Chris Hedges's Blog, page 148

Arab Lawmakers in Israel Endorse Gantz for Prime Minister

JERUSALEM — The Arab bloc in Israel’s parliament broke with tradition Sunday and endorsed Blue and White party chairman Benny Gantz for prime minister, giving the former military chief an edge for the job over incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu.

The historic endorsement highlighted the first day of President Reuven Rivlin’s crucial consultations with various party representatives. He’s set to meet with all the parliamentary factions before selecting his candidate for prime minister, after a deadlocked repeat election made forming any new government a daunting task.

Israel’s largely ceremonial president is responsible for picking the politician with the best chance of forming a stable coalition government. While usually a formality, this time Rivlin plays a key role after a repeat election held last week. In that vote, neither of the top candidates appeared to secure the support of a majority of 61 members of the 120-seat parliament.

The Arab-led bloc known as the Joint List emerged from the election as the third largest party with 13 seats.

Maverick politician Avigdor Lieberman, head of the mid-sized Yisrael Beitenu party, remains the key power broker. He hasn’t endorsed either candidate, so with the nod from the Arab parties, Gantz expects to have 57 backers to Netanyahu’s 55.

The president will usually appoint the candidate with the greatest number of supporters, but not necessarily. Given the unprecedented nature of this election and the tricky arithmetic involved, Rivlin has wide discretion at his disposal in making his pick.

In last week’s vote, Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party won 33 seats in the 120-member parliament, while Netanyahu’s conservative Likud took 31 seats. Neither can muster a parliamentary majority with their traditional smaller allies.

The deciding factor looks to be Lieberman and the eight seats his Yisrael Beitenu party captured. He’s demanding a broad unity government with the two major parties that is secular and excludes the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. That appears to be the emerging compromise between Blue and White and Likud, though both are insisting upon leading it.

Complicating matters is Blue and White’s refusal to sit with Netanyahu because he faces a likely indictment on corruption charges.

The first step out of the quagmire is the consultations at the president’s residence, where each of the parties is asked to make its recommendations. Blue and White naturally recommended Gantz, followed by Likud who went with Netanyahu.

The Arab-led parties have never sat in an Israeli government and its current leader, Ayman Odeh, said he is planning to become opposition leader in the likely case of a unity government. But for the first time since 1992, the Arab-led parties played a role in the process by endorsing Gantz over Netanyahu.

“Benny Gantz is not our cup of tea. We have criticism of him from here till tomorrow,” said lawmaker Ahmad Tibi. “But we promised our constituents that we would do everything to topple Netanyahu and the default here is recommending Benny Gantz.”

Though still expected to stay out of Gantz’s future government, the Arab endorsement reflects a growing desire of Israel’s large Arab minority to take a more active role in shaping the country.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Odeh argued that his move should end Netanyahu’s political career and provide a watershed moment for Israel’s Arab minority.

“If the center-left parties of Israel believe that Arab Palestinian citizens have a place in this country, they must accept that we have a place in its politics,” he wrote. “There is no shared future without the full and equal participation of Arab Palestinian citizens.”

In opening his series of meetings, Rivlin didn’t indicate which way he was leaning. But he said he interpreted the will of the people as yearning for a “stable” government.

“I’ve learned over the years that the people are less concerned about who runs the system,” the 80-year-old Rivlin said. “They first of all want the system to create a stable government. And there can’t be a stable government without the two big parties.”

Rivlin’s eventual candidate will have up to six weeks to form a coalition. If that fails, Rivlin could give another candidate for prime minister 28 days to form a coalition. And if that doesn’t work, new elections would be triggered yet again. Rivlin has said he will do everything possible to avoid such a scenario and no one appears interested in a third Israeli election within a year.

Further confounding the process, it’s not clear either of the large parties wants to be tasked first since neither has a clear path to a majority. They may prefer to play the savior with the whole system backed against the wall and facing the prospect of a third election.

Last week’s vote happened because Netanyahu was unable to form a coalition after April’s election without the support of Lieberman, an unpredictable ally-turned-rival who has upended Israeli politics in recent months. The nationalist, yet secular, former defense minister said he was equally uncomfortable with both blocs, and announced that he will not recommend anyone for prime minister.

“We have defined to ourselves one option, the three parties,” he said, referring to his own party along with Blue and White and Likud. “If we can form a government like that I’ll be happy, if not, like people bigger than us say, it’s a big honor to serve the people of Israel in the opposition too.”

Looming over the whole process is Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearing scheduled in two weeks, after which he could face charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three separate corruption cases. Netanyahu had hoped to secure a narrow majority of hard-line and religious parties that support granting him immunity from prosecution. With immunity now off the table, Netanyahu is desperate to remain in office despite the long odds.

Israeli law does not require a sitting premier to resign if indicted. But if he is charged, as is widely expected, he would come under heavy pressure to step down.

The Trump Administration Is Throwing Yet Another Agency Into Chaos

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Early this month, workers at the Washington headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management gathered to discuss a Trump administration plan that would force some 200 people to uproot their lives or find other jobs.

With a vague plan that keeps changing as officials describe it — and no guarantees that Congress would fully fund their relocations — the employees were being detailed to distant locations in the West like Grand Junction, Colorado, and Reno, Nevada. Many career staff saw the move as part of a wider Trump administration effort to drive federal employees out of their jobs. Acting White House chief of staff Mike Mulvaney has described that approach as a “wonderful way to streamline government.”

The hemorrhaging has already begun. After an hour of exasperated questions from employees, Steve Tryon, a deputy assistant director, told the room he had taken an assignment elsewhere in the Interior Department, the BLM’s parent agency. The post, he explained, had a chance of leading to a permanent placement in Washington.

“I hope you can forgive me,” he said to the crowd. “I have two kids in high school. One’s a senior and one’s a sophomore. If I don’t get another job, I’m moving to Grand Junction or Denver without them. And that’s that. That’s my Plan B. Move to Denver without my family.”

“It’s not fun to be without your family,” a colleague replied.

It was just one painful choice of many that will be made in coming months, as anticipated departures hollow out the agency that protects nearly 250 million acres of public lands and stands between oil and gas companies and the natural resources that can enrich them. The top BLM official, acting director William Perry Pendley, has offered contradictory accounts of who will be forced to move and how these changes will affect the agency’s accountability to Congress and the public.

