' John Sopko, the head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, put the point more plainly: 'The American people have constantly been lied to.' Amid the lies, war crimes, tens of thousands of civilian deaths, egregious corruption, and revival of the Afghan opium trade, some positive developments have accompanied the U.S. invasion. Afghan women have made some real gains in their personal liberty, however limited and fragile. But the U.S. has neither the will nor the capacity to deny the Taliban a role in governing the country. The peace deal that the Trump administration struck with that group in February was an acknowledgment of the inevitable; as such, it was a productive step forward. Under the agreement’s terms, the U.S. will fully withdraw its troops in 14 months, so long as the Taliban upholds its commitments to, among other things, bar Al Qaeda from operating in areas under its control, and participate in 'Intra-Afghan talks' with the government in Kabul, opposition politicians, and various representatives of civil society about the future governance of the country."

To uphold its end of the bargain, the Trump administration plans to reduce America’s troop presence from its current level of 8,600 to 4,500 by this autumn.

But this week, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers erected new barriers to that withdrawal... [T]he House’s conditions are senselessly prohibitive. It’s difficult to see how one could ever withdraw military forces tasked with preventing the formation of terrorist safe havens without increasing the risk of “the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens.” But that is not a rational basis for prolonging a 19-year war. The U.S. cannot maintain military occupations in every country where Islamist militants could conceivably gather and plot violence. Nor should it. As COVID-19 and climate change are making clear (or should be), terrorism is a relatively trivial threat, one that has diverted precious resources from pandemic prevention, green-energy transition, and other efforts necessary for mitigating the genuinely catastrophic challenges to Americans’ safety and security.

Congress’s (uncharacteristic) decision to interfere with the executive branch’s conduct in a foreign war was not explicitly tied to recent revelations concerning Russia’s apparent efforts to place bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But given the prominence of that story, it seems reasonable to worry that the issue influenced the House’s action. Especially since one of the amendment’s sponsors suggested that the U.S. must respond to Russia’s treachery by dispelling any question of America’s “will” to defend its interests.

Congress is right to investigate allegations of Russian targeting of U.S. troops and the Trump administration’s handling of relevant intelligence. But Russia’s actions have no bearing on the wisdom of prolonging an unwinnable war. If anything, the vulnerability of U.S. troops to such attacks constitutes an argument for quicker withdrawal. Extending military quagmires to demonstrate our resolve to Moscow was crazy when it was still the world’s second greatest power; doing so now that Russia is a declining petrostate with modest regional influence would be utter madness.

I'm not so sure about this report by Saagar Enjeti, but it's not out-of-hand dismissible and it's definitely worth carefully considering. Listen with an open mind:

Today, Who Is Offering More Value To Society-- The People Harvesting And Distributing Our Food, Or A Hedge Fund Manager?

On Monday, Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna jointly rolled out a bicameral call for an Essential Worker Bill of Rights to be included as part of a broad emergency relief package that’s needed to address the public health, economic and democratic crises the country is facing right now. The Essential Worker Bill of Rights would ensure all workers deemed essential during this crisis receive hazard pay, a livable wage, workplace health and safety protections, universal paid sick days, paid family leave, free health care, support for childcare, protections for whistleblowers and collective bargaining protections.

The business section of Monday's Washington Post noted that "While much of America shelters at home, millions of people still are working at hospitals, grocery stores, pharmacies, day-care centers and warehouses across the country. Many report working longer hours, often without adequate protective gear such as masks and gloves, as they scramble to meet heightened demand during a pandemic that has claimed 110,000 lives, including 20,000 in the United States." Warren added that "Essential workers are the backbone of our response to the coronavirus. They are putting their health and the health of their loved ones on the line to keep our country running-- and we need to have their backs."

In their rollout, Ro reiterated that "Nearly 60 million Americans are still working to keep our internet running, to deliver our groceries, to make sure we have electricity, and to care for the sick. In an age of automation, we are reminded of the dignity and importance of work that is not remote. This crisis needs to open our eyes to the value of workers who are often invisible, and we need to give them the pay and benefits they deserve." The bill he and Warren put together rests on ten goals:

