SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

NEWS AND VIEWS

DO VIOLENT TEENS AUTOMATICALLY JUST “GROW OUT OF” THEIR DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR? PSYCHOLOGIST SHERRY HAMBY SAYS NOT, AND THAT SEXUAL ASSAULT IS EVEN MORE BOTHERSOME. PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPY IS VERY HELPFUL, AND A GROUP SHARING SITUATION SUCH AS ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WITH ITS’ COMBINATION OF GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL WORK IS MORE LIKELY TO BE EFFECTIVE. THERE IS, OR USED TO BE, A GROUP CALLED “NEUROTICS ANONYMOUS.” IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT ANYONE AS A TEEN WHO HAS A PATTERN OF BINGING ON ANY SUBSTANCE WILL LIKELY CONTINUE IT IF THEY DO NOT SEEK TREATMENT. SO, IS THIS EARLY QUITE VIOLENT EVENT A SIGN OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF DEEPER, REPETITIVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS? YES.

AS FOR THE PROBABLE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE ASSAULT VICTIM, CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, SEE TWO ARTICLES ON THE SUBJECT OF WOMEN WHO “CRY RAPE,” IN MY SECOND BLOG OF TODAY CALLED “FALSE ASSAULT ACCUSATIONS BY WOMEN.” IT IS LITERALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY THAT THIS WOMAN’S WORDS BE HEARD AND INVESTIGATED FURTHER AS WELL. THE ARTICLES IN THAT PIECE CAN HELP TO SHOW WHY THE WORD OF A WOMAN, CONCERNING A DECADES OLD EVENT, CAN BE MORE CONVINCINGLY EXAMINED. IN ADDITION TO THAT, THE POSSIBLE ELEVATION OF A DISHONEST, SUBSTANCE ABUSING PERSON TO THE SUPREME COURT IS UNACCEPTABLE, ESPECIALLY IN A CASE LIKE THIS ONE WHEN WE DO HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARLY EVENT.

THIS PARTICULAR CASE IS ONE OF AN ALREADY SUSPECT CANDIDATE BASED ON SOME LIES HE IS BELIEVED TO HAVE TOLD ON TWO OCCASIONS ABOUT HIS TIME IN THE GEORGE H BUSH PRESIDENCY -- ONCE WHEN HE WAS MADE A FEDERAL JUDGE AND AGAIN SOME DAYS AGO FOR THIS SUPREME COURT NOMINATION. BOTH TIMES IT WAS DONE BEFORE THE SENATE AND UNDER OATH. I ASSUME IT WAS DONE IN ORDER TO PASS MUSTER AS A JUDGE THEN AND A JUSTICE NOW. NOT ONLY MUST IT DISQUALIFY HIM FOR THE SUPREME COURT, BUT IT IS A CRIME, AND GROUNDS FOR REMOVING HIM FROM THE FEDERAL BENCH ENTIRELY AS WELL.

I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I HEARD MENTION THAT – PROBABLY RACHEL MADDOW, SO I HAVEN’T TRIED TO LOOK AT ANY LEGAL SOURCES ABOUT IT. I DO TRUST RACHEL MADDOW OVERALL, THOUGH. I THINK THAT THOSE WHO DON’T LIKE HER FEEL THAT WAY MAINLY BECAUSE THEY DISAGREE WITH HER VIEWS. SHE IS A VERY SAUCY LADY, SO FOR THOSE WHO WANT LOTS OF COVERT MODESTY WON’T FIND IT IN HER. I LIKE SAUCY WOMEN, AND I THINK SHE IS COMMITTED TO THE TRUTH.

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/9/19/17878794/kavanaugh-assault-allegations-teen-psychology
What’s wrong with the “just a teen” Kavanaugh defense, according to a psychologist
Here’s what we know about teen perpetrators and victims of sexual assault.
By Sherry Hamby Sep 19, 2018, 4:10pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Getty Images/EyeEm

The recent sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have raised many questions, but by far one of the most discussed is the relevance of age. As described by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh was 17 and she was 15 at the time of the alleged incident. Now both are in their 50s.

Do events that happened during adolescence still matter to a person well into adulthood? How should we think about sexual assault from a person’s teenage years decades later? Political commentators have been weighing in on this question in relation to the allegations against Kavanaugh. As articulated by opinion columnist Jonathan Zimmerman in USA Today, “Kavanaugh was a teenager at the time. Of course he was different then; he was a third of the age he is now. And teens do stupid, dangerous and destructive things.”

As a violence researcher, journal editor, and psychologist, I am one of the many scientists who have been studying these kinds of questions for decades. Misunderstandings and assumptions about patterns of behavior in adolescence have been flourishing in the discourse around Kavanaugh’s alleged actions. It’s worth looking at what we know from decades of investigating these topics.

Teen victims of assault can experience trauma for a lifetime

On the victimization side, the answer is a clear “yes.” It is well-established that childhood and young adult victims of sexual assault experience lifelong impacts. The impact includes not only higher risk of psychological problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, and suicidality, but also greater likelihood of physical health problems such as obesity, and social consequences such as school dropout. The evidence now indicates that every victimization experience — especially those that happen in childhood — adds to the total burden or “dose” of adversity, and you can see the health impacts of childhood abuse well into adulthood.

The reasons for this long-term impact are still being explored, but most evidence points to the physiological effects of toxic stress. Toxic stress can lead to the excessive release of stress hormones and other physical responses that can cause permanent damage to many bodily systems, including victims’ metabolism, heart health, and immune systems.

For teen perpetrators, the science is still developing. But here’s what we know.

For perpetrators, the question of what matters 30 years later is more complex, and the science is still developing. It has been said that there is no evidence that Kavanaugh has engaged in any form of perpetration in recent years, which would not be an unusual pattern. Late adolescence through the 20s are the peak risk period for sexual perpetration, and, for that matter, most other crime.

Although young people can pack a lot of offending into that developmental stage and terrorize many victims, most (but not all) people reduce their offending as they mature, especially into their 40s and beyond. Unfortunately, it is usually the worst offenders who also persist in perpetration the longest, which is how you can end up with someone like Larry Nassar, 55, the physician who has been convicted of assaulting several young gymnasts, with some estimates putting the true number of his victims over 250 across more than 20 years.

