Chris Hedges's Blog, page 168

U.K. Takes a Giant Step Toward No-Deal Brexit

LONDON — The Latest on Brexit (all times local):

3:30 p.m.

Ireland’s foreign minister says it’s too late to renegotiate Britain’s departure deal from the European Union.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney on Wednesday reiterated Ireland’s opposition to the EU renegotiating the Brexit agreement approved by former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

Coveney said there wouldn’t be enough time before Britain’s Oct. 31 departure deadline “even if we wanted to” reopen the negotiations. He estimated working out a new deal and getting it approved by EU leaders and British lawmakers “would need six or eight weeks.”

However, Coveney says Ireland is ready to study alternatives to a post-Brexit “backstop” aimed at avoiding a new border between the EU’s Ireland and U.K.’s Northern Ireland.

He noted the importance of keeping the peace on an “island that has a tragic and violent history.”

The U.K.’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, opposes the backstop provisions in his predecessor’s deal, which failed to gain parliamentary approval.

Coveney said any alternative Irish border arrangements “have got to do the same job as the backstop.”

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3:10 p.m.

U.S. President Donald Trump says it will be hard for the leader of Britain’s main opposition party to seek a no-confidence vote on Prime Minister Boris Johnson over Brexit.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and other opponents of Johnson’s Conservative Party government were scrambling Wednesday after the prime minister moved to suspend Parliament for about a month.

Queen Elizabeth II granted Johnson’s request to do just that, shortening the time the opposition has to keep him from taking the U.K. out of the European Union on Oct. 31 even if it doesn’t have a withdrawal agreement with the EU.

Johnson is a strong Brexit supporter.

Trump tweeted Wednesday “it would be very hard” for Corbyn to get a no-confidence vote “especially in light of the fact that Boris is exactly what the U.K. has been looking for, & will prove to be ‘a great one!’ Love U.K.”

The two leaders met in recent days at the Group of Seven summit in France.

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3:00 p.m.

Queen Elizabeth II has approved the U.K. government’s request to suspend Parliament amid a growing crisis over Brexit.

The move was not unexpected, as the monarch has steadfastly refused to get involved in politics throughout her long reign.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to the queen on Wednesday to request an end to the current Parliament session in September.

Opposition lawmakers contend that he wants to limit the ability of lawmakers to come up with legislation to block a no-deal Brexit.

The queen is the head of state and is politically neutral. She acts on the advice of her government in political matters.

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2:30 p.m.

The leader of Britain’s main opposition party has written Queen Elizabeth II to challenge Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s attempt to suspend Parliament and give lawmakers less time to stop a no-deal Brexit.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a letter to the monarch on Wednesday that he “protested in the strongest possible terms on behalf of my party and I believe all the other opposition parties are going to join in with this.”

Earlier in the day, Johnson asked Elizabeth for an end to the current Parliament session in the second sitting week in September. A new session would begin in mid-October and Brexit is scheduled to happen on Oct. 31.

Lawmakers criticized Johnson’s move. Labour lawmaker Ben Bradshaw says it would “drag the monarch into an unprecedented constitutional crisis”.

The queen is Britain’s head of state but required to remain politically neutral. She acts on the advice of her government in political matters.

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1:20 p.m.

The German government isn’t commenting on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to suspend Parliament, depriving opponents of time to thwart a no-deal Brexit.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin Wednesday that “this is a parliamentary procedure in Britain that is being discussed vigorously there, and won’t be commented on by the government spokesman in Germany.”

Johnson met Merkel in Berlin last week, and also has traveled to Paris and to the Group of Seven summit in Biarritz as he tries to extract concessions from the European Union on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal agreement — concessions that the EU appears unlikely to offer. He has insisted that Britain will leave the bloc on Oct. 31, with or without a deal.

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1:05 p.m.

The European Parliament’s chief Brexit official says the motto of Boris Johnson’s Brexiteers — Taking back control — “has never looked so sinister” as it does now that he plans to suspend Parliament.

“As a fellow parliamentarian, my solidarity with those fighting for their voices to be heard,” said Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt.

“Suppressing debate on profound choices is unlikely to help deliver a stable future EU-UK relationship,” he said in a Twitter message.

If the U.K. is to leave with an agreement, the European Parliament needs to approve it.

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1 p.m.

A group of Church of England bishops has released an open letter about their worries about the impact of a “no-deal” Brexit on the poor and other vulnerable people.

The 25 bishops said in their letter that they “have particular concerns about the potential cost of a No Deal Brexit to those least resilient to economic shocks.”

They also said that it was “unlikely” that leaving the European Union without a deal “will lead to reconciliation or peace in a fractured country.”

The letter was released the same day that Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to suspend Parliament until Oct. 14, squeezing the time for the opposition to thwart a no-deal Brexit. Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31.

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12:20 p.m.

The leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party has welcomed the British government’s move to suspend Parliament as the Brexit deadline looms ever closer.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that his government intends to temporarily shut down Parliament until Oct. 14, squeezing the time for the opposition to thwart a no-deal Brexit. Britain is due to leave the European Union on Oct. 31.

DUP leader Arlene Foster said in statement that “we welcome the decision to hold a Queen’s Speech marking the start of a new session of Parliament on 14 October where the government will set out its new domestic legislative agenda.”

She added that “we will continue our work with the prime minister to strengthen the Union, deliver a sensible deal as we exit the EU and restore devolution in Northern Ireland.”

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11:55 a.m.

The European Union is staying well away from the uproar caused by the decision of the U.K. government to suspend Parliament.

EU Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Wednesday that the bloc “is not commenting on internal political procedures of our member states. And we’re also not going to speculate what this means in terms of next steps.”

The EU and U.K. are seeking to break a deadlock in the negotiations that could force Britain to leave the bloc without a deal on Oct 31.

U.K. negotiator David Frost is in Brussels for technical talks with diplomats in an attempt to find some progress.

Andreeva said that the EU will assess any proposal the UK offers “that are compatible with” the withdrawal agreement it reached with former prime minister Theresa May.

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11:45 a.m.

Anti-Brexit campaigners who want a second referendum have accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of “trashing the constitution” after the government moved to suspend Parliament.

Johnson wants to temporarily shut down Parliament until mid-October, squeezing the time for the opposition to thwart a no-deal Brexit.

Lawmaker Margaret Beckett, a leading supporter of the “people’s vote” campaign, said that “Boris Johnson and his government are trashing the constitution … While Parliament is not even sitting, he is disgracefully dragging the queen into the heart of the most difficult and dangerous exploitation of the usual powers of Government.”

Independent legislator Nick Boles, who left the Conservative Party earlier this year, tweeted: “The government’s plan to prorogue Parliament until 14 Oct clarifies the choice for MPs who want to stop a No Deal Brexit. If they don’t support legislative steps next week, there will be no second chance. Hopefully this will stiffen backbones and concentrate minds.”

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11:30 a.m.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage says the British government’s move to suspend Parliament makes a no-confidence motion “now certain.”

Farage tweeted after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to ask Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament.