• Health and safety protections. Every employee, including employees of contractors and subcontractors, should be able to do their job safely, which means having necessary amounts of personal protective equipment provided by employers at no cost to the employee. Employers should be required to take proactive actions when someone at the job site may have contracted coronavirus, including informing employees if they may have been exposed and evacuating the job site until it can be properly cleaned. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be required to immediately issue a robust Emergency Temporary Standard to keep employees safe.
• Robust premium compensation. Every worker should be paid a livable wage, and essential employees are no exception. During this pandemic, essential workers should also be paid robust premium pay to recognize the critical contribution they are making to our health and our economy. Premium pay should provide meaningful compensation for essential work, be higher for the lowest-wage workers, and not count towards workers' eligibility for any means-tested programs. It must be retroactive to the start date of the pandemic, and not used to lower the regular rate of pay for any employee.
• Protections for collective bargaining agreements.
• Truly universal paid sick leave and family and medical leave.
• Protections for whistleblowers.
• An end to worker misclassification. The pandemic has highlighted the longstanding problem of employers misclassifying workers as independent contractors in order to avoid providing the full suite of benefits and protections available to employees. At a time when too many essential workers are being denied basic employment protections, Congress should crack down on worker misclassification.
• Health care security. All essential workers should get the care they need during this crisis, including those who are uninsured or under-insured, regardless of their immigration status. We must use public programs to provide no-cost health care coverage for all, as quickly as possible. Congress should also listen to workers who have called for a full federal subsidy for fifteen months of COBRA for employees who lose eligibility for health care coverage.
• Support for child care.
• Treat workers as experts. Any time a public health crisis hits, the government should work with employers and workers to craft a response and set safety and compensation standards. Essential workers, and their unions and organizations, must be at the table in developing responses to coronavirus-- from determining specific workplace safety protocols to helping develop plans for distributing PPE to holding seats on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
• Hold corporations accountable for meeting their responsibilities. Congress should ensure that any taxpayer dollars handed to corporations go to help workers, not wealthy CEOs, rich shareholders, or the President's cronies. That means taxpayers and workers should have a stake in how funds are used and companies should be required to use funding for payroll retention, put workers on boards of directors, and remain neutral in union organizing drives. CEOs should be required to personally certify they are in compliance with worker protections, so they can face civil and criminal penalties if they break their word. And any federal funding should be designed to ensure that employers cannot skirt the rules by firing or furloughing workers or reducing their hours or benefits in order to access a tax credit or avoid a worker protection requirement. 

Needless to say, the Trumpist regime has a very different way of looking at all of this. Short version: they oppose it. As NPR's Franco Ordoñez explained it last week, Trump is, for example, seeking to lower farmworker pay in the midst of the pandemic. Trump's 59th chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his crackpot Agriculture Secretary, Sonny Perdue are coming up with a plan to reduce wages for foreign guest workers on American farms, in order to help U.S. farmers struggling during the pandemic. (Politically, this might help corporate farms that have been hurt by Trump's trade war with China.) Have you turned your lawn into a vegetable garden? Maybe you'd better think about it.

The nation's roughly 2.5 million agricultural laborers have been officially declared "essential workers" as the administration seeks to ensure that Americans have food to eat and that U.S. grocery stores remain stocked. Workers on the H-2A seasonal guest-worker program are about 10% of all farmworkers.

The effort to provide "wage relief" to U.S. farmers follows an announcement Friday by the USDA to develop a program that will include direct payments to farmers and ranchers hurt by the coronavirus. Trump said Friday that he has directed Perdue to provide at least $16 billion in relief.

Last month, the U.S. State Department said it will start processing more applicants seeking H-2A temporary guest worker visas to ensure U.S. farmers have foreign workers in time for spring planting.

The most recent push to lower wage rates for workers on H-2A visas has drawn pushback from some strange bedfellows: immigrant-rights advocates and immigration hard-liners usually aligned with Trump.

Erik Nicholson, national vice president for the United Farm Workers, says people who have worked in agriculture for decades are concerned they are going to lose their jobs. And he said vulnerable guest workers are not being provided proper hand-washing facilities and still being forced to live in cramped housing.

"So in the middle of a pandemic, rather than trying to figure out the cheap way to do things, we need to make sure we live up to the expectations society has of us as an industry to keep the food flowing," Nicholson said.

Groups on the right fear Trump is succumbing to the will of the agriculture lobby that is demanding lower wages for foreign and domestic farmworkers at a time of record high unemployment in the United States.

The Department of Labor reports that 16.6 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid in the past few weeks.

"President Trump should see right through what the agriculture lobby is demanding in the name of 'food security' at the height of a health crisis-- lower wages for American workers and more cheap foreign labor," said Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports immigration restrictions. "These appalling demands underscore that the whole way this nation produces food should be reexamined."

It's unclear how the reforms would be made, including whether they would be taken through executive action or through the federal regulatory process. But Perdue has pushed for adjusting what is known as the adverse effect wage rate, which prevents farmers using the H-2A program from paying all workers-- U.S. and guest workers-- wages below the prevailing rates in the surrounding area.

Earlier this year, Perdue said the adverse wage rate has set almost a $15 minimum wage for agriculture, noting "no other business in the country has that," according to the agriculture trade journal DTN.

The "adverse effect wage rates" are based on a USDA survey of what agricultural workers are paid in each state. It's $11.71 in Florida, $12.67 in North Carolina and $14.77 in California.

A USDA official told NPR that Perdue is working with Trump to "resolve long-standing challenges facing the agriculture industry, including reforms to the H-2A program.

"These challenges have been exacerbated by these uncertain times," the official said in a statement.

U.S. farmers say they have had to cut back on production because of the high number of restaurant and hotel closures. Cory Lunde, a spokesman for the Western Growers Association, said U.S. farmers are fighting to keep "our farms afloat in the face of the near-total collapse of the food-service sector" and more recent slowdown in the retail market.

Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, said Trump administration officials are trying to look at ways to help because "they understand that we're in trouble and they want to secure the food supply for the American people."

