6 | THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
world
Senator Mitch McConnell is usually im-
pervious to criticism, even celebrating
the nasty nicknames that critics have
bestowed on him. But Mr. McConnell,
the Senate majority leader, is incensed
by the name “Moscow Mitch,” and even
more miffed that he has been called a
“Russian asset” by critics who accuse
him of single-handedly blocking strong-
er election security measures after Rus-
sia’s interference in 2016.
Democrats had been making the case
for months, but it was supercharged last
week by the testimony of Robert S.
Mueller III, the former special counsel,
who told the House Intelligence Com-
mittee that the Russians were back at it
“as we sit here.”
Mr. McConnell cited several reasons
for his opposition — a longstanding re-
sistance to federal control over state
elections, newly enacted security im-
provements that were shown to have
worked in the 2018 voting and his suspi-
cion that Democrats are trying to gain
partisan advantage with a host of pro-
posals.
Republican colleagues say that Mr.
McConnell, a longtime foe of tougher
campaign finance restrictions and dis-
closure requirements, is leery of even
entering into legislative negotiation that
could touch on fund-raising and cam-
paign spending.
But whatever Mr. McConnell’s rea-
soning, the criticism has taken hold —
even back home in Kentucky, where the
majority leader faces re-election next
year.
“Democrats want more aggressive
legislation to protect America’s elec-
tions after Robert Mueller’s stark warn-
ing about Russian interference,” began
one report aired on a Louisville televi-
sion station last week. “Mitch McCon-
nell blocked it.”
Even President Trump felt compelled
to come to his defense — as only he
could.
“Mitch McConnell is a man that
knows less about Russia and Russian in-
fluence than even Donald Trump,” the
president told reporters Tuesday as he
was leaving for a speech in Jamestown,
Va. “And I know nothing.”
That did not relieve the heat on the
majority leader, who on Monday had ap-
peared to open the door ever so slightly
to doing more on election preparedness.
“I’m sure all of us will be open to dis-
cussing further steps Congress, the ex-
ecutive branch, the states and the pri-
vate sector might take to defend our
elections against foreign interference,”
he said as he seethed on the Senate floor
over what he described as McCarthy-
style attacks on his integrity and distor-
tions of both his position on election se-
curity and his hawkish history of chal-
lenging Russia.
Throughout his political career, Mr.
McConnell has made opposition to the
Kremlin a hallmark of his foreign policy
stands.
For once, Democrats seemed to be
getting to a man who has embraced his
portrayal as Darth Vader and the Grim
Reaper overseeing a Senate graveyard
for legislation that he opposes. When an
unsubstantiated West Virginia Senate
campaign ad in 2018 called him “Cocaine
Mitch,” he began answering his Senate
telephone with that identifier.
“Moscow Mitch”? Not so much: “I
was called unpatriotic, un-American
and essentially treasonous,” he fumed
on the Senate floor.
Democrats pressed their advantage.
And why not? The hashtag
#MoscowMitchMcTraitor was trending
on Twitter, and Senate Republicans of all
stripes were being asked about the
blockade.
“So long as the Senate Republicans
prevent legislation from reaching the
floor, so long as they oppose additional
appropriations to the states, so long as
they malign election security provisions
as, quote, partisan wish lists, the critics
are right to say Leader McConnell and
Republican senators are blocking elec-
tion security,” Senator Chuck Schumer
of New York, the Democratic leader,
said on the floor Tuesday.
Mr. Schumer has in the past sug-gested that another potential reason be-
hind Mr. McConnell’s position is the
thought that interference emanating
from Russia could aid Republicans. “I
hope it’s not because he thinks it will
benefit him, because Putin could turn
around in a minute, and then do things
that he doesn’t like,” Mr. Schumer said in
June.
Lawmakers in both parties have elec-
tion security proposals waiting on the
sidelines, and the furor has caused some
to step up demands for Congress to take
up their bills.
