Category Archives: Life

This Is How Government Is Supposed To Work

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When giving poor families help buying food, should the government err on the side of caution (we don’t want money to be wasted) or generosity (we don’t want poor families to miss out)? The Biden administration knows the answer. From Politico:

Millions of low-income households with children are about to get more help buying groceries during the pandemic under a new policy released Friday by the Biden administration.

The backstory: Congress last spring launched Pandemic EBT, a program that aims to replace free and subsidized meals kids normally get at school. After schools broadly shut down last year, billions in aid was sent out to low-income families with school-aged children on debit-like EBT cards that can be used to buy food, but this school year the program has been bogged down in bureaucracy.

As POLITICO reported last month, the vast majority of households eligible for assistance haven’t seen any P-EBT payments several months into the school year, even though Congress re-upped the program in September — a failing that has kept roughly $2 billion in aid from going out to families each month.

The Agriculture Department, which oversees school meals and P-EBT, released guidance today that makes it easier for states to get aid to more families — and at a higher payment rate than under the [previous] administration.

“We want to put more money into the hands of people with kids,” said Stacy Dean, deputy under secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.

What’s new: The changes unveiled Friday allow states to simplify how they figure out which children are eligible for benefits. The administration also outlined how to get P-EBT benefits to children who are younger than school age for the first time — an expansion of the program Congress asked for in last month’s aid package.

“We’re hoping that it will make it easier for states to implement the program,” Dean said in an interview.

The political context: Congress last month directed USDA to simplify the program, but Friday’s guidance and the increase in aid also marks a significant ideological shift at USDA.

During the Trump administration, the mandate was more to err on the side of caution, to put in place policies that focused more on individually verifying which households were eligible for P-EBT and for how many days — a task that was so administratively complicated with some schools open, some online-only, and some a hybrid, that it delayed the program from being implemented at all.

Under the Biden administration, the mandate is more to err on the side of getting more aid out quickly to as many low-income households as possible, even if it means inadvertently including some kids who are doing in-person learning.

What it means: The new policy means that soon many households that are already participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — still known to many as food stamps — will get additional benefits if they have children under the age of six.

It also means all families eligible for P-EBT will receive more aid. The reimbursement rate for replacing school meals is being bumped up by about $1 per day, bringing it up to $6.82 per child, per day of school missed — which adds up to just over $136 per child, per month. . . .

The USDA is encouraging states to retroactively apply the increase in benefits to the entire school year, which means that if a household already received P-EBT aid for August and September, for example, they could be owed nearly $20 more per child, per month.

Most states are not ready to roll: Just nine states and territories have been approved so far to restart paying out P-EBT benefits: Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Tennessee. [The Agriculture Department] said it has received plans from 22 states and territories, with more expected in the coming weeks.

How the Federal Government Is Prosecuting the Capitol Mob

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From Talking Points Memo:

Twenty-three days after a mob ransacked Congress in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win, federal prosecutors have charged more than 150 individuals for their involvement in the breach and have opened over 400 case files.

And over three weeks and a steady stream of charging papers, some themes have begun to emerge.

Yes, dozens of people simply incriminated themselves, posting selfies from the Capitol Rotunda or bragging to frenemies on social media who quickly ratted them out to the FBI.

But the feds have made pretty quick work of that group, and their priorities have shifted in recent days to others who engaged in violence against police and the media during the attack — and especially those who came prepared for battle.

“Look at Jan. 6 as like a bug light for domestic extremism: It brought everybody there, but everybody wasn’t of the same capabilities,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, which has catalogued the hundreds of court filings related to the Capitol attack.

As the government works through one of the most expansive investigations in its history, it’s largely dealt with the trespassers. Now, it’s after the conspirators and seditionists.

— The Internet Stars —

In a conference call earlier this week, the capital’s top prosecutor distinguished between some of the more serious, complex criminal cases authorities continue to investigate and, well, the easy ones. 

“We picked off the internet stars,” Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., told reporters.

“You know, the rebel flag guy, Camp Auschwitz, the individuals in Pelosi’s office. The easily-identifiable individuals that we were able to quickly find and charge with misdemeanors, then we tacked on federal felony charges.” 

