Quit Procrastinating: Hawaii's Primary Election Is Almost Here - Honolulu Civil Beat

I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be sitting at the kitchen table this weekend and tackling Hawaii’s primary ballot.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve put it off. This has been a very weird election season so far. The pandemic has thrown everything into kind of a political haze — no candidates wanting to chat at the front door, no neighborhood forums to drop in on. It even seems like sign-waving has fallen off.

Yet Aug. 8 is almost here. Elections officials urge you to drop your ballot in the mail by Monday — five days early — to make sure it gets in their hands on time.

Here at Civil Beat, covering the virus and its economic fallout has taken a lot of our collective energy. And then came the Black Lives Matter protests, and an almost hurricane. I think there was a legislative session or two or three in there somewhere.

The pandemic may have disrupted traditional campaigning this election season, but candidates are still finding ways to get their messages out, like this giant sign on King Street.

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But we’ve tried to keep up with the campaign politics, too. So here’s a quick guide to how to find plenty of information to help you decide how to mark your ballot.

We have a special section on the candidates running for Honolulu mayor, arguably the biggest race on the ballot this year for Oahu residents. Mayor Kirk Caldwell is term-limited out, leaving the seat open. Although 15 people filed for the office, five of them quickly surfaced as leading contenders, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and attracting solid response from potential voters in early polls.

This year, more candidates than ever completed our questionnaires that seek to get at their views on the issues we think are important. I think many of them probably found the Q&As a good way to get their information before the voters at a time when the traditional campaign tactics were disrupted by a pandemic.

The best way to find the ones you’re interested in is on our Hawaii Elections 2020: Primary Election Ballot. If there’s no link, that means the candidate did not respond, possibly because they didn’t have a contested primary race. (Candidates: Our elections editor, Richard Wiens, will be pestering you again once the primary is over and we hope to get even more Q&As published in time for the general election on Nov. 3.)

Of the 329 people seeking elective office across the islands, 202 responded to Civil Beat’s surveys. All of those responses have now been published.

In 2018, about 140 candidates had responded to surveys at this point, and in 2016, the pre-primary total was 104.

Of the 20 candidates for the Honolulu City Council, all but two answered the surveys. The opportunity to learn more about their views is especially important this year, when not a single incumbent is running in any of the five races.

Honolulu is also due for a new mayor, and 12 of the 15 candidates answered the surveys, including all of the major contenders. Ditto for Honolulu prosecutor, where we got responses from five of the seven office-seekers.

Neighbor island candidates are also well-represented, with 11 responses from the field of 15 for Hawaii County mayor, 12 out of 20 for Maui County Council and 14 of 21 for the Kauai County Council.

And remember that all Hawaii voters get a say in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections. We received responses from 18 of 24 OHA candidates. The OHA Q&As are some of the most clicked on every year and this year they’ve already been viewed by thousands of readers.

Many of the office-seekers consider this a seminal moment for the islands: an opportunity to make the visitor industry both more profitable and less harmful to our environment while also encouraging an agricultural renaissance and the growth of new industries to make us more self-sufficient.

They also sound off on issues such as police accountability, climate change preparations and government transparency before identifying their own top concerns and reasons for running.

Our news stories and columns on the 2020 elections and candidates can be found on this landing page: Elections 2020.

And our Hawaii Elections Guide 2020 provides a lot of information on the races, the parties and campaign finances along with important links to state and county election sites and even places you can follow the money and the politics on your own.

This is the first year Hawaii elections will be conducted solely by mail. State elections officials say they sent out more than 700,000 ballots and already many have been returned.

Honolulu elections officials said nearly 120,000 had been returned by late this past week, sparking hopes that turnout will be much improved.

And that would be a great thing. This year is particularly important to pay attention to the people who are running this place. We hope our reporting efforts help you make up your mind who you want leading the state and local governments for the next few years.

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Quit Procrastinating: Hawaii's Primary Election Is Almost Here - Honolulu Civil Beat
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Bars Forced to Stop Indoor Service Amid Coronavirus Increase Can Apply For Sidewalk Cafe Permit: Lightfoot - WTTW News

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Chicago bars ordered to stop serving customers indoors as part of a rollback ordered by Mayor Lori Lightfoot following an increase in the number of coronavirus cases can apply to open a sidewalk cafe, city officials announced Friday.

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Bars, taverns, breweries and other establishments that don't have a retail food license permitting them to serve food were blocked on July 24 from serving customers indoors as Lightfoot and health officials work to stamp out an increasing number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.

However, the 450 bars forced to close can apply for a permit to temporarily operate on the sidewalk in front of their establishment, city officials said Friday. In addition, all restaurants and bars with a sidewalk cafe permit can serve customers in outdoor areas that would typically require an outdoor patio license from the city, officials said.

