We begin today with Kiana Cox and Christine Tamir of Pew Research Center reporting on polling that shows that a large majority of Black Americans consider their Blackness to be central to a sense of personal identity.
A majority of non-Hispanic Black Americans (78%) say being Black is very or extremely important to how they think about themselves. This racial group is the largest among Black adults, accounting for 87% of the adult population, according to 2019 Census Bureau estimates. But among other Black Americans, roughly six-in-ten multiracial (57%) and Hispanic (58%) Black adults say this.
Black Americans also differ in key ways in their views about the importance of being Black to personal identity. While majorities of all age groups of Black people say being Black shapes how they think about themselves, younger Black Americans are less likely to say this – Black adults ages 50 and older are more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 to say that being Black is very or extremely important to how they think of themselves. Specifically, 76% of Black adults ages 30 to 49, 80% of those 50 to 64 and 83% of those 65 and older hold this view, while only 63% of those under 30 do. […]
Beyond the personal importance of Blackness – that is, the importance of being Black to personal identity – many Black Americans feel connected to each other. About five-in-ten (52%) say everything or most things that happen to Black people in the United States affect what happens in their own lives, with another 30% saying some things that happen nationally to Black people have a personal impact. And 43% say all or most things that happen to Black people in their local community affect what happens in their own lives, while another 35% say only some things in their lives are affected by these events. About four-in-ten Black adults in the U.S. (41%) say they feel their fates are strongly linked to Black people around the world, with 36% indicating that some things that happen to Black people around the world affect what happens in their own lives.
Some of the nuances in this report (i.e. the generation gap) are very interesting.
Errin Haines of The19thNews points out that the Senate confirmation hearings for SCOTUS Justice-Designate Ketanji Brown Jackson was only the latest battle in a partisan strategy to demonize Black women.
Black women are ascendant in American democracy, as politicians and voters, both powerful and pioneering. It’s a shift they have worked toward and that has met resistance, challenging the status quo of what leadership can look like. Many of the Black women I talk to in my reporting point to what they see as an emerging and potent partisan strategy: the weaponization of Black womanhood as a means to dilute their democratic strength and participation.
Aimee Allison, a progressive organizer and founder of She the People, told me there’s a particular disregard and disrespect shown to Black women nominees.
The goal is to wield “an ugly and effective weapon to blunt the power of Black women, to suggest through word and attitude that she will never be enough, that she will never belong in the halls of power,” Allison explained.
With more Black women awaiting confirmation and up for consideration for future historic and consequential nominations under a Democratic administration, is simply being a Black woman disqualifying for the Republicans who keep rejecting them?
Michael Harriot of The Grio breaks down the lyrics of yet another “same ol’ song” in the wake of the the death by cop of Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The tune has been played since this country created its system of policing as a way to control Black bodies in the most violent way possible. It has been remixed as a theme song for slave catchers; a lullaby for lynchings and a psalm for segregationists. When the band plays the first refrain, everyone stands at attention and places their hands over their hearts. Meanwhile, we kneel, knowing that this is America’s true national anthem.
Instead of examining the protests or joining Patrick Lyoya’s death ritual, we wanted to talk about the song, so we decided to verify the contents of this traditional wypipo spiritual. What could he have done better? We collected the data with specific examples to detail how you, too, can survive a police interaction.
John Stoehr of The Editorial Board thinks that progressive critics of Democrats place too much faith in the (white) voters of swing districts.
Critics of the Democrats fail to think about something the Democrats think about. The voters they need in order to keep the Congress don’t know democracy is in crisis, don’t believe democracy is in crisis or kinda sorta perhaps maybe don’t mind democracy being in crisis.
[…]
For these voters, it’s difficult to accept the fact that the Republicans have gone full fascist. It’s so hard it’s easier not to. And that’s easy, because, well, these people are not far from where the Republicans are. That’s what happens in a society organized by white supremacy.
That’s what the Democrats understand.
White supremacy is on the Republicans’ side.
So: What do you say to people who don’t believe the Republicans are dangerous? What do you say to people who believe democracy is fine now that the former president is out of power? What do you say to people who are already leaning toward the Republicans, because, you know, whiteness, but open to giving the Democrats a fair hearing?
Ibram X. Kendi of The Atlantic points out that the Republican Party is “grooming” white children for white supremacist ideology and at a great cost to those children.
The Republican Party is clearly not the party of parents. The Republican Party is certainly not the party of parents of color. But is the Republican Party even the party of white parents? […]
Every great myth is built on a foundational assumption, a fallacy widely assumed to be true. The foundational assumption of this great myth is that Republican politicians care about white children. But if they did, then they would not be ignoring or downplaying or defending or bolstering the principal racial threat facing white youth today. And I am not talking about critical race theory, which Republican propagandists have quite intentionally redefined, as one admitted, remaking it into a threat, and obscuring the real threat.
What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth.
I’m following up bilboteach’s great news roundup post on the COVID crisis in Shanghai, China with more reporting on the severe COVID outbreak and lockdown in Shanghai by Ellen Ioanes of Vox.
Shanghai’s local government enjoys a degree of relative autonomyin the context of President Xi Jinping’s China; it’s technically directly under the control of the central government, as a province-level city, but enjoys special status as the country’s financial hub and a showpiece for the rest of the world. Until March, the local government had handled the pandemic well, with no major outbreaks. But the rapid onset of the Omicron variant and the corresponding draconian government measures are pushing some citizens to the brink.
“I have no more money … What am I to do? I don’t care anymore,” one man shouts to his whole building in a viral video on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. “Just let the Communist Party take me.” […]
“Many Shanghai people blame the local government officials for mishandling the crisis, the coordination problems, lack of contingency planning, these issues. Which might be true,” Huang said. “But it is interesting how, within a month, Shanghai degenerated from a poster child of the pandemic control to a pariah of the Covid response.”
Sitara Noor of Al Jazeera looks at the domestic and foreign policy hot messes that Pakistan’s new prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has inherited.
Sharif’s government will have limited manoeuvring space on the foreign policy front. Since taking office, he has outlined some sound and ambitious foreign policy objectives. But during his one-year term as prime minister, he will likely focus on balancing existing ties rather than scoring any breakthroughs.
The personal rapport Sharif developed with China during his tenure as chief minister of Punjab will allow him to boost the ties between Beijing and Islamabad. However, the growing rivalry between the United States and China will also pressure him to strike a difficult balance between the two global powers.
Historically, foreign policy issues did not have a significant influence over domestic politics in Pakistan. But at the moment, the PTI is building an entire campaign against the new government and for the next election based on allegations of foreign interference in Pakistani politics and an alleged US conspiracy to overthrow the Khan government. The PTI will present to the public any move Sharif may make in the next year to improve relations with Washington, or New Delhi, as corroborating evidence for its foreign interference allegations. Therefore, during Sharif’s short term, foreign policy will have an outsized influence over domestic politics.
I know that Anne Applebaum and Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for The Atlantic was linked in the comment section of last Thursday’s APR; it really does need to be in the body of an APR.
It was late in the evening when we met Zelensky at his compound. The surrounding streets were barricaded and empty, the building itself almost entirely blacked out. Soldiers with flashlights led us through a maze of sandbagged corridors to a harshly lit, windowless room adorned only with Ukrainian flags. There was no formal protocol, no long wait, and we were not told to sit at the far end of an elongated table. Zelensky, the comedian who has become a global icon of freedom and bravery, entered the room without fanfare.
“Hi!” he said, brightly, and then proceeded to complain about his back. (“I have a back, and that’s why I have some problems, but it’s okay!”) He thanked us for not filming the interview: Even though he’s been a professional television performer for all of his adult life, it’s a relief to occasionally go unfilmed.
On or off camera, Zelensky conducts himself with a deliberate lack of pretense. In a part of the world where leadership usually implies stiff posture and a pompous manner—and where signaling military authority requires, at a minimum, highly visible epaulets—he instead evokes sympathy and feelings of trust precisely because he sounds, in the words of a Ukrainian acquaintance, “like one of us.” He is a kind of anti-Putin: Rather than telegraphing a cold-eyed, murderous superiority, he wants people to understand him as an Everyman, a middle-aged dad with a bad back.