"When a farmer goes out of business, you know, he doesn't come back," Wicker said. "Food supply is a national security issue and, as bad as this COVID-19 crisis is, perhaps it can be a catalyst to start a conversation about our agriculture policy and having sustainable agriculture and diversity."

These cutbacks sound suspicious. OK, hotels and restaurants are closed so farmers lost those customers. But are people consuming less food? Five dinners out, pre-pandemic means five dinners prepared at home instead, no? Are people eating significantly less food? Amazon and Walmart stock prices are almost back to their pre-pandemic highs, at least in part because they are selling lots more food.

A few days ago, the Washington Post published a report pointing out that "Next to health-care providers, no workforce has proved more essential during the novel coronavirus pandemic than the 3 million U.S. grocery store employees who restock shelves and freezers, fill online orders and keep checkout lines moving. Some liken their job to working in a war zone, knowing that the simple act of showing up to work could ultimately kill them. At least 41 grocery workers have died so far." What if they decided it was too dangerous-- especially considered the tiny wages they make-- and decided to stop working? Ditto for the men and women who pick our food. Think about it when Congress starts debating the Warren/Khanna bill.

Two rural district progressives, J.D. Scholten in Iowa and Kathy Ellis in Missouri saw right through Trump's ruse. "CEOs don't make this country work-- working people, especially our farmworkers, do," said J.D. "But despite Trump deeming farmworkers as 'essential' during this pandemic, he's pushing forward a 10% pay cut for 250,000 H2A farmworkers. This is his latest attack on immigrants and he's using a shameful excuse of 'helping farmers' to do it. We don't need to hurt farmworkers in order to help farmers. Our coronavirus response should reflect our values and lift up all those on the frontlines who are putting their lives on the line to help others." Kathy is on the same page-- "This issue could not be more important. In my own state of Missouri, our local union leaders have been calling on the Governor to deem all of our frontline workers-- grocery store workers, food suppliers, agricultural workers-- essential workers with essential protections. His response has been, 'I cannot deem everyone an essential worker.' We need national leadership on this issue because in too many states like mine, local leaders aren't taking the steps they need to support our frontline workers. I proudly support this Bill of Rights, and am grateful for their leadership in pushing this forward."

Time To Let The Handful Of Smart Members Of Congress Set The Agenda-- Meet Katie Porter

Only one of these people has the brains to lead

There's no foolproof test, but it's a lot easier to name the most corrupt members of Congress-- think Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Vern Buchanan (R-FL)-- than the stupidest... or smartest. Most of the really, really dumb ones don't last that long in Congress-- exception being Alaska dimwit Don Young-- but Rand Paul is on everyone's "most stupid" list, as are 3 who are retiring this year, Sean Duffy (R-WI), Tom Graves (R-GA) and Rob Woodall (R-GA), as well as Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Joe Wilson (R-SC), David Schweiker (R-AZ), Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). Before Trump plucked him out of Congress to make him his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) was almost universally considered the dumbest person in the House. Presumably, now he'll be the dumbest person in Northern Ireland.

But when it comes to smarts, it's much easier. First of all, the vast majority of members of Congress are certifably morons. "Despite the many advanced degrees from prestigious universities, and despite the fact that many in Congress are millionaires, the average IQ of U.S. Representatives is 101. The average IQ of U.S. Senators, is surprisingly, even lower at 98. And, it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Democrats in Congress are less stupid than Republicans.

During the last election cycle, we urged Blue America members to help elect Katie Porter, in part because she was one of the smartest people running for Congress. She won and has proven us-- time and time-- correct in our assessment. While most of the freshmen have shown themselves to be just what they looked like when they were running-- dumb as bricks-- Porter has not disappointed. She's widely considered one of the best questioners in committee and she is always coming up with solid, innovative ideas. Before being elected, the rural Iowa-born brainiac, taught law at UC Irvine, having graduated from both Yale (undergrad, where her thesis was The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community) and Harvard Law, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 2001.

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) are also widely considered two of Congress' only truly brilliant members. This morning Ro told me that "Katie is brilliant-- a towering intellect. What more is there that needs to be said!" At the same time, Jamie said, "As Elizabeth Warren’s prize pupil, Katie is the most devastating questioner we have in the House to expose corporate ripoffs and government lethargy, and everyone is learning from her tactical brilliance and clarity of expression. We’re thrilled to have her on the Oversight Committee now, and even though she’s our most junior Member sitting way down at the bottom of the list, the last shall clearly be first in our investigations. Katie has also become an outspoken and eloquent force for single parents."

In a Congress filled with lawyers, Matt Cartwright (D-PA) is acknowledged to be one of the sharpest attorneys elected to government. This morning he told us that "When a single mom gets home from work, late at night, because it’s her second job, her feet hurting and her back sore from just pushing herself all day, when she looks in on her teenage kid, just to make sure he made it home safe through the neighborhood they have to live in, when she sorts through the mail in the kitchen and sees the letter from the collection agency and the reminder about how the rent is going up next month, when she stops in the bathroom to take her heart meds and sees she’s down to her last week before she has to get the one refilled, and it’s the expensive one, and when she sets the alarm and lies down for another short night, there’s this one thing that she can’t get out of her head. Today she saw a video clip of a young Congresswoman from California questioning this smug, self-satisfied rich Wall Street banker about how regular people in this country can’t possibly make ends meet on what they’re paid, let alone get ahead. She saw that young Congresswoman just take that banker apart on national television. And, as she finally closes her eyes for the night, she smiles. Katie Porter makes me proud to be a Democrat."