“While we’ve had to implement restrictions and take hard measures to combat a recent rise COVID-19 activity, we will continue to ensure our restaurants, bars and businesses have the supports they need to survive during these unprecedented times,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

But the sidewalk cafes must allow six feet of space for pedestrians and be enclosed by a barrier. In addition, bars must partner with a restaurant to offer food to those imbibing, officials said.

City officials have fast-tracked applications from restaurants and cafes to serve customers outdoors in an effort to help restaurants stay afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The city has issued 840 active sidewalk cafe permits as well as an additional 614 outdoor patio licenses, allowing eateries to permanently operate outdoors on private property or on rooftops, officials said.

In addition, a program that has closed off streets around the city to traffic in order to allow local restaurants to expand their operations to offer socially distanced, outdoor seating options now includes 145 eateries. 

When Gov. J.B. Pritzker lifted the stay-at-home order at the end of May, Lightfoot was reluctant to allow bars that do not serve food to reopen, telling reporters the distinction was made out of concern that people become less inhibited when they drink, making them susceptible to ignoring social distancing guidelines.

Those bars were also the first to be closed when a sustained increase in the number of coronavirus cases spurred Lightfoot to act.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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Here Are the Billionaires Funding Trump's Voter Suppression Lawsuits - Sludge

With millions of people out of work and struggling to keep up with their bills because of the coronavirus shutdown, the federal government has passed new tax breaks for the rich and created trillions for bailing out large corporations. The 2020 election could give voters a chance to remove the politicians who enacted these policies, but if the Trump administration and Republican Party get their way, many voters will be forced to put their health at risk by voting in-person in November, almost certainly before a vaccine or a reliable treatment for the coronavirus is available.

For the past several months, national Republican have been at war in the courts over state policies—advanced mainly by Democrats, but also by Republicans in some states—designed to make it easier for people to safely vote. In more than a dozen states, including battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Michigan, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has initiated or joined lawsuits to block states from expanding vote-by-mail systems or to oppose Democratic lawsuits in states that have resisted putting universal vote-by-mail systems in place. The lawsuits are financed by a $20 million litigation budget that the Republicans have amassed for fighting Democrats on voting issues. 

Trump and Republicans have repeatedly said that mail ballots are more susceptible to electoral fraud, though nonpartisan groups like Brennan Center for Justice say there is “no evidence” that voting by mail results in significant levels of fraud. Trump has said that he believes high levels of voting hurts Republicans. 

“My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump told Politico in June. “We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think—I think it puts the election at risk.”

In Pennsylvania, a key swing state, the RNC has sued to stop state officials from making remote drop boxes available for voters to submit their ballots and from counting ballots that are mailed without being sealed in internal secrecy envelopes. In Iowa, another swing state, the RNC joined a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Democratic groups that seeks to overturn a law barring election officials from using voter rolls to look up information missing on mailed ballots. In California, the RNC filed a lawsuit in partnership with other Republican groups to prevent state election officials from following an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom to mail absentee ballots to all voters, but recently conceded after the legislature passed a legislative version of the order.

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In a tweet on Thursday, now pinned to his profile, Trump said, “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” adding, “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” Election experts like Rick Hasen, Professor of Law and Political Science at UC Irvine, interpret Trump’s tweet as encouraging the continued slowdown of the U.S. Postal Service and withholding of needed funding from state boards of election to prepare vote-by-mail systems.

Trump recently selected former RNC convention finance chair Louis DeJoy to the position of postmaster general. Besides helping to raise money for the RNC, DeJoy has donated $122,500 to the RNC legal fund. 

The RNC legal proceedings account has raised more than $23 million so far in the 2019-20 election cycle, including transfers from a Trump joint fundraising committee and large donations from more than two dozen billionaires, according to Sludge’s review of Federal Election Commission records.

While a Biden administration is unlikely to substantially roll back upwards wealth redistribution, the billionaires backing the lawsuits would almost certainly fare better under another four years of Trump. Biden, for example, has said he would try to end Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, which has disproportionately benefited the wealthy. According to research from University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, Trump’s tax bill reduced tax rates for the country’s 400 richest households below the level that any other income group pays.  

Below is a table of the billionaires, per Forbes latest list, who have donated to the RNC legal proceedings account so far this election cycle, including donations from spouses of billionaires. The donations listed below comprise about 15% of the total amount that the RNC legal proceedings account has received from individuals this cycle. 

At least 17 of the 24 billionaire donors to the RNC legal fund are among the top 400 wealthiest American households as ranked by Forbes magazine, including the following: Kelcy Warren, CEO of natural gas and propane pipeline giant Energy Transfer Partners, net worth $4.3 billion; Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of The Blackstone Group private equity firm, net worth $17.7 billion; and Charles Schwab, net worth $7.7 billion. Two more top donor families, those of Fertitta brothers Lorenzo and Frank III, fall just outside the top 400 richest Americans, with net worth around $1.6 billion apiece. 

