Chris Hedges's Blog, page 37

U.S. Looks to Iowa to Help Clarify Democratic Field

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa Democrats anxious for fundamental political change headed toward caucus centers late Monday to decide the opening contest in the 2020 presidential primary season. It could bring new clarity to a field that still features nearly a dozen White House contenders vying for the chance to take on President Donald Trump.

In the hours before the evening caucuses, candidates gave last-minute pep talks and pitches, while hundreds of volunteers pressed on statewide. By day’s end, tens of thousands of Democrats were to have gathered at community centers, high school gyms and more than 1,600 other caucus locations in the premiere of more than 50 contests that will unfold over the next five months. The caucuses were rendering the first verdict on what the party stands for in the age of Trump — and who it feels is best positioned to take on the Republican president, whom Democratic voters are desperate to beat this fall.

The moment is thick with promise for a Democratic Party that has seized major gains in states since Trump won the White House in 2016. But instead of clear optimism, a cloud of uncertainty and deepening intraparty resentment hung over Monday’s election as the prospect of a muddled result raised fears of a long and divisive primary fight in the months ahead.

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“I’m the one who can pull our party together,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told supporters on a telephone call, suggesting her rivals could not. “I’m the one who is going to pull us all in to give us the ideas that we can all run on. The one who says both inspiration and inclusiveness.”

Polls suggest that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders may have a narrow lead, but any of the top four candidates — Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, Warren and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — could score a victory in Iowa’s unpredictable and quirky caucus system as organizers prepared for record turnout. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who represents neighboring Minnesota, was also claiming momentum, while outsider candidates including entrepreneur Andrew Yang, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard could be factors.

“If anybody tells you they know who’s going to win, either they’ve got a whisper from God or they’re loony because nobody knows,” said Deidre DeJear, who announced her support for Warren on Monday and was the first black woman to win a statewide primary in Iowa.

Roughly two-thirds of Iowa caucus-goers said supporting a candidate who would fundamentally change how the system in Washington works was important to their vote, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of voters who said they planned to take part in Monday’s Democratic caucuses.

That compares to about a third of caucus-goers who said it was more important to support a candidate who would restore the political system to how it was before Trump’s election in 2016.

Iowa Democrats also reported two major issues dominating their thoughts: health care and climate change.

By midday Monday, a handful of satellite caucuses had already taken place_some thousands of miles away from Iowa. In Glasgow, Scotland, Sanders received the most support from the 19 caucus-goers who attended, while Warren came in second and Buttigieg came in third. No other candidates were viable.

But the precinct caucuses are a a relatively small portion of the results_some 200,000 Iowans are expected to participate in the event.

The four senators in the field left Iowa late Sunday to return to the U.S. Capitol for Trump’s impeachment trial, but did what they could to keep their campaigns going from Washington. While Warren held her telephone town hall, Klobuchar’s husband and daughter appeared at a canvass launch in Des Moines.

The three remaining candidates — Biden, Buttigieg and Yang — revved up supporters at campaign offices across Des Moines.

In suburban Des Moines, Buttigieg delivered about 100 volunteers a last shot of encouragement before they stepped out into the chill to knock on doors for him around midday Monday.

“We are exactly where we need to be to astonish the political world,” he said, igniting cheers for the 38-year-old former midsize-city mayor, who was an asterisk a year ago and is now among the top candidates.

Meanwhile, Biden and his wife, Jill, delivered pizza Monday to a few dozen volunteers working the phones at his south Des Moines field office.

“I feel good,” he said as he walked in, sporting his signature aviator sunglasses.

Iowa offers just a tiny percentage of the delegates needed to win the nomination but plays an outsize role in culling primary fields. A poor showing in Iowa could cause a front-runner’s fundraising to slow and support in later states to dwindle, while a strong result can give a candidate much needed momentum.

The past several Democrats who won the Iowa caucuses went on to clinch the party’s nomination.

The 2020 fight has played out over myriad distractions, particularly congressional Democrats’ push to impeach Trump, which has often overshadowed the primary and effectively pinned several leading candidates to Washington at the pinnacle of the early campaign season. Even on caucus day, Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar were expected to spend several hours on Capitol Hill for impeachment-related business.

Meanwhile, ultrabillionaire Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, is running a parallel campaign that ignores Iowa as he prepares to pounce on any perceived weaknesses in the field come March.

The amalgam of oddities, including new rules for reporting the already complicated caucus results, was building toward what could be a murky Iowa finale before the race pivots quickly to New Hampshire, which votes just eight days later.

With uncertainty comes opportunity for some campaigns.

Having predicted victory multiple times in recent weeks, Biden’s team sought to downplay the importance of Iowa’s kick-off contest the day before voting began amid persistent signs that the 77-year-old lifelong politician was struggling to raise money or generate excitement on the ground.

Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders said the campaign viewed Iowa “as the beginning, not the end,” of the primary process.

“It would be a gross mistake on the part of reporters, voters or anyone else to view whatever happens on Monday — we think it’s going to be close — but view whatever happens as the end and not give credence and space for New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina,” she said of the three states up next on the primary calendar.

The tone was noticeably more upbeat for Sanders’ campaign, which has repeatedly predicted victory and believes he’s running even stronger in New Hampshire. That’s despite increasingly vocal concerns from establishment-minded Democrats who fear the self-described democratic socialist would struggle against Trump and make it more difficult for Democrats to win other elections this fall.

The heated rhetoric underscores a dangerous rift between Sanders’ passionate supporters and other factions of Democrats who have clashed in recent days but must find a way to unite should they hope to defeat Trump in November.

New party rules may give more than one candidate an opportunity to claim victory, even if they aren’t the official winner.

For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will report three sets of results at the end of the night: tallies of the “first alignment” of caucusgoers, their “final alignment” and the total number of state delegate equivalents each candidate receives. There is no guarantee that all three will show the same winner.

The Associated Press will declare a winner based on the number of state delegates each candidate wins, which has been the traditional standard.

Although most of the attention will be on Democrats, Republicans will also hold caucuses on Monday. With no serious challenger for Trump and plenty of money to burn, his reelection team hopes to use voting in early states as a test run for its organizing prowess and to boost excitement for the president’s fall campaign. Trump held a rally in Iowa last week and dispatched surrogates to the state ahead of Monday’s vote.