Senators Marco Rubio, Republican of
Florida, and Chris Van Hollen, Demo-
crat of Maryland, wrote on Monday to
colleagues reconciling the annual
House and Senate military policy bill to
request that they include stalled sanc-
tions legislation meant to deter Russia
or other foreign actors from interfering
in American elections.
House lawmakers included a similar
provision in their military policy bill, but
the senators want to see it strengthened
to slap Russia’s economy with intense
sanctions if it is found to interfere in a
future election.
“This conference committee repre-
sents this Congress’ best — potentially
last — opportunity to enact meaningful
legislation aimed at deterring Russia
from a repeat performance of its 2016
presidential election interference,” the
senators wrote. “We ask that you seize
this opportunity and include the provi-
sions outlined above in the final confer-
ence report.”
On Tuesday, Senator Susan Collins of
Maine, a Republican member of the Sen-
ate Intelligence Committee, signed on to
a measure by Senator Mark Warner ofVirginia, the committee’s top Democrat,
that would require campaign officials to
report to federal authorities any offers
of campaign assistance from foreign en-
tities.
“Russia’s efforts to interfere in our
elections remain relentless,” said Ms.
Collins, who is also up for re-election
next year, in a statement.
Mr. McConnell’s opposition to any and
all election legislation has bottled up the
bills in the Senate Rules Committee. The
panel’s chairman, Senator Roy Blunt,
Republican of Missouri, has hesitated to
advance any of the measures since they
would go nowhere on the floor.
Mr. Blunt said he repeatedly had been
assured by the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation the Department of Homeland
Security and the federal intelligence
agencies that they were not lacking re-
sources to combat election interference.
“They always say, ‘No, we don’t need
anything,’” Mr. Blunt said Tuesday. A
former state elections official himself,
Mr. Blunt said he agreed with Mr. Mc-
Connell that the federal government
should not gain more authority over
state elections.
“Mitch would not want to see us fur-
ther federalize the process and that’s
where I am, too,” Mr. Blunt said.
Proponents of the bills say they were
devised to keep the states in the lead. A
Democratic measure approved by the
House would send more than $1 billion
to state and local governments to
tighten election security, but would also
demand that states use the money for
machines with backup paper ballots and
require a national strategy to protect
American democratic institutions
against cyberattacks. States would be
required to spend federal funds only on
federally certified “election infrastruc-
ture vendors.”
A bipartisan measure in both cham-
bers would require internet companies
like Facebook to disclose the purchasers
of political ads.
Another bipartisan Senate proposal
would codify cyberinformation-sharing
initiatives between federal intelligence
services and state election officials,
speed up the granting of security clear-
ances to state officials and provide fed-
eral incentives for states to adopt
backup paper ballots.
Backup paper ballots got an endorse-
ment Tuesday from an unlikely source:
Mr. Trump. He took to Twitter to call for
“Paper Ballots as backup (old fashioned
but true!).”‘Moscow Mitch’ tag
enrages U.S. senator
WASHINGTONRepublican leader fumes
over criticism of block
on election security plansBY CARL HULSESenator Mitch McConnell, who is usually impervious to criticism, voiced anger on the
Senate floor: “I was called unpatriotic, un-American and essentially treasonous.”ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMESDemocrats seemed to be getting
to a man who has embraced his
portrayal as Darth Vader
overseeing a Senate graveyard
for legislation that he opposes.For American farmers battered by
floods and blizzards and one of the rain-
iest springs on record, this has been a
year tainted by too much water.
But suddenly, across more than
100,000 acres of Nebraska and Wyo-
ming, there is no water to be found. The
dirt is cracking. The beans are turning a
sickly yellow. And the corn, which
looked so promising just two weeks ago,
is straining for fluid through long,
scorching days.
The countryside is suddenly parched
because a century-old tunnel in a canal
system that carries irrigation water
across more than 100 miles, from Wyo-
ming to Nebraska, collapsed this month.
The cause of the tunnel collapse was not
yet clear, but the effect has been imme-
diate:
A large expanse of farmland is
parched. And hundreds of farmers, al-
ready reeling from years of low grain
prices, are without water at the most
critical point of the growing cycle.
