Chris Hedges's Blog, page 203

Florida’s Poll Tax Is as Immoral as It Is Costly

The poll tax Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed into law may cost his state $365 million a year — indefinitely.

DeSantis and the GOP-led Florida legislature recently made quick work of dismantling Amendment 4, a voter-approved ballot initiative that would’ve restored the right to vote to Floridians with felony convictions who’d completed their sentences (except those convicted of sex offenses or murder).

Sixty-five percent of voters approved the initiative.

DeSantis’ new bill, SB 7066, subverts Amendment 4 by stipulating that people with felony records pay “all fines and fees” associated with their sentence prior to the restoration of their voting rights. This deliberately undercuts the outcome voters intended to secure when they passed the initiative with a supermajority.

Critics have charged that requiring payment to vote amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax. But alongside questions of the legality and morality of disenfranchising voters, there’s also a surprisingly large economic price tag to this dubiously constitutional scheme.

The Poor People’s Moral Budget, a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, cites new research by the Washington Economics Group (WEG) illustrating the cost of felony disenfranchisement in Florida.

As unbelievable as it sounds, they found that it costs Florida $365 million each year to deny civil and voting rights to returned citizens — money that could’ve been saved by fully implementing Amendment 4 as approved by voters.

How? For one thing, by reducing recidivism, which lowers the incarcerated population over time. This saves the state about $20,000 annually, per inmate, in correctional supervision costs alone.

In fact, WEG’s research found restoring the voting rights of returned citizens in Florida could reduce their recidivism rate by nearly 13 percent — good for most of the of savings taxpayers would see on court operating costs, correctional supervision, and capital expenditures for correctional facilities.

States with permanent felony disenfranchisement experience significantly higher recidivism rates than states with more lenient re-enfranchisement processes. As it turns out, allowing returned citizens to participate fully in society and in democracy reduces their likelihood of reoffending — and saves money.

An additional major boon for Florida would have been the increased earning power of returned citizens. This is attributable to two factors: decreased recidivism leading to a significant influx of returned citizens into Florida’s workforce, and the relationship between voting and income.

The first factor is straightforward — less recidivism over time equals more workers because fewer people are being sent back to prison.

Regarding the second factor, WEG argues that since voters tend to have higher incomes than non-voters, restoring the right to vote could increase the incomes of returned citizens. And with higher incomes, returned citizens “would be able to afford living in less-disadvantaged areas, which is associated with better employment outcomes after release, and less recidivism.”

Basically, being free allows you to get a job. Employment means you’ll have a higher income. And voter participation and family income show a clear positive association.

The economic impacts from both the reduced administrative costs and increased income of returned citizens, says WEG, would filter throughout Florida’s economy, yielding $365 million in total benefits.

That money could’ve created nearly 3,800 well-paying jobs, or been put to work serving the 51 percent of Floridians who are poor or low-income, the state’s 404,000 veterans earning under $35,000 a year, or the nearly 2.5 million Floridians without health insurance.

But that was before DeSantis and Florida Republicans wrung the people’s will out of the initiative, throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs, all to keep people from voting.

Moving funds away from the criminal justice system isn’t just the morally imperative thing to do. It’s also the fiscally responsible thing to do — something Republicans used to claim they cared about.

New Elections Systems Vulnerable to Hacks, AP Analysis Shows

WASHINGTON—Pennsylvania’s message was clear: The state was taking a big step to keep its elections from being hacked in 2020. Last April, its top election official told counties they had to update their systems. So far, nearly 60% have taken action, with $14.15 million of mostly federal funds helping counties buy brand-new electoral systems.

But there’s a problem: Many of these new systems still run on old software that will soon be outdated and more vulnerable to hackers.

An Associated Press analysis has found that like many counties in Pennsylvania, the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use Windows 7 or an older operating system to create ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts.

That’s significant because Windows 7 reaches its “end of life” on Jan. 14, meaning Microsoft stops providing technical support and producing “patches” to fix software vulnerabilities, which hackers can exploit. In a statement to the AP, Microsoft said Friday it would offer continued Windows 7 security updates for a fee through 2023.

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America Refuses to Fix Its Broken Election System



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Here’s How to Make Sure Your Vote Is Properly Counted



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Critics say the situation is an example of what happens when private companies ultimately determine the security level of election systems with a lack of federal requirements or oversight. Vendors say they have been making consistent improvements in election systems. And many state officials say they are wary of federal involvement in state and local elections.

It’s unclear whether the often hefty expense of security updates would be paid by vendors operating on razor-thin profit margins or cash-strapped jurisdictions. It’s also uncertain if a version running on Windows 10, which has more security features, can be certified and rolled out in time for primaries.

“That’s a very serious concern,” said J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan professor and renowned election security expert. He said the country risks repeating “mistakes that we made over the last decade or decade-and-a-half when states bought voting machines but didn’t keep the software up-to-date and didn’t have any serious provisions” for doing so.

The AP surveyed all 50 states, the District of Columbia and territories, and found multiple battleground states affected by the end of Windows 7 support, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina. Also affected are Michigan, which recently acquired a new system, and Georgia, which will announce its new system soon.

“Is this a bad joke?” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, an election integrity advocacy organization, upon learning about the Windows 7 issue. Her group sued Georgia to get it to ditch its paperless voting machines and adopt a more secure system. Georgia recently piloted a system running on Windows 7 that was praised by state officials.

If Georgia selects a system that runs on Windows 7, Marks said, her group will go to court to block the purchase. State elections spokeswoman Tess Hammock declined to comment because Georgia hasn’t officially selected a vendor.

The election technology industry is dominated by three titans: Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems and Software LLC; Denver, Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems Inc.; and Austin, Texas-based Hart InterCivic Inc. They make up about 92% of election systems used nationwide, according to a 2017 study . All three have worked to win over states newly infused with federal funds and eager for an update.