On Friday, Porter was on CNN with Chris Cuomo explaining her plan to implement remote congressional voting during the pandemic. "I am calling on Congress tonight, on leaders of both parties, to adopt a remote voting procedure to ensure that if we're not able to travel, if this public health crisis worsens...we're still able to take votes... We're asking the American public to adopt public health measures and it's really important... that Congress adopt public health measures itself. Congress itself has been flatfooted during this crisis in terms of how we deal with things."

"You've seen the House floor," she continued. "It's a scrum of people. 435 members and 150 staff in close quarters using the same voting machines. We're asking American businesses, schools, non-profits, local governments to be flexible and to obey public health guidelines.

"Congress should be no exception. We should be willing here to be flexible and adopt a remote voting procedure that can be invoked if necessary. I don't think there is any excuse for us to disobey the public health guidelines and to refuse to use technology to adapt to this public health emergency when at the same time that businesses and communities do exactly that."

Pelosi has wanted to do this for weeks but denies it publicly because she doesn't want to somehow appear "weak" while McConnell keeps the Senate in session. Most people working on Capitol Hill who I've spoken with agree with Porter and say it would be OK to look bad to a shrinking number of pandemic-deniers and stay alive while older senators start dying off. Last week Tomas Pueyo answered an important question:How Can Politicians Contribute to Social Distancing?. The question politicians are asking themselves today is not whether they should do something, but rather what’s the appropriate action to take. There are several stages to control an epidemic, starting with anticipation and ending with eradication. But it’s too late for most options today. With this level of cases, the two only options politicians have in front of them are containment and mitigation.

Containment

Containment is making sure all the cases are identified, controlled, and isolated. It’s what Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan or Taiwan are doing so well: They very quickly limit people coming in, identify the sick, immediately isolate them, use heavy protective gear to protect their health workers, track all their contacts, quarantine them… This works extremely well when you’re prepared and you do it early on, and don’t need to grind your economy to a halt to make it happen.

I’ve already touted Taiwan’s approach. But China’s is good too. The lengths at which it went to contain the virus are mind-boggling. For example, they had up to 1,800 teams of 5 people each tracking every infected person, everybody they got interacted with, then everybody those people interacted with, and isolating the bunch. That’s how they were able to contain the virus across a billion-people country.

This is not what Western countries have done. And now it’s too late. The recent US announcement that most travel from Europe was banned is a containment measure for a country that has, as of today, 3 times the cases that Hubei had when it shut down, growing exponentially. How can we know if it’s enough? It turns out, we can know by looking at the Wuhan travel ban.

...If the transmission rate goes down by 25% (through Social Distancing), it flattens the curve and delays the peak by a whole 14 weeks. Lower the transition rate by 50%, and you can’t see the epidemic even starting within a quarter.

The US administration’s ban on European travel is good: It has probably bought us a few hours, maybe a day or two. But not more. It is not enough. It’s containment when what’s needed is mitigation.

Once there are hundreds or thousands of cases growing in the population, preventing more from coming, tracking the existing ones and isolating their contacts isn’t enough anymore. The next level is mitigation.

Mitigation

Mitigation requires heavy social distancing. People need to stop hanging out to drop the transmission rate (R), from the R=~2–3 that the virus follows without measures, to below 1, so that it eventually dies out.

These measures require closing companies, shops, mass transit, schools, enforcing lockdowns… The worse your situation, the worse the social distancing. The earlier you impose heavy measures, the less time you need to keep them, the easier it is to identify brewing cases, and the fewer people get infected.

This is what Wuhan had to do. This is what Italy was forced to accept. Because when the virus is rampant, the only measure is to lock down all the infected areas to stop spreading it at once.

With thousands of official cases-- and tens of thousands of true ones-- this is what countries like Iran, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland or the US need to do.

But they’re not doing it.

Some business are working from home, which is fantastic.

Some mass events are being stopped.

Some affected areas are in quarantining themselves.

All these measures will slow down the virus. They will lower the transmission rate from 2.5 to 2.2, maybe 2. But they aren’t enough to get us below 1 for a sustained period of time to stop the epidemic. And if we can’t do that, we need to get it as close to 1 for as long as possible, to flatten the curve.

So the question becomes: What are the tradeoffs we could be making to lower the R? This is the menu that Italy has put in front of all of us:

• Nobody can enter or exit lockdown areas, unless there are proven family or work reasons.
• Movement inside the areas is to be avoided, unless they are justified for urgent personal or work reasons and can’t be postponed.
• People with symptoms (respiratory infection and fever) are “highly recommended” to remain home.
• Standard time off for healthcare workers is suspended
• Closure of all educational establishments (schools, universities…), gyms, museums, ski stations, cultural and social centers, swimming pools, and theaters.
• Bars and restaurants have limited opening times from 6am to 6pm, with at least one meter (~3 feet) distance between people.
• All pubs and clubs must close.
• All commercial activity must keep a distance of one meter between customers. Those that can’t make it happen must close. Temples can remain open as long as they can guarantee this distance.
• Family and friends hospital visits are limited.
• Work meetings must be postponed. Work from home must be encouraged.
• All sports events and competitions, public or private, are canceled. Important events can be held under closed doors.

