2020-10-10 The Week Magazine

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INTERNATIONAL
Europe’s
coronavirus
second wave
p.14

OBITUARIES
A CHAMPION
OF WOMEN’S
EQUALITY
p.35

CONTROVERSY

The inevitable
election
nightmare
p.6

By filling Supreme Court seat,
will McConnell open
a Pandora’s box?
p.4

Ruth Bader
Ginsburg
Boris
Johnson

The chaos
to come

OCTOBER 2, 2020 VOLUME 20 ISSUE 995

ARTS

22 Books
How the church shaped
our WEIRD societies

23 Author of the week
David Chang’s anger
management

24 Art & Music
Trevor Paglen
turns
surveillance
into art

25 Film &
Home
Media
A Schitt’s
Creek sweep
at the 2020
Emmys

NEWS

4 Main stories
The battle to fi ll Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s
Supreme Court seat; the
U.S.’s Covid-19 death toll
tops 200,000

6 Controversy of the week
Are we headed for
election chaos this
November?

7 The U.S. at a glance
Kentucky police offi cer
indicted over Breonna
Taylor shooting; wildfi res
rage on in the West

8 The world at a glance
Barbados says goodbye
to royalty; Iran hit with
new U.S. sanctions

10 People
Carla Bruni’s paternal
shock; John Boyega won’t
be Star Wars’ token black

11 Briefi ng
Explaining America’s
yawning black-white
wealth gap

12 Best U.S. columns
The battle over the 1619
Project; the Big Ten puts
athletes at risk

15 Best international
columns
Turkey vs. Greece in the
eastern Mediterranean

16 Talking points
Attorney General William
Barr’s partisan push; the
curse of the gender reveal
party; is Middle East
peace any closer?

LEISURE
27 Food & Drink
A Venetian pumpkin
risotto; booze-free spirits
for your next mocktail

28 Consumer
Five of the best beauty
gadgets; three apps that
improve teleconferencing

BUSINESS

32 News at a glance
As the clock runs down,
TikTok deal falls apart;
cable cuts at NBCUniversal

33 Making money
The high-risk rush to
reopen offi ces; new bans
on cashless stores

34 Best columns
Facebook’s marriage of
convenience with Trump;
how banks facilitate crime

Ginsburg’s casket arrives at the Supreme Court. (pages 4, 16 and 35)

Carla Bruni
(p.10)

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

AP, Newscom

“Of course, it’s 2020.” That was the first thought that entered my
mind last week when a news alert lit up my phone announcing
that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. That
the country would now be subjected to a brutal and divisive battle
over her replacement seemed a perfectly natural development in
a year that has thrown up a succession of anxiety-inducing news
stories. The year kicked off with the U.S. and Iran teetering on the
brink of war, following the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem
Soleimani by an American drone and retaliatory Iranian mis-
sile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq. The impeachment trial of Pres-
ident Trump began days later, and a deadly new respiratory dis-
ease crept inexorably westward from China. Soon the world was
in lockdown, coronavirus victims were piling up in morgues, and
unemployment numbers were soaring. May brought the death of
George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, sparking a na-
tionwide wave of protests and riots that in turn triggered a back-

lash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Natural disasters
added to the chaos, with an unprecedented derecho storm flat-
tening a swath of the Midwest and cataclysmic wildfires reducing
more than 5 million acres of California and Oregon to ashes.
Given all this turmoil, it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent
survey found about half of Americans report feeling some signs of
depression— double the share in 2018. But the next three months
will offer no mental relief. Partisan tensions will be pushed to new
highs as the fight over the Supreme Court plays out alongside an
election campaign that both Republicans and Democrats regard
as an apocalyptic struggle for survival. We could see ugly court
battles over contested election results and millions of Americans
marching in the streets. There’s an apocryphal quote attributed to
Vladimir Lenin: “There are decades when nothing happens, and
there are weeks when decades happen.” Well,
2020 is shaping up to be quite the century.

Editor’s letter

Contents
3

Theunis Bates
Managing editor

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What happened
Just days after the death of Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President
Trump prepared this week to announce
his nominee for her seat and Republicans
appeared to have lined up the votes needed
for a speedy confirmation. Trump, who
said he’d name his pick Saturday, pushed
for a vote before Election Day, citing the
possibility that a dispute over mail-in ballots
might reach the Supreme Court. “We need
nine justices,” he said. “You need that with
the unsolicited, millions of ballots they’re
sending.” Any doubts that Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell could get 51 votes
to confirm Trump’s nominee ended when
only two of the 53 Senate Republicans—Susan Collins of Maine
and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—said they’d oppose a confirmation
vote. Democrats had called on Republicans to honor the principle
McConnell laid out in 2016, when he refused to hold hearings
on Obama nominee Merrick Garland in an election year on the
grounds that voters should decide which party got to fill the seat.
Some Democrats spoke of ending the filibuster and expanding the
court in retaliation should they win the Senate and presidency; Sen-
ate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said “nothing is off the table
for next year” if Republicans rush through a nominee.