Shakira and Jennifer Lopez Scored With a Stealthily Political Super Bowl Show

This article originally appeared on Salon.

No matter what else happened at the halftime show for Super Bowl LIV, that wagging tongue was destined to get everyone talking. Said appendage belongs to pop star Shakira, thus ensuring it immediately went viral for the right and wrong reasons, depending on one’s willingness to get what they were seeing. But the diva left no doubt as to what we were seeing – Shakira, dressed in livid red and dancing energetically across the stage at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, leaned in to a nearby camera and waved her tongue as she let loose with an ululation.

Contrary to what a few scandalized or confused people might have thought, however, she wasn’t doing that to turn on sweaty, horny football fans. It was a shout-out to the culture, one of many during Sunday’s 15 minute performance in which Shakira shared the stage with Jennifer Lopez, together making history as the first time two Latinas headlined a Super Bowl halftime show.

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Depending on what you were looking for, it was full of nods to the Latinx diaspora, equal parts celebration of the world and acknowledgement of solidarity with immigrants. Then again, a person would have to know what they were looking at.

The fact that a large portion of Shakira’s vocal performance was in Spanish wasn’t out of place in Miami, mind you. More than a few other statements blazed forth during that performance, and though all of them were wrapped in jubilation, this was a party with a purpose.

Shakira’s dancing tongue is a prime example — it wasn’t obscene to any viewer familiar with Middle Eastern traditions, many of whom had to take to Twitter to explain that what she did is called zaghrouta, a joyful expression in Arabic culture. Shakira, who was born in Colombia, has a Lebanese father who was born New York City and her performance style is a marriage of her blended heritage.

Belly dancing is one element, as her impressively rippling midriff told us during her performance of hits like “Hips Don’t Lie,” but she also busted out with “Ojos Asi” during her performance, a song that contains Arabic lyrics.

Shakira also intentionally featured Afro-Latina dancers in her troupe who performed Colombian dance, including the Mapale and another called the Champeta during her performance of “Waka Waka”.

Chances are most of that signaling went right over most of the audience’s heads — and in truth, I wouldn’t have picked it up if I hadn’t checked out Twitter during and after the performance. But that kind of stealth has its own power as a social and political statement. Or, in J.Lo’s portion, a protest.

Lopez, being Bronx-born and raised by Puerto Rican parents, is one of the most popular mainstream Latina artists of the past several decades, the kind of star who has been able to transcend her cultural roots in her TV and movie roles.

She’s just J.Lo in the end, the sort of performer who, like Shakira, was expected to bring the fire — but likely a safe version of it, save for the inevitable pole dance and rump shaking accompanied by the rap stylings of J. Balvin and Bad Bunny. That’s mostly to remind us that she can still break open a walnut on her impressively powerful abs at age 50, and also she probably should have gotten some kind of nomination for “Hustlers.”

But when she and her 11-year-old daughter Emme took to the stage to sing a minimalist version of “Let’s Get Loud,” and J.Lo busted into the chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” while wearing a showgirl’s cape version of the Puerto Rican flag rendered in feathers, there was clearly something else going on besides pageantry and spice.

Consider that in the moments prior to that exuberant burst of Americana, a chorus of children dressed in white outfits spangled with American flags appeared, a number of them singing from inside glowing spheres that could be seen as, well, glowing spheres. They also looked like cages, intentional reminders that while all this star power and pyrotechnics was happening, America is still locking up innocents.

Similarly the stage was an incredible, versatile round that held many incredible images including, for a moment, the Venus symbol.

However, there was no mistaking the tribute to Kobe Bryant: a large cross on a field bathed in the colors of the Los Angeles Lakers, gold and purple.

The Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t always a stage for statements beyond that of pure magic, as in the Prince performance in the rain that will never be topped; whatever controversies that occurred in years past (remember Boobgate?) were accidental.

But after Beyoncé marched in and delivered a 2016 performance that was nothing but soulful signaling, including dancers dressed in Black Panther berets and walking in an X to introduce what was then her new hit “Formation,” viewers can’t tune in without expecting to see some kind of nod at the world beyond a particular football field on that particular day.

This being a Super Bowl taking place days before a corrupt Senate is set to acquit a corrupt, impeached president that just expanded its travel ban to include a number of African countries with majority Muslim populations, no star who is also a person of color could have gotten up onstage without making some kind of statement. (Even Bey herself made her own statement from the audience where she and husband Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation produced the entertainment, remained seated during Demi Lovato’s performance of the National Anthem.)

The brilliance of what Shakira and J.Lo pulled off in their history-making show, however, is in delivering on the promise of giving us an exuberant entertainment experience while displaying a pride in belonging to several cultures that this administration has purposefully neglected (Puerto Rico) or vilifies (every other country with mainly brown or black populations).

They made all the statements, from the world-beat sounds to the ethnic make-up to the dancers to the African-style drumbeats hitting our ears. They gave us an all-American performance featuring the language of Americans and would-be Americans who quietly do the work that keeps American running.

The audience’s general ignorance of these respective cultural signals – save for the Spanish lyrics and Lopez’s cry of “Born In the U.S.A.” – didn’t take away from some of our understanding of what these two artists were doing. Shakira and Lopez were setting us straight on the story of what America is and who it is for: a land of various peoples who speak many tongues, all of whom are deserving of dignity and the spotlight.

If that part slipped by most people, perhaps that’s the point. And anyway, that zaghrouta meme is bound to have a much longer shelf life than the mediocrity Maroon 5 coughed up last year

50 Lawmakers Slam Trump’s Misogyny in Scathing Letter

Impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are limping to an end in the Senate this week. As Kyle Cheney and Anthony Desiderio write in Politico, Democratic senators have one last chance to make their case against the president, but the “Republican-controlled Senate … has all but decided the president will be acquitted.”

Amid the creeping inevitability of Trump’s acquittal, and the sense that he can truly get away with anything, it was easy to miss an open letter from 50 members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, decrying Trump’s “continuing derogation of women” in actions, policies and rhetoric throughout his entire career. In fact, when I finally did see it, my first reaction was dismissal.

It wasn’t that I disagreed with them. “It is most shameful that the words young girls and boys hear directed at women from the upper echelons of power are dripping with disdain and disrespect,” the letter read. It is incredibly shameful, I nodded as I read.