However, even when sexual offending is limited to a relatively brief period of adolescence or even a single incident, that doesn’t mean those offenses are completely in the past. Not just anyone commits sexual assault. It takes a special kind of person to look at another human being and think, “I bet I could overpower her”— much less actually try to do just that. It is unfair to most men to suggest that these behaviors are just part of the experience of masculinity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sex offenders often have antisocial personality traits, impulse control problems, hostility toward women, callous attitudes about sex, and other problematic characteristics. They often engage in binge drinking or other substance abuse — and no, not all adolescents binge-drink. Further, although some sexual perpetrators are criminal “specialists,” meaning that they don’t typically commit crimes other than sexual assault (particularly common among pedophiles), many sexual perpetrators are criminal “generalists” who commit other types of offenses. These problems don’t just go away, even if their most extreme offending improves. Many of these personality characteristics are very resistant to most forms of psychotherapy.

As a psychologist, I believe that people can change. Otherwise, what would be the point of therapy? But change takes work. If someone denies what happened or tries to cover it up, then it is more likely that they are going to carry these other problems forward.

Telling the truth is the first step toward healing for both perpetrator and victim. Truth-telling is the foundation of programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the Truth and Reconciliation movements that began in South Africa after apartheid ended, and, of course, virtually every form of psychotherapy ever invented. The truth is the absolute minimum that is owed to victims.

In my years as an advocate, I have seen perpetrators of sexual violence genuinely put their past offenses behind them. These people don’t just admit that what they did was wrong or say that they are sorry; they do the work necessary to understand that their victim’s story is just as important as theirs. They learn that the rest of us are not just “extras” in the story of their lives or objects to be manipulated or discarded for their own pleasure, but that we are fully equal humans who have the same rights to self-determination and the same emotional depths as they do. They don’t sacrifice others’ well-being or reputations so they never experience the consequences of their actions.

And even when they do successfully do this, the mark of the sexual assault does not go away, not fully, not ever. But it does become a less important moment in the lives of both perpetrator and victim.


Sherry Hamby is a research professor of psychology at the University of the South and editor of the American Psychological Association journal Psychology of Violence.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.


THIS IS THE SECOND VERY DISTURBING SITUATION I’VE SEEN CODY WILSON IN DURING THIS LAST YEAR. FIRST, I THINK HIS LOVE OF DISTRIBUTING, VIRTUALLY FREE, THE INFORMATION TO ALLOW A DANGEROUS PERSON WITH A 3D PRINTER TO MAKE HIS OWN DARNED AR-15 IS AMORAL AT BEST. IF OUR LAWS WERE BETTER, IT WOULD BE CRIMINAL. SETTING THAT ASIDE FOR THE MOMENT, HOWEVER, HE IS NOW SUSPECTED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ON A MINOR. WHAT I SEE WHEN I WATCH HIM IN AN INTERVIEW IS PERSONAL FRIGIDITY. THAT IS ALWAYS A BAD SIGN IN MY VIEW. THAT IS THE CHARACTERISTIC THAT ALLOWS AND INDIVIDUAL TO DO REAL HARM.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS NOT THE WORST PART OF THIS STORY. SHORTLY AFTER DONALD TRUMP CAME INTO THE PRESIDENCY, THE DOJ’S COURT BATTLE WITH HIM ABRUPTLY STOPPED, AND APPARENTLY EVEN AGREED TO PAY HIS LEGAL FEES. ARE WE STILL IN THE USA?

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17880202/cody-wilson-3d-printed-gun-taiwan
Cody Wilson, 3D-printed gun creator, is accused of sexually assaulting a minor
Wilson is believed to be in Taiwan after a friend of the alleged victim told him about the investigation.
By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Sep 19, 2018, 6:30pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Cody Wilson, libertarian activist and owner of Defense Distributed, holds up a 3D-printed gun that he designed. Kelly West/AFP via Getty Images

Last month, libertarian activist Cody Wilson drew global media attention over his plans to publish blueprints for a gun that could be fully made using a 3D printer. Now, Wilson is in the news for a whole different reason: He’s been accused of sexually assaulting a minor.

It also seems he may have fled to Taiwan, where he could be out of reach of police.

Police in Austin, Texas, told the Austin American-Statesman that Wilson, who’s 30, has been charged with sexual assault; he’s accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl on August 15 and paying her $500.

The girl apparently met Wilson on the website SugarDaddyMeet.com, where he went by the name “Sanjuro,” according to the police affidavit seen by the Statesman. The two continued talking through text messages before eventually agreeing to meet at a local coffee shop. They then went to a hotel, where the girl said she had sex with Wilson. After, she said, Wilson paid her $500.

The girl gave police specific details about where she met Wilson, which authorities reportedly corroborated with surveillance footage and hotel records.

Police now believe that Wilson was tipped off by a friend of the 16-year-old that police were investigating him. They say he’s currently in Taiwan, where he frequently travels for business, and appears to have missed a scheduled flight back.

As Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce pointed out, Taiwan doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US — meaning it might not have to fulfill authorities’ request to send Wilson back to America for prosecution.

It remains unclear what, if any, effect the latest charges against Wilson will have on his 3D-printed gun plans and other projects. (He’s also known for other endeavors, including creating Hatreon, a now-defunct crowdfunding website that was beloved by the white nationalist alt-right and neo-Nazis.)

But the sexual assault charges aren’t the first time he’s run into legal troubles.

Wilson was already mired in court battles over his 3D-printed gun blueprints

For years, Wilson has been in court battles with different levels of government to try to publish blueprints for what’s widely believed to be the world’s first fully 3D-printed gun.

Since making a 3D-printed gun only requires a 3D printer, the right materials, and a blueprint, the concern is that 3D-printed guns will make it easy to bypass a host of state and federal laws.

Printing a gun doesn’t require a background check or any documentation, offering a workaround for people who are legally prohibited from buying a gun for reasons such as a criminal record or a history of mental illness.

A 3D-printed gun can also be made without a serial number or anything that would make these firearms easily traceable if they’re used in a crime.

Despite court orders blocking him from publishing the blueprints, Wilson announced plans last month to directly distribute the blueprints to people anyway — taking advantage of a loophole in the order that said the blueprints “can be emailed, mailed, securely transmitted, or otherwise published within the United States.”

Prior to that, Wilson planned to publish the blueprints online on August 1, after the federal government, under President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, abruptly backed down from a legal fight that had until then prevented Wilson from publishing the blueprints. But Wilson’s original plans were put on hold after state officials sued in federal court.

The previous administration, under President Barack Obama, had forced Wilson to stop publishing the blueprints on his website, Defcad.com. Wilson sued the administration in hopes of republishing his schematics. The case seemed like a win for the government, with multiple courts initially ruling in the government’s favor.

