Friday, July 12, 2019
Glenn Greenwald becomes focus of Brazil press freedom debate
ANNA JEAN KAISER. AP. July 12,
2019
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Several weeks after publishing explosive reports about a key member of Brazil’s far-right government, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald was called before a congressional committee to face hostile questions.
“Who should be judged, convicted and in prison is the journalist!” shouted congresswoman Katia Sastre, an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro.
And by some accounts that wasn’t an empty threat: A conservative website reported that federal police had requested that financial regulators investigate Greenwald’s finances. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and his Brazilian husband also say they have been receiving detailed death threats, calls for his deportation and homophobic comments in an increasingly hostile political environment.
Greenwald, an attorney-turned-journalist who has long been a free-speech advocate, has found himself at the center of the first major test of press freedom under Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1 and has openly expressed nostalgia for Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship — a period when newspapers were censored and some journalists tortured.
“It’s a very concerning moment for press freedom in Brazil, especially those covering something so divisive as politics. We’ve seen an administration that vocally criticizes journalists with an open anti-press rhetoric,” said Natalie Southwick, the Central and South American program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Greenwald’s The Intercept news website last month published text messages purportedly showing then-judge and now Justice Minister Sergio Moro had improperly advised prosecutors in the corruption trial that jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The Intercept also alleged political bias by Moro and prosecutors in a sweeping corruption investigation that brought down many of the country’s business and political elite and turned Moro into a hero to many. The website said it got the leaked messages from an anonymous source and that it has “vast archive” of information it has not released.
Moro has dismissed its reports as sensationalist and said a “criminal group” was aiming to invalidate convictions handed down when he was a crusading anti-corruption judge. He later tweeted that The Intercept was “a site aligned with criminal hackers.”
The reports infuriated Bolsonaro’s backers.
During the June 25 hearing at the chamber’s Human Rights and Minorities Commission, lawmaker Carla Zambelli told Greenwald: “If you don’t prove this information, it is fake and you’re a liar. If it’s true, then you’re a criminal because you hacked someone’s phone.”
Greenwald responded: “The government’s party evidently has a lot of confusion about the journalism we did.”
Bolsonaro has repeatedly lashed out at the news media as untruthful, biased toward the left and for publishing “fake news,” though he has sometimes said he believes in a free press.
When the Supreme Court tried to censor a critical story about one of its justices, Bolsonaro conceded to reporters, “It’s better to have a press that’s sometimes flawed than to not have a press at all. ... To the Brazilian press: We’re in this together.”
A special target of Bolsonaro’s ire has been the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. He sent a video message a week before the election saying that if he won, Brazil would be “without lies, without fake news and without the Folha de S.Paulo.”
He has also referred to Globo, Brazil’s largest media company, as “the enemy” in WhatsApp messages that were leaked to the press.
As for The Intercept’s reporting, Bolsonaro has defended his justice minister, saying what Moro did for Brazil as an anti-corruption judge was “priceless.”
“We don’t know ... how far they’re willing to go to fulfill this authoritarian vision that Bolsonaro has spent the last 30 years advocating,” Greenwald told The Associated Press, referring the president’s record in congress.
“They were elected based on a promise to change Brazil in multiple ways, including eroding core freedoms that a democracy requires in order to survive — and one of those is a free press,” said Greenwald.
While provincial journalists sometimes face grave dangers in Brazil — two owners of local media outlets were recently shot and killed in a coastal town outside Rio de Janeiro — the federal government in recent decades has rarely tried to stifle reporters. One exception was when then-President da Silva briefly tried to deport New York Times correspondent Larry Rohter in 2004 after a report that suggested he drank heavily.
Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, is now accompanied by private security guards and says he and other staff at The Intercept have received sophisticated, detailed death threats that sometimes include private personal information.
Being the center of controversy is nothing new for Greenwald, who was part of a team at The Guardian newspaper that won a Pulitzer for reports about government surveillance programs based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden.
At recent nationwide demonstrations, backers of Bolsonaro and Moro repeatedly denounced Greenwald — often by focusing on his sexuality and his husband, leftist Brazilian congressman David Miranda. Bolsonaro himself has famously said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay son.
