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Wednesday, December 7, 2022
POLITICO NIGHTLY: Scenes from a doomed Senate campaign
Caroline Randall Williams | Herschel Walker Is an American Tragedy
07 December 22
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Commodity. Chattel. Contraband. Capital. What is a Black body in the South? What is a Black southern man, carted out to work a white-owned field?
I watched the film version of Friday Night Lights almost obsessively during my senior year of high school. My father had just died. He was a diplomat, a businessman, and the general counsel of the U.S. Army, and he loved conservative optics and southern spaces and all manner of iconic Americana, for good or ill. So the movie connected me to him, or something—offered me catharsis, or something. The movie immersed me in all of the hard, strange things about the South, the questions about achievement and race and class and excellence and objectification, and what it can mean to lose or win or talk to God about any of it.
But there was one scene I hated to watch.
Coach Gaines is getting ready for the start of the season, and attending a booster-club dinner with a table of wealthy white donors who presumably love God and football and Texas and not a whole lot else. It’s a subtle scene, the dinner party spliced with distracting clips of the players at a raucous high-school party. A woman talks almost salaciously about the physicality of the young men she saw on the field during practice: “What I saw was speed out there, but where’s the beef, Coach? I saw me some small boys.” The master’s wife, perusing the auction block. Then a cut to more beer guzzling, more Run-D.M.C., more teenage hijinks. And then it’s back to the elegant, sinister dining room.
Quietly, the woman worried about how small the players are this year offers Gaines some advice. “You know what you should do?” she says. “You should play Boobie Miles [on] defense. Work him both ways.”
Coach doesn’t quite see it that way—you don’t risk your prize thoroughbred on a recreational outing. “Well, see, the problem with that is,” he replies, “I don’t want to get him hurt. We need him to score touchdowns.”
The woman doesn’t miss a beat. And her reply is seared forever on my brain. “Bullshit. That big nigger ain’t gonna break. You wanna beat Midland Lee, you play him middle linebacker.”
That big nigger ain’t gonna break. Every time I watch one of these smug, jowly, dangerous Republicans sitting next to Herschel Walker, wheeling him out for their own designs, I see that dinner-table conversation in the background of my mind. Walker is a big, ball-carrying Black man, and these Republicans do not have an ounce of care for him. They are using him to advance their own Constitution-compromising agenda, the way conservative white people in this country have always used Black bodies when given half a chance.
Walker stands up at podiums, and I feel shame and sorrow and resentment. He is incoherent, bumbling, oily. He smiles with a swagger that does nothing to disguise his total ignorance of how blatantly he is being taken advantage of by a party that has never intended to serve people who look like him.
Walker’s candidacy is a fundamental assault by the Republican Party on the dignity of Black Americans. How dare they so cynically use this buffoon as a shield for their obvious failings to meet the needs and expectations of Black voters? They hold him up and say, “See, our voters don’t mind his race. We’re not a racist party. We have Black people on our side too.” Parading Walker at rallies like some kind of blue-ribbon livestock does not mean you have Black people on your side. What it means is that you are promoting a charlatan—a man morally and intellectually bereft enough, blithely egomaniacal enough, to sing and dance on the world stage against his own best interest. Is he in on the joke? Does he know they picked him to save money on boot black and burnt cork, this man who made his name by bringing the master glory on the master’s field, who got comfortable eating from the master’s table?
For the record, Coach Gaines did play Boobie Miles, and Boobie Miles suffered a career-ending injury. And the team carried on. They left him and his broken Black body behind. His dreams, nothing to them. His legacy, utterly compromised.
Whether Walker wins or loses, whatever was good or valuable or worthy about his prior professional legacy has been utterly compromised. His many trophies are now and forever eclipsed by the humiliating spectacle of his political foray. He is ruined, and the party that propped him up does not care.
From where I sit, the election looks like a kind of grotesque minstrelsy. The Republican Party is saying that it wants power more than decency. It’s saying that race is a joke. We must all take note—it is willing to destroy a man to advance its cause. The party thinks he won’t break. And if he does, well, he wasn’t really one of them, anyway, was he?
I grew up in Tennessee and still live here. Although it has become obscure, in the South, if you listen closely in the right (wrong) crowd, you will still hear the term ofe thrown around to describe a Black person. Not o-a-f. Ofe, spelled o-f-e. Obsolete Farm Equipment.
I’ll ask again: What does it mean to be a Black man in the South, working a white-owned field?
I don’t particularly care that Herschel Walker doesn’t seem to know he’s being used. I care that America let it get this far, that this country has been wildly careless with Black bodies, Black stories, Black truths. I care that I’m watching the news every day with the foot of bigotry on my back and the noose of regression tightening around my throat.
Whoever wins today, Walker’s candidacy is an American tragedy.
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Fredrik Wesslau speaking to the Kyiv Independent in his office in the European Union Advisory Mission in Kyiv, on Dec. 1, 2022 (photo: Oleksii Temchenko)
Departing EU Diplomat: Civilian Casualties in Ukraine May Be 3 Times Higher Than UN Estimates
Francis Farrell, The Kyiv Independent
Farrell writes: "From the indiscriminate killings of civilians in Bucha, Izium and Mariupol, to the everyday terror of long-range missile strikes, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world in its devastation and brutality."
In this effort, crucial assistance is given by Ukraine’s international partners, one of the most prominent of which is the European Union Advisory Mission to Ukraine (EUAM), a field mission present in Ukraine since 2014.
Before the full-scale invasion, the EUAM worked closely with Ukrainian police and prosecutors to build public trust. After the first Russian atrocities committed in Kyiv Oblast came to light in April, the EUAM built on this relationship to quickly transition to assisting Ukrainian institutions with investigating war crimes, bringing in over 20 foreign experts to advise and teach best international practices.