But once the Trump administration came in with its gun-friendly politics, the Justice Department suddenly agreed to a settlement — giving Wilson and his nonprofit, Defense Distributed, “essentially everything they wanted,” Andy Greenberg reported in Wired. The deal allowed Wilson to publish his blueprints starting in August and paid him $40,000 for his legal costs.

Still, it’s a big question whether any of these attempts to stop Wilson will amount to much. The technology is out there, and the information is inevitably going to end up on the internet at some point. Even before Wilson’s latest move (to directly distribute blueprints), there were websites hosting 3D printer designs for guns, and sites dedicated to hosting Wilson’s files, even as Wilson’s own ability to republish the documents was held up in court.

For more about the battle to stop 3D-printed guns, read Vox’s explainer.


VENEZUELA’S STRONG MAN EATS A PRICEY MEAL WHILE 90% OF HIS PEOPLE ARE ON THE “MADURO DIET.” IN THE USA, HE MIGHT NEVER BE ELECTED AGAIN.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/18/world/venezuela-maduro-salt-bae-steak-intl/index.html
Maduro slammed for dining on pricey 'Salt Bae' steaks as Venezuelans starve
26439_003 London Portraits Round 2 Eliza Mackintosh _DSC6903.NEFCNN Digital Expansion 2016 Natalie Galln
By Eliza Mackintosh and Natalie Gallón, CNN
Updated 7:09 PM ET, Wed September 19, 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro spotted with Turkish celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, known as "Salt Bae," at one of his Istanbul restaurants.

(CNN)Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro feasted on pricey steaks and smoked cigars at a "Salt Bae" restaurant in Istanbul on Monday, drawing ire and condemnation back home, where an economy spiraling toward collapse has triggered a food crisis.

Videos posted to Twitter and Instagram by the Turkish celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, known as Salt Bae for his signature style of seasoning steaks, show Maduro dining with his wife, Cilia Flores, as Gökçe dramatically slices meat at their table while gyrating his hips. Another clip captures Maduro puffing on a cigar as the couple receives T-shirts screen-printed with Gökçe's likeness sprinkling salt.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment," Maduro can be heard saying to fellow diners.

The videos have since been removed.

Maduro's political opposition has seized on the meal as proof of the president's disregard for the country's mounting humanitarian crisis.

What's the food like in Salt Bae's Abu Dhabi restaurant?

"While Venezuelans are suffering and dying of hunger, Nicolas Maduro and Cilia enjoy one of the most expensive restaurants in the world, all at the expense of the money stolen from the Venezuelan people," tweeted Julio Borges, a leading opposition politician who was recently exiled from Venezuela.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also weighed in on Twitter, condemning the spectacle: "I don't know who this weirdo #Saltbae is, but the guy he is so proud to host is not the President of #Venezuela. He is actually the overweight dictator of a nation where 30% of the people eat only once a day & infants are suffering from malnutrition."

Rubio was criticized for sharing the phone number of the Nusr-et Steakhouse Miami branch in a subsequent tweet, and encouraging his 3.6 million followers to call.

Marco Rubio
✔
@marcorubio
I don’t know who this weirdo #Saltbae is, but the guy he is so proud to host is not the President of #Venezuela. He is actually the overweight dictator of a nation where 30% of the people eat only once a day & infants are suffering from malnutrition. https://twitter.com/nusr_ett/status/1041791316168990720 …

3,792
10:27 PM - Sep 17, 2018
3,220 people are talking about this
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A university study published in February found that 87% of Venezuelans are currently living in poverty. Rampant inflation and higher food prices mean many people are skipping meals -- a phenomenon known as the "Maduro diet" for the embattled president, who has said that doing without "makes you tough."

According to a 2016 survey, 72.7% of respondents said they lost weight in the previous year, dropping an average of 19 pounds (8.7 kg). The average weight loss was slightly higher among those living in extreme poverty.

Venezuelan food crisis reflected in skipped meals and weight loss

The number of respondents who reported eating two or fewer meals per day nearly tripled from the previous year's survey, rising from 11.3% in 2015 to 32.5% in 2016. Based on the data, the authors of the study estimate that some 9.6 million Venezuelans eat two or fewer daily meals.

In response to Maduro's lavish meal, Venezuelans have posted images on social media purporting to show Gökçe sprinkling salt over starving children.

Speaking on Venezuelan state television Monday night, Maduro said that he stopped off at the restaurant on his way back to Venezuela from China, where he was hoping to secure financing for the cash-strapped country.

Maduro said his flight made a stop for service and maintenance in Istanbul, where he accepted "an invitation to visit the historical center of Istanbul and have lunch with some city authorities."

Maduro said that Gökçe "loves and admires" Venezuela.

This story has been updated to include more from Maduro on the circumstances of his stop in Turkey.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said the weight loss survey was part of a university study published in February. The survey that covered weight loss was conducted in 2016 and gave results from loss in 2015.


Nusr-Et RESTAURANTS.

Salt Bae, Turkish chef

Nusret Gökçe, nicknamed Salt Bae, is a Turkish chef and restaurateur who owns Nusr-Et, a chain of Turkish steak houses. His art of cooking and preparing meat became an internet sensation. He is a trained butcher and chef. Wikipedia
Born: 1983 (age 35 years), Paşalı, Turkey
Full name: Nusret Gökçe
Nationality: Turkish


THE RULES OF SENATE AND HOUSE OPERATIONS ARE SO TOTALLY GEARED TO THE MAJORITY PARTY, AND SO LITTLE RESTRICTING THEIR MACHINATIONS ON OCCASIONS LIKE THIS, WHICH PUT A ROADBLOCK IN THE WAY OF WHAT IS BEST FOR THE COUNTRY.

NO POLITICAL PARTY SHOULD BE ABLE TO PREVENT A FAIR HEARING FOR A WITNESS SUCH AS MS. FORD AND THE INFORMATION WHICH SHE HAS TO OFFER TO THE PROPER DELIBERATIONS. AT LEAST THEORETICALLY, THERE MAY BE GENUINELY HONEST REPUBLICANS AMONG THEM WHOSE MINDS MAY NOT BE TOTALLY CLOSED TO ANY OTHER WAY THAN THE PARTY’S WAY, AND THEY NEED TO HEAR WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY.