ProPublica reviewed internal memos and an accounting of which Washington jobs are being transferred to existing BLM offices in places like Reno, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the proposed new headquarters in Grand Junction. Employees, who formally learned of the plan two months ago, received assignment letters this week, detailing specific locations in the West, where most BLM properties are located..

Internal documents and recordings of staff meetings obtained by ProPublica, as well as interviews with 10 current BLM employees, show top officials expect the mandatory reassignments to lead to an exodus similar to one at the Department of Agriculture during the summer, when a forced relocation prompted more than 250 researchers in Washington to quit. It was the USDA move that prompted Mulvaney’s comment on streamlining.

“Chaos is probably an understatement,” said Elena Daly, a former assistant director at the bureau, who told ProPublica the BLM shakeup is “absolutely” designed to hobble an important federal function.

“If you’re going to be relocated in Reno and part or all of your job is coordinating with Congress, how do you do that?,” said Daly, who worked at the agency 25 years.

Pendley and other supporters of the relocation effort, including Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, say it’s needed because staffers in Washington aren’t connected to the far-flung lands they oversee. In response to a series of detailed questions, BLM referred ProPublica to Pendley’s testimony, which states that the agency “will ensure that every affected employee receives necessary information before being required to make any decision.” It went on to say that “nearly every western state will realize significant benefits from this reorganization.”

Pendley told a congressional committee last week that key positions, including those providing information to Congress and the public, would remain in Washington. But according to internal records, many of the transplanted positions play important roles in assisting with congressional oversight, civil rights issues and assessing potential environmental impacts when the BLM leases federal land to private businesses.

Between mid-July, when staff received their first briefing about the move after two years of rumors, and September, before anyone received relocation assignments, 11 employees quit their jobs. A document circulated this week among top BLM officials said, “We anticipate additional employees will depart.”

In private, senior officials have said that the so-called “realignment” is charging forward even though a Republican-controlled Congress only approved enough money to cover the initial stage of the move — less than $6 million. The total amount needed to make the transition remains uncertain. Still, in meetings and written communications, leaders have told staff that future funding is all but guaranteed, pressuring employees to swiftly make major life decisions, such as selling homes or uprooting families. In a list of answers compiled in mid-July to address “likely employee questions,” it says, “We anticipate the Congress will provide the FY 2020 funds for us to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the BLM through this relocation.”

Recordings suggest that, should lawmakers oppose additional funding toward the realignment in 2020, there is no backup plan. Still, about 60 of the bureau’s top officials expect to move into Interior’s building, vacating the BLM’s Washington headquarters in late 2020.

The few details being shared with staff or congressional committees are often contradictory, incomplete or unsupported, fueling skepticism from career staff and members of Congress.

“We’re going to be fragmented in different states,” said Michael Byrd, a middle-level contract manager who’s worked at the BLM for nine years. “This whole plan is designed for us to be a failure.”

Byrd, 56, told ProPublica he has no intention of moving to Colorado, where he was told his position is being moved. He’s going to find another job.

Critics of the plan, including 30 former senior BLM staffers who signed a Sept. 5 letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt opposing the move, point out that 97 percent of the bureau’s 10,000 employees are already dispersed throughout the West. The remaining 3 percent, they say, need to be near Congress and other federal branches they work closely with, such as the National Park and Fish and Wildlife services.

BLM employees have been repeatedly told the realignment will save money, but it is unclear how. An internal staff website that provides information about the move at one point asserted “the Department” has conducted a cost-benefit analysis “using the generally accepted form of financial analysis.” It concludes, “The analysis demonstrates the benefits of moving the BLM West exceed the cost.”

But elsewhere on the same page, the website says, “The total cost of the move is unknown at this time.”

Department officials have not made the analysis public, despite staff entreaties, recordings show. ProPublica requested the analysis through the Freedom of Information Act in early September, but the bureau indicated it could take months to release it.

A lack of transparency and contradictory statements about the relocations have generated widespread distrust among BLM staff. Several times, exasperated employees grasped for answers that sympathetic career supervisors could not answer, according to recordings reviewed by ProPublica.

“People may be leaving their jobs, moving to places they don’t want to go, selling their homes for things that might not ultimately result,” said a female employee, who anonymously raised her voice at a recent meeting of 100 people. “And it leaves the agency and us in a really precarious spot, and so I want to know what authority does the department have to put their employees on the spot to make life choices right now when we see on the news that they haven’t gotten clear discreet non-negotiable authorization to move forward?”

Leah Baker, the acting assistant director of resources and planning, struggled to respond. “I share that concern,” she said. “I feel it personally. I think everybody in the room feels it personally.” She added, “It’s also been phrased as what about plan B? What happens if we get blocked somehow? What’s our contingency for that? People are aware of that concern, but I don’t know that there is a plan B.”

While employees sought answers, Pendley privately acknowledged in a Sept. 9 letter to Bernhardt that many staffers will get pay cuts, based on a lower cost of living, and the BLM will “likely have difficulty hiring a similar group of experienced individuals” if employees quit.

In the same letter, Pendley recommended employees be offered a relocation incentive that could cost more than $4 million— lump-sum payments in exchange for a two-year commitment to stay in their jobs. Pendley provided a list of reasons for Bernhardt to approve the request, such as, “Maintains consistent messaging that the Department of the Interior wants to work with employees.” The request was approved three days later, emails show.

Pendley, a lawyer, became acting head of the BLM in late July. Before that, he spent much of his career arguing against the concept of public land. In a 2016 National Review article, he wrote that the “Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.”

Before a House committee last week, Pendley testified that BLM staff who work with Congress and process Freedom of Information Act requests – two critical windows into the bureau’s work – would remain in Washington.

“I want to assure Congress that we will continue to do our core headquarters’ functions, and by that I mean our Congressional affairs, our regulatory affairs, our public affairs, our budget function and our Freedom of Information Act requests,” Pendley said.

“They’re going to be in main Interior,” he said, “a hallway away from the secretary of the Interior, the department secretary and other decision makers, and they’ll be able to be responsive to the requests of Congress.”

But records show that since at least July, the plan has called for scattering many of those positions across three time zones, thousands of miles from Washington.

