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Norway princess gives up royal duties for life with ‘shaman’ fiance
Princess Martha Louise of Norway and her fiance Durek Verrett in Oslo in June. (Lise Aserud/NTB/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s a classic royal love story. A princess gives up her royal privileges to be with her one true love. This time, it’s Princess Martha Louise of Norway, who on Tuesday relinquished her royal duties so she could work on alternative medicine with her fiance, self-described shaman Durek Verrett.
In a statement, the Royal House of Norway said the princess “is taking this step to create a clearer dividing line between her business activities and her role as a member of the Royal Family.”
Martha Louise, 51, the only daughter of Norway’s King Harald, said in a video statement Tuesday that there was no discord between her and the royal family and that she hopes this change “will lead to a calmer and more peaceful environment” regarding her and Verrett, 47.
The relationship — as well as some of Verrett’s more dubious claims — has received intense scrutiny in Norway, especially following the pair’s engagement in June.
According to his website, Verrett describes himself as a sixth-generation shaman who is dedicated to “serving global spiritual evolution” and “redefining what wellness means.” There, he offers a 30-day program to “experiment with Shamanic knowledge," along with other "Shaman School” courses and virtual “Wokeshops.”
He also hosts a podcast and sells items like the “spirit optimizer,” a small $222 medallion Verrett says is “imbued with frequencies and energies that connect to the spirit world and to the physical world.” A one-hour virtual private session with Verrett costs $1,500.
Some of his claims have drawn criticism in Norway, including his suggestion that cancer is a choice. He has also said that having too many sexual partners leaves imprints within you that must be cleaned out. Critics have called him a “con man” and conspiracy theorist.
“I know that some of the things I have said and done have been seen as controversial in Norway — some have even argued that this has become a problem for the monarchy,” Verrett said Tuesday in the video statement. “This was never my intention.”
But, he added, it’s important that he “has a right to autonomy, to determine what I believe in and to speak up about it.”
The Royal House said in a statement that “the situation we as a family have found ourselves in recently … has raised problems that are complex.” They said it was crucial to balance maintaining a trusting relationship with the Norwegian people while also ensuring the well-being of their family.
Both Verrett and Martha and the royal family stressed that the pair still believe in conventional medicine.
“I am for the school of medicine, and always have been, because I have seen several occasions in my life where I have been saved by the school of medicine," Verrett said. Alternative medicine, he said, should come “not instead of, but in addition to” the health care system.
Martha said that she has been “impressed by all the knowledgeable people who work in hospitals, doctors’ offices and educational institutions across Norway.” But, she added, she also believes that there are components of physical and mental health that are not "summ[ed] up in a research report.” As examples, she listed spirituality, yoga, acupuncture and meditation as examples.
She said she wants to continue "bridge-building” between conventional and alternative forms of medicine.
The Royal House on Tuesday also condemned what it said were the “racist attitudes that Durek Verrett has had to contend with," adding that they “consider it a strength that the Royal House reflects Norway’s ethnic diversity.”
When Verrett and Martha are married, he will join the royal family but without an official title or role, in accordance with tradition, the royal house said. The king, however, decided that the princess could keep her title — although she will refrain from using it in connection with her business activities. | 2022-11-08T23:02:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Norway royal Martha Louise gives up title for 'shaman' Durek Verrett - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/08/norway-princess-shaman-durek-verrett-alternative-medicine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/08/norway-princess-shaman-durek-verrett-alternative-medicine/ |
NEW YORK — The cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it plans to buy its rival FTX Trading, in the latest example of how fortunes can change rapidly in the crypto world. The owners of the two exchanges — Samuel Bankman-Fried of FTX and Changpeng Zhao of Binance — announced the deal on Twitter Tuesday, but did not disclose any details. The deal was pending due diligence, Zhao said on Twitter. It’s a surprising turn of events after Bankman-Fried was hailed as somewhat of a savior earlier this year when he helped shore up a number of cryptocurrency companies that ran into financial trouble. Prices of bitcoin and other digital currencies fell sharply.
BRUSSELS — The European Union has launched an investigation into Microsoft’s planned takeover of video game giant Activision Blizzard, fearing the $69 billion deal would distort fair competition to popular titles like Call of Duty. Microsoft, maker of the Xbox gaming system, first announced the agreement to buy the California-based game publisher in January. It still awaits scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. If it goes through, the all-cash deal would be the largest in the history of the tech industry. Members of the European Commission said Tuesday that “the point is to ensure that the gaming ecosystem remains vibrant to the benefit of users in a sector that is evolving at a fast pace.”
NEW YORK — Michelle Gass, CEO of department store chain Kohl’s, is stepping down from her role early next month and will become the president of denim giant Levi Strauss & Co. Levi’s said in a release that Gass will start on Jan. 2 and the board of directors has put in motion a succession plan for her to succeed Chip Bergh, president and CEO in the next 18 months. She is expected to join the board of directors on that date. Kohl’s said in a separate release that Gass plans to step down on Dec. 2, and Tom Kingsbury will serve as interim CEO.
BERLIN — Adidas has appointed Puma CEO Bjørn Gulden as its new chief executive. He will take over in January as the German sportswear brand weathers the fallout from its split with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. The departure of Kasper Rorsted, Adidas’ CEO since 2016, was announced in August. The company said Tuesday that he and the supervisory board “mutually agreed” he will leave the company Friday. The chief financial officer will head Adidas until the end of the year. The company ended a partnership with Ye last month after mounting outcry over the rapper’s offensive and antisemitic remarks. Adidas is expected to take a hit of up to 250 million euros this year from the decision.
MILAN — A new fully electric vehicle startup in Italy is challenging U.S. and Chinese rivals with “Made in Italy” design. AEHRA is being launched by a former oil trader who hired a former Lamborghini designer to infuse the cars with Italian emotion and is placing emphasis on aerodynamics over performance. Its biggest hurdle to success is an already crowded market of EV startups and traditional carmakers. And AEHRA doesn’t plan to launch its first vehicles until mid-2025. The ultra-premium cars plan to sell for $160,000 to $180,000, rolling out first in the United States and key European markets before expanding to China. | 2022-11-08T23:11:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Twitter's struggle; Crytpo takeover - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitters-struggle-crytpo-takeover/2022/11/08/a445fed6-5fb5-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitters-struggle-crytpo-takeover/2022/11/08/a445fed6-5fb5-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Consider it a ticket to self-knowledge. (Photographer: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Unless you live on Venus, you know someone in California won over $2 billion in the Powerball lottery. And holders of 292.2 million tickets (minus one ticket) were sad for a minute or two. The last time the Powerball was nearly this big was in 2016.
Dear losers: Despite the fact you lost, buying one ticket was a good idea.
Set aside, for now, the tremendous social harm done by lotteries. (They are wasteful, manipulative, and regressive methods for raising government revenue.) From a personal finance perspective, it’s fine to buy a lottery ticket.
True, your chances of winning the lottery are next to nothing. But your chances of winning without a ticket is absolutely nothing. And the leap from absolutely nothing to next to nothing is infinity. A $2.00 ticket gets you a chance at a very high rate of return.
But, since your chances of winning the lottery are extremely small no matter how many tickets you buy, buying additional tickets is not a good investment. An infinitesimal chance multiplied by two or even six is still infinitesimal. You are better off doing something else with that extra $2.
So just buy one lottery ticket. Use the other $2.00 to buy a coffee. Sit down with that coffee and a pen and paper and set a timer for 30 minutes. Start to write down what you would do with your winnings if you hit the jackpot.
By writing down your heart’s desire, you will doubtless learn a lot about yourself. But be very specific. Fantasizing you would quit your job if you won, or would stop smoking, or take a trip to the French Riviera is a good start — but you’d have millions left over. So what else would you do? Start a charitable foundation? Volunteer? For which organizations?
Concretely exploring one’s own personal thoughts and feelings promotes well-being. All of this imagining may put you on a path to positive change without winning the lottery after all. Consider it a very cheap form of self-therapy.
You can even make it couples therapy by taking turns telling each other what you would do. My husband and I had that conversation this week. Turns out he had an elaborate foundation developed in his head — some of his millions went to the arts, other millions went to human and worker rights. Who knew?
Such conversations can be painfully illuminating. A long-standing joke tells the story of a husband comes home to his wife and asks, don’t think about it, what would you do if we won the lottery. She says in a heartbeat. I would leave you and live on the beach. Stunned he said, well we won $5.00, here is $2.50.
The traditional finance answer about whether you should buy a lottery ticket is to multiply the probability of winning the prize by the value of the ticket. William Baldwin at Forbes worked that out in this round of Powerball, your chances of winning were 1 in 292 million. That ratio times $1.9 billion is $1.45. You are spending $2.00 for something worth $1.45.
Logic says you walk away.
If the value of the ticket is less than $2, and it is, you don’t buy it. But I say enhanced logic says buy if you learn from your dreams and fantasies about what you would do if you were a billionaire, then go for it. For a true cost of $0.55, it’s a pretty cheap form of entertainment.
Researchers used to say that winning a lottery doesn’t change a person’s baseline happiness; that whatever happiness one got from winning was short lived. But a 2020 study of a group of Swedish lottery winners found that — perhaps not surprisingly — winning large amounts of money did seem to increase their overall life satisfaction. The effect lasted years.
So go ahead, buy one lottery ticket. Just don’t take your winnings to a casino.
• Got Crushed in the Market? Harvest Your Losses to Lower Your Taxes: Alexis Leondis
• Money-Losing Airbnb Hosts Have Three Options: Teresa Ghilarducci | 2022-11-08T23:11:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buying a Lottery Ticket Isn’t (Always) a Waste of Money - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/buying-a-lottery-ticket-isnt-always-a-waste-of-money/2022/11/08/bb10bdf4-5fb5-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/buying-a-lottery-ticket-isnt-always-a-waste-of-money/2022/11/08/bb10bdf4-5fb5-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Tropical Storm Nicole is testing the state’s ability to respond to overlapping disasters as it churns toward the east side of Florida.
Rain kept beachgoers away Tuesday in Miami Beach. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Nearly six weeks after Hurricane Ian crashed into Florida, bringing fierce winds and catastrophic flooding to the southwest coast, the state’s east coast is bracing for a second major storm that could threaten its nascent recovery efforts and strain the federal and state response.
Tropical Storm Nicole is expected to reach hurricane strength by Wednesday and make landfall on Florida’s Atlantic coastline Wednesday night, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The storm’s approach has prompted hurricane warnings for communities from Boca Raton to the Flagler-Volusia county line, meaning that those areas are likely to experience hurricane-force winds and flooding in the next 36 hours.
Nicole’s arrival would present a challenge to emergency managers under any conditions. The storm is expected to deliver between 3 and 5 inches of rain, with up to 7 inches predicted in some areas. And it is barreling toward a densely populated coast where many communities already experience regular “nuisance flooding” when high tides are pushed even higher by sea level rise.
At a news conference Tuesday, Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais said the county plans to open two shelters, though it does not anticipate issuing evacuation orders. Home to Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Beach and Fort Myers, where Ian made landfall, the county recorded a death toll from the storm higher than anywhere in the state.
“We’re cognizant of the fact that a lot of residents are living in damaged properties,” Desjarlais said. “Some people are living in tents. Some people are living in homes that still require a lot of repair.”
Coming on the heels of Ian, one of the most powerful storms to slam into the United States in the past decade, Nicole may also serve as a test of whether Florida is prepared for the escalating effects of climate change. Cascading disasters, such as the battery of floods, powerful rainstorms and heat waves that struck the United States in June, are becoming more common and are expected to hit coastal areas the hardest.
Hurricane warnings for parts of Florida’s east coast as Nicole nears
Several of the coastal and inland areas where Ian destroyed homes, tore up roads and left behind a staggering amount of wreckage were under a tropical storm watch Tuesday. That included Port Charlotte and Fort Myers, as well as the greater Tampa Bay region.
As Nicole nears, these communities have suddenly had to shift from post-storm cleanup to preparations for another potential disaster. Many roofs are covered by tarps — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed more than 18,000 since Ian made landfall on Sept. 28 — and some county officials are concerned that Nicole’s winds could scatter the debris left in Ian’s wake.
In Seminole County, north of Orlando, Ian and its remnants dumped unprecedented amounts of rain that turned creeks into rushing rivers. At a Tuesday news conference, Alan Harris, the county’s emergency manager, warned residents that Nicole could bring more flooding and damage. “This is not the time for hurricane fatigue,” he said.
Harris said he is particularly concerned that rainfall from Ian has left the ground saturated and weakened trees’ root structures. “The winds could bring down trees, and those could bring down power lines,” he said.
In areas that are still reeling from Ian, Nicole’s arrival could slow recovery efforts, forcing federal and state agencies to make tough decisions about whether to shift employees from one disaster to another. On the state’s east coast, basic government functions, such as debris removal after a storm, could be impeded by the fact that most major haulers are likely to be tied up on the western coast for months clearing downed trees and waterlogged drywall. If counties have to compete with one another for contractors, cleanup workers and equipment, it could drive up costs and make rebuilding difficult.
Florida’s emergency management division announced this week that all of the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery centers opened to help Floridians displaced by Ian will close this week until severe weather has passed. Thirty-four counties have been placed under a state of emergency, giving the agency broader authority and the state the ability to request federal assistance.
In its latest briefing Tuesday morning, FEMA said it had 2,400 employees in Florida in support of Ian recovery efforts.
FEMA press secretary Jeremy Edwards said the agency has staffers in Tallahassee who can work directly with state officials to respond to the storm.
“We also know that some areas in Florida remain vulnerable due to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, and we stand ready to help those who may be impacted by Nicole prepare, while continuing to support those recovering from Ian,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers said the corps is positioning teams of coastal engineers so they can inspect for damage along the coast following the storm. It is also moving survey vessels and crews into place near certain ports.
On the state’s east coast, local officials urged residents to take the storm seriously, and many counties and cities announced school closures as the storm approaches. Forecasters have advised residents not to focus on Nicole’s exact track. Federal officials expect widespread flooding outside the storm’s cone, affecting much of the state and parts of the Georgia coast.
Palm Beach County issued a mandatory evacuation order to take effect Wednesday morning for about 119,000 residents living in mobile homes, on barrier islands and in other low-lying areas. The county plans to open nine shelters.
At a news conference Tuesday, County Mayor Robert Weinroth said residents in flood-prone areas should not delay making decisions about whether to leave their homes. “If you are going to leave, this is the time to be making those plans,” he said.
Yet he and other county officials also encouraged residents to vote, saying that preparations for the storm had “no impact on the elections.”
Port Canaveral, a typically busy departure point for cruise lines, published an evacuation notice warning owners of vessels weighing under 500 gross tons to remove them from its waterways, warning the port “is not suitable for refuge during a hurricane.” | 2022-11-08T23:12:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Parts of hurricane-hit Florida brace for another whammy from Nicole - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/08/florida-nicole-ian-hurricane-recovery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/08/florida-nicole-ian-hurricane-recovery/ |
FILE - Guitarist and fiddle player Jeff Cook from the band Alabama appears on stage at the concert “Sing me Back Home: The Music of Merle Haggard” in Nashville, Tenn., on April 6, 2017. Cook died Nov. 7, 2022 at his home in Destin, Fla. He was 73. (Al Wagner/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-11-08T23:12:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jeff Cook, co-founder of country band Alabama, dies at 73 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jeff-cook-co-founder-of-country-band-alabama-dies-at-73/2022/11/08/840b54a4-5fb0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jeff-cook-co-founder-of-country-band-alabama-dies-at-73/2022/11/08/840b54a4-5fb0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Hung Cao, the Republican candidate for Virginia's 10th Congressional District, greet voters at the Round Hill Elementary School precinct Tuesday in Round Hill, Va. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
With polls in Virginia now closed, three Virginia Democratic congresswomen are hoping Tuesday to hang onto their seats in competitive races that Republicans aggressively campaigned to flip, setting up potential nail-biters across the state as Virginians await results.
The three contests — in Virginia’s 2nd, 7th and 10th congressional districts — make the commonwealth a consequential battleground as Republicans vie to take control of the House, and how well they do in each of the three districts could be a measure of the strength of a red wave they have been anticipating.
Democratic Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria have been locked in the most heated matchups — considered toss-ups — against Prince William Board of County Supervisors member Yesli Vega (R) and state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach), respectively. National Republicans poured millions into each race to compete with Spanberger and Luria’s enormous war chests, as the candidates put forth dueling messages on marquee issues of the campaign, namely the state of the economy and abortion in the aftermath of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Republican Hung Cao has a bit of a more uphill battle to try to oust Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) in the 10th District, which has trended blue over the last decade but is also where Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) made notable gains in 2021, energizing Republicans to believe the district was winnable this year.
All eight other Virginia members of the U.S. House are up for reelection as well, though incumbents in those seats are considered safe.
Republicans in each of the competitive Virginia districts largely framed the race as a referendum on President Biden and the economy, repeatedly decrying record-high inflation and high government spending in Washington, while tying their opponents to Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Democrats, meanwhile, warned that a Republican Congress could try to pass national abortion restrictions or bans in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, and pledged to protect abortion rights. They also pointed to the intended achievements of all that spending, such as major investments in infrastructure and lowering health-care costs for seniors.
In Virginia’s 2nd District, anchored in the politically diverse Virginia Beach, Luria emerged as the rare Democrat to stake her reelection campaign on democracy issues, which she highlighted in her closing pitch of the campaign. Luria, a retired Navy commander, frequently said she did not care if focusing on her service on the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol cost her the race, noting it was the most important work of her professional life.
She had hammered Kiggans increasingly harder in the final weeks for not answering whether Biden was legitimately elected, which Kiggans bullishly avoided, hewing strictly to a message about high prices at the grocery store or the gas station. And Luria hammered her on abortion as well, accusing her of wanting to ban abortion nationwide without exception. Kiggans said she did support exceptions to abortion bans, and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares told CNN as her surrogate that she would support a 15-week ban.
The motivating forces of abortion rights and record-high inflation were on display as voters across the district cast ballots Tuesday.
Alexis Flores, a 23-year-old veteran and a beauty consultant at Sephora who’s taking college accounting classes, decided to vote for the first time in her life. She voted for Luria and noted that after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the right to control her body became a central issue for her in this election.
“The right to privacy as a queer person is really important to me,” she said, fearing the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision could put other rights at risk. “It’s really important to me that we get enough people in the House of Representatives so we can protect all of these rights for people who are not straight White men basically.”
For others, their vote was a statement against the direction the country was headed under Democratic leadership and against the state of the economy.
“Things are bad in this country,” said Bernard Traud, a Navy veteran who came with his wife to vote for Kiggans. “What we got ain’t working.” His wife, Cheryl Traud, ticked off a litany of reasons to vote for the Republican. “I’m tired of the mess,” she said. “I’m tired of what’s going on in schools. I’m tired of the border. I’m tired of the economy. I’m tired of the fuel state we’re in. And I’m tired of this guy sitting up there trying to pick a war with everyone. Why are we defending someone else’s border when we can’t defend our own?”
Even some Democrats feeling the burn in their wallets decided it was time for a change of pace.
Irvin Navarro, a 32-year-old logistics manager in Virginia Beach, said he voted for Biden and Luria before. But for the first time in his life, decided to vote Republican on Tuesday. It wasn’t easy, he said, still thinking about the GOP’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But this election, he said, his bank account trumped everything. And he didn’t feel Democrats had done enough to create change.
“You can’t shy away from that,” he said. “I hate to sound selfish, but at the end of the night when I go to bed and I check the bank account one last time to make sure we’re okay for the next week or two, that’s when the final decision comes into play. It’s not so much what’s going to be the abortion laws in a year or two or immigration or the border patrol. It’s going to be more, do I have enough money?”
For some of Luria’s supporters, however, getting to the bottom of Jan. 6 remained top of mind.
Jenessa Evans, a 36-year-old Postal Service employee, said Luria’s role on the Jan. 6 committee was part of her appeal, leading her to vote in a midterm election for the first time. “I would like them to get to the bottom of that because I know the Republicans want to tear that [committee] apart,” she said.
Similar choices played out in Virginia’s 7th district in the bid between Vega and Spanberger.
Vega is vying to become the state’s first Hispanic member of Congress, leveraging a compelling backstory as the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants to make inroads in the diverse, Democratic-leaning eastern portion of Prince William County, which anchors the newly drawn district. A former law enforcement and an auxiliary sheriff’s deputy, Vega also earned former president Donald Trump’s endorsement in the final leg of the race, though she avoided trumpeting his support.
Spanberger, a former CIA officer and federal law enforcement officer, went on the offensive on abortion rights early in the campaign. She seized on comments that Vega, who is staunchly against abortion, was caught on tape making claims that falsely cast doubt on whether rape could lead to pregnancy, as Vega noted the intercourse is not happening “organically,” according to the tape published by Axios. Vega later said the comments had been misconstrued.
Across the district, many voters said the comments factored into their vote.
Brittany Asbury, 35, said “if you do not know basic biological functions, that would make you someone I wouldn’t vote for on principle.”
Alicia Henderson said ads put out by both campaigns seemed to be everywhere during the past few weeks. She found it “very off putting” to learn about Vega’s recorded comments. “That made me a little leery of her feelings about a woman’s right to choose,” she said. “I’m always surprised when a woman is willing to take away other women’s rights.”
One self-identified “liberal,” Fernando Ramirez, 67, said he was inclined to vote for Spanberger, agreeing with her on supporting abortion rights and other Democratic positions. But he said the relentless attack ad campaign against Vega started to rub him the wrong way, angering him to the point that he decided to vote for Vega instead. He found the attacks focusing on her leaked comments distasteful, believing that Vega’s comments were taken out of context, and that she was being portrayed unfairly. “I don’t like that kind of propaganda,” he said.
In Northern Virginia’s wealthy Dale City suburb, the state of the nation’s economy was at the forefront of voters’ minds as they strolled into Woodbridge’s Hylton High School in the 7th district. But how they voted depended on who they blamed for the record-high inflation rates that several said kept them from eating out as much or putting off costly vacations.
Rich Reuter, 71, said Vega seems like she’d work harder to help retirees like him. Over the past year, his 401(k) balance has “gone in the toilet” due to the dropping stock market that has accompanied higher inflation, he said. “She’s actually talking about the issues,” Reuter said of Vega.
But Tim McTaggart, 66, said the higher cost of living fueled his vote for Spanberger. “Spanberger can get the job done,” McTaggart said. “Vega is way out there.” He wasn’t swayed by Republican messaging that the inflation was Democrats’ fault, and his reasoning was simple: The economy isn’t something Congress can control, he said. “There’s more to it than just Democratic or Republican policies.”
In Virginia’s Loudoun County on Tuesday morning, some voters cast their ballots purely along party lines, with little knowledge of nor enthusiasm for the candidates they chose.
Gregory Robosky, a 52-year-old Leesburg resident, said he didn’t really like either candidate in the 10th District race, nor did he feel confident that either will tackle the major issues he’d like to see addressed, chief among them rising inflation and interest rates. “I’m not really a big fan of the liberal agenda, and Wexton was just too far left. Hung Cao? He was the lesser of the two evils,” Robosky said.
Ken Bucher, a 60-year-old accountant in Leesburg, likewise arrived at Tolbert Elementary to vote for Hung Cao. But mostly out of habit; these days, Bucher is unhappy with the direction of the Republican Party as a whole. He dislikes that party leaders are unwilling to break with Trump and to forcefully deny his false claims of a stolen election.
“I do generally vote for Republicans, but it was much harder this year, just because of the Trump idolism,” he said. Bucher feels lukewarm about Cao, he added, although he respects Cao’s military record and veteran status.
Some of Wexton’s supporters were motivated to support her over concerns about guns. Rachael Hixon, a 53-year-old graphic designer, showed up to her local library with American flags and kittens on her shirt and TV commercials running through her head.
She could barely name her sitting congresswoman — “What’s her name? Wexel?” Hixon asked — but said she was determined to ensure the Republican candidate who touted his love of guns would not end up in Congress. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to be putting into a political ad,” she said. “That’s not a good look for a politician.”
A few minutes later, John Doty, a 55-year-old IT manager, flipped through the fliers he had been handed by campaign volunteers nearby. Guns were on his mind, too. “I’m not too crazy about either of them,” he said of the candidates, adding that Wexton seemed to be the less extreme of the two. Even though he owns a semiautomatic weapon himself, Doty said, “no concealed carry permit is a little much.”
Spanberger, Luria and Wexton, a former Loudoun County prosecutor and state senator, had all rode the blue wave into office in 2018, largely powered by anti-Trump sentiment in their suburban districts. But after redistricting, Luria’s district got redder, giving Republicans a slight built-in edge. And while Spanberger’s district shifted to the bluer Northern Virginia exurbs, she was drawn out of the district, requiring her to introduce herself to hundreds of thousands of new voters. Considering Youngkin won both those districts and came close in the 10th, Republicans have been predicting that this would be the year for blue-wave payback.
Antonio Olivo, Jim Morrison, Laura Vozzella, Teo Armus and Hannah Natanson contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T00:43:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia congressional races: Stiff competition in 2nd, 7th and 10th districts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/virginia-congress-election-results/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/virginia-congress-election-results/ |
His first request for U.S. government records was drafted on a portable typewriter in the 1970s. Then over more than four decades — and 9,000-plus letters — the archive built by a reclusive former California civil servant, 1970s disco maven and tireless document sleuth named Ernie Lazar grew to over 600,000 pages from the FBI and other agencies.
The world of Mr. Lazar’s trove is full of suspicions, double-dealings and opportunists. There are references to informants and surveillance, groups on watch lists and Americans viewed as “un-American,” far-right propagandists and suspected leftist “rabble rousers” in an FBI dossier.
Bit by bit, Mr. Lazar also helped shed light on some fundamental questions — essentially who was doing what to whom — including much of the 37 years of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI spanning the 1950s Cold War paranoia, the civil rights showdowns and the rise of nativist groups such as the John Birch Society.
Mr. Lazar, who died Nov. 1 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., at 77, was not booked on shows as a historical pundit. He did not write his own manuscripts or articles. His name, if noticed at all, was tucked into acknowledgments in books such as Christopher Elias’s “Gossip Men” (2021) on the “Red Scare” era and Thomas Konda’s “Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America” (2019).
But to a generation of authors, researchers, academics and others, Mr. Lazar was a figure of heroic proportions. Through sheer perseverance and patience, Mr. Lazar became a kind of Zen master of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, a provision enacted in 1967 that allowed the public a centralized way to request unclassified government material.
Mr. Lazar estimated that more than 3 million people had accessed his digital archive, helping inform hundreds of works from books to doctoral theses.
He also kept journalists, scholars and others abreast of his FOIA requests and acquisitions on his simple and old-school webpages and an email distribution list, still using his AOL account from the 1990s. He occasionally wrote letters to the editor asking readers for possible leads on research, giving only a post office box address.
In recent years, he rarely ventured out into public forums, fearing he could be targeted by far-right thugs upset by his work.
“He was not at all known to the broader world,” said Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a group pressing for greater public openness by officials on military and intelligence decisions. “Within his world, though, he was a giant.”
McClanahan said he liked to imagine “there’s a dart board in government offices” with images of Mr. Lazar and other FOIA aficionados he inspired, such as animal rights activist and FBI researcher Ryan Shapiro.
“[Mr. Lazar] made enemies of everyone in power who is opposed to more transparency,” McClanahan said. “That should be on his tombstone.”
In an autobiographical sketch, Mr. Lazar said his interests in original source material began as a teenager in Hayward, Calif., after reading a comment by Hoover in a monthly FBI publication that went to his uncle, a policeman. The FBI director was quoted as rejecting a conspiracy theory by the John Birch Society, a right-wing and pro-White political group, about a supposed communist and Black alliance in the South.
The John Birch-stoked claim had been published in the local newspaper in a letter to the editor. The young Mr. Lazar wrote his own letter to the paper citing Hoover and other sources rebutting the Birchers.
After Mr. Lazar’s letter was published, he said he received hostile phone calls. A John Birch supporter wrote a screed against Mr. Lazar in verse: “Is it just coincidence that Ernie’s words so arty/sound just like the Communist Party?”
“And thus began my lifelong interest in right-wing conspiracy theories and their adherents,” he wrote.
A large portion of Mr. Lazar’s archive delves into the far right, including compiling lists of arrests and prosecutions of Proud Boys followers and other supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Lazar’s documents were cited by an emeritus professor of history at the City University of New York, Ronald Radosh, for a 2020 story in the Daily Beast linking anti-feminist firebrand Phyllis Schlafly to the John Birch Society. Schlafly, who died in 2016, had denied she was a member.
In a 2009 segment of the “Rachel Maddow Show” on the John Birch Society connections to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Maddow cited a “freelance researcher named Ernie Lazar” for digging up the minutes from the first John Birch Society meeting in 1960.
“He’s put together a pretty amazing archive of the group’s history,” she said.
Mr. Lazar released a raft of documents on FBI tracking of one of its own former special agents, Willard Cleon Skousen, a late far-right Mormon leader and conspiracy monger.
Mr. Lazar dug into Hoover FBI’s obsessions with the left, too. Among the revelations was a 1967 document noting the creation of a “rabble rouser index” (later changed to an “agitator index”) that including Yippies founder Jerry Rubin and Harlem-area Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (D).
Mr. Lazar built a full dossier on FBI reports and surveillance of Whittaker Chambers, a disaffected communist whose testimony helped convict U.S. official Alger Hiss of perjury after he denied being a Soviet spy in the 1930s. The documents include agents describing what Chambers bought at newsstands — as it turned out, he was mostly getting copies of Time magazine, where he worked as a correspondent.
Disco years
Mr. Lazar was born Ernest Clayton Jammes on April 16, 1945, in Minneapolis. He said his biological mother gave him for adoption in Chicago when he was 3 to the Lazar family, whose daughter had been his babysitter.
Mr. Lazar studied at the California State College at Hayward (now California State University at East Bay) and received top grades but did not graduate.
During the 1970s, he drifted into the music business — as a record promoter and owner of a San Francisco store specializing in disco. He told an interviewer in 1979 that dance clubs were a “relief from the repression of the world outside.”
That same year, he scored his biggest business music success by helping promote Patrick Hernandez’s “Born to Be Alive,” which reach the Billboard No. 1 on the disco chart. As disco faded, Mr. Lazar made a change onto the public payroll in California with jobs over 22 years that included those with the Board of Registered Nursing and the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Mr. Lazar posted no photos of himself on the internet beyond thumbnail-size images that mostly hid his identity. Still, he was not shy about being in the public debate with letters to the editor.
In 1986, he railed against California’s new seat belt law. He later floated the concept of “exile” for habitual criminals and favored “three-strikes” laws for harsh sentences. In a 1995 letter to the Los Angeles Times, he complained about bloated budgets and bureaucracy at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
He apparently had no immediate family, and full details about survivors were not immediately available. His death was confirmed by the Coroner’s Bureau of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
In September, Mr. Lazar posted an 11-point message that began with him saying he was facing “end-stage renal disease.” He then went through a random run of thoughts.
He mentioned a bit about his childhood, appealed for donations to help digitize some of his archives, and made a reference to the gold record he received helping with the disco hit.
He urged everyone to vote in the midterms: “The stakes for our democracy are very high.”
Point 11 ends, “Most of all, please keep up the fight to make our country live up to its ideals!” | 2022-11-09T00:43:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ernie Lazar, who amassed huge FBI archives, dies at 77 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/08/ernie-lazar-fbi-archive-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/08/ernie-lazar-fbi-archive-dies/ |
A TV screen at the Seoul Railway Station in South Korea on Nov. 4 displays a file image of a missile launch that took place in North Korea. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
In the international battle for power and influence, North Korea is moving ever closer to Russia and China — and abandoning what was once a desire for engagement with the United States. Pyongyang’s hardening position is one more sign of a global realignment taking place in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
As conflict rages in the heart of Europe, the world is dividing more sharply into East and West. The United States’ partnerships are stronger but so is the intensity of the adversarial camp. North Korea and Iran are supplying weapons to an embattled Russia, according to the White House. Swing states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey are trying to hedge their bets between the battling superpowers.
North Korea has been a rogue state since the 1950s, but its recent behavior has been extreme, even by Pyongyang’s standards. It fired volleys of rockets and artillery in October, sent scores of jets aloft to menace South Korea this month, and adopted a new law in September promising a nuclear strike “automatically and immediately” if its leadership is attacked.
Such truculent behavior illustrates one hidden cost of the Ukraine war. With near-daily Russian threats to use nuclear weapons against Kyiv, smaller nations fear they need nuclear weapons for their survival — and know that if they have them, they should never consider giving them up, as Ukraine agreed to in 1994.
“This war has unfortunately raised the perceived deterrent value of nuclear weapons,” wrote Mayumi Fukushima, a former senior Japanese diplomat and security expert, in an April article in War on the Rocks.
Since the Ukraine conflict began in February, North Korea has taken dramatic steps to toughen its nuclear doctrine, reject any denuclearization negotiations with the United States, and draw closer to the autocratic alliance between Russia and China. Kim Jong Un’s aspirations for a deal with Washington, evidenced by what President Donald Trump called “love letters” pursuing one, appear to have evaporated.
“All the signs suggest that there has been a fundamental shift in North Korea’s thinking,” argued Robert Carlin, who was for many years the CIA’s leading analyst of North Korea, in a note to me this week. He contends that after the breakdown of Kim’s talks with Trump in Hanoi in 2019, “normal relations with the U.S. no longer seemed attainable … [or] worth the candle. If China was on the rise and the U.S. in decline in the Asia-Pacific, it made no sense for the North to put any eggs in the U.S. basket.”
North Korea, for decades, wanted a U.S. counterweight to Russia and China, but apparently no more. Rachel Minyoung Lee, a Korea analyst with the Stimson Center, argued last week in 38 North that Pyongyang’s recent tilt “seems to spell the end of a strategic decision made 30 years ago by Kim Il Sung to normalize relations with Washington as a buffer against Beijing and Moscow.”
This strategic shift was partly a reaction to the “no limits” friendship pact signed in February by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Their proclamation of a “new global order,” followed shortly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was an “inflection point” for Kim, argues Lee. She quotes Kim’s assessment in a September speech that “the change from a unipolar world advocated by the U.S. into a multipolar world is being accelerated significantly.”
Kim has been newly solicitous of Moscow and Beijing. He quickly endorsed independence for the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine. He backed China’s crackdown on Hong Kong and its menacing moves toward Taiwan. According to Carlin, North Korea’s defense ministry said in August that it would “closely wage strategic and tactical coordinated operations” with the Chinese military.
Kim has raced to bolster North Korea’s own nuclear deterrent. In April, he announced that he would augment his nuclear weapons capability “at the fastest possible speed.” In September came the law mandating a nuclear counterattack if he is ever threatened. Perhaps most important, Kim has rejected any possibility of giving up his nuclear weapons. “We have drawn the line of no retreat regarding our nuclear weapons so there will no longer be any bargaining over them,” he said in a September speech. “There will never be … denuclearization.”
The Biden administration has noted these worrying actions by Pyongyang. But a senior State Department official said on Tuesday that it is “too soon to tell if it’s a fundamental shift” in policy. The administration has signaled North Korea since President Biden took office that it is ready to talk anytime, anywhere, without preconditions. But North Korea hasn’t responded, other than with belligerent public rhetoric and launching more than 60 ballistic missiles this year.
Kim is indisputably right about one thing. Russia and China are seeking a new world system to replace the U.S.-led “rules-based order,” as Biden calls it. Ukraine is the main front where that battle is being waged, but it isn’t the only one. | 2022-11-09T00:43:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | North Korea is lining up with Russia and China against the U.S. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/08/china-russia-north-korea-realignment-nuclear-weapons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/08/china-russia-north-korea-realignment-nuclear-weapons/ |
New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen watches from the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
NEW ORLEANS — Dennis Allen will need the second half of his first season as Saints head coach to go better than the first if New Orleans is to entertain any postseason possibilities. | 2022-11-09T00:44:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saints 1st-year coach Allen bemoans inconsistent play - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/saints-1st-year-coach-allen-bemoans-inconsistent-play/2022/11/08/332b49bc-5fc0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/saints-1st-year-coach-allen-bemoans-inconsistent-play/2022/11/08/332b49bc-5fc0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Maryland’s competitive 6th District race remains undecided as polls close
Del. Neil C. Parrott (R-Washington), left, and Rep. David Trone (D-Md.). (From left: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post; AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
While the Maryland governor’s race may be headlining the night, voters could be in for a thriller in Western Maryland, home to the state’s most competitive congressional contest: a rematch between Rep. David Trone (D) and Del. Neil C. Parrott (R-Washington) that has led Trone to invest millions of his personal fortune to defend the seat.
After polls closed Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) to win his bid for reelection. Van Hollen faced no serious opposition in the race. But across Maryland’s eight U.S. House districts, several candidates put up bold challenges against longtime incumbents. The fiercest has been in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, where Trone routed Parrott, a longtime conservative delegate, two years ago.
But the race was more competitive this year after redistricting made the 6th District redder — largely thanks to Parrott’s crusades against partisan gerrymandering in Annapolis. He and several other Republicans won a lawsuit that led to a new congressional map this year that gave Republicans a shot in the Western Maryland district.
The only hurdle: Trone, a co-founder of Total Wine & More, is a multimillionaire with the ability to self-fund his campaign.
Trone invested $12.5 million of his own wealth in the race, which, compared with the roughly $800,000 Parrott raised, largely allowing Trone to dominate the airwaves. Wendy Whitmore, 54, was impressed by the amount of outreach from Trone’s campaign. It shows that he’s “trying to keep in touch with people,” she said after casting her vote Tuesday at the William Talley Recreation Center in Frederick.
Even though national Republicans identified Maryland’s 6th as a seat they wanted to flip red, Trone’s huge financial advantage mostly scared off major national investments, and it wasn’t until the final leg that Parrott began drawing more national attention. He got a boost from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who came to Frederick to stump for Parrott late last month in a move that political analysts saw as evidence that Parrott still had a viable path to victory.
But analysts have also noted that the top of the Republican ticket in Maryland is not expected to help down-ballot candidates. The Republican gubernatorial nominee, Dan Cox, is expected to lose to Wes Moore (D) by double digits, which analysts have seen as a drag on Parrott in an otherwise good environment for Republicans nationally.
Philip Berkheimer, a 53-year-old draftsman in Frederick County, is an independent who voted for Republicans down the line this year, hoping for a change.
“Usually the way I vote is: throw them out, whoever’s in right now,” he said. “Everything politically I can’t stand right now.”
Parrott, who has served for more than a decade in the Maryland State House, is one of the chamber’s most conservative delegates, well-known for the petition drives he led seeking to overturn laws such as same-sex marriage and in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. He is also staunchly opposed to abortion and previously proposed a 20-week abortion ban, with an exception for medical emergencies, and Trone attacked him as “extreme” on the issue throughout the campaign.
Trone, who lives outside the 6th District in Potomac, was elected in 2018 and has developed a distinct repertoire in Congress, working almost exclusively on mental health, addiction, criminal justice and medical research — issues personal to him. Trone, a cancer survivor, has said frequently that losing his nephew to a fentanyl-laced heroin overdose in 2016 galvanized him on that mission.
But Trone has also made overtures to the rural, redder parts of the district in ads showcasing his backstory as the son of a farmer, while pointing to infrastructure investments that he has voted for in Congress, such as expanding rural broadband.
Elsewhere in Maryland, former liberal Takoma Park delegate Heather Mizeur (D) has been giving Rep. Andy Harris (R) a run for his money on the Eastern Shore, the most conservative territory in the state — even though analysts have doubted she has a strong path to victory in the red district. Mizeur, who lives on a small herb farm on the Eastern Shore, outraised and outspent Harris, pulling in more than $2.6 million to Harris’s $1.8 million. She made broad appeals to Republicans and independents, hosting “Heather in the Hot Seat” events to allow some of those skeptical voters to grill her. And she developed what she called a “hyper-local” campaign platform, such as stimulating the shore’s agriculture- and aquaculture-based economy with innovation and clean-energy jobs.
But Harris, an ally of former president Donald Trump and a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, has a nearly 12-year incumbent advantage, and the same redistricting map that made Maryland’s 6th more competitive also ensured that Maryland’s 1st would remain quite red. Trump won the district by 14 points in 2020, indicating a significant uphill battle for Mizeur.
In Maryland’s 2nd District, Nicolee Ambrose, a Republican National Committee member, took on 20-year incumbent C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D). And in the 3rd District, Rep. John Sarbanes (D) faced Yuripzy Morgan, who sought to distinguish herself within the GOP by noting that she does not believe that government should be making decisions for women about abortion in the aftermath of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Just days before the election, the National Republican Congressional Committee added Ambrose and Morgan to its list of candidates to watch, through its “On the Radar” program — although Biden won both districts by more than 20 percentage points in 2020.
Other Maryland incumbents were not considered to be at risk. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.) is the only House incumbent not seeking reelection; he is running for attorney general, and Democrat Glenn Ivey was expected to win the race to replace him in the deep-blue 4th District.
Mike Thomas, 76, was happy to vote in Hyattsville for Ivey, a former state’s attorney and federal prosecutor who recently worked on a county police reform task force.
“He’s qualified,” Thomas said, and “he’s fairly balanced.”
But Monica Thomas, a 67-year-old personal chef from Hyattsville, said she wished she had more choices; in her six decades in Prince George’s County she couldn’t recall ever seeing so many candidates running unopposed.
“I always think two sides to every issue would be great,” she said. “Maybe we’re not getting the most balanced view of the world.”
Lateshia Beachum and Emily Seymour contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T01:22:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland’s competitive 6th District race remains undecided as polls close - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-congress-election-results-trone-parrott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-congress-election-results-trone-parrott/ |
The political newcomer broke through a crowded primary field and soared to projected victory over Trump-endorsed Dan Cox
Wes Moore greets voters and workers on Election Day at Bonnie Branch Middle School in Ellicott City. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Moore, 44, delivered a major victory to Democrats in a tough national election cycle for the party, reclaiming the governor’s mansion after eight years of Republican rule on a vow to “leave no one behind” — a message that resonated in a diversifying state where people of color have recently become the majority.
“We leave no one behind. And that is not just a mantra,” Moore said during the campaign. “It is a value statement. And it is not just a value statement. Come January, that will be the new mission of this state.”
A son of a Jamaican immigrant who was raised by a single mother, Moore becomes just the third Black person elected governor in American history — after Deval Patrick in Massachusetts and L. Douglas Wilder in Virginia.
Moore’s running mate, Aruna Miller, a former state delegate, will be the state’s first immigrant and first woman of color to serve as lieutenant governor. The barrier-breaking slate also included U.S. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md) who would become the first Black attorney general and Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore City) as the first woman to serve as comptroller.
“With Moore, it’s the intangible. He felt trustworthy,” said former middle school teacher Alfonso Sasieta, 30, as he cast his vote in Hyattsville on Tuesday. He said he is excited to see what’s in store for Moore. “I think that as a Black man with certain lived experiences, those are going to give him insight on what policy looks like.”
Blocks from Thurgood Marshall’s childhood home in West Baltimore, Sarah Holley, 75, emerged from the voting booth Tuesday having cast her vote for Moore, a blue pin stamped with ‘WES’ on her hat.
“It’s a true sign of progress of what we as a people can do,” said Holley, a retired publicist who is Black.
At another Baltimore polling precinct, one Black woman clutched Moore’s hands and prayed with him before he hopped back onto a blue and yellow campaign bus.
While campaigning, Moore publicly redirected talk of ‘firsts,’ offering a version of his reply at an event with Hillary Clinton last month: “The weight of making history does sit on us, and it’s humbling. But that’s not the assignment.”
Moore built a statewide coalition around issues like reducing crime, boosting economic opportunity and ending child poverty — goals for which he crafted ambitious policies with no price tag. When pressed for details, he would point to the state’s multibillion dollar surplus as a “once-in-generation” opportunity to change state government.
“Wes represents Maryland’s future in a bold way. He is savvy in business; he is a veteran who has taken real risks on behalf of our country in combat, and he’s also a shade darker than anybody who’s ever come before” said former NAACP president Ben Jealous, who made an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2018.
A former investment banker, Johns Hopkins University football player and graduate, Rhodes scholar, and White House fellow who once led the Robinhood Foundation, the country’s largest poverty-fighting nonprofit, Moore enjoyed a star-studded list of backers. He had fundraisers headlined by Oprah Winfrey and Spike Lee, a campaign ad filmed with former president Barack Obama and multiple rallies alongside President Biden.
His nearly two-year campaign centered on his personal story against adversity, detailed in his best-selling book “The Other Wes Moore,” a narrative that begins when his father died in front of him at age 3 from a misdiagnosed illness. His tough teenage years were tempered by the military school his mother sent him to escape the Bronx. He now lives in Baltimore with his wife, Dawn, a veteran of Maryland’s political scene, and their two children: Mia, 11, and James, 9.
Moore’s political ambitions took decades to come to fruition.
“Every time I go back to New York,” Moore told the Palm Beach Post in 1998. “I see my old neighborhood deteriorating, and I ask myself, ‘What can I do about it?’ Politics is where the power is to do something about it.”
He broke through a crowded primary field that included well-known political heavyweights to compete with Cox, a freshman state delegate and father of 10 from Frederick who rocketed past Hogan’s handpicked, moderate-Republican successor.
Cox, who said he believes the 2020 election was “stolen” was buoyed by an endorsement from former president Trump and derided by Hogan as a “whack job” unworthy of endorsement. (Cox unsuccessfully sued and tried to impeach Hogan over pandemic restrictions.)
“Wes is highly qualified … but Cox is a real blessing for Wes,” said Alvin Thornton, retired political science department chairman at Howard University.
Despite a Trump fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago last month, Cox’s campaign never raised more than a tenth of Moore’s nearly $16 million in resources. In a state where GOP leaders win by appealing to independents and moderates, Cox stuck to his conservative values. He focused his message on “freedom” from vaccine mandates, school curriculum that discusses gender identity and the income taxes that make up the backbone of state revenue.
Moore “was given the good fortune of having Dan Cox as his opponent,” said Carl Snowden, a long time civil rights activist in Anne Arundel County. “Especially because there were a lot of people, including African Americans, who were comfortable with Hogan.”
Outside Wheaton High School, Charles Williams, 42, a plumber, was one of the Black voters who thought Hogan was “pretty cool.”
But when it came time to vote for a successor to the Republican, Williams said Cox didn’t hold much appeal, so he backed Moore, saying he was “for the people.”
“With me it doesn’t really matter, Republican, Democrat, it’s who gets the job done,” Williams said.
Cox has repeatedly declined to say whether he would accept the results of the election, citing concern with a court-approved change to when mail-in ballots can be opened. Maryland’s record for lopsided gubernatorial victories was set in 1986, when then-Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer was elected governor with 82 percent of the vote.
As polls closed, a thin crowd gathered at Cox’s election night rally in Annapolis to await his arrival.
Moore’s political ties in Maryland launched in an internship with former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke, the city’s first Black mayor. Schmoke recommended Moore as a Rhodes scholar, and when Moore finished with Oxford, Schmoke suggested a job in the private sector to enhance his credibility when he ran for office.
“It was clear to me that it was important for him to understand not just the public sector, but the private sector, and he would get more support from the business community if he understood the private sector,” Schmoke said in a recent interview.
When Moore’s first political campaign finally launched, Schmoke asked law professor and venerated Maryland political organizer Larry Gibson to consider helping. Gibson had helped launch the political careers of Schmoke and Wayne K. Curry, the first Black person elected to lead Prince George’s County. Earlier this year, Gibson became a senior adviser and a fixture during the primary, attending events and posting campaign signs in far-flung regions of the state.
Moore also sought advice from a titan among America’s Black political leaders: Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor, who encouraged him to articulate a vision to all voters, not just Democrats.
“I know what an incredible talent Wes is. I know his sense of generational responsibility, that we are here to leave things better for those who come behind us, but not everybody is going to know that unless he explains it,” Patrick said of his advice to Moore.
“He’s not telling me not to appreciate the fact that we’re doing something that hasn’t been done before,” Moore said in a mid-October interview. But “that thing will fade very quickly from the conversation. The thing that will stick is: What kind of governor was he?”
Moore’s victory layers atop Maryland’s complicated racial past.
Maryland never left the union, but it was a slave state with Confederate sympathizers, and the generations that followed the Civil War erected prominent tributes to figures such as the author of the infamous Dred Scott ruling, which declared Black people inherently unfit for citizenship. One of those statutes stayed at the State Capitol until five years ago.
On Tuesday, Richard W. Thomas Jr., 80, proudly displayed an ‘I voted’ sticker on his bright-orange sweatshirt as he slowly shuffled out of the Silver Spring civic building.
Thomas, who is Black, said he remembered a time when “we couldn’t vote” and he came ready to wait as long as necessary to cast his ballot for Moore. He was the first in line.
“Wes Moore is my man,” he said.
While campaigning this fall in Prince George’s County, a D.C. suburb home to Black affluence, Moore directly addressed the state’s legacy.
“This is a state of Harriet Tubman, this is the state of Frederick Douglass, and this is the state of Thurgood Marshall,” he said.
“This is the state that the building that we will be sworn in, the state’s capitol, it was built by the hands of the slave. The dock, the Annapolis dock, that is just walking distance from the state capitol, is one of the largest slave docks in this country’s history. I understand the history of this state,” he said. “We will accomplish something that for those who came before us, they never thought was possible. They hoped. They dreamed. They fought. But we have a unique opportunity to do something.”
Lauren Lumpkin, Lateshia Beachum, Ian Duncan, Shwetha Surendran, Joe Heim and Steve Thompson contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T01:22:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wes Moore projected to be next governor of Maryland in historic race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-governor-results-wes-moore-dan-cox/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-governor-results-wes-moore-dan-cox/ |
Boy critically wounded in Prince George’s, police say
A 13-year-old was shot in Hillcrest Heights, according to police
A 13-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded Tuesday in Prince George’s County, police said.
The boy was found outdoors in the 2100 block of Jameson Street in the Hillcrest Heights area.
He was found about 5:20 p.m. after a shooting was reported.
The boy was taken to a hospital and was reported about two hours later to be in critical condition.
It was not immediately known who shot him or why. | 2022-11-09T01:30:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boy shot, critically wounded in Prince George's, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/boy-shot-critically-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/boy-shot-critically-prince-georges/ |
Georgia grabs top spot in CFP rankings after dethroning Tennessee
Ohio State, Michigan and TCU round out the top four
Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, right, and his Georgia teammates were slotted ahead of Ohio State and Michigan. (John Bazemore/AP)
After defeating Tennessee, Georgia supplanted its SEC rival as the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings.
