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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | Amid Uncertainty and Upheaval, LeBron Shows Us What an American Should Be
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Guardian UK
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Watching LeBron motivate his teammates beyond their limits makes him the best on the court, but it's his commitment to the disillusioned and disenfranchised that truly sets him apart."
inning an NBA championship is nothing new for the Los Angeles Lakers. They have been in the finals a record 31 times since winning the title on their first trip in 1950, and they tied the Boston Celtics with 17 championships after seeing off the Miami Heat on Sunday night. But those are just statistics for superfans to rattle off over steaming pizza or a trivia question on a soggy napkin in a sports bar. Championship playoffs are much more than naked numbers – each has its own unique personality, its own significance to the players and fans, and its own impact on American culture. The game is never “just a game”. For those who think sports are merely mindless entertainment somehow separate from the Sturm und Drang of the world around, you haven’t been paying attention lately. Sports have always been a mirror of national values reflecting all the same struggles and turmoil. This year’s championship series is especially meaningful because, although it took place during one of the most politically and socially chaotic and world-bending times in recent history, in many ways, it was an expression of the finest qualities of America – both on and off the court.
On the court, the Lakers came out of the gate like a thundering juggernaut, relentlessly pummeling the Heat for two games into what many people thought was a defeated heap of expensive athletic shoes. But many people were wrong, and the series went to six games. The NBA finals were much more dramatic than we expected, which is due to the gutsy determination and professionalism of the dedicated players who gave it their all, despite playing under the most restrictive and challenging circumstances in the history of the sport.
That the finals took place at all is a complex blending of capitalism and ingenuity – two things America excels at. The NBA, like all professional sports leagues, needed to make money. But unlike the other leagues, they MacGyvered a safe and responsible way that protected their players, the staff and fans: they housed everyone involved with the teams and the games in a virtual bubble at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for the several months it would take to complete the season, the playoffs and the finals. On 19 August, the NBA revealed that after testing all 341 basketball players, none were positive for the Covid-19 virus. Yet ,during the first week of the Major League Baseball season, a total of 29 players tested positive. By 21 August, one-third of the teams in baseball had postponed games, likely because of players who didn’t follow safety protocols. The NFL suffered setbacks as well when 23 players and personnel from the Titans and several players from other teams tested positive, causing games to be postponed.
What’s especially impressive about the NBA is that the bubble proved to be more socially responsible than the US president, who in his maskless wonderland facilitated the infections of many who attended a White House ceremony. They also proved to be more patriotic in that they followed government/CDC guidelines, unlike the president. Finally, they proved that residing in a bubble doesn’t mean you live in isolation from your duty to your country or community. They displayed ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the floor of the court and they postponed several games, not because of infections, but because the police shot Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man, in the back seven times.
Though many NBA players throughout the season were vocal about their support for equality, the finals brought the focus on one man as the symbol of the merging of athletics and ethics: LeBron James. To be a symbol, one must excel at their sport. Watching LeBron’s chiseled Mount Rushmore face of determination as he displayed a dazzling blend of agility, grace, power and surgical skill that clearly amped up his teammates to push themselves harder and higher showed he deserves every accolade he gets. But his unwavering willingness to continue to convince the disillusioned and disenfranchised why they need to vote, makes him the embodiment of this NBA championship triumph.
Naturally, the NBA’s expression of social responsibility made it a target for conservatives who wanted it to fail. On 1 September, Trump tweeted: “People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA. … Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back. I hope football and baseball are watching and learning because the same thing will be happening to them. Stand tall for our Country and our Flag!!!”
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, echoed the sentiment by tweeting that the NBA ratings are low because of the politicizing of the league and that he hadn’t watched a single game of the finals for the first time in years. He ended with the hashtag “GoWokeGoBroke”. That really says everything you need to know about the character – or lack thereof – of both men: Never speak out against injustice if it costs you money. These are the sentiments of people born to collaborate with the enemy. To his credit, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban called Cruz out in his own tweet: “A US Senator with 3 @NBA teams in his state, employing thousands of people and he is rooting for their businesses to do poorly.”
It’s bad enough that Trump and Cruz show such a lack of moral leadership that equates ethics with popularity (think which side they’d have been on when slavery, women not voting and killing witches were all popular), but they also are just wrong about weak ratings being a result of rejecting the message. Because of the pandemic, many sports are competing against each other on TV for the first time ever, and it’s affecting all their ratings. The Stanley Cup final, Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Indy 500 and golf’s US Open have all had ratings declines in the double digits. They also seem totally unaware that as many as 26 million Americans – about one in every 15 – protested against the police killing of George Floyd over the summer. How’s that for popularity, Mr President?
The NBA finals are always about the two best teams battling it out in astounding feats of athleticism and grit. But this year that has called on all of us to endure so much, the finals were also about two teams that want to stand for something more than being the best team, they want to be the best examples. This year LeBron James exemplified what a modern athlete should be, the Lakers exemplified what a team should be, and the NBA exemplified what a professional sports league should be: fiercely dedicated to their sport and passionately committed to their community.
The game is never “just a game”.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett meets with Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) at the Capitol on Oct. 1. As Senate Republicans push forward with a swift confirmation process aimed at elevating her to the high court before the November elections, polling shows public opinion on the matter is trending their way. (photo: Olivier Douliery/Getty)
Can Trump Delay Election or Reject Peaceful Transition of Power? Amy Coney Barrett Refuses to Say
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett faced 11 hours of questioning in the Senate Tuesday but refused to provide clarity about her views on the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade, voting rights and even if President Trump could delay the election."
