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Blizzard (Washington Post illustration; iStock; Blizzard Entertainment)
Mike Ybarra, president of the video game developer Blizzard, told employees Thursday that the company’s partnership with Chinese video game distributor NetEase was ending due to a misalignment in principles and approach. In an email viewed by The Washington Post, Ybarra granted employees at the company a more candid assessment of the breach between the two companies, which will result in Chinese gamers losing access to “World of Warcraft” and other popular titles like “StarCraft” and “Overwatch 2.”
“Every few years we review our agreements with them. We have been working through this process in good faith to extend our existing agreements,” Ybarra said. “However, their approach was not aligned with our commitment to players, employees, and our operating principles.”
In the email, Ybarra wrote that the company plans to suspend new sales in China in the coming days, and will notify Chinese gamers about next steps. Still, the local releases of “World of Warcraft: Dragonflight,” “Hearthstone: March of the Lich King,” and season 2 of “Overwatch 2” — content that was planned for this year — won’t be affected, according to the email.
“Hearthstone,” “Heroes of the Storm” and “Diablo III” will also end operations in China. The only title to remain unaffected is the mobile and PC title “Diablo Immortal,” which was covered under a separate agreement.
Ybarra also wrote that esports partnerships and programs in China would be affected. The licensing agreement between Blizzard and NetEase ends on Jan. 23, 2023.
NetEase sent out an email blast Wednesday evening informing media that “there were material differences on key terms,” and that the two parties could not reach a deal. The press release noted that the licensed Blizzard games “represented low single digits as a percentage of NetEase’s total revenues and net income in 2021 and in the first nine months of 2022.”
NetEase’s head of partnerships Simon Zhu wrote in a LinkedIn post Thursday that “one day, when what has happened behind the scene [sic] could be told, developers and gamers will have a whole new level understanding of how much damage a jerk can make.” Zhu said he was also a gamer who spent ten thousand hours in “WoW,” “StarCraft” and “Overwatch” and that he was “heartbroken” over the prospect of losing access to the games next year.
China is a significant market for Blizzard. The PC title “World of Warcraft” rose to popularity in the mid to late 2000′s, when China’s 15-year ban on consoles was still in effect. In recent years, video game companies in China have felt pressure around strict laws dictating which kinds of new games can be approved for release. Tencent, a prominent Chinese multimedia conglomerate, reported its first decline in revenue in August, falling 3 percent to a total of $19.78 billion, with gaming revenue declining 1 percent. | 2022-11-17T19:57:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | WoW, Starcraft to end service in China after Blizzard, NetEase deal ends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/17/blizzard-ybarra-email-netease/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/17/blizzard-ybarra-email-netease/ |
Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference after the weekly House Democratic Caucus meeting at the Capitol on Jan. 19, 2022, in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post)
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is poised to succeed a history-making woman and make history of his own.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the first woman to hold that position, announced Thursday that she would step down as the top Democrat, paving the way for Jeffries, 52, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, to seek the job. If elected by House Democrats, Jeffries would become the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress.
In a statement, Jeffries paid tribute to Pelosi but made no mention of his plans to seek the leadership job, although his move has been widely reported. Pelosi “is the most accomplished Speaker in American history and our country is unquestionably better off for her extraordinary leadership.” He went on to call her “the steady hand on the gavel during some of the most turbulent times the nation has ever confronted.”
Jeffries, in a nod to their history-making rise in the House, added: “The Speaker often reminds us that our diversity is our strength. I know we will draw on that wisdom as we come together as a Caucus to begin a new chapter.”
Pelosi’s longtime colleague, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), announced that he will also step down from his leadership post. Jeffries is expected to be joined by Reps. Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who will seek the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, respectively.
Pelosi’s longtime leadership colleague, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), will leave his post as House Majority Whip, but become an assistant leader, a position that will now be fourth in the leadership structure.
Jeffries, a lawyer, is from central Brooklyn, the epicenter of New York’s Democratic power. He is a self-described progressive who has forged relationships with Democratic establishment figures in Washington while navigating the ascending left in his backyard.
He was elected in 2013 and has been chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, a leadership post, since 2019. In that role, he has been the youngest member of leadership.
With the moves on Thursday, House Democrats were on the cusp of significant generational change — from octogenarians such as Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn, to Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar. Leadership elections are the week of Nov. 28 and the party appeared unified behind the new slate.
Jeffries described where he fit into in today’s political landscape, telling the Atlantic last year, “I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now.” He added: “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.”
Jeffries, a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, Georgetown and New York University Law School, was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2006, after unsuccessfully challenging a Democratic incumbent favored by the Brooklyn Democratic machine, Roger Green. After Jeffries lost an earlier challenge to Green, Democratic lawmakers promptly redrew the assembly district to exclude Jeffries’s home at the time.
The blatant move to stifle a young, striving political talent became the subject of a documentary in 2010 about gerrymandering. In that role, Jeffries was the reform-minded politician challenging the establishment.
Jeffries was elected to Congress in 2012 after longtime Rep. Ed Towns abruptly announced that he would not seek reelection. Jeffries was widely expected to win after Towns’s departure, but suddenly faced a primary challenge from Charles Barron, a Black Panther and longtime officeholder in New York. The fear that Brooklyn could send Barron to Congress prompted a national effort by establishment Democrats to support Jeffries, which proved successful.
Once in Congress, Jeffries represented not only a mix of liberal and establishment politics, but youthful Brooklyn swagger.
He once paid tribute to the slain rapper from his district, Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G. Jeffries called Wallace “the classic embodiment of the American Dream.”
He invoked several of the rapper’s stage names in 2017, adding: “Biggie Smalls, Frank White, the king of New York. He died 20 years ago today in a tragedy that occurred in Los Angeles. But his words live on forever.”
Then, Jeffries rapped lyrics from one of the rapper’s most celebrated songs, “Juicy”: “It was all a dream/ I used to read Word Up magazine/ Salt’n’Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine/ Hangin’ pictures on my wall/ Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl.”
In 2015, Jeffries considered running for mayor of New York City, as the Democratic mayor at the time, Bill de Blasio (also from Brooklyn) failed to deliver on his campaign promise of wholesale changes to the city’s widely criticized policing tactics.
In 2020, Jeffries served as an impeachment manager in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, a reflection of Pelosi’s trust in him.
Jeffries also helped sharpen Democrats’ message as he frequently hit the campaign trail and was available for interviews with reporters.
In 2020, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for Joe Biden to suspend his presidential campaign during the Senate trial of Trump. When a reporter asked Jeffries about McCarthy’s comment, Jeffries, the New York Times wrote, simply replied, “Who?”
If elected Democratic leader, Jeffries will find himself tangling with McCarthy, who is seeking the speakership in next year’s Republican-controlled House. | 2022-11-17T20:19:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who is Hakeem Jeffries? Meet the front-runner to replace Nancy Pelosi - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/hakeem-jeffries-pelosi-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/hakeem-jeffries-pelosi-house/ |
A mural of Argentine soccer great Lionel Messi looms over Rosario, his birthplace. (Anita Pouchard Serra for The Washington Post)
“The word is fantastic,” Treves said. “It was absolutely fantastic.”
Now fans here are looking forward to what will probably be a final opportunity to watch one of history’s greatest players in international play, as Messi, now 35, takes the field next week for what’s expected to be his final World Cup. Argentina begins group stage play against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday in Qatar.
For Argentines, the kickoff can’t come soon enough. This South American nation of 46 million has been buffeted by bad news: Inflation estimated this year at 100 percent, an assassination attempt in September on polarizing Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the need to restructure the world’s largest International Monetary Fund bailout to avoid default. Fernández de Kirchner, a former president, and other politicians are accused in long-running corruption scandals. Surveys of ordinary Argentines convey a staggering sense of pessimism.
Bettors are laying 11-2 odds of a cup win for the Albiceleste (the national team’s nickname is a poetic rendering of the alabaster white and sky blue of the flag and jersey), according to the latest Caesars Sportsbook. That’s second only to neighbor and archrival Brazil.
“The World Cup is an opportunity to recover enthusiasm in a country that is enormously frustrated and filled with an overwhelming feeling of failure,” said José Abadi, a psychiatrist in Bueno Aires. “It’s a chance of winning for once and attaining global recognition for how good our soccer is, rather than for how much money we owe.”
“If a match falls within class hours, schools have to broadcast it,” Argentine Education Minister Jaime Perczyk told The Washington Post. If they didn’t, he says, teenagers would skip classes altogether.
“Argentine schools have always shown the games,” he said. “They’ve done it before and will continue to do so. It is a piece of Argentine culture, and we must also take advantage of this to enrich the pedagogical proposition.”
Cristian Pereyra, 48, works in a factory that produces shock absorbers and dampers. Managers set up a television so the 500 employees don’t miss the game. “Whenever Argentina plays, the whole factory is brought to a halt,” he said. “Some do not like soccer, but that’s just the way it is.”
Soccermania came early this year as a shortage of figuritas, the baseball-card-like stickers collected by young and old at World Cup time — leading the government to step in to streamline production.
Messi was highly touted from a young age, Grandoli coach Marcos Almada says — at the time, he was spoken of as the “new Diego Maradona.” But he wasn’t always so beloved.
Maradona led Argentina to its second and most recent World Cup title, over Germany, in 1986. The smaller-than-average, larger-than-life footballer, who with Brazil’s Pelé was named FIFA’s Player of the 20th Century, has inspired a cult following — literally.
At Club Servando Bayo, a small establishment in Rosario, a group of roughly 150 has assembled. It’s the eve of Oct. 30, Maradona’s birthday. For the members of the Church of Maradona, the year is 62 A.D.
In 1998, a dozen years after Maradona’s notorious “Hand of God” helped bring the cup title home, a group of fanatics decided to worship their idol perpetually. They came up with Ten Commandments — “Thou shalt love football above all things”; “Thou shalt declare unconditional love for Diego” — scriptures and poetry, even a baptism rite: Initiates emulate the uncalled hand ball goal that put Argentina up 1-0 over England in the 1986 quarterfinals.
Since their hero died in 2020, the congregation has grown. “Without Diego, our love for him became much deeper,” said Hernán Amez, a church founder. On Maradonian Christmas, they display paintings of his biggest goals and play video highlights from his career.
As midnight approaches, the fanatics invoke his parents. “In the name of Doña Tota and Don Diego,” they chant.
Maradona is to some extent a “totemic father” for Argentines, said Abadi, the psychiatrist. The adoration around the star, whose large personality drew extreme reactions beyond the soccer pitch, has complicated Messi’s connection with fans.
“As a successor, Messi was not only loved but also criticized,” he said. “It must not be the case that he pretends to fill the role of the national hero.”
Messi is an accomplished star in Europe, where he has played for Barcelona and Paris St. Germain and won 11 club championships and four UEFA Champions League titles. He has won the Ballon d’Or — the Golden Ball, awarded each year to the men’s soccer player judged the world’s best — a record seven times, most recently in 2021.
“The national team is over for me,” he said after a shootout loss to Chile in the 2016 Copa America final. “I tried so hard; triumphing [with Argentina] is what I wanted most, but it is simply impossible. I can’t win.”
For Argentines, Messi’s struggles in international play drew bitter comparisons with Maradona’s successes. Still, his retirement shattered fans. His dismay caused some critics to warm to him. He did finally win the Copa America in 2021.
“Those comparisons were so silly,” said Pereyra, the factory worker. “We should be proud that both he and Maradona are Argentines.”
In Rosario’s Barrio La Bajada, a labyrinthine complex of narrow streets and alleys, Messi’s childhood home has become a sanctuary. The two-story concrete house is still unpainted, but virtually everything around it is decorated in his honor: Sidewalks and light posts are painted white and blue, and neighbors’ walls and doorways are emblazoned with murals of the star.
“In the twilight of his career, Messi arrives in Qatar as one of the top players in the world,” said Ezequiel Fernández Moores, an Argentine sports journalist. “I never saw Messi like this in the national team, personally and football-wise. He is more relaxed and mature, the team’s natural leader.”
“This is a token of love for him,” Gómez said. “It is great to have a place to worship Diego. We miss him every game, and now that the World Cup is coming, even more.”
“Diego’s legacy is embedded in Messi’s heart,” she said. “Whenever I gaze at the stars, I say to myself. ‘Diego, please give us a hand in Qatar!’ ” | 2022-11-17T20:32:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In his final World Cup, Messi inspires hope in his native Argentina - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/messi-world-cup-argentina/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/messi-world-cup-argentina/ |
Paris mulls e-scooter ban in global test for micromobility industry
A dozen scooters and electric bikes on the sidewalk of a small street in Paris. (iStock)
Wander through the streets of a major city in Europe or North America, and there is a good chance you’ll eventually stumble upon a flock of brightly colored electric scooters, arranged in more or less orderly fashion, waiting for riders.
For some, e-scooters for rent are an eyesore, liable to cause accidents on and off the sidewalk. For others, they symbolize convenience, and are a welcome alternative to cars.
This polarization is especially evident in Paris, which is undergoing a major transformation led by its mayor, Anne Hidalgo, with the aim of reclaiming public space from roads and vehicles to make the city more livable.
Now, Hidalgo is faced with a stark choice: Politicians from several parties are calling on her to ban e-scooters from the city when their operators’ contracts end in February 2023. Meanwhile, Lime, Dott and Tier — the three companies licensed to operate scooters in Paris — say they are helping the city achieve its environmental targets. She is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks, according to one of her deputies, David Belliard.
“We are asking ourselves about the cost-benefit ratio of these machines,” he told The Washington Post, citing congestion, safety and insufficient evidence of their environmental benefits.
Any decision made in Paris could have global ramifications: While many cities around the world, including New York and D.C., have expanded the use of the scooters, many are also passing legislation to rein in the micromobility industry.
A major concern is safety: In France, government figures show that 24 people died last year as a result of an accident involving a personal motorized vehicle, which includes scooters, hoverboards and Segways. That’s up from seven deaths in 2020 and 10 in 2019. Beyond deaths, there were 337 accidents involving these vehicles in the first eight months of this year, according to Reuters, up from 247 in the first eight months of 2021.
Paris has strict rules for where the dock-free scooters can park, but in many cities, it is common to find them strewn across sidewalks, creating risks for pedestrians, particularly the elderly and those with visual impairments.
Scooter operators stress that the rise in accidents and deaths should be seen in the context of higher usage. Nicolas Gorse, chief business officer for Dott, told The Post via email that “safety per trip is increasing.”
A spokesperson for Lime, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal company data, told The Post via email that between January 2020 and June 2022, “over 99.99% of Lime trips in Paris were safety incident free.” The spokesperson said Lime e-scooters “see fewer fatal incidents on a per-ride basis than bikes, and far fewer than those caused by mopeds or cars.”
Proponents of e-scooters argue that they help get polluting vehicles off the roads. But Belliard, who is a member of the Green Party, says the environmental benefit is overstated. There is debate over what share of e-scooter riders would take a vehicle — instead of using public transportation, cycling or walking — if the scooters were not available: Experts told the British Parliament in 2020 that in general, “current evidence shows a relatively low shift away from car use in European cities, and more of a shift away from active travel models and public transport.”
Operators also say e-scooters can help relieve pressure on public transportation, particularly ahead of events like the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. They point out that when public transportation workers went on strike in Paris earlier this month, e-scooters were a popular alternative among commuters.
Electric scooters have arrived in Europe — and a lot of people there hate them too
Opponents of e-scooters have other concerns, especially around parking and congestion. Traffic infrastructure in Paris was not built to accommodate a fleet of thousands of new micromobility vehicles, says Jérôme Monnet, co-director of the Paris School of Urbanism.
To deal with these problems, the city of Paris has imposed new restrictions on the e-scooter industry, limiting the number of licensed operators to three, capping their collective fleet at 15,000 and implementing restrictions on where the scooters can park and how fast they can go. Now, officials want to go further, and have requested proposals from Lime, Dott and Tier on how they will better integrate the vehicles into the city if their contracts are renewed.
The proposals the companies have put forward include age verification for riders and a pledge to equip more scooters with license plates to allow police to more easily issue tickets to riders who violate traffic rules. They say they have already implemented some changes, including testing new technology to force riders to park their scooters in designated spots.
“If Paris accepts our proposals, it would become the city with the strictest scooter regulation in the world,” Garance Lefèvre, Lime’s public affairs director, told Reuters.
E-scooters are getting computer vision to curb pedestrian collisions
Paris is not the first city to consider banning shared e-scooters: In April, the Cincinnati City Council imposed a curfew of 6 p.m. on scooter use, before extending it to 9 p.m. a few months later. According to local broadcaster WVXU, city officials said they were considering a ban. And in 2020, authorities briefly banned free-floating e-scooter rental in parts of Copenhagen.
But Paris has been at the forefront of regulating the micromobility industry, and could serve as a bellwether for both the industry and the broader debate within France about how to improve urban mobility.
Belliard argues that the back-and-forth with operators over scooter safety proves that Paris needs “a regulatory framework” to manage the rise of micromobility.
“I always feel like we’re kind of in a race against the private operators of free-floating scooters,” he said. “It is a system that is not sustainable over time.” | 2022-11-17T20:32:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paris mulls e-scooter ban in test case for micromobility industry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/paris-electric-scooters-ban-safety/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/paris-electric-scooters-ban-safety/ |
A combine harvests wheat in July in the village of Muzykivka, in Ukraine's Kherson region. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Russia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to extend a deal allowing Kyiv to export grain through the Black Sea, officials said.
The pact, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July, is meant to ease hunger and soaring global food prices exacerbated by the invasion. Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s top producers of wheat, as well as key commodities such as cooking oil and fertilizer.
Russia, which briefly suspended its participation in the deal last month, was critical of the agreement, accusing Kyiv of using the maritime corridor to stage military attacks. But in the months since the deal was clinched and exports resumed, food prices have eased worldwide, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The two sides agreed to extend the deal for 120 days, beginning Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter. “It has been clearly seen how important and beneficial this agreement is for the food supply and security of the world,” Erdogan said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that it had allowed the deal to automatically renew, but added, “Any attempts to use the humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea for provocative military purposes will be firmly suppressed.”
Here’s what to know about the grain deal and its impact.
What is the deal meant to do?
Russian forces blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports soon after the invasion began in February, bringing Ukrainian agricultural exports to a standstill, with vast stocks of grain stranded in silos in the countryside.
At the same time, Western sanctions targeting Russia as punishment for the invasion helped drive up food and fuel prices globally. “Natural gas, aluminum and wheat have all hit fresh record highs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions that have been imposed on Russia,” said a March 10 research note from investment bank JPMorgan.
How will the grain deal affect the global food crisis?
The impact of the war and the sanctions was immediate and widespread. Soon, aid workers and diplomats were sounding the alarm over potential famine, particularly in countries such as Nigeria and Lebanon that rely on Russian and Ukrainian wheat.
“The conflict in Ukraine is compounding what is already a year of catastrophic hunger, unleashing a wave of collateral hunger,” the U.N. World Food Program said in June.
The agency warned that its own programs were at risk: Russia and Ukraine typically provide more than half of WFP’s grain supply, which is distributed to some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, including in Somalia and Yemen.
As the crisis deepened, Turkey, also a major player in the Black Sea, and U.N. Secretary General António Guterres intervened to negotiate a solution. The result was the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a two-page agreement “to facilitate the safe navigation for the export of grain and related foodstuffs” from three of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
The deal was lauded as a diplomatic victory. It established a Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, where representatives of each party, under the auspices of the United Nations, would conduct oversight and coordination.
It also prohibited military ships or aircraft from approaching the route, with vessels subject to inspections by teams operating out of Turkish harbors.
What is the deal’s impact?
Before the war, Ukraine shipped about 75 percent of its agricultural exports through Black Sea ports, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a Washington-based agricultural research center. Of those exports, about half went through the three ports designated in the deal (Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny).
The grain deal did not restore Ukraine’s exports to prewar levels, but it did help Kyiv ship out more than double the food it was exporting before the agreement, according to a U.N. database. The deal has facilitated the shipment of more than 11 million tons of corn, wheat, sunflower oil and related products to 38 countries, the United Nations says.
5 countries hit hard by the Ukraine grain crisis
Most of the exports have gone to Spain, Turkey, China and Italy. More-vulnerable countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Lebanon, Somalia and Yemen have received smaller amounts. Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited the imbalance to criticize the deal as a self-serving payday for his opponents in Europe. But that characterization distorts the broader impact.
According to the Joint Coordination Center, roughly 370,000 tons of wheat have been exported to poorer nations in the Horn of Africa, as well as Afghanistan, all of which are receiving food aid through WFP. “Not all of it has gone to the neediest countries,” U.N. humanitarian-affairs chief Martin Griffiths said last month of the grain exports in remarks to the U.N. Security Council. “But all of it has a humanitarian impact: the reduction of prices, the calming of market volatility.”
“Ukraine’s grain exports are not a food aid operation,” he said, “but they do operate as a huge lever on price, with positive ripple effects throughout the world.”
The FAO’s Food Price Index, a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, has dropped nearly 15 percent from its peak in March, the organization said this month. That decline is owed in part to the return of Ukrainian grain to the markets, experts say.
Citing World Bank models, Rebeca Grynspan, secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, said the overall drop in food prices and improved access to food for humanitarian actors in recent months “may have prevented over 100 million people from falling into poverty.”
What will the extension do?
Last month, Russia abruptly froze its participation in the deal, citing a drone attack on its fleet in Crimea, which it blamed on Ukraine. In a televised news conference, Putin said that the drones had traveled through the same Black Sea corridor used by Ukraine’s grain ships.
Moscow rejoined the agreement just days later, despite its criticisms, with Putin warning Russia had the right to withdraw at any time. But the surprise move was enough to cause a global jump in wheat prices. And even as the FAO Food Price Index continued its overall decline, October’s basket reflected the rising cost: World wheat prices rose by 3.2 percent, the organization said, “mostly reflecting continued uncertainties related to the Black Sea Grain Initiative.”
An extension of the agreement, even for just four months, could smooth out some of that market volatility, easing the strain on vulnerable countries. Global inflation has curbed the purchasing power of importers, the FAO said, “at a time when food prices are at all-time highs.”
It would also prevent any immediate disruptions to grain supplies for countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen, all of which have benefited from the deal, according to IFPRI.
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are “dependent on Ukraine as a supplier of wheat and other grains, but they tend to buy more during the winter to supplement their own harvests,” David Laborde and Joseph Glauber, senior research fellows at IFPRI, wrote in October.
“Renewed interruption in imports could increase food insecurity in these countries and potentially exacerbate political tensions,” they wrote.
Beyond the impact on food prices, the deal’s renewal also maintains a rare forum for cooperation between Russia and Ukraine — a key opening as allies push for broader negotiations, even as the conflict intensifies. | 2022-11-17T20:32:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia and Ukraine have renewed the U.N. grain deal. Is it working? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/russia-ukraine-grain-deal-black-sea/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/russia-ukraine-grain-deal-black-sea/ |
Hirshhorn breaks ground on long-debated sculpture garden redesign
At a ceremony presided over by Jill Biden, artists and museum leaders, the museum looks ahead to a more accessible future.
First lady Jill Biden, center right, takes part in a groundbreaking ceremony at the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden broke ground on its much-debated sculpture garden renovation on Wednesday at a ceremony presided over by first lady Jill Biden, artists and museum leaders. Speaking to a crowd seated near works by Henry Moore and Tony Cragg in the garden on a cool fall afternoon, the first lady, fresh off the midterm campaign trail, reflected on the power of art in chaotic times and praised the renovation for its goal of broadening the museum’s reach.
“This project will create a place which will draw more people to the treasures inside — where they are welcomed to stop and sit and reflect,” Biden said. “This garden invites everyone to take a breath, look within ourselves and experience life in the moment.”
Designed by Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, the project, estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars, will connect the sculpture garden to the museum’s plaza and building via an underground passageway, which architect Gordon Bunshaft included in the garden’s original 1974 design. It will also increase the amount of art from Joseph H. Hirshhorn’s foundational gift on view in the east garden by 50 percent. The garden will close next spring for the renovation, which is expected to take about two years.
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III and Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu took part in Wednesday’s event, as did artists Jeff Koons, Adam Pendleton and Laurie Anderson, all of whom have relationships with the museum.
The garden has seen a few evolutions over the years. Landscape architect Lester Collins redesigned it in 1981, adding walls that divided the space into open-air galleries. In 1993, James Urban reconfigured the space further and added more greenery.
After Sugimoto laid out his vision, critics expressed concerns about his proposal to use stacked stone for the garden’s inner partition wall, saying it was not faithful to the original brutalist design, and his plans to alter the size of the original reflecting pool. Discussions went on for almost three years. Ultimately, the museum decided to rebuild the partition wall with concrete and use stacked stone for inner galleries. And rather than altering the reflecting pool, they will add a second water feature, which can be drained to accommodate performances. The project was finally approved last December.
That struggle wasn’t brushed aside on Wednesday. Sugimoto, who was the subject of a retrospective at the Hirshhorn in 2006 and also revamped the museum lobby in 2018, told attendees he was “amazed” at the backlash against his vision. He said he had many moments when he thought it would never come together.
“Now, I’m standing at the groundbreaking and I keep thinking, ‘This is a miracle.’ ” The architect went on to thank both his supporters — and his opponents. “You taught me how to survive in Washington, D.C.,” he added, laughing.
In a historic city and museum industry famously resistant to change, it’s a time of rethinking and reimagining. That was evident at the Hirshhorn on Wednesday, where even as polished guests in patterned winter coats sipped champagne and bopped to the JoGo Project, the museum’s exterior remained under construction — scaffolding lined the walls and a bright yellow crane was parked beside the building.
With the groundbreaking, the Hirshhorn, which is the only Smithsonian museum embedded in the National Mall, begins the second phase of a major revitalization that will also include an interior renovation announced in October. And there could be more changes coming to the Mall. Last month, the Smithsonian released its preferred locations for the new National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, both of which it hopes to place on the Mall, though not everyone agrees with that proposal.
This shifting landscape raises questions about how to remain true to artistic visions — whether it’s architect Bunshaft’s 20th-century vision for the Hirshhorn or planner Pierre L’Enfant’s 18th-century vision for the Mall — while also pushing these historic places into the future. The Smithsonian on Wednesday underscored its belief that changes can elevate these sites to meet a moment that prioritizes diversity and access.
Opinion | Yes, the museums honoring women and Latinos belong on the National Mall
Bunch praised Sugimoto’s plan, saying it “will transform this garden into a space that better accommodates larger audiences, accommodates performances — in essence, makes the Hirshhorn accessible to the millions of people who stroll past it on the National Mall. What I’m excited about is that the Mall has always been a place that has changed, that has evolved.”
Seeking to lure more visitors, the Hirshhorn will widen the north entryway to the garden from 20 feet to 60 feet with the hopes of improving visibility of the sculpture garden and the passageway to the museum.
“As the only major modern art museum free and open to the public, we are committed to radical accessibility in every sense of the term,” said Chiu, Hirshhorn’s director. Speaking to The Washington Post after the event, she added that “the combination of art, architecture and landscape design is very unique in the new design and the goal is to make people feel more connected to the art.”
As they forged ahead with the project, the past was present. Sculpture has a unique legacy at the Hirshhorn, whose founding donor, Joseph Hirshhorn, was known for amassing bronzes by Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore. Bunshaft wanted the museum’s doughnut-shaped building to function like a giant work of three-dimensional art, standing over smaller works in the garden.
Sugimoto said that Bunshaft’s original design was influenced by Zen gardens and inspired his 21st-century redesign, which makes use of pre-modern Japanese aesthetics. “It is picking up where Bunshaft left off.”
After the event, Sugimoto pointed to Jacques Lipchitz’s “Figure,” which had a sample of stacked-stone wall behind it. “To praise a modern masterpiece like this, what’s the best background? It must be pre-modern wall. The background is old and the sculpture is new,” he told The Post.
Many also called attention to Biden’s presence, which honored Lady Bird Johnson, the first lady who played an important role in the Hirshhorn’s founding. Biden has been forging something of her own arts legacy — she spoke at the Molina Family Latino Gallery opening in June and visited the African American Museum to celebrate its post-vaccine reopening in 2021. (She’s also a known fan of artist Mary Page Evans.)
But in her remarks, Biden framed the moment as less about big pictures and legacies and more about the personal experience of art. She described visiting the Alex Katz exhibition at the Guggenheim after a hard day campaigning.
Walking through it, “I felt myself breathe out the buzz of the day,” she said. “In a world that asks us to sprint from moment to moment — from meeting to meeting — art stops us in our tracks. It feeds our spirits when we’re hungry for something more.” | 2022-11-17T20:41:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hirshhorn breaks ground on long-debated sculpture garden redesign - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/17/hirshhorn-sculpture-garden-redesign/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/17/hirshhorn-sculpture-garden-redesign/ |
The problem isn’t that he’s the wrong choice to be Pelosi’s successor. He’s the obvious choice, even the correct one. But it is a problem for House Democrats that the correct choice is someone who hasn’t played a major role in legislative strategy, policy development, fundraising or public communication. The problem is that the best option available is a bit underexperienced because the people higher up in the leadership hierarchy are way too old. If Pelosi had stepped down after the 2010 midterms, House Majority Whip James Clyburn could conceivably have stepped up at age 70 and become the first Black speaker after the 2018 midterms. Then he, rather than Pelosi, would be stepping down today in favor of a younger leader who’d served in the No. 2 or No. 3 spot.
During this extended period of gerontocracy, multiple heirs apparent left the House for greener pastures. Rahm Emanuel became White House Chief of Staff and then Mayor of Chicago. Chris Van Hollen became a senator. Xavier Becerra became attorney general of California and then Secretary of Health and Himan Services.
Jeffries, of course, may end up exceling despite a relative lack of experience. And adding a fresh face to the Democratic Party’s broader national leadership will be a welcome development.
But given the failure of that approach, it’s time to consider the kind of term limits that are in place on the GOP side. House Republicans simply cap the number of years that a person can linger as a committee chair or caucus leader. This does carry certain costs — forcing members to run against each other to lead committees and encouraging early retirement of experienced members. But it also ensures that young and ambitious members have opportunities on a regular basis, and that there is a constant forward conveyor belt of members gaining more experience and prominence. And it means that Republicans are able to recover from electoral defeat by rolling out some fresh new leaders not associated by the public with any past failures.
In a tribute to Pelosi, former Obama adviser David Axelrod called her “one of the most skillful, durable, and accomplished legislative leaders in American history.” It’s all true. And part of the reason is that she benefited from having served lower-level leadership jobs. Part of her legacy ought to be making sure that no one else has quite as long a career at the very top as she did.
• How Pelosi Won (Again): Jonathan Bernstein
• Pelosi Has Nailed the Optics of Her Taiwan Trip: Matthew Brooker | 2022-11-17T20:45:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nancy Pelosi Will Be a Hard Act to Follow - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nancy-pelosi-will-be-a-hard-act-to-follow/2022/11/17/ed08923c-66b3-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nancy-pelosi-will-be-a-hard-act-to-follow/2022/11/17/ed08923c-66b3-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Under the “migration and economic development partnership” with Rwanda announced last April, asylum seekers attempting to cross into the UK are given an initial screening by British authorities. Anyone judged to have entered the UK illegally is eligible for deportation, with the exception of unaccompanied minors and families with children under 18, as well as individuals who might face the threat of persecution in Rwanda. Deportees granted protection by Rwanda’s government would be eligible to live there but would not be permitted to return to the UK. According to the Home Office, unsuccessful applicants “could still be granted an immigration status or be removed to their country of origin or other country where they have a right to reside.” (A spokesperson for the Rwandan government disputes the assertion that unsuccessful applicants could face deportation.)
(Corrects description of asylum procedures in Rwanda and adds response from the Rwandan government in third paragraph of editorial published Nov. 16.) | 2022-11-17T20:45:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Offshoring Is the Wrong Response to the UK Migration Crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/offshoring-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-uk-migration-crisis/2022/11/17/d8c69e3a-66aa-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/offshoring-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-uk-migration-crisis/2022/11/17/d8c69e3a-66aa-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Norbert Schnorr works a driveway in Buffalo during a five-foot snowfall in November 2014. (John Normile/Getty Images)
Residents across western and northern New York are bracing for historic “lake-effect snow,” a storm set to engulf most of the region in a crippling white cloak. Waves of heavy snow are expected to wash off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and bury the metro areas in Buffalo and Watertown — and as forecasters project upward of four feet of snow, Buffalo is expected to take the brunt of the bitter blizzard conditions.
The heaviest snow is expected late Thursday through Friday night with snowfall rates of four inches per hour. But the snow will continue to pound the area for at least 48 hours.
Lake-effect snow warnings have been issued in the counties surrounding lakes Erie and Ontario, which includes the cities of Buffalo, Watertown, Niagara Falls and Oswego. The warnings go into effect at 7 p.m. Thursday and lift Sunday at 1 p.m. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency effective Thursday morning ahead of the intense snowfall.
For residents near Buffalo, massive snowstorms from lake-effect snow are normal. But those unfamiliar with the phenomenon may be asking: What exactly is lake-effect snow? Here’s what to know.
Lake-effect snow forms when dry, freezing air picks up moisture and heat as it moves along warmer lake water. This causes some of the lake water to evaporate into the air, causing the air to be warmer and wetter. As the air cools and moves from the lake, it dumps all the moisture on the ground. When it’s cold enough, it results in a massive dumping of snow.
The perfect recipe for lake-effect storms occurs during the late fall and early winter, when there is the largest difference between the warm lake water and the colder air moving over it. The bigger the temperature difference, the heavier the storm.
The sweet spot for storm formation occurs when temperatures at 5,000 feet above a body of water are at least 25 degrees colder than the lake water. Temperatures cooler than 25 degrees can sometimes add enough energy to create thundersnow. Thundersnow can be especially intense, sometimes falling at a clip of two to three inches per hour or more.
The direction of the wind is also important. If the wind is blowing in a direction that covers more of the lake, the air will act like a large sponge that gulps up water from the lake and wrings it onto the land, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
Wind direction also determines which areas will receive lake-effect snow. In some cases, heavy snow may be falling in one location, while the sun may be shining just a mile or two away in either direction, according to the National Weather Service.
This cold air needs to blow at least 60 miles over the warmer water to produce significant snow.
Where does lake-effect snow fall?
Normally the water is dropped within 25 miles of the lake, but it can travel up to 100 miles.
This snow falls from bands of clouds that average roughly 10 miles wide and maybe 300 or more miles long. Amounts of snow vary across a region, with the most snow usually falling on hills inland from the lakes.
Who is impacted most by lake-effect snow?
The National Weather Service says lake-effect snow accounts for 30 to 50 percent of the annual snowfall on the eastern and southern shores of the Great Lakes, a region famous for the large amounts of snowfall.
Lake-effect snow frequently pummels the Great Lakes with feet of wet snow that can trap people in their homes and covers cars. The chilling events generally occur during the late fall and winter season.
Thanks to lake-effect snow, cities on or close to the Great Lakes — like Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo in New York, plus Erie, Pa.; Cleveland; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Duluth, Minn. — are among the snowiest large U.S. cities.
A good deal of the early winter lake-effect snow that falls on Buffalo and neighboring Niagara Falls occurs when westerly winds blow across Lake Erie. When the lake freezes over, it cuts off that source of lake-effect snow.
Some large Great Lakes cities, including Detroit, Toledo, Milwaukee and Chicago, receive little lake-effect snow because they are on the west side of their lake, and the prevailing winds are from the west.
The heaviest lake-effect snow in the United States falls on the Tug Hill Plateau, south of Watertown, N.Y., at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, making this region one of the snowiest places in the United States.
Syracuse, which is south of Tug Hill, is one of the snowiest big cities in the United States.
Unlike the relatively shallow Lake Erie (201 feet at its deepest), the 802-foot-deep Lake Ontario stays warmer than Erie. In addition, water from all of the other Great Lakes flows past Buffalo, over Niagara Falls and into Lake Ontario all year. This continuous water movement also helps keep the lake from freezing.
Will climate change affect lake-effect snow?
Human-caused climate change has the potential to intensify lake-effect snow events, at least in the short term, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit.
“Ice cover extent and lake water temperatures are the main controls on lake-effect snow that falls downwind of the Great Lakes,” the tool kit states. “As the region warms and ice cover diminishes in winter, models predict that more lake-effect snow will occur. The predictions change once lake temperatures rise to a point when much of what now falls as snow will instead fall as rain.” | 2022-11-17T20:45:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is lake-effect snow and how does it form? Here's what to know. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/17/lake-effect-snow-explained/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/17/lake-effect-snow-explained/ |
Blood tests for Alzheimer’s are here. Here’s what you need to know.
Alzheimer’s disease may be at an important moment, with the emergence of blood tests that can detect the illness and the possible approval of new treatments. (iStock)
Few illnesses instill as much fear as Alzheimer’s, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that destroys memory and identity. The dread is compounded by the uncertainty that often surrounds the diagnosis of the most common form of dementia.
As a result, Alzheimer’s is frequently misdiagnosed, especially in the early stages. Other illnesses, including depression, can have similar symptoms and require other treatments.
But simple blood tests designed to help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s now are on the market. More are on the way. The tests are seen as an important scientific advance, but have ignited debate about how and when they should be used.
Widespread use of the tests may be some time off in the future — after insurance coverage improves and even more accurate next-generation tests become available. For now, none is covered by Medicare, and private insurance coverage is patchy.
How do Alzheimer’s blood tests work?
Why would I want to know if I have Alzheimer’s? | 2022-11-17T20:46:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blood tests for Alzheimer's: Questions and answers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/17/alzheimers-blood-test-faq/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/17/alzheimers-blood-test-faq/ |
Every Ukrainian knows both patriots and collaborators
A Ukrainian soldier and locals look at two alleged Russian collaborators in Kherson, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Libkos/AP Photo)
I couldn’t be more thrilled that Ukraine has finally liberated my hometown of Kherson.
Yet there are still countless problems ahead. The city has no water, gas or electricity. People are hungry and cold.
And then there are the moral and political problems — such as alleged collaborators.
Consider the story of my old high school civics teacher, Tatyana Tomilina, 56. When the Russians occupied Kherson in March, Tomilina — who already had a reputation as a pro-Russian separatist — seemed ready to help. They appointed her rector of Kherson State University, a high-profile cultural and political position that would have only gone to someone they believed willing to work hand-in-hand with the occupation government. In August, the Ukrainian government launched an official investigation into her activities, declaring her to be “under suspicion” of committing the crime of collaboration. The accusation was linked to her alleged dissemination of Russian propaganda, her implementation of Russian curriculum in the university, and her efforts to train a new generation of pro-Russian journalists under what critics claimed was the guise of a “media school.”
On Sept. 12, her Kherson apartment was blown up. The circumstances are murky, but it’s widely assumed that the attack was carried out by Ukrainian partisans, who were targeting her for working with the Russians. She survived but ended up in intensive care in the hospital. One man, apparently her security guard, died at the scene.
My feelings about Tomilina were complicated even before the war. I never liked her lessons. She didn’t react well to questions and seemed to enjoy bullying her students. I was glad she taught us for only one semester.
What I really enjoyed in school were the language lessons. Though I come from a Russian-speaking home, I participated in multiple Ukrainian-language competitions: First, I represented my class, then I competed at the city level with students from other schools. I ended up competing at the national level with the best students from all over Ukraine.
My Ukrainian language teacher was Alla Lukiv, now 62. She’s the one who prepared us for these competitions. She wanted us, the kids from the Russian-speaking Kherson region, to perform equally well in the Ukrainian-language competitions. And we did.
Recently, almost 20 years later, I visited her in a village outside Kyiv, where she rents an apartment. In July, she realized that she could no longer continue her life in Kherson under Russian occupation. Before the February invasion, she devoted herself to developing the Ukrainian language and culture, educating hundreds of young independent Ukrainians. Her prospects under Russian occupation would have been grim.
Now there she was, bringing me salt and pepper pots made of clay in the Ukrainian style. She was so happy that I finally got married.
She looked almost the same; her eyes still sparkled. She wanted to know all the details of the past 20 years.
She was the one who brought me to Kyiv for the first time. I remember how big the city seemed and how afraid I was to ride the crowded subway.
After I graduated from school, Lukiv told me, she got into a conflict with Tomilina and ended up leaving for a job elsewhere. Tomilina became the principal of our school for three years, until 2015. That same year she ran for mayor of Kherson, but her campaign failed miserably; she finished the race with a little more than 1 percent of the vote. After the campaign, she gained notoriety from a video aired on local TV in which she railed against secret “Pentagon laboratories” that she claimed existed in Kherson.
It turned out that she was talking about the regional center for disease control and prevention, whose laboratory received assistance from Western donors as well as almost every other state medical facility in Ukraine. In the years since, allegations about nefarious “secret NATO laboratories” have become a mainstay of Russian propaganda.
That claim was one she shared with pro-Russian activist Kirill Stremousov, who would later assume a top position in the city under the occupation. He worked as a deputy to Vladimir Saldo, a former Kherson mayor and a prominent member of pro-Russian parties, who was appointed as governor of the Kherson region by the occupation authorities. Saldo even went to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and sign the documents “annexing” Kherson at the end of September. (Stremousov was killed in a car collision last week as he was fleeing Kherson; Putin posthumously awarded him a medal.)
“People like me think that Russia is here for good, and Russia will protect us,” Tomilina said in an interview with Russian media in July. Now that Kherson has been returned to Ukrainian control, her fate remains uncertain.
Lukiv, for her part, is confident that she will return home and continue to teach Ukrainian after the occupation is over. She believes that the soft power of democracy has made us stronger and more resilient and that there is no way back to Russia for Ukraine anymore.
“After 40 years of teaching Ukrainian in Russian-speaking Kherson, I never expected that people would fight so hard for Ukraine,” she said. “This war has made people in Kherson identify with Ukraine more strongly than ever.”
I’ve never doubted that most people in Kherson are loyal to Kyiv. But there have been many collaborators — including spies and informers — as well. Identifying them and bringing them to account will be a big challenge now that the city is free. | 2022-11-17T20:46:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Every Ukrainian knows both patriots and collaborators - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/kherson-liberation-collaborators-patriots/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/kherson-liberation-collaborators-patriots/ |
Los Angeles is a hot mess. Can Karen Bass fix it?
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Karen Bass (D) speaks during an election night party in Los Angeles on Nov. 8. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)
A secretly recorded tape with three members of the Los Angeles City Council dividing the town up like medieval potentates, while slagging just about every ethnic and racial group within city limits. A homeless crisis of epic proportions. So many corruption scandals, it’s impossible to keep track.
Congratulations, Karen Bass. This is now your mess to fix.
Bass, who is currently a Democratic member of the U.S. House, was finally declared the victor on Wednesday in a long and expensive mayoral battle against billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso. Next month, she will become the first female mayor of Los Angeles. She inherits a city that often feels like it doesn’t work, and where effective political leadership has been elusive. (The current mayor’s daily public schedule all too often reads, “Mayor Garcetti has no public events.”) Many residents of this sunny place are pessimistic to a point of despair.
Perhaps nothing feels more intractable than the city’s most visible tragedy and failure of governance: the tens of thousands of people who call Los Angeles’s almost 500 square miles of streets their home. Bass says she will ensure that 17,000 additional people get a roof over their heads by the end of her first year in office. She plans to build both permanent and temporary housing, as well as increase mental health and addiction services. But whether she can accomplish them remains to be seen.
The city’s housing is the most overcrowded in the country. Los Angeles is short hundreds of thousands of units, in part because of residents who strenuously push back against any development. Advocates for the homeless are often unrealistic and fight temporary solutions. Federal and state support for mental health and drug treatment services aren’t close to adequate.
Then there is the structure of Los Angeles’s city government. The city has just 15 council members; the District of Columbia, with less than a fifth of the population, elects 13. The city government can feel unreachable … and unaccountable.
In this environment, responsibility has foundered. Two now-former council members are currently under indictment, and a third recently did time in prison. A former aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti is scheduled to go on trial alongside one of the city council members, for his part in an alleged scheme to get real estate developers to pay for an assist in getting through the city’s cumbersome development approval process. Another former Garcetti aide is caught up in accusations of sexual harassment, with an investigation by the office of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) concluding that the mayor ignored the situation.
The city’s Department of Water and Power is a cesspool. Dogs are barely walked at the city’s animal shelter, and volunteers who speak out are told they are no longer wanted. It took an investigation by the New York attorney general’s office — that’s right, an investigation based nearly 3,000 miles away — to reveal that when, at the height of the #MeToo movement, a woman walked into a Hollywood police station and reported that then-CBS chief executive Les Moonves had sexually assaulted her decades earlier, a precinct captain turned around and leaked the complaint to CBS. (That revelation, in turn, recently prompted actress Leah Remini to come forward and claim this same precinct captain was a little too chummy with the Church of Scientology, something the LAPD denies.)
Then there is that horrendous tape capturing three Latino city council members in what the radical Los Angeles writer Mike Davis (who died last month) described as a “sewer explosion” of racist sentiment, while discussing the city’s once-a-decade redistricting last year. When it became public earlier this fall, rage was immediate. One city council member almost immediately resigned. The other two, despite immense pressure, have refused to leave.
The tape brought attention to an uncomfortable reality: For all the attention paid to the city’s progressive voting patterns and radical Hollywood chic, Los Angeles still operates as a small and elite club, and in-fighting can be severe. Of only four Latino members of the city council — compared with a population that is almost half Latino — three took part in the secretly recorded conversation. Clearly, in achieving representation for and civic discourse among all its constituencies, the city has a long way to go.
As I contemplate the fact that Bass will soon be responsible for all of this, I can’t help but thinking of the academic theory called “the glass cliff,” which postulates that women are most likely to get the top job when the chance of failure is highest.
It has taken Los Angeles decades to come to this pass, and there is no easy way out. On the other hand, if anyone can handle the challenge, perhaps it is Bass, a longtime and well-respected pol who is familiar with the levers of government power, and who just happens to be a one-time social worker and community activist. I’m rooting for her, and so should you. Los Angeles is too great a city to go on like this. | 2022-11-17T20:47:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Los Angeles is a hot mess. Can incoming mayor Karen Bass fix it? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/los-angeles-problems-mayor-karen-bass/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/los-angeles-problems-mayor-karen-bass/ |
Congress is letting international money launderers off the hook
The super yacht Amadea arrives at the San Diego Bay on June 27. (Gregory Bull/AP)
For years, investigations such as the Panama Papers have revealed how dictators, criminal organizations and corrupt foreign officials use the U.S. financial system to launder their dirty money with impunity. Yet watchdog groups say the United States is still the No. 1 money-laundering country in the world. How is that possible?
The answer is that our leaders are failing to stop our enemies from abusing our democratic institutions — and failing to stop Americans from helping them. Right now, a perfect example of this dysfunction is quietly unfolding in Congress, where an important effort to close a huge international money-laundering loophole is being thwarted.
The war in Ukraine has forced Western societies to acknowledge that when kleptocratic leaders and their cronies use democracies to wash their illicit proceeds, it’s not just a moral failing but a national security threat as well. One reason Russian President Vladimir Putin has enough cash to wage unending war while resisting international sanctions is that the U.S. and other international financial systems have long been helping his officials and oligarch friends store their ill-gotten gains as offshore wealth. That Putin and others then use that cash, in part, to undermine Western democracies merely underlines our stupidity for participating in this scheme.
In 2020, Congress passed a law mandating more transparency for corporate shell companies, which are one part of the problem. This year, the Justice Department launched a “KleptoCapture” task force, devoting more resources to the issue. But one glaring loophole remains — and a bipartisan drive to close it is being blocked in the Senate.
Republicans and Democrats have joined together to pass a bill called the Establishing New Authorities for Businesses Laundering and Enabling Risks to Security (Enablers) Act. It would require lawyers, financial consultants, art dealers and any other businesspeople who deal with large amounts of foreign cash to perform basic due diligence on their clients before helping them access the U.S. financial system.
The bill passed the House as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is currently the subject of House-Senate negotiations. But inside those negotiations, the GOP staff of the Senate Banking Committee, who work for outgoing Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), are blocking the legislation’s inclusion in the final package, several lawmakers and staffers told me.
“The Enablers Act should not be jammed into the NDAA without first being thoroughly vetted by lawmakers,” a GOP Senate Banking Committee staffer told me, defending Toomey’s stance. Congress should wait and hold hearings on the bill before giving more authority to the Treasury Department, the staffer said.
The ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.), also opposes the bill, but Toomey’s staff is the main obstacle, sources said. The American Bar Association and some trade groups have also expressed opposition to the bill, arguing it could impose onerous reporting requirements and infringe upon their confidentiality with their clients.
“There are people out there who like their suitcases full of cash with no questions asked,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who co-sponsored the House bill with Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.). “But given those suitcases of cash often come from Russia, China and other adversaries trying to influence our politics, the national security imperative here vastly outweighs any slight inconvenience these minimal reporting requirements would create.”
In the Senate, the push to pass the legislation is led by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and supported by several national-security-minded Republicans, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who last month publicly called on Congress to include the Enablers Act in the defense legislation this year.
On Wednesday, a group of conservative national security experts and former officials sent a letter to the leaders of both parties in Congress arguing that the United States cannot press other countries to clean up their financial systems while leaving large loopholes in the U.S. system unaddressed.
“Fentanyl traffickers, [Chinese Communist Party] agents, and Chinese kleptocrats operating within the United States cannot navigate the U.S. financial and legal systems by themselves. Neither can Russian oligarchs or Iranian sanctions evaders,” the letter stated. “Instead, they have often taken advantage of unwitting or unscrupulous Americans to facilitate harmful activities.”
Even though there is ample evidence of the threat, widespread awareness about how to address it and bipartisan agreement on the proposed solution, the expectation right now on Capitol Hill is that Toomey’s staff will prevail in blocking the legislation, leaving the next Congress to start the process over again. Killing an idea in Washington is much easier than solving a problem.
But the good news is that it’s not too late. Negotiations are still possible. There’s still time to do something real to drain the money-laundering swamp here at home. If our democracy can’t function well enough to stop our adversaries from using our financial system against us, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves. | 2022-11-17T20:47:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Congress is letting international money launderers off the hook - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/money-laundering-legislation-stalls-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/money-laundering-legislation-stalls-congress/ |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the Capitol on Thursday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
It’s not often that Americans tune into the one-minute speeches given by members of the House of Representatives from the floor of that chamber. Perhaps you’d listen if you’re one of those being honored by a legislator; the speeches focus heavily on the accomplishments or legacies of constituents. But otherwise, they are simply another formality that most Americans generally tune out.
It is also not often, though, that the sitting speaker of the House, a legislator who has served in that chamber for more than three decades, plans to respond to her party’s relegation to the minority. So it was that, on Thursday afternoon, the attention of the nation’s political observers turned to the House chamber to see what, exactly, the future held for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Pelosi, as you’ve probably heard by now, will not seek election as the Democrats’ leader in the upcoming 118th Congress, though she’ll retain her seat. In making that announcement, she also reflected on her tenure in the House, drawing attention to one change that she both observed and contributed to since first being elected: the increased diversity of the chamber’s membership.
“When I came to the Congress in 1987, there were 12 Democratic women,” Pelosi said in her speech. “Now there are over 90 — and we want more.”
Pelosi laughed. Members in attendance applauded.
“The new members of our Democratic caucus will be about 75 percent women, people of color and LGBTQ,” she continued, adding that, as leader, she’d worked to expand leadership opportunities for all of those legislators.
But that data point is fascinating. Pelosi began service in the 100th Congress, meaning that she will have served in more than one out of every seven congresses in American history. Back then, though, the House was, in fact, far less diverse than it is now: fewer women, fewer people of color.
The Office of the House Historian publishes data on the diversity of the chamber over time. You can see, plotting each Congress since the country’s formation, how long it took for the composition of the House to include anyone besides White men. There was a small influx of Black legislators in the period after the Civil War, but it really wasn’t until the past few decades that the percentage of women and people of color really began to increase.
In fact, it was only in the 117th Congress — the current, lame-duck Congress — that the chamber was less than half White men. Bear in mind, White males make up only about 30 percent of the country’s population. Since 1987, the percentage of representatives who are Black, Hispanic or Asian women has increased from less than half of 1 percent to 13 percent. More than 1 in 8.
This isn’t a function of Pelosi, of course. It’s a function of the nation’s increasing diversity and of the increasing acceptance of electing women and non-White candidates to positions of power. (In 1986, the year Pelosi won election, more than a third of Americans said they thought men were better suited to politics than women. In 2018, about half as many people held that position.) But this shift also mirrors Pelosi’s rise. She is the first woman to hold the position of speaker in the country’s history.
When she gives up her leadership position in the 118th Congress, the most likely replacement is Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — the first Black man to hold such a position in the House. | 2022-11-17T20:47:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The remarkable increase in House diversity during Pelosi’s tenure - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/pelosi-house-diversity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/pelosi-house-diversity/ |
Md. probe of Baltimore Archdiocese finds more than 600 clergy sexual abuse victims
In a court filing, the attorney general’s office said there are “almost certainly hundreds more" and that church leaders failed to report many allegations.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
A nearly four-year investigation of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore found more than 600 young victims of clergy sexual abuse over 80 years, a court filing by the Maryland attorney general said Thursday. The probe, the second in the country, after Pennsylvania, by a state prosecutor, seeks to bring accountability and detail to cases long covered up or shrouded by statutes of limitation.
The filing by Attorney General Brian Frosh comes on the 20th anniversary year of the public explosion of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in America, starting with a series by The Boston Globe. Major reforms and multibillion-dollar legal settlements have shrunk the number of accusations over the decades, but advocates in and out of the church say that full restitution has never come and such chronicles are important.
“Now is the time for reckoning,” said the 35-page filing in Baltimore City Circuit Court that asks a judge to approve release of the full 456-page report. Because the report includes information from grand jury testimony, a judge’s approval is required. “Publicly airing the transgressions of the Church is critical to holding people and institutions accountable and improving the way sexual abuse allegations are handled going forward.”
The filing says the report identifies victims from preschool to young adulthood. A spokesperson for Frosh said they reached to age 18.
The filing says the report identifies 115 priests who have already been prosecuted or identified by the church as “credibly accused,” and that it includes another 43 priests “accused of sexual abuse but not identified publicly by the Archdiocese.” That is 157 cases.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many, if any of the 43 are new cases. The archdiocese lists 152 priests on its website as credibly accused.
“The investigation also revealed that the Archdiocese filed to report many allegations of sexual abuse, conduct adequate investigations of alleged abuse, remove the abusers from the ministry or restrict their access to children. Instead, it went to great lengths to keep the abuse secret,” the filing says.
Earlier Thursday, before the filing, a spokesman for the archdiocese said it has “fully cooperated” since Frosh began the investigation in January 2019, including providing more than 100,000 papers.
“The Archdiocese recognizes that the release of a report on child sexual abuse over many decades would undoubtedly be a source of renewed pain for survivors of abuse and their loved ones, as well as for faithful of the Archdiocese. The Archdiocese continues to offer its profound apologies to all who were harmed by a minister of the Church and assure them of our heartfelt prayers for their continued healing. The Archdiocese remains committed to pastoral outreach to those who have been harmed as well as to protect children in the future,” wrote Christian Kendzierski. “Any request the AG made of the Archdiocese, the Archdiocese has cooperated with and will continue to cooperate.”
David Lorenz, Maryland leader of SNAP, an organization that advocates for church abuse victims, said he was struggling to digest the scope of abuse and called the report “disturbing.”
“This the tip of the iceberg,” he said, “and I just wish I could reach out to each of them and say: ‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault. Please seek help. There are people out there helping, who want to help, who will believe you, who won’t ridicule you, who won’t deny what happened to you. No matter how bad you think it is, it was never your fault.’ ”
Erin Cox contributed. This story is developing and will be updated. | 2022-11-17T20:47:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md. probe of Baltimore Archdiocese finds more than 600 clergy sexual abuse victims - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/17/maryland-catholic-sexual-abuse-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/17/maryland-catholic-sexual-abuse-report/ |
The two bundles of stars formed shortly after the big bang, offering a long-anticipated window into the origins of the universe
A composite image of a freshly forming star captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. (ESA/NASA/CSA/STScI/AFP/Getty Images)
From its perch a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has sighted two of the most distant galaxies ever — and delivered a brilliant surprise. These galaxies are far brighter than anyone expected, challenging our view of how the cosmos took shape in the aftermath of the big bang 13.8 billion years ago.
One of the two galaxies dates to about 350 million years after the big bang, making it the most distant galaxy ever discovered. The second new galaxy is estimated to have existed about 400 million years after the birth of the cosmos.
