As of Tuesday, three members of Congress have tested positive for COVID-19 following the attack on the Capitol. It started with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman who announced that she tested positive on Monday; then, Rep. Pramila Jayapal became the second person to declare that she was positive; shortly after, Rep. Brad Schneider also tested positive. One by one, as members of congress continue to confirm their COVID-19 test results, it’s clear that the Republicans who refused to wear masks while sheltering may have caused yet another Capitol Hill superspreader.

“I just received a positive COVID-19 test result after being locked down in a secured room at the Capitol where several Republicans not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one,” Jayapal tweeted in a thread Monday night. “Only hours after Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic.” 

During the attempted Capitol coup, members of Congress who were on Capitol Hill were ushered into a safe room, as Jayapal detailed, while rioters stormed the building, defecated on the walls, and left threatening messages in various offices. But as she said, many members of Congress refused to take precautions to keep their colleagues safe. Then, on Sunday, Dr. Brian Monahan, Congress’ attending physician, warned that “individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection” during that period of time. Following the attack, Jayapal said she was quarantining because she was convinced that being in a room with 100 people where many Republicans were not wearing masks would quickly become a superspreader event. Other members of Congress, too, have received tests and are awaiting results.

So far, most of Congress received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, but it requires two doses to take full effect, and no one in that room was fully safe from infection. Now, Jayapal has called for members of Congress to be given “serious fines” for refusing to wear masks while indoors with colleagues and staffers in the Capitol, as well as removal from the floor by the Sergeant of Arms if they refuse. “This is not a joke. Our lives and our livelihoods are at risk,” Jayapal said.

This also wouldn’t be the first time politicians in D.C. were warned of spreading COVID-19. The last time there was significant spread of COVID-19 among government workers, at least 48 White House officials tested positive after a superspreader event in the Rose Garden.

Although vaccines have begun to be distributed across the country, cases have continued to take a turn for the worse. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that at least 9 million people have been vaccinated since distribution began — but that’s barely a dent in the situation, especially considering that all people must receive not one but two vaccine shots one month apart. That means there’s still a very long way to go — and an even longer way to go until America can reach true herd immunity. At time of publication, more than 375,000 people in the country have died of COVID-19. 

The infections of Congress members come just as the House of Representatives plans to move forward with measures to remove President Trump from office this week. The House is expected to pass a resolution calling for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment today.

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Melania Trump Speaks Out On Capitol Attack

How Prison Labor Will Clean Up The Capitol Attack

What We Know About The Capitol Riot Deaths

It’s been three days since the riot and attempted coup that took place at the Capitol on Wednesday, and it turns out that the day of terror was, unsurprisingly, very deadly. As more information has been released, so have the identities of violent insurrectionists, fascists, and Nazis. Some have been fired from their jobs, some are suffering from injuries, many will likely test positive for COVID-19, and several people died during the attack.

It’s now been confirmed that at least five people died this week during the riot, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who was killed while on duty. Officer Sicknick’s death comes after D.C. officials announced that four others had died during the raiding of the Capitol, including a woman who was shot inside by a Capitol officer. In addition to Sicknick’s death, dozens of police officers were injured or maimed by fascists, Nazis, and pro-Trump extremists while working that day.

One of the people who was shot and killed was an Army Veteran from California, Ashli Babbitt. A day earlier, Babbitt had tweeted, “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!” In addition to Babbitt, two men in their 50s and one woman in her 30s died after various medical emergencies, according to D.C. Mayor Murel Bowser and D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee, who held a press conference following the attack. Kevin Greeson, a 55-year-old from Alabama who advocated for violence online, had a heart attack during the insurrection from “excitement,” his wife claims. Benjamin Philips and Roseanne Boyland are the other known deaths thus far. Details about their deaths are sparse as of publication time.

Injuries were also widespread and gruesome. Contee said that 56 officers were injured after being beaten or tazed repeatedly. However, it’s also important context that many officers simply stood by as rioters and insurrectionists took over the Capitol, and even tried to help them find their way. So far, city police officers have arrested 70 people on charges related to the unrest on Wednesday, but most of the arrests have been for people violating curfew — with some facing charges for unlawful entry. Not all people who entered into the Capitol building were taken into custody. In fact, most weren’t. 

The incident has now become deadlier than Benghazi, which journalist Chris Hayes pointed out on Twitter. Republicans have frequently leaned into anger and righteousness over Benghazi throughout the years, even faulting Hillary Clinton and using her role in it as proof of why she shouldn’t be president. The number of deaths and the horror caused this week only makes Trump’s case harder, as he tries to avoid being impeached a second time with only two weeks of his presidency left. 

