Jennifer Lawrence: ‘we are witnessing a total political system failure in America’

NowThis Politics posted an episode of a show.

July 28, 2019

Watch Jennifer Lawrence break down why ‘we are witnessing a total political system failure in America’ and how we can stop it.

Jennifer Lawrence is 'Unbreaking America's Political System Failure

Watch Jennifer Lawrence break down why ‘we are witnessing a total political system failure in America’ and how we can stop it.

Posted by NowThis Politics on Saturday, July 27, 2019

Restaurants generate huge amounts of waste that go straight to landfills.

CNN

July 27, 2019

Most restaurants generate huge amounts of waste that go straight to landfills. So the owners of Lighthouse in New York decided to take a different approach.

“It’s our responsibility, it’s our job to… take control over how we behave with our environment.”

This New York restaurant dramatically reduced its waste, and wants others to follow

Most restaurants generate huge amounts of waste that go straight to landfills. So the owners of Lighthouse in New York decided to take a different approach.“It’s our responsibility, it’s our job to… take control over how we behave with our environment.”

Posted by CNN on Friday, July 26, 2019

Pay Attention America: This what fighting for Democracy looks like!!!

Mashable

Incredible photo shows an elderly woman standing up for the youth in Hong Kong

 

People cross into Mexico to buy the life-saving drug!

Bernie Sanders is heading across the border to Canada with type 1 diabetics this weekend to buy cheap insulin this weekend.

We met with people who cross into Mexico to buy the life-saving drug — and tried to find out why it’s so expensive.

Inside The Factory Where Most Of The World’s Insulin Is Made

Bernie Sanders is heading across the border to Canada with type 1 diabetics this weekend to buy cheap insulin this weekend.We met with people who cross into Mexico to buy the life-saving drug — and tried to find out why it’s so expensive.

Posted by VICE News on Friday, July 26, 2019

Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday. (Susan Walsh/AP).

This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves.

Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.

Robert Mueller sat before Congress this week warning that the Russia threat “deserves the attention of every American.” He said “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in our election is among the most serious” challenges to American democracy he has ever seen. “They are doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign,” he warned, adding that “much more needs to be done in order to protect against these intrusions, not just by the Russians but others as well.”

Not three hours after Mueller finished testifying, Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, went to the senate floor to request unanimous consent to pass legislation requiring presidential campaigns to report to the FBI any offers of assistance from agents of foreign governments.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) was there to represent her leader’s interests. “I object,” she said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) attempted to move the bill that would require campaigns to report to the FBI contributions by foreign nationals.

“I object,” said Hyde-Smith.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tried to force action on bipartisan legislation, written with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and supported by Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), protecting lawmakers from foreign cyber-attacks. “The majority leader, our colleague from Kentucky, must stop blocking this common-sense legislation and allow this body to better defend itself against foreign hackers,” he said.

“I object,” repeated Hyde-Smith.

The next day, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the minority leader, asked for the Senate to pass the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, already passed by the house, that would direct $600 million in election assistance to states and require back-up paper ballots.

McConnell himself responded this time, reading from a statement, his chin melting into his chest, his trademark thin smile on his lips. “It’s just a highly partisan bill from the same folks who spent two years hyping up a conspiracy theory about President Trump and Russia,” he said. “Therefore, I object.” McConnell also objected to another attempt by Blumenthal to pass his bill.

Pleaded Schumer: “I would suggest to my friend the majority leader: If he doesn’t like this bill, let’s put another bill on the floor and debate it.”

But McConnell has blocked all such attempts, including:

A bipartisan bill requiring Facebook, Google and other Internet companies to disclose purchasers of political ads, to identify foreign influence.

A bipartisan bill to ease cooperation between state election officials and federal intelligence agencies.

A bipartisan bill imposing sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.

A bipartisan bill with severe new sanctions on Russia for its cyber-crimes.

McConnell has prevented them all from being considered — over and over again. This is the same McConnell who, in the summer of 2016, when briefed by the CIA along with other congressional leaders on Russia’s electoral attacks, questioned the validity of the intelligence and forced a watering down of a warning letter to state officials about the threat, omitting any mention of Russia.

No amount of alarms sounded by U.S. authorities — even Republicans, even Trump appointees — moves McConnell.

On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray — Trump’s FBI director — told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Russians “haven’t been deterred enough” and are “absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections.”

This year, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats — Trump’s intelligence director — told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics.”

