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[Lost in the Sauce] Trump admin hides Paycheck Protection program details; lawmakers benefit from loans
Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis. Title refers to: The Trump admin is blocking IGs from getting info on over $1 trillion in relief spending, including corporation bailouts. The admin is also withholding PPP info from Congress, meaning we don't know if Trump or his family took taxpayer money. Additionally, we learned that at least 4 members of Congress have benefited from PPP money, but aren't required to disclose it. Housekeeping:
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Coronavirus
Inspectors general warned Congress last week that the Trump administration is blocking scrutiny of more than $1 trillion in spending related to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the previously undisclosed letter, Department of Treasury attorneys concluded that the administration is not required to provide the watchdogs with information about the beneficiaries of programs like the $500 billion in loans for corporations. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin refused to provide Congress with the names of recipients of the taxpayer-funded coronavirus business loans. After criticism, Mnuchin began to walk back his denial, saying he will talk to lawmakers on a bipartisan basis “to strike the appropriate balance for proper oversight” of PPP loans “and appropriate protection of small business information.” At least 4 lawmakers have benefited in some way from the Paycheck Protection program they helped create.Politico has been told there are almost certainly more -- but there are zero disclosure rules, even for members of Congress.
Republicans on the list include Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, a wealthy businessman who owns auto dealerships, body shops and car washes, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, whose family owns multiple farms and equipment suppliers across the Midwest. The Democrats count Rep. Susie Lee of Nevada, whose husband is CEO of a regional casino developer, and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell of Florida, whose husband is a senior executive at a restaurant chain that has since returned the loan.
Mick Mulvaney dumped as much as $550,000 in stocks the same day Trump assured the public the US economy was 'doing fantastically' amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Mulvaney unloaded his holdings in three different mutual funds, each of which is primarily made up of US stocks. The next day, the value of the mutual funds tanked.
Cases rising in many states
Good summary: There was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. finally crested and began descending sharply, never happened. Instead, America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau, with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths. This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways…The U.S. is dealing with a patchwork pandemic. As of Friday, coronavirus cases were significantly climbing in 16 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. Oklahoma is experiencing a massive increase in coronavirus cases just days before Trump’s planned rally in Tulsa. In Tulsa county itself, 1 in roughly 390 people have tested positive. Yet Trump plans on cramming 20,000 people in an event with voluntary face mask policy and no social distancing. Attendees must sign a waiver that absolves the president’s campaign of any liability from virus-related illnesses.
On Monday, Pence lied saying that Oklahoma has “flattened the curve.” As you can see at any of the resources immediately below, this is not even close to true. Over the past 14 days, the state has seen a 124% increase in cases and reports 65% of ICU beds are in use.
Tulsa World Editorial Board: This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for the Trump rally. "We don't know why he chose Tulsa, but we can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city...Again, Tulsa will be largely alone in dealing with what happens at a time when the city’s budget resources have already been stretched thin."
Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted that he is a victim of double standards when it comes to perception of his decision to resume campaign rallies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, declaring that attempts to “covid shame” his campaign “won’t work!”
Resources to track increases: There are many different sites with various methods of visualizing the spread of coronavirus. Here are some that may be particularly useful this summer… Topos COVID-19 compiler homepage and graphs of each state since re-opening. How we reopen Safely has stats on each state’s progress towards meeting benchmarks to reopen safely (hint: almost none have reached all the checkpoints). WaPo has a weekly national map of cases/deaths; the largest regional clusters are in the southeast. On Monday, Trump twice said that “if we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” (video). Aside from the fact that cases exist even if we don’t test for them, we cannot explain the rising number of cases by increased testing capacity: In at least 14 states, the positive case rate is increasing faster than the increase in the average number of tests.
Reminder: In March Trump told Fox News that he didn't want infected patients from a cruise ship to disembark because it would increase the number of reported cases in the US. "I like the numbers being where they are," Trump said at the time. "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
Fired scientist Rebekah Jones builds coronavirus dashboard to rival Florida’s… Her site shows thousands more people with the coronavirus, and hundreds of thousands fewer who have been tested, than the site run by the Florida Health Department.
Equipment and supplies
More studies prove wearing masks limits transmission and spread of coronavirus… One study from Britain found that routine face mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R of less than 1.0. The R value measures the average number of people that one infected person will pass the disease on to. An R value above 1 can lead to exponential growth. The study found that if people wear masks whenever they are in public it is twice as effective at reducing the R value than if masks are only worn after symptoms appear. Meanwhile, Trump officials refuse to wear masks and Trump supporters copy his behavior… VP Mike Pence, leader of the coronavirus task force, published a tweet showing himself in a room full of Trump staffers, none wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Pence deleted the tweet shortly after criticism. A poll last week showed that 66% of likely-Biden-voters “always wear a mask,” while 83% of likely-Trump-voters “neverarely wear a mask.”
Trump’s opposition to face masks hasn’t stopped him from selling them to his supporters, though. The online Trump Store is selling $20 cotton American flag-themed face masks.
Yesterday, we learned that South Carolina Republican Rep. Tom Rice and family have tested positive for the coronavirus. Just two weeks ago, Rice was on the House floor and halls of the Capitol without wearing a mask.
Internal FEMA data show that the government’s supply of surgical gowns has not meaningfully increased since March… The slides show FEMA’s plan to ramp up supply into June and July hinges on the reusing of N95 masks and surgical gowns, increasing the risk of contamination. Those are supposed to be disposed of after one use. Nursing homes with urgent needs for personal protective equipment say they’re receiving defective equipment as part of Trump administration supply initiative. Officials say FEMA is sending them gowns that look more like large tarps -- with no holes for hands -- and surgical masks that are paper-thin. More than 1,300 Chinese medical-device companies that registered to sell PPE in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic used bogus registration data… These companies listed as their American representative a purported Delaware entity that uses a false address and nonworking phone number. Florida is sitting on more than 980,000 unused doses of hydroxychloroquine, but hospitals don’t want it… Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered a million doses of the drug to show support for Trump, but very few hospitals have requested it.
Native American communities struggle
The CARES Act money for Native American tribes, meant to assist people during the pandemic, came with restrictions that are impeding efforts to limit the transmission of the virus. For instance, the funds can only be used to cover expenses that are "incurred due to the public health emergency." On the Navajo Nation, the public health emergency is inherently related to some basic infrastructure problems. 30% of Navajo don’t have running water to wash their hands, but the money can’t be used to build water lines. Federal and state health agencies are refusing to give Native American tribes and organizations representing them access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has turned down tribal epidemiologists’ requests for data that it’s making freely available to states. A Hospital’s Secret Coronavirus Policy Separated Native American Mothers From Their Newborns… Pregnant Native American women were singled out for COVID-19 testing based on their race and ZIP code, clinicians say. While awaiting results, some mothers were separated from their newborns, depriving them of the immediate contact doctors recommend. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that state officials would investigate the allegations.
Personnel & appointees
Former IG Steve Linick told Congress he was conducting five investigations into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the State Department before he was fired. In addition to investigating Pompeo's potential misuse of taxpayer funds and reviewing his decision to expedite an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, Linick’s office was conducting an audit of Special Immigrant Visas, a review of the International Women of Courage Award, and another review "involving individuals in the Office of the Protocol."
Pompeo confidant emerges as enforcer in fight over watchdog’s firing: Linick testified that Undersecretary of State for Management Brian Bulatao, a decades-old friend of Pompeo’s, “tried to bully [him]” out of investigating Pompeo.
Trump has empowered John McEntee, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, to make significant staffing changes inside top federal agencieswithout the consent — and, in at least one case, without even the knowledge — of the agency head. Many senior officials in Trump's government are sounding alarms about the loss of expertise and institutional knowledge. Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, has a history of making Islamophobic and inflammatory remarksagainst prominent Democratic politicians, including falsely calling former President Barack Obama a Muslim. Amid racial justice marches, GOP advances Trump court pick hostile to civil rights.Cory Wilson, up for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, has denied that restrictive voting laws lead to voter suppression and called same-sex marriage “a pander to liberal interest groups.” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has indefinitely extended the terms of the acting directors of the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, sidestepping the typical Senate confirmation process for those posts and violating the Federal Vacancies Reform Act,
Courts and DOJ
The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take a closer look at qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that shields law enforcement and government officials from lawsuits over their conduct. Developed in recent decades by the high court, the qualified immunity doctrine, as applied to police, initially asks two questions: Did police use excessive force, and if they did, should they have known that their conduct was illegal because it violated a "clearly established" prior court ruling that barred such conduct? In practice, however, lower courts have most often dismissed police misconduct lawsuits on grounds that there is no prior court decision with nearly identical facts. The Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in the 6 to 3 ruling. They said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees.
Alito, writing more than 100 pages in dissent for himself and Thomas, accused the court's majority of writing legislation, not law. Kavanaugh wrote separately: "We are judges, not members of Congress...Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, this court is the wrong body to change American law in that way."
Just days before the SCOTUS opinion was released, the Trump administration finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance. The SCOTUS ruling may make it easier to challenge the changes made by Trump.
The Supreme Court also declined to take up California’s “sanctuary” law, denying the Trump administration’s appeal. This means that the lower court opinion upholding one of California's sanctuary laws is valid, limiting cooperation between law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the Court's conservative members, supported taking up the case. A federal appeals court appeared unlikely Friday to stop a judge from examining why the Justice Department sought to walk away from its prosecution of Michael Flynn. "I don't see why we don't observe regular order," said Judge Karen Henderson. "Why not hold this in abeyance and see what happens?" Judge Robert Wilkins told Flynn's lawyer that if Sullivan doesn't let the government drop the case, "then you can come back here on appeal."
Other
Good read: Fiona Hill on being mistaken as a secretary by Trump, her efforts to make sure he was not left alone with Putin, and what the US, UK and Russia have in common. “It’s spitting in Merkel’s face,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat who’s now a foreign-policy analyst. “But it’s in our interests.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry welcomed Trump’s plan to withdraw more than a quarter of U.S. troops from Germany.
