Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Featuring a fishy judge, an arrogant seafarer, an inspiring Torontonian, and a lovable manatee...
Good day, readers! Here at CAHQ, the presses are being fired up, because we’ve got a new print issue of the magazine almost ready for release. If you’re not a subscriber to our superb print edition, you can get a sub for a (very) limited time only for $20 off the usual price by clicking here. If you enjoy our briefing, you’re certain to like our gorgeous, ad-free print magazine. Oh, and if you're a Free Subscriber to the briefing, do consider converting to a paid sub. The money from subscriptions goes toward paying for the research, writing, editing, and fact-checking work, and the more subscriptions we get, the better the briefing will be! Anyway, Here Is The News…
I. WHAT IS THE MEDIA TALKING ABOUT?
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION II: THE ONE THAT SUCKED
Things got really weird in Russia for a few days this weekend. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of a private military contractor called the Wagner Group that has been at the forefront of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announced his intention to overthrow Russia’s military leadership. Prigozhin had been mouthing off recently at the top brass of the Kremlin, accusing them of killing his soldiers and lying about the goals of the war. His Wagner mercenaries overran the city of Rostov-on-Don, where one of Russia’s military headquarters is located. An estimated 25,000 men (according to Prigozhin)—then began marching on Moscow. But Prighozin then stopped, announcing that Wagner would turn around, apparently the result of a deal brokered with Putin by the President of Belarus. Prigozhin agreed to relocate to Belarus, though it is uncertain whether he is currently there.
Russian president Vladimir Putin initially compared Prigozhin’s revolt to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. And while that is quite an overwrought comparison, many speculate that it does not bode well for Putin’s leadership. As Derek Davison writes in Foreign Exchanges:
“Wagner’s mini-revolt laid bare a level of infighting and dysfunction within the Russian government that can’t easily be brushed back under the carpet. While there’s been no visible negative reaction from the Russian public to what’s gone on over the past couple of days, the possibility of more internal instability now can’t be ignored.”
Though we are certainly no fans of Putin here at Current Affairs, it’s a good thing that Prighozhin won’t be ruling Russia. He is mad at Putin not for prosecuting the war, but for not doing it hard enough. His Wagner Group, meanwhile, is a brutal ultranationalist paramilitary known for numerous war crimes and human rights abuses—they are perhaps most notorious for ISIS-style videos in which soldiers execute their victims with sledgehammers. As Murtaza Hussain writes in the The Intercept:
“Prigozhin would not inaugurate a more liberal or progressive Russia. Given the hideous track record of his organization, the opposite is more likely.”
II. WHAT SHOULD THE MEDIA BE TALKING ABOUT?
BILLIONAIRE MEGADONOR HANGING OUT WITH HIS FRIEND (WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE)
Lest you think that Clarence Thomas is the only Supreme Court justice to be feted by rich donors, Samuel Alito is reported to have gone on luxury vacations with hedge fund billionaire and conservative megadonor Paul Singer, who sought to bring a case before the Court. According to an exposé in ProPublica:
“Alito stayed at a commercial fishing lodge owned by [Singer] who was also a major conservative donor. Three years before, that same businessman flew Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, on a private jet to Alaska and paid the bill for his stay...They stayed at the King Salmon Lodge, a luxury fishing resort that drew celebrities, wealthy businessmen and sports stars.”
Supreme Court Justices are required to report most gifts of value to the federal government. “Food, lodging, or entertainment” don’t always have to be disclosed if they’re on the donor’s property (though they absolutely should!). However, the private jet flight does have to be disclosed. None of these outings were reported by Justice Alito in his financial disclosures.
It’s hard to view this as anything other than shameless influence peddling. Singer wined and dined Alito while attempting to get the Court to take up a case relating to his business dealings in Argentina (which they did, ruling in his favor in 2014). Alito did not recuse himself from the case despite the obvious conflict of interest. Some of Alito’s defenders have tried to wave this away, such as Federalist Society chairman Leonard Leo (who was also on the trip and is regularly entertained by billionaire donors) who said Alito’s conduct was fine because:
“No objective and well-informed observer of the judiciary honestly could believe that they decide cases in order to cull favor with friends, or in return for a free plane seat or fishing trip.”
