18 August 20
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It's Live on the HomePage Now: Bernie Sanders and the Squad Are Being Marginalized at the DNC
'It Is What It Is': Michelle Obama Picks Trump Apart in Gripping DNC Speech The former first lady sharply contrasted Joe Biden’s competency and character with that of the president In her most political address and her most pointed criticism of Trump to date, the former first lady called on Americans to “vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it” in the November election. “Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.” The phrase echoed Trump’s own words earlier this month, who, when asked about the United States’ staggering death toll from coronavirus, responded: “is what it is.” Liberals, progressives, moderates and some Republicans came together at the virtual event on Monday night to warn of the threats four more years of a Trump administration pose, and promote visions for a better future. In her address, Michelle Obama specifically referenced her words at the 2016 convention, in which she told Democrats: “When they go low, we go high.” Obama said tonight, “Going high is the only thing that works.” She then added: “But let’s be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top.” Nearly four years after leaving the White House, the former first lady remains hugely popular figure within the party, and among Black women in particular, as well as with some of those outside the party. In recent years, she published a best-selling memoir called Becoming, traveled the country on a book tour that was later made into a documentary, helped found a new voting rights organization, and recently launched a podcast. “You know I hate politics,” she said in her speech, repeating a truism that has always disappointed her most ardent supporters, some of whom attempted to draft her into the 2020 primary race. But it appeared to make her an even more powerful character witness, as she sharply contrasted Joe Biden’s personality record with Trump’s, calling the former vice-president, who served under her husband president Barack Obama, a “profoundly decent man” who will “tell the truth and trust science”. “He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic and lead our country,” she said. Trump succeeded Barack Obama in 2017 and promptly set out to undo many of Obama’s achievements on health care, the environment and foreign policy, among others. Trump also routinely criticizes Obama’s job performance. Biden’s sense of empathy was also a key focus of Michelle Obama’s speech. Speaking of the national reckoning on racism sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in May, she said: “whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy”. Tragedy has followed Biden, from the deaths of his first wife and baby daughter after he was elected to the Senate in 1972, to the death of his son Beau from brain cancer in 2015. “His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward,” she said of Biden. A speech like that would typically be met with thunderous applause. But this year, praise was recorded online. Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris praised Obama for “speaking truth to power” while Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called her remarks “incredibly powerful” and “deeply moving.” “Because she is not a politician and doesn’t think or speak like one, @MicheleObama is such a powerful communicator,” tweeted David Axelrod, political consultant and former advisor to Barack Obama. “As she is showing again here, she speaks with a moral authority few in public life can summon.” Michelle Obama, who leads an effort to help register people to vote, also spoke about the importance of voting in the 3 November election, which will take place amid a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans and infected more than 5 million in the US. In the video, she wore a gold chain necklace that said “VOTE.” Her remarks came as Democrats in Washington have also railed against recent cuts to the US Postal Service, which is headed by a Trump ally and Republican donor. The changes are delaying mail deliveries around the country, raising concerns about whether mail-in ballots will be sent out and returned on time ahead of the election. Trump, who lags Biden in some national and state polls, has denounced efforts by some states to expand voting-by-mail options and spread misinformation to undermine the practice, which is seeing huge demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. Due the coronavirus, Michelle Obama’s remarks were recorded before Biden’s announcement last Tuesday that he had chosen Harris as his running mate. But the former first lady wrote lengthy posts on her Facebook and Instagram accounts praising Harris, a Black woman born to Jamaican and Indian parents, after she joined the Democratic ticket. Monday’s speech was the fourth Democratic convention address by Michelle Obama, who first introduced herself to the nation during her husband’s groundbreaking campaign. She spoke again in 2012 to urge voters to give him a second term. Michelle Obama returned to the convention stage in 2016, backing former first lady Hillary Clinton over Trump, who had spent years pushing the lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US and was ineligible for the presidency. |
A police vehicle passes protesters in Pittsburgh. (photo: Jared Wickerham/Pittsburgh City Paper)
Pittsburgh Police 'Abduct' Protest Organizer in Broad Daylight (Video)
Graig Graziosi, Independent
Graziosi writes: "Protesters in Pittsburgh are demanding answers from the city's mayor after an activist was abducted by plainclothes officers into an unmarked van on Saturday."
A video captured the moments after the protester, Matthew Cartier, 25, was pulled into an unmarked van by the city's police.
Mr Cartier was helping to lead the protest at the time of his arrest.
The next day, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto held a press conference during which a city police incident commander explained the department's rationale for abducting the protester.
"Watching these tactics, [Mr Cartier's] refusal to cooperate and the information that we were given ... we decided to effect a low visibility arrest of the individual because when high visibility stuff takes places with these marches, it tends to attract a crowd and incite them further," the police commander said. "So we decided low visibility was the best way to do it and it also gave us the ability if he suddenly started cooperating to call the arrest off."
Ryan Deto, a reporter for the Pittsburgh City Paper, obtained the criminal complaint against Mr Cartier, which police used to justify their arrest.
"According to the criminal complaint, Pittsburgh Police's rational for rolling up & arresting Matthew in an unmarked van, was that he 'startled drivers' because he was marshaling the protest," Mr Deto wrote on Twitter."According to the criminal complaint, Pittsburgh Police's rational for rolling up & arresting Matthew in an unmarked van, was that he 'startled drivers' because he was marshaling the protest," Mr Deto wrote on Twitter.
Mr Cartier was marching with the youth activist organisation Black, Young, and Educated, which has led 11 demonstrations in the city in recent weeks. He said the police lured him towards the van by pretending to be lost and in need of directions.
"The Pittsburgh Police approached the bike perimeter in an unmarked van and lured me closer by pretending to need directions around the march," he wrote on Twitter. "@billpeduto answer for this you rat."