“The universe is 13.8 billion years old. We’re looking back through 98 percent of all time to see a galaxy like this,” said Garth Illingworth, an astronomer from the University of California at Santa Cruz who helped conceive of the idea for the Webb telescope in the 1980s.
He added, “I fully expect we will find some even more distant galaxies.”
“It’s really sort of a small blob of stars and gas. Very, very blue. Very chaotic,” Illingworth said, adding that these far-off galaxies are only a twentieth the size of our own Milky Way. | 2022-11-17T20:47:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | James Webb telescope reveals earliest galaxies yet seen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/17/webb-telescope-earliest-galaxies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/17/webb-telescope-earliest-galaxies/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Accelerating Opportunity: Women and the Automotive Industry
MR. GUSTAFSSON: Nice to be here. Lovely city, Washington. I’m a Swede, I live in New York, and today I’m going to introduce the panelists that are going to represent our industry.
Volvo Cars has gone through a major transformation, 100 percent growth the last five years, and now we are aiming for another 100 percent. At the same time, we had three priorities in the company. In 2025, 50 percent of our total sales are going to be fully electric. In 2030, 100 percent. At the same time, 2030, 50 percent of our leaders are going to be strong women females.
MR. GUSTAFSSON: And that is really the reason why we're here.
We have great panelists. We start to mirror the organization, so we start with the inside, and that is our chief of interior design, and after that we have some external help to educate our dealers so they fulfill our story and what we are trying to achieve. And at least we have our technicians, the ones that repair our cars and they need to mirror our vision. So we are in for a by far higher number there too.
Thank you very much, and enjoy the panel.
MS. CROSBY: Hello everyone. I'm Anquoinette Crosby, a news anchor and former consumer reporter for MotorWeek on PBS.
I'm happy to have with us three women who have worked in the auto industry for decades in three very different positions. But what they all have in common is that all three have created an onramp for other women to work in this field.
We have Lisa Reeves, all the way here from Sweden, where as the head of interior design at Volvo Cars she has a major voice in how every Volvo looks, feels, and operates.
Bogi Lateiner is a master auto mechanic and the founder of Girl Gang Garage, which empowers more women to become auto mechanics and technicians.
Jody DeVere is the CEO of AskPatty.com, which provides training and even certification to help women understand cars, and the car industry to understand women.
So Bogi, we are going to start with you. Why did you want to work in the auto industry, and what was your path forward?
MS. LATEINER: So my path to automotive was very nontraditional. I didn't grow up around cars. My parents weren't into cars. They don't know where I came from. But when I saved up all of my hard-earned babysitting money to buy my first car when I was 16, I discovered that the only time women and cars showed up together was when they were scantily clad, posed in front of them, and this did not sit well with my little feminist brain. So I started wanting to learn about cars myself, and found resistance everywhere I turned, and I was very clearly being told I didn't belong and I wasn't welcome.
So I took auto shop in high school, against my guidance counselor's wishes, and I really came to automotive out of stubbornness and to prove a point, less out of interest. But I fell in love with it, despite myself.
I went to college to study prelaw and women's studies. I thought I was going to fight for women's rights on the legal front. And then when I graduated college I realized I missed working with my hands, and I really enjoyed teaching my female classmates about their cars and empowering them through that. So I decided to become an auto mechanics instead, and thought there were other ways that I can empower women, specifically through automotive knowledge.
MS. CROSBY: All right. You have been doing that.
Lisa, let's turn to you. What drew you to the industry?
MS. REEVES: So I inherited a passion for cars through my childhood. My father is an enthusiast, he used to restore cars, and we went on motorsport events together. I also love to draw, and since the age of six that is all I ever wanted to do. So I guess there I had ingredients.
But when I really knew I wanted to be a car designer was during a school work experience, and I was so lucky to have the opportunity to visit a car design studio to see the environment, to see the full-size clay models, and then I realized that was my dream. So I asked there and then, "What do I need to do to get here?" and go to university to study car design is what I did.
MS. CROSBY: That's great. So you turned your passion into a career.
Jody, for almost 20 years you've been a critical middle woman in this industry. So tell us what you do.
MS. DeVERE: Well, before I tell you what I do I want to say a little about me, and that is that I grew up in the San Fernando Valley during the '50s and '60s. It was a huge car culture. Like we got to putt the boulevard on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night, all those cool, classic cars.
And, you know, I did all the normal things. I got married, and all those things. And then my husband died, and I had three kids in tow. And I'm sure there are many women listening today that are single moms, and I think this is the journey that began for me, that, one, I had to become somewhat fearless to go out and provide for my children, and this became a pattern of life.
I was on a mission, and I'm very mission driven, and that led to becoming a young entrepreneur. I've owned many businesses, first in high tech, and then I came into automotive just before my 50th birthday. And I took a look around for a couple of years and said, wow, there's really a disparity of women working and the experience for women. I think I could start a company and help our industry solve this problem.
So I launched AskPatty.com, and we provide automotive advice for women, to help them make more informed decisions about car buying and maintenance and repair. And we also train and certify automotive retailers like car dealers, independent service centers, tire dealers, to communicate more effectively with women and to provide a better experience. We also offer certifications in culture, workforce, and leadership as well.
Then, in 2015, I launched yet another company, because I could, and this revolved around women working in the auto industry. It was called Women in Automotive. And that business was about accelerating women's careers, helping the industry learn how to attract, hire, retain, and develop more women leaders across all segments.
MS. CROSBY: All right. So you're an entrepreneur and a very successful one as well. Sounds good.
So Bogi, you are determined to make the women who fix cars more visible. How are you doing that?
MS. LATEINER: So I believe visibility is everything. You know, when I was coming up as a technician I never saw another technician that looked like me. It's incredibly isolating and it often makes you want to give up.
So I really believe that if she can see it, she can be it. And so my new shop is called Girl Gang Garage, and there we do workshops and classes to introduce women to the trades. But I organize these large-scale, all-female builds for women who come from all over the country, all over Canada as well, to come and participate in a build. We just finished our most recent one, which was a partnership with Volvo. We took a 1961 Volvo PV544, body-swapped it with a 2019 Volvo S60 hybrid. An incredibly ambitious build and very technically challenging.
The point of it was to bring women in the trades together so that we can have our confidence built, feel validated and reinforced, and hopefully stay in the industry, but also invite more women to come and explore the trades, the love of building things with your hands. But most importantly, to increase conversation and visibility around women in the trades, not just within the automotive industry, to say, "Hey, we're here. Give us opportunity. We're willing. We're capable," but also to the rest of the world to show there are viable career paths for women in the automotive industry.
We unveiled at SEMA last week. SEMA is the Superbowl of car shows, if you're not familiar. It is absolutely ridiculous. And to be an entirely female-built build there is substantial. It was 165 women from the U.S. and Canada that came together to build this vehicle, and it's just absolutely incredible.
MS. CROSBY: And you had women, like you're saying, all over, but the age ranges too.
MS. LATEINER: From 12 to 75.
MS. CROSBY: Yeah. Incredible.
Lisa, women are 71 percent more likely to be injured in a car crash. What can be done from a design standpoint to make driving safer for women?
MS. REEVES: Yeah, that is correct, but I'm so proud to say that is not the case in a Volvo. And that is we can now say we have equality in safety that women are at similar risk as men. And how we've achieved that is we've collected real-life data from accidents since the 1970s, and we've used this. We've analyzed it and learned a lot over time, and this input then goes into the design of the cars, and we design for the more vulnerable.
So we have very high standards in safety, over and above the industry standards. We were actually the first company to make a virtual female, pregnant, crash dummy, and we learned a lot from that. And now we share the analysis of this data to the wider industry, in the hope for equality for all, just as we did with the seat belts back in 1959.
But over safety as well we work with ergonomics. We make physical, one-to-one models through the development. We test for reach, for comfort, for body sizes, even if we can control switches with longer fingernails -- it's so important. And then we also look at features, flexible storage, versatility, a place to put the handbag, which I'm very proud, in our new EX90 we have a really good handbag storage.
MS. REEVES: What we ultimately want is for everybody who sits in our cars to feel belonging and to really enjoy the time in the cars.
MS. CROSBY: Absolutely. That's great to hear.
Jody, can you talk about the role of mentoring, of women opening the door for other women?
MS. DeVERE: Yes. I was so fortunate. Early on I had an amazing mentor named Lorraine Schultz. She actually founded the very first women’s organization, back in the ’80s, when she was 60 years old, by the way. She really took me under her wing. She introduced me to the right people. She was based in Detroit so she knew the right people. She championed me to the industry and my budding business model, AskPatty.com.
Much later, at Women in Automotive, I launched a formal mentoring program, because I know how powerful that can be for women. Women in Automotive also has developed training and conferences and cocktails and networking for men and women to learn how to bring more women and develop more women leaders across all segments.
MS. CROSBY: So is it getting better?
MS. DeVERE: Is it getting better? Yes. I was asked that question earlier. I think it is a slow-moving target. I think it is very similar to all other women across all industries and all roles, that, you know, we have to fight for our seat at the table --
MS. CROSBY: Right.
MS. DeVERE: -- and we have to be fearless about that.
MS. CROSBY: Fearless. I like it.
Lisa, now you have worked for three different car makers, though most of your career has been spent at Volvo. What needs to be done to attract more women and to retain and promote the women who are already there?
MS. REEVES: Yeah, so as I said I studied car design at university. I was really a minority on that course. And I think it's fair to say that it's similar today. So we really need to get out there to schools to inspire females at a younger age to get into the industry, and we need to look further afield, like maybe product design or so.
But the industry is transforming at such a fast pace right now, and we are looking for competencies outside of traditional automotive industry. For example, software design, development, and sustainability, and I hope with that comes more gender balance too. We have global design studios. We have one in Gothenburg, Sweden, we have one in California here, and one in Shanghai. And that diversity really helps us to understand the global needs. It's really important to us.
I think in terms of keeping people and promoting people, in my experience culture has been a big part of that. And when I moved to Volvo in Sweden it's a speak-up culture, and I think it's really important to support any minority, whatever that is, to be able to feel they can speak up, to be encouraged, to feel that their opinion is valid, and feel confident in doing that.
And then I think as a mom of two, equal parental responsibility from the beginning, in my world. I think that really supports the female to have a work-family balance.
MS. CROSBY: Absolutely.
Bogi, what needs to change?
MS. LATEINER: How long do we have?
MS. CROSBY: About four minutes.
MS. LATEINER: I think, first and foremost, we need to stop looking at careers as being gendered. But bigger than that is we need to change our societal perception on four-year schools versus two-years schools, white collar versus blue collar. The issues that are affecting the automotive industry are bigger than the automotive industry. By 2026, we will need 1 million automotive, diesel, collision, and aircraft technicians. The supply chain issues that we're having as a society today I think are just a teaser for what is to come down the line, when we run out of technicians to fix the things that make our society work.
And in reality, the way that we can fix that technician shortage is by looking at the other 50 percent of the population. We need to start seeing that the automotive industry has a number of incredible career opportunities for young women. This is a viable career path for your daughters. This is a viable career path for your sisters.
And we, as consumers, need to realize that we are in the driver's seat. We are the majority owners. We are the majority buyers of cars, and we can vote with our dollars and choose companies that do the right thing and support women.
MS. CROSBY: Okay. Great.
Jody, last question. What do you think needs to be done to make this industry a more appealing career path for women?
MS. DeVERE: Well, there is a little gap in communication. As we heard today, women are storytellers and men prefer to speak in bullet points. So this creates a communication problem downline.
I think more inclusive female-friendly training for the automotive retailers, to learn more about respect, relationship building, listening skills, and to speak in a common language. This alone would really help not only the women car buyer but women thinking about a career in automotive. I think that's a great idea, a win game.
MS. CROSBY: All right. We're going to have to leave it there, but Jody, Lisa, and Bogi, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation, and hopefully inspiring to other women to follow in all of your footsteps. Thank you so much.
Now I'm going to turn things back over to The Washington Post. | 2022-11-17T20:49:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Accelerating Opportunity: Women and the Automotive Industry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-accelerating-opportunity-women-automotive-industry/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-accelerating-opportunity-women-automotive-industry/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Challenging the Church
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Good afternoon. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Washington Post.
I'm joined now by Lynne Cadigan and Angela Romero who are here to talk about holding power to account in religious institutions, and a very warm welcome to you both, Lynne and Angela.
REP. ROMERO: Thank you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I want to start, Lynne, by asking you about what we're hearing on this video, a little bit about clergy privilege and what sets clergy apart from teachers and other people in terms of reporting abuse.
MS. CADIGAN: Well, the law recently has had a very strong movement to mandate reporting of child abuse because it's such a terrible problem, teachers, doctors, anyone who has care of a child, and it's only recently that clergy were mandated reporters of child abuse. And what that did is create a contradiction because there's been a long, you know, thousand‑year history, particularly in the Catholic church and others, where a confession is supposed to be confidential and secret. So, that's what people generally think of as clergy privilege: You keep the confession secret.
However, what it really is, that what the law really says now is clergy‑‑because they're the closest to the children. They're the closest to the family. They know what's going on. They have a duty to care for the souls of the children and their welfare. So, they do have a legal duty to report, or else it's a crime. Clergy can be accused of a crime. It's a class 6 felony.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: But it's not happening?
MS. CADIGAN: But what happens is there's a very tiny, little, skinny, little loophole that says if it's a confession or a confidential communication or something they can dress up in church language, they can keep child abuse a secret to prevent scandal.
And the problem I have with this is there is no law that says they have to keep it a secret. The law says they have to report it unless they decide to stand on some moral ground of protecting the penitent soul in keeping it a secret. Now, frankly, that's a moral decision they make. It's their only defense to a crime, and I think it's a loophole that needs to be done away with.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Angela, there you are working in Utah, and congratulations. I think you've just been reelected.
REP. ROMERO: Yes.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And one of your main issues has been trying to change this legislatively. How central was that to your recent campaign, and how optimistic are you about moving ahead when Utah, I think, is one of 33 states that have this loophole?
REP. ROMERO: I'm very optimistic. When I first was elected in 2012, I was able to pass a child sex abuse bill. It was H.B. 286, with the help of Elizabeth Smart and Deondra Brown‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Right.
REP. ROMERO: ‑‑who are child sex abuse survivors. And when I passed that bill‑‑and I'm a Democrat, just to let everyone know, and I'm not of the predominant religion either. And when I was able as a Democrat, because we're very small there‑‑we're the super minority‑‑I was able to pass that bill, and everyone asked me, "How did you do that?" And I'm like, "Hard work and, you know, educating colleagues."
And so, I started to get handed over all the sexual assault and child sex abuse bills, and in 2017, I passed H.B. 200, which mandates the testing of all sexual assault kits. And Utah is one of eight states that no longer has a backlog, and all the survivors I've been working with on legislation for years now asked me to run this bill. So, in 2020, I filed the bill, and I didn't realize what a storm I was going to cause, and I didn't realize I was going to be on Phil Donahue's frequent email listserv to fundraise for the Catholic League.
And I didn't realize that my own church and my own family would be really frustrated with me. I didn't realize that my own‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Your family is Catholic?
REP. ROMERO: Yes. I'm‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You're both Catholic?
REP. ROMERO: We're both Catholic.
And I didn't realize that the bishop of my diocese would ask everyone in church to send the Speaker of the House letters about not‑‑you know, not letting this bill be heard.
And so, when we had this conversation and The Salt Lake Tribune, which is the local newspaper, asked people would they want people to be‑‑clergy to report, majority of Utahans said yes, and I think majority of the people across the country would say yes as well.
And so, for me, this is about power structures. This is about power structures not protecting children, and as a policymaker, I was elected to represent all people, and children are the most vulnerable, and a lot of times they don't have a voice. And so, I'm not worried about Uncle Bob getting some jail time and maybe help. I'm worried about the small child who isn't believed because they go to somebody and then that person goes to their spiritual advisor or the perpetrator goes to their spiritual advisor and they say what they're doing, and it's not stopped because it's protected under this confidential privilege.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Lynne, I mean, this is clearly, intensely personal, and you've taken on these battles as well that are very, very meaningful for you. How broad a problem do you think this is? You're fighting a battle right now, I think, in Arizona, but what are we talking about? Utah or‑‑
MS. CADIGAN: It's a nationwide problem, and the problem is most people think that clergy do have the right. I mean, that most people think that clergy have to keep it secret.
REP. ROMERO: Right.
MS. CADIGAN: That is not true, and it's just simply not true. And I don't understand a church, either Mormon or Catholic or any church, that thinks it's in their best interest to keep this a secret, because at this day and age, everyone knows that sex abuse is an addiction. You don't have‑‑like in my case‑‑well, I won't go into the facts of all the different cases I've had, but people just don't wake up one day and start molesting their children.
They've had a‑‑it just doesn't happen by accident, and it doesn't go away. They keep doing it, and so, getting counseling doesn't help. Going to your priest doesn't help, and going to your Mormon bishop doesn't help. You can't counsel away raping your child. You just can't.
And the clergy privilege‑‑and the problem with all the recent appointees, the federal appointees, is they've really been confusing what the First Amendment is. Churches like to say they have this First Amendment right to do whatever they want basically, but one of them is to conceal sex abuse. And it makes absolutely no sense that you have a First Amendment right to conceal sex abuse, but the child has no right to be free from rape. It just makes no sense.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Angela, in pushing this legislation, you had a lot of pushback against you, and some of it was saying you were allowing government to interfere with religious institutions. How do you respond to that? What's the argument back?
REP. ROMERO: I've been working on sexual assault for a long time, and so I'm not very popular with a certain segment of the population. And I guess it got‑‑it was a little hurtful when I had my own family asking me not to run the piece of legislation because I was attacking confession, which is a sacrament of reconciliation.
And I just don't really see it that way because I think about our child sex abuse rates in Utah and our sexual assault rates in Utah, and they're higher than the national average. And in Utah, we can't pass comprehensive sex education. So, everything is kind of hush‑hush, and so for me, I've always looked at this from a victim perspective and so that that individual can get help, because we have so many people walking around our country right now who are survivors of child sex abuse and they've never received the help that they need to deal with the trauma. And so, you see a lot of hurt people, and you see them put‑‑get put in other situations where they're re‑traumatized because we never believed them and we didn't get them the help and the services they need.
We always are helping people who are the perpetrator. You know, we spend millions and millions and millions of dollars in Utah and across the country on rehabilitating people, and I'm not saying we don't need to rehabilitate people. But we forget about the people that are left behind, the community, and how it impacts the entire family. And many times we're worried about protecting another parent or, again, Uncle Bob, but we're not thinking about what we're doing to that child and what we're going to do for generations.
And so, for me, the legislation I run has always been survivor‑focused and trauma‑informed, because a lot of times, people are like, "Why do we talk about these issues in government?" I'm like, "Because we have to." We have to set these rules and these guidelines, and we have to hold people accountable‑‑
REP. ROMERO: ‑‑because they'll continue to re‑offend.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, holding people accountable, which is really what you're trying to do, Lynne, and I think you have a case right now against the Mormon church. How does that compare‑‑and you can just outline it briefly‑‑with taking on the Catholic church, which you've done in the past?
MS. CADIGAN: Well, you know, it was interesting. Taking on the Catholic church, it was difficult. It was very powerful. They have a lot of money, but frankly, they had a sense of shame. And I think that they really wanted to do the right thing eventually. Maybe it's because I come from that background, but they came to a point where they were willing to compensate the victims and say they were wrong.
And what I find with the Church of Latter‑day Saints is it's like litigating against Exxon. They're incredibly powerful. They're‑‑it's like global capitalism, and what they care about in my mind is making sure that they don't lose tithing, because I have gotten so many calls from members of the church who are just heartbroken about the fact their church says‑‑I mean, it's really sad to see people lose their faith. It's sort of like a ripple effect of abuse, and they're very sad because they love their church. And when they hear their church saying, "Our first duty is to the penitent. We did the right thing by not reporting this abuse for seven years. We have‑‑our first duty is to the perpetrator, not to the child. We didn't do anything wrong where we"‑‑they knew that this girl was being molested for seven years. They said they didn't care.
And so, what happens is you just get these people who are just heartbroken, and they want to‑‑and what I think that the Mormon church is more concerned about a scandal and losing tithing than anything else, and it's more like a business to me.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And we should just add here that we did reach out and that the Church of Latter‑day Saints declined to comment in advance of this but did‑‑has issued a statement in the past condemning child abuse, I think, when a previous article ran.
But this gets me to another point, Angela, about being a woman and taking on these hierarchical institutions, which are often very patriarchal as well. How does that work?
REP. ROMERO: I guess I want to point out I was born in Tooele, Utah. I'm not with the predominant religion. I'm a woman of color, and so I've always kind of been on the outside looking in. And even though I'm an elected official now and I have some power, I guess I understand that outside view. So, for me, this is really nothing new because this is something I've had to grow up with all my life. Whether it was because of my religion or because of who I was, I've always kind of been on the outside. So, I guess I've always been committed to being‑‑that's the Catholic in me‑‑the social justice activist. I don't participate in my church anymore.
But it's always to make sure that you're being a voice for the voiceless, and so as a policymaker and as a Democrat in Utah, this is why I focus on these issues because I want to make sure that that voice is there. I want to make sure that seat is at the table and that there's somebody speaking up for people that can't speak up for themselves. And so, as long as I'm elected, I'll continue to do this. I'll continue to push this bill.
I do have some hope. Our governor did talk about maybe we should do something. I have a couple of colleagues who have filed my bill, and I don't really need the recognition. I just want the bill to happen, and so my hope is that the bill will actually have a hearing this session, it won't be buried in rules, and we'll actually have an honest conversation.
And so, I really look at this as an institutional problem, and within these religious institutions and these structures, they're just trying to protect themselves from being sued. And I know there are a lot of good people within these faiths, but we as a society need to stop protecting people because we're afraid of getting sued or afraid of perception, because we're still damaging people, and who knows who these individuals could be if they were protected from that perpetrator?
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah. And you gave such a great phrase of "giving the voice to the voiceless," which is exactly, Lynne, what you're trying to do. Tell us a little bit more about this current lawsuit and what plaintiffs‑‑I mean, we can't undo what happened to people.
MS. CADIGAN: Well, you know what really struck me is the talk earlier about women in prison.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah.
MS. CADIGAN: So many of my clients have ended up‑‑I mean, the perpetrators end up in prison, and then the victims end up in prison or on the streets. And it's such an exponential growth problem that I don't know why it's not addressed either by the legislature‑‑and frankly, I'm very grateful to the press for covering this, because the one thing that scares religious institutions is you all, journalists. They're terrified.
MS. CADIGAN: And so, they're not afraid of me. They're not even afraid of paying money, but they are really afraid of you all. And I really appreciate the more you cover these issues, the more important it is.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah. We're laughing about the power of‑‑that's another form of power, right? But these are such serious issues, and we're talking about children. And you're saying they're ending up in prison. Tel me, just as a follow‑up, what you learn about the fate of these young people.
MS. CADIGAN: Well, they're varied. They're varied fate, but they have lifelong problems. So, when they say this is a money grab or they shouldn't get money, these are people who stress out at every phase of their life, when they hit puberty, when they have children, when they get married. They have no faith or trust in any institution.
I mean, you wake up in the morning, you think, "Oh, the sun is out. It's a nice day." I mean, these kids wake up, and they're like, "What's going to happen to me next? Who is going to get me? Every time I love someone, there's a duality. I love them; they abuse me." It's‑‑they're just a‑‑it's an ongoing problem that needs an enormous amount of support.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And some have been adopted, just one more follow‑up, right, that you've followed after?
MS. CADIGAN: Yeah.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And how have they done?
MS. CADIGAN: They've done‑‑some are well. They have problems, but they're doing all right. What the oldest one is very appreciative of is the public support. I mean, she was surprised that there was public support for her case, but I really can't talk about them too much.
They're little kids.
MS. CADIGAN: But they're doing all right. They were very, very lucky to have families who adopted them, and it was a heartbreak for the one family who adopted the youngest, because they were very strong Mormons, very strong, and they left the faith. And it was a heartbreak for them to leave their community, but they've been excellent parents to this little girl.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Angela, I want to bring this around full circle a little bit but get back to this issue. Do you now believe that confession should be protected as speech, whether...
REP. ROMERO: I don't when it comes to people who are sexually abusing children, and it really does‑‑I do not‑‑it was really interesting. So, Texas was one of the states that has closed the loophole, and when Phil Donahue was advertising my name across the country and I was getting all my hate mail and, you know, he told people I was pro‑choice, which is true. I believe abortion is self‑care. And I was getting all these phone calls. I had a young man call me from Texas and tell me how despicable I was, and he was going to call me every day until I answered my phone. And I sent him a text message, you know, because it's technology. And I said, "Hey, I'm just going to refer this voicemail to highway patrol." So, the next day, his‑‑that's our police. So, the next day, his grandma emails me and told me she was sorry her grandson had sent me that, left me that voicemail, and he was a good boy, but he just really cared about his faith.
REP. ROMERO: And so, it just shows how‑‑what people are willing to do to protect an institution and how we're willing to threaten people because they're trying to do the right thing.
And so, as a policymaker, we have to be brave, and sometimes we have to have that brave faith. And even if we're standing alone, someone has to stand up for those individuals that have no voice. So, I will continue to be me, and I will continue to take those phone calls and have them put in my file, because I'm not going to stop being who I am because people are threatening me for doing the right thing.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: What you just said is such a message for this whole day.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We have to continue to be brave, and thank you both so much for your courage. I'm afraid that's all we have time for, but, Lynne and Angela, thank you.
And stay with us. We'll be back in a few minutes. | 2022-11-17T20:49:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Challenging the Church - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-challenging-church/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-challenging-church/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Diplomat in the Fray
MR. CAPEHART: I mean, there’s no need for me to introduce you. I am Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor at the Washington Post, and after that spectacular video, you know who this guest is. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, welcome to the Washington Post.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you, Jonathan. Great to be here.
MR. CAPEHART: So, before we get to the topic at hand, we have to--I have to ask you about the breaking news over--within the last hour about something happening inside Poland. Either it was a missile that landed inside Poland‑‑the Russians are denying that it was them. The United States Government officially is saying they're looking into it. I would love to get your reaction to the possibility of Russia having done something inside Poland as part of its war with Ukraine.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, we're still gathering information, as you've heard, so I don't have any new news to share confirming this. But we're concerned about the reports, and we're working with Poland, with our allies, to gather more information. And once that's done, we see where we move after that.
MR. CAPEHART: And we also know that the Polish government is in an emergency meeting. You're at the--you're at the United Nations. Any indication as--before we came out that the U.N. Security Council might meet to discuss this?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, again, this just happened. So--and I'm not in New York. I'll be headed back to New York tonight. And once we have determined and‑‑what the information is, then the Security Council can determine whether it's needed to call a meeting. Normally, what would happen is Poland might ask for a meeting or we may decide to call for a meeting ourselves.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. Well, Madam Ambassador, you've spent more than 30 years as a career diplomat. These diplomatic circles historically have been overwhelmingly led by White men. What has your experience been like, not only as one of America's top diplomats, but as a woman of color advancing the basic rights of other women around the world?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, I never walk into a room feeling as if I'm in the room as a Black woman. When I walk into the Security Council, I'm the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Security Council, and that's what I tell young women when I meet them. Don't wear other people's problems on your shoulders. You know what you're there to do and do what you are there to do.
But we still have an issue in our foreign service. We're still not diverse enough. Diversity is our strength. It is important that the face of America is reflected in our diplomatic corps, and I still go to embassies overseas and sit in a country team meeting and see overwhelming White males.
MR. CAPEHART: How does that go over?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, sometimes I actually will comment. I'll say, there's something uncomfortable about this room. There's something that's weird about this room.
And people will all look around, and they never come up with what it is.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Like, oh, it's really cold. And usually it is or--but other times, people will notice. I was at one mission, and we were literally in a room with 50 people, and there were only 2 women, me and the DCM, the Deputy Chief of Mission.
MR. CAPEHART: You grew up in the segregated South. Briefly, how has that experience informed your work as a diplomat and particularly as the top American diplomat at the U.N.?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, I am proud of how I grew up because I think it shows where America has come, how far we've come, and I think it is a sign to the world that while America continues to address these issues, we are addressing them. The fact that I made it to where I made it, when I look at where I came, I think is a message to the world and it's also a message to other young people who come from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, that where they come from does not necessarily have to define where they are going.
MR. CAPEHART: When you're traveling around the world, do you hear--
MR. CAPEHART: Do you hear from--or, do people in other countries come up to you and talk to you about being a symbol to them?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: They do, and it's very--you know, I feel uncomfortable being a symbol. But also, it's a responsibility, and it's a privilege, and it's a bit of a burden being a privilege because you always have to be on your Ps and Qs, because the expectations of you are so high.
So, I always tell young people, and particularly young people from underprivileged backgrounds, that they have a burden. They have a burden to sometimes overperform. They can never underperform. They can never have a bad day. So, that burden can sometimes be overpowering, but they need to know that because their failure--when I went to Louisiana State University, no one thought I was going to succeed, and they were all sitting back, even people in my own community, waiting for me to fail. And so, I had that burden. I couldn't have a bad day. I wanted to hang out with my friends and party and get drunk and do all those things that young people do in college, but I never, ever felt that I could do that.
MR. CAPEHART: The burden of perfection is what I--
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: It's the burden of perfection.
MR. CAPEHART: You've noted that women are becoming more political around the world, from Iran and Afghanistan to the United States, as we've just seen in the midterm elections. What do you attribute that to?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, it's long overdue, and women have been pushing against those, I would say, nailed-shut doors for a long time, and they just burst through. And they're showing the power that 50 percent of our populations across the globe--we're showing the power that we have, and that's important.
MR. CAPEHART: I didn't want--you gave me the look of thinking that I was going to stop you, but I wasn't. You can keep going if you want to keep going.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: No. I'm good.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. We have seen incredible protests of overwhelmingly women, young women, in Iran. What do--I'm trying to remember the story, the other story, big story that was happening today, that one of the protestors was, if I'm remembering correctly, sentenced to death, and now there is concern that the same thing will happen to the thousands of others who have been detained or arrested in Iran. What is the U.S.'s message to those young people in Iran, who are continuing to demonstrate weeks after the initial incident?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, first, let me just say this person being sentenced to death is one more of over a hundred people who weren't sentenced but were killed in the streets. So, the death sentence just shows the extent to which this regime will go to stop people from demanding their rights.
And what we say to them is, we stand with you; we understand. But we also have to understand that these women, these young people are being extraordinarily courageous because they could be sentenced to death; they could be killed in the streets. We've seen the injuries that many of them have suffered. And we need to send a message to them to let them know what we're there for them, we hear them, that their voices are not--while the police on the street are trying to stop us from hearing their voices, we actually are hearing it. We hear what they're doing, we see what is happening, and we support them.
MR. CAPEHART: And is that one of the reasons why the United States is trying to remove Iran from the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women? How did they get there in the first place?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: That's a good question, and they don't deserve to be there because the Commission on the Status of Women is about women's rights. It's about human rights for women. It's about promoting and protecting women. And inside this organization is basically a country that is actually fighting women and trying to block women from achieving their human rights. So, they don't deserve to be on the Council, and we have to work with our allies, with our friends, with the supporters of Iran to remove them.
MR. CAPEHART: And still speaking of Iran, is there any path forward for a--do you think, for a nuclear deal with Iran while the regime continues its persecution of women?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Right now, there are two things on our minds related to Iran: their attacks on women in the street, who are peacefully protesting, attacks on them' and Iran providing missiles and drones to the Russians to kill civilians in Ukraine. So, that's what we're focused on right now.
MR. CAPEHART: I want to come back to Ukraine in the 6 minutes and 42 seconds we have left, but I've got to ask you about women in Afghanistan. They've also been protesting the strict measures put in place by the Taliban: forced to stay at home, not able to work or go to school. What's your response to Afghan women who say, quote, the international community left us behind after the withdrawal of the United States?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: We are there for them. The international community still is backing and supporting the women of Afghanistan. The U.N. is still on the ground. We're working to provide programs to support those women who are there. The Secretary just approved a new visa category for Afghan women as well, for those who are able to get out.
But I've also heard from some Afghan activists they want to stay there. Everybody can't leave, and they want to stay to support getting education resumed for women, so they're still protesting. These women have 20 years of freedom, 20 years in which they were able to be educated, and to have that just stop is almost a shock to their system. So, they're still protesting, and we're doing everything we can to hold this government accountable, to keep the pressure on, so that they can back away from this horrific policy of blocking women from being educated.
MR. CAPEHART: All right, back to the Chinese and Russia. President Biden had what seemed to be a successful meeting with President Xi overseas yesterday. I'm wondering that the unique relationship that Beijing has with Moscow, that President Xi has with Vladimir Putin. Do you believe President Xi has the power to get Putin to change course in Iran? More to the point, is it a power he wants to use, President Xi?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, I--we've been clear to the Chinese that they need to use their power, they need to use their special relationship with President Putin to put pressure on Putin to do the right thing because if they don't get him to do the right thing and he continues to make the mistakes that he's making, including his threats to use a nuclear weapon, then China has to also be held accountable for that if they don't do everything possible to stop it.
MR. CAPEHART: You were just in the region. You were just in Ukraine, and you met President Volodymyr Zelensky.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I did.
MR. CAPEHART: Your impressions of him? Was that your first time meeting him?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: It was my first time meeting him. I was wowed by him. I'd seen him on--in virtual meetings. He was confident; he was resolute; he was strong. And you could tell that he was frustrated but he was absolutely resolved to continue to fight Russia, to get Russia to remove their troops from Ukraine.
And I was really excited to see that he actually was in Kherson, welcoming troops into that area and meeting with people. He's not locking himself up behind some bunker, sending out messages. He goes out, and he talks to his people. He's been extraordinary, and I think the Ukrainians realize that they have the right president at the right time to lead during this war.
MR. CAPEHART: In the time that we have left, let's talk about Brittney Griner, the WNBA star. She's been detained in Russia since February. She was just--I think she still is being moved to a penal colony somewhere in Russia, notorious for abusive treatment. Before the president left for the G20, he expressed hope that the Russians would be more willing to negotiate now that the midterm elections have happened. Has there been any movement since then on the deal or the offer that was made by the United States to the Russians in terms of getting Brittney Griner home?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, let me just say that we are doing everything in our power and the president is doing everything in his power to bring Brittney home to her family. So, we have engaged on that issue with the Russians. We've offered them a way out of this mess that they created to allow Brittney to return to her family. The news that she was being moved to a penal colony was really depressing. We know what that means, and that has given us even more resolve to work to get her released.
MR. CAPEHART: In the minute that we have left, just a closing thought from you. What have you learned from your current role about the power and the limits of diplomacy, in one minute and three seconds?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: What I've learned is that, even with limitations, diplomacy is the best path that we have and we have to continue to pursue a diplomatic path to achieve whatever it is we're trying to achieve, and we've had some successes. I mean, we actually got 143 member states in the Security Council to condemn Russia's annexations of Ukrainian territory, unheard of. We raised the number from 141 who condemned the invasion to 143 condemning the annexation. So, diplomacy has some positive effects, and we're seeing that in New York.
MR. CAPEHART: I'm going to squeeze in one more question because there is--I believe the president floated the proposal of expanding the Security Council and maybe having some floating seats. But, is that even possible when Russia and China have veto power?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: It is possible because I think they even understand that we are at a time when Security Council reform is needed. We cannot continue to leave out the Global South from a seat at the table, and we're strongly supporting this. We're engaging with our colleagues on this, and we're hoping that we will make some changes over the coming years.
MR. CAPEHART: Thank you for the overtime there. Madam Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, thank you very much for coming to the Washington Post.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you.
MR. CAPEHART: And a programming note, for those of you watching at home and here in the room, we're going to take a quick 15-minute break. There are refreshments outside. The program will resume at exactly 3:40. Thank you very much. | 2022-11-17T20:49:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Diplomat in the Fray - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-diplomat-fray/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-diplomat-fray/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Powering Business Outcome
MS. LABOTT: Hello. For many organizations, a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion is not only a core value, but also a business imperative. And to talk about how leaning into diversity from all angles has the potential to improve employee performance and impact your company’s bottom line, I’m joined by Edna Kane Williams, executive vice president and chief diversity officer of AARP, the first person to have this role, who heads up the new diversity, equity, and inclusion group focused on workforce, workplace, and marketplace strategies. Welcome, Edna.
And since we're at The Washington Post, I have to mention that AARP was recently mentioned a top workplace by The Washington Post for the fifth year in a row. Congratulations.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you. I have to say AARP is a great place to work.
MS. LABOTT: Well, to begin with, let's set the scene here for the importance of having diversity, equity, and inclusion. And you know, a lot of people are calling it DEI now for short, because it's becoming so common. So, this role is a position within an organization. And why it's important to activate it across an organization, I mean, the data tells the story, right? A more diverse workforce is more effective, profitable, and successful.
MS. WILLIAMS: Right. And I hope that you'll forgive me because I'm going to really evangelize around--
MS. LABOTT: Go for it.
MS. WILLIAMS: --the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion now and in the future. But you're absolutely right. Studies show--and really the model--the literature about being a model organization, when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, it really insists that it be an enterprise-wide effort and not solely the responsibility of a few. That gets to the heart of the really moral compass of an organization that everybody understands--that everybody understands that they have a role.
A lot of folks jumped on the DEI bandwagon. There's been a lot happening in this country, in the world over the last several years. And they made financial commitments. They may have even made some strategic adjustments, but many didn't make the structural changes.
MS. LABOTT: So, strategic decisions.
MS. WILLIAMS: Well, the structural changes that can help lead the strategic decisions to make sure that everybody in the organization understands their role. A lot of folks, when you talk about a model DEI organization, recommend that everybody in the organization have performance objectives specifically around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
MS. LABOTT: Everybody in the organization? Hmm. So, I think often the C suite assumes that DEI, if it hasn't made those structural changes, is being handled by human resources or even, you know, is a public relations issue. So, let's talk about the importance of diversity and inclusion being part of the executive team and embedded in those core values of leadership in the organization.
MS. WILLIAMS: Yeah, I'm fortunate at AARP. I report directly to the CEO, and I think that's really important. Not all CEOs do. As you mentioned, some are in HR. Some are in communications. But again, elevating it. I'm a part of the executive leadership team of AARP, a very large nonprofit. There's only 10 of us. So, I feel confident that I have our CEO, Jo Ann Jenkins, an African American woman, ear. I can highlight and prioritize things that I wouldn't if I were layers down. And I feel that she speaks to the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is signaling to the organization how important it is because of where I sit.
Also, because of where I sit, I have access to our board of directors and am a part of board of directors’ meetings, and indeed report to the board of directors. And that's important too, that really the executive and the board function of companies and organizations really need to demonstrate very visibly and intentionally that diversity, equity, and inclusion isn't--is important. I'll talk about how we're seeing some shifts in that in a little bit. But it's really--again, being a model organization, that's a key component.
MS. LABOTT: So, let's talk about how equity is playing a role within AARP. I mean, that video that we saw before about the red chicken coop, about how your organization was created with the mission of empowering people to choose how they live as they age, it's even more relevant today. And the whole concept of aging--and I think not moving from retirement to how you choose to thrive in older age is even more relevant. So, you're thinking not about only the company's strategies in terms of gender and LGBT audience, but still with that strong focus on age discrimination as an issue of equity and closing the gap of health and wealth and all those disparities.
MS. WILLIAMS: Sure. Sure, age is an important piece of the DEI spectrum; although, surveys have shown that many companies don't include age. So, we certainly as AARP elevate and focus on that, along with, I don't even say "minority" anymore--multicultural audiences, as you said, LGBTQ. We're launching new initiatives around the disability community.
But I do want to point out that it's so important when we talk about this--you used the term "choosing." And I think it's important for us to remember that not everybody, because of their life circumstances, necessarily have a choice. I'm from North Philadelphia, and I was talking to a friend I haven't seen in a while, and we both grew up on the same block. And she said, you know, it's so important that we got away from the block, but not everybody did. Not everybody. She talked about it as almost it was--it was an option; it was an election. But really not everybody has that choice. So, what I'm most proud about, the work at AARP, is that in looking at aging, in looking at helping people to age as best they can, that we don't make assumptions about a privilege that not everybody is going to age or grow old the same.
Clearly, our founder, Ethel Percy Andrus, understood that when she found her colleague living in a chicken coop. So we have a lot of focus on disparities, both racial, both income-based, to recognize that that will take extra effort to ensure that they have the same opportunities that others do.
MS. LABOTT: So, DEI has always been active across AARP. You've been working on this for years but this chief diversity officer is a new role. So, how are you operationalizing DEI within your leadership?
MS. WILLIAMS: So, it's a real opportunity. I was promoted last March, March of 2021, and it is the first Office of diversity, equity, and inclusion that AARP has had. And we have decades, multiple decades-long involvement in advocacy for multicultural communities. Our AARP Foundation is devoted, designed to focus on poverty and low income. So, we have--we have deep roots.
Our founder, again, Ethel Percy Andrus, she was one of the first--she was a school principal in a school back in Los Angeles in the early part of the 1900s that was really diverse for its time, had significant African American students. So, she embodied that and infused the mission of AARP to reflect her concern that we always understand that--they didn't talk about it as diversity back then, but that diversity is so important.
MS. LABOTT: You speak a lot. You talk to a lot of leaders from other companies. What are some of the obstacles that you're finding or hearing about, about preventing organizations from reaching those DEI goals?
MS. WILLIAMS: Well, and I'm looking around because there's so many leaders in this room.
MS. LABOTT: That’s right.
MS. WILLIAMS: I'm hoping that I can really inspire some folks. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, it can be cyclical. You know, we all know the events of a couple of years ago, the murder of George Floyd being one of them, where lots of companies came off of the sidelines, devoted dollars. There was lots of media attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion, how important it was. There was an--there was an explosion of people hired in this role. At one point on LinkedIn, it was like the most talked about and popular new staff role--
MS. LABOTT: And educational programs, too, about DEI.
MS. WILLIAMS: Right, trainings and the whole bit. And yet I see earlier this year that folks are now cautioning, well, maybe not say diversity; maybe use this word instead of that word; or we don't have to say it's DEI. Because, you know, obviously there's a lot of polarization in the country. I don't want to even get into CRT and critical race theory, but it has broadened the conversation to be almost, is this a good thing?
And I really, one, am very impatient with that kind of semantic gamesmanship, or trying to diminish how important this is for our country, our families, our organizations now. If we don't get this right, if we don't bring more people into the conversation, if we're not honest about what we're talking about, it's going to be very hard. And so, I think that's a challenge for CEOs and others who try to manage the winds of opinion, because this is not necessarily popular in all facets right now. There's a lot of pushback. There's a lot of sort of shrinking like, well, maybe don't--let's not go big, let's go smaller and take our time. And while this is a marathon, not a sprint, it's long term. You have to be in it to win it for the long term. I really encourage people to challenge that kind of thinking.
And I'm not being partisan one way or the other: Diversity really does include all. So, I think that's one challenge we've had, is to really communicate that we're talking about everybody. We're talking about everybody, and not positioning groups in competition. Although, at the same time, I think we need to recognize the vast disparities that exist, and covid and the pandemic really revealed a lot of them, although it's really interesting, in the last year that the numbers have really shifted. So, in short, recommending that they focus on resisting the notion that this is cyclical, and that they have to wax and wane.
And also recognizing that there are a lot of challenges that CEOs need to be prepared for. And one of them we talked about is age, and now we have for the first time in history, five generations working in one workforce. That's really never happened before. It’s going to take--and that's a part of the diversity spectrum, people--you know, Gen X, Gen Z, millennials, boomers, and even the silent generation that are coming back into the workforce, either because their retirement didn't work out the way they thought, or because they're just bored and want to do something else.
MS. LABOTT: So, as we close, as you said, we have so many leaders here in this room. What advice do you give to other organizations, including the leaders in this room, who are really looking to make DEI a business imperative? What are the few things that they could start working on right now?
MS. WILLIAMS: Well, yeah, and I always start with business imperative when I'm talking to companies. I also think it's a moral imperative. I talked about model organizations in terms of being a DEI or a group. One is the long-term nature of this. This is not a two- or three-year effort; it's long term. Again, executive and board support is so important. Sufficient resources. Everybody in the organization understanding that they have a role and being explicit about that role.
But fifth, having metrics and success measures, so you can demonstrate to people why this is helping the bottom line, why it's helping your teams work more effectively. This can't be a soft science kind of thing, although it is in a lot of ways. But you need to collect data and metrics, be able to demonstrate that you're being successful, or at least being intentional. I think failure is fine, and we do fail a lot in this space. But being clear about where you're trying to get, even if you have tried--even if you have to try multiple things to get there.
MS. LABOTT: Yeah. And I think if you set that as a metric of a performance review, it kind of sends the signal to everybody that you're taking it very seriously.
MS. WILLIAMS: Yeah. Seriously and that you're going to be rigorous about it. This isn't soft sell.
MS. LABOTT: Yeah. Well, as you said, inclusion is increasingly becoming more important, not just as a moral imperative, but in creating a positive working culture and a productive workplace for everybody but--among employees, but also to a company's bottom line.
MS. WILLIAMS: Right. And there's been research that shows that companies that are more diverse from their workforce aspect do better. They do better in terms of profits, if there are--you know, as a part of the stock market. They do better in terms of their teams and their effectiveness and impact. We've seen a lot just in the last couple of days about people wanting companies and organizations to speak to their sort of social mission interests.
MS. LABOTT: Yeah. Edna Kane Williams, executive vice president and the first chief diversity officer at AARP. Thank you so much for joining us.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you. Thank you. | 2022-11-17T20:49:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Powering Business Outcome - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-diversity-equity-inclusion-powering-business-outcome/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-diversity-equity-inclusion-powering-business-outcome/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Fight for Russia: Hillary Clinton Talks with Women Challenging Putin
MS. CLINTON: Welcome. Wow, that’s a great introduction.
MS. CLINTON: I'm Hillary Clinton, and I cannot tell you how absolutely delighted I am to be interviewing these two remarkable women, and we're going to dive right into it, because I could literally talk to them for hours, but we don't have that much time.
I think you got a bit of a taste from the videos as to what we have in front of us: two remarkable women, veteran Russian journalists, Galina Timchenko; and activist/investigator, Maria Pevchikh. And you also saw an excerpt from the remarkable documentary about Alexei Navalny. Maria works with the Anticorruption Foundation that Navalny started.
And let me turn first to you, Maria. I want to talk about your work at the Anticorruption Foundation and the linkage that you see between your efforts to expose corruption, and the authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial reign of Vladimir Putin. But first, let's get an update about Alexei Navalny. He's now been in prison for the last year-and-a-half. He was just, as I understand, sentenced to another 14 days in solitary confinement. I personally believe he's in constant danger, because he's imprisoned by the same people who tried--thankfully, unsuccessfully--to murder him. So, when was the last time you heard from him? How's he doing? What can you tell us about what's happening with him?
MS. PEVCHIKH: Of course, of course. I wish I had a little bit more of a cheerful news to share about Navalny, but the situation, frankly, isn't good. So, he has been in prison for almost two years, now, and the last two months--more than two months--he has spent in solitary confinement. So, that's a punishment mechanism for various prisoners, for those inmates who don't behave according to the prison rules and he's being given these rolling 14 days sentences in the solitary confinement for things like not having his shirt buttoned up or not introducing himself properly or not addressing a prison guard in an appropriate manner, and things like that.
He's, at this very second--he's in a very small room, six-by-eleven feet big. It's just concrete walls and a tiny little window very close to the ceiling. There is a bed in this room that at 6:00 a.m. every day he's being chained up to the wall so he cannot lay down, he cannot sit in it. There is a stool without a back. There is a small table. And the only two possessions he's allowed there, a book and a mug. So, that's literally everything he has in his life as of now. For 35 minutes a day, he's allowed to use pen and paper and these are the most precious 35 minutes, because this is when he writes letters to his family, to his friends. He responds to some letters that he might be getting in prison.
And for the past eight or nine weeks, like, we've had zero communication with him.
MS. CLINTON: Well, you know, he authored a very important op-ed for The Washington Post--
MS. PEVCHIKH: Correct.
MS. CLINTON: --that appeared on September 30th, and I, for one, thought it was extremely impactful because he talked about Russia after Putin. And I personally, after having watched the documentary and been so moved by his journey, was happy to read him throwing it into the future. Like, you know, we have to think about the future. We can't give in; we can't give up, even though he's in that six-by-eleven-foot room.
You worked on investigations for the Anticorruption Foundation, now, for a number of years. And you have exposed, as we briefly saw, all kinds of corruption that is directly traceable to Putin. Tell us the role that you see corruption playing in keeping Putin in power, because sometimes people try to divide that. They say, well, there's corruption; it's terrible and we should do something about it. Then, there's authoritarianism and all--you know they're linked. So, describe that to our audience.
MS. PEVCHIKH: They aren't only linked. I am personally--I'm convinced that corruption is the root cause of everything that has gone wrong with Russia. And without corruption, without this carefully built, corrupt monster that Putin built over the years--he started very early on and he had 20 years to come up with a pretty sophisticated, you know, network of bribes, money, kompromat, and things like that.
And I am pretty sure that, without corruption--well, I mean, he wouldn't be president at this point. There would be no war. There won't be any political murders. Russia will be very, very different without it, because with--corruption is such an important mechanism for Putin to sustain and remain in power. Right now, he's sending those corrupt generals to be in charge of this war, the war that wouldn't be possible, as I said, I think, if there were institutions working, if a president, if a head of state was accountable to the parliament or the government or to his people. But none of that is there, because over the years, very carefully and very deliberately, Vladimir Putin has been destroying our democratic institutions and corrupting the system so it works only in his favor.
MS. CLINTON: Well, Galina, as a journalist, you have been sounding the alarm about Putin and what he was doing to Russia for many years. And I think it's especially important to point out, as the video did, that you were fired from your job in 2014 because you were one of the very few people--and I include not just people in Russia, but literally around the world, who understood the significance of Russia's invasion of Crimea.
And I think, you know, your work since then has been incredibly brave, but that moment, describe to us how you knew that this invasion, what happened in 2014, was critically important. And then, you had to go outside Russia to continue reporting on what was happening.
MS. PEVCHIKH: You know, in 2014 when this so-called Crimea annexation or joining of Crimea, according to Kremlin, started, we realized that there is not first attack to the freedom of speech, to the freedom of press. And we continued publishing all the articles and reporting from Crimea and from Ukraine. And one day, the owner of our media called me and said, I have to fire you under the direct order of Kremlin because you are number one. You are the most popular. It's almost TV, and Kremlin do not want to have media out of their control. So, from this second, you are not editor-in-chief anymore. Get off.
So, and then we realized that this Crimea question divided country, that what Putin did, he just cracked the country and the nation in the question of Crimea. It was some kind of temptation to the nation, and nation unfortunately agreed. So, we decided--personally, I decided I am too old and too tired to fight every day with FSB, police, and so on. So, we decided to go to Latvia, it's the neighbor country and it's in European Union, and start from the scratch.
So, it was eight years of fighting and I used to say that our war started not half-a-year ago, not eight months ago, but more than eight years ago, and we are fighting today.
MS. CLINTON: And the organization that you started, Meduza--
MS. TIMCHENKO: Yes.
MS. CLINTON: --continued to report on what's gone on in Russia and then, because of the invasion of the Ukraine at the end of February, you have been reporting about what's happening.
And I think it's really significant that you have a lot of attention from readers and viewers inside Russia. Talk a little bit about how many people you're reaching.
MS. TIMCHENKO: You know, maybe it sounds strange, but we solved the problem of reaching audience inside Russia, because after a week after the war started, we were blocked in Russia, total in--twice, twice--under the order of general prosecutor office and Russian regulator. They blocked us twice but still we--from the very beginning, we decided that we are multi-platform media and we are broadcasting from every platform we could reach our audience. So, we upgraded our mobile application and now we have more than million--million-and-a-half, actually, downloads of our application and we have built-in mechanism of avoiding blocking. So, we could freely broadcast inside Russia. And on every platform, from Messenger to email, newsletters, from podcasting to YouTube--it's not blocked in Russia, still. So, we are broadcasting and now we could reach, in this October after mobilization was declared, we had pre-war numbers, more than 15 million users per month read Meduza, even on desktop and additionally on every platform.
So, more or less, we succeed, but we realize, as eight years ago, that it's just a start of attack. It's not finished, you know, and we realize that they will continue the attack on the free press.
MS. CLINTON: And Maria, a lot of the work that you've done with the Anticorruption Foundation, you post on YouTube.
MS. PEVCHIKH: Yes.
MS. CLINTON: And YouTube is still available in Russia, and you also get tens of millions of views. So, talk a little bit about how you've been able to continue to break through the wall that Russia's tried to construct to keep both of you from reaching Russian citizens.
MS. PEVCHIKH: Well, there is YouTube, and it's still standing. So, the trick with YouTube is that you cannot block just one video on it. If you want a video out, like, I don't know, on our investigation about Putin's palace, however, [unclear], Putin wants it's gone, it means that he needs to cancel the whole thing. So, the entire YouTube will be down, and YouTube, weirdly, have a very, very good penetration in Russia and loads of families, loads of households are using it for non-political reasons. They are using it to show cartoons to their kids. They're, you know, on repeat during breakfast, you know, have your iPad, have a look; let's talk in an hour. Loads of people are using it for, you know, just domestic stuff, from like cooking shows, entertainment show--
MS. CLINTON: Recipes.
MS. PEVCHIKH: --for everything--recipes, correct. Like, I mean, Russian TV is pretty bad.
MS. PEVCHIKH: So, you kind of--you're looking for an alternative, right? And YouTube is a great alternative. Travel shows, cooking shows, anything you think of. And we're talking about approximately 80 million users that YouTube has. So, Putin and Kremlin, they have a dilemma. What do they want more, that Putin Palace video gone, or 80 million upset users? Predominantly women, predominantly--and you know, like, the demographics is bad, as well. The demographics are the very same people who support Putin. You don't want to upset them.
So, we've been using and utilizing this dilemma a lot, and we've been publishing our investigations online. We don't just, you know, read them out. No, no, no. We try to make them fun. We try to make them watchable. We try to--in every script of every investigation--and we published over 170 of them at this point.
MS. CLINTON: I love them. I mean, they have music. They have villains. They have all kinds of activity.
MS. PEVCHIKH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's true.
MS. CLINTON: And sometimes, you know, when he was not in prison, Navalny would pop up and say, "Can you believe this?" You know, I mean, they really are attention grabbing and I think that's important.
MS. PEVCHIKH: Thank you. Thank you very much.
MS. CLINTON: So, Galina, you told us something in preparation for today that the Russian journalists inside Ukraine covering the war are all women.
MS. TIMCHENKO: Yup, yup, yup.
MS. CLINTON: Because Russian men are banned from going into Ukraine. How has that shaped the coverage that you've been seeing?
MS. TIMCHENKO: You know, at first, it put me in a great responsibility for their lives and safety and security. And for sure, Russian male journalists are prohibited to enter Ukraine in any case.
So, we had three--four--women journalists. They reported from the warzone, from besieged cities, from Kyiv, under bomb attack, and one of them, she left the besieged City of Chernigov in the last group of civilians and then city was closed. So, we send her for rehab and, after three days, Bucha happened and she returned and she investigated this rape--rapes and this torture that women of Bucha survived, or not survived, unfortunately. And it was very scary. This war we could see through women's eyes. And in total, it's our side to this war. It's women's face of this war. It seems to me it's for the first time in modern history, we could see war through women eyes, and it's our women and Ukrainian bravest journalists who are facing death, but continue to report.
MS. CLINTON: Wow.
MS. CLINTON: You know, Maria, you've said that if today's level of sanctions had been imposed when Russia invaded and illegally annexed Crimea, that you're not sure that this current war would have happened. Can you explain what you mean by that? Because you're a Putin watcher. You've studied him. You know, this panel, I think, was originally called, you know, "Two Women against Putin." It really should be "Three Women Against Putin," so, but you know a lot about him insofar as it's knowable. So, what do you mean by that, about Crimea?
MS. PEVCHIKH: I think that Putin's decision to invade Ukraine now in February consisted of a number of assumptions--not such a--two, three.
Some of them were that Ukrainians will be greeting Russian army with flowers and cakes and pierogis and, I don't know, and giving them hugs in every city. That was clearly a lie provided to Putin by generals, I don't know, special agents or whoever has taken money from Putin to actually pay for this and organize this and then do this in the end. Obviously, there was a very wrong assumption about the strength and capability of the Russian army. Again, corruption, in this specific case, thank God. And the third thing, Putin thought that he will get away with it.
