On the evening of March 3, Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens approached a young woman walking home alone on a south London street. We can’t know exactly what Couzens said to 33-year-old Sarah Everard; she didn’t survive her encounter with the cop. We do know, from closed-circuit TV footage, that Couzens showed her his police warrant card and handcuffed her. He is believed to have used Covid-19 lockdown enforcement as grounds for her detainment — he had worked lockdown patrols and knew that those restrictions would provide him some cover. Everard did not resist. No witnesses, and there were witnesses, intervened. It was, after all, an arrest.

This is how Couzens, 48, used the unchallenged authority accorded to him as a police officer to kidnap Everard, drive her away, rape, torture, and murder her. Everard’s death sparked a major — and all too vague — national conversation about “women’s safety,” in which the danger posed by police remained largely a footnote, even though the perpetrator was identified as a police officer, arrested, and charged. Cops once again used pandemic lockdown rules to manhandle and assault attendees at Everard’s public vigil later that month.

Abhorrent details revealed this week in court have made undeniable just how central Couzens’s role as a police officer was in enabling him to carry out his putrid designs. On Thursday, Couzens was sentenced by a judge to serve life in prison without the chance of parole — a “whole-life” order, as it’s known in the U.K. There are nearly 80,000 people incarcerated in prisons in England and Wales; only 60 of them are whole-life prisoners.

There have been predictable efforts by the Metropolitan Police and the British government to cast Couzens, 48, as the most rotten of bad apples, and the specific horror of his well-planned brutality should indeed not be underplayed. Yet Everard’s kidnap, rape, and murder stand as extreme conclusions, rather than aberrations, of the violence inherent to the unquestioned authority accorded to the institution of policing. At least 15 women in the U.K. have been killed by serving or former police officers since 2009, and on average one woman a week comes forward to report a serving police officer for domestic or sexual violence.

“Sarah was no criminal, yet Couzens was able to stalk, handcuff and abduct her, in public, without arousing any suspicion,” wrote Sisters Uncut, a U.K.-based direct action feminist group that advocates for survivors of domestic violence and is launching trainings on how to intervene in police stop-and-searches. “Sarah’s case, whilst horrifying, is not singular.”

In 2019, a “super-complaint” was filed against over a dozen British police forces, citing 700 alleged cases of domestic abuse perpetrated by police officers, who faced scant consequences. Couzens himself had accusations of sexual offenses dating back to 2015, and some of his police colleagues gave him the nickname “The Rapist.” When handing down his sentence, the judge expressed particular dismay at the fact that Couzens had used his position as a police officer to carry out the premeditated crimes.

“The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape, and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause,” Lord Justice Adrian Fulford told the court.

His comparison was apt, if unwittingly so. In using his position as a police officer to kidnap, rape, and kill, Couzens was advancing the precise ideologies of power, patriarchal violence, and denial of liberty that have always undergirded the institution of policing. The first U.K. national police forces were established in the early 19th century to suppress anti-colonial uprisings in Ireland. As in the United States, the history of U.K. policing is one of intolerable white supremacist and patriarchal oppression.

Despite the significant danger of endowing law enforcement officers with unchecked powers, as Couzens grimly proved, the British government is attempting to give the police even greater authority to stop, detain, and arrest individuals, including for the alleged crimes of being “noisy and disruptive.” The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which the government is attempting to force through Parliament, constitutes a direct assault on freedom of expression and protest in the U.K. It’s no less than chilling that the government, with the support of the opposition Labour Party leadership, is attempting to use the fact of Everard’s death, and appeals to “women’s safety,” to endow the police with more power.

A number of Labour Party politicians have called for the current commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, to step down in light of Couzens’s case. “Women’s confidence in police will have been shattered,” Labour Member of Parliament Harriet Harman wrote in a statement calling for the commissioner’s resignation. “Women need to be able to trust the police, not fear them,” she added, before proposing a number of police reforms relating to background checks, screenings, and suspensions and dismissals when it comes to enacting and enabling violence against women. They are the sort of necessary but profoundly insufficient policies that have again and again failed to reform an essentially unreformable institution.

Proposals like Harman’s might recognize the fact that the police force as a whole bears some responsibility for Everard’s murder, in permitting a man like Couzens to “slip through the net,” as Labour leader Keir Starmer put it. We must reject such a framing. Couzens did not slip through the police’s net; the nature of his violence runs through its very fibers.

The post Sarah Everard’s Killer Got a Life Sentence, but the System That Enabled Him Remains appeared first on The Intercept.

But that hasn’t happened. Instead, Refresco, known as the world’s largest independent bottler, launched an aggressive legal operation, employing a former high-ranking official with the National Labor Relations Board to delay certification.

“Things are going to slow because of Refresco’s tricks,” referring to aggressive legal tactics used by the firm “to delay the process for us to get certification of the union and to start negotiating a contract,” said Sanchez, who led the union campaign and has worked at the plant since 2006. “They lost the election and they’re playing games with appealing the decision to delay the process.”

Union organizers say some of their members had accused Refresco managers of interrogating workers as to their position on the union. Federal labor law does not allow company management to ask employees how they voted. Refresco, in a comment to The Intercept, said, “As it has done throughout this election process, Refresco intends to follow all the legal rules governing its behavior in connection with and arising out of the Union’s efforts to organize employees at its Wharton, New Jersey facility. This includes, but is not limited to, neither retaliating against nor rewarding employees based on their union sympathies or support.” Referesco did not answer specific questions as they related to either the alleged interrogations or their actions in opposition to the union drive.

Refresco also hired the anti-union firm Cruz & Associates (notably hired by President Donald Trump to oppose unions in his casinos) to aggressively campaign against the union inside of the plant, with the union reporting that the company held so-called captive audience meetings to advocate against the union “nonstop” and papered the plant with anti-union literature. As the company litigates the election at the National Labor Relations Board, it has retained a former high-ranking NLRB official, Jack Toner, who works for the prominent law firm Seyfarth Shaw.

“The company’s hope is that workers will start getting discouraged,” making it more difficult for the union to effectively mobilize for a first contract, said John Ocampo, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, which worked with the Refresco workers — most of whom are immigrants — to deliver one of the largest blue-collar union victories since the start of the pandemic.

Unions win about 70 percent of NLRB-run union elections, but the road to a first contract is often arduous, with as much as 44 percent of victorious unions failing to win a contract.

In addition to spotlighting typical management anti-union tactics (as alleged by the union), the Refresco saga also highlights the rise of the private equity ownership model. Refresco is a subsidiary of Paris-based private equity firm PAI Partners, which counts numerous U.S. public pension funds among its investors, including the Florida state pension, the Massachusetts state pension, and the Pennsylvania public school pension, as well as the British Columbia public employees pension fund.

Essentially, then, the unionized teachers, firefighters, and other public-sector workers who belong to those pension funds are invested in Refresco’s anti-union campaign, and potentially violating U.S. labor law.

PAI Partners and the British Columbia pension fund took over Refresco in March 2018. Bloomberg reported in August that they are exploring an initial public offering of Refresco on the U.S. stock exchange.

“Unfortunately, as a result of decades of right-wing offenses on the right of working people to retirement security, public pension funds have felt the need to commit workers’ capital to companies that actively undermine workers’ interests,” said Samir Sonti, a professor at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. “This model has many contradictions, but one of the most problematic is how it prevents [public pension fund] investment staff from recognizing that wage growth for all workers is in the interest of their beneficiaries. An economy that is working for everyone and generating strong public revenues is good for the beneficiaries of public pension funds.”

“Too often, a private equity takeover comes with outsize returns for its executives and layoffs or pay cuts for workers.”

Anastasia Christman, the Worker Power program director at the National Employment Law Project, added in a statement that “too often, a private equity takeover comes with outsize returns for its executives and layoffs or pay cuts for workers.”

About 8.8 million workers — or roughly 5 percent of the national workforce — work for portfolio companies of private equity firms in the U.S. Private equity is known for colossal executive compensation, little regulation, and eager public pension fund and endowment investors.

Unions like UNITE HERE and the American Federation of Teachers have launched innovative efforts seeking to hold private equity firms and their hedge fund siblings accountable via their pension fund investors. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy organization, seeks to work as a clearinghouse for efforts to hold the industry accountable for worker and human rights violations.

“Private equity-owned companies employ millions of workers in the United States, and the number continues to grow as private equity firms are acquiring additional companies at a record pace,” said Private Equity Stakeholder Project Executive Director Jim Baker in a recent statement. “At the expense of American families and communities, private equity firms have been focused on growing cash flow.”

Indeed, private equity firms Warburg Pincus (where former Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is president) and Apollo Global Management (whose founder Leon Black stepped down in March as he was facing scrutiny for his $158 million in payments to Jeffrey Epstein) are respectively the fourth- and fifth-largest U.S.-based employers, behind household names Walmart, Amazon, and FedEx.

Other unions have faced issues with subsidiaries of PAI Partners. UNITE HERE Local 11 members in Los Angeles have had a number of disputes with airport concessionaire Areas, another subsidiary of PAI Partners. The dispute has led to two trustees of the Los Angeles County employees’ pension fund LACERA, which has invested in PAI in the past, to call for the pension to make no additional investments in the French private equity firm.

Canadian public pension funds have increasingly turned to direct investment in private equity-owned companies, as opposed to investment through a third-party money manager, as is the norm in the U.S. It is unclear whether either the Canadian or American approach to private equity is a good deal; research suggests that the fees for private equity are exponentially higher than for ordinary index funds, as is the risk, but returns for the industry roughly match stock market returns.

The Canadian approach, however, has brought compensation for that country’s pension fund executives significantly outpacing their American counterparts. The CEO of the British Columbia fund, a former JPMorgan executive named Gordon Fyfe, made $3 million paid out from the fund in 2018. The Canadian Labour Congress union federation has described the pay for Canadian pension fund CEOs as “alarming.”

Reached for comment by The Intercept, the British Columbia pension fund, BCI, said that “BCI is an investment manager that holds equity interests in a variety of companies. We do not comment on the operational matters of our specific portfolio companies.” PAI Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the Refresco workers will keep pushing forward on their path to a decent first contract — an uphill battle given how powerful their opposition is. Irma Carrillo, a Venezuelan immigrant who has worked for three years at the plant, said they just need to outlast Refresco’s anti-union tactics.

“The company doesn’t want to accept our victory,” she said.

The post Public Pensions Are Financing Refresco’s Anti-Union Campaign in New Jersey appeared first on The Intercept.

“We still need your support in order to keep our digital ads running until the minute the polls close,” one email read. “Rush your final contribution to Sara Gideon’s campaign right now.”

A month later, campaign finance reports revealed that Gideon had almost $15 million in unused campaign cash on Election Day, even after spending almost $63 million by that point.

“Elections are unpredictable, and campaigns plan for a number of different outcomes and scenarios at any given point,” Maeve Coyle, Gideon’s spokesperson, said at the time, addressing the ethics of the campaign’s last-minute fundraising requests while having a surplus of cash on hand. “That planning involves ensuring that the campaign has the resources it might need for any number of potential outcomes.”

Ten months later, Gideon is still hoarding close to $10 million, a hefty sum that comes after giving $750,000 to 21 Maine charities and $1 million to the state’s Democratic Party. Gideon did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment regarding the remaining funds. All the while, she’s also been climbing the professional ranks, joining the ultraprestigious Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School as a fellow.

Gideon is one of several 2020 U.S. Democratic Senate candidates who raked in obscene amounts of money by riding national anti-Trump 2020 animus and then lost by a huge margin. Amy McGrath of Kentucky raised $96 million only to lose by 20 points to incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Jaime Harrison of South Carolina amassed $109 million but lost by more than 10 points to incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Leftover cash isn’t the only windfall from Gideon’s electoral loss. During the campaign, her team built a national fundraising list with relentless anti-Trump and anti-Collins advertising spots that went viral on social media. While the strategy failed locally — Gideon lost her Senate race by almost 10 points — it was a boon financially, netting her over $75 million.

Now Gideon is renting out that same fundraising list to the D.C. digital consulting firm Aisle 518 Strategies — the same firm that Gideon paid $6 million to during her own Senate run. Campaign finance reports show that Gideon’s campaign fund has earned almost $500,000 from “list rental income” during 2021 alone.

It’s not unheard of for political candidates to resell their fundraising lists. In 2018, the Democratic National Committee funneled $1.65 million to Hillary Clinton’s Onward Together organization for access to the email list, voter data, and software produced by Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the DNC, told The Intercept.

Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile said at the time that the deal was the result of “tough negotiations between the Clinton campaign and the DNC.”

Lobbying dollars from major centrist Democratic groups are also flowing into Gideon’s campaign bank account. Since November 2020, Gideon’s campaign fund received nearly $200,000 from the pro-Israel JStreetPAC and more than $35,000 from the League of Conservation Voters, a liberal environmental group.

“Most ordinary people view campaign finance as something with no immediate bearing on their lives, when in actuality it drives who gets to make decisions about the things that do.”

“We are made to believe that donating to politicians is a path to candidates who will make our voices heard,” Bre Kidman, a civil defense lawyer who ran against Gideon in the Democratic Senate primary, said. “Most ordinary people view campaign finance as something with no immediate bearing on their lives, when in actuality it drives who gets to make decisions about the things that do.”

Professional titles are another benefit establishment elites provide cash cow candidates like Gideon to buffer their résumés for future runs. On August 25, the Harvard Kennedy School announced that Gideon would be a 2021 Institute of Politics fellow. She joins a “holistic and pragmatic” group that includes the director of Fox News’s Decision Desk, the executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, and a former Republican lawmaker.

“Gideon, the former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, launched a high-profile challenge against Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) last year,” Harvard said in a statement introducing Gideon and explaining her credentials. “While she was ultimately unsuccessful, the race was one of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races of 2020, with more than $106 million raised throughout the campaign.”

The Institute of Politics did not immediately respond to requests for comment on its decision to induct Gideon as a fellow.

Meanwhile, Maine’s mainstream media has been mostly silent on Gideon’s mountain of cash — only reporting on her millions with the caveat that she may run again in the near future.

Angus King, Maine’s junior senator, has already said it’s unlikely that he will run for reelection in 2024. And local pundits are constantly chattering that Rep. Chellie Pingree may move on as well, paving the way for another statewide campaign and payday for Gideon and her friends in Washington, D.C.

“Mainers of all political backgrounds are frustrated with the flood of outside money in our politics,” Anna Kellar, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Maine, said. “It’s one of the few things we have broad agreement on.”

Kellar believes that the “For the People Act” — a national bill that addresses voter access, election integrity, and campaign finance reforms — can help mitigate the increasingly influential effect of big money on Maine’s politics.

“We support passage of the ‘For the People Act’ in part because a small donor program, with limits on spending, could be transformative to our federal elections,” Kellar concluded. “We need to reform big money in politics to restore confidence in our elections and government.”

The post Ten Months After Senate Election Loss, Sara Gideon Still Has $10 Million in Unused Campaign Funds appeared first on The Intercept.

That’s the message Mintz had been trying to tell people outside prison. Mintz, a 24-year-old serving a life sentence, had been working with a prison reform activist group, the Human and Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia. In letters and phone calls, Mintz had described the deteriorating condition of the South Georgia penitentiary, the shortage of guards, the increasingly inedible food, the extreme restriction on movement, and more, said Brian Randolph, a spokesperson for the coalition.

And then Mintz turned up dead last week.

His mother, Nerissa Wright, said people incarcerated at the prison first told her that Mintz was found face down, blood coming from his mouth and nose. A few hours later, she said, prison staff called with the same message but added that the cause of his death was undetermined and that it would take weeks for a toxicology screen to come back and a cause ruling made. No explanation was made to Wright of the staffing shortfall that would have left her son unmonitored for days at a time, she said.

“[The warden] said he didn’t have much information for me and that I can call the coroner,” said Wright. (A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Corrections told The Intercept in a statement, “While details of the death are still under investigation, documents show that rounds were being made.”)

