RSN: Garrison Keillor | One Man's Pandemic Is Another Man's Picnic

02 August 20

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Garrison Keillor | One Man's Pandemic Is Another Man's Picnic

Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
Keillor writes: "I love reading columns that snap and crackle and poke powerful people in the kisser and I am bored by columns like this one, which is about the goodness and generosity of life, but what can I say?"
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US ambassador Todd Chapman exits a 2018 meeting in Ecuador. (photo: Dolores Ochoa/AP)

US Ambassador to Brazil Reportedly Asked Brazilian Officials to Help Trump's Reelection
Anya van Wagtendonk, Vox
van Wagtendonk writes: "The Trump administration has been accused of attempting to pressure another foreign country into helping Trump's reelection prospects, according to a letter from the House Foreign Affairs Committee." 

Brazilian news reports say the ambassador asked for a “favor.” Democrats are demanding answers.

he Trump administration has been accused of attempting to pressure another foreign country into helping Trump’s reelection prospects, according to a letter from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

That letter cites Brazilian news articles that report US Ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman pressured members of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to lower ethanol tariffs in order to support President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts.

In the letter, Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Eliot Engel demands Chapman explain an article in which the ambassador is said to have asked for the tariffs to be lowered as a “favor” from the Brazilian government to the Trump reelection campaign. 

“Iowa is the largest ethanol producer in the United States…and could be a key player in Trump’s election,” an article in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo reads, according to the letter. “Hence the importance – according to Chapman – for the Bolsonaro government to do the U.S. a favor.”

Beyond the report in O Globo, the New York Times notes, another Brazilian outlet, Estadão, published a similar story based on its own reporting, with its journalists finding that Chapman had made the request, and was rebuffed by government officials.

Alceu Moreira, a Brazilian congressman, also told the Times that Chapman “had made repeated references to the electoral calendar during a recent meeting the two had about ethanol.”

Engel has called for Chapman to respond to the reports by August 4, and for him to provide “any and all documents referring or related to any discussions” with Brazilian officials.

If the reports are accurate, the letter states, Chapman’s actions could be in violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents federal employees from engaging in certain political activities, such as partisan campaigning for candidates.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement that Chapman’s efforts were part of a policy of pushing for lower tariffs in general, not narrowly focused on supporting an incumbent presidential campaign.

“Allegations suggesting that Ambassador Chapman has asked Brazilians to support a specific U.S. candidate are false,” the statement reads. “The United States has long been focused on reducing tariff barriers and will continue do so.”

Foreign interference marred the 2016 election. Requests for interference led to impeachment.

The reports are also of concern because of how closely they echo the request that led to Trump’s impeachment. 

Last July, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favor” during a phone call in which he asked the leader to look into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of then-candidate, now presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden. In that call, Trump appeared to condition military aid badly needed by Ukraine on Zelensky’s willingness to search for information that might be used to discredit Biden.

A congressional investigation into that call revealed the ways the Trump administration used traditional diplomatic channels — most notably the office of the US ambassador to the European Union — to forward that goal.

It isn’t clear whether Trump was involved in Chapman’s reported pressure campaign about ethanol, but as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote during 2019’s impeachment hearings, the testimony of another of Trump’s ambassadors — former US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland — showed a willingness on Trump’s part “to use US foreign policy as a tool to cement his own hold on power.”

And that has Trump critics concerned about the Brazilian reports, with Engel warning Chapman in his letter, “Elections in the United States are for the American people and the American people only to decide.”

In delivering that warning, the letter explicitly links Chapman’s reported campaign to the 2016 election, the outcome of which foreign governments repeatedly attempted to sway, according to the results of a Senate investigation.

“Given the events of 2016, it is all the more important for U.S. ambassadors serving our country abroad to not insert themselves into U.S. elections or encourage foreign government officials from any branch of government to do so,” the letter reads.

This warning follows intelligence reports that find Russia has actively worked to disrupt November’s elections — as well as the Democratic presidential primary. But politicians and experts have warned that the US is not as prepared as it ought to be to combat such interference, leaving it vulnerable to meddling attempts not just by adversaries, but by also by Americans who, as Engel writes, “should know better.”