Op-Ed: Why cutting American forces in Germany will harm this alliance
According to a new book, the Secret Service had to seek more funding to cover the cost of protecting Melania Trump while she stayed in NYC to renegotiate her prenup - taxpayers paid tens of millions of dollars to allow her to get better terms. Additionally, NYPD estimated its own costs conservatively at $125,000 a day. Georgia election 'catastrophe' in largely minority areas sparks investigation. Long lines, lack of voting machines, and shortages of primary ballots plagued voters. As of Monday night, there were still over 200,000 uncounted votes. Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone Fox News Mocked After Mistaking Monty Python Joke for Seattle Protest Infighting In addition to holding a rally on the day after Juneteenth (originally scheduled the day of), Trump will be accepting the GOP nomination in Jacksonville on the 60th anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday,” a KKK attack on African Americans. Environmental news:
Ruling against environmentalists, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal government has the authority to allow a proposed $7.5 billion natural gas pipeline to cross under the popular Appalachian Trail in rural Virginia.
Trump administration has issued a new rule blocking tribes from protecting their waters from projects like pipelines, dams, and coal terminals.
The EPA published a proposal in the Federal Register that critics described as an assault on minority communities coping with the public health legacy of structural racism. The rule would bar EPA from giving special consideration to individual communities that bear the brunt of environmental risks — frequently populations of color.
The Trump administration is preparing to drill off Florida’s coast, but says it will wait until after the November election to avoid any backlash from Florida state leaders.
Immigration news
U.S. Customs and Border Protection used emergency funding meant for migrant families and children to pay for dirt bikes, canine supplies, computer equipment and other enforcement related-expenditures… The money was meant to be spent on “consumables and medical care” for migrants at the border.
ACLU files lawsuit against stringent border restrictions related to coronavirus that largely bar migrants from entering the United States.
Under Trump’s leadership, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has mismanaged its finances so badly that it has sought an emergency $1.2 billion infusion from taxpayers. When Trump took office, USCIS inherited a budget surplus. A large amount of funding is drained by its deliberate creation of more busy work for immigrants and their lawyers — as well as thousands of USCIS employees. These changes are designed to make it harder for people to apply for, receive or retain lawful immigration status.
Asylum-seeking migrants locked up inside an Arizona ICE detention center with one of the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases say they were forced to clean the facility and are 'begging' for protection from the virus
ICE plans to spend $18 million on thousands of new tasers and the training to use them
I watched the first night of the RNC so you don't have to. AMA.
A friend of mine's relative is a hardline, Southern R representative who reportedly refused to participate in or watch the RNC out of disgust and embarrassment. I decided I had to watch this out of morbid curiosity; after all, if a sitting representative is mortified by it, it's bound to be a shitshow. Here are some takeaways. **I should note that I watched the CSPAN live stream last night. -- If I drank every time someone mentioned "defund the police" or "abolish the police," I'd be unconscious. It was addressed in literally every single speech. To say Justice Dems are a gift to the GOP is putting it mildly. Some speakers even quoted them directly: Matt Gaetz, for example, quoted AOC's dumbass "defund means defund" remark. If I were Biden, the Lincoln Project, or a super PAC, I'd release an ad countering this immediately. Because it's pretty hard to say that 99% of Dems don't support defunding the police when Republicans have direct quotes from elected officials calling to cut the police budget. -- Every other speech mentioned the American Dream. -- Jingoism and fire-and-brimstone prophesying were turned up to 11. Convention began with a montage of people driving their trucks through the heartland, farmers working in fields, the sun setting on a field of wheat, you get the picture. There was a lot of talk of patriotism and remembering the ideas we were founded upon, instead of "knocking them down." There was also a lot of shitting on Dems for having Billie Eilish, Eva Longoria and JLD on there-- Ronna McDaniel said something like "Eva Longoria plays a housewife on TV. I am a housewife, I send my kids to great public schools, and I represent the average American." -- School choice was a big issue/theme. -- Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban-born CEO, gave an admittedly good, emotional speech about communism. He's seen all of this before, he said, and communism is no utopia; it collapses eventually. The RNC really took Bernie's Castro remarks and ran with them, since multiple people addressed this and made references to socialism. -- Trump met with essential workers in the East Room, including two postal workers, two nurses, and a janitor. Awkwardly tried to address the post office thing. -- The craziest ever interlude about Trump courageously fighting COVID-19, also known as the "China virus." I'd love for someone to fact-check that. -- Yes, the McCloskeys spoke, and boy did they do some excellent fearmongering. They also managed to secure photos, B-roll, and audio of Cori Bush protesting and yelling about a revolution, which they showed before stating that this "Marxist revolutionary" now represents Missouri's 1st district. -- A Parkland parent spoke, and his speech was saddening. You could tell how frustrated he was, it was easy to understand his misguided support of Trump. Most of it was about Trump's call to action and the need for real discipline and safety. I'd recommend listening if only to form a counterargument. -- Kimberley Guilfoyle's speech was BONKERS. It was akin to a Southern Baptist preacher warning against "fornicators" and "the enemy." Lots of mentions of kneeling in prayer, light/darkness metaphors, and some really choice quotes. "HE WILL EMANCIPATE YOU AND LIFT YOU UP," "THEY [the Democrats] WANT TO ENSLAVE YOU." -- Charlie Kirk's Trump Youth speech almost sounded like DeValera's famous "dream" speech. He called Trump "the bodyguard of Western civilization," spoke about raising an army of patriots, and whipped himself into a frenzy talking about The American Way (you could hear the capital letters). My favorite line was something like "The America that we dream of, where churches are more important than casinos." Like....who is your nominee again? -- Matt Gaetz had an obscene amount of makeup on his face, and his speech was just...imagine a far-right AOC. He mentioned “woketopians” and “an auditorium emptier than Joe Biden’s platform (I think).” Guy has lost his damn mind. -- Lots of POC speakers on this first night. Vernon Jones, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley (whose speech was also actually decent, after she got her required Trump ass-kissing in), Cuban-born Maximo Alvarez, Herschel Walker. --Speaking of Tim Scott, his speech was excellent. I'd recommend watching it. Not only did he say both Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's names, but he also brought up our own version of Trumpism-- progressive cancel culture. Here's a snippet:
From a global pandemic, to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven't seen for decades. But regardless of the challenges presented to us...every four years...Americans come together to vote...To share stories of what makes our nation strong, and the lessons we have learned that can strengthen it further for our children and grandchildren.Because while this election is between Donald Trump and Joe Biden...it is not solely about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It's about the promise of America. It's about you and me...our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams. It's about the promise of America. It's about you and me...our challenges and heartbreaks, hopes and dreams. It's about how we respond when tackling critical issues like police reform...when Democrats called our work a token effort, and walked out of the room during negotiations because they wanted the ISSUE more than they wanted a solution. Do we want a society that breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?
--Sean Parnell actually appealed to moderate Democrats, asking them to stand with Republicans if they felt their party was becoming too radical. I hate to say it, but I hard agreed with parts of his speech as well. If we don't denounce some of this woke performance art happening around the country, then we will really be screwed. Nikki Haley touched on this as well, quite eloquently:
The black cops who've been shot in the line of duty -- they matter. The black small business owners who've watched their life's work go up in flames -- they matter. The black kids who've been gunned down on the playground -- their lives matter too. And their lives are being ruined and stolen by the violence on our streets. It doesn't have to be like this. It wasn't like this in South Carolina five years ago. Our state came face-to-face with evil. A white supremacist walked into Mother Emanuel Church during Bible Study. Twelve African Americans pulled up a chair and prayed with him for an hour. Then he began to shoot. After that horrific tragedy, we didn't turn against each other. We came together -- black and white, Democrat and Republican. Together, we made the hard choices needed to heal -- and removed a divisive symbol, peacefully and respectfully.
-- I couldn't watch Jr's speech. Sorry everyone. One last thing I noticed: nobody (except Matt Gaetz) attacked Biden personally. It was mainly the whole "he'll be a Trojan horse for the Squad, Bernie, Pelosi, and Warren" thing. Quite a few speakers said he'd be weak and spineless, that he was merely a puppet for a "socialist agenda," the usual. The overall narrative was that Joe, while a good man, was simply too feeble to protect America, and too prone to radicalism. His party had left him, and there was no way he could stop the evil progressives from walking all over him and turning America into a nanny state. They constantly trotted out other (justice) Dems' calls to ban fracking and Joe's own vision to ban fossil fuels during his lifetime as proof of this.