ProPublica reviewed hundreds of job descriptions included in a roster of which positions will stay and which will go. About seven spots in the bureau’s equal employment opportunity division will be moved to offices in Phoenix, Denver, or Grand Junction, records show. Four legislative affairs specialists are being asked to move to Reno.

Five people who process FOIA requests, and another who processes external data requests, are slated to be moved to various western cities.

At least seven senior positions whose descriptions include “interfaces significantly with Capitol Hill” are being moved to four western locales, records show.

The employee angst has spilled over into meetings, social media posts and email threads. Last week, dozens of employees met with organizers of a federal employee union to discuss fighting back against management.

Several staffers told ProPublica they could not move west because they have children in high schools, own their homes or are caring for ailing relatives.

In a mid-July meeting, one staffer, who did not identify herself, said, “A lot of us have two-family incomes. You’re talking about the cost of living is less out West, but what about a job for your spouse or significant other? Are there jobs available for them as well?”

A senior official responded, “That’s a consideration we’ll have to make through the process.”

No other federal agencies are based in Grand Junction, a town of about 65,00 people more than 250 miles from Denver and Salt Lake City.

Grand Junction is surrounded by federal land, but critics say while it’s technically closer to BLM offices, it will be harder, not easier, to coordinate. For instance, there are currently no direct flights to other BLM offices in California, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Montana.

Employees have until July 1, 2020, to accept, according to a recent implementation plan shared with BLM leadership. Anyone who does not comply by that date, or receive approval to delay relocating for personal reasons, “may be removed from Federal service for failing to accept a directed reassignment.”

Do you have access to information about turmoil at the Bureau of Land Management or the Department of the Interior that should be public? Email mike.spies@propublica.org and david.mcswane@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and documents  to ProPublica securely.

 

Biden Loses His Lead for The First Time in 2020 Primary

For the first time in the 2020 Democratic primary, a major state poll showed Joe Biden losing his lead in Iowa as the Des Moines Register released a survey showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren with more support than the former Vice President.

The Massachusetts senator was supported by 22 percent of likely caucus-goers in the Des Moines Register/CNN survey, which was conducted between September 14th and 18th and released Saturday evening.

Biden had the support of 20 percent of respondents while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was backed by 11 percent.

Warren’s support jumped by seven percentage points since the newspaper last conducted a poll, while Biden’s fell by four percentage points.

NEW Iowa poll: Des Moines Register/CNN

Warren 22% (+7 since June)
Biden 20% (-4)
Sanders 11% (-5)
Buttigieg 9% (-5)
Harris 6% (-1)
Booker 3% (+2)
Klobuchar 3% (+1)
O’Rourke 2% (-)
Gabbard 2% (+1)
Steyer 2% (+2)
Yang 2% (+1)
[everyone else 1% or less]https://t.co/Tz1KE4wFKU

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) September 22, 2019

Twenty percent of respondents also named Warren as their second choice and 29 percent said they were considering voting for her.

“This is the first major shakeup” of the 2020 race, poll-taker J. Ann Selzer told the Register. “It’s the first time we’ve had someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the leaderboard.”

Selzer added that while noteworthy, the poll results also showed that 88 percent of the respondents who named Warren as their first choice also said they could be persuaded to vote for another candidate. More than a quarter of Biden’s supporters said their minds were made up.

The new data was released after Warren drew her largest crowd to date in Iowa, speaking to 2,000 people at the University of Iowa on Thursday night.

Last week the senator also addressed an estimated 20,000 people in Washington Square Park in New York, speaking about her plan to take on corruption in Washington. Late Friday, she drew praise from progressives for repeating her call for House Democrats to support impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Warren also addressed the issue at the Polk County Steak Fry in Iowa, attended by the Democratic candidates, on Saturday, garnering applause.

Today at the @PolkDems Iowa #SteakFry, I said what I’ve been saying since April: It’s time for us to call out Donald Trump’s illegal behavior and start impeachment proceedings—now. pic.twitter.com/4AZQZQuM3X

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 21, 2019

 

Trump Says He Had ‘Perfectly Fine’ Call With Ukraine Leader

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged the new leader of Ukraine this summer to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a person familiar with the matter said. Democrats condemned what they saw as a clear effort to damage a political rival, now at the center of an explosive whistleblower complaint against Trump.

It was the latest revelation in an escalating controversy that has created a showdown between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration, which has refused to turn over the formal complaint by a national security official or even describe its contents.

Trump is defending himself against the intelligence official’s complaint, asserting that it comes from a “partisan whistleblower,” though the president also says he doesn’t know who had made it. The complaint was based on a series of events, one of which was a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to discuss the issue by name and were granted anonymity.

In a tweet Saturday, Trump referred to “a perfectly fine and routine conversation I had” with Ukraine’s leader. “Nothing was said that was in any way wrong.”

According to one of the people, who was briefed on the call, Trump urged Zelenskiy to probe the activities of potential Democratic rival Biden’s son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company. Trump did not raise the issue of U.S. aid to Ukraine, indicating there was not an explicit quid pro quo, according to the person.

In an interview with Ukrainian outlet Hromadske, the foreign minister said his country was not interested in taking sides in U.S. politics, but that Zelenskiy had the right to keep secret the contents of his conversation with Trump.

“I know what the conversation was about and I do not think there was any pressure” from Trump, Vadym Prystaiko was quoted as saying. “There was a conversation, different conversation, leaders have the right to discuss any existing issues. This was a long and friendly conversation that touched on a lot of issues, sometimes requiring serious answers.”

Biden said if the reports are true, “then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” He said Trump should release the telephone transcript “so that the American people can judge for themselves.”

The U.S. government’s intelligence inspector general has described the whistleblower’s Aug. 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent.” Trump insisted “it’s nothing” and “just another political hack job.”

The president said he has conversations with many leaders. “It’s always appropriate. Always appropriate,” Trump said. “At the highest level always appropriate. And anything I do, I fight for this country.”

Trump was asked whether he knew if the whistleblower’s complaint centered on the July 25 call with Zelenskiy. “I really don’t know,” Trump said.

When questioned whether he had brought up Biden in the call, Trump said, “It doesn’t matter what I discussed.” But then Trump urged the media “to look into” Biden’s background with Ukraine.

There has yet to be any evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden or his son regarding Ukraine.

Trump and Zelenskiy plan to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this coming week. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump pressed Zelenskiy about Biden.