The 9-0 Bulldogs, coming off a convincing win over the Volunteers on Saturday, also leapfrogged 9-0 Ohio State for the top spot. Revealed Tuesday night, the second batch of rankings from the 13-member CFP selection committee kept the Buckeyes at No. 2 and dropped 8-1 Tennessee all the way to fifth. Ohio State topped unranked Northwestern on Saturday and won’t have a chance for another statement game until Nov. 26, when the Buckeyes end their regular season with a showdown against No. 3 Michigan.
The 9-0 Wolverines, who were fifth in last week’s initial CFP rankings, trounced Rutgers on Saturday and benefited from a loss by Clemson (8-1), last week’s fourth-ranked squad, at unranked Notre Dame. The Tigers’ 35-14 defeat prompted the committee to move them down to 10th.
In fourth place on Tuesday’s list was 9-0 TCU, the only other undefeated squad among Football Bowl Subdivision programs but not one that has posted large margins of victory in recent weeks. The teams that end up in the top four spots in the final rankings move on to the two-round tournament to determine a national champion.
Of giving a big boost to TCU, which was seventh in last week’s rankings, CFP selection committee chairman Boo Corrigan told ESPN: “They’ve got six wins over teams that are .500 or better, they’re averaging 43[.1] points a game, and as you know, we value wins. They continue to find a way to win and not give up those points in the second half, and that really was impactful to the committee.”
“I have a lot of faith in the committee that they’re going to recognize teams that continue to win,” TCU Coach Sonny Dykes said on ESPN. “We haven’t always won pretty — there have been some struggles, and we’ve had to make some second-half comebacks — but at the end of the day, we’ve played a good schedule.”
Corrigan, the athletic director at North Carolina State, noted that his panel remained highly impressed by Tennessee’s wins over Alabama and LSU, both of which were ranked in Tuesday’s top nine. In turn, the Bulldogs’ victory over the Volunteers “clearly separated Georgia in the eyes of the committee.”
The defending national champion, Georgia opened its season with a pasting of Oregon, now ranked sixth. The Bulldogs also pounded three straight SEC foes before jumping to a 24-6 halftime lead and cruising past Tennessee. Georgia is ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll and has strengthened its grip there by earning 62 of 63 first-place votes this week from the media panel.
LSU (7-2), coming off wins over Alabama and Mississippi in its first year under Coach Brian Kelly, ascended from 10th to seventh and is now in better position than the Crimson Tide to become the first two-loss team to make the playoff.
Both of the losses for Alabama (7-2) came in the final seconds against highly ranked teams. (Tennessee turned in the first defeat.) The setbacks spurred the committee to drop the Crimson Tide from No. 6 to No. 9 on Tuesday.
Oregon (8-1) moved up from eighth after taking care of business in a 49-10 rout of 1-8 Colorado. Also in the top 10 was Southern California (8-1), which moved up one spot to No. 8 despite getting a bit of a scare Saturday from 3-6 California.
Here is the rest of the CFP top 25:
At No. 17, Tulane is the highest-ranked Group of Five member and has the inside track, for the time being, to an automatic berth in the “New Year’s Six” slate of bowl games. The Green Wave first needs to get past No. 22 Central Florida at home this week.
Notre Dame, Florida State, Kentucky and Washington entered the rankings for the first time. Falling out were Oklahoma State (6-3), Syracuse (6-3), Wake Forest (6-3) and Oregon State (6-3). | 2022-11-09T01:31:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia takes top spot in CFP rankings after beating Tennessee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/cfp-rankings-georgia-ohio-state-michigan-tcu-tennessee/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/cfp-rankings-georgia-ohio-state-michigan-tcu-tennessee/ |
As polls close, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser hopes for third term
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
D.C. voters went to the polls Tuesday to determine the direction of the city council and to decide whether to give Mayor Muriel E. Bowser her third term leading the nation’s capital. Though results were not in shortly after polls closed, Bowser, a moderate Democrat who became known for her standoffs with the Trump administration and her strict shepherding of the city through the pandemic, had high hopes of becoming the second-longest-serving mayor in D.C. history.
Bowser, 50, would be the only leader since “mayor for life” Marion Barry to serve a third term. After beating two challengers to her left in the spring’s Democratic primary, she promised to focus her third term on guiding the city’s economic recovery from pandemic shutdowns and on increasing the size of the police force to combat crime.
While Bowser’s race headlined the night, two of the most closely watched races on the ballot also were not called shortly after polls closed on Tuesday night: the election of two at-large council members. The field of eight candidates included three sitting council members seeking the seats: incumbents Anita Bonds (D) and Elissa Silverman (I), and Kenyan R. McDuffie, who has represented Ward 5 as a Democrat for a decade but registered as an independent to run in the at-large race.
Pitching himself as more moderate than Silverman on taxation and business regulation, McDuffie ran a campaign well-funded by donors from the city’s business community, who have long targeted Silverman for her championing of the city’s paid parental leave law and other worker-friendly policies.
In a city friendly to liberal ideas, McDuffie also tried to show his progressive bona fides, pointing to laws he passed that created a violence interrupter program as an alternative to police and that funded “baby bonds” for poor children.
Silverman ran on her record of oversight, pointing to her habit of asking mayoral administration officials tough questions.
Other council races also remained uncalled shortly after polls closed: those of incumbent Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), as well as the Ward 3 race — where Democrat Matthew Frumin faced Republican David Krucoff and Libertarian Adrian Salsgiver — and the race for Ward 5, in which Democrat Zachary Parker ran against Republican Clarence Lee. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and Democratic attorney general candidate Brian Schwalb ran unopposed.
Many voters said they were drawn to the polls for Initiative 82, a ballot question asking whether the city should require businesses to pay all workers the full minimum wage, rather than allowing some to receive a lower wage that is supplemented by tips. As some in the restaurant industry campaigned against the measure — a similar one of which was approved by voters in 2018 but overturned by the council — tipped workers themselves advocated both for and against it. The outcome was not clear shortly after polls closed Tuesday evening.
As they voted in an election in which few doubted whether the mayor would be reelected to a third term, many expressed approval of the direction of the city.
Johnathan Furr, 32, said he was so impressed by the quality of the city’s public schools that he moved back to the District from California. “I want to raise my children in D.C., and I support putting our tax dollars into the school system,” he said. The Cleveland Park resident was disappointed that Bowser sometimes maintained stricter coronavirus restrictions than neighboring suburbs, calling her rules on masks “somewhat draconian,” but he still gladly voted for her.
Mary Goodman, who voted in Columbia Heights, said she approved of Bowser’s handling of the pandemic on a political level — and then her heart went out to the mayor when it got personal. “What really absolutely wedded me to her was when her sister passed away,” she said, remembering Bowser’s eldest sister’s death last year of the coronavirus. Suddenly she saw the mayor who had been making the city’s rules in a new and more emotional light. “I don’t know. I felt like I lost my sister too,” Goodman said. “It was so horrible. I would vote for her for anything.”
For Leo Martinez of Takoma, Bowser’s signature day in office was Jan. 6, 2021. Martinez, 49, said he was working as a security guard for journalists covering the attack on the U.S. Capitol. “I got tear-gassed, the whole bit,” he said. He respected Bowser’s strength in responding to the attack, he said, including sending in D.C. police to help put an end to the insurrection when U.S. Capitol Police were overwhelmed. “Miss Bowser called a curfew. She kind of put a kibosh on it a little bit. It could have gone on through the night,” he said.
In other races, Eleanor Holmes Norton, 85, was running for her 17th consecutive term as D.C.’s nonvoting delegate to Congress. Four seats on the D.C. State Board of Education were also on the ballot. Newcomer Ben Williams ran unopposed for the Ward 1 board seat, while competitive races in Wards 3, 5 and 6 were too close to call.
Ibrahim Aksoy contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T02:14:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As polls close, Muriel Bowser hopes to win third term as D.C. mayor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/dc-election-results-mayor-council/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/dc-election-results-mayor-council/ |
The political newcomer projected to become Maryland’s first Black governor has a long résumé that includes Rhodes scholar, White House fellow, nonprofit chief and veteran
Gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore speaks to reporters, voters and volunteers at Bonnie Branch Middle School in Ellicott City, Md., on Tuesday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Political newcomer Wes Moore rallied a diverse coalition around ending child poverty, building generational wealth and promising to “leave no one behind” in his bid to become Maryland’s first Black governor, reclaiming the governor’s mansion for Democrats.
Moore, 44, launched his gubernatorial bid on the strength of his charisma and a best-selling personal story, “The Other Wes Moore,” which details how educational opportunities and economic inequities affect whether a person falters or succeeds.
The author and former chief of a large poverty-fighting nonprofit amassed endorsements from powerhouses in the state’s Democratic establishment during the primary and was later boosted with star-power support from former president Barack Obama, former U.S. senator Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.
Moore built a massive war chest to topple Republican Dan Cox, a freshman delegate backed by former president Donald Trump who objected to the certification of President Biden’s 2020 victory. Cox campaigned on restricting abortions, vigorously fought against coronavirus mitigation measures and wanted to limit the role of government.
Moore pledged to help people who are often overlooked, to foster economic opportunity and to protect abortion rights while harnessing concerns about some of Cox’s hard-right views on school curriculums, LGBTQ rights and vaccine mandates.
Who is Wes Moore? He’s the political newcomer who defeated Dan Cox to become the first Black person elected governor in Maryland.
At the polls, Maryland voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana.
His proposals span the political spectrum, from tax cuts to social programs. His goals include creating a “baby bonds” program that would operate like a trust fund for newborns from poor families; developing a program that would allow high school graduates to participate in a year of service; and pouring cash into a state affordable housing program that has not kept pace with demand.
With the Associated Press calling Moore the projected winner on Tuesday, his running mate, Aruna Miller, who immigrated from India at age 7, will be the first woman of color and first immigrant to serve as lieutenant governor in one of the most diverse states in the country.
“We’re not running to make history,” Moore often said on the trail. “We have a unique opportunity to make child poverty history. We have a unique opportunity to make the racial wealth gap history.”
When he takes office, Moore will be faced with figuring out how to deliver on his promises, which will require attacking complex systemic problems that have been intractable in Maryland and across the country.
On the trail, Moore, also a combat veteran and former investment banker, often homed in on his background and what he calls his guiding life principle — that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to succeed and that “no one is left behind.”
Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), one on a long list of supporters, said during the primary that Moore and Miller commanded attention in an otherwise sleepy contest full of qualified candidates, inspiring “the young and old among us to believe again in things that are possible.”
During the primary, Moore surged past established candidates such as Peter Franchot, a state comptroller who has held elected office almost as long as Moore has been alive, and former U.S. labor secretary Tom Perez, who is entrenched and admired in national party politics. He consolidated support from the state’s Democratic heavy hitters, including House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, state Senate President Bill Ferguson (Baltimore City), House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (Baltimore City) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks. He also won one of the biggest and most coveted labor endorsements, from the 76,000-strong state teachers union, and later from the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police.
A Rhodes scholar raised by a single mother, Moore has a résumé that includes time as a White House fellow and as a paratrooper in Afghanistan.
Early during his campaign he was dogged by questions about the compelling life story that launched him into public view. The opening lines on the book jacket of his 2010 bestseller, “The Other Wes Moore,” said he was born in Baltimore.
Moore said the error was made by his publisher, a mistake he asked it to correct.
“I have nothing to exaggerate about my life,” he said.
Moore was 3 when his father died in front of him after he didn’t get the health care he needed for acute epiglottitis. His widowed mother, an immigrant from Jamaica, moved him and his two sisters from Takoma Park, Md., to the Bronx, where they lived with his grandparents, a minister and a longtime educator.
Moore takes pride in his story and in Miller’s.
“People are looking for someone who has worked across sectors to get big things done,” he said in an interview. “Right now, people are not necessarily looking for the same people with the same ideas. They want us to be bold. They want Maryland to do big things.” | 2022-11-09T02:14:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who is Wes Moore, Maryland's newly elected governor? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-governor-wes-moore/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-governor-wes-moore/ |
Virginia Giuffre exits federal court in New York in 2019. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg News)
Virginia Giuffre, who had previously accused former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager under the control of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, on Tuesday dropped a defamation lawsuit against Dershowitz.
Dershowitz, who had called Giuffre’s allegations lies in a countersuit, agreed to drop his lawsuit in a document filed by both parties’ lawyers in federal court.
“I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. However I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment,” Giuffre said in a statement shared by her lawyers. “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”
She said that the litigation had been stressful and burdensome for her and her family, and that they all believed it was time to move on.
Attorneys for both parties agreed the cases be dismissed and neither party would be awarded costs or legal fees. Both Giuffre and Dershowitz have also signed off their right to appeal.
In late 2014, Giuffre began accusing Dershowitz of sexually assaulting her while she was being abused by Epstein at his Florida mansion between 2000 and 2002. By then, the statute of limitations had passed for a criminal case.
Dershowitz began an aggressive campaign to deny Giuffre’s claims, calling her a “certified, complete, total liar.” Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation in April 2019.
Dershowitz’s lawyers asked that a judge dismiss the defamation lawsuit against him. When the motion was denied, Dershowitz countersued Giuffre in federal court in New York in November of that year.
Dershowitz had also claimed that Giuffre was “pressured to falsely accuse Dershowitz” by her lawyers, namely the law firm headed by renowned attorney David Boies.
Boies also sued Dershowitz for defamation in November 2019, and was thrown out of a libel suit he filed against Dershowitz in October 2019.
It’s Alan Dershowitz vs. David Boies, again and again
As a result of Tuesday’s proceedings, a federal lawsuit involving claims and counterclaims between Giuffre and Dershowitz was dropped, and a New York State Court lawsuit involving claims and counterclaims between Boies and Dershowitz was dropped.
Dershowitz, who represented then-President Trump during 2020 impeachment proceedings and advised the defense during O.J. Simpson’s murder trial in 1995, said he met Epstein in 1996 and reluctantly represented him when he was being investigated for sex trafficking in 2005. Epstein had then pleaded guilty to two prostitution-related charges and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Federal authorities relaunched an investigation into Epstein after an investigative series by the Miami Herald in November 2018. Federal prosecutors in New York indicted him in July 2018. He was found dead in his jail cell a month after his arrest.
Giuffre’s defamation suit against Dershowitz was seen by some as a path to more information, and justice, for accusers who were disappointed by the end of the criminal case against Epstein, The Washington Post reported in 2019.
In his statement Tuesday, Dershowitz said that he never had sex with Giuffre. “I have nevertheless come to believe that at the time she accused me, she believed what she said.” He then acknowledged that she had suffered at the hands of Epstein and commended “her work combating the evil of sex trafficking.”
Dershowitz also said that his allegations about Boies being engaged in an extortion plot and suborning perjury were mistaken.
Giuffre, now 39 and living in Australia, in February settled a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Britain’s Prince Andrew.
Tom Jackman and Deanna Paul contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T02:15:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre drops suit against Alan Dershowitz - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/08/giuffre-dershowitz-defamation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/08/giuffre-dershowitz-defamation/ |
She was the lead plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court decision that gave people with disabilities the right to seek care services in their own homes and communities, not just in institutions
Lois Curtis addresses a group in Hartford, Conn., in 2009, observing the 10th anniversary of her landmark Supreme Court case. The justices ruled that qualified patients have the right to receive community-based care rather than to be institutionalized. (Bob Child/AP)
The case was called Olmstead v. L.C. — Ms. Curtis was the “L.C.” — and galvanized the disability rights movement, offering a legal framework for people with disabilities to secure the right to live, work and study in their own communities. Some lawyers described it as the movement’s Brown v. Board of Education, comparing it to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed racial segregation in public schools.
The court case also marked the beginning of a joyous new era for Ms. Curtis, who moved into her own home as the lawsuit advanced through the court system. Helped by a devoted network of friends and caregivers, she lived independently while pursuing her vocation as an artist, using pastels, acrylics, markers and pencils to draw pictures of people and animals that were sold at auction and exhibited at galleries.
“My art been around a long time,” she once told Jamieson, explaining what drawing meant to her. “I came along when my art came along. Drawing pretty pictures is a way to meet God in the world like it is.”
The Supreme Court ultimately sided with Ms. Curtis, ruling 6 to 3 that the unjustified segregation of people with disabilities constituted discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. People with mental disabilities had the right to receive community-based care, the court said, so long as they were medically cleared to do so, had shown a desire to go back to their communities and could be “reasonably accommodated” by the state.
“Love, Lois.”
“The lawyers were focused on the frightening possibility that the Court would reverse the successful decisions of the lower courts and the exciting possibility that it wouldn’t,” Jamieson recalled in a blog post for the Obama White House website. “Lois, however, tends to take things in stride and understands the joy of the moment. Since she was not in a state hospital but enjoying a trip to D.C. with her friends and supporters, her focus was on that day of freedom and adventure.”
“I raise my voice high!” she said. “In the summer I go to the pool and put my feet in the water. Maybe I’ll learn to swim someday. I been fishing. I seen a pig and a horse on a farm. I buy clothes and shoes. I have birthday parties. They a lot of fun. I’m not afraid of big dogs no more. | 2022-11-09T02:15:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lois Curtis, artist and advocate for disability rights, dies at 55 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/08/disability-advocate-lois-curtis-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/08/disability-advocate-lois-curtis-dead/ |
Astros General Manager James Click doesn't have a contract for next season. (Harry How/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS — A day after a parade celebrated his World Series champion Houston Astros, General Manager James Click found himself answering questions about his job security. Nearby, reporters covering the general managers’ meetings quizzed Click’s peers who couldn’t defeat his Astros about their less successful seasons, about free agents — about baseball.
But Click, whose contract has expired and who has yet to sign another, was forced to answer questions about whether he would be back next season, questions only Astros owner Jim Crane probably can answer. Most general managers who lead their teams to a World Series title need not worry about their job status. But most owners are not Jim Crane.
“We’re in discussions,” Click said when asked whether he is under contract for next season. He said those discussions with Crane began shortly after he disembarked from a parade float in Houston on Monday and shortly before he hopped on a flight to Las Vegas for the annual assembly of baseball operations leaders — “post-float, preflight,” as he put it. He declined to comment much beyond that.
Astros Manager Dusty Baker also remains without a contract for next season. But Baker, who in the hours after the Astros clinched the title Saturday seemed confident he would be back, was in the same position last year. He worked out a deal shortly thereafter.
About 30 minutes before Click was supposed to join his American League peers in a media availability Tuesday afternoon, the Astros sent out a news release announcing a news conference set for Wednesday afternoon in Houston. Asked what that news conference was about, Click said he wouldn’t comment but acknowledged that he hadn’t heard about it until “recently” — the implication being that he had just heard about it, too. Asked whether he would be there — hypothetically — to have a contract extension announced alongside Baker, he said he would not.
“I’m planning to be here,” he said, “trying to put the team together for next year.”
In some ways, Click’s position is not unique among general managers.
The New York Yankees’ Brian Cashman is also working without a contract. But Cashman said last week that his understanding was that team owner Hal Steinbrenner wants him back and that he expects to be back. What was evident as Click politely dodged questions about whether someone in his position should have to wonder about their future — and, more importantly, why someone in his position would have to wonder — is that despite all the success, his business relationship with Crane is a far more tenuous one.
“We’re different,” Click said. “There are some things we do very differently. There are some things we are very lined up on. That’s going to be true of any relationship between a boss and an employee. He likes to act very quickly in certain cases. I tend towards a more deliberate approach. He is very demanding, but he also gives you the resources to accomplish what he asks you to do.”
Crane hired Click to run baseball operations ahead of the 2020 season after firing Jeff Luhnow in the wake of the team’s sign-stealing scandal. Click had been vice president of baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays do not have the resources to make mistakes. The Astros do. In that way, Click said, he was trained to be “precise” in his decision-making, something that doesn’t necessarily align with Crane’s reputation as a reactionary and sometimes brash decision-maker.
“I also have no problem being quick and aggressive,” Click said. “But I also want to make sure we’ve done the work before that point and that we don’t follow a ‘fire, ready, aim’ philosophy.”
“Philosophical differences” have undone more than a few powerful pairings over the years, and it seems possible that they may split Click from Crane sooner than later. Click declined to say whether other teams had approached him in the past few days. And he declined to say what negotiations with his owner had entailed.
And he declined to say — or perhaps simply couldn’t — why someone with his track record would not expect to return. After all, most championship-winning GMs roll into these meetings on something of a post-title bender — not exactly disengaged but hardly having to navigate anything resembling awkwardness or drama.
“That is a question for someone else,” he said.
“All of us in these jobs navigate the realities of our particular situation,” added Click, whose particular situation included inheriting a team consumed by scandal, being asked to keep that team in position to win and then leading it to back-to-back World Series appearances capped by this season’s title. Many owners would be pleased with such an outcome. Many general managers would expect to be rewarded for such an outcome.
Click simply wouldn’t say all that himself. He wouldn’t express resentment publicly. In fact, he begged for questions about the team he may or may not be running a few days from now. And he joked that he should be hitting the casino instead of answering questions, given the hot streak he was on this postseason. He spent Tuesday afternoon answering questions about his job security instead.
“ ‘Fair’ is a hard word to define in a lot of ways,” he said. “We all have our own situations that we deal with. We deal with them as best we can.” | 2022-11-09T02:31:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | James Click of Houston Astros wins World Series, has no contract - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/james-click-astros-general-manager-contract/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/james-click-astros-general-manager-contract/ |
A pro-Initiative 82 sign in Northwest Washington. (Justin Wm. Moyer/The Washington Post)
D.C. voters approved a ballot initiative Tuesday to raise the minimum wage for District workers who receive tips, after months of debate about its effects on the city’s restaurants and their employees.
Initiative 82 is a repeat of a 2018 referendum to eliminate the city’s “tipped minimum” wage. The measure will increase minimum pay for servers and other tipped workers from $5.35 per hour to $16.10 per hour by 2027, giving them the same pay floor as non-tipped workers. Voters approved the measure in 2018, but it was repealed by the D.C. Council.
On Tuesday, voters reiterated their support for the change. Early returns showed a commanding lead for the “yes” vote on the initiative, according to vote tallies from the D.C. Board of Elections, and the Associated Press called the contest in favor of the initiative.
The measure roiled the District this election season as restaurateurs who favor the current system squared off with initiative proponents who claim food businesses do not pay their workers fairly. Servers and bartenders were divided on the question, with some arguing for the security of a higher wage and others fearing less take-home pay in an environment where tipping might cease to be the norm.
In a historic race, Wes Moore will become Maryland’s first Black governor. Maryland also voted to legalize recreational marijuana.
Muriel E. Bowser is projected to win her third term as the second-longest-serving mayor in D.C. history.
Races in Virginia’s 2nd, 7th and 10th congressional districts are making the commonwealth a consequential battleground.
Servers and other tipped workers in the District earn a minimum wage lower than non-tipped workers. Though employers are supposed to track tips to ensure their workers earn at least the minimum wage, a recent study by advocates favoring the initiative showed that only around 35 percent do.
Ryan O’Leary, a former restaurant worker and labor organizer who proposed Initiative 82, said the tipped wage is part of the “legacy of slavery,” explaining that restaurant owners who employed African Americans didn’t historically wish to pay them, forcing them to rely on tips. Awaiting results of the initiative in a Northeast D.C. brewery amid chocolate bars provided by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, an initiative funder, and dozens of kegs, he said he hoped the initiative would eliminate the tipped wage once and for all.
“I’m hopeful we will win by more than last time,” he said.
Elizabeth Falcon, executive director of DC Jobs With Justice, which helped fund the study, said last month that employers with tipped workers “just shouldn’t operate so differently from all of our other businesses.”
“Restaurants are an industry with one of the highest rates of wage theft,” she said. “There’s widespread noncompliance.”
Annie Herhold, a 34-year-old former waitress who had just voted at Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in Woodley Park, said she’d had to conduct research before voting for Initiative 82, but the Virginia Beach native said she supports paying tipped workers more.
“I did some research and found that, yes, it might put pressure on businesses, but ultimately you want to make sure people get paid,” she said.
Restaurateurs and some tipped workers, however, argued that the workers might make less if the tipped minimum wage were eliminated. If restaurants add service charges to cover the increased wages, they fear, diners might respond by cutting back on tipping, causing servers’ pay to decline. And if restaurants are faced with higher labor costs, they argue, some could go out of businesses.
“I don’t think this is putting more dollars in any of the servers’ pockets,” Geoff Tracy, owner of two Chef Geoff’s restaurants in Northwest Washington, said last month. “The system we have right now is a fairly good one.”
In Anacostia — where Initiative 82’s predecessor, Initiative 77, performed well in 2018 — 54-year-old Horace Dempsey said he voted “no” on the measure because it would worsen inflation and limit wages for tipped workers.
“I think it’s bad for inflation,” Dempsey, a D.C. native and registered Democrat, said as he left Barry Farm Recreation Center. “I really just think it’s bad for the people that are working.”
Though initiative advocates claimed 90 percent of tipped workers support it, critics said this was not the case. Jason Cannata, 39, a former bar and restaurant worker, said his recollection from 2018 was that many tipped workers opposed the measure because they have the potential to earn more under the current system.
“My understanding from last time is that most people working for bars and restaurants are against it,” he said. “[The business owners] already have to pay the minimum wage, if there’s a difference, so I rejected it. They’re already making minimum wage no matter what, right?”
Some voters were reluctant to take a side. When attorney Nick Marrone left Anacostia’s Union Temple Baptist Church with his 2-year-old daughter Diana in his arms, he snapped a picture of them wearing “I Voted” stickers with wide smiles. But he decided to leave the back of the ballot, where Initiative 82 was found, blank.
“There’s a lot of tipped workers that would rather have the tips and they’re worried that they’re going to lose the tips if the minimum wage goes up,” Marrone, 38, said. “Quite frankly, I was very on the fence with it.”
The initiative also spurred groups on both sides of the debate, including the anti-initiative National Restaurant Association, to open their pockets. The measure’s opponents raised around $643,000 to quash it, while supporters raised around $439,000 to get it through, according to campaign filings.
How the initiative will affect the District’s robust dining economy isn’t clear. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who led the Initiative 77 repeal effort in 2018 and won reelection Tuesday, has indicated he doesn’t want to repeal the initiative twice.
Tia Watkins, who voted at Takoma Elementary School, where she also works, said the initiative was the most pressing topic on the ballot. She hopes its passage will send a message to the D.C. Council not to overturn the will of the voters. “Maybe the second time is the charm,” she said. “Maybe it’s a little middle finger to the council: We’re still going to vote for it.”
Michael Brice-Saddler, Omari Daniels, Hayden Godfrey and Julie Zauzmer Weil contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T03:24:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. voters approve higher minimum wage for tipped workers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/dc-initiative-82-results-wage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/dc-initiative-82-results-wage/ |
The Harriet Tubman photo in downtown Cambridge, Md., is about 10 miles from Tubman's birthplace. (Petula Dvorak)
The moment in the gym at Choptank Elementary School — a small brick building bound by the Chesapeake Bay and the Choptank River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore — was 200 years coming.
“I feel what she’s done has empowered all of us,” said Charles E.T. Ross, 57, who is the great-great-great nephew of abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
Ross cast his ballot for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore in Cambridge, about 10 miles from his legendary relative’s birthplace. And he said it was powerful to be one of thousands who voted for Moore to become Maryland’s first Black governor on Tuesday.
The Associated Press projected Moore’s victory over Trump-endorsed Republican Dan Cox as polls closed at 8 p.m., to cheers at a crowded hotel ballroom where “Celebrate!” by Kool & the Gang played through the loudspeakers. His victory felt different from that of Virginia’s Doug Wilder, who was elected the nation’s first African American governor in 1989. Or Deval Patrick, who became the second in 2006.
Moore reminds Pastor Louise Cornish a little of President Barack Obama. As she cast her ballot for Moore, the 72-year-old admitted, the election of a Black man this time wasn’t as electric.
And that might be the ultimate victory: when we no longer have to celebrate achievement in the context of a “first.”
“It doesn’t matter what color he is,” said Tina Jones, 62, who is African American and voted for Moore. “I’m with the person who has heart. And he has heart, this man.”
Moore campaigned on a message of inclusion, promising to tackle child poverty, foster economic opportunity and “leave no one behind” — a slogan drawing from his Army years and aimed at fostering broad appeal in a state that has elected Republican governors in three of the past five elections.
Taken in the context of Maryland, Moore’s election is significant.
The state was cradle to some of our nation’s most influential abolitionists while being the site of some of our nation’s most productive — and markedly cruel — tobacco plantations.
The wealth amassed by the plantation owners gave Maryland’s colonialists prominent standing in early American politics. The state now ranks as America’s wealthiest when in comes to median incomes.
And, of course, Tubman, the “Moses” of her people, was born in Dorchester County sometime around 1822.
There are tributes to her tucked into corners and along streets throughout Cambridge, Md., a jewel box of a town. Her birthplace marker is 10 miles south of that election polling place on land that is now part of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.
“There’s so much about Harriet Tubman, the underground railroad, her work as a spy, in the suffrage movement,” said William Jarmon, 79, who oversees the all-volunteer Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center.
“My grandparents instilled that in us — don’t ever give up your right to vote,” he said.
That’s why Ariel Jenkins, 30, hopped in her car and drove to her polling station Tuesday around lunchtime.
“It’s important that we vote, even if you don’t feel like it,” the hairdresser said. “And that recognition, of Maryland history, of this governor, that’s important.”
The most important thing, Black voters told me, was that his values aligned with theirs, that he was someone they believed in and spoke to them.
The son of a Jamaican immigrant, who raised him as a single mother, Moore is a U.S. Army veteran, former investment banker, Johns Hopkins University football player and graduate, Rhodes scholar, and White House fellow who once led the Robinhood Foundation, the country’s largest poverty-fighting nonprofit.
“It’s powerful for us, that he’s someone who looks like me,” said Wyrita Myster, 55. “That gives us optimism. But what’s most important is that he protects democracy.”
Ross felt that voting for Moore was a step forward for Dorchester County and for Maryland. Though it’s the birthplace of abolition’s most towering heroes, their exceptionalism was forged in an inhumane crucible that is also the state’s legacy and part of its everyday struggles.
“Maryland has held on to a lot of prejudice, for years,” Ross said. “Some of it is still here, hidden well.”
He’s one of a handful of Tubman descendants who are still alive today. And he tries to be the vocal one.
A former art teacher who is now an educational specialist for the Dorchester County Public School District, Ross painted a mural of her in the middle of town. He volunteers at the museum when they ask, and he keeps telling her story when people will listen.
“She was a leader,” he said. “And she should empower all of us to be leaders.” | 2022-11-09T03:24:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harriett Tubman's descendants in Md. have been waiting for this moment. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/wes-moore-maryland-governor-harriet-tubman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/wes-moore-maryland-governor-harriet-tubman/ |
He jokingly compared covid to a zombie apocalypse. An arrest followed.
Waylon Bailey’s Facebook post joked that deputies had been ordered to ‘shoot on sight’ if they came across someone with the coronavirus
Waylon Bailey was arrested after making a Facebook joke comparing the coronavirus pandemic to a zombie apocalypse. (Courtesy of Institute for Justice)
Waylon Bailey thought it was some sort of cruel prank when about a dozen SWAT team members pulled up to his Alexandria, La., home with their weapons drawn. He hadn’t called sheriff’s deputies, and he couldn’t think of anything they’d want with him.
But after they arrested him and took him into custody, Bailey learned he was facing a felony terrorism charge — over a joke he made on Facebook comparing the coronavirus pandemic to the zombie apocalypse featured in the 2013 film “World War Z” starring Brad Pitt.
“SHARE SHARE SHARE ! ! ! ! JUST IN: RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER, IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH ‘THE INFECTED’ SHOOT ON SIGHT….Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt,” read Bailey’s emoji-filled post.
That was on March 20, 2020, when the news cycle was consumed by a novel virus spreading across the world. But the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office said Bailey’s post was a threat to public safety and placed him under arrest, without having a warrant. Though the district attorney decided not to prosecute, Bailey filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging that deputies had violated his First and Fourth amendment rights.
While the lawsuit was dismissed by the court, Bailey is now appealing the decision in an attempt to hold the sheriff’s office accountable for what he contends was a wrongful arrest and a violation of his freedom of speech.
“I need to stand up for myself because what [deputies] did was morally wrong,” Bailey told The Washington Post. “They came to my home three hours after I made the post. What sort of investigation is that? And for what? A joke they didn’t like? It’s messed up.”
But David C. Joseph, a U.S. district judge for the Western District of Louisiana, didn’t see it that way when he issued a ruling on Bailey’s lawsuit this summer. In his July 20 order, he dismissed Bailey’s claims against Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office investigator Randell Iles, saying the investigator is protected by qualified immunity, a doctrine that makes it nearly impossible for citizens to sue law enforcement officers. Joseph also ruled that Iles “had probable cause to arrest Bailey for violating Louisiana’s terrorizing statute.”
What is “qualified immunity,” and how does it work?
“Bailey’s post publishing misinformation during the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and time of national crisis was remarkably similar in nature to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre,” Joseph wrote in his ruling. “Viewed in light of the surrounding circumstances, Bailey’s Facebook post may very well have been intended to incite lawless action, and in any event, certainly had a substantial likelihood of inciting fear, lawlessness, and violence.”
Under the state’s law, it’s legal to execute an arrest without a warrant as long as there’s a reasonable basis for believing an offense has been committed. Louisiana’s statute considers any “intentional communication of information that the commission of a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist” as a terrorizing act. But such messages must carry the intent of causing people to fear for their safety or spark an evacuation.
According to Ben Field — an attorney representing Bailey with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm — regarding Bailey’s joke as a terroristic act is a stretch.
“This was something that didn’t go viral, and there wasn’t any indication at all that his Facebook friends took it seriously,” he told The Post.
When reached by The Post to discuss Bailey’s allegations, Tommy Carnline, Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office chief of staff, said the office does not comment on pending litigation.
Bailey’s post — which he said was meant as an inside joke between friends — came 11 days after Louisiana announced its first coronavirus case. In the midst of a foggy time of uncertainty and fear, Bailey said he wanted to poke fun at how “people will believe anything that they see on Facebook.” His girlfriend at the time, now his wife, flippantly wrote that she’d “report him” — a comment investigators would eventually say led them to believe it was a true threat, according to court records. After Bailey filed his lawsuit, the district court sided with the sheriff’s office, ruling that the joke constituted incitement.
Field, Bailey’s lawyer, rejected the judge’s analysis, asserting that Bailey’s joke was a form of protected speech, no different from a bit shared by a comedian during a stand-up show or between friends sitting in a bar.
In the age of social media, Field said, the sheer amount of messages posted and their heightened visibility have made it easier for law enforcement officials to take action against those they might deem improper. The courts, he added, have to “catch up.”
“These cases are more common than anyone would think in this day and age,” he said. “I hope that people realize that free speech is something that we have to defend in every generation because it’s not automatic. This is a situation where you have police arresting people for making a joke online to their friends. And if they can do that and get away with it, then I don’t think that anybody’s speech is safe.”
For Bailey, the episode has marked a sort of before and after in his life. The arrest left him shaken — with “a bit of PTSD,” even — and he said he has had to take medication for depression and anxiety. When deputies arrived at his house, news spread quickly in a town where his family has deep roots. His grandmother, who lives in the house in front of his, saw the arrest unfold from her window.
“I’m a fourth-generation resident of this town, and I was very proud of my name,” Bailey said. “Now I just want to clear my name.”
A formal apology from the sheriff’s office would be nice too, he added. | 2022-11-09T03:45:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Waylon Bailey appeals in free-speech lawsuit against Louisiana deputies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/08/covid-joke-free-speech-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/08/covid-joke-free-speech-lawsuit/ |
Anthony Brown declares victory in Maryland attorney general race
Early returns showed Brown with a comfortable lead over Republican Michael A. Peroutka
Rep. Anthony G. Brown spoke at a gathering of Prince George’s County Democrats in October. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)
Anthony G. Brown, a three-term Democratic congressman and two-term lieutenant governor, declared victory in the Maryland attorney general contest Tuesday night as early returns showed him with a commanding lead.
“This evening I accept the honor and the privilege to be your next attorney general,” Brown told a cheering crowd in Baltimore that had gathered to watch election returns.
If the margins from early returns hold, Brown would be the first African American elected to the position. Brown, 60, ran against Republican Michael A. Peroutka, a retired lawyer and one-term Anne Arundel County Council member.
The victory would be the first statewide election Brown has won since he was upset in the 2014 gubernatorial race by Larry Hogan (R). While some in Maryland political circles cast Brown’s candidacy as an effort to seek redemption for that loss, Brown insisted otherwise, saying that attorney general is a job he has wanted all along, even before he was asked to run as Martin O’Malley’s lieutenant governor in 2005.
He gave up his safe congressional seat representing Maryland’s 4th District to run for attorney general because it was “an opportunity to make a bigger impact and draw on leading 550 lawyers on all the issues that I’ve worked on my entire life,” he said in an interview last month.
In his pitch to voters, Brown said he would attack violent crime by doubling the size of the attorney general’s organized crime unit and by strengthening relations with local state’s attorneys across Maryland. But he also emphasized that he would seek to reform the criminal and juvenile justice systems and work to make them more equitable. He wants to identify biases in Maryland’s criminal justice system that have led, he said, to ab overincarceration of young Black men.
Anthony Brown gave up a safe seat in Congress in search of impact
A Harvard-trained lawyer and veteran who served in Iraq, Brown said during his campaign that as attorney general he would work to expand voting rights, crack down on ghost guns and possibly pursue legal action against gun manufacturers and work to decriminalize marijuana.
He also said he would protect abortion rights in Maryland, including the rights and privacy of women who come to Maryland from other states for abortions. Abortion and reproductive rights became a pivotal issue in many elections across the country following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June.
Peroutka opposed abortion, including in the case of rape or incest, and said if elected attorney general his view of Christianity would determine his decisions. He did not believe, for instance, that the state law allowing abortion was legitimate and said “the higher calling would be to protect innocent life.”
Peroutka’s positions on abortion and a number of other issues probably cost him voters. He opposed same-sex marriage, said public schools were part of a socialist effort to indoctrinate students away from their parents and would not disavow his association with the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized as a hate group. At a League of the South conference in 2012, Peroutka sang “Dixie,” calling it “the national anthem.” | 2022-11-09T04:07:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anthony Brown declare win as Maryland’s first Black attorney general - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-attorney-general-results-brown-peroutka/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-attorney-general-results-brown-peroutka/ |
Lierman leads in race for Maryland comptroller
If she wins, she will be the first woman to win statewide independently
Brooke Lierman, candidate for Maryland comptroller, speaks at a campaign event for Wes Moore at Bowie on Nov. 7. (Julio Cortez/AP)
Early returns showed a commanding lead for Democrat Brooke E. Lierman in the comptroller’s race Tuesday.
With more than half the votes counted, Lierman, a state delegate from Baltimore, had a 14-point lead over Harford County Executive Barry Glassman, who broke with his fellow Republicans on the ticket to run as a centrist who could carry on the legacy of Gov. Larry Hogan.
But Democrats painted Glassman as part of a ticket whose far-right views were out of step with most Maryland residents and used their fundraising advantage to share the message on television and social media.
Lierman spoke to supporters shortly at about 9:15 p.m., before the race was called.
“I am so proud and so humbled to let you know we got our numbers and we are going to make history tonight,” she said to cheering.
Lierman has said she will leverage the broad powers of Maryland’s chief financial officer to help Maryland residents achieve financial resilience and advance policy priorities such as climate sustainability. She ran to protect “our tax dollars and our values,” she said in recent ad.
Glassman positioned himself as a Republican check on what is shaping up to be one-party rule in Annapolis, and was the only statewide candidate for whom Hogan (R) cut a television ad.
Both candidates spent the day canvassing voters at the polls, while Democrats touted their history-making ticket, which was poised to elect the first Black governor and attorney general in addition to Lierman.
“We really are welcoming the next generation of leaders in Maryland and it’s very exciting to be watching this unfold this year,” Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City) said in a phone interview last week.
Speaking to supporters Tuesday evening, Lierman thanked U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D), the state’s first female senator and fellow Fells Point Democrat who endorsed her in the primary, joking, “I don’t know what they put in the water in Fells Point but I am so proud to follow her from rabble rousing in Fells Point to state office.”
She also detailed the piano recitals and bedtime stories she missed during the campaign, but thanked her two children for walking in parades and waking up early to see her off.
“You are my joy and my light and I’m doing this for you and for all the children of Maryland,” she said.
Lierman is running to replace Peter Franchot, who defeated the incumbent Democrat to win the comptroller seat in 2006 but stepped down this year to run unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor. His exit from the contest presented a rare opportunity for a new voice in the prominent office; the last time the comptroller race was wide open, with no incumbent running, was 1998.
The state comptroller, known as the state’s chief financial officer or accountant, collects about $16 billion annually in taxes. The office also handles information technology for the state, paying the state’s bills and employee paychecks. The agency has 1,100 employees and a budget of $110 million.
With the governor and treasurer, the comptroller sits on the powerful Board of Public Works, which Lierman says approves an average of $480 million in state contracts every other week.
As comptroller, Lierman said she will modernize the office by upgrading technology to help small-business owners pay taxes more efficiently, and reach out to families and seniors who are eligible for but not yet receiving tax credits.
Lierman, co-chair of the special joint committee on pensions in the legislature, said she will also minimize risk to state pension fund investments due to the negative impacts of climate change.
Lierman, 43, works as a civil rights and disability lawyer at the Baltimore firm Brown, Goldstein & Levy. Her father is Terry Lierman, a former chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and longtime party insider.
She has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. She has served two terms in the House and bested Bowie Mayor Tim Adams for the Democratic nomination for comptroller.
The 2022 Maryland elections
Maryland projected to legalize recreational marijuana use | 2022-11-09T04:21:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lierman leads in race for Maryland comptroller - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-comptroller-results-election-lierman-glassman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-comptroller-results-election-lierman-glassman/ |
Majority of incumbents leading in Maryland’s metro school board races
Voters fill out ballots Tuesday at the William R. Talley Recreation Center in Frederick, Md. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Most of the incumbent school board members on the ballot in Maryland’s metro area were leading in their races to retain their seats Tuesday night.
In Montgomery County, two of the three current board members led their challengers as early results were reported.
In Prince George’s County, incumbent District 3 candidate, Pamela Boozer-Strother, was leading her challenger, Varinia Sandino, by a more than 5-to-1 margin, according to early results.
Also in Prince George’s, District 6 candidate Branndon D. Jackson was ahead of his opponent, Ashley Kearney. The seat has been vacant since March, when Belinda Queen left the school board to run for county council. A latecomer to the race, Jonathan Briggs, was ahead in the competition for District 2 on the school board, despite only actively campaigning for about two months after the incumbent — Joshua Thomas — withdrew from the race in August.
Farther north in Frederick County, incumbent Karen Yoho was among the leaders of seven candidates vying for four seats. Voters there were deciding whether to elect candidates from an Education Not Indoctrination slate, a group of three candidates who ran on platforms promising more parental oversight of education and more of an emphasis on academics, and four other candidates, including Yoho, endorsed by the county’s teachers union.
The Education Not Indoctrination slate was vocal against a statewide health education framework when it was being adopted by the Frederick County Board of Education, arguing that the framework was inappropriate for young children and that the school system needed to focus more on core subjects, such as math and reading.
Tuesday’s elections come as school districts across Maryland are engaging in learning recovery efforts after nearly two years of disrupted learning because of the coronavirus pandemic. Fighting and other violent incidents have also increased in schools since students started learning in-person again, and multiple school districts have reported ongoing staffing shortages. School boards are also facing more challenges from parents and other groups arguing for more say in what students are taught in issues ranging from race to gender identity.
In addition to these challenges, school board leaders will be in charge of implementing the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a landmark education bill that funnels billions into public schools over roughly the next decade. The Blueprint is designed to increase teacher pay and spending per pupil for special education and English language learners. Proponents of the Blueprint say the measure will completely transform public education in the state by pushing more investments in state and local resources. Opponents are concerned about investing in more programs because of the economic fallout of the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, voters casting ballots for school board members were focused on a variety of issues. Outside of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Frederick, 27-year-old Juliet Glenn said she was most concerned about “behavioral issues in school and how they are being handled.” Glenn — an outpatient therapist for adolescents — said schools in Frederick County vary in the amount of resources they have to target an accelerating mental health crisis among children.
In Montgomery County, voters picked who would fill the District 1, District 3, District 5 and an At-Large seat on the school board for Maryland’s largest school district. Nonprofit owner Grace Rivera-Oven was in the lead in District 1. Julie Yang was outpacing appointed incumbent Scott Joftus in the competition for the District 3 seat early Tuesday night — similar to how she led during the primary election. School board incumbents Brenda Wolff (District 5) and Karla Silvestre (At-Large) were also ahead.
At Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville on Tuesday morning, Eliane Demedeiros picked District 1 candidate Esther Wells, Yang, Wolff and Silvestre as her candidates of choice. Demedeiros — who has a junior at the high school — said she wanted to select woman primarily for public service positions, because they “are more sensitive to a lot of the issues.”
“We should have more representatives as women out there to help enforce equality laws and things that we need to address on a daily basis,” said Demedeiros, 50. She added that she was satisfied with the school system but that bullying and school safety were some of her ongoing concerns as a parent.
Mary Belknap, another voter in Montgomery County, met most of the school board candidates at an event during the summer. The 76-year-old Rockville resident said she was most impressed with District 5 candidate Valerie Coll, Joftus, Rivera-Oven and Silvestre. She added that Rivera-Oven cared about diversity issues and the eastern part of the county — an area that residents say lacks the same amount of resources as the west.
In the District 9 race in Prince George’s County, Lolita E. Walker was ahead of her opponent, Kent Roberson.
Just outside of the William Talley Recreation Center in Frederick, Melissa Ward said voting for candidates endorsed by the teachers union was what drew her to the polls. “I’m very much concerned about the future of the school board,” said Ward, 46. She added that the Education Not Indoctrination slate was “a little fringy.”
Emily Seymour contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T04:21:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Majority of incumbents leading in Maryland’s metro school board races - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/08/maryland-school-board-results-montgomery-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/08/maryland-school-board-results-montgomery-prince-georges/ |
Anna Paulina Luna throws a coming-out party for new MAGA generation
Anna Paulina Luna after giving her victory speech at her election night party in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Nov. 8. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It was still early, just 26 minutes after polls closed, when a young campaign staffer backstage ducked through the curtains and ran into the crowd, pumping his fist, a thumbs-up in the air. He threw back his can of watermelon-flavored Celsius energy drink. “She’s pulling ahead,” he said. “Excuse my French: We effin’ did it.”
Anna Paulina Luna was 4,000 votes up.
The crowd yelled.
It was 7:30 p.m. She was 10,000 votes up.
A man in the ballroom was texting Charlie Kirk, the 29-year-old who runs the conservative group Turning Point USA. “How much has reported?” Kirk was asking.
“It’s done,” the staffer said. “Dude, she just won.”
At 7:44 p.m., the candidate arrived, hand-in-hand with her husband, Andy Gamberzky, stepping through the front doors of the ballroom of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club.
Downstairs, a members-only dress-code crowd, White and wealthy, sampled a monthly buffet dinner just off the Commodore Room, where identically framed pictures of men lined the walls in four perfect rows. Upstairs, a different kind of Republican was on the cusp of becoming a congresswoman-elect in Florida’s 13th, a newly redrawn congressional district that leaves out more liberal parts of St. Petersburg and once belonged to Democrat Charlie Crist.
“Luna! Luna! Luna!” The chants filled the room. They rushed around her, a crush of red, white, blue sequins, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis gear. They raised their phones. A man held up his iPad to live-stream the scene. A woman held up her phone to live-stream the man with the iPad.
At 8:01 p.m., Luna stepped aside from the crowd: Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the Republican who will oversee the House Class of 2022, was calling to offer his congratulations. She held a finger to plug her other ear as she nodded. “Thank you, thank you,” she said handing the phone back to Gamberzky. There was another call that they were expecting, one from Trump. “We’re waiting,” Luna said. “That’s why I have my husband holding the phone.” At 8:10 p.m., the race was over. She took the stage, “honored to be endorsed by the greatest president of our lifetime, President Trump, but I’m honored to be endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.” She cut herself short — her Democratic opponent was calling to concede. “I have to answer a call from Eric Lynn, so I’m going to hop off,” she said.
“Put him on speaker!” a man yelled.
“Yeah, put him on speaker,” said another.
You should know the name Anna Paulina Luna. In two months, it will be etched outside a congressional office in D.C., a marker of a younger, more diverse, more online generation of Trump’s Republican Party. Soon it will appear alongside names you already know, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, on the rolls of the House Freedom Caucus, a hardline conservative group poised to push Trump’s agenda with even more power in a Republican House.
You will find her in the halls of Congress and on Instagram, @realannapaulina or @apl, where she shares conservative headlines, gauzy selfies and Reels about online shopping to her more than 486,000 followers. “That’s Anna Paulina Luna,” said Kirk, who hired Luna to be Turning Point USA’s Hispanic outreach director in August 2018, as he introduced her on his podcast last month.
“APL,” Kirk said, “possibly against AOC. That’ll be really fun.”
You should also know that Anna Paulina Luna, or APL, is a name and brand she chose for herself. In today’s politics, in a party modeled after a Queens-born business executive who remade himself into a conservative icon — testing out new rhetoric and slogans in real-time, on stages, in front of crowds, on the campaign trail and in the Oval Office — conservative identity is a thing you take hold of and make for yourself.
Like some of her counterparts elected on Tuesday night, Luna has made false claims about election fraud and advanced the antiabortion movement, a cause she first came to after dissecting a chicken egg in college and seeing the baby chick flinch beneath her scalpel. “God was using that opportunity to really wake me up,” she said in a podcast interview this summer. But what makes Luna a cause among Republicans is her ability to defy assumptions about the politics of her generation: “It’s very widely assumed that younger voters tend to be more liberal-leaning,” Luna said at the Yacht Club. “Conservative politics is truly transcending age, race, gender. We’ve been able to bridge the gap. This idea is more than just politics — it’s a lifestyle. It’s something that we truly believe in.”
Luna was born in 1989 in Santa Ana, Calif., as Anna Paulina Mayerhofer.
She worked as an airfield manager in the Air Force, enlisting at the age of 19. Eight months after she joined the military, she met Gamberzky. After moving to Florida and eventually leaving the Air Force, Luna worked as a model, a cocktail waitress at a gentlemen’s club and an influencer on Instagram. She has said she went from 30 to 40,000 followers before she even got into politics. Her introduction to an even wider audience came after a video she recorded about human trafficking on the Mexican border went viral, attracting a call from Kirk.
“I didn’t really know who Charlie was,” Luna said on her podcast. “I know this sounds weird, but I didn’t know what conservative was.”