several years back evangelicals weren't comfortable at all saying trump was a christian. before and during trump's campaign conservative evangelicals were all over the map on where they stood concerning his faith: in 2015 dobson said,'I am very wary of Donald Trump,” Dobson said in his email, citing Trump’s business in gambling. “I would never vote for a king pin within that enterprise. Trump’s tendency to shoot from the hip and attack those with whom he disagrees would be an embarrassment to the nation if he should become our Chief Executive. I don’t really believe Trump is a conservative. Finally, I would never under any circumstance vote for Hillary Clinton'. in 2016, and to this day, dobson says on his 'family institute' website, 'If anything, this man is a baby Christian who doesn’t have a clue about how believers think, talk and act.' in 2011 franklin graham told christianity today: ' “No question, the guy’s got a lot of baggage. He owns casinos. He’s had multiple marriages. I did not endorse him.” when trump evangelical bouncer, robert jeffress, defended trump on fox news, regarding stormy daniels' announcement she had a sexual encounter with Trump and was paid to keep quiet before the election, Jeffress explained [to] Juan Williams that evangelicals 'knew they weren’t voting for an altar boy.' eric metaxas in responding to the hollywood access video of trump, [in] an email to 'RNS [... said he] rejected the characterization that he has strongly backed Trump, saying his support “has always been tepid and tremendously qualified." [...] in addition, 'James MacDonald, pastor of the Chicago-area megachurch Harvest Bible Chapel and a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, also withdrew his support after the video aired, calling the candidate “letcherous and worthless.' in 2016 mike huckabee tweeted: 'Trump may be a car wreck, but at least his car is pointed in the right direction. Hillary is a drunk-driver going the wrong way on the freeway'. the family research council president, tony perkins, put his support this way: 'You know what? Nations are built on calculated risk. Yeah. You could say we’re taking a calculated risk, but we’re at a point where we have to as a nation because what we have seen in the last seven and a half years has put the nation fiscally and culturally on the edge.' of course, we can't forget jerry falwell's endorsement as early as january of 2016: [...] “In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment,” he said. “He cannot be bought, he's not a puppet on a string like many other candidates ... who have wealthy donors as their puppet masters,” he said. “And that is a key reason why so many voters are attracted to him.” at this time there's no direct evidence, nor cohen's testimony that there was a quid pro quo for falwell's endorsement. the falwell's and trump's have been friends since 2012 when trump spoke at liberty univ. it was falwell's endorsement that opened up the evangelical base to trump and ultimately cut ted cruz out of the race. but it can't go without saying that knowing the past 4 or 5 years of both trump and the falwell's lives, the entanglement is very deep, as you will see. so, given the lack of evangelical consensus, the lack of a solid biblical argument, and the life of trump, the location of where to put him, while retaining some evangelical dignity and avoiding hypocrisy, a charismatic evangelical named lance wallnau enters the story with his best selling book, 'God's Chaos Candidate' on oct of 2016, as well as his piece in 'charisma news', 'Why I Believe Trump Is the Prophesied President'. wallnau argued trump 'is a “modern-day Cyrus,” an ancient Persian king chosen by God to “navigate in chaos.' he even added a little numerology: trump's the 45th prez and cyrus is god's anointed in isaiah 45, so trump's anointed. makes sense right? anyway, aside from us living in a democracy, the idea grew, even to the point of netanyahu comparing him to cyrus. now many evangelicals are compare him to king cyrus. two years have now passed and it was a month before the 2018 midterms and a movie came out called, 'the trump prophecy.' the film was a partnership between 'reelworksstudios' and (-wait for it-) liberty univ's arts program, where it attempted to make the comparison of cyrus and trump. popularity grew when fox news' jeanine pirro touted the film, along with many other radio and tv hosts . while the idea of the cyrus-trump connection is still being floated it doesn't make sense now. why? due to trump openly stating he's changed his faith. more specifically, when trump himself, a couple weeks ago became a non denominationalist, it closed the personal distance between him and jesus, it, theoretically, should bring him closer to jesus, which negated the cyrus typology, which gave him distance from jesus; that's the point of changing one's faith isn't it, to get closer to god. as that distance is now gone, as cyrus was a pagan, and trump is claiming he's a reflective christian -a genius-, having deepened his faith, how can he still be compared to a pagan king? -especially with being surrounded by evangelicals for 4 years. over the past 40 years non denominationalists have grown over 400%, and a 1/3 of all evangelicals are nondens.. who are the nondens? they're basically the largest protestant denomination, and made up many southern baptists, with provisos.. it's unusual for a very stable genius billionaire, to self identify with nondens, but paula white has a 6,000 sq ft home, former trump faith advisor in the 1950s (check out 'the family' on netfix). so, perhaps trump is an eisenhower type, having changed his faith for political profit? if he did, one thing is certain; he can't use the cyrus connection any longer, for attempting to now makes him a public con. trump has stated, 'i'm the chosen one.' he was joking, somewhat, but like so many of his supposed jokes, they usually appear two-sided; they're like a reverse irony found under a bulimic joke, like: “Suburban women, will you please like me? - Please. Please,” he said in PA last week. his other "jokes" we have to wait several hours or a day later to discover if it really was a joke: “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’. again, '"And then I see the disinfectant, that knocks it out in a minute.. and is there a way you can do something like, by injection, inside, or almost to clean... It sounds interesting to me.' and again, 'russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30k emails that are missing.'. these dormant jokes a day or so later are fairly common and have created lots of confusion. i bring this up 'cause trump uses religious language more than any other past presidents in a 100 years, more than twice as eisenhower, and figuring out what he's really saying regarding faith, in politics, isn't any better than his policy discussions, and some might say it's worse -- as he weaponizes/attacks it, too:
when one looks at trump's photo op at st. john's church, as the clergy and protesting faithful and others were cleared with force and gas, just moments later trump took their place on the church sidewalk, standing alone, fixated on cameras, fumbling a bible, then holding it next to his head, never praying, nor mentioning god. during that time, he said two times, 'we have the greatest country in the world,' then walked to the front steps of the church, stood with his back to the steps, as the other pics must have somehow lacked his authority, called some of his staff and bill barr to stand with him while they posed for more pics, stating twice again, ' we have the greatest country' or words to that affect. here one say that trump weaponized the church equating it to a dominating power over those who disagree with trump's edicts. it was a symbol for what constitutes christian nationalism, in my view.
“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,” the president said. “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so.” Later, in front of dozens of members of Congress at his acquittal celebration at the White House, Trump singled out Pelosi and Romney by name, going further by accusing her of neither praying for him, nor praying at all. “She doesn’t pray. She may pray, but she prays for the opposite. But I doubt she prays at all,” the president said.
...
trump said of ted cruz: "but I've never seen anybody that lied as much as Ted Cruz. He goes around saying he's a Christian. I don't know. You're going to have to really have to study that. yes"
a trump tweet on cruz: 'How can Ted Cruz be and Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?
trump in ohio:'[biden] will take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything.” [...]there will be no god is biden is elected', and biden 'will hurt the bible, hurt god,'
finally: Trump responded swiftly at a campaign event in South Carolina, saying: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.” “No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith,” he told a packed room at a golf course resort.
of course, trump's not the only person to weaponize god-talk. pastor paula white does it as well: christians will 'stand before god if they vote against trump'. of course, she's known as the most adamant evangelical that says trump is a christian. sadly, she's had her run-ins with heresy regarding the trinity, is a prosperity gospel preacher, gone off the rails publicly more than once, has been investigated by the senate, published a book in oct of 2019, that 'christiantiy today' called, disturbing, depressing, narcissistic, dishonest, materialistic, lacking self-awareness, shallow, and trumpesque. so, she's really something -- and of course she's probably trump's top spiritual adviser that works in the white house. the same failure of christian virtues can be said of jerry falwell jr, the president of one of the nation's largest christian colleges, but truly, his narrative doesn't need repeating, except the new sage of he and his wife's game of 'would you rather'.. the same also goes for pastor franklin graham, who is a xenophobe and weaponized 'opposition to President Donald Trump to “almost a demonic power”, metaxis agreed, although he didn't like the 'almost'. finally, to end our sampling, there's pastor robert jeffress statements that anti-trump 'evangelicals are morons. They are absolutely spineless morons, and they cannot admit that they were wrong.' [...] “We cannot afford to be like German Christians who, in the rise of the evil reign of Adolf Hitler, just remained neutered. They remained silent. And you saw what happened there,” Jeffress said. “I think there’s a similar wave of godlessness that is rising in our country right now, and we must push back against that tide.' this is not an argument of guilt by association, these individuals have shown evidence of a failure to abide with the teachings of jesus and the church. their miscarriage is aligned with trump's, and perhaps more so, as they for decades have studied christianity. yet, they aren't running the country and lying daily about the covid virus as thousands die weekly; they aren't constantly attacking and damaging the usps,, mail in ballots,, the press, race, climate science, fauci, the fbi, even saying doctors are profiting off of covid deaths and inflating the dead numbers, attacking impeachment accusers, his sexual misconduct accusers, gold star families ...the list of trump attacks are almost found everywhere and everyday now. therefore, if he's not cyrus, not a christian, is he a con? i think the evidence is abundantly clear. for much of the attacks and weaponizing of people, institutions, and things, the gop has also been silent. they are silent on race, the media, even their own institutions. i'd be something if they came out and supported him in numbers, but they don't. paul states in 1 cor: 11: Do as I do, for I am doing as Christ did. i don't see that happening much in the gop or trump's staff or trump himself, given he's the most religiously rhetorical president in over a 100 years, and that the nondens are the true believers; in fact, the evidence appears to indicate the opposite conclusion. donald trump is a con of the highest order, a chronic liar, a cheat, and devious. therefore, evangelicals should ask themselves ‘what would jesus do about this?' the answer would be, 'don't vote for trump.’