Then two days later, they added: No, in fact, you need to close all businesses that aren’t crucial. So now we’re closing all commercial activities, offices, cafes and shops. Only transportation, pharmacies, groceries will remain open.”

One approach is to gradually increase measures. Unfortunately, that gives precious time for the virus to spread. If you want to be safe, do it Wuhan style. People might complain now, but they’ll thank you later.

Which members of Congress have the brains and the balls to do the right thing-- even when it is also the difficult and even unpopular thing? Remember, 83% of the members of Congress are actual morons, and one of them-- Mitch McConnell-- can keep anything and everything from moving forward at all, let alone in a timely manner.

Blue America Endorsement-- Cori Bush For Congress (MO-01)

Missouri's first congressional district-- the entire city of St. Louis and the mostly black northern suburbs-- Ferguson, Florissant, Black Jack, Spanish Lake-- is the 385th poorest congressional district of 435 nationally and the poorest in the state. It borders the second congressional district which is one of the richest in the country. MO-01 is a minority majority district (42.9% white) and MO-02 is 88.1% white. The district lines have been carefully drawn to pack as many likely Democratic voters into a single district and keep the second CD as Republican as possible. MO-01 has a PVI of D+28 and next door the PVI is R+8. MO-01 is poorly represented by William "Lacy" Clay (D), who provides a clear reminder of why progressive voters need to organize around fresh, new voices who will upend Capitol Hill, stiff-arm corporate interests, and take back the Democratic Party from the corporate special interests. A ten-term incumbent he long ago sold out to big banks, payday lenders and other financial parasites that depend on Washington to look the other way while they continue preying on poor and underrepresented communities.

Despite representing a district with high concentrations of poverty-- half of the public school students receive free and reduced lunch-- Clay has used his position in Washington to carry water for industries like rent-to-own stores, which target minorities and charge usurious interest rates for basic household appliances, such as refrigerators, ovens and washing machines. Clay actually told a room full of rent-to-own operators assembled at an industry convention, "I’ll always do my best to protect what really matters to you."

In the words of respected investigative journalists Zach Carter and Ryan Grim, Clay is one of a handful of Congressional Black Caucus members who have "pushed for a host of seemingly arcane measures that would undermine Dodd-Frank’s rules on financial derivatives, the complex contracts at the heart of the 2008 meltdown."

Don't expect to see the DCCC or EMILY's List endorse Cori Bush. She's way too real and way too progressive for them. Expect instead to see groups like Matriarch.org and Justice Democrats. And, as of today, Blue America has endorsed her campaign. Cori intends to finish what she began last cycle, when she took on Clay. Progressive icon Ro Khanna endorsed her last cycle and it's worth listening to what he had to say about her:





I asked Cori to introduce herself to DWT readers and Blue America members. Please read what she had to say about her campaign and consider contributing by clicking on the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer below.


St Louis Needs Real Representation
-by Cori Bush

What comes to mind when you think of St. Louis? Maybe you've seen headlines declaring that our crime rates make us the "most dangerous city" in America. Perhaps you watched protests ignite in Ferguson and spread around the world after 18 year-old Michael Brown Jr. was killed. You might know us for our Arch, a landmark intended to signal success and prosperity for those who settled St. Louis.

  For me, I think of all the mothers I've held in my arms, too many to count, as we grieve for the children they lost to gun violence. I think of soul food cooked in small, unassuming neighborhood joints that are better than any Michelin star restaurant you could find. I think about my years as a nurse, caring for the most vulnerable people in our communities, who are suffering from preventable ailments. I think of our history here as a city of protest, of resistance, of resilience; and the legacy we continued every day that we took to the streets in Ferguson.

The people of St. Louis are fighters. I, too, am a fighter.

But for too long, we've been fighting and getting nowhere fast because the one person we've entrusted with our welfare refuses to take action. Here in Missouri-01, Lacy Clay & his father before him have together held our seat in Congress for over half a century. Rep. Clay assures us that everything is fine, while people in my community are forced to make decisions every day that can mean the difference between making ends meet and living in poverty, hunger, or unhoused on our streets.

I started my campaign for Congress as a mother, nurse, activist, and proud St. Louisan, and that's exactly how I will lead in Congress. The people of St. Louis need a Congress-person and deserve a representative, not a career politician. Because I've faced homelessness and being uninsured; because I am a strong single mother who worked for years as a low-wage worker; because I've survived violence; because I come from a proud military family; I could never forget who I was and how I lived, before taking office. Voters across America know that we are facing a turning point in the battle for the soul of our nation. We have nothing to lose, and everything at stake, and that is why we must be vocal, authentic, and unapologetic in our leadership. For St. Louis, and for America, it's the only way.