“GlennGreenwald, get out of Brazil! You are disgusting,” read one sign. An online campaign with the hashtag #DeportGlennGreenwald was popular on Brazilian Twitter.
Pro-Bolsonaro members of Brazil’s congress have called for Greenwald’s imprisonment and deportation.
“I’m a good villain for this right-wing campaign,” Greenwald said. “I’m not a Brazilian citizen and therefore can be called a foreigner. I’m also a gay man in a country where anti-gay has become an important part of the political climate, and my husband is member of the socialist party ... so it kind of checks off every box.”
When the website O Antagonista reported that police were asking financial regulators to investigate Greenwald’s finances, a Brazilian court ordered the regulators and the ministry that oversees them to clarify. The official responses left unclear whether there was an investigation.
Southwick said such a probe would be “an escalation of the attempts to delegitimize and undermine the Brazilian press.”
“At the very least it’s designed to intimidate, to create climate of tension and fear so that not just me and the journalists I’m working with, but all journalists think that if they report on powerful political officials they can be targeted by law enforcement and suffer retribution,” Greenwald said.
Ivana Bentes, a communications professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said the Bolsonaro camp is zeroing in on Greenwald, trying to put him into “the gallery of public enemies of Bolsonaro. They’re treating him as a political enemy when he is a journalist, which is very serious. They want to criminalize a journalistic investigation.”
Greenwald says he’s not sure when he’ll feel safe to go out in public in Brazil without security guards, if ever.
“Bolsonaro ran against the media, he talked about the Brazilian media as being agents of communism,” he said. “I think they see this as a very important test case to create a precedent and environment and climate that sends a strong signal that whoever opposes them through journalism or activism will suffer serious consequences.”
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Several weeks after publishing explosive reports about a key member of Brazil’s far-right government, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald was called before a congressional committee to face hostile questions.
“Who should be judged, convicted and in prison is the journalist!” shouted congresswoman Katia Sastre, an ally of President Jair Bolsonaro.
And by some accounts that wasn’t an empty threat: A conservative website reported that federal police had requested that financial regulators investigate Greenwald’s finances. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and his Brazilian husband also say they have been receiving detailed death threats, calls for his deportation and homophobic comments in an increasingly hostile political environment.
Greenwald, an attorney-turned-journalist who has long been a free-speech advocate, has found himself at the center of the first major test of press freedom under Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1 and has openly expressed nostalgia for Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship — a period when newspapers were censored and some journalists tortured.
“It’s a very concerning moment for press freedom in Brazil, especially those covering something so divisive as politics. We’ve seen an administration that vocally criticizes journalists with an open anti-press rhetoric,” said Natalie Southwick, the Central and South American program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Greenwald’s The Intercept news website last month published text messages purportedly showing then-judge and now Justice Minister Sergio Moro had improperly advised prosecutors in the corruption trial that jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The Intercept also alleged political bias by Moro and prosecutors in a sweeping corruption investigation that brought down many of the country’s business and political elite and turned Moro into a hero to many. The website said it got the leaked messages from an anonymous source and that it has “vast archive” of information it has not released.
Moro has dismissed its reports as sensationalist and said a “criminal group” was aiming to invalidate convictions handed down when he was a crusading anti-corruption judge. He later tweeted that The Intercept was “a site aligned with criminal hackers.”
The reports infuriated Bolsonaro’s backers.
During the June 25 hearing at the chamber’s Human Rights and Minorities Commission, lawmaker Carla Zambelli told Greenwald: “If you don’t prove this information, it is fake and you’re a liar. If it’s true, then you’re a criminal because you hacked someone’s phone.”
Greenwald responded: “The government’s party evidently has a lot of confusion about the journalism we did.”
Bolsonaro has repeatedly lashed out at the news media as untruthful, biased toward the left and for publishing “fake news,” though he has sometimes said he believes in a free press.
When the Supreme Court tried to censor a critical story about one of its justices, Bolsonaro conceded to reporters, “It’s better to have a press that’s sometimes flawed than to not have a press at all. ... To the Brazilian press: We’re in this together.”