** Wed 12/2 - Christmas TV shows - ALL CHANNELS ** - part 1 of 3
all times EST - check local listings. Deck the HallsTomorrow, 12:00 AM / FAM-E 52As two neighbors in a small town prepare for the festivities of Christmas, they get into an all-out war when one decides to decorate his home with so many lights that they are visible from space, but they soon learn the true meaning of Christmas. The Most Wonderful Time of the YearTomorrow, 12:00 AM / HALMRK 68A single working mother's disdain for the holiday season is put to the test when her uncle, a kindly, retired police officer, brings a mysterious stranger by her home in an effort to rekindle the Christmas spirit for her and her young son. Martin- Holiday BluesTomorrow, 12:00 AM / BET 71Martin wants to take Gina to Philadelphia in order to visit her parents for the Christmas holiday, but when their bus gets unexpectedly snowed in at the station, their bags also get stolen, jeopardizing their trip altogether. A Godwink ChristmasTomorrow, 12:00 AM / HALLMV 84When a St. Louis antique appraiser accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, her aunt invites her to her Nantucket home near Martha's Vineyard, but while there, she meets a charming inn owner and begins to fall in love with him. People Presents: Once Upon a Main StreetTomorrow, 12:01 AM / LIF-E 38A woman makes plans to turn an empty storefront into a year-round Christmas shop, but when she learns a man has the same idea, they both agree to help the current property owner with his holiday chairman duties with hopes of winning the space. Finding ChristmasTomorrow, 2:00 AM / HALLMV 84After men from New York and North Carolina decide to switch residences during the holiday season, each one encounters a woman from the other's life, and as romance ensues, the time for each person to return home approaches. Dear ChristmasTomorrow, 2:04 AM / LIF-E 38A popular podcast host known for being a love expert prepares for her holiday episodes where she shares true romance stories with her listeners, but despite the subject matter of her show, she has never experienced love herself. PJ Masks- PJ Masks Save ChristmasTomorrow, 2:15 AM / DISNEYJR 179The PJ Masks work alongside Santa Claus when Romeo decides to ruin Christmas for everybody to being placed in the infamous naught list. Extreme Christmas TreesTomorrow, 3:00 AM / TLC 46From the breath-taking decadence of the largest Christmas tree installation in Las Vegas to a fragrant fir adorned with over $200,000 worth of specifically collected ornaments, the holidays will officially be kicked into high gear. Disney's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- Mickey Saves SantaTomorrow, 3:25 AM / DISNEYJR 179Christmas is in danger of not happening this year when Santa's sleigh breaks down on Christmas Eve and he is unable to deliver all of the presents in his bag, so Mickey and friends come to Santa's aid and help ensure all the gifts are given out. Rick Steves' Special: European ChristmasTomorrow, 3:30 AM / WEDU-DT 3/ PBS / HDTVHost Rick Steves hosts a colorful celebration of Christmas traditions from all across Europe, with traditions from England, to Wales, France, Norway, germany and others; bright Christmas markets and performances from local choirs. Felix the Cat Saves ChristmasTomorrow, 3:45 AM / STRZFK 274The Professor and Rock Bottom are plotting to ruin Christmas by creating the world's largest blizzard, and it's up to Felix the Cat and Poindexter to journey to the North Pole and save Christmas with the help of Santa Claus. Double HolidayTomorrow, 4:00 AM / HALMRK 68A career-driven woman competes for a promotion opportunity at work with her office co-worker, but when the CEO asks the two of them to plan the company's Christmas party, they start to learn more about one another and feelings begin to develop. The Christmas OrnamentTomorrow, 4:00 AM / HALLMV 84After a widow decides to keep her winter holiday festivities relatively low key, she soon encounters a Christmas tree lot owner who provides her with a decorative item, and she starts to realize that there may be a lot more to life. Fresh Beat Band of Spies- Christmas 2.0Tomorrow, 4:13 AM / NGN-E 125The Fresh Beat Band of Spies must embark on an adventurous journey to the North Pole in order to deck the halls and prevent Christmas from being ruined by an elf, who is overly enthusiastic, and his mechanical Santa Claus The Great Christmas Light FightTomorrow, 4:55 AM / AMCALL 64Families from Pleasanton, Calif., Hillsboro, Tenn., St. George, Utah and Duluth, Minn. compete in a contest to see who can impress the judges with creative Christmas house decorations in order to win the prize of $50,000. Buttons: A Christmas TaleTomorrow, 4:57 AM / STRZFK 274Two orphan girls' only wish is to find a home for Christmas, and when they meet two unexpected visitors, they turn out to be their guardian angels who, with a little help, turn the tide of events and change their lives forever. Love That Girl!- Happy Hold Up DayTomorrow, 5:00 AM / TVONE 146The holiday season takes a turn for the worst when a group of bank robbers decides it is the perfect time to undertake a Christmas Eve heist that results in the unintended consequence of Imunique and her friends being taken hostage. Christmas in HomesteadTomorrow, 6:00 AM / HALMRK 68A famous actress comes to a Christmas-obsessed small town in Iowa to shoot a holiday-themed movie and is surprised to find herself falling for a local innkeeper who is also a single father as she receives a lesson in the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas on Honeysuckle LaneTomorrow, 6:00 AM / HALLMV 84When a woman returns to her hometown in order to celebrate the holidays for the last time in the home she grew up in, she discovers a hidden surprise in her mother's antique desk which teaches her the true meaning of Christmas. What's Happening!!- ChristmasTomorrow, 6:00 AM / TVONE 146Raj and Dee plan to have Christmas dinner at Bill's place because Mama has to work and cannot celebrate with everyone, but she may actually wind up being alone for the holiday when her plans suddenly change at the last minute. It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas MovieTomorrow, 7:00 AM / FAM-E 52Kermit the Frog and the Muppets have to scramble to raise money to save the Muppet Theater when the bank owner who holds their mortgage wants to transform the building into a casino, and they receive assistance from an angel. The Andy Griffith Show- The Christmas StoryTomorrow, 7:00 AM / SUN 89Andy empties the Mayberry jail in a gesture of goodwill for Christmas, unaware that the spiteful designs of Ben Weaver threaten to eclipse the festivities of the season unless Andy can find a way to impart some holiday cheer to the cranky codger. Disney Mickey Mouse- Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse ChristmasTomorrow, 7:00 AM / DISNEYXD 122Donald Duck gets himself into a peculiar situation when he decides to stay with Mickey and the gang to celebrate Christmas festivities with them instead of traveling south for the winter alongside Daisy and the other ducks. A Christmas Winter SongTomorrow, 8:00 AM / LIF-E 38A musical bond forms between a Christmas shop owner and a former jazz singer who has hit rock bottom as the store owner tries to help the artist reconnect with his daughter and grandchildren in time for the towns annual holiday concert. CMT Christmas MusicTomorrow, 8:00 AM / CMTV 45/ NewA selection of Christmas-themed music videos is presented from some of the industry's most popular artists, including rising stars and music icons. On the Twelfth Day of ChristmasTomorrow, 8:00 AM / HALMRK 68A woman is delighted when a man for whom she has long held feelings moves to town, and his lack of holiday spirit motivates her to come up with 12 Christmas gifts that offer tasks she hopes will inspire him to rediscover his passion. Operation ChristmasTomorrow, 8:00 AM / HALLMV 84After her military officer boyfriend is forced to deploy right before Christmas, a single mother and her children are inspired by their own difficulties to help other families of military members, with their efforts going viral. ...continued in part 2
Philadelphia pausing full green phase reopening, announces travel advisory
The opening of indoor dining and gyms is delayed until at least August 1. PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Due to the rising number of positive cases of the coronavirus, Philadelphia is pausing some of its reopening plans and will only move to a modified green phase on Friday. The city has also issued a travel advisory for 15 states across the country. The city health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farely opened his press briefing Tuesday by saying the news was not good as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise nationally and regionally. There were 142 new positive cases reported Tuesday, bringing the city total to 26,133. There were five additional fatalities in Philadelphia, bringing the total to 1,584. Farley said over the past couple of weeks, positive cases have been likely to be younger people. Thirty-four percent of the cases were under age 30 in the past two weeks, as opposed to 20 percent during the entire pandemic. Dr. Farley announces Philadelphia is pausing its reopening plans. He said this is linked to social events and travel, especially trips to the Jersey Shore. The city's daily case counts are no longer going down, Farley said, and Philadelphia will not meet its targets to move fully to green on Friday. Therefore, the city is pausing the reopening of indoor dining, as well as gyms and fitness centers, to at least August 1. The Southeastern Pennsylvania region, including collar counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, entered the green phase of Governor Tom Wolf's reopening plan last Friday, June 26. Philadelphia allowed some businesses like barbers and salons to reopen. The city is also asking people in Philadelphia to not travel to the following states where they are seeing rising COVID-19 numbers: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. People returning to Philadelphia from any of these states should self-quarantine for 14 days, Farley said. On Friday, Philadelphia will be allowing the reopening of some businesses in a modified and restricted green phase. These businesses and activities include museums and libraries, indoor shopping malls, and small indoor and outdoor gatherings. Casinos will also be allowed to open during this restricted green phase, but only with very strict requirements - masks are required, six feet of distance between patrons, and absolutely no food, drink, or smoking is allowed indoors. All businesses and activities must follow the Safe Mode guidance on the City's Reopening with Care website. Farley added if people can work remotely, they should continue to do so. Farley noted that he expects Philadelphia will be dealing with this virus for a long time, and if there is a rise in cases, the city may be forced to close some previously opened businesses.
TL;DR: Man with too much time on his hands goes deep down the rabbit hole on a concept this sub already didn’t seem that enthusiastic about. If you really want to skip ahead, CTRL+F “verdict” and it’ll get you there. Two days ago, u/MrPhillyj2wns made a post asking whether USL should launch a D1 league in order to compete in Concacaf. From the top voted replies, it appears this made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. But I’ve been at home for eight weeks and I am terribly, terribly bored. So, I present to you this overview of what the USL pyramid might look like if Jake Edwards got a head of steam and attempted to establish a USSF-sanctioned first division. This is by no means an endorsement of such a proposal or even a suggestion that USL SHOULD do such a thing. It is merely an examination of whether they COULD. Welcome to the Thunderdome USL Premiership First, there are some base-level assumptions we must make in this exercise, because it makes me feel more scientific and not like a guy who wrote this on Sunday while watching the Belarusian Premier League (Go BATE Borisov!).
All D1 teams must comply with known USSF requirements for D1 leagues (more on that later).
MLS, not liking this move, will immediately remove all directly-owned affiliate clubs from the USL structure (this does not include hybrid ownerships, like San Antonio FC – NYCFC). This removes all MLS2 teams but will not affect Colorado Springs, Reno, RGVFC and San Antonio.
The USL will attempt to maintain both the USL Championship and USL League One, with an eventual mind toward creating the pro/rel paradise that is promised in Relegations 3:16.
All of my research regarding facility size and ownership net worth is correct – this is probably the biggest leap of faith we have to make, since googling “NAME net worth” and “CITY richest people” doesn’t seem guaranteed to return accurate results.
The most a club can increase its available seating capacity to meet D1 requirements in a current stadium is no more than 1,500 seats (10% of the required 15,000). If they need to add more, they’ll need a new facility.
Let’s pretend that people are VERY willing to sell. It’s commonly acknowledged that the USL is a more financially feasible route to owning a soccer club than in MLS (c.f. MLS-Charlotte’s reported $325 million expansion fee) and the USSF has some very strict requirements for D1 sanctioning. It becomes pretty apparent when googling a lot of team’s owners that this requirement isn’t met, so let’s assume everyone that can’t sells to people who meet the requirements.