Trump met Monday and Tuesday with federal appeals court Judge
Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of religious conservatives who has
emerged as the clear front-runner. Appeals court Judge Barbara La-
goa, a Cuban-American from swing state Florida, was also said to
be under serious consideration. (See Talking Points.) Republicans
said they expected to approve the nominee before the election.

Mourners honored Ginsburg, a liberal icon and pioneering
women’s rights advocate who was scheduled to become the first
woman in history to lie in state in the
Capitol on Friday. (See Obituaries.)
In a Reuters/ Ipsos poll, 62 percent of
respondents said the seat should be
filled by the president who takes office
on Jan. 20. Republicans, however, have
long dreamed of cementing a conserva-
tive majority on the nation’s highest
court and overturning Roe v. Wade.
“God created Republicans to do three
things,” said Republican strategist Brad
Todd. “Cut taxes, kill foreign enemies,
and confirm right-facing judges.”

What the editorials said
Republicans won the right to fill
Ginsburg’s seat when voters gave them
control of both the Senate and the presi-
dency, said National Review. “It would
be perverse to give up the chance” to re-
verse the liberal activism through which
the court has “strayed so far” from its
proper constitutional role. In Roe v.
Wade, the court overruled state laws and
“trampled on the most fundamental of
human rights,” without any constitu-

tional justification. That overreach must
be reeled back.

Republicans are making a naked “grab
for partisan advantage” built on “con-
trived and hypocritical logic,” said The
Washington Post. When Antonin Scalia
died in February 2016, the election was
10 months away. Now the election is only
six weeks away. By casting principle to
the wind, McConnell and the Republicans
stand to “undermine public confidence in
the Supreme Court” and worsen “already
toxic relations” on Capitol Hill.

What the columnists said

This court fight “will test how fragile American democracy really
is,” said John Harris in Politico.com. McConnell, who announced
he’d fill Ginsburg’s seat 90 minutes after her death was announced,
is waging a battle “exclusively about power, with no whisper of
pretense that anything else matters.” America is bitterly divided
and facing an election whose very legitimacy is likely to be ques-
tioned, and McConnell’s shameless power play may inflict “more
trauma than an already splintering country can withstand.”

“Are you kidding me?” said John Podhoretz in Commentary
Magazine.com. “This is maybe the most uncontroversial thing that
has happened during the Trump presidency this entire year.” Both
parties practice “power politics when it comes to the judiciary,”
and “there’s one basic and unignorable fact here.” The Constitu-
tion spells out how this is supposed to work: “Trump nominates
and the Senate advises and consents.” That’s exactly what the
Republicans are doing.

Pack the court, said David Faris in NewRepublic.com. If the
Democrats “win resoundingly” in November, they should end the
filibuster and add four justices. Yes, it’s
a “radical gambit,” but it’s “gloriously
legal,” and “justified by the fact that
America’s political institutions this
century have consistently translated
minority support for Republicans into
political majorities.” Keep in mind that
public support for the now-endangered
Roe v. Wade is “at record highs,” said
Christina Cauterucci in Slate.com. A
June CBS poll showed that only 29
percent want it overturned.

This won’t end well, said David French
in TheDispatch.com. The bond Gins-
burg shared with political adversary
Scalia “reminds us of a time when
deep friendship could flourish across
profound disagreement.” But now
“enmity rules,” and a polarized coun-
try faces “a cascading series of events
that could strain the constitutional and
cultural fabric of this nation.” Every
American has to wonder: “How much
more tension and division can this na-
tion take?”

