The People Who Donated in December
We had a lot of donations in December from people who we don’t normally get donations from during the rest of the year. That’s good in December but bad for the rest of the year.
Reader Supported News isn’t one of the huge organizations that raise enough money in December to sustain the organization for the coming year. Not even close.
Yes we did do a little better in December, but we could lose everything we gained in January and more if everyone assumes we’re covered for the year.
January fundraising will absolutely matter, big time. It will be a lot easier if some of the people who only donate in December start pitching during the year as well. RSN is a “365” undertaking.
January fundraising starts tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be as good as December but if it’s very bad that, will cause serious problems.
With resolve.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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04 January 21
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Ted Cruz Is Spearheading a New GOP Effort to Overturn the 2020 Election
Cameron Peters, Vox
Peters writes: "At least 12 Republican senators will object to certifying the results of the 2020 election."
n Saturday, 11 current and incoming Republican senators announced in a joint statement that they would object to the congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory next week in a futile effort to hand outgoing President Donald Trump an unelected second term in office.
The statement — led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — also calls for the creation of an electoral commission modeled on a similar committee assembled in 1877, saying the commission would conduct “an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states.”
Citing “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities,” the letter also argues that states should be allowed to “evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.”
The days after the 2020 election have indeed seen unprecedented allegations of voter fraud — but all have been found to be without merit by the judicial system, state elected officials, national security officials, and elections officials. Nevertheless, Cruz and the other members of the group — Sens. Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, and Mike Braun, as well as Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis, Roger Marshall, Bill Hagerty, and Tommy Tuberville — maintain otherwise.
Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, and Tuberville were elected in November and have yet to be sworn in, but will be seated Sunday ahead of a session of Congress dedicated to the electoral vote certification on January 6.
In their plans to object to the certification, the 11 lawmakers join Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who announced his own plan to object last week, and a sizable majority of the House Republican Conference, led by Trump devotees like Rep. Louie Gohmert, who have said they will do the same.
“74 million Americans are not going to be told their voices don’t matter,” Hawley said of his effort on December 30, conveniently ignoring the fact Biden won the election by a margin of more than 7 million votes over Trump, and that, in the US system, their votes hold equal weight.
Ultimately, the Republican plan to object will lead nowhere. Though a bicameral group of Republicans will be able to successfully object to the certification of results, the Democratic majority in the House means that the effort will ultimately fail there — and it may not stand much of a chance in the Senate either, where the No. 1 and No. 2 Republicans in the chamber — Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip John Thune — have come out against it.
“In the Senate, it would go down like a shot dog,” Thune told reporters in December 2020. “I just don’t think it makes a lot of sense to put everybody through this when you know what the ultimate outcome is going to be.”
Other Republicans, including Sens. Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse, have criticized Hawley’s plan. And In a statement Saturday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) came out strongly against the lawmakers’ plan to object.
“I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” she said, “and that is what I will do January 6 — just as I strive to do every day as I serve the people of Alaska. I will vote to affirm the 2020 presidential election.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who represents one of the swing states Trump has contested, also criticized those who plan to oppose the certification on Saturday, saying in a statement: “A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.”
Trump, on the other hand, signaled support for the lawmakers’ efforts, retweeting Hawley’s praise of Cruz and his allies, and seeming to characterize certification as “an attempt to steal a landslide win.”
Ted Cruz’s “election commission” would investigate fraud that’s been repeatedly proven nonexistent
Plan to object aside, the “electoral commission” plan backed by Cruz and 10 of his colleagues is nonsense. For one, the commission they demand has no precedent in the modern era and no realistic prospects of being convened. What’s more, the statement is predicated on a series of spurious claims by Cruz and his colleagues that echo similar — and equally baseless — election fraud rhetoric to that heard repeatedly from Trump.
Election Day — November 3, 2020 — is now 60 days in the past. In that time, Trump and his Republican allies have filed and lost at least 60 election-related lawsuits at all levels of the state and federal court systems alleging voter fraud and other improprieties — and they have failed to prove their case at every turn.