Karen DeYoung and Michael Birnbaum of The Washington Post report that the U.S. and its allies are preparing for a long-term isolation of Russia.
At NATO and the European Union, and at the State Department, the Pentagon and allied ministries, blueprints are being drawn up to enshrine new policies across virtually every aspect of the West’s posture toward Moscow, from defense and finance to trade and international diplomacy.
Outrage is most immediately directed at Putin himself, who President Biden said last month “can’t remain in power.” While “we don’t say regime change,” said a senior E.U. diplomat, “it is difficult to imagine a stable scenario with Putin acting the way he is.”
But the nascent new strategy goes far beyond the Kremlin leader, as planners are continuing to revise seminal documents that are to be presented in the coming months. Biden’s first National Security Strategy, legally required last year but still uncompleted, is likely to be significantly altered from initial expectations it would concentrate almost exclusively on China and domestic renewal. The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy, sent last month in classified form to Congress, prioritizes what a brief Pentagon summary called “the Russia challenge in Europe,” as well as the China threat.
While Markos and Mark Sumner have the military battles and strategies of the Russia-Ukraine war covered better than anything that I have read anywhere else, there’s also interesting and even bizarre news on the disinformation/intelligence fronts of the war.
Aleksandar Brezar of Euronews reports on the efforts of a group called The Elves to combat Russian disinformation.
Since the war began, the Lithuanian Elves actively took part in denial-of-service or DDOS attacks on Russian and Belarusian state institutions, propaganda outlets and infrastructure sites.
These attacks, which also saw participation by Anonymous, a notorious activist hacking group, knocked out access to websites ranging from private banks to RT and Sputnik and the Russian Ministry of Defence for days on end.
According to The Hawk, the fight taking place online is a way “to support our brothers in Ukraine”.
“This is additional motivation — to spread information about what is really going on, and to somehow reach Russia, to inform the Russian people that this is a real war, not a bloody ‘special operation’,” he said.
But the task is not simple, and it is an everyday struggle in Lithuania as well as the other 11 countries where The Elves now have a presence.
Matt Burgess of Wired writes about the massive amounts of data about the Russian state that has been “doxed” and then published by Ukrainian authorities, hacktivists, and their allies.
Since Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s borders at the end of February, colossal amounts of information about the Russian state and its activities have been made public. The data offers unparalleled glimpses into closed-off private institutions, and it may be a gold mine for investigators, from journalists to those tasked with investigating war crimes. Broadly, the data comes in two flavors: information published proactively by Ukranian authorities or their allies, and information obtained by hacktivists. Hundreds of gigabytes of files and millions of emails have been made public.
“Both sides in this conflict are very good at information operations,” says Philip Ingram, a former colonel in British military intelligence. “The Russians are quite blatant about the lies that they’ll tell,” he adds. Since the war started, Russian disinformation has been consistently debunked. Ingram says Ukraine has to be more tactical with the information it publishes. “They have to make sure that what they’re putting out is credible and they’re not caught out telling lies in a way that would embarrass them or embarrass their international partners.” […]
Regardless, it appears to be one of the first times a government has doxed thousands of military personnel in one fell swoop. Jack McDonald, a senior lecturer in war studies at King’s College London who has researched privacy in war, says that, throughout history, nations have kept lists of their opponents or tried to create them. But these have often been linked to counterinsurgency efforts and were typically not made public. “Openly publishing such lists of your opponent, particularly at the scale that digital operations appear to allow, that seems very new,” McDonald says.
Aiganysh Aidarbekova of the Netherlands-based investigative group Bellingcat tells the bizarre story of a “niche” Russian QAnon channel on Telegram that was against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been shut down by Russian authorities.
QAnon Russia, one of the most popular channels in this network with close to 90,000 followers, posted a call for “peace and love” a day after the invasion began. It also urged Russian soldiers not to bomb and shoot Ukrainians. A short time later, an emotional anti-war poem featured on the same channel.
Another channel urged their followers to fact check and practice good “mental hygiene” when consuming information they read online.
Many QAnon channels around the world have regularly praised Russia’s war since it began. They see the invasion as an effort to take down the international “Cabal” around which QAnon’s conspiracy theories are centred. They posit different ideas on the war’s goals, whether it’s to destroy US “biolabs” in Ukraine they claim are inventing a new Covid-like disease, or that it is about preventing the ‘Great Reset” which supposedly seeks to use the pandemic to destroy capitalism and install a one world government.
All of this supposedly makes Russia an ally in this fight and the invasion a war against all evil, for all good.
An eight-reporter team for Der Spiegel reports on the increasingly acute global food shortage caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Already, every second person living in sub-Saharan Africa has trouble securing sufficient food each day. According to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, it wouldn’t take much for the situation to turn into a full-blown catastrophe.
Thus far, though, the calls for help have largely gone unheeded. There are no shocking images making the rounds and no bodies lying in the streets – as there are in Ukraine. And there are no African heads of state regularly appealing to parliaments in the West as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been doing. Hunger is not a war crime, and it doesn’t arrive as suddenly as a shell bursting in one of Lissitsa’s grain silos.
Rather, it kills more slowly. But it has arrived.
It can be seen when a Lebanese school has to suspend meals for its students because no more wheat is arriving in the country. Or when Egypt announces fixed prices for non-subsidized bread in order to slow inflation.
Moving on to the upcoming second round of the presidential election in France, France 24 interviewed Ipsos account executive Mathieu Gallard about the overwhelming support that President Emmanuel Macron has among voters aged 60 and over.
FRANCE 24: Why was Macron so much more popular among voters aged 60 and over – and especially 70 and over – than his two biggest first-round rivals Le Pen and Mélenchon?
GALLARD: It’s not a great surprise because the surveys we did for the second round in 2017 showed that Macron got 78 percent of the vote among people aged 70 – so even then it was an enormous majority.
Towards the start of his mandate some of his measures didn’t go down brilliantly with pensioners. But then the various crises Macron has had to deal with – and we’ve had a lot of crises, from the Yellow Vests to Covid-19 to the war in Ukraine – all of them reinforced Macron’s stature in the eyes of this section of the electorate. And traditionally these age groups have demonstrated a tendency to back the incumbent president.
So from a historical perspective it’s not surprising to see this play out – and in Macron’s case it seems very much linked to the crises he faced. Older voters generally judge him to have managed quite well, they’re much more inclined to think this than the median voter.
It’s a section of the electorate that doesn’t want to take risks and ergo they’re thinking: Macron’s managed things fairly well so let’s keep him for another five years.
The youngest president of the 5th Republic is elected by its oldest voters. Macron is a distant third among 18 to 34-year-olds, but sweeps the 70+ category. (via @mathieugallard) pic.twitter.com/YKCmlvPxJu
Lara Marlowe of The Irish Times reports that far left party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his voters will be a “kingmaker” in the April 24 contest between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right’s Marine Le Pen.
If Fabien Roussel, the Communist, had heeded Mr Mélenchon’s appeals to abandon his candidacy, Mr Roussel’s 2.28 per cent would have gone to Mr Mélenchon and he – not extreme right-wing leader Marine Le Pen – would have faced President Emmanuel Macron in the April 24th run-off.
Mr Mélenchon had lost for the fourth time, by 421,420 votes. The left was yet again the victim of its own fragmentation. The 70-year-old had said he would not stand again. The dream was over.
But in the hours that followed, a different narrative took hold. Defeat started to look like a kind of victory. Mr Mélenchon had moved from fourth place in 2017 to third place. He had increased his vote by more than 2 per cent.
Now Mr Mélenchon, the third man, is relishing the role of arbiter and kingmaker. Neither Mr Macron nor Ms Le Pen can win without some of his 7.7 million votes.
Finally today, I can’t get enough of this April 5 story in The Washington Post by Jessica Contrera about the hyperpolyglot carpet cleaner, Vaughn Smith.
In a city where diplomats and embassies abound, where interpreterscan command six-figure salaries at the State Department or the International Monetary Fund, where language proficiency is résumé rocket fuel, Vaughn was a savant with a secret.
“A real, live polyglot,” Kelly said.