Reuters

McConnell: Has the votes he needs

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

The main stories...
4 NEWS

Republicans race to fill Ginsburg’s seat

Illustration by Fred Harper.
Cover photos from Getty, AP, Reuters

What next?
With Senate control hanging in the balance in
November, the court fight will certainly have an
impact—but nobody’s sure exactly how, said
Amber Phillips in WashingtonPost.com. Re-
publicans who’ve been dragged down by sour
views of Trump’s handling of the pandemic hope
the court flap will change the subject, and re-
mind anti-Trump Republicans what’s at stake. It
“should juice our base,” said a Republican strat-
egist. On the flip side, in purple states where
Trump is unpopular, including Colorado and
Maine, the issue could boost Democrats who’ve
“spent months trying to tie GOP senators to the
president.” That could doom Sens. Cory Gardner
and Susan Collins. Democrats might benefit
from “a surge of enthusiasm among progres-
sives alarmed by the conservative hijacking of
the court,” said Tom McCarthy in TheGuardian
.com. But Trump and Republicans may also ben-
efit from energizing evangelicals and conserva-
tive Catholics. It’s simply too early to tell “which
way the politics will break.”

What happened
The U.S. surpassed 200,000 coronavirus-
related deaths this week, days after Presi-
dent Trump publicly challenged the Centers
for Disease Control’s scientific advice on
masks and its timeline for a Covid-19
vaccine. Trump said CDC director Robert
Redfield had been “confused” when he
told Congress that a vaccine likely won’t be
“fully available” until the summer or fall of
2021. The president insisted that a vaccine
could be approved as soon as next month,
with 100 million doses ready by the end of
the year. Concern about the political pres-
sure being exerted on the CDC grew after
the agency published and then removed new guidelines warning that
the virus can be transmitted via respiratory aerosols—tiny particles
that can linger in the air—as well as by larger respiratory droplets
that fall quickly to the ground. Trump this week gave his response
to the pandemic an “A plus,” and at a packed rally in Ohio where
few were wearing masks, he falsely said Covid-19 “affects virtually
nobody” except “elderly people with heart problems.”

Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Utah
set record highs this week for seven-day averages of new confirmed
cases, and 21 other states saw increases in infections. Olivia Troye, a
former coronavirus task force adviser to Vice President Mike Pence,
spoke out emphatically against Trump’s handling of the pandemic,
saying he showed a “flat-out disregard for human life” and cared
only about his re-election. Troye, whom the White House called a
“disgruntled” ex-staffer, claims Trump once said, “Maybe this Covid
thing is a good thing” because “I don’t have to shake hands with
these disgusting people”—meaning his supporters.

What the editorials said
Mourn the 200,000 dead, said The Washington Post, “and be
angry—very angry.” This tragedy has been worsened by the presi-
dent, who has minimized the threat, refused to mobilize a large-scale
government response, dismissed the importance of mask wearing,
and prodded GOP states to reopen before viral spread was under
control. “Nothing more could have been done,” Trump has said
about coronavirus casualties. But there is work to do. “Wear a mask.
Social distance. Wash your hands. And vote.”

“Democrats often say they want to
emulate Europe,” said The Wall Street
Journal. “We can only hope this time they
mean it.” Because while Covid-19 is again
surging in Spain, France, Germany, and
the U.K., these countries aren’t shutting
down their economies. With death rates
lower than in the spring and hospitals
coping better, governments are “adopting
narrow, local lockdowns” and trusting
individuals to behave responsibly. We
should aim to be “similarly adaptable in
the face of an evolving pandemic.”

What the columnists said

The Trump administration is letting “politics distort science,” said
Claudia Wallis in ScientificAmerican.com. Leaked emails have
revealed how political appointees at the Department of Health and
Human Services have tried to slow the release of data that contradict
Trump, including a negative report on hydroxychloroquine—the
malaria drug the president touted as a Covid-19 therapy—and infor-
mation on children spreading the virus. With scientific findings being
run “through a political distortion field,” will the public be able to
“trust federal assessments of coronavirus treatments and vaccines?”

Fear-mongering liberals are the real health threat, said Michael
Brendan Dougherty in NationalReview.com. Democrats such as
vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris are fueling distrust
in a future vaccine by claiming that Trump is unsafely rushing the
approval process. But “Trump is not a pharmaceutical manufac-
turer,” and he cannot stop “medical authorities from giving their
opinion on it.” If and when a vaccine becomes available, it will be
those authorities that are “demanding your trust.”

The U.S. is trapped in a pandemic “death spiral,” said Ed Yong in
TheAtlantic.com. Flu season is approaching, which will make it
harder to identify Covid-19 symptoms, and winter is not far away,
which will pack people indoors. Our failure to build testing capac-
ity and hire enough contact tracers means that many parts of the
U.S. could see a repeat of the horror that New York City suffered
this spring. Tragedy-numbed Americans might “stop treating the
pandemic as the emergency that it is,” and instead accept thou-
sands of daily deaths as “the unthinkable normal.”

