05 April 22
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It is my sister’s place, chock full of wise, witty old books, from Virginia Woolf to MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf.” Henry James is on one shelf, James Thurber on another. Our grandma’s samovar from Ukraine sits under a colorful Twins Seven Seven painting I sent her from Nigeria.
Jane Kay, a celebrated environmental reporter, cooks sumptuous meals on an ancient enamel stove and laughs a lot with friends. She is the glass-half-full one in the family, seeking solutions while her brother catalogues glass-half-empty doom and gloom. But even she is troubled.
Two deranged men, vastly different yet eerily similar, have our world hanging on for dear life. It is no wonder Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s fanboy. Despots are despots, whatever the human toll of their self-obsessed depredations.
People in authoritarian countries mostly suffer in enforced silence. Americans only need vote for leaders who put the nation above themselves. But for a range of reasons, many don’t. And many others don’t bother to show up at the polls. The potential consequences are unthinkable.
Trump, increasingly buffoonish, may float off in hot air. But others preening in his shadow — bad shepherds eager to fleece a nation of sheep — could be worse. Jane and I watched Republican senators grill Ketanji Brown Jackson with blatant hypocrisy, an appeal to ignorant bigotry.
Tom Cotton, a Harvard law graduate, made my skin crawl. He called her explanation for once working as a public defender at Guantanamo “procedural gobbledygook.” With a smirk, he concluded: “It sounds like debate about how many terrorists can dance on the head of a pin.”
After Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz surpassed himself. He held up a book for kids titled “Antiracist Baby” that he said is taught at Georgetown Day School and asked Jackson, “Do you agree with this book…that babies are racist?” Ruth Marcus wrote in the Washington Post:
“What does this possibly have to do with Jackson’s suitability to serve on the high court? To ask that question is to miss the larger point: That is no longer what this exercise is about.”
Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee made clear it wasn’t about truth. She asked Jackson why she thought dangerous criminals should be released because of Covid-19. The judge replied that she didn’t and cited her past remarks. Blackburn ignored the answer to fire off other baseless slurs.
The Mission is a telling microcosm of a diverse America that is changing fast. The district’s name refers to Mision San Francisco de Asis, built in 1776. While 13 colonies arose against Britain, Spanish missionaries backed by soldiers converted indigenous tribes, who were obliged – some say enslaved — to build settlements from Mexico to northern California.
Jane left Tucson to work on the San Francisco Examiner in 1986. She gravitated toward the Mission, redolent with the aroma of roasting green chilies, alive with Mexican music and color. But it has changed beyond recognition with the technology boom and widening income gaps.
Real estate prices soared for classic three-story residences, now mostly separate single-floor apartments. Porsche SUVs and clapped-out bangers compete for street parking. Pricy eateries offer food of every sort along Valencia. On Mission, high rents drove off the neighborhood mechanic, the pet store and much else.
Mexicans are joined by Central Americans in growing numbers. At the BART station plaza, I picked my way among hawkers, panhandlers, and street people dozing off a drug high. The whiff is strong from the place that sells greasy donuts and greasier Chinese food. Down 24th at Wise Son deli, I ordered my pastrami on rye in Spanish.
That’s the obvious part. At Chava’s, my favorite hangout, the breakfast crowd includes old-line blueblood “Hispanics” and young Chicano entrepreneurs who drive long distances for the spicy pozole or succulent goat-meat birria.
Shortcut stereotypes and collective labels mislead. There is no “Latino” vote in America. The Mission is a long way from Miami, where so many Republicans descend from families who fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba and now want to close the door behind them.
Mexicans are hardly encompassed as “aliens,” let alone “rapists” as Trump depicted them in his virulently racist Trump Tower speech in 2015. Remember? Mexico would pay for the Wall. (I’ve attached a Washington Post factcheck of that rant two years later. In retrospect, his skewed worldview and fabulist “facts” are hair-raising.)
San Francisco is “liberal,” and California is bluer now than when the state gave the country Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Biden should be a shoo-in. But leftwing Democrats fault him for not doing the impossible; their own campaign rhetoric produced a deadlocked Congress.
In a nation where people make ironclad fact-free snap judgments on single issues, all bets are off.
Many well-heeled Mission dwellers fear higher taxes and loss of privilege. Trumplicans are on a tear to game elections and overturn their outcomes. The “GOP” is now hardly grand.
Reagan drove a widening wedge between the rich and desperate, but he played the role of president well, and he was no crook. Tricky Dick was crooked all right, but when reporters finally got to those suppressed White House tapes, he resigned.
This time we are playing for keeps against a flagrant serial high-crime offender and his complicit cronies. They thwart Congress and the courts, stalling for time as they stir up their bases with yet more preposterous lies. And, inexplicably, Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to act.
Trump ought to be laughed into history just for being a selfish chiseler. Photographers in previous administrations have produced revealing books with presidential blessings. Trump is muscling aside a book by Shealah Craighead, who has snapped pictures of him across the world.
The New York Times reports that Trump first asked her to share her advance in exchange for a forward by him and White House promotion. Then he blocked her book so he could use her pictures, among others’, in his own $320-a-copy tome. But that is de minimis.
The president who demanded jail for Hillary Clinton over what Bernie Sanders dismissed as “those damned emails” has disappeared seven hours and 37 minutes of White House logs during his violent Jan. 6 attempted coup d’étât. As much as he wants to be Putin, he isn’t.
There is so much else revealed not only by reporters but also in sworn testimony and official documents that Republicans ignored in two impeachment trials. None of those brilliant authors in Jane’s library could have invented this plot.
Biden is blamed for doing what he said he would do in Afghanistan, end a pointless war he opposed from the beginning. Trump’s total surrender is why that withdrawal began so badly. Now Trump says U.S. troops should go back to Afghanistan.
Crippling inflation that mars Biden’s dramatic economic successes is because of the Covid-19 pandemic Trump willfully mismanaged for his own purposes. Now, citing high gas prices, he crows: “Miss me yet?”
But his assault on NATO and subservience to Putin tops the list. We now see how badly Volodymyr Zelensky needed that $400 million in arms that Trump held back to extort dirt on the Bidens.
This is guesswork, but I am convinced that Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought the United States was so involved with itself and oblivious to the real world because of Trump that he expected little NATO resistance.
And now — this is not guesswork — after Trump declared the Ukraine invasion an act of genius, he is asking Putin for dirt on the Bidens.
I could go on with enough to fill a fat book — documented sexual assaults far beyond peccadillos that sidelined politicians and journalists, gross violations of the Hatch Act among other dubious dealings, favoritism, nepotism and more lies than the Washington Post could tally.
Anyone who paid passing attention to actual news since 2016 could do the same.
Now a decent president and a promising vice president have gotten America back on track. They have restored 93 percent of the jobs lost under Trump. They passed a generous rescue package without a single Republican vote (although Republicans claim credit for its benefits).
Far more than American democracy and global geopolitics are at stake. I cover climate collapse on a worldwide scale. Jane watches up close as the Golden State turns brown. The Colorado River is nearly too low to power turbines that light up much of California and Arizona. Agriculture, urban areas and new mines are thirstier by the day. And drought is getting worse.