In 2019, according to the Tampa Bay Times, she filed paperwork with the Clark County Clerk in Washington state, where she and Gamberzky owned a home, to change her last name. She chose a name from her maternal grandmother, who came from Mexico City, to honor her Hispanic heritage, Luna’s mother, Monica Todd, said at the Yacht Club. Todd said that her family was Mexican and that her daughter’s father was half-German, half-Mexican. Luna has identified as half-White, half Mexican, saying she doesn’t feel the need to favor one side or the other.
She was 29 years old when she became Anna Paulina Luna.
That was the name on the ballot as she arrived to cast her vote on Election Day in St. Petersburg, pulling up to St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in a black BMW suburban. Luna stepped out onto the pavement in a red dress and matching heels. In the evening, she would change to all-blue. Her husband trailed close behind: “Ready for the red wave?” he asked.
“We’re in a red mood!” Luna said. “I’m excited.”
In the parking lot, Sam Wilson, 22, and Olivia Carson, 19, stood outside in matching Luna T-shirts, waiting to greet the candidate. Wilson, the staffer who would kick off the party that night at the Yacht Club, connected with Luna while interning for Boebert on Capitol Hill. Carson met her at a Donald Trump Jr. rally when she was still in high school. They are Luna’s top two campaign staffers — and also the only campaign staffers, another emblem of the new Republican grass roots, where campaigns have cast off D.C. strategists in favor of young, devoted volunteers and candidates who can run the show themselves, navigating the glare of a TV camera.
Luna’s campaign here in St. Petersburg, as well as an unsuccessful congressional bid two years ago to challenge Crist, when he still held the seat, has attracted speculation, intrigue and wild headlines. In August, before Luna’s primary race, the conservative agitator Roger Stone zeroed in on her race, writing an op-ed attacking Luna and calling her dishonest. Trump, he said, had “made an error” in endorsing her campaign. In a text message, Stone said that while he stood by the assertions in his piece, “I think it’s more important for Republicans to win the house and therefore I hope she is successful in winning today.” (“He’s an interesting guy,” Wilson said, when asked about Stone.)
Outside the polling place, next to a One America News camera, a reporter stood ready for a live interview with the candidate. Luna took off her sunglasses and squinted in the sun as the reporter asked about Trump.
The former president has hinted he is preparing to launch another reelection campaign on Nov. 15, teasing the announcement during a rally in Ohio the night before the midterm races. “Every time I see him, I feel like he gets younger and younger,” Luna said. “So I don’t know what he’s doing, but I’m very excited and I hear that he has a pretty good announcement on Nov. 15.”
Twenty miles away in Tampa, Trump’s potential challenger and Luna’s governor, Ron DeSantis (R), was preparing his reelection night rally. Luna has been loyal to both. (“It’s not uncommon now to see Trump-DeSantis 2024 flags,” Luna said in 2021.)
In the parking lot, Wilson and Carson readied their election night plans.
“How big is a 65-inch TV? Because I got two 65-inch TVs.”
“Oh, that’s perfect.”
At the election night party eight hours later, no one needed the televisions to watch returns.
Luna’s race was over as soon as she stepped through the ballroom doors.
She and her husband stayed until just after 9 p.m., posing for photos until the room had almost thinned out. Her margin had widened to 20,000 votes. DeSantis was leading by a million.
As they left, Luna’s husband still had his phone in his hand, waiting for that call from Trump. | 2022-11-09T04:46:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anna Paulina Luna celebrates journey from Instagram to Congress - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/anna-paulina-luna-congress-instagram-maga/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/anna-paulina-luna-congress-instagram-maga/ |
Hoyas turn the page and start a new year with a wild overtime win
Georgetown 99, Coppin State 89 (OT)
Patrick Ewing, pictured last season during a game against Creighton, saw his Hoyas notch their first win since December. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Primo Spears drove right in transition, elevated and kissed a contested layup off the glass. The Georgetown bench exploded after the sophomore guard’s clutch basket extended the Hoyas’ lead to six. Finally, a moment of relief after their stressful season opener required overtime. Not long after, the Hoyas had their first victory in 328 days.
As they strive to leave behind the frustrations of last season — which ended with 21 consecutive losses — the Hoyas’ next journey began Tuesday night with a 99-89 overtime victory over Coppin State at Capital One Arena.
“The great thing about this year, about now, is it’s a new year. We’re starting off fresh,” Coach Patrick Ewing said before the season opener. “We have to make sure that we get and stay on track from start to finish and make sure that we are positive and upbeat and all the things that we talked about from this summer.”
The Hoyas finished last season 6-25 and winless in the Big East, results that led Ewing to shake up the squad in the offseason. The players on this roster are not shying away from last year’s struggles. They also are not placing any limits on their potential. Their goal is to compete in the Big East, and Tuesday’s win was the first step toward that.
“It’s all a process,” said Ewing, who is in his sixth season and has made once NCAA tournament appearance. “It’s all steps. It’s all about getting that taste of winning again and building on that.”
In the first half Tuesday, the Hoyas looked like a team still learning to play with one another, turning the ball over 10 times. After 20 minutes, the Hoyas led 36-34 over their Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference foe, which had lost its season opener at Charlotte the night before.
In the second half, the Hoyas weathered several stretches of offensive ineptitude. Trailing by as much as seven, the Hoyas got back in it by exploiting their size advantage in the paint.
In a game with 13 ties and 16 lead changes, the Hoyas appeared to have the win in hand in the final moments. But after two missed free throws by sophomore guard Brandon Murray, Coppin State’s Mike Hood drilled a three-pointer at the buzzer to tie it at 83 and force overtime.
Fueled by Spears’s creative shot-making in the extra period, the Hoyas found some separation at last. Three-pointers by Bryson Mozone and Akok Akok sealed the deal.
Spears, a transfer from Duquesne, paced all scorers with 28 points and added six rebounds. Mozone, a transfer from South Carolina Upstate, had 20 points and seven rebounds. Murray, a transfer from LSU, had 18 points, eight assists and six rebounds. Akok, a transfer from Connecticut, had 18 points and 12 rebounds. Qudus Wahab, a transfer from Maryland who started his college career at Georgetown, had 11 points and 10 rebounds but battled foul trouble and was on the court for just 15 minutes.
Justin Steers led Coppin State with 21 points.
Fresh off their first win since handling Howard on Dec. 15, the Hoyas will host Green Bay on Saturday at Capital One Arena.
Here’s what else to know about the Hoyas’ win:
The Hoyas turned the ball over 18 times. Those turnovers translated into 18 points for the Eagles. The Hoyas got 20 points off 17 Coppin State turnovers.
Coppin State relied heavily on perimeter shooting, making 13 of 38 three-point attempts. The Hoyas shot 7 for 18, with three of these makes coming from Murray.
The Hoyas struggled to find continuity in the half court but aggressively pursued misses. Georgetown totaled 18 offensive rebounds that resulted in 29 second-chance points. | 2022-11-09T04:59:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgetown wins season opener to end 21-game losing streak - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/georgetown-season-opener-coppin-state/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/08/georgetown-season-opener-coppin-state/ |
Republican Jen A. Kiggans, the projected winner in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District race (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
State Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) is projected to oust Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) in a rare race between two pioneering female Navy veterans in one of Virginia’s most notorious swing districts.
Kiggans leveraged her background as a retired Navy helicopter pilot and a geriatric nurse practitioner to put forth a relatable identity in the military-heavy, politically diverse and historically moderate district. She capitalized on widespread discontent with the economy and President Biden’s low approval rating to hew strictly to a message decrying inflation and seeking to tie Luria, a retired Navy commander, to the Biden administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Kiggans initially ran for state Senate in 2019, saying she was inspired by the 2018 blue wave that carried Luria and numerous Democrats with national security backgrounds into office. But Kiggans said she felt conservative women were underrepresented, seeking to fill that void despite no previous experience in politics — and saying this year she hoped it would be Republican women with strong military backgrounds powering a red wave in Congress.
Kiggans, whose father was a Green Beret, went on to become one of the first women trained to fly Navy helicopters in combat. Though she did not see combat, she flew missions in the Persian Gulf and Kosovo.
Luria was one of the first women to work in the Navy’s nuclear reactor program on combatant ships, rising to the rank of commander after a two-decade career, before she, too, ran for office as a newcomer with a strong résumé in 2018.
Before launching a bid for Congress, Kiggans had developed a reputation in the state Senate as a friendly and mild-mannered lawmaker, sometimes using her medical background to work on legislation related to health care. In keeping with Virginia Beach’s purply politics, Kiggans did sometimes break with her party in the state Senate to support certain bills, such as creating more nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people in public accommodations, or related to environmental protections relevant to her coastal district.
But this year, as Kiggans ramped up a congressional campaign, she also took on more culture-war issues, carrying the mantle on bills to ban “inherently divisive concepts” in schools and to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports.
She also was one of just four state Republicans to support a $70 million partisan audit of Virginia’s 2020 election results — which Luria, who serves on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, never let her forget, repeatedly calling her an election denier. Luria had largely staked her reelection bid on protecting democracy and her service on the committee, saying she did not care if it cost her the race — painting a stark contrast with Kiggans.
A Kiggans campaign spokesman first told The Washington Post via email in July 2021 that she acknowledged Biden’s win as legitimate. But Kiggans changed her tune as the campaign heated up, taking to saying when asked the same question that Biden merely “lived in the White House” — a script she virtually refused to stray from as the race continued. When asked in an interview this July with The Post to clarify if she believed Biden was legitimately elected, she would not give a yes or no answer, repeating the same script. And she shied away from answering the question from other reporters later in the year as well.
All the while, Kiggans endeavored to create a neighborly persona, repeatedly decrying the divisiveness in politics while fighting back against Luria’s portrayal of her as an “extremist,” particularly on abortion.
Luria put Kiggans on defense early on abortion, repeatedly accusing her of wanting to ban abortion nationwide without exception. Kiggans, who opposes abortion and supported the overturn of Roe v. Wade, said Luria’s ads claiming she wanted to ban abortion nationwide without exception were false, noting she did support exceptions. But she was not as clear on what federal restrictions she would support after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R), speaking as her surrogate, told CNN she would support a 15-week ban.
Kiggans received major help from national Republicans in the form of at least $5 million to compete with Luria’s enormous war chest, especially after Luria’s national profile and fundraising got a boost thanks to her prime-time role on the Jan. 6 committee. The district had also gotten redder after redistricting, providing Kiggans a slight built-in edge.
As a whole, the race cost over $15 million on the airwaves between both parties and candidates, making it one of the most expensive in the state, behind only Virginia’s 7th District in Northern Virginia. | 2022-11-09T05:13:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jen Kiggans ousts Rep. Elaine Luria in Virginia's 2nd District - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/jen-kiggans-virginia-2nd-district/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/jen-kiggans-virginia-2nd-district/ |
Elrich, Alsobrooks win reelection to lead Maryland suburbs
Incumbent Marc Elrich (D) won reelection on Tuesday to lead Montgomery County. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Incumbent Democrat Marc Elrich won reelection for a second term as Montgomery county executive in Maryland’s most-populous county.
Elrich triumphed resoundingly in the general election after a tight primary in which he squeaked through with 32 votes over his opponent, business executive David Blair (D), following a recount. It was Elrich’s second razor-thin victory over Blair, who also ran against him in the 2018 primary.
Although Elrich led comfortably in a county where Democrats outnumber Republicans 4 to 1, the narrow primary raises questions about how the longtime Montgomery County politician will proceed with divided support from voters in his own party.
Elrich enters a second term with critics hitting him from every direction for his stances on development, his struggles to draw in new businesses and what they describe as his failure to address climate change or advance criminal justice reforms. In an interview after his narrow August primary win, Elrich vowed to double down on issues such as affordable housing, transit and health equity that languished as the pandemic absorbed county resources over the past 2½ years.
“I’m excited for the opportunity to work with this council,” Elrich said in a post-election speech. “There are lots of things we want to do in common and we’re going to find a way to do these things.”
Voters also selected a largely new Montgomery County Council on Tuesday, filling two recently added seats on the body for the first time.
Six new women are likely to be seated, making it a majority-female council. In the 2018 election, only one woman secured a spot on the county’s legislative body.
The council will also be larger than in the past, after expanding from nine to 11 seats beginning in December. Two new districts were added to the council in an effort to better reflect people of color within the county, who collectively make up a majority of residents, and balance representation that has historically drawn members disproportionately from the small, liberal enclave of Takoma Park.
Democrats Marilyn Balcombe (District 2), Kate Stewart (District 4), Kristin Mink (District 5), Natali Fani-González (District 6), Dawn Luedtke (District 7) and Laurie-Anne Sayles (At Large) were all handily leading over Republican opponents late Tuesday night. Incumbent Democrats Andrew Friedson (District 1), Sidney Katz (District 3), Gabe Albornoz (At Large), Evan Glass (At Large), and Will Jawando (At Large) also led their races. The likely all-Democrat sweep was no surprise in the deep-blue county.
Voters also appeared likely to approve a charter amendment that requires the consent of both the county executive and the council to remove the county attorney, who serves as one of the top legal counsels for the Montgomery County government — a move designed to insulate the officeholder for reprisal for offering advice that appeared to favor one branch of the local government over the other. Damascus voters were likely to approve a second charter amendment that allows the Board of License Commissioners to issue liquor licenses in that district.
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) was reelected in an uncontested general election after sweeping aside several political outsiders in July’s primaries.
Alsobrooks, a rising star in Maryland politics who invited speculation of a gubernatorial run ahead of this year’s elections, will instead enter a second term as county executive after campaigning on a record of initiating police reform and securing long-sought development opportunities. After her swearing-in ceremony, Alsobrooks also vowed to depoliticize education, though school board debates have remained contentious and her critics claim that her appointees bear some blame.
Alsobrooks will be immediately tasked with deciding on the future of a youth curfew that she announced in September and extended through the end of the year following a spike in homicides over the summer in Prince George’s. She’ll also make a final push to have the county selected as the site of the FBI’s new headquarters.
Voters elected several new council members to the Prince George’s County Council who promised a more transparent county government after the previous council proposed a controversial redistricting map last year that moved three liberal candidates out of their districts and drew accusations of gerrymandering.
New council members Wanika Fisher (District 2), Eric Olson (District 3), Ingrid Harrison (District 4) and Wala Blegay (District 6) will join incumbents Calvin S. Hawkins II (At-Large), Mel Franklin (At-Large), Thomas E. Dernoga (District 1), Jolene Ivey (District 5), Edward Burroughs III (District 8) and Sydney J. Harrison (District 9) on the 11-person council, all Democrats who ran uncontested in the deep-blue county after their primary victories. They are likely to be joined by Krystal Oriadha (District 7), who led resoundingly in votes against Republican Gary Falls.
Prince George’s voters also appeared likely to pass a charter amendment relaxing the residency requirement for candidates whose districts were redrawn. Other charter amendments — to publicly advertise bids and proposals for county services on a website, and to add gender neutral language and other revisions to the county charter — also appeared poised to pass.
Votes to pass four Prince George’s bond issues to fund community college facilities, county buildings, libraries and other facilities were leading by large margins by Tuesday evening. Voters also seemed likely to reject a bond issue to fund facilities for the public safety department. | 2022-11-09T05:13:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elrich, Alsobrooks win reelection to lead Maryland suburbs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-election-results-montgomery-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/08/maryland-election-results-montgomery-prince-georges/ |
Last summer, we hosted a backyard party and set up a bar in our basement. The mother from that house came by, uninvited. Not wanting to be rude, we welcomed her. She then brought in her son and his girlfriend, who ensconced themselves at our bar.
They all seemed friendly enough, but when the guests were leaving, they asked to stay. I said: “Last call.” They wanted to stay longer, offered to help clean up, tour the house, use the bathroom (they live a block away!). I finally got them to leave by sending them with to-go drinks. They have already asked me once, in passing, if we will host again (they can see into our yard from their place).
I don’t have a good feeling about them in our home. Should I host, and if they show up, say “private party”?
Limits: If these neighbors approach you to ask if you are planning to hold a party — any party — you should say, “Nope. No plans.”
And then you should host any party you want to host. If these people show up, greet them outside the entrance, say a friendly “Hi, I can’t talk right now because I’ve got some guests here.”
He has adjusted very well. I visit him every day. I have also adjusted to my new life alone, with the help of our children and grandchildren, who visit him every week. I am fortunate to have caring and friendly neighbors and friends. However, there is one problem that greatly bothers and disturbs me.
Of our married friends (very few couples left), very few have even called since the very beginning of all this. My very best friend, whom I have known for more than 50 years, has never visited me, rarely calls and only invited me once to her house for coffee.
I feel I have been abandoned by my closest friends, at a time when I need them the most. What has happened? What have I done? Am I a threat to them? If so, why? I have heard from my widowed friends that the same thing happened to them.
Searching: It sounds as if you have adjusted very well to this huge life change. It’s a shame that you have to do so without the company of some of your closest friends.
You have done nothing wrong. I also don’t believe that you are a “threat” to your friends. Your situation, however, is threatening. For some, it’s a tender reminder of the possibility of challenging times ahead. The geometry of your life has changed, and this change has upended the balance with your friends who are couples.
Dismayed: To be fair, this family’s position was that birth control should be both partners’ responsibility. I appreciated that they were discussing this, but agree that ultimately it is not their choice to make. | 2022-11-09T05:17:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My neighbors crashed my party. What if they show up again? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/ask-amy-neighbors-crash-party/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/ask-amy-neighbors-crash-party/ |
China’s domestically made C919 passenger jet takes off during the 14th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in southern China’s Guangdong province, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. China is displaying its latest generation fighter jets and civilian aircraft this week as it looks to carve a larger role for itself in the global arms trade and compete with Boeing and Airbus. (Chinatopix Via AP) (Uncredited/CHINATOPIX) | 2022-11-09T05:17:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chinese maker announces 300 orders for new jetliner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinese-maker-announces-300-orders-for-new-jetliner/2022/11/08/ad0fd688-5fea-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinese-maker-announces-300-orders-for-new-jetliner/2022/11/08/ad0fd688-5fea-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
In midterms, dissatisfied voters render judgments on Biden, Republicans
Media set up at watch party hosted by Michigan Democrats at Sound Board Theater in Detroit on Tuesday night. (Nick Hagen/For The Washington Post)
For over a decade, change has been the constant in America’s congressional elections, a seemingly never-ending struggle for power in a closely and deeply divided nation. On Tuesday, Republicans grabbed for the brass ring.
Through these years, congressional elections have turned on anger and dissatisfaction more than on hope and optimism. This year was President Biden’s and the Democrats’ time to feel the voters’ discontent — and the unhappiness was widespread, even as Democrats in some hotly contested races were holding on.
About 7 in 10 voters in these midterm elections said they were either angry or dissatisfied with the state of the country, and slightly more said the country was heading in the wrong direction, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. About 1 in 3 cited inflation as the most important issue in their vote.
Midterm elections are always a referendum on the president. Try as Biden did to make it a choice between his leadership and that of former president Donald Trump and what he labeled the “MAGA Republicans,” it was in fact more of a referendum on the incumbent administration than anything else.
But this has been an unusual election year, one in which some of the normal rules have not applied. If it was a referendum on Biden, it was also a referendum on America itself. It was the first balloting since rioters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to aid Trump in his quest to overturn the 2020 election results and remain in power. It also was the first election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion that had stood for half a century. And it was the first campaign in which the label “election deniers” was applied to hundreds of candidates around the country — all of them running as Republicans.
As the first waves of votes were coming in from states around the country, nothing appeared likely to change the prevailing pattern of constant change — in this case putting Republicans on a path to claim a majority in the House. The odds have favored that outcome all year.
The real suspense as the night went on was whether those gains would be big or not so big. The early results on House races provided no clear answer but some tantalizing indicators, as Democrats prevailed in some competitive seats Republicans had targeted, including that of Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.). Still, Republicans were gaining ground elsewhere.
For Republicans, with power comes the obligation to govern — and to avoid the voters’ wrath two years hence. The last time they were in control of the presidency, the House and the Senate, which was after Trump was elected president in 2016, they stumbled badly on a pledge to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, squabbled among themselves and were saddled with unhappiness over Trump’s conduct in office. In 2018 they lost the House, and in 2020 the Senate.
The recent pattern of change began in 2006, when Democrats scored major gains during George W. Bush’s presidency and took control of the House and Senate. In 2010, under President Barack Obama, they surrendered the House, and in 2014 they lost control of the Senate.
If Democrats were to lose both the House and Senate, Biden would be yet another president who saw control of Congress shift on his watch. On Tuesday night, the Senate was at risk of falling to the Republicans, with the balance of power in that chamber dependent on the outcome of competitive contests in a handful of states scattered from one side of the country to the other. With late poll closings out West and expected slow counting of mail-in ballots in some places, a definitive answer to the question of who would be in the majority may not be forthcoming for days or perhaps longer.
Two Senate seats in the East — one now held by the Democrats, Georgia, and one in the hands of Republicans, Pennsylvania — were seen as early indicators of how the vote might go. Neither offered an immediate clue as to how well Republicans would do.
The House results alone — assuming the Republicans netted the five seats they needed to take control, an outcome Democratic officials were widely expecting — would be enough to shake up Washington, enough to throw Biden and the Democrats on the defensive after two years in which they controlled — barely — the main levers of power in the capital.
If Democratic losses are big enough, that will prompt debate and potentially recriminations inside the party over whether the campaign could have been waged more effectively.
Republicans tried to take advantage of prevailing public sentiment about inflation and crime and Biden’s low approval ratings. Republicans have said they can bring down the cost of living, deal with crime and secure the southern border, but have provided only scant policy details. Voters have shown time and again that they have limited patience awaiting results.
Preliminary exit polls showed an electorate, at least in terms of its composition, quite similar to that of the last midterm elections, in 2018, when Democrats scored major gains. But in some cases, the margins appeared more favorable to Republicans than they were four years ago.
Though not definitive, older voters were more Republican this year than in 2018. The preliminary exit polls shows signs of slippage for Democrats among Latinos and possibly among Black voters. White women without college degrees were voting even more strongly for Republicans this year than in 2018. But those are national percentages and do not provide state-by-state or district-by-district comparisons.
This midterm election was unusual in the way it unfolded, anything but a straight trajectory and one that added to the suspense. The election ended much as it had begun, but the middle months of 2022 were anything but normal.
For Democrats, the political climate has been poor from the beginning. Last April, John Anzalone, who was Biden’s lead pollster in 2020, remarked in a Politico interview that what he was seeing in polls and focus groups added up to “the worst political environment in my lifetime.”
The economy, in the words of one Democrat on Tuesday, was “wretched,” mainly because of inflation running at its highest pace in four decades. The economy was adding jobs and the unemployment rate hovered around 3.5 percent most of the year, but that did little to soothe the concerns of voters, many of whom fixated on rising grocery and gas prices.
Internationally, the world was anything but peaceful. The Russian invasion of Ukraine united the West but at a cost that will be felt well into next year. Tensions with China continued to increase. At a time of problems at home, instability abroad added to voters’ worries.
The sour mood that has gripped the country now for some years continued apace, compounded by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic that disrupted daily life, cost more than a million Americans their lives and set back progress for schoolchildren.
All that was brewing in the first half of 2022 — and then things changed. In June, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, throwing open a long-brewing debate. The decision caused an immediate shift in election calculations, as many women and some men responded with anger and determination to use the ballot box to express their dismay.
Republicans who long had pushed for the court ruling saw a shift in support toward the Democrats, and an August ballot issue in Kansas showed the power of the abortion rights movement, when voters overwhelmingly said they did not want to remove those rights from the state constitution.
Exit polls showed that about 3 in 10 voters cited abortion as the most important issue in their vote. That was smaller than the number who named inflation, but not by a huge margin. About 6 in 10 said they were angry or dissatisfied with the court’s decision.
Trump and democracy were similarly elevated as issues during the same stretch of summer months, thanks principally to public hearings from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Biden especially picked up the theme, delivering two speeches on the topic, including one in the closing days of the campaign. “Democracy is on the ballot” became a rallying cry for some Democrats.
But elections are about fundamentals, and the gravitational pull of traditional issues, principally the economy, remained a powerful force that seemed to reassert itself in the closing weeks of the campaign. A question heading into Election Day was whether the two issues buoying Democrats would be enough to truly blunt the winds at the backs of Republican candidates. As the returns continued to come in Tuesday night, that question remained unanswered. | 2022-11-09T05:17:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In midterms, dissatisfied voters render judgments on Biden, Republicans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/midterms-dissatisfied-voters-render-judgments-biden-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/midterms-dissatisfied-voters-render-judgments-biden-republicans/ |
Not since the 2013 coup that brought its current leader to power has Egypt been this much in the global spotlight. Egyptian authorities are hosting the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The major annual summit convenes governmental delegations from most of the world’s countries, as well as leaders from nongovernmental organizations, civil society and major businesses.
“This is a defining moment in the life of our planet,” declared Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi as proceedings got underway earlier this week. “There’s no room for retreat or excuses. Missing the opportunity means the loss of our legacy and the future of our children and grandchildren.”
But a gloomy pall has been hung over the conference from the onset. Climate activists like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg have already turned their back on COP27, insisting it’s an exercise in “greenwashing” by laggard governments and cynical corporations. Few governments have followed through on ambitious pledges to accelerate their cuts to emissions. Some wealthy nations have failed to fund a planned vehicle of financial aid for developing countries, many of which are experiencing the front-line effects of a warming planet with limited capacity to mitigate against them. And in a year of economic instability and energy price volatility, many countries have sunk public funds into the cultivation and acquisition of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
“Some of the splashiest COP26 pledges have been derailed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and upheavals in the global economy,” wrote my colleague Sarah Kaplan. “Catastrophic climate disasters hampered countries’ abilities to invest in renewable energy and resilient infrastructure, even as they exposed the urgency of preparing for a warmer world.”
For Sissi, though, the summit’s legacy may have nothing to do with climate action. Egypt’s autocratic government was powerless to prevent political activists from taking center stage in Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday and highlighting the plight of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a 40-year-old British Egyptian activist on hunger strike. A prominent, popular figure involved in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Abdel Fattah was imprisoned in 2014 by Sissi’s autocratic regime on dubious charges for protesting without permission and later sentenced in 2021 to five more years in prison for “spreading fake news,” a charge weaponized by Egypt’s authorities to silence their critics.
On Sunday, according to Abdel Fattah’s relatives, he took his last sip of water, escalating a hunger strike that could lead to his death. His plight has overshadowed proceedings at COP27 and led to rights groups and international organizations calling out Egypt’s appalling human rights record, including the detention of tens of thousands of political prisoners. On Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk urged Egypt to release Abdel Fattah from prison and give him medical attention.
“I call on the Egyptian authorities to fulfill their human rights obligations and immediately release all those arbitrarily detained, including those in pretrial detention, as well as those unfairly convicted,” he said. “No one should be detained for exercising their basic human rights.”
Sissi’s regime has largely enjoyed the support of the West, which did little to push against the coup he led in 2013 against a democratically elected, politically Islamist government. This week, Sissi has already met with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — all three of whom are said to have pressed the Egyptian leader on the urgent need to release Abdel Fattah. But they put forward no clear threat of repercussions should Cairo resist their appeals. President Biden is expected to also lobby Sissi on human rights when they meet Friday.
For now, the small space afforded to dissenters in Sharm el-Sheikh is proving costly to Egypt’s regime. On Tuesday, Egyptian lawmaker Amr Darwish interrupted a news conference featuring Sanaa Seif, Abdel Fattah’s sister, with an outburst from the crowd. “You are here summoning foreign countries to pressure Egypt,” Darwish said in Arabic, berating Seif in front of dozens of international journalists. “You are here to call for a presidential pardon for a criminal inmate.”
Darwish was escorted out by blue-shirted U.N. security personnel. “His disruption may have been an attempt to defend the government’s jailing of Abdel Fattah,” wrote my colleagues Siobhán O’Grady and Sarah Kaplan. “Instead, human rights advocates said it perfectly exemplified to a crowd of foreign observers a side of Egypt that officials here have tried to conceal from COP27 delegates.”
“This kind of intimidation and harassment is the least we have to experience. The only reason we actually had the press conference at all is because it happened in the area under U.N. control,” Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told my colleagues. “A press conference for Sanaa Seif would have been unimaginable in Cairo or anywhere else had it not been for COP27 taking place in Egypt.”
That message was echoed by climate campaigners. “There is such an intrinsic connection between human rights and climate justice,” Jean Su, a board chair for Climate Action Network International, told The Post. “The credibility of COP27 and its outcomes will be at stake if Egypt fails to respond to the call for the release of Alaa and other prisoners of conscience.”
Allison McManus, research director at the Freedom Initiative, a human rights organization focused on the Middle East and North Africa, urged the Biden administration to hammer home the message about freeing Abdel Fattah and not otherwise enable the “greenwashing” of Egypt’s image at the climate summit.
“There is something truly perverse in Sissi’s assumption that the world would ignore Alaa’s plight because we were so impressed with Egypt’s ability to hold an international conference,” McManus said in an email statement. “As we are seeing, he grossly miscalculated: this COP will be remembered as Alaa’s COP.” | 2022-11-09T05:19:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | COP27 climate summit turns awkward for Egypt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/cop27-climate-alaa-prison-strike-sissi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/cop27-climate-alaa-prison-strike-sissi/ |
Candidates who deny or question the 2020 election represented a majority of GOP nominees for federal and key state offices
Former President Donald Trump check his phone while watching results with guests during Tuesday's election night party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/For The Washington Post)
Dozens of candidates for House, Senate and state-level office who have echoed former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 race was rigged were projected to win their elections Tuesday, with scores more races still being tallied.
The vast majority of those winning candidates claimed seats in the House, but candidates who have denied or questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 vote had also won statewide races late Tuesday night. Their success came less than two years after Trump summoned a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on the premise that he had been cheated out of victory.
Among the more than 150 election deniers projected to have won by midnight: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Rep. Greg Pence (Ind.), the brother of former vice president Mike Pence.
Candidates who have questioned or refused to accept President Biden’s victory — 51 percent of the 569 GOP nominees analyzed by The Washington Post, 291 in total — ran in every region of the country and in nearly every state.
Most of the victorious election deniers campaigned on a range of issues, notably inflation, abortion and crime. Voters who supported them did not necessarily do so because of their stance on 2020. But the candidates’ views on election integrity could have lasting consequences for U.S. democracy.
Winning candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general will assume offices with significant power overseeing American elections. Unofficial projections Tuesday showed that election deniers will amount to a sizable majority within the House Republican caucus, with enormous sway over the choice of the nation’s next speaker should Republicans claim control of the chamber. The speaker would in turn preside over the House in 2024, when the presidential vote could again be contested.
Tuesday’s result reflected the tricky political calculus of election denialism within the GOP. It was a virtual requirement for many Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination, given the importance of a Trump endorsement. Prominent Republicans who defied the former president, notably Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), were defeated by internal party challenges.
But it was not clear that claiming the 2020 election was rigged benefited candidates in tight general elections.
Among the winning election deniers Tuesday was Jen A. Kiggans, a Virginia Republican who defeated Rep. Elaine Luria — a member, like Cheney, of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. One of Luria’s central arguments to voters this fall was the need to tamp down the anti-democratic forces that propelled the violence that day.
Luria stuck with that theme in her concession speech Tuesday. When she mentioned her opponent and her supporters booed, she said: “No, please don’t boo. The success of this district depends on her success.”
Election deniers were also projected to lose some competitive races. J.R. Majewski, a House candidate in Ohio who attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and was trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, was among those who went down in defeat.
Don Bolduc of New Hampshire lost to incumbent U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan after flip-flopping between declaring the 2020 election stolen and legitimate.
Mastriano lost by a large margin to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, despite the fact that the state is one of the most politically contested in the nation. Among the roughly 6 in 10 Pennsylvania voters who viewed the 2020 election as legitimate, more than 8 in 10 voted for Shapiro, exit polls showed. Among the roughly third of voters who felt it was fraudulent, about 9 in 10 supported Mastriano.
Tuesday’s elections played out as Americans have grown increasingly worried about U.S. democracy, with roughly 7 in 10 voters saying that American democracy is “very” or “somewhat” threatened, according to early exit polling conducted by Edison Research. At the same time, voters expressed greater confidence that elections in their state will be conducted fairly and accurately. About 8 in 10 voters said they were very or somewhat confident that elections in their state would be fair and accurate.
Jacque Rose, a registered Republican and “mostly Republican” voter from Boise, Idaho, said in an interview Tuesday she sometimes splits her ticket. The retiree joined a steady stream of voters in a short line at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Boise, explaining that her vote was against extremism.
“I’m scared to death about what some of these right-wingers are doing to us,” she said. “And I’m in a red state and I’m scared.”
Edward B. Foley, a scholar of election law at Ohio State University, said the success of so many election deniers is worrisome but that much uncertainty remains about how these officeholders will use their power. He noted that some election deniers on the ballot this year have wavered, which leaves unclear how they would act once in office.
Foley also suggested deniers’ acceptance of their own victories could, in some ways, strengthen public trust in their states’ elections.
“The whole goal is that valid victories are authenticated as valid, and none of this perversion prevails,” he said. “I don’t want to unduly soften this. We’re in treacherous waters. It’s going to be more difficult the more denialists are in office. But it’s not inevitable that the ship sinks.”
Hundreds of election officials around the country sought to dispel suspicions about the security of elections as Tuesday approached — and some of them, including several on the ballot, continued that work as voting got underway.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) was in a competitive race Tuesday against election denier Kristina Karamo, who claimed without evidence to have witnessed fraud as a poll observer in Detroit in 2020. Benson spent much of Tuesday fighting false claims of irregularities — including claims from Trump.
“There are always things that potentially could be seized upon that really have no impact on the election process itself and in any other situation would be minor,” Benson said. “I think voters just need to see that for what it is — a political strategy that some have chosen to pursue to the detriment of who we are as Americans and our democracy.”
Some of the most prominent election deniers on the ballot this year included state-level office seekers who would have broad power to influence the administration and possibly the outcomes of future elections: Kari Lake for Arizona governor, Jim Marchant for Nevada secretary of state and Matthew DePerno for Michigan attorney general.
All have offered unqualified support for Trump’s false claims of fraud in 2020. DePerno helped Trump try to overturn the result by spearheading unfounded claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines in Michigan had flipped votes from Trump to Biden. Lake has said her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, should be jailed for certifying Biden’s Arizona victory. Marchant has promised to decertify Biden’s 2020 victory in Nevada and wants to impose hand counts across the state.
No winners had been projected in those races as of 1 a.m. Wednesday.
Among the winners that had been projected by that hour were Eric Schmitt, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Missouri who will replace retiring incumbent Roy Blunt (R). Blunt had voted to certify Biden’s victory, citing court rulings that rejected Trump’s fraud claims.
Another is Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who shared disproven claims about the 2020 result on talk radio.
“How is it possible that in Pennsylvania there are 200,000 more votes on Election Day than there were [voters] in the electoral rolls?” she asked.
Some voters said concern about election integrity was a primary motivator in their selections this year.
Chip Johnson, 65, who cast his ballot Tuesday in Madison, Miss., said he believes voter fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. He stopped short of saying he believes Trump won but said, “I just think there’s a lot of unscrupulous voting,” before referencing several issues that have been debunked, including deceased people voting.
“Even if it’s true or not, it lends itself to the suspicion that things aren’t right,” he said. “It’s like the truth is not relevant anymore. It’s like the truth is whatever I say it is.”
Some of the year’s most prominent election deniers coasted to victory Tuesday. Among them: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) — two close Trump allies who have repeatedly made false claims about the 2020 result.
Those candidates also attacked the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack — and have vowed to toss the committee’s subpoena seeking Trump’s testimony if Republicans regain a majority in the chamber.
Other investigations into Trump’s actions around Jan. 6 will continue, however, including a criminal investigation in Fulton County, Ga., stemming from his Jan. 2, 2021, phone call asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win in the state. The Justice Department is also investigating whether Trump improperly interfered in the 2020 election result.
Sarah Fowler in Madison, Miss.; Tom Hamburger in Detroit; and Carissa Wolf in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
Midterm elections live updates: Governors in Ga., Maine, N.Y., N.M. projected to win
Obergefell, lead plaintiff in landmark same-sex marriage case, loses race for Ohio state seat
6:30 AMKathy Hochul becomes first woman elected governor of New York
6:30 AMGillibrand predicts Democrats will hold the Senate
6:26 AMRace call: Sen. Lee fends off challenge by independent McMullin in Utah
6:25 AMWarnock and Walker neck-and-neck in Georgia | 2022-11-09T06:44:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | These are the 2020 election deniers who won their House, Senate races - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/election-deniers-2020-house-senate-races/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/election-deniers-2020-house-senate-races/ |
Netanyahu’s Win and a Simmering Intifada Set Path for Annexation
Israel’s election last week brought former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into power yet again, but it’s hardly a case of the same old thing. First, it will usher in the most chauvinistic and religious government in the country’s history. Second, it occurs just as violence has been spiking in the occupied West Bank in ways not seen in decades.
Worst case scenario: a spiraling cycle of Palestinian insurgency and Israeli suppression not just in the occupied territories, but spilling into Israel itself. If that happens, Israeli annexation of the West Bank becomes not just a possibility but perhaps inevitable.
A low-level insurgency, although not quite a third intifada (uprising), has been brewing this year among Palestinians. It’s being driven by gangs of armed youths not affiliated with Fatah, Hamas or other established Palestinian movements. It’s a deadly mix, combining the spontaneous, leaderless quality of the first intifada, which began in 1987, with the armed nature of the second in 2000.
Israel’s response has been sustained, violent repression. The United Nations reported last month that 2022 has been the deadliest year for West Bank Palestinians since it started tracking in 2005. More than 30 people, including six children, have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, and 311 were injured. The Israeli government claims there have been 4,000 attacks aimed at Israelis, with two soldiers killed and 25 Jewish civilians injured.
Among the victims of the violence was the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The Israelis initially denied responsibility for the killing, which set off global outrage. They now say she was shot by accident, although Palestinians’ skepticism is amply justified.
Now into the caldron come some of the most extreme Jewish nationalists ever to hold office.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, who hopes to oversee the police and security forces, leads a party whose platform vows to annex “all parts of Eretz Israel” — meaning Greater Israel — “liberated in the Six-Day War” in 1967. It would also expel all “enemies of Israel,” a euphemism for Palestinians suffering under occupation, to neighboring Arab countries. Ben-Gvir has hung a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli American doctor who massacred 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994, in his living room.
His far-right compatriot Bezalel Smotrich, who seeks a role overseeing the occupation of the West Bank, has called for the segregation of Jewish and Arab maternity wards. Significantly, he wants governance of West Bank settlement areas taken away from the Israel Defense Forces and given to government ministries, a major step toward annexation.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir aren’t outliers — they are simply the most extreme additions to an already radicalized Israeli politics that has long given up on a two-state solution and is drifting toward permanent occupation of much or all of the West Bank.
A major explosion of violence would provide the opportunity for an extreme Israeli government to say that annexation is a painful necessity needed to protect “Jewish communities” — i.e., illegal Israeli settlements — from dire threats. Large numbers of Palestinians may again be expelled, as they were in 1947-48 and 1967. The logical consequence is the unilateral imposition of a new border, with Israel consolidating control over land it conquered in the 1967 war.
It may not happen anytime soon, but the new cabinet will certainly drive dynamics in that direction. And just as they will push Jewish power deeper into the West Bank centrifugally, Israeli extremists are likely to pull aspects of the occupation back into Israel itself in a centripetal manner.
Ben-Gvir and his colleagues view Israeli Arabs with the same degree of suspicion they apply to Palestinians living under occupation. His vow to expel everyone not loyal to the Israeli state, as he would define it, may well apply to a significant percentage of Arab citizens.
Moreover, these parties want to use the power of the Israeli government to bring the religious sensibility of the most radical settlements into the largely secular towns and cities where most Israelis live, far from the West Bank. They want Israel to become in effect a theocracy, governed by Jewish religious law, or Halakha.
The one thing that might convince Netanyahu to dump Ben Gvir and the other extremists, and replace them with people like Defense Minister Benny Gantz — a hardliner on security but not a religious extremist — would be for the state to drop his ongoing corruption trial.
Yes, that would be a perversion of justice, but as long as he faces the prospect of conviction, Netanyahu will use the anti-establishment religious radicals as a shield against prosecution. If the charges were dropped, Israel, and the world, might get a less radical Netanyahu-led cabinet.
Even in that “optimistic” scenario, nothing can cancel out the alarmingly strong performance of the religious ultra-right and diehard annexationist parties. Most worrisome, their support is strongest among Jewish youth, suggesting a generational shift in their direction.
A massive crackdown in the West Bank could transform the simmering low-level insurgency into another major Palestinian uprising. If that happens, all bets are off about what this new, more extreme and religious Israel might be willing to do.
As Israel Votes, Its Arab Citizens Hold the Key: Bobby Ghosh
• Look Past Israel’s Bonker Politics. Its Economy Is Thriving: Matthew Winkler
• New Israeli-Palestinian Clash Shows Worse to Come: Hussein Ibish | 2022-11-09T06:48:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Netanyahu’s Win and a Simmering Intifada Set Path for Annexation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/netanyahus-win-and-a-simmering-intifada-set-path-for-annexation/2022/11/09/8ff8154c-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/netanyahus-win-and-a-simmering-intifada-set-path-for-annexation/2022/11/09/8ff8154c-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Gudkov, for his part, joined a group that recently held a “Congress of People’s Deputies” in a Warsaw suburb. While others only talk about turning Russia into a parliamentary democracy, the congress goes them one better by making a rather creative claim for legitimacy. The group, led by former legislator Ilya Ponomarev who now lives in Ukraine, unites about 60 people who have at one time or another won elections at different levels of Russia’s legislative system as well asnd a few who never got elected but still came along for the chance to “reconstitute” Russia, creating an alternative legal framework for a post-Putin democratic, peace-seeking state. The “congress” has called for the return of all territories seized from Ukraine, including Crimea, the denial of support to Russia-backed unrecognized states throughout the former Soviet Union, and a constitutional ban on pre-emptive nuclear strikes, among other proposals that many in the West would support.
• Putin’s Ukraine War Is Entering a Terrifying New Phase: Tobin Harshaw | 2022-11-09T06:48:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia’s Opposition Has No Plan for Ending the War - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/russiasopposition-has-no-plan-for-ending-the-war/2022/11/09/904c3c08-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/russiasopposition-has-no-plan-for-ending-the-war/2022/11/09/904c3c08-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The Race to Disunion: Are Brexiteers or Republicans Ahead?
Lords of disorder: A scene from Washington DC, Jan. 6, 2021. (Bloomberg)
In 2016, the Anglo-Saxon world became the global center of populism with the Brexit vote, the Trump election and the disputes that followed. Both countries had a hard-won reputation for political stability: Britain had avoided the continental affliction of revolutions since 1660 and America had withstood the economic hurricane of the Great Depression with its democratic foundations enhanced. Yet both countries are now into a prolonged period of disorder: Britain has burned through prime ministers with an Italian relish (Theresa May followed by Boris Johnson followed by Liz Truss followed by Rishi Sunak); and Donald Trump — acting like a Latin American dictator — trashed every institution he touched, including the military, the CIA and Congress itself.
This is a particularly good time to offer an answer to the question partly because the mid-term elections come a neat six years after Trump’s election shocked the world and partly because Britain has just endured a wrenching change of prime minister.
At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Not only is Trump likely to declare that he’s running for the presidency again next Tuesday, but many of the most prominent Republican candidates for office in today’s elections are Trumpists in both style and substance — celebrities and political neophytes who want to burn the establishment down. The Washington Post calculates that 291 Republican candidates, more than half of the total, have questioned the result of the 2020 presidential election, with the majority of them favored to win.
Britain looks relatively stable by comparison. Rishi Sunak is a technocrat (and former banker) who believes in sound finance and balancing the books. At this week’s COP 27 meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for example, he seems to have established a cordial relationship with his fellow technocrat (and former banker), French President Emmanuel Macron.
Thanks partly to Trump’s intemperance, and partly to the radical left’s growing strength and self-confidence, the Democratic Party under Biden has abandoned the middle ground, pursuing an expansionary economic policy despite rising inflation and misinterpreting civil rights protests as a signal to go soft on crime. In the UK, by contrast, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has expelled his extremist predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, and is doing his best to choose moderate candidates for the next election. He’s focused on winning back the white working-class rather than tickling the erogenous zones of woke activists.
But look again and British politics is not quite so reassuring. The “Trump” wing of the Conservative Party is both bigger and more entrenched than Sunak’s rise might suggest. He lost badly to Liz Truss in the last leadership election despite the fact that his track record as a minister was much more impressive than hers.
Truss enacted a wish-list of policies that had been cooked up in think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Taxpayer’s Alliance, and discussed at Tory Party socials. Tory papers such as the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph first backed her campaign against Sunak, ridiculing his warnings about the consequences of her policies, and then greeted her budget as if it were the economic equivalent of the Second Coming of Christ.
There seems to be no doubt that Brexit has caused significant damage despite the difficulties of disentangling the effects of Covid and the Ukraine war from the effects of leaving the European Union. Brexiteers have all but given up arguing that the divorce is an economic boom and resorted instead to saying its too early to tell.
In June 2022, the Centre for European Reform estimated that quitting the single market and customs union reduced UK goods trade by about 15%. In the same month, the Resolution Foundation warned that workers can expect to be almost £500 ($578.32) a year worse off in real terms by 2030 thanks to the productivity-sapping impact of Brexit, with the worst effects being experienced by advanced manufacturing and the north of England. A recent report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) claims that trade from the UK to the EU has declined by 16% since Jan. 1, 2021, and trade from the EU to the UK by 20%. Truss’s budget was driven by the desperate recognition that the only way to turn Brexit into a positive was to administer life-threatening shock therapy.
It is, of course, possible that Britain will rejoin the EU in the longer run. The proportion of Britons who think that leaving the EU was a good thing is falling, and the next general election is shaping up to be Remainers Revenge: where the emerging anti-Brexit majority avenge the turmoil that unleashed since 2016. But re-joining the EU — if it will have Britain back — will take some time. And the messy business of leaving has wrought long-term damage while also distracting the country’s collective attention from directly addressing questions of productivity.
In Northern Ireland, where the majority of people also voted to remain in the EU, Brexit has paralyzed politics for six years and revived difficult questions about the Irish border. The pro-unification Sinn Fein is now the biggest party on both sides of the frontier. | 2022-11-09T06:48:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Race to Disunion: Are Brexiteers or Republicans Ahead? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-race-to-disunion-are-brexiteers-or-republicans-ahead/2022/11/09/90fb4efa-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-race-to-disunion-are-brexiteers-or-republicans-ahead/2022/11/09/90fb4efa-5ff4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Masouda is shown teaching young women in a clandestine school in Kabul on Oct. 8. For the safety of teacher and students, The Washington Post is using only their first names. (Sandra Calligaro for The Washington Post)
KABUL — On a quiet residential street, teenage girls with school bags swiftly entered a large green gate. They were dressed in traditional garb, their faces covered, and many were holding copies of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. It was for their own protection.
The house is a secret school for Afghan girls who are barred by the Taliban from getting an education. If agents raid the house, the girls will pull out their Qurans and pretend they are in a madrassa, or Islamic school, which the country’s new rulers still allow girls to attend.
“The Taliban are floating around in this area,” said Marina, 16, a 10th-grader. “So, I always carry a Quran in the open. My other books are hidden in my bag.”
More than a year after seizing power in Afghanistan, the Taliban still refuses to allow girls to attend secondary school, from grades seven to 12. The ban, as well as other hard-line edicts restricting women’s lives, have triggered global outrage and widespread protests by Afghan women.
But a more subtle form of defiance is also happening. Underground schools for girls have formed in the capital and other Afghan cities, hidden away in houses and apartments, despite the immense threat to students and teachers. For the girls and their families, it is worth the risk.
“It doesn’t matter if the Taliban becomes aware of this school,” said Angila, also 16 and in the 10th grade. “Education is my basic right. No one can take that away.”
Washington Post journalists made several visits last month to a secret school in Kabul where 25 girls were taught in various subjects for roughly two hours a day. Classes were kept short to lessen the chances of discovery by the Taliban. The girls and their teacher spoke on the condition that they be identified only by their first names, fearing retaliation from the authorities.
The Taliban has said repeatedly that secondary schools for girls will reopen when there is an appropriate “Islamic environment.” But the group has provided no criteria for what constitutes such an environment.
When the Taliban first seized power in 1996, it closed schools for all girls — then too, underground schools were formed to fill the void — banned women from working and forced them to wear head-to-toe coverings known as burqas whenever they ventured outside the home.
Along Afghanistan’s ‘highway of death,’ the bombs are gone but suffering has deepened
The group has been less draconian this time around, and the issue of education has revealed divisions among the Taliban’s leaders and religious scholars. In some areas, local Taliban officials have allowed girls above sixth grade to attend school, bowing to pressure from community leaders.
Last month, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, made a rare public appeal urging that all secondary schools for girls be reopened, adding that “the delay is increasing the gap between [the government] and the nation.”
“Education is obligatory on both men and women, without any discrimination,” Stanikzai said in a televised speech. “No one can offer a justification based on sharia [Islamic law] for opposing this.”
But the hard-line conservative leaders who form the backbone of the movement remain opposed. And the Taliban has issued other restrictions, including mandating that women wear a face veil. Last month, a conservative cleric loyal to the hard-liners was appointed as the education minister.
Western governments have made clear that improvements in women’s rights are essential for the Taliban to gain access to $7 billion of foreign reserves frozen by the international community.
Abdulhaq Hammad, a top Taliban official in the Ministry of Information and Culture, insisted that “ninety percent of Taliban members are against the closure of the schools.” But convincing the remaining 10 percent is a delicate process.
“The Taliban don’t want to create any fragmentation amongst themselves; they don’t want to be broken from within,” Hammad said. “There are struggles with the 10 percent. But their unity is the secret of their success against the American invasion. If it’s broken, it will be very difficult to repair.”
Five months ago, a woman named Ayesha launched a collective of 45 underground schools around the capital. She was motivated in part by her bad marriage, she said: “Women should not be dependent on men. Education is the only way out of our difficulties.”
But within a month, her funds dwindled. Many of the schools closed. Others were shut down out of fear. Only 10 are active today, and Ayesha is struggling to find donors to support them. The girls in her schools come from the poorest families; with the Afghan economy collapsing, most can’t pay tuition or even buy textbooks.
Worse, she fears the Taliban will come for her. The group’s intelligence agency has summoned her three times, she said, forcing her into hiding.
“I don’t want to shut down these schools,” she said, looking determined. “They will continue.”
‘This is your right’
On a recent day, Ayesha took two Post journalists to one of her underground schools in Kabul.