I’d never heard of that word — meaning, a person who can speak several languages — before meeting Vaughn. But Kelly, who dabbles in Cantonese, Mandarin and “beer in most languages,” had seen polyglots on YouTube, promising that anyone can become multilingual if they try.
Far more unusual are the world’s “hyperpolyglots,”people who, by one expert’s definition, can speak 11 languages or more. The higher the number, the rarer the person. But there have been many documented cases of such linguistic legends, each one raising questions about the limits of human potential — the same questions I had about Vaughn.
On March 7, the United States announced that it would send 400 troops to Lithuania to compliment 600 already there. On April 7, we saw American artillery passing through Poland.
A train of military equipment straining towards the border with Ukraine was seen at the railway station Gniezno (Poland) The following equipment can be seen on the platforms: ▪️American tracked command and staff machine M577 ▪️American self-propelled artillery 155mm pic.twitter.com/iHZ6zpfIFO
At the time, people wondered if that was equipment headed to Ukraine, but nope, it was part of that American reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank.
Around 100 additional US troops with Paladin artillery systems arrived in Lithuania on Thursday, the Lithuanian Armed Forces have said.https://t.co/iFk92U51SF
That unit was around 100 Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers with 10 M109 Paladin howitzers and supporting equipment. So not a particularly big column. Yet from the announcement of the new deployment to arrival, it took five weeks. Moving heavy equipment, its logistical support, and tons of ammunition takes time. This isn’t Amazon Prime. Russia’s pre-invasion buildup itself took at least five months, and they have a robust rail system to internally move material.
That’s why it’s a little frustrating seeing things like this:
We can concede that material isn’t getting there fast enough. But that has nothing to do with a “lack of urgency.” Logistical challenges don’t disappear just because Ukraine is one of the good guys. Moving enough material to equip and sustain an Army that has grown to half a million strong takes time. Take a look at the latest $800 million aid package from the United States:
18 155mm Howitzers and 40,000 artillery rounds;
Ten AN/TPQ-36 counter-artillery radars;
Two AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel air surveillance radars;
300 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
500 Javelin missiles and thousands of other anti-armor systems;
200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
100 Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;
C-4 explosives and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing; and
M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions configured to be consistent with the Ottawa Convention.
An M113 weights 12 tons. So we’re talking about moving 2,400 tons of armored personnel carriers. A Hummer is 3 tons, so another 300 tons. Those howitzers are around eight tons. There’s only 18 of them, but the ammo? Around 2,000 tons. The rest of this stuff adds up to thousands of additional tons. There is only so much transport capacity available. The fact that the United States can move this much material in a month is incredible. Remember, the last $800 million aid package was announced on March 16, while this latest one was announced April 13. Pentagon delivers the aid as quickly as it can, after which the next package is announced.
The Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) community tracks every flight to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland, the global hub for the Ukraine equip and resupply effort, about 90 miles from the Ukrainian border. It is a never-ending parade of American, British, Canadian, Ukrainian, and other allied planes planes delivering goodies for the war effort. Here is a Ukrainian cargo plan flying in new TB2 drones from Turkey on Friday.
Another Ukrainian Antonov An-12 flying from 🇹🇷Tekirdag Corlu Airport in Turkey to 🇵🇱Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland: 🇺🇦UR-CAJ as #MEM3014. I should and will soon make an overview of recent flight activities of Ukrainian Antonovs An-12, focusing on Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. https://t.co/fKGfqcZOLPpic.twitter.com/0Qc62dthKv
For fun, I looked up that plane to see what it was up to Saturday, and it made a run from Romania to Rzeszów. Weird, given that Romania shares a border with Ukraine, but a clear sign that logistically, it’s simply easier to manage everything out of the Rzeszów hub. You can see all the Ukrainian cargo runs to Rzeszów since the war began here.
On Friday, Rzeszów hosted two Canadian cargo planes (one from Macedonia, the other from Prestwick, England), one American cargo flight from Dover Air Force base, one charter cargo flight from Sweden, that Ukrainian flight from Tekirdag, Turkey, with the TB2 drones, one MEDAVAC flight likely shuttling war wounded to Oslo, Norway, and assorted smaller craft from several NATO militaries, perhaps bringing in trainers and other VIPs aiding in the war effort.
The day prior, on Thursday, the airport hosted three American cargo flights, and one each from Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Turkey.
10 of these Bushmasters headed toward Ukraine.
On Saturday, this Australian Air Force cargo plane brought Bushmaster armored cars to Rzeszów. Australia announced this donation of 10 Bushmasters on April 4, arriving on the 16th. Moving heavy equipment takes time, and this was just 10 vehicles, not several hundred.
Meanwhile, NATO is rubbing Russia’s nose in these shipments. Those planes could turn off their transponders and arrive in secret, but they’re actively broadcasting their presence, their source, and their destination. They want Russia to know what they’re up to, repeatedly reminding them of Western resolve, perhaps hoping it erodes Russia’s own. Russia is certainly helpless to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, we haven’t talked about ammo yet. Vehicles and killer drones and aircraft are the sexy big-ticket items. But an army runs on its stomach … and on ammunition.
A Note on Munitions Consumption:
Much discussion is currently happening on the level of support given to Ukraine in terms of munitions and ordinance. Often we will see support discussed in dollar amounts, or it number of rounds. Rarely is the rate of consumption addressed.
I believe some context would be beneficial here. The basic load for a rifleman when I was deployed was 210 rounds—7 mags of 30. Many of us carried more depending on circumstances & expectations. Add 2 pistol mags for another 30 (2×15). So 240 rounds at bare minimum.
You’ll notice we’re leaving out machine guns, SAWs, and other platforms for the moment. Ukraine has mobilized reserves, territorials, militia, and has increasing numbers of volunteers joining its ranks. For ease of math, let’s ballpark their forces at 100K combat personnel operating in an infantry capacity. Just to give those personnel a SINGLE basic combat load is 24 million rounds of ammo. In heavy fighting, especially in urban areas, infantry can burn through that basic load in less than a day.
Now let’s talk artillery. The UAF uses a similar organization to the Russians when it comes to artillery, on paper. [Self-propelled] Artillery Battalions (for example) consist of 3 companies of 6 self-propelled guns—18 total. This is easy math, 1 battalion firing a measly 11 rounds/gun eats 198 rounds. In a prolonged or support fire intensive engagement, a single battalion can easily burn a thousand rounds in a day.
Just two 75mm howitzers in action in Burma, outside Myitkyina, mid-1944.
24 million rounds weighs around 11 tons. And remember, that’s a single combat load! A thousand 152mm artillery rounds weighs around 48 tons. And that doesn’t include machine gun ammo, anti-tank and anti-air missiles, grenade launchers, tank rounds, Infantry Fighting Vehicle cannon rounds, and mortar rounds. In WWII, an estimated 45,000 rounds of small-arms munitions were fired for each enemy kill. It was 50,000 in Vietnam. A lot of ammo is fired in combat. A LOT.
Bottom line, fighting a conventional war eats ungodly amounts of ammunition, and Ukraine can’t manufacture it for itself. Some of it gets captured from the Russians, but most of it has to come from outside, eating into the logistical chain feeding Ukraine’s war effort. There is only so much Ukraine can pick up from Poland and shuttle back home at any given time, and how do you even begin to prioritize this stuff? Ukraine desperately needs it all and more, and it needs it yesterday!
That’s why NATO has prioritized certain shipments over others, like anti-tank, anti-aircraft missiles, and small arms munitions the first month of the war. Ukraine was demanding aircraft, but the logistical footprint could’ve displaced the missiles that turned the tide in the Battle of Kyiv. Indeed, the Pentagon has repeatedly referred to logistics as the reason for holding back certain weapons. For example, it’s great we’re finally sending artillery howitzers to Ukraine, but NATO artillery uses 155mm rounds, which are incompatible with the 152mm Soviet-era guns Ukraine already has in service. Now Ukraine has to make sure the right caliber rounds get to the right units, and god forbid Russia takes out the storage depot they’re stored at, Ukraine can’t grab existing stock from elsewhere to feed their American-sourced guns.