(Known) USSF D1 league requirements: - League must have 12 teams to apply and 14 teams by year three - Majority owner must have a net worth of $40 million, and the ownership group must have a total net worth of $70 million. The value of an owned stadium is not considered when calculating this value. - Must have teams located in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones - 75% of league’s teams must be based in markets with at a metro population of at least 1 million people. - All league stadiums must have a capacity of at least 15,000 The ideal club candidate for the USL Premiership will meet the population and capacity requirements in its current ground, which will have a grass playing surface. Of the USL Championship’s 27 independent/hybrid affiliate clubs, I did not find one club that meets all these criteria as they currently stand. Regarding turf fields, the USSF does not have a formal policy regarding the ideal playing surface but it is generally acknowledged that grass is superior to turf. 6 of 26 MLS stadiums utilize turf, or roughly 23% of stadiums. We’ll hold a similar restriction for our top flight, so 2-3 of our top flight clubs can have turf fields. Seem fair? Capacity is going to be the biggest issue, since the disparity between current requirements for the second-tier (5,000) and the first tier (15,000) is a pretty massive gap. Nice club you have there, triple your capacity and you’re onto something. As a result, I have taken the liberty of relocating certain (read: nearly all) clubs to new grounds, trying my utmost to keep those clubs in their current markets and –importantly--, ensure they play on grass surfaces. So, let’s do a case-by-case evaluation and see if we can put together 12-14 teams that meet the potential requirements, because what else do you have to do? For each club’s breakdown, anything that represents a chance from what is currently true will be underlined. Candidate: Birmingham Legion FC Location (Metro population): Birmingham, Ala. (1,151,801) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Legion Field (FieldTurf, 71,594) Potential owner: Stephens Family (reported net worth $4 billion) Notes: Birmingham has a pretty strong candidacy. Having ditched the 5,000-seater BBVA Field for Legion Field, which sits 2.4 miles away, they’ve tapped into the city’s soccer history. Legion Field hosted portions of both the men’s and women’s tournaments at the 1996 Olympics, including a 3-1 U.S. loss to Argentina that saw 83,183 pack the house. The Harbert family seemed like strong ownership contenders, but since the death of matriarch Marguerite Harbert in 2015, it’s unclear where the wealth in the family is concentrated, so the Stephens seem like a better candidate. The only real knock that I can think of is that we really want to avoid having clubs play on turf, so I’d say they’re on the bubble of our platonic ideal USL Prem. Candidate: Charleston Battery Location (Metro population): Charleston, S.C. (713,000) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Johnson Hagood Stadium (Grass, ~14,700) Potential owner: Anita Zucker (reported net worth $3 billion) Notes: Charleston’s candidacy isn’t looking great. Already disadvantaged due to its undersized metro population, a move across the Cooper River to Johnson Hagood Stadium is cutting it close in terms of capacity. The stadium, home to The Citadel’s football team, used to seat 21,000, before 9,300 seats on the eastern grandstand were torn down in 2017 to deal with lead paint that had been used in their construction. Renovation plans include adding 3,000 seats back in, which could hit 15,000 if they bumped it to 3,300, but throw in a required sale by HCFC, LLC (led by content-creation platform founder Rob Salvatore) to chemical magnate Anita Zucker, and you’ll see there’s a lot of ifs and ands in this proposal. Candidate: Charlotte Independence Location (Metro population): Charlotte, N.C. (2,569, 213) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Jerry Richardson Stadium (Turf, 15,314) Potential owner: James Goodnight (reported net worth $9.1 billion) Notes: Charlotte ticks a lot of the boxes. A move from the Sportsplex at Matthews to UNC-Charlotte’s Jerry Richardson stadium meets capacity requirements, but puts them on to the dreaded turf. Regrettably, nearby American Legion Memorial Stadium only seats 10,500, despite a grass playing surface. With a sizeable metro population (sixth-largest in the USL Championship) and a possible owner in software billionaire James Goodnight, you’ve got some options here. The biggest problem likely lies in direct competition for market share against a much better-funded MLS Charlotte side due to join the league in 2021. Candidate: Hartford Athletic Location (Metro population): Hartford, Conn. (1,214,295) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Pratt & Whitney Stadium (Grass, 38,066) Potential owner: Ray Dalio (reported net worth $18.4 billion) Notes: Okay, I cheated a bit here, having to relocate Hartford to Pratt & Whitney Stadium, which is technically in East Hartford, Conn. I don’t know enough about the area to know if there’s some kind of massive beef between the two cities, but the club has history there, having played seven games in 2019 while Dillon Stadium underwent renovations. If the group of local businessmen that currently own the club manage to attract Dalio to the table, we’re on to something. Candidate: Indy Eleven Location (Metro population): Indianapolis, Ind. (2,048,703) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lucas Oil Stadium (Turf, 62,421) Potential owner: Jim Irsay (reported net worth of $3 billion) Notes: Indy Eleven are a club that are SO CLOSE to being an ideal candidate – if it weren’t for Lucas Oil Stadium’s turf playing surface. Still, there’s a lot to like in this bid. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what current owner and founder Ersal Ozdemir is worth, but it seems like there might be cause for concern. A sale to Irsay, who also owns the NFL Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts, seems likely to keep the franchise there, rather than make a half-mile move to 14,230 capacity Victory Field where the AAA Indianapolis Indians play and expand from there. Candidate: Louisville City FC Location (Metro population): Louisville, Ky. (1,297,310) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Lynn Family Stadium (Grass, 14,000, possibly expandable to 20,000) Potential owner: Wayne Hughes (reported net worth $2.8 billion) Notes: I’m stretching things a bit here. Lynn Family stadium is currently listed as having 11,700 capacity that’s expandable to 14,000, but they’ve said that the ground could hold as many as 20,000 with additional construction, which might be enough to grant them a temporary waiver from USSF. If the stadium is a no-go, then there’s always Cardinal Stadium, home to the University of Louisville’s football team, which seats 65,000 but is turf. Either way, it seems like a sale to someone like Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes will be necessary to ensure the club has enough capital. Candidate: Memphis 901 FC Location (Metro population): Memphis, Tenn. (1,348,260) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Liberty Bowl Stadium (Turf, 58,325) Potential owner: Fred Smith (reported net worth $3 billion) Notes: Unfortunately for Memphis, AutoZone Park’s 10,000 seats won’t cut it at the D1 level. With its urban location, it would likely prove tough to renovate, as well. Liberty Bowl Stadium more than meets the need, but will involve the use of the dreaded turf. As far as an owner goes, FedEx founder Fred Smith seems like a good local option. Candidate: Miami FC, “The” Location (Metro population): Miami, Fla. (6,158,824) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Riccardo Silva Stadium (FieldTurf, 20,000) Potential owner: Riccardo Silva (reported net worth $1 billion) Notes: Well, well, well, Silva might get his wish for top-flight soccer, after all. He’s got the money, he’s got the metro, and his ground has the capacity. There is the nagging issue of the turf, though. Hard Rock Stadium might present a solution, including a capacity of 64,767 and a grass playing surface. It is worth noting, however, that this is the first profile where I didn’t have to find a new potential owner for a club. Candidate: North Carolina FC Location (Metro population): Durham, N.C. (1,214,516 in The Triangle) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Carter-Finley Stadium (Grass/Turf, 57,583) Potential owner: Steve Malik (precise net worth unknown) / Dennis Gillings (reported net worth of $1.7 billion) Notes: We have our first “relocation” in North Carolina FC, who were forced to trade Cary’s 10,000-seat WakeMed Soccer Park for Carter-Finley Stadium in Durham, home of the NC State Wolfpack and 57,583 of their closest friends. The move is a whopping 3.1 miles, thanks to the close-knit hub that exists between Cary, Durham and Raleigh. Carter-Finley might be my favorite of the stadium moves in this exercise. The field is grass, but the sidelines are artificial turf. Weird, right? Either way, it was good enough for Juventus to play a friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara there in 2011. Maybe the move would be pushed for by new owner and medical magnate Dennis Gillings, whose British roots might inspire him to get involved in the Beautiful Game. Straight up, though, I couldn’t find a net worth for current owner Steve Malik, though he did sell his company MedFusion for $91 million in 2010, then bought it back for an undisclosed amount and sold it again for $43 million last November. I don’t know if Malik has the juice to meet D1 requirements, but I suspect he’s close. Candidate: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC Location (Metro population): Pittsburgh, Penn. (2,362,453) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Heinz Field (Grass, 64,450) Potential owner: Henry Hillman (reported net worth $2.5 billion) Notes: I don’t know a ton about the Riverhounds, but this move in particular feels like depriving a pretty blue-collar club from its roots. Highmark Stadium is a no-go from a seating perspective, but the Steelers’ home stadium at Heinz Field would more than meet the requirements and have a grass surface that was large enough to be sanctioned for a FIFA friendly between the U.S. WNT and Costa Rica in 2015. As for an owner, Tuffy Shallenberger (first ballot owner name HOF) doesn’t seem to fit the USSF bill, but legendary Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Hillman might. I’m sure you’re asking, why not the Rooney Family, if they’ll play at Heinz Field? I’ll tell you: I honestly can’t seem to pin down a value for the family. The Steelers are valued at a little over a billion and rumors persist that Dan Rooney is worth $500 million, but I’m not sure. I guess the Rooneys would work too, but it’s a definite departure from an owner in Shallenberger who was described by one journalist as a guy who “wears boots, jeans, a sweater and a trucker hat.” Candidate: Saint Louis FC Location (Metro population): St. Louis, Mo. (2,807,338) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Busch Stadium (Grass, 45,494) Potential owner: William DeWitt Jr. (reported net worth $4 billion) Notes: Saint Louis has some weirdness in making the jump to D1. Current CEO Jim Kavanaugh is an owner of the MLS side that will begin play in 2022. The club’s current ground at West Community Stadium isn’t big enough, but perhaps a timely sale to Cardinals owner William DeWitt Jr. could see the club playing games at Busch Stadium, which has a well established history of hosting other sports like hockey, college football and soccer (most recently a U.S. WNT friendly against New Zealand in 2019). The competition with another MLS franchise wouldn’t be ideal, like Charlotte, but with a big enough population and cross marketing from the Cardinals, maybe there’s a winner here. Wacko idea: If Busch doesn’t pan out, send them to The Dome. Sure, it’s a 60k turf closed-in stadium, but we can go for that retro NASL feel and pay homage to our nation’s soccer history. Candidate: Tampa Bay Rowdies Location (Metro population): Tampa, Fla. (3,068,511) Time