There was a Magnitude 3.6 earthquake, 1 miles from Pleasant Hill, today at 11:18 AM, which was felt by Berkeley residents.

All California residents 65 and older are now eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine as the state expanded its vaccination plan Wednesday following new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The state's working groups overseeing the vaccine's distribution made the decision following the CDC's recommendation that states begin vaccinating everyone 65 and up rather than segmenting them depending on whether they have underlying medical conditions. 

So far, the state has rolled out the vaccine in phases, targeting the most at-risk demographics like health care workers and nursing home staff and residents first.  

As of Monday, 816,673 coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered, according to state officials.  

"There is no higher priority than efficiently and equitably distributing these vaccines as quickly as possible to those who face the gravest consequences," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. 

State officials have also grappled with the state's lackluster vaccination rate, which lags behind many other states. The biggest hurdle, Newsom and other state officials have argued, is demand for vaccine doses simply outpacing supply so far. 

To date, nearly 2.5 million vaccine doses have been shipped to California's local health departments and health care systems. Roughly 99,000 state residents have received both doses of the vaccine required to build immunity. 

"To those not yet eligible for vaccines, your turn is coming," Newsom said. "We are doing everything we can to bring more vaccine into the state." 

State officials plan to launch a notification system in the next week that will alert residents via text or email when they are eligible for the vaccine.  

The system will also help cities and counties run large-scale vaccination events at event centers and sports stadiums like the Coliseum in Oakland and Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. 

To administer the vaccines as more become available, the state is recruiting more than 100,000 additional medical practitioners such as pharmacists and dentists, as well as the National Guard. 

"With our hospitals crowded and (intensive care units) full, we need to focus on vaccinating Californians who are at highest risk of becoming hospitalized to alleviate stress on our health care facilities," said Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state's public health officer. 

"Prioritizing individuals age 65 and older will reduce hospitalizations and save lives," Aragon said. ;

An Oakland-based community college district may soon be forced to cede power to the state if its Board of Trustees can’t quell concerns about its ability to properly govern the district.

Intervening at the Peralta Community College District, home to four East Bay colleges serving almost 30,000 students, would be a drastic step. Only twice previously has the state chancellor’s office and the systemwide Board of Governors assumed power from a locally-elected governing board: At the City College of San Francisco in 2013 and at Compton College in 2004.

The colleges in Peralta, one of 73 districts in California’s vast 116 community college system, are Laney College and Merritt College in Oakland, Berkeley City College and the College of Alameda.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the state chancellor overseeing California’s 116 community colleges, is under increasing pressure to intervene, including from former Peralta chancellors, two of Peralta’s current and former trustees, Oakland’s NAACP chapter and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state-funded agency that provides financial oversight of K-12 and community college districts.

Going Deeper

Across its four colleges, Peralta enrolled about 29,000 students as of spring 2020, the most recent data available. Peralta students complete college at slightly lower rates than the state average. As of 2017, 45.5% of students received a degree or certificate or intended to transfer within five years, compared to the state average of 48.2%. 

The district has a diverse student population: 27.6% of students are Latino, 25.7% are Asian, 17.6% are Black and 17.5% are white. The rest are either multiracial or their race is unknown, according to state data. 

Those groups and individuals are calling for state intervention at Peralta to fix its problems: shaky finances, academic probation and what they call a broken relationship between trustees and top administrators. The district is currently fighting to keep its accreditation, with all four colleges having been put on probation last year by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. 

Oakley is expected to decide by the system’s Jan. 19 board meeting whether it is necessary to increase his office’s oversight of the district and possibly appoint a special trustee, who would likely have far-reaching powers. 

Tensions between the elected boards of trustees in community college districts and the presidents and chancellors whom they appoint is not unusual. But those at the center of the conflicts at Peralta say that what is happening in the district undermines the mission of the colleges. 

In interviews with EdSource, current and former members of the district’s leadership, including the past three chancellors, accused the board of micromanagement. They said board members frequently interfered in their authority to perform duties, such as hiring executive staff and approving contracts. They also said the board’s leadership is closely allied with the faculty union in the district and focused more on appeasing the union on issues such as collective bargaining than on programs to help students reach completion. 

“In all of my 35 years of working at community colleges, I’ve never seen anything like I’ve seen in the nine months I was at Peralta. It’s a very difficult place to be,” Regina Stanback Stroud, a veteran of the community college system who resigned as chancellor of the district in July, said in an interview with EdSource. She left her position as chancellor after only nine months on the job. 

Three chancellors in two years 

In the last two years, three chancellors have left the district after conflicts with board leadership. After Stroud departed the district last summer, the president of Oakland’s NAACP chapter called the board’s actions toward those chancellors “demoralizing” to Peralta’s Black administrators, faculty and students. Stroud and her two predecessors are Black. 

The district’s other executive staff also has high rates of turnover. Currently, at least four vice chancellor positions are filled by either interim or acting staff members. 

Board president Cindi Napoli-Abella Reiss, former board president Julina Bonilla and Interim Chancellor Carla Walter, who was previously vice chancellor of finance and administration in the district, declined to be interviewed. 

“The signs are promising that we are on the right path,” district spokesman Mark Johnson said in a statement. He predicted that the district will be lifted off academic probation this month and noted that the district is in a better fiscal position than it was 18 months ago, when the state oversight agency that has reviewed the district’s finances, FCMAT, labeled Peralta a “high risk” of fiscal insolvency. 

Jim Austin, a fiscal monitor appointed to the district by Oakley, said at a Board of Governors meeting last year that the district made “very impressive” progress on the concerns raised by FCMAT, which included budget deficits and staffing problems. Oakley appointed Austin to that position in fall 2019 after FCMAT’s report. In his role as a fiscal monitor, Austin was essentially a watchdog over the district but had no authority or powers. 

However, he added that there is “another side of the coin” and said the district is plagued by “board governance and chancellor-board relationship issues,” which he said threatens the district’s long-term fiscal health. 

Michelle Giacomini, the deputy executive officer of FCMAT, wrote an August letter to the state chancellor’s office voicing a range of concerns about Peralta, including “ineffective board governance.” She also wrote that systems within the district are “fully or partially controlled by highly influential special interest groups.” Giacomini said in an interview that the faculty union and other bargaining groups are among those groups. 

“The Board of Governors should consider increasing its oversight role in the district over and above the current status of fiscal monitor,” Giacomini wrote in the letter, referring to the statewide governing board that oversees all 116 community colleges. 

Accreditation at stake 

Peralta has a history of financial and board problems that predate most of the current board members. In fact, last year wasn’t the first time the colleges were put on academic probation. In 2010, the accrediting commission placed the colleges on probation. 

The accrediting commission cited problems with board governance and criticized trustees for meddling in management of the district, according to a report at the time in the East Bay Times. FCMAT also previously visited the district in 2011 and issued a report criticizing the district for a lack of transparency around how it was spending bond funds. 

The colleges were eventually lifted from probation. But in January 2020, all four colleges in the district were again placed on probation by the commission. In letters imposing probation on the colleges, ACCJC cited concerns including structural deficits, a “lack of adherence to board policies and administrative procedures” and “key staffing issues.” The commission did not elaborate on the reasoning behind those concerns. 