U.S. officials determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and have warned that Russia, China and other nations are trying to influence the 2020 elections.

Of the three companies, only Dominion’s newer systems aren’t touched by upcoming Windows software issues — though it has election systems acquired from no-longer-existing companies that may run on even older operating systems.

Hart’s system runs on a Windows version that reaches its end of life on Oct. 13, 2020, weeks before the election.

ES&S said it expects by the fall to be able to offer customers an election system running on Microsoft’s current operating system, Windows 10. It’s now being tested by a federally accredited lab.

For jurisdictions that have already purchased systems running on Windows 7, ES&S said it will be working with Microsoft to provide support until jurisdictions can update. Windows 10 came out in 2015.

Hart and Dominion didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Microsoft usually releases patches for operating systems monthly, so hackers have learned to target older, unsupported systems. Its systems have been ground zero for crippling cyberattacks, including the WannaCry ransomware attack, which froze systems in 200,000 computers across 150 countries in 2017.

For many people, the end of Microsoft 7 support means simply updating. However, for election systems the process is more onerous. ES&S and Hart don’t have federally certified systems on Windows 10, and the road to certification is long and costly, often taking at least a year and costing six figures.

ES&S, the nation’s largest vendor, completed its latest certification four months ago, using Windows 7. Hart’s last certification was May 29 on a Windows version that also won’t be supported by November 2020.

Though ES&S is testing a new system it’s unclear how long it will take to complete the process — federal and possible state recertification, plus rolling out updates — and if it will be done before primaries begin in February.

Election administrators notoriously suffer from insufficient resources. Recently, many jurisdictions splurged on new election systems, some using their portion of $380 million in federal funds provided to states.

Counties in South Dakota, South Carolina and Delaware all recently bought election systems, while many others are evaluating purchases.

The use of election systems that still run on Windows 7 “is of concern, and it should be of concern,” said U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chair Christy McCormick. EAC develops election system guidelines.

McCormick noted that while election systems aren’t supposed to be connected to the internet, various stages of the election process require transfers of information, which could be points of vulnerability for attackers. She said some election administrators are working to address the problem.

Officials in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona say they have discussed the software issue with their vendors. Other states mentioned in this story didn’t respond to AP requests for comment.

Pennsylvania elections spokeswoman Wanda Murren said contract language allows such a software upgrade for free. Arizona elections spokeswoman C. Murphy Hebert said ES&S has also assured the state that it will provide support to counties for an upgrade.

Susan Greenhalgh, policy director for the advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition, said even the best scenario has election administrators preparing for primaries while trying to upgrade their systems, which is “crazy.” Her group shared its concerns about Windows 7 with AP.

Certification, which is voluntary at the federal level but sometimes required by state laws, ensures vendor software runs properly on operating systems they’re tested on. But there is no cybersecurity check and the process often fails to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

Kevin Skoglund, chief technologist for Citizens for Better Elections, said county election officials point to EAC and state certifications as “rock-solid proof” their systems are secure, but don’t realize vendors are certifying systems under 2005 standards.

Local officials rely on vendors to build secure systems and EAC and the states to enforce high standards, Skoglund said.

After the AP began making inquiries, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote McCormick asking what EAC, which has no regulatory power, is doing to address a “looming election cybersecurity crisis” that essentially lays the “red carpet” out to hackers.

“Congress must pass legislation giving the federal government the authority to mandate basic cybersecurity for election infrastructure,” Wyden told the AP in a statement.

U.K. Probe on Leaked Documents Raises Press Freedom Concerns

LONDON—A British police investigation into the leak of confidential diplomatic memos is raising press freedom issues, as police warned Saturday that U.K. media outlets might face a criminal inquiry if leaked documents are published.

The Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command is investigating the leak of private memos written by Britain’s ambassador to the United States that were published in the Mail on Sunday six days ago.

The leak led to Wednesday’s resignation of British Ambassador Kim Darroch, who had criticized President Donald Trump in the leaked confidential cables. Trump said his administration would no longer work with Darroch.

British police indicated Saturday they issued the unusual warning because of concerns that more leaked memos are “in circulation.” They say they want editors to know publishing them may be against the law because there is a criminal investigation underway into whether the original leak violated the Official Secrets Act.

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Has Freedom of the Press Become an Illusion?



by Robert Scheer

















The Biggest Threat to Free Speech No One Is Talking About



by Robert Scheer

The statement appeared timed to prevent Sunday newspapers from publishing more leaked memos.

“The publication of these specific documents, now knowing they may be a breach of the OSA, could also constitute a criminal offence and one that carries no public interest defense,” said Neil Basu, who heads the investigation as chief of counter-terrorism unit. “We know these documents and potentially others remain in circulation.”

British officials say they believe the leak was not a result of outside hacking but seems to have been carried out by an insider. The Foreign Office criticized the leak but did not challenge the authenticity of the memos, which characterized the Trump administration as chaotic and inept.

Darroch’s defenders said his critical memos showed he was doing his job by providing candid assessments, as diplomats are expected to do, but he said the controversy had made it impossible to fulfill his duties.

The Official Secrets Act prohibits public servants from making “damaging” disclosures of classified material. It is aimed at civil servants and others in the government with access to sensitive information and is not designed to target journalists.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is jousting with Boris Johnson to become Britain’s next prime minister, tweeted Saturday that the person responsible for the leak must be found and held responsible, but he differed with police over whether the publication of leaks is a possible crime.

“I defend to the hilt the right of the press to publish those leaks if they receive them & judge them to be in the public interest: that is their job,” he said in a tweet.