Recounts in battleground states like Georgia and Wisconsin — both won by Biden — have turned up no evidence of large-scale fraud or irregularities that could have affected the results of the election. And in all 50 states and Washington, DC, the election results have been carefully reviewed by state officials and certified as accurate.
In short, 60 days of intense scrutiny has turned up exactly zero reasons to believe the letter’s false claim that “the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election” are worrying — and there’s no reason to believe that an “electoral commission” would turn up a different result.
That there have been allegations of fraud as never before is true, but as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes pointed out on Sunday, these have been misleading efforts led by Trump, and bolstered by his allies, like Cruz, to overturn the election’s rightful results.
Cruz and his allies cite the results of this effort in their statement Saturday that widespread belief in the existence of voter fraud — a sort of warped “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” argument — necessitates the creation of an election commission.
“Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows that 39% of Americans believe ‘the election was rigged’,” the group said Saturday. “That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%).”
That’s an accurate reporting of the poll’s results — but it does conveniently leave out the likely reason for that widespread belief.
In reality, the Republican base has been inundated with evidence-free voter fraud rhetoric from every corner of the right-wing universe — from Trump’s Twitter feed to Fox News to stump speeches by Republican senators — almost nonstop since Trump’s election defeat. There’s a direct line between Cruz’s rhetoric and the problem he diagnoses: As Hayes put it on Twitter, “They’ve spent months lying to people, telling them the election was stolen and now turn around and cite the fact that many people believe them as evidence!”
Ultimately, Saturday’s statement is just the latest foray in a flailing Republican effort to keep Trump in office in opposition to the will of the people. Given that any challenge to certification can be dissolved by a majority vote, and that there are more than enough opponents to these challenges in both the House and Senate, Cruz’s plan seems unlikely to work.
Biden is poised to again be affirmed the next president on January 6 ahead of his January 20 inauguration. But if Cruz and his colleagues are as genuinely concerned about a “deep distrust of our democratic processes” that “poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations” as they claim, their own role in disrupting trust in the electoral process deserves review.
People celebrate outside the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court in London after a British judge ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States, on January 4, 2021. (photo: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
UK Court Blocks Julian Assange Extradition to US
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "A British judge has ruled that Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges, saying that such a move would be 'oppressive' because of the WikiLeaks founder's mental health."
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser delivered the decision against the US authorities’ request on Monday, at the Old Bailey court in London.
Assange, 49, appeared in court wearing a navy suit and a mask, and showed little emotion at the ruling, simply wiping his brow.
His fiancee Stella Moris, with whom he has two sons, burst into tears and was embraced by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Baraitser said he was “a depressed and sometimes despairing man” who had the “intellect and determination” to circumvent any suicide prevention measures taken by prison authorities.
If imprisoned in the US, Australian-born Assange “faces the bleak prospect of severely restrictive detention conditions designed to remove physical contact and reduce social interaction and contact with the outside world to a bare minimum”, she said.
“He faces these prospects as someone with a diagnosis of clinical depression and persistent thoughts of suicide.
“I am satisfied that the risk that Mr Assange will commit suicide is a substantial one.”
The US government, which is attempting to prosecute Assange, reacted quickly as expected, saying it would appeal the decision.
Assange’s lawyers said they would ask for his release from Belmarsh, a maximum-security London prison where he has been held for almost two years, at a bail hearing on Wednesday.
In court, they argued that the case was political and an assault on journalism and freedom of speech.
Baraitser rejected that, however, saying there was insufficient evidence that prosecutors had been pressured by Donald Trump’s team and there was little evidence of hostility from the US president towards him.
She said there was no evidence that Assange would not get a fair trial in the US nor that prosecutors were seeking to punish him, and said his actions had gone beyond investigative journalism.