This year, the snowpack California needs to recharge reservoirs and aquifers is 4 percent of the recent past normal. Industrial farms and orchards drill ever-deeper wells at a rapid pace. Rivers are diverted and dwindling fast to the growing alarm of ecologists who fear for the future.
That is on a small patch of a large planet that is alternately frying and flooding.
All these issues are interlinked. Imagine, for instance, if Florida Republicans had not put thumbs on the scale in the 2000 election. Al Gore, the jolly green giant, would have attacked climate change, not Iraq. Instead, George W. Bush blasted open Pandora’s Box in the Middle East.
This is no time for corrupt leaders guided by ideology, religious zealotry, greed or blind ambition.
Jane’s books include Upton Sinclair’s muckraking, and a lot of others that expose corporate abuse with governmental connivance. But the key is in two slim volumes I brought with me, essays Marcus Tullius Cicero inked on parchment two millennia ago.
“How to Grow Old” ought to be required reading in America: “It’s not by strength or speed or swiftness of body that great deeds are done, but by wisdom, character, and sober judgment. These qualities are not lacking in old age but in fact grow richer as time passes.”
His analogy rings true. Young people can scamper up the ropes and man the cannons. A seasoned admiral must steer the ship. By Cicero’s reasoning, it is folly to bet on an untested Democrat in 2024. Biden is not in it for the glory. If he needs to step aside early, he will have had time to train a successor.
It took a generation for America to lose its way. Only better schools that teach civics can steer it back on course. The Electoral College is a dangerous anachronism. States are preposterously gerrymandered. Crucial legislation is blocked by a false-flag Democrat, a coal baron senator from a state that has less than a third the population of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Washington reporters jumped on Biden for calling Putin a war criminal unfit for office. Tortured bound bodies near Kiev bear him out. Now what? Dealing with today’s world is skilled labor. Americans need to elect competent leaders and let them lead. Official crimes need punishment.
The danger is clear in Cicero’s second essay, “How to Run a Country”: A democracy corrupt at the top is doomed to fail, as Rome’s did. He wrote: “Our republic looks like a beautiful painting faded with age...The reasons our customs have faded away is that the people who once upheld them no longer exist.”
Guilty leaders, he said, should face trial for capital crime. But there is no defense to give. “Our country survives only in words, not as anything of substance. We have lost it all. We have only ourselves to blame.” America is not there yet. But it is close.
Toxic fumes. (photo: Facebook)
Ukrainians living near Rubizhne were urged to seal their windows and cover their faces to protect from the toxic fumes after Russian forces struck a factory there.
Serhiy Gaidai, the head of the Luhansk regional administration, issued a video address warning residents the toxic fumes can cause “severe damage.”
“Prepare protective face masks soaked in soda solution. When applied locally to the eyes, nitric acid causes severe damage with extensive necrosis of the cornea and conjunctiva, leading to loss of vision,” he said, urging those living near Rubizhne to remain indoors and seal up their windows.
“This chemical is very toxic and we don’t know where the toxic cloud will go. We will be monitoring the air and waiting for rain,” he said.
The alarming warning came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky prepared to address the United Nations Security Council on mounting evidence of Russian war crimes against Ukraine.
In comments to Ukrainian media, Zelensky vowed that Ukrainian authorities would create an “internal mechanism” to track down the Russian soldiers accused of committing war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, much like Israel’s Mossad hunted down Nazi fugitives across the globe.
“We will definitely deal with this,” he said, adding that “lists will be compiled” of all those Russians accused of executing and torturing Ukrainian civilians. “There are people who really want to find these criminals,” he said.
“Prosecutors of various nations will deal with all of these crimes… They see a great deal of evidence. And, unfortunately, the evidence will only keep coming—there will not be any less. There is still Izyum ahead, and many places where there is still no access [for Ukrainian authorities]—the occupied Melitopol, Berdyansk—we have no idea what happened there,” he said.
His comments came as the scale of Russian atrocities in the town of Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, left the world reeling, with hundreds of innocent residents found slain in the streets, some with signs of torture. Newly released satellite footage from the now-liberated town showed that the bodies of slaughtered civilians had littered the streets for weeks before Ukrainian forces reclaimed the territory from Russia, debunking Moscow’s shameless claim that Putin’s troops didn’t kill “a single civilian” there and that it must have been Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has claimed the executions were “staged” by Ukrainian psy-ops specialists, a claim that was echoed in a full-blown propaganda campaign on Russian state TV that said Western intelligence services were behind the killings.
In the face of those Russian denials on Tuesday, Ukrainian media released aerial video that purportedly captures Russian troops in Bucha firing directly at a man who was simply riding past them on a bicycle.
Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Komarov also shared footage from Bucha showing the aftermath of Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian evacuees. He said at least three vehicles of civilians were found shot up along an evacuation route, including a bus with a young couple inside and a vehicle where an elderly couple were slain.
Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at the Federal Circuit Judicial Conference in 2016 in Washington. (photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)
At the center of the ruling is a case of diaper rash. Yes, diaper rash.
Larry Thompson was living with his then fiancée (now wife) and their newborn baby when his sister-in-law, who apparently suffered from mental illness, called 911, claiming that Thompson was abusing the baby. When EMT officers arrived, they were admitted to the apartment by the sister-in-law, but Thompson, unaware of her 911 call, told them they must have the wrong address.
The EMT officers left, but returned to the apartment with four New York City police officers. This time Thompson answered the door and refused to admit them unless they had a search warrant. The police then threw Thompson on the floor and handcuffed him while the EMTs examined the baby. The only marks they found were diaper rash, but the baby was taken to the hospital where the diaper rash diagnosis was confirmed.
Thompson, however, was tossed into jail for two days and charged with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. Prosecutors would eventually offer him a plea deal in which his record would eventually be wiped clean, but he refused, and prosecutors subsequently dropped all charges without any explanation.
Thompson sued, alleging malicious prosecution. But under the federal appeals court precedent in New York, Thompson had to prove that his innocence had been "affirmed." The dropping of charges without explanation was not enough.
On Monday, the Supreme Court sided with Thompson in declaring that he did not have to show an "affirmative indication of innocence." The vote was 6-to-3, with three conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — joining the courts three liberals in the majority.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, declaring that a plaintiff need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction, and Thompson did that here.
This is a welcome development that allows police and prosecutors to be held accountable when they do something wrong," said Georgetown law professor Mary B. McCord, who filed a brief in the case on behalf of some 70 former prosecutors.
Until this decision, in many jurisdictions "it didn't matter that framing an innocent person completely upended their lives," said Amir Ali, who represented Thompson in the Supreme Court. "If the charges were dismissed, there was no redress for the wronged person," unless a court affirmed his innocence.
"I think it's a long overdue ruling," said Michael Bromwich, who has spent years as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer and as inspector general for the U.S. Justice Department. "Prosecutors get away with way too much" when they realize they may not have a case and want to protect law enforcement from liability, he said.
It's not an 'open-the-floodgates' decision, says one expert
But Bromwich, like other experts, cautioned that bringing these malicious prosecution cases may not be easy.