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“The message being sent to young girls and boys is that women don’t matter and their equality is allowable only when convenient,” the letter continued. That is demoralizing, I agreed. But what could a letter possibly do to a man who gets away with everything?

Democrats talk about the value of unity and building a big tent, but Republicans are masters of unity at all costs. Nearly every Republican male lawmaker, every “father of a daughter” who decried Trump’s misogynist “grab them by the pussy” comments on the Access Hollywood tapes, conveniently forgot said daughters and came to his side when he won the 2016 election. The Republican tent is so big it has room for misogynists and white nationalists.

That may remain true, but I realized I was both demanding too much of one open letter and overlooking the importance of female lawmakers speaking truth to power. It’s an impact act even when it’s not convenient, even — in fact, especially — when it seems futile, when despair makes me react to a heartfelt letter with doubt and distrust.

With an avalanche of terrible news every day, it’s easy to forget the breadth and depth of Trump’s cruelty to women. These lawmakers haven’t, and it matters that they didn’t let cynicism prevent them from taking the time to remind us:

Beyond your public policy choices – stripping away women’s access to health care, undermining protections for survivors of sexual assault, reversing equal pay efforts and more – your words demonstrate a contempt for women who dare to do their jobs or speak truth to power which reflects poorly on you. It is as if you relish the opportunity to publicly humiliate any woman who fights back, speaks up, or takes up space.

The letter isn’t the only action these women are taking, of course. There are new laws to fight for, an entire Democratic presidential primary, and the state and local elections, whose results and campaigns are less nationally flashy than the presidential race, but no less important to our democracy. They’re juggling all of that, and it still matters that they took the time to write the letter. Read it here.

The False Choice Democrats Can’t Afford to Fall For

One year ago, I worked with a group of Australian environmental activists, discussing their diverse projects in regenerative agriculture, as well as other pilot projects. One involved turning Canberra into the first green-energy city. Now, 12 months later, Canberra is in flames. One of my colleagues has lost his home. He posts about what it’s like to live with the heat, dust and risk of fires spreading. At this writing, his city is on alert for out-of-control blazes and possible evacuation orders.

For me, this is a stark reminder that the outcome of the Democratic primary, which begins today, will affect not only our country, but the world. The next U.S. president will determine the outcome of two things: the viability of global democracies, and the future habitability of the earth.

Yet the lens through which many people view our society and political options is myopic.

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For example, many people say that they “love” climate activist Greta Thunberg. They are thrilled that she gained entrée to the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and talk tough to the world’s biggest perpetrators of climate destruction. But many of these same admirers turn around and vote to empower politicians who compromise with fossil fuel companies, thus perpetuating the abusive system Thunberg decries.

People are able to do this without much reflection because the red-blue terminology and parties (1) don’t acknowledge that all of us participate in the harmful system, and (2) actively deter us from crucially needed climate action by pushing other priorities — some overt, such as defeating Donald Trump, and some covert, such as maintaining their own status above all else.

Thunberg, the Australian crisis, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Sunrise Movement and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all tell us that compromise on climate is no longer feasible.

Yet American politicians place voters in a classic double bind. The false choice is that we either vote for climate or against Trump.

This sleight of hand begins with attempting to exclude Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the one candidate who could defeat Trump while championing climate. Exclude Sanders, and there is no other candidate who delivers on both goals. A perusal of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund’s Environmental Voter Guide shows that the other candidates either are problematic on climate or their ability to win the election is uncertain.

Candidates whose climate plan is inadequate include Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigeig and Andrew Yang.

Candidates whose climate plan is unknown or uncertain include Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg.

Candidates who are borderline or lower in winning percentages against Trump include Biden, Klobuchar, Buttigeig, Yang, Bloomberg, Warren and Tom Steyer.

Poll after poll shows Sanders defeating Trump by the highest margins. Yet despite the horrors Trump has perpetrated, news reporting ignores this obvious fact. Democrats tie themselves (and us) into knots, pretending we have a problem. The only problem we have is how they tell their funders that democracy must prevail.

Democrats are likely to continue to blame their inevitable loss to Trump on young voters, the oppressed and activists. If they run a centrist, their loss is a near certainty, because independent voters (45% of the population) see what compromisers can’t — that the double bind is a fraud. That is why a segment of that population is likely to vote for Sanders — unless the Democratic colluders conspire to make that impossible.

The uncertain climate plans of Bloomberg and Warren bear close scrutiny.

That Bloomberg is allowed to enter the race, evade the primaries and use his money to appeal to voters via direct ads in key states is a top-down bypass of democracy that unmasks the Democrats’ debate-primary process as a sham. While entrapped within the red-blue mentality, it’s hard for people to see this as an abuse of democracy, even as Bloomberg uses paid media to recruit vulnerable members of society, without any transparency about his plans for the environment. This is supposedly justified by the need to oppose Trump. But replacing one guy who plays only by his own rules with another who is above democracy perpetuates the abusive system. It’s a classic mistake for victims to send a predator to protect them from another predator.

In an increasingly authoritarian society, some people embrace authoritarianism, some compromise with it and some vigorously oppose it and seek to change our system. It’s vital to consider where the people we vote for — and where we ourselves — stand.

All politicians represent the power axis with whom they’re allied. “With whom is Elizabeth Warren now allied?” is the unspoken question raised by the Jan. 14th debate. Climate concerns dictate that we ask it.

In families hurt by abuse, there are always secrets, things no one is allowed to talk about and questions no one can ask. The same is true in abusive societies.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 14 debate, voters may have shelved their questions, hoping that Sanders and Warren would maintain their one-time progressive alliance. Perhaps that will happen. But with the future of the earth at stake, voters can’t afford to act as children who naively hope that their divorcing parents will stay together. Apart from taking Sanders’ arm at the photo-op march on Martin Luther King Day, Warren has not clarified her position.

Her low to moderate polling numbers make it unlikely she will be the nominee on her own. She will likely have to team up with either the leading progressive or a Wall Street-backed corporatist.

For progressives, winning the nomination on the first ballot to avoid a brokered convention is a must. If the superdelegates and the Democratic National Committee players (named to key committees by DNC Chair Tom Perez) were to take over in later ballots, they would likely anoint one of the many centrist climate temporizers as the nominee.