And that is not the most unreasonable assumption, if you think about it. After Crimea was annexed, I mean, what, like, they sanctioned 50 mates of Putin who have billions of dollars, and they moved billions of dollars to a different jurisdiction, some were to, I don't know, Arab Emirates, or just to Russia, sometimes. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Then, after Putin got away with shooting down MH730 Boeing and 333 Dutchmen and Malaysian people--citizens being killed over Ukrainian sky by a Russian missile. And that has been proved, and that's--the court, the Hague Court, has solved this case. Putin got away with this quasi war in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas. Again, talks, deep concerns, we all have heard it so many times but, in the end, if you analyze it, the reputational loss, the economic loss of sanctions up until this point weren't significant. You could almost neglect them.
So, these sanctions that happened--that were imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, okay, now we're talking. This is something that actually is a big problem for Putin and Putin's inner circle and the economy and everything, and the closed borders are the problem. The brand and et cetera leaving are a problem. All of that adds up to actually a good set of sanctions which, sadly, came too late. And that--we cannot really fix that. I'm not trying to tell people off or just complain or anything like that. All I'm trying to say is that we just need to acknowledge that the world has been late with that, and we shouldn't be late again. You know, that's never too late--sanctions imposed today are better than sanctions imposed tomorrow. And now that the wave of those sanctions is kind of thinning a little bit. They are not as robust; they are not as often; and they don't feel imminent anymore. I'm urging every government, every institution responsible for that to not let this go and continue--continue doing that and continue applying pressure on Putin's regime.
MS. CLINTON: Well, because I think we've learned some very difficult lessons as to how far he will go left unchecked, not held accountable, acting with impunity.
So, let's sort of fast-forward a minute, because I mentioned Alexei Navalny's article about a post-Putin Russia. He advocates a parliamentary system--what he calls a parliamentary republic. Galina, what do you see, post-Putin, assuming we keep the pressure on and don't give in too quickly? And just as we were walking out here, we saw a news alert that missiles had crossed into Poland and two Polish citizens were killed.
Poland is a NATO country. The Polish National Security Council is meeting as we speak. And this--my friends in the Baltics have been saying this for years. You're now living in Latvia; Maria's living in Lithuania. They've always been warning about what Putin is capable of doing.
So, how do you see this in the future?
MS. TIMCHENKO: You know, maybe I could sound a little bit sad, but I do believe that Russia has to learn this lesson from the scratch. There will be acceptance and atonement, first. And only after that, we could build the real beautiful Russia of the future, first learning lessons and atonement. We have to repair connections. We have to repair trust, if it's possible. We have to prove to the world that Russia is worth fighting for her future.
So, it's all about that.
MS. CLINTON: Yeah. Well, Maria, I'm going to give you the last word because I very much agree with your connection of corruption and what we're now seeing coming out of Putin.
When you think about counteracting Putin, you talked about sanctions. What more should the international community, and particularly the United States and NATO, try to do to counteract not just what he's doing now, but to prevent him, as Galina was saying, from doing anything further?
MS. PEVCHIKH: It's a very, very complex question. And essentially, the answer is known to anybody just on their own very level. You guys know. Journalists, activists, politicians, government officials what can be done within your scope of power.
Do we need more sanctions? Absolutely. You know what we need more than that? We need those sanctions actually being enforced. We need those people who help corrupt government officials from Russia avoid and evade the sanctions, we need those guys to be caught, as well. We need, for example, British Government officials, to be catching the lawyers and enablers and all the other, you know, agents, people who help to run this corrupt system set up--setting up those blind trust funds, or making these, you know, blind deals when the property is owned by someone you don't really know who that is--
MS. CLINTON: Like, for example, buying a floor on the Trump Tower, just an example.
MS. PEVCHIKH: Absolutely, absolutely.
MS. TIMCHENKO: Good example.
MS. PEVCHIKH: That shouldn't be tolerated and that shouldn't be--that shouldn't be--you shouldn’t be turning your head away from it.
Russian corruption stopped being Russian problem. We've been saying it for years and I could see why sometimes there was this approach that, let's just leave them alone. They're doing so well economically. Let's just not look there and let Vladimir Putin be. I remind you, the World Cup in Russia, the football World Cup happened, like, what, four years after Crimea was annexed? It was a great holiday. I mean, everybody came.
So, what I'm trying to say is there are a lot of ways to do it. Or, you can sometimes--I don't know, there are activists in the room. Sometimes your best decision is to actually go and stay--go stand in the middle of your city with a poster saying something very important to you. Sometimes it's, I don't know, spreading, sharing this information if you have access to Russian readers, Russian audience. You know, sometimes it's just about not being lazy to repost something and write a little message, you know, do watch that; do watch this film; do watch a documentary.
MS. TIMCHENKO: Leave messages.
MS. PEVCHIKH: So, all of us have their own ways of contributing to it. My way is investigations. I cannot do--I'm not qualified to do anything like that. I just investigate corruption. Galina's way is brilliant journalism.
And there are so many other women, and men, of course, who found their way against all the odds, against all the pressure and risks and they're still continuing to fight Putin. And I admire all of them.
MS. CLINTON: And I admire both of our guests so much, Maria and Galina. | 2022-11-17T20:49:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Fight for Russia: Hillary Clinton Talks with Women Challenging Putin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-fight-russia-hillary-clinton-talks-with-women-challenging-putin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-fight-russia-hillary-clinton-talks-with-women-challenging-putin/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Inside Take: Post Reporters on the Midterms
MS. SWISHER: Well, hi, everybody. Okay, I’m Kara Swisher. I’ll take off my glasses to get intimate with you all.
I have a lot of questions here, but I'm going to ignore them, and I'm going start with essentially what the fuck.
But let me introduce--that--so keep that in mind, ladies. So, I'm going to start with who you are. Ashley Parker covered Donald Trump's White House for four years--you look very well rested now--and now analyzes the bigger picture for The Post. Jackie Alemany is on investigative end and has recently been tracking many of the investigations, of which there are--you--we must keep you busy. And Leigh Ann Caldwell covers the hill and knows every player, every nook and cranny of the halls of Congress, apparently--good for you--and also is anchor of Washington Post Live. Thank you for talking here.
So, let's get into it. I think “what the fuck” is a good first question.
So why don't we start with you? Because Donald Trump has some things to say to us tonight. He has some feels, I'm sure.
MS. PARKER: Yes.
MS. Let's talk about that. What's gonna happen tonight, and what has just happened?
MS. PARKER: So all the usual Trump caveats apply--right?--which is that until it exits his mouth, we don't know what he's doing. But basically, he's announcing his 2024 presidential bid. And the two kind of fascinating things I've been tracking are, on the one hand, it feels like one of these moments--and we've been here before--where there's a tipping point, where Republicans are starting to try to move away from him--the donor class; you're seeing elected publicly criticize him, which doesn't really happen. It happened after “Access Hollywood.” It happened after January 6th. It happened after--when he launched his campaign.
MS. SWISHER: Charlottesville.
MS. PARKER: Charlottesville.
MS. SWISHER: So all the greatest hits.
MS. PAKER: Yeah, when he said McCain was not a real war hero. So, it feels like one of these moments. But every other time Republicans have kind of lost their courage. And the other thing that's interesting is even if all these people are now willing to criticize him and willing to move away, it's sort of unclear what that fundamentally means because he announces he has sort of a concrete floor of 30 to 40 percent of the MAGA base who truly will support him if and when he shoots people on Fifth Avenue. He doesn't lose them no matter what. So, the rest of the field, the best chance a Republican has to beat him is in a one-on-one matchup, right? And even—which, A, is probably not going to happen because it's a collective action theory problem where Glenn Younkin and Chris Christie and Mike Pence would have to say, you know what, it's not the best for the party. I'm going to sit it out.
MS. SWISHER: Right.
MS. PARKER: But even if you got a Trump-Ron DeSantis head-to-head, that would mean that Ron DeSantis, whoever that other person is, really has to win the majority of the remaining Republican, some of whom are open to moving away from Trump, but who still voted for him twice, say they would vote for him in a heartbeat if he's the nominee, and liked a lot of his policies and think he was a pretty good president.
MS. SWISHER: So tonight, he will announce and try to sweep the--
MS. PARKER: Tonight, it starts.
MS. SWISHER: It starts. It starts.
MS. PARKER: Yeah.
MS. SWISHER: Okay. Well, yay. Good for that. We had just a moment there of peace, but I guess not.
MS. CALDWELL: Have fun, Ashley.
MS. SWISHER: So, Jackie, go ahead. What do you think is happening right now? Obviously, you're covering the investigations. There's--that's a subplot of this situation of this ongoing telenovela that is Donald Trump.
MS. ALEMANY: Absolutely. And we have been past few days sort of working through, just amongst us reporters, all the iterations of what happens with these investigations if he does announce his candidacy, which, applying Ashley's caveats, we'll see it until--we can’t believe it until we see it. And that's something that lawmakers on the Hill, Republican lawmakers are echoing as well. Yesterday, we were chasing around House Republicans, who would be really I think the last firewall in Donald Trump's sort of support system, who have all along really been behind him 150 percent, who were for the first time really dodging questions about Trump and toeing this line of, well, we'll see if he actually announces, otherwise, we're not going to answer any questions about him and the detrimental impact he had on our midterm performance last week.
But as he's moving to announce his candidacy, which a lot of people sort of speculate is happening so early to sort of inoculate him from some of these investigations and potential charges, and maybe a looming indictment, is the Department of Justice is moving full steam ahead along with Fulton County, Fani Willis, and the investigations in New York, along with potential investigations that we don't even know about at--you know, but in D.C., what we're focused on the most at the moment are these parallel investigations, the Mar-a-Lago boxes, the mishandling of classified information. I'm sure you're all quite aware of the FBI and the DOJ seized tons of classified information from Mar-a-Lago in August.
MS. SWISHER: Yeah, we read about that.
MS. ALEMANY: And then January 6th, a parallel investigation. But right now--
MS. SWISHER: Does that inoculate him? No, right?
MS. ALEMANY: Well, no, but I do think that the--one of the iterations of a potential prosecution that some people were walking me through this weekend, which are completely hypothetical, is that if the DOJ does ultimately decide to indict him on something, if he's a candidate, maybe they reach a pre-prosecution deal, where they come to some sort of agreement that is you are no longer running for office and you will no longer handle classified materials, before they would go through with a prosecution. This is all completely hypothetical.
MS. SWISHER: Yeah, but it seems unlikely for a narcissist.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah, but I think this is the calculus potentially in Trump's mind.
MS. SWISHER: Right. But in his mind, it inoculates him.
Well, now, let's talk a little bit about, Leigh Ann, what happened, though. They didn't--people didn't like the screaming election denying, right?
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah.
MS. SWISHER: That’s one of the messages. And they didn't like the abortion decision. But it seemed like they were more rejecting--and I had interviewed a bunch of local reporters and some national ones, and most of it was stop the screaming about election denial. You’re crazy. You're crazy. I'm going to vote for someone else because you seem--I don't like that Democrat, but you seem crazy. So, talk about what happened, and does that message work?
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah, so I think that no one was prepared this midterm election for voters to so, so fully deny or reject what was happening as far as--
MS. SWISHER: Deny the deniers.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah, deny the deniers. I have been hearing from Democratic leadership, from party campaign officials for months that democracy is not necessarily on the ballot. That is not what people are going to be voting for, and I think that this election proved them wrong. I think that the abortion issue was absolutely a critical issue. It really motivated women, it motivated young voters. But also exit polls are showing that the democracy issue really mattered. Everyone kind of made fun of President Biden in those past few weeks of doing two major speeches about the threats to democracy.
MS. SWISHER: Yeah.
MS. CALDWELL: And Republicans totally dismissed it. He was made fun of on Fox News. You know, even Democrats, it was controversial among the Democratic Party, too.
But I was talking to a Republican right after the election, and they said--a senior Republican and they said, the Biden White House, they have good people, and they must have seen something that we didn't see. It wasn't on accident. And so--
MS. SWISHER: Was it--was it democracy or crazy? Because I heard crazy from relatives of mine who are--
MS. CALDWELL: But it's one in the same right now, right? Like so wanting democracy to work and to function is a rejection of the election denialism.
MS. CALDWELL: So, it's the same--it's the same thing.
The fact that the secretary of states--three major candidates running for secretary of state in Nevada, in Arizona, and--
MS. PARKER: Michigan.
MS. CALDWELL: --Michigan were totally--were rejected outright was a huge, huge sign. The fact that voters were paying attention to secretary of state races, you know, was a sign of the direct--that people are just kind of over it. And that's why when Jackie and I were on the Hill yesterday talking to these Republicans, that's why they are not yet ready to fully endorse Donald Trump, because they're like, look, it didn't work. It didn't work.
MS. ALEMANY: By the way, there have been Republicans who did see the warning signs coming, and I just think of this because it didn't make our piece last week, and so I've got to get it out somewhere. But Peter Meijer, the congressman from Michigan who lost to an election denier, and who then lost to--in the general election to a Democrat and is ostensibly bitter about it, but he was saying that he also saw potentially a throughline from the Paul Pelosi attack to the results for Republicans, and that it was just a reminder of the threats to democracy and the crazy all in one.
MS. ALEMANY: And it was--and it also sort of pulled along memories of January 6th to that week right before the election, reminding Republican voters there's a lot more at stake here. There is the potential for political violence and the Republicans who are election denying and feeding these conspiracy theories. And the so-called crazies, there are real life consequences, right?
MS. PARKER: For what it's worth in the real life consequences for democracy especially, it's sometimes not the most buzzy stuff of Republicans criticizing Trump, finally, over democracy, but it's those secretary of state races, those state legislative races, that actually make the most meaningful difference in terms of actually preserving democracy, because when you sort of talk to experts of how a country or society sort of becomes non-democratic authoritarian, they say, you know, we sort of maybe all have this image of troops marching in the street and these takeovers, but a lot of times it's sort of like boiling a frog. It's this quiet thing that happens from within. And it's a state legislature and a president who changed the rules so it's not so easy for a vice president, which frankly, wasn't such a given, you know, to do what the Constitution requires of them. And most people liken it to if that was going to happen to the U.S., which has actually been sliding in global democratic rankings, it would be much more akin to Orban in Hungary, who in many ways, changed the judiciary.
MS. SWISHER: Right, right. And certainly, candidates like Kemp in Georgia did that.
MS. SWISHER: Because people perceived he did right thing.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah, exactly.
MS. SWISHER: Let me ask, what then is Donald Trump's, from your perspective, sales pitch, if he keeps yelling about election denial--and I think the same thing worked out for Kari Lake--I can--you know, someone was like, why did this happen? I do see, especially women going into that booth and go, no, not her. No, just no, thank you. Even if you're a Republican, I think subtracting wasn't good. You don't fit in our group. You don't--you know, McCain people go away, was kind of the most--one of the more idiotic things I've seen in politics in a long time.
But what--from your perspective, what's the new sale? What's the new thing he's going to hawk.
MS. PARKER: So the--
MS. SWISHER: Because election denial is not working.
MS. PARKER: It’s not working.
MS. SWISHER: He seems to like it.
MS. PARKER: It’s unclear if he’ll drop it. But it is certainly not working.
MS. PARKER: And the responsible people on his team understand that and want him to drop it.
MS. PARKER: The new thing that we have reporting on--and this is a little less of a pitch--but is that he wants this campaign to much more closely resemble 2016, the sort of fly by the seat of your pants. I mean, Trump truly believes--and in some cases this was borne out in 2016--that a campaign is him, a plane, and a huge rally with thousands of supporters. And he wants to return to that a little bit.
And I would also--what Jackie was saying is--when she was saying, you know, if there is an indictment, or if there are these lawsuits, they're problematic in many ways, but they also in certain political ways put him back where he is most comfortable, which is as a victim and talking to his supporters. They're going after me because I defend you. They hate us. They're the elite. We're being prosecuted.
MS. SWISHER: That doesn't work in a general election that--because--
MS. CALDWELL: Well, I want to get--I want that point. So, if people on Trump's team--which, Ashley, you know, full well, you know, want to move away from the 2020 thing, but Trump is someone who appeals to the base. He's not a president--he's not someone who appeals to independent voters. And the election denialism still works for the base. That's why these people won their primaries. That's why Peter Meijer didn't win. And it just doesn't work in a general election. So, there's the--
MS. SWISHER: So it’s essentially a political Fox News--essentially a political version is you play to what they want to do. But what is the motto? What will be the motto beyond I'm a victim? Because that ultimately becomes tiresome, as did his--
MS. PARKER: Again, I'm not--I'm not arguing that it's necessarily a clear-cut winning message in a general but--
MS. SWISHER: Right. But what--so this be victim, they're out to get me?
MS. PARKER: He likes to be a victim. He's fighting for you. Even Republicans who don't like the chaos and the controversy of Trump, they like the fighting, they like the burn it down Washington establishment. I mean, I did--in a different publication, I did a road trip across the country in 2014 just talking to hundreds of voters, and I sort of didn't have the language for it, which turned out to be Donald Trump. But in hearing what they said, there was this sense, that was quite understandable, that after the financial crisis, they were just sort of like, screw you all, like we're here and we're playing by the rules and we're doing everything right and we bought a house we were told we could afford, and I took a job and I've been saving, and now this system has imploded. I'm suffering, and the people in Washington and the people in New York like are getting rich.
MS. CALDWELL: And they wanted to burn it all down. And that--and Trump understood that on a sort of visceral level and that--
MS. SWISHER: But people aren’t in that mood, and from a legal point of view, it doesn't really work. It doesn't--like the yelling and whining.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. But in the--I think in the court of public opinion, he has found that muddying the waters in any way does work to his advantage. Actually, I was thinking I feel like I went way too into the 3D chess scenario instead of the--like the primary thinking of the former president, which is politicize this as much as possible to make the--
MS. SWISHER: So the basics, the basics, the greatest hits.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah. But I think that your question to Ashley is actually getting at something else that has really crystallized for me these past two weeks, which is that I don't know if there is that much of a pitch from the Republican Party right now. There isn’t that much of a pitch, generally speaking, from the Republican Party right now. Like when you ask--when we've been asking House Republicans, you know, what--how are you going to govern, what are you going to get passed if you have this razor thin majority in the House, there are people who have said to me privately, anonymously, you know, their job is to not do anything. The job is just to have the majority to block the Biden agenda, to investigate and to do nothing.
MS. SWISHER: So Fauci, Fauci, Fauci, all day long.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah.
MS. PARKER: And Hunter.
MS. SWISHER: And Hunter, right, yeah.
MS. ALEMANY: So, there is not a--I'm not sure that the--that Trump needs to have a cogent thesis.
MS. SWISHER: But on the ground, Leigh Ann, they have to have what they're going to do, right? I mean, don't voters sort of like what are you going to do? And how do Democrats respond to that? Because they didn't think they were going to win at all. I mean, their belly aching before the election was rather severe.
MS. CALDWELL: And that was part of the problem on the ground is, it's funny talking to voters. If you talk to Republican voters, they literally told me that they didn't like Biden because there's kitty litter boxes in schools.
MS. CALDWELL: You talk to Democratic voters and they cared about abortion. They did not--they did not want Republicans anywhere near the office. So, as these moderate voters who we thought it was the economy, the Republican pitch was we're going to do nothing; we're going to stop the government spending, and government spending causes inflation, and so that's what we're going to do is not spend money.
You know, Democrats have pointed to all the things that they've tried to do, which--and also would say, voters are smarter than that. They know that this is something that is bigger. It's a global thing. It's not something that you can just turn on a switch.
MS. SWISHER: Right?
MS. CALDWELL: So, I mean, what happens in practicality now? Now we have a divided government.
MS. SWISHER: But they can’t do anything because this closeness. This is a crazy closeness.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah, we have a divided government. The agenda not only for the next two months in the lame duck is a little bit up in the air other than some spending bill and some Ukraine money, perhaps. But no one knows what's going to happen over the next two years. We're waiting to see. I mean, it's likely going to be the House of Representatives are going to be controlled by Republicans. Senate Democrats are meeting today for the first time after the election behind closed doors, where they're going to discuss perhaps what their agenda is going to be. They probably won't get that far. They're probably just celebrating today.
MS. CALDWELL: But, yeah. I don't know what the next two years is going to be--look like other than a lot of gridlock.
MS. SWISHER: A lot of gridlock. Do each of you agree with this? I mean, and just more noise, which I think will irritate these voters who have spoken rather clearly that we're tired of the noise. I mean, to me, that's what got through the most, was stop yelling, stop being crazy, stop fighting kind of thing.
MS. PARKER: Yeah, I think on the House side, I think of this very narrow majority that it looks like Republicans may take actually hurts them because that emboldens the whole sort of portion of the caucus that America just rejected, and it will be tough for McCarthy or whoever the leader is to do much and will remind the nation sort of what they didn't like about this last election.
The Senate is a little more intriguing to me, especially if Democrats pick up that seat in Georgia, because on the one hand, it's just one seat. But on the other hand, Biden has been bedeviled by two senators--right?--Manchin and Sinema.
MS. PARKER: And they sort of got this joint nickname, but they're really different. And a Sinema vote is different from a Manchin vote, and so having a one vote majority could really help him get stuff through.
MS. CALDWELL: You actually reminded me of something about--you know, you said it's so profoundly just now that the people who are going to be emboldened in the House are the people that were rejected by America, the people on the far right. Well, it's funny, you talk to House Republicans, and they don't think that. They're like, we didn't win--some of them are like we didn't win because we didn't fight hard enough. Look at Florida. We won in Florida with DeSantis, who was a strong leader. But no one points out that Democrats have stopped spending money in Florida. They didn't even contest Florida. And so it's--it was an uneven playing field.
MS. SWISHER: So where is the Joe Biden presidency right now? I mean, he seems to be winning, right? Even though there's all these--you know, the backlash with the Democrats before that, it’s he's not effective, he shouldn't run, he's too old. He seems to be winning. It feels like winning, at least. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. How do you look, each of you look at that?
MS. PARKER: The--I mean, actually, we did this big story a couple of weeks ago right before the midterms kind of taking stock of the first 21 months of Biden's presidency. And when you really lay it out, there were a lot of missteps based on a number of things, including faulty assumptions, and sort of the shorthand was sort of planning for the best and hoping for the best. But the truth is legislatively, they actually got a ton done with a tissue thin majority, and that is a real success.
I mean, I think the other thing--and this is more political--is you just sort of have this inertia, where you have someone who's about to turn 80, who is going to be more likely to run if Donald Trump runs, and it just sort of--like together, they're like locked in this octogenarian deathmatch that pushes the nation to like a rematch of 2020.
MS. SWISHER: Let’s be clear. They’re very lively 80-year-olds, right?
MS. PARKER: Yeah, very vigorous. Yeah.
MS. SWISHER: So, any thoughts beyond the octogenarian? No, I think--
MS. ALEMANY: Well, I do think the administration has a lot to now actually implement these next two years.
MS. SWISHER: I'm sorry?
MS. ALEMANY: They have a lot to implement these next two years in terms--especially in terms of their climate agenda, a lot of money to spend and actually get the ball rolling on proposals and things that ultimately passed. But I do think that what happened was a result of voters simply hated Donald Trump more than they hated Joe Biden, and the voters that disliked Joe Biden still voted for Democrats. And if you look at the exit polls, the voters that disliked Donald Trump were less likely to vote for Republicans. And at the end of the--at the end of the day, the margins are so thin and races are so tight, that, yes, Democrats did take some losses that they weren't necessarily expecting. But Republicans despite, you know, having history at their backs, weren't--didn't perform as well.
MS. SWISHER: But there's not a clear person in either party that you can think of, right? Pick one--pick one if one of the octogenarians, say, fell and broke their hip, for example. Sorry, I'm being obnoxious.
MS. ALEMANY: I think both parties are at an inflection point, although I think if you canvass Democrats and Republicans right now, Democrats would feel like they're much less in disarray than Republican.
MS. SWISHER: Democrats are always in disarray. Do you understand that?
MS. PARKER: It’s their resting state.
MS. SWISHER: Our nation’s newspapers. But who? Give me one.
MS. PARKER: I don't know. What if you do Ron DeSantis versus Gretchen Whitmer?
MS. SWISHER: Each of you do one.
MS. ALEMANY: That's good.
MS. SWISHER: You can’t have that one.
MS. ALEMANY: I'm in for Pete Buttigieg, and I feel like that was an inherent bias. So--
MS. SWISHER: Versus DeSantis?
MS. ALEMANY: No, versus Gretchen Whitmer. I was going to say--
MS. SWISHER: Oh, in the primary.
MS. ALEMANY: Yeah, yeah.
MS. SWISHER: All right, but do a matchup like she just did. I think you got the good one.
MS. ALEMANY: Okay. Kamala Harris versus Mike Pence.
MS. CALDWELL: Like everyone just went oh, no, no, no.
We just had our poll--we just had our poll. Oh, my gosh, I mean, so. So, our colleague in The Post wrote a story today about DeSantis is the inevitable one right now. But a lot of people have been inevitable, like Jeb Bush, they point--you know, he points out. And so it's so hard. We're two years out. But of course, like DeSantis right now. And then I mean, Gretchen Whitmer is such a good one. I mean, Gavin Newsom has lots of aspirations, like a California versus Florida showdown. He makes lots of comparisons. They both make lots of comparisons to each other state when they speak.
MS. SWISHER: Yes, they do.
MS. PARKER: And I like that everyone laughed at the Pence-Kamala because they're both--right?--like the former VP--in many ways they should be the most obvious presumptive.
MS. SWISHER: No.
Don't want to watch that show. I'm not interested in that show. It's become a show.
So, we only have one question left. From your perspective--
MS. ALEMANY: Oh, wait. Hold on.
MS. SWISHER: Who?
MS. ALEMANY: What about Elon Musk 2024?
MS. SWISHER: Yeah, he’s not--he’s not--
MS. ALEMANY: Does he have political aspirations?
MS. SWISHER: He wasn’t born in America, sadly for the rest of us.
MS. ALEMANY: Oh, right.
MS. SWISHER: So, we can’t have him as president. Oh, well. And you don’t want him. So, he cannot run. Him and Schwarzenegger can't run, I think, correct--if I'm correct.
Last question. How do you look at the state of democracy? And if voters really cared, voters really surprised people and came through in a very calm way when everyone else in Washington, New York, everywhere else is screaming, like crazy screaming? What is--how do you look at what happened, each of you? Last question.
MS. PARKER: I mean, I think not specifically on this, but in the past, having covered Trump since 2015, I have realized how tenuous all of these institutions are and how much a lot of these institutions are our sort of like a polite agreement among society in these institutions that we treat the Supreme Court this way or that way.
And I don't know. It--I guess what I've realized is it requires voters and individual actors and lawmakers like showing up for democracy in a way I didn't realize. I thought democracy just kind of worked. And I guess we saw voters show up on Tuesday.
MS. ALEMANY: I feel like I look back at last week as a sort of microcosm of this idea that at the end of the day, when there are wild swings both ways, voters pull America back to moderation.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah, I think it was on the verge of being, like, going off a cliff, like being bad. And then I think that the cliff is still there. But it's--you know, it's still a cliff, not a crash at the bottom of the valley.
MS. SWISHER: Yeah, nature's healing. Anyway, thank you so much. These are amazing reporters. We're excited to hear what you have to say and what's going to happen.
And tune in tonight, right? You’ll all be writing tonight? Exciting.
MS. ALEMANY: Washington Post Live. Don’t watch it on Fox.
MS. CALDWELL: We get to write about McCarthy and his speakership, so --
MS. PARKER: Oh, we didn’t even get to that.
MS. SWISHER: Another winner. Okay, great, thank you.
MR. RYAN: Hello, everyone. I'm Fred Ryan, publisher of The Washington Post. And before we break for lunch, I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has been part of this incredible Women's Summit, from those who have been the panelists to the moderators, to those of you who are live in the audience with us today and to the huge audience that’s watching on Washington Post Live. I'm reminded of JFK’s statement about the most incredible gathering of human talent and knowledge since Thomas Jefferson dying alone, considering who we have here today. But this morning, you heard from a number of world leaders who are in the center of the action, in the forefront of change. And this afternoon, after lunch, we're going to talk about the risks that courageous women around the world are facing, from those in Iran fighting for women's rights, to those challenging the power of Vladimir Putin, to those leading the cause for human rights all around the globe.
And I want to say that this incredible gathering would not be possible if it weren't for the support of three presenting sponsors who I want to thank today. One is AARP, second is Boston Consulting Group, and third, Volvo. So please join me in expressing our appreciation to them.
Now we're gonna take a brief break and resume with the afternoon program at 1:30. So, thank you for joining us.
[Lunch Recess] | 2022-11-17T20:49:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Inside Take: Post Reporters on the Midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-inside-take-post-reporters-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-inside-take-post-reporters-midterms/ |
I know we had a great panel a little bit earlier about taking care of special needs people. This is about the enormous number of people in this country, I'm sure in this room, who find themselves in the position of holding down full‑time jobs, part‑time jobs, maybe no job, and still having to care for people. So, it's a huge issue.
Today on The Washington Post website, there's an article talking about that, last month, 100,000 Americans had to call in sick, missed work, because of childcare issues. It's an all‑time high, higher even than it was during covid and during the pandemic.
MS. MARCIL: Indeed. Well, thank you so much. It's great to be here with you, Elizabeth, and with all of you today.
So, the care economy, if you think about it, it's really‑‑there's two parts of it. One is the paid care economy. I think that's what we typically think of, people delivering elder care in nursing homes, in assisted living facilities, people delivering childcare in childcare centers, and that's big, as you described. It's a $2 trillion economy in terms the paid piece‑‑$2 trillion.
MS. MARCIL: $2 trillion. And that's not the gray economy. That's actually the‑‑that is the reported number in terms of the economy. There's also an unpaid portion of it. So, if you think about it, many of us, yourself‑‑we've discussed this‑‑you have been caregivers, either for children or for parents or sometimes at the same time. That is another‑‑if you value that work, which we value that work, that's another $4 trillion. So, the overall care economy, just in the U.S. alone, $6 trillion with--for children, $4 trillion being in the unpaid portion of the economy.
MS. VARGAS: It's interesting that it's actually the unpaid caregivers, the people who are taking care of their kids, the people who are taking care of their parents even, because we know that with the baby boomers, we have this generation of people who are sandwiched between the two responsibilities. That is a huger, a bigger portion‑‑
MS. MARCIL: Indeed.
MS. MARCIL: That's right. That's exactly right. Two‑thirds. It's two‑thirds, the unpaid portion.
MS. MARCIL: That's a great question. So, you think about care and you think about it being a social issue, and it is completely a social issue, but it is a core economic issue.
So, let me just briefly describe that. If you look at unfilled vacant jobs today in the U.S., the number is 11 million‑‑11 million unfilled jobs. If you look at the care economy, 1.8 million jobs are unfilled. There's interrelatedness in terms of these two numbers, okay? So many of us count on paid caregivers to care for our parents, our children, or whatever that is, and so there's‑‑when you don't have enough people in the care economy, you don't have people to‑‑so there‑‑there's an‑‑
MS. VARGAS: You can't delegate.
MS. MARCIL: You can't delegate. You can't delegate.
And so, let me just frame that up in terms of supply and demand. So, if you look at the supply side, I'll quote one statistic: Since covid, one‑third of childcare facilities have either had a shutdown or have had to cut their care by 50 percent or more, because they can't find enough qualified workers.
MS. VARGAS: What's happening? Are people just quitting or‑‑
MS. MARCIL: Well, much has been said about the Great Resignation, Elizabeth, but the truth is the wages are low. It's typically thought of as women's work, so only appealing to that segment of the economy. Another core reason is many of these people actually have to take care of their own children. So, the combination of all those factors means that the supply is constrained and it's relatively low.
And on the demand side, it's increasing. So, if you think about the baby‑boom generation and the aging of that generation and more and more people living to be 80, 90, which is a great thing‑‑
MS. VARGAS: Mm‑hmm.
MS. MARCIL: ‑‑but in that age sector, you know, they often need care. So, there's a demand issue. There's increasing demand, and there's a supply issue, which is constrained supply.
MS. MARCIL: That's right.
MS. VARGAS: I'm a single mom with two teenage boys, two parents in their 80s, one of whom is having some problems with dementia.
MS. MARCIL: Yeah.
MS. VARGAS: So, it requires a great deal of care, and this statistic, an average employee working full‑time spends an average of 30 hours a week caregiving. That's astonishing.
MS. MARCIL: It's incredible. It's incredible. That's right. That's what our research‑‑we've done research over many years, but our most recent study, which is on our website being released today, of 12,000 respondents actually has that data in it, which is 56 percent of employed people, people in the job market, are also caregivers, and the median number of hours of care they deliver is 30 hours a week. It's incredible.
MS. MARCIL: Yes.
MS. VARGAS: It's never going to shrink.
MS. MARCIL: Yes. We forecast that in 2030, the cost to the U.S. economy will be $290 billion. So, there's a cost today in terms of jobs that aren't filled and then also people who can't get back in the workforce. The cost today, you fast forward, there's going to be a $290 billion gap, and to dimensional‑ize that, Elizabeth, that's actually the economy of the State of Connecticut. It's big.
MS. VARGAS: That's how much money we're going to lose because of lost work, unfilled positions, or people who have to resign because somebody's got to take care of the kids or somebody's got to be home‑‑
MS. MARCIL: That's exactly right.
MS. VARGAS: And I can't find anybody who will do it.
MS. VARGAS: That's extraordinary.
MS. VARGAS: So, there's actual data‑‑
MS. MARCIL: Data. That's right.
MS. MARCIL: That's right. And we've done research. For everyone who loses paid care, they lose it because their daycare center shuts down or it no longer becomes affordable. One in 10 employees actually have to just fully remove themselves from the workforce.
MS. MARCIL: Absolutely.
MS. MARCIL: Absolutely. Absolutely. And we have both the quantitative research and then a set of very compelling stories of people who have had to make these hard decisions to leave jobs that they love and that actually are contributing to them and to their families and to the economy, but they've had to leave. They just were presented with no other choice.
MS. VARGAS: So, it's disproportionately on our shoulders.
MS. VARGAS: Okay. Let's get to what can be done about all this, because we have the private sector and we have the public sector.
MS. VARGAS: And let's start with the private sector‑‑
MS. MARCIL: Okay.
MS. VARGAS: ‑‑because in many ways, that's the easier solution.
MS. MARCIL: And you know what, Elizabeth? It's good business. The truth is, it's good business.
So, I've benefited taking care of my father, taking care of my two girls, and we have many, many employees. Fifty‑six percent of our employees in North America have, at some point, benefited from these policies, and it's good business because it actually drives retention. So, it's not just about recruitment. It drives retention. It actually encourages recruitment and loyalty. It actually drives loyalty as well. So, there's a good reason, other than altruism, for the private sector to do it.
MS. VARGAS: But why haven't more companies followed that, that sign? I did a prime‑time special for ABC News 16 years ago after the birth of my youngest child about working mothers, and we interviewed experts who said exactly what you just said‑‑
MS. VARGAS: Like it's paid back in dividends with employee‑‑you know, hard work, loyalty. They'll really‑‑it's incredible. And that's been true and common knowledge for 15 years.
MS. MARCIL: It's been true for 15 years. There has been progress. Actually, you saw kind of a big spike during covid of companies offering both maternity leave and paternity leave and family leave, but that's coming down now. You see that number coming down.
So, you say why I think the economics aren't understood, and that's one‑‑
MS. VARGAS: Still.
MS. VARGAS: Okay. You walked right into the public sector. Let's hear it.
MS. VARGAS: Given we're in Washington, D.C., with our newly divided Congress, what can the public sector do?
MS. MARCIL: We are the only developed country in the world that doesn't have some sort of paid maternity leave. Now, we do have it in some states. So, I don't‑‑and we certainly have it offered by some great companies, but it is not at the federal level, as you know. And I think‑‑I think that's thing one. I think thing two is‑‑and it's complicated but helping to support higher wages. If you look at the wages, it's hard work. You know this. It's hard work to take care of elderly people, and the wages, while often, mostly often higher than minimum wage, aren't that much higher than minimum wage.
MS. VARGAS: These are the people we're hoping will keep my father from burning the house down‑‑
MS. VARGAS: We've been hearing, though, that that's what we need to do as a country for a long time. What are your‑‑what's your optimism level that that will, in fact, happen?
MS. MARCIL: I'm optimistic. I really‑‑I think in some ways, it's not that hard. In terms of moving the needle‑‑and I'll talk about the private sector versus the public sector. I think when the economics and the loyalty benefits and actually the costs are better understood, I think we can help companies to move the needle. I think there's real opportunity there, and they're going to have to.
I mean, the workforce, the talented workforce is going to be constrained. We're not replacing ourselves in terms of the number of children we're having. And so, I think companies to attract and retain the best people are going to have to get better. I think when they understand the return on investment, even better, more quantified, I think we'll get there. I think we'll get there.
MS. VARGAS: Why is that going down? Is that because of the economic constraints right now? Is that because of the gig economy where more and more people are employed sort of in part‑time jobs without benefits? Like, what's the reason behind this? And because it's the wrong way. We're trending the wrong way.
MS. MARCIL: It's the wrong way.
You know, I get a sense when I talk to various CEOs, they're trying to figure how things are going to play out in terms of the economy and in terms of the workforce, what percent are going to be hybrid, what percent are going to be fully remote. I think they're trying‑‑in many sectors that have been disrupted by inflation and by supply chain issues, they're trying to figure out what they're doing next. And so, I think there's an inflection point, and we've gone, Elizabeth, a bit backwards, but I think there's a real opportunity to go for it. I really do. I really firmly believe that.
MS. VARGAS: Well, you've got your work cut out for you. You've got to convince everybody out there that this is in their best interests.
MS. MARCIL: We're on it.
MS. MARCIL: Thank you.
MS. MARCIL: Wonderful.
MS. VARGAS: Once again, you can see the BCG report. Go to the BCG website and read it all there. It's really important. It affects probably every single person in this room. So, thank you so much. | 2022-11-17T20:49:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Investing in the Care Economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-investing-care-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-investing-care-economy/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Invisible Toll
MS. QUINN: Hi. I’m Sally Quinn, a Washington Post author and writer.
MS. QUINN: My guests today are here to talk about caregiving and how it's shifted since the pandemic. We have Representative Lauren Underwood, who has championed legislation around caregiving on the Hill. Lauren is a three-fer--the first woman, the first person of color, and the first millennial to represent her community in Congress.
REP. UNDERWOOD: Thank you.
MS. QUINN: And she is also the youngest African American woman to serve in the house. So you're really a four-fer.
REP. UNDERWOOD: Yeah.
MS. QUINN: Barbara Ebel is a caregiver to a daughter with autism and a mother with Alzheimer's, and she is here today with her hair combed and both shoes on the right foot, and well turned out, which is amazing already, and she has a job. Welcome, Barbara.
MS. QUINN: Tim Shriver is the chair of Special Olympics and an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, and he was also my choice for president in 2016.
MS. QUINN: That's not a joke, by the way. So thank you so much for joining me here today.
MS. QUINN: You may wonder why I'm moderating this panel on caregiving. It's because my son, Quinn, who is now 40, was born with a hole in his heart and learning disabilities, and he has been in and out of special hospitals and special schools much of his life. My mother was a stroke victim who was partially paralyzed and cognitively impaired for 12 years. My father was sick most of that time. And my late husband, Ben Bradlee, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and for his last two years of his life required constant caretaking. And not only that, my beloved dog, Sparky, died of cancer during that time, and I was the primary caregiver for all of them. So I really get it.
Barbara, you represent the "sandwich generation." You have a daughter with autism and a mother with Alzheimer's, and you all live under the same roof. And we were talking about this in the green room. How do you do it, because you also have a full-time job and you're very successful at what you do? And I wonder if the pandemic has changed your life as a caregiver, but really, tell us how you do this because most people couldn't.
MS. EBEL: Thank you, Sally, for the question. It has been challenging, and having to transition when the pandemic hit to all of us back in 2020, it was lifechanging. My daughter, which many of you know--and if you know about the autism in general, kids are very structured, so changes are not really welcomed to many of our kids. So the other son we have to change from physical school to remote, and my daughter was really not happy, and she was having some difficulty to basically be on the screen and be able to have a lot of kids looking at her, so she got a little intimidated. We have to take time to be able to support her. I was actually juggling between being on the screen for my own job and being able to do my own work and be able to support her.
As a result of these changes and being in a remote learning environment, she developed depression. So right now, she has actually sort of like regressed, emotionally. So she wants to just be in her room, and she feels that covid--and this is literally what she said to me--covid has destroyed her life.
MS. QUINN: She is 17 now.
MS. EBEL: And she is only 17. And the reason is because she was not accustomed--both of our kids were not accustomed to being able to be in this remote environment, and she was actually quite, socially, she likes to be with her friends, and she misses to play with her friends. But other son, we have to be like that for a year and a half.
MS. QUINN: But you have your mother at the same time.
MS. EBEL: I do have my mother, and at the same time I have to take in my mother that have Alzheimer's. We didn't have any caregiver during that time because we were afraid that if we were going to bring in somebody to help me in the house that that person could potentially have covid.
MS. QUINN: So you did both.
MS. EBEL: I did both, and at the same time I was working full-time.
MS. QUINN: And does your mother know who you are?
MS. EBEL: My mother, no, she doesn't. She has pretty severe Alzheimer's. And I was saying, I feel like I was going from one room to the other, taking care of my daughter and my mother. But I have to say that I was very lucky because I have a very supportive husband. He was actually helping me and, being with my daughter, helping her in the remote learning environment when I was in another room, basically doing my job with my work.
So yes, it was challenging, but I did a lot of work in trying to speak to her and be able to understand that this is only going to be temporary and that we are here to support her. And I was able to also call other people in the community. They were also helping us as well, so we were able to get through.
MS. QUINN: So is everybody in your household on antidepressants?
MS. EBEL: Well--
MS. QUINN: That's a serious question.
MS. EBEL: Well, you know, I think sometimes now I feel, wow, you know, I feel like I'm a superwoman.
MS. QUINN: Right. You are.
MS. EBEL: Because a lot of times I was wondering if I needed help myself.
MS. QUINN: You do need help. Sometimes the caregiver is the one who needs the most care.
MS. EBEL: That's so true.
MS. QUINN: I know that because I've been there.
MS. EBEL: I'm so sorry. So that's why I became an advocate, because a lot of times people don't look at the parents. So I because as one that is going to be advocating for our parents, because sometimes we forget that we are human beings and that we need that social support, the community support, and I do have it, but I'm helping other parents.
I have a lady. She actually is with my daughter. I mean, her son is with my daughter in the same school, in the classroom. And she came to me over the weekend to say, "I'm struggling because the school is really not supporting my child that has a disability," and she doesn't have the means because sometimes we have to hire an attorney to be able to go through the litigation process, to make sure that the school system is actually doing what is right for our kids; and I'm not saying that the school is not, but sometimes there are some things that they are not executing.
And I said, "Do you have the support from your family?" And she said, "No, I don't have the financial means." So I was able to connect her with some resources that are actually helping her to be able to get to the next stage.
So that's why we have to fight for what is right for our kids and our parents, because if we don't also take care of the parents, that they're actually--like myself, I got emotional here, and it's okay to be emotional--and to make sure that they are actually in a good place. How can they take care of their kids?
MS. QUINN: Tim, you've been through this because your mother, Eunice Shriver, started Special Olympics because her sister, Rosemary, had intellectual disabilities. How did growing up with Rosemary affect you and your family in terms of caretaking?
MR. SHRIVER: Yeah. Well, first of all thank you for having me. It's an honor. I don't think I belong, honestly, on this panel, and not just because of the distinguished guests but for obvious other reasons, but I'm happy to be here, as the son of a powerful woman.
MR. SHRIVER: And the brother of a powerful woman.
MR. SHRIVER: The husband of a powerful woman. So I'm going to try to channel their energy.
My mom would always tell the story of her own mother, in the 1920s and '30s, putting the phone down day after day and muttering the words, "There's nothing for Rosemary. Nothing. Nothing." And her voice would trail off, "Nothing." No health care, no school, no childcare, no tutorials, no physical therapy. And it always reminded me of a quote a heard from a mom in our movement, in the Special Olympics movement, "I wouldn't change my child for the world, but I would change the world for my child."
I think that was the animating spirit that my mother had, not that anything was wrong with her sister, but there was a lot wrong with the way her sister was being treated by the world that animated her desire to help found the NICHD, founded really, found the energy--yes, President Kennedy and the leaders of Congress in those days. But I'm very proud that it's the only institute in the NIH named for a human being. It's called the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
So it animated my mom's whole life, to change the course of history not just for her own sister but for those around her. Today, we have made a lot of progress, and not enough but we've made a lot, but we've got a long way to go. Around the world, 80 percent of children with intellectual disabilities never go to school, never--not one grade, not one lunchbox, not one pencil case, not one walk to school, not one bus, not one recess, not one birthday party their whole lives.
So there is an almost criminal backdrop here, and the largest caregiving institution in the world is schools. Some places 6 years, some places 8 years, but in the United States, thank God, somewhere between 12 and 13 years of support for families helping in the raising of children. Those opportunities are denied to children around the world, and even here in the United States we still have so much social isolation facing children with special needs and, as a result, the burden falls on their caregivers.
You know, the only thing I think I can add concretely to this conversation is a plea for a change in values. It sounds so fundamental and so abstract. But, you know, we value competition. We value success. We value achievements. We value money. We value political power. We value all these things. It's fine. It's good. I do too.
But unless we begin to equally value compassion and equally value relationships, this is one of the great lessons of the Special Olympics community. You come to a Special Olympics event--many of you may have been--and you know you're in a place that values relationship more than power. It's just obvious. Everybody gets it.
And so caregivers, if you can call them that--coaches, volunteers, people of goodwill--flock for themselves, for their own health, for their own spiritual strength, for their own emotional stability.
You know, I just want to mention one thing. There is a company that's looking at this in the health care space. Representative Underwood might be interested in this. It's a small company but what it does is--it's Medicare, but to diagnose the supports needed for caregivers and provide treatment and supports for the caregivers. They've already proven they can delay people going into nursing care by almost two years if you just support the caregivers. Huge savings to the government just by supporting caregivers.
So I think there is a cultural challenge we're facing across all these walks of life to remove some of the stigma associated with vulnerability, and to, in some ways, I dare say, celebrate. No one wants to have these tremendously challenging problems, but all of us, in some ways, are capable of responding much more joyfully and powerfully and successfully than we have valued in the past.
And maybe one little lesson in our movement is that caregiving can be an enormous source of joy if it's supported by the culture and the community. When it's isolating and painful, it leads to very difficult and often very damaging outcomes.
MS. QUINN: Lauren, you have commented before about the fact that women, especially, left their jobs during the pandemic to be caregivers, and we all know that caregiving is a woman's work. Sorry, Tim.
MR. SHRIVER: Yeah, no. I mean, you heard that Barbara said that she had a supportive husband. Once in a while the men come through. Not often, sadly, but once in a while.
MS. QUINN: And, I mean, I just think for me it would've been unimaginable for my husband, Ben, to leave his job as editor of The Washington Post to take care of Quinn, even though I was a full-time reporter at The Post. And so I had to quit my job, and I wouldn't have had it any other way, but the fact is that that's what happens.
So Lauren, I'm wondering how do we lessen the load for women?
REP. UNDERWOOD: Well, we know that especially during the time of the pandemic this has come into a sharp focus. We're in this period of economic recovery across the country, we tout the record number of jobs that have been created, and yet so many people, so many women have permanently left the workforce because we haven't solved this issue. We haven't solved childcare. We haven't solved caregiving. We haven't solved paid leave.
And so, you may remember about a year ago the House passed a bill called Build Back Better that offered solutions to all three. Obviously, that didn't move in the Senate but it doesn't mean that our focus has lessened in any way in the House. We are laser-focused on getting these across the finish line.
And so, one solution that I drafted was a bill called the Job Protection Act. We are all familiar with the legacy piece of legislation called the Family and Medical Leave Act, FMLA, and many people know about FMLA but they don't know that half of all workers aren't eligible for it. People who work for some small businesses aren't eligible. People who just started a new job aren't eligible. You know, there are just so many different reasons why folks aren't eligible.
And so while there's so much energy around having a new, universal paid leave benefit, which is good and we absolutely need that in this country, we also need to make sure that we're expanding the baseline program, FMLA, so that all workers have an opportunity to have job-protected paid leave, because if we only have a universal program then that means that, yes, you'll get paid, but then is your job going to be there when you're ready to go back to work?
MS. QUINN: You said that 1 in 5 Americans provide unpaid caregiving.
REP. UNDERWOOD: Yes.
MS. QUINN: And, you know, the baby boomers are hitting old age now and there's nobody to care for them. So, what do we do about that?
REP. UNDERWOOD: Well, we certainly know that there is a lot of work that needs to be done to raise the wages of our caregiving economy. There is tremendous advocacy that's happening with the Domestic Workers Alliance and some of our labor unions--in Illinois, SEIU leads a lot of this work--to make sure that these are jobs that pay livable wages, that folks can have careers with dignity. Right? Because this is an honorable profession, taking care of people in their most vulnerable moments.
You know, I'm a nurse, and so I know a lot about taking care of people in times of significant medical need. But then, you know, when that nurse is not either visiting the home or there's a home health care aide or someone who comes in several times during the week to help with activities of daily living, oftentimes that person is not making a livable wage. Right? We have to be able to support this workforce so that it can grow as we are facing the largest population entering into retirement, and what we know about as people age, you know, acute medical needs that often come along.
MS. QUINN: And I don't think people actually understand how hard caretaking is. I just think they don't get it.
REP. UNDERWOOD: The emotional strain, the physical strain, the economic toll that's taken. There's sacrifice that occurs at all stages of this action that's often done with love because you care about this family member or community member, and yet they're not being supported properly.
MS. QUINN: Tim, you talk about this organization called TCARE, which is an electronic matching with patients and care. How does that work?
MR. SHRIVER: Well, it's just as I described earlier. It's a startup. It's an early-stage venture, but it's accredited in four states already to take someone in a situation, if I were caring for my dad, as I did when he had Alzheimer's, I would be able to--
MS. QUINN: I should say that his father and my husband were in the same Alzheimer's men's group.
MR. SHRIVER: Yeah.
MS. QUINN: It was very sweet.
MR. SHRIVER: And they loved it. And they loved it.
MS. QUINN: They loved it, yeah.
MR. SHRIVER: A great support, another example of a community creating a support system, at that time a community-based organization starting a group for men who were struggling with memory loss.
But if you just give people a chance to log in and say "this is what I need," and not "this is what my father needs," or "this is what my brother needs," or "my sister," "my child needs," but "this is what I need," you can immediately get resources to people who often don't think they either deserve it--a lot of caregivers are so selfless they think they don't deserve anything. They think they're pouring everything out, and they should, and they ought to, and they don't think they deserve the compassion and care.
So I just think there are small adjustments we can make in the system. TCARE is a good example. But we've got to really think about how the mental--I hate to say it because it sounds so abstract--the mental model here. You know, the Special Olympics movement is pushing this around the world, community-based supports that value children who have vulnerabilities, not just care for them but value them. We don't value elders in our culture. We don't value the wisdom of--
MS. QUINN: You don't feel valued?
MR. SHRIVER: Okay. Let's not get started here. I'm supposed to be a caregiver here. You're testing me.
MR. SHRIVER: But I do think that, you know, Representative Underwood is making a good point. There is legislation that can be passed. But there is a shift. You know, even our politics. I don't want to make this political, but our politics is so destructive of the human spirit. You know, it wears us down, makes us not care about each other. It bleeds us. I’m not talking about partisan politics here. I'm just saying we've got to check ourselves a little bit, how we talk about one another, how we talk to one another, how we value one another, how we see the importance of treating people with dignity, even when there are vulnerabilities and--
MS. QUINN: Tim?
MR. SHRIVER: Yeah, I'm sorry.
MS. QUINN: We have time for one more quick question.
MR. SHRIVER: Okay. I'm shutting up. I didn't take more time than the women on this panel. I just wanted to be clear.
MS. QUINN: Barbara, I want to ask you the last question. What does the idea of caring for the caretaker mean to you? I mean, who takes care of you?
MS. EBEL: My friends, my family, and the community. So I think if we can step up and be able to support the caregivers and be able to just make a simple call, "How are you? Let's do a massage. Let's do our nails." Just little things like that really make a big difference. And to be able to, you know, make them feel that people care and that they are there to support them, especially when they need it the most.
MS. QUINN: And Tim, you were saying one last thing--I have one last question--one last thing about dignity. Why is dignity so important?
MR. SHRIVER: I think it's our God-given gift, and I think when we lose it, it creates an enormous pain and reaction. And I think when we give it to people it creates an enormous positive, cascading energy that can flow out into the culture. And I think what we see in people like Barbara and all of you who have given care is in those moments of great compassion and care, when you treat someone with dignity, no matter how weak, no matter how vulnerable, no matter how close to their own, maybe even death, they are, the energy released from that, from those moments, can change the world.
MS. QUINN: So we're just about out of time. I'm sorry. We could go on for a long time. This is a great panel. Thank you all very much. Barbara, Tim, and Lauren Underwood, I'm so happy you were here today. And I think we've all learned a little bit about how important caretaking is, something that most people don't think about. So, thank you. | 2022-11-17T20:49:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Invisible Toll - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-invisible-toll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-invisible-toll/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Bearing Witness: Ukraine
MS. BROWN: She’s so moving in her courage and her endurance. If you want to support her foundation, and I’m sure many of you will want to, you can do so at Olena ZelenskaFoundation.org.
Sevgil, so President Zelensky said yesterday that the capture of Kherson is the beginning of the end of the war. So you are the editor of Ukraine's most influential daily news site. From your reporters on the ground, from your information, how do you see that? Do you think he's right?
MS. MUSAIEVA: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for having me, and thank you for your support, because without it, all our victories will be not possible. And we feel it, and today Olena Zelenska said it, and I can just say that it's absolutely true. Without your support, without weapons, without everything that people provide us, it will be not possible.
Yeah. You know, after the liberation of Kherson‑‑personally me, I'm from Crimea. I dream about that next time we will receive some news about liberation of Simferopol or my native Kerch, and we do believe in that. We believe that we will win this war in time.
But sitting even now on the stage, I'm reading the news that right now Russia hit residential buildings in Ukraine, hit already three residential building right now. It's happening right now. Of course, this victory will be difficult. This victory will be not very soon, but we believe that we have this struggle. We have this passion, and we actually don't have a chance to lose this war because this is worse‑‑this is war to the right of our country to exist.
MS. BROWN: To survive.
MS. MUSAIEVA: To survive.
MS. BROWN: Yes, to survive.
So, when you took over this job in 2014, two of your predecessors had been killed in the line of duty. I mean, the co‑founder‑‑
MS. MUSAIEVA: Mm‑hmm.
MS. BROWN: ‑‑was found beheaded. A reporter was killed in a car bombing. I mean, you actually worked before as a business reporter. I'm just, you know, frankly, in awe of why you took this leap into danger to edit this news site at a time of such conflict.
MS. MUSAIEVA: Yes. The co‑founder Ukrainska Pravda, Georgiy Gongadze, was killed in 2000, and I was just 13 years old. I grew up in southmost region of Ukraine, Crimea, and this story is etched in my heart that the truth is a weapon because, you know, this story was a huge‑‑it was a huge impact of this story in Ukraine and just for freedom of speech in our country and in trust for the journalist. And it led to accusations to the government and to the protest, and it was revolution, first revolution, Orange Revolution. And I was already 17 years old, and I took part in this revolution because it was struggle of Ukrainian people for freedom, democracy, and Ukrainska Pravda played an important role just to move forward freedom of press as an essential value of our country.
MS. BROWN: I know, but you're so young, and it must be so frightening, frankly.
MS. MUSAIEVA: You know, after Crimea was occupied, my heart was so broken. I understood that I can't follow business news anymore. It's not about that. I have to‑‑I need to help my country and people in Crimea as well, and I understood that maybe Ukrainska Pravda will be also the way how I can do that.
Well, Janine, you and I have known each other a long time. You are a very celebrated war reporter in many theaters of war, but now you're an activist actually, you know, training to collect war crimes evidence in the midst of this conflict. So what compelled you to turn away from the telling of stories to sort of documenting evidence? That's a different role.
MS. di GIOVANNI: Yes, it is. First of all, thank you, everyone, for coming out this morning. Thank you, Tina and Sally and Sevgil and Heidi. Such an honor to be with such amazing women, and being with people like you gives me energy and gives me strength to keep doing this kind of work.