"This is not an open-the-floodgates" decision, warned McCord. Indeed, the court's opinion specifically remanded Thompson's case back to the lower courts, where other defenses may be raised by law enforcement officials.
As Georgetown University Law professor Paul Butler observes, "These civil cases are tough to win, and when you do win them, the damages are often very small, so it can be very hard to find a lawyer."
He and McCord, both former prosecutors, note, for instance, that there remain other tools that immunize police and prosecutors from being sued.
And as Butler put it, "it's not as if [the Supreme Court's] conservatives suddenly got woke. ... Liberals should take no heart from a methodology based on the understanding of tort law in 1871." Justice Kavanaugh, in his opinion, indicated that the court must start its analysis based on torts available in 1871 because that was the year Congress passed the law authorizing lawsuits against state and local officers who deprive individuals of their rights "under color of state law." But that is not necessarily the understanding of tort law today.
Dissenting from Monday's ruling were conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Writing for the three, Alito said: "What the court has done is to recognize a novel hybrid claim of uncertain scope that has no basis in the Constitution and is almost certain to lead to confusion."
The House Health and Insurance Committee was full with people wanting to make public comments about a bill that looks to enshrine abortion into state law at the Colorado State Capitol on March 9, 2022, in Denver, Colorado. (photo: RJ Sangosti/Media News/Denver Post/Getty Images)
Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which passed the Democratic-led legislature after dozens of hours of testimony by residents and fierce opposition by minority Republicans. The law guarantees access to reproductive care before and after pregnancy and bans local governments from imposing their own restrictions.
It also declares that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses have no independent rights — a response to failed ballot initiatives that sought to restrict abortion by giving embryos the rights of born humans. In 2014, voters rejected a proposal to add unborn human beings to the state's criminal code, allowing prosecutors to charge anyone who kills a fetus with a crime.
"Colorado has been, is and will be a pro-choice state," Polis said, calling increasing abortion restrictions elsewhere "an enormous government overreach, an enormous government infringement" of individual rights. "No matter what the Supreme Court does in the future, people in Colorado will be able to choose when and if they have children."
Colorado was the first state to decriminalize abortion in most cases in 1967, and it allows access to abortion but had nothing in state law guaranteeing it. New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont had previously codified the right to abortion throughout pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Republicans would still be able to introduce legislation and ballot measures to reverse the new law. For that reason, abortion rights groups are weighing a 2024 constitutional ballot measure, much like Nevada did in 1990.
Colorado Democrats cited the high court's consideration of a Mississippi case that could overrule Roe v. Wade, as well as a new Texas law banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. If Roe is overturned fully, at least 26 states are likely to either ban abortion outright or severely limit access, the Guttmacher Institute says.
"We don't want to ever see what's happening in Texas to happen in Colorado," said House Majority Leader Rep. Daneya Esgar, a sponsor of the Colorado legislation.
Idaho has enacted a law modeled after the Texas statute. Missouri lawmakers have introduced a bill to make it illegal for the state's residents to get abortions in other states. Arizona's legislature has approved a ban on abortion after 15 weeks and, like other states, has a law that would automatically ban abortion if Roe is overturned.
In California, Democratic leaders are considering more than a dozen bills this year to prepare for a Roe reversal. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law last month to make abortions cheaper for people on private insurance plans. Washington state enacted a law banning legal action against people who aid or receive an abortion, responding to the Texas law's provision allowing people to sue abortion providers or those who assist them.
Amazon workers and Christian Smalls, in red, celebrate the vote to unionize a Staten Island facility on April 1. (photo: Andrea Renault/AFP/Getty Images)
We speak with the two best friends who led a drive to organize workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and made history Friday after a majority voted to form the first Amazon union in the U.S. We speak with Christian Smalls, interim president of the new union and former Amazon supervisor, about how he led the effort after Amazon fired him at the height of the pandemic for demanding better worker protections. “I think we proved that it’s possible, no matter what industry you work in, what corporation you work for,” says Smalls. “We just unionized Amazon. If we can do that, we can unionize anywhere.” We also speak with Derrick Palmer, who works at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island and is the vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, about intimidation tactics the company used. Reporter Josefa Velásquez covered the union drive for The City and discusses what the victory means for the broader labor movement.
Here in New York, in an historic victory for labor rights, workers at the retail giant Amazon have voted to unionize.
AMAZON WORKERS: [cheering]. Let’s go! Yeah! Let’s go, baby! ALU! ALU! ALU! ALU!
AMY GOODMAN: Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island celebrating Friday after they overcame a multimillion-dollar union-busting campaign and voted decisively in favor of joining the newly formed Amazon Labor Union, the first Amazon union in U.S. history. More than 8,300 workers at the warehouse were eligible to vote. The effort was led by Christian Smalls, who is now interim president of the Amazon Labor Union.
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space, because when he was up there, we were signing people up.
UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, we were down here campaigning.
AMY GOODMAN: Smalls will join us in a moment. Amazon responded to the union vote in a statement, saying, “We are disappointed with the outcome of the election in State Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees. We’re evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election,” Amazon wrote.
The victory in State Island comes as a redo of a union election led by Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, is still too close to call. The second vote in Alabama comes after the National Labor Relations Board found Amazon unlawfully interfered with the first Bessemer election last year by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. RWDSU tweeted after Friday’s vote in Staten Island, quote, “History was made today. Huge congrats! Solidarity with Amazon workers from Staten Island to Bessemer and beyond!” they said.
Well, for more, we’re joined by the two best friends who played the key role in this historic labor victory, after Amazon cracked down on their grassroots organizing for better working conditions. Christian Smalls is interim president and lead organizer of the Amazon Labor Union, representing the JFK8 Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York. He was wrongfully terminated from his job two years ago after, he says, he organized a walkout over COVID safety conditions at the height of the pandemic. Joining other workers, he wore a mask and carried a sign that read, “Our health is just as essential.” At a victory party for the union Sunday, Christian Smalls was presented by his younger brother with a framed version of the sign. He’s joining us now from Staten Island. Also with us, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is Derrick Palmer, vice president of organizing for the Amazon Labor Union. He’s still an employee at Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. And in Brooklyn, we’re joined by Josefa Velásquez, senior reporter for The City, a nonprofit online news site based in New York City. Her latest piece is headlined “A Cinderella Story: How Staten Island Amazon Workers Won Against the Multi-Billion-Dollar Company.”
We welcome all of you to Democracy Now! Well, Christian Smalls, why don’t we begin with you? Can you respond to this victory and what it took to get here, and, specifically, organizing at the same time your own union, the Amazon Labor Union?
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yes. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Wow! Every time I hear or see those videos, it still takes a lot out of me, because it’s unbelievable, what we accomplished. We started 11 months ago, a grassroots, worker-led movement, just Amazon workers, former, current, like myself, just trying to do the right thing — once again, no resources, no major backing, just a bunch of ordinary people just coming together from all over the country. We had different people flying in to help us out, some of the comrades that I traveled the country with, advocating with. And 11 months ago, we started something that we really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but we just knew that it was working for us. You know, we were consistently talking to our workers every single day — me, unfortunately, not being able to go inside the building. It was just a combination me and Derrick on the inside-outside game: you know, me at the bus stop connecting with workers, earning their trust, building relationships; Derrick actually inside the building, talking to workers every day in his department, taking over his old department. You know, things like that helped us get us to this point. And I’m just ecstatic and excited to be the interim president and lead us this victory. It’s wonderful to see, and I’m happy to just once again share this experience with the entire world.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Christian, can you go back two years ago to March 2020, when New York City shut down, and talk about what you did? Talk about that first walkout and how you ended up being fired.
