The champion American gymnast Simone Biles found time overnight between counting her record haul of Olympic medals to ding Donald Trump on social media after his offensive and untrue remarks at a gathering of Black journalists earlier in the week.
She posted on X early on Friday: “I love my black job” with a black heart emoji alongside, responding to another post of her beaming with her latest Olympic gold medal.
“Simone Biles being the GOAT, winning Gold medals and dominating gymnastics is her black job,” posted the singer Ricky Davila.
The messages were an unmistakable takedown of the former president, who is once again the Republican party’s nominee for president.
Trump said in an interview with three top political journalists at the convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) on Wednesday that migrants were “taking Black jobs” in the US.
When asked to define a “Black job”, he said it was “anybody that has a job”.
His interview, in which he delivered numerous gaffes and insults, dismayed and outraged those gathered at the convention in Chicago and millions watching live on TV. He questioned the US vice-president and Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s identity as a Black woman and elicited gasps and derisive laughter from the audience.
Later that day, Harris called the remarks divisive and said: “America deserves better.”
It is not the first time Trump has made such remarks: in the presidential debate with Biden, he said migrants were “taking Black jobs now … they’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs”.
Joe Biden responded later, telling the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in a reference to Harris: “I know what a Black job is: it’s the vice-president of the United States.”
Introduction from Elizabeth Patterson, July 30, 2024
CEQA is the strongest planning tool we have. Before CEQA we had hydraulic gold mining ruining hills and raising Sacramento River by 15 feet – due to washed out sediment – making navigation difficult.
Before CEQA, and after gold, we had timber harvesting cutting down the world’s oldest and tallest trees.
Before CEQA we had water development, which led to crashing salmon species and extirpation of many native fish, and subsidence of 30+ feet that we the taxpayer are paying for – the repairs caused by private industrial farms over-pumping groundwater.
CEQA helped us focus on consequences of land development, thus protecting CA coast for all Californians not just wealthy property owners. CEQA helped us correct some water diversions thus recovering streams for fish.
CEQA helped identify cumulative effects of multiple projects.
CEQA provides consistent checklist to consider impacts and change design to avoid significant impacts.
CEQA can be used for selfish reasons, but MOST projects are approved, while few are challenged.
The development machine is the last extractive activity focused on wrecking land for ill-advised development. CEQA constrains bad projects. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best tool we have. Without it we will do to the land what we have done for gold, timber, and water. Mining California is profitable for a few, but leaves a wounded state for the rest of us. We pay the price for ignoring impacts.
For the life of me, I can’t understand how people making decisions think that build-build-build anywhere solves problems perpetrated by major land investors flipping it for a buck.
Addressing the wage gap is a good first step. Addressing capital gains tax to help fund affordable housing is a good step. Preventing corporate land speculation works. All of these actions actually address the root cause of affordable housing.
But no, the dismantling of the best planning tool in California is being proposed.
How sad. Half a century of clear-eyed assessment is in the way of bulldozing our way to ruin.
Little Hoover Commission’s Recommendations Undermine Fundamental CEQA Protections
Image by BenIndy, not original to the post.
Daily Journal, by Jennifer Ganata and Douglas Carstens, June 10, 2024
The Little Hoover Commission’s recent report, CEQA: Targeted Reforms for California’s Core Environmental Law, proposes to amend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in six areas and recommends “in-depth studies” of several others. While Commission Chair Pedro Nava notes that California has “incalculably benefited from CEQA,” the report’s specific proposals would make fundamental changes to the law, dangerously undermining CEQA’s protections for communities and the environment.
The Little Hoover Commission is supposed to be a fact-finding body. Its charge is to perform the difficult task of collecting facts—hard evidence, verifiable data—to identify specific problems to be solved through legislative action. Here, the Commission failed to perform that function: not only are the report’s proposals to weaken CEQA unsupported by credible evidence, but in some cases, the report’s own facts and analysis contradict its recommendations.