zone: Eastern Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Raymond James Stadium (Grass, 65,518) Potential owner: Edward DeBartolo Jr. (reported net worth $3 billion) Notes: This one makes me sad. Despite having never been there, I see Al Lang Stadium as an iconic part of the Rowdies experience. Current owner Bill Edwards proposed an expansion to 18,000 seats in 2016, but the move seems to have stalled out. Frustrated with the city’s lack of action, Edwards sells to one-time San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., who uses his old NFL connections to secure a cushy lease at the home of the Buccaneers in Ray Jay, the site of a 3-1 thrashing of Antigua and Barbuda during the United States’ 2014 World Cup Qualifying campaign. Breather. Hey, we finished the Eastern Conference teams. Why are you still reading this? Why am I still writing it? Time is a meaningless construct in 2020 my friends, we are adrift in the void, fueled only by brief flashes of what once was and what may yet still be. Candidate: Austin Bold FC Location (Metro population): Austin, Texas (2,168,316) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 95,594) Potential owner: Michael Dell (reported net worth of $32.3 billion) Notes: Anthony Precourt’s Austin FC has some unexpected competition and it comes in the form of tech magnate Michael Dell. Dell, were he to buy the club, would be one of the richest owners on our list and could flash his cash in the new first division. Would he have enough to convince Darrel K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium (I’m not kidding, that’s its actual name) to go back to a grass surface, like it did from ’96-’08? That’s between Dell and nearly 100,000 UT football fans, but everything can be had for the right price. Candidate: Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC Location (Metro population): Colorado Springs, Colo. (738,939) Time zone: Mountain Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Falcon Stadium (FieldTurf, 46,692) Potential owner: Charles Ergen (reported net worth $10.8 billion) Notes: Welcome to Colorado Springs. We have hurdles. For the first time in 12 candidates, we’re back below the desired 1 million metro population mark. Colorado Springs actually plans to build a $35 million, 8,000 seat venue downtown that will be perfect for soccer, but in our timeline that’s 7,000 seats short. Enter Falcon Stadium, home of the Air Force Academy Falcons football team. Seems perfect except for the turf, right? Well, the tricky thing is that Falcon Stadium is technically on an active military base and is (I believe) government property. Challenges to getting in and out of the ground aside, the military tends to have a pretty grim view of government property being used by for-profit enterprises. Maybe Charles Ergen, founder and chairman of Dish Network, would be able to grease the right wheels, but you can go ahead and throw this into the “doubtful” category. It’s a shame, too. 6,035 feet of elevation is one hell of a home-field advantage. Candidate: El Paso Locomotive FC Location: El Paso, Texas Time zone: Mountain Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Sun Bowl (FieldTurf, 51,500) Potential owner: Paul Foster (reported net worth $1.7 billion) Notes: God bless Texas. When compiling this list, I found so many of the theoretical stadium replacements were nearly serviceable by high school football fields. That’s insane, right? Anyway, Locomotive don’t have to settle for one of those, they’ve got the Sun Bowl, which had its capacity reduced in 2001 to a paltry 51,500 (from 52,000) specifically to accommodate soccer. Sure, it’s a turf surface, but what does new owner Paul Foster (who is only the 1,477th wealthiest man in the world, per Forbes) care, he’s got a team in a top league. Side note: Did you know that the Sun Bowl college football game is officially, through sponsorship, the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl? Why is it not the Frosted Flakes Sun Bowl? Why is the cereal mascot the promotional name of the football game? What are you doing, Kellogg’s? Candidate: Las Vegas Lights FC Location: Las Vegas, Nev. (2,227,053) Time zone: Pacific Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Allegiant Stadium (Grass, 61,000) Potential owner: Sheldon Adelson (reported net worth $37.7 billion) Notes: Sin City. You had to know that the club that once signed Freddy Adu because “why not” was going to go all out in our flashy hypothetical proposal. Thanks to my narrative control of this whole thing, they have. Adelson is the second-richest owner in the league and has decided to do everything first class. That includes using the new Raiders stadium in nearby unincorporated Paradise, Nevada, and spending boatloads on high profile transfers. Zlatan is coming back to the U.S., confirmed. Candidate: New Mexico United Location: Albuquerque, N.M. Time zone: Mountain Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Isotopes Park – officially Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park (Grass, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion) Potential owner: Maloof Family (reported net worth $1 billion) Notes: New Mexico from its inception went deep on the community vibe, and I’ve tried to replicate that in this bid. The home field of Rio Grande Cr---I’m not typing out the whole thing—Isotopes Park falls just within the expansion rules we set to make it to 15,000 (weird, right?) and they’ve found a great local ownership group in the Lebanese-American Maloof (formerly Maalouf) family from Las Vegas. The only thing to worry about would be the metro population, but overall, this could be one of the gems of USL Prem. Candidate: Oklahoma City Energy FC Location: Oklahoma City, Okla. (1,396,445) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (Grass, 13,066) Potential owner: Harold Hamm (reported net worth $14.2 billion) Notes: There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow and it says it’s time to change stadiums and owners to make it to D1. A sale to oil magnate Harold Hamm would give the club the finances it needs, but Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark (home of the OKC Dodgers) actually falls outside of the boundary of what would meet capacity if 1,500 seats were added. Could the club pull off a move to Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma – home of the Oklahoma Sooners? Maybe, but at 20 miles, this would be a reach. Candidate: Orange County SC Location: Irvine, Calif. (3,176, 000 in Orange County) Time zone: Pacific Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Angels Stadium of Anaheim (Grass, 43,250) Potential owner: Arte Moreno (reported net worth $3.3 billion) Notes: You’ll never convince me that Rangers didn’t choose to partner with Orange County based primarily on its name. Either way, a sale to MLB Angels owner Arte Moreno produces a fruitful partnership, with the owner choosing to play his newest club out of the existing Angels stadium in OC. Another baseball conversion, sure, but with a metro population of over 3 million and the closest thing this hypothetical league has to an LA market, who’s complaining? Candidate: Phoenix Rising FC Location: Phoenix, Ariz. (4,857,962) Time zone: Arizona Stadium (playing surface, capacity): State Farm Stadium (Grass, 63,400) Potential owner: Ernest Garcia II (reported net worth $5.7 billion) Notes: We’re keeping it local with new owner and used car guru Ernest Garcia II. His dad owned a liquor store and he dropped out of college, which is making me feel amazing about my life choices right now. Casino Arizona Field is great, but State Farm Stadium is a grass surface that hosted the 2019 Gold Cup semifinal, so it’s a clear winner. Throw in Phoenix’s massive metro population and this one looks like a lock. Candidate: Reno 1868 FC Location: Reno, Nev. (425,417) Time zone: Pacific Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Mackay Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000) Potential owner: Nancy Walton Laurie (reported net worth $7.1 billion) Notes: The Biggest Little City on Earth has some serious barriers to overcome, thanks to its low metro population. A sale to Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and 1.6 mile-move to Mackay Stadium to split space with the University of Nevada, Reno makes this bid competitive, but the turf surface is another knock against it. Candidate: Rio Grande Valley FC Location: Edinburg, Texas (900,304) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): McAllen Memorial Stadium (FieldTurf, 13,500 – 15,000 with expansion) Potential owner: Alice Louise Walton (reported net worth $45 billion) Notes: Yes, I have a second straight Walmart heiress on the list. She was the first thing that popped up when I googled “McAllen Texas richest people.” The family rivalry has spurred Walton to buy a club as well, moving them 10 miles to McAllen Memorial Stadium which, as I alluded to earlier, is a straight up high school football stadium with a full color scoreboard. Toss in an additional 1,500 seats and you’ve met the minimum, despite the turf playing surface. Candidate: San Antonio FC Location: San Antonio, Texas (2,550,960) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Alamodome (FieldTurf, 64,000) Potential owner: Red McCombs (reported net worth $1.6 billion) Notes: I wanted to keep SAFC in the Spurs family, since the franchise is valued at $1.8 billion. That said, I didn’t let the Rooneys own the Riverhounds based on the Steelers’ value and it felt wrong to change the rules, so bring on Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs. Toyota Field isn’t viable in the first division, but for the Alamodome, which was built in 1993 in hopes of attracting an NFL franchise (and never did), San Antonio can finally claim having *a* national football league team in its town (contingent on your definition of football). Now if only we could do something about that turf… Candidate: San Diego Loyal SC Location: San Diego, Calif. (3,317,749) Time zone: Pacific Stadium (playing surface, capacity): SDCCU Stadium (formerly Qualcomm) (Grass, 70,561) Potential owner: Phil Mickelson (reported net worth $91 million) Notes: Yes, golf’s Phil Mickelson. The existing ownership group didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to meet requirements, and Phil seemed to slot right in. As an athlete himself, he might be interesting in the new challenges of a top flight soccer team. Toss in a move to the former home of the chargers and you might have a basis for tremendous community support. Candidate: FC Tulsa Location: Tulsa, Okla. (991,561) Time zone: Central Stadium (playing surface, capacity): Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium (FieldTurf, 30,000) Potential owner: George Kaiser ($10 billion) Notes: I’m a fan of FC Tulsa’s rebrand, but if they want to make the first division, more changes are necessary. A sale to Tulsa native and one of the 100 richest men in the world George Kaiser means that funding is guaranteed. A move to Chapman Stadium would provide the necessary seats, despite the turf field. While the undersize population might be an issue at first glance, it’s hard to imagine U.S. Soccer not granting a waiver over a less than a 10k miss from the mark. And that’s it! You made it. Those are all of the independent/hybrid affiliates in the USL Championship, which means that it’s time for our… VERDICT: As an expert who has studied this issue for almost an entire day now, I am prepared to pronounce which USL Championships could be most ‘ready” for a jump to the USL Prem. A reminder that of the 27 clubs surveyed, 0 of them met our ideal criteria (proper ownership $, metro population, 15,000+ stadium with grass field). Two of them, however, met almost all of those criteria: Indy Eleven and Miami FC. Those two clubs may use up two of our three available turf fields right from the outset, but the other factors they hit (particularly Silva’s ownership of Miami) makes them difficult, if not impossible to ignore for the top flight. But who fill in the rest of the slots? Meet the entire 14-team USL Premier League: Hartford Athletic Indy Eleven Louisville City FC Miami FC North Carolina FC Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC Tampa Bay Rowdies Saint Louis FC San Antonio FC New Mexico United Phoenix Rising FC Las Vegas Lights FC Orange County SC San Diego Loyal SC Now, I shall provide my expert rationale for each club’s inclusion/exclusion, which can be roughly broken down into four categories. Firm “yes” Hartford Athletic: It’s a good market size with a solid stadium. With a decent investor and good community support, you’ve got potential here. Indy Eleven: The turf at Lucas Oil Stadium is no reason to turn down a 62,421 venue and a metro population of over 2 million. Louisville City FC: Why doesn’t the 2017 & 2018 USL Cup champion deserve a crack at the top flight? They have the market size, and with a bit of expansion have the stadium at their own SSS. LCFC, you’re in. Miami FC, “The”: Our other blue-chip recruit on the basis of ownership value, market size and stadium capacity. Yes, that field is turf, but how could you snub Silva’s chance to claim victory as the first division 1 club soccer team to play in Miami? Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC: Pittsburgh sacrificed a lot to be here (according to my arbitrary calculations). Their market size and the potential boon of soccer at Heinz Field is an important inclusion to the league. Saint Louis FC: Willie hears your “Busch League” jokes, Willie don’t care. A huge market size, combined with the absence of an NFL franchise creates opportunity. Competition with the MLS side, sure, but St. Louis has serious soccer history and we’re willing to bet it can support two clubs. Tampa Bay Rowdies: With a huge population and a massive stadium waiting nearby, Tampa Bay seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up for the USL Prem. Las Vegas Lights FC: Ostentatious, massive and well-financed, Las Vegas Lights FC is everything that the USL Premier League would need to assert that it didn’t intend to play second fiddle to MLS. Players will need to be kept on a short leash, but this is a hard market to pass up on. Phoenix Rising FC: Huge population, big grass field available nearby and a solid history of success in recent years. No brainer. San Diego Loyal SC: New club? Yes, massive population in a market that recently lost an absolutely huge sports presence? Also yes. This could be the USL Prem’s Seattle. Cautious “yes” New Mexico United: You have to take a chance on New Mexico United. The club set the league on fire with its social media presence and its weight in the community when it entered the league last season. The market may be slightly under USSF’s desired 1 million, but fervent support (and the ability to continue to use Isotopes Park) shouldn’t be discounted. North Carolina FC: Carter-Finley’s mixed grass/turf surface is a barrier, to be sure, but the 57,000+ seats it offers (and being enough to offset other fully-turf offerings) is enough to put it in the black. Orange County SC: It’s a top-tier club playing in a MLB stadium. I know it seems unlikely that USSF would approve something like that, but believe me when I say “it could happen.” Orange County is a massive market and California likely needs two clubs in the top flight. San Antonio FC: Our third and only voluntary inclusion to the turf fields in the first division, we’re counting on San Antonio’s size and massive potential stadium to see it through. Cautious “no” Birmingham Legion FC: The town has solid soccer history and a huge potential venue, but the turf playing surface puts it on the outside looking in. Memphis 901 FC: Like Birmingham, not much to dislike here outside of the turf playing surface at the larger playing venue. Austin Bold FC: See the other two above. FC Tulsa: Everything’s just a little bit off with this one. Market’s slightly too small, stadium has turf. Just not enough to put it over the top. Firm “no” Charleston Battery: Small metro and a small potential new stadium? It’s tough to say yes to the risk. Charlotte Independence: A small new stadium and the possibility of having to compete with an organization that just paid over $300 million to join MLS means it’s best for this club to remain in the USL Championship. Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC: When a club’s best chance to meet a capacity requirement is to host games at a venue controlled by the military, that doesn’t speak well to a club’s chances. El Paso Locomotive FC: An undersized market and a turf field that meets capacity requirements is the death knell for this one. Oklahoma City Energy FC: Having to expand a baseball field to meet requirements is a bad start. Having to potentially play 20 miles away from your main market is even worse. Reno 1868 FC: Population nearly a half-million short of the federation’s requirements AND a turf field at the hypothetical new stadium makes impossible to say yes to this bid. Rio Grande Valley FC: All the seat expansions in the world can’t hide the fact that McAllen Memorial Stadium is a high school stadium through and through. Here’s who’s left in the 11-team Championship: Birmingham Legion FC Charleston Battery Charlotte Independence Memphis 901 FC Austin Bold FC Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC El Paso Locomotive FC Oklahoma City Energy FC Reno 1868 FC Rio Grande Valley FC FC Tulsa With MLS folding the six affiliates it has in USL League One, the league is a little bit thin (especially considering USSF’s requirements for 8 teams for lower level leagues), but seems definitely able to expand up to the necessary numbers with Edwards’ allusions to five new additions this year: Chattanooga Red Wolves SC Forward Madison FC Greenville Triumph SC Union Omaha Richmond Kickers South Georgia Tormenta FC Tucson Format of Assorted Leagues – This (like everything in this post) is pure conjecture on my part, but here are my thoughts on how these leagues might function in a first year while waiting for additional expansion. USL Premier – We’ll steal from the 12-team Scottish Premiership. Each club plays the other 11 clubs 3 times, with either one or two home matches against each side. When each club has played 33 matches, the top six and bottom six separate, with every club playing an additional five matches (against each other team in its group). The top club wins the league. The bottom club is automatically relegated. The second-bottom club will enter a two-legged playoff against someone (see below) from the championship playoffs. USL Championship -- 11 clubs is a challenge to schedule for. How about every club plays everyone else three times (either one or two home matches against each side)? Top four clubs make the playoffs, which are decided by two-legged playoffs. The winner automatically goes up. I need feedback on the second part – is it better to have the runner-up from the playoffs face the second-bottom club from the Premiership, or should the winner of the third-place match-up get the chance to face them to keep drama going in both playoff series? As for relegation, we can clearly only send down the last place club while the third division is so small. USL League One – While the league is so small, it doesn’t seem reasonable to have the clubs play as many matches as the higher divisions. Each club could play the other six clubs four times – twice at home and twice away – for a very equitable 24-match regular season, which would help restrict costs and still provide a chance to determine a clear winner. Whoever finishes top of the table goes up. And there you have it, a hypothetical look at how the USL could build a D1 league right now. All it would take is a new stadium for almost the entire league and new owners for all but one of the 27 clubs, who wouldn’t feel that their property would be massively devalued if they got relegated. Well that’s our show. I’m curious to see what you think of all of this, especially anything that you think I may have overlooked (I’m sure there’s plenty). Anyway, I hope you’re all staying safe and well.
Sam Harris on Michael Bloomberg and stop-and-frisk
Hi folks. In the latest podcast episode (189) Harris made some comments about Michael Bloomberg and stop-and-frisk. Let’s first of all take a look at what Harris said: “Let’s start with Bloomberg, because he’s someone who is getting, you know there’s at least an attempt to defenestrate him based on a few things he said as mayor which may have been politically imprudent or too candid by half, but in many respects not obviously wrong. And the arguments against him really seem to be pseudoarguments. And so, at the time of recording this this is a fairly vivid scandal or pseudoscandal in journalism now. But, the Democrats are pillorying him over remarks he made that were just unearthed from the Aspen Institute in 2015 when he was talking about stop-and-frisk. And I have the quote here, so this is Bloomberg in 2015, after he was mayor. He was I believe mayor for 11 years of New York City, and the policy for those who don’t recall it, it’s been since more or less phased out, but, the cops were stationed more in minority areas and stopping and frisking people looking for guns, mostly, and crime rates plummeted. There’s some uncertainty about the causal factor there, but it was not irrational at the time to think that stop-and-frisk was part of the policy that was succeeding in causing crime rates to plummet. Anyway, so Bloomberg said: '95% of your murders and murder victims fit one MO. You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15-25. That is true in New York. That is true in virtually every city in America. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people who are getting killed. So you want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is. Which means minority neighborhoods.' And then in a subsequent interview he said: 'One newspaper and one news service, they just keep saying ‘Oh it’s a disproportionate percentage of a particular ethnic group.’ That may be, but it’s not a disproportionate percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the crime. In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much, and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they’re saying. I don’t know where they went to school, but they certainly didn’t take a math course, or a logic course.' Alright so he’s clearly making it difficult for himself there, in hindsight, politically. But the reality is, all the data I’ve ever read about violent crime support what he’s saying here. The disproportionate number of perpetrators and the disproportionate number of victims are coming from minority communities. And what these communities suffer from is not too much policing, it’s been the wrong type of policing. There’s too much policing around petty crime, and not enough policing around solving murders, and how to get that right is a difficult question. But the people who are saying that the only way to have arrived at a stop-and-frisk policy was borne of racism, and not caring about the disparities of the way in which crime victimizes communities, that’s just clearly untrue. A completely rational and compassionate attempt to mitigate violent crime could have given you this policy. And it seems to me that the thing the Democratic party has to be able to admit at this point, in order to talk anything like sense on this topic, is that it’s a difficult social problem, that, the mayor was right in his diagnosis, that you could win money all day long in a casino that would allow you to place a bet on the age range and gender and minority identity of a perpetrator of a violent crime in New York City. You know, it’s not the ultra-Orthodox Jews who are mugging people in New York City. But that’s a politically toxic thing to make salient, and the remedy of stop-and-frisk became politically toxic, and probably wasn’t worth doing in hindsight. He could have figured that out earlier than he did, perhaps. But, the fact that he’s being castigated on the left as a racist monster, just seems to be emblematic of all of the miscalibrations in our politics on the left, that the wokeness is ensuring. And it seems, above all, a recipe for giving us four more years of Trump in the end.” Okay, well I have some thoughts about this. Let’s break this down into what was said, and what wasn’t said.
What was said.