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Derrick. You know, Derrick was — at that time, I had no vehicle. Me and Derrick, we live in the same neighborhood, close proximity of the same neighborhood in New Jersey. And we were riding to work every day, and every day I noticed somebody in my department was becoming ill, whether it was dizziness, fatigue, vomiting. They weren’t — something was wrong. It was a very eerie situation in the building. We didn’t have any PPE. We didn’t have any cleaning supplies. We didn’t have any social distancing. Amazon wasn’t really enforcing any guidelines. Everything was just hearsay.
We tried to go through the proper channels. And then, by the end of the week, after going into the general manager’s office every single day voicing our concerns, they only decided to quarantine just me and nobody else, not even Derrick, the person I ride to work with. And at that moment, I knew that something was wrong. They were just using this quarantine, that nobody’s seen — this policy, nobody read or seen or even heard of — to silence me from organizing the workers. So I decided to take further action, break that quarantine and, you know, hold that walkout on March 30th. And two hours after that walkout, that’s when I was terminated over the phone.
AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, they were quarantining you, but you hadn’t tested positive for COVID.
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Absolutely not. Knock on wood. Not even ’til this day, I never tested positive.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Derrick Palmer, can you talk about what went on on the inside there? You were co-workers. You went to work together every day. You’re best friends. So, Christian is fired. And can you talk about your decision to stay inside?
DERRICK PALMER: Yeah. You know, at first, it was like — it was very discouraging, hearing that Chris got fired, just for doing the right thing, for standing up for all of us. You know, so I had a tough decision to make. And at the time, there wasn’t a lot of jobs available. So I said, “You know what? I think I’m going to make it my business to organize from within at JFK8.” And I feel like that played a vital role. You know, a lot of workers were talking about Chris, being scared about the coronavirus, and then ultimately speaking up about the coronavirus because of what happened to Chris and other organizers that were terminated. So I made it my business to talk to them, to ease that tension, to still let them know that — you know, what I feel was illegal. So, you know, just organizing within building, building relationships with other workers, making them comfortable, and just playing that role until we were ready to unionize. And I think that played a key part to our victory on April 1st.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to this leaked audio recording obtained by The City newspaper from a meeting last Tuesday, when Amazon workers met with an Amazon workforce staffing manager named Eric and an employee relations manager, who presented slides on the, quote, “reality of dues and the subject of union life.” This is a short clip from the recording.
ERIC: We talked last week about dues. Remember that dues are paid by employees, and that’s the only source of income or funding toward the needs to pay salaries and expenses. These things may not be anything you want, but they mean a lot to unions. So, will the ALU priorities match yours? The collective bargaining can select any negotiation. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. And what’s important to you may not be important to someone else.
AMAZON WORKER: Oh my god, yo, I can’t…
ERIC: So, a union contract could leave you with the same things you have now, like vacation time, paid parental leave, wages, health benefits, 401(k) for injuries, and resources for living. Or it could give you more or less than what you have right now. It is important to remember that negotiations are always a give and take. To give something, you give up something. And here’s why they matter. What is important to the ALU may not be important to you. They will be willing to trade your priorities for one of theirs.
AMAZON WORKER: That’s not true.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a worker saying, “That’s not true.” Derrick Palmer, you were in this meeting. It wasn’t so clear to hear, so if you could talk about the main points that management was presenting and what this was all about?
DERRICK PALMER: Yeah, I mean, these captive audience meetings, they’re pretty much designed to discourage workers from signing up for unions. So, you know, what I witnessed with multiple captive audience meetings is that the message that they’re trying to relay is that you can’t speak to your manager once you become — once a building becomes unionized; you can lose certain benefits from joining a union; the ALU is inexperienced — all different type of points that they try to convey to these workers, which ultimately scares them. So, having myself and other organizers on the inside pretty much counteracting all the messages that they’re trying to present to the workers, you know, played a vital role. So, they’ve had so many different other things that they were talking about, as well, saying that your personal time could be the same, you can lose pay, as well — so, a lot of threatening things that they were trying to do.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Josefa into this conversation. Josefa Velásquez is with The City. You got this leaked audio. Can you talk about the significance of this victory?
JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ: I mean, I don’t think we can really understand how big this is. These guys, to their credit, really were this grassroots movement, and they took on Amazon, which is a behemoth, and Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person on Earth. And they really did it through their connections with the people in the facility. I mean, I think both Chris and Derrick have worked at multiple Amazon sites in the last few years, and they know the people that they work with. They understand the company. You know, a lot of times when you see anti-union, like, messaging, it’s always, you know, “These outsiders are coming in. They’re going to threaten the way that your work is done.” But these are two individuals and many other organizers who know the nitty-gritty and the details of how Amazon works. I mean, sometimes they would explain things to me, and I would just stare at them like with a blank expression because it was so wonky. So, the fact that not only they understood the company and the work that was being done behind it, they look like the people who work there. I mean, Amazon thrives on, like, high turnover among its employees, so you do see a lot of people who are very young.
And it’s very sort of quintessential New York with some of these captive audience meetings. You know, we’ve heard leaked audio previously from some of these meetings down South, but in New York what you’re hearing is people pushing back. You know, New York is a union town, but these guys really didn’t have much institutional backing or support. And it is the ultimate Cinderella story.
AMY GOODMAN: You talked about, to say the least, Amazon being large. It’s the second-largest private employer in the country — right? — right behind Walmart, and, of course, Jeff Bezos, the second-wealthiest man on Earth. I wanted to go back to 2018, when then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon believed its workers didn’t need a union.
JEFF BEZOS: Very good communications with our employees, so we don’t believe that we need a union to be an intermediary between us or our employees. But, of course, at the end of the day, it’s always the employees’ choice. And that’s how it should be. So, we’re — but, for sure, we would be very naive to believe that we’re not going to be criticized. I mean, that’s just part of the terrain. You have to accept that. One other thing I tell people is, if you’re going to be — if you’re going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood.
AMY GOODMAN: That was 2018. “You have to be willing to be misunderstood.” I wanted to go back to Christian Smalls. There was an internal memo that was leaked, saying that you weren’t very smart, and so they would make you the face of the movement — a challenge you took up in a very big way, saying, “OK, if I’m the face, I’m the face.”
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. You know, when that memo came out, that obviously motivated me to continue advocating for workers’ rights across the nation. You know, me and Derrick, we traveled the country. We protested in front of Jeff Bezos’s mansions and penthouses that we can find on Google, from the East Coast to the West Coast. And we decided to go back home to Staten Island.