The report characterizes its “reforms” as “targeted and limited,” measures that would “improve the functioning of CEQA … without sacrificing necessary environmental protections.” The public should not be fooled. The proposed amendments would dismantle key elements of CEQA, weakening environmental review requirements and threatening communities’ ability to enforce the law in court. Further, the report recommends these changes even while acknowledging “[o]ften CEQA’s protections have been most profound in the most disadvantaged in vulnerable communities, where negative environmental impacts have often been the greatest in the past.” Why would the Legislature choose to weaken CEQA when the state’s vulnerable residents most need its protections?
Five “reforms” exemplify the Commission’s determination to roll back longstanding CEQA protections.
First, the report proposes a new limitation on plaintiffs’ “standing” in CEQA cases, a restriction that does not apply to any other public interest litigation in the state. If adopted, this proposal would have a chilling effect on meritorious CEQA claims, closing the courthouse doors to many community members seeking to enforce law. Tellingly, the report includes no specific analysis or findings to explain the need for this drastic change.
Second, the report recommends an extreme proposal to restrict the public’s right to comment on environmental documents; the restriction would apply to any project, no matter how destructive. This proposal would undercut CEQA’s longstanding guarantee of public participation in the land use process—a hallmark of the law. Frontline communities already overburdened by pollution should not be prevented from speaking out against harmful developments. Their comments on environmental documents do not stop projects, but improve them.
Third, the report proposes a new, “simplified” exemption for all housing on sites that are at least three quarters surrounded by existing urban uses, “with no conditions or qualifications.”If adopted, this change would represent a radical departure from the Legislature’s previous approach to CEQA exemptions. Unlike previous legislation, this exemption would include no requirements to protect natural and cultural resources and no condition that some housing units be affordable. Nor would the exemption include any restrictions on the location or size of the project or any other safeguard against urban sprawl. Indeed, the “simplified” measure would be broader than any housing exemption ever enacted by the Legislature.
Remarkably, the report does not attempt to explain the need for this extreme measure. Instead, it concedes the Legislature has already adopted broad new exemptions for housing in 2023, and opines that“the state should wait to measure the success of recent reforms before embarking on major additional changes.” The Legislature should follow this advice, taking the time to assess how existing exemptions are working—and their possible pitfalls—before adopting new ones. They should also focus on the real impediments to housing production, such as high land and construction costs, high interest rates, market timing by developers, and lack of subsidies for affordable housing. Additional proposals to exempt housing from CEQA review will not solve the housing crisis because—as multiple experts have found—CEQA didn’t cause the crisis in the first place.
Fourth, the report recommends that the Legislature study a proposal requiring plaintiffs to post bonds when filing CEQA challenges to certain types of development projects. This extreme proposal would effectively do away with CEQA enforcement for such projects, as non-profit organizations, who already bear a heavy financial burden in bringing CEQA actions, could not afford the risk of paying the bond if they lose. Citizen suits are the primary driver behind CEQA enforcement, with the Attorney General bringing enforcement actions only rarely. Thus, where bond requirements are imposed, CEQA could be violated with impunity.
Fifth, the report recommends that the Legislature study a proposal that would permit lead agencies to “lock in” analytical models for “some reasonable period” regardless of any new scientific information that might emerge. This proposal is misguided. Allowing agencies to approve development projects based on obsolete science or discredited data undermines effective decision-making and threatens California’s environment. Again, the report provides no justification for this dangerous proposal. In particular, it does not document its claim that agencies must “throw out” analyses when new modeling options become available.
These proposals, long sought by the building industry, are not targeted “reforms,” but major alterations to CEQA’s essential components. If they are implemented, Californians will lose the vital protections that CEQA has provided for half a century. Projects that threaten public health and/or natural resources could go forward without transparency and mitigation—exactly the problem CEQA was designed to address. Environmental justice organizations and other vulnerable California residents would suffer the most. Because the report never makes a case for such a drastic transformation, the Legislature should view it with great skepticism.