A college is placed on probation when the commission has serious concerns about the college, but the college retains its accreditation during probation. 

The accrediting commission made virtual “visits” in December to each of Peralta’s four colleges. Typically, the commission would make on-site visits but couldn’t do so amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Peralta’s Board of Trustees has also approved self-evaluation reports for all four colleges. 

The accrediting commission will review those reports at its January meeting, at which point it will decide whether to lift the colleges off probation. The commission could also decide to take further action, such as withdrawing accreditation from the Peralta colleges. The three-day meeting is scheduled for Jan. 13 to Jan. 15. 

Faculty union influence 

Four of the seven board members who were on the board this past year were endorsed by the union the last time they were up for election: Bonilla, Reiss, Nicky González Yuen and Karen Weinstein. Those four board members typically voted in unison on most issues. Weinstein has since been replaced by Dyana Polk, who ran unopposed for that seat in 2020 and was also endorsed by the union. 

Reiss, Weinstein and Bonilla also received significant campaign contributions from the union’s political arm when they last ran contested races for office. Bonilla received $7,500 from the union and related labor groups when she ran in 2014, 16% of her total contributions. Weinstein received about $11,000 in 2016, 21% of the total, and Reiss received just more than $20,000 in 2018, 36% of the total. 

Campaign finance information is not available for Yuen’s last contested race for office, which was in 2004. He was subsequently re-elected unopposed every four years including 2020. 

In her resignation letter this summer, Stroud accused the board of “collusion” with the union against the interests of the district. In an interview, Stroud said members of the board would regularly strategize and confer with the faculty union’s leadership on matters that should have been left to administrators to handle. Stroud’s view was shared by her two predecessors, Peralta’s former interim chancellor Fran White and former chancellor Jowel Laguerre. 

For example, administrators said then-board president Bonilla circumvented the proper channels during collective bargaining with the faculty union in the summer of 2019. According to the administrators, Bonilla communicated directly with the faculty union president, Jennifer Shanoski, who was said to have complained to Bonilla that administrators rejected the union’s demand for a 10% faculty salary raise. 

“That’s just so out of turn,” White, interim chancellor at the time, said in an interview, referring to the fact that the union felt comfortable enough to bring its concerns directly to Bonilla. White noted that those negotiations were the administration’s responsibility and not Bonilla’s. In the end, several months later, the board approved just a 3.3% raise. 

Shanoski, the union president, said that it shouldn’t be considered problematic for the board to be pro-labor. “We certainly advocate for ourselves and our positions,” she said, noting that much of what they advocate for — such as smaller class sizes — benefits students. 

This fall, the district sparked controversy when it decided to spend its $1.2 million portion of a state grant for Covid-19 relief to satisfy two agreements with the faculty union. The agreements were negotiated by Walter, the district’s acting chancellor at the time. 

The district agreed to pay faculty $1,000 stipends for every course they convert to online instruction during distance learning and pledged to hire assistants for instructors teaching classes remotely with 35 or more students. 

Bonilla, Yuen, Reiss and Weinstein voted to approve the spending, as did trustee Bill Withrow. Trustees Meredith Brown and Linda Handy abstained. 

Why the district spent the money that way was puzzling to Brown, who has since retired. She said she would have preferred to see the money help provide students with internet access or with basic needs like food and housing. But according to Brown, the board never discussed how to spend the grant money. 

Brown pointed to Laney College, the district’s flagship college, where student enrollment is down more than 20% this fall, a drop she said could be at least partly attributed to students’ financial difficulties. 

“Giving the money to the people who are employed, while we’re losing students in multiple digits, doesn’t seem to honor the mission of the district,” Brown said. She was one of two trustees last year who called on the state chancellor’s office to intervene at Peralta, as did trustee Handy. Brown and Handy were the board’s only two Black trustees at the time. 

Shanoski, the union president, said the district was obligated to pay faculty the stipends because the union’s contract with the district says faculty are supposed to be paid for time they spend transitioning classes to online. She also said the district has yet to spend most of the money that was set aside for hiring teaching assistants. 

Johnson, the district spokesman, also defended the spending, saying it helped teachers adapt to new teaching methods during distance learning. 

Walter has since been appointed interim chancellor and, unlike other recent chancellors, has the support of the faculty union. Shanoski in an interview praised Walter, saying she is “collaborative and has done an incredible job of learning on the job and listening to the folks with expertise.” 

Handy, a trustee in the board’s minority, accused Walter of winning union support for her selection as interim chancellor after giving faculty the relief money. Walter declined to be interviewed and Johnson, the spokesman for Peralta, did not respond to a question about the merit of that claim. 

Johnson added that the district can’t comment on the hiring process for Walter but praised her leadership amid the pandemic. 

“Her calm and collaborative leadership style is everything the Board and the District desired during a period of dramatic change and challenges from COVID-19,” he said. 

‘Micromanagement by board members’ 

One of Stroud’s first tasks upon becoming chancellor was to replace the district’s financial system software, which she called “woefully out of date.” The state’s fiscal oversight agency (FCMAT) had found Peralta’s software for functions such as accounting and payroll presented a “significant risk to the district’s financial security.” 

Stroud negotiated a $6.3 million new system with Oracle. The board rejected it twice and finally approved it on the third try. 

To Stroud, the contract was an obvious solution to a glaring issue identified by FCMAT. And even though the contract was ultimately approved, Stroud said the back-and-forth highlighted a larger trend of the board micromanaging top administrators. 

“That kind of stuff is what I’m talking about, where it takes a mountain of work to do what seems to be easy, normal stuff,” Stroud said. 

Stroud also pointed to resistance from the board when she tried to make hires to her executive staff. In December 2019, her recommendation to hire a permanent vice chancellor of human resources was voted down. In March 2020, she tried to appoint a permanent director of marketing but that was also not approved. And last July, she attempted to renew contracts of three interim administrators, but votes on those extensions were tabled. 

Stroud’s two predecessors, White and Laguerre, in interviews described being similarly micromanaged. 

Those concerns are also shared by FCMAT. In her letter to the state chancellor’s office last month, FCMAT’s Giacomini wrote that there is often “micromanagement by board members.” 

Bonilla, the former board president, said in a statement to EdSource that those claims “are without merit.” 

The behavior of the board toward former chancellors Stroud, White and Laguerre, who are Black, caught the attention of Oakland’s NAACP chapter and the Peralta Association for African American Affairs (PAAAA), which represents Black staff and faculty at Peralta. The two organizations grew concerned that the board was not allowing the chancellors to perform their duties. Stroud said the voting bloc that she usually conflicted with included no Black trustees. 

Lawrence VanHook, the president of the PAAAA and a professor in the district, said he had lost faith in the trustees after watching them refuse Stroud’s staff appointments and effectively “not recognize” her authority as chancellor. 

He and others criticized the board for creating a culture that allowed what they viewed as racist remarks to be made during public board meetings directed at Stroud and other administrators. In one incident last spring, a white instructor, during a dispute with Stroud and four other Black administrators, said he would “not take lessons from my inferiors.” 