Farage said that “a general election is more likely and is seen as a positive move by Brexiteers.”

But he says the big question is whether Johnson intends to pursue the withdrawal agreement with the European Union.

Farage said “If he does, then The Brexit Party will fight him every inch of the way. But if he now wants a clean break Brexit then we would like to help him secure a large majority in a general election.”

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11:15 a.m.

U.K. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has responded with outrage to moves by the government to suspend Parliament, saying that it “represents a constitutional outrage.”

Bercow says he was not told in advance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision. He says “it is blindingly obvious” that the purpose of the suspension “would be to stop Parliament debating Brexit and performing its duty in shaping a course for the country.”

Bercow says that Johnson should be seeking to establish his democratic credentials, rather than undermine them.

He adds that “shutting down Parliament would be an offense against the democratic process and the rights of Parliamentarians as the people’s elected representatives.”

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11 a.m.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has written to lawmakers explaining his decision to ask Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament.

In a letter released Wednesday, Johnson says that he “spoke to Her Majesty The Queen to request an end to the current parliamentary session.”

The move will squeeze lawmakers who want to bring forward new legislation to block a no-deal Brexit ahead of the Oct. 31 departure.

He says a central feature of the legislative program will be the introduction of a bill to leave the European Union and “to secure its passage before 31 October.”

Johnson concludes that: “As always my door is open to all colleagues should you wish to discuss this or any other matter.

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10:40 a.m.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will temporarily shut down Parliament in mid-October, squeezing the time for the opposition to thwart a no-deal Brexit.

In comments on Wednesday, Johnson confirmed earlier reports that he would hold the Queen’s Speech — normally a formality that outlines the legislative agenda — on Oct. 14. Since Parliament is normally suspended before the speech, the decision means opposition lawmakers would be unlikely to have enough time to pass laws blocking the U.K.’s exit from the European Union on Oct. 31 without a negotiated deal.

Lawmakers are reacting with fury.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson says Johnson is embarking on a “dangerous and unacceptable course of action”.

She said: “Shutting down Parliament would be an act of cowardice from Boris Johnson.

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10:15 a.m.

The British currency has fallen sharply on reports that the government wants to suspend Parliament to quash lawmakers’ efforts to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

The pound fell to $1.2187 on Wednesday from about $1.2300 the day before, a sign that investors are more alarmed by the prospect of Britain falling out of the European Union on Oct. 31 without a divorce deal.

A so-called no-deal Brexit would see the return of border checks and tariffs on trade between Britain and the rest of the EU, its greatest trading partner.

The BBC reported that Johnson will use the Queen’s Speech — normally a formality that outlines the legislative agenda — to suspend Parliament. The decision to hold the speech on Oct. 14 will be made later today.

The timing means that lawmakers would be unlikely to have enough time to pass laws blocking the U.K.’s exit from the European Union without a negotiated deal.

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10 a.m.

British opposition lawmakers are reacting with fury to reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will seek a suspension of Parliament to hamper efforts to quash a no-deal Brexit.

The BBC reported that Johnson will use the Queen’s Speech — normally a formality that outlines the legislative agenda — to suspend Parliament. The decision to hold the speech on Oct. 14 will be made later today.

The timing means that lawmakers would be unlikely to have enough time to pass laws blocking the U.K.’s exit from the European Union without a negotiated deal.

Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “So it seems that Boris Johnson may actually be about to shut down Parliament to force through a no deal Brexit. Unless MPs come together to stop him next week, today will go down in history as a dark one indeed for UK democracy.”

YouTube Finally Takes a Stand on Racist Creators

Multiple prominent white nationalist YouTube personalities lost their channels, Right Wing Watch reported Tuesday. As writer Jared Holt explains, “The move came as a shock to the white nationalist community, and now racist content creators are panicking.”

YouTube, like its fellow content sharing sites Facebook and Twitter, has struggled for years with whether, or how, to remove users’ racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and other hate-filled content. In 2017, the site updated its hate speech policies to ensure that advertiser content would not appear alongside videos that, as the YouTube blog explained, contain “gratuitously disrespectful language that shames or insults an individual or group.” It thus eliminated a revenue source for those content creators.

In 2019, YouTube once again revised its policies, “prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.”

James Allsup, whom Holt calls “once one of the loudest voices peddling white supremacy on YouTube,” was among those whose channels were banned. The Eyes on The Right twitter account, which monitors white nationalists, also reported that YouTube channels for VDare, American Identity Movement and The Right Stuff were just a few of the other channels removed.

Those channels were singled out by the Anti-Defamation League earlier this month for being particularly egregious spreaders of hate on YouTube. In a comment to Right Wing Watch, an ADL spokesperson said, “As ADL documented, following YouTube’s June 2019 announcement of changes to their platform to reduce extremist content, significant anti-Semitic and white supremacist material continues to be accessible on the platform,” adding, “With the wave of bans yesterday, it appears YouTube is beginning to step up their efforts to clean up the site.”

In a Twitter announcement confirming his channel’s ban, Allsup, an attendee of the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Va., at which counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed, claimed that he had “no channel strikes, no violations, nothing,” that he merely received an email “telling me that my livelihood, my means to exercise my political voice … was taken away from me.”

According to Holt, as well as being part of white nationalist groups like American Renaissance and Identity Evropa, Allsup had “quietly obtained a position in his local GOP but was ousted after his worldview and white nationalist connections were exposed to an audience beyond his county Republican Party organization.”

VDARE has existed online since 1999. It was, Holt explains, even more successful in its attempts to enter the mainstream GOP. Employees at federal agencies sent links from the site to each other, as BuzzFeed first reported. VDare editor Peter Brimelow has claimed that America is under attack from nonwhites. As with Allsup’s message, the VDare Twitter account acknowledges the ban, but claims it never violated YouTube’s terms of service.

The American Identity Movement’s Patrick Casey, also an attendee of 2017’s Unite the Right rally, acknowledged the ban in a chatroom on the messaging app Telegram, but did not elaborate, saying simply, “AIM’s YouTube channel has been deleted.”

Read Right Wing Watch’s full report here.

Federal Judge Blocks Missouri’s 8-Week Abortion Ban

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A new Missouri ban on abortions at or after eight weeks of pregnancy won’t take effect Wednesday after a federal judge temporarily blocked it from being implemented.

U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs put a pause on the law as a legal challenge against it plays out in court, which could take months. He added that Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri likely will succeed in their lawsuit alleging that the law is unconstitutional.

Similar laws have been struck down in North Dakota and Iowa.

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Missouri already has some of the nation’s most restrictive abortion regulations. A clinic in St. Louis is the only one in the state that performs abortions.

Sachs’ ruling says allowing the eight-week abortion ban to be enforced would have blocked about half of reported abortions in Missouri. The judge wrote that it would amount to “significant interference with plaintiffs’ service and the rights of its prospective patients.”

The law includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest.

Missouri lawmakers expected a court challenge and included a series of less-restrictive bans ranging from 14 weeks up to 20 weeks in the measure in hopes that one would be upheld. But it’s unclear if any of the bans on abortions before fetuses are viable outside the womb, which can be from 24 to 28 weeks, will stick.