And on Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report finding that “Russian activities demand renewed attention to vulnerabilities in U.S. voting infrastructure.”

The committee concluded that “urgent steps” are needed “to replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems.” (The $380 million offered since 2016 is a pittance compared with the need.) “Despite the expense, cyber-security needs to become a higher priority for election-related infrastructure,” the report concluded.

But one man blocks it all — while offering no alternative of his own.

Presumably he thinks whatever influence Russia exerts over U.S. elections will benefit him (he’s up for reelection in 2020) and his party.

“Shame on him,” Schumer said on the Senate floor this week.

But McConnell has no shame. He is aiding and abetting Putin’s dismantling of Americans’ self-governance. A leader who won’t protect our country from attack is no patriot.

Dana Milbank is an op-ed columnist. He sketches the foolish, the fallacious and the felonious in politics.

Mueller Reminds the Public: Trump Betrayed the United States

Former special counsel Robert Mueller testifies to the House Judiciary Committee.J. Scott Applewhite/AP.

There’s an old saying in newsrooms: News is stuff that people have forgotten. Robert Mueller’s dramatic appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning was a striking reminder of this adage. The former special counsel did not drop any new revelations about the Trump-Russia affair. Yet in a simple but important manner, he reiterated the basics of this scandal—perhaps the most consequential political scandal in American history. These are the fundamentals that have often been subsumed by all the never-ending partisan squabbling and by the ongoing crusade mounted by Donald Trump and his defenders to distract from his perfidy. These are the facts that Trump has refused to acknowledge, and they are the facts that taint his presidency and undermine its legitimacy.

In his opening statement, Mueller emphasized the key finding from his report: “The Russian government interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” And during the questioning, Mueller repeated the conclusion previously reached by the US intelligence community that Russia conducted this covert operation to help Trump get elected. “Did your investigation find that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from one of the candidates winning?” Mueller was asked by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). He replied with one word: “Yes.” Lofgren followed up: “And which candidate would that be?” Mueller responded, “Well, it would be Trump.”

So Russia attacked an American election to help Trump. And what did Trump do? “The Trump campaign wasn’t exactly reluctant to take Russian help,” Lofgren remarked to Mueller. “You wrote it expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, isn’t that correct.”

Mueller answered with another brief sentence: “That’s correct.” That is, Trump sought to exploit a foreign adversary’s clandestine assault. And as Mueller noted in his report, during the campaign Trump dismissed the notion that Russia was intervening in the election, and after he was elected he continued to deny “that Russia aided his election.”

For a moment, put aside the question of collusion. (Despite Trump’s insistence that Mueller found no collusion, Mueller testified that “we did not address collusion,” but rather the issue of criminal conspiracy.) And consider the story so far: Russia attacked, and Trump denied the attack happened—which provided cover for Moscow—yet attempted to benefit from it. This is a profound act of betrayal. It is the essence of the scandal: A presidential candidate aiding and abetting an assault on the United States. And Trump’s denials of the Russian operation during the campaign and his public statement asking Russian hackers to target Hillary Clinton could certainly have been read by Moscow as encouragement. (The same is true for the various private Trump campaign contacts with Russian intermediaries that occurred while the Kremlin was mounting its information warfare against the United States to subvert the election to assist Trump.)

This is the narrative that Trump has desperately wanted to obstruct and smother since the campaign. He was elected president partly due to the Russian intervention he has refused to fully acknowledge and address. After the election, he did not want a comprehensive investigation of any of this, and, as Mueller’s report noted, Trump took multiple steps to block Mueller’s probe—actions that could amount to obstruction of justice.

Yet Trump has escaped prosecution on that front. Mueller’s report stated that Trump could not be charged with any crime because of a Justice Department policy prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president. Still, Trump has repeatedly brayed that Mueller exonerated him. In a notable exchange at the start of the hearing, Mueller was asked if his report did indeed absolve Trump. “That is not what the report said,” Mueller declared. He later commented, “The president was not exculpated for the acts he allegedly committed.” Muller also said that Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice after he leaves office. (As Mueller was testifying, Trump’s 2020 campaign zapped out an email fundraiser falsely exclaiming, “NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION, COMPLETE AND TOTAL EXONERATION!”)