A memorial to Covid-19 victims on the National Mall

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

Getty, Don Anderson

U.S. hits a grim pandemic milestone

... and how they were covered
NEWS 5

It wasn’t all bad
�
� When a North Dakota farmer had a heart attack, his neighbors
teamed up to help him harvest his crops. While Lane Unhjem
was harvesting his wheat and canola, the combine caught fire.
Unhjem went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospi-
tal. While he was recovering, 60 farmers showed up at his place,
determined not to let his crops go to waste. With 11 combines,
six grain carts, and 15 tractor-trailers, the group harvested over
1,000 acres of
his crop in just
seven hours.
“You help your
neighbors out
when they need
it,” family friend
Jenna Binde
said, “and don’t
expect anything
in return.”

�
� Elias Aviles was used to work-
ing hard at his taco truck, but
when the pandemic hit, hard
work wasn’t enough. One day,
Taqueria El Torito only brought in
$6. When his daughter Giselle, 21,
found out, she posted a plea on
Twitter. The next day, her tweet
had garnered 2,000 retweets.
When the Humble, Texas, taco
truck reopened on Monday, a
line of customers was waiting for
it—some had showed up as early
as 6 a.m. It was so busy, Aviles
had to shut down twice to restock
ingredients. “It feels amazing,
because I was just trying to just
help him,” his daughter said.

�
� A Connecticut teen’s heroism
saved a family from a burning
car. Justin Gavin, 18, was on a
walk when he saw an SUV on
fire. He immediately ran to the
vehicle, which had rolled to a
stop. He helped the mother out
of the car first, then opened
the back door and pulled out
her three kids, ages 1,4, and
9, moments before the flames
engulfed the car. “I just felt like
if I was in that situation, I would
want somebody to help me out,”
Gavin said. “I guess my instincts
took over.”
It takes a village—and lots of equipment

Controversy of the week
6 NEWS

Election 2020: Trump’s plan to nullify mail-in votes

Beware the “Red Mirage,” said Trip Gabriel
in The New York Times. That’s what poll-
sters are calling the “doomsday scenario” for
Democrats—and our democracy—on elec-
tion night 2020. Polls show that about half of
Democrats, who are more wary of the corona-
virus, plan to vote by mail in the presidential
election; only 18 percent of Republicans say
they’ll mail in ballots. This makes it likely that,
absent a Joe Biden landslide, President Donald
Trump will hold the lead when polls close on
election night, with millions of Biden votes tied
up in slower-to-count mail-in ballots. Trump has been “pushing
denunciations of mailed-in votes for months” and has already
made it clear that he will declare victory when the polls close—and
insist that any uncounted votes at that point are fraudulent and
should be thrown out. In this claim he’ll have the loyal assistance
of Attorney General William Barr; the GOP legislatures in critical
swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida; and
possibly a new 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Given that he’s been trailing Biden in the national polls by about
8 percentage points for months, the Red Mirage might be Trump’s
best hope of clinging to power. He all but admitted that last week,
saying he was “counting on the federal court system to make it so
that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins.”

This is not a hypothetical, said Barton Gelman in TheAtlantic
.com. Trump won’t concede the election “under any circum-
stance,” and Republican operatives are already “laying the
groundwork” to invalidate as many mail-in votes as necessary to
get him a second term. GOP sources tell me the Trump campaign
is even formulating plans with battleground-state legislatures to
simply “bypass election results” by invalidating mail-in ballots

and declaring Trump the winner. They’ll then
send Trump-pledged electors to the Electoral
College. If Democratic governors of some of
these states send Biden-pledged electors, we
will be thrown into an unprecedented “con-
stitutional crisis.” It’s even possible that on
Jan. 20, 2021, both Trump and Biden will
show up at the Inauguration claiming to be
president. This year’s post-election chaos will
make Florida in 2000 look tame, said Chris
Smith in VanityFair.com. Democrats need to
be ready for “mass action” on the streets, a
prolonged court battle, and all-out information warfare.

Let me get this straight, said Michael Brendan Dougherty in
NationalReview.com. If Biden gets defeated, Democrats already
“promise to be sore (and violent) losers,” with rioting on the
streets...but it’s Trump who’s the existential threat to democracy?
Both sides suspect the other of trying to steal the election, said
Shadi Hamid in TheAtlantic.com, but it’s true that Republicans are
probably more likely than Democrats to accept a fair defeat. A sec-
ond straight Electoral College win by Trump, after he’s trailed in
the polls all summer by large margins, “is the outcome most likely
to undermine faith in democracy.” Enraged Democrats will react
with mass demonstrations. Civil unrest may follow.