So The Reckoning Project was founded on February 25th, the day after the invasion, and it basically was born out of my extreme sorrow and bitterness at having witnessed three genocides in my life: Srebrenica, Rwanda, and the slaughter of the Yazidi people. I didn't want to see a fourth, and more than that, I've spent basically more than 35 years as a war reporter but mainly focused on human rights and on war crimes. And I have seen too many bad guys get away with it and never get anywhere near The Hague, let alone get indicted or even outed in their own countries.
And I've sat with too many women that have been raped or violated. I always think of women in Bosnia that were held in rape camps, 20,000 women, some of them raped up to 16 times a day just to get them pregnant so that their gene pool would be broken. And some of them have to still face their rapists every day in the villages where they live because these guys never even got on any kind of indictment list for The Hague.
So The Reckoning Project, Peter Pomerantsev, my partner, who's an expert in Russian disinformation, and Nataliya Gumenyuk, who is a famous Ukrainian journalist, the three of us decided that we weren't going to wait for the ICC or for investigators to start working. We decided to start working immediately on the ground, documenting the atrocities in real time, so that by the time the courts are ready for these cases, we will have all of the evidence. And we can say, "We're watching. We see you, and you are not going to get away with it, not this time."
So, in many ways, I couldn't have done this job when I started out because I needed the kind of 35 years of experience of working in war zones. Heidi and I met during the First Intifada in Israel. I've, you know, been‑‑the kind of gathering of the experience that I have from being on the ground has led me to be able to take a team of 15 Ukrainian journalists, train them to be human rights monitors basically, and we have templates. We're in the field throughout the country of Ukraine, and we interview witnesses. Then we verify it using many different sources, and then we build cases. So we work‑‑
MS. BROWN: So how do you recruit these people? I mean, are they reporters that you know? Are they people that you sort of find and train, and how do you do that in the middle of the bloodshed?
MS. di GIOVANNI: Yeah. It's been so interesting. So Nataliya, who runs a journalism lab in Ukraine, recruited 15 local reporters, and so this is the really interesting thing. I have huge respect for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty and other groups, but they're foreigners that go in and out, and our team are Ukrainians. So it empowers them to be reporting on their own country or documenting the atrocities. They're local journalists, and so they know‑‑they're from the village. Everyone knows them. Everyone trusts them. So they're able to basically record these atrocities, and people trust them.
How we train them, we use very rigorous methods, giving them‑‑we're having another training next week. Every six months, we bring them in from all over Ukraine to Kyiv. This time, actually, we're going outside of Kyiv because the electricity situation. And we give them training in interviewing techniques in‑‑for instance, I never knew this in all my years of being a reporter. You cannot interview traumatized people and have it stand up in court. There may be some of you who are lawyers here, and you did know this. You cannot go to a traumatized person, get evidence from them. A prosecutor will throw it out. So they have to relearn and not think like journalists but think like lawyers. And they're trained in international humanitarian law.
We try to do a lot of trauma training with them because, of course, they are living in the midst of it for 24/7.
So I'm really proud of my team, but it's‑‑I'm the director, and I'm guiding them, and I'm leading them. And they look to me kind of like a mother because I've been through so many wars. So I will tell them we lived through the siege of Sarajevo. It was three years. There was no water, there was no electricity, and we survived. And you can too. You will get through this. But they're a remarkable group of people.
And I just have one more thing to say. Most of them are women‑‑
MS. BROWN: Mm‑hmm.
MS. di GIOVANNI: ‑‑because our‑‑we had men who were mobilized to the front. So we're a group of very strong Ukrainian women and two Syrians who also know very well what injustice means.
MS. BROWN: Thank you. That's extraordinary work.
So, Heidi, obviously as a great photojournalist, your challenge is to get very close‑‑
MS. LEVINE: Mm‑hmm.
MS. BROWN: ‑‑you know, to the action. I mean, it's very dangerous, and if you don't get that image, there's nothing, right? So you have to get as close as you can. So how does photographing this war in Ukraine compare to the other conflicts? I mean, you've covered wars in Syria and Lebanon, for instance. What are the particular sorts of challenges you've been facing in doing the remarkable photographs that you have from Ukraine?
MS. LEVINE: Well, thank you. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for having me and all the people I have met over the‑‑since the beginning of the war that have let me into their lives to try to tell their story. I've had incredible support.
Covering the war in Ukraine has been very challenging. It's very dangerous. There are lots of journalists who have been killed. Wearing a press badge does not make you safer. In fact, many journalists are targeted. We've stopped actually even putting media signs on our cars because we were targeted.
In this war, I would say it's one of the‑‑it is the first war that I have seen a whole society come together to work together, to fight to win‑‑hopefully win this war. There's no doubt in anyone's mind in Ukraine that they will win this war.
I have seen elderly women and young kids working together to cook food for the troops, to provide for the people that are staying in shelter. I have seen‑‑I've met volunteers who are risking their lives, coming under fire, to take elderly people out of their homes to evacuate them.
They're particularly very vulnerable.
MS. BROWN: I'd like to actually call up some of these pictures, if we may‑‑
MS. LEVINE: Sure.
MS. BROWN: ‑‑because some of the ones that we have here to show bear out what you're saying. You've done particularly moving work, I feel, on the elderly, actually, who frequently get forgotten in these situations.
MS. LEVINE: In this image, I took in Eastern Ukraine in Pokrovsk, which is a hub, an evacuation hub. And I was with The Washington Post team and Siobhán O'Grady, and we met actually these women, these three women that were in the back of a van. There are also other patients.
So, basically, let me just go backwards. What happens every day, there's an evacuation train that leaves at 4:30 in the afternoon, but by three o'clock, the volunteers that have risked their lives to evacuate people take‑‑gather at the train station. It took about an hour before these women were actually carried in the blankets and boarded onto the train.
These three women are all wearing red bracelets. They had been‑‑and most of the time were holding onto each other. One of the women actually‑‑leg was amputated from diabetes. Some of the women couldn't speak. One of the women actually had a note with her phone number. They did not know where they were going‑‑
MS. BROWN: Yeah. This‑‑
MS. LEVINE: ‑‑and which is really heartbreaking.
MS. BROWN: So it really, really is. Let's just run through these images now.
MS. LEVINE: In the next image‑‑
MS. BROWN: Go to the next image. Yeah.
MS. LEVINE: This is taken in the beginning of March, just a few weeks into the war, and thousands of people were crossing the Irpin bridge which was just partly destroyed. Nobody could drive over it.
This woman, an elderly woman, was covered in snow. It was freezing. She's being transported in a shopping cart, and within those two days, we interviewed over 20 people, conducted 20 interviews, and people told us that‑‑they were outside their homes. There were land mines. The Russians had controlled 20 to 30 percent of the city at the time.
When I did get into Irpin and crossed the bridge, I saw dead elderly people, other people who had been killed laying on the street, laying in parks. We met people that were taking shelter in the basement. They didn't have any food or electricity. On top of the bridge, I saw a man that had been killed.
MS. BROWN: Let's go to the next one here and just try to get through these amazing images.
MS. LEVINE: So this is also an elderly man being carried by volunteers, and I have to say this was so heartbreaking that I was actually having nightmares after visiting and documenting. It was so shocking to see people carrying whatever, like, they could only carry. You had elderly crossing. You had women and children and disabled on crutches, in wheelchairs. At times, there were missile strikes that actually killed a whole family, not very far away from this location. And it's just, like, so unbelievable that this is happening in 2022.
MS. BROWN: Mm‑hmm. Okay. Next picture. Oh, I think this picture is one of my‑‑this is the most moving. I mean, the fact that those red roses on the bed, you know, pick up the color on her sweater is something so beautiful and tragic about this picture.
MS. LEVINE: Well, her name is Adaya, and I photographed her in Slovyansk, in Eastern Ukraine, and it was just hours after the Russians had targeted her residential neighborhood. The rockets explode right outside on the street, leaving a huge crater. She is standing next to a pool of blood of‑‑from a soldier. Several soldiers had rented the room of her apartment a few days earlier because they were on leave from the front line, and she heard screaming and witnessed them trying to save the life of one of the soldiers.
Three other women were killed in that building. In fact, in one of the apartments, there was a woman, elderly woman, who had been just blown up, blown to pieces in her bedroom.
This is an apartment complex of 150 units. We went back and did a very in‑depth story about the people living in this building, and there are only nine people still living there.
MS. BROWN: It's incredibly powerful.
Sevgil, when you look at these images, I mean, you have all these reporters out on the ground reporting on this horror. How do you sort of administer to these people? Because, I mean, they are witnessing such painful stuff that, I mean, they must get traumatized themselves. Is it for you a hugely demanding sort of management job to essentially sort of run these reporters who are experiencing so much pain?
MS. MUSAIEVA: Of course, when I saw these pictures, for example, this bridge in Irpin, I have my personal story connected to this bridge because in Irpin was my classmate at Harvard, Nieman Fellowship, Brent Renaud, who is a brilliant documentarian. He was killed at this bridge, and he came to Ukraine to film a documentary about Ukrainian refugees. So it's also like a personal story, and you reflect in your personal way.
And, of course, it's traumatized because it's not only about it's covering war in your own country. It's about your relatives. It's about your countrymen.
And, you know, when I went to these villages just after Ukrainian army came to these villages and I spoke to the people, they usually use their even own language. And it's so simple and at the same time so heartbreaking. So it's just like the grief in the formaldehyde.
MS. MUSAIEVA: And you can cry when‑‑
MS. MUSAIEVA: You cried after, after you listened these recordings you took in those places.
And, you know, the most interesting thing that I'm thinking about the role of journalism, of course, it's also‑‑it's not only about covering. It's about empathy, and during the war, it is so important, because when I went‑‑for example, one of the villages, it's 30 kilometers away from Ukrainian‑‑from Russian‑Ukrainian border and spoke to the woman and she told me that the most hardest thing was not even be without food, without water. She cried when she understood that I'm a journalist. She said that the hardest thing was be out of news.
MS. MUSAIEVA: You don't know what's going on.
MS. MUSAIEVA: You can’t understand everything.
And I remember I have received a call from my friend in Mariupol. Mariupol was already occupied. It was end of February, and he asked me only one question. So there were no connections, internet connection. And he asked only one question. "I know that Kyiv is already surrounded," and I was trying to explain, "No. It's not‑‑it's not truth. How did you know that? It's not a truth. It's not‑‑it's not like that." I was trying to explain it, but he didn't believe me.
MS. MUSAIEVA: And‑‑yeah, and you think about the role of journalism because it's literally‑‑when before I heard that information saves lives, it was just, okay, maybe it's not so kind of, but‑‑
MS. BROWN: Yeah. You understood it.
MS. MUSAIEVA: ‑‑now I understand.
MS. BROWN: You are an essential pillar of their ability to cope because you are giving them the information, but, you know, you are busy kind of in the thick of running these reporters and your staff and having‑‑helping them to be strong. Who keeps you strong? I mean, you know, you are a woman. You know, you're 35. You're‑‑you know, who keeps you strong? Because it must be very, very stressful for you personally.
MS. MUSAIEVA: Of course, my family and my partner is here also, Nic. He came with me this trip, and during this war, we had this personal story because he helped Brent and his team. And he was also the part of the story during this Irpin bridge, and it is hard. And I‑‑when it happened, I can't reach him for two hours. I didn't know if he is alive or not.
MS. MUSAIEVA: It was heartbreaking. And, of course, my team and‑‑I'm so proud of my team and my people, and, you know, I feel guilty feelings now because now they‑‑in this moment, they cover war, and they cover missile attack right now what is happening. And I saw, like, my phone booming with all this breaking news every second, and I feel guilty about that.
MS. MUSAIEVA: I'm sitting here in D.C., and my team in Kyiv.
MS. BROWN: Janine, what is your hardest thing to deal with in this work? Because, I mean, you are having to also keep this team motivated while also experiencing hideous sites themselves and stories. How does it impact on you?
MS. di GIOVANNI: It doesn't get easier. The interesting thing is I thought after all these years I've seen so much, I've seen so‑‑you know, so much murder, so many mass graves. I've interviewed so many mothers whose children were murdered in front of them, and I thought by this stage in my life, I'd be able to take it more.
MS. di GIOVANNI: But, as Heidi said, I still have nightmares. I still am gripped by anger, bitterness, but mainly sorrow.
This is my third Putin war, and I was in Grozny, Chechnya, when it fell to Russian forces in January 2000.
I really‑‑that was‑‑that was the moment I thought I'd die. You know, I couldn't‑‑I was one of the only Westerners in the whole country, and the Russians were closing in and with tanks, and I couldn't get out. And I thought, okay, this is it. You know, I'm going to die, but at least I'm going to die believing in something and something that I have done something. I actually managed to file my story to the Times of London. It just said "Grozny falls to Russian forces," and then my satellite phone died. But I got my story out.
And my second Putin war was Syria, where I spent eight years, and when Aleppo fell in December 2016, I cried and I cried, because I felt like I personally had failed. And I know that sounds egotistical, but I felt that journalism‑‑part of our job, the most noble part of it is not just to bear witness, which is, of course, hugely important, but to make a difference and to somehow affect policy.
So Ukraine's my third Putin war, and I really feel like we're doing it now, you know? I feel like this‑‑the world is galvanized. In some ways, I'm very sad that we're not looking at Yemen and Afghanistan and Iran and other places. We will be today. But that there is so much focus on Ukraine‑‑and there should be because the Ukrainians are fighting for us, for democracy, basically. They're doing the heavy lifting against Putin, who is a disruptor of all democracy.
But how do I protect myself? I think writing and I think the knowledge that somehow we are giving a voice to people that would not have a voice really matters to me.
And, you know, it's written in the Torah that if you save one life, you save humanity. And I think that's what I often in my darkest moments‑‑and believe me, I have many‑‑when I really feel like I just can't go on anymore, I just can't keep doing this, I think of that.
MS. BROWN: Heidi, just before we close, I just wanted to ask you, like, do you ever think about stopping? You know, I mean, you've done so much work over so many years, and, I mean, do you sometimes feel like‑‑
MS. LEVINE: No.
MS. LEVINE: I guess I'm guilty of having an addiction for wanting to make a difference, and actually, the more I do this, the more committed I feel to do that.
And I have seen that my images, you know, with baby steps have helped to make a difference. People have reached out to me asking how can they help, how can they donate. I met a‑‑we did a story about a woman who had walked the streets of Kyiv for days looking for insulin for her son. An NGO in France saw the story, wrote to me on Instagram, asked for the contact number. In the beginning, the woman didn't want to leave, but then a few months later, they sent me a photograph and the child and mother in France.
MS. BROWN: That's incredibly gratifying for you.
Just, you know, Sevgil, last word to you. What is‑‑what can everyone else in this room say to you in terms of sustaining you in your work?
MS. MUSAIEVA: You know, I was thinking about the role of democracy, and Janine mentioned it before. And, you know, in like free societies, democracy, freedom of press, independent press is taken for granted, like bread, water, and it is normal like just. But I saw it like it was before March 2022 when I saw pictures from bombed‑out Mariupol and then when I saw people who were trying to bake the bread in the ruins of their homes and were trying to melt snow to have at least like some drinking water. And it's about the price of democracy during this‑‑those times and this time and those challenging times, and we keep fighting. So no way we don't‑‑we don't have a chance to lose this war. I mentioned it before, and I will repeat it more often. And that's why, of course, we are exhausted. Of course, we are tired. Of course, we are traumatized, but we have a big hope.
MS. BROWN: Well, that's incredibly brave, and I really want to thank you all.
MS. BROWN: For each of you, each of your work, each of these women is doing the most remarkable and indispensable work, and we thank you all so much for doing so. | 2022-11-17T20:49:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Bearing Witness: Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-1-bearing-witness-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-1-bearing-witness-ukraine/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Republican Rebel
MR. KANE: All right. Good morning, everybody. I’m Paul Kane. I’m a senior congressional correspondent here for The Washington Post. I think we know who our next guest is, Liz Cheney. Let’s get, you know, right into it. Late last night, there was the final declaration of the Arizona governor’s race. Kari Lake lost. And a couple of weeks ago, when you had come out in support of her opponent, she put out a tweet saying thank you, thank you very much because she had spent so much time disparaging sort of the McCain-ites, the Cheney-Bush wing of the party. What--some people may not have seen your tweet. So, what did you clap back at her last night?
MS. CHENEY: You're welcome.
MR. KANE: And I'm not sure we're ever supposed to reveal what happens backstage, but I did check, and her staff confirmed that it was the congresswoman's idea, and she just was waiting and waiting be able to do that.
But let's talk overall about the midterms. You did something you've never done before in your life. You openly endorsed, and in some cases actually campaigned for Democrats. How did they--the people that you endorsed and campaigned for, what was the sort of overall record?
MS. CHENEY: I think four out of five prevailed. And I really--I looked at this election cycle very much as one where we had to make sure that we prevented election deniers from taking power, and especially in offices like secretary of State's offices, governorships around the country. And I think the outcome was really heartening and very hopeful. I think we're not at the end by any means of this long battle that we have underway.
But if you think about the fact that we prevented people from taking office, who had said that they wouldn't honor the outcome of elections, that's not just sort of a victory for this cycle. But what that really means is that in 2024, the American people actually will get to choose their president, and that's very important.
MR. KANE: Is it even more heartening that some of these folks who were defeated, have conceded? People like--a guy like Doug Mastriano, in Pennsylvania, I still haven't read the statement in full, but people who covered his campaign felt like it was an out of body experience reading his concession, because it was, you know, fullhearted.
MS. CHENEY: Yeah, yeah. I think--look, you know, I think what we saw, fundamentally, is that the American people, the American voters, are good and honorable and decent. They believe in democracy. They're tired of the crazy, and they aren't going to elect people who are only going to certify outcomes that they agree with. And all of that is really important, and a really important foundation moving forward.
MR. KANE: I want to take you back to your first congressional campaign. It was August 2016. I flew out there. And we spent a Friday evening on a street corner a couple blocks from your parents’ high school in Casper, Wyoming.
At that time, you told me that, quote, there's no question that Trump is the better choice. You accurately said he will probably shake things up.
You know, there's no hindsight here. But what would--you know, if you can go back in time, and what would you say to yourself, what would you say to Paul Ryan, what would you say to Mitch McConnell? What--like, what did people do wrong six years ago, six and a half, seven years ago? Did they not appreciate the threat that he was?
MS. CHENEY: Certainly. I think that, you know, Donald Trump is very clearly a very dangerous man. I don't think that we appreciated how dangerous he was. I think that post the election of 2020 and post January 6th, there's absolutely no excuse and no defense. Nobody can now claim we don't know how dangerous he is, because we've all watched it and lived through it.
MR. KANE: For what it's worth you--I pressed you on what a Dick Cheney-Donald Trump Republican was and you said you're not a Dick Cheney Republican, you’re not a Donald Trump Republican, you are a Liz Cheney Republican, who is a strong constitutional conservative.
MR. KANE: Well, let's talk about this House majority, assuming they're at 217 right now, the Republicans. I assume one of those final four races will break their way. The Senate has stayed Democratic. There is still a Democratic president. What do you expect from this House GOP conference that, you know, you served as one of the leaders of for a few years? Is this--do they understand what happened? Or are we going to just see the hard march to the right?
MS. CHENEY: Well, I think that, first of all, I'd say it's really important for everybody to understand it's not--it's not a game. The forces of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar inside the House Republican Conference are strong. The majority of the House Republican Conference does not believe the election was stolen, recognizes reality, but they right now seem to be a silent majority. And those forces who think that we can whitewash what happened on January 6th, who think that we can embrace insurrection, I mean, they're following the lead of Kevin McCarthy.
MR. KANE: What is your breakdown? I get this question a lot when I talk to groups of students, college professors, those types. You know, what is the breakdown of people inside the Republican conference who, A, publicly don't support Trump, and then those that are sort of that quiet group?
MS. CHENEY: The vast majority is the--is the quiet group. I mean, the vast majority of members of the House Republican Conference, you know, are there because they believe in conservative principles and values and because they want to do the best they can to represent their constituents. That's true of the majority of the Democrats, too. The majority of the members of the House of Representatives want to do the right thing and they're there for the right reasons, and we ought to be able to recognize that even when we have policy disputes. Unfortunately, right now, those people who are very destructive and who have done things like espouse White supremacy and anti-Semitism have a stranglehold on Kevin McCarthy, and that means they've got a stranglehold on the conference. So, you know, it's going to take I think, you know, a couple of cycles for us to break that stranglehold. But it is--it's really dangerous and does not reflect the reality of who the vast majority of Republicans are, or the vast majority of Republican elected officials.
MR. KANE: Do you want to tell the orange Jesus story from January 6th?
MS. CHENEY: Do I have a choice?
MR. KANE: You told it publicly recently.
MS. CHENEY: Yeah. No, I mean, look, I was in the cloakroom, the Republican cloakroom on January 6th getting ready to deliver remarks against objections--explaining why, you know, it was unconstitutional to object to the electoral votes. And there were sheets of paper laid out on the desks against the wall in the cloakroom. And one of my colleagues, a number of my colleagues came in and they were signing their names. I asked the staff person, what are these? And she said to me, oh, those are objections. You know, technically only one member of Congress of the House objects, but we had many members who wanted to demonstrate that they were also objecting, so they came up with this idea, you could sign your name on these pieces of paper.
So as one of my colleagues came through, and I was sort of sitting down at the end working on a computer, he came through, and he signed each sheet for each state objection. And he said, as he was doing it, the things we do for the orange Jesus. And that was such a--I don't know if he intended that I hear it, or you know, if he just couldn't keep it in, but, you know, the notion that we were going to be basically doing something that was clearly unconstitutional just to placate Donald Trump,
MR. KANE: Later tonight, I--you know, all signs point to a Mar-a-Lago announcement. Does he not really appreciate what happened last week? And do--does he?
It seems, from our reading of all these different races, yes, that the Supreme Court abortion decision was big, but also there was a pretty clear rejection of the most MAGA candidates. You know what--is he--you know, get in--it's hard for you to get inside his brain, but like, does he just not understand? And what percentage chance do you give that someone else can win?
MS. CHENEY: Well, this is certainly not the rollout I'm sure Donald Trump wanted for his announcement tonight. But, you know, it's also not the first time he's been totally detached from reality.
I think, though, it's also really important for people to look at what's happening and what he's doing, not just through a political lens, but through the basic facts of his total lack of fitness for office. He's unstable.
The January 6th Committee has laid out very clearly his direct and personal involvement in every aspect of the plan to overturn the last election. He's, you know, someone who, knowing that the mob was armed, sent them to march on the Capitol to try to stop the count of electoral votes. And then while that bloody battle was underway at the Capitol, despite everyone around him pleading with him to tell the mob to stop and go home, he wouldn't--he wouldn't do it. He sat and watched it on television. So, there's no question that he's unfit for office. And I feel confident that he will never be president again.
MR. KANE: Okay. One of--if you want to announce your own campaign, you're free to do it here. These folks would appreciate it.
MS. CHENEY: Thanks.
MR. KANE: But looking at other people who are floating their names to run, where is the sort of line where you are sort of crossing--like Ron DeSantis had a big night in Florida, and there are some other candidates that are talking about this--in terms of where you could withstand them as president, or you would endorse against them? Where--you know, who out there is saying the right things?
MS. CHENEY: The way I look at it is not sort of through the lens of the horserace. And I think that the election that we've just been through really is an example and a message of sort of how we all ought to be conducting ourselves at this moment and thinking about what is right for the country and what the American people deserve and what we all deserve in terms of representation, but also, what we all should be demanding in terms of candidates who are worthy of this incredible trust that we place in them.
And so I have not obviously, you know, planned to endorse any candidate here today. But I think that it would be really a useful exercise for everybody to sort of step back from the horserace for a while and sort of say, look, this country is facing huge challenges, and we have to elect people that we can trust to deal with those challenges, not people who, you know, are making political calculations at the expense of their constitutional obligations.
MR. KANE: Is there--
But is there--I think you have said in the past that anybody who voted against certifying is sort of--has disqualified themselves. So that's the congressional crew.
You know, what about some of the governors out there? Glenn Youngkin has sort of straddled the line between Trump world and then he went and campaigned pretty vigorously for Vega against Abigail Spanberger, and you won that one. Is that a case where a guy like Youngkin is kind of disqualifying himself?
MS. CHENEY: Look, I don't want to go down the list here today. I will just say I think everybody really has to think carefully about whom we're entrusting power with.
MR. KANE: Okay. Let's get to the committee. You’re--you know, we're literally at that point where we've got days left in terms of the congressional calendar. What work is still being done by the January 6th Committee? How extensive is this final report going to be? And what happens to all of these documents? You know, you're not going to--are you going to release every single thing? There's lots of stuff that, you know, won't be in the final report.
MS. CHENEY: So, we're very hard at work, really around the clock in a combination of things. We've got interviews that are still underway. We have obviously work that's going on, on the final report. And the report itself, you know, we really recognize and take seriously that it's an historic document, historic record of the committee's work. We're very much guided by the language of the resolution that created the committee. And so the report will have in it chapters that address the topics that we addressed in our hearings. They will have--it will have chapters that address additional material and additional topics. There's been some assertion that the committee is not going to, you know, produce information about the security failures. That's just simply not true. It'll be a comprehensive report.
And in terms of sort of the disposition of the documents and the records, obviously, we’ll be bound by House rules in that regard. There have been a number of materials that have been shared with the committee that include law enforcement-sensitive information that, you know, obviously those will have to be very cautious about our responsibility with respect to those. But we believe the American people have the right to see the full record of our work.
MR. KANE: What about the members that you--members of Congress themselves that you folks wanted to interview? What--there's just not enough time, or there's just not enough legal battles to go through in order to enforce that? Was that McCarthy and others?
MS. CHENEY: Well, I think--yeah, I mean, those members of Congress obviously don't take seriously their obligation to comply with congressional subpoenas. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when they're in charge and they attempt to issue subpoenas in a whole range of areas. And they'll have to explain, you know, the hypocrisy of their unwillingness to comply. I think that the report will certainly indicate information that the committee has gathered with respect to the conduct of a number of those members. And ultimately, you know, the American people get to decide, you know, who represents them. And we want to make sure the American people have all the information.
MR. KANE: So, will that--will some of that information be in the report, then, about those members?
MS. CHENEY: Yes, yes.
MR. KANE: And presumably, it'll be somewhat damning for some of them?
MS. CHENEY: The information will be in the report.
MR. KANE: The information will be in the report. How much--do people--you have this deep appreciation for history. You said at one point, “I say this to my colleagues who are defending the indefensible, there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” How much do--how much does the average rank and file member of Congress appreciate their place in history and actually care about their own legacy?
MS. CHENEY: Well, I think that there's sort of this human nature--and self-interest, you know, is something that every human being has--so maybe we have to separate out sort of how people look at their own political success from their place in history. And you know, I think that not enough members recognized or still recognize the gravity of this moment. And the tendency has been in too many cases, certainly on my side of the aisle, to sort of minimize it, to sort of say, look, this isn't really our responsibility. We can bury our head in the sand, or we can minimize what happened and just hope for the best. And so I think there are not enough members who fully recognize that, you know, as members of Congress, we have a duty and an obligation, and we can't be bystanders. Nobody can be a bystander. But the inclination to try to be a bystander, you know, goes to the highest levels of the Republican leadership in the Senate--and the Republican leadership in the House, it’s worse, you know, embracing Donald Trump. But our--truly the survival of the republic and the functioning of our--of our electoral system and the process really demands that people do their duty.
And I think, for example, if after the House impeached Donald Trump in January of 2021, if the impeachment article had immediately gone to the Senate, and we had immediately had a trial, we would be in a very different position than we are today. And I think that decision that was made by a bunch of people to delay that trial until he was out of office, I think looking back will prove to have been a mistake of historic proportions.
MR. KANE: Have you discussed that with Leader McConnell?
I think we know the answer.
What’s this--you’ve been on a tour that has sort of taken you to a lot of college campuses and you’ve told me at various points that seeing young women respond to you has been a real--a good verification of what you’ve been trying to do. What’s that been like?
MS. CHENEY: It’s really--it’s really important and it’s really moving. You know, I’m the mother of high school and college-aged kids, and some out of college. I have 17 kids. No.
It sounded like a lot as I was saying it. I have five but it feels like 17 some days.
But I just think that for young people today it’s clear if you look back certainly at the last couple of years, probably longer that our nation suffers from a lack of real--suffers from a lack of teaching of American history and conveying to young people this notion of you can’t be a bystander, and also, by the way, you can make all the difference. And being able to talk to them about if you look at the events between the election of 2020 and January 6th for example, it was really, you know, a little more than a handful of individuals who stopped a hugely grave constitutional crisis, and it was people who were in positions where they could stand up to Donald Trump and his allies and say, no, we’re not going to do that. And I think that’s a hugely important lesson. It’s also a really hopeful lesson out of what’s been a very dangerous time that individual Americans made the difference. And I think that’s--it’s an important thing to talk to young people about, and they really give me a lot of hope. And so I’ve loved the opportunity to speak with them.
MR. KANE: When you gave your concession speech outside of Jackson in this sort of golden hour with the Tetons in the backdrop, you invoked Lincoln and how he basically lost several different times before he won. How--are you willing to lose multiple times, and how important is that?
MS. CHENEY: You know, I think everybody should study Lincoln. And one of the things--well, there are several things. Jon Meacham has a new Lincoln biography out, and I took a group of my daughters’ friends on Sunday on a tour of the Capitol, and we started at the Library of Congress and--because that’s where the boarding house was that Lincoln lived in when he was in Congress, and we followed Meacham’s book and walked the path that Lincoln walked every day when he went to work in the Capitol. And having the opportunity to study history that way is so important.
There’s another wonderful Lincoln book by Ted Widmer called “Lincoln on the Verge,” and he says something about Lincoln that I think is crucial for all of us at this moment. He talks about Lincoln’s fundamental belief in our founding documents, and he says Lincoln, he really believed in the promise of our founding documents, and that belief made him dangerous to cynical politicians who just, you know, talked the talk. And that’s such an important concept of recognizing we’re not a perfect nation but we’re the most perfect nation that’s ever existed, and the founding documents in those principles is how we become a more perfect union. But they really mean something, and we really have to believe in them.
MR. KANE: All right. Thank you, Congressman Cheney. Thanks so much everyone.
And now we’re going to hand off to David Ignatius, an esteemed foreign affairs columnist. | 2022-11-17T20:50:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Republican Rebel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-2-republican-rebel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-2-republican-rebel/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The U.K.'s Rising Star
MR. IGNATIUS: Hello. I’m David Ignatius. I’m a columnist with the Washington Post. It’s a wonderful event. I’m really glad to be here, and I’m especially pleased to be joined by Britain’s Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who has two roles in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet. She is the Secretary of State for International Trade and also the Minister for Women and Equalities.
Secretary Badenoch, welcome to the Washington Post.
SEC. BADENOCH: Thank you, David.
MR. IGNATIUS: So let's begin by talking about your journey. You, as the video said, spent part of your childhood in Nigeria and the United States. Tell us briefly about your path to being Minister in this conservative government and how your personal experience growing up, making your way has shaped your approach to politics.
SEC. BADENOCH: Okay. So, yes, you're absolutely right. I grew up in Nigeria. I had one year in the States, in Omaha, because my mother was working at the university there, but very much a Nigerian child who left in '96 to come to the U.K. because of all the economic turmoil that was taking place in the country at that time.
And I grew up in a very comfortable, sort of middle-class family, and moving to the U.K., being a first‑generation immigrant, it almost always drops you down the class level. So I went from being middle- to working‑class and had to work my way back up, and it is a testament to what a wonderful country the United Kingdom is that I was able to start from there and 25 years later be sitting in front of you as Trade Secretary. It's quite an extraordinary story.
It wouldn't work the other way around. It's very hard for anyone who is of foreign origin to even get citizenship in a country like Nigeria, let alone be in the Cabinet and helping to run the country.
And politics was never something that I thought about. I grew up under military governments. So there was no democracy. It just wasn't something that happened. But living in a liberal or free democracy and seeing what stops a country from working made me very center-right. The conservative party was the natural party for me to join. And simply having the experience of people wanting you to succeed based on merit, not because of quotas or any other such thing, has really informed my politics, and it's one of the things that I'm trying to reinforce now that I am in government.
MR. IGNATIUS: So you and your Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, give a very different, diverse face with your other Cabinet members, for the Tory Party. And I just want to ask you about the Tory Party, very much a party changing with Britain, but its immigration policy is quite traditionally conservative. It is not a party that's welcoming immigrants. And I want you to explain that. And, is the Tory immigration policy your own, or are you somewhat different?
SEC. BADENOCH: So our migration policy is very welcoming to legal migration, less so to illegal migration, and as a government, one of the things that, you know, we should do is have secure borders. And it's very frustrating for someone like me to talk about migration and often have it misrepresented as us not wanting anyone to come to the country. We welcome people who are skilled. We welcome people who are refugees. What we don't welcome are people who cheat the system, who claim to be asylum seekers when they're economic migrants, and people who abuse the system because it actually makes life more difficult for those truly vulnerable people that we're trying to help.
And I have spoken to people who have run from dangerous places. The people they're running from are also coming to the U.K. And if you just have an open borders policy that doesn't distinguish or filter between those in need and those who want to exploit, it will be bad for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable.
MR. IGNATIUS: Your country, Madam Secretary, has been through a whirlwind the last few months. And I want to ask you both about the loss of your sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, and also about the turmoil within your party, but let's start with the death in September of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of the new King Charles III. Just tell us what that meant to you, what the monarchy means to you, whether you have any personal reflections of these two people, the late Queen and the new King, that you could share with our audience.
SEC. BADENOCH: It's--it was a very extraordinary moment for the country because Queen Elizabeth had been there for so long. She had just become part of everybody's lives. You know, she's on the money that we pay with. She's on the stamps. Her picture is everywhere. And you just sort of absorb--you absorb this icon without really recognizing just how much of an impact their presence is having on your life, and the impact is really about stability; it's about certainty. And as we live in a world that is a lot less certain and actually feels a lot less stable, having a sovereign, a monarch, who's there, who provides constancy, who doesn't get involved in politics, who doesn't pick a side, is actually really special.
And I often find family and friends who aren't British asking: Why do you need a queen? That's so weird. It seems medieval.
And the response is: If it's not broken, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And while it is unusual, it does work.
And her dying was--I think it was actually quite emotionally traumatic for all of us. I never met her. I had met King Charles, Prince Charles as he was then; I had met Prince William and Prince Harry, within my role as Minister. And seeing the outpouring of grief reminded me also of my own loss. I lost my father earlier this year.
And having a royal family almost feels like a sort of substitute or surrogate family, and you go through life with them. You watch them when they're born. You see them when they get married. And it's like having a distant cousin that you haven't met before. You know everything about their lives, and when they die you also feel the grief even when you haven't met them.
And I was very lucky because I was in government. I was able to attend her funeral and also watch the accession, or the acclamation rather, of Prince Charles to King Charles, so being there at those special moments. We hadn't had one of those since 1952, you know, no one in living memory, who was around, who had done that previous accession. So it's very special indeed.
MR. IGNATIUS: That's a moving description. I'm sorry for the loss of your father.
SEC. BADENOCH: Thank you.
MR. IGNATIUS: The other big event that happened in the last two months was the very brief, I think the briefest in history, reign of your Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who was there and then all of a sudden, she wasn't there, and that was accompanied by a radical reaction from the financial markets to the proposals she made for significant government spending at a time of real inflation in Britain. Prime Minister Sunak, who replaced her, had opposed that program when she first announced it. I'm curious what your own view was when the program was announced, whether you, like Sunak said, I don't think so.
SEC. BADENOCH: It's easy for me to answer this question, or a little bit easier than it normally would, as a member of both Liz Truss's government and Rishi Sunak's government because I also stood for the leadership. So we were all able to make our arguments at the--at the same time, and I had known both Rishi and Liz, as I call them, for a long time because I had been their Junior Minister.
And people kept asking me, well--when they got to the final two--who should you pick? And I said, well, if you want someone who is going to be more conservation and steady, you go with Rishi, but if you want someone who is going to be a maverick and radical, go with Liz.
I was not keen on pushing tax cuts primarily as a policy. I do believe in tax cuts. I am a small-states conservative. But the problem that we had at the time of our contest was a cost-of-living crisis, inflation. And I'm an engineer by training, so systems thinking. What is the problem you're trying to solve? And the problem we were trying to solve was a cost-of-living crisis. So my view was that tax cuts and certainly an arms race on tax cuts was not the answer.
But the thing about politics is that everybody makes their argument. When somebody wins, losers' consent has to come into play. Everybody needs to get behind the winner. And so even though I wasn't 100 percent convinced by the argument, I recognized that there was a good argument for the proposals which she put forward.
I think where it went wrong was not necessarily with the package but in how it was sold, and that's why communication is so critical in politics. We didn't bring people along with us. What Liz was trying to do was stimulate growth very quickly, to try and sort of reboost the economy, but what people heard, unfortunately, wasn't that. What they heard was tax cuts, money for the rich. And that wasn't what she was trying to do, but unfortunately, that's how it came across.
And if you can't bring people with you, you will lose not just the argument, but you will lose power. And, very sadly, that is what happened. And Liz being Liz, the sort of thing that would have taken other people a much longer period, with her being very radical, very maverick, it happened very quickly.
MR. IGNATIUS: She certainly lost the confidence of the financial markets.
So we'll talk about your own ideas as Minister of Trade for economic policies going forward, but I want to ask you about your visit to Washington. We're delighted that you're here, that you're here at this conference. You'll be meeting with the Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo, during your visit, talking about Britain's business-friendly environment and, I'm sure, about your hopes for trade agreements. Your Ministry says that you'll also be discussing how trade can break down barriers for women as business owners, and given our topic at this summit today, I want to ask you to explain that specifically for our audience.
SEC. BADENOCH: So it's--it just goes back to the fundamentals and principles of what trade is about. It's that free exchange, people being able to buy and sell as easily as possible, and removing the barriers, whether it's tariff barriers or nontariff barriers, sort of the bureaucracy and the hoops that you have to jump through in order to sell a product.
And one of the challenges that women have as entrepreneurs is that it's just--it's just tougher generally, tougher because we spend more of our lives caring for others, so we tend not to be able to get going. It's harder to access capital and, therefore, harder to travel for those reasons and, therefore, makes it more difficult to trade, to sell your goods abroad. A lot of our research shows that it's harder to get investment.
And these aren't things that correlate with the biology of being a woman. It's just the reality of being a woman in terms of the lifestyles that we tend to have. And anything that we can do to liberalize trading, making it easier, will have a disproportionate benefit for women in particular, and that's one of the reasons why it's important for me with my dual roles.
MR. IGNATIUS: Let me ask about the magnitude of your challenge. I don't simply mean in trade here but broadly for this government in economic policy. Britain has really been struggling in recent years.
SEC. BADENOCH: Define struggle.
MR. IGNATIUS: Well, I will define struggle. I gathered some statistics with help from colleagues on present trends. They find the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024 and the average Polish family will move ahead by the end of the decade. In other words, the trend lines for Britain have been going in the wrong direction, and you can see these in any compilation of statistical evidence.
The Conservatives have been running Britain now for 12 years.
SEC. BADENOCH: Mm-hmm.
MR. IGNATIUS: So you know, this country, its trajectory is your party's responsibility. A simple question is: How is the party that's been running the country as it's had these difficulties going to get Britain out of its malaise? What's the formula for that that you would offer for this audience but more broadly?
SEC. BADENOCH: Okay. So first of all, I would challenge some of those figures. I've seen those statistics before that show that the trend is bad for the U.K. and less so for other countries. We don't agree for various reasons. We're starting from a different place in terms of base, so it depends on which specific metric, but I won't go into the details of that.
You are right. We have been running the country for 12 years, first of all, the first 5 years as part of a conservative-liberal coalition and then under successive Prime Ministers, not just David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and now Rishi Sunak, and we have been almost regenerating while we've been governing. For those of you who watch Dr. Who, the series, it's almost like, you know, we get a new doctor. This is the new Prime Minister, and each of them has had a different vision. Each of them has had a different vision which is actually tackling new problems that are coming into play.
So one of the things that I try and emphasize is that the issues have been changing. When we came into power in 2010, this was before I became a Member of Parliament. We were in the middle of a big recession. The financial crisis had just happened. There were so many issues, and those first five years were all about fixing the economy, fixing finances.
Then 2015, we have a world where everybody is angry about globalization. You would have seen it from the sort of the more Trumpian politics that was coming into play, everyone becoming more protectionist. That manifested in our country with leaving the European Union, which I, by the way, voted for, and that was us deciding--different people voting for different reasons, but us deciding that we wanted to be more global in our outlook and not locked into decision making with 27 other countries.
That used up so much political capital and political energy, just trying to do something that different. I can't explain how tough it is. It's like a state; it's like, you know, New York deciding that it doesn't want to be in the United States. Very, very tough. Very difficult decision. People misrepresenting it as xenophobia or us being inward-looking. But decisions like that, which are made for the long term, often have short‑term consequences. So there's no denying that changing the way you do things will create some initial friction.
And just as we were raring to go, about to, you know, press go on the rocket boosters, covid happens, and we have a pandemic that really shakes the core of the country because of how our economy is structured. We look at the supply chains, for example. We look at the amount of money that we spent on furlough, paying people to stay at home, something that many other countries either didn't do or didn't do in quite the same way.
All of those things have had an impact, but if we were not doing well, we would not have been able to survive the pandemic. We certainly would not have been able to come out of the EU and still be trading globally. A lot of our trade is increasing across the world. It's falling in certain places, so there's a lot of work to do.
But you asked about the opportunities, and what we're hoping is that things calm down in terms of all of the things that are happening--
MR. IGNATIUS: Don't we all?
SEC. BADENOCH: --externally and just allow us to really--
MR. IGNATIUS: I think that's a global hope.
SEC. BADENOCH: Absolutely. I think people want things to be more boring for some time to come and then we can do more.
MR. IGNATIUS: So let me ask a pointed question. When we think about the British economy, frankly, the question remains, was Brexit a good idea? And there's some economic evidence that there's a real economic cost to it. And I'd be interested in your views.
For example, you hear some discussion about moving closer to the European Common Commercial Policy, common standards which would make it easier to trade with Europe. Is that a good idea?
SEC. BADENOCH: Yes, common standards are a good idea. So, we didn't leave because we didn't want to have those common standards. Those were some of the good things about being in the European Union, and we still want to work closely with them.
So, if you were to ask me why I voted for Brexit, it was two things. The first was the discussions that were being had at EU level were about more and more political integration. You know, wanting to have a single currency was something that kept--just wouldn't go away; wanting to have a shared army was a discussion that kept coming up. But the more close political integration we didn't feel was working for us because when we asked for what we though were little things, we didn't get them.
And if you think back to what happened that almost triggered the whole Brexit thing, it was us wanting to change a few things around social security and our Prime Minister, David Cameron, going to the EU, Angela Merkel in particular, and saying, well, can we have some of these changes? And the answer was, no. And for many people, there seemed to be this epiphany that we can't even influence decisionmaking within this bloc and if they want to do more integration, maybe this is the time to get off the train. It didn't mean that we didn't like the group, but if we were thinking long term, looking at where is the middle class going to be in 2050; what's the world going to look like? Maybe getting off now and allowing them to do more of what they wanted to do would be the easier thing. And that was what motivated people like me. It wasn't an easy decision. It wasn't because, once we left, everything would be great and perfect.
But one of the most frustrating things--and for those of you who are political, you will understand this, is having people within your party or within your particular group, whichever one it is, who make arguments that are not coherent, that make it seem as if everything is easy, that it's just because of these bad people and if only we got rid of these bad people, everything would be okay, or these people making these decisions. It's just not--it's just not realistic--
MR. IGNATIUS: So--
SEC. BADENOCH: --there are tradeoffs for everything, and I felt that the tradeoffs for Brexit, in the long term, would be worth it.
MR. IGNATIUS: Going to ask you one last question that deals with your other portfolio as Minister of Equalities. So, a BBC headline described you--and I'm just quoting--as "anti-woke darling of the right." And one of your first acts in this role as minister was meeting with Keira Bell who was prescribed puberty-blocking drugs at 16 but later said she regretted the decision. You got a lot of criticism for meeting her from people who felt that this was not respectful of transgender advocates in the community.
What message did you want to send in this meeting, and talk more broadly about these cultural issues as a final.
SEC. BADENOCH: Okay. So, people call me "anti-woke." It's actually not a word that I use. I don't like the word "woke," because I think it trivializes something far more serious that's taking place. So, I like to think of myself as pro-common sense rather than anti--rather than anti-woke. And the job I have covers--protected characteristics, as we call them, there are nine of them. But some of the areas where we have the most contentious debates, on race, on religion, on sex and gender, on sexual orientation, gender reassignment, which is where the transgender category falls into, they're all my job. And it doesn't matter what you do in that job, somebody, somewhere is going to be angry.
And I think that one of the challenges we've had is the word "trans" means different things to different people. We have a definition roughly in law; it's probably a bit outdated. But there are all sorts of people, Keira Bell being one of them, who are finding that they are being classified as trans when they aren't. She was a lesbian. She was a gay child who read some stuff online and felt she was a boy and didn't get the right clinical help she should have had, and the result was her breasts were removed; her ovary was removed. She was effectively sterilized. And by the time she realized, it was too late. She was very angry about that and my belief is that she didn't get the appropriate level of care. The clinic which she went to, that service has been stopped after an investigation.
So, very serious stuff. And for anyone to say that I shouldn't meet somebody who has had this experience doesn't understand what the work of a politician is. I need to meet everybody. I need to understand both or all perspectives, or whatever they might be, so that I can get a clear picture. And the picture that I got was that, while we're looking after people who are trans, or who have gender dysphoria, which is how we have been looking at the issue, we need to make sure that people who are not are not put on a pathway where they make decisions that are irreversible and which will change their lives forever. And I think that that's a pretty common-sense position to have.
What I found amazing and extraordinary is that even saying this means that you get called a bigot; you get called anti trans. You have a lot of people attacking you who are not actually listening to what you are saying. And my response is not to be afraid and to keep pushing for what the right thing is. If people like me are too scared because of what someone says on Twitter, then we're going to be in a really bad place. And it's my job to defend those people who can't defend themselves, and I'll continue to do that.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, Secretary Kemi Badenoch, described as a rising star of the Tory government, thank you for joining us for this discussion.
We are going to turn now to Fox National Security Correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, someone who has beaten me on too many stories, a wonderful reporter, she'll be out here shortly after this short video. Stay with us. Thanks to Secretary Badenoch. | 2022-11-17T20:50:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The U.K.'s Rising Star - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-3-uk-rising-star/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-3-uk-rising-star/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Taking on the Taliban
MS. GRIFFIN: Welcome to the inaugural Global Women’s Summit. I’m so grateful to be here. I’m Jennifer Griffin, chief national security correspondent for Fox News, and our panel, Taking on the Taliban. I can’t tell you how excited I am to speak with these two extraordinary Afghan women.
Naheed Farid is a parliamentarian in exile. She left Herat with her three children a week before Kabul fell on August 15, 2021. She spent 12 years in Herat, serving as the youngest-ever elected lawmaker to Parliament. And you lived under the Taliban in the '90s, from 1995 to 2001.
And Yalda Hakim, an award-winning journalist, foreign correspondent with BBC News. She has traveled back to Afghanistan three times since Kabul fell. She has my undying admiration for that. You were born in Afghanistan and fled with your family after the Soviet invasion.
For me, Afghanistan has been near and dear to my heart because I spent my honeymoon in Kabul, in 1994, when the world had forgotten about Afghanistan--my husband was a journalist--and we can't see that happen again because seven years later we had, as we know, 9/11.
So with that I'd like to start and ask you both, where were you on August 15, 2001. Tell me about the decision to leave Afghanistan, how hard that must have been, and what you thought as you saw those images. Naheed?
MS. FARID: Sure. Thank you so much for having me, and it's my honor and pleasure to be at this panel.
You know, it is important to look to these women in Afghanistan at this panel, this discussion, from a global perspective, from an international overview, because what happened in Afghanistan can happen everywhere in the world. A group of insurgents can use violence and overthrow a democratically elected government overnight and erase the hard-earned gains of half of the society just in a matter of hours. And I think this is important. This discussion is very, very important for women all over the world.
I cannot explain how hard it was for me to leave my city, the city I represent, the city who voted me, my constituency who counted on me, and I still feel so guilty about the abandon. But I had these two unwanted and unsolicited choices of staying in fear or leaving everything behind. And when I say leaving everything behind, I mean everything, personally and professionally.
And this story has different dimensions. Not knowing ever I will return back or another dimension was that I experienced the same stories that my mom told me when she was also escaping the same city, from the same path, to the same destination of Iran when there was a Soviet occupation and she had to leave. And, you know, she was holding me and I was holding the hand of my daughter, and resisted this cycle of conflict on our own way. My mom raised me. I came back to Afghanistan. I continued to become the advocate and become a member of Parliament, and I believe my daughter will definitely go back and fight for the freedom of that nation.
But I think this story has to have a happy ending, not the cycle of conflict that victimizes women. And I think basically my daughter definitely should go back to a country that is prosperous, is free, is full of dignity, coexistence, love, peace, liberty, and that's why we are here, to make that happen.
MS. GRIFFIN: And Yalda, you were that daughter. You were born in Afghanistan to parents and they decided to leave during the Soviet invasion. You know what it's like to leave your country, but yet you've committed yourself to going back and telling the stories of Afghanistan. What was it like on your last trip? What has it been like since Kabul fell to the Taliban, and how has it changed over those three trips?
MS. HAKIM: Well, Jennifer, I think when I went back in November of last year to mark 100 days of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan it was clear that they were a group that hadn't organized themselves. They weren't North Korea. They weren't Iran. They were still trying to figure out what was going to happen next. And I continually heard from people in Afghanistan, "Just wait and watch. There is going to be a major crackdown on our basic human rights."
So when I went back again in July to mark almost a year since the fall of Kabul, what I saw was the systematic erosion of the rights, of not just the human rights of the people of Afghanistan, the 38 million people in that country, but the targeting of women and girls. They had been pushed out of the public eye. Women like Naheed do not exist in the public space anymore.
And I found that absolutely shattering to see, that a country that had made so much progress over the last 20 years--it wasn't perfect, and you'll attest to that, Naheed. You could go to corners of the country where things were still very bad, whether the Taliban were in power or not, for Afghan women and girls. But they went to school. They got an education. They had the ability to dream. And now we have 422 days since the Taliban banned girls from going to school.
And when I sit across the Taliban in an interview, in a room, I say to them, "You waged a war, an insurgency, for 20 years. Was it to take on 12-year-old girls? Was the war against 12-year-old girls? Because right now it feels like your war is against a child that you're banning from school. Your war is against the women who are taking their children to public parks."
This week the Taliban banned women from going to public parks. They banned them from going to gyms. They banned them for having a reason to step out of their homes. They want a reason. Why are you here without a male guardian? Why have you stepped out of your home? What is the reason for leaving? What is the reason for going to the airport and wanting to leave the country?
So what I find difficult, as the daughter of Afghanistan, is will we be able to see a future where there will be more Naheeds and daughters of Naheed being able to be educated in that country, to have hope.
MS. GRIFFIN: And what do the Taliban tell you when you ask those questions?
MS. HAKIM: They say what we want to hear. "We are working on putting a curriculum together. We are working putting a uniform together." Well, it doesn't take 422 days to put a uniform together. It doesn't take 422 days to segregate classrooms that were already segregated before the Taliban came to power. The sort of curriculum at the school was already based on the Islamic curriculum. The uniform was already based on an Islamic uniform.
So it's incredibly frustrating that they have now sharpened their sort of PR machine and they say the right things to Western media. But the situation is incredibly different on the ground.
MS. GRIFFIN: And it's the only country in the world, I think it's important to remember, where girls' education is banned.
Now The Washington Post has done some incredible reporting on secret schools, and these are where many teenage girls are now participating, educating themselves behind closed walls. What would happen, Naheed, if the Taliban finds them out?
MS. FARID: Okay. So actually any authoritarian regime, including Taliban, whether it is Taliban putting ayatollahs in Iran or whether it is CCP against Uyghurs in China, they are all built on patriarchy. They are all built on misogyny. They all exercise this as a means to suppress women because women are a threat to them, a threat to exercise their authority and control and power. And I think that's why women should not get educated when an educated woman definitely will transform a society that will demand their rights of a nation.
And I think if they find out they definitely will crack down on those schools, and these are all the stories Yalda also highlighted. And we are talking about 700,000 jobs that will be male dominated, just in a matter of a few years. Because according to UNDP before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, women with the same level of education had the same working capacity in Afghanistan, and this was not easy to come into that level in a male-dominated society like Afghanistan. But just think about uneducated women who cannot compete in the workforce. They will be kicked out of the workforce, and when we have no women working and keeping themselves into the society economically, they will definitely have no right to continue their cause publicly.
MS. GRIFFIN: Yalda, what message did you hear from the young girls that you interviewed? What should the international community and the U.S. be doing right now, based on your reporting?
MS. HAKIM: Well, Jennifer, the United States was engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years. There are women in this room who put programs together to assist those Afghan girls and give them reason to have hope. These women and girls were told, "Join us. Be part of Project Afghanistan. We will fund you. We will support you. We will back you. We will bring you to the West and give you scholarships so that you can better your country. And in the end, we'll abandon you." This is what Afghan girls are saying to us, and to me when I go there. They say to me, "Is anyone listening in the outside world, and do they care?"
I went into one woman's home in Herat, which is where Naheed-Jan is originally from, and she pulled out a box full of certificates that she had received from programs here in the United States, across Europe, invited to parliaments across the Western world, and told, "You can do this program. You can do that program. You can then take it back to your own country to assist the women in your country." All of these women and girls are now sitting at home, wondering if anyone cares. And as Naheed-Jan said, no one has a monopoly on human rights, women's rights, democracy. These are not Western concepts. Afghan women and girls are staring down the barrel of a gun today demanding their rights.
MS. GRIFFIN: And I think what's different about this time with the Taliban coming back is this is a generation that's on social media. It's the TikTok generation. They're connected through social media. And so what is different about this time with regards to the Taliban regime?
MS. FARID: Yeah. This time is different for the movement of women of Afghanistan and also for the Taliban, that they also use social media against women, and they are all manipulating the international community with their promises that they don't keep, that they will give amnesty to all, they will start inclusive government, they will start giving permission to women to continue work and education.
But, you know, there is resistance from the men. Women in Afghanistan have a very different resistance from women of Iran, although it is really admiring from my side, as a women's rights defender, the movement of women like freedom in Iran, and we continue to support that. We want a free Iran next to Afghanistan.
At the same time, women of Afghanistan are fighting publicly in the streets, are fighting domestically at home, because they are also facing a male-dominated society and family that really don't care about the rights of women. They are also fighting economically. We have literally women who sell their kidneys so their children don't go hungry. Come on.
So women of Afghanistan are fighting in a different situation, on multi-dimension fronts, fighting, resisting, and, oh my God, they are women of resistance. They are women of power and strength, and we are so proud of them.
MS. GRIFFIN: And Yalda, what impact are the Iranian women's protests having on the women of Afghanistan, and vice versa? What message from Afghanistan to Iran?
MS. HAKIM: Jennifer, I recently, on my show, had an Iranian protester in Tehran speak directly to an Afghan female protester in Kabul. They spoke to each other. And it was so moving to listen to their fight, their struggle, the fact that they inspire one another, the fact that, as you say, this is the TikTok generation. I call the young Afghan girls and women in Afghanistan the quintessential 9/11 generation, that are full of a brighter future for themselves.
So they are going to continue to fight for their cause in both of these countries. It's whether we're listening and prepared to talk about it, to discuss it, to hear them.
MS. GRIFFIN: And to help them.
The Washington Post, Naheed, has also done some great reporting on how the Taliban is training women in a segregated manner. So they're training lawyers and doctors but they're not going to let them be integrated in any way. Is this going to work? Is this advisable, as opposed to not educating women? What do you think? What do you make of this?
MS. FARID: I think if you look to this from just a glance it might look positive, that gender segregation, in the long run, will definitely impact women. Why not training women who want to become politicians, who want to become engineers, who want to become computer science--they want to have the freedom of choosing their topics to study. And I think this is something that gender segregation will lead the country and women of the country towards more limitation, towards more inequality, and I don't support that, personally.
MS. GRIFFIN: Should universities here in the U.S. be providing online education to these girls and women, and are they doing so?