What is clear is that the prison system in Georgia is broken, even by our country’s benighted standards. According to figures from Randolph, as of August 22, 19 people have been killed in a Georgia state prison this year. The cause of another 24 deaths remains undetermined, but undetermined deaths are almost always classified later as homicides, said Randolph. “There’s going have to be some type of federal intervention. No one is willing to fix it. And I’m starting to wonder if, you know, they threw their hands up in the air and just said, ‘Maybe somebody can take it over and fix it,’” he said.

In 2017, the Georgia Department of Corrections reported four homicides. Last year, it reported 26.

Fewer guards make it harder to monitor interpersonal problems between people in prison — and more dangerous to step in. Those conditions lead to stabbings like one captured on video by people imprisoned at Ware State Prison earlier this year, in which a hooting and chanting group ganged up on an incarcerated person for a merciless beating.

Without staff to watch incarcerated people, the imprisoned are oftentimes warehoused in their cells for weeks at a time. This approach is turning Georgia’s prisons into a murder factory.

Guarding the imprisoned wasn’t a particularly attractive job before the pandemic. Broad labor shortages have turned the $16.50 per hour starting wages for a Georgia correctional officer into a 44 percent turnover rate with hundreds of unfilled jobs. As some guards leave, others look at the conditions — and the risks — and leave as well, creating a cascade of attrition. Prisons across the state are operating with as little as one-quarter of the necessary staffing now. In some cases, a single guard might be left to watch dozens of people.

On August 11, the one-year anniversary of Ware State Prison’s last riot, a dispute over food led to two correctional officers being stabbed by a person incarcerated at the prison. One of the guards, Julian Rector, remains in a coma.

That same day, Jamari Charell McClinton, an incarcerated person from Decatur, had been knifed to death by another person imprisoned at Baldwin State Prison.

After the Baldwin State murder, police and correctional department staff interrogated people held at the prison. One of them apparently described the assault and named the perpetrators. Afterward, rather than segregate that person, he was returned to a shared cell.

That witness, Badarius Clark, was murdered last week. Police arrested his cellmate for the crime.

“You don’t put him in any type of protective custody or anything by itself. You put him in a room with a roommate,” said Randolph of the Human and Civil Rights Coalition. “You know, like, at this point … it’s starting to look like the negligence is just intentional.”

The federal prison system is not faring much better in Georgia. Administrators emptied Atlanta’s federal penitentiary a few weeks ago after an internal investigation revealed massive corruption within the ranks.

But the Georgia Department of Corrections is even more astoundingly unresponsive. Inquiries, when answered at all, take days for terse replies. The families of those who have lost loved ones say they receive less response than that.

“They’ve been very evasive with me,” said Jennifer Bradley, whose son Carrington Frye was murdered by a cellmate last year. “[Georgia Department of Corrections] Commissioner [Timothy] Ward was insensitive. He abruptly ended the call, did everything but hang up in my face. His only concern was how did I get his number.”

Bradley described how her son “lay there for 30 to 40 minutes waiting for them to get him assistance, and they didn’t. They had one guard monitoring all those inmates.” The cameras had been smeared with petroleum jelly, leaving the guard room blind, she said. “He was doomed.”

The post The Georgia Prison Guard Shortage Is Killing Incarcerated People appeared first on The Intercept.

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and PNC have all decided to opt out, according to emails shared with The Intercept.

They are major players in the program, which Congress created to offer businesses loans to spend on payroll and other qualified expenses to help weather the shutdowns. As of the end of May, JPMorgan Chase was the top PPP lender, followed by Bank of America in the No. 2 spot; PNC is No. 11. All told, lenders representing just half of all outstanding PPP loan forgiveness applications have opted in, according to the SBA.

PNC recently sent an email to Jesse Grund, owner of personal training studio Unconventional Strength in Orlando, Florida, saying, “Considering we have already built a streamlined end-to-end digital portal and associated review process for your PPP forgiveness application; we will be opting out of using the SBA’s forgiveness portal.”

Grund still hasn’t had his $5,000 PPP loan forgiven and was instead told by PNC that his “Correct Maximum Loan Amount” was just $917, leaving him on the hook for the rest. “It’s PNC’s fault I got this money,” he said. “Now you guys want to come back at me for it.”

Early in the pandemic, small business owners were urged to flock to the Paycheck Protection Program. The loans were made with the promise that they would be forgiven and essentially turned into grants if used properly.

But many small business owners have struggled to get their loans forgiven by the banks that issued them. Banks were incentivized to issue PPP loans through the fees they generated, but they don’t receive any fees to push forgiveness through, and they’ve dragged their feet. Of the total PPP loans that have been issued, less than half have been forgiven thus far.

In response, the Small Business Administration, the government agency tasked with running the program, announced in late July that it would offer small business owners who took out PPP loans of $150,000 or less a way to bypass intransigent banks and seek forgiveness directly from the agency. Congress had, at one point late last year, considered automatically forgiving all loans under $150,000, but it never followed through.

But there was fine print in the SBA’s recent announcement that many may have missed: Banks actually have to opt into the direct process for small business owners to access it. And at least three major ones have refused.

“Forcing lenders to opt-in to the process, could have been disruptive,” said SBA spokesperson Terrence D. Clark in an email. He noted that lenders continue to opt in and that the agency is conducting outreach to encourage them to participate. “[W]e speak to lenders daily,” he said. In a statement, SBA Associate Administrator for the Office of Capital Access Patrick Kelley said, “We encourage all lenders to opt-in to this tested portal.”

When asked for an explanation as to why the bank decided to bar its customers from the SBA’s direct forgiveness option, a PNC spokesperson pointed to a statement that said, “[L]enders that participate in the SBA’s forgiveness portal are still responsible for reviewing and issuing forgiveness decisions to the SBA. We would therefore still need to ensure borrowers meet loan eligibility and loan forgiveness requirements regardless of whether we chose to use the SBA forgiveness portal or not.”

Chase offered no explanation in its correspondence to its customers. In an email sent to a small business owner, it said simply, “[W]e’re continuing with our simple process and not participating in the new SBA direct program.” In response to a request for comment, a Chase spokesperson said over email, “Chase customers should submit their forgiveness applications through our platform,” adding, “We have a simple process that takes under 10 minutes to complete.”

For some business owners, being cut off from the SBA’s direct program could mean they can’t get some or all of their loans forgiven at all. Some banks have been contacting small business owners in recent months and telling them that they shouldn’t have received the original amount they received — which the banks themselves approved — and requiring the owners to pay back the difference. But many told The Intercept that they used the money correctly and had fully expected to have their entire loans forgiven.

That’s what happened to Warren Davis, owner of fundraising consultancy Warren Davis Consulting, LLC, who received his loan from Chase and was recently told the bank won’t let him seek forgiveness directly from the SBA. After the bank originally issued him a $6,812 PPP loan, he was later told he was only eligible for $1,795.53 in forgiveness. Now he must pay Chase $460.01 on the first of every month, with two years to pay the remainder of the loan off. “That loan payment is the second highest payment I now have besides my rent, which is also due on the 1st,” he said in an email. “I have tried trying to get answers numerous times from Chase with no luck over the months.”

In response to situations like Davis’s, the Chase spokesperson said, “Small businesses must meet the standards to qualify for forgiveness whether they go through their lender or directly through the SBA.”

When asked why Bank of America has opted out, spokesperson Bill Halldin said, “Because our portal is simplified and has been out there for six months,” adding that if the bank opted in, “we would have to develop a new interface.” The bank is reviewing whether to join the SBA’s process, but “at this point our simplified portal is delivering what people want,” he said.

But that portal is not delivering what Amy Yassinger needs. Yassinger, owner of a music company that offers party bands for weddings in Illinois, was encouraged by Bank of America to apply for a PPP loan early in the pandemic. The bank helped her with the process, assuring her its underwriting team “would make sure everything was solid,” she said in an email. She used the $38,730 to pay employees as if they were working their regular slate of events, despite widespread cancellations, as well as to cover some nonpayroll expenses.

Yet 11 months after she got her loan, the bank told her it would only submit $2,436 to the SBA for forgiveness. “It was one thing to have my life completely gutted for over a year as my company was forced to cancel or postpone over 60 events in 2020,” she said. “It is another to have Bank of America want $36,000 out of $38,730 back in the next 5 years.”

The post Banks Are Opting Out of the Government’s PPP Loan Forgiveness Process appeared first on The Intercept.

An Afghan green card holder who has spent time in Virginia working with the U.S. armed forces, Wali wanted to figure out how he could leave Afghanistan now that the Taliban have seized control of Kabul, the capital. His plan was to get to the airport, figure out a way in, and then call his brother, also a green card holder, who is sheltering with his children. Once he figured out a way in, he would tell his brother the path.

Like many Afghans with the proper documentation that would allow them to reach safety, however, Wali was unable to get into the airport because the Taliban control the perimeter, up to Massoud Circle, about 2.5 miles outside the international airport.

“They are scaring people, they are shooting in the air,” he told The Intercept. “There is no mechanism for eligible people to get inside the airport to leave.”

The United Nations estimates that 330,000 Afghans have tried to flee their homes since the beginning of the year, with at least half leaving in May when the U.S. began its military withdrawal. The Afghan government, which had been propped up with international efforts, collapsed on Sunday when the Taliban swept Kabul, establishing themselves in the presidential palace. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country the same day. The U.S. Defense Department announced Monday that about 3,000 U.S. troops would be deployed to the airport in Kabul to aid in the removal of U.S. Embassy staff as well as Afghans who assisted the U.S. government in its war effort.

However, as the last few days have shown, American involvement does not guarantee stability. As chaos engulfs Afghanistan, many in the U.S. who worked in the country are scrambling to help the contacts and colleagues who worked as U.S. partners and are now at the mercy of the Taliban. While a visa program exists, the melee has made it impossible for eligible green card holders to reach safety.

“The U.S. and NATO control the airfield itself, but it’s so chaotic and violent at the perimeter that people can’t get inside, even people with green cards and visas,” said Joe Saboe, a military veteran. Saboe is one of many Americans who worked for the U.S. government in the Middle East and is now trying to assist U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents with evacuations. “We want to help save their lives. We see it as our patriotic duty.”

There are “so many” Taliban outside the airport, Wali emphasized.

The U.S., under the Special Immigrant Visa program, or SIV, has authorized visas for Afghans who were employed by the U.S. government, many working as translators and fixers on behalf of U.S. forces. Launched for Afghan workers and their dependents in 2009, the program has been plagued by backlogs and disorganization.

The Biden administration promised to speed up the special visa processing for vulnerable Afghans, saying it would start evacuating them to Virginia in late July, but those plans were curtailed as the Taliban advanced faster than anticipated. Yesterday it was reported that flights for Afghan SIV holders were largely paused, prioritizing the evacuation of Americans from the country.

According to Wali, huge crowds surrounded the airport. Many of those people do not have documentation that would make them eligible for evacuation but were driven to the airport by rumors that the U.S. military will evacuate anyone who makes it there.

In the meantime, people like Wali are caught in the chaos. “There needs to be a mechanism,” he said. “We filled in online forms and submitted them to the U.S. Embassy. They need to clear a route so that people with documentation can get through.” Wali does not see why it cannot be the same model as the one he experienced countless times entering U.S. offices, where his paperwork was processed on arrival.

Even right at the airport gate itself, the situation is a mess. Saboe was on FaceTime with the family of an SIV holder who was pinned in place by live Taliban fire. “They were shooting at all of the civilians outside the gate, right over them as they lay on the ground,” he said. NATO troops were watching from the tower, while U.S. troops were in the airfield. “The family were waving their paperwork in the air and yelling ‘visa,’ and they were ignored.”

While Saboe was on FaceTime, the person on the other end started screaming — those next to them had just been killed by what appeared to him to be Taliban bullets.

Late Monday, President Joe Biden made a speech on the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan, promising to “continue to make sure that we take on the Afghan nationals who work side by side with U.S. forces, including interpreters and translators … and so their families are not exposed to danger as well.” Biden did not address specifics about how the U.S. would help the people actively in danger while he was speaking.

After his first attempt, Wali went back to the house where he is staying, watched the news, and placed calls to friends and family. He no longer stays at his home, for fear that neighbors who know that he worked for the U.S. might report him to the Taliban.

About an hour and a half later, he went back out. This time he made it to the airport circle, outside the entrance to the airport gate. More women were there than back at Mansood, he observed. The Taliban were stalking the circle, not letting anyone through.

“I gave them a little smile, a fake wave,” Wali said. You have to do that, he explained. Others were begging the Taliban to let them through, but they were refused. Wali did not speak to the Taliban; he just left. “Can you imagine if I showed them my green card?” he asked.

The post Taliban Checkpoints Blocking Access to Kabul Airport for U.S. Residents and Allies appeared first on The Intercept.

At the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy trial that began Thursday, Judge Robert Drain is widely expected to approve a proposed settlement of the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy that would release members of the billionaire Sackler family, the company’s owners, from all current and future opioid-related civil claims.

In the year and a half leading up to the trial, Purdue spent at least $1.2 million on federal lobbying expenses as it worked toward the settlement, an Intercept review of lobbying records shows. If the settlement is approved, the Sacklers will be making a contribution of $4.28 billion, which will leave them with over $6 billion at minimum in total assets — money that will be effectively untouchable by opioid crisis victims, even though it is Purdue going bankrupt, not the Sacklers.

“This whole bankruptcy was the Sacklers trying to buy immunity,” said activist Ed Bisch, who lost his son to an OxyContin overdose in 2001 and is a claimant and active opponent of the settlement. “The only question was what would be the price.”

Among the lobbyists paid by Purdue Pharma — maker of the opioid painkiller OxyContin — since it filed for bankruptcy reorganization in September 2019 are politically connected Brownstein Hyatt, which received $480,000, and Capitol Hill Consulting Group, which got $300,000.

The proposed Purdue settlement was announced in October 2020 by the Justice Department and later modified to increase the total cash settlement but with no changes to the liability release for the Sacklers. It hit a potential roadblock in March 2021 when House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., introduced the SACKLER Act. That legislation would  “[close] a loophole in bankruptcy law by preventing individuals who have not filed for bankruptcy from obtaining releases [from further financial and criminal liability],” per the Oversight Committee’s website — the exact scenario which would enable the Sacklers to walk away with billions of dollars in cash. The proposed legislation has stalled with 63 co-sponsors in the House.

Lobbying records show that Purdue was “monitoring” the SACKLER Act, as well as other legislation including the issues related to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, while making lobbying payments to high-powered firms Brownstein Hyatt and Capitol Hill Consulting Group. The records are vague, as lax regulations allow corporations and lobbyists to avoid detailing their lobbying activities, but they showcase the ability of a company in bankruptcy proceedings to employ lobbyists with deep relationships on both sides of the aisle.

Even though the law does not consistently require firms to disclose payments for activities strictly related to monitoring, a spokesperson for Purdue Pharma said, “Both firms have been under contract with Purdue for professional services since prior to the bankruptcy. As we operate in a highly regulated industry, we monitor bills, hearings, and other activities in the normal course of business. While we have not done any direct lobbying related to the SACKLER Act, we do, of course, monitor Congressional activity in this area because upending the bankruptcy laws could directly impact our plan of reorganization.”

The Purdue spokesperson did not answer questions from The Intercept as to whether or not the court had approved these payments or how the company distinguishes between its own interests and those of the Sackler family.

There were 93,000 opioid deaths in 2020, a 29 percent increase from the prior year. (For comparison, there were 20,000 murders in the U.S. in 2020.) While there are many other opioids besides OxyContin, researchers found that Purdue’s aggressive marketing tactics around OxyContin played a major role in the opioid crisis.