You know, once again, we were invested in this company. Derrick is still invested. He’s over six-year vet. You know, they don’t realize who we are to this company. We understand the warehouses more than Jeff Bezos do. So it’s funny that he said, you know, “You’re going to be misunderstood,” because we were. You know, we were underestimated. We were counted out. People didn’t believe in us. People thought that this wasn’t going to happen. They had never thought that — expected that we were going to be here. It’s not just Jeff Bezos and his general counsel that didn’t want us to get here. It’s a lot of other people, as well, that claimed to be on the same side, that didn’t believe that we would be here. So, for us to be here at this moment, you know, it’s, once again, surreal for us.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you went down to Bessemer. I remember when we were doing a piece, we heard you were down there. Now, that, the Bessemer union-organizing effort, was run by RWDSU — right? — the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. And we’re still waiting to hear the results now —
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — on the second vote. The NLRB said that Amazon had to have a — allow for a second election because they had interfered with the first one. Why didn’t you go with, oh, RWDSU or the Teamsters, for example? The Teamsters union praised the workers at Amazon in Staten Island for your victory and ongoing union efforts of Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, tweeting, “What these elections show is Amazon workers want a union. The workers in Bessemer and Staten Island don’t have to wait for the government or anyone else to tell them they have power. They’re taking a stand & Amazon can’t skirt the law indefinitely. The #Teamsters are excited to continue this fight against Amazon — on the shop floor, at the bargaining table, & on the streets.” But it is Amazon Labor Union that actually won this battle, and it’s the first against Amazon to win.
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Right, right. Well, once again, you know, these established unions, with their resources and the money that they have, the volunteers that they have, you know, I tell everybody, they had 28 years. Amazon has been around for 28 years. You know, we’ve done something that was unprecedented, because when we went down to Bessemer, we saw some missed opportunities with the campaign the first time. We saw things that didn’t really fit what Amazon workers represent. And I felt that, you know, in order to take down the machine, it has to become — it has to come from within. It has to be the workers organizing themselves. And that’s what we did with the ALU. We created something that resonated with the workers. We are the workers. We know the ins and outs of the company. We live the grievances. We understand the concerns. We know the language. We look like Amazon employees, especially here in New York.
So, bringing in an established union, that would have took so much time away from actually campaigning towards an election, because we would now have to educate the union on what Amazon is and how to connect with workers. And I think Amazon uses that against us. Already, even with the ALU, they claim that we’re a third party. If you listen to the captive audiences, they say “they” are going to make the decisions for you. They tried to separate us. But they couldn’t do that, because we say we are — we are all the union. All the workers together are the union. And together, we’re going to make these decisions. And that’s how we were able to be successful against Amazon.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Josefa Velásquez about what’s happening in Bessemer. You’ve got a very close vote. I think it’s 993 “no” votes, 875 “yes” votes, more than 400 contested ballots. According to the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, there will be a hearing within a few weeks to decide if the challenged ballots will be opened and counted. Talk about the difference you see in strategizing between what happened in Staten Island and what’s happening in Bessemer right now.
JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ: Right. I think, you know, it’s what Chris said, that these are Amazon workers who are unionizing and organizing within their ranks, as opposed to what’s happening down South, where you do have a major labor union that is helping organize. And the first time around with the vote in Bessemer, they got a lot of heat, because you’re bringing in celebrities, high-profile politicians. You know, that’s not the people who work at Amazon. Those are people who surely order stuff from Amazon, but that’s not the folks that are inside packing up orders, shipping them out, putting in 10- to 12-hour days. So there was a disconnect there. And they had a second chance at it, and it’s still really close.
And you can’t discount the fact that New York is typically pro-union and union-friendly. But at the same time, you know, to the ALU’s immense positioning, it’s organizing within the ranks and understanding how this company works and the intricacies of it. You know, for us at the user-facing platform, it’s three clicks, and you have your product. But for the workers themselves, it’s all of these different steps, all of this jargon. And you understand that, at least in New York, sometimes to get to the Amazon facility in the northwest corner of Staten Island, you have to take a bus, you have to take a train, and then another bus, and it’s a two-hour commute each way. So they understand who are the workers behind this organization. And it’s really, I think — you know, a lot of the times you get the word “grassroots” thrown around, but this is a case where it’s truly grassroots, where you have people who understand how Amazon works. I mean, Derrick still works inside of the facility and saw the union busting going on firsthand. Chris has worked as a supervisor in Amazon previously. He’s trained people. So they know exactly who the workers are and their grievances and how the union can help make things better.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Derrick, what are your plans now? ALU has won this enormous victory. What are your demands?
DERRICK PALMER: Well, just having better benefits, better pay, you know, like sick time. Those are the basic things. Also job security. You know, Amazon has a 150% turnover ratio at JFK alone. So, people that come and commute from all these different boroughs, their jobs should be secure. It shouldn’t take them three hours to get to work, and then, when they get there, they could possibly be fired. You know, the possibilities of that are very high. So we have to make that change, and also recruiting more workers to get involved with the union, becoming shop stewards. So we want to have shop stewards in different departments, so that we have workers representing other workers and that we can create an environment where our demands and the workers’ needs are appreciated. So, if you have these workers on the inside being more involved with the union, then now you create a powerful force that ultimately can’t really be stopped, and Amazon has to abide by these rules.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Chris, do you plan to organize other warehouses? I mean, you actually have one — I mean, yours is what? Eighty-five hundred people. You have one right across the street.
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Yeah, absolutely. We have another election in a couple of weeks that we are already preparing ourselves for. We’re right back out there. I was at the bus stop yesterday. You know, we’re right back to the same thing we were doing. And we absolutely got contacted by thousands of workers in the last 48 hours from all over the country. So, absolutely, this is just day one for ALU. Myself and Derrick, between us, we opened up several different buildings. We want to absolutely organize those. We’ve got people reaching out that, you know, watched and pay attention. And I’m ecstatic about what’s next. I know this is the catalyst for the revolution against Amazon, the same way it’s been happening with Starbucks. So, we’re going to have that same effect.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Josefa, if you can talk about the comparison of what’s happening with Amazon now and with Starbucks, what we’re seeing all over the country right now?
JOSEFA VELÁSQUEZ: Right, and I think it all goes back to sort of the early days of the pandemic, where everyone was lauding essential workers, people who still had to work, while some of us had the luxury to work from home, and these 7 p.m. clap-outs that we had. All these people had to work through the pandemic. And suddenly, from one day to the next, we sort of just forgot about it, and it became in the back of our minds. So, now you have this moment where people were more conscious of the working class, the people who keep us fed, the people who deliver our coffee, deliver our packages. And so I think it created this moment, really, in history where people started recognizing the working class more so than before, especially when it comes to like tech and big companies, where now you’re seeing Amazon and Starbucks having these major profit margins, while their workers are struggling to pay rent, to keep themselves fed, and are getting sick and dying from this virus.
So, it created this moment where everyone was looking around and saying, you know, “We have an immense amount of power, because people are no longer putting up with some of the working situations they have — they have other alternatives — and that at the end of the day, you know, dying over a Starbucks is not worth it, so let’s create something different. Let’s organize. You know, there’s power in numbers.”