Stroud said the comment was reminiscent of “a deeply white supremacist notion of the genetic inferiority of Black people.” The instructor later apologized, acknowledging in an email to administrators and the board that he should have known his words would be offensive. But neither union leadership nor the board leadership publicly denounced those comments, according to Stroud and VanHook. 

“We have watched with dismay as successive African American leaders have come to the district to assume leadership, only to be treated with open contempt in public Board meetings and leave after a short tenure,” George Holland, president of the NAACP in Oakland, wrote in a letter to the state chancellor’s office last summer. 

Pivotal moment 

Peralta will likely learn its fate later this month, when the statewide Board of Governors convenes for a Jan. 19 meeting. 

Peralta’s board leadership, faculty union and Academic Senate are strongly opposed to the possibility that Oakley, the state chancellor, will appoint a special trustee. 

“Our democratically-elected Board of Trustees need to retain control of our district in the name of those who chose them as representatives,” Donald Moore, a professor of anthropology and president of the Academic Senate, said in a statement that he shared with EdSource. 

In a preview of the decision he faces, Oakley said at a September meeting of the Board of Governors: “We know that there are several boards throughout the state that on any given day have conflicts with their administration. So the issue isn’t whether there’s conflict in the governance process. The issue is do they have the means and the mechanisms, the policies and the practices to work through them. So that’s what we’re focused on.” 

White, the former interim chancellor at Peralta, said she has long believed that appointing a special trustee is the only option to fix the challenges the district faces. 

“To be honest, I thought that in July of last year and I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. “Nothing has happened to make me think that a special trustee isn’t required to get that district back on track — whatever is left of it.”

Prosecutors have charged an alleged robber who Berkeley police shot last Saturday after he apparently advanced on officers with a metal chain as they tried to arrest him for stealing about $13 in food from Walgreen's on Shattuck.

Vincent Bryant, 51, is in the hospital and is expected to live following the events Saturday night Jan. 2 that started at Walgreens at 2190 Shattuck Ave. Bryant has been charged with second degree robbery, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

Bryant had selected about $14 of goods from Walgreens Saturday night and allegedly gave the cashier only $1 before walking toward the exit, according to a probable cause statement by police Officer Christopher Bonaventure.

A store employee confronted Bryant and told him that he must pay more, but Bryant allegedly pulled out a metal chain and "threatened to break all the windows," Bonaventure wrote.

The employee left the store and called police. Bryant also allegedly left Walgreens and officers located him on Bancroft Way.

When they tried to detain him, Bryant walked into the courtyard of the Tang Center, at 2222 Bancroft Way, where he allegedly threatened officers with a chain, according to police.

An officer trained in negotiations with suspects tried to de-escalate the situation, but Bryant apparently continued to act erratically.

He allegedly advanced on officers when they tried to arrest him. Officers then shot Bryant with less-than-lethal weapons. One officer fired his gun at Bryant, striking him, police said.

Bryant was taken to a hospital and the officer who fired his weapon was placed on administrative leave. Police are not yet releasing the name of the officer who fired his gun.

Police will release body-camera video of the shooting on their YouTube page, Berkeley police spokesman Officer Byron White said.

Are we better off today than we were four years ago? The answer is a definite “NO.” I am still trying, however, without much success, to understand why 74+ million Americans voted to re-elect Trump when for four years he has embarrassed himself and this nation with his ignorance, ineptness, and lack of human decency. 

During the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” Who are these deplorables? Assuming they were paying attention, these supporters knowingly voted for a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, and a xenophobic; they support a person endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan and White Nationalist groups. I do not think they are necessarily racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and xenophobic, but all are on a spectrum from white nationalists to just plain ignorant. And Trump has made this okay. 

Trump supporters are voting against their economic interests. Income inequality increased during the pandemic. Twenty-two million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last four weeks, effectively erasing 10 years of job gains. Retail sales plunged in March, and small businesses exhausted the $350 billion in funding from the Paycheck Protection Program in less than two weeks. About 60% of jobs in America paying $100,000 or more can be done from home, compared with 10% of jobs paying under $40,000. 

The Wall Street supporters, who may strongly dislike Trump, but benefit economically from the Trump administration. Trump rid them many of those troublesome regulations through deregulation of hundreds of regulations at the expense of the environment and public health and safety, and the ideological bent of his appointees to regulatory agencies. 

In 2017, Trump signed the so-called GOP tax overhaul wherein half of the tax cuts went to the top 1% with the notion that tax cuts for high-income earners and large corporations would trickle down to average American, a "voodoo economic economic policy" as former President George H.W. Bush called it. Surprise, surprise, the tax cuts did not trickle down as promised. Over a roughly seven-month period starting in mid-March 2020 – a week after Trump declared a national emergency – America’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by a collective $931 billion.  

Trump often touts stock market gains as a barometer of the strength of the economy. The stock market, however, is not the economy. It is really an indicator of corporate profits and how fast investors expect them to grow. That window into the economy is smaller than you might think. Less than a third of Americans work for publicly traded companies, and much of consumer spending, such as rent, goes to individuals or small businesses, which the stock market doesn't directly account for.  

After a pandemic-induced plunge in March 2020, the stock market quickly recovered. The gains, however, mainly benefited the most affluent households. Consider that 1% of Americans own 50% of stocks held by American households and the top 10% of American households, as defined by total wealth, now own 84% of all stocks. Thus, the stock market does not necessarily define economic health as a whole. Stocks are on the rise, but many individuals – and the country as a whole – are still facing the effects of business closures, record-breaking unemployment rates and more. And note that the pending $900 billion relief contains $200 billion in tax breaks for the rich with an estimated $120 billion of this amount to the richest 1%. 

Why has Trump won over the majority of evangelical voters? As far as I know, Trump is not a churchgoer and though he claims the Bible is his favorite book, he does not quote the Bible at all and given no indication he has ever read it. Why then would conservative or right-wing evangelicals support Trump, especially as he is a racist, a misogynist, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and corrupt? Because Trump has nominated 274 individuals to federal judgeships, 234 of whom have been confirmed, including three to the Supreme Court. These evangelicals hope this will result in a reversal of Roe v. Wade. They also hope he will blur the Constitutional separation of church and state. I also suspect that they support Trump, not because he is an authentic Christian, but because Christianity for millions of white evangelicals in America is simply white supremacy in disguise. 

After all this rumination, I am still unable to fully wrap my head around Trump’s appeal. I wonder after the wreckage Trump will leave behind, do these deplorables still believe Trump was worth supporting? Will Wilkinson put it nicely, “It’s not Mr. Trump’s open contempt for the norms of liberal democracy that makes my blood run cold. It was the applause that came after.” 

A Farewell Poem for Donald Trump

(Assuming, of course, that he doesn't attack Iran, declare a national emergency and degree martial law so he can remain White America's Tweeter-in-chief.)

Jail to the Chief!

Donald says he wants a Wall

I say, "Give him four!"

With a bigly cot

And a chamber pot

And a padlock on the door. 