Sachs wrote that it’s “highly likely that the listed weekly time limits on abortions will be ruled invalid.”

He will allow one portion of the policy to take effect: a ban on abortions based solely on race, sex or a diagnosis indicating the potential for Down syndrome. He wrote that abortions based on Down syndrome would be “somewhat rare, given the window of time needed for adequate testing and consultation.”

Planned Parenthood vowed to fight to block that portion of the law, too.

“Although we are grateful today’s ruling allows us to provide care to some Missourians, we will continue to defend the truth: EVERY reason to have an abortion is a valid reason,” said Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.

The decision to allow that portion of the law to be enforced was lauded by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican whose office is responsible for defending the law in court.

“As the father of a child with special needs, Attorney General Schmitt is particularly sensitive to suggestions that an unborn child who will have special needs is any lesser of a human being, and we’re glad that provisions relating to that issue were left in place in the judge’s ruling today,” spokesman Chris Nuelle said in a statement.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who signed the law in May, said in a statement that he’s “encouraged that today’s court ruling upheld the anti-discrimination provisions of the law, and we look forward to litigating the remaining issues.”

Attorneys for the state can appeal Sachs’ ruling. Nuelle said the attorney general’s office is reviewing the full ruling and determining what steps to take next.

State attorneys have argued that courts have allowed limits on abortions based on the gestational age of the fetus. In court documents, they told the judge that the state’s goal is “protecting fetal life” as well as protecting women. During a court hearing Monday, Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer’s argument centered on his contention that Planned Parenthood and the ACLU do not have standing to challenge the law.

Missouri’s law also includes an outright ban on abortions except in cases of medical emergencies, but that would take effect only if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

The St. Louis Planned Parenthood affiliate clinic, the only one in Missouri that provides abortions, is fighting to have its license renewed. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services refused to renew the St. Louis clinic’s license in July, saying inspectors found several problems in March that included three “failed abortions” requiring additional surgeries.

Planned Parenthood sued the health department over the licensing dispute and the case is now before the Administrative Hearing Commission. A hearing is scheduled for the last week of October. The clinic continues to operate while the licensing dispute is considered.

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Ballentine reported from Columbia, Missouri.

Spurning Amazon Aid, Bolsonaro Brings Up Notre Dame Fire

JACUNDA NATIONAL FOREST, Brazil — Brazil insisted on Tuesday that it would set conditions for accepting any aid from the world’s richest nations to help fight Amazon fires, saying France couldn’t protect the Notre Dame Cathedral from fire devastation and should focus on its own problems.

The increasingly personal feud between Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and French leader Emmanuel Macron threatened to derail a pledge of tens of millions of dollars by the Group of Seven nations for the Amazon region.

Brazil has bristled over what it views as neo-colonial interference by Europe on matters of sovereignty and economic development. The acrimony appears to be undercutting hopes of united action to protect the Amazon’s rainforests, a major absorber of carbon dioxide that is described as a critical defense against climate change.

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Bolsonaro said the French president had called him a liar and he accused Macron of questioning Brazil’s sovereignty amid tensions over the fires.

Macron has to retract those comments “and then we can speak,” Bolsonaro said.

Bolsonaro met Tuesday with governors of states in the Amazon region, some of whom criticized laws that protect the environment and the rights of indigenous people that they said limited opportunities for economic development.

Marcos Jose Rocha dos Santos, the governor of Rondonia, which has been at the center of the current fires, questioned the intentions of international aid.

“International resources are welcome as long as who uses those resources is us,” Rocha dos Santos said. “We will determine where the money will be applied, it’s useless if those resources get here and go to international NGOs,” he said, arguing that the fires were nothing out of the ordinary.

At a summit in France on Monday, the Group of Seven nations pledged $20 million to help fight the flames in the Amazon and protect the rainforest, in addition to a separate $12 million from Britain and $11 million from Canada.

Onyx Lorenzoni, the Brazilian president’s chief of staff, sharpened the criticism, saying Europe should use the funds for its own reforestation. Then he referred to Notre Dame, the medieval monument in Paris that was ravaged by fire in April, shocking the world.

“Macron could not avoid an obvious fire in a church that is a world heritage site,” Lorenzoni said, according to Brazil’s G1 news website.

“What does he want to teach to our country? He has a lot to take care of in his own home and his French colonies,” said the chief of staff, echoing a remark by his boss that France was treating the Amazon region countries like a colony.

Macron, who has questioned Bolsonaro’s trustworthiness and commitment to protecting biodiversity, has shrugged off the snub from the Brazilian president.

The French leader said in a speech Tuesday that Bolsonaro’s interpretation was a “mistake.”

He said the aid money isn’t just aimed at Brazil, but at nine countries in the vast Amazon region that also spans Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, an overseas region of France. About 60% of the Amazon region is in Brazil.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump complimented Bolsonaro, saying he knows the Brazilian president well and that the United States supports him. “He is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil – Not easy,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

On Monday, equipped with hoses connected to rubber backpacks, Brazilian firefighters in the Amazon raced in a truck along dirt roads toward plumes of smoke after a spotter in a military helicopter directed them to a fast-spreading fire.

A landowner opened the gate of a barbed wire fence and the firefighters set to work, dousing a fire they believed was intentionally set to prepare land for crops or pasture. When their water supply ran out, they made a fire break, clearing brush with machetes and chain saws to starve the blaze of its fuel.

The smoke-shrouded scene near the lush Jacunda national forest in the Amazonian state of Rondonia, witnessed by an Associated Press team, showed the enormity of the challenge ahead: putting out a multitude of blazes and safeguarding — in the long term — a vast region described by world leaders as critical to the health of the planet.

The country’s National Space Research Institute, which monitors deforestation, has recorded that the number of fires has risen by 85% to more than 77,000 in the last year, a record since the institute began keeping track in 2013. About half of the fires have been in the Amazon region, with most of those just in the past month.

The Amazon has experienced more fires during drought periods in the last 20 years, but the phenomenon this year is “unusual” because drought has not yet hit, said Laura Schneider of Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the United States.

Schneider, an associate professor in the university’s geography department, said fire is commonly used by people to clear land for cultivation. She said the actual area burned this year must be measured for an accurate comparison with damage in past years.

The international aid pledges came even though Bolsonaro has suggested the West is angling to exploit Brazil’s natural resources.

But the funds, which are widely seen as critical support, are still a relatively meager amount for dealing with an environmental crisis that threatens what Macron has called “the lungs of the planet.”

Under international pressure to act, Bolsonaro said he might visit the Amazon region this week to check on firefighting efforts and would make 44,000 troops available to fight the blazes. However, the military presence in the area seemed scarce on Monday, with only a few soldiers seen patrolling roads and lending a hand.

At dawn, the blazing sun was hidden under thick smoke that blanketed the horizon like fog. Trucks carrying fresh timber sped through a road that cut through lands where heaps of ash were piled around charred logs.

Some residents seemed torn between knowing that the fires were devastating the environment around them, and needing to extract the Amazon’s rich natural resources to make a living.