“Could you survive working with no
salary for a year?” said Kendall Busch,
who grows sugar beets, beans and corn
near Mitchell, Neb. “That’s what we’re
doing.”
Across much of the Great Plains, this
growing season seemed cursed even be-
fore the irrigation crisis.
First came trade wars that threw the
grain markets into chaos.
Then floods covered cornfields with
ice chunks the size of golf carts.
An abnormally wet spring delayed
planting by weeks or months.
Finally, just when conditions were
looking more stable, the tunnel col-
lapsed, an irrigation canal split open and
the water stopped flowing.
Not every problem hit every farmer,
but few in Midwestern agriculture will
make it to harvest unscathed.
“It’s just been event after event after
event,” said Dave Kaufman, who can-
celed the purchase of a new Ford F-
truck to save money after much of his
farmland outside Gering, Neb., went
dry. “And you would think that the last
shoe had dropped, but it hasn’t.”
In the semiarid hills of the Nebraska
Panhandle and eastern Wyoming,
where summer rains are rare, farmers
depend on irrigation water diverted
from rivers through a network of canals
and tunnels. A portion of that canal sys-
tem had for generations nourished corn,
sugar beets, pinto beans and other crops
with water siphoned from the North
Platte River.
That all changed July 17.
Buz Oliver, who grows corn and hay
outside Fort Laramie, Wyo., was out
checking his crops early that morning
when he noticed that a nearby cornfield
had turned into a lake. “I can see all that
water out across my neighbor’s field,
and I’m like, ‘What the heck’s going
on?’” Mr. Oliver said.
A climb to the top of a hill revealed a
worst-case scenario: Not far from his
property, a roughly half-mile tunnel that
carried water through a large hill had
collapsed in the night, leaving a swift-
moving current with no room to ad-
vance. Within hours, as pressure built,
the earthen banks of the canal had been
overwhelmed. Water burst through with
such force that old-growth trees were
snapped into pieces, fence posts were
ripped from the ground and cows, with
no time to retreat, became stranded on
small islands in their former pasture.
Farmers specialize in contingency
planning, but this was a disaster no one
saw coming.
The tunnels and canals, though old,
were maintained regularly and had per-
formed for generations with few major
problems. Elected irrigation officials in
both states oversee management of the
canal system, which was built by the
federal government. Though the cause
of the breach was not yet identified, it
was raising new questions about the re-
liance of American agriculture on de-caying infrastructure. In Nebraska
alone, around $50 million in crops is at
stake.
“The biggest advantage the United
States farmers and ranchers have has
been our transportation and infrastruc-
ture system,” said Steve Wellman, the
director of the Nebraska Department of
Agriculture, who said broad investment
was needed to improve the disaster-
prone roads, canals and dams that help
farmers grow their crops and get themto buyers. Out in the state’s far west, the
canal failure came at an especially cruel
moment. After soggy fields delayed
planting, farmers spent heavily this
spring on seed and fertilizer and labor to
get their crops in the ground. By mid-
July, the fields looked promising. Crops
were approaching the point when irriga-
tion becomes most important.
“All the major crops, they are at peak
water use, at a stage we shouldn’t stress
them at all,” said Xin Qiao, a professorwho studies irrigation at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln. Because of the ca-
nal failure, he predicted that farmers
could harvest up to 90 percent less corn,
70 percent less edible beans and about
half as many sugar beets.
Times were already hard. Corn prices
had been low in recent years, leaving
many farmers with barely enough in-
come to cover their costs, let alone make
payments on a new tractor or a new
field.
Farms filing for bankruptcy protec-
tion rose by 19 percent last year across
the Midwest, the highest level in a dec-
ade, according to data compiled by the
American Farm Bureau.