Johnson, a former foreign secretary, also said it would be wrong to seek criminal charges against the press for publishing leaked material.

“A prosecution on this basis would amount to an infringement on press freedom and have a chilling effect on public debate,” Johnson said at a campaign event Saturday.

The Mail on Sunday, which first obtained the trove of leaked memos, has not faced any legal repercussions for its decision to publish.

___

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit and the Conservative Party leadership race at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Tropical Storm Barry Expected to Soak Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS—Carrying “off the chart” amounts of moisture, Barry crawled ashore Saturday in Louisiana and quickly weakened to a tropical storm that promised to dump heavy rains that could last for days and pose a test of the flood-prevention systems built after Hurricane Katrina 14 years ago.

The storm made landfall near Intracoastal City, Louisiana, about 160 miles west of New Orleans, and its winds fell to 70 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

The Coast Guard rescued more than a dozen people from the remote Isle de Jean Charles, south of New Orleans, where water rose so high that some residents clung to rooftops. But in the city, locals and tourists wandered through mostly empty streets under a light rain or stayed indoors.

Video showed water overtopping a levee in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans, where fingers of land extend deep into the Gulf of Mexico. Officials were still confident that the levees would hold firm.

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The Real Climate Change Culprits Have Never Been Punished



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Climate Change Is Producing a Harrowing New Phenomenon



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More than 70,000 customers were without power Saturday morning, including nearly 67,000 in Louisiana and more than 3,000 in Mississippi, according to poweroutage.us.

Hours earlier, the storm had strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), just above the 74 mph (120 kph) threshold to be a hurricane. Barry was expected to continue weakening and become a tropical depression on Sunday.

The system threatened disastrous flooding across a swath of the Gulf Coast.

During a storm update through Facebook Live, National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham pointed to a computer screen showing a huge, swirling mess of airborne water. “That is just an amazing amount of moisture,” he said. “That is off the chart.”

Downpours also lashed coastal Alabama and Mississippi. Parts of Dauphin Island, a barrier island in Alabama 200 miles (322 kilometers) from where Barry was headed, were flooded both by rain and surging water from the Gulf, said Mayor Jeff Collier, who was driving around in a Humvee to survey damage. He said the island still had power early Saturday afternoon and wind damage was minimal.

Water was flowing over a “back levee” in Point Celeste in Plaquemines Parish, officials said in an automated telephone recording distributed to residents. The levee was not on the Mississippi River, and there was no indication that the barrier was breached or broken or that major flooding was occurring, the recording said.

Officials said they were worried the water could close Highway 23, cutting off a key road and the rest of the parish to the south. Much of Plaquemines Parish had been under an evacuation order since Thursday.

Barry was moving so slowly that heavy rain was expected to continue all weekend, with predictions of up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) through Sunday across a swath of Louisiana that includes New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Some parts of the state might get 25 inches (63 centimeters).

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell thanked residents for staying off the streets and urged them to remain vigilant because the worst of the wind and rain was yet to arrive.

“Although you may not have seen rainfall as we have been discussing, it is coming our way,” Cantrell said.

Forecasts showed the storm on a path toward Chicago that would swell the Mississippi River basin with water that must eventually flow south again.

Governors declared emergencies in Louisiana and Mississippi, and authorities took closed floodgates and raised water barriers around New Orleans. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said it was the first time all floodgates were sealed in the New Orleans area since Katrina in 2005. Still, he said he did not expect the Mississippi River to spill over the levees despite water levels already running high from spring rains and melting snow upstream.

The barriers range in height from about 20 feet to 25 feet (6 meters to 7.5 meters).

There was one piece of good news: Late Friday night, forecasters said the Mississippi River was expected to crest in New Orleans at about 17.1 feet (5.2 meters) on Monday, not 19 feet (5.8 meters) as had been earlier predicted. The levees protecting the city range from about 20 to 25 feet (6 to 7.5 meters) in height.

Authorities told at least 10,000 people in exposed, low-lying areas along the Gulf Coast to leave, but no evacuations were ordered in New Orleans, where officials urged residents to “shelter in place.”

“It’s moving really slowly,” New Orleans Councilwoman Helena Moreno said. “Because of that, there is concern it could be building as it just sits over the water. … We could feel a bigger impact.”

___

Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Sarah Blake Morgan in New Orleans; Jay Reeves in Baton Rouge; Rogelio Solis in Morgan City; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Barr Calls Justice Department ‘All In’ on Criminal Justice Overhaul

EDGEFIELD, S.C.—Leroy Nolan has spent the last 26 years behind bars at a federal prison for a drug conviction. In the prison factory, he works making T-shirts, backpacks and other products that are later sold to government agencies, nonprofits and others.

But what has become a decades-long routine for Nolan behind the barbed wire, steel gates and concrete walls of FCI Edgefield, a prison in rural South Carolina, will all change on Friday when he walks out the front door. The 67-year-old is among about 2,200 federal inmates who will be released that day by the federal Bureau of Prisons under a criminal justice reform measure signed into law last year by President Donald Trump.

The measure, known as the First Step Act, gives judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders, eases mandatory minimum sentences and encourages inmates to participate in programs designed to reduce the risk of recidivism, with credits that can be used to gain an earlier release.

On a visit this past week to Edgefield — a facility with a medium-security prison and minimum-security camp — Attorney General William Barr took a firsthand look at some of the programs in place, from computer skills to cooking, auto mechanic training and factory work. He met with prison staff and a handful of inmates, including some who will be released early under the First Step Act.

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Senate Passes a Sweeping Criminal Justice Bill



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Our Ever-Deadlier Police State



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Barr’s visit signaled a major policy shift since his first stint as attorney general in the early 1990s, when he exuded a tough-on-crime approach, advocating for more severe penalties, building more prisons and using laws to keep some criminals behind bars longer. Barr has said he will fully support and carry out the law.