Now, Trump is ultimately being held responsible by many in Washington — even Republicans like Betsy DeVos — for stoking the violence and inciting people to “stop the steal” on his behalf. Whether he will actually be held accountable is an entirely different story, though. The Senate has now gone on break again until Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, and it remains to be seen if Trump or his fascist followers will see consequences. Additionally, there’s no word on if it will even be deemed safe enough to hold an in-person inauguration at all after the events of this week, on top of pandemic safety concerns. 

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Let's Not Forget That Nazi's Stormed The Capitol

Police Treat White Rioters Like Their Lives Matter

America Is Not Better Than This. It's Who We Are

Among the many different factions of white supremacist groups — from the Proud Boys to to Confederate flag-wavers to QAnon — who stormed the Capitol this week, there were also Nazis. Carrying swastika flags and wearing shirts that said things like “Camp Auschwitz STAFF, work brings freedom” and “6MWE” (which stands for “six million weren’t enough,” a reference to the number of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust), the Nazis made themselves right at home in the Capitol, sporting paraphernalia meant to stoke fear and send a clear message about what they represent: hate and violence.

Much of the media has failed to correctly report on what hate groups were present at the insurrection — mistakenly calling them anarchists, for example, a direct implication those present at the Capitol were connected with the anarchists present at Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. But being explicit is essential in a situation like this, and incorrectly naming or failing to name them as Nazis and fascists in the first place is dangerous, because it allows the real threat to stay hidden.

Trump supporters’ sense of entitlement is rooted in hundreds of years of white supremacy and white power — stemming from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Nazi Germany, and other fascist movements that have sought to eradicate marginalized people, including Black, Jewish, disabled, and queer people. And, this isn’t their first time assembling in a way that ended in violence and death.

The siege on the Capitol has been compared to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, which ended in the murder of anti-fascist activist Heather Heyer. This rally was one of the first times that Nazis and fascists were galvanized by Trump, who called the Nazis and fascists in Charlottesville “very fine people,” but it wasn’t the last: During the presidential debates in 2020, Trump called for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Subsequently, Nazis attended the Million MAGA March in November, which “was a preview of the collaboration between GOP politicians, conservative groups, and neo-Nazis” that we saw again this week, explained Sophie Ellman-Golan, progressive Jewish strategist and researcher for How to Fight Antisemitism, a project of Bend the Arc.

“To me, the thing that is noteworthy is not only that these are Nazis but that there are ties between the elected officials and members of the Republican party and these Nazis,” Ellman-Golan tells Refinery29. “And so I think it’s understandable that a lot of people don’t want to call them Nazis because they don’t want to acknowledge that there are members of Congress openly colluding with Nazis, and we have to state that.”  

The raiding of the Capitol also coincided with Congresswoman Mary Miller quoting Hitler in a speech this week — and praising how the Nazi leader built his political movement by indoctrinating youth. Journalist Mark Maxwell posted a video of it on Twitter and noted that Miller didn’t slip up or improvise her praise of Hitler, but instead read from prepared remarks. That’s a tell that this was no accident, and in fact, she wholeheartedly stands by that statement.

“It’s just interesting to see the journey of shielding Nazis during this era of fascism,” Jason Rosenberg, a Jewish organizer, tells Refinery29. “We’ve seen the ‘both sides’ statement not only from Trump but a lot of his colleagues from the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting to Charlottesville to even now, when a Jew, Ivanka Trump, has a deleted tweet that calls them ‘great Patriots.’ I think even from the progressive end, which also means the Democratic party, it’s vital and imperative that we all say exactly what they are — which is Nazis.”

Rosenberg points out that the current intracommunity dialogue in the Jewish community about the presence of Nazis at the riot is some of the only conversation explicitly calling them Nazis. Some of this, he says, is fueled by Jewish institutions and Jewish institutional leaders from AJC and ADL who have been shielding the Trump administration for years. “We haven’t had our Democratic party even call them Nazis explicitly because they’re afraid to have Holocaust comparisons, because our Jewish institutions haven’t even done it. And that’s the trouble we’re facing. But leaders need to speak out. We’re seeing exactly how dangerous not doing so is right now. We don’t need this both-sidesism saying that there are Nazis on the left, too. We need someone to say explicitly that it is Nazis who stormed the Capitol,” says Rosenberg.

“The faster establishment Dems realize that no one is being hyperbolic about the Republican Party breakdown being driven by literal nazis the better. Y’all want civil discussion and they want a white ethnostate. You are absolutely not playing the same game,” tweeted Marc Dones, executive director of the National Innovation Service.

As Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize-winning author of Night said, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

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America Is Not Better Than This. It's Who We Are

Police Treat White Rioters Like Their Lives Matter

Right Wing Extremists Planned This Siege For Weeks

Our long road to a new presidency, which has felt like it’s taken a million years between November 3 and now, will soon come to an end on January 20 when Joe Biden is officially inaugurated. First, however, a vote must take place in Congress tomorrow. On Wednesday, January 6, Congress will count electoral votes, and presiding over the ceremony is none other than Vice President Mike Pence. 

Leading up to Congress’s meeting, Senator Ted Cruz and nearly a dozen other Republican senators or senators-elect have issued a challenge and have sought to delay if not completely reverse the election result. After numerous lawsuits, investigations into voter fraud, and recounts, Biden is still (and again and again) the 46th President of the United States. But Pence, who serves as President of the Senate and can break any deadlocked votes, is now making people nervous. These nerves have, of course, ignited a conversation about if Pence can actually take away the win from Biden.

The simple answer to this is no: The VP’s role in this specific tradition is mostly ceremonial and he wields little to no power to actually overturn anything — though Pence would love for people to think he wields that much power.

Those who drafted the Constitution were very aware of the risk that bias could play in politics, and didn’t want any vice president to ever have so much control to settle the final outcome of a presidential election. For that reason, they put safeguards in place. Thanks to the 12th Amendment, Pence can’t actually make the final decision about who becomes president. This is also thanks to the Electoral Count Act of 1887. While he might be the “presiding officer,” he doesn’t get to choose and the electoral votes still have the final say.

Once Pence opens the certificates, tellers make a list, and the votes are counted. Then, the result of the election is delivered to the President of the Senate, who announces the vote and declares who has been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

Following this, Pence will have to ask if there are any objections (kind of like at a wedding but much more terrifying in this case). Anyone who objects to the result has to put it in writing and state a good reason why the result is wrong, and has to submit it to the Senate. Although Cruz and others can make their objections, the process is relatively sound. Even Pence has to be checked and balanced.

It has been a long two months of the Trump administration and many Republicans calling the election fraudulent, claiming that Donald Trump is actually the winner and should remain president, and federal judges affirming these falsities and rejecting the law. Given all of these efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and attempts to stage a coup, it makes sense that many people are worried that Pence will reject electoral votes tomorrow in favor of pushing the narrative that Trump won instead. 

Still, it’s very likely that Pence will defer to the Constitution — which he’s so revered under different circumstances — and do the right thing. Perhaps we’ll even get another fly-on-the-head moment, giving us more memes for this auspicious moment in history.

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If you’re wondering why jokes about the CIA have suddenly taken over social media timelines, you’ll want to sit down for this one — and we promise it’s not an early April Fool’s joke. Yesterday, the Central Intelligence Agency revealed a chic rebrand, apparently meant to attract new recruits, and specifically more “diversity.” In other words, the agency is trying to gain more workers who share identities with people whose heritage and ancestry can be traced back to people and places that the organization has destabilized and harmed. 

Most importantly, the relaunched site showcases a new logo, with what can only be considered millennial and Gen Z-friendly fonts, and new stock photos featuring more women, Black people, and people of color. But many very online people were quick to pick up on the fact that the new logo and website design look eerily like one for a new tech startup, or perhaps a new album cover from The Strokes. And it begs the question: Is the CIA selling us on covert and endless war, or an app that controls a new kind of electric toothbrush?

After the rebrand went live, the internet did what it does best. Twitter users in droves made memes and jokes about the logo and the site. “CIA about to release the most minimal tech dnb EP of 2021,” posted one person. “Here at the CIA diversity means a lot to us and that’s why we are pledging to overthrow even more governments of color in the future,” another person joked in a tweet. Others posted minimalist logo mockups joking that they were the CIA’s rejected rebrand designs.

CIA about to release the most minimal tech dnb EP of 2021 pic.twitter.com/m7866w6Jpp

— IMANU (@imanumusic) January 4, 2021

Rejected redesign for the CIA pic.twitter.com/PGULcfzb9B

— ᖇYᗩᑎ (@bjorlax_) January 4, 2021

The CIA is recruiting tumblr girls pic.twitter.com/MjYc1SGckN

— Devin (@dev_nieus) January 4, 2021

There may be a technical reason for this redesign, though. An Associated Press report claimed that while the intelligence community has seen an increase in minority representation (from 0.3 percent to 25.5 percent), the numbers are still lower than the federal workforce’s numbers or the civilian workforce’s numbers. The current director, Gina Haspel, shared a statement with AP on the rebrand on Monday, saying she hoped the update communicates the “dynamic environment” at the CIA.

“We’ve come a long way since I applied by simply mailing a letter marked ‘CIA, Washington, D.C.,’” Haspel, who joined the agency in 1985, says. It’s amazing to live in a world where girl bosses can now lead the free world in killing innocent people. 