Fredrik Wesslau is a Swedish diplomat completing his posting as Deputy Head of the Mission at the EUAM after 4.5 years working in Ukraine.
In this interview with the Kyiv Independent a few days before departing Ukraine, Wesslau speaks about the war crimes investigation process from the inside, and about the recent EU initiative to establish a special international tribunal for the crime of aggression, reserved for the key Russian political elite in charge of launching the invasion.
The Kyiv Independent: You have worked for years with Ukrainian police and prosecutors. How did you observe that transition in both their work and yours, transforming from their pre-war jobs into war crimes investigators?
Fredrik Wesslau: I was personally quite engaged with this topic because I've worked previously in the Balkans, Sudan and South Sudan, and Georgia as well in 2008. The fact that we were on the ground as well and that we have had these very long-standing relations with the Prosecutor General’s Office, the police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) meant that they knew us and they trusted us so we could quite easily shift from normal reform activities to this focus on helping them on war crimes. By this I mean war crimes in a broad sense, crimes against humanity, genocide, and also the crime of aggression. I think the big challenge is that the scale is just so enormous. I mean, the Prosecutor General’s Office has now registered over 50,000 individual cases and this number will just increase as more territory is liberated, as more atrocities are uncovered. The law enforcement agencies are completely focused on this, and they have dedicated massive resources to it. Any country facing this would be under tremendous strain because it's a very particular form of work. This is also our role as well to help them transition quickly, to be able to understand how to deal with crime scenes from missile strikes, mass graves, or torture chambers, and then also to help them develop their understanding of international humanitarian law as well.
The Kyiv Independent: Can you take our readers through the basics, the everyday work of how a certain given case would be addressed? Is it by chance that one case is handled by the prosecutors, one by the SBU, one by the police? How does the coordination work, how does all the data get collected and organized?
Fredrik Wesslau: The Prosecutor General’s Office has the lead in terms of coordinating this work, and the SBU has jurisdiction over international crimes, war crimes. But in practice it's often the police who were on the scene first and then carry out much of the investigations. As for the types of crimes, there are a few different categories. One is the missile and drone strikes, the indiscriminate targeting or perhaps even deliberate targeting of civilian targets, hitting critical infrastructure, which is an explicit objective by the Russian Federation.
But then also you have everything happening in the occupied areas, which also varies a lot. We’ve seen, torture, we've seen executions, we’ve seen mass graves. We've also seen the forced displacement of people, including children. I think this is probably the thing which has affected me personally the most. There are no words to describe it, really, but it is such an outrageous act in a way, to steal children from Ukraine like this.
The Kyiv Independent: What new trends and tendencies did you see in your work? What, for example, have you noticed in the Kherson Oblast compared to Kharkiv Oblast or other areas that weren't occupied for so long?
Fredrik Wesslau: A really horrifying aspect is how the Russian forces and occupation authorities have sort of learnt from the past few months. In Kherson what we've seen is that a lot of the evidence of war crimes has been taken away or booby trapped – there have even been cases of dead Russian soldiers who have been booby trapped by their colleagues. I think another important aspect as well is how Ukrainian authorities and especially law enforcement agencies deal with these newly liberated areas because there are vast challenges. There's everything from the physical destruction of homes and critical infrastructure to the war crimes, and cases of collusion as well. How do you deal with that in a way which doesn't create further tensions in society? I think there's a big difference between the person who was basically a Russian agent who then worked in the local council under Russian control and the babushka who might have been making borshch for four Russian soldiers.
The Kyiv Independent: Sometimes, allegations also come up of potential war crimes on the Ukrainian side, most often regarding prisoners of war. Since I imagine your work is more independent from the Ukrainian agencies, can you tell us about how these cases are investigated?
Fredrik Wesslau: I think this is an extremely important point to make as well, that investigating war crimes has no nationality. It doesn't matter if the alleged perpetrator is Russian or Ukrainian, a war crime is a war crime. But from what we see, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are taking this seriously. The fact that you have Russian troops on Ukrainian soil and the way that the Russians are fighting this war invariably entails that the vast majority of war crimes are being committed by Russian forces.
But we have seen instances as well where Ukrainian forces have possibly done things as well. I think that the Ukrainians really understand the need to deal with war crimes being committed by their own soldiers as well, as there is also a credibility issue here, which is very important. And it's also about not feeding the Russian propaganda machine as well, so it's a very delicate issue overall.
The Kyiv Independent: Having had an office in Mariupol, what can you tell us about the general picture of the city? What is it like investigating war crimes in a place like Mariupol, especially when it is still occupied?
Fredrik Wesslau: I've been to Mariupol many, many times, and I met with many colleagues there from the police, from other law enforcement agencies, many of whom were in Azovstal and were taken to Russia, with some later freed. But what's happened there is just absolutely shocking, it's beyond belief somehow also, especially what happened with the bombing of the theater. Of course, Ukrainian and international investigators don't have access to Mariupol, but there is still quite a bit that can be done. Many are looking at the crimes being committed through open-source intelligence, and also interviewing people who managed to escape and so on.
The Kyiv Independent: Before we do find out more and we go through all these mass graves and all the testimonies, do we already know that there could be lots of situations of mass executions, similar to what we saw in Bucha?
Fredrik Wesslau: These investigations are ongoing, but I think that the scale of the report would just be enormous. It's just a tragedy on a different level. People talk about these UN figures, estimates for civilian casualties, of course, the actual figure is much, much higher, probably three times as much. In the end, it becomes a bit problematic referring to these official figures.