Easily-identifiable doesn’t really do it justice. There aren’t many “Camp Auschwitz” hoodies in circulation; the man who wore one to the Capitol was allegedly a regular at at a Newport News, VA convenience store. Investigators tracked his car and home address from there.

Then there’s the white supremacist from Maryland who convinced his probation officer to let him travel to D.C. to distribute bibles. His court-ordered monitoring device pinged his location as he milled around the Capitol steps. 

— The Violent Assailants —

Beyond the straightforward trespassing and disorderly conduct cases, prosecutors are focused on violent and pre-planned behavior. 

On bus shelters and highway billboards around the country, wanted posters show yet-unidentified faces with two consistent offenses: “ASSAULT ON FEDERAL OFFICERS AND VIOLENCE AT THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL.”

The leader of the Capitol police union on Wednesday detailed some egregious examples: One officer was “stabbed with a metal fence stake,” others are dealing with cracked ribs and spinal injuries. Some protesters used bits of inauguration scaffolding to attack police.

Those cases take more time than scanning Facebook or checking in with probation officers, because they fuse evidence from a number of sources; prosecutors have said they anticipate a swell in assault-on-police cases as hundreds of hours of body-worn camera footage are analyzed and combined with other evidence.

In one such officer assault case, filed against a man filmed crushing police officers as part of a large crowd attempting to force their way through a Capitol tunnel, an FBI agent’s affidavit describes the defendant’s minute-by-minute movements and cites footage from three YouTube videos and multiple officers’ body-worn cameras. 

Prosecutors are also focused on rioters who assaulted members of the media, Sherwin said. 

“It’s the height of hypocrisy, some of these individuals that claimed they were just First Amendment protesters targeted and directly attacked members of the media,” he said. “We take that very seriously, and we’ve devoted prosecutors to specifically look at that violence.” 

— Planning, Forethought, Intent —

But more than even the assault cases, the feds have described spending a great deal of their energy on conspiracy charges: Individuals that allegedly planned to break laws ahead of time, including those that may have committed sedition. 

Their go-to example is that of three affiliates of the Oath Keepers militia group. They’re charged with conspiracy against the United States — specifically, an effort to obstruct the counting of Electoral College votes. Text messages allegedly show discussions of logistics details and committing violence on Donald Trump’s behalf for weeks ahead of the actual attack. 

Even if the groups conspiring ahead of attack ultimately weren’t as violent as some unaffiliated individuals, as was apparently the case with the trio of Oath Keepers in question, Hughes noted that law enforcement may see them as more of a threat moving forward.

“It has less to do with Jan. 6, and more to do with Jan. 7, 8 and 9,” he said. “They’re looking if there’s a network they need to be worried about. That’s why the focus is squarely on the Oath Keepers and the militia folks, and less on the QAnon and the selfies.” 

Faced with hundreds of individuals who may yet face charges, prosecutors work to assess who may be a concern moving forward. So while Capitol attackers who ascribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory are concerning (QAnon anticipates mass executions of Trump’s political enemies), “they’re also not training at a camp in Georgia. [That’s] just a different level of lethality,” Hughes said. 

Prosecutors recently articulated these sorts of concerns in the case of a Capitol breacher who’s come to be known as “Zip Tie Guy,” due to photos showing him carrying flex cuffs inside the Senate chamber during the attack. He faces a conspiracy charge and other offenses. 

In a recent filing that convinced a judge to keep the man detained, prosecutors noted that he fist-bumped an apparent member of the Oath Keepers, before the Oath Keeper allegedly told him, “There’s 65 more of us coming.” The filing draws the conclusion that Zip Tie Guy intended to “contribute to chaos, obstruct the Electoral College certification, and sow fear,” and notes that evidence amassed so far subjects him to further felonies, including sedition.

‘The nature and circumstances of the alleged offenses all indicate forethought and specific intent to obstruct a congressional proceeding through fear, intimidation, and, if necessary, violence,” the filing stated. 

“These threads—planning, forethought, intent—are all indicative of a capacity and willingness to repeat the offense and pose a clear threat to community safety.”

