text stringlengths 237 126k | date_download stringdate 2022-01-01 00:32:20 2023-01-01 00:02:37 ⌀ | source_domain stringclasses 60 values | title stringlengths 4 31.5k ⌀ | url stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ | id stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FILE — Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck, right, admires a prize-winning poster by his son, Thomas Steinbeck, in Hartford, Conn., March 22, 1963. A tender and touching letter that author John Steinbeck penned to his teenage son, offering fatherly advice after the young man confided that he was in love for the first time, is going up for auction. “If you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you,” the Nobel literature laureate told his son, Thomas, in 1958. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-13T19:58:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Steinbeck's tender letter to son sells for more than $32,000 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/steinbecks-tender-letter-to-son-sells-for-more-than-32000/2022/10/13/4e002828-4b2c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/steinbecks-tender-letter-to-son-sells-for-more-than-32000/2022/10/13/4e002828-4b2c-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Has Biden altered the one-China policy? Yes and no.
President Biden greets U.S. troops during his visit to Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on May 22. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
The first time President Biden publicly declared the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense in the case of a Chinese attack, it was considered a gaffe. Now that he has publicly reinforced that statement three more times, many in Washington and around the world are understandably wondering whether the president is orchestrating a significant and perhaps risky shift away from America’s so-called one-China policy. But is that really the case? Yes and no.
The one-China policy, in place since 1972, stipulates that the United States recognizes the People’s Republic of China as the “sole legal government of China” — yet it also allows Washington to support Taiwan’s right to self-determination and self-defense, with the question of whether the United States would intervene on Taiwan’s behalf left unanswered (which is known as “strategic ambiguity”). This position has underpinned U.S.-China relations for decades and helped maintain a tense peace across the Taiwan Strait. According to Biden’s own National Security Strategy, released this week, the administration remains “committed to our one China policy” and opposes attempts by either side to change the status quo.
That’s hard to square with Biden’s public commitments to send U.S. troops to defend Taiwan, which represent at least a rhetorical change in the U.S. approach. Is the contradiction intentional? According to multiple officials I spoke with, the answer depends on whose intentions we are talking about.
For Biden, the move away from “strategic ambiguity” to “strategic clarity” was entirely intentional; for his staff, not so much. There was no formal policy process underlying the change in rhetoric. But presidents have the power and prerogative to make changes in foreign policy on their own. Biden, who faces political pressure from his own party and from Republicans to avoid being outflanked on the China-Taiwan issue, made the call.
At the same time, there’s no administration effort to reexamine the underlying Taiwan strategy, despite Biden’s new position. As a result, the contradiction is now ingrained in U.S. policy with no real explanation. It’s a paradox. Like Schrödinger’s Cat, “strategic ambiguity” is both alive and dead at once. And nobody wants to be the one who opens the box to find out for sure.
But for many China and Taiwan watchers, Biden’s move away from “strategic ambiguity” does not necessarily mean the end of the larger one-China policy. After all, they argue, the rest of the framework still exists, and there’s little upside to getting rid of it.
“You can achieve greater strategic clarity without undoing the one-China policy,” said Randall Schriver, a former Pentagon and State Department Asia official. “It is intact in the sense of the diplomatic position. But it is of diminished meaning and significance.”
Like Schriver, some officials argue that the contradiction is not as consequential as it seems. Beijing always assumed that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense militarily, they say; Biden just said the quiet part out loud. Officials also note that the increased support Washington has offered Taiwan pales in comparison with the increased military, diplomatic and economic threats coming from Beijing.
“It’s a diplomatic arrangement that entailed reciprocal agreements, and it has been fraying and diminished because the Chinese haven’t been meeting their commitments to take a fundamentally peaceful approach,” Schriver said.
There are fair arguments both for and against moving away from “strategic ambiguity.” Will explicit U.S. commitments to defend Taiwan make Chinese President Xi Jinping think twice before attacking, raising deterrence and preventing a war? Or will such moves convince Xi his hand is being forced (or at least give him a pretext for that claim), thus making war more likely? Honestly, there’s no way to know.
As Xi heads into his third term, he is ramping up his aggressive foreign policy as he tightens his hold on the reins of power. He is clearly threatening an attack when he says that “reunification” is an objective that “must be fulfilled.” Beijing pretends the United States has agreed to its so-called one-China principle, which asserts that Taiwan is part of China, unlike our one-China policy, which acknowledges but does not endorse Beijing’s claim to the island.
China is trying to have it both ways, accusing the United States of being the instigator while denying China’s role in destabilizing the situation. But it is still unclear whether Xi will be patient and accept this shaky status quo or accelerate his plans for reunification by force. Either way, the United States must join with partners to help Taiwan bolster its defenses, thus giving Taiwan a credible chance of defending itself. We must hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
The one-China policy is only a symbol of the long-standing, tacit agreement between the two countries to leave the Taiwan question unresolved. It’s a policy worth saving, if possible. But it’s not an agreement the United States can uphold alone. Right now, the one-China policy looks fragile, but it’s Xi — not Biden — who will decide whether the policy and the peace it preserves will survive. | 2022-10-13T19:58:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Has Biden abandoned the one-China policy? Yes and no. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/biden-china-taiwan-policy-contradiction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/biden-china-taiwan-policy-contradiction/ |
Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Jeanette Manfra, the global director of risk and compliance at Google Cloud, and Sean Joyce, the global and U.S. cybersecurity and privacy leader at PwC, join Washington Post Live to discuss the importance of cybersecurity in business, policy and national security. Conversations recorded on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. | 2022-10-13T19:58:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sen. Warner and Gov. Holcomb on geopolitical and economic impact of bipartisan chips bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/sen-warner-and-gov-holcomb-on-geopolitical-and-economic-impact-of-bipartisan-chips-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/sen-warner-and-gov-holcomb-on-geopolitical-and-economic-impact-of-bipartisan-chips-bill/ |
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sits off stage in Seattle. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
With more than 225 stores voting to unionize since last fall, the Starbucks unionization effort has been seen as a beacon of hope for the labor movement. But despite his track record of providing workers with substantial benefits, Starbucks’s founder and current CEO, Howard Schultz, sees the movement as a personal threat to his life's work. Reporter Greg Jaffe spent time with Schultz to try to understand his beliefs on unionizing, and what the future of the labor movement could be now that it has such a powerful adversary in Schultz.
What happens in Vegas … could control Washington
The balance of power in Washington could come down to the U.S. Senate race in Nevada. National politics reporter Hannah Knowles went to Las Vegas to find out where voters stand weeks before the midterms. | 2022-10-13T19:59:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The billionaire Starbucks CEO and his ‘Venti’ union fight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-billionaire-starbucks-ceo-and-his-venti-union-fight/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-billionaire-starbucks-ceo-and-his-venti-union-fight/ |
The investor, who initially resisted contributing more than $15 million, is now eyeing another cash infusion up to $5 million
Peter Thiel, co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during a news conference in Tokyo in November 2019. (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg)
Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor who pumped $15 million into a super PAC that helped make Blake Masters the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, is planning to spend as much as $5 million more in the race, according to people familiar with the matter.
The additional spending would mark a reversal for Thiel, who had previously indicated he was not going to make a financial commitment in the general election.
He previewed his updated plans, which have not been previously reported, in talks this week with a representative from a PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Thiel suggested he and the PAC each put $5 million behind Masters, a friend and former employee of the venture capitalist’s.
But Steven Law, who heads the McConnell-linked group, the Senate Leadership Fund, indicated to Thiel on Thursday that he could not find the resources to make that commitment, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private details. The PAC had previously canceled $9.6 million in ads initially reserved for the race, citing costs elsewhere and spending by other conservative groups to boost Masters.
A spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund declined to comment. A spokesman for Thiel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The discussions of a possible joint contribution were first reported by Axios, and the response Thursday from Law was first reported by Politico.
Thiel’s thinking about additional spending has evolved as the race, in which Masters is aiming to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), has remained close, according to people who have spoken to him. Kelly has enjoyed a significant financial advantage, holding in reserve nearly $25 million as of the last reporting period, which ran through mid-July, compared to $1.5 million on hand for Masters.
In a series of phone calls over the summer earlier reported by The Washington Post, Thiel indicated to McConnell and his associates that he was not planning to spend more, beyond the $15 million he contributed in the primary to a pro-Masters PAC, called Saving Arizona. His position at the time was that McConnell’s group should spend for a Senate majority, and that an additional cash infusion from him might be used as a Democratic talking point.
Early voting in Arizona has already started. County recorders began to send out mail ballots on Wednesday, also the first day polling places could open for in-person early voting. | 2022-10-13T19:59:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Peter Thiel to put more money behind Masters as McConnell group balks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/thiel-masters-mcconnell/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/thiel-masters-mcconnell/ |
Harrison Bader hit his first home run as a Yankee on Tuesday in Game 1 of the ALDS against Cleveland. (John Minchillo/AP)
NEW YORK — One afternoon in mid-September, New York Yankees outfielder Harrison Bader stood near the entrance to the Yankees’ cavernous clubhouse and stared up at the television screen. The St. Louis Cardinals, the team that traded him away at the deadline, the only team he had ever known, were playing a day game. After a few minutes, Bader turned away and headed into the batting cages to test the injured leg that had kept him out of action since he joined the Yankees on Aug. 2.
His former team, and the player they acquired for him, Jordan Montgomery, were cruising through September. His new team was struggling, in need of the kind of spark Bader could provide if he were healthy. But the Yankees had traded for him knowing they would have to wait for his plantar fasciitis to heal.
“I’ve learned from a lot of players in the past to let your game speak for itself,” Bader said then. “Being in this atmosphere, to not really have a voice — what I can do to help the team win, that is my voice, so the fact that I can’t play has taken my voice away, which has been tough.”
A month later, one game into the Yankees’ postseason, Bader has made himself heard. He hit his first home run as a Yankee and made a stellar defensive play to save a run in their Game 1 ALDS win over the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday night. He seems likely to play again Friday when the teams meet again after Game 2 was postponed Thursday because of rain.
He certainly played Tuesday, when a packed crowd at Yankee Stadium cheered the kid from Bronxville, N.Y., like he was one of their own. The 28-year-old said he usually tries not to show emotion. But he couldn’t help it rounding first base after hitting that homer and reminding the franchise and its fans why he was acquired in the first place. He admitted he had something to prove, particularly after the beloved Montgomery started pitching like Cy Young when he arrived in St. Louis (5-0, 1.45 ERA in his first seven starts with the Cardinals before fading a bit in September).
“I want to show them all why I earned that uniform, there’s no doubt,” said Bader, who played in 14 regular season games for New York. “However, the flip side, the more professional side, the reality of the situation, is that I wasn’t ready to play; and if I was going to force playing, if I was chasing that exact emotion, you know, it would have been — it wouldn’t have been a version of myself that would have been effective for myself and for my teammates. Coping with that reality allowed me to just continue to work. There was a tremendous staff in there who was helping me every day get back to the field.”
An injury to fellow deadline acquisition Andrew Benintendi and poor hitting from Aaron Hicks left the Yankees desperate for outfield depth alongside Aaron Judge — so much so that midseason call-up Oswaldo Cabrera, a career infielder, started in left field for them in Game 1 against the Guardians.
“I thought right away he endeared himself to us. He’s an outgoing guy. Right away I could tell he was really excited to be here,” Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said. “I think he was aware and had some levity to the situation. … ‘We traded a popular teammate and I show up in a walking boot’; he kind of made light of that. But we also knew we were getting a really good player.”
Bader was a regular for the Cardinals since 2018, an elite defensive center fielder who won the Gold Glove there last year. He is not known as an offensive force, but he is not irrelevant at the plate, either: Bader owns a .245 career batting average and .723 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. And, at least for one night Tuesday, he looked like the kind of player whose impact grows at the biggest moments. He hit .160 in 10 postseason games for the Cardinals over the years. But being in October with the Yankees, the team he grew up rooting for, a team he saw play in the postseason during their run to the 2009 World Series championship, is different — even though he said he tried to separate his childhood memories from his new day job.
“It’s very easy to get emotional. It pulls you out of what you’re trying to do,” Bader said. “I definitely remember the level of excitement I felt. Fans standing up when the other team had two strikes on them. It was just a constant energy factor, if you will. And you know, since I was a young kid — I’d say maybe 20 years ago I started coming to Yankee Stadium — nothing’s changed.” | 2022-10-13T20:00:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harrison Bader is having his Yankees moment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/harrison-bader-yankees/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/harrison-bader-yankees/ |
Transcript: Securing Cyberspace
MS. LEE: Hi. Good morning. Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Jennifer Lee, director of events here at The Post.
Cybersecurity has grown in importance as a business, policy, and national security issue. From high‑profile attacks like SolarWinds to the daily efforts by hackers that you may never hear about, the cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and sophistication.
Today we'll hear from a wide range of perspectives on how the U.S. government and private businesses are working to protect themselves and us from such threats. First, we will hear from one of the leading cyber voices in Congress, Representative John Katko of New York, who will be interviewed by Post tech policy reporter Cat Zakrzewski.
Then we will hear a view from the private sector with Sean Joyce, the global and U.S. cybersecurity and privacy leader at PwC, and Jeanette Manfra, the global director for Security and Compliance at Google Cloud. They will be interviewed by deputy business editor Damian Paletta.
And, finally, national security reporter Ellen Nakashima will interview Anne Neuberger, the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology.
I want to thank today's presenting sponsor, CrowdStrike, and I'll hand it over to Adam Meyers, the senior vice president of Intelligence at CrowdStrike, to say a few words.
MR. MEYERS: Good morning. Thanks, everybody, for coming today. Very excited to be here and would like to thank all of the speakers and certainly The Washington Post for allowing us to do this, and I think we've got a really exciting agenda lined up today.
Really, the purpose here is to bring together a bunch of different voices from the public sector, the private sector, and get into some of the various interesting things going on in space.
So, without further ado, I'll turn it back over to The Washington Post. Thank you.
MS. LEE: Thank you, Adam. Let's get started. My colleague, Cat Zakrzewski, will join us on stage with our first guest after this short video.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Hello and good morning. I'm Cat Zakrzewski, a tech policy reporter here at The Washington Post, and thank you for joining us today for our event on "Securing Cyberspace."
I'm pleased to be joined today by Representative Katko of New York. He is the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Representative Katko, thank you so much for joining us, and welcome back to The Washington Post.
REP. KATKO: Thanks for having me, and good morning, everybody. Good morning.
REP. KATKO: I think that's‑‑you're awake now. Okay.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Thanks for waking everybody up on this rainy morning.
And, as a reminder to our guests, we want to hear from you. Tweet us your questions using the handle @PostLive, and we will try to get them into the conversation today.
And so, Congressman, I wanted to start out, you're one of the most engaged members of Congress on cybersecurity. Since you've been in the House since 2014, how would you grade your colleagues, Congress's understanding of the cybersecurity threats we're facing as a nation today?
REP. KATKO: I don't know about a grade, but I will say that it has evolved. When I first started on Homeland Security, CISA didn't exist, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, and the greatest threat to the homeland by far was homegrown violent extremism inspired by ISIS‑type groups. You have like San Bernardino, and you had the Pulse Nightclub and all these terrible tragedies. And we've evolved from there to having cyber be the number one threat to our country. People can be in their own rooms in Russia or Eastern Europe or China and launch major cyberattacks, and that's a whole new dynamic throughout that everyone is coming to grips with as we continue on in Congress.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And as you just mentioned, I mean, over the last eight years, we've seen a major evolution. I mean, when you joined Congress, we were talking about the Target data breach and Yahoo.
REP. KATKO: Mm‑hmm.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And now we're seeing these attacks far more frequently, and they're far more severe. The video referenced critical infrastructure. What steps does Congress need to take today so we don't see that exponential increase in threat over the next decade?
REP. KATKO: Well, I think what we need to do is what we've already been doing, and that is to beef up cybersecurity funding across the board for NSA, for the dot‑mil regime, for CISA, and I think we need to do more to empower Chris Inglis as the national cyber director. And the way I look at it is you want to look at it from a team approach. Inglis is the head coach. He needs to have the powers of head coach. You have the quarterback. I would say the civilian and dot‑gov domain being CISA. You have the special teams at NSA, and then you have the offense and defense capabilities on the military. We've got to make sure that they're all properly funded, they're doing state‑of‑the‑art defenses, they're developing good collaborative efforts with the private sector, and they're working better together as a team, because that's why I like using analogy of a quarterback and head coach and all that because they're all part of the same team, and we need to be working together to achieve the goals. And the goal is to minimize and eradicate cyberattacks having the devastating effects they have on us today.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: What do you view as the top barriers preventing those groups from working together as a team today?
REP. KATKO: I think it's a new thing, to be honest with you. I mean, let's face it. I was in Congress eight years, and CISA has only been in existence four years. So this is all evolving. So what we have to do going forward is to make sure we understand the respective roles of each, better define them, and then get them to work better together. And that's why I think the national cyber director was so very important.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And looking back on the time that you spent in Congress, was there a particular breach or hack that you feel was really a wakeup call that helped lawmakers understand how pressing this issue is?
REP. KATKO: I think the wakeup call for the country as a whole‑‑I mean, if you're a hospital or a school‑‑we've had wakeup calls in my district for years with the ransomware attacks. But I think the Colonial Pipeline was such a‑‑such a shock to the system, and when you see people filling up garbage bags of gasoline out of panic at gas stations, you know that you've got the attention of people. And that was followed up by the JBS attack and some of the others. Obviously, some of the ones for us, the geeks in the cyber realm, where we know about the more sophisticated attacks like the Log4j and some of those other ones at‑‑could have crippling effects. But the Colonial Pipeline one, I think, really woke everybody up because there's critical infrastructure 101, and critical infrastructure got attacked. And we weren't ready for it.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And so you've introduced legislation that would call for identifying systemically important critical infrastructure. How would that legislation help prevent another Colonial Pipeline from occurring.
REP. KATKO: Well, the way we look at it is there are 16 critical infrastructure sectors, right? If they're all systematically important, then none of them are, and, you know, none get the‑‑you got to look at the‑‑the whole idea behind the SICI legislation‑‑is the slang for it‑‑would be to say of all these critical infrastructures, this is the most critical, right? And then you identify it.
But, after we passed the reporting requirements legislation, incident reporting, I'm starting to see within the development of the rulemaking process at CISA that I think it's going to shake itself out without the necessity for that legislation, someone at legislation that was more‑‑I don't want to say bureaucratic. What's the word?--‑‑regulatory in nature, and I think that would be a mistake.
I think we need to continue with the collaborative effort we're developing with the private sector and CISA, information coming in, taking that information, operationalizing it, and then send it back out in a better way and form. And I think, hopefully, this rulemaking process is going to do that. And I saw one of the RFIs recently, which is very encouraging in that regard.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: So this legislation was based on recommendations from the Cyber Solarium.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And some of the Democrats said that your proposal initially didn't go far enough. Any bill addressing critical infrastructure needs to also address what the companies and government need to do as a result of that designation.
You just said you're concerned about too much bureaucracy. What's at risk with having legislation that's‑‑
REP. KATKO: Well, the risk is, I think‑‑we should learn from some of the past agencies that have been developed and how they've grown into regulatory behemoths that somehow lose their way.
I think what happened with‑‑especially with Ukraine in the cyberattacks that happened in Ukraine which preceded the invasion of Ukraine and the threats to the West from Russia, the continued threats today, and the intelligence bearing out that, they're pecking around getting ready to do major attack, perhaps‑‑I think that showed that we need to be more collaborative with the private sector.
Like, CISA came up with, like, Shields Up, for example. You can go to the website, Shields Up, and you can help your systems right away, and what we're seeing is that the private sector is incentivized to work with CISA.
If you get a regulatory scheme, it becomes almost like a shirts‑and‑skins game, you know, where they're on one side and they're on the other side. That's what we're trying to avoid, and I understand and completely respect what people are saying as far as the SICI legislation.
But I think it's‑‑we can't lose sight of the fact that the private sector has to have the comfort to work and trust with a teammate, that being CISA, as opposed to more of a dictatorial or rulemaking agency that's overseeing and causing all kinds of problems with them, because I think CISA is a unique agency in that the synergy between the private sector and CISA is the only way that CISA could be successful. And, if they're not, if they don't have that synergy and exchange of information on a fluid basis, like we do in the joint terrorism task forces, like I worked with for 20 years as a federal prosecutor, if you don't have fluidity, I think you have problems.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: So, when we're talking about such severe attacks on pipelines, on energy grids, can we really leave that up to the private sector?
REP. KATKO: Oh, we're not leaving it to private sector. No. Make no mistake about it. There's going to be rules. There's going to be rulemaking with the incident reporting, and the incident reporting, as it shakes out, I think, will tell us whether or not we ultimately need the SICI legislation and what kind.
There was a disagreement, and rare for most of us in Homeland to have disagreements on cyber between Republicans and Democrats, but that was one area we had disagreement. So that's why it didn't get across the finish line. So what I'm saying is the rulemaking process, I think, will shake out a lot of the concerns that both sides have, and then if we need to do something on the back end, we can do it. But I'm not sure we're going to need to. We'll have to take a look and see.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And you mentioned the situation in Ukraine, and I want to talk a little bit about what we've learned so far from the war. Given the cyberattacks that we've seen on Ukraine, do you think that we need to rethink the global cybersecurity norms?
REP. KATKO: Absolutely. Anybody who's familiar with NATO knows what Article 5 is, and Article 5 is what's an act of war. And every military in the world now, any credible military, has a pretty significant cyber command, and that's not just for the heck of it. That's because that is the modern face of warfare.
So we don't know what should be considered an act of war yet, but I think we need to decide within our team here with the national cyber director, the NSA, the dot‑mil, and with CISA what‑‑you know, taking but from all, what is‑‑what is considered an act of war in the modern space, or is any cyber attack an act of war? Then you'd need to have that similar conversation with NATO countries, and I think we have to tweak the rules accordingly, right?
Look what happened in Ukraine. Before they went in, like I mentioned, they had massive cyberattacks, which were an attempt to cripple their systems before they went in. How was that not considered an act of war? Right? But is every cyberattack an act of war? I don't think so, but we have to figure out what the red line is, or if you can even decide what the red line is and have to have those conversations.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: What do those conversations look like today? Because I think, you know, Senators and lawmakers first raised that issue back in February when we saw the invasion. So what kind of progress have you made? What kind of ideas have you heard since then?
REP. KATKO: It's in its nascent stages, no doubt about it, and we have to have more of a discussion based on a forensic analysis of what happened within Ukraine. And, if and when Ukraine becomes part of NATO or if they still share their information with NATO countries, NATO is now, ironically, stronger than it's ever been since World War II because of Russia's interference in Ukraine, and that's exactly what Russia didn't want to have happen. So, having this discussion is something that the NATO countries and we all have to have.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And I just want to ask really, specifically, because you kind of touched on this in your earlier answer, but should a cyberattack on a NATO country trigger Article 5?
REP. KATKO: That's a great question. I mean, that's the discussions we have to have, but like I said, it's a face of modern warfare is cyber. There's no question about it, and we need to understand that, digest that, and try and figure out where those new lines lie, because, quite frankly, we haven't done it enough yet.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And, while we're on this topic, I also wanted to talk about foreign disinformation. Do you think that the United States is currently prepared for any foreign disinformation we might face during the midterm elections?
REP. KATKO: We weren't in previous elections. I think we're getting better every election, but I think the problem we still have is which agency or which entity within government should be spearheading it or should be at the forefront of it.
The rollout of Homeland Security's Disinformation Board was an utter disaster because we didn't understand it, and so we can't have that again.
CISA should play a role but the others too. If it's a foreign actor, a foreign state, for example, China, Russia, especially Russia, I don't think CISA should be the only person making decisions on what to do and how to respond. It's got to be more of a collaborative effort within multiple agencies from the State Department to the White House.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: You mentioned the failed rollout of the Homeland Security Disinformation Board. How can the federal government address disinformation at this time when Republican lawmakers are raising concerns about social media censorship?
REP. KATKO: Yeah. And that's a legitimate concern, and that's highly likely that Republicans will be controlling the House next term, and so that's‑‑they're going to have to engage with Republicans on this. The problem with the Disinformation Board was it was not‑‑it was not a bipartisan effort.
I can tell you from my own work in Congress, the best bills, the best legislation, and the best results are when you work in a collaborative manner. Bennie Thompson and I have worked together very well over the last eight years, and Homeland Security by its nature tends to be more collaborative. We have very serious disagreements with the border. Put that aside, cyber and other areas within the homeland security mission, but we are very collaborative, and cyber is one them. And we need to continue to be that way. You can't have something as difficult and fraught with possible infringement of individuals' rights of free speech without having a collaborative effort, and that's why I think the Disinformation Board was such a failure.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Since the revelations of Russian disinformation after the 2016 election, we've seen a greater collaboration between the tech companies and organizations like CISA and other national security agencies. Do you think that's a positive development?
REP. KATKO: Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, some people in my party will scream that they're all just out to get them. No, that's a bunch of crap. They're not. Okay. But, at the same token, do we need to have a better understanding of what they do and how they do it?
I mean, look at all the concern now that's being enunciated because of Elon Musk taking over Twitter. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. You know, that aside, we need to have a better synergy between the two.
If you're not getting the theme here, everything I talk about is working together, because that's something we've lost in this country and we've lost in Congress, and that's what we've got to do more of for sure.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And I'm just curious because you just mentioned the Elon Musk Twitter deal, and I wanted to ask you, given your work on homeland security, Elon Musk has strong business ties in China. There is talk about whether or not he's been in direct communication with Vladimir Putin. Do those activities pose a national security risk as he takes control of a major American social media platform?
REP. KATKO: I think you have to get more information. I think it would be irresponsible to say yes or no until we know if he had the conversations and what are the nature and quality of the conversations, right? But, clearly, it's something we should keep an eye on. Clearly.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Yeah. I mean, he's confirmed that he talked to Putin at least once 18 months ago, and then there's a report that he had a more recent call. I mean, this is an unprecedented situation in many ways to have a tech executive have that kind of communication. I mean, what steps could the federal government even take if it turns out that he did have those conversations?
REP. KATKO: Well, I mean, like I said, it's a murky time, right? And it's a murky time with Twitter and the government and disinformation and who gets banned and why or should they be banned, should everyone just have unfettered access to the internet, all those types of things.
We've done a good job of pointing out the problems, but very few people have talked about solutions, and I don't pretend to have the solutions for that. But it's going to be a whole‑of‑government approach to it. We can't just have one party or the other party doing it, or one agency. It's got to be people together to really figure out how to best manage this new minefield.
I mean, it's such a complicated world now. When I was a kid, we had ABC, CBS, NBC, and public television. We didn't have the internet. We didn't have 24‑hour news cycles where you can go get your scratch itched and not have to hear an alternative point of view. That's all we have now, and that's kind of‑‑and then we have social media overlaying it, and it's a very difficult time. And it's like the brave new frontier that we've got to figure out.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And so one proposal you've introduced, a bipartisan bill to identify foreign propaganda on social media, incorporate labels. We saw some companies do more of this, especially in the fallout of the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
REP. KATKO: Right.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Do you think those labels are effective or do enough to flag this to users?
REP. KATKO: It's a start. It's a start for sure. It's flagging the problem, and it's identifying a problem. I don't necessarily think it's going to be the solution, but it's a start in the right direction. By passing that, we'd be acknowledging that there is a problem, and that needs to be addressed for sure.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And one of the things that we've seen with foreign disinformation is that it seeks to sow discord and amplify existing divisions within the American public.
REP. KATKO: I've a little experience for that running for office four times.
REP. KATKO: Yeah.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And so, I mean, given the political dynamic today and the fact that we have multiple Republican candidates running still on this message of election denialism, does that create an opportunity for foreign disinformation and foreign actors?
REP. KATKO: Perhaps. And I think it's a very troubling trends within our party, and I'm hoping that that will change soon and it will be tamped down, but it is something that is a very big concern for me.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Have you personally warned members of your party that that poses a potential national security risk?
REP. KATKO: Have I warned them? No. Have I said words to the effect of "are you nuts?" Yeah, I've said that. Yeah.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And so, I mean, I wanted to ask you. I mean, obviously, you're leaving Congress soon. How do you feel about the state of the Republican Party at this moment?
REP. KATKO: Like any party, the bigger the tent the better. I think that we have concerns within the, quote/unquote, family of the Republican Party. I am concerned that both parties have less tolerance for moderation, and I think that if you look at the Democratic side, a lot of the moderates are getting squeezed out, and the same with the Republican side. And there's an intolerance for anything other than 100 percent or nothing on both sides, and that's a real concern.
I would say this, and I'll do this with all of you right here. Raise your hand if you've ever been in a personal relationship or you've ever been in a business relationship? Everybody has. Raise your hands. Right?
Now, raise your hands if you got 100 percent out of that relationship or deal. No one ever does. So why do we expect it from our politicians? That's not what our country was founded upon, and so I'm concerned that both parties have gone too far to the left, too far to the right, and, you know, they've got to understand that working together with the other side is a good thing.
If you look at Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, what they got done together, diametrically opposed politically, but they did things and came together for the sake of the country. We need to get back to that for sure.
And I wanted to ask about that in the context of cybersecurity, which has been a relatively bipartisan issue during these polarized times.
REP. KATKO: Very much so, yeah.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: We're losing two cybersecurity heavyweights with both you and Jim Langevin, the Democratic cofounder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus. So do you think this bipartisan streak within cybersecurity can continue after you leave?
REP. KATKO: It has to, and I think it will. And I think, by and large, people understand in the homeland security realm, at least traditionally on the committee, that some things are bigger than your party, and a lot of things‑‑I think a lot of people can say it's easy‑‑we're all in agreement we want to protect the homeland. We may have difference of opinions around the edges, but we all believe we want to have better cybersecurity. And we all believe we want to have safer systems, and we all believe we want to be able to clamp back at the bad guys. We want to be able to have deterrence. We want better protection. So I think we will, and I think there's a lot of people coming up that will pick up that mantle.
And don't forget, when I came to Congress as a federal organized crime prosecutor for 20 years, I did very complicated, crazy cases, and I earned all my gray hairs. But I didn't know much about cyber before I got here, because the biggest threat to homeland when I first got here, like I said, was ISIS, and those inspired major events.
Now out of necessity, I've had to become an expert on cyber, and I think there's plenty of people coming up that already have a working knowledge of cyber that will be able to pick up the mantle and run with it, no question in my mind.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And given that expertise that you've developed on cyber, what assessment would you give the Biden administration's record so far on cybersecurity?
REP. KATKO: I think they've‑‑I think they've had great appointments in the leadership positions. I think Inglis is superb, and I think Jean Easterly at CISA is a terrific, terrific appointment, and some of the others that they've had. I mean, I think they've got a very strong team across the board, and now that they've got these great leaders, the trick is going to be able to empower them, properly fund them, and make sure they all get along well in the sandbox. And that's probably the last part of the puzzle we need to do.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: And, as you leave Congress, what is the cybersecurity threat that you're most worried about?
REP. KATKO: A catastrophic threat on the critical infrastructure sector, may it be at a grid, be at a water system.
Look what happened in Florida. If that guy didn't stumble across what was going on at that water system in Florida, thousands of people would have been poisoned and maybe killed. That shows the vulnerability of our systems, and what keeps me up at night. When Trump was in office, two things kept me up at night, what he tweeted in the morning before I got up.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Same.
REP. KATKO: And the other thing was, was there a catastrophic attack overnight somewhere, and now I worry all the time about cyberattacks because you still hear CEOs and leaders of businesses saying, "I don't want to hear about cyberattacks. I don't want to hear that our system has been compromised. We can't have this. You got to keep it quiet," and that is the biggest concern. I think people should embrace it and attack it, you know, and don't sweep it under the rug. And that's what we've got to do going forward, and that's the whole idea of what we're talking about today, I guess.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: Well, unfortunately, we're just about out of time. Representative Katko, thank you so much for joining us today.
REP. KATKO: Sure.
MS. ZAKRZEWSKI: My colleague, Damian Paletta, will be out here with our next guest after this video. Please stay with us.
MR. PALETTA: Hello and good morning. I'm Damian Paletta, deputy business editor here at The Post, and I'm honored to be joined today by Sean Joyce, global and U.S. cybersecurity and privacy leader at PwC, also former deputy director of the FBI; and Jeanette Manfra, global director of Risk and Compliance at Google Cloud. Prior to joining Google, Jeanette was the assistant secretary for Cybersecurity at the Cyber and Infrastructure Agency within the U.S. federal government.
Sean and Jeanette, thanks so much for being here.
MS. MANFRA: Thanks for having us.
MR. JOYCE: Thanks, Damian.
MR. PALETTA: So, you know, a lot of scary numbers out there about cybersecurity. According to the World Economic Forum, cybercrimes are set to cost governments and organizations $10 trillion by 2025, with a T. I mean, that's astonishing.
Sean, I want to start with you. What are some of the most prominent and concerning forms of cybercrimes in 2022, and how have they evolved in recent years?
MR. JOYCE: Well, I think that, as anyone knows out there, the threat continues to evolve. So we've seen ransomware evolve to something that, I think, probably five years ago hit our personal computers to then organizations. Now we're seeing ransomware as a service. We're seeing that tool being sold to different parts of the world and really being propagated in many different places.
So it's not just‑‑though I would say, like, ransomware is the thing that catches headlines. Many of you have probably heard of business email compromise. Actually, the incident of that is more than ransomware. It's just that ransomware is getting the headlines. So those of you whose email has ever been spoofed, right, those of you where they frequently send emails to the procurement and say, hey, we're the new vendor, or send it to this new routing number, the incidence of that is really picking up.
And I think we've seen, generally‑‑because the barriers to entry in this area is so low, we've really seen a proliferation throughout the world.
MR. PALETTA: And the barrier to entry is low, and I guess all they need to do is get like a 1 percent return on their attack, right, in order for them to be profitable?
MR. JOYCE: Exactly. So that's where you get to the tools that are being sold, where you don't need to be an expert at cyber, right? You have that tool. You basically spam a lot of people, and if you hit rates, 1, 2 percent, you still‑‑
MR. PALETTA: Right.
MR. JOYCE: ‑‑have a good day.
MR. PALETTA: Jeanette, I was wondering if I could ask you how things have evolved during the pandemic. You know, when I was at The Wall Street Journal years ago and wrote about these big nation state attacks, they seemed to have their kind of approach, but how have things changed during the pandemic when we've kind of changed how we work or maybe our vulnerabilities have changed as well?
MS. MANFRA: Yeah. I think, you know, in some ways, the strategies remain the same, right, as just find‑‑use real‑world events to find new targets and new mechanisms. So, you know, you start to see a lot of use of pandemic‑related messaging to use for social engineering and targeting a workforce and networks that are no longer completely protected by like a corporate network because people are out, and you have to rely on VPNs and so targeting of those.
And I would also say‑‑and not saying that this is related to the pandemic, but I think kind of building off of what Sean was saying is an increasing concern, is targeting very vulnerable and critical institutions, and schools, hospitals, and, you know, people in organizations that have very sensitive functions, sensitive data, and holding those sorts of organizations at risk. You see criminals just very willing to do that because they know that they're more likely to get that payoff, and that combined with, you know, the increasing inner relationships of nation states and criminal organizations, I think, puts us on a very concerning path.
MR. JOYCE: You know, the‑‑I just want to add to what she was saying.
MR. PALETTA: Yeah, please.
MR. JOYCE: So, you know, I think the United States when we look at the nation states, we think of obviously China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, right? What people don't know is probably there is more volume of attacks between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, right? So you're seeing these nation states much like the criminals, right, really looking at it as part of their hybrid, whether you want to call it intelligence operations or warfare, really leveraging their capability, which is much simpler than, right, an army to actually gather economic advantage or whatever they might be doing.
MR. PALETTA: And if I could just stay in that spot for a second because I'm really interested in the nation state component. There's a big focus‑‑obviously, there's two different things they can do. Maybe there's many more, but there's information gathering, and then there's, you know, taking bags of digital cash. So are we seeing‑‑are they shifting away from the information gathering in this day and age and getting more into the ransomware and trying to extort for money, or are we seeing kind of a mix of both?
MR. JOYCE: So I'll go first. It depends on the country.
MR. PALETTA: Mm‑hmm.
MR. JOYCE: Right? If you understand China, 60, 70 percent of their economy is driven by state‑owned enterprises. They are actually stealing intellectual property for economic advantage, right? We as the United States‑‑many countries spy. We spy for foreign intelligence, which is about intent and capabilities.
So you have North Korea. North Korea is doing it for money, right, to fund their economy through mainly crypto. So I think you see different nation states.
We see Russia. Russia is looking at it more as a‑‑I would say a hybrid warfare tool, and, you know, much of what we've heard about open-source intelligence, about their interest in our energy and utility sector, right, is more what we would call prepping the battlefield.
MR. PALETTA: Jeanette, do you have thoughts on that? I mean, is there just a completely different strategy in terms of what companies and governments should do in defending against information‑based warfare versus, you know, going after money?
MS. MANFRA: No, I don't think there's really different strategies. There's definitely different strategies that the government and governments globally need to take, but from a defense perspective, the reality is most of these adversaries are taking advantage of known vulnerabilities, you know, sort of poor cyber practices.
MS. MANFRA: And so it is really about making yourself a harder target and dealing with addressing things that are known because they go after the soft targets, and they tend to have sort of a massive widespread view. And they'll target different organizations. If they can't get into one, they'll go to the next one that's an easier one because there are so many easy ones.
So, from a defense perspective, it is really unfortunately a lot about just doing the hard basic cybersecurity work and doing it consistently.
MR. PALETTA: And, Jeanette, can I stick with you for a second? I mean, so, obviously, the public‑private‑‑there's a‑‑the government and companies are very interested in defending against this, and they've‑‑they collaborate a lot. You know, we saw during the Sony hack and OPM‑‑this is many years ago, but there was a lot of conversations about how could we do better, how can share information. Do you feel like they evolve at the same pace, or does one kind of outpace the other, and is there something that can be done to make sure that they're all on the same page?
MS. MANFRA: Yeah. I have a lot to say about public‑private partnerships.
MS. MANFRA: So I think the challenge with public‑private partnerships is it becoming too broad and not defining what it is that it's trying to do, and that there isn't just one public‑private partnership to solve cybersecurity. So, to me, my experience both at CISA and at Google is the best progress you can make on a public‑private partnership is defining a clear goal that‑‑and an actionable goal that a group of organizations is working together, and it has to be a group of organizations that has the capability to enact that goal.
So from CISA perspective, when we develop the national critical functions‑‑and I know CISA is continuing down this path, it was‑‑really was the intent is, okay, it's not about solving cybersecurity. It's about protecting elections or protecting the integrity of the financial system. And then you really start to get into, well, what does a specific company need to know, what sort of intelligence do they need to have in order to take action, what does the government need, and what capabilities do they have in order to enable some sort of outcome. And being really clear and up front‑‑and if you need to get lawyers involved, whatever is needed, but being really clear that this isn't just a generic partnership, that we're working together and we have different capabilities to achieve a goal.
So it is evolving. I think there's more work to be done, of course, but, you know, I've seen it now from both sides, and I think int's really important to have those defined boundaries.
MR. PALETTA: Sean, in your experience, I mean, what are the things that the private sector can learn from the public sector and vice versa? I mean, show us how this‑‑tell us how this relationship really benefits both sides.
MR. JOYCE: So I really like what Jeanette said. So, even when you heard Congressman Katko, I think there's a lack of understanding of everything out there. So you have‑‑NSA has the cyber collaboration center. The FBI has InfraGard, DSAC, NDAC, right? And then you have CISA with the JCDC, the Joint Cyber Collaborative‑‑or Defense Collaborative. There's too many entities‑‑
MR. JOYCE: ‑‑and the private sector is confused, right? And there needs to be a focused objective, right?
So I think the first thing is the government does not understand that the private sector is out there, and they just want to know what's that one number to call‑‑
MR. JOYCE: ‑‑all the time, right?
So I think, you know, in fairness, I think Chris Inglis, I think Jen Easterly and Uber, I think, collectively, they have done a good job incrementally, right? We're still looking at a 21st century problem in a 20th century way, and I think we've really got to change that paradigm.
MR. PALETTA: So it's not a matter of trust as much as just a confusing system, and when you have a crisis and you need to pick up the phone and call one person, it can be a little bit, you know, unsure about who the person is that you need to reach.
MR. JOYCE: Absolutely. And the idea that the government is truly there to help, right, and not to investigate, not to look at it from a regulatory perspective and how do you actually help‑‑I mean, I think sometimes we forget the world is not made up of Googles, right? It's mainly smaller, right, small to medium businesses out there that are the fabric of America. So how do we actually help those organizations, right, that don't have the resources, maybe don't have the funding? How do we get them to the same level, that basic level of security that we all should have?
MR. PALETTA: So it's tricky. I mean, in my experience covering Washington, there's all these bureaucracies that get institutional power, and they don't want to give it up, right? And so they can get really turfy and kind of defensive. Jeanette, do you think is that something that there's an effort within the government to fix, or is that going to be hard to get these agencies to, you know, maybe streamline a little bit so that, you know, they can work more closely with companies?
MS. MANFRA: I don't know what you're talking about. I've never experienced that.
MS. MANFRA: Yes. I think it is, but it's‑‑so, having spent a long time in the government, there are‑‑there are reasons. So it's easy to say, oh, they all do cyber, but they do have different authorities, and they have different capabilities that they can bring to bear. So there is, you know, in the sense for the majority of companies and just needing to have some basic information that the government has that they need to be distributing to those, those organizations.
Then there's, hey, we want to defeat something. We want to get rid of a class of cyberthreats. It's a different sort of problem with a different group of entities.
I think Representative Katko talked about the football sort of analogy, and I think there's, you know, promise in that and the national cyber director sort of bringing everybody together to try to coordinate and, you know, equipping and training the different organizations.
I still think, though, having said all of that, there are way too many organizations in the government that have some very similar roles in‑‑whether that's an industry‑specific role that they're playing or a broad intelligence‑sharing role that they're playing, and I to think it would behoove them to start narrowing that down, even if behind the scenes, there's a lot of different players because they have different authorities. But it is‑‑it is very confusing, and it becomes a high bar to entry for most companies to try to engage with the government. So, if they want to have "I want more incident sharing. I want more intelligence sharing," most companies want to know, "Well, what are you going to do with it? What's the purpose? Okay, fine. I'm ready to do it, but who do I need to talk to?" So I see promise. I like the concepts that they're implementing, but the reality is they're going to have to make some hard choices, and some organizations probably need to focus on other things‑‑
MS. MANFRA: ‑‑because they just don't necessarily have the authorities and capabilities.
MR. PALETTA: You both worked in the federal government for many years through different administrations, and I wonder if the kind of turnover at the White House and the turnover in Congress makes it kind of harder to have that kind of conversation, because these conversations take years, right? You can't just walk in to someone's office on Capitol Hill and say, you know, "There's too many people. We're confused. Can you just please have one phone number to call?" Is it hard from your perspective because of the changes in Washington every few years to have a sort of continuation of that conversation, or is that just part of, you know, what we're dealing with in our current system?
MS. MANFRA: I would say for the most part, cyber policy and the approach has been pretty consistent since the late '90s for better or worse, and really, each successive administration has built off of that. I don't think you've seen sort of massive shifts in, okay, now go do this, like you see in some other areas, mostly because it's been sort of‑‑it's a very nonpartisan sort of topic.
I think sometimes, back to your previous question, you do have some entrenched interests sometimes in Congress, sometimes in different administrations of which organization they want to empower. So sometimes, you know, that can have some impact.
MS. MANFRA: I will say‑‑and I know we've been talking more about government's role in the critical infrastructure, external cyber‑‑that one of the biggest impacts it has, though, is for federal cybersecurity, and agencies' inability to have consistent long‑term funding plans to fix some of their biggest challenges around legacy infrastructure and all of that, that's where I see an inability to have that long‑term budgeting approach, not just for the agencies, CISA, FBI, and others that we're talking about but for some of the really critical vulnerabilities internal to the government.
MR. PALETTA: And, Sean, do you think that the‑‑I mean, I imagine if you get a phone call from the government, it can kind of‑‑there can be two different reactions if you're a private company. It can be like how can I help or like what do you‑‑what's going on here. You know, can you talk a little bit about how‑‑has that evolved in a better way, or is there kind of some inconsistency that continues to be a problem?
MR. JOYCE: I think it has evolved in a much better way. I think CISA has done a great job reaching out. I think the FBI's reputation as far as reaching out and being more of how are they actually assisting. But I think it is‑‑it goes back to, as Jeanette was saying, understanding the roles of all of these agencies and what they play, and, like, it's confusing, Damian, as far as like oversight.
MR. JOYCE: All right. So me, when I was in the FBI, I was in front of HPSCI and SSCI, the House and Senate intel committees, a lot, and judiciary. I never went in front of the Homeland Committee.
MR. JOYCE: But we are operationally in intelligence responsible for cyber in the United States.
So, even at a legislative level, at a policy level, and at an executive level, there needs to be more of‑‑I agree with Jeanette sort of that using the strength and fabric of all those jurisdictional authorities by each agency but really a much better coordination and centralization of that work they do together.
MR. PALETTA: And, Sean, can I ask‑‑I mean, so crypto‑‑when there's a‑‑sorry. I'm going to ask a crypto question in a second, but when cybersecurity is in the news, you know, people see a big breach or a cyberattack, and they think, wow, you know, I can't believe this retail company or this government agency was so vulnerable. So there's a real disconnect between what they hear and what they experience because these are the same people that might click on something they shouldn't have clicked on, and it just takes one millisecond. Can you explain that disconnect, and has there been progress in terms of getting people to understand that this isn't just something in the news, it's something that affects them at work or at home, and kind of what the ramifications of that are?
MR. JOYCE: So I'm going to go way back to 1929, right? We had the stock market crash. That actually caused us to come up with GAAP, the generally accepted accounting principles.
MR. JOYCE: Okay. We're sort of in this era of cyber where every company I talk to on the board, they're going through some sort of digital transformation. Technology is the central nervous system of the company. The security of that is paramount to the company; yet, right, I think there's a lack of understanding of how important sort of the risk that they're exposing themselves to exists.
So, you know, that's why I--listen, normally, I am not like, hey, regulation, but I think we need something before‑‑like, we're seeing what happened at Colonial Pipeline. We're going to continue to see. We've seen some ransomware attacks in hospitals, right? What is going to be the point where we're actually going to say, hey, there is an expectation like GAAP that every company should have some level of hygiene? And that's what I think is so important.
I mean, I go every time to companies, just like you said, and it's just like, "I never thought this would happen to us," or there is a communication disconnect, right? A lot of times, the CISOs do not speak the same language as the CEOs and the boards, and understanding really what is your risk exposure there, I think a lot of times, there's a gap that companies are missing.
MR. PALETTA: Until they're all in the boardroom pulling their hair out and calling you because something bad happened.
Jeanette, I was wondering if I could ask‑‑you know, there's‑‑the term "digital resilience" gets used a lot when we're talking about cybersecurity. Like, what does digital resilience actually look like in practice?
MS. MANFRA: Those are easy questions. Tres bien.
MS. MANFRA: I think it is a term that's getting used a lot. I think I would‑‑there's sort of an organizational answer, and then there's a broader ecosystem global answer, and I think from an organizational perspective, it's moving beyond strictly thinking about security and thinking about more of an‑‑it goes, you know, back to the cyber framework, NIST cyber framework and others. It's like, okay, it's not if but when. So how do I get myself back up and running? How do I make sure my business is not interrupted? How do I intertwine the work that I do around reliability of my IT systems with security and how that can threaten that? So I think that's the‑‑sort of the organizational side of it is thinking bigger.
And the pandemic also is a lot of organizations are now being forced to think about how their workforce plays into that and how do they have access and how do I keep that going.
And then I think you have to think about it from a national and a global level as well is there are many adversaries that, knowingly or not, because some of this stuff is so‑‑you know, it's all so interconnected. An adversary could take down critical functionality of the internet globally with potentially not even intending to, and so how do we think about resilience with all of our dependents on digital infrastructure as a country, as allies, as globally? And that is something that is really challenging, but that‑‑again, that gets to the public‑private partnership when you have most of that in the hands of private sector and what are the requirements that they have to keep that up and running.
MR. JOYCE: I'll just add to what just Jeanette said. So I look at that as like withstanding direct disruption emerging stronger, and if you want to go right‑‑there's at the macro level, nation state, but when you go to the company level, they're talking about disaster recovery, business continuity, knowing what your critical applications are, and this is where like the hyperscale is with GCP, Azure, and AWS. They're vital because it's so much easier to have those critical applications, data, in the cloud, different regions, that I think really promotes that resilience that we need.
MR. PALETTA: Great. Well, we could keep talking, but thank you so much. We're out of time. It was really a pleasure. Sean, Jeanette, thank you so much for joining us today.
MS. MANFRA: Thank you.
MR. JOYCE: Thanks for having us.
MR. PALETTA: Thanks.
And my colleague, Ellen Nakashima, is going to be up next with our guest, but please watch this video. Thank you so much.
MS. O'CONNELL: Well, good morning. My name is Sasha O'Connell. I am an executive in residence and on the faculty up at the School of Public Affairs at American University. It's a pleasure to be here. We do a lot of work with our next‑generation students who are very excited about efforts around cyber policy and cybersecurity. So it's a pleasure to be part of the conversation. Thank you, Washington Post and CrowdStrike.
I'm here with two folks who need really no further introduction to this group, I know. Adam Meyers, who we know is the senior VP for Intelligence at CrowdStrike, and Chris DeRusha, a federal CISO and deputy national security director for Federal Cybersecurity. Did I get it all in?
MR. DeRUSHA: That's right.
MS. O'CONNELL: Before I dig in with questions, I wanted to offer you guys a chance for an opening statement. Maybe, Chris, you could do a little bit on your dual‑hatted roles and explain to everybody a little bit about how that fits into the overarching architecture of government's efforts in cyber.
MR. DeRUSHA: Yeah, absolutely, Sasha.
So I think for especially our industry colleagues, the way I think about my job is kind of a global CISO or enterprise CISO role, which you may be familiar with in a big multinational corporation. So we sit over all of the federal civilian agencies, setting strategy, policy, performance metrics, and really working with our budget colleagues to ensure that we're adequately resourcing all the initiatives that we're setting out.
So, about a year ago, actually, Director Chris Inglis came to me and said‑‑came to OMB and said, you know, "I'm setting up my office. I really think that we would both benefit from having a cohesion and fusion between the oversight work that you're doing and what I'd like to do in my office," and that is something that we've really both benefited from greatly. And so that's why I like to say I actually have one job in two offices.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. Adam, anything else before we jump in?
MR. MEYERS: No. Just at CrowdStrike, my role, I guess, as background is that running the intelligence program and track over 186 threat actors across the globe that are engaged in espionage, sabotage, disruptive attacks, criminal activity, and hacktivism. So it's kind of‑‑
MS. O'CONNELL: A slow job, quiet. Yeah, we know.
MR. MEYERS: Yeah, yes.
MS. O'CONNELL: So, speaking of that, Adam, maybe if I can start with you. So the 2022 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report recently came out. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe specifically what surprised you in terms of trends that came out in that report and study?
MR. MEYERS: Yeah. I think probably the biggest trend that everybody in this room needs to know about for sure would be we're seeing a move from ransomware threat actors who are focusing more on data extortion activity, and what this really looks like is‑‑you know, typically, with a ransomware negotiation, the game plan is kind of stretch it out, right, to, you know, 25 bitcoin or you don't get your files back, and they kind of say, "Well, what's bitcoin? I'm not authorized," right, to try to make is a long period and then grind them down on price or whatever. And the threat actors don't love that. It eats into their bottom line and wastes their time, and they get super pissed about it.
And so what we're starting to see is that they are now moving to stealing data and then leaking it, and so this, you know, really allows them to change the calculus because when they start to say, you know, what's bitcoin or, you know, I'm not authorized or, like, all right, well, we're going to leak 10 gig of your data and let's see if you figure it out real quick, so it gives them control back.
And then the other thing that is happening is that the calculus of pay or not pay is heavily factored in on when data gets leaked, what are the regulatory compliance and legal impact, so that that can be astronomical compared to the ransom demand.
So we're seeing‑‑and so your question at the threat report, we saw 82 percent of the ransomware actors in the last year have begun moving to data extortion as well, and we've even seen some of them are dropping the ransomware.
MS. O'CONNELL: That is interesting and seems like a significant change.
Can you talk a little bit specifically also about the increase in supply chain attacks? What are you seeing there, and what do folks need to know to protect themselves in that context?
MR. MEYERS: Yeah. They've been going on for a while, obviously. Everybody is probably very familiar with SolarWinds, but just last week, I think it was, we found a new supply chain attack that we tracked back to China, and in that case, there was 15,000, I think, potential organizations that would have been impacted by the supply chain attack. And so this is something that I think a lot of nation state threat actors are seeing as a viable and important tool in their tool chain to be able to go after really interesting targets, right, find the software and the services that they're dependent on, compromise that. And it's an easy in, and we've seen threat actors in the criminal space also doing that. So supply chain is something that I think a lot of people have on the forefront of their mind.
MS. O'CONNELL: Absolutely.
And, Chris, in this context, right, this threat environment, there's been a lot of activity on the part of the administration around federal cybersecurity. Can you give us a little update on what's going on there and importantly kind of what do you see over the horizon? What do you see as next steps?
MR. DeRUSHA: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as Adam has talked about, the threat landscape is constantly evolving, and so, you know, we put a law into motion when we came into office in, you know, kind of May of last year as we issued Executive Order 14028, which is often known as the cybersecurity executive order, issued a companion, National Security Memorandum, to ensure that we're doing like activities with national security systems from the DoD dot‑mil side. And so, really, largely, it's about implementation now. We don't‑‑Office of Management and budget, we've issued over five memorandums of direction. There's a lot of action out there, and we've also just ensured that we're focusing on organizing implementation now.
So, for example, one of our flagship initiatives is the Zero Trust Strategy that we put out, and what we did there is we ensured that each agency developed an implementation plan and sent it back to us and also put in budget estimates. So now we're tying our strategic approach, a strategy that we built with industry and public comment, down into budget, strategy‑based budgeting. I mean, this is‑‑we're really trying to kind of live that ethos.
And so right now it's largely about ensuring that we're resourcing those needs and just continuing to see program and figuring out how to measure effectively performance. And to be honest with you, that got tricky after SolarWinds. If you took that moment the right way, you took a step back and said are the ways we're measuring progress telling us anything meaningful‑‑and we said we're not sure that they are. We're telling it's enough. So we really tried to focus on a lot of the capabilities that take the adversary in lens of how they see us and how they are attacking us and try to drive back our priorities focused on shoring up those risks first. So that's a lot of the approach we've taken. It's baked into all of the strategies and the policy documents we've put out.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. And speaking of other strategies and policy documents, there is so much going on in this space coming out of the White House. We know we're eagerly anticipating a new cybersecurity strategy coming soon. We hear that's close. We know coming out of CSRC that CISA and others are involved in public comment period around reporting and mandatory reporting. We know coming out of the White House Summit on Workforce, there is a request for information on solicitation for input on strategies there. Can you help us put all of those pieces in a little bit of context?
And, also, maybe for folks, I know, including my students to‑‑a shoutout‑‑who are online, how do folks who are interested get engaged, stay engaged at every level with all of these pieces in play?
MR. DeRUSHA: Yeah. So a great question. Look, having the opportunity to develop a national cyber strategy is a fantastic one. You can reinforce and kind of pull together all the pieces of your implementations into one coherent place and forecast the direction that you're headed. So that's what we're doing there.
And so everything that you mentioned, all the other initiatives, whether it's ensuring that we get incident reporting right‑‑and that's the one request for information you mentioned‑‑workforce. There's another request for information we've put out on the workforce strategy because what we know is there's innovation locally with nonprofits at states, and we need to capture and understand that. And then our role is to lift it up and to kind of support that from the federal level.
I think the theme of how do you stay involved is we're going to keep asking for help. I mean, if you look at kind of any of the initiatives we've put out, we're really seeking industry, research community, academia's input and feedback, whether it's informal or whether it's, you know, with formal questions we put out. So keep watching for those things, as there is the number one thing, because we do read and digest the stuff that comes back. And we can't always integrate everything, but we try.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. Thank you.
And for both of you‑‑maybe, Adam, starting back with you, so much discussion also recently in this context about the need for cyber expertise at the executive level, right? I heard this discussed even earlier this morning, both in government where we are today on that and certainly in the private sector. Can you both offer some insights, where you think we've been, where we are, and where we're going in that regard, with sort of agreement that it's need? But how are we doing in that space, both private sector and public? Adam, maybe starting with you.
MR. MEYERS: Yeah. I think we're doing a lot better than we probably were. I think I see more and more engagement at the executive level, at the boards. I mean, that's where‑‑that's their top priority these days, right? Like, when boards think about what are the critical risks to their business, cybersecurity is always at the top of that. And the Congressman and I were talking earlier, and he was saying that that was the number one threat, you know. When he came in, it was radical extremists and things like that, but now it's cybersecurity, and that, I think‑‑the theme of this, right, an all‑hands effort is really what this comes down to, right? It takes public sector, private sector working together and bringing not just at the top but also from the bottom up, right? We need to be bringing more people into the workforce, your students, but I think we need to go even lower in the grade level and start pulling them out of junior high school and things like that and really getting STEM programs going to make this a much more preeminent and well kind of resourced capability.
MS. O'CONNELL: Thanks. Thoughts on that?
MR. DeRUSHA: Yeah, I agree with Adam. In the public sector, it's definitely getting better, and there's a lot more awareness than maybe a decade ago and the agency head, the cabinet level, having regular meetings with their IT and security teams and kind of understanding their challenges and how they need to help with the budget side or the human resource side and procurement side, all of the key enablers to being a good CIO or CISO in organization. So that's definitely a positive trend.
But, look, you know, I will say I've seen data recently where it just shows that public sector globally is significantly lagging, right? It's lagging tech and retail and a lot of‑‑entertainment, travel. And, I mean, that makes sense. These industries are all competing and kind of need to have state‑of‑the‑art digital strategies to survive, and government‑‑as those of you know who do government, I mean, every day is a challenge. Your remit is so large, right, and it's sometimes hard to kind of have digital strategy at the top of your mind. And so I think that that's what it is. It's really educating not just senior leadership, but it's also just the kind of line leadership across organization, the business for government that where here digital is anything and everything you do, cybersecurity is ensuring you can do that. It's that simple, and that's all we're here to do. And we do understand sometimes we're being destructive to that mission. We don't want to be. We as security professionals have to get better about thinking user experience, customer experience. We roll out our security solution; this is something new. So it's‑‑but we have to meet somewhere in the middle, right? Like, these two sides have to meet somewhere in the middle.
MS. O'CONNELL: And to push on that just a little bit, to get there, something we do research on and programming on and curriculum monitoring we do is inclusivity and diversity, right, of the voices in that space, different perspectives, right, different backgrounds, multidisciplinary. Can you talk about your experiences in that regard in terms of cyber workforce and where you see that in maybe your organizations or private sector and government more broadly?
MR. MEYERS: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've been super fortunate because with the intelligence space, we have people coming from so many different backgrounds. My team is very diverse. I think 33 percent female on the team right now. So that's, you know, I think well above what the industry standard is, and that's not common across cybersecurity because it is not a very diverse‑‑or, you know, in terms of personnel, it's pretty monochromatic.
So I think, you know, one of the things that we're really working on is our internship program and being able to pull, and I think we hire something like 90 percent of our interns every year, that--it's incredible. And the interns really are one of the things that are kind of bringing a lot of that diversity into the workplace, so it's great.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. How do you say, Chris, on your side?
MR. DeRUSHA: Well, you know, for this administration, diversity, equity, and inclusion is just a key principle that we organize around. You saw that in the executive order the president issued in June of last year. That's about integrating into daily operational activities. It's woven throughout the president's management agenda. So I think you kind of have to start there, and it helps matriculate down that that is the expectation of leadership. And you can expect to need to justify your hiring decisions and other things to ensure that you've really sought a diverse pool of candidates.
And, listen, like, you have to really work at it. Do you know what I mean? It has to be something that's important to do, and you really believe‑‑and we do‑‑that you're going to get better outcomes if you have people who've seen the world in a different way and kind of interact and challenge each other in a way that if you have too many like‑minded people, they‑‑you know, they're not going to do that, just because they don't know what they're missing in.
But, you know, I'll tell you also we have to start building this pipeline younger. And again, back to before this job, I was chief security officer a couple jobs ago for the state of Michigan, you know, did a lot of work with city of Detroit, some fantastic innovation there just, ground up, of nonprofits. People coming from the community are saying we can get really good jobs in this community, and we see the potential. And they're just creating coding schools and, you know, security programs, lifting each other up. That's the type of stuff that we want to harness and just say how do we help that. You know, how do we pour water on that?
MS. O'CONNELL: Absolutely. With just 30 seconds left, any final thoughts, what's so awesome about this platform maybe reaching folks who maybe didn't think they were interested in this space but are? Any final thoughts or recommendations or inspirational words for folks how to prepare and get engaged in this fight?
MR. MEYERS: Yeah. I think the mantra I've been kind of communicating to a lot of people is that with that data extortion and some of the things that we've been seeing that we really need to moving to protecting identities. Every hack that you can think of has had a user name and password compromised at some point, and so I think, you know, from my perspective, the mantra needs to be moving from trust but verify to verify then trust.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. Thanks.
Final word?
MR. DeRUSHA: I'll speak to your students, I suppose. Think about this. You know, there's fantastic career mobility in this space. If you're not sure what you're passionate about, you can choose a field of cybersecurity, come in, and you can work in any industry because they'll take you.
MR. DeRUSHA: So just think of it that way if you're considering whether you want to pursue this as a profession. We need you, and it's a very rewarding one.
MS. O'CONNELL: Perfect. We're actually over time. So thank you both so much, and back to Washington Post.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Hello. I am Ellen Nakashima, national security reporter for The Washington Post, and I'm pleased to have here with me today, Anne Neuberger, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for Cyber and Emerging Threats, to discuss the cyberthreat landscape.
Anne, welcome to The Washington Post.
MS. NEUBERGER: Ellen, it's great to see you, and it's great to be here.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Well, let's start with sort of a broader geopolitical context. We've got the midterm elections coming up in less than a month. Anne, tell us, are you seeing any uptick in malicious cyber activity from any of the major adversaries, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, in any‑‑in any field, and what, if anything, has changed in the global cyberthreat landscape since this time last year?
MS. NEUBERGER: That's a really foundational question. So, taking a step back for a moment, as a country, as countries around the world, we've become increasingly digitized. Everything we do as individuals, our infrastructure, as countries from power systems to water systems are increasingly connected. So that has provided an opportunity for adversaries of any kind to use cyberattacks either to collect intelligence or to potentially degrade or disrupt.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the run‑up, we warned about the threat, given Russia in the past has used cyberattacks to coerce foreign governments, to undermine populations, and that is certainly a threat we're increasingly concerned about. We've watched Russia use destructive capabilities against Ukraine as part of their initial invasion. Our expectation that there would be additional Russian cyberattacks hasn't necessarily panned out, but we still believe they have the capabilities to do so, and that's a call to responsibility for us as Americans, as individuals, as the private sector, as the government to double‑down on addressing our defenses.
From a gaining funds through cyberattacks, North Korea is a surprisingly innovative and capable adversary. Hacking specifically the cryptocurrency infrastructure in novel ways to glean large amounts of funds‑‑when I say large amounts of funds, for example, I'll point to a hack against a particular cryptocurrency platform that gleaned at the time $600 million in crypto. So that is an area we've put a lot of focus. The Biden administration has put a lot of focus in really looking to see how do we make it costlier, riskier, and harder for North Korea to fund its weapons program, its missiles program via hacking of cryptocurrency infrastructure.
Iran remains a capable cyberthreat. Iran remains an entity that continues to undermine the Middle East, and cyber is certainly a tool in its toolkit.
And, of course, we're continuously focused on China, which we believe has a very well‑funded program primarily focused on intellectual property theft, affecting countries around the world, but also really gaining access to critical infrastructure, which we fear could be used in the future to coerce or undermine governments.
So that's a quick run through the key adversaries you asked about, who each use malicious cyber activity in different ways as part of‑‑integrated as a tool of their national security goals.
MS. NAKASHIMA: And I know the audience here just also wants to know whether, given we're only a few weeks out from the election, you all are seeing anything new or concerning. I know the FBI and CISA and ODNI have spoken to this, but you from your perch and vantage point overseeing sort of this area, have you seen anything that we should be worried about?
MS. NEUBERGER: Elections are a benchmark of our democracy, and ensuring that they are safe and secure and citizens have confidence in integrity is a priority. I think you saw‑‑
MS. NAKASHIMA: Okay.
MS. NEUBERGER: ‑‑General Nakasone's comments yesterday where he noted he's not seeing specific new cyberthreats. There's been a great deal of work across agencies, really that lead on this effort. You've seen, for example, CISA host a table‑talk exercise, FBI and CISA do a joint public service announcement. So agencies are really leading on this work all the way across from tracking intelligence threats to ensuring we have confidence in election systems, and that there's a lot of work there. But I'll reference General Nakasone's comments, which were really an excellent review of what he saw in terms of no new threats in this area.
MS. NAKASHIMA: And Anne used to work closely with General Nakasone at the NSA, so she knows.
You mentioned Russia has not carried off these sorts of impactful cyberattacks some people feared they would in Ukraine or of the West for that matter. Why do you think that is? To what extent was it the same ineptitude that applied to their overall military invasion, and to what extent was it just improved defense on the part of the Ukrainians and allies?
MS. NEUBERGER: So, when Russia conducted its invasion, we saw that invasion accompanied by initial destructive cyberattacks; first, kind of digital vandalism taking down core government websites, core Ukrainian government websites, and then conducting a disruptive cyberattack on satellite communication systems in Ukraine that had an overflowing effect in Europe. In fact, because of that was really the reason that the European Union and the U.S. supported that, made a point of both attributing that attack on communications infrastructure to Russia and calling it out in that way. But we certainly saw Russia begin its invasion, integrating cyberattacks, and then have seen some follow‑on attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure, but not to the extent, I think, that we expected.
That may be, as you noted, the same degree to which the invasion was kept very close‑hold. Effective cyberattack activity takes planning. There's also a tradeoff between using accesses for intelligence collection or attack, and it may well be that as the invasion went poorly and continued to go poorly, the priority was placed on using those accesses to Ukrainian infrastructure for intelligence. That being said, it remains a threat, and we continue to be focused on it.
The second point you made is such a key one because those who work cybersecurity can continuously feel, you know, demoralized. There's always a new article or some new information about the latest attack technique, and as we know, technology is not built today for the threat it faces. And I know we'll talk a bit more about that later.
So, as a result, folks who work cybersecurity can sometimes feel like it's a losing battle. I think Ukraine proves the value of preparation and partnership.
After Russia's first invasion in 2015 and the disruption of Ukraine's power grid, Ukraine put a focus on really addressing the security of their power grid and made that a priority, investing time, attention, good people. The United States supported it, and other countries supported it as well and really invested a multiyear effort.