In one village, Darcy Rodrigo De Souza walked barefoot into a shop where people drank coffee and ate Pao de Queijo, traditional Brazilian cheese bread, on a street named “New Progress.”

“We have many problems with the fires. But we also depend on the wood for our economy. If it wasn’t for that, there would be nothing,” said De Souza, who wore a straw hat. “It’s true that the Amazon has to be protected, but this president is going to protect it. The Americans want us to protect Brazil. But why don’t they protect their stuff?”

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Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao reported from Jacunda National Forest and AP writer Christopher Torchia reported from Rio de Janeiro. Anna Jean Kaiser contributed from Rio de Janeiro.

Ex-Google Engineer Charged in Uber Self-Driving Theft Case

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A former Google engineer was charged Tuesday with stealing self-driving car technology from the company shortly before he joined Uber’s efforts to catch up in the high-stakes race to build robotic vehicles.

The indictment filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Jose, California, is an offshoot of a lawsuit filed in 2017 by Waymo, a self-driving car pioneer spun off from Google. Uber agreed to settle the case for $245 million last year, but the presiding judge made an unusual recommendation to open a criminal probe after seeing enough evidence to conclude a theft may have occurred.

Uber considered having self-driving technology crucial to survive and counter potential competitive threats from Waymo and dozens of other companies working on robotic vehicles. Uber wants to build self-driving cars so it can eliminate the need to have a human behind the wheel, one of the biggest expenses in its still-unprofitable ride-hailing service.

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Anthony Levandowski, a pioneer in robotic vehicles, was charged with 33 counts of trade secrets theft. Each count carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or $8.25 million if convicted of all counts.

Miles Ehrlich, one of Levandowski’s attorneys, maintained his innocence in a statement read outside the courthouse.

“He didn’t steal anything, from anyone,” Ehrlich said. “This case rehashes claims already discredited in a civil case that settled more than a year.”

Prosecutors say the probe is ongoing, but they wouldn’t say whether Uber and former CEO Travis Kalanick are targets. Prosecutors say Google, Waymo and Uber cooperated in the investigation. Uber issued a statement Tuesday promising to continue to cooperate.

Although Tuesday’s indictment didn’t charge Uber, it’s a stain for a company that has been trying to recover from a series of scandals since jettisoning Kalanick two years ago. Besides trying to reverse perceptions that it’s a technological thief, Uber has been dealing with fallout from its own acknowledgement of rampant sexual harassment, its use of software designed to dupe regulators and a yearlong cover-up of a hacking attack that stole the personal information of 57 million passengers and 600,000 drivers.

The case seems unlikely to endear Uber with investors already skeptical about the company’s ability to make money after piling up billions of dollars of losses. The lack of profits is the main reason the company’s stock has fallen about 25% below the price set during its much-ballyhooed initial public offering of stock in May. Nonetheless, Uber’s stock fell less than 1% after the announcement.

The FBI depicted its pursuit of the complex case as a sign of its commitment to protecting technology considered vital to the economy’s growth. “Silicon Valley is not the Wild West,” said John Bennett, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.

Prosecutors say Levandowski turned himself in earlier Tuesday.

Levandowski was accused of stealing years of top-secret information, which prosecutors likened to the crown jewels of the Waymo spinoff. That included breakthroughs in lidar, a key piece of technology that enables self-driving cars to detect what’s around them.

During the Waymo trial, Kalanick conceded that Uber needed to develop self-driving cars if it hoped to maintain its early position as the world’s largest ride-hailing service. But he denied that he ever resorted to stealing technology from Google, whom he believed was an ally until he began to suspect the company intended to launch its own ride-hailing service consisting entirely of its robotic vehicles.

But Kalanick also testified that his push to build a fleet of self-driving cars for Uber led him to start wooing Levandowski in 2015 while he was still at Google. Levandowski left early the following year to devote his time to Otto, a self-driving truck company he started with another Google employee, Lior Ron, who also left. Uber bought Otto later in 2016 for $680 million.

Waymo, which spun off from Google in 2016, alleged that Levandowski downloaded 14,000 documents containing its trade secrets before he left for Otto.

Uber denied know anything about those documents, but eventually fired him after he repeatedly asserted his constitutional right against self-incrimination leading up to the trial.

Ehrlich’s statement Tuesday said Levandowski downloaded the documents as an authorized Google employee and never brought those files to Uber or any other company.

The whiff of potential wrongdoing in Waymo’s civil case became even more pungent following the disclosure of allegations by a former Uber security specialist, Richard Jacobs, that the company employed an espionage team to spy on Waymo and other rivals while creating ways to conceal any stolen technology.

Google also pursued a separate case against Levandowski in arbitration proceedings, which resulted in a panel ordering Levandowski to pay the company $127 million, according to disclosure made by Uber leading up to its IPO. Uber may be held liable for paying all or part of that as part of guarantees it made in its Otto acquisition, but believes it may be able to get out of those obligations.

After Levandowski left Uber, he started another self-driving startup called Pronto, which said Tuesday that he would no longer be its CEO as he defends himself against the charges.

Puerto Rico Braces for Rain, Power Outages as Dorian Nears

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Jorge Ortiz, a 50-year-old construction worker, was taking no chances as Tropical Storm Dorian approached Puerto Rico on Tuesday and threatened to brush past the island’s southwest coast at near-hurricane strength.

Wiping sweat from his brow, Ortiz climbed up a shaky ladder under the punishing morning sun and tied down pieces of zinc that now serve as his roof because Hurricane Maria ripped the second floor off his house when the Category 4 storm hit in September 2017.

He was forced to rebuild everything himself and finished just three months ago, and said he received no assistance from the local or federal government.

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Puerto Ricans Struggle to Buy Food as Federal Aid Dwindles



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“They told me I didn’t qualify because it was a total loss,” he said, shaking his head as he added that he was wary about Dorian. “I’m worried that despite all this sacrifice, I’ll lose it again.”

It’s a concern shared by many across the U.S. territory, where some 30,000 homes still have blue tarps as roofs and where the 3.2 million inhabitants depend on a shaky power grid that Maria destroyed and remains prone to outages even in the slightest of rain storms.

Dorian was located about 415 miles (665 kilometers) southeast of Ponce, Puerto Rico, late Tuesday morning. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it had maximum sustained winds near 50 mph (85 kph) and was forecast to strengthen during the next 48 hours before passing near or south of the U.S. territory on Wednesday as it moves west-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).

“The biggest problem will be the rain,” said Roberto García, a forecaster with the National Meteorological Service in Puerto Rico.

The storm was expected to dump between 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of rain in the Windward islands, with isolated amounts of 10 inches (25 centimeters).

Dorian already caused power outages and downed trees in Barbados and St. Lucia, and a still-uncertain long-term track showed the storm near Florida over the weekend.

The Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning for Puerto Rico and for the Dominican Republic from Isla Saona to Samaná and a tropical storm warning for Martinique. Tropical storm watches were in force for Dominica, Saba, St. Eustatius and parts of the Dominican Republic from Isla Saona to Punta Palenque and from Samaná to Puerto Plata.

