US Politics

How did you first meet?I first met John Lewis about 30 years ago at the airport in Atlanta. He came over and said: “You’re the young man representing people on death row.” And I said: “Yes, I am, and it’s such a thrill to meet you.” And he said: “I just want to encourage you to keep doing your important work.” It meant the world to me that he would do that. This was at a time when support for the kind of work I do was not very prevalent. That casual encounter just energised me for months.I was inspired by him long before I met him and I feel really privileged to have spent time with him in the last few years.How influential was he on your own activism?I grew up in a poor rural community. No one I knew had gone to college, very few people had graduated from high school. So I was fascinated by his growing up in Pike County, a rural community of sharecroppers. As a teenager, he imagined a life for himself that he actually hadn’t seen. He heard Dr King speaking on the radio and just wrote to him. And Dr King wrote back to him and invited him to Montgomery. That was incredibly inspiring to me.He was someone who carried that lived experience of segregation with him throughout his life.John Lewis had experienced the injustice and segregation in the Jim Crow era and it shaped his world view. That lived experience is very challenging to overcome. If you have actually seen those Whites Only signs, you understand that they were not directions, they were moral assaults that created real injuries. You damage people when you tell them they are not good enough to go through the front door, to marry someone of a different race, to attend school with white children, to be on the beach with white kids. That lived experience motivated him to fight injustice wherever he saw it.He was part of a generation that were incredibly courageous in terms of their dedication to non-violent direct action.He was courageous in ways that we rarely see. In the early 1960s, he was one of the original Freedom Riders and he was badly beaten by the police. Just two years later, in 1965, he was at the head of the march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, being beaten and battered again. What a lot of people don’t appreciate is that he and his fellow protesters would put on their Sunday best to go to these places and then get on their knees and pray knowing that they were going to get battered and beaten and bloodied by the police. There was an absolute expectation of violence and yet they went. That is what was extraordinary about the courage of John Lewis and the generation he represents. What he and people like him did back then required an incredible commitment. It could have cost them their lives.How important was his Christian faith to his activism?It was incredibly important to him as it was to Dr King. They both knew that they shared a faith with many of the people that were oppressing and abusing them. They both believed that they had an obligation to challenge people who were dishonouring that faith because bigotry and segregation are contrary to Christianity and the Gospels. They saw themselves as committed Americans trying to push this country to live up to its values and ideas. In many ways they were the living proponents of what we now call liberation theology. They were protesting with a flag in one hand and a bible in the other.When John Lewis entered Congress, how important was that for you?Incredibly so. When I was a child, there were no black congressional members. We did not see people of colour in positions of power and influence. That all happened during the course of John Lewis’s life. You have to understand that in the United States, we have never had a real change in power. The people who sustained inequality and injustice, who turned their backs to thousands of black people being lynched, who did not intervene to end segregation are the people who are still in power. So, a black person being in Congress and advocating for racial justice as John Lewis did, is not easy. It is not comfortable.How would you sum him up?John Lewis was a visionary. He taught me that justice is a constant struggle, that we never really arrive, we have to always keep fighting against the things that are undermining equality and justice and to protect the things that represent equality and justice. He shared his incredibly generous spirit and his capacity for love and encouragement directly with me. He would always say: “Be brave, Bryan. Don’t let anyone cause you to not be brave.” That kind of affirmation is priceless. I can’t even articulate the value of it.He was courageous, committed and compassionate. And, he had an instinct for doing the things that had to be done, however challenging and uncomfortable. His life was remarkable and unparalleled in many ways. He inspired people to do difficult things in the service of justice. Very few people have done more to make the world a better place. Interview by Sean O’Hagan More

Bill will include $600 to $700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits US congressional negotiators on Wednesday were “closing in on” a $900bn Covid-19 aid bill that will include $600 to $700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits, as a Friday deadline loomed, lawmakers and aides said.Top members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate sounded more positive than they have in months on a fresh response to a crisis that has killed more than 304,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work. Continue reading… More

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2.42pm EST14:42
Texas AG files antitrust lawsuit against Google

1.35pm EST13:35
Early afternoon summary

1.11pm EST13:11
Kamala Harris urges faith in coronavirus vaccine

12.47pm EST12:47
Biden said signs of agreement on new coronavirus economic relief bill “encouraging”