Past the green gate was a compound with potted plants and flowers. There were rows of slippers at the entrance to the classroom, which was about the size of a one-car garage. Inside, the girls sat on the pink-carpeted floor in front of a small whiteboard. Next to it stood their teacher, Masouda. At 22, she was not much older than some of her students.
The ivory-colored frill curtains were drawn closed.
The students nervously stared at the Post journalists.
“Girls, you shouldn’t be afraid,” Ayesha assured them. “This is your right, and no one can take it from you.”
The girls recited a few verses from the Quran. Then class got underway.
“Today’s lesson is on pages 37, 38 and 39,” Masouda said, opening a biology textbook. “It’s about the types of plants and vegetables.”
She looked around. Only a few girls had the textbook.
“If someone doesn’t have a book, please take notes,” Masouda said, as she wrote on the whiteboard.
“Who would like to come up and explain this?”
Angila raised her hand. She stood and recited the lesson in a clear, authoritative voice.
Biology was her favorite subject, she explained after the class was over.
“I want to be a physician,” said Angila, who wore a head-to-toe black gown and a lime-green headscarf. “This is my dream. From childhood, I wanted to become a doctor.”
She was well on her way, part of a generation of girls and women that started attending school during the American occupation. When the Taliban regained power and ordered teenage girls to stay home, Angila was devastated.
“I watched the boys go to school, but I couldn’t,” she recalled. “My heart was broken.”
More than 45 percent of Afghans girls are not attending school, compared with 20 percent of boys, according to a recent report by Save The Children. The report also says 26 percent of girls are exhibiting signs of depression, compared with 16 percent of boys.
Masouda understands the psychological toll. After graduating from high school, she studied at a junior college. She was preparing for university entrance exams when the Taliban captured Kabul.
As the economy fell apart, her father and older brother lost their jobs. They agreed to host the school inside their home as a way to earn some money, and Masouda volunteered to teach.
“The school closures had a big impact on me, just like for the other students,” Masouda said. “It’s created mental problems for some students. To bring a sense of humanity, we share our knowledge.”
As Ayesha left the class, she reminded the girls to wear their hijabs, or headscarves, so the Taliban “will not make the hijab an excuse to stop you. If someone stops you, tell him you are going to attend class of holy Quran,” she told them.
‘They have spies’
Masouda’s younger brother has been given clear instructions not to open the green gate if anyone knocks, unless he recognizes the person on the other side.
“The Taliban are a bit far away from here, but they have spies,” said Masouda.
Three months ago, she stopped classes for 25 days after the Taliban arrested a teacher working in another underground school. If Taliban agents enter Masouda’s school, the girls know to open the cupboard and grab the Qurans.
Then, Masouda will ask Marina, who has memorized the Quran, to come forward.
“If they come, she will take over the class, and I will pretend to be a student,” Masouda said.
Marina, dressed in a traditional purple gown and a black headscarf, said that she’s attending the class “to gain courage.”
She wants to become a pilot for Kam Air, an Afghan carrier, because “there’s very little representation of women in the aviation sector.”
She raised her hand eagerly and answered a geography question, about the country’s longest river.
The next day, class began with chemistry and quickly moved to history. Most of the girls knew their country’s history, especially how women were treated.
Their mothers grew up under the first Taliban government and were never educated.
“My mother doesn’t want me to be illiterate, like her,” said Manizha, 18, a 12th-grader, who dreams of being a television journalist.
The last subject of the day was English. And it gave Masouda a chance to learn from her students. She asked Marwa to come to the front of the class.
“I like red color. What color do you like?” asked Marwa, 17, who says she wants to become a heart surgeon.
“Green,” Masouda said.
“What do you want to become in the future?” Marwa asked.
“A teacher,” Masouda said.
A few minutes later, class was over. The girls quickly filed out through the green gate.
Masouda erased the evidence from the whiteboard. | 2022-11-09T07:06:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside a secret school for teenage girls in Afghanistan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/02/afghanistan-girls-school-education-taliban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/02/afghanistan-girls-school-education-taliban/ |
Wisconsin man charged with threatening Democratic governor
Michael Yaker is accused of threatened Gov. Tony Evers, allegedly writing that he was a ‘Dead Man Walking’
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) speaks at a campaign stop on Oct. 27 in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP)
Michael Yaker got an email from a Wisconsin Capitol Police officer on Oct. 27 asking him to get in touch as soon as possible. The officer, Ted Schwarz, said he wanted to clarify “a concerning email” the office of Gov. Tony Evers (D) received from Yaker’s account that day.
Yaker allegedly sent Schwarz a reply that night.
“I Speak For The More Than Human World I’d like to have my hands around his throat….I’d like to bash his head against A Concrete Wall Till The Concrete Turns to Dust,” the reply stated, according to a recently filed affidavit.
The threats allegedly continued before the email closed with, “Is That Clear enough For You Ted!?!?”
On Friday, Yaker was charged with two counts of making threats across state lines while he was allegedly away from his home in Wisconsin at a Halloween parade in Kansas. He’s accused of threatening to hurt Evers in emails and Facebook posts in which he allegedly described the governor as a “Dead Man Walking” who was “Marked For Elimination” and should “Prepare to Die.”
Yaker, 52, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of both counts. Federal court records list no attorney for Yaker.
Evers’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. A spokeswoman for the governor declined to comment on Yaker’s case when asked by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Yaker’s arrest follows similar cases in which members of both major political parties have been threatened. It also follows an October attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), leading to calls for an end to political violence.
In July, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) released a compilation of threats and obscenities callers had hurled at those working in his office. In June, a man was charged with trying to kill Brett M. Kavanaugh after he was found armed with a gun and knife near the Supreme Court justice’s Maryland home. A Proud Boys supporter pleaded guilty last year to threatening Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.). And three weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, federal prosecutors accused a California man of making pipe bombs to go to “war” with Democrats in an effort to keep former president Donald Trump in power.
“Threats of violence over politics has increased heavily in the last few years,” Kinzinger tweeted when he published the threatening messages. “But the darkness has reached new lows.”
In Wisconsin, after receiving a report from Schwarz, Detective Timothy Blanke with the Dane County Sheriff’s Office took over investigating Yaker’s alleged threats. In his affidavit, Blanke said he’s known Yaker as “a person of interest in numerous threats investigations” for more than a decade.
In January 2011, Yaker pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct after sharpening his ax in front of a government building six months earlier, according to Madison.com. He was accused of blaming government officials for contributing to his employment woes and told police that he was in possession of “his axe as an expression of free speech,” the Capital Times reported at the time.
In February of that year, Madison police issued him a stalking letter, ordering him to keep away from Scott McDonell, then the chair of the Dane County board of supervisors, according to Madison.com.
In March, he was again charged with disorderly conduct after allegedly using chalk to draw an ax on the sidewalk in front of the same government building, Madison.com reported. Alongside it, he wrote the initials of five government officials, including McDonell, according to the newspaper.
Six months later, in September 2011, Yaker was charged with stalking McDonell, to which he would plead guilty. He had brought a large ax to confront the board of supervisors chairman at the City-County Building during a forum of candidates running for county executive, according to Madison.com.
Evers, first elected in 2018, was in a fierce battle to win reelection Tuesday against Trump-backed Republican challenger Tim Michels. | 2022-11-09T07:28:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Yaker charged with threatening Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/death-threats-arrest-wisconsin-governor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/death-threats-arrest-wisconsin-governor/ |
A Ukrainian soldier fires at Russian positions outside Bakhmut on Tuesday. (AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. and Russian officials responsible for ensuring compliance with the treaty that governs each nation’s deployment of nuclear weapons will resume meeting “in the near future,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday after tensions over Ukraine halted such talks for over a year. The meetings are intended to facilitate the inspection of nuclear sites in each country. Moscow said in August that it was suspending its cooperation, citing travel restrictions imposed by the United States and other Western nations in response to the invasion.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations announced an additional $25 million from USAID to support vulnerable people in Ukraine during the winter. Speaking during a visit to Kyiv, Linda Thomas-Greenfield reiterated U.S. support for the Black Sea grain deal, which expires this month. “We know that Ukraine has long been a breadbasket for much of the developing world. But Russia’s invasion turned Ukraine’s rolling wheat fields into battlefields,” she said at a news conference.
About 4 million people in Ukraine, including in Kyiv, were without electricity on Tuesday evening because of “stabilization” efforts after Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities, Zelensky said. But Ukraine is well prepared to meet the coming winter, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. The winter will be difficult, but the country is preparing for any scenario, he said. There is also no reason for residents not living near the front lines to evacuate, he said, according to Reuters.
Brittney Griner, the WNBA star convicted of drug charges in Russia, is being transferred to a Russian penal colony, earlier than U.S. diplomats had expected, her lawyers said Wednesday. She left her detention center near Moscow on Friday, they said, adding that the U.S. Embassy should be notified upon her arrival at the colony. Russia is refusing a “significant offer” from the United States to “resolve the current unacceptable and wrongful detention” of Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine also imprisoned in Russia, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday.
Zelensky said that “brutal battles” are taking place across the front lines, including in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, where he said the situation “is especially difficult.” Russian forces, he said, have suffered “large-scale losses” in the region but remain in control of a significant amount of territory.
Britain is sending a package of winter kits to Ukraine’s military as temperatures drop, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said early Wednesday. The government is sending 12,000 sleeping kits, 150 heated tents and 25,000 sets of clothing designed for extremely cold weather by mid-December, according to a statement.
The United States delivered two surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder said Tuesday. “These systems will contribute to Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and will help protect the Ukrainian people against Russian aerial attacks to include those conducted by unmanned, aerial vehicles or cruise missiles,” Ryder said.
A U.S. citizen was killed fighting in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman from his unit, the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine, told The Washington Post on Tuesday. Timothy Griffin was killed “during counteroffensive operations,” Mamuka Mamulashvili said. A State Department spokesperson confirmed the death of a U.S. citizen in Ukraine but did not identify the individual.
U.S. voters on Tuesday were split in their views about U.S. aid for Ukraine, according to polling from AP VoteCast. About 3 in 10 voters said the United States should take a more active role in aiding Ukraine, while roughly the same share said the country should scale back its support. About 4 in 10 said the current level of American support for Ukraine is about right.
Sunak will meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in London on Wednesday “to discuss the future of security and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area,” according to a statement from Sunak’s office. “As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, we must not take peace at home for granted,” Sunak said, adding that they will discuss ongoing support for Ukrainian forces.
“There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” Zelensky said in a Tuesday address to the U.N. Climate Conference in Egypt, known as COP27. He said the war had served to stall collective efforts to address climate change. Russia’s invasion has worsened the world’s energy and food crises, undermining efforts to halt “the destruction of the climate,” he said Monday.
Salty, yellow water disgusts residents and breaks pipes in war-torn Mykolaiv: After a suspected Russian strike in mid-April destroyed pipes leading into Mykolaiv, Ukraine, city officials made a devil’s bargain. They began pumping water in from a brackish local river called the Southern Buh. | 2022-11-09T08:42:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Timothy Owen, a London-based legal veteran who specializes in criminal and human rights law, was granted court approval last month to represent Lai despite objections from the city’s secretary of justice and the Hong Kong Bar Association.
Owen, who works in Matrix Chambers, has appeared in previous Hong Kong’s high-profile cases. He represented British banker Rurik Jutting, who was convicted for murdering two women, and a police officer who appealed his conviction for assaulting a pro-democracy activist during 2014 protests.
Barnes sends supporters in Wisconsin home with race too close to call
8:34 AMMichigan voters projected to approve constitutional right to abortion | 2022-11-09T09:52:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hong Kong court lets UK lawyer defend media tycoon Jimmy Lai - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hong-kong-court-lets-uk-lawyer-defend-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai/2022/11/09/adcc9374-6006-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hong-kong-court-lets-uk-lawyer-defend-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai/2022/11/09/adcc9374-6006-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
NEW YORK — Suspended Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving met with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, a person with knowledge of the meeting said.
HENDERSON, Nev. — Safety Johnathan Abram, who failed to meet the expectations of a first-round draft pick, was waived by the Las Vegas Raiders.
GLASGOW, Scotland — Australia and Kazakhstan earned victories on the opening day of the Billie Jean King Cup, the biggest team event in women’s tennis.
WASHINGTON — Amir “Primo” Spears scored 28 points, Bryson Mozone added seven in overtime and Georgetown knocked off Coppin State 99-89 to snap a 21-game losing streak.
SYDNEY — Australian Jeff Fenech is finally joining an elite group of boxers to have won world titles in four weight divisions — more than 30 years after the fact. | 2022-11-09T09:52:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/09/bde5005a-6012-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/09/bde5005a-6012-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
‘Barkley’ excerpt: How Charles figured out how to work with Shaq
Charles Barkley attends the 2019 NBA Awards. (Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Turner Sports)
The following is an excerpt from “Barkley: A Biography,” a book by Bella, a Washington Post writer, that was published this month by Hanover Square Press.
Together, they are arguably the greatest team in the history of sports television. But individually, comedian Jeff Ross pointed out during the roast of “Inside the NBA” at All-Star Weekend 2020 what each of them are known for without each other:
Shaquille O’Neal is best known for missing free throws.
Ernie Johnson, in his bow tie and Jordans, is best known as the assistant coach of the quidditch team at Hogwarts, fresh off a tremendous season.
Charles Barkley is best known for missing court dates.
And Kenny Smith is best known, well, for knowing Charles.
“Kenny Smith,” Ross bellowed throughout Chicago’s House of Blues. “Sounds like a name Charles Barkley gives to the cops — ‘Yeah, I’m Kenny Smith.’ ”
Almost two decades into an experiment that was only meant to last two years, “Inside the NBA” was the undisputed best show in all of sports media. All the while, Charles, now a two-time Hall of Famer after being inducted as part of the 1992 Dream Team, was a cultural phenomenon. He was being paid more than he ever had as a player and still working less, even with his additional role with March Madness as part of a landmark partnership with CBS.
Dan Patrick, the longtime radio and TV sportscaster, said the show has ascended into the rarefied air of sports shows that have stood the test of time — institutions such as “SportsCenter” of the 1990s, “Pardon the Interruption” and “College GameDay.”
“ ‘Inside’ is something we definitely hadn’t seen before,” Patrick said.
So, how did the best show in sports get better? Months before he was set to retire, Shaquille O’Neal had an idea: get rid of Charles or Kenny and make way for the Big Analytical.
“Matter of fact, in about 300 days, the other guy going to be in trouble — I’m just putting it out there now,” O’Neal said in early 2011, not specifying whose job he jokingly planned to take. “One of ’em gonna have to get out that seat. Big man’s coming.”
The big man in question was, of course, Shaq. Turner President David Levy met with him in 2011 to discuss joining the show. But questions remained. To add O’Neal, who commanded a spotlight all his own, could also disrupt an award-winning show — one that would allow its personalities to blame a zebra’s escape from the circus onto the interstate as an excuse for why they were late.
The presentation Levy had in store for O’Neal was unorthodox. “Shaq, there are companies that want you and there are companies that need you,” Levy told the big fella. “We want you, but we don’t need you.”
O’Neal smiled and was intrigued. He already had a sense of how difficult it was going to be to compete with Charles. ESPN’s basketball coverage had been wildly inconsistent, in large part because it didn’t have the stability or verve of “Inside.”
“They’ve always had their nose pressed up against the window of what Turner does in terms of that NBA show,” said James Andrew Miller, co-author of “Those Guys Have All The Fun,” a book about ESPN’s early days and rise to prominence. Shaq might have become ESPN’s version of Charles, but being a Chuck clone was never something that appealed to him.
“Everyone who wasn’t TNT was saying, ‘We need another Charles, we need another Charles,’ ” O’Neal said. “And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to be another Charles.’ ”
Charles was immediately onboard with trying to get Shaq. Levy had this in the back of his mind as he was telling O’Neal how he already had an Emmy-winning show, almost playing hard to get.
“To put you into this mix, there’s more risk on me, David Levy, and Turner than there is for you,” the network president said to Shaq.
The show celebrated his multiyear deal with Turner in July 2011 with an over-the-top vignette filled with cheerleaders, fireworks, pyrotechnics and confetti as O’Neal walked onto the set. Catching a shirt shot out of a cannon, Chuck unfurled a garment that had him and the rest of the “Inside” crew dressed in togas and kneeling to “The Big Aristotle,” feeding him grapes and fanning him on his throne.
But to assume his throne, O’Neal had to be heard. O’Neal had purposely mumbled throughout his career as a player, his way of shutting out the media. The problem was that had now transferred over to his career in the media.
“We added Shaq, and it was: ‘He’s gonna ruin everything. He mumbles, and he doesn’t speak out, and he’s not gonna be heard,’ ” executive producer Tim Kiely said in the 2021 docuseries “The Inside Story.”
Seeing his new analyst mumble on-air, Kiely urged O’Neal to shout to cut through Charles. To get his point across, the producer had Ernie, Kenny and Charles copy Shaq’s mumbling delivery so he could hear how bad it sounded. O’Neal was also not doing his homework. Smith recalled one show where O’Neal spoke about how Tyson Chandler was going to have an impact that night — not knowing that the center was injured and wasn’t playing. As punishment, the trio joked how Bill Russell, then in his 70s, was going to have a great game.
The show felt off, and Kiely summoned just Charles and Kenny for a rare meeting. Smith said the producer confronted them about why they were making fun of Shaq and not allowing the show to be great with him. Charles was livid but remained quiet. Smith, on the other hand, countered: When does someone come on our show and we don’t make fun of them?
Kiely agreed: Do whatever you want to him.
“They would pull me aside and tell me: ‘If you want to do what you’re doing now, go to ESPN. We want you to be Shaq,’ ” O’Neal recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, you want me to be Shaq?’ Once I started loosening up, then we started cooking together.”
Soon the disjointed flow of the show smoothed out and O’Neal was louder and more prepared. Kevin Harlan, TNT’s play-by-play man, was most impressed by how Shaq wanted to fit in and be a role player of sorts — listening and processing before “coming at you like a locomotive.” Shaq leaned more into physical comedy, tripping over himself racing Kenny to the jumbo screen.
“Charles is the catalyst for all we do. He’s the big clown, and I’m the second clown,” O’Neal said. “I’m the comedy clown.”
Once the quartet found its rhythm, it was clear that they were better with Shaq in the mix. As predicted by Levy and Lenny Daniels, the chief operating officer for Turner Sports at the time, the bombast of Charles and Shaq’s repartee elevated the show.
To say it was an adjustment for CBS’s Clark Kellogg to work with Charles and Kenny during the NCAA tournament was an understatement. Kellogg leaned toward a more serious, straight-man persona. He deeply studied the schools in prep for the tournament. Charles did, well, less of that. Harlan said Kellogg was a walking conscience compared with Charles, the walking circus. While Kellogg credited Chuck for loosening him up, he also saw what kind of person he was when his email was hacked and sent out an “I’m stuck in a foreign country, please transfer money” scam message to all of his contacts. Most people knew it was not legit, but Kellogg got a call from Charles to make sure he was okay and ask if he needed any money.
“It floored me,” Kellogg recalled. “I’m a hundred percent sure he was dead serious because he doesn’t call me much.”
When it came to the on-air chemistry between Charles and Shaq, the pair needed to strike a balance. Sometimes, Shaq would be the combative foil who pushed back against Charles and reminded him of his career shortcomings in every debate. Sometimes, he would play the comedic hype man. But since the beginning, their on-air arguments have followed a familiar pattern, reminiscent of an old married couple. Their verbal spats regularly generate headlines in both the blogosphere and establishment media such as The Washington Post, the Guardian and USA Today.
Charles, the man without any social media who says anyone who tweets probably lives out of their mother’s basement, regularly trends on Twitter, in part because of his devolved debates with Shaq.
Charcey Glenn, Charles’s mother, and Lucille O’Neal didn’t need social media to hear about the shots their boys took at each other. They were usually watching — with one calling the other to talk about whatever it was they had gotten into the night before.
“We would talk to each other each day on the phone, and Charcey would say, ‘There they go arguing again.’ I would just bust up laughing,” Lucille remembered. “I started calling Shaquille and said, ‘Didn’t we tell y’all to play nice?’ ”
Howard Beck, the longtime basketball scribe now at Sports Illustrated, joyfully likened their banter to old men waving their fists at the clouds. They were selling the raw talk of close friends, which makes for compelling television. Their heated disagreements can take the show to a place others can’t.
“I always make the distinction, and Charles will never engage in this, that the difference between him and Shaq is that Charles knows how to make fun of himself and Shaq doesn’t,” ESPN’s Howard Bryant said. “Shaq isn’t kidding when he’s attacking you. They do admire each other and are friends, but you can also tell that Shaq has to win, and that’s not the case for Charles.”
For Shaq’s part, he sees it as a matter of perspective.
“When it comes to certain settings, I want to know how you know something, period. If you don’t know, then you shouldn’t be speaking on it so adamantly,” O’Neal said. “You can give your opinion, but how do you know? I know because I’ve been to the Finals six times. Kenny knows because he’s been there twice and won twice. It’s just like a question thing. I want to know. I’m interested when both those guys speak, but with Charles, I’m like, ‘How do you know?’
“But here’s the thing: He showed us kids how to play mean, throw elbows and play with reckless abandonment. My daddy used to tell me all the time, ‘You got to rebound like Barkley and get some elbows up.’ So he’s definitely meant a lot to me.” | 2022-11-09T10:57:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Barkley’ excerpt: How Charles figured out how to work with Shaq - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/charles-barkley-book-shaquille-oneal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/charles-barkley-book-shaquille-oneal/ |
These Pr. George’s teens are bucking tropes and snatching championships
Nicholas Jackson, the 2020 Jr. World’s Bull riding champion, in the stands with his family at the Washington International Horse Show in Upper Marlboro, Md. At left, his sister, Ryan, 12. At right is his brother, Dylan, 9. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
When the Super Bowl of horse shows returned to Prince George’s County after more than a 20-year absence, County Executive Angela Alsobrooks knew who her guests of honor would be:
Morissa Hall, 16, and 14-year-old Nicholas “Nic” Jackson.
She singled the teens out at a news conference touting 64th annual Washington International Horse Show at the Show Place Arena as cowboy boot-walking proof that Prince George’s County is the rightful home for equestrian sports in the metro area.
In the arenas where they have competed across the country, Hall, who identifies as biracial, and Jackson, who identifies as Black, had not seen many champions who look like them.
They smiled, used to performing. Few truly understand the dedication and athleticism behind their seemingly improbable wins: Hall, Maryland High School Rodeo Association All-Around Cowgirl and Rodeo Queen, and Jackson, the 2020 Jr. World finals bull riding champion.
Rodeo Queen
“I really think that first time I achieved straight As, [the horse] might’ve been motivation,” she said. “After a while, I forgot about the horse … So, it’s just a standard I hold for myself.”
Moriarty, a nurse and clinical research nurse manager, grew up in Landover Hills with a father who had family horses in Tennessee she would sometimes visit throughout her childhood. Morse’s maternal great grandparents had work horses on their farm, and he had relatives who used draft horses for farming, in Front Royal and Farmington, Va. He also had an uncle in Prince George’s County who had a stable with a friend that held up to 20 horses, he said.
Morse eventually found an 11-acre fixer upper, when Morissa was about six years old, that would serve as home for Morissa, her future horses and her rodeo dreams.
“It’s like you go to a Ferrari race car track with a Yugo. It doesn’t matter how good of a driver you are, you still got a Yugo,” Morse said. “As her father, I want her to be competitive. I want to give her a shot. She has to have a better horse … It’s nothing for these kids to have a $200,000 horse.”
“I don’t know that these kids would be excelling as they are had I not I had a leg up, you know. My dad had a leg up,” she said. “Although I did not [do] rodeo as a child, we had the leg up at the property available. We had the know about the horses.”
Corey Jackson, 46, a Winston-Salem, N.C., native, fell in love with horses by watching Saturday morning “shoot ‘em ups,” or westerns with his grandfather. As a child, whenever there was a rodeo that came to town, he made sure he was there.
Jackson, who coaches their kids in rodeo now, displayed some impressive tricks with his horse that had strong ground matters at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo where they first met and appeared to be very in tuned with him despite not growing up with horses, Robyn said.
On a typical day, Nic finishes his school work around 3 p.m. before heading out to “buck the dummy” or ride a dummy bull that simulates riding. He’ll then get one of his bulls to get real-life experience.
“There’s usually a small group of [Black kids]. We all see each other at most of the bigger rodeos we go to,” he said, noting he never focused on the quantity. “I never thought of it that way.” | 2022-11-09T11:10:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | These Pr. George's rodeo teens are living up to what "horse country" can offer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/rodeo-prince-georges-queen-champion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/rodeo-prince-georges-queen-champion/ |
Colts owner Jim Irsay, left, and Jeff Saturday speak at Monday night’s news conference at which Saturday was introduced as the team’s interim head coach. (Darron Cummings/AP)
Hours after he was named the interim coach of the Indianapolis Colts following the firing of Frank Reich, Jeff Saturday was asked at his introductory news conference Monday night how he would have characterized the move in his previous role as an NFL analyst for ESPN.
“I’d be shocked as well,” Saturday said. “Probably the same questions you asked.”
It is a crazy situation, and it is an unprecedented opportunity for Saturday, the former all-pro center for the Colts who is a member of the team’s ring of honor. He has no coaching experience above the high school level. And yet he’s now an NFL head coach.
“He was the best guy,” Colts owner Jim Irsay said Monday. “That’s why. I mean, there’s no other mystery behind that. . . . Let’s be very clear: This thing was driven by what [General Manager Chris Ballard] and I see in his excellence and his readiness and who he is. If he turns us down, we’re not here today.”
As recently as Oct. 30, Saturday was writing on Twitter that the Raiders “look horrible.” Two weeks later, he will be coaching against the Raiders in Las Vegas in his debut Sunday.
“I have no preconceived notion that I’m going to be some spectacular anything,” he said. “I know I’ve got to work hard. I’m auditioning not only for this one but for 31 others, just like everybody else in this game. And make no mistakes, man: The job is [to] win. I know that’s what I’m here to do.”
Saturday had done consulting work for the Colts, and Ballard said Monday that the team had attempted to hire him multiple times as an assistant coach. Saturday said he had prepared for a coaching career by keeping lists in recent years of potential staff members, on the advice of San Francisco 49ers General Manager John Lynch.
“I don’t pretend to be the smartest guy in the room,” Saturday said. “I’m here to make the guys who are really smart even better. What can I give them? I’ve been with Hall of Famers, whether that be player, coach, general manager. I’ve seen great leadership at its pinnacle. And I’ve learned a lot. … But I think that’s probably my strongest quality is I’m a leader of men. I don’t shy away from it.”
He said he will stick with Sam Ehlinger at quarterback as he tries to turn around a team that has struggled to a record of 3-5-1.
“Defensively, I would tell you, we’re playing pretty good football,” Ballard said. “Offensively is where we’ve got to make some hay. We’ve not played as well up front as we need to play. You all have been kicking the [stuff] out of me for years for not drafting wideouts. And all of a sudden, I look up and we’re underperforming on the offensive line right now.”
The Colts really never have recovered from the shocking retirement of quarterback Andrew Luck just before the 2019 season. They’ve had a new starter at quarterback each season since then. And now Irsay has resorted to making an in-season coaching change to someone who wasn’t even a coach.
“In 27 years, I never had a quarterback retire on me at age 29 in his prime,” said Irsay, who expressed strong support for Ballard as the team’s GM. “So things change. … You never like to make a [coaching] change, much less during the season. It’s not ideal. But in Chris and I talking, we saw things collapse. And I’ve seen things go from bad to worse. And I thought it was time, and it was necessary to make the change.”
They weren’t particularly sharp but won Thursday night in Houston. The NFL’s only unbeaten team has a long break before Monday night’s matchup at home with the Commanders.
Patrick Mahomes had to throw 68 passes and make some big plays as a runner in the OT triumph Sunday night over the Titans. He’s great. But the Chiefs can’t ask quite that much of him too often.
Kirk Cousins won at FedEx Field, and the Vikings are 7-1. Is it time to believe? It might be getting close. But the Bills and Cowboys are up next on the schedule.
They return from their bye for an interesting game Sunday at Green Bay. The Packers have been dreadful. But can Aaron Rodgers still summon some turn-back-the-clock, on-field magic?
The loss Sunday to the Jets in the Meadowlands was a bit of a problem. Josh Allen’s elbow injury could be a much bigger problem.
No minority interview required
The Colts did not have to comply with the NFL’s requirements to interview minority candidates for a head coaching vacancy. Those rules do not apply to the in-season hiring of an interim coach. Indianapolis will be required to comply in the offseason when it hires a permanent head coach.
“There’s no talk of permanence at this point,” Irsay said Monday. “Right now, it’s an interim head coaching position. And then when the season ends, we will have an interview process, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
Colts fire Frank Reich, name Jeff Saturday interim coach
Irsay defended the Colts’ record of hiring minority coaches such as Tony Dungy and Jim Caldwell.
“There is no problem or perception,” he said, “except some of you guys make a problem or perception. … We’re following the Rooney Rule to a ‘T.’ And I really look forward to an interview process at the end of the season.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance, the diversity group that works closely with the NFL on its minority hiring, said in a statement Monday: “The Rooney Rule is the only universal hiring policy used by the NFL to promote fairness and diversity. However, today’s news in Indianapolis illuminated a gap in the league’s stated objective. If the spirit of the rule is to expand opportunities, we believe that it must be consistently applied, even in the hiring of interim positions.”
If that loss at Detroit wasn’t rock bottom, watch out. That was about as awful as it gets.
Remember when Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray were going to do wonderful things together in the NFL? That seems like such a long time ago now.
The second installment of Josh McDaniels as an NFL head coach is about as unsightly as his first go-round in Denver, at least so far.
Other than that 35-0 halftime deficit, things went pretty well Sunday for the Panthers in Cincinnati.
Maybe sports fans in Houston are too preoccupied with the Astros’ World Series triumph to pay much attention to the ills of their one-win football team. The Texans should hope that’s the case.
The threat of the Ravens
For much of this season, a rematch between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game has felt inevitable. The Bills and Chiefs mostly have done their part to bolster that perception, with matching records of 6-2.
But there are some threats lurking from other AFC contenders. One team that could be among the biggest obstacles for the Bills and Chiefs in January is the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens improved their record to 6-3 with their 27-13 victory Monday night in New Orleans. That sent them into their bye week on a three-game winning streak.
“We feel pretty good,” quarterback Lamar Jackson said afterward. “But the season’s not over. It’s just one week off. … We’ve still got to stay locked in. The season’s ahead of us.”
The Ravens have had a double-digit lead in each game this season, squandering such advantages in their defeats to the Miami Dolphins, Bills and New York Giants. They have an obvious deficiency at wide receiver following Rashod Bateman’s season-ending foot surgery. But they certainly can run the ball, posting eight straight games with at least 150 rushing yards. And their defense became more formidable with the addition of linebacker Roquan Smith in a deal with the Chicago Bears before the trade deadline.
“We feel pretty good. But the season isn’t over.” @Lj_Era8 pic.twitter.com/sXpqD6Iv7G
They’ll return from their bye to play the league’s easiest schedule over the remainder of the season.
“I feel it puts us in a very good, comfortable position right now,” Jackson said. “We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing, stay locked in, keep cleaning up the little details here and there. I feel like the sky’s the limit for us.”
OBJ’s choice
Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. could be nearing a return. Fox reported Sunday that Beckham is expected to be cleared this week as he works his way back from the torn ACL in his left knee that he suffered during the Super Bowl in February while playing for the Los Angeles Rams.
Beckham is a free agent and has been linked to the Bills, Rams, Chiefs, Giants, 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed his interest during his regular radio appearance Tuesday on a Dallas-area station.
“We have all the appreciation in the world for what [Beckham] is as a competitor,” Jones told 105.3 the Fan. “And I know that the Cowboys star on that helmet, when he puts it on, it could look pretty good.” | 2022-11-09T11:14:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL rankings, Jeff Saturday’s chance with Colts, Ravens’ threat, OBJ’s choice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/nfl-rankings-saturday-colts-obj/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/nfl-rankings-saturday-colts-obj/ |
Fat Joe, who has seemingly been a part of every major hip-hop milestone, tells some of the stories from those interactions and exposes some of the trauma of his life in his new autobiography, “The Book of Jose.” (Ivan Barrios)
Fat Joe calls himself the “Forrest Gump of hip-hop.”
His life certainly has been unpredictable like a box of chocolates. The self-applied moniker comes from the rapper and entrepreneur’s uncanny attendance at “priceless” landmark events that shaped hip-hop culture as the genre grew in popularity. It’s a journey he explores in “The Book of Jose,” his memoir, out Nov. 15, which follows Joe from South Bronx street hustler to Grammy-nominated lyricist.
From witnessing the musical “Bridge Wars” rivalry between KRS-One’s Boogie Down Productions and Marley Marl’s Juice Crew as an eager wannabe MC in the ’80s to receiving one of the last phone calls from the Notorious B.I.G. before his untimely death in 1997, Fat Joe provides an encyclopedic collection of one-of-a-kind stories.
The Puerto Rican and Cuban artist, whose real name is Joseph Cartagena, founded the Terror Squad rap collective in the ’90s, which featured artists including Remy Ma, DJ Khaled and the late Big Pun. Although he’s perhaps best known for hits like “Lean Back,” “Make It Rain” and “All the Way Up,” Joe recently told The Washington Post that it was important for him to revisit his failures and traumas to help readers learn “the do’s and don’t’s of life.”
We spoke with Joe about evolving as a storyteller, reinventing himself as a host and protecting freedom of expression for hip-hop artists.
Q: Your book details how your upbringing in the South Bronx is interconnected with the evolution of hip-hop. How did you find yourself at so many key points in hip-hop history?
A: Obviously, I was there the first time people heard Big Pun rap. I was there when Big Daddy Kane brought out Jay-Z for the first time in Manhattan. This was before [they had] records. I was there when the Outsidaz brought out Eminem at Lyricist Lounge and no one even knew who this little skinny White boy was. Same thing when Lord Finesse brought out Big L. Same thing, when Biz Markie brought out Big Daddy Kane. I was at all these events as a fan. These were priceless things.
Post Live: Fat Joe on the future of rap and his efforts to protect artistic expression
Q: You explore a lot of traumatic events in your life, including losing friends to gun violence, bullying, domestic violence, police brutality and coping with depression. How did it feel to revisit these experiences?
A: I wouldn’t say therapeutic because there’s a lot of trauma in my book, in my life. I dealt with depression. A key thing for me is to push out the darkness and go toward the light. I had to go back in there, in the lion’s den, and talk about different moments such as the moment I got the news that my son had Down syndrome, or my mother told me she was diagnosed with cancer, or my best friends dying. It’s just so much trauma in this book that I had to relive.
Q: Your work with the late Puerto Rican rapper Big Pun made waves in the late ’90s and early 2000s. How do you think you two impacted hip-hop as Latino hip-hop artists?
A: You gotta realize at that time reggaeton wasn’t even big. So [Latinos] needed somebody to champion them. We accepted the opportunity and the position representing Latinos. [We’re] proud Latinos. We took it to that level and made sure we represented the Latinos in the right way. We never used the fact that we were Latinos in the rap game as an excuse. We just had to be greater and had to be better, and make bigger hits.
Q: You’ve been working with Jay-Z, Meek Mill, E-40 and others to get laws passed to protect hip-hop artists from having their lyrics used against them as evidence in criminal trials, like with Young Thug and Gunna’s current RICO case. Why is this legal practice dangerous?
A: [Rappers are] just being creative. They’re being artistic. Imagine you grab one of these kids and take a song where they said they robbed a bodega and you put them in jail for the rest of their life saying that that’s real what [they’re] rapping. It’s a very dangerous position for any genre of music — not just rap. Country, anything … This is even bigger than Young Thug and Gunna. This is for everybody. They’re using rap lyrics that kids are doing — their demos and stuff — to jam them up for the rest of their lives. And these kids aren’t even saying the truth. They’re just being creative and using their imagination.
Q: You reinvented yourself during quarantine as a talk-show host on your Instagram Live show where you hosted interviews with guests like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Allen Iverson, talking about everything from the 2020 election to covid. How did this come about?
A: Covid came. I was terrified. I’m prediabetic so I was scared to catch it. I stayed at home for a year and four months, just me, my wife and my daughter. And my daughter one day said, “Hey Dad, you should go on Live.” I didn’t even know what it was. We clicked it on and when we did it everybody came on — thousands of people. And then, the next day, my daughter was like, “Why don’t you do it again?” And by the third, fourth day it became like an Instagram TV show where we was coming on every day at 7 o’clock at night. Everybody was stuck home, so one night I click on, it’s Mike Tyson. One day, I click on, it’s Alicia Keys. One day, I click on, it’s Dr. Fauci. I mean, you name it, they came on the show.
Q: Many rappers and DJs have started their own podcasts or radio shows to discuss current events and interview other artists. Hip-hop artist N.O.R.E. recently drew criticism for not taking Kanye West to task when Ye shared antisemitic remarks about Jewish people and false comments about George Floyd on N.O.R.E’s podcast. As a host yourself, what responsibility do hip-hop artists with an interview platform have to hold guests accountable?
A: N.O.R.E.’s definitely a journalist. He’s just a, like, “fun time” journalist. His platform’s one of the biggest platforms on Earth: “Drink Champs.” N.O.R.E.’s talking about having a good time, having fun. I think he just wasn’t prepared for the type of stuff that Kanye said on there. I just don’t think that was the right place for both of them. There’s been many times people have come on [my show] and start[ed] talking about something and I’ll be like “Yo, yo, yo, chill.” I actually protect the artists. “Chill. Nah. That ain’t it. Not here.”
Q: What will the format be for your interview show on Starz?
A: It’s going to be more personal. It’s going to be more going into people’s homes. I want to interview Drake on his plane. I want to get lost with [DJ] Khaled on a Jet Ski somewhere in Miami and interview him on a dune or something. I want to get Kendrick Lamar. I want to walk through Compton with him and him show me where he grew up and all that. I want to take it there. Anthony Bourdain-slash-“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” They joke around and they called me “Joprah,” but I really want to be Joprah Winfrey of 2022.
Q: Who do you envision playing you in the TV version of “The Book of Jose?”
A: I think it [will] be a newcomer. Somebody we’ve never seen before. He’s obviously fat with green eyes. All the heavyset men with green eyes — get ready. | 2022-11-09T11:23:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fat Joe on his new memoir, his hip-hop legacy and why rap is art - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/09/fat-joe-book-jose-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/09/fat-joe-book-jose-interview/ |
Johnny Depp’s 40-second cameo in Rihanna’s fashion show eclipsed the event
Johnny Depp testifies in April during the trial over his defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard. (Steve Helber/AP)
The whole thing takes up about 40 seconds in a special lasting as many minutes, but Depp’s very inclusion in “Vol. 4” set off days of outrage in the lead-up to its Wednesday release on Prime Video. The 59-year-old actor has been a polarizing presence these days, the ire toward him stemming from ex-wife Amber Heard’s allegations that he abused her throughout the course of their relationship, which ended in 2016. | 2022-11-09T11:23:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Johnny Depp’s 40-second cameo in Rihanna’s fashion show eclipsed the event - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/09/johnny-depp-rihanna-savage-fenty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/09/johnny-depp-rihanna-savage-fenty/ |
Review by Kai Bird
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. (John Rous/AP)
On Oct. 7, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson’s longtime aide Walter Jenkins walked into the YMCA near the White House after a party at the Newsweek magazine office and had sex in the bathroom with a homeless Army veteran. The vice squad arrested Jenkins, booked him and released him. A week later, the story made headlines on the eve of the presidential election that pitted Johnson against Republican Barry Goldwater. By then, a near-suicidal Jenkins had checked into George Washington University Hospital and the Republicans were “punching hard,” writes Beverly Gage in “G-Man,” her masterful account of the life and controversial career of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The Goldwater campaign demanded to know if Jenkins’s conduct had compromised national security. Forced to act, Johnson ordered Hoover, his old friend and onetime neighbor, to investigate the scandal. Hoover was annoyed. This was politics, and for decades he had tried to insulate the FBI from partisan politics. But he did what he was told to do by his president.
It turned out that Jenkins, the father of six children, had been arrested in the same bathroom five years earlier. Johnson was astonished that Jenkins could have hidden his proclivities. Hoover was not. He thought such temptations were commonplace. Four days into the investigation he told Johnson that Jenkins had been under enormous stress and required medical attention. The FBI chief had already sent a bouquet of flowers to Jenkins’s hospital room. Attached was a sympathy card wishing him a speedy recovery. “With less than two weeks to go before the election,” Gage writes, “Hoover issued a report absolving Jenkins of any national security violations,” and on Election Day, Johnson rolled to victory in one of the nation’s biggest presidential landslides.
“G-Man” is a very sad story. Hoover’s highest ideal was the nonpartisan public servant, dedicated to burnishing the notion that the federal government was a force for good. And yet by the ’60s, Gage shows, Hoover’s reactionary instincts prevailed, and his actions helped to sow distrust of the federal government from both the right and the left. In the end, he was a “confused, sometimes lonely man.” Gage concludes, “We cannot know our own story without understanding his, in all its high aspiration and terrible cruelty, and in its many human contradictions.”
This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography.
J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century | 2022-11-09T11:23:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/edgar-hoover-book-gage-fbi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/edgar-hoover-book-gage-fbi/ |
Economies are growing rapidly across the developing world, which is producing a dramatic increase in energy demand. A central challenge facing leaders at COP27 this week is how to meet that growing demand — and deliver electricity to the nearly 1 billion people who still lack it — while also phasing out the power source that is a primary driver of climate change and a major cause of sickness and disease: coal plants.
Meeting the challenge will require enormous amounts of new public and private capital to finance clean energy projects. If we hope to win the fight against climate change, the best estimates indicate that by 2030, which will arrive before we know it, global investment in clean energy must be at least four times investment in fossil fuels and gradually take over, with much of that investment directed to the developing world. Right now, we’re nowhere near that level.
But there’s reason to be hopeful, because businesses and investors increasingly recognize the risks of inaction — and the opportunities that the clean-energy transition presents. For instance: Through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, more than 550 firms in some 50 countries have committed to cutting emissions across their portfolios to net zero. But they often don’t have the data they need to fulfill those commitments. And their will to invest in developing countries often runs up against perceived risks, antiquated policies and lack of investment-ready projects.
These problems are largely fixable, and this week Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies are contributing, in different ways, to three steps that can yield important progress, all of them centered on an idea at the heart of managing nearly any problem: data transparency.
First, with a collection of partners that includes Mark Gallogly’s Three Cairns Group, we launched a new effort to standardize and strengthen voluntary carbon markets, which are beset with issues. Right now, companies that wish to offset their fossil fuel use can buy carbon credits from organizations that promise to reduce emissions through new clean power installations, reforestation or other projects.
But the buying and selling of these credits takes place in the shadows. Prices aren’t standardized. Projects often don’t deliver what they promise. Buyers can’t be sure what they’re getting is real, and sellers can’t be held accountable.
A legitimate, credible and efficient market for carbon offsets would be a powerful way to drive more capital to projects that cut emissions or prevent them from happening — and so we are bringing together a global group of leaders across government, business, academia and nonprofits to create it. Through an oversight body we’ll launch, called the Global Carbon Trust, contracts will be standardized, commitments will be monitored, bad actors will be flagged, and data will be publicly accessible. All of this will help to bring more transparency and accountability to carbon markets, attracting more capital to projects that cut emissions.
A second major initiative we helped launch at COP27 will use the same building blocks — transparency, data and standardization — to bring more investment to green infrastructure projects. We’ll help lead implementation of a labeling system for infrastructure projects, like the LEED ratings for buildings, that will allow investors to see whether they meet sustainability criteria. The labeling system will encompass all kinds of essential infrastructure, from electricity transmission grids to wastewater treatment and management facilities to transportation networks and data centers.
The labeling system can help speed up global progress on climate change by driving more capital to green infrastructure projects. Along with partners at the Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation, we will help design the criteria for the system and collect the data on different infrastructure projects and assets, so that investors can easily compare them.
A third step forward we took at COP was to announce, in partnership with French President Emmanuel Macron, recommendations for a new data portal that will bring together corporate climate data in one place, and make it comparable and consistent. Right now, we have very little data about how much emissions individual companies are responsible for, and what data we do have is not publicly accessible. The data portal, which we are working with governments and data service providers to create, will help fix that, empowering investors to make informed decisions, giving them leverage to push companies to act faster, and allowing the public and policymakers to hold companies accountable for fulfilling the promises they’ve made.
These three data transparency initiatives will help accelerate private investment in clean energy, especially in the developing world, where hundreds of coal plants are still on the drawing boards. We know that it’s possible to phase out coal by expanding access to clean, affordable power. In the US, the Sierra Club campaign we have strongly supported, called Beyond Coal, has helped to close 68% of coal plants over the last decade and put more than half of Europe’s on course for retirement, too.
At COP27, we announced plans to build on this work and expand it to more countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. As part of that effort, we’ll help governments and business work closely together to change policies that favor fossil fuels, identify potential clean energy projects, and make them attractive to investors.
Bringing clean energy to scale at the speed we need is the battle of our time. With the right data, and close partnerships across society, we can win. | 2022-11-09T11:23:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Data Can Unleash Massive New Green Investment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/data-can-unleash-massive-new-green-investment/2022/11/09/159a7b92-6016-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/data-can-unleash-massive-new-green-investment/2022/11/09/159a7b92-6016-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The strategy known as ESG investing has grown by leaps and bounds – and landed in hot water. Its focus on environmental factors, social issues and questions of corporate governance had always attracted people drawn to progressive causes, as well as fund managers drawn to the above-average returns it’s generated. But in the US, that association with liberalism has triggered a backlash from Republican Party politicians, with efforts underway in about 20 states to rein in ESG. At the same time, states led by Democratic Party officials have been pushing the other way, joined by activists who are quick to call out anything they see as ESG backsliding. | 2022-11-09T11:23:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Everything You Need to Know About ESG Investing And the Backlash to It - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/everything-you-need-to-know-about-esg-investing-and-the-backlash-to-it/2022/11/09/595bc328-6015-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/everything-you-need-to-know-about-esg-investing-and-the-backlash-to-it/2022/11/09/595bc328-6015-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
At COP27, coalition aims to tap private funds for energy transition
Plan would generate about $100 billion to help developing countries shift away from fossil fuels
Tim Puko
John F. Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, speaks during an event on the sidelines of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt on Nov. 8. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)
A group of major philanthropies and companies joined with the White House on Wednesday to float a new carbon trading system that would funnel money from private businesses to developing countries in assisting the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Seeking to tap private money for a transition that wealthy governments have refused to finance, the group hopes to lure more than $100 billion by the end of the decade, cutting as much as 1.3 billion to 2.3 billion tons of climate pollution, according to the consulting firm Climate Advisers.
The coalition, which includes White House climate envoy John F. Kerry, unveiled its plan at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, known as COP27. At this contentious summit, developing countries have lambasted wealthy nations for not helping to rescue them from the worst impacts of a warming planet.
While more details will be revealed at COP27, the coalition is talking about a scale of emissions reductions that many climate scientists would find impressive. If the group could eliminate 2.3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, it would be about the equivalent of the annual output of India, according to Climate Advisers.
Mirroring other climate markets, the plan might allow trading of carbon emissions. Private companies, for instance, could finance the energy transition of small countries, and then earn “credits” that would give them time to finance their own transitions. The offsets would be inspected by an international standard board and corporations could buy them, thus pumping substantial amounts of money into developing countries for the cost of the transition to a cleaner economy.
Some of the funds might go to grant-like, concessionary lending — at low interest rates — and generate billions for international climate adaptation.
Nigel Purvis, the chief executive of Climate Advisers and a 25-year veteran of U.S. climate diplomacy, described this investment as “capital that leverages other capital and helps de-risk these investments.” He hailed Kerry, a former secretary of state, for “beginning a conversation.”
Starting in December, Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation will provide the initial resources to finance a development team and meetings to develop this new carbon credit market. Kerry said the program should be running by the start of COP28 a year from now.
Until then, the outlines are fuzzy.
“This is a plan to create a process to see how this can work, how voluntary markets might help reduce fossil fuels and develop renewables,” said Kelley Kizzier, director of corporate action and markets at the Bezos Earth Fund. Kizzier said she was first contacted about six months ago.
A new design for carbon markets would come alongside other existing groups including the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (VCMI), the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), and the World Bank Group.
A trading system could appeal to many African leaders. Officials from Nigeria, which has about 280 megawatts of coal-fired power plants, are expected to be on the stage during the announcement.
Environmental groups are skeptical about corporations playing such a large role in financing the energy transitions. Kerry doesn’t share that view.
In a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations on Oct. 25, Kerry said: “One of the things that, frankly, excites me the most about this road we’re on is the promise of the private sector to accelerate and scale new clean technologies. They are critical to a future that doesn’t demand sacrifice, but instead promises prosperity.” | 2022-11-09T11:24:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At COP27, coalition aims to tap private funds for energy transition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/cop27-coalition-aims-tap-private-funds-energy-transition/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/cop27-coalition-aims-tap-private-funds-energy-transition/ |
Jru Anthony, son of a go-go legend, finds his groove in the gray areas
Jru Anthony is performing at Union Stage this month. (Melascension Music)
Romantic relationships are tricky, no matter your age, a difficulty that is more outsize during the teenage years. That “will they, won’t they” energy animates the debut album by 19-year-old singer-songwriter Jru Anthony, “Life for Now.”
“I was going through some situations with a particular person, when you’re in that weird space where you don’t know if you are going to go all the way and be a couple or stay friends, like the gray area in between,” he says. “A lot of the songs are about that gray area.”
Anthony proves that he has something to say and the skill to say it across “Life for Now,” turning that gray area into a Technicolor soundscape that spans the funk-soul spectrum. From the shimmering four-on-the-floor groove of “Move On” to the country twang and slide on acoustic closer “Fouram,” the album is full of Anthony’s slick vocals, elastic bass lines, synth flourishes and undeniable rhythms.
Born and raised in D.C., Anthony began his musical exploits by making songs on his phone and by mimicking his favorite rappers over beats mined from YouTube. But unlike most DIY songsmiths, he had the benefit of having a working musician as a father: Anthony is the son of Frank “Scooby” Sirius, a go-go legend who played with Chuck Brown and has been described as the “godson of go-go.”
“I’ve been getting guidance [from my father] basically my whole life,” says Anthony, who recalls first being brought onstage by his father when he was just 2 years old.
While go-go isn’t in the sonic mix on “Life for Now,” the scene’s approach to live music brings Anthony’s take on contemporary soul music to life. Perhaps that’s because he’s been able to learn not just from teaching moments but by observation, from the wings or the crowd, about what it takes to make a life and career in music.