The Kyiv Independent: We have heard a lot recently about the European Union efforts to establish a dedicated tribunal for Russian war crimes, what role do you think this will play in the overall process?
Fredrik Wesslau: We have the Ukrainian courts and the law enforcement agencies, as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the member states who have their own individual investigations ongoing. But there is a distinct accountability gap when it comes to the crime of aggression. There's currently no court that really has jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, which is specifically about the leadership. This is the mother of all crimes, which is, without which, the other crimes wouldn't have happened. This is why Kyiv has been pushing for the establishment of a special tribunal or some sort of mechanism that would deal with the crime of aggression.
The president of the European Commission, (Ursula) von der Leyen, confirmed that the EU was supporting such a mechanism. I think this is extremely important because it's one thing to go after the foot soldiers and maybe their commanders, but if you don't go after the instigators of this war, you can never really speak about full accountability. This is extremely important, not only for Ukraine and Ukrainians and their sense of justice, but also from the point of view of the international order and the norms-based international order. We want a world where the crime of aggression is actually punished, because otherwise the whole system breaks down and the whole U.N. Charter becomes watered down.
The Kyiv Independent: What might such a tribunal look like in the future? What does it mean for the EU, specifically in the ICC, to cooperate in this matter, will it be similar to the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?
Fredrik Wesslau: There are different options and different views, but I think it's really important that it has a broad base in terms of support and that many states support this, because this is really about the legitimacy of the tribunal. It's also important that it has a very focused mandate, there shouldn't be an overlap with the ICC, or courts in Ukraine, but that it fills this gap because the ICC can't prosecute the crime of aggression in this particular case. Ukrainians tell me that it doesn't need to be a very big court, it can be a fairly slim operation as well, because it would potentially deal with only one crime and a handful of individuals, and the crime of aggression is, in my view, pretty easy to prove.
The Kyiv Independent: And what's your personal understanding of the guilt that lies there? Many would argue that it was one person's decision only. Are we only talking about this political inner circle, what about propagandists?
Fredrik Wesslau: Typically for the crime of aggression, it's a very small group, the inner core in a sense. This is about the closest people who are part of planning, preparing, instigating, and launching the aggression. I think with the propagandists, it does fall a little bit outside the remit of crime of aggression in the sense. But there is more and more discussion amongst legal scholars about accountability for the propagandists, since, for instance on Russian state TV, you see quite hardcore propaganda, the inciting of violence of the most horrible kind. The question is, what is their role in this war effort, how do they influence the war and how are they culpable in all of this?
The Kyiv Independent: It's all well and good to have a court remotely convict people, but do you think it's at all possible that Russia, as a country and as a society, will come to terms with its crimes in a way that these people could be held accountable in person?
Fredrik Wesslau: It’s a highly relevant question. The future is very unpredictable. When the tribunal for Yugoslavia was set up, who would have imagined that Milosevic would be extradited to The Hague and appear in court? Changes in Russia could entail that the court actually does get custody at some point over them as well. In the last nine months, things which seemed completely impossible yesterday, seem sort of possible today, and could be highly likely tomorrow.
But yes, it’s more a question of are those changes inside or so possible on the societal level. When you speak to Ukrainians, they're very focused on the idea of a tribunal, and I think it would be a recognition that the crime has happened, and then indictments could be issued. That in itself would really set the historical record, and if followed by arrest warrants, that would have an impact on how these people are able to travel and so on.
The Kyiv Independent: On a personal level, as someone who's right in the middle of it, how would you assess the response of Europe to the war? What still needs to be done in terms of decisions made, on the EU level but also by individual countries?
Fredrik Wesslau: I think the EU has done a tremendous amount to support Ukraine and continues to do so. I mean, everything from weapons, the EU as an institution has paid €3.1 billion for weapons in addition to what individual member states are doing. There's also the macro financial support, and the humanitarian assistance as well, which the EU is paying for. Then of course is the fact that the European Council gave Ukraine candidacy status as well in June this year. This is such an enormously strong political signal. It's such a repudiation of Moscow's political ambitions in Ukraine and just a massive confirmation from the EU’s side that Ukraine belongs in Europe.
On a personal level, I wish we would do more. I think this is really a war which somehow will define Europe, the EU for the next hundred years, and then also our role in the world.
Still, we really must step up and help Ukraine with more money, more weapons, more support, more humanitarian support, because at the end of the day, Ukraine is not only fighting for its own existence as a nation, it's also fighting for Europe. This war is completely black and white. From the inside, everyone is saying that the EU will stick with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and I think this is true.
The Kyiv Independent: But on the level of member states, do you feel personally that there's a worry that Ukraine fatigue is starting to set in and there's a reluctance to continue that level of support?
Fredrik Wesslau: I think the talk of Ukraine fatigue is a bit exaggerated. Obviously, member states have different views about everything, but overall, the understanding of the strategic significance of this war and the importance of Ukraine winning is very strong. I think what Russia is trying to do now by attacking energy infrastructure is to create another exodus of Ukrainians into the EU and to divide and put pressure on the EU. But I don't think this is going to work. I think the solidarity in the EU is so strong both at a government level but also a societal level. What Russia is trying to do is futile, counterproductive and will ultimately fail.
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Donald Trump at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 6, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Prosecutors argued the ex-president "explicitly sanctioned" an illegal tax scheme perpetrated by his companies, which on Tuesday were convicted of all 17 charges they faced
This trial against several of Trump’s namesake businesses — the Trump Organization, Trump Payroll Corporation, and Trump Corporation — stemmed from a 2021 indictment. Prosecutors alleged that the companies colluded in a 15-year-long tax fraud scheme. The alleged fraud plot centered on giving untaxed benefits to Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, in a “sweeping and audacious illegal payments scheme.”