Though Trump’s alleged obstruction was the focus of the morning’s hearing—with GOP’ers trying to distract by promoting their favorite conspiracy theories—Mueller’s appearance did call attention to the heart of the matter: the unprecedented attack on the United States, Trump’s effort to exploit it, and Trump’s refusal to recognize Moscow’s assault. Whether or not Trump engaged in active collusion with Vladimir Putin’s regime, he gained the presidency with covert foreign assistance and then abandoned his most fundamental duty: to protect the United States. Arguably, this is more significant than the obstruction issue, for Trump has permitted a foreign power to get away with perverting the foundation of American democracy.

Mueller finished his opening statement by remarking, “Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious.” This could well be taken as criticism of Trump. After all, the president has never accepted this. Doing so would force Trump to acknowledge his own wrongdoing and affirm questions about the legitimacy of the election that landed him in the White House.

A US election was hijacked. Trump stood by as it happened and profited from it. And ever since he has attempted to cover up this original sin of his presidency. At the hearing, Mueller did not rail about Trump’s serious misconduct. But in the quiet way of an institutionalist who respects norms and rules, Mueller made it clear: Trump engaged in treachery. This is not news. But it remains a defining element of the Trump presidency that deserves constant attention.

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Why the Mueller Hearings Were So Alarming

Why the Mueller Hearings Were So Alarming

By John Cassidy     July 24, 2019

 

For the past two and a half years of Donald Trump’s Presidency, I have consoled myself with the argument that, despite all the chaos and narcissism and racial incitement and norm-shattering, the American system of government is holding itself together. When Trump attempted to introduce a ban on Muslims entering the country and sought to add a citizenship question to the census, the courts restrained him. When he railed at NATO and loyal allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel, other members of his Administration issued quiet reassurances that it was just bluster. When the American people had the chance to issue a verdict on Trump’s first two years in office, they turned the House of Representatives over to the opposition party.

All of this was reassuring. But, while watching what happened on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before two House committees, I struggled to contain a rising sense of dread about where the country is heading. With Republicans united behind the President, Democrats uncertain about how to proceed, and Mueller reluctant to the last to come straight out and say that the President committed impeachable offenses, it looks like Trump’s blitzkrieg tactics of demonizing anyone who challenges him, terrorizing potential dissidents on his own side, and relentlessly spouting propaganda over social media may have worked. If so, he will have recorded a historic victory over the bedrock American principles of congressional oversight and equality before the law.

The morning session was largely devoted to Volume II of Mueller’s report, in which he relates ten instances of Trump seeking to interfere with the Russia investigation. Sitting before them, the G.O.P. members of the House Judiciary Committee had a seventy-four-year-old registered Republican and decorated hero of the Vietnam War, who subsequently spent decades as a public prosecutor, was appointed to the position of F.B.I. director by George W. Bush, in 2001, and served twelve years in that post. Yet some of the Republican members of the Committee treated their distinguished witness with thinly disguised contempt.

Louie Gohmert, of Texas, who has made a career of scaremongering, gay-bashing, and Islamophobia, began his questioning by entering into the congressional record a screed he authored titled “Robert Mueller: Unmasked.” Matt Gaetz, of Florida, sneered at the former special counsel as he sought, unsuccessfully, to get him to comment on the conspiracy theory that the allegations against Trump in Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier were part of a Russian government disinformation campaign. Ohio’s Jim Jordan threw his arms in the air and mocked Mueller for his refusal to answer questions about Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor who allegedly told George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign aide, that the Russians had damaging material on Hillary Clinton. John Ratcliffe, another Texan, asked why Mueller bothered to write his report at all, given the Justice Department guidelines that say a sitting President can’t be indicted on criminal charges. Wisconsin’s Jim Sensenbrenner went further, questioning whether Mueller should have even carried out the investigation, which he described as “fishing.”

Yet none of these Republicans questioned any of the factual accounts of Trump’s behavior contained in Mueller’s report, which included attempting to fire Mueller, and, when that effort failed, trying to get the Attorney General to limit the special counsel’s remit. Rather than trying to refute Mueller’s findings, the Republicans sought to switch attention to the origins of the Russia investigation, which is, of course, precisely what Trump has been doing for the past two years.