However paternalistic it may sound, American logistical prowess is the best in the world. And there’s something to be said about dispassionate decision making, as callous as that sounds. One might not make the best calls while in fight-or-flight mode. I trust the Pentagon to make the right calls, just like I trust their decision to green light NATO-standard 155mm artillery guns. Hopefully it means other NATO nations are emptying their stocks of similar guns and ammunition.
Anyway, I wrote this because I was triggered by people who think big, heavy, and voluminous military gear and ammunition magically show up after pressing an order button on a phone app. There are people around the globe busting their asses to get gear to Ukraine as quickly as humanely possible. Could “more” be done? Perhaps, but people need to stop acting like nothing is being done. When the story of this war is written, this massive international logistical effort will be a major reason Ukraine triumphed against the Russian bear.
This was before the Moskva sinking, but ummm, are we sure they’re telling him what’s really going on in Ukraine?
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer: Putin “believes he is winning the war” The chancellor met with the Russian president on 11 April in Moscow on ‘not a friendly visit’https://t.co/5m4QfnL18T
A state secret comes into the open: how inflation targets the poor.
When I met Amparo Ramirez in March of 2020, our conversation was very much of the moment. The pandemic was in its early days and the fear factor was high, but Ramirez, who works in food service at the Los Angeles International Airport, was explaining that even if she felt ill, she would most likely report for her shift—and so would her colleagues.
“If you miss work, they look at you differently,” she told me through a translator, speaking of her supervisors at LSG Sky Chefs, one of the world’s largest airline food catering services. “I cannot afford to miss.”
Ramirez was making $15.25 per hour at the time. Two years later, having survived a protracted layoff by using stimulus and unemployment money to pay the rent on her apartment, she is back on the job. Not only that, but her wages with Sky Chefs have risen to $17 an hour, an increase of nearly 12%. Is she feeling relieved?
“I am incredibly worried, and I really don’t feel prepared,” Ramirez, 50, said. “I’ve been thinking that I might have to try to get a second job. I’m living at the margin.”
Among the more pernicious aspects of inflation is that, although it happens to everyone at the same time, it doesn’t affect everyone equally. Higher-income individuals and families may tighten their belts. But at the end of the economic scale where Ramirez lives, the working poor get hammered by prices spiking on the basic necessities of life—food, shelter, power, fuel—with little choice but to pay.
Economists have long recognized this effect, known as inflation inequality. Now, amid the worst inflationary cycle in 40 years, California is seeing it play out in real-time. Despite wages rising significantly as understaffed companies try to lure people back to work (or into the job market at all), most lower-income families have realized virtually no gain in purchasing power.
“As of last December, you needed to have seen about an 8% increase in wages over the past two years to keep up with inflation, and that was before anything that has happened here in 2022,” said Sarah Bohn, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.
The PPIC’s research shows that since December of 2020, wages in California have increased 5% overall—but when inflation is factored in, they’ve actually decreased by 2%. “It became obvious that we had to look at this, because it really impacts so many people in the state, particularly the lower-wage earners,” Bohn said.
The Consumer Price Index shows that food costs shot up nearly 8% over a 12-month period that ended in February, the latest month on record.
It’s a huge number of people. By most estimates, about a third of California’s labor force, roughly 6 million workers, earns less than $15 an hour, a figure that has held fairly steady over the past two decades. Some of the state’s most potent economic engines, including agriculture, manufacturing, and the leisure/hospitality industry, are built on low-wage jobs.
These are full-time employees, many of them with years of service and families to support. Ramirez, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico, has worked in the U.S. for more than 30 years and is a lawful permanent resident here. She raised her daughter as a single parent, paying $1,700 a month for their one-bedroom unit in Culver City—a rent that did not rise over the past two years, which Ramirez described as a near-lifesaving turn of events. (Her current base pay comes out to $2,720 a month before taxes.)
Now, “I got a message from the landlords that they’re considering raising it,” Ramirez said. Her food and gas costs have skyrocketed. The Consumer Price Index shows that food costs shot up nearly 8% over a 12-month period that ended in February, the latest month on record. Average gas prices in Los Angeles County, meanwhile, increased by more than a dollar per gallon in a month and have been near $6 a gallon for weeks. A year ago, the average was $3.80.
Ramirez was also hit by a critical change in her company’s approach to health care. Previously, Sky Chefs offered employees an additional $5.67 per hour in lieu of using its health care plan. Ramirez took the money—about $900 extra per month—and bought subsidized insurance through Covered California for far less than that, using the difference to meet her budget.
But beginning April 1, Sky Chefs changed its policy. Now, workers are offered what the company calls “no premium” health insurance, and they no longer have the choice to take the supplemental $5.67 per hour. Ramirez’s workers’ organization, Unite Here Local 11, has protested the change, saying it was not collectively bargained, carries a high deductible and will hurt workers at the worst possible time. (Disclosure: Unite Here Local 11 is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)
Ramirez needs a car to get to work, so she shoulders both a car payment and the gas price hikes. The $900 monthly reduction in pay, she said, eliminates any cushion against rising prices. She is trying to help her daughter, now in her second semester at West Los Angeles College, to pay for school, “but I’m barely able to make ends meet.”
* * *
When those at higher income levels encounter soaring prices, they may choose to cut back or skip on luxuries, but they won’t feel dramatic effects nearly as quickly because they don’t need to devote as much of their total income to the basics. A 2019 study found that higher-income households spend 64% of their monthly budget on necessities like food, shelter, clothing, transportation and health care. Lower-income households, meanwhile, must use 83% of their income to cover those same essentials.
During the pandemic, the state and federal governments rushed out stimulus payments and raised unemployment benefits, and California enacted rent relief and tenant protection policies. With those programs ending, and with enhanced federal child tax credit payments from last year also phased out, lower-income families may quickly find themselves in desperate circumstances when their costs rise.
The median cost of rent is expected to rise 10% this year and health care costs will go up 9.6%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“With inflation kicking in, the disappearance of these income supports is being doubly felt by many families,” Chris Wimer, co-director of the Center on Poverty & Social Policy at Columbia University, said via email. When the enhanced tax credit payments ended in December, Wimer explained, “We saw a big spike in child poverty of 3 million to 4 million children. Absolutely, child poverty has increased.”
And the screws are being tightened. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the median cost of rent is expected to rise 10% this year, and health care costs will go up 9.6%. Meanwhile, a survey of companies by the compensation software giant Payscale found that fewer than one in 10 employers plan to hike pay more than 5%, meaning most raises won’t keep pace with inflation.
Higher-income individuals and households in California will withstand that. In most cases, especially among the top 20% of earners, they have savings and investment funds that could be tapped in an emergency, and they often own homes and have fixed mortgages. Since they spend less of their overall income on necessities, they’re better positioned to maintain those hedges against inflation.
* * *
For lower-income Californians, this inflationary cycle may both prolong their economic standstill and further a wealth gap in the state. With rising prices snapping up every available dollar, low-wage workers have less (or no) money to save or invest. And rents, unlike gas or food prices, rarely go down once they’ve been raised.
The price of groceries continue to go up.
“Typically, inflation is viewed as a significant tax on the poor,” said Manuel Pastor, who directs the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. Pastor noted that it is highly unusual during a period of inflation for “wages at the bottom to be rising pretty rapidly,” as they are now, the result of market forces and the Great Resignation. Again, though, the escalating cost of basic goods and services is wiping out most of those wage gains for lower-income families.
Californians may yet see another round of financial relief. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initial proposed state budget for the coming fiscal year projected a $45.7 billion surplus due to tax collections from the very wealthy, who enjoyed massive run-ups during the pandemic. Updated estimates from the Legislative Analyst’s Office say the surplus could rise to $23 billion more than Newsom’s original estimate, and that likely will trigger rules that mandate rebates to taxpayers. The governor has suggested that his revised budget plan in May will reflect that reality.
Beyond quick payouts, though, “We need to look at what structural impediments are in place that prevent employers from being encouraged or incentivized to offer better jobs,” said the PPIC’s Bohn. “We have to ask: Why is it that a third of our workforce in California is in low-wage jobs? Because this is difficult for them and ultimately for our society.”