A declassified report released in 2015 revealed that only 10.8 percent of the CIA’s leaders were non-white. Approximately 26.5% of members of the intelligence agencies in 2019 were racial and ethnic minorities, according to a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that was obtained by ABC News. “The Agency’s workforce is not diverse … The more senior the Agency’s workforce is, the less diverse it is,” one report concludes.

The agency has claimed, for example, that women lead all five directorates (major branches) of the CIA. But the agency has emphasized that their overall lack of diversity limits its ability to accurately represent America. Yet despite its pining for more representation, the question must be asked: why would the very people from the racial backgrounds and countries that the agency has violated and targeted want to join? 

The truth is that this rebrand is not only about promoting the “dynamic environment” at the agency. By using trendy aesthetics, they can veil what they truly operate and exist to do, which is not simply to be “the Nation’s first line of defense” but to impose violence on both Americans and people in other countries — largely Black people and people of color. The CIA has proudly interfered in and destabilized governments around the world for decades. It’s also targeted Americans themselves, being implicated in the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. along with the Federal Bureau of Intelligence — and conducting a domestic espionage program to sabotage the Black Panther Party.

And make no mistake: the agency’s efforts to recruit more diverse hires is nowhere close to new. The CIA has put efforts into recruiting and training people from around the globe since 1965, coincidentally the same year that it worked with the Indonesian military to terrorize and massacre communists. But the difference is now they’re using cool fonts.

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Is This The Thing That Will Land Trump In Jail?

Just after President Donald Trump finally agreed to sign the stimulus bill that would help the millions of people struggling with under and unemployment, the House backed legislation to make payments $2,000 instead of $600. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ever the villain, objected to this on Tuesday afternoon. Not all hope is lost, though, thanks to Bernie Sanders, who says he has a plan to begin setting things right.

According to Sanders, he has forged a path to force senators to cancel their holiday plans until Americans are ensured additional stimulus payments. While McConnell planned on a speedy vote this week on an override of Trump’s defense bill veto, Sanders has decided he won’t let that happen so easily. Prior to the vote on the House-backed bill that took place today, Sanders detailed that, should McConnell not cooperate, he would delay the defense bill until a vote is held. That way, Republicans are forced to compromise on a stimulus bill with $2,000 checks instead of $600. Now that McConnell has moved to block the Democrats’ request to hold a vote on the larger stimulus checks, Sanders will filibuster and keep Congress tied up until the last possible moment. And as per Senate rules, this is completely allowed. 

“McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote and I understand that. But I’m not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment,” Sanders said in an interview on Monday night. Not only would Sanders have the ability to keep the chamber in during the holiday week, but the move would seriously impact Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue’s campaigns in Georgia right before the runoff race. If Loeffler and Perdue can’t campaign because they’re held in proceedings, they stand a chance of lagging too far behind their incumbents, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. And perhaps McConnell knows better than anyone that if the GOP loses its their majority in the Senate, it’s game over.

Sanders has repeatedly spoken out against the $600 checks in recent weeks, and even defended the president’s assertion that everyone should get at least $2,000. Many have stood by that line of logic and have continuously pushed for more money for Americans, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib. Unsurprisingly, Republicans like McConnell have continued to argue against providing more monetary support for people who have struggled through ten months of the pandemic. Still, some have (surprisingly) endorsed the higher amount, like Marco Rubio — showing there’s a major split in the party. 

It’s unclear what all of the next steps will be, but Sanders is obviously committed to holding Republicans accountable. “The American people are desperate, and the Senate has got to do its job before leaving town. It would be unconscionable, especially after the House did the right thing, for the Senate to simply leave Washington without voting on this,” he said.

“While including these payments ultimately improved this bill, given the enormous economic desperation that so many working families across this country are now experiencing, there is no question but that this legislation did not go far enough,” Sanders stated last week about the $600 offering. Now, the Senator’s plan to put a hole in Pentagon funding until the Republicans say yes to a more adequate stimulus bill will likely move forward. And it’s clear that he won’t stop finding creative ways to keep fighting for people’s right to government aid when so many are in dire straits. 

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New Stimulus Checks Will Go Out To Fewer People

Memes That Are Almost As Funny As The Stimulus

What Trump Signing The COVID Relief Bill Means

It’s almost never a good sign when the word “socialism” is trending on Twitter — especially as we are on the brink of a new year and a new White House administration. This time, (to little surprise) it’s former governor Nikki Haley who unleashed a flurry of takes about socialism when she tweeted her (outraged) thoughts on Monday.