Mr Peduto said the video of the arrest made him "uncomfortable," according to CBS affiliate KDKA 2 Pittsburgh.
"When we look at pop-out as a tactic, especially with officers who are in plain clothes, we have to examine when that is appropriate," Mr Peduto said. "We have to have an understanding if that is a tactic that should be utilised for a protest, and if so, when. And if when, why."
In a tweet on Saturday, Mr Peduto suggested that a protest blocking traffic was in violation of the city's code.
"The right to assemble is a guaranteed right, the right to shut down public streets, is a privilege," he wrote. "That privilege is sanctioned by laws and codes. In Pittsburgh, we worked w ACLU & CPRB to create our codes."
The ACLU of Pennsylvania confirmed that they worked on the codes alongside the city's leadership, but also said it appeared the officers were in violation of those guidelines.
"However, based on eyewitness accounts, the arresting officers were in clear violation of their own guidelines. According to those who were there, the law enforcement officers involved made no effort to work with protest leaders to clear the area and gave no clear dispersal order," an ACLU spokesperson wrote on Twitter. "Instead, they tricked a protest leader to approach them and then whisked him away. The ACLU of Pennsylvania has never suggested that the snatch-and-stash arrest of a peaceful demonstrator is ever acceptable."
Police officials claim they warned Mr Cartier "several times" not to block intersections during the group's march.
Mr Cartier said that the individual sitting in the passenger seat grabbed him as several other men "sprang out of the back of the van heavily armed" and arrested him. He said he was searched and then taken to the county jail.
"The actions taken by the city's police department and tacitly endorsed by @billpeduto are horrifying. Every protester must now live in fear of getting grabbed by the police in such a violent and terrifying manner," he said.
Mr Cartier is being charged with failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and obstructing highways and other public passages. He was initially facing five total charges, which included risking a catastrophe and being an unauthorized person directing traffic, but the city dropped those charges.
Mr Cartier's legal representation, attorney Lisa Middleman, issued a statement on social media condemning the city's actions.
"I have no intention of trying my client's case in the court of public opinion, but I am disturbed by leadership's failure to admit the errors in judgement and tactics that are designed to have a chilling effect on the exercise of civil liberties and constitutional rights," she wrote. "If we are to have any meaningful dialogue about the future of policing in this city and county, a better effort must be made to address the concerns of the community. Demanding communication under threat of arrest is not an honest effort to encourage dialogue."
She said that the leadership's failure to "meaningfully engage with the actual people whose day-to-day lives are impacted by our broken legal system" is why so many people fear and distrust the police.
"The responsibility to change that lies with our elected and appointed officials," she wrote. "And the mayor's 'serious concerns' must result in serious action."
Purdue Pharmaceutical is the Maker of OxyContin. (photo: CBS News)
US States Seek $2.2 Trillion From OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma - Filings
Mike Spector, Reuters
Spector writes: "In filings made as part of Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings [...] the states said Purdue, backed by the wealthy Sackler family, contributed to a public health crisis that has claimed the lives of roughly 450,000 people since 1999."
EXCERPT:
.S. states claimed they are owed $2.2 trillion (1.68 trillion pounds) to address harm from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP's alleged role in America's opioid epidemic, accusing the drugmaker in new filings of pushing prescription painkillers on doctors and patients while playing down the risks of abuse and overdose.
In filings made as part of Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings that were disclosed on Monday, the states said Purdue, backed by the wealthy Sackler family, contributed to a public health crisis that has claimed the lives of roughly 450,000 people since 1999 and caused strains on healthcare and criminal justice systems. The filings cited more than 200,000 deaths in the U.S. tied directly to prescription opioids between 1999 and 2016.
In large states such as California and New York, claims alone totaled more than $192 billion and $165 billion, respectively. Forty-nine U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and various territories are making the claims. Oklahoma settled litigation with Purdue last year.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 under pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits brought by cities, counties, states, Native American tribes, hospitals and others. The lawsuits said the company, and in some cases the Sacklers, used deceptive marketing and took other improper steps to flood communities with prescription opioids.
The company and family have denied the allegations and pledged to help combat the opioid epidemic, including by providing addiction treatment drugs and overdose reversal medications under development.
In response to the state claims, Purdue said it continues to work toward resolving litigation and emerging from bankruptcy, and that it is typical for claims from various creditors to be "filed in amounts substantially larger than what is ultimately allowed by the court."
Sackler representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Purdue and the Sacklers have pointed to fentanyl and heroin as more significant culprits in the opioid crisis. States in their filings, though, pointed to National Institute on Drug Abuse research estimating that about 80% of heroin abusers previously took prescription opioids.
In addition to the assertions from states, Purdue faces claims exceeding $18 billion from the U.S. Justice Department on account of potential penalties resulting from criminal and civil investigations.
In filings tied to Purdue's bankruptcy case, federal prosecutors said Purdue contributed to false claims being made to federal healthcare insurance programs by allowing doctors to write medically unnecessary opioid prescriptions that were at times tainted by illegal kickbacks, according to a person familiar with the matter.
'Losing custody of her son had plunged Cynthia Abcug head-first into the world of QAnon YouTube.' (image: The Daily Beast/Getty Images)
QAnon Incited Her to Kidnap Her Son and Then Hid Her From the Law
Will Sommer, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "Beguiled by far-right conspiracy theories that foster care was a front for child sex-trafficking, Cyndie Abcug allegedly planned to kidnap her son."
art Two of a Two-Part Series
Cyndie Abcug had a gun, a QAnon conspiracy theorist for a bodyguard, and a conviction that “deep state” cabal agents had abducted her 7-year-old son.
Abcug, 50, also had a plan, according to a police report: an armed assault on a Colorado foster home to “free” her son. Abcug’s 15-year-old daughter had tipped off sheriff’s deputies to the alleged scheme, fearful that people would be hurt in what Abcug purportedly called the “raid.”