THIS IS BEING CONDUCTED LIKE IT’S A FOOTBALL GAME WITH THE SOLE GOAL OF ONE PARTY WINNING AGAINST THE OTHER – NO TIME-WASTING COOPERATION TOWARD A MUTUAL GOAL; WHEN THE ISSUE INVOLVED IS IN FACT A DETERMINANT OF AMERICA’S COURSE IN THE FUTURE IN THOUSANDS OF WAYS. WE NEED TO GIVE THE SUPREME COURT LESS ABILITY TO DETERMINE SOLELY REALLY IMPORTANT POLICIES. IN THESE ESSENTIAL ACTIONS, HOW THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OPERATE SHOULD BE LAID OUT IN THE CONSTITUTION AND NOT CHANGEABLE BY THE WHIM OF A -- POSSIBLY INCOMPETENT -- PRESIDENT AND A LONG-SINCE CORRUPTED POLITICAL PARTY. THIS HAS NOT BEEN A GOOD TWO YEARS FOR JUSTICE. I’M NOT SAYING THAT DEMOCRATS COULDN’T ALSO BE CORRUPTED, BECAUSE BOTH PARTIES ARE TO ONE DEGREE OR OTHER, BY THE SWAY OF THE MONEYED INTERESTS OR BY THE PASSIONS OF THOSE WHO WOULD TAKE AWAY THE RIGHTS TO VOTE OR OWN PROPERTY.

UNTIL 1867, THE STATES AND NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, CONTROLLED MARRIED WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE USA. SOME OF THE VERY WORST LEGAL SITUATIONS IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY ARE BASED ON THAT OLD “STATES’ RIGHTS” SYSTEM. A WOMAN WHEN SHE MARRIED MAY HAVE GAINED LOVE AND CHILDREN, BUT SHE LOST A GOODLY CHUNK OF HERSELF. LOVE SHOULDN’T CAUSE THAT TO HAPPEN. SOME, OF COURSE, WANT THE MARRIAGE AND FAMILY ABOVE ALL OTHER THINGS.

THAT NOT BEING THE CASE, HOWEVER, WE NEED A RULE THAT SPECIFICALLY STATES THAT A MATTER SUCH AS THIS OBVIOUS PACKING OF THE SUPREME COURT WITH CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS SHOULD BE PROHIBITED BY THE SENATE RULES, OR BETTER STILL, BY THE CONSTITUTION. THEIR REFUSAL TO EVEN CONSIDER ANY OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S APPOINTEES WAS A SCANDAL. THESE SENATE REPUBLICANS SHOULD ALL BE IMPEACHED FOR THAT. TOO MANY OF THE THINGS THAT BOTH HOUSES OF THE LEGISLATURE DO ARE UP TO THE “OPTION” OF THE DOMINANT PARTY. MAKE GOOD RULES – NOT OPEN OPTIONS -- AND THEN USE THEM.

ALL INVESTIGATIONS SHOULD BE GIVEN TIME TO UNFOLD IN AN ORDERLY AND COMPLETE WAY. OTHERWISE ALL THIS HIGH AND HOLY DELIBERATION WILL BE JUST A STAGE SHOW, TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE CEREMONY OF THE SCRIPTED YEAS AND NAYS.

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17873580/brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-democrat-strategy
Senate Republicans are playing straight into Democrats’ message about Brett Kavanaugh allegations
Senate Democrats keep saying Republicans are rushing on Kavanaugh. These sexual assault allegations are the next test.
By Tara Golshan Sep 19, 2018, 3:00pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) say Republicans are rushing the Kavanaugh nomination. Mario Tama/Getty Images

If Christine Blasey Ford doesn’t show up Monday to testify before a Senate committee about her allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, Republicans have been very clear about what will happen next: They’re moving on.

If they do, they’ll play right into Democrats’ main talking point about Kavanaugh’s nomination: that it was rushed from the beginning to the end — even after serious allegations of sexual assault emerged. If the Democrats’ message is effective, two things could happen: It could convince Republicans senators to call for a more thorough investigation, or leave Kavanaugh’s confirmation sullied with scandal.

Both Republicans and Democrats say Ford should be heard. But Democrats say the investigation should happen independently, through federal investigators, and have repeatedly called for the FBI to reopen a background check into Kavanaugh. And they want to hear from witnesses — everyone from Kavanaugh’s classmate and friend Mark Judge, who was allegedly involved in the incident, to Ford’s family therapist, who recorded notes about the incident, as told by Ford, in 2012.

“There is corroboration in this charge,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said. “Why in god’s name do they think they could rush a vote through? The only reason to rush a vote through is to say, who cares about sexual assault? But we ought to care about sexual assault.”

Hearing Ford testify is all Republicans are willing to do.

Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley clarified that there would only be two witnesses at a hearing scheduled for Monday: Ford and Kavanaugh. And when Ford said she wanted the FBI to investigate her claims before she testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley doubled down: “Nothing the FBI or any other investigator does would have any bearing on what Dr. Ford tells the committee, so there is no reason for any further delay.”

Ford’s allegations — which Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied — seemed as if they could upend his confirmation. Instead, it’s led to a replay of the same argument Republicans and Democrats have had throughout his confirmation process: Democrats call for more time and information about Kavanaugh’s record and past, and Republicans push toward a vote before the midterm elections. It’s the same fight the two parties had about releasing records from Kavanaugh’s time in the Bush White House — except now the issue at hand isn’t a stack of documents, but a woman who claims her sexual assault led to decades of trauma.

Republicans and Democrats are talking past each other

Nothing about the handling of Ford’s allegation in Congress has been bipartisan. The attacks started the day after Ford went public with her allegations. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats for not bringing up the allegations against Kavanaugh earlier in the confirmation process.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee received a letter from Ford detailing the allegations in July, and eventually referred the matter to the FBI without informing the Senate Judiciary Committee in September. Feinstein maintains she did not come forward with the claims in order to protect the confidentiality requested by Ford. But eventually, news of a letter was leaked to the press, and the content trickled out over time.

Republicans say the timing is suspect.

“It is an accusation which the ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction has known about for at least six weeks, yet chose to keep secret until the eleventh hour,” McConnell said Monday of Feinstein’s knowledge, praising Republicans for bringing order and transparency back to the process.

“Chairman Grassley is following standard practice and regular order, and he stated he plans to pursue this matter by the book,” McConnell said.

Despite Democratic calls to keep the investigation independent, the Republican staff on the Judiciary Committee held calls with Kavanaugh and tried to contact Ford on Monday. Democrats did not participate, in part because they said they were not given enough notice, and in part because they said congressional staff should not be involved.

Republicans went forward anyway. Grassley scheduled a hearing for Monday, where Kavanaugh and Ford were invited to testify. Feinstein said she heard about it through the press.

For days, Republicans and Democrats have been talking past each other, establishing what they deem as an appropriate investigation into these allegations. But at the end of the day, Republicans run the process, and they’ve been clear: Ford can testify if she’d like.