Unlike most major corporations in the U.S., Purdue Pharma is privately held, meaning that members of the Sackler family were the majority shareholders. Some of them, notably 75-year-old former Purdue chair and president Richard Sackler, had a great deal of operational control over the company. Another family member, former board member Kathe Sackler, bragged in a 2019 deposition about coming up with the idea for OxyContin, according to journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s book “Empire of Pain.” David Sackler, who joined the Purdue board in 2012, wrote in a 2007 email that an investment banker had told him, “Your family is already rich, the one thing you don’t want to do is become poor.” David Sackler continued: “My thought is to lever up where we can, and try to generate some additional income. We may well need it?.?.?.?Even if we have to keep it in cash, it’s better to have the leverage now while we can get it than thinking it will be there for us when we get sued.”

The Sacklers removed over $10 billion from Purdue Pharma from 2008 to 2017, though, as the Financial Times reported in 2018, Purdue isn’t the family’s only opioid venture. They also own little-known Rhodes Pharma, one of the largest off-patent generic opioid producers in the U.S. It is unclear how much the Sacklers have earned from Rhodes Pharma.

Denver-headquartered Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck is one of the largest lobbying shops in Washington and is a generous donor to Democrats and Republicans alike, donating nearly $2 million to candidates for federal office in 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Among their other clients are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Capitol Hill Consulting Group is a major player on health care; among its executives is Tom Wharton, a former aide to Joe Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

Neither Capitol Hill Consulting Group nor Brownstein Hyatt responded to requests for comment.

Alexis Pleus — whose son overdosed in 2014, a decade after he was prescribed OxyContin for a minor injury — said that Purdue’s use of lobbyists highlights the disparity between Big Pharma and victims of the opioid crisis: One side can pour millions into influence campaigns, while the other cannot.

Purdue’s use of lobbyists highlights the disparity between Big Pharma and victims of the opioid crisis.

“We can’t hire lobbyists, we work full-time jobs,” said Pleus. “It’s hard to even take a day off to advocate. My son spent 10 months in jail for stealing $130 worth of stuff from Walmart. We have a system for corporations and billionaires and then we have a system for the rest of us. It seems like they’re absolutely untouchable.”

In addition to members of Congress like Maloney and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., opposition to the settlement has come from the U.S. Trustee Program, which is charged with monitoring bankruptcy on behalf of the Justice Department, as well as powerful U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss. The U.S. trustee said in a July 19 filing “The Court Does Not Have Constitutional Authority to Enjoin Claims Against the Sackler Family,” as proposed by the settlement, as it “Would Exceed the Bounds of the Bankruptcy Clause” in the Constitution.

If the bankruptcy judge, Robert Drain, approves the settlement, the Department of Justice can seek to appeal it. It is unclear whether or not the Biden administration would do so. The Justice Department declined a request for comment.

The post As Purdue Pharma Sought Controversial Bankruptcy Settlement, It Spent Over $1.2 Million on Lobbying appeared first on The Intercept.

Hoping to capitalize early on this for the Democratic Party is Steven Holden, a 48-year-old retired Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Holden, the only primary candidate so far, served as a military finance officer and says he was part of the unit that helped finance the operation that led to Saddam Hussein’s capture in 2003.

But Democrats have faced tough defeats in their past attempts to unseat Rep. John Katko, a former U.S. attorney who was elected in 2014. He’s earned a reputation as an independent thinker in a party increasingly drifting toward extremism. While Katko voted with President Donald Trump more than 90 percent of the time during the representative’s first term, that figure dipped to just over 50 percent during his second. Analysts say things could be different, though, now that Trump is out of office. In January, Katko also voted to impeach the president following the attack on the Capitol — a decision that cost him the backing of prominent local conservatives.

In other words, despite the grim national forecast Democrats face for the 2022 midterms, the party is still hoping that now might be a favorable time for a Democrat to flip the seat. The next question is whether Holden is the man for the job.

Ideologically speaking, Holden is positioning himself closely to the previous Democratic challenger, Dana Balter.

When Balter ran to unseat Katko in 2018 and 2020, she campaigned on issues like universal health care, legalizing marijuana, and a $15 minimum wage. In both races, she suffered great losses, losing by about 6 and 15 points, respectively. While her first run was hobbled by a lack of financial support from the party establishment, her 2020 run had the support of the DCCC, EMILY’s List, Obama, Biden, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The 2020 contest was among the DCCC’s “red-to-blue” targets.

Moderates were quick to pin Balter’s losses on her progressive platform. In a blog post, the centrist group Third Way said her defeat showed that Democrats “must run with mainstream, moderate candidates and ideas central to the Party’s position.”

But 2020 was a tough year for nearly all “red-to-blue” candidates, as well as incumbent moderate Democrats like Abby Finkenauer in Iowa and Max Rose in New York. House Democrats lost a net of 11 seats and saw their majority drop to a slim 220-212 lead over Republicans.

Despite centrists’ warnings, Holden thus far is not looking to create much distance between him and Balter on matters of policy.

“I know there are some political actors who take the view that [Balter] lost because she ran too much as a progressive, but I don’t think that’s accurate,” Holden told The Intercept. “Just from what I know here, the biggest reason she lost is because of turnout, that’s honestly what this is.” (In fact, more than 340,000 voters cast ballots in the 24th District race in 2020, up from 260,00 in 2018 and 302,000 in 2016.)

Balter, who told The Intercept she is not considering running for office “at this time,” said she thinks that a Democratic candidate, whoever that is in 2022, could beat Katko. “President Biden and the Democrats in Congress are delivering for the people,” she said, pointing to pandemic relief checks, local government aid, and the expanded child tax credit. Katko, by contrast, “is failing central New Yorkers in a big way,” she said, and “spends his time stoking the fears of his extreme right-wing base and placating his corporate donors.”

Holden’s theory of change rests on increased turnout (a harder task during the midterms) and “hammering Katko from all sides” on policy. He chalks Balter’s loss up to some siphoned votes from traditional fusion voting. (Over 13,000 voters cast ballots for Steven Williams, a Working Families Party candidate, though Balter lost by almost 35,000 votes.)

He also thinks his background and experience as a veteran could help him win back some Democrats who voted for Katko as well as attract rural voters. “I know Dana tried, but I’m going to go in and talk about issues with Wayne County and the rural part of Cayuga County, and really getting rural and suburban voters to where they feel comfortable with me,” he said. Left unspoken is the question of whether a male military veteran will fare better in upstate New York than Balter, a female professor, did.

But Holden’s strength as a candidate is unclear, particularly if he hopes to clear the progressive lane. For one, regional activists say that so far his campaign has involved little grassroots organizing.

“We don’t have a relationship with him and haven’t been contacted by him,” said Brian Escobar, co-chair of the Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America chapter.

“We don’t know anything about Holden, and he hasn’t reached out to us,” added Tom Heck, a member of the steering committee for Indivisible-24, a local chapter of a national progressive advocacy group.

Nearly two months into his campaign, Holden has no Twitter account, and his Facebook page, which he updates frequently with videos of him discussing issues, has roughly 110 followers.

The district is also set to be redrawn soon, and Heck thinks it’s too soon to say how competitive it will be. (Indivisible-24 backed Balter in 2018 and 2020, and Heck says the group is focused right now on both local issues and pushing nationally for voting rights reform.) That redistricting process hasn’t started yet, but the census data is set to be released later this month, and it will be the first time in the state’s history that district lines are drawn by an independent redistricting commission.

Meanwhile, Katko has his own intraparty conflicts to attend to before the election. While the local branch of the Conservative Party of New York announced in April that it will not endorse Katko, whether the incumbent faces a real primary threat will depend on if the Conservative Party actually chooses to get behind another candidate.

In a statement to The Intercept, Onondaga County Conservative Party Chair Bernard Ment said the local party’s decision about John Katko “will ultimately be decided by our state party with recommendations forthcoming from the counties in the Congressional District” and that they are waiting for the redistricting commission to issue its recommendation. “I will say that I have been approached by a number of candidates willing to take up the challenge to primary Mr. Katko for the Republican endorsement and we may be inclined to back a challenger if that individual shows bonafide Conservative credentials,” he said, adding that the decision will ultimately be up to Gerard Kassar, chair of the state Conservative Party, and the state executive committee.

For now, no other Democratic candidates have jumped into the race, but a source with knowledge of the local Democratic Party said they’re aware of other candidates being recruited and expect some additional people to announce bids soon.

“We are looking forward to reminding voters of Katko’s toxic record and sending him into retirement in 2022,” DCCC spokesperson Abel Iraola said in an email. “His craven flip-flop on pursuing the truth about the insurrection and his vote against the Child Tax Credit and relief for New York families and small businesses show he is more out of touch with his district than ever before, and make him one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country.”

The post Steven Holden Is the Latest New York Democrat to Try Flipping a Coveted House Seat. Is He Up to the Task? appeared first on The Intercept.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo should have resigned or been removed from his position months ago. This much is obvious. It should have been sufficient that the governor oversaw a cover-up of thousands of pandemic deaths in New York nursing homes — deaths for which he bears major responsibility. Yet even when revelations of the nursing homes scandal coincided with reports from three women accusing Cuomo of sexual harassment in March, only a small cadre of New York’s most left-wing Democrats called for the governor’s impeachment.

The release on Tuesday of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ damning 165-page report, which offers substantive evidence that Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women, appeared to mark a turning point. While the governor himself continues to deploy a vile mix of denial, manipulation, and pitiful cultural stereotyping to dismiss the serious and abundant claims against him, the vast majority of the Democratic establishment is calling for Cuomo to resign — including his longtime ally President Joe Biden, who was himself accused of sexual assault last year.

Whether Cuomo’s seemingly inevitable and long overdue downfall will signal a broader turning point for Democratic politics remains to be seen. It should. If we want the political stage exorcised of figures like Cuomo, who are able to enact patriarchal abuse and quotidian cruelty with impunity for decades, while overseeing systems of racist and gender-based oppression, we must reject not only this governor but the entire politics of power that he represents: oppressive hierarchy, harsh austerity, and top-down control.

It’s imperative that Cuomo be held accountable for his personal violations, as should be the top-level staffers who, according to James’s report, helped maintain a culture of fear and intimidation in the administration. Yet patriarchal violence in New York politics and beyond will not come to an end with the removal of a small number of predatory perpetrators, however powerful. The downfall of prominent abusive patriarchs is crucial but insufficient to rupture the systems that allow sexual violence and patriarchal abuse to perpetuate on an endemic scale.

As I noted when allegations of Cuomo’s sexual assault first went public, the end of Cuomo’s tenure should also entail a break from his legacy of governance: away from mass incarceration, sex work criminalization, privatization, and austerity, and toward housing rights; free health care; and economic, racial, and social justice.

A Cuomo-style realpolitik treats workers as worthy of exploitation or disposal.

It’s no accident that it was a group of self-identifying democratic socialist New York legislators, including state Sens. Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport, who first called for Cuomo’s impeachment earlier this year, making explicit that the governor’s deadly nursing home scandal should be understood in a continuum of abuse with his workplace sexual harassment. A Cuomo-style realpolitik treats workers, particularly women workers and workers of color, as worthy of exploitation or disposal.

Camonghne Felix, a former Cuomo staffer who, in 2015, was the first Black woman to work as a speechwriter for the governor and was the only Black person on his press team, has previously spoken out about the gendered and racialized abuse — both verbal and structural — that she experienced in the administration, and directly from the governor. In response to the attorney general’s report, she wrote in The Cut, “This isn’t a moment. This is social evolution.”

As Felix put it: “Amid a national eviction crisis, an imminent recession, and a deadly pandemic — what has our commitment to abusive power gotten us for our people? Has our loyalty to power created more resources, is it keeping people off the street, is it getting vaccines into medical deserts?”

I agree wholeheartedly with the former staffer that “we’ve been doing it all wrong.” The suggestion is not, however, that by electing politicians who reject Cuomo-style technocratic austerity and embrace an agenda of racial, social, and economic justice, we will therefore ensure that no sexual predators hold office. The ability to espouse, even with commitment, a liberatory political platform does not ensure that a given politician is exempt from being an abuser. The left is rife with such figures, and organizers continue to struggle to establish systems of accountability and justice without relying on the violences of the carceral system.

Equally, many supporters of structurally oppressive political regimes do not themselves sexually harass and bully their colleagues. Yet a system of vastly unequal power, ordered along the intersecting fault lines of gender, race and class, is per se a system of abuse, of which Cuomo’s years of impunity are a reflection. After Cuomo, it would be no win for feminism to simply elect a more congenial technocrat who treats their own co-workers with respect but still supports the continuance of oppressive systems of incarceration, policing, and impoverishment, in which sexual violence thrives.

It would be a pyrrhic victory indeed, to finally see the end of Cuomo’s political career but to watch his politics of power long outlive his tenure.

The post The Problem Isn’t Just Cuomo, It’s the System That Made Him appeared first on The Intercept.

Advocates had high hopes that Joe Biden, who campaigned on emphasizing both global climate leadership and environmental justice, would prioritize international climate finance — that is, the transfer of money to low-income countries so they can effectively reduce their own carbon emissions — if elected president. Rich nations like the U.S. have historically emitted the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; poorer countries, which account for more than 60 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions now, are expected to contribute nearly 90 percent of emissions growth over the next two decades. Climate financing provides Biden with the chance to lead internationally as well as to restore trust in the U.S., which lost immense credibility under President Donald Trump.

Biden would contribute money primarily through the Green Climate Fund, a reserve established by the United Nations in 2009 to finance mitigation and adaptation projects in low-income countries. In 2014, 43 countries pledged to raise $10.3 billion for such projects, with the U.S. pledging $3 billion over four years.

Though the Obama administration got $1 billion out the door, Trump ended U.S. support for the effort. When Biden came into office, the hope was that he’d not only back-pay the U.S.’s outstanding commitment but also join other rich nations in making new, more ambitious pledges. But so far, nothing has materialized.

That’s not for lack of pressure. This past February, a coalition of leading environmental, faith, and development groups sent a letter to the new Biden administration urging an immediate $8 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund, both to pay the U.S.’s outstanding $2 billion from its 2014 pledge and to commit another $6 billion, bringing the U.S. in line with peer nations that doubled their initial pledges in 2019.

This request was echoed in a letter signed by 40 members of Congress in late March, led by Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y. Like the nongovernmental organizations in February, the members also urged a new $6 billion commitment and called specifically for $4 billion in the president’s forthcoming fiscal year 2022 budget, to both pay off the outstanding $2 billion pledge and to include the first installment of the new $6 billion one. “We believe this funding is essential to our shared goals of mitigating and adapting to climate change,” the letter states. “Such investment will also have the welcome effect of putting the United States on a new, restored path of global leadership.”

Yet in April, the Biden administration’s budget request included just $1.25 billion for the Green Climate Fund, not even enough to fulfill the U.S.’s outstanding $2 billion pledge from 2014. And in its recently released guidance for its Justice40 Initiative — executive actions “to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad” — the White House does not even mention the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency tasked with international climate resilience and risk management work, despite referencing 20 other federal departments.

“The U.S. has a tendency to tout leadership, but from our perspective, the U.S. has not really been a leader on climate if you look at what they’re actually putting on the table,” said Niranjali Amerasinghe, executive director of ActionAid USA. While she acknowledged that political leaders have a poor track record on climate finance, she said climate justice advocates were hopeful that after four years of climate denial and all the success from the climate youth movement, the administration would embrace what “true leadership” could look like. “From our perspective, that would be not just rhetoric and calling other global leaders to the table but delivering on emission-reduction commitments that reflect its fair share and putting real money forward, and not just a few billions,” she said.

Typically, the White House puts forward more ambitious requests in its budget proposals, and then Congress negotiates from there — i.e., exactly what’s playing out with the ongoing infrastructure debate. But with climate finance, the House of Representatives actually declined to accept the administration’s low figure and approved $1.6 billion for the Green Climate Fund in fiscal year 2022. The Senate is still hammering out its budget.