Soon, there would be an arrest warrant with Abcug’s name on it. The motley assortment of conspiracy theorists surrounding Abcug convinced her it was time to flee her suburban Denver home and go on the run. And there was only one man they thought could help them: QAnon YouTube star Field McConnell. And so, in September 2019, Abcug embarked on a months-long, peripatetic journey of more than 5,500 miles through the heart of the American conspiracy-theorist underground.
In Part One of this two-part series, The Daily Beast reported on the clandestine hub of QAnon believers orbiting around McConnell, a former airline pilot who’s reinvented himself as a QAnon YouTuber with an organization called the Children’s Crusade.
McConnell and his allies in “E-Clause,” a fringe law group that deploys bizarre legal tactics reminiscent of far-right “sovereign citizen” groups, have focused on Abcug and other mothers who have lost custody of their children. In rambling YouTube videos, McConnell and his associates turn these mothers and their children into cause célèbre victims of the supposed deep state—while collecting donations and views along the way.
“It’s kind of this bastard mix of conspiracy theories, sovereign [citizens], and just straight-up scamming people,” said Meko Haze, an independent journalist who has tracked McConnell’s group.
Fans of McConnell and his associates have been charged with a series of bizarre crimes. In March, a Kentucky mother who subscribes to E-Clause’s strange legal theories about child custody laws allegedly abducted her twin daughters. An Illinois woman obsessed with theories about tortured “mole children” promoted by McConnell associate Timothy Charles Holmseth allegedly traveled to New York City with a car full of illegal knives, reportedly talking about a plan to kill former Vice President Joe Biden.
And in June, a Massachusetts man allegedly led police on a high-speed chase with his five children in a minivan, all the while begging QAnon for help and talking about a Holmseth video about Hillary Clinton eating babies.
Abcug’s long run from the law suggests something even more dangerous about QAnon. According to police and court records, as well as published YouTube interviews with people around McConnell and Abcug, QAnon has inspired the creation of an entire network devoted to abetting fugitive QAnon believers and hiding them from law enforcement.
It’s not clear why Abcug lost custody of her son in January 2019. After she did, though, she turned her lurid beliefs about child sex-trafficking in Colorado’s child welfare system into a budding career as a QAnon star. She became a hit on QAnon YouTube shows. Her story resonated with people who believe the pro-Trump mega-conspiracy’s claims that Trump is poised to execute his opponents and destroy a world-spanning cabal of cannibal-pedophiles.
Losing custody of her son had plunged Abcug head-first into the world of QAnon YouTube, where a web of QAnon personalities comfort mothers who have lost custody of their children. In this telling, children who are put in the court-ordered custody of relatives or foster parents have in fact been kidnapped so a cabal that controls the Democratic Party and Hollywood can sexually abuse them or drink their blood in Satanic rituals.
Abcug met with a group of QAnon believers in her state who promised they could help her regain custody of her son and gave her a stack of QAnon awareness bracelets. And then she caught the attention of McConnell and the Children’s Crusade.
McConnell, a retired Navy and commercial airline pilot who lived in Wisconsin until his arrest on stalking charges last November, is the high chief of a particular flavor of QAnon focused on demonizing child-welfare workers as agents of the cabal.
In an August 2019 episode of his YouTube show, McConnell warned Abcug not to get a lawyer to fight for custody of her son. Instead, McConnell said, he would just tell Donald and Melania Trump about her case.
“You’re not going to need an attorney,” McConnell said. “Attorneys are not the solution, they’re the problem. I will get all your information where it needs to go, which is Trump.”
In mid-September, McConnell’s group dispatched Ryan Wilson, a QAnon supporter from Arkansas, to protect Abcug from what she and her fans increasingly saw as a deep-state attempt to destroy her.
Abcug described Wilson to her daughter as a trained sniper, and Abcug’s daughter told police that Wilson was armed. Abcug began to only leave her home for meetings with other QAnon believers, according to the police report, and Wilson went with her everywhere. Abcug bought a gun and made plans to train at a shooting range.
“Abcug had gotten into some conspiracy theories and she was ‘spiraling down it,’” a police report about Abcug reads.
Wilson and Abcug allegedly began planning what they described as a “raid,” according to statements Abcug’s daughter later made to police, an alleged attack on the foster home where Abcug’s son was living. The QAnon believers claimed to have figured out the address of the foster home and described the people running the home as “evil Satan worshipers” and “pedophiles.”
Abcug’s YouTube appearances had won her another supporter: Joseph Ramos, a Colorado medical student who became a sort of assistant to Abcug after seeing her case on McConnell’s show. According to YouTube interviews with Ramos, who didn’t respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment, the Children’s Crusade convinced Abcug that her situation was more dangerous than it actually was.
“They believe or they make Cyndie believe that things are escalating in terms of consequences or in terms of danger,” Ramos said in a series of interviews with NorthWest Liberty News, a right-wing YouTube channel whose host has feuded with McConnell.
Worried that someone would be hurt in the raid, Abcug’s daughter alerted police. But before they could execute an arrest warrant on Abcug, she fled the state with Ramos and Wilson in tow on Sept. 27.
McConnell was surprised to discover Abcug, Ramos, and Wilson at his front door in Plum City, Wisconsin, according to Ramos.
While staying with McConnell, Ramos heard McConnell talking in what Ramos called “hokey codenames” to a network of associates around the country and in the United Kingdom. A silver-haired Wilson appeared on one of McConnell’s livestreams, where he told McConnell he was carrying a 9mm pistol.
While at a store in Plum City, Abcug and Ramos received a call from McConnell warning them that law enforcement officials had shown up at his house. Ramos speculated the call might have just been a scheme by McConnell to get them to leave his house, but they fled anyway.