But farmers in the Nebraska Panhan-
dle and eastern Wyoming avoided the
worst of the spring flooding, and with
corn prices ticking upward, this felt like
the year when they might finally start to
get ahead. Now they face uncertainty
about whether crop insurance will cover
their losses, and the possibility of a mon-
strous tax bill to cover a permanent fix
for the canal, which could cost up to $
million.
“There will be several of these
producers who won’t be able to make it
through this,” said Steve Erdman, a Ne-
braska state senator and longtime
farmer whose district includes some of
the newly dry land. “They’re going to
lose their farms.”
Most immediately, farmers face the
challenge of salvaging whatever they
can from this year’s crop. A temporary
repair may get water moving through
the canal again by mid-August, which
would help. But what they really need —
and what Mr. Erdman has asked his con-
stituents to pray for — is rain, and lots of
it.First floods, now no water
Above, the end of an irrigation tunnel that
collapsed in Wyoming, blocking a system
that farmers like Kendall Busch, left, rely
on to water their crops.PHOTOGRAPHS BY THEO STROOMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESMITCHELL, NEB.Irrigation tunnel collapse
is latest crisis on farms in
Nebraska and WyomingBY MITCH SMITHA basketball jersey believed to have
been worn by former President Barack
Obama as a high school student in Hono-
lulu could be yours.
The bidding has already begun for the
white cotton-and-wool-blend garment
bearing a blue No. 23, a number later fa-
mously also worn by Michael Jordan
and LeBron James. Heritage Auctions, a
Dallas-based company known for sales
of sports memorabilia, coins, comics
and movie posters, describes it as hav-
ing been worn by Mr. Obama during his
senior year at Punahou School when he
was a member of the 1979 boys’ varsity
basketball state championship team.
Mike Provenzale, a production man-
ager for Heritage Auctions, estimated
that the jersey could fetch upward of
$100,000 (bidding stood at $30,000 as of
late Tuesday afternoon). The main fac-
tors that drive the value of any col-
lectible are rarity and popularity or in-
fluence of the player, he said.“But no one has ever sold anything
like this,” Mr. Provenzale said in an in-
terview on Monday. A handful of presi-
dents’ golf clubs have been sold that
were used during their time in office or
before their political careers, he added.
The jersey is being sold by Peter No-
ble, who was three years behind Mr.
Obama at Punahou School, according to
the auction house. Mr. Noble, who could
not be reached for comment on Monday,
wore the same jersey in practices while
on the junior varsity team and took it
home because of his personal attach-
ment to it, Mr. Provenzale said. Mr. No-
ble was working for the school’s athlet-
ics department and rescued the jersey
when the school bought new uniforms
for the basketball team.
“Unfortunately, we cannot comment
on the authenticity or the provenance of
this jersey,” said Robert Gelber, Puna-
hou’s director of communications.
For his part, Mr. Obama, who did not
respond to a request for comment on
Monday, has long talked about thegame’s significance to him. As The New
York Times has reported, basketball
was a way to make friends as one of only
a few black students at the school in Ha-
waii’s capital and a source of comfort for
a boy whose father was mostly absent.
“At least on the basketball court I couldfind a community of sorts,” he wrote in
his book “Dreams From My Father.”
Chris McLachlin, his high school
coach, said Mr. Obama “was on a very,
very strong team.”
“Had he been on any other team in the
league, he would have been a starter,”
Mr. McLachlin told The Times in 2007.
“But he practiced hard, and his work
ethic might have been above everyone
else’s. He practiced at the 10 a.m. juice
break; he practiced at the lunch break at
noon; and he was the last one to leave
each day.”
The jersey is currently on display at
the National Sports Collectors Conven-
tion in Rosemont, Ill., outside Chicago,
and will also be shown in New York. The
bidding will close at 10 p.m. Central time
on Aug. 17. The highest bidder will also
take home a 1979 yearbook featuring
photographs of Mr. Obama on the court
and a letter of authenticity from Mr. No-
ble.Before he was 44, Obama wore No. 23
BY EMILY S. RUEBSusan C. Beachy contributed research.A jersey said to be from former President
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