“It’s never like he’s pushing me away from it or anything,” he says, adding that “friendly competition” between generations is pretty regular, too.
For now, Anthony is focused on bringing “Life for Now” to new audiences, in the District and beyond. After that, who knows? The title, he explains, is an optimistic nod to the impermanence of the stories captured in these songs.
“My life is like this right now, but come five months from now, I won’t be the same,” he says. “I’ve got to look ahead to that, and for better times.”
Opening for Leven Kali on Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. at Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. unionstage.com. $20. | 2022-11-09T11:24:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jru Anthony's 'Life for Now' is full of undeniable rhythms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/09/jru-anthony-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/09/jru-anthony-interview/ |
Elected officials are being threatened and attacked. We’re tracking that.
Our new ongoing longitudinal study is the first to systematically evaluate such incidents across the United States. Here’s what we’re finding.
Analysis by Joel Day
Michael Loadenthal
Sheriff Paul Penzone speaks as election officials and law enforcement hold a news conference to warn against "false election narratives" at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors building ahead of midterm elections in Phoenix on Monday. (Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
This week, while midterm votes are being counted, few observers would be surprised if someone attacks election officials. As many have observed, threats and harassment against elected officials and their families have increased dramatically over the past several years, including the recent violent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In Arizona, a judge restricted armed groups that had intimidated voters as they deposited ballots in drop boxes. State and local public officials have endured doxing, armed protests at their homes, personal and online threats, vandalism, and, of course, actual violence. Though few Americans say they support political violence, threats and harassment against elected officials are straining U.S. democracy.
But exactly how common have such threats against local public officials become? Without the answer, analysis and understanding are difficult. To help further public understanding, we have begun tracking that data systematically. We hope this empirical lens will provide greater insight so that policymakers, local leaders and others can craft mitigation strategies to support officials and their communities.
Introducing the Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD)
To create Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative’s new Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD), we evaluated tens of thousands of news sources with a targeted LexisNexis search string and combined data from partners such as Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), National League of Cities, Brennan Center and Prosecution Project. We define “threats” as instances in which one person communicates to another an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage or other hostile action. We define “harassment” as instances of knowing and willful conduct that a reasonable person would consider aggressively pressuring, intimidating, alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing, but stopping short of assault. We include both criminal and noncriminal incidents of threat and harassment.
Ours is the first ongoing longitudinal study that systematically evaluates such incidents across the United States using event-based, public data. As of this writing, we have recorded 400 cases across 43 states occurring since January 2020, all occurring at the local level. Moving forward, we will scale up tracking to include all local, state and federal incidents, using the same methodology.
Since there has been a limited amount of public reporting on threats faced by local officials, we are likely undercounting cases, particularly online threats. Local officials — especially women, racial and religious minorities — may often face additional targeting if they publicly report incidents. As our initial data collection relies on media reports, the undercounting is a known limitation. Reporting probably falters particularly with what are called “lawful but awful” cases, in which threats do not cross the line into crimes. Since law enforcement officers don’t take action on such cases, there’s little incentive for officials or the media to report publicly, and no prosecution to follow up on.
Who is being threatened?
To date, we have focused on election, education and health officials. We found that a plurality of threats targeted election officials or poll workers (35 percent), followed by school officials (31 percent), other locally elected or appointed officials (21 percent), and health officials (12 percent), as you can see in the figure below.
Women were targeted in nearly 43 percent of incidents, although the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics reports that women make up only 30.5 percent of officeholders. Given that figure, we estimate that women are targeted up to 3.4 times more often than men, which is consistent with others’ findings on sexualized and gendered threats against women in politics.
Of the 400 cases in our data, 40 percent were related to elections, 30 percent to education, and 29 percent to public health, overwhelmingly covid-19. About 34 percent of all the threats mentioned death and gun violence; these spiked during November 2020 and January 2021, during and immediately after the presidential election and congressional certification of the results, and in August 2021, as officials issued coronavirus pandemic mandates for public schools. One such death threat arrived in Philadelphia in December 2020, as an email to City Commissioner Al Schmidt’s wife. With the subject line “Albert RINO Schmidt, committed treason,” the email warned that Schmidt should “tell the truth” or their three kids would be “fatally shot,” and then mentioned their children’s ages and address. The email was signed “Q.” Schmidt and his family were forced to leave their home and live under 24-hour police protection.
The education-related incidents mainly involved pandemic policies (61 percent), followed by “critical race theory” (7 percent) and LGBTQ issues (7 percent). Some of these also involved threats of violence. For instance, on June 14, 2021, a Brainerd, Minn., resident told School Board members that critical race theory was “demonic” and warned he would “dump hot coals” on all their heads.
What does this mean for voting and election officials?
While American election systems are safe and fair, according to numerous studies, unfounded claims of election fraud both discourage voting and undermine election officials’ work. We found incidents of threats or harassment targeting election officials or poll workers across 21 states, accounting for 34 percent of all incidents tracked. States that had the highest percentage of reported incidents targeting election officials include Pennsylvania (16 percent), Georgia (14 percent), Michigan (13 percent), Wisconsin (10 percent) and Arizona (6 percent). Combined, these swing states — and states with high levels of false election fraud claims — account for 59 percent of all threats or harassment incidents.
These findings align with the FBI’s recent warning that identifies heightened risk in the same states, based on direct reports from election officials. Fortunately, many of these states have robust safeguards for voters and election workers to deter aggressive electioneering, intimidation and the presence of firearms at polling locations.
THD is a “living” data set. We plan to expand the federation of civil society organizations and researchers tracking and reporting incidents. As we continue, we will analyze state and federal targets, release additional demographic information about threat targets, and examine the results of measures put in place to reduce threats.
Threats and harassment against local officials discourage Americans from getting involved in public service, undermine the work of those in public positions, and strain elections, education and public safety. All these endanger democratic stability. We hope that the Threats and Harassment Dataset helps those making evidence-based decisions to protect civic spaces.
Joel Day, PhD, is the research director of Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative.
Aleena Khan is a PhD candidate in political science the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and associate policy researcher at Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative.
Michael Loadenthal, PhD, is the executive director of the Prosecution Project and a research team lead at Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative.
Louisiana officials discuss Election Day hiccups, portal failure
10:30 AMPalin reserves judgment on Alaska election integrity, sees no way to work with Biden
10:05 AMNashville voters ‘upset’ after errors with early-voting ballots | 2022-11-09T11:24:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How often are U.S. public officials threatened or harassed? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/elected-officials-threats-attacks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/elected-officials-threats-attacks/ |
Nikita Bier in Los Angeles on November 2, 2022. (Photos by Linnea Bullion for The Washington Post)
The Gas app lets high schoolers to send praise to each other, but a hoax has left the company facing violent threats and working overtime to save their platform. It’s not the first time this has happened.
He liked the positive messages he received from friends through the app, called Gas, especially the ones about the way he dressed, since it was something he put effort into. “It’s very validating,” he said.
Millions of teenagers across America agreed. Since its debut in Apple’s app store in late August, Gas has been downloaded over 5.1 million times. Teenagers post about it on meme pages and their private Snapchat stories.
Self saw the rise of the app first hand. Nearly overnight, every single person at his school seemed to have Gas. “It was crazy, it was like a light switch, it was so fast. I’d never heard of [Gas] one day, then literally everyone I knew had it and was posting about it,” he said.
A week before Halloween, Self was huddled with some classmates before school, phones out, comparing compliments on Gas, when a friend of theirs walked over. “You know, that app is for sex trafficking,” the friend told them in a nervous voice. “You shouldn’t have that, you really need to delete it.” Panicked, students at the school began deleting it en masse.
has never been linked to any form of human trafficking, and the app’s very structure makes it impossible, experts say. The app has limited features, doesn’t track users’ locations and can’t be used to message someone. It’s a basic polling platform that allows users to vote anonymously on preset compliments to send to mutual connections.
It’s the latest example of a troubling pattern: A buzzy, consumer-facing app becomes an overnight hit, only to be beset by rumors that it’s a front for sex trafficking. It happened in May 2016 to the social app Down To Lunch, in 2018 to IRL, a social app that helps users plan in-person meetups and, in 2021, to WalkSafe, an app designed to help women gauge the safety of neighborhoods.
An internet rumor takes hold
Nikita Bier, 33, was initially over the moon about his app’s success. It was the second hit app for the young entrepreneur. Bier previously build and sold an app called TBH, internet slang for “to be honest,” that allowed people to send positive feedback to friends. Bier sold it to Facebook in 2017, then spent four years at Facebook before leaving last November to dive back into the start-up world.
He decided to take what he’d learned from running TBH and build a new, similar platform. The result was Gas, (initially named Melt, then Crush), which he co-founded with tech entrepreneurs Isaiah Turner and Dave Schatz. Bier also brought on Michael Gutierrez, who formerly worked at TBH as head of community support. The app launched publicly on Aug. 29.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he tweeted on Oct. 11, “after a 5-year hiatus, I am no longer a one-hit wonder. Introducing Gas — No. 1 in the U.S. App Store” The app’s success garnered a deluge of positive press. “To us, being at No. 1 is a vote of confidence that we’re doing something right for teens,” Bier told the Wall Street Journal.
But controversy was already brewing. On Oct. 5, the company received its first strange message: a user was concerned because they’d heard the app was linked to human trafficking. Bier and the team initially brushed it off, but within days dozens, then hundreds of messages began to pour in. “We started getting flooded on the app store with bad reviews,” Bier said.
“If you have this app, delete it NOW!” one app store review read. “This app is meant for trafficking children, almost 30 kids have gone missing.”
“This app is sex trafficking teenagers and kids,” read another review. “Over 50 kids have gone missing in Ohio.”
The rumor ricocheted across the internet. Teenagers posted videos on TikTok and Snapchat saying the app was trafficking minors. Parents began warning other parents. On Oct. 31, the Piedmont, Okla., police department issued a statement warning parents about the app and encouraging them to check their kids’ phones. The police department’s post received hundreds of shares on Facebook. “That posting was the result of a post that was forwarded to us, which we later learned to be a bogus posting,” said Piedmont Police Chief Scott Singer. “As a result, we talked with the CEO of Gas, and we have determined it was a bogus posting. We have removed that from our Facebook page and informed the schools that any postings about that were discovered to be false.”
The Oktaha Public School system in Oklahoma posted an announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday claiming the Gas app tricks students into giving away their locations. “Children are being kidnapped in other towns and this new app is thought to be the source of predators finding their location,” the Facebook post read. After Bier reached out, explaining his app, the post was removed. “We’ve confirmed that this was a hoax and we removed it,” said Jerry Needham, superintendent for the Oktaha school district.
Local media also latched onto the hoax. KOCO 5 News in Oklahoma City ran a segment claiming that the app could be a danger to children and falsely claiming that Gas tricks children into sharing their information. “Police claim children are being kidnapped in other towns and the app could be to blame,” the reporter said on air. After Bier asked them to correct the record, a reporter noted on air that the police had retracted their statement and the Gas app team “believes their app is safe.” KOCO 5 News did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Death threats and sinking ratings
The baseless claims started to have a serious effect on Gas’s business. Bier said on one day, 3 percent of the apps’ users deleted their accounts. During the weeks of Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, as the rumor gained traction, downloads plateaued, according to data from SensorTower.
Gas’ social channels have been spammed day and night by users calling the team sex traffickers. The company’s revenue, dependent on subscriptions and in-app purchases, plummeted. Currently, when a user searches “Gas app” on Google, they’re served auto complete suggestions including “Gas app kidnapping” “Gas app dangerous” and “Gas app human trafficking,”
The four-person Gas app team has been subjected to violent threats almost daily. “One user said, ‘I have a Glock and I’ll come into your house and kill all of you,’” Bier said. “The messages are very detailed and they’ll send like 150 of these messages because they’re so angry. We have had emails saying, ‘what you’re doing is disgusting and I’ve reported you to the FBI.’ We get countless messages every day from users about it.” The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Countering the rumor has become nearly a full-time job for Bier. “The app grows on its own, but dealing with the hoax requires a lot of labor,” he said. He stays up until midnight every night, when the app store refreshes, and tries to respond to the barrage of reviews slandering his company.
The company has tried nearly everything to combat the misinformation proactively. It sent push notifications to every user about safety and built a safety center with information and resources about the platform. Bier’s girlfriend even posted a video to on TikTok debunking the sex-trafficking claim, which the company shared to its TikTok page.
Human trafficking survivor and advocate Eliza Bleu attempted to swat down the conspiracy theories on Twitter. On Oct. 20, the actor and investor Ashton Kutcher, who is not an investor in Gas but co-founded Thorn, a nonprofit that builds digital tools to defend children from sexual abuse and fight child sex trafficking, posted “Gas app is not involved in trafficking humans.”
“We originally thought, who would believe this? This doesn’t make any sense,” said Bier. “The challenge is that you can only fight memes with memes. If it’s not easily screenshottable and exciting it’s not going to get more visibility than the original message.”
A ‘crisis of trust’
What Bier and his team are up against is something much bigger than just a silly rumor, said Whitney Phillip, an assistant professor of digital platforms and ethics at the University of Oregon. Since the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory — precursor to the QAnon movement — took hold in 2016, false claims of sex trafficking have been rampant. “The broad based narrative of children in danger is really pervasive culturally right now,” she said.
“To understand why this particular app is being targeted,” Phillip said, “you have to understand that the most present and visible narrative is that nefarious groups are doing terrible things to children. It becomes an easy way to direct attacks against any individual or organization.”
“The whole idea that there’s this nefarious ring of groomers and sex traffickers is a viral idea in the zeitgeist,” said Emily Dreyfuss, co-author of Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America. “Everyone is really nervous about what’s going on with their kids, what they’re up to and what they’re exposed to. Then comes this app that’s viral only among youngsters, and parents and teachers don’t understand it at all. It’s the perfect conditions to create a moral panic.”
That panic can spread especially fast in today’s media climate. Several Gas users who spoke to The Post said they didn’t even consider Googling to see if the claims about Gas were true before sharing the sex-trafficking rumor. The ones who did Google said they didn’t trust the mainstream news articles that said it was a hoax.
“What we have is a crisis of trust. A lot of people see a fact check and don’t trust the media doing the fact checking,” said Ziad Ahmed, founder and CEO of JUV Consulting, a Gen Z research and marketing firm.
Bier's peers in the industry recommended he seek out a crisis PR team to help navigate the crisis, but Bier said it would be “useless” because almost no one understands the modern media landscape young people are living in.
“There’s no way to combat that with press,” he said. “There’s no channel for the message to get distributed because [teenagers] are not reading the legacy news.”
Self said he was skeptical of the sex-trafficking rumor from the start, but he recognized why many of his classmates wouldn’t be. “The thing is that boomers will believe everything they see on Facebook, but people born in my generation will believe anything they see on TikTok,” he said. “They won’t verify it at all, they won’t Google it, they see it and they don’t question it a little bit.”
“I think it should be something that’s more encouraged if not outright taught in school, media literacy,” said Self. “A lot of [people] don’t know how to learn things and how to distinguish rumors from fact.”
“It’s really uncomfortable to compliment people, to open up to people,” he said. “I think it’s really sad that there are so many amazing things about all of us that go unstated our entire lives until our eulogy. I think this app provides a channel to do that in a way that feels safe and anonymous.” | 2022-11-09T11:25:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No, the Gas app is not for human trafficking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/09/debunking-gap-app-sex-trafficking-rumor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/09/debunking-gap-app-sex-trafficking-rumor/ |
You need to play as much as 4.5 hours of pickleball a week to meet the recommended weekly guidelines for moderate exercise
Ben Johns goes after the ball during a men’s pro singles match during the Professional Pickleball Association Baird Wealth Management Open in Mason, Ohio, in September. (Arden S. Barnes for The Washington Post)
Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States, and people — including teenage prodigies and Hollywood celebrities — can’t seem to get enough.
If you’re counting steps, the study showed you will collect relatively few during an hour of pickleball, about half as many as during an average, hour-long brisk walk.
And while the game reached a vigorous level of activity a respectable 30 percent of the time for many players, it may not provide as much physical challenge for people who are young or already in good shape.
Pickleball, played with a paddle and perforated polymer ball, combines elements of tennis, badminton, table tennis and racquetball. Pickleball players compete in a smaller space than tennis players; up to four pickleball courts can fit on a standard tennis court. A match is played best two out of three games and each game can last 15 to 25 minutes. People of all ages play it, but the sport has long been associated with seniors and retirees after three men in Washington state invented it in 1965.
They warmed up by walking or jogging around the courts for three minutes at an intensity they felt was “moderate” and then practiced hitting various pickleball shots for 2 to 5 minutes before game play. The game play lasted for at least an hour, with 22 of them playing singles, and the rest playing doubles. The time included short breaks if participants needed to rotate off a court and wait for the next available court.
The study found that based on accelerometer data showing step counts, players averaged 3,322 steps per hour, and about 80 percent of singles pickleball play was of moderate intensity. (The rest was light intensity.)
But players’ heart rate readings indicated both singles and doubles competition might be providing more of a workout than the step counts showed, said Sandra Webber, the principal investigator and lead author of the study, and an associate professor in the department of physical therapy at the University of Manitoba. Webber calls herself a “pickleball enthusiast” and at age 54 plays three to four times a week.
During singles and doubles play, many of the men’s and women’s heart rates reached about 111 beats per minute, a level that would put older people into the moderate-exercise range, Webber said. The mean heart rate of the participants also reached about 70 percent of maximum predicted heart rate for both singles and doubles players, which meets the definition of moderate activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Both singles and doubles pickleball players spent about 40 percent of their time in the moderate heart rate intensity zone, roughly 30 percent in light activity and about 30 percent in the vigorous zone, suggesting that with enough playing time, players could reach recommended activity goals.
“I would say that 70 percent of the time that people were on the court, they were getting exercise that would count toward their 150 minutes per week,” Webber said. “Based on our results, if people play pickleball for four and a half hours a week, then they would meet their physical activity guidelines.”
Michael Joyner, a professor of anesthesiology and physiology at the Mayo Clinic who was not involved in the study, said he found the heart rate responses most meaningful and would emphasize it over the accelerometer data. The study probably confirms “what your hunches would be," he said, “that you get somewhere between the upper end of moderate to the lower end of vigorous physical activity,” during pickleball.
Ben Johns, 23, of Gaithersburg, Md., the world No. 1 ranked Professional Pickleball Association player for men’s singles and doubles, said pickleball has more sudden movements and less downtime than tennis.
“Generally in tennis, you might be sprinting to the ball occasionally, but most of the time, you kind of know where the ball is going and you’re moving at a pace that’s not instantaneous,” unlike in pickleball, Johns said. Also, the courts are smaller in pickleball and the sport often requires quick points near the net, he added.
But pickleball is not for everyone. As the sport grows, so do injuries. Webber said that tendon pain in elbows, widely known as “tennis elbow,” is a common injury for pickleball players. She added that “there have been some very serious eye injuries with getting hit, usually with a ball but also potentially with your partner’s paddle in the eye.”
“Most people once they try it, they kind of get hooked," she said. | 2022-11-09T11:25:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is pickleball a good exercise? Yes, and no. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/09/is-pickleball-good-exercise/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/09/is-pickleball-good-exercise/ |
In his memoir, Benjamin Netanyahu glides through his life story
Review by Jane Eisner
Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, wave to supporters in Jerusalem during his campaign for prime minister in 1996. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
When Benjamin Netanyahu was ousted from power in 2021, ending an extraordinary reign as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, he did what so many political leaders do when they leave office, willingly or not. He wrote a memoir.
“Bibi: My Story” was written in longhand over nine months and was scheduled to be published in English and Hebrew in November. But when the most recent Israeli elections — the fifth in less than four years — were set for Nov. 1, the tome, weighing in at more than 650 pages of text, was published instead in mid-October, quickly finding a spot on many bestseller lists.
In the latest election, Netanyahu accomplished what few of his peers ever could: He won what passes in Israel as a resounding victory, granting him the opportunity to become prime minister for a third time. And rather than reading like a typical self-serving retrospective, a classic bid for immortality, his memoir now becomes a reintroduction to a man who has rarely been out of the public eye for a quarter-century — and a challenge to those searching for more than a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing narrative.
For balance and a fuller picture of the man, it is necessary to look beyond Netanyahu’s own reflections. That’s why we turn to biography. A biographer applying a skeptical, nuanced eye to the life of a consequential figure such as Netanyahu often fills in context missing from a memoir. As the Indian biographer Ramachandra Guha has noted, a memoir, especially by a politician, is always a defensive exercise, but a “biographer is an artist under oath.”
Reading Netanyahu’s reminiscences alongside the evenhanded 2018 biography “Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu,” by the respected Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer, reveals Netanyahu’s genius at reframing his own story.
Netanyahu’s many fans, arguably even more on the American right than among the Israeli public, will relish the way he shapes his life story as a unique, uncompromising — and much-maligned — defender of Israel as a Jewish state against its many enemies, domestic and foreign. His detractors may see the swagger and self-delusion that have propelled his success at driving Israel ever further from its democratic roots.
In Netanyahu’s telling, two men and one woman have played consequential roles in his fate: his older brother, Yoni; his brilliant, hardcore father, Benzion; and his third wife, Sara. These figures provide the guiding principles of his ideology and his methodology as a political leader.
The generally simplistic way they course through his memoir at times seems more Hallmark than historical, more like caricatures than believable human beings. Netanyahu the writer glides over the tensions and complexities in his relationship with his brother and father, and glosses over the foundational strain in his marriage. The portraits exist to promote a vision of himself as a humble family man destined to lead not only the state of Israel but the entire Jewish people, when the reality is far more convoluted — and interesting.
His memoir opens with Yoni, the oldest of Benzion and Cela’s three sons, whom Bibi — the middle child — revered and adored, and whose 1976 death during a daring Israeli rescue of passengers from a hijacked airplane that had been forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda, has become the stuff of legend. “Yoni’s sacrifice and example helped me overcome inconsolable grief, thrust me into a public battle against terrorism, and led me to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister,” Netanyahu declares.
He published a book of Yoni’s letters and led a conference on terrorism created in Yoni’s name, which convened twice and enabled Netanyahu to associate with a growing number of Western conservative politicians and activists, keeping alive his connection with a brother whose heroic dimensions only seemed to expand over time.
In his biography, Pfeffer shows how Bibi took full advantage of the mythologization of Yoni, writing that “no other Israeli soldier has ever been accorded anything like the praise and commemoration that Yoni Netanyahu has received. Over the decades, the Yoni project intensified as his brother Bibi became a powerful politician. Local council leaders discovered that the way to his heart was naming a street or school after his fallen brother.” And those who weren’t Yoni loyalists eventually were shunned.
This despite the fact that another, independent biographer hired by the Netanyahu family reached the conclusion that Yoni — who was 30 at the time of his death, divorced, lonely and by his own admission deeply troubled — was disliked by many of his men and was hounded by his father’s unrelenting expectations. Others at the scene have disputed the Netanyahu version of events that fateful day.
As Pfeffer relates, Yoni was accused of acting against orders by opening fire on Ugandan soldiers, exposing himself to return fire that probably killed him. His family insists he was killed by the German commander of the hijackers. Pfeffer concludes that the creation of the latter scenario suggests “to some that the family felt that being felled by an ‘inferior’ African soldier was somehow a lesser way to die.”
Whatever the truth, Bibi surely cannot be faulted for idolizing Yoni even more in death than in life. But the adulation makes no room for ambiguity — and that says as much about the surviving brother as it does about the dead one.
Similarly, there’s no room for ambiguity in his depiction of their father, Benzion, a scholar of medieval Jewish history and, in Bibi’s eyes, a brilliant, prescient and (again) often maligned activist on behalf of Zionism and the Jewish state. The elder Netanyahu eschewed compromise, believing that Arabs would never, ever accept Jews and that the only way to prevent another Holocaust was through unmitigated strength and assiduous wooing of supportive publics and political leaders.
He is rightly credited with helping to persuade the Republican and Democratic parties to support the establishment of a Jewish state in their 1944 platforms. This breakthrough was achieved, Netanyahu writes, “not by cowing to anti-Zionism but by standing up to it.” He continues: “My father was thus one of the de facto progenitors of America’s bi-partisan support for the state of Israel and the first to bring it into practical fruition. It was ironic that decades later I would be falsely accused of not appreciating the importance of American bipartisan support for Israel when in fact my own father had initiated it.”
But beneath Benzion’s rigid, polarized worldview was a confounding irony: He didn’t much want to live in Israel and didn’t want his sons to, either. As Pfeffer recounts, the elder Netanyahu relocated his family to the United States when he secured academic employment there, and he was highly critical of his boys when they returned to serve in the Israeli military.
“Benzion’s sons were incapable of fully confronting the contradictions between their father’s Zionist ideals and his living in America,” Pfeffer writes. Instead, they sought to mollify him. In his memoir, Bibi shapes his antipathy and estrangement into a principled stand. In that version of Netanyahu’s life, defiance is forgotten, filial devotion is all that matters.
If father-son relationships are complicated, so are marriages. Netanyahu could be forgiven, in his own book, for glossing over the dissolution of his first two marriages and (perhaps) for mentioning the daughter he had with his first wife only once. His third and current wife, Sara, is awarded pride of place.
His descriptions of her are so unceasingly laudatory that she appears superhuman. Her political advice is always spot-on, her charitable works magnanimous and cruelly overlooked. Sara never left the bedside of her dying mother and then her father, too; Netanyahu quotes a physician saying that he had “never seen such devotion of a daughter to her parents.” And the care she showered upon their two sons, Yair and Avner! Netanyahu compares it to “a lioness guard[ing] her cubs.”
Not only was all this ignored by the media, but “Sara sustained an endless campaign of character assassination … a vicious onslaught [that] went on for more than twenty years!” he writes. This “burgeoning industry of defamation and lies” would never have been directed at the spouse of a left-wing prime minister, he insists.
But Sara Netanyahu is unlike any other politician’s wife in Israel. As Pfeffer recounts, during the middle of a political campaign in 1993, Netanyahu publicly acknowledged an affair and begged Sara to reconcile. The resulting agreement stipulated that Sara would accompany her husband on all his major public engagements and foreign trips; that she would have full access to his schedule; and that she would vet appointments of members of his staff.
She pleaded guilty in 2019 to misusing state funds and is a subject in an ongoing corruption trial accusing both Netanyahus of illegally receiving gifts, jewelry and champagne. So the many investigations that have threatened the Netanyahus — at least when he is out of office — have a degree of public legitimacy. Sara chose political power, her husband granted it, and accountability flows from that.
What’s left unsaid in a political memoir is also meaningful. Ordinary Palestinians — the very many who aren’t terrorists — are missing from Netanyahu’s own story, even though his government has occupied Palestinian territory for 55 years. He has long insisted that the greatest threat to Israel is from Iran; the reader can decide whether that singular focus is justified or a skillful way to change the subject from Israel’s assertion of political oppression that many believe stains the nation’s soul.
Netanyahu’s political resilience is unparalleled in Israeli history, and for that reason alone, his memoir serves as an essential window into his character — as long as it is read with the proper perspective. As Carlos Lozada observed earlier this year in The Washington Post, the writings of any politician “should not be taken at face value; the purpose is to obscure as much as to reveal, the content is propaganda more than truth. . . . But as with all political writing, propaganda is enlightening because it reveals something about how its purveyors wish to be perceived.”
Jane Eisner, a regular Book World contributor, is the director of academic affairs at the Columbia Journalism School. She is writing a book about Carole King.
Threshold. 724 pp. $35
The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu | 2022-11-09T12:54:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of Bibi: My Story by Benjamin Netanyahu and Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu by Anshel Pfeffer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/netanyahu-memoir-story-biography-pfeffer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/netanyahu-memoir-story-biography-pfeffer/ |
Alvvays will perform at 9:30 Club. (Eleanor Petry)
Across three albums, Alvvays has proved itself adept at jangly and gentle twee pop, songs so brimming with romance that heartache is inevitable. The Canadian outfit’s latest, “Blue Rev,” sounds as big as their hearts. After kicking off with fuzzy shoegazers (“Pharmacist,” “Easy on Your Own?”), the band evokes memories — either real or imagined — of ’80s college radio, from the Smiths-esque “Pressed” to songs that nod to Belinda Carlisle and Tom Verlaine. But while the sonics have clear antecedents, the lyrical concerns are au courant: Lead singer-songwriter Molly Rankin elevates “Very Online Guy” from social media commentary into something sadder than satire. Nov. 11 at 10 p.m. (doors open) at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. 930.com. Sold out.
No matter where he’s been based — Chicago, Detroit, Brooklyn or Berlin — Ron Trent has been at the epicenter of house music for decades, crafting countless tracks that keep dance floors moving until the sun begins to rise. Despite his years as a key part of the global house music scene, however, his latest album, “What Do the Stars Say to You,” owes more to David Mancuso’s iconic party the Loft than the formulas of house music. Just as soulful but more expansive in palette, the album is designed for deeper listening at the point where dance becomes meditation. Nov. 11 at 10 p.m. at Flash, 645 Florida Ave. NW. flashdc.com. $10-$20.
Jessie Reyez broke through in 2016 with “Figures,” a spare, acoustic pop tune that showcased a voice where every flourish and flaw was heavy with heart-on-sleeve emotion. After years of single success and high-profile tour slots, the Canadian export released her debut album, “Before Love Came to Kill Us” — just weeks after the pandemic shut down the world. Bad timing aside, the album made a mark by demonstrating how Reyez can fit anywhere in the pop-rap-R&B mélange favored by her fellow late millennials, and on this year’s streamlined and smooth “Yessie,” Reyez tightened her focus on a sound all her own. Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. at Fillmore Silver Spring, 8656 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. fillmoresilverspring.com. Sold out.
Alexander Giannascoli had already released a handful of albums of lo-fi, DIY music as Alex G by the time the internet and the wider world caught wind of his songwriting brilliance with 2014’s “DSU.” Another handful of albums have followed, full of songs that feel like gems mined from a singular mind. On his latest, “God Save the Animals,” a clear picture of who Alex G is and what it all means remains elusive. But as he told Pitchfork, reality isn’t the goal, but resonance: “Sometimes people ask if I’m being ironic or earnest, and it’s like, that’s not even the point. Part of my goal is to make the angle unclear, even to myself. I just want to make it strike a chord.” Nov. 16 and 17 at 7 p.m. (doors open) at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. 930.com. Sold out. | 2022-11-09T12:55:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 concerts to catch in D.C. Nov. 11-17: Alvvays, Alex G and more - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/09/concerts-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/09/concerts-dc/ |
My daughter with ADHD often needs to ‘info dump.’ How do we manage?
Q: My daughter is a persistent “info dumper.” I suspect, based on her dad, that she is neurodivergent in some fashion. (She has been diagnosed mildly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder inattentive.)
I was thinking of spending a set amount of time with her daily for her to info dump. Do you think 15 minutes a day of my direct attention for her to talk about whatever her interest is is enough? I try to listen throughout the day, but I work from home, she has an older brother who also wants my attention and sometimes we are trying to discuss something else. (She’s pretty focused on her current topic and will just start talking about it in the middle of a conversation.)
I thought I could arrange with her for that daily time, so she could look forward to it. Any other ideas as to how I can direct this trait and help her feel heard and seen?
A: Thanks for writing in. “Info dumping,” or talking about an interest or passion, usually in detail and at length, is frequent in both ADHD and autism. In ADHD, the impulsivity plus passion equals a “spilling” kind of feeling, and the motor behind it can feel as if it’s whirring. It may feel the same in autism, but folks with autism report that it feels more passionate and important rather than impulsive.
In both cases, it can be hard for the person to “read the room,” or to see that the person they are talking to is bored, overwhelmed or busy with something else. Also, in both cases, no one is trying to be rude or insensitive, and they aren’t trying to bully; the info dumping is a way for these children to connect and share. In fact, info dumping is often a love language for many children with autism, and it should absolutely be encouraged and treated as special. I found the site And Next Comes L to be enormously helpful in understanding info dumping.
I don’t know how old your child is, but she has already received a diagnosis of mild ADHD of the inattentive type, so I’m guessing older than 5 or 6. I am so glad that you are thinking of helping her to feel heard and seen, because this kind of perspective will keep you in a compassionate state of mind.
As for 15 minutes a day being enough to listen to the dumping, well, I don’t know. If 15 minutes were enough, then you wouldn’t have written, right? The reality is that life is moving fast, you have many obligations and you want to find a technique that does two basic things: You want her to feel loved and heard, and you want her to learn skills that help her share information in a way that connects her to the outside world in an easier fashion. Does this mean that she may not find other children just like her, and that they may not dump on each other? Absolutely, and this is one of the great joys of life. She can absolutely be who she is while also learning how to share or not share some of her passions.
If you haven’t already, I would assemble a good care team: her pediatrician, the person who tested her for ADHD, her teachers, the school psychologist. (And if she hasn’t already had a full neuropsych test, you might want to look more deeply into that.) I would also work with a specialist who understands these wonderful children and knows how to skill-build with them. The reason I recommend looping in the school is that I am curious to know whether the dumping is happening in school, or whether she is saving it all up for when she gets home. In either case, do not manage this by yourself. There is tremendous support out there. Check out psychologist Holly Blanc Moses and her work. She has an excellent podcast, “The Autism ADHD Podcast,” and is a wonderful resource.
For now, I would absolutely set up a daily “Listen to Rosie” time. Sit with your daughter and say: “There is so much you want to tell me, and I want to give you all of my attention. I have to start dinner and help your brother with homework, so let’s set up our time for 6:30 p.m.” Maybe it’s 15 minutes; set a timer, and truly listen. If she has more to share, you can keep a notebook handy for her to write in, or she can record her words onto a phone. And although she isn’t intending to be rude, you also don’t want to constantly stop what you are doing or ignore her brother to accommodate this, so get ready to gently, lovingly and firmly redirect. Again: Working with a professional will help you immensely.
Get the support you need now, so the resentment and agitation don’t build. Good luck. | 2022-11-09T12:55:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | My daughter with ADHD often needs to 'info dump.' How do we manage? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/11/09/child-adhd-info-dump-interrupts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/11/09/child-adhd-info-dump-interrupts/ |
Croatia’s Marcelo Brozovic is in action during the UEFA Nations League soccer match between Croatia and Denmark at the Maksimir stadium in Zagreb, Croatia, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
ZAGREB, Croatia — The veteran core of Luka Modrić, Ivan Perišić and Marcelo Brozović were included in the 26-man team that Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić announced for the World Cup on Wednesday. | 2022-11-09T12:56:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Modrić, Perišić, Brozović highlight Croatia World Cup squad - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/modric-perisic-brozovic-highlight-croatia-world-cup-squad/2022/11/09/68ba9dd4-6020-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/modric-perisic-brozovic-highlight-croatia-world-cup-squad/2022/11/09/68ba9dd4-6020-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Wednesday briefing: Midterm election results; tracking Tropical Storm Nicole; Meta layoffs; Powerball winner; and more
Control of Congress is still up in the air after yesterday’s elections.
In the Senate: It will come down to four races, in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Georgia. But Democrats flipped a seat in Pennsylvania, making it harder for Republicans to take the majority.
In the House: Republicans are expected to win the five seats they needed to take control, but many votes are still being counted. They had key wins in Florida and in a battleground district in Virginia.
Results are still coming in: Track them here.
The big red wave many expected hasn’t materialized.
Early takeaways: Republicans are picking up fewer seats than predicted in the House, and the Senate battle is close.
What about abortion? Michigan voters added the right to an abortion to their constitution, and a pair of red states — Kentucky and Montana — appear prepared to turn aside antiabortion measures.
What else to know: Voters chose the first female governors in Arkansas, Massachusetts and New York, and sent the first member of Gen Z to Congress.
A major storm is expected to hit Florida’s east coast tonight.
The forecast: Tropical Storm Nicole could be a hurricane when it makes landfall. We’re tracking it here.
It’s cruel timing: Hurricane Ian devastated Florida nearly six weeks ago, and Nicole could threaten recovery efforts.
Facebook’s parent company is laying off thousands of workers.
The details: Meta will cut over 11,000 jobs — 13% of the company — it announced today. It’s trying to cut expenses as it faces new challenges and competition.
These are just the latest Silicon Valley layoffs: Other companies including Twitter, Salesforce, Lyft and Zillow have laid off workers recently, a sign of a rough new period for the tech industry.
Brittney Griner is being moved to a penal colony in Russia.
The background: The WNBA star was sentenced to 9½ years in prison for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil into the country.
The latest: Her lawyers don’t know where she is, they said this morning, but believe she is on the way to a type of facility known for its brutal conditions.
A winning Powerball ticket was sold for the record $2.04 billion jackpot.
What we know: It came from Altadena, Calif., but the holder hasn’t come forward after yesterday’s drawing.
What happens now? The winner can either receive the full jackpot in 30 annual payments or take a lump sum of $997.6 million.
The National Park Service asked visitors to stop licking toads.
Why would anyone do that? One type of toad found in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and California produces a toxin that’s a natural psychedelic.
Why it’s a bad idea: Licking the toads can poison you, the Park Service warned this week, and researchers say it’s a “myth” that it can get you high.
And now … what to watch tonight: A new season of “The Crown” is out on Netflix (and it’s good). Plus, these photos of yesterday’s blood moon are worth a look. | 2022-11-09T12:56:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Wednesday, November 9 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/09/what-to-know-for-november-9/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/09/what-to-know-for-november-9/ |
In Dutchman’s Creek, ‘you get more home for your money’
The Lovettsville, Va., community is an enclave of 81 single-family homes built by Greentree Homes
By Madison Rudolf
Keith Jones walks with his dog, Louis, in Dutchman’s Creek. (Photos by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Named for the flowing creek that runs through the neighborhood, Dutchman’s Creek in Lovettsville, Va., is known for its rural feel and quaint setting. Its residents embody Lovettsville’s small-town character by fostering a tightknit community.
“People genuinely care about each other in this neighborhood,” said Alissa Biechlin, president of the Dutchman’s Creek homeowners association. “If somebody’s sick, had a surgery or had something unexpected happen, people will bring meals or help you run your kids somewhere. Everyone is willing to give a helping hand at any time.”
At the base of Short Hill Mountain in northwest Loudoun County, Dutchman’s Creek is an enclave of 81 single-family homes built by Greentree Homes from 2004 to 2020.
After buying a lot, homeowners were able to customize the basic floor plan. Biechlin added a powder room. She, like other residents, also expanded the floor plan.
Most homes are on lots between half an acre to one acre, while others are on lots between two to six acres. There are also eight conservancy lots of 10 or more acres. Designated open spaces are woven throughout the neighborhood to enhance its natural feel.
Stone entrances, black-board fencing and wildlife, including deer, wild turkeys and horses owned by residents, can be seen throughout Dutchman’s Creek’s expansive countryside.
“You get more home for your money,” said Biechlin, whose family moved in almost five years ago. The houses, which include ranch-style and two-story homes, have three to five bedrooms and plenty of windows and porches for “stunning” views as the sun rises and sets, Biechlin said.
Warren Breaux, HOA secretary and a resident for more than 10 years, describes Dutchman’s Creek and Lovettsville as “our little slice of Mayberry,” reminiscent of the community made famous on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
“Of all the places I’ve lived, this is the one that’s a true neighborhood, where you know all of the neighbors,” Breaux said. “If something happens, they are stopping by to say, ‘Hi, what can I do for you?’ ”
Breaux is one of the few retirees in the neighborhood, alongside a mix of families with young children or teenagers and older couples.
Lovettsville doesn’t have a stoplight, Breaux said. Instead, to slow traffic on the Berlin Turnpike, the Town Square, affectionately known as the “Squirkle” for its cross between a town square and a traffic circle, was developed.
Still, Breaux said, it’s not too rural. The streets are paved, residents of Dutchman’s Creek have regular trash collection and there are neighborhood activities.
Residents gather for drinks around a firepit. There are barbecues with cornhole and New Year’s Eve dinner parties. Breaux and his wife said they’re bringing back their Christmas party this year.
Lovettsville also has its share of events, such as Oktoberfest. It brings in thousands of visitors annually and honors the town’s roots dating back to 1732, when it was founded by Pennsylvania Germans, who first called it “The German Settlement.” Breaux, a dog lover, said they even have wiener dog races at Oktoberfest.
Dutchman’s Creek is about two miles from the Lovettsville Community Center. Biechlin said her kids used to participate in a lantern-making workshop there before embarking on a parade to the Squirkle for a Christmas tree-lighting as part of the annual Wintertainment festival.
The new approximately 90-acre Lovettsville Community Park, which features an equestrian facility, off-leash dog area, amphitheater, fishing pond and more, is also about two miles away.
The homeowners association fee is $675 annually, which goes toward maintaining the neighborhood’s open spaces, said Christie Moore, HOA treasurer.
Moore moved to Dutchman’s Creek in 2017 from Charles Town, W.Va. With her children now grown, she wanted to lessen her commute to Chantilly, she said. She and her husband stumbled upon Dutchman’s Creek by accident and quickly “fell in love with Lovettsville,” Moore said.
“It’s a cute little town with great restaurants and friendly people,” Moore said. Her favorite restaurants include 1836 Kitchen and Taproom, Andy’s Pizza & Subs and Velocity Wings.
The closest grocery store, Weis Markets, is in Brunswick, Md., about six miles away. However, residents said they are looking forward to the Lovettsville Cooperative Market co-op, which is being built and will be a full-service grocery store that will work with local farmers and producers.
The numerous wineries and breweries in the area, such as Hiddencroft Vineyards, Creek’s Edge Winery and Flying Ace Farm, are another perk, Moore said.
“It’s just a fun community to be in,” Moore said. “If someone is walking by your house, they are waving at you.”
Living there: Dutchman’s Creek is off Irish Corner Road. It’s about 15 miles to Leesburg, Va.; 17 miles to Charles Town, W.Va.; 20 miles to Frederick, Md.; and 30 miles to Dulles International Airport.
According to Jill Depee, a resident for almost 10 years and a real estate agent with Pearson Smith Realty, one home is on the market. It is a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house on less than an acre for $749,900. In the past year, two homes have sold: a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house for $1 million and a four-bedroom, four-bathroom house for $1.3 million. Both houses were on conservancy lots of 10 or more acres.
Schools: Lovettsville Elementary, Harmony Middle, Woodgrove High.
Transit: The MARC train station in Brunswick, Md., is about four miles away, across the Potomac River. The Brunswick Jefferson Shuttle, which serves the Frederick MARC train station, has a bus stop about four miles away, at the Brunswick Senior Center. | 2022-11-09T13:16:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Neighborhood profile: Dutchman's Creek - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/09/where-we-live-dutchmans-creek/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/09/where-we-live-dutchmans-creek/ |
Alejandro Buxton, who’s 12, started selling on Etsy. This fall he opened a Smell of Love kiosk at Tysons Corner Center.
Alejandro Buxton, 12, runs the Smell of Love Candles kiosk at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia. He started making natural candles in the family kitchen because his mom got headaches from candles that contained chemicals. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
“My mom really loved candles, like really really,” said the seventh-grader from Fairfax County, Virginia. “It was hard to see her sad.”
In September 2020, he put his first collection of candles on Etsy, the online marketplace that specializes in handmade goods. He also sold candles at seasonal markets, such as the one in downtown D.C. where Vice President Kamala Harris was shopping for holiday gifts last year.
Jesse Benites, general manager of Tysons Corner Center, said the vice president’s visit “skyrocketed” Alejandro’s fame. A senior manager contacted Alejandro and invited him to rent one of the 12 retail carts at the mall. On September 1, Smell of Love Candles opened on the second level of the shopping center. Alejandro is the mall’s youngest business owner.
Kid entrepreneur invented a better barrette — and gained confidence, too | 2022-11-09T13:42:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boy’s bright idea to help mom turned into his own candle business - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/09/kid-entrepreneur-alejandro-buxton-candles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/09/kid-entrepreneur-alejandro-buxton-candles/ |
The expected red wave looks more like a puddle
A supporter of Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake reacts during her election night gathering on Tuesday at the Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale, Ariz. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Political forecasters had it wrong. Again.
Although votes are still being counted in many of the most closely watched races, with control of the House and Senate unclear, it is already apparent that the expected Great Red Wave of 2022 turned out to be a messy puddle.
Yes, the most powerful winds all seemed to be blowing the GOP’s way: The curse of history that says a first-term president gets a comeuppance in the midterms, President Biden’s listless approval rating, roaring inflation, an economy that appears to be on the edge of recession, an alarming crime rate, record numbers of migrants coming over the border.
But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) had it right back in August, when he said that, especially in Senate races, “candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” By Wednesday morning, only one Senate seat had flipped, and that was in the direction of the Democrats, with Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, despite suffering a serious stroke, beating celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
Karen Tumulty: Fetterman's debate struggles may strike a chord with voters
Voters, it would appear, saw this midterm as something more than a referendum on the party in power; with Republicans putting forward a host of extreme, election-denying candidates and little by way of an agenda, it became a choice between two drastically different paths forward.
And while abortion was not the silver bullet that some Democrats had thought it might be, it helped. Just under 3 in 10 voters cited the issue as their highest priority in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade — only slightly less than the number who named inflation — and they swung hard for Democrats. By comparison, only about 1 in 10 voters cited crime, immigration and gun policy as their most important issues.
In the House, it appears that Republicans still have a good shot to take control, but not with the hefty majority many had expected. Where House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was confidently predicting a year ago that his party would gain upwards of 60 seats, Republicans were still struggling early Wednesday morning to nail down even the single-digit number they need for a majority.
This suggests that even if McCarthy finds himself holding the speaker’s gavel in January, he is going to face a significant management challenge. With fewer members from purplish districts than anticipated, it will be the hard-right Freedom Caucus calling the shots for his fragile, fractious majority.
Meanwhile, embattled Democratic incumbents such as Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.) and Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.) won by working hard, establishing a credible (and moderate) political identity separate from their party’s national image and benefiting from the fact that their opponents were MAGA extremists.
Jennifer Rubin: Abigail Spanberger again shows how to win as a centrist Democrat
Today’s Republican Party is not exactly awash in self-awareness, but these outcomes might prompt it to reconsider the wisdom of relying on Donald Trump to anoint its candidates or allowing him to remain its de facto leader. (On Tuesday, the former president’s super PAC sent around a memo reminding everyone: “Trump-endorsed candidates for U.S. Senate were 21-0 in primary elections during the 2022 election cycle.”)
The inescapable conclusion is that Trump — who has indicated he will soon announce he is running again for president in 2024 — is a drag on a party that has received a majority of the national popular vote only once since 1988, and has to rely on the quirkiness of the electoral college to win at all.
No one quickens the collective pulse of the Republican base like Trump, but he is a massive turnoff to independent voters. Yes, they still exist, and the expected sharp rightward shift in the independent vote was one of many places where polls went wrong in the final weeks of the 2022 campaign. Preliminary voter polling from AP VoteCast indicates that independents accounted for nearly a third of the electorate and split nearly evenly between the two parties.
Though Democrats managed to avert disaster, they, too, should see in the election results a need for reassessment. Democratic candidates who managed to win against the odds offer an example for 2024 and beyond. Pragmatism, moderation and — most of all — maintaining a deep connection to the people who go to the polls are a formula that is hard to beat, even when the political environment has stacked the deck against you. | 2022-11-09T13:55:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The midterms' red wave looks more like a puddle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/no-red-wave-midterm-outcome-analysis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/no-red-wave-midterm-outcome-analysis/ |
Hi Jules: It’s been a pain navigating the online landscape recently, as even the most familiar platforms seem to have turned on their heads. There are so many questionable changes and it’s exhausting seeing the online spaces I’ve inhabited being turned into something unrecognizable at this point. Instagram isn’t for my friends anymore, TikTok seems to always be on the brink of getting banned, YouTube doesn’t support my favorite content creators, and Twitter is at a weird precipice that I can’t even wrap my head around. Not to mention the fact that my most private online spheres are somehow turned into a marketing space.
Should I reframe what these platforms are supposed to mean to me as a user in the first place? Is it even worth it to adapt to this online environment that doesn’t seem to support users? Are we able to fight against what these platforms are turning into, or are we past the point of no return? Like a lot of people, my online existence has been a large facet of my life, and I really don’t want to just let it go. But at this point, it’s just painstaking to think about.
— Sophia
Sophia: This moment in time should certainly serve as a reality check. These platforms are businesses, and advertisers are the main customers. While our say as users means something, it’s often drowned out by the big bucks. Instagram executives only acknowledged criticism from users after the Kardashians, who have immense cultural leverage, publicly criticized recent updates.
If you’re dissatisfied with what’s happening and comfortable sharing your opinions publicly online, certainly do so. Recommendation algorithms have created a more level playing field for the average user to gain exposure. Sharing your outlook to a platform like TikTok could be seen by thousands overnight, and one of those viewers could be just who you need to make an impact internally. If you’re not comfortable posting online, supporting those you agree with also works. The post shared by the Kardashians was originally from a user with a smaller following, but Instagram’s “share to Story” feature caused an incredible snowball effect.
I don’t think we’re “past the point of no return” with these platforms, but there is going to be a lot of trial and error. Twitter pushing a subscription model is a huge shift in the social media landscape, but it could mean the platform will try to create a better user experience. With a subscription business model, if users aren’t happy and decide to leave, it immediately impacts the bottom line.
Amid the chaos, it’s okay to log off. If you’re experiencing more negative than positive effects because of these platforms, they are not worth your time. There are countless other ways to explore and express yourself digitally. If and when these platforms become appealing to you again, you can simply log back on.
It’s valuable to realize that platforms can be fleeting and that depending on them entirely for anything is a risk. They shouldn’t be treated as storage for your personal media. If you’re an avid user, you should periodically save any valuable content and information you post directly to your phone, computer or hard drive. If you monetize your social media accounts, you should diversify your presence across platforms, and create connections and opportunities that translate from the digital world into the physical world. These measures will allow for platform changes to feel less like the ceiling is caving in.
Think about how drastically communication and social life have evolved over the past 30 years. It’s likely that the top social media platforms will also drastically change throughout our lifetime. Even social media in its current form could become obsolete. Don’t be afraid to spend your time elsewhere, but simultaneously be open to the possibility that these platforms will go through growing pains. | 2022-11-09T14:26:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Jules: My favorite social platforms are a mess. Should I leave? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/ask-jules-social-platforms-mess-leave/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/ask-jules-social-platforms-mess-leave/ |
Chuck Berry’s complicated path to becoming a rock legend
Review by David Kirby
Chuck Berry was playing a concert in Paris once when the audience started to get out of hand. But instead of engaging rowdy fans, security did nothing. Things went from bad to worse, and tear gas was fired into the venue. Everybody ran for the exits — everybody except one.