This Is One of Our Two Major Political Parties

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Marjorie Taylor Greene is 46 and serving her first term in the House of Representatives. She won the Republican primary for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District last year with 57% of the vote. She easily won the general election. The 14th District occupies the northwest corner of Georgia and is heavily Republican. This is what her official website says about her:

Marjorie graduated from the University of Georgia and received her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Marjorie has been actively involved in her community, in her children’s schools, and been active on a national level as National Director of Family America Project.

Marjorie has a strong Christian faith and believes we must continue to protect our great freedoms and work to keep America a great country for our generations to come.

Marjorie and her husband, Perry, have been married 23 years. They have three children . . .. Marjorie believes the best part of her life is being a mother and spending time with her family.

Media Matters for America presents more information about Rep. Greene:

In another newly uncovered 2018 Facebook post, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) endorsed a conspiracy theory that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was videotaped murdering a child during a satanic ritual and then ordered a hit on a police officer to cover it up. She also liked a meme claiming that some of her now-Democratic congressional colleagues have used the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for human trafficking, pedophilia, and organ harvesting. 

. . .  She has received heavy criticism for her recently uncovered endorsements of the conspiracy theories that the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were staged false flags. Greene is also a QAnon and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has promoted anti-Muslim attacks and a conspiracy theory that Jewish people are trying to take over Europe through immigration. 

Greene is also a backer of [a] violent and absurd . . .  conspiracy theory, which is linked to QAnon and Pizzagate and essentially claims that Hillary Clinton and former aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted a child, [mutilated her] and then drank her blood as part of a satanic ritual . . .  Greene endorsed the conspiracy theory on Facebook in May 2018. . . .

Greene also liked a meme that was posted to her Facebook page in June 2018 claiming that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Clinton, former President Barack “Obama and their Democrat friends … can’t have Trump repeal DACA as it would show DACA was used by them … for human trafficking pedophilia in high places and organ harvesting.”

CNN offers more:

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress, a [CNN] review of hundreds of posts and comments from Greene’s Facebook page shows. . .

In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the “deep state” working against Trump.

I add this piece of news without further comment:

Her Republican colleagues have selected Rep. Greene to serve on the House Education and Labor Committee.

Helping Helps

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The Biden administration and House Democrats are working on legislation that would send monthly checks to people with children:

In one draft of the proposal, the IRS would deposit checks worth $300 every month per child younger than 6 and $250 every month per child age 6 to 17. This would give parents $3,000 per year for each child between the ages of 6 to 17, and $3,600 per child under age 6. . . .

Eligibility for the benefit, similar to the stimulus checks, would be based on family income for the prior tax year and be phased out at a certain income amount . . . 

Paul Krugman thinks it’s a very good idea: “it could, among other things, cut child poverty in half”:

America stands out among wealthy countries for its failure to provide much help to families with children. U.S. expenditures on family benefits as a share of G.D.P. are less than a third the rich-nation average. Largely as a consequence, we have a much higher rate of child poverty than our peers.

Our stinginess does a lot of harm. Economists have shown that previous extensions of aid to families with children, like the gradual rollout of food stamps in the 1960s and 1970s and the expansion of Medicaid in the 1980s, didn’t just improve children’s lives in the short run; children who received the aid grew into healthier, more productive adults than those who didn’t receive the aid. By not doing even more for children, we are stunting their future, and that of the nation as a whole.

And aid to children would achieve what proponents of the tax cut promised but failed to deliver: an improvement in America’s long-run economic prospects. If the children we help today grow up into healthier, more productive adults than they would otherwise — which they will — that will eventually mean higher G.D.P.

And aid to children would also indirectly help the budget, because those children would later pay more in taxes and be less likely to call on safety net programs. These fiscal benefits might even be big enough that helping children pays for itself, and in any case they mean that the true cost of aiding children, even in narrowly fiscal terms, would be less than it might appear.

All in all, then, increased aid to families with children is a really good idea. It would immediately improve millions of Americans’ lives, it would make us stronger in the future, and it would have only modest budget costs. 

By “modest”, Krugman means it would cost around half of the 2017 Republican tax cut, which mainly benefited the rich. Of course, there will be Republican opposition:

We’ll surely hear some version of the standard conservative argument that any policy reducing misery reduces the incentive to be self-sufficient — you know, unemployment insurance encourages people to stay unemployed, food stamps encourage them to be lazy, and so on. Making this argument about a broad-based program to help children will be hard, but they’ll find a way.

