10/29/20 10/29/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! party ispublican desperate. voter suppression is serving strategy. that way they want to carry out voter suppression is by packing the courts, in particular the supreme court, so they uphold suppression and install donald trump for second term. amy: a record shattering 76 million people have voted in the u.s. election, but the battle

over the counting of mail-in ballots continues. the supreme court is allowing pennsylvania and north carolina for now to count ballots received after election day, but the high court could still hear the pennsylvania case after the election -- and it could decide who wins the presidey.nc we will speak to mother jones' ari berman. then we look at big tech's role in the election as senate republicans accuse social media companies of favoring democrats. but is that true? >> if anything,e see many sorts of technology platforms throughout the past four years supporting the trump agenda and a conservative agenda. millions plunged into pandemic poverty, the senate has adjourned before passing another stimulus bill. we will look at the spike in hunger across united states. >> these families are basically living like on a ticking time

bomb when this starts up again, how they're going to pay their rent. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. the united states recorded more than 80,000 new coronavirus infections wednesday and over 1000 new deaths as the white house coronavirus task force warned in an internal report of unrelenting broad community spread in the midwest, upper midwest, and west. every state in the union is either holding steady or seeing an increase in new cases, with the u.s. headed for a third surge that is set to rival two previous peaks. on the campaign trail, president trump continues to rally his supporters at packed campaign events where few people wear masks. on wednesday, trp umtraveled to arizona where he mocked a statewide mask mandate ordered by california's governor gavin

newsom. pres. trump: in california you have a special mask. you cannot under any circumstances take it out. you have to eat through them. amy: trump's remarks came as a new study by vanderbilt university researchers found coronavirus hospitalizations rose dramatically in places without a local mask mandate compared to places where a large majority of people wore face coverings in public. on wednesday, top infectious disease scientist dr. anthony fauci made his strongest comments yet in favor of a nationwide mask mandate. these's put aside extraordinary excuses for not doing it when we're dealing with the situation that is not trivial. we have 225,000 deaths, the modeling tells us we're going to get 100,000 more into the winter. that is just something that is unacceptable. amy: meanwhile, new audio has

emerged of president trump's son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner bragging about trump's decision to ignore the advice of his top public health officials early in the pandemic. kushner was speaking with journalist bob woodward on april 18. >> it was almost like trump getting the country back from the doctors in the sense that what he now did was he is going to on the up. amy: last week, in the journal nature medicine found universal mask wearing across the u.s. could save nearly 130,000 lives by the end of next february. the university of wisconsin has canceled saturday's football game at the university of nebraska after six players and six staffers, including head coach paul chryst, tested positive for coronavirus. the team's outbreak came as wisconsin set a record-high coronavirus test positivity rate of more than 27%, with hospitalizations more than

doubling over the last month. meanwhile, major league baseball sharply criticized los angeles dodgers third baseman justin2d turner on wednesday after he returned to the field just hours after testing positive for coronavirus. turner was pulled from game six of the world series tuesday during the 8th inning, but then returned to celebrate after the dodgers clinched the series -- taking a turn hoisting the world series trophy overhead and even removing his face mask to pose for photos with teammates. in a statement, major league baseball promised an investigation, adding -- "while a desire to celebrate is understandable, turner's decision to leave isolation and enter the field was wrong and put everyone he came in contact with at risk." french president emmanuel macron has ordered a nationwide lockdown for the second time since the pandemic began after france registered more than 30,000 coronavirus cases wednesday for the third day in a row.

>> back in the spring, you will be able to leave your house only to work, for medical appointment, to provide assistance to a relative, or to get some air near the house. this means the return of the permission ship. amy: germany said it will close restaurants, bars, gyms and theaters for a month, but will keep schools and daycares open, after a massive second wave of infections pushed daily case counts and hospitalizations to record highs. iran repted a record death toll for a second straight day wednesday, with fresh warnings that the nation's healthcare system -- already strained by u.s. sanctions -- could collapse. in latin america, mexico has passed 900,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and over 90,000 deaths, while argentina continues to set records for infections with 1 out of every 44 people confirmed to have acquired the virus. the u.s. supreme court has ruled the states of pennsylvania and north carolina can accept absentee ballots received after november 3.