And, indeed, in the run‑up, as we saw the intelligence and started to raise concerns regarding a potential Russian invasion, we double‑down on that work. We had a team come from Ukraine, from their core energy provider, working with the Department of Energy. We had teams working remotely to ensure that they were as protected as they needed to be, and I think we've seen that that has made a difference. So that, both preparation and the partnership, the recognition that as countries, when we see adversary tactics and techniques, when we learn of creative ways to secure, we share that. That's another core takeaway from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it's led, in fact, to one of the areas we've put a lot of work into, which is doubling down on building a cyber defense capability, a rapid response capability at NATO, so that while Ukraine is not a NATO member, obviously. So that if there are cyberattacks against NATO members, we as a group of countries can pool resources and rapidly respond in an effective way.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Well, for instance, take Albania, which is a NATO member and earlier experienced some series of DDoS attacks from Iran‑‑and I think Politico reported earlier that they were actually considering invoking the Article 5 mutual defense provision, which it sort of says an attack on one is an attack on all, but they didn't. But, if they had, what could and would the member allies have done in response? Would it have been mainly rapid response sort of incident response? Can you talk a little bit about that, and did we help?
MS. NEUBERGER: So one key focus of the‑‑one focus of the president, of the Biden administration, has been a focus on international norms and a focus on where they don't exist, creating them, and where they do exist, ensuring that we work on implementation and consequences for violation of them with other countries.
So I'll note that when Iran attacked Albania, really the‑‑Albania took down their government services. When we attributed that to the Iranian government, we started working closely with our European allies and partners because Albania is on the doorstep of the European Union, a member of a part of Europe, to say when one government attacks another government, that's counter‑international norms, we need to both call it out and then put in place consequences to show that norms matter. And you saw the treasury's designation‑‑
MS. NAKASHIMA: Yep.
MS. NEUBERGER: ‑‑of the MOIS as part of that. We certainly deployed a team to help Albania rapidly recover. Other European governments did as well. I think we see areas to improve our coordination in that space so that we can rapidly put folks on the ground, but we had a team, an FBI team on the ground working closely with the Albanians, helping them recover, and we're looking forward to continuing to work closely with them to ensure that they can lift up the quality of their cybersecurity moving forward.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Okay. So I'd like to turn now to domestic issues. You know, the strengthening of American critical infrastructure has been one of your‑‑the Biden administration's major priorities and one of yours since becoming deputy national security advisor, and regulation, which used to be sort of the third rail for policymakers, is actually now one of your tools in your toolkit. This administration, I think, has really shifted the conversation and actions in that area. I think Colonial Pipeline, it was a large part of that, and you were very much in the forefront of that. Talk a little bit more about how the Biden administration, which has already instituted regulations on rail, pipelines, and aviation, but using executive authorities‑‑
MS. NEUBERGER: Mm‑hmm.
MS. NAKASHIMA: ‑‑how are you using these authorities? Are you‑‑what other sectors are you looking at imposing regulations on? What sectors do you not have authorities for that you will have to go to Congress?
MS. NEUBERGER: President Biden initially, really from the outset, said that security abroad begins with security at home. Confidence abroad begins with confidence at home. And a key way to deter adversaries in cyberspace is to know we have confidence in the level of security, that we've locked our digital doors and put on our digital alarm system.
That was not the case, right, over the last decade. We talked a lot in cybersecurity about increasing information sharing. We talked a lot about public‑private partnership, but we didn't talk about the reality that, you know, if you're living in an unsecure neighborhood, which fundamentally cyberspace is, and you leave the door wide open and a window propped up, you're not as secure as you need to be.
And so, you know, beginning‑‑at the beginning of the president's administration, we began with innovative public‑private partnerships focused on industrial control systems, since that's been an increasing area of focus, given the potential to disrupt an actual control system.
When Colonial occurred, we took a hard look at that and said Colonial gas is status quo, the idea being that you can have a major gas provider serving the entire East Coast, and the Transportation Security Administration, you know, does not have in place a standard for whatever expectations are for the cybersecurity of their networks, what our expectations are for the separation between the IT corporate part of a network and the operational part of a network that runs a major pipeline that can potentially cause a hazardous spill.
So, following that‑‑and a credit really to Secretary Mayorkas' DHS's leadership, David Pekoske, the Transportation Security Administrator's leadership, we did a rapid review of existing authorities, and we saw that TSA had emergency authorities to mandate minimum cybersecurity thresholds for the sectors it oversees, which are the transportation sector, which as you noted has five key subsectors‑‑aviation, maritime, rail, oil and gas pipelines. And TSA began issuing a security directive that summer for oil and gas pipelines. They learned, you know, when that first was issued, companies quickly said, you know, "What's going on?" And we learned that a foundational step had to be bringing in executives from the sector, Ellen, giving them a classified threat brief, so they were operating off the same information as the government and truly became a partner.
So TSA came to us in the White House and said it would be very helpful if we brought these executives together, provided them a classified threat briefing, and explained to them the context of the kinds of threats they face, much as you asked me in our first question. We brough them in, and TSA adjusted their security guidelines based on a back‑and‑forth with the sector and then used that model for the next, as you noted, for rail.
There are 57 critical rail entities in the country. That's another key part of the approach, which is to say this doesn't apply to everyone. A careful look by the sector lead agency who understands the sector, who says who are the big players, who are the players who a disruption of their services would impact Americans broadly would prevent the military from being able to deploy troops in the event of a conflict, those are the ones we're focused on.
So TSA identified 57 rail entities, 104 air entities, whether airports, airlines, cargo airlines, brought them in, gave them a threat brief, and issued a security directive, and then refines the security directive as well. So you'll be seeing shortly, very soon, an updated rail directive based on those interactions‑‑the first one was issued in December of '21‑‑and shortly as well an updated aviation directive, the first one issued last November and updated this winter as well with these interactions. And that gives us confidence in what are the minimum cybersecurity standards in place.
MS. NAKASHIMA: And what sectors might we be looking to next for new standards?
MS. NEUBERGER: The next we will be seeing will be communications‑‑
MS. NAKASHIMA: Communications.
MS. NEUBERGER: ‑‑the FCC issuing a public notice regarding a rulemaking for emergency and public warning systems.
Water. Again, a creative approach the EPA will be using‑‑a thank‑you and a shout‑out to Michael Regan and Janet McCabe at EPA‑‑who are taking the approach to say an existing legislation that calls for safety and security of water, that includes cybersecurity as well.
And then health care, HHS coming out, beginning to work with partners at hospitals to put in place minimum cybersecurity guidelines and then further work upcoming thereafter on devices and broader health care as well.
MS. NAKASHIMA: And are there sectors where you'll have to turn to Congress for authorities to impose standards?
MS. NEUBERGER: It's a great question. So looking across the‑‑there are 14 critical sectors with another five subsectors, like I mentioned transportation. Across them, there's really three categories. In some cases, like I noted in transportation, there are adequate authorities to put in place those minimum cybersecurity guidelines; for others like EPA, creative interpretations that say clearly safety and security means cybersecurity as well. And, finally, for some, like critical manufacturing or DHS's emergency services or information technology, there are not authorities, and we're looking carefully at those to say what is needed in this space and how do we approach this.
MS. NAKASHIMA: So the United States has been slow to the regulatory arena. Other countries have gone before. Can you just really, briefly, quickly‑‑what lessons you've learned from them and how you're applying them?
MS. NEUBERGER: So being pretty much last in the race on putting in place standards for critical infrastructure among our peers has, as you noted, a silver lining in that we can learn from so many of our peers. The European Union put in place their first requirements for critical infrastructure several years ago. There's a second version that updates in a draft. Australia passed legislation, as you know, this past summer that puts in place standards for critical infrastructure and expectations for technology as well, and I want to talk about the technology aspect as well. So those are two examples of countries where‑‑of entities we're learning a lot about because we're all using the same technology, and we're all working to balance, obviously, you know, ensuring that we have confidence in our critical services, ensuring our citizens have confidence in our critical services. And recognizing that these are private sector owned and operated, the private sector must be a key partner in the design but also has a different set of incentives, right, clearly view this‑‑view cybersecurity often as a cost, and we from a government perspective put overall the top priority is avoiding disruption of critical services. So working together gets us to the right balance in that way.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Okay. We have a few minutes left. I wanted to get to ransomware, which has maybe faded a bit from the headlines, but is still a major problem for, as we've heard, companies, schools, hospitals. You have a major global ransomware summit coming up at the end of the month. It comes after roughly a year of work, with over 30 partners around the world, including major global south members like India and Brazil. What's the top achievement you can point to that has come out of that year's worth of work and effort that we don't know about?
MS. NEUBERGER: First, as you noted, criminals are really taking a toll, disrupting critical services around the world. We saw Costa Rica, significant impact, really disrupting their government's operations via what we believe is a Russian criminal ransomware group, Montenegro more recently, hospitals in France and England, hospital chain in the United States, and certainly, over Labor Day weekend, we surged support from the federal government to ensure the L.A. school district could rapidly recover and open schools Tuesday morning.
So ransomware, criminal use of vulnerabilities in technology, and harnessing that is a major‑‑is a major global worry, and as such, we saw the opportunity for the U.S. to lead by bringing partners in around the world, both to build capacity in areas like how do you do block chain analysis so that if a criminal is being paid via the block chain, we can rapidly identify the wallet and work to recovery the funds, work to trace it to who the criminal entity is. Resilience. How do we ensure that we could defend against ransomware, greatly encouraging, for example, backup systems, multifactor authentication. Diplomacy. How do we ensure that it's a norm not to harbor these criminal actors or to respond when those actions are taken?
So we stood up‑‑as part of the president's focus on alliances and really the United States being a global leader, we stood up an international counter‑ransomware initiative last October. It was the first virtual session‑‑you know, across that many time zones, everybody was‑‑everybody compromised a bit‑‑with five lines of work in that area, some of the notable successes over the last year.
India and Lithuania, a large country and a small country, both very concerned about Chinese cyberattacks, Lithuania because its principal stand on China and Taiwan, India because of views really China as a peer competitor, they led global resilience exercises, one for the east part of the world where they had roughly 25 countries participating, one with 13 countries on the western side of the world, bringing countries together to share techniques, to share what they knew, and to really partner.
Similarly, the Treasury Department hosted a block chain analysis workshop, bringing countries around the world to teach them how to secure virtual asset service providers, how to trace the block chain and find illicit use of cryptocurrency. And we have some really cool efforts that will be worked on and announced at this two‑day summit at the end of the month.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Do you want to give us a little preview?
MS. NEUBERGER: You know, when Ellen asks, you say all these agencies are super existed about their announcements.
MS. NEUBERGER: So, a little, we'll be talking about an investigator's toolkit that our Australian counterparts have built to help an investigator quickly trace. We'll be announcing the operationalization of the partnership to where‑‑a great example is, you know, we've been grappling with some recent ransomware attacks with a new variant. Today in the as‑is world, if in the U.S. we see a ransomware attack and it's a new variant, there is no quick way to reach out to peer law enforcement entities or intelligence services around the world and say, "Has anybody seen this? Do you know who it is, and do you know how do you defend against it?" That's something we intend to change, and we'll be putting in place the operational practices and the law enforcement partnerships to be able to do that as well.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Okay. You mentioned you wanted to talk about technology. Hopefully, this will give you that opportunity and platform. There's been much attention paid to the Chinese‑‑the threat from Chinese government presence in 5G communications, for instance, in the United States and Europe, for that matter in Africa and Asia. So how much of that is a concern for you? And talk a bit about the‑‑how you're grappling with that.
MS. NEUBERGER: How we're grappling specifically with?
MS. NAKASHIMA: With the Chinese government.
MS. NEUBERGER: Absolutely. So there's two parts to that question. One is China is a major technology provider. China has a set of rules requiring, for example, data providers to share government‑‑to share information with the Chinese government, and we know the Chinese government's focus on surveillance, use of artificial intelligence to draw insights regarding individuals, surveil, and then pursuit.
So our first focus was in the area of telecommunications networks to say if you have a major Chinese provider in a telecommunication network, it's virtually impossible to have full confidence in the security of that network. Yes, one can use encryption to encrypt the data on the network, but cables can be tapped, et cetera, and that's what really led the administration to make a hard push against Huawei and Chinese providers in 5G networks and press for progress in open standards approaches that use cloud and software‑based approaches rather than, you know, hard‑core equipment providers where we lack the confidence in Chinese providers, and open standards allows us to have an economically viable way to compete with Chinese subsidies.
So we've made a big push on that. In fact, we've had, you know, delegations right now, actually, in India. India, will be rolling out 5G, a very aggressive rollout, by the end of 2023, incredibly aggressive given the scale of India. The approaches used there clearly will have global impact. They've banned Huawei from their telecom network, but our goal is also at least having some implementation to use open standards, to bring down the cost of components, and show that it is a viable approach for a large‑scale network.
There are existing rollouts in the United States, in Las Vegas, for example, in Japan, but we know that India is a core market, particularly for the global sat. So that's been one area of focus as well as a real focus on what are the rules around building software, deploying software so that one can have confidence in it.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Okay, great. I got permission to go a little long because I just wanted to ask you a question about your job. It's really a brand‑new job. It was‑‑has never existed before in any administration, right, this "deputy national security advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology." And at the same time, this shows that how cyber is such a growth industry in government, right? We have CISA. We have this new cyber in diplomatic job at state, and Congress created the job of the national cyber director of the cyber czar, which Chris Inglis has, your colleague. But, at the same time, before‑‑after you came in, you've had so many‑‑Chris Inglis has really beefed up his position with more than 60 staffers. CISA is really getting very well established now, and there‑‑how do you‑‑how do you view your role going forward where especially when you have things like Colonial Pipeline, Microsoft Exchange, which are arguably more domestic responsibilities falling under, say, the cyber czar or CISA? How do you see your role evolving throughout this administration, maybe even in future administrations?
MS. NEUBERGER: So the concept behind President Biden, and my boss, Jake Sullivan, creating the role is to say cyber and emerging technology are core parts of our geopolitical approaches. It was the first question you asked me‑‑
MS. NAKASHIMA: Right.
MS. NAKASHIMA: ‑‑when you said when Russia was invading Ukraine, clearly disrupting satellite communications was a part of that approach.
Similarly, when we think about Russia's attempt to coerce or undermine the Ukrainian population, disrupting critical infrastructure, shaking a population's confidence in their government's ability to provide for them is a geopolitical approach. Our competition in digital assets, ensuring that we maintain and we're innovators in quantum, in crypto, et cetera, is so key. So I'll get‑‑you know, so their core goal is to say we need somebody on the National Security Council‑‑
MS. NEUBERGER: ‑‑team who serves to integrate and bring together our policy and strategy across that, as you noted, and really in our conversation, we talked about so many different components of cyber. We talked about Treasury's role both in designating and implementing consequences for violation of norms, in pursuing crypto, illicit use of crypto. We talked about CISA's role from a resilience perspective. We talk about the intelligence community's role in understanding how countries seek to use emerging technologies or cyber to achieve their national goals. We talk about the FBI in terms of disrupting criminal networks around the world, and certainly state diplomacy, norms, implementation is such a key component.
So my job and really the role of the National Security Council is bringing those elements together so that we have one comprehensive government approach, but working with our allies and partners around the world to do the same, and that we maintain the U.S.'s leadership as an innovator in emerging technology, as an implementer of international norms in areas like cyber as well as focusing on that relentless pursuit of resilience at home.
MS. NAKASHIMA: So coordinating, convening roles, so it's team sport.
MS. NEUBERGER: Exactly.
MS. NAKASHIMA: Thank you very, very much, Anne.
We'll continue to follow this closely, and unfortunately, we're out of time for today. But, Anne, thank you so much for joining us today.
MS. NEUBERGER: Thank you, Ellen. Thank you.
MS. NAKASHIMA: And thanks to all of you here today for our cyber event and online, our people online for joining us.
This concludes today’s “Securing Cyberspace” event. For more information about upcoming programming, please visit us at WashingtonPostLive.com.
I'm Ellen Nakashima. Thank you again. | 2022-10-13T20:01:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Securing Cyberspace - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/13/transcript-securing-cyberspace/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/13/transcript-securing-cyberspace/ |
Top Nationals prospect Robert Hassell III sidelined by hand surgery
Nationals Park during a game in April. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Outfielder Robert Hassell III will miss the remainder of the Arizona Fall League after suffering a broken hamate bone in his right hand, according to multiple people with knowledge of the injury.
Hassell, one of the highly touted prospects that the Washington Nationals acquired from the San Diego Padres at the trade deadline in exchange for Juan Soto and Josh Bell, had surgery on the hand and should be ready for spring training.
The 21-year old outfielder played just two games for the Peoria Javelinas, a fall league team that includes minor league players from the Nationals and four other organizations. He went 1 for 6 before exiting a game on Oct. 5 with hand discomfort.
Hassell is the Nationals’ top prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, and trails only shortstop CJ Abrams — who made his Nationals debut on Aug. 15 — on Baseball America’s Top 30 list for the organization.
The Nationals hope that the six players they received in return for Soto and Bell will help accelerate their rebuild. First baseman Luke Voit and pitcher MacKenzie Gore immediately joined the big league club, although Gore was sidelined with an inflamed elbow. Abrams wasn’t too far behind them, debuting after spending a week with Class AAA Rochester and showing flashes.
But the other three prospects — Hassell, outfielder James Wood and pitcher Jarlin Susana — are still a ways away from the majors. Hassell started the year with high Class A Wilmington before finishing up with Class AA Harrisburg, while Wood and Susana ended the year with low Class A Fredericksburg.
Hassell was selected eighth overall by the Padres in the 2020 draft and lived up to his billing in his first two minor league seasons, hitting 22 home runs across several levels. And in 75 games with San Diego’s high Class A affiliate this year, he hit .299 with 10 homers and 55 RBI.
Once he joined the Nationals organization, Hassell didn’t have nearly the same success. He hit .211 in 10 games with the Wilmington Blue Rocks before being called up to Harrisburg. He improved slightly, hitting .222 in 27 games before heading to the fall league to get more reps and attempt to finish on a strong note heading into next season.
Notably, his slugging percentage was down from his time with the Padres — after slugging .467 with the Padres’ high Class A affiliate, that figure dropped to .237 with Wilmington and rose slight to .296 with Harrisburg. He also struck out in 28.7 percent of his at-bats after the trade.
Hassell, 21, is one of a handful of promising young outfielders whom the Nationals organization will be tasked with developing in years to come. There’s Wood and Jeremy De La Rosa, both 20, who took home minor league hitter of the year awards for the Nationals this past year. Elijah Green, 18, was the Nationals’ No. 5 overall pick in July’s draft. And the Nationals spent $4,925,000 of their $5,179,700 signing pool in January to sign Cristhian Vaquero, an 18-year old outfielder from Cuba.
Not every prospect will pan out, but the Nationals hope their pool of talented outfielders will produce a few big league contributors, with Hassell’s name prominent in those wishes.
“The expectations do rise, I get that when you’re talking about giving up a guy like Juan Soto,” Hassell said in August. “But, like I said, just keep playing my game. I trust the development that’s going to be taking place over the next couple years. … Just one step at a time and be where my feet are and just go from there.” | 2022-10-13T20:06:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals prospect Robert Hassell III sidelined by hand surgery - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/robert-hassell-iii-broken-hand/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/robert-hassell-iii-broken-hand/ |
Suspect charged in Turks and Caicos death of Arlington NAACP leader
Kent Carter, a vice president of the Arlington NAACP, was shot and killed during a vacation in Turks and Caicos in early October. (JD Spain)
A 31-year-old man was charged this week in Turks and Caicos in connection with the Oct. 2 killing of a Northern Virginia civil rights leader who was on vacation there, officials said.
Kent Carter, a vice president of the Arlington NAACP, was in the British Caribbean territory to celebrate his 40th birthday when gunmen ambushed a vehicle he was riding in and shot and killed him.
Police in the popular beach destination said the group of “armed gang members” also killed one employee of a local tourism business and injured three others during the attack.
Turks and Caicos police identified Andre De Souza, a resident of the territory, as “a person of interest in gang-related activities.” He was arrested Oct. 6 and charged on Monday with carrying a firearm and ammunition.
Police said they are investigating him for “suspected gang-related activities” and other offenses. He is set to appear before a magistrate this week.
Denyse Renne, a police spokeswoman, said that the attack on Carter was connected to recent “overall criminal activity” in Turks and Caicos, including Carter’s death.
Officials have blamed gangs for rising violence in the archipelago of about 58,000 people. At least 15 fatal shootings have taken place in the British territory since early September, according to the Associated Press. Britain has deployed a ship and specialized police to assist in fighting the violence. | 2022-10-13T20:15:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Suspect charged in Turks and Caicos death of Arlington NAACP leader - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/turks-caicos-arrest-arlington-charged/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/turks-caicos-arrest-arlington-charged/ |
Biden has no business blurting nuclear doctrine at a fundraiser
President Biden on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday. (Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)
It’s cleanup on Aisle 6 at the Biden White House again. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday, President Biden backtracked on his warning a few days earlier that the world faced the “prospect of Armageddon” for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis — declaring, “I don’t think [Vladimir Putin] will” use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Biden said something very different at a Democratic Party fundraiser last week. “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well; his name is Vladimir Putin,” Biden declared. “He is not joking when he talks about the potential use of tactical and nuclear weapons, or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming. It’s part of Russian doctrine that they will not — they will not — if the motherland is threatened, they’ll use whatever force they need, including nuclear weapons.”
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden continued.
That’s not all. Earlier in his address, Biden said: “First time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of the nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they’ve been going. That’s — that’s a different deal. That’s a different deal. And, you know, we’re trying to figure out: What — what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where — where does he get off? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not only lose face, but lose significant power within Russia? So I guess what I’m saying is that we have to keep the Senate.”
You did not misread that last sentence. Biden seamlessly transitioned from discussing the threat of nuclear war into a pitch for Democratic control of the Senate.
The president of the United States should never just blurt out random thoughts about nuclear war — especially not at a partisan fundraiser. Nuclear deterrence is serious business. If Biden wanted to publicly address this issue, he should have gathered his national security team, thought through what U.S. declaratory policy should be in the face of Putin’s threats, chosen his exact words carefully and deliberately, and delivered them in an appropriate forum. But that is not what Biden did. He surprised even his own senior officials by delivering an unplanned stream of consciousness about nuclear war in front of a bunch of campaign donors. It is one of the most irresponsible things he has done as president.
To make matters worse, Biden’s hand-wringing about Armageddon projected weakness. Ask yourself: Why is Putin rattling his nuclear saber? Because he believes he can affect Biden’s behavior by doing so. Putin knows that American weaponry has turned the tide of the war against him, making his complete defeat in Ukraine a real possibility. He also knows that Biden and his team have been slow-rolling the delivery of those weapons, hesitating at every step of the way while publicly musing about their pathological fear of inadvertently starting World War III. By threatening such a global conflagration, Putin is playing on Biden’s anxieties to coerce the president into doing less for Ukraine. He is trying to scare the White House into withholding even more advanced weaponry and pressuring Ukraine to sue for a negotiated peace — ending the war before Kyiv can retake all the territory he has unlawfully seized.
Putin is doing this out of weakness, not strength. The success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shown the Russian leader that, as long as the West continues backing Ukraine, he has no way to win. So he is threatening nuclear escalation to frighten Biden. And by comparing Ukraine to the Cuban missile crisis, Biden reveals that Putin’s strategy is working.
Would Putin ever pull the nuclear trigger? While he could certainly miscalculate, a tactical nuclear strike in Ukraine makes no strategic sense for Putin. The nuclear fallout could, quite literally, blow back into Russia. And to stop the counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine, Putin would need to use a nuclear weapon on territory that he has unlawfully annexed for Russia. From the Kremlin’s perspective, he would be nuking his own country. This would be an information operations disaster at home. It would also backfire militarily on the ground. As Fred Kagan, director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, tells me, the fallout would “preclude any future Russian advances into irradiated areas.” The Russian military is already having difficulty operating on a conventional battlefield; it would not be able to function on a nuclear battlefield in Ukraine.
The only way Putin might be tempted to use a nuclear weapon is if he were certain that the West would not undertake military reprisals. Which is why Biden needs to make clear that any use of tactical nuclear weapons would result in a conventional response from the United States and NATO that would destroy the Russian military. Biden must also show Putin that his nuclear threats will not intimidate us into withholding support for Ukraine or coercing Kyiv into accepting a frozen conflict whereby Russia keeps some of the territory it has seized. Rather, Kagan says, the United States must develop a strategy to “get Putin to accept a defeat” by presenting him “with a situation in which he cannot stop the conventional defeat, in which we credibly deter him from using nuclear weapons, and in which we persuade him that continuing to try to fight will put his own rule at risk.”
That requires something a whole lot more serious than riffing about Armageddon at a Democratic Party fundraiser. | 2022-10-13T20:54:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden has no business blurting nuclear doctrine at a fundraiser - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/biden-nuclear-fundraiser-putin-threats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/biden-nuclear-fundraiser-putin-threats/ |
Friend-of-the-court briefs are important in cases
Environmental activists gather on Oct. 3 as the Supreme Court hears arguments in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
By focusing on filings in one case, the Oct. 8 Politics & the Nation article “As Mar-a-Lago case proves, a court docket is open to all” could mislead readers. Anyone unfamiliar with the practice could easily take away that only cranks, oddballs and the folks at the Onion (whose Supreme Court brief was brilliant, by the way) submit these briefs and that judges are unmoved by them. In fact, they can be critical to a court’s consideration of a case.
Take a case that the Supreme Court heard recently, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. It narrowly involves a dispute about whether landowners who destroyed wetlands on one property should have complied with the Clean Water Act, so the record in the case and the parties’ briefs focus on that single site. But the court, as Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh pointed out, is likely going to decide which water bodies the landmark law can protect nationwide.
That’s where amicus briefs come in. In Sackett, the court received filings, including from my organization, providing a nationwide perspective. Water-dependent businesses, tribes, a dozen scientific societies, community planners, wetland and floodplain managers, drinking water providers and outdoor recreationists each explained how protecting wetlands and other waters from unregulated pollution is important to their interests.
Jon Devine, Washington
The writer is director of federal water policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council. | 2022-10-13T20:54:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Friend-of-the-court briefs are important in cases - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/friend-of-the-court-briefs-are-important-cases/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/friend-of-the-court-briefs-are-important-cases/ |
This image taken from a video made available on the Eurovision Social Network platform on Wednesday shows Iranian students, some without headscarves, shouting "Death to the dictator" as they march in central Tehran. (ESN/AFP via Getty Images)
What has been happening in Iran the past four weeks is not their father’s revolution. After years of pent-up anger, young people are taking to the streets in a direct challenge to the theocracy that has ruled since 1979, cheered on by prominent figures in culture and sports. What began as a protest by women over oppressive hijab rules and their strict enforcement by the morality police has fast become a broader generational and social uprising. “Down with the dictator!” has become a common slogan throughout the country.
On Oct. 8, President Ebrahim Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated “rioters” with inconsequential flies. Fearlessly, female students chanted back, “Get lost!” and “Mullahs, get lost!” The demonstrators have been galvanized by a protest anthem, “Baraye,” from 25-year-old musician Shervin Hajipour, with lyrics based on tweets expressing grievances with the regime going back decades. They came in the aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, while in police custody on Sept. 16, detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing a headscarf improperly. Mr. Hajipour’s song, posted on Instagram, went viral with 40 million views in less than 48 hours. He was detained Sept. 29 and accused of “propaganda against the system” and “inciting people to violent acts,” before being released on bail and prohibited from leaving the country.
Then came the outrageous case of Sarina Esmaeilzadeh, a 16-year-old girl from Mehrshahr in Karaj, who was fatally struck on the head by batons from security forces during a protest Sept. 22. Authorities attempted to coerce her family into a videotaped statement that she killed herself, according to the group Iran Human Rights, based in Oslo. The family refused. The prosecutor went ahead anyway and declared the cause of death to be suicide.
Actors, athletes and others spoke out, too — and were immediately punished. Mahmoud Shahriari, a former presenter for Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, was detained by a court order for “inciting riots and sympathizing with the enemy.” His offense: posting messages in support of the protests on Instagram. Soccer star Ali Daei had his passport revoked over a call for the government to “solve the problems of the Iranian people rather than using repression, violence, and arrests.” Actor Hamid Farrokhnejad said Oct. 9 that he had undergone hours of interrogation because of his support for the protests. “I was summoned twice, interrogated for 10 hours and banned from leaving the country to prove to me that I was wrong when I said that even a peaceful protest is not possible in this country,” he said, Radio Farda reported.
It is not clear how many have been killed, but the total is clearly in the dozens across 17 provinces. Iran Human Rights says 185 are dead. The wide and unrelenting protests — oil field workers joined this week, and ethnic minorities, too — have been met by the regime with the usual mindless deployment of thugs, batons and guns. But what has become clear is how deeply and broadly Iranians yearn for normalcy and to be free of the dictatorial clerics. It is a spirit of disenchantment that cannot be arrested. | 2022-10-13T20:54:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | In Iran, a new generation rises. The theocracy strikes back. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/iran-new-generation-rises-theocracy-strikes-back/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/iran-new-generation-rises-theocracy-strikes-back/ |
Demonstrators near the Iranian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 29 protest the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran. (Dilara Senkaya/Reuters)
But the Iranian movement still needs the oxygen of public support from the United States and the world. It has received relatively little media coverage, largely because Iran is inaccessible to independent media and has closed down the internet. Elon Musk has switched on his StarLink satellite internet feed, but Iranians need dish receivers to capture the signals and kits to disseminate them. Thankfully, there is a lot of porous borderland for equipment to move across — from Pakistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and even the Persian Gulf itself. | 2022-10-13T20:54:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why the Iranian women's movement worries the regime so much - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/iranian-regime-womens-movement-hijab-protest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/iranian-regime-womens-movement-hijab-protest/ |
Juan Soto couldn’t save the Nationals
Juan Soto smiles at the Washington Nationals' dugout as the San Diego Padres defeat the Nats 6-0 on Aug. 14. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
John Feinstein argued in his Oct. 6 Sports column, “Unhappy days are here again for the District’s pro franchises,” that the Washington Nationals’ decision to trade Juan Soto for prospects was a foolish mistake, coerced by Mr. Soto’s agent. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A single superstar cannot turn a bad team into a playoff contender. If one could, the Los Angeles Angels, who have two, would have been in the playoffs sometime in the past eight years. A playoff contender is more likely to be a team with many good players, with or without superstars. The Atlanta Braves, who won 101 games this year and are the defending champs, are a good example.
The Nationals, with Mr. Soto, were a dreadful team that, had they kept Mr. Soto, would have finished last every season until Mr. Soto became a free agent. When a team hits rock bottom, as the Nationals had, it usually takes six years to recover. See, for example, the Baltimore Orioles. By adding five prospects and a veteran player, the Nationals have a chance to reduce the wait.
As Mr. Feinstein pointed out, the prospects might not pan out (although one of them has already become our regular shortstop and is clearly a plus player). If they don’t, the Nationals will finish last — just as they would have had they kept Mr. Soto.
Timothy C. Treanor, Waldorf
John Feinstein’s Oct. 6 column about the bad state of Washington’s sports teams rightly condemned the Nationals’ trades, particularly involving Trea Turner and Juan Soto, and was rightly dubious about the value of the players received in the “sell-off.” Significantly, he is the only Post writer who has done this. With the Lerners’ decision to explore selling the Nationals, two things appear certain: They stand to make $1.5 billion on the initial investment of $450 million, and D.C. will be left with the worst team in baseball.
The Post has accepted the player “sell-off” as part of a normal correction to let old and/or expensive players go so the team can rebuild. Even without spending any of the $1.5 billion profit, the Lerners, the fourth-wealthiest ownership in all of baseball, could have spent $32 million a year more. With a competitive team, they would be averaging about 10,000 more fans than now (80 games at $40 assumed average ticket price, excluding any concession revenue). But with the team now valued at $2 billion by Forbes, the Lerners could cash out with a very nice return, and Washington gets a horrible team.
Paul S. Tischler, Chevy Chase | 2022-10-13T20:54:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Juan Soto couldn’t save the Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/juan-soto-couldnt-save-nationals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/juan-soto-couldnt-save-nationals/ |
Man, woman killed in moped crash on Dulles Toll Road, police say
A view of the Dulles Toll Road looking west from Reston Parkway. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
A man and a woman riding a moped were killed in a crash on the Dulles Toll Road Wednesday night, police said.
The crash occurred at 9:40 p.m. in the westbound lane of the Dulles Toll Road at the Wolf Trap exit, authorities said.
A Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesperson said MWAA police responded to a report of a crash with multiple people injured. They found a moped with one person dead in the road: 23-year-old Nyjell Dae Quan Lewis of D.C.
A second person believed to be a passenger on the moped, 20-year-old Kia Renee Hobbs, of Suitland, Md., was transported to a hospital, where she died.
This is the second recent death on the Dulles Toll Road. A 26-year-old man was struck and killed there in August. | 2022-10-13T20:58:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man, woman killed in moped crash on Dulles Toll Road - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dulles-toll-road-moped-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dulles-toll-road-moped-crash/ |
Executing the plan for leaving Afghanistan could have yielded ‘catastrophic’ results, officials told lawmakers investigating the the U.S. Capitol attack.
President Donald Trump listens as Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses the White House press corps in April 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to rapidly pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia in the immediate aftermath of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, according to congressional testimony aired Thursday, alarming senior aides who feared doing so would have “catastrophic” consequences.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.-Ill.) cited Trump’s order during a House select committee hearing scrutinizing the former president’s actions and directives ahead of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was evidence, the congressman said, that Trump knew his days in office were numbered, as he both sought to overturn Biden’s election win and “rushed” to complete “unfinished business.”
“He disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against [the Islamic State] and al-Qaeda terrorists,” Kinzinger said. “Knowing he was leaving office, he acted immediately and signed this order on November 11th, which would have required the immediate withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan, all to be complete before the Biden inauguration on January 20th.”
Trump’s withdrawal order was reported previously in the book “Peril,” by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. As part of Thursday’s hearing, the committee played video and audio sound bites of the testimony provided over the past several months by key officials, including Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence; and John McEntee, an adviser to Trump.
The Afghanistan plan ultimately was set aside. Milley called the order “odd” and “potentially dangerous,” telling the committee he did not think it was militarily feasible or wise. Kellogg said that the proposition was “very contested,” and that carrying it out would have been a “tremendous disservice to nation.”
“It’s the same thing with President Biden,” Kellogg said, comparing the situation to the chaotic and deadly withdrawal ultimately carried out under Biden in summer 2021. “It would have been a debacle.”
McEntee recalled typing up the order to withdraw from Afghanistan and securing Trump’s signature on it.
Their comments add to public understanding of key military moves that bridge the Trump and Biden presidencies, and the often disjointed nature of deliberations under Trump.
The Trump administration, in February 2020, signed a deal with the Taliban agreeing to remove all U.S. troops by spring 2021. It included a handful of concessions, including that the Taliban would hold fire against U.S. troops as they departed. The Afghan government was cut out of these discussions.
Trump later undermined that agreement, tweeting in October of that year that all U.S. troops should be “home by Christmas!” Then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper sent Trump a memo advising the president that ongoing Taliban attacks, potential danger for the remaining U.S. personnel and risks to U.S. alliances made that timeline untenable.
Biden decided in April 2021 to follow through with the withdrawal, prompting the collapse of Afghanistan’s government four months later. Biden administration officials blamed Trump, saying his deal with the Taliban left few alternatives, while former Trump administration officials sought to distance themselves from the agreement by arguing it was meant to be implemented only if the conditions warranted.
Under Trump’s direction, hundreds of U.S. troops were withdrawn from Somalia in the waning weeks of his administration. Some were redeployed to nearby Kenya while continuing to visit Somalia to advise local troops battling al-Qaeda-affiliated militants there.
In May, Biden reversed Trump’s Somalia order, deploying hundreds of U.S. troops there. Pentagon officials sought presidential approval to do so, advising that it was becoming increasingly unsustainable to only appear on the ground episodically to carry out operations. The Pentagon has carried out a handful of airstrikes in Somalia since. | 2022-10-13T21:20:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 panel scrutinizes Trump’s post-election Afghanistan order - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/january-6-trump-afghanistan-somalia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/january-6-trump-afghanistan-somalia/ |
WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States accelerated in September, with the cost of housing and other necessities intensifying pressure on households, wiping out pay gains and ensuring that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates aggressively. Consumer prices, excluding volatile food and energy costs, jumped 6.6% in September from a year ago — the fastest such pace in four decades. And on a month-to-month basis, core prices soared 0.6% for a second straight time, defying expectations for a slowdown and signaling that the Fed’s multiple rate hikes have yet to ease inflation pressures. Core prices typically provide a clearer picture of underlying price trends.
WASHINGTON — Millions of Social Security recipients will get an 8.7% boost in their benefits in 2023. That’s a historic increase and welcome news for American retirees and others — but it’s tempered by the fact that it’s fueled by record high inflation that’s raised the cost of everyday living. The cost-of-living adjustment means the average recipient will receive more than $140 a month extra beginning in January. It is meant to help cover the higher cost of food, fuel and other goods and services. But a separate government report Thursday showed prices accelerating again.
NEW YORK — Tens of millions of older Americans are getting the biggest raise of their lifetimes. The U.S. says Social Security beneficiaries will see an 8.7% increase in monthly payments this upcoming year. That’s the largest increase in four decades. The boost is meant to allow beneficiaries to keep up with inflation, and how it’s generated stirs plenty of controversy. Critics say the data used to set the increase doesn’t reflect what older Americans are actually spending. It’s also a one-size-fits-all increase, which means beneficiaries get the same raise regardless of where they live or how big a nest egg they have.
WASHINGTON — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates reached their highest level in more than two decades this week and are likely climb further as the Federal Reserve all but promised more rate increases as it tries to tamp down inflation. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average on the key 30-year rate climbed to 6.92% from 6.66% last week. Last year at this time, the rate was 3.05%. The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those looking to refinance their homes, rose to 6.09% from 5.9% last week, the first time it’s breached 6% since the housing market crash of 2008. | 2022-10-13T21:50:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Inflation worsens; Stocks rebound - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-inflation-worsens-stocks-rebound/2022/10/13/9836bd92-4b3d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-inflation-worsens-stocks-rebound/2022/10/13/9836bd92-4b3d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a “Save America Rally” near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Trump’s months-long effort to toss out the election results and extend his presidency will meet its formal end this week, but not without exposing political rifts in the Republican Party that have pitted future contenders for the White House against one another. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
The bipartisan congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol wrapped up what is likely to be its final public hearing by emphasizing the obvious: Former President Donald Trump spearheaded a wide-ranging attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election, and the failed coup would have never happened without his involvement.
“The central cause of January 6 was one man: Donald Trump,” Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and committee member, said at Thursday’s hearing. “Our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol. Those who planned to overturn our election, and brought us to the point of violence, must also be accountable.”
So there it is. All of the witness statements, video and audio recordings and clearheaded, gripping narrative that have accompanied these indispensable hearings boil down to a referendum on accountability. While hundreds of the rioters who laid siege to Congress have been charged with crimes and received prison sentences, the architects of the putsch have thus far largely escaped the consequences of the various political and social disasters they set in motion.
At this point, voters and law enforcement are the two most vital channels for meting out full accountability to Trump and his merry band of coup plotters. And the committee has not only challenged those camps to fully embrace accountability but to have a realistic understanding of what is at stake if they shirk their duties. “With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president we chip away at the foundation of our republic,” Cheney noted. “Indefensible conduct is defended, inexcusable conduct is excused. Without accountability it all becomes normal, and it will recur.”
Much hand-wringing has greeted the prospect of political upheaval sparked by Attorney General Merrick Garland (a Democrat) choosing to indict Trump (a Republican) on charges of, say, conspiring to defraud the US, obstructing official government proceedings, seditious conspiracy and dereliction of duty. That possibility is fine to consider, but it shouldn’t be prioritized over the incalculable damage that will result from accepting the idea that a former president and his minions are above the law.If Garland prosecutes Trump, he’ll have to convince a jury that Trump knew he lost the 2020 presidential election and chose to overturn that result as part of a criminal conspiracy. Anyone who has engaged with the totality of evidence that the Jan. 6 panel has presented — much of it from Republicans and former members of Trump’s own White House — should have little doubt that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and that proving that in a courtroom wouldn’t be elusive.After all, the hearings have shown that the Jan. 6 wasn’t an isolated incident — much less what one GOP lawmaker described as a “normal tourist visit” despite helping barricade the House gallery doors — but part of a premeditated and broader assault on democracy that involved months of planning. Conspirators called that effort “the January 6 strategy,” and one of them advised others to keep the scheme secret.The lawlessness at work here hasn’t been lost on jurists who have looked closely at Trump’s conspiracy. In March, US District Judge David Carter said that Trump likely and knowingly committed fraud when he and one of his lawyers, John Eastman, plotted to block Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election to keep Trump in office. Carter called the effort a “coup in search of a legal theory.”
Thanks to the Jan. 6 committee’s conscientious, hard work and deft storytelling, other aspects of the attempted coup have come into sharp focus. Trump insisted that the 2020 election was rigged even though his closest advisers bluntly told him that wasn’t the case. (Former Attorney General William Barr told the committee that he told Trump that his riffs were “bullshit,” “rubbish” and “idiotic.”)Michael Luttig, a well-regarded former judge and staunch conservative, told the committee that Trump is a pure insurrectionist. “Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” he said. “They would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election. But succeed.”The hearings offered a harrowing account of how much pressure Trump applied to former Vice President Mike Pence to persuade him to corrupt the 2020 election by refusing to approve the electoral count — including exposing Pence to physical harm. Trump’s team filed scores of groundless and unsuccessful lawsuits challenging election results in swing states and leaned on Republican election officials to play ball by finding nonexistent evidence of electoral fraud. Innocent poll workers were publicly smeared by cronies such as Rudolph Giuliani.Jarring, violent videos of the Jan. 6 siege were troubling highlights of the hearings, and they offered touchstones for the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a onetime aide to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She said that Trump was repeatedly warned about the possibility of violence at the Capitol and chose to ignore the alarms. When he spoke to seditionists at the Ellipse, he promised, instead, that he would march with them to the Capitol. He wanted to join in. (The Secret Service derailed that plan, much to Trump’s chagrin — and more evidence around that drama surfaced at Thursday’s hearing.) When he later watched the violence on a White House TV, he merely beamed.
While ignoring repeated entreaties from his staff to stop the violence, Trump called senators to encourage them to delay certifying the election. He took to Twitter to post a video link to his incendiary speech at the Ellipse and to question Pence’s courage.
If Republicans take control of the House in the coming midterm elections, they will defenestrate the Jan. 6 committee as quickly as they can. So we might as well thank everyone on the committee now for educating the American public on the gravity of this dangerous moment. The committee also decided to issue a subpoena to force Trump to testify, but that may be a theatrical gesture this late in the proceedings. Even so, the committee has crafted an indelible portrait of his culpability.
Trump’s “efforts to overturn the election were not random or disconnected,” Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat, said at Thursday’s hearing. “Rather they were part of a coordinated, multipart plan to ensure that he stayed in power. Donald Trump was the driver behind each part of this plan. He was personally and directly involved. Of course a key element of the plan was continuing to convince tens of millions of Americans that he did not, in fact, lose.”And Trump’s standard-bearers are legion. As the midterms draw near, consider this: Many Republican candidates running for Congress or governor around the country continue to peddle the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent and have made that claim a centerpiece of their bids for power. Trump’s poison is in other politicians’ veins. If they secure office, they’ll have the ability to torpedo legitimate election results.The GOP doesn’t need Trump at the steering wheel to continue savaging the Constitution, and that handiwork alone merits tough-mindedness among voters and law enforcement about taking on him and his legacy. | 2022-10-13T21:50:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 Panel Proves Again Trump Must Be Held Accountable - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jan-6-panel-proves-again-trump-must-be-held-accountable/2022/10/13/ced88504-4b3a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jan-6-panel-proves-again-trump-must-be-held-accountable/2022/10/13/ced88504-4b3a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
This Florida teacher married a woman. Now she’s not a teacher anymore.
The department did not immediately respond on Thursday to a request for comment and a list of questions about the new rule.
Cassandra Oetinger-Kenski, a third-grade language arts teacher in Palm Beach County, said she is horrified, confused and attempting to figure out how this rule will change her ability to teach. Oetinger-Kenski, 38, is married to a woman.
The new rule, Oetinger-Kenski said, “forces me to withhold information from my students, to lie. ... Heterosexual people aren’t our entire population. That’s not the truth.” | 2022-10-13T21:51:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida K-3 teachers who discuss LGBTQ issues will lose their licenses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/florida-teacher-license-dont-say-gay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/florida-teacher-license-dont-say-gay/ |
Justice Dept. rules California county violated defendants’ rights
The federal “pattern-or-practice” probe into Orange County was launched in December 2016. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg News)
The Justice Department said Thursday that law enforcement entities in California’s Orange County systematically denied criminal defendants their legal rights over a decade, capping a six-year investigation that is likely to force local authorities to implement changes.
Federal investigators said the Orange County district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s department violated the defendants’ right to legal counsel and failed to provide them due process from 2007 to 2016.
The investigation determined that local authorities used informants within the county jail to gather incriminating statements from inmates and did not turn over exculpatory evidence to attorneys representing the defendants, in violation of their constitutional rights under the Sixth and 14th amendments.
“It has been eight years since much of the misconduct came to light, and [the district attorney] has still not taken adequate steps to ensure that prosecutors understand and carry out their constitutional disclosure obligations,” investigators said in a 60-page report.
They laid out 23 recommended changes to the policies of the district attorney’s and sheriff’s offices, including new training programs, clearer and more consistent policies, a review of past investigations and prosecutions that involved custodial informants and more secure electronic document management systems.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer (R), who took office in 2019, said his office consulted the Justice Department while making policy changes, including limiting the use of jailhouse informants. Spitzer noted that he already initiated an independent investigation of the office, resulting in his decision to fire a senior assistant district attorney and the departure of two prosecutors.
“The violation of a single defendant’s constitutional rights calls into question the fairness of the entire criminal justice system — and I have terminated cheaters who violated defendants’ rights and I will continue to do so,” Spitzer said.
The report comes as criminal justice advocates have called on the Justice Department to bolster oversight of local law enforcement entities that have been accused of abusive practices against racial minorities and the disenfranchised.
The federal “pattern-or-practice” probe into Orange County was launched in December 2016, in the final weeks of the Obama administration. The Trump administration implemented restrictions on the Justice Department’s ability to pursue consent decrees that mandated changes in local law enforcement agencies, but the Biden administration has removed such restraints.
It is not clear whether the Justice Department will pursue a court-ordered consent agreement in the Orange County case or work collaboratively with the jurisdiction to make reforms.
Federal authorities opened their investigation after Orange County’s Superior Court had ruled in 2014 that the local district attorney’s office had committed constitutional violations by using confidential informants during the prosecution of Scott Dekraai, who was accused of fatally shooting his ex-wife and seven others in a hair salon in 2011. Dekraai was convicted and sentenced in 2017 to eight consecutive life terms.
Investigators determined that as then-Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas sought the death penalty in Dekraai’s case, his office and the sheriff’s department secretly wiretapped Dekraai’s jail cell and recorded his conversations discussing the case with another inmate. In late 2016, the Justice report found, Rackauckas’s office provided Dekraai with 179 tape recordings, including conversations between him and his lawyer.
Orange County authorities operated a program “to use custodial informants to obtain incriminating statements from defendants in homicide and gang-related prosecutions who were housed at the Orange County Jail and then use those statements against the defendants at trial,” the Justice Department said in the report. At times, the informants “even worked together as teams to elicit incriminating statements from defendants.”
Federal authorities said that Orange County district attorney’s office and sheriff’s department have taken steps since 2016 to redress some of the past convictions and update their policies.
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said the failure to ensure due process “not only deprives individual defendants of their rights, it undermines the public’s confidence in the fundamental fairness of criminal justice systems across the county.” | 2022-10-13T21:51:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept. rules Orange County violated due process for defendants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/doj-california-orange-county-defendants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/doj-california-orange-county-defendants/ |
The Jan. 6 committee has provided proof of Trump’s willful deceit
Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol speak during a hearing Oct. 13. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
1The plot to prevent a transfer of power started way in advance.
2Those around Trump told him he had to abide by court decisions.
3Trump knew violence was coming on Jan. 6. He stoked the mob regardless.
4The threat is ongoing.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol provided a capstone to its hearings on Thursday. It might have been among the most genuinely informative proceedings in decades, with the last session offering new and powerful evidence that former president Donald Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and willfully lied to retain power.
While the committee’s vote to subpoena Trump to testify was stirring, no one should expect him to comply. These were the most important aspects of the hearing:
The plot to prevent a transfer of power started way in advance.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the committee, set the tone at the start of the hearing, stating, "President Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before Election Day.” This included Trump’s attack on the security of mail-in ballots well before the election.
On the night of the election, Trump declared in a speech that he won and screamed about nonexistent voter fraud. That speech was planned well in advance, committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) explained. A memo dated Oct. 31, 2020, explicitly set forth a plan to deny his loss. Another White House aide told the committee that the planning went back to July.
Former vice president Mike Pence was no hero in this process. The committee reported that his team made plans not to join in premature claims of victory. Nevertheless, Pence stood mutely behind Trump as he falsely declared victory before vote counting was complete.
Trump understood that he lost, as testimony to the committee revealed. Former White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin quoted Trump as saying he couldn’t believe the outcome. Another former White House official, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified that after Trump’s infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told her, "He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying.” He added (falsely): “There are some good options out there.”
Testimony from other Trump aides shows that they repeatedly debunked Trump’s election conspiracy theories and public statements. Yet he persisted in what Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) called “purposeful lies.”
Interestingly, the committee also found that Trump signed an order on Nov. 11 for the complete and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia and Afghanistan because he understood he would soon be leaving office. (This should prove embarrassing to Republicans who denounced President Biden for his withdrawal from Afghanistan.)
Trump planned in advance to declare fraud, knew he had not won and even made a major policy decision based on the understanding he had lost. But even if Trump legitimately thought he won, there would be no excuse for his illegal efforts to stop Congress from counting electoral votes and unleashing the mob.
Those around Trump told him he had to abide by court decisions.
A cast of characters in Trump’s orbit — including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former attorney general William P. Barr, Ivanka Trump, former labor secretary Eugene Scalia and a parade of aides — told the president he had to abide by court rulings on the election. He refused.
Again, this suggests Trump’s willful defiance. It also raises the question: Why did none of these people come forward to warn the country of his actions?
Trump knew violence was coming on Jan. 6. He stoked the mob regardless.
The committee revealed in earlier hearings that Trump was aware that people in the crowd who had gathered in D.C. on Jan. 6 were armed, as Hutchinson testified. He encouraged them to march to the Capitol anyway.
There were other indications that violence would break out. On Jan. 5, Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon predicted “all hell would break loose" during the electoral vote counting. The committee also found tape of Roger Stone, another Trump confidant, declaring on the day before the election, “I really do suspect it’ll still be up in the air, but when that happens the key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law." He added, “I said f--- the voting, let’s get right to the violence.”
Plus, although the committee was unable to retrieve deleted texts exchanged among Secret Service agents on Jan. 6, there is considerable evidence that the Secret Service and others had been warned of violence. One source told the Secret Service that the Proud Boys wanted to “literally kill people,” adding, "Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.” It defies credulity that the Secret Service or intelligence committee would conceal this from Trump. Indeed, the agency scrambled to prevent Trump from going to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The committee reported that some Secret Service agents denied they had such evidence. Did the Secret Service lie? The committee will investigate potential obstruction of the committee.
In any case, Trump clearly wanted to see the violence play out, as evidenced by the hours he spent on Jan. 6 watching insurrectionists storm the Capitol. He refused to act during that time despite repeated pleas by allies for him to speak out. That, too, shows his intent to overthrow the election, by mob power if necessary.
The committee shared gripping video of House and Senate members trying to get help during the attack, serving as a reminder that for a moment, Republicans realized Trump had endangered them all. Similarly, video of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) castigating Trump for his role in the attack underscores the cowardice of Republican leaders who have since promoted Trump and his fellow election deniers.
The threat is ongoing.
Cheney made clear if phony claims of election fraud and violence are allowed to go unpunished, we will have no democracy. “A key lesson of this investigation is this: Our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of the political cost," she said. "We have no guarantee that these men and women will be in place next time.”
With nearly 300 Republican election deniers on the ballot this November, the hearing was a critical reminder that if we elect people who will not accept election results that do not go their way, then they will destroy democracy. | 2022-10-13T21:51:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Jan. 6 committee has provided proof of Trump’s willful deceit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/jan-6-hearing-committee-trump-deceit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/jan-6-hearing-committee-trump-deceit/ |
The L.A. City Council scandal holds a lesson for the Supreme Court
Protesters outside Los Angeles City Hall on Oct. 12. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
It’s becoming apparent how the racial scandal consuming Los Angeles will probably end. The city councilors and labor operative caught on tape in a crude conversation about the council’s redistricting will be pushed out or quit (or already have). California’s Democratic political establishment will exult in its virtue. And progressives will continue to push for race-based political maps that helped incubate the offending language in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is considering whether to pare back racial gerrymandering in Merrill v. Milligan. In that case, progressive groups argue that a 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act requires Alabama to carve out a second congressional district that is majority Black. But the Los Angeles episode demonstrates the ugly underside of relying on racial classifications for political maps.
The scandal revolves around a leaked October 2021 conversation between three Democratic members of the Los Angeles City Council — Nury Martinez, Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo — and a labor organizer, Ron Herrera. Martinez, the council president who has now resigned, is heard on the recording saying in Spanish that the Black son of another council member is “like a monkey.”
It’s not a coincidence that this racist remark, among other derogatory speech, was uttered in a conversation about redistricting. The decadal line-drawing for the council’s 15 seats is infused with racial and ethnic considerations. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas warned in 1964 that “when racial or religious lines are drawn by the State, the multi-racial, multi-religious communities that our Constitution seeks to weld together as one become separatist; antagonisms that relate to race or to religion, rather than to political issues, are generated; communities seek not the best representative, but the best racial or religious partisan.”
Scrub the conversation of the handful of ugly epithets, and the discussion reflected a classic zero-sum ethnic competition for political power. For example, in a discussion about district boundaries, de León said, “Let me ask this, Gil, so if you go in more into K-Town, right, are those more Latino voters?” Cedillo replied, “Yep. K-Town’s a misnomer. It’s called K-Town because it’s got a lot of Koreans, but it’s all Latinos.” “So those are the ones you’d like to pick up?” de León asked. Cedillo: “Yeah.”
The discussion also covered the district of Black council member Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was charged last October with bribery and fraud. “If he resigns,” Martinez said, “and the African Americans look at this as a hostile takeover,” then “politically they’re going to come after us.” De León complained that Latinos punch below their weight in city politics: “There’s a hundred of us,” he said, “but it sounds like there’s 10 of us.”
“All right, it’s real simple: You got 100 people, right? Fifty-two of them are Mexicano,” said Herrera, who resigned late Monday, referring to Los Angeles’s overall Latino population. “I feel pretty good about it. I feel pretty good about my chances of beating your a--.”
In a one-party system — there are no Republicans on the Los Angeles City Council — factionalism is bound to emerge, and identity is one dividing line. As the Los Angeles Times wrote, “the redistricting process typically involves open discussions of race.”
In fact, a strain of progressive political and legal thought takes for granted that racial groups ought to be consciously sorted into self-contained legislative districts. This is based in part on a theory of representation that says members of identity groups can best be “spoken for” by another member of that group. Representatives who absorb this theory naturally see themselves as helming ethnic fiefdoms struggling for advantage against rivals.
One proposed remedy for the ugliness of the recording is to strip the council of power over its own redistricting. California already delegates redistricting for the state legislature to a commission. Yet that commission has “a clear mandate to support representation for communities of color where they are geographically concentrated and share political interests,” as the Public Policy Institute of California puts it. In other words, it is instructed to group voters by race where possible — an intricate task in majority-minority California.
Perhaps progressives assume that they can racially gerrymander benevolently, without resorting to the crude language heard on the Los Angeles tape — or at least keep such language behind closed doors. But such government racial classifications are a “sordid business,” as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. once wrote, and that sordidness will inevitably find its way into public view.
The White House has weighed in on the Los Angeles scandal, calling on the city councilors in the conversation to resign. Yet the Biden administration was at the Supreme Court last week in Merrill v. Milligan defending the necessity of progressive racial gerrymandering to maintain minority political power.
Well, Los Angeles is as progressive as they come. One lesson of the unfolding scandal is that runaway race-consciousness in the redistricting process is apt to divide and polarize. The justices would be wise to limit it. | 2022-10-13T21:52:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The L.A. City Council scandal holds a lesson for the Supreme Court - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/los-angeles-city-council-lesson-supreme-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/los-angeles-city-council-lesson-supreme-court/ |
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection presented findings and voted to subpoena former president Donald Trump on Oct. 13. (Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post)
The House Jan. 6 select committee on Thursday held what is expected to be its final hearing focused on new evidence gleaned from its investigation.
Below are some takeaways about what we learned and how the committee closed its argument.
1. Trump’s premature — and premeditated — declaration of victory
Much of Thursday’s hearing was devoted to establishing Trump’s mind-set leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. And a big part of that was the committee casting his false, election-night declaration of victory as part of a premeditated plan.
We’ve known that the likes of Roger Stone and Stephen K. Bannon were talking about this well before Election Day. And news outlets had reported at the time that Trump might do it. But on Thursday, the committee added to the publicly available evidence.
In taped testimony, a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Greg Jacob, acknowledged that the possibility had felt imminent enough that Pence’s aides discussed how to deal with it.
Jacob said fellow aide Marc Short “was trying to figure out a way of avoiding the vice president being thrust into needing to opine on that.”
The committee also shared an email from Tom Fitton, head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, to White House aides Dan Scavino and Molly Michael. The email was dated Oct. 31 — days before Election Day — and featured the words “We had an election today — and I won.” It suggested that Trump should claim that the ballots “counted by the Election Day deadline” showed he had won.
In a follow-up email, from Nov. 3, Fitton indicated he had spoken with Trump about the matter: “Just talked to him about the draft below.”
The idea was ridiculous. There is no Election Day deadline for ballots to be counted. In fact, the ballot-counting process regularly takes much longer. But pretty much everyone knew that Trump’s strength on in-person voting — vs. President Biden’s strength on later-counted mail-in votes — would create a “red mirage” of Trump holding a lead on election night.
In other words, claiming the deadline existed was a great way to mislead people and foment outrage.
Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) summarized: “It was a plan concocted in advance to convince his supporters that he won."
2. Hutchinson adds to evidence Trump knew he lost
Previous hearings had focused on all the witnesses testifying that Trump was told his voter-fraud claims were false.
On Thursday, the committee made an additional argument: Trump occasionally, privately admitted that he lost the election — and still pressed forward with publicly claiming it had been stolen.
The committee played a never-before-seen clip from one of its star witnesses, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. She said that after the Supreme Court declined to overturn the election in December 2020, she witnessed a conversation in which Trump asked chief of staff Mark Meadows to do something.
According to Hutchinson, Trump said something to the effect of: “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost.”
Hutchinson noted that this wasn’t a verbatim quote, but she said twice that Trump had spoken in terms that indicated that he knew he’d lost.
She added that, at another point, Meadows told her of Trump: “He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying. There’s some good options out there.”
Former Trump White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin also testified to this effect.
On Oct. 13, the Jan. 6 House select committee played a video of Trump's administration officials recounting times he said he had lost the 2020 election. (Video: The Washington Post)
The committee also revealed that Trump had signed an order Nov. 11, 2020, requesting the immediate removal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan — and that the withdrawal be completed by Jan. 15, 2021, before Biden’s inauguration. This was an acknowledgment, they said, that he knew the truth about his loss and was trying to conclude any unfinished business.
Committee member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said at the outset of the hearing that nobody should accept that Trump was deluded and sincerely thought he won.
“Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defense,” Cheney said. “There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational.”
3. More evidence Trump might’ve approved of rioters
Somewhat relatedly, the committee played new evidence corroborating the idea that Trump might have approved of what the rioters were doing — or at least that he sought to use it as leverage.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) has previously said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told people that, as he pleaded for Trump to call off the rioters, the president responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
McCarthy has been tight-lipped about that conversation. But former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney testified to the committee that, shortly after Jan. 6, McCarthy personally recounted to him much the same exchange. “I had a conversation at some point in the day or week after the riot with Kevin McCarthy,” Mulvaney said. “It was very similar to what Jamie had, the conversation she had retold.”
The committee has presented other evidence that Trump might have liked the scenes at the Capitol, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone awkwardly responding to questions about whether Trump actually wanted the rioters to go home. (The committee played that clip for the second time Thursday.)
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) has also said publicly that Trump was “walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was.”
4. The committee leans in on the Secret Service
Toward the end of the hearing, the committee focused on a trove of new information from the Secret Service that it had received since its last hearing.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) pointed to multiple documents showing that agents expressed concerns about the Jan. 6 rally more than a week before. In records of internal Secret Service chatter, there were discussions of social media posts in which rallygoers said they planned to bring weapons.
He said that this not only reinforces that Trump would’ve been informed of such threats and directed people to march to the Capitol anyway — which Hutchinson testified to — but that this called into question previous testimony from Secret Service and White House witnesses, who said that they hadn’t received information suggesting that the officials under their protection were in danger.
“Evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible,” Schiff said.
Schiff didn’t name names, but it seems possible the comments were aimed at then-Secret Service agent and Trump White House official Anthony M. Ornato. Sources close to Ornato had previously disputed testimony from former White House aide Hutchinson about what Ornato had told her about that day.
The committee also played video of Trump praising the Secret Service during his Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse. The implication seemed to be that perhaps certain members of the Secret Service might have been too close to Trump. That’s something Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has also gestured in the direction of — particularly with regard to Pence’s refusal to get into a Secret Service vehicle that day.
Later, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) emphasized that the committee would continue to investigate matters related to the Secret Service documents it obtained.
5. The vote to subpoena Trump
At the start of the proceedings, Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) noted this would not technically be a hearing, but rather committee business. This committee intended to vote on taking further investigative action.
That action turned out to be a subpoena of Trump himself, which was approved unanimously by the committee.
The significance of that isn’t clear. Some incumbent and former presidents have testified to Congress, but Trump will likely resist testifying, which would force the committee into a lengthy process of trying to compel his testimony. That kind of timeline wouldn’t really comport with its intent to release a report before the end of the year. (That timeline is important, given that Republicans could retake the House after the midterm elections and shut down the committee.)
It seems more likely that this is more a matter of course. It’s the committee saying, “We gave the former president the chance to defend himself” ahead of its final report, and emphasizing that he declined to do so. | 2022-10-13T21:52:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A vote to subpoena Trump and other takeaways from the Jan. 6 hearing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/takeaways-jan6-hearing-trump-subpoena/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/takeaways-jan6-hearing-trump-subpoena/ |
President Donald Trump at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol concluded what is expected to be the last of its public hearings on Thursday by unspooling the evidence it had gathered. There was no more mystery about its conclusions than there would be when watching a prosecutor’s closing argument at a criminal trial: The riot was a function of the actions and decisions of the former president.
“The vast weight of evidence presented so far,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee vice chair, said in an opening comment, “has shown us that the central cause of January 6th was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it.”
What followed was a review of that evidence, a stitching together of hours of prior testimony and the injection of newly uncovered details as the committee has continued its work. It was, as the prior analogy would suggest, a prosecution of a case — and an effective one.
Trump’s responsibility for the violence that unfolded that day can be viewed as an escalation over three periods of time: the months before the election on Nov. 3, 2020, the period from Election Day to Jan. 6, and the events of Jan. 6 itself.
There’s no real beginning point for Trump’s unending claims that American elections are riddled with fraud. He made such claims about the very first election in which he participated, his loss at the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). But we can point to a moment when the specific strain of allegation that defined his response to the 2020 election took root.
In the spring of 2020, in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, states moved to increase mail-in voting as part of an effort to limit in-person interactions. Trump opposed that change, having been on-record in the past that expanding access to voting would disadvantage his party. As is often the case with a spurious claim that Trump makes, the process of defending it causes him to entrench himself in his case. So, over the months that ensued, he and his team elevated numerous claims that mail ballots were suspect or vectors for fraud, despite the utter lack of evidence to that point.
His campaign team appears to have been frustrated: mail-in ballots are a useful way to lock in votes well in advance of Election Day. In testimony aired during Thursday’s hearing, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien described trying to get Trump to embrace having his supporters vote by mail. But, he said, “the president’s mind was made up.”
It’s likely that Trump’s original goal was nebulous, just to have space — as he had after that caucus in Iowa and after the 2016 presidential contest — to claim that he did better than people might have thought. But as the months passed and it became clear that Republicans were taking his skepticism to heart, a plan formed.
Voting methodology had become partisan, so Democrats were voting earlier by mail and Republicans on Election Day in-person. Paradoxically, that meant that Democratic votes would often be counted later, since processing mail ballots is slower. And that meant that the earliest vote totals reported on Election Day would be very favorable to the incumbent. This was dubbed the “red mirage,” since, over the following hours and days, support for Joe Biden would slowly be added to totals and Trump’s lead would shrink or vanish.
So Trump planned to simply announce victory shortly after polls closed, hoping to create a sense not that votes were being counted but that his victory was being unwound. Even before Election Day, Axios reported that this was Trump’s plan. Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told the Jan. 6 committee that he’d heard rumblings along those lines as early as July.
As Trump adviser Roger Stone put it in a comment captured by a team of documentary filmmakers: “The key thing to do is to claim victory. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
During Thursday’s hearing, the committee showed an email sent by right-wing activist Tom Fitton. It included a proposed script for Trump to use. It read, in part, “The ballots counted by the Election Day deadline show the American people have bestowed on me the great honor of reelection to President of the United States.” That was sent on Oct. 31, 2020.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 13, 2022
The rhythm here is clear. Trump was uninterested in waiting to see whether the American public wanted him to have a second term in office. Instead, he spent months tilling the soil of doubt by making unsupported claims that mail-in ballots would lead to fraud. Then, he and his allies developed a plan to take advantage of the resulting divide, using misleading early vote totals as a predicate for claiming victory.
Meaning that anything that followed could and would be cast as theft.
From the election to Jan. 6
The election was called on Nov. 7, 2020, as those slowly counted votes in Pennsylvania revealed that Biden had won a majority of electoral votes and would be president.
That same day, Trump’s aides told him that it was over. Communications aide Jason Miller told the committee about a conversation he’d had with Trump that Saturday.
“At some point, myself and a handful of other folks went over and sat down with the president and communicated that the odds of us prevailing and legal challenges were very small,” Miller testified. He was right.
Over the following weeks there were other moments in which Trump was told that he would be leaving the White House in January. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Meadows told her that Trump knew that he’d lost.