Trump has touted the overhaul as a rare bipartisan effort to address concerns that too many Americans were imprisoned for nonviolent crimes as a result of the drug war. The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, helped persuade him to get behind the measure and clashed with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who did not see criminal justice reform as a top priority.

In the culinary skills class at Edgefield, the aspiring chefs told Barr about how they earn restaurant-level food preparedness and safety certificates so they can immediately try to find work once they are released.

Inmate-chef Eddie Montgomery helped prepare a spread of chicken, blackened fish, green beans and mashed potatoes, which he offered to Barr, while explaining how the program was “top notch.”

“It’s delicious,” the attorney general said, as he chomped down.

During a tour that lasted nearly three hours, Barr also met with a prison psychologist, inmates who act as mentors in faith and drug-treatment programs, and with instructors who help prisoners create resumes and participate in job fairs. Passing through the narrow hallways, Barr peeked through the windows of some classrooms where inmates were completing computer skills and GED programs. In one room, where older computers and typewriters lined the walls, Barr chatted about re-entry programs and heard from mentors who teach their fellow inmates how to prepare for the job interviews.

But some of the prison’s programs — like the culinary arts and auto repair programs — tend to be very popular among inmates and have wait lists. As he walked through Edgefield, Barr told Hugh Hurwitz, the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, they needed to make sure there were enough programs available to a wide swath of inmates.

“We’re focusing on building on the programs, the re-entry programs we need, and getting the funding to do it,” Barr said in an interview this past week with The Associated Press.

For inmates like Nolan, who was first sentenced in 1994 to life behind bars before it was reduced to more than 30 years, the First Step Act is a welcome reform. He’s set to be released Friday after serving about 85% of his sentence.

“I made the mistake of getting into drugs,” Nolan told Barr and the state’s two senators, Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, who accompanied the attorney general on the Edgefield tour. “You’re good role models.”

The Justice Department has been working to meet the deadlines set by Congress for the First Step Act and is expected to unveil a risk-assessment tool this week that will help to evaluate federal inmates and ultimately could speed up their release.

Barr said the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons are both “all in in terms of making it work.”

“I’m impressed with how it’s going,” Barr said of the First Step Act’s implementation. “While there are a few things I probably would have done a little bit different, I generally support the thrust of the First Step Act.”

Under the resentencing provisions of the law, more than 1,600 inmates have qualified for a reduced sentence and more than 1,100 have already been released, a Justice Department official said. This is in addition to the 2,200 to be released on Friday after earning credits.

Advocates have called for stronger oversight of the implementation by both the Bureau of Prisons and the Justice Department and say Congress and the Trump administration need to fully commit to providing the necessary funding.

“We have concerns it might not be implemented appropriately,” said Inimai Chettiar, legislative and policy director at the Justice Action Network.

“The sentencing provisions are things that are much more clear cut,” she said. “The people who are already put in prison and are trying to get out by participating in programs, those programs also need to be funded too. If there’s no funding it is going to severely limit the ability for the federal government to reduce their prison population.”

FTC Reportedly Approves $5 Billion Settlement With Facebook

SAN FRANCISCO—The FTC has voted to approve a fine of about $5 billion for Facebook over privacy violations, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The report cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter.

Facebook and the FTC declined to comment. The Journal said the 3-2 vote broke along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition to the settlement.

The FTC report has been moved to the Justice Department for review, per the report. It is not clear how long it will take to finalize.

The fine would be the largest the FTC has levied on a tech company. But it won’t make much of a dent for Facebook, which had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year. Facebook has earmarked $3 billion for a potential fine and said in April it was anticipating having to pay up to $5 billion.

The report did not say what else the settlement includes beyond the fine, though it is expected to include limits on how Facebook treats user privacy. There have also been calls to the FTC to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally liable for the privacy violations in some way, but based on the party line vote breakdown experts said this is not likely.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the nonprofit online privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he was “confused” as to why the Democrat commissioners didn’t support the settlement and said he suspects, without having seen the actual settlement, that this was due to the Zuckerberg liability question.

“But I thought that was misguided,” he said, adding that EPIC instead supports more wholesale limits on how Facebook handles user privacy.

Since the Cambridge Analytica debacle erupted more than a year ago and prompted the FTC investigation, Facebook has vowed to do a better job corralling its users’ data. Nevertheless, its controls have remained leaky. For example, It also acknowledged giving big tech companies like Amazon and Yahoo extensive access to users’ personal data, in effect exempting them from its usual privacy rules. And it collected call and text logs from phones running Google’s Android system in 2015.

Still, Wall Street has appeared unfazed at the prospect of the fine. Facebook’s shares closed at $204.87 on Friday and added 24 cents after hours. The stock is up more than 50 percent since the beginning of the year.

“This closes a dark chapter and puts it in the rearview mirror with Cambridge Analytica,” said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. “Investors still had lingering worries that the fine might not be approved. Now, the Street can breathe a little easier.”

Evolution of a Medium

“I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution”

A book by Emily Nussbaum

Emily Nussbaum began writing her New Yorker TV column in 2011, surfing the medium’s Great Transformation. Ten years ago, nobody streamed; today, fewer and fewer watch “live” television. In 2007, Netflix shipped its billionth DVD mailer, propping up the U.S. Postal Service; today its streaming proves harder to resist than even Amazon Prime. Like Netflix, Prime’s brand now routinely pumps out original shows and movies. Oscar sweeps appear imminent.