In the meantime, the work goes on—and so does the struggle. When Amparo Ramirez was informed last year that Sky Chefs was recalling her, “I ran right back to work,” she said. “To have full-time hours, it was everything.” She just wants to be able to live on what she earns, and in a state roiled by inflation inequality, that is no sure thing.
Five years ago, the only full-service grocery store in the Walnut Hills neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, closed.
It was a blow to the neighborhood, which was home mostly to Black residents. Community activists, including Mona Jenkins, asked grocery chains to bring a new store to their area, but she says they weren’t interested.
“They felt like there wasn’t enough economic stability within our neighborhood,” said Jenkins, a cooperative food justice coordinator for Co-Op Cincy. “The next thing was, ‘Okay, if no one wants to come in, what’s our next solution?’”
After a series of community meetings with Walnut Hills residents, Jenkins and her two co-founders decided they’d open their own grocery store, and opted to design it as a worker cooperative. The trio, all three of whom are Black women, launched a fundraiser in March for the brick-and-mortar grocery store they named Queen Mother’s Market Cooperative. Their efforts built upon an interim food delivery program Jenkins and her co-founders helped launch in the wake of the closure.
“We evolved out of the need [for] healthy food access being denied in our neighborhood,” Jenkins said. “It evolved out of the need [for] jobs in our neighborhoods that were paying a wage where we could still be able to live within that particular neighborhood.”
Nationwide, grocery store employees and other retail workers are notoriously underpaid. The hourly mean wage among cashiers at food and beverage stores in the U.S. is $13.18 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But for Jenkins, the co-op structure would ensure more than just living wages.
In a cooperative, “you are building a collective of people who are working together to ensure that everyone succeeds, that everyone has opportunities,” she said. “It’s about economic benefits, it’s about social benefits, and specifically with a grocery store, it’s about health benefits.”
How we work and how we think of labor has drastically shifted during the pandemic. The need for more power and agency in the workplace is why so many workers are unionizing and, at least in part, why millions have quit their jobs. Another often overlooked option for creating structural change is a worker cooperative. The business structure gives workers authority over their workplace, allowing them to set their own rules and, importantly, share in the profits. Prism spoke to worker co-op experts around the country to learn more about how they operate.
What is a worker cooperative?
A worker cooperative is a business where workers manage the company through democratic decision-making processes, as determined by the members.
“It allows us to use our skills in order to change the power dynamic,” said Kristin Forde, a cooperative development specialist at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Cooperatives. “Profit is shared in a way that is somewhat of an equalizer.”
Some experts argue cooperatives are ideal when recovering from economic crises. Over 600 cooperatives have been identified in the U.S., consisting of 6,000 workers, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives’ Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI)—though the organization estimates that in reality the numbers are closer to 1,000 co-ops and 10,000 workers.
Among the 180 co-ops that responded to the group’s survey, 53% of workers were white, 25% were Latinx, 13% were Black, and 4% were Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI). In a separate 2015 report, DAWI found that the bulk of co-ops were in retail, professional services, manufacturing, waste management such as cleaning firms, and the food services industry, though co-ops exist in a wide variety of businesses.
It may not appear different to customers, even in daily operations.
“It looks a lot like a normal business,” said Andrew Delmonte, the executive director of Cooperation Buffalo. The difference is that workers collectively make decisions and have the final say over operations.
There’s no boss?
Not exactly. Many cooperatives still delineate roles in the running of the business, such as in a restaurant, where the head chef leads kitchen operations or a floor manager oversees the front of house.
Hierarchy can exist, but the worker-owner model allows for transparency.
“You still need to turn a profit so you can have that manager role to ensure that happens,” said Charity Schmidt, also a cooperative development specialist at UW. “But the key [is] that there is oversight of that manager. Not just one person, but through the board of directors.”
Board of directors? Isn’t that for nonprofits?
Nonprofits often have a board of directors. But worker cooperatives aren’t nonprofits.
Cooperatives are set up the same way a business would be created: through a limited liability company, or, in some states, a cooperative corporation. These entities are how the state categorizes your business.
In a co-op, the board of directors is a part of the cooperative made up of either all the worker-owners or a subset elected to represent everyone. Not all the workers necessarily have to be owners.
Members vote on how the business is run—including wages, hiring decisions, and conflict resolution—by setting up bylaws. Some decision-making power may be delegated to committees to oversee specific responsibilities that don’t require board approval. Who decides what and how those decisions are made is ultimately determined by the workers: one worker, one vote.
Mo Manklang, the policy director at the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, said that smaller co-ops may make decisions between the entire group of member-owners or set up a committee that runs human resources or other administrative duties. In larger cooperatives, like the 2,000-member Cooperative Home Care Associates based in the Bronx, there might be a more traditional HR or administrative department.
Do co-ops pay higher wages?
They can, though the jobs still operate within what the market will pay for certain jobs. In a 2021 report from DAWI, more than half of respondents to the organization’s survey reported that pay was “somewhat better or much better” at the cooperative than a previous job. The wage boosts were an average of $3.52 an hour.
However, pay gaps still exist in co-ops. On average, men and white worker-owners made $24.56 and $22.63 an hour, respectively, compared to $15.15 an hour for women and $14.75 for people of color, the survey found.
Large pay gaps exist across different sectors; in professional, scientific, and technical services the mean hourly pay is $30.76, while workers in health care and social services make $11.67 per hour. Because of this, DAWI suggests pay gaps could be the result of “occupational segregation, which occurs when demographic groups are not equally represented in all occupations,” according to the 2021 report.
Profit-sharing is another element of equalizing pay among worker-owners; DAWI found in 2018 that 86% of co-ops had a pay ratio of either a 2 to 1 or 1 to 1 ratio between the highest paid and lowest paid worker-owners. For comparison, CEOs at the top 350 American firms were paid 351 times that of their workers in 2020.
Does this change workplace conditions for workers compared to a typical business?
The principles of cooperatives are intended to lay the groundwork to do so. “What cooperatives do is they provide a pathway to economic justice,” said Cynthia Pinchback-Hines, a racial justice educator and co-op developer with Co-op Cincy.
The underlying goals of putting people before profits, creating a one-worker one-vote system, and opportunities for empowerment within the workplace are “three areas where historically we’ve been marginalized or kept from actualizing those things in our lives,” said Pinchback-Hines, who runs a training program specifically for Black workers to launch their own co-op.
The International Cooperative Alliance lists seven principles adopted in 1995. The Mondragon principles—named for a group of 96 cooperatives based in Spain founded in the 1950s—are another frequently used standard. These include values around equity, democratic operations, and commitment to the sustainable development of the community they operate within.
To fully attend to the needs of workers from historically excluded groups, including Black workers, cooperatives have to be structured in a way that attend to social and cultural needs, not just fiscal ones, according to Assata-Nicole Richards, the founding director of the recently launched home care co-op, Houston-based Community Care Cooperative.
“We’re not just designing good businesses,” said Richards, who is also the founding director of the Sankofa Research Institute. “We’re designing cooperatives that have the potential, based on how they’re structured, to address these issues.”
This could mean setting representation requirements for the board of directors, setting a holiday structure that allows for people to take off culturally relevant holidays, or creating a pay system based on need to allow for true equity and account for historic disadvantages, she said. The social and cultural elements of creating a more equitable workplace by and for Black workers are critical.
“It is being valued, being seen, being heard, being protected, being connected,” said Richards. “We know that if you don’t attend to those pieces, then you may be making a little bit more money, but the other pieces that you need around dignity, respect, value are not being met.”
What does ownership offer workers?
Jeanette Webster, chief investment officer of Cleveland-based Evergreen Cooperative Corporation, said that a cooperative structure can affect a worker-owner’s mindset toward their job—taking ownership both literally and mentally.
Because worker-owners share profits, they “have a vested interest in how well the organization’s doing,” Webster said. “At the end of the day, no matter what industry the business is operating in, you want to have a stable business for the employees [and] you want to be able to wealth-build among the employees.”
Ownership also creates opportunities to learn new skills that workers may not have been able to acquire before—like management, leadership, and business operations.