“2020 was the year socialism went mainstream. The dangerous ideology, which has failed everywhere it has been tried & ruined countless lives, is on its way to becoming the default economic policy of the Democratic Party. This terrifying trend threatens the future of every American,” Haley wrote.

But just as quickly as Haley’s bad take came, so did backlash for the politician’s empty statement. “Please elaborate on how Medicare and Social Security ruined countless lives, Nikki,” responded Mike Drake, a combat veteran and former worker for Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

Others responded saying that if socialism was actually mainstream, then everyone in the country would have actually been paid stimulus checks and unemployment more frequently this year. Some even retorted by asking her to elaborate on what would be so awful about everyone having exactly what they needed, to which it appears Haley has no response yet.

But of course, this isn’t the first time that Haley has come after socialists — and surely it won’t be the last. During her speech at the Republican National Convention earlier this year, Haley railed against socialism and how a Biden-Harris administration would bring chaos, in between lying about other things. “A Biden-Harris administration would be much, much worse. Last time, Joe’s boss was Obama… this time, it would be Pelosi, Sanders, and the Squad. Their vision for America is socialism. And we know that socialism has failed everywhere,” Haley said. In addition, she’s also attempted to remain relevant by feuding with democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a league that is very, very much outside of her own.

What is perhaps most obvious here is that Haley’s critique of socialism as mainstream is flawed on many levels. On one hand, she’s clearly using socialism as a scapegoat to try to scare Americans. Specifically, she’s using socialism to increase fear-mongering among and embolden the same people on the right and Trump supporters who have been made to believe socialism is a bad thing — and that socialists are taking over the country and taking away their rights. This fear narrative that’s been created and pushed by Republicans about socialists and antifa (which quite literally just stands for anti-fascists) has produced terrorist groups like the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois, and those like Kyle Rittenhouse. And Nikki Haley is simply too smart to not know what she’s doing when she ignites this sort of “Bat Signal” for people on the right who want to restore “law and order” to the country. It’s not ineptitude, and it’s not an accident. 

Beyond that, Haley’s assertion that socialism is somehow “mainstream” is simply not the case. Although politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and other major players have popularized democratic socialism and opened many people’s eyes, there’s still plenty of stigma around socialism as a philosophy and as a political system that could actually work.

Haley could perhaps stand to check the differences between socialism and communism, but obviously no one gifted her any Marx for the holidays. And unfortunately, it seems her trusty fact-checkers, whoever they may be, have checked out of the building.

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After waiting nearly all year for more government aid during the pandemic, a second round of stimulus checks has finally been approved. But, as with the first round of checks, only taxpayers and their dependents under 17 years old qualify to receive the payment. That means that millions of non-working high school- and college-aged dependents will be left out — as well as a significant number of disabled adults and elderly people.

The new set of rules states that full payments will go to individuals who made $75,000 in adjusted gross income, as well as those listed as heads of household with up to $112,500, and it will also go to married couples who, combined, have made less than $150,000. As with the first check, all of this will be calculated using 2019 tax returns, meaning it doesn’t take into account the many people who have lost jobs and taken hits to income this year as a result of the pandemic. 

Beyond the people who won’t be receiving the stimulus because they supposedly make too much money, millions of others won’t in a manner that feels discriminatory, since it’s due to circumstances they don’t control. Approximately 2.3 million people — like 17-and-over high school and college students — who are in the lowest income bracket have been rendered ineligible for the stimulus checks because they’re claimed as dependents on someone else’s taxes; however those people will not receive money for these dependents. In addition, approximately 13.5 million disabled adults who are dependents also don’t qualify to receive that aid. But, the caregivers of disabled adult dependents also won’t be receiving stimulus checks, as per the deal reached by politicians. Immigrants without social security numbers won’t receive the money, either, as was the case with the first round of checks.

While some have argued that stimulus checks are not necessarily for those most in dire need of assistance and that unemployment income benefits will help those people, extra pandemic unemployment income stopped over the summer. Furthermore, usual unemployment income amounts are incredibly low to begin with. The average person receives an average of about $378 a week in unemployment benefits, according to 2019 data from the U.S. Labor Department — yet the amount varies from state to state, and it’s still often not enough to actually live well. To make matters worse, though, unemployment income already doesn’t reach many people deeply entrenched in poverty — including disabled people, their caregivers, and people who are more permanently jobless. 

It’s especially telling that prominent Democrats like Nancy Pelosi were vocal about denying smaller relief deals and pushing for larger checks, only to eventually accept such a pitiful deal. Pelosi has already gotten her fair share of backlash, as have other members of Congress, but all the memes about how laughable the stimulus check amount is can’t fully dispel the lingering anger.