A Petition to De-park The Donald 

Back in the 1990s, Donald Trump purchased 494 acres of prime rural New York real estate. Hoping to turn the wooded acreage into a money-milking golfing resort, he followed up by building a massive family retreat on the land and deducting its "upkeep" as a "business expense." 

When the golf plan went bust, Trump "donated" 436 acres to the state to create a park. Trump stipulated that the park would need to be named after himself and then claimed a $26.1 million charitable deduction for his "gift." 

Now, with Trump's DC departure on the horizon, the good people at Change.org are circulating a petition asking New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to rename the park after Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 

There's only one alternative that might bring greater anger from Trump and greater satisfaction to his detractors—rename the park after John McCain. 

Freeloader by Founder's Sing 

The Sierra Club's 2021 Resolutions for California Leaders 

Courtesy of the Sierra Club: 

• For oil and gas lobbyists: Your success means the planet dies. Make 2021 the year you change your client base.
• For food packagers: Stop using plastic. There are so many affordable alternatives now, and there’s no need to wait for legislation or a ballot measure.
• For the California Energy Commission: Be brave, be bold and remember that there isn’t a Plan B for the planet: Do the right thing and decarbonize new buildings through the Title 24 Building Code.
• For the California Air Resources Board: Keep being a brave, bold example for the California Energy Commission—and the rest of the world—to follow. Improve equity and opportunities internally and externally. As always, California’s breathers are depending on you.
• For the Department of Water Resources: End your tunnel vision. There are so many better things you could be doing to help make sure Californians have a safe and sustainable water supply.
• For newly elected California legislators: Lobbyists of every sort feign subservience. They laugh at your jokes and compliment you on your intelligence, over and over again. Commit to not letting it go to your head. Remember that not everyone thinks you’re an essential worker.
• For returning California legislators: Many of you failed to step up on environmental legislation this year. Make 2021 the year you wake up and demonstrate a political will to assertively address the existential crisis we’re all facing.
• For Governor Gavin Newsom: What can I say that will be constructive but adequately reflect the effect of your inaction on so many key issues affecting California’s air, water, climate, parks, people and wildlife? Maybe this: Keep your resume updated.
• For Sierra Club members: Watch the inauguration on January 20 and feel proud that you played a significant role in helping roll back a dangerous threat to democracy.
• For everyone: Stay safe, stay healthy, and wear a mask until this pandemic is over. And when it has clearly passed, dance with someone you’ve missed. 

Mixing Metaphors 

The publicists for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival just released a press-statement that began with an epic example of colliding parables. The urgent headline read: "The train is at the station! Don't miss the boat!" Appropriate, in a way, given that the promo was designed to advertise Gian Luca Farinelli's Grand Tour Italiano, "a guided film tour through Italy at the beginning of the 20th century" with footage "shot between 1905 and 1914 documenting the new Italian nation from Sicily to Venice." But maybe the clashing references were intended: odds are some travel by rail and sail must have been involved. 

Our Militarized Language 

It's been amusing to hear news stories on the vaccine scene in Britain, where people are reportedly eager to pull up their sleeves and get their "jabs." 

Initially, I joined the guffawing crowd of listeners who found the word "jab" to be "quaint." But the chuckling stopped when I suddenly realized that Americans have introduced a much darker word into the popular medical vocabulary. In the US, we don't call them "jabs," we call them "shots." As in rifle, pistol, machinegun. I've made a vow never to use that word again for a procedure that is correctly called "an injection." 

WestBrae Neighbors Blame AT&T for Wi-Fi Woes 

The introduction of hundreds of powerful 4G/5G microwave transmitters to power "The Internet of Things" has triggered a debate over the safety of the technology. The World Health Organization has classified the radiation as a possible "class 2B carcinogen," the California Medical Association has called on the FCC to update its regulations to address the adverse effects of wireless radiation, and California's Department of Public Health and UC Berkeley's Department of Public Health have expressed concern over peer-reviewed scientific studies that link cell-phone radiation to DNA damage, reproductive harm, and certain cancers. 

Protests by local residents earlier this year failed to prevent installation of AT&T Wi-Fi transmitters atop wooden poles near the Berkeley Natural Grocery on Gilman and the Monterey Market on Hopkins. And now, several months after the transmitters were mounted, some North Berkeley residents believe AT&T has quietly activated the antennas—without informing nearby residents. (In related news, many North Berkeley residents have complained that AT&T failed to provide advance notice of the planned installations, as required by law.) 

One long-time local resident (a neighbor who prefers to remain anonymous while exploring legal action against AT&T) recalls walking by a cellphone tower at Cedar-Rose Park recently and experiencing an unusual level of discomfort. 

"It was very strong. I was completely bombed out." Fearing the transmitter had been quietly "energized," she wondered if the antenna might be "exceeding permitted levels." She has joined other residents who want Berkeley officials to conduct independent monitoring of these new Wi-Fi sites. 

Because her home sits just 500-600 feet from the new Gilman Street transmitter, she purchased a $200 radio-frequency (RF) meter to monitor ambient radiation levels. During a recent visit to Berkeley Natural, she was shocked to see the meter registering the highest level of red-zone radiation yet encountered. 

"I was only out there for five minutes but I got very sick, and then the alarm on the meter started shrieking. It was shrill. The worst possible level. Over the top, unbelievable." 

Meanwhile, "meter readings inside our bedroom are still in the green region but our yard is red," she said. New window blinds made from steel help to cut down the radiation but she continues to suffer. As recently as a week ago, she was walking an hour a day; now she has difficulty getting outside the house. Her legs hurt and she feels sick. On December 22, she woke at 4 AM with her hands feeling as though they were on fire. When she looked at her fingers, they were visibly reddened. 

Like other Westbrae neighbors, she fears becoming a Radiation Refugee. And she's not alone. A couple in a house only 120 feet from the Gilman transmitter recently opted to quit Berkeley and move to a second home a neighboring county to avoid what seemed to be a sudden increase in radiation exposure. 

"This is scary," my neighbor said. "Just in time for the holidays. Just in time for Christmas. Just in time for Hanukkah. 'Let's irradiate the people! Let's light 'em up like a Christmas tree.' But I don't want to be lit up like a menorah. I just want to live a normal life." 

How about this for a holiday gift: Replace Berkeley's current, weak Wi-Fi ordinance with stronger regulations to assure public safety. Other California cities that already have done it include Encinitas, Mill Valley, Petaluma, San Anselmo and all of Marin County! 

Dead People Did Vote—and They Voted for Trump 

There's been a dearth of widespread voter fraud but the Republicans can finally point to at least one case of Grade-A Voting Vice. 

So why aren't they pointing? 

Because Bruce Bartman, a 70-year-old Pennsylvanian who is facing a jail term for voter fraud, is also a life-long Republican. Bartman allegedly pretended to be his own dead mother and he also registered as his dead mother-in-law, which allowed him to cast three votes for Trump in the 2020 election. 

"This is the only known case of a 'dead person' voting in our county, conspiracy theories notwithstanding," Delaware District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer noted. Voter fraud is extremely rare in the US. According to a Heritage Foundation database, there have been only 193 convicted cases of voter fraud between 2000 and 2020 out of 250 million votes cast. 