Jennifer Ganata isCommunities for a Better Environment’s (CBE) Legal Department Co-Director. CBE is one of the preeminent environmental justice organizations in the nation. Prior to becoming Legal Department Co-Director in 2024, Jennifer was CBE’s senior staff attorney since 2018.
Douglas P. Carstens is board president of the Planning and Conservation League and managing partner of Carstens Black & Minteer LLP. His law firm specializes in environmental, land use, municipal and natural resources law.
This article originally Appeared in the Daily Journal on June 10th, 2024.
[BenIndy: We share this with deep apologies to the white dudes who found out about it too late. In truth, we privately shared several identity-group fundraising call notices (including the Black Men for Harris, Out for Kamala Harris LGBTQ+ Unity, South Asian Women for Harris, and Women for Harris calls) with friends and family, but did not think to share them here. The outrage and FOMO we saw after admitting this oversight indicate we must apologize for our grievous error. But don’t worry: there will probably be more events like this one, so keep your eyes open. Join the email lists, become group members, and sign up to be notified. Donate. Jokes aside, white voters have favored GOP candidates for years. This is an election where we hope to see that trend at least slip.]
‘White Dudes for Harris’— including The Dude himself — raise over $4M
Vice President Harris delivers a keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers’ 88th national convention in Houston on Thursday. | Callaghan O’Hare / The Washington Post.
The Zoom fundraiser for Vice President Harris, attended by Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill and Pete Buttigieg among others, raised over $4 million, organizers said.
After Black Women for Harris and White Women for Harris, it was the turn of “White Dudes for Harris” — where almost 200,000 people, including the actor who plays “The Dude” himself, helped raise over $4 million during a fundraising Zoom call, according to organizers.
The more than three-hour-long online call saw actors Mark Hamill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sean Astin and Josh Gad among the men expressing support for Vice President Harris’s presidential bid, alongside ’N Sync star Lance Bass and a host of Democrat politicians.
Most notable among the celebrities was a man introduced as the “dude in chief,” actor Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” released in 1998, and joked: “I qualify … I’m White, I’m a dude and I’m for Harris.”
Attendees expressed enthusiasm and excitement for the campaign — while also joking about the lack of diversity on the call. “What a variety of Whiteness we have here … it’s like a rainbow of beige!” actor Bradley Whitford of “The West Wing” told the group. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) teased that a White Dudes gathering “doesn’t usually sound like something I would join, but this is a terrific cause.”
Organizer Ross Morales Rocketto also acknowledged more serious motivations for organizing the call. “The left has been ceding White men to the MAGA right for way, way too long,” he said referencing the slogan popularized by Trump, “Make America Great Again.”
“That’s going to stop tonight, because we know that the silent majority of White men aren’t actually MAGA supporters. They’re folks like you who just want a better life for their families.”
A majority of White men have long sided with Republican presidential nominees, and Trump won a majority of White male voters in 2020, The Post previously reported. President Biden ultimately won by assembling a large enough coalition of voters in key states, winning margins among young and non-White voters, college graduates and independents.
Harris’s campaign has had to contend with attacks focused on her gender and racial identity — with one Republican lawmaker calling her unqualified and a “DEI vice president,” and many political pundits widely presume that her expected vice-presidential pick will have to be a White male to give her ticket the broadest appeal.
During Monday’s call, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg framed Harris’s campaign as one for “freedom.”
“Men are more free when the leader of the free world and the leader of this country supports access to birth control and to IVF,” he told the online gathering.
The White Dudes fundraiser has no official affiliation with Harris but large amounts of money were raised through matched funds and merchandise sales, including a popular trucker hat, the group said.
During his speech, Bridges paid homage to Black Women for Harris for inspiring a wave of copycat fundraising calls. “Kamala is so certainly our girl … a woman president, man, so exciting! And her championing of women’s rights, I’m for that, and for all her stance on the environment.”
Bridges also managed to work in his character’s catchphrase in “The Big Lebowski,” quipping at one point: “As the Dude might say: That’s just my opinion, man.”