MY GOODMAN: Supreme Court justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett faced questions for about 11 hours on Tuesday as Republicans race to confirm her to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court prior to Election Day, which could give her a chance to take part in oral arguments in a critical case on the Affordable Care Act scheduled for November 10th. If Barrett is confirmed in time, she could also be a deciding vote if the Supreme Court is asked to hear a dispute over the presidential election.
Democrats say the Supreme Court seat left open by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg should be filled by whoever wins the presidential election, since early voting has already begun and over 10 million people have voted. In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings for President Obama’s pick to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the court since it was an election year. Amy Coney Barrett is a conservative judge who once clerked for Scalia, who she has described as her mentor. If confirmed, the 48-year-old Barrett would give conservatives a 6-to-3 majority.
On Tuesday, Barrett refused to pledge to recuse herself in an election case, when questioned by Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.
SEN. CHRIS COONS: Given what President Trump said, given the rushed context of this confirmation, will you commit to recusing yourself from any case arising from a dispute in the presidential election results three weeks from now?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: I would consider it — let’s see, I certainly hope that all members of the committee have more confidence in my integrity than to think that I would allow myself to be used as a pawn to decide this election for the American people. So that would be on the question of actual bias. … And what I will commit to every member of this committee, to the rest of the Senate and to the American people is that I will consider all factors that are relevant to that question, relevant to that question that requires recusal when there’s an appearance of bias.
AMY GOODMAN: Amy Coney Barrett also refused to say whether a president should commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Her comment came during a series of questions from Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.
SEN. CORY BOOKER: I want to just ask you very simply, and I imagine you’ll give me a very short, resolute answer. But you condemn white supremacy, correct?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Yes.
SEN. CORY BOOKER: Here’s another one. Do you believe that every president should make a commitment, unequivocally and resolutely, to the peaceful transfer of power?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, Senator, that seems to me to be pulling me in a little bit into this question of whether the president has said that he would not peacefully leave office. And so, to the extent that this is a political controversy right now, as a judge, I want to stay out of it, and I don’t want to express a view on —
SEN. CORY BOOKER: Do you think that the president has the power to pardon himself for any past of future crimes he may have committed against the United States of America?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, Senator Booker, that would be a legal question. That would be a constitutional question. And so, in keeping with my obligation not to give hints, previews or forecasts of how I’d resolve the case, that’s not one that I can answer.
AMY GOODMAN: Before Senator Booker questioned Judge Barrett, earlier in the hearing Senator Dianne Feinstein of California asked her if Trump could legally delay the election.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: On July 30th, 2020, President Trump made claims of voter fraud and suggested he wanted to delay the upcoming election. Does the Constitution gives the president of the United States the authority to unilaterally delay a general election under any circumstances? Does federal law?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, Senator, if that question ever came before me, I would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion writing process. So, you know, if I give off-the-cuff answers, then I would be basically a legal pundit. And I don’t think we want judges to be legal pundits. I think we want judges to approach cases thoughtfully and with an open mind.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota asked Barrett about the legality of voter intimidation.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Last week, a contractor from outside of my state of Minnesota started recruiting “poll watchers” with Special Forces experience, mm-hmm, to protect polling locations in my state. This was clear voter intimidation. Similar efforts are going on around the country, solicited by President Trump’s false claims of massive voter fraud. … So, as a result of his claims, people are trying to get “poll watchers,” Special Forces people, to go to the polls. Judge Barrett, under federal law, is it illegal to intimidate voters at the polls?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Senator Klobuchar, I can’t characterize the facts in a hypothetical situation, and I can’t apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts. I can only decide cases as they come to me litigated by parties, on a full record, after fully engaging precedent, talking to colleagues, writing an opinion. And so, I can’t answer questions like that.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: OK, well, I’ll make — I’ll make it easier. 18 U.S.C. 594 outlaws anyone who intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote. This is a law that has been on the books for decades. Do you think a reasonable person would feel intimidated by the presence of armed civilian groups at the polls?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Senator Klobuchar, you know, that is eliciting — I’m not sure whether to say it’s eliciting a legal opinion from me, because the reasonable person standard, as you know, is one common in the law, or just an opinion as a citizen. But it’s not something, really, that’s appropriate for me to comment on.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Amy Klobuchar questioning Judge Amy Coney Barrett. After a dinner break, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris focused part of her time on Barrett’s past comments attacking the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: In 2006, you signed your name to an advertisement published in the South Bend Tribune. It described Roe v. Wade as, quote, “an exercise of raw judicial power.” It called for putting, quote, “an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade.” You signed a similar ad in 2013 that described Roe as, quote, “infamous,” and expressed opposition to abortion. Also in 2013, you wrote an article about Supreme Court precedent in which you excluded Roe from a list of well-settled cases that you said, quote, “no justice would overrule, even if she disagrees,” suggesting, of course, that you believe Roe is susceptible to being overturned. On the 40th anniversary of Roe, you delivered a speech in which you said that the court’s recognition of the right to choose was, quote, “created through judicial fiat” rather than grounded in the Constitution. And during your tenure on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, you have been willing to reconsider abortion restrictions that other Republican-appointed judges found unconstitutional.
As the Senate considers filling the seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was straightforward enough in her confirmation hearing to say that the right to choose is, quote, “essential to women’s equality,” unquote, I would suggest that we not pretend that we don’t know how this nominee views a woman’s right to choose and make her own healthcare decisions.