“If the White House had made a bigger ask as an opening to negotiating, would that have given the climate hawks in Congress a bit more space to play with?” asked Joe Thwaites, a climate finance expert at the World Resources Institute. “You hear all the time that ‘the U.S is back’ and that ‘the U.S is a climate leader,’ but right now they’re taking a real à la carte approach to leadership.”

In addition to its Green Climate Fund commitments, the Biden administration pledged another $4.5 billion toward climate finance, an overall sum of $5.7 billion. To put in context the administration’s proposed climate finance commitments, at the recent G-7 Leaders’ Summit in June, Germany pledged to start contributing $7.2 billion per year by 2025, even with an economy one-fifth the size of the U.S. And as Thwaites has pointed out, the European Union, despite having a combined economy that’s three-fourths the size of the U.S., has already pledged more than four times as much in public climate finance, committing $24.5 billion in 2019.

A spokesperson for John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, referred questions about the Biden administration’s climate finance commitments to the U.S. Treasury, which is the lead agency on the Green Climate Fund.

In response to The Intercept’s inquiries, a Treasury spokesperson pointed to Secretary Janet Yellen’s creation of a so-called climate hub to coordinate policy and reiterated the Biden administration’s intention “to make good” on the $2 billion outstanding pledge from 2014. The spokesperson described the $1.25 billion request “as a first step” and reiterated Yellen’s support for the Green Climate Fund. “As laid out in the U.S International Climate Finance plan, we will strategically use a range of bilateral and multilateral channels to do this, with the aim of maximizing catalytic impact of each U.S. public dollar, including in terms of leveraging private investment,” they said in an email. “Secretary Yellen recognizes the urgency act and has positioned the Department of Treasury to act boldly.”

There’s debate over exactly how much is needed for the U.S. to contribute its fair share, but advocates have urged the administration to factor in the country’s historical emissions when making that decision. One analysis published in June by the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank, estimated that given the U.S.’s historical emissions, its population, and its gross national income, it should contribute about $41 billion every year to climate finance projects. An analysis by the World Resources Institute said the U.S. should give 45 percent of contributions to the Green Climate Fund. A third estimate, put forward earlier this year by a number of nonprofit groups — including ActionAid USA, Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth U.S., and the Sunrise Movement — put the fair-share figure at $800 billion between 2021 and 2030. No matter the estimate, the broad consensus is that the $5.7 billion figure put forward by the Biden administration is far below what’s needed.

Some climate activists have been willing to give the Biden administration more of a grace period in its first year. Clarence Edwards, the Friends Committee on National Legislation director for energy and environmental policy, told The Intercept that he sees Biden’s climate finance commitments as “a great start” and added that “it’s only been six months and going in the right direction.”

Edwards noted the challenge in moving federal bureaucracies even on good days and said he thinks that the administration’s focus on the U.S.’s domestic climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill in negotiations, has to take precedence politically. “Glasgow” — referencing the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, which will take place in the city in December — “will be interesting because by then, with the American Jobs Plan, the world will know where the U.S. stands domestically,” Edwards said. “But if our Covid response is a coming attraction to how Western, developed countries are going to handle the climate crisis, then that’s not good news.”

Lauren Stuart, a climate change policy adviser at Oxfam America, disagreed that the administration needs to wait to hash out its domestic policy first but echoed Edwards in calling the administration’s initial commitments “a good first step, a floor.” She said the biggest challenge is an uncooperative Congress, though when asked why the House exceeded the White House’s budget request, she said, “It’s just been a messy process this year, complicated with a new administration.”

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., the ranking member of the House Appropriations state and foreign operations subcommittee, has been a vocal critic of climate finance, and in a May congressional hearing, he suggested that the proposed international climate spending was “irresponsible and misguided at best.”

Still, in Congress, other leaders are pushing for more — and pushing the Biden administration to be more ambitious. Espaillat reintroduced the Green Climate Fund Authorization Act in April, and Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen as well as Reps. David Cicilline and Ami Bera separately asked for $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund in fiscal year 2023.

“While I believe we need to provide much more support to the Green Climate Fund and have authored legislation to do just this, I believe Congress is demonstrating to the administration and our global partners that we take our commitments seriously and fully intend to start a new form of American leadership on the climate crisis,” Espaillat told The Intercept.

At the annual U.N. climate meeting this winter, as countries begin to negotiate new climate finance pledges, there will be more pressure for the Biden administration to up its commitments.

“The U.S. wants to be a climate leader, to project influence, and I think what they’ve been discovering … is that they’re not negotiating from a position of strength.”

“The U.S. wants to be a climate leader, to project influence, and I think what they’ve been discovering — whether it’s G-20 or in the mini negotiations ahead of COP26 [the U.N. climate meeting] — is that they’re not negotiating from a position of strength,” Thwaites said. “There’s a profound lack of trust in the U.S, in part from the Trump legacy.”

In July, Kerry delivered a major policy speech in London on global climate action and was pressed immediately by members of the media about the U.S.’s climate finance commitments. Kerry affirmed that the U.S.’s pledge would be discussed at the G-20 meeting days later in Naples and said he had spoken to the president about it recently. “The U.S. plans to announce its contribution before the Glasgow conference or risk affecting the dynamic of that event,” he told the audience.

Now activists want to make sure that the Biden administration sticks to its word. “We hear a lot from the administration about environmental justice,” said Stuart of Oxfam America. “But it’s been really focused domestically. There’s a lot of opportunity to scale up that thinking internationally.”

The post Despite Promises for Global Climate Justice, Biden Falls Short in Helping Reduce Poorer Countries’ Emissions appeared first on The Intercept.

Stacy Schusterman, heir and chair of Samson Energy, a fossil fuel company that owns at least 11 oil and gas wells in Wyoming, donated $1.55 million to Democratic Majority for Israel in 2019 and 2020, a super PAC that has in turn spent over $660,000 on ads supporting Brown and attacking her Democratic primary opponent Nina Turner, according to an Intercept review of federal campaign finance records. Schusterman is the super PAC’s largest individual donor.

Schusterman’s fortune comes from a much larger oil and gas business. Her father, Charles Schusterman, founded Samson Investment in 1971 in Tulsa, and the family owned it for 40 years until they sold it to the private equity megafirm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for $7.2 billion in 2011, earning the family a huge windfall. Charles died in 2000; his wife (and Stacy’s mother) Lynn is worth $3.4 billion.

After the sale, Stacy Schusterman started the much smaller Samson Energy from her father’s fortune, investing in oil wells in Louisiana, Texas, and Wyoming. The wells Samson Energy has drilled in Wyoming have been a source of controversy as they are very close to residential areas in Cheyenne, the state’s largest city. Wayne Lax, vice president of the Cheyenne Area Landowner’s Coalition, told Wyoming Public Media in December 2019, “At some point, common sense needs to take over and large, dangerous industrial developments just weren’t meant to go into this densely populated a residential area.”

She’s also been an avid supporter of DMFI super PAC. The super PAC, which formally endorsed Brown in February, has spent millions going after other progressive candidates in previous elections. The group spent $1.4 million attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary and an additional $1.5 million during that election cycle to support moderate Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel and attack his progressive challenger Jamaal Bowman. (Bowman went on to win that election.) Schusterman donated $250,000 to DMFI as the group was aggressively spending against Bowman, and $1 million in December 2019 — right before they launched aggressive attack ads against Sanders; her donations were not publicly available until after the primary. Schusterman donated an additional $300,000 to DMFI on December 18, 2020.

While Democratic Majority for Israel describes itself as working to “maintain and strengthen support for Israel among Democratic leaders including presidential and congressional candidates,” much of the group’s ad spending has not focused on a candidate’s support for Israel and has instead launched various attacks on candidates perceived to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Evan Weber, a spokesperson for the youth-driven climate organization Sunrise Movement, which has endorsed Turner, panned DMFI’s role in the primary. “DMFI has shown time and time again that it’s nothing more than a front group for corporate, big-moneyed interests who will go to any lengths to stop progressives, especially progressive women of color, from having more power in our society,” Weber said. “Nina Turner is a backer of the Green New Deal and a signer of the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge. Shontel Brown is getting backed by a super PAC loaded up with dirty oil & gas money. The choice for voters in Ohio’s 11th district couldn’t be more clear.”

Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist at progressive watchdog Public Citizen, said the outside spending by DMFI was upending the race. “Nina Turner had been enjoying a comfortable lead for Congress in this Ohio district, reflecting her constituents’ support for progressive policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal,” Holman said. “But that lead has been fading as the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC has raised huge amounts of special interest money from outside the district and is spending much of that money late in the election cycle targeting Turner.”

Oil and gas executives like Schusterman can use their funding as a way to build relationships with members of Congress, Holman said, adding that candidates “know where that money is coming from and they know how it’s being used to promote them. And it’s pretty hard to turn your back on that.”

Schusterman’s involvement in the congressional race through DMFI has left some skeptical that Brown will in fact advocate for a Green New Deal once in Congress. The Green New Deal finances a transformation of infrastructure in the U.S. that would significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption, impacting the profits of oil and gas companies like Schusterman’s Samson Energy.

While Brown, a member of the Cuyahoga County Council, has said she supports the “principles” of a Green New Deal, she has not signed on to the popular “No Fossil Fuel Money” pledge that was signed by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential primaries. Turner, a former Ohio state senator, has supported the Green New Deal and signed the pledge. Turner has been endorsed by a number of notable progressives, including Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Brown did tell the Wall Street Journal in March that she would vote for the Green New Deal if it came up for a vote, but appears to not have made environmental issues a central focus of her campaign, except for an environmental justice forum she participated in in April.

Some of Brown’s notable backers have deep ties to fossil fuel interests. Brown’s most prominent supporter, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, received $228,000 from electrical utility interests in 2019 and 2020, and $62,500 from oil and gas interests, according to OpenSecrets. (Electrical utilities are still very fossil fuel-heavy, with about 80 percent of U.S. electricity coming from fossil fuel sources.) Another one of Brown’s endorsers, newly minted Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter, was removed from the No Fossil Fuel pledge website after he repeatedly accepted campaign contributions from fossil fuel interests. Hillary Clinton, who has also endorsed Brown, helped lead the push for shale gas while she was secretary of state, according to Mother Jones. Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas, another Brown endorser, was the fifth highest recipient of oil and gas money among congressional Democrats in 2019-2020.

The Congressional Black Caucus PAC, which endorsed Brown on July 7, has on its board Michael Williams and Al Wynn, who have worked as lobbyists for the petroleum and coal industries, respectively.

Brown’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Schusterman, for her part, did not say what her position was on the Green New Deal, but said through a spokesperson that she supported President Joe Biden’s climate agenda and had made “investments” in “clean tech” and “efforts to protect the environment.” The spokesperson said, “Stacy’s support for DMFI, and the candidates it endorses, is based on her commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and the shared values and interests of these two democratic allies.” The spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Schusterman’s oil wells near residential areas in Wyoming.

A spokesperson for Democratic Majority for Israel said they strongly support the Paris climate accord and Biden’s climate efforts. They declined to say whether the group supports the Green New Deal.

The post Oil and Gas Heir Funding Super PAC Attacking Nina Turner appeared first on The Intercept.

Since 2005, activists in the city have been working to extend the right to vote in local elections to noncitizens. Though there were prior legislative attempts in 2009 and 2013, those efforts never commanded as much political momentum.

But in June, the latest iteration of the bill — reintroduced last winter by New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodríguez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic — received its 34th co-sponsor, giving it a supermajority on the 51-member council. The legislation, while limited to permanent residents and those with work authorizations — meaning those with Temporary Protected Status or in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — would enfranchise some 900,000 New Yorkers. If passed, the bill would offer a significant boon to a growing national movement around expanding ballot access to immigrants.

Under council rules, bills with supermajority support are guaranteed a public hearing within 60 days. No hearing is yet scheduled, but activists say they’re working to get something on the calendar. “60 days would put us around August 9, and typically the city council doesn’t meet for hearings in July or August but the rules are the rules so we’re in conversation with the Speaker [Corey Johnson’s] office,” said Paul Westrick, the manager of democracy policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, which is organizing for the bill. The legislative season ends in December, so activists plan to ramp up pressure over the next six months.

Advocates say they already have sizable public backing. One poll conducted this year by the left-leaning firm Change Research found 65 percent of respondents supported the measure. Another Change Research poll from last year found support among New Yorkers was higher when voters learned how many immigrants would be impacted by the bill. “It seems like less of a special privilege given to the few as opposed to a large group of people living in New York City,” concluded the pollsters.

Westrick told The Intercept that they’ve been reminding community members that New York City is a “quintessential city of immigrants” — many of whom have been “quite literally risking their lives to keep the city running and healthy” during the coronavirus pandemic — and that the bill would enfranchise nearly a million New Yorkers to vote. “That really helped people understand how many others were shut out of the voting process,” he said.

Across the U.S., political leaders are having renewed discussions about expanding — and in many cases, restricting — noncitizen voting.

The practice was once common at the local, state, and even federal levels. For the first 150 years of American history, white male property owners, regardless of citizenship status, were permitted to vote. As political scientist Ron Hayduk and anthropologist Kathleen Coll have documented in the journal New Political Science, voting was used as a tactic to foster civic attachment among the new white Christian men who came to the country during the 17th and 18th centuries and to entice them to occupy Native lands.

But hostility toward foreigners increased during and after the War of 1812, and some states began to restrict noncitizen voting. Another wave of nativist sentiment preceded World War I, leading to even more states eliminating the practice. Arkansas became the final state to end noncitizen voting in 1926, though noncitizens weren’t officially banned from voting in federal elections until 1996, when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

New York City was actually the first jurisdiction to bring the practice back. In 1968, as a concession during the city’s fight over “community control” of schools — a struggle to hold schools accountable by empowering parent representatives — New York granted noncitizens the right to vote in school board elections. Noncitizens voted in those contests until 2002, when the city switched to mayoral control and abolished its elected school board.

After New York City trailblazed on school board voting, Chicago followed suit about three decades later, and San Francisco in 2016. Ten cities in Maryland also allow noncitizen voting for elections including city council and mayor, and more recently voters in two Vermont cities — Montpelier and Winooski — approved measures to enfranchise any resident over 18. “People always glom onto the idea that you have to earn our right to vote by becoming a citizen,” Winooski’s bill sponsor, state Rep. Hal Colson, told Stateline. “I just don’t buy that. We’re talking about a large chunk of the community that’s closed off.”

Other states have been actively pushing back against noncitizen voting. Four states — Colorado, Florida, North Dakota, and Alabama — passed ballot amendments in the last few years to clarify in their state constitutions that only U.S. citizens can vote. And in 2018, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., introduced a nonbinding resolution in Congress condemning noncitizen voting, which passed with 279 votes in favor.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Councilmember Brianne Nadeau recently reintroduced a bill to extend voting rights to green card holders, a legislative effort that has failed four times over the last decade.

D.C. Council’s bill currently lacks the kind of majority support among elected officials that the legislation in New York has. And the five-person Judiciary and Public Safety Committee that has jurisdiction to move it forward so far only has two co-sponsors — Charles Allen and Brooke Pinto — and needs a majority to advance. Of the remaining committee members, Mary Cheh declined to comment, and Vincent Gray and Anita Bonds did not return requests for comment.

Allen, the committee chair, told The Intercept he plans to hold a hearing on the issue and hopes that helps change the minds of his colleagues. “We have this thing in D.C. about taxation without representation,” he said. “We wouldn’t be the first place to do it, and I think it’s the right thing to do. And I don’t think we have to have New York do it first.”

In New York, the pro-enfranchisement faction has not just a veto-proof majority on the city council, but also support from the presumptive next mayor, Eric Adams, who would have power to veto. “We cannot be a beacon to the world and continue to attract the global talent, energy and entrepreneurship that has allowed our city to thrive for centuries if we do not give immigrants a vote in how this city is run and what our priorities are for the future,” Adams told New York Daily News in February.