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Dark Money Assistance

Also siding with the RNC on the lawsuits is a network of conservative “dark money” nonprofits tied through personnel and funding to groups that have worked to build support for the confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and to elect conservtaive judges to state supreme courts. 

One such group that recently emerged, the Honest Election Project, is a rebrand of the shadowy Judicial Education Project, according to OpenSecrets and The Guardian. The Judicial Education Project is established as a charity, allowing it to keep the sources of its millions of dollars in annual revenue hidden. In addition to its election lawsuit work as the Honest Elections Project, it makes grants to consevrative groups including SpeechNow, which helped establish the legal basis for super PACs through a 2010 case against the FEC. The Honest Election Project also funds Private Citizen, a First Amendment legal expense fund, and the George Mason University Foundation, a law school that established conservative ideological law centers and hired multiple Federalist Society-linked academics after receiving millions in donations from the Charles Koch Foundation.

The Honest Elections Project, which shares a law firm with the RNC, Viriginia-based Consovoy McCarthy PPLC, has filed multiple briefs in states and federal courts defending states against lawsuits from Democrat-aligned groups that seek to expand mail voting or ease requirements on ballot signatures. It also worked to force states to clean up voter registration rolls, a process that critics have labeled “purging.” The group recently spent $250,000 to run ads on cable news channels claiming that Democrats have sought to expand mail voting for partisan advantage and advocating for limited or no changes to voting laws to accommodate voters during the pandemic. 

According to OpenSecrets and The Guardian, Judicial Education Project (the Honest Elections Project’s alias) has been funded almost entirely by DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund sponsor that specializes in helping conservative donors anonymously fund “sensitive or controversial issues” while also securing special tax advantages. DonorsTrust has been a major funder of groups in the Koch network, including Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the State Policy Network, and in 2018 it provided 99% of Judicial Education Project’s funding.

Read more from Sludge:

Dark Money Floods in to State Elections, Revealing Cracks in Disclosure Laws

Trump Admin Bails Out Oil and Gas Companies That Gave Millions to GOP Groups

Trump Admin Finalizes Rule That Could Protect Foreign Dark Money in Elections

Three More States Expand Vote-By-Mail, Leaving Five Holdouts

Every day, the reporters at Sludge are relentlessly following the money to reveal the hidden networks and conflicts of interest that drive political corruption. We are 100% ad-free and reader supported, so we’re counting on our readers to help us continue calling out powerful politicians and lobbyists. If you appreciate the work we do, please consider becoming a member for $5 a month to support our investigative journalism. We can’t do this work without your support.

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Here Are the Billionaires Funding Trump's Voter Suppression Lawsuits - Sludge
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Google’s ‘trust tokens’ are here to take cookies down a peg - The Verge

Google said earlier this year it would join other web browser companies to block third-party cookies in Chrome, and today, developers have their first chance to test a proposed alternative to tracking users across the web: trust tokens.

Unlike cookies, trust tokens are designed to authenticate a user without needing to know their identity. Trust tokens would not be able to track users across websites, because they’re theoretically all the same, but they could still let websites prove to advertisers that actual users — not bots — visited a site or clicked on an ad. (An explainer on GitHub suggests that websites could issue multiple different kinds of trust tokens, though.)

Google’s been a little slower to adapt a solution for the third-party tracking cookies that everyone seemingly hates; Safari and Firefox already block them by default, though Safari is more aggressive about it. But Mike Schulman, Google’s vice president for ads privacy and safety, reiterated in a blog post that the company still plans to eventually phase out third-party cookies in Chrome as well.

In addition, Google is making some tweaks to the “why this ad” button that lets you see why some ads are targeted to you. The new “about this ad” label will now provide the verified name of the advertiser, too, so you can tell which companies are targeting you, and make it clearer to people how Google collects personal data for ads. The new labels will begin rolling out toward the end of the year.

The company also announced an extension for its Chrome browser, currently in alpha, called Ads Transparency Spotlight, which should provide “detailed information about all the ads they see on the web.” Users will be able to see details about ads on a given page, see why ads are shown on a page, and a list of other companies and services with a presence on the page, such as website analytics or content delivery networks.

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Google’s ‘trust tokens’ are here to take cookies down a peg - The Verge
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'We're dying here,' Florida newspaper says in pleading with governor to issue a statewide mask mandate - CNN

The Sun Sentinel editorial board asked him to issue a statewide face mask mandate in an editorial titled, "Help us out, Gov. DeSantis. We're dying here."

"Help us all out. Far better that you require people to wear masks in public than to continue fostering conditions that will force another shutdown," the editorial said.

"Your refusal to impose a mask order -- a requirement now in effect in 32 other states -- is out-of-touch with the mainstream. A new Quinnipiac poll found 79 percent of Floridians support a mask requirement, including 60 percent of Republicans. If that's not a mandate, what is?"