AMY GOODMAN: Vice-presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris was questioning Judge Amy Coney Barrett from her Senate office, projected into the Senate Judiciary Committee Supreme Court confirmation hearings, due to COVID concerns. Earlier in the hearing, Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy asked Barrett about her view on in vitro fertilization.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Do you agree with the St. Joseph County Right to Life, that sponsored the ad, that IVF is tantamount to manslaughter?
JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, Senator, I signed the statement that you and I have just discussed, and you’re right that the St. Joseph County Right to Life ran an ad on the next page, but I didn’t — I don’t even think the IVF view that you’re expressing was on that page. But regardless, I’ve never expressed a view on it.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse opted not to ask Judge Barrett any questions on Tuesday. Instead, he gave a 30-minute presentation on how right-wing groups, including the Federalist Society and Judicial Crisis Network, have used dark money to reshape the nation’s judiciary.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: This is a, to me, pretty big deal. I’ve never seen this around any court that I’ve ever been involved with, where there’s this much dark money and this much influence being used. Here’s how The Washington Post summed it up: This is “A conservative activist’s behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation’s courts.” And it’s a $250 million dark money operation.
AMY GOODMAN: When we come back, we’ll speak to Dahlia Lithwick, the Supreme Court reporter for Slate.com. Stay with us.
The number of people dying from COVID-19 since May 10 is on average 50% higher than every other country in the study, adjusting for population size. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty)
Americans Are Dying in the Pandemic at Rates Far Higher Than in Other Countries
Jason Beaubien, NPR
Beaubien writes: "During this pandemic, people in the United States are dying at rates unparalleled elsewhere in the world."
A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that in the past five months, per capita deaths in the U.S., both from COVID-19 and other causes, have been far greater than in 18 other high-income countries.
"It's shocking. It's horrible," says Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of health policy and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the study.
"The United States really has done remarkably badly compared to other countries," he says. "I mean, remarkably badly."
The study looks at per capita death rates in 2020 in 18 countries with populations larger than 5 million people and per capita gross domestic product levels above $25,000 per year. It breaks out deaths attributed to COVID-19 and examines how total deaths in the U.S. are higher than normal this year. This so-called "all-cause" mortality takes into account fatalities that may have been due to the coronavirus but were never confirmed or were due to other factors such as people not seeking medical care during the crisis.
Overall deaths in the United States this year are more than 85% higher than in places such as Germany, Israel and Denmark after adjusting for population size. Deaths in the U.S. are 29% higher than even in Sweden, "which ignored everything for so long," Emanuel says. Sweden made a point of refusing to order strict social restrictions and never went in to a full lockdown. "We have 29% more mortality than we should have if we'd followed Sweden's path and Sweden virtually did nothing."
Even looking just at confirmed COVID-19 deaths, the number of people dying since May 10 — again after adjusting for population size — is on average 50% higher than every other country in the study. In addition, the rate people are dying in the U.S. has stayed far above everywhere else. Emanuel says the current elevated mortality rates are important because they eliminate the chaotic early months of the pandemic when testing, treatment and reporting varied dramatically around the globe.
The rate of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. since June 7 is 27.2 per 100,000 people. In contrast, in Italy, the death rate is down to 3.1 per 100,000.
"It's not like Italy has some secret medicine that we don't," Emmanuel says. "They've got the same public health measures we've got. They just implemented them effectively and we implemented them poorly." If the U.S. had managed to keep its per capita death rate at the level of Italy's, 79,120 fewer Americans would have died.
This study is important for illustrating just how bad the death rate from COVID-19 has been in the U.S. compared with in other countries, says Theo Vos, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"The U.S. is in the company of a few other countries with very high rates of deaths assigned to COVID," says Vos who was not involved in the study. "Only Belgium looks worse." But he points out that once you look past the initial phase of the outbreak, the U.S. ends up looking worse than Belgium.
"Early on in the epidemic, many countries had a lack of testing possibilities. And a lot of deaths occurred early on where there was no formal diagnosis," he says. "So Belgium decided 'we're going to count all of them.' While in other countries like the Netherlands or the U.K. and the U.S. quite a few deaths have not been recognized as COVID."
He says this is why looking at overall deaths since the start of the pandemic, not just official COVID-19 deaths, is important. On that measure, the U.S. is now consistently reporting roughly 25% more deaths than these other wealthy nations.
Vos is from the Netherlands, and even though he works for the University of Washington, he recently moved back. He says looking at how death rates are changing over time is important because this pandemic is far from over.
"I now live in a country that's seeing the biggest increase in the number of cases of almost any place in the world currently," he says. Second waves of infections are hitting many places in Europe right now including France, Spain, Belgium and the U.K. Vos expects this to get even worse as more people spend more time indoors in the colder months.
He says there has also been a lot of complacency in Europe. "Here in the Netherlands, there is an appalling low acceptance of masks," he says. "Only in the last week, I've started seeing other people in the supermarket wearing a mask. I used to be the only one."
So while the U.S. death rates so far have been much higher than most other wealthy countries, Vos says, that could change as this pandemic continues to ebb and surge in various parts of the world.
Montana governor Steve Bullock. (photo: William Campbell/Getty)
Why Democratic Senate Candidates Are Competitive in Red States Like Alaska, Kansas and Montana
Perry Bacon Jr., FiveThirtyEight
Bacon writes: "Democrats have a relatively clear path to securing a majority in the U.S. Senate: Win seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina - all states where the Democratic candidate is favored."