By 2014, Ferguson’s street protests, police brutality, and sexual harassment scandals took center stage in both life and drama. Bingeing and anthology series like “Black Mirror” turned into mainstream memes, as TV material, once a focal point of family life, now seeded a cloud-storm of visual storytelling across laptops, mobile phones, and high-density wide screens. In her first collection, “I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution,” Nussbaum, acutely aware of all these forces, describes how they bashed up against one another in show after show, even as they compressed history and replaced time’s gravity with an avalanche of content. (Remember “appointment viewing”?) With her 2016 Pulitzer Prize, she thrives as a pivotal contemporary voice; her calm reasoning and light-saber resolve make you cheer for criticism itself. Her career parallels television’s ascent.

Click here to read long excerpts from “I Like to Watch” at Google Books.

When Nussbaum abandoned her graduate degree in literature, the medium still had a junky afterglow. “TV might be a gold mine economically speaking,” she writes in the opening piece, “How Buffy the Vampire Slayer Turned Me Into a TV Critic,” “but that only made it more corrupt. If you were an artist, writing TV was selling out; if you were an intellectual, watching it was a sordid pleasure, like chain-smoking. People still referred to television, with no irony, as ‘the boob tube’ and ‘the idiot box.’ (Some people still do.)” But then “Buffy,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Twin Peaks,” and “The X Files” started fiddling with these assumptions.

When she wrote about “The Sopranos” back in 2007 for New York magazine, these shifts had become a new subject: how the suddenly moribund networks couldn’t contain the cinematic ambition or sheer production scale of viewer demand. “Bingeing” now describes both a form of grazing and a crude metaphor for endless consumption that reduces viewers to playing a constant game of catch-up. Shrewdly, and with glaring efficiency, Nussbaum details how product placement now supplants old-fashioned “ads,” and viewers found their responses, desires and impulses recorded and monetized with every twitch of social media.

Many of Nussbaum’s insights achieve rapid focus, like how producer Shonda Rhimes’ “Scandal” far out-juiced “House of Cards.” She calls “Scandal” “a series that’s soapy rather than noirish but much more fun, and that, in its lunatic way, may have more to say about Washington ambition.” Yes! Now more thought-bombs on “Brainwashed,” “West Wing’s” infinite loop, and the sturdy Danish political drama, “Borgen,” please. She wins you over early on by calling Aaron Sorkin a “utopian solipsist,” and threads white-hot ideas inside cleverly disguised asides—“Vanderpump Rules” sports a rich meta-moxie: “…It’s a reality show about the types of people who are most likely to agree to appear on a reality show.” She honors the sly wit of “BoJack Horseman” (“Diane, the whole point of television is it’s a collaborative medium where one person gets all the credit”), and dunks “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” with a single stroke: “In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, sexism exists. But it never gets inside Midge. Her marvelousness comes from the fact that she’s immune, a self-adoring alpha whose routines feel like feminist TED talks, with some ‘fucks. ’”

With great flourish and daring, she opens her 2007 “Sopranos” essay like this: “David Chase, you sadist. We trusted you, and then you turned on us—and maybe we deserved it.” So many devoured this show and its self-congratulatory airs that a fair-minded assessment rings almost radical. In “The Long Con,” Nussbaum draws attention to how Chase’s material seemed like an overdue yet entirely plausible offspring of its frame: “Chase was the first TV creator to truly take advantage, in every sense, of the odd bond a series has with its audience: an intimate dynamic that builds over time, like any therapeutic relationship.” Her praise deftly sidesteps hype: Tony Soprano, played with elephantine poise by James Gandolfini as a “hurting bad boy,” travels from sympathetic villain to abject monster; he’s playing his “please like me” shtick straight at us, just like he’s playing his therapist and wife. His all too believable nemesis/mother, Livia, played “a villain who crushed her enemies with the illusion of powerlessness.”

Nussbaum carefully teases out how the show entranced viewers, why it still bathes in a foundational afterglow alongside “Breaking Bad.” While she adores the character Tony Soprano, she finds the ending of the piece, with his larger fraud, to be a slap in the face for believing in the whole lovable mobster conceit. Instead of Chase falling in love with his protagonist on cue, it’s as though he regrets his whole Frankensteinian enterprise. (A fade to black, remember, can convey both infinity and doom. Listen to that suicidal Springsteen “Nebraska” outtake.)

In this compilation’s bravura centerpiece, “Confessions of the Human Shield,” Nussbaum traces the Harvey Weinstein scandal back through Roman Polanksi, Miles Davis, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, and John Updike. Louis CK’s standup and “Louie” dominated the new TV, a breakout figure who self-destructed with the same untidy defiance that once brought him acclaim (“making a mess is what men get to do…”). Perversely, just as this writerly comic faced public repudiation, he sponsored a clutch of female iconoclasts, among them Tig Notaro (“One Mississippi”), and Pamela Adlon, his co-star on “Louie,” with whom he’d co-created “Better Things.” In fact, Nussbaum adds, “his show became a catalyst for a wave of autobiographical comedies, many by women, made by creators who were fascinated, just as he was, by sexual compulsion and shame, forgiveness and blame.” The new TV tossed up implacable conundrums: How to square a misogynist jerk with how he backed indispensable feminist and LGBTQ views?

In retrospect, Nussbaum notes, “Louie” “seems like an extended anxiety dream about what might happen if women turned the tables.” That catches how TV’s hot flashes of the past decade have recentered comedy, drama, scandal, politics, and our general conflation of Reality TV with “reality.” Now she faces the same Herculean task as many of her subjects: how to top herself.

 

Feds Bring New Sex Crimes Charges Against R. Kelly

CHICAGO — R. Kelly was arrested on federal charges that accuse him and members of his entourage of recruiting women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with the singer and paying them to cover up his crimes, including those at the center of his 2008 acquittal on child pornography charges.