This is the kind of defense that many of Clarence Thomas’ apologists ran with too, saying that because he was already a rock-ribbed ideologue, the lavish gifts from donors don’t matter. It seems very likely that Singer was trying to influence Alito—as one lodge worker said: “We take good care of him because he makes all the rules.” But even if not, think about what standard is being set here: Essentially, bribery is fine, unless you can definitively prove that a justice’s mind was changed by said bribe. This is a completely alien standard, as the writers in ProPublica point out:
“Such trips would be unheard of for the vast majority of federal workers, who are generally barred from taking even modest gifts.”
There are only two positions one can take on the Supreme Court that really make sense: (1) The justices have a sacred duty to render justice impartially and and should therefore be held accountable for taking obvious bribes through impeachment, which is the only existing mechanism for disciplining them, or (2) The justices are above the law and we should therefore do away with the institution entirely because that is ridiculous!
BIDEN LETS STATES KICK MILLIONS OFF MEDICAID
During the pandemic, states received extra federal funding in exchange for keeping all current beneficiaries enrolled in Medicaid. The policy added 13.5 million beneficiaries, reducing the number of Americans without insurance to the lowest point in recent memory, something Biden boasted during the State of the Union. But last month, the president signed legislation quietly ending this requirement, and states are once again purging their Medicaid rolls. 1.5 million Americans have already lost coverage, a number that could grow to 24 million. But this is not because they are ineligible for the program. Instead, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates, 73 percent have lost coverage simply because of procedural hurdles: like failing to fill out the proper paperwork that is repeatedly required for recipients to prove that they are in need of help. This is a classic example of how means testing, often touted by austerity hawks as a way to assure that help goes to the people who need it most, actually ends up reducing benefits for everyone. As David Sirota writes in The Lever:
“Means-testing is a way to take simple universal programs and make them complicated and inaccessible. In practice, calculating exact income levels and then proving them for eligibility means reams of red tape for both the potential beneficiary and a government bureaucracy that must be created to process that paperwork…means-testing creates brutal time and administrative barriers to benefits, which reduce payouts to eligible populations.”
As Sam Bell has discussed in a longer piece in Current Affairs, this is part of a larger pattern of Democrats—including many members of the “progressive” caucus totally dithering on important policies to help working class people.
III. AROUND THE WORLD
165,000 Haitians have fled their homes with tens of thousands now taking shelter in huts and shantytowns. Many have sought refuge in other nations amid a surge of gang violence and political instability following a coup in 2021 (whose leader the U.S. has since backed) and an earthquake last year. More than 27,000 Haitian asylum seekers have been deported from the U.S. since Biden took office. And despite his extension of Temporary Protected Status for them, many are still being deported. They have struggled to find any country in the Western Hemisphere that will take them in. According to Amnesty International,
“Haitians have suffered acts of racism, xenophobia, and systematic violence in their search for protection…[including] assaults, arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, mass deportations, and discriminatory practices…”
The predominant discourse in the United States is about whether there should be an outside military intervention in Haiti (continuing an ignominious history). But maybe we should start by asking why the U.S. won’t guarantee sanctuary to those fleeing the violence?
Progressive Olivia Chow has won the Toronto mayoral election, which will no doubt horrify the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who warned of creeping socialism in Ontario if Chow won. It’s an impressive victory, because as Luke Savage notes, “the Liberal and Tory machines went into overdrive to try and prevent a moderate social democrat from getting elected.”
Australia has released the last detained migrant from the island of Nauru, who will be re-settled in Australia. Over the last ten years, refugees have been told that they would never be allowed to settle in Australia even if they had valid asylum claims, instead being sent to prisons on a remote island in the South Pacific, as well as the neighboring Papua New Guinea. Many of the more than 3,000 detainees sent to Nauru over the last ten years still deal with mental and physical health issues.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing plans for the Chinese military to build a so-called “spy base” and “military training facility” in Cuba. U.S. politicians ran wild with it: Rep. Mike Walz said the U.S. was in “a new cold war,” while Republican and Democratic senators made a joint resolution demanding the U.S. “respond…to [China’s] brazen attacks on our nation’s security.” But as William LeoGrande notes in Truthout,
Local residents said they had not seen any Chinese about. Moreover, the installation has been there since at least 2016 when Senator Marco Rubio first complained about it. So whatever it is, it’s not new and not the dire security threat implied by calling it a Chinese ‘base.’ The training facility, the Wall Street Journal headlined, would put “Chinese Troops on America’s Doorstep,” as if they might invade Florida from their Cuban beachhead. But no such facility exists yet.”