The standoff with Congress raises more questions about the extent to which Trump’s appointees are protecting the Republican president from oversight and, specifically, whether his new acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, is working with the Justice Department to shield the president.

Democrats say the administration is legally required to give Congress access to the whistleblower’s complaint. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has said he will go to court in an effort to get it if necessary.

The intelligence inspector general said the matter involves the “most significant” responsibilities of intelligence leadership.

House Democrats also are fighting the administration for access to witnesses and documents in impeachment probes.

In the whistleblower case, lawmakers are looking into whether Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the government to aid Trump’s reelection effort by investigating the activities of Biden’s son.

Democrats have contended that Trump, in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, may have asked for foreign assistance in his upcoming reelection bid.

During an interview Thursday on CNN, Giuliani was asked whether he had asked Ukraine to look into Biden. He initially said, “No, actually I didn’t,” but seconds later he said, “Of course I did.”

As the Muller inquiry wound down, Giuliani spent months trying to drum up media interest in Biden’s time in Ukraine. Giuliani planned to make his own visit over the summer. Though he canceled that trip after consulting with Trump, the pressure on Ukraine was such that Zelenskiy connected a top aide, Andriy Yermak, with Giuliani.

They spoke in July, before the Trump-Zelenskiy call. A short time later, Giuliani met with Yermak in Spain to press again for the investigations and to discuss the status of a prospective Trump-Zelenskiy meeting, which Ukraine sought as a show of support against Russia.

Giuliani said he briefed the State Department on his meeting. The White House did not immediately commit to a summit with Ukraine’s leader. In late August, American military assistance to Ukraine was delayed because, as Vice President Mike Pence later explained after meeting with Zelenskiy, the administration has “great concerns about issues of corruption.”

Schiff said Trump’s attack on the whistleblower was disturbing and raised concerns that it would have a chilling effect on other potential exposers of wrongdoing. He also said it was “deeply disturbing” that the White House appeared to know more about the complaint than its intended recipient — Congress.

Among the materials Democrats have sought is a transcript of the July 25 call. It took place one day after Mueller’s faltering testimony to Congress effectively ended the threat his probe posed to the White House. A readout of the call released from the Ukrainian government said Trump believed Kyiv could complete corruptions investigations that have hampered relations between the two nations but did not get into specifics.

Letters to Congress from the inspector general make clear that Maguire, the national intelligence director, consulted with the Justice Department in deciding not to transmit the complaint to Congress in a further departure from standard procedure. It’s unclear whether the White House was involved, Schiff said.

Maguire has refused to discuss details of the whistleblower complaint, but he has been subpoenaed by Schiff’s committee and is expected to testify publicly next Thursday. Maguire and the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, also are expected next week at the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Atkinson wrote in letters that Schiff released that he and Maguire had hit an “impasse” over the acting director’s decision not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson said he was told by the legal counsel for the intelligence director that the complaint did not actually meet the definition of an “urgent concern.” And he said the Justice Department said it did not fall under the director’s jurisdiction because it did not involve an intelligence professional.

Atkinson said he disagreed with that Justice Department view. The complaint “not only falls under DNI’s jurisdiction,” Atkinson wrote, “but relates to one of the most significant and important of DNI’s responsibilities to the American people.”

___

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Eric Tucker, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, and Matthew Bodner in Moscow contributed to this report.

Youth Leaders at U.N. Demand Radical Action on Climate Change

UNITED NATIONS — Fresh off the climate strike that took hundreds of thousands of young people out of classrooms and into the streets globally, youth leaders gathered at the United Nations on Saturday to demand radical moves to fight climate change.

“We showed that we are united and that we, young people, are unstoppable,” Swedish 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who started the climate strike movement with her lone protest in front of her country’s parliament about a year and a half ago.

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More than 700 mostly young activists attended the first of its kind Youth Climate Summit, according to Luis Alfonso de Alba, the U.N. special climate summit envoy.

Friday’s strike across six continents and Saturday’s youth conference presage a full-on climate conference next week at the U.N. General Assembly, which has placed the issue of climate change at front and center as world leaders gather for the annual meeting.

Activists at Saturday’s gathering demanded money for a fund to help poorer nations adapt to a warming world and provide greener energy. They also insisted that the world should wean itself quickly from coal, oil and gas that cause climate change.

“Stop the criminal contaminant behavior of big corporations,” said Argentine climate activist Bruno Rodriguez. “Enough is enough. We don’t want fossil fuels anymore.”

Jayathma Wickramanayake, the U.N. Secretary-General’s youth envoy, called climate change “the defining issue of our time. Millions of young people all over the world are already being affected by it.”

During Thunberg’s short lifetime, for example, the Earth has already warmed 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.34 degrees Celsiuis).

Fiji climate activist Komal Karishma Kumar said global warming is not just taking a toll on the planet but on her generation, especially people from vulnerable places like her Pacific island nation.

“Young people from different parts of the world are living in constant fear and climate anxiety, fearing the future, the uncertainty of a healthy life or a life for their children at all,” Kumar said.

She added: “I do not want our future generations to submerge with our sinking islands.”

After listening to Thunberg and other youth climate activists, a tie-less Secretary-General Antonio Guterres credited young people with transforming him from a pessimist to an optimist in the fight against global warming.

Guterres said he sees “a change in momentum” going into Monday’s Climate Action Summit taking place ahead of the U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders that starts Tuesday, telling the youths “you have started this movement.”

“I encourage you to keep your initiative. Keep your mobilization and more and more to hold my generation accountable,” Guterres said. “My generation has largely failed until now to preserve both justice in the world and to preserve the planet.”

Kumar told Guterres that “we will hold you accountable and if you do not, remember we will mobilize to vote you out.”

The youth activists brainstormed about what they could do to change the trajectory of an ever-warming planet and how they can help the world adapt to climate’s changes. There was talk of hashtags, entrepreneurial ideas and climate art and poetry.

“Be that hummingbird that puts out the forest fire by fetching water with its small beak as all the other animals, including the elephant, told her it was impossible,” said Kenyan activist Wanjuhi Njroge.