It is vital, therefore, for primary voters to know whether Warren is still allied with progressives. Remember: It’s one thing to call oneself a progressive and it’s another to ally with fellow progressive candidates, including the undisputed front-runner.

At the Jan. 14 debate, rather than raise questions about Biden’s record, Warren chose to confront the progressive candidate, not the corporatist. It’s certainly her right to do that, and even to change her alliances if she chooses.

But voters have the right to know where she stands: with progressives or corporatists? It’s (perhaps unintentionally) duplicitous not to reveal a shift toward the corporate wing prior to a convention controlled by that wing.

Warren speaks a lot about her plans. What is her plan for the convention?

Most importantly, what will be her stance on climate change if she allies with centrists?

Warren’s die-hard supporters may wrongly assume that their values will be carried forward in all circumstances, and the question becomes most germane around climate. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund’s Environmental Voter Guide gives Sanders’ climate plan an A+ and Warren’s an A-.

According to the guide, Sanders’ backing of the Green New Deal “remains the gold standard for addressing climate change.”

In contrast, Warren plans to “end all new federal fossil fuel leasing on public lands and waters,” with no phase-out of fossil fuel production. What part of that commitment will hold if, for example, a brokered convention results in Warren joining a ticket with Biden (who gets a C- rating on climate) or Klobuchar (who rates a D+) in the top seat?

Even if Warren were to be offered the top seat in a later ballot at a brokered convention, what backstage compromises on her climate plan might that entail?

Without transparency, we are supposed to trust a personality, act as though nothing has changed, and provide our vote. After months of debates and campaign events, voters are still in the dark.

AOC, Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement are there to remind us not to gamble our future on false hopes that compromisers will save us. Beginning today, Americans have a choice. It’s LemmingsRUs or NotMeUs. Which will it be?

Rush Limbaugh Tells Listeners He Has Lung Cancer

LOS ANGELES — Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said he’s been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

Addressing listeners on his program Monday, Limbaugh said will take some days off for further medical tests and to determine treatment.

Limbaugh called himself the “mayor of Realville” in announcing his illness. He’d been experiencing shortness of breath that he initially thought might be heart-related but turned out to be a pulmonary malignancy.

Limbaugh’s announcement come at a tumultuous political time, as the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial nears.

He started his national radio show in 1988 from New York, later relocating to Palm Beach, Florida.

The hyper-partisan broadcaster has served as a Republican kingmaker through his decades on the radio.

Bolsonaro’s Latest Move Triggers Widespread Dismay

Alarmed by warnings that his neglect of the need to protect the Amazon could lead to disinvestment and export bans, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has turned to his usual solution to problems: call in the army.

He has chosen his vice-president, retired general Hamilton Mourão, to head a new Amazon Council which will co-ordinate “the activities of all the ministries involved in the protection, defence and development and sustainable development of the Amazon”.

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He has also decided to create a new environmental police force (in Portuguese) to protect the Amazon. The “Green Police” will recruit agents from local state forces.

The creation of the council is a belated attempt to undo the damage done in the first year of Bolsonaro’s government, when the environment ministry was entrusted to right-wing climate sceptic Ricardo Salles.

Salles, a São Paulo lawyer who had never set foot in the Amazon and faces charges of fraud dating from his term as environment secretary of the local state government, immediately set about dismantling the ministry’s capacity to monitor deforestation, enforce the law and fine offenders, replacing experienced, qualified staff with retired police officers, and blaming Greenpeace and other NGOs for environmental disasters.

As a result of his unfounded accusations of irregularities among recipients, Norway and Germany suspended their contributions to the billion dollar Amazon Fund, set up in 2000 to finance sustainable development projects and firefighting brigades.

Bolsonaro also gave the go-ahead to wildcat miners and landgrabbers to invade protected areas, with remarks that disparaged indigenous peoples and encouraged economic activities in the rainforest.

The effect of this policy was a huge surge in Amazon forest fires and a big increase in deforestation over the previous year. When confronted with the figures, Bolsonaro’s answer was to accuse the head of Brazil’s internationally respected monitoring agency, INPE, of lying and being in the pay of NGOs, forcing him to resign.

What finally persuaded Bolsonaro that he had to listen to the critics was pressure from Brazilian exporters and foreign investors.

Change of Tune

With disinvestment in environmentally unsustainable areas growing, large investment fund managers warned that pressure from shareholders, increasingly worried about the climate crisis, would force them to pull out of Brazil unless the government changed its tune and began protecting the Amazon.

Brazil’s politically powerful agribusiness lobby spelt out the consequences for their grain and meat exports if the government continued to encourage deforestation, because consumers now demand sustainability.

But instead of sacking his environment minister or increasing funds to prevent deforestation and fires, Bolsonaro has appointed Hamilton Mourão, whose Amazon experience is five years as military commander in the region, to sort out the problem.

Scientists, environmentalists and NGOs with years of experience in the Amazon were not consulted before the surprise move. Even Mourão himself, when interviewed, was vague about what he is meant to do or how he will do it.

Ignoring Local Knowledge

The army’s involvement in the Amazon began in the 1960s when Brazil was at the beginning of a 21-year-long military dictatorship. The key word was development – highways, dams, cattle ranches – ignoring the indigenous and traditional people who already lived there. As a result, thousands were displaced and many died from diseases transmittted by outsiders.

The decision to resort to the military has caused dismay among environmentalists. Suely Araújo, former head of Ibama, the environmental enforcement agency, who resigned in protest (in Portuguese) at the minister’s and Bolsonaro’s comments, said: “The solution is not in militarising environmental policy… military support for operations in critical areas might be necessary, but it should be understood that environmental monitoring has to go way beyond troops on the ground.”

She pointed out that Ibama’s 2020 budget for monitoring work throughout Brazil has been slashed by 25% over the previous year.

The latest figures from INPE show an 85.3% increase in deforestation (in Portuguese) for the year ending in August 2019, compared with the year before. Fires for the same period were 30% higher. 

Corporate Media Reveals Its Naked Contempt for Palestine

Media coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict over the years has typically portrayed Palestinians as obstinate and imperious negotiating partners who insist on unreasonable preconditions before reaching an agreement (e.g., US News, 6/20/12; Wall Street Journal, 4/28/13; Jerusalem Post, 7/18/17). When Israel’s preconditions are reported, the precondition that the peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians should be mediated by the US is often omitted.