What’s most notable is the cruelty in how discriminatory the parameters of eligibility are — and how much money was earmarked within it for other unrelated projects — all deemed more important than providing more money to people in America who are desperately in need. During a pandemic that’s been devastating for many, but especially for disabled people — who have both received little assistance and been sidelined in the beginning when people thought only immunocompromised and elderly people would be at risk — the stimulus check situation has only added insult to injury.

However, the biggest injury that politicians must be held accountable for is that while the $600 is laughable, and not everyone who needs the money will even receive that aid, thousands of people have already died while waiting for it. That burden is theirs to carry on their shoulders at the end of the day.

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Next month, Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to be killed by the United States government. After 17 years of no federal executions, the U.S. has recently started carrying them out again — with Brandon Bernard being killed this past month. Montgomery is the only woman on federal death row, and one of only 51 women on death rows across the country. If she is killed, she will be the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953.

But, President Donald Trump has decided to go on something of a killing spree before he leaves office, and chose to move ahead with six executions in his lame-duck period, including Bernard’s. Montgomery has been sentenced to die by lethal injection on January 12, 2021 for the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a pregnant woman whom Montgomery strangled, before cutting open her stomach and kidnapping the baby within. The child survived and was found when Montgomery was arrested.

Make no mistake: Montgomery is guilty of this horrific crime. But she was also the victim of horrific crimes herself; and moreover, as the New York Times reports in a recent piece on her: “She was sentenced to death because her trial lawyers, uninformed about gender violence, didn’t seem to understand how to defend her.”

From infancy and through adolescence, Montgomery endured horrific domestic abuse from her mother and sexual assault at the hands of her stepfather in addition to other forms of abuse, including forced prostitution. Addled with trauma, Montgomery developed, the Times reports, “bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD), dissociative disorder, psychosis, traumatic brain injury, and likely fetal alcohol syndrome.” She was also “born into a family rife with mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.”

These extenuating circumstances could and should have been used by her attorneys to demonstrate that, no matter the severity of her crimes, Montgomery should not be given the death penalty. But, during her jury in her 2007 trial, her attorneys — all men — didn’t give the jury insight into this. They also, the Times says, “suggested that her… half brother Tommy Kleiner was the actual killer, despite having his own probation officer as his alibi.” Because they failed to defend her properly, Montgomery was sentenced to death. 

Recently, Montgomery’s 57-year-old half-sister Diane Mattingly opened up to ELLE about why her sister should not be executed. “Didn’t the jury understand that she is ill? It’s hard to keep track of all the times she has been let down by people she’s supposed to trust. Her mom and her dad. Her school teachers. The police. Social Services. Me. Now her government was failing her, too,” says Mattingly. “My heart goes out to the family of Bobbie Jo, of course it does, but we need to break the chain of evil actions.” 

At the root of the issue is the fact that Montgomery lived in precarious, untenable circumstances exacerbated if not caused by extreme poverty. She is not alone in this. According to the census, 34 million people in the U.S. were living in poverty in 2019. Research has shown that poverty makes people more susceptible to mental illness, and puts them more at risk of being incarcerated, among other things. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “Poverty may intensify the experience of mental illness. Poverty may also increase the likelihood of the onset of mental illness. At the same time, experiencing mental illness may also increase the chances of living below the poverty line.” Reflecting on Montgomery’s circumstances is not an attempt to excuse her, but to understand her, and hopefully prevent other people in similar environments from going down the same path.

Her post-trial lawyers, Kelley Henry, Amy Harwell, and Lisa Nouri, are trying to contextualize Montgomery’s actions, and have her sentence commuted. They have waged a petition claiming that Montgomery’s trial “fell far short of minimum standards of fairness” and therefore violated international law. They’ve also argued that the government itself must take accountability and bears culpability for her crime. After all, it failed to protect Montogmery from torture throughout her life. Her lawyers are now attempting to stay her execution and free her. In addition to her lawyers’ petition, thousands of supporters have written their own letters and petitions demanding this execution be stopped. 

While the death penalty should be abolished in general, and no one should be killed by the government, no matter how heinous their crime, there are many aspects of Montgomery’s case, specifically, that make it clear that, though she is responsible for her actions, she is not the only one responsible for them. By allowing people to live in poverty, letting hundreds of thousands of people experience houselessness each year, and refusing to provide vital resources to communities in need, the U.S. government essentially condemns poor people to death by default. In the same way that the government shouldn’t have the power to execute anyone, it also shouldn’t have the power to leave its people in abject poverty, making them more vulnerable to abuse and harm. 