at least, for now. in the pennsylvania case, the justices refused to take up a plea from republicans to overturn a ruling by the pennsylvania supreme court to count ballots received up until three days after the election if they are postmarked by november 3. but the justices could still consider the republican challenge again after the election if the state turns out to be pivotal to the election. in the north carolina case, the justices let stand a lower court ruling allowing the state's board of elections to extend the deadline for counting ballots to nine days after election day. newly confirmed justice amy coney barrett did not take part in either case. the international crisis group, which monitors conflict around the world, is warning of possible violence in the united states during voting or during the vote counting process. the group cited growing political polarization, the rise of armed groups, and the higher-than-usual chances of a contested election outcome. but the international crisis group says the most important risk factor is the president himself.

in an report, the group writes that president trump's "toxic rhetoric and willingness to court conflict to advance his personal interests have no precedent in modern u.s. history." in nebraska, hundreds of trump supporters were left stranded in the freezing cold for hours at an airfield in omaha tuesday night following a rally by president trump. at least seven people were taken to the hospital. 168-year-old man -- one 68-year-old man was found shivering with possible hypothermia and altered mental status according to an account on the omaha police scanner. the rally was held three miles from the closest parking lot and the trump campaign didn't have enough buses to transport everyone in a timely manner. former homeland security official miles taylor has revealed he was the trump administration insider who first critiqued the president in 2018 in "the new york times" under the pen name "anonymous." "the times" described anonymous as a senior official in the

trump administration prompting speculation that the article may have been written by a member of trump's cabinet. at the time, taylor was an advisor to then homeland security director kirstjen nielsen. in august, taylor endorsed joe biden for president. virginia governor ralph northam has signed a bill banning the police use of no-knock warrants, joining florida and oregon as the third state to bar unannounced rates by police. virginia house bill 5099 was nicknamed "breonna's law" after breonna taylor, the 26-year-old black woman shot to death in her own home last march by louisville, kentucky, police officers serving a no-knock warrant. in philadelphia, federal agents arrested prominent civil rights activist anthony smith at his home wednesday over unspecified charges related to protests against police brutality that erupted in may. smith's lawyers are questioning the timing of the arrest, which came as protests erupted against

-- continued against the police killing of walter wallace jr., a 27-year-old black man who was shot and killed by two philadelphia officers during a mental health crisis. philadelphia's mayor ordered a curfew overnight following incidents of arson and looting on the sidelines of mostly-peaceful protests on monday and tuesday. meanwhile, philadelphia's police department says it has launched an investigation into officers who were filmed smashing the windows of an suv during protests early tuesday morning, then beating the driver and removing a small child from the back seat. on the gulf coast, at least two people were killed wednesday after hurricane zeta made ndfall sth of neorleans a tegory 2torm. ze moved ridly inld, leing morehan 7 custers witht powebetween uisiana and the carolina was the fifth ned stormo makeandfall louisia this ye,hetronge hurrica since 99 to hithe u.s.his

and t 27thr, named stm of 20's fleddenteclimate lantic hricaneeason. thtrump adnistrati has strippedrotectio against loing and ad-buildg in the tongs nation forest alaskaone of t world's largest tempate rainrests. e 9.3 miion acreorest is ho to prisne old-gwth ees and vulnable spees including cific saon, wolv and bear this mth the nural resrces defense uncil nod the tongass "stores more carbon per acre than almost any other forest on the planet, which makes preserving it a matter of real urgency in the fight against climate change." the international red cross is warning fighting between azerbaijan and armenia in the nagorno-karabakh region risks spiraling out of control as civilian casualties mount. on wednesday, armenia accused azerbaijan of bombing a

maternity hospital in stepanakert. meanwhile, azerbaijan claims 21 people died after armenian forces shelled the town of barda. in colombia, riot police used tear gas and truncheons wednesday to force more than 600 indigenous families from their homes on privately-owned land in the southern amazonas region. the area is one of colombia's poorest, and residents say poverty drove them to occupy the property two months ago in a desperate bid for survival. toif the police are going evict me, then kill me first. but i tell you i am not going. i am not going. amy: back in the united states, immigration and customs enforcement has agreed to pay $100,000 in damages to settle a lawsuit for targeting members of the vermont-based group migrant justice. under the agreement, ice will also stop deportation proceedings against three

members of migrant justice. ice tried to terrorize us by going after our leaders. they tried to divide us by going after our organization. they tried to silence us. with this settlement, we are saying we will not be silenced. amy: to see our interviews with migrant justice, you can go to democracynow.org. and in news from the art world, the baltimore museum of art has called off plans to sell three paintings, including an andy warhol, to raise money to buy more art by women and artists of color. the museum was hoping to raise $65 million from the auction and sale, but the move set off a fierce debate within baltimore and the art community. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by my co-host nermeen shaikh. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners

and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: a record shattering 76 million people have already voted in person or by mail in the 2020 election. at the battle over the counting of mail-in ballots continues. on wednesday, the supreme court to do related cases, ruling that swing states pennsylvania and north carolina can accept absentee ballots in the days following election day -- well, at least for now. in the pennsylvania case, the justices refused to take up a plea from republicans to overturn a ruling by the pennsylvania supreme court to count ballots received up until three days after the election if they are postmarked by november 3. but the justices could still consider the republican challenge again after the election. all ballots received after november 3 will be segregated from other ballots. in the north carolina case, the justices let stand a lower court

ruling allowing the state's board of elections to extend the deadline for counting ballots to nine days after election day. justice amy coney barrett, who was just sworn in this week, did not take part in either case. the rulings follow the supreme court's monday 5-3 decision that mail-in ballots in wisconsin can be counted only if they are received by election day. justice brett kavanaugh joined the conservative majority, writing a concring opinion that alarmed voting rights advocates after he claimed that counting ballots received after election day could create "suspicions of impropriety" because they could "potentially flip the results of an election." in a rare move, kavanaugh changed a line in his opinion wednesday after facing criticism for falsely saying the state of vermont had not changed its voting rules due to the pandemic.

he issued a revised opinion changing the phrase "ordinary election rules" to "ordinarily deadline rules." jim conde wrote -- condos in an interview on cnn. >> policymakers should conder extending these deadlines given the massive volume of absentee ballots we are going to get. some have done that, most have not. most states do require absentee ballots to be received by election night to be treated as valid boats. -- val boats. amy: for more on the significance of the supreme court rulings and how early voting is playing out across the

country, we are joined now by ari berman, senior writer at mother jones and author of "give us the ballot: the modern struggle for voting rights in amica." his latest piece is headlined "brett kavanaugh lays out a plan to help trump steal the election." welcome back to democracy now! explain supreme court decisions that just took place yesterday and in the last few days. >> good to be back. there are a flurry of decisions from the supreme court and it is very unusual for the supreme court to be hearing cases about voting roles in which tens of millions of people are already voting in the election day is only a week away. so there were three major rulings. in wisconsin, the supreme court said ballots must be received by election day, but in pennsylvania and north carolina, essentially said the opposite, which is that in pennsylvania, ballots postmarked by election day could be received three days after. in ninth carolina, postmarked up

to nine days after. but these are only premier new disciplinary victories. saidal alito basically this event republicans should try to challenge this after the election, we might those out. basically saying, can we will throw those out that are going to be disproportionally cast by democrats, legal under pennsylvania law and so my message to voters in the states and other states is drop your ballot off. it is too late to mail it in and a state like wisconsin that have election day deadlines and 30 states have a deadline of election day for when your ballot has to be received. even if you live in pennsylvania or north carolina, don't leave it to chance that your vote can be thrown out. if you drop it off or if you vote early in person or on election day, there are certain to your votes will be counted. you don't have that same certainty given the supreme court with ballots arriving

after election day. nermee you recently wrote republican efforts at voter suppression may actually be backfiring. could you explain? fascinatinga really subplot to this. it has been the storyline of the election, the efforts to make it harder to vote. i do believe it is having a backlash in terms of motivating democrats and voters of color to show up in record numbers. trump has been so brazen about the suppression, talking about sabotaging the post office so people won't be able to vote by il, won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power, does one post to be counted. things like in texas where the governor of texas greg abbott said there could only be one location to drop your mail ballots off per county so that in harris county, texas, 12 places, only one in county that has 2.4 million registered

voters, larger than the state of rhode island and more that people tn 26 states, texas democrats and democrats across the country heard these messages and said, if republicans are trying so hard to attack my right to vote, i write about must matter. the most important thing for me to do is to vote in record embers and vote early so my votes can be thrown out. i believe the record turnout we're seeing across the country, particularly in states hit hard by voter suppression -- georgia, texas, sparking a backlash from voters that are angry that the right to vote is under assault and are determined to make sure the votes are counted. could you talk about your concerns regarding amy coney barrett, or record on voting rights and what role she might play in the event this election is disputed as many are anticipating it will be? >> i am extremely concerned about amy coney barrett's record

on voting rights. at her confirmation hearing, she refused to answer very basic should about the protection of the right to vote. she refused to say whether voter intimidation is illegal -- which it is. she refused to say whether the president of the united states has the power to delay the election -- which he does not. she refused to acknowledge the voter suppression, which everyone knows still exist. sheefus to answer these very basi questions about voting rights. she is written opinions in the past that are concerning, sane people with pasconvictions should be able to own guns but not be able to vote. she comes at a moment when president trump is saying he once her confirmed to the court so she can be the deciding vote to challenge the counting of ballots, which is so incredibly disturbingthe democracy, he would appoint someone on the court with the express purpose of her not counting vote that are cast by your opponent.