In Puerto Rico, some grocery stores ran out of bottled water as people rushed to buy supplies including generators and filled their cars with gasoline.

Government officials on the island warned of possible landslides, flash flooding and power outages, with Puerto Rico’s health secretary urging those with certain health conditions such as diabetes to be prepared.

The island’s transportation secretary acknowledged that crews are still rebuilding roads damaged or blocked by Maria. He said more than 1,000 remain blocked by that storm’s landslides.

Gov. Wanda Vázquez signed an executive order on Monday declaring a state of emergency and urged those living under a tarp to stay in one of the island’s 360 shelters if needed. Housing Secretary Fernando Gil said some 9,000 to 13,000 homes with blue-tarp roofs are located in the region that Dorian is expected to affect the most.

Officials also said they would close all public schools by Tuesday afternoon.

Jesús Laracuente, a 52-year-old construction worker who lives in the impoverished neighborhood of Las Monjas in the capital of San Juan, had his doubts about the government preparations. Blue tarps are still visible in his community, which can flood even in light rainstorms.

“The people here are prepared. We already learned our lesson,” he said, referring to Maria. “What despairs us is knowing that the slightest breeze will leave us without power. It’s the government that fails us.”

Vázquez said this time, the island’s Electric Power Authority has a vast inventory of equipment to cope with storm damage — $141 million worth compared with $22 million during Maria. That includes more than 23,000 poles, 120,000 lights and 7,400 transformers.

She said the power company also has signed 33 deals with power companies on the U.S. mainland if more help is needed after Dorian passes.

In addition, fire departments in Florida were flying teams to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands ahead of Dorian to bring medical supplies and equipment to assist local authorities with rescue efforts if needed.

But Freddyson Martínez, vice president of a power workers’ union, told The Associated Press that while the electric grid has improved in some areas, he worries about a lack of power line workers and post-Maria patches including lines fixed to palm trees.

“Those are problems that are still being corrected to this day,” he said. “These are the realities we have to face with this storm.”

Dorian was expected to move near the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas on Thursday night or Friday.

Meanwhile, a new tropical depression formed Monday between the U.S. eastern coast and Bermuda. It was located about 370 miles (600 kilometers) southeast of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and was moving north at 2 mph (4 kph) Tuesday with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph). It was expected to become a tropical storm by Tuesday night or Wednesday and continue blowing off the U.S. East Coast this week on a path to Canada’s North Atlantic provinces.

David Koch May Have Taken Us All With Him

What follows is a conversation between professor Michael Mann and Dharna Noor of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

DHARNA NOOR: It’s The Real News. I’m Dharna Noor.

David Koch is dead. The conservative billionaire industrialist passed away at age 79 on Thursday after a battle with advanced prostate cancer. Koch and his brother, Charles, of course ran Koch Industries, a fossil fuel conglomerate that’s one of America’s largest private companies. David was the socialite, philanthropist brother. He ran a charitable foundation, and as many obituaries are quick to note, he donated some $1.3 billion to medical research and arts and cultural institutions like The Met and other causes. But I think it’s fair to say that that legacy pales in comparison to his impact on the climate crisis. David Koch helped funnel billions of dollars into climate denialism.

I’m joined now to talk about this with somebody who knows this impact firsthand. Michael Mann is a seminal climate scientist, perhaps best known for his work on the hockey stick graph. He’s a Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, and he’s the author of several books, including the most recent, The Tantrum that Saved the World, which is a children’s book on climate change, which he co-authored with Megan Herbert. Thank you so much for being with us today.

MICHAEL MANN: Thank you. It’s great to be with you.

DHARNA NOOR: So Michael, for viewers who don’t know, of course, 20 years ago, you discovered that temperatures had risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, and two-thirds of that warming happened since 1975. You just went through a crazy lawsuit with a climate-denying scientist, Tim Ball, about your work on that famous hockey stick graph, but that wasn’t the first time that you caught heat for that, right? In 2005, a Koch-funded Congressperson attacked that work, and then, you were the subject of this crazy smear campaign led by Koch Industries. What exactly happened there, and why did they see your work as so dangerous, as such a threat?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. Well, I did catch heat— no pun intended— for the work that we did now two decades ago in publishing the hockey stick curve. It’s an estimate of how temperatures have varied over the past thousand years, and it became sort of an icon in the climate change debate, and I found myself in the center of attacks by the climate change denial machine— the fossil fuel industry and indeed the Koch-funded attack machine— aimed at discrediting the work of scientists like myself to try to forestall action on climate. So I’ve been enduring that for nearly two decades now, but it has been an opportunity. It’s not what I signed up for when I decided to double major in math and physics and go on to study the modeling of the earth’s climate system, but because I did ultimately find myself at the center of the very fractious debate over climate change, I’ve embraced the role that that gives me to inform this very important discussion.

You mentioned this lawsuit that was dismissed. So I’ve often been subject to defamation by climate change deniers. In this case, Tim Ball, a Canadian climate change denier. The Canadian Court actually dismissed the case because they concluded that he has so little credibility that nobody would believe his defamatory comments about me anyway. And this is the second time Canadian Courts have come to a similar conclusion. Another prominent Canadian climate scientist, Andrew Weaver, had also brought a libel case against Tim Ball, and it was dismissed by the court because they said Ball isn’t credible in the first place. So that sort of tells you something about the nature of the opposition as it were, and this all does connect up in the sense that David Koch, the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel interest that they worked with, have literally spent tens of billions of dollars trying to build this echo chamber, or some would call it a Potemkin village, a façade of climate change denialism that looks legitimate until you scrape the surface and you realize, “No, it’s just a bunch of hacks who are funded by fossil fuel interests to create noise to sow doubt in the public mindset about climate change.”

DHARNA NOOR: Sure, and the Koch brothers obviously had and Charles Koch still has a vested interest, a financial interest in maintaining the status quo on climate change. Koch Industries has their hands in tons of industries— cars and paper and fabric— but they really made their money in oil. Their father made this fortune in oil pipelines and oil refineries. And Greenpeace estimates that from 1997 to 2015, they put $88 million into funding climate denial. As DeSmog noted, that’s even more than Exxon Mobile, but they don’t just attack climate scientists, right? They also funded false climate science, as you were just speaking to. Could you talk a little bit about what that climate science looks like and why it has this kind of veneer of truth to it?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. It’s a veneer of truth. I said a Potemkin village, one of these false facades that looks real. It looks impressive, again. And then, you scratch beneath the surface and you realize that it’s people like Tim Ball who are not actually credible from a scientific standpoint, but they’ve been very effective at sort of playing the role of the scientist. And the public often doesn’t know any better. You put a scientist up against a talking head, they can’t determine who has greater credibility. They’re not able to litigate the qualifications. When you put a climate change denier up there with a climate scientist, you’re telling the public in essence that these are two equal viewpoints. And too often, our media has fallen prey to this sort of false balance of propping up an industry-funded climate change denier, giving the impression that they are literally as credible as the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists who have all concluded that climate change is real, human-caused and a problem.