Carrying these four states, and winning the presidency, would take Democrats from 47 seats currently1 to 50 seats — Democrat Doug Jones is likely to lose his reelection race in Alabama — with a Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking 51st vote. Democrats also have about even odds of picking up a seat in Iowa.
But 50 or 51 votes would be an extremely narrow majority, so Democrats would need to keep essentially all their members in line on key votes. And there are still some relatively conservative Democrats in the Senate, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. But Democrats also have a real chance at a bigger Senate majority — that is, if they can win seats in some redder states where they’re underdogs but have a meaningful chance of pulling off an upset. It’s worth thinking about two groups of states. One, as we explained in a story last week, is in the South: Democrats could win Senate races in Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas because those states have large numbers of voters of color. But those states are challenging for Democrats because they’re “inelastic,” with few swing voters who are really persuadable (in this case, lots of white evangelical Protestants and white voters with conservative views on racial issues who rarely if ever vote for Democratic candidates).
The second group of red states where Democrats look at least somewhat competitive in Senate races — Alaska, Kansas and Montana — is basically the opposite: very white but not as evangelical or racially conservative.2 These are more elastic states, where voters are more likely to swing between the two parties according to national political dynamics.
Elasticity score for every state and the District of Columbia
Updated for 2020
| State | Elasticity |
|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 1.28 |
| Rhode Island | 1.26 |
| Vermont | 1.23 |
| Maine | 1.17 |
| Massachusetts | 1.17 |
| Hawaii | 1.15 |
| Iowa | 1.13 |
| North Dakota | 1.11 |
| Idaho | 1.10 |
| West Virginia | 1.10 |
| New Mexico | 1.09 |
| Colorado | 1.09 |
| Connecticut | 1.09 |
| Nevada | 1.08 |
| Alaska | 1.07 |
| Arizona | 1.07 |
| Oregon | 1.07 |
| Wisconsin | 1.06 |
| Washington | 1.06 |
| Montana | 1.05 |
| Kansas | 1.04 |
| Florida | 1.04 |
| New Jersey | 1.04 |
| South Dakota | 1.03 |
| Michigan | 1.03 |
| Ohio | 1.02 |
| Nebraska | 1.02 |
| Utah | 1.02 |
| Arkansas | 1.02 |
| Texas | 1.02 |
| Missouri | 1.01 |
| Minnesota | 1.01 |
| Indiana | 1.00 |
| Kentucky | 1.00 |
| Tennessee | 0.98 |
| Illinois | 0.98 |
| Pennsylvania | 0.97 |
| California | 0.96 |
| New York | 0.96 |
| Wyoming | 0.95 |
| North Carolina | 0.94 |
| Louisiana | 0.93 |
| Oklahoma | 0.93 |
| Virginia | 0.92 |
| Delaware | 0.90 |
| South Carolina | 0.88 |
| Maryland | 0.87 |
| Georgia | 0.84 |
| Alabama | 0.81 |
| Mississippi | 0.79 |
| District of Columbia | 0.62 |
President Trump is very likely to carry all three of these states, and Joe Biden’s campaign really isn’t competing in any of them. Besides that, these are not swing states — Democrats last won the presidential race in Alaska and Kansas in 1964, and in Montana, it was 1992.
That said, a big reason why Democrats are competitive in these states at the Senate level is that Trump isn’t doing that well in them. (Or, alternatively, Biden is doing fairly well in them.) The broader anti-Trump wave has hit Alaska, Kansas and Montana too. Polls suggest that the president will win in these three states comfortably, but by several percentage points less than he carried them in 2016. (He won Kansas and Montana by about 20 points four years ago, and Alaska by about 15.) Trump’s net job approval rating3 has declined in all three states since the start of his term.
Let’s take a more in-depth look at these races. We have ordered them from Democrats’ best chances to their worst.
Montana
Democrats have a 31 in 100 chance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast for Montana;4 the Cook Political Report rates this race as a “tossup.”
Between Alaska, Kansas and Montana, this is the race where Democrats probably have the best chance of pulling off an upset. That’s true for two reasons. First, Montana is not that Republican-leaning. Barack Obama and his campaign tried hard to win Montana in 2008 and lost there by just about 2 points. Montanans reelected Democrat Jon Tester as the state’s other senator in 2018. And the state has had a Democratic governor since 2005 (Brian Schweitzer, then Steve Bullock).
Second, Democrats have a strong candidate in the Senate race: Gov. Bullock. He has won statewide elections in Montana three times (once as attorney general and twice as governor). It’s likely that Bullock would be the favorite here if this were an open seat.
Of course, it’s not an open seat. Bullock is challenging incumbent Sen. Steve Daines, who has voted nearly in lock step with Trump and hasn’t had any major controversies over the past four years. So, the most likely scenario here is that Trump wins the state and that essentially everyone who votes for Trump also supports Daines, lifting the incumbent to victory. On the other hand, if it’s a particularly good night for Democrats, Montana’s Senate seat is one of the likelier reach seats that could come along for the ride.
Kansas
Democrats have a 26 in 100 chance, according to our Senate forecast for Kansas;5 the Cook Political Report rates this race as “Lean Republican.”
The biggest factor working in Democrats’ favor in Kansas is that no incumbent Republican is running for this seat. (Pat Roberts, who is 84 years old, is retiring.) And, as we mentioned above, it’s simply easier to win an open seat than to oust an incumbent.