A special target of Bolsonaro’s ire has been the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. He sent a video message a week before the election saying that if he won, Brazil would be “without lies, without fake news and without the Folha de S.Paulo.”
He has also referred to Globo, Brazil’s largest media company, as “the enemy” in WhatsApp messages that were leaked to the press.
As for The Intercept’s reporting, Bolsonaro has defended his justice minister, saying what Moro did for Brazil as an anti-corruption judge was “priceless.”
“We don’t know ... how far they’re willing to go to fulfill this authoritarian vision that Bolsonaro has spent the last 30 years advocating,” Greenwald told The Associated Press, referring the president’s record in congress.
“They were elected based on a promise to change Brazil in multiple ways, including eroding core freedoms that a democracy requires in order to survive — and one of those is a free press,” said Greenwald.
While provincial journalists sometimes face grave dangers in Brazil — two owners of local media outlets were recently shot and killed in a coastal town outside Rio de Janeiro — the federal government in recent decades has rarely tried to stifle reporters. One exception was when then-President da Silva briefly tried to deport New York Times correspondent Larry Rohter in 2004 after a report that suggested he drank heavily.
Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, is now accompanied by private security guards and says he and other staff at The Intercept have received sophisticated, detailed death threats that sometimes include private personal information.
Being the center of controversy is nothing new for Greenwald, who was part of a team at The Guardian newspaper that won a Pulitzer for reports about government surveillance programs based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden.
At recent nationwide demonstrations, backers of Bolsonaro and Moro repeatedly denounced Greenwald — often by focusing on his sexuality and his husband, leftist Brazilian congressman David Miranda. Bolsonaro himself has famously said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay son.
“GlennGreenwald, get out of Brazil! You are disgusting,” read one sign. An online campaign with the hashtag #DeportGlennGreenwald was popular on Brazilian Twitter.
Pro-Bolsonaro members of Brazil’s congress have called for Greenwald’s imprisonment and deportation.
“I’m a good villain for this right-wing campaign,” Greenwald said. “I’m not a Brazilian citizen and therefore can be called a foreigner. I’m also a gay man in a country where anti-gay has become an important part of the political climate, and my husband is member of the socialist party ... so it kind of checks off every box.”
When the website O Antagonista reported that police were asking financial regulators to investigate Greenwald’s finances, a Brazilian court ordered the regulators and the ministry that oversees them to clarify. The official responses left unclear whether there was an investigation.
Southwick said such a probe would be “an escalation of the attempts to delegitimize and undermine the Brazilian press.”
“At the very least it’s designed to intimidate, to create climate of tension and fear so that not just me and the journalists I’m working with, but all journalists think that if they report on powerful political officials they can be targeted by law enforcement and suffer retribution,” Greenwald said.
Ivana Bentes, a communications professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said the Bolsonaro camp is zeroing in on Greenwald, trying to put him into “the gallery of public enemies of Bolsonaro. They’re treating him as a political enemy when he is a journalist, which is very serious. They want to criminalize a journalistic investigation.”
Greenwald says he’s not sure when he’ll feel safe to go out in public in Brazil without security guards, if ever.
“Bolsonaro ran against the media, he talked about the Brazilian media as being agents of communism,” he said. “I think they see this as a very important test case to create a precedent and environment and climate that sends a strong signal that whoever opposes them through journalism or activism will suffer serious consequences.”
Coral reefs shifting away from equator
New research reveals a
dramatic rebalancing of young corals from tropical to subtropical waters during
the last 40 years
July 9, 2019
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean
Sciences
Coral reefs are retreating
from equatorial waters and establishing new reefs in more temperate regions,
according to new research. The researchers found that the number of young
corals on tropical reefs has declined by 85 percent -- and doubled on subtropical
reefs -- during the last four decades.
Coral reefs are retreating
from equatorial waters and establishing new reefs in more temperate regions,
according to new research in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
The researchers found that the number of young corals on tropical reefs has
declined by 85 percent -- and doubled on subtropical reefs -- during the last
four decades.