 

U.S. to Send Troops to Saudi Arabia, Hold Off on Striking Iran

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Friday announced it will deploy additional U.S. troops and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as President Donald Trump has at least for now put off any immediate military strike on Iran in response to the attack on the Saudi oil industry.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Pentagon reporters this is a first step to beef up security and he would not rule out additional moves down the road. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more details about the deployment will be determined in the coming days, but it would not involve thousands of U.S. troops.

Other officials said the U.S. deployment would likely be in the hundreds and the defensive equipment heading to the Middle East would probably include Patriot missile batteries and possibly enhanced radars.

The announcement reflected Trump’s comments earlier in the day when he told reporters that showing restraint “shows far more strength” than launching military strikes and he wanted to avoid an all-out war with Iran.

Instead, he laid out new sanctions on the Iranian central bank and said the easiest thing to do would be to launch military strikes.

“I think the strong person’s approach and the thing that does show strength would be showing a little bit of restraint,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. “Much easier to do it the other way, and Iran knows that if they misbehave, they are on borrowed time.”

Dunford told reporters the extra equipment and troops would give the Saudis a better chance of defending against unconventional aerial attacks.

“No single system is going to be able to defend against a threat like that,” he said, “but a layered system of defensive capabilities would mitigate the risk of swarms of drones or other attacks that may come from Iran.”

The U.S. has not provided any hard evidence that Iran was responsible for the attacks, while insisting the investigation continues, but Esper on Friday said the drones and cruise missiles used in the attack were produced by Iran.

“The attack on Sept. 14 against Saudi Arabian oil facilities represents a dramatic escalation of Iranian aggression,” Esper said, adding that the U.S. has thus far shown “great restraint.”

In deciding against an immediate U.S. strike, Trump for the second time in recent months pulled back from a major military action against Iran that many Pentagon and other advisers fear could trigger a new Middle East war. In June, after Iran shot down an American surveillance drone, Trump initially endorsed a retaliatory military strike then abruptly called it off because he said it would have killed dozens of Iranians.

On Friday, he left the door open a bit for a later military response, saying people thought he’d attack Iran “within two seconds,” but he has “plenty of time.”

Trump spoke just before he gathered his national security team at the White House to consider a broad range of military, economic and diplomatic options in response to what administration officials say was an unprecedented Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities.

Iran has denied involvement and warned the U.S. that any attack will spark an “all-out war” with immediate retaliation from Tehran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence have condemned the attack on Saudi oil facilities as “an act of war.”

Esper and Dunford declined to discuss any potential ship movements to the region, although a number of U.S. Navy vessels are nearby.

The additional air and missile defense equipment for Saudi Arabia would be designed to bolster its defenses in the north, since most of its defenses have focused on threats from Houthis in Yemen to the south.

A forensic team from U.S. Central Command is pouring over evidence from cruise missile and drone debris, but the Pentagon said the assessment is not finished. Officials are trying to determine if they can get navigational information from the debris that could provide hard evidence that the strikes came from Iran.

Country, Smoothed Over

A very good friend of mine, now deceased, interviewed Buck Owens back in the 1990s as the Buckaroo promoted his box set. My friend pitched Owens his favorite softball: “Hank or Lefty?” Owens, without blinking, shot back: “Merle.” In Ken Burns’ new 16-hour PBS documentary, “Country Music,” Merle Haggard muses fondly about the early 1950s, when every jukebox posed that weighty question to all honky-tonkers: Hank or Lefty, savior or sinner, martyr or scoundrel? The music’s gentle surface barely concealed its emotional sting.

Hank, Lefty … or Merle? It’s the kind of messy argument you won’t see or hear in this ambitious yet unremarkable PBS history, nor from the 560-page book tie-in Burns co-authors with Dayton Duncan. The clever way Owens lands on “Merle” won’t make any more sense after you read this book.

Click here to read long excerpts from “Country Music” at Google Books.

Burns’ film, like his others, has a masterful storytelling style that has made him a pillar of what we once called “public” television (if not its chief underwriter). The photographs, rare television footage and oral testimony gathered here will serve scholars and musicians for decades as a source of quotes: according to Rosanne Cash, Bob Dylan describes his first hearing of Johnny Cash as “Like a voice coming up through the center of the earth.” Willie Nelson sold vacuum cleaners before Faron Young cut his “Hello Walls,” and says, “I hawked my guitar so many times, the pawnbroker played it better than I did.” The sturdy timeline gets limned by the Carter family, Johnny and daughter Rosanne Cash, Brenda Lee, Merle Haggard (before his death in 2016), Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton. Burns pays particular attention to fierce female voices, like Wanda Jackson and Brenda Lee, pushing back hard against the style’s perceived misogyny.

On the other hand, Burns and Duncan portray country music with such naive affection that you might never recognize it as expressing crucial American tensions between its prewar roots and the postwar sprawl, changing rural and urban worldviews, or the chasm between Southern and Northern myths. The cliches and platitudes that nearly wash out the music in this “respectable” frame belie the barbed yank of feeling these records capture. Hank Williams’ worried grin frames a hardscrabble dignity on his 1949 single, “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” but Burns and Duncan leave such matters alone.

The handsome Knopf edition has all the inoffensive largesse of a prestige gift item. The pictures alone tell a deeper story than Duncan and Burns’ narrative, which leans hard on cliches and rarely rises above the encyclopedic. A mug shot of 19-year old Merle Haggard (A 45200) shows a wise man’s eyes burrowed inside the shock of a teenager’s face; Mel Tillis performs in front of a hundred shoe boxes piled up behind his eager band in a retail store; Ernest Tubb consoles Hank Williams’ mother Lilly at her son’s funeral on Jan. 4, 1953. So why do these authors feel compelled to add that this funeral saw the largest crowd gathered in Montgomery, Alabama, since the day Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy in 1861?

Like the Confederacy, the South prefers its musical history in platitudes (“Three chords and the truth”), much the same way it flies Confederate flags and defends Confederate statues into the 21st century without irony or remorse. That’s the same bland agenda that has made the dominant “white culture” such a tiresome trope in any history of America. And PBS has timed this launch as a punchline to Lil Nas X’s summer smart bomb, “Old Town Road,” which exploded country radio’s racism, then homophobia.