At first, Berry couldn’t run: he lay on the floor, rigid, face not moving, “as stiff as a board,” his tour manager recalled. But then Berry was on his feet, eyes glowing red, plugging in his guitar and cranking out “the most maniacal rock & roll riff you can imagine.” The fans were still rushing out, but when they heard these thunderous chords on the far side of the gas clouds, suddenly they were rushing back in. “It wasn’t dedication,” said the tour manager. “It was chaos.”
Actually it was both. To some degree, all rock bios are about sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, yet the biggest takeaway from “Chuck Berry: An American Life” has to do with a fourth element: sheer force of personality. Berry, who died in 2017 at 90, didn’t invent rock singlehandedly — “he didn’t do it alone and he didn’t do it on purpose,” writes RJ Smith, who has also written books on James Brown and photographer Robert Frank. But when you listen to his music, you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought that maybe he could have.
There are scores of candidates for first rock song and rock musician, but music evolves the way everything else does. Einstein isn’t all there is to relativity any more than Monet is the only Impressionist; both built on the work of others and saw their work extended by others still. Drummer Earl Palmer says that when it came to speed and power, Berry and Little Richard were tied: “I don’t know who played that way first.”
At the same time, in the middle of the 1950s, Berry was duking it out with Ike Turner for rock supremacy, with the latter sticking more to rhythm and blues as the former not only borrowed from that tradition but from musicians as different as Harry Belafonte, Muddy Waters and Nat King Cole. If you’re wondering what the frenetic soul shaker could possibly borrow from Cole’s velvet-toned balladeering, it was diction. Reflecting on one of his biggest hits, a song that is as fast as it is clearly phrased, Berry said: “When I went into writing ‘Maybellene,’ I had a desire or intention to say the words real clear. Nat Cole taught me that. Nat Cole had a diction that was just superb.”
Put it all together, and the end product is rock-and-roll, a phrase that people started using to explain “what music they liked,” as Smith writes, and “then it expressed what in life they liked, and then it was them.”
Berry liked to compose with other musicians, throwing words and riffs out and moving slowly till a critical mass that had been long in making seemed to arrive out of nowhere. Smith writes in much the same manner, taking a song like “Nadine” from a sketchy beginning to its masterful completion, noting along the way how its composer used the English language “like a surgical tool,” as when he has Nadine’s suitor professing his love, not like “a southern Democrat,” which might have struck White audiences as an offensive caricature, but like “a southern diplomat” instead.
Progress didn’t come easy to the rock pioneers, and Berry had it harder than most. A lot of his problems with other people came from the fact that he was a charismatic Black man doing well in a world where a lot of White men were just scraping by. Smith regularly steers the reader back to Berry’s never-ending harassment by authorities, pointing out, for example, that he often drove a Toyota Avalon around his hometown of St. Louis because, in the singer’s words, “In a Toyota, the cops don’t stop you as much.”
Female fans threw themselves at him, many of them White — the word “blonde” occurs frequently in these accounts — and Berry never seemed to meet a woman he didn’t say “yes” to. In mid-career he received a three-year sentence for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, but he managed to use his prison time to get his high school diploma (as class valedictorian, no less) and take business classes that allowed him to keep an eye on the shady accounting practices of record company execs. Even better, he wrote some of his biggest hits behind bars, including “Nadine,” “No Particular Place to Go” and “You Never Can Tell.”
Chuck Berry helped build rock-and-roll. Then he took it for a ride.
He always had an edge, but after prison, a grimmer, more driven Berry appeared. He wrote fewer songs, issued fewer albums, gave fewer interviews and toured constantly, playing trade shows and car dealership openings with pickup bands composed of local musicians he refused to rehearse with and whom he fired on stage after a single missed note. The critic Elvis Mitchell said of Wilson Pickett, another easily angered soul man, “the only safe place for him is the stage.” Chuck Berry never seemed to be safe anywhere.
He became unreachable, even to his intimates. A long-time lover said: “Either he was a very complicated man, or there was no there there. I’m still really not sure which.”
Yet out of that rage came “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and a dozen other additions to the rock canon. Most saints aren’t artists, and the reverse is even more true. Smith observes that names near Berry’s on the St. Louis Walk of Fame include those of William S. Burroughs, who shot his second wife in the head, and T.S. Eliot, a wretched antisemite. Pointing in each case to the art rather than the artist, he says, “our lives would be worse without them.”
David Kirby’s books include “Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Crossroad: Artist, Audience, and the Making of American Music.” He teaches at Florida State University.
An American Life
Hachette. 432 pp. $32 | 2022-11-09T14:26:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chuck Berry by RJ Smith book review - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/chuck-berry-biography-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/chuck-berry-biography-review/ |
Out of unbearable loss, a vision of radical hope
Jonathan Lear’s ‘Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life’ shows us how to engage in the world with extraordinary care
Review by Daniel Oppenheimer
Icebergs floating as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland. Jonathan Lear argues that the proper response to forces like climate change is not so much despair as mourning. (Felipe Dana/AP)
In December 1995, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear published “The Shrink Is In” in the New Republic. Although it was commissioned as a tactical response to recent media attacks on Sigmund Freud, the essay transcended the occasion. It remains one of the most efficient, balanced and lucid defenses of Freud ever written for a lay audience.
It was also a manifesto of sorts for Lear, who is a unique figure on the American intellectual landscape, possibly our nation’s only practicing psychoanalyst and credentialed philosopher.
“What is at stake in all of these attacks?” wrote Lear, now a professor of philosophy and social thought at the University of Chicago. “If this were merely the attack on one historical figure, Freud, or on one professional group, psychoanalysts, the hubbub would have died down long ago. After all, psychoanalysis nowadays plays a minor role in the mental health professions; Freud is less and less often taught or studied. … The real object of attack — for which Freud is only a stalking horse — is the very idea of humans having unconscious motivation. A battle may be fought over Freud, but the war is over our culture’s image of the human soul. Are we to see humans as having depth — as complex psychological organisms who generate layers of meaning which lie beneath the surface of their own understanding? Or are we to take ourselves as transparent to ourselves?”
I’ve been following Lear for the last few decades, since reading his short book on Aristotle when I was a college freshman. When he has a new book coming out, as he does on Tuesday, with the publication of “Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life,” it is an event for me. It should be an event for all of us, as we struggle to find hope and wisdom in this time of catastrophe, hyperstimulation and stupidity.
Born in New York City in 1949, Lear was raised in West Hartford, Conn., the son of a civic-minded surgeon and an unhappy suburban housewife. He went to college at Yale, graduating in 1970, then spent most of the next 15 years studying and teaching philosophy at the University of Cambridge, in England. It was after his father’s death, at the suggestion of his cousin Norman Lear, the eminent TV writer and producer, that Lear first dipped his toe into therapy. “He took me aside after the memorial service,” Lear recently told me over Zoom, “and said, ‘This would be a good time to talk to someone about your feelings.’”
Lear took the advice and found the experience incredibly useful. “I was amazed by how helpful it was,” he says. A subsequent experience with a psychoanalytically trained therapist in Cambridge introduced him, in much more depth, to the Freudian view of the world. When he moved back to the United States to take a faculty job at Yale, he also became a student at the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, in New Haven.
Over the past few decades, while teaching at Yale and the University of Chicago, he has treated hundreds of patients and mentored dozens of other psychoanalysts. He has written, as well, a series of books that fuse psychoanalysis and philosophy, including “Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis,” “Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul,” “Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation” and “Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony.”
Lear is a lovely and subtle writer, someone who has a rare capacity to introduce ways of seeing and interrogating the world that dignify our confusion and pain while also opening up new possibilities for moving forward. He can simplify complexity and complicate what appears to be simple, depending on the need and the audience.
Much of Lear’s writing in “Imagining the End” is of the latter kind. He subjects to close inspection “ordinary fleeting moments” that might otherwise be unreflectively assimilated.
In a chapter titled “When Meghan Married Harry,” Lear pauses for a while on Meghan Markle’s confession to Oprah Winfrey that she and her prince had a secret wedding ceremony, with just the two of them and the Archbishop of Canterbury, a few days before the big public one. They did so, Markle said, to “live authentically.” This claim becomes, for Lear, an opportunity both to credit Markle’s intuition, that there’s something “phony” about the spectacle of the modern royal wedding, and to question whether her notion of authenticity (which involves, among other things, telling secrets to Oprah) is grounded in a sufficiently rich view of what it entails to live the good life. Or whether instead she’s gotten trapped, like so many of us, “one level up,” aware of where something in the culture has gone terribly wrong but stuck within the culture’s exhausted concepts and narratives and therefore unable to arrive at a true alternative. “She subverts the ritual only to be snagged by the concept,” Lear observes.
What might remedy this, Lear writes, drawing on Aristotle, is a culture more alive with the imaginative and intellectual practices of the humanities, a culture in which we engage with the past, and with its greatest thinkers and artists, not to revere or return to the past but to use its resources to reimagine our present and future. “When things are going well,” he writes, “we develop a capacity for critical playfulness, for re-creation and change of the very concepts with which we are thinking. We are freed up for a poetic reinterpretation of authenticity, as well as opened up to the possibility of giving up the concept altogether and living according to different concepts.”
A flourishing culture would be one in which teachers — true teachers — are everywhere. In class, at home, onstage, on screen, on the field, at work, in temple, at the bar. In “Exemplars and the End of the World,” he dwells on a schoolyard incident from his childhood to explore the importance of what he calls “local exemplars” — the people we encounter in our everyday lives who stop us in our tracks, unexpectedly, and change the way we see things from that point on. “He was wearing a trench coat, belted in the middle,” remembers Lear of his elementary school teacher Mr. McMahon, who chastised the young Lear for cursing on the playground. “His hair was in a crew cut, common among men at that time. He might have been a police detective in a television show. He came over, looked me in the eyes, and said in a low, calm voice: ‘We do not use profane language on the playground.’ He then turned around and walked away. That was it.”
There was no punishment. Mr. McMahon never referenced it again. No one else on the playground has thought of it since. For Lear, though, at the age of 10, it was so meaningful that he’s spent the last 63 years reckoning with it, and it has become the seed of a philosophical theory of what it takes to serve in the role of local exemplar for someone else. It requires a humanistic spirit but also a kind of beauty and mystery.
McMahon was able to occupy such psychological space in a boy’s head, Lear writes, in no small part because what he said, and how he said it, were enigmatic. The interaction was pregnant with meaning that the boy could sense but not quite grasp. The playground was a realm that had unwritten rules of behavior. There was a category of things that were “profane” (a word that Lear, like most 10-year-olds, didn’t know) and by implication another category of things that were not profane. Mr. McMahon seemed to understand that Lear didn’t really know what he was doing when he swore — there was an innocence to it — and so there was no punishment beyond that brief censure. And there was a verve to the delivery of the line, consonant with McMahon’s whole trench-coat-police-detective style, that charged the moment with almost cinematic energy. “I have … imagined him smiling to himself, indiscernible to the outside world,” Lear writes, “and thinking, ‘I’ve given that little fellow something to think about for the rest of his life.’”
This is a lot of meaning to hang on a 10-second interaction, but that is Lear’s style, and his point. “A universe can open up from an instant, if you’ll just look at it and spend time with it,” he told me. We live in a world overflowing with meaning. We can’t process it all or dwell on it all the time, but we can process more than we typically do. We can do so as thoughtfully as possible, and we can return again and again to those things whose meaning seems to just exceed our grasp, cultivating a virtuous habit of creative repetition and reinvention. To do this, it helps enormously to attend more closely to the people in our lives, like Mr. McMahon, who are “the first responders, as it were, to our need for the experience of something ‘higher,’ ‘noble,’ ‘beautiful.’”
'Inciting Joy' is a gift that's meant to be shared
We can resist, too, the kinds of answers we so often reach for when confronted with overwhelming difficulty and loss: anger, resentment, despair, withdrawal, fantasy. These only exacerbate the problem, especially when they operate under the veil of politics and ideology. Lear begins his new book by recalling a lecture he attended on climate change, zeroing in on a moment during the Q&A when someone in the audience joked that we deserved an Earth that was so hot and poisoned that it could no longer support human life. We deserved our own extinction.
“A young academic stood up,” Lear writes, “and said simply, ‘Let me tell you something: We will not be missed!’”
It was a good enough quip, and people laughed. Then they moved on. Except Lear. Why is it funny, he wondered, this idea that we may destroy ourselves as a species? It was a release, of course. Climate change is a heavy subject; gallows humor exists because laughter is one of the ways we cope with heaviness. But it was more than just a release. It was a retreat, Lear argues, from the intolerable sadness of the situation and from the intolerable complexity of the human experience. We are creators and destroyers, beautiful and cruel. In our absence, ecosystems may heal, but the world will have lost something irreplaceable: us. In an important sense the world will have lost the capacity even to see itself as having lost something. We will not be missed because there will be no human consciousness alive capable of doing the missing. Making light of this scenario may feel, in the moment, like a nod toward cosmic (or karmic) justice, but it reads to Lear like an expression of despair and misanthropy.
The healthier alternative to such despair is mourning, which for Lear is a more expansive activity than just grieving a loss. It is at the center of what it means to be human and to grow and develop psychologically. It is a creative response to what has been lost, whether that’s a beloved spouse, a past version of ourselves, a classroom of murdered children or the Earth as it once was. In the face of loss, our brains go to work. “We get busy emotionally, imaginatively, and cognitively,” Lear writes, “and at least try to make sense of what has happened.”
In the face of unbearable loss, of the kind we’ve become so brutally familiar with, he offers a vision of what he has called “radical hope,” which involves acting with hope in the absence not just of rational justification for hope but in the absence of the conceptual building blocks out of which a better future might be constituted. It entails moving forward in the dark, relying on our values, commitments, relationships, creativity and whatever wisdom we’ve gleaned from experience. We can’t see the other side, or even know that a better future will come into existence, but we can keep moving in what we hope is the right direction. “We have a hunch,” he writes, that “we are onto something important about being human, but we are also in the midst of life and thus in the midst of confusions, contradictions, and unclarities.”
Radical hope is terrifying, in other words. What it’s not, however, is fantasy. It’s an honest reckoning with all that we don’t know and don’t control, along with a refusal to stop hoping or moving forward. This honesty about what we can’t do, paired with a commitment to persist in what we can do, is in stark contrast to the absolutist fantasies that tend to animate the American political response when confronting the most terrifying, and most intractable, problems. We must end the pandemic. We must never wear masks. We must never impose any restrictions again. We must end Vladimir Putin. We must provide a mental health professional for every troubled child. We must vanquish our political enemies. We must eliminate guns. We must arm every teacher.
For Lear the psychoanalyst, these fantasies are often manifestations of the primal human fantasy, which is of omnipotence. The rage is an echo of the primal infant rage when a baby’s need or desire isn’t instantly gratified. “Either you want to be omnipotent,” he told me, “or you want someone else to be omnipotent for you, or you want to kill everyone else. The psychoanalytic insight is that healthy development requires abandoning the fantasy of omnipotence. But that is no small deal.”
But what else can we do but fantasize, I asked Lear, when confronted with tragedies like Uvalde, Ukraine, covid-19 and whatever’s just around the corner? Everybody’s too angry at everyone else. Our politicians are too small. Aren’t we simply, actually stuck? No, Lear answered. Having a global solution is not a prerequisite for acting in the world. Approaching the world with the expectation that every problem must be solved, soon and completely, comes from a failure to reckon with our own and the world’s limits. We are not omnipotent. There is no savior (on this plane of existence, at least) who will come to the rescue. The world is fundamentally flawed.
This is hard to accept. It’s probably impossible to fully accept. But we can try to mourn it. If we do so well enough, Lear believes, we will discover that even when dealing with terrible loss and profound obstacles, there are things we can do. Take care of the people close to us. Work politically to improve things. Appreciate beauty and nobility in others. Be an exemplar for others. Make meaning. Creatively and repeatedly engage with the past. Have hope. Resist despair.
“How do you look straight on at these horrible things but not lose sight of what’s magnificent about human beings?” Lear asked. “It’s hard. It’s hard to be human. Maturity is an achievement.”
There are no answers in “Imagining the End,” or in most of Lear’s work. There are no recipes for maturity. Or plans for a stable peace in Ukraine. What his work does give us is an example of how to engage in the world with extraordinary care. This doesn’t solve everything, or maybe anything. But no one promised us that being human was easy.
Daniel Oppenheimer is the author of “Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art.”
Imagining the End
Mourning and Ethical Life
By Jonathan Lear
Belknap/Harvard. 162 pp. $29.95 | 2022-11-09T14:26:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life by Jonathan Lear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/imagining-end-mourning-ethics-lear-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/09/imagining-end-mourning-ethics-lear-review/ |
The history of GOP: How Republicans became the Grand Old Party
The elephant, a symbol of the Republican Party, on in a rug in the lobby of the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. (Brooks Kraft/Corbis via Getty Images)
The Republican Party has changed a lot in the past 150 years. But one thing that’s stayed the same is its nickname: the Grand Old Party, or GOP for short.
Since the Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War, it can be found in everything from rhyming 19th Century campaign tunes to the current name of the party’s main website.
While the exact origin is hard to pinpoint, one of its first recorded uses to describe Republicans appeared in 1874, when party officials in Minnesota proclaimed “the grand old party that saved the country is still true to the principles that gave it birth.” It was a reminder from Republicans to voters that they were the side who opposed secession during the Civil War, backing President Abraham Lincoln to preserve the union and oppose slavery.
“The moniker was intended to frame Republicans as America’s true partisan patriots,” said Tim Galsworthy, a historian of the Republican Party at the University of South Wales, who added that in the years following the Civil War, many accused the Democrats of treachery against the union.
That nostalgic connotation may have originally been intended with a hint of irony. After all, the Republican Party had existed for a mere two decades — since its modern founding in 1854 — when the GOP moniker first appeared print. At the time, the rival Democratic Party was more than twice its age, having been around since 1828. If either of the parties could have fairly been described as “old” at the time, it would not be the Republicans.
To add to the confusion, newspaper reporters also used the Grand Old Party term to refer to the Democrats around the same time, so the nickname may originally have even been a borrowed one.
Either way, it likely drew inspiration from the British press’s use of “Grand Old Man,” or G.O.M., to affectionately refer to their Prime Minister William Gladstone, who was elected into office across the Atlantic four times between 1868 and 1894. (The moniker became so popular that Gladstone’s critics inverted it to M.O.G — or Murderer of Gordon — after the British leader was accused of abandoning General Charles George Gordon in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, where the commander and imperial administrator was in charge of defending the British-held city from an anti-colonial uprising.)
In the United States, other variations also appeared too. They included Gallant Old Party — which newspapers continued to deploy as a synonym for the Republicans for years after the Civil War ended.
An 1885 issue of the Cleveland Gazette, a Black-owned pro-Republican newspaper, included the alternative phrase in a “closing campaign song” it printed that year: “The Gallant Old Party / Came up hale and hearty / to bury corruption and wrong / The ‘boodle’ was scouted / Democracy routed / And that’s why we give you this song.”
The boodle, in case you’re curious, is an apparent reference to “bribe money” with its origins in Dutch, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Red vs. Blue: A history of how we use political colors
For the next 100 years, Republican politicians — including President Richard M. Nixon who was particularly fond of the three-letter abbreviation — played around with alternative variations of Grand Old Party, but none stuck.
One was the “GO-Party,” popularized by Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign and replicated in political spots across the country that year. “Join the GO-Party … Go Republican in 1964!” read one ad sponsored by the Dubois County Republican Central Committee. Badges were also printed with the 1960s slogan, and some pins still survive.
By the 1970s, the Nixon administration began to use the phrase “generation of peace,” a reference to his administration’s commitment to withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam. In 1972, his campaign even printed booklets of political stamps with the slogan on it, capitalizing the first letters of each word in reference to the GOP under a banner of red and blue stars beside Nixon’s face.
Nixon won the election, but the phrase never succeeded in budging “Grand Old Party” off its ledge. | 2022-11-09T14:26:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is GOP: History of Republicans using Grand Old Party abbreviation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/09/gop-meaning-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/09/gop-meaning-republicans/ |
‘Bardo’: Impeccably staged and shot psychobabble
Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s latest film, a meditation on love, loss, Mexican national identity and inadequacy, is both show-offy and shallow
There’s a moment in “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” when the docufiction filmmaker Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho) encounters a former colleague turned frenemy, who criticizes his latest project for being pretentious, self-important and shallow. The same could be said for “Bardo” itself, a film by Alejandro G. Iñárritu that’s as dedicated to arty, show-offy posing as it is to contemplating the meaning of life. Like a similar sequence in Iñárritu’s “Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),” the riposte directed at Silverio is really Iñárritu beating his critics to the punch: a self-conscious gesture within a sea of similar parries and thrusts, signifying nothing or everything, depending on the viewer’s tolerance for impeccably staged and shot psychobabble.
Indeed, the opening image of “Bardo” suggests that Iñárritu has created “Birdman 2.0,” as a man, seen only as his shadow, repeatedly takes flight over a sere desert landscape. That game of cosmic leapfrog gives way to a birth scene in a hospital, when the infant coming into the world decides he’d rather stay in his mother’s womb. The next 2½ hours unfold as a series of random but thematically connected moments from Silverio’s life, in which he meditates on love, loss, Mexican national identity and his own inadequacies in a world governed by dream logic and a fetishistic attraction to stunning imagery for its own sake.
Clearly inspired by Federico Fellini’s “8½” and its successors (especially “All That Jazz”), Iñárritu creates a pageant of nonlinear but indelible scenes, each of them meticulously conceived and gorgeously photographed by Darius Khondji. Silverio debates the Mexican-American War with the U.S. ambassador while a crisp marching band plays in perfect formation outside, its military precision ending in a re-creation of a student massacre in 1968. Silverio visits an infotainment talk show, walking through a bevy of scantily clad dancers — Iñárritu isn’t above having his cheesecake and eating it, too — where he is supposed to talk about his last film, “False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.” Then he’s at home, flirting with his wife (Griselda Siciliani), entertaining his most haunting memories and regrets, and, eventually, arguing with his teenage son Lorenzo (Íker Sánchez Solano) about hypocrisy and Mexican romanticism, while the sunny dining room steadily darkens as a rainstorm begins outside. It all means something profound, but what, exactly?
Since his breaking out in 2000 with “Amores Perros,” Iñárritu has established himself as a technical master, so it should come as no surprise that these scenes and many others are executed with bravura confidence and visual dynamism. But the look-at-me tricks and recurring motifs can’t make up for a narrative that, once it comes into focus, is akin to listening to someone repeat their dreams in stultifying detail. The title of “Bardo” indicates the state between life and death, the threshold of here-but-not-hereness that Silverio seems to be hovering in. The question is whether he’s hurtling toward the afterlife or reaching up for one more bite at the apple. That literal life-or-death question becomes mired in cliched encounters with figures from Silverio’s past, as well as vaguely self-congratulatory natterings about the wages of wealth, ambition, artistic respect and public acclaim.
This is, after all, a film in which the protagonist can utter lines like “Success has been my biggest failure” and expect to be taken seriously — just before another character describes life as merely “a brief series of senseless events.” Well, okay. “Bardo” seems to be Iñárritu’s deeply personal — if hermetic — attempt to make sense of the conflicting and unresolved impulses that have animated his life and art over the past two decades, during which he’s gone from promising emerging filmmaker to Oscar-winning superstar. In its most promising moments, the film suggests a healthy amount of self-doubt; at its most grandiose, it looks like someone getting high on his own supply. That might be altogether appropriate for a movie that, regardless of where it lands, insists on occupying a liminal space: between past and present, breathtaking and banal, stupid and clever. It’s all of that and none of that, which is precisely as “Bardo” should be.
R. In area theaters; available Dec. 16 on Netflix. Contains strong language throughout, strong sexual elements and graphic nudity. In Spanish and some English with subtitles. 159 minutes. | 2022-11-09T14:26:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Bardo’: Impeccably staged and shot psychobabble - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/09/bardo-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/09/bardo-movie-review/ |
They were on hand to offer spiritual guidance, calm and bipartisan assistance at polling stations in 10 battleground states on Tuesday
The Revs. Barbara Williams-Skinner and Jim Wallis, co-coordinators of Faiths United to Save Democracy, engage in a video conference with poll chaplains working to keep the peace on Election Day. (Fredrick Kunkle/The Washington Post)
As tensions mounted on Election Day, often over who would be allowed to monitor the vote during one of the more hotly contested and consequential midterms in years, at least one group went to the polls hoping to keep the peace: chaplains.
Like their counterparts in the military, these trained volunteers — whether ordained clergy or lay people driven by religious faith — were on hand to offer spiritual guidance, calm and bipartisan assistance to voters at precincts in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and six other battleground states. If need be, the poll chaplains, dispatched by D.C.-based Faiths United to Save Democracy, were also ready to connect people with legal aid to ensure their vote would be counted.
Democracy is tested as partisan divide intensifies
“Lawyers and collars, we called it,” said the Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder and former head of Sojourners, a Christian community that emphasized transforming Jesus Christ’s teachings in the Gospels into action-seeking social justice.
Wallis, who monitored the poll chaplains’ activities from a command center inside the National Council of Negro Women’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, said the organization built on a long tradition stretching back to the early civil rights era to unite religious faith and political action to ensure all people’s voting rights. Some had deployed as poll chaplains in 2018, while the United Church of Christ also trained precinct chaplains during the 2020 election. Politics and religion mix insofar as many religious leaders view voting as a sacred, he said.
“This is Jewish, this is Muslim, this is Christian, this is Quakers. This is young, old, Black, White, Asian, Latino, Native American,” said the Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner, who partnered with Wallis to establish Faiths United to Save Democracy in 2021. She said religious leaders around the country felt that it was necessary to redouble their efforts to protect the vote following the 2020 election, when election laws were passed in several states that many viewed as unfairly restrictive.
“We needed to broaden our focus,” she said.
The organization has so far trained more than 700 poll chaplains, primarily in strategies to reduce conflict and keep the peace, said Wallis, who also heads the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.
In addition, the organization has conducted webinars and other educational instruction on voter rights and the importance of voting. And it has given poll chaplains fact sheets on each state so that they can answer questions voters might have, such as what to do if they’ve moved since the last election or how can they obtain a foreign language interpreter. The group has also tapped a much more extensive network of people to assist in legal challenges, such as the Committee for Civil Rights and the ACLU, through a hotline.
“There are thousands helping us around the country,” she said.
The organization’s poll chaplains assisted with early voting in the states where it began as early as Sept. 29, and some will be on duty during what’s expected to be a lengthy count in some states.
“They’re people of faith,” Williams-Skinner said. “They are prepared to be a calming, peaceful presence at a very turbulent time in the country.”
During a videoconference check-in Tuesday afternoon, most of the reports from poll chaplains on the ground were relatively uneventful.
The Rev. Donta McGilvery, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Justice” and “Jesus” forming an intersecting cross on the letter “S,” said a man had been heckling voters, demanding to know whether they had voted in line with their faith in Jesus, but otherwise the morning had been calm.
Bishop Harry Seawright, speaking from Alabama, said he was impressed by the heavy turnout and exuberant mood among people who felt that democracy itself was on the line in this election and they were ready to fight for it. “We are seeing some positive results,” Seawright said.
Wallis and Williams-Skinner, expressing satisfaction that things had been calm so far, said poll chaplains have not been so lucky in other recent elections.
“In Arizona, they saw men with rifles standing within a clear distance, but visible, with their faces covered in millitary-like garb in a menacing way. And in other places, they saw people making notes and taking pictures of them also in a threatening way,” Williams-Skinner said. “We tell them during the training, ‘Do not argue with people. Do not argue. You are there as ambassadors of Faiths United To Save Democracy.’ ”
No one has been assaulted or hurt, she said. She and others believe just the presence of the poll chaplains has so far kept the peace at many voting places.
“When you see a priest or a clergy or an imam or rabbi and they have their clergy garment on, for most people, that is a symbol of some level of calm and peace,” Williams-Skinner said.
After the polls closed, Wallis said, reports from across the country rolled in. “Poll chaplains were very well-received by voters and were a good, calming presence as hoped,” he said. “Now we turn to the fair counting process, which was very important last time.” | 2022-11-09T14:27:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Poll chaplains aim to keep the peace on hotly contested election day - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/09/poll-chaplain-midterm-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/09/poll-chaplain-midterm-2022/ |
Cain Velasquez, shown in 2019, was freed on $1 million bail Tuesday. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Cain Velasquez, the former UFC heavyweight champion accused of attempted murder and 10 gun-related charges in California, was freed on $1 million bail Tuesday, eight months after he was taken into custody.
Velasquez, 40, is accused of chasing Harry Goularte, who had been charged with sexually assaulting Velasquez’s young son, and shooting at him and members of his family in February. “It’s been a long slog and I am very grateful,” Velasquez’s attorney, Mark Geragos, told ESPN. “Nothing is as touching as watching him having it sink in with his wife, Michelle, there.”
Velasquez, who pleaded not guilty in August, was granted bail Tuesday by Judge Arthur Bocanegra at the end of a pretrial hearing after previously having been denied bail in March by Judge Shelyna Brown, who cited his “reckless disregard for human life.” Bocanegra determined that Velasquez, who has no prior record and family ties, is not a flight risk and considered his visible support in the MMA community, including many supporters who were present at the hearing and had written letters to the court, according to KRON. Velasquez was ordered to home detention, GPS monitoring and outpatient counseling. He also was ordered to stay away from Goularte and his family.
“Mr. Velasquez, I would not release you if I was not convinced that upon a release at this time, eight months later, that you would be a danger to Harry Goularte primarily, Patricia Goularte [his mother] or Paul Bender [his stepfather],” Bocanegra said in court documents obtained by MMA Junkie. “If you are as devoted a husband and father, I’m confident and have to believe you will not jeopardize anything that would take you away from your son, your daughter, your family. I hope you don’t prove me wrong.”
“I won’t, your honor,” Velasquez responded.
The shooting occurred after Goularte was released on a charge of a felony count of a lewd and lascivious act with a child under the age of 14. He had been granted supervised release over the objections of prosecutors, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Goularte has pleaded not guilty.
Police allege Velasquez shot Bender, who was not seriously wounded when he was struck by a bullet fired into the vehicle Goularte was riding in. An “11-mile, high-speed chase” through the city of San Jose ensued, according to the office of the district attorney, and Velasquez rammed the vehicle, which also carried Goularte’s mother, and fired a 40-caliber handgun into it multiple times.
In a lawsuit filed by the Velasquez family in June, Goularte is accused of exposing himself to, disrobing and touching the genitals of the 4-year-old boy, who attended a day care center in the home of Patricia Goularte five days a week. Goularte, his mother and stepfather are said to have lived in the house, and all three are named in the lawsuit, as are the day care business, 25 of its employees and a concrete business owned by Goularte. Such episodes occurred frequently, the lawsuit claims, from last year until February.
Velasquez’s son told police Feb. 24 that Goularte touched his genitals after taking him into a bathroom and that he told the boy not to tell anyone what had happened.
All of those named in the lawsuit were accused of having “fostered, maintained, and allowed an environment for its attendees to fall victim to sexual abuse at the hands of [Goularte].” He didn’t work at the facility, but as a resident of the house he had “daily access to the attendees/children,” the court filing stated.
A spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office said in the spring that investigators were interviewing other attendees of the day care in case any of them were potential victims. | 2022-11-09T14:27:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cain Velasquez released on $1 million bail in attempted murder case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/cain-velasquez-released-on-bail/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/cain-velasquez-released-on-bail/ |
Transcript: Next: Fat Joe
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Hello and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Helena Andrews‑Dyer, a pop culture reporter here at The Post.
Grammy‑nominated rapper Fat Joe is known for hits such as "Lean Back" and "All The Way Up." He joins us today to talk about his new memoir, "The Book of Jose," and how he sees the next generation of hip‑hop.
Joe, welcome to Washington Post Live.
FAT JOE: How are you, Helena? How are you?
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: I'm wonderful. Let's get started. Let's hop right into it. You've always rapped about your life, right? Your music has always had a tinge of autobiography to it, but a book is different, right? We're talking about 300 pages. Tell us about how digging deeper was for you? Was it hard?
FAT JOE: Very different. You know, when you rap, you use your imagination. You use your creativity. That's why guys like me and Meek Mill and Jay‑Z signed the bill against using rap lyrics against artists, because it's no different than somebody doing a movie or doing a play or whatever.
So the rap portion is really exaggerated, many lies, and so when I wrote my book and my memoir, I didn't want to pass or something happen to me and then I have somebody tell my story that wouldn't do it that justice. So that's the purpose for me writing this memoir, this book, and just keeping transparency and letting people know that they could go through anything in life, darkest periods in life, and they could still end up with a smile on their face. And so you know the music, but you don't know what's been going on behind the scenes, and that's why "The Book of Jose" is necessary.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: That's incredible.
And you write‑‑you talked about a movie, right? You write in the book, "Life in the South Bronx could feel like a movie," and your life is actually being turned into a TV show for Showtime. Tell us about what it was actually like growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s and how your childhood shaped who you are today.
FAT JOE: Well, you know, I was very blessed to grow up in the Bronx. It's the birthplace of hip‑hop music. We had nothing. So I challenged people to google pictures of the South Bronx in the '70s and early '80s. It looked like Ukraine. Don't ask me how it got there. Don't ask me why it was so bad. But the buildings were rubble. People actually‑‑families, hardworking families lived in abandoned buildings, and it was so poor. But what we did have was love. We had a sense of community. If somebody tried something in the community, everybody would stand up for it, and we didn't know what we were missing. And so that diversity of the Bronx, that hustle, that entrepreneur made me who I am today.
And if you ask me what would Fat Joe now say to a little Joe, there's really nothing I could tell him, because there were so many different things and pitfalls and obstacles I had to navigate through to get to where I'm at now, that there's no way I could give advice to a young Joey.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: So you had to go through it is what you're saying to become who you are today?
FAT JOE: Yes. That's correct.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Absolutely.
And you talk about the Bronx. Hip‑hop started in the Bronx, period, end of story, right? You describe yourself in the book as the "Forrest Gump of hip‑hop," which is just perfect, right? You're always in the right place at the exact right time. How‑‑tell us how you managed to be there, front row, at so many pivotal moments in hip‑hop history.
FAT JOE: Well, you know, in the hood now, we call it "outside." It's like I was outside, like really.
You know, I left my mother's house when I was 14 years old. You know, hip‑hop has always been in my DNA. It's been in my soul, and so anything moving with hip‑hop, whether it was graffiti, whether it was break dancing, whether it was just attending legendary jams and block parties‑‑and I could tell you, you know, I was there when Big Daddy Kane brought out Jay‑Z for the first time. I was there when Biz Markie brought out Big Daddy Kane for the first time. I was there when Lord Finesse brought out Big L for the first time. I was there when the Outsidaz brought out Eminem for the first time. I was there when Fat Joe brought out Big Pun for the first time. And so just being there as a fan was hip‑hop history and great times.
You know, even now, you know, it's different, but even now, we don't miss a Mary J. concert. We don't miss a Mark Anthony concert. We don't‑‑you know, I'm outgoing. I love to dance, you know, and get it in.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: I love that. Literally, another alternative title for the memoir, "I Was There," right, because you were literally there. As a fan of hip‑hop, how did that affect your artistry? Because you started as a fan.
FAT JOE: Oh, well, you know, I've done so many things that I can't believe. Like, I had to pinch myself. Like, you know, my idols are KRS‑One, LL Cool J, Heavy D. You know, I met all these guys and worked with these guys, and they're good friends of mines. And that's just surreal, so if you imagine a kid that grew up loving Justin Bieber or New Edition and they finally get to hang out with them and be family and be friends.
And so now I've always been humble and respectful of the legends and the pioneers and the people who paved the way for us to get here. You know, hip‑hop is America's natural resource. It came from the ground up. People were so poor and go through so much oppression that they had to sing they way through the pain, and all these years later, this has created maybe millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in the world as hip‑hop art form. And so I'm just proud to be a vessel of hip‑hop music and just represent it to the best of my knowledge and the best I can with honor and dignity.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Wow. Hip‑hop is America's greatest natural resource. I have never heard it put that way, and that is so real.
What do you want readers to learn from your story? What do you want them to take away from the book?
FAT JOE: Well, this book right here, I just want you to know, it's very scary, very true. This book will get you through the darkest times.
Now, I have to keep in mind, when I wrote this book, I was thinking of the white lady I see in first class reading the book on a metal thing. So I had to make it relatable to everybody. It's not just a hood book, but it's a book about going through your darkest times.
You know, when I first got signed and I rushed home to tell my mother I was signed to a record contract, she told me she had cancer, and there was only 1 percent chance she would win. You know, I'm only 19. My son was born autistic. His mother wanted to give him up for adoption. If it wasn't for my mother and father helping me raise him, I would never have a career. You would've never heard a Fat Joe.
My sister went to have birth, and they gave her an epidural, which numbs you from the waist down for the pain, but it went from the waist up. She became brain‑dead. We went to the adult care facility eight months every single day. My mother and father was in there. I was up in there, and she finally passed away. The baby passed away. Meanwhile, I'm performing in the MTV Awards, the BET Awards, the Billboard Awards, and doing "Lean Back" and doing‑‑and so it was very important for people to understand that it was much more than me just making hit records. I wanted you to know my journey and all the stuff I was going on‑‑that was going on behind the scenes that were really, really challenging.
And so I think when one reads this book, you'll learn to weave through adversity and never let that predict your future, because if I would have let them talk me out of my greatness, I wouldn't be here to this day.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Wow. So it's you are not necessarily what you've been through, right, and the fact that you're shining a light and you're so positive now after having gone through so much, that's what you want to show readers. And that's the journey that folks don't know about, right?
FAT JOE: Absolutely.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: That's amazing. What‑‑
FAT JOE: Who would think that a kid from the projects‑‑I'm sorry to cut you off.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: No.
FAT JOE: But who would think‑‑I just take a moment. Who would think a kid from the South Bronx in the projects would end up invited to the White House? And that was one of my biggest, because you can buy anything. You can get rich and buy anything. You can't buy your way into the White House.
And a shout‑out, Power to the Patients, an organization I'm very fond of, that bring out the transparency. You know, a lot of people are losing their jobs, losing their families, losing their homes. Once you go through money issues, that crumbles everything. And so Power to the Patients took me to the White House, and it's all about transparency, you knowing the prices of what they're charging you in the hospital. Somebody could charge you $300 for a procedure and charge the next person $3,000 for the same procedure. So it's very dear to my heart, and just fighting through this, I never thought I would get to the White House.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And that brings me to my next question because it's about politics and policy. In the current state of hip‑hop‑‑you mentioned it earlier‑‑you support New York's "Rap Music on Trial" bill, which passed the state senate last May. The law would limit the admissibility of music as in a criminal trial, right? You can't use someone's rap lyrics against them. Why was it important for you to get involved in that issue?
FAT JOE: This is terrible and very dangerous. If we grabbed 10 young kids, male, female, whatever, and got them to rap outside a high school or junior high school, they would rap about having Bentleys, having a mansion, having jewelry, this, their that to that. We know they're lying, but there's nothing wrong with imagining and being creative.
Now, if we know 10 rappers in a row are going to rap and going to lie and exaggerate about the truth, how if they get locked up, we use those same lyrics against them as reality? And so the prosecutors know they doing the wrong thing, but they want to win. And so this is a terrible and dangerous use of the law that‑‑it's incredible. Imagine you writing a song that's like a movie, and somehow, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they're using these lyrics against you, like you robbed the bodega, you killed the man, when it's absolutely not true.
And so me as an elder statesman of hip‑hop, I've got to speak up. I've got to talk up for the youth.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And those who support the bill, they argue that the practice disproportionately affects Black and brown people, Black and brown men. Do you think hip‑hop is held to different standard?
FAT JOE: Well, I mean, hip‑hip is Black and brown.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Right.
FAT JOE: Creatively, hip‑hop is‑‑other than a few, like we got Logic. We got Eminem. We got a couple of brothers that's White that we support and we love. And shout‑out to Eminem. Congratulations on the Hall of Fame. That's my brother. But hip‑hop might be 99 point‑‑percent Black and Latino. So it's like, you know, who you think is going to be affected by this? Poor legal representation. People don't have money for the right lawyers, and they sending them away for life and 25 years to life. And so this is a terrible thing.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Do you think hip‑hop is held to a different standard than other musical genres?
FAT JOE: Absolutely. I mean, we rap, and you say keep it real. But keep it real is taking care of your family, putting your kids through college. Keeping it real is helping feed your community, opening businesses in your community. Keep it real is loving yourself, not hating yourself. And so just because we say keep it real, then, all right, this must be real.
And these kids are getting railroaded, doing tons of time, and then what we going to do? When they figure out that it was the wrong use of the lyrics, 25 years from now when these kids‑‑they go in jail, 20 years old. Forty‑six years‑‑we see it every day on the news, somebody who was wrongly convicted. Oh, but the guys lost their whole youth. The women lost their whole youth. So let's address this problem now. We're intelligent enough to deal with reality.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And shifting gears just honestly slightly, but it has to do with this, hip‑hop is in mourning right now following the death of Takeoff, the 28‑year‑old talent, one‑third of the rap group, Migos.
In your three decades in the game, you've witnessed so many giants and up‑and‑comers, their legacies cut short. How did you deal with that, and how do you think hip‑hop can deal with this?
FAT JOE: You know, I knew Biggie Smalls before he was the biggest. We talked every day. They murdered Biggie Smalls. They murdered Big L in his own block.
Run‑D.M.C., the greatest group of all time, Jam Master Jay murdered in his own neighborhood. Tupac was murdered. Pop Smoke, the man‑‑the kid, Pop Smoke, never got to hear one of his hits. PnB Rock, now Takeoff.
I mean, you know, the difference is in my era, you know, we were getting murdered, but we were getting murdered, you know, with every two years or something. This is happening every single month with these young kids, and instead of us praising these young kids, instead of us looking at guys that come up from where we come up from who can provide jobs to the community, who should be adored as heroes, are getting looked at now with a jealousy. And so we're learning to hate ourselves.
And my thing is about life. You only get one life. Nobody makes a U‑turn. Nobody comes back. And so it's sad that a senseless act that happened to take somebody who's a great person, who means so much to their family, to their community, to the hip‑hop community, off this earth. And so we got to keep talking and mentoring the youth every chance we get and supporting youth groups all around the nation who are out there doing the work, peacekeeping, talking to these kids, trying to help. That's an important part of our future.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: You talked about hip‑hop being this natural resource. It has touched every‑‑every industry, right? Politics, art, music, film, so many parts of the culture. Hip‑hop is culture. Where do you see the next generation taking the genre?
FAT JOE: I believe the children are our future, and I believe they're going to be smarter than us. And I believe we have some blueprints that were never there, such as a Jay‑Z, such as a Diddy, such as a Dr. Dre, such as a 50 Cent. These guys are billionaires growing up in poverty, single‑parent homes. And so these kids now have a blueprint to know what to do with branding, with ownership, with equity, with how they're going to take their brand to another level. So I believe they'll be bigger and bigger than even our generation.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And you talk about your generation. You have been in the game literally three decades. You're constantly adapting, right? Let's talk about your social media, your IG Live show, right? You are "Joprah." You've interviewed everybody from Dr. Fauci to Alicia Keys to Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio‑Cortez. How do you use social media to connect? How do you feel social media allows you to connect with your audience in a way that you weren't able to before?
FAT JOE: Well, you gave me an opportunity to say yesterday's price is not today's price. [Laughs] And, you know, covid was very scary. I'm pre‑diabetic. I was watching the news. A bunch of diabetics was dying. I really stood home for a year and four months. Other than going to the supermarket, we never left our home.
And so one day my daughter tells me‑‑she was 14 at the time. She said, "Dad, why don't you go live?" and this is when everybody was stuck in the house. And so I went on live, and thousands of people started coming on, and celebrities and everybody. And then the next day, she said, "Why don't you go on again?" and so I went on. And then we just started doing this every day at 8 p.m.
And, you know, when I come up in the game, it was about privacy. It was about a mystique. It was about, you know, not‑‑people not having all that access to you as an artist. But going on social media and on Instagram Live helped people understand like, wow, I never knew Fat Joe was this guy. I never knew he knew about this and that. I never knew he was funny. We didn't know how much he was for the people, and we are for the people.
When you just talk about‑‑you tell me your joke. They try to kill you 30 times in your life. Why are you still here? I watch bullets make a U‑turn. Divine intervention. Most guys like me would have died, but it was God's doing to show me the way that in the future I was going to help people.
So, recently, last year, we had a bunch of Muslim brothers and sisters die in the fire in the Bronx. We raised $2 million, and that was begging people and making the phone calls and doing what we got to do.
You know, a couple of years back at the hurricane, who knew that Fat Joe from the projects would send a million pounds of food, women's hygienes, water, medicine to Puerto Rico? And so we constantly try to give back.
You can have someone start a certain way, and believe me, I was no‑‑when you read the book, you realize, man, this guy was‑‑wasn't the best of guys. But I say I was a good person that did bad things. I always had a kind heart. I always had a loving heart. But I chose the wrong path, and thank God that I'm still here to this day where we're able‑‑you know, next week we giving out six 18‑wheelers of food in the hood. I got businesses and stores in the hood. I have classrooms in my store, classrooms for kids that don't own a computer, and so they get to learn from the biggest and the best entrepreneurs, the people coming there and teach them something. And then once the semester is over, we give them the computer for free. We get more computers, and we start off the next semester.
So all I try to do is show you that you can start somewhere. You can change. And America's perception of someone is if you got arrested before, if you got a famous name‑‑you know, right now if you have a notorious last name‑‑say Gotti. They're treating his grandson when they stop him like he's his grandfather.
And I believe that people could change. The culture could change. People‑‑it could be a redemption. It could be a way of people changing. And you got to let that process do its course.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: You have a message, right? You have a message. We talked about your philanthropy, your music, your hosting. This is the last question. You have an upcoming one‑man show. Last question: Tell us, tell the audience, what they can expect from that show.
FAT JOE: Boy, oh boy, that's a must‑see. [Laughs] Oh, my god. They call me the greatest storyteller of hip‑hop history. I don't disagree with them, right? But I learned about Mark Twain, who is the greatest storyteller ever, and I love Mark Twain. The only difference from me and him was his stories were made up and mines are real.
And so we're going to talk about getting kidnapped in Africa. We're going to talk about the time Mike Tyson saved me. We're going to talk about‑‑what's my guy? Weinstein? Harvey Weinstein. No, we got‑‑[laughs]. No, this is going to be like a one‑man show. This ain't comedy. It's going to make you laugh; it's going to make you cry. It's going to be intense. Dave Chappelle is actually introing me. So expect him to smoke his cigarette and be unapologetic about Fat Joe, and this is something I always wanted to do. And I'm finally getting the opportunity to do it.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: That sounds incredible.
Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there, or fortunately, because that gives people something they're very excited about. Fat Joe, Joey Crack, Joseph Cartagena, thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Post Live.
FAT JOE: It was an honor and my pleasure to be on your show.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And now I'd like to bring in a few of my colleagues to continue the conversation about the youth vote and the midterm elections. Jackie Alemany is a congressional investigations reporter and Marianna Sotomayor is a congressional reporter, both here at The Washington Post. Welcome to you both.
MS. ALEMANY: Thanks.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: So we are going to dive right in. Mariana, I want to start with you. Talk to us about voter turnout. Does it appear that young people are showing up at the polls? Where can they make the biggest impact?
MS. SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. That's always been the big question, and a lot of parties, specifically the Democrats, are always looking at the youth vote, because really when you do see those younger voters turning out, it likely means a very good turnout year, especially in a midterm election where just voter turnout, voter enthusiasm tends to be lower, and, you know, a lot of the trends showing that this year might be a big night for Republicans, especially in the House. So Democrats have really been trying to mobilize that young vote across the country, but so far the expectation is not meeting what a lot of Democratic strategists have wanted to see so far.
Of course, people are still voting throughout the day, but Democrats have largely seen an enthusiasm gap problem, and these days kind leading up to the election, a number of polls showing that enthusiasm is starting to reach Republicans. But Republicans just tend to be way more pumped, ready to go vote, especially in a year like this where the momentum tends to be on their side.
So it really‑‑for Democrats, a lot comes down to that youth voter turnout to determine whether the base itself is going to motivate and make sure that a lot of members, especially on the House side and the Senate, keep their majorities tonight.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And speaking of those youth voters, Jackie, tell us the top two to three issues young voters are paying attention to the most.
MS. ALEMANY: I was hoping that was going to be your follow‑up because I was going to say that is the conundrum for Democrats this election cycle.
According to a Harvard IOP poll that came out a few weeks ago, inflation was the number one issue that young voters aged 18 to 29 cared about. Abortion was second, although there was a fairly significant gap between those two issues. Protecting democracy was a third, followed by climate change and gun control. And only 9 percent of young voters cared about student loan debt and the relief that the Biden administration has promised them.
So this, again, I think, speaks to what Marianna has been hearing from Democratic strategists throughout the day, that there is a little bit of an enthusiasm gap here.
Inflation obviously is an issue that Republicans have been hammering home, and Democratic young voters might be less incentivized and less enthusiastic about turning out to the polls, especially since some of them are first‑time voters, which makes them sort of lower‑propensity voters, harder to reach with Democratic campaigns. And Democratic polling firms that had been tracking absentee and early voting, which is what a majority of young voters often leaned towards, had showed that compared to the last few cycles, where there were record amounts of young people turning out, at this point in time that those numbers were lagging, again, a troubling sign for Democrats, although it is going to be a long night and week ahead.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: A long night and a week ahead. Okay. That is the headline.
Marianna, could the midterms usher in generational changes in congressional leadership for both parties, especially in a, quote/unquote, "post‑Pelosi era" and with younger lawmakers like Maxwell Frost, who you recently profiled?
MS. SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. I was able to talk to Maxwell Frost. He is a Democrat representing an Orlando, Florida, district, and also recently talked to Karoline Leavitt. She is a Republican running in New Hampshire. Both of them are 25, which makes them part of Generation Z. If they're both elected, they will be the first ones in Congress, both House and Senate, from that generation to walk the halls of Congress. So it will be something different.
And, you know, it comes at a time when, yeah, there are bigger majorities and both parties of just older members. We've seen a lot of them stick around, and they likely will probably still, you know, be the ones who make the decisions up on Capitol Hill. But, you know, we've seen‑‑like in 2018 when Democrats won back the majority in the House, we saw a lot more liberal members like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez really come in and a number of other women I should add too really making their stamp, pushing those older leaders to say, "Hey, look, this is where a lot of the Democratic Party is. Maybe we should be considering this issue and that issue," and it definitely came to the irritation of those older members and leadership.
But, you know, you asked about Pelosi, and I can talk about Republican leadership in a little bit, but it really is a question whether she sticks around after this midterm election. In 2020, she basically promised her caucus that for her to be elected Speaker, to get those votes, she would step down after this congressional term, but she hasn't made that promise publicly since. So we'll all be watching that, and if that is the case, you know, a number of members I've been talking since last year have been saying that they are ready for new generation of leadership.