DeSantis encourages people to wear masks but is leaving it up to local governments to issue mask mandates, saying a state mandate punishable by law could backfire.

The governor said that some local sheriffs have said they would not enforce such a law and there are parts of the state where a mandate wouldn't make sense. Businesses also have the right to ask customers to wear masks, he said

Florida set a new record for the number of deaths in a day for the fourth day in a row. The 257 deaths reported on Friday is the highest the state has reported since the pandemic began, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.

"Your daily upbeat message is hopelessly at odds with what Floridians are going through," the editorial said. "You make it sound like everything is headed in the right direction. But it's not."

A study has shown that wearing a face covering or mask is the most effective way to limit the person-to-person spread of coronavirus, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that everyone should wear them when around other people in public.

Florida reported 9,007 new coronavirus cases in the state on Friday, which brings the total to at least 470,300, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Florida is second in total cases only to California and ahead of New York, which was once considered the epicenter of the pandemic in the US.

CNN's Tina Burnside and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.

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HiRa Cafe & Patisserie Brings Ethiopian Cake-And-Coffee Culture to Aurora - 5280 | The Denver Magazine

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Owner Hiwot Solomon and her Black Forest cake at HiRa Cafe & Patisserie. Photo by Sarah Boyum

Hiwot Solomon is obsessed with baking. Her cousin, Mickias Alamirew, is equally devoted to Ethiopian coffee. Together, they have re-created their homeland’s delicious (albeit postcolonial) tradition of pairing a Western-style dessert with a cup of coffee at Solomon’s Aurora bakery, HiRa Cafe & Patisserie. Solomon has vivid memories of visiting similar cafes in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, for a slice of cake and a cup, a custom she says Ethiopians adhere to whether in their native country or elsewhere in the world. Baking cakes began as a hobby in 2006 when, at age 26, she immigrated to Aurora. Following a decade of working as a restaurant server and with ample encouragement from family and friends, she decided she wanted to make it her career. After earning a pastry and baking degree from the Art Institute of Colorado, Solomon opened HiRa Cafe in February 2019. Since then, she has garnered a loyal following for her fluffy, gently sweet mousse and Black Forest cakes, cardamom- and nutmeg-spiced vanilla sablé cookies, cream puffs, croissants, and ethereal tiramisù made with her cousin’s house-roasted, single-origin Ethiopian brew. You can call ahead to have Solomon make you a custom cake for your next celebration—but don’t wait for a special occasion to visit her bright, peaceful shop for Ethiopian breakfast plates or a sweet treat and a cup of coffee with a friend.

This article appeared in the August 2020 issue of 5280.

Denise Mickelsen, Food Editor

Denise Mickelsen oversees all of 5280’s food-related coverage, and feels damn lucky to do so. Follow her on Instagram @DeniseMickelsen.

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Survivors: Viral post leads to business boom for Tropical Ice Cream Cafe - Washington Business Journal

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Survivors: Viral post leads to business boom for Tropical Ice Cream Cafe  Washington Business Journal

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Andrew Cuomo: Coronavirus Tests Can Have Fast Results, Here’s How - The New York Times

It’s been six months since the United States reported its first coronavirus case, and getting a test can still take days. National labs are overwhelmed, leaving people to wait as much as two weeks for results. Every day that testing falls short is another day the virus can spread undetected, costing lives and delaying the reopening of our economy, schools and society.

As states try to control the virus and as Congress considers the fourth Covid-19 relief bill, New York offers important lessons on how to fix the testing mess.

Over the last 10 weeks, New York has used testing to not only flatten the curve, but actually reduce the rate of infection since our phased reopening started. We have kept our testing rates high through partnerships with federal and local governments. In February and early March, New York worked with the Food and Drug Administration to gain the necessary approvals to begin using our own coronavirus test and mobilize a network of hundreds of labs. In April, when our labs were struggling because of shortages of a necessary chemical ingredient, reagents, President Trump and I reached an agreement that helped double New York’s capacity.

Here’s what states should do to build a sustainable testing operation, and how Congress can help.

Mobilize smaller local labs. Almost all states are now using a handful of national testing companies, and they are overwhelmed. New York has managed to avoid the delays because more than 80 percent of our testing does not depend on the national laboratories experiencing long turnaround times for results.

In the early days of the pandemic, New York organized hundreds of local labs to conduct as many tests as possible. We moved equipment sitting idle to labs that could run them around the clock. Today, more than 250 labs in the state report results each day — some conducting 10 tests daily, some thousands. All together, New York can now conduct on average 65,000 tests a day.

And while any lag time is not ideal, over the past week, more than 85 percent of New York’s tests took a median of just two days (and an average of three days) from collection to result, and lags will continue to shorten as we move tests from labs with backlogs to labs without.

Each state should mobilize its own network of laboratories, which will take pressure off the major national labs, reduce reporting times and arm states with data that can help slow the spread of the virus. Congress should dedicate money to help develop the capacity of local laboratories and ensure federal agencies can provide speedy approvals and technical assistance to states.