Prosecutors maintained that Weisselberg, who for decades served as Trump’s moneyman, enjoyed many benefits for his almost 50 years of loyalty to the clan. Starting in 2005, Weisselberg stayed rent-free in an apartment on Manhattan’s West Side that was paid for by The Trump Corporation.
The company also covered his utility bills and parking garage fees, the indictment alleged. These perks didn’t end at a free residence — Trump’s corporation covered leases on two Mercedes-Benzes that Weisselberg and his wife allegedly treated as their personal cars. Several of Trump’s companies also gave cash to Weisselberg around the December holidays, so that he could give “personal holiday gratuities.” In total, these generous goodies reached $1.7 million in untaxed benefits.
Weisselberg copped to a 15-count indictment in August for these purported payouts. The septuagenarian answered “yes, your honor” when judge Juan Merchan questioned if he “engaged in a scheme” with the Trump Organization “to defraud federal, New York state, and New York City tax authorities.” Weisselberg’s bombshell admission appeared to directly place Trump’s businesses at the center of criminal wrongdoing, including tax fraud and falsification of business records.
Weisselberg served as prosecutors’ star witness at trial. He linked Trump’s companies to illegal tax practices. Weisselberg told jurors that the rent on his free apartment “was authorized by Donald Trump.” He said that the Trump Corporation paid his utility fees and said it “was my understanding” that this practice was green-lighted by Trump. Weisselberg also said that Trump covered his grandchildren’s private-school fees. Prosecutors claimed that this was a taxable benefit.
During his second day testifying, Weisselberg said that he and other company honchos tried to remove sketchy financial activities from several Trump companies’ records when the reality TV big became president. “We were going through an entire cleanup process at the company after Mr. Trump became president so that everything was done properly,” Weisselberg said. “When Mr. Trump became president and everybody was looking at our company at every different angle,” Weisselberg continued by saying they pored over “all the practices we’d been utilizing over the years and … we corrected everything we had to correct.”
Weisselberg took the stand under a plea deal with prosecutors. Though it’s not a cooperation agreement, Weisselberg was required to “testify truthfully” if called to take the stand. If Weisselberg did so, he would receive a five-month jail sentence and five years probation. Weisselberg won’t learn his sentence until the trial wraps, to “ensure compliance.” Merchan has warned that failure to comply could result in far more time behind bars.
Although Trump himself was not tried, prosecutors directly tied him to illegal financial activity during their second day of closing. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass pointed jurors to a 2012 document signed by Trump himself, where he okayed a $72,000 salary cut for Trump Organization chief operating officer Matthew Calamari. While this was a reduction in pay, Calamari wound up receiving plum benefits instead which, prosecutors insist, should have been taxed.
Prosecutors contended throughout trial that Trump and his businesses knew full well that Calamari, Weisselberg, and comptroller Jeffrey McConney were participating in practices to provide untaxed income for execs through benefits.
The attorneys repping Trump’s businesses have insisted that these companies did nothing wrong—and that it was all Weisselberg acting for himself
“Mr. Weisselberg dedicated his life to the Trump family … to Fred, to Don, to Don Jr. He helped grow the Trump Organization into the company it is today,” defense attorney Susan Necheles told jurors during closing arguments. “But along the way, he messed up, he got greedy — and once he started, it was difficult for him to stop.”
“Mr. Weisselberg admitted that during this long scheme, no member of the Trump family knew about his ongoing efforts to evade taxes. He was ashamed of what he was doing: You saw him on the witness stand, almost crying,” Necheles argued. “He knew he was doing something wrong and he was ashamed of it, and he kept it secret. When his wrongdoing came to light, the Trump family did not fire him, they did not kick him to the curb after nearly 40 years. How do you fire a member of your own family?” Necheles said. However, “Mr. Weisselberg broke the law … Mr. Weisselberg is paying for his own wrongdoing.”
Necheles also emphasized that Weisselberg didn’t provide any testimony that directly implicated the corporations in illegal activity. “He’s atoning for his sins, but as part of the plea deal, the prosecution forced him to testify against the company he helped to build. Now the prosecution’s case rests on one thing: trying to convince you, the jurors, that Mr. Weisselberg’s actions were done in behalf of the company.” Necheles insisted “they were done solely to benefit himself — and that is the critical issue in this case.”
Trump was not pleased with the verdict on Tuesday, releasing a lengthy statement calling the verdict the “continuation of the Greatest Political Witch Hunt in the History of our Country,” adding that “New York City is a hard place to be ‘Trump,’ as businesses and people flee our once Great City!”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was pleased with the verdict on Tuesday. “This was a case about greed and cheating. In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law,” he said in a statement. “For 13 years the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation got away with a scheme that awarded high-level executives with lavish perks and compensation while intentionally concealing the benefits from the taxing authorities to avoid paying taxes. Today’s verdict holds these Trump companies accountable for their long-running criminal scheme, in addition to Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who has pled guilty, testified at trial and will now be sentenced to serve time in jail.”
Sentencing is expected to take place on Jan. 13.
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An image of the late journalist Jamal Khashoggi is projected onto the facade of the Newseum in Washington in 2019. (photo: Michael S. Williamson/WP)
The Biden administration had determined that the Saudi royal was immune from the lawsuit
The basis for the decision, wrote Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was the legal protections the prince is entitled to in his new role as Saudi Arabia’s prime minister.
“The United States has informed the court that he is immune, and Mohammed is therefore ‘entitled to head of state immunity … while he remains in office,’” Bates wrote in the Tuesday filing, which also dismissed the claims against two senior Saudi officials due to a lack of adequate proof in establishing the court’s jurisdiction over their case.