After leaving Plum City, Abcug and Ramos moved in with a Children’s Crusade supporter in Osceola, Wisconsin, a small town on the Minnesota border. Then, as Children’s Crusade members continued to promise to win custody back for Abcug, she and Ramos traveled to stay with another McConnell ally in Northern Virginia.
While they were on the run, Ramos claims, the Children’s Crusade network wired him and Abcug at least $7,500. The pair was visited intermittently by various McConnell allies, according to Ramos. Sometimes they’d be met by Wilson or Juan O. Savin, a McConnell ally who some Children’s Crusade fans believe is secretly John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise.
Along the way, Abcug and Ramos stayed in motel rooms they could pay for with cash and worried about being pulled over by a state trooper who could discover that Abcug was wanted on a warrant.
“The thing we were most afraid of was being pulled over or having to speak to any authority,” Ramos said.
As the weeks passed, Abcug became fed up with the Children’s Crusade’s lack of progress on her legal case, according to Ramos. On Oct. 23, having seen no action from the Children’s Crusade action, they drove to Ocala, Florida, where E-Clause chief Christopher Hallett works.
“I’m really intrigued by this Mr. Hallett and his company E-Clause and what they might do,” Abcug said, according to a Ramos recollection in an interview posted on YouTube.
Eventually, Abcug grew disillusioned with Hallett, too. So, in early November 2019 she and Ramos drove to the small town of Dumas, Arkansas, to see Children’s Crusade board member Sarah Dunklin. Dunklin is described in Arkansas family court records as Wilson’s girlfriend.
Unlike many of McConnell’s associates, Dunklin does have political connections. She’s the county GOP chair in Desha County, Arkansas, and was appointed to a USDA committee by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. Dunklin’s father, farmer Bill Dunklin, narrowly lost a Republican state Senate primary in March.
“My father’s politically connected, I’m politically connected—no one’s going to come after you in Desha County,” Dunklin told Abcug, according to Ramos.
Dunklin’s belief in QAnon has played into her own custody fight with her ex-husband over their daughter. Dunklin has filed bizarre, sovereign citizen-style documents describing herself as a “Woman by the calling of Sarah.” She also sent rambling emails to her ex-husband’s attorney and her former mother-in-law about QAnon, McConnell, and Holmseth, who is himself wanted on a warrant for allegedly violating a restraining order.
Dunklin has claimed that her daughter is surveilled at all times by a U.S. Space Force ship with an invisibility cloak and said the day she received her Children’s Crusade position was one of her proudest. In July, a disheveled Dunklin appeared at family court clutching a dirty piece of women’s clothing and frightening a court employee who worried Dunklin might attack her, according to a sworn affidavit from a court clerk.
“Are you aware that Q is a military intelligence information dissemination program aimed at defeating the Deep State of which President Trump continually speaks?” she wrote in an email to her ex-husband’s attorney. “Are you aware that President Trump retweeted Q followers 20 times in one day?”
The judge in Dunklin’s case called Dunklin’s emails “very disturbing” and “almost manic.” In July, Dunklin passed a court-ordered psychological evaluation—albeit one administered by another QAnon believer and Children’s Crusade supporter.
Dunklin’s ex-husband has claimed in court records that Dunklin is wanted on a Colorado warrant over her role in the Abcug case. But despite the allegations made against her in court and her own behavior, Dunklin has maintained both her USDA and county GOP positions.
Dunklin and Abcug didn’t respond to requests for comment. Wilson couldn’t be reached for comment, while Ramos declined to speak about his flight with Abcug.
The Children’s Crusade network revolves around a handful of towns, places like Plum City, or Osceola, or Ocala. According to police records, Abcug isn’t the only fugitive QAnon believer to receive support from the Children’s Crusade.
The group is also tied to the mysterious flight of Danielle Stella, a one-time Minnesota Republican congressional candidate and QAnon believer who ran for the seat held by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) until losing her primary on Tuesday. Stella was briefly a favored candidate among the fringe right to take Omar’s seat, until The Guardian reported in July 2019 that she was wanted on a warrant for allegedly shoplifting more than $2,300 worth of goods from Target.
Rather than face the warrant, Stella traveled to a motel in Osceola, Wisconsin, the same town to which Abcug and Ramos had fled after leaving McConnell’s house and the hometown of McConnell associate and chiropractor Michael Olson, who believes God ordered him to help McConnell. Stella’s stay in the hotel was paid for at least partially by Dunklin, the motel’s manager told police.
On the afternoon of Feb. 16, a tipster warned the Osceola Police Department that Stella was being held in the motel against her will. An officer arrived and, based on the tip, asked Stella about her ties to the Children’s Crusade.
“She said that she has heard of QAnon and that she was slightly involved with the Children’s Crusade movement until she determined that they do not help children,” the report reads.
A series of strange events ensued. Stella claimed to police that McConnell’s friend Olson had somehow accessed her room. Later that night, another officer was called to the motel over reports of people demanding information on Stella. A woman who identified herself as a friend of Dunklin arrived at the motel and demanded to know Stella’s room number. Later, the same woman called 911 and gave a different name. When a police officer asked why she was using an alias, she said she did it so “nothing would be traced back to her.”
The Osceola Police Department ultimately decided there was no proof Stella was being held against her will. Stella denied any association with McConnell or the Children’s Crusade. When contacted by The Daily Beast and asked whether she had traveled to Arkansas while a fugitive, Stella dodged the question and accused The Daily Beast of running a “psyop.”
“Do you not want to save our country from the current Bolshevik revolution taking place in our streets?” Stella texted.
Stella’s campaign manager, Alex Rountree, told The Daily Beast that he’s friends with Dunklin but said he didn’t know about McConnell or the Children’s Crusade.