Streamline the supply chain. In New York and other states, there are high-capacity labs running at partial capacity because they don’t have enough supplies.

How can it be, six months after America’s first case was reported, that the United States still doesn’t have an adequate supply chain? What labs need — reagents and plastic pipette tips — are not complicated to manufacture. They can, and should, be made in mass quantity, immediately, and here at home.

New York invested $750,000 in Rheonix, an Ithaca-based manufacturer, to build lab instruments and make reagent kits, which are now being used for thousands of tests daily. States should tap their local manufacturing companies to compensate for international shortages, and Congress should allocate funding for businesses that fill these needs.

Invest in innovative solutions. The Food and Drug Administration recently approved pooled testing, where multiple samples are run at once, increasing capacity and saving lab supplies. But for one national lab, the approved pool size is just four samples. In Wuhan, China, up to 10 specimens were pooled, allowing the city to increase its capacity to 1.5 million tests daily, up from 46,000 tests daily.

The federal government should direct research money so that labs can increase their pool size, while ensuring accuracy. With flu season on the way, Congress and federal agencies should also invest in developing widely available single tests that can detect multiple respiratory viruses, including the coronavirus and different types of influenza.

Congress should also invest in developing more tests that can give results in minutes and that can be administered at workplaces, not just labs. The F.D.A. has approved only a handful of these devices, and they are not widely available.

Fund all necessary testing. Currently, under federal rules, “medically necessary” testing is free for those with Covid-19 symptoms, as well as asymptomatic people who have been exposed to the virus.

But states should be able to conduct broad community screening — 40 percent of infected people are asymptomatic — to detect the virus and control its spread. For example, Congress should ensure testing is free for individuals who attend mass gatherings, regularly ride public transportation or interact with members of the public at work.

New York is proof that a real testing strategy can control Covid-19. But our future success depends on other states to do the same — a virus anywhere is a virus everywhere.

There can be no economic recovery without each state having a sustainable testing strategy. New York has already advised other cities, and we stand ready to help any state or local government replicate our success.

Andrew M. Cuomo is the governor of New York.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Center City Music Venue to Reopen This Weekend — Without a Live Audience - Philadelphia magazine

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Philadelphia's longest running jazz club pivots to a livestream-only model for the foreseeable future.

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Philadelphia music venue Chris’ Jazz Cafe, which is reopening with a livestream-only model for the foreseeable future. (Photo via Creative Commons/Flickr)

Prior to 2020, Philadelphia music venue Chris’ Jazz Cafe had presented 500 performances every year for the last couple of decades, with sometimes as many as three shows in one night. But then 2020 hit. Like a Mack truck. And so, like so many business have since we all became intimately familiar with the term COVID-19, Chris’ Jazz Cafe is, as they say, pivoting.

Beginning on Saturday, the longest continuously operating jazz club in Philadelphia will reopen without live in-person audiences, which it can’t have right now, instead presenting all shows as livestreams. It is the first live music venue in Philadelphia to do so.

“Never in a million years when I first took over the club in 2000 did I think we would turn a cozy, live music setting into a virtual event venue to be enjoyed by millions of jazz aficionados worldwide,” says Mark DeNinno, the owner of Chris’ Jazz Cafe, noting the potential reach of a virtual event over time, since the performances will be archived. “But we’ve figured out how to adapt to an unprecedented global event and stay ‘open’ while preserving the legacy of Chris’, which is synonymous with world-class musical entertainment.”

A technician works a robotic camera during a test of the Chris’ Jazz Cafe livestream.

DeNinno, who is also the head chef at Chris’, estimates that he invested about $25,000 into technology to transform the club into a virtual venue, which included, among many other updates, several remote-controlled HD cameras.

“Unlike many other livestreams, where a static camera focuses on stage, for viewers watching at home it will feel like they are actually experiencing the show from the club as we’ll utilize a multitude of camera angles, shots and effects,” he says.

Here’s a video the club put together documenting the process:

The first events this weekend and next are donation-based fundraisers for the legendary Philadelphia-based jazz guitarist Pat Martino, who has been ill for some time. After that, all shows on the lineup thus far cost $5.

But when will the club get back to, ya know, regular-old concerts with regular-old audiences inside of 1421 Sansom Street?

“When they let us back inside, we’ll see what the climate is like and how people feel and we’ll bring them back in at a very reduced capacity,” says DeNinno. “But I have to tell you, there’s still so much boarded up in this section of the city, so I’m really not sure what is going to happen. I saw this lawyer I know on the street the other day who told me how much he misses my fried chicken. I told him that I’ll make it for him when we reopen. ‘I’m not coming back,’ he told me. ‘I just shuttered my office, because I realized how easy it is to work from home.’ So who knows?”