That the US has never been an honest or impartial broker for resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict has always been obvious, with the Trump administration’s actions only making the US’s bias towards Israel more blatant (Foreign Policy, 9/13/18). However with the release of the Trump administration’s so-called “peace plan” that had no Palestinian involvement—which has been more accurately described as a “hate plan” based on ethnic supremacy and an endorsement of Israel’s settler-colonial project—US media still misleadingly present the US as an honest broker, and presume that the US and Israel have the right to impose ridiculous preconditions before Palestinians are worthy of their own self-determination.

Some major components of this lopsided “peace plan” include trying to legalize illegality by establishing Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital and denying Palestinians their “right to return” to their homes lost in the 1967 Six-Day War and other conflicts, as well as recognizing the Jordan Valley, along with the majority of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, as official Israeli territory. Other demands made by the US and Israel include a renunciation of “violence” and the disarming and disbanding of Hamas, despite UN recognition that people have a right to pursue self-determination, including through armed resistance against foreign occupying and colonial powers.

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Last year, the New York Times exposed the true purpose behind this “peace plan” when it published an op-ed by Israel’s ambassador to the UN, headlined “What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?” In the piece, Danny Danon argued that “national suicide” on the part of the Palestinians is “precisely what is needed for peace,” because “surrender is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission.” This declaration by an Israeli diplomat should have cued reporters that a “peace plan” crafted by the Trump administration in conjunction with Israel would be aimed at ending the possibility of Palestinian statehood rather than advancing its possibility.

Yet the Times’ report (1/28/20) on the “peace plan” claimed that the proposal would “give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while offering the Palestinians the possibility of a state with limited sovereignty.” What exactly is a state with “limited sovereignty,” and who would they be sharing “sovereignty” with? It’s hard to see how this characterization is anything but another euphemism for legitimizing continued Israeli rule over Palestinians without recognizing their democratic rights—in other words, apartheid.

The Times went on to present Trump’s actions as just another part of the US’s longstanding good-faith efforts to broker a peace deal when it described the plan as

the latest of numerous American efforts to settle the seemingly intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But it was a sharp turn in the American approach, dropping decades of support for only modest adjustments to Israeli borders drawn in 1967 and discarding the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a wholly autonomous state.

Why is the Israel/Palestine conflict “seemingly intractable”? Could it be that the US is not actually a neutral partner to these negotiations, as the Times continually refuses to understand (FAIR.org, 5/16/18)? The Times insisted on this obtuse characterization of the Trump administration’s proposal, despite reporting how Israel would be the one determining whether Palestinians are fit to govern themselves:

Still, the plan does far more for Israel than it does for the Palestinians, whose proposed state would not have a standing military and would be required to meet other benchmarks overseen by the Israelis, including a renunciation of violence and the disbandment of militant groups like Hamas, which is based in Gaza…. Under the plan, those Palestinians would find themselves virtually encircled by an expanded Israel and living within convoluted borders reminiscent of a gerrymandered congressional district.

NBC News’ “Trump Mideast Peace Plan Expands Israeli Territory, Offers Path to Palestinian Statehood” (1/28/20) offered little pushback to Trump’s claims that his “long-promised Middle East peace plan that, if implemented, would create a conditional path to statehood for Palestinians while recognizing Israeli sovereignty over a significant portion of the West Bank,” despite mentioning that the plan

raised questions about how much sovereignty a Palestinian state would have under the plan. The proposal envisions it as being surrounded by Israeli territory and not sharing a border with a neighboring Arab country, since Israel would get control of the Jordan Valley, the region that lies on the eastern portion of the West Bank bordering Jordan.

Similarly, Politico’s “Trump Unveils Long-Shot Middle East Peace Plan With Path to Palestinian Statehood” (1/28/20) felt no embarrassment calling the plan a “blueprint for Middle East Peace,” while echoing Trump’s claim that brokering peace for Israel/Palestine is a “feat that has evaded nearly a dozen of his predecessors.” Politico did not question Trump’s claims that his “peace plan” is a “realistic two-state solution” when “the conditions for statehood are met,” evading substantive critiques for complaints about a process that failed to gather “input from the Palestinians.”

The Wall Street Journal (1/28/20) also presented Trump’s plan to legitimize Israel’s apartheid state as a “peace plan,” while wondering if the Palestinians would ever come to the negotiating table, because “accepting this initiative may represent their last hope to salvage a state of their own,” as if there are no alternatives to an apartheid state and a faux “two-state solution” (FAIR.org, 6/1/18). The Journal claimed that Trump’s plan is special because

for half a century, American presidents have tried to find a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Donald Trump on Tuesday became the 10th president in that long line of futility by unveiling his plan for doing the seemingly impossible.

Yet Trump’s plan isn’t simply more of the same. In fact, it represents a significantly different approach to the uphill climb of seeking peace. Plenty of experts think those differences will make the climb harder—though, as Trump aides point out, more conventional approaches haven’t worked, undermining the argument for simply trying more of the same.

Another Journal report, “Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan Charts Two-State Course for Israelis, Palestinians” (1/28/20), mentioned that the plan would “marshal $50 billion in economic investment over 10 years,” to “double the Palestinian gross domestic product, slash Palestinian unemployment rates now at almost 18% in the West Bank and 52% in Gaza, and cut the Palestinian poverty rate in half,” while omitting the illegal occupation’s role in strangling the economy and how business operating in the settlements contribute to and profit from land confiscations and labor violations. That might be why the UN found that the Palestinian economy would be twice as large if it weren’t for the occupation. Nor did the Journal explain how the US has used cuts to international programs to punish Palestinians for not accepting lopsided terms of Israel/Palestine negotiations, ever since the Palestinian economy became dependent on international support following the Oslo Accords (Middle East Eye, 6/22/19).

Strikingly absent in these reports is discussion of international law or the legality of Israeli settlements. Including these would indicate that the US and Israel have no right to dictate terms to Palestinians, while Palestinians have a UN-backed right to return. International relations scholar Stephen Zunes (Truthout, 1/29/20) has pointed out how the Trump administration’s annexation plan constitutes several flagrant violations of international law.