And I think there’s two very clear things happening here, where it’s these worker-led movements and also a very big generational shift into the sort of feelings towards unions. Gen Z and millennials don’t have the same antipathy that perhaps, you know, Gen Xers and baby boomers have towards unions. Like, these are unicorn-like jobs, where if you’re able to grab a union job, great. These are very rare. So, you know, it’s this idea of organizing and this behind-the-scenes look through social media of, like, how my coffee gets made in the morning and all the steps behind it — and same thing with Amazon, it’s “How does my package actually get from point A to point B?” — that I think caused this moment of revelation for everyone that, you know, it’s not OK, how people are treated.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Smalls, your final message, as we wrap up this conversation, to workers around the country? And also, what are the next steps right now for ALU when it comes to this warehouse? When do you commence contract negotiations?
CHRISTIAN SMALLS: Well, I’m going to answer the first one — excuse me — I’m going to answer the first one first. You know, we started already. You know, we already dropped off two letters to our general manager. I released a statement two days ago. And we’re already talking with lawyers. We’re going to be bringing in some more legal representation.
And the message to the workers across the country, and even across the world: You know, do not quit your jobs anymore; organize them. You know, that’s just a simple thing that you can do. You know, everybody say, “Quit your job if you don’t like it.” Well, you’re jumping from one fire into the next, and I think we need to stop doing that, because nothing gets changed. The system still remains in place if you continue to do that. And I think we proved that it’s possible, no matter what industry you work in, what corporation you work for. We just unionized Amazon. And if we can do that, you can unionize anywhere. You know, I’ve already seen emails coming in from — for example, I got some workers that reached out to me from Walmart. You know, whatever we can do, whatever advice we can lend, we’re absolutely here for you guys, very accessible. So, please reach out, stay connected, support us. If you’re in the New York area, volunteer, phone bank, donate. Once again, we are grassroots. We’re ordinary people trying to do the right thing and protect one another. This is improving everybody’s quality of life, forming a union, so I encourage everybody to do the same thing. Follow us on our social media: @amazonlabor on Twitter, @AmazonLaborUnion on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, at AmazonLaborUnion.org; myself, @Shut_downAmazon
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Christian Smalls, interim president of Amazon Labor Union, and Derrick Palmer, vice president of the Amazon Labor Union and Amazon worker. They are best friends, both 31 years old. And, Josefa Velásquez, senior reporter for The City, we’ll link to your coverage, including your latest piece, “A Cinderella Story: How Staten Island Amazon Workers Won Against the Multi-Billion-Dollar Company.”
'Orbán won by telling Hungarians he would keep them out of this war, and that their bills would stay low due to his sweet gas deals with Putin.' (photo: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)
The pro-Putin nationalist managed to turn the war in Ukraine to his advantage in a win that deepens the EU’s troubles
It is a bitter irony that, just as we learn of some of the worst atrocities in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war of terror against Ukraine, Putin’s closest ally among EU leaders, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, is re-elected partly because he turned that very war to his own political benefit. As well as exploiting all the advantages he has already built in to a heavily rigged political system, such as gerrymandered constituencies and overwhelming media dominance, Orbán won by telling Hungarians that he would keep them out of this war – and that their heating bills would stay low due to his sweet gas deals with Putin.
In his victory speech, the Hungarian leader listed the “opponents” he had defeated. They included the international media, Brussels bureaucrats and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has criticised him fiercely for his opposition to the weapon supplies and further sanctions that Ukraine desperately needs. So he tells us exactly who his enemies are – and friend Putin has hastened to congratulate him on his famous victory.
If the Hungarian six-party opposition coalition led by Márki-Zay had won, Hungary would have become a staunch western ally in the face of Russian aggression, as other central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic are proving to be. “Russians go home!” some youngsters chanted at the very end of that disconsolate opposition wake in Budapest, recalling a slogan from the time of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Walking back at midnight across a deserted Heroes Square, I recalled how in that very place in June 1989 I had heard a young, seemingly idealistic Orbán himself call for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Yet now the ageing cynic is flatly refusing to let western arms supplies pass through Hungary in order to help the Ukrainian army send the Russians home. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror.
An opposition government would also have joined the European public prosecutor’s office, enabling the pursuit of well-documented corruption in the use of EU funds. It would have kicked out the International Investment Bank, which the opposition says is closely linked to the Putin regime. And it would have set about the difficult process of turning Hungary back into a proper liberal democracy.
Instead, Orbán’s Fidesz party has once again secured a two-thirds supermajority, enabling it to change the constitution at will. Whatever honeyed assurances it gives in Brussels or Washington, it will continue to consolidate what political scientists describe as an electoral authoritarian regime. Hungary’s political system is now closer to that of non-EU Serbia, which this weekend saw a simultaneous victory for another nationalist electoral authoritarian, President Aleksandar Vučić, than it is to that of a democracy such as France or Portugal. Orbán and Vučić are close allies.
There were significant failings by the opposition. The six parties were not as united as they should have been, and the lead candidate obviously failed to convince the electorate outside Budapest. Overall, the opposition actually lost votes, although it gained some single-member constituencies in the capital. But there is no way in which this was a fair election.
Wherever I went over the last five days, I saw streets and metro carriages plastered with government-funded posters showing an avuncular image of Viktor Orbán beside the slogan “Let’s protect Hungary’s peace and security”. Another ubiquitous poster showed a young mother and child with the slogan “Protect the children”. This advertised a government referendum conducted at the same time as the election, with questions such as “Do you support the promotion of sex reassignment therapy for underage children?” (The referendum did not reach the required 50% of valid votes.) State media relentlessly promoted a pro-Orbán narrative, as they have done for more than a decade, and even spent some time effectively blaming the war in Ukraine on the Ukrainians. Márki-Zay got just five minutes on state television to explain the opposition programme. Facebook was plastered with regime-supporting paid advertising, thus continuing the platform’s ignoble record of helping the enemies of liberal democracy in return for filthy lucre.
Yet having spent lavishly on tax and welfare handouts to win the election, the Orbán government needs EU funds to fill a big hole in its finances. Unless the EU is prepared simply to accept that it now has an authoritarian member state, it should at long last impose rigorous conditionality on the flows of European money that have long been one of the main founts of Orbán’s power. This means continuing to withhold post-Covid recovery grants and loans, since transparency cannot be guaranteed by a regime that is actually built on the corrupt use of EU money. It also means finally triggering the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism that could hold back significant chunks of funding from the EU’s regular budget. (And not being fooled into giving Hungary lots of money for Ukrainian refugees who have in fact already moved on to other countries.)
But here’s the problem. Faced with the latest evidence of the barbaric behaviour of Russian troops in Ukraine, Europe needs to step up its sanctions against Putin. When Orbán returned from back-to-back summits of Nato and the EU in Brussels last month, his government sent an email to all Hungarians who had signed up for a Covid vaccine saying that “proposals were put on the agenda against which Hungary’s interests had to be protected”. His government would never allow weapons supplies to go through Hungary to Ukraine, nor sanctions to be imposed on the 85% of Hungary’s gas and 64% of its oil that comes from Russia. In response to the Bucha atrocities, EU leaders such as French president Emmanuel Macron are now calling for more sanctions, including on Russian oil. Self-styled “realists” may argue that Brussels has to stay soft on Hungary in order to keep Orbán on board for a common front over Ukraine.