It's possible that the new Democratic leader, regardless of, you know, whether the party stays in the majority or minority, could be Hakeem Jeffries. It would be historic, equally as historic as Pelosi being the first woman. He, of course, would be the first African American person to be Speaker of the House and/or minority leader of the Democratic Party, and you have others behind him who are younger, who want more member input rather than, you know, seeing that power at the top.
And it's always been interesting because Republicans, their majorities‑‑I should say their leadership has always tended to be younger. They're in their 60s. They're in their 50s. I know that doesn't sound very young, but it is when you're comparing it to those in their 80s over on the Democratic side. So you will see a little bit more of age diversity, I should say, in Republican leadership.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And, Jackie, how could President Biden's agenda change come Wednesday morning?
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. This is something that has not been talked about enough because we have been so focused on the results of the election, which again are going to take a few days for‑‑I think for us to see fully materialize. But, essentially, Joe Biden's agenda could be put on pause if the House‑‑if Republicans win back the House and potentially the Senate. They only need one seat to win back the Senate and a handful of seats to win back the House, and the, you know, history is in their favor at the moment. Although, again, it remains to be seen which of these candidates who have been viewed as sort of liabilities by some in the Republican Party are ultimately going to win.
That being said, Democratic strategists have even privately sort of ceded that the House is probably going to be run by a Republican majority come January, and Biden himself finally said last week that at least he has the veto pen in the case that legislation that Democrats do not support ultimately makes it all the way to the White House.
But GOP leaders have promised a slew of investigations. That means subpoenas for Democratic leaders and Biden administration officials starting January 1st. We've seen people like congressman, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, Jim Jordan, who will likely be the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, already lining up the investigations and subpoenas that they're planning on issuing and relitigating some of the Biden administration's most tumultuous moments, such as the administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
You've also heard Republicans already threatening to impeach Joe Biden and some of his top officials, although the Impeach Biden push has gained less traction than the Impeach Alejandro Mayorkas and Merrick Garland pushes for various things, Mayorkas for his work on the border, for Merrick Garland's investigations into former President Donald Trump.
And then we've heard Republicans as well already threatening to use must‑pass bills as a leverage, things like funding the government, increasing the debt limit, raising the prospects of really a standstill in Congress when it comes to any legislation that might make it through and get passed.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And, Marianna, I want to ask you, in June, Democrats were fired up by the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, hoping it would steer voters to the polls. Tell us, did that decision have as much of an impact on voters as Democrats originally thought, or has the election returned to, quote/unquote, "bread‑and‑butter issues" like the economy?
MS. SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. You know, you definitely saw a bump or a peak, as a lot of Democrats like to say, when it came to talking about abortion. Of course, the moment that decision came down, you did see a lot of voters start to say, "Wait. What is happening here? Why are a number of my rights being rolled back?" And Democrats really hinged on that message, not just saying, you know, abortion is being rolled back, but what else are Republicans going to roll back if they regain the majorities?
However, that argument like they‑‑like Democrats have said, reached a peak at some point over the fall, and there was a return to those bread‑and‑butter, kitchen‑table issues, and it's something that a lot of Democrats, the most vulnerable ones tonight representing swing districts, actually told leadership and members in their own caucus when they came back in October for just a couple of weeks to say, "Hey, we can't just be talking about abortion. We need to be talking about a number of issues," because even though that is big and it is a threat and it's likely we will see a lot more horror stories when it comes to a number of things that the states are deciding on that issue, a lot of people are feeling the economy right now. They're filling up their gas tank. They're going to the grocery store. That just tends to be way more front of mind. So that is where Democrats are trying to also talk about democracy in these final hours and what's at stake.
But, at the end of the day, we have seen, a lot of polling has shown that voters continue to say the economy is the number one issue.
I will say, however, after visiting Michigan, that is actually a state where abortion is on the ballot.
People have to, when they are voting, also vote to have reproductive rights or roll back to a 1931 law that basically bans abortions, no exceptions for rape or incest, and/or life of the mother. So, in those states, which I think is just Michigan and California, people will be thinking about that way more, and we might see, if it helps some of these very vulnerable Democrats in that state, actually hold onto their seats.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Okay. We have to wrap up, but I want to get something from both of you, starting with you, Jackie. To close, in just a sentence, what are you most paying attention to today as the election results roll in? We'll start with you, Jackie, and then we'll go to you, Marianna.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. I am looking for the red wave, and I think that the House races that we could see the earliest indication of whether or not that red wave is actually going to play out is going to be in Virginia 7, Virginia 2, Elissa Slotkin's race in Michigan and in New Hampshire. And that is where you see these moderate Democrats, three of whom are running for reelection, who have continued to be moderate front liners throughout their time and previously won swing districts. And I'm going to be looking closely to see if they're able to hold on to these seats, especially Elaine Luria, a member of the January 6th Committee, who essentially run on a‑‑ran on a platform of protecting democracy.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And, Marianna?
MS. SOTOMAYOR: Jackie, yeah, she totally took those‑‑those are exactly the seats to watch tonight on the early side.
So I will add, you know, because we are expecting a Republican majority, besides those early seats, I'm looking at the diversity. A historic number of women, Black Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans are also running tonight, and that could really expand the ranks within the Republican Party in the House. And also, the ideological makeup is huge here, and that's really going to determine how good of a majority a Speaker Kevin McCarthy could have.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: Unfortunately, we're out of time. Thank you so much, Jackie and Marianna, for joining me on Washington Post Live.
MS. ALEMANY: Thanks for having us.
MS. SOTOMAYOR: Thank you.
MS. ANDREWS‑DYER: And thank you to all of you for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find more information about our upcoming programs.
I'm Helena Andrews‑Dyer, and thank you for joining us on Washington Post Live. | 2022-11-09T14:28:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Next: Fat Joe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/09/transcript-next-fat-joe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/09/transcript-next-fat-joe/ |
A man was detained after throwing eggs at King Charles and Camilla during an engagement in northern England on Nov. 9. (Video: Reuters)
LONDON — King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, were visiting the city of York on Wednesday when a protester hurled at least three eggs at them while shouting “this country was built on the blood of slaves.”
He missed his target and was quickly detained by the police, while the crowd booed and chanted “God Save the King.”
Charles seemed unfazed by the commotion — although he appeared to glance at the eggs splattered on the pavement — and continued to chat with city leaders as he strolled along the street. He and Camilla were in the northern city to unveil a statue of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
This isn’t the first time that the new king, who has been in the job for just two months, has faced protests.
In the days following the queen’s death, several people were arrested for staging protests. One woman was arrested in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the queen was lying at rest, for holding a sign with an expletive and the words “abolish the monarchy.” Another was arrested for shouting “who elected him” as a document formally proclaiming Charles as king was read aloud in Oxford, England. The response by the police sparked a debate about freedom of speech in the United Kingdom.
The royals generally receive a warm reception when they go on walkabouts or travel abroad. But this is also not the first royal egg tossing incident — though you have to look pretty far back to find one for Charles’s predecessor.
During the queen’s 1986 royal tour of New Zealand, she was hit with an egg thrown by a woman protesting Britain’s treaty with the Maori tribes. The queen was in an open car and the egg hit her pink coat.
Wednesday’s egg-throwing incident comes on the same day that the fifth series of “The Crown” drops on Netflix. The timing is awkward for Charles, who is in the very early days of his kingship. This series focuses on the 1990s, which revisits the disintegration of his marriage to Princess Diana and some of the most painful chapters in his life. | 2022-11-09T14:28:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | York protester throws eggs at King Charles - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/king-charles-uk-eggs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/king-charles-uk-eggs/ |
This photo released by Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center, shows German Nazis carry Jewish books, presumably for burning, during Kristallnacht intake most likely in the town of Fuerth, Germany on Nov. 10, 1938. The photos were taken by Nazi photographers during the pogrom in the city of Nuremberg and the nearby town of Fuerth. They wound up in the possession of a Jewish American serviceman who served in Germany during World War II. His descendants,donated the album to Yad Vashem. (Yad Vashem via AP) (Uncredited/Yad Vashem)
JERUSALEM — Harrowing, previously unseen images from 1938’s Kristallnacht pogrom against German and Austrian Jews have surfaced in a photograph collection donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, the organization said Wednesday. | 2022-11-09T14:28:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Newly discovered photos show Nazi Kristallnacht up close - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/newly-discovered-photos-show-nazi-kristallnacht-up-close/2022/11/09/4ddb61e6-6035-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/newly-discovered-photos-show-nazi-kristallnacht-up-close/2022/11/09/4ddb61e6-6035-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, poses with U.S. actor Sean Penn after receiving latter’s Oscar statuette and handing him the Order of Merit, III degree during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP) (Uncredited/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office) | 2022-11-09T14:28:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sean Penn loans Oscar to Zelenskyy until Ukraine wins war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/sean-penn-loans-oscar-to-zelenskyy-until-ukraine-wins-war/2022/11/09/d2402f0a-6037-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/sean-penn-loans-oscar-to-zelenskyy-until-ukraine-wins-war/2022/11/09/d2402f0a-6037-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Photos and Stories From the Front Lines of Post-Roe America
In the months after the constitutional right to abortion was revoked, I photographed and interviewed patients, protesters and health-care providers on both sides of the divide
By Kasia Strek
Pink House Defenders welcome OB/GYN Cheryl Hamlin, 60, a Boston doctor who works at Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Mississippi, as she arrives at the facility, which is nicknamed “the Pink House.” On the clinic’s final day of providing abortions, abortion rights and antiabortion activists clashed in front of the building.
Nearly four months after the landscape of abortion access dramatically changed in the United States, Michelle Colon, a founder of the SHERo abortion fund in Mississippi, sat in a friend’s kitchen on a weekly call with activists from other red states. She wore an “Abortion Freedom Fighter” T-shirt and constantly checked her phone in case someone in crisis was calling. “People think that with the closing of the clinics, we also closed our activity,” she says. “It is the opposite; we are trying to survive, as women now need our help more than ever.”
The New Mexico Provider Trying to Save Abortion for Texas Women
Meet the woman who started an underground abortion network in the 1960s
I come from Poland, a Catholic country whose abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe. Inspired by the protests that took place in 2016 to oppose further limits on abortion in my homeland, I began covering reproductive health care around the world. Over the past six years, I’ve photographed and interviewed women who suffered because of such laws, as well as doctors, lawyers and activists in Poland, El Salvador, the Philippines, Egypt, Germany and Ireland.
I spent the first few months of this year in Ukraine, where I documented both human rights abuses against the Ukrainian people and their inspiring defiance. On trips to the American South in the months following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, I found the same combination of strength, pain and resistance.
I traveled mainly to Southern states, and to Illinois, where many women from the South now go for abortions. I met with abortion rights and antiabortion activists, with social and clinic workers, and with women who’d had abortions or carried unwanted or health-threatening pregnancies to term. Though these are often difficult stories to tell, I saw incredible determination in the women with whom I spoke.
Kasia Strek is a photojournalist based in Paris and Warsaw. | 2022-11-09T14:48:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos and stories from the front lines of post-Roe America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/09/post-roe-wade-america-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/09/post-roe-wade-america-abortion/ |
2 DEMON COPPERHEAD (Harper, $32.50). By Barbara Kingsolver. A boy born in a trailer in Appalachia faces the challenges of childhood poverty with resilience.
4 THE WORLD WE MAKE (Orbit, $30). By N. K. Jemisin. Avatars for New York City’s boroughs join forces with others to protect the city from impending destruction.
7 THE BOYS FROM BILOXI (Doubleday, $29.95). By John Grisham. Two childhood friends grow apart as one becomes a prosecutor and the other a mobster.
8 FAIRY TALE (Scribner, $32.50). By Stephen King. A teenager must protect the world from being invaded by the evil ruler of a fantastical realm.
9 THE LAST CHAIRLIFT (Simon & Schuster, $28). By John Irving. A young man searches for his father and becomes a famous writer.
10 HORSE (Viking, $28). By Geraldine Brooks. A scientist and a historian bond over their shared interest in a Civil War-era racehorse and his enslaved groom.
5 FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING (Flatiron, $29.99). By Matthew Perry. The “Friends” star opens up about his childhood, career and lifelong battles with addiction.
7 THE SONG OF THE CELL (Scribner, $32.50). By Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Pulitzer Prize-winning doctor and researcher explains what the understanding of cells means to the past, present and possibly the future.
8 CINEMA SPECULATION (Harper, $35). By Quentin Tarantino. The Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director analyzes American films from the 1970s.
9 INCITING JOY (Algonquin Books, $27). By Ross Gay. The poet and essayist considers how the act of caring for others can encourage connections that may soothe adversity.
10 THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF AN ORDINARY MAN (Knopf, $32). By Paul Newman. The late Oscar winner’s memoir is based on thousands of pages of interview transcripts with him and those closest to him.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended Nov. 6. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from the American Booksellers Association, the trade association for independent bookstores in the United States, and indiebound.org. Copyright 2022 American Booksellers Association. (The bestseller lists alternate between hardcover and paperback each week.) | 2022-11-09T15:09:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post hardcover bestsellers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/11/08/1ae29616-5f99-11ed-902f-6d122eb58547_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/11/08/1ae29616-5f99-11ed-902f-6d122eb58547_story.html |
Democracy Won, But Trumpism Didn’t Necessarily Lose
On a night that saw many Democrats victorious, the most important deed, with perhaps the most lasting echo, belonged to a loser. “I have the privilege to concede this race to J.D. Vance,” Representative Tim Ryan said after losing his longshot bid for an a US Senate seat in Ohio. “Because the way this country operates is that when you lose an election, you concede.” | 2022-11-09T15:57:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democracy Won, But Trumpism Didn’t Necessarily Lose - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democracy-won-but-trumpism-didnt-necessarily-lose/2022/11/09/7faf38ec-6043-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democracy-won-but-trumpism-didnt-necessarily-lose/2022/11/09/7faf38ec-6043-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
New Weight-Loss Drugs Work, But Who’s Paying?
There’s got to be a better way. (Photographer: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
After decades of failure, weight loss drugs seem finally poised to become big pharma’s newest blockbuster category. Bloomberg Intelligence sees the US obesity drug market alone as worth $12 billion in 2028. Morgan Stanley Research recently made a far more bullish prediction, forecasting global sales of obesity drugs could reach $54 billion by 2030.
The enthusiasm is merited. These newer drugs offer more profound and sustained weight loss than any of the medicines that came before them, and there are many people who could benefit from them: According to the US Government Accountability Office, between 2013 and 2016, only 3% of the people eligible for an obesity medication were taking one.
But those lofty sales goals will only be reached if the medical field can overcome the structural barriers to their use.
The new drugs are typically once-a-week injections that mimic gut hormones that regulate the feeling of satiety. The approach seems to be solving the field’s problems with safety and efficacy. Data on Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, approved in June 2021, and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Mounjaro, expected to be approved next year, suggest these drugs can help people shed, on average, as much as 15-20% of their body weight. We have only a snippet of data on Amgen’s early-stage weight-loss drug, AMG 133, but it has already generated intense interest from investors based on hopes that it could offer similar or potentially higher weight loss as Mounjaro with a once-a-month shot. Amgen said this week that people taking a high dose of the drug had lost on average about 14.5% of their body weight about three months into its phase 1 trial. Full data from that study will be disclosed at a conference early next month.
Results like those would make the new drugs 2-3 times more effective than older diet drugs, which also carried a litany of side effects ranging from the unpleasant (leaky stools) to downright dangerous (increased risk of heart attacks or cancer).
People are eager to try the new treatments. At a conference on obesity last week, experts in the field traded stories of the long waits for new patients seeking an appointment with weight-loss specialists. The Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center, for example, has over 4,000 people on its wait list, says Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician there.
“The demand is overwhelming the workforce,” says Robert Kushner, who specializes in obesity medicine at Northwestern Medicine.
Pharma companies are also struggling to keep up with demand. Lilly has had trouble keeping up its supply of Mounjaro, even though it’s currently only approved for diabetes. When it gets an expected nod from the Food and Drug Administration as an obesity treatment in the second half of 2023, at least one analyst believes it could swiftly become one of the best-selling drugs in the history of the industry. And although Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy has been on the market for more than a year, it has been in a constant state of short supply, first because of unexpectedly high demand, and later due to manufacturing issues.
Novo expects that supply constraint to be resolved by the end of this year, a situation that could finally provide some answers to key questions on the market. For one, the magnitude of demand could become clearer; currently, it’s complicated by people turning to diabetes treatments that use the same ingredients as weight-loss drugs. And once supply is steady, it should be easier to gauge how long people are sticking with these once-a-week injections, a factor that will affect just how big of a blockbuster drug they become.
One major problem? Primary care physicians have been reluctant to prescribe the drugs. One issue is that doctors today aren’t typically trained in addressing obesity, and some still take the antiquated view that the disease is solely a lifestyle rather than a medical issue. Until that group gets more comfortable using these treatments, “I fear that all of these advances are going to remain on the shelf,” says Kushner, who consults for Novo Nordisk and led a Phase 3 study of Wegovy.
Affordability is also a huge issue. Wegovy was launched with a monthly price of more than $1,600, and insurance coverage has been spotty. A patchwork of laws dictate access to weight-loss drugs around the country, making them more accessible in some states than others. In Massachusetts, for example, private insurers will pay for obesity drugs, but Stanford says getting Medicaid to cover the drugs for her patients has remained difficult. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, a bill that would allow the treatments to be covered for state Medicaid recipients has inched closer to passing after languishing for years. And Medicare currently excludes coverage of obesity drugs completely.
Also worth considering: The story about the long-term safety of this new generation of drugs is still being written. Past experience in the weight-loss arena has shown that side effects can emerge after the drugs hit the market. That worry is compounded by the drugs being potentially used in situations where there’s no evidence for their efficacy or safety — namely, in people who aren’t considered medically obese, but would like help shedding pounds. (Elon Musk, for example, recently made headlines when he credited his fitness to fasting and Wegovy, though it’s not clear he actually would qualify for the treatment.)
• Psilocybin Studies Risk Being Warped by Hype: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-11-09T15:58:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Weight-Loss Drugs Work, But Who’s Paying? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-weight-loss-drugs-work-but-whos-paying/2022/11/09/ccea6bca-603b-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-weight-loss-drugs-work-but-whos-paying/2022/11/09/ccea6bca-603b-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Analysis by Laurence Arnold | Bloomberg
The use of nuclear arms had been considered practically unthinkable for the 77 years since the US proved their destructive power. But a distinctive feature of Russian military policy is an express willingness to introduce nuclear weapons into an otherwise conventional war. That helps explain why President Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling about his nuclear arsenal since launching war on Ukraine in February has been so worrisome. What’s of particular concern with Russia is its posture on so-called tactical, or nonstrategic, nuclear weapons.
1. What has Russia done to raise concern?
In a speech laying out Russia’s reasons for invading Ukraine, Putin warned that any nation that interfered would suffer “consequences that you have never experienced in your history.” That was widely seen as threatening a nuclear strike. On Sept. 21, in the wake of a Ukrainian counteroffensive helped by US intelligence and weapons donated by the West, Putin portrayed the war as a fight to the death with the US and its allies and vowed to “use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.” Rhetoric aside, Russia regularly holds drills to test its strategic weapon delivery systems, including practice launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and shorter-range cruise missiles; one was held just days before the invasion. Military experts have considered how Russia might use a tactical weapon in a conventional conflict, like the one in Ukraine.
2. What’s a tactical nuclear weapon?
“Tactical” is an inexact term for a nuclear weapon that could be used within a theater of war. Generally speaking, that means it has a less powerful warhead (the explosive head of a missile, rocket or torpedo) and is delivered at a shorter range -- by mines, artillery, cruise missiles or bombs dropped by aircraft -- than the “strategic” nuclear weapons the US and Russia could launch at each other’s homeland using ICBMs. Arms control accords between the US and the Soviet Union (and, later, between the US and Russia) starting in the 1970s generally focused on reducing the number of strategic nuclear weapons, not tactical ones.
3. How powerful can a tactical nuclear weapon be?
Where today’s most powerful strategic warheads are measured in the many hundreds of kilotons, tactical nuclear weapons can have explosive yields of less than 1 kiloton; many are in the tens of kilotons. For some perspective, the atomic bombs dropped by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had explosive yields of about 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons, respectively.
4. How does a nuclear strike fit into Russia’s military doctrine?
Since 2000, Russia’s publicly shared military doctrine has allowed for nuclear weapons use “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” The Russian strategy known as “escalate to de-escalate” contemplates using a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield to change the course of a conventional conflict that Russian forces are at risk of losing. John Hyten, who served as the top US nuclear weapons military official, says a more accurate translation of the Russian strategy is “escalate to win.” Russian diplomats, in a bid to dial back fears about what might happen in Ukraine, have said nuclear weapons would be used against conventional forces only if Russia’s “very existence” were “in jeopardy.”
5. What’s in Russia’s arsenal?
The US Department of Defense reported in 2018 that Russia had “significant advantages” over the US and its allies in tactical nuclear forces and was improving delivery capabilities. Researchers at the Federation of American Scientists estimated that entering 2022, Russia had 4,477 nuclear warheads, of which 1,525 -- roughly one-third -- could be considered tactical.
6. What would a tactical nuclear strike look like?
Nina Tannenwald, author of “The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945,” paints a scenario of even a small nuclear weapon, one with an explosive yield of 0.3 kiloton, producing “damage far beyond that of a conventional explosive.” It could, she wrote in Scientific American in March, “cause all the horrors of Hiroshima, albeit on a smaller scale.” It’s possible, however, that if detonated at the right altitude, a small-yield warhead might wipe out opposing forces beneath without leaving behind long-term radiation damage that leaves the battlefield off-limits to all.
7. How would the world respond?
Because Ukraine isn’t a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- Putin has demanded that it never be allowed to join -- the US and its allies are not obliged to come to its defense. But the West would be under great pressure to respond to a nuclear attack, perhaps even with a tactical weapon of its own. From there, it would be anyone’s guess. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use tactical nuclear weapons and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden warned. The US is thought to have about 150 B-61 nuclear gravity bombs -- ones dropped from aircraft, with variable yields that can be as low as 0.3 kiloton -- stationed in five NATO countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. Two other NATO members, the UK and France, are known to have nuclear weapons of their own. And Poland recently expressed interest in “sharing” US nuclear weapons, which could mean anything from offering escort or reconnaissance jets for a nuclear mission to actually hosting the weapons. | 2022-11-09T15:58:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Russia’s Nuclear Threats Are Difficult to Dismiss: QuickTake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-russias-nuclear-threats-are-difficult-to-dismiss-quicktake/2022/11/09/2934f1b0-603d-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-russias-nuclear-threats-are-difficult-to-dismiss-quicktake/2022/11/09/2934f1b0-603d-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The same storm, forecast to reach hurricane strength, will bring heavy rain up the entire U.S. East Coast
Satellite view of Nicole Wednesday morning. (NOAA)
Tropical Storm Nicole was teetering on the brink of hurricane status Wednesday morning, with sustained winds of 70 mph as it churned ever closer to the Florida coastline. Conditions were already beginning to deteriorate in the Sunshine State, where the worst was set to arrive Wednesday evening into early Thursday
The blow to Florida’s Atlantic coastline is just the first act for the large, fast-moving storm. After moving ashore between West Palm Beach and Melbourne, the storm will quickly sweep toward Tampa, likely enter the Gulf of Mexico, make a second landfall along Florida’s Big Bend and then work its way up the East Coast. A strip of very heavy rain will fall all the way north into Canada.
A hurricane warning spans from near Boca Raton to Daytona Beach, including Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie and the Space Coast. Tropical storm warnings have been hoisted as far north as Charleston, S.C., and have also been expanded to include the Florida Gulf Coast from near Fort Myers to Tallahassee.
Storm surge warnings for a “life-threatening” rise in ocean water above normally dry land stretch from North Palm Beach northward to southeastern Georgia midway between Jacksonville and Savannah. Some places could be inundated by up to 5 feet of water if the peak surge coincides with high tide. Additionally, a storm surge warning encompasses coastal regions from north of Tampa Bay through the Big Bend on Florida’s west coast, where up to 4 or 5 feet of shoreline inundation is also possible.
“The storm surge will be accompanied by large and damaging waves,” the National Hurricane Center cautioned. “Residents in the warning area should listen to advice given by local officials.”
Water levels began rising along Florida’s east coast Tuesday and, by Wednesday morning, social media video showed the ocean already overwhelming beaches, leading to coastal erosion and minor to moderate flooding.
Coastal flooding ongoing at Hollywood Beach due to the combination are large waves, King Tides and storm surge from Tropical Storm #Nicole pic.twitter.com/GV9MXhEu6I
— Jackson Dill (@Jackson_Dill) November 9, 2022
Tropical storm conditions were expected to affect eastern Florida beginning around mid- to late morning Wednesday.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued Tuesday for vulnerable zones of Palm Beach and Volusia counties in Florida in anticipation of the surge. St. Lucie, Brevard, St. Johns, Indian River and Martin counties advocated voluntary evacuation for some residences. Zones of greatest concern include barrier islands, mobile homes and homes in areas prone to flooding.
The National Weather Service wrote that the surge could have “significant impacts,” especially from Palm Beach northward, with damage to buildings, marinas, docks and piers, as well as washed-out roads and major beach erosion.
While the ocean surge may prove to be Nicole’s principal hazard, especially for coastal areas, inland flooding from heavy rain and power outages from strong winds are also possible.
Ahead of the storm, Orlando International Airport announced it would cease commercial operations at 4 p.m. Wednesday, and some of Florida’s biggest school systems — including in Miami-Dade and Orlando — announced they were canceling classes on Wednesday.
November is an unusual month for a Florida hurricane. In fact, only five other hurricanes on record have made landfall in the United States during November. The year 1985 featured two such storms — Juan and Kate. Before that, you’d have to go back to an unnamed Category 2 hurricane that hit Miami on Nov. 4, 1935.
Despite Nicole’s unusual tardiness, the 2022 season is still running slightly behind average, defying expert predictions of an active season. From a standpoint of ACE, or accumulated cyclone energy, the season to date is lagging 22 percent behind historical averages; ACE is a product of storm intensity and duration, and quantifies how much energy from warm ocean waters storms churn through.
As of 10 a.m. Eastern time, Nicole had winds of 70 mph. It was located 25 miles east-northeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, or 210 miles east of West Palm Beach. It was moving west-southwest at 12 mph.
On satellite, a flare-up of convection, or shower and thunderstorm activity, was visible near its center. That’s likely a sign of incipient intensification, and Nicole — now fully tropical — will probably become a hurricane within the next several hours while crossing the northwestern Bahamas.
More important than its intensity, however, is its size. Due to its origins as a subtropical system, which means it possesses some of the characteristics of mid-latitude cyclones, it has an enormous wind field. In fact, tropical-storm-force winds exceeding 40 mph extend outward up to 460 miles from the storm’s core.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoy about 200 miles northwest of the center had winds of 38 mph gusting to 51. Another buoy more than 300 miles east of Cape Canaveral reported a gust up to 47 mph, with the force of the wind growing. A weather station at Bakers Bay on Great Guana Cay in the Bahamas clocked a gust to 63 mph.
Florida impacts
Nicole’s landfall looks to come on either side of midnight Wednesday night, with the greatest likelihood somewhere between West Palm Beach and Titusville. It will deliver a host of impacts:
The entire Atlantic coast of Florida north of the storm’s center can expect wind gusts of 35 to 50 mph, except Miami-Dade southward, where winds will probably be in the 25 to 40 mph range at most. Near where the core of Nicole’s circulation moves ashore, a few gusts flirting with 75 mph are possible. These winds could cause some tree and minor structural damage, as well as power outages.
North of the storm’s center, onshore winds will push water against the coastline and cause flooding, which may be exacerbated by high astronomical tides. This is especially true within the storm surge warning area. Near and north of Palm Beach, a spike of 3 to 5 feet in water levels is expected.
A widespread 2 to 5 inches of rain with localized 6 inch totals will affect much of the Florida Peninsula and Big Bend. Ordinarily this would be unremarkable for Florida, but many locations are still reeling from rainwater flooding left over from Hurricane Ian’s assault on the state in late September. The St. Johns River, already at flood stage, is expecting additional water rises.
A few tornadoes are likely north of the storm’s center, primarily within small low-topped thunderstorm cells that pivot ashore. Tornado risk will increase Wednesday afternoon from Palm Beach to Jacksonville. The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has highlighted a level 2 out of 5 “slight risk” for severe weather.
There could also be tropical storm conditions between Tampa and Mexico Beach, Fla., on Thursday.
Rainfall on the East Coast
Nicole is heading west due to a blocking dome of high pressure at the mid-latitudes, which has been suppressing it south. By Thursday morning, that high will shift offshore, allowing Nicole to turn northward on its backside ahead of an approaching low pressure system over the Midwest.
That low is swinging a cold front east. That front will help focus moisture from Nicole, which will be streaming northward ahead of the system.
The result will be a widespread 2 to 4 inches of rain up the Appalachians. It’s unclear if the higher terrain or the cities to the east along Interstate 95 will see the jackpot totals; that will be ironed out once Nicole’s path is more certain. The storm will also retain gusty winds as it transitions from a tropical to mid-latitude storm.
“Isolated flash, urban, and small stream flooding will also be possible on Friday in the Southeast through the southern and central Appalachians, including the Blue Ridge Mountains, and extending northward through west-central Pennsylvania into western New York by Friday night,” the Hurricane Center wrote. | 2022-11-09T15:58:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Conditions deteriorating in Florida as Tropical Storm Nicole closes in - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/nicole-storm-hurricane-florida-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/nicole-storm-hurricane-florida-updates/ |
Weaker than expected GOP results calm Europe’s nerves — for now
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg News)
BRUSSELS — Much of Europe breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday, after a weaker than expected showing by Republicans and the absence of major election violence eased concern about turmoil in the transatlantic relationship and the health of American democracy — at least for now.
The results of the first major races since the Jan. 6 insurrection will likely lend some short-term stability to efforts to isolate Russia and support Ukrainian forces, the central concern for European officials and diplomats heading into the midterms. The outcome will also add a sense of continuity to day-to-day diplomacy.
But for a continent still reeling from Trump-era upheavals, the midterm races were a bracing reminder that despite talk of bolstering Europe’s “strategic autonomy,” American politics still very much shape European affairs. With or without a “red wave” this year, Europe knows that it has not seen the end of Trump or Trumpism and must plan accordingly.
European allies worry U.S. could dial back support for Ukraine
“This is not as bad as we thought it would be,” said François Heisbourg, a security expert and longtime adviser to French officials. But the fear of a Trump return in 2024, he said, is “obviously still there.”
“Even if the pessimistic assumption that Donald Trump would become U.S. president again in 2024 has become a bit more unrealistic, there remains enough reason for the E.U. to prepare for further shifts in its relationship with the United States,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of European Parliament in a statement.
“Under these circumstances, the E.U. must set its strategic priorities between the extremes of illusory autonomy and a comfortable reliance on the United States.”
While the final results are still uncertain, including control of Congress, early analysis Wednesday reflected genuine surprise at the results.
“Red wave or just a ripple?” asked the Times of London. France’s left-leaning Libération newspaper wrote that “the results of the midterm elections are much less bad than feared for the Democrats,” and that there has been “no Republican tsunami.”
Germany’s Bild tabloid paper called the Republican performance “astonishing,” given factors such as “inflation and the impending economic crisis, a new wave of migrants from the South and dissatisfaction with Biden.”
Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, a British think tank, said that early results upended expectations. “So many people from Europe had really bought into the fear of a Donald Trump return,” she said.
In recent weeks, many European observers predicted the Republicans would easily take both houses and the front-of-mind question was whether a wave of Trump-aligned, Ukraine-skeptic candidates would prevail, potentially unraveling the united front on Ukraine and handing a battlefield advantage to President Vladimir Putin.
In the more than eight months since Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. and allies in Europe have rallied together to back Ukraine, together pledging more than $90 billion in military, financial and humanitarian assistance — with most of that coming from the United States.
But in the lead-up to the midterms, comments from Republicans have raised questions about whether that support would continue. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last month that a Republican-controlled House would not continue to issue “blank check” funding for Ukraine — a sentiment echoed by some GOP candidates, but walked back by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
On Wednesday, with the results still being tallied, it was not yet clear where the Republican position will land. In the days and weeks ahead, European officials will be watching closely to see whether the Biden administration can hold the line on Ukraine at home and parsing what that means for Europe.
Tara Varma, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the midterm elections — and questions they prompted over their impact on Ukraine — have once again displayed the extent to which Europe still depends on the United States.
“The war in Ukraine has changed fundamentally how the E.U. views itself,” she said. But “for the E.U. to constitute itself as a military power is not something that will happen overnight; it’s also not something that a number of member states are hopeful the E.U. will do.”
Beyond military aid lurks the broader and still-yet-unresolved question of what ongoing U.S. polarization and upheaval means for America’s place in the world — and its allies in Europe.
Martin Quencez, deputy director of the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office, said early Wednesday that Europe is relieved that some of the worst-case predictions of the United States “falling into the hands of election deniers” had not totally come true. But he cautioned that the next two years could still become challenging for transatlantic relations.
“The question is whether the U.S. Congress can still produce foreign policy, can still produce predictability for allies,” he said, or if it will revolve around partisan debates “that have very little importance to Europeans.”
“It’s more this kind of institutional crisis that I think could affect allies, if we simply see that the Biden administration and the U.S. as a whole cannot play the role of a leader,” he said.
Analysis: U.S. democracy slides toward ‘competitive authoritarianism’
As the world waited for the final results, European analysts seemed split on Trump’s prospects.
“There is a feeling that the inevitability of the return of Trump to power in 2024 has been smashed,” said Dominique Moïsi, a French foreign policy expert.
Italy’s Corriere della Sera ran an item on Ron DeSantis, “the Trump with brains,” that noted his complex relationship with the former president. La Repubblica, another Italian newspaper, noted that the “rising Republican star” could challenge Trump in a primary race.
Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a conservative newspaper, said the result showed “Trump has messed up the Midterms for the Republicans.”
Noting victories by candidates who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, the paper did not rule out the possibility of a Trump comeback.
“The former president could win again in 2024,” the papers said, “Or lose and still get into the White House.”
Beatriz Ríos in Brussels contributed to this report | 2022-11-09T16:00:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | European leaders react with relief to US midterms results - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/europe-us-midterm-elections-reaction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/europe-us-midterm-elections-reaction/ |
Arizona Democrats chalk up their big night to GOP focus on immigration
With their daughters, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and his wife, former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wave to supporters on Tuesday night in Tucson. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
PHOENIX — With the midterm election results in their state yet to be determined, Democrats gathering at a downtown Phoenix hotel on Tuesday night were almost giddy — and contemptuous of a Republican campaign saturated in lurid appeals to fear on the issue of immigration.
All the party leaders I spoke to talked about the recent history of immigration in the state and how such fearmongering is nothing new, even if Arizona has become the focus of much national attention. “In Arizona, the Republican Party has been talking about immigration as a boogeyman for over 20 years,” said Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.
When I noted that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has vowed that immigration is the first issue Republicans would tackle if they take control of the House, Gallego scoffed at the idea that there might be any actual progress. “The Republican Party will never be allowed to do anything that’s considered real immigration reform by their base,” not even including a path to citizenship for “dreamers” who came to the United States as children, he said. “If they ever go for any type of immigration reform that has a net positive in terms of more immigrants coming in, they would get voted out.”
Others talked about that recent history, too. “Arizona has changed so much” since her beginnings as an activist in 2006, said Raquel Terán, a state senator and chair of the Arizona Democratic Party. “Arizona has rejected extremism consistently,” she went on, pointing to the 2011 recall of Russell Pearce, the state senator who authored the controversial immigration crackdown bill S.B. 1070, as well as Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
But Republicans, Terán said, “decided to double down on division and hatred,” essentially leaving their appeal unchanged whether they won or lost.
Though Republicans wouldn’t use those terms, immigration was clearly the beginning and end of their strategy in Arizona this year. If you went to any GOP campaign event in Arizona lately, you would have heard a litany of horrors about the border as candidates Kari Lake and Blake Masters painted a nightmarish picture of murder and mayhem pouring into American communities, courtesy of a quasi-conspiracy involving the Chinese Communist Party, Mexican drug cartels and President Biden himself seeking to flood the country with fentanyl and criminal aliens.
At one event I attended Sunday — which featured appearances by Stephen K. Bannon and far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec — Masters said, “It’s Joe Biden and Mark Kelly, working hand in hand. They’re basically business partners with the Mexican narcoterrorist drug cartel.” Lake told the crowd: “The CCP is trying to poison us, and they’re using the Mexican cartels to move this product through and poison our people.”
When I spoke Tuesday night to Rebecca Rios, the Democratic leader of the state Senate, she, too, pointed to the past: “Arizona Republicans have always run on immigration, they always run on scare tactics about the border,” she said. “When I first started in ’95” as a legislator, Rios said, “you could actually work together,” but not anymore. “We have no rational, moderate Republicans left. They have been targeted one by one, they’ve been primaried, and what we’re left with is the far-right extremes.”
If Democrats wind up prevailing in the high-profile statewide races here, one might expect Arizona Republicans to consider a different strategy. But if that means moderation — or at least a shift away from the intense, fear-based focus on immigration in election after election — there might not be too many Arizona Republicans willing or able to do so.
“Look at our state legislature,” said Terán. “We might get the majority in our state Senate,” where Republicans held a 16-14 majority before the election. Of the Republicans in the chamber, she said, “They’re in denial of climate change, they want a full abortion ban … the Republican Party is not going to shy away from Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda.”
She made that prediction before results were clear, but it didn’t really matter. In Arizona as elsewhere, through victory and defeat, Republicans’ faith in the electoral power of the immigration issue has been unwavering. And all indications are that whatever else happens between now and 2024, that isn’t going to change. | 2022-11-09T16:58:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Arizona Democrats chalk up their big night to GOP focus on immigration - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/arizona-democrats-explain-midterms-immigration/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/arizona-democrats-explain-midterms-immigration/ |
Houston Astros pitcher and Virginia native Justin Verlander holds the Commissioner's Trophy after winning the World Series earlier this month. (John G. Mabanglo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
In the first World Series game ever played, on Oct. 1, 1903, Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Deacon Phillippe, who was born in the small Southwest Virginia town of Rural Retreat, outdueled Boston Americans pitcher and future Hall of Famer Cy Young in a 7-3 win.
Another Virginia native, Astros ace Justin Verlander, left his mark on this year’s World Series, earning the win in Game 5 of Houston’s eventual six-game triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies. Verlander, who grew up outside of Richmond and played college baseball at Old Dominion, is the favorite to take home his third American League Cy Young Award — named for the guy who did okay for himself despite losing the first World Series game more than a century ago — when the winner is announced next week.
Phillippe and Verlander are two of the many names featured in a new book about baseball in the commonwealth, “From Tidewater to the Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia’s Rich Baseball Legacy,” which was co-authored by longtime local sportswriters David Driver and Lacy Lusk.
“Our two goals for the book were to represent all areas of the state as best we could, and all levels of play, from high school to college to the minors to the majors,” Driver, who recently served as the sports editor for the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, said in a phone interview.
As its title suggests, the book isn’t a comprehensive history of baseball in Virginia, but rather a collection of brief biographies of players, coaches, scouts, broadcasters and others with baseball ties to the commonwealth, beginning with people from the Richmond area and proceeding clockwise around the state.
There’s a chapter on longtime Richmond baseball coach Tracy Woodson, who was a member of Dodgers’ 1988 World Series team, and another on Harrisonburg native and former George Mason pitching standout Tyler Zombro, who made an inspiring comeback after taking a line drive to the head in a 2021 minor league game. Culpeper native Eppa Rixey, who became the first Virginian inducted into the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963, is featured in the book, as is Richmond native Ray Dandridge, who played in the Negro Leagues from 1933 to 1944 and was finally enshrined in Cooperstown in 1987.
Driver and Lusk also shine a light on Virginians such as Negro League star Spottswood Poles, who was known as the Black Ty Cobb; Curt Dudley, who has been the public-address announcer for the Valley Baseball League for 40 years; and Michael Tucker, who attracted scouts to Longwood University in Farmville in the early 1990s before his 12-year big league career. Most of the names featured in the book are Virginia natives, but there are a few exceptions, including Ryan Zimmerman, who was born in North Carolina but has his number retired at the University of Virginia and spent his entire career with the Washington Nationals.
Driver began working on the book after completing his first self-published project — “Hoop Dreams in Europe,” a collection of stories about American players who built careers abroad — earlier this year. With the World Series complete, he and Lusk, who has been the Washington Nationals’ correspondent for Baseball America since 2005, are planning an update to their first edition before spring training. Driver said they’ve already heard from plenty of readers asking why this person or that person isn’t mentioned.
“According to Baseball Reference, there are about 350 Virginia natives who made the major leagues,” Driver said. “If we were to do something on every one, we’d be talking about a three-volume set.”
Focusing exclusively on the major league talent Virginia has produced would also preclude a broader look at some of the people who have shaped the commonwealth’s various minor league and summer collegiate teams and circuits, including the Rockingham County Baseball League, which was founded in 1924.
“I think all 50 states could have a book like this,” Driver said, “but I think the small-town communities is what makes Virginia unique. The fans who come to these Valley League and Rockingham County Baseball League games in the summer, they know who these guys are. They see them in town. They might even stay in their house.” | 2022-11-09T17:25:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justin Verlander among Virginians profiled in baseball history book - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/virginia-baseball-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/virginia-baseball-history/ |
The stripes in this 16th-century masterpiece, at the Kimbell, might be its biggest puzzle.
If happiness “writes in white ink on a white page,” as Henry de Montherlant wrote (an aphorism often distilled to “happiness writes white”), drama dresses in stripes. I’m a sucker for the stripes in this early Caravaggio painting. They’re obvious on three items of clothing, and echoed more subtly in the alternating patterns of the feathers and on the backgammon board, and even — when you get close enough — in the dark and light ridges of the central figure’s creased brow.
“The Cardsharps” — Caravaggio’s first true masterpiece and one of the jewels of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth — shows two cardsharps trying to trick their well-dressed target at a game of primero (it’s similar to poker). It’s a tidy tableau, but it’s maximally theatrical and full of charged details. The central figure’s fingertips, for instance, are exposed through a tear in his glove, so that he can feel marked cards. He is signaling information about the dupe’s hand to his accomplice, who is meanwhile pulling out a winning card from behind his back.
There’s clearly a moral warning here. But whose side was Caravaggio on? And whose should we be on? Cardsharps, sometimes known as “correctors of fortune,” were more common in those days, and to some extent they were tolerated. Gamblers knew to be on guard, yet may have delighted in seeing such cheaters succeed against those who were less savvy — especially if they were rich!
Caravaggio was still little known when he painted “The Cardsharps,” around 1595. But things were quickly changing. He had recently painted a palm-reader trying to steal a ring from a client’s finger. And then came “The Cardsharps” — a sensation. More than 30 copies of the work survive — a sure sign of its impact. The general theme was taken up by scores of subsequent artists.
[A sumptuously painted swindle]
Its purchase by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, a passionate arts patron, came with an offer for Caravaggio to move into the cardinal’s palace in central Rome. The artist accepted the offer, which exposed him to a whole new level of intellectual and artistic stimulation — and more clients. It changed everything.
“The Cardsharps” came into the Kimbell’s collection in 1987 after being lost for 90 years. Conservators knew it was a Caravaggio rather than a copy when they removed the lining and discovered del Monte’s wax seal on the back (although it remains possible that Caravaggio himself painted more than one version).
Caravaggio’s stripes are both a formal device and — as fashion always is — a sociological clue. The painting has other such clues: It’s hard not to notice, for instance, that the cardsharps’ outfits are cobbled together, the patterns and color schemes of the doublets and sleeves not matching at all, and that the fingernails of the trickster on the right are dirty while the victim’s hands are spotless.
But the stripes also function, to my eyes, as a kind of moral principle. Stripes are for bees and wasps and prison inmates. They signal danger, yes — but also an ambiguous moral zone that beguiles us, draws us close. They pulse, they set one another off, they’re just interesting, in a way that naivete is not. It has to be intentional that the one figure who has nothing stripy about him is the innocent, the patsy, the dupe.
The Cardsharps, c. 1595
Caravaggio (b.1571). At Kimball Art Museum. | 2022-11-09T17:29:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Perspective | Caravaggio's 'The Cardsharps,' at the Kimbell, changed everything - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/caravaggio-cardsharps/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/interactive/2022/caravaggio-cardsharps/ |
Republicans Campaigned on Fear. America Didn’t Buy It.
On a night that saw many Democrats victorious, the most important deed, with perhaps the most lasting echo, belonged to a loser. “I have the privilege to concede this race to J.D. Vance,” Representative Tim Ryan said after losing his longshot bid for a US Senate seat in Ohio. “Because the way this country operates is that when you lose an election, you concede.” | 2022-11-09T17:29:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans Campaigned on Fear. America Didn’t Buy It. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-campaigned-on-fear-america-didnt-buy-it/2022/11/09/7faf38ec-6043-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-campaigned-on-fear-america-didnt-buy-it/2022/11/09/7faf38ec-6043-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The rare November storm is set to cause disruptions up and down the Eastern Seaboard
Rainfall projection from the National Weather Service for Nicole and its remnants from Florida to Maine. (WeatherBell)
Tropical Storm Nicole has intensified into a tempest with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. It is expected to make landfall on the southeast coast of Florida sometime Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. Nicole is forecast to reach hurricane strength before landfall, but regardless of the storm’s exact ferocity, Nicole’s large size will spark a dangerous storm surge along the U.S. Southeast coast and heavy rainfall all the way to Maine.
Nearly all of the East Coast should see some impacts from Nicole, and conditions in Florida will continue to deteriorate, with hurricane conditions expected Wednesday evening. Impacts from the large and quick-moving tropical storm will spread into the Southeast United States and Mid-Atlantic on Thursday into Friday, with the storm likely to be clear of the United States as fast as Saturday afternoon.
Hurricane warnings have been posted from Jupiter, Fla., to just north of Daytona Beach. Cities under the warning include West Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie, and Melbourne. To the north, tropical storm warnings have been issued as far north as Brunswick, Ga.; warnings also extend south to Hollywood, Fla. Tropical storm watches are in effect down toward Miami as well as for parts of the Florida Gulf Coast that are still recovering from Hurricane Ian. Tropical storm watches extend as far north as Murphy Island, S.C.
Here is a look at the forecast for several cities in Florida and beyond.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale area
While the storm’s core is expected to make landfall to the north of Miami, the city is still expected to experience some impacts from Nicole.
A tropical storm watch and a flood watch have been issued for the coastal city, which was largely spared from significant impacts during Hurricane Ian. The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center says winds are likely to remain below sustained tropical-storm force (39 mph), but a shift south in Nicole’s track could bring tropical-storm-force conditions with sustained winds up to 57 mph into the city proper.
A storm surge of 1 to 3 feet is possible in surge-prone areas, while 1 to 3 inches of rain is expected across the area. Spots that receive heavy rainfall could have significant flooding, especially in low-lying, often-flooded locations.
Melbourne is likely to see significant impact from Nicole, with landfall expected south of the city around Port St. Lucie. The city has been placed under a hurricane warning, with storm conditions worsening during the day Wednesday and persisting into early Thursday.
According to the National Hurricane Center, residents of Melbourne should expect sustained tropical-storm-force winds up to 55 miles per hour, with gusts up to 80 mph. However, locals should prepare for wind speeds up to 73 miles per hour, the equivalent of a storm on the edge of becoming a Category 1 hurricane.
Nicole is expected to bring with it a “life-threatening” storm surge of 3 to 5 feet from North Palm Beach to Altamaha Sound, Ga., enough to cause damage and force thousands of evacuations. In Melbourne proper, just a foot of storm surge is expected. Rainfall-wise, the latest forecast calls for 3 to 6 inches of potentially flooding rainfall as well as isolated tornadoes.
11/8 | Heads up east central Florida! A Flood Watch will be in effect starting Wednesday 7:00 AM EST through Thursday 1:00 PM EST. Rainfall amounts of 4-6" with locally higher amounts of 8" along the coast and 2-4" with locally higher amounts across the interior will be possible. pic.twitter.com/5468kzhtE1
Rivers and tributaries in and around Orlando are still seeing significant flooding more than a month after Hurricane Ian passed through the Central Florida region, so rainfall from Nicole is the biggest concern for the area.
Orlando has been placed under a tropical storm warning and a flood watch, with tropical storm conditions expected to last until midday Thursday. Wind speeds are expected to be sustained at 45 to 55 mph, with occasional gusts up to 75 mph, enough to cause significant wind damage and power outages. There is also the potential for sustained winds to be higher, peaking just below hurricane force at 73 mph.
The city is forecast to see 2-4 inches of rainfall, with locally higher amounts possible. Rivers and tributaries, especially the St. Johns River, may overflow their banks and force evacuations. Isolated weak tornadoes will be possible.
Tampa has been placed under a tropical storm warning, with showers and storms from Nicole forecast to start hitting the city by Wednesday afternoon. The center of Nicole may end up passing near or over Tampa, and the storm could emerge into the Gulf of Mexico and regain or maintain strength before making a second landfall on the Florida Peninsula, prompting storm surge warnings north of Clearwater to St. James Island, Fla.
Regardless of whether Nicole reemerges into the gulf, Tampa will experience similar conditions. Tropical storm force winds are forecast to begin early Thursday morning, with sustained winds likely to stay at or below 40 mph. According to the National Hurricane Center, residents should plan for the possibility of strong tropical storm-force winds up to 73 mph, though, as there remains some uncertainty about Nicole’s strength and track.
In the surge-prone city, 1-3 feet of storm surge is possible, meaning some coastal locations may see minor inundation. On top of the storm surge, a general 1 to 3 inches of rainfall is possible, with localized higher amounts.
The city of Jacksonville has been placed under a tropical storm warning, a storm surge warning and a flood watch as Nicole draws near. Nicole is already causing water to rise at the shore, with a high surf advisory for breaking waves of up to 20 feet in effect for the city’s beaches through Veterans Day.
Here are the updated potential impacts.
1) The isolated tornado threat has been expanded to cover most of NE FL & SE GA. 🌪️
2) The potential for moderate flooding rain has been expanded further inland. 🌧️
3) The threat for wind potential of 58 to 73 mph expanded northward. 🌬️ pic.twitter.com/9AZZm620iW
Tropical-storm conditions will begin early Thursday morning as Nicole makes a quick turn toward the east, carrying with it sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts reaching up to 50 mph. Uncertainty about exactly how strong Nicole will be and where it will track means that the National Hurricane Center is asking residents to plan for strong tropical-storm-force winds of up to 73 mph.