All the way through we get reminded, over and over, “Songs that tell stories, that’s country music …” as if no other musical style roots itself in story, or relies on narrative. Yes, story is crucial to Country, but that’s barely what makes it distinctive. (Did any editors on this project stop to think that Motown relies on story? Otis Redding? Aretha Franklin?) And that tiresome, meaningless phrase, “Three chords and the truth,” which Burns and Duncan ascribe to songwriter Harlan Howard… Holy Banality, Batman, didn’t Bono stamp that “Property of Rock Stars” back at some ’90s Rock Hall induction?

Burns and Duncan take pains to acknowledge the people of color who influenced major country figures, like Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne for Hank Williams, and Arnold Shultz for Johnny Cash. And in the early sequences of the film, Rhiannon Giddens explains how black sounds and experience couldn’t help but ferment white creativity. Burns carefully circles back to Wynton Marsalis to set up the Ray Charles 1962 lodestar, “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.” “We tend to think of it one way,” Marsalis argues. “White musicians listened to black musicians [on the radio]. Black musicians listened to white musicians too!” Burns frames this as an essential insight.

But Burns has already shown us that by 1962, when Charles recorded his Country sides, the entire American experience had been adjusting to how democratic (if still segregated) radio had become in comparison to the way people lived and moved through their everyday lives. The fantasy of integration filled the airwaves but not lived experience. When white audiences turned out for black performers, they still dined in separate restaurants and slept in different hotel rooms. In the Trump era, this kind of smoothing over the country’s racist wrinkles rings perversely tone-deaf. Does it ever occur to Burns or Duncan that Ray Charles may have appreciated a Country singer recording some of his material? Or have the Grand Ole Opry return the favor by inviting him to perform at the Ryman? When Richard Nixon attended the Opry as Watergate consumed his presidency in the summer of 1974, few mistook it as anything but a sap to his base, the Silent (White Southern) Majority that had reelected him in a landslide. Burns and Duncan say simply, “Nixon was happy to find a friendly audience.”

These careful omissions slip through all the rave reviews thrown at this material. Every time Burns and Duncan reference a person of color, it’s with the utmost respect. But Country music’s parade of celebrities has a White Only supertext. No protagonists carry any racial tint, and Charley Pride’s emergence in the mid-’60s as the style’s only person of color defines tokenism. According to Pride, his manager warned him that a star like Faron Young might “walk up to you and say, ‘You’re that N-word that’s trying to sing music.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go find him. We might as well get it over with right now.'” Pride befriended Young, an outspoken racist, as a way of ingratiating himself with Nashville’s elite. But even so, Pride’s early records withheld photos to conceal his skin color. Burns recounts this story as if it proves beyond a doubt that Country somehow snuffed out racism.

Or take the way Burns and Duncan recount how the more “respectable” styles, pop and jazz, heard Country. They highlight Tin Pan Alley crooner Tony Bennett’s huge hit in 1951 with Williams’ “Cold Cold Heart” without pointing out that it’s the only Williams song he ever touched, or that few other crooners went near the stuff, or how it signaled that the establishment pop songwriters were running out of yarn. In Burns and Duncan’s telling, Bennett lays on the hands of “respectable” (i.e., literate, European) tradition onto the sweet hillbilly hicks who accidentally stumbled into poetry; white trash gets “legitimized” by mainstream popsters. This ignores how much Bennett learned from Williams’ own interpretation of the song, and how he pushes the song away from Country (and how much the over-orchestrated record wilts). Does anybody in their right mind prefer Bennett’s high camp to Williams’ chafed lament?

Burns and Duncan don’t acknowledge this larger conflict between European (written) culture and American (oral folk) culture; it slips by without comment, making folk’s eventual dominance (alongside rock, soul, and rap) seem like a triumph without struggle.

This all fits with the Burns brand, a puppies and rainbows vision of America; he avoids tension even on volatile topics. His last piece, “The Vietnam War” (2017), featured contemporary testimony from communist military leaders and sympathizers. Contrasted with the many American veterans and reporters, it made for compelling footage.

That film presented only a single apology: from Nancy Biberman, a Columbia University student activist, who broke down in her regret at disrespecting a veteran. It’s an impassioned plea for acceptance and tolerance. But what kind of historian recounts the Vietnam epic only to land on a peacenik’s apology? All those old white, male Pentagon officials huff and puff and make their explanations for civilian massacres and chemical warfare and illegal secret bombing, but the apologies should come from the left—that’s what counts for balance in Burns’ sensibility. Historian Max Hastings handles it better in his masterful new history of the communists versus colonial powers, “Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975”: “The war was such as neither side deserved to win.”

In those annoying Bank of America Twitter ads, Burns stars as the hero of his own documentary. He plays The Healer, the one who gathers up America’s stories, presenting the country to itself in its best light. When it comes to Country, he tries to make it all glow like Morning in America.

Tim Riley’s latest book is “What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, And Their Time.”  He oversees the riley rock index, music’s metaportal, on the web. 

 

Trump Urged Ukraine to Investigate Biden’s Son

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump urged the new leader of Ukraine this summer to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Democrats condemned what they saw as a clear effort to damage a political rival, now at the heart of an explosive whistleblower complaint against Trump.

It was the latest revelation in an escalating controversy that has created a showdown between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration, which has refused to turn over the formal complaint by a national security official or even describe its contents.

Trump defended himself Friday against the intelligence official’s complaint, angrily declaring it came from a “partisan whistleblower,” though he also said he didn’t know who had made it. The complaint was based on a series of events, one of which was a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to a two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to discuss the issue by name and were granted anonymity.

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Trump, in that call, urged Zelenskiy to probe the activities of potential Democratic rival Biden’s son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company, according to one of the people, who was briefed on the call. Trump did not raise the issue of U.S. aid to Ukraine, indicating there was not an explicit quid pro quo, according to the person.

Biden reacted strongly late Friday, saying that if the reports are true, “then there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” He said Trump should release the transcript of his July phone conversation with Zelenskiy “so that the American people can judge for themselves.”

The government’s intelligence inspector general has described the whistleblower’s Aug. 12 complaint as “serious” and “urgent.” But Trump dismissed it all on Friday, insisting “it’s nothing.” He scolded reporters for asking about it and said it was “just another political hack job.”

“I have conversations with many leaders. It’s always appropriate. Always appropriate,” Trump said. “At the highest level always appropriate. And anything I do, I fight for this country.”