Many of these reports make mention of Israel’s only seeming concession, a “four-year freeze” on construction of new Israeli settlements, without mentioning that this “freeze” would only apply to areas where there are no settlements, and areas where Israel has no immediate plans to annex—meaning that Israel isn’t making any concessions. Some observers have pointed out the mapped proposal resembles apartheid South Africa’s bantustans, and Native American reservations, more than an independent state, while others have pointed out how the proposal is basically a giant real estate deal where Palestinians would be selling their sovereignty to Israel, and is better described as “terms of surrender” for Palestine rather than a “peace plan.” But such observations are rare in corporate media opinion venues, and even more rarely are allowed to impact news coverage of the plan.

A proposal that legitimates annexation of Palestinian territory (including the crucial Jordan Valley, Palestinians’ “food basket”), a lack of contiguous territorial borders, and the denial of any means for Palestinians to defend themselves against Israel’s disproportionate violence and occupation, seems more like a proposal to end Palestinian statehood than advance it. Yet there are no boundaries the US and Israel can cross before US media will reject calling the proposal a “peace plan,” or condemn Israel’s practices as an apartheid state, because a “peace plan,” in media discourse, is simply whatever the US is proposing at any given time, while Israel is perpetually nearing apartheid, but never quite getting there (FAIR.org, 4/26/19, 9/30/19).

Everything You Need to Know About the Presidential Primaries

Every four years, our country holds a general election to decide who will be our next president. Before that happens, though, each party must choose its candidate through primary elections.

But our system of primaries can be a bit confusing. So here’s a quick primer on the upcoming primaries, containing the most important things you need to know based on the most frequently asked questions:

Are primaries, caucuses, and conventions written into the Constitution?



No. The Constitution says nothing about primaries or caucuses. Or about political parties.

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So where did primaries and caucuses come from?

From the parties themselves. The first major political party convention was held in 1831 by the National Republican Party (also known as the Anti-Jacksonian Party). The first Democratic National Convention was held in 1832.

Who decides how primaries are run?

It’s all up to the parties at the state level. Political parties can even decide not to hold a primary. This year, five states have decided not to hold Republican presidential primaries and caucuses, a move designed to stop Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.

Can state laws override party decisions?

No. In 1981, the Supreme Court held that the Democratic Party wasn’t required to admit Wisconsin delegates to its national convention since they hadn’t been selected in accordance with Democratic Party rules. The court said that a political party is protected by the First Amendment to come up with its own rules.



Why did we start holding primaries?

In the 19th century, the process for deciding on a party’s nominee was controlled by party bosses, who chose the delegates to the party conventions.

In the early 20th century, some states began to hold primaries to choose delegates for party nominating conventions.

Although the outcomes of those primaries weren’t binding, they sent a message about how a candidate might do in a general election. In 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary [archival footage] was viewed by Democratic Party leaders as a strong sign that a Catholic like Kennedy could win the votes of Protestants.

As recently as 1968, a candidate could still become the Democratic nominee without participating in any primaries, as Hubert Humphrey did that year. But since then, both parties have changed their rules so their presidential nominees depend on the outcomes of primaries and caucuses. They made these changes to better ensure their candidates would succeed in the general election.



What’s the difference between a caucus and a primary?

States that hold primaries allow voters to cast secret ballots in support of candidates. States that hold caucuses rely instead on local in-person gatherings at a particular time and place – maybe in a high school gym or a library – where voters who turn up openly decide which candidates to support. Here are the states that will have Democratic primaries in 2020 and those that will have caucuses: Iowa, Nevada, Kansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Maine.

What’s the advantage of one over the other?

Primaries are the easiest way to vote. Caucuses are more difficult to participate in, so the people who turn out for them are usually the most enthusiastic and engaged voters. In caucuses for the 2008 and 2016 Democratic nominations, for example, Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama and then to Bernie Sanders. Fewer than 5 percent of pledged delegates will be awarded by caucuses in the upcoming Democratic primary, down from 14 percent in 2016.

Are Democratic and Republican primaries the same?

No. One of the biggest differences is in how delegates are allocated. In the Democratic Party delegates are allocated proportionally – so that, for example, a candidate who wins 40 percent of a state’s vote in the Democratic primary will win 40 percent of that state’s delegates. The Republican Party allows each individual state to choose how its delegates are allocated, with some states allocating delegates proportionally and some giving all their delegates to the winner of the primary.

Another difference involves what are known as “superdelegates” – typically elected officials and prominent party members like former presidents or congressional leaders. These superdelegates are automatically seated at the party’s national convention and can vote however they like. Superdelegates are still used by the Democratic Party but the Republican Party eliminated superdelegates in 2012. In 2018, the Democratic Party reduced the power of superdelegates, allowing them to vote only in contested conventions, when no candidate has a majority of votes going into the convention.

What’s the difference between an open, semi-closed, and closed primary?

Some states have closed primaries, where the only people who can participate are those that have registered as members of a political party. Independents and members of another party are not eligible.

Other states have semi-closed primaries, in which both registered party members and Independents can vote. Different states also have different rules about when voters must choose which primary they wish to vote in – for example, registering with a party on the day of the primary or even at the time of voting.

In open-primary states, any registered voter can participate in which ever party’s primary they choose.

Why is Iowa first? Why is New Hampshire second? How is that order determined?

It may seem odd that the first two primaries occur in tiny overwhelmingly white rural states – and it is. But hey, here we are. Iowa’s caucus is first, by tradition. New Hampshire’s primary must occur at least seven days before any other primary, according to New Hampshire state law. Originally held in March of a presidential election year, the New Hampshire primary has repeatedly been moved forward in order to maintain its status as the first primary.

What’s “Super Tuesday?”

That’s the Tuesday during primary season when the greatest number of states hold primary elections. This year, Super Tuesday will be March 3 – coming after the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, the Nevada Democratic caucus, and the South Carolina Democratic primary. And Super Tuesday will be really super because two huge states with lots of delegates – California and Texas – have both moved their primaries to March 3. All told, 9 states will hold primaries that day, including 6 of the most-populous – meaning almost 29 percent of the U.S. population will have a chance to get in on picking the presidential candidates that day.

So once a state’s voters have decided on their candidates, how are the specific delegates to a party convention chosen?

The national parties have left that up to their state parties, so it varies from state to state. Delegates are typically party activists or insiders who have been supporters of the candidate they’re chosen to represent at the national party convention.