In addition to raising funds for Harris’s campaign, speakers hoped to energize supporters ahead of what is expected to be an intense race.
Buttigieg said it was an “honor” to address “this convening of dudes, right after The Dude,” referencing Bridges. “The vibes right now are incredible,” Buttigieg said of the Harris campaign. “The momentum is extraordinary.”
“I’ve never felt this kind of belief, this kind of enthusiasm ever. I want us to enjoy it,” Whitford said.
Similar zoom fundraiser calls have been organized to support Harris’s presidential bid after President Biden announced the end of his candidacy earlier in July.
More than 44,000 people logged onto a Zoom call organized by Win With Black Women to support Harris, raising over $1.5 million, organizers said. The call featured Bernice King, the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr.; 85-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the most senior Black woman in the House; and Donna Brazile, the two-time acting chair of the Democratic National Committee.That event also helped inspire similar fundraising calls for Black men and Latinas.
[Note from BenIndy: This post was first published on Stephen Golub’s blog, A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. There, Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.]
Image uncredited.
Summing up how Harris can win, can lose and what she needs to do.
Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land
Humanity. It’s a cliche for a politician to play up their human qualities, especially in the context of a campaign ad, but this one offers an insight about Harris that’s personal, poignant and a powerfully clear contrast with her opponent:
Enthusiasm. I’d bet that many of us have never experienced a surprising, joyous, politically driven emotional leap like we did the moment we learned that Biden dropped out; I’ll never forget getting my wife’s “OhMyGosh!” text.
Change. In a year when a vast number of voters were sick of their two alternatives, which this Jon Stewart rant aptly and furiously framed as a choice between a “megalomaniac and a suffocating gerontocracy,” Harris is a breath of fresh air compared to the tired, toxic cloud that’s Trump.
She’s telegenic. This shouldn’t matter but it does in an image-focused society where, to paraphrase an old Billy Crystal Saturday Night Live bit, it’s not how you feel (or think or act) – it’s how you look.
She projects positive, cheerful energy. In contrast with dour, “American carnage” Donald.
Black women’s votes and activism. Though it would be overly ambitious to see them as democracy’s saviors, public enthusiasm for her candidacy starts (but by no means ends) with the Democratic Party’s most loyal voting bloc; it could be crucial in turning out Black and other support, even in the predominantly white swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Young people’s votes and activism. Kamala is generating excitement among young voters dismayed by the former choice between Old and Older.
She’s not Biden. That’s a bit cruel but certainly true. In addition to the age difference, she can put together a speech, an argument and an appearance far better than Joe.
She’ll learn from Biden. Though her candidacy and campaign will unavoidably differ from his 2020 battle, she’ll profit by knowing what Biden did right and wrong along the way, as well as from his admirable presidency.
She’s not Clinton. She doesn’t have the baggage that burdened Hillary in 2016 by virtue of virtually ceaseless attacks on her over the course of her quarter-century on the national stage and hostility toward her even among some Democrats.
She’ll learn from Clinton. Among other things, she’s already on the attack and won’t be impeded by Hillary’s (and Michelle Obama’s) commendable but credulous “When they go low, we go high” sentiments because, in Kamala’s own words, “I know Trump’s type.”
She’ll learn from herself. Harris’s 2020 presidential candidacy did not go well, to put it mildly. She’s presumably learned from that.
Harris the prosecutor. As she puts it, she’ll “prosecute the case” against Trump in debates and otherwise, as the prosecutor takes on the felon and the cop tackles the crook.
A running start. Though I’d favored an open process for picking Biden’s replacement, Harris’s ability to quickly step into his campaign shoes and forestall opposition has been impressive – especially in contrast with that alternative process, which would have left the Democrats scrambling for a candidate who would then need to build a campaign practically from scratch after the Democratic Convention, weeks from now.
Timing. As Sarah Longwell of the conservative anti-Trump site The Bulwark points out, Harris benefits from a combination of circumstances coming together – including the contrast with Trump, the absence of a divisive primary contest and the short general election time frame – to propel and bolster her candidacy.