“A lot of times he’ll tell me that he lost,” Hutchinson testified that she was told by Meadows, “but he” — that is, Trump — “wants to keep fighting it. He thinks that there might be enough to overturn the election, but he pretty much has acknowledged that he has lost.”
Why would he want to keep fighting it? Simply, to preserve his power. He wanted to remain president and understood that preserving a sense among his supporters that he should be president, that he had won, was important to doing so. Just as it had been important for years that he deny other realities to give his base space to rise to his defense. Behind the scenes, he was even conveying to people that he had no intention of leaving the White House on Inauguration Day.
Preserving the idea that victory was possible meant rapidly cobbling together detours as legal avenues to a second term were shut down.
First, he and his team tried to halt that slow counting of votes in several states. When that failed, he and his attorneys tried to block the certification of the vote, the formal validation of the election results. He came closest in Michigan, where two Republican members of the certification board in the state’s largest county at first opposed certification, backing down only after facing public pressure.
When that failed, attention turned to the finalization of the electoral votes that would be counted in Washington on Jan. 6. Trump’s allies put together a plan in which alternate slates of electors would meet on Dec. 14, the day electors cast their ballots, ostensibly in hopes that those slates would eventually be determined to be the legitimate ones.
Republican Party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told the committee that she’d gotten a call from Trump and his attorney, John Eastman, asking that the Republican National Committee aid this effort. Eastman, she said, began to “talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the result of any of the states.”
With that in their back pocket, Trump and his team tried to invalidate those valid electoral slates. He and his attorneys called state officials in Georgia to encourage the state to “find” enough votes that he would be declared the winner. That call is now a subject of an investigation in Fulton County, Ga. Hutchinson’s takeaway from it, according to her testimony: “That call was crazy.”
Ultimately, the plan to reject Biden’s duly certified electors came down to that count on Jan. 6, as Trump was increasingly aware. The idea was that Republicans in the House and Senate would raise dubious questions about the submitted electors and send them back to states. Speaking to Justice Department officials in December, he encouraged them to simply declare that the election had been tainted by fraud — and then “leave the rest to me and the [Republican] Congressmen.” When the Justice Department leadership declined, Trump plotted to replace them.
Another vector for blocking the electors was promoted in a memo written by Eastman. It suggested that Vice President Mike Pence could simply reject them out of hand. Trump seized on this idea, publicly pressuring Pence to do exactly that — despite the lack of evidence that this was viable. Even Eastman, the committee said on Thursday, admitted in an email on Jan. 6 that Trump had been advised this wasn’t feasible.
On Dec. 11, 2020, the Supreme Court shut down Trump’s last major legal effort to block Biden’s election. When Trump learned of the decision, he was furious.
Hutchinson and Meadows ran into him shortly afterward.
“He said something to the effect of I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark,” Hutchinson testified. “This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost.”
A week later, Trump met with allies and aides to discuss last-ditch options for retaining power. It included speculation about seizing voting machines and appointing attorney Sidney Powell — already exposed as spreading unfounded claims about the election — as special counsel. Ultimately the meeting didn’t result in significant action.
A few hours after that lengthy meeting ended, though, Trump sent out a tweet, linking to false claims about fraud.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he wrote. “Be there, will be wild!”
That tweet comes up over and over again in the indictments obtained against rioters; it was the point at which many of them decided to travel to Washington and participate in that protest.
During this period, from the election to Jan. 6, Trump could have taken the entire country down a different path. But he wanted to retain power, and, as the days passed, his options for doing so narrowed. In the end, he only had that last point of pressure, the normally rote congressional counting of submitted electoral votes.
So that’s where he put pressure.
On Jan. 6 itself
Trump began his day on Jan. 6 making phone calls. He spent some time working on the speech he would give at a rally just south of the executive mansion. Then, a bit after 11:30 a.m., he left the White House for the short drive to the Ellipse.
One of the more revealing aspects of the committee’s work has been to make clear just how aware federal protective services were about the crowd outside Trump’s speech that day. There was a secure area immediately in front of the stage where attendees were screened by magnetometers. And there was a much larger surrounding area in which many attendees remained without entering — and without being checked for weapons.
Secret Service reports detail a number of encounters with armed individuals in the vicinity, as the committee reported on Thursday. This comported with warnings they’d received in the preceding weeks; the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies had been warned about increasing chatter about possible violence in Washington and at the Capitol.
Trump apparently knew that some in the extended audience were armed, too. In her testimony before the committee, Hutchinson relayed a comment she heard Trump make that morning: “I don’t … care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” During his speech, in fact, he encouraged the security screeners to stand down so that the audience could better fill the space in front of the stage.
During his speech, Trump reiterated a variety of false claims about the election. The committee showed clips from the speech in which he elevated debunked claims about votes in Michigan and Georgia, juxtaposing those comments with testimony from former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue in which he describing telling Trump that those specific claims were baseless.
It’s important to remember that the speech at the Ellipse wasn’t originally Trump’s plan. In the aftermath of his Dec. 19 tweet, a number of allies refocused their efforts on doing things that day. One group, made up of fringier elements of his coalition, aimed to have a rally on Capitol Hill. Another planned the event at the Ellipse. Eventually, those were folded together — though without an authorized plan for a march from the speech to the Capitol.
Trump wanted such a march. The White House drafted a tweet mentioning it. One of the organizers of the Ellipse speech texted an ally to indicate that Trump planned to “spontaneously” announce a march from the White House to the Capitol. During his speech, he did just that, despite warnings from his attorneys. Much of the crowd moved to the Capitol, providing a critical mass of people that allowed them to push past police.
Remember, Trump knew they were armed. According to the committee, he’d also been warned that there was a threat of violence. But Trump knew they were “not here to hurt me” and planned, as he announced, to march with them.
“I recall him saying that he wanted to physically walk and be a part of the march and then saying that he would ride the [presidential limo] if he needed to,” Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany testified. When then SUV taking him from the speech venue didn’t head to the Capitol, Trump became furious, according to witness testimony. Secret Service staffers prepared for an unscheduled trip to the Capitol — a plan that, documents obtained by the committee reveal, was only called off at about 1:55 p.m.
About 15 minutes before the Capitol was breached.
According to testimony obtained by the committee, Trump already knew about violence on Capitol Hill; he’d been told shortly after arriving back at the White House. But instead of speaking out, he proceeded to watch events unfold. Molly Michael, Trump’s assistant at the time, testified about Trump’s activities during the riot: “It’s my understanding he was watching television.”
Allies flooded the White House with requests for Trump to intervene. He didn’t.
“You heard him, Pat,” Hutchinson says she heard Meadows tell White House counsel Pat Cipollone. “He doesn’t want to do anything more. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
If anything, he actively made the situation worse. Shortly after Fox News interviewed a Trump supporter who expressed exasperation at Pence’s decision not to try Trump’s power-grabbing ploy, Trump tweeted an excoriation of the vice president. The mob was enraged; some rioters were only about 40 feet from Pence as he evacuated to a safer position.
When Trump eventually did send out a message to his supporters that they should go home, most of the damage was done. Like Pence, the House and Senate had been moved to safety. Windows were smashed. Scores of police officers were attacked and injured. The rioter who tried to climb through a window near where House members were evacuated was already dead.
In video obtained by the committee, rioters seeing Trump’s message responded as desired: “That’s our order” — to go home.
Why didn’t Trump act more forcefully? Why didn’t he speak out sooner? Again, for the same reason he’d done everything else: He wanted to retain power. And this was the last, most dangerous part of that effort.
“Our committee may ultimately decide to make a series of criminal referrals to the Department of Justice,” Cheney said in her opening statement on Thursday, “but we recognize that our role is not to make decisions regarding prosecution.” Instead, the committee concluded its hearing by voting to subpoena Trump for testimony.
That subpoena will almost certainly never result in testimony from the former president. But, to some extent, it doesn’t matter. The case has been made.
The prosecution rests. | 2022-10-13T21:52:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The case against Trump on the Capitol riot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/trump-jan-6-capitol-riot-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/trump-jan-6-capitol-riot-investigation/ |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a previously unseen video from a secure location at the Capitol, shown Oct. 13 during a hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
It is understandable that a House committee tasked with detailing a violent attack on the House of Representatives should spend some amount of time articulating the threat they themselves faced. For the most part, the House select committee probing the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has largely focused elsewhere, discussing the threat to themselves far less often than the threat the day’s violence posed to American democracy.
On Thursday, though, during what is likely to be the committee’s last public hearing, several minutes were devoted to showing a specific facet of how the threat to legislators unfolded. For the first time, Americans were given a look at what congressional leaders were doing as the rioters ransacked their offices and rifled through their desks.
The footage began with the initial evacuation of House members out of the chamber. Not all were immediately evacuated; photos of legislators huddling for safety in the chamber’s balcony are an important part of the historical record of the day. But leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) were removed to a safer, unidentified position.
The video shown by the committee included only snippets, segment of professionally filmed interactions or phone calls. Those were interspersed with footage showing what was happening in and around the Capitol itself: police being beaten, protesters loudly seeking out Pelosi herself.
The first snippet shows Pelosi and Clyburn in a small auditorium somewhere in the Capitol complex. (The leaders were removed from the Capitol itself through the tunnel system.) In that room, Pelosi and Clyburn are informed (with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in the background) that those remaining in the House chamber had been asked to don gas masks as rioters neared.
Pelosi turns to Clyburn. “Do you believe this?” she asks. He doesn’t answer, as he didn’t need to.
Then, footage of those representatives evacuating, some with heads covered by the masks that many probably had no idea were readily at hand.
One thing that jumps out from the video is how omnipresent the pandemic is. This was near the height of the daily death toll, and nearly everyone shown is wearing a mask. In the first shot of the auditorium, shown at the top of this article, two out of three seats are taped off in a wan attempt at social distancing.
Pelosi is shown calling various leaders: the governor of Virginia, the acting head of the Justice Department. She was making those calls, of course, because President Trump wouldn’t.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) eventually joins her.
This image is striking: the leftover Christmas tree in the background, the generic office space suddenly repurposed as a command center. Schumer’s socks, certainly.
A screen is lowered and the assembled politicians put on CNN, which is how Pelosi learns that windows in the building have been broken. According to the video she was on the phone with Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam at the time.
Republicans join them. In the image below you can see House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) at far left. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is shown next to Pelosi, whose back is turned to the camera. Beside her is House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (R-Md.), wearing a white mask and, at back, Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the video, to my eye, was Pelosi’s conversation with Pence a bit after 4 p.m. This was shortly after Trump had finally called on the rioters to leave the building; the scene was still very volatile. In the time that the group was gathered, though, they’d come up with a plan of action once they got back to work: Republicans would still object to the electors from the state of Arizona — and hopefully no more than that.
In other words, even as they were huddled for safety away from the Capitol, members of Congress were figuring out how to move forward with the performative opposition to Biden’s victory that Republicans had become convinced was necessary in order not to anger Trump’s base of support. In other words, they came up with a plan to accommodate some proxy for the exact goal of the rioters as the rioters were still marching through the building nearby.
Shortly after 7 p.m., they returned to the Capitol. About an hour after that, they got back to work.
Republicans ended up objecting to both Arizona and Pennsylvania, with a majority of House Republicans voting to block the electors submitted by those states.
Scalise was among them. | 2022-10-13T21:52:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What congressional leaders were doing as the mob stormed the Capitol - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/what-congressional-leaders-were-doing-mob-stormed-capitol/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/what-congressional-leaders-were-doing-mob-stormed-capitol/ |
NEW YORK — Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark spent part of this week in Manhattan, at ESPN’s South Street Seaport studios and also hunkered down in the midtown offices of one of the top public relations firms in the country, trying to “set the narrative” for a conference that has come back from the brink. | 2022-10-13T21:52:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Nothing replaces winning': Big 12 back from the brink - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/nothing-replaces-winning-big-12-back-from-the-brink/2022/10/13/231ad104-4b3a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/nothing-replaces-winning-big-12-back-from-the-brink/2022/10/13/231ad104-4b3a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Del. Dan Cox, a Maryland state legislator running for governor, talks to reporters, in Annapolis, Md., on June 30. (Brian Witte/AP)
Dan Cox wants equal time.
The Republican nominee dragging in the race to the governor’s mansion in Maryland can’t stop talking about his opponent’s best-selling book, “The Other Wes Moore: Two lives, Two Fates.”
“So many things in his book are false,” Cox said, in Wednesday night’s debate — which is likely to be the only one in the race against Democratic nominee Wes Moore.
It burns Cox, a Maryland state delegate, that Moore’s book — the parallel stories of his life and that of another Black man around the same age also named Wes Moore — is part of the curriculum in Baltimore public schools. (My younger son’s English class in a D.C. public school is also reading it).
It tells the story of how one Moore was raised by a single mom and grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, a combat veteran, a White House fellow and possibly the first Black governor of Maryland — while the other Moore is now in prison for his role in the killing of an off-duty Baltimore County officer.
Cox tried to get the book pulled out of schools, ostensibly because the story on one of the edition’s dust jackets says Moore was born in Baltimore, which he was not. The publisher said the mistake was on them, Moore was a little slow to correct it.
Nevertheless, Cox persisted.
“I would at least like equal time because my campaign materials are truthful,” Cox said last month.
Fine. Here is ‘The Other Dan Cox: One man, Many Different Faces.”
See, Dan Cox doesn’t have to go find another person to contrast his rise from a financially solid, Maryland family of 10 children to his own financially solid family of 10 children. But it’s still a compelling exercise because Cox, in his brief role in public office, has done a great job of presenting so many versions of Dan Cox.
After he won his election to the Maryland General Assembly, he sat down for a profile with the Frederick News-Post in 2019 as part of their Beyond the Ballot series.
He told Kate Masters about a trip he made as a teenager to Holocaust memorials, revealing Dan Cox — Anti-Nazi.
“The camps are still there and they’re turned into museum pieces that made a huge impact on my life when I was in college,” he said.
When he answered Masters’s who-would-you-want-to-have-dinner-with question, he knee-jerked about George Washington/Abraham Lincoln/Jesus, but then added Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill because they “saved civilization from the tyranny of Nazism.”
But oops again. Last year, Cox got himself a mask with an image from the Nuremberg trial of Nazi officials after World War II and wore it to work on Holocaust Remembrance Day, thinking it would be a great prop.
“One of the things that was interesting and very sad in the Nuremberg Trials was the fact that medical professionals interfered with parental rights,” he said, comparing Nazi medical experiments to a bill that would allow kids to get mental health counseling without parental consent.
Later, Cox apologized for that.
But then he went on Gab, one of the internet’s most fertile sites for antisemitic, white supremacist, sexist and racist conspiracy theory spreading, and dove in with more than 1,000 posts.
Um, never mind about all that, he indicated, when his profile was deleted and posts disappeared. This was after he won the Republican gubernatorial primary. He wouldn’t talk to The Washington Post’s reporters Ovetta Wiggins and Erin Cox when they uncovered the Gabfest and wrote about it.
Same happened when far-right groups organized a “Unite the Right” rally for Oct. 22. Cox said he was on board for the event, despite its seeming resurrection of the deadly, antisemitic and white supremacist event in Charlottesville in 2017.
When the planned rally and it’s bloodstained name became a firestorm, Cox said never mind, he’s not going, according to The Baltimore Banner, claiming he was not aware of the name.
A planned rally for Maryland Republican candidates dubbed “Unite the Right” — the same name as the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville — has a new name: “Maryland United.”https://t.co/EF9944S2Qx
(No word on whether he changed his mind again, after organizers changed the name of the far-right gathering to “Maryland United.”)
On Jan. 6, 2021, Maryland got to see Dan Cox — Election Denier when he helped arrange buses to load his constituents into D.C. for the lethal, pro-Donald Trump insurrection. As rioters stormed the Capitol building, a noose swung from a gallows erected on the Capitol grounds and members of Congress were taking cover, Cox tweeted: “Pence is a traitor.”
Oops. His colleagues in the Maryland General Assembly called for his expulsion. So he quickly became Dan Cox — Pacifist who only came for the speeches and issued a statement: “I agree with my colleagues in the House of Delegates that ‘every American deserves the same protection of leaders of all parties to exercise their constitutional rights,’ ” he said. “Mob rule is no rule at all.”
There’s Dan Cox — FOH (Foe of Hogan), who tried to impeach his fellow Republican, Gov. Larry Hogan, for his largely-praised handling of the pandemic. It went nowhere.
Hogan’s been unmoved by Cox, calling him a “QAnon whack job,” a “nut” and “mentally unstable.”
Hogan calls Cox a 'Q-Anon conspiracy theorist.'
But on the debate stage Wednesday night, voters got a chance to meet Dan Cox — FOH (but Friend of Hogan) when he praised the sitting governor, giving him a solid A for his two terms.
For most of his short, political life, he’s made no effort to hide Dan Cox — MAGA Trump Lover. He posted photos of himself and the former president. He even pulled an Ivanka Trump, bringing in one of his daughters, Patience Faith Cox, on as a campaign manager, and she posted photos of them with Trump.
But as the Jan. 6 hearings unveiled more of Trump’s involvement and the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago and took all those Trump documents, Cox took down his campaign site’s Trump gallery.
Oops, nevermind. Cox’s campaign just announced that the Maryland governor hopeful is going down to Florida next for a $1,776 fundraiser. If you raise $25,000, you’ll get a photo with Cox and Trump.
That’s the one Dan Cox Maryland will always have. | 2022-10-13T22:08:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dan Cox wants equal time to tell his story. What is that, exactly? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dan-cox-maryland-governor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/dan-cox-maryland-governor/ |
Daniel Snyder walks on the field with Commanders team president Jason Wright, left, and Tanya Snyder before an Oct. 2 game against the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Tex. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder is “no longer under any NFL restriction” limiting his degree of involvement in the franchise’s operations, the team’s attorneys said.
The NFL on Thursday neither confirmed nor refuted that contention made by the Holland & Knight law firm, which represents the Commanders. The league repeatedly has said, as recently as last month, that there has been no change to Snyder’s ownership status since its July 2021 announcement that he would turn over control of the franchise’s day-to-day operations to his wife Tanya, the team’s co-CEO, for an unspecified period.
The NFL has said Commissioner Roger Goodell will discuss the issue with Snyder upon the completion of a league-commissioned investigation, conducted by attorney Mary Jo White, into allegations of sexual misconduct and financial impropriety. Snyder and the team have denied all allegations.
The team, through its attorneys, portrayed Snyder’s status differently.
“Dan Snyder agreed with the NFL that he would step away from day-to-day operations … for a limited period, and he is no longer under any NFL restriction related to his involvement with the team,” the Holland & Knight firm said in a statement. “That said, Jason Wright has, from day one, done such an outstanding job as Team President, that there has been little need for Dan to involve himself in the Team’s operations. Tanya also has been very engaged and hands on.”
The Commanders provided the statement Thursday to The Washington Post after previously providing it to ESPN.
“Tanya continues to represent the Team at NFL meetings as a committed, effective, long-standing co-owner, and one of the small group of women owners,” the statement said. “That decision is, however, a decision made jointly by Tanya and Dan, and is not as a result of any requirement imposed by the NFL.”
The NFL said Thursday in a statement: “The Commissioner’s decisions were based on a comprehensive workplace review conducted by Beth Wilkinson and the grounds were identified in the public statements made at the time that the discipline and remedial measures were announced.”
The NFL did not directly address the team’s statement Thursday about Snyder’s ownership status, instead referring to previous comments made by Goodell at two sets of owners’ meetings this year.
At an owners’ meeting in August in Bloomington, Minn., Goodell said, “As far as his status, as we all know, there’s an ongoing investigation, a congressional investigation as well as our investigation into those issues. As we get to resolution on that, Dan and I will discuss where he participates.”
At the annual league meeting in March, Goodell said that Daniel Snyder “has not been involved in day-to-day operations,” adding that Tanya Snyder’s oversight of the franchise’s daily operations and representation of the team at meetings “will continue for at least the foreseeable future.” Goodell also said then: “Dan and I will talk about that at some point.”
A league executive reiterated last month that there had been no change to Snyder’s ownership status since the July 2021 announcement, pending the completion of White’s investigation.
“There is no update or timeline at this point, in terms of her findings,” Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs and policy, said during a September conference call with reporters. “But as soon as she is done, I am sure that we’ll be talking about that. The commissioner said it. I think this remains the status quo, then he’ll have a discussion with Dan at the appropriate time. And, again, those findings haven’t been made to us yet. Her work continues.”
The NFL said in its July 2021 announcement that the team had been fined $10 million, based on the findings of a previous league investigation led by Wilkinson. The league said then in a statement: “As co-CEO, Tanya Snyder will assume responsibilities for all day-to-day team operations and represent the club at all league meetings and other league activities for at least the next several months. Dan Snyder will concentrate on a new stadium plan and other matters.”
The league said in that announcement that any “material failure to implement these recommendations or to otherwise comply fully with these obligations and the commitments may result in an extension of the reporting period or other discipline.”
The team and Daniel Snyder’s attorneys always portrayed the arrangement regarding the franchise’s daily operations as voluntary on his part and disputed that Goodell’s approval was needed for Snyder to return to control over those operations, despite the subsequent statements by Goodell and the league that the two would have to discuss the matter.
There never was any restriction placed on Snyder attending the team’s games. But there have been conflicting accounts of Snyder’s level of involvement in team operations. Commanders Coach Ron Rivera said Daniel Snyder was involved in the team’s deliberations leading to its trade with the Indianapolis Colts in March for quarterback Carson Wentz.
The owners are scheduled to meet Tuesday in New York at their regularly scheduled quarterly meeting. No formal actions by the owners regarding Snyder are expected at that meeting, with a final report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the findings of White’s investigation pending. | 2022-10-13T23:09:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Snyder no longer under any NFL restrictions, his attorneys say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/dan-snyder-nfl-ownership-restrictions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/dan-snyder-nfl-ownership-restrictions/ |
People close to the case say the former Navy sailor and valet told FBI agents he moved boxes of documents at Donald Trump’s request
Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2018. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
A key witness in the ongoing Justice Department and FBI investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is a Navy veteran who followed the former president to Florida after serving as a valet in the Trump White House, people familiar with the matter said.
Walt Nauta is the witness in question, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The 39-year-old worked as a valet for Trump in the Oval Office suite, according to former White House staffers, and served as a personal aide at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence and private club in Florida.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that an unnamed Trump employee had provided critical evidence to investigators — telling them that he moved boxes at the former president’s request at a time when the government was seeking the return of classified material, including some highly sensitive items, from Mar-a-Lago.
The witness account was corroborated by security-camera footage, the people familiar with the case said, giving investigators key evidence of Trump’s behavior as they probe potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.
Witness told FBI of moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on Trump's orders
Hours after The Post’s report was published, the New York Times reported that surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago showed Nauta moving boxes.
A lawyer for Nauta declined to comment to The Post on Thursday, and Nauta did not respond to a call seeking comment.
The information Nauta provided to FBI agents, and the footage described to The Post, offer the most direct account to date of Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of his Florida property.
The search came after the Justice Department demanded the return of all classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. Aides to Trump handed over 38 documents in June in response to a grand jury subpoena, but FBI agents found 103 more when they returned to Mar-a-Lago in August.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer specific questions about those assertions on Wednesday, instead charging that the Biden administration “has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power.”
Asked about Nauta’s account on Thursday, Budowich questioned the legality of the court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago and accused the Biden administration of “colluding with the media through targeted leaks in an overt and illegal act of intimidation and tampering.”
Five takeaways from Thursday's Jan. 6 committee hearing
The people familiar with the Mar-a-Lago investigation said agents have gathered evidence indicating that Trump told people to move boxes to his residence after his advisers received the subpoena. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage showing people moving the boxes, the people said.
Separately, FBI agents interviewed another key figure in the documents case last week: Christina Bobb, a lawyer who signed a June letter saying that a “diligent search” had been conducted for classified records at Mar-a-Lago and that all such documents had been given back to the government.
Bobb, whose interview with the FBI was first reported by NBC News, told agents that she signed the letter at the request of other lawyers and was not aware of the details of the search, a person familiar with the matter said. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations, said Bobb told the FBI she was skeptical of signing the letter and insisted on adding a disclaimer clause saying it was based on the information provided to her by others.
Bobb has told other Trump advisers that she has done nothing wrong and acted based on what she was told by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, who handled the search for documents in response to the subpoena.
A person familiar with Bobb’s account said she was called by Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn a day before the June 3 meeting with the Justice Department and asked to attend the session with Corcoran, whom she had never met. The person, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay Bobb’s account, said Bobb told agents Corcoran informed her that the storage room had been thoroughly searched — and indicated it was the only area of the club that needed to be searched.
Corcoran’s search for classified documents in response to the subpoena did not include the president’s private residence, a person with knowledge of the situation said.
A person with knowledge of the movement of the boxes at Mar-a-Lago said that after they were taken to the residence, Trump looked through at least some of them and removed some of the documents. At least some of the boxes were later returned to the storage room, this person said, while some of the documents remained in the residence. The Post could not confirm the specific content of the boxes reportedly examined by Trump.
Among the seized documents: Material on a foreign country's nuclear capabilities
Nauta is originally from Guam, according to public records. He enlisted in the Navy and eventually became a cook in the White House mess, a small dining facility run by the Navy in the basement of the West Wing. In 2013, he entered a military culinary competition, part of a team representing “presidential food service.”
As part of his valet responsibilities, Nauta also moved boxes containing papers for Trump between the Oval Office and a private study, as well as a private dining room that Trump used as an informal office, the former staffer said. Trump routinely took classified documents to that dining room, mingled with newspaper articles and other papers, according to multiple former White House officials who have said Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government material.
The boxes that Nauta is said to have moved at Trump’s direction at Mar-a-Lago also contained classified documents mixed with newspaper articles, according to people familiar with the case.
The former staffer described Nauta as friendly and pleasant to Oval Office visitors. In September 2020, Nauta was promoted to senior chief petty officer, a significant career advancement. When Trump left the White House, Nauta decided to join him at Mar-a-Lago.
Campaign finance records show that Nauta was placed on the payroll of a Trump political action committee, Save America, in 2021. He was on payroll as recently as August, making $5,227.81 a paycheck, or about $135,000 a year, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Lori Rozsa in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Alice Crites and Rosalind S. Helderman in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-10-13T23:18:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Key Mar-a-Lago witness said to be former White House employee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/walt-nauta-maralago-trump-documents/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/13/walt-nauta-maralago-trump-documents/ |
Prince George’s school leaders consider school boundary changes
Students arrive for the first day of school at Eleanor Roosevelt High School on Aug. 29 in Greenbelt, Md. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)
Elementary and middle school students in Prince George’s County Public Schools could see changes in where they attend school beginning next school year, as the district finalizes changes to school boundaries to balance enrollment.
During its meeting tonight, the county school board is reviewing a proposal that aims to increase enrollment at newer school buildings, and lower the number of students attending schools scheduled for renovations or to be replaced. It would maintain the average distance students have to travel to and from school.
Enrollment in the school district — which is the second-largest in Maryland — has increased from 125,000 to 136,000 students since 2014, according to the district’s boundary initiative report. In the interim, some schools in the district have experienced overcrowding — mostly in the northern part of the county —while others remain underutilized, according to the report.
Enrollment is projected to increase to nearly 143,300 students by 2024.
There are 12 new schools or renovations planned that would add about 9,000 new seats by the 2026-27 school year, but school officials say that won’t be enough to meet the needs of the growing student population.
The recommended shifts would “create boundaries for the middle schools under construction; allow the school system to increase prekindergarten openings" and move sixth grade into middle schools, according to a news release from the school system.
As D.C.-area schools grapple with overcrowding, parents wonder why enrollment projections are so off
The school district worked with a consultant, WXY Studio based in New York City, to develop three scenarios for the new boundaries. The first scenario placed an emphasis on limiting the amount of change for students and included temporary classrooms as a way to help with school capacity. The second scenario required the most rezoning and limited temporary classrooms as much as possible. The third increased the amount of students attending updated, newer buildings and had the greatest amount of school consolidations.
Scenario two was the most popular among families surveyed, according to a presentation to the school board. School officials used scenario two as a base to make further boundary adjustments, Rhianna McCarter, the school system’s manager of pupil accounting and school boundaries, said in an interview Thursday.
Under the scenario, 13 percent of students would be rezoned. The average distance to school would be 2.3 miles.
The biggest difference is at the high school level. Scenario two proposed some shifts to high school boundary lines, but those changes are not being considered at this time, McCarter said.
Post-U. Md. poll: Maryland parents say crowded classrooms are a problem
Under the proposal, four schools will be consolidated beginning in the 2023-24 school year, including Concord Elementary School in District Heights, and Pointer Ridge Elementary School in Bowie.
Isaac Gourdine Middle School in Friendly and Potomac Landing Elementary School in Fort Washington will combine and move into a new building in November 2023. During the 2024-25 school year, that building will become Colin L. Powell Academy, McCarter said.
“Knowing the impact of school boundary changes on students and families, I will be thoughtful and equitable in making final determinations,” schools CEO Monica Goldson said in a statement. “Every child deserves to learn, work and play in the best environment possible. This work will ultimately create a stronger PGCPS by expanding program offerings, balancing enrollment and offering more students access to modernized facilities.”
The school system last conducted a boundary analysis in 2008. The current review began in 2020 with surveys conducted and virtual sessions held during that time with parents and community members.
Public hearings on the proposal are scheduled for Oct. 20 and Oct. 25. A school board vote on a final plan is set for Nov. 10. | 2022-10-13T23:18:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George’s school leaders consider school boundary changes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/prince-georges-school-boundaries/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/13/prince-georges-school-boundaries/ |
Two officers fatally shot in apparent ambush, Connecticut police say
Bristol police officers Kevin Monahan, left, and Harrison Pollock walk alongside a vehicle carrying a fallen officer as fellow officers from departments across the state salute at the scene where two police officers were killed in Bristol, Conn., on Wednesday. (Jessica Hill/AP)
A gunman shot and killed two Connecticut police officers who had been “deliberately” lured to the scene by a 911 call Wednesday night, state police said.
A third officer was severely wounded and underwent surgery, Bristol, Conn., Police Chief Brian Gould said at a news conference Thursday. His voice breaking, Gould described the three officers as decorated members of his department.
Authorities received a 911 call at 10:29 p.m. Wednesday reporting domestic violence between two siblings on Redstone Hill Road, Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema said. When Bristol police officers arrived, they were “immediately met” by the assailant and a gunfight ensued.
“Preliminary information appears to point to the 911 call being a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene,” the state police said in a news release Thursday morning without providing additional details.
Officer Alex Hamzy, 34, died at the scene, while Sgt. Dustin Demonte, 35, died at a hospital, police said. Officer Alec Iurato, 26, was wounded in the attack.
Authorities identified the gunman as 35-year-old Nicholas Brutcher, who was fatally shot. His brother, Nathan Brutcher, 32, was also shot and is being treated at a hospital, though his involvement in the incident was unclear.
Jeltema called the events “isolated” and said there is no threat to the community. Officials from the state police and state’s attorney’s office spent Thursday combing through evidence at the scene — which is on the outskirts of the city near ESPN’s headquarters — as part of a “very complex” investigation, she added.
Police did not specify a motive and it was unclear who fired first.
Dozens of shots were fired over a two-minute period, according to the audio from nearby security footage obtained by the Hearst Connecticut Media Group. An initial burst of nearly 30 shots is heard before another series of roughly 20 shots about a minute later.
Gould said the deaths “rocked” the city and his department, which has 122 sworn members, according to its website. He called the officers “heroes” who were dedicated to serving the community.
“They answered a call to duty and they responded without hesitation,” Gould said. “That’s what they did every night before that and that’s what all our officers do and will continue to do day after day.”
A 10-year veteran of the department, Demonte was promoted to sergeant last year. He served as a school resource officer and received Bristol’s Officer of the Year award in 2019, Gould said, adding that Demonte had two children and another on the way.
Hamzy, a patrol officer and Bristol native, had “received numerous letters of commendation and recognition” throughout his eight-year career there, the chief said.
Iurato, a four-year veteran patrol officer, was released from the hospital Thursday morning to applause from fellow officers, according to video from PIX 11 News.
Nearly every member of the Bristol Police Department walked down the street following the vehicle carrying Hamzy’s body from the scene Thursday morning, the Courant reported. Another procession with officers from across the state escorted Demonte’s body to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Farmington.
Several officers have been shot in other incidents across the country in recent days, including three Philadelphia police officers who were shot serving a warrant Wednesday morning and a Las Vegas police officer killed responding to a domestic violence call Thursday morning.
Condolences for the Bristol officers poured in from across the state Thursday as the deaths rocked the suburban city of 60,000.
“Bristol is our big small town — it’s also known as the All Heart City. Today, our hearts are broken,” Mayor Jeff Caggiano (R) said at the news conference. “We’re united in immeasurable grief for those hero officers, for their families and friends and for all of our law enforcement personnel.”
Gov. Ned Lamont (D) ordered flags to be flown at half-staff across Connecticut on Thursday, calling the incident a “senseless tragedy.”
“This is a devastating reminder of the dangers that police officers face every day to protect our families and neighbors from all kinds of situations,” Lamont said in a statement. “These officers are heroes and will always be remembered for the honorable service they provided to their town and state.”
The state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, offered condolences, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski said in a statement that “a tragedy like this reminds us that we need to ensure the safety of our police officers as much as we need to protect the residents they serve.”
A silent vigil is being held Thursday night at Bristol Eastern High School and donations are being accepted for the officers’ families at a local bank, Bristol police said on Facebook. | 2022-10-13T23:26:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Two Bristol, Ct. officers fatally shot in apparent ambush, state police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/bristol-connecticut-officers-killed-ambush/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/bristol-connecticut-officers-killed-ambush/ |
DeSantis changes voting rules for some counties hit by Ian, sparking criticism
Damage from Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Fla., on Oct. 5. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg News)
Gov. Ron DeSantis is making it easier for voters to cast ballots in three southwestern Florida counties that were hit hard by Hurricane Ian and are bastions for GOP support, sparking criticism that he is “politicizing a natural disaster.”
Hurricane Ian slammed ashore as a Category 4 storm in Lee County on Sept. 28, killing over 100 people and causing upward of $75 billion in damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered disaster relief to 24 of the state’s 67 counties. Wind, storm surge and flooding left a trail of destruction that stretched from Naples to St. Augustine.
DeSantis’s emergency order says the decision to change the ballot rules for only three counties was made “based on the collective feedback of the Supervisors of Elections across the state and at the written requests of the Supervisors of Elections in Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties.”
Lee County, where Hurricane Ian made landfall, has “few viable Election Day polling places post-storm,” according to the order, and “several established polling locations no longer exist.” The Lee County elections office also reported that the hurricane “displaced countless Lee County voters and poll workers from their homes.”
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said in a statement that his office worked with elections supervisors “to ensure that the 2022 General Election is administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and in the counties that received the heaviest damage.”
Election Day is Nov. 8. Mail ballots are already being accepted in the state. Early-voting deadlines vary by county, but the order says early voting can begin on Oct. 24 in the three counties.
Voting rights advocates have been asking for DeSantis to make allowances for voters affected by Hurricane Ian across the state. Representatives from a number of organizations, including Equal Ground, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the Voting Rights Project, wrote a letter to Byrd and DeSantis on Tuesday asking for an emergency order to make voting easier in all 24 counties considered to be disaster areas.
Some of what the groups requested — including expanding early-voting days and locations — was included in the order DeSantis signed on Wednesday, but only for three counties.
More than 450,000 voters in Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota are registered as Republicans, compared with 265,000 Democrats and nearly 290,000 affiliated with no party.
Overall, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in many, but not all, of the counties damaged by the hurricane. Orange County, where Hurricane Ian passed as a Category 1 storm and left historic flooding in Orlando and surrounding areas, has 360,389 registered Democrats and 217,061 registered Republicans. It was not granted any exceptions.
Burney-Clark, of Equal Ground, said by excluding the other counties affected by the storm, the order “will remain yet another example of Governor DeSantis disenfranchising voters.” | 2022-10-13T23:26:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DeSantis changes voting rules for some Fla. counties hit by Ian - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/desantis-florida-hurricane-voting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/desantis-florida-hurricane-voting/ |
Mr. Ichiyanagi, who was married to artist Yoko Ono from 1956 to 1962, often allowed musicians to pick the notes and pace of his pieces
Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi in 2018. (AP)
The death was announced in Japan by the Kanagawa Arts Foundation, where Mr. Ichiyanagi was general artistic director. The statement did not give a cause of death or the specific location.
Mr. Ichiyanagi created an expansive catalogue — more than 200 works including piano solos, percussion interplay, operas and string-and-woodwind pieces — that were performed around the world and celebrated as important contributions to musical frontiers along with contemporaries such as David Tudor, Steve Reich and Mr. Ichiyanagi’s mentor, John Cage.
Mr. Ichiyanagi’s influence also extended to Ono’s artistic vision during their 1956-1962 marriage as she experimented with sound, including a dance piece in the early 1960s in which she used microphones to amplify the breathing of the performers.
Mr. Ichiyanagi could leave critics baffled and disappointed, but he was widely acclaimed for his boundless creativity, particularly his use of randomness in performance and the musical dialogue between Western and Japanese traditions.
“Japan has a long history of adapting the practices of Western culture and assembling [them] into their own,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.
In 1989, Mr. Inchiyanagi formed the Tokyo International Music Ensemble — the New Tradition, an orchestral group that used traditional instruments such the zither-like gaku-biwa and Buddhist ritualistic chants called shomyo. His 1960 composition, “Kaiki [Recurrence] for Koto for John Cage,” combined Japanese instruments, the mouth organ known as sho and the stringed koto, with the harmonica and saxophone.
In a nod to Western influences, he created operatic pieces that included “From the Works of Tadanori Yokoo” in 1969 that featured electronic overtures and tapped into Flower Power spirit of graphic artist Yokoo’s psychedelic images.
Avant-garde composer John Cage dies at 79
Mr. Ichiyanagi also pushed in many other directions. “Music for Piano No. 4” (1968) includes a series of squeaks that one reviewer described as similar to turkey calls. “Another work, Distance” (1961) requires performers to use rods or other devices so they can play their instruments from at least three meters away. “Music for Tinguely” (1963) was made from objects by kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely.
Mr. Ichiyanagi’s written scores became art objects in themselves, some in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, with Mr. Ichiyanagi adding his own swirls, loops, geometric patterns and instructions for musicians.
In “Music for Electric Metronome” (1960), he asked each musician to start anywhere in the piece they like and then explore options to improvise for the rest of the piece. In 2016 in Tokyo, he performed his “Piano Concerto No. 6, ‘Zen’ ” a six-part piece with no set order.
“Ichiyanagi’s contributions to the experimental practice and tradition are far reaching and comprehensive,” Nomi Epstein, who composes and researches nontraditional music as a professor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, wrote in an email to The Washington Post.
“As an innovator in notation (with graphic and text scores), he worked to break down the divide between performer and composer,” she wrote, noting that Mr. Ichiyanagi invited performers to do “much more than interpret a score, but rather make decisions about structure, pitch, density, color and sonic activity.”
Toshi Ichiyanagi was born in Kobe, Japan, on Feb. 4, 1933, and was raised in Tokyo by parents involved in music: a father who played the cello and a mother who was a pianist.
After Japan’s surrender in World War II, his mother helped him secure a job playing piano at an American military base, performing songs from Broadway musicals as well as waltzes by Johann Strauss. The soldiers also gave him a first taste of jazz and its stylistic freedoms.
He won music competitions in Japan and enrolled in 1952 at the University of Minnesota to continue his studies. In the summers, he took classes at Tanglewood in western Massachusetts with composer Aaron Copland.
Mr. Ichiyanagi was accepted in 1954 at the Juilliard School in Manhattan, but he became increasingly disinterested in traditional composition. New York’s underground art world provided an alternative. There, he met Ono, who was studying at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. They eloped in 1956 after Ono dropped out of college, angered that her cosmopolitan and wealthy parents disapproved of Mr. Ichiyanagi’s more humble roots.
The couple found inspiration in New York’s Fluxus movement, a loose association of artists, musicians, writers and others that emphasized experimental work and collaboration between creative fields.
Mr. Ichiyanagi said he found musical “release” when he was asked to perform in a three-piano piece created by Stefan Wolpe. Also in the group was Tudor, a celebrated pianist and composer of experimental music. Tudor then introduced Mr. Ichiyanagi to Cage, a leading figure in the Fluxus groups.
It was a lifelong bond. In 1958, Mr. Ichiyanagi began studies as one of Cage’s proteges at the New School for Social Research. Cage also helped Mr. Ichiyanagi land a job as pianist at the dance studio of choreographer Merce Cunningham, and opened doors to meet visual artists including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella and Jasper Johns as well as the futurist R. Buckminster Fuller.
At the time, Mr. Ichiyanagi’s marriage with Ono was fraying. They were living separately. Mr. Ichiyanagi returned to his home country in 1960, inviting Cage and Tudor to perform in Tokyo in a groundbreaking moment for experimental music in Japan.
Ono performed some of her music pieces in conjunction with the Cage concerts, but she was dour. “Who was I,” she was later quoted as saying, “but Toshi’s wife and John Cage’s friend?” They divorced in 1962, and Ono had what was described as a “nervous breakdown” about the time their marriage collapsed. She stayed in Tokyo, marrying film producer Tony Cox who had come to visit her. (Ono subsequently married John Lennon of the Beatles in 1969.)
Mr. Ichiyanagi did not remarry. Complete details on survivors were not immediately available. His awards included top cultural honors from France and Japan.
In 2018, Seattle’s Eye Music ensemble released an album with a 50-minute rendering of Mr. Ichiyanagi’s 1963 “Sapporo,” a piece for up to 15 musicians that has no fixed score and lets performers stop, start and riff at will.
“A proper performance of ‘Sapporo’ has no real beginning or ending,” wrote composer and music journalist Michael Schell in a blog for the classic music station KING in Seattle. “It just starts and stops, emerging gently from its surroundings like a Japanese garden.” | 2022-10-13T23:31:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Toshi Ichiyanagi, experimental composer who wed Yoko Ono, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/toshi-ichiyanagi-composer-yoko-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/toshi-ichiyanagi-composer-yoko-dies/ |
An Oligarch’s Yacht and 10,000 Tons of Love for Putin
If you’re looking for a symbol of the state of Russia-China relations, it’s floating in the waters of Hong Kong. Whatever reservations Chinese leader Xi Jinping may have expressed about the course of the war in Ukraine, the arrival of a Russian oligarch’s $500 million superyacht — and the city government’s refusal to impound it — are a 10,000-ton display of just how relaxed Beijing is about its Moscow associations.
The 465-foot Nord, reported to be owned by Alexey Mordashov, moored in Hong Kong last week, setting off a quasi-legalistic spat between the US and city authorities. Mordashov, the largest shareholder in steelmaker Severstal PJSC, has been sanctioned by the European Union, UK and US over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. A State Department spokesman said Hong Kong’s reputation as a financial center “depends on adherence to international laws and standards.” In response, the city’s government said it fully enforces United Nations sanctions and has no “legal authority to take action on unilateral sanctions imposed by other jurisdictions.”
This isn’t a legal issue, needless to say. It’s all about geopolitics. The Hong Kong government’s protestations that its hands are legally tied look flimsy. Authorities may have no obligation to act on the Russia sanctions, but if they wanted a reason, you can be sure they’d find one. Tyler Kustra, an assistant professor of politics at the University of Nottingham who researches economic sanctions, compares the situation to the scene in Casablanca when police captain Claude Rains initially balks at closing Humphrey Bogart’s cafe and casino because he has no excuse. Told to find one, he swiftly orders everyone out — on the grounds that gambling is taking place there.
It’s hard to imagine that the handlers of the Nord sailed for Hong Kong from Vladivostok without at least a tacit signal from the territory that it wouldn’t attempt to seize the vessel. And it is similarly difficult to conceive that Beijing didn’t have a hand in that assurance. Hong Kong is nominally a special administrative region with a high degree of autonomy, but China has significantly increased its control over the city in the past two years. In any case, defense and foreign affairs are matters for the central government; such a politically sensitive visit would presumably come under that rubric.
Washington’s complaints also undermine the suggestion that this is a question of international law. Warning Hong Kong of the damage to its reputation is weak tea. If the US had a bigger stick to wave, it would surely be brandishing it. After all, the city has already done much to sully its image as an open, liberal business and financial hub — to the extent that some of its leading officials, including Chief Executive John Lee, have been sanctioned personally by the US for their role in eroding freedoms supposedly guaranteed under the terms of the former British colony’s return to China in 1997.
Those measures are potent. Lee’s predecessor, Carrie Lam, was also sanctioned, with the result that no bank in Hong Kong was willing to deal with her — even mainland Chinese ones. In a 2020 interview, Lam bemoaned the fact that she had to take her salary in cash, leaving her with piles of currency at home. Such is the power of the threat to cut financial institutions off from the dollar system.
With the yacht out of reach, this is where any retaliation from the US and Europe is likely to be felt: against companies and individuals that provide services to the Russian vessel or its entourage during their stay. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that the region will step up a crackdown on people who try to circumvent sanctions. Such admonishments may mean little to those who operate only locally; cross-border financial companies will take note.
Action against Hong Kong itself over a single vessel is unlikely. As Kustra points out, the US and Europe are much more concerned with preventing the flow of arms or other sensitive materials that would help Russia’s war effort. Sanctioning luxury yachts makes life difficult for tycoons who have enabled Putin and benefited from his rule, but it’s a relative sideshow.
The questions remain: Why now, and what is the advantage for a trading hub like Hong Kong in provoking the ire of two such big markets (assuming it had any choice)? There is necessity on both sides. Hong Kong could do with an influx of high-net-worth individuals and capital. The city’s population fell by a record in the year through June, the main stock index is back to 1997 pre-crash levels, and property prices are trending down. For super-rich seaborne Russians, the city adds another destination to a shrinking list of safe harbors — one with everything the modern oligarch could want, from world-class restaurants to a temperate climate. It certainly beats winters in Vladivostok.
An unholy alliance? Like Bogart in Casablanca, Hong Kong and Russia are more likely to view it as the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
• You Can’t Just Take a Russian Oligarch’s Townhouse: Chris Hughes
• There’s One Way to Wean India Off Russian Weapons: Mihir Sharma
• HK Dollar Bears Are Oddly Quiet. Thank the UK: Matthew Brooker | 2022-10-13T23:39:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | An Oligarch’s Yacht and 10,000 Tons of Love for Putin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/an-oligarchs-yacht-and-10000-tons-of-love-for-putin/2022/10/13/991ba354-4b4b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/an-oligarchs-yacht-and-10000-tons-of-love-for-putin/2022/10/13/991ba354-4b4b-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
President Harry S. Truman on April 8, 1952. (HWG/AP)
In 1862, in the middle of the Civil War, the House Judiciary Committee looked into how a message from President Abraham Lincoln had leaked to the press. Rumor had it that first lady Mary Lincoln had passed it to a middleman, but the middleman refused to say. Then a surprise witness showed up to answer the committee’s questions: Lincoln himself. The leaker was soon identified as a White House gardener.
Lincoln apparently testified voluntarily, but other presidents and ex-presidents have received subpoenas compelling them to testify before Congress, in civil and criminal proceedings, and even before a military tribunal. Former president Donald Trump joined this group Thursday when the House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously to subpoena him.
Committee subpoenas Trump, shares new evidence
Law professor Ronald D. Rotunda, who died in 2018, served on the Senate committee investigating President Richard M. Nixon in the 1970s and dug deep into the history of presidents and subpoenas. Here’s what he found.
In 1846, the House began investigating a former secretary of state, Daniel Webster, who had served under presidents John Tyler and John Quincy Adams, for misuse of funds. The sitting president, James K. Polk, gave a limited amount of information about the funds to the House but didn’t think it would be proper to “publicly reveal confidences of his predecessors,” according to Rotunda.
Congress convened two select committees and subpoenaed both former presidents. Tyler complied, testifying before both committees, and Adams filed a deposition. James Buchanan, a future president who was secretary of state at the time, was also subpoenaed and testified. Webster was cleared of wrongdoing.
In 1953, former president Harry S. Truman refused to comply with a House subpoena after he was accused of knowingly appointing a Russian spy to a position while in office. The House Un-American Activities Committee, vociferously engaged in interrogating anyone and everyone for alleged communism, subpoenaed Truman. He refused to comply, instead giving a national broadcast denying the accusation. The House didn’t push the matter.
‘Grand inquisitors of the realm’: How Congress got its power to investigate and subpoena
Truman’s refusal is “troublesome, and not entirely defensible,” Rotunda wrote. Two decades later, Nixon cited Truman when he refused to appear before the congressional committees investigating the Watergate scandal or to comply with a special counsel subpoena demanding tapes of White House conversations. Then he provided only some of the requested material, in edited form. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nixon, demanding he turn over all of the materials. He resigned two weeks later. His successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him a month later, making the subpoena issue moot.
Other presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and Bill Clinton, have been subpoenaed — not before Congress but in civil, criminal and military proceedings.
Jefferson was subpoenaed to provide documents and to testify in the treason trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr. He produced some of the requested documents but refused to testify, saying he was too busy as president to comply. (This move was upheld by the Supreme Court, giving rise to the concept of “executive privilege.”)
A former vice president was tried for treason for an insurrection plot
In 1818, Monroe was summoned to testify in the court-martial of a Navy doctor, who had allegedly engaged in misconduct to get an appointment. Monroe hemmed and hawed, citing Jefferson and claiming he couldn’t travel from the seat of government to testify. He eventually submitted a written deposition. By the time it arrived, the case had been dismissed.
In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant ignored the advice of his aides and flew to St. Louis to testify on behalf of a close friend accused of fraud. The friend was later acquitted.
And, of course, there’s Bill Clinton, who in the 1990s challenged the subpoena in a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He eventually relented and submitted to a deposition.
Can Trump Secret Service agent be forced to testify? Clinton’s was.
Other than Lincoln, a couple of presidents have volunteered to appear before Congress, Rotunda noted. Ford appeared before a House committee looking into his pardon of Nixon, and Theodore Roosevelt testified before congressional committees twice after leaving office, providing details about a questionable U.S. Steel deal and about corporate donations to his 1902 presidential campaign.
Roosevelt was unbothered, saying, “[A]n ex-president is merely a citizen of the United States, like any other citizen, and it is his plain duty to try to help this committee or respond to its invitation.”
More on presidential history
A famed folk singer won a presidential pardon after molesting a child. Did he prey on others?
Obama had a secret note in his pocket during his inauguration in case of an attack
Hijacking the electoral college: The plot to deny JFK the presidency 60 years ago | 2022-10-13T23:40:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Which presidents and ex-presidents have been subpoenaed before Trump? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/13/presidents-subpoenaed-history-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/13/presidents-subpoenaed-history-trump/ |
BOSTON — A man who presents himself as a Orthodox Christian monk and an attorney he lived with fraudulently obtained $3.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds for nonprofit religious organizations and related businesses they controlled, and spent some of it to fund a “lavish lifestyle,” federal prosecutors said Thursday. | 2022-10-13T23:41:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monk, attorney charged with $3.5M pandemic relief fraud - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/monk-attorney-charged-with-35m-pandemic-relief-fraud/2022/10/13/3279813a-4b4a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/monk-attorney-charged-with-35m-pandemic-relief-fraud/2022/10/13/3279813a-4b4a-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
How to win the economic war against Russia
A refinery in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on April 5. (Martin Meissner/AP)
The sanctions against Russia have been more far-reaching than anyone had previously predicted. They have included extraordinary measures, such as freezing Russia’s central bank reserves and cutting banks off from Swift, the financial messaging system that is a vital part of the global economic infrastructure. They have targeted the key vulnerabilities of countries in a world of globalized supply chains by denying Russia access to advanced technology. Author Chris Miller writes that “among the worst affected sectors have been cars, trucks, locomotives, and fiber optic cables, each of which has seen production fall by over half.” Russia’s imports have also collapsed.
As the Economist points out, when you look at some of Russia’s broad economic indicators, they are holding up better than expected. The International Monetary Fund had predicted that Russia’s economy would contract by about 8.5 percent this year. It has since revised its forecast to a contraction of 3.4 percent. Inflation spiked initially but is easing now.
The reasons for Russia’s economic resilience are varied. Russia is actually not that globalized of an economy, and the state has a large footprint within it, both of which cushion the population from external blows. But the biggest explanation by far is that Russia is a resource economy, a country whose wealth depends heavily on its export of oil, gas, nickel, aluminum and other commodities. And those have been largely shielded from sanctions because the West realizes that the world relies on these inputs and banning them would cause as much pain to consumers as to the producer.
Washington’s sanctions have been well planned and well executed with one exception: energy. If the goal is to reduce Moscow’s oil revenue, the sensible strategy — assuming you can’t cut off all Russian oil supplies — would be to allow petroleum to flow unrestricted while working on a long-term plan to reduce Western dependence on Russian energy. That way, supply would stay plentiful and prices would stay low. Instead, Western countries announced an embargo on Russian oil.
The proposed price cap on Russian oil is an effort to correct these mistakes and essentially negate the effect of the oil embargo. So were the efforts to get Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to pump more oil, which have failed. The Saudis miscalculated how badly their decision would go down in Washington, and it will cause a rupture in the relations between the two countries. But the larger problem is the West’s incoherent energy strategy. It has underinvested in the energy it uses today (fossil fuels) based on magical thinking about the energy of tomorrow (renewables) — which will really arrive in scale the day after tomorrow.
The greatest danger to the United States is that much of this global economic war is being waged by America alone, using the unique status of the dollar as its weapon. Because countries need to use the one truly global currency, the threat to cut them off from it allows for extensive sanctions that can touch on goods and services that are not produced in America. The dollar hit a two-decade high last month because of the lack of alternatives. At the same time, many major countries — Saudi Arabia, the other gulf states, India, Turkey, Indonesia and China above all — are searching for ways to shake off the hold of the U.S. currency and to escape the long reach of Washington’s economic power.
As I’ve suggested before, President Biden needs to make a speech in which he explains that it is only because of the unprecedented nature of Russia’s challenge to the rules-based international order that Washington is wielding these weapons and that they will never be used in normal circumstances or for purely parochial interests. Wherever possible, Biden should be trying to forge the broadest possible coalition. Otherwise, even if the United States were to win this struggle with Russia, future historians might remember this as the moment when countries around the world began to reduce their dependence on America, and when Washington began to lose what a French president once called the “exorbitant privilege” of holding the world’s reserve currency. | 2022-10-13T23:41:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How to win the economic war against Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/economic-war-russia-sanctions-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/13/economic-war-russia-sanctions-ukraine/ |
Secret Service knew of Capitol threat more than a week before Jan. 6
Newly revealed messages, part of a trove the Jan. 6 committee retrieved from the agency, raise questions about the Secret Service’s handling of intelligence before the insurrection
Secret Service emails displayed as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Secret Service agents in charge of assessing the risks around the protests had been tracking online chats on pro-Trump websites and noted that rallygoers were vowing to bring firearms, target the Capitol for a siege and even kill Vice President Mike Pence.
The evidence presented at the hearing adds the Secret Service to a long list of national security agencies who received prescient warnings about the assault protesters planned for Jan. 6, yet failed to respond with urgency or cohesion to prevent the insurrection.
Committee member Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said the new details — retrieved in internal emails from a trove of more than a 1 million records the Secret Service provided the Jan. 6 committee — raise questions about how the agency shared its intelligence and whether officials have been forthright about their knowledge of the warnings.
“As we have seen, the Secret Service and other agencies knew of the prospect of violence well in advance of the president’s speech at the Ellipse,” Schiff said during the hearing. “Despite this, certain White House and Secret Service witnesses previously testified that they had received no intelligence about violence that could have potentially threatened any of their protectees on January 6th, including the vice president. Evidence strongly suggests that this testimony is not credible.”
In a statement, Secret Service Deputy Director Faron K. Paramore noted that the agency is not a “member of the Intelligence Community” and said it had shared its information widely with others.
“In the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, Secret Service was in constant communication and sharing information with our law enforcement partners in the Washington, D.C. area regarding available protective intelligence and open-source information concerning potential violence,” said Paramore.
Much of the intelligence cited in Thursday’s hearing was alarming in its specificity. One Secret Service unit, Schiff said, flagged a social media account on a pro-Trump site that threatened to bring a sniper rifle to Washington.
“Intelligence about this risk was directly available to the U.S. Secret Service and others in the White House in advance of the speech, in advance of the march to the Capitol,” Schiff said.
In a Dec. 30 email, a Secret Service agent warned of Trump supporters’ online threats, noting the U.S. Marshals Service was “seeing a lot of violent rhetoric directed at government people, entities, in addition to our protected persons.” The protected person most targeted for attack: the vice president.
On the morning of the rally, Schiff noted, the Secret Service knew many of the protesters in the crowd on the Ellipse had weapons, but it’s unclear what steps the agency took as a result. It is a crime to carry a firearm on federal property. Trump was scheduled to speak a little after noon.
Secret Service units shared reports from police that morning that they had seen rallygoers with firearms, including a Glock, a pistol, and a rifle. They knew D.C. police had reportedly detained a person carrying an assault rifle.
At the same time, they were getting reports of death threats against Pence, who had just entered the U.S. Capitol that morning to perform his role in certifying the election.
“Alert at 1022 regarding VP being a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing,” one Secret Service email warned at 10:39 a.m.
By 12:36, as Trump took the stage, one Secret Service employee emailed another about the barely hidden threat all around them.
“With so many weapons found so far, you wonder how many are unknown” one Secret Service employee wrote to a colleague. “Could be sporty after dark,” he wrote, referring to the chance for gun battles.
“No doubt,” his colleague wrote back. “The people at the Ellipse said they are moving to the Capitol after the POTUS speech.” | 2022-10-14T00:01:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Secret Service knew of Capitol threat more than a week before Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/secret-service-jan6-messages-house-committee/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/secret-service-jan6-messages-house-committee/ |
The Jan. 6th hearings: Was the finale just the beginning?
A democracy on edge gets another cliffhanger
By Dan Zak
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection holds a hearing Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
We know how bad it was. We know how much worse it could’ve been. But a key question remained.
“Exactly how did one man cause all of this?” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) asked in her lethal monotone, at the top of the ninth public hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Before her was a can of sugar-free Coke, and 141 minutes to answer this essential question of our modern reality.
For nearly 16 months, the committee has sorted the smithereens of Jan. 6, 2021, and reassembled a coherent picture of a government nearly brought to its knees by a former reality TV star whose penchant for showmanship won him the powers of the presidency. Seven Democrats, two Republicans and a few dozen committee staffers sifted through gigabytes of data evidence and interviewed and deposed hundreds of witnesses.
Since June, the committee has used the 4,000 square feet of the high-ceilinged Cannon Caucus Room — site of marquee hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948 — as a showcase for it all: the comedy and the tragedy, the treachery and heroism, portioned into a series of gripping episodes, over the summer and fall, that suggest a winter of the American experiment. The hearings of the Jan. 6 committee have been methodical yet visceral, like a PowerPoint presentation of a national near-death experience. Our scary past, precarious present and uncertain future — all glimpsed through the fish-eye footage of battered body cams and the texting thumbs of powerful people who were up to no good.
Sometimes you could almost smell the bear spray. You could almost see the red-dot sight of Cheney’s laser focus aimed at the political future of the 45th president.
On Thursday afternoon, the hearing room was cold enough to send shivers down spines. The drapes were drawn against the gray sky. The crystal chandeliers beamed with a disinfectant brightness. The media had reported that this hearing — which was technically a “formal committee business meeting” — was probably the finale, but then how could that be? Like most traumatic chapters of U.S. history, the story of Jan. 6 and the Trump era will never really end, especially now that the former president has been subpoenaed by the committee.
Since June, there has been drama but no climax. There have been revelations but no catharsis.
“We don’t know where we are in the Donald Trump story,” says author and historian Garrett M. Graff, who has researched and written about Watergate and 9/11. “We don’t know yet whether the January 6th committee will be seen as a turning point in our national history, or a warning that went ignored.”
We do know what the hearings have tried to tell us in precise, persistent fashion: that Donald J. Trump, his partners and his acolytes — through both chaos and coordination — attempted to subvert American democracy, that they failed because the right people upheld their oaths at the right moments, but that they otherwise succeeded in deluding minds, sacking the Capitol and halting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in U.S. history. They wrecked lives and careers of public service. They flushed the nation into a vortex of pain, paranoia and vengeance that may lead, barring intervention and reform, to the deterioration of the republic.
Or, to use the shorthand heard by police officers responding to the insurrection: The United States is in a Code 10-33. An emergency.
“Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy,” said a grave and solemn J. Michael Luttig, a Republican former judge, during the second hearing, on June 16.
Democrats “are doubling and tripling down on their partisan theatrics,” Trump communications director Taylor Budowich tweeted 45 minutes after Thursday’s hearing ended. Trump “will not be intimidate [sic] by their meritless rhetoric or un-American actions. Trump-endorsed candidates will sweep the Midterms, and America First leadership & solutions will be restored.”
Does the American public care about any of this? Trump’s favorability rating this summer was about the same as after the 2020 election, according to a poll by Monmouth University. About half of Americans heard little or nothing at all about the previous hearings, according to a Marquette Law School poll in September.
“I have not watched,” says Rusty Bowers, on the phone from his home in Mesa, Ariz. And why should he? He’d seen enough of it firsthand, from the front row, in a starring role in the fourth hearing, where he read a diary entry from December 2020 into the congressional record: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating.”
As the Republican speaker of the House in the Arizona legislature, Bowers, who says he voted for Trump in 2020, refused to abet the Trump team’s scheme to wrest the state away from its rightful winner, Joe Biden. Six weeks later, Bowers lost a Republican primary for state Senate by 30 points to a man who insinuated that Trump’s defeat is part of a metaphysical conspiracy perpetrated by “the devil himself.”
Bowers, an artist, has cleared out his office in Phoenix. He turns 70 next week. He paints and sculpts and hopes that the hearings revive the consensus that has united the states, however delicately, since the Civil War. His 20 grandchildren inspire him to take that long view, stretching back to the Founders’ struggle to put us together, then reaching beyond Trump’s crusade to break us apart.
“They’ll be able to say: ‘My grandpa did the right thing.’ ”
Doing the right thing has cost some Americans dearly, the hearings have shown, in physical and emotional ways. Bowers, like many other public servants, was buried in digital hatred: tens of thousands of hideous emails, voice mails and texts that besmirched his patriotism or promised him injury or execution.
“They tortured me,” police officer Michael Fanone said during a committee session last year, while describing the barbaric behavior of the rioters, who were armed with all manner of weapon: tasers, rebar, hammers, mace . . .
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards said in the committee’s first public hearing, on June 9, adding: “It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”
In December 2020, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, publicly raved that two Black election workers in Atlanta were “passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” At the urging of the FBI, one of the workers, Ruby Freeman, fled her home to evade threats. Trump disparaged her name 18 times in a phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state.
“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” Freeman told the committee in a recorded interview shown June 21. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”
Barbara Byrum, the chief election official in Michigan’s Ingham County, is seeing the committee’s findings manifest in her life and the lives of colleagues. Conspiracy theorists have swamped elections offices with inane records requests and infiltrated their staffs at the direction of party activists, Byrum says. The siege of democracy is ongoing, but in a nonviolent and administrative manner. The Republican candidates for Michigan governor, attorney general and secretary of state have embraced election denialism. Since 2020, nearly two dozen of Michigan’s 83 county clerks have opted not to run for reelection, many because of stress and intimidation.
“It’s death by 1,000 cuts,” says Byrum, on the phone from Mason, Mich. Her grandparents were a teacher, a nurse, a police officer. Both of her parents held elective office in Michigan.
“Public service is just what I knew,” Byrum says, “and how I was raised.”
She has been county clerk for 10 years, overseeing 30 elections. Her takeaway from the Jan. 6 hearings?
“Public trust is easy to lose. And it’s harder to regain.”
Thirty years ago, in his classroom, political scientist Robert Lieberman described the American system as an intricate mechanism that, like clockwork, restrained extremism and nudged the nation toward moderation, consensus and incrementalism. In 2020, he co-wrote a book that listed four key threats to democracy: political polarization, growing executive power, high and rising economic inequality, and racial and ethnic conflict over who belongs in a society.
Over its history the United States has undergone multiple crises in which one or some of these conditions prevailed.
“But not until now have we had all four at the same time,” says Lieberman, who calls the Jan. 6 hearings a “mesmerizing” indication of our predicament. They’ve painted “a pretty compelling picture of a president who was actively engaged in trying to subvert the law.”
And where do the hearings suggest we are, as a nation?
“On the knife’s edge.”
But for now our systems grind along. On Thursday, about 3,000 feet from the revelations of the legislature, the judiciary was still processing Jan. 6 defendants. In courtroom 23A of U.S. District Court, the seditious-conspiracy jury trial of a group of Oath Keepers was in its seventh day. At least six other citizens charged in connection with the insurrection had video appointments with the court. A New Jersey man — who on Jan. 6 allegedly wrote on his Facebook page: “Home alive. History made. I walked through Pelosi’s office. I should have s--- on her chair” — was found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding, among other crimes. A father and son, from Utah and Illinois, agreed to plead guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol, in exchange for the government dropping trespassing and disorderly conduct charges.
When asked by the judge if he was satisfied with his attorneys, the father said, in a tone of penitent gratitude: “They’re the next best thing to sliced bread.”
Cheney had these defendants and criminals in mind Thursday. “Our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol,” she said in her closing remarks. Since Jan. 6, 2021, Cheney, whose great-great-grandfather fought for the Union under General William Tecumseh Sherman, has been on her own march to the sea. Her conference abandoned her for Trump. For daring to defend the integrity of U.S. elections, her constituents voted her out.
“A key task remains,” Cheney said in closing Thursday, confirming this was not a finale. “We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6th’s central player.”
That player, or a surrogate for him, posted a retort on Truth Social about 55 minutes later: “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?”
What, if anything, would the president’s testimony reveal? Will there be a climax? A catharsis? Or just another finale?
Camila DeChalus contributed to this report. | 2022-10-14T00:32:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The meaning of the Jan. 6 committee hearings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/13/jan-6-committee-hearings-meaning/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/13/jan-6-committee-hearings-meaning/ |
During a hearing Thursday of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears in previously unseen footage from a secure location during the attack. (Will Oliver/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
If only disgraced President Richard M. Nixon could see how this steady woman — who saw the medieval scene of thousands of people outside, pushing their way in — handled it.
He considered appointing a woman to the Supreme Court in 1971 because he hoped it would get him an extra 2 percent bump in the 1972 election, according to one of the books former White House counsel John W. Dean wrote about that time. The idea repulsed Nixon, though.
“I don't think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don't,” Nixon said. “The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic. And emotional. Men are erratic and emotional, too, but the point is a woman is more likely to be.”
Some of the men still like to dredge the depths of their mommy-needing souls when a female leader is anything but sugar-pie sweet. Remember when Vice President Harris was called “hysterical” for her unflinching and stern prosecutorial questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a hearing in 2017?