12.14pm EST12:14
Biden introduces Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary

11.42am EST11:42
Harris impatient over stimulus bill – says “people are suffering”

10.52am EST10:52
Secretary of State Pompeo to isolate over contact with Covid-positive person

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4.37pm EST16:37

The availability of intensive care unit beds in the San Francisco Bay Area fell below 15% on Tuesday, the threshold that triggers a regional stay-at-home order.
Much of the Bay Area had preemptively enacted the stay-at-home order earlier in the month, but three counties did not. They will now have to enact the stricter rules by midnight Thursday.
At 12.9%, ICU bed availability in the Bay Area is still better than in Southern California (0.5%), the San Joaquin Valley (0%) and greater Sacramento (14.1%). The only region that will not be under stay-at-home orders as of Friday will be rural Northern California, where just 1.7% of the state’s approximately 40m people live, according to the state’s health department.
The remaining 39.4m Californians are barred from holding private gatherings of any size and required to wear a mask. Almost all of California is also under a curfew requiring residents to stay home between 10pm and 5am.

4.04pm EST16:04

A major winter storm heading for the eastern seaboard could delay shipments of the coronavirus vaccine, Alexandra Villarreal reports for the Guardian US:

Treacherous weather could bury parts of the eastern US in snow, ice or flooding and cause power outages, hazardous travel conditions, or even tornadoes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, threatening all forms of transportation being used by the vaccine manufacturing facilities, centered in Michigan, as they fly and truck vials around the country.
It is set to be a record storm for December. Meanwhile the first Covid-19 vaccinations got underway at nursing homes, where the virus has killed more than 110,000 people in the US. Elderly and infirm people in long-term care have been among the most vulnerable and residents in nursing homes in Florida and Virginia have been among the first people being inoculated in the US this week.

Read the full report here:

3.43pm EST15:43

An investigation into allegations that managers at a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, placed bets on how many of their workers would contract Covid-19 “found sufficient evidence” to fire seven managers on Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reports.
The allegations of the betting pool emerged in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in November by the family of Isidro Fernandez, a Tyson Foods employee who died in April after contracting the coronavirus.
More than 1,000 workers out of about 2,800 tested positive for Covid-19 before the plant closed down in early May to implement new safety measures. At least six employees died during the pandemic.
Tyson Foods enlisted the former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the allegations of a “cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool” among managers and supervisors.
“We can tell you that Mr Holder and his team looked specifically at the gaming allegations and found sufficient evidence for us to terminate those involved,” a company spokesman, Gary Mickelson, told the Des Moines Register.

Sarah Beckman
(@SarahBeckman3)
INBOX: @TysonFoods fires 7 plant management employees at its Waterloo location after an investigation of claims they bet on how many employees would test positive for #Covid_19. Full statement here: pic.twitter.com/meOf3geqhe

December 16, 2020

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3.21pm EST15:21

Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, California, picking up the liveblog for the next few hours.
A bit of catharsis for the end of the year: the mayor of Atlantic City plans to auction off the chance to blow up the former Trump Plaza casino as a fundraiser for the local Boys & Girls Club, the AP reports.
The former casino opened in 1984 and closed in 2014, one of three casinos that Donald Trump owned in the New Jersey resort town, alongside the Taj Mahal and the Trump Marina. The building has stood vacant for years and become a public safety hazard. It is slated for implosion on 29 January.
“Some of Atlantic City’s iconic moments happened there, but on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out,” mayor Marty Small told the AP. “I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”
Details of the auction will be announced at a press conference tomorrow, according to the Press of Atlantic City. If you have $1m and a burning desire to press a button and make something that used to belong to Trump go boom, you can tune in here at 11am EST Thursday.