Fighting the death penalty and attempting to abolish it is, of course, a worthwhile endeavor. But we must also hold the government culpable for the abhorrent situations that are at the root of it all. Even more vulnerable than Montgomery are the millions of Black people and people of color who have been incarcerated, and all of the Black people and people of color who are on death row, many of them also victims of poverty and systemic abuse. This is a country where simply being poor is a crime.

One of the only ways to fix this is by preventing people from living in poverty in the first place, and providing real material resources, money, and social services to those who have suffered from its effect. But while those foundational changes are being fought for on a larger scale, injustices will continue on in other ways. It might be too late to save Montgomery — her life hinges on Trump’s discretion. But it’s not too late to prevent others from suffering similar fates.

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With just over a month until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office at his inauguration, Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, ran a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post with a message for the president-elect. The advertisement’s goal was to get Biden’s attention, and to let him know that he must be accountable to the people who voted for him — specifically all the Black people who showed up in droves to get him into office. In the ad, Palmer emphasized that Biden must keep his promise to hold police accountable for the lives they’ve taken and the damage they’ve done over the years.

In the letter, Palmer asked that Biden enact a list of measures and policy changes to address police brutality as soon as he settles into the Oval Office. “Your campaign’s stated commitment to prioritize police accountability prompted so many of us to vote this year. For many Americans, a vote for you was a vote for Breonna, Jacob Blake, Casey Goodson and so many others who have been failed repeatedly by the criminal justice system under the current administration. These victims could not vote for you — so millions of us did so on their behalf,” the letter reads. “Now, we need you to fight for Breonna and for the other families that have joined the sad sisterhood and brotherhood of people who have lost loved ones to police violence.” 

Palmer also listed some specific demands for the Biden Administration, including appointing Department of Justice (DOJ) officials who specifically have a “proven record of holding police accountable,” ordering the DOJ to re-open investigations into police violence that were “not properly completed” under the Trump Administration, launching “robust pattern and practice investigations” into police departments across America, and ordering “large-scale federal investigations” into police shootings like Blake’s in Wisconsin and Goodson’s in Ohio. The ad also directs readers to the website bidenjusticedemands.com, a Grassroots Law Project initiative co-founded by Shaun King, where Palmer’s demands live on more permanently. 

Palmer’s daughter Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was shot and killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky in March of this year. Her death and the lack of accountability around it have sparked protests and elevated calls for racial justice, police reform, and defunding and abolition of police. Her family was offered a $12 million settlement, but there are countless more changes that need to be made to ensure that no other family has to experience this kind of terror and tragedy. One way to do that is to seek justice, and yet Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s investigation did not conclude with charges against the police officers who killed Taylor. Sam Aguiar, one of the attorneys who worked with Taylor’s family, said he was displeased with how the case was handled — especially after over 20 hours of audio recording of the grand jury inquiry had to be released because of public pressure and concern from one anonymous juror who claims the whole process was corrupted. 

Throughout his campaign, Biden vaguely discussed the need for racial justice and spoke out about police brutality — but even when he made it the focus of his speeches at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), organizers mostly felt it was lip service. On his transition website, Biden did list “racial equity” as one of his top priorities, detailing that the Biden-Harris administration will work with Congress to pass police reform legislation. This includes “a nationwide ban on chokeholds, stopping the transfer of weapons of war to police forces, improving oversight and accountability, to create a model use of force standard” and “creating a national police oversight commission.” Despite his pledged commitments, however, the president-elect also heavily criticized protesters for some of their actions, including looting, and has expressed that he has no plans to defund the police.

No matter what Biden does, organizers on the ground who have been working to defund the police and get justice for Black people like Breonna Taylor continue to stress that they’re not going anywhere. Many of them were also responsible for massive get out the vote initiatives and vote protection initiatives, and stressed that they worked hard to get people to the polls not for Biden himself but to help their own communities. That’s one reason that Biden cannot and should not take Black votes or Black voters for granted. If anything, they’ll continue to try to push Biden to the left and hold him accountable for enacting real change that not only stops police from killing Black people, but also provides consequences for the violence they’ve wrought and pain they’ve already caused.

Palmer said it best in her letter: “We need your actions to show that you are different than those who pay lip-service to our losses while doing nothing to show that our loved ones’ lives mattered.”

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On each day of his presidency, Donald Trump has somehow seemed to surpass his previously sky-high levels of ineptitude, so we really shouldn’t be surprised when we hear the latest in his boneheaded moves. Like, the fact that passwords for his personal accounts are extremely easily hackable doesn’t exactly come as a shock — although, the actual passwords he used sound like the kind of joke Saturday Night Live writers came up with (that is, obvious and not all that funny). How do we know his passwords for sure? Well, four years ago, a Dutch hacker named Victor Gevers logged into Trump’s Twitter account by guessing the password “yourefired,” and then, just a few months ago, the hacker did it again. 