Otherwise, this is a done deal.

Democrats are saying this process is not normal

Democrats want the allegations against Kavanaugh to remind Americans what happened with Anita Hill, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in the 1990s and watched him get confirmed anyway.

They don’t just want to draw a parallel. They’re arguing that Senate Republicans in 2018 are doing less to investigate allegations of sexual assault than the Senate did in 1991, when it was controlled by Democrats.

“Chairman Grassley today said there would be only two witnesses invited to testify at the Kavanaugh hearing next week on sexual assault allegations,” Sen. Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday. “Compare that to the 22 witnesses at the 1991 Anita Hill hearing and it’s impossible to take this process seriously.”

In Hill’s case, the FBI, at the direction of George H.W. Bush, reopened its background check into Thomas. This time, however, Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants the “process” to go forward, has made no indication that he will order the FBI to investigate the allegations as part of that process. He’s praised Kavanaugh repeatedly.

And Senate Republicans say there is no need for any further investigation — nor can they picture what that would look like.

“I don’t know how you investigate something that happened 35 years ago,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said. “I don’t know how you investigate that. Again, to me, the important thing was to let her be heard.”

Ford told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh held her down at a high school party in the 1980s and attempted to force himself on her, covering her mouth to quiet her protests. Her allegations were documented by her therapist in notes from sessions in 2012 and 2013, in which Ford talked about a “rape attempt” and being attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school.”

Kavanaugh denied the allegations, as did another male classmate who Ford said was involved in the incident.

“What about other witnesses like Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge?” Feinstein asked. “What about individuals who were previously told about this incident? What about experts who can speak to the effects of this kind of trauma on a victims?”

There has been no federal investigation into these specific allegations.

Democrats message is that Kavanaugh’s nomination was rushed. They want to slow it down.

By Wednesday morning, when it became clear that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were ready to move on from Ford’s allegations, Democrats reiterated their point: The process is broken.

“We should honor Dr. Blasey Ford’s wishes and delay this hearing. A proper investigation must be completed, witnesses interviewed, evidence reviewed and all sides spoken to. Only then should the chairman set a hearing date,” Feinstein said Wednesday.

“This is another attempt by Republicans to rush this nomination and not fully vet Judge Kavanaugh,” she had noted earlier this week.

For months, Republicans have been pushing to get Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court before the 2018 midterm elections, to avoid the small-but-possible risk that Republicans lose control of the Senate.

From the beginning, Democrats have said the procedure, in which the Senate first reviews a nominee’s entire public record and then has the opportunity to question it, has been thrown out the window. First it was about the documents — the Bush White House library released 42,000 pages of documents from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House Monday night, just hours before the start of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings earlier this month. And now with allegations of sexual assault, as Republicans look poised to move forward without much investigation.

As Vox explained, while the pace of Kavanaugh’s confirmation isn’t necessarily unprecedented — the timeline is.

“So far the Republican leadership has completely disrespected this survivor,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “There is no way we should have this hearing without having a full fair investigation. There is no way to fairly have this hearing without having corroborating witnesses come forward as well. What has been proposed is a sham.”

It a [sic] strategy that could either upend the confirmation process altogether, by convincing Republicans senators that serious allegations are being overlooked, or simply emphasize what Democrats have been telling Americans all along: that the cards are stacked against them.

Democrats may not be able to stop Kavanaugh from getting a vote, but they now have more fodder for the talking point they’ve been pushing all along: that Republicans are in a hurry.


DO VIOLENT TEENS AUTOMATICALLY JUST “GROW OUT OF” THEIR DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR? PSYCHOLOGIST SHERRY HAMBY SAYS NOT, AND THAT SEXUAL ASSAULT IS EVEN MORE BOTHERSOME. PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPY ARE VERY HELPFUL, AND A GROUP SHARING SITUATION SUCH AS ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WITH ITS’ COMBINATION OF GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL WORK IS MORE LIKELY TO BE EFFECTIVE. THERE IS, OR USED TO BE, A GROUP CALLED “NEUROTICS ANONYMOUS.” IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT ANYONE AS A TEEN WHO HAS A PATTERN OF BINGING ON ANY SUBSTANCE WILL LIKELY CONTINUE IT IF THEY DO NOT SEEK TREATMENT. SO, IS THIS EARLY QUITE VIOLENT EVENT A SIGN OF THE LIKELIHOOD OF SERIOUS TROUBLE? YES.

AS FOR THE PROBABLE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE ASSAULT VICTIM, CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, SEE TWO ARTICLES ON THE SUBJECT OF WOMEN WHO “CRY RAPE,” IN MY SECOND BLOG OF TODAY CALLED “FALSE ASSAULT ACCUSATIONS BY WOMEN.” IT IS LITERALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY THAT THIS WOMAN’S WORDS BE HEARD AND INVESTIGATED FURTHER AS WELL. THAT CAN HELP TO SHOW WHY THE WORD OF A WOMAN CONCERNING A DECADES OLD EVENT CAN BE MORE CONVINCINGLY EXAMINED.

THIS PARTICULAR CASE OF AN ALREADY SUSPECT CANDIDATE BASED ON SOME LIES HE IS BELIEVED TO HAVE TOLD ON TWO OCCASIONS ABOUT HIS TIME IN THE GEORGE H BUSH PRESIDENCY -- ONCE WHEN HE WAS MADE A FEDERAL JUDGE AND AGAIN SOME DAYS AGO FOR THIS SUPREME COURT NOMINATION. BOTH TIMES IT WAS DONE BEFORE THE SENATE AND UNDER OATH. I ASSUME IT WAS DONE IN ORDER TO PASS MUSTER AS A JUDGE THEN AND A JUSTICE NOW. NOT ONLY MUST IT DISQUALIFY HIM FOR THE SUPREME COURT, BUT IT IS A CRIME, AND GROUNDS FOR REMOVING HIM FROM THE FEDERAL BENCH ENTIRELY AS WELL.

I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I HEARD MENTION THAT – PROBABLY RACHEL MADDOW, SO I HAVEN’T TRIED TO LOOK AT ANY LEGAL SOURCES ABOUT IT. I DO TRUST RACHEL MADDOW OVERALL, THOUGH. I THINK THAT THOSE WHO DON’T LIKE HER FEEL THAT WAY MAINLY BECAUSE THEY DISAGREE WITH HER VIEWS. SHE IS A VERY SAUCY LADY, SO FOR THOSE WHO WANT LOTS OF MODESTY WON’T FIND IT IN HER. I LIKE SAUCY WOMEN.