the prospect after, first off not recusing herself even though she was confirmed just eight da before e election -- which at the time 50 million people had voted -- but the fact she could be the dividing vote -- deciding vote. the last thing i'll say about amy coney barrett, she and brett kavanaugh and john roberts worked on the floated 2000 recount for george w bush. they have it track record of doing whatever it takes to count republican votes but stopping democratic votes from counting. that is the situation president trump wants to happen again. amy: in addition to that, clarence thomas is the only remaining judge who gave the election to bush in 2000. he added that these three justices,ourt so to get to five they only need one more about any of the ultraconservative gorsuch and alito. >> it is not hard to imagine

another bush v gore scenario. the really shocking thing about brett kavanaugh's opinions in the wisconsin case, which was so sloppy and so inaccurate, was that he actually cited bush v gore in his opinion in the supreme court supposedly said don't cite this as a precedent. he not only did that, it had only been coted once in 20 years by chris thomas. and kavanaugh sites bush v gore as a proceeded for potentially throwing out democratic votes in the future. they have been open about this plan here. the republican party wantso rerun bush v gore. they want to litigate this election in every way ssible and they want to throw out votes cast by democrats and they want the supreme court to once again declare a republican president the winner of the election. i think that would lead to the

vegas legitimacy crisis in american politics in our history -- at least in our modern history. everyone needs to be aware of what the supreme court is trying to do and they need to vote in record numbers and do so early so they can't challenge these late arriving ballots or other things like they want to. amy: i want to correct something. we misidentified james condos who wrote to kavanaugh to correct his concurring opinion early in the week most of the person who actually spoke on scene and was in way professor richard penalties. it was condos who demanded a correction and got one from kavanaugh. talk about the significance of that and how rare that is. incredibly sloppy. supreme court justices have clerks for a reason. they are supposed to be factual in analysis and not only was brett kavanaugh wrong on the merits of this wisconsin case, he was factually inaccurate.

he said, for example, states like vermont had not changed their election procedures in response to covid when impact vermont has sent ballots to all registered voters to make it very easy to vote by mail, which is the kind of thing that the trump campaign is opposing. ielievehat brett kavanaugh's opinion was a form of election interference. he was trying to delegitimize the counting of votes. the most disturbing part of his opinion in addition to the factual errs was when he said that votes counted after election day could lead to suspicions of impropriety. that is simply not true. every single state counts votes after election day. both are not certified until at least a week after the election in nearly every state of the country. military ballots frequently come in after election day. during the florida 2000 recount, brett kavanaugh took the position that military ballots should be counted in florida even after they arrive after

election day. so kavanaugh is making a completely different article -- argument now that in 2000. there is no consistency. he is laying the groundwork to help president trump try to steal the election. it is chilling a supreme court justice would do that. will you bet watching most closely on november 3? and what do you think we will know by the end of the night? things, nermeen. where to start. going to seeam what the turnout is like. so many people have voted early that we don't know how many will show up on election day. i am going to see how many people were, for example, planning to vote by mail but did noget the mail ballot so had to vote on election day. i am going to e what the lines lookike, whether there is butter intimidation -- voter

intimidation. then i'm going to see how long it takes to count the votes. in some states like arizona and florida, they start coming votes early most of but in the three most important battleground states -- michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin -- they cannottart counting votes early. michigan they can start a day earlier, but wisconsin and pennsylvania they cannot start counting votes until election day. meaning it will take some time. it might take a day, two days, three days. michigan and pennsylvania, they say prably the friday after election. we will t have an "election night" in the traditional sense of the word. the message from the media has to be we have to count all the votes and it is important to get it right then do it quickly. donald trump or any other candidate doesn't have the power to prematurely declare themselves the winner of the election. this is done at the state and local level. it will take a little time. we will have to adjust to the new reality. amy: we will be doing a special

tuesday night november 3 from 9:00 eastern time until midnight, not clear any final results will be in, though maybe a number of other down ballot races will be in. that is down :00 to midnight. you can catch it on democracynow.org or possibly your local station wherever you are watching democracy now! ari berman, one last question. that does not exactly relate to, though kind of, the elections, we are about to turn to a segment on big tech. the ceos were grilled on capitol hill about how they moderate election disinformation and extremist content. accused by republicans of censoring conservatives. before we go, i want to ask about how facebook designed changes to its news feed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of progressive new sites like mother jones, ernie's organization.