Cautious relief among press freedom advocates
In the run-up to Monday’s decision, Assange had enjoyed a swell of support from press freedom advocates, who have been calling on US President Donald Trump to pardon him.
After the ruling, Assange’s supporters who had gathered since the early morning to rally outside the court celebrated, cheering and shouting “Free Assange!”
While rights groups and journalists globally welcomed Baraitser’s decision, they issued some caution.
“I am relieved the judge just ruled against extradition, however, I am very unhappy about how she stuck to all the major arguments put forward by the US to characterise Assange’s work as going beyond free speech and journalism,” investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi told Al Jazeera following the ruling.
Maurizi works for the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano and has worked on all of WikiLeaks’s secret documents, included the 2010 documents for which Assange has been charged.
“I am also very concerned that Assange will remain in prison because it’s very likely the US will appeal: he is at serious risk physically and mentally.”
The US-based Freedom of the Press Foundation tweeted: “The extradition request was not decided on press freedom grounds; rather, the judge essentially ruled the US prison system was too repressive to extradite. However, the result will protect journalists everywhere.”
For now, 49-year-old Assange is expected to remain in jail in the UK, where his physical and mental health have declined.
The case could eventually lead to the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court.
US prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.
Assange’s lawyers argue that the case is politically motivated, and that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment protections of freedom of speech for publishing leaked documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange and WikiLeaks shot to fame in April 2010, after the website released a 39-minute video of a US military Apache helicopter firing over and killing more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters journalists.
Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from outside the Old Bailey, said Monday’s decision would come “as a blow” to the prosecution.
“We are talking potentially about many many more months, or many more years, of legal wrangling to go when it comes to deciding Julian Assange’s future,” he said.
“He is seen very much as a thorn in the side to many governments, not just the US government, and as a man who has jeopardised state secrets, undermined state security and the safety of undercover agents working in very difficult situations in challenging parts of the world.”
Secretary of defense Leon Panetta under Barack Obama speaks to U.S. troops. (photo: Staff Sgt. Marc I. Lane/US Navy)
All 10 Living Former Defense Secretaries: Involving the Military in Election Disputes Would Cross Into Dangerous Territory
Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party."
American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy. With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception.
Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.
As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.
Transitions, which all of us have experienced, are a crucial part of the successful transfer of power. They often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture. They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation.
Given these factors, particularly at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in active operations around the world, it is all the more imperative that the transition at the Defense Department be carried out fully, cooperatively and transparently. Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.
We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.
Nancy Pelosi. (photo: Erin Scott/AP)
Pelosi Wins Speakership for Fourth Time in Dramatic Vote
Mike Lillis and Scott Wong, The Hill
Excerpt: "House Democrats rallied Sunday to elect Rep. Nancy Pelosi as Speaker in the 117th Congress, overcoming opposition from a handful of restive moderates urging new leadership to grant Pelosi her fourth term at the top of the chamber."
The 216-209 vote was more dramatic than anyone would have guessed just two months ago, when Democrats went into the elections predicting big gains to pad their House majority in 2021. Instead, they lost at least 13 seats, trimming their numbers to a mere 222 seats — the smallest House majority in decades — and complicating Pelosi's effort to keep the Speaker's gavel for another two-year term.
She has vowed it will be her last.
A total of five Democrats declined to support Pelosi on the chamber floor, urging a changing of the guard after 18 years under Pelosi's reign — a sharp decline from the 15 defections she encountered in 2019.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) voted for Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a military veteran, while Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) opted for House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Three other Democrats — Reps. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) and Abigail Spanberger (Va.) — voted “present,” allowing them to log their disapproval with the longtime leader while simultaneously lowering her threshold for victory.
"I've been pretty vocal about the need for more Midwestern leaders, people who represent areas like where I'm from," Slotkin said shortly before the vote. "It's a commitment that I made in March of 2018 before I was elected."