In Nixon’s days, polling showed a lot of people — up to 55 percent, based on education level — thought women were too emotional for politics. That has changed, but not by a ton. In our newly, enlightened world — where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote for president — 13 percent of those polled still think women are less suited, emotionally, for politics. That means about 1 out of 7 people think a woman would be too emotional to do exactly what Pelosi did on Jan. 6: lead.
“Nancy, Bigo was here, you b----.”
Forget her politics; it’s hard to watch that video played to the committee today and deny her cool head amid the chaos. | 2022-10-14T01:24:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nancy Pelosi showed leadership, not emotion, on Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/pelosi-jan-6-hearing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/13/pelosi-jan-6-hearing/ |
People watch a news broadcast showing missile launches by North Korea at a station in Seoul, South Korea on Oct. 13. (Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
SEOUL — South Korea scrambled fighter jets overnight Thursday after North Korean warplanes flew close to the border dividing the two countries. The move, which was widely seen as provocative even by Pyongyang’s standards, came as the North launched another ballistic missile early Friday morning, the latest of several recent weapons tests by Kim Jong Un’s regime.
North Korean aircraft flew as close as 7 miles north of a de facto maritime border between the two Koreas, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Pyongyang’s warplanes were also detected just over a dozen miles north of a land border. The incidents took place between late Thursday and early Friday, and about ten of Pyongyang’s war planes were involved.
The South Korean military said it “conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A” fighter jets, but that no clashes were reported.
Seoul also said that Pyongyang had fired artillery shells into maritime buffer areas established in 2018 as part of inter-Korean peace efforts.
“The [North] Korean People’s Army sends a stern warning to the South Korean military inciting military tension in the front-line area with reckless action,” a spokesman for the General Staff of North Korea’s army said, according to a statement carried by the state-run Central News Agency.
The official said the “countermeasures” were in response to earlier South Korean artillery fire that lasted some 10 hours. The South Korean Defense Ministry said that it had conducted artillery drills at a site just south of the border with North Korea, but that the exercises did not violate a 2018 military agreement.
North Korea says it views recent military drills by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a military threat. The allies say that the training exercises are defensive in nature. Tensions continue to build while nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington remain stalled. Earlier this week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a cruise missile test and pledged to strengthen the regime’s nuclear arms program to ward off enemies. Kim said his nuclear forces were fully prepared for “actual war,” according to state media.
On Friday, South Korea also imposed unilateral sanctions against North Korea for the first time in roughly five years. The measures target 15 North Korean individuals and 16 organizations involved in nuclear and missile development, according to the South’s Foreign Ministry.
The short-range ballistic missile that North Korea launched Friday was fired at about 1:49 a.m. toward waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to the South Korean military. The missile flew some 435 miles and reached an altitude of about 31 miles, the JCS said. | 2022-10-14T01:55:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Korea dispatches warplanes near border with South Korea - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/north-south-korea-kim-jong-un/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/13/north-south-korea-kim-jong-un/ |
A gunman opened fire in an eastern Raleigh neighborhood Thursday afternoon, killing at least five people and injuring two, authorities said.
The suspect was taken into custody nearly five hours after the shooting began, Raleigh Police said on Twitter.
Among the fatalities was an off-duty police officer. Two injured victims were transported to a local hospital, including a Raleigh police K9 officer, who did not have life-threatening injuries, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said.
Bullets rang out late Thursday afternoon in Hedingham neighborhood near the Neuse River Greenway, an urban trail that winds for nearly 30 miles along the eastern edge of the city. At 5:55 p.m. Raleigh police first advised residents “to stay in their homes.”
Taylor Burke, a resident, told CBS17 that soon after her children got home from school, she heard helicopters and police descend on her neighborhood. People were being told they couldn’t enter or leave the area, she said.
“When we looked in our backyard where the golf course is, there was just a bunch of officers or detectives with guns out and in the trees, walking down the golf course,” Burke said.
By 8 p.m. the suspect appeared to be cornered, with Baldwin saying in a Thursday night news conference that the suspect was “contained” inside a residence.
“We as a community need to come together to be there for those who need us now,” Baldwin said. “We must do more. We must stop this mindless violence in America. We must address gun violence. We have much to do. Tonight we have much to mourn.” | 2022-10-14T02:12:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Carolina shooting: Suspect in custody after five killed in Raleigh - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/north-carolina-shooting-raleigh/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/north-carolina-shooting-raleigh/ |
He helped spearhead the Albany Movement, a campaign to desegregate an entire Georgia community
Charles Sherrod, right, with fellow student leader Frank Pinkston at Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1960. (Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)
The Rev. Charles Sherrod, a front-line warrior for civil rights who became the first field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, braving beatings and death threats in the early 1960s while trying to desegregate a Southern stronghold of white supremacy, died Oct. 11 at his home in Albany, Ga., where he had worked for more than six decades. He was 85.
His death was announced in a statement by his family, which did not cite a cause.
A founding member of SNCC, the leading student group of the 1960s civil rights movement, Rev. Sherrod collaborated with prominent organizers including Ella Baker — who helped him pay off his college loans — and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who joined him for about eight months in Albany as part of a campaign to end racial segregation in the region, which was notorious for its police brutality, Ku Klux Klan violence and Whites-only voter rolls.
While King left Albany in disappointment, believing that the movement had failed to accomplish any of its major goals, Rev. Sherrod stayed behind, campaigning for desegregation and voter registration as head of the Southwest Georgia Project for Community Education. He later went into politics, serving as one of Albany’s first Black city commissioners, and co-founded a farm collective called New Communities, which was often described as the country’s largest Black-owned farm and first community land trust.
“Sherrod is an exemplar of those people who didn’t leave the movement,” said Clayborne Carson, a historian of the civil rights movement, in a 2010 interview with the news website Salon. “They stayed, and they’re still fighting, to this day.”
Raised in Virginia by his maternal grandmother, who encouraged him to become a Baptist minister, Rev. Sherrod earned a master’s degree in sacred theology and quoted from scripture at rallies and marches. By the time he became the first full-time field secretary for SNCC in 1961, he had acquired a reputation as something of a “country mystic, deeply religious with a stubborn streak,” according to civil rights historian Taylor Branch’s book “Parting the Waters: American in the King Years 1954-63” (1988).
Although he was often warm and gentle, even soft-spoken, Rev. Sherrod could quickly change into a fiery, confrontational organizer — as when he spoke with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in June 1961, joining other SNCC organizers in pleading for help on behalf of the Freedom Riders.
Meeting with Rev. Sherrod and several other activists in his office, Kennedy said they should stop worrying about the riders, who were being jailed and attacked by white mobs while riding buses across the South. They should focus instead on voter registration, he said.
Rev. Sherrod, who was then 24, erupted in anger, stepping toward Kennedy until another activist coaxed him back to his seat, according to Branch’s account. “You,” he said, “are a public official, sir. It’s not your responsibility before God or under the law to tell us how to honor our constitutional rights. It’s your job to protect us when we do.” (Kennedy was unswayed by his argument.)
That fall, Rev. Sherrod was dispatched by SNCC to Albany, where he slowly began to win over members of the Black community while teaching workshops on nonviolent resistance. “Albany was the kind of town where everybody knew their place,” he told The Washington Post decades later. “Black people were afraid to talk to me. Some were even so fearful that if I was walking on one side of the street, they would go on the other side.”
Working with fellow SNCC organizer Cordell Reagon, he started to gain their trust. In November, the organizers sent nine college students to conduct a sit-in at the local bus terminal, an action that helped kick off the Albany Movement, as the campaign became known. King arrived in December, and over the coming months they organized song-filled demonstrations, seeking to end legally sanctioned racial discrimination in the city and surrounding counties.
Mimi Jones, civil rights activist in St. Augustine and Albany, dies at 73
The reaction from the white establishment was swift. Black churches were burned in retaliation, and more than 1,000 African Americans were jailed, many by Albany police officers overseen by Chief Laurie Pritchett. The chief maintained a peaceful image, seeking to avoid violent clashes and thus minimize news coverage of the protests. Privately, he told the reverend, “Sherrod, it’s just a matter of mind over matter. I don’t mind and you don’t matter.”
Rev. Sherrod witnessed multiple attacks by law enforcement, and said he was nearly beaten to death in the nearby town of Newton, where he was attacked outside the courthouse by a group of young White men wielding ax handles. He was saved by an older woman who wrapped herself around him, using her body as a shield — a technique that he had taught in his workshops on protest tactics.
As the months went by, the arrests and attacks took a toll on the activists. King announced an end to his demonstrations in August 1962, later saying he made a mistake in protesting segregation as a whole rather than focusing on a single institution like the bus system.
Yet the protests in Albany were later credited with laying the groundwork for subsequent civil rights demonstrations, including in Birmingham, Ala. And to Rev. Sherrod, the movement was far from a defeat: Segregation statutes were taken off the books the next year, and African Americans increasingly gained political power.
“They don’t talk about the unity we had. About the strength we had for the first time,” he said in a 1985 interview for “Eyes on the Prize,” a television documentary about the movement. “They talk about failure. Where’s the failure? Are we not integrated in every facet? Did we stop at any time? What stopped us? Did any injunction stop us? Did any White man stop us? Did any Black man stop us?
“Nothing stopped us in Albany, Georgia. We showed the world.”
Charles Melvin Sherrod was born in rural Surry, Va., on Jan. 2, 1937. His mother was 14, so and he and his younger siblings grew up with extended family in nearby Petersburg, where his maternal grandmother was a domestic and his mother found work at a tobacco factory, according to historian Ansley L. Quiros’s book “God With Us” (2018).
Rev. Sherrod studied sociology at Virginia Union University, a historically Black school in Richmond, and stayed to study theology after graduating in 1958. By then he was also involved in civil rights activism, participating in a “kneel-in” at a Whites-only church and a sit-in at a downtown restaurant.
In 1960, he traveled to Shaw University in North Carolina for a civil rights conference that led to the creation of SNCC. The next year, he joined fellow organizers in protesting segregation in Rock Hill, S.C., where he was arrested and refused bail, serving 30 days of hard labor on a chain gang. It was there, he said in a 2011 interview for the Civil Rights History Project, that he steeled himself for future attacks, deciding that “nothing but death could stop me from the mission that I had.”
Rev. Sherrod took a break from SNCC to study for his master’s degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He graduated in 1966 and left the civil rights organization around that same time, dismayed by the more militant stance the group was adopting under new leader Stokely Carmichael, who moved to expel White members.
That same year, he married Shirley Miller, who had turned toward activism as a teenager after her father was fatally shot by a White man who was never indicted. She joined Rev. Sherrod and several others in co-founding the agricultural group New Communities, purchasing a 5,735-acre farm and developing plans to turn it into a haven for displaced Black families to live and work.
The project was modeled after cooperative farming communities in Israel but never took off as planned. Key government funding arrived late or not at all, and New Communities lost the property in 1985, following a severe drought and inability to obtain emergency loans. The farm was foreclosed and sold at auction, but Rev. Sherrod and his wife went on to win compensation as part of a class-action lawsuit against the Agriculture Department, which had discriminated against Black farmers for decades.
With the proceeds, New Communities bought a farm at the site of a former plantation near Albany, which now serves as the home of a nonprofit organization named for Rev. Sherrod.
His wife, Shirley Sherrod, was appointed a state director of rural development in the Agriculture Department in 2009, only to be forced to resign the next year after conservative activist and blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a selectively edited video from a speech she gave, portraying her as a racist when the full video showed she was speaking out against personal prejudice. Obama administration officials apologized to her days later, and she was offered a new position in the department, which she declined.
In addition to his wife, of Albany, survivors include two children, Russia Sherrod of Albany and Kenyatta Sherrod of Marietta, Ga.; three brothers; a sister; and five grandchildren.
With his political career over by the early 1990s, Rev. Sherrod had started leading an anti-drug program and working as a chaplain at the state prison in Homerville. Most of the inmates were Black, which he viewed as part of the nation’s long legacy of racial discrimination.
“Racism is still boss in this society,” he told The Post in 1996. “Segregation was one part of it. In the old days, if you talked to 10 people, they would diagnose 10 problems plus segregation in our community. Now, segregation is gone but the other 10 problems remain.” | 2022-10-14T02:12:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charles Sherrod, civil rights activist with SNCC, dies at 85 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/charles-sherrod-albany-movement-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/13/charles-sherrod-albany-movement-dead/ |
Jodi Kantor, from left, Zoe Kazan, Megan Twohey and Carey Mulligan attend the premiere of “She Said” at Alice Tully Hall during the 60th New York Film Festival on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Instead, the movie that would become “She Said” was adapted from Twohey and Kantor's 2019 book about the investigation. It unspooled Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, with numerous women who came forward to tell their story in attendance, including Ashley Judd. Weinstein, meanwhile, is currently being tried in Los Angeles for 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He has pled not guilty. | 2022-10-14T03:05:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'She Said,' drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/she-said-drama-of-weinstein-reporting-premieres-in-nyc/2022/10/13/f45ebd54-4b65-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/she-said-drama-of-weinstein-reporting-premieres-in-nyc/2022/10/13/f45ebd54-4b65-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
It was not immediately clear whether the new allegation could affect the settlement between the NFL and the NFLPA by which Browns QB Watson was suspended and fined. (David Richard/AP File)
Another woman accused suspended Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual misconduct in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Texas.
The woman, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe, alleges that Watson “attempted to solicit sexually related acts with [the] Plaintiff including intercourse” during a December 2020 massage therapy session in Houston. The woman “refused to have sex with Watson” but “he was able to pressure her into oral sex,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Harris County (Tex.) District Court.
It is the 26th lawsuit filed against Watson by women accusing him of sexual misconduct during massage sessions, and becomes the second active lawsuit. One suit was withdrawn and Watson reached settlements with 23 of his accusers, according to the attorney for the women, Anthony Buzbee.
Deshaun Watson suspended 11 games, fined $5 million under settlement
The woman who filed Thursday’s lawsuit is not represented by Buzbee. The attorney listed on her lawsuit is Anissah M. Nguyen of Houston.
Watson was not available to comment, while his attorney, Rusty Hardin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. Watson has not been charged with a crime and previously has denied the allegations made against him by the other women.
“I’m moving on with my career, with my life, and I’ll continue to stand on my innocence,” Watson said at an Aug. 18 news conference at the Browns’ training facility in Berea, Ohio. “Just because settlements and things like that happen doesn’t mean that a person is guilty for anything.”
It was not immediately clear Thursday night whether the new allegation could affect the settlement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association by which Watson was suspended for 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Neither the league nor the NFLPA immediately responded to a request for comment. The settlement reportedly covered the cases considered by Sue L. Robinson, the former U.S. district judge who is the disciplinary officer jointly appointed by the league and NFLPA, and any substantially similar violations before the date of the agreement between the league and union.
The settlement came after the NFL appealed the six-game suspension originally imposed by Robinson. The NFL had sought an indefinite suspension of at least one full season.
Watson returned Monday to the Browns’ training facility, the first day he was permitted to rejoin the team under the terms of his suspension. He may resume practicing Nov. 14 and is eligible to play in a game Dec. 4 in Houston against the Texans, his former team. The settlement also required Watson to undergo a professional evaluation and treatment plan. The Browns did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new lawsuit lists its causes of action as civil assault and the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks unspecified damages. It says that the woman is a licensed massage therapist who was working from home during the pandemic and traveling to meet some clients. Watson contacted her via direct message on Instagram, according to the lawsuit, seeking a massage on Dec. 17, 2020. The woman had no previous contact with Watson and had not worked with any other Texans players, the lawsuit says.
She met Watson at the Houstonian Hotel on or about Dec. 18, 2020, according to the lawsuit. As the woman set up her massage table, Watson went into a bathroom, removed his clothes and came out wearing only a towel, the lawsuit says. He “continually pressured” the woman “into massaging his private area,” the lawsuit says, then “removed his towel and offered to let her ‘get on top.’” The woman refused to have intercourse but was pressured into oral sex, according to the lawsuit, which added that Watson paid her $300.
The woman has “suffered from severe depression and anxiety” due to Watson’s behavior and is seeking counseling, the lawsuit says. | 2022-10-14T03:05:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deshaun Watson again accused of sexual misconduct in new lawsuit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/deshaun-watson-sexual-misconduct-new-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/deshaun-watson-sexual-misconduct-new-lawsuit/ |
Toronto's Calle Jarnkrok (19) beats Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren for what would hold up as the winning goal Thursday night in Toronto. (Frank Gunn/AP)
A day after a lackluster season opener on their home ice, the Washington Capitals went to Toronto hoping to turn the page Thursday night against a familiar face in the crease. It didn’t work out that way.
The Capitals’ defense looked disjointed for a second consecutive night and their offensive stars were stymied both by the Maple Leafs’ blue-liners and Ilya Samsonov, the former Washington goalie who turned aside 24 shots in a 3-2 Toronto win at Scotiabank Arena.
The loss left the Capitals 0-2 for the first time since 2013.
New season, old issues for Capitals in loss on opening night
With the game tied at 2 entering the final frame, Capitals backup goaltender Charlie Lindgren, who had been solid all night, let a tipped puck from Auston Matthews roll over his shoulders and into the net with 13:05 remaining in the period. Lindgren may have been the best player on the ice for the Capitals, making 36 saves, but he didn’t get enough help from the group in front of him.
“I felt [the puck] roll down my back, and it went in the back of the net, so obviously frustrating,” Lindgren said. “Was a good tip, but it’s tough for it to end like that.”
Washington dug hard for an equalizer, including two late power-play opportunities — one with 2:06 remaining, another in the final minute — but Samsonov held firm, stopping all five shots he saw with his team shorthanded.
The Capitals return home Saturday night against Montreal, hoping to avoid an 0-3 start.
Lindgren was impressive from the start, stopping a staggering 21 of 22 shots in the first period. The Capitals entered the first intermission with a 2-1 lead. Toronto tied it early in the second before Washington’s defense finally settled in, allowing just nine shots in the second frame.
The problem for the Capitals was an inability to play a complete game — as their defense found its stride, the offense went stagnant.
The Maple Leafs took control early when John Tavares opened the scoring with the hosts on a power play 6:40 into the contest, tapping in a pass from the point by Morgan Rielly. The goal was a product of Washington’s inability to clear the puck from its zone.
The Capitals answered with a goal from Nic Dowd, who capped a quick passing sequence from the fourth line with a flip past Samsonov. The goal was reminiscent of many Samsonov miscues in Washington, when the former first-round pick looked like he was in the right position to make a play but instead was caught looking elsewhere.
Marcus Johansson gave the Capitals their first lead of the season about four minutes later when he threaded a shot past Samsonov at 13:52 of the first. Johansson credited his goal to T.J. Oshie, who made the play on the wall to push the puck up to Johansson in open ice for the score.
“They played well, but I think we worked really hard,” Johansson said. “There were things we tightened up after the first period. We gave ourselves a chance to win against one of the top teams in the league.”
Samsonov, 25, signed a one-year, $1.8 million deal in the offseason with Toronto after the Capitals decided not to extend the Russian goalie a qualifying offer. Samsonov posted a modest 3.02 goals against average and .896 save percentage last season. His numbers improved slightly in the postseason, but it wasn’t enough to convince the Capitals to keep him.
Lindgren impressive
Washington signed Lindgren, 28, to a three-year, $3.3 million deal after he played in five games last season for the St. Louis Blues and went 5-0-0 with a 1.22 goals against average and a .958 save percentage. He spent the majority of the season with the American Hockey League’s Springfield Thunderbirds. Now in Washington, Lindgren is the designated backup to Darcy Kuemper, the team’s major free agent acquisition.
“I’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point,” Lindgren said in late September. “Like I’ve always told everyone, there’s no room for complacency, you’ve got to keep on working and keep on working hard. I’m still trying to climb the ladder and be a better goalie every single day.”
Washington’s power play went 0 for 5 against Toronto and has yet to produce a goal in nine chances to start the season. The Capitals struggled to set up sustained zone time with the man advantage, with both the first and second units unable to get consistent high danger chances. Laviolette called the power play “disconnected” Wednesday against Boston.
Washington’s penalty kill was 0 for 2 Thursday, and the unit has allowed a pair of goals in six shorthanded chances to start the season.
Ovechkin scoreless
Alex Ovechkin has yet to score. He had his chances against Toronto with 14 shots (four shots on goal) but couldn’t get one past Samsonov.
“Two losses in a row. I think it’s a wake-up call,” Ovechkin said. “We have to get better and play better in the next one.”
Ovechkin, sitting at 780 career goals, needs 22 to pass Gordie Howe for second place on the all-time list. | 2022-10-14T04:23:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals fall to Maple Leafs, drop second straight to open season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/capitals-maple-leafs-samsonov/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/capitals-maple-leafs-samsonov/ |
Updated October 14, 2022 at 12:20 a.m. EDT|Published October 13, 2022 at 11:27 p.m. EDT
Commanders running back Brian Robinson (8) scores a touchdown during the fourth quarter of the game at Soldier Field on Oct. 13, 2022. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
CHICAGO — Carson Wentz turned quickly to unleash a pass as the Chicago Bears’ rush barreled toward him. Time has typically been limited behind the Washington Commanders’ battered offensive line, and Wentz’s pocket on this second-down throw expired quickly.
But as the ball left Wentz’s fingers, Bears defensive tackle Justin Jones swiped Wentz’s hand and bent his fingers back, leaving the quarterback hunched over in pain as the ball sailed out of bounds.
For most other teams, the sight of a starting quarterback — the highest-paid, most important player — bent over in discomfort would be a worrisome and dominating storyline.
For the Commanders, it was somewhere around the 15th-most important one as they took to Soldier Field on Thursday night in search of much-needed victory to temper their previous negative headlines.
At least they got that.
“Just first and foremost, we got a win. A great team win,” left tackle Charles Leno Jr., facing his former team for the first time, said. “It was an ugly game. We all know that. A lot of these Thursday games have been ugly. But we got the ‘W.’ That’s all that matters.”
Against the equally inept Bears, Washington was out-mistaked to win, 12-7, and snap its four-game losing streak while instilling little confidence it’s on the brink of a turnaround.
Because the Commanders’ biggest gains came from the mistakes of their opponent. They took the lead on a muffed Bears punt in the fourth quarter but nearly threw it away with a missed field goal and a 39-yard run by Chicago quarterback Justin Fields. The Bears then failed to gain another four yards for the win in the final seconds.
Svrluga: Ron Rivera steadied the Commanders. Now his operation is trembling.
The Commanders won despite the same sloppy play from past weeks, with confounding calls and repeated mistakes (missed tackles, missed assignments). The defense allowed the same explosive plays, and the offense had too many negative ones. But this time, Washington added a new wrinkle, a method of personal defeat: having too many men on the field.
The Commanders were flagged not once for having 12 men on the field, but twice. The second time was on a 40-yard touchdown pass by Fields. Think about that: Washington had an extra defender and still couldn’t eliminate big plays and scores.
But wait. There’s more.
The worst offense in the NFL outgained Washington, 202 yards to 88, at the half. Wentz was sacked three times, including two on blitzes that flummoxed his offensive line. He finished 12-of-22 for 99 yards, zero touchdowns and zero interceptions for a 66.3 rating.
Wide receiver Curtis Samuel dropped two passes in the first half, and the only thing that kept Washington from being shut out in the first three quarters was a pair of pass-interference penalties on the Bears. Chicago was flagged twice in three plays, setting up a 38-yard field goal by Joey Slye for the first points of the game.
It wasn’t until late in the third quarter that Washington finally cracked the Bears’ red zone. And even then, wide receiver Cam Sims was flagged for a false start on third and five, pushing the Commanders back to third and 10 and setting up another incomplete pass by Wentz.
Slye’s 28-yard field goal in the fourth quarter brought Washington within one point of the Bears’ lead, and it was around then that the Amazon Prime broadcast reminded viewers what a dreadful day it had been for the Commanders.
The cameras zoomed in on Commanders co-owner Daniel Snyder and president Jason Wright sitting in a suite at Soldier Field.
“Just my feeling,” Al Michaels said on the broadcast, “I think what the league would love is for Snyder to sell the team. Not have to go to a vote, but just sell the team. … I think it’s got a long way to go, and Dan is very well known for digging his heels into the ground.”
In recent months, the attitudes of NFL owners toward Snyder has hardened, with one telling The Post that Snyder “needs to sell.” The franchise is under investigation by five entities, including the NFL and Congress, and early Thursday, an ESPN report revealed new layers of alleged wrongdoing. According to the report, Snyder told some confidants that he’d used private investigators to gather dirt on fellow team owners and Commissioner Roger Goodell.
If only that had been the lone story of the morning.
The Commanders’ top-paid cornerback, William Jackson III, became the center of trade discussions after he was benched in favor of Benjamin St-Juste. According to one person with knowledge of the situation, Jackson has not requested a trade. But his discontent was apparent a week ago.
ESPN also reported that it was Snyder, not Coach Ron Rivera, who’d pushed for the team’s trade for Wentz — a claim Rivera staunchly denied in his postgame presser.
“Everybody keeps wanting to say I didn’t want anything to do with Carson,” he said. “Well, bulls---. I’m the f------ guy who pulled up the sheets of paper, that looked at the analytics, that watched the tape when we were in freaking Indianapolis. And that’s what [upsets me]. The young man doesn’t deserve to have that all the time.”
Rivera apologized, then abruptly walked away from the lectern.
Thursday morning, just to pile on, there were also reports that Wentz had been suffering from a strained right biceps tendon, an injury that, if exacerbated, could hinder his throwing ability. Wentz said he was fine on Tuesday and played the entirety of Thursday’s game, when he added his fingers to the list of painful appendages.
And for a final headline that was ultimately buried by kickoff, rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr., who last week returned after being shot during an armed robbery attempt in August, started the game. Veteran Antonio Gibson didn’t play at all in the first quarter and was used in a dual role as a back and returner, running back one kick for 27 yards.
Robinson ran in the winning score.
Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Bears ahead by one, Tress Way launched a 54-yard punt that Velus Jones Jr. dropped at the Commanders’ 9-yard line. Cornerback Christian Holmes recovered it at the 6, and Robinson waltzed into the end zone two plays later for the one-yard touchdown.
“Oh we needed this bad, man,” defensive tackle Daron Payne said. “I hope we can take this into next week and build on it.”
If there was a bright spot to the game, and the day as a whole, it was Washington’s defense, which stopped the Bears three times at the goal line and sacked Fields four times. He finished 14-of-27 for 190 yards, one touchdown, an interception and a 71.5 rating.
Or maybe it was Wentz’s blocking, which sent linebacker Roquan Smith to his knees on Robinson’s touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
“I’m going to do anything I can to help them get it in the end zone,” Wentz said. “… Thankfully I’m not making a living doing that.”
Or maybe it was the little “W” added to the Commanders’ game log, a mark of a needed boost for a reeling franchise — but merely a note on an otherwise frustrating day. | 2022-10-14T04:23:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders end losing streak, hold off Bears with defensive stand - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/commanders-bears/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/13/commanders-bears/ |
Not even a fist bump could save the Saudi-U. S. relationship. When President Biden visited the Saudi city of Jiddah three months ago, he was greeted with a fratboy-like familiarity by the 37-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The meeting sparked a wave of criticism for the U.S. leader, who was accused of cozying up to the de facto head of a country he had once pledged to make a “pariah” after to the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.
That OPEC Plus includes Russia, at odds with the United States and its allies over its invasion of Ukraine, was just another kick in the teeth.
The Biden administration quickly fired back. It announced it would be reviewing the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, warning of “consequences” for the action. In return, Riyadh offered an unusually detailed and combative response. On the official Saudi Press Agency, an unnamed official rejected any suggestion that it was taking sides against the United States and that the decision to cut production was based only on “economic considerations.”
“The Kingdom affirms that it view[s] its relationship with the United States of America as a strategic one that serves the common interests of both countries. The Kingdom also stresses the importance of building on the solid pillars upon which the Saudi-US relationship had stood over the past eight decades,” the statement said. Among these pillars, it frostily concluded, was “mutual respect.”
At a press briefing Thursday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby rejected that explanation and accused Saudi Arabia of tacitly supporting the war in Ukraine.
“Do they want to stay on the side of Russia?” Kirby asked of Saudi Arabia.
The informal partnership was cemented with a dinner date more than 70 years ago on a U.S. Navy boat on the Suez Canal. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was returning from the Yalta Conference in 1945 when he stopped in Egypt to meet with some of the most important leaders from the Middle East and Africa, including King Farouk of Egypt and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
There was also a lesser-known name on the list: The first Saudi king, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.
Ibn Saud was a charismatic military leader who beat his rivals to become the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. He was not a worldly man. The meeting on the Suez Canal was reported to be the first time he had left his kingdom. He brought eight sheep with him to the USS Quincy, where he met Roosevelt, to be slaughtered for dinner.
Was Biden’s Middle East trip worth it?
The case for and against Biden visiting Saudi Arabia
Whatever bond may have existed in the past between leaders like Roosevelt and Ibn Saud does not exist between Biden and Mohammed bin Salman. The best an American could say of his signature policy, the insane planned city of Neom, is that it serves as financial support for U.S. urban planners and technologists.
Now, by pushing a production cut at OPEC Plus, Saudi Arabia isn’t just indirectly supporting Russia or pushing the world closer toward a recession — it’s shaking the very slippery, oil-based foundations of its relationship with the United States. And if Biden listens to some Democratic lawmakers, this marriage of convenience could finally be heading for a divorce. | 2022-10-14T04:45:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Saudi-U.S. relationship was always a marriage of convenience - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/saudi-united-states-relationship-history-oil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/saudi-united-states-relationship-history-oil/ |
Ukraine’s Song to Macron Is Awfully Bittersweet
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20, 2022. (Bloomberg)
Ukraine wants weapons this winter, and for good reason. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion is escalating. Buildings and infrastructure are sitting ducks, as Russia’s latest bombardment shows. Air defense equipment is the latest item Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is pressuring the West for as NATO allies meet to discuss beefing up support for Kyiv.
Zelenskiy’s government has even resorted to wooing French President Emmanuel Macron online with a video set to Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s racy, classic hit “Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus.” The clip contrasts the soft-power emblems of Paris like the Eiffel Tower with the hard-power Caesar self-propelled guns that Ukraine seeks. France has sent about 18 so far; more are on the way.
Europe and NATO clearly want to do more to help Ukraine. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking after a meeting of more than 50 NATO allies, said he had “confidence” that countries would be offering whatever they could to bolster Kyiv’s air defenses. The Dutch have pledged €15 million worth of anti-aircraft missiles.
Yet Ukraine’s plea is inadvertently exposing the challenges and tradeoffs involved as defense budgets flip from famine to feast after the multi-decade “peace dividend” of the post-Cold War era.
More than seven months into Putin’s war, we’ve already learned that announcements of more defense spending around Europe have yet to fully become reality. The weapons sent to Ukraine so far have been sourced from existing stockpiles, and the political will to deplete resources in one area to bolster Ukraine hasn’t always been there — especially when the equipment is in disrepair.
The ability to replenish stockpiles is a challenge that depends a lot on supply chains. Lockheed Martin Corp. said in May that doubling the production capacity of its Javelin missiles, for example, could take years. Alessandro Profumo, chief executive officer of Italy’s Leonardo SpA, this week warned of the industrial challenges ahead: more intensive use of existing systems and the ability to replace them at a faster rate, all while developing next-generation technology to disrupt them.
And now the backdrop of recession in the EU and UK, requiring governments to dig deep into the public purse to protect consumers from inflation, is casting a shadow on future defense commitments. Declines in the pound and euro against the US dollar make buying equipment from the US more expensive and spending targets harder to reach (even if domestic exporters eventually benefit); deteriorating growth forecasts mean government budgets become more stretched.
The UK’s recent budget turmoil is a case in point. Instead of choosing between guns and butter, the ruling Tories have promised it all, from pledging to spend 3% of gross domestic product on defense by 2030 — or about £157 billion over the next eight years, according to think tank Royal United Services Institute — to energy aid and a slew of unfunded tax cuts. Squaring all this with a downbeat growth outlook may require unpopular spending cuts about double the size of the defense budget, reckons the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Constraints that are obvious today in the UK might be evident elsewhere tomorrow. Bloomberg Economics estimates that for the Group of Seven major industrialized nations as a whole, debt servicing costs could rise to 3.6% of GDP by 2030 from 1.7% in 2019. Faced with these challenges, some clear paths would make sense to pursue. The first is to prioritize support for Ukraine. Economist Jacob Nell, in a co-authored paper published last month, says Ukraine’s armed forces have been effective in destroying a large volume of Russian military equipment and capability at a low cost. Committing to provide an extra $50 billion for 2023 would fully finance Ukraine’s 2023 budget and could be done using International Monetary Fund special drawing rights, alleviating the strain on Western budgets.The second is to be more realistic. The long list of European post-pandemic spending items includes public health and climate change — and points to tax increases, not cuts. The UK’s political ambition of being an Indo-Pacific power while also defending Ukraine is stretching economic reality — perhaps “Global Britain” would be better off focusing on European Britain for now.
And efficiency gains should also be pursued. The glass-half-full view of this crisis is that the EU pursues closer defense integration as a result, according to Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. NATO could also improve coordination.
Tough decisions are approaching for European governments. Gainsbourg’s bittersweet music is a sign of things to come. | 2022-10-14T06:25:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine’s Song to Macron Is Awfully Bittersweet - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ukraines-song-to-macron-is-awfully-bittersweet/2022/10/14/e5c2659e-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ukraines-song-to-macron-is-awfully-bittersweet/2022/10/14/e5c2659e-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
We Can’t Give Putin His Off-Ramp
BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 14: Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves the stage after speaking during the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum at the China National Convention Center (CNCC) in Beijing, Sunday, May 14, 2017. The Belt and Road Forum focuses on the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) trade initiative. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images) (Photographer: Pool/Getty Images AsiaPac)
Ruminating out loud at a fundraiser the other day, US President Joe Biden expressed what’s on many people’s minds: “We’re trying to figure out, what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where, where does he get off? Where does he find a way out?”
The last time the world seriously contemplated this darkest of all scenarios was the Cuban Missile Crisis, exactly six decades ago. At that time, the leaders in Washington and Moscow did find an off-ramp, in the form of a secret deal that only came to light much later. This crisis, however, is different. For starters, Biden and Putin — unlike John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev — appear not to be talking.
That reasoning however, highlights another difference between the Ukraine war and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, the only antagonists that mattered were the two major nuclear powers, and the off-ramp consisted of a secret concession by one to the other. In return for the Soviet withdrawal of nukes from Cuba, the US would also remove its warheads from Turkey. Today, by contrast, all conceivable off-ramps would involve things that are not America’s to give.
Putin Is Already Attacking NATO, Just Not All At Once: Andreas Kluth
Putin’s Air-Terror Campaign Against Ukraine Is Already Failing: James Stavridis | 2022-10-14T06:25:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We Can’t Give Putin His Off-Ramp - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/we-cant-give-putin-his-off-ramp/2022/10/14/e62180ba-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/we-cant-give-putin-his-off-ramp/2022/10/14/e62180ba-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
What Biden Should Make of Erdogan’s Bluster
“When the time comes, we will do what is necessary. As we say, all of a sudden, we can come overnight.”
“Like I always say, we’ll come down on them suddenly one night.”
Bellicose rhetoric has long been Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stock in trade, but Turkey’s leader has recently been on a tear, targeting taunts and threats at enemies near and far, real and imagined. The near-identical admonishments above are directed, respectively, at Greece and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, in Syria.
What both targets have in common, aside from Erdogan’s wrath, is America’s friendship. They serve crucial current American military goals: the containment of Russia and of the Islamic State terrorist organization.
Greece, a member of NATO, is a conduit for US arms shipments into Eastern Europe — the more important now in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The YPG was instrumental in driving the IS back into its Syrian hideouts after the terrorist group’s dramatic 2014-15 expansion into Iraq; it remains vital to keeping the jihadists confined to their lairs.
Erdogan regards Greece with suspicion and the YPG with hostility. Greco-Turkish animosity runs deep. Turkey and Greece fought a proxy war in Cyprus in the late 1960s and early 1970s; more recently, they have clashed over hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean and over military based in Greek islands in the Aegean Sea near the Turkish coast.
As for the YPG, Ankara regards it as an offshoot of the separatist Kurdish group in Turkey known as the PKK, designated a terrorist organization by the US. Erdogan has argued that Washington was wrong to align itself with the Kurds, and has railed against the continued American protection — in the form of a small contingent of US troops in Syria — afforded to the YPG.
So how worried should the Biden administration be about Erdogan’s threats to “come down suddenly”(1) on two vital allies? Turkish domestic politics complicate the answer to that question. Eight months out from a general election and his bid to extend his rule into a third decade, Erdogan is in full campaign mode.
The president’s pronouncements have tended to get more provocative at the approach of polls, and he is more pugnacious than usual this time round. That’s because he has little else to offer voters: Turkey’s economy is tanking, with inflation and unemployment rising and the trade deficit soaring.
The impact on Erdogan’s political fortunes is plain to see in polling that shows his ruling coalition trailing an opposition grouping of six parties. Although the opposition bloc is yet to name their presidential candidate, Erdogan’s personal numbers are close to historic lows.
Like populists everywhere — and remember, he’s the granddaddy of today’s populists — Erdogan is invoking nationalism to banish the economic blues and boost his reelection prospects. This involves stoking the fear of the foreign hand interfering in Turkey’s affairs. And the most convenient foreign threats are Greece and the YPG.
(Others in his retinue direct their rhetorical fire more broadly. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has been accusing the US and the West of conspiring against Turkey, and has promised to make them “eat our dust.”)
But that doesn’t mean the Biden administration can turn a deaf ear to Erdogan’s bluster. If his electoral prospects don’t improve in the next few months, he may feel obliged to carry out one of his threats.
A military adventure in the Aegean is the more unlikely of the two. Erdogan has played fast and loose with his NATO commitments — witness his purchase of Russian missile-defense systems in defiance of the collective — but a kinetic encounter with a fellow member would represent a recklessness he has never showed in the realm of foreign policy. (He has done so in economic policy, however: Much of Turkey’s problems stem directly from his kooky ideas about interest rates.)
Erdogan’s most dramatic departures in foreign policy have involved breaking with Israel in 2010 and with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad the following year. Although he incurred Western displeasure in both instances, neither was likely to trigger a harsh response from the US and Europe.
There was no military conflict with Israel. The Turkish incursion into Syria, justified in part as a preventative measure against the PKK’s terrorist designs, certainly complicated American plans, but some in Washington were not displeased to see Turkish boots on ground that Russia had entered and the US was hoping to exit.
Greece is another matter, however. The last time Erdogan rattled a sabre in the direction of Athens was in 2020, when Turkish and Greek naval vessels squared off in the Eastern Med. After then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked the two parties down from the ledge, French President Emmanuel Macron threatened European Union sanctions against Turkey.
An actual exchange of fire in the Aegean would carry greater consequences, inflicting serious sanctions pain on an economy already in agony.
That leaves the YPG. Military action against the Kurdish group, again on the pretext of warding off terrorists, would risk Turkish casualties, but it is unlikely to invite much more than finger-wagging from Washington. Having abandoned American allies in Afghanistan, President Biden is unlikely to be greatly exercised over the fate of the Kurds.
Even so, Erdogan is unlikely to do anything “suddenly, one night.” The whole point of political theater is to play it out for maximum gain and in full sight of the intended audience — in this instance, the Turkish electorate. If he decided to move against the YPG, expect Erdogan to take his time in stoking up nationalist passions and preparing his countrymen for any casualties.
When that happens, the Biden administration will have some time to plead on behalf of the Kurds. But that, too, will probably be mostly performative.
Profit From ESG? A Turkish Company Shows How: Adrian Wooldridge
Turkey’s Neutrality on Ukraine Is Coming at a High Price: Bobby Ghosh
Turkey and NATO Prove the Anna Karenina Principle of Alliances: Andreas Kluth
(1) In the lead-up to Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus, the warring factions on the island taunted each other with popular Turkish songs, played over loudspeakers along the frontlines. Greek Cypriots played “I Waited But You Did Not Come,” to mock Turkish Cypriots who’d been longing for Ankara’s intervention.The Turkish Cypriots retorted by playing “One Night I May Suddenly Come” — the song Erdogan now quotes.The opening verse of the song, made famous by the chanteuse/actress Gonul Yazar, goes thusly:“Don’t call me so heartilyI can some suddenly one nightIf you’re waiting for me, sleeplessI could die of joy at your doorI can come suddenly one night” | 2022-10-14T06:25:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Biden Should Make of Erdogan’s Bluster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-biden-should-make-of-erdogans-bluster/2022/10/14/e74897a8-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-biden-should-make-of-erdogans-bluster/2022/10/14/e74897a8-4b7d-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Video appears to show casualties and gunshots during a protest in Zahedan, Iran, on Sept. 30. The original source of the video could not be confirmed. (Video: Storyful)
The shooting started in Zahedan before Friday prayers had ended.
Thousands of worshipers had gathered on Sept. 30 in the Great Mosalla of Zahedan, a large open-air space in the southeastern Iranian city, when a handful of young men broke away and began chanting slogans at a nearby police station. One man, 28, said his 18-year-old brother was among them. He spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The young man followed his brother, pushing his way through the crowd, and stumbled on a shocking scene: Police and plainclothes security agents were firing at the protesters from the rooftop of the police station and other buildings. Security forces also began firing into the Mosalla, where people were still praying.
“They were shooting a lot, and this way and that way, I saw people get shot and fall,” the young man said in a telephone interview from Zahedan. “Many people were shot, and they were crawling on the ground toward buses or other cars to hide behind them. I just wanted to find my brother and get out.”
What happened that day — already known in Iran as “Bloody Friday” — is by far the deadliest government crackdown against protesters since demonstrations began sweeping the country nearly a month ago. Internet service has been cut or severely disrupted in the region over the past two weeks, along with the cellular network, making it difficult to piece together how the violence unfolded. The Post interviewed two witnesses to the Sept. 30 crackdown, including the young man, who described security forces using deadly and indiscriminate force against peaceful demonstrators.
The Post could not independently confirm their accounts, but their stories were corroborated by local activists and lined up with the findings of rights groups.
The Friday protest in Zahedan had been announced on social media earlier that week, in solidarity with the uprising that has gripped the nation since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of the “morality police” on Sept. 16. But the protesters, many of them ethnic Baluch — a minority group that lives mostly in southeast Iran and across the border in Pakistan — had local motivations as well.
They were infuriated by reports that a 15-year-old girl had been raped in police custody in the city of Chabahar in early September. This Baluch girl was their Amini, another young woman who they believed had been abused by state security forces. The crowd that day was chanting “Death to the dictator” and “The rapist must be punished” when security forces opened fire.
The 28-year-old man frantically dialed his brother’s phone and eventually found him behind a white Peugeot. They ducked down and made their way out of the area, positioning themselves between a line of cars and a border wall of the Mosalla. The brothers had run only a short distance when they saw a mutual friend, whom they beckoned to escape with them. Then gunshots rang out again.
“[Our friend] was shot twice in the back, only two or three meters away from me,” the young man said in an exhausted voice. “One of the bullets hit near his heart. He was martyred right there.”
“From the evidence we’ve gathered, what happened at Mosalla was a massacre,” said Mansoureh Mills, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International, which has counted at least 66 people killed that afternoon. Other human rights groups put the death toll even higher.
“The killing of children and people who were praying … I can’t see how it could be called anything else,” Mills said.
The Iranian government ramped up its use of force against protesters after an order issued by the country’s highest military body on Sept. 21 to “severely confront troublemakers and anti-revolutionaries,” according to a leaked document obtained by Amnesty and reviewed by The Post.
The security forces appear to be enforcing this broad order with an even heavier hand in ethnic-minority areas such as Baluchistan, as well as Kurdistan in western Iran, where Amini was from and where the protests started.
The Baluch, like the Kurds, have long been neglected by the Iranian government. The area where most of them live, Sistan and Baluchistan province, is among the poorest in the country. The Baluch and the Kurds are also predominantly Sunni communities in a country ruled by a theocratic Shiite government.
The state’s response in these areas “has been particularly brutal,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. He warned that the government crackdown “was further exacerbating the risk of continued turmoil.”
After the initial shooting around the police station, security forces also fired on crowds gathered around the Makki Mosque, a short distance from the Mosalla. Bullets riddled the front of the mosque and tear-gas canisters were fired into the prayer space, activists said, including the women’s section, where mothers were sheltering with their children.
By this time, the young man and his brother had gathered a group of protesters to carry their friend’s body to the Makki Mosque. A helicopter circled overhead, the young man told The Post, and gunmen inside periodically fired into the crowd. They were “shooting from above, and we had to go inside the mosque,” the man recalled.
Many of the dead and wounded had been taken into the mosque by midafternoon; protesters threw rocks at security forces to keep them away, witnesses said. So many people were wounded that there was a shortage of blood at local hospitals, activists reported.
A 60-year-old man who lives in the Shirabad neighborhood in north Zahedan received news that his 25-year-old son had been fatally shot, and that his body was at the mosque. The man made his way there with great difficulty, asking others to help carry his son’s body home.
“When we wanted to take my son’s body out, two people were shot in front of me right at the door of the Makki Mosque. One was shot in the head and the other was shot in the chest,” the father said in a telephone interview from Zahedan, sharing his story on the condition of anonymity. “We waited until sunset before we could leave.”
State media announced that three members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also killed that day. Among them was Col. Hamid Reza Hashemi, a deputy intelligence commander for the Guard Corps in Sistan and Baluchistan, according to the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency.
The government has sought to blame the violence on Jaish al-Adl, a local militant group, but the group has denied any role in the protests, and the activists and witnesses interviewed by The Post say they did not see any armed protesters in the crowd. In a statement the day after the attacks, the commander of the Guard Corps, Gen. Hossein Salami, vowed revenge for the security personnel who had been killed.
“Salami’s statement is a threat against the people,” said Abdollah Aref, director of the Baluch Activists Campaign, an advocacy group based in Britain. “What they’re saying is if you come out into the street, then we’ll shoot you and kill you.”
The young man and his brother made it home safely that Friday, but violence followed them. As protests continued in their neighborhood over the next several days, security forces responded with deadly force.
“They would wear local Baluchi clothes so they wouldn’t be recognized and people wouldn’t think they’re linked to the government,” the man said. “They would come in civilian cars and civilian clothes, shoot people, and leave.” | 2022-10-14T06:27:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eyewitnesses describe "Bloody Friday" crackdown on Iran protesters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-zahedan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-zahedan/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Kyiv says it recently liberated more than 600 settlements from Russia
A destroyed building in the city of Izyum, Kharkiv region, Ukraine on Oct. 13. (Atef Safadi/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Over the past month, Ukraine has retaken more than 600 settlements from Russian control, its Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories said Thursday. Among the liberated areas are dozens of settlements in the regions of Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, all of which Russia recently attempted to illegally annex.
Outraged over Russia’s recent strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, NATO countries and other nations are vowing to boost support for Ukrainian forces, focusing in particular on the advanced air defense systems at the top of Kyiv’s wish list. “We will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday. “In particular we will provide more air defense systems to Ukraine.”
Russia said Thursday it will assist residents fleeing the Kherson region of Ukraine, following a local official’s appeal to Moscow to help evacuate four cities as the fighting has intensified. Russia partially occupies Kherson and illegally annexed it, along with three other regions, in a ceremony last month. Ukrainian forces have in recent weeks staged a counteroffensive to retake the area in southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency on safety issues at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the agency’s director general said Thursday. “That is a good start,” Rafael Grossi said at a news conference in Kyiv. But, he said, the situation there remains concerning. “There has to be a recognition that this nuclear power plant cannot be a military target,” he said.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has told the Pentagon that it cannot continue to fund the Starlink terminals that have helped keep Ukraine online during the invasion, according to CNN. A senior U.S. defense official confirmed to The Washington Post that Musk had asked the Defense Department to pay for the services, and that the bill could run to hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year. (The Post previously reported that the U.S. federal government is paying for a significant portion of the equipment and transport costs.)
Personnel linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may have traveled to occupied areas in southern Ukraine to train Russian forces in the use of attack drones, Ukraine said Thursday. The Defense Ministry’s Center for National Resistance said on its website that an unspecified number of Iranians were brought to a port in the Kherson region, as well as to a location in the Crimean Peninsula, to offer instruction in the use of the Iranian-manufactured Shahed-136 drones.
Russia is firing a mix of older and newer missiles from a variety of locations, including from strategic bombers in the Caspian region and Kalibr cruise missiles lobbed from the Black Sea, said Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister. Kalibr missiles are costly and meant for high-priority targets, making the Russian strategy to hit civilian infrastructure perplexing, as doing so does not clearly advance its military goals. Here’s what to know.
Kremlin-aligned forces have made “tactical advances” toward the center of Bakhmut, a town in the Donetsk region that Moscow appears intent on seizing before trying to advance toward larger cities in the region, the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update Friday. Wagner Group mercenaries probably remain “heavily involved” in the fighting in Bakhmut, London said.
The foreign minister of Belarus told Russian media that his country had given its security forces broad powers such as wiretapping, unimpeded access to all locations and control over all communications, according to Reuters. Minsk, a treaty ally of Moscow, said it believed “neighboring states” were seeking to seize parts of its territory.
Putin has offered to build a new gas pipeline in Turkey. His comments, at a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, followed explosions that hit the Nord Stream pipelines last month and that some Western nations have blamed on sabotage.
Any transfer of Iranian drones to Russia would be a violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution that backed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, France’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. Spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre said France was coordinating with European partners on a potential response. “We have taken note of the many reports of the Russian armed forces’ use of Iranian drones to carry out strikes against civilian targets in Ukraine, which likely constitute war crimes,” she said. “Moreover, the provision of Iranian drones to Russia would be considered a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.”
Fourteen NATO countries will take part in a major nuclear readiness exercise planned for next week. The exercise, “Steadfast Noon,” is an annual occurrence and is designed to test the alliance’s nuclear deterrence capabilities. The maneuvers, to be held in western Europe “well away from Russia, more than 600 miles,” will include fighter jets and B-52 bombers, none of which will carry live munitions, National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told reporters Thursday.
As morale suffers, Russia and Ukraine fight a war of mental attrition: In Moscow’s ranks, the casualty count is high and forces have been in a retreat for more than a month. But Ukrainian soldiers are also feeling fatigued — physically and mentally — even though they are more motivated because they are defending their homeland and trying to protect civilians dying daily in Russian attacks, Isabelle Khurshudyan reports. | 2022-10-14T06:27:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Workers in personal protective gear check out an area of Beijing under a covid lockdown on Wednesday. (Bloomberg)
High season in the southern Chinese beach resort town of Sanya usually coincides with National Day on Oct. 1, which across the country kicks off what’s known as “Golden Week.” During this celebration of patriotism and consumerism, residents eat, shop and travel in honor of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Li Chajia owns guesthouses in Sanya — the “Hawaii of China,” the city calls itself — and hoped pent-up spending power from two pandemic years would be channeled toward vacations there. After repeated lockdowns, markets had started to reopen in late September and dining-in was being allowed again.
Instead, China’s zero-covid campaign only became stricter and more extreme, carried out nationwide with revolutionary zeal by local officials under orders from the central government. After two cases were discovered in Sanya, officials there carried out mass testing and began quarantining tourists. Guesthouses sat empty during the October holiday.
“Not a soul was on the beach,” said Li, 38. “This year has been especially bad. Politics has had too much of an impact on the pandemic.”
China — one of the few countries still trying to eliminate the virus through aggressive lockdowns, mass quarantines and stringent border controls — finds itself in a trap of its own making. The zero-covid policy, once a point of pride, is wreaking havoc on the economy and disrupting individual lives. Increasingly unpopular at home, it poses one of the biggest challenges the Chinese leadership has faced since the pandemic began.
But fully lifting the policy could invite disaster. China’s 1.4 billion people not only have little natural immunity as a result of a low infection rate, but they have been immunized with domestic vaccines that are less effective against newer, highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus. China never approved the use of mRNA vaccines deployed throughout the rest of the world.
“If they open up now, there will be a major outbreak immediately. However, even if they do not open up, a major outbreak will sooner or later arise somewhere,” predicts virologist Jin Dongyan of Hong Kong University, who says the country’s approach is “not sustainable. I’m pretty sure someone has made a wrong judgment. They wrongly assessed the situation in the world, and they cannot come out from their own comfort zone.”
To many, that someone is Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose wisdom and experience are often credited as the driving force behind zero covid — “dynamic clearance,” in the government’s parlance. Under Xi, what began as a public health response has become an ideology, a way of setting China apart from Western countries that initially were overwhelmed by cases and high death tolls.
At a much-anticipated Communist Party congress that begins Sunday, Xi is expected to get a third term as general secretary — head of the party — breaking with established norms where leaders step down after two five-year terms. Before the meeting, local officials have pledged their allegiance to zero covid as their “most pressing mission.” For three consecutive days this week, the party mouthpiece People’s Daily published editorials on why it must be followed.
“Fighting against the epidemic is both a material struggle and a spiritual confrontation. It is a contest of strength and a contest of will. We will not waver,” a commentary exhorted on Tuesday.
Despite such a vociferous defense of the policy, its costs are becoming more apparent. Xi’s approach has dented consumer confidence and spending — key to China’s goal of transitioning to a more consumer-led economy — while compounding such issues as rising youth unemployment and a deteriorating property market. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday lowered its 2022 growth forecast for China to 3.2 percent from a projection of 8.1 percent last year.
The policy is “a key marker of Xi’s ability to lead the country through crisis. Its success is inextricably bound with that of Xi’s rule,” said Diana Fu, an associate professor in political science at the University of Toronto.
Early in the pandemic, China’s measures were among the strictest in the world, criticized for going too far in restricting residents’ movements. But by mid-2020, the nation was declaring victory over the virus. As China donated supplies abroad, at home its covid response was hailed as an example of its superior governance and care for its citizens.
Shanghai’s covid siege: Food shortages, talking robots, starving animals
Schools in Xi’an were closed after a few dozen cases were found in the city of 13 million. Areas in Yulin, Shaanxi conducted “lockdown practice” for three days despite having reported no coronavirus cases.
“They suffer the winner’s curse. They didn’t realize the pandemic would last this long. Now they are facing this Sisyphean battle all the time,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
As the rest of the world moves toward living with the virus — including most of Asia — China’s isolation has deepened.
Some of the public may be starting to lose patience. The relentless lockdowns have inspired a wave of interest in “runxue,” the study of running away. Video emerged online last week of a woman running through the streets of Shenzhen yelling “Excessive covid controls. Give me back my freedom!”
And on Thursday, photos and video showed a banner hanging on a bridge in Beijing’s Haidian district, its protest message reading, “We want food, not PRC tests.” The images quickly vanished on Chinese social media sites.
“Transparency is really important. We can’t accept these measures because we don’t know what’s going on. What we want is clarity about what is being done to us and a choice in it. Without that … it’s very hard to build trust,” said one student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal.
According to Jin in Hong Kong, a feasible exit strategy would redirect resources from lockdowns and mass testing and instead prepare the health-care infrastructure, especially in rural areas, for outbreaks. It would focus on stocking up on antivirals, approving the use of mRNA vaccines and targeting the country’s unvaccinated elderly population.
But there are few signs China is preparing to move in that direction. Liang Wannian, an epidemiologist and senior government adviser, said in a recent interview with state broadcaster CCTV that there is no timetable for diverting from current policy. “We have seen the dawn of victory, but we have not yet reached the other side of victory,” he said.
Xi had a similar message for Politburo members in July. “If outbreaks appear, we must severely control them,” he said. “We cannot relax in battle.”
“They have a lot of leeway and are not too worried,” noted Zhao Dahai, executive director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University-Yale Joint Center for Health.
The fact that zero covid provides authorities another lever of social control may be an additional factor in its staying power. In June, thousands of residents arrived in Henan province to demonstrate against rural banks that had locked their accounts. The protesters suddenly found their health codes — a three-color system tracking health status — had turned red, prohibiting them from any travel.
“Everything revolves around the pandemic,” she said. “We live under complete surveillance.”
Lyric Li in Seoul and Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report. | 2022-10-14T08:01:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Xi Jinping seems set on maintaining China's zero-covid policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/china-xi-zero-covid-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/china-xi-zero-covid-policy/ |
The evidence portrays an American president who embarked on a premeditated plan to refuse to cede power regardless of the election results
Analysis by Ashley Parker
Former president Donald Trump is seen on the screen as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol holds a hearing on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Former president Donald Trump’s communications director recounted popping into the Oval Office roughly a week after the 2020 election to find a morose Trump watching TV: “Can you believe I lost to this f---ing guy?” Trump lamented, referring to then-President-elect Joe Biden.
A young aide to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows recalled Meadows telling her, “A lot of times he’ll tell me that he lost but he wants to keep fighting it.”
And Trump’s 2020 campaign manager remembered — in the days and weeks following the election — joining the unofficial “truth-telling squad” tasked with informing Trump that he had, in fact, lost the 2020 election.
“It’s an easier job to be telling the president about, you know, wild allegations,” Bill Stepien, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, said in testimony aired Thursday by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. “It’s a harder job to be telling him on the back end that, ‘Yeah, that wasn’t true.’ ”
“All of this demonstrates President Trump’s personal and substantial role in the plot to overturn the election,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.). “He was intimately involved. He was the central player.”
Before voting unanimously to subpoena Trump, the panel made a case against Trump as relentless as it was damning: In the days and weeks before he encouraged a frenzied mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol, close advisers and others had repeatedly told Trump he had lost the election — and Trump himself had privately acknowledged the defeat.
Analysis: The case against Donald Trump
Through roughly 2.5 hours of pretaped testimony, riot footage, stark lawmaker statements and incriminating text messages, the committee argued that despite Trump’s immense capacity for self-deception and dishonesty, the former president fully understood he had lost the election — and yet continued to contest the results anyway.
“Please recognize that President Donald Trump was in a unique position, better informed about the absence of widespread election fraud than almost any other American president,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said. “Trump’s own campaign experts told him that there was no evidence to support his claims. His own Justice Department appointees investigated the election fraud claims and told him — point blank — they were false. In mid-December 2020, President Trump’s senior advisers told him the time had come to concede the election. Donald Trump knew the courts had ruled against him.”
“He had all of this information,” Cheney continued, “but still, he made the conscious choice to claim fraudulently that the election was stolen.”
As further evidence that Trump understood he would not be serving a second term, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) presented detailed testimony recounting how on Nov. 11, 2020 — just four days after news organizations officially called the election in favor of Biden — Trump signed an order calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia, to be completed before Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.
Kinzinger argued that the directive — which was previously reported by Axios and in the book “Peril” but ultimately did not come to pass — underscored Trump’s rush “to complete his unfinished business” in what he understood to be the waning days of his administration.
Of course, Trump’s false and baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen have continued to the present day, becoming something of a litmus test for Republican candidates across the nation. But the committee on Thursday argued, as Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) put it at one point, that “this plan to declare victory was in place before any of the results had been determined.”
Lofgren noted at one point the committee had interviewed Brad Parscale, who had served as Trump’s campaign manager before Stepien, and that Parscale had told them “that President Trump planned, as early as July, that he would say he won the election even if he lost.”
The California lawmaker also played audio from Stephen K. Bannon — a former senior adviser for Trump who had been in touch with him before Jan. 6 — telling associates in China a few days before the election that regardless of the actual results, Trump was simply going to say he had won.
5 takeaways from the Jan. 6 hearing
“And what Trump’s going to do is just declare victory, right?” Bannon says in the audio clip, chuckling at points. “He’s going to declare victory. And that doesn’t mean he’s the winner. He’s just going to say he’s the winner.”
Bannon added that the public would awake to “a firestorm” the day after the election: “If Biden is winning, Trump is going to do some crazy show.”
The committee also reminded viewers that later, on Jan. 5 — just one day before the deadly insurrection — Bannon asserted on his radio show: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”
The facts, by now, are well known: A president, unable to countenance the blow of an election defeat to his ego, exhorted his furious and frenzied supporters to march to the Capitol, culminating in a deadly insurrection that left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer who died after being beaten by a mob of rioters.
But the story the committee sought to tell Thursday was more nuanced. Trump was not, lawmaker after lawmaker argued, an angry king or reckless madman — caught up in the emotion of the day — or a mere hapless bystander, unaware of the destruction he wrought.
In fact, it was quite the opposite: Trump was a leader who knew he had lost — who was repeatedly told he had lost and who privately admitted he had lost — yet who plunged ahead with a calculated and deliberate plan that shook the foundations of the very democracy he had sworn to uphold.
“President Trump knew the truth,” Kinzinger said. “He heard what all his experts and senior staff were telling him. He knew he had lost the election, but he made the deliberate choice to ignore the courts, to ignore the Justice Department, to ignore his campaign leadership, to ignore senior advisers, and to pursue a completely unlawful effort to overturn the election.”
Kinzinger concluded: “His intent was plain: ignore the rule of law and stay in power.” | 2022-10-14T09:10:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 hearing shows Trump knew he lost — even while claiming otherwise - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/trump-knew-he-lost-jan-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/14/trump-knew-he-lost-jan-6/ |
Eddie Daniels was on his way to work when he happened upon an SUV stuck on train tracks
A Chevrolet Suburban SUV after a train crashed into it Oct. 8. in Vienna, Ga. Seconds before, Vienna Mayor Eddie Daniels had pulled a mother and her three children from the vehicle. (Vienna Police Department)
As Eddie Daniels pulled a mother and her three children out of an SUV stuck on railroad tracks in rural Georgia early Saturday, he heard but could not see the train.
It was close. They didn’t have much time.
Daniels, the 60-year-old mayor of Vienna, yanked the mother out of the driver’s seat. Next, he grabbed her 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son from the back seat before reaching for the last child.
Daniels was still standing next to the SUV, reaching inside to grab the 6-year-old boy’s arm, when the train hit the front of the vehicle. The rear of the SUV thrust back at Daniels and the boy, sending them flying.
“I don’t remember much after that,” Daniels said, adding: “I was knocked foolish for a few minutes.”
According to the Georgia State Patrol, the collision happened around 3:45 a.m. Saturday. The 26-year-old mother had driven her 2022 Chevrolet Suburban off the road while approaching a railroad crossing in the middle of town, a trooper wrote in his crash report. She had crested the tracks when she got stuck as a train hurtled toward the SUV, the report states. A passing motorist, Daniels, saw what was about to happen, got out to help and rescued the family “just in time before the train struck the vehicle,” police in Vienna said. The mother was later charged with driving under the influence and multiple counts of child endangerment.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Daniels elaborated on what happened during a trip that started out as a normal commute to work. Daniels, who’s served on the Vienna City Council for 18 years, including six as mayor, also works at the Goldens’ Foundry and Machine Company in nearby Cordele. In his nearly five years at the foundry, he’s churned out metal parts for companies like Volvo and Caterpillar.
Around 3:35 a.m., Daniels got in his car and started driving the roughly 12 miles to the foundry for his 4 a.m. shift.
About five minutes later, Daniels spotted an SUV stopped on the railroad tracks that bisect Vienna, a city of about 3,000 residents that Daniels described as an agriculture town where they grow “peanuts, cotton, soybeans, corn — you name it.”
At first, he thought it belonged to a railroad worker doing track maintenance or repairs. But as he was driving past, the driver honked the horn to get his attention. Then he heard the woman screaming for help.
Daniels parked and went to do just that. The woman told him the SUV was stuck on the tracks and, because the door was jammed, she was trapped inside. As they spoke, the railroad crossing alert system kicked in — the arms dropped and the alarm bells jangled. A train horn blared in the distance.
“I told her, ‘Let’s go. We got to get out of here,’ ” Daniels said, adding: “Adrenaline kicked in, and I was the only one at that railroad track.”
Another blast from the horn.
Videos show train crash into Colorado police cruiser with woman inside
Daniels pulled the woman out of the vehicle and slung her to the ground. She implored him to turn back to the SUV. “My babies back there! My babies back there,” she screamed, according to Daniels. “You’ve got to get my babies!”
He did. Reaching into the back seat, Daniels simultaneously grabbed the wrists of her 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son and yanked them from the vehicle. He flung them toward their mother and whipped back to the SUV — one more to go. He wasn’t thinking, just reacting as the train bore down on them.
“The only thing I was doing was pulling,” he said, adding, “I knew the train was close.”
Closer than he thought. As he grabbed the wrist of the final child, a 6-year-old boy, the train hit the front driver’s side of the SUV, just inches to the left of Daniels and his new charge.
The engine rammed the Suburban some 65 feet, a Georgia State Patrol trooper said in his report, but not before the rear of the SUV hit Daniels, knocking him back about eight feet. He broke his ankle, and flying debris opened a gash in his head that would require eight stitches to close. He would later discover bruises all over his back. An orthopedist, after reviewing an X-ray of his ankle, told him it will never be the same.
“I’ve never been hit by anything like that before,” he said.
Somehow, the 6-year-old and his siblings were uninjured, Daniels said.
Unable to get up, and secure in the knowledge that the danger was over, Daniels laid back. Some bystanders helped him get to the other side of the tracks, where he sat until paramedics arrived. They loaded him into an ambulance, gave him morphine and took him to the hospital.
Everything — from when he first saw the vehicle to the moment of impact — took place in less than three minutes.
Daniels said he didn’t have a chance to process what happened until later that day. Only as he was leaving the hospital did the reality of what happened kick in.
“I thought about it then,” he said, “and it scared me a little bit.”
Daniels said a Georgia State Patrol trooper told him that, if he hadn’t been there, the entire family would have been killed. He called Daniels a hero, an honor the mayor brushed off.
“I don’t feel like a hero,” he said. “I just felt that I had to do what I had to do.” | 2022-10-14T09:33:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mayor of Vienna, Georgia, pulls mother and children from train tracks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/14/georgia-mayor-train-crash-rescue/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/14/georgia-mayor-train-crash-rescue/ |
Perspective by Lexi Parra
Nayreth holds her newborn daughter, Salomé, in her home in La Vega. Since her brother’s murder, she has found purpose being mentored by local community leader Gabriela, helping host workshops and community events focused on issues of violence and female empowerment. (Photos by Lexi Parra)
CARACAS, Venezuela — “The bullet holes are right outside my door — a reminder of where they murdered him, right outside his home,” says Aryelis, whose son was shot to death by police here in 2017.
Mothers, sisters and wives are telling the stories of the men who have lost their lives in Special Action Forces operations in the hillside neighborhood of La Vega. The police unit, known as the FAES for its acronym in Spanish, has for years terrorized the working-class barrios of the Venezuelan capital. It’s accused of criminalizing young men for where they live.
La Vega’s turn came in early 2021.
The community calls it the “La Vega massacre.” Caracas’ leading gang — The Washington Post is withholding its name to protect the safety of those photographed for this story — had been infiltrating the neighborhood. For months, residents were at the mercy of both the gang and the police, enduring raids, mass detentions and regular gunfire.
On Jan. 7, 2021, the FAES raided the barrio. Twenty-three people were killed, according to independent observers. The government contests this number.
Despite the losses, residents have fought to find moments of joy. La Vega is a cultural hub in Caracas, maintaining Afro-Venezuelan traditions in drumming and other arts. Even during gunfire and raids, residents continued these traditions, albeit behind closed doors.