If convicted on all charges, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Bartman could spend up to 19 years in prison—much longer than his political hero is likely to spend behind bars. 

What are the odds that Trump will issue Bartman a presidential pardon as one of his parting acts? 

Scheer Brilliance 

I was delighted to discover that there is a new documentary about Robert Scheer, the former Berkeley radical who became an anti-Vietnam-war firebrand, a proudly Left political candidate, and a now-legendary journalist. Crusading filmmaker Oliver Stone has called Robert Scheer: Above the Fold, "an inspiring portrait of a great American." Above the Fold is a compilation of Scheer's full-bore muck-raking and opinionated news-making over the course of several decades (and continuing today). The film also features interviews with the likes of Norman Lear, Jane Fonda, Arianna Huffington, and Daniel Ellsberg. 

More good news: The film is available for free screening on Kanopy. All you need is a public library card or a university ID. 

Money for the Many 

The Alliance for Retired Americans (AARP) is circulating a petition in support of H.R. 2654, the Strengthening Social Security Act, which would add $800 to the government's annual Social Security payments. The present average SS check provides $1,461 in added financial aid to retired Americans but, as ARRP points out, this is "barely above the federal poverty level of $1,041." Not too empowering when, for 25% of Americans over the age of 65, their monthly SS checks constitute 90% of their monthly income. 

AARP notes that today's SS checks "buy less than they did in 2000" because the cost of living in the USA has "risen faster than the [federal] cost-of-living adjustment." In other words, a loaf of bread that cost $2 in 2000 would cost $3.02 in 2020. 

Black Mamas Bail Out 

Color of Change sent out an unusual holiday invite asking for donations to provide bail for jailed moms of color. "'Tis the season to support Black Mamas and Caregivers in our 2nd Annual Black Mama’s Bail Out: Toy and Winter Coat Drive!” Last year, Color Of Change helped the National Bail Out (a coordinated effort by community organizations, advocates, and families) raise more than $1 million to free Black mothers to rejoin their families for the holidays.  

The NBO campaign offers a stunning statistic that underscores the injustice of the "racist cash bail system." In the "land of the free," nearly half a million people (three-fourths of the US jail population) have not been convicted of a crime. They are simply awaiting trial. And 90 percent of this prison population is suffering in jail simply because they can't afford to pay the bail needed to be released. 

Bill McKibben Bids Goodbye 

Bill McKibben, author, activist and founder of the climate protection group 350.org has announced his retirement from the organization he founded. Here are some of his thoughts as we approach another critical year of do-or-die decision-making: 

This is the last year I get to write my annual fundraising letter for 350.org. I’m stepping back from my duties — I’ve had my last board meeting, and as the year ends even my volunteer job as ‘senior advisor’ transitions to emeritus status. 

It’s always hard to leave behind an institution one helped found, but the time is right: the people now doing most of the work at 350.org need the space to assert their own identities, become public figures in their own right. 

I’m very proud of our work together fighting pipelines, divesting trillions of dollars from fossil fuel, and standing up to banks — but there are other battles ahead that need new ideas. 

And those battles will need resources. From the South Pacific to South America, from the Arctic to Australia, from London and Paris to DC and New York, 350.org remains the essential global grassroots climate campaign. We have people scattered across the planet — 150 or so hardy souls, most of them young, together catalyzing a vast volunteer base to take on the entire fossil fuel industry. 

It might seem like a mismatch, but in fact we’re winning: I took a day to celebrate this year when the news came that Exxon was no longer the world’s biggest energy company, that it had been surpassed by a solar and wind company. There will be more important news like this if we keep fighting. 

I’m of course nostalgic right now, thinking back to the early days of 350.org, when the climate movement was tiny. But I’m also thinking ahead — to the new projects I’ll be working on but also to the work that 350 will be undertaking in every corner of the globe. As long as I’m alive I’ll be here to help out in some way with those fights — and I hope you will too. 

Let me just finish by saying thanks. It’s been the privilege of my life to work shoulder to shoulder with y’all. 

On we go, 

Bill McKibben 

A Song for the Holidays from Randy Rainbow

A man was arrested following a store robbery that led to an officer-involved shooting Saturday evening in Berkeley, police said.

Shortly after 8:20 p.m., officers responded to a robbery report at the Walgreens store at 2190 Shattuck Ave.

Officers found and attempted to detain the suspect, a 51-year-old man, walking on Bancroft Way after the robbery.

The suspect evaded officers and walked into the courtyard of the Tang Center at 2222 Bancroft Way, and threatened officers with a chain, according to police.

A negotiator-trained officer took steps to de-escalate the situation with the suspect, who continued to speak and act in an erratic manner, police said.

When the officers attempted to take the man into custody, he approached them, leading officers to deploy less-than-lethal ammunition, and one officer shot the suspect with a gun, according to police sources.

The suspect was injured and taken to a hospital, but is in stable condition.

The incident is being investigated by the Berkeley Police Department's Homicide Unit and its Internal Affairs Unit. Additionally, the District Attorney's Office will be notified of the investigations and the involved officer will be placed on administrative leave, police said.

At least 43 emergency department workers at the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center have tested positive for COVID-19 over the last week, a senior official said Saturday. 

Senior Vice President Irene Chavez said a statement that the medical center is using contact tracing and will personally notify and test any staff member or patient who were potentially exposed between Dec. 27 and New Year's Day. 

Chavez said officials continue to investigate the source of the outbreak. 

They are also removing employees who have tested positive as well as those who were in contact with a colleague who has tested positive, Chavez said in a statement.  

The Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center remains open.

Expanded summer school for K-12 students may be one positive outcome of the pandemic that has otherwise contributed to varying levels of learning loss among students across the state.

Without providing details, Gov. Gavin Newsom indicated that he will be including funds in the budget he will present to the Legislature in January that might allow schools to effectively extend the school year into the summer, as a crucial way to help make up for the learning loss that many students have suffered during the pandemic. 

"We're going to be creative to look more broadly outside the previous constructs, this mantra or mindset that goes back to an agrarian society that no longer exists, that has the presumption that 99 percent of us will be toiling the fields come this summer," he said during his briefing on his plan to encourage more schools to offer in-person instruction. 

He said he didn't want to "get too far ahead in terms of the budget that we will be submitting," but that "we will be looking at extending the day, looking at extending into the summer, looking at the opportunity to get tutors and additional supports to comprehensively address learning loss." 

His remarks were reinforced by those of State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond, who is also currently heading up the education transition team for President-elect Joe Biden. 

"We need to understand the school year in new ways," Darling-Hammond said, pointing to a widespread concern among educators for decades that the long summer break can be damaging to the educational progress of many students, especially those who are already struggling. "We've been tied to an agrarian calendar for the school year that begins in September or August and goes until May or June." 

But, she said, California shouldn't be thinking about the instructional calendar as consisting of "what we can we cram in only by May. We should think about this as the continuous process of solving for learning and taking advantage of the many other innovations that are going on in this state." 

These could include everything from outdoor classrooms, expedition schools and project-based learning to interactive online materials that have become regular additions to teacher's toolboxes. 