Firstly, Harris is generally misrepresenting the situation when he says Democrats are ‘pillorying him’ over remarks he made. If you look at the transcripts of the tworecent debates, the comments aimed at Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy are generally not about the comments Harris quoted, but the policy itself. From Nevada: Sanders: ‘In order to beat Donald Trump, we’re going to need the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States. Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York city of stop-and-frisk, which went after African American and Latino people in an outrageous way.’ Warren: ‘Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop-and-frisk.’ Biden: Well the fact of the matter is, he has not managed his city very, very well when he was there. He didn’t get a whole lot done. He has stop-and-frisk, throwing close to 5 million young black men up against a wall. And when we came along in our administration, President Obama and said, “We’re going to send in a mediator to stop it.” He said, “That’s unnecessary.” Biden: ‘Yes. Let’s get something straight. The reason the stop and frisk change is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on. When we sent them there to say, “This practice has to stop,” the mayor thought it was a terrible idea. We send them there, a terrible idea. Let’s get the facts straight. Let’s get the order straight. And it’s not whether he apologize or not, it’s the policy. The policy was abhorrent and it was, in fact, of violation of every right people have. We are the one, our administration sent in people to monitor it. And the very time the mayor argued against that. This idea that he figured out it was a bad idea. He figured out it was a bad idea after we sent in monitors and said it must stop. Even then he continued the policy.’ Warren: ‘When the mayor says that he apologized, listen very closely to the apology. The language he used is about stop and frisk. It’s about how it turned out. Now this isn’t about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted communities of color, it targeted black and brown men from the beginning. And if you want to issue a real apology, then the apology has to start with the intent of the plan as it was put together and the willful ignorance day by day by day of admitting what was happening. Even as people protested in your own street, shutting out the sounds of people telling you how your own policy was breaking their lives. You need a different apology.’ From South Carolina: King: ‘Mayor Buttigieg, mayor to mayor, mayor to mayor, you've certainly had your issues with the black community as well. Do you think the New York City's implementation of stop and frisk was racist?’ Buttigieg: ‘Yes, in effect, it was. Because it was about profiling people based on their race. And the mayor even said that they disproportionately stopped white people too often and minorities too little. ’ O’Donnell: ‘Senator Klobuchar, was the way that the mayor implemented stop and frisk racist?’ Klobuchar: ‘Yes, and I think that what we need to do instead of just reviewing everything from the past is talk about where we're going to go forward.’ So we can see that generally, the comments being made by Democratic rivals are about the policy, how it was implemented, or how Bloomberg responded to criticism of the policy. Ditto comments made in the press:
Repeating the phrase, “We will not beat Donald Trump with,” Sanders ticked off the issues that have dogged Bloomberg for a week: a “racist” policy like stop-and-frisk that “caused communities of color to live in fear,” his past opposition to raising the minimum wage and that he “blamed the end of racist policies such as redlining for the financial crisis.” Biden slammed Bloomberg’s record on policing in New York and other issues important to African American voters, a crucial demographic for the Democratic nomination -- and especially for Biden, who has lost black support as Bloomberg’s support among blacks has picked up. “You take a look at the stop-and-frisk proposals. You take a look at his ideas on redlining he’s talking about. You take a look at what he’s done relative to the African American community,” Biden said. So the idea that the criticism is simply about remarks Bloomberg made is either a misrepresentation or is misleading commentary.
Secondly, ‘the arguments against him really seem to be pseudoarguments’. Which arguments? Because lots of arguments have been made about stop-and-frisk as it relates to Bloomberg, and we’ve already seen that the criticism of Bloomberg isn’t narrowly lazered in on some comments he’s made about it, but is about the policy itself as implemented and handled by Bloomberg. Without specifying the arguments that have been made, or the people who have made them, this is just a lazy and vague assertion. Nevertheless, we can actually look at some arguments against Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy:
It was ruled unconstitutional in how it was being carried out, violating the Fourth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment. I presume Harris wouldn’t consider this a ‘pseudoargument’.
evidence has emerged of the harms created by the strategy. We now know that students heavily exposed to stop-and-frisk were more likely to struggle in school, that young men were more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression, that this exposure fostered cynicism in policing and government writ large, and that it made residents more likely to retreat from civic life. In effect, Mr. Bloomberg’s policing record — one of his greatest liabilities as voters begin to appraise him at the ballot box — may have clouded the other accomplishments that form the strongest case for his bid as president, in areas like education, public health and good government. Recent research by Mr. Bacher-Hicks and Elijah de la Campa found that black middle-school students exposed to more aggressive policing were more likely to later drop out of school and less likely to enroll in college. The researchers looked at parts of New York that had many stops, not necessarily because those places had high crime or other correlated factors, but because they happened to be assigned a precinct commander who was more likely to advocate frequent stops. Within these neighborhoods, students may not have been stopped themselves. But they went to school in communities where this kind of policing was pervasive. The negative effects on education appeared for girls, too, even though they were far less likely to be stopped by police than boys or young men. That implies, the researchers suggest, that something deeply embedded in the girls’ environment — like fear or distrust of authority that students learned from it — might have hindered their education. More police stops, the researchers found, were also associated with chronic absenteeism. That study adds to other research in New York finding that black male students who were more exposed to stop-and-frisk had lower test scores. And other research using surveys about experiences with the police has found that students around the country who were arrested or stopped, or who witnessed these encounters or knew of others involved, had worse grades. That these effects appear strongest for black students suggests that aggressive policing could worsen racial achievement gaps in school as well. “All these kinds of disadvantages can accrue and build up,” said Aaron Gottlieb, a professor at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has studied policing and student grades. “Let’s say a police stop reduces the likelihood that you go to college. That’s going to impact your earnings in the long run.” Other research shows that negative interactions with the police can shape how residents think about government and civic institutions, and even democracy more broadly. “It teaches something really important — and something really negative — about what agents of the state and bureaucracies are supposed to be doing in your community, what role they play, what their character is,” said Amy Lerman, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. She and Vesla Weaver, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, have found that even minor encounters with police can reduce the likelihood of voting, a pattern other research of stop-and-frisk in New York has documented as well. Ms. Lerman and Ms. Weaver have shown that aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics can even have a chilling effect on whether residents use a service like 3-1-1 to report issues that have nothing to do with crime at all.
Is this a pseudoargument?
As a general widespread and crude policy, in how it was carried out, it may not have provided much, if any, benefit in crime reduction. That is, the benefits may have actually come from more focused or justifiable policing efforts:
Data suggests that the vast majority of street stops made by the police in New York at the height of stop-and-frisk weren’t particularly helpful in fighting crime: Few led to arrests or uncovered weapons. But research has found that a small subset of stops, those based on specific suspicions by officers and not general sweeps or racial profiling, do appear to have helped reduce crime.
Impact zones were significantly associated with reductions in total reported crimes, assaults, burglaries, drug violations, misdemeanor crimes, felony property crimes, robberies, and felony violent crimes. Impact zones were significantly associated with increases in total reported arrests, arrests for burglary, arrests for weapons, arrests for misdemeanor crimes, and arrests for property felony crimes. Impact zones were also significantly associated with increases in investigative stops for suspected crimes, but only the increase in stops made based on probable cause indicators of criminal behaviors were associated with crime reductions. The largest increase in investigative stops in impact zones was based on indicators of suspicious behavior that had no measurable effect on crime. The findings suggest that saturating high crime blocks with police helped reduce crime in New York City, but that the bulk of the investigative stops did not play an important role in the crime reductions. The findings indicate that crime reduction can be achieved with more focused investigative stops.
Is this a pseudoargument? Thirdly: ‘There’s some uncertainty about the causal factor there, but it was not irrational at the time to think that stop-and-frisk was part of the policy that was succeeding in causing crime rates to plummet.’ While it’s not possible for me to say whether it was rational or irrational at the time to think that stop-and-frisk played some role in crime reduction, even at the time, going back to at least 1999 (predating Bloomberg’s first mayoral term), the City had been aware that stop-and-frisk involved widespread constitutional violations:
[The City has] received both actual and constructive notice since at least 1999 of widespread Fourth Amendment violations occurring as a result of the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices. Despite this notice, they deliberately maintained and even escalated policies and practices that predictably resulted in even more widespread Fourth Amendment violations. . . . The NYPD has repeatedly turned a blind eye to clear evidence of unconstitutional stops and frisks.”
Which would not seem to be a great thing for a Presidential candidate to have aggressively expanded and vigorously defended over many years, when there was awareness of widespread constitutional violations at the time. Fourthly: ‘A completely rational and compassionate attempt to mitigate violent crime could have given you this policy.’ If such a policy were rooted in rationality and compassion, would there not have been consideration for the known widespread constitutional violations and the fact that the vast majority of those being stopped were innocent people having negative experiences with law enforcement? In addition to which, when the New York City Council passed bills which provided oversight of the stop-and-frisk policy, including an independent monitor of the police department, Bloomberg vetoed them both! Surely someone being motivated by rationality and compassion would not object to oversight of their practices? Fifth: ‘And it seems to me that the thing the Democratic party has to be able to admit at this point, in order to talk anything like sense on this topic, is that it’s a difficult social problem, that, the mayor was right in his diagnosis, that you could win money all day long in a casino that would allow you to place a bet on the age range and gender and minority identity of a perpetrator of a violent crime in New York City. You know, it’s not the ultra-Orthodox Jews who are mugging people in New York City. But that’s a politically toxic thing to make salient…’ So Harris says that this is a politically toxic thing to make salient, but for some reason the Democratic party are supposed to say ‘Well, Bloomberg was right that it’s mostly young black or Latino people committing violent crimes, in fact you could win money all day long betting in a casino on this very proposition!’ and this is…supposed to help them in the election? This sounds utterly ridiculous and a surefire way to alienate and anger voters and depress voter turnout. Lastly: ‘the remedy of stop-and-frisk…probably wasn’t worth doing in hindsight’. Is this all Harris can say in assessing the policy, it probably wasn’t worth doing in hindsight? No mention of its being unconstitutional in practice, of widespread constitutional violations being known since at least 1999, of the majority of those stopped being innocent people, of various harmful effects it could have caused and which may still be ongoing? This statement is so devoid of awareness or familiarity with the details that it just comes across as either callous or oblivious.
What wasn’t said.
Repeating myself, but: the practice was found to be unconstitutional. This is a major thing to omit from a discussion of stop-and-frisk under Bloomberg.
When saying the practice was ‘more or less phased out’, this omits the fact that it was massively amplified under Bloomberg, and that when Bloomberg says he cut the practice back by 95% this is based on cherry picking by comparing against a high figure from his expanded usage; when he left office there was still a net increase in reported stops compared to when he first took office.
Anyway, I have to say that, when considering both what Harris did and didn’t say about stop-and-frisk, I didn’t find him to be making much sense on this topic. What are your thoughts?
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