In the meantime, activists will keep beating the voting reform drum. Hina Naveed, a 31-year-old registered nurse and recent law school graduate, is one of the hundreds of thousands who would receive the right to vote under Rodriguez’s bill. As a DACA recipient, she has a permit to work legally in the country but has no pathway to citizenship.

This summer Naveed has been working as a campaign manager for a Staten Island borough president candidate, and as she’s met with immigrant households, she’s been educating them about the noncitizen voting bill. “Every single person was so excited,” she told The Intercept. “The idea of being able to vote and have their voices heard was just so phenomenal.”

The post Noncitizens May Soon Be Eligible to Vote in New York City appeared first on The Intercept.

Her bank, Citizens Bank, kept sending her emails prompting her to apply for a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, which Congress passed early in 2020 to issue relief money to small business owners in order to keep workers employed and companies from shuttering. If used mostly on payroll, with a small portion on other expenses like rent or equipment, they would be entirely forgiven; otherwise they’d be converted to loans with 1 percent interest.

But Gray found the application difficult to parse as a sole proprietor. “I had no idea what to ask for,” she said. So someone from her bank walked her through it and told her what she was eligible to receive. The bank wanted her full 2019 tax return to determine eligibility, which she provided.

In May 2020, Citizens approved her for a $5,800 PPP loan. It wasn’t a huge sum compared the multimillion-dollar loans some corporations received, but Gray had enough income to pay her mortgage and cover her health care costs.

But in May 2021, Gray received a shocking email from Citizens explaining that no, she shouldn’t have received $5,800. Instead, a bank representative later told her on the phone, she was in fact only eligible for $3,837. The difference won’t be forgiven, and she’ll have to pay it back. Citizens did not respond to a request for comment.

Gray is not the only person whose bank has reversed its stance on how much PPP money they should be eligible for and demanded repayment. Three other small business owners told The Intercept they have similarly been notified by their different lenders that they shouldn’t have received the amount they were approved for and that they’ll have to pay back the difference. The loans are all under $10,000, a tiny slice of the $800 billion program. “The amount is so small, I’m surprised [the banks] would even do anything with that,” said Daryl McLinden, managing director at finance and accounting firm TMG Consulting, who has been focused on helping clients navigate PPP loans. A $5,000 PPP loan is “like a rounding error,” he said. (Over 85 percent of PPP loans were for under $50,000; loans over $1 million made up just 0.4 percent of the total.) But having to pay the money back will be a hardship for these small business owners who are still trying to climb their way out of a deep financial hole.

After Gray was repeatedly unable to submit her forgiveness application earlier this year, she threatened to sit in the Citizens Bank corporate office until someone talked to her. Eventually she got through, only to be told she now owes nearly $2,000.

Gray’s bank is demanding she provide a payroll report and evidence of employer-provided health care. But she doesn’t have payroll since she’s the only employee. She went on Medicare two years ago so can’t provide that documentation either. She’s also being told rent on her home office is not allowed.

Two thousand dollars would seem to be pennies for a bank like Citizens. And while Congress never followed through on the demand to automatically forgive loans under $150,000, the Small Business Administration, the agency responsible for administering the PPP, did simplify the process for loans under that amount, allowing business owners to fill out a one-page form and simply attest they complied with the requirements. Owing $2,000 is no small thing for Gray. She’s disabled and on a fixed income. After a spurt of business in the last half of 2020, it’s all dried up again. She thinks she’ll probably have to close her business entirely within the next six months. The only means she has to pay the money back is a small inheritance left to her after her mother died last July. She’s not the type to cry or give up in frustration, she said, but she’s found herself in helpless tears.

Had she known her bank might turn around and refuse to forgive her full loan, “I wouldn’t have taken it,” she said.

In emails sent to business owners and reviewed by The Intercept, two of the banks say they are responding to new guidance released earlier this year by the SBA. But while experts acknowledge the SBA has released a lot of updated guidance over the last year, it’s unclear what specifically banks are referring to. Jeanette Quick, head of compliance and public policy at payroll company Gusto, has heard from small businesses and lenders that the SBA is returning forgiveness applications submitted by banks based on new parameters for what the maximum loan amounts should have been, although there is no systematic tracking for how many business owners this issue is affecting. In an attempt to ferret out fraud, “It has created the potential to have swung too far the other way,” she said, and cracked down on legitimate businesses who received legitimate loans. The SBA declined to comment for this story, and the Treasury Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“I am aware of the circumstances facing these small business owners and am monitoring the situation closely,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who is chair of the House Committee on Small Business, told The Intercept in response to this story. “This pandemic has devastated small firms across the country, especially the smallest of small business, and they can’t afford surprise bills now as they are beginning to recover. My staff and I are engaging with the SBA on this issue and working to ensure that small businesses are protected.”

Even if SBA guidance has changed, the banks vetted the applications and issued the loans. If there was a problem with the original application, “Why did they give it to them in the first place?” McLinden asked.

No matter what’s going on, it may feel like a bait and switch. Businesses were urged to secure PPP loans and assured by the SBA, lenders, and Congress that they would be forgiven if used correctly, Quick noted. “It feels a little bit like they’re changing the rules of the game as the game is going along,” she said. “It is very unfair.”

Gray agrees. “They’re spending a ton of money to try to claw back tiny amounts of money from people who desperately need it,” she said.

In May, Edgar Comellas received an email from his lender, Bank of America. “On January 15, 2021, the Small Business Administration (SBA) issued guidance stating a borrower may not receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness for any amount that exceeds the ‘correct maximum loan amount’ under the CARES Act and Economic Aid Act,” it said. “Based on SBA rules and the documentation you provided in your original application, your maximum loan amount (and, therefore, the maximum amount of forgiveness you can receive) is less than the funding you received in connection with your first PPP loan.” In other words, he wasn’t going to get his entire PPP loan converted into a grant.

“I was worried and started panicking,” Comellas said.

Comellas, who owns an events company in Orlando, Florida, had applied the very first day Bank of America’s PPP portal opened up, providing his 940 and 941 tax documents, his profit and loss statement, his balance sheet. “Anything they requested, we put in the system,” he said. After his application was approved and he had received a PPP loan of $5,494, Comellas assumed the only thing he had to do to get the loan forgiven would be to spend the money correctly. He documented his expenses meticulously and submitted it when he sought forgiveness.

But now his bank is saying he has to pay back $3,281. The problem, he’s been told, is that while his income is seasonal — big business in the winter that slows down in the summer — he has to find a way to prove it. He’s stuck in a game of telephone between Bank of America and the SBA, trying to get an answer from someone. He feels like he’s on a conveyor belt, he said. “There are so many of these loans, it’s bulk manufacturing,” he said. “Individuals are not being assessed.”

The money he owes will be converted into a loan, but Comellas doesn’t want the debt. Thanks to a return of some of his business, he’ll be able to pay it back, but it’ll come at a cost. He won’t be able to invest in new equipment, more full-time staff, or marketing efforts to bring in new customers.

“The people who are paying for it are not the banks, not the SBA,” he said. “It’s the real small businesses who are going to be hurt.”

In response to a request for comment, Bank of America spokesperson Bill Halldin said, “In the forgiveness process, we are required to follow the Small Business Administration’s rules and guidance.”

Laura Zimberg has been self-employed as a massage therapist in Buffalo, New York, since 2005. In early 2019 she decided to expand and secure her own massage spaces, which meant spending money on building them out. After her state shut down in early 2020, she got a $10,000 PPP loan from Bank of America that allowed her to not just cover her own income, but also pay rent for her two locations.

But in February, when her bank opened up its forgiveness portal, she couldn’t complete the application. Weeks later, when she was finally able to reach someone at the bank, she was told that she wasn’t eligible for any PPP money because line 31 on her 2019 Schedule C tax return was negative — an effect of having spent money to expand her business. Such an issue had never been raised when she was applying, she said.

“All the time I was being reassured that, ‘Don’t worry about it, if you use it right you’ll be forgiven,’” she said. “Now the SBA is saying, ‘No, I’m sorry, you’re out of luck.’”

She’s not sure how she’ll pay the $10,000 back. “It’s devastating,” she said. Most of her clients still haven’t returned out of fear of getting Covid-19.

In the end, Quick noted, “Small businesses will be left holding the bag.” And many, if not most, are not fully recovered from the pandemic. “It’s just another economic shock to the system.”

That may not just impact them now as they try to recover from the pandemic. In the longer term, Quick fears it’ll create distrust in the system, especially for women- and minority-owned businesses that sought government loans for the first time. “This only worsens mistrust and creates a further divide for access to capital,” she said.

The experience with his PPP loan is one big reason why Jesse Grund has decided to give up altogether. He’s owned a small personal training studio in Orlando, Florida, since 2014. He decided to close his doors voluntarily at the onset of Covid-19 because he didn’t have the space to keep clients safe. He moved what he could online but still experienced a big loss of revenue, and his landlord refused to work with him on rent payments.

When he first applied for a PPP loan through PNC Bank by uploading his 2019 tax return, he was told he was only approved for $917. But when he contacted a vice president at the bank she asked for additional documentation, and he sent over his lease outlining his rent. She said she had what she needed to move his application forward, and he received $5,000. He quickly spent the allowable amounts on payroll and rent.

Then in April he got an email from PNC similar to the one Comellas received from Bank of America, citing new SBA guidelines from January. “After a careful review of your original PPP loan file and associated submitted documents, we have discovered possible discrepancies that need to be resolved to allow for full forgiveness of your loan,” it said. It said his “Correct Maximum Loan Amount” was just $917, not the $5,000 it had given him. “Unfortunately, the Excess Loan Amount is not eligible for forgiveness and must be repaid, along with interest.” PNC did not respond to a request for comment.

“I had done everything they’d asked me to do,” he said. “I felt very abandoned.” His business is still far below what it was in 2019, and he’s still losing clients due to job losses. So he’s decided to start graduate school next month. He’s not sure what he’ll do with the gym, but he is sure about one thing: “I’ve decided I’m done with small business ownership.”

The post Banks Are Reversing Course on PPP Loans to Small Business Owners appeared first on The Intercept.

After a serial rapist, who first struck in 1997, brutally assaulted a victim in November 2002, Charlottesville police became increasingly desperate to catch the suspect. They had his DNA but were short on leads, and physical descriptions given by victims varied; they knew only that he was a Black man. So, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo authorized a policy whereby officers could approach Black men that they felt matched the extremely broad description and request DNA samples. Over the next two years, the names of targets were kept in a running master suspect list maintained by the department.

In April 2004, the dragnet was halted after press coverage joined with community outcry over allegations of racial profiling and police harassment. The dragnet never identified the serial rapist — who was instead apprehended after being recognized in public by a victim in 2007 — and the city pledged to narrow its focus. Longo remained as Charlottesville police chief and served until 2016.

An independent review of the dragnet by The Intercept reveals that it was larger in scope than previously reported. According to interviews of current and former local officials and internal records previously filed in court by the Charlottesville Police Department and obtained by The Intercept, the Albemarle County Police Department and the University Police Department at the University of Virginia collected buccal, or cheek, swabs alongside CPD, with UPD even sharing students’ personal information in the process.

In an email to The Intercept, ACPD spokesperson Abbey Stumpf denied that the department was involved in the dragnet, though she acknowledged that buccal swabs “could have been consensually obtained” by ACPD and that “ACPD collected DNA samples during the course of investigations and compared them to the database if there was a similar MO to other cases.” UVA did not respond to questions about UPD’s role in the dragnet.

Notably, CPD records contradict Longo’s previous suggestions that the swabbing of Black men was tightly controlled. As Longo told the Washington Post, “There’s this picture out there that hundreds of people have had a Q-tip stuck in their mouths, and that ain’t it.” In one case, CPD records show that a man had been approached on two separate occasions for a swab, only for police to later note that he “does not fit the general description of the suspect. He appears to weigh at least 250 pounds with [sic] very round face and abdomen.” The Intercept’s reporting also sheds light on the limited recourse the legal system can offer for victims of alleged racial discrimination, as local resident Larry Monroe discovered after suing the city for being targeted in the dragnet. (Documents from his lawsuit provided the foundation for The Intercept’s reporting.)

The dragnet remains infamous among longtime residents of Charlottesville, a city with a history of racially biased policing as well as current issues of segregation and racially disproportionate stop-and-frisks. In 2018, Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker sharply criticized Longo when asked for her reaction to Virginia adding new categories of mandatory DNA registration for criminal convictions. Walker replied that the basis of the law is racist, pointing to Charlottesville’s dark history of DNA collection. “Charlottesville is the locality that helped fuel that,” she said. “The chief of police at the time, Chief Longo, thought that it was OK to round Black men up and take their DNA samples to see if they had been the individuals who had committed a crime.”

Many community members were concerned when the University of Virginia announced on February 13, 2020 that Longo had been formally appointed to lead its public safety services. “I was very surprised that Longo surfaced as the chief of the University Police Department,” M. Rick Turner, UVA’s former dean of African-American affairs, told The Intercept.

In response to a detailed list of questions about Longo’s hiring process and whether the university evaluated concerns related to these events and others, UVA spokesperson Brian Coy confirmed that the university examined Longo’s record, writing, “[Longo’s] service in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area and his commitment to building positive relationships with the community made him the right candidate for the post.”

Coy also referenced the recent upheaval over policing in America, stating that Longo was the right person to guide the university through it. “There are many valid viewpoints and concerns about the proper role of policing [in] our society and we have a responsibility to ensure that our approach is responsive to the needs of our community,” Coy wrote. “That is a key part of the reason the University hired Tim Longo as the Associate Vice President of Safety and Security and Chief of Police. Throughout his career, Chief Longo has demonstrated the leadership and personal character necessary to keep our community safe in a way that reflects the University’s core values of justice and equality.”

In a statement to The Intercept, Longo wrote, “As our efforts to collect DNA samples were underway, I heard from many members of the Black community in this area that the policy was overinclusive and ineffective. Through these conversations, I recognized that the policy impacted our relationship with that community in a negative way and took steps to correct our initial mistake.” Longo added, “I regret allowing it to take place as it did – it was wrong, and I am sorry. Since then, I have tried my best to listen and I have tried hard to rebuild relationships and to restore trust where it may have been lost.”

The old guard of law enforcement still has sway in Charlottesville and particularly at UVA, a behemoth institution that looms large over local issues. “Longo is popular with white people in the community as a police officer,” Turner told The Intercept, adding that “Black students and Black alumni should be alarmed that a police chief from the ranks of Charlottesville is now elevated” at UVA.

The Dragnet

When news broke of the DNA dragnet, which was first reported by the local outlet The Hook in July 2003 and nearly a year later by national outlets like the Washington Post, the program was swiftly condemned by the community. Over the course of the dragnet, according to internal records later filed in court by CPD that have not previously been reported, police swabbed 197 men. CPD meticulously tracked every swab collected, with each assigned an individual custody record, and kept note of those who refused to be swabbed. At the time, Longo rebuked allegations of racial profiling, stressing that “We weren’t approaching and accosting Black men on the street.”

The Intercept reviewed 30 cases in which individuals refused a swab, and CPD internal records from these stops tell a different story. The documents demonstrate that police often exerted minimal effort to narrowly target suspects and frequently accosted Black men on the street, contrary to Longo’s claims. In some cases, police attempted to swab men who they later found out were already in the state’s DNA database or would soon be added for separate criminal offenses; in others, men who were approached for a swab were later ruled out for not fitting the description. Some attempted swabs even came from traffic stops. Others were approached for a swab only for Charlottesville police to subsequently discover that they were in jail the day of an assault by the serial rapist.

Police stressed that all swabs were obtained on a voluntary basis. But many residents expressed that they did not feel they had much of a choice, considering several were approached at home or their places of work. CPD records also reveal several instances in which officers would repeatedly press those who refused requests for swabs on separate occasions. “Approached again,” one form notes, subsequently reading, “again declined.” According to CPD court filings, of the 30 men who initially refused to be swabbed, nine would later relent.