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Bill Barr. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Is Trump's Top Cop, Attorney General William Barr, a Danger to Democracy?
David Smith, Guardian UK
Smith writes: "William Barr was hungry. 'Mr Chairman, could we take a five-minute break?' the attorney general asked Jerry Nadler of the House of Representatives' judiciary committee. 'No,' retorted Nadler, his hearing almost done. Barr responded sardonically: 'You're a real class act.'"
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President Trump stops to talk to reporters as he walks to board Marine One and depart from the South Lawn at the White House on July 31. (Jabin Botsford/WP)

Trump Promises Health-Care Overhaul That Never Arrives
Anne Gearan, Amy Goldstein and Seung Min Kim, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "It was a bold claim when President Trump said that he was about to produce an overhaul of the nation's health-care system, at last doing away with the Affordable Care Act, which he has long promised to abolish."
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The intensive care unit at OakBend Medical Center in Richmond, Texas, on July 15. Hospitals are supposed to report data to the federal government each day about the COVID-19 patients they are treating. (photo: Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)

How Many People in the US Are Hospitalized With COVID-19? Who Knows?
Charles Ornstein, ProPublica
Ornstein writes: "In mid-July, the Trump administration instructed hospitals to change the way they reported data on their coronavirus patients, promising the new approach would provide better, more up-to-the-minute information about the virus's toll and allow resources and supplies to be quickly dispatched across the country."
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White supremacists attacked with bats and stones Mapuche community members, Municipality of Victoria, Chile, August 1, 2020. (photo: Twitter/ @DiablaSandi)

Chile: Civilians Violently Attack Hunger-Striking Mapuches With Police Complicity
teleSUR
Excerpt: "A group of civilians, in complicity with the Chilean police (carabineros) and right-wingers, on Saturday night attacked with bats and stones Mapuche community members who were on a hunger strike in front of the Municipality of Victoria, in Chile's Araucania." 

"Chile's ultra-right wing acts like U.S. white supremacists, ignoring the mestizo origin of the our people," TeleSUR's correspondent in Chile Paola Dragnic tweeted.

The Mapuches set out in front of the Municipality of Victoria, in Curacautin, last Monday to demand the release of Mapuches' political prisoners.

On Saturday, Araucania's Ultra-Right Group (APRA) spokeswoman Gloria Naveillan spread an audio message on Twitter urging to act against the Mapuche community members.

"How many are raising their hands to join us tonight in the Plaza? Bring sticks and everything you need to defend yourselves," Naveillan urged.

TeleSUR's correspondent in Chile Paola Dragnic released photographs showing the attack by armed white supremacists against the Mapuche people in Curacautin.

"White supremacists in Chile now attack Municipality of Victoria taken over by Mapuche community members in protest of Mapuche political prisoners and burn Chemamull located in Plazs de Victoria."

"There are people who celebrate this attack in Curacautin. The ultra-right wing acts like the U.S. white supremacists, ignoring the mestizo origin of the Chilean people," Dragnic tweeted.

Dragnic also shared a video of the moment when civilians attacked the Mapuche community members and burned the wooden Mapuche statue Chemamull located in the Plaza de Victoria.

Officers from the militarized Carabineros Police did nothing to stop the armed civilians, not even when they set fire to a truck.

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Thousands of protesters gathered in downtown Portland Saturday, July 25, 2020, for the 59th consecutive night of protests. (photo: Dave Killen/The Oregonian)

'Unprecedented' Use of Tear Gas Against Portland Protesters Prompts State Regulators to Call for Environmental Testing
Andrew Theen, The Oregonian
Theen writes: "Oregon environmental regulators are requiring the city of Portland to test stormwater around the federal courthouse and parts of downtown, citing the 'unprecedented amount of tear gas' used by local and federal law enforcement agencies since May." 

The Department of Environmental Quality sent a letter Thursday to Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Quality outlining its expectations. The city must send a monitoring plan to state officials within the next three weeks describing how it will monitor for specific heavy metals and chemicals that regulators believe are likely associated with CS gas, a strong form of toxic tear gas used against protesters for months.

City officials said they are aware of the letter and are working in conjunction with the state to do more than just monitor for the roughly half dozen metals required by the state. Diane Dulken, a spokesperson for the sewer and stormwater agency, said Portland is working to “prevent the pollutants from getting into the Willamette River.” She said the agency “regularly” tests for contaminants at locations along the river but will now test specifically near the courthouse, two public parks and Justice Center due to the extensive tear gas used there.

But Portland also raised an alarm bell: It doesn’t know much about tear gas or its residue, and it said those materials are likely already in the sewer system. Dulken noted that tear gas residue is in the trees, on the ground and likely throughout the area near the courthouse and justice center, which has been the centerpiece of nightly protests for months.

“Maybe these materials aren’t hazardous, maybe they are,” Dulken said. “We’re researching that. There isn’t a lot of information.”

