The cost of doing business, U.S. Steel-style

benfell

Pennsylvania and surrounding areas

Pittsburgh, the Ohio Valley, and surrounding areas

Pollution


Fig. 1. Photographer unknown, circa 1940-1950, from Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection, ca. 1940-1950, AIS.1978.22, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh, via Bloomberg,[1] fair use.

I would, by no means, be the first to notice that clearly, U.S. Steel views these fines as the cost of doing business.

Laura Esposito, “U.S. Steel fined $1.9 million for emissions at Clairton Coke Works,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 27, 2024, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2024/02/27/u-s-steel-fine-clairton-coke-works/stories/202402270062

Illiberalism

Gilead

Migration


Fig. 2. Photograph credited to “ProtoplasmaKid,”, November 9, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Remember when Donald Trump separated migrant children from their parents?

The first hurdle the committee faced was the total disorganization with which “zero tolerance” had been implemented. “There was no intention of reuniting families, and so they didn’t design the system to be able to keep track,” Nan Schivone, Justice in Motion’s legal director, told me. The agencies involved — Customs and Border Protection, which took families into custody; [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], which oversaw their detainment; the [Office of Refugee Resettlement], which was responsible for the separated children — didn’t have a comprehensive system to share data with one another, nor did they always keep records linking parents with their children. If children were released from ORR custody into the care of family or friends, the government did limited follow-up. “We give you a luggage tag for your luggage,” said Gisela Voss, a former board member of Together & Free, which supports families seeking asylum. “We separated parents from their kids and didn’t give them, like, a number.” . . .

Out of more than 5,000 children separated from their parents by the Trump administration, as many as 2,000 still haven’t been reunited. These figures are estimates at best; three years into a new presidency, it appears likely the U.S. government will never be able to provide a thorough accounting of the policy’s victims.[2]

People have been trying to pick up the pieces, with support from the Biden administration. But tragedies have consequences and some of the reunions mean confronting distrust and anger.

A father broke down in tears telling me the first thing his child said to him when he was finally reunited was “Papa, why did you let them take me away?”[3]

For white Christian nationalists, cruelty is the point.

Antonio [Amador] still struggles to assign language to the feeling of watching through a window as officials forced his daughter’s hands above her head, patted her down, and took her away. It was like they had found his weak spot, like they were removing his own blood, he told me: “You feel defeated, useless, as though you had no arms, nothing to fight back.” Later, the guards taunted him, telling him that Maily [Amador] had been put up for adoption. He was deported, and Maily ended up being shuttled between aunts in California and Louisiana. For several years, Carolina [Amador] and Antonio’s parenting was limited to a daily video call on WhatsApp. Maily cried all the time. She said she hated the food in the U.S. — she wanted her mother to cook for her again. . . .

In December 2023, the ACLU and the federal government at last finalized a comprehensive settlement in the Ms. L. case. The government agreed to bar family separations for eight years and offer those affected by “zero tolerance” some measure of basic legal, housing, and medical assistance, including three years of humanitarian parole. The agreement also provides for a more favorable asylum-application process. But accessing these remedies will require enormous resources; Together & Free is helping to raise $3 million in private donations to help families obtain asylum lawyers.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Amadors can now close Maily’s immigration case and apply for asylum as a family, which would require the family to go before immigration officials to prove their need. Winning asylum would be the best possible outcome, but it feels so out of reach to Carolina that it may as well be the lottery. And if an application fails, it could leave the whole family vulnerable to deportation. The other option would be to try to renew their parole indefinitely. Here too there would be no guarantee. A change in administration would almost certainly jeopardize their chances of renewal. Trump has dissembled when asked if he’d reinstate “zero tolerance” should he be reelected, and any administration of his could decide to target separated families for removal. And while Biden, during his 2020 campaign, said that family separation “violates every notion of who we are as a nation,” the administration’s broader immigration policy has suggested a narrow interpretation of “never again.” Under Biden, immigration officials have continued to separate families. As the president faces a difficult reelection campaign, he has pushed a plan that would heavily fund ICE detention and restrict asylum, and he is reportedly considering employing his executive power to prevent people crossing the border from exercising their right to claim asylum.[4]

This was an unspeakable crime, one of many the Trump administration committed against migrants. But for all the charges Trump now faces, not one involves his migration policies.

Piper French, “Left Apart,” New York, February 27, 2024, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/separated-families-border-trump-zero-tolerance-immigration.html

Donald Trump


Fig. 3. Donald Trump, depicted in an orange jumpsuit, reportedly by the Drudge, date unknown, via Mediaite,[5] fair use. Apparently, no mugshot was taken when he was actually arrested over hush money paid to Stormy Daniels.[6]

The question of how Donald Trump will put together the money to post the bond for his legal appeals[7] lingers on:

It’s not clear what [Donald Trump is] going to do or even what options he has at his disposal. It’s also not clear what happens if the appeal is rejected and Trump loses that half-billion dollars for good. He would have to sell 890,000 pairs of his new gold sneakers to generate enough cash to pay the fine imposed by Engoron — not that he keeps all of the money from that branding deal.[8]

Jonathan O’Connell, Shayna Jacobs, and Josh Dawsey, “Clock is ticking for Trump to post bonds worth half a billion dollars,” Washington Post, February 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/02/26/trump-money-bonds-engoron-carroll/