Gevers accurately guessed Trump’s Twitter password again in October. This time, the password was, uh, maga2020!, and he was able to get in after only five tries. On October 22, Gevers shared screenshots from inside of Trump’s account. That same day, he tweeted from his own account: “It started six years ago. And hopefully, it will be the last time in 2020. Please switch on two-factor authentication on all of your accounts.” At this point, anyone who thinks Trump has put on a boorish act to hide his evil genius is totally wrong — no genius detected, just evil. 

As a cybersecurity researcher, Gevers explained to prosecutors that he was looking for security issues in important accounts prior to the 2020 presidential election. Dutch prosecutors have now confirmed that Gevers hacked into Trump’s account despite denials from Washington and Twitter itself. And although hacking is considered a criminal offense in the Netherlands, the hacker is not currently facing charge — instead, the government has recognized him as an ethical hacker. “We believe the hacker has actually penetrated Trump’s Twitter account, but has met the criteria that have been developed in case law to go free as an ethical hacker,” says the public prosecutor’s office.

According to Gevers, the fact that it was so easy to get into the president’s account alerted him that Trump wasn’t using even the basic security measures that he should have been — like two-step verification. “I expected to be blocked after four failed attempts. Or at least would be asked to provide additional information,” Gevers told a Dutch newspaper. After gaining access to the account with so little trouble, he also tweeted at Trump’s team to notify them that they need to be taking better security measures. The next day, two-factor authentication was enabled. 

While Trump will be leaving office soon and will no longer have access to information about our national security, it’s unlikely that his last two brain cells will become any more capable of coming up with better passwords to protect his accounts. Perhaps then, as a parting gift, someone at the White House should help him come up with a list of more secure choices — literally, 1234 might be harder to guess.

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Congress-member-elect and noted Hitler-vacation-home-visitor Madison Cawthorn, who has also faced accusations of racism and sexual misconduct, seems determined to show that he is the worst new member of Congress — although it is admittedly a close race with QAnon believer, Marjorie Taylor Green.

But, Cawthorn might have pulled ahead, since he has now started spreading lies about Senate candidate Raphael Warnock just as early voting has begun for Warnock’s run-off race against Kelly Loeffler in Georgia. On Fox News this morning, the Republican newcomer from North Carolina accused Warnock of being a fake Southerner and more. 

“If we cede control of our Senate and really all of Washington, D.C. to the Democrats, it’s not going to represent the values of my home, North Carolina, and certainly not the values of Georgia, and the values of most of the people in the United States of America,” Cawthorn said, adding: “You see this Warnock fella who’s coming down here and disguising himself as some moderate pastor from the South who doesn’t believe in these radical ideas, but if you look at him really, what he actually believes, he is a radical’s radical. He wants to defund our police. He says he’s a pastor, yet he’s all about abortion. This is somebody who does not represent what real Americans believe.” 

Drawing from a long history of coded racist language about “outside agitators” and “American values,” Cawthorn’s accusations against Warnock were dog whistles to white supremacy. Cawthorn’s statements imply that Warnock — a Black man who’s been a leader in his community for almost as long as the new Congress-member elect has even been alive — is an imposter. But they also echo the birtherism conspiracy around President Barack Obama, which was perpetuated by Donald Trump before he was president. Who is a “real American” exactly, Cawthorn? And what do they believe? And, perhaps more important to you, what do they look like?

Cawthorn also took care to misrepresent Warnock’s views and platform by perpetuating the lies that Warnock supports defunding the police and that being pro-choice is proof that he’s not a legitimate Christian. Warnock has explicitly said he does not support defunding the police. Although Warnock did speak about abortion at a debate on December 6, saying he’s pro-choice, this is not a particularly radical view for a Democrat. While not necessarily typical for a Christian leader, being pro-choice aligns with the Democratic platform. 

But all of this, as usual, is just a guise to make the right angry about “outsiders” taking what’s “theirs.” The “we” that Cawthorn is talking about protecting and keeping in power, of course, is a reference to white supremacists and racists who want to keep Black politicians and leaders out of power. By using coded language and calling Warnock an imposter and a radical, Cawthorn is signaling to white supremacists that there’s a cultural war they must constantly be fighting while also insinuating that Warnock is too dangerous to elect to the Senate. 

Like many Republicans, though, Cawthorn simply doesn’t have the facts on his side. Raphael Warnock was born and raised in Savannah, GA, and went to college at Morehouse in Atlanta; he is a pastor and a leader from the South who isn’t disguising himself as anything, and shouldn’t have to defend himself from spurious claims — just like Obama had to do against Trump’s birther movement so many years ago.

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