The letter is just one of many tear gas related developments wafting through political circles, from Salem to Portland to Washington DC.

It landed the same day that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler apologized for the city police bureau’s “indiscriminate” use of tear gas in late May or June during months of racial justice protests and demonstrations. Wheeler oversees both the Police and Bureau of Environmental Services, which operates the city’s’ sewer and stormwater system.

In Salem, lawmakers discussed a bill that would prevent law enforcement agencies across the state from using “chemical incapacitants” like tear gas. The legislation would create an exemption for a single less-noxious gas, pepper spray, under certain circumstances and with sufficient announcements.

And U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and state Rep. Karin Power, the Milwaukie legislator who chairs the state’s House Energy and Environment Committee, on Thursday sent a letter to state and federal environmental leaders asking a series of health and policy questions related to gases police use for crowd control.

“While we work to stop the use of these gases altogether,” they wrote in a letter to the heads of the state DEQ and federal Environmental Protection Agency, “we are also seeking greater transparency about what chemicals have been deployed to date against protesters in Portland, and potential impacts on human health, wildlife, aquatic life, and local air and water quality.”

The Democratic politicians said they want to know the number of tear gas cartridges fired, how many were beyond their expiration date and what agency will pay for associated cleanup. They demanded a response by Aug. 6.

Late Wednesday night, on their last night in charge of policing protests at the courthouse, federal law enforcement and border security officials again launched tear gas across a swath of city parks and streets surrounding the downtown Portland federal courthouse. Tear gas clouds stretched across the entirety of Lownsdale Square and enveloped broad sections of Southwest Third and Fourth avenues. Protesters wore gas masks, goggles, helmets and poured milk into the eyes of those in the thickest areas of tear gas clouds. The gas stings, burns and irritates exposed skin. OPB this week documented dozens of instances in which woman exposed to the gas subsequently had irregular menstrual cycles.

Harry Esteve, a spokesperson for the state environment agency, said the city will likely have to wait until it rains to get reliable test results. According to the National Weather Service, Portland’s last measurable rainfall, three-hundredths of an inch, occurred July 7.

The state is asking Portland to collect and analyze stormwater for chromium, hexavalent chromium, lead, zinc, copper, barium and perchlorate. Most of those substances are toxic to humans at even at extremely low levels.

“We’re taking a close look at the situation,” Esteve said.

Following the monitoring request, Portland must submit a report that includes comparisons to previous tests at the same locations. The state called for the monitoring under the stormwater permit it issued to the city.

Portland police have used tear gas on demonstrators for years, although never with the frequency that federal and local officers have deployed it this spring and summer.

Since July 24, the state fielded 160 official complaints about the gas, Esteve said, plus additional outreach through social media. Those complaints center on concerns for health and the environment.

Esteve said that CS gas, a form of which has been used on Portland streets for months, is “not considered a federal hazardous substance.”

He said DEQ won’t analyze the public health effects of recent tear gas apart from looking at its effects on stormwater runoff, which leads to the Willamette River, saying that “is not something that we regulate.” He said the potential public health impacts are a matter for the Oregon Health Authority to address. 

“The thing about tear gas is it dissipates pretty quickly, so it’s not something that we would respond to like a spill or something like that,” Esteve said.

Jonathan Modie, a spokesperson with the Oregon Health Authority, cited the fact that CS gas is considered toxic by the Centers for Disease Control. Modie referred to federal documents, which indicate people exposed to the gas should “as quickly as possible” wash their skin with “large amounts of soap and water” if they are exposed. The CDC states that “long-lasting exposure” to riot control agents like tear gas in closed spaces could lead to blindness or “respiratory failure possibly resulting in death.”

Dulken, the city spokeswoman, said the agency received information that federal officers were hosing down the streets outside the federal courthouse, spraying the residue into storm drains. “That is not allowed,” she said, “but it was done.”

She said her agency is investigating how it can prevent the tear gas residue that’s already in the system from being flushed into the river when rain comes.

Dulken said it’s not unusual for the bureau to sample stormwater and test for five of the metals included in the state letter, but she said the bureau doesn’t test for hexavalent chromium or perchlorate. She did not have immediate information regarding how frequently the bureau samples in general, but said testing occurs more frequently during the rainy season.

On Friday, crews are expected to examine storm drains near the Justice Center. Dulken said crews will try to take advantage of the dry weather to find residue and clean it out.

That residue will likely flush into the sewers and Willamette River when the rain comes.

Portland, Dulken said, is in uncharted territory. No other city has had so much tear gas deployed over an extended period of time.

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