Alex Emmons reports on yet another disturbing piece of news concerning Human Rights Watch.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH accepted a sizable donation from a Saudi billionaire shortly after its researchers documented labor abuses at one of the man’s companies, a potential violation of the rights group’s own fundraising guidance.

Human Rights Watch recently returned the gift from Saudi real estate magnate Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber, which came with the caveat that it could not be used to support the group’s LGBT advocacy in the Middle East and North Africa. The controversial donation is at the center of a contentious internal debate about the judgment and leadership of Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth.

After The Intercept began investigating the donation, the rights group published a statement on its website saying that accepting the funding was a “deeply regrettable decision” that “stood in stark contrast to our core values and our longstanding commitment to LGBT rights as an integral part of human rights.”
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In 2012, Roth signed a memorandum of understanding with Al Jaber containing language that said the gift could not be used for LGBT rights work in the region. He was later pictured next to Al Jaber at a 2013 ceremony to memorialize the funding.

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She has announced that she is dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination. Her fall from popularity is still somewhat of a puzzle. At one point she seemed poised to take over the leadership of the progressive movement from Bernie Sanders as her poll numbers rose and his fell. Some analysts have suggested that her backtracking on support for Medicare For All and the support that she got from a shadowy dark money Super PAC tarnished her image of a reformer and caused some of her supporters to defect. She has said that she will not run for president in 2020. But at the moment she must be exhausted and disappointed and things can happen in the next two or three years to cause her to change her mind.

Her statement is here.
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After making the case as to why Bernie Sanders is far better than Joe Biden both in terms of policies and likelihood of beating Donald Trump, Nathan J. Robinson tries to understand why the party establishment refuses to accept this. Like me, he is baffled by why the party establishment is uniting behind someone who has all (and more) of the negatives of Hillary Clinton and none of the positives. What makes them think that the “feeble and uninspiring Biden” can bring back the other kinds of swing voters that Ibram X. Kendi identified, those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but then either sat out the 2016 election or voted third party?
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There was a spirited Democratic primary in the congressional district of Laredo in Texas where the incumbent Democrat Henry Cuellar was challenged by a young 26-year old progressive Jessica Cisneros, who failed narrowly, by a margin of 51.8% to 48.2%. Although this is a safe Democratic seat, Cuellar is pretty much a Republican and is backed by business and other right-wing forces and the party establishment.
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If one wanted evidence that the stock market is the major driver of US policies, one need look no further than the decision yesterday by the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates by half a percentage point, a large amount.

Launching the emergency measure as a pre-emptive strike to protect the US economy after pressure from Donald Trump to act, the Fed warned: “The fundamentals of the US economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.”

Jerome Powell, its chair, said: “Of course the ultimate solutions to this challenge will come from others, particularly health professionals. We can and will do our part, however, to keep the US economy strong as we meet this challenge.”

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Just over two weeks ago after the Nevada caucuses where he came in fifth, Joe Biden’s campaign was considered over and Bernie Sanders was deemed to be the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination, causing panic in the party establishment’s ranks. But Biden’s emphatic win in South Carolina the following week enabled the Democratic party establishment to achieve what they long sought and that is to coalesce behind him and that seems to have paid off on Super Tuesday with Biden doing so well that he has overtaken Sanders in the delegate totals. He now has 467 delegates and Sanders has 392 so far though the totals will change as more results come in from yesterday’s polls. You need 1990 delegates to win on the first ballot.
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