“There were some shady things in Osceola,” Rountree said.
By mid-November, both Abcug and Ramos were sick of living in a partially burned-out motel by the Arkansas River and had become convinced the Children’s Crusade was stringing them along. Stories of federal agents discovering the homes they had stayed at earlier in their journey were trickling in, with their Virginia host claiming she had been visited by the FBI.
“We were living in a glass cage,” Ramos said in an interview with Northwest Liberty News.
Ramos claims the QAnon group provided Abcug with a presumably bogus “diplomatic immunity passport” for fleeing to the Dominican Republic and urged him to buy a fake passport at a flea market. Ramos’ medical school had filed a missing person report on him.
“Sarah’s starting to get caught up in some of her own lies,” Ramos said in a YouTube interview about Dunklin, the woman from whom he and Abcug had sought help in Arkansas.
Tired of Arkansas and receiving no actual legal help from the Children’s Crusade, the pair traveled to Kalispell, Montana, apparently to meet another contact. On Dec. 30, Kalispell police and FBI agents with guns drawn pulled Abcug and Ramos out of a car and arrested Abcug.
Abcug now faces a felony conspiracy to commit kidnapping charge. She attempted to file a petition for habeas corpus using some of the strange legal tactics popular with her associates, but a federal judge rejected the filing and called it “frivolous.” In early August, Abcug, in a mask and jail jumpsuit, appeared for a video-streamed court hearing, where her bail was set at $250,000.
On Thursday, a Colorado judge ruled Abcug could stand trial on the conspiracy charge, based primarily on the evidence her daughter provided to police. At a December hearing, a judge will decide whether Abcug’s parental rights to her son should be terminated entirely.
Back in Arkansas, Dunklin has become the latest mother to have her child custody case completely derailed by her ties to QAnon and the Children’s Crusade.
But she has not given up on QAnon.
“Q represents a mainstream political and religious view, which we all have the freedom to choose in this country,” Dunklin wrote in a recent email to her ex-husband’s attorney.
A pro-China supporter holds a Chinese national flag during a rally. (photo: Kin Cheung/AP)
Trump Is Trying to Put Us on War Footing With China. It's Up to the Left to Stop It.
Tobita Chow and Jake Werner, In These Times
Excerpt: "The Trump campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee formalized their sinophobic strategy in April."
ecretary of State Mike Pompeo cast China’s relationship with the United States in apocalyptic terms during his speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., in late July. “Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time,” Pompeo warned. “If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Nine days prior, President Donald Trump delivered a rambling, nearly hour-long address in the Rose Garden, claiming “Joe Biden’s entire career has been a gift to the Chinese Communist Party. … And it’s been devastating for the American worker.” That same week, Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, went one step further by telling Fox News that China “hit us with that deadly virus, that weaponized virus.”
As Covid-19 ravages the United States, the Trump White House and its Republican enablers are leveraging sinophobia as their best chance to avoid an electoral bloodbath in November. Acting in silent collaboration with the Chinese government (which itself is turning toward nationalism in the face of intense political and economic pressures), they have plunged us into what some call a new Cold War.
The consequences of this power conflict are already in evidence: a sharp rise in anti-Asian racism and forms of McCarthyism in the United States, and growing xenophobia and repression in China. The conflict is also deeply reshaping the Republican Party; even if the 2020 election proves a disaster for the GOP, the consolidation of right-wing nationalism may offer the party long-term political viability. In a now zero-sum struggle for global growth, it would be naïve to dismiss the possibility of a U.S.-China military confrontation erupting.
Biden and the Democratic establishment, meanwhile, have chosen to attack Trump as insufficiently hawkish. Progressives and the Left, therefore, must provide an alternative path forward — one rooted in global solidarity and international cooperation. Success in this endeavor could defeat not only the coronavirus but the scourges of climate change and global poverty. Failure all but ensures a future ravaged by disease, environmental breakdown and nationalist conflicts.
The Trump campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee formalized their sinophobic strategy in April. First, blame China for the pandemic, deindustrialization and the opioid crisis. Then, accuse Biden and other Democrats of all but surrendering to Beijing. Plus, vow to restore U.S. manufacturing while imposing sanctions on China, the biggest economic rival to the United States. This demagoguery has energized the party’s base and directed attention away from Trump’s failures, allowing the GOP to go on the offensive.
Anti-China messaging, echoed in rightwing media, is all over the president’s 2020 campaign ads. America First, a pro-Trump super PAC, has spent millions of dollars in swing states to attack Biden as supporting China’s rise and for labeling the White House’s January travel ban as xenophobic. Ads call the former vice president “Beijing Biden.” A sponsored website claims the Biden family’s “corrupt ties to the Chinese elite raise serious questions about Biden’s ethics and the secretive motives for his weak stances on China.”
Similar posturing has permeated the rhetoric of Republicans in the Senate. One spot for Sen. Martha McSally (R‑Ariz.) accuses Biden and McSally’s opponent, Mark Kelly, of “selling out to China.” One for Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑Iowa) says,“We rely on Communist China for far too much, from technology to medicine. So I’m fighting to bring it home.”
This brand of sinophobia, portraying the Democratic agenda as pro-China as much as possible, has metastasized beyond discussions of deindustrialization and the pandemic to include such progressive priorities as cutting the bloated U.S. military budget and transitioning to clean energy. Trump even claimed the Paris climate accord “would have crushed American manufacturers while allowing China to pollute,” calling it “one more gift from Biden to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Similarly, the Right has spuriously attacked Black Lives Matter as a Chinese plot. Laura Ingraham of Fox News suggested the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “has its hands in the riots and the current push to destabilize America,” while Chadwick Moore appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to argue China is funding the movement. Raheem Kassam, a collaborator of former White House strategist Steve Bannon, declared Black Lives Matter is “laying the groundwork” for a “CCP invasion.”