Kelly, who was already facing sexual abuse charges brought by Illinois prosecutors, was indicted on allegations that he and his business manager paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and used physical abuse and blackmail to prevent girls and their relatives from providing evidence to law enforcement about his sex acts with minors and videos depicting them.

An indictment unsealed Friday in Chicago says he arranged for a girl and her parents to travel overseas so they could not talk with police prior to his 2002 indictment on 21 counts of child pornography. The pornography case stemmed from allegations that Kelly recorded a video of him engaging in sex acts with the girl, who was 12 or 13 when they met in the mid-1990s. Kelly and the girl denied they were in the video, even though the picture quality was good and witnesses testified it was them. She did not take the stand.

The indictment says the payments continued after the 2008 trial, and that Kelly also transferred the title on a luxury SUV to the girl in 2013.

Prosecutors also say Kelly went to great lengths to recover videos he made of himself with minor girls when he realized some were missing from his “collection,” including making some victims and witnesses take lie-detector tests to ensure they had returned all copies of the videos.

A separate indictment filed in the Eastern District of New York includes charges of racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and the sexual exploitation of a child. It says Kelly and his managers, bodyguards and other assistants picked out women and girls at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly. They also set rules the women and girls had to follow, including not leaving their rooms — even to eat or go to the bathroom — without Kelly’s permission, calling the singer “Daddy” and not looking at other men, the indictment alleges.

The indictment alleges that the criminal acts occurred over two decades dating back to 1999, both in the U.S. and overseas. It accuses Kelly of engaging in sexual acts with girls under 18 and of not disclosing that he had a sexually transmitted disease. It also accuses him of producing child pornography, including by asking minors to send him photographs.

The Chicago indictment charges Kelly with child sex crimes, including producing child pornography, and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. It also names Kelly’s business manager, Derrel McDavid, and another employee.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Joseph Fitzpatrick said the 52-year-old R&B artist was walking his dog when he was taken into custody Thursday evening. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, he was being held at the high-rise Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago.

He is scheduled to appear in court in Chicago Friday afternoon. His arraignment on the Chicago charges was scheduled for Tuesday. Federal prosecutors in New York said if convicted of the charges Kelly could face decades in prison. Chicago prosecutors also want Kelly to forfeit more than $1.5 million.

Kelly’s attorney, Steve Greenberg, said the new federal allegations appear “to largely be the same” as what he is charged with in state court earlier this year. He said Kelly “was aware of the investigations, and the charges were not a surprise.”

“He and his lawyers look forward to his day in court, to the truth coming out and to his vindication from what has been an unprecedented assault by others for their own personal gain,” Greenberg said. Kelly also looks forward to making music and performing “for his legions of fans that believe in him.”

The arrest was the second time this year that Kelly has been taken into custody in Chicago on sex charges. The Grammy winner, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was arrested in February on 10 counts in Illinois of sexually abusing three girls and a woman. He pleaded not guilty to those charges and was released on bail.

Then on May 30, Cook County prosecutors added 11 more sex-related counts involving one of the women who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was underage.

Full Coverage: R. Kelly

Darrell Johnson, a publicist for Kelly, delivered a statement at a chaotic news conference Friday in Atlanta, where he was interrupted seconds after beginning by the family of a woman who lived with Kelly in Chicago. The relatives of Joycelyn Savage pleaded to speak with their daughter.

“I want to know where my daughter is,” Timothy Savage, Joycelyn Savage’s father, angrily interrupted Johnson. “Where is she at? Answer that question!”

Johnson said he had “nothing to do” with Joycelyn Savage and that she was not being held. In an interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King in March, Joycelyn Savage defended her relationship with Kelly and denied reports she was being held against her will.

Kelly has faced mounting legal troubles this year after Lifetime aired a documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which revisited allegations of sexual abuse of girls. The series followed the BBC’s “R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes,” released in 2018, that alleged the singer was holding women against their will and running a “sex cult.”

Soon after the release of the Lifetime documentary, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said her office had been inundated with calls about the allegations in the documentary. Her office’s investigation led to the charges in February and additional counts added in May.

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Associated Press Writer Ben Nadler contributed from Atlanta.

Will Democratic Superdelegates Block a Progressive in 2020?

What follows is a conversation between journalist Norman Solomon and Greg Wilpert of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

GREG WILPERT It’s The Real News Network and I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.

The race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination is now in full swing. Last month, we already had the first two debates among twenty of the candidates. The next double debate, this time on CNN, will take place in Detroit on July 30th and 31st. Fourteen candidates have so far qualified to participate. As the primary process heats up, attention is being placed once again on the role of the so-called superdelegates during the party’s convention, which will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 13th to 16th in 2020. Superdelegates are elected Democratic Party officials, former distinguished party leaders, and state party officials. In the past, the superdelegates who were not pledged to any particular presidential candidate were able to vote for any candidate of their choice during the convention. Supporters of Bernie Sanders in 2016, however, objected to this rule saying that it biased the nomination process in favor of establishment candidates, such as Hillary Clinton. The nomination rules were thus changed last year so that superdelegates can no longer vote during the first ballot, but only during the second one and after, should no candidate have a majority of pledged delegates leading up to the first ballot.

Joining me now to discuss the Democratic Party’s nomination process is Norman Solomon. Norman is co-founder and National Coordinator of RootsAction.org. Also, he’s the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Thanks for joining us again, Norman.

NORMAN SOLOMON Hey. Thank you, Greg.

GREG WILPERT So you were quite involved in the discussions about the superdelegate reform process last year. As a matter of fact, you were there at the DNC meeting last August to see the process. So before we get into what this new process means for the 2020 race, what did you think about the reform at the time it was passed? Was it a good compromise, or was it a bad one?