This freakout is just the latest example of U.S. politicians and media greasing the gears for a war with China, which, as we’ve discussed at length, would be an unmitigated disaster for all of humanity. Additionally, it’s a bit difficult to call China an unreasonable aggressor for wanting one base in our neck of the woods when the map of U.S. bases in the Pacific looks like this:
IV. AROUND THE STATES
The story of the missing OceanGate submarine reached a deadly conclusion on Thursday when its remains were found by the Coast Guard. We now know that CEO Stockton Rush flouted safety regulations despite being warned about the dangers by a number of industry experts as well as his own director of marine operations (who was then allegedly fired). The website for OceanGate apparently said in 2019 that they follow regulations “where they apply,” but that many of them were “anathema to innovation.” Check out our longer piece in Current Affairs Magazine diving deeper into the many ways Rush flagrantly disregarded basic safety rules:
Bohemian Grove—yes, that Bohemian Grove—is being sued for wage theft. The famously secretive all-male California retreat for the global elite—attended by many former presidents, congressmen, generals, and captains of industry—has been the subject of many conspiracy theories (and a sting operation by Alex Jones) because of its history of strange and creepy rituals. It turns out that the real conspiracy—as usual—is just regular old capitalism: according to The Guardian, former employees of the Grove allege that they were only paid for eight hours of work despite working 16-hour days without breaks.
I-95 has been partially reconstructed after its collapse two weeks ago. While we’re glad to see it up and running again, it’s not fun to live with the reality that major highways and bridges can just collapse at any moment. (Another bridge, this time a rail bridge in Montana, collapsed on Saturday.) According to a 2022 report from The American Road & Transportation Builders Association, more than a third of the bridges in the U.S. (over 200,000 of them) need repair work or replacement with 11 percent being “structurally deficient.” Not surprisingly, we invest less in transportation infrastructure than most other developed countries.
Mascots from professional Philadelphia sports teams cross over the repaired section of Interstate 95 as the highway is reopened Friday, June 23, 2023 in Philadelphia. Workers put the finishing touches on an interim six-lane roadway that will serve motorists during construction of a permanent bridge. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti) TODAY IN HISTORY
June 27, 1905
Miners’ union leader “Big Bill” Haywood gavels in the first convention of The Industrial Workers of the World, aka “The Wobblies”: “What we want to establish at this time is a labor organization that will open wide its doors to every man that earns his livelihood either by his brain or his muscle,” Haywood said to open the twelve day meeting. The I.W.W. brought workers across trades into “One Big Union” seeking to represent the shared interests that united them. Led by figures like Eugene V. Debs and Mother Jones, it would become one of the most formidable American labor organizations throughout the early 20th century. Known for their bright posters and lively ballads, the Wobblies’ influence spread “from the Philadelphia waterfront to the backwaters of the Jim Crow South,” in the words of Wisconsin Labor Activist Joe Richard. They participated in some of the nation’s first sit-down strikes and were among the first to build unions that crossed the rigid racial and gender lines of the day.
An I.W.W. demonstration in New York, c. 1914 George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)
V. CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or “What’s happening with electoral politics?”)
Ron DeSantis has essentially turned his entire presidential campaign over to a state level SuperPAC. SuperPACs are supposed to be independent under campaign finance law, but DeSantis is using his to hire field organizers and volunteers, which is possibly illegal.
Hunter Biden’s losing streak continues. The House GOP has unveiled a WhatsApp text message chain allegedly from Hunter back in 2017 in which he appears to be using his father’s political clout to threaten a Chinese business associate to pay him money. In one text, Hunter said he was “sitting here with [his] father,” reiterating the point multiple times to bolster the threat. If it turns out President Biden was aware of this, it looks really bad for him too, as it undercuts his claims that he was never involved in his son’s business ventures. But, there is also a distinct possibility that Hunter was just lying to scare the guy into paying up.