Conspiracy theories like these help buttress the Right’s “blame China” narrative. In an MSNBC interview in early July, Navarro claimed “the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for every bad thing we’re experiencing” while suggesting the coronavirus is a “deliberate” attack. Nationalists also argue the World Health Organization is run by agents of the Chinese government who colluded to ensure the virus spreads — a theory that ultimately led Trump to withdraw the United States from the organization, jeopardizing international efforts to contain the pandemic.
Beyond mere rhetoric, the Trump administration is implementing aggressive policy that reshapes and inflames the U.S.-China relationship. The White House has imposed tight restrictions on Chinese journalists in the United States, declared an end to preferential economic treatment of Hong Kong and sanctioned Chinese officials involved with the persecution of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region. More recently, the White House forced China to shut down its consulate in Houston and floated plans to impose a travel ban on members of the CCP and their families, which could affect as many as 270 million people.
Perhaps most alarming is the increase in U.S.-China military activities. In the South China Sea, two U.S. Navy carrier groups held exercises for the first time in more than a decade. This year’s Senate debate over the U.S. military budget included multiple competing proposals to increase anti-China spending by billions of dollars. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened to engage China (and Russia) in a new nuclear arms race, with head arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea promising the United States would spend its adversaries “into oblivion.”
These actions have only succeeded in antagonizing the Chinese government, whose anti-Western nationalism increasingly mirrors anti-China sentiment in the United States. Further provocations risk retaliation that the Trump administration is likely to answer in kind, locking the countries in a feedback loop of belligerence and brinksmanship. Escalating pressure to pick a side threatens Uighurs, Hong Kongers, Chinese Americans, and others caught in between. It also serves the Republican electoral strategy: As long as the U.S.-China conflict deepens and remains in the headlines, the GOP can drive voters and increase the power of its xenophobic campaign.
This rise in sinophobia is not just a cynical ploy; it reflects a deeper shift within the U.S. elite toward confrontation with China, driven by militarists and economic nationalists who insist the United States is locked in a zero-sum struggle with China for power and global growth.
Surrounded by U.S. military bases and allies, China is attempting to establish itself as a regional military power, a development the U.S. security establishment perceives as a threat to its dominant position in the Pacific. The size and rapid growth of the Asia market “increasingly defines global power and commerce,” argues prominent Asia policy figure Kurt Campbell, making U.S. primacy essential to “spur domestic revival and renovation [in the United States] as well as to keep the peace in the world’s most dynamic region.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.) — in contrast with Trump, whose trade war against China in 2018 led to a recession in the U.S. manufacturing sector and a spike in farm bankruptcies — offers a different, more sophisticated vision of anti-China economic nationalism. The senator contends that confronting China is key to improving the status of U.S. workers, even as his policy proposals carefully avoid minimum wage increases or stronger labor rights. Instead, Rubio’s policies feature tax breaks, subsidies and other conventionally pro-business demands. For Rubio and his ilk, making U.S. manufacturing more competitive with China requires an intensification of worker exploitation, keeping costs low and profits high.
The white nationalist faction of the White House shares these broader aims while pursuing more blatantly racist policy. Led by Stephen Miller, the faction has used the U.S.-China trade war to lobby (unsuccessfully) for a total ban on Chinese international students, and is almost certainly behind the proposed travel ban on CCP members and their families.
These currents are pushing the Republican Party away from the free-market fundamentalism that defined it for decades, emboldening Republicans to declare themselves champions of so-called regular people and the common good. That these politics are inherently racist and exclusionary has not stopped some putatively progressive commentators from embracing them. Matt Stoller, for example, author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, expresses admiration for the economic nationalism of Sens. Rubio, Josh Hawley (R‑Mo.) and Tom Cotton (R‑Ark.), along with Peter Navarro, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Tucker Carlson. In effect, Steve Bannon is getting what he has wanted for years: a party for which “the economic war with China is everything” and can be used as a focus for its political realignment.
The worst-case scenario is that these trends converge to produce a military confrontation with China, perhaps as an October surprise aimed at changing the dynamics of the presidential race. As The Nation ’s defense correspondent Michael Klare argues, the South China Sea is an especially dangerous locus of tension, where “the U.S. military is proceeding down an extremely dangerous path, and one very likely to lead to miscalculation and war.” Shockingly, Rep. Ted Yoho (R‑Fla.) predicted as much in a July interview with the Washington Examiner: “There will be a clash … people will die.”
Republicans are not alone in pursuing anti-China messaging. For a number of years, commentators from across the political spectrum have argued the “China threat” could be used to unify an increasingly unruly population. Of course, uniting the country around a foreign threat invariably invites bigotry — a reality that racist responses to the pandemic have thrown into stark relief. Sadly, this has not prevented Democrats from pushing their own version of sinophobia.
The Biden campaign’s initial response to Trump’s attacks was to cut an unabashedly belligerent ad claiming he would have forced U.S. medical personnel into China early in the outbreak, darkly intoning the president “rolled over for the Chinese” by allowing 40,000 possibly infected travelers into the United States after imposing his travel ban.
A large number of Asian American and progressive groups harshly criticized the ad, in an open letter to the Biden campaign, for “playing to right-wing nationalism and fanning anti-China sentiment.” (Full disclosure: The authors of this article are signatories.) But Biden has made only cosmetic changes in the weeks and months since. After Trump’s Rose Garden speech in July, the Biden campaign issued talking points reaffirming the conservative premise that China must be held accountable for the pandemic.