Democrats have a few other things going for them too. For one, their candidate in Kansas, state senator Barbara Bollier, is an ideal person to appeal to longtime Republicans who may be frustrated with the Trump-era GOP. She is one of those people herself. Bollier served as a Republican member of the state’s House and then Senate from 2010 to December 2018, when she remained in office but switched parties and became a Democrat. Bollier’s switch was not a surprise — she had been part of a group of more moderate Republicans who embraced Democratic gubernatorial candidate (and now Kansas governor) Laura Kelly and argued that Kansas’s GOP had moved too far to the right. Bollier had also been critical of Trump.
Kansas may also be leaning a bit more blue in the Trump era. The GOP brand in Kansas has been hobbled by not only Trump but also by former governor Sam Brownback, whose large tax cuts and large cuts to government programs were deeply unpopular, and by Kansas’s former secretary of state Kris Kobach, who has been heavily involved in GOP efforts in Kansas and across the country to limit immigration and make it harder to vote.
The result has been a modestly friendlier playing field for Democrats. In 2018, Sharice Davids won the congressional district in the Kansas City area, becoming the state’s first Democratic U.S. House member since 2010. And Kelly was elected governor two years ago.
But Republicans are still favorites in Kansas because … well, it’s still a red state. Additionally, they have a strong Senate candidate in congressman Roger Marshall, who isn’t particularly tied to Brownback, Kobach or Trump. In fact, Marshall defeated Kobach in the Kansas Senate primary in August in part because national Republican groups spent heavily on television commercials boosting Marshall. GOP officials intervened because they were worried Kobach would lose in 2020, as he did in 2018 when facing Kelly for governor.
Alaska
Democrats have a 22 in 100 chance, according to our Senate forecast for Alaska;6 the Cook Political Report rates this race as “Lean Republican.”
There are four reasons this race could be close. First, Alaska voters, like those in Montana, aren’t as consistently Republican-leaning as you might think based on how the state votes in presidential elections alone. Democrats won this Senate seat in 2008 before losing it in 2014. And in 2010, Alaskans reelected Lisa Murkowski, who was running as a write-in candidate against the official Republican Party nominee, Joe Miller. (Miller had won the GOP primary by running to Murkowski’s right.) The state’s governor from 2015 to 2019 was Bill Walker, a Republican-turned-independent who aligned with the state’s Democrats.
Second, Al Gross, the Democratic candidate in Alaska, might appeal to the state’s voters because he, like Murkowski and Walker, is running against a Republican candidate but is not a traditional Democrat. The doctor and commercial fisherman is a registered independent (so not a Democrat) and before this race didn’t have many formal ties to the Democratic Party. (He did run for and win the Democratic nomination for this seat and is being backed by the groups allied with the Democratic Party.)
Third, incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan and the broader Republican Party may have been caught off guard in Alaska. It was obvious that Bullock was a strong candidate in Montana, and open seats like the one in Kansas are always hard to defend, so the GOP was prepared for those races to be competitive. But Gross’s strong fundraising, the millions being pumped into his campaign by Democratic-aligned super PACs, and the close poll numbers in this state weren’t easy to foresee a year ago.
Finally, a local issue might hurt Sullivan. He has received campaign donations from people involved in a project to build a large gold and copper mine in an area near Bristol Bay. The project, known as Pebble Mine, is fairly unpopular with Alaskans. Last month, secret recordings were released in which Pebble Mine executives implied that Sullivan would support the project (or at least not publicly oppose it) once his reelection contest was over. After those recordings emerged, Sullivan issued a statement emphatically opposing the mining project. (His comments before had been more circumspect.) But Gross is still attacking the incumbent on this issue.
All that said, Sullivan is the favorite. He’s an incumbent Republican in a GOP-leaning state. A few polls have been released that find Gross within striking distance, but we have very little polling in Alaska in total — less so than in Montana and Kansas.
Personally, I’d be surprised if Democrats won any of these three races. Like South Carolina, it’s pretty hard for a Democratic Senate candidate to win in these states, particularly Kansas. But it’s an indication of how blue 2020 is shaping up to be that Democrats have a chance of winning in all three of these states. And if they do pull off upsets in Alaska, Kansas or Montana, Democrats might win control of the Senate with a few votes to spare.
A shrine sits in Mexico near the massive border fence erected by the United States to deter illegal immigration near Sasabe, Arizona, on June 1, 2010. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty)
Border Patrol Leaves Migrants in Remote Town as Deaths Rise
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "Dumping hundreds of migrants in the remote Mexican border town of Sasabe puts them at risk from organized crime."
ith migrant deaths approaching levels not seen in years, humanitarian aid volunteers in southern Arizona say that the U.S. Border Patrol is using Covid-19 as a pretext to quietly dump large numbers of immigrants in one of the most remote and potentially dangerous communities in the Sonoran Desert.
Volunteers who have visited the dusty community of Sasabe, in the Mexican state of Sonora, in recent weeks, say that they have witnessed U.S. immigration agents continually off-loading large groups of people throughout the day, overwhelming the town’s limited immigration resources and placing individuals at significant risk of being targeted by organized criminal groups.
“We believe that Border Patrol is getting away with these horrible deportation numbers because no one knows,” Dora Rodriguez, a Tucson-based humanitarian aid volunteer, told The Intercept. “It is really easy for them to just dump people there and that’s it. Nobody says anything.”