 


Here's how I will show up and show out for my constituents in 2020:

• Leading and campaigning with integrity

◦ Using campaign funds to campaign--not for any other purpose
◦ NO corporate money, ever. Our campaign is 100% people-powered, which means I don't and won't respond to corporate pressure
◦ Commitment to a living wage for our canvassing team 

• In Congress, I will be present & meaningfully involved in my constituency

◦ At least one town hall with constituents every quarter 
◦ A listening tour around Missouri-01 within my first 100 days of office
◦ Accessible campaign offices around the district, well-staffed to ensure folks' concerns are communicated to our D.C. office
◦ Satellite offices will double as community centers, with a #CoriCares session open to the public once a month
◦ Have a physical presence in schools, prisons, and on district streets to be a resource to community members
◦ Attending neighborhood meetings & community events when possible and staying up-to-date on local organizations' progress
◦ Shelter visits, group home visits, and host pop-up shelters for neighborhoods in need
◦ Strong relationships with local political leaders
◦ Commitment to joining local protests to stand with communities under attack
◦ Ensure engagement with our many diverse communities across MO-1, so no one is left out or left behind

• I will be a Congresswoman for the community

◦ I will publicize the issues we face here in St. Louis in national press outlets, so that our stories don't go untold and unheard any longer
◦ We will form reasonable relationships with well-funded local business to finance job training and career days in our local schools
◦ We will support job training with placement guarantees, including programs specifically focused on employing our formerly incarcerated residents
◦ We will find creative ways to support our unhoused population while advocating for federal funding for homelessness here and across the US
◦ We will host skill sessions for the real world, including financial literacy
◦ We will work to raise awareness surrounding the effects of trauma from sexual assault and domestic violence
◦ We will proactively advocate for environmental justice, reproductive health, more educational funding, and humane prison & criminal justice reform
◦ We will host community events that highlight the district’s diversity so that we can be invested in each other's concerns, offer political education, and connect constituents to resources

I see it as my moral obligation to run for Congress and fight for a better future we all need. But, it is also a serious responsibility with real-life impacts. We deserve better than a representative who can't be pinned down. There should be no room for doubt-- we must know where our leaders stand. The plan I've laid out above is just a taste of what we can build together, and I hope to see you join us.

Are you in?

The House Voted To Prevent Trump From Attacking Iran; Moscow Mitch Laughs

Yesterday, the House passed a bill written by Ro Khanna and one written by Barbara Lee that taken together would put the country on a much more peace-oriented path than the one the Trump regime has been leading the country down. Khanna's bill would block funding for a war that Trump starts against Iran. It passed 228 to 175. Only 3 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, warmongers whose names you can probably guess: Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT), Conor Lamb (PA) and Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR). At the beginning on the video above, you can hear Ro referring to the leader of the warmonger faction in Congress, Michael McCaul (R-TX). I might note that on Wednesday, Ro had endorsed his election opponent, Michael Siegel.

Right after Schrader voted for war with the Republicans, I called Milwaukie mayor Mark Gamba, his opponent for reelection, to ask him why Schrader would make a move that so obviously flies in the face of what Oregon voters want. "The constitution wisely gave the power to declare war to Congress," he said. "That has been eroded and overridden for the last 50 years or so. In that time we have engaged in a number of wars without the direct authorization of Congress to our detriment. The main beneficiaries have been the military industrial complex and often, a president looking to improve his polling. The bill that the House passed without the vote of Kurt Schrader and the Republicans, simply attempts to return those powers to where they belong. At a time when the least stable president in my lifetime is looking for anything to distract the public from his mis-deeds, it is the very least the House could do. Why on earth would Schrader vote against it? Does he yearn for yet another endless war? Are the trillions we've spent over the last few decades not enough? Are the young lives put at risk of no concern? They certainly won't be to the narcissist-in-chief. Why would you give free rein to someone who has proven his immorality? Kurt has taken a lot of cynical votes in his time that do not represent the people of Oregon's 5th congressional district, but this may be the most disgusting vote of his career. I hope the folks in the district will remember this vote the next time Kurt pretends to lament the endless wars at one of his town halls. We have real problems to solve like stopping climate chaos and providing 21st century, world class healthcare to everyone in this country. The last thing we need to do is bleed another few trillion dollars into the sands of Iran."

Lee's bill repeals the 2002 authorization for the use of military force. Her bill passed 236-166. Lamb stayed over on the Republican side of the aisle for this one too and was joined by Nashville warmonger Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN). There were even 11 Republicans (+ Justin Amash) who backed Lee.

Both bills are attached as amendments to the bipartisan Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Medal Act already passed by the Senate. The fate of the amendments will be determined in a reconciliation committee of members of both houses. Ro told me earlier that "Senator Church helped end the Vietnam war by stopping the funding. We can prevent war in Iran by cutting off the funds. This amendment does that." He told reporters just before the vote that "The reality is that Congress needs to exercise the power of the purse. We need to make it very clear that Congress is not going to authorize a dime for an offensive war in Iran."