To make the Red Mirage less likely to happen, said Richard Pildes
in CNN.com, Democrats must now embrace three simple words:
“Vote in person.” Yes, this cuts against a year of principled fight-
ing for the right to vote by mail. But with Republicans now openly
scheming to have mail-in ballots tossed out, “no action is more
critical” than to strap on a face mask and go vote. The fate of our
democracy may depend on it.

Only in America

��
� A Florida man is outraged
that school officials banned his
fifth-grade son from wearing
a Hooters-branded face mask.
“I don’t understand why it’s
‘inappropriate,’” says Steve
Golba, who says he and his
son Ian, 11, like the food at
the “breastaurant” franchise,
which features scantily clad
waitresses. “Do we feel wom-
en’s bodies are offensive?”
Golba asked. “I don’t.”

��
� Sheriff’s deputies in Wil-
liamson County, Texas, were
allegedly given steakhouse
gift cards as a reward for us-
ing violence against civilians.
In an ongoing investigation,
several deputies have testified
that Cmdr. Steve Deaton (now
retired) would reward deputies
who used force by declaring
them a “WilCo badass” and
giving them gift cards. “They
had the intention that we were
all ‘WilCo badass,’” former
deputy Christopher Pisa said.

Pentagon used Covid
funds for jets, drones
The Pentagon funneled
nearly $1 billion allocated by
Congress for the production
of personal protective equip-
ment to defense contractors,
The Washington Post reported
this week. The money, part of
$3 trillion in aid intended for
emergency spending, was in-
stead used to produce jet en-
gines, drone technology, body
armor, and fabric for soldiers’
uniforms. Democrats called
for an investigation after the
report, which was based on
contract announcements and
other public records, was
published, saying it was “un-
conscionable” that pandemic
money was rerouted while the
country faced a severe short-
age of N95 masks and other
PPE. The Pentagon countered
that the expenditures were
not only legal but necessary
to protect ailing industries and
companies that are vital to
national security.

Virtual reality, after TV viewers heard Philadelphia Eagles quar-
terback Carson Wentz get showered with boos during the Eagles’
blowout home loss to the L.A. Rams, despite there being no Philly
fans in attendance. SportsIllustrated.com praised sound engineers
for “ensuring a more authentic experience for the fans at home.”
Rustic chic, after fashion house Gucci debuted faded denim
overalls with fake grass stains on the legs, selling for $1,400 a pair.
Dairy farmer Lauren Gitlin, 40, told the New York Post that the
grass stains should be “more knee-centric,” and that Gucci “should
add s--- smears as well” for maximum authenticity.
Puppy love, with a new study showing that a puppy’s heart rate
increases by around 46 percent when it hears the words “I love
you” from its owner.

Bragging, after GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler released a campaign ad
describing her as “more conservative than Attila the Hun,” in which
an actor portraying the 5th-century Mongol warlord grunts his
desire to “fight the government” and “eliminate the liberal scribes.”
Anglophones, with new research suggesting that English speakers
may transmit the coronavirus more readily than speakers of some
other languages. The key factor could be English’s dependence on
the spittle-projecting “aspirated consonants” p, k, and t.
Dee-fense, after the coach of Ripdorf, a minor-league German soc-
cer team, ordered his players to keep 6 feet of social distance away
from the players of SV Holdenstedt II, who were recently exposed to
the coronavirus. The final score: Ripdorf 0, Hodenstedt 37.

Good week for:

Bad week for:

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

AP

Trump: Stop counting on election night

The U.S. at a glance ...
NEWS 7

Louisville
No homicide charge: Following months of
protests, a grand jury indicted one of the
police officers involved in the fatal shoot-
ing of 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor
on three counts of wanton endanger-
ment, but declined to charge two others.
Former Louisville Det. Brett Hankison
was fired in June for “wantonly and
blindly” firing into Taylor’s apartment on
March 13 after breaking down her door
with Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Det. Myles
Cosgrove. The three were executing a
“no-knock” warrant in search of drugs
and a suspected drug dealer. They found
neither, but Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth
Walker III, fired one shot with a licensed
firearm, wounding Mattingly. Kentucky
Attorney General Daniel Cameron
said that while this was an “emotional,
gut-wrenching case,” the facts justified
charges only against Hankison. The
Taylor family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, called
the lack of a murder or manslaughter
charge “outrageous and offensive.”