NORMAN SOLOMON It was an important step forward and it’s notable that a lot of the establishment of the DNC was very upset at that meeting that you mentioned in Chicago last August. We had people like Donna Brazil and others, members of Congress who are longtime Democratic elite leaders or at least manipulators, who were outraged that their power to affect the Democratic presidential nomination was in their view, being usurped and taken away. And they felt that they were being disempowered where actually, what was happening was that the electorate was being empowered and their disadvantages were being eliminated or at least sharply reduced. So the best solution would have been to simply get rid of superdelegates and their power to vote on the nominee, period. The best that could be done was to get rid of their power to affect a vote during the first ballot. And it’s important to recall that there hasn’t been a second ballot since 1952. So the danger is still there that the decision could go as far as a second ballot, but I would say the odds are against it next year.

GREG WILPERT That’s exactly what I want to turn to now. At the time that the DNC reformed the nomination process, it wasn’t clear that there would be 24 candidates running for the Democratic nomination. I think that must be one of the largest number of candidates ever running for the Democratic Party nomination. So as a result, since there’s so many candidates, wouldn’t that actually significantly increase the chances of no candidate winning in a clear majority, and thereby bringing us back to the old system where the superdelegates end up being the ones who brokered the decision and decide the race in the end?

NORMAN SOLOMON That’s an understandable fear. I think, at this point, it’s a misconception for two big reasons. First, is that the rules require that for a candidate to get any delegates from a state, from a congressional district when the delegates are representing that district, that candidate has to get at least 15% of the vote. And the vast majority of the candidates will come out of a particular primary or caucus with zero delegates. The other reality, which has become more clear in the last couple of weeks, is that there can be 24 candidates. There’s about five who are at this point likely serious contenders. You look at the numbers and the vast majority of those 25 or so, are somewhere between 0% and 1%, or 1.5%, of the national polling. And particularly, when you look at—And of course, it’s possible to see a change, but I think the odds are very strong that one of four people will be the nominee because they are at the first tier. And that is: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris. And after those four, there’s a very, very steep drop-off to single digits. The closest in the polling has been Buttigieg. And so, this field is going to winnow out pretty fast. And the vast majority of those two dozen candidates will be quickly irrelevant, and go to the convention in Milwaukee next summer with single-digit delegates, I believe, if at all.

GREG WILPERT Let me just push back a little bit for a moment. I mean, the thing is that, I mean, even if you end up with only four major candidates, if none of those four get an absolute majority— that is, more than 50% of the delegates in the first ballot— that still means it will go to a second ballot. And let’s say, presumably Biden might still be the frontrunner. Then he ends up getting the superdelegates, even if the other candidates in theory could have maybe won if the superdelegates hadn’t participated. I mean, what do you think about all that?

NORMAN SOLOMON Well, sure that could happen. It could have happened in 1988. It could have happened in 1984. It could have happened many times in the last several decades. So the theoretical possibility is there and, you know, my crystal ball is in the shop. Nobody knows for sure, but I would say that the chances that there will be a second ballot are low. Because as this happens, as the candidates are winnowed out, and most of them fall by the wayside quickly, and most of the rest of them pretty soon afterwards, you’re going to have a handful of contenders. So I understand people’s concerns. I think it’s important that we not only horse race or, you know, be the pundits, as valid as that might seem, but it’s activism that matters. If people don’t want it to go to a second ballot so that corporate powers can start to really put their thumbs on the scale, they ought to make sure, we ought to make sure that we don’t have a corporate frontrunner to begin with.

You know, Joe Biden is clearly, I believe, the worst candidate among anybody with a ghost of a chance of winning the Democratic nomination next year. And you know, Kamala Harris is also a corporate creature. So if we don’t want those lobbyists—And by the way, most of the superdelegates are simply elected Democrats, so they’re establishment people on the whole. If we don’t want them to have power over the nomination, we should also move forward now to make sure that the billionaire class doesn’t have power over who is the frontrunner. And while Joe Biden is sinking from where he was, he still has a lot of money, a lot of clout, a lot of friendly corporate media behind him. And that’s, I think, where activism kicks in. You know, if people organize effectively, we can change the news, we can change history, not just learn about it later on.

I should add one other thing. That the odds structurally are against progressive, genuinely left progressive candidates from being nominated for the presidency. The odds were also against this young activist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And the structure of the rules in New York preregistration requirements and so forth, made the conventional wisdom that this powerful guy named Joe Crowley was simply going to walk back into Congress, and we know the history. That was changed because people had— not to coin a phrase, it’s an old phrase— they had “pessimism of the intellect.” That they brought to bear not only their optimism of the will, but their organizing to change what had been forecast, and bring about a much better result.

GREG WILPERT Yeah. I think that’s a very good point. Though, one of—The other change, though, that has taken place is that now California, which used to be almost an afterthought in the nomination process because it was one of the last states to hold a primary, has now moved its primary race up to March 3rd. And it’s taking place together with other major states, so that up to a third of the delegates will be chosen on that March 3rd. Doesn’t that significantly increase the uncertainty of who will be the frontrunner, and therefore maybe also the possibility of actually having a brokered convention come July 2020?

NORMAN SOLOMON There’s certainly a lot of uncertainty in general. I think it’s coming with the territory— anytime you have some strong candidates with a chunk of money and, you know, some media momentum, if not grassroots. We have some Astroturf candidates. We have a couple of what I think are more genuine candidates— Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders— with a lot of momentum. I’m here in California, and certainly it’s going to be a battlefield here, the biggest prize by far in terms of delegates. And one of the things that the Bernie Sanders campaign is doing is this distributed outreach, where we’re not reliant on the big media markets and the advertising budgets. You know, the Sanders campaign is very adequately funded. At the same time, the differential is going to be what happens on the ground.