Last month, the Biden administration determined that Mohammed — also known as MBS — was immune from the suit brought forth in 2020 by Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and the civil rights organization he founded before his death, DAWN, given his appointment as “sitting head of government.” On Sept. 27, Mohammed was named prime minister by his father, King Salman — just six days before the U.S. State Department’s court-imposed deadline to determine whether Mohammed was protected from legal action.
The move was decried by DAWN as a “last ditch effort to escape the jurisdiction of the court.”
“DAWN’s lawsuit against [Mohammed] bin Salman (MBS) for his ruthless murder of Jamal Khashoggi is only one part of our continued efforts for justice and accountability for this crime, and the many other crimes the Saudi government is perpetrating against its own citizens,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “While we are disappointed in the decision, we will consider all options to continue our legal challenges to MBS’s criminal behavior.”
Mohammed has said he takes responsibility for the murder but has denied any personal role in the brutal killing — one that sent shock waves across the world after a U.N. investigation found that the Washington Post columnist had been a victim of a “deliberate, premeditated execution” at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The CIA also determined months after Khashoggi’s death that the prince had ordered the assassination.
As a candidate in 2019, President Biden vowed on the campaign trail to make Mohammed a “pariah” and pledged that accountability for the torture and dismemberment of the journalist would follow. Three years later, a meeting between the two leaders in Saudi Arabia — and the fist-bump with which Biden and Mohammed greeted each other — was widely condemned online.
Ahead of Biden’s trip in July to the Middle Eastern kingdom, Cengiz wrote an op-ed published by The Post imploring the president to “uphold your promise to pursue justice for Jamal.”
“President Biden, imagine yourself in my position, trying to move on while knowing that the people who killed your loved one are still free,” Cengiz wrote. “Imagine the trauma of knowing that what happened to your loved one can and will happen to someone else because the perpetrators know there will be no consequences.”
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BNSF railworkers in Golden, Colorado. (photo: Joe Amon/Denver Post/Getty Images)
We spoke with a longtime BNSF conductor about the labor agreement recently imposed on railroad workers by President Biden. He says he feels betrayed by a president he thought was pro-labor and explains how his job has gotten worse over time.
A longtime conductor for BNSF Railway, Kufalk is virtually always on call. He must be ready to get to work within ninety minutes from when the company says they need him — which can happen any time, day or night. The family lives forty-five minutes away from the terminal in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that serves as his home base. He spends a lot of time away in hotels in Chicago and Galesburg, Illinois.
Kufalk said the demands on his time have gotten worse over the years, with the industry shedding jobs to cut costs as part of its so-called “precision scheduled railroading” strategy. The situation, he said, has become unbearable since BNSF implemented a new points-based attendance policy, under which employees can be disciplined or fired for missing a call to come into work or taking an unplanned day off.
“They want us available for duty 95 percent of the time now — 24/7/365,” said Kufalk. “I try to plan for doctor’s appointments and other things and it’s almost impossible. Sometimes you just have to lay off and take the hit on the points.”
The lack of paid sick time afforded to workers was at the center of the high-stakes labor dispute between unions and giant railroad companies that came to a head last week. Through more than three years of contract negotiations, the railroads flatly refused to budge and give workers any paid sick days. The companies knew they didn’t really have to negotiate, because politicians in Washington wouldn’t risk allowing rail workers to strike and slow shipments — especially now during the holiday season — at an estimated cost to the economy of $2 billion per day.
President Joe Biden’s administration first intervened in the labor dispute this summer, convening an emergency board to broker a recommended deal that included just one paid sick day for rail workers. Last week, at Biden’s urging, Congress passed a law to block a strike and impose the administration’s labor deal over workers’ objections. A measure offered by progressives to add seven sick days to the deal won some Republican support but still failed in the corporate-controlled Senate.
But as the story of Kufalk and his family demonstrates, the number of sick days granted to railworkers — and the way politicians just helped railroad barons railroad them — isn’t just some political issue. The matter strikes at the systematic devaluing of the people who literally keep the country rolling, who have seen their benefits deteriorate and their schedules get far more extreme as railroad companies have decimated their workforce to juice corporate profits and executives’ payouts.
Kufalk wishes the lawmakers who voted down the sick leave proposal last week would “take the time to learn more about the railroad lifestyle,” in order to balance what’s best for businesses and the economy with the needs of railworkers who sacrifice to make the economy run. If lawmakers spent some time working on the railroads, Kufalk wagers, “they’d be more than happy to go back home to Congress.”
He and Mona both said they voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential campaign based on his promises to be pro-labor. Kufalk clarified he would never have considered voting for Trump; he voted for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in the Democratic primary (“She’s my girl”), while Mona said she voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
But now Kufalk, who said he’s voted to strike several times throughout the contract negotiation process, told the Lever after the Senate vote that he felt “betrayed” by those he helped put in power.
“[Biden] lost a big chance to set himself apart from the Republicans,” he said. “That’s a big failure on his part.”
“There Are So Many Things We Can’t Do”
A former law enforcement officer and dairy farmer before that, Kufalk first got hired by BNSF, the country’s largest freight railroad, in Alliance, Nebraska, working on trains that mostly hauled coal. Now, he works as a conductor out of Wisconsin.
“We haul anything and everything,” he said. “Intermodal, mixed freight, and commodities, military trains, vehicle trains — you name it. If it’s something that goes on a rail car, at some point or another, I’ve probably been on a train with it.”
As for the ins and outs of the job, Kufalk said, “I’m responsible for the paperwork for the train, doing any work that’s associated with the train like set-ups, pickups, or if there’s any troubles. If the train breaks in two or goes into [an] emergency because an air hose separates or anything like that, I’m responsible for putting it back together.”