“If you’re coming in and you’re a cashier, it’s not about just understanding how to ring up products, but what are the other aspects of the business that you can learn?” said Jenkins, the Cincinnati market cooperative co-founder. At Queen Mother’s, she hopes that regardless of how long someone works at the market, that they learn skills that can help them reach their aspirations.
“It’s not about making profits,” Jenkins said. “It’s about individuals’ and a community’s wellbeing and health.”
Starting a business sounds expensive. And risky. How do workers pay for it?
“The beautiful thing about a cooperative is that you’ve got many people shouldering the risk together,” said Delmonte, from the Buffalo group. “Many small businesses will fail, but the financial risk to each individual when you’ve got a group is quite small.”
Conversions—when workers purchase and convert an existing business into a co-op—are another option when owners are looking to sell the business. In those cases, workers can band together and finance the purchase through a loan with a lender that specializes in cooperatives, or work directly with the seller to determine a payment plan.
“There are many, many, many businesses that are at this turning point that need a succession plan,” said Forde. Worker co-op advocates argue conversions can solve the looming crisis of small business closures. Sometimes, workers will present the idea to an owner. But an owner can also propose it to their employees. “It’s essential to have an owner who’s friendly to the idea.”
Other options include crowdfunding through direct donations, community investment shares, or requiring worker-owners to purchase a share of the company they would later sell back upon retirement or exit.
What are the challenges current cooperatives face?
Manklang said that low awareness among lending institutions about how co-ops work is one obstacle in getting new co-ops up and running. A quirk in federal law currently blocks cooperatives from accessing certain Small Business Administration (SBA) loans by requiring one personal guarantor on the loan, which doesn’t align with the collective operations of a co-op. Colorado lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would get rid of that requirement as well as open the door for the SBA to create new development pathways for co-ops.
Businesses surveyed in DAWI’s most recent report also noted providing health insurance or other benefits and tackling administrative tasks were challenges.
How do I start?
For workers interested in starting a cooperative, Webster suggested contacting existing ones in their own communities to see who they worked with, like lawyers who specialize in cooperative development or organizations that assist with logistics.
Taking the time to develop the bylaws—the rules of the business—will determine long-term success. Richards said a part of creating good bylaws is understanding member-owners’ past experiences in the workplace in order to create a better business culture.
“I think a part of that is listening,” Richards said. “How you structure the bylaws will really dictate how you deal with those historical, systemic issues.”
Sydney Pereira is a journalist based in Brooklyn. She covers the intersection between social justice and health, labor, and climate change. Her work has been published in Gothamist/WNYC, Newsweek, Patch, The Miami Herald, and others.
Prism is a BIPOC-led nonprofit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us onTwitter, Facebook, andInstagram.
Following the Amazon Labor Union’s huge win in Staten Island, they’re going for it again. Workers at another, smaller warehouse—called LDJ5—will begin voting on April 25, and Amazon is once again going hard with its union-busting campaign.
“All those union-busters that were there to union-bust 8,000 workers at JFK8 have walked across the street and are in our little building of 1,600 people,” LDJ5 worker Madeline Wesley told reporters at a press conference last week. “They’re really fighting us, and they’re playing really dirty.”
The union has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over captive audience meetings being conducted by veteran union-buster Rebecca Smith. The workers at LDJ5 will face enormous intimidation in the coming 10 days, but they can also look at JFK8 and take their inspiration.
“I can’t believe the building across from us, JFK8, got a union,” 18-year-old Ursula Tomaszuk told Labor Notes. “I thought it wasn’t doable until now.”
● National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo made another big move this week, calling for the reinstatement of the Joy Silk doctrine, which allows the board to order an employer to recognize a union and bargain in good faith. Dave Jamieson has background on Cemex, the union-busting company spurring Abruzzo’s move, which committed “extraordinary violations” of labor law according to a judge.
● Being good at your job can make heroism possible:
Quick thinking transit workers helped riders escape after gunfire erupted on an N train pulling into the 36th Station. Riders were whisked away on an R train that was across the platform. Shout out to the Conductors and Train Operators on both trains.
NEW: Your fries at McDonald’s, Wendy’s & Burger King are all made by one conglomerate, Lamb Weston. Workers there say they’re treated horrifically, worse than machines. One worker was killed in 2020. Another had a mini-stroke and was assigned a 12-hour shift the next day. pic.twitter.com/vAfO68ZmUY
Connect! Unite! Act! is a weekly series that seeks to create face-to-face networks in each congressional district. Groups meet regularly to socialize, get out the vote, support candidates, and engage in other local political actions that help our progressive movement grow and exert influence on the powers that be. Visit us every week to see how you can get involved!
The confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court makes history. It is a watershed moment that puts someone on the bench who can stay for, we hope, a long time, bringing a strong legal mind to the court. It certainly deserves to be celebrated. Just because history was made this week, though, does not mean that we should throw up our hands and say: “Welp, look at what happened! We can all go home now!” Midterm elections often come down to complacency. Did we accomplish everything we needed to accomplish? The answer to this question is always no. History is made every day in big and small ways. The question will be, “Do we allow history to be written by those who see a dark future that lives on nostalgia over reality, or do we want a forward-looking effort to build a history better than anything in the past?”
The problem with nostalgia
If you know me and this series, you know that I really do love and enjoy the thoughts of Brene Brown, and I have no shame at all in admitting that several moments in her new series Atlas of the Heart, streaming now on HBO Max, brought me to tears. One of the items she touched upon is something that I think we don’t address enough in the way it’s tearing apart America, and that is nostalgia.
During the series, her thought on the issue is so simple and so obvious at the same time: “Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.”
Think about that and how it manifests itself in the MAGA movement and in so many areas of our culture. When people look back at the past and they toss out “Make America great again,” they are using nostalgia. When they look back at the past, it’s so scrubbed clean of any problems that all they see is what they want to see, and that is what’s both attractive and dangerous.
It’s easy to forget things in the past and focus on good memories. As an example, we can remember all of the best times in our lives, but we often forget the parts that went along with those moments that were terrible.
It is the highs and the lows that help us build the people we are today. I think back to moments in my childhood and I can have some moments of nostalgia. Then I have to remind myself: “Oh yeah, remember, there were a lot of things going around in my life I didn’t like and that I wish could have been different.”
This is the danger of nostalgia. We want something that never existed in reality.
We can use this moment to create reality
So, most who read me know I love science fiction books. If you ask me for recommendations in the comments, I have several good ones right now. Many of them focus on how we create a solution to a problem we face in the future. They do not act as a function of looking backward. The vast majority of science fiction books look at the future because the author knows it’s something that can be changed. It is malleable. It can be changed for good or bad, depending on the acts of the protagonist. Evil could win if bad decisions are made. Good characters can win if they do certain things.
When we look at the confirmation of Jackson to the Supreme Court, we see a moment in history occur. The nostalgic view of it says: “So fantastic! What a moment in history!” The reality is that there was an awful, hateful, racist, out of control hearing on her merits. Her being placed on the court does not undo the events that happened in that committee room.
So in two years or in a few months, will we look back with nostalgia and say: “Look at what was accomplished”? Or will we say: “Look at how far we have yet to go”? The second one is the answer we need.
We cannot find ourselves living in the past. We have to look forward to the future we want, the future we know that we deserve and that our country deserves. It is the only way we stay focused enough to elect the leaders with a clear vision of the future rather than only a desire to make things better.
Activism opportunities!.
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TUE 19 APRIL 3:00 pm PDT — FIGHT VOTER SUPPRESSION WITH CFCGThe Center for Common Ground (CFCG) is a voting rights organization led by people of color. CFCG is offering a series of training days on how to encourage higher turnout by talking to eligible PoC voters facing voter suppression and voter discouragement. After you have completed this virtual event you will call voters in North Carolina. Then, if you choose, you can continue phone banking on your own schedule to reach voters in North Carolina, Georgia, and other targeted CFCG states. Early voting for the May 17 NC primary begins in less than two weeks, on April 28. Early voting for the May 24 Georgia primary begins in less than three weeks on May 2! These primaries are critical and NOW is the time to connect with these voters. Each one reach one! Click here for details.
Guess whose back, back again … with the cutest stuff you’ll see this week. Be sure to keep an eye out on Fridays for some fun videos to give you a welcome change in what you digest online.