This long-term project, “What Remains,” follows the lives of those who are particularly affected by this violence: Women, who are left to navigate devastating grief as they provide for their family, seek justice and try to heal. In La Vega, women are the driving force of the community, organizing recreational activities, food distribution programs and providing other support.
In getting to know women in La Vega, I hoped to show their resilience and their effort to heal. I asked what is left, what is salvaged, what life looks like after tragedy. In a region where violence is normalized, these images reflect the power of community.
This work was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center and will be continued with the support of the Getty Images Inclusion Grant. | 2022-10-14T09:33:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A community in Venezuela forms connections amid violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/10/14/gang-police-violence-rages-neighborhood-tries-connect/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/10/14/gang-police-violence-rages-neighborhood-tries-connect/ |
Brian Robinson Jr., one of the few feel-good stories of this Commanders season, celebrates his fourth-quarter touchdown Thursday night in Chicago. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
CHICAGO — In other news: The Washington Commanders played a football game Thursday night.
Their players, on a short week, showed up in their all-white uniforms and, along with the Chicago Bears, performed in a thoroughly unwatchable game intended for a prime-time audience. If you didn’t tune in, good for you. Just know the Commanders did enough to snap a four-game losing streak and won, 12-7. But because football never seems to be the focus here, they could not escape their own off-the-field chaos.
Instead of simply showcasing the team, the “Thursday Night Football” broadcast assigned some airtime to ESPN’s deep dive into owner Daniel Snyder and his precarious standing among his peers in the league. As reported previously in The Washington Post, this latest piece detailed the increasing willingness of team owners to vote Snyder from their ranks.
The headlines would have spiraled any other franchise into crisis mode. In Washington, however, it is just called Thursday.
This organization just can’t get right. It keeps finding itself in national headlines and on a network’s scrolling ticker for all the wrong reasons. As far as anyone can tell, the Commanders employ the only defensive coordinator in the NFL who has publicly portrayed himself as a Jan. 6 apologist. And this week, their coach, brought here specifically to be the adult in the room and lend credibility to this frivolous franchise, generated an unnecessary distraction with his pithy comment ("Quarterback.”) that led some to call into question Ron Rivera’s faith in Carson Wentz.
They can rebrand the nickname into something they think aligns with leadership and respect (although “Commanders” only conjures up the image of G.I. Joe’s main enemy.) And boast of surging sponsorship deals and ticket sales. But any kernels of progress never take root. The folly runs so deep.
With dysfunction still dripping from the floorboards of the owners’ suite, even surviving the winnable games will matter little to nothing. If Snyder remains in control, the Commanders are doomed into a purgatory of bad PR.
In 2020, The Post revealed damning allegations of the team’s toxic work environment and specific allegations lobbed at Snyder. By 2021, members of Congress asked the NFL for documents relating to its investigation into the sexual harassment and verbal abuse within the franchise. And this year, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform detailed allegations of Snyder’s financial impropriety to the Federal Trade Commission.
Then, the morning of their matchup with the Bears, when talk about the Commanders should have been about football, the discussion centered on Snyder and his habit of dispatching private investigators to dig up dirt on fellow owners and even Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Even this sports column should have been about something straightforward, such as football. Former player Tony Gonzalez, an analyst paid by Amazon Prime to say nice things about the games, described this as a meeting between the two “ JV teams of the NFL.” By halftime, Gonzalez had to provide a correction.
“This might be the freshman team,” Gonzalez said. “This is not good football.”
Wentz played through a shoulder injury, and near the end of the second quarter, he appeared to hurt his throwing hand when Bears defensive tackle Justin Jones made contact with it. The Commanders’ offense looked as pained as the quarterback: Wentz absorbed three sacks on third-down plays, wide receiver Curtis Samuel dropped a pass that should have been a touchdown, and the unit finally scored with 7:21 remaining in the game when rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr. punched it in from the 1-yard line.
But for the record: No, it’s not the “Quarterback.” The one-word answer Rivera initially shared while staring down a reporter during his Monday news conference does not explain why the Commanders have fallen behind the rest of the NFC East. The team’s progress does not rest on Wentz’s growth and comfort in the system.
Washington will remain an afterthought in the NFL, with the fifth-lowest winning percentage over the past decade, as long as Snyder plays the ringleader in this clown show.
And because this team can’t go a full hour without another soap opera, before kickoff a report indicated that cornerback William Jackson III and the Commanders are seeking a mutual separation.
Is Jackson too injured to play? Or just can’t play in defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio’s scheme? Whatever the case, Washington devoted $13.8 million this season to a player whose bulging disk in his back may or may not have led to his benching Sunday. Against the Tennessee Titans, Jackson couldn’t last through the first quarter and did not make the trip to Chicago. According to the NFL Network, Jackson wants to be traded.
Days such as Thursday are the kind of moments the single-minded players in the locker room have been trying to avoid.
“When you show that, it lets everybody know [that] y’all got something going on and it’s deeper than just out there on the field losing. You keep it inside. You don’t let the outside in,” running back Antonio Gibson said this week when he addressed the importance of players not publicizing their frustrations over the 1-4 start.
Frustration, however, happens. And the losses get to players. Defensive end Montez Sweat needed the calming vocals of Teddy Pendergrass to relax him after last weekend’s close loss against the Titans. (“I’m old school,” he explained.) And because the loss had soured his mood, Gibson temporarily spent Sunday night in the doghouse.
“I kind of had an attitude with my girlfriend and I could realize I was doing it,” Gibson said. “I had to calm myself down. I was like: ‘I’m sorry.’ I told her I love her and I appreciate you asking about me. But sometimes it’s tough to kind of like chill out.”
On this night, however, Sweat rebounded well with that dominant defensive front, collecting one of the unit’s four sacks. Washington’s defense held strong against the Bears at the goal line on the game-deciding sequence.
And though Gibson wasn’t the featured back — Robinson scripted another feel-good moment in his amazing comeback story and showed the Commanders what they have been missing in the running game — the three-year veteran produced the team’s longest gain of the night at 18 yards.
After the game, Rivera showed his fiery side while fielding a few questions about the story of the day. The football coach desperately wants the focus on football.
“The truth of the matter is, [the Snyder controversy] is unimportant to me. What’s important to me is the guys in the room, and that’s been something that I’ve been trying to establish,” Rivera said. “I’m trying to get beyond all this stuff that’s on the outside. It’s noise as far as I’m concerned. What I’m focusing on is developing this football team. There’s a group of young men in there that deserve better, okay? In terms of they should be acknowledged for what they’ve done, what they’re doing.”
But the Commanders are still the same cluster bomb owned by Snyder. Nothing changes that. Not a win against the JV Bears, the kind of win that a team needs to build momentum and beat back the din of drama building around it. The noise will linger as it always has.
So apologies to any of the beleaguered fans of professional football in Washington, the smattering of die-hards who thought they could focus on the field for one day. Nope. The football was trash. Everything else was worse. It was just another Thursday for the Commanders. | 2022-10-14T09:33:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Commanders-Bears game was bad. The drama was so much worse. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/commanders-bears-dan-snyder-drama/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/commanders-bears-dan-snyder-drama/ |
The 1892 Logan Circle rowhouse has distinctive copper cornice and a bay window, a nod to its original owner
Logan Circle rowhouse | The 1892 rowhouse, which was designed by architect Joseph Johnson, was home to the first Black woman in D.C. with a dental office. The house is listed at just under $5 million. (HomeVisit)
Some houses are filled with so much history and historical features that they are more like museums than homes. You can’t imagine anyone with young children in such a house.
But this stately rowhouse in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington has been home to a family of four for more than a decade. James Iker and his husband Hayes Nuss moved into the house in 2008 and raised their now 12-year-old twins in it.
“It doesn’t live like a museum at all,” Iker said. “It’s built to work for a family. It’s been a very functional house. It’s a big house, but we use every bit of it.”
Iker brought out a shopping bag stuffed with information about the house that has been passed down from previous owners. According to a report written by Paul Kelsey Williams of Kelsey & Associates, the house was built in 1892. Architect Joseph Johnson designed the house for Thomas Whyte, owner of the National Cornice Works. The distinctive copper cornice and bay window are a nod to Whyte’s business. The Whyte family remained in the house until 1904.
In 1946, Westanna O.I. Byrom bought the house. Byrom, who graduated from Howard University’s college of dentistry in 1933, was the first Black woman to have a dental office in Washington. She ran her practice out of the house’s lower level. A sign “Dr. W.O.I. Byrom, dentist” remains above the door.
After graduating from Howard, Byrom returned to her home state, Tennessee, where she started a dental practice. She also worked in public health, treating indigent children by taking her portable dental equipment from school to school.
Byrom returned to Washington in 1941. In addition to her private practice, she spent 24 years as part of the Bureau of Dental Health of the D.C. Public Health Department, working in free dental clinics throughout the city.
Among the many papers in the shopping bag were Byrom’s membership certificate in the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society; a Howard University Dental Alumni Association award; a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department’s War Finance committee thanking her for her fundraising efforts; and a letter from the chief of the D.C. Bureau of Dental Health, wishing her well on her retirement. A family photo album had several photos of Byrom and her family in the house.
Byrom and her husband, Harold G. Covington, a State Department employee, lived in the house with their daughter Bettye. When Byrom died in 1982, Bettye inherited the house. Bettye died four years later, leaving the house to Ruben S. Martin. After his death in 1994, the house was sold to Robert and Christine Young in 1996.
The Youngs undertook an extensive renovation with the intention of preserving its character. Although many period features remained, some, such as the ornate woodwork on the stairs, had been painted over. According to Iker, dental tools were needed to remove the paint that had reached into tight crevices.
Todd Harmon Turner bought the house in 2004 but sold it four years later.
Iker and Nuss continued the work the Youngs began but also expanded the house with the help of architect Jon Hensley and builder John Allen of AllenBuilt. During the two-year renovation which was completed in 2017, they added a top floor with an expansive roof deck and installed an elevator. The former dental office is now a one-bedroom apartment. The 1,200-square-foot roof deck has a grilling area, hot tub, fire pit and monument views.
“The roof deck is definitely my favorite part of the house, especially in the mornings,” Iker said.
Even with the modernizations, many period features were preserved, most notably the fireplace mantels and tile surrounds in the living room, sitting room and library. The sitting, living and dining rooms are separated by pocket doors. They also kept a “talking tube,” an early intercom system, which can be found in the upstairs hallway.
Behind the house, there are two parking spaces with an electric car charger.
The seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom, 6,600-square-foot house is listed at $4,995,000.
1329 R St. NW, Washington, D.C.
Bedrooms/bathrooms: 7/10
Features: The 1892 rowhouse was designed by architect Joseph Johnson. The copper cornice and bay window are a nod to the original owner Thomas Whyte, who owned National Cornice Works. The eat-in kitchen has an island and two dishwashers. The wood-paneled library has a fireplace and bay window. The top level has a sunroom with bathroom, an 1,100-square-foot roof deck with a grilling area, hot tub, fire pit and monument views. The two parking spaces behind the house come with an electric car charger.
Listing agent: Daryl Judy, Washington Fine Properties | 2022-10-14T10:42:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Home to first Black woman with D.C. dental office lists for $5 million - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/logan-cirlce-rowhouse-for-sale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/logan-cirlce-rowhouse-for-sale/ |
A high school marching band needed money. Post readers rushed to help.
More than $115,000 has been donated to D.C.’s Eastern High marching band, fueled by a story about its accomplishments and financial woes
The Eastern High School marching band performs during the Emancipation Day Parade in Washington on April 16. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
It didn’t feel like anything could top homecoming.
James Perry, the band director at Eastern High School on Capitol Hill, had been proud to see his 65 kids perform at the celebration of the school’s 100th anniversary last weekend. After months of practice, they had nailed the parade and halftime show, impressing students, parents and alumni.
But then, on Sunday, Perry got an unexpected call.
Donations were pouring into a three-year-old fund set up for the band by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, fueled by a Washington Post story about the accomplished group’s struggle to pay for instruments, uniforms and trips to competitions.
Money came from Honolulu and Alaska, the Czech Republic, Australia and France. It came in from every state but Mississippi, South Dakota and Wyoming.
By Thursday, the donations totaled $115,000.
“Oh my goodness,” said Perry, 41, who is also an attendance counselor at Eastern High. “Wow. Wow. $115,000? Wow. I haven’t shared the amount with the kids. I’m big on — and this is maybe how my mom raised me — but I don’t want them to feel like we’ve made it, that we don’t have to work as hard. Because we do.”
Perry, who has directed the program for 15 years, was equally shocked to see that an acquaintance had set up a GoFundMe to replace Perry’s car, which he sold in 2019 so he could donate his own money to the band. He now walks to work.
As of Thursday, 63 donations had brought in nearly $4,000 of the $25,000 goal.
“Perry has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to his students at Eastern High School,” the GoFundMe said. “He’s consistently stood in the gap for his talented children, so let’s do the same for him!”
The Blue and White Marching Machine — as the band is known — has long been a beloved fixture in D.C. Ballou in Southeast Washington boasts the only other public high school marching band in the District.
Eastern’s teens begin practicing in August, often parading down residential streets on Capitol Hill near Lincoln Park to prepare for football games and community gatherings, like Wednesday’s Walk to School Day.
For neighbors, the thumping of bass drums and piping of flutes is just as much a sign of the changing seasons as falling leaves and shorter days.
Eastern High School marching band practiced their performance ahead of their homecoming in Capitol Hill on Oct. 6. (Video: Lizzie Johnson/The Washington Post)
The band’s season stretches into July, ending with Capitol Hill’s Independence Day parade. But despite its successes — including NFL halftime shows and presidential inauguration parades — funding has continued to be a challenge.
In a 2023 budget report submitted by Eastern High to D.C. Public Schools, the marching band was not included as a line item in the projected $14.8 million budget.
This year, about $6,000 was earmarked for the band’s transportation to competitions, said Enrique Gutiérrez, a spokesman for the district. He noted that Eastern High received a grant of $80,000 “several years ago” that “covered the current uniforms and instruments that they have.”
But Perry said the last new band uniforms were purchased in 2008, and they are falling apart 14 years later.
Perry said he scrambles every year to cobble together enough money for instrument repairs and competitions. He charges up to $1,500 for performances, which helps cover transportation — the band’s biggest cost. A bus to Richmond for a competition in late October, for example, will cost the band $3,200 round-trip, he said. That’s more than half the funding it gets from the school district.
The band’s dreams of purchasing new uniforms — which Perry priced at $80,000 in 2019 and probably costing far more now — has been pushed back repeatedly. So band members continue hot-gluing the braids back on, restitching lost buttons and reinforcing the worn blue fabric.
“To know that people felt compelled to give says so much about this program and what it means to people,” Perry said. “That they’re watching and appreciative of the arts and the work that these kids are putting in. … I’m so grateful and overwhelmed with the love. I am at a loss for words.”
In the comments on the story and on social media, readers reminisced about their own formative experiences in musical programs. They pledged to donate to the program, then encouraged others to do the same.
“Flood them with money!” one woman urged.
“What these young people are experiencing will benefit them all through their lives,” said another reader. “Please, support them if you can.”
“The kids are doing the right thing and we need to support them,” read yet another comment. “For God’s sake and all our sakes! Much LOVE to the band!”
They set off a tidal wave of more than 1,250 donations, surprising even Nicky Cymrot, a longtime Capitol Hill resident and president of the Capitol Hill Community Foundation. In addition to giving money, readers offered instruments: a tenor saxophone from California, two clarinets and a trumpet.
At first — as Cymrot’s cellphone began rapid-fire pinging with notifications of new donations on Saturday — she wondered if something might be wrong. She thought the nonprofit’s payment-processing software might have malfunctioned.
Cymrot knew the foundation had announced plans in 2019 to raise $90,000 for the band, supplementing a $20,000 grant that had also been given that year to repair and replace instruments. But the goal had never been reached.
“I was getting a blip every minute,” Cymrot said. “That went on almost all day Saturday. I’d never experienced that. It kept going and going, from so many different places.”
She was confused about what had initiated the swell of goodwill. Then a donor emailed her a link to the story about the band. Suddenly, Cymrot said, it made sense.
A board liaison and the treasurer of the band’s parent-teacher organization will soon work with Perry to create a plan and a budget for the money.
“We stay involved through the whole process of distribution and execution,” Cymrot said.
But first, Cymrot said she called Perry to ask what was at the top of his list.
“What did the band need the most?” she wondered.
The answer was easy, he said.
The kids, he hoped, would finally be getting new uniforms. | 2022-10-14T10:42:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eastern High marching band gets $115,000 in donations from Washington Post readers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/eastern-high-band-donations-post-readers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/eastern-high-band-donations-post-readers/ |
Many renters in Arlington can no longer afford to buy a home. Lawmakers hope that eliminating single-family zoning could be a fix.
Maureen Coffey, a 27-year-old nonprofit employee, stands on the balcony of her one-bedroom apartment in Arlington, Va. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The email from the mortgage loan officer was supposed to be good news for Maureen Coffey.
A 27-year-old nonprofit employee, she never thought she would be able to afford to buy in Arlington County — a wealthy, liberal suburb across the river from D.C. — until he told her otherwise. Her steady income and strong credit would qualify her for a condominium costing as much as $300,000.
But the properties within her budget in this slice of Northern Virginia were all nonstarters: either tiny studios with $500-a-month condo fees, or units so far from public transit that she would have to commute an hour to work.
“I had done everything right,” Coffey said, “and that still was not enough to buy something.”
Across the country, low housing stock and skyrocketing prices mean plenty of others are facing a similar reality. With new units hardly being built fast enough in Arlington to fix the problem, local lawmakers are hoping one possible solution to these woes may lie in the county’s zoning code.
A proposal expected to go before the county board this fall would relax these rules, allowing developers to build duplexes, townhouses and small apartment buildings in the leafy suburban neighborhoods that take up much of Arlington’s 26 square miles.
It’s an idea that would do away with the vision of single-family zoning, which remains central to the American idea of suburbia. And it’s one that is being considered by more communities around the country as their housing stock has failed to keep up with all the people trying to live there.
Officials in Gainesville, Fla., hope the city might lower rents in their increasingly costly college town. Spokane, Wash., city planners think they could accommodate the influx of transplants who moved in during the pandemic. And in Arlington, where empty land is scarce and most people live in single-family houses or high-rise apartments, lawmakers say they could create less expensive options that fill the gap in between.
“This is not necessarily going to deliver housing. It’s just lifting the barriers to do so,” said Arlington County Board member Takis Karantonis (D), who has vocally supported this push for “missing middle” housing. “If we succeed to have more production over the years, more people will have a real chance to buy and stay here.”
Yet, the question of how exactly the idea might help aspiring homeowners is one of many firestorms that have erupted across Arlington regarding the idea. Its critics point out — and some of its proponents concede — that many of these new units may not be directly affordable to the middle class.
Outside consultants commissioned by the county say that on the lower end, the plan would create small apartments going for about $500,000. Based on the county’s calculations, those apartments would only be attainable for someone making about $100,000 a year — just above the median income for a one-person household in the D.C. area, or below it for a couple.
“The county appears to have walked away from any discussion about affordability,” said Julie Lee, who owns a four-bedroom house in the Glencarlyn neighborhood and works with the group Arlingtonians for Upzoning Transparency. “I do not see how the missing middle framework as planned is going to bring down prices.”
Coffey admits that she’s not convinced, either. She makes less than $65,000, spends more than a third of her income on rent and wants to stay in nonprofits. Even the least expensive units of “missing middle” housing would be out of her budget.
“At the same time, we have to do something,” she said. “Would I like to see something with a lower price tag? Yeah, absolutely. But it’s still providing something that does not exist right now.”
Growing county, rising prices
For many, Arlington’s housing shortage is tied up with all the things that make it such an attractive place to live. Once a sleepy bedroom community, its population exploded in the 1940s and ’50s to transform it into what is now one of the country’s most densely populated counties.
Some families moved from the District in search of bigger houses or cheaper mortgages, while others flocked from across Virginia and the region for the quality of life: walkable neighborhoods, low crime rates, short commutes to job centers and top-ranked public schools.
An ahead-of-its-time effort to add high-rise buildings along the Metro also brought young professionals like Coffey in droves, turning Arlington into a county of mostly renters in apartments and a top destination for millennials.
But as those millennials have gotten married and started families, the options for them to buy have not kept up with population growth. From 2010 through 2019, developers built a net of 11,370 housing units, according to a county report, while Arlington added about 30,000 people.
County Board Chair Katie Cristol (D) was able to find room in the market eight years ago. Then 29, she and her husband, a federal employee, purchased a two-bedroom stacked flat in Arlington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood for less than half a million dollars.
When they decided to have a child, they used the assets they had built up to move to a larger property: a more expensive three-bedroom townhouse in nearby Douglas Park.
Similar choices, she said, are in short supply for younger members of her generation.
Because the county for decades stood in the way of building multifamily units, “missing middle” units like Cristol’s make up less than one-third of Arlington’s housing stock. Competition has made that limited supply more expensive.
A market frenzy for single-family houses, meanwhile, has also made those homes more costly. The average sales price for a single-family house in Arlington jumped 45 percent over the last decade, from $744,484 in 2010 to about $1.08 million in 2019.
“When there is an undersupply of housing, prices go up,” Cristol said, “and it means that only the people who can afford to bid the most for that housing get that housing.”
That has all made the price of land unusually expensive across Arlington, where there’s no room left for sprawl. To maximize profits, builders have torn down some smaller single-family homes — such as more affordable Cape Cods and Colonials — and erected dramatically larger houses in their place.
According to county data, 1,245 single-family homes in Arlington were torn down from 2009 to 2019, with an average size of about 1,500 square feet. The houses built to replace them were three times larger — and sold for an average of about $1.7 million.
The idea of “missing middle” is based on a similar economic proposition. If developers are already going to destroy small single-family homes and replace them with much larger ones, its proponents ask, why not replace them with townhouses or duplexes or perhaps even eight units — to house more people?
An impossible calculus
Coffey, who moved to a Clarendon rental last year after graduate school, had qualified for virtually every first-time home buyer program offered in Virginia. But exorbitant condo fees — which tend to be higher in more affordable, older buildings that require greater upkeep — created an impossible calculus on her budget, she said.
Joe Garon, her loan officer, said that about 3 in 4 first-time home buyers in Northern Virginia who have consulted him recently ended up giving up on their search and going back to renting.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking to see the number of people who got discouraged,” Garon, of Embrace Home Loans in Fairfax, said in an interview. “Their offers were not even in the ballpark of what the properties ended up going under contract for.”
Those who did end up purchasing “starter homes” often had to compromise significantly on location, he added. Many successful buyers looking at properties inside the Beltway moved to exurbs as far away as Loudoun County. The one exception? Clients who had some sort of help from a family member — an offer to co-sign a loan, or help with a down payment.
For Coffey, whose parents work as an elementary school teacher and a computer programmer, asking for that kind of assistance was out of the question. Back to renting it was.
Learning that a down payment is not a barrier to home ownership for me:
🤩🥳🤯
Learning that my income is not high enough for the DTI created by high Arlington prices + condo fees:
🥲🫡🫠
— Maureen Coffey (she/her) (@mcoffey2017) June 25, 2022
Frustrated by the lack of options before her, it felt like all she could do was speak up about her experience in hopes that something would change.
So she ended up spending a Monday evening later that month on a Zoom with county officials and a few dozen Arlington residents, at first only watching as her neighbors explained why they were skeptical about rolling back the zoning code.
“What’s called ‘missing middle’ is not going to be low-cost housing because it’s in Arlington,” one man said.
“We need to do some more work before we allow developers to start doing anything,” added the woman who spoke after.
“This is not a jurisdiction where everyone is ‘Not In My Backyard,’ ” a third person said, “but we have to do it thoughtfully and properly.”
Ever since Arlington indicated it might legalize denser housing types, critics of the idea have descended on forums like this one, a weekly “open door” session led by county lawmakers, to raise a litany of concerns like these.
They said “missing middle” will put more real estate pressure on existing residents — particularly seniors on a fixed income — by increasing the value of their land and raising their tax burdens. (The county points to a program it has devised to provide tax relief for homeowners in that situation.)
They said single-family homeowners could face pressure to sell their houses to developers who want to replace their homes with triplexes, townhouses and more. (Karantonis calls this “luxury displacement,” because the homeowners could net a million dollars or more for the sale of their properties.)
They said families who rent single-family houses could be displaced by these changes. (Cristol said she recognizes the future for these households may be more of an uncertainty but notes that there aren’t many of them in Arlington: About 10 percent of the county’s single-family homes were renter-occupied in 2019, according to the U.S. Census’s American Community Survey.)
Most of all, though, they emphasized that the “missing middle” plan will not create new units affordable to the prospective buyers being priced out of Arlington: teachers and first responders who want to stay put; growing middle-class families who need more space; young professionals who don’t see the math working out.
In short, they said, it would not help people like Coffey, who was now looking straight at the camera as she prepared to issue her response.
“The places I can afford to live do not exist in Arlington. They are not there,” she told the faces on the grid, virtually all of them older than hers. “I understand the desire to try and figure out the exact right answers, but the reality is no one knows exactly what is going to happen.”
‘Just throwing darts’
The uncertainty behind the plan is arguably part of what has generated so much debate. Its loudest critics have asked for more time before a vote so that Arlington officials can better study what exactly what will get built: what kind of homes, how many of them, with how many bedrooms, at what price point — and crucially, for which groups of people.
Jon Ware, who owns a five-bedroom house in Tara-Leeway Heights, said the county has offered few clear explanations on how it determined who could afford a missing middle unit. “They are just throwing darts. There’s no analysis,” said Ware, who works with the slow-growth group Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future (ASF).
Erika Moore, an Arlington spokeswoman, said the county’s estimates for minimum household income were made in the spring using a 2o percent down payment and the 4.39 percent interest rate at the time. Planners estimate that buying the least expensive units would be affordable to someone making at least $118,000.
Ware ran the numbers for ASF with what he says are more conservative calculations: a 12 percent down payment, comparable to the national median; and an interest rate akin to the higher, 30-year average of 5.7 percent. He estimates that these apartments would only be affordable to a household making about $140,500.
“There’s a mismatch between what people are saying the problem is and what the county is offering as a solution,” Ware added.
On a Saturday morning late last month, about 20 Arlington residents sat in a circle in a community center rec room as they spoke one-by-one to share their thoughts on the “missing middle” framework with County Board Vice Chair Christian Dorsey (D).
It was one of more than a dozen “community conversations” organized by county lawmakers, intimate meetings held throughout the fall meant to bring together people with divergent viewpoints on the issue.
Among the group of mostly gray-haired homeowners, the vast majority appeared to oppose it. For nearly two hours, the facilitator summarized their concerns in marker on a large white easel: “Parking spots.” “Not affordable.” “Gentrification.” “Tree canopy.”
With the meeting running well over its allotted time, Dorsey wrapped up by trying to point out one piece of common ground among the attendees: They all thought housing prices in the county had gotten far too costly.
“There is a desire to see that whatever is ultimately adopted addresses the price-demand mismatch,” he said. “It seems like that’s the area where everyone agrees.”
After he finished, one woman walked up to a reporter who had been allowed to sit in on the closed-door meeting. Some residents, she countered, thought there was no need for lower housing prices.
“If it’s too expensive,” she said, “you should move further out.”
John D. Harden contributed to this report. | 2022-10-14T10:42:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arlington's missing middle housing push stirs affordability debate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/missing-middle-housing-arlington-affordable/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/missing-middle-housing-arlington-affordable/ |
Cate Blanchett on ‘Tár’ role: ‘Music is often the starting point for me’
The actress and director Todd Field discuss their new movie, a trenchant study of a fall from grace, set in the real-life world of classical music
Cate Blanchett plays an American conductor leading an orchestra in Berlin, in Director Todd Field's “Tár.” (© 2022 Focus Features, LLC.)
About an hour after seeing “Tár,” I received a text from the friend who had joined me for the screening. Fresh from our two-and-a-half-hour immersion in the collapsing world of conductor-composer Lydia Tár — played by Cate Blanchett — my friend went searching for some of Tár’s work. After some fruitless scrolling, it clicked.
“Wait, so she’s fictional?” read the message. “Not a real person … ”
Non-classically oriented folks such as my friend could be easily forgiven for taking Blanchett’s Tár, an American conductor leading an orchestra in Berlin, for the genuine article. Writer-director Todd Field’s capture of the classical world is so true to life, and Blanchett’s inhabitation of it so convincing, that the border between Tár’s world and ours feels as thin as a scrim of light.
On the surface, “Tár” could be a drama about cancel culture — suggesting that the failures of moral purity are as inevitable as Beethoven’s next note. But, like a good symphony, over time the film reveals its deeper psychological and cultural concerns: the accommodations we make in the name of genius, the reliable abuse of power, the trusty excuse of art.
Review: Ann Hornaday gives ‘Tár’ 4 stars
Field took pointers from conductor and author John Mauceri and worked extensively with the Dresden Philharmonic, and Blanchett had her own crash courses with conductor Natalie Murray Beale. (She also had to pick up some German and relearn piano.) Her performance suggests she not only absorbed lessons about what takes place at the podium, but also the history that weights each wave of the baton.
But beyond this astonishing verisimilitude, “Tár” is, above all, a movie for listeners.
Along with Mahler’s 5th Symphony, which provides the movie’s molten musical core, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor (Op. 85) plays an important supporting role. Other contemporary and classical works are threaded through the film: Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer-winning “Partita for 8 Voices” makes an appearance, as does the Offertorio of Verdi’s “Requiem,” the overture to Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” and the C major prelude and fugue of Bach’s “Well Tempered Clavier.” A leitmotif of sorts for Lydia is supplied by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir’s heart-stopping “Ró.”
A lively NSO gala celebrates the extension of the Noseda era
An original score by Oscar-winning Icelandic composer Hildur Gudnadottir (who gets name-dropped in the film) supplies Lydia’s Berlin with an unsettling weather. And nonclassical sounds find their way in — little reminders of a world outside the concert hall and traces of the humanity often left behind in the commandeering conductor’s wake. We hear Count Basie, Cole Porter and a haunting thread from Lydia’s academic past in the form of an icaro from the Shipibo-Konibo people of the Peruvian rainforest, sung by Shaman Elisa Vargas Fernandez.
“Tár” is Field’s first film in 16 years (after 2001′s “In the Bedroom” and 2006′s “Little Children”), and he wrote the part specifically for Blanchett. “In every possible way,” he says in a director’s statement, “this is Cate’s film.”
I caught up with Blanchett and Field by Zoom last week to talk “Tár,” music and the perils that attend every creative peak.
Q: The classical world in the film could have been wholly fictionalized, but it was full of names and situations we recognize. What was important about keeping the real world in such proximity to the world of the film?
Cate Blanchett: Personally, I think in order to jump off into the more metaphysical, existential end of the movie, you have to have it rooted in a very possible today. I felt that from the script.
Todd Field: This character is talking about Nathalie Stutzmann, she’s talking about Marin Alsop, she’s talking about MTT [Michael Tilson Thomas] and Bernstein and all the usual suspects. It’s important in so much as if this were a baseball movie you’d be talking about Hank Aaron and Whitey Ford and Roger Maris. That’s the world that she comes from. It’s not like there’s going to be a test for anybody that’s outside of this milieu. It’s more important that you understand that she’s in it, and that it’s real and immediate and there are some kind of true foundational underpinnings.
Michael Tilson Thomas and NSO offer a grand panorama of American music
Q: Cate, I was curious about your relationship to classical music before this film and how you prepared.
Blanchett: I was taken as a child to concerts, and I learned the piano as a girl, but I sort of gave it away. I was much more kinesthetic, much more into dance. But I guess dance, like music, dispenses with language, and I’m always so grateful in a film when you don’t have to talk, which of course wasn’t the case with this script.
But music is often the starting point for me in unlocking the atmosphere in which a character lives, or the spirit of a character. So when you look at the structure of Mahler’s Fifth, there seemed contained within it Lydia Tár’s arc — all of these unspoken conundrums about love and life that she was experiencing and battling against. So it was obviously hugely important in this instance and an incredible privilege to work alongside musicians and stand up in front of the Dresden Philharmonic. I’m always happy when I can find the beat or the song that speaks to the soul of the character.
Q: Todd, Cate mentioned the structure of [Mahler’s 5th] being present in Lydia’s arc. Did that symphony influence how you composed the story? It did feel like it progressed in a series of movements.
Field: Without getting too equational about it, the Five certainly informs it. In my initial talks with John Mauceri, he asked me straight up: ‘What’s your favorite piece of classical music?’ And, as an apologist, I said, ‘The Five.’ And I felt that way because it’s a lot of people’s favorite music. And he said, ‘No, you shouldn’t be afraid about that. It’s an essential pivot in terms of concert music. You should embrace it.’
There’s so much around that piece of music, as Lydia unpacks at the beginning, having to do with when [Mahler] wrote it, who he wrote it for, how it changed over the years. Mahler was an obsessive revisionist. So much so that there are still arguments about what is the definitive interpretation of the Mahler Five. Of course, it depends on your point of view. Lydia’s point of view would be the beginning. Another academic’s point of view, it could be the end or the middle. It’s a piece of music that’s still in process, so it’s sort of apt for this film.
Q: I found myself, especially through the first act, excusing all sorts of small lies and manipulations and kind of reducing their impact as the cost of genius. Now, if I re-watch this movie, it’s going to feel like an indictment of my attention, because of the sheer amount of details I ignored, all so I could help uphold Lydia’s mythology. What was your sense of the mythology surrounding the role of the conductor before you worked on this film? Did it change?
Blanchett: I think on a Greek level, she’s the architect of her own downfall. We see [Lydia] at a time when she’s coming to the end of a creative movement of her life — therefore, she’s focusing on legacy. And I think as an artist, when you start thinking about legacy, therein lies your demise. But, in parallel to that, I think part of a conductor’s power, and their authority to hold sway over the enormous human instrument that is an orchestra, is their personality. So you have to balance that.
What I really found fascinating — and I’m still kind of living with what it means for me personally — is that when you surmount what is seen as a pinnacle in one’s career, you know you’re at the top and the only way to continue is to run downhill. When you get to that pinnacle, you want to hold on so tightly to it, and that is incredibly human. If you look at Georgia O’Keeffe’s work, you think she’s painting mountains and in fact she’s only painting anthills. So it doesn’t have to necessarily be running the world’s greatest orchestra. What I find really noble about [Lydia] is that she knows she has to combust, and that it’s going to be brutal and embarrassing and have huge repercussions.
Q: There’s a wonderful presence of time as a kind of medium in the film — a sort of a legato smoothness to the long takes, and then things move into this more staccato third act. How did you want time and tempo to factor into the telling of the story?
Field: It is calibrated in a specific way, in the same way as if you had tempo changes within a piece of music. Even so far as last summer, when [composer] Hildur Gudnadottir and I sat down and started working on it … we talked about the tempo of the characters. So, for instance, Cate would always walk at 120 beats per minute — so during production, she had something in her ear, and she’s always walking 120 beats per minute. Whereas, say, Olga, the young cellist [played by cellist Sophie Kauer], would walk at 60 beats per minute. That determined a lot in terms of how we dealt with Tár, because with the exception of two angles, she’s in every frame. When she moves, we move. We never leave her, so she’s really driving the tempo. The propulsion and the engine is determined strictly by Cate.
Q: It was wonderful to see musicians [such as Kauer] cross over into acting. How did being exposed so closely to that much music inform your process?
Blanchett: I actually started the conducting process looking at [the late Soviet conductor] Ilya Musin’s master classes online. … My friend [conductor] Natalie Murray Beale, who was helping me prepare, said, ‘You won’t really fully understand the music or the experience until you stand on the podium and hear the sound come back at you and through you.’
There was a conversation Todd and I had very early on when Todd was thinking should he cast an actor who has access to the cello? Or a cellist who can who can possibly act? And in the end, the decision was made to go for a cellist. Sophie showed up, and I was just amazed at her facility. For her, who is still studying in Denmark, to play with the Dresden Philharmonic was nerve-racking at best. She had life imitating art, where she was the chosen one and she was a student, which is kind of what happens to [the character] Olga. There were so many parallels. Watching her confidence grow was such a privilege — but then watching her as an actor!
Field: She had the rhythm and the ear.
Blanchett: The rhythm and the ear, which bypassed psychology. As an actor, there’s so many ways into a role, and it doesn’t always have to be an intellectual connection. It’s something other, something mysterious. And she totally had that. I was in awe of what she did.
“Tár” opens in select theaters Oct. 14 and nationwide Oct. 28. | 2022-10-14T10:47:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cate Blanchett on ‘Tár’ role: 'Music is often the starting point for me’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/cate-blanchett-tar-todd-field/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/cate-blanchett-tar-todd-field/ |
How ‘Till’ reframes the enduring story of a brutal American murder
Danielle Deadwyler appears as Mamie Till-Mobley in “Till.” (Lynsey Weatherspoon/Orion Pictures via AP)
The brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till at the hands of two White men in Jim Crow-era Mississippi is deeply embedded in the American psyche. As a major catalyst to the burgeoning civil rights movement, the horror of the 1955 lynching reverberates with racially motivated hate crimes of the modern era, exposing the injustices that persist. The politics of this dialogue remain fraught; just five years ago, Black artists protested the Whitney Biennial’s decision to feature a White woman’s painting of Emmett’s corpse.
The artist, Dana Schutz, based her painting off David Jackson’s widely publicized photograph of Emmett’s mutilated body, taken and published at the urging of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who held an open-casket funeral in Chicago because she “wanted the world to see what they did to my boy.” At the center of debate over Schutz’s work was a question of cultural ownership. Emmett’s murder, which occurred after he was accused of flirting with a White woman working at a grocery store, was a pivotal moment in history — but whose story was it to tell?
Enter “Till,” a new film by director Chinonye Chukwu looking back at what is inarguably the most impactful telling of what happened to Emmett: his own mother’s. Chukwu reframes the story by focusing on Mamie, following her journey as she reluctantly steps into the spotlight and transforms from shellshocked parent to determined activist. The film, which opens Friday in Washington, grants viewers a fuller understanding of the woman who made a choice to grieve with the world, inspiring action for decades to come.
“One of the things I asked myself is, how do I tell this story in a way that feels fresh even though we know there’s not going to be a guilty verdict?” Chukwu said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. “The narrative arc is not about whether they’re going to be guilty or not. It’s Mamie realizing that, ‘Oh, my activist work … is bigger than that.’ ”
Chukwu wrote “Till” with producers Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp, the latter of whom grew close to Till-Mobley in real life while conducting extensive research for his 2005 documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” (which contributed to the Justice Department reopening the case). According to Chukwu, producers spent nearly two decades trying to make “Till”; its long-anticipated release happened to land the same year as “Women of the Movement,” an ABC miniseries also centering on Mamie.
Review: ‘Till’ lands a gut punch with the tale of Emmett Till’s murder
Danielle Deadwyler, who plays Mamie in the film, said the process of embodying the character was “deeply, deeply spiritual.” Chukwu took great care in guiding Deadwyler through the scene in which Mamie sees her son’s deceased body for the first time, perhaps the most daunting challenge for an actress in the role. Together they broke down the individual emotional beats, which build to a harrowing crescendo.
“It’s not just, ‘All right, a mother is sobbing over her son’s body,’ ” Chukwu said. “There is an underlying anger that’s built up, and rage … In breaking down that scene, what is the emotional journey that leads to the release that Mamie lets out, and then leads to her critical decision? All of that is unspoken.”
Deadwyler added that this level of vulnerability was often in real life “something that publicly wasn’t seen because [Till-Mobley] had to perform a particular kind of Black personhood, and a respectability.”
The true story of how Mamie Till-Mobley, played by Danielle Deadwyler, sought justice for her son, Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955 at 14 years old. (Video: United Artists Releasing)
Ellen Scott, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, said “Till” exists among narratives that have “historically been viewed as not interesting to Hollywood or actively repressed because of what they say about race in America.” That a major release so thoroughly examines the inner life of a Black mother — and one who lost her son to reprehensible hatred — is notable, according to Scott, who found it significant that “Till” was co-written and directed by a Black woman as well. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Black American women directed narrative feature films, she said: “That history is really key.”
Scott echoed Chukwu in expressing how narrative storytelling techniques can “support emotional buildup,” as the professor put it. Because of its framing, “Till” explores how Mamie’s decision to publicize her son’s murder was “a kind of personal activism that I think is resonant in our particular moment.”
“Film history has its own canon,” Scott said, “and I think putting a film like this into that canon changes the conversation about what deserves to be an epic story.”
As a study of grief, “Till” depicts the full spectrum of emotions experienced by those close to Emmett (Jalyn Hall), from the heartbreak suffered by his grandmother, Alma Carthan (Whoopi Goldberg), to the guilt wracking his great-uncle Moses Wright (John Douglas Thompson), whose family Emmett was visiting in Mississippi. Among the most moving moments in the film is a quiet conversation between Mamie and Myrlie Evers (Jayme Lawson), the wife of activist and NAACP leader Medgar Evers, about the difficulties of raising Black children in the United States and the sacrifices involved in fighting for a greater cause.
Till-Mobley evokes a sort of mythic archetype, according to Thomas Allen Harris, a Yale University professor of film and media studies who likened her “dealing with a tragedy and coming out on the other side” to a hero’s journey. But in literary tradition, he added, the hero myth often involves stories of men.
“I think it’s so important to redefine womanhood through the lens of a film like this,” said Harris, who also teaches African American studies and noted that Till-Mobley defied much of what was societally expected of women, and especially Black women, in the 1950s.
The most famous Hollywood depictions of American civil rights leaders tend to center on men as well. “Till” sheds light on the instrumental role a Black woman played in the movement, which Harris said continues to resonate with racial justice efforts today. Black Lives Matter, for instance, was co-founded by three Black women.
Chukwu approached making “Till” as an extension of Till-Mobley’s original mission. The film doesn’t visually depict the acts of violence carried out against Emmett; at the world premiere in New York, Chukwu stated that “where the camera focuses is its own act of resistance.” But “Till” does feature a recreation of Emmett’s corpse, which Mamie can still identify as her son despite him having become unrecognizable to others.
“It was so critical to the story and her journey,” Chukwu told The Post of showing the body in her film.
In addition to the photograph, the real-life cruelty of Emmett’s murder remains accessible through a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where his casket is on display. While the Justice Department closed Emmett’s reopened case last year without filing charges, President Biden in March signed into law the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime after more than a century of similar attempts. If the high-profile murder of George Floyd “taught us anything, it’s that we are still way too close to the same racial issues and problems that we were in Emmett Till’s day,” said Scott, the UCLA professor.
“To the people who say, ‘Enough is enough, we don’t need any more of that,’ I understand where that’s coming from and I understand the need to look away,” Scott said of art that engages with racial violence. “But the extent to which we have not reckoned with our past is a big part of why we are where we are today.” | 2022-10-14T10:47:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘Till’ reframes the enduring story of a brutal American murder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/emmett-till-mamie-movie/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/14/emmett-till-mamie-movie/ |
One of the nation’s top entertainers, Hazel Scott, blew up piano jazz in the 1940s. Then she vanished. A Washington arts presenter and Dance Theatre of Harlem are launching a revival.
Perspective by Sarah L. Kaufman
Dance critic
Hazel Scott, a world-famous jazz and classical pianist, singer and movie star, was blacklisted during the anti-Communist fervor of the 1950s. (Dance Theatre of Harlem)
Before her dazzling career dropped out from under her, Hazel Scott blew up piano jazz and redefined what it meant to be a Black artist and a Black woman in America.
You’ve probably never heard of her because her fame as a piano virtuoso and jazz innovator was no match for the anti-Communist witch hunt that seized Congress in the 1950s, under the sway of Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Scott, at the time, was a diva and a dynamo. She’d made a string of movies and hosted her own television show. She could play two pianos at once with the composure of a queen, and was known for “swinging the classics,” adding syncopation and a boogie-woogie beat to Bach and Chopin.
Lloyd’s of London insured her hands for a million dollars.
But her art and her stardom were uninsurable. In 1950, after Scott was blacklisted, she lost every support system on which a musician depends — bookings, advertisers, radio spots, managers. Eventually, she faded from history.
That’s changing now, as Alicia Keys, ballet dancers, filmmakers and other artists rediscover this glamorous, singularly gifted and outspoken free spirit. At the 2019 Grammy Awards, Keys gave a shout-out to Scott after sitting between two pianos to play a bit of ragtime. Soon hits on YouTube, clips of Scott from the 1940s, soared.
This fall, with a string of public events, Washington Performing Arts (WPA) and the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) are launching their own Scott revival. A PBS American Masters documentary on Scott, titled “The Disappearance of Miss Scott,” is also in production, though the release date has not been announced.
“How is it possible that this woman was one of the most famous performers in American history, when you think of her wealth and her presence on TV and radio, and yet she’s unknown?” said Jenny Bilfield, president of Washington Performing Arts, a presenting organization.
“That was horrifying to us.”
Why Solange is a smart choice to compose for New York City Ballet
Scott’s disappearance is astonishing, any way you look at it. She had aced the American Dream. Born in Trinidad, she moved with her mother to New York when she was little older than a toddler. Already a piano prodigy, she shocked the prestigious Juilliard School into accepting her at age 8 by playing her own riff on Rachmaninoff. She eventually reshaped jazz with her ebullient, high-spirited touch, hands racing like white-water rapids in a blur across the keys.
She refused to play at segregated clubs. She made a handful of movies, insisting she play only herself. Not for her were the subservient roles Black women could be pushed into — and not for anyone around her, either. In “The Heat’s On,” a 1943 film starring Mae West, Scott refused to sing and play the piano in a scene where other Black women danced in dirty aprons streaked with grease and oil.
“She said, ‘I will not be part of this,’ ” said Karen Chilton, who wrote the book “Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist, From Cafe Society to Hollywood to HUAC.” “She told them, ‘You can’t depict us this way. We’re walking off until the costumes are replaced.’ And all the women followed her lead,” Chilton said. After a three-day boycott, the aprons were swapped out for pretty dresses. Not long after, Scott’s Hollywood career was over.
Our dance critic tried 15 dance apps. Here’s what she learned, and her top picks for fine-tuning your moves.
No matter — she moved to television, and in 1950 became the first Black American to host a weekly TV show built around herself, with no guest artists, just Scott and her backup band, including future jazz greats Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums.
But shortly after “The Hazel Scott Show’s” premiere, Scott was named along with 150 others in Red Channels, a publication that purported to out suspected Communists and sympathizers in radio and television. Chilton believes Scott was targeted because she performed at Cafe Society, the legendary (and integrated) New York nightclub. Many of its regulars suffered guilt by association; the owner’s brother, Chilton said, had Communist ties. Scott’s marriage to Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. also put her under scrutiny.
“One of the politicians he campaigned for was an avowed Communist member,” said Chilton. “Adam would ask her to play for a fundraiser, and Hazel was caught in the crosshairs, even though she wasn’t a member of any of that.”
Her TV show was canceled, along with everything else. Furious, Scott vowed to defend herself by volunteering to speak before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Her husband thought this was a terrible idea. Their son, Adam Clayton Powell III, was 5 or 6 years old at the time and remembers an argument over dinner.
“My father was saying, ‘You shouldn’t do this, you can’t win against these people,’ ” Powell said in a recent interview. “She said, ‘But I’m right. I’m going to tell them they’re the ones who are un-American.’ ”
And she did. Of course, it made no difference — except to the arc of her own career. She was “invisible-ized,” said Linda Murray, curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. People of color were especially susceptible to falling through history’s cracks if they were blacklisted, she said.
“It kept them off the main stages. Their work wasn’t photographed, reviewed, documented,” Murray said. “Our history is written by what we leave behind, and we don’t have the documents to remember these artists.”
With her livelihood gone, Scott moved to Paris, where she led a smaller musical life. Yet while the American public may have forgotten her, fellow jazz musicians hadn’t.
“I’d come home from school and Lester Young might be on the couch,” said Powell. His father had stayed behind, and eventually the couple divorced. Mother and son found a new family as expatriates who opened their home to traveling colleagues.
“The entire Duke Ellington band might come to dinner in our apartment,” Powell said. “I played checkers with Quincy Jones. My two ‘aunts’ were Lena Horne and Billie Holiday, and my ‘uncle’ was Dizzy Gillespie.”
But when Scott returned to New York in the 1960s, she struggled to find work in the shadow of Miles Davis, Motown and the Beatles. She died in 1981 at age 61, unknown to most — except for her musician friends. Gillespie, Powell said, joined him at his mother’s bedside as she lay in a coma, suffering from cancer. The great trumpeter put a mute in his horn and played softly for her, and just before she died, Powell said, “she opened her eyes and smiled.”
Last week at Sidney Harman Hall in downtown Washington, WPA opened its fall season with performances by Dance Theatre of Harlem that featured a new ballet commissioned by WPA, titled “Sounds of Hazel.” It was choreographed by Tiffany Rea-Fisher in a mix of hip-swaying Afro-Caribbean dance, swing dance and soft-edged ballet. The sound design, created by composer Erica “Twelve45” Blunt, included a couple of Scott’s piano recordings and excerpts from a searing radio interview Scott gave in 1951.
In episodic form, the ballet evoked key moments in Scott’s life: Trinidad and its calypso rhythms; the jazz scene at Cafe Society; and the elegance of Paris.
For all its color and sweep, though, the work made clear the challenge of rekindling Scott’s interpretive fire, and her warmth and ease as a musician. Scott was a performer, not a composer or a songwriter, so what remains of her work is a relatively small collection of her recordings. In this ballet, her force of personality came through most movingly in the recorded radio interview, heard in a voice-over.
“Bigots don’t belong in this country. It’s too big for them, it’s too great for them,” Scott declared in a clear, ringing voice, as a group of dancers whirled slowly, expansively, then exited the stage one by one.
“I’m so glad to be a citizen of America,” Scott continued, as one young man, shirtless and muscled, was left alone. “I would live nowhere else.” The dancer gazed defiantly into the audience before sauntering into the wings.
A post shared by Dance Theatre of Harlem (@dancetheatreofharlem)
DTH will tour the ballet to Charleston Oct. 20-21, Seattle on Nov. 5, and, in 2023, to New York and Worcester, Mass. In the Washington area, WPA continues its Scott celebration with “A Night at Cafe Society,” Nov. 11 at Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club, with live performances and archival audio and video.
WPA had wanted these events to happen in 2020, Scott’s centennial year, but the coronavirus pandemic got in the way. It’s likely that this is the better moment, after 2020′s racial reckoning and the deepening of interest in Black artists. If in some ways Scott’s story is one of missed timing — she was a TV pioneer who couldn’t capitalize on TV’s rise; a star silenced as her popularity was soaring — this revival, modest as it may be for now, feels like it’s landing at the right time.
Before it’s too late.
“If we don’t find ways to make this moment of time visible to the next generation,” said WPA’s Bilfield, “it will be lost.” | 2022-10-14T10:47:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why was Hazel Scott, famous Black pianist, blacklisted by McCarthyism? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/13/hazel-scott-jazz-pianist-mccarthy-huac/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/13/hazel-scott-jazz-pianist-mccarthy-huac/ |
A play about a werewolf, with the audience in the middle of the woods
Playwright Bob Bartlett has staged his work in a laundromat before. His latest show is performed outside, by flashlight.
By Celia Wren
Patrick Kilpatrick, left, and Nicholas Gerwitz in “Lykos Anthropos.” (Teresa Castracane)
Local playwright Bob Bartlett is a longtime horror buff, raised on monster movies and the works of Stephen King. He makes no apologies for situating his newest play, the werewolf-themed “Lykos Anthropos,” within that genre.
After all, theater should connect viscerally with audiences, and horror can do just that, he says. “That wash of fear that comes over you, that tingle of fear — isn’t that what we want from an audience?” he says in a phone interview. “Don’t we want them to feel our stories in this kind of primal way?”
Upping the chances for primal terror, “Lykos Anthropos” is a site-specific piece, performed outdoors in a wooded clearing in Davidsonville, Md., with performances starting Oct. 21. The locale echoes the story that unfurls in the two-actor play, directed by Alex Levy: It’s a tale of guilt, fear and the moon, set in a lonely spot in the mountains of West Virginia.
Bartlett says the approximately 20 ticket holders who will be admitted to each evening performance (there will be no matinees) will walk from their cars into the woods, bringing with them a flashlight or lantern to light their path and a folding chair or blanket.
Bypassing a conventional venue — the sturdy walls, the reassuring exit signs — makes it easier to create a play that scares, Bartlett believes. “Horror is really difficult to write for the stage,” he says. “And I think it’s because [in a dedicated theater space], it’s almost impossible for us to forget that we’re in a theater, and that we are safe.”
Bartlett, 59, is no stranger to traditional venues, fittingly enough for a writer who also has a distinguished career as an associate professor at Bowie State University. His plays have run at the likes of 1st Stage (2018’s “Swimming With Whales,” a tale of loss and healing on Nantucket) and Rep Stage (2019’s “E2,” an audacious reimagining of Christopher Marlowe’s 16th-century play “Edward II”).
But he has also dipped into venturesome producing models. In 2013, he was one of the playwrights who founded the collective the Welders, whose theater-artist members produce their own works. After moving on from that group (whose blueprint calls for its cohorts of artists to exit after a time and pass the baton to others), he has self-produced site-specific plays like his “The Accident Bear,” which had a weeks-long sold-out run in an Annapolis laundromat in 2018. In spring 2023, he plans to mount a rom-com in an Annapolis record store.
Who are the new Welders?
Site-specific producing can remove some of the barriers to getting a play up and running. “As writers, we have stories that may not be marketable to the American theater, or whatever they’re looking for, at a particular moment,” Bartlett observes. But offbeat spaces can also have their own theatrical power. “There’s just something about site-specific theater that I think gets under an audience’s skin in ways that going to a regular theater can’t,” he says.
The idea for “Lykos Anthropos” came to him this spring, when he was staying alone in a mountain cabin while attending a friend’s wedding. One morning, around sunrise, he went out on the back deck. “There was a mist coming down, and it was a little creepy,” he remembers. Right then, he started writing a monologue that became the seed of the play.
Funded in part with money that accompanied a faculty award Bartlett received from the University System of Maryland board of regents, he subsequently wrote the bulk of the script while staying in an Airbnb in Rhodes, Greece. The Greek myth of Lycaon — a sacrilegious king transformed into a wolf as punishment for attempting to trick the god Zeus — informed the play.
It may be a propitious time to unleash werewolf-themed theater. “We really are living in the golden age of horror, led by Jordan Peele,” Bartlett says, citing examples like the films of Ari Aster (“Midsommar”) and the multiple iterations of the vampire tale “Let the Right One In.”
He believes the genre is in some way profound. Horror resonates with “this deep fear in us that our way of life is going to radically change, that the trappings of modern life are going to disappear, and that we’re going to have to go back to a more primal way of living,” he says.
And as a way to mainline into a viewer’s emotions, horror can hardly be beat. He still has vivid memories of being allowed, as a child, to stay up to watch George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.” “I made it through the first six or seven minutes, and then I didn’t sleep for a week,” he remembers.
“Lykos Anthropos” draws on that experience, since “our earliest memories always stay with us, and they form a lot of the art that we’re attracted to,” Bartlett says. Whether his new play will elicit similarly intense reactions in its flashlight-toting audience is still to be seen. But he certainly intends the work to be, in part, “a deep-dive investigation into fear in our lives, and what it does to us.”
Lykos Anthropos
A wooded clearing at 215 Emilys Way, Davidsonville, Md. bob-bartlett.com.
Prices: $25. Advance sales only and limited seating. Not recommended for children. | 2022-10-14T10:47:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Werewolf play, staged in a clearing in the woods, goes for chills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/14/bob-bartlett-lykos-anthropos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/14/bob-bartlett-lykos-anthropos/ |
The states where teachers still hit students — and more reader questions!
Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera addresses a crowd in Dublin. In 1937, he led the initiative to sever Ireland's ties to the British Commonwealth and become a sovereign state. (Bettmann Archive)
So far, readers have submitted more than 700 brilliant data questions for DoD consideration. We may never get to every one of them, but that won’t stop us from trying. So let’s get started with this week’s Data Dive, inspired by questions submitted by readers literally from coast to coast!
Where teachers still use paddles
You might want to look at corporal punishment of children in schools.
— Lucien Lombardo, New York
As a means of controlling classrooms or improving academic performance, corporal punishment has an uninspiring track record. Last year, a review of 69 studies published in the medical journal the Lancet found “physical punishment is ineffective in achieving parents’ goal of improving child behaviour and instead appears to have the opposite effect of increasing unwanted behaviours.”
The good news is that, in most of the country, fewer than 0.01 percent of public school students were paddled, slapped or otherwise physically punished in the 2017-2018 school year, the most recent for which we have data from the U.S. Education Department.
The bad news is that 10 states, mostly in the South, don’t seem to have gotten the memo.
Those 10 states accounted for a full 99 percent of incidents of corporal punishment reported to the Education Department. About 75 percent happened in just four Southern states: Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Arkansas.
Mississippi is the nation’s corporal-punishment capital, and it’s not particularly close. About 4.2 percent of students there were physically punished, more than double the rate in Arkansas, which ranked second at 1.8 percent. That adds up to more than 20,000 Mississippi students being paddled in the 2017-2018 school year — nearly a third of all American public-school students who were physically punished that year.
In the 10 paddling states, Native American and Black boys are punished at the highest rates (more than double the average), while White boys and boys with disabilities also face relatively high rates of corporal punishment. Girls are physically punished at much lower rates, with Native Americans, Blacks and girls with disabilities bearing the brunt of such punishment in those states.
University of Texas at Austin developmental psychologist Elizabeth Gershoff, one of the authors of the Lancet study, said most research on corporal punishment focuses on parents rather than teachers and other school officials. But her review of school-focused research worldwide shows such punishment worsens students’ academics and behavior, she said.
“It is also important to note that children suffer physical pain and injury as well,” Gershoff said in an email. “This is not surprising given that children are hit with boards. If an adult was hit with such boards/paddles, it would be considered assault and the board would be considered a weapon.”
Where rich kids move as adults
Can you break down moving trends by income levels and ethnic groups?
— Jeff Brown in Seattle
Tremendous question, Mr. Brown! And by “tremendous” I mean “we have the data to answer it!”
A previous column looked at top destinations for young adults who moved away from home by age 26. We found that the most popular metro for White people was New York City, while Asian and Hispanic people were most likely to move to Los Angeles. Young Black women and men preferred Atlanta.
But what happens if you break this data down, as Mr. Brown suggests, by parents’ income, a factor that determines so much in life, but which itself is rarely measured? Sonya Porter of the Census Bureau and Ben Sprung-Keyser and Nathaniel Hendren from Harvard University have done just that for U.S.-born young adults using anonymized government tax records.
When we split the data by income rather than race, we find New York City is the place to be for young adults from households in the highest income brackets. The top destination for young adults with the poorest parents is Atlanta. The middle class prefers Los Angeles.
These divisions are, of course, driven in part by race. New York is tops for rich kids in part because it’s the top destination for White people, who are overrepresented among high earners. Meanwhile, Atlanta rules among low earners because it attracts many Black Americans, who are overrepresented among low earners due in part to centuries of systemic discrimination.
Folks from high-income families are substantially more likely to move, regardless of their race. But White people are far more likely to move regardless of their family income: Even U.S.-born White people from the most modest backgrounds tend to be more mobile than their most fortunate U.S.-born Black, Asian and Hispanic friends — those whose parents earned in the top 20 percent.
Other research shows that moving to cities with better opportunities is one of the best ways to move up America’s income and class ladders. If these opportunities are disproportionately available to White people, it could exacerbate economic inequality. To be sure, this study doesn’t include immigrants — we lack comparable U.S. tax data for their parents — and other studies have shown them to be more mobile than their U.S.-born peers.
“There’s a strong sense that moving to opportunity is a key pathway for improving one’s income prospects,” Harvard’s Hendren said.
One of the most interesting things about the list, though, is what isn’t on it: Chicago.
“The Second City” is now America’s third-largest metro, but it ranks as a top-five destination only for high-income White people. By contrast, the top two metros among young opportunity-seekers — New York and Los Angeles — are broadly favored across races and income groups.
Visit migrationpatterns.org for more of the underlying data and incredibly detailed interactive maps filled with arcane factoids sure to impress your dating-app matches. (How many people who grew up in Columbia, Mo., ended up in nearby St. Louis, you ask? Why, 6.6 percent of young Black people did, compared with only 4.5 percent of young White people.)
Countries that make the highest tech
Sources often quote William Gibson, telling me “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” That raises the question: where has the future already arrived? What are the highest-tech countries on earth?
— Andrew Van Dam, newspaper columnist, suburban Virginia
Japan is the highest-tech nation on earth, according to a trade-data analysis from Ulrich Schetter, a researcher at Harvard University’s Growth Lab. South Korea comes in second after a meteoric rise up the ranks, and Germany is now third, having slid from the dominant technical position it held in the 1960s and ’70s.
The United States slipped to 12th, just behind France and Britain and just ahead of Singapore and Slovenia — raising the prospect that the world’s top political and military power could fall behind China, where technology is advancing steadily.
Schetter measures a country’s technological advancement with detailed trade data on more than 1,200 products. Countries climb the rankings by exporting technologically fancy things like nuclear reactors, electric trains and clock movements, but rank lower if they trade in less-advanced fare such as bags (for packing), tobacco or tubers.
Though his methodology may be complicated — he computes a massive matrix and assesses how similar every possible pair of countries is in terms of the items they trade — the idea behind it is pretty intuitive, Schetter said.
“Basically, you just say, ‘Okay, let me just look at the technology capabilities of countries, which is revealed through the products that they make,’ ” Schetter told us.
By this measure, Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam rank higher than you’d expect, as do such former Warsaw Pact stalwarts as Poland and the Czech Republic.
The best question we can’t answer
Mehmet Oz is a Turkish citizen, running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Have any Americans run for a foreign office?
— Jim Ward, Alexandria, Va.
Our immediate answer to your question is: Yes, at least one.
Éamon de Valera was born in New York City in 1882 to an Irish mother and moved to Ireland as an infant. A prominent leader in the Easter Rising, he would become the country’s first prime minister (Taoiseach) and remain a dominant force in Irish politics until he retired from the presidency at age 90 in 1973.
But if anyone out there has compiled systematic data on this question, we’d love to see it!
Howdy! The Department of Data has an endless appetite for fun facts! What are the lowest-tax states? Why have fire deaths in the U.S. risen steadily for the past decade? When money is tight, what health-care needs do Americans ignore first? Just ask!
To get every question, answer and factoid in your inbox as soon as we publish, sign up here. If your question inspires a column, we’ll send an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week, the buttons go to Jeff, Lucien and Jim, who posed the questions above. | 2022-10-14T11:00:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Where teachers still paddle students and other reader questions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/states-teachers-paddle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/states-teachers-paddle/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Kyiv accuses Red Cross of inaction; Kherson resident...
The BASF chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, has cut back operations in the face of high energy prices. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany — Larger than Lower Manhattan, the sprawling BASF chemical plant on the Rhine River is a symbol of both German industrial might and how much Europe’s largest economy has to lose in its worst energy crisis in generations.
On any given day, the plant uses more power than Switzerland as it churns out everything from rubber for sneakers to coatings for cars. But the fallout from the war in Ukraine is exacting a high price. During the second quarter of the year alone, sky-high natural gas prices jolted the company’s energy bill up by the equivalent of $776 million.
To contain costs, the plant has begun streamlining operations and cutting high-energy production of ammonia for fertilizers — compounding a fertilizer shortage on the continent that is threatening the global food supply. Should energy availability in Germany turn critical in the coming months, Chief Executive Martin Brudermüller has warned, the company may have to shift more production to “plants outside of Europe.”
“We have a war on our doorstep in Europe and an unprecedented energy crisis that is threatening the very existence of Europe’s industrial production,” Brudermüller told chemical industry executives last week. He added, “many of our value chains are breaking up as we speak.”
Russia’s revival of war in Europe has prompted seismic shifts in Germany. In the early days of the invasion, the German government moved away from a posture of military restraint adopted in the shadow of World War II. Officials announced a dramatic increase of defense spending and dropped opposition to weapons deliveries to conflict zones.
Now, fallout from the war is forcing a further reassessment of modern Germany’s foundations. The nation grew prosperous, establishing itself as the economic engine of Europe and the world’s fourth largest economy, by relying on the twin pillars of cheap Russian energy and manufacturing exports. But as the German economy sputters — threatening to drag down Europe with it — the economic model that gave rise to Germany, Inc. has been thrown into doubt.
“We were too dependent on one country — Russia — and we’re paying for that now,” said Claudia Kemfert, one of Germany’s leading energy experts. “Germany has to change, and we’ve known that for a long time now. This business model is not really sustainable.”
The souring of western ties with Moscow has had outsize impact here. Before the war, Russia supplied more than half of the natural gas used in Germany — for industrial production, to heat homes and to generate electricity. Now, with the main pipeline from Russia shut off, Germany has had to seek other suppliers, and is paying 7 to 10 times last year’s prices.
At the same time, the country is feeling the ramifications of its reliance on industrial exports. Germany is the world’s third-biggest exporter, behind the United States. But manufacturing makes up roughly 20 percent of the economy, compared with about 11 percent in the United States. That’s made Germany particularly vulnerable to turbulence in world trade and energy prices.
Already, energy price shocks, layered on top of pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions and a softening of global demand, have eroded the country’s legendary trade surplus. Economists say Germany is poised for recession next year — the International Monetary Fund predicts it could suffer the worst hit among major economies other than Russia.
But the ripple effects would be felt far beyond Germany, especially if a recession coincides with energy shortages.
A German slowdown would put pressure on a single currency of the euro zone. Some economists are predicting it could push the euro below parity with the dollar for a sustained period.
Especially hurt would be countries in Eastern Europe that house suppliers for major German manufacturers, and whose economies are closely linked to Europe’s juggernaut via trade.
Production delays in Germany could also compound pandemic-related global supply-chain woes, especially for finished products such as cars, medical equipment and the other specialized industrial products that Germany is known for.
“If we have a recession in Germany, and I think this is unavoidable now, that will impact the broader European economy and the rest of the world,” said Emily Mansfield, Europe economist for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
For the time being, Germany’s energy reserves are brimming with boosted imports from Norway and the Netherlands. France, too, began sharing its gas with Germany through a newly modified pipeline on Thursday. A terminal to receive shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas from further afield is due to open next year. Germany is also burning more coal and oil.
Germany is firing up old coal plants, sparking fears climate goals will go up in smoke
Meanwhile, a nation that once scolded other countries in Europe for profligate spending is — to the chagrin of its neighbors — deploying hundreds of billions of euros to keep its economy afloat and shield its companies and consumers from high energy prices, a solution critics say could fan the fires of already-high European inflation.
But fully replacing Russian gas imports will be a costly and complicated process that might leave energy prices elevated in Germany for years, and sharply higher for at least the next 12 months. A particularly cold winter, analysts say, could spark shortages as soon as early next year.