MS. FARID: Yalda and myself, we are involving different universities--USC, Princeton, Penn State Global Campus--they all are working on how to provide this online education for girls who cannot travel but they have the hope to continue this education. And when I talk to those women back in Afghanistan they say, "We don't look to this screen as just a screen. This is a window of hope. And we look and we are waiting for the time of the class to get us started."
MS. GRIFFIN: Is it time to set up a government in exile? The women parliamentarians, I know, are a virtual government in exile, but should there be a formal government in exile that's recognized by the West?
MS. FARID: I think it's time to let the Taliban know that they are not representing the diversity, the civilization, the democracy, the talents of the people of Afghanistan. And I think any time that anyone says, "What is the alternative to the Taliban?" I would say, people. Give the people the freedom of choice and they won't choose Taliban. Because we know what kind of phenomenon we are facing, a Taliban, a group that is committing atrocities and forced displacement and public execution, and a women crackdown. No, we are facing the worst, most serious human rights crisis in Afghanistan.
MS. GRIFFIN: And we're already seeing ISIS and al Qaeda and other groups starting to go back to Afghanistan.
We're almost out of time so I wanted to just ask you both, will you go back to Afghanistan? Yalda?
MS. HAKIM: Well, I continue to go back because I think it's so important when I see the bravery of these women, like I said, protesting in the streets, knowing that they're taking their own lives into their hands.
I met one woman, and I'll be very brief, who took her 5-year-old, her 7-year-old, and her 12-year-old to a demonstration. And she said, "I put on the cloth of death, a white cloth, on them, and explained to my children that we may not come back home, we may not survive this." And this is what the women in that country are experiencing.
MS. GRIFFIN: Those are brave, brave women. Will you return to Afghanistan?
MS. FARID: Before I answer that question, I think it's important that we ask international communities. They have been so good at solidarity, putting a statement, resolution, women, peace, and security agenda. All of them are so important, but they were mostly gestures of symbolism, unfortunately, and the women of Afghanistan's situation has been much more deteriorated. This year we want them to commit themselves into putting some substance behind this gesture of symbolism, whether it is Magnitsky Act, whether it is some more Taliban, blacklist on the Taliban. But let's put this advocacy into something of action.
I will go back in Afghanistan with pleasure. That's my roots. That's my country.
MS. GRIFFIN: I want to thank my two guests, Yalda Hakim, Naheed Farid. Thank you for being with us.
For our audience at home, we’re going to take a little break, 20 minutes, for some refreshments, and our program will resume with a discussion about mental health with the U.S. Surgeon General. Thank you so much for joining us today. | 2022-11-17T20:50:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Taking on the Taliban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-4-taking-taliban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-4-taking-taliban/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Mental Health of Our Daughters
MS. NORRIS: Hello, everyone. Thank you for being with us. I’m Michele Norris, and I’m delighted to have our Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, with us; and Elyse Fox; and Cynthia Germanotta. Thank you for talking to us at this moment on this topic. I cannot imagine a more important topic right now, and to be doing it in this moment. So, let’s have a rich and wonderful conversation, and I think we’re all going to learn a lot.
Doctor, I want to begin with you. First, I want to thank you on behalf of the audience, on behalf of the nation, for elevating this issue. You have taken it; you have put in it--I hear people wanting to clap. It's okay to give him his flowers.
MS. NORRIS: Because you have taken this issue and you have put it front-and-center in a way that we have not seen, and it's so important. I am so happy to be with you today. I appreciate that you lead with your heart and that you bring a healthy dose of empathy to the work that you do. So, thank you for that.
Before I ask you a question, though, your advisory about youth and mental health during the pandemic illuminated some startling facts, and I think it's worth sort of marinating in this for a minute before we begin the conversation. The number of high school students who reported feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40 percent in just one decade, from 2009 to 2019. And 19 percent of high school students considered attempting suicide in that same decade before the pandemic--that was before the pandemic. And we've seen the effects of the isolation in the pandemic, and social media, also. And we're now hearing more and more about something, a word that I think was--new or maybe even foreign to some of us--the idea of suicide ideation, you know, that people who don't act on it are thinking about it. It's animating their thoughts.
So, now that we're not done with the pandemic, but perhaps on the downside, how do you think the collective trauma of the years that we experienced with the news about climate change--you know, every other week there's a new movie about the apocalypse. I happen to like the idea of tomorrow, so I'm sort of overserved on that. And social media, as well, what has all of this done to our mental health collective, but particularly for young people?
MR. MURTHY: Well, I'm so glad we're having this conversation and you know, and I appreciate your kind words, but I also just want to say that the two extraordinary women who are here on this stage, and there’s many others in the community, have all been a part of lifting up this issue and helping us all understand what is going on, why it's so critical for us to act right now.
And so, a couple of things that I think are just important to recognize. One is that, picking up on what you were saying, Michele, yes, the pandemic did make things worse for a lot of people. It increased the sense of isolation; it created extraordinary stress in people's lives; and uncertainty, as well. And I don't think that we have fully processed what has gone on during the pandemic that we--at a personal level, and as a community, the loss we experienced, the loss of loved ones; but also, the loss of routine, certainty, relationships. Those are profound losses. There is trauma that people experience in their life. And we can't just switch, you know, off that trauma and then go back to 2019 and the way of life then. We have to understand what happened to us. We have to be able to think through it, understand it, but also figure out how we want to make our lives different going forward.
Because this is the bright side of tragic moments like what we experienced in the last couple of years, which is that we are sometimes able to extract from them meaning that can actually make our post-pandemic lives better, right, because we are wiser and more thoughtful about how we lead them.
But the second thing I just want to say is about--how it was happening before the pandemic, because the truth is, a lot of what was driving the mental health crisis among young people, and more broadly in our country, was happening before the pandemic. You think about the existential crises that young people were faced with, thinking about climate change, racism, violence in their communities. I mean, those three enough are--would make somebody think, hey, is the future really as bright as the past? And many young people would say that. But you also look at the factors that are unique to how young people are growing up today, the technology that they are growing up with, which has certainly positive elements to it, and technology and social media can be a place where we come together and where we can, in the right circumstances, build community. But it also can be used in ways that tear us apart, that make us feel worse about ourselves, that ultimately hamper and harm our relationships with one another, and that has happened to too many people.
One of the most common things young people say to me about social media when I talk to them in roundtables around the country is--they say three things: one, it makes me feel worse about myself; two, it makes me feel worse about my friendships; and three, I can't get off of it. Those three things are what they say. And so, that's a unique--in the technology environment they are growing up in is different from what many of us grow up with that leads also to increased exposure to cyber bullying and other traumas.
But the last thing I would just keep in mind is this: The pace of change has just dramatically increased around the world. Like, everything from how we think about jobs and the skills that you need for the future to the basic bargain that many people assumed we had which is that, if you work hard and you follow the rules and you're a good person, that life will work out for you. How we think about everything from gender to sexuality to race, like, so much of this has shifted and changed for people in the last few years. And change, even good change is hard.
MS. NORRIS: Right.
MR. MURTHY: Right? Like, I know--I'm a dad of a four- and a six-year-old, and I'm just cherishing this time I have with them. But I know someday, hopefully, if we do our job right, they will finish school and they will leave home. And even though that's a good outcome that they are healthy, they are happy, they're leaving the nest, I know that I'm going to be just, like, on the floor in tears--
MS. NORRIS: You are. You absolutely are.
MR. MURTHY: --before that happens--yes, absolutely. All that to say even good change can be hard, and we are asking young people and people across society to engage and endure and navigate a degree of change that truly is unprecedented.
So, you put all this together and you can understand why the stresses and strains on this generation are truly unique, and we have to understand that. And that means not only making sure that treatment is available to them, but thinking about these forces and how we mitigate them; that means that addressing climate change and violence and racism isn't just something we do because it's the right thing to do; we also do it because it's affecting mental health. Shaping technology so that it actually supports our relationships and supports our mental health is vital. Just putting it out there as a grand social experiment to be visited upon the entire country and the world is not always the most responsible thing to do.
So, we have a lot of work to do. But last thing to say, this is why I feel encouraged because we're already starting on the path of doing it. Conversations like this are incredibly powerful. These two incredible leaders who are next to me are part of a community of leaders who are helping to push these issues to the forefront.
And in the administration, we have also worked hard to invest unprecedented amounts in training more mental health providers, applying technology to improve access to care, and ensuring that we're investing unprecedented amounts in the prevention programs that are so desperately needed, as well as setting up 988, which is a crisis line that we need for help.
So, anyway, a lot of reasons to be hopeful, but still a lot of work that we've got to do together.
MS. NORRIS: Elyse and Cynthia, I'm going to bring you into this, but since you mentioned the administration, one quick question on that.
Sometime ago, the military made a change in their footing around mental health. There was a time where if you came back and you suffered from PTSD or you were feeling shaky or unsure of yourself after experiencing one or two or three theaters of war, you got help if you raised your hand. And sometime after the Gulf War they changed their footing and decided that there was an assumption that anyone who had experienced war was in need of some kind of help, it was just a spectrum. How much help did they need?
Is that something that applies to all of us on the other side of what we have just been through, and I'm wondering if the administration would ever consider or commit to creating something like--I don't necessarily like the word "czar," but a mental health czar, someone who--almost like we do in the cases of Ebola or the case of economic tumult, one person who's working across agencies to actually address these issues.
MR. MURTHY: Yeah, it's a really good question, and I like the example you shared about the military. You move from an opt-in to--an opt-out to an opt-in, right, where you provide people with the basic level of inquiry and support and you ratchet it up for people who need more support, but you don't assume that, just because somebody's not raising their hand, they don't need help.
Think about college campuses. That's a place where I think we should be taking a similar approach, should make care and support available proactively to everyone and if they don't need much, then that's great. Then they don't need to utilize as much, but we will find that many people have silent needs that go unaddressed.
I think this gets to a critical point here, which is around how we define strength. And this is why your example of the military is actually very, like, poignant, because and I say this as a doctor who was trained in a program where strength was defined in a very particular way, right, it's in medicine, in military, in society, historically we've said, well, strength is not depending on anyone else. Strength is not showing other people if you're struggling. Strength is being stoic, right? Strength is never being vulnerable, right? I will tell you none of those definitions of strength feel like they really define strength. I look at the young people who are stepping up today and bravely, courageously sharing their own struggles and experiences in giving hope to other people, and I say, you know what? Vulnerability is strength.
I look at the people who are courageously speaking out for people who are struggling. Even if they themselves are doing okay, they're advocating for those who are in need, and I'm saying that courage is strength. And I look at people who are also empathetic and kind and loving in this moment. Think about the nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists who ran to the frontlines to help during the pandemic. That love, that kindness, that empathy is strength. So, we need to redefine "strength" in our culture. This is the moment to do it, and if we do that coming through this pandemic, we will have found certainly a powerful silver lining.
MS. NORRIS: So, when you talk about young people who are telling their story as an example of strength, we have a very strong example of that right here on stage with us, with Elyse, in creating the Sad Girls Club, in telling your story, and continuing to use social media to create community, which is a positive use of social media.
How has the stigma around this changed--and this is really a question I'd like to hear from both of you on--when people actually use their platforms, use their voices, to tell their story and create a sense of community? Does it chip away at that stigma? Have you seen changes in that?
MS. FOX: Absolutely. I definitely have seen it from my own experience, just sharing my own perspective of what depression, anxiety looks like for me, for women of color. And it's honestly the hardest thing to do is to be the first one or to take that first step into being vulnerable on social media. Everyone wants to show, like, the highlight reel or what's perfect or what perfection looks like from their vantage point, but I honestly get the most beautiful and authentic commentary when I speak about the worst times that I'm having or if I'm not done up and speaking about my experiences and, like, what I'm struggling with, and I think we need more of that.
We put a lot of pressure on the apps and say, these apps are bad; these apps are bad. But these apps are actually tools for us to connect with each other and create our own communities, but we've used it and we've kind of shifted it to just show the perfection. So, I like to use my platform to not just show the good times but also to highlight the bad times and say, like, I know I have this platform, I have this business, and things might look like they're going okay--doing really well, but I still need help. I still need support. So, it shows even after years of coming out with my depression, it doesn't stop. Like, you don't get a certain amount of followers or accrue this much money and your depression stops. And I want people to just understand that there's no stopping point, but there's also a place where we can build community and build a sustainable and long-term conversation.
So, I've definitely seen the stigma not diminish, but it's definitely depleted, and people have found their voices in Sad Girls Club. And then, I also see a lot of other platforms that have blossomed that are supplying these conversations to more niche communities: the LGBTQ community, the AAPI. And I think that is so beautiful because everyone's experiences are so unique, but when you find that sweet spot, especially on social media, there are billions of people on social media and we should have a place where we feel like can be our own digital home and we've created that with the Sad Girls Club. But I love to see even the small micro communities and lifting them up to say, like, look, this isn't my experience, but this may help you. And with vulnerability and speaking about every aspect of my life, I think it's very scary.
MS. NORRIS: You do speak about almost every aspect. You put it out there.
MS. FOX: Yes. I put everything out there because it's so important. I have nieces--I have a niece and I have a nephew and I have a three-year-old son, and these conversations are so difficult for them to have and to be on social media and to not only just say, oh, your aunt is perfect, or I don't want to even--I don't even like that word "perfect." No one is perfect. You can have it all--
MS. NORRIS: Perfect is overrated.
MS. FOX: It's overrated. It's overrated. We have to really be real and show every part of ourselves, and I think that's the best way to heal in community, especially if, like, we can't be together and the pandemic obviously restricted connection in person, but to have that space where you know you're seen, heard, and also you don't even have to speak. You just understand someone else's experiences as your own. It's a game changer.
MS. NORRIS: Cynthia, you created the Born this Way Foundation, in part because of personal experience, watching your daughter struggle. And when you hear the words "Born this Way," many of us think immediately of the song. You think of strength. You think of it almost like an anthem. But behind that is a good deal of this vulnerability, and I'm wondering if you--you know, the question about what you've seen change in terms of people using their voice, if that's chipped away at the stigma, but also, because you have the experience of watching a daughter go through this with--without--your daughter, Lady Gaga, in case everybody didn't know--go through this before we saw social media blossom and become what it is today.
So, could you talk a little bit about both those things, the stigma, but also what you've seen in terms of how people can cope, good and bad, with the forces that we have now?
MS. GERMANOTTA: Yeah, and I--I mean, Elyse, I think I would agree with you. I think the stigma, it is breaking down but it still very much exists. And you know, an amazing way for young people to overcome that is when we model healthy conversations about that and are vulnerable ourselves, as parents. I mean, you know, one of the biggest reasons that young people don't speak to their parents about their issues is because their parents don't share theirs. You know, we come from like the time of true grit and, you know, to buck up and get on with it, and they also feel judged. So, it's really important to model healthy conversations for young people to start to break down that stigma in communities.
With my daughter, I didn't see it coming. I wish as a parent that I understood some of the warning signs between just normal biological behavior of an adolescent young woman and a real problem. So, I really didn't see that coming with her. But it was her courage and her bravery to share her story, because she was so deeply impacted by it that allowed other young people to realize that there's hope, that there were ways to overcome it.
And most interestingly to me is there's--despite the many issues and the layers, Dr. Murthy, that you outlined, the layers of social issues that young people are dealing with, they're very aspirational. There's a great sense of altruism. They want to help themselves. They want to help one another. And so, we're working very hard to try to equip them with the proper tools to do that in forms of, like, peer-based education so that they can support one another and talk about mental health. Because we know from our research that when they're in a crisis, they would prefer to talk to a peer.
So, we really believe that mental health training should be in all schools, both what is mental health and how to talk to--you know, how to talk to a peer, as well as embedding kindness in communities. I think these are the things that will help build supportive communities that will help tear down the stigma by embedding kindness. And that can happen in many ways and shapes and forms, but we do know that there's this inextricable link between kindness and health because we know that young people that report being in kind communities are mentally healthier. They generally have higher mental health indicator scores.
But back to my daughter. I mean, her mental health journey started in middle school, and it began with loneliness. You know, bullied, excluded, things that took a very confident young woman and made her question her value and her self-worth. And yes, this was pre-social media, but when she reached college, I mean, it followed her from middle school to college, and when she reached college, there were some young people that started a Facebook page about her that was very, very negative. It's still out there and, you know, extremely hurtful. It lives in perpetuity, right, and it follows you.
MS. NORRIS: Let's make America kind again.
MS. GERMANOTTA: Let's make America kind, yes.
MS. NORRIS: I wonder how you dealt with your own trepidation, because when she started using her voice, were you at all worried about how vulnerable she was making herself to the outside world?
As parents, you want to applaud every decision your child makes, but sometimes, secretly, you're like, oh, please, I'm worried about how people will react. Sometimes it's, you know, because they're wearing something or they get a tattoo or--many of us have dealt with that.
MS. NORRIS: But when you're talking about something as close as mental health, did you have to swallow hard and swallow your own fears when she started to show the bravery to use her own voice?
MS. GERMANOTTA: I absolutely did. You know, and this is where I'd like to talk about intergenerational differences. We didn't talk about these issues in my home. I mean, we're all parents and we probably have different experiences from our parents, but we didn't talk about those issues.
So, when she gained her voice, so to speak, and began talking publicly, I didn't quite understand it. I kept saying to her, why are you being so private, in public? But I came to see how this was resonating with young people. They were healing. She was healing. They were gaining courage. They were leaving feeling empowered that there was hope for them. And we saw the enormity of this issue as we traveled the world. But certainly, as a parent, it was very hard for me to hear that, and I felt many, many different things: you know, my own guilt; I felt so badly for her, for what she went through and, you know, could I have helped her even more?
You talked earlier, Dr. Murthy, about prevention. You know, we deal so often with prevention, intervention--and cure, which is very important, right, prevention and intervention. But there's this in-between stage. I spoke to a young woman from Morocco the other day, Fatima, and she talks about the missing middle, that there are so many young people and people in general, we don't know what spectrum they're on of mental health. They're in there somewhere, but they kind of get lost, and it's not uncommon to go years, sometimes 10 years, without being diagnosed for mental health. That happened to my daughter. So, just the importance of that, I started to realize how important it was for her to share her conversation.
And one thing I'm encouraged about also as a parent, you know, many, many parents now are seeing that their children are exhibiting signs of mental health. They're becoming more educated. And very recently, a panel of experts in the U.S. Prevention Council is asking for mental health screenings from all primary doctors the ages of 8 through 18. I think this is something that could help us with that missing middle to capture young people that are struggling and their parents aren't seeing it. They may be feeling it, but they're not understanding what they're going through.
MS. NORRIS: I'm interested from all three of you--and I'm going to go work backwards on this because we just have a few minutes left--on your thoughts about regulating the things that we can regulate.
So, climate change. There are things that we can do. And actually, individual action will add up to something quite large in the decisions we make about how we travel, the cars we drive, the way that we get rid of our waste and recycling. But there's other forces that are harder to deal with because someone else is at the lever, and that's certainly true for social media. So, is it something that we do, as a nation, need to think about regulating or modulating in some way? And what are the challenges around that because unlike, say, smoking, you don't have a body of scientific research that you can readily call upon to look at the effects of smoking on someone's health. If you're looking at the effects of something like social media on someone's health, how do we deal with something that, at this point, is still a little bit squishy in trying to make decisions about how to regulate something.
If I can get all three of your responses on that.
MS. GERMANOTTA: In terms of all of the social issues you mentioned, yeah, it's very challenging. Just trying to process that type of trauma that we're seeing, whether we're adults or young people, is extremely challenging. It's putting added layers of stress on young people. I think it's making parents less productive.
You know, one of the psychiatrists that we listen to quite often is Dr. Rianna Anderson, who talks about that, how it's actually exacerbating the mental health, the anxiety and depression among young people, but also making their parents less productive. In terms of channeling it, if we can possibly channel that into action as a community, it sounds very simple and I know that it's difficult, but the smallest things that we can do, whether it's gun control, whether it is embedding that kindness in communities.
One of the things we're doing at the Foundation is investing in grassroots mental health organizations that are meeting the needs of young people who are experiencing all of this trauma. It's called the Kindness in Community Fund. This past summer, we invested a million dollars in 22 organizations and local communities, visited them all, learned about them, worked with them, and we're seeing this tremendous impact that they're having and we're planning to double that to $2 million in the coming year. So, any things we can do that are actionable, to actually take steps in our communities as small as they might be and as difficult as they might be, in the midst of our own healing.
MS. NORRIS: Elyse, do we need to regulate or modulate these forces in some way and, until we see actual--any kind of official action, what can be done?
MS. FOX: I agree with you. I really focus on the micro changes because this is new for a lot of people. These conversations are so brand-new. So, I even talk about, like, how storytelling is the eldest form of healing. We pass down remedies; we pass down recipes; but you don't know what your grandmother's mental health was. I think having these honest and open conversations about what the generational impact of mental health in your own specific family is so helpful, and it helps you feel not alone off the bat, but also encouraging those conversations within your own friend group. You have a text group with your friends. You talk about dating, you talk about going out, but have you asked your friend how their mental health is, is there anything that's on their plate that you can help take off, or just adding that kindness to these normal conversations and not being so focused on what's on social media.
We do have to set our own parameters with these apps that we use because we shouldn't be taking in all this information all the time. And there's a lot that we can't restrict ourselves from seeing. So, until we can and until it's better moderated, we have to do it for ourselves. But I do think having those micro conversations really helps remove the stigma, normalizes the conversation. It also spreads more awareness. Maybe within your friend group, they'll ask their families, how's your mental health? Or, I noticed this type of behavior, can we have a conversation about that?
So, I work on a micro level and really hoping to expand what that means for communities.
MS. NORRIS: There's a well-known writer that I spoke to recently who said--you know, on the fact that these are addictive, there is an app that you can get on a phone which will lock you out of social media.
MS. FOX: I love that.
MS. NORRIS: And she does it to help with her writing. And she finds that she turns it on and she wants to get back to it and, ugh, and she can't get back to it. But maybe we could all do that every so often to just turn it all off.
We don't have much time, but on the issue of regulating or modulating the forces of social media, is this something the government should be doing?
MR. MURTHY: I do think there's a role for government here, particularly with two things: One, with ensuring data transparency. We need to know what the impact of these platforms are on young people. There is data there, but independent researchers tell us that they are not getting that data from companies.
The second is in safety standards. Most of the things that I have in my house, Michele, are things that had to meet some safety standard to be sold to me; yet, we have these platforms that billions of people are using around the world that do not have clear enough and strong enough safety standards. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the industry is going to police itself, grade its own homework. We shouldn't expect that or want that. That standard needs to come from the outside.
But finally, I'll just say this, too--
MS. NORRIS: Is it government's role to do that?
MR. MURTHY: I do think government has an important role to play there because right now it's not clear who else is going to do that. And right now, the companies are policing themselves, which is not working out in the favor of our children.
But finally, just keep this in mind: If we want to address the broader youth mental health crisis, one of the critical things that we have to do is we have to stitch together the social fabric of our country again. That means we have to rebuild relationships. We have to refocus on creating healthy relationships, giving young people the skills, tools, and opportunities to do that, because the science is incredibly clear on this now, that our relationships with one another are directly connected to both our mental health and our physical health.
And record numbers of young people and people, frankly, across the age spectrum are struggling with loneliness and isolation. And the reason that is so important is because our relationships don't just feel good; they don't just make our minds and bodies do better; but they are vehicles through which we reinforce and strengthen our values. The values that I want from my children when they grow up--like, I want--you know, I want my kids, my son and daughter, to grow up in a world where people are kind to one another, where if they stumble and fall down, there'll be somebody to pick them up and they'll do the same. I want a world where people are generous, where they look out for one another and not just themselves. And I want them to grow up in a world that's driven and fueled by love and not by fear.
Those values have to be more than platitudes we put on a wall. It's our relationships that allow us to live out those values, to experience them, to recognize how powerful they are, and to be reminded by our friends that these are the values that actually matter. So, the bottom line is, if we want to address mental health in America, yes, we need to increase access to treatment; yes, we have to invest in prevention programs; yes, we have to break down the stigma. We also have to rebuild our relationships with one another, and that can start today with the steps you take to reach out to people in your life, to help strangers who may be in need, and to reinforce these core values of kindness, generosity, and love.
MS. NORRIS: I'm going to add one: gratitude. I think that that is something that we can all express to others and to ourselves to take care of our mental health.
And I have great gratitude for all of you and the time that you've spent. Thank you so much Dr. Murthy, Elyse Fox, Cynthia Germanotta. Thank you so much. | 2022-11-17T20:50:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Mental Health of Our Daughters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-5-mental-health-our-daughters/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-panel-5-mental-health-our-daughters/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Reality of Women Behind Bars
MS. GIVHAN: Hello. I’m Robin Givhan, senior critic‑at‑large for The Washington Post.
I am happy to be joined by Topeka K. Sam, founder and executive director of The Ladies of Hope Ministries, and Colette Peters, the new director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Thank you both so much for being here.
MS. PETERS: Thank you.
MS. SAM: Thank you.
MS. GIVHAN: I thought I would start just by getting a bit more information about the women who are incarcerated, and partially, that's because the numbers of women behind bars in jails has really ballooned.
So, Director Peters, I mean, what's driving that increase, and what is it that most of those women have been incarcerated for?
MS. PETERS: You know, at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that number has remained somewhat stagnant over the years and remained consistent, but in state corrections, it has grown dramatically, often fueled by alcohol and drug addiction and crimes that led‑‑and came out of that addiction.
MS. GIVHAN: And is there some particular reason why that seems to be impacting women so much?
MS. PETERS: You know, I think that what we've seen and what the research will show is that many of the women who are incarcerated suffer from mental health issues, like you heard with the previous panel, and so often self‑medicating through alcohol and drug addiction is often the choice in the path and can lead to criminality.
MS. GIVHAN: I mean, Topeka, one of the things that we sort of talked about a little bit before we came out was just your story, your backstory.
MS. SAM: Mm‑hmm.
MS. GIVHAN: And I want you to share that with us, but I also hope that you'll be able to tell us just a little bit about just how you are able to continue to share that story, because I know a lot of people would just‑‑would be much happier being able to‑‑
MS. SAM: [Laughs]
MS. GIVHAN: ‑‑forget it, put it in the past and not talk about it again.
MS. SAM: Absolutely. I laugh because I think about that every day.
But, you know, when you know you've been called to God to do a particular work, when it's your purpose and anointing, you're equipped to continue to move forward. And, you know, whether it was from the classical piano training that I had, the public speaking, you know, the ballet, the tap, the jazz, the captain of every team in school, and president of every club, I say that as my foundation that allows me to get in front of people to bring awareness, to be a leader in order to continue to do the work in order to help save us sisters, because like Director Peters said, you know, there is about 95 percent of all women who are incarcerated are there because of mental health issues.
But, also, 90 percent of those of us who have been incarcerated have suffered from some type of early childhood trauma or sexual trauma or violence, and so because of that, that also, then you self‑medicate, then happens with the drugs and alcohol, then which leads to prison or jail.
MS. GIVHAN: And what made you decide that you wanted to continue to speak out to‑‑in some ways to continue to discuss that trauma?
MS. SAM: Mm‑hmm. Well, it was because of during my own incarceration when I was in the federal prison for three years, I saw and met so many sisters that had those stories. I was grateful that, you know, I was raised in a very stable home, two parents, franchise business owners. They were married over 58 years. I had all the foundational things.
What drove me to incarceration was really more of a self‑identity crisis, being the only Black child raised in a white community, going to college in Baltimore, Maryland, trying to fit in, and then beginning to get involved in things that, for me at the time, felt that that's what I needed to do in order to be accepted by even my community. And so this went on for years but even after that once I was arrested and I had this idea that people used drugs because they wanted to‑‑because there was no one in my family that struggled with any type of substance misuse.
And when I asked a sister why she was incarcerated and why did she use drugs, she said that her father had been raping her, and he gave her heroin for the first time and told her to take the heroin and the pain would go away. And another sister said the only time she was able to spend time with her mother was when they smoked crack together.
And because of my upbringing and the things that I was afforded and the privilege that I had, even while I was incarcerated and the stories, it was these stories and testimonies over and over again that led these sisters to incarceration. I knew innately that when I came home, I could do anything that I wanted to do, but it was my purpose in order to create platforms for other women to be able to use their voice to share their story, because I felt that if people saw the faces and heard the voices of women who were in prison, that we would not be there. I feel like prisons do not heal. I feel that you can hold people accountable while also healing them, and we've seen it in other countries. It can be done. There are alternatives to incarceration in other programs, and I knew based on my own lived experience, along with my professional and education, that I could do anything. And this was the thing that I needed to do.
MS. GIVHAN: The points that you raise, I think, are directly linked to a question that I had for you which‑‑Director Peters, which is who do you see as the constituent that you are accountable to as the director of prisons? Is it the public at large, that many of whom want to see prison purely as punishment, or do you see the people who are actually incarcerated as your constituents?
MS. PETERS: I think it's both because I think the people who are incarcerated are our communities. They are our people. They are coming back to our communities.
We have engaged in mass incarceration to the degree that it is our sisters, it is our brothers, it is our aunties, it is our uncles. And I think that, traditionally, we've spent a lot of time in corrections creating good inmates, and I think that we need to spend a lot of time in corrections creating good neighbors and really being accountable to those people who are in our care, ensuring that our institutions are safe and secure, both for those employees who work there and those in our care and custody. But every day we should be focused on helping provide the resources they need to change and come back to our communities as productive citizens.
MS. GIVHAN: When you talk about resources, I mean, one of the primary issues is health care actually. I mean, how does that‑‑how do you deal with that when you're addressing the prison population and the prison system?
MS. PETERS: Yeah. We heard some great statistics earlier around those individuals who come to us who have severe mental health issues, severe alcohol and drug issues. We also have a population that comes to us without much preventative care. And so, in corrections, folks that are incarcerated are often 10 years older biologically than their chronological age, and many folks come to us with chronic illness that we're trying to take care of and care for.
And so, well, the pandemic brought us many negatives. One of the positives that it brought was a recognition that the Bureau of Prisons and other corrections agencies across this country are health care organizations. And so I really want to spend some time at the bureau figuring out how do we pivot out of the pandemic but not lose that lens and forever look through the lens of corrections as a public health care organization.
MS. GIVHAN: I mean, how has‑‑there is the bipartisan First Step Act that was signed about five years ago. How has that changed or impacted the prison population?
MS. PETERS: You know, it's in product. It's something that absolutely, first of all brought, a lot of attention to corrections in a way that needed to happen.
Traditionally, people would drive past prisons and jails and not care or pay attention to what was happening behind them. So I think the First Step Act and Congress's commitment to creating more humane environments inside our institutions is a great first step, if you will.
I think it's allowed us to get people in the community where they can be better served, both from a humanity perspective and a health perspective but also from a public safety perspective.
It is true‑‑I believe in incarceration or I wouldn't be in this role, but there's a point in time where we hold people in prison too long, and we lose that return on investment. We actually can do damage.
So to be able to through the First Step Act allow individuals to receive‑‑earn time credits and get back to their families and back into their communities sooner rather than later, I think, really as a game changer.
MS. SAM: Yeah. I would agree. We worked on the First Step Act also making sure that also the dignity provisions were put in when you think about health care so that women are no longer shackled during child labor, which actually still happens in over 20 states in this country today, and we were able to get that in and also help to make sure that previously incarcerated people like myself can go back in, to the federal prison, in order to provide programming and things that we have created, because obviously those of us who have had a successful reentry know what it means to stay out and to keep people out.
And so it's been a great honor working with Director Peters in this new Federal Bureau of Prisons, because even after we had been invited to a listening session, the first ever that was done in the Federal Bureau of Prisons that had formerly incarcerated people and advocates at the table, there were things that I raised, and because of those things, they have already been handled. And we've already been able to get some of our programs even approved as earned time credit for people to come in, which we were having a terrible time over the last two years trying to happen.
So I see hope not only in the First Step as a first step but also in helping to implement it.
MS. GIVHAN: Can I just unpack a little bit of what you said just there? One, what is‑‑what are the unique experiences of women who are incarcerated that makes‑‑you know, that differentiates their experience from that of men? And then what are the unique challenges that they face when they're going back into their community?
MS. SAM: Right. So I would say, one, 85 percent of all women who are incarcerated are mothers of dependent children, and so that is, I would say, the major difference between that of men.
And then health care. You know, women, we have menstrual cycles and, you know, uterine fibroids and, you know, different things that men don't have, which is why we actually had to pass legislation to make sure that pads and tampons were free to people who were incarcerated, which, you know, you can laugh about, but we actually had to do that. And so, you know, those are some of the things that are different specifically.
Now, when women are coming home‑‑there's a good friend of mine, James Monteiro, who was also incarcerated in prison, and he says when a man is arrested, he asks where is his attorney, but when the woman is arrested, she acts where are her children.
And it's the same thing, you know, when a woman comes home. She's coming home‑‑one, she has to get herself together. Two, she has to either find her children, if the system took them from her while she was away, or get them back. And in different states‑‑New York, where I'm from, if you have two children of different genders that are under a particular age, you have to have separate bedrooms for them. Now, if I'm just coming from prison, I have two minor children, two different genders. How am I going to afford a two‑ to three‑bedroom apartment in New York City? It's impossible.
And so you think about those barriers. You know, you think about the conviction, trying to find employment. The barriers that come with that is over 40,000 barriers to people who are coming back from prison and jail each year.
And so when we talk about having, you know, experiences and resources and education and opportunity, it has to start while you're in. So, when you come out, you come out to a better chance, a fair chance, because you already have so many things that you're faced against.
MS. GIVHAN: And when you think about all of those challenges, I mean, do those things add up to then sometimes a return to prison?
MS. SAM: Absolutely, because‑‑you know, there was a sister who actually was released on clemency a few years ago, and she ended up getting rearrested for‑‑and re‑violated for stealing laundry detergent. And so she was facing a life sentence, was released after 20‑something years. She was working two jobs‑‑two jobs‑‑but she could not afford laundry detergent. And so it's like this is a crime of survival. So why then would she be rearrested? Where was probation and parole there to help her, to direct her to resources? Why wasn't there a community‑based organization there to support her? Why did she have to feel the need to steal laundry detergent?
And so when you think about these things and, again, having the hardships of dealing with elderly parents who may be sickly, dealing with dependent children, then having to think about just dealing with your own mental health issues and the PTSD that comes from being in prison, because no matter how well I'm put together, each and every day, I have to deal with and unpack the things that I experienced while I was in five different prisons in three years. And that's a lot, you know.
So people‑‑you know, I do this because I want people to hear that, because if you saw me walking in the street, you would never think I was in prison, more or less, for three years. And I don't come from the typical background of the individual that goes through incarceration, and so that means that every one of us are impacted in one way or another.
We were talking behind the stage. It's something that I often do is I ask how many people in the room have been impacted by incarceration by a show of hands. Show your hands. [Laughs]
Right now what I do know is that there's still a stigma, right? And what we know is the data shows is one in three adults presently has an incarcerated loved one. So, if we've seen maybe, what, five to ten hands in this room full of people raise, then we know that there is still that stigma. And, if it's in a room like this, what do you think it is for those people who are actually living this each and every day?
MS. GIVHAN: When you‑‑Director, when you hear those stories, those challenges, as the director of prisons at the federal level‑‑I mean, not even considering the state level‑‑what do you see as the changes that you can make?
MS. PETERS: Well, hearing those stories is absolutely why I'm here, why I said yes to this position, why I am in this role, why I have spent 30 years in public safety. I believe that people can change. I believe that it's our responsibility to make good neighbors, and I believe that we have a lot of work to do to get there.
MS. GIVHAN: Do you see sort of your top‑‑I don't know‑‑three things that you would like to see change with the bureau?
MS. PETERS: You know, I would start with our employees. If our employees are not well, we aren't going to have a humane and normal environment. And so you've read about the staffing challenges that the Bureau of Prisons has had with overtime and augmentation. That is a problem we need to solve immediately, and training, we want our corrections professionals to operate at a very high level and they're‑‑we don't hire guards. We have corrections professionals that are supposed to engage in treatment and mentoring and care and kindness, and we train at a very low level. So I think we need to start there. And then we need to create a humane and normal environment for those in our care and custody so that they are able to engage in mental health treatment and alcohol and drug, substance abuse treatment and engage with their families and create visiting rooms that are family friendly and are children friendly so that that reentry begins while they are incarcerated and truly come back to our communities healthier and ready to be productive citizens.
And we know so much more about what works in corrections today than we did 30 years ago when I started my career, and it is better public safety to treat people humanely and in a normalized environment so that they can prepare for reentry.
MS. GIVHAN: Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there because we are now out of time. That went so quickly.
Thank you both so much for being here, and if you will all just stay with us, we'll be back after this segment. | 2022-11-17T20:50:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: The Reality of Women Behind Bars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-reality-women-behind-bars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-reality-women-behind-bars/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Truth to Power
MS. MEKHENNET: Hello. Welcome.
MS. MEKHENNET: I'm Souad Mekhennet, international security correspondent here at The Washington Post, and I am very pleased and honored to have my wonderful colleague here, Barkha Dutt. She is one of the most-known journalists in India, and she is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. Welcome, Barkha.
MS. DUTT: Thank you very much.
MS. MEKHENNET: Barkha, we just saw in the introduction video the case of Bilkis Bano, and in the end you ask the question, "Should any woman's fight for justice end like this?" Could you tell us, who is Bilkis Bano and what does this case show and say about the cases and the lives of women in India and of Muslims in India?
MS. DUTT: Thank you, Souad, and good evening, everybody. Thank you very much for turning out in such large numbers to hear this conversation. My answer, however, is going to be a little bit complex.
Who is Bilkis Bano? Bilkis could be any one of us. She could be any one of us women who has experienced sexual assault of the most horrific, unimaginable kind. She was 19 years old when she was gang-raped by a group of 11 men in 2002, in the backdrop of anti-Muslim riots that had taken place in Gujarat. She was pregnant, three months pregnant, and she had a three-year-old baby. As the mob came for her, the baby in her womb obviously didn't survive. Her three-year-old daughter, Saleha, her head was smashed with a stone.
As Bilkis was raped and lay on the ground bleeding the men then split up and raped her mother. The men made the mother witness the rape of the daughter, and the daughter witness the rape of the mother.
Bilkis fought. She fought for 17 years, and the Indian justice system actually worked. The men were sentenced to life imprisonment. In India's history, she is the rape survivor to have been granted by the Supreme Court exemplary compensation in 2019. However--
MS. MEKHENNET: And the men were released then, right?
MS. DUTT: --now is the horrific part.
A few months ago, the men who did this to her, who were supposed to spend the rest of their life in prison were released by a government decision, as part of a special program to show leniency to prisoners, and all 11 of them walked out, and they walked out to garlands and sweets. And one of the legislators who was part of the decision to release these men, he said, in an interview to my platform, that these are men of good values. He referenced their cost, and he said, "They're Brahmins. They are men of good values."
It made me very angry. I'm not usually an activist-y journalist. I believe in letting the story speak for itself. This is one of the few stories I've actually run an advocacy campaign on because I did not see another side.
MS. MEKHENNET: And do you think they also were released because she was a Muslim woman? Did that play a role in all of this?
MS. DUTT: So this is where I'm going to give you an answer that's a little bit complex, and I want your understanding, and maybe just two minutes to let me explain.
MS. MEKHENNET: Please, go ahead.
MS. DUTT: Are there issues with religious minorities in India today? Yes. For me the biggest two issues are the following. We have one of the most powerful elected governments in recent history, completely democratically elected, I should underline. There's nothing about seizing power here or a flawed system. This is what the people of India have willed, and it's an extremely powerful government in terms of how many seats it has.
However, the ruling party does not have a single Muslim member in Parliament, and to me that is a problem, in a country where there are 220 million Muslims. That is a nation by itself. That is a problem.
The other problem is we've seen all manners of literally sort of right-wing nuts, I would call them, make hate speeches, that I believe that those in power have not done enough to shut down.
However, I want to say something a little complex here. When I travel to the West there is a broad stroke in the Western media about India. The cliches I usually hear are, "Muslims under Modi," "India in the age of Modi." There is a kind of generalization and no granularity in actually trying to know us. Who are we? We are 1.3 billion people. We are many things all at once. We have issues that we raise our voices against, but we also have extraordinary syncretism. We have diversity. We have pluralism.
And just as we talk about Bilkis--one more sentence and I'll shut up--in the last 12 hours, I was up all night before I got to the conference here, came the report of a young woman called Sharaddha. She had been killed by her boyfriend. He chopped her up into 35 parts. He minced the intestines. He stored them in the refrigerator in his home, where he then brought other women to date. In this case, the perpetrator was Muslim; the victim was Hindu.
I make this point to say two things. We do fight, and we do speak against injustices as we see them. But please try and have a more granular understanding of our nation, and please, as women, let us understand that the fight for women's rights is universal. You've all just been through Roe vs. Wade. In many ways my country is freer on abortion. So let's acknowledge that women are fighting everywhere.
MS. MEKHENNET: And I wish you would pick up on this point because you wrote a piece for The Washington Post where you spoke about the prism of prejudice, that some Western journalists, when they come to India, that they look at India from a perspective with some prejudices. And I would like to ask you what exactly do you mean by that? You mentioned a few points, but could you tell us a bit more?
MS. DUTT: This assumption that as an Indian woman I will, by definition, be less empowered than many of the women sitting in this hall today. That is the assumption I confronted when I was a student here at grad school at Columbia. I grew up in New York. That was the assumption my schoolmates had. I was a brown girl from India, and somehow, I was less of a feminist. Oh, I must be really oppressed. I must only be married by an arranged marriage. They couldn't even imagine that I'm not married. And I'm not.
MS. MEKHENNET: I grew up with the same prejudices.
MS. DUTT: Yeah? The broad stroking and the asymmetry of power, right? Can I come here and look at America only through the prism of race? Guns? Roe vs. Wade? No. I lived here. I love this country. I recognize that it's many things all at once. I ask for my country to be recognized in the same way.
MS. MEKHENNET: But when you cover cases like Bilkis, or you spoke now about the new case, this actually also does something with you, right? I mean, you have been attacked for some of the coverage you did. Can you tell us what kind of attacks have you faced? What do you have to deal with at the moment, covering these things?
MS. DUTT: Souad, I'm sure you've experienced this. I think any intelligent, independent-minded woman, no matter where in the world, has been intimidated, or there's been an attempt to intimidate us, and an attempt to silence us. And nowhere is this more manifest than it is on social media, where you actually have organized, well-oiled machines coming after you, almost like lynch mobs. I call them virtual lynch mobs.
And I remember a time when, in the context of a story I had reported, where I actually spoke about sort of how criticism does not mean that I am antinational. I'm a proud Indian, and if I criticize a policy, let's say, it doesn't make me an antinational, which is a word that's bandied about far too easily.
My phone number was shared on an escort site, on a site to hire sex workers. And I was then sent about 5,000 dick pics, nude pics, rape threats, threats to shoot me. I got police security briefly, and I was very uncomfortable about it, you know, with it, as a reporter, and so I gave it up.
And I remembered, funnily enough, I was listening to Hillary Clinton moderate earlier today, and she'd come to India and I had interviewed her, and I was asking her--she was Secretary of State then, and she quoted Eleanor Roosevelt, and she said, "Barkha, you have to grow a skin as thick as the hide of a rhinoceros."
My challenge is this. I think I have that thick skin, but how do you keep the thick skin but still keep your heart molten, because we need to be tough outside and soft inside to tell the stories we do.
MS. MEKHENNET: So what do you do then? How did you keep the thick skin but how do you also take care of yourself?
MS. DUTT: I spent two years traveling across India, reporting on the pandemic in my country, at a time when no channels--there were no boots on the ground. I traveled 30,000 kilometers by road from the north to the south of India, spending 130 days consecutively on the road. And I realized that the answer is in returning journalism to people.
Everywhere, from New Delhi to New York, people have one complaint about the media. They don't see their lives reflected in the news that they consume. And I committed and recommitted to making journalism about people. And I think the answer to those who try and silence us, apart from the thick skin, is to be powerful storytellers and tell a story so good that nobody can afford to ignore you.
MS. MEKHENNET: I have to ask this question because you kept talking about the people who tried to silence you and organized mobs online. Do you have the impression that any of this is organized by the government to silence you?
MS. DUTT: No, I would not say that because I have no evidence to actually make that point. But I think I've studied sort of online behavior enough to find that independent-minded people get crushed between ideological camps.
You know, I always say we talk about free speech. We just had Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born New Yorker stabbed for his work. More than free speech, what we need to re-emphasize, not just in India but I would say everywhere in the world, is the need for a free interrogating mind. And as women we are going to be resented for having free, independent minds, for rejecting tribalism, for not being coopted by any camp, for being ferociously me, individualistic, for speaking truth to power and for being inconvenient, for being a pain in the ass, for being a troublemaker. I plan to be all of those.
MS. MEKHENNET: Good for you. Good for you.
MS. MEKHENNET: So what can we do, we as fellow journalists, but also what could international organizations for journalists do to support you, to be still the troublemaker, and to, you know, not give up on all of this, despite all the pressure?
MS. DUTT: I think that we need to be respectful of each other's complexities. Complexity and nuance has become a bad word in the age of polarity. I think we have to acknowledge that as women we fight everywhere, and sometimes we fight in the space that's supposed to be the safest, our private spaces, in relationships where we think we're going to be safe, and we end up in abusive relationships. In India I'm fighting to legalize marital rape. It's been sort of a space I've done a lot of work on.
But if we just look at another country from the perch of superiority, we assume ourselves to be culturally superior, democratically superior, superior in some ways of, you know, we have a better track record of civil liberty, what it's going to do is actually diminish the space for these conversations back home, because it's going to get everyone's back up, and people are going to say, "Hey, dear Americans, do we have a right to also opine about what's happening in your country?" And once it's a conversation between equals that is a much more productive conversation.
On journalism I would only say, Souad--and you are a brilliant, brilliant security correspondent who has covered terror groups. You know this. There is no excuse for bad journalism. We are not activists. That's somebody else's job. We are not politicians. And we are not supplicants to power. We have to be interrogatory. We have to be unafraid, but it has to be through our work. And the lines between news and opinion have blurred to a degree where people have stopped respecting and trusting media. And if we want trust back in media, in India or in the United States of America, actually we need to go back to the basics. We need to be reporters.
MS. MEKHENNET: Speaking about the basics, how much did your mother play a role in who you became? Your mother was the first war correspondent in India, and she passed away when you were very young. But how did her work influence your life and what you're doing today? If you could give us a short answer.
MS. DUTT: Yes. Thank you for that question. I know the time is up so I'll keep it short. My mother was the first generation of women journalists in India. When she applied for a job, the editor told her there were no jobs available in the newsroom for women. She was free to cover the flower show in the city.
She grew up to be the head of bureau at the Hindustan Times, which is one of India's major newspapers. A few years later, war broke out between India and Pakistan. She asked for a chance to report from the front lines. She was told that there was no chance that a woman would be allowed to be a war correspondent.
She left with her notepad and pen in the 1960s, in a sari, to the war front, where she had a cousin in the military, and became, by accident and by will and by stubbornness, India's first woman war correspondent.
MS. MEKHENNET: There it is, the stubbornness.
MS. DUTT: The stubbornness. And three decades later, she was already dead, I became a war correspondent at the front line, and I had to really fight as a woman to get to the front line.
Our life is a constant battle. Every day is a negotiation. So we should be kind to ourselves, and we should encourage women to be selfish. We've been romanticized for too long as being sacrificing, as being people who put others before ourselves. I want women everywhere to pursue ambition without apology and happiness without regret.
MS. MEKHENNET: Thank you very much, Barkha. Wonderful.
MS. MEKHENNET: Unfortunately, we are running out of time. Thank you so much for being here with us, and please stay here with us. My colleague, Frances, will be here shortly after the video. Thank you.
MS. DUTT: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. | 2022-11-17T20:50:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Truth to Power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-truth-power/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-truth-power/ |
Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Women, Life, Freedom
MS. BROWN: Hello, everybody. I’m Tina Brown.
And, in the middle of so much world turbulence, it's so easy to forget the cauldron of protests that's happening right now in female dissent in Iran. And we're very fortunate to have the two women you just saw in the video, who don't allow us ever to forget.
On my left here is Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born actress, activist, and Amnesty International UK ambassador, who uses her Hollywood platform to focus attention on the extraordinary events in Iran. And my old friend, journalist and activist, Masih Alinejad, who was born and raised in Iran, forced into exile 13 years ago after all the trouble she kept making for the mullahs as a newspaper reporter, and she's since become a social media powerhouse, amplifying the voices of the women protesting in Iran.
So, Masih, for almost a decade, you've been agitating against this regime by challenging its mandatory hijab law. Your message has become really a revolution. Why did this happen now, and why was the death of this one young woman reporter, a young woman as we saw in the film, why is the death of hers so really become a tipping point?
MS. ALINEJAD: Well, hi, everyone.
Before actually getting to answer this question, I really want to actually ask you, everyone, single simple question: Have you ever thought that a small piece of cloth can kill a woman? So that's the answer.
Mahsa, I mean, she was only 22-year-old. She got killed by morality police, by hijab police. If any of you here have no idea what morality police is, there are a bunch of police walking around and telling you, every single of you, cover yourself properly. And if you don't, then you will go to prison or you get lashes or you get killed, like these days in Iran.
Yes, Tina. You actually invited me many times to talk about my campaign, but I remember when I launched the Campaign Against Compulsory Hijab, many people in the West were saying that, you know, Middle East has got so many bigger problems, or on the other hand, people were saying that "This compulsory hijab is part of your culture"--
MS. ALINEJAD: --"so we don't want to touch this issue," which was an insult to a nation when you call barbaric laws part of our culture.
But I have to say that women in Iran bravely practicing their civil disobedience for years and years and years, but the brutal death of Mahsa Amini created a huge anger because she was not part of any civil disobedience act or any protest. She was just walking, and she was not even unveiled. The police went to her because she wore hijab, improper hijab, inappropriate hijab, and immediately, when she got killed, every teenagers relate to her story because it could have happened to anyone. Men, women relate to her story, and that's why it started from Kurdistan, but now across Iran, teenagers, school girls, they're taking to the street and they're saying that "You killed Mahsa. Now we are all Mahsa." Yes, a revolution taking place in Iran led by women.
MS. BROWN: It's just blown up into flames. It's extraordinary.
Nazanin, you were actually not born in Iran, but you've spent your life in the West right, in London and California.
MS. BONIADI: I was born in Iran.
MS. BROWN: You were born in Iran, but you came to London and California.
MS. BONIADI: Yeah.
MS. BROWN: So what has really sort of planted the seeds for you to become such a passionate activist and stay connected essentially with, you know, the culture that you're no longer living in?
MS. BONIADI: Well, thanks for having us, Tina, and hello to all of you. This is such an important moment for our country.
I always say the first protest that I attended, I was still in my mother's womb. She was 19 when she was pregnant with me in Tehran, and it was 1979. And she was one of those brave women who defiantly stood up against what she saw unraveling in the country, which was basically everyone being stripped of their rights but particularly women and girls. They were facing a social, legal climate that was--you know, they were having their rights stripped away from them. And we were lucky enough to be able to escape before my father was executed. He was on the execution list.
But that revolutionary fervor of standing up against injustice was sort of ingrained in my social consciousness since I was zero years old, and then when I was 12, I went to Iran for the first time. And I spent two months there. I turned 13 in Iran, and we've traveled across the country. And I remember having a run-in, a pretty harrowing experience with a morality policeman who approached myself and my 45--I was 12 at the time. My 45-year-old uncle was standing next to me, walking down the street, my mother two or three steps behind us. And we got stopped by the morality policeman, and he demanded that we produce marriage certificate.
MS. ALINEJAD: Yeah.
MS. BONIADI: A marriage certificate. And I thought, I'm 12. I'm already being forced to wear a hijab. That's not what I want to do, and I'm being accused of being in a relationship with a 45-year-old man who is my uncle, and it was so harrowing and jarring. My mother, I remember, stepped forward and defended us and said, "That's my brother, and this is my daughter." And he just wouldn't have it, this guy, and I thought that is the daily experience--
MS. BONIADI: --of girls in Iran, of being harassed.
MS. BROWN: Constant harassment.
MS. BONIADI: Constant harassment.
So, when I had the platform as an actress, I immediately wanted to use it to amplify the voices.
MS. BROWN: Well, the Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who star in an Oscar-winning film actually, she posted a photo of herself with her hair uncovered. That's a risky thing for someone who's such a prominent woman in the public eye to do. I mean, what kind of a risk is she taking by doing something like that?
MS. BONIADI: mean, that's so extraordinarily brave. You know, we are seeing daily the videos coming out of Iran of what happens to women when they take their hijab off, and Katayoun Rihai and other celebrated actresses right at the start gave an interview to a news outlet outside of Iran without her hijab. And she said it best. She said, "People are no longer afraid of prison because Iran itself has become a prison," but that's extremely brave what they're doing.
MS. BROWN: Well, yeah. It's really--she's put her life in danger essentially.
Masih, you know, you and your family have paid a very, very steep price for your activism, right? I mean, they kept--they put your brother in prison, correct?
MS. ALINEJAD: Yeah, for two years.
Look, taking hostage is in the DNA of Islamic Republic. You Americans know that. After--right after the revolution, the first thing that the Islamic Republic did, took American diplomats hostage. Yes, they released them, but still they have 80 million Iranians hostage.
When they--I don't want to really talk about my family because my heart is broken when I see now that teenagers are getting killed in Iran, and I really want to name them. Sarina was only 16-year-old. She took to the street to be the voice of Mahsa Amini. They killed her. Nika was only 16-year-old. She went to the street by burning her head scarf. She was leading the protest. They killed her.
But more important than this, they brought their family on TV to denounce them publicly, to say that, you know, "Yeah. Our daughters committed suicide," and I am familiar with this because I was the one watching my sister on TV denouncing me for 15 minutes. And they asked my mother to do it. My mom, as you know that, because I told her story many times in “Women in the World,” she's not even able to read and write. But she's the true feminist. She said that in tiny village, "If you come back to my house again and ask me to go on TV to denounce my daughter, I will set fire on myself, and I kill myself." This is the true feminism in Iran.
Every single woman, as Nazanin and I both following their stories, reading them, hearing them every day, we cry with them, but at the same time, we feel more powerful that they're leading the movement. They're not scared of anything. They look unbelievably powerful. Tina, it's like, wow, these are like the icons that we read about them in the books, in the history, but this historical revolution is happening in Iran right now. And I want you to be with them, to be with us, and to be their voices.
MS. BROWN: Well, I think we all are. There's no doubt about that, but what more can we all do? I mean, last week, you met with President Macron, and, you know, these diplomatic visits, you always tend to think, well, what is really that going to achieve, except, you know, for the sort of powerful photo opportunity? Is this--
MS. ALINEJAD: Well, ask me.
MS. BROWN: You know, I mean--
MS. BROWN: There you are.
MS. ALINEJAD: Actually with Macron.
MS. BROWN: What did you--I mean, what did it achieve for the movement to meet with Macron?
MS. ALINEJAD: I mean, first of all, I have to say that, look, he's shaking my hand. I make him to do it, because only 50 days ago, he shake the hand of Ebrahim Raisi, which the world called him president. But I want to ask every single of you. Media are here. Please stop giving democratic title to dictators like Putin, like Khamenei, like Ebrahim Raisi. Yes. This is the time.
MS. ALINEJAD: So, when I saw that President Macon--no, no. I really want to see his picture.
MS. BROWN: Bring it back.
MS. ALINEJAD: When I saw him shaking the hand of Ebrahim Raisi, it broke my heart. It made me angry.
Nazanin, honestly, did it make you angry?
MS. BONIADI: Oh, extremely. I think every Iranian who wants freedom was angered.
MS. ALINEJAD: Because more than 300 people got killed.
And I just had the request that, you know, this is the time I want to meet with you. He accepted, but I said that I'm not going to just have a photo opp. I invited young women. One of them, Roya Piraei, when she was meeting President Macron, she said that--she actually brought the picture of her mother. She said that "This is my mom. Ebrahim Raisi killed her. Don't shake the hand of those who killed my mother."
So you say that what we can do? You can do a lot, but let me be very clear. I'm not here to ask the Western countries, the leaders of G7, the leaders of democratic country to save us, but we are here to ask the democratic countries, stop saving our murderers, and stop saving the Islamic Republic. While teenagers are shaking this regime, stop shaking the hands of these murderers, and that's the first step.
I asked President Macon to recognize the uprising, as it is--it's a revolution. And he did. He asked the press, and he actually made a statement and said--he is the first one so far. He said that this is a revolution, but I have to say he had explanation, long explanation, saying that France is all about diplomacy.