He discusses a broader issue in his NY Times newsletter:

What should we do about Americans with low income — and their children? Should we make a new push to reduce or eliminate poverty, and if so, what should it involve?

. . . As with everything else in modern America, the two parties have starkly different positions on this issue. . . . I don’t believe that the Republican position on this, or for that matter on any major policy issue I can think of, reflects a good-faith attempt to figure out what works best. But the expressed views of the parties do show a big divide about how the world works.

The Republican view is basically that anti-poverty programs aren’t the solution, they’re the problem. How so? When you have “means-tested” programs — programs that are only available to people with sufficiently low incomes, or that phase out as income rises — you are in effect imposing high marginal tax rates on the relatively poor. That is if, say, a single mother manages to increase her earnings from $15,000 to $20,000 a year, she will find much of that extra $5,000 taken away in the form of reduced benefits.

This high de facto taxation, conservatives say, discourages efforts to break out of poverty. And they also say that it fosters a culture of dependency. So they argue that to help the poor we should, well, offer them less help.

Progressives don’t deny that incentives can matter. To use one of my favorite examples, countries that offer generous benefits to people who retire early, like France, end up with many people, you guessed it, retiring early.

But economists on the center left generally argue that the disincentives created by anti-poverty programs are exaggerated, and that the main thing actually trapping people in poverty is a lack of resources: It’s hard to get an education, start a business, even move to a place where jobs are available, when you have no money in the bank and are living hand-to-mouth.

Also, being poor imposes a lot of cognitive stress: It’s hard to focus on self-improvement when you’re constantly worrying about where the next rent check will come from or how to pay medical bills.

If you see resources as the main problem for the poor, the answer to poverty is to provide more resources; this doesn’t just improve the lives of the poor in the short run, it also increases their chances of breaking free of the poverty cycle.

This is the kind of debate that should be settled with evidence. And for what it’s worth, there is growing evidence that the resources view of poverty is much closer to the truth than the incentives view. . . . This is especially true for programs that help families with children, which seem to improve the lives of those children long after they’ve matured past receiving aid.

Three Weeks Listening to the QAnon Tribe Talk to Each Other

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I don’t know if typical QAnon believers are relatively affluent or struggling. Are they worried about losing their privileged position in society or making ends meet? Do they have more problems than the rest of us (aside from being QAnon believers)?

New York Times journalist Stuart Thompson spent the past three weeks listening to an online QAnon chat room and came away with some impressions. (The Times story is fairly long and includes recorded conversations not included below.)

As President Biden’s inauguration ticked closer, some of Txxxx’s supporters were feeling gleeful. Mr. Txxxx was on the cusp of declaring martial law, they believed. Military tribunals would follow, then televised executions, then Democrats and other deep state operatives would finally be brought to justice.

These were honestly held beliefs. Dozens of Txxxx supporters spoke regularly over the past three weeks on a public audio chat room app, where they uploaded short recordings instead of typing. In these candid digital confessionals, participants would crack jokes, share hopes and make predictions.

“Look at the last four years. They haven’t listened to a thing we’ve said. Um … there’s going to have to be some serious anarchy that goes on. Otherwise, nothing is going to change.”

I spent the past three weeks listening to the channel — from before the Jan. 6 Washington protest to after Mr. Biden’s inauguration. It became an obsession, something I’d check first thing every morning and listen to as I fell asleep at night. Participants tend to revere Mr. Txxxx and believe he’ll end the crisis outlined by Q: that the world is run by a cabal of pedophiles who operate a sex-trafficking ring, among other crimes. While the chat room group is relatively small, with only about 900 subscribers, it offers a glimpse into a worrying sect of Txxxx supporters. . . .

“If the Biden inauguration wants to come in and take your weapons and force vaccination, you have due process to blow them the [expletive] away. Do it.”

There’s a persistent belief that the online world is somehow not real. Extreme views are too easily dismissed if they’re on the internet. While people might say things online they would never do in person, all it takes is one person for digital conspiracies to take a deadly turn. . . . Listening to the conspiracists — unfiltered and in their own voices — makes that digital conversation disturbingly real.