“Even if the economy in general is relieved by the price brake,” said Peter Adrian, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, “there are two economically challenging winters ahead of companies. Gas conservation and big business efforts remain central to getting through the energy crisis.”
Some companies have been cycling down production of energy-intensive goods like ammonia and aluminum, turning to imports or relocating production. Other firms are doubling up on inventories, in anticipation of shortages of everything from glass windshields for BMW convertibles to bottles for German beer.
Speira, a German aluminum giant that makes processed metals for fuel-efficient cars, beverage packaging and construction, made the hard decision last month to slash in-house aluminum production by 50 percent at its Rhinework plant in the city of Nuess. Natural gas prices had risen so high that one ton of aluminum was selling for only one-third of the price of the energy needed to make it.
“This cannot be sustained,” said Volker Backs, the company’s managing director. “It is impossible. That not only applies to aluminum. That applies for the whole of German industry. There is currently no energy-intensive industry which would state that the current [conditions] are sufficient. Nobody.”
Citing the “current energy cost environment in Europe,” U.S.-based Trinseo last month announced the potential closure of a chemical plant in Boehlen, Germany, after losing $30 million over the last four quarters. Also in September, Volkswagen Group warned some of its component makers that it might consider moving production out of Germany in the medium term if gas shortages persisted.
“Politicians must also curb the currently uncontrolled explosion in gas and electricity prices,” Thomas Steg, the company’s head of external relations, told reporters. “Otherwise, small- and medium-sized energy-intensive companies in particular will have major problems in the supply chain and will have to reduce or stop production.”
Asked this week whether the government’s proposed interventions alleviated concerns, the company said in a statement to The Washington Post that capping the price of gas would be helpful to companies for “planning security” and “safeguarding production and employment.”
“A final assessment will only be possible once the concrete implementation of the measures by the German government and the Bundestag has been determined,” the company said, adding that “the Volkswagen Group, with its brands and at all locations, will exhaust the possibilities to achieve significant savings in gas and energy consumption in the coming months.”
Some countries criticized by Berlin during the debt crisis of the past decade are watching Germany’s woes with a measure of schadenfreude.
“Unlike other countries, Spaniards have not lived beyond their means from an energy point of view,” Spain’s energy minister Teresa Ribera said in July, parroting a phrase German officials once wielded to describe freewheeling government spending in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy.
To an extent, Germany’s predicament recalls the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period of high unemployment and low growth when the country was dubbed the “sick man of Europe.” There are differences. Germany today has labor shortages and one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe. But solving the energy problem may prove just as difficult as the hard-won labor and work contract reforms that helped clear the path for Germany to bloom by the mid-2000s.
And Germany’s difficulties could run beyond energy, to Berlin’s close trading ties with China. The Chinese economy has already been slowing. And some experts fear that market could become as poisoned as Russia’s in the event of a future showdown with the West over Taiwan.
The German government last month announced it would develop a new trade policy that reduced its reliance on Chinese raw materials, and components such as semiconductors, in what officials described as a break with “naivete.”
“Russian gas was one mistake,” Kemfert said. “Our reliance on China could be our next big problem.”
Yet the industrious Germans also see a silver lining, saying the energy crisis has crystallized the folly of overreliance on Russian gas, and the pain of weaning off it now will pay off in the medium term, by giving the country and its companies a stronger, more secure and greener energy mix.
In central Germany, for instance, pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim is putting the finishing touches on a massive new biomass plant that will generate 80 percent of the factory’s energy needs next year, mostly by burning old furniture.
A $200-million investment made before the onset of the current energy crisis, the model of energy self-reliance at the factory is now seen by many German companies as the best solution to the roiling energy crisis now.
“This will make us really independent,” said Sabine Nikolaus, the company’s Germany head. | 2022-10-14T11:08:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Germany poised for recession without cheap Russian gas and big trade surplus - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/germany-economy-recession-energy-exports/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/germany-economy-recession-energy-exports/ |
Series I savings bonds offer a safe bet amid fears of a recession. But you have to complete your purchase by Oct. 28 to get this rate.
If you have money to spare — parked in a low-paying savings account — the Treasury Department’s Series I savings bond is paying 9.62 percent right now, the highest yield since the bond debut in 1998.
But you only have a short window, until the end of October, to take advantage of the rate. Savers who want to lock in that rate for an additional six months have until Friday, Oct. 28 to make their I bond purchase to ensure that it will be issued by the Oct. 31 deadline.
Prices rose in September and ensure tough interest rates to come
Some indexes declined in September, including those for used cars and trucks and apparel. Consumer price increases were partly offset by a 4.9 percent decline in the gasoline index. So, it is likely that the inflation index part of the I bond could see a rate drop in November.
However, investors who buy I bonds before Nov. 1 will still get the 9.62 percent rate for the first six months they hold the bonds. But you have to get your confirmation email for the purchase of your I bond by 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 28 to ensure you lock in the rate.
— To buy an electronic I bond, you must first set up an account at TreasuryDirect.gov.
— Individuals can purchase up to $10,000 in I bonds in a calendar year. For married couples, each spouse can purchase up to the $10,000 limit.
— Don’t buy an I bond with money you think you’ll need soon. This is not the place to put funds you need to access in case of an emergency expense such as a major car repair. Those funds should stay in your savings account. You have to hold an I bond for 12 months from the issue date before it can be redeemed.
— If you cash in the bond in less than five years, you lose the last three months of interest. Once your I bond is five years old, there is no interest penalty if you cash it in.
This key Treasury bond is paying a high rate. Here is how to buy it.
— If you have never set up a TreasuryDirect account before, take the guided tour on the website and be sure to read the directions carefully to minimize any issues. People who encounter problems will find it hard to reach a live person to help. Wait times for assistance at 844-284-2676 can be long. (Calls are accepted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday).
— Given the problems some people have had setting up a TreasuryDirect account, don’t procrastinate. Get it done now. Don’t wait until Oct. 28. Savers searching for information or help to resolve an issue about I bonds have flooded TreasuryDirect, causing much longer waits than usual.
— If you have trouble setting up an online account, you’ll need to get paperwork signed by your bank. If that happens, it’s not likely you’ll make the Oct. 28 deadline.
What to know about the inflation index bonds paying 9.62 percent
If you have trouble setting up a TreasuryDirect account on your first try, you are unlikely to be able to meet the Oct. 28 deadline to take advantage of the 9.62 percent rate. There’s just not enough time to navigate the verification process. | 2022-10-14T11:13:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Get inflation-proof bonds paying 9.62 percent while there is still time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/inflation-proof-i-bonds-deadline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/inflation-proof-i-bonds-deadline/ |
The mystery lurking in California’s $8 gas prices
The Golden State has a ‘mystery gas surcharge.’ Some say it’s price gouging.
A woman pumps gas into her car at a Chevron station on Sept. 21 in Los Angeles. (Allison Dinner/Getty Images)
But some analysts say the most recent spike in California prices — the average price per gallon across the state as of Tuesday was $6.29 — is only part of a much longer, and potentially more destructive, trend. For the past seven years, California consumers have suffered through what one economist calls a “mystery gasoline surcharge.” That is, California gas prices are significantly higher than in the rest of the nation — and the price premium can’t be explained by state taxes and environmental regulations alone.
Severin Borenstein, a professor of business and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, first noticed the separation between the state’s gas prices and the rest of the nation in 2015. An ExxonMobil oil refinery operating in Torrance, Calif., had just exploded, and the interruption to gasoline refining explained the temporarily higher prices. But over the following months and years, Borenstein says, the difference never disappeared as he expected.
“It went up, and it never came down again,” he said.
California does have additional taxes and fees from environmental regulations that other states don’t have. The state’s low carbon fuels standard, for example, adds $0.08 to every gallon of gas. California gas taxes add another $0.17. But Borenstein’s data shows that, all told, California-specific taxes and regulations only account for around $0.83. In September, however, the average Californian was paying $1.57 more for gas than the average American, leaving a large “unexplained” surcharge. That’s a big gap — and in October, it could get even bigger.
So what’s behind the extra prices that Californians are paying? There are a few theories.
First, California uses its own special gas blend that lessens air pollution.(Other heavily populated metro areas around the country also have special blends, but California’s is more restrictive.) California is also what some call a "petroleum island” — there are no pipelines bringing refined oil into the state. That means that for the most part, gas stations across the state have to get their gasoline from one of the five major refiners that provide 96 percent of California’s gasoline: Chevron, Marathon, PBF Energy, Phillips 66 and Valero.
Oil companies say this means that if there are any disruptions to the refining process or to the incoming supply of crude oil, prices can easily spike.
Borenstein says oil refiners’ power in the market could allow them to set higher prices. He points out that while the spot price of gasoline in California — the price at which refiners sell their oil on the open market — is only 10 to 15 cents higher than the national average, refiners can sell their oil to branded gasoline stations — which make up the large majority of stations in California — for higher prices. The California surcharge, he said, “is very likely related to the fact that there are a small number of very powerful branded refiners that can take advantage of their market share.”
Jamie Court, the president of the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog, goes further. “I don’t call it a ‘mystery surcharge’ — I know what’s happened to the market," he said. “We’ve allowed consolidation.” Because branded stations are locked into contracts with the refiners, Court says, refiners can set high minimum prices that stations have to follow. He cites a report from his organization, drawn from SEC filings data, that argues that refiners have been making record profits over the past year or so.
But there could be other factors as well. Borenstein says the state should order an investigation into the surcharge to find out whether the contracts between refiners and retailers are actually the culprit; alternatively, he says, refiners could share their data if they want to prove environmental regulations are costing them more than estimated. “I posted my spreadsheet online and said, ‘Okay, show me yours,’ ” Borenstein said.
Kevin Slagle, the vice president of strategic communications for the Western States Petroleum Association, says the higher prices are caused by California’s specific fuel blend and regulatory requirements. Any disruptions to supply, he says, have knock-on effects for prices since refining capacity is so tight. “Let’s not forget that state policy in California is focused on eliminating refining and production in the state,” he said via email.
Even California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has recently stepped into the debate, saying on Friday that he would call for a special session of the legislature in December to pass a “windfall tax” on refiner profits. “This degree of divergence from national prices has never happened before,” the governor said in a speech. “Their record profits are coming at your expense.”
Whatever the cause, Borenstein says some form of investigation would be worthwhile. Since 2015, he estimates, the mystery surcharge has cost California consumers around $20 billion. | 2022-10-14T11:13:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The mystery lurking in California’s $8 gas prices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/california-mystery-gas-prices-surcharge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/14/california-mystery-gas-prices-surcharge/ |
Chocolate, a fixture of Halloween, can have serious environmental, climate and social impacts.
With just weeks until many neighborhood streets are flooded with candy-seeking trick-or-treaters, environmentalists and sustainability experts say you should consider taking a second look at the sweet treats you might be planning to hand out — or eat — this Halloween.
While chocolate is a crowd-pleaser, the ubiquitous candy “has some pretty close associations with two of the biggest environmental crises that we face right now, and that’s the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis,” says John Buchanan, vice president of sustainable production for Conservation International.
What’s more, much of the individually wrapped candies plucked from bowls at parties or hauled home at the end of the night contribute to the spooky holiday’s waste problem.
The trouble with chocolate
But Enck and other experts emphasize that axing the holiday isn’t the answer. “I would vigorously oppose canceling Halloween,” she says.
“I have very fond memories of trick-or-treating as a child. My kids had wonderful times trick-or-treating,” adds Carolyn Dimitri, an applied economist and associate professor of food studies at New York University. “It’s our culture, our custom — we give candy on Halloween.”
So, if you’re among the roughly two-thirds of Americans planning to pass out candy this year, here’s how experts recommend treating — rather than tricking — the planet with your choices.
Understand the impacts of candy
“It’s important for consumers, with any product that they buy, that they educate themselves about where it comes from and how it’s made and the impact of the product on the environment and the social implications of it,” says Alexander Ferguson, vice president for communications and membership at the nonprofit World Cocoa Foundation.
The environmental, climate and social impacts of popular candy products are largely associated with two common ingredients, experts say: cocoa and palm oil — both of which can be found in chocolate.
“In terms of sustainability, the biggest problems in confectionery are in chocolate,” says Etelle Higonnet, an environmental and human rights expert who helped create the first environmental scorecard for chocolate.
Companies typically source cocoa and palm oil from tropical areas often inhabited by people in less economically-developed communities, Dimitri says. According to some estimates, about 70 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa while around 90 percent of the world’s palm oil trees are grown on a handful of islands in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Producing cocoa and palm oil has led to the deforestation of critical rainforests, which poses problems for climate and biodiversity, Buchanan says. West Africa’s Ivory Coast, for instance, has lost 80 percent of its forests since 1970.
Preserving these rainforests can help the world meet its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to preindustrial levels, he adds.
“Deforestation and land use change are such huge drivers of emissions globally,” Buchanan says. “Even if we had a 100 percent perfect solution to green energy and … decarbonization, if you decarbonize the economy tomorrow, we still have to take nature into account if we are to stay below 1.5 degrees of warming. The global community must address both fossil fuel emissions and emissions associated with loss of natural areas and land use.”
Cocoa and palm oil are also linked to human rights issues, including forced labor and child labor.
Aside from taking steps to provide living wages to cocoa farmers, many of whom have been paid about $1 a day or less, major chocolate manufacturers such as Mars, Nestlé and Hershey have pledged to stop using cocoa harvested by children. But difficulties tracing cocoa back to farms means companies often can’t guarantee that their chocolate is produced without child labor, The Washington Post’s Peter Whoriskey and Rachel Siegel reported in 2019.
The chocolate industry is working on achieving better rates of traceability, or knowing where a product comes from, Ferguson says. “That sounds like a very simple thing, but actually it’s quite a hard thing to do when you’ve got many smallholder farmers and a long and complicated supply chain.”
The world has pledged to stop deforestation before. But trees are still disappearing at an ‘untenable rate.’
Additionally, poverty underpins many of the labor issues affecting those involved in the production of chocolate. Farmers often have to use their own children, because they can’t afford laborers.
“People tend to draw conclusions about the use of children in agriculture, and I think it’s important to keep in mind that for a lot of families there is not any other option,” Dimitri says.
Cocoa’s child laborers
Avoid palm oil
One of the simplest actions concerned consumers can take is to buy candy that doesn’t use palm oil, Dimitri says.
“Palm oil is really popular because it has really good mouthfeel and it’s really inexpensive,” she says. But it is possible to find products without the troublesome ingredient.
“A lot of candy companies have tried to reformulate their products so that they don’t have palm oil in them because there’s been resistance to it,” she adds.
Make sure to check ingredient labels carefully because some products from the same brand will still contain palm oil, even if other items do not.
Don’t boycott chocolate, buy better
You could buy Halloween candy that doesn’t contain cocoa, but experts caution against boycotting chocolate entirely.
Cocoa is mostly produced by individual farmers running small operations, Buchanan says. “If there isn’t a market for cocoa, they’re going to be even worse off, so you’re certainly not going to deal with challenges like child labor by taking away a key source of income.”
Instead, Ferguson says, “reward companies that are trying to do the right thing and stay engaged.”
Some experts recommend looking for third-party certification labels from groups such as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance that are intended to help distinguish products that meet certain ethical standards. Though these certifications can be flawed and don’t guarantee a perfect product, they are often better than nothing, experts say.
“Given the complexities and the challenges of what we’ve seen, I think that there’s really a risk of letting perfect be the enemy of the good,” Buchanan says.
Chocolate companies sell ‘certified cocoa.’ But some of those farms use child labor, harm forests.
Still, buying certified chocolate means fewer options — and the candy tends to be more expensive. For example, Tony’s Chocolonely, a company that sells Fairtrade-certified chocolate, offers 100 individually packaged chocolates for $48.69. Alter Eco also offers certified food products, including 60-count boxes of individually wrapped truffles for $49.99.
Higonnet also points consumers to resources such as the Chocolate Scorecard, which surveys major chocolate companies and ranks them based on criteria such as traceability and transparency, living income, child labor, and deforestation and climate, among others. According to the 2022 scorecard, several major brands that sell more affordable candy options are overall “starting to implement good policies.”
“The best thing, regardless of whether you’re buying from a big company or a small company, is to be pushing them and asking them what are they doing to be part of the solution,” Buchanan says. “It’s not as easy as just going to small specialty companies. Those companies have their role and they can do things differently with the way they operate, but they also have a small footprint. We need the big companies as well.”
Minimize waste
It’s also important to try to reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste and uneaten candy that gets thrown away. Keep in mind that you can donate unopened Halloween candy to organizations that send treats to soldiers and first responders or local community drives. But be sure to check donation requirements. Homemade items, for example, often aren’t accepted.
Many candy wrappers aren’t commonly recyclable, says Enck of Beyond Plastics, which provides a tip sheet for cutting back on plastic during Halloween. If possible, she suggests buying candy in bulk and putting it in paper bags, which can be recycled. Some popular candies, such as Nerds, Dots and Junior Mints, can also come individually packaged in recyclable cardboard boxes.
Although candy doesn’t stay good forever, it can remain safe and edible for longer than you might think, says Gregory Ziegler, a professor of food studies at Pennsylvania State University who specializes in chocolate and confectionery.
“From a safety standpoint, candy is pretty safe,” Ziegler says. “It has very little moisture in most of it and a lot of sugar is really what protects it from much microbial growth that might make it unsafe.”
But, he notes, there is a difference between safe and edible. The shelf life for most candy ends because of texture or flavor change, which can affect enjoyment, he says. For example, if chocolate melts and rehardens it can develop a white-ish cast known as bloom, which isn’t harmful but might cause the candy to taste bad.
Ziegler recommends storing Halloween candy in a dry, sealed container. You can also put sweets into the freezer or refrigerator. “Almost all the reactions that cause candy to go bad slow down the lower the temperature is.”
Most candy should last six months, he says. “If you treat it right, maybe longer than that.” | 2022-10-14T11:13:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to make more sustainable Halloween candy choices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/14/halloween-candy-chocolate-deforestation-labor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/14/halloween-candy-chocolate-deforestation-labor/ |
Bald eagles Harriet and M15 sit atop their nest in Fort Myers, Fla., before Hurricane Ian. (Southwest Florida Eagle Cam)
Animal instinct told Harriet and M15 they had to go. The bald eagles, a female and male respectively, left their slash pine tree in Fort Myers, Fla. — their home during annual mating season — seeking shelter a day before Hurricane Ian struck.
It’s not clear where the pair headed to weather the storm. Days later, just as they did during the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in 2017, the eagles returned to the tree looking for their nest 60 feet above ground.
But it was “completely gone,” said Ginnie Pritchett McSpadden, co-founder of the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam, a series of live cameras set up in 2012 so that millions of bird lovers can watch the pair 24/7. “Not a single stick was left,” she told The Washington Post. (The family is working to reset the live stream after the cameras went off when they lost power during Ian.)
So, Harriet and M15 got to work. Day after day, the pair has spent their time scouting for sticks, twigs, moss and other materials, and bringing them back to their tree to rebuild a nest for their future babies.
“It’s just given many people hope and strength to see that while humans continue to build and strengthen, the eagles are doing the same,” McSpadden, 38, said. “If they are taking next steps, then we can, too.”
In 2012, McSpadden and her family set up the cameras for Harriet and Ozzie, the original adult bald eagle pair that had been coming to this nest on their property since 2006. Ozzie, a male, died in 2015. Shortly after, Harriet and M15 bonded. This year marks their seventh season as a mated pair at their property, McSpadden said.
Harriet usually has laid her eggs by Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the pair is racing against the clock. If it takes them more time to rebuild the nest, Harriet could always lay her eggs later, as mating and nesting season goes from October through May, Breanna Frankel, rehabilitation manager and admissions specialist with the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife, told The Post.
Sometimes a female will lay her eggs but they won’t hatch or the baby bald eagles won’t survive. In those cases, it is still possible for the female to lay another set of eggs, said Frankel, who is familiar with Harriet and M15, and was part of Ozzie’s care team when she joined the clinic in 2015.
This is not the first time a natural disaster has forced the two birds to rebuild. In 2017, the pair’s nest was partially wiped out during Hurricane Irma. It’s also common for bald eagles to upgrade their nests with more sticks every year.
“It seems unusual,” Frankel said. “But at the same time, it happens across the world more than you would assume.” Sometimes bald eagles’ nests — which can weigh hundreds of pounds and span several feet — get so heavy that they fall apart or cause the tree to collapse. “They are massive.”
For now, Harriet will continue examining the twigs and branches M15 brings for approval. The nest must be how she deems fit, a choice the female gets to make, Frankel explained.
“They have evolved with our environment, and they have evolved to survive,” Frankel said. “Regardless, they will be resilient to whatever happens.” | 2022-10-14T11:14:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida bald eagles Harriet and M15 rebuild nest after Hurricane Ian - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/14/bald-eagles-rebuild-nest-hurricane/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/14/bald-eagles-rebuild-nest-hurricane/ |
LIV Golf is changing the role of golf in ‘sportswashing’
In the past, golf has provided an avenue to reshape the image of brutal regimes below the radar.
Perspective by Aaron Coy Moulton
Aaron Coy Moulton is assistant professor of Latin American history at Stephen F. Austin State University who specializes in Caribbean basin intelligence and counterrevolutionary movements.
Cameron Smith poses with the trophy after winning the Invitational Chicago LIV Golf tournament last month at Rich Harvest Farms in Chicago. (Jamie Sabau-USA Today Sports)
The newly formed LIV Golf league has garnered months of headlines, both for how it has disrupted the sport and also because the organization is financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The billions of dollars sunk into the league to recruit stars like Cameron Smith, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson — and now possibly to buy TV time to air LIV’s events — appear to be an attempt by the Saudi monarchy to downplay its authoritarian government and improve its global image.
This case of what’s become known as “sportswashing” is nothing new. Examples abound of authoritarian regimes trying to use elite sports to gloss over brutality or human rights violations — ranging from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. What makes LIV different is that it’s something new, instead of a regime latching onto an already prominent sporting event like the Olympics or the World Cup.
That makes it difficult to separate the newfound organization from its Saudi backers, which has dulled support for the new league. Despite the backing of former president Donald Trump — whose golf clubs are hosting multiple LIV events — when LIV CEO Greg Norman met with the conservative Republican Study Committee on Sept. 21, members questioned the links between the league and the Saudi regime. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) described the entire affair as “PR for Saudi Arabia.”
What's most interesting about the spectacle surrounding LIV is that it is the polar opposite of the way that golf often plays into politics. Usually, the time between shots and the private nature of nonprofessional golf outings prove ideal for politicking — including sportswashing.
Nothing exemplifies this more than the most successful attempt of sportswashing achieved through golf: when a Caribbean dictator used tournaments hosted by a famed Washington lawyer to rebrand his regime.
In 1930, taking advantage of the Dominican Republic’s political instability, Rafael Trujillo leveraged his control of the military to seize the presidency. He quickly amassed a nationalistic following thanks to his militarism, investments in public infrastructure and xenophobic anti-Black racism. This populism interwove with an intense culture of violence and fear as he ordered the assassination of hundreds of political opponents at home and abroad, imprisoned many more in concentration camps, leeched millions from Dominican industries and coffers and controlled a cultish political party that spied on fellow citizens across the nation while disseminating the motto “God and Trujillo.”
World War II unleashed multiple challenges to his near-ubiquitous grasp.
One of the dictator’s first attempts at manipulating public relations followed his encouragement of the 1937 Parsley Massacre — in which patrols of Dominican soldiers and peasants roamed the Haitian-Dominican border and slaughtered hundreds of Haitians, including those born in the Dominican Republic. This prompted international outrage from Haitian officials, Dominican exiles scattered throughout the Americas, U.S. newspapers and Congress, with many comparing the massacre to the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese military in Southeast Asia. In an attempt to deflect and overshadow the uproar, the dictator launched an international media campaign, upped his funding of charities and affirmed his unconditional support for the U.S. government’s efforts against the Axis Powers.
These moves provided Trujillo with access to U.S. armaments that propped up his government, but his authoritarianism stood in stark contrast to the Allies’ democratic ideals as World War II came to an end.
Anti-Trujillo exiles networked with like-minded allies throughout the Western Hemisphere to protest the dictator. This campaign included journalist Albert Hicks publishing a revelatory account of atrocities perpetrated by Trujillo’s officials and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for American Affairs Spruille Braden cutting off arms sales to the Dominican Republic. These and other events hurt Trujillo’s image on a global scale, leaving him concerned that it could ultimately erode his power.
With this in mind, Trujillo sought to rebrand his image in the United States. In 1946, his government retained the services of lobbyist Homer S. Cummings, a former U.S. attorney general. Thanks to his years in Washington, Cummings enjoyed numerous friendly social contacts among political and economic elites. These contacts even allowed the famed lawyer to hold a biannual golf tournament at Pinehurst Country Club in North Carolina. Dating back to 1933, Cummings’s tournaments regularly included members of Congress, White House officials and industry titans including Chrysler Corp. President K.T. Keller. The tournament was the event of the season — important enough to capture the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
By hiring Cummings, Trujillo received access to this elite tournament and its influential audience. After taking on the dictator as a client, Cummings expanded his invitation list to include additional lobbyists on Trujillo’s payroll. The first to attend one of Cummings’s tournaments was William A. Morgan, a reputable physician who treated the influential Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.). Outside of his medical practice, however, Morgan repeatedly spoke on behalf of Trujillo, boasting of his work for a Workers’ Hospital in the Dominican Republic.
Serving as Trujillo’s agents, Cummings and Morgan used the golf tournament to heap praise upon the dictator. During the April 1947 tournament, which included everyone from Sen. Brien McMahon (D-Conn.) to Leslie Biffle, a close friend of President Harry S. Truman, Cummings interrupted the attendees’ frivolities to describe Morgan’s charitable services in the Dominican Republic at the dictator’s expense. By celebrating Trujillo’s good works without mentioning his and Morgan’s role as paid lobbyists, Cummings took advantage of the golf tournament’s camaraderie to burnish Trujillo’s reputation.
This pattern would continue for over a decade through both Democratic and Republican administrations. The move was sportswashing at its essence: Below the radar, Trujillo subtly remade his image during the jovial and intimate golf tournaments full of opinion leaders who could shape how the broader public perceived the dictator.
Due to the quiet lobbying at the Pinehurst tournaments, Trujillo enjoyed a favorable reputation in the United States into the late 1950s. Considering the conversations occupying the long pauses between swings on the course, golf proved the perfect venue to lobby those directing U.S. foreign policy without the public learning of the public relations campaign.
This below-the-radar sportswashing on the course is quite the opposite of what the House of Saud is doing with LIV Golf.
The backlash they've confronted — and the contrast with Trujillo’s successful effort — may indicate that sportswashing works better below the radar, where there is less chance for opposition.
Yet even the savviest sportswashing can only mask brutality for so long — something also exposed by Trujillo. The 1959 Cuban Revolution and Dominican exiles’ failed June 1959 invasion of the Dominican Republic inspired a wave of protest in the country. In response, in June 1960, Trujillo ordered the car-bombing of Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt and soon after approved the murder of sisters Minerva, María Teresa and Patria Mirabal. These sensational events betrayed the benevolent image he had propagated for 30 years.
In May 1961, dissidents including some of Trujillo’s own military officials assassinated the dictator, leaving the nation to grapple with a legacy of violence and corruption that a handful of golf tournaments could not sportswash away. | 2022-10-14T11:14:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | LIV Golf is changing the role of golf in ‘sportswashing’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/14/liv-sportswashing-golf-dominican-republic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/14/liv-sportswashing-golf-dominican-republic/ |
What to watch with your kids: ‘Till’ and more
Unflinching drama about loss, love, impact of racism.
“Till” is a biographical drama about Mamie Till-Mobley’s search for awareness and justice after the horrific lynching of her beloved only son, Emmett (Jalyn Hall), on Aug. 28, 1955, in Mississippi. While the movie doesn’t show the actual lynching, it depicts how armed White men forced their way into a Black family’s home, kidnapping a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint. Later, Emmett’s screams can be heard, and his broken, bloated, battered body is visible in a few harrowing scenes as Mamie (Danielle Deadwyler) identifies his body and displays him in an open casket for public viewing. White people use the n-word multiple times, both in anger and matter-of-factly, as well as the racist term “uppity” to refer to an educated Black woman. Grieving mothers are shown crying and yelling in despair, and Mamie faints upon hearing the news of Emmett’s death. Like many films about racism, hate crimes and the Jim Crow South, this drama is both powerful and sometimes difficult to watch. Parents who watch with their teens can discuss the movie’s historical and biographical elements. (130 minutes)
The Curse of Bridge Hollow (TV-14)
Halloween scares, attacks, language in comedic thriller.
“The Curse of Bridge Hollow” is set up as a family comedy revolving around a teen and her dad, but the film has lots of Halloween-themed scares, too. Some could be too intense for younger or more sensitive viewers, like séances that bring forth spirits (including demons) or when ax-wielding zombies, skeletons and laughing clowns attack humans. The humans have to fight back with both their intelligence and their fists — as well as with chain saws, shovels, cars and rifles. Language includes “s---,” “hell,” “damn,” “a--,” “b------,” “screwed,” “frigging,” “butt,” “freak,” “stupid,” “weird,” “jerk,” “Holy Lucifer” and “oh, my God.” There are jokes about White privilege, the main character’s dad (Marlon Wayans) jokingly calls a Latino boy “Rico Suave” and an older White woman calls a younger Black man “Chachi.” Adults drink beer and wine. All of that said, the main characters do learn to respect each other’s differences and strengths in the process of saving their town. (89 minutes)
Rosaline (PG-13)
Comedic twist on Bard’s tragedy has some mature content.
“Rosaline” offers a comedic and contemporary take on the classic Shakespearean tragedy “Romeo and Juliet.” Also based on the novel “When You Were Mine” by Rebecca Serle, the story modernizes its characters but maintains a period setting. The primary cast is diverse in terms of both race and gender identity, and the women, Rosaline (Kaitlyn Dever) and Juliet (Isabela Merced), are more outspoken and independent than the men of their era want them to be. Speaking of the men, they have sword fights (leading to one death not shown on screen), sustain long-held family rivalries and try to arrange marriages for their daughters. A star-crossed lover drinks a poison that makes her appear dead. Characters kiss, one makes a joke about men’s “big swords,” another consults a book titled “Erotic Love” and yet another is distracted by a bare-chested man. Adults drink at a tavern, and there’s the suggestion of a drug deal. Language includes a single use of “f---,” as well as “s---,” “hell,” “a--,” “son of a b----,” “crap,” “blow me” and various insults. (96 minutes)
Werewolf By Night (TV-14)
MCU horror special has bloody violence, solid scares.
“Werewolf By Night” is a Marvel Studios special presentation based on a popular 1972 comic. Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s an homage to the horror movies of the 1930s and 1940s, filmed almost entirely in black and white, and has a werewolf as the main character. Featuring lots of suspense and terror, it includes many scenes of graphic violence, with blood splattering, necks ripped open and characters bursting into flames. The monsters are mostly scary, although some characters and situations are so exaggerated that they border on funny. Though he’s a monster, protagonist Jack (Gael García Bernal) is decent and loyal and doesn’t want to cause harm. (52 minutes) | 2022-10-14T11:14:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Common Sense Media’s weekly recommendations. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/14/common-sense-media-october-14/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/14/common-sense-media-october-14/ |
A few weeks before the 2020 election, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) unloaded on Donald Trump during a fundraising conference call he surely knew would be leaked to the news media. After offering a litany of complaints about Trump’s shortcomings and mistakes, he looked ahead to where his criticisms might put him. “The debate is not going to be, ‘Ben Sasse, why were you so mean to Donald Trump?' " he said. “It’s going to be, ‘What the heck were any of us thinking, that selling a TV-obsessed, narcissistic individual to the American people was a good idea?’ ”
He was quite wrong about that, at least within the Republican Party. And as he now tries to transition away from politics, Sasse is discovering something else that must cause him no end of frustration: Though he tried to find the sweet spot between criticizing Trump at some moments and supporting him at others, Sasse is now one of the few Republicans facing genuine accountability for the moral degradation of the Trump-era GOP.
Trump’s lickspittles and cronies get presidential pardons, lucrative lobbying gigs and the party’s nomination for offices at all levels. Sasse, who tried hard to position himself as a Trump skeptic, gets controversy and legions of young people chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, Ben Sasse has got to go!”
Sasse plans to step down from the Senate this year to take a job as president of the University of Florida, where he is the only finalist for the position. It must have seemed like a natural move: While many politicians have secured university presidencies, unlike most of them Sasse has some qualifications for the role. He has a Ph.D. from Yale and served as president of Midland University in Nebraska.
Yet when he went to Gainesville on Monday to meet with faculty, staff and students, he was met with hundreds of angry protesters, who disrupted meetings and eventually left him fleeing in a police vehicle.
They had a variety of objections, especially involving Sasse’s positions on LGBTQ rights and climate change. But they also have another set of grievances, ones involving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a Trump imitator for whom Florida universities such as this one have been among the tools he uses to fight his enemies and serve his ambitions.
As governor, DeSantis has the power to appoint six of the 13 members of the UF board, which he has used to install political allies there. DeSantis has tried to muzzle and punish faculty and assert control over the state’s public universities. He signed a bill undermining tenure for faculty, and another bill requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to survey the political views of students, faculty and staff, both of which would allow the state to exert more ideological influence over teaching. The university also temporarily forbade a group of professors from testifying as expert witnesses in a lawsuit against his voter suppression law.
All this has created an atmosphere in which students and faculty quite reasonably see themselves as under siege from a right-wing state government. Add in the life-or-death partisanship of our current era, and when a conservative but Trump-hesitant Republican senator was announced as their likely next president, they refused to tolerate it.
Over the past few years, Sasse no doubt saw what happened to people like his former Senate colleague Jeff Flake of Arizona, who was full-throated in his criticism of Trump and then decided he could not win the next Republican primary so stepped down after a single term. Sasse didn’t want to go quite that far.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sasse thought he was perfectly positioned for a future in his party after 2020: Trump lost badly, then discredited himself with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and surely the GOP would want to rid itself of him and all he represented. Sasse was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.
Instead, his party is as firmly committed to Trump as ever. And apart from the occasional story of someone being asked to leave a restaurant or young Trump staffers being unable to find dates, there hasn’t been much accountability for those who served him, promoted him and made clear their own moral depravity by defending him.
Because so much of the GOP was invested in Trump, it was in its interest to make sure no one would suffer from the moral stain of their connection to him. And had Sasse wanted a think tank sinecure or some corporate board seats, no one would have protested. But he tried to step back into academia, where liberals have plenty of power.
All of which shows that while Trump contaminates everything he touches, the irony is that the more you were willing to drink his Kool-Aid, the less damage that contamination did to you. The Republicans facing the biggest consequences are the people like Sasse who didn’t really want to be a part of it. | 2022-10-14T11:14:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ben Sasse gets a lesson in accountability - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/ben-sasse-university-of-florida-trump-accountability/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/ben-sasse-university-of-florida-trump-accountability/ |
The two groups have different views on whether racism is systemic or not, our research finds. It wasn’t always this way.
Analysis by Claudia Sandoval
Chaya Crowder
Protesters call for the resignations of Los Angeles City Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo in the wake of a leaked audio recording on Oct. 12. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
This week, a recording of Latino Los Angeles City Council members making racist comments burst into the news. But Latino anti-Black racism is not new or surprising. A number of scholars have examined the conflict between these two groups, including Efren Perez and colleagues, here at The Monkey Cage.
Blacks and Latinos are more likely to move into neighborhoods dominated by the other group than into predominantly White neighborhoods, which means they are especially likely to have social and political interactions. But our research finds that the Black-Latino relationship is complicated by the fact that these two communities think of racial solidarity in fundamentally different ways. Here’s what that means for collaboration.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Black and Brown communities worked together in Los Angeles politics.
The Black and Latino communities appeared to join in political solidarity during the 1960s and ’70s, with a wave of civil rights protests across the United States. In Los Angeles, the Chicano movement borrowed tactics heavily from the Black Panther party. A group that called itself the Brown Berets sponsored walkouts in East Los Angeles to protest police brutality, advocate for better housing and education, and protest the U.S. war in Vietnam.
As with so much activism from that period, this died down by the 1990s. Latino populations in places such as Los Angeles grew larger than the Black population, leading scholars and other observers to begin discussing conflict and competition between the groups.
Many scholars and political observers have assumed these groups are competing over a limited set of resources — with one group or the other getting more or less of, say, job opportunities and political power. For instance, as apparently was happening in the offensive Los Angeles conversation, discussions of redistricting often turn into debates over whether one community or the other will have more or less influence over choosing the potential representative from a particular district.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The two groups could instead work to build solidarity so as to gain power for both. However, achieving that requires that groups consider how their marginalization is similar, different and at times connected to the oppression of others. We found that Latino folks are less likely to perceive systemic oppression in general.
How we did our research
To examine whether these communities think about solidarity in the same way, we analyzed data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey — which contains large, randomly selected national samples of both Black and Latino respondents, totaling 4,071 and 3,529 respectively — to better understand the dynamics between these two groups. This online survey was administered between April 2, 2021, and Aug. 25, 2021. The survey was available to respondents in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and Haitian Creole. The full data are weighted within each racial group for age, gender, education, nativity and ancestry.
One survey question asked: “When it comes to the treatment of Black people by the police and the treatment of Latino immigrants by immigration officials, which comes closest to your view?”
Blacks are more likely than Latinos to see racism as systemic
We find that Black respondents are significantly more likely to say both Black and Latino communities experience racially biased discrimination. In fact, Latino respondents are 10 percentage points more likely than Black respondents to say neither the treatment of Blacks by the police nor the treatment of Latino by immigration officials is racially biased.
Many of our Latino respondents do not believe in the existence of systemic racism in the United States. Some believe their individual efforts will be rewarded, regardless of race, while others compare their new experience to the turmoil back home.
We also asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the statement “Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations.” We found a more than 10 percentage point gap between the two groups: 77 percent of Black respondents disagreed, but only 65 percent of Latinos. In other words, more Black Americans see racism as systemic.
Further, we found that belief in systemic racism in the United States is the strongest predictor of solidarity between these two communities. Our research demonstrates that Latino people who disagree with the idea that racial problems are rare, isolate situations are more likely to believe the treatment of both Black and Latino people is racially biased.
Of course, some groups may nevertheless prefer to strategize about how to obtain more political power for their own communities than to work on building coalitions among communities. However, the racist discussion among L.A. council members and allies was not about building resources; rather, it expressed gratuitous racism. The remarks suggest what we found in our data: Without a sense of a shared fate in facing systemic issues, communities are likely to compete rather than collaborate.
Chaya Crowder (@ChayaCrowder) is an assistant professor in the department of political science and international relations at Loyola Marymount University, where her research focuses on the intersection of race, gender and American political behavior.
Claudia Sandoval is an assistant professor in the department of political science and international relations at Loyola Marymount University, where her research focuses on Black/Latino relations, immigration, and Latino politics. | 2022-10-14T11:14:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why don't Latinos and Blacks work together? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/la-city-council-racist-comments-resignation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/la-city-council-racist-comments-resignation/ |
Post Politics Now Warnock and Walker to square off in highly anticipated debate in Georgia
On our radar: It’s debate night in Georgia
On our radar: Trump says he’ll respond to Jan. 6 committee this morning
Insight: The Senate debate in Wisconsin turns personal
Noted: Secret Service knew of Capitol threat more than a week before Jan. 6
Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. (Photographer: Megan Varner/Getty)
Today, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the former football star, face off in one of the most anticipated debates in the midterm elections — in a race that could tip the balance of party control in the U.S. Senate. The evening encounter in Savannah, Ga., is the latest in a string of debates in marquee Senate races, including one Thursday night in Wisconsin that quickly turned personal between Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.
Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump is promising to respond Friday morning to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The panel voted Thursday to subpoena him. President Biden is in California, where he will hold an event focused on prescription drug prices.
6:10 p.m. Eastern (3:10 p.m. Pacific): Biden delivers remarks on lowering costs for American families. Watch live here.
7:20 p.m. Eastern (4:20 p.m. Pacific): Biden travels to Portland, Ore. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters on board Air Force One. Listen live here.
10:10 p.m. Eastern (7:10 p.m. Pacific): Biden participates in a grass-roots volunteer event with the Oregon Democrats.
President Biden will sign an executive order Friday, instructing the Department of Health and Human Services to explore actions it could take to lower prescription drug prices.
The order is part of an effort by Biden to highlight his administration’s efforts to strengthen Medicare and Social Security and reduce costs amid soaring inflation. During an ongoing visit to California, the president will also tout the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act to lower prescription drug costs for seniors.
The political world will focus on Savannah, Ga., on Friday night when Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) shares a stage with Republican challenger Herschel Walker for one of the most anticipated debates of the midterm election season.
It will be the first meeting of the two candidates since stories surfaced that Walker, who opposes abortions in all cases, allegedly paid for a woman to undergo the procedure in 2009 and subsequently pushed for the same woman to have another one two years later. The story was first reported by the Daily Beast.
The Jan. 6 committee unanimously voted to subpoena testimony from former president Donald Trump on Oct. 13. (Video: The Washington Post)
Former president Donald Trump is pledging to respond Friday morning to a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“I will be putting out my response to the Unselect Committee of political Hacks & Thugs tomorrow morning at 8:00. Thank you!” Trump said in a late-night posting Thursday on Truth Social, his social media network.
Earlier Thursday, the committee issued a subpoena seeking testimony and documents from Trump, a challenge with little historical precedent that members said was a necessary final act before the panel concludes its work.
RELATED5 takeaways from the latest Jan. 6 hearing
A debate Thursday in Wisconsin quickly turned to personal attacks between the two Senate candidates, with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) starting off the hour-long session by characterizing his Democratic opponent as offering “hollow left-wing rhetoric” and questioning whether he has accomplished anything at all.
Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee for Senate and Wisconsin’s first Black lieutenant governor, minimized Johnson’s success in the private sector.
Johnson’s “biggest achievement in business was … saying ‘I do.’ He married into his business,” Barnes said. (Johnson spent much of his career working at a company founded by his wife’s brother and eventually became the firm’s chief executive.)
The Post’s Carol D. Leonnig reports that Secret Service agents in charge of assessing the risks around the protests had been tracking online chats on pro-Trump websites and noted that rallygoers were vowing to bring firearms, target the Capitol for a siege and even kill Vice President Mike Pence. Per Carol:
RELATEDJan. 6 panel scrutinizes Trump’s post-election military orders | 2022-10-14T11:15:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Post Politics Now: Warnock and Walker to square off in highly anticipated debate in Georgia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/warnock-walker-debate-trump-subpoena/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/warnock-walker-debate-trump-subpoena/ |
For some people, the Affordable Connectivity Program could take a nice chunk out of internet bills.
These price breaks come courtesy of the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program, which launched earlier this year to try to narrow the country’s digital divide. And even if you don’t benefit from the program directly, you could be doing someone in your life a real favor by letting them know the ACP exists, so take minute with us to learn how it works.
1. Find out if you qualify
There are a few ways you might qualify for the ACP. Your household could come in below a specific income level, for example. A family of four in the continental United States bringing in less than $55,500 a year qualifies for the discount. If you or someone in your household is on Medicaid, gets a veterans pension, or received a Pell Grant to go to college this year, you also get a discount.
This is also a good time to make sure your internet provider — or one you’d like to use — participates in the program. Most big-name internet service providers participate in the ACP, including Verizon, AT&T, and Xfinity, but smaller, more regional companies may not.
The best way to check is to visit this website created by the Universal Service Administrative Company, the organization that actually runs the program. Unfortunately, we’ve encountered situations where that site doesn’t load any results even when there are participating companies in a specific area — if that happens to you, try calling the internet provider directly.
2. Fill out an application
If you qualify for the ACP — or want to double-check that you do — visit the Affordable Connectivity Program website to start working on an application. (Don’t worry: You don’t need to print and mail a form unless you really want to.)
That online form asks for things like your name, address, and a way to verify your identity — think the last four digits of your Social Security Number, or another form of official ID. Depending on how you qualify, you may be asked to provide other information like proof of income.
3. Contact your internet provider
Once your ACP application is approved by the USAC, you’re nearly home free. Now you just have to contact your internet provider to activate that monthly discount. In some cases, you can do that right on your provider’s website, but a phone call to its customer service line will do the trick, too. | 2022-10-14T11:15:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to see if you qualify for discounted internet access - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/14/how-to-sign-up-acp-internet-discount/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/14/how-to-sign-up-acp-internet-discount/ |
Friday briefing: Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump; Mar-a-Lago documents; Raleigh shooting; Air and Space Museum; and more
The Jan. 6 committee voted to subpoena Donald Trump yesterday.
Why? It’s a dramatic attempt to force the former president to testify. It came at the end of what was likely the House committee’s final public hearing about the 2021 Capitol attack.
Key takeaways: There was new evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, despite what he said in public, and that he might have approved of the rioters’ actions.
What’s next: The committee will release a written report of its evidence before the end of the year.
The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago search case.
The issue: Justices yesterday denied Trump’s request to put classified documents found during a search of his Florida home back into a potentially long review process.
Why this matters: Trump is being investigated for potentially mishandling government information after he left the White House, and his team has been trying to delay investigators.
The Parkland school shooter was spared the death penalty yesterday.
What to know: A jury recommended life in prison for Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida four years ago, when he was 19.
His sentencing trial lasted for three months, with weeks of emotional testimony and debate over capital punishment and mental illness.
A shooting in North Carolina left at least five people dead.
What we know: A gunman opened fire in a Raleigh neighborhood yesterday. An off-duty police officer was among the fatalities, and multiple people were injured.
The suspect: A juvenile was detained nearly five hours after the shooting began, police said.
Food, rent and health care continued to get more expensive last month.
What to know: Prices were up 8.2% in September compared with a year ago and up 0.4% from August, according to new numbers. That’s a slight slowdown from the summer but still at four-decade highs.
What else to know: To keep up with inflation, Social Security checks to seniors will increase by 8.7% next year, about $145 per month on average.
Long covid can set you back a decade in exercise gains.
What that means: People with long covid have lower endurance and find working out much harder than people of similar ages who caught covid but recovered, a new study found.
What experts say: That this phenomenon, called exercise intolerance, should be considered a symptom of long covid, which afflicts millions of Americans.
The National Air and Space Museum reopens today in D.C.
What to know: Before the pandemic, it was one of the most popular museums in the world. It began closing sections for renovations and upgrades in 2018.
What’s new? Interactive exhibits, a Star Wars X-wing fighter and a plane flown by trailblazing pilot Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran, alongside familiar favorites like the Wright brothers’ planes.
If you’re planning a trip: You’ll need to reserve free, timed-entry passes.
And now … what to binge-watch this weekend: “She-Hulk,” which had its finale on Disney Plus this week. Or, in theaters: “Till,” a powerful biopic about Emmett Till’s mother. | 2022-10-14T11:16:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Friday, October 14 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/14/what-to-know-for-october-14/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/14/what-to-know-for-october-14/ |
Workers are seen at the Sitong Bridge in Beijing on Friday, where protest banners with slogans criticizing the Communist Party's policies were hanged the day before, ahead of China's 20th Communist Party Congress. (Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)
A one-person protest in Beijing has called for elections, an end to the country’s strict “zero covid” policy and the removal of “dictator” Xi Jinping, in a rare display of political dissent that was met with a wave of online censorship days ahead of a key political meeting expected to extend Xi’s rule for at least another five years.
“We want to eat, not do coronavirus tests; reform, not the Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not enslaved people,” read the red handwritten characters on large white banners hung from Sitong Bridge in the city’s northwest Haidian district on Thursday at around midday local time, according to pictures and video of the banners shared widely online.
A second banner read: “remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.” Nearby pedestrians stopped to read the banners and stare at a plume of black smoke from a fire lit on the bridge by the individual who appeared to be dressed in the yellow hard-hat and orange jacket of a construction worker, according to videos of the incident.
Some images appeared to show the individual being taken away by police, although there had not been any official confirmation of an arrest by Friday. The Haidian district public security bureau hung up when called by The Washington Post.
The Chinese Communist Party, intolerant to criticism of top leaders at the best of times, is currently on hair-trigger alert as the country’s most senior 2,300 politicians are arriving in the capital city for a congress held every five years. For Xi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, the meeting is expected to be a moment of triumph as he upsets past convention to stay on as party leader for more than two terms.
On Chinese social media, censors battled with users who tried to share information about the protest, vastly limiting the number of posts visible. Search results for terms as generic as “Beijing,” “Haidian,” or “Sitong” returned far fewer entries than normal and only from officially verified accounts.
Some users attempted to circumvent the restrictions by referring obliquely to the incident — a common practice of censorship-evasion. Some posted a song entitled “the brave one” or spoke about a “single spark” in reference to a famous revolutionary essay by Mao Zedong entitled “a single spark can start a prairie fire.”
The defiant act was hailed by Chinese dissidents and overseas human rights activists, many of whom likened the protester to “tank man,” the unidentified man who faced down Chinese soldiers on Chang’an Boulevard on June 5, 1989. China’s high-tech authoritarianism means activists can only operate in “lone warrior” mode, Teng Biao, a Chinese human rights advocate who now lives in the United States, wrote on Twitter.
Xi’s focus on national security and “social stability” has severely limited space for dissent in China. The latest generation of Chinese human rights and democracy activists have found it increasingly difficult to privately meet or share ideas, let alone organize a serious revolt against Communist Party rule.
Security in the capital tends to be at it highest during major political events like the upcoming congress. Dissidents who live in Beijing are often taken away by minders to far-flung parts of the country and checks increase for people entering the city. This year, China’s continued strict covid controls have made added a layer of travel restrictions and surveillance.
By Friday, police had been installed near prominent bridges across the city, according to pictures posted by residents online. | 2022-10-14T11:43:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anti-Xi protest in Beijing on Sitong bridge shocks China - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/china-protest-sitong-bridge-haidian/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/china-protest-sitong-bridge-haidian/ |
From bans on gender affirming care to restrictions on names changes, state lawmakers across the country have introduced a slew of anti-trans legislation
N. Kirkpatrick
2022: 153 bills
2020: 60 bills
Anti-trans bills introduced in state houses.
Anti-trans bills introduced in state houses according to a
Washington Post analysis of ACLU data as of Oct. 13.
Anti-trans bills introduced in state houses according to a Washington Post analysis of ACLU data as of Oct. 13.
More legislation has been filed to restrict the lives of trans people so far in 2022 than at any other point in the nation’s history, with trans youth being the most frequent target of lawmakers.
Earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a directive requiring child welfare agents to investigate gender-affirming medical procedures as child abuse — an order that could strip trans children away from their families. Advocates and families are challenging the directive in court and a federal judge partially blocked it. In September, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin unveiled new guidelines that would make it more difficult for trans youth to change their names and pronouns at school, and that prevent them from using school facilities and participating in youth programs that align with their gender identity.
“I don’t know how to describe to somebody that isn’t going through it how it feels to have the anxiety of waking up every morning, not knowing whether your state is going to attack your right to exist,” said MacKenzie. “To do all of the things that so many people never ever have to question or think about.”
Logan Casey, a senior policy researcher and adviser with the nonpartisan think tank Movement Advancement Project, has been tracking anti-LGBTQ policies since 2006.
“It’s not just legislation, but also policies that are often made administratively or judicially or otherwise that can shape everybody’s lives, including trans people,” said Casey.
The current wave of legislation seeking to restrict the rights of transgender people began around 2016, with North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” being the most high-profile example from that time. But the pace of legislation began to pick up in 2018. That’s when the American Civil Liberties Union began tracking anti-LGBTQ bills, following an increase in such measures after Donald Trump was elected president, said Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist at the advocacy group.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R), upon signing a gender-affirming care ban in the state earlier this year, said: “We’re going to go by how God made us: if the Good Lord made you a boy, you’re a boy, and if he made you a girl, you’re a girl. It’s simple.”
Some have political motives. Dave Carney, a senior adviser for Abbott’s reelection campaign, called restrictions of trans youth “a 75, 80 percent winner” for the Texas governor.
Some legislators are also reacting to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that federal law barring employment discrimination on the basis of sex also applies to sexuality and gender identity.
Conservative lawmakers immediately began looking for ways to undermine the Court’s ruling, said Branstetter, citing Sen. Josh Hawley (R — Mo.) who said it “represents the end of the conservative legal movement.”
These efforts have also been intertwined with the movement to restrict reproductive rights, which share many of the same players, she said, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group at the forefront of fighting abortion rights. An Idaho legislator credited the group with helping write a bill to prevent trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. In 2021, it was the first such bill passed in the country.
388 introduced bills
39 passed bills
Most were specifically written to “protect women in sports,” but some also restrict trans masculine youth from playing on male sports teams as well.
Earlier this year, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) vetoed a sports ban, citing the potential mental health impacts on trans youth, on top of “fundamental flaws” in the legislation. Despite the extensive attention the issue received, there were few trans student-athletes in the state to begin with, he said.
“Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what this is all about,” Cox wrote in a statement explaining his veto. “Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are part of something.”
Among them is Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law, referred to by its critics as the “don’t say gay” law. The law bars discussion of sexuality and gender from kindergarten through the third grade, and restricts instruction that is not “developmentally” or “age-appropriate” through 12th grade.
Kayla Gore, a Black trans woman who is challenging Tennessee’s law, told the Tennessean in 2019 that having inaccurate identification left her open to “deeply personal and invasive questions” when she applies for new jobs or seeks higher education opportunities.
“Not having documents that fully support who I am, a Black woman, puts me in more danger. It also puts me in situations where my economic status is at risk,” she said.
Religious exemptions: Some states have also passed “religious liberty” laws in recent years, which give people and organizations the right to refuse goods, services or employment to LGBTQ people if it violates their religion.
Branstetter, of the ACLU, said in practice, these laws allow groups and businesses to deny queer and trans people employment, medical treatments, the ability to adopt children or other services. One 2016 Mississippi law even stipulated which kinds of religious beliefs or “moral convictions” were protected, including that a marriage only should be recognized if it is between a man and a woman, and that gender is determined by someone’s “immutable biological sex.”
Only two states have passed these bans: Arkansas and Alabama. As of August 2022, both state laws were temporarily blocked as they are challenged in court. States have also pressured hospitals and clinics that provide gender-affirming care to shutter or stop offering those treatments for trans people, both behind the scenes and through legislation threatening to withhold funding.
“Of all the things I’ve done in my life, I’ve never thought getting health care for my kid was going to make me an outlaw,” Jeff Walker, a Birmingham resident whose daughter is trans, told The Washington Post earlier this year.
Trans advocates say it’s important to note that the majority of the anti-LGBTQ bills have not passed. According to Casey of the Movement Advancement Project, despite the surge of restrictions on trans rights in some states, there has also been “a clear growth in protective policies” in others.
Some states, like Connecticut, have created “refuge” laws that protect trans people who come from places where gender-affirming care is banned and are seeking those services in that state. Others, like Colorado, Washington and Hawaii have passed laws that explicitly require insurance carriers to cover gender-affirming care procedures such as laser hair removal and voice therapy. Still more, like Virginia and New York, have anti-discrimination laws that protect trans people from bias in housing, employment and accessing public services.
“If we are going to be a priority for our enemies, we absolutely must be a priority for our friends,” Branstetter said.
Where it’s safe
For Ana, the mom of a trans preteen in Houston, the last year has left her family in a constant state of anxiety and paranoia. (Because of safety concerns, Ana spoke to The Post on the condition only her nickname be used.) Except for her family and a couple school administrators, no one in their community knows Ana’s daughter is trans.
Following Abbott’s child abuse directive, “There’s no guarantee of safety in many regards,” said Ana. “We could be physically unsafe. We could be medically unsafe because we can’t access care. Or we can be psychologically unsafe because we’re mistreated.”
They hired a lawyer and carry a little card with his number everywhere they go. Ana feels at the mercy of everyone her family encounters. Threats are everywhere: Could her daughter’s dentist report her? Her teachers? What if they are traveling and her daughter has an accident that requires medical attention — could she trust those doctors?
They’re set to move to a state on the East Coast next year in hopes of escaping some of their fears. “We were doing risk calculations every day and it was just getting too tiring,” said Ana. “So we decided to move.”
“I was getting so many questions every day, like, 'Hey, what about my state? Is my state going in a bad direction or a good direction?” said Reed. “One of the biggest questions that I’m always asked is, ‘If I move, who’s to say that I won’t face the same issue?’”
The map hasn’t only helped trans people and their families, said Reed.
“It’s [also] for cis people who had no idea [of] the state of anti-trans legislation,” she said. “Seeing how many states are unsafe right now, I feel it is leading people to say: ‘Oh wow, things are worse than I thought they were.’”
But assessing safety isn’t as simple as tracking what LGBTQ-centric policies states are enacting, Casey noted. Other factors — such as a person’s race, immigration status, or proximity to loved ones — must also be considered.
“One of the reasons that the policy landscape is so incredibly important to transgender people and our experiences is because transgender people are remarkably unsafe every day,” said Casey, and that vulnerability has gotten worse in recent years.
Illustrations by María Alconada Brooks show the total number of anti-trans bills introduced from 2018-2022 according to a Washington Post analysis of ACLU data.
Transgender law map was made using data from the ACLU and a Washington Post analysis.
The transgender policy map was made using data collected and analyzed by MAP (Movement Advancement Project). MAP tracks, scores and tallies gender identity policies in each state. The tallies fall into categories, the The Washington Post labeled as: many protective policies, some protective policies, protective policies and restrictive, some restrictive policies and many restrictive policies. States with many protective policies can also have restrictive ones and vice versa. More information can be found on their website.
Editing by Lena Felton, Renae Merle and Annys Shin. Art direction by María Alconada Brooks. Design editing by Rachel Orr. Graphics editing by Reuben Fischer-Baum and Tim Meko. | 2022-10-14T12:09:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anti-transgender laws are on the rise. Here's where and what kind. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/14/anti-trans-bills/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/14/anti-trans-bills/ |
Wildfires aren’t firefighters’ only hazard. 6 share the toll the job takes.
A firefighter looks at the Fairview Fire in California in September. (Stuart Palley for The Washington Post)
Climate change, forest mismanagement and other issues have collided to create wildfires that are increasingly destructive to communities and livelihoods across the American West.
Although the wildfire conversation is complex and nuanced, there is widespread agreement that the people fighting the fires should be taken care of, fairly compensated, and have access to resources if they are injured on the job or dealing with the mental and physical strains that are common across this workforce. But this has not always been the case, even as firefighters are expected to work longer seasons on some of the largest and most intense blazes in recent history.
Firefighters have stories that are often overshadowed by the fires they work on, but their struggles have undoubtedly garnered more attention over the past two years, particularly as fire seasons grow in length and severity, and as more firefighters leave the profession and advocate for those who continue to stick it out.
This attention has resulted in legislation to compensate wildland firefighters. The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, which President Biden signed into law last November, contained increases in pay for all federal wildland firefighters, and a greater capacity for some to move into permanent positions. Wildland firefighters began to receive the pay increases in June, but other issues remain.
Many of these problems are addressed in the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act, which has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry. Provisions in the measure, which is named after a smokejumper who died on a wildfire in New Mexico in 2021, would provide greater support for the wildland fire community through more access to mental health resources, support for job-related diseases, and restructuring to a portal-to-portal system of pay, which would ensure that federal firefighters are paid for any time spent away from home while working on wildfires. The legislation includes many other provisions and is a robust attempt at improving treatment, pay and benefits for this overworked, underpaid and often underappreciated workforce.
As issues facing wildland firefighters receive more national attention through news coverage and legislation, The Washington Post spoke with six former and current wildland firefighters about the challenges they have confronted over the past three years of worsening wildfire seasons. These firefighters were from federal, tribal and private crews, and at different stages of their careers. All conversations have been edited lightly for clarity and conciseness.
Courtney McGee, 32
Former assistant fire engine operator for the U.S. Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest; now director of operations for the Nevada Conservation Corps
“We were on the Caldor Fire, which was kind of where I grew up,” McGee said. “My family had a little cabin off Mormon Emigrant Trail, near where the fire started. We’ve gone to my family’s cabin every year, and it was so thick through there with trees that you couldn’t see much. And when I walked down the road to my family’s cabin, during the Caldor, I could see all the way across the canyon. It was weird, being in my backyard and seeing it burned down, and just informing people that I know, ‘Hey, this is what I know, this is how close it is, be prepared if you aren’t already.’”
For McGee, a summer of watching some of her favorite places burn galvanized her plan to leave firefighting after six seasons and a full-time appointment that took years to secure. She had already been weighing whether to do so. Her husband’s new job in Reno, Nev., would lengthen her commute by an hour, and she was regularly sleeping in her car at her station when she worked late nights and didn’t want to drive home. Add a lack of time with her loved ones and staff shortages that made it difficult to find people to fill in for her when she needed time off, and leaving seemed like her only option.
“I just started to feel like I had no work-life balance. My family had a rough year between covid and some family stuff that came up, and it’s hard to be there for your family when you’re out on fire assignments.
“Even on my days off, I was getting calls. And staffing is very minimal and my days off fell on weekdays, which most people don’t have off. So, my days off didn’t align with [those of] my family or friends, which is already hard enough when you’re working all the time and going on fire assignments.”
For McGee, the dizzying blend of mental and physical challenges that are common in firefighting clashed by the end of the 2021 season, which was particularly hard on communities in Northern California, where she is based. Smoke exposure, a nagging shoulder injury, and mental and physical burnout were all exacerbated for her by fires that continually shattered historical precedent in destruction, severity and acres affected.
“There was one night on the Caldor where we had done a [firing operation] and then the main fire kind of blew up, so we were woken up in the middle of the night and had to go into immediate structure protection,” McGee said. “We were in the thick of the smoke until probably 9 a.m. or so. And all of us definitely felt it the next day. We were pretty sick, like wheezy, raspy throats. I always feel exhausted the next day after long smoke exposure, and who knows what that can lead to in the long term.
“Mentally, I’m just really burned out. There’s not really a break. I feel like even on my days off, I’m like, ‘Oh, did they get a fire today? What’s going on over there? What do I need to know for tomorrow?’”
Even though McGee chose to leave the Forest Service, she is still grieving the loss. “I’ve really loved this job,” she said. “It’s such a challenge physically and mentally. I’ve learned so much about myself and met some really amazing people in the process. Some of my best friends are still in fire.”
“You’re not always in a job where you’re outside getting dirty every day, not showering for two weeks. I always tell myself that if I was in an office job, I don’t know if I would know how to act properly.”
Like many wildland firefighters, McGee found the job when she was in a nomadic phase during her 20s. At first, the excitement, travel and seasonality of fire was alluring, but eventually decisions around finding a partner, planning for children and owning a house needed a more critical look.
“When I started, I was single and it was so easy to just be gone for two weeks. But once you’re getting more settled down or have more adult commitments and priorities, it’s really hard to find that balance. I think with a career in the Forest Service, if you want to try to move up and advance your career, you have to be open and flexible to moving around. But it’s hard to just uproot your life or your family to do that.”
Mando Perez, 40
U.S. Forest Service squad leader for the Eldorado Hotshots, Pollock Pines, Calif.
“We were literally burning across the street from our base, like walking down the road, firing and looking over at our base right there,” Perez said, remembering the night in August 2021 when his crew was tasked with saving its own station and their homes during the Caldor Fire.
“Firing” means intentionally burning vegetation near an established fireline, which in many cases are roads, before a fire front approaches. When firing operations go well, these intentional blazes starve the approaching fire of fuel before it can reach structures or firelines.
“It was like, these are our friends’ homes, my captain’s home and my squad boss’s home. It was tense. I never thought I’d be fighting fire this close to home. You do have a greater sense of urgency. We try not to overthink it or overreact. You can’t let the emotions come out, because that’s how people get in [accidents] and you hear those stories all the time. We try to stay even-keeled, because once you let the emotions get involved too much, it opens up the door for bad decisions.”
Perez is a squad boss for the Eldorado Hotshots, a highly-skilled U.S. Forest Service crew based in Northern California that is particularly suited for the extremely hazardous work that is part of wildland firefighting. These crews work 14 to 21 days in a row, with only two or three days off between assignments. That can equate to about 140 days on active fire duty over a period of six months.
“When the Caldor Fire started, we got a phone call saying, ‘Hey, the fire is gonna burn your base.’ And soon after that, we got a phone call saying we were getting emergency demobilized [from the McFarland Fire] and to get back to our base,” Perez said, adding that the crew members were on day 13 of an assignment and that they were just coming off the night shift when the call came. “Everyone was just trying to register what was going on and trying to get our wits together, because it’s about a four- or five-hour drive back to base, and we were beat tired. The coffee wasn’t working.”
“When we got there, we just started trying to prep the base as much as we could, putting stuff away, getting whatever things we thought were important, all our files, all the paperwork, laptops, and we were just throwing stuff in our trucks to take home. It was rough, that first day back. But we just kept saying, ‘Whatever comes, whatever’s needed, we’ll do it. We’ll deal with it.’”
After a day off, the crew members came back as the Caldor began bearing down on their station and the surrounding communities. Work started quickly. Beyond the station were the homes and bunkhouses where many of the crew members lived, as well as infrastructure containing decades of crew culture and history.
Perez has been on the Eldorado Hotshots crew for five years, after working up from another fire position with the Eldorado National Forest. But his background is unusual compared with those of his crew members and other wildland firefighters, as Perez learned how to fight fire while in prison in his teens and 20s.
“I got in a little bit of trouble when I was young, got incarcerated, and was introduced to the fire camp program. From there, they sent me to their training, and when I turned the right age, they put me on a crew. So I was 18 when I first started, and that was with the juvenile detention program out of the Los Angeles County juvenile probation system. I did that and got out, but I fell back into the scene when I got home and got in trouble again and ended up going to the adult system on a 10-year sentence.”
Perez applied for the fire camp program during his second incarceration but assumed he would not be accepted because of the time left in his sentence. After a few attempts, he was deemed qualified and received additional training to work on wildfires as part of an incarcerated crew.
After serving eight and a half years, Perez was released early and began delivering pizzas and doing construction “just trying to make ends meet.” Eventually, he found work on federal fire crews, which hire former convicts.
“I don’t want to say it was easy to me, but it was known to me. It’s something I can fall back into pretty easily as far as training goes,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for so long and it’s simple. I knew what hard work was and I knew how to get the job done.”
But Perez has been particularly tested during his last two fire seasons, which have been among the most destructive and severe in recorded history.
“I thought 2020 was the hardest season of my life, and [2021] just blew it out of the water,” he said. “It’s tough to see it happening at this magnitude. We knew it was going to happen again, these mega fires that everyone keeps talking about. But [in 2021], they just started and never stopped. We just kept going and going and going.”
“It was taxing, and I’m understating that by far,” Perez added. “And it’s like, okay, now I need to get back into home, I need to get back into being with my kids. But how do you go from 60 to zero? It’s hard.”
Nathan Kahla, 28
Former contract firefighter for Grayback Forestry in Ashland, Ore; now a crew member of the Bitterroot Hotshots in Darby, Mont.
At one point during a wildfire in Oregon in early July 2021, “there was a sense of awe, where we were a full month ahead of the critical burn period, and every day I was seeing nine pyrocumulus clouds in different spots across the horizon,” Kahla said. The critical burn period was historically considered to be late July to September, but can now be as early as May and as late as November in some places.