Social media is filled with funny moments and stories. Sometimes we just need to step away from the seriousness and take some time to relax; lighter posts allow us to mentally recharge.
As part of a weekly series that aims to make you laugh, Daily Kos will be compiling and sharing viral funny videos from across social media platforms. The news cycle can be a bit much at times. Self-care is needed.
Share your videos and your favorites with us for the next roundup!
We all need balance, so let’s have some joy where we are able.
Starting off with the iconic video of a toddler justifying to his mom why he stole cupcakes.
No matter what “tankie” Twitter has to say, the U.S. Department of Defense has now confirmed that the Russian missile cruiser Moskva (“Moscow”) sank after being struck by Neptune missiles fired by Ukrainian coastal defense. Honestly, the U.S. was very likely aware of this from before the moment when the missiles struck home, because even if Ukraine controlled the Bayraktar drone that distracted the Moskva’s single radar, someone with very sophisticated equipment (like *cough* a U.S. AWACS plane *cough*) had to inform Ukraine that the Russians were genuinely directing their attention at the drone. So the whole gee, we’re not sure, could of been … yes, yes, seems like it was Ukraine act from the U.S. side was a bit of theater.
With a displacement of over 12,000 tons and a length greater than two football fields, the Moskva was a large ship. In fact, it may be the largest ship to go down in war since World War II. Argentina lost the light cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1982, but even though that ship carried a crew twice the size of the Moskva, it was actually about 3,000 tons lighter and just a smidge shorter.
And there’s another way that the Moskva may be a larger loss.
Small remembrance ceremony held in Sevastopol yesterday for loss of cruiser RFS Moskva. Not confirmed officilay but ex-Russian MP says only 58 survivors out of her crew of around 500 indicating catastrophic explosion/fire.https://t.co/719FY1dY6opic.twitter.com/rOm1IYTu5d
Russian ministry of Defense: commander of Navy admiral Nikolay Evmenov and command of Black Sea navy met with crew of Moskva cruiser in Sevastopol. Video shows about 50 sailor in first row, and some sailors in the 2nd row (max: 50) pic.twitter.com/E1VgmvCgSn
The Moskva carried a complement of 510, including officers. If 58 is an accurate count of survivors, then 452 men went down with the flagship of the Black Sea fleet. That Argentine ship in 1982 had a crew of 1,138 when a British submarine scored a direct hit with three torpedoes. Over 250 were killed in the resulting explosions. However, as the ship began to list, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. Life rafts were deployed and, despite increasingly bad weather, rescue vessels later pulled 772 men out of the water. Total losses were 323 killed.
Whatever happened with the Moskva under cloud cover on the Black Sea, it does not seem to have been an orderly evacuation. The loss of crew also seems to be largest recorded since World War II.
At this point, Ukraine estimates that 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed. Oryx records over 2,900 large piece of equipment destroyed, including over 500 tanks. Not only has Russia lost the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, it earlier lost the 370’ long, 3,400 ton landing ship Saratov. At least two other large ships have withdrawn from the fight after being damaged in the same attack that set the Saratov on fire, resulting in its sinking.
Most of what is being spread around Russian television is ridiculous, even as propaganda. But those claims that this is already World War III? Measured on a scale of the losses Russia is racking up, they may be right.
Russia has captured one of the large factory complexes in Mariupol, and it’s now clear that there was at least some truth to accounts that Ukrainian forces in the city had access to underground passages where they could move and rest without being shelled by Russia.
FSB arrests the commander of the 🇷🇺 Black Sea fleet vice admiral Igor Ossipov. Obviously for the bad weather and an accidental fire on board of Moskva. 8th general out of commission by 🇺🇦 action in this war. pic.twitter.com/CU905jj9ai
Apparently, Russia didn’t think having a centralized fire-detection system was worth having on a warship.
A thread on Russian Navy firefighting capabilities. A friend of mine pointed out an article (in Russian) from November 2018 that had been getting some attention recently. /1
Kazakhstan has now explained that the May 9 parade is not feasible because the priority is to maintain combat readiness of the armed forces to ensure protection and defense of gov and military facilities. Hands down, this is bold. https://t.co/q1AbRQP0Y1
Apparently, when you openly state that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “illegal” and that none of the newly independent states are legitimate and have a right to exist, those former USSR republics get a little skittish.
Russia’s Uralvogonzavod shuts down production. It will no longer be able to assemble any of T-72 tank (main RU tank) or newer T-90 & T-14 tanks (Armata). Reason: lack of imported components. It means more saved UA lives, is direct result of Western sanctions which should continue
The Biden administration said last fall that 1,300 Afghan children were in U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) custody after being unintentionally separated from their parents amid evacuations last summer. In some cases, they were classified an unaccompanied minors after traveling with a nonparent relative. But in other cases, some traveled without any family members at all.
The vast majority of these kids have since been reunited with U.S. relatives since then, ProPublica reports. That’s welcome news. But roughly 200 children continue to remain in HHS custody, “with nobody here who can take them in,” the report continued.
Under the Obama administration, the average length of stay for an unaccompanied child in HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody was 35 days. This is where unaccompanied children are placed until they can be safely connected with a sponsor. But the National Center for Youth Law said that government data as of last month showed that at least 80 of these Afghan kids have been in ORR custody for at least five months, ProPublica said.
“An ORR official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the agency is doing its best to support the Afghan children by providing interpreters, mental health services, additional staffing and, in recent months, Afghan American mentors,” the report said. The official acknowledged that despite attempts to connect kids with these services, kids are still “are grappling with some really terrible things that nobody should have to grapple with.”
In fact, “employees at several shelters described the trauma among the youths as more severe than anything they’d seen,” the report said. This includes fears that something awful has happened to their parents because of the Taliban. It harkens back to similar fears expressed by Central American children ripped from their families at the southern border by the previous administration. “Children feared that they would never be reunited with their parents and, worse, that their parents were dead,” said a 2020 report from Physicians for Human Rights.
ProPublica reports that the State Department is working to move parents who are still in Afghanistan, “but coordinating departures from Taliban-ruled Kabul has proven challenging.”
This means all that Afghan children in U.S. custody can do is wait—and some under the watch of a provider that already faced allegations of abuses against Central American kids stolen from their parents. ProPublica in October reported that Afghan children at a Heartland Alliance-operated facility in Chicago were in severe distress, including allegations that they were hurting themselves and others. But in 2018, Heartland Alliance also faced allegations that a facility it operated in the area had forcibly drugged a separated child, and was punishing others for not adequately cleaning.
The HHS inspector general and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said at the time they had each opened a probe into the allegations. During this time, Heartland cleared itself of any wrongdoing, apparently.
Now facing further allegations, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has called for an HHS inspector general probe into Heartland Alliance’s Bronzeville facility. “The ProPublica report raises serious and troubling allegations about the health and safety of children in an ORR-supported facility,” Durbin said in a November statement. “As such, I request that ORR take immediate steps to ensure that the children at the Bronzeville center are receiving the support they need, including by providing appropriate interpreters on site.”
“Afghan children, like all unaccompanied children we serve, need a system of care that is trauma-informed and supports their emotional, physical and cultural wellbeing,” tweeted the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. “We will continue to provide legal services and advocate for children in federal custody.”
The internet—and the world—was a very different place on May 26, 2002, when Markos Moulitsas dashed off seven sentences and hit PUBLISH on the first-ever post on Daily Kos. Moulitsas—better known as the Kos in Daily Kos and Kos Media, LLC—will be the first to tell you that he never anticipated what was to come.
And now, we’re just weeks from the 20th anniversary of that iconic handful of sentences. In case you haven’t noticed, we kinda can’t stop talking about it or coming up with ways to celebrate. There are the Koscars and my fun little project—This is My Best—and so much more to come!
Some years ago, I’m told, there was a wonderful series called This Is My Best (TIMB), which encouraged Community members to share one piece of their own writing that they were most proud of, rather than the writing of others. One part self-promotion, one part self-confidence, all parts awesome, TIMB encourages writers to press pause on their roles as their own worst critics and take some time to toot their own horns.