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/9/19/17878794/kavanaugh-assault-allegations-teen-psychology
What’s wrong with the “just a teen” Kavanaugh defense, according to a psychologist
Here’s what we know about teen perpetrators and victims of sexual assault.
By Sherry Hamby Sep 19, 2018, 4:10pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Getty Images/EyeEm

The recent sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have raised many questions, but by far one of the most discussed is the relevance of age. As described by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh was 17 and she was 15 at the time of the alleged incident. Now both are in their 50s.

Do events that happened during adolescence still matter to a person well into adulthood? How should we think about sexual assault from a person’s teenage years decades later? Political commentators have been weighing in on this question in relation to the allegations against Kavanaugh. As articulated by opinion columnist Jonathan Zimmerman in USA Today, “Kavanaugh was a teenager at the time. Of course he was different then; he was a third of the age he is now. And teens do stupid, dangerous and destructive things.”

As a violence researcher, journal editor, and psychologist, I am one of the many scientists who have been studying these kinds of questions for decades. Misunderstandings and assumptions about patterns of behavior in adolescence have been flourishing in the discourse around Kavanaugh’s alleged actions. It’s worth looking at what we know from decades of investigating these topics.

Teen victims of assault can experience trauma for a lifetime

On the victimization side, the answer is a clear “yes.” It is well-established that childhood and young adult victims of sexual assault experience lifelong impacts. The impact includes not only higher risk of psychological problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, and suicidality, but also greater likelihood of physical health problems such as obesity, and social consequences such as school dropout. The evidence now indicates that every victimization experience — especially those that happen in childhood — adds to the total burden or “dose” of adversity, and you can see the health impacts of childhood abuse well into adulthood.

The reasons for this long-term impact are still being explored, but most evidence points to the physiological effects of toxic stress. Toxic stress can lead to the excessive release of stress hormones and other physical responses that can cause permanent damage to many bodily systems, including victims’ metabolism, heart health, and immune systems.

For teen perpetrators, the science is still developing. But here’s what we know.

For perpetrators, the question of what matters 30 years later is more complex, and the science is still developing. It has been said that there is no evidence that Kavanaugh has engaged in any form of perpetration in recent years, which would not be an unusual pattern. Late adolescence through the 20s are the peak risk period for sexual perpetration, and, for that matter, most other crime.

Although young people can pack a lot of offending into that developmental stage and terrorize many victims, most (but not all) people reduce their offending as they mature, especially into their 40s and beyond. Unfortunately, it is usually the worst offenders who also persist in perpetration the longest, which is how you can end up with someone like Larry Nassar, 55, the physician who has been convicted of assaulting several young gymnasts, with some estimates putting the true number of his victims over 250 across more than 20 years.

However, even when sexual offending is limited to a relatively brief period of adolescence or even a single incident, that doesn’t mean those offenses are completely in the past. Not just anyone commits sexual assault. It takes a special kind of person to look at another human being and think, “I bet I could overpower her”— much less actually try to do just that. It is unfair to most men to suggest that these behaviors are just part of the experience of masculinity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sex offenders often have antisocial personality traits, impulse control problems, hostility toward women, callous attitudes about sex, and other problematic characteristics. They often engage in binge drinking or other substance abuse — and no, not all adolescents binge-drink. Further, although some sexual perpetrators are criminal “specialists,” meaning that they don’t typically commit crimes other than sexual assault (particularly common among pedophiles), many sexual perpetrators are criminal “generalists” who commit other types of offenses. These problems don’t just go away, even if their most extreme offending improves. Many of these personality characteristics are very resistant to most forms of psychotherapy.

As a psychologist, I believe that people can change. Otherwise, what would be the point of therapy? But change takes work. If someone denies what happened or tries to cover it up, then it is more likely that they are going to carry these other problems forward.

Telling the truth is the first step toward healing for both perpetrator and victim. Truth-telling is the foundation of programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the Truth and Reconciliation movements that began in South Africa after apartheid ended, and, of course, virtually every form of psychotherapy ever invented. The truth is the absolute minimum that is owed to victims.

In my years as an advocate, I have seen perpetrators of sexual violence genuinely put their past offenses behind them. These people don’t just admit that what they did was wrong or say that they are sorry; they do the work necessary to understand that their victim’s story is just as important as theirs. They learn that the rest of us are not just “extras” in the story of their lives or objects to be manipulated or discarded for their own pleasure, but that we are fully equal humans who have the same rights to self-determination and the same emotional depths as they do. They don’t sacrifice others’ well-being or reputations so they never experience the consequences of their actions.

And even when they do successfully do this, the mark of the sexual assault does not go away, not fully, not ever. But it does become a less important moment in the lives of both perpetrator and victim.

Sherry Hamby is a research professor of psychology at the University of the South and editor of the American Psychological Association journal Psychology of Violence.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

IN THIS STORYSTREAM
#MeToo: Sexual harassment and assault allegations continue to surface across industries
Why didn’t Kavanaugh’s accuser come forward earlier? Police often ignore sexual assault allegations.
What’s wrong with the “just a teen” Kavanaugh defense, according to a psychologist
Senate Republicans are playing straight into Democrats’ message about Brett Kavanaugh allegations
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I THINK THIS STOP BEZOS BILL IS AT LEAST PARTLY THE PRODUCT OF SANDERS' SENSE OF HUMOR, RATHER THAN A FIRM BELIEF THAT IT WOULD BECOME AN ACT. IT CERTAINLY IS GETTING ATTENTION, THOUGH.

https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/9/18/17875286/bernie-sanders-stop-bezos-act-resistance
Why did Bernie Sanders’s Stop BEZOS legislation draw so much resistance?
Employers should do more, but government support for workers has been key to the social contract.
By Mark Schmitt Sep 18, 2018, 4:10pm EDT

PHOTOGRAPH – BERNIE SANDERS Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Polyarchy
This post is part of Polyarchy, an independent blog produced by the political reform program at New America, a Washington think tank devoted to developing new ideas and new voices.

For a draft bill that has no chance of enactment in the current Congress and not much chance even if Democrats win control, the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act introduced early in September by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna drew an astonishing level of criticism across the left and center of the political spectrum. The responses ranged from snarky tweets to a 3,000-word detailed critique from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the think tank that usually reserves its firepower for more immediate threats.

What motivated these fervent criticisms of a bill that would require large employers to repay the government when their employees needed public benefits such as Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), housing assistance, or even subsidized school lunches? Was it residual hostility to Sanders, a blast from the intra-party enmity of the recent past? Was it “concern trolling,” as liberal journalist David Sirota called it? Was it another case of older liberals resisting a policy that our 1990s-trained brains aren’t prepared for? Was it unfair to come down so sharply on what’s simply a poorly designed first draft of a policy?