Rodriguez and a growing group of humanitarian volunteers began turning their attention to Sasabe in mid-September, making biweekly visits to bring food and water to migrants after learning of the explosion in arrivals to the resource-strapped community. With a population of approximately 2,500 and a single town store, the port of entry at Sasabe has long been described as one of the quietest official crossings in the state. There is no migrant shelter in the town, and the influence and power of organized crime in the area is well known.
In recent visits, Rodriguez has been joined by Sister Judy Bourg, a nun with the Sisters of Notre Dame, and Gail Kocourek, a volunteer with the Green Valley Samaritans, one of Arizona’s longstanding humanitarian groups. The women told The Intercept that they have personally seen groups of migrants numbering in the dozens gathered outside of Sasabe’s tiny immigration office. Through a visit to a local stash house and conversations with local contacts, the women were told that the Border Patrol is dropping upwards of 100 to 120 people in the community each day.
“We totally didn’t expect this,” Kocourek, a longtime volunteer in the Sasabe area, told The Intercept. “We’ve got hungry people being dumped into this community by the hundreds.” Kocourek added that Border Patrol enforcement activity in the area is unlike anything she has ever seen before. “It’s just tremendous right now,” she said. “I’ve never seen so much activity in that area.”
Operating under an order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in March the Border Patrol began rapidly expelling migrants at the border in the name of defending against the spread of Covid-19. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, however, pressure to enact the order did not come from public health officials, but instead from Stephen Miller, the president’s ultra-hardline immigration adviser. Miller, who recently contracted Covid-19 himself, has long sought to connect immigrants to disease as means to close off immigration at the border.
It’s not only Mexican nationals who are being dropped in Sasabe, Rodriguez said, noting that she had she met Salvadorans, Hondurans, and a father from Guatemala, who had been expelled with his 16-year-old son, during recent visits. “I understand when there are tons of people in Nogales and in Tijuana and in Sonoyta,” she said, referring to more well-known border communities where the Border Patrol often deposits migrants. “But they have resources — even if they’re limited, there are some resources. But in Sasabe, it’s nothing.”
Rodriguez and the other advocates say that the expulsions are making an already dangerous situation worse. Following a blistering hot summer — in Phoenix, the hottest in recorded history — more human remains have been recovered in the Arizona desert this year than at any point since 2013. On top of the rising death toll, the expulsions have come at a time of escalating tension in the desert, with the Border Patrol executing two militarized raids on a humanitarian aid station in the region in three months, federal agents arresting and tear-gassing Indigenous activists protesting border expansion on sacred lands, and the state’s for-profit immigration detention centers becoming some the nation’s leading hot spots for Covid-19.
Generally lasting no more than a couple hours from encounter to removal, the so-called Title 42 expulsions have radically altered the shape of migration and immigration enforcement along the border. The Border Patrol has long relied on a deterrence strategy that funnels migrants into the border’s deadliest terrain, pushing its land checkpoints deeper into the interior of the country and forcing migrants to walk further into the desert in the hopes of linking up with a ride. Agents will sometimes track a group of migrants for days before making an arrest, allowing physical exhaustion to assist in their apprehension efforts. Now, with the expulsions in effect, those exhausted migrants can be swiftly booted from the country. According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the government has expelled more than 147,000 people along the southwest border using the order.
While Mark Morgan, the senior official performing the duties of the commissioner of CBP, has described the expulsions as a “game changer,” advocates say that the expulsions rob migrants of due process rights and subject them to extreme danger when their removals involve being dumped in unfamiliar and remote communities with entrenched organized crime. Bourg, who has spent a decade providing humanitarian on the border, told The Intercept that the expelled migrants whom she met on a recent visit to Sasabe looked physically depleted. “They came in beat-up looking,” she said. Their eyes were red and glassy, she added. “They didn’t just cross and walk for half a day.”
In the past week, The Intercept has repeatedly requested a breakdown of the Border Patrol’s data on expulsions in the agency’s Tucson sector, as well as an interview with an official who could explain how determinations are made as to which ports migrants will be expelled through. The Border Patrol has provided neither. In April, an agency spokesperson acknowledged that Sasabe was seeing a “mild uptick” in expulsions but provided no numbers to assess the claim.
A Grim Milestone
While the Border Patrol’s expulsion protocol remains unclear, what is evident is that 2020 has been a particularly deadly year for migrants attempting to cross the Sonoran Desert. For years, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has shared its data on suspected migrant death cases with Humane Borders, a humanitarian group that charts the data on an interactive online map.
As of this week, the medical examiner’s office has logged 181 cases of suspected migrant deaths recovered in its area of operations this year. The last time the office saw a higher total was in 2013, when 186 sets of human remains were recovered. The record for most human remains recovered in a single year was set in 2010, when 224 were found. With two and a half months yet to go in the year, advocates worry that 2020 could exceed that grim milestone.
“I think by the end of year, it’ll be the highest since 2010,” Mike Kreyche, the mapping coordinator with Humane Borders, told The Intercept. “I hope we don’t get up that high, but I think we’re going to approach it.”
What’s particularly alarming about this year’s data, Kreyche explained, is the column of information labeled “postmortem interval,” the estimated amount of time between an individual’s death and the discovery of their remains. In recent years, that number has generally been more than six to eight months — in some cases, remains discovered in the field could be years old. This year, however, there has been a marked increase in the recovery of remains indicating a recently deceased individual, particularly in the brutally hot summer months. In September, roughly two thirds of the recoveries recorded by the medical examiner’s office suggested a death in the prior three months. Overall, the 2020 data show that more than half of the recoveries of suspected migrant remains — 107 of 181 cases — indicate a death that occurred at some point less than six to eight months prior.