To participants, the channel is mainly a way to share and “fact-check” the news, cobbling theories together from fringe right-wing websites, posts on Facebook, and private channels on the messaging apps Telegram and Signal. They say their main focus is reinstituting paper ballots.

The most commonly used phrase is some version of “I heard,” followed by a theory . . .

_________________________________________________________________________

If the Q movement had a slogan, it would be “Do your research.” The conspiracy is designed like a game. Discovering clues that clarify Q’s cryptic missives produces a eureka effect, which offers a hit of dopamine and improves memory retention. It’s the same satisfaction that comes from solving a puzzle or finding the answer to a riddle.

Believers apply the same approach to everyday news: Find information that confirms any existing beliefs, then use it to augment their understanding of the conspiracy. Reject facts or information that counter the existing beliefs. It’s one of the reasons they struggle to recruit their family members, unless they’re persuaded to do research themselves.

I wondered what would happen in the days after Mr. Biden’s inauguration. Rather than re-evaluate their approach in the wake of Q’s failures, many doubled down. The problem wasn’t that the whole worldview was false, just that they had been led astray by inaccurate reports and misinterpretations. Their response was to improve their process. They would develop a list of sources, vet credentials, link to original material, and view unconfirmed information skeptically. They were, in a sense, inventing journalism. . . .

_________________________________________________________________________

What should Q’s followers inspire in us? Anger? Sympathy?

The audio chat offers a clearer picture of these believers than the Facebook pages and Telegram channels where they also gather. The all-caps screeds of the internet give way to gentler moments, like when they talk about their pets or babysitting their grandkids. Many members were struggling in some way — financially or emotionally, with legal troubles or addiction. As Covid-19 swept their states, many got sick, and some family members died. A few members were recently out of prison. Another was living in a sober house.

“I don’t think they understand that we’re not all evil,” one member said about how the left views them. “Like you said, we’re not evil. We’re not bad people.”

As I listened over these three weeks, I saw that they’re drawn to Q and Mr. Txxxx for many reasons. The political status quo wasn’t working for them. Mr. Txxxx was an antidote to Washington and was beholden to neither party. And Q offered not just a political orientation but also a way to place themselves in a bigger narrative that explains life’s shortcomings. Many believers have paid a price for their views. Some were shunned by friends and family. Apps and social networks, like this audio chat room, stepped in, offering a welcoming community with shared beliefs.

“Does anybody else’s family members on here think you’re crazy?” one asked.

“I have family that think that way. I think they’re crazy for not seeing what the heck’s going on,” another replied.

“I’ve stopped talking to every single person that isn’t on board with this,” another said.

“I can’t even express it enough — I’m so thankful for every person in this group.”

In the process, followers have become more isolated, stuck inside an echo chamber from which they may never escape.

Beneath the anger in their voices is often pain or confusion. When the chat dies down to just a few members, they’ll share stories about their struggles with affording health insurance or the shame of going on government assistance. Hearing them talk with one another, I could start understanding the pull of conspiracy communities — how they exploit the vulnerable and create a worldview out of shared enemies. Then you can watch those views harden. And while none of it excuses participation in a dangerous collective delusion, it takes the complex process of radicalization and gives it a human dimension. What seemed like a preposterous descent into a kind of madness made slightly more sense.

“Not every politician is bad. Not every Democrat is bad. But we’re going to automatically assume that they’re deep state. So, I mean, you have people, a small few, that makes the majority look bad.”

As I spent more time in the group, I understood why the conspiracy has such gravitational pull. And while I didn’t lose my way, I was taken aback by the experience. It turned my brain to mush. I was left rattled and deeply concerned. About what would become of this group when I left. And more important, how one can lessen the appeal of a conspiracy that gives so much purpose to people’s lives.

Listening in, I came to realize what extremism researchers and cult experts have long known to be true: You cannot just destroy a community and expect it to disappear when it is load bearing. If we are to deradicalize Q believers in a Biden era, how will we do it? What can we offer them in its place?

One woman had an idea for how to solve some of these problems. They could try hearing from their opponents directly. Maybe they could understand their point of view, learn what motivates them. But then she paused. “I’d love to get into their heads, but it scares the [expletive] out of me,” she said. “So I keep my distance and stay with you patriots.”