As Vox’s Matthew Yglesias proposed, perhaps it’s good for Democrats to push some rough, flawed ideas that change the conversation, just as conservatives did with the idea that cutting taxes, boosting military spending, and balancing the federal budget were compatible. This allowed them to move on the first two of those ideas when they held power and use the third to excoriate Democrats when they didn’t.

Stop BEZOS is what’s sometimes called a “message bill.” The point isn’t to become law but to reinforce the idea that some of the best-known employers in the country, such as Amazon and Walmart, don’t pay their workers enough, and many of these workers can’t live on income and benefits from work alone. But it’s as a message bill that Stop BEZOS is most fundamentally flawed. The message that it sends is to casually dismiss essential programs that have boosted incomes and life chances for lower- and middle-income people.

The CBPP analysis focused on the ways in which it’s an impractical proposal, in part because the federal government doesn’t have data on who benefits from the programs identified, many of which are administered at the state or local level. More importantly, the key variable that determines eligibility for these programs is usually not the wages of a single member of a family — it’s the size of the household.

A single parent with three children will be eligible for much more assistance than, say, a single worker without kids, or a couple with two employed parents and one child, even if each adult earns the same amount. If an employee or someone in the household has a disability, they’re also more likely to be eligible for benefits. Employers don’t have any control over those non-work factors. If they want to minimize their tax payments under the act, they would have to either pay employees with larger families or disabilities more than others doing the same job, or avoid hiring people with children.

Yes, in theory, they could pay everyone enough that none would be eligible for benefits, but that’s not realistic. In Sanders’s state, for example, children are eligible for Medicaid in households with incomes up to 312 percent of the federal poverty line. For a family of three with one full-time worker, that’s the equivalent of a $31-an-hour wage, more than double the minimum wage proposed by the “Fight for 15” movement. In California, where 12 million people are covered by Medicaid, the cutoff would be about $26 an hour for a family of three.

But the message the bill sends is not just that big companies (and small ones, too) owe more to their workers. It’s also saying there’s something wrong with using these programs that support workers, in exactly the ways that they’re intended to work.

That’s not just disparaging government. It overlooks a quiet revolution in US social policy over four decades: Working people, even those earning above the median income in some states, can be eligible for benefits. In the scope of American political history, that’s fairly new and a remarkable achievement. It was achieved not with a high-profile bill signing, but through incremental progress over several decades.

Back in the early 1980s, most benefits other than Social Security and unemployment insurance were exclusively for the very destitute. Medicaid eligibility was tied to eligibility for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (as welfare was called before 1996), and in most states, that meant only families well below the poverty line.

Beginning in the 1980s, Democratic legislators led by California Rep. Henry Waxman decoupled Medicaid from AFDC. They linked it instead to family income, starting at 100 percent of the poverty line, and then slowly ratcheted it upward — in some cases permitting states to cover more kids and parents, and in other cases requiring it. The generous programs in states like Vermont and California stem from that long incremental expansion, with the Affordable Care Act as the most recent big step toward broader coverage.

At the same time, the US was building other supports for working families, often with bipartisan support. The Earned Income Tax Credit was created in 1975 and expanded six times since, often with enthusiastic support from Republicans, who argued that it was preferable to an increase in the minimum wage. The child tax credit was created in the 1990s and expanded since. Funding for child care, including the Child Care and Development Block Grant, has increased steadily, including in the budget agreement earlier this year.

All of this has led to a huge shift in the US social contract, from one in which supports are based on poverty — often limited to deep poverty — to one in which programs are based on need and children. (Childless adults without disabilities get very little under either the older or newer approach.) Under the old model, poor adults who went to work would immediately lose whatever benefits they had, while often incurring new costs such as child care.

As paltry as AFDC and other benefits were, and although even minimum-wage work brought much more income into the family, the cost of moving off programs was high (usually losing health coverage as well as income). This created a trap that was identified by researchers on both the left (David Ellwood, whose book Poor Support influenced Bill Clinton) and the right (Charles Murray, in Losing Ground).

One response to that situation, from the right, was to treat benefits as too high or to put up barriers such as work requirements and drug tests, to filter out the “undeserving poor.” The better response, though, was to extend program benefits further up the income ladder, to include more families with at least one full-time worker. The cost of a transition to work, then, would not be a steep cliff in benefits, but a slow ramping down while income from labor increased.

This work-based social contract lowered the barrier for individuals to enter or reenter the labor market. It also reduced the cost of employing them, since the government was, in effect, boosting their wage through the EITC and providing benefits such as health care that the employer would have to pay for otherwise. These tax and transfer payments have also demonstrably boosted the incomes of families whose market income — wages, salary, and tips alone — have stagnated.

But there was a trade-off in shifting those costs to government: In some ways, it let employers off the hook, freeing them from the obligation to pay more and provide benefits. At times, there were direct choices between the two approaches: employer obligation or public subsidy. Whenever pressure for a minimum-wage increase built up for too long to ignore, conservatives suddenly became advocates for the EITC as a better way to achieve the same goal. (That’s when conservative think tanks dust off misleading studies showing that the benefits of the minimum wage often go to teenagers who aren’t their families’ prime earners.)

The progressive approach over these decades has been to strike a balance between expanding programs and forcing employers to recognize their obligations to employees — approaches sometimes differentiated by the terms “redistribution” and “predistribution.” Even the Affordable Care Act reflected that attempted balance, mandating that employers with more than 50 workers provide coverage, coupled with the subsidies through both the exchanges and Medicaid expansion.

The time may be ripe for a reexamination of the balance between the responsibility of employers and the public. Beyond raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and requiring employers to provide paid family leave, asking them to assume more health care and other costs for all employees is likely to create a high barrier for employment. And if small and medium-sized employers are exempt (the Sanders bill threshold is 500 employees), a majority of workers won’t be helped anyway. In a system that put most of the burden on employers, we’d need a much more expansive social safety net for those not working: perhaps a universal basic income or a public-sector job guarantee, which would also include publicly funded benefits.

Alternatively, we might switch much of the responsibility besides wages to a public system, through policies that decouple health care from employment (of which Medicare-for-all would be one of several options), or create a new social insurance program for child care. Such an approach would have the advantage that it could be financed in part by taxing the very wealthy who hold capital, rather than directly by employers.