“There have been a lot more deaths,” Kreyche said, “particularly recent deaths.”
Montana Thames, a volunteer with the humanitarian organization No More Deaths, said the past several months have been “very active” for volunteers providing aid on the ground. With temperatures continuously breaking 100 degrees, “people need help, people need aid,” Thames told The Intercept. “There have been a lot of people who haven’t made it.”
Last week, the Border Patrol raided No More Deaths’ humanitarian aid station outside of Arivaca, Arizona, approximately 25 miles northeast of Sasabe, for the second time in three months. The first raid was launched in the middle of a heat wave and featured members of the Border Patrol’s tactical team, known as BORTAC, pointing rifles while agents slashed through the organization’s tents with knives, confiscated sensitive medical records and dumped out gallon jugs of water.
Efforts to engage in a dialogue with the Border Patrol since then went nowhere, Thames said, and last Monday night BORTAC was again deployed in a heavily militarized operation that involved agents in night-vision goggles trashing the organization’s belongings. Twelve migrants were arrested, including some who were chased through Arivaca before being taken into custody. While the raid was “shocking” and unacceptable, Thames noted, “This is literally the everyday reality of migrants and undocumented communities in general.”
Rodriguez visited Sasabe the morning after the raid on the No More Deaths camp. She described witnessing multiple rounds of expulsions and said that at one point, as many as 50 people were gathered outside the overwhelmed Mexican immigration office. She was told that some of the migrants in town that day were among those arrested in the raid the previous night. Rodriguez spoke to one young man from El Salvador. His shoes were tattered, and his toes poked through at the ends. He said that he had spent 15 days in the desert. Rodriguez, who nearly died crossing the border as an asylum-seeker herself in 1980, was both moved and troubled by the young man’s story. “They are putting these people in the most horrible danger,” she said. “They have nothing.”
Driving back into the U.S. last Tuesday, Rodriguez and the other advocates encountered an enormous Border Patrol caravan heading south. “That road always has a lot of Border Patrol, but this was exceptional,” Bourg said. Rodriguez said the area was “like a war zone,” adding, “They’re running their own show over there and it’s a secret.”
Although humanitarian aid volunteers are now coordinating food and water supply runs sufficient to support 700 people in Sasabe each week, Rodriguez said more must be done. She believes the Border Patrol’s expulsions into the town need to stop.
“It’s like a playground for BP,” she said. “No one is making them accountable for this.”
People led by the activist group, Feminist Collective, protest to demand Governor Wanda Vazquez to declare a state of emergency in response to recent gender based femicides, assaults and the disappearance of women in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sept. 28, 2020. (photo: Ricardo Arduengo/Getty)
Puerto Ricans Demand State of Emergency Amid Rise in Violence Against Women
Cristina Corujo and Jessica Mendoza, ABC News
Excerpt: "In two weeks, at least three women were killed and a trans woman attacked."
s Puerto Rico struggles to recover from multiple turmoils, including an economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, another crisis plagues the territory: rising violence against women. In the past two weeks, Puerto Rican media has reported the killings of three women and an attack to a transgender woman.
According to data from Puerto Rico's Gender Equality Observatory, at least 37 direct and indirect femicides have been registered in the island from Jan. 2020 to Sept. 2020.
On Sep. 28, hundreds of Puerto Ricans took to the streets demanding that the government take action, and urging Gov. Wanda Vázquez to declare a state of emergency. Protesters held signs in Old San Juan that read, "Estado de Emergencia YA," ("State of Emergency Now," in English) and "Ni Una Más Ni Una Menos," (which roughly translates to "Not One More, Nor One Less").
Hours before the protest, authorities confirmed the death of Rosimar RodrÃguez, a 20-year-old woman who was kidnapped on Sept. 17 and found dead inside a car in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Officials are still investigating her death.
Two days after RodrÃguez was found dead, Michelle Ramos Vargas, a transgender woman, was fatally shot in San German, Puerto Rico. A week later, Nashaly Cristina Torres, 22, was killed in Villalba, Puerto Rico.
As of Oct. 5, at least 12 women, including five underage girls, remained missing in Puerto Rico, according to Puerto Rico's Gender Equality Observatory.
The situation, unfortunately, is nothing new for the island. But still, activists, nonprofit organizations, community and state leaders and citizens are continuing to plead for change. Most recently, a movement against violence toward women erupted on social media.
"Before Hurricane MarÃa and Irma, we had denounced a call for a state of emergency because we had seen how all the institutions were not addressing the issue as a priority," said Lourdes Inoa Monegro, the program director at Taller Salud, a nonprofit feminist organization that's been helping women deal with the ongoing violence against them.
While Inoa Monegro said violence against women was already an issue that was being widely ignored on the island, it got even worse after both hurricanes caused destruction in the territory. "At that moment, we didn't have the statistics, but we had our ears," she told ABC News. Through the community, the organization learned that violence against women was on the rise in the island.
Inoa Monegro said women in the community told her, "'I fear for my life or my security. And I don't see where to go, statewise,'"
After Hurricane MarÃa, domestic violence murders doubled, according to a recent investigation from GEN and Type Investigations. "At least 23 women on the island of 3.2 million were killed by their current or former intimate partners that year [2018], causing the intimate partner murder rate to soar to 1.7 per 100,000 women, up from 0.77 per 100,000 in 2017."
No new data about domestic violence killings has been reported since 2018, according to gen.medium.