In general, summer schools are low-budget affairs, typically providing instruction for a small subset of students who have to make up for lost credits that they need to graduate, or to advance to the next grade. As described in this EdSource report, summer schools took a huge hit during the Great Recession a decade ago, and many have never fully recovered. Most summer programs, often described as "enrichment programs," are private ones that only higher income parents have been able to afford, further widening achievement gaps between higher and lower income students. 

A notable exception is the ambitious and creative summer program launched last summer by Los Angeles Unified, which was intended to be accessible to all its students. 

Neither Darling-Hammond nor Newsom provided details about what they will be proposing in his January budget. But Newsom stressed that the issue of how to ensure that children catch up and succeed is a major concern of his -- like it is of most parents, he said. "I can assure you it is not only top of mind, it's foundational in terms of the budget that we'll be submitting for consideration to the legislature." 

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: This story was originally published by EdSource. Please use the original link when sharing: https://edsource.org/2020/expanding-school-year-in-new-ways-may-be-one-outcome-of-pandemic-in-california/646028 Copyright � 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. 

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Through a Daughter’s Eyes...

My dad was the one who taught me to write. And re-write. And re-write. He has been writing his whole life and always told me that he’s not a good writer, but an excellent re-writer. He used to mark up my drafts with his red pen over and over which I certainly resented at the time when I just wanted to get out of the house to be with my friends. But now I see it for the gift it was. For him writing was more important than any sport or instrument I might learn. Because writing for him was an extension of living. And so much of living for him was about trying to impact a country he saw as deeply unjust.

My dad believed before all else in utter truth. No flowers, no protecting feelings, just calling it like you see it. He always attributed it to his working class upbringing in Coney Island by two immigrant parents. He said his house was full of the noise of people saying exactly what they thought at whatever volume the situation warranted. Following the bigger fights, he said he’d know if his parents were still mad because his feisty mom, 4’9” Ida, would sleep with her feet at the top of the bed and head at the bottom so as not to have to look at his father Nathan. But in the morning, they would get up and move on.

For me, growing up, he treated me as he would an adult, bringing me with him to whatever outing he and my mom went on, expecting me to engage in adult political conversations with his friends, holding signs on picket lines alongside him, and telling me exactly what he thought without holding back. That wasn’t always easy for me, but I knew what I was getting from him was always real. He loved to tell the story about me coming home crying after my first dance when I was 11 when no one had asked me to dance and he told me that I was going to have many other problems in life but boys wasn’t going to be one of them. And he tells how it made me feel better, which it did, in a way that it never would have if it was from my sweet sweet mother. She would have said anything to make me feel better. I knew whatever he said was nothing but raw truth.

So while his truth was sometimes warm and sometimes hard to take growing up, he gave me a view of the world that most children don’t get. He talked with me about race and class and his biggest passion, unfair working conditions. He believed in organizing together alongside workers, and going after what is right until it was achieved. He saw people as people, something that I have found to be quite unusual in this world. He didn’t give additional deference to someone because of holding a higher position, he believed in the good of hard working people and valuing that core of people above all else. While he would have said he was the most cynical person alive, always assuming the worst, I think in some ways he was the most hopeful. He worked for goals believing they could be achieved, as if there were no barriers. And he achieved so much because of the way he connected with people and organized in partnership.

I am in his backyard now where he loved to sit, drink coffee, and write. Although if I’m being honest, he would far rather be at a coffee shop around people, but quarantine led to him enjoying this space too. He and I and sometimes his grandchildren would sit out here three times a week, talking about life. I am sitting across from his empty chair and his empty coffee cup and his folded newspaper knowing he will never sit across from me again. But he is still here with me. With all of us. With the changes he made in the world during his 91 years, with the words he wrote that were published in different papers, forming connections with people that changed us all a little. He will not be able to submit another article or attend another rally, but his influence and his spirit will carry on in each of us. So, for him, for you, for our world, let’s look at the world in a raw way, the way my dad did, and keep on fighting for what you know is right.



*Harry Brill, born 7/25/1929, died 12/28/2020 at age 91.

In case you happen to be a teacher or a parent, saving press accounts, photos and videos from last week in D.C. will provide you with excellent illustrative teaching aids for some important topics. The first insight leaped from the screen on Wednesday into our phone calls with friends and family.

Those in the Eastern time zone were first aware of what was up. Three of them called me early, within an hour of each other: an African-American woman friend with major Democratic political experience in the Midwest, a White woman raised as a Southern Baptist who’s now back in the new South, a Catholic cousin in the D.C. area active in social justice movements. All four of us had the same observation: we were seeing White Privilege in action. All of us knew that if that surly mob of rioters had been Black they’d be dead.

This insight turned out to be commonplace among my friends and in the media we tend to frequent. Seeing something you believe to be true illustrated so graphically though appallingly is oddly reassuring, but watchng White Privilege on the rampage is also outrageous. I’m starting to suffer from disgust fatigue.

But I found another fresh source of outrage in the day’s events. I’m from Missouri, born in St. Louis and lived there into high school. I have about 15 first cousins, many still there, as well as innumerable second and third cousins both in Missouri and at various removes. Just about all of the Missourians in our family, I’d venture to say, are disgusted by the behavior of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a smug and smarmy 40ish newbie elected in 2018.

He turns out to be the ringleader in the nefarious group of senators and congresspersons who have been pretending to doubt that President-elect Joe Biden was elected fair and square. Why do I say pretending? 

Because Hawley and his sleazy sidekick Ted Cruz boast the benefit of what passes for an excellent education, so they surely do know they’re making a phony case for their patron . Notches on their academic belts include Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Harvard. Either Hawley and Cruz are aware that they’re lying or their fancy schools have slid downhill intellectually in a big way. 

Don’t get me wrong. In my family going back three generations there are graduates and faculty members of all of the above. All of these people have turned out to be intelligent social justice advocates--not a conservative among them and certainly no fool. Many of them are lawyers—one is even a Missouri Supreme Court Justice. 

A young person in our family has been scheduled to start at one of these institutions as soon the pandemic passes, though the bad behavior of these two shifty senators makes me wonder if that’s a good choice. 

Besides availing themselves of first-ranked higher educational opportunities, even before college Hawley and Cruz attended preparatory schools with religious affiliations which claim to provide moral guidance in addition to book-learning. Though his family was not Catholic, Hawley went to Rockhurst, a Jesuit-linked boys’ school in Kansas City whose motto is “Men for others.” 

After Hawley showed up at the Capitol on Wednesday to egg on the rioters with a corny fist-pump lifted from Black Power demonstrators of the 1960s, and followed that up by voting to reject the valid election results, his old prep school was flooded with demands that the school denounce him.  

In an open letter addressed to “The Rockhurst Community” on Thursday, Rockhurst President David J. Laughlin said this: 

“On behalf of our school’s educational mission… the actions that took place yesterday at our Nation’s Capital which crossed a boundary from freedom of expression to crime are to be condemned. The consequences of those actions ring loud and far. A growing society which shows contempt and intolerance for our treasured heritage of plurality, process, and dignified disagreement cannot continue. 