These internal records also raise questions about the nature of the stops CPD conducted to obtain swabs. After one resident refused a swab, a form reads that he was stopped by police once again and “arrested for [Drunk in Public],” noting, “DNA sample obtained.”

“When you see the apparent involvement of patrol-level officers in actually making contacts and collecting samples, that’s a danger signal.”

One resident arrived at the police department furious after having been asked for a swab, asserting, “I’m not the fucking rapist.” But Charlottesville police did not seem too concerned, since “He really looked like too much of a ‘crackhead’ to be the rapist.” After another man refused a request for a swab, an officer noted that “He is well spoken.” A composite sketch released by Charlottesville police claimed that the serial rapist had “unnaturally white” or “slightly bulging eyes.” This description was apparently enough to motivate one officer out on patrol to stop a man on the street and later write in a field contact card, “Suspect kept looking back as I went by,” adding, “Person [sic] eyes look big!” The man refused a swab, though he relented after being approached again.

One former Charlottesville police officer, Curtis Brandon, told The Intercept that the dragnet became a source of anxiety for many Black men in Charlottesville. “I feel like if I wasn’t an officer and I was outside jogging,” Brandon said, “they probably would have stopped me.”

Charlottesville police were also given greater leeway to swab suspects than previously known. Though previous press reports discuss that a multi-jurisdictional team was established to identify the serial rapist, the widespread involvement of CPD officers outside this task force, as well as those of other departments, in swabbing residents has not been reported. Over 40 CPD officers, including patrol officers, collected swabs at different points during the dragnet, an analysis of buccal swab custody records shows.

Dave Chapman, the commonwealth’s attorney for Charlottesville at the time of the dragnet, told The Intercept, “When you see the apparent involvement of patrol-level officers in actually making contacts and collecting samples, that’s a danger signal,” reasoning that “the methodology, the strategy that’s being followed isn’t adequately well-supervised.” Concerning the nature of the stops, he said, “It is well-known and it’s true to this very day that when an officer is approaching a citizen, there is a different power dynamic. It’s not equal. That’s a reality.”

Whereas previous reporting of the dragnet centered on Charlottesville police, records reveal that University and Albemarle County police officers swabbed residents as well. According to a list of all swabs compiled by CPD and reviewed by The Intercept, CPD swabbed 167 men, UPD swabbed 21, and ACPD swabbed nine, bringing the total number of men stopped in the dragnet to at least 218, since 21 of the 30 men who initially refused never ended up providing a swab. (Longo previously told the Washington Post in April 2004 that 197 men had been stopped in the dragnet and 10 refused a swab.)

University and Charlottesville police closely coordinated to surveil and swab Black men, particularly after attacks near UVA’s campus prompted officers to patrol the area. “Uva obtained Gatorade bottle and submitted to lab,” a CPD officer noted. “We will continue to attempt swabs.” Sometimes CPD referred an individual to UPD after trying and failing to obtain a swab. Other times CPD notified UPD to swab residents who would travel through UPD’s jurisdiction. In many cases, UPD would share information with CPD to target men for swabs.

UPD also divulged UVA students’ personal information to other departments in the process. After one man refused a swab, CPD noted that UPD “advised subject is a student and should be returning in AUG [sic] to begin his 4th year.” UPD also “reported that he did not live at [address redacted], according to their records.” The student, who had previously refused, evidently later complied with another request for a swab, since CPD remarked “DNA sample obtained.” (If this student was a fourth-year undergraduate as the document suggests, this particular stop also speaks to a lack of narrow criteria, since the serial rapist had first struck in 1997, likely before the student would have arrived in Charlottesville.)

Turner, the former UVA dean, told The Intercept that close to a dozen students approached him about being targeted by the police for a swab. Turner and other community leaders spoke out, eventually prompting a meeting in April 2004 on UVA’s campus where the tactics of the dragnet were denounced. Within days, Longo agreed to scale the dragnet back, bringing it to a halt.

During the dragnet’s operation, a university commission formed by former university President John T. Casteen was studying how to improve diversity and equity, but a UVA official with direct knowledge of the commission’s deliberations told The Intercept that its members had no formal discussion regarding the dragnet at all. Although Turner told The Intercept that he was aware UPD participated in the dragnet, other senior university officials offered little insight into their knowledge of the dragnet or UPD’s role. Casteen wrote to The Intercept, “Sad to tell, I do not remember the dragnet in which you are interested.”

It is unclear how widely known UPD’s involvement was with the department’s own officers. Michael Coleman, who served as a captain with UPD during the time of the dragnet, told The Intercept, “The University Police Department, to the best of my knowledge, did not participate in that” since “it alienated or aggravated a fair amount of the Charlottesville population.”

Blake Caravati, who served on the Charlottesville City Council between 1998 to 2006, acknowledged in an interview with The Intercept that the dragnet “was certainly racial profiling” and “not a good decision at the time,” though he offered high praise for Longo. “You can’t cancel the guy because he’s one of the best police chiefs in the country at the time,” he said, echoing many of Longo’s peers who lauded his leadership. “We’re all fallible, right?”

The Lawsuit

A single lawsuit was filed in response to the dragnet. After Charlottesville resident Larry Monroe was swabbed in March 2004, he sued CPD, Longo, and CPD detective James Mooney the following July.

Monroe’s litigation spanned several years as it made its way through state and federal courts, eventually culminating in an attempted federal class-action lawsuit that fell apart following unfavorable court rulings. Despite Monroe’s apparent lack of any shared physical characteristics with the serial rapist besides being Black, and CPD’s aggressive tactics of stopping a wide range of Black men under circumstances criticized by residents, state and federal courts dismissed Monroe’s claims.

Monroe died in 2018. Mooney, now assistant chief of CPD, told The Intercept that he knew Monroe personally before swabbing him. He said, “I never would have thought in my wildest dreams” that Monroe could be the serial rapist. Concerning the lawsuit, he added, “I think Monroe was a decent guy, I think he was a decent father, and I don’t think he deserved to go through that.”

Like many men approached for DNA samples, Monroe was asked for a swab at his home, though mere days before, he had been in police custody following an arrest for misdemeanor disorderly conduct. (Monroe’s attorney later told a court that he was exonerated of the charge.) According to Monroe’s March 2004 misdemeanor arrest record, Charlottesville police recorded his height as 5-foot-8 and weight as 290 pounds, well outside the range of descriptions of the serial rapist.

“I don’t fit the description, but just because I’m a Black man, I feel like I’m being pinpointed.”

Monroe later testified that he was nervous and scared and did not want to provide a swab, but complied because “[Mooney]’s the police,” adding that he did not feel he had a choice. “I just feel it’s messed up,” Monroe said. “I don’t fit the description, but just because I’m a Black man, I feel like I’m being pinpointed.”

Monroe’s trial commenced on January 31, 2005 in Virginia state court, where proceedings revealed that Monroe was targeted for a swab because CPD Officer William Sclafani had stopped him on the night of May 31, 2003. According to a field contact card Sclafani wrote after the encounter, Monroe “was out at Chancellor St with four black males” and told Sclafani that he was “looking for a party.” Since the area was dominated by student housing left mostly vacant for the summer, Sclafani reasoned that Monroe “may have been scoping out houses.” This fact, combined with the apparent note that Monroe was on ACPD’s “list” as well, was sufficient to designate Monroe for a swab nearly a year after Sclafani’s stop occurred.

“He came to their attention because he was Black in public,” Monroe’s attorney, Deborah Wyatt, told The Intercept. “The college kids had left, said Sclafani, so he might have been casing the place. It was racist from the inception.”

Mooney told the court that Monroe had signed a consent form, which the department claimed was standard for all swabs, but Monroe testified that he did not recall signing one. In any event, the swabs and consent forms had been destroyed after the department pledged in April 2004 to eliminate all samples that were ruled out.

Monroe lost the case and filed an appeal in state court. He then decided to nonsuit the lawsuit — drop with a chance to refile — and filed a new case in federal court in the Western District of Virginia, claiming he was racially profiled.

Monroe was also seeking class-action certification, meaning that more Black men who felt wrongly targeted by the dragnet could potentially join the lawsuit if the certification was approved. Wyatt told The Intercept that probably close to a dozen dragnet victims had expressed interest in suing, and one, Granville Boggs, told The Hook that he had separately contacted Wyatt about suing in the fall of 2003 and explicitly indicated that he was interested in joining a class-action suit. (Boggs could not be reached for comment. The Intercept unsuccessfully attempted to contact other victims of the dragnet, but many could not be reached because they had died, their identities were never publicly disclosed besides those who spoke with reporters, they have moved away from Charlottesville, or they were still wary of speaking to the press.)

In 2007, attorneys for the city moved to dismiss Monroe’s claims as well as his class-action certification. At a subsequent hearing on the certification issue, Monroe’s attorneys told The Intercept that they were troubled by an affidavit submitted by Sclafani, whose 2003 field contact card led to Monroe being swabbed.

Sclafani alleged that while on patrol, he encountered Monroe on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall. According to Sclafani, Monroe told him that the federal lawsuit had been filed in his name without his knowledge, that he was not interested in pursuing claims against Mooney, and that the lawsuit was making him “look bad” and he “does not know what is going on.”

“My recollection is we were surprised” by the affidavit, remarked Neal Walters, who represented Monroe with Wyatt for the federal lawsuit, in an interview with The Intercept. “I remember being in that courtroom and having the feeling afterwards of ‘holy four-letter word, how do we deal with that?’” Wyatt did not hesitate to characterize the affidavit, which contradicts Monroe’s deposition, as false. “It’s not true,” she told The Intercept. Both lawyers acknowledged that since the affidavit was filed with the court system, it could have escaped their notice before the hearing, catching them off guard. “Sometimes we can both drop the ball,” Wyatt said.

Reached for comment by phone, Sclafani confirmed submitting the affidavit but did not answer any other questions.

“A reasonable person would have felt free to decline Mooney’s requests or to otherwise terminate the encounter,”Moon wrote, acknowledging Monroe’s claims of fraught relations between police officers and the Black community but ultimately disregarding them.

John Raphling, a senior researcher on criminal justice at Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept that, generally speaking, the testimony of police officers is infrequently challenged by courts. “Police officers are given an incredible amount of deference, to the point where judges often accept their word at face value and don’t interrogate whether what they are saying is truthful,” Raphling said. “Police are not judged by the same standard as everybody else is.”

Judge Norman K. Moon dismissed most of Monroe’s lawsuit and denied his class-action certification, relying heavily on Sclafani’s affidavit in the process. “I am convinced that … a reasonable person would have felt free to decline Mooney’s requests or to otherwise terminate the encounter,” Moon wrote, acknowledging Monroe’s claims of fraught relations between police officers and the Black community but ultimately disregarding them. An attempt to appeal also failed, citing precedents that grant wide latitude to law enforcement activities influenced by racial criteria.

The appeal decision in Monroe v. City of Charlottesville has since served as legal precedent in other cases involving allegations of racially discriminatory policing. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson in North Carolina for conducting what federal attorneys alleged was an “egregious pattern of racial profiling.” In 2015, a federal judge cited precedents like the Monroe decision and ruled in favor of Johnson.

The Fallout

In his remaining years as chief, Longo worked to repair the damage the dragnet created and helped implement new initiatives such as crisis intervention training for officers, which he also participated in. Longo also cooperated with efforts to improve local criminal justice outcomes. “As a participant in community collaborations that have been undertaken to make our criminal justice system and our community better, I think he’s been a very important player,” James Hingeley, Albemarle’s progressive commonwealth’s attorney, told The Intercept.

A leading example began in 2010, when law enforcement and other community representatives in the Charlottesville area embarked on a pilot program of the National Institute of Corrections called Evidence-Based Decision Making, in which officials like Longo played an important role. Throughout his career as chief, Longo’s hands-on approach and close relations with community members were praised by many local leaders, who pointed to efforts like greater collaboration with churches, schools, youth programs, and human services.

However, other events during Longo’s tenure strained CPD’s relationship with the community. After Sage Smith, a Black transgender woman, vanished in 2012, Charlottesville police mounted a lackluster response. Smith has never been found, though CPD is still investigating. Don Gathers, a community leader who was forced to suspend his run for City Council in large part due to white supremacist threats against his life, told The Intercept, “When young Black children would come up missing, the same efforts didn’t seem to be put forth, and that’s still very much a point of contention in the Black community,” emphasizing that “Sage Smith is still missing.”

Longo had risen through the ranks of the Baltimore Police Department before becoming chief in Charlottesville, and after the death of Freddie Gray fueled intensifying Black Lives Matter protests, he sat down with the local news outlet C-VILLE Weekly in May 2015 to discuss a range of recent controversies. He said that events like those in Ferguson and Baltimore underscore “that race relations are a significant part of our history and they continue to influence relationships we have today” and noted specifically concerning the Gray case, “I don’t know about the investigation except for what I’ve read in the newspaper. I haven’t talked to anyone from Baltimore about it.”

Seven months later, in December 2015, Longo gave expert testimony on behalf of Officer William Porter, who was indicted for his role in Gray’s death in police custody. Longo reportedly told the jury that “I believe [Porter’s] actions were objectively reasonable under the circumstances he was confronted with.” The jury deadlocked and prosecutors later dropped all charges in the Gray case.

Longo announced his retirement as CPD chief in November 2015 and was then recruited by UVA to lead a master’s program in public safety that was slated to launch in 2019. In 2017, he started teaching a short course at UVA’s law school called “Understanding Police Use of Force: Investigation & Litigation Concepts,” which he has taught for several semesters since.

Longo’s February 2020 appointment as UVA’s security chief effectively consolidated all public safety administration at the university under his purview — reversing the creation of separate positions for chief of police and associate vice president for safety and security that stemmed from new security recommendations that followed the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally — and occurred shortly before a national reckoning over police violence and racial discrimination.

In July 2020, UVA’s Student Council passed a resolution demanding that the University Police Department’s budget be decreased and its funds reallocated to the university’s Counseling and Psychological Services. In an interview discussing the Student Council’s vote, Longo pointed to a pin he wore signaling UPD’s commitment to “peace and justice,” emphasizing that “our job is to prove that they’re more than just symbols, through our actions.”

Many students have since spoken out against the university, with some claiming that they have felt targeted by UVA for their protests. When fourth-year student Hira Azher, a resident of UVA’s historic Lawn, posted a sign on the door of her residence denouncing UVA in September 2020, a UPD officer visited her room hours later in response to someone being “offended.”

Other Lawn room residents posted similar signs in solidarity and were then subjected to constant threats and harassment by community members. Azher and another Lawn resident, Hannah Hiscott, told The Intercept that their property and that of other students was repeatedly vandalized, people would bang on and throw things at their doors throughout the night, strangers spied on them, and nothing was done to stop it. “I don’t feel safe at all here,” Hiscott said.

After being inundated with alumni complaints about Azher’s sign, UVA President James Ryan responded with a post deriding it as “offensive” and “deeply disappointing,” which was followed by the university unveiling new regulations limiting Lawn residents’ ability to post signs on their doors.

This past February, UPD announced the appointment of its first manager of diversity, equity, and inclusion, but some student activists say recent changes do not go far enough. Longo’s appointment as chief was a “slap in the face” to the community, said Sarandon Elliott, a member of the student activist organization UVA Beyond Policing, in an interview with The Intercept.  Hiring a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer “doesn’t improve policing,” Elliott added, remarking that it instead funnels “more money into this violent institution.” Citing Longo’s record, including the DNA dragnet, UVA Beyond Policing is calling for his removal.

As UVA’s police chief, Longo will have to continue to confront the lasting impact of the dragnet. Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney wrote to The Intercept that she would “absolutely not” consider a similar policy of DNA collection and that “the legacy of the program continues to impact CPD’s relationship with the Black community, particularly Black men.” She noted that repercussions of programs like the dragnet are “not confined to Charlottesville,” since “the cumulative effects associated with these types of practice[s] undermine the legitimacy of policing agencies across the nation.”