“Seeing nine 30,000-foot-tall plumes and they’re all churning up 10,000 acres, I don’t remember feeling grief at that time. It was just interesting to be there while this was happening, witnessing this new level of fires. But there is grief about it, too, about the long-term health effects, but also a lot of climate grief.”
In fall 2021, Kahla was finishing his fourth season as a wildland firefighter for Grayback — a private forestry contractor based in southern Oregon — the last two of which were some of the worst fire seasons on record for Oregon and nearby Northern California. He has since moved to a federal fire crew, and works with the Bitterroot Hotshots based in Darby, Mont.
Being close to wildfires can be awe-inspiring, which is part of the reason many wildland firefighters not only get into the job, but also stick around. However, the health problems caused by being near fire for six months of the year cannot be understated.
Kahla mentioned that on one fire, the air-quality index exceeded 600 at fire camp. That is effectively off the charts for the index, which generally tops out the “very hazardous,” number of 500. Like many other wildland firefighters, Kahla and his crew were working and sleeping outside in those extremely dangerous air quality conditions for weeks.
“When we were on the Dixie Fire, we did a 26-hour shift of just getting smoked out, and everyone was pretty sick,” he said. Getting “smoked out” often means working a section of fireline where the winds are pushing the smoke at firefighters instead of back into the blaze.
“On another fire we were on in Central Oregon, the dust was volcanic, like pumice. It’s so fine, and it gets into everything, it gets deep into your lungs. It’s really demoralizing, and it’s hard to believe that anything I’m doing is worth it,” Kahla said, acknowledging that despite his love for the job, the health risks of smoke exposure are increasingly hard to grapple with.
Few studies have focused on how dust particles and smoke exposure affect wildland firefighters, and support for firefighters who develop diseases related to smoke and dust exposure is minimal. These things are viewed as part of the job, something that those who sign up to work in fire are forced to accept. To make matters worse, compensation and benefits rarely offset the myriad risks of working on wildfires.
While on the contract crew in 2021, “I had a 200-hour paycheck, which was 15-hour shifts for a 14-day assignment as a squad boss this summer. After taxes, my paycheck was a hair under $3,000,” Kahla said.
“I’m doing okay financially. Compared to most contractors, I have a very stable background and home life. But for people trying to raise kids, people trying to start families, people trying to pay for therapy, it just doesn’t work.”
This financial pressure, along with missing out on home life in the summer and innumerable other challenges, makes wildland firefighters particularly susceptible to mental health struggles, with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide and suicidal ideation among the most common. An average of 25 to 30 wildland firefighters die by suicide every year, a figure significantly higher than the number of wildland firefighters who die in the line of duty. Additionally, the suicide rate within the wildland fire community is 0.3 percent, compared to 0.1 percent for the general population, according to Nelda Saint Clair of the Bureau of Land Management.
“We tried to make things different in terms of sharing emotions on the [contract] crew,” Kahla said of trying to have a more open dialogue about mental health. “People felt welcomed there. And the crew came from all over. We had homeless kids, gang members, and they felt like this is where they belonged. I was just encouraging them to be emotional and to talk about what they were feeling and highlight how it’s okay to be feeling these things.”
“I talk a lot about mental health and about my experiences with therapy to make the atmosphere more receptive and evolved to that kind of stuff. And the new kids are willing to adapt to whatever situation they end up in. If they ended up in a situation that was very toxic, they would adapt to that, they would start learning those ways.”
Jordin Schramm, 32
Former U.S. Forest Service senior firefighter for the Grande Ronde Rappellers, Grande Ronde, Ore.; now an assistant engine captain for the U.S. Forest Service’s Grande Ronde Fire Zone, La Grande, Ore.
“I was planning a wedding during covid and during a 750-hour season,” Schramm said. The 750 hours she refers to is the amount of overtime she worked before her wedding on Nov. 8, 2020. The number is the general yardstick for measuring how busy a fire season was.
“And I married a hotshot,” said Schramm, who herself was a helirappeller, or a firefighter who rappels into remote wildfires from a helicopter, when she got married. “And the girl who married us was also a hotshot married to a hotshot.”
For someone who has been working in fire for 10 years like Schramm has, the wildland firefighting community can shrink each year, particularly because seasons can last up to seven months, and colleagues become like family. The unconventional schedule and lifestyle of working in fire can result in being surrounded by other fire people, who can empathize with the experience of long hours, hard shifts and all-consuming summers.
“We kind of all understand each other,” Schramm said of her husband and fire friends. “It’s one of those things where I’m not going to expect him to be home every day for dinner, or that the house is always going to be clean because we wanted to come home and relax. It’s not for everybody, that’s for sure. And you have to be okay with the phone conversations, with not seeing each other for maybe two or three months or maybe even the whole fire season. That can happen even though it hasn’t happened to us. I think we’ve had two months without physically seeing each other.”
Schramm knows a lot of women who work in the field, including four others who worked with her on her helirappel crew before she left to take a position as an assistant engine caption for the 2022 fire season. But as she nears 11 years of working in fire, there is one experience that she has found very few people can relate to: wanting to have children and stay on the line as a woman.
“I want kids, but I really don’t want to get out of fire,” Schramm said, suggesting that in wildland fire, that decision can feel like one or the other. “But it’s not one of those things where I’m going to stay in fire and have kids and be like, ‘I’ll show everybody.’ I want to stay and keep my qualifications because this is what I really like to do. But I’m not so naive to think that plan won’t change.”
“Recently, we thought maybe we’ll try [for kids], and I went to the doctor and they found some cysts. And I sometimes wonder if maybe I ignored it because I was working and I figured it would just work itself out. I hope it wasn’t something I ignored for too long and it’s now more of a problem than it could have been. But we all do that, ignore our health a little,” Schramm said.
“It’s like, you could eat better or you could manage stress better, which is kind of laughable [in fire], because you eat Spam and worry about people dying on a fire, and I don’t really know how to cut those two things out sometimes because it’s part of the job and you accept it,” she added.
“There’s nothing to complain about, but at the same time, maybe your expectations of your life have to change a little. And it’s hard to talk about this kind of stuff because there are only a couple of women who I know that are trying to stay in fire and have been able to make it work [with a family], while all my other female friends are like, ‘I don’t want kids.’ So I’m, like, ‘Okay, I can’t talk to you about this.’ Nobody ever really talks about this, which is understandable, because a lot of women [in fire] don’t want kids or don’t have kids. But at the same time, there’s a very small percentage of us that would like to have kids. And not having anybody to talk to in that situation is really difficult.”
Gabe Synegal, 31
Wildland firefighter and silviculture technician for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (nontribal member)
“It started out because I could make a lot of good money in a short amount of time, and then I could take the [winter] off, rinse and repeat,” said Synegal, who has been a nontribal wildland firefighter for the Grand Ronde Tribe for nine years and now also serves as a silviculture technician for the tribe.
“But that kind of cycle became toxic after a bit. It led me to drinking more heavily and not really having any inner drive to do anything else because of fire seasons. When I first got into fire, I was in my early 20s and a lot of those fire paychecks were being spent to party. But after those first five years, I really started feeling it in my knees and in my mental state.”
Synegal began working for the tribe during college but dropped out with only a few credits left before graduation. He had reached “what I really thought was rock bottom,” and the coping mechanisms that he had developed to get through fire seasons and ease the transition back to the offseason had stopped working.
“I kind of hit a point in my life where the cycle wasn’t allowing for any growth,” he said. “Fire season is this five-month intense period, and then you kind of just stop. So all that cortisol is saying, ‘We need to still be doing stuff.’ And I wasn’t really doing anything, which put me in a depressive state.”
After a few years, he went back to finish his degree in exercise science before receiving a full-time position with the Grand Ronde Tribe in 2020 that included benefits as well as a more consistent work schedule and income.
“I figured this was a great thing to have income year-round,” he said. “It’s a great thing to have benefits, it’s a great thing that this has been an agency that I’ve worked for a long time. It’s also allowed me to grow a bit, kind of get out of that early-20s mind-set.”
His experience aligns with that of many wildland firefighters who begin the job in their early 20s, with little ability to cope with the difficult schedule. Even those who have been in the career for decades know how hard things can get when the switch is abruptly flipped to off, and they have been away from home, family and normal life for weeks or months. That feeling was exacerbated for Synegal as he has started to settle down and grow his family.
“It was a whole lot of feelings as my daughter was close to being born. The first thing that came to my mind was money. Diapers and all that are expensive, so it was this torn feeling of knowing I needed to be gone because this is how we bring home the bacon, but at the same time not wanting to miss these early stages of her life, because you’ll never get them back,” Synegal said.
“I have a great wife who has been dealing with this for a long time, so she’s been strong throughout it, which helps immensely. The [2021] season was pretty hard for me mentally, because my baby girl is getting older now. But it’s a necessary sacrifice for the time being. It just takes a little bit more planning, which is hard to do with a job like this,” he added.
“On the positive end of it, it allows me to push through certain times where things get tough, when you’ve been out for a month between assignments and you’re in the grind of the season. [My daughter has] been a motivating factor, because I feel I need to provide, and I want to give her a life that I didn’t have. But those two days, three days off [between assignments] go by in the blink of an eye, and each time I have to pack up that bag, I do it a little bit slower.”
Torey Wakeland, 36
Wildland firefighter and ceded lands program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Wakeland comes from a long line of ancestors who were involved in fire. “Our ancestors, though they may not have considered themselves as such, were firefighters themselves,” he said. “We used fire to help modify the landscape since time immemorial. We managed for cultural resources, wildlife resources, habitat.”
Cultural burning has a strong presence for many tribes in the West, where fire is used to encourage certain plant growth, clear overgrown vegetation, and improve habitat for hunting and movement. However, land agencies prohibited this Indigenous and cultural burning for much of the 20th century, a step that was taken to protect timber resources and communities but has ultimately removed fire from landscapes that have long coexisted with it.
Bringing healthy and ecologically beneficial fire back to these landscapes has required a coordinated effort by tribal members such as Wakeland’s father, who was deeply involved in creating a fire program for the Grand Ronde Tribe in the early 1990s. The program now employs upward of 60 people who are tribal and nontribal, some seasonal and some year-round.
“My dad used to talk about how the absence of fire on the landscape for so long has become quite pivotal in how intense fires are,” Wakeland said. “Our ancestors used fire as a management tool, and then having those practices stop allowed the vegetation to become much more dense than it’s been for tens of thousands of years, [which is why] you’re seeing that increase in fire intensity and fire behavior.”
His father’s involvement in forestry and returning fire to the landscapes of the Grand Ronde’s ancestral land inspired Wakeland to pursue similar work after he completed his wildlife biology degree at the University of Montana.
“Following in my dad’s footsteps has been really cool. It just felt like a natural progression for me. Additionally, being a tribal member and working for my tribe was important. And then to tie that in with the wildlife piece, you know, wildfires can be quite disruptive and we think of them that way, but they also provide a lot of really good wildlife habitat as things start to regrow and dense vegetation is opened up. Being able to see both sides, the goods and the bads of wildfire, really interests me.”
Wakeland has spent the past 19 years working in fire, and despite his office job with the tribe, he continues to work wildfires throughout the fire season. This has allowed him to witness the extent to which fires have changed over the past two decades, not only in how they burn but where they burn and how intensely they move.
For example, on the Lionshead Fire in northwest Oregon in 2020, “a big wind event kicked up and we were getting 40- to 60-mile-per-hour winds, and at that same time, there were a lot of downed power lines. So that started additional fires and all of these things began lining up, between the winds, dry weather, fire already on the landscape, and then new fires starting. We had a lot of fires that converged.”
The wind event is known as the Labor Day Firestorm, a result of extreme fire weather, multiple fires burning and an unprecedented east wind event in early September 2020. The Lionshead alone grew 90,000 acres from Sept. 7 to 9. The nearby Beachie Creek Fire added 130,00 acres in one night on Sept. 7.
“The intensity of these fires is insane, just because there is all that fuel load,” Wakeland said. “We actually popped two fires [in 2021] that were holdovers from the Lionshead Fire [in 2020], so that’s a lot of heat still in the ground even a year later, past the snow and the rain. That speaks to how intense that fire was.”
He added, “We’re seeing some more prescribed fire-management practices on private lands, park lands and some smaller state lands, but it doesn’t seem like it’s being applied to these big federal forests, at least not yet, or not enough to make quite a difference yet.” | 2022-10-14T12:10:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Six wildland firefighters reflect on the brutal job of battling blazes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/14/firefighters-wildland-blazes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/14/firefighters-wildland-blazes/ |
In race for Maryland attorney general, Peroutka looks to ‘God’s law’
Republican candidate for Maryland attorney general Michael Peroutka stands in front of a live projection of Gordana Schifanelli, the Republican candidate for Maryland lieutenant governor. Peroutka has said that if he is elected, his view of Christianity will determine his decisions (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Michael Peroutka was energized as he discussed his favorite topic.
The Republican candidate for Maryland’s attorney general was speaking to an audience of about 150 people — mostly enthusiastic supporters — at a forum on the U.S. Constitution at Towson University earlier this month.
“Would you say this with me, please,” he asked the crowd as he reached the key point of his presentation.
“There is a God,” Peroutka proclaimed.
There is a God, the audience replied
“Our rights come from Him.”
“The purpose of civil government
is to protect God-given rights.”
Then, with more vigor, he had the audience repeat it again.
The short statements are the central tenets of Peroutka’s view of American law and government and the pillars of the Institute on the Constitution, a nonprofit educational organization he founded in 2004.
And they are the core ideas that have shaped the 70-year-old retired attorney’s campaign to be Maryland’s chief legal officer.
Peroutka has made clear that if he is elected, his view of Christianity will determine his decisions. And he has said that as attorney general he will not support laws enacted by the legislature if he believes they are in conflict with his understanding of God’s law.
Inside the hall, Peroutka was well-received. But about 75 protesters — mostly students — stood outside in the cold rain and held signs and chanted, calling him a white supremacist and telling him his views weren’t welcome.
The well-worn path to getting elected in America, of course, is by appealing to the fervent base during the primary and then running to the middle in the general election, hoping to reel in voters who are uncomfortable with the fringes.
Peroutka appears uninterested in following that playbook.
With Election Day less than a month away, the mild-mannered former Anne Arundel County Council member has not backed down from any of his positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, religion or public education that he championed in the primary. Nor has he hinted that compromise is part of his political vocabulary.
Instead, Peroutka, who faces long odds in his contest with Congressman Anthony G. Brown (D) to fill the position created when Brian E. Frosh (D) announced his retirement as Maryland’s attorney general, has doubled down on his assertions that all abortions should be made illegal, that same-sex marriage is not legitimate, that he doesn’t know if Joe Biden won the 2020 election and that public schools are part of a long-standing socialist effort “to indoctrinate students away from the values of their parents … and away from a Christian world view.”
He elaborated on many of these positions at the forum, repeatedly returning to the idea that laws created by men and women are not legitimate unless they are in accordance with God’s law.
The Towson event, hosted by the campus chapter of the conservative student activist group Turning Point USA, was billed as a discussion of the Constitution along with Gordana Schifanelli, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. But for Peroutka, it effectively doubled as a campaign event in a race that, because of his stances, very few people other than his supporters believe he can win.
Peroutka has also said that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and other state and local leaders acted illegally when they instituted mask mandates and stay-at-home orders to curtail the spread of covid-19. His top promise as a candidate is that he will prosecute state and local leaders “who have exceeded their lawful authority and have violated the God-given, constitutionally protected, liberties of Marylanders.”
And Peroutka has said he wouldn’t disavow his association with the League of the South, which has been categorized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At a League of the South conference in 2012, he sang “Dixie,” calling it “the national anthem.”
Peroutka said at the forum he had originally joined the organization because he saw it as standing up against an overreaching central government but left when one of its leaders spoke out against interracial marriage.
“I don’t have any ties to a white supremacist group and I’m not a white supremacist and I’m not a racist,” Peroutka said in response to a student’s question. “I resigned from the group when that happened because I didn’t want to be associated with that at all.”
Peroutka’s stalwart supporters are proud of their candidate’s unwavering position on issues and fill up his Facebook page with encouragement and words of thanks. But his policies and beliefs seem out of alignment with the majority of Maryland voters, said Todd Eberly, a political scientist at St. Mary’s College. The state voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020, and both of its U.S. senators and seven of its eight representatives are Democrats.
“I think he absolutely believes what he’s saying,” Eberly said. “And in many respects, I think that’s part of what’s holding his candidacy back. In a state like Maryland, you try to run to the middle and broaden your appeal as much as possible. But there are some candidates for whom it would be impossible to move to the middle. Their record precludes it.”
Eberly, who doesn’t think Peroutka can win, compares his campaign to that of Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania who has made Christianity the focus of his campaign, courts only his base and has alienated many voters within his own party in the process.
A recent Goucher College poll has Brown leading Peroutka 53 percent to 31 percent, with 15 percent undecided and 1 percent choosing someone else.
The money has also run in Brown’s direction. At the end of August, the Peroutka campaign reported having spent $35,046 on the campaign to date with $36,169 on hand. The Brown campaign, which faced a difficult primary contest against retired Judge Katie O’Malley, had spent $530,546 with $80,094 on hand.
And history is not in Peroutka’s favor. No Republican has been elected attorney general in Maryland since 1919 and no Republican has served in the role since 1954.
Peroutka initially agreed to be interviewed by The Washington Post for this story but did not respond to questions that were sent to him or to follow-up requests for an interview.
Though Peroutka hasn’t backed down from any of his controversial positions, there are limits on what he could do as attorney general to put any of those views into practice, said Doug Gansler, a Democrat who served two terms as Maryland’s attorney general beginning in 2007.
“Were he to serve as attorney general, and I don’t think that’s a real possibility, he would quickly learn what the responsibilities of the attorney general actually entail, and that is protecting consumers from consumer fraud and defending the state in actions being brought against it,” Gansler said. “There’s a limited, proactive agenda for an attorney general.”
He dismissed as “total bluster” the idea that Peroutka could bring charges against Hogan and state officials for instituting measures during the pandemic to contain its spread.
“Publicly elected officials and public officials in general have sovereign immunity, so he would not be able to prosecute them on a personal level because he doesn’t like their policies,” Gansler said. “And that’s before you even get to the fact that his arguments are constitutionally infirm and don’t hold water.”
Brown, Peroutka’s opponent in the race, has blasted Peroutka’s positions on the issues and his refusal to acknowledge Biden won the 2020 election. “Our democracy, reproductive health care, LGBTQ+ rights, and the values shared by Marylanders of every background are on the ballot this November,” Brown said in a statement on Monday. “Time after time, my opponent has shown that he is out of step with Marylanders and continues to peddle lies about the 2020 election at every turn, undermining our democracy and the votes of millions of Americans.”
In his bid for attorney general, Brown has said he will expand voting rights, crack down on ghost guns and gun violence, work to decriminalize marijuana and push for expansion of women’s reproductive rights including access to abortion.
On abortion, which has emerged as a key issue for voters since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Peroutka has adamantly opposed a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape or incest. Peroutka said that as attorney general he would not defend the Maryland statute that allows a woman to choose to have an abortion and said the statute is a “nullity.”
“My obligation would be to protect life,” he said in an interview with the Maryland State Bar Association in March.
“Not to defend the statute passed by the legislature of Maryland?” asked Natalie McSherry, the association’s president at the time.
“I think the higher calling would be to protect innocent life,” Peroutka responded. “You have no right to do what God says is wrong. Rights come from God … that’s not my personal belief, that’s a foundational principle of American law and government.”
Peroutka has been endorsed by Schifanelli and by Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox.
“Like me, Michael has stood against lockdowns, mandates, and violations of parental and medical rights,” Cox wrote in his endorsement on Peroutka’s website. “He has defended life and the right to self-defense. As Attorney General he will ensure voter integrity and border security.”
But most of the state’s top Republican figures have either withheld their support or spoken out against Peroutka, whose political experience is limited to one term on the Anne Arundel County Council and a run for president in 2004 on the Constitution Party ticket. He received about 0.1 percent of the vote in that contest.
Md. Republicans call for unity as Cox, Peroutka bids inflame rift
When comments that Peroutka made in 2006 resurfaced this summer, echoing the debunked conspiracy theory that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were a result of preset demolition charges, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) issued a strong rebuke.
“We know who was responsible for 9/11,” Hogan tweeted. “Blaming our country for Al Qaeda’s atrocities is an insult to the memory of the thousands of innocent Americans and brave first responders who died that day. These disgusting lies don’t belong in our party.”
A number of leading Maryland Republicans contacted for this story declined to comment on Peroutka’s candidacy. Republicans who served with him on the Anne Arundel County Council did not reply to interview requests. But David R. Brinkley, secretary of budget and management in the Hogan administration and a longtime Republican state legislator, didn’t mince words when asked about Peroutka’s quest for the attorney general position.
“He’s not running a campaign, he’s running a crusade,” Brinkley said in an interview. “Meanwhile six million Marylanders have to figure out who’s going to be their top attorney. And that top attorney has to represent myriad positions, not just one end of the spectrum.”
So far Peroutka has made relatively few campaign appearances other than at private fundraisers and small meet-and-greets. He did hold a Peroutka Campaign prayer service in mid-September, during which supporters offered prayers for each of Maryland’s counties.
In a video of the event posted on the campaign’s Facebook page, many of those who spoke talked about evil and dark forces across the state, particularly Baltimore, and prayed for Peroutka’s victory so he could combat them.
A woman prayed for Kent County, saying that coastal towns “are gay communities” in need of deliverance “from their sin and wickedness.”
Between the prayers, Peroutka played guitar and sang hymns with a small ensemble. He concluded by performing a rarely sung verse of the Star Spangled Banner including the lines, “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto — “In God is our trust.” | 2022-10-14T12:14:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In race for Md attorney general, Michael Peroutka looks to ‘God’s law’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/michael-peroutka-maryland-attorney-constitution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/michael-peroutka-maryland-attorney-constitution/ |
Britain’s finance minister resigns after his policies shocked the economy
Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss on the opening day of the annual Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, on Oct. 2. (Leon Neal/Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Im)
LONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss was propelled into high office by her bold promises to super-charge the country’s flagging economy with big tax cuts for corporations, investors and high-earners.
It is not going well. Her premiership and government are reeling, as markets — and members of her own party — wonder how she can simultaneously slash taxes and maintain social programs without deep borrowing.
On Friday, the architect of her growth plan, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced he was resigning as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain’s title for the finance minster.
U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss defends first month in office amid protests
Kwarteng stepped down after his policies caused the currency to tank and the central bank to step in to calm markets.
In a letter posted on Twitter, Kwarteng wrote, that Truss had asked him to resign.
“It is important now as we move forward to emphasize your government’s commitment to fiscal discipline," he wrote.
Kwarteng, a free-marketeer and zealous Brexiteer, will have lasted just a month in the top economic job. He flew home to London from Washington earlier on Friday, as British newspapers tracked his flight. He had been attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, his first appearance as chancellor at a major economic summit.
Truss is scheduled to give a press conference on Friday afternoon, during which he is expected to announce she will scrap parts of her unfunded package of tax cuts.
It was just three weeks ago, with bold headlines that the chancellor announced the government’s new “Growth Plan,” which would be propelled by “biggest package of tax cuts in generations.”
Those proposed cuts are quickly being cut.
Last week, Kwarteng said the government would ax its plan to lower the top income tax rates paid by high-earning Britons.
Currently well-to-do Brits pay a top rate of 45 percent on annual income over £150,000 ($167,646). Truss wanted to cut the top rate to 40 percent starting in April 2023.
Kwarteng argued that reducing the top rate, which was higher than countries like Norway, Italy, and the United States, would “attract the best and the brightest to the U.K. workforce, helping businesses innovate and grow.”
There was a howl of protest — and Kwarteng caved. Truss may also announce on Friday whether she will reverse herself on promises to cut taxes for corporations and for investors.
The calamity played out quickly.
A source at Downing Street told the BBC on Friday that Truss thought the chancellor was "doing an excellent job” and that the two were in “lockstep."
The chancellor — before he resigned — told reporters Thursday that he was "not going anywhere,” despite the market turbulence he conceded was caused in part government’s announcement of its fiscal plan.
Asked if he and his boss, the prime minister, would have their jobs in a month’s time, the chancellor replied, “Absolutely, 100 percent.”
Truss was creamed in the weekly prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, and then gave a disastrous performance later in the day with a private meeting of lawmakers serving on back benches, some of whom gave briefings to journalists after that made it sound pretty dire.
One lawmaker told the Financial Times “the mood was honestly funereal, horrendous. I was shocked at how brutal it was.”
Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said in a briefing note on Friday that that it was more likely than not that Truss would be ousted before the next election, which has to occur by January 2025 at the latest.
He said that a group of Conservative Party lawmakers were plotting to remove her from office by Christmas, with some floating the idea of a “moderate dream ticket” of Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, two contestants in the last contest.
“Although some MPs say the plan to remove Truss would make the Conservatives look even more ridiculous than they are at the moment, a growing number believe it may be the only way to prevent a Labour landslide in 2024,” he wrote.
Under the current rules of the Conservative Party, which just had a leadership contest, there can’t be a further contest for a year. But those rules could be changed.
The Bank of England on Friday was scheduled to end a highly unusual intervention that saw it buying government bonds with the aim of stabilizing the markets, which were spooked following the Sept. 23 new policy announcement. The bank was particularly worried about some pension funds.
Britain will soon have its fourth chancellor in under four months. Kwarteng lasted just 38 days in the job. The only chancellor to service less time in the post, Iain Macleod, died of a heart attack after 30 days. | 2022-10-14T12:40:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kwasi Kwarteng resigns as Liz Truss moves to reverse his policies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/uk-truss-kwarteng-budget-tory/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/14/uk-truss-kwarteng-budget-tory/ |
All About Age Discrimination at Work and Why Successful Lawsuits Are Rare
Analysis by Chris Dolmetsch and Katharine Gemmell | Bloomberg
Discrimination against workers based on their age is illegal in many countries. Yet legal experts say that such unfair treatment, particularly of older workers, is widespread. Ageism is a growing concern for societies with advanced economies as their workforces grow increasingly old.
1. What is age discrimination?
Age discrimination is when someone is disadvantaged or treated unfairly because of age. Both young and older people can face it. In the US, the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 applies only to those 40 and older, although some state laws cover the young. The ADEA protects job applicants and employees against discrimination in hiring, promotion, termination, compensation, and the terms, conditions or privileges of employment. The UK’s 2010 Equality Act covers both discrimination that is direct, when an employee is treated differently from others because of age, and indirect, when work policies or procedures put an age group at a disadvantage. It also covers harassment -- humiliating, offending or degrading someone for their age -- and victimization -- treating someone badly for calling out age discrimination.
2. How common is it?
Polls suggest that age discrimination is very common in the workplace, and it appears to be especially prevalent in the technology and finance industries. In a survey conducted by the American Association of Retired Persons in 2018, 61% of workers 45 and older reported seeing or experiencing it. A study by the Urban Institute and ProPublica published that same year found that 56% of workers 50 or older were pushed out of longtime jobs before they chose to retire. Research suggests that discrimination against elderly job applicants is pervasive. When researchers have submitted to employers fictitious resumes designed to be as identical as possible except for age, older applicants received fewer callbacks than younger ones.
3. Are gender and race factors?
Yes. In one study using fictitious resumes, researchers found that discrimination is more severe and starts much earlier for older women than for older men. In the AARP poll, disproportionately high percentages of women and Black workers (64% and 75% respectively) reported witnessing or experiencing age discrimination. In the UK, discrimination complaints involving menopause are increasing, with more older women ready to challenge companies that are failing to recognize their health needs.
4. How common are lawsuits?
There were just over 14,000 age discrimination claims filed in 2020 in UK employment tribunals, which judge legal disputes concerning labor law. Some included additional complaints, for example concerning disability. According to the Justice Ministry, the number was elevated by the pandemic, which led large numbers of older employees to leave the workforce sooner than expected, some of them involuntarily. In the US, roughly 13,000 complaints were filed in 2021 under the ADEA; these numbers don’t capture cases filed under state laws. Legal experts say the number of complaints represents a sliver of the actual incidents.
5. Why are lawsuits relatively rare?
For one thing, lawyers say, many cases are settled out of court, largely through severance payments made to older employees who’ve been dismissed. In other cases, employees may not know their rights or are intimidated from filing suits. Job applicants may not have evidence that they were rejected because of their age.
6. Can age discrimination ever be legally justified?
Yes. In the UK, age is different from gender and race in that the law allows employers to discriminate on the basis of it if they can show their action was justified, for example for reasons of health and safety or fitness. For example, UK-registered pilots are forced to retire from flying at age 65, even though mandatory retirement ages aren’t generally allowed. In the US, the ADEA provides a similar exemption to a ban on compulsory retirement, as well as an exception for certain employees in executive positions.
7. How difficult is it to win a case?
Like any other discrimination case, ageism lawsuits can be challenging to win. At the England and Wales employment tribunals, the success rate of such cases in 2021 was around 2%, according to data compiled by the law firm GQ Littler. In the US, because of a 2009 Supreme Court ruling, it’s necessary to prove that age was the deciding factor in an employer’s action. Legislation introduced in Congress in 2021 would establish that it’s sufficient to show that age was one motivating factor, as is the case with race and sex discrimination suits.
8. How much money could you be awarded in a case?
Awards for unfair dismissal are usually capped in UK employment tribunals at just over £93,000 ($112,430). But if discrimination is proved, the cap doesn’t apply and damages are unlimited. A Citigroup Inc. banker who was dismissed after being called “old” at the age of 55 won an age discrimination suit in 2020 and was awarded nearly £2.7 million, although Citi in July successfully appealed to have the case reconsidered. The largest ADEA resolution to date is a case filed against the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, California’s pension plan for state employees, by 1,700 disabled police officers, firefighters and other safety officers whose disability benefits were reduced based on their age when they were hired, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a government agency that enforces federal laws against workplace discrimination. The pension manager agreed to pay $250 million to resolve the case in 2003.
9. How are aging workforces relevant?
It’s been estimated that about a quarter of all workers in developed countries will be over 55 by 2030. To ensure vacancies are filled in the future, labor experts argue, employers will need to reduce bias against this group. | 2022-10-14T12:45:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | All About Age Discrimination at Work and Why Successful Lawsuits Are Rare - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/all-about-age-discrimination-at-work-and-why-successful-lawsuits-are-rare/2022/10/14/508db09e-4bbb-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/all-about-age-discrimination-at-work-and-why-successful-lawsuits-are-rare/2022/10/14/508db09e-4bbb-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
FILE - Dolly Parton performs at Austin City Limits Live during Blockchain Creative Labs’ Dollyverse event during the South by Southwest Music Festival on Friday, March 18, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Parton laughs at the idea that she is some sort of secret philanthropist. “I don’t do it for attention,” she told The Associated Press in an interview, shortly before she received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy at Gotham Hall in New York City Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. (Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-10-14T12:45:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy celebrates 20th anniversary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/carnegie-medal-of-philanthropy-celebrates-20th-anniversary/2022/10/14/da91278c-4bb9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/carnegie-medal-of-philanthropy-celebrates-20th-anniversary/2022/10/14/da91278c-4bb9-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Here's the next phase of Biden's plan to fortify industry cyberdefenses
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! I promised sloth photos to the masses, so here are sloth photos.
Below: A major hospital system confirms that it was hit with ransomware, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said state-sponsored hackers may have been behind a hack of the church. First:
Cybersecurity rules are coming to health care, water and emergency communications
Cybersecurity rules like the ones the Biden administration has written for critical pipeline operators and air carriers will expand to hospitals, medical devices, the water sector and public warning systems, a top White House official said Thursday.
And the administration is looking at other sectors – like manufacturing or information technology – where it needs congressional help to write mandatory minimum cybersecurity standards, said Anne Neuberger, the president’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.
Those are the latest planned steps in a paradigm shift toward imposing more rules on industry following last year’s ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, one of the nation’s largest fuel delivery arteries. When Colonial shut down its systems in response to the hack, it sparked a gas panic on the East Coast.
The Colonial attack forced the administration to take a look at the status quo, Neuberger told my colleague Ellen Nakashima at a Washington Post Live event. She said the administration didn’t like the idea that “you could have a major gas provider serving the entire East Coast, and the Transportation Security Administration does not have in place a standard for what our expectations are.”
Rules the Biden administration has imposed since — some of which are not yet in their final form — include requirements for major industry players to notify the federal government within a set number of hours when they suffer a cybersecurity incident, and develop detailed plans for responding to a disruptive hack.
To date, those rules have primarily applied to a set number of organizations. For instance, TSA identified 57 rail entities. And many of those rules have unsurprisingly met industry resistance.
Neuberger outlined the industries the Biden administration wanted to take up next in more detail:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is “beginning to work with partners at hospitals to put in place minimum cybersecurity guidelines, and then further work upcoming thereafter on devices and broader health care as well.” That would happen in winter or spring, a U.S. official said.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will take up a proposed rule at its Oct. 27 meeting for emergency and public alert systems. The proposal includes a requirement for alert system participants, like radio and television broadcasters, to notify the FCC within 72 hours when they “knew or should have known that the incident occurred” and write cybersecurity risk management plans.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to incorporate cybersecurity in sanitation reviews of water utilities under a “creative” interpretation of existing law where EPA interprets mandates on security and safety requirements to include cyber, Neuberger said. In late July, Neuberger said the EPA would take that action “shortly.” Officials are aiming for the end of the year.
AdvaMed — a trade group which represents makers of medical devices, from hospital beds to pacemakers — is curious about what the administration has in mind, its senior vice president of technology and regulatory affairs Zach Goldstein told me.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already produces cybersecurity guidance for medical device makers on what to do before they deliver products to the marketplace, then afterward. While it’s technically voluntary, FDA reviewers treat it in practice as mandatory, Goldstein said.
“The FDA has already been regulating this area, so for me it would be interesting to see HHS come out with a directive that would either revise or otherwise change what FDA has already done because they’ve been so involved,” he said.
Of particular interest is the possibility of enhanced cyber information-sharing with hospitals, Goldstein said. While he said medical device manufacturers have to share lists of software ingredients known as a “software bill of materials” that could help head off cyberattacks, hospitals have no similar obligation to share back, say, when they’re under attack.
The American Hospital Association declined to comment on Neuberger’s remarks.
Attacks on the health-care sector are particularly worrisome for their potential to harm patient safety. Likewise, water-sector attacks can also pose risks to human life, such as when a hacker almost succeeded in increasing the flow of a chemical at a Florida wastewater plant to a degree that could’ve poisoned residents.
The Biden administration’s plans for the water sector, however, have drawn fire from both within the sector and outside of it. Critics say sanitation reviewers aren’t best-equipped to evaluate cyber protections at the thousands of water facilities around the country.
In the hole
In other areas where the Biden administration could look to implement minimum security standards, it might need Congress to grant it that power, Neuberger said.
“For some, like critical manufacturing or DHS's emergency services or information technology, there are not authorities, and we're looking carefully at those to say what is needed in this space and how do we approach this,” she said.
The question of when and how to regulate cyber mandates amounts to one of the rare partisan divides in Congress over cybersecurity.
It’s one Congress is wrestling with now in debating whether to identify and designate some U.S. critical infrastructure as “systemically important.” Those are systems for which an attack could have dire consequences for national security, the economy or public safety and health. As originally conceived by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, feds could impose further requirements on, and grant additional benefits to, those designated owners and operators.
The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. John Katko (N.Y.), introduced legislation last year on the topic that doesn’t impose further requirements on such owners and operators but instead grants them only additional boons, such as enhanced access to threat information. A version in the House defense policy bill would do the same but raises the prospect of giving owners and operators security goals to meet, based on a study that the legislation orders.
But Katko said at Thursday’s Washington Post Live event that he’s not sure the legislation is even needed anymore. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency is already separately beginning to identify and make those designations. And anything Congress does that grants more regulatory authority to CISA is a risk to the agency’s role as liaison to industry, he told my colleague Cat Zakrzewski.
“We can't lose sight of the fact that the private sector has to have the comfort to work and trust with a teammate, that being CISA, as opposed to more of a dictatorial or rulemaking agency that's overseeing and causing all kinds of problems with them,” Katko said. “Because I think CISA is a unique agency in that the synergy between the private sector and CISA is the only way that CISA could be successful.”
Hospital system confirms that it was hit with ransomware
It’s not clear if the ransomware affected all of CommonSpirit Health’s facilities, which amount to more than 1,000 care sites and 140 hospitals, the Lincoln Journal Star’s Matt Olberding reports. The hospital system has followed protocols like taking its electronic health records and other systems offline, it said.
The cyberattack has had real-world impacts, the Des Moines Register's Michaela Ramm reports. A resident doctor told a 3-year-old patient’s parents that he was given too much pain medication amid the outage, Ramm reports.
“They never did explain how a downed computer system led to this,” said his mother, Kelley Parsi. “I think they were trying to say it was written down wrong or the pharmacy read it wrong, but then, why wouldn't anyone check?”
It’s not the only impact from the disruption. Other local news outlets have reported that patients have had to reschedule important procedures and tests at affected health-care locations.
Hackers hit Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, church says
The Mormon Church said the hack may have been conducted by hackers affiliated with a foreign government, who were able to get personal data about some members of the church, employees and contractors but didn’t access donation information, the Deseret News’s Tad Walch reports. The breach happened March 23, but the church waited to disclose it after receiving a request from federal law enforcement officials, the church said. The request was lifted Wednesday.
“U.S. federal law enforcement authorities suspect that this intrusion was part of a pattern of state-sponsored cyberattacks aimed at organizations and governments around the world that are not intended to cause harm to individuals,” the church said. The church’s notice didn’t name the country that officials suspect of carrying out the attack.
Colo. election official warns judges about ‘disinformation’ with spoofed calls
A person posing as a Larimer County, Colo., employee used a number that appeared to be the county clerk’s office and told a potential election judge that all election judges have to be vaccinated, Colorado Newsline’s Quentin Young reports. Election judges in Larimer County don’t have to have received coronavirus vaccinations.
“The information provided on the call is disinformation,” Larimer County’s election operations manager said in an alert to election judges. “The information is not accurate, and the call was not made by our office.”
Larimer County Clerk Angela Myers, a Republican, “wasn’t sure how many election judges received the alert, but it could be as many as 630, the number of judges the county expects to hire for the November election,” Young writes. “She also informed the Larimer County Sheriff and state authorities about the incident.”
Colorado County Clerks Association Executive Director Matt Crane told Colorado Newsline that the incident appeared to be isolated. But it comes in the run-up to contentious midterm elections that could see countries like China, Iran and Russia try to conduct influence operations.
Secret agents targeting drug cartels in Australia exposed in data hack (The Sydney Morning Herald)
With RT still live, France’s hands are tied (Politico Europe)
Turkey's parliament adopts media law jailing those spreading 'disinformation' (Reuters)
French authorities say they have nabbed a youth cybergang that stole $2.5 million in NFTs (Artnet)
Ex-LMPD officer used police tech to hack Snapchats and steal nude photos and videos (The Courier-Journal)
The Atlantic Council hosts an event on a new transatlantic data privacy framework on Monday at 10 a.m.
Emily Goldman, a strategist at U.S. Cyber Command, discusses cyberspace strategy at a Heritage Foundation event on Monday at noon.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace holds an event on Russian information warfare on Monday at 2 p.m. | 2022-10-14T12:46:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here's the next phase of Biden's plan to fortify industry cyberdefenses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/here-next-phase-biden-plan-fortify-industry-cyberdefenses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/14/here-next-phase-biden-plan-fortify-industry-cyberdefenses/ |
‘Scorn’ doesn’t have a map, tutorials or text. Let us help.
The haunting biomechanical world of “Scorn” has lots of creepy architecture, grotesque monsters, gore and disturbing moments of body horror. What it doesn’t have a lot of is information and context.
“Scorn” has no map, inventory, tutorials, dialogue or text, and the game’s simple UI only appears when needed. The game doesn’t give you any explicit clues on how to solve its many puzzles. There are no NPCs to guide you along, collectible voice recordings offering hints or signage to point you to your next destination. It’s a minimalist approach that, while immersive and very rewarding, can sometimes be frustrating. The combat, which is similarly bare-bones, is designed to make you feel like you’re just barely getting by.
This is a spoiler free guide on how to navigate “Scorn’s” world and deal with its hostile abominations.
Press, push and pull everything
Interact with every object and device you can find. There are no instructions for anything, so the game encourages you to explore and experiment often.
Some puzzles have multiple dials and switches you can interact with. If you’re having trouble with any of those, make sure you click all your movement keys multiple times. In one instance, I found myself stuck on a puzzle — until I realized there was a switch I had missed because I never clicked my back movement button. It was a puzzle with multiple switches that could all be rotated using the left and right movement keys, but the piece in the middle wasn’t selectable until I used the back key.
Some mechanisms may not have an obvious purpose or effect. Activate them and pay close attention to what happens. How the machine reacts will show you how it works and hint toward what to do next. One early puzzle, for example, involves a door controlled by two consoles. One console opens the door while the other removes the locks. You can’t use both at once. Time to think: What if there was some way you could activate one and keep it working?
Don’t forget to check your surroundings, as well. The room you’re in can provide clues to what a machine does. Take a close look at any items that may be scattered around the floor, as well as anything that could serve as a connection to something else. Watch carefully for any changes that may have occurred in the room after you tried something.
The most complex puzzles in “Scorn” involve devices that activate things in other parts of the world, so keep your ears open and listen for something that might be awakening on another part of the map.
Be prepared to backtrack
Each act in “Scorn” ends with a big puzzle that unlocks the next area, and those puzzles will require you to constantly revisit old areas. You’ll be spending a lot of time running back and forth as you play around with various objects and try to figure out how they connect with each other.
Unfortunately, while “Scorn” is fantastically rendered, the uniform design can make it easy to get lost in some areas. If you want to get really old school, you can draw your own maps to mark where you’ve gone and what you’ve found.
You suck at combat, so fight carefully — or don’t fight at all
Your player character is an unassuming, naked humanoid who is terrible at fighting. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll get a handful of weapons to defend yourself, but you will still suck at fighting. The game makes it clear that you’re a desperate survivor, not a soldier. Sometimes, the best course of action will be to run away.
But when you do have to fight, be conservative. Even the weakest enemy in the game requires three shots from your biomechanical shotgun, and ammo is scarce.
In the beginning, you’ll have a giant pneumatic hammer as your only weapon, which sounds cool, but it’s actually a rather mediocre weapon. You’ll need four jabs to kill the main abominations in the game, and your hammer needs to recharge after two consecutive strikes. In between that time, you’ll have to dash behind cover to avoid the abominations’ tracking ranged attack or run in wide circles.
Other times, your best option will be to avoid combat altogether. If a giant monstrosity patrolling an area hasn’t spotted you yet, keep it that way.
Keep your health topped off at all times
You can’t regenerate health in “Scorn” and the only way to heal yourself is through blood sacs extracted from dispensers. Use the blood sacs as soon as you get them to keep yourself topped off at all times. The healing animation is somewhat long and it’s definitely not something you want to be worrying about when you get caught in a fight. | 2022-10-14T12:47:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scorn tips: How to solve puzzles and fight abominations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/tips/scorn-game-tips-walkthrough/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/tips/scorn-game-tips-walkthrough/ |
Ask Damon: My boyfriend died. Then I found out he had another partner.
Hi Damon: About four years ago, I got involved with a man who had been a friend of my late husband. We had some wonderful moments of romance. Who doesn’t love a man who kisses well and gives you vintage Joni Mitchell vinyl? But he had some boundaries I could never sort out and maybe because I was naive or attached, I didn’t ask a lot of direct questions.
He died recently of a heart attack and I learned that he had a long term partner who lived abroad and came to visit a couple of times year. This explains a lot. He covered it up with some misdirection and some lies. I have some connection to his family and have a huge desire to tell them I didn’t know about the partner. I want them to know that I wasn’t knowingly cheating on this woman. And part of me wants to make sure she knows as well. People are grieving so I’m giving it some space. As things stand, I’ve been cut off from some of the main avenues of grieving with other people who loved him. And even though I’m furious, I miss him. Should I just keep my mouth shut even though it feels impossible?
— Mamie
Mamie: I’m very sorry for your loss. Grief can be arbitrary, sneaky and cruel, and this seems to be particularly difficult for you because of your deceased boyfriend’s complicated legacy.
Unfortunately, I have more questions for you than answers. So many questions.
1. Does the partner know about you? (If so, how?)
2. What exactly were his boundaries? Asking because “he had some boundaries” could be anything from “he only drank Aquafina and refused to try other bottled water brands” to “in four years together, I never once saw where he lived.”
3. Are we certain he was cheating on her? From what you wrote in your question, it’s possible he was dishonest with you, but practicing non-monogamy with his partner. Which, considering that they lived on different continents and would only see each other twice a year, is conceivable.
4. What are these main avenues of grief that you’ve been cut off from?
There are so many information gaps here that it’s difficult to grasp on to something concrete. Which is not your fault. You were in a relationship, for four years, with someone who presented a false reality to you, and this lack of clarity is reflected in the vagueness of what you’re sharing about your feelings. But I think you need to find some clear answers about them before you proceed.
For instance, what exactly are you furious about? His dishonesty? Or the feeling that you’ve been barred from grieving? Are you upset that the family, who you said you have a relationship with, didn’t tell you? Basically, is your impetus here to let everyone know that you were a big part of each other's lives, and that you deserve the same “grief status” that a family member or close friend would receive? Or is it to let everyone know that you were clueless?
If the family was unaware, I’m curious what value your confession would provide. Sure, it would reveal a part of him that they might not have seen, and maybe that’s your goal here. But, again, what would it do for you? I doubt the family would be quick to grant you that elusive grief status, and so you’d likely still find yourself on the outside. (And, to be fair, I’m not sure that everyone would believe that you had no clue he was partnered. I believe you. But I’m not them.)
I keep coming back to what you said about the avenues of grief, and I’m still unsure about what’s getting in the way of you grieving him. Maybe you’re not able to do the same sort of public, social media remembrance that his partner and the rest of his family might’ve. But what’s stopping you from grieving in private? And perhaps working through these complications with your friends and family instead of his?
I apologize for not having a clearer solution for you. But maybe — hopefully — you’ll answer some of these questions, and your path will emerge. | 2022-10-14T13:11:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Damon: My boyfriend passed away. Then I found out he cheated. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/14/ask-damon-dead-boyfriend-cheating/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/14/ask-damon-dead-boyfriend-cheating/ |
2-year-old boy found unconscious in Southwest D.C., police say
The child was in critical condition as of late Thursday, police said.
A 2-year-old boy was found unconscious and unresponsive in Southwest Washington Thursday night, police said.
Police found the child in the unit block of Atlantic Street, SW, around 9:06 p.m. A department spokesperson said that he was in critical condition as of late Thursday.
Police are actively investigating the case as a physical abuse allegation. | 2022-10-14T13:46:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 2-year-old boy found unconscious in Southwest D.C., police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/two-year-old-unconscious-october-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/14/two-year-old-unconscious-october-dc/ |
So who’s ‘naive’ about Saudi Arabia, now?
In this image released by the Saudi Royal Palace, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, greets President Joe Biden with a fist bump after his arrival at Al-Salam palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, July 15, 2022. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP)
What’s that saying about making friends with face-eating tigers, and then getting upset when one eats your face, because you didn’t think it would eat your face?
Two weeks ago, just before the fourth anniversary of my colleague Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, I talked to former U.N. special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who worked on the report that found the highest levels Saudi Arabia’s government responsible for the assassination. Candidate Joe Biden, as we all remember, said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, as he is known, should be treated as a pariah for Jamal’s killing.
At least that’s how they explained why President Biden just had to go to Riyadh in July and give MBS both a personal meeting and that fist bump seen round the world. It would be worth it, because of U.S. energy and security needs, right?
Wrong, as it turned out. Saudi Arabia has repaid all that by hitting the United States where it hurts — at the gas pump.
Last week, the Saudi-led OPEC Plus nations cut oil production. This will not only lead to higher prices at the pump but also help provide fellow oil-producer Russia with the financial reserves it needs to wage its war with Ukraine, which Washington obviously opposes. So MBS got his photo ops, his military got the U.S. weapons deals it wanted — and the White House got neither realpolitik economic support nor any improvement in human rights. Not a good look — especially for the Democrats, right ahead of the midterm elections.
Now, with the oil-production rebuke, Biden is again threatening consequences for Saudi Arabia, and administration officials say they are willing to reevaluate the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Were the bombings in Yemen or the kidnapping and killing of a journalist not enough?
Well, that’s clarifying. The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has always been an oil-for-security partnership, not an alliance in the true sense of the word. That’s why it was so easy for the Biden administration to sell out the human rights community, all so that Saudi Arabia could turn around and give the West an oil-slicked middle-finger and side with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It should be no surprise to anyone. Even Jamal wrote years ago that Mohammed bin Salman was behaving more like Putin.
I hope this is a humbling of the foreign policy apparatchiks in D.C. Those of us who have been calling for a more progressive reset with Saudi Arabia weren’t just being naive. We saw MBS kidnap a prime minister and start a diplomatic spat with Canada over ... tweets. This was a leader who was not just a human rights abuser but deeply disruptive to the West’s norms of geopolitical conduct. It’s almost as though the foreign policy establishment thought: “Well, they would never do that to us.”
Hubris is a hell of a drug. What is it about human nature — both at an individual and collective level — that allows us to overlook when our friends, allies and heroes do terrible things to others? I don’t really think geopolitics is so different from other realms of human interaction. If you have a friend who talks terribly about everyone else, can you really be surprised when one day that “friend” turns on you? People purported to be shocked this week by Kanye West’s antisemitic outbursts. But for years he has been winking at white nationalism, denigrating Black people, and harassing his ex, Kim Kardashian. Antisemitism was only a matter of time. The signs were all there.
And the signs were all there — unmistakably, unless you actively wanted to avoid seeing them — that the Saudi regime was not to be trusted. Now, MBS has put Biden in a corner yet again — and the president has nothing to show for his fist-bump diplomacy. Honestly, the administration has no one to blame but itself.
Home Front: Kanye West: The ball is in Adidas’s court
Speaking of longtime impunity, and money shielding bad actors from consequences, let’s return to Kanye West. After the fallout from West’s antisemitic rant, it was disheartening to think about all the years that West trafficked in anti-Blackness while people called him a “genius” and free-thinker. I keep wondering one thing: What about West’s corporate overlords, who have been signing off on his use of white supremacy for years? Yes, years. On Twitter this week, I laid out West’s long-standing love affair with the Confederate flag:
It is just simply the case that Kanye has openly been using White supremacy and its symbols for attention and profit for YEARS, and no one did anything. https://t.co/MRqC9H0N9K
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) October 11, 2022
There are White people in fashion and merchandising boardrooms who have been happy to go along with West’s use of white supremacy for publicity and profit. They’re accountable for what we’re seeing, too. Or should be.
My Post colleagues Jaclyn Peiser and Jacob Bogage took a look at Adidas, which has a fashion deal for West’s brand Yeezy. “Yeezy generates an estimated $2 billion a year, close to 10 percent of [Adidas’s] annual revenue,” the report. West is a billionaire thanks to the partnership; he pretty much single-handedly made Adidas culturally relevant again — which is probably why they have stood by him all these years. Adidas has now said it will “review the partnership.”
But does that mean it will really part ways with their cash clown? I’m not holding my breath.
Fun Zone: Back to the future: A touching Comic Con moment
It’s been a heavy and chaotic week, but don’t worry, this week’s #DareYouNotToCry challenge is here! This one is for all the ’80s and ’90s kids who were fans of the “Back to the Future” films: Actor Michael J. Fox reunited with his BTTF co-star Christopher Lloyd. Fox has Parkinson’s disease, and has been at the forefront of raising money and awareness to fight the awful illness. The embrace between Fox and Lloyd is everything. | 2022-10-14T14:16:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden has nothing to show for his fist-bump diplomacy with Saudi Arabia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-gas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/14/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-gas/ |
The mega deal could create a new rival for Walmart
Kroger announced plans to acquire Albertsons for $24.6 billion. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg)
The deal to merge Kroger and Albertsons, which are two of the largest grocery chains in the country, is likely to attract antitrust scrutiny from federal regulators who have been keeping an eye on industry consolidation.
Food prices are still rising. Here’s how Americans are coping.
When the deal has been finalized, Kroger will control about 11.8 percent of the food and grocery market, according to the data analysis company GlobalData, making it the second-largest food retailer behind Walmart.
“Heightened competition from Walmart and the value chains — all of which are taking a more aggressive stance on price — and from new entrants like Amazon, necessitates a greater investment in prices and propositions,” Neil Saunders, a retail analyst and the managing director of GlobalData, said in a statement. “Both Kroger and Albertsons are capable of managing this alone, but the larger, merged business will have more financial firepower.”
The companies expect to close the deal early next year. | 2022-10-14T14:16:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kroger, Albertsons announce $24.6 billion merger - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/kroger-albertsons-grocery-merger/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/kroger-albertsons-grocery-merger/ |
Liz Truss, UK prime minister, delivers her keynote speech during the Conservative Party’s annual autumn conference in Birmingham, UK, on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. Truss is struggling to keep control less than a month into her tenure, already forced into a humiliating U-turn over her plan to cut income tax for Britain’s highest earners, which spooked financial markets and hammered support for the Tories in opinion polls. (Bloomberg)
Five weeks ago, the world watched in awe as Britain bid farewell to Elizabeth II and welcomed Charles III with impeccable pomp. Today, it’s watching aghast as the government shatters into smithereens and the British economy goes into convulsions. “Oh dear, oh dear,” the king was heard to mutter as he met Prime Minister Liz Truss for the first of their routine weekly meetings.
The political situation is both depressing and surreal. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng flew back from a meeting of the world’s most powerful financiers to be sacked, after only 38 days in office. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has declared, unprompted, during a radio interview that “changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but economically.”
Tory MPs from the Cabinet level down are engaged in a frenzy of plotting, as opinion polls show MPs with majorities of 20,000 losing to Labour. A Tory insider said that this is the worst crisis he’d seen in his lifetime and then declared that only the showdown with Egypt over Suez in 1956 or even May 1940 during World War II could compare: a government trying to survive with its defining policy in tatters. “At least in 1940 we had Churchill,” the insider said.
Here is a sample of what MPs have been telling the newspapers in the past few days. The mood at a meeting of the 1922 Committee on Wednesday, where Truss tried to justify her policies to backbenchers, was “funereal” and “unspeakably bleak.” Expecting Truss and Kwarteng to fix the situation “is a bit like asking the gas engineer who has just blown up your house to come back and have another go.” “I don’t see how there is any way back for her. Her whole economic policy has come apart.” “We are all suffering from depression and anxiety. We’re trying to work out what to do.”
Truss’s decision to sacrifice her chancellor and tear up much of his mini-budget might buy a little time for her — and restore some stability to the market. But it raises a further question: If Kwarteng can go, then why not Truss? The only point of Truss as a politician is that she’s a radical reformer who wants to shock a sclerotic system into growth; take that away, and she’s nothing more than an empty vessel, in office but not in power. Nobody calls in Truss if they’re looking for oratorical brilliance, human empathy, organizational skills or popularity. A new opinion poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies has her approval rating at minus 48, the lowest they’ve ever recorded for a prime minister.
Getting rid of a sitting prime minister only weeks after she has been appointed would obviously look absurd. Britain would make Italy look stable by comparison. Changing the pilot would also mean changing the selection rules because nobody has the appetite for another long drawn-out leadership contest involving Tory Party members. Tories are increasingly convinced that absurdity is better than oblivion, with several options being openly discussed in the bars and corridors of Westminster.
One suggestion is to replace Truss with a neutral grandee just as the party replaced the hapless Ian Duncan Smith with Michael Howard in 2003. Sajid Javid and Kit Malthouse are names that are often mentioned. Few outside the Conservative village have heard of Malthouse, and the public would be dumbfounded to find him suddenly foisted on them as a caretaker prime minister.
A second is to replace Truss with Rishi Sunak, who beat her among MPs and was clearly right in warning party members that Trussonomics would lead to disaster. But this might be seen as a partisan move at a time when the party needs unity.
The third option that is gaining momentum is to have a joint ticket between Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who, between them, got three-quarters of the votes of Tory MPs. Mordaunt, a popular figure among party members, has a talent for reaching blue-collar Tories who have been particularly alienated by Truss’s enthusiasm for cutting taxes and shrinking the state.
The mood is so febrile that its quite impossible to predict what will happen. But three things are clear from the turmoil and trauma of the past week.
The first is that the Conservative Party has to reform the way it selects leaders. A majority of MPs voted for Sunak, an experienced former chancellor who knew that Truss was playing with fire. Truss only got the job because she appealed to the Tory Party’s 172,000 members who don’t have either the numbers to confer democratic legitimacy on their decision or the knowledge to make an informed choice. The fashion for giving decision power to party members at a time when membership is becoming a hobby for fanatics and eccentrics doomed the Labour Party to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Now it has doomed the Conservatives to Truss in 2022. The choice of leaders should be limited to MPs.
The second is that, whatever its impact on the British economy, Brexit has been a disaster for British politics. It robbed the Tories of talent as Remainers were frozen out of the party or left in disgust. This is at a time when the political system is hardly oversupplied with talented people. It encouraged a reckless and domineering attitude among Brexiteers. And it provided confused instructions to the party. Brexiteers were divided into two camps who were only united by their hatred of Brussels: traditionalists who wanted to return to the good old days by “taking back control” from foreign bureaucrats and global markets; and radical free marketeers who wanted to unleash the power of creative destruction.
Whatever his faults, Boris Johnson at least tried to reconcile these opposites. Even if Truss hadn’t chosen “creative destruction” so artlessly that she alienated the markets, she would have antagonized a good chunk of her own party who thought Brexit meant something very different from her.
The third is that the Labour Party is now a government-in-waiting rather than a struggling opposition. Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are inundated with offers for shrimp cocktails in the City. Middle-of-the-road voters are celebrating Starmer’s dull normality, with its promise of competence and stability. It’s often said that governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them. But nobody in Labour high-command expected the Tory Party—an organization that had the reputation as the most ruthless political machine in the Western world — to lose the next election, which must be declared within the next two years, in such a spectacular fashion.
We’re Witnessing the Hollowing Out of the Tory Party: Adrian Wooldridge
Liz Truss Faces Four Traps of Her Own Making: Therese Raphael
How the BOE Could Get Away With Ending the Pension Rescue: Marcus Ashworth | 2022-10-14T14:16:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Kwarteng, Tories Grasp Toward a Post-Truss Era - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-kwarteng-tories-grasp-toward-a-post-truss-era/2022/10/14/ed8cf184-4bc0-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-kwarteng-tories-grasp-toward-a-post-truss-era/2022/10/14/ed8cf184-4bc0-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
By Peter Smith and David Crary | AP
FILE - A manager at the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters, left, speaks with a worker at the door of the center in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. A year after 17 North American missionaries were kidnapped in Haiti, beginning a two-month ordeal before they ultimately went free, Christian Aid Ministries, the agency that sent them hasn’t made a permanent return, and several other international groups have also scaled back their work there. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph) | 2022-10-14T14:17:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Faith groups curb Haiti work due to chaos, 2021 kidnapping - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/faith-groups-curb-haiti-work-due-to-chaos-2021-kidnapping/2022/10/14/485b87de-4bc0-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/faith-groups-curb-haiti-work-due-to-chaos-2021-kidnapping/2022/10/14/485b87de-4bc0-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Washington Commanders players celebrate after making a goal-line stand in the second quarter. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
A look at the good (Hail!) and bad (Fail!) from the Washington Commanders’ 12-7 win over the Chicago Bears on Thursday.
Hail: Al Michaels
In the wake of an ESPN report Thursday that Daniel Snyder has told his inner circle about the private investigators he has hired to gather dirt on fellow team owners and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Amazon Prime play-by-play man Al Michaels addressed the ongoing controversy surrounding the Commanders co-owner, who is under investigation by five entities. He was quite frank.
“Just my feeling, I think what the league would love is for Snyder to sell the team,” the legendary Michaels, who is as plugged in with the NFL as any broadcaster, said as cameras showed Snyder with team president Jason Wright in a suite at Soldier Field. “Not have to go to a vote, but just sell the team. Because it’s become a major problem around the league, obviously. And we’ll see what happens. I think it’s got a long way to go, and Dan is very well known for digging his heels into the ground.”
On the pregame show, reporter Michael Smith said he talked to a high-ranking league official who told him it was “50-50 that Snyder survives these scandals.” Chants of “Sell the team!” could be heard during Amazon Prime’s on-field postgame show.
Hail: Goal-line defense
Three times the Bears advanced at least as far as the Washington 5-yard line, and three times the home team came away without points. That’s how the Commanders managed to end their four-game losing streak despite being outgained by 178 yards by one of the worst offensive teams in the league. In the first half, Washington intercepted Justin Fields on a pass headed for the end zone and stopped running back Khalil Herbert for no gain on a fourth-and-goal run from the 1. With Chicago driving for the potential game-winning score in the final minute, the Commanders kept the Bears out of the end zone on four consecutive plays from inside the 5, and they sealed the win when cornerback Benjamin St-Juste tackled wide receiver Darnell Mooney inches short of the goal line on a fourth-down catch.
Wowowowowowowowowow.#TNFonPrime pic.twitter.com/ZqqyqzlEZD
Fail: Drops
Wide receiver Curtis Samuel had 22 catches and two touchdowns over Washington’s first three games. He has 12 catches and hasn’t scored in three games since, including two grabs for six yards against the Bears. On the Commanders’ final drive of the first half, Samuel dropped what should have been a 40-yard touchdown and another pass that should have been a first down within the span of four plays.
Hail: Carson Wentz, bulldozer
With little time to throw and his receivers letting him down when he did, Wentz failed to eclipse 100 yards passing for only the third time in his career. He also played his first turnover-free game with Washington, improved to 7-0 on “Thursday Night Football” and threw a vicious block on a run by Brian Robinson Jr. for the second consecutive week. On the first play after the Bears muffed a punt midway through the fourth quarter, Wentz leveled all-pro linebacker Roquan Smith, springing Robinson for a five-yard gain. The rookie running back scored the go-ahead touchdown on the next play.
“It’s not planned by any means, but especially when you’re down there by the goal line, and it was an ugly game, I’m going to do anything I can to help this team get in the end zone,” said Wentz, who was hampered by a hand injury he suffered in the second quarter on top of the biceps tendon strain he suffered Sunday. “That was fun, I guess. Hopefully I’m not making a living doing it.”
Fail: The wrong number of men
It’s Week 6. Washington has an experienced defensive coordinator in Jack Del Rio. At the very least, the Commanders should have the correct number of players on the field when they’re missing tackles, blowing assignments and giving up explosive plays. Twice Thursday, Washington was penalized for having 12 men on the field, which is one too many. Embarrassingly, one of those instances resulted in the Commanders allowing a 40-yard touchdown pass to Dante Pettis. Equally inexcusable, Washington had only 10 men on the field on one play during Chicago’s final drive.
Fail: ‘Freshman’ teams
Despite combining for two touchdowns, Chicago and Washington managed to play a lower-scoring game and a less appealing brand of football than what viewers were subjected to last Thursday, when the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Denver Broncos, 12-9 in overtime, in a contest that featured nothing but field goals.
“I’ve been on these types of teams,” Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez said on the pregame show. “They’re the JV teams of the NFL. But there’s a silver lining to that, folks. I think we’re going to have a good football game.”
Gonzalez, who was the leading receiver on the 2008 Kansas City Chiefs team that finished 2-14, amended his take at halftime with Washington leading 3-0.
“This might be the freshman team,” he said. “This is not good football.”
Buckner: Commanders can rebrand all they want. Dysfunction is their true identity.
Hail: Takeaways
Washington came into the game with one takeaway through five weeks and the second-worst turnover differential in the league. Jonathan Allen ended Chicago’s second possession inside the Washington 10-yard line when he intercepted a pass that deflected off fellow defensive lineman Efe Obada’s helmet. Commanders rookie Christian Holmes pounced on a muffed punt by Chicago’s Velus Jones Jr. with eight minutes remaining, setting up the Robinson touchdown run that proved to be the difference in the game.
Fail: Ron Rivera’s challenge flag usage
It’s been a rough season for the Commanders’ third-year coach in the replay challenge department. In last month’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, he didn’t throw his challenge flag fast enough to contest a catch that appeared to be incomplete. In last week’s loss to the Tennessee Titans, he sacrificed a timeout on Washington’s final drive by challenging a play that had little chance of being overturned. On Thursday, Rivera may have goofed again when he decided not to challenge a third-quarter catch by Mooney that appeared to hit the ground. Rather than facing third and long, Mooney’s catch set up third and short. David Montgomery ran for a first down on the next play, and the drive resulted in a touchdown. | 2022-10-14T14:17:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highlights from Commanders' win over Bears include Al Michaels on Dan Snyder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/al-michaels-daniel-snyder-commanders-bears/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/al-michaels-daniel-snyder-commanders-bears/ |
Geno Smith is getting his shot and helping the Seahawks forget Russell Wilson
Through five games, Geno Smith sits at or near the top of the NFL in a slew of traditional and advanced metrics. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
To hear Geno Smith tell it, anyone surprised by his stellar performance thus far this season has simply “never watched me throw.”
In fairness to the majority of the football world — which, it seems safe to say, was not expecting this from the Seattle Seahawks quarterback — there hasn’t been much to watch, given that Smith rarely left the bench over the previous seven seasons.
Through five games in 2022, however, Smith has been a revelation. The ninth-year veteran sits at or near the top of the NFL in a slew of traditional and advanced metrics, and while the defensively struggling Seahawks have won just twice, they have defied predictions that their supposedly dreadful, post-Russell Wilson quarterbacking situation would help make them one of the worst teams in the NFL.
“Geno can throw everything. He can throw it all, and we’ve always seen that,” Seattle Coach Pete Carroll told reporters Monday, a day after Smith completed 16 of 25 passes for 268 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions in a 39-32 loss on the road to the New Orleans Saints. “He’s always had a marvelous range of [ability], through the motions and what he can do with the football. But it’s really exciting to see it happen in the game, so naturally and so comfortably for him.”
Smith appears to be improving as the season goes along, which could make sense for a quarterback who made just two starts between 2015 and 2020 before filling in three times last season for an injured Wilson. After a hot first half in Week 1 against Wilson’s Denver Broncos, Smith cooled off and then labored to do much beyond completing short passes in a Week 2 loss at the San Francisco 49ers. However, he has helped the Seahawks score 103 points over their past three games, including 48 in a Week 4 shootout win over the host Detroit Lions.
Along the way, Smith has accounted for the seventh- and eighth-most improbable completions this season, per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, including a touchdown strike last week to wide receiver Tyler Lockett he somehow fit between three Saints defenders 50 yards downfield.