How Young Donald Learned To Weaponize His Racism

Over the weekend, a tweet from Ro Khanna alerted me to a favorite Trump shenanigan-- a roll back to an Obama housing desegregation rule. The very first time the name "Donald J. Trump" appeared in the New York Times, a thrill for the young publicity hound, was in connection to a government law suit in which he and his crooked, racist father were charged with violating a civil rights act in regard to housing. In short, they were refusing to rent apartments to blacks and hispanics even though the properties were built with government loans that prohibited racial discrimination. When the Trumps were able to worm their way out of it with countersuits and by making themselves unbearably annoying it set Trump on a path of action about how to get away with criminal behavior that is apparent today-- and in every phase of his miserable life.

A few months before he managed to steal the 2016 election, the New York Times reprised that episode: 'No Vacancies' For Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, And Was First Accused Of Bias. Jonathan Mahler and Steve Eder reported on the Trumps' "practice of turning away potential black tenants [which] was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle."

The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.

Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle-- as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier-- he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.

When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.

But an investigation by the New York Times-- drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors-- uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.

...[Fred Trump's] establishment as one of the city’s biggest developers was hardly free of controversy: The Senate Banking Committee subpoenaed him in 1954 during an investigation into profiteering off federal housing loans. Under oath, he acknowledged that he had wildly overstated the costs of a development to obtain a larger mortgage from the government.

In 1966, as the investigative journalist Wayne Barrett detailed in “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth,” a New York legislative committee accused Fred Trump of using state money earmarked for middle-income housing to build a shopping center instead. One lawmaker called Mr. Trump “greedy and grasping.”

By this point, the Trump organization’s business practices were beginning to come under scrutiny from civil rights groups that had received complaints from prospective African-American tenants.

People like Maxine Brown.

Mr. Leibowitz, the rental agent at the Wilshire, remembered Ms. Brown repeatedly inquiring about the apartment. “Finally, she realized what it was all about,” he said.

Ms. Brown’s first instinct was to let the matter go; she was happy enough at the Y.W.C.A. “I had a big room and two meals a day for five dollars a week,” she said in an interview.

But a friend, Mae Wiggins, who had also been denied an apartment at the Wilshire, told her that she ought to have her own place, with a private bathroom and a kitchen. She encouraged Ms. Brown to file a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, as she was doing.

“We knew there was prejudice in renting,” Ms. Wiggins recalled. “It was rampant in New York. It made me feel really bad, and I wanted to do something to right the wrong.”





Mr. Leibowitz was called to testify at the commission’s hearing on Ms. Brown’s case. Asked to estimate how many blacks lived in Mr. Trump’s various properties, he remembered replying: “To the best of my knowledge, none.”

After the hearing, Ms. Brown was offered an apartment in the Wilshire, and in the spring of 1964, she moved in. For 10 years, she said, she was the only African-American in the building.

Complaints about the Trump organization’s rental policies continued to mount: By 1967, state investigators found that out of some 3,700 apartments in Trump Village, seven were occupied by African-American families.

Like Ms. Brown, the few minorities who did live in Trump-owned buildings often had to force their way in.

...Unlike the public schools, the housing market could not be desegregated simply by court order. Even after passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in housing, developments in white neighborhoods continued to rebuff blacks.

For years, it fell largely to local civil rights groups to highlight the problem by sending white “testers” into apartment complexes after blacks had been turned away.

“Everything was sort of whispers and innuendo and you wanted to try to bring it out into the open,” recalled Phyllis Kirschenbaum, who volunteered for Operation Open City, a housing rights advocacy organization. “I’d walk in with my freckles and red hair and Jewish name and get an apartment immediately.”

...Donald Trump said he had first heard about the lawsuit, which was filed in the fall of 1973, on his car radio.

The government had charged him, his father and their company, Trump Management Inc., with violating the Fair Housing Act.

Another major New York developer, the LeFrak Organization, had been hit with a similar suit a few years earlier. Its founder, Samuel LeFrak, had appeared at a news conference alongside the United States attorney, trumpeting a consent agreement to prohibit discrimination in his buildings by saying it would “make open housing in our cities a reality.” The LeFrak company even offered the equivalent of one month’s rent to help 50 black families move into predominantly white buildings.

Donald Trump took a different approach. He retained Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting counsel, Roy Cohn, to defend him. Mr. Trump soon called his own news conference-- to announce his countersuit against the government.

The government’s lawyers took as their starting point the years of research conducted by civil rights groups at Trump properties.

“We did our own investigation and enlarged the case,” said Elyse Goldweber, who as a young assistant United States attorney worked on the lawsuit, U.S.A. v. Trump.

A former Trump superintendent named Thomas Miranda testified that multiple Trump Management employees had instructed him to attach a separate piece of paper with a big letter “C” on it-- for “colored”-- to any application filed by a black apartment-seeker.

The Trumps went on the offensive, filing a contempt-of-court charge against one of the prosecutors, accusing her of turning the investigation into a “Gestapo-like interrogation.” The Trumps derided the lawsuit as a pressure tactic to get them to sign a consent decree like the one agreed to by Mr. LeFrak.

The judge dismissed both the countersuit and the contempt-of-court charge. After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the Trumps gave up and signed a consent decree.