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In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here’s What They Seek Now. - The New York Times

Native women were highly visible in early 20th-century suffrage activism. White suffragists, fascinated by Native matriarchal power, invited Native women to speak at conferences, join parades, and write for their publications. Native suffragists took advantage of these opportunities to speak about pressing issues in their communities — Native voting, land loss and treaty rights. But their stories have largely been forgotten.

After the 19th Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, and celebrated by millions of women across the country, the Indigenous suffragist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa, a citizen of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, reminded newly enfranchised white women that the fight was far from over. “The Indian woman rejoices with you,” she proclaimed to members of Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party, but she urged them to remember their Native sisters, many of whom lacked the right to vote. Not only that, she explained, many were not U.S. citizens, but legally wards of the government, without a political voice to address the many problems facing their communities.

Bonnin and other Native suffragists would continue to remind audiences that federal assimilation policy had attacked their communities and cultures. Despite treaty promises, the United States dismantled tribal governments, privatized tribally-held land, and removed Native children to boarding schools. Those devastating policies resulted in massive land loss, poverty and poor health that reverberate through these communities today.

Native suffragists’ activism contributed to Congress passing the Snyder Act of 1924, which extended U.S. citizenship to all Native people; though in response many states enacted Jim Crow-like policies aimed at disfranchising Indians. The Native suffragists also aided the push for the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934, which stopped the breakup of tribal lands and emphasized tribal self-governance.

President Calvin Coolidge with a Native delegation, possibly from the Plateau area in the Northwestern United States, near the South Lawn of the White House in 1925, the year after the passage of the Snyder Act.Credit...Library of Congress

As the centennial of the 19th Amendment approaches, it is worth taking up Bonnin’s call to remember Native women and their full range of political experiences. With this in mind, Prof. Cathleen D. Cahill, a historian who has written about Native suffragists, joined Prof. Sarah Deer, a scholar of Native law and a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, to talk about issues Native women face today. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Cathleen D. Cahill:

You have spent much of your career addressing the issue of violence against Native women, including in your book, “The Beginning and End of Rape.” Native women have been calling attention to this kind of violence for more than a century. Why are Native women especially vulnerable?

Sarah Deer:

I’m a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and I have been working to address violence against Native women for over 25 years. I started when I was 20 years old as a volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual assault, and that experience inspired me to go to law school. It was in federal Indian law classes that I began to understand the reasons for the high rate of violence. Quite simply, the criminal legal system in Indian Country is broken. What else could explain these statistics: Over 84 percent of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, and over 56 percent of Native women have experienced sexual violence. This is data directly from the federal government — and these are probably low estimates.

To make matters worse, in 1978 the Supreme Court ruled that tribal nations lack authority to prosecute non-Natives — again, for any crime. Many experts believe this is one of the reasons Native people experience the highest rates of interracial violence in the nation. A system that doesn’t hold people accountable sends two message — to victims, it says “don’t bother to report” — and to perpetrators, it says “keep victimizing people.”

Cahill: That’s really awful. In the 1920s Gertrude Simmons Bonnin drew similar connections between violence against Native women and the fact that federal policies had dismantled tribal governments and made Indian people “wards” without any political power. That seems like such a long time ago, but the July 9 Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma demonstrates that the past is so clearly present in Indian Country. Can you talk about the ruling’s ramifications?

Deer: Indian law scholars are calling this the greatest win for tribal governments in the last 50 years. It also hits close to home — it was a victory for my own tribal nation.

Our Nation signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1866 which established specific boundaries for our reservation — about 3 million acres. The United States promised that this reservation would “be forever set apart as a home for said Creek Nation.” Seems simple, right?

Throughout the 20th century, though, the state of Oklahoma ignored the treaty and gradually began exercising criminal and civil authority over the reservation, denying its existence.

An 1892 map of the Indian and Oklahoma territories showing the boundaries of tribal reservations. Soon after, the federal government started the process of dividing the tribally-held land despite resistance by tribal leaders. Credit...Library of Congress

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, written by Justice Gorsuch, determined that the Creek reservation boundaries were never disestablished; the reservation promised to the Creek people in 1866 is still in full force.

Tribal issues don’t fare well in the U.S. Supreme Court — losing over 75 percent of the time — so this was an unlikely win, and a tremendous win; the legal reasoning in this decision will have far-reaching implications for many different tribal nations who are attempting to preserve land and resources. Your research has looked into the role of Native women in the American suffrage movement. I’d love to learn more.

Cahill: White feminists were inspired by the matriarchal traditions of Native people. They especially looked to Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) women’s power to appoint male political leadership, control their property, and have custodial rights to their children — those were legal rights white women did not have. They wanted to hear more and often invited Native women to speak at their meetings. This gave Native activists a chance to educate their audiences and while they did proudly talk about their traditions, they also insisted on talking about the problems that faced “the Indian woman of today,” as Bonnin put it.