Trump, who took questions in the Oval Office alongside Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison whom he was hosting for a state visit, was asked if he knew if the whistleblower’s complaint centered on his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy. The president responded, “I really don’t know,” but he continued to insist any phone call he made with a head of state was “perfectly fine and respectful.”

Trump was asked Friday if he brought up Biden in the call with Zelenskiy, and he answered, “It doesn’t matter what I discussed.” But then he used the moment to urge the media “to look into” Biden’s background with Ukraine.

Trump and Zelenskiy are to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations next week. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump pressed Zelenskiy about Biden.

The standoff with Congress raises fresh questions about the extent to which Trump’s appointees are protecting the Republican president from oversight and, specifically, whether his new acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, is working with the Justice Department to shield the president.

Democrats say the administration is legally required to give Congress access to the whistleblower’s complaint, and Rep. Adam Schiff of California has said he will go to court in an effort to get it if necessary.

The intelligence community’s inspector general said the matter involves the “most significant” responsibilities of intelligence leadership.

House Democrats also are fighting the administration for access to witnesses and documents in impeachment probes.

In the whistleblower case, lawmakers are looking into whether Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the government to aid the president’s reelection effort by investigating the activities of Biden’s son.

During a rambling interview Thursday on CNN, Giuliani was asked whether he had asked Ukraine to look into Biden. He initially said, “No, actually I didn’t,” but seconds later he said, “Of course I did.”

Giuliani has spent months trying to drum up potentially damaging evidence about Biden’s ties to Ukraine. He told CNN that Trump was unaware of his actions.

“I did what I did on my own,” he said. “I told him about it afterward.

Still later, Giuliani tweeted, “A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job.” Democrats have contended that Trump, in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, may have asked for foreign assistance in his upcoming reelection bid.

Trump further stoked those concerns earlier this year in an interview when he suggested he would be open to receiving foreign help.

The inspector general appeared before the House intelligence committee behind closed doors Thursday but declined, under administration orders, to reveal to members the substance of the complaint.

Schiff, a California Democrat, said Trump’s attack on the whistleblower was disturbing and raised concerns that it would have a chilling effect on other potential exposers of wrongdoing. He also said it was “deeply disturbing” that the White House appeared to know more about the complaint than its intended recipient — Congress.

The information “deserves a thorough investigation,” Schiff said. “Come hell or high water, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Among the materials Democrats have sought is a transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy. The call took place one day after Mueller’s faltering testimony to Congress effectively ended the threat his probe posed to the White House. A readout of the call released from the Ukrainian government said Trump believed Kyiv could complete corruptions investigations that have hampered relations between the two nations but did not get into specifics.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who in May called for a probe of Giuliani’s effort in Ukraine, said in an interview on Friday it’s “outrageous” the president has been sending his political operative to talk to Ukraine’s new president. Murphy tweeted that during his own visit it was clear to him that Ukraine officials were “worried about the consequences of ignoring Giuliani’s demands.”

The senator tweeted that he told Zelenskiy during their August visit it was “best to ignore requests from Trump’s campaign operatives. He agreed.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump faces “serious repercussions” if reports about the complaint are accurate. She said it raises “grave, urgent concerns for our national security.”

Letters to Congress from the inspector general make clear that Maguire consulted with the Justice Department in deciding not to transmit the complaint to Congress in a further departure from standard procedure. It’s unclear whether the White House was also involved, Schiff said.

Maguire has refused to discuss details of the whistleblower complaint, but he has been subpoenaed by the House panel and is expected to testify publicly next Thursday. Maguire and the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, also are expected next week at the Senate intelligence committee.

Atkinson wrote in letters that Schiff released that he and Maguire had hit an “impasse” over the acting director’s decision not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson said he was told by the legal counsel for the intelligence director that the complaint did not actually meet the definition of an “urgent concern.” And he said the Justice Department said it did not fall under the director’s jurisdiction because it did not involve an intelligence professional.

Atkinson said he disagreed with that Justice Department view. The complaint “not only falls under DNI’s jurisdiction,” Atkinson wrote, “but relates to one of the most significant and important of DNI’s responsibilities to the American people.”

___

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Eric Tucker, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Corporate America’s Latest Bill of Goods

One of the major themes in U.S. politics over the past decade or so has been the enormous influence that corporate America has over our political and economic life. Since the financial crisis erupted 10 years ago, populism has taken hold of the public imagination, and popular anger seems to have reached new heights as inequality has risen and corporations have grown more powerful.

The 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders succeeded in translating this anger into a political movement, and although the Vermont senator didn’t win the nomination, he drove the conversation and appeared to push the Democratic Party to the left. This has been evident since the 2020 primaries began earlier this year, with candidates adopting many of the policies and talking points that Sanders ran on in 2016. Railing against big business seems to have become a rite of passage for many Democratic candidates, especially if they want to appeal to younger voters, who, more than any other generation, distrust corporate America. According to a recent poll from Pew Research Center, just 34 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 have confidence in “business leaders,” who are tied with “elected officials” as the group least trusted by this age group. Not surprisingly, the most popular candidate with millennials continues to be Sanders.

Recognizing the popular resentment that has been brewing over the past several years, especially among younger Americans, big-business leaders have been trying to step up their PR game in order to quell anti-corporate sentiments. This has been obvious in the efforts by many corporations to project a righteous and caring image to the public by getting behind certain liberal causes, such as gun control or criminal justice reform, a phenomenon that conservatives have derisively labeled “woke capitalism.” It has gone further than social and cultural issues, however.

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Last month, Business Roundtable issued a widely publicized statement on “the purpose of a corporation,” and appeared to change its tune about the role of corporations in our society. Since 1997, the coalition of CEOs from the largest companies in America has espoused the Friedmanian line that corporations exist solely to “make as much money for their stockholders as possible,” without regard for employees, consumers, the community or any other “stakeholders.” Apparently, the leaders of corporate America have had a change of heart.