A significant storm surge of 3-5 feet is expected in the city, and the surge may be impactful all the way through Friday evening. In addition to the dangerous surge, 2-4 inches of rainfall is possible, with higher amounts likely in isolated spots. Conditions are also favorable for tornadoes, which could cause additional isolated damage.
Nicole’s impacts will be felt in Charleston by Thursday night, prompting the issuance of a tropical storm warning and a storm surge watch, as well as a high surf advisory that extends all the way to Saturday.
Sustained tropical-storm-force winds are possible but not currently forecast beginning Friday morning, with the National Hurricane Center warning locals to prepare for wind speeds up to 57 miles per hour. A significant storm surge is also forecast, with surge-vulnerable spots forecast to see 2 to 4 feet of ocean inundation.
Rainfall amounts are generally expected to be in the range of 1 to 3 inches, with locally higher amounts possible. Nicole will be weakening as it tracks rapidly toward the northeast, bringing with it the threat of isolated tornadoes in and around the city.
Heavy rainfall associated with the weakening Nicole will make their way into the Raleigh-Durham area by Thursday night, leading to a wet and breezy Veterans Day. Rainfall amounts are generally expected to be around 1 to 2 inches, with isolated heavier amounts possible.
Tropical-storm-force winds are not out of the question, but the odds are low. The most recent forecast from the National Hurricane Center places the chance of seeing sustained tropical storm-force winds at less than 20 percent.
Nicole has already been bringing impacts to East Coast beach towns like Virginia Beach, where a high surf advisory is in effect through Wednesday night. Later in the week, the only impact the city should really see is a wet Veterans Day, with Nicole forecast to bring up to an inch or less of rain.
Washington-Baltimore
The remnants of quick-moving Nicole will douse the National Capital Region in showers and thunderstorms on Veterans Day, though exactly how much remains a point of contention, with model runs oscillating and Nicole’s exact track through the Northeast — or maybe as far west as the spine of the Appalachians, unclear.
In general, locations in the greater Washington area can expect 1 to 3 inches of rain, with a greater chance of more rain toward the mountains, with the possibility for isolated severe thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic on Friday afternoon, a threat which will move northward with Nicole over the course of the day. Gusty winds embedded within storms could cause isolated tree damage and power outages.
Heavy rain associated with the remnants of Nicole will push into the New York City area during the day Friday, with the heaviest rainfall expected toward the tail end of the day into early Saturday morning.
Up to 3 inches of rainfall could fall in and around the Big Apple, with gusty winds also possible. Isolated severe thunderstorms could strike during the afternoon into the evening as well.
We continue to monitor the track of #Nicole and the potential impacts it could bring to the region.
Uncertainty remains, but a heavy rainfall is possible Friday into Saturday, along with a period of gusty winds.
Latest forecast: https://t.co/kd4x2H2ULS pic.twitter.com/svRGgJqmNM
Nicole will not spare Boston, with heavy rain expected to move into the city by late Friday afternoon. Heavy rain with gusts up to 40 miles per hour is likely to fall into the city Friday night, with the rainfall coming to a close by midday as Nicole continues moving rapidly northeastward.
After Boston, the remnants of Nicole will track into Maine and Atlantic Canada, where heavy rainfall and gusty winds will also be in the forecast into the weekend — with northern portions of Newfoundland and Labrador even expected to see some modest snowfall. | 2022-11-09T17:29:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Nicole forecasts city by city - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/nicole-forecast-southeast-northeast-cities/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/nicole-forecast-southeast-northeast-cities/ |
Your experience might be a bit richer if you do, though
Analysis by Mikhail Klimentov
“God of War” (2018), left, and “God of War Ragnarok” (2022). (Washington Post illustration; Sony Interactive entertainment)
It’s a familiar dilemma: You want to play a popular new video game, but you haven’t played the prequel (or prequels). If that’s how you’re feeling about “God of War Ragnarok,” one of the most hotly-anticipated releases of 2022, there’s good news — a rarity for a franchise about gods butchering other gods and, more recently, toxic masculinity.
2018′s “God of War” was a critical darling and a commercial success, and I’ll probably play it after finishing “Ragnarok.” But not having played that original game hasn’t impeded my enjoyment of “Ragnarok” thus far, just shy of eight hours in.
At a glance, “Ragnarok’s” onboarding for new players isn’t great. In the menu screen, “Ragnarok” offers an option titled “ ‘God of War’ recap.” Selecting that option plays a video that shows key scenes and snippets of dialogue from the first game, but with no context or connective tissue. It isn’t particularly helpful if you’re hoping to learn about the first game’s plot, because it’s intended for people who need a refresher — not players trying out a God of War game for the first time.
But as someone only ambiently aware of what happened in the previous game, “Ragnarok” did a fine job of explaining the key details in its first few hours. Characters say stuff like “I won’t forgive you for killing my son” and “I’m going to get you for killing my sons,” which gives you some clues about the tone of the first game and how key figures relate to one another.
I haven’t finished “Ragnarok” yet, and there is a chance that some narrative beats later in the game demand a deep understanding of the first game. There are also three older console games, as well as a few PlayStation Portable handheld games. So far, though, enough new story has accumulated for me to feel properly invested in what’s coming next, and with next-to-no confusion. And my colleagues who have played more have also assured me there’s nothing on the horizon that would absolutely stump me if I hadn’t played any of the past games.
That said, our reviewer, Gene Park, notes that “context makes for a richer experience,” so here’s a short summary (spoilers, obviously).
The first game features a somber quest in which Kratos and his son, Atreus, mourn the recent passing of their late wife/mother, Faye, and wrestle with their own relationship as father and son. As her last request, she asks the pair to scatter her ashes on the tallest peak in the nine realms. The request, seemingly harmless on its face, pulls Kratos and Atreus into a direct conflict with the Norse gods (which she may or may not have intended). In particular, they’re hounded by Magni and Modi (the sons of Thor) and Baldur (the son of Odin and Freya).
There’s tragedy here. Kratos — the god-killer — has tired of turning pantheons into mausoleums and just wishes to rest and set his son on a better, less blood-drenched path. In doing so, Kratos hides from Atreus the fact that he is, indeed, a god. When Kratos finally comes clean, Atreus enters into a kind of deific puberty, testing the boundaries of his powers and eventually getting his first taste of blood by killing Modi.
Kratos spends the rest of the game trying to rein in Atreus while fulfilling his wife’s dying wish. Ultimately, the father and son are confronted by a crazed Baldur; they kill him when he tries to murder Freya. This turns Freya, their one-time ally, against them and triggers the start of Ragnarok, a prophesied battle that is said to result in the deaths of many Norse deities. As Kratos and Atreus complete their journey to spread Faye’s ashes atop a mountain in Jotunheim, home of the giants, it is revealed that Faye was a giant, and that she had a different name for Atreus: Loki, the god that in mythology brings about the end of the Norse gods.
If you’d like to play the first game yourself, you have more options than players did in 2018. Earlier this year, Sony published a version of the game for PC, which is available on digital video game storefronts like Steam and the Epic Games Store. The first game is also available for purchase for on the PlayStation 4 and 5, or as part of the PlayStation Plus Extra subscription service. | 2022-11-09T17:31:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Do I need to play the first God of War game before Ragnarok? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/tips/new-god-of-war-ragnarok/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/tips/new-god-of-war-ragnarok/ |
Lessons of the coronavirus pandemic for the future of global health
The coronavirus pandemic has offered critical lessons for public health in the United States and around the world. On Thursday, Nov. 17 at 1:00 p.m. ET, join Washington Post Live for conversations with Caitlin Rivers, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, about how countries can be better prepared for future health challenges and ensure populations with fewer resources are not left behind in the development of treatments and vaccines.
Caitlin Rivers
Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Seth Berkley
CEO, GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance
Content from Cigna
Vitality – The next step in whole person health
The experience of the pandemic crystalized the need for a broader approach to health – one that values, promotes, and prioritizes whole person health and wellbeing.
In a segment presented by Cigna, Chair and CEO, David Cordani, discusses vitality – the ability to pursue life with health, strength, and energy as both a driver and an outcome of better health.
By measuring, predicting, and promoting the vitality of individuals and communities, we can deliver the personal, economic, and business growth that are the hallmarks of a healthy society. Vitality is the next generation health measure that can.
Chair & CEO, Cigna | 2022-11-09T17:31:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lessons of the coronavirus pandemic for the future of global health - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/lessons-coronavirus-pandemic-future-global-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/lessons-coronavirus-pandemic-future-global-health/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Russia announces retreat from Kherson
A Ukrainian artillery unit fires an M777 howitzer at Russian armored vehicles near the town of Snihurivka, on the road to the city of Kherson on Wednesday. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Wednesday ordered the withdrawal of its troops from the southern city of Kherson and its immediate surroundings, redeploying its forces to the east bank of the Dnieper River, in what appeared to amount to another major setback for President Vladmir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
But the announcement came at the end of another day of fresh Ukrainian advances that put Kyiv’s troops within striking distance of Kherson city. In recent days, the position of Russian troops on the west bank of the river had become increasingly untenable because of repeated Ukrainian attacks on their supply lines.
The order to retreat was announced during a televised meeting between Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Col. Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine, who cited the difficulty of sustaining supply routes to the troops in the Kherson city area, which depend on bridges and ferry crossings that have been heavily targeted by the Ukrainians in recommending that the troops pull back.
The decision to withdraw “is not easy,” Surovikin told the defense minister. But he added that it was necessary because “we will save the lives of our military and the combat capability of our troops.”
“Proceed with the withdrawal of troops,” Shoigu responded.
Kherson was the only Ukrainian regional capital that Russia had managed to occupy since the start of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24. The broader Kherson region forms Putin’s much coveted “land bridge” to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.
If the withdrawal is implemented, Russian troops will still have a presence in the province, or oblast, of Kherson, but only on the east bank of the river. They will have ceded however the only major city they have managed to capture in the ninth month war, signaling another humiliating failure for Moscow and a fresh triumph for the Ukrainian military.
Mary Ilyushina reported from Riga, Latvia, and Michael E. Miller from Mykolaiv, Ukraine. | 2022-11-09T17:31:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia orders withdrawal from Kherson city, abandoning key regional capital - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-withdraws-kherson-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-withdraws-kherson-ukraine/ |
The Brooklyn Nets removed the interim tag from Jacque Vaughn on Wednesday, promoting their longtime assistant to head coach. (Rusty Jones/AP)
Seeking to move forward after a scandal-ridden start to the season, the Brooklyn Nets made Jacque Vaughn their head coach on Wednesday, opting against hiring suspended Boston Celtics Coach Ime Udoka. Vaughn, a longtime Nets assistant, was named interim coach when Steve Nash was fired last week.
The 47-year old Vaughn will get a long-awaited second chance at a head job after compiling a 58-158 (.269) record as coach of the Orlando Magic from 2012 to 2015 and previously served as the Nets’ interim coach following the 2020 firing of Kenny Atkinson, Nash’s predecessor. A former NBA player who spent 12 seasons with five different franchises, including the Nets, Vaughn was a member of the title-winning San Antonio Spurs in 2007 before retiring in 2009.
The hiring provides a measure of constancy for the Nets, who have been embroiled in controversy following Kyrie Irving’s sharing of an antisemitic book and film on his social media account. Brooklyn suspended Irving for at least five games last week. The all-star guard met with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday to discussion the situation, according to multiple people who confirmed the meeting, which was first reported by The Athletic. The earliest Irving could return is Sunday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The reeling Nets have faced significant pressure to win following Kevin Durant’s offseason trade requests, and they explored the possibility of hiring Udoka in hopes of turning things around following a disappointing 4-7 start to the season. Udoka was suspended for the season by the Celtics in September for having an improper relationship with a female team employee. Because Udoka was suspended by the Celtics and not the NBA, he was free to join the Nets’ bench immediately, though his potential return was almost certain to generate backlash given the investigation’s findings.
Despite Udoka’s suspension and subsequent exile from the Celtics, the Nets pursued the former NBA player, who spent the 2020-21 season as an assistant coach on Nash’s staff in Brooklyn, before changing directions. The 45-year-old Udoka served as a USA Basketball assistant coach at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where Durant led a gold medal run. He also served as a Philadelphia 76ers assistant in 2019-20, when Ben Simmons, who was traded to the Nets last February, made the all-star team.
Vaughn will inherit a long list of challenges that bedeviled Nash, who departed last week with a 94-67 (.584) record in two-plus seasons.
The Nets have the NBA’s 22nd-ranked defense after ranking 20th or worse in each of the past two seasons. Irving initially refused to apologize for his social media post and drew rebukes from the NBA, the National Basketball Players Association, the Nets and owner Joe Tsai, and it remains unclear when he will return to the court. Simmons, meanwhile, is averaging career-lows in scoring and shot attempts, and he has yet to find a functional fit alongside Durant and Irving.
Marks said last week that the organization’s focus remained on winning now, rather than pursuing a rebuilding effort, despite the slow start and Durant’s offseason trade requests. Brooklyn has good reason to attempt to salvage its season given its major payroll commitments and lack of future draft assets.
“We have a window here and when we have this group of players and this salary cap, and where we are, we hope to achieve [a title chase],” he said. | 2022-11-09T18:13:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nets hire Jacque Vaughn as coach, bypassing Celtics’ Ime Udoka - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/nets-hire-jacque-vaughn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/nets-hire-jacque-vaughn/ |
Take a look at Michigan, where voters just amended their state’s constitution to protect abortion rights. The state memorably went for Donald Trump in 2016, but voters Tuesday returned Democrats to power in the state legislature. Governor Gretchen Whitmer — faced with anti-Covid protesters and threatened by kidnappers in 2020 — also handily won re-election after campaigning aggressively on reproductive rights. She had good reason to keep the issue front and center: Michigan has a “zombie law,” an abortion ban from 1931 is still on the books. It’s been unclear how enforceable such laws are, but there can be little doubt that the law made the ballot referendum much more than symbolic. | 2022-11-09T19:00:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans Misjudged the Power of Abortion Rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-misjudged-the-power-of-abortion-rights/2022/11/09/f42b713c-605b-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-misjudged-the-power-of-abortion-rights/2022/11/09/f42b713c-605b-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
An attendee wears a ‘MAGA’ hat during a ‘Save America’ rally in Vandalia, Ohio, US, on Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. Former President Donald Trump suggested an announcement that he plans to make another White House bid is imminent and attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a rally in Pennsylvania, a sign the former president is training his ire on a potential chief rival in a 2024 GOP primary. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Donald Trump has used the midterm elections to spin the media (will he or won’t he announce a presidential bid?) and to position himself as a power broker — the ultimate arbiter of Trumpism and its proper standard-bearers.Trump being Trump, he feared supporting losing candidates, and he spun accordingly. “I think if they win, I should get all the credit,” he told one interviewer recently. “If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” He grinned as he said that, noted that he had backed “very good candidates” and then qualified his comments: “When they do well, I won’t be given any credit, and if they do badly, they will blame everything on me.”Lo and behold, Trump’s candidates — especially the most cartoonish ones — didn’t do well on Election Day. An early lesson is that Trump hung like an albatross from the necks of super-MAGA contestants, and that may have also suppressed electoral momentum the Republican Party as a whole might have enjoyed otherwise. Even stalwarts blamed Trump for that. Fox News ran a headline noting that some considered him the “biggest loser” in the race.One Fox commentator, Marc Thiessen, called the “radical” GOP candidates who bungled the midterms a “searing indictment of the Republican Party.” Instead, he advised, the party should turn to other Republicans who performed well, like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. “This is the path to the future,” he pointed out. And therein lies a tale.DeSantis may indeed be the best bet now for Republicans who want to take back the White House in 2024. He has thoroughly dismantled the Obama coalition that once helped turn Florida into a swing state, and he is a far less shambolic and unhinged actor than Trump. He’s a formidable politician, and if his myriad quirks don’t undermine him on the campaign trail, he will be a formidable national candidate as well. But he is hardly less radical than the candidates Thiessen fretted over. DeSantis is a vessel for Trumpism detached from the absurdist performance art of Trump himself.This played out in state races a year ago, too. Glenn Youngkin, a Trumpista in sheep’s clothing, took the statehouse in Virginia, and Jack Ciattarelli, a Trumpista in wolf’s clothing, made a surprisingly strong though unsuccessful run for governor in New Jersey. Many voters still appreciate Trumpism even if it’s fully divorced from its author.I define Trumpism the same way the former president himself did when he burst onto the national political stage more than seven years ago: a backlash against institutions and elites wedded to coldblooded, us-versus-them identity politics (and often peddled through bigotry and racism). Trump was an outcome of the American political process and identity, of course, and not an aberration. He and his presidency shredded several myths that Americans had embraced about the country’s core values and institutions and unspooled the notion that US democracy was both sacrosanct and inevitable.
Trump was also tragicomically inept, attracted to multiple versions of corruption and so enamored of vaudevillian buffoonery that he undermined portions of his party’s agenda and failed to secure a second tour in the White House. The Covid-19 pandemic also left Trump off balance, and had the virus not ravaged the US in 2020, he might have been able to eke out an electoral victory that year. Still, he offered his party lessons about effectively securing a path to power that was free from a deeply articulated political platform or sophisticated public policies. He grabbed power by simply playing upon many of his supporters’ fears and worst instincts while offering elites and others in the GOP who knew better a hefty share of the political and financial pie for going along with him. And when he lost the 2020 election, he gave his party another masterclass: Refuse to concede, foment a coup and undermine public trust in the electoral process — all in the service of preserving a stranglehold on power.None of this is going away even if Trump himself does. The GOP is scrambling to undermine electoral outcomes at the state level because Trump showed them that it was not only possible to win that way but that a big chunk of Republican voters was also fine with that. While the GOP didn’t enjoy the landslide victory in the midterms that they had hoped for, scores of Republicans who openly denied the results of the 2020 race won their elections.Trump is also not one to go gently into that good night. A presidential run will feed his need to stay in the media spotlight and allow him to raise money off his candidacy. He also believes that the presidency might insulate him from the swarm of state and federal investigations he is mired in. Those are all ample reasons for him to stick around.He also will never take responsibility for the midterm debacle. He is reportedly trashing one MAGA-teer, Mehmet Oz, for losing the Senate race in Pennsylvania. He is also said to be “livid” and “screaming at everyone” because his handpicked candidates mostly belly-flopped. Someone made of different stuff would take responsibility for these outcomes, do a little round of introspection and move on. That isn’t Trump, though.A different kind of a person would also feel reassured that even if he can’t continue to carry the torch, his legacy — and authoritarian leanings — are alive and well in politicians such as DeSantis. But even if Trump can’t bring himself to recognize that, the nation’s voters can. And they should bear that in mind because a fuller reckoning around the future of democracy and Trumpism still awaits. | 2022-11-09T19:01:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trumpism Is a Dish Republicans Can Serve Without Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trumpism-is-a-dish-republicans-can-serve-without-trump/2022/11/09/df163d60-6059-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trumpism-is-a-dish-republicans-can-serve-without-trump/2022/11/09/df163d60-6059-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Gingrich ordered to appear before Ga. grand jury probing 2020 election
A Virginia judge said Newt Gingrich must testify as part of a Georgia prosecutor’s investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Newt Gingrich and his attorney, John A. Burlingame, talk outside the Fairfax County courthouse Wednesday after a judge ruled the former House speaker must testify before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. (Tom Jackman/The Washington Post)
A Fairfax County judge rejected an attempt Wednesday by former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to evade a summons for his grand jury testimony in Georgia, where a Fulton County prosecutor is investigating efforts by supporters of President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results in that state.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis sought Gingrich’s testimony as an out-of-state witness for her special grand jury probe under the Uniform Act, which allows one state to secure witnesses from another state. Fulton County Judge Robert C.I. McBurney then issued an order last month for Gingrich to appear before the special grand jury. A court in the state where the witness lives must then approve that order, known as a “certificate of material witness.”
“What it comes down to is I have a statute before me … that refers to ‘a grand jury investigation,’ ” Smith said. “It doesn’t make the distinction between special grand jury or a regular grand jury. I think I have to read the statute as it’s written … I think this falls within the statute. The summons will issue.”
Gingrich is one of several Trump supporters who have fought the summons to testify before the “special purpose grand jury” in Fulton County. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows have also turned to the courts to block the grand jury summons, and have so far been unsuccessful. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared before the special grand jury in August. The grand jury is expected to deliver its findings to Willis, who will then decide whether to pursue criminal charges against anyone.
Willis became interested in hearing from Gingrich after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol sent him a letter on Sept. 1, alleging that he had taken a number of steps to try to reverse the election outcome in Georgia and nationally. Based on those allegations, the committee requested Gingrich testify before it, and Gingrich agreed to appear privately on Nov. 21.
Burlingame argued that having Gingrich also testify before the Georgia special grand jury was duplicative and onerous. “It’s not like traveling across the Chain Bridge,” Burlingame said of his client, who lives in McLean, Va. “He’s being asked to travel to Atlanta and back.” Instead, Burlingame offered, Gingrich could provide his transcribed testimony before the Jan. 6 committee to Fulton County when it was done.
The House committee’s letter, signed by Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), alleged that Gingrich urged top Trump advisers to rely on false claims about voter fraud in Georgia to create advertising that would outrage the public. “Among the numerous emails you exchanged regarding purported election fraud,” Thompson wrote, Gingrich “suggested that the advertisements include a ‘call-to-action’ of pressuring state officials,” to air nationally. | 2022-11-09T19:01:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gingrich ordered to appear before Ga. grand jury probing 2020 election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/gingrich-georgia-grand-jury/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/gingrich-georgia-grand-jury/ |
Victim of player dropped by Bruins speaks out on racist bullying
After an outcry, the Boston Bruins cut ties with Mitchell Miller two days after extending an offer to him and apologized for not properly vetting him. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
After reliving a period of his life in which he was subjected to racist bullying by Mitchell Miller, Isaiah Meyer-Crothers said in a statement released Wednesday that “it hurts my heart what he did to me.”
Miller, a 20-year-old standout defenseman from Ohio, was convicted as a 14-year-old juvenile of bullying and assaulting Meyer-Crothers, a Black, developmentally disabled eighth-grade classmate.
Their story became the center of a controversy Friday when the Boston Bruins extended an entry-level contract offer to Miller. By Saturday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman emphatically said Miller is “not coming into the NHL,” and on Sunday, after more backlash from Bruins players and fans, Miller’s contract was rescinded. Bruins President Cam Neely said the team had “dropped the ball” in vetting Miller and failing to contact the family of Meyer-Crothers.
Cam Neely says Bruins ‘failed’ with player convicted of juvenile bullying
Meyer-Crothers addressed the situation in a statement he sent to Akim Aliu, chair of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, and asked the organization to release on his behalf. The HDA was founded by current and former NHL players in June 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.
“I have been bullied since I was in 1st grade,” Meyer-Crothers began. “There were not many Black kids at my school. I was called ‘brownie’ and ‘n-----.’
“When I went to junior high Mitchell would spit in my face and call me a N word. I stopped telling because they called me a snitch and I would get made fun of. I had to say I was his ‘n------’ to sit at his table and he made me clean the whole table. He threw food in my face. I was called ‘n-----’ every day.”
Meyer-Crothers said he was told by school officials to stay away from Miller “because he wasn’t my friend,” adding that Miller’s friends began bullying him after he says Miller was “expelled” from school.
“He pretended to be my friend and made me do things I didn’t want to do. In junior high, I got beat up by him,” he said of Miller. “Everyone thought he was cool, but I don’t see how someone can be cool when you pick on someone and bully someone your entire life.”
Miller and another classmate admitted in juvenile court in 2016 to bullying Meyer-Crothers while all three lived in suburban Toledo, the Arizona Republic reported in 2020 when the Arizona Coyotes renounced their rights to him. Meyer-Crothers testified Miller had taunted him for years, calling him “Brownie” and using the n-word, and recounted an incident, captured on video, in which Miller and another boy tricked Meyer-Crothers into licking a candy push pop they’d wiped in a urinal. Miller and the other boy were charged in an Ohio court with assault, admitted to the bullying in juvenile court, were sentenced to 25 hours of community service and were ordered to write an apology to Meyer-Crothers.
When the Bruins made their offer Friday, Miller said in a statement provided by the team that, “When I was in eighth grade, I made an extremely poor decision and acted very immaturely. I deeply regret the incident and have apologized to the individual. Since the incident, I have come to better understand the far-reaching consequences of my actions that I failed to recognize and understand nearly seven years ago.
Meyer-Crothers said in his statement that he was texted “constantly” by Miller in October and finally answered Snapchat and Instagram messages in which Miller “asked me why I always have my parents doing stuff for me and why can’t I speak for myself.”
From 2020: Coyotes renounce draft rights to player who admitted to horrific bullying incident
Miller “told me he was sorry and [that the apology] didn’t involve hockey. He told me he was doing stuff in the community and helping the youth and wanted to be my friend,” Meyer-Crothers wrote.
“I told him, ‘That’s all cool but where is the proof though?’ He didn’t give me any. All the lies I have been told from him for so many years I don’t believe what Mitchell told me. He kept asking me to be his friend and that he has changed over the years from what he did.
“I told him, ‘I’m not just gonna be your friend after all you did to me.’ I am now getting messages on social media from people, calling me … ‘you stupid n-----,’ saying that ‘I need help’. Mitchell isn’t my friend. It hurts my heart what he did to me.
“So I just wanted to tell everyone — when Mitchell says we’re friends, it isn’t true. I can’t take any more of this.” | 2022-11-09T19:02:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Isaiah Meyer-Crothers releases statement about Mitchell Miller's bullying - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/isaiah-meyer-crothers-bullying-letter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/isaiah-meyer-crothers-bullying-letter/ |
An all-female school board can counter extremism
Women are better leaders than men, and it has been proved even though women tend to have significantly fewer leadership positions than men. Having an all-female school board is quite historic, as the Nov. 5 Metro article “Fairfax City poised to have all-female school board, possibly for first time” noted.
Though there is a continuous lack of women’s history in school curriculums that lead girls to believe they aren’t equal to their male counterparts, this potential all-female board is a step forward for female representation, especially when the board members are seeking inclusion and more diversity within the board. With Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s plans on changing the Virginia education system to silence the voices of LGBTQ students, I have high hopes that the new Fairfax City school board will fight for those voices in their commitment to inclusion. At the end of the day, I know the women will get it done.
Aashna Johri, Sterling | 2022-11-09T19:18:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | An all-female school board can counter extremism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/an-all-female-school-board-can-counter-extremism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/an-all-female-school-board-can-counter-extremism/ |
D.C. has a police misconduct problem. Here’s what should be done.
D.C. police officers respond to reports of a shooting in the Truxton Circle area of Northwest Washington on Aug. 24. (Emily Davies/The Washington Post)
D.C. has a police misconduct problem. From 2010 to 2020, D.C. spent $91 million on police misconduct. A recent D.C. auditor report revealed that, as of September, D.C. police rehired 37 officers fired for misconduct and paid out $14.3 million in back pay. Police misconduct erodes community trust in law enforcement and damages public safety efforts.
The D.C. Council is considering police reform legislation that could not only limit dangerous police powers and practices but also ensure real accountability for misconduct. This bill is an opportunity to address and prevent the dangerous police misconduct that drains the resources our communities need to be safe.
The auditor’s report identified the arbitration process as one significant barrier to removing officers who engage in serious misconduct. For example, the arbitration process has led to the reinstatement of officers who exhibited dangerous behavior, such as crashing into cars while intoxicated, or sexually and physically abusing people. The council should take the auditor’s recommendations to eliminate arbitration as part of its permanent police reform bill.
The council should also expand the authority of the Office of Police Complaints to make binding disciplinary decisions in addition to investigating cases of police misconduct. And, finally, it should implement a public database to track officer misconduct and tie the police department’s budget to compliance with the database mandate.
The tens of millions spent on reinstating and paying police officers fired for misconduct is a gross misuse of tax dollars. With strict limitations and real accountability, the D.C. Council can move D.C. closer to ensuring public safety for all.
Monica Hopkins, Washington
The writer is the executive director of ACLU-DC. | 2022-11-09T19:18:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. has a police misconduct problem. Here’s what should be done. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/dc-councils-upcoming-police-reform/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/dc-councils-upcoming-police-reform/ |
Why the Russian retreat from Kherson is so significant
The Ukrainian army fires a HIMARS rocket close to the front in the northern Kherson region on Saturday. (Hannibal Hanschke/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Adolf Hitler was notorious during the German invasion of the Soviet Union for refusing to give his troops permission to retreat even when that was the only tactical move that made any sense. Even when the Red Army was encircling the German Sixth Army outside Stalingrad in late 1942, the Fuehrer refused permission for his troops to stage a breakout. “I won’t go back from the Volga!” he shouted.
The New York Times reported in late September that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was giving his own version of a no-retreat order to Russian forces hard-pressed by a Ukrainian offensive in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Putin was unwilling, it seemed, to fall back from the Dnieper River.
But, if that was the case then, it no longer seems to be the case now. On Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the retreat of Russian forces to the eastern side of the Dnieper. Assuming this is not a feint, the Russians are leaving behind the only regional capital they had captured. This is not an order a yes-man like Shoigu would have issued on his own; it clearly came from the top.
From the Russian military perspective, this retreat makes sense. As Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, said in a televised exchange with Shoigu, this move would “save the lives of our military and combat capability.” The eastern bank will be much easier for Moscow’s forces to defend because Ukrainians will have to cross the river under fire to continue their offensive.
But this decision, while a military necessity, nevertheless represents a humiliating defeat for Putin. Kherson is an important Black Sea port and the capital of one of the four regions that Putin illegally annexed in September. Moreover, the Russians hoped to use Kherson as a base from which to eventually take the nearby Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa. That would have allowed them to choke off Ukraine from the Black Sea, its major trade artery.
Now the Russian offensive is going in reverse. They are having to stage one of the most difficult military operations to carry out: a “retrograde” under fire. The Ukrainians will get to decide how hard or how easy it will be for the Russians to evacuate Kherson; Russian troops will be especially vulnerable to attack when they are crossing the river.
The Russians are not only losing a significant beachhead on the western bank of the Dnieper River — they are also losing access to the Northern Crimean Canal, which had routed water from the Dnieper River to Crimea. Ukrainian officials had stopped the water flow in 2014 in retaliation for Russia’s illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula. In June, Russian forces got the water flowing again. Now it will presumably be shut off.
That will make Crimea harder to hold and will further undermine Putin’s coveted “land bridge” to Russia. The actual bridge that Putin built to link Crimea to the Russian mainland across the Kerch Strait was badly damaged in a mysterious explosion in October widely attributed to Ukrainian special forces.
Even before giving up Kherson, Russia had already lost roughly half of the territory it had occupied since February. Now this retreat makes clear to the Russian people how badly the war is going and provides much needed encouragement to the Ukrainians at a time when they are struggling with the loss of electricity, heat and water in cities such as Kyiv as a result of Russian missile strikes.
This latest Ukrainian victory will also help to keep together the pro-Ukraine coalition in the West even if energy prices spike over the winter. It should provide further impetus to Congress to pass another massive aid package for Ukraine this fall before an expected Republican takeover of the House — and that takeover, while still likely, will result in fewer MAGA members than expected.
In some ways, the best news about the retreat is that it provides more evidence that Putin is rational — he isn’t another Hitler who wants to die in his bunker and doesn’t care how many people he takes with him. It reinforces the point I made earlier this week, in writing about Putin’s willingness to allow Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports and to back off from his nuclear threats: The Russian strongman is a rational actor who is willing to retreat under pressure if it is to his advantage to do so.
That should lessen concern that Putin will launch World War III if he doesn’t get his way in Ukraine. Putin certainly miscalculates (as he did in invading Ukraine), and he is definitely reluctant to concede defeat. But he is not unstable, stupid or suicidal. Thus the retreat from Kherson offers encouraging news not only about the state of the war in Ukraine but also about the state of Putin’s mind.
Opinion|In Ukraine, it’s too early even to be talking about talking | 2022-11-09T19:18:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Russian retreat from Kherson is significant and encouraging - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/putin-kherson-retreat-important-defeat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/putin-kherson-retreat-important-defeat/ |
Abortion, marijuana were also on 2022 ballots. Here’s how states voted.
By Karin Brulliard
A voter in Denver on Tuesday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Ballot measures about ballot measures
Voters on Tuesday didn’t cast ballots for only elected representatives. In 37 states, Americans were also asked to weigh in on ballot measures centered on a range of issues, from high-profile topics such as marijuana and voting to more-obscure issues like taxes and sewers. There were even ballot measures on ballot measures. Voters in five states also considered abortion-related questions.
More than 130 propositions, bond questions, measures and constitutional amendments appeared on ballots this year, often in complex language that made them tricky to decipher. In Colorado, Arizona and Alabama, voters waded through at least 10.
But make no mistake: Ballot measures can be hugely important. They are voters’ chance to directly decide policy, rather than waiting for elected officials to do so. And their outcomes can reflect popular sentiment about contentious issues legislators might not want to touch, sometimes sparking similar measures in other states. Thirteen states have legalized marijuana at the polls in recent years, for example, and Kansans overwhelmingly rejected an antiabortion measure in August.
Here’s how some prominent ballot measures fared:
Recreational marijuana was a popular issue this year, appearing on ballots in five states, including four conservative-led ones — a sign of the increasingly bipartisan support of legalization and advocates’ confidence in voter demand for it. Before Tuesday, 19 states and the District of Columbia allowed the use of recreational cannabis.
But the push this election cycle to legalize marijuana in deep-red states largely failed. Measures that would legalize use by adults passed in Maryland and Missouri but fell short in Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In Colorado, Proposition 122 — a measure to legalize medicinal psychedelics — was still too close to call on Wednesday morning.
Voters in five states made clear their support for abortion rights. Voters in Kentucky rejected a referendum measure aimed at denying state constitutional protections for abortion, while Michiganders approved an initiative enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.
Voters in Vermont and California also passed measures guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion. The result of an abortion-related proposal in Montana remained unresolved by midday Wednesday. That referendum measure would require health-care providers to try to save any infant born alive, including after attempted abortions, or face fines or jail time. Supporters say it would prevent the killing of infants, which is already illegal, while opponents say it would force providers to take extreme measures to treat infants with no chance of survival.
Changes to voting-related policies were on ballots in several states.
Measures to widen access to voting passed in two states. Connecticut approved a constitutional amendment allowing in-person early voting, exiting the small minority of states that don’t offer early voting at all. And Michigan voters said yes to a proposed constitutional amendment that requires nine days of early voting, prepaid stamps for absentee ballots and a system for tracking them. The measure also formalizes that people have a right to vote without harassment, interference or intimidation.
Measures to tighten voting restrictions, meanwhile, prevailed in two states. Nebraska voters approved a measure requiring photo identification to cast a ballot, and Ohio backed an amendment prohibiting noncitizens from voting in local elections.
Results for two other prominent voting measures remained unsettled Wednesday morning. Arizonans considered strict identification requirements for mail-in and in-person voting. In Nevada, Question 3 would establish ranked-choice voting for congressional and some state elections. The change would allow voters to rank their preferences in the general election among the top five candidates who advance from an open primary — making it a nonpartisan primary.
Four of five states voted to scrap language in their constitutions that allows slavery as punishment in prisons, an exception written into the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery more than 150 years ago. The bills were part of a nationwide push to end labor carried out by about 800,000 prisoners nationwide — often for little to no pay. The 13th Amendment bans slavery or involuntary servitude except when it is used as punishment for a crime. The measures succeeded in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.
The lone exception was Louisiana, but not for reasons you might think. Voters there rejected an amendment that would ban slavery — after its sponsor urged its defeat. State Rep. Edmond Jordan (D) said the language of the amendment was unclear, telling the local CBS affiliate WAFB last month that legislators wanted “clean it up, with the intent of bringing it back next year and making sure that the language is clear and unambiguous.”
Minimum-wage hikes, a liberal priority, fared well Tuesday at a time of high inflation and soaring prices.
In red Nebraska, voters approved an initiative to raise the minimum wage from $9 per hour to $15 by January 2026, a change that is expected to benefit about 150,000 workers. The Cornhusker State joins nine others that have increased their minimum wages to $15 or have pledged to do so.
Voters in the District of Columbia said yes — again — to increasing the minimum wage for tipped employees to equal that of non-tipped employees. The ballot initiative, which would raise the wage from $5.35 per hour to $16.10 by 2027, was first approved by voters in 2018 but later repealed by the D.C. Council.
In Nevada, a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour — up from a minimum of $9.50, depending on whether the worker has health insurance — was leading but remained too close to call Wednesday morning.
Arkansans rejected Issue 2, a measure that would have raised the bar — to a threshold of three-fifths of voters — for approving constitutional amendments and statutes. A simple 50 percent majority vote will remain the rule.
In Florida, voters did not pass Amendment 2, which would have abolished a state commission that meets every 20 years to propose revisions to the state constitution and place them before voters. It’s one of five ways, including citizen initiatives, the Florida Constitution can be changed. Amendment 2 won a 54 percent majority, but passage required 60 percent.
One ballot-measure-related ballot measure was defeated in Arizona, while two others were still undecided Wednesday morning. All three were supported by organizations not keen on ballot measures and opposed by those that “see voter initiatives as an important counterbalance to laws crafted by the state legislature,” according to the Arizona Republic.
Arizona Proposition 128, which would have allowed legislators to amend or repeal an approved ballot measure that courts deemed unconstitutional, failed. Results for Proposition 129, requiring measures to stick to a single topic, and Proposition 132, requiring that measures including new taxes pass by 60 percent, were not yet settled. | 2022-11-09T20:19:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How abortion, marijuana ballot measures fared by state - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/abortion-marijuana-voting-ballot-measures/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/abortion-marijuana-voting-ballot-measures/ |
Arizona voters back ballot measure taking aim at ‘dark money’
The lopsided vote, a sign of enthusiasm for transparency rules despite federal gridlock, could galvanize similar efforts elsewhere
Election workers sort mail-in ballots that were dropped off at polling locations to then be sorted at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on Tuesday in Phoenix. (Eric Thayer/for The Washington Post)
PHOENIX — Voters in Arizona, sharply divided over which candidates should represent them, found broad agreement Tuesday on a different matter — those candidates should not take office propelled by major sums of undisclosed money.
That was the message sent by an emphatic victory for a ballot measure that would curb undisclosed spending in political races, sometimes referred to as “dark money.” The money is veiled because it travels through nonprofits, which are exempt under current law from disclosing their donors.
The measure, Prop 211, would require any group making independent expenditures of at least $50,000 in statewide races or $25,000 in other races to report donors contributing more than $5,000.
Voters favored that idea by a lopsided margin, with about 73 percent backing the measure based on ballots tabulated by Wednesday morning, prompting the Associated Press to declare the measure a winner. Only uncontested races and a handful of state legislative and judicial contests had wider margins in incomplete results.
The new disclosure rules were embraced despite GOP misinformation about their effects. In a bid to turn voters against the measure, the Arizona GOP falsely warned residents that it “would create a new tax for certain business activities,” according to a sample ballot mailed to voters and obtained by The Washington Post. A spokeswoman for the state party did not respond to a request for comment about the messaging.
Approval of the measure could galvanize similar efforts elsewhere, said Terry Goddard, the former Democratic attorney general of Arizona who spearheaded the move to put the issue on the ballot, his fourth attempt to do so since 2016. This effort, despite Tuesday’s approval, may still face new litigation and obstruction from the GOP-controlled legislature.
In Arizona, Goddard said, undisclosed money accounts for a larger share of campaign-related spending than it does in any other state. “If a state that’s been the worst when it comes to dark money can become one of the best, that should be inspiring to other states to make the same changes,” he said.
Goddard, who served two terms as the state’s top law-enforcement officer, said his motivation was simple: “I thought the way anonymous cash was perverting our campaigns was obnoxious.”
The initiative is part of a wave of efforts throughout the country to put new transparency and disclosure rules directly to voters as campaign finance reform fails to muster the GOP support necessary to advance at the federal level.
Two years ago, voters in Alaska approved new disclosure rules as part of a ballot measure that also included open primaries and ranked-choice voting. In 2018, a ballot measure in North Dakota amended the state constitution to ban political contributions from foreign governments, foreign corporations and foreign individuals. Voters in Oregon may have an opportunity to weigh in on sweeping campaign finance changes in 2024.
In Arizona, the measure overcame opposition from Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, and state-level organizations similarly organized as nonprofits and therefore exempt from disclosing their donors. They included the Arizona Free Enterprise Club as well as the Center for Arizona Policy and its political arm, the Center for Arizona Policy Action.
Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, argued that the measure’s effect would be “chilling the political speech of donors to more conservative organizations and setting them up for harassment and intimidation from those who disagree.”
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal echoed that warning, singling out the state measure for criticism last week and painting it as a Democratic initiative. “Democrats have failed to pass restrictions on political speech in Congress, so they’re taking the fight to state ballots,” the newspaper warned. “The latest salvo is a little-noticed measure in Arizona that would require disclosure of the ‘original source of monies used for campaign media spending.’”
That argument irked David Tedesco, an Arizona businessman and registered independent who helped fund the effort to get the measure on the ballot.
In a letter responding to the Wall Street Journal editorial, he noted that most of the financial support for Prop 211 “came from registered independents and Republicans.” He also pointed to high-profile Republicans in the state who were supporting the ballot measure, including a former governor, Fife Symington.
Tedesco said the measure’s overwhelming approval on Tuesday meant a “huge portion of every major voting bloc had to vote in favor.” That offered resounding evidence, he said, that the initiative was not a “Democratic maneuver,” not tied to one party or another, but a democratic ambition, designed to empower voters. | 2022-11-09T20:19:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arizona voters back ballot measure taking aim at ‘dark money’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/arizona-dark-money-ballot-measure/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/arizona-dark-money-ballot-measure/ |
A voters signs in to cast his ballot in Atlanta on Tuesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
ATLANTA — One of the most closely watched races in this year’s midterm elections is headed to a runoff after neither of the top two candidates vying for Georgia’s open Senate seat managed to secure a simple majority of votes, a requirement under state law for an outright victory.
With 98 percent of votes counted around 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D), who won his seat in a special election in a Jan. 5, 2021, runoff, had 49.4 percent, and his Republican rival, Herschel Walker, had 48.5 percent.
“There is one race in our state that is going to be moving to the December 6th runoff. That is the race for the United States Senate between Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Wednesday.
The contest has thrown Georgia’s election rules back into the national spotlight, after last year’s runoff election handed Democrats unified control of Washington and enabled them to pass much of President Biden’s agenda. Shortly after that, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed into law a major — and in some parts controversial — rewrite of the rules governing elections and voting in the state. That law changed the timeline and logistics of runoff contests. Here’s what to know.
What is a runoff election, and what triggers it?
A runoff election is a second election used to determine the winner of a race in which no candidate has earned more votes than the required threshold for outright victory. In most cases, the two candidates who won the most votes then go to a tiebreaking runoff contest.
Georgia is one of only two states — the other is Louisiana — where runoffs are required in general elections where no candidate has secured more than half of the votes. In most other states, a candidate wins a general election by securing the most votes — what is also called a plurality. Runoff elections are a legacy of Jim Crow-era politics crafted to ensure that White Southerners held unchecked power over Black Americans in the region.
Georgia requires anyone elected to public office in a general election to have secured a simple majority of votes, except for electors (who cast their votes in the electoral college) in presidential contests, meaning that close races for Congress may require a tiebreaking race.
How does a runoff election work?
In a runoff, the candidate with the most votes wins.
According to Georgia law, the two candidates in the runoff always should be the ones with the highest number of votes — so if a candidate drops out or otherwise can no longer stand, the candidate with the next-highest number of votes becomes eligible to be in the runoff.
If a write-in candidate is eligible for election in a runoff, that person’s name is added to the independent column of runoff ballots.
When is a runoff election held?
According to Georgia’s new voting law, runoffs should be held on the 28th day after an election is held — down from nine weeks for federal races. This means any runoff in Georgia’s Senate race would take place on Dec. 6 this year. The date can be changed only by a court.
The law also states that early voting should begin “as soon as possible” but no later than a week before the runoff. This would put the latest possible date for the start of early voting for the runoff at Nov. 28.
Proponents of the change argued that “the lengthy nine-week runoffs in 2020 were exhausting for candidates, donors, and 120 electors.” But the shortened time frame between an election and a runoff has come under fire from some voting rights advocates, who say it does not leave voters enough time to apply for mail ballots and cast their votes early. The law also “eliminates the window for voter registration to reopen for federal elections,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, meaning it would not be possible to register new voters in time for the runoff.
What are the rules for a runoff election?
All registered voters in Georgia can cast their ballots in a runoff election; to be eligible to vote in this year’s runoff, they must have registered to vote by Nov. 7.
The short time frame between an election and a runoff means there is not enough time to send military and overseas voters another round of ballots; instead, they will be sent a special absentee runoff ballot along with their regular absentee ballot before the primary or general election takes place. The runoff ballot will give these voters the option to rank their choice among all possible candidates for each office, and that ballot will be used in the case of a runoff.
Annabelle Timsit reported from London. | 2022-11-09T20:19:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a runoff election in Georgia’s Senate race will work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/georgia-runoff-election-explained-rules/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/georgia-runoff-election-explained-rules/ |
Republicans may have won the House months ago — through redistricting
If House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., becomes speaker, it may be over a caucus that owes its narrow majority to redistricting. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It was expected that Election Day this year would end with Republicans in clear control of the House and well positioned for a majority in the Senate. Both historical patterns and national polling suggested that the GOP would easily pick up the five seats necessary to seize a House majority; the question was how much farther the party would roam.
Instead, Election Day ended with uncertainty. Republicans underperformed relative to expectations in a wide range of contests and control of both chambers of Congress remained up in the air. If the party does manage to secure a majority in the House — a question still unsettled as of this writing — it may be thanks not to those historical patterns or that polling but to something much more mechanical.
A Republican majority may be thanks almost entirely to the party’s success in redrawing district boundaries after the 2020 census.
To win a majority in the House, a party needs to hold 218 of the chamber’s 435 seats. If current results hold, the Republican Party will probably hit that mark. Analysis from The Washington Post’s election model combined with races already called by the Associated Press suggests that the Republican majority will be around 225 — eight seats into the majority. Certainly a narrow enough margin that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), should he be elected speaker, would have his hands full keeping his caucus pointed in the same direction.
It’s not hard to identify where redistricting gave Republicans eight seats they might not otherwise have had.
We can start with Florida, the brightest spot on the Republican map Tuesday night thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) overwhelming reelection victory. It was also one of the brightest spots in the party’s redistricting effort.
As was the case in most states, the drawing of new congressional boundaries that followed the release of demographic data from the 2020 census yielded a number of competing delineations. Florida not only had to draw a new map but also gained a new district to be carved out of existing areas, making the effort trickier than normal.
The state legislature approved a new congressional map, sending it to DeSantis’s desk for approval. But DeSantis rejected it, calling a special session of the legislature to resolve the question. At that session, DeSantis advocated for maps created by his office (with the assistance of external conservative attorneys). The map DeSantis presented was much more aggressive in creating districts friendly to Republican candidates; when the legislature passed it, he signed it into law.
What resulted was a map in which the state gave up three contested seats relative to its prior map and gained four Republican-leaning ones. Democrats and advocates of Black voters — whose votes had been diluted by being split between different districts — sued. But the Florida Supreme Court let the new map stand.
Before redistricting, Republicans had a five-seat advantage. The districts that resulted from DeSantis’s maps gave the GOP a 12-seat advantage, one that held up in the midterm elections. While there is no guarantee that the old lines would have resulted in the same partisan divide in this cycle as there was in 2020 (those three contested seats, for example, might have gone Republican anyway), the shift of even four seats to the GOP would account for half of the GOP’s expected majority.
Before redistricting
Likely 2022 results
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio
The fight over redrawn congressional boundaries landed in court in several other states. Four of those states — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio — were allowed to use contested maps for this election cycle despite either significant legal challenges or outright recognition that the maps violated legal requirements. As Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman said to the New York Times in August, those legal decisions alone might have been enough to secure an extra five to seven Republican seats.
Consider what happened in Louisiana. A district court judge rejected the state’s proposed maps in June, specifically pointing to the state’s history of disenfranchising Black voters. (That some of these challenges came in the first redistricting after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act is not a coincidence.) But the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the order to draw new maps, echoing a February decision centered on Alabama.
The Louisiana map was unsubtle in scooping as many Black voters as possible into one heavily Democratic district. The result is a map in which 1 in 3 Black Louisianans will live in a district likely held by a Democrat, though 3 in 4 Black residents of the state are Democrats. Only 1 in 40 Black residents are Republicans, but two-thirds of them will live in districts that will probably be represented by a Republican in the House.
Here, the effect of the court decisions wasn’t to shift seats to the GOP. Instead, allowing Alabama and Louisiana to keep their redrawn maps had the effect of preventing the creation of districts that might have been more likely to elect Democrats. In Louisiana, for example, the original court order was to create a second district in which Black voters had a heavy presence, increasing the odds that two of the state’s six districts might have been blue. That’s a two-seat GOP advantage, instead of the four-seat advantage the party might expect under the maps that were allowed to move forward for this year’s ballot.
Then there’s New York. As in Florida, the process was tumultuous: An independent commission was unable to reach a consensus on maps, so, after the Democratic legislature rejected the two proposals, politicians set about creating their own version. It was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) — and then quickly challenged.
As in Florida, it was up to the state’s highest court to determine if the legislature-passed maps — heavily favoring the incumbent party, also as in Florida — would be allowed to stand. But in New York, the judge threw them out.
Had those initial maps stood, FiveThirtyEight’s analysis suggests that Democrats would have gained three seats as the GOP lost three. Instead, the new map was a wash, with each party losing a safe seat and a new, competitive seat being created. More alarmingly for Democrats, the median seat in the state shifted to the right by 4 points, in part a reflection of New York’s urban-rural divide.
Again, it’s impossible to know what would have happened under the initially proposed map. But between the AP calls and The Post’s election model, it’s likely that Republicans will win 10 of the state’s 26 seats, compared to the six seats seen as competitive or Republican-leaning under the map rejected by the court. That’s another four seats the GOP might have gained as a result of the redistricting process — or, at least, that it didn’t lose.
House races are 435 individual fights between 870 or so potential candidates. National trends affect how each party fares, but the parties’ fates often come down to the state of play in a particular place. Redistricting affects who chooses to run in those places and how likely a victory will actually be.
This year, the newly drawn maps — and the ones that were rejected — might have been enough by themselves to ensure a Republican House majority. | 2022-11-09T20:19:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans may have won the House months ago — through redistricting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/house-republicans-redistricting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/house-republicans-redistricting/ |
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