And so, this is part of the problem. The fact that the fossil fuel industry has funded these organizations, think tanks, and front groups that prop up these individuals, these talking heads who are often very practiced in speaking and rhetoric. They’re very good at their job, which is to confuse the public and to confuse policymakers. That has certainly impeded progress on climate and David Koch and the Koch brothers are a major part of that. For decades, they’ve been funding this disinformation machine.

DHARNA NOOR: Yeah. Koch, interestingly, just died a week after the new book, Kochland, by Christopher Leonard came out. That focuses on that decades-long influence. One thing that Leonard explains is that the Koch brothers were key funders of a 1991 Cato Institute conference. At the time, the Cato Institute was mobilizing because President George H. W. Bush had just said he would support a climate change treaty. Talk about how long this impact has been going on. I mean, this was before the phrase climate change or even the phrase global warming was really a part of mainstream public discourse.

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. No, that’s right. In fact, it’s some of the same people that we saw working for the tobacco industry decades ago because, of course, here is another industry, the tobacco industry, whose product was killing people, was dangerous and addictive. And instead of owning up to that, the tobacco industry spent millions of dollars funding a major disinformation campaign to try to discredit the evidence that their product was dangerous. Some of the same lobbyists, some of the same scientists who were willing to act as advocates for the tobacco industry, attacking their fellow scientists, mainstream scientists whose work demonstrated that these products were harmful, many of those same individuals today are funded by the fossil fuel industry to attack the science of climate change.

And so, what happens is you get scientists who do have reasonable credentials, who basically sell out to polluting interests, and become all-purpose deniers— what I call deniers for hire. They deny that tobacco is a problem. They deny that ozone depletion is a problem. They deny that cancerous and toxic chemicals are a problem, and they deny that climate change is a problem. What do all these things have in common? A very powerful, vested interest whose profits are in conflict with the public interest.

DHARNA NOOR: And those profits, of course, have been massive. According to Jane Mayer, the reporter who first reported on David Koch’s staff and has long covered Koch’s influence, David Koch was the richest man in New York when he died. But as many have noted, he put over a billion dollars into charitable causes. Others have praised the Kochs for their seemingly visceral hatred of President Donald Trump. Though, of course, they have many ties within his administration— from people like Betsy DeVos to Mike Pence and Scott Pruitt. What do you make of the Kochs distancing themselves from Trump? Talk a little bit about the impact that they’ve had on the current administration.

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. Oh, I think that’s a bit of a charade on their part. It makes them look better. The same reason that they fund museums and the arts, to try to prop up their image to, in essence, try to divert attention from all of the terrible things that they’re actually doing. So, yes, publicly, they have tried to distance themselves from Donald Trump, but there was an unholy alliance that was reached during the campaign early on where the Koch brothers essentially said to the Trump campaign, “We will not oppose your campaign as long as you appoint our preferred people to all the key cabinet positions. In particular, climate change deniers. Appoint climate change deniers and fossil fuel lobbyists to the Secretary of State position, to the EPA administrator position.” And that’s exactly what they did. The various cabinet members of the Trump administration is a veritable who’s who of Koch Industries and Koch brothers-affiliated lobbyists, and that’s what we’ve gotten. Our policies on climate, on energy, and a host of other matters, has essentially been outsourced to the Koch brothers. That was the unholy alliance that was reached by Donald Trump.

So, we have to understand that as we’re distracted by the clown show that is Donald Trump, the circus act that is Donald Trump and his antics, meanwhile, a little bit more quietly, all of these Koch brothers-connected administration cabinet occupants are dismantling our environmental policies. The environmental progress of the past half-century are doing the bidding of polluting interests like the fossil fuel industry, and removing incentives for renewable energy, throwing up roadblocks for renewable energy, and providing huge subsidies and incentives for the fossil fuel industry.

DHARNA NOOR: Yeah, and many of those people in the cabinet not only take funding from the Kochs but, essentially owe their political careers to the Koch brothers. Last year, The Real News made a documentary called Trump, the Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science produced by Bruce Livesey. You’re in it, of course. Viewers should check it out if they’re interested, and that documentary explores the role that the Kochs played in electing this climate denier. Since that documentary came out, though, we’ve seen the IPCC report on the impact of reaching 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. We’ve seen these really important youth movements, like the Sunrise Movement, taking on climate denialism, and proposals for the Green New Deal enter mainstream discourse. Will that movement do anything to combat the Koch’s impact, and what role do you see them having in the 2020 elections with that kind of opposition brewing?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. Thanks for that question. It’s a really good one and it’s an important one because although there are all these reasons for concern, the fact that Donald Trump again has outsourced his administration to polluting interests, Senate Republicans are blocking anything that the Democratic-controlled House might try to do right now on climate, so we do have some real challenges. At the same time, what we’re seeing in the form of the youth climate movement in particular is a re-centering of this discussion, a re-centering of this debate because too often we allow the issue of climate change to be framed in terms of economic cost/benefit analysis, very cold sort of calculations that place far too much emphasis on the profits of vested interests and not enough emphasis on preserving this planet for our children and grandchildren.

What these kids have done with the youth climate movement is to re-center this discussion where it needs to be centered. This is not simply a matter of science or politics or economics. This is a matter of our ethical obligation not to destroy this planet for our children and grandchildren. And these brave, young children have gone out there. They’ve gone on strikes. They’ve engaged in all of these actions aimed at drawing attention to this crisis that we face, and they need our support. They are already being attacked by the usual suspects. Greta Thunberg, this girl from Sweden who has really ignited the youth climate movement with her very just impressive presentations and speeches, and the moral authority with which she speaks when she talks about the problems that we are creating for her and her generation. The usual suspects, climate change deniers funded by fossil fuel interests and the Koch brothers, are engaged in character assassination efforts to try to discredit her. They are sort of inciting hatred and potentially even violence against her and other youths who are demonstrating to raise awareness on climate.

I believe it was Shell, the CEO of Shell, if I’m not mistaken, who said that – or no,  maybe it was the head of OPEC. I forget. It was one of the two of them that said that the greatest threat right now to us is Greta Thunberg, is this 16-year-old girl, because of the awareness that she is creating. And again, the moral clarity with which these children speak, which I think really connects with people in a way that’s making a difference. They need our backs. They need our support. They’re putting everything on the line and we need to help them. There’s going to be a major march in New York City next month at the UN summit. I believe on September or around September 20th or 21st.

DHARNA NOOR: Yep. September 20th is the Youth Climate Strike. Also, just checked in on it, it’s Mohammed Barkindo, who is of course the Secretary General of OPEC, who said that Greta Thunberg may be the greatest threat to the fossil fuel industry, which in some sense of course shows that this movement is having an impact, that these executive [crosstalk] are scared.

MICHAEL MANN: It shows that [crosstalk]. Absolutely. It shows that Sauron’s eye is focused on them right now.