His duties include overseeing train makeup and compliance, and placement of cars to ensure weight is distributed properly.
The job involves lots of walking, often on unsteady surfaces in all kinds of weather conditions, followed by long periods of waiting around. After shifts that last up to twelve hours, Kufalk said he’s either brought back to his home terminal or to a motel, where he then takes a ten and a half hour rest period.
The rest periods often occur and end at odd times, which can make it difficult to find food. So Kufalk usually travels with a large, insulated lunch container and enough food to get through a trip.
The demands on Kufalk’s time and the unpredictable nature of his schedule means he and Mona lead separate lives.
“My life is separate from Rob,” she said. “I love him so much, and I want to do things with him. We can’t. We don’t have a life where we have nights out with friends. We can’t join a bowling league. There are so many things we can’t do. Our grandsons play hockey. We’ve not been to a hockey game for our grandsons.”
Not Much Thanks
Over time, Kufalk has seen his benefits get worse as part of a broader shift in how management treats the workers.
“I’ve never complained about the pay,” he said. “When I first started out, we had excellent health insurance. We didn’t have to pay any monthly subsidies for it or anything.” He noted that, in 2008, he only had to pay $20 after getting carpal tunnel surgery done on both wrists, adding: “It’s been downhill from there.”
Now, Kufalk said he’s paying about $250 each month for a family insurance plan that also covers his wife, while “a surgery ends up costing around $4,000 or $5,000 out of pocket.”
Kufalk said the railroad companies used to show more gratitude for workers — regularly providing hot meals, particularly on holidays and giving them gift cards they could use at the BNSF store.
“All that stuff’s gone by the wayside,” he said. “Last year, I was down in Galesburg, Illinois, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. And there’s nothing at the hotel saying, ‘Come to the depot, we have food there for you.’ . . . That was how much gratification there was to show us thanks for working on holidays.”
Kufalk said it’s part of an increasingly “anti-labor mindset” from BNSF management. “The CEOs need to remember that if it wasn’t for us out there, humping the trains down the rails, they wouldn’t be having their multimillion-dollar salaries,” he added.
Asked about Warren Buffett — the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns BNSF — Kufalk didn’t hold back.
“I think our dear Uncle Warren is nothing but a money-grubbing pig,” said Kufalk. Given BNSF’s billions in annual profits, he argued, “[Buffett] could say, ‘I want all my employees [to have] paid 100 percent health insurance, and a very handsome 401(k) and retirement pension, and I want it all paid for,’ and it wouldn’t cost him a dime. He would have the happiest employees ever, and the most productive, and he would reap more benefits, but he’ll never do that. Instead, he’s more worried about where his next money’s coming from, like Scrooge McDuck.”
“Doing More With Less”
Across the railroad industry, companies have made devaluing labor and reducing their workforce a core part of their business model, in order to maximize profits and enrich shareholders.
Under the guise of precision scheduled railroading, a theory pioneered in the 1990s, railroad companies have gutted their head counts while vastly increasing the average length of trains in order to limit their “operating ratios,” or how much they spend running the railroads.
“We have a lot of trains now that are right around that top 10,000-foot length,” Kufalk said, explaining that precision scheduled railroading effectively means workers “doing more with less.”
Over the past six years, large US freight rail companies have cut their workforce by nearly 30 percent.
The substantially smaller workforce has meant less maintenance and dirtier cars, according to Kufalk. “We’re running with more cracked windshields, heaters that aren’t necessarily working right, we’re having more breakdowns than what we used to have,” he said.
It also means slower shipments. “On weekends now, we are tying trains down on the main line because there’s not enough crews to take to the next destination,” said Kufalk. “That exacerbates the problem, because then they have to call a bunch of crews right away when they’re rested to go and get those trains moving again. It just makes the crew shortage even worse.”
The drive to reduce worker numbers has culminated in onerous attendance policies like the new points-based system from BNSF, which requires workers to be available around-the-clock if and when management needs them.
Under the policy, workers start with thirty points and are docked points if they fail to respond to a call from management or if they need to take an unscheduled day off. Losing too many points can mean disciplinary action or firing.
The BNSF policy has led to mass resignations — with the situation getting so bad that the company has been offering $10,000 bonuses to employees to defer their retirements for six months, according to Kufalk.
“The railroads are trying to hire people, but they can’t keep the people they’re hiring,” he said.
Kufalk was scheduled to retire in December. He agreed to take a bonus and will work now through April next year.
“I’ll Take a Hit on the Points”
Railroad companies dragged out negotiations over a new contract with unions for more than three years, refusing to offer workers any paid sick time, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Employees currently have little choice but to work while sick — often in close, confined quarters.
The railroads have argued in the press that workers have ample vacation time, despite not having paid sick days.
Kufalk, meanwhile, noted that in his seventeenth year with BNSF, he currently has four weeks of vacation — a generous amount by American standards — but the company determines when he can use most of this time off. As a result, it’s still difficult to schedule visits to the doctor or dentist, he said.
The lack of paid sick time has been a key sticking point in negotiations between unions and the railroads. In the recent contract negotiations, unions initially pushed the railroads to grant workers as many as fifteen sick days — and ultimately demanded as few as four. The companies held firm, refusing to pay any sick time at all.
Under the terms of the deal negotiated between Biden’s emergency board, railroad companies, and unions, workers are set to get a single paid sick day a year.
At Biden’s urging, Congress passed legislation last week to impose his deal over the objections of workers who were ready to go on strike. The Senate failed to pass an amendment offered by Sanders and backed by Warren that would have given railroad workers seven paid sick days. They will only get one.