according to bobo the wall street journal" i'm executives at facebook had concerns about the new algorithm that they thought might have a larger impact on right-leaning new sites like the daily wire. so engineers made changes to the algorithm that would have a bigger impact on traffic to left-leaning sites. meanwhile, mother jones editors wrote in 2019 the site had seen a sharp decline in his facebook audience, which translated to a loss of around $600,000 over 18 months. apparently, according to "the wall street journal," zuckerberg himself signed off on these changes. your comments? >> it is incredibly disturbing. it is an attack on democracy, an attack on freedom of the press, attack on the progressive movement. facebook is not censoring conservatives, it is boosting conservatives, censoring progressives censoring independent media.

the fact you're trying to do everything we can to get the truth out and facebook is deliberately sabotaging our readership is so disturbing the me time that facebook is spreading all of this disinformation by conservatives, by president trump. so give a situation where things are manifestly untrue by president trump, by right wing media, getting huge boosts on facebook but efforts by mother jones and other publications to counter that disinformation, to tell people what is really going -- thateport the facts is being censored. this is a huge scandal for democracy, for the media. facebook needs to be held accountable for this. i believe if there is a new administrationnd congress, they're going to take a very hard look at facebook's policies and how it is deliberately censoring publications like mother jones because this is an attack on democracy and freedom of the press. amy: ari berman, thank you for

being with us, senior writer at mother jones and author of "give us the ballot: the modern struggle for voting rights in america." we will into your piece "brett kavanaugh lays out a plan to help trump steal the election." when we come back, we will look more at how good techs roll under the election is that republicans accused social media companies and favoring democrats and democrats also took on the ceos but is that true? stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "somos mas americanos" by mana. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. just days ahead of election day, chief executives of facebook, google, and twitter were grilled on capitol hill about how they moderate hate speech, extremist content, and election disinformation, including tweets from president trump. the senate commerce committee hearing was officially about "how best to preserve the

internet as a forum for open discourse" and whether to change a decades-old law known as section 230 that protects internet companies from legal liability for content generated by its users. but most republican senators focused on allegations that the platforms systematically censor conservatives. this is republican senator ted cruz of texas questioning twitter ceo jack dorsey. sen. cruz: mr. dorsey, who the hell eleed you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the american people are allowed to hear and why do persist behaving as a democratic super pac silencing news to the contrary of your political beliefs? >> we're not doing that. this is why i opened this hearing with calls for more transparency. we realize we need to earn trust more. we realize that more accountability is needed to show our intentions. amy: that's republican senator ted cruz questioning twitter ceo jack dorsey.

this is republican senator mike lee of utah questioning google ceo sundar pichai. sen. lee: can you name for me one high-profile person or entity from a liberal ideology who you have censored and what particular action you took? usa from the campaign, compliance issues with world socialist review, left-leaning publication. i can give you several examples. sen. l: there a disparity between censorship -- using that as defined a moment ago -- between thcensorship of conservative and liberal points of view. it is an enormous disparity. amy: that is republican senator mike lee of utah questioning google ceo sundar pichai. this comes as thprogressive news organization mother jones recently reported that facebook tweaked its code to help right-wing publishers and throttle left-leaning sites.