Bemidji, Minn.
‘Good genes’: President Trump praised an
overwhelmingly white crowd of support-
ers last week for their “good genes” dur-
ing a campaign rally in Minnesota. “You
have good genes—you know that, right?”
Trump asked of those who had assembled
at an airport to hear him speak. “A lot
of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you
believe? The racehorse theory.” Trump
has referred before to the idea that
humans could be improved by combining
superior genes, much as thoroughbreds
are mated to produce faster racehorses.
The speech elicited wide protests, includ-
ing from Jewish groups, who compared
it to discredited eugenics theories. Steve
Silberman, a Holocaust historian, called
Trump’s remarks “indistinguishable from
Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled
people, LGBTQ, Romani, and others
being exterminated.” The chair of the
local Republican committee dismissed the
remarks as “just a manner of speech.”

Yakima, Wash.
Postal slowdown:
A federal judge
has temporarily
blocked the U.S.
Postal Service from
making a series
of operational
changes that have
slowed down the delivery of the mail.
Judge Stanley Bastian said that the 14
states that had sued the agency had ade-
quately proven that President Trump and
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy orches-
trated “a politically motivated attack on
the efficiency of the Postal Service” that
would “irreparably harm the states’ ability
to administer the 2020 general election.”
DeJoy took over leadership of the USPS
in June, and since then on-time delivery of
first-class mail has fallen from above 90
percent to 83 percent, and much lower in
some regions. Among the changes on his
watch was an order for trucks to
follow schedules even if it meant
leaving mail behind. Bastian said
policy changes, including the
removal of sorting machines
and public collection boxes,
appeared to be part of an
“intentional” effort to “disrupt
and challenge” the election’s
legitimacy, and amounted to
“voter disenfranchisement.”

Washington, D.C.
Mueller post-mortem:
A top deputy who
served on special
counsel Robert
Mueller’s
investigation
of Russian
election interference says Mueller let the
country down by not directly stating
that his investigation found Trump had
committed crimes and could be charged
with obstruction of justice. Andrew
Weissmann argues in his new book,
Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller
Investigation, that the special counsel
and other top aides did not push hard
enough for evidence, failed to subpoena
Trump and his family members for face-
to-face interviews, and decided against
probing the president’s financial dealings
with Russia—all for fear that doing so
would anger Trump sufficiently that he
would fire Mueller and throw the coun-
try into crisis. “Had we given it
our all...we could have done
more,” Weissmann wrote,
adding that Mueller was also
naïve to trust Attorney General
William Barr not to spin the
report and that Barr, in misrepresent-
ing its conclusions, “betrayed both
friend and country.”

California
and Oregon
Still burning:
Shorthanded
fire crews con-
tinued to battle
one of the larg-
est wildfires
to ever rage in Los Angeles County this
week as the Bobcat Fire rampaged across
some 175 square miles in the mountains
and desert northeast of the city. Officials
said 29 structures had been destroyed,
although more than 1,000 were threat-
ened, and the inferno itself remained only
17 percent contained. In all, nearly 19,000
firefighters were still battling 27 major
blazes across the state this week, part of
a historically destructive wildfire season
that has scorched a total of 5 million acres
and forced the evacuation of tens of thou-
sands from their homes. In Oregon, 10
major fires—down from 17—still blazed,
including the Lionshead Fire, which has
burned more than 200,000 acres. Some
of the summer’s unprecedented fires have
been contained, and residents of the San
Francisco Bay Area saw smoke-free skies
for the first time in several weeks.

Florida
Voting rights: Former New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week
he’d raised more than $16 million to
pay the court fines and fees that blocked
almost 32,000 Floridians with felony
convictions from voting in November. The
contributions, which come from individu-
als and foundations, not Bloomberg’s own
$50 billion fortune, will add to $7 million
raised separately by the Florida Rights
Restoration Coalition (FRRC) from some
44,000 contributors across the nation. A
2018 referendum known as “Amendment
4” returned voting rights to Florida fel-
ons; a year later, Republican lawmakers
passed a law prohibiting them from vot-
ing before paying all fines and penalties.
Almost 800,000 felons in Florida could
potentially be disenfranchised by that law,
which was upheld in September
in federal court. Among others
who also donated to FRRC’s
effort are NBA superstars
LeBron James and Michael
Jordan and musician
John Legend. Rep. Matt
Gaetz (R-Fla.) accused
Bloomberg of try-
ing to buy votes for
Democrats.