Press of AC
(@ThePressofAC)
Want to press the button and implode Trump Plaza? Atlantic City may offer that chance https://t.co/Zaw9kIhzFX

December 16, 2020

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3.04pm EST15:04

A top Trump appointee in the health and human services department urged top health officials in July to take on a “herd immunity” approach to combating the Covid-19 pandemic, saying in emails describing young Americans: “we want them infected.
Paul Alexander, a former aide to the health department official Michael Caputo and a known “herd immunity” advocate, wrote in an email to Caputo that “there is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.”
The emails were released as part of a House investigation, led by Democratic Representative James Clyburn, into the White House’s attempts to interfere with the work of career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Infant, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions, etc have zero to little risk … so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected,” Alexander wrote in an email.
Politico reported that Alexander had the support of the White House when making his recommendations, though Trump officials have denied that they wanted to embrace the herd immunity strategy.

Updated
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2.42pm EST14:42

Texas AG files antitrust lawsuit against Google

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just announced his office is filing an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its “anti-competitive conduct, exclusionary practices and deceptive misrepresentation” around advertising, Paxton said in a video announcing the lawsuit.

Texas Attorney General
(@TXAG)
#BREAKING: Texas takes the lead once more! Today, we’re filing a lawsuit against #Google for anticompetitive conduct.This internet Goliath used its power to manipulate the market, destroy competition, and harm YOU, the consumer. Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/fdEVEWQb0e

December 16, 2020

“Google repeatedly used its monopolistic power to control pricing, engage in market collusions to rig options in a tremendous violation of justice,” he said. “These actions harm every person in America.”
Paxton said other states have joined the lawsuit, though it is unclear how many states have joined.
The Texas attorney general is just coming off of the lawsuit he filed against four states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, for allegedly mishandling the election, an 11th-hour, baseless attempt to help Donald Trump keep the White House after his loss to Joe Biden. The Supreme Court quickly threw out the lawsuit last week.

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2.23pm EST14:23

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement this afternoon affirming her support in Joe Biden selecting US Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Interior Department.
Previous reports have said Pelosi and her second-in-command, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, warned the Biden-Harris team against picking another sitting Congressional Democrat as Haaland was rumored to be Biden’s top pick for interior secretary.
“Congresswoman Deb Haaland is one of the most respected and one of the best Members of Congress I have served with,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Congresswoman Haaland knows the territory, and if she is the President-elect’s choice for Interior Secretary, then he will have made an excellent choice.

Heather Caygle
(@heatherscope)
Here’s full statement: pic.twitter.com/9yYegtabPy

December 16, 2020

Haaland, who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo people, was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, along with Sharice Davids, who was also elected in 2018. The interior department is responsible for preserving federal lands and resources and is home to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which works with the country’s recognized Native American tribes.

Updated
at 2.24pm EST

1.59pm EST13:59

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to a new report by Politico today, which cited internal emails obtained by the House Oversight committee and shared with the news outlet.
Politico reports that:

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.
“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity…natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials. Caputo subsequently asked Alexander to research the idea, according to emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on coronavirus.
Senior Trump officials have repeatedly denied that herd immunity — a concept advocated by some conservatives as a tactic to control Covid-19 by deliberately exposing less vulnerable populations in hopes of re-opening the economy — was under consideration or shaped the White House’s approach to the pandemic. “Herd immunity is not the strategy of the U.S. government with regard to coronavirus,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified in a House Oversight hearing on October 2.
In his emails, Alexander also spent months attacking government scientists and pushing to shape official statements to be more favorable to Donald Trump.

You can read more here.

1.35pm EST13:35

Early afternoon summary

It’s been a lively morning in US political news as we await agreement on a deal for a new round of coronavirus economic relief legislation on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned!
Here’s what’s occurred so far today:
Joe Biden said it seems coronavirus stimulus negotiators are “very, very close” to reaching a deal and that the new coronavirus economic relief package looks “encouraging”. He added that the bill would be a “down payment” to “what’s going to have to be done” when he enters office in January.
Biden and his vice-president elect, Kamala Harris, presented Pete Buttigieg as the incoming administration’s nominee to become transportation secretary. Biden described Buttigieg, who ran for the party nomination eventually won by Biden, was a policy wonk with a big heart and would be the first openly-gay cabinet member in US history to be confirmed (assuming that happens) by the Senate.
Outgoing secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus. Pompeo’s most recent test showed he was negative for Covid-19.
After months of roller coaster negotiations, it looks as though a new, compromise coronavirus economic relief bill is close to agreement on Capitol Hill.