Do delegates to a national party convention have to vote for the candidate they’ve pledged to support?

Both parties’ rules require that they do, at least on the first ballot.

What’s a contested convention?

A contested convention is one where no candidate has a majority of delegates going into the convention.

When was the last contested convention?

A while back, but we could see one again this year. In 1984, Vice President Walter Mondale entered the Democratic convention only a few delegates short of a majority. In 1976 Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan competed for the Republican nomination, and at the start of the convention neither had a majority.

What’s a brokered convention?

A brokered convention occurs when, after the first round of voting, still no candidate has a majority of delegates. If that happens, delegates are then free to vote for whomever they want.



When was the last brokered convention?

You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find a brokered convention. That year both conventions were brokered. Adlai Stevenson finally emerged as the Democratic nominee and Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican. But here again, it might happen in 2020.

Which party’s convention comes first? And when and where?

By tradition, the party that holds the White House holds its nominating convention after the party that seeks the White House. So this year, the Democratic National Convention will be July 13 through 16 in Milwaukee. The Republican National Convention will be August 24 to August 27, in Charlotte.

Are vice presidential candidates chosen or announced at the convention?

Not necessarily. Presidential nominees often announce their choice of running mates in the days or weeks leading up to the nominating conventions.

So what do we do?

Make sure you’re registered and be sure to vote – in your state primaries or caucuses, and in the general election November 3!

America: Land of Make-Believe

If what happens in courtrooms across the country to poor people of color is justice, what is happening in the Senate is a trial. If the blood-drenched debacles and endless quagmires in the Middle East are victories in the war on terror, our military is the greatest on earth. If the wholesale government surveillance of the public, the revoking of due process and having the world’s largest prison population are liberty, we are the land of the free. If the president, an inept, vulgar and corrupt con artist, is the leader of the free world, we are a beacon for democracy and our enemies hate us for our values. If Jesus came to make us rich, bless the annihilation of Muslims by our war machine and condemn homosexuality and abortion, we are a Christian nation. If formalizing an apartheid state in Israel is a peace plan, we are an honest international mediator. If a meritocracy means that three American men have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, we are the land of opportunity. If the torture of kidnapped victims in black sites and the ripping of children from their parents’ arms and their detention in fetid, overcrowded warehouses, along with the gunning down of unarmed citizens by militarized police in the streets of our urban communities, are the rule of law, we are an exemplar of human rights.

The rhetoric we use to describe ourselves is so disconnected from reality that it has induced collective schizophrenia. America, as it is discussed in public forums by politicians, academics and the media, is a fantasy, a Disneyfied world of make-believe. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into illusions. The longer we fail to name and confront our physical and moral decay, the more demagogues who peddle illusions and fantasies become empowered. Those who acknowledge the truth—beginning with the stark fact that we are no longer a democracy—wander like ghosts around the edges of society, reviled as enemies of hope. The mania for hope works as an anesthetic. The hope that Donald Trump would moderate his extremism once he was in office, the hope that the “adults in the room” would manage the White House, the hope that the Mueller report would see Trump disgraced, impeached and removed from office, the hope that Trump’s December 2019 impeachment would lead to his Senate conviction and ouster, the hope that he will be defeated at the polls in November are psychological exits from the crisis—the collapse of democratic institutions, including the press, and the corporate corruption of laws, electoral politics and norms that once made our imperfect democracy possible.

The embrace of collective self-delusion marks the death spasms of all civilizations. We are in the terminal stage. We no longer know who we are, what we have become or how those on the outside see us. It is easier, in the short term, to retreat inward, to celebrate nonexistent virtues and strengths and wallow in sentimentality and a false optimism. But in the end, this retreat, peddled by the hope industry, guarantees not only despotism but, given the climate emergency, extinction.

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed,” Hannah Arendt wrote of totalitarianism.

This destruction, which cuts across the political divide, leads us to place our faith in systems, including the electoral process, that are burlesque. It diverts our energy toward useless debates and sterile political activity. It calls on us to place our faith for the survival of the human species in ruling elites who will do nothing to halt the ecocide. It sees us accept facile explanations for our predicament, whether they involve blaming the Russians for the election of Trump or blaming undocumented workers for our economic decline. We live in a culture awash in lies, the most dangerous being those we tell ourselves.

Lies are emotionally comforting in times of distress, even when we know they are lies. The worse things get, the more we long to hear the lies. But cultures that can no longer face reality, that cannot distinguish between falsehood and truth, retreat into what Sigmund Freud called “screen memories,” the merger of fact and fiction. This merger destroys the mechanisms for puncturing self-delusion. Intellectuals, artists and dissidents who attempt to address reality and warn about the self-delusion are ridiculed, silenced and demonized. There are, as Freud noted in “Civilizations and Its Discontents,” distressed societies whose difficulties “will not yield at any attempt at reform.” But this is too harsh a truth for most people, especially Americans, to accept.

America, founded on the evils of slavery, genocide and the violent exploitation of the working class, is a country defined by historical amnesia. The popular historical narrative is a celebration of the fictional virtues of white supremacy. The relentless optimism and reveling in supposed national virtues obscure truth. Nuance, complexity and moral ambiguity, along with accepting responsibility for the holocausts and genocides carried out by slaveholders, white settlers and capitalists, have never fit with America’s triumphalism. “The illusions of eternal strength and health, and of the essential goodness of people—they were the illusions of a nation, the lies of generations of frontier mothers,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

In decay, however, these illusions are fatal. Powerful nations have the luxury of imbibing myth, even if decisions and policies based on the myth inflict damage and widespread suffering. But nations whose foundations are rotting have little latitude. The miscalculations they make, based on fantasy, accelerate their mortality.

Joseph Roth was one of the few writers in the 1930s in Germany who understood the consequences of the rise of fascism. In his essay “The Auto-da-Fé of the Mind,” which addressed the first mass burning of books by the Nazis, he counseled his fellow Jewish writers to accept that they had been vanquished: “Let us, who were fighting on the front line, under the banner of the European mind, let us fulfill the noblest duty of the defeated warrior: Let us concede our defeat.”