"wall street journal" reported facebook ceo mark zuckerberg personally approved the plans. wednesday's hearing, democrats accused republicans of politicizing the hearing, and questioned the three tech executives about their efforts to stop the spread of viral disinformation. this is democratic senator amy klobuchar of minnesota questioning facebook ceo mark zuckerberg. sen. klobuchar: i want to know first that this aring comes first before -- six days before electi daynd i believe we ar politicizing and e republican majority is politicizing, which should actually not be a parsan topic. when jn mccainnd i and senator warner introduce the act, we got pushed from your company, others,nd you were initially agnst it and then discussed it at hearing, or for it. i apeciate that. patty said any of them money -- i know you spent the most money, facebook spent the mt money, have you try to change or

block the bill? >> i have endorsed a publicly and we've implemented it into our system, even though it has not become law. i'm a big supporter -- sen. klobuchar: have you done anything to get it passed? we are at a roadblock on it. i appreciate that you voluntary implemeed som o it, buhave you voltarily implemend theart of t act iiiully disose whicgroups people e beinargeteby polical ads? >>enator, think weave dust-leading tnsferenc eurooliticalds and pt of audieesong whi inroad tms ended useeing the ads. of crse, getti the rig resotion on that chalnging wiout a boming a privacissue, bute have ted to do atndrovide amuch transparency as we can. i think we are currently

amy: foret era. more, we're joined by ramesh srinivasan, professor in the department of information studies at the university of california los angeles, or ucla, where he also directs the digital cultures lab. srinivasan is the author of the book "beyond the valley: how innovators around the world are overcoming inequality and creating the technologies of tomorrow." welcome back. first summarize this hearing and what you think this most critical, what was raised and what you think was most problematic. >> what we see is an astonishing time -- astonishing timing being pushed forward by the republican administration. democracy now! cover this few days ago, the regulatory potential action push forward by the department of justice against google just a few days ago. but what we see occurring is a certain set of talking points

which might be used by the republicans and the administration as a basis for making claims to invalidate the election. there are clms being made for years without any basis or evidence are president trump that google is responsible for millions of votes being cast against republicans come against him in 2016. basically, what was he coming from the republicans is this argument that lacks any evidence, quite frankly, that there are systematic ics in terms of censorship as well as algorithmic bias that skew against conservative talking poin and conservative perspective would in fact the opposite is true. the democrats on the other hand are trying to look at section 230, which sort of is a proposal and it communications decency act that regulates the extremist content.

it normalizes it. it allows certain types of content to be able to be present on online platforms as it may not be on other media channels such as democracy now! the cell. , the senatorsh that spoke at yesterday's hearing said thhearing had been called at the directive of the white house. do you think that is possible? also, the fact that donald trump ,as used so liberally frequently, almost hourly come the social media platforms twitter and twitter just recently blocked a couple of his posts. so do you think this hearing is driven in part by that? by that decision? >> thank you for that question, nermeen. absolutely. it seems highly likely that is possible because twitter has long been praised by the president as his mouthpiece to

"directly reaching the people." and we know that twitter's algorithms, must like facebook's, work to prioritize content that is likely to be sensational, grabs people's attention. is ishat the tech companies call maximizing audience engagement. so we know that social media technologies, which are basically designed to try to grab our attention as much as possible so they can maximize their ability to gather and extract data from us are decide in a way to support the agend of disinformation. in the spectacle that is put forth by this administration. we have to ask very difficult questions about the timing of all of this and try to look at why, why is this administration deciding to make this an issue right before the election. and i think there are very difficult questions and answers that we have to uncover related to that that are politically

motivated rather than evidence-based. nermeen: do you think on the basis of this hearing that social media, big tech, might alter the way it deals with any kind of election dispute that might come following november 3? >> i am certainly hopeful of that. our big tech companies are private corporations that have monetized publicly funded investments that all of us have paid for as american taxpayers. and this is true across the board with other major corporate initiatives. i think it is extremely important moving forward we have an extensive progressive bill of rights where there is action a public governance and public audits of these tech platforms about how they make decisions about who stated they gather and we need real regulatory action to ensure that they serve the public interest because they actually rest on the backs of public subsidies and public

investments. so i think this is an opportunity for us to push forward real progressive advances and legislation on this issue. of: professor, this issue the timing of this hearing, right before the election, kind of opening salvo of president and othering google social media companies come in the department of justice filing a major lawsuit against google last week. can you talk more about what this is lang the groundwork for in terms of invalidating the whole election? >> it is potentially an explanation that can be used by the administration to make claims the election was conducted under false pretenses because big tech is systematically biased against the president and his agenda. nothing can be further from the truth as we were just discussing. president trump made the claim

just over a year ago thagoogle cost him upwards of $10 million -- 10 million votes lost in his favor toward hillary clinton in 2016 and even in higher number in 2018. there is no evidence for this claim whatsoever. we know if anything when we look at the litany of examples of conspiracy theories that were all reliance on big tech as we sit at this pandemic and future pandemics and climate crises, that these technology platforms we are seeing again and again and we see examples like cambridge analytic up, for an interference, disinformation, all of this has skewedo work conservative french and right-leaning content. so if anything, the most spectacular this information which feels trump's base and feels the trump agenda of disorientation and controversy has skewed toward the right. trump has made these claims that are in fact the opposite of