Yet the detractors fell short of blocking Pelosi, who ran unopposed, and there was a clear sense that the process was orchestrated in such a way to allow a certain number of moderate Democrats in tough districts to register their opposition to the liberal leader for messaging purposes back home while keeping their ranks small enough to ensure she kept the gavel.
Paving her path, several Democrats who had opposed Pelosi in 2019 had a change of heart this year and backed her, including Reps. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), Ron Kind (Wis.), Jason Crow (Colo.) and Kathleen Rice (N.Y.).
Heading into the vote, there were also open questions surrounding the intentions of several incoming progressive lawmakers — including Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) — who had knocked off Democratic incumbents in the primaries and had declined to forecast how they'd vote in the Speaker's race.
In the end, however, those newcomers declined to go after Pelosi, citing a need for Democrats to unite heading into the new Congress.
"Our country needs stability right now," Bowman said coming off of the chamber floor after the vote. "It's really important for the Democratic Party to come together and figure out not just how to govern for the 117th but going forward for the country."
The timing of the vote might also have played to Pelosi's advantage. It came just two days before a pair of special Senate elections in Georgia will decide which party controls the upper chamber next year and three days before Congress will vote to affirm Joe Biden's Electoral College victory in the face of opposition from conservative allies of President Trump who are fighting to overturn the election results in several battleground states.
Against that backdrop, Pelosi’s allies had warned her critics against creating a dramatic scene on the chamber floor, which would have highlighted the party’s divisions just as it is trying to unite behind Biden and its candidates in Georgia.
Opening day of a new Congress is usually filled with pomp and celebration, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, things were much more subdued in the Capitol. There were not as many children and grandchildren wandering around the complex, and lawmakers sported masks, opted for elbow bumps over handshakes and hugs, and voted in multiple shifts to avoid overcrowding on the House floor.
COVID-19 hung over the Speaker’s vote as well, as Pelosi and her allies fretted about the possibility that a new, last-minute outbreak could cause a flurry of Democratic absences and jeopardize her quest to secure the gavel. In fact, the margins were so tight that some Democrats who had recently tested positive for COVID-19 traveled to Washington anyway to cast their vote for Pelosi.
Some of the day’s drama focused on Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), who on Dec. 28 announced that she had received a positive test. Despite that diagnosis, Moore flew to Washington and cast her vote for Pelosi on the House floor, prompting howls from Republicans who claimed that Democrats were more concerned about securing the Speaker’s gavel for Pelosi than the health and safety of lawmakers and staff.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called that decision flat-out “wrong.”
“I couldn't imagine that [Pelosi] would bring somebody in here that could cause people problems,” McCarthy told The Hill.
But Moore pushed back on the GOP criticism, saying that she had been cleared by the Capitol's attending physician, Brian Monahan, and had quarantined for two weeks — well beyond the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines. It’s unclear why Moore had waited until seven days ago to publicly report her positive COVID-19 test.
On Sunday, she also told reporters she had not had a negative COVID-19 test before coming to the Capitol, where there have been waves of outbreaks among lawmakers, police officers and reporters in recent months.
Still, Pelosi needed virtually every one of her 216 votes, relying on the participation of several members who were ailing or suffering personal tragedies, including Moore; Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), whose 25-year-old son died last week; and Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), who had been hospitalized in critical condition earlier in the year.
DeSaulnier's vote for Pelosi was his first back in Washington since the start of the year, and Democrats on the chamber floor burst into applause when he voiced her name.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta. (photo: John Bazemore/AP)
Trump's Call With Georgia's Secretary of State Is a Subversion of Democracy
Cameron Peters, Vox
Peters writes: "President Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to 'find' almost 12,000 nonexistent votes during a Saturday phone call."
Trump told the Georgia official: “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”
resident Donald Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to “find” almost 12,000 nonexistent votes during a Saturday phone call, according to a report by Amy Gardner of the Washington Post. Inventing those votes would change the outcome of the election in that state, tipping its electoral votes to Trump over President-elect Joe Biden.