Project 25. Harris can and will attack the ambitious, nefarious “Project 25” plan, put forward by the Trump-supporting Heritage Foundation, which would restrict abortion rights nationally, replace many thousands of civil servants with political appointees, enable Trump to order FBI investigations and DOJ prosecutions of political opponents and otherwise wreak havoc on the country.
Trump’s deterioration since 2016. As demonstrated by his endless Republican Convention acceptance speech, he’s rambling, stumbling and bumbling through his tired “greatest hits” that may continue to excite his MAGA base but prompt more critical press and public attention.
Trump has even more piggish baggage than 2016. Among many other things, a jury found him liable for sexual abuse that the trial judge subsequently explained constitutes rape (via digital penetration) in many people’s and authorities’ eyes, including those of the U.S. Department of Justice and the American Psychological Association.
Trump doubled down on that baggage by picking a Mini-Me in Vance.Among many other things, J.D. has accused alleged “childless cat ladies” of running and ruining the country – and then himself foolishly doubled down by only seeking to make amends with cats.
Maybe most of all, women’s rights. As demonstrated by Trump’s and Vance’s conduct and words, the threat is not just about the Supreme Court cruelly and crucially overturning Roe v. Wade; it’s about an ongoing assault on women’s rights and equality, which Harris was smart to attack in her first campaign address by emphasizing “We’re not going back!”
Bad things going against her.
Sexism.
Racism.
Nativism. It’s sad that in a nation of immigrants Trump will use her being the child of immigrants against Harris, but just watch.
Harris the prosecutor. Though (as already noted) an asset in key respects, after spending most of her professional life in various prosecutorial roles Harris has to be more than this – and sometimes not a prosecutor at all – in strategizing and making her case to the public, which is not a courtroom.
Her California background. As justifiably important as it is to stand up for women, minorities and the disenfranchised in California (and everywhere else), a focus on those progressive priorities can backfire if she doesn’t take pains to reassure men and whites, if she can’t distance herself from policy positions unpopular in swing states and if she doesn’t also prioritize bread-and-butter economic issues that surveys indicate resonate for voters.
Voter suppression. We’ve been so busy with Biden’s withdrawal, Harris’s positive possibilities and Trump’s political depravities that we might overlook the ever-expanding Republican voter suppression playbook, which features many Republican-controlled states adopting laws and other restrictions that criminalize legitimate voter outreach and registration efforts; not surprisingly, Florida leads the way with fines of up to $250,000.
The maybes that will determine whether she wins.
Quickly flesh out her public image. As with some prior vice presidents, public knowledge about Harris is quite limited; she can positively shape and reshape her image, but has to move fast since Trump is trying to do same against her.
Stay on the attack. She’s off to a great start, but has to keep making Trump the focus – not that this will sway his supporters, but because it could affect the sliver of voters that will decide the election in the key swing states.
Show that the snipes against her are unfair or outdated. Criticisms of her high staff turnover, her disastrous 2020 primary campaign and other negative factors could help drag her down unless she counteracts them – something she’s strongly started to do with the fine roll-out of her campaign.
Counteract the VP snipes. She’ll particularly need to play up her contributions to the Biden Administration, ranging from her foreign policy roles to taking the lead on women’s rights (which she’s already ably doing), and combat the unfair blasts about her supposedly being a failed “Border Czar” when in fact she had far narrower responsibilities, mainly regarding the root causes of Central American immigration.
Pick a good running mate. With no shortage of fine candidates out there, I’ll favor Arizona Senator Mark Kelly as a former combat jet pilot and astronaut who movingly supported his wife (former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords) and campaigned for gun control after a mass shooting gravely wounded her and who speaks powerfully about Harris’s potentially most vulnerable issue, immigration.
Persuade Americans to choose hope over hate. I’ll close by borrowing a page from Harris’s own playbook, and hope that the message and messenger will triumph at this turning point in America’s history. I believe that they will.
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