MS. ALINEJAD: "That's why as a head of the state, I shake the hand of the president of Iran." I said, "First, he's not the president. He's the butcher. Second, France is all about revolution. France has respected"--
MS. BROWN: That's good. Very sly.
MS. ALINEJAD: Yes. And, actually, he loved that.
MS. BROWN: I bet he loved it.
MS. ALINEJAD: That's why he recognized the Iranian revolution.
[Laughter and applause]
MS. BROWN: So, listen, what concerns me, though, now is, I mean, we're all in awe of this extraordinary courage. You know, we're rooting for you, but, you know, some 14,000 protestants have now been arrested.
Yesterday, an Iranian court handed out the first death sentence to a protestor, but, you know, Iranians are not backing down. But are we just going to see this thing forcibly fizzle out with, you know, arrests, disappearances, and death, people moldering in prisons and executed silently? I mean, what do you see here?
MS. BONIADI: I'm seeing the first female-led revolution of our time, and--
MS. BONIADI: And here's where it's powerful and it's different from the past, because what we're seeing is men and women standing shoulder to shoulder for a feminist cause, for freedom for women, and it's because this Iranian society-at-large has recognized the intersectionality of gender equality and every other basic human right, which has been deprived from the Iranian people for 43 years, the right to free expression, fair trials, due process, assembly, freedom of assembly, you know, not having torture, not having forced confessions, things that people are rising up against. Minority rights, LGBTQ rights, all are connected to this movement, and women have managed to galvanize people and have Iranian society-at-large understand that intersection of their rights.
So I think that's why it's powerful. I think it resonates with people outside of Iran in a major way because of movements like the Civil Rights movement in America and Black Lives Matter and bodily autonomy, things that we all care about, and we understand the fragility of our freedoms. And that, I think, is resonating in a similar way that apartheid South Africa, when we all rise up to end apartheid in South Africa. That's what I see for Iran. I really think this is a moment for us.
MS. BROWN: Well, I mean, the new development really is that the men are now really joining the women, correct? I mean, how long did that take, Masih? Because when you first began to post videos of women taking off their hijabs, the men were not always supportive of women doing this at all.
MS. ALINEJAD: I mean, that's very, very powerful now when I see men are in the streets. There are--there is a very powerful video of men walking toward security forces with open arm. Women are behind and saying that "We are ready to sacrifice our life for the freedom of our sisters." I still get goosebumps.
And one of the young men put a story of a man standing in front and telling the woman with her hair down just to stay behind, "I will sacrifice my life for your freedom," and that young man got killed. And her--his mother was grieving but proudly saying that "Yes, you actually did what you promised."
You know, I remember for years and years, yes, the Iranian regime used men against women saying that you own your sister, you own your daughters, you own your mothers. Women are not allowed to go to stadium, and this is how Iranian regime oppressed women by using men.
Now this revolution led by women supporting by men actually, you know, showing the rest of the world that these are the true face of Iran, it's unbelievable, unbelievable that women in Iran are not allowed to ride a bicycle. Women in Iran are not allowed to go to stadium. Women are not allowed to get a passport without getting permission from their husband. Women are not allowed to dance. Women are not allowed to sing.
Can you believe that? I have a good voice. I can sing for you.
MS. BROWN: What would you sing?
MS. ALINEJAD: Honestly, women--
MS. BROWN: What would you sing if you were there now, Masih?
MS. ALINEJAD: I mean, it breaks my heart that women cannot sing. What can I sing?
[Ms. Alinejad sings "Sarzamin-e-Man" in Farsi language]
MS. ALINEJAD: "Sarzamin-e-Man" means my Homeland. My homeland. You are very tired and exhausted.
I cannot translate.
MS. BROWN: You two women so seriously--we're so honored to have had you with us today, and it's very moving to hear and very, very important that we keep behind you. And is there anything you can tell this room that we can do for you?
MS. BONIADI: We have finally, after 43 years of campaigning, managed to get a human--UN Human Rights Council session, November 24th.
MS. BONIADI: It's only taken four decades, but we are there, and what I would encourage everyone to do is please keep calling your representatives. Keep using your voices and ensure that everyone stands unequivocally with the people and not the regime of Iran.
MS. BROWN: Thank you.
MS. ALINEJAD: Can I say something? Can I add one thing before we go?
MS. BROWN: You may.
MS. ALINEJAD: There was a Women's March in New York, everywhere, Washington, D.C. I was part of Women's March because the slogan was "my body, my choice." Many Western female politicians when it comes to Islamic Republic and Afghanistan, they never say "my body, my choice." They say to Islamic Republic and Taliban, where, you know, "My body is your choice." Stop doing that.
You can call for an international women's march for women of Iran and Afghanistan. We can take to the streets. When women's march in Iran and Afghanistan is bloody, let's do it here in New York, in America. Let's take to the street and show our solidarity and sisterhood to the women of Iran and women of Afghanistan. Together, we are stronger, and we will win this battle just together. Thank you so much. | 2022-11-17T20:50:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Global Women’s Summit: Women, Life, Freedom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-women-life-freedom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/17/transcript-global-womens-summit-women-life-freedom/ |
Father identifies teenager killed by driver in Baileys Crossroads area
Lesly Diaz-Bonilla, 17. (Family Photo)
A father said his daughter, Lesly Diaz-Bonilla, was the teenager who was struck by a driver and killed in a crosswalk on Columbia Pike in Baileys Crossroads on Wednesday morning.
Fermin Diaz Argueta confirmed the girl’s name in a brief phone call with The Washington Post. The family also started a GoFundMe page.
“Lesly was a beautiful angel who had many dreams to be a nurse,” Diaz Argueta, the father, wrote Wednesday on the GoFundMe page. “Sadly she had a tragic accident. She dreamed to be successful in school and help her family out.”
The crash occurred just before 9 a.m. near the intersection of Columbia Pike and Tyler Street, Fairfax County Police said Thursday. Police said the teenager was crossing Columbia Pike from Barcroft View Terrace when the driver of a 2014 Toyota Camry traveling west on Columbia Pike struck her.
The father said his daughter just turned 17 on Nov. 10. He said she was a junior at Justice High School.
“Any loss of a staff member, student, or their loved one, deeply impacts our entire FCPS family,” a Fairfax County schools spokesperson said. “We will always offer counseling and support to our community during these difficult times. Above all else, we respect the privacy of those who are grieving.”
Police have not announced any charges for the driver, who stayed at the scene after hitting the teenager. Police said they were investigating whether speed played a role in the crash, though they do not believe alcohol was involved.
Police said this crash was the 18th pedestrian-related fatal crash in Fairfax County this year. There were 11 pedestrian-related fatal crashes at this time in 2021. | 2022-11-17T21:07:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Father identifies teenager killed by driver in Baileys Crossroads area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/fairfax-teen-struck-by-driver/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/fairfax-teen-struck-by-driver/ |
Wimbledon relaxes its all-white dress code for female players
Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan won the women's singles final at Wimbledon this summer. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
The All England Club announced Thursday that it will allow female competitors at Wimbledon to wear dark undershorts, easing its requirement for all-white clothing amid concerns for players who are menstruating.
“We are committed to supporting the players and listening to their feedback as to how they can perform at their best,” All England Club chief executive Sally Bolton said in a statement. “I’m pleased to confirm that, following consultation with players and representatives of several stakeholder groups, the Committee of Management has taken the decision to update the white clothing rule at Wimbledon. This means that from next year, women and girls competing at The Championships will have the option of wearing coloured undershorts if they choose. It is our hope that this rule adjustment will help players focus purely on their performance by relieving a potential source of anxiety.”
Novak Djokovic cleared to play in Australian Open
Wimbledon’s long-standing dress code required players to wear all-white attire on match courts during the Grand Slam tournament, but that policy has faced continued criticism from various corners of the tennis world.
During this summer’s tournament, a group of protesters wearing white skirts and red undershorts urged Wimbledon organizers to change the policy. Vexed by the belief that the policy had become stricter in recent years, protest organizer Gabriella Holmes told the Guardian their protest outfits were inspired by Russian-born French player Tatiana Golovin, whose 2007 decision to wear red underwear during her Wimbledon matches provoked international headlines and the post-match news conference question, “Can I ask you about your knickers?”
More recently, the policy was also criticized by tennis great Billie Jean King and Judy Murray, a tennis coach and the mother of British tennis star Andy Murray.
“If you are wearing all white and then possibly have a leak while you’re playing, I cannot think of a much more traumatic experience than that,” Murray told the Daily Mail. “When all matches are televised and streamed now, it is something that needs to be considered. ... However, it’s really important, too, that we have lots of women on the decision-making panel, because they understand what that’s like to have menstrual cycles and they understand the fear of that happening while playing.”
In its statement Thursday, the All England Club said “requirements for other clothing, accessories and equipment remain unchanged.” | 2022-11-17T21:16:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wimbledon relaxes all-white dress code for female players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/wimbledon-dress-code/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/wimbledon-dress-code/ |
Jesse Benton arrives for his sentencing hearing at the federal courthouse in Des Moines, on Sept. 20, 2016. Benton, 43, a Republican political operative pardoned by President Donald Trump after his conviction in a 2012 bribery plot was charged again with campaign-related crimes, this time involving a 2016 illegal campaign contribution scheme and a Russian national. (David Pitt/AP)
A Republican political strategist was convicted of illegally helping a Russian businessman contribute to Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016.
The evidence at trial showed Benton bought a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee (RNC) event on behalf of Roman Vasilenko, a Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer. (Vasilenko is currently under investigation in Russia for running a pyramid scheme, according to the Kommersant newspaper; he could not be reached for comment.) The donation got Vasilenko a picture with Trump and entrance to a “business roundtable” with the future president.
Vasilenko connected with Benton through Doug Wead, an evangelical ally of the Bush family who was also involved in multilevel marketing. Vasilenko sent $100,000 to Benton, who was working for a pro-Trump super PAC at the time, supposedly for consulting services. Benton subsequently donated $25,000 to the RNC by credit card.
Witnesses from the RNC and the firm hired to organize the event said they weren’t told Vasilenko was a Russian citizen. Benton said in an email to his RNC contact that Vasilenko was “a friend who spends most of his time in the Caribbean”; he described Vasilenko’s translator as “a body gal.” In fact, according to the testimony, Benton and Vasilenko had never met.
Benton argued that he followed the advice of his previous counsel, David Warrington, who has also represented Trump. Warrington testified that Benton reached out at the time to ask if he could give a ticket to a political fundraiser to a Russian citizen. Warrington said he told Benton “there is no prohibition on a Russian citizen receiving a ticket to an event” and that “you can give your ticket that you purchased to a fundraiser to anybody.”
Prosecutors said Benton failed to tell Warrington that he was getting reimbursed by the Russian citizen for the donation. Benton asked for the advice only “to cover his tracks,” Parikh said.
Benton also claimed that he earned the $100,000 acting as a tour guide in D.C. for Vasilenko, whose interest was not politics but self-promotion.
Wead — who died at age 75 last December after he was indicted with Benton — had previously discussed with Vasilenko the possibility of a photograph with Oprah, Michelle Obama or Steven Seagal before suggesting Trump.
“If Oprah was available,” defense attorney Brian Stolarz said in his closing argument, “we wouldn’t even be here.”
Vasilenko posted the photograph of himself with Trump on Instagram with a banner that said “Two Presidents” and advertised his own company. He said Benton “delivered on what he was asked to do,” which was “get him in a picture with a celebrity” so Vasilenko “could brag on Instagram.” To Vasilenko, he said, Trump was not a politician but “the guy who used to be on ‘The Apprentice.’” At the roundtable, he said Trump appeared only briefly and “just talked about polls.”
Stolarz emphasized that there was no evidence Vasilenko ever engaged with Trump outside the single event, and no evidence the RNC ever returned the donation.
“He wants to be an influencer,” Stolarz said. “This is just shameless self promotion from a guy who can afford to take this picture.”
Stolarz said Benton was also paid to organize a charity dinner Vasilenko attended on his U.S. trip, which prosecutors dismissed as a cheap meal at a chain restaurant.
“They may try to downplay it, but Maggiano’s is good,” Stolarz said.
Benton began his career on the GOP’s libertarian fringe as an aide to former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), whose granddaughter is Benton’s wife. He gained mainstream credibility helping Paul’s son, Rand Paul (R-Ky.), win a Senate seat in 2010 and was hired by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2014 reelection campaign.
But Benton resigned before that election amid an investigation into whether an Iowa state senator was bribed to support Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential race. Benton was convicted in May 2016 of conspiracy and involvement in filing of false campaign finance reports — not long before the new scheme began. | 2022-11-17T21:24:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jesse Benton convicted of steering Russian Roman Vasilenko's money to Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/benton-trump-russian-vasilenko-guilty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/benton-trump-russian-vasilenko-guilty/ |
Heritage turkeys at Elmwood Stock Farm in Georgetown, Ky., on Nov. 16, 2021. (Amira Karaoud/Reuters)
Next week is Thanksgiving, and while most Americans do not perceive covid-19 to be as dangerous as it was in 2020 or 2021, many readers have asked how to reduce their chances of contracting and spreading the coronavirus during holiday gatherings.
Here are five tips for assessing and managing covid-19 risk:
(1) Determine your level of risk tolerance. A lot of people no longer prioritize avoiding covid-19. They have returned to all pre-pandemic activities, and Thanksgiving for them is no different than any other gathering they’ve been attending.
Still, many others do not wish to contract the coronavirus. Perhaps they are medically vulnerable and susceptible to severe illness. Perhaps they are worried about long covid. These individuals will probably wish to continue taking precautions over the holidays.
(2) If you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner, know your guests’ preferences. If all of them have returned to their pre-covid lives, and you’re the same, then you might not need mitigation measures. Attendees should be aware that they could contract the coronavirus from this gathering, just as they could from dining in restaurants, going to the gym and attending concerts.
If there are guests who wish to be cautious, discuss with them how careful they want to be and how many layers of protection you need to institute.
Outdoor gatherings remain the safest option. If weather permits, you could host the entire dinner outside. Indoors will be much higher-risk. You could reduce that risk by asking everyone to take a rapid test the same day of the event. Some hosts offer rapid tests at the door to reduce inconvenience and to ensure that all guests are tested.
(3) Consider a voluntary quarantine. I’ve received numerous questions from readers asking what to do if they have visitors staying with them for several days. If the guests, hosts or both really want to avoid covid, consider asking everyone to undertake a voluntary quarantine for at least three days — ideally five days — before getting together.
During this quarantine period, everyone should reduce their in-person maskless interactions to a minimum. Don an N95 or equivalent mask at work and school and while traveling. Do not gather indoors with individuals outside your immediate household.
Upon arrival, take a rapid test. If you’re the host and want to be cautious, then ask your guests not to gather indoors with anyone else outside of your households while they are staying with you.
(4) Prepare what you can. Those vulnerable to severe illness from covid-19 should get the bivalent booster now if they haven’t already, and everyone 6 months and older should get the flu shot. It takes about two weeks to reach optimal protection. Getting the shots today — a week before Thanksgiving — won’t give you full protection by then, but it will give some additional immunity.
Now is the time to stock up on rapid home coronavirus tests. Make sure you have enough for all the events you’re attending that require them. You might consider purchasing tests in bulk if you are hosting an event.
(5) Plan for different scenarios. I’ve long been a proponent for everyone having a covid plan. Are you eligible for Paxlovid? How will you access it during holidays and after hours? If you’re traveling and you test positive, do you have a place where you can isolate?
Also, think through what you will do if gatherings take unexpected turns. If you find out that people you’re hosting didn’t quarantine as they promised, are you willing to take on the additional risk? Or will you ask them to make alternate arrangements?
If you are someone else’s guest, you might end up in situations that are higher-risk than you anticipated. What if a lot more guests turn up than you were told would arrive, and you have no idea whether they were cautious or took a test? Decide, in advance, how strongly you feel about avoiding covid, communicate it with those you’re celebrating the holiday with and know your limits for when you might wish to leave a gathering.
I will be off with my family next week. The Checkup will be back in your inbox on Thursday, Dec. 1. Until then, happy Thanksgiving!
“I see in your columns that you are not recommending a booster for all groups. Would it not benefit everyone if everyone got the booster so that fewer new variants of concern would arise? Also less opportunity for vulnerable people to get infected?” — Valerie from California
Your argument would be right if it were true that vaccines — and up-to-date boosters — provide substantial protection against infection. This is what we thought when coronavirus vaccines were first introduced. If that were true today, then yes, boosting everyone would lower the transmission of the virus overall, lowering the chance that new variants develop.
Unfortunately, we know this is probably not the case with existing vaccines. Vaccine effectiveness against infection with the omicron subvariants is not that high. One study, published in JAMA, found that during the time of omicron predominance, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection after two months was only 29 percent in children 5 to 11 years old and 17 percent in adolescents. Another large study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed more than 11,000 health-care workers. After their second booster, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection decreased from 52 percent during the first five weeks to virtually zero at 15 to 26 weeks.
I think it’s important we continue to stress the primary reason for vaccination: to reduce the chance of severe illness or death. That’s a compelling reason to get the booster. It cuts your chance of getting very sick and, on a societal level, helps prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
It’s therefore easy to make the case that people most vulnerable to severe illness, such as nursing home residents and the elderly, need to be up-to-date on their boosters. But it’s not so clear that such a public health justification applies to people who are already unlikely to become very sick. Some people will want the booster because they want any reduction in likelihood of getting the virus. But others might wish to wait. Both are reasonable decisions.
“I give blood regularly, usually platelets. Does it matter how long I wait to donate after either a flu shot or covid booster?” — JP from Virginia
The American Red Cross specifies that there might be a short waiting period if you received a live attenuated virus, which is not the case for the coronavirus or flu vaccines in the United States. If you received any of the coronavirus or flu vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, you do not need to wait before giving blood as long as side effects from vaccination, such as fatigue and headache, have subsided.
“Because tests are often negative when one has already contracted the coronavirus, and only become positive a couple of days or more later, what is the point of testing immediately before attending an event or visiting someone’s home?” — Hope from Minnesota
The reason to test before attending a gathering is to find out whether you could be infectious to others. If you are infected, but with such a low amount of virus that a rapid test cannot detect it, there’s a good chance you are not actively contagious to people around you yet.
That’s why rapid tests are best when they are taken as close to the event as possible. If you take a test the day before an event and it’s negative, but you were already infected, you could develop a high-enough viral load to be contagious to others the next day. But if you test negative just before attending a gathering, chances are the amount of virus will still be low.
Of course, rapid tests do not provide a 100 percent guarantee against infection. But if everyone tests just before a gathering, it will decrease the likelihood of asymptomatic spread.
While many people experience significant side effects from coronavirus vaccines, such as fatigue, fever and arm pain, others do not experience any symptoms. I’ve heard from readers worried that the lack of symptoms indicates the vaccine didn’t work. A new study in JAMA Network Open puts this concern to rest. A strong antibody response is observed in nearly all individuals, including those who had no self-reported symptoms following vaccination.
Binge drinking and alcohol-related deaths rose during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new report by the National Center for Health Statistics. Such deaths have long been steadily increasing over the past two decades, but 2020 saw a sudden 26 percent increase in deaths compared with the year prior, from about 39,000 deaths to 49,000. For women, the largest increase in death rates was among those 35 to 44 years old, with a 42 percent increase between 2019 and 2020. For males, those 25 to 34 experienced a 46 percent increase, and those 35 to 44 had a 45 percent increase.
I appreciated this Atlantic op-ed by economist Emily Oster, who has been a strong advocate in favor of school opening throughout the pandemic and has received both praise and harsh criticism for her views. She argues that both those for and against pandemic restrictions have become defensive and more retrenched. “Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward,” she writes. “We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty.” | 2022-11-17T21:42:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 5 tips for reducing covid risk over Thanksgiving - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/thanksgiving-covid-risk-prevention-tips/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/thanksgiving-covid-risk-prevention-tips/ |
D.C. attorney general files second lawsuit against Commanders
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine speaks at last week's news conference announcing his office's consumer protection lawsuit against the Commanders, Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Roger Goodell. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
The office of D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Washington Commanders regarding refundable deposits that allegedly were not returned to season ticket holders.
The suit is the second filed against the team and Snyder by Racine’s office in a one-week span. It announced that it had sued Pro Football Inc., which owns the Commanders, “for implementing an illegal scheme to cheat District ticket holders out of their deposits for season tickets and use the money for its own purposes.”
A week earlier, the office filed a consumer protection lawsuit in the civil division of the D.C. Superior Court against the Commanders, owner Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, accusing them of colluding to deceive and mislead customers about an investigation of the team’s workplace to maintain its fan base in pursuit of revenue. The Commanders and the NFL denied the allegations.
“Today’s announcement follows our recent lawsuit against the Commanders, Dan Snyder, NFL, and Roger Goodell, and is yet another example of egregious mismanagement and illegal conduct by Commanders executives who seem determined to lie, cheat, and steal from District residents in as many ways as possible,” Racine said Thursday in a statement. “The Commanders’ arrogance and blatant disregard for the law is a slap in the face to District residents who have supported the team for decades. We deserve better, and today my office is taking action yet again to hold them accountable.”
Racine said last week that his office would take further action this week on the team’s alleged financial issues if it did not agree to reimburse fans.
“We are going to give Mr. Snyder and his team an opportunity to pay back exactly what we found they owe D.C. residents,” Racine said last week during an interview with The Washington Post after he announced the first lawsuit at a news conference. “But that’s not going to be a long opportunity, and we’ll prepare a legal document that will be filed in court next week if a deal is not reached.”
The issue of the allegedly withheld deposits initially was raised in April when the House Committee on Oversight and Reform detailed allegations of financial improprieties by the team and Snyder in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. That letter was copied to Racine and Jason S. Miyares, Virginia’s Republican attorney general. | 2022-11-17T21:46:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. attorney general files second lawsuit against Commanders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/dc-attorney-general-washington-commanders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/dc-attorney-general-washington-commanders/ |
A spot for Daniel Snyder was unoccupied as Roger Goodell testified at the June 22 hearing on Capitol Hill by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said they will discontinue its investigation of the Washington Commanders and owner Daniel Snyder when they take majority leadership of the committee in January.
“It’s over,” Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s ranking Republican member, said in a statement issued Wednesday night after reports projected Republicans had clinched majority control of the House of Representatives.
Republicans on the committee have been sharply critical of the Democratic-led investigation into the team’s workplace and allegations of financial improprieties by the Commanders and Snyder. The investigation led to a June 22 hearing on Capitol Hill at which NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified remotely and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, announced her intention to issue a subpoena to compel Snyder’s testimony.
The Democrats still are expected to issue a final report or memo on the investigation, although they have not specified the form or the timing. A spokesperson for committee Democrats did not respond to a request to comment.
“We applaud Rep. Comer for his leadership in putting an end to the investigation into a private company, which has been correctly characterized by sitting members of Congress as a ‘farce’ and ‘an abuse of power’ for its ‘reli[ance] on one-sided, unsupported claims,’” attorneys John Brownlee and Stuart Nash, who represent the Commanders, said in a statement the team issued Thursday.
Snyder gave a voluntary deposition under oath remotely to representatives of the committee for more than 10 hours in late July. That came after the two sides agreed on the terms of the interview following weeks of negotiations, during which Snyder’s attorney did not accept service electronically of the subpoena the committee issued. Former team president Bruce Allen gave a remote deposition under subpoena for about 10 hours in early September.
In April, the committee detailed allegations of financial improprieties by Snyder and the team in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The attorneys general for D.C., Karl A. Racine (D), and Virginia, Jason S. Miyares (R), announced they would investigate. The team has denied committing any financial improprieties.
Racine’s office filed a consumer protection lawsuit last week in the civil division of the D.C. Superior Court against the Commanders, Snyder, the NFL and Goodell. The lawsuit accuses them of colluding to deceive and mislead customers about an investigation of the team’s workplace to maintain the Commanders’ fan base in pursuit of revenue. The team and league denied the allegations.
Maloney wrote to fellow committee members in a memo in June that the panel’s investigation had found evidence that Snyder and members of his legal team had conducted a “shadow investigation” and compiled a “dossier” targeting former team employees, their attorneys and journalists in an attempt to discredit his accusers and shift blame for the team’s workplace to Allen. The team has disputed that account.
Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team, said at a congressional roundtable in February that Snyder had harassed her at a team dinner, putting his hand on her thigh and pressing her toward his limo. Snyder denied the accusations, calling them “outright lies.”
The Commanders have said Snyder and his wife Tanya, the team’s co-CEO, have hired an investment bank to consider offers to sell all or part of the franchise. | 2022-11-17T21:46:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Republicans say probe of Daniel Snyder will be ‘over’ in January - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/house-republicans-say-probe-daniel-snyder-will-be-over-january/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/house-republicans-say-probe-daniel-snyder-will-be-over-january/ |
Tim Ream, 35, participates in activities with construction workers who helped build World Cup stadiums and infrastructure in Qatar. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)
AL RAYYAN, Qatar — In November 2010, when Tim Ream was called up to the U.S. national team for the first time, 2022 World Cup teammate Gio Reyna was two days short of his eighth birthday.
Most of the 26 U.S. players here for soccer’s quadrennial festival did not arrive on the international scene until Ream was deep into his career in England, the past four and a half shuttling in and out of the Premier League with London club Fulham.
“Tim’s the grandpa of the group,” Tyler Adams, a 23-year-old midfielder, said with a wide smile.
Few expected Ream would make his first World Cup squad this year — including Ream. It wasn’t his age; rather, it was his long absence. Before he fielded a call from Coach Gregg Berhalter two weeks ago, Ream had not received an invitation in 14 months.
The World Cup, though, demanded experience, particularly on the second-youngest squad (25.2 years) in the tournament. (Only Ghana, at 24.7, is younger.) The U.S. situation also required reinforcement in central defense, which had lost two candidates to injury and showed fragility in the September tuneups.
Furthermore, Ream has been enjoying a terrific season in the Premier League, playing alongside U.S. left back Antonee Robinson.
“He’s a top performer for his team,” Berhalter said. “It’s really hard to ignore stuff like that. … All the pieces were aligned to bring him back.”
Though he has not played for the U.S. team since the first World Cup qualifier in September 2021, Ream could very well start the first U.S. World Cup match Monday against Wales.
Messi’s likely last World Cup inspires hope in beleaguered Argentina
“You don’t ever give up hope,” said Ream, a St. Louis native who has also played for the New York Red Bulls and England’s Bolton Wanderers. “You never completely say you’re out of the picture. There were conversations [with Berhalter] before every [match] window from last October onwards, and so I knew there was maybe a possibility.”
Still, though, he was not optimistic.
“Not being involved, not being called in,” he said, “you just kind of start to make peace and accept where things are heading.”
Although he had passed over Ream for one camp after another, including the two-game tour this fall in Europe, Berhalter said he never closed the door.
“Decisions aren’t made [at that point]; they’re not final,” Berhalter said. “So if the guy doesn’t get into camp, it doesn’t mean he’s never going to be in a camp again.”
Then came the invitation to the best camp of all.
“Things kind of took a turn for the better for me personally,” Ream said, smiling. He would join Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long and Cameron Carter-Vickers in the central defense corps.
Ream had started the 2022 qualifying opener in El Salvador and was on the bench for the subsequent two games. Over the course of the remaining 11 qualifiers and several friendlies, though, Berhalter opted for other partnerships in central defense.
While Berhalter monitored Ream’s play at Fulham, Ream said: “I was watching from afar as a fan and watching the guys do their thing. I didn’t expect to be here involved in a World Cup.”
He and Robinson, a sure bet for the World Cup squad, spoke regularly about Ream’s prospects.
“I knew there was every chance Tim was going to get called up,” Robinson said. “It was never in doubt for me, especially when I see Chris [Richards] confirmed he couldn’t go. For it to finally get confirmed [with the Nov. 9 roster announcement], it felt amazing for me and for him.”
Richards, a strong candidate from Premier League club Crystal Palace, had not played in months because of injury. Miles Robinson, a probable starter, was ruled out in May after rupturing an Achilles’ tendon.
That’s not to say Ream was chosen by default. Clearly, though, the outlook was not promising.
“A lot of people thought he was down and out,” right back DeAndre Yedlin said, “and now at 35 he’s playing in his first World Cup. Guys on this team never give up, and that’s a big part of our DNA.”
Ream earned his way back into consideration with his solid work at Fulham. Last season, he started all 46 matches and played all but 69 of 4,140 minutes as the Cottagers finished first in the Championship to earn promotion back to the Premier League. This season, Ream has started all 15 games and missed two minutes.
Fulham is seeking to keep its place in the Premier League over consecutive seasons for the first time in nine years. The club earned promotion in 2018, only to drop back down the following year. “He struggled,” Berhalter said. “The whole team struggled.”
Fulham went back up in 2020 before falling again.
The promotion-relegation adventure with his club has mirrored his erratic status with the national team.
After their clubs clashed last month, Adams (Leeds United) asked Ream how he felt about his U.S. situation.
“Not getting called into last camp for him, yeah, it was tough probably,” Adams said. “But he’s been working hard and these performances earned him this position right now. He’s a crucial part to our team. At times we probably missed him — his leadership, his quality, just having someone of that experience and caliber in and around the group. It’s good to have him back.”
Notes: The U.S. squad conducted a training session with Al Gharafa SC, whose stadium is serving as the Americans’ training venue in greater Doha. It was closed to reporters and the general public, suggesting the sides engaged in a scrimmage. No details were released. …
With all three group matches scheduled to kick off at 10 p.m. local time, Berhalter has shifted workouts to the evening after opening camp with a set of midday practices. | 2022-11-17T21:46:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USMNT's Tim Ream, age 35, arrives at the World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/tim-ream-usmnt-world-cup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/tim-ream-usmnt-world-cup/ |
Epilepsy drugs as ‘chemical restraint’ on rise in nursing homes
Inspector general’s report says increased use of anticonvulsant medications coincided with a reduction in antipsychotic drugs
Government policies aimed at curbing excessive use of powerful psychiatric drugs for dementia patients in nursing homes are probably having an unintended side effect: greater use of anti-seizure medications, a government report said Thursday.
The evidence released by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services indicates physicians specializing in nursing home care may have traded one controversial practice for another in response to regulatory scrutiny, seeking to sedate dementia patients with anticonvulsant medications rather than antipsychotics.
The OIG’s report studied prescribing patterns for drugs that work in the brain, called psychotropics. It focused on drugs given to nursing home residents from 2011 to 2019, measuring the effect of a government program begun in 2012 to reduce the widespread use of antipsychotic drugs in the facilities.
“Overall use of psychotropic drugs did not decrease but rather the use of psychotropic drugs shifted toward a different category,” the report stated.
The analysis highlights a long-standing issue: how nursing homes often do not provide the most appropriate care for residents with dementia.
“The inappropriate use of dangerous and powerful medications hasn’t really changed, and that is really disturbing,” said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a group that is critical of industry practices.
On one hand, nursing homes must keep patients and caregivers safe from violent behavior that jeopardizes them or others. But too often, experts say, patients with dementia are drugged as a matter of convenience for the nursing home staff or to reduce annoying behavior, not for safety reasons.
In response to a campaign launched in 2012 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which regulates nursing homes, use of antipsychotic drugs declined from 31 percent of nursing home residents to 22 percent from 2011 to 2019, the OIG report found. But in the same period, the use of anticonvulsants rose from 28 percent of residents to 40 percent, it said.
A report published this month in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society made similar findings. It said two anticonvulsant drugs were increasingly being used in nursing homes, valproic acid, or valproate, which is known under the brand names Depakote and Depakene, and gabapentin, also known as Neurontin, which has frequently been prescribed for pain.
Critics of the practice, known as “chemical restraint,” say it is inhumane if not practiced appropriately.
“You want them to have the best quality of life possible and approach care in a positive and respectful way that gives people dignity,” said Ryan Carnahan, a University of Iowa professor and expert in the use of psychiatric drugs for elderly patients. “To just snow them and knock them out is not the outcome we should be going for.”
The nursing home industry, represented by the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, said Thursday that it has been participating for years in efforts to reduce the use of psychiatric drugs for nursing home residents. The industry has touted its track record of reducing use of antipsychotics over the past decade.
In response to the latest OIG findings, the AHCA pointed to the complexity of the problem. “Many residents are already on these medications when they are admitted to the nursing home from the community or hospital, and physicians or family members are concerned about ceasing their use,” David Gifford, AHCA chief medical officer, said in an emailed statement.
Physicians not affiliated with nursing homes also prescribe the medications, he said.
“We ardently support increasing education about the proper use of psychotropic drugs among nursing home residents with dementia and have asked CMS and others to expand its outreach to physicians, hospitals, community settings, and families,” Gifford said.
No drugs have been approved to treat dementia caused by Alzheimer’s or other brain diseases. Physicians are permitted to prescribe medications “off label,” which means for conditions outside their approved use.
But the use of drugs to sedate dementia patients exposes them to dangerous potential side effects. Antipsychotics carry a “black box” warning from the Food and Drug Administration because of the risk of stroke, heart attack, diabetes, parkinsonism and falls. Some anticonvulsants carry the risk of liver toxicity and inflammation of the pancreas. | 2022-11-17T22:12:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Epilepsy drugs as ‘chemical restraint’ on rise in nursing homes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/nursing-home-drugs-dementia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/nursing-home-drugs-dementia/ |
Ticketmaster cancels Taylor Swift ticket sales set for Friday after chaotic early rollout
The company cited a lack of additional inventory to meet demand for the 2023 tour. Presale tickets for the concert went on sale earlier this week.
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift onstage during the 1989 World Tour Live in Los Angeles in 2015. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS)
Ticketmaster announced Thursday afternoon that it was halting public ticket sales of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour on Friday due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory” to meet demand.
A mad rush this week for tickets to Swift’s tour crashed parts of Ticketmaster’s website and left fans waiting for hours to buy tickets. It has sparked bipartisan outrage from some Democrats and Republicans who have questioned whether Ticketmaster has handled the rollout appropriately.
The chaotic weeks has even sparked calls to break up the large ticketing company, which some critics have accused of having a monopoly in online ticket sales. The company has cited extraordinary demand for Swift’s tour and tried to pace the rollout of sales.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) said Wednesday that his office has received complaints from people who tried purchasing tickets through Ticketmaster, and said he would look into whether the website violated consumers’ rights and antitrust regulations.
In a lengthy post published Thursday, Ticketmaster explained that “this time the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests” — four-times its previous web traffic peak.
Are you a concert ticket broker? Share your Taylor Swift "Eras Tour" experience with The Washington Post.
More than 2 million tickets for the tour were sold on Tuesday — the most tickets sold for an artist in one day, the company said. Despite the widespread reports of problems from concert-going hopefuls, the Ticketmaster claimed that only 15 percent of customer “interactions across the site experienced issues,” which it said was “too many.”
Following the October release of her 10th album “Midnights," Swift broke other records. She was the first artist to grab all of the top 10 slots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, all with songs from her new album. During the album’s release, fans flooded Spotify and crashed the site to listen to it. “Midnights” became the most-streamed album in 24 hours on Spotify, with 184.6 million streams, according to Guinness World Records. | 2022-11-17T22:12:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ticketmaster cancels Taylor Swift Eras Tour general public ticket sale - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-presale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-presale/ |
More than 500 new words are playable in Scrabble, according to Merriam-Webster's official dictionary. (Paul Sakuma/AP)
If you’re planning on breaking out the family Scrabble board at Thanksgiving, you might get some help from zoodle, jedi, babymoon and about 500 other words newly added to the official playing dictionary.
Merriam-Webster announced this week the release of the seventh edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, with more than 500 new options for players of the classic word-making game. The new words reflect additions that have been made to the main Merriam-Webster dictionary since 2018, when the last Scrabble version was published.
From social media buzzwords like subtweet and adorbs to food terms including queso and matcha, the additions also reflect today’s culture, the evolution of language, and the fact that sometimes game-playing folx just want to embiggen their vocabulary, verb a noun, or subtweet their opponents — amirite?
“There’s so many more opportunities to play a little differently because of these new words,” said Robin Pollock Daniel, 60, an expert Scrabble player from Toronto who has at times been the highest-ranked female player in North America. “It makes Scrabble one of the most exciting games that there are out there because it’s dynamic and constantly changing.”
All words that were new to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and fit the Scrabble rules were added to gameplay, Merriam-Webster editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski told The Washington Post. To be added to the dictionary, a word must be used frequently by many publications and writers, with evidence of long-term and widespread use.
“A lot of these are basically artifacts of the dictionary itself,” Sokolowski said. For instance, dumpster was changed in the dictionary from a trademark, with a capital D, to a noun, meaning it is now legitimate in Scrabble. “We’ve changed a grammatical distinction, which has an effect on Scrabble.”
The internet’s influence on the language is also clear: Unfollow, stan, chatbot, autofill and deepfake are now valid for play.
Pulling victory out of the bag at the North American Scrabble championship
The dictionary also expands the pool of foreign language words, drawing from the dictionary’s inclusion of words deemed part of the English vernacular. Many of them relate to food, including Spanish words like carnitas and horchata, along with iftar, the meal eaten by Muslims at sundown during Ramadan, and kharif, the Indian subcontinent’s fall harvest.
It also added boricua, a term for someone from Puerto Rico or of Puerto Rican descent, and folx, a word for a group of people that’s used to signal the inclusion of marginalized communities.
“That’s really exciting,” Pollock Daniel told The Washington Post. “All of that promotes, to me, inclusivity, and makes the game far more exciting and more kind.”
Changes have the power to dramatically alter how the game is played. In recent years, the addition of two-letter words za and qi had a seismic effect, essentially changing “the entire game,” said Orry Swift, a Texas accounting professor and Scrabble expert who came in second in this year’s North American championship in Baltimore.
“If you’re adding long words — seven, eight, nine letters — those tend to have a very low impact on our game. If you’re adding short words, two or three letters, that can potentially change the entire way we play,” Swift told The Post.
This round of additions doesn’t include any major game-changers, players said, although a few three-letter words, including bae (a slang term of endearment) and aro (an abbreviation for aromantic), add new possibilities to the game board.
Scrabble can be played with any dictionary, as long as the players agree on which one they’re using. Tournament players in the United States and Canada use a separate, more frequently updated word list maintained by the North American Scrabble Players Association, but the organization will add all the words in this batch, said NASPA chief executive John Chew.
He analyzed the updated dictionary to create a list of the new words and said the group’s new list would be released in about six months, so the 500 additions will become accepted in competitive play before the next national championship in July. (Most international competitions use another list, Collins Scrabble Words, for which the North American championship also has a division.)
The addition of new words means players have to “reprogram part of their brains,” Chew said, something that some players enjoy and others may grouse about.
“They have to know, going forward, that if you play the word ugly, now you’ll be able to play F in front of the word to make the word fugly,” he said, “and that’ll have a strategic consequence.”
“We have a weird relationship to the words; it’s kind of abstract. We don’t care what a lot of them mean, so when [a new] word shows up, it’s just an opportunity to score more points,” said expert player Jesse Day, 35, of Texas, who won a national championship in 2019. “It’s just more possibilities and more fun.”
New seven- and eight-letter words — high-scoring but rarer because a player’s hand only has seven letters — include lesser-known terms like ambigram (“a word that forms another word when viewed another way”), zeedonk (“a hybrid between a zebra and a donkey”) and eggcorn (“a word that sounds like and is mistaken for another word”).
Sokolowski said he’s delighted by additions such as empath, embiggen and ixnay — and verb as a verb. (To verb a noun is to turn a noun into a verb, such as with angsting, spitballing, or adulting, all also newly valid Scrabble words.)
“If I had to pick a favorite one, it would be the verbing of verb, because it’s a linguistic phenomenon that has real consequences in the game,” Sokolowski said. “We’re recording that [phenomenon], and now it’s playable.”
“Absolutely I will be devouring these words,” she said. “Can’t wait to use them. The more words you have, the more powerful you are as a player.” | 2022-11-17T22:17:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | More than 500 new Scrabble words added to dictionary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/scrabble-new-words-dictionary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/scrabble-new-words-dictionary/ |
Tugboats guide barges transporting coal on Mahakam River in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. Coal prices are likely to remain high after soaring to new records on strengthening power demand and challenges in key supplier nations, according to a major Australian producer. Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
By any stretch of the imagination, the plan — known as the Just Energy Transition Partnership, or JETP, and intended to be funded 50-50 by a consortium of rich countries and developed-world banks — is a moonshot. It would cap emissions from Indonesia’s power sector at 290 million metric tons by 2030, not much more than the 258 million tons of pollution in 2019. Renewable generation would rise to 34% of the total by the same date, up from 18% at present, while coal-fired power plants would retire early.
If it succeeds, the project will show that energy transition is possible even where the natural and political barriers to decarbonization are steepest. If it fails, attitudes to rapid climate action may be tainted for years to come.
Getting Indonesia off its current resource-intensive path is crucial. The world’s fourth-most populous nation, home to 276 million people, is also its biggest exporter of coal. Though its current emissions are relatively minor — somewhere between those of Canada and South Korea, and less than a third of China’s on a per-capita basis — unchecked they could grow substantially as the country urbanizes and grows wealthier.
Already, there are signs that South Africa’s transition plan, in some ways a model for Indonesia’s, is foundering amid the local politics of coal. That could jeopardize the bigger prize on the horizon, the trillion-dollar transition of India’s power sector floated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year. Further off still lies China, which burns more than half the world’s coal and could look at the JETP as a model for renewing its own generation fleet.
• Coal Deals Must Put the Fine Print in Bold: Clara Ferreira Marques
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• We’re Drawing the Wrong Lesson From the Third Energy Crisis: David Fickling | 2022-11-17T22:17:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Elon Musk of Climate Plans Gets a Test Drive - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-elon-musk-of-climate-plans-gets-a-test-drive/2022/11/17/022e0c68-66c4-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-elon-musk-of-climate-plans-gets-a-test-drive/2022/11/17/022e0c68-66c4-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
This image from video released by the City of Uvalde, Texas shows city police Lt. Mariano Pargas responding to a shooting at Robb Elementary School, on May 24, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. Pargas was the acting chief for the city on the day of the shooting and was placed on administrative leave in July. (City of Uvalde via AP) (Uncredited/City of Uvalde) | 2022-11-17T22:18:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Acting Uvalde police chief during school shooting steps down - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/acting-uvalde-police-chief-during-school-shooting-steps-down/2022/11/17/5079b27c-66bb-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/acting-uvalde-police-chief-during-school-shooting-steps-down/2022/11/17/5079b27c-66bb-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
On guns, originalism as insanity
Gun-safety advocates rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Dec. 2, 2019, while justices hear arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In May, Louisville police were called to deal with a domestic violence complaint against a man named Litsson Perez-Gallan. The alleged victim, the mother of Perez-Gallan’s child, “states she was sitting on the bed holding their child and perp struck her on the left side of her face,” an officer wrote. “Vic then sat the baby down on the bed and vic stated perp then drug her to the bathroom and struck her in the face again and then began hitting her in the rib area. Vic had red marks on the left side of her face, a small laceration on her lip and pain around her chin area.”
The criminal justice system — a system that has too often ignored or underplayed domestic violence — worked, up to a point. Perez-Gallan was subjected to a restraining order. It barred him from being within 500 feet of his alleged victim or communicating with her.
In addition — and this is the subject of this column — the order prohibited Perez-Gallan from having a firearm.
The next month, Perez-Gallan was stopped while driving an 18-wheeler in Texas, near the border with Mexico. In his backpack, he had a stolen Sig Sauer pistol; in his wallet, a copy of the court order stating his conditions of release. He was charged with violating a federal law that prohibits gun possession by those under domestic violence restraining orders.
So far, so good? Not in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The six-justice conservative majority, rejecting New York’s concealed-carry licensing law, said that the gun regulations had to be based on, or similar to, those that existed historically to pass constitutional muster. Without a historical analogue, the gun law violates the Second Amendment.
You may be able to guess where this is heading. Turns out, in Colonial times and beyond, authorities didn’t take domestic violence seriously. So, Perez-Gallan’s lawyer did what lawyers do: He seized on Bruen to argue that the law violates Perez-Gallan’s Second Amendment rights.
“The American Revolution secured the rights of white men to be protected from interference by the government in their private affairs,” wrote the lawyer, Shane O’Neal. After the revolution, he argued, “the newly minted American States moved away from laws in England and the New England colonies that punished domestic violence. Instead, practices that protected women and children from maltreatment by male heads of house were discarded as incompatible with a newfound sanctity for the family — a private sphere outside of the reach of government.” He quotes a historian: “Courts became notably reluctant to impose constraints on men’s abusive treatment of their household dependents.”
And no surprise: With domestic violence not seen as a problem, there isn’t much evidence of founding-era rules that prohibited the possession of firearms by those accused of it. “Our founders would never have anticipated disarming people accused but not convicted of domestic violence,” O’Neal argued.
That’s right: Because the law then countenanced abusing women, it cannot be interpreted to protect them now.
Defending his client zealously is O’Neal’s job. Interpreting the Constitution both faithfully and reasonably is the judge’s job, and here is where things really went off the rails. U.S. District Judge David Counts found this month that the federal law violates the Second Amendment and ordered Perez-Gallan’s indictment dismissed.
“Domestic abusers are not new,” noted Counts, who was originally nominated by President Barack Obama and renominated by President Donald Trump. “But until the mid-1970s, government intervention — much less removing an individual’s firearms — because of domestic violence practically did not exist. … Glaringly absent from the historical record — from colonial times until 1994 — are consistent examples of the government removing firearms from someone accused (or even convicted) of domestic violence.”
This is what the Supreme Court has wrought, with its maniacal focus on originalism and its even more blinkered insistence that the hunt for “original public meaning” must be confined to a search for historical analogues. Never mind that the Founding Fathers didn’t conceive of ghost guns produced by 3D printers, or extended magazines — or rights for women, for that matter.
How absurd is this? Counts recites the historical punishments meted out for wife-beating: a 1672 case in which a man was sentenced to be “whipped with ten stripes” or a provision of the 1870s California penal code that subjected spouse abusers to “not less than twenty-one lashes on the bare back.” Yet surely even the most die-hard originalists would conclude that a modern-day whipping law constitutes “cruel and unusual” punishment under the Eighth Amendment, whatever happened back in the day.
The aftershocks of Bruen are just beginning to work their way through the lower courts; Counts’s ruling may not stand. Even under the high court’s grudging approach to gun regulation, it is possible to uphold this restriction. The court in Bruen emphasized that the Second Amendment protects the right of “ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens” to carry guns outside the home. Someone arrested for assaulting an intimate partner and subjected to a protective order issued by a judge is neither ordinary — let’s hope — or law-abiding. And, as the Justice Department argued in the Perez-Gallan case, the Second Amendment was “adopted against a historical backdrop that allowed disarming dangerous persons.”
But the evidence of fallout from Bruen is alarming. Last month, a federal judge in New York invalidated a state gun law passed in the aftermath of Bruen that restricted guns at summer camps, among other places; he reasoned that there weren’t such camps in Colonial times. In September, Counts struck down a federal law that prohibited those indicted on felony charges, but not yet convicted, from possessing guns. “There are no illusions about this case’s real-world consequences — certainly valid public policy and safety concerns exist,” he acknowledged. “Yet Bruen framed those concerns solely as a historical analysis. This Court follows that framework.”
I wrote after the summer camp ruling that this was “originalism as parody.” But that understated the situation. This is originalism as insanity. | 2022-11-17T22:18:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Women be warned: Originalism in guns laws will take America back to the 1700s - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/originalism-guns-supremecourt-domestic-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/originalism-guns-supremecourt-domestic-violence/ |
Trump would act ‘like a little elementary schoolchild,’ former spiritual adviser says
Then-president Donald Trump attends an evangelical rally in Miami on Jan. 3, 2020. (Scott McIntyre for The Washington Post)
IRVING, Tex. — A televangelist who served as a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump says the former president has the tendency to act “like a little elementary schoolchild” and suggests that Trump’s focus on minor spats was preventing progress on larger goals.
“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” James Robison, the president of the Christian group Life Outreach International, said Wednesday night at a meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL), a conservative political group that focuses on social issues.
Members of the NACL pledge to advocate for antiabortion policies and to “uphold the sanctity of marriage as a sacred union exclusively between one man and one woman,” among other commitments. Robison was receiving an award from the group Wednesday night when he made his remarks.
His audience included dozens of Republican state legislators from across the country gathered in a hotel ballroom. At first they listened attentively as Robison began his address, nodding and showing support with a frequent “yes” and “amen.”
Several minutes into his speech, Robison brought up Trump, recalling how the then-presidential nominee had courted his endorsement. In Robison’s retelling, Republican Ben Carson had supposedly told Trump that Robison would only endorse him if they spoke for an hour. Trump protested, saying he didn’t speak to anyone for more than 15 minutes.
After that, “the man started calling me on his cellphone, and then he started asking me to call him,” Robison said Wednesday, referring to Trump. He claimed that for five years Trump “took every single call I made,” sometimes two or three a day. Robison said that on those calls he would preach to Trump, who reportedly marveled that Robison never wanted anything in return. Trump, however, didn’t necessarily take Robison’s advice.
“He heard, [but] he didn’t always heed,” Robison continued.
The televangelist then started criticizing Trump, prompting the crowd to grow quiet.
“Everything you wanted him to hear — every single thing you ever prayed for him to hear — came through these lips right straight into his face,” Robison told the crowd Wednesday, his voice growing lower and louder. “And with the same force you’ve heard me talking to you, I spoke it to him.”
“‘Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!’” Robison said.
The crowd remained still. Some lawmakers in the ballroom exchanged glances, appearing unsure of how to respond. Robison joked that those in the audience must be thinking that approach didn’t work very well. A few people chuckled awkwardly.
Robison continued: “It’s time for us to get together and pray and stop trying to destroy each other, and I make that loud and clearly heard to Mr. Trump! We’ve got to quit amputating each other, slicing each other, and come together in supernatural unity that Jesus Christ prayed for!”
The sharp words from Robison, who after the 2016 election called Trump “a supernatural answer to prayer,” came just a day after Trump announced he would run for reelection in 2024. His campaign announcement has been met with a relatively muted response from Republicans and public figures who used to be his most fervent supporters, including from the evangelical church.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump did not establish a diverse faith advisory board whose meetings were considered public. Instead he had a loosely-knit, informal but fully evangelical “advisory board.” It included dozens of changing members, and the group would hold meetings with top policy officials and prayer sessions with Trump.
In an essay sent to The Washington Post earlier this month, Mike Evans, a former member of the evangelical advisory board, said he would not vote for Trump again and recalled how he once left a Trump rally “in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol.”
“All of us knew that Trump had character flaws, but we considered our relationship with him transactional,” wrote Evans, a Texas author and Christian Zionist who raises money for outreach and support in Israel. “We wanted Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. We wanted his support of our biblical values. We all wanted his support for the State of Israel. Donald Trump indeed kept and exceeded his promises to us.”
However, Evans said Trump had done damage by turning “the pulpit that we preach from” into a political platform.
“Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself. He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans wrote. “I cannot do that anymore.”
In the run-up to the 2024 elections, the NACL plans to launch a separate 501(c) (4) organization, which would allow them to financially back candidates in the presidential election, according to Jason Rapert, a Republican state senator from Arkansas and the president of the NACL.
Rapert said he’s not sure whom the organization will support for the Republican presidential nomination. While he supported Trump in 2020, he said, he is eager to hear from all the candidates who decide to run.
“We welcome everyone,” he said. “Trump, [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis and others are welcome to come and address us.”
Asked about Robison’s criticism of Trump, Rapert said that “every person running for office needs to listen to who they’re representing” and strive to “keep things civil.”
At the same time, he added, he is extremely grateful for Trump’s efforts to appoint Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion rights — which led to the fall of Roe.
“He’s the most pro-life president effectively in my lifetime because he actually carried it out,” Rapert said. “We have been very, very vocal in our support for that.” | 2022-11-17T22:18:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Donald Trump would act ‘like a little elementary school child,’ former spiritual adviser James Robison says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/trump-spiritual-adviser-criticism-child/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/trump-spiritual-adviser-criticism-child/ |
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Republicans will hold a House majority for the first time since Rep. Dusty Johnson entered Congress in 2018, yet that’s unlikely to change the South Dakota Republican’s political style of focusing on conservative policy over hot takes on cable news or Twitter, he told The Associated Press Thursday. | 2022-11-17T22:19:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Dakota Rep. Johnson touts policy over 'angry tweets' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/south-dakota-rep-johnson-touts-policy-over-angry-tweets/2022/11/17/57ecb494-66c2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/south-dakota-rep-johnson-touts-policy-over-angry-tweets/2022/11/17/57ecb494-66c2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
DCIAA divisions are divided by talent, and many coaches see flaws in the league’s promotion-relegation system
Te-Aurjay Harrison and Bell, shown Nov. 10 against Anacostia, will compete this weekend for the Gravy Bowl title and a shot at promotion within the DCIAA. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
In 2013, the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association adopted a two-tier promotion system, similar to the ones popularized by various soccer leagues throughout Europe, in hopes of creating more competitive balance. Ten seasons in, the new structure remains divisive.
The Stars was originally composed of Anacostia, Ballou, Coolidge, Dunbar, H.D. Woodson and Jackson-Reed (then known as Wilson). The Stripes, which had Bell, Cardozo, Eastern, McKinley Tech, Phelps and Theodore Roosevelt, served as a development league.
Unlike international soccer leagues that subscribe to a relegation system, in which the top teams from the lower division swap with the bottom teams from the higher division after each season, the DCIAA requires a team to win consecutive Gravy Bowls to get promoted.
“Seeing the schools be divided up like they are was disheartening because it felt like we were losing some of the great history and tradition of the Turkey Bowl,” D.C. sports historian Ed Hill said. “But at the same time it’s also done a lot of good for the city. Ten years ago, Roosevelt was going through one of the worst stretches in the history of the city and now they are in position to win consecutive Turkey Bowls. Bell didn’t even have a varsity program and now they’ve become one of the city’s most successful programs.”
Still, DCIAA coaches wonder whether the league’s structure is contributing to a dilution of talent that has premier private schools increasingly poaching D.C.'s top players.
Those in favor of the DCIAA’s two-tiered system point to the fact that Maryland and Virginia public schools are divided into classification. But that’s based on school population, not on-field success. Being in a smaller class is not seen a blemish, like it is in D.C. | 2022-11-17T22:19:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. high school football: Stars and Stripes and plenty of gripes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/dc-high-school-football-stars-stripes-plenty-gripes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/dc-high-school-football-stars-stripes-plenty-gripes/ |
Palestinian firefighters extinguish flames in an apartment ravaged by fire in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)
GAZA CITY — A fire that swept through a family home in the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday killed at least 21 people, including children, authorities said.
The blaze erupted around 6 p.m. local time in the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp, the largest of eight refugee camps that dot the Gaza Strip. It killed everyone who was in the third-floor apartment at the time, according to Gaza’s Interior Ministry.
“Police forces, civil defense and forensic teams are still continuing their follow-up and investigations into this painful incident,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also said that authorities found a large gasoline cache in the home. Palestinians in Gaza often rely on diesel-run generators for electricity because of severe power shortages in the tiny enclave. A joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade, as well as political divisions between local Hamas authorities and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, have hobbled Gaza’s only power plant.
One witness, a next-door neighbor, said that the fire raged for more than an hour and a half. The first firefighters on the scene did not have properly equipped hoses and trucks, he said.
The head of the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said in a statement Thursday that he felt “great sorrow” hearing the tragic news. “I extend my deepest condolences to the families, relatives and friends of those who perished in the accident; the government and the Palestinian people,” Tor Winsland said. | 2022-11-17T22:20:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At least 21 people killed in fire in Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/gaza-fire-jabalia-refugee-camp/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/gaza-fire-jabalia-refugee-camp/ |
High was a law enforcement fixture in the region, serving for 12 years and the county’s police chief for five years before that.
Prince George’s sheriff Melvin High, who held the office for 12 years after serving as the county’s police chief, has died at age 78.
High was a law enforcement fixture in the region, starting his career in 1969 at the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C., where he retired as assistant chief in 1993. He then became chief of the Norfolk Police Department before taking over as chief of the Prince George’s County Police Department from 2003 to 2008.
During his time in Prince George’s, High guided the department through a tumultuous time as the agency was forced to make policy and structural changes while under a federal consent decree.
High was in his final months as sheriff, having decided earlier this year to step down from the position. Voters selected Lt. Col. John D.B. Carr, High’s assistant sheriff, for the job in the November election.