Getty, Hilary Swift/The New York Times/Redux, Reuters, AP

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

Protesting service cuts
Weissmann: Mueller missed

Battling the Bobcat Fire

Bloomberg

The world at a glance ...
8 NEWS

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

Vatican City
Deal with China: The Vatican is preparing
to sign a two-year extension of its 2018 agree-
ment with the Chinese government regarding
the appointment of bishops—a deal that U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week
would endanger the Holy See’s “moral author-
ity.” For decades, the Catholic Church in China
was split between a Beijing- appointed clergy and an underground
church loyal to the Vatican. But under the 2018 deal both authori-
ties were given a say in bishopric appointments in China. In an
editorial for the Catholic journal First Things, Pompeo noted that
the church had once helped topple Communist regimes in Eastern
Europe. “The same power of moral witness,” he said, “should be
deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Concepción, Paraguay
Is he alive? The family of kid-
napped former Paraguayan Vice
President Óscar Denis is asking the
rebel Paraguayan People’s Army for proof
of life before it hands over any more ran-
som money. Denis and a staff member
were kidnapped from his ranch by the tiny
Marxist guerrilla group earlier this month; the staffer was released
after five days. The 74-year-old ex-VP suffers from diabetes and
had tested positive for coronavirus just before his kidnapping.
His family has given $2 million worth of food and supplies to 40
indigenous communities in ransom but has heard nothing from the
abductors. The kidnapping came a week after the Paraguayan army
carried out a raid on a guerrilla camp and claimed it had killed two
militants. In fact, the dead were young girls—ages 11 and 12—
who’d been visiting their fathers at the camp.

Paramaribo, Suriname
Oil and politics: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo swept through
four Latin American nations this week, looking to shore up
support for Trump administration efforts to oust Venezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro. Pompeo visited Brazil, Guyana, and
Colombia—all of which border Venezuela—as well as Suriname. In
Bogotá, he announced nearly $350 million in funding for displaced
Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia. In
Guyana and Suriname, which recently dis-
covered huge oil reserves, Pompeo warned
officials against partnering with China
to extract the oil. “We’ve watched the
Chinese Communist Party invest in
countries,” he said at a press confer-
ence with Surinamese President Chan
Santokhi, “and it all seems great at the
front end, and then it all comes falling
down when the political costs con-
nected to that becomes clear.

Bridgetown, Barbados
No more queen: Barbados is set to remove Britain’s
Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state next year. “The
time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,”
said Governor-General Sandra Mason, delivering
a speech written by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
“Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.” Anti-
monarchists have long agitated for the country to
become a republic, but this year they got a boost from
the global Black Lives Matter movement, which has spurred locals
to demand the removal of colonial-era statues. It’s been nearly
30 years since a former British colony dumped the queen, but
Buckingham Palace had a muted reaction, saying it was a matter
for Barbadians to decide. Locals took to social media to point out
that they still had a queen in Barbadian-born pop star Rihanna.

Paris
Stay home, Dad: France is going to force new fathers to bond with
their infants. The country will double its paid paternity leave from
14 to 28 days, President Emmanuel Macron announced this week,
and seven of those days will be mandatory. Studies show that
under the current, noncompulsory system, only two-thirds of new
fathers take any leave for the birth or adoption of a child. French
mothers are allowed to take 16 weeks of leave, half of which is
compulsory. The new measure, which will extend to any partner of
a new mother, married or not, will cost at least $585 million a year
and take effect next summer.

London
Quid pro quo? WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange was offered a
presidential pardon on the condi-
tion that he help cover up Russia’s
involvement in the 2016 hack-
ing of Democratic Party emails,
Assange’s lawyer told a London
court last week. Assange is battling
extradition to the U.S., where he faces life in prison on espionage
charges. The lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she witnessed then–
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Trump associate Charles Johnson
making the offer in an August 2017 meeting at the Ecuadoran
Embassy in London, where Assange was holed up to evade arrest.
Rohrabacher and Johnson stated President Trump “had approved”
of the meeting, said Robinson. James Lewis, a lawyer for the U.S.
government in the extradition case, told the court, “We obviously
do not accept the truth of what was said by others.”

AP (2), Alamy, AP, Shutterstock

Denis’ family delivers food.