Next year, Kufalk will retire with an extra bonus. He and Mona are planning to sell their house and move somewhere on the water. For the moment, he’s nearly always on call, but he’s not missing any more important days with his family.
Kufalk said he “refused to go to work this Thanksgiving,” and used his last remaining vacation day for the year. “I’m not going to be working Christmas either,” he said. “I’ll take a hit on the points. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.”
This weekend, Mona said, Kufalk will take a point deduction so the family can — for the first time — watch their grandkids play in a hockey tournament.
“What are they going to do — fire him?” she said.
A Covid testing booth in Shanghai. The city said recently that it would no longer require residents to show a negative P.C.R. test to ride the subway or buses or to enter outdoor parks. (photo: NYT)
Beijing’s costly policy of lockdowns has pummeled the world’s second-largest economy and set off mass public protests that were a rare challenge to China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
In a remarkable pivot, the Chinese government announced a broad rollback of those rules on Wednesday, an implicit concession to public discontent after mass street protests in late November posed the most widespread challenge to the ruling Communist Party in decades.
The party appears to be attempting a tactical, face-saving retreat that would allow Mr. Xi to change tack without acknowledging that widespread opposition and economic pain forced his hand. China’s state media depicted Wednesday’s move as a planned transition after Mr. Xi’s zero-tolerance approach secured a victory over a virus that has now weakened.
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A video grab from the online Neuralink livestream shows Gertrude the pig, implanted with a Neuralink device, during a presentation in 2020. (photo: Neuralink/AFP/Getty Images)
Brain-implant company accused of causing needless suffering and deaths amid pressure from CEO
Neuralink Corp is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal investigation, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the US Department of Agriculture’s inspector general at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The inquiry, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals.
The investigation has come at a time of growing employee dissent about Neuralink’s animal testing, including complaints that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. Such failed tests have had to be repeated, increasing the number of animals being tested and killed, the employees say. The company documents include previously unreported messages, audio recordings, emails, presentations and reports.
Musk and other Neuralink executives did not respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not determine the full scope of the federal investigation or whether it involved the same alleged problems with animal testing identified by employees in Reuters interviews. A spokesperson for the USDA inspector general declined to comment. US regulations don’t specify how many animals companies can use for research, and they give significant leeway to scientists to determine when and how to use animals in experiments. Neuralink has passed all USDA inspections of its facilities, regulatory filings show.
In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company’s animal-testing operations. The sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed. Neuralink has also conducted research using rats and mice.
The total number of animal deaths does not necessarily indicate that Neuralink is violating regulations or standard research practices. Many companies routinely use animals in experiments to advance human health care, and they face financial pressure to quickly bring products to market. The animals are typically killed when experiments are completed, often so they can be examined post-mortem for research purposes.
But current and former Neuralink employees say the number of animal deaths is higher than it needs to be for reasons related to Musk’s demands to speed research. Through company discussions and documents spanning several years, along with employee interviews, Reuters identified four experiments involving 86 pigs and two monkeys that were marred in recent years by human errors. The mistakes weakened the experiments’ research value and required the tests to be repeated, leading to more animals being killed, three of the current and former staffers said. The three people attributed the mistakes to a lack of preparation by a testing staff working in a pressure-cooker environment.
One employee, in a message seen by Reuters, wrote an angry missive this year to colleagues about the need to overhaul how the company organizes animal surgeries to prevent “hack jobs”. The rushed schedule, the employee wrote, resulted in under-prepared and over-stressed staffers scrambling to meet deadlines and making last-minute changes before surgeries, raising risks to the animals.
Musk has pushed hard to accelerate Neuralink’s progress, which depends heavily on animal testing, current and former employees said. This year, the chief executive sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man to walk again. “We could enable people to use their hands and walk again in daily life!” he wrote to staff at 6.37am Pacific time on 8 February. Ten minutes later, he followed up: “In general, we are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts!”
On several occasions over the years, Musk has told employees to imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads in an effort to get them to move faster, according to three sources who repeatedly heard the comment. On one occasion a few years ago, Musk told employees he would trigger a “market failure” at Neuralink unless they made more progress, a comment perceived by some employees as a threat to shut down operations, according to a former staffer who heard his comment.
Five people who have worked on Neuralink’s animal experiments told Reuters they had raised concerns internally. They said they had advocated for a more traditional testing approach, in which researchers would test one element at a time in an animal study and draw relevant conclusions before moving on to more animal tests. Instead, these people said, Neuralink launches tests in quick succession before fixing issues in earlier tests or drawing complete conclusions. The result: more animals overall are tested and killed, in part because the approach leads to repeated tests.
One former employee who asked management several years ago for more deliberate testing was told by a senior executive it wasn’t possible given Musk’s demands for speed, the employee said. Two people told Reuters they had left the company over concerns about animal research.
The problems with Neuralink’s testing have raised questions internally about the quality of the resulting data, three current or former employees said. Such problems could delay the company’s bid to start human trials, which Musk has said the company wants to do within the next six months. They also add to a growing list of headaches for Musk, who is facing criticism of his management of Twitter, which he recently acquired for $44bn. Musk also continues to run the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.
The US Food and Drug Administration is in charge of reviewing the company’s applications for approval of its medical device and associated trials. The company’s treatment of animals during research, however, is regulated by the USDA under the Animal Welfare Act. The FDA didn’t immediately comment.
Missed deadlines, botched experiments
Musk’s impatience with Neuralink has grown as the company, which launched in 2016, has missed his deadlines on several occasions to win regulatory approval to start clinical trials in humans, according to company documents and interviews with eight current and former employees.