High was a mentor to Carr for his entire career at the sheriff’s office, guiding him as he developed through the ranks, Carr said in an interview. High promoted Carr to lieutenant colonel and always made himself available. He talked about sports and his personal life, offering insight on “how to balance everything.”
“His life was about service,” Carr said. “He’s always been community first, in the forefront of law enforcement, police and community relations.
“He will definitely missed, not just within our agency but within the public safety profession. He touched many lives.” | 2022-11-17T22:38:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Melvin High, Prince George's police chief, has died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/prince-georges-police-chief-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/prince-georges-police-chief-dies/ |
Egyptian dissident had ‘near death’ experience while on hunger strike, family says
Alaa Abdel Fattah's sister, Sanaa Seif, right, and his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, at his home in Cairo on Thursday. (Amr Nabil/AP)
CAIRO — As world leaders arrived last week in Egypt for the U.N. Climate Change Conference, the country’s most famous political prisoner — on a hunger and water strike in a prison outside of Cairo — was in such distress that he repeatedly smashed his head against his cell wall, prompting prison officials to put him on suicide watch, his family said Thursday.
Alaa Abdel Fattah, who turns 41 on Friday, has been jailed on and off for about a decade, and is currently serving a five-year sentence for “spreading false news undermining national security.”
His case took center stage at COP27, where he became a symbol of the widespread government repression that has suffocated Egyptian civil society. Despite Abdel Fattah’s dual citizenship, Egyptian officials have not allowed Britain consular access to him in prison.
Abdel Fattah’s family knew from a letter he had written to them that on Nov. 6, the day COP27 began, he planned to escalate his long-term hunger strike and stop drinking water.
But since then, there had been almost no news of what was happening behind the walls of the Wadi el-Natrun Prison where he is being held. At the climate summit, several world leaders directly raised his case with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, the only Egyptian official with the power to pardon him. None were able to provide an update on his condition.
Abdel Fattah’s family feared he was dead. Prison authorities eventually said they had “medically intervened” on his behalf. His relatives did not receive confirmation that he was alive until Monday, when prison officials presented a handwritten letter that said he had started to drink water again and would explain more soon.
A brief family visit with Abdel Fattah on Thursday — the first since October — allowed relatives to begin piecing together a rough timeline, though they were separated from him by a glass barrier and could speak to him only through a headset. This visit, his sister Sanaa Seif said, marks “the first time I don’t send an update to the British Embassy because I feel like they have failed us.”
On Nov. 8 — two days after he stopped drinking water and a day after Sisi promised French President Emmanuel Macron that he would ensure Abdel Fattah’s health — Abdel Fattah and his cellmates were ordered to submit to a medical check, his aunt, novelist Ahdaf Soueif, told reporters in Cairo on Thursday evening. “They were pressuring them to submit to a medical examination so that they could produce a medical report,” she said.
Earlier this year, Abdel Fattah’s family accused authorities of faking a medical report and denying his hunger strike was real.
This time, Abdel Fattah refused to leave the medical center unless his strike was acknowledged and he was placed under medical supervision. Eventually, riot police carried him back to his cell, Soueif said. It was at that point, he told his relatives, that he “lost it.”
“He had a meltdown, and he promised to kill himself if he was taken back to the cell,” Soueif said.
After Abdel Fattah smashed his head against the cell wall, officers restrained him and put him on suicide watch. The next day, he hit his head again until he started to bleed, hoping it would “force the authorities to file an official report on his case and to bring in an investigator.” A bruise was visible on Thursday, his sister said.
On Nov. 10, as Abdel Fattah’s lawyer was denied entry to the prison and his mother waited outside for news, a representative from the office of the public prosecutor visited him and took notes about his loss of hope and how his life had been harmed by authorities denying him access to books and music for three years, Soueif said.
The next day, as President Biden visited Egypt and met with Sisi, Abdel Fattah collapsed in the shower and eventually lost consciousness in what he described to his relatives as a “near death” experience. When he came to, he told them, a cellmate was cradling his head and there was an IV in his arm.
“They gave him electrolyte fluid, a spoonful of honey, a pickle,” Soueif said. “There were lots of people there and there was an urgent need to save his life.”
On Monday, he “began to eat of his own will again,” she said.
His family said he appeared thin and weak on Thursday, and at times had to lean against a wall for support. For more than 200 days this year, he ate no more than 100 calories per day. He stopped eating on Nov. 1, then gave up water.
He told his sister he was considering restarting the strike immediately. She urged him to let his body recover.
But, Soueif said, “he will have no choice but to resume his hunger strike imminently if there continues to be no real movement on his case.” | 2022-11-17T22:47:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alaa Abdel Fattah had "near death" experience on hunger strike, family says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/egypt-alaa-hunger-strike-family/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/17/egypt-alaa-hunger-strike-family/ |
Nancy Pelosi conquered the male-dominated world of politics
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is joined by her grandchildren and other House members' children as she takes the oath of office as the 116th Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2019. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Ms. Pelosi’s against-all-odds rise to power in the male-dominated world of politics — “from homemaker to House speaker,” in her words — secured her a spot in history. But she burnished it with a string of achievements that included passage of the Affordable Care Act, two major economic bailouts, the Dodd-Frank financial reform, a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. She presided over the two impeachments of Mr. Trump and helped ensure there would be a full investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Sometimes working with a thin majority, she wielded her office’s power more effectively than any speaker in at least a century.
Ms. Pelosi, of course, was not without fault. She could be tone-deaf; consider her comment that the Affordable Care Act needed to be passed to figure out what was in it. And she presided over an era in which the nation’s stewards failed to right the country’s finances, which are still badly out-of-whack, focusing instead on passing their own pet programs and other spending.
Yet that is true of almost every national leader in recent times. In a profile of Ms. Pelosi when she turned 80, The Post’s Karen Tumulty wrote about the speaker’s discipline, her maturity, her refusal to be intimidated — even as she became the target of Mr. Trump’s bluster and countless Republican attack ads. She has inspired and helped usher into politics countless women. And she set a standard for leadership for which the nation should be grateful and to which others who hold the gavel should aspire. | 2022-11-17T22:47:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Nancy Pelosi steps down as the most effective speaker of modern times - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/nancy-pelosi-steps-down-speaker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/nancy-pelosi-steps-down-speaker/ |
Google searches are not a great indicator of electoral success
The logo of Google is displayed during the Viva Tech start-up and technology summit in Paris on May 25, 2018. (Charles Platiau/Reuters)
This is the era of having more data at our disposal than we know what to do with. And so it is that I came to wonder: Do Google searches correlate well to election results?
This is not entirely an idle question. Google, through its Trends team, publishes data and analysis on what people — in the United States and internationally — are searching for. And since Google searches have become the default mechanism by which people get answers to their questions, it’s reasonable to think that those searches might reveal something about intent. This is Google’s business model after all: If you search for “new car,” Google presumes you want to buy a new vehicle and Google-sold ads for new cars will pop up on every page you open. It’s not complicated.
Since Google is good about sharing its data, the Trends team provided me with the breakdown of searches in the last week and the last day of the campaign by candidate for a number of contested Senate and gubernatorial races nationally, allowing me to answer the question in the first paragraph above. (Google, as it turns out, is even good at second-order question-answering.)
That answer? No, search interest doesn’t overlap much with electoral results.
We can start by simply comparing the actual results of each contest (as of Wednesday afternoon) with search interest. On the chart below, each candidate (Democrats in blue and Republicans in red) are shown relative to the percentage of the vote they earned (from bottom to top) and to the percentage of search interest they got on Nov. 7 (from left to right).
If search interest matched election results perfectly, every state would sit on the diagonal line. Instead, the result is more of a cloud. The correlation isn’t that strong.
It struck me, though: Maybe this is somehow missing people who’ve already voted? So I took data from Arizona, where results are broken out by vote type (including Election-Day-only) votes, and compared the data. The correlation was stronger. On Nov. 7, for example, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was the focus of 73 percent of the search results between her and her opponent, Katie Hobbs. The following day, Lake got 70 percent of votes cast. But in the Senate race, the correlation broke down.
Google also gave me a slightly wider window to look at. If we compare searches over the last week to the election results, we see that the correlation is slightly better, but not much. (Visually, we see that states below are generally a bit closer to the diagonal line.) This is still not a great predictor.
But we can also be more concrete. The last-week Google search results did correctly call 45 of the 65 races I looked at. (I excluded races like the contest in Alaska, where the result is determined by ranked-choice balloting.) That’s a decent-but-not-great two-thirds accuracy.
It also includes a lot of blowouts where predicting the winner wasn’t useful. In contests where the actual margin was under 10 points, Google’s search data only got 21 of 37 races right, about 57 percent of the total. Slightly better than a coin toss.
Google and Google Trends are very useful tools, obviously. If, however, you’re looking to them to tell you who’s going to win a close election, you’d be about as well served by flipping a quarter in the air and seeing how it lands. | 2022-11-17T22:52:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Google searches are not a great indicator of electoral success - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/google-search-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/google-search-elections/ |
Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect to plead guilty, victims’ lawyers say
A memorial hangs on a sign in July near Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, the site of a racially motivated mass shooting that left 10 dead. (Lauren Petracca/For The Washington Post)
The man suspected of killing 10 people in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo grocery store in May is expected to plead guilty to state charges, two attorneys for the victims’ families said Thursday.
Payton Gendron, 19, plans to enter a guilty plea to 25 charges on Monday, said attorney John Elmore, who represents two of the victims’ families. They were informed in recent weeks of the planned plea, which was proposed by Gendron’s defense lawyer and waives the right to an appeal, Elmore said.
A grand jury indicted Gendron on 25 state counts, including domestic terrorism and murder as a hate crime, in late May. A separate federal hate crimes case, which could bring the death penalty if Gendron is convicted, is pending.
Police say Gendron meticulously planned the shooting to target Black people under a racist ideology called the “great replacement” theory, driving three hours from his hometown of Conklin, N.Y., to the Tops Friendly Markets in a predominantly Black section of Buffalo. Wearing body armor and wielding a semiautomatic rifle, authorities say, he opened fire in the parking lot and inside the store, shooting 13 people — 11 of them Black.
Buffalo shooting suspect wrote of plans 5 months ago, messages show
Gendron allegedly published a 180-page racist screed online before the attack and live-streamed the shooting. He surrendered to police and when arraigned pleaded not guilty to the state and federal charges.
Gendron is scheduled to appear in court at 2 p.m. Monday, according to Kait Munro, a spokesperson for the Erie County District Attorney’s Office. Munro declined to comment further, citing a gag order issued by the judge for the prosecution and the defense in the case.
Elmore said the guilty plea in the state case, which he expects will result in a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, may be a “card to present” in the federal case, where Gendron faces the possibility of the death penalty. Capital punishment is banned in New York.
“In the face of overwhelming evidence, he doesn’t have a lot of cards to play,” Elmore said.
For the victims’ families, the plea represents a “step toward their march for justice,” Elmore said, though they want to see accountability from other parties they hold responsible, including social media platforms and the manufacturer of the gun and body armor. The families are also pushing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to sign a bill to update the state’s 150-year-old wrongful-death statute, which restricts the amount of compensation that families can receive.
At a news conference Thursday about a snowstorm bearing down on Buffalo, Hochul reacted to news of the expected guilty plea, saying the victims’ families “need justice.”
“The pain is still raw,” Hochul said. “It’s going to be hard for the families as the court proceedings continue and they have to relive the horror they went through because of the loss of their loved one, but the system needs to work and those families deserve justice.”
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown welcomed the plea when asked for his reaction at the news conference.
“It is going to be difficult for the families — it will open up that wound again, but I think it’s good that this individual is pleading guilty,” Brown said.
— Shayna Jacobs and David Nakamura contributed to this report. | 2022-11-17T23:13:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buffalo Tops shooting suspect Payton Gendron expected to plead guilty - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/buffalo-tops-guilty-plea/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/buffalo-tops-guilty-plea/ |
FILE - In this May 25, 2022, photo released by the Mississippi Department of Corrections is Thomas Edwin Loden Jr. In a Thursday, Nov, 17, 2022, ruling, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted a motion from the state to set an execution date for Loden Jr., a former U.S. Marine Corps recruiter who was convicted in the 2000 rape and killing of a 16-year-old waitress. Loden will be put to death on Dec. 14, at 6 p.m., or as soon as possible within 24 hours of that date. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP, File) (Mississippi State Penitentiary/Mississippi Department of Corrections)
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi has set an execution date for an inmate who has been on death row for 21 years after his appeals and legal challenges were unsuccessful. | 2022-11-17T23:48:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mississippi sets execution date for 21-year death row inmate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mississippi-sets-execution-date-for-21-year-death-row-inmate/2022/11/17/6650f786-66ca-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mississippi-sets-execution-date-for-21-year-death-row-inmate/2022/11/17/6650f786-66ca-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Trump won’t magically disappear. Republicans will have to purge him.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Donald Trump attend a rally on Feb. 19, 2020, in Bakersfield, Calif. (David McNew/Getty Images)
However, Trump’s slump among Republicans could change. Imagine that during the 2024 campaign, the Republican Party runs a large and varied field: Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan and Liz Cheney (among other possible candidates). Trump starts with a shrunken base but generates enormous publicity and wins the single-largest vote share in the early primaries. He doesn’t get past 50 percent of the vote in any state — but most Republican state primary systems favor the front-runner, and, in state after state, he just does better than anyone else. As Ronald Brownstein reminds us, that’s how Trump became the presumptive nominee in 2016 while only garnering about 40 percent of total votes.
Voters did deliver a powerful rebuke to the Republicans in the midterm elections, and clearly it was centered around two issues, election denial and abortion. But those who shifted appear to have been independents and a sliver of moderate Republicans. These are not the voters who will determine the results of Republican primaries.
The results also don’t tell us enough about a possible matchup between Trump and DeSantis. DeSantis’s victory in the Florida gubernatorial race was impressive. But in the early stages of a presidential campaign, DeSantis would not be facing Trump mano a mano but rather as one choice among many. A New York Times/Siena poll from October found that almost half of likely primary voters still preferred Trump, with about a quarter favoring DeSantis and only 6 percent favoring Pence. DeSantis’s popularity will probably have increased in recent weeks, but in a possible 2024 presidential campaign he will be fighting for “Not Trump” voters, and the Not Trump Lane of the Republican Party is going to get very crowded.
Were Trump to have a revival of his fortunes, many would jump back on his bandwagon. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has already reserved a spot there, promising that if Trump were to get the nomination he would “enthusiastically support him.” Republican officials seem to be hoping that their voters will do their dirty work for them and deliver them from Trump — reversing the usual roles of leaders and followers. But it won’t work. The party must put an end to its moral cowardice and finally and frontally confront the cancer within. Republican leaders need to explain to their voters that Trump is a demagogue who tried to undermine American democracy, which should make him an unacceptable nominee for Republicans.
In a fascinating essay in Foreign Affairs, Barnard College scholar Sheri Berman points out that America is something of an outlier among well-established democracies. She notes that in many Western European countries, right-wing populist parties have been forced to retreat from their most extreme positions and accept mainstream stances on issues such as the European Union, the euro and the war in Ukraine. But in the United States, the Republican Party, having opted for extremism in the wake of the Trump revolution, has been far more willing to go along with his dictates, with a slate of almost 300 election deniers as candidates in the midterms.
The reason, Berman points out (both in the essay and in a conversation with me), is that the institutions and norms of liberal democracy are strong in Western Europe. The political parties act responsibly, European and national institutions maintain their independence, and leaders call out bad behavior. So, from Sweden to Italy, when radical right-wing parties come to power, they are rarely able to change policy along the dramatic lines that they had once called for. She notes that in Sweden and Italy, the far-right parties have had to moderate their rhetoric and policies significantly to attract support and be seen as serious enough to govern.
The United States, unfortunately, has a weaker, more open political system to begin with, defined nowadays by primaries, money, social media and celebrity, all of which enable an entrepreneurial politician like Trump to take over a major political party and turn it into something resembling a personality cult. (At the last Republican National Convention, not one of the former presidents or presidential nominees spoke, but six members of Trump’s family were given prominent slots, something unthinkable in a European country.) Berman writes that “Freedom House and other groups that track democratic development, such as V-Dem, have noted a marked decline in the strength of American democracy but have found no similar decline in Western Europe.”
In countries where democratic institutions are weaker — such as Hungary, Turkey and (alas) the United States — demagogues change parties rather than the other way around. To fend off the threat, Republican leaders must act to purge their party (and country) of extremism. Even after the midterms, Trump and Trumpism will not magically vanish.
Opinion|At long last, Trump gives his concession speech | 2022-11-17T23:49:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Trump won’t magically disappear. Republicans will have to purge him. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/republican-leaders-must-purge-trump-extremism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/republican-leaders-must-purge-trump-extremism/ |
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., walks to the Senate subway after voting on the same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday in Washington. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had one job: Win the Senate majority. Not only did he fail, he did so in spectacular fashion — through calamitous mismanagement of the NRSC that left Republican candidates under fire without air cover in the final critical months of the midterm elections.
According to the New York Times, by July of this year, Scott’s NRSC had raised $181.5 million — a substantial war chest. But before the fall campaign even got underway, the newspaper reported, he had blown through 95 percent of the money — wasting most of it on consultants, self-promotion and a failed digital fundraising scheme that left the NRSC’s coffers virtually empty. He entered the homestretch with just $23.2 million cash on hand — less than half of what the Democratic senatorial committee had on hand to pummel GOP contenders.
As a result, the NRSC had to cancel $13.5 million in ad buys in August in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million). Politico reported at the time that “the scale of these cuts is unprecedented.”
And what was Scott doing in August, while his committee was in crisis? According to Axios, he was on vacation in Italy aboard a luxury yacht.
Scott needed to take out $13 million in loans in September just to cover the committee’s operating expenses. He was able to spend just more than $548,534 on three independent expenditures in the entire month of October. The incompetence is stunning.
Indeed, Scott spent so much time and money promoting himself at the expense of GOP candidates that people began calling the NRSC the “National Rick Scott Committee.” The Post reported that Scott had “directed a sizable share of his fundraising as NRSC chair to his own accounts, while shifting digital revenue away from Senate campaigns and buying ads promoting himself.”
After I pointed out on Fox News on Election Day that Scott had burned through most of his money by August, Scott followed me on air and was asked by host Martha MacCallum for his response. He said he did the opposite of what his predecessor did two years ago, when Republicans failed to define Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) early on. “I told people … we’re going to invest and define our opponents early,” adding that because they spent money doing so, “we’re in the hunt … to pick up half of the Democrats’ seats right now” — predicting Republicans would win Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, possibly Washington and Colorado. Instead, he lost a GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania.
As for criticizing previous NRSC leaders, this is laughable. His NRSC is the first in recent memory to raise less and spend less than its predecessor. In 2020, under Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), the NRSC spent $120 million on independent expenditures on behalf of candidates, while Scott’s NRSC spent a grand total of just $33 million. In 2020, the committee spent $18 million on state-party ground activities, while Scott’s NRSC spent about $6 million.
Because of Scott’s ineptitude, it fell to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to rescue the GOP candidates abandoned by the NRSC. McConnell-aligned super PACs invested a whopping $240.7 million in key Senate races, including $119.6 million in three states where Scott’s NRSC pulled scheduled TV ads: Pennsylvania ($56.7 million), Nevada ($25.5 million) and North Carolina ($37.4 million). McConnell-aligned PACs also spent $16.3 million in New Hampshire trying to rescue pro-Trump candidate Dan Bolduc, staying on the air for 17 days after the NRSC pulled out of the race, before finally withdrawing as well. McConnell also spent $32.2 million in Ohio saving J.D. Vance’s struggling campaign and $38 million in Georgia to get Herschel Walker into a Senate run-off — which is the only reason Republicans have a chance of emerging from this cycle without a diminished Senate minority.
Not surprisingly, his bid failed. The fact he even tried shows a pitiful lack of self-awareness. As Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) put it, Scott apparently wanted “a chance to crash and burn twice in the same year.”
And who nominated Scott for his ill-fated challenge to McConnell? None other than Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who survived by a razor-thin 26,449-vote majority only thanks to the $24.7 million McConnell spent rescuing his floundering campaign. Talk about an ingrate.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have called for an independent review of the NRSC’s expenditures this election cycle. It can’t come soon enough. Senators have a right to know how Scott wasted more than $180 million. In his letter announcing his now-failed bid for leader, Scott declared “no one person responsible for our party’s performance across the country.” That may be true. But no one person did more to ensure that poor performance than Rick Scott. | 2022-11-17T23:49:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Rick Scott crashed and burned twice in one year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/scott-rnc-ruinous-record/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/scott-rnc-ruinous-record/ |
Global Women's Summit: Taking on the Taliban
In this conversation recorded during Washington Post Live's Global Women's Summit, Jennifer Griffin, chief national security correspondent for Fox News, speaks with Afghanistan ex-parliamentarian Naheed A. Fareed and BBC news international correspondent Yalda Hakim about how women are standing up to Afghanistan’s new Taliban government and how social and educational opportunities for women and girls have deteriorated in the year since the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. Conversation recorded on Nov. 15, 2022. | 2022-11-17T23:49:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Global Women's Summit: The U.K.’s Rising Star with Kemi Badenoch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/global-womens-summit-the-uks-rising-star-with-kemi-badenoch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/global-womens-summit-the-uks-rising-star-with-kemi-badenoch/ |
As the iconic California Democrat decides to step back from leadership, she will have to learn a new pace of life
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivers remarks on the House floor of the Capitol in Washington on Nov. 17. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post )
In her first campaign for Congress, Nancy Pelosi adopted a slogan that proved apocryphal: “A voice that will be heard.”
“Resting is rusting.”
She has been whirling dervish of activity. The legislative accomplishments range from massive expansions of health care to hundreds of billions of new dollars to fight climate change. She led the response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and she gaveled shut two impeachment roll calls of Donald Trump.
She estimates that she had to raise about $1 million a day, five days a week, and aides believe she’s raised nearly $1.3 billion for Democratic campaigns the past 20 years.
Her voice sounded relieved Thursday, a bit unburdened by a decision that has been months in the making and took an extra nine days because the fate of the Democratic majority hung on the slow counts of very close elections. Finally, late Wednesday, the Republicans secured their 218th vote in the House, her majority was gone and she sent word that she would announce her decision in a floor speech to a half-packed chamber — only a couple dozen Republicans showed up — as most knew this meant she would leave.
“I feel balanced about it all,” Pelosi told the reporters.
She chose the Board of Education room on the Capitol’s first floor for the hour-long session with a handful of reporters. It’s a small but ornate room that had been the provenance of male speakers in the past — “A euphemism for camaraderie, cards, whatever,” she said of the “board” title — that she has updated with commemorations to the 19th Amendment, women’s suffrage and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Democrats “won” the midterm election, in her estimation, by dramatically overperforming expectations. “We won the ground” with voter turnout efforts, she said, that defied historical projections that President Biden’s party should have lost at least 20 seats.
If not for the politics of New York — a judge overthrowing the original district map and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) “had a problem” that depressed votes in Long Island and the Hudson Valley — Democrats would have held the House, according to Pelosi.
That prospect might have prompted a different decision than retiring. “I would have prayed over it, I would have prayed over it,” the Italian Catholic speaker said when asked about that possibility.
“If anything it made me think again about staying. ... No, it had the opposite effect. I couldn’t give them that satisfaction,” she said.
“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way, this is the way we make it in our family.’ They will have their vision, they will have their plan,” Pelosi said.
For all the talk of generational change, Pelosi views time inside the legislative trenches as the most important key to success. “It helps to have legislative experience. There’s a lot to be said for experience,” she said.
That included negotiating a very necessary, but very unpopular, $700 billion bailout of Wall Street in 2008; the nearly year-long slog to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010; a new North American trade deal in 2019; and about $5 trillion in funds to battle the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Her negotiating style could drive lawmakers mad. Fellow Democrats came to believe she would play with the temperature in her office during long negotiations. She once boasted about how she would starve lawmakers if they weren’t really negotiating, then serve them tons of food once talks started to heat up.
Some days she had to dismiss liberals who wanted to pass Medicare-for-all — “there aren’t 218 districts where that would be the right approach” — and other days she had to infuriate moderates who thought she went too far on climate legislation.
Her philosophy came down to a friend today could be an enemy tomorrow, but today’s enemy might be her most loyal supporter tomorrow.
“So one day you don’t get your way, the rest of us come to a compromise. You’re annoyed, you’re some fringe element, but you vote with us because tomorrow might be your day,” she explained. “I call it a kaleidoscope and you just turn that dial.”
She dismissed questions about the abilities of her counterpart, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who did not show up to her farewell address, for struggling to find enough support to claim the speaker’s gavel.
“Why do you ask?” she said. “Is he going to be speaker?”
Pelosi places all the blame for the partisan polarization that has engulfed this era at the feet of Republicans, who she called “anti-science, anti-government” for their actions of the last decade.
“So what would I have done differently? Won more elections and not given them the power to do what they did,” she said. “Make sure that a creature like Donald Trump never became president of the United States.”
Still, her father sent her brother, Tommy D’Alesandro III, out to check on the campaign to make sure things were going well. He reported back that things were just fine, and a little while later she won, a moment captured about a “voice” that would dominate Washington.
“And it was a voice that was heard,” Pelosi said Thursday. | 2022-11-17T23:49:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘I feel balanced about it all’: Nancy Pelosi reflects on two decades at the top - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/i-feel-balanced-about-it-all-nancy-pelosi-reflects-two-decades-top/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/i-feel-balanced-about-it-all-nancy-pelosi-reflects-two-decades-top/ |
Hillary Cauthen, left, a former consulting psychologist for the San Antonio Spurs, has settled her lawsuit with the organization which claimed that it had mishandled her allegations of indecent exposure by guard Josh Primo. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle/AP)
A psychologist formerly employed by the San Antonio Spurs agreed to settle her lawsuit against the team on Thursday after alleging that the Spurs had ignored her repeated complaints about guard Josh Primo, whom she said exposed himself to her on nine occasions during their one-on-one sessions.
Tony Buzbee, Cauthen’s attorney, confirmed the settlement in statements to multiple outlets Thursday, saying the parties had “agreed to resolve this matter” and that the “entire case is over.”
Hillary Cauthen, an Austin-based sports psychologist, said in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that she first reported to the Spurs in January that Primo had exposed himself to her during an individual session. The lawsuit stated that she met with General Manager Brian Wright in March and with a Spurs legal representative in May to discuss the matter, but “nothing was done” and Primo remained an active member of the team. The Spurs opted not to renew Cauthen’s contract in August. Cauthen also alleged that Primo exposed himself to other people on at least two occasions.
“My passion is to help others learn how to thrive in their world and to help organizations develop a culture of care,” Cauthen said at a news conference earlier this month. “The organization I worked for has failed me.”
The 19-year-old Primo, who was San Antonio’s 2021 first-round pick, was abruptly released by the Spurs in late October, less than three weeks after the organization picked up his $4.3 million option for the 2023-24 season.
Spurs CEO R.C. Buford said in a statement Thursday that the organization was “taking measures to ensure that all parties involved are treated with dignity and respect” because they “owe that to Dr. Cauthen, our players, our staff and our community.”
“As an organization, we are continuously evaluating and refining our processes so they ultimately reflect the values and culture of who we aspire to be every day,” Buford said. “To that end, we have decided to collaborate with Dr. Cauthen and other experts in an effort to review and improve our workplace processes and procedures. This is a learning opportunity for us, and one that we are certain will make us better moving forward.”
Prior to the settlement, Buford had said that the organization “disagreed with the accuracy of facts, details and timeline presented” by Cauthen and Buzbee, which suggested that 10 months elapsed between Cauthen’s first report of misbehavior and Primo’s release. Buzbee previously represented nearly two dozen women who brought sexual misconduct lawsuits against NFL quarterback Deshaun Watson.
Primo, who was the youngest player selected in the 2021 draft after spending one season at Alabama, averaged 7 points, 3.3 rebounds and 4.5 assists in four appearances this season. Entering the season, he was viewed as a key piece in the Spurs’ rebuilding effort. Primo is an unrestricted free agent after clearing waivers following his release.
In a statement to ESPN made before the nature of the allegations became public, Primo said he was “seeking help to deal with previous trauma I suffered” and that he would “take this time to focus on my mental health treatment more fully.” | 2022-11-17T23:50:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Former team psychologist agrees to settle lawsuit with Spurs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/spurs-josh-primo-lawsuit-settled/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/spurs-josh-primo-lawsuit-settled/ |
Robert Clary, ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ actor, dies at 96
He was a survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II and late in life spoke about his experiences, including the killing of 12 of his family members
Robert Clary as Cpl. Louis LeBeau filming a "Hogan's Heroes" episode on July 14, 1965. (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)
Robert Clary, a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps during World War II who played a feisty prisoner of war in the improbable 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” died Nov. 16 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 96.
Mr. Clary began his career in Paris as a nightclub singer and appeared onstage in musicals and had small film roles before appearing in “Hogan’s Heroes.” The CBS comedy, in which Allied soldiers in a POW camp bested their clownish German army captors with espionage schemes, played the war strictly for laughs during its 1965-71 run. The 5-foot-1 Mr. Clary sported a beret and a sardonic smile as Cpl. Louis LeBeau.
Mr. Clary was the last surviving original star of the sitcom that included Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis and Ivan Dixon as the prisoners. Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played their captors, were European Jews who fled Nazi persecution before the war.
Mr. Clary remained publicly silent about his own wartime experience until 1980 when, Mr. Clary said, he was provoked to speak out by those who denied or diminished the orchestrated effort by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews. Twelve of his immediate family members — his parents and 10 siblings — were killed under the Nazis, Mr. Clary wrote in a biography posted on his website.
In 1997, he was among dozens of Holocaust survivors whose portraits and stories were included in “The Triumphant Spirit,” a book by photographer Nick Del Calzo. “I beg the next generation not to do what people have done for centuries — hate others because of their skin, shape of their eyes, or religious preference,” Mr. Clary said in an interview at the time.
Mr. Clary was born Robert Max Widerman in Paris on March 1, 1926, and was the youngest of 14 children. He was 16 when he and most of his family were taken by the Nazis.
In the documentary, he recalled a happy childhood until he and his family were forced from their Paris apartment and put into a crowded cattle car that carried them to concentration camps.
Following 31 months in captivity in several concentration camps, he was liberated from the Buchenwald death camp by U.S. troops. Returning to Paris, where he was reunited with two older sisters who had avoided the death camps, he worked as a singer and recorded songs that became popular in America.
After coming to the United States in 1949, he moved from club dates and recording to Broadway musicals, including “New Faces of 1952,” and then to movies. He appeared in films including “Thief of Damascus” (1952), “A New Kind of Love” (1963) and “The Hindenburg” (1975). He also acted in soap operas such as “The Young and the Restless,” “Days of Our Lives” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
Mr. Clary married Natalie Cantor, the daughter of singer-actor Eddie Cantor, in 1965. She died in 1997. He had no children.
He said he didn’t feel uneasy about the comedy on “Hogan’s Heroes” despite the tragedy of his family’s devastating war experience.
“It was completely different," he once explained. "I know they [POWs] had a terrible life, but compared to concentration camps and gas chambers it was like a holiday.” | 2022-11-18T00:06:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Robert Clary, ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ actor, dies at 96 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/17/robert-clary-hogans-heroes-actor-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/17/robert-clary-hogans-heroes-actor-dead/ |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday she wouldn't seek a leadership role next term. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
Dealing with trauma she likened to “survivor’s guilt,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the aftermath of the October attack on her husband Paul by an assailant looking for her has left the California Democrat’s family shaken.
The speaker, who announced Thursday that she won’t seek a leadership position in the next Congress, also addressed the Republicans who mocked her and her family in the attack’s aftermath.
“If your spouse were in a situation where other people would make a joke of it, think it was funny, be collecting money for bail for the perpetrator, putting out a conspiracy theory about what it was about — it’s so horrible to think the Republican Party has come down to this, and no real rejection of it by anybody in the party,” she said. “It’s so sad for our country.”
During a campaign event, former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake drew laughter from a crowd after joking that the Pelosi home “doesn’t have a lot of protection.” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) also made light of the situation at a campaign rally the day the news broke, saying that while “there’s no room for violence anywhere ... we’re going to send [Nancy Pelosi] back to be with him in California.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) shared a Twitter thread from a far-right activist challenging the notion that the alleged assailant was a militant right-winger — even though the attacker’s blog appears to have been deeply drawn into election falsehoods and political conspiracy theories.
On Thursday, Pelosi thanked her GOP colleagues who stood by her, saying most of them “have been lovely to me.”
“I feel very comforted by many of my Republican members here,” she said. “So I don’t paint everybody with the same brush.”
Democratic colleagues embraced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as she left the House floor on Nov. 17. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Elizabeth Frantz/The Washington Post)
Paul Pelosi, 82, underwent surgery on his skull after police say after hammer-wielding David DePape, 42, broke into the Pelosis’ home, shouting “Where is Nancy?” — a chant reminiscent of what was heard during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters who wanted to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
The attack at the Pelosi home comes after a dramatic increase in threats against lawmakers and government officials in recent years. Three men were convicted in November of aiding in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In a separate case, a man was convicted in late October of threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). Earlier this year, a man with a gun was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s home after making threats against the justice.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries poised to become the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress
Nancy Pelosi revealed in a Nov. 7 interview with CNN — her first televised sit-down after the attack — that Capitol Police woke her in Washington to alert her to what happened.
The Capitol Police officers “said we have to come in to talk to you,” Pelosi said in the interview. “And I’m thinking, my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul because I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say.”
“Paul was not the target, but he’s the one who was paying the price,” she said to CNN. It’s a sentiment she echoed Thursday when describing the how hard it has been when the violence hit so close to home.
“People tell me that people — if you were in an accident, you would go miles around to avoid going past that accident scene,” she said. “Or if, if you had a serious health issue, you wouldn’t go near the hospital where you were treated because it would bring that trauma back.” | 2022-11-18T00:58:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has ‘survivor’s guilt’ from husband’s attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-says-she-has-survivors-guilt-husbands-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-says-she-has-survivors-guilt-husbands-attack/ |
Yankees’ Aaron Judge, Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt win baseball’s MVP awards
Aaron Judge hit an American League record 62 home runs this season. (Eric Gay/AP)
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt were named Major League Baseball’s MVPs on Thursday night.
Judge, who hit 62 home runs to set the American League record and fell just short of the AL batting title, beat Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani to win one of the most scrutinized MVP races in recent memory — one that weighed the value of Ohtani’s contributions as a hitter and a pitcher against one of the more well-rounded offensive years in recent history.
Ultimately, Judge’s stunning season won out, giving him his first MVP award. He led the major leagues in homers by 16, was tops in on-base-plus-slugging percentage by nearly 100 points and did it all while hitting .311 under the scorching New York spotlight. Ohtani finished sixth in the AL in OPS and fourth with 34 homers. He also finished fourth in AL Cy Young Award voting after pitching to a 2.33 ERA and racking up 219 strikeouts in 166 innings.
In the National League, Goldschmidt bested teammate Nolan Arenado and San Diego Padres star Manny Machado for his first MVP award. Goldschmidt led the NL with a .981 OPS and hit .317 with 35 homers for the Central Division champions. | 2022-11-18T00:58:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Judge, Paul Goldschmidt win baseball's MVP awards - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/mlb-mvp-awards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/mlb-mvp-awards/ |
Mother charged in disappearance of her children testifies briefly at hearing
The Montgomery County mother charged with murder in the 2014 disappearance of her two children testified briefly Thursday during her competency hearing.
Catherine Hoggle, sitting hunched at the defense table beside her attorney, drew her sanitary mask below her chin and engaged in a series of questions and answers with the judge.
The back-and-forth followed a lengthy debate between prosecution and defense about whether such an inquiry would shed any light on her mental state, which has been examined by several psychiatrists since she was taken into custody after her children Sarah, 3, and Jacob, 2, vanished. She was not placed under oath, and the questioning began with basics, including her name, age (36) and date of birth.
“Do you know what evidence is?” Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Richard Jordan asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hoggle answered, in a voice that people in the courtroom strained to hear.
“Now I don’t want you to tell me anything about the circumstances in this case but, generally, what is evidence?”
“Something that makes things … something that’s used in a case, good or bad,” Hoggle replied.
When asked whether someone should talk to an attorney if they’re charged with a crime, Hoggle said, “I’m not sure.” The judge also asked her questions about what attorneys do and whether she understood the concept of attorney-client privilege.
“What should an attorney know?” the judge asked.
“What happened at the alleged crime.”
“Is there anything else they should know?”
“I can’t think of anything,” Hoggle replied, adding: “I’m not good at public speaking.”
After Hoggle finished her testimony, the judge asked a forensic psychiatrist, who was listening, whether the colloquy had altered his stated opinion that Hoggle — who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and psychotic — was unfit to stand trial.
Judge rejects request to drop charges in case of Montgomery County mother charged with killing her children
No, the doctor said, it did not. He had testified earlier that a battery of extremely powerful medications had not returned her to a level of mental competency even though the drugs inflicted troubling side effects.
Since her arrest Hoggle has been determined unfit to stand trial and committed for treatment in the hopes of restoring her mental health.
David Felsen, Hoggle’s defense attorney, said Thursday that the judge’s questioning shed no more light on the question of whether Hoggle would be able not just to understand the basics of a legal proceeding but also be able to assist in her defense. That question, Felsen said, has been investigated and answered by a series of psychiatrists who believe Hoggle is seriously mentally ill and unlikely to regain the necessary sensibility to stand trial.
The judge has yet to rule on the issue, and the hearing will continue next week, when State’s Attorney John McCarthy will have a chance to cross-examine the doctor. | 2022-11-18T01:20:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mother charged in disappearance of her children testifies briefly at hearing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/hoggle-testifies-competency-missing-children/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/hoggle-testifies-competency-missing-children/ |
Yale’s president said a Washington Post story about suicidal students being forced to withdraw ‘misrepresents our efforts,' but promised improved mental health services and other possible changes
Yale students pass by Sterling Library on their way to and from classes. (Stan Godlewski for The Washington Post)
Yale University President Peter Salovey wrote a letter to school alumni Wednesday defending the university’s mental health services and the way it treats suicidal students, while also detailing plans for more resources and possible changes to policy.
His letter followed a Washington Post story in which current and former students described being pressured by university administrators to withdraw once the university learned about their mental health problems and being forced to reapply to get back into the university.
'What if Yale finds out?'
Before the story was published last week, Yale officials repeatedly declined to discuss the university’s withdrawal and reinstatement policies or address any of the accounts offered by students and former students.
On Wednesday, Salovey said the article “misrepresents our efforts and unwavering commitment to supporting our students, whose well-being and success are our primary focus.”
In the story, more than 25 current and former students described their frustrations with a university flush with a $41.4 billion endowment, yet beset by what they said are inadequate services and policies for those in mental crisis.
Some recounted seeking help and never hearing back. Others were given limited, 30-minute-long therapy sessions because of staff constraints. Many said they learned to hide mental problems and suicidal thoughts to avoid triggering withdrawal policies that they believe are designed to protect Yale from lawsuits and damage to its reputation.
And those pressured to withdraw said they were given 72 hours or less to leave campus — with one student being met by campus police upon discharge from a psychiatric hospital and given two hours to pack her possessions and vacate her dorm.
Salovey said the university plans to take action in coming months to improve mental health services and explained the efforts it has already made in recent years to make the reinstatement process less onerous and expensive.
In the coming year, the university will open a new counseling site. Salovey said a committee has been meeting in recent months “to continue the review of our withdrawal and reinstatement policies. This group is poised to roll out policy changes in stages that will continue to support students.”
Two other Yale administrators — Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and Paul Hoffman, Yale’s director of mental health and counseling — also wrote a letter to the editor Tuesday, alleging the article ignored the “complex and nuanced endeavor” of addressing student mental health and said it “could put more students at risk” by leaving them with the impression they should stay in college at the expense of their well-being.
In an interview Thursday, Lewis said the university plans to hire nine additional mental health clinicians in the coming year, bringing the total number to nearly 60. And the new counseling center opening in the coming year will be Yale’s third such site in New Haven.
Lewis said possible changes to the university’s withdrawal policies may be announced in coming weeks, but characterized them as not “any radical revisions of policy, but updating of documents and making sure that everything’s clear.”
Lewis noted that administrators are trying to address one problem raised by The Post story — how students in crisis who withdraw from Yale lose their health insurance and access to therapy at the moment they need it most.
“I’m not sure that I will know for sure whether we’re able to do it for another few weeks or so,” he said. “But we are in the process of looking at that … the question of cost and insurance for those who come from families that don’t have insurance.”
Lewis said university administrators wrote the two letters in response to concern from alumni following The Post’s article.
“I wanted to make clear that the mental health of our students is a very, very high priority and that we seek to pursue the policies and practices that are going to ensure that,” he said. “In particular, that are going to help prevent suicide. And that’s the basis for our decision-making and nothing else.”
Many current and former students expressed frustration with Salovey’s letter and the administration’s response.
“They missed the whole point of the article and those students who were brave enough to speak out,” said Alicia Floyd, who withdrew after a suicide attempt in 2000 and now works as a doctor. “The problem is how awful they can make it to leave and return. And how that discourages people in pain from seeking help or taking the time off that they need.”
Last year, Floyd and others created a nonprofit called Elis for Rachael to press Yale to change its mental health policies.
“The letter shows how disconnected the administrators are from our experiences,” said Akweley Mazarae Lartey, 22, a senior at Yale. “Their policies have an enormous effect on students, especially those who need support, who are low-income, come from marginalized backgrounds. Or are trans and nonbinary, like me.”
Lartey — a leader in a disability rights student group called DEFY — recalled struggling with mental health his first year at Yale and being warned not to reveal too much to his Yale counselors because of the withdrawal policy. Lartey said he also struggled to find any counselors who understood his problems as a nonbinary student.
“We don’t just desperately need policy reform and more resources,” he said, “but way better and more diverse counselors.”
The scrutiny and discussion of changes comes after more than a decade of criticism of Yale’s withdrawal policies. In 2015, students demanded change after a Yale sophomore cited the withdrawal policy in an online post shortly before she killed herself. Last year, a freshmen killed herself just days after agonizing in online posts about the possible consequences of withdrawing.
Before the article’s publication, Yale administrators refused to provide The Post with statistics on reinstatement. In Salovey’s letter, he said: “Over 90 percent of students who were medically withdrawn are reinstated at their first request; over 99 percent on their second; and 100 percent by their third request.”
Those numbers include students who withdraw for physical as well as mental reasons. Lewis said the majority of medical withdrawals are for mental health reasons. When asked how many students who withdraw decide to reapply, Lewis said he did not have that data.
“Even if 90 percent are reinstated on their first try, what that doesn’t capture is the stress and trauma created by this cruel and absurd process,” said Rishi Mirchandani, who withdrew in 2018 after suffering from suicidal thoughts and reapplied twice before being reinstated. “It doesn’t capture the logistical and financial hurdles. The anxiety and limbo you’re forced to live in while you wait for them to make their judgment. No one disagrees time off can be necessary and lifesaving. But it should be simple and flexible and supportive. Right now, it’s none of those things.”
Miriam Kopyto, 22, a senior and a leader in the Yale Student Mental Health Association, said many on campus have contacted her group in the wake of The Post’s story, asking how they can help improve campus mental health.
“I’ve been working for years — between my classes and job — to try to get administrators to pay attention to these issues. And it’s so often felt like we’re invisible to them,” Kopyto said. “I hope things really do improve. I would so love to see that.” | 2022-11-18T01:20:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yale defends mental health, withdrawl policies after Washington Post article - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/17/yale-mental-health-suicide-policies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/17/yale-mental-health-suicide-policies/ |
This image made available by the Space Telescope Science Institute on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, shows two of the farthest galaxies seen to date captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in the outer regions of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. The galaxies are not inside the cluster, but many billions of light-years farther behind it. The galaxy labeled “1” existed only 450 million years after the big bang. The galaxy labeled “2” existed 350 million years after the big bang. (NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA), Zolt G. Levay (STScI) via AP) (Uncredited/Space Telescope Science Institute) | 2022-11-18T01:20:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Webb Space Telescope spots early galaxies hidden from Hubble - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/webb-space-telescope-spots-early-galaxies-hidden-from-hubble/2022/11/17/fd64ccf0-66b7-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/webb-space-telescope-spots-early-galaxies-hidden-from-hubble/2022/11/17/fd64ccf0-66b7-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville’s defense was supposed to be better than this. A unit filled with early-round picks and high-priced free agents was expected to be the strength of the team, a crutch of sorts while second-year pro Trevor Lawrence finds his way in a new offense and with several new receivers. | 2022-11-18T01:21:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jaguars' D stands for disappointment as gaffes, losses mount - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/jaguars-d-stands-for-disappointment-as-gaffes-losses-mount/2022/11/17/d120ef6c-66d4-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/jaguars-d-stands-for-disappointment-as-gaffes-losses-mount/2022/11/17/d120ef6c-66d4-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
The Thanksgiving table can make for the best of conversations — and the worst of conversations.
In general, good things happen when we gather together for meals. For instance, research shows that when children eat with their parents, they consume more vegetables, have higher self-esteem, lower risk for substance use and better reading scores, vocabulary and grades.
But in the United States, dining together doesn’t happen all that often. Each week, as much as 70 percent of meals are eaten away from home, and fewer than 1 in 3 families, on average, eat together more than twice a week, according to the Family Dinner Project at Massachusetts General Hospital.
While the Thanksgiving table is a rare opportunity to bring people together for a meal, the conversation there can be uniquely fraught. The table often includes a mix of people who don’t normally spend time together — chatty grandparents and sullen teens, picky eaters and exuberant noshers, sober friends and holiday imbibers, vegetarians and turkey lovers, liberals and conservatives, skilled chefs and bad cooks, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
Alice Julier, professor of food studies at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, said she often talks with students who feel anxious about returning home for the holiday meal.
“There’s nothing like a holiday meal to bring into focus what has or hasn’t changed in a year,” said Julier, author of the book “Eating Together: Food, Friendship and Inequality.” “It gives you a chance to assess. Who’s aged? Who’s deepened their quirks or belief systems? Who has changed their eating practices? All those things come together in a single day, in a single meal.”
One way to get the best out of holiday conversation is to know what not to talk about. We’ve gathered advice from the Family Dinner Project and other experts to help you steer clear of risky conversations and be ready to rescue your diners from the kind of table chatter that can spoil an appetite. Here’s what they had to say.
Don’t comment on what others are eating
Although it’s fine to praise the chef or talk about how much you love sweet potato casserole, refrain from making comments or jokes about what others are eating or not eating. Discussion of food choices can put children at risk for eating disorders. And it can be a trigger for adults with a history of disordered eating. And your comments about the food on someone’s plate are not welcome. Examples of food shaming range from “You eat like a bird” to “Are you going to eat all of that?”
Stop talking about the wine
Be aware if one or more of your guests is recovering from alcohol use disorder. Excessive discussion of wine or alcoholic beverages can make them feel uncomfortable. When you have a sober guest at the table, keep the wine and alcoholic beverages on a separate table, so bottles are not being passed around them.
Don’t ask students about grades, school problems or college plans
For young children, discussing bad grades or problems at school at the dinner table will just make them dread eating with the family. High school students are stressed out enough — the last thing they want to talk about at Thanksgiving is the college application process.
Avoid asking people about having kids or getting married
What is it about holiday gatherings that prompts some people to discuss reproduction? Plenty of people are child-free by choice. Others may be coping with infertility or a recent miscarriage. Either way, even well-intentioned comments such as “It will happen,” “Don’t give up” and “Will you try again?” are intrusive and often hurtful. And while we’re on the topic, people who are single don’t want to be grilled about their relationship prospects, either.
Skip the politics
Political conversations are a fast way to derail the celebratory vibe. Tempers can flare, and people can feel picked on if their views diverge from most of those at the table. If the discussion does turn to politics, or one person starts espousing political beliefs you disagree with, don’t try changing minds over a meal. Instead, be ready to change the subject.
And whether you’re a host or a guest, just remember that everyone needs rescuing from time to time. Pay attention to multigenerational tables, and intervene if a grandparent is criticizing a child’s eating habits. Save the sole single person at the table from probing questions. If the discussion turns to politics, be ready to jump in. The Family Dinner Project has a number of holiday conversation starters (“What’s your favorite family tradition?” “If you could start a charity, who would it help?” “If you had a superpower, what would it be?”) and printable place mats with questions guests can ask each other.
Despite the potential pitfalls of holiday conversation, there’s also the potential joy of reconnecting with family and friends. And if things don’t go perfectly, that’s okay, too.
“The Thanksgiving meal can unfortunately bring out the tensions, but tensions aren’t always bad. We learn who we are that way,” said Julier. “The only thing I say to students is to be prepared, be ready and don’t take it all on. And try to enjoy the meal.”
The Checkup with Dr. Wen
This week, we’ve asked Leana S. Wen, physician, public health professor and Post contributing columnist, to answer a reader question. To hear more from Dr. Wen, and for more guidance on covid-19 and other topics, sign up for The Checkup with Dr. Wen.
“I have family and friends who have been invited to my son’s wedding in Costa Rica in January 2023. What are the best covid testing requirements (for those vaxxed and unvaxxed) and instructions for us to send out and request of them before flying two to three days before the wedding and, once there, activities that start the day before the wedding?” — Michael from California
Dr. Wen replies: The question for your son and his soon-to-be spouse is how strongly they feel about having a covid-free wedding. If it’s something they wish to prioritize, there are strict precautions — including testing — that you could suggest.
That includes having all guests wear an N95 or equivalent mask (KN95 or KF94) in all indoor public settings from at least three days prior to the wedding. They should avoid indoor restaurants and gatherings with non-household members during this period. Then, they should take a rapid test upon arrival in Costa Rica. Continue to avoid indoor spaces with others who are not part of the wedding party, and participate only in outdoor activities before the start of the wedding.
Finally, take another test the day of the wedding. If indoor gatherings are planned with guests on other days, they should continue the self-imposed quarantine and daily testing, and gather indoors with only the other wedding guests.
That’s a lot of precautions. Most hosts probably won’t want to make such an ask of their guests. A less cumbersome request is for everyone to take two rapid tests, once upon arrival in Costa Rica and then the day of the wedding. I think it’s also reasonable to ask that all guests wear a high-quality mask while in crowded places like airports.
And congratulations to your son! I hope he has a wonderful wedding. | 2022-11-18T01:22:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to avoid family conflict at the Thanksgiving table - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/17/thanksgiving-table-family-fights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/17/thanksgiving-table-family-fights/ |
With nearly all votes counted, the Republican incumbent led Democrat Adam Frisch by a small margin
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) attends a roundtable hearing with members of the House Freedom Caucus about the COVID-19 pandemic at The Heritage Foundation on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican from Colorado, was locked in a race that was too close to call and inside the threshold for automatic recount, the Associated Press projected Thursday, leaving the outcome of a surprsingly competitive election in a conservative congressional district in doubt.
With nearly all votes counted, Boebert led Democrat Adam Frisch by 0.16 percentage points, the AP reported. Under state law, a mandatory recount must be completed no later than 35 days after the election, which is Dec. 13.
Boebert’s lead was 551 votes out of nearly 327,000 votes counted, the AP reported. The AP said it will await the results of a potential recount to call the race.
The race in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District — a wide swath of the state’s west — was a showdown between Boebert, a gun-toting Republican from the working-class town of Rifle on the banks of the Colorado River, and Frisch, a conservative Democrat from the ritzy ski town of Aspen.
Former president Donald Trump won the district by about eight percentage points in 2020, helping pave what had been thought to be a clear path to victory for Boebert in the largely rural district.
GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’
But the race ended up closer than many had anticipated. Frisch, a former city council member in Aspen, had framed his campaign as a reprieve from the commotion around Boebert, describing himself as a “candidate to defeat Lauren Boebert.”
“Lauren Boebert is an anti-American, anti-Colorado show pony who can’t tell right from wrong,” Frisch said on his campaign website. “I’ve spent my career as a successful businessman. Now I’m running for Congress to cut inflation and create local economic growth and jobs. I’ll put Colorado First and keep America Strong.”
Since her election in 2020, Boebert has made national headlines for her remarks on everything from gun rights to pandemic restrictions to baseless claims about Democrats. She also came under scrutiny for using campaign funds to pay for her rent and utility bills, and for receiving an eyebrow-raising $22,259 in mileage reimbursements from her campaign.
Last year, a group of Democratic lawmakers called for Boebert to be stripped of her committee assignments after she made an Islamophobic remark about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
“You know, we’re leaving the Capitol and we’re going back to my office and we get in an elevator and I see a Capitol Police officer running to the elevator,” Boebert told the crowd at an event in her district last November. “I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching, and the door’s shutting, like I can’t open it, like what’s happening. I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar. And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’ ”
Boebert later apologized “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended” but declined to publicly apologize to Omar, instead doubling down on her Islamophobic attacks.
In March, Boebert heckled President Biden during his State of the Union address, as he mentioned the dangers U.S. troops face, among them cancer, the disease that his son Beau died of in 2015.
“When they came home, many of the world’s fittest and best trained warriors were never the same. Headaches. Numbness. Dizziness,” Biden said. “A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know. One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden.”
“American warriors in flag-draped coffins,” the president added.
“Thirteen of them!” Boebert yelled out, referring to the U.S. soldiers who were killed in the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. She was booed and shushed by others. One Democrat yelled: “Kick her out!”
Amy Gardner and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T02:52:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep. Lauren Boebert race too close to call, with margin inside recount threshold - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/boebert-colorado-election-adam-frisch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/17/boebert-colorado-election-adam-frisch/ |
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s general elections will take place Saturday, over a month after Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved Parliament and announced snap elections. The country’s longest-serving coalition is seeking to regain its dominance after a shocking loss in 2018, but political reformers are aiming for a second surprise win. | 2022-11-18T02:52:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to know ahead of Malaysia's general elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-to-know-ahead-of-malaysias-general-elections/2022/11/17/d241e3e0-66e0-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-to-know-ahead-of-malaysias-general-elections/2022/11/17/d241e3e0-66e0-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Maryland 3A championship game: Crofton 1, Mount Hebron 0
Nora Snyder shows off the hardware after Crofton's victory Thursday night. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
BALTIMORE — They say defense wins championships, but it can win only one team the title. The Crofton Cardinals and the Mount Hebron Vikings made it to the Maryland 3A girls’ soccer championship game thanks in large part to remarkable strength in that area. Both teams posted double-digit shutouts as they relied on their ability to keep the ball out of the net as a tried-and-true formula for success.
But the final weekend of the season is when formulas get foiled. The opponents are too good, the pressure too high. On Thursday at Loyola University, somebody had to give up a goal.
Crofton senior Cassidy Nichols shattered the standoff, and her first-half goal stood up as the difference in the Cardinals’ 1-0 victory.
“We told the team that, as we get closer and closer to this title, the opportunities will get fewer and fewer,” Coach Travis Bonfigli said. “It’s all about taking advantage of those few opportunities.”
Thursday’s victory was not only the first championship in program history, it also capped a swift and sudden ascent. Crofton, which opened in 2020 with students from Arundel and South River, finished 11-4-2 last year with a group that didn’t have a senior class. As immediate contenders, the Cardinals saw their season end in the 3A quarterfinals with a 1-0 loss to Mt. Hebron. The Vikings went on to win the title, the first in program history.
This fall, as Mt. Hebron (13-3-1) worked on its title defense, the Cardinals (15-3-1) aimed to level up. They took on an ambitious nonconference schedule and stumbled to a 1-3-1 start. They didn’t lose again, with Thursday’s victory being their 14th in a row.
“When we all came to Crofton sophomore year, we knew we had the potential to light it up,” said Nichols, one of eight seniors in this school year’s inaugural class. “And we knew we would progress until we were seniors. With the help of the classes underneath us, … we knew we could get here.”
Nichols’s goal came in the 29th minute and followed an opening stretch mostly dominated by Mount Hebron. The Cardinals played a long free kick into the box, and senior Meghan Piazza got her head on the ball. It fell to the right foot of Nichols, who slotted it home.
“There’s eight seniors on this team, and that core group is the group that’s carried us the entire year — without a doubt,” Bonfigli said.
From there, the Cardinals were in familiar territory. Two of their previous three playoff matches were 1-0 wins. All season, they had believed defense could win them the championship. Now it would.
“Playing for a school without a history is weird, but it makes you want to win more,” senior defender Ruby Shoots said, “because you want to set the bar higher for everyone coming after you.” | 2022-11-18T02:52:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Crofton defeats Mount Hebron for Maryland 3A girls soccer championship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/crofton-girls-soccer-state-champions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/crofton-girls-soccer-state-champions/ |
Kyrie Irving has missed the Brooklyn Nets' last eight games after he was suspended by the team for his refusal to disavow an antisemitic film he shared on social media. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
The Brooklyn Nets are targeting Sunday for Kyrie Irving’s return from an indefinite suspension following his repeated refusals to disavow an antisemitic film that he shared on his social media accounts.