1.11pm EST13:11

Kamala Harris urges faith in coronavirus vaccine

Kamala Harris, the Democratic Senator from California and now US vice-president elect, earlier today urged Americans to wear masks and take the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available to them.
In more from her interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Harris also spoke about one of Joe Biden’s earliest statements as the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration began, that he would ask all Americans to wear a face mask for the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris White House.
“The hundred days of the mask, he is urging, like, there is no punishment, they don’t have to, but he is saying as a leader, ‘please everybody, work with me here, for the first 100 days, let’s everybody wear a mask’ and see the outcomes there,” Harris said.
She added: “Because of course the scientists and the public health officials tell us there will be really great outcomes if people wear a mask when they’re in public.” More

Pete Buttigieg thanked Joe Biden as he was formally announced as his nominee for transportation secretary. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Democratic presidential candidate, will be the first openly LGBTQ+ cabinet member in American history to be confirmed into post by the Senate, assuming he wins confirmation.
US politics live
Biden taps Pete Buttigieg for transportation post and Jennifer Granholm for energy More

The former Australian prime minister John Howard has said Donald Trump penned a lengthy “political suicide note” with his “terrible” handling of the coronavirus pandemic, without which the Republican would have prevailed against Joe Biden.Howard, who led a conservative Coalition government for nearly 12 years, made the remarks on Wednesday night during a question and answer session at the Menzies Research Centre at the conclusion of a lecture delivered by the former National party leader John Anderson.“If Donald Trump had handled the pandemic half-decently he would have won the election,” Howard said.“He was headed towards a victory until the pandemic hit. It was his mishandling of that because, in the end, the public, when threatened, want their leaders to defend them against the threat.”Howard said competent public health responses had increased the popularity of political leaders across Australia.“That’s why Scott Morrison has very high approvals, Gladys Berejiklian has, our friend [Mark McGowan] in Western Australia has, and even our friend in Victoria [Daniel Andrews] is surviving – he’s more than surviving, politically, he is quite perpendicular at the present time,” the former Liberal leader said. “Now part of that is a perception that difficult as it all was, and so forth, he got the show through.”Howard noted that Andrews, the Labor premier in Victoria, had been “open to a lot of political attack”.“I know this is not a political occasion so I shouldn’t join in that attack,” he said.“But I think there’s something to be said for the proposition – and this is an optimistic thing in a way – that the side of politics in America that embraced identity politics far more, namely the Democratic party side, sure Biden won, but given how appallingly Trump handled the pandemic how could he not win?“Every time [Trump] had a news conference he was penning a political suicide note.”Howard, Australia’s prime minister from 1996 to 2007, said Trump’s handling of the pandemic was “terrible” but still the Republicans did “far better than many people expected” in Congress.Anderson’s lecture to the Liberal-aligned thinktank on Wednesday night railed against “wokeness” and identity politics.Despite Biden’s resounding victory both in the electoral college and the popular vote, Howard said he detected a backlash in “middle America” which prevented the Democrats from gaining control of the legislature.“I draw a little bit of encouragement from that, not in a partisan sense – I am more sympathetic to the Republicans than I am to the Democrats – but I think probably there was a middle America rejection to be found in that election outcome, notwithstanding the fact that [Biden] won and I think you are starting to see it reflected in Biden’s choice of people who will serve in his administration – they are not as leftwing and embracing of political correctness as you might expect.”Anderson agreed with Howard’s thesis and declared the media in Australia and the US were preoccupied with characterising Trump as a “terrible person” rather than analysing his policies.The former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister did not reflect on Trump’s habitual lying while in office or the scandals that ultimately defined his presidency.Anderson noted that an “astonishing” number of Americans voted for Trump despite the mismanagement of Covid-19. Howard said in response to that observation: “He did have a number of flaws.”And Anderson said the looming runoff election in the state of Georgia was “a very important runoff for the globe – I mean what happens in American politics at this point in history is probably as important to us as what happens here”.“I’m so motivated by what I see as the real potential for us to lose our freedoms,” Anderson said. “I’m so despairing at our lack of, am I allowed to say, manning up.”After deciding he should instead say “humanising up” – “there’s a touch of wokeism in everyone” – Anderson concluded by stating that when it came to the defence of freedom “it’s all hands to the wheel”. More