DHARNA NOOR: And of course, all of this, this action, this new talk about policies like the Green New Deal, policies about centering a just transition, all of these policies are really important, but the stakes really just couldn’t get higher. I mean, they’re getting higher every single day. We’re seeing melting ice caps and glaciers. We just saw the hottest July ever since record-keeping began. And now, David Koch is gone, of course, and I’ve seen some responses to that that basically say, “Okay. Good. One down and one to go,” but it’s not so simple, is it? Will David Koch, the human being’s death, have any real impact on the machine of climate denial, or is focusing on his death actually sort of a distraction in the same way that focusing on a Trump tweet could be? Does that really change anything for the kind of work or the kind of direction that this kind of movement needs to take?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. Great question. I do think that somebody’s passing is an opportunity to take stock of their legacy, and frankly I believe in the adage that you should avoid, when at all possible, speaking ill of the dead. In this case, though, you can’t talk about him and his legacy without acknowledging the fundamental damage that he’s done. And indeed, even though he is now passed away, the legacy of his efforts are going to be felt for decades. Essentially, David Koch and the Koch brothers have almost single-handedly stymied climate action for two decades. If we had acted two decades ago, in fact even three decades ago when we already knew we had a problem, we would’ve avoided much of the damage and destruction and death that is now occurring because of the impacts of climate change. So in a very real sense, there has been massive destruction and massive loss of life that can be connected to David Koch and the Koch brothers and other plutocrats and fossil fuel industry CEOs who conspired to run a disinformation campaign, to confuse the public and policymakers about the greatest threat that we face as a civilization.

It’s deeply immoral, and I think that that is David Koch’s legacy. He is now gone, but the apparatus that he helped create, the constellation of front groups, organizations that deny climate change, that fight efforts to actually get off fossil fuels, that attack the renewable energy industry, that infrastructure exists now and it continues to be funded even in David Koch’s absence. And the legacy of his efforts, again, will be felt for some time. His passing is an opportunity, as I said before, to take stock and to realize he did help create this infrastructure that has created a fundamental obstacle to climate action. Let’s recognize that that infrastructure is there and let’s go after it now. We need laws and policies to deal with the disinformation and the bad faith propaganda that fossil fuel interests and the Koch brothers have produced for decades. We need to hold them accountable, and we need to make sure that they are unable to continue to derail efforts to finally act on this problem.

DHARNA NOOR: We have to leave it there. Esteemed climate scientist, Michael Mann, of Penn State, thank you so much for being with us today. And as you continue to take on this legacy, we’d love to talk to you again shortly.

MICHAEL MANN: Be happy to. Thanks so much.

DHARNA NOOR: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

Democrats Spend Big to Draw Small-Dollar Donors

WASHINGTON — Montana Gov. Steve Bullock was told how he could qualify for the next presidential debate, but it didn’t make much sense: Spend $60. Attract a $1 donor. And repeat, maybe thousands of times.

“You spend $60 on Facebook right now to get a $1 donor,” Bullock said last week while campaigning in Iowa, referring to the 130,000 donor threshold that is one of the requirements to reach the debate stage in Houston next month. “I don’t know if I’ll make the threshold.”

He’s not alone. Facing a Wednesday deadline, a handful of Democratic White House hopefuls are racing against time — and odds — to qualify, trying desperately to meet the donor targets as well as reaching 2% in four approved public opinion polls.

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Some Inconvenient Truths for 2020 Democrats



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New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pumping millions into online and TV advertising. Billionaire climate change activist Tom Steyer, a late entry to the race, has also spent $3.8 million on Facebook ads trying to boost his name recognition and rapidly add donors.

Others simply gave up — or dropped out.

In a still-crowded Democratic field, with time increasingly running out to break into the top tier of candidates, not qualifying for the debate could doom several candidacies. Still, many have vowed to forge on, hoping that they can reach the requirements before the following debate in October.

“We’re getting to the cutoff point for a lot of lower-tier candidates,” said Tim Lim, a digital strategist and fundraiser who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “Folks who are in the bottom half right now, unless they start deficit spending I don’t know how they are going to do it.”

Though earlier debates had lower floors, the Democratic National Committee upped the stakes for the coming two. As of now, 10 candidates have reached the qualifying thresholds on donors and polling. If that holds, the September debate would be the first of the cycle held on a single night.

The DNC designed the requirements to bring order to an unwieldy field of more than 20 White House hopefuls, while elevating the role of online grassroots donors who are among the party’s most fervent supporters. And in some ways they’ve succeeded. But for those candidates who have fallen short, there is an emerging sense of bitterness.

“It forces campaigns to (hand) over millions of dollars to Facebook — the same platform that let the Russians interfere in 2016,” said Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who won’t make the September stage and plans to campaign in early voting states instead. “If we wanted to be the party that excluded people, we’d be Republicans.”

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton all recently ended their campaigns as they struggled to qualify. Last quarter, Inslee spent more than the $3 million he raised, much of it funneled into Facebook ads, pleading for donors. He hit the donor mark, but lagged in polling and dropped out last week.

Other than Steyer, no one has spent more than Gillibrand to qualify. She’s struggled since entering the race to gain traction and is keeping her campaign afloat with a $9.6 million transfer from her Senate campaign fund.

During the last fundraising quarter she spent almost twice what she raised, records show. Now she’s plunging even more money into advertising, including a $1.6 million TV ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire aimed at boosting her polling. She’s also spent roughly $2.1 million on Facebook ads aimed to get new donors over the last 90 days, making her the No. 3 political spender on the platform, behind only President Donald Trump and Steyer during that time, spending data shows.

“I want to be on the next presidential debate stage but I don’t have enough supporters,” Gillibrand says in one recent ad. “Please go to KirstenGillibrand.com. You just have to give $1.”

Last week, her campaign announced it had reached the 115,000 donor mark. They are holding out hope that that the three needed polls — which may not even exist — will be released before Wednesday.

“We expect more polls to be released … and that Kirsten will qualify for the third debate,” said spokeswoman Meredith Kelly. “Kirsten is working hard, traveling and investing on television to be on the stage, so that her voice can be heard.”

Though the rules have helped deplete some candidates’ campaign accounts, they’ve yielded a massive payday for Democratic consultants, with some online fundraising programs costing as much as $90 per dollar raised, campaign aides say. About two dozen consulting firms have collected at least $25 million in payments for online and digital-related services, according to an analysis of campaign finance data that tracked payments made between January and the end of June, when the last fundraising quarter ended. Rates do vary, though, and the appeal of the candidate is an obvious factor in fundraising success.

While it’s hard to tell whether the campaigns would have spent that much without the rules, there is a discernable trend line that shows many candidates increased their spending as the first set of debates in June neared — and trailed off once they qualified.

Tara McGowan, the founder and CEO of ACRONYM, a progressive group that specializes in digital campaigns, said some campaigns need to take a hint.

“You just hope people gain some sense and don’t want to be on this slog,” she said.

___

Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report from San Francisco.

Watch the Damning Deposition the Sackler Family Wanted Buried

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

This story is a collaboration between ProPublica, STAT and ABC News.