Over the course of a more than hour-long phone call, a recording of which was obtained by the Post, Trump raised a series of baseless, debunked conspiracy theories — and variously cajoled and threatened Raffensperger to find some way to award him the victory in Georgia, a state Trump lost by 11,779 votes.
“All I want to do is this,” Trump told Raffensperger on the call. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
Ryan Germany, the general counsel to the Georgia secretary of state’s office, was also on the call, according to the Post, as were White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell.
Trump had earlier acknowledged the call in a tweet, but framed it very differently, claiming the men spoke about allegations of election fraud, which Raffensperger has disproven several times. Sunday’s Washington Post story reveals what was discussed in far more detail.
“I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
Audio from the full 62-minute call was published by the Post Sunday, including an exchange where Trump threatens Raffensperger and Germany with imminent legal consequences should they fail to overturn the already certified results.
“That’s a criminal offense,” Trump tells Raffensperger and Germany on the call, apparently in reference to Raffensperger not reporting made-up instances of election fraud. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk.”
Trump also raised a number of conspiracy theories resembling those promoted by onetime Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who was cut loose by the Trump campaign’s legal team as her election fraud allegations became increasingly outlandish.
Powell, who has pushed a series of election lawsuits with scant — and sometimes purely fictitious — evidence of fraud. She has also repeatedly falsely asserted that voting machines designed by Dominion Voting Systems helped to steal the 2020 election from Trump.
In reality, President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election by 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, and with a popular vote margin of more than 7 million votes. Recounts in battleground states like Georgia and Wisconsin — both won by Biden — have turned up no evidence of large-scale fraud or irregularities that could have affected the results of the election.
In all 50 states and Washington, DC, the election results have been carefully reviewed by state officials and certified as accurate. And Dominion’s machines have been found to have operated correctly.
Nonetheless, Trump aired a version of the Dominion conspiracy during his Saturday call.
“Now, do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County?” Trump asked Germany on the call. “Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal, right?”
As Germany affirmed on the call, none of Trump’s allegations are true.
Despite the Trump legal team’s move to disavow Powell, Trump has reportedly remained enamored with her theories. According to a New York Times report from December, he briefly considered naming Powell as special counsel to investigate his baseless claims of voter fraud, though he was ultimately talked down by aides.
And as recently as Sunday, he retweeted a message from Powell alleging — again, without even a shred of evidence — “massive fraud.”
According to the Washington Post, Trump’s remarks on the call Saturday raise the possibility of additional legal problems for a president already facing quite a few potential criminal investigations upon leaving office. The report noted, however, that there is no clear-cut offense revealed on the call and that any possible charges would ultimately be “subject to prosecutorial discretion.”
As CNN reporter Ryan Struyk pointed out on Twitter Sunday, US law makes it a crime to “‘knowingly and willfully ... attempt to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process’ by ‘the procurement ... of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false.’”
Trump may also have landed himself in legal peril at the state level. According to Politico reporter Kyle Cheney, “conspiracy to commit election fraud” and “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud” are both crimes in Georgia, and some legal experts believe Trump’s comments Saturday violated state law.
Other reporters, such as Business Insider’s Grace Panetta, have pointed out that Trump’s comments are strikingly similar to those he was impeached over in late 2019, after his pressure campaign against the president of Ukraine seeking to extort an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, came to light.
In a statement Sunday, a Biden adviser condemned Trump’s election pressure campaign.
“We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place,” former Obama White House counsel and current Biden senior adviser Bob Bauer said.
Saturday’s call isn’t the first time Trump has tried to subvert democracy
Though Sunday’s Washington Post scoop provides arguably the starkest example of Trump’s long-running attempts to subvert democracy in order to remain in power — not to mention a more than passing resemblance to President Richard Nixon’s presidency-ending tapes — it is by no means the only time Trump has mounted an effort of this sort since losing reelection.