An emerging leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic party has argued that politicians must act as role models as part of a concerted effort to combat skepticism of the Covid-19 vaccine, particularly among some Black Americans.Congressman-elect Jamaal Bowman, the progressive New York Democrat who defeated longtime incumbent congressman and outgoing House foreign affairs committee chairman Eliot Engel, voiced his concerns in a short but expansive interview with the Guardian. Those concerns coincide with reports of suspicion in the Black community over taking coronavirus vaccines when available.“It’s a major concern, it’s very real, and it communicates the lack of trust that African Americans feel towards American institutions over all,” Bowman said.On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave emergency approval for a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to be rolled out across the country. The first Covid-19 vaccinations were administered to American health workers this week. The first person to receive the shot outside clinical trials was intensive care nurse Sandra Lindsay, a black woman who said she hoped she would help “inspire people who look like me, who are skeptical in general about taking vaccines”.Since his surprise victory over Engel in the primary for New York’s 16th congressional district, Bowman has emerged as a politically ideological colleague of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and other young progressive members of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives.There hasn’t been the truth, the reconciliation, the healing that needs to take place to deal with our history and legacy of racism“There’s no trust because there hasn’t been the truth, the reconciliation, the healing that needs to take place to deal with our history and legacy of racism and how it continues to persist,” Bowman said of vaccine hesitancy in the Black community. “If we went through a process of truth, healing and restitution we’d begin to bridge the gap between the harms that happened in our communities and that continue to happen and the trust that is needed. So no, it’s very real.”Asked if there was some kind of surrogate who could maybe alleviate that skepticism – Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris perhaps or former president Barack Obama – Bowman said “all of the above”.“Well it’s not just Kamala Harris, it’s Jamaal Bowman, it’s [congresswoman] Ayanna Pressley, it’s [congresswoman-elect] Cori Bush, it’s president-elect Joe Biden,” Bowman said. “It’s all of the above. But again we have to understand that this lack of trust is generationally embedded because Black people continue to get the short end of the stick when it comes to being uninsured and underinsured.”The heightened expression of concern by Bowman underscores the difficulty various US political leaders see in distributing a vaccine and vanquishing the virus, as other countries have already done or are in the process of.Bowman, for much of his time as a congressman-elect, has been talking about his plans for tackling inequality and systemic racism in the country. He is a supporter of the “defund the police” movement, and has openly called out former president Barack Obama on his analysis of the electoral liabilities of supporting the proposals.Advocates for the “defund the police” movement have argued broadly that there needs to be a serious reallocation of money and resources to police forces. But conservative critics have used the proposals’ name to mislead voters to think advocates literally want to take all funding away from police forces, which has led some moderate Democrats to distance themselves from the slogan.Obama, in an interview with Snapchat’s Peter Hamby, said: “If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘Defund The Police,’ but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.”Similarly, earlier this month in a meeting with civil rights leaders, echoed Obama’s criticizing, blaming the Defund the Police slogan for Democratic down ballot losses.In a rare move for a soon-to-be congressman of the same party as the popular Obama, Bowman sent out a fundraising email saying he was “disappointed” in the 44th president’s comments.“The problem isn’t America’s discomfort with snappy slogans. The real problem is America’s comfort with Black death,” Bowman wrote in the fundraising email. Similarly, he said that even referring to it as something other than “Defund the Police” is wrongheaded.I don’t hear the real conversation around why the hell doesn’t America feel uncomfortable with Black death“Well that’s the problem right? We are always acquiescing to the center, to right, and to Republicans on what we should say and how we should say it. My problem is white comfort with Black death,” Bowman said. “I am personally tired of white comfort with black death. So when I hear president-elect Biden say that, when I hear [congressman] Connor Lamb say that I don’t – even former president Obama – I don’t hear the real conversation around why the hell doesn’t America feel uncomfortable with Black death.”Bowman has been more active in shaping his place on Capitol Hill than most Democratic congressional nominees or congressmen-elect. Bowman’s district leans so heavily Democratic that whoever wins the primary is the all but certain favorite to win the general election. After he won the primary Bowman endorsed and sent out fundraising emails for like-minded candidates around the country.Bowman has already been thinking about where he would like to have a legislative impact. He’s hoping to get a spot on the House education and labor committee and a spot on the House committee on transportation and infrastructure. He has aligned himself with Ocasio-Cortez and is likely to be an addition to the set of young firebrand progressive lawmakers nicknamed “The Squad”.Ocasio-Cortez, the most famous member of the Squad, recently said she didn’t see an overarching vision in the series of cabinet appointments Biden has made so far. Bowman concurred.“Well I think president-elect Biden’s goal is diversity and I see some racial diversity. I see some gender diversity. I see some ideological diversity and I think president-elect Biden will lead to the best answers and the best solutions for our country,” Bowman said, going on to directly address Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks. “I don’t fully disagree with that.” More