"Climate change seems to
be redistributing coral reefs, the same way it is shifting many other marine
species," said Nichole Price, a senior research scientist at Bigelow
Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and lead author of the paper. "The clarity
in this trend is stunning, but we don't yet know whether the new reefs can
support the incredible diversity of tropical systems."
As climate change warms the
ocean, subtropical environments are becoming more favorable for corals than the
equatorial waters where they traditionally thrived. This is allowing drifting
coral larvae to settle and grow in new regions. These subtropical reefs could
provide refuge for other species challenged by climate change and new
opportunities to protect these fledgling ecosystems.
The researchers believe that
only certain types of coral are able to reach these new locations, based on how
far the microscopic larvae can swim and drift on currents before they run out
of their limited fat stores. The exact composition of most new reefs is
currently unknown, due to the expense of collecting genetic and species
diversity data.
"We are seeing ecosystems
transition to new blends of species that have never coexisted, and it's not yet
clear how long it takes for these systems to reach equilibrium," said
Satoshi Mitarai, an associate professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and
Technology Graduate University and an author of the study. "The lines are
really starting to blur about what a native species is, and when ecosystems are
functioning or falling apart."
New coral reefs grow when
larvae settle on suitable seafloor away from the reef where they originated.
The research team examined latitudes up to 35 degrees north and south of the
equator, and found that the shift of coral reefs is perfectly mirrored on
either side. The paper assesses where and when "refugee corals" could
settle in the future -- potentially bringing new resources and opportunities
such as fishing and tourism.
The researchers, an
international group from 17 institutions in 6 countries, compiled a global
database of studies dating back to 1974, when record-keeping began. They hope
that other scientists will add to the database, making it increasingly
comprehensive and useful to other research questions.
"The results of this
paper highlight the importance of truly long-term studies documenting change in
coral reef communities," said Peter Edmunds, a professor at the University
of California Northridge and author of the paper. "The trends we
identified in this analysis are exceptionally difficult to detect, yet of the
greatest importance in understanding how reefs will change in the coming
decades. As the coral reef crisis deepens, the international community will
need to intensify efforts to combine and synthesize results as we have been
able to accomplish with this study."
Coral reefs are intricately
interconnected systems, and it is the interplay between species that enables
their healthy functioning. It is unclear which other species, such as coralline
algae that facilitate the survival of vulnerable coral larvae, are also
expanding into new areas ¬- or how successful young corals can be without them.
Price wants to investigate the relationships and diversity of species in new
reefs to understand the dynamics of these evolving ecosystems.
"So many questions remain
about which species are and are not making it to these new locations, and we
don't yet know the fate of these young corals over longer time frames,"
Price said. "The changes we are seeing in coral reef ecosystems are
mind-boggling, and we need to work hard to document how these systems work and
learn what we can do to save them before it's too late."
Some of the research that
informed this study was conducted at the National Science Foundation's Moorea
Coral Reef Long-Term Ecological Research site near French Polynesia, one of 28
such long-term research sites across the country and around the globe.
"This report addresses
the important question of whether warming waters have resulted in increases in
coral populations," says David Garrison, a program director in the
National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the
research. "Whether this offers hope for the sustainability of coral reefs
requires more research and monitoring."
Story Source:
Materials provided
by Bigelow Laboratory
for Ocean Sciences. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
NN Price, S Muko, L Legendre,
R Steneck, MJH van Oppen, R Albright, P Ang Jr, RC Carpenter, APY Chui, TY Fan,
RD Gates, S Harii, H Kitano, H Kurihara, S Mitarai, JL Padilla-Gamiño, K Sakai,
G Suzuki, PJ Edmunds. Global biogeography of coral recruitment: tropical
decline and subtropical increase. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 2019;
621: 1 DOI: 10.3354/meps12980
'Completely Terrifying': Study Warns Carbon-Saturated Oceans Headed Toward Tipping Point That Could Unleash Mass Extinction Event
"Once we're over the
threshold...you're dealing with how the Earth works, and it goes on its own
ride."
The continuous accumulation of
carbon dioxide in the planet's oceans—which shows no sign of stopping due
to humanity's relentless consumption of fossil fuels—is likely to trigger
a chemical reaction in Earth's carbon cycle similar to those which happened just
before mass extinction events, according to a new study.