I’m so excited to bring TIMB back for this amazing milestone, and it’s been a blast collecting submissions from the Community Contributors Team, half of our Daily Kos Staff, Kos himself, and you, dearest Community.
This week we’re highlighting the second batch of Staff submissions!
As I noted in the first installment of TIMB, we’re challenging you to reflect on your own writing at Daily Kos and choose your own “best” story.
In the comments, sound off with your own This Is My Bestsubmissions. We’ll be watching and taking note—and using your favorites to create new collections.
Be sure to include a link to your chosen best story and a sentence or two about why you think it’s great. Keep in mind that your “best” story doesn’t need to be your most recommended or the one that got the most comments.
So far, we’ve got nearly 100 of your TIMB submissions; I’ll be using them to keep the party going right up until our joyful 20th anniversary on May 26! But right now, it’s time to check in with the rest of our hardworking Staff and see what stories they’re most proud of.
The April 1 installment of TIMB was the first of three to showcase Daily Kos Staff, and includes my own submission (toot toot!). That collection focused largely on stories that were deeply personal for each writer, which doesn’t happen too often for folks tasked with crafting political analysis and covering progressive issues.
This final installment of Staff selections also includes personal stories, but also includes writing that propelled Daily Kos readers to powerful collective action, vital climate change coverage, and stories that might otherwise have been left in the shadows.
The highlights of my early career as a fellow at Daily Kos were my western state road trips for the 2006 and 2008 elections. The 2008 was one epic, beginning in Seattle, stretching east to Omaha, down to Phoenix, and back up, with stops along the way to spend some time with the congressional candidates we’d endorsed. (A favorite, going door-to-door with Wyoming’s Gary Trauner in 2006).
But this 2008 piece distilled much of what I’d been seeing on those trips, and what I was processing as I drove through these huge, gorgeous unpopulated expanses. This all happened before 30% of the country, and too many in the West, lost their goddamned minds thanks to Facebook, so my conclusions haven’t held up—but the writing does. It’s also a favorite because right after I published it, I got an email note from one of my heroes, Ed Quillen, a Denver Post columnist and humorist who I first read in High Country News.
“I really enjoy your work,” he wrote. “You’re one of the few writers anywhere who appears to understand this peculiar empty part of America, especially its political dynamics.”Please keep it up.”
I’ve tried. Quillen died back in 2012. Here’s a lovely tribute for him by his daughter, Abby.
While this story of mine did not attract the most recommendations or the most comments, it holds a special place in my personal archive for several reasons. The story appeared as part of a group effort, for a blogathon related to addressing the climate emergency in the lead-up to major, nation-wide climate demonstrations in April of 2017. I consider both groups and blogathons to be distinctive and valuable features of our site and want to promote them at every opportunity.
For this post I chose to focus on Michigan, my beloved home state, and the threats we face here from the climate emergency related to water, along with the many efforts already underway by environmental justice activists to produce positive change. As we seek ever more diligently to protect our water resources and guarantee safe, clean, affordable water to people, it seems helpful to have this review of our conditions from five years ago. We have achieved some success, but the overall situation has indeed worsened.
Rep. Pressley’s story about her struggle with alopecia is one of my favorites because of the bravery it takes to stand in an insecurity, call attention to it, and learn to embrace it. My hair was the stuff of adolescent angst for years, and my journey to accept and celebrate myself as beautiful has been a long one. Pressley represented so much of what is beautiful about Black women when she stood in her truth. Hers is a level of confidence I can only aspire to.
[After you asked for this], I stuck four posts up on Twitter, and the “great filter” piece won the poll. So I guess that’s my answer. This one is just riffing on science in a way that was fun. Honestly, I don’t think this is my best.
That probably came in the 640-some stories concerning COVID-19, or in the series on treatments for children with Niemann-Pick disease. But this is the kind of writing I enjoy most—a little history, a little science, a chance to take something that seems obscure or esoteric and fit it into the decisions that we make every day.
It’s the kind of writing I’d like to do more often.
I deeply enjoyed reporting this because it gave me a chance to speak with someone directly involved in the lawsuit. Too rarely are there positive climate change stories. It was really inspiring to see how the next generation is committed to this fight for environmental justice and an emissions-free world.
It’s fun to remember how innocent I was. This was my political coming-of-age story about “How I Learned to Love the Democrats” by canvassing for … Richard Nixon.
This is my best not because it’s my best writing or a piece that spurred activism or donations, but because my father was the best person I have ever known, and so many of the best pieces of me are the ones that come from him.
Most of my stories have been about local politics, the Black Lives Matter marches, and protests during Donald Trump’s visits to his golf course in my neighborhood. But this story is more personal.
I didn’t write an “About Me” staff introduction when I onboarded, but one thing to know about me is that I have a son, Joshua Emet, who died during labor and delivery, in the early days of Daily Kos. This story is a bit about coming full circle years later, after enduring the Trump years with my wife and daughter.
I chose this story because, frankly, it reminded me of the first story I wrote for Daily Kos. The first month or so of my stories on Daily Kos have been lost to time (and the conversion that came when my personal email was replaced by my work email, and a new account created). At the time, I was working as an intern in the then-“social media” department, mostly making memes for Facebook distribution. Faith Gardner mentioned to me that if I ever wanted to write anything, I should go for it. I ended up writing about a similar business media outlet promoting this same upper middle-class narrative of scarcity and bad personal economics. It was, and remains, a simple and obvious (to me, at least) example of how bankrupt a “free market” and deregulated system of capitalism inherently is.
A close friend of mine’s father once pointed it out to me after I stayed over at his place for a few nights bookending the Christmas holiday season. Watching a business report on television the first night, the broadcast lamented “consumers’ reticence to spend money during the Christmas season,” how “consumer confidence” needed to be up, and there was really no reason why people shouldn’t go out and buy things. A couple of weeks later, on the same nightly business report, the same broadcasters lamented how American consumers really needed to tighten their belts, and think about saving and not spending so much.
I pitched the story to Faith, and I wrote it up, and subsequently, it was well-received and shared. I began writing more and more, and now you are all stuck with me. This story reminds me of that moment, where I crossed into the life I now cherish at Daily Kos.
In the near future, all political punditry will take the form of long allegories featuring anthropomorphic animals, furniture, or home appliances. This is a simple fact, and the sooner we adjust to it the better off we will be.
I loved working on this because it allowed me to cover something other than straight politics, but still talk about race and the politics involved with race. This was a complex issue. On the surface it looks like a Hollywood ego trip, but dig a little deeper, and there’s more to it that meets the eye—especially for the Black community. It brings up the issue around being held to a different and higher standard, and how Black folks are viewed by white folks and the reactions on social media were a rich hunting ground for commentary.
Most of all, this story gave be the chance to ask myself how I felt about what happened, as a Black woman, a move enthusiast, a Chris Rock and Will Smith fan, and a daughter to a Black man born in the 1930s, who raised me to behave a certain way, lest we all (Black people) be judged.
This is the post that started it all. Daily Kos was the first organization to endorse now-Sen. Jon Ossoff, and our community exploded with enthusiasm, donating $400,000 to his campaign in the first week. That massive infusion quickly turned Ossoff into a household name, and you know what happened next: He lost a very close race, setting the stage for now-Rep. Lucy McBath to flip the seat the following year. Ossoff then flipped the Senate along with Raphael Warnock in last year’s runoffs.
While it isn’t my most favorite, it’s on a subject of deep concern to me: Native sovereignty. That’s a hard subject for many non-Natives to wrap their minds around in the abstract, and Trump’s visit to South Dakota two years ago provided an opportunity to present the subject with reference to Mount Rushmore, a national icon nearly everyone is familiar with, but whose true history few know.
Now it’s your turn! To make my job easier (and data entry much faster), please use this format for your submission:
Linked title of story (year published)
A sentence or two in your own words—not an excerpt—about why it’s your “best.”
Remember: If you’ve already submitted, there’s no need to do it again, and we are only accepting one story per person. And if you simply can’t narrow down your choice before comments close, we’ll be back with another installment (and opportunity to submit) next week, when I’ll start digging into the Community submissions from the last four weeks.