reality. nermeen: ramesh, what does that mean for social media giant like facebook and twitter to be making decisions about what content is permissible, what content should be promoted, and what content should be censored? could you expand on what your bill of rights, digital bill of rights that you mentioned earlier, would change? dips ine old charter the way in which these companies and the internet generally operate? you mentioned, for example, what happened in mexico. >> absolutely. absolutely. what we have seen occur is the private takeover of corporations that are valued -- we're talking about nearly $1 trillion for each of these b tech companies. in some cases, more. t backshis built upon

of americataxpayers. we don't -- we see a pattern again and again where all of the costs are borne by society, all of the costs of private greed and lack of accountability, and all of the profits in this case, credible valuations, are privatized and are in the hands of shareholders. so this is a great opportunity for us with this digital bill of rights for more expensive, progressive people space legislation for us to really fight for digital world that also returns value to all of us as citizens but also on of us as workers, the working class, the middle class, and so on. that is opposite of what is occurring, nermeen. what was the occurring our platitudes that are offered to us generally speaking by the tech companies and we see a little more movement by jack dorsey this last round, but not a lot. was see tech companies prepending -- private tech companies pretending they are the internet would affect they are private corporations that

rest on the backs of the internet. from googler pichai make that claim again and again. what they usually offer us our better ai and,, we will fix it in-house and we will be collaborative. but there's almost never any specifics, was never any real transparency as we just saw in the eclipse. there is almost never any audits. so what we need in a real progressive movement are things like digital public infrastructure, universal jobs guaranteed, ai systems if they are to be used at all to be built and designed by we, the people, especially groups like, for example, events like black lives matter should take power over whether we use facial recognition and ai technologies. what we ally need is a transference of power and governance in the hands of people. this gives as we see big tech spectacularly faid agaiand

again i never used as someort of punching bag for this right wing administration that rels on an absence of evidence. we have an opportunity to completely invert the system and transform support not just corporate welfare, but actually all of our interests as americans. we are talking about the wealthiest companies in the history of the world. reliance on big tech platforms and companies more than ever as we sit out this pandemic. we see hands out not just by republicans, but democratic administration's come as you will have covered on democracy now! to big tech companies as it somehow we're just giving the a blank check without any governance or oversight or real accountability to just basically technology eyes are future in whatever ways they choose to do so. amy: this is a conversation that we will continue at a future point. professor ramesh srinivasan teaches information studies at the university of california los

angeles, ucla, where he also directs the digital cultures lab. he is author of the book "beyond the valley: how innovators around the world are overcoming inequality and creating the technologies of tomorrow." when we come back, as millions of americans plunge into pandemic poverty, the senate has adjourned before passing another stimulus bill. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "capitalist blues" by leyla mccalla. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we turn now to look at growing poverty in the united states. this week majority leader mitch mcconnell adjourned the senate earlier this week without a new stimulus bill. thsenate will not reconvene until november 9. president trump said tuesday any deal on a new relief package would have to wait until after the election. this comes as more than 54 million u.s. residents are struggling to afford food according to the hunger relief

organization feeding america. and a new report finds more than 8 million people have been forced to poverty justin smith. that is when the additional federal aid that kept millions afloat during the early months of the pandemic ended. black and latinx people as well as children have been particularly impacted. a new report found that the massive $2 trillion cares act - which sent households one-time payments and boosted unemployment checks with 600 additional dollars a week through july -- helped keep millions out of poverty. but since the additional aid has ended, the number of poor people has surged. for more, we are joined by researcher megan curran with the center on poverty and social policy at columbia university. she is the co-author of the recent report on increasing poverty rates in the u.s. during the pandemic. welcome to democracy now! just layout the reports horrific findings. >> thank you very much for having me. what myself and my colleagues at the club the center on poverty

have been trying to do is check the real-time effect on families of the continuing crisis. one of the biggest challenges is the way we traditionally measure poverty in the country is on an annual basis. there's usually a time delay. that is imperfect in normal times, but we know that 2020 is far from normal. so it is something that calls for new tools. what we have try to do most the monthlyestimate poverty rates in the u.s., so try to look at what happened when families -- went out of work very sharply, but also in the federal relief came in. we found three main things. the first is that congress did the right thing early on with the cares act in particular, the stimulus checks, and the extended on employment benefits. the combination prevented what could have basically been the worst spike in poverty in 50 years.