And so, one thing I’d add is that the conventional wisdom has been so wrong that, you know, pundits may as well just go on vacation for the next year and a half in terms of being reliable. You know, Hillary Clinton was going to absolutely trounce Donald Trump according to the wise men and women of the pundit-ocracy. And so, you know, we don’t know and there’s so many variables. There’s a populist upsurge of bogus, racist, xenophobic media often driven upsurge or down surge from the right-wing, and there’s also a tremendous populist progressive upsurge at the grassroots. And I think that we can bring that to bear to realize that it’s not electoral work or nonelectoral work. That it’s all part of a larger hole that we can bring to bear. So the dangers, again, are there. They always are there. And corporate power, the elites, are using everything they can to maintain power. That’s all the more reason for us to organize.

GREG WILPERT Okay. Well on that note, we’re going to leave it there for now, but I’m sure we’re going to come back to you to talk about this more as we see how the race shapes up. I was speaking to Norman Solomon, co-founder and National Coordinator of RootsAction.org. Thanks again, Norman, for having joined us today.

NORMAN SOLOMON Thank you, Greg.

GREG WILPERT And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

Border Patrol Agents Are Sharing a Commemorative Coin Mocking Migrants

An unofficial commemorative coin has been circulating among Border Patrol agents at the U.S./Mexico border, mocking the task of caring for migrant children and other duties that have fallen to agents as families cross into the U.S.

On the front, the coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag — a caricature of the “caravan” from last fall, which started in Honduras and attracted thousands of people as it moved north. (While the caravan included many women and children, the only visible figures on the coin appear to be adult men.)

The coin’s reverse side features the Border Patrol logo and three illustrations: a Border Patrol agent bottle-feeding an infant; an agent fingerprinting a teen boy wearing a backwards baseball cap; and a U.S. Border Patrol van. The text along the edge reads “FEEDING ** PROCESSING ** HOSPITAL ** TRANSPORT.”

The coin appears to poke fun at the fact that many border agents are no longer out patrolling and instead are now caring for and processing migrants — including families and children.

Government officials told ProPublica the coin was not approved or paid for by the government, unlike official “challenge coins” that go through an agency approval process. One Customs and Border Protection official, who was not authorized to give his name, characterized the coin as “something that somebody’s doing on their free time” — comparing it to woodworking. “A lot of the agents have little hobbies on the side, they build little wooden figures that they have at their homes,” the official said.

It’s not clear who created the coin or how widely it’s been circulated among border agents. But Border Patrol agents in California and Texas — on opposite ends of the U.S./Mexico border — had seen the coin circulated at their workplaces. One of the agents received a coin in April when a colleague brought several to pass around at the office; the other was shown an online order form for the coins by a colleague at work.

Both said the coins were promoted via the secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol officials that, as ProPublica recently detailed, included racist and violent posts.

The coin is part of a tradition of unofficial “challenge coins” — which generally outnumber official ones — which are common in the military and law enforcement as a way for members to celebrate achievements and build camaraderie.

But outside observers found this particular coin anything but harmless.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, who worked at CBP under the Bush and Obama administrations, said that the coin was evidence (like the 10-15 Facebook group) of “reflexive dehumanization” by Border Patrol agents, and that the “tolerance for shenanigans” by supervisors and leadership had gone too far. “You have to say, ‘This is affecting the integrity and authority of us all.’”

The coin appears to have been designed, ordered and distributed months into the surge of Central American families at the border. Coins were being distributed to agents by late April, before the current wave of public attention and outrage over conditions for migrants in Border Patrol custody.

Customs and Border Protection officials said they did not know about the coin until contacted by ProPublica. They said they would investigate it for potential trademark violation since the coin includes the Border Patrol’s logo.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a firm policy on the use and production of challenge coins bearing CBP identifiers,” a CBP official said, including the U,S. Border Patrol logo. “The coin in question is not an officially approved CBP coin. CBP intends to investigate the matter and will make a determination when all the facts are known.”

However, officials implied that if the coin had not used the official logo, it would be beyond their control. “If it’s something that somebody’s doing on their free time,” said the official who asked not to be named, it is not something the agency can control.

Hector Garza of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol agents, said he had not seen the coin either. When shown pictures of it by ProPublica, and in response to follow-up questions, he said, “I have no thoughts about the coin.”

Challenge coins have spread throughout the federal government, but are especially popular within Border Patrol. They depict individual offices or stations or particular missions. If official visitors come by to tour a station, a coin may be presented.

In this case, the “mission” being mockingly commemorated is the unprecedented amount of migrant care and processing Border Patrol agents did in the spring of this year.

Taking care of migrants (including children) in short-term custody is part of the Border Patrol’s job. When the intake system for migrant children is overwhelmed, as it was in 2014 and has been again in 2019, Border Patrol often holds children for longer than the 72 hours prescribed by the federal Flores settlement (a court agreement that governs the treatment of children in immigration custody), often in spaces not designed for children — or anyone. In recent weeks the government has greatly reduced the number of children in Border Patrol custody, thanks in large part to funding from Congress that expanded the intake system’s capacity.

Some agents say that childcare and support have an opportunity cost: Any time an agent spends driving a van full of children to a child-only facility, for example, is time not spent “in the field” apprehending people who are trying to get away.

“Us caring for kids and families, that’s not the frustration,” Garza said. “Drugs coming into the country? That is a frustration. People with criminal records coming in and us not being able to catch them? That is a frustration.”

That tradeoff appears to be fueling the emotions expressed by the coin — with the back side depicting the tasks that agents must do instead of being out “on the line,” and the front side referring to the legal “loopholes” that make it harder to detain and deport migrants under 18 and families.

One Border Patrol agent, when asked about morale among agents detailed to care and transport, replied with a photo of a dumpster floating down a flooded river.