“It has become clear that this language on corporate purpose does not accurately describe the ways in which we and our fellow CEOs endeavor every day to create value for all our stakeholders, whose long-term interests are inseparable,” read the statement, which was drafted by the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Alex Gorsky, whose company was ordered around the same time last month by an Oklahoma judge to pay $573 million for its role in fueling the opioid crisis. The statement goes on to say that corporations will invest more in employees by “compensating them fairly and providing important benefits,” supporting “the communities in which we work,” and delivering value to all stakeholders “for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”

This statement reveals less about the true feelings of America’s most powerful CEOs than it does about today’s zeitgeist and the desperate attempt by corporate leaders to convince the public that they’ve changed their ways. Not long after the statement was published, the former president of the pro-business group, John Engler, said that it was directed at millennials, who have increasingly come to prefer socialism over capitalism. Business leaders have “to tell the story differently,” Engler said. In other words, business leaders have to step up their propaganda game.

This sudden embrace of “stakeholder capitalism” by the leaders of corporate America didn’t impress such progressive candidates as Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who one year earlier introduced a bill that would force major corporations to obtain a new federal charter that would require at least 40 percent of their boards of directors to be selected by the company’s employees. “I don’t believe what they’re saying for a moment,” Sanders told The New York Times, while Warren noted that it was “a welcome change,” but meaningless “without real action.”

One can discern a great deal about someone’s politics based on how much trust he or she puts in corporate America to do the right thing, and both Sanders and Warren have shown that they have very little faith in corporations to voluntarily put people before profit. The current Democratic front-runner, Joe Biden, on the other hand, has displayed a persistent faith in corporate leaders and billionaires to do what’s right for their country. “Guys, the wealthy are as patriotic as the poor,” the former vice president said in 2017. “I know Bernie doesn’t like me saying that, but they are.” In June, Biden repeated this mantra at a fundraiser on Wall Street, saying that Democrats shouldn’t “demonize anybody who’s made money,” and that “nobody has to be punished.” “Nothing would fundamentally change,” the front-runner insisted to Wall Street’s finest.

With calls for radical change to our economy gaining momentum in the Democratic Party, corporate America seems eager to convince the public that it can change its behavior on its own—purely out of the goodness of its heart. Nothing has to fundamentally change, because it can change itself. The attempt by big business to co-opt certain liberal causes and form alliances with activist movements is a good example of what political theorist Nancy Fraser has called “progressive neoliberalism,” describing a political alliance between corporate interests and emancipatory social movements, with the former using “the charisma” of their progressive allies to spread a “veneer of emancipation” over what is ultimately a regressive economic agenda. The progressive neoliberal aim, Fraser observes, is “not to abolish social hierarchy but to ‘diversify’ it.” This attitude is ultimately rooted in the myth of meritocracy that Democrats like Biden have long embraced.

The idea that we can trust corporations to suddenly stop putting profit over people is equivalent to the belief that Republicans will suddenly start working in earnest with Democrats, which is something that Biden also believes (even after eight years of serving as Barack Obama’s VP). Biden seems to have more faith in Republicans and benevolent billionaires than he does in his own party’s progressive base.

When we look at his history, Biden’s attitude toward corporate America isn’t surprising. As Paul Blumenthal recently pointed out in HuffPost, Biden spent his entire career as a senator “defending the uniquely pro-corporate laws of his home state, Delaware — laws that protect America’s biggest companies from taxes, lawsuits and accountability; fuel economic inequality; and prioritize the interests of shareholders over those of consumers, debtors and workers.” Delaware has less than one-third of 1% of America’s population, yet more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in the state because of its business-friendly governance laws. Business registration fees make up more than a quarter of the state’s income, and Biden never failed to defend his state’s corporate laws as a senator.

Warren’s aforementioned bill, the Accountable Capitalism Act, would mandate corporations with over $1 billion in annual revenue (meaning all Fortune 500 companies) to seek a federal charter from a newly formed Office of United States Corporations at the Department of Commerce, upending Delaware’s corporate charter monopoly and introducing a “codetermination” system of corporate governance in America. Biden, one can safely assume, would prefer to take corporate America’s word that it has reformed.

Over the past 40 years, capitalists have waged a class war on working people, and both major parties have been willing participants. Today, people are starting to fight back, and the popular energy is on their side. The specter of socialism is haunting the dreams of corporate executives, right-wing Republicans and neoliberal Democrats alike, and the effort to sell a new and improved image of capitalism to the public is underway. But “caring capitalism” is a contradiction in terms, and any candidate who believes that we can avoid major structural changes—and that corporations will voluntarily put workers, the community, their country or even the planet before profit—cannot be trusted by progressives.

The GOP Has a Secret Plan to Preserve Its Grip on Power

In 2020, we need to pay attention to state elections as well as elections for president and Congress. State elections could decide whether the Republican Party further corrupts American democracy.

As demographics change — and America becomes more diverse and more liberal — the GOP has responded by implementing policies that will take away power from the American people. Rather than changing with the times, they’ve got another plan: minority rule – by them.

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Beware. The 2020 elections offer a chance for Republicans to tilt political power in their direction for the next decade. In most states, the party that wins control of the legislature effectively gains the power to draw once-a-decade maps setting district boundaries for state and congressional elections after a new census count. And the next census count will be in 2020.

The Supreme Court recently ruled it has no power to intervene when states use partisan gerrymandering to draw these maps, saying it is an issue for state legislatures and state courts.

So you can bet that on Election Day 2020 Republicans will try to further entrench their gains from the last census in 2010, when they swept into power in 20 state capitols and redrew political maps that secured a decade of political dominance.

Despite the fact that Republicans continually receive fewer raw votes in national elections, they could regain control of the House through such gerrymandering.

And even though racial gerrymandering – drawing district lines on the basis of race – is unconstitutional, the Court’s new ruling could give Republicans an opening to use race and pass it off as partisan gerrymandering.

State governments can act now to prevent this power grab by taking redistricting out of the hands of legislatures, and starting independent commissions, as in Washington State and California.

Another way Republicans will seek to establish anti-democratic power if they win state houses in 2020 will be to suppress the votes of people of color through unjust voter ID laws and other attacks. These tactics, such as reducing the number of polling places in Democratic districts, tighter restrictions on early voting, or purging voter rolls, make it harder for people of color – who tend to vote Democratic – to cast their ballots.

We’ve seen this play before. After gaining full control of key state legislatures and governorships, Republicans in states such as North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin passed restrictive voter ID laws that disproportionately targeted minorities. These voter ID laws not only make voting harder for those who show up, they also discourage voters from even turning out in the first place.

So show up and vote in your state elections. Your votes could decide whether a shrinking Republican Party gives fewer and fewer people more power over the rest of us.