The wanton disrespect that these elected Republicans showed Mueller was perhaps the most alarming testament yet to Trump’s total conquest of the Party. In today’s G.O.P., as in Stalin’s Russia, evidently, decades of loyal public service count for nothing when the leader and his henchmen decide someone represents a threat and the apparatchiks have been ordered to take that person down. All that matters is carrying out the order and staying in the leader’s good graces. That isn’t congressional oversight. It is scorched-earth politics of a kind that is entirely antithetical to the notion of checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

It was left to the Democratic members of the committee to remind the millions watching about the Bronze Star that Mueller received for rescuing a wounded fellow-marine while under enemy fire, and the fact that the U.S. Senate confirmed him and reconfirmed him unanimously to the F.B.I. job. Mueller was too modest to mention any of this. Sadly, and for whatever reason, he also seemed reluctant to return the Republicans’ fire in like fashion. Particularly in the morning hearing, he appeared hesitant. Many times, he asked for a question to be repeated. About the only occasion in which he displayed some genuine passion was in defending his colleagues on the Russia investigation, whom the Republicans—again, taking their lead from Trump—were trying to portray as Democratic political operatives.

Sticking to his promise not to stray beyond the contents of his report, Mueller frustrated the Democrats’ hope that he would bring the lengthy document to life. In confirming the damning accounts of Trump’s actions, which Democrats read out, he answered, simply, “Yes,” “True,” or “That’s correct.” When Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, asked him to read out a section of the report, he declined.

Despite Mueller’s reticence, the Democrats succeeded in countering the White House’s messaging, and showed that the report provides ample legal justification for opening an impeachment inquiry. In his opening statement, Mueller undermined months of White House obfuscation, saying, “We did not address collusion, which is not a legal term.” And, during his initial exchange with Nadler, the former special counsel completed the demolition job by stating unequivocally that his report hadn’t exonerated Trump on the obstruction question.

There was more. Toward the end of the morning session, Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat serving Brooklyn and Queens, seemed to get Mueller to confirm that Trump’s effort, in the summer of 2017, to have Don McGahn, then the White House counsel, fire him satisfied the three requirements for a criminal indictment: an act that is obstructive, a link to an official proceeding, and corrupt intent. Also, Lieu twice got Mueller to say that the reason he didn’t press charges was the Justice Department’s guideline that rules out such a course of action. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Mueller subsequently clarified this statement, which went further than anything he had said in his earlier answers, or in his report. “That is not the correct way to say it,” he said at the start of his afternoon appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. “As we say in the report, and I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination on whether the President committed a crime.”

Even after this clarification, however, the overriding impression that Mueller left was that the President knowingly attempted to obstruct his investigation, and that such attempts can be criminal even if they don’t succeed. In the afternoon session, he also left hanging the question of whether Trump made false statements to the investigators, affirming “generally” that the President’s written answers to his questions weren’t always truthful.

The tragedy is that this might not matter. Even as Mueller was still testifying, some media commentary was intimating that his appearance wouldn’t change anything. “Those who wanted to begin impeachment proceedings needed bombshells from the former special counsel,” Politico’s Playbook newsletter said. “Mueller gave them nothing besides affirmation about what was in his report, and a series of sidesteps when he did not want to answer questions.” Later in the afternoon, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote, “If Democrats hoped this would be a seminal moment, they will apparently leave sorely disappointed—in large part because their star witness was no star.”

It is now up to the House Democrats. Leaving a meeting of her caucus on Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “The American people now realize more fully the crimes that have been committed against our Constitution.” But, in a subsequent press conference, she indicated that a move toward impeachment wasn’t imminent. “We still have outstanding matters in the courts,” she said.

  • John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He also writes a column about politics, economics and more for newyorker.com.

  • Related: Mueller did his job; its up to congress to do theirs!

In testimony, Mueller discredits key Trump talking points

The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

In testimony, Mueller discredits key Trump talking points

By Steve Benen       July 24, 2019

Image: US-POLITCS-FBI-MULLER
Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI)Director Robert Mueller testifies during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, Science,… Brendan Smialowski.
If you’ve spent time watching former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony this morning, you’ve probably noticed that he’s deflected or declined to answer more than a few questions. NBC News has been keeping a running tally online, and the last time I looked, the total was well over 100.

 

That said, the witness has answered plenty of important questions, and many of the exchanges probably won’t please the White House.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller told lawmakers on Wednesday that his investigation did not exonerate President Donald Trump and he explained why he decided not to consider criminal charges against the president.

At the opening of Mueller’s highly anticipated day of hearings before the House of Representatives on his two-year probe into Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., asked the former special counsel if the probe cleared Trump.

“No,” Mueller answered flatly.