Roth knew that the peddling of false hopes in a time of radical evil was immoral. He had no illusions about his own growing irrelevance. He was blacklisted in the German press, unable to publish his books in Germany and his native Austria and thrust into dire poverty and often despair. He was acutely aware of how most people, even his fellow Jews, found it easier to blind themselves to radical evil, if only to survive, rather than name and defy malignant authority and risk annihilation.

“What use are my words,” Roth asked, “against the guns, the loudspeakers, the murderers, the deranged ministers, the stupid interviewers and journalists who interpret the voice of this world of Babel, muddied anyhow, via the drums of Nuremberg?”

“It will become clear to you now that we are heading for a great catastrophe,” Roth, after going into self-exile in France in 1933, wrote to the author Stefan Zweig about the ascendancy of the Nazis. “The barbarians have taken over. Do not deceive yourself. Hell reigns.”

But Roth also knew that resistance was a moral if not a practical obligation in times of radical evil. Defeat might be certain, but dignity and a determination to live in truth demanded a response. We are required to bear witness, even if a self-deluded population does not want to hear, even if that truth makes certain our own marginalization and perhaps obliteration.

“One must write, even when one realizes the printed word can no longer improve anything,” Roth explained.

This battle against collective self-delusion is a battle I fear we will not win. American society is fatally wounded. Its moral and physical corruption is beyond repair.

Hope, real hope, names the bitter reality before us. But it refuses to succumb, despite the bleakness, to despair. It cries out to an indifferent universe with every act carried out to name, cripple and destroy corporate power. It mocks certain defeat. Whether we can succeed or not is immaterial. We cannot always choose how we will live. But we can choose how we will die. Victory is about holding on to our moral autonomy. Victory is about demanding, no matter the cost, justice. Victory is speaking the truths the ruling elites seek to silence. A life like this is worth living. And in times of radical evil these lives—ironic points of light, as W.H. Auden wrote—impart not only hope but the power of the sacred.

Anxiety, Unpredictability in Iowa on Eve of Caucuses

DES MOINES, Iowa—On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Democratic presidential candidates hustled across the state on Sunday trying to fire up voters and make one last appeal to those struggling to make a final decision about their choice in the crowded field.

Campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin choosing which candidate to send on to a November face-off with President Donald Trump.

The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Monday’s caucus, with four candidates locked in a fight for victory in Iowa and others still in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes. Many voters say they’re still weighing which White House hopeful they’ll support.

“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden campaign.

Polls show Biden in a tight race in Iowa with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.

Many campaigns were looking to a final weekend poll to provide some measure of clarity. But late Saturday, CNN and The Des Moines Register opted not to release the survey because of worries the results may have been compromised.

New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.

The new rules were mandated by the Democratic National Committee as part of a package of changes sought by Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The revisions were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive. But party officials in Iowa and at the DNC have privately expressed concerns that but multiple campaigns will spin the results in their favor, potentially creating chaos on caucus night.

The Associated Press will declare a winner in Iowa based on the number of state delegates each candidate wins. The AP will also report all three results.

Despite the late-stage turbulence and confusion, the candidates spent Sunday making bold pronouncements. Speaking to several hundred supporters in Cedar Rapids, Sanders declared “we are the campaign of energy and excitement” and said “we are in a position to win tomorrow night.”

Warren, who is also rallying progressive voters, pressed her supporters to “fight back” if they ever lose hope. She directly addressed any questions about whether a woman can win, pointing to the 2018 elections as evidence that “women win” and adding “let’s get this done.”

Meanwhile, Buttigieg talked up his newcomer status, telling a crowd of more than 2,000 in Des Moines that “we can’t be afraid of the future and new voices as our leaders” and “we are just one day away from victory in the Iowa caucuses!” But Biden, emphasizing his decades of Washington experience, told voters there’s no time for “on-the-job training.”

Biden’s campaign appeared to be trying to lower Iowa expectations, cautioning against reading too much into Monday’s results. Biden is hoping to sustain enough enthusiasm and money coming out of Iowa to make it to more diverse states where he hopes to draw strong support from black voters. His campaign is particularly focused on South Carolina, the fourth state on the primary schedule.

“We view Iowa as the beginning, not the end,” Symone Sanders said at a Bloomberg News breakfast. “It would be a gross mistake on the part of reporters, voters or anyone else to view whatever happens on Monday – we think it’s going to be close, but view whatever happens — as the end and not give credence and space for New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.”

Still, the closing hours leading into the caucuses signaled challenges ahead.

NBC News reported that former Secretary of State John Kerry, one of Biden’s most prominent supporters, was overheard talking about what it would take to launch a 2020 run. Kerry, who won the 2004 Iowa caucuses, later tweeted that he was “absolutely not running for president” and used an expletive to describe reporting to the contrary. He later issued a tweet without the expletive. But the episode was a sign of possible unease in Biden’s orbit.

And Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa warned that Biden could face GOP-led impeachment proceedings if he’s elected president. In an interview with Bloomberg News, she cited discredited theories from Trump and the GOP about Biden’s work as vice president in Ukraine while his son served in a lucrative post for a Ukrainian energy company.

“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” Ernst said, adding that Biden “should be very careful what he’s asking for” amid ongoing impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Trump’s impeachment trial has sidelined Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar for most of the last two weeks. They used Sunday to fan out across the state, eager to make up for lost time.

In Cedar Rapids, Klobuchar appealed to caucusgoers by asking them to think about the voters who won’t be caucusing — moderate Republicans, voters who swung from Barack Obama to Trump and voters who stayed home in 2016.

“They’re watching all of this right now,” Klobuchar said. “We have people who want to come with us. And we need a candidate who is going to bring them with us instead of shutting them out.”

But many voters, too, are still making last-minute moves. According to a Monmouth University poll in Iowa in late January, 45% of all likely Democratic caucus-goers named a first choice but said they were open to the possibility of supporting another candidate, and another 5% did not indicate a first choice.

Indeed, talking to Iowa Democrats can be dizzying. Many can quickly run through what they like — and what worries them — about the candidates in rapid fire, talking themselves in and out of their choices in a matter of minutes.

“There are just so many candidates,” said John Kauffman, a 38-year-old who works in marketing in Marion.

___

Burnett reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in DesMoines, Iowa; Will Weissert and Kathleen Hennessey in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Bill Barrow in Dubuque, Iowa; Alexandra Jaffe in Ames, Iowa; and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.