As is customary, it did not include an admission of guilt. But it did include pages of stipulations intended to ensure the desegregation of Trump properties.

Equal housing activists celebrated the agreement as more robust than the one signed by Mr. LeFrak. It required that Trump Management provide the New York Urban League with a weekly list of all its vacancies.

This did not stop Mr. Trump from declaring victory. “In the end the government couldn’t prove its case, and we ended up making a minor settlement without admitting any guilt,” he wrote in The Art of the Deal.

Only this was not quite the end.

A few years later, the government accused the Trumps of violating the consent decree. “We believe that an underlying pattern of discrimination continues to exist in the Trump Management organization,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote to Mr. Cohn in 1978.

Once again, the government marshaled numerous examples of blacks being denied Trump apartments. But this time, it also identified a pattern of racial steering.

While more black families were now renting in Trump-owned buildings, the government said, many had been confined to a small number of complexes. And tenants in some of these buildings had complained about the conditions, from falling plaster to rusty light fixtures to bloodstained floors.

The Trumps effectively wore the government down. The original consent decree expired before the Justice Department had accumulated enough evidence to press its new case.

This past October, ACLU staffers Linda Morris and Alejandro Ortiz, warned that Trump was about to slam the door on fair housing: Trump Administration's new rule would dismantle critical housing protections for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. It's as though Trump was looking for revenge against a government that called him and his family out on their racism. "Fifty years after the enactment of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), housing discrimination remains a national disgrace in the United States. Across the country, a growing tide of housing providers, perhaps emboldened by Trump’s anti-“other” rhetoric, discriminate against the very communities the FHA was designed to protect. In 2017 alone, there were nearly 29,000 reported complaints of housing discrimination across the country. Despite growing diversity in population, residential segregation persists at alarming rates hurting local schools, property values, and much more. Just this year, Black homeownership rates dropped to a record low of 40.6% which is the lowest level recorded by the Census Bureau since 1950. Despite this ongoing crisis, the Trump Administration proposed a new rule that will dismantle critical housing protections for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.

In one of this administration’s most outrageous attacks on civil rights yet, the proposed rule will make a mockery of one of the FHA’s most critical enforcement tools: the Disparate Impact Rule. The Rule allows potential victims of housing discrimination to challenge unjustified policies or practices that disproportionately harm them. Courts have recognized disparate impact liability under the FHA for decades, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision affirming disparate impact liability in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project.  There, the Court explained the significance of disparate impact liability: “[H]ousing restrictions that function unfairly to exclude minorities from certain neighborhoods without any sufficient justification . . . reside at the heartland of disparate-impact liability.” Under the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledged this principle by formally codifying the Disparate Impact Rule in 2013, and consistently affirming the existing Disparate Impact Rule through its fair housing enforcement and guidance as recently as 2016.

...Why does Trump want to undermine this rule? Because it works. Disparate impact liability is a tool like none other in the law with numerous examples of how it has helped dismantle the many systemic barriers to fair housing. The Disparate Impact Rule has been critical in challenging covert or disguised forms of housing discrimination that otherwise escape easy classification. Advocates have invoked the Disparate Impact Rule in challenging discriminatory zoning regulations, predatory mortgage lending practices that charge excessive rates to people of color or people with disabilities, overly restrictive occupancy requirements that shut out families with children, and policies that threaten housing for survivors of gender-based violence and women of color.

By early January, HUD was proposing a rule that would redefine the way jurisdictions are required to promote fair housing and scrap a key assessment tool used to map racial segregation under the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. The 2015 rule-- which the Obama administration introduced as a way to beef up enforcement of the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968-- required local governments to track patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions in order to gain access to federal housing funds.

Lisa Rice, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said the proposal is "a step in the wrong direction. It would weaken fair housing enforcement and basically abdicate jurisdictions and public housing authorities from their fair housing responsibilities. It’s even weaker than the scheme that HUD had before the 2015 rule was implemented …That’s the system that the [Government Accountability Office] found to be completely inept and ineffective."

“The Obama administration’s fair housing rule made the strongest effort in decades to reverse harmful patterns of segregation and discriminatory practices in communities across the country,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Carson, the only black member of President Donald Trump's cabinet, “is scrapping years of extensive input and intensive work that went into the fair housing rule and essentially reverting to the agency’s previous flawed and failed system,” Yentel said.

Boston progressive congressional candidate, Brianna Wu told me that affordable housing is the single biggest issue for many voters in her district. "Of course Trump would reverse any protections to end segregation and discrimination of affordable housing," she said. "Any initiative from the Obama Administration that actually works and helps people is on Trump’s hit list. This is yet another example of Trump’s blatant racism and trying to line his pockets. Affordable housing and gentrification is a significant issue in Boston and other areas of my district. My opponent, Stephen Lynch, has been silent on the issue to appeal to his donors from the real estate industry. I know this has been said many times before, but it bears repeating-- elections have consequences. If we keep electing real estate 'moguls' and representatives who are owned by the real estate industry, change will never happen. We have a lot of work to do, and truly affordable housing for all will be a top priority for me when I get to Congress, both for my district and the nation."