And though considerable time has passed, the dragnet remains a painful memory for longtime local residents like Raymond Mason, who described it as an “all-time low” for Charlottesville. “Those were trying times because everybody was afraid, Black men were afraid that they were gonna get pulled over, roughed up, or whatever,” Mason told The Intercept. “Anybody was subject to be stopped and harassed. Anyone.”

The post Before He Was UVA Police Chief, Timothy Longo Helmed DNA Dragnet That Targeted Black Men appeared first on The Intercept.

For 17 years, the Behavioral Health Leadership Institute, or BHLI, the nonprofit operating the service, has innovated a “low-threshold” (meaning low-barrier) treatment model in which people can leave their first visit with a prescription. That means no required group attendance or abstention from drugs. It also means that the organization covers pharmacy co-pays and attaches Polaroid pictures to the prescription in lieu of photo identification. “Nobody needs an appointment. People just show up,” said Deborah Agus, executive director of BHLI. “We’re about as no-barrier as you can be.”

To ensure that the program, called Project Connections at Re-Entry, could continue providing on-demand access to buprenorphine, BHLI has been forced to turn down federal funding — twice.

The grant money rejected by BHLI was part of growing federal effort in recent years to pour much-needed funds into substance use disorder treatment. As tens of thousands of Americans have died annually from preventable overdoses for years now, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, a federal agency, is beginning to make historic investments in substance use disorder treatment to match the unprecedented death toll.

Yet the grants — a total of $5.5 billion for fiscal year 2021, the highest value ever granted for substance use disorder treatment, which comes as a result of the agency’s enacted budget and the American Rescue Plan Act — may not reach some substance use disorder patients and low-threshold treatment providers. At fault is the grants’ prohibitive requirements, which burden programs and re-traumatize a highly vulnerable population, multiple health department officials and service providers warned The Intercept.

Six health department officials from five states, most of whom spoke with The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, denounced the Government and Performance Results Act tool, required of SAMHSA-funded programs per the GPRA but designed at the discretion of the agency. The controversial questionnaire, which is administered by a health worker to a patient before medication can be prescribed, aims to assess program performance. In reality, according to the officials, it undermines the program’s ability to deliver accessible lifesaving treatment.

One of the officials from a state receiving some of the most funding said the sentiment goes far beyond just those interviewed: “I have not talked to a single state official in [my state] or in the country that believes the reporting requirements are fine. Everyone is [to] some degree wishing we didn’t have to do it or blood-boiling pissed off about it.”

The “odious” GPRA tool, as that official called it, has real consequences. Four service providers (including Agus, the BHLI executive director), a former New York state official who managed the SAMHSA Opioid Response grant for the state, five anonymous state health officials, and an advocate from the nonprofit dedicated to representing the interests of harm reduction officials working in state health departments all characterized the GPRA tool as being re-traumatizing for patients.

Granular details about physical abuse are sought after, in addition to quantifying highly stigmatized personal topics, including the precise frequency of a patient’s participation in graphic sexual acts, the number of criminalized behaviors (including illicit drug use) performed per month, and the number of children they’ve had taken away from them by authorities.

“The questions are not trauma informed,” said the anonymous official from the highly funded state, “and [they] are even aggressively trauma producing.”

“We can’t be no-barrier and take this [SAMHSA] money,” said Agus, identifying the GPRA requirement as the sole grounds for her organization’s rejection of the federal money.

Agus is on the front lines of closing the so-called treatment gap, the phenomenon wherein 8 in 10 opioid use disorder patients across the country had not received any past-year treatment at a hospital or rehabilitation facility. Part of the problem: Buprenorphine is inaccessible to patients, with 40 percent of all counties in 2020 not having a single medical practitioner authorized to prescribe it. For those who can, it’s underutilized, posing a problem for the recent expansion of prescribing eligibility by the Biden administration.

Accepting the money would mean pushing BHLI’s clients — Baltimoreans who are mostly Black, disabled, or unemployed; unstably housed; and “very sick and exhausted” — to tolerate a “ridiculously invasive” interview that’s longer than the organization’s 20-minute intake. Already, that length is “about all [clients] can take,” Agus noted. In contrast, the tool is estimated by SAMHSA to take 36 minutes, but service providers and state health department officials say it’s closer to lasting 45 minutes to an hour.

“Administration of the tool does take time,” an SAMHSA spokesperson recognizes, “but it can be integrated into patient-centered care in line with program goals.”

That’s not possible, according to Agus: “[Clients] really want to try treatment and get better, but they want it then, no-barrier,” she said. “If you don’t treat someone the second they walk in, you are never going to get them.” Every state official concurred that mandating the GPRA tool in low-threshold settings “defeats the purpose” of such programs, as one official articulated.

“It’s not feasible to use for low-barrier services,” said Laura Pegram, associate director of the Drug User Health team at the National Association of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, an organization representing health departments’ harm reduction programs. “The quicker and faster we can get bupe” — buprenorphine — “on demand, that’s what we want. But the intensive GPRA completely makes [low-threshold services] unfundable.”

Some low-threshold services have indeed accepted SAMHSA funds despite the requirements. A program coordinator working one such program on the East Coast, who requested anonymity due to employment restrictions, said their case manager tries to “push through it as quickly as possible”; after all, that’s all they can do.

But the coordinator said it “removes the whole purpose of a low-barrier program,” a sentiment shared by Agus and Pegram. The contradiction has had clear consequences: Some patients have stopped and left GPRA interviews — the provider estimates that an interview accounts for a whopping 80 percent of a first visit — while others walk out the door when they hear they’ll need to sit through a lengthy intake in order to get medication needed to relieve withdrawal symptoms. The program’s in-house intake can be completed in as little as five minutes, the coordinator said. In stark contrast to the SAMHSA spokesperson’s claim, the coordinator bluntly said, “This document is not client centered at all.”

“This document is not client centered at all.”

For the patients who do complete the questionnaire, the GPRA tool demands more of them even after they leave their first visit. SAMHSA requires grantees to administer it three or four times, depending on the grant, for each client. The agency spokesperson explains that “administering the tool more than once provides insight into how a client progresses through treatment or recovery.” But doing so for clients who are unstably housed and living in poverty is an impractical burden, said Agus.

Another service provider elsewhere in the country, who works at an organization receiving SAMHSA funds and who requested anonymity because of employment restrictions, confirmed this reality. “I have lots of clients who make contact and then don’t show for their next appointment, so the GPRA doesn’t get completed,” they said, describing the tool as a “waste of time.” “Sometimes they reach out months later for support again, and I try to complete GPRA then.”

SAMHSA seems to be well aware of the resource-intensive nature of the GPRA tool. Members of SAMHSA’s National Advisory Council for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, which administers the grants, called it a “pain in the neck” in February 2018 and a “significant burden on grantees” in March 2019.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. The GPRA statute “doesn’t require that agencies collect any specific data or use any particular tool to do so,” explains lawyer Corey Davis, director of the Harm Reduction Legal Network, adding that “SAMHSA has a great deal of discretion in which data it requires grantees to provide and could modify those requirements to better reflect the needs of both grantees and people with [substance use disorder].”

The GPRA tool, Agus believes, is counterproductive to the whole point of the grants, to end overdoses and support people in managing or changing their relationship to drugs. “It’s so frustrating to have the resources tied up,” she said, “when the mission is to provide programs that are the most effective.”

Before new patients at SAMHSA-funded programs can get into treatment, they are expected to recount to staff how many times they’ve been “hit, slapped, or kicked” in the past month. Other questions on the GPRA tool ask if the trauma has been “so frightening, horrible, or upsetting” that the individual has experienced “nightmares,” been “constantly on guard, watchful, or easily startled,” or “[f]elt numb and detached.”

In the opinions of the state officials and service providers, this information is unnecessary to evaluate the program and is actively harmful to their patients. “I’m not sure what the purpose of it is for the ultimate assessment of the efficacy of the substance use disorder treatment program,” said a state official, who also made clear that “the critique is not that we shouldn’t be doing any data collection.” Likewise, the program coordinator of an SAMHSA-funded low-threshold service said, “I do think data is important and that it should be collected, but the extensive amount of useless data is ridiculous, and the questions are very stigmatizing and create an unpleasant experience.”

SAMHSA itself recognizes that “[a]nswering these kinds of questions can be difficult—and sometimes retraumatizing—for individuals with trauma histories,” as the agency wrote in a 2017 guide dedicated to trauma-informed interviewing for the GPRA tool. When asked about the questions’ purpose, the spokesperson said its “utility … is in knowing more about a client’s vulnerability in the face of substance misuse.” When pressed about the seeming discrepancy between that and the tool’s purpose for evaluating performance, the spokesperson added to their response that the question is used to “assess how programs alter a client’s social environment.”

“You’re using a really vulnerable population as guinea pigs to get information that goes nowhere.”

The apparently muddled purpose of the tool is not lost on those having to implement it. “You’re using a really vulnerable population as guinea pigs to get information that goes nowhere,” said Rachel Fitzpatrick, the former assistant director for managing the SAMHSA Opioid Response grant at the New York Office of Addiction Services and Supports. The SAMHSA spokesperson said that specific information, along with other outcomes, is reported to Congress and “other supervisory agencies.”

Other questions can make clients feel stigmatized, the officials and providers say. The National Academy of Sciences wrote in its 2020 consensus report that the question about having children removed from a client’s custody is “worded such that clients may feel ashamed or alienated from service providers.” The Academy instead suggests that SAMHSA reframe it around “the number of children still living with the client rather than the number for which they have lost parental rights.”

Stigmatization can be further found, officials and service providers say, in the question on past-month criminal activity. SAMHSA explicitly states in a note to the tool administrator that “using illegal drugs,” the very reason patients seek support, “is a crime.” Clients, then, are expected to recount every time they’ve used a drug, with the framework being that each time was a crime. As recognized by journalists, advocates, and the United Nations, the criminalization of drugs begets stigma, and the sources believe that bringing it up in a treatment context could rouse shame. The SAMHSA spokesperson said it’s an “important indicator of potential change in client behavior as a result of treatment.”

(SAMHSA’s statement about crime is factually incorrect. Drug possession is a federal crime, not its use, per se. The SAMHSA spokesperson was unable to provide a direct answer when asked for an explanation.)

If just one client has a bad experience, the officials warn, it might discourage others from seeking help. “Word of mouth spreads quickly. If people think every time you have to go through this, people won’t pursue it,” an official said.

Officials and providers who’ve sought a waiver of the GPRA tool have faced issues with SAMHSA. In July 2020, the agency told grant recipients that funds “will be placed on hold” if they don’t adequately comply with GPRA data collection, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency. Similarly, at least two state officials say they’ve been told that their grants could be jeopardized if they don’t satisfactorily conduct the GPRA tool.

“There’s a bureaucratic disconnect. [SAMHSA doesn’t] see the impact that it has,” said one of the officials. Likewise, the anonymous service provider described SAMHSA’s staffers as “people who don’t do the [on-the-ground] work.”

The SAMHSA spokesperson said the agency “regularly seeks feedback from anyone who wishes to contribute input,” which has included “specific question types … requests for additional questions, and … the tool’s structure and length.” They also claim that “clinicians or those with lived experience” have been involved in editing the GPRA tool.

With no apparent way out of the GPRA requirement, the officials and providers are calling for changes to the tool. And indeed, SAMHSA is presently “in the process of revising the current tool,” SAMHSA’s current leader, Tom Coderre, told The Intercept. “SAMHSA takes our mission to connect people to treatment for mental and substance use disorders very seriously. We will continue to look at ways to modernize the tools we use and improve efficiencies and reduce burdens on the people we serve every day.”

Fitzpatrick, the former New York official, would like to see the tool truly “brought up to speed” with trauma-informed best practices. A health department official from a different state recommended it be shortened and “community informed,” with “people with lived experience determining what’s useful.”

“The system does not adapt itself to make care accessible to folks. And that is outrageous.”

The National Academy of Sciences recommended in its 2020 report that SAMHSA “should implement a validated and psychometrically sound tool for assessing recovery among clients of its grant programs” since the GPRA tool, in particular, “does not elicit adequate data on the process of recovery.”

The GPRA tool is just one bureaucratic obstacle among many for substance use disorder service providers and clients, but its stakes are high. “The system does not adapt itself to make care accessible to folks. And that is outrageous,” said a health department official. “It’s time to rapidly move past things like the GPRA reporting tools that might turn some people away that are most vulnerable to overdosing and dying.”

In the meantime, it seems all that officials and providers can do is find a way to make do with a troubling bureaucracy. BHLI’s Agus is doing just that.

Her organization is also bringing buprenorphine into the Baltimore city jail, offering the medication with the financial support of the very burdensome SAMHSA money. That means anyone incarcerated there who wants access must first complete the GPRA interviews.

But in this case, Agus isn’t concerned that the required GPRA interviews will impede incarcerated patients from accessing the services. “We’re accepting our funding for behind the bars,” said Agus, “because [patients are] stuck there anyway.”

For Agus, it’s only possible to accept SAMHSA funding when a patient is stuck behind bars.

The post Health Officials Warn Historic Addiction Treatment Funding Burdened by Federal Bureaucracy appeared first on The Intercept.

Johnson’s remarks, which were recorded by advocacy journalist Lauren Windsor of The Undercurrent, were part of a daylong conference presented by Patriot Voices. Other Republican speakers that day included Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Gary Palmer, R-Ala.; and Jim Banks, R-Ind.

Johnson has long stumped for Barrett, whom he’s known for 30 years, having voiced his support for her nomination to the Supreme Court in 2020. “I’ve known Amy Coney Barrett since high school. We go way, way back,” Johnson told the attendees. “And I was one of the guys pushing Trump really, really hard to put her on the court.”

Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in October 2020 solidified conservatives’ majority on the nation’s highest court. She believes in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, much in the image of late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“If you look at [Roe] from the originalist perspective, which all of [the conservative Justices] are now espousing, you know, it’s indefensible,” said Johnson, who since 2016 has served as vice chair of the House Republican Conference, the GOP caucus responsible for communicating the party’s message to members of the House. “And it goes back to the states, and then we have the real battle, because states like Louisiana, we have it in our state constitution that if the decision returns to the states, we’re a 100 percent pro-life state.”

Johnson predicted a fissure between pro- and anti-abortion states in post-Roe America. “There are also though, frighteningly, some states that you can guess which states they are — maybe you have friends watching from those states — they’re going to go the opposite end: full late-term, all out abortion-on-demand,” he said. “You’re going to have a division in the country, you’re literally going to have pro-life and pro-death states. I’m optimistic to believe that people will go and follow where life flourishes.”

Johnson’s assertions come as no shock to pro-choice advocates. “While we are deeply disturbed by Rep. Johnson’s recent comments outlining an imminent plan to overturn Roe v .Wade, we are not surprised,” Christian F. Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women, said in a statement. “He and his colleagues believe they have the right to control what women do with their own bodies, but our grassroots activists will fiercely oppose any attempts to restrict reproductive freedom through dangerous and archaic legislation and regulations.”

In addition to his comments on Barrett, Johnson spoke about the need for grassroots Republican efforts that can compete against Democrats. “They were doing community organizing for a long time, and it was very effective. They raised up a whole generation of millennials, and of course they’re being indoctrinated in the public school systems and all that. That’s what we’re competing against. So we have to be able to present these truths in plain language,” he said. “We’re still a center-right country. We may not all wear sweater vests with Santorum on but we got to keep fighting.”

Asked by Windsor during the meeting to lay out the top three priorities should Republicans win back the House, Johnson highlighted the conference task forces that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled on Wednesday, which are tasked with crafting policy along such issues as “Big Tech censorship,” the “future of American freedoms,” and health care.

“It sounds like you’re dodging,” Windsor responded with a chuckle.