“I call upon all of our elected officials, including our graduate Senator Josh Hawley, to conduct their own examination of conscience on this matter. If wrong occurs, one ought to seek atonement and reconciliation. These are the Christian principles Rockhurst teaches when wrong has occurred.” 

There’s no report of what Josh Hawley’s examination of conscience might have produced, but critics are coming at him from all sides now. 

Students and alumni of Yale Law School, which he also attended, are now circulating a petition to disbar Hawley and Cruz. 

But this gesture just locks the barn door after the horse is stolen. 

All of the elite schools which these boys were privileged to attend must be missing some part of a moral compass if their graduates behave so badly. 

Didn’t their high-minded high schools teach the ten commandments? 

Don’t these senators believe that it’s a sin to tell a lie? 

And there's something about killing in there too, isn't there?  

Six people are now dead because of the riot that Hawley endorsed. 

Yes, Josh and Ted should be disbarred, but they will still be senators, at least until the next election. 

Because of my Missouri roots, I’m concentrating on getting rid of Hawley. He was elected in 2018, so he should be on the ballot in 2024, unless someone can come up with a good way to get rid of him sooner. 

Senators can be expelled with a two-thirds vote of their colleagues, which is always hard to get, though those who actively participated in the Civil War rebellion were expelled in the 1860s. Senators can also be censured, and only one has ever been re-elected after censure. 

Even without censure, it should be possible to defeat Hawley in the next election if opponents start building their PACs and their ground game now. Signers of the Yale petition, now in the thousands, would be a good place to start. Then they could recruit all of my many cousins.  

And about those elite schools. They need to examine their own consciences to figure out exactly where they’ve gone wrong when they’re producing graduates who are either venal or stupid, or maybe a bit of both, don’t you think? 

Maybe they could get advice from their history scholars.  

In ancient Rome there were two classes of citizens, patricians (from whom the majority of senators were drawn) and plebians (those with fewer privileges, property and rights) as well many other lower social orders which were even less privileged. When there were contested elections, from time to time the upper class candidates would recruit the lower classes to support them by making a ruckus of some kind.  

The Roman Empire eventually declined and fell. It could happen here. 

Just sayin’. 

As some might have noticed, I'm slipping farther and farther from the traditional Friday issue dates. Things are happening so fast these days that there's still a lot to come on Fridays. And then there was last week.... So from now on I'll be aiming for a Sunday New Issue instead of a Friday one. And I'll be posting more tomorrow, Monday, since I've been glued to the internet since Wednesday last.

The focus of the Activist’s Diary is local politics and what happens at our public City meetings. Even in a light week it’s impossible to attend them all. Most of the commission meetings are =not recorded and reading through the minutes of too many is a worthless endeavor.

Councilmember Lori Droste as the author and Rigel Robinson and Rashi Kesarwani as co-sponsors are proposing a Commission Reorganization for Post COVID-19 Budget Recovery. Mayor Arreguin, the leader who is responsible for the expanding the number of commissions in his tenure, seems to have acquired some enthusiasm for the reorganizing. Droste stated last Monday that there was no real basis for choosing to reduce the number of commissions to twenty from thirty-eight. The premise is that reducing the number of commissions will have significant positive impact on the city’s budget.

Given that going through the agendas of the boards and commissions has ruined my Friday evenings for years and deprived me of a good night’s sleep, I can’t think of anyone who would be happier than me to wipe a number of these off the slate, starting with the Animal Care Commission that spent three years as I recall voting and then revisiting, voting and revisiting, voting and revisiting how many dogs professional dog walkers could walk at once (4, 6, or 8 dogs.) This particular commission is listed under the City Manager and maybe she ought to take a look at it.

It is unfortunate that so many of the commissions have been shut down during the pandemic. It would have been a good time for councilmembers to join zoom and see their appointees in action. Then maybe those commissioners who really just warm a seat or at worst obstruct could be replaced. Shutting down the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission at 9 pm because the chair wants to stop is not a reason to quit when there is work to be done. 

There are commissioners that provide significant contributions to the city, with some commissions producing analysis and reports that are more thorough and useful than those coming from the city-hired consultants (a place to look at spending). The Public Works Commission is on a roll, and their recommended five-year paving plan is in the proposed January 26 agenda. The Public Works Commission also produced the information report Phase 3 to Underground Utility Wires. It is so dense that the agenda packet for January 26 was broken into two packets. There are other commissions and task forces that have produced stunning star work. 

The functioning of the city was once described to me as a four-legged table: 1) City Council, 2) City staff, 3) Boards and Commissions and 4) the city at large – the public. City government can be messy, with commissions sometimes making recommendations that staff and the council do not wish to consider. The commission process brings forward ideas. 

From my holiday reading, Tyranny of Meritocracy by Lani Guinier: Diverse groups develop better solutions. Each councilmember making an individual appointment doesn’t bode well for ensuring commissioner diversity. Diversity here is not just race, class, education or life experiences, it also includes persons with disabilities and mobility limitations, the young and old. A successful city needs a broad array of voices, but the most important factor is commitment to finding solutions. 

One last piece from the Monday Agenda Committee: item 19 in the proposed January 19 City Council agenda, Declare Racism as a Public Health Crisis, a Threat and Safety Issue in the City of Berkeley. Councilmember Hahn stated she was “very comfortable” with the committee recommendation. She would be, of course, as she authored the revision which I described in November 27, 2020 https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2020-11-27 Activist Diary as “thin” in content. With all that has happened this week, the rampage on the Capitol by a mob carrying Trump and Confederate flags, bent on overturning the November 3 election it feels like the revision isn’t near enough. The Declaration is much easier to read. It is now listed as item 25 in the final agenda. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/2021/01_Jan/City_Council__01-19-2021_-_Regular_Meeting_Agenda.aspx 

It was hard to focus on anything after Wednesday afternoon, January 6, 2021. As I tried to follow the news, I found I was only half listening at the Planning Commission and Public Works Commission. In the Planning Commission workplan table from staff, the Bird Safety Ordinance (bird safe glass and dark skies) fell to the bottom (sort of like the place where injured and dead birds can be found after crashing into glass). Whether commissioners can prioritize bird survival over developer profits remains to be seen. Berkeley sits in the migration flyway, but unfortunately it is the developer fees that finance the Berkeley Planning Department. Birds don’t carry cash on their wings to pay the way to moving up on the workplan priority list. 

The Community for a Cultural Civic Center meeting Thursday noon was a little easier as it fell during a press lull. There will be more at the next meeting on the plan for assessment of water intrusion. The committees of this organization are getting off the ground with the Park group as the only committee that met over the holidays. John Caner is completing the paperwork for Berkeley Partners for Parks as the fiscal agent. A draft for the website berkeleycccc.org is being reviewed by the group with comments due preferably by Monday, January 11. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the books I read in 2020 (41 in total) especially How Democracies Die (2018) by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt and It Was All a Lie (2020) by Stuart Stevens. In How Democracies Die the authors warn that any politician who meets even one of the following four criteria should be cause for concern: 1) Disrespect for norms – rejection of democratic rules, 2) Denial of legitimacy of opponents, 3) Toleration or encouragement of violence, 4) Willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents including the media. Trump fits all four. 