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, posing with floral pattern beadwork on her wrists and behind her to showcase Native women’s artistry. In 1914 she became one of the first Native American women in the U.S. to graduate from law school.  Credit...Library of Congress

A good example of this is when organizers asked Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, to put together a float for the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington. They wanted the float to portray Native women as they were in the past, you know, wearing buckskin with their hair in braids, that kind of thing. Baldwin was deeply aware of the power of imagery in shaping public perceptions of Native Americans, so she used her image strategically. She decided not to organize the float, and instead marched with her classmates and teachers from the Washington College of Law. I think she was making a statement that Native women were modern New Women who were looking to the future. She also thought it was important for Native people to study law to protect their land and treaty rights. She was one of the first Native woman to graduate from law school, in 1914. You’re also an attorney (and a tribal court justice). What do you think is the role of legal training for Native women in the 21st century?

Deer: Access to legal education is a critical step to strengthening tribal sovereignty. There are still relatively few Native attorneys in the United States, but the numbers are increasing. There are also only a handful of Native women law professors. Nonetheless, Native people are actively litigating important questions of tribal jurisdiction, land rights and criminal authority. Native women serve on tribal courts, but there are also Native women who serve on state benches. Diane Humetewa (Hopi) became the first Native woman appointed to the federal bench in 2014. Some Native attorneys focus their work on legislation like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which contains significant provisions that directly affect tribal justice systems. Native women have also been leading the movements to address environmental abuses and pipelines. At Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, in particular, women were doing most of the organizing and decision-making in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), a Ho-Chunk citizen, at a news conference on March 10, 2020.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) of the Laguna Pueblo, at a press conference on June 19, 2019 in Washington, D.C.Credit...Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images

Cahill: One striking thing just in the past few years is the growing number of Native women running for state and federal offices. The first Native women in Congress were just elected in 2018: Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo represents New Mexico and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk citizen, represents your state of Kansas. Native men have served in Congress for well over a century, but they are the first Native women to hold office in Washington. What does it mean to have Native women in Congress or other elected offices?

Deer: Native women have served in state legislatures for many years, but we are now seeing a critical mass of new Native women politicians. Today, we have one Native woman in the Kansas House, and another young Native woman is campaigning for the Kansas House as well. In Minnesota, White Earth citizen Peggy Flanagan, became the first Native women to be elected as a lieutenant governor in the United States in 2018.

When Haaland and Davids were elected as the first two Native women in Congress, it was seen as a tremendous victory for Native people. It seems fitting that there were two women elected together. From my perspective, being the “first” or “only” Native woman serving in Congress could be a lonely experience. A “partnership” of two Native women perhaps makes it easier to achieve great things in Congress. For far too long, Congress has been passing laws to limit the power of tribal governments without any tribal input. It is far past time for us to have a seat at the table.

Cahill: Absolutely. And that is so important to remember when we think about the anniversary of the suffrage amendment. For all suffragists, getting the vote wasn’t an end point, it was the possibility for change that voting opened up. Native suffragists saw the vote as a way to change the awful circumstances that faced Native communities at the time. One hundred years later, what’s next for Indigenous feminism?

Deer: I’m still basking in the afterglow of the McGirt decision, so I’m optimistic about the future for Native women and tribal nations. I hope to see more Native women elected to public office — at all levels, tribal, state, and national. We have been politically and symbolically disenfranchised for too long. I’m so glad our issues are getting more national attention.

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Cathleen D. Cahill is an associate professor of history at Penn State University and the author of the forthcoming “Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement.”

Sarah Deer is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a professor at the University of Kansas.

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Under Armour CEO Patrik Frisk says 'tentative' shoppers are here to stay thanks to pandemic - CNBC

Under Armour's stores are opening back up across the county after being forced shut due to the Covid-19 crisis, but shoppers aren't showing up like they used to, according to the retailer's CEO. 

"The consumer is there, but they are still nowhere near pre-Covid levels ... there is hesitancy there," Under Armour Chief Executive Patrik Frisk told CNBC's Sara Eisen on Friday morning, on the heels of the company's second-quarter earnings report. 

"The consumer is out there shopping, and when they do shop conversion is better," he said. "But the traffic is still depressed. ... We think that kind of tentative approach from the consumer is going to stay." 

Under Armour shares were falling more than 8% Friday afternoon, after management said during an earnings call that the company is forecasting revenue to be down between 20% and 25% in the back half of the year. Within that time frame, it said declines could be worse during the fourth quarter, which includes the all-important holiday season. And it also warned 2020 gross margins could end the year down on a year-over-year basis, due to heightened promotional activity. 

"We are taking a more conservative outlook around the back half of the year," Frisk said on CNBC. 

"We don't know how the consumer is going to be navigating the back half of this year … how back-to-school is going to play out," he said. 

Under Armour isn't alone in navigating such uncharted territories in the retail industry. Analysts say the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons this year could be like nothing these companies have ever experienced before, making planning for demand both in stores and online much more difficult. 