Although Democrats claim to oppose “the trap of a new Cold War,” in practice they give prominence to international tension rather than chart paths for cooperation. This attitude risks entrenching sinophobia as a defining feature of U.S. politics, endangering progressive priorities by favoring so-called national security over, for example, action on climate change and workers’ rights. Perhaps Democratic operatives see their posturing as doing little more than defusing a potent Republican talking point, imagining that a Biden administration would safely pursue a more moderate approach to China (as former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did) after the election. Such assumptions, however, may prove ill-founded if the public begins to associate China not with low-cost exports and bootleg DVDs but mass death and U.S. economic collapse.
Prior to the pandemic, Americans were already under siege by abstract forces difficult to grasp in their immensity. From workforce casualization to the opioid epidemic, fears of scarcity to an acute sense of economic and cultural instability, millions of Americans were already feeling vulnerable and confused. Anti-China Republicans prey on such feelings, giving them a human face — a foreign face — and offering xenophobic violence as a substitute for genuine security. Polling data indicates this message is taking effect, with a rapid increase in popular antipathy toward China.
If Democrats accept this basic anti-China proposition, they ultimately risk losing their current electoral advantage. Stoking a fear of foreigners strengthens Trump’s hand, as his entire political identity is founded on xenophobia. If Trump’s best path to victory this November is to make the election about China, then Biden is blundering into a trap.
But even if the disastrous Republican response to the pandemic secures a large 2020 victory for Democrats, sinophobia could reorder American politics and embolden the forces of reaction. A left-liberal alliance has the chance to break Republican power once and for all, ending a years-long paralysis in U.S. politics that has stymied any progressive agenda. If Democrats refuse to look beyond November, however, then they risk winning a battle by ceding to the Republicans the terrain on which the war will be decided.
And in the process, Democrats risk a permanent break with China. Such a development would nourish anti-Asian racism in the U.S. and could trigger a frightening new era of militarism, xenophobia and large-scale international violence, extinguishing progressive momentum. What’s more, a new Cold War would render impossible the necessary international cooperation to contain future pandemics and climate change. Even if we were to somehow avoid a hot war, tens of millions of people could become the collateral damage of a protracted conflict.
Progressives are animated by equality and solidarity, essential values that could resolve this burgeoning U.S.-China power conflict, yet the U.S. Left appears ill equipped for the task. For all the groundbreaking domestic policy ideas, the Left lacks a global vision. Progressives may reject nationalism, but their thinking has turned inward just as surely as that of their right-wing counterparts.
Still, a leftist analysis can help us understand the recent intensification of nationalism. Where reactionaries view U.S.-China tension as racially or culturally driven and liberals see it as a clash between democracy and authoritarianism, progressives must understand that our global system has pitted these two countries against each other.
In the 1990s and 2000s, a neoliberal vision of free markets, integration and cosmopolitanism flourished in both countries. The United States and China complemented one another in the global economy; growth was achieved through cooperation. Since the Great Recession, however, faith in this system has steadily eroded amid sluggish growth worldwide, fueling nationalist movements across continents. Those nationalist movements have, in turn, pushed politics in a sharply authoritarian direction in not just the United States and China, but India, Turkey and many other countries. It’s not just China that has set up concentration camps to isolate those considered foreign and dangerous — the United States has its border camps and the European Union its refugee detention sites.
Since the 2008 economic crisis, Chinese leadership has accelerated its development strategy, aimed at ending China’s economic subordination to the West. China increasingly threatens the dominance of American corporations in such high-value sectors as robotics, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, even as the United States becomes dependent on those sectors to sustain its own economic growth.
If these nations find themselves on a collision course, neither homilies about world peace nor promises to return to a bygone era are likely to alter their trajectories. The source of this conflict is not racial, cultural or even political. It is the product of an increasingly dysfunctional global economy, and only by exposing this system can we find a way for both sides — along with the rest of the world — to survive and flourish.
What is the role of the Left in achieving such a transformation?
First, we must ensure the defeat of Trump and the GOP in November. While sinophobia is now common in both parties, the Republican version is unequivocally more conspiratorial, desperate and volatile. A Biden administration would not create an alternative to the new Cold War of its own accord, but it would proceed more cautiously and be more receptive to pressure from progressives — if progressives marshal the requisite support within the Democratic Party.
The Left must offer a clear and compelling alternative to the growing U.S.-China conflict and a path beyond the decaying global neoliberal order. In the short term, this path includes international coordination to combat the Covid-19 pandemic; doing so has the potential to counter anti-China sentiment among voters, according to a Morning Consult/ Politico poll from May. When asked to choose between working with China to defeat the virus or holding China accountable for its role in the pandemic, participants favored cooperation over confrontation by a 28-point margin.
Beyond the current crisis, we must demand the United States partner with China (and all other countries) to end climate change and global inequality through coordinated, public investment, and by strengthening the power of labor around the world. Such an agenda could restructure global growth, dismantling the U.S.-China conflict at its source.
At the same time, progressives must affirm the rights of those threatened by the Chinese government — the Muslims of Xinjiang, Hong Kong protesters, journalists and others. The U.S. Left has, so far, allowed the Right to lead on these issues, which is not just a betrayal of our principles but a strategic error. We must make the case that a more cooperative, less antagonistic stance toward China may, in fact, open up more space to pressure the Chinese government. As former Obama adviser Ryan Hass and others have argued, the U.S.-China relationship has become so adversarial that China sees no benefit in yielding to U.S. demands.
Strengthening democracy in China and beyond will not be achieved through direct attacks on the CCP’s authoritarianism, especially when the United States has ignored (if not actively supported) similar abuses from Brazil to India and Saudi Arabia. Instead, we must build a movement of transnational solidarity to neutralize the nationalism and authoritarianism unleashed by our global economic system. Only then can we begin the difficult work of forging a better world.
'Solar panels are composed of photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity. When these panels enter landfills, valuable resources go to waste.' (photo: EdgeConX)
Solar Panels Are Starting to Die. What Will We Do With the Megatons of Toxic Trash?