In at least three other battleground states that he lost to Biden — Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — Trump has directly reached out to lawmakers and other officials to urge them to help him overturn the election results in their states, potentially awarding him an unelected second term in office.
In Pennsylvania, one Republican lawmaker — state Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward — told the New York Times that she chose not to push back on Trump’s baseless fraud accusations.
“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” she said in December, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”
But Trump’s antidemocratic efforts have been most acute in Georgia — possibly because the state remains in the news this month, more than 60 days after the presidential election, in the run-up to two crucial Senate runoffs this Tuesday that will decide partisan control of the chamber.
In his call Saturday, Trump suggested that this was the case to Raffensperger.
“You have a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam,” Trump said on the call. “Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president.”
Georgia voters set a record for early-voting turnout ahead of Tuesday’s runoffs, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with more than 3 million votes cast ahead of Election Day on January 5. But as Vox’s Aaron Rupar has written, there are some indications Trump’s efforts to spread doubt about the security of the election may have depressed Republican participation so far.
And Republicans are likely to need every vote to ensure victories in both races. Polling suggests that both races are more or less a toss-up: According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock lead incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler by around 2 percentage points each.
Trump will be back in Georgia on Monday for a final preelection rally, though if his last Georgia rally is any indication, he will likely stray to other topics, such as his grievances against Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
“You would be respected, really respected if this thing could be straightened out before the election,” Trump told Raffensperger on the call Saturday. “You have a big election coming up on Tuesday.”
To date, Raffensperger has resisted Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and Sunday, responded to Trump’s characterization of the call by tweeting, “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”
Tia Woods makes a breakfast during her night shift. Many minority owned businesses could not gain access to the Paycheck Protection Program. (photo: Yehyun Kim/ctmirror)
Minority-Owned Companies Waited Months for Loans, Data Shows
Joyce M. Rosenberg and Justin Myers, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Thousands of minority-owned small businesses were at the end of the line in the government's coronavirus relief program as many struggled to find banks that would accept their applications or were disadvantaged by the terms of the program."
Data from the Paycheck Protection Program released Dec. 1 and analyzed by The Associated Press show that many minority owners desperate for a relief loan didn’t receive one until the PPP’s last few weeks while many more white business owners were able to get loans earlier in the program .
The program, which began April 3 and ended Aug. 8 and handed out 5.2 million loans worth $525 billion, helped many businesses stay on their feet during a period when government measures to control the coronavirus forced many to shut down or operate at a diminished capacity. But it struggled to meet its promise of aiding communities that historically haven’t gotten the help they needed.
Congress has approved a third, $284 billion round of PPP loans. While companies that did not get loans previously have another chance at help, according to a draft of the legislation, businesses hard-hit by the virus outbreak will be eligible for a second loan.
The first round of the program saw overwhelming demand and the Small Business Administration approved $349 billion in loans in just two weeks. But many minority-owned firms applied to multiple banks early in the program and were rejected, while others couldn’t get banks to respond to their applications and inquiries.
“Many of our businesses were being turned down in the first and second round of funding. That caused application fatigue and frustration,” says Ron Busby, president of the U.S. Black Chambers, a nationwide chamber of commerce.
Loan data analyzed according to ZIP codes found that in that first round of funding, six loans were approved for every 1,000 people living in the 20% of ZIP codes with the greatest proportions of white residents, nearly twice the rate of loans approved for people living in the 20% of ZIP codes with the smallest proportions of whites.
That pattern reversed itself over the final four weeks of round two, partly because banks responded to criticism by making it easier to apply for a loan. Over the entire course of the program, the number of loans approved grew and evened out at 14 loans per 1,000 residents in the most ZIP codes with the most and fewest number of white-owned businesses.
Still, minority owners were kept waiting while their companies were in jeopardy.
“Many are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Most are in the professional services, small retail shops, restaurants, barber shops,” says Ramiro Cavazos, president of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
The recent data from the SBA provided a more in-depth look at businesses that received loans than data released on July 6. The earlier data provided only limited details on loans under $150,000; the government initially refused to release more information on those borrowers, citing privacy concerns. The AP and other news organizations successfully sued under the Freedom of Information Act to make data on all PPP loans public, leading to the latest release.