Donald Trump has added a morbid new distinction to his presidency – for the first time in US history, the federal government has in one year executed more American civilians than all the states combined.In the course of 2020, in an unprecedented glut of judicial killing, the Trump administration rushed to put 10 prisoners to death. The execution spree ran roughshod over historical norms and stood entirely contrary to the decline in the practice of the death penalty that has been the trend in the US for several years.The outlier nature of the Trump administration’s thirst for blood is set out in the year-end report of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). In recent years, the annual review has highlighted the steady withering away of executions, all of which were carried out by individual states.That pattern continued at state level in 2020, heightened by the coronavirus pandemic which suppressed an already low number of scheduled executions. Only five states – Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas – carried out judicial killings. And only Texas performed more than one, producing the lowest number of executions by the states since 1983.States carried out seven executions to the federal government’s 10. Despite the rash of federal killings, that still amounted to the fewest executions in the US since 1991.Against that downward path, the actions of the Trump administration stand out as a grotesque aberration.“The administration’s policies were not just out of step with the historical practices of previous presidents, they were also completely out of step with today’s state practices,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC executive director and lead author of its year-end report.Part of the story was Trump’s willful refusal to take the coronavirus seriously. Unlike death penalty states, the federal government insisted on proceeding with executions. As a result, there was an eruption of Covid-19 cases at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana which the DPIC report notes infected at least nine members of execution teams.But the overwhelming story of the federal executions in 2020 was the disdain shown by the Trump administration towards established norms, and its determination to push the death penalty to the limits of decency even by standards set by those who support the practice.Since Trump lost the election on 3 November, the federal government has put to death three prisoners: Orlando Hall, Brandon Bernard and Alfred Bourgeois. The last time a lame-duck president presided over an execution was in 1889, when the Grover Cleveland administration killed a Choctaw Indian named Richard Smith.All three Trump lame-duck executions involved black men. As the DPIC review points out, racial disparities remain prominent in the roll call of the dead, as they have for decades, with almost half of those executed being people of color.The review exposes other systemic problems in the Trump administration’s choice of prisoners to kill. Lezmond Hill, executed in August, was the only Native American prisoner on federal death row. His execution ignored tribal sovereignty over the case and the objections of the Navajo Nation which is opposed to the death penalty.The subjects of the federal rush to the death chamber included two prisoners whose offenses were committed when they were teenagers. Christopher Vialva was 19 and Bernard 18: they were the first teenage offenders sent to their deaths by the US government in almost 70 years.The sharp contrast between the Trump administration’s aggressive stance and the dramatic reduction in executions at state level is underlined by the annual review of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP), also released on Wednesday.Texas, traditionally the death penalty capital of America, carried out three executions this year, down from nine in 2019. The most recent was on 8 July. Billy Joe Wardlow was 18 in 1993 when he committed robbery and murder.“The fact that state legislators, juvenile justice advocates, neuroscience experts and two jurors from Wardlow’s trial had called for a reprieve based on what we know now about adolescent brain development make the circumstances of his arbitrary execution even more appalling,” said Kristin Houlé Cuellar, TCADP executive director.There was some good news. In March, Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty. Louisiana and Utah have not executed anybody in 10 years.Joe Biden, the president-elect, has vowed to eliminate the death penalty. But until he enters the White House on 20 January Trump remains in charge. Three more federal inmates are set to die – including the only woman on federal death row – before he is done. More

First Dog on … Trump losing! More