“I’m not dodging,” Johnson answered, “I don’t want to get out in front of my leader and tell you what they are.” When pressed further, Johnson identified inflation, immigration, and abortion as the most important issues in “the hearts and minds of people.”

“Those are American issues,” he said.

A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment on the representative’s remarks.

The post Rep. Mike Johnson Predicts Supreme Court Will Overturn Roe v. Wade appeared first on The Intercept.

But in the intervening years, management restructuring as well as subsequent failure to recruit and retain nurses and nurse aides left the staff depleted, and as a result, nurses were forced to take on more patients. Now, the same RN/CNA duo is taking as many as eight people into their care at once, an uptick in responsibility that, according to Yarck, has impacted her ability to tend to bedridden patients. She’s now seeing more patients develop bed sores and other hospital-related ailments. “We try to prevent them, but if you don’t have enough people on hand, it happens,” she said. Logan Health has above-average levels of hospital-acquired infections for four of the five infection types tracked by the Leapfrog insurance analysis group. Logan Health did not respond to a request for comment.

There’s plenty of research to support Yarck’s warnings about hospital staffing: Multiple studies have reported a link between short nurse staffing and higher rates of hospital-acquired infections. A 2020 study on sepsis, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, found that each “additional patient per nurse is associated with 12% higher odds of in-hospital mortality, 7% higher odds of 60-day mortality, 7% higher odds of 60-day readmission.” Hospital-acquired infections kill 98,000 Americans annually; bed sores in particular pose a threat, as they can lead to sepsis unless they are prevented and cared for with proper nursing.

Nurse staffing could become more scant unless hospitals take action to shore up their workforce. According to a 2018 survey by RNnetwork, a nurse staffing agency, 80 percent of nurses said there was a shortage in their facility. Many hospital executives claim there simply aren’t enough nurses, but Linda Aiken, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, says that argument doesn’t hold water. “We’ve doubled the number of nurses graduating to over 160,000 nurses every year, compared to 70,000 15 years ago,” she said. “Why didn’t that make a difference? The fact is that these hospitals are not employing enough nurses. They’re not offering employment opportunities that are satisfactory to nurses.” Indeed, many nurses contend that wages aren’t high enough, the work is made more dangerous by a depleted staff, and management doesn’t listen to their concerns.

“Nurses really tell the truth,” said Aiken. “They’re not cooking stuff up, nor are they saying stuff because they want more money. They are people who are really trying to provide good care in a desperate situation where they are not getting good help. The solution is to hire more nurses.”

The staffing shortage has been made even more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic which, despite $175 federal billion in aid to U.S. hospitals (including $30 million in grants to Logan Health), has left nurses and hospital workers feeling more overworked than ever before. Given that hospital stays have skyrocketed during the pandemic, the risks of short-staffing — and in turn, hospital-acquired infections — have become even more pertinent.

“The rates of hospital acquired infections are way too high, even well before Covid and the deaths are really unacceptable,” said Aiken. Speaking about sepsis, Aiken added, “We know scientifically that you have to recognize sepsis very fast. It’s a clinical cascade that has to happen very rapidly. It requires sophisticated nursing.”

In early June, Yarck and 650 of her coworkers — all of them members of the union SEIU Healthcare 1199NW — went on a five-day strike against Logan Health to demand an increase in safe nurse staffing at the hospital. “I just want to get us back to a model of a nurse and a CNA and five patients,” said Yarck. “That would cut down on so many problems.”

Staffing is a hot-button issue for health care unions around the country. Last year, 2,000 nurses in Asheville, North Carolina, joined National Nurses United; another 1,800 nurses from the Maine Medical Center in Portland joined NNU in May. Both groups cited short staffing as one of their primary issues, and both hospitals have seen unusually high rates of infection: The Asheville hospital has above-average rates of infections for C. diff, a bacteria that causes colitis, and hospital-acquired infections; the Portland hospital has above-average rates of urinary tract infections; and both hospitals have above average rates of surgical site infections after colon surgery, according to Leapfrog.

Only California’s strict nurse-to-patient ratio law ensures that there are enough nurses on hand to implement complex infection protocols needed before a patient’s condition substantially deteriorates. Although California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, used the pandemic as a pretext to temporarily gut the regulations, they were reimplemented in February.

Health care unions around the country have pushed for such nurse-to-patient ratio legislation to address the negative clinical outcomes of short staffing like high rates of hospital-acquired infections. But uniformly, powerful hospital associations have risen up to aggressively fight them. In 2018, a proposed ballot initiative in Massachusetts to implement nurse-to-patient ratios was defeated after the state’s hospital association spent $24.7 million against it. At the time, the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association said the proposed initiative would incur “outrageous costs … without any benefit to patient safety.” (Full disclosure: I work as a researcher for a nurses and health care union in Pennsylvania that is allied with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which sponsored the ballot initiative.)

Nurse-to-patient ratio legislation aside, there are still steps the Biden administration can take to deal with the problem of short nurse staffing. Aiken pointed out that on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Care Compare website, there is no centralized reporting on nurse staffing, so prospective patients have no idea whether or not the nurses at the hospital they are looking at are overworked. CMS could compel hospitals to report those numbers, opening up transparency to the public. “There’s not a single thing on Hospital Compare on nurse staffing. Why hasn’t CMS taken such a simple action so far?” asked Aiken. “The lobby against any regulation on nurse staffing is so powerful.” The hospital industry spent $436 million on campaign contributions and spending in 2020, according to the National Institute on Money in Politics.

In the meantime, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has begun to penalize Logan Health’s main hospital, Kalispell Regional Medical Center, for hospital-acquired conditions, including infections. CMS similarly penalized 773 other hospitals across the country. And the Logan nurses continue to bargain after their strike, holding out for staffing changes that they say would improve patient care. “We’re so detached from the decisions of the administration and they directly affect our work life,” said Yarck. “All we’re asking for is a seat at the table.”

The post Hospitals Already Had a Nurse Staffing Crisis. Then Covid-19 Came Along. appeared first on The Intercept.

This sentiment — an explicit rejection of the horrors of American slavery and its roots in white supremacy — underpinned the 11 to 2 vote by the board to adopt a resolution to provide a framework for policy revisions on the teaching of race and sex in Georgia’s classrooms.

Kinnemore’s comments left Jason Esteves, chair of the Atlanta Public Schools Board of Education, momentarily speechless as he discussed the vote with The Intercept shortly after the meeting.

“Look, this won’t impact [Atlanta Public Schools],” he said. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. This will have an effect on counties that are more conservative, that were still making moves toward equity and inclusion.”

Parents — mostly white — have been storming school board meetings across the state over the last few weeks, heeding a call by conservative demagogues to fight against “critical race theory” being taught in schools. Gov. Brian Kemp wrote a letter to the state board of education last month, calling critical race theory a “divisive, anti-American agenda” which “has no place in Georgia classrooms.” Kemp echoes a wave of protests across the country over the last two months, from rich Virginia suburbanites launching a campaign to oust the state school board to a disrupted meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, with parents protesting mask mandates — unmasked, of course — along with critical race theory.

In practice, these white parents haven’t been railing against the arcane legal theory but against the idea that students should be taught that racism is a real, current problem created by longstanding structural inequality. Local school board meetings have devolved into vitriolic shouting matches, with boards looking for ways to control public comment afterward.

The board drafted the resolution without public input and then blocked comments from the YouTube livestream. Impassioned pleas, it seems, are fit only for those on one side of this argument.

“Eventually what they want is for people not to talk about it any more.”

“There was so much energy and excitement behind, finally, making some movement toward those issues,” Esteves said. “We’re now seeing a complete reversal. The state board of education just took away their cover and gave opponents a weapon to use against those efforts. Eventually what they want is for people not to talk about it any more.”

About three out of five of Georgia’s public school students are children of color. Demography projects Georgia will become a majority-minority state within the next decade. But even as Republicans continue to argue against the legitimacy of the November election, the political reality remains: a purple state on the knife’s edge of flipping permanently Democratic because it has run out of racially resentful white voters.

Kemp and others have begun to implicitly draw a connection between the eroding defense of white supremacy among white voters and their own political futures by describing anti-racist education initiatives as inherently political. Basically, they’re saying the quiet part out loud.

Take Kinnemore, for example. Then-Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Kinnemore to the board in 2013 after her kamikaze run against a well-respected local Democratic legislator in DeKalb County.

Kinnemore, who is Black, lives about a mile due south from my house, in a community that is about 90 percent Black, in the shadow of the largest memorial to the Confederacy in America. I note in passing that the keepers of the Stone Mountain carving have been open to recontextualizing the monument despite the wailing of Lost Cause revisionists, because the redolent racism of the carving’s history is noxious. Those white supremacists are Kinnemore’s audience. Her political existence is a 4Chan-style trolling operation designed to elicit pain from Black parents for the amusement of white supremacists.

Her appointment is in no way an attempt to build support for conservative politics among nonwhite voters. Republicans do not have a plan for that here. Instead, they hope to preserve the racial biases of young white voters intact as long as they can, staving off losses as older white conservatives die and younger ones change after contact with the real world.

The resolution contains language barring instruction in ways that suggest that racism is acceptable. But it also says the state school board believes that no teacher, administrator, or other school employee should offer instruction suggesting that “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a members of a particular race to oppress members of another race; (or) that the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States; or that, with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”

How one teaches the political dimension of slavery on the crafting of the Constitution, with the three-fifths compromise, the ramifications of the Civil War, the lingering effects of Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears and the reservation system, turn of the century anti-Asian discrimination, the civil rights movement, and the many, many other facets of white supremacist ideology on America is a lesson left to the reader’s imagination.

The resolution does not itself impose standards for the state’s schools, Georgia education board chair Scott Sweeney said. “It does not mention critical race theory per se. This is not something going directly after critical race theory. What it is trying to do is draw a distinction between divisive ideologies in finding their way into standards. This is a foundational statement more than anything else. With regard to divisiveness, for example, can you imagine any supremacist ideology making its way into standards? I cannot. So, this is agnostic with regard to those types of divisiveness.”

The nature of racism today is what is left unsaid and unexamined. One has to assume there is no white supremacist ideology baked into the current curriculum for his statement to be considered true.

The board’s vote drew swift condemnation.

The nature of racism today is what is left unsaid and unexamined.

“The prohibitions outlined in the resolution would undermine Holocaust education in Georgia,” said Allison Padilla-Goodman, vice president of the southern division at the Anti-Defamation League. “Indeed, it could prohibit teaching that the Nuremburg laws were taken from Jim Crow America. The resolution is fundamentally contradictory. It claims to respect First Amendment rights and strongly encourages educators, who teach about controversial public policy or social affairs issues, to explore them from diverse and contending perspectives. Yet, the resolution clearly would prohibit a teacher or student from talking about systemic racism or inequity in America. And the resolution is so vaguely written that it undoubtedly will come under constitutional challenge and may suffer the same fate as President Trump’s divisive concepts executive order.”

“Discussions about race and its place in our history and in current events are an important part of education and one that Georgia educators will continue to address,” added Craig Harper, executive director of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators. “The non-binding resolution adopted at a special called session of the State Board of Education does not prohibit educators from continuing to teach and discuss all aspects of our history as they do now. The board members’ conversation highlighted the importance of including more people and perspectives. Our many communities and educators, who have valuable insights and expertise, must work together to determine how Georgia will address these critical issues moving forward.”

Esteves expects teachers to gear up for a fight.

“Teachers can speak out and talk about how this limits their ability to have really important conversations in their classrooms,” he said. “School boards can affirm their commitment to equity and inclusion. They can resist any efforts to disrupt or pause equity initiatives.”

The post Georgia Board of Education Votes to Censor American History appeared first on The Intercept.

The “Anti-Violence Advisory Council” named last week by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has been structured to evade Georgia’s strict Open Meetings Act rules for public observation. The only people who heard Bottoms address the 13-person working group on Wednesday were hand-picked members and city staff.

Bottoms has relied on similar working groups in the past, like one convened in the wake of protests last summer. Some of the recommendations of that group later became city policy. Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is the highest profile member of the group, which also includes UPS CEO Carol Tomé, a juvenile judge, a retired police chief, city council members, and community activists.

Members speaking about Wednesday’s meeting said on background that the mayor addressed the group briefly, then the group dove into a discussion of the problem and an overview of crime statistics led by the city’s police chief, Rodney Bryant. An intense question-and-answer session followed with a focus on youth crime and gang crime.

Bottoms announced that she would not be running for reelection earlier this month, an astonishing concession widely attributed to the challenge of running during a record-setting crime wave. Homicides have increased 85 percent year over year as of two weeks ago: 52 deaths since the start of the year, with six killings since Friday alone. Violence has been particularly lethal; aggravated assaults have also increased, but only by about 25 percent, while gun violence has increased more than 50 percent.

State government has begun to intervene. At the end of the legislative session two months ago, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston announced a study committee on Atlanta crime, holding out the possibility that the state police would take over the city’s public safety. The legislature also passed legislation prohibiting large municipalities — looking at you, Atlanta — from defunding the police by capping reductions in police spending to a maximum of 5 percent per year. Of late, the Georgia State Patrol has been working with the Atlanta Police Department and others to crack down on street racing, reversing city policies against car chases in the process. Three people have been killed while police chased suspects since then. None of the three were drivers of vehicles being chased.

The city has said it plans to fight rising crime with a mix of policies, issuing a crackdown on nuisance properties, gangs, and street racing, as well as expanding surveillance technology. The city announced it would start a trial of ShotSpotter technology, which locates gunfire acoustically. The city also plans to spend millions to build a new police training academy.

Bottoms’s working group provides the political benefit of shifting responsibility for decisions to a council of largely unelected, politically unaccountable outsiders.

Any changes to public safety policies vibrate with political tension. There’s value in convening the political equivalent of a grand jury to examine a public problem — in fact, actual grand juries have been used in just that way to positive effect across Georgia over the years. Bottoms’s working group also provides the political benefit of shifting responsibility for decisions to a council of largely unelected, politically unaccountable outsiders. Bottoms will be able to say that she followed its policy recommendations, absolving herself of criticism if they come at the expense of her political allies.

Progressive activists who helped elect Bottoms over Mary Norwood — a relatively conservative former city council member from Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood — have won criminal justice reforms like the end of cash bail for minor offenses, the establishment of a pre-arrest diversion initiative, and the implementation of body-worn cameras and use-of-force protocols. They’ve expected even more, like the permanent closure of Atlanta’s mostly empty municipal jail, to be reimagined as a community center.

They fear that demagogues will hang rising crime numbers on these reforms and not on the underlying conditions in the city.

Atlanta is the most economically unequal city in America, according to one Bloomberg analysis, with rising rents outstripping incomes even before the pandemic. Housing instability can contribute to violence. The killing of Rayshard Brooks by an Atlanta police officer amid the broader protests against police brutality — and the subsequent sickout by cops over the arrest of officer Garrett Rolfe on a murder charge — deeply damaged the department’s relatively strong relationship with the public.

Atlanta is also a center for the music industry, which may be part of the problem. While most of America’s nightlife shut down during the pandemic, Atlanta’s clubs largely remained open, due in part to the permissive policies of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Downtown parking lots are filled with out-of-state cars, while the nightclubs have often been the scene of violence.

Combine this with equally permissive gun laws and a related gang problem. The Fulton County district attorney earlier this month uncorked a massive anti-racketeering indictment against rapper YFN Lucci and 11 others. The RICO indictment described YFN Lucci, whose given name is Rayshawn Bennett, as a Bloods gang leader and argued that Atlanta is the battlefield for a rap gang war with a Rollin’ 60s Crip set indirectly linked to massively popular rappers Young Thug and Gunna.

The policy prescription for these problems, if they are to be solved and not simply acted upon, is likely to be complex and require a long-term focus. But Bottoms charged the working group to make recommendations within 30 to 45 days, which reflects the political urgency of the moment.

The post Atlanta Mayor Punts Crime Fighting to Secret Committee appeared first on The Intercept.