A protest ad outside the court
Pope Francis

Pompeo and Santokhi

Elizabeth II: Losing currency

The world at a glance ...
NEWS 9

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

Helsinki
Covid-sniffing dogs: Finland this week deployed sniffer dogs to
Helsinki Airport to check fliers for the coronavirus. During a four-
month trial, air travelers will be asked to provide a sweat sample
swabbed from their necks. A dog will then sniff the sample
for 10 seconds and give its verdict by scratching a paw,
barking, or giving another canine signal. Whether passengers
test positive or not, they will be urged to take a standard
polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, so the sniffer dogs’
accuracy can be monitored. A similar trial conducted
in Dubai this summer found trained dogs could
detect the virus with 90 percent accuracy. Finnish
researcher Anna Hielm-Bjorkman said the dogs
can even identify people who “are not yet PCR pos-
itive but will become PCR positive within a week.”
But because training sniffer dogs is expensive and
time-consuming, the animals won’t be widely used.

Kaduna, Nigeria
Pedophiles to be executed: A Nigerian state has passed a law that
will punish child rapists with castration and possibly death. Men
found guilty of raping children under age 14 in Kaduna will have
their testicles cut off before execution; those found guilty of rap-
ing children over 14 will be castrated but not executed. The new
punishment comes amid a national rape crisis. According to official
government statistics, 2 million women and girls in Nigeria are sex-
ually assaulted each year. Since the coronavirus lockdown began,
gang rapes of girls and young women have shocked the nation,
including an assault by four masked men on a minor in her home
and the gang rape and murder of an 18-year-old. Critics of the new
law say it could lead to fewer rapes being reported, particularly if
the rapist is known to the victim.

Tehran
New sanctions: President Trump signed an execu-
tive order this week that places new sanctions on
Iranian officials and entities, as well as on those
that sell them weapons, under the terms of the
2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Because the U.S. unilat-
erally withdrew from the United Nations–backed
deal in 2018, most U.N. members believe the
U.S. has no legal standing to enforce those sanc-
tions. In a recorded video sent to the virtual U.N.
General Assembly this week, Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani compared his nation to George
Floyd, the black man killed by Minneapolis police
in May, saying, “We instantly recognize the feet
kneeling on the neck as the feet of arrogance on
the neck of independent nations.”

Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Cult leader arrested: Russian special forces helicop-
tered into a remote Siberian camp this week to arrest
a notorious cult leader who claims to be the rein-
carnation of Jesus. Sergei Torop, 59, known to his
5,000 followers as Vissarion, was a former traffic cop
who had an epiphany in 1990, just before the Soviet
Union collapsed, and began preaching that the end of
the world was nigh. He founded the Church of the
Last Testament and ordered adherents to follow him
to Siberia, adopt veganism, and celebrate his January
birthday in lieu of Christmas. Torop was arrested
along with his right-hand man, Vadim Redkin, a for-
mer drummer in a boy band, and will be charged with running an
illegal religious organization. Authorities say the cult has extorted
money from followers and subjected them to emotional abuse for
decades. But officials only moved against it now, Russian media
said, because the cult was in a dispute with local business interests.

Lanzhou, China
Disease leak: Several thousand people in northwestern China have
tested positive for the bacterial disease brucellosis, which causes
headache, fever, and fatigue, following a leak at a biopharmaceu-
tical factory. The disease, also called Malta fever, mainly infects
cattle, pigs, and goats and typically spreads to humans through
unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat; human-to-human trans-
mission has not been seen. It usually responds to antibiotics, but up
to 10 percent of sufferers can develop chronic organ damage. In a
report this week, the Lanzhou Health Commission said contami-
nated waste gas leaked from the factory—which was producing
vaccines for cattle—between late July and late August last year.
Dozens of workers at the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute,
downwind of the factory, fell ill, and over the following months
more than 3,000 people in the wider region were sickened.

Beijing
Tycoon jailed: A Chinese real estate mogul who criticized President
Xi Jinping’s response to the pandemic has been sentenced to 18
years in prison. Ren Zhiqiang, former head of the state-owned
Huayuan Group, was detained in March after writing a blistering
critique of Xi’s performance during a videoconference involv-
ing thousands of Communist Party officials. “I saw not an
emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’” Ren
wrote, “but a clown who was stripped naked and insisted on
continuing being emperor.” Ren, 69, was convicted of cor-
ruption, embezzlement of public funds, and abuse of
power, charges that were almost certainly trumped
up. The sentence is likely meant as a warning that
criticism of Xi will not be tolerated.

Reuters, Getty, AP, Getty

Torop

Ren: Xi is a ‘clown.’

A mural in Tehran

A canine tester