The SBA did not address the timing of loans to minority-owned businesses when asked for comment by the AP. But spokesperson Shannon Giles said in an email that $133 billion, or 25%, of PPP funding had gone to companies in economically disadvantaged areas known as Historically Underutilized Business Zones, and 27% went to low and moderate-income neighborhoods.
The bill President Donald Trump signed into law on Dec. 27 provides for $15 billion to be set aside for community banks, minority-owned financial institutions and community development financial institutions, non-bank lenders that aim to get funding to underserved communities.
The AP analysis shows restaurants slammed by the virus outbreak got the most loans in the first round, but they were followed by businesses in two high-income professions: law firms and doctors’ practices. When the first round ended millions of small businesses were left waiting.
The program’s disparities were apparent from the start. An AP analysis of the initial data release found some of the nation’s largest banks had processed larger loans first. That included loans to well-known and well-financed companies including Shake Shack, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and the Los Angeles Lakers. Many have returned the money.
What’s more, the program’s terms helped exclude minority-owned firms. A primary goal for the loans was to allow owners to keep paying employees who otherwise would go on unemployment. So, non-employer firms, or businesses that have owners but no other staffers, weren’t allowed to apply until a week after the program began.
Of the 2.6 million Black-owned companies in business before the pandemic, 2.1 million were non-employer firms, according to the U.S. Black Chambers.
That discouraged many minority owners, Busby says.
“This program was made available for payroll and so many firms did not have payroll and did not apply,” he says.
Minority-owned and other very small companies were also left out at first because some banks refused to process applications that weren’t from well-established customers with multiple accounts. Many of those banks ended that practice after being criticized publicly. The SBA, which initially had more than 3,000 lenders in the program, eventually brought in 2,000 more banks, non-bank lenders and online lenders, which helped more minority applications get approved as the PPP wore on.
“Many of our Hispanic-owned businesses in the first round never heard back from their banks or were turned down. They had to wait until the second round, and many had to leave their banks and go to a community lender or a nonprofit minority-run agency,” Cavazos says.
Lisa Marsh tried in vain to get banks to process her application. She first applied in June but she couldn’t get answers on her status from her bank, a subsidiary of a big national bank. She also got nowhere with smaller community banks.
Marsh, owner of MsPsGFree, a Chicago-based gluten-free baking business, finally applied through an online lender in late July and got her loan a few days before the PPP ended.
“I was very frustrated and almost gave up,” she says.
Lack of a banking relationship was one of the reasons the New York Federal Reserve Bank cited for disparities in PPP loan approvals to Black- and white-owned companies. The study based on the first SBA data release found that in parts of the country where there were concentrations of businesses owned by Blacks, the percentage of loans was far below the national average. For example, only 7% of companies in the New York City borough of the Bronx and 11.6% of firms in Wayne County, Michigan, where Detroit is located, received PPP loans, compared to nearly 18% of companies nationwide.
Community outreach helped turn the tide. Community development financial institutions connected with local minority-owned businesses and helped them apply during the second round, says Claire Kramer Mills, co-author of the NY Fed study.
“The disparities that were found earlier were really appalling,” Mills says.
The outreach brought in thousands of last-minute applications, the SBA data show.
MBE Capital, a lender focusing on minority-owned companies, received a commitment in mid-May from NBA Hall of Fame member Magic Johnson for funding for $100 million in PPP loans.
MBE loans accounted for nearly a quarter of approvals on the PPP’s last day, according to the AP analysis. More than half of the company’s loan approvals came in the last three weeks of the program. MBE did not respond to requests for comment.
Busby noted that the PPP was supposed to help underserved communities.
“We know that did not happen,” he says.