This was, oddly enough, one of the first exchanges of the day, and it was also among the most important. Just minutes into the proceedings, Mueller confirmed that he did not exonerate the president, Trump’s rhetoric notwithstanding, adding, “[T]he finding indicates that the president was not … exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed.”

Mueller proceeded to discredit a variety of other talking points Trump and his allies have peddled in recent months, knocking down the president’s claims, for example, that Mueller was interviewed to lead the FBI after James Comey’s firing. The former special counsel also refuted related claims about his alleged conflicts of interest.

For good measure, Mueller made clear, in case there were any lingering doubts, that Russia targeted American elections because it wanted the Republican ticket to win.

Officials in the West Wing were also likely less than thrilled when Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) asked Mueller, “Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?” The former special counsel replied, “Yes.”

Taken aback, Buck asked again, “You believe that you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?” Again, Mueller replied, “Yes.”

But the exchange that may ultimately generate the most conversation came soon after, in response to a back-and-forth between the witness and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

The congressman asked, “The reason again that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”

Mueller replied, “That is correct.”

In context, “the OLC opinion” refers to an analysis from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel – prepared long before Trump’s presidency – that says a sitting president can’t be indicted. As you’ve probably heard, it’s a controversial finding for a variety of reasons.

What was less clear this morning is exactly what Mueller meant with his answer. Was this an instance in which he was implicitly conceding that Trump would’ve been charged were it not for the office he currently holds, or was this simply a restatement of the Mueller report’s finding that the entire issue was effectively off the table for investigators in light of the long-standing Justice Department policy?

Update: During the second round of congressional testimony this afternoon, Mueller clarified that his comments were intended as a restatement, not a bombshell.

Robert Mueller Was Pretty Clear Why Trump Wasn’t Charged With Obstruction

Esquire

Robert Mueller Was Pretty Clear Why Trump Wasn’t Charged With Obstruction

Ken Buck even got Mueller to say Trump could be indicted after he leaves office.

By Jack Holmes       July 24, 2019

image

One thing to keep in mind watching former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testify before Congress this fine Wednesday—which primarily consists of him responding, “I would refer you to the report”—is that more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors have signed a letter declaring that, based on the evidence in the Mueller Report, Donald Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice if he were not the president. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has maintained a position that a sitting president cannot be indicted. As a result, the Report does not make a determination either way on whether Trump obstructed justice, but is explicitly clear that it “does not exonerate” the president.

When they weren’t reprising kaleidoscopic rants about Peter Strzok and The Dossier out of the conservative infotainment vortex—hello, Jim Jordan—Republican members of Congress spent their time at Wednesday’s first hearing trying to prove it was wrong of Mueller to compile a report on the president’s misconduct if he knew he could not press charges. It is a breach of traditional prosecutorial procedure to air evidence against an investigation’s subject without indicting them, but the special counsel must produce a report by law, and anyway, we’re talking about the president’s potential criminality around an attack on our democracy here. It’s a matter of public interest.

 

(Also, Republicans had no problem with it when then-FBI Director James Comey opted not to charge Hillary Clinton over The Emails and The Server, yet dragged her in public,  at length, at a press conference.)

Anyway, in the process of trying to impugn Mueller’s ethics, at least one Republican unwittingly laid out the case that Trump would have been indicted if he weren’t the sitting president—that is, if he were any other American—and that he could be indicted if and when he leaves the White House. Step right up, Mr. Buck.

Kyle Griffin: The video of another key moment:

Buck: “Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?”

Mueller: “Yes.”

Buck: “You believe that you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?”

Mueller: “Yes.”
Via ABC

Embedded video

As Buck reminded us, Mueller said explicitly he wasn’t charging Trump with conspiracy because there was insufficient evidence. But he explicitly did not choose to exonerate Trump on obstruction. What explanation is there other than that there was sufficient evidence, but the Justice Department regulations prevent indicting the president?

The president would have been charged with a crime if he were any other person in this country. He could still be charged, assuming he doesn’t make good on his “jokes” about seeking unlimited terms in office. Later, under questioning from Democrat Ted Lieu, Mueller was even more direct.

The president broke the law. He attempted to obstruct an investigation into Russia’s interference in an American presidential election, and whether his campaign conspired in those efforts. (Trump’s campaign was aware of Russia’s influence campaign and that it was intended to help him. They welcomed the meddling, but Mueller found insufficient evidence to charge a criminal conspiracy.) He was not charged because he is the president. It is now the obligation of Congress to hold him accountable, assuming that no one is above the law. That looks more and more like a shaky assumption.