Heading into a Week 6 showdown with the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Smith can boast these NFL-wide rankings among qualified quarterbacks:
First in completion percentage (75.2)
First in passer rating (113.1)
Third in yards per attempt (8.3)
Fourth in QBR (74.8)
Sixth in touchdown percentage (5.7)
Seventh in interception percentage (1.3)
The advanced statistics tell a similar tale. Smith has by far the highest mark in completion percentage over expectation — 9.6, per Next Gen Stats — with the Saints’ Andy Dalton next at 6.5, followed by New Orleans’s Jameis Winston at 5.2 and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts at 2.7.
Smith is also first by a wide margin in passing grade at Pro Football Focus, which dissects film of every play of every game. The 32-year-old veteran has a mark of 87.9, while the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes is next at 82.2 and Hurts is third at 81.4.
Per the football-analytics-focused website rbsdm.com, Smith’s composite score in completion percentage over expectation and expected points added per play (0.189) is third overall, behind two names most would expect to see pacing the league: Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills (0.196) and Mahomes (0.193).
“Regardless of whether you’re looking at the numbers or the film,” said Ben Baldwin, a co-creator of rbsdm.com, “at least for five games of the 2022 season, they’re going to tell you the same thing, which is that Geno Smith has been playing very well so far.”
Also a contributor to the Athletic, Baldwin acknowledged in a recent phone interview that he is among those “very surprised at how this has gone so far.”
Baldwin had been of the opinion that the team should have kept Wilson and, if anything, gotten rid of Carroll. Instead, the septuagenarian coach won what had appeared to be a long-running power struggle with the quarterback, and Wilson was traded in March to the Broncos for a massive package of draft picks and players including quarterback Drew Lock, tight end Noah Fant and defensive lineman Shelby Harris.
Expected to flourish in Denver after being freed from Carroll’s supposed run-first mentality, Wilson has instead gotten off to a horrendous start playing for first-year coach Nathaniel Hackett, who has taken heaps of criticism in his own right. Rated 3oth in passing by Pro Football Focus among quarterbacks with at least 40 drop-backs, Wilson is 26th in QBR for a Broncos squad that has scored just six total touchdowns — or four fewer than Smith has racked up with his arm and legs.
“Whatever combination of factors have brought down his play,” Baldwin said of Wilson, “it seems like the Seahawks have gone from everyone — including me — saying, ‘What are you doing, trading your franchise quarterback?’ to, ‘Wow, maybe they really did get rid of Russell Wilson at the perfect time.’ ”
Of course, it is one thing to cash out on an aging star, and quite another to expect big things from his much-traveled backup. Smith’s career 75.7 passer rating and 13-21 record heading into 2022 did not augur well, and he hadn’t been a regular starter since 2014, his second season with the New York Jets after they made him a second-round draft pick out of West Virginia the year before.
Smith flashed some promise with New York, including a league-leading five game-winning drives as a rookie, and he was set to continue his progress as a third-year starter in 2015 when he was punched in the face by teammate I.K. Enemkpali in the Jets’ locker room. The August assault, reportedly over a dispute involving a missed appearance at a football camp run by the linebacker, left Smith with a jaw broken in two places. It also allowed Ryan Fitzpatrick to ascend the Jets’ depth chart, and after he played well that season, Fitzpatrick kept the starting job in 2016 while Smith served as his backup.
As great as his two touchdown throws to Tyler Lockett were, this throw from Geno Smith to Noah Fant jumps out as my favorite from Sunday.
Rolling out to his left, throwing off platform, and makes a perfect throw just over the hands of defender for 32 yards. pic.twitter.com/dSNkPqybEW
Let go by the Jets in 2017, Smith played sparingly during stints with the New York Giants and Los Angeles Chargers before latching on with Seattle in 2019 to serve as Wilson’s backup.
Wilson had been an ironman, never missing a start from his 2012 rookie season through 2020, but a finger injury last year gave Smith the chance to start three straight games. In retrospect, his efficient play over that stretch — a 70.5 percent completion percentage with five total touchdowns, no interceptions and a 108.4 passer rating — foreshadowed his 2022 breakout, but Carroll still had Smith earn the starting spot in a training camp battle with Lock.
Given that the 25-year-old Lock was part of the trade return for Wilson and could be more easily theorized to have his best football still in front of him, it was no sure thing that Smith would hold him off for long. But Carroll gave Smith a major vote of confidence after the low-scoring loss to the 49ers.
“He’s clearly in command of [the offense], poised, and we need to not hold back at all,” Carroll said then of Smith. “I kind of implied that we could have thrown the football more with the opportunities that we had, and with the trust that we have in him, we need to do that.”
The Seahawks have actually been throwing the ball more frequently on early downs in neutral situations than they ever did with Wilson, apart from a short-lived stretch in 2020 when Carroll allowed the “Let Russ cook” movement to flourish before a spate of turnovers changed the coach’s mind.
Noting that it is “easy to pass a lot when your passing game is doing extremely well,” Baldwin said, “What will be telling is if Geno ever does have some kind of slump this year … will the Seahawks continue to throw the ball at a high rate, or will they start leaning on the run more?”
For the time being, Carroll has left little doubt about his faith in Smith to execute the offense.
“Geno has really taken advantage of understanding the system and working well with every aspect of it,” the coach said Monday, “from the checks, from the control of the line of scrimmage to what he is doing in the throwing game and, of course, he is contributing in the run game as well.”
That praise came a week after Carroll said of Smith following the win over the Lions: “I don’t know how you could do a whole lot more, play a whole lot better than that. I’m just thrilled for him and for our guys that he’s had this kind of early success to jump-start this season and show us that we can play really good football with him at the helm.
“He’s just been so rock steady throughout this whole process.” | 2022-10-14T14:18:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Geno Smith stars for the Seahawks after Seattle traded Russell WIlson - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/geno-smith-seahawks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/geno-smith-seahawks/ |
Quarterback Jalen Hurts and Coach Nick Sirianni have the Eagles off to a 5-0 start entering Sunday night's game against the Cowboys in Philadelphia. (Rick Scuteri/AP)
The NFC East is back. Well, at least it’s as close to “back” as it can be in mid-October, with two-thirds of the regular season remaining. Call it kinda, sorta back.
The Philadelphia Eagles, at 5-0, are the NFL’s lone unbeaten team. The Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants are 4-1. It is, in some ways, a measure of how far the division has fallen — and how long it has remained there — that it having three of the league’s top teams as Week 6 arrives qualifies as so stunning. The rebirth will be on national display Sunday night when the Eagles host the Cowboys amid what surely will be a raucous atmosphere at Lincoln Financial Field.
“It is surprising relative to our preseason expectations, although I did think the division was a little better than [predicted],” said Joe Banner, a former front office executive for the Eagles and Cleveland Browns. “It was really getting panned pretty badly.”
Games far bigger than this once were the hallmark of the NFC East. The Giants, Cowboys and Washington combined to win eight Super Bowl titles in a span of 14 seasons between 1982 and ’95. The division had five Super Bowl triumphs in six seasons to conclude that glorious stretch.
But such on-field prosperity is a faded memory. The NFC East’s four franchises have totaled one Super Bowl victory over the past decade, the Eagles’ in the 2017 season. The Giants have one playoff appearance — and zero postseason wins — since securing their second Super Bowl championship in a five-year stretch in the 2011 season.
The Cowboys last reached a Super Bowl in the 1995 season. For Washington, it was the 1991 season. The division reached an NFC Least level of ineptitude in 2020 when Washington finished in first place at 7-9, so this early-season renaissance is notable.
“There seems to be no letup in the way this league is balanced,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in his weekly radio appearance. “And I think that’s what we’ve got in our NFC East. I’m so impressed with really the way Philadelphia has evolved. … That is going to be a real challenge for us up there. They’ve got the goods.”
There is a case to be made that the Eagles are building something lasting. When their owner, Jeffrey Lurie, ousted Doug Pederson as the team’s coach in January 2021, a little less than three years after Pederson orchestrated a Super Bowl victory, Lurie said Pederson “didn’t deserve to be let go,” but the two had a “difference in vision.” Lurie called it “a transition point” and said then that the Eagles had to get younger.
“We’ve got to accumulate as much talent as we possibly can that is going to work in the long run,” Lurie said that day, “with a focus on the mid-term and the long term and not on how to maximize 2021.”
They have retooled adeptly. The process began with Pederson benching quarterback Carson Wentz in favor of Jalen Hurts late in the 2020 season. Next, Lurie and General Manager Howie Roseman hired Nick Sirianni, then a relatively little-known offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts, to replace Pederson and traded Wentz to the Colts.
Now the Eagles have a roster filled with talent. Hurts is flourishing as a dual threat at quarterback in his second full season as an NFL starter, building on last season’s playoff appearance. Roseman made a draft-night trade in April for wide receiver A.J. Brown to bolster a supporting cast on offense that already included wideout DeVonta Smith, tight end Dallas Goedert and tailback Miles Sanders.
The Eagles are formidable along the offensive and defensive lines. They have a superb trio of cornerbacks in Darius Slay, James Bradberry and Avonte Maddox. They’re a balanced team, ranked second in the NFL in total offense and fourth in total defense.
“I think the Eagles are a very good team,” Banner, a founder of the website The 33rd Team, said. “They’re legitimately in the Super Bowl conversation. But I’ll be surprised if it’s all said and done and they’re the ones left standing.”
The Giants are just beginning their latest revamping phase, so their early-season success puts them well ahead of schedule. Before their opening-day win over the Tennessee Titans, they had not been above .500 at any point in a season since 2016.
Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tish performed another organizational overhaul in the offseason. Dave Gettleman announced his retirement as general manager. The Giants fired Joe Judge after a two-season coaching tenure. They tapped into the success of the Buffalo Bills by hiring Joe Schoen, the assistant GM in Buffalo, as their general manager and Brian Daboll, the Bills’ offensive coordinator, as their coach.
Under the previous regime, quarterback Daniel Jones and tailback Saquon Barkley resembled draft busts. Now, they’re looking more like the cornerstone players they were drafted to be, at least when viewed through the lens of a winning start. Barkley is the NFL’s second-leading rusher.
“The Giants, I think, still have a ways to go and will revert to the talent on the roster as the season goes on,” Banner said. “But they’re definitely better, and there’s a lot of evidence to believe they’re on the right track for sustained success.”
The Cowboys’ latest bid to get back to a Super Bowl seemed to veer far off course when they lost their season opener to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a fractured right thumb and underwent surgery the following day. The circumstances appeared dire. Enter Cooper Rush. With Prescott’s unheralded backup filling in, the Cowboys have gone 4-0.
“I really thought their offensive line, which I think is their key to success, had deteriorated quite a bit,” Banner said, expressing the view that the Cowboys will reach the playoffs. “And if you’d told me that they were going to play four games with their backup quarterback combined with what I perceived to be the weakness of their offensive line, I would not have thought there was any chance of them being 4-1.”
A defense led by standout pass rushers Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence and cornerback Trevon Diggs has done the heavy lifting. Rush and the offense have avoided mistakes. For the time being, the speculation about Jones pursuing coaching free agent Sean Payton in the offseason if Mike McCarthy doesn’t take the Cowboys deep into the playoffs has been put aside. McCarthy and his team have persevered.
America is obsessed with the Cowboys. NFLN, ESPN and ESPN2 all talking about them at the same time 🤦🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/UrZSwneGbp
— Andrew Groover (@APGroover) October 12, 2022
“Hats off to Dallas,” Sirianni said at a midweek news conference. “They’ve done just such a great job. They lost one of their best players and one of the better players in the league. And they keep rolling. … That’s the playmakers that they have around Dak, that they have around Cooper. And that’s also coaching.”
It is a moment to savor for NFC East’s trio of front-running teams — although not too much. There is plenty more work to be done.
“It’s very hard to win in this league,” Hurts said this week. “And I think that’s the balance that I have to obtain, in knowing how hard it is but also being eager and hungry to want more. … Enough is never enough.” | 2022-10-14T14:18:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFC East has the NFL's lone unbeaten team and is thriving once again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/nfc-east-eagles-cowboys-giants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/nfc-east-eagles-cowboys-giants/ |
In cities across the U.S., allegations of financial misconduct divide non-profit clubs and communities
By Roman Stubbs
With more than 2,000 registered players at times and an annual operating budgets of around $1 million, the Bend FC Timbers has been one of the largest soccer clubs in the Pacific Northwest for several years. (Isaac Wasserman for The Washington Post)
BEND, Ore. — Tara Bilanski was already a household name in the Pacific Northwest soccer scene when she was named executive director of the Bend FC Timbers in 2016. A former professional player who had coached at the highest levels collegiately, she found a more lucrative opportunity in the well-financed world of youth soccer. Her credentials energized one of the state’s largest clubs, and over the next five years, she received several pay raises that eventually bumped her salary up to $119,000 per year — nearly $30,000 more than she made as a head coach at the University of Oregon.
But by the summer of 2021, Bilanski had fallen out of favor with the club’s board of directors and many of its parents, and after stakeholders conducted a survey and determined she had not been performing her job duties satisfactorily, she was fired that August. Within months, another bombshell dropped: The club studied Bilanski’s books and couldn’t account for more than $80,000. The culprit, they determined, was Bilanski and another former Timbers employee.
In short order, the embezzlement allegations triggered a lawsuit that has divided a once unified soccer community and launched investigations by the local district attorney’s office and the state’s Justice Department.
Bilanski has not denied taking the money but says it was part of a profit-sharing agreement with the club. As courts sort the truth, the ongoing case serves as a high-profile example of what many youth sports organizations must contend with. Youth sports in recent years has exploded into a $19 billion enterprise, by some accounts, but its ecosystem is built on a shaky foundation of nonprofit clubs, many run by volunteers. They operate as big businesses but have sloppy accounting and murky financial oversight.
Sponsorship opportunities have already changed college athletics. Is youth sports next?
Clubs across many sports, including soccer, basketball and volleyball, rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from registration fees, fundraisers, private training and camps, but checks and balances on the flow of that money are often absent. As the industry continues to grow, many clubs find themselves vulnerable, and embezzlement scandals have fractured organizations and communities across the country — a youth basketball club in Omaha, a wrestling club in Mt. Morris, Mich. and a soccer and lacrosse club Hanover, Pa.
In Bend, an idyllic former mill town nestled in the shadow of the Cascade Mountain range and known as a playground for outdoor enthusiasts, the soccer club has traditionally been a pillar of the community, a rallying point for neighbors who sip coffee together on the sidelines and organize carpools to after-school practices. The Bend FC Timbers has counted more than 2,000 youth players among its ranks, many who pay as much as $1,600 in annual dues. The nonprofit organization reported more than $1.1 million in revenue in 2019 alone, according to the most recent tax records available.
The scandal has rocked Bend’s tightknit soccer community and has expanded beyond the accusation of embezzlement. Bilanski and several former Timbers staff members are also being sued for stealing the club’s trade secrets on their way out the door, according to court documents, altering records and transferring confidential personal information of thousands of players, including contact information, addresses and in some cases, Social Security numbers while forming their own rival club in town.
A handful of coaches and roughly 120 players from the Timbers left last year to join Bilanski’s new organization, Apex Futbol Club, cleaving the town’s soccer community in half. Both clubs are trying to move forward but feelings are still raw. The ongoing case reveals the complexities of running a youth sports organization, where leaders engaged in bickering, name-calling and political maneuvering, all the while leaving kids in the crossfire or, in some cases, all together forgotten.
“Was Bend Timbers, before the split, run as a business with integrity or not? That is what the lawyers are paid to figure out,” said Michael Gassner, a Bend resident who has one child playing for the Timbers and another for Apex. “And the kids are caught in the middle of it.”
Rising tension, angry texts
On a gloomy afternoon last November, nearly three months after she had been fired by the Timbers, Bilanski met with a paralegal from the law firm suing her in a Starbucks parking lot off Highway 97 in Bend. She handed over her Timbers-issued laptop. Bilanski had coached the University of Oregon’s women’s program for eight years, leaving as the school’s all-time winningest coach. As the executive director of the Timbers, she wore many hats — she served as a coach, handled financial oversight and directed human resources, helping grow the Timbers into a club that today features two full-time employees, five part-time employees, 20 paid coaches and 10 volunteers on the board of directors.
The laptop was sent to a data forensics examiner in Portland. According to the Timbers board of directors, the laptop contained evidence of financial impropriety; Bilanski had allegedly directed several unauthorized payments totaling $80,684 to herself over a six-year period and in turn, had paid a portion of the funds to another former Timbers employee, Jen Davin.
According to court records, neither Bilanski nor Davin obtained approval from the Timbers board to keep those funds and attempted to conceal the transactions by allegedly representing their work running the Timbers-owned summer camps as “a profit-sharing agreement” that would pay Bilanski and Davin a kickback of 85 percent of the camp revenue.
Both Bilanski and Davin declined to comment for this story through their attorneys. In a deposition with Timbers’ attorneys, Bilanski invoked her fifth amendment right more than 340 times.
Massive sports complexes are latest front in war for visitors, dollars
Bilanski, 49, still has plenty of community support, and earlier this summer she filed a defamation suit against the Timbers, seeking $5.1 million from the club and former board president Michelle Hart. Bilanski and the other defendants in the case have sought a stay in the civil case.
“In growing numbers, more and more families are realizing [Bilanski’s] credentials … I think people have stood by her and feel very strongly in support of her,” said Paige Hunt, a Bend resident whose son, Jake, left the Timbers to play for Apex last year. “It’s not making sense to us.”
The largest youth soccer club in Central Oregon, the Timbers’ origins date back several decades as an informal local club and officially became an incorporated organization in 2005. The club is an affiliate under the Portland Timbers Major League Soccer team and the Portland Thorns National Women’s Soccer League team. With roughly 30 teams competing for the club, the Bend summer camps had become a major draw under Bilanski, who had charged around $150 in entry fees for the camps.
Ryan Shore, the board president who hired Bilanski as the Timbers’ technical director in 2013, said in an interview that the club had outsourced companies to run camps for years. Bilanski’s initial contract — which ran for one year — included profits for running camps for the Timbers, said Shore, who left the board before Bilanski was promoted to executive director.
“If Tara or her directors and coaches wanted to run camps, they could have that profit line, or moneys we usually spent to hire [outside companies]. So yes, it was in her contract,” Shore said. “We had those kind of increases and moneymaking abilities to draw her as a new hire.” Shore said he was not familiar with Bilanski’s more recent employment contracts with the Timbers.
Even before the allegations of embezzlement came to light, the lawsuit contends, Bilanski and a group of Timbers employees and team managers embarked on a campaign to undermine the organization, which was born out of tension with the board and its president, Hart.
“If [the Bend Timbers board doesn’t] give up we will start a new club, take a crap ton of kids and bankrupt them,” the former Timbers treasurer wrote in a text that was included in court filings.
In June, while still employed by the Timbers, one of the club’s coaches, John O’Sullivan, allegedly began circulating a detailed plan to form a rival club. “F--- these guys,” he wrote in a text message cited in court records. “I am so angry I want to stick it to these f-----s.” O’Sullivan’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Timbers’ attorneys claim in filings that the club’s administrator even worked as a “double agent” to maintain access to the club’s computer systems and help the group delete, share and edit documents in effort to form a new club.
Bilanski and several former employees downloaded over 7,000 documents and edited, shared or deleted hundreds of documents from Timbers Google Workspace IT systems in the 11 days after Bilanski was fired, according to the lawsuit; when the administrator told Davin she was removing certain files, Davin allegedly responded: “Delete f---ing away.”
In late August, days after Bilanski had been fired, the administrator allegedly realized that the Timbers’ Google Drive was recording a log of all activity.
“Dude,” she texted to Bilanski, according to court records. “The sh-t that I can see on the google admin is crazy … We are all screwed as there is evidence of any file deletion or transfer … But I also will not give them full admin access for a long long time.”
“Dang. Good to know,” Bilanski responded.
By last fall, as Bilanski and the group of Timbers staffers and coaches were hit with the lawsuit, they peeled off to start Apex, drawing support from dozens of parents who believed they had been wronged by the Timbers board. The rift in Bend’s soccer scene was just beginning.
The lawsuit includes texts between Bilanski and Davin that mocked co-workers and also included vitriol for Hart, who served on the volunteer board for three years and whose 15-year-old son, Ethan Wheeler, is a rising star within the Timbers program. When Hart commented on a social media post in 2021, Bilanski texted to Davin that Hart and her son would be “black listed,” according to the lawsuit.
At subsequent practices, Wheeler could hear his teammates whisper that he didn’t deserve to be on the team because his mother was on the board, he said in an interview. O’Sullivan took him and his father off an email list for tournaments, he said, and all but four of his teammates migrated to Apex.
“It was kind of sad,” Wheeler said. “I lost most of my friends I had been playing with since kindergarten. They just left.”
Bend is not the only community to wrestle with accusations of embezzlement within its youth sports ranks in recent years. In the past few months alone, reports of alleged financial misconduct and convictions of embezzlement have been reported across the country, underscoring a long-standing issue within the industry.
In Nebraska, the founder of the popular Omaha Sports Academy was accused of taking more than $400,000 last year and was sentenced to probation after pleading no contest to the charges earlier this summer.
In Wisconsin, a former treasurer was charged with embezzling more than $84,000 from a basketball club over a seven-year span, allegedly spending more than $73,000 on retail items, meals at restaurants, airline tickets and mobile phone bills.
In Michigan, an employee of a Flint-area wrestling set the organization back after being accused of stealing more than $20,000.
In Virginia, an Ashburn woman pleaded guilty in January to stealing an unspecified amount of money from McLean Youth Football — the organization dissolved at the time of the scheme in 2016 — using funds to bill meals at restaurants, visits to a spa and pet care.
He was 34 when he was diagnosed with ALS. He wasn’t going to stop leading the basketball team he loved.
While it is impossible to know if embezzlement is on the rise in youth sports — there is no centralized body tracking cases in the industry — it has been a pervasive problem for years, said Erik Carrozza, who served for more than a decade as a youth sports treasurer in suburban Philadelphia and started a nonprofit called the Center for Fraud Prevention to help organizations avoid embezzlement.
Carrozza has tracked and examined hundreds of cases of youth sports embezzlement totaling millions of dollars stolen in the U.S. and abroad in recent years.
“There’s one common theme in all of these cases,” he said. “Everyone is shocked when it happens, because they trust who is handling the money.”
There’s often no governance of youth sports organizations — not from parents, sponsors nor local governments — and most embezzlement cases involve treasurers or volunteer board members who have been trusted with an organization’s funds, with little to no checks and balances on how budgets are operated.
“The [youth sports] organization’s financial maturity is not relative to the dollars flowing through them. It’s a function of the growth of the industry,” Carrozza said. “But it’s also a function of volunteer-based organizations and a combination of the general lack of oversight and governance that these organizations are subject to.”
There were hard lessons learned in Hanover, Pa., when a former treasurer stole nearly $630,000 from Hanover Soccer Club and the South Western Youth Lacrosse organization over a six-year period. The treasurer, David W. Wells, pleaded guilty to charges of theft in 2018 and received probation.
Tim Swingler, the former president of the club, said Wells was a trusted volunteer who never brought actual bank statements to board meetings, instead representing the club’s spending through his own accounting. The Hanover Soccer Club stayed afloat but was set back years in its plans to develop a capital project for new fields.
“That’s what was really the lesson learned, is that you can’t trust one guy with the keys to the kingdom,” Swingler said.
On a sun-soaked Saturday afternoon in September, hundreds of parents lined the sidelines to watch their kids play at the Timbers’ turf fields at Pine Nursery Park, a 159-acre complex lush with towering pines, sage and ponds. Wayne Price kept a close eye on the action, taking a few of the 20 or so calls he receives each day as the new director of the Timbers. He eventually raced to his black pickup and headed to watch his son play for Summit, one of the local high schools where Timbers and Apex club players have come together to play for the fall.
A former professional player from a working-class neighborhood in South Wales who never had to pay to play sports growing up, Price, 42, is in many ways the ideal replacement for the Timbers during this turbulent time — an outsider with no community ties and little taste for politics. He had never heard of Bend before applying for the job, which drew more than 200 applicants after Bilanski was fired. After 13 years coaching in the New Jersey youth club scene, he grew wary there because much of the industry in that state is moving to a for-profit model.
“I saw that youth sports had become such a massive industry. It wasn’t soccer first,” he said. “This has put me back in an environment where I can really affect what is going on out there on the green.”
Legal and regulated in some states and banned in others, youth MMA is growing in popularity
There is plenty of work to do off it. While lawyers for the Timbers contend that the embezzlement case has jeopardized the organization’s status as a tax-exempt nonprofit, the club is still facing considerable debt in an effort to build new fields — roughly $760,000, according to the club’s latest newsletter sent out to parents in September.
“It’s draining the club,” said Andy Fecteau, a Bend physical therapist whose three children competed for the Timbers and whose family used to be close with Bilanski. “If she did indeed pocket the money … God, that’s so wrong on so many levels. There’s got to be some corrective damage done for someone doing that stuff, especially because it’s kids.”
Price has also been forced to navigate the drama of the lawsuits; while the board has filled him in on the proceedings, he rarely brings the case up.
“I thought, it’s probably easier to go in somewhere that’s been struggling or has gone through a period of turmoil and fix it than to go to a well-oiled machine,” he said. “I think the [board] has done a great job of shielding the people who are trying to rebuild … it should be about the community, right?”
Some families have kids playing for both clubs, including Gassner, who let his daughter, a senior in high school, make her own decision to leave for Apex last year. He warned her of the ongoing lawsuits but opted to not interfere with her choice. His eighth-grade son chose to remain with the Timbers.
“It tore the community apart,” he said. “There were all kinds of mudslinging that tore people apart.”
The fracture can especially be felt during the public-school season in the fall, when players from both clubs are forced to compete side by side — and parents must sit next to one another in the stands.
“I think it’s really shattered a lot of longtime parental relationships … we kept coaching our son the whole time. This is just parent-adult stuff, you guys just go play,” said Hunt, the parent whose son now plays for Apex. “I hear from parents, you know, severed relationships of a decade or more. No eye contact at games. Very little interaction. We try to force the issue and say hello, smile and say thank you for team dinners and such. But there’s that divide.”
Constant reminders
After most of his team left for Apex, Ethan Wheeler began riding his bike every day to his high school, Summit High, to practice. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t making a mistake by staying with the Timbers. His diligence has paid off this fall: He made Summit’s varsity team as a sophomore.
The tension is constantly coming up in conversation, but the Wheeler family has focused on Ethan’s future. His father, Derrick, took over as team manager of the Timbers when most of the boys left last year, and after that first practice in which only five players took the field — “That was devastating,” Derrick said — the club was able to fill the roster with recruits from Bend and other nearby towns.
“It’s just been a lot of conversations, a lot of occupying mental space, just trying to keep everything going,” Derrick said.
Ethan said he is having the most fun playing soccer since joining the club six years ago.
But there are still plenty of reminders of the split. Sometimes Wheeler will see his old friends at school and won’t know what to say. Sometimes he plays video games online with his former teammates and they will tell him he should come play for Apex. “I get so annoyed by that and just leave,” he said.
His home has also been targeted because his mother is the former board president, according to court records. A surveillance camera set up in front of the family’s house captured someone driving by and yelling “F--- you!”
“It’s affected us,” Ethan said. “Most kids were forced to have to choose, which is kind of sad. It should have never been a choice.” | 2022-10-14T14:18:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In cities across the U.S., allegations of financial misconduct divide youth sports clubs and communities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/youth-sports-business-misconduct/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/14/youth-sports-business-misconduct/ |
Transcript: The CHIPS Act: The Road Ahead
MR. ROMM: Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. I’m Tony Romm, the congressional economic policy reporter here at The Washington Post. We’ve got a great conversation scheduled for you today, taking a look at semiconductors, or chips, those tiny little technologies that power pretty much everything that we use on a daily basis. We’ll hear from two important figures today. First, we’ll hear from Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, who was instrumental in seeing through the passage of the CHIPS Act. And then we’ll hear from Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican from Indiana, who is one of the many state leaders working right now to bring some of that semiconductor investment back to his home state.
But first, we'll start with Senator Warner. So, Senator Warner, thanks so much for joining us today. How you doing?
SEN. WARNER: I'm good, Tony. Thanks for doing this.
MR. ROMM: Great. So, you know, I talked to you a bunch over the course of this debate, which has been, you know, quite a long time in the making. But let's start with the basics here. For those who maybe aren't very well acquainted with this technology, what's the point of this semiconductor stuff? Why is it so important to them?
SEN. WARNER: Well, semiconductor chips are in any device that we use that has an on and off switch--you know, think your cell phone, your automobile, your refrigerator, you name it. And this is an area that is going to have enormously increasing demand. For example, about 4 percent of the chips in the world today go into our automobiles. That's expected over the next four to five years to go to 12 percent of all the chips going into our automobiles as we think not just about, you know, driverless cars, but the fact that our car is going to be constantly communicating with sensors that are placed all over the community. All of those items have semiconductor chips in it.
This is an area that back in the '70s and '80s, we invented the whole technology, and we dominated the field, making about 40 percent of the chips in the world. We've seen that number at 40 percent go down to about 12 percent as, frankly, this industry made a mass exodus because it was cheaper to build these facilities in Southeast Asia, in places like South Korea, and East Asia, like Japan, but particularly in Taiwan. At the same time, we've seen the People's Republic of China, controlled by the Communist Party, dramatically increased their chip production. So, we--this is an area where it is about not only making sure we have some of that supply--that supply chain located not only in America, but also in allied nations, and also where--one more example of where we are in a, you know, 21st century competition with the People's Republic of China on technology domains.
How we came to this was on the Intelligence Committee, where my friend John Cornyn and I are both seated--and I'm chairman of the committee--we monitored this rise of China and decline of America, and candidly, we're at the point where even--no cutting-edge chip, the most advance for our airplanes, for our satellites, we didn't make any of them. They're all made in Taiwan, where we saw from the Intelligence Committee there was a national security imperative to bring back some of the supply chain. That was a jobs imperative. Frankly, without the CHIPS legislation, we would never build another fabrication facility. Chip manufacturing plants are called fabs. We would never have built another fab. This was a global competition. And we sounded the alarm from the intelligence national security standpoint, similar to the way we had sounded the alarm--Tony, as you know, we talked a lot about 5G and the rise of Huawei again, a Chinese company dominating the domain--and we said we needed to step up. It took a long time. The sausage making was pretty ugly. But we now have this legislation as law of the land, and it's set off an enormous competition between states all over the country to receive some of these investments. But it's also a competition with, candidly, countries all around the world as they all try to attract the semiconductor facilities to their respective countries.
MR. ROMM: So, we'll parse out a lot of that stuff, including the national security implications. But let's start with the bill itself. This legislation includes about $52 billion to help some of these chip manufacturing companies and other sorts of tax incentives. Talk about the approach that you all took and why you took that approach in this bill.
SEN. WARNER: Well, Tony, the bill is 52 billion, and roughly it is 40 billion--39 to 40 billion in incentives to bring manufacturing in other parts of the supply chain back to this country. It's 12 billion in R&D-related dollars. There's another 2 billion that sometimes gets excluded, a billion and a half that goes into next generation wireless called Open Radio Access Network.
So, we wanted to make sure we have the major manufacturing facilities. We want to also look at the supply chain. On top of that, there's another 22 to 24 billion in tax incentives. So that $75 billion, roughly, package. Sounds like a lot, but China alone has put up $150 billion. We've seen in the year from when we passed the CHIPS bill in the Senate to when it finally got to the president's desk--we've seen the Europeans jump in the game in a major way. Matter of fact, the Germans have already secured a major Intel facility where they are putting forward 8 billion euro on that facility alone in Germany. So, we wanted to have the legislation be both--recognize we need the fabrication.
Major manufacturing plants, which are literally sometimes, you know, 10, 20, $30 billion investment, 5,000 jobs at a crack on average. But we also wanted to make sure we had part of the supply chain, the tools that go on those fabrication floors, the things like the packaging of the chips after the chip is created. How it's chopped up and actually delivered and packaged is another part of that supply chain. So, we wanted to make sure we were competitive in all of these areas. But we also wanted to make sure that the design component of the CHIPS--and we have major American companies like Broadcom and Qualcomm, for example, that are leading semiconductor firms, but they don't manufacture any chips at all. They design the chips and then outsource it to firms to actually make the production. We want to maintain that lead in the design component as well.
MR. ROMM: Sure, I mean, you sort of alluded to some of this, when you were talking about what Germany and other countries in Europe and China are doing, but just given some of the activity we've seen in other parts of the world, I mean, is the U.S. already falling behind again as these companies--or these countries rather scale up the investments that they're offering these companies?
SEN. WARNER: Well, clearly, you know, we had been kind of asleep at the switch for a number of years. And, you know, as long as, you know, pre-COVID, when supply chains moved relatively smoothly, when there wasn't the awareness of the challenge that the PRC poses and its communist party leadership poses, you know, it didn't prove to be a problem. COVID, we saw supply chains disrupted. One of the reasons why the price of automobiles went up so much in the last couple of years is because we have tens of thousands of cars that were made in America, that were sitting in lots because they couldn't be delivered to the customers because there was a semiconductor chip shortage. So, it had an effect on--obviously on overall inflation numbers.
So, this idea that we'd fallen a bit behind is true. But I think we have not given up leadership in the design area. There are certain areas like the tools that go on these factory floors, very sophisticated. We and allies around the world still have a dominant position there. But if we hadn't taken this activity, which, again, is quasi-industrial policy, even areas where we still had a lead, we would be under huge threat.
And one of the things I think that drove home the point, as we see the increasing tensions between China and Taiwan, recognizing that all of the most cutting-edge chips in the world that--or at least that we buy for our military, for example, all come from Taiwan--with Taiwan potentially under threat--military or blockade threat from the PRC, that could be hugely disruptive, and again, a national security as well as economic risk.
MR. ROMM: Right. If there was one criticism, though, that I heard pretty consistently throughout the debate--I think folks like Senator Sanders had been pretty vocal about this--it was this feeling that the U.S. really shouldn't have been in the business of giving so much money to what were already multibillion dollar multinational firms that potentially could have been making some of this stuff here in the U.S. in the first place. So, I'd love to put that thought to you. I mean, why is the U.S. in the business of giving this money to these companies that already have quite a great deal of reserves already?
SEN. WARNER: Because, one, if we step back on a broader basis, for the last 50 years, we've said it is a national security imperative that we build our tanks, our airplanes, our submarines, that we have a secure domestic supply chain to make sure that we can equip our warfighter. And nobody pushed back on that. I mean, again, there's ways to become more efficient, obviously. And there needs to be reforming in whole DoD purchasing. But nobody said we shouldn't have that secure supply chain. There are a series of areas--and I think semiconductors is just one; I think we may have to make similar type investments in other technology domains--where I think we finally realized this is a national security concern as well. If we don't have access to these chips, it could pose an inability for us to have the high functioning jets, submarines, satellites that we need. It means that technology development in other areas beyond national security could be at risk if we don't have control over that supply chain, we and our allies.
And what we've also seen is the whole rest of the world, we could have sat back and said, okay, we don't care about where these chips come from. We don't mind if they all come out of China or out of Taiwan, as perhaps Senator Sanders wanted to have happen. But I think that would have been a wrong national security move. I think it would have been a wrong economic security move. I think, again, as other nations around the world, European, India, countries like South Korea that's got, you know, again, a chip incentive package bigger than America--think about that, the size of South Korea versus the size of our country, yet South Korea is investing--this was where the global marketplace was.
If we could roll back the tape and say, well, maybe we ought to--we ought to have had some of these investments paired with the ability for the taxpayer to get stock options or other incentives, that's a fair critique. Although the way the market had moved--and these firms do have other options--without this kind of legislation, none of these new manufacturing facilities would be built in America. They wouldn't have all necessarily been just China and Taiwan. But they would not have been built in America, because this is where the market had moved.
MR. ROMM: Right. So, let's dig into some of those national security concerns that you've talked about. You know, I was struck by a comment from commerce, Secretary Raimondo, when she said, quote, “Our dependence on Taiwan for the sophisticated chips is untenable and unsafe.” You know, we've seen the Biden administration take its own actions when it comes to, you know, chip security and export controls and so forth. Do you think the U.S. has done enough? And how concerned are you about some of these geopolitical tensions just further creating the chip shortages and other kinds of troubles that we've seen?
SEN. WARNER: Well, Tony, as we think about what's called cutting-edge chips--which, again, we rely almost exclusively on Taiwan--that's really just making these chips tinier and tinier. The measuring stick is called nanometers, and getting below what's called seven nanometers is where the cutting-edge chips are. And again, we don't have that capability in this country. We will with some of the investments, for example, in Intel and other companies are making. We will when we continue to attract some of the leading Taiwanese firms like TSMC, which is the world leader, to build facilities here in America. But if we didn't have access to those chips, if Xi Jinping were to take military action against Taiwan, or simply put in place a complete economic blockade, what it would do in terms of our national security ability, what it would do in terms of creating economic havoc, we would have potentially not a recession but a depression if we suddenly had those supply of those chips were cut off. So, this is a type of investment that I think is absolutely critical to national security. We've got to continue to make both the design and the manufacture of these chips in America and in allied nations. And the failure to make this investment would have taken us out of the game.
MR. ROMM: Yeah, just to hone in on the point about a potential recession or some other economic calamity, you know, you sit on the Intelligence Committee. You know this stuff so well. How concerned are you that in a world in which tensions between China and Taiwan boiled over that they would seize TSMC, completely shut off some of those exports? Just, you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on how much of a concern that is right now.
SEN. WARNER: TSMC, a Taiwanese-based firm, is the crown jewel of Taiwan's economy. And China clearly has an interest in trying to have their own say over their own fate--and they would love to get their hands on TSMC. So, the ability--and you hear President Xi in China constantly talk about the need to reunify. The goal would be not only reunification, I believe, for the Communist Party in terms of the its historic precedence but also the economic boost that would occur to the PRC if they were to suddenly be able to take over all of Taiwan's semiconductor assets, TSMC and a host of other companies.
One of the things that we're trying to do is not only get TSMC to come to the United States, but what I would call so-called white label firms in Taiwan that make the chips, kind of the outsource source of making the chips, fabricating these materials, these chips for other companies that are chipless fabs, like the Qualcomms and Broadcoms--brand names here in America but that actually outsource the actual manufacture of the--of these critical semiconductor chips.
MR. ROMM: Right. To turn our attention back domestically, as we begin to run short on time here, you know, we've seen a number of announcements from major companies like Micron, for example, which is now setting up shop in New York. And with it, we've seen some pretty gigantic incentive packages being offered by some of these cities and states to attract that business. How do you feel about what you've seen? And do you think that some of these cities and states have gotten the balance right, between offering the right amount of money to attract business while not, you know, essentially sacrificing their own economic futures and breaking the bank to do so?
SEN. WARNER: Tony, that's a--that's a great and fair question, but it has been as a former governor of Virginia and somebody who's trying to push Virginia to be more aggressive to go after some of these facilities, we are literally talking about, you know, great quality jobs, that will exist for the next 10 to 20 to 30 years. Will states overbid? In some cases, yes. I'm sure they will. But, you know, having this kind of anchor of a major manufacturing facility--we do have--for example, one of Micron chip makers in Northern Virginia, what it's done, it's helped provide not only the Micron facility but a series of other companies that are part of the chip supply chain. So, you know, I think many of these states, as they make the assessment about going after one of the large manufacturing facilities are thinking not only will we get the manufacturing facility but there will be a series of spinoffs and supply chains that go into that facility that will have long-term economic benefit. You know, and chances are, Tony, because it will take three to five years to even build these out, in some cases even longer, making the judgment of whether we overpaid both from the federal government incentives or state incentives will probably take a number of years to prove out one way or the other.
MR. ROMM: Yeah. And on that point of the time horizon, I mean, we've talked about a lot of things, whether it's boosting the supply chain, you know, hiring folks in some of these facilities, and so forth, what does the time horizon look like overall for the country to kind of get on a better posture when it comes to semiconductors? It seems like it could be years off, even though some of the threats that we've discussed in the national security context are right in front of us.
SEN. WARNER: Well, it will be years off before these manufacturing facilities go fully online. It'll be years off before the companies decide whether they actually make money off of these new facilities.
But as I said, if we hadn't done this legislation, if this was not the law of the land, the one thing I could say unequivocally, none of these facilities would be built in America, because it is cheaper to build in Asia. And there are other countries, for example, where we are price competitive, like with Europeans, they are making every country in Europe, even countries with further left politics than ours are making these kinds of investments to try to attract these facilities and everything along the supply chain. This is a global competition.
And I guess, Tony, my feeling is, we need to get this right, and we need to be able to enter the concerns of Senator Sanders and others on the right who have been critical. But getting it right, from a taxpayer standpoint, from a national security standpoint and a jobs standpoint, implementing CHIPS is going to be as important as getting it passed. But I do believe there will be other technology areas, particularly with our competition with China, we're going to have to make other type of national investments to stay competitive.
I know my committee right now, the Intelligence Committee, which by default, has kind of become the technology committee, we're looking at the whole realm of synthetic biology, the ability to grow new drugs, or grow new chemicals or, frankly, dramatically modify how we make medicines. That is a huge opportunity area. China is investing at a level greater than ours. We may need to make sure we maintain our lead there. That is a national security issue. Advanced Energy from fusion, frankly, to electric batteries. We've seen the exit of our solar industry. I'm not sure we can fully appreciate the idea of the value of a Tesla here in this country if we don't also realize, well, if that battery is made in China, that electric vehicle battery is made in China with coal-driven energy creating that battery, then that carbon footprint of that Tesla becomes not as great as advertised. So, we've got to look at those advanced energy supply chains as well.
And we may need investments in those areas as well, both from a national security standpoint, and from a technology competition standpoint, because what we've seen--and I will circle back; I know we're running out of time--to Huawei and 5G, when we let China dominate a domain as they did with 5G and Huawei--and it took a while to prove the point that that was a national security risk if your phone call from St. Louis to LA is routed through China, and that potential data could be scraped off--that's a concern that goes beyond just the cost of the equipment and who ought to be installing 5G technology. I think this is a--this is the competition of the 21st century. A lot of focus right now on Russia, appropriately, but the long-term competition with China on technology is where I think we're going to have to keep our eye first and foremost.
MR. ROMM: Right. Well, it sounds like you guys have a lot of work ahead of you. So, you know, come back and talk to us again some time. Thanks, again for being here, Senator. We appreciate it.
SEN. WARNER: Thank you, Tony.
MR. ROMM: All right. Well, we still have more to come in our conversation. We'll be sitting down with Governor Holcomb of Indiana in just a bit. But first, we have a quick little video for you, so don't go anywhere. Stay tuned.
MS. HUMPTON: I'm Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA. And joining me today is Stephen Laaper, principal and smart factory leader at Deloitte. Welcome, Stephen.
MR. LAAPER: Thank you, Barbara. It's great to be here.
MS. HUMPTON: Right now, we're seeing major investment in advanced manufacturing by the federal government. The bipartisan infrastructure law has a focus on domestic battery production. The CHIPS Act will help us grow U.S. semiconductor production. And at Siemens, we see this investment as a key factor in the rise of what we've been calling glocalization--the idea that we need to be able to tap into global innovation but produce more things locally. Glocalization calls on U.S. industry to produce high-end goods like chips and batteries that, in turn, require advanced manufacturing environments, deploying state of the art technologies.
So, let's start from the perspective of a new facility. We're building a plant from scratch. What are the core essential technologies that make this advanced manufacturing environment a reality?
MR. LAAPER: Well, Barbara, when building a new facility or a greenfield project as is it's often called, there are many different aspects that one needs to consider, from the building itself to the operators inside to the processes and the technology stack that’s going to run those factory operations. At Deloitte, we're seeing clients in the medical technology field, the energy sector via battery and renewable energy sources, as well as the semiconductor industry is leading the way on this trend, potentially influenced in part by government policy and investment in U.S. manufacturing.
When it comes to the specific smart manufacturing technologies that should be implemented, we find that the most important aspect really comes down to data. How you equip your operations with the ability to collect and analyze data in real time, you can make smarter, better business decisions across your entire manufacturing network.
One such example where we've combined artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud and edge applications as well as computer vision solutions is really that around manufacturing, video vision, analytics. This gives manufacturers the ability to use high fidelity video streams that run through an artificial intelligence processor to be able to point out areas where productivity can be enhanced in the manufacturing environment.
To meet today's demands, organizations must take advantage of current and emerging technologies to holistically improve their operations. While automation and data collection technologies have existed for years, true smart manufacturing digital transformation is a complex transition that really requires specialized skills and solutions from a variety of companies and organizations.
MS. HUMPTON: Well, as we look to deploy these new technologies across U.S. manufacturing, one of the resources that we can tap into is a demonstration space that helps industry and government leaders explore the art of the possible. These spaces are typically stood up by government through the Manufacturing USA network but also by the private sector. In fact, one of those spaces is the smart factory in Wichita, which is led by Deloitte but we at Siemens have been supporting as a founding technology partner. What kinds of technology is the smart factory helping to seed into U.S. industry?
MR. LAAPER: Yeah, no single organization or entity has all the answers or the solutions to improve manufacturing operations at the scale and speed we need to grow the economy and to meet demands. This is why Deloitte assembled one of the strongest smart manufacturing ecosystems in the world, made up of more than 20 world leading tech innovators, including Siemens, to help address today's toughest manufacturing challenges. Manufacturers who visit the smart factory of Wichita will experience advanced manufacturing concepts that bring together edge computing, cloud, artificial intelligence, computer vision and more as part of an interconnected system that leverages data to drive enhanced manufacturing operations. Our visitors take part in real world demonstrations and participate in hands-on workshops to see these practical applications brought to life.
Importantly, the smart factory is an example of how sustainability can be seamlessly infused into smart factory operations. It's a net-zero building powered by a renewable energy grid. And it's outfitted with wind trees, solar assets, and smart lighting.
You know, it's interesting, one of the--one of the questions I most often get when I describe this as a true working facility is, of course, well, what do you manufacture there. And we're producing STEM education kits that we distribute, along with our ecosystem, to schools and underserved communities across the United States, doing our part to inspire the next generation of STEM talent.
MS. HUMPTON: That's awesome. That's awesome. And actually, you lead me to this last thing I want to close on, which is the theme of how manufacturers can introduce new technologies and start up and scale them. Let’s take the view now of an existing manufacturing plant that has legacy equipment and processes. A factory leader comes to you and says, how do I get started and how do I move fast? What guidance do you share?
MR. LAAPER: Well, the reality is that there's no one single answer, and often it depends where a company is on their manufacturing journey and the associated priorities. Resilience has really rose to the top of the priority list. And after the disruptions that we've seen over the last few years with natural disasters, global conflicts, and of course the pandemic, being prepared is critical. And smart manufacturing operations are giving organizations the agility to help enable this.
For a manufacturer with facilities that perhaps have outdated technologies and processes, many times the first step is reestablishing your ecosystem. Oftentimes, companies have a certain technology stack that's powering that--powering that environment. And by taking a look at some of the new technologies and really seeing how they fit into your manufacturing environment as part of a robust, refined ecosystem.
Lastly, I think it's important that organizations are designing for impact and scale. And this is often one of the biggest challenges organizations have, and it's really, really critical that organizations are considering the effects and the impacts of the technologies that they're deploying across the full scale of their manufacturing--their manufacturing operations. This truly underscores the power of the experiences that we offer here at the smart factory in Wichita, where manufacturing leaders are--really have the opportunity to explore these dimensions and more of smart manufacturing operations.
MS. HUMPTON: Well, I'm thrilled that we have experts like you to help guide us through this. But hey, everybody, let's get going.
Now let's turn it back to The Washington Post.
MR. ROMM: Hey, everybody, welcome back. I'm Tony Romm, the congressional economic policy reporter here at The Post. For those who are just joining us, we're having a great conversation here today about the future of semiconductors and the recent legislation passed on Capitol Hill to boost their manufacturing here in the United States. Our next guest is one of the--one of the government leaders who's actually working right now to bring some of that investment back home. We'd like to bring up Governor Eric Holcomb of Indiana. Governor, how are you doing?
GOV. HOLCOMB: We're doing great. Thanks, Tony, for having us.
MR. ROMM: Yeah, I really appreciate you being here. So, you know, we just had a great conversation with the senator talking about the recent legislation on Capitol Hill and that $52 billion in new incentives targeting semiconductors. So, let me sort of pose the question to you. What does that money mean for the work that you're all trying to do in Indiana?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Well, it means we all, collectively, America can get in the game. We were laggards and being left behind. And anytime that you don't have more control over your own supply chains, that puts you in a vulnerable position, or even a weak position. And so for a state like Indiana that's known for our manufacturing prowess--we're number one per capita in terms of manufacturing in America--this is what we do. And to have the world class research and development, universities like Purdue and Notre Dame and Indiana University, and our community college, all these pieces snap together to form those kind of talent pipelines that will be necessary on day one--which was yesterday--on day one to make sure that we can catch up and go from--you know, we used to be 75 percent, and now we're 12. We’ve got a long way to go and a lot of work to accomplish between now and when we are in a good position.
MR. ROMM: Right. You know, and we'll talk about some of the issues that you just raised. But first, with respect to the supply chain, I would love to get your analysis of where we stand. I mean, we heard so much talk for the better part of the past year about the chip shortage. And while there are some folks, you know, who question whether it's as bad as it was, I mean, what sort of impact of that shortage, especially a few months ago did you see in Indiana in the local economy in some of the economic activity within the state?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Yeah, I mean, we saw up close and personal. Again, you know, we make 80 percent of the RVs in North America. We have five auto OEMs. The IoT, the Internet of Things connects all of our home appliances. We're not just talking about computers and iPhones, or you know, mobile phones. We're talking about all the above. And as things get smarter and more efficient, et cetera, supercomputers, AI, our defense of our nation--so it's, you know, our national security as well, which is what really kind of piqued our interest to begin with, just out of a patriotic duty--but absolutely the disruptions and not having be it batteries or semiconductors, or you name it raw materials, the more we can control our own destiny, obviously bring certainty and stability, predictability, continuity--all the things that are important for companies to make major investments not just in their future but in our workforce today.
MR. ROMM: Now, Governor, some of the things that you described sound like they would be nonpartisan or bipartisan, but some of your Republican colleagues didn't support this legislation when it came up on Capitol Hill. And on that note, I want to raise a question with you that we actually got from one of our readers. We'll put up on the screen in just a second. Barry Bradford from Indiana said, "Governor, I'm so proud of your leadership on the support bill. I cannot understand why our fellow Republicans refused [to vote], by and large, for this important legislation. Only two members of your congressional delegation voted yes. Can you explain this to those of us Republicans who believe America must be the leading economic and [technological] nation in the world?"
GOV. HOLCOMB: Well, everyone has their--with all due respect--their own reasons, and sometimes we let the perfect become the enemy of good or progress. And certainly, this will require--absolutely, underscore, double underline--require congressional oversight to make sure these funds are appropriated to the right places and so America is truly the beneficiary of this investment.
And what I would simply say is, what's the alternative? We have slipped. We have fallen behind. We have a lot of ground to make up. This has to do equally with our national security and with our economic security. They go hand in glove together. And so, you know, we had plenty of time to debate what's a better way. But this gets us there.
And this is nonpartisan. I really do believe this bill co-authored and ushered by Senator Young from the state of Indiana, who did just a yeoman's job of making sure this was shepherded through, working with the administration, working with Secretary Raimondo. We just were recent hosts to Secretary Raimondo and Secretary Blinken because they understood commerce and security of our--of our nation state by state and how the states would play a role in making sure we were training from GED to PhD, so a huge amount of opportunity but for the ultimate right and urgent call, that being our security.
MR. ROMM: Right, so let's talk about some of the work that you're doing within your state. You guys recently announced a $1.8 billion facility, if memory serves me, SkyWater, I believe. Talk a little bit about the investment that you guys have attracted so far and where you hope to go from here.
GOV. HOLCOMB: Yeah, we've had a lot of recent activity. I mentioned the secretaries, and you bring up SkyWater, who has done defense work and production work in ships and we're so--semiconductors. We're so grateful that they recognized all the pieces were here. But a lot of work has gone into this in years--in months and years ahead of those big announcements. And so we're seeking to create and cultivate the whole ecosystem, that being research and development, design, production, testing, packaging, shipping, the logistics side of all this. And then by the way, when you talk about various parts of the supply chain, batteries, et cetera, recycling.
And so we really have taken a holistic approach to making sure that our high schools, the partnerships Indiana University have in partnership with high schools and with Crane, which is really the kind of center of the universe for training for the DOD. Crane is, you know, the third biggest Navy base--hard to believe, landlocked--but the third biggest American Navy base on planet Earth, and it sits inside of Indiana's borders. And so to have all these assets, certainly there are those on the coasts, but to have it in the middle of America, in the Midwest, critically important that all the pieces are coming and we're developing the whole ecosystem, not just, you know, not just the lab to fab--that's very important--but everything that goes into it. And again, that means opportunity and upward mobility. These are high-wage, high-demand jobs that are now going to be available in the heartland of America.
MR. ROMM: Yeah. And what is that facility, that SkyWater facility going to look like in five or 10 years? What are we talking about when we're describing these facilities? Like, what is the work? What's the economic impact you anticipate?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Hard to measure in terms of value. I would call it priceless, because, you know, they start out with hundreds of jobs, 750 jobs, $1.8 billion capex capital investment, next to Purdue University. They're right on their grounds, actually, and then having a partnership with Crane, the Naval Warfare Center, but also that ecosystem, along with MediaTek, who is a design--one of the biggest designers, chip designers, semiconductor designers in the world. And they're there on West Lafayette, Purdue's campus, as well designing the chips. And so, again, this clustering that you're seeing, with TSMC doing some research with Purdue, having Notre Dame involved, having Indiana University, having our community college, again, this is--this is a holistic effort in terms of opportunities, thousands of careers that are--that are being put forward that are going to address something that can be crippling if that supply chain becomes supply pain. We want it to be supply gain, and we think they can realize that right here in the state of Indiana.
MR. ROMM: Right, you sort of alluded to my next question when you were talking a bit about the work that you're doing at local colleges and universities to get the workforce ready. But could you assess where the workforce stands right now? They're going to be many of these jobs opened not just in your state but in other states. Do the workers exist to fill those roles in the short term?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Well, there will be some churn. You know, we're at a peak private sector employment level right now. We're at 2.8 percent unemployment. We used to say 4 percent, it is full employment. We're at 2.8. We have almost a record low people claiming uninsurance benefits--unemployment insurance benefits. And so we start with a very tight labor market. Fortunately, the state of Indiana, our population is growing much due to the fact that there is career opportunity here. So, they do in part exist because of the churn in the national--in the natural workforce churn that occurs when any new job announcement is made. But also, we're not just--we're not resting on those laurels. We're going deep into the bench into the farm team, if you will, into high schools and actually building programs and pathways and pipelines that can be replicated. I think that's what--I don’t to speak for the secretary, but we're both very passionate about workforce development, and Secretary Raimondo, I think that's what she really latched on to while touring Purdue, was just the extent of these workforce development programs. So yes, we're getting people connected, working on while in high school and then getting the proper certificate or credential or badge, depending on what part of the lifecycle of semiconductors they're involved in, and then making sure that we've got master's programs. Purdue’s developed a curriculum for master’s and PhD-level courses that are in motion right now. So, no one's waiting on Indiana. We're waiting on the business to come here so we can contribute to our comeback.
MR. ROMM: Right. Now, everything you described is a reason that you would think a company or an employee would try to set up shop in your state. But I have to ask about the flip side of things. You know, I covered the technology industry for more than a decade. And what I watched was that workers and businesses make decisions about where to set up shop for reasons that sometimes don't involve business at all. Social issues and political issues, those things factor in at the end of the day. And in Indiana, we know recently there was an abortion ban enacted that is still the subject of legal wrangling. Are you concerned that those sorts of policies could make it harder for you to recruit the kind of workers and the kind of industry that you want to set up shop?
GOV. HOLCOMB: I'm concerned about a lot of things, and any piece of legislation I'm obviously aware of but I also track. And different companies have different priorities. I respect that. What I can tell you, is let's just look at the facts. Last year, capital investment that came in through our Indiana Economic Development Corporation was at an all-time high--this was last year--8.7 billion. To date, through the first three quarters of this year, we're over 21 billion. We have obliterated our all-time high record of new business capital investment. There was just a report, an index of all 50 states that that measured momentum, and they based it off of employment, capital investment, and population growth. Indiana was the only state in the Midwest to be above the national average. Only three states in America were outside the South and the West: New Jersey, Indiana, and South Dakota--Indiana, the only one in the Midwest. So, I just look at the facts to develop the narrative. And the narrative is Indiana is growing, and we are growing exponentially in the high-tech sector.
MR. ROMM: I certainly take that point, Governor. But I also remember a few years ago, I believe it was in 2015 that we saw Salesforce, in particular, start to pull some of its employees out of the state because of the religious freedom legislation. So just to kind of focus on there for a second, just given what we've seen with recent history, are you worried about that kind of thing happening in a world in which you're trying to attract some of these high-tech investments these days?
GOV. HOLCOMB: I wouldn't use the word “worried.” I'm aware, and I track, and I respect. And by the way, Salesforce’s presence here in Indiana, which I appreciate, is one that is still hiring. And it's the second largest population, as I understand it, outside of San Francisco. So, we are delivering, our workforce is delivering for Salesforce and a whole long list of--we just had another one announced today--hundreds of new jobs in the tech sector this morning at very high wage levels. And so that's what I'm concerned about, is making sure that we continue to grow and not the opposite.
MR. ROMM: Now you recently took your pitch abroad actually. You went over to Taiwan. Talk about your trip. What did you guys discuss there with respect to semiconductors?
GOV. HOLCOMB: When I--when I said Crane was the center of the universe for training for the DoD, Taiwan, we went--we went a couple places in the last not two months, but we've been to South Korea, Seoul, and we've been to Taipei, Taiwan. And then most recently, about a week ago, little over a week ago, we were in Germany and Switzerland for different reasons. We travel with purpose, very methodical, very targeted. But obviously Taiwan being the center of gravity or the center of universe in terms of semiconductor production and research development, design, we wanted to make sure that we were true partners. We'd have longstanding relationships with all four of those countries in terms of orthopedics, in terms of medical devices with Switzerland, advanced manufacturing with Germany, and then obviously, semiconductors, high tech--the high-tech sector and IT sector with South Korea and with Taiwan--we wanted to make sure--look, the world is small and interconnected more so than it's ever been. And we want to make sure that that our friends around the world know that we're there, A, to help; B, that we are grateful and we express our gratitude for all the past work that we've done together; but also in this time of great transition, that we want to make sure that we're discovering the future with them.
And so we were sharing the Indiana story with some potential new partners that could be part of the ecosystem in the Midwest, in the state of Indiana. There's a lot of collaboration, and there's enough to go around to meet the demand. And that's what it's all about. Like we alluded to earlier, tony, when we were talking about supply, there's also the demand. And we have to make sure that we know where we are in the cycle globally, and it's going to take partnerships that stretch and that are, you know, knitted all around the--all around the world to make sure that we're meeting that demand.
MR. ROMM: Right. And as we began to run up towards the end of time here, I want to ask you just one other thing. You know, in trying to bring some of those businesses back, you know, your state and others have been offering these really attractive incentive packages, tax cuts, other sorts of payments to just sort of get these companies to set up shop. But how do you calibrate those packages in a way that ensures that they deliver the economic benefits they're supposed to without breaking the bank for a state?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Yeah, well, that's always the bottom line, and it has to pass that smell test, so to speak. And the way that we look at things in the state of Indiana when we're putting a deal together, when the Indiana Economic Development Corporation is actually putting figures on paper, looking at volume, looking at cost, looking at incentives, we look at those incentives as investments. We look at what the ROI is. And there is--it's based off of performance. So, if the company--so we're not giving away the farm, we're not giving it away for free, we're not--we're getting a return of investment. And the companies are looking at this in terms of a forever deal. They're not flighty. They're making a major investment in their company's future, which is built on a workforce. And so they're making huge investments, and we want to make sure they know we're a full partner in this and that we're here to stay, you know, every step of the way for decades to come as we continue to explore and discover and determine what our mutual destinies are.
MR. ROMM: Right. And how do you enforce that at the end of the day? I mean, we've seen examples where this hasn't worked out for some states where they have given these good incentive packages, and the jobs just never show up.
GOV. HOLCOMB: Yeah.
MR. ROMM: So how do you ensure that that happens?
GOV. HOLCOMB: Maybe we've learned from others’ missteps. But, you know, when the job is created, then the--then the carrot can be had but--and eaten. But you know, it's not--it's not before. It's after it's been demonstrated, the performance has been demonstrated, that's how you scale up and that's how you scale up together. Because look, we get it. Global affairs can intervene. And it's--you know, they call it a cycle for a reason, and they're affected by--it could be a Russian invasion, or it could be, you know, you fill in the blank. Things happen. And so, companies have to make decisions over a course of a one-year, two-year, three-year deal that has to do with the future of their company for decades to come. So, we get that. It's just it's not given before. It's based on performance.
MR. ROMM: Well, we'll have to see how everything performs, I guess, in the years ahead. Governor Holcomb, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.
GOV. HOLCOMB: I'd love to invite you out, Tony, to put boots on the ground and see it--see it realized in person.
MR. ROMM: I'd be careful what you wish for, Governor. Thanks again.
And thanks again, everybody, for joining us. You know, I’m Tony Romm, the congressional economic policy reporter here at The Post. And please be sure to find this panel and other conversations on our website, WashingtonPostLive.com. Thanks again, everybody. | 2022-10-14T14:18:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: The CHIPS Act: The Road Ahead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/14/transcript-chips-act-road-ahead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/14/transcript-chips-act-road-ahead/ |
Sidney Powell’s nonprofit raised $16 million as she spread election falsehoods
By Jon Swaine
Sidney Powell speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 19, 2020. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
A nonprofit group run by pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell raised $16.4 million in the year following the 2020 election and spent less than half that money, according to the group’s tax filings.
Defending the Republic, whose mission is to use the courts to “protect election integrity” and individual freedoms, reported that it spent about $8 million in the 12-month period ending Nov. 30, 2021. That sum included more than $3.8 million for legal services and another $2 million for “other” services, including litigation support. It said those services were provided by “nonemployees” it did not name.
The tax filings identify Powell as the president and treasurer of Defending the Republic and say she and the only other individuals named — two other directors and the chief financial officer — worked for no pay. However, the organization was only required to report on individuals’ compensation from Dec. 1, 2020 — the date it was founded — through Dec. 31, 2020. The filings were obtained by The Washington Post.
The new documents show that spreading election falsehoods is “incredibly lucrative,” said Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of the watchdog organization Documented, which scrutinizes the activities of nonprofits and corporations and also obtained the tax filings. But the filings, the organization’s Form 990 and related attachments submitted to the Internal Revenue Service, reveal “almost nothing about where the nonprofit’s millions in reported legal expenses are flowing,” he said.
In an email responding to detailed questions from The Post, Powell wrote: “Defending The Republic Inc. has independent accountants, legal counsel, and auditors. If there are errors or omissions in the 990, it will be corrected as soon as possible.”
The company, 524 Old Towne, paid $1.2 million in April of last year for a property in the historic Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Va. The sellers of the former antique shop have said they understood that Powell was the buyer and that she intended to establish a law office there. The tax filings show that Defending the Republic paid 524 Old Towne $80,000 in rent.
Previously, Defending The Republic had reported to Florida regulators that it raised $14.9 million during the first eight months after its founding, though that disclosure was far less detailed. The organization has focused much of its spending on “challenging issues and instances of government overreach and abuse of individual rights” and litigating “cases of constitutional infringement,” according to the new filings.
Powell first gained celebrity among Trump fans for defending former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn against charges that he lied to the FBI. Later, beginning in December 2020, Flynn and his brother Joseph were listed as directors of Defending the Republic, Texas business filings show.
Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock and a prominent election denier, joined Defending the Republic as chief executive in 2021. Questions about how much money the organization had taken in, and where the money was going, helped sow division in the organization. In early April, Byrne, the Flynn brothers and several other people quit, The Post previously reported.
In a text message Thursday, Byrne said he was only involved with the nonprofit for 12 business days and emphasized that concern about the organization’s financial management was a reason for his and others’ departures. Joseph Flynn declined to comment, and Michael Flynn did not respond.
Powell was one of the most visible of a number of attorneys who went to court to challenge Joe Biden’s victory. After the legal challenges failed, Powell herself became the subject of legal action on multiple fronts.
Last year, the Justice Department subpoenaed documents related to Defending the Republic and a related political action committee, The Post has previously reported.
A federal judge in Michigan sanctioned Powell, calling one of her election-related lawsuits “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” The state bar of Texas has filed a lawsuit against her alleging professional misconduct. She has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in Atlanta investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election. And she and Defending the Republic are named as defendants in a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, the company she targeted with conspiracy theories.
Dominion has accused Powell of using Defending the Republic dollars to “fund her own personal legal defense,” citing an interview she gave on Dec. 29, 2020, in which she described the organization as a “nonprofit that is working to help me defend all these cases and to defend me now that I’m under massive attack.” In an August 2021 deposition for a separate defamation case, one filed by a former Dominion executive, a representative of Defending the Republic was asked whether the organization was paying to defend Powell against either lawsuit. His lawyer instructed him not to answer.
Powell did not respond Thursday to a question from The Post about whether the nonprofit had paid for her personal legal defense.
In the deposition, the representative of the nonprofit said its work was not limited to election-related issues but instead included potential challenges to vaccine and mask mandates. The group filed several lawsuits challenging coronavirus vaccine mandates, including for U.S. military service members and federal contractors, court records show. It has also paid for the defense of some people facing charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to media reports.
The filings say that some of the money was allegedly misappropriated in what was reported as a “significant diversion.” An independent contractor working for the nonprofit “converted funds from contributions,” and the nonprofit has “authorized legal action to press charges” to recover the money, more than $520,000, the filings state. No other information was disclosed.
The filings show that Defending the Republic gave a $700,128 cash grant for equipment to Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based company that Republican senators in Arizona hired to examine voting machines and ballots in Maricopa County. Cyber Ninjas said last year that Defending the Republic had donated $550,000 for the ballot review. Though election deniers claimed for months that the review would finally reveal evidence of election fraud, it instead reaffirmed Biden’s victory in the state. | 2022-10-14T15:35:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sidney Powell’s nonprofit Defending the Republic raised $16 million as she spread election falsehoods - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/14/sidney-powell-defending-republic-tax-filings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/14/sidney-powell-defending-republic-tax-filings/ |
PARIS — A French and a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization have filed a complaint for “complicity in war crimes” against TotalEnergies, which they accuse of having operated a gas field that allegedly produces kerosene used by Russian warplanes in Ukraine. The French oil giant denied producing kerosene for the Russian military. | 2022-10-14T15:48:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | TotalEnergies denies claim it made fuel for Russian forces - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/war-in-ukraine-ngos-file-complaint-against-totalenergies/2022/10/14/32b177dc-4bd3-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/war-in-ukraine-ngos-file-complaint-against-totalenergies/2022/10/14/32b177dc-4bd3-11ed-8153-96ee97b218d2_story.html |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.