I’m almost done with Fear by Bob Woodward. Next Up is The Road to Unfreedom (2018) by Timothy Snyder, who also authored On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. 

There is still a lot to digest from Wednesday. 

Remember during the first presidential debate, Trump told the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, to “stand back and stand by?”  

Later, Trump urged his supporters multiple times to come to Washington for a rally on June 6, the day the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate were scheduled to certify the results of the Electoral College.On Dec. 20, Trump tweeted that “statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election.” And added, “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”  

Sure enough, his supporters who were standing by as requested, showed up in force. Trump then told them, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and Congressmen and women” and exhorted them to fight. The crowd — many carrying weapons and without masks — stormed the Capitol building, vandalizing offices, breaking windows. Fifty-two people were arrested, four dead, fourteen D.C. police officers injured, and two explosive devices found. 

Consider that "imminent lawless action" is a standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio. The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Seems like "imminent lawless action" to me. 

Unless Trump is held accountable, we can expect more mischief from Trump and his supporters between now and January 20. House Majority Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Mike Pence to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump for “inciting sedition.” If he does not, Pelosi threatened to start impeachment proceedings

When people in a big aggregation all believe the same lie, it starts to become more passable as truth. Yet it doesn't matter how many believe in a lie; it continues to be a lie. The Republican Party in the U.S. wants to deny the results of the 2020 election. They have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate the bogus claims that the election results were rigged. They assert it is so because they say so. 

Israel and sixteen European countries have laws against Holocaust denial. In the U.S. there is no law against it because of the protections afforded by the First Amendment. In the U.S. you can think and say anything you want no matter how dumb, so long as you don't rip off someone's copyrighted material and call it your own, commit fraud of some kind, or issue a threat against someone. I've spoken to a Holocaust denier. At the time, I didn't know what to think--I'd never been told, "It didn't happen." As a Jew by birth, such an assertion is beyond offensive, beyond an outrage, and a clear sign that something is wrong. I'm not going to say those were fighting words, in part because the denier in this case was female and smaller than I. But also, beating a person up, if they weren't female, doesn't erase the Holocaust, it only complicates solving the underlying problems that led to the Holocaust. 

There are cultlike aggregations of people who believe the Apollo manned missions to the Moon were a hoax produced by the U.S. Government. A 1977 move "Capricorn One" that starred James Brolin, at face value was about a hoaxed manned mission to Mars. It appears it was loosely based on conspiracy theories about the Apollo missions. I've been to websites produced by Apollo deniers. So, Apollo deniers really exist. 

Denying things that are documented, that are proven beyond any infinitesimal reason to doubt, is done by people who lie for a purpose. The purpose is to bend truth, and this is for the purpose of dominance and destruction. It makes people feel powerful. In fact, such individuals who do this should try to have power over themselves.

The 2020 election is almost over; it will end when Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th. The election process took 19 months: beginning with the first Democratic debate and ending with the November 3rd election, January 6th counting of the electoral votes, and the inauguration. We all have good reason to feel drained. 

There were emotional peaks and valleys. After the polls closed, on November 3rd, there was an awful moment when we thought Trump might win. Then we worried that Trump might find a way to steal the election; that he would force a coup. We held on to a slim hope that we would regain control of the Senate by winning two Georgia run-off races; improbably, on January 5th we won both seats. 

Now we have to set to work rebuilding the country. But before we do this, we need to consider what we have learnedfrom this process. 

1.Democrats can win anywhere. Biden won Arizona and Georgia; two states that had previously been considered "red." Democrats picked up a Senate seat in Arizona and two (!) seats in Georgia. 

2020 proved that the political battlefield is expanding; the number of reliably red states is shrinking. This means that Democrats can win any election if they have a strong candidate and effective local organizing. (Dems have proven they have the money to compete in any venue.) What remains to be done is for Democrats to replicate in every state the effective organization that Stacey Abrams built in Georgia. 

2. Trump voters have a different worldview. Sadly, during the 2020 presidential election, we have also learned that many Republicans -- particularly those that idolized Donald Trump -- have a vastly different perspective than do Biden supporters. (We must never forget that 74 million Americans voted for Trump -- 46.9 percent of the participants.) 

Of course, not every Trump voter continues to support Trump -- given recent events, such as the January 6th Capitol Hill riot. Nonetheless, it's reasonable to assume that a majority of Republicans support Trump. In the 2020 presidential election exit polls, 36 percent of respondents identified as Republicans -- versus 37 percent as Democrats and 26 percent as Independents. 95 percent of these Republicans voted for Trump; one-third of voters. Assuming that Trump's behavior, since November 3rd, has driven away some of this base, this means that between 25 and 30 percent of the electorate now support him -- approximately 40 million voters. 

It's impossible to predict what Trump will do and, therefore, difficult to plot the course of the Republican Party. At this moment, the GOP seems to have divided into two warring factions: the Trump devotees and Republicans who have entered "recovery." (On January 6th, 147 Trump-supporting members of Congress voted to overturn the results of the election (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html).) 

Going forward there are three mammoth tasks confronting the Biden-Harris administration: managing the Covid-19 pandemic, rebuilding the U.S. economy, and responding to climate change. For each of these, the Biden-Harris administration is going to need the cooperation of Republicans, including some Trump supporters. 

a. Covid-19 pandemic: At this writing, the United States has more than 22 million Coronavirus cases. In contrast to Donald Trump, Joe Biden has promised to take the pandemic seriously: we can expect that he will emphasize mask use and demand funds for testing and vaccinations. Most Americans will support these efforts, but Trump supporters will resist. Too many do not take the pandemic seriously and, therefore, resist calls to wear a mask and socially distance -- witness the Trump mob that stormed Capitol Hill; most of whom did not wear masks or socially distance. (On Planet Trump, Coronavirus is a myth.) 

Given the level of resistance of Trump supporters, it's hard to imagine how a Biden-Harris initiative to ameliorate the pandemic will produce quick results. 

b. Economic Recovery: The Biden-Harris team will attempt to restore the economy in two phases: first, provide assistance for individuals and businesses that have been damaged by the pandemic; and second, begin to address the more general issue of economic inequity -- for example, by raising the minimum wage and forgiving student-loan debt. 

Many Republicans, and Trump supporters, will be supportive of these efforts. 

c. Climate Change: The 2020 presidential-election exit polls indicate that there's a significant gap between the climate-change attitudes of Democrats and Republicans. 69 percent of Biden voters believe that "climate change is a serious problem" while 71 percent of Trump voters disagree. It's a situation similar to that on the pandemic: a strong majority of Biden supporters take the problem seriously and a similar majority of Trump supporters do not. 

This is a particularly vexing situation because, once the pandemic is ameliorated, the United States needs to mobilize to deal with climate change. We need to go to war to save the planet, but many Trump supporters won't join this mobilization. 

The bottom line is that the Biden-Harris team will govern a broken country; a fragile democracy that has just barely survived the reign of Donald Trump. We've entered a new era but we all have much more work to do.