Maddie Stone, Grist
Stone writes: "Solar panels are complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives - and right now, most of the world doesn't have a plan for dealing with that."
But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods don’t cut it for solar panels. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen.
“If we don’t mandate recycling, many of the modules will go to landfill,” said Arizona State University solar researcher Meng Tao, who recently authored a review paper on recycling silicon solar panels, which comprise 95 percent of the solar market.
Solar panels are composed of photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight to electricity. When these panels enter landfills, valuable resources go to waste. And because solar panels contain toxic materials like lead that can leach out as they break down, landfilling also creates new environmental hazards.
Most solar manufacturers claim their panels will last for about 25 years, and the world didn’t start deploying solar widely until the early 2000s. As a result, a fairly small number of solar panels are being decommissioned today. PV CYCLE, a nonprofit dedicated to solar panel takeback and recycling, collects several thousand tons of solar e-waste across the European Union each year, according to director Jan Clyncke. That figure includes solar panels that have reached the end of their life, but also those that were decommissioned early because they were damaged during a storm, had some sort of manufacturer defect, or got replaced with a newer, more efficient model.
When solar panels do reach their end of their life today, they face a few possible fates. Under E.U. law, producers are required to ensure their solar panels are recycled properly. In Japan, India, and Australia, recycling requirements are in the works. In the United States, it’s the Wild West: With the exception of a state law in Washington, the U.S. has no solar recycling mandates whatsoever. Voluntary, industry-led recycling efforts are limited in scope. “Right now, we’re pretty confident the number is around 10 percent of solar panels recycled,” said Sam Vanderhoof, the CEO of Recycle PV Solar, one of the only U.S. companies dedicated to PV recycling. The rest, he says, go to landfills or are exported overseas for reuse in developing countries with weak environmental protections.
Even when recycling happens, there’s a lot of room for improvement. A solar panel is essentially an electronic sandwich. The filling is a thin layer of crystalline silicon cells, which are insulated and protected from the elements on both sides by sheets of polymers and glass. It’s all held together in an aluminum frame. On the back of the panel, a junction box contains copper wiring that channels electricity away as it’s being generated.
At a typical e-waste facility, this high-tech sandwich will be treated crudely. Recyclers often take off the panel’s frame and its junction box to recover the aluminum and copper, then shred the rest of the module, including the glass, polymers, and silicon cells, which get coated in a silver electrode and soldered using tin and lead. (Because the vast majority of that mixture by weight is glass, the resultant product is considered an impure, crushed glass.) Tao and his colleagues estimate that a recycler taking apart a standard, 60-cell silicon panel can get about $3 for the recovered aluminum, copper, and glass. Vanderhoof, meanwhile, says that the cost of recycling that panel in the U.S. is anywhere between $12 and $25 — after transportation costs, which “oftentimes equal the cost to recycle.” At the same time, in states that allow it, it typically costs less than a dollar to dump a solar panel in a solid waste landfill.
“We believe the big blind spot in the U.S. for recycling is that the cost far exceeds the revenue,” Meng said. “It’s on the order of a 10-to-1 ratio.”
If a solar panel’s more valuable components — namely, the silicon and silver — could be separated and purified efficiently, that could improve that cost-to-revenue ratio. A small number of dedicated solar PV recyclers are trying to do this. Veolia, which runs the world’s only commercial-scale silicon PV recycling plant in France, shreds and grinds up panels and then uses an optical technique to recover low-purity silicon. According to Vanderhoof, Recycle PV Solar initially used a “heat process and a ball mill process” that could recapture more than 90 percent of the materials present in a panel, including low-purity silver and silicon. But the company recently received some new equipment from its European partners that can do “95 plus percent recapture,” he said, while separating the recaptured materials much better.
Some PV researchers want to do even better than that. In another recent review paper, a team led by National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists calls for the development of new recycling processes where all metals and minerals are recovered at high purity, with the goal of making recycling as economically viable and as environmentally beneficial as possible. As lead study author Garvin Heath explains, such processes might include using heat or chemical treatments to separate the glass from the silicon cells, followed by the application of other chemical or electrical techniques to separate and purify the silicon and various trace metals.
“What we call for is what we name a high-value, integrated recycling system,” Heath told Grist. “High-value means we want to recover all the constituent materials that have value from these modules. Integrated refers to a recycling process that can go after all of these materials, and not have to cascade from one recycler to the next.”
In addition to developing better recycling methods, the solar industry should be thinking about how to repurpose panels whenever possible, since used solar panels are likely to fetch a higher price than the metals and minerals inside them (and since reuse generally requires less energy than recycling). As is the case with recycling, the E.U. is out in front on this: Through its Circular Business Models for the Solar Power Industry program, the European Commission is funding a range of demonstration projects showing how solar panels from rooftops and solar farms can be repurposed, including for powering e-bike charging stations in Berlin and housing complexes in Belgium.
Recycle PV Solar also recertifies and resells good-condition panels it receives, which Vanderhoof says helps to offset the cost of recycling. However, both he and Tao are concerned that various U.S. recyclers are selling second-hand solar panels with low quality control overseas to developing countries. “And those countries typically don’t have regulations for electronics waste,” Tao said. “So eventually, you’re dumping your problem on a poor country.”
For the solar recycling industry to grow sustainably, it will ultimately need supportive policies and regulations. The E.U. model of having producers finance the takeback and recycling of solar panels might be a good one for the U.S. to emulate. But before that’s going to happen, U.S. lawmakers need to recognize that the problem exists and is only getting bigger, which is why Vanderhoof spends a great deal of time educating them.
“We need to face the fact that solar panels do fail over time, and there’s a lot of them out there,” he said. “And what do we do when they start to fail? It’s not right throwing that responsibility on the consumer, and that’s where we’re at right now.”
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