Update (2:14 p.m.): In the second hearing of the day in front of the House Intelligence Committee, Mueller clarified he was not, in fact, saying the Justice Department policy was the only reason he did not charge Trump with obstruction. He did not make a determination either way. But again: if there was insufficient evidence, the Report would have said so, as it did with the conspiracy charge. What other explanation is there?

Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire.com, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

A New Crop of Food Justice Fellowships Seed Future Leaders

Castanea and Seeding Power fellows are addressing racial inequities within the food system.

By Elizabeth Hewitt, Food Justice      July 25, 2019

Since 2013, Mark Winston Griffith has been working to launch a food co-op in central Brooklyn. In a neighborhood where gentrification has squeezed to the margins the community that has been there for generations, Griffith and the Brooklyn Movement Center, where he works, envision a co-op as part of a broader effort for the local Black community to gain control over the neighborhood food system.

 

Over the course of planning, Griffith has considered local economic impacts, employment, pricing, and more. But after meeting in June with the rest of his cohort in the inaugural year of the food justice-focused Castanea Fellowship (pictured above), Griffith realized he’s been overlooking a key player: farmers.

Now, as he works to revamp the urban neighborhood’s food system, he’s planning to focus his energy on building relationships with food producers in the regions that surround the city. “We really have to have a deeper understanding of how our work is impacting farmers,” he said. “We have to contribute to making sure that they are making a healthy living.” He’s also starting to reconsider how pricing should work at the co-op, looking beyond how costs impact the local Brooklyn neighborhood to how they impact producers.

The two-year Castanea Fellowship, which launched this year with a cohort of 12 fellows, brings together leaders from across the country with a broad range of expertise and experiences, including indigenous agricultural practices, issues impacting farmers of color, inequity in urban food systems, health, and more.

In selecting fellows from a pool of 415 applicants, the program sought out people from diverse racial and geographic backgrounds on the “front lines” of the movement, according to executive director Farzana Serang. “We want folks who are leading the conversation about improving the food systems to be the ones who understand those issues the most,” Serang said.

The program provides each fellow with $40,000 in grant funds to be used toward a charitable purpose, plus transportation. When fully operational with two cohorts, the annual budget will be slightly over $1 million.

Castanea is part of a new crop of fellowships at the regional and national levels aiming not just to train the next generation of food leaders, but to foster connections among advocates working in different aspects of the food system. The idea is to create a more unified movement with a focus on pushing for greater racial equity.

Unifying the New York Food Movement

In New York, the newly launched Seeding Power Fellowship from Community Food Funders is striving to coalesce a unified food movement within the region. With a budget of roughly $230,000, the fellowship brings together food system leaders from Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson River Valley where, despite working in close quarters, advocates are often disconnected from each other even when they have shared goals, according to Adam Liebowitz, director of Community Food Funders.

“It creates a false impression of competition, or being at odds, or at the very least not being allies,” Liebowitz said.

Organizers at Seeding Power set out to unite people from different backgrounds to create a more comprehensive movement pushing for racial equity in New York. In order to leverage the power of the fellowship, the program limited applicants to people who are already established in their careers and in positions of leadership within their organization. The program’s 12 fellows, selected from a pool of 57 applicants, represent farmers, urban farmers’ markets, rural education initiatives, and more. Each fellow receives $5,000 for participation.

The Seeding Power fellowsThe Seeding Power fellows.

Sandra Jean-Louis, a Seeding Power fellow whose work with Public Health Solutions focuses on food security among older public housing residents, said uniting advocates from different corners of the food system creates more efficiency. Right now, organizations working toward the same public health goals can end up inadvertently competing with each other for resources. “We are running after the same dollars,” Jean-Louis said. If organizations could coordinate on grant applications with other like-minded groups, she said, it could amplify their efforts.

The fellows, who have so far gathered for two of the total of five retreats they’ll participate in over the course of the 18-month program, have already started finding new common ground.

Mohamed Attia, a Seeding Power fellow and co-director of The Street Vendor Project, was surprised to learn that access to driver’s licenses for immigrants, a hurdle for city street vendors, is also a major issue for rural farmworkers. New York state just passed a law expanding access to driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants last month.