Few retailers have offered Wall Street a 2020 outlook, as some have already mentioned preparing for a potential second wave of Covid-19 cases spiking in the U.S. 

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Minority-Owned Vegan-Friendly Cafe Opens in Glassell Park - VegOut Media LLC

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Little Barn Coffee House just opened in Glassell Park with vegan options galore. And when we say “options,” we actually mean that the entire menu is vegan with the exception of eggs being served upon request––oh, how the tables have turned!

RELATED: Here's Where to Get Vegan Flan in Los Angeles

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Owners Seleste Diaz and Joana Rubio used to work together at Chango Coffee. Since its closure in 2018, the duo dreamed of opening up a caffeine cafe of their own. That dream has turned into a reality with the opening of Little Barn Coffee House this past Saturday.

As women of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community, Diaz and Rubio shared, “Our mission is to provide to all communities in which no one will be discriminated against.” They gathered up a team of independent women passionate about their mission and got to serving the most mouth-watering dishes. Little Barn’s menu offers a wide range of vegan sips and eats including an Oat Horchata Cold Brew, Build Your Own Vegan Omelette, Reuben Sandwich, Vegan Queso con Rajas Tamales, and more. They also stock vegan pastries from Ridiculous Baking Co.!

This plant-forward cafe took over the space where Division 3 used to reside in Glassell Park (3329 Division Street). Stop by from 7am to 3pm daily or place an order for delivery on Postmates!

“Let’s not forget the fear during these struggling times, it seems like a risk to start a new business but how do you get ahead without taking the risk? We are working very hard in taking the right precautions to keep our family and friends safe, caffeinated, nourished. We invite you all to be a part of our new chapter in life and let us feed you and spread a message of love,” stated Diaz and Rubio.

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18th Street Could Become a Giant Outdoor Cafe - Eater SF

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A Castro District street could completely close to allow outdoor dining, but some merchants are against the plan

The Castro District is expected to join the Mission and Chinatown’s efforts to enable outdoor dining, by closing a stretch of street in the area. While some restaurants are excited about the plan, would could launch as soon as next Friday, some merchants say it could further stifle their business.

According to the Bay Area Reporter, the Castro Merchants business association has applied to close 18th Street between Hartford and Castro streets and between Castro and Collingwood streets on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 1-10 p.m. The SFMTA is expected to approve the closure this coming Monday, the BAR says, and the first shutdown could happen on Friday, August 7.

Though some area restaurants say they are thrilled, merchants like Patrick Batt, who owns gay porn and collectables shop Auto Erotica, worry that the loss of parking might drive business away. It’s an issue that’s also come up in Palo Alto, where a stretch of University Avenue has been closed for the summer. Rob Fischer, who owns three businesses near University’s trafficless stretch (an ice cream shop, a restaurant, and a wine bar), says that he’s circulating a petition to curtail that city’s street closure, the Palo Alto Daily Post reports. He expects to present the petition, which calls on the city to end the experiment in August, to the Palo Alto town council next week.

And in other news...

• The windows of North Beach Italian spot Trattoria Pinocchio are plastered with a slew of bigoted, racist, and otherwise offensive signs written in Italian and English. The owner of the restaurant has refused comment, but as the signs are taped on from the interior side of the space, it seems likely that the nose is growing from inside the house. [KRON 4]
• Nearly two years after the owners of Lower Haight brewpub Black Sands sold the business to Fort Point Beer Company, and six months after it was shuttered for a massive renovation, the doors at 701 Haight Street have reopened. Now the beer spot is simply called “Fort Point,” the fourth such location in the city. There’s outdoor seating, and a menu of hot dogs to go with the brews. [Hoodline]
• Martin Cate, the owner of Civic Center-area rum bar Smuggler’s Cove, says that he scored a $150,000 Payment Protection Program (PPP) loan, but he can’t use any of it — his place doesn’t serve food (nor, it appears, is he open to partnering with a restaurant), so he can’t reopen for the foreseeable future. [SF Gate]
• Berkeley’s iconic Chez Panisse has launched a sandwich of the week program: this week it’s a BLT with Fatted Calf bacon, heirloom tomatoes, basil mayonnaise and arugula. Aka a BAT, right? Folks must order on Tuesdays for Friday pickups, so this only works for advance sandwich planning types. [Berkeleyside]
• High-profile Divisadero hangout spot Vinyl Coffee & Wine Bar is scooting to 1673 Haight Street, where its owner used to operate craft brew destination Stanza Coffee. [Hoodline]
• A racial equity-focused beer movement called Black is Beautiful is helping local breweries sell out of their imperial stout offerings. [SF Chronicle]
• Imm Thai Street Food, a six-year old restaurant reliant on the business provided by UC Berkeley students, has been supported by neighbors who’ve rallied to generate orders to the spot. [Daily Californian]

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