MIT geophysics professor
Daniel Rothman released new
data on Monday showing that carbon levels today could be fast approaching
a tipping point threshold that could trigger extreme ocean
acidification similar to the kind that contributed to
the Permian–Triassic mass extinction that occurred about 250 million years
ago.
Rothman's new research comes
two years after he predicted that a mass extinction event could take place at
the end of this century. Since 2017, he has been working to understand how life
on Earth might be wiped out due to increased carbon in the oceans.
Rothman created a model in
which he simulated adding carbon dioxide to oceans, finding that when the gas
was added to an already-stable marine environment, only temporary acidification
occurred.
When he continuously pumped
carbon into the oceans, however, as humans have been doing at greater and
greater levels since
the late 18th century, the ocean model eventually reached a threshold which
triggered what MIT called "a cascade of chemical feedbacks," or
"excitation," causing extreme acidification and worsening the warming
effects of the originally-added carbon.
Over the past 540 million
years, these chemical feedbacks have occurred at various times, Rothman noted.
But the most significant occurrences
took place around the time of four out of the five mass extinction events—and
today's oceans are absorbing carbon far more quickly than they did before the
Permian–Triassic extinction, in which 90 percent of life on Earth died out.
The planet may now be "at
the precipice of excitation," Rothman told MIT News.
On social media, one critic
called the study's implications about life on Earth "completely
terrifying."
The study, which was completed
with support from NASA and the National Science Foundation, also notes that
even though humans have only been pumping carbon into the oceans for hundreds
of years rather than the thousands of years it took for volcanic eruptions and
other events to bring about other extinctions, the result will likely be the
same.
"Once we're over the
threshold, how we got there may not matter," Rothman told MIT News.
"Once you get over it, you're dealing with how the Earth works, and it
goes on its own ride."
Other scientists said the
study, which will be published this week in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, represents a clear call for immediate action to
drastically reduce the amount of carbon that is being pumped into the world's
oceans. Climate action groups and grassroots movements have long called on
governments to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel drilling, which pumps
about a
billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.
"We already know that our
CO2-emitting actions will have consequences for many millennia," says
Timothy Lenton, a professor of climate change and earth systems science at the
University of Exeter. "This study suggests those consequences could be
much more dramatic than previously expected."
"If we push the Earth
system too far," Lenton added, "then it takes over and determines its
own response—past that point there will be little we can do about it."
In 2019, Politics as Usual Has Failed the #Resistance
From generally slothful
congressional oversight to residual corporate capture, leading Democrats have
mostly disappointed in 2019
2019 was supposed to be
different. Democrats would
have “subpoena cannons.” Trump would face a serious countervailing
force.
2019 is not, however,
different. Instead, Nancy Pelosi continues to seek to “protect” the base from
its “misguided” belief that normal politics are inadequate to the moment. A
rightly frightened, angry populace has been demobilized because,
activists are told implicitly and
explicitly alike, that “Democrats have got this.”
What is the strategy of
Pelosi, Schumer, and their consultants? 18 more months of
passing decent center-left legislation in the House destined to get no vote in
the Senate, no attention from traditional media, and no penetration in social
media.
We focus on executive branch
personnel, and we’d like to see both Congress and candidates alike do the same.
So as we turn more to the presidential race in the coming months, we will be
examining to what extent various presidential candidates promulgate an
appropriately urgent and reformist-minded agenda or, instead, fall into a
Pelosi-style “this is basically normal” fallacy.
Are candidates being pressed
to reveal plans to activate the executive branch to take on economic
inequality, the climate crisis, and systemic racism? Have any candidates
demonstrated they will address how expertise and the civil service have for too
long been subordinated within the executive branch to revolving door
corporatist appointees of each party? What can we infer from the individuals
and institutions funding candidates for president, as well as the support
networks for each candidate’s policy teams?
Congressional Oversight and
the Executive Branch
Fortunately, Pelosi has not
been able to stop all congressional oversight. Strong work by House Energy and
Commerce Democrats is compelling the resignation of an EPA air pollution chief
whose web of revolving door influences was so great it required violating a
typically lax Trump-era “ethics agreement.” Too unethical for Trump’s EPA is…
an accomplishment?!?!?