Jacob Gershman, Corinne Ramey, and James Fanelli, “Trump Appeals $355 Million Civil-Fraud Ruling,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/donald-trump-appeals-new-york-fraud-lawsuit-ruling-307cd30c

Philip Bump, “This time, Trump’s going to have to pay his own bills,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/trump-trials-money-fundraising/

Tori Otten, “Trump Has a Hilarious New Excuse for Why He Can’t Put Up Bond,” New Republic, February 27, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/179308/trump-excuse-cant-post-bond-e-jean-carroll

Finances


Fig. 4. Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas, undated image credited to https://www.flickr.com/photos/glynlowe/ [bad link], via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Jonathan O’Connell, Shayna Jacobs, and Josh Dawsey, “Clock is ticking for Trump to post bonds worth half a billion dollars,” Washington Post, February 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/02/26/trump-money-bonds-engoron-carroll/

Jacob Gershman, Corinne Ramey, and James Fanelli, “Trump Appeals $355 Million Civil-Fraud Ruling,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/donald-trump-appeals-new-york-fraud-lawsuit-ruling-307cd30c

Philip Bump, “This time, Trump’s going to have to pay his own bills,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/trump-trials-money-fundraising/

Tori Otten, “Trump Has a Hilarious New Excuse for Why He Can’t Put Up Bond,” New Republic, February 27, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/179308/trump-excuse-cant-post-bond-e-jean-carroll

Hush money


Fig. 5. Cartoon by Jesse Duquette, undated, via “Minneapple23” [pseud.] on Imgur, April 1, 2023, fair use.

Philip Bump, “This time, Trump’s going to have to pay his own bills,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/trump-trials-money-fundraising/

Tori Otten, “Trump Has a Hilarious New Excuse for Why He Can’t Put Up Bond,” New Republic, February 27, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/179308/trump-excuse-cant-post-bond-e-jean-carroll

  1. [1]Mark Byrnes, “What Pittsburgh Looked Like When It Decided It Had a Pollution Problem,” Bloomberg, June 5, 2012, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-05/what-pittsburgh-looked-like-when-it-decided-it-had-a-pollution-problem↩
  2. [2]Piper French, “Left Apart,” New York, February 27, 2024, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/separated-families-border-trump-zero-tolerance-immigration.html↩
  3. [3]Lee Gelernt, quoted in Piper French, “Left Apart,” New York, February 27, 2024, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/separated-families-border-trump-zero-tolerance-immigration.html↩
  4. [4]Piper French, “Left Apart,” New York, February 27, 2024, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/separated-families-border-trump-zero-tolerance-immigration.html↩
  5. [5]Alex Griffing, “Drudge Puts Trump in an Orange Jumpsuit as Site Monitors His Potential Indictment,” Mediaite, August 29, 2022, https://www.mediaite.com/news/drudge-puts-trump-in-an-orange-jumpsuit-as-site-monitors-his-potential-indictment/↩
  6. [6]Sarah D. Wire and Alexandra E. Petri, “Trump charged with 34 felony counts in alleged hush money cover-up case,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-04-04/donald-trump-alleged-hush-money-investigation-indictment-arraignment↩
  7. [7]Philip Bump, “This time, Trump’s going to have to pay his own bills,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/trump-trials-money-fundraising/; William D. Cohan, “Sussing the Trump Estate Sale,” Puck, February 21, 2024, https://puck.news/sussing-the-trump-estate-sale/; Jacob Gershman, Corinne Ramey, and James Fanelli, “Trump Appeals $355 Million Civil-Fraud Ruling,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/donald-trump-appeals-new-york-fraud-lawsuit-ruling-307cd30c; Joe Hernandez, “What to know about the debut of Trump’s $399 golden, high-top sneakers,” National Public Radio, February 20, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232438349/donald-trump-golden-high-top-sneakers; Aaron Katersky and Peter Charalambous, “Letitia James says she’s prepared to seize Trump’s buildings if he can’t pay his $354M civil fraud fine,” ABC News, February 20, 2024, https://abcnews.go.com/US/letitia-james-shes-prepared-seize-trumps-assets-pay/story?id=107381482; Jonathan O’Connell, “Hefty fines, penalties will rock Trump family’s business and fortune,” Washington Post, February 16, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/16/trump-verdict-civil-fraud-trial/; Jonathan O’Connell, Shayna Jacobs, and Josh Dawsey, “Clock is ticking for Trump to post bonds worth half a billion dollars,” Washington Post, February 25, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/02/26/trump-money-bonds-engoron-carroll/; Tori Otten, “Trump Has a Hilarious New Excuse for Why He Can’t Put Up Bond,” New Republic, February 27, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/179308/trump-excuse-cant-post-bond-e-jean-carroll; Tori Otten, “It Sure Looks Like Trump Can’t Pay the Bond in His Fraud Trial,” New Republic, February 22, 2024, https://newrepublic.com/post/179203/trump-pay-fraud-trial-judgment-delay↩
  8. [8]Philip Bump, “This time, Trump’s going to have to pay his own bills,” Washington Post, February 27, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/27/trump-trials-money-fundraising/↩

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