Some Neuralink rivals are having more success. Synchron, which was launched in 2016 and is developing a different implant with less ambitious goals for medical advances, received FDA approval to start human trials in 2021. The company’s device has allowed paralyzed people to text and type by thinking alone. Synchron has also conducted tests on animals, but it has killed only about 80 sheep as part of its research, according to studies of the Synchron implant reviewed by Reuters. Musk approached Synchron about a potential investment, Reuters reported in August.
Synchron declined to comment.
In some ways, Neuralink treats animals quite well compared with other research facilities, employees said in interviews, echoing public statements by Musk and other executives. Company leaders have boasted internally of building a “Monkey Disneyland” in the company’s Austin, Texas, facility where lab animals can roam, a former employee said. In the company’s early years, Musk told employees he wanted the monkeys at his San Francisco Bay Area operation to live in a “monkey Taj Mahal”, said a former employee who heard the comment. Another former employee recalled Musk saying he disliked using animals for research but wanted to make sure they were “the happiest animals” while alive.
The animals have fared less well, however, when used in the company’s research, current and former employees say.
The first complaints about the company’s testing involved its initial partnership with University of California, Davis, to conduct the experiments. In February, an animal rights group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed a complaint with the USDA accusing the Neuralink-UC Davis project of botching surgeries that killed monkeys, and publicly released its findings. The group alleged that surgeons used the wrong surgical glue twice, which led to two monkeys suffering and dying, while other monkeys had different complications from the implants.
The company has acknowledged it killed six monkeys, on the advice of UC Davis veterinary staff, because of health problems caused by experiments. It called the issue with the glue a “complication” from the use of an “FDA-approved product”. In response to a Reuters inquiry, a UC Davis spokesperson shared a previous public statement defending its research with Neuralink and saying it followed all laws and regulations.
A federal prosecutor in the northern district of California referred the animal rights group’s complaint to the USDA inspector general, which has since launched a formal investigation, according to a source with direct knowledge of it. USDA investigators then inquired about the allegations involving the UC Davis monkey research, according to two sources familiar with the matter and emails and messages reviewed by Reuters.
The investigation is concerned with the testing and treatment of animals in Neuralink’s own facilities, one of the sources said, without elaborating. In 2020, Neuralink brought the program in-house, and it has since built its extensive facilities in California and Texas.
A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office for the northern district of California declined to comment.
Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said it was “very unusual” for the USDA inspector general to investigate animal research facilities. Winders, an animal-testing opponent who has criticized Neuralink, said the inspector general has primarily focused in recent years on dogfighting and cockfighting actions when applying the Animal Welfare Act.
Employee concerns
The mistakes leading to unnecessary animal deaths included one instance in 2021 when 25 out of 60 pigs in a study had devices that were the wrong size implanted in their heads, an error that could have been avoided with more preparation, according to a person with knowledge of the situation and company documents and communications reviewed by Reuters.
The mistake raised alarm among Neuralink’s researchers. In May 2021, Viktor Kharazia, a scientist, wrote to colleagues that the mistake could be a “red flag” to FDA reviewers of the study, which the company planned to submit as part of its application to begin human trials. His colleagues agreed, and the experiment was repeated with 36 sheep, according to the person with knowledge of the situation. All the animals, both the pigs and the sheep, were killed after the procedures, the person said.
Kharazia did not comment in response to requests.
On another occasion, staff accidentally implanted Neuralink’s device on the wrong vertebra of two different pigs during two separate surgeries, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter and documents reviewed by Reuters. The incident frustrated several employees who said the mistakes “on two separate occasions” could have easily been avoided by carefully counting the vertebrae before inserting the device.
The company veterinarian Sam Baker advised his colleagues to immediately kill one of the pigs to end her suffering.
“Based on low chance of full recovery … and her current poor psychological wellbeing, it was decided that euthanasia was the only appropriate course of action,” Baker wrote colleagues about one of the pigs a day after the surgery, adding a broken heart emoji.
Baker did not comment on the incident.
Employees have sometimes pushed back on Musk’s demands to move fast. In a company discussion several months ago, some Neuralink employees protested after a manager said that Musk had encouraged them to do a complex surgery on pigs soon. The employees resisted on the grounds that the surgery’s complexity would lengthen the amount of time the pigs would be under anesthesia, risking their health and recovery. They argued they should first figure out how to cut down the time it would take to do the surgery.
“It’s hard on the little piggies,” one of the employees said, referring to the lengthy period under anesthesia.
In September, the company responded to employee concerns about its animal testing by holding a town hall to explain its processes. It soon after opened up the meetings to staff of its federally mandated board that reviews the animal experiments.
Neuralink executives have said publicly that the company tests animals only when it has exhausted other research options, but documents and company messages suggest otherwise. During a 30 November presentation the company broadcast on YouTube, for example, Musk said surgeries were used at a later stage of the process to confirm that the device worked rather than to test early hypotheses. “We’re extremely careful,” he said, to make sure that testing is “confirmatory, not exploratory”, using animal testing as a last resort after trying other methods.
In October, a month before Musk’s comments, Autumn Sorrells, the head of animal care, ordered employees to scrub “exploration” from study titles retroactively and stop using it in the future.
Sorrells did not comment in response to requests.
Neuralink records reviewed by Reuters contained numerous references over several years to exploratory surgeries, and three people with knowledge of the company’s research strongly rejected the assertion that Neuralink avoids exploratory tests on animals. Company discussions reviewed by Reuters showed several employees expressing concerns about Sorrells’ request to change exploratory study descriptions, saying it would be inaccurate and misleading.
One noted that the request seemed designed to provide “better optics” for Neuralink.
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