"We have denounced in various occasions, the disaster that the hurricane provoked was not all natural. It was also a political disaster on how to address the issues of quality of life and safety for the people in Puerto Rico," Inoa Monegro said. Her concerns include the wellbeing and safety of all women on the island.
"We want to see action taken," she said. "We need the state to do something about it."
A draft of an executive order that would address violence against women in the island is being reviewed by Gov. Wanda Vázquez, stated a press release issued by the governor's office.
Although Vázquez -- whose term ends in January -- acknowledges the gender violence crisis on the island, the press release doesn't mention the possibility of issuing a state of emergency. Just last week, the governor endorsed President Donald Trump for reelection, despite the widespread criticism over his handling of Puerto Rico's hurricane relief.
Inoa Monegro said citizens' pleas for a state of emergency from the local government have not been heard. ABC News reached out to the governor's office to ask about demands on the state of emergency, but no response was received.
An official state of emergency would give the island resources to deal with gender violence in Puerto Rico.
"We are in a war, and every day we lose a soldier," said Joanna Cifredo, an activist and transgender woman.
Cifredo is one of the many women who has taken to the streets to protest with the purposes of seeking change. "For Alexa, for Serena, for Penelope, for Yampi, for Layla, for Kevin, for Rosimar and for all the others that were taken from us. We demand the government to declare a state of emergency due to 'violencia machista' (roughly translates to misogynist violence)," Cifredo wrote in her social media channels during the Sept. 28 protest.
This year, six transgender women have been killed in Puerto Rico. Last week, local authorities reported that a 33-year-old transgender woman, Nicole López, was hospitalized after being stabbed and beaten.
"Being with our sisters is what heals us," Cifredo told ABC News. She said that every time there is an alert that another woman has been killed, she tries to gather with other women to seek comfort. "It's what heals our souls."
But, of course, finding safe ways to reunite with loved ones amid the pandemic has been challenging.
Taller Salud had to rearrange their strategy entirely, and although they were able to adjust to remote services, Inoa Monegro said these are "stressful times," for many women.
"It definitely hasn't been easy... that idea that home is a safe environment for women is a fallacy, it is not true," she said.
Once COVID-19 cases started rising in the mainland, Puerto Rico implemented one of the strictest lockdowns in the nation, including a curfew that is still in effect.
"Being at home 24/7, or most of the day, has taken a toll on their mental health and on their ability to cope with violence," said Inoa Monegro.
While the recent news has taken a toll on many residents in the island, especially women, both Inoa Monegro and Cifredo said nothing will stop them in their fight against violence toward women.
"Our fight is for everyone. Our fight is for a better world full of justice, love and peace," Cifredo said.
Criminal prosecutions for polluting the environment in violation of the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act have dropped to their lowest levels in decades under the Trump administration. (photo: Charles Cook/Getty)
Pollution Prosecutions Plummet to Lowest Level in Decades Under Trump
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "A new report finds that criminal prosecutions for polluting the environment in violation of the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act have dropped to their lowest levels in decades under the Trump administration."
The report was written by David Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan who worked for the Department of Justice for 17 years and served as its top environmental prosecutor from 2000 to 2007.
In the paper, the career prosecutor-turned-professor analyzed 14 years of cases and found that in the first two years of the Trump administration, criminal prosecutions for violations of the Clean Water Act dropped 70 percent. Similarly, prosecutions for violations of the Clean Air Act dropped 50 percent in the first two years since Trump took office.
"No matter what the future holds, the data from the first two years under President Trump reveals a dramatic departure from the non-partisan support for pollution prosecutions that had existed across administrations, which leaves Americans less safe and the environment less protected," Uhlmann wrote.
Uhlmann presented the paper at the American Bar Association's fall environmental conference. While the paper is available online now, it will be published in the Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, according to The New York Times.
The paper noted that there were only nine criminal prosecutions under the Clean Water Act in 2018. "Under President Donald J. Trump the bottom fell out," Uhlmann wrote, as The New York Times reported.
Uhlmann told The New York Times that the numbers show a dramatic decline in both the quantity and the quality of the prosecutions that the administration is pursuing.
While the study looked at the first two years of the Trump administration and found a pattern that shattered the author's perception that law enforcement operated independently of political influence, recent data has shown the trend continued through 2019.
According to Justice Department data analyzed by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), the total number of environmental prosecutions in fiscal year 2019 was lower than any year during the administrations of the previous three presidents, which dates back to 1993, as Courthouse News reported.
For that year, the percent of prosecutions for environmental violations was 64.5 percent lower than it was two decades earlier.
"There's a risk that unenforced violations could lead to fires, leaks, spills, and contamination," said Ethan Elkind, climate program director at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, as Courthouse News reported.
While criminal prosecutions have plummeted under Trump, so have civil prosecutions, according to The New York Times. Civil settlements are a powerful tool to ensure that polluters pay to clean up past mistakes and implement safeguards against future pollution issues.
A lawsuit filed last week in Massachusetts by the Conservation Law Foundation named Attorney General William Barr and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler as defendants for ending the practice that forces polluters to clean up for their actions and implement protections. The lawsuit notes that those violations tend to affect low-income and minority communities disproportionally, and the decision to abandon civil prosecutions and settlements, "runs directly counter to Congress' design when passing laws such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act."
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator at the EPA, told The New York Times that Uhlmann's paper is an accurate portrayal of an administration that "acts like our bedrock environmental laws are simply suggestions. This approach will result in more pollution and more damage to health."
She added that what the administration has done is "unconscionable."
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