An indigenous child takes part in a protest in Tegucigalpa, on 3 February, demanding justice for Berta Cáeres, like Félix Vásquez a murdered indigenous environmental activist. (photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images)
Indigenous Environmental Defender Killed in Latest Honduras Attack
Nina Lakhani, Guardian UK
Lakhani writes: "Another indigenous environmentalist has been killed in Honduras, cementing the country's inglorious ranking as the deadliest place in the world to defend land and natural resources from exploitation."
Félix Vásquez, 60, a veteran leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was shot dead at home in Santiago de Puringla, a rural community in the department of La Paz, western Honduras on the night of 26 December – just weeks after reporting death threats linked to his work. His adult children were beaten and threatened by the four armed assailants in balaclavas, but survived the ordeal.
Vásquez had been involved in the defence of indigenous land rights since the 1980s and was well-known nationally for organizing opposition to environmentally destructive megaprojects such as mines, hydroelectric dams, wind farms and logging, as well as for helping dispossessed communities recover ancestral land titles.
In recent weeks, a campaign of intimidation against several Lenca leaders including Vásquez, had escalated, amid a tense land dispute between a small indigenous community and a local farmer allegedly connected to the ruling National party.
Vásquez had reported being followed and monitored at home, while two other Lenca leaders were jailed on trumped-up charges related to the land dispute. Vásquez had also recently announced his intention to stand as a candidate for the progressive Libre party in the March 2021 primaries.
His death comes almost five years since the assassination of the celebrated Lenca leader and Goldman prize winner Berta Cáceres who was shot dead at home in March 2016 after suffering years of threats and harassment linked to her opposition to an internationally funded dam. Seven men were convicted for their role in planning and executing the murder, but none of those who ordered, paid for and benefited from the crime have faced trial.
Vásquez’s death was condemned by rights groups, European and American lawmakers and diplomats. “Justice, the rule of law and the fight against impunity are necessary more than ever,” tweeted the UN representative Alice Shackelford.
But hopes for justice are low. “Félix was very smart and a great strategist who’d opposed extractivism for more than 35 years, that’s why he was killed,” said Roger Medina, a friend and lawyer who represents local Lenca communities. “We live in a dictatorship, so I’ve no doubt that this will be another crime against another indigenous environmentalist that will go unpunished.”
On Tuesday, local media reported the killing of yet another defender, Adán MejÃa from the indigenous Tolupán people, who was allegedly attacked on his way back from tending to his corn crops in Candelaria, a rural community in the northern department of Yoro.
Honduras became one of the most dangerous countries in the world to defend natural resources and land rights after the 2009 coup ushered in an autocratic government which remains in power despite multiple allegations of corruption, electoral fraud and links to international drug trafficking networks.
Hundreds of defenders have been killed and disappeared, while many others have been silenced as a result of trumped-up criminal charges.
This year has been particularly grim. In July, a group of Black indigenous Garifuna land defenders were forcibly disappeared by armed assailants in police uniforms. Eight water defenders from the Guapinol community have been held on remand throughout the pandemic despite international condemnation of the prosecution linked to their peaceful protests against a polluting iron oxide mine.
According to a report by the UN working group on business and human rights, the “root cause of most social conflicts [in Honduras] is the systematic lack of transparency and meaningful participation” of communities affected by the exploitation of natural resources.
Yet the nexus between political and economic elites means crimes against environmental defenders are rarely prosecuted. Investigations into allegedly corrupt officials who sanction large-scale projects without legally required consultations and environmental impact assessments are also rare.
In La Paz alone, at least 40 megaprojects have been sanctioned on indigenous territory without consulting local communities.
Marlen Corea, 32, vice-president of a collective of indigenous and campesino environmental groups in La Paz who worked alongside Vásquez, said: “Every single community leader is threatened, without exception, as part of the intimidation campaign to silence us and stop our resistance to projects to exploit natural resources imposed on our territory without consultation. That’s why Félix was killed, but our struggle is just.”
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