Europe should now get tough on both the Russian enemy without and the Hungarian enemy within. But can it and will it do both at once? Here is another dilemma this dark, depressing weekend has presented to a deeply shaken Europe.
Male Gray Wolf in Montana. (photo: Dennis Fast/VWPics/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
In Montana, a radical Republican governor changed the rules of the annual hunt, endangering a great rewilding success story
The year before, scientific findings emerged from Yellowstone on the impact of wolves’ return to the landscape. In their long absence, coyotes had run rampant and the elk population exploded, overgrazing the willow and aspen. Without those trees, songbirds declined, beavers no longer built dams, and streams began to erode. In turn, water temperatures were too high for cold-water fish. Upon wolves’ reintroduction, in what’s called a trophic cascade, the elk populations began falling immediately. Within about 10 years, willows rebounded. In 20, aspen began flourishing. Riverbanks stabilized. Songbirds returned, as did beavers, eagles, foxes, and badgers. Wolf populations in Montana and Idaho began to grow and slowly disperse to other parts of the Rockies and beyond. Media and conservationists heralded it as the greatest rewilding event in history.
Not everyone out west agrees.
It’s unclear when, exactly, 1155 walked onto Robert E. Smith’s private ranch 10 miles north of the park. Director of the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group (the biggest owner of television stations in the country), Smith is a major donor to Republicans in the state, including giving thousands to newly elected Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s campaigns. Smith’s ranch is managed by Mike Lumley, vice president of the Montana Trapper’s Association, who was aiding Gianforte in his long quest to kill a wolf. The pair had set a trapline on Smith’s property, and 1155 walked right into it, triggering metal jaws to close on his foot and keep the wolf trapped.
It’s also unclear how long 1155 lay caught before Gianforte, presiding over the frenetic session of a citizen Legislature that meets for a mere four months every two years (in Helena, a four-hour drive from Smith’s ranch) arrived to kill him. According to Montana law, trappers are required to check their traps at least every 48 hours to avoid leaving animals to suffer unnecessarily — a requirement the governor would have been familiar with, had he taken the required certification course all hunters are legally bound to take before killing a wolf. Later, Gianforte would say that he was already in the area, although one Montana reporter speculated how serendipitous it was that after weeks of waiting, the governor happened to be nearby when a wolf wandered into his trap; that perhaps Lumley had discovered 1155 and called Gianforte to let him know this was his chance — although law also states that trapped animals must be killed or released immediately upon finding them. Timeline aside, Gianforte shot 1155 — likely in the head to preserve the pelt for mounting — even though 1155 was radio-collared, and almost certainly knowing researchers have typically invested thousands of dollars in the animal for the purpose of scientific research
In Montana, violation of hunting rules can incur a fine of up to $500 and a stripping of hunting privileges. But the state’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) agency — overseen by the governor — handed Gianforte only a written warning for trapping 1155 without certification. The governor mostly stayed mum on the incident, until reporters ambushed him at a press conference, where Gianforte called the lack of certification a “slight misstep” and called the kill “a tremendous honor.”
“That he got off with just a warning was a slap in the face to all ethical sportsmen,” says Tim Roberts, who’s on the board of the Montana Wildlife Federation, a conservation organization in the “radical middle” that advocates for managing wolves with a sense of responsibility and fair chase. “Governor Gianforte already had it in his mind that he was going to annihilate wolves in Montana.”
(“States are responsible for the welfare of the gray-wolf population,” a representative for Gianforte tells Rolling Stone. “Montana is fulfilling its responsibility by ensuring a healthy, sustainable population of wolves well beyond recovery targets set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and will continue to manage wildlife wisely and judiciously.”)
The episode opened the floodgates in a state where many people have elevated a long-standing hatred of wolves to dogma. For the first time since wolves were deemed recovered enough for the federal government to hand their management back to Montana in 2009, the all-red state Legislature wasn’t reined in by a Democratic governor committed to managing wolves as wildlife, not vermin. Gianforte, a Trumpist Republican, is a wealthy creationist, best-known for body slamming a reporter on the eve of his 2017 election to Montana’s sole congressional seat. He took office toting a questionable environmental record, having sued his own state in 2009 to block longtime public access to the East Gallatin River from his Bozeman mansion. And he’d just shot a collared Yellowstone wolf to show he would do what he pleased on the hunting issue, research and rules be damned.
GOP lawmakers took full opportunity to strike a heavy blow in the West’s century-old wolf wars. By the end of the session, Gianforte had signed new laws that would extend the wolf-hunting season by several weeks; allow night hunting on private land with artificial lights, thermal-imaging tech, and night-vision scopes; neck snaring and the use of bait to hunt and trap; and increase the kill limit to 20 wolves per hunter.
And the kicker: Montana joined Idaho (which recently allocated $1 million for efforts that lawmakers there say could wipe out 1,300 of its estimated 1,500 wolves) in allowing monetary compensation to hunters for each wolf killed — what many call a bounty. Now, in the two states where American taxpayers spent $30 million to reintroduce wolves, anti-wolf organizations are legally paying hunters to kill them. The assault threatens the West-wide recovery the U.S. began 30 years ago — all because wolves are a socially charged political football used to appease a certain electorate, with the actual science on their contribution to the natural world often left on the sidelines.
“There’s nothing normal about this,” says Jamie Rappaport Clark. Now executive director of Defenders of Wildlife, Clark led the reintroduction of wolves to the area back in the 1990s as species director for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. “The numbers can’t sustain 20 wolves decimated per individual. It defies all logic. There is no other creature in this country that’s treated like wolves. It’s just reckless killing across the board.”
Wolves once roamed the western part of the continent from the Arctic to Mexico, but they were hunted to eradication from the 1870s onward. More than any other predator, wolves were seen as a symbol of the untamed wild in the West, and the antithesis of civilization: a danger to humans, a menace to ranchers, and competition for big-game hunters. That narrative persists, although wolves very rarely attack people and kill only 0.04 percent of available livestock.
Although USFWS underwent the requisite public-comment period in the early Nineties, people here still characterize the reintroduction as if the federal government “brought wolves and dumped them in Yellowstone Park basically overnight,” says Roberts. Many people versed on the issue believe social tolerance for wolves would be higher if the animals had continued their own, slower, dispersal down from Canada that was already in progress, instead of the agency dropping them in the middle of sagebrush-rebellion country, where private-property rights reign supreme and a significant portion of people don’t trust the federal government.
“There was never an educational effort to say ‘This is why wolves could be good,’ ” says Roberts. “And as wolves expanded, you’ve got conservative ranchers and sportsmen who felt like they had no say in their management, and the hatred just grew.”
Roberts, a longtime traditional bowhunter who lives in Fort Benton, describes himself as an independent with conservative leanings. He sees the expanded wolf hunt as “political bullshit” that panders to the rich landowners and outfitters profiting off elk hunts who backed Gianforte’s run for governor. It’s also a tit-for-tat system based mostly on revenge. “ ‘You crammed it down our throat back then, so we’ll cram it down yours now,’ ” he says. “If you make predators and agencies the boogeymen … well, hatred’s easier to practice than education and calm.”