the second thing, however, the bad news, which is these successes are quickly being lost. the relief was temporary and much of it has expired. now we're seeing poverty rise again. the third piece is kind of the silver lining in that we know what works, getting cash out to households directly. so we know families can be protected again but it does require action at the federal level. nermeen: can you talk specifically about the impact of this poverty on children? beenillion children have pushed into poverty since may, is that right? >> the important thing to note is that child poverty in the u.s. even before the crisis hit was high and arguably much too high for as wealthy a nation as we are. in the years coming up to it, even when the economy appeared

strong, we had more than 13 million children living below the poverty line. to put that in context, we're talking about trying to give in averageyou're custody. it is not a generous level that we are talking about but so many children were already living below that number and we have now seen yet another 2.5 million children fall below that income level just since may. and we know also it is not hitting all kids equally. stark --n poverty is for black and latino children it is 2.5 times higher than it is for whites, for white children. so we need to recognize this was a problem beforehand but has --n seriously exasperated

excuse me, seriously magnified by this crisis. nermeen: congress made the right decision early on as you say in passing the cares act, which was the largest seamless package in u.s. history, but there were a number of people who were excluded from the cares act. could you talk about who was excluded and what the impact of that exclusion has been on them? in our analysis and other researchers who have been looking at this is found to be so important and really temporarily successful for families that were able to receive it. but we know, unfortunately, even though there were technically eligible, were at risk of not receiving it. there were about 12 million individuals identified who were at risk of maybe not receiving the stingless check even though they were eligible for it. and that is because they may not have filed taxes recently

because they have such low incomes they were not required to do so, that it required a lot of extra steps and onus on the families themselves to figure out they needed to apply for it. that put them at risk. a number of folks who were just explicitly left out of the legislation when it was passed. couple range across a population groups. we saw high school and college students left out of the stingless jacks. if -- stingless checks. if they were over 70 and still claimed as dependent for tax purposes, which most of them were because they're still in school, the families were left out of it when they were facing rapidly increasing costs of having switch to virtual learning. we know -- that was about 10 million 17 to 24-year-olds were left out. we know another 5 million older adults with serious health

issues also were left out of this diminished checks again because they are claimed as dependents. they can't live alone in many instances. they and their caregivers did not receive emergency assistance for them. one of the biggest populations excluded was children and adults in immigrant families. about 15 million it is estimated individuals and immigrant families were left out. most of these kids would have been a citizen children, but the exclusions were particularly harsh here because if just one adult in the family did not have a social security number, no one in the family, regardless of citizenship status or green card status, were able to receive the payment. that has huge applications for families in every state. amy: what should a new stimulus package look like? we only have a minute. you have since the beginning of the pandemic enormous wealth wealth of u.s.

billionaires has surged $931 billion and yet when you look at the number of people who have not only plunged into poverty but hunger, how do you correct this? see also enormous corporate bailout. >> i think what we need to recognize is we need to get more cash to families and needs to be accessible to us many families as possible without exclusions and it needs to be consistent. we know another one-time check while very welcome for many families, is not going to be enough. continuing in employment benefits, the $600 top off weekly payments along with the expansions that included those are usually not covered need to be continued. we need to get regular cash basis,nce on a monthly if not more frequent, possible, to families who are not covered by unemployment.

we need to make sure there are other protections in place increased access to food for ds. you can crease the snap benefit levels. you could put in more housing protections that there is rent relief and protections against evictions. basically, dusting to make sure the families know they can count on this for the duration of the crisis becausee are seeing with continued unemployment claims and surges in cases, this crisis is not going away right now so the relief needs to be in place for as long as families need at. amy: megan curran, thank you for being with us, from the center on poverty and social policy at columbia university. we will link to yo piece on the pandemic. this tuesday, november 3, election night, democracy now! will air a three hour election night special from 9:00 p.m. eastern to midnight. we will be covering results from the presidential election to

congressional and racist, as well as ballot initiatives. you can watch it at democracynow.org or ask your station to run it as many are across the country. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to

♪ hello. a very warm welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm yamamoto miki in tokyo. we begin this hour in france where a man wielding a knife has killed three people in the southern city of nice. president emmanuel macron described it as a terrorist attack. that's led the government no e