Four years ago this week, Dr. Richard Sackler sat in a conference room at a law office in a Louisville, Kentucky, office park. Lawyers for the Kentucky attorney general’s office were taking his deposition as part of the state’s lawsuit alleging that the family business, Purdue Pharma, illegally marketed the opioid painkiller OxyContin by understating its addictive properties.

Sackler, who has been at various times Purdue’s president and co-chairman of its board, testified for more than eight hours. The lawyers asked him about his role at the company, what decisions he was involved in and whether he believes Purdue played any part in the opioid crisis that has resulted in more than 200,000 overdose deaths related to prescription drugs since 1999.

Despite hundreds of lawsuits against Purdue stretching back well over a decade, that August 2015 deposition, which was recorded on video, is believed to be the first time any member of the Sackler family was questioned under oath about their role in the marketing of OxyContin.

Four months after the deposition, Purdue agreed to pay Kentucky $24 million to settle the case. The company fought a legal battle for more than three years to keep the deposition secret. After the news organization STAT won a court decision in 2016 ordering its release, Purdue appealed all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court. The court declined on Wednesday to hear the case, letting STAT’s lower court victory stand.

This past February, ProPublica obtained and published a transcript of the deposition. In a statement then, Purdue stood behind Sackler’s testimony. The video, however, remained unavailable. In April, comedian John Oliver called on his HBO show for its public release, saying it wasn’t “something that Purdue gets to bury.”

Now ProPublica has obtained the video and selected significant passages. Here are those excerpts:

Sackler was questioned about how much money he and his extended family have made from sales of OxyContin.

Profits From OxyContin Sales

Sackler was both a board member and an executive of Purdue, in addition to an owner. His role in conceiving, launching and overseeing the marketing of OxyContin is discussed here.

“It is Almost That I Dedicated My Life to It”

Lawyers for the state of Kentucky asked Sackler about emails showing Purdue created OxyContin for fear that its existing painkiller, MS Contin, would soon face generic competition.

Generic Threat Pushes Purdue Pharma to Create OxyContin

Sackler was questioned about how Purdue incentivized its sales force to sell OxyContin and whether he thought the company’s marketing was appropriate.

Incentives for OxyContin Sales Reps

OxyContin Marketing Too Aggressive?

A 1997 email exchange, read to Sackler at the deposition, shows that he supported a decision by Purdue executives not to correct a misperception among doctors that OxyContin is weaker than morphine. In fact, OxyContin is twice as potent as morphine. Purdue pleaded guilty in federal court in 2007 to falsely promoting OxyContin by understating the risk of addiction to the drug, including failing to alert doctors that it was a stronger painkiller than morphine. In these clips, Sackler is questioned about the failure to tell doctors about the relative strength of OxyContin and how that may have benefited the company.

Oxycontin More Potent Than Morphine

Do Doctors Perceive Oxycontin as Weaker Than Morphine?

Sackler was asked about comments he made describing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rapid approval of OxyContin.

OxyContin Gets Speedy FDA Approval

At the deposition, Sackler disputed some of the findings in the 16-page statement of facts related to Purdue’s 2007 guilty plea. He also said that he never read the full statement.

Statement of Facts About Purdue Pharma’s Misconduct

Sackler Challenges Meaning of 2007 Settlement

Sackler quibbles over whether patients could develop a tolerance to OxyContin, as stipulated in the 2007 agreed statement of facts.

Health Care Providers Told OxyContin Patients Wouldn’t Experience Withdrawal Symptoms

Sackler said “I don’t know” more than 100 times during the deposition, including in response to this line of questioning about Sackler-owned businesses.

Sackler Questioned About His Positions at Company

Near the end of the deposition, Sackler was asked if Purdue was responsible for the epidemic of opioid addiction in Kentucky.

Sackler Denies Purdue Pharma Conduct Caused Increase in Opioid Addiction in Kentucky

Bernie Sanders Has a Plan to Save American Journalism

Warning the “decimation of journalism” by big business and billionaire executives poses a major threat to democracy, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday unveiled a plan to stop the long-running corporate consolidation of American media, take anti-trust action against tech giants like Facebook and Google, and bolster independent news.

“Today, after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download,” Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, wrote in an op-ed for the Columbia Journalism Review.

This consolidation, as well as the domination of the digital market by Facebook and Google, has led to the destruction of local independent news and hard-hitting reporting, Sanders said, leaving a void that has been filled by the vapid punditry, “infotainment,” and business-friendly propaganda that is so often featured on America’s corporate-owned television networks.

“At precisely the moment when we need more reporters covering the healthcare crisis, the climate emergency, and economic inequality,” wrote the Vermont senator, “we have television pundits paid tens of millions of dollars to pontificate about frivolous political gossip, as local news outlets are eviscerated.”

Sanders went on to provide an overview of the long-running destruction of local news and independent journalism, which he said has been “gutted by the same forces of greed that are pillaging our economy”:

Over the past 15 years, more than 1,400 communities across the county have lost newspapers, which are the outlets local television, radio, and digital news sites rely on for reporting. Since 2008, we have seen newsrooms lose 28,000 employees—and in the past year alone, 3,200 people in the media industry have been laid off. Today, for every working journalist, there are six people now working in public relations, often pushing a corporate line.

To fight the corporate assault on journalism—which Sanders noted has been made “far worse” by President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian bullying”—the senator’s plan would:

Impose an immediate moratorium on federal approval of mergers of major media companies;
Require media corporations to disclose whether their corporate transactions and mergers would cause significant layoffs of reporters;
Require that employees “be given the opportunity to purchase media outlets through employee stock-ownership plans”;
Block federal merger and deregulation moves that harm people of color and women;
“Reinstate and strengthen media ownership rules” with the goal of limiting “the number of stations that large broadcasting corporations can own in each market and nationwide”;
Enforce anti-trust laws against tech behemoths like Facebook and Google “to prevent them from using their enormous market power to cannibalize, bilk, and defund news organizations”;
Increase funding for federal programs that support public local media “in much the same way many other countries already fund independent public media.”

“Today’s assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump presents a crisis,” Sanders wrote. “We cannot sit by and allow corporations, billionaires, and demagogues to destroy the Fourth Estate, nor can we allow them to replace serious reporting with infotainment and propaganda.”

“When I am president,” Sanders said, “my administration will put in place policies that will reform the media industry and better protect independent journalism at both the local and national levels.”

Sanders’ plan to stop corporate consolidation of U.S. media and reverse its devastating effects won praise from journalists and press freedom advocates.

Journalists should understand that ⁦@BernieSanders⁩ isn’t against journalism. He’s against a profit-driven corporate system that has long stymied real journalism and is now destroying the entire industry. https://t.co/y3wwnDXbvu

— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) August 26, 2019

Solid media-reform proposal from @SenSanders that could help journalism without threatening its independence. https://t.co/8xNbY4VYOq

— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) August 26, 2019

“Wow!” tweeted Craig Aaron, president of advocacy group Free Press. “Bernie Sanders outlines an ambitious plan to save local journalism and confront the harm greedy corporate media and runaway consolidation have done to communities.”