Fresh thinking within the Democratic Party should and will include an overdue debate about the balance of obligations in the social contract. But it should begin by recognizing ways in which progress has been made, through a long process of building programs that support families and children as they move up the economic ladder, and not just the very poor. Sanders and Khanna, with all the best intentions, are suggesting that they would go back to a system in which only the near-destitute were deemed deserving of public support. That’s why their bill generated such a negative reaction.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-amazon-bezos-725282/
Taibbi: Bernie Sanders’ Anti-Amazon Bill Is an Indictment of the Media, Too
In going after Jeff Bezos, Bernie Sanders tries to shame the press into seeing a problem hiding in plain sight
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 10:14AM ET
By MATT TAIBBI

PHOTOGRAPHS -- Jeff Bezos and Bernie Sanders, Cliff Owen/AP/REX Shutterstock, Rogelio V. Solis/AP/REX Shutterstock

This new piece of legislation sounds audacious at first. It tells companies like Amazon: if you pay your workers so poorly that they have to go on food stamps, the government is going to hit you with a 100 percent tax on such subsidies.

Sponsored by Bernie Sanders and California House Democrat Ro Khanna, the bill is called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act, or Stop BEZOS Act.

Initially, Sanders was thrashed in the press for his “ham-fisted” proposal.

“In Bernie Sanders vs. Jeff Bezos, Only Workers Lose,” read the USA Today headline. “Bernie Sanders Picks The Wrong Kind of Fight With Amazon,” blared Bloomberg.

Many reports cited the objections of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), in particular those of senior analyst and former chief economic adviser to Joe Biden, Jared Bernstein.

The CBPP and Bernstein fretted about “unintended side effects” to the bill, including hiring discrimination against applicants likely to go on public assistance, and pressure from employers “not to sign up for Medicaid or other benefits.”

Humorously, the CBPP — which receives at least $2 million from the Walmart foundation, one of the targets of the legislation — also claimed the bill “could prompt corporate lobbying efforts to cut assistance programs.” The “could” is the funny part. Such lobbying has already been going on every day for decades.

After such fine-print objections dominated initial press coverage, another round of analyses is now looking at the bigger picture. “Liberals Should Stop Attacking Bernie Sanders for targeting Jeff Bezos and Amazon. He’s on the Right Track,” reads the Los Angeles Times headline. “Sanders Finds Prime Target In Amazon,” was The Hill’s take.

Even Vox is saying things like, “You need to take [Sanders] seriously, not literally.” They’re beginning to grasp that this bill is as much about messaging as policy, an attempt to put eyes where they should have been years ago.

Sanders has always been intensely interested in the media. I remember years ago, he called a bunch of reporters he knew to his office and essentially chewed us out for not covering issues like income inequality aggressively enough. I left that meeting feeling like I had a D+ report card plastered to my forehead.

I don’t think I’m breaking news when I say that while Sanders appreciates good journalism, he believes the media in general has been grossly deficient in its mission to educate audiences about serious social problems. He said this last year: “You can turn the TV and watch it hour after hour, channel after channel after channel, and not see one relevant piece of information.”

Not one relevant piece? Even I thought that was harsh. But this is who Sanders is. His idea of what’s normal and acceptable media coverage and what isn’t is a little different from most. And it’s become increasingly clear that he’s lost patience waiting for the news media to pay attention to this particularly loathsome problem of CEOs using public subsidies to pad their bottom lines.

The issue in his campaigns against companies like Disney, Walmart, Burger King and Amazon is simple: our biggest and most successful companies use a business model that involves giant workforces earning beneath-subsistence wages, if not worse (particularly abroad). This business model would not work without the active cooperation of governments around the world.

Amazon and Walmart are particular villains on this score. On the supply end, they gobble up super-cheap products assembled in unfree labor zones like China, where workers are treated so badly that some have threatened mass suicides to improve conditions.

Then, on the distribution end, in wealthy consumer countries like the U.S., these same companies pay many workers such low wages that they end up on public assistance. One study showed that in Arizona, for instance, 1 in 3 Amazon workers are on food stamps.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is worth $160 billion, and, according to one infuriating study, earns the median salary of an Amazon employee every nine seconds. If you go by net worth in stock holdings, Bezos earns about $277 million a day.

This set of circumstances is a profound comment on how the modern global economy functions. Misguided policies like the establishment of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China long ago committed us to a world in which the industrial democracies of the West would be increasingly reliant upon human rights abusers in places like China to serve as mercantile suppliers. As manufacturing headed to the third world, domestic distributors became concentrated and de-unionized.

Amazon is one of great examples, having successfully prevented unionization throughout the firm. In 2000, when the Communications Workers of America attempted to organize Amazon call center employees, the company simply shut down the center.

Author James Bloodworth attempted to do an Upton Sinclair-style report a few years back, going undercover at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire, England. Among other things, he reported that workers urinated in bottles out of fear of being punished for “idle time.”

Maybe there are better ways for the government to say that no company whose CEO makes over $100 million a day should be living off workers who pee in bottles and shop with food stamps. Perhaps the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities can ask Walmart for a grant to come up with a better name for that kind of profiteering.

It is true that there are other ways to address this problem, like raising the minimum wage, enhancing protections for workers trying to unionize, and making better use of anti-trust laws, so that monopolist firms don’t have such an easy time dictating low wages. Sanders is in favor of all of those things, too. A traditional politician would be content to eke out a few victories on those fronts.

But this bill has symbolism that goes beyond all that. Crude as it is, Stop BEZOS basically says that government has to stop allowing itself to be used as a welfare mechanism for billionaires. Elected officials should be more offended that they’re paying out gobs of taxpayer money to add decimal points to already-bottomless personal fortunes of people like the CEOs of Amazon and Walmart.

There’s an argument to be made, and people like Ezra Klein at Vox are already making it, that Sanders has gone too far this time, in emphasizing symbolism over policy specifics. Klein argues that Sanders is a big enough name now that he can finally “attract excellent staff and advisers” and bring in “a much broader network of lefty policy thinkers,” who presumably can help him “learn more about the workability of policy.”

Translated, this means: Bernie has enough poll support now that he can finally hire all the Beltway bullshit artists who spent the last 40 years turning the Democratic Party into a subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce.

With respect to Klein, I don’t think he fully grasps the symbolism here, which is intended as an indictment of people like him and me, too. If journalists like us spent less time fawning over people like Bezos and more time drumming up outrage over his exploitative practices, maybe Sanders isn’t sponsoring this bill. But we didn’t, and so here we are. Can we finally start calling these people the names they deserve?


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Hillary Clinton talks with Rachel Maddow about what the appropriate course of action is to ensure that Christine Blasey Ford's accusation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh is properly vetted. Duration: 4:52


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