Workers on farms, in restaurants, and at street vendor carts face similar “injustice and unfairness,” according to Attia, who worked as a food vendor in New York, first selling pretzels and hot dogs in Times Square and later running a halal cart. The program, he said, offers space for people from different backgrounds to connect around common issues.

“I’m sure there are hundreds or maybe thousands of organizations with food workers all across the nation. But imagine if all these people have one voice,” Attia said. “I think that would be super helpful and super powerful.”

A Focus on Racial Equity

Both the Castanea and Seeding Power fellowships identify addressing racial inequities within the food system as a central part of their mission, and both cohorts include a majority of people of color.

Shorlette Ammons, of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) at North Carolina State University and a Castanea fellow, said the diversity of the cohort sets the stage for the conversation to center on communities that have historically been marginalized.

Ammons, who grew up in a small town in eastern North Carolina and focuses on the experience of rural Black farming communities, says those perspectives are key for helping to build collective solutions, as are others represented in the group.

“I think we have a lot to learn from indigenous communities, [and] we have a lot to learn from Black country people and rural communities,” she said.

The members of the Castanea cohort are deeply connected to their cultural roots, noted Rowen White, a fellow who works with the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. The diversity within the group encourages participants to draw on their backgrounds, she said, which stands out. “A lot of the times in professional spaces, people are asked to check a lot of things at the door.”

She added, “It just gives insight into where the food systems movement can go when we really allow ourselves to really be present with all of the ancestral wisdom and lineage and knowledge and power that comes with our cultural inheritance.”

A Cohort Approach to Food Justice Work

While fellowships tend to serve only small numbers of people, food policy experts say they can be effective ways to shape conversations over time.

For author and advocate Anna Lappé, her participation in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation-sponsored Food & Society/Food & Community fellowship programs, which operated from 2001 to 2013, helped her make connections and develop skills that are the foundation for her work with the food system. “New organizations have been born, lifelong relationships cultivated, and deep strategic thinking has come out of fellowships,” she explained by email to Civil Eats.

Now a member of Castanea’s steering committee, Lappé sees fellowships as “critical” to tackling the major issues connected to the food system. “I’ve always believed that the transformational work needed to address these food system-driven crises cannot be achieved in isolation,” Lappé said.

Food justice advocates are often focused on one aspect of the system, like improving nutrition or calling for the rights of laborers, according to Nick Freudenberg, professor of public health and director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and a member of Seeding Power’s selection committee. The splintering of efforts within the sector, he said, has “compromised the effectiveness of the food movement and the food justice movement.” But by bringing people together, fellowships can overcome those barriers.

“Having more knowledgeable, skillful, strategic leadership in the food justice movement will increase its impact and move us towards having a healthier food system and reducing food insecurity, diet related diseases, unfairly paid food workers,” Freudenberg said.

Kathleen Merrigan, executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University and the former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sees fellowships as valuable training ground for emerging leaders in the food system. Not only are farmers and ranchers aging, food policy experts in the federal government are also retiring, she said.

Programs that provide resources and time to people working in the food system help them prepare to take on bigger roles. Fellowships also provide valuable spaces where people can collaborate, exchange ideas, and find community.

“The work is hard, and sometimes the work can be lonely,” Merrigan said. “It’s really great to have a cohort approach to problem solving and food system work.”

Food Fellowships on the Rise

Fellowships are currently popular within the food sector—both Merrigan and Freudenberg are launching their own. Merrigan is helping establish a program for food policy leaders, and Freudenberg is creating one aimed at young adults.

Neither worry about duplicating efforts too much. Some programs coordinate with each other; for instance, leaders from Seeding Power, Castanea, and a third program, the HEAL Food Alliance, have been in contact about their efforts. However, Merrigan does caution that there could be limited financial resources to support programs.

But, while interest in food is at high right now, Merrigan doesn’t see a unified reform movement. “We have a long ways to go before it’s a sufficiently powerful social movement to transform the system, as many of these fellowship programs suggest is their aim,” she said.

For Griffith, who is working to open the neighborhood food co-op in Brooklyn, the fellowship is a launching pad. He feels the results of the Castanea Fellowship will play out over years and generations, as factors shaping the food system change. Griffith hopes participating in the fellowship will help Brooklyn Movement Center’s hyper-local work connect with efforts across the country to change food structures.

“At the end of the day, you know, your local community cannot be an island,” he said. “You have to fit into broader structures; you have to be able to change policies and the ways of doing business, across the board.”