If leveraging fear-based perspective for political gain sounds familiar, it should. “It’s a lot of what Trump does in drumming up the base,” says Dan Vermillion, a fly-fishing outfitter in Livingston who sat on the Fish and Wildlife Commission for 12 years, from the time wolves were delisted and Montana first allowed a hunt through 2018. He saw a lot of rancor dissipate over those years, as hunters felt they were part of the management strategy and the state set up programs to reimburse ranchers for lost livestock.
But this is where wedge issues can come in handy politically. Once a proudly purple state, Montana swung red for many of the same reasons as the rest of the country: in part due to the perception in rural America that the Democratic Party is disconnected from low- and middle-income and non-urban people, and — in a state where more than three in five people identify as hunters — out of growing fear that liberals will infringe on Second Amendment rights.
“Hunters, for years, get all spun up on Second Amendment issues, and they give the Republican Party a fair bit of latitude on wildlife issues, because they feel more strongly about the Second Amendment,” Vermillion says. “The governor and Legislature are listening to a small but vocal minority when they make these decisions on wolves, and there are a lot of other Republicans who aren’t going to stand up on it because it doesn’t really matter to them.”
Outside of the core wolf populations in the Northern Rockies (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota all have sizable numbers; Washington has an estimated 132 wolves, Oregon 173, California fewer than 20), wolves were still protected under the Endangered Species Act until the Trump administration delisted them in 2020. A federal judge reinstated their protections on Feb. 10. But that ruling doesn’t apply to Montana or Idaho, raising the question: What would it take to trigger relisting here? Wiping out 1,300 of Idaho’s wolves? Losing more than 20 percent of Yellowstone’s population?
The man known as the god of wolf trapping sits across from me in a cafe in Plains, a rural town of less than 1,200 people set on the banks of the Clark Fork River. Dan Helterline, 55 years old, with a bushy beard going to slate and kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, grew up here, like the three generations of his family before him. He taught himself to trap muskrat and fox in the surrounding Lolo National Forest, becoming a hunting and trapping guide for half the year and smoke jumping (a firefighter who parachutes into wildfires) for the Forest Service in the summers. He retired from smoke jumping seven years ago, after breaking his hip on a landing, and turned to wolf trapping full time, both on his own and taking people on guided trapping adventures. His god status in the small trapping community comes from the fact that he laid the foundations for the practice in Montana from the first legal hunt after delisting, and he maxes out his limit every year — or did, back when the limit was five wolves per person. This season, even the god has caught only four wolves.
“No one is going to get 20 wolves,” he says. “I bet no one even gets 10. Yes, they’ve passed all these mechanisms to give people more tools, but they’re not going to tenfold-increase the take of wolves.”
Montana’s forest floors aren’t running red with canid blood because wolves are so hard to hunt, Helterline explains. Wolves are smart, secretive, and travel long distances over large territories. Setting traps for them requires an immense amount of knowledge of their movements and behavior, which in turn requires significant time in the woods studying tracks and signs.
“People think that trapping is so unethical, so unfair. But a trap pan is five square inches, and a wolf has a territory of hundreds of square miles. So you tell me how it’s unethical trying to get an animal that might come through your area once a month to step into a five-inch pan. The thing about ethics, there’s a wide spectrum of them. They’re not black-and-white, everyone has their own — like opinions, or religion. That’s why it’s hard to enforce laws on ethics.”
Like many hunters and trappers, Helterline sees the harvest as a form of wildlife management. In fact, because trappers spend so much time on the ground, they’re often the ones informing biologists on numbers of species in certain regions and advocating for the complicated regulations on management and conservation. Helterline talks about how in the years between reintroduction and delisting he saw game zeroed out here as the wolf population boomed. Now that the hunt keeps wolf numbers down, he sees more moose in the Lolo than he’s seen in 10 years. “Without management, the population control is starvation, or disease. And people think that’s humane. Have you ever seen a dog die of mange? It’s ugly.”
Helterline doesn’t hate wolves, he says before we part — far from it. He thinks they’re incredible animals that are here to stay, and remembers with awe the time he saw a pack of 12 in the Selway wilderness (outside of his traps, he’s only ever seen one other wolf in the wild in all his time in the mountains). But there are people who do hate them, he says — there are extremes on both sides.
It takes a lot of effort, funding, and time to collar a wolf, wildlife biologist Sarah Sells tells me. We’re sitting in the Missoula office of the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit. Sells lives and conducts research in nearby Flathead. Her Ph.D. work helped develop the modeling that FWP uses to estimate the state’s wolf population, and she tells me about one memorable field stint.
Her team had traveled 21 miles into the Bob Marshall, a wilderness area southeast of Glacier. Horses were packed in the heavy gear of foot traps (pressure-based traps meant to capture an animal without injury, much like what Helterline uses — Sells has put her own hand in one to test that there’s no pain when it springs), collars, and other equipment. The wolves knew they were there, she says, but immense care was taken to seek out areas far from the cabin the team stayed in and conceal traps. Sells set one in a clearing. The next morning, a female wolf lay caught in it. The team collared her to track her movements and released her. Over the next two days, the team caught no other wolves. On the last night, the pack came to the cabin and howled, and on the last morning, the team went out to collect the traps to find each flipped over unsprung.
“It was like a wolf telling us to get out,” she says. “And we could see the movements of the one we’d just collared — she followed us 10 miles down the trail, as if escorting us out of there. It was really special.”
It takes time to get data from a collar that researchers can actually use, Sells explains. But a year after Sells collared her, the wolf from the Bob Marshall was killed. “It’s just unfortunate when you don’t get enough data, in particular for this purpose of modeling numbers. I mean, that was a couple of weeks of effort from several people.”
The loss of collared wolves from hunting and other mortality events is one of the reasons the state moved away from that kind of research. Diane Boyd, a Kalispell-based biologist who has been studying wolves in Montana for more than 40 years and recently retired as one of FWP’s Wolf and Carnivore Specialists, says a significant portion of wolves collared in her last year at FWP were also killed that same year. “It’s no longer about science. It’s all about politics,” Boyd says.
She points out that using the fairy-tale success story of Yellowstone’s ecosystem recovery to apply to statewide management is problematic, because trophic cascades aren’t such tidy stories; they’re huge and complicated. And the park is an isolated ecosystem — people aren’t living with wolves. “I’m not against controlling some number of wolves to keep the population happy,” Boyd says. “But what’s going on? It’s just a slaughter.”
Most Montanans I’ve spoken to agree. But in this kind of political atmosphere, it will take courage from leadership to change wolves’ fate — or a change in leadership altogether in voting Gianforte out of office. “He doesn’t understand — nor appreciate — the true intrinsic value of what Montana has had, and what it could have in the future, under the right leadership,” says Roberts.
Montana’s history runs far deeper as a purple state than a crimson one, and thanks to citizens standing up to wealthy magnates and corrupt politicians bent on exploiting the land in the past, it enjoys gold-standard public lands and stream access, and a rare constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Montanans could still surprise the country on this issue as well.
“Our wildlife shouldn’t be a political debate,” says Defenders of Wildlife’s Clark. “It’s not Republican or Democrat. It’s what we do as Americans. It’s what we do as citizens for our next generation.”
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