And, as always, Chairwoman
Maxine Waters is pursuing the misuse of economic power. Waters just announced a
broad set of July
hearings featuring several interesting convenings, including an
inquiry into a problematic bank merger (Branch Banking and Trust Company
(BB&T) and SunTrust Bank) and Facebook’s dystopic endrun
on democracy, Libra. (Here was
our May 2019 comment to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and
the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors regarding the proposed merger)
But so much is not getting done
and so many opportunities to make a difference are being left on the table.
For example, the House Armed
Services Committee should issue subpoenas to follow up on Senator
Warren’s inquiry into
fraud at the Defense Department.
The somnolent House
Agriculture Committee should investigate how Trump’s Department of Agriculture
is undermining the
professional public servants working to address the dramatic impact of climate
change on farmers and farming.
More broadly, several
committees need to explore how Trump’s war on public service involves moving
positions across the country in order to coerce
talented public servants into quitting their jobs.
Trust us -- we can go on and
on. If you’re ever looking for story ideas on congressional oversight -- or,
especially, the lack thereof -- please be in touch!
2020 (and Potentially 2021)
As we bemoaned in our
debate follow-up (and
on twitter as it
was happening), the 2020 conversation generally, and the debates specifically,
include little discussion of how these presidential hopefuls would use their
executive branch power. And indeed, the hodge-podge of questions and topics
undermined all substantive debate, which is why we agree with climate
activists arguing that the DNC ought to host a debate devoted to
climate issues.
For a sense of what we would
like to see more of in coming debates and throughout the campaign, read The
Revolving Door Project’s Debate (& Campaign) Watch Guide.
And while 2020 candidates
generally are not giving executive branch management as much attention as we
would like, many are offering more than was on display at last week’s debates.
Two positive developments worth highlighting:
Senator Amy Klobuchar did a
great job highlighting her plans for executive action in her new “first 100
days” plan.
Senator Warren now has a plan for
addressing the erosion of US State Department capacity that began decades ago
and has been accelerated dramatically by Trump, Tillerson, and Pompeo. This
plan is useful for illustrating how ostensibly “domestic” issues such as
systemic racism and money in politics undermine foreign policy -- e.g., US
diplomats are on the whole too white and male to understand the world fully,
and too many Ambassadors secure their jobs through campaign contributions
rather than diplomatic experience.
For those who haven’t made
promises regarding executive branch appointments, however, there is a
continuing cause for concern. Last week in the American Prospect we
wrote about how Buttigieg’s closeness with big Silicon Valley and Wall
Street donors makes his strategic ambiguity on so many critical policy details
especially worrisome. (and indeed Buttigieg seems likely
to be one of the top 1-3 fundraisers this quarter despite weak
polling).
Independent Agencies
This month, five people were
confirmed to independent agency boards, including Allison Lee to the Securities
and Exchange Commission (finally!). Additionally, two new members and one old
one were confirmed to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB)
while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) gained a new chairperson,
Heath Tarbert. This brings the total number of confirmations this year to
fifteen.
President Trump also made six
nominations this month, to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB),
Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSHIB), Federal Maritime
Commission (FMC), National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), Postal Regulatory
Commission (PRC), and the United States International Trade Commission
(USITC).
However, while these
advancements are welcome, they remain insufficient to even keep up with the
pace at which seats are expiring and commissioners are leaving their posts. In
June alone, 5 commissioners’ terms expired. Since January 3, 2019, eleven
people have left their seats and six people have had their seats expire but
have continued to serve.
Of course, we cannot solely
blame Trump for these delays; Mitch
McConnell bears some of the burden for the holdup. For example,
nominations to the Merit Systems Protection Board have all been voted out of
committee (two since February), but have gone nowhere.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt
that President Trump is dragging his feet. We are in the process of learning
just how much (i.e. how long on average Trump has taken to make nominations for
vacant or expired seats) and will be releasing our findings in the next couple
of days in our monthly independent agency update. Be sure to watch out
for that, and please reach out if you have any questions about this pernicious
strain of Trump-era corruption.
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