Speaking of presidents using the office for their own gain, former president Trump has already made $5 million from a deal to build a giant resort in Oman. Trump helped to bring the Gulf monarchy closer to the U.S. during his presidency. It’s part of a pattern, as he also profited handsomely from development projects in Saudi Arabia after giving them favorable treatment as well.
The audio recording of Trump showing classified plans to attack Iran to people without security clearances has been released to the public. Place your bets now as to which Trump defender will be the first to try to call it a deepfake! A reminder that this raises the question: Just what were these plans to attack Iran, and why were they so absurd that even Trump and the others in the room found them extreme?
VI. SCRUTINIZING THE PRESS
There is a stunningly persistent narrative in so-called “dissident” media, which says that Donald Trump faces such strong opposition from the political “establishment” because he is supposedly less hawkish on foreign policy than other U.S. presidents. Some even label him an “anti-imperalist.” Commentators as ideologically disparate as Glenn Greenwald, Christian Parenti, and Tucker Carlson have all made some variant of this blockheaded argument, which Branko Marcetic demolishes once and for all in Jacobin:
“From his first year to his last, Trump engaged in constant, reckless provocations in the hopes of baiting Iran into doing something that would justify a US attack… one of his major face-offs with Congress saw him veto a resolution that would have ended US support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen — and thus would have likely ended the war altogether?...Trump was constantly bombing random countries with no regard for borders, national sovereignty, or congressional input, just like every other US president this century … Trump continued … economic warfare to try (and fail) to topple the governments of Venezuela, Syria, Nicaragua, and Cuba — in the latter case, reversing his predecessor’s attempts at rapprochement. His efforts were unsuccessful, but they caused untold amounts of unnecessary death and misery to the ordinary people who bore no responsibility for the governments Trump wanted to remove. In fact, Trump at one point reportedly floated military action against Venezuela and recently bragged about how “we would have gotten all that oil” if the country had collapsed during his presidency.”
VII. UNDER THE HOOD
This past Saturday marks one-year since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the end of a guaranteed right to abortion in America. Since the ruling, 25 states have either outright banned or severely restricted abortion. Approximately 22 million women of reproductive age now live in a state that would force them to carry a pregnancy to term. Several women have been jailed (including some who had miscarriages). The ruling is also having disastrous downstream effects on medical trainees and current practitioners in the field and will worsen unequal access to care across the country. Human Rights Watch calls it a “human rights crisis” (And remember: Obama could have codified Roe v. Wade but refused). NPR has a piece featuring interviews with eight women whose ability to make decisions about their own health were restricted by these bans. Here is one of their stories:
Jenni Miller, age mid-30s, from Ohio (six week ban currently blocked in the courts):
“I have rheumatoid arthritis, which means my immune system attacks my joints, causing excruciating pain if not properly medicated. I cannot manage my illness without methotrexate, a drug that is also sometimes used as an abortifacient…When I started this drug, my rheumatologist and OBGYN made sure that I was using at least two methods of birth control. My doctors told me that getting pregnant could be dangerous. I could conceive, but a fetus cannot survive inside my body. I made the decision ahead of time that I would get an abortion if that happened…After Roe vs. Wade was overturned, the politicians in my state began working to ban abortion. They would force me to carry a deformed and dying fetus until its last heartbeat. How devastatingly cruel to me, and to a fetus. It would die slowly inside my body, putting me in danger while I waited to get an abortion…”
In part, no doubt, because the consequences of the legal change have been so obviously horrible, public opinion on abortion is starting to shift, and “for the first time, a majority of Americans say abortion is ‘morally acceptable’...Most now believe abortion laws are too strict.”
MANATEE FACT OF THE DAY
Manatees are more closely related to elephants than to any sea creature. They also share an ancestor with the aardvark!
Writing and research by Stephen Prager. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Fact checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here. Current Affairs is 100% reader supported and depends on your subscriptions and donations.