Irving, who missed his eighth straight game when the Nets visited the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday, was suspended on Nov. 3 by the Nets, who concluded that his behavior was “deeply disturbing” and constituted “conduct detrimental to the team.” Per the terms of his suspension, Irving was to be sidelined for at least five games and he needed to fulfill several stipulations, including meeting with Nets Owner Joe Tsai and completing sensitivity training, before he would be reinstated.
Nets Coach Jacque Vaughn said before Thursday’s game in Portland that Irving could be back in the lineup for a Sunday game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, marking the first time that a team representative had publicly discussed a specific date for Irving’s possible return.
“There’s been some positive synergy and progress toward him returning,” Vaughn said. “It could be as soon as the Memphis game. That, overall, has been the progress so far.”
Since he was suspended, Irving has issued a public apology on Instagram and met with both Tsai and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who said last week that he had “no doubt” that Irving wasn’t antisemitic. The Nets were 4-3 entering Thursday without Irving, though they suffered blowout defeats to the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday and the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday.
“There’s some uncertainty [with reincorporating Irving],” said Vaughn. “My approach is: the train is going to keep moving. That train of playing hard, playing together, being a team, that’s going to continue. It’s going to be up to me to get our group to incorporate everybody.”
Nets star Kevin Durant has repeatedly said that he hopes Irving is able to make a swift return to the court. In a recent interview with Bleacher Report, Durant appeared to question the quality of Brooklyn’s starting lineup without Irving and asked, “What are you expecting from that group?”
Vaughn said that he hadn’t yet addressed Irving’s possible return with his team, but he expected both Irving and himself to address the matter once the decision is formalized.
Several other prominent players, including Lakers star LeBron James and Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown, argued that the conditions of Irving’s return were too stringent. The National Basketball Players Association, which participated in conversations with the NBA and Irving, expressed optimism last week that he would return to the court soon, and it told its members that the union had “protected [Irving’s] rights at every turn,” even as the suspension extended past the five-game mark.
In a statement posted to Instagram on Nov. 3, Irving apologized “to all Jewish families and communities that are hurt and affected from my post,” acknowledging that he had linked to a film that “contained some false antisemitic statements, narratives and language that were untrue and offensive.”
Irving, 30, is averaging 26.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game this season. The Nets are 6-9 entering Thursday. | 2022-11-18T03:31:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nets eye Sunday for Kyrie Irving’s return from suspension - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/kyrie-irving-suspension-possible-return/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/kyrie-irving-suspension-possible-return/ |
In Maryland 3A final, Centennial boys’ soccer team can’t keep up with Tuscarora
Tuscarora 3, Centennial 0
Tuscarora's Nicholas Stevenson beats Centennial goalkeeper Kartik Sullivan for his second goal of the night Thursday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
BALTIMORE — As their opponents ran off to the warmth of the locker room, the Centennial Eagles opted to remain in the frigid night air for the 10-minute halftime break. They gathered in a circle around a corner flag, hands in pockets or on hips, to discuss how they could better keep up with the Tuscarora Titans.
Coming into Thursday’s Maryland 3A boys’ soccer championship game at Loyola University, that clearly was the challenge the Eagles would face: How do you match up with one of the state’s most dynamic offenses? The solution remained elusive in the first half, and the Eagles trailed by two goals as they huddled in the dark corner of the turf field.
In the second half, Centennial discovered that some questions have no answers as Tuscarora ran away with a 3-0 victory.
“We played a phenomenal team,” Coach Justin Thomas said. “The game is cruel. But I’m proud of how hard we fought.”
Centennial, seeking its ninth state championship but its first since 1995, arrived as the king of Howard County’s proud soccer landscape. The Eagles (14-3-1) won the county title for the second season in a row, emerging from a crowded field thanks to an undefeated streak of 10 matches. In the playoffs, they posted two shutouts in three rounds as they stormed to the final.
“The atmosphere was something we’ve never felt and some of us will never feel again,” senior forward Riley Senisi said of Thursday’s game. “We had to take it in, then try to relax and play our game. … We didn’t get the result today, but it was definitely a great experience.”
The Titans, a Frederick County power, are a popular early-season opponent for ambitious teams from the D.C. area seeking a nonconference challenge. This fall, Tuscarora toppled Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Magruder and Wilde Lake before punishing a parade of foes from closer to home. Ahead of Thursday’s matchup, Tuscarora (18-1-0) had claimed its 17 wins by an average of 3.6 goals.
That scoring prowess was on display early Thursday as Tuscarora controlled the run of play in the first half and produced the first goal in the 25th minute. On its heels and down a goal, Centennial continued to absorb the pressure and look for opportunities on the counterattack.
In the 31st minute, Tuscarora doubled its lead. Centennial kept the Titans mostly quiet after halftime, earning a larger portion of possession and playing stronger defense. But Tuscarora’s Nicholas Stevenson scored the second of his two goals with eight minutes remaining to extinguish the Eagles’ hopes.
“What I’m proud of this team for is the character they’ve developed and shown,” Thomas said. “That’s first and foremost for me — that they’ve developed into good young men. We know the historic value of a run like this, but that’s what matters to me.” | 2022-11-18T04:23:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuscarora beats Centennial for Maryland 3A boys' soccer championship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/maryland-3a-final-centennial-boys-soccer-team-cant-keep-up-with-tuscarora/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/maryland-3a-final-centennial-boys-soccer-team-cant-keep-up-with-tuscarora/ |
Judge nixes higher education portions of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act
At a news conference in April, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) shows HB7, also dubbed the “stop woke” bill. (Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP)
A federal judge has paused parts of a Florida law that restricted conversations about race in public colleges and universities, an order that slows efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to enact one of the nation’s strictest laws against race-based instruction.
U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker on Thursday ordered a temporary injunction against portions of the act that restrict how college and university professors present curriculum and what students can learn in the classroom. The order will remain in place while the court reviews the case.
DeSantis said he wanted the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees — or WOKE — Act to be the nation’s strongest legislation against critical race theory, an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is systemic and not just demonstrated by individual people with prejudices.
What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?
“In Florida we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory,” DeSantis said when announcing the effort in December. “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other.”
A DeSantis spokesperson told The Washington Post that the governor would appeal the decision.
The injunction comes amid a national push from GOP politicians to regulate speech in schools by restricting critical race theory and censoring books with mention of LGBTQ people or issues that conservatives have characterized as liberal ideology.
The Florida law deems it discrimination if a student was exposed to anything that compelled them to believe “a person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”
Clay Calvert, a law professor at the University of Florida who specializes in the First Amendment, called the law “reprehensible” and hailed Thursday’s ruling.
“It is definitely a victory of academic freedom of professors in the classroom and students’ ability to receive speech,” he said.
“Viewpoint-based discrimination allows the government to skew the marketplace of ideas to its own position,” he said. “That’s why it’s so reprehensible.”
Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library
Calvert and other legal scholars in the state said they were not surprised about the ruling from Walker, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, considering his other rulings in favor of professors.
Walker previously paused other parts of the law, including those about business training. Two lawsuits from faculty members at two schools led to Walker’s ruling.
The judge opened his 139-page order with a quote from George Orwell’s novel “1984” and called the law “positively dystopian.”
Bryan Griffin, a DeSantis spokesman, defended the law in an email to The Post.
“The Stop W.O.K.E. Act protects the open exchange of ideas by prohibiting teachers or employers who hold agency over others from forcing discriminatory concepts on students as part of classroom instruction or on employees as a condition of maintaining employment,” Griffin said. “An ‘open-minded and critical’ environment necessitates that one is free from discrimination.”
It isn’t clear how long an appeal would take — or whether DeSantis will be Florida’s governor when it is complete. DeSantis won reelection in his increasingly conservative state, a victory that has intensified efforts to get the governor to run for president in 2024.
“By the time all that happens, it will be long after 2024,” said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in south Florida. “And Ron DeSantis is laser-focused on 2024.”
These are books school systems don’t want you to read, and why
After former president Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he would run for reelection, DeSantis said that he was focused on his state, the Associated Press reported, and that people need to “chill out” about his potential 2024 run.
Howard M. Wasserman, a law professor at Florida International University, said DeSantis can have it both ways: If the law is upheld, he is vindicated. If the law is struck down, DeSantis can point to “liberal” judges usurping the will of the people.
“Elected officials have been doing this for years with the First Amendment,” Wasserman said. “It’s a pretty common playbook that is going to survive DeSantis.”
Conservatives have assailed critical race theory, saying it injects race into what should be a colorblind system.
Schools, educators and parents across the United States have increasingly disagreed about what can and can’t be taught — including what textbooks can be used in class. For instance, the Texas Board of Education rejected a proposal by a group of educators who wanted to refer to slavery as “involuntary relocation” in second-grade classes.
The movement has expanded to public libraries. Conservative activists in several red states, including Louisiana, Montana and Texas, have tried to dissolve the bodies that govern libraries and work to remove books related to critical race theory, history, LGBTQ issues and race.
Educators and students are left uneasy by legislation such as the Florida law, said University of Florida constitutional law professor Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky.
“I’ve had colleagues definitely calling about how can they teach their classes to make sure they don’t even get a complaint under the law,” she said. “It creates this aura of surveillance in every classroom.”
The law only applies to public colleges and universities, exempting private-school professors, such as Marcia Narine Weldon at the University of Miami.
“It is part of the reason I’m glad to work at a private university: The idea of academic freedom makes you comfortable to raise issues,” she said.
Students need the ability to play devil’s advocate and speak freely, Narine Weldon said. There’s no way to make the next generation of thinkers and lawmakers without free speech.
“You can’t write the laws if you’re not willing to hear more than one point of view,” she said. | 2022-11-18T04:49:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge blocks parts of Florida's Stop WOKE Act, a DeSantis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/judge-nixes-higher-education-portions-floridas-stop-woke-act/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/17/judge-nixes-higher-education-portions-floridas-stop-woke-act/ |
You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest free, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox every weekday. Starting next week, we’ll also be featuring coverage of the drama on and off the pitch from the World Cup. Join us!
A tiny coastal nation, little known to much of the world, hosts a landmark soccer tournament. Fueled by a surging export economy and the labor of a sizable population of foreign-born migrants, the country builds major infrastructure to stage an event that takes place mostly in its capital city. For the host nation, this World Cup is not simply an exercise in sporting entertainment, but an opportunity to put itself on the map, showcase its prosperity and prowess, and win global prestige.
I’m writing about Uruguay in 1930, the setting of the first World Cup. But the same setup would be true for Qatar as the 2022 World Cup gets underway Sunday. To be sure, there is no shortage of differences between now and then. On a sporting dimension alone, Uruguay rode into the inaugural tournament on the back of gold medal soccer triumphs in the Olympics, and won the first World Cup on home soil. No matter Qatar’s expensive and careful development of its national soccer program, it is not expected to be competitive or even get out of the group stage.
Yet as the self-deprecating axiom goes in Uruguay, while other countries have their history, we have our football. Qatar is playing at something similar: “No state, until now, has placed sport in general, and the World Cup in particular, at the heart of its foreign policy and economic development” as uniquely as Qatar, soccer historian David Goldblatt recently wrote. A half century ago, the former British protectorate was an obscure backwater on the Persian Gulf, known for pearl-diving and little else. But an immense fortune in hydrocarbons, especially liquefied natural gas, transformed its fate, turbocharged its rise as an influential regional power and underwrote its bid for the 2022 tournament.
Qatar’s ruling monarchy staked a generation’s worth of political capital on the staging of the Middle East’s and Arab world’s first World Cup. It bankrolled an astonishing $220 billion bonanza of construction, conjuring up new stadiums, roads, train systems, hotels and other infrastructure. And it withstood the ire of neighboring Gulf monarchies, whose resentment over Qatar showcasing itself in 2022 lurked beneath a broader economic and political blockade of the peninsula nation between 2017 and 2021.
It also weathered what the Qatari emir described as an “unprecedented” level of scrutiny and scorn ahead of the tournament. Activists and journalists have poured over the Qatari monarchy’s checkered record on human rights, the harsh labor conditions linked to its mammoth building projects, the grim status quo for LGBTQ people and the murky dealings that surrounded Qatar winning the World Cup bid in the first place.
On all these fronts, Qatari officials have fired back, accusing critics of misinformation when it comes to reporting migrant worker death tolls and hypocrisy when critiquing Qatar’s politics and society. There’s also no clear chain of evidence that links Qatari authorities to any act of fraud or graft in the bidding process for the 2022 World Cup — though a number of prominent FIFA officials were implicated in unrelated corruption allegations.
As the tournament’s 32 national teams made their final preparations for Qatar, FIFA President Gianni Infantino — a controversial figure in his own right — sent a letter to each team urging them to avoid taking overtly political stands. “We know football does not live in a vacuum and we are equally aware that there are many challenges and difficulties of a political nature all around the world,” Infantino wrote. “But please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists.”
That’s easier said than done, and some participating national teams will engage in bouts of virtue signaling before the games begin. The U.S. team, for example, was among a number of teams that trained this week with groups of migrant construction workers. It will also use a rainbow flag on its crest in support of LGBTQ rights.
Of course, no World Cup has been immune to the ideological and political battles of the day. The tournaments themselves are the most-anticipated events on the world’s sporting calendar, now drawing in billions of eyeballs and the attention of a vast international public. They are always crucibles for the trends and tensions shaping the globe.
Immediately after Uruguay’s debut, the interwar years got dominated by Benito Mussolini’s fascist project, with Italy winning at home in 1934 and then again in France in 1938. Italian Coach Vittorio Pozzo recalled the hostile reaction in Marseille, France, when Italy’s squad performed the fascist salute in their first match against Norway. “I entered the stadium with our players, lined-up military style, and stood on the right,” he later said. “At the salute we predictably met with a solemn and deafening barrage of whistles, insults and remarks.”
As their arms dropped, the noisy backlash from anti-fascist fans in the stands died down. Pozzo then urged his players to make the fascist gesture once again. “Having won the battle of intimidation, we played,” he said.
Other forces shaped subsequent tournaments. Brazil’s dominant multiracial sides came on the scene as decolonization swept Asia and Africa, and soon developed cult followings across the developing world from the slums of Kolkata, India, to the streets of Nairobi. Argentina’s 1978 tournament was an awkward propaganda showcase for its military dictatorship, which faced boycotts from some countries in Europe. France’s victory in 1998 on home soil with a team largely drawn from communities with roots in former French colonies crystallized the European nation’s shifting identity.
World Cups can also summon false dawns. International anger over Russia’s 2018 tournament faded by the time the tournament kicked off. Journalists and foreign fans alike, including Today’s WorldView, were charmed by the spirit of exuberance and openness that suffused Russia’s cities during the tournament, which saw a mediocre Russian side make its way to the quarterfinals. But activists even then knew what was coming, as one LGBTQ rights campaigner in Moscow told me in 2018: “They’ll kick us immediately when the World Cup ends.” | 2022-11-18T05:32:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Qatar 2022: The World Cup is always about much more than the World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/global-world-cup-qatar-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/global-world-cup-qatar-history/ |
The Blues' Pavel Buchnevich takes the puck around the net before beating Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren for a wraparound goal Thursday night in St. Louis. (Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
ST. LOUIS — The Washington Capitals were lifeless as Thursday night’s game against the St. Louis Blues began, digging themselves a three-goal hole as a third straight regulation loss appeared all but certain. The visitors avoided that fate with a desperate rally that forced overtime but ultimately suffered a 5-4 defeat in the shootout.
Washington (7-9-3) went 0-2-1 on its three-game trip and is 2-5-3 in its past 10, but the Capitals’ late-game efforts Thursday showed flashes of energy they were missing during dismal losses to Tampa Bay and Florida earlier in the week.
“We got to carry that fire that we brought [Thursday] into the next game and play a little bit better and get us over that hump,” defenseman John Carlson said. “... The way things are going, we got to play it perfect and we got to keep it mistake-free all around.”
With his team down 4-2 entering the final period, Carlson, playing his 900th NHL game, scored a power-play goal, his second goal of the night, with 4:15 left. Conor Sheary got the equalizer just 72 seconds later. A go-ahead goal, which would have been credited to Nic Dowd, was taken off the board with 2:23 left because he hit the puck with a high stick.
After neither team lit the lamp in overtime, the Blues won in a six-round shootout. Using his now-signature slow approach, Evgeny Kuznetsov was the lone Capitals player to score in the tiebreaker. The Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich had the deciding goal before Sheary was denied to end it.
“Right now, the way things are going we need to play a lot tighter,” Carlson said. “Sometimes these spells happen where it doesn’t go your way at certain times. ... I think we deserved to win.”
Washington had chances to win it in the third, fourth and fifth rounds of the shootout but couldn’t convert. Alex Ovechkin, who had a goal and two assists, said the puck bounced on him during his second-round attempt and he didn’t have time to get off the right move. And Anthony Mantha broke his stick on his shot in the fourth round.
Capitals netminder Charlie Lindgren, making his first start against his previous team, stopped 20 of 24 shots. Blues counterpart Thomas Greiss was much busier, making 47 saves as Washington put 51 shots on net.
The Capitals’ next game is Saturday night against defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado at Capital One Arena.
“You can see the boys didn’t give up, play hard. ... We try our best to be in the battle and put puck deep and get forecheck going,” Ovechkin said. “If we are going to play the same way we played the last two periods, we are going to get results right away.”
With the Capitals facing a 3-0 hole after 20 minutes, Ovechkin was the first to solve Greiss at 15:12 of the second from the low slot. It was his ninth goal of the season and the 789th of his career. Carlson cut the Blues’ lead to 3-2 with a shorthanded goal at 17:36.
Ryan O’Reilly scored 26 seconds later to restore the Blues’ two-goal lead before the Capitals rallied in the final minutes of regulation to steal a standings point.
The Blues’ Brayden Schenn opened the scoring off the rush at 4:56 of the first. Buchnevich scored at 7:10, gathering a long pass off the corner boards and beating Lindgren for a wraparound goal. Less than five minutes later, Torey Krug scored the Blues’ third goal with a point shot on the power play. St. Louis (8-8-0) notched its fifth straight win after an eight-game losing streak.
“If we are not chasing games so much, maybe we can play a full 60 and get to our game more often,” Sheary said. “I think it is a good sign we are clawing our way back into games.”
Power play needs help
Of all of Washington’s lingering struggles, the power play — once a strength for a team littered with scorers — has been one of the most discouraging. Before Carlson’s goal in the third, the Capitals had gone 0 for 23 in their past five games. They finished 1 for 3 against the Blues.
Heading into the matchup, the St. Louis penalty kill was ranked 29th in the NHL at 71.9 percent.
Orlov still out
Defenseman Dmitry Orlov sat out again and has missed six games since he was hurt Nov. 5 against Arizona. He traveled on this trip, hoping he would be able to return, but his status remains unclear for Saturday’s game against Colorado.
Lindgren settles down
Lindgren looked rattled to start the game but began to find a rhythm after the Blues’ opening salvo.
Lindgren spent most of last season with Springfield of the American Hockey League, helping the Thunderbirds to the Calder Cup finals, but he also played five games with the Blues. He went 5-0-0 with a 1.22 goals against average and a .958 save percentage.
“My confidence was so high, and the month I had [in St. Louis] I played really good hockey, and my confidence only grew from there,” he said. “It was huge for my career and put an exclamation point on knowing I can absolutely play at this level — and play really good hockey, too. I give a lot of credit to the organization. … They took a chance on me.”
Protas stays on top line
Washington had Aliaksei Protas on the top line to skate with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov. Coach Peter Laviolette made the switch after the first period of Tuesday’s loss at Florida and liked what he saw.
In his second NHL season, Protas has room to improve his physical play, especially when he’s given a top-line role.
“Physicality is strength on the puck, strength in the battle, and I think he does a good job with that,” Laviolette said. “But he is only going to get stronger as he gets older, and he will continue to work on that and push in that area. He could become really difficult to play against.” | 2022-11-18T05:33:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals rally but can't take down Blues in shootout for 5-4 loss - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/capitals-blues-road-trip-losing-streak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/capitals-blues-road-trip-losing-streak/ |
Biden rewards Saudi leader’s impunity with legal immunity
The Biden administration has granted legal immunity to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a protection that even President Donald Trump’s administration didn’t offer.
For critics of MBS, as the Saudi leader is known, the immunity decision is a slap in the face. It will likely rouse new protests in Congress and among human rights activists that the Biden administration is accommodating Mohammed for reasons of realpolitik — and compromising its values in the process.
The decision was triggered by a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington against MBS and some 20 other defendants by the fiance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist who was murdered by Saudi operatives in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018. The suit alleges that the crown prince and his co-defendants were responsible for the murder.
The action is the latest in a cascade of controversies that followed the murder, which the CIA concluded resulted from an operation authorized by MBS. The Trump administration shielded the Saudi leader, but President Biden initially claimed he would hold him accountable, describing him as a “pariah.” But over time, Biden has sadly capitulated to what he viewed as a need to mend relations with the man who might be Saudi Arabia’s king for decades.
A State Department official said the decision to grant immunity was a “purely legal decision,” triggered by MBS’s recent elevation to prime minister. But the State Department and the White House could have intervened on policy grounds to prevent granting the legal exemption, which MBS has sought for more than two years.
U.S. District Judge John Bates, who is hearing the Khashoggi case, asked the Justice Department in July for a ruling on whether MBS should be granted sovereign immunity, as his lawyers requested. On Sept. 27, three days before the deadline for the Justice Department’s response, Saudi King Salman declared his son prime minister. That triggered Thursday’s decision that MBS was entitled to sovereign immunity as a “head of government.” Bates could conceivably reject the State Department filing, but such a rejection of a government option he had requested would be unlikely.
The State Department’s decision was filed late Thursday. “The United States respectfully informs the Court that Defendant Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the sitting head of government and accordingly, is immune from this suit,” the filing said.
“The Biden administration’s suggestion of immunity for MBS isn’t just a mistake as a matter of law, it’s a mistake as a matter of policy,” argued Sarah Leah Whitson, who heads a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, which filed the suit with Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz. Whitson argued that the immunity grant was “an undeserved concession” to the Saudi leader that “will no doubt embolden him to continue his ruthless abuses.”
MBS began seeking immunity in U.S. courts after he was named in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Washington in August 2020 by Saad Aljabri, a former top Saudi counterterrorism official. Mohammed’s lawyers asked that the suit be dismissed because of what they claimed was sovereign immunity and other issues. The Trump administration did not grant that request.
Aljabri, in his 2021 amended complaint, accused the Saudi leader of sending a hit team to kill him in 2018 in Canada, where he fled after MBS fired him in 2015 and after MBS in 2017 toppled Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, with whom Aljabri had worked closely at the Saudi interior ministry.
The Biden State Department deliberated whether the immunity issue was a policy question, involving significant human rights issues, rather than simply a legal matter, an administration official told me. But there was a strong legal argument that prime ministers routinely receive immunity. And in the end, as has so often been the case with MBS, the Biden administration acceded to the Saudi leader’s desires.
The immunity decision doesn’t simply derail the lawsuit by Khashoggi’s fiance. It will shield the crown prince from legal action on issues involving travel bans and other alleged human rights abuses. According to media reports, at least two U.S. citizens, Saad Almadi and Mohammed Salem, have been banned from leaving Saudi Arabia since Biden’s visit to the kingdom in July.
The president’s fist bump during that trip has become a symbol of political accommodation to the Saudi leader and his demands. The grant of immunity will give him not just a friendly welcome, but a legal shield that will hard to break. | 2022-11-18T05:54:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden grants legal immunity to MBS, Saudi Arabia's crown prince - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/mbs-immunity-saudi-arabia-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/mbs-immunity-saudi-arabia-biden/ |
Dear Amy: My good friend and I each have three children in the same classes who also participate in some of the same extracurricular activities. As parents, we are flooded with information about deadlines, events and requirements. We parents share tips and help one another. But my friend seems to be taking advantage of this.
For years, she has barely bothered with the emails and handouts detailing key information. Instead, she constantly relies on me to tell her what she needs to know — which I’ve been doing from the kids’ kindergarten through college applications.
If I say the info is listed online at a website, she’ll ask for the link to the exact page. For something particularly complicated, such as Eagle Scout projects or college applications, she’ll ask me to walk her through every step — often requesting documentation of links or resources. It’s extremely time-consuming. If I say I can’t remember, she’ll hound me to look through my notes.
She’s smart, healthy and capable. Her husband is involved and helpful. We have similar workloads. Why does she do this?! I’m all for pooling parent resources and helping a friend, but after 18 years of this, and with two kids still coming up through the ranks, I’m tired. She justifies the dynamic by saying, “It takes a village!”
Tired: It does take a village. But sometimes, the villagers take up their torches and storm the castle. You’ve been your friend’s clerical assistant for over a decade. If you want to stop now, you’ll have to calmly and resolutely retrain her.
Dear Amy: Am I obligated to attend a wedding shower and to give a gift? My niece-in-law (my husband’s niece) has postponed her wedding for many months due to covid. They are now going to marry on a tropical island.
Now my mother-in-law is planning to give a shower in honor of her granddaughter. If I don’t go, I feel like my husband’s family will be upset with me. If I do go, do I have to give a gift?
Showered: If you are not invited to the wedding, you shouldn’t be invited to the wedding shower. That is basic logic, as well as basic etiquette. So first you’d need to determine if you are actually invited to the shower.
If you are invited and don’t want to attend (completely understandable), you should simply have something else to do that day. Don’t act out, don’t huff and puff over the indignity of it all — just be busy that day. If your husband’s family has the gall to be upset with you over this, well — this is just a pain they will have to learn to live with.
You should not be nervous about earning their esteem. Stay cool, polite and respectful. Your husband is representing the family at this wedding. That will have to be enough. | 2022-11-18T05:54:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: I can’t keep helping my mom friend with her kids’ plans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/ask-amy-friends-parents-kids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/ask-amy-friends-parents-kids/ |
Dear Carolyn: My nephew is estranged from his dad, my brother, and by all accounts for bogus reasons. Be that as it may, our family is tightknit and wants to continue to include him in family gatherings. He will only come if he is assured my brother will not be there.
He has now become engaged and is excluding his father from all wedding-related festivities. My brother has offered to do whatever it is his son wants to do to sort this out, such as family therapy, to no avail. Earlier on, my nephew asked his dad to do some things to show he was serious, but when his father met the request, my nephew raised the bar yet again.
My problem is that I love them both dearly, and I continue to pretend (with my nephew) that I can do this crazy dance. Earlier on, we had discussions around it with my nephew, but now if we do, we are shut off.
On one hand, I’m tired of pretending, and on the other, I’m devastated that one misstep will alienate my nephew and his new family. My brother encourages all of us to continue our relationship with his son. I feel torn. Is there a solution here?
Anonymous: I’ll start with a small thing, because it may be huge: The reasons aren’t bogus by “all accounts.” Presumably, your nephew believes that they’re valid, and that counts as an account.
Presumably, too, you believe that he believes in his own reasons, even if you don’t. If he didn’t, then he’d be doing this capriciously to inflict pain on his father — which would be indefensible, wouldn’t it?
Like I said, this can be a small thing — a mental typo on your part — or the biggest possible thing, that one of them has knowingly done harm to the other but, to remain in good standing with the “tightknit” family, isn’t copping to it. So decisions to “side” with one, neither or both of these relatives are worth as honest a reckoning as you can give them using the information you have. Sometimes we have no choice but to throw up our hands and say, “I don’t know who’s to blame,” and sometimes that’s a massive, even malfeasance-enabling cop-out — and it’s always on us to be honest with ourselves which is true.
When you’re genuinely caught between two decent souls at odds with each other, then it’s tough and exhausting, yes.
But the solution is actually pretty basic.
1. Keep inviting both nephew and brother, openly, and let each of them decide whether to come.
2. Don’t talk about your brother with your nephew. There are ways to make that easier: Center discussions on his life, for example. (Nothing like a wedding for that.) Or talk about nonfamily things. Or follow his conversational lead.
3. When you slip, apologize and move on. If your nephew won’t move on, then so be it. If he has zero tolerance for frailty in the well-intentioned uninvolved humans going out of their way to respect his boundaries, then plug in that information and revisit your solution.
Just because these boundaries are emotionally tough for the family doesn’t mean they’re technically hard to respect.
The best way to respect boundaries, in fact, is to have them yourself — and declining to do a “crazy dance” for anyone, for any reason, is one of the best ones you can set. | 2022-11-18T05:54:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Minding the middle of brother and nephew’s estrangement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/carolyn-hax-brother-nephew-estrangement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/carolyn-hax-brother-nephew-estrangement/ |
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives a lecture at the Central Cadres Training School in October, in an image distributed by his government. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
SEOUL — North Korea fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile Friday, South Korean and Japanese officials said, as tensions between Pyongyang and Washington escalated further amid U.S. efforts to strengthen coordination with its allies in Seoul and Tokyo.
While North Korea has test-fired an unprecedented number of missiles this year, the launch of an ICBM has been uncommon. Friday’s event was Pyongyang’s second launch this month of a suspected ICBM, which are capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
The United States, South Korea and Japan have been holding a series of joint military drills to demonstrate their readiness in case of conflict with North Korea. While they say the drills are defensive in nature, the regime of leader Kim Jong Un views them as hostile acts and has used them to justify its weapons development and nuclear program.
North Korea is turning up the heat again. Here’s why.
Leaders of the three allied countries met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia last week and issued a joint statement outlining their plans to work closer together, including in response to North Korea’s missile launches. They said Pyongyang’s missile tests “pose a grave threat to the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and beyond.”
The countries have assessed that North Korea has completed preparations for its first nuclear test since 2017. After the ICBM launch in early November, a stark message from the Pentagon warned that any strike would result in “the end of the Kim Jong Un regime.”
In a statement Thursday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said the United States is “gambling, for which it will certainly regret,” and added that the recent talks between the three countries in addition to the joint military drills are bringing instability and an “unpredictable phase” on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea also tested a short-range ballistic missile Thursday.
South Koreans overwhelmingly want nuclear weapons to confront China and North Korea, poll finds
North Korea tests its ICBMs on a lofted trajectory, meaning they are fired at a much higher than normal trajectory — nearly straight up — to avoid other countries. The missiles have come down in the Sea of Japan, or the East Sea.
The missile on Friday flew a distance of 621 miles (1,000 km) and reached a height of 3,728 miles (6,000 km), according to Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno. That is nearly as high as a powerful ICBM the country tested earlier this year, which reached 3,850 miles.
On Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the apparent ICBM likely fell in Japan’s waters west of the northernmost island, Hokkaido, and within the country’s exclusive economic zone. There was no reported damage to ships in those waters, said Kishida, who called the launch “unacceptable.”
Min Joo Kim in Seoul and Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T05:59:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Korea launches suspected intercontinental ballistic missile - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/north-korea-missile-icbm-launch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/north-korea-missile-icbm-launch/ |
Biden administration cites executive powers, international law in shielding Mohammed bin Salman from legal responsibility
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2021. (Bandar Aljaloud/AP)
The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA has held responsible for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, is immune from a civil lawsuit filed in the United States by Khashoggi’s fiance and a human rights organization he founded.
In a response to a July invitation by U.S. District Court Judge John Bates to submit a statement of interest in the case, the administration said in a court submission late Thursday that because Mohammed is Saudi Arabia’s “sitting head of government” he is “immune from this suit” under international law.
In a letter accompanying the submission, State Department acting legal adviser Richard C. Visek said the department “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Relations between the administration and the kingdom, already frayed over U.S. criticism of Saudi human rights violations, worsened in recent months when President Biden failed to persuade Riyadh not to cut its oil production as energy prices rose sharply in the United States and around the world.
The administration suggested its hands were tied by international law prohibiting courts in one country from taking action against another country’s head of state “while in office.” Mohammed’s father, King Salman, named him prime minister in September.
The filing and Visek’s letter instructing the Justice Department to submit State’s conclusions to the court, also stated that the constitution gives the executive branch sole power to make decisions related to foreign policy.
Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz — who waited outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul while Khashoggi went inside to obtain documents needed for their marriage — and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), sought unspecified punitive and compensatory damages under the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act. Khashoggi was killed inside the diplomatic mission by Saudi agents, who dismembered his body. His remains have never been found.
DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson said the administration’s decision “not only undermines the only effort at judicial accountability for Khashoggi’s murder; it signals that our government will ensure impunity for a tyrant like MBS … no matter how heinous his crimes and embolden him further.” Mohammed is widely known by his initials, MBS.
Saudi Arabia convicted a number of its officials for the murder, while denying Mohammed had any knowledge of their activities.
But the CIA, in a classified assessment just months after the murder, concluded that Mohammed “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill” the Saudi journalist because he was perceived as a dissident whose activities undermined the monarchy.
Khashoggi wrote columns for The Washington Post and other outlets that criticized the crown prince, who, as de facto ruler even before his father made him prime minister, carried out harsh crackdowns against rivals and dissidents.
President Donald Trump refused to declassify the report at the time, although its contents were widely leaked. Biden ordered its declassification and release weeks after taking office last year.
Read the intelligence report implicating Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Judge Bates’ invitation to the administration came less than two weeks before Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia for the first time in his presidency in July. That trip prompted accusations that the president was flip-flopping on his campaign promise to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” because of Khashoggi’s murder.
Before the visit, the Saudis touted it as one that would “enhance the historic and strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America … and lay the foundations for the future.”
Biden returned with what he believe was an agreement that OPEC Plus, the energy cartel the Saudis co-chair, would continue to increase oil production to make up for international shortages caused largely by Ukraine-related sanctions against Russian exports. When the cartel later announced production cuts, Biden said there would be “consequences” for Riyadh.
Since then, however, the administration has been looking for signs that the tight, decades-long security relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia could be salvaged. One indication could be a Saudi decision to stop the cuts, or increase production, next month when oil sanctions against Russia, an OPEC Plus member, are due to increase.
But the administration had little choice in the court matter, according to John B. Bellinger III, who served as legal counsel to both the State Department and the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
“I’m sure this was a difficult decision for the administration but international law recognizes that heads of state have immunity from civil suits in the courts of other nations,” he said.
The U.S. government “has always asserted” this, even when the accused “have been sued for heinous offensives,” Bellinger said.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have consistently asserted immunity on behalf of dozens of foreign heads of state who have been sued in the United States for alleged torture, extrajudicial killings, and other serious offenses, he said, adding that as legal adviser at the State Department: “I asserted immunity on behalf of Pope Benedict, who had been sued for failing to investigate sex abuses by the clergy.”
Customary international law — doctrine that is considered binding even if not written down — holds that immunity from prosecution in foreign jurisdictions applies to serving heads of state and government, as well as foreign ministers. The administration’s decision would probably have been far more difficult before Mohammed was named Saudi Arabia’s prime minister less than two months ago, as he was not immune in his previous post as defense minister.
The granted immunity does not cover some 20 other Saudi defendants named in the lawsuit.
Judicial deference to what is officially known as an administration’s “Suggestion of Immunity” has been absolute in the past. “In no case has a court subjected a person to suit after the Executive Branch has determined that the head of state or head of government is immune,” the filing said.
A State Department spokesperson said the Biden administration has repeatedly expressed its “grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.”
It has “raised them publicly and with the most senior levels of the Saudi government,” while imposing “financial sanctions and visa restrictions,” related to the killing, the spokesperson said.
“This Suggestion of Immunity … speaks to nothing on broader policy or the state of relations” between the two countries, the spokesperson said. “This was purely a legal determination.”
Missy Ryan, Spencer S. Hsu and Kareem Fahim contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T07:21:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. says Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman has immunity in Khashoggi case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/saudi-crown-prince-immunity-khashoggi-murder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/saudi-crown-prince-immunity-khashoggi-murder/ |
American evangelicals open a new antiabortion front — in Israel
Miriam Genz, a counselor at the antiabortion Be'ad Chaim association in Jerusalem, prepares bags of aid to be given to pregnant women. (Corinna Kern for The Washington Post)
JERUSALEM — In a country with one of the world’s most liberal abortion policies, groups funded by conservative American evangelicals are targeting women with a message familiar in the United States but novel to most Israelis: Abortion is “murder.”
The idea resonated with Shir Palla Shitrit, 21, when she first contacted the “pregnancy crisis center” run by Be’ad Chaim — Hebrew for “pro-life.” In an office decorated with fetus diagrams, framed biblical passages and a ceramic sculpture of a breastfeeding mother, counselors offered her a year’s worth of material support and a place in a growing grass-roots community.
“They’re like my family,” said Palla Shitrit, next to a pile of donated diapers, winter baby clothes, and her monthly supermarket gift card, worth about $100.
“My life was very unstable. I didn’t have money, and I thought I would be the worst mother,” she said, whispering as her 10-month-old, Tohar, fell asleep in her arms. “Now I know that this is what gives life meaning.”
Israel legalized abortion in 1977, four years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz further eased access to abortion this year, saying the overturning of Roe had set back women’s rights “by a hundred years.”
Israel loosens abortion law restrictions after Roe v. Wade decision
But “pregnancy crisis centers” backed by conservative American evangelicals are becoming more prominent here, aiming to change the conversation around abortion and lay the groundwork for a political movement. Be’ad Chaim, a multimillion-dollar operation that has rapidly expanded in recent years, supplies women with carefully selected, or entirely distorted, facts to make the case against abortion. Pamphlets in Hebrew, English, Russian and Arabic show babies being stabbed in the heart or radiated to death, writhing in pain.
Public antiabortion campaigns — a highway billboard showing a grainy ultrasound, with the caption “This is not a fetus, it’s a girl named Nofar”; a bus ad featuring a baby girl sleeping with her doll, with the text: “One day, she’ll be a famous singer” — are a growing phenomenon in a country where abortion has never been a controversial issue, said Noya Rimalt, co-director of the Forum for Gender Law and Policy at the University of Haifa.
She said Be’ad Chaim and another group, Efrat, as well as more loosely organized antiabortion advocates, “are using narratives, the images of the screaming unborn child, that are a direct import from the U.S.”
“I’ve been around for quite a long time and I don’t remember those images,” said Rimalt. “This is clearly a reaction to the U.S., where these groups are getting more money, feeling more confident.”
The pregnancy centers use the language of women’s empowerment, casting Israeli men — doctors, husbands, fathers — as oppressors who pressure women to give up their babies.
“When a woman is in a crisis pregnancy, people aren’t usually listening to what she wants,” said Sandy Shoshani, an American Israeli who is the national director of Be’ad Chaim. Speaking by phone while en route to a meeting with Swiss donors at the Dead Sea, she said her network spanned the world, with Americans in the majority.
She said she is hoping to convince Israelis “that abortion hurts them, it’s not in their best interest.”
But for most in Israel, access to abortion is a rare point of consensus, even in an age of intense political polarization. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 98 percent of women who request the procedure are able to get one.
Billie Schneider, 26, an immigrant from New York who had an abortion in Tel Aviv two years ago, said she was “shocked at how easy the whole thing is.” Under Israel’s universal health-care system, she received the state-funded procedure within days of finding out she was pregnant.
But antiabortion advocates feel that momentum is on their side, buoyed by post-Roe state bans in the United States and the results of the Nov. 1 elections here, which delivered a decisive victory to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly hailed conservative evangelicals as Israel’s “best friends.”
Horowitz’s left-wing Meretz party dropped out of the parliament entirely, unable to muster enough votes to cross the required threshold. Leftists and moderates fear that the far-right Religious Zionism, now the third-largest parliamentary bloc, will introduce once-fringe ideas — such opposition to abortion — into the mainstream.
Bezalel Smotrich, Religious Zionism’s leader, has tweeted that Israel’s current abortion policy “promotes a license to kill fetuses.” He vowed: “We will not forget and we will not forgive, and above all, we will do everything … to repair the serious damages.”
Miriam Genz, a counselor at Be’ad Chaim, and one of 200 employees in the Jerusalem office, hopes abortion will be made illegal in Israel one day.
For now, she said, the group relies on word of mouth, and members like Palla Shitrit, who often posts a link to the Be’ad Chaim website on social media and in WhatsApp groups for expectant moms.
“I don’t think there is any justified reason to perform an abortion,” said Genz. “It should be seen in the same way as when a person kills another person.”
Genz, 28, first received support from the organization after becoming pregnant at age 16, while living in a hostel and estranged from her family in Jerusalem’s largest ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. She said she hopes the next government can bring “more consciousness that this is not just a medical procedure, not about just a bunch of cells. It’s something that women regret for the rest of their lives.”
That view contradicts much of halacha, or Jewish law, which prioritizes the physical and mental health of the mother. For the first 40 days after conception, the fetus is considered “merely water,” according to one Babylonian rabbi cited in the Talmud, the expansive text that has shaped Jewish law, culture and scholarship for centuries. According to both halacha and Israeli law, a fetus becomes a “soul” only after it is born.
In recent decades, conservative evangelicals have struggled to reconcile their opposition to abortion with their “passion for Israel,” said David Parsons, the American spokesman of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, an evangelical organization that has deep ties to Netanyahu and has hosted several events with Be’ad Chaim.
But Helen Lowery, a donor to Be’ad Chaim and a minister in Houston, said U.S. evangelicals “are starting to break more ground” in Israel. Through an initiative called “Operation Moses,” Lowery and members of her church have “sponsored” several babies, donating $1,800 per baby for the first year, she said.
Lowery spoke to The Post from her hotel in Jerusalem during a volunteering trip with other conservative Christians. Among the stops on her itinerary was Be’ad Chaim’s “Gardens of Life,” a four-acre plot of land in the nearby town of Latrun, where visitors plant trees in commemoration of “unborn babies.”
“We just had a victory in our Supreme Court, in overturning Roe v. Wade, and that happened through raising awareness,” said Lowery. “If we go back to the Torah, to the word of God, and allow that to govern both countries, the U.S. and Israel, we’ll be able to promote life even further.” | 2022-11-18T07:21:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | American evangelicals are funding the anti-abortion movement in Israel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/israel-abortion-roe-america-evangelicals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/israel-abortion-roe-america-evangelicals/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Zelensky hails extension of Black Sea grain deal; 10M without power after Russian strikes
Snow covers the city center of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Andrew Kravchenko/AP)
An international deal that provided safe passage for cargo ships carrying millions of tons of grain from Ukraine has been extended for 120 days, according to the leaders of Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations. The Russian invasion disrupted sea lanes that carried Ukrainian grain exports to the rest of the world through the Black Sea, threatening a global food crisis. The renewed agreement will reduce pressure on the global food market and save tens of millions of people from starvation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday.
After recent battlefield setbacks, Russia intensified its strikes on Ukraine this week, taking out important infrastructure. The barrage led to further power cuts across Ukraine, leaving more than 10 million people without power, Zelensky said, as the first snow of winter fell in Kyiv.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres welcomed the extension of the Black Sea grain deal as other nations hailed the importance of the agreement. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the deal was “vital” and that more than 11 million tons of grain and other food supplies have been delivered under the initiative since July.
Zelensky called for Ukrainian specialists to join an international investigation into the death of two people after a missile struck Poland, while stressing he has “no doubt” that the missile did not come from his country. NATO leaders, including President Biden, have disputed that account. Poland’s president said that Ukraine might be permitted to observe the probe, though he declined to say if they would be active participants.
The explosion in Poland was probably from at least one or as many as two Ukrainian surface-to-air missiles that went off course, according to information seen by the U.S. intelligence community, a person familiar with the intelligence told The Washington Post.
Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star imprisoned in Russia on drug charges in what the United States classifies as wrongful detention, has been transferred to a penal colony in Mordovia, southeast of Moscow. “Brittney is doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapts to a new environment,” her legal team said in a statement Thursday.
Kyiv’s governor accused Russia of “massively attacking Ukraine,” and the capital’s military administration said it had destroyed missiles and drones targeting the region. In Dnipro, 14 people were hospitalized after two districts were hit, a regional governor said, while three people were reported injured in Odessa.
Russian shelling killed seven people and destroyed a residential building in Zaporizhzhia, Zelensky said Thursday evening. He said the number of victims may increase as the rubble was still being cleared. He reiterated his calls to other nations to protect the Ukrainian sky from Russian missiles.
Heavy fighting continued in eastern and southern Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War said late Thursday. Russia maintained attacks near the eastern town of Bakhmut and in areas southwest of the city of Donetsk, the Washington-based think tank said. In the south, Ukrainian troops “continued targeting Russian military assets” near Kherson and in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region.
The European Union’s top diplomat said Russia did not appear ready to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, making it impossible to seek a peace deal. “It is Russia who has to make peace possible, the aggressor has to withdraw if he wants a sustainable peace,” Josep Borrell said, according to Reuters.
A Dutch court on Thursday convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of murder in the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014, an attack that killed all 298 passengers and crew. The plane was flying over a region at the center of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces — a forerunner to the current conflict. Moscow denies any involvement. After the verdict was announced, Zelensky said it will serve as a basis to “convict the culprits of a higher level.”
Russians fleeing Ukraine war seek success in Dubai: This cosmopolitan city-state in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates has long positioned itself as a nonaligned haven for global wealth and finance. Now, the UAE’s decision not to join Western sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine has made Dubai a new hub for fortune-seeking Russians, who see much of the rest of the world closed off to them, writes Brian Rohan for The Washington Post. | 2022-11-18T07:22:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
BEIJING — Asian stocks were mixed Friday after a Federal Reserve official suggested U.S. interest rates might have to be raised higher than expected to cool inflation.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reaffirmed the Fed's position in a presentation Thursday. James Bullard suggested the Fed’s key short-term lending rate may have to rise to between 5% and 7%. | 2022-11-18T07:26:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Asian stocks mixed after Wall St falls on rate hike worries - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/asian-stocks-mixed-after-wall-st-falls-on-rate-hike-worries/2022/11/18/8b3f51ba-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/asian-stocks-mixed-after-wall-st-falls-on-rate-hike-worries/2022/11/18/8b3f51ba-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Michael Gove, UK levelling up secretary, departs 10 Downing Street in London, UK, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. Gavin Williamson resigned from Rishi Sunaks Cabinet over bullying allegations, a damaging first departure from the new UK prime ministers top team that raises questions over his political judgment in appointing him. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Don’t blame us. That was the immediate reaction Tuesday of cabinet secretary Michael Gove to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak. Awaab went into cardiac arrest in December 2020 and died on his way to the hospital, only a day after being released from the same hospital, where he was seen for breathing difficulties. At an inquest that concluded this week, the coroner determined that the cause of death was prolonged exposure to mold.
Gove was right to point an angry finger at the landlord that let down the toddler and his family. The walls of the one-bedroom flat Awaab shared with his parents north of Manchester were covered in black blotches of mold. The home was unfit for human habitation (as is obvious from the photos) but the housing association that owned the property refused to act. But Gove’s intervention also points to the central importance of an issue that barely got a mention in Thursday’s budget: housing.
Awaab’s family had complained to the landlord, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) repeatedly. In 2017, his father, a recent immigrant from Sudan, was told to paint over the mold. By 2020, he’d started a legal proceeding, but the association’s rules meant it sat on the sidelines while that slow-motion process played out. “We didn’t recognise the level of risk to a little boy’s life from the mold in the family’s home. We allowed a legal disrepair process to get in the way of promptly tackling the mold,” Gareth Swabrick, the housing association’s chief executive said in a statement.
Ignorance is no defense here. The government’s Housing Health and Safety Rating System includes damp and mold on a list of 29 potential hazards. And no landlord should need it spelled out at this point that mold is a hazard, especially when it was so visible. The perils have long been confirmed by health authorities from the World Health Organization to the National Health Service, which warns of the risks of damp and mold to babies and children. The government’s decent homes standard requires houses to be safe. People living with damp and mold are more likely to have respiratory problems, asthma, allergies and other immune-compromising conditions.
“We all know that local authorities are facing challenging times when it comes to finance, but frankly, that is no excuse. All this what-aboutery, all this ‘Oh if only we had more government money’ — do your job, man,” said Gove, who is responsible for housing along with “levelling up” the economy in Britain. But this isn’t a case of a single bad apple and Gove knows it. Governments exist precisely because people need protection from such instances. “How in the UK in 2020 does a two-year-old child die as a result of exposure to mold?” asked Coroner Joanne Kearsley. A better question is probably how many other Awaabs are there.
The English Housing Survey found in 2020 that 3.5 million occupied homes did not meet the Decent Homes Standard; 2.2 million had at least one Category 1 hazard (which includes damp and mold) and 941,000 had serious damp. While the prevalence of these poor housing conditions has declined over the past decade, it remains a serious problem especially in poorer parts of the country. Landlords save money by delaying repairs as long as possible in the hopes that tenants – especially those whose English skills may be lacking – won’t bother to make a claim.
A 2021 report from the Housing Ombudsman Service found failings in relation to damp and mold in 92 of the 142 landlords it investigated; compensation was mandated in 84 cases. As in the Ishaks’ case, landords often blamed residents for the problem. “This recurred so often it is appropriate to call it systemic,” wrote the ombudsman . It concluded “changes in culture, behavior and approach” from landlords are overdue, but change is slow without the firm smack of regulatory oversight and accountability. Indeed, there are other reports of mold growing up walls in damp flats, soaking mattresses and children’s toys, causing illness and stress.
And here’s where Awaab’s tragic death fits into the broader challenge facing Rishi Sunak as he tries to steer a shrinking British economy to a better place. Awaab was also failed by a health service struggling with staffing shortages and backlogs, and public services that are disjointed. But getting housing right is fundamental to both a civilized society and a thriving economy.
For a country now struggling with alarming levels of economic inactivity, as new statistics show, it’s worth remembering that inadequate housing has broader societal consequences, too. People in cold, moldy or homes that fall far short of their needs tend to get sick or suffer other consequences. A 2010 study by researchers at the University of Warwick estimated the substandard housing in England was costing the NHS an estimated £600 million per year at the time. And health expenses were estimated to be only about 40% of the total cost to society from poor housing conditions. Others come from energy leakage, underperformance at school, absenteeism, social exclusion and mental health problems. The savings from one-off costs to improve housing exceeded the costs of repairs.
No wonder Gove doesn’t want Awaab’s death seen as a reflection of a broader problem. At a time when the British economy is forecast to shrink by 1.4% next year, these pressures are only going to get worse. While less than inflation, Thursday’s budget saw a 7% increase in costs for some 1.3 million in social housing.
And the government is nowhere near the Tory manifesto pledge to build 300,000 new homes a year. Gove gave a speech this week at a conference on growth in which he unveiled his plan to overcome planning obstacles to building new homes, based on the odd acronym BIDEN, with each letter representing one aspect of the strategy. The B stands for beauty. People “do not want ugliness to be imposed on them,” said Gove, so the government’s policies will ensure that new homes are aesthetically pleasing. (The other letters stand for infrastructure, democracy, environment and neighborhood).
The strategy sounds enlightened and promising; just as RBH’s colorful website does. But execution is everything. And planning and construction will take time. In the meantime, families like Awaab’s aren’t asking for beautiful homes; just ones that aren’t deadly.
How to Get Away With Just a Mild Case of Mortgage Pain: Marcus Ashworth
In the Energy Transition, You Cannot Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too: Javier Blas | 2022-11-18T07:26:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK Budget’s Deadly Silence on Housing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-uk-budgets-deadly-silence-on-housing/2022/11/18/0da3f038-6707-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-uk-budgets-deadly-silence-on-housing/2022/11/18/0da3f038-6707-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
The UK Could Use a World Cup Win — for the Economy
Some pubs may be able to repurpose the Covid-era facilities they invested in to allow people to drink and dine outdoors. This will benefit the strongest operators, such as Young & Co.’s Brewery Plc, which has over 100 pubs with tents and outside heaters, and Fuller Smith & Turner Plc, where 70% of the estate has external space that can be used to show games. Plus, they won’t have to deal with social distancing.
Electronics retailer Currys Plc has a range of promotions to boost TV sales, but the economic backdrop may diminish demand for expensive gadgets. England vs. the US on Nov. 25 at 7 p.m., while more promising for pubs, also falls on Black Friday, so it’s not clear what impact this will have on what would usually be a big online shopping day. Many retailers have brought forward their Black Friday promotions.
Alongside the weather, the other big determinant of how much people will spend is England’s performance. The 2018 World Cup was blessed with both ingredients: Not only did it coincide with a heatwave, but England made it to the semi-finals. And victory in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 came amid a long hot summer. Even with more seasonable temperatures a year earlier, England reaching the finals of the Euros boosted sales. So far, this autumn has been warm, which may lift the spirits.
As for pubs, they could enjoy a boost to sales from late November. This typically quiet time may see more business, particularly on Mondays and Tuesdays when some of the early England and Wales games take place. That could segue nicely into Christmas trade, already set to be bolstered by a return of office parties. Youngs estimates that bookings for England and Wales’ group stage matches could generate about £400,000 ($474,360) in sales. Spur-of-the-moment visits should increase revenue further.
Of course there will be other challenges. The final will be on Sunday Dec. 18, so the latter stages of the tournament could conflict with Christmas dinner reservations. Restaurants and pubs may have to grapple with satisfying both fans and families alike. Meanwhile, the grocers would have to withstand the twin demands of Christmas trading and football, something that Tesco Plc Chief Executive Officer Ken Murphy has described as a “bit of a curveball.”
• Burberry Is On Its Way to Luxury Powerhouse Status: Andrea Felsted | 2022-11-18T07:26:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK Could Use a World Cup Win — for the Economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uk-could-use-a-world-cup-win-for-the-economy/2022/11/18/0d4b5522-6707-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uk-could-use-a-world-cup-win-for-the-economy/2022/11/18/0d4b5522-6707-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
By John Daniszewski | AP
FILE - Jozef Pilsudski, the father of Polish independence in 1918, sits for a portrait on March 19, 1932, in Warsaw, Poland. More than 100 years ago, Pilsudski stated that the long-term security of Europe would need an independent Ukraine, according to a new biography of the Polish leader. The biography, “Józef Pilsudski Founding Father of Modern Poland” by Joshua D. Zimmerman is published by Harvard University Press. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-11-18T07:27:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bio of Polish statesman holds lessons on today's Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bio-of-polish-statesman-holds-lessons-on-todays-ukraine/2022/11/18/bf7fbff0-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bio-of-polish-statesman-holds-lessons-on-todays-ukraine/2022/11/18/bf7fbff0-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
NEW YORK — The ball New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit for his American League-record 62nd homer has gone up for auction.
PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks acquired 2020 AL Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for catcher/outfielder Cooper Hummel, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal.
NEW YORK — The Texas Rangers will host the 2024 All-Star Game, Commissioner Rob Manfred announced.
SAN DIEGO — San Diego Padres reliever Robert Suarez signed a five-year, $46 million deal.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills’ home game Sunday against the Cleveland Browns has been moved to Detroitbecause of a lake-effect snowstorm.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Commanders have been sued again by the District of Columbia, this time accused of scheming to cheat fans out of ticket money.
PHILADELPHIA — Three-time All-Pro defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is joining the Philadelphia Eagles, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — WNBA star Brittney Griner has begun serving her nine-year sentence for drug possession at a Russian penal colony, her lawyers and agent said.
SAN ANTONIO — A psychologist who worked for the San Antonio Spurs has settled her lawsuit against the team and former player Josh Primo over allegations he exposed himself to her multiple times in private sessions.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — X-rays on LaMelo Ball’s left ankle were negative, but the Charlotte Hornets All-Star point guard has already been ruled out Friday night against Cleveland.
NAPLES, Fla. — Lydia Ko began her quest for the largest prize in women’s golf history by hitting a tree and making bogey on a par 5. The rest of the day in the CME Group Tour Championship couldn’t have gone better.
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Cole Hammer would have been happy with pars in the cold and wind off Sea Island. He wound up with more birdies than he imagined for an 8-under 64 and the low score to par after one round of the RSM Classic.
TURIN, Italy — Taylor Fritz advanced to the final four in the ATP Finals, beating Felix Auger-Aliassime 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 6-2 at the year-ending tournament. | 2022-11-18T07:28:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thursday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/18/f93bc752-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/18/f93bc752-670a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Latin Grammys 2022: Winner’s list and best and worst moments
Spanish singer Rosalia poses with her haul of awards, including Album of the Year for “Motomani,” during the 23rd Annual Latin Grammy awards Thursday in Las Vegas. (Ronda Churchill/AFP/Getty Images)
Three years after her international breakout “El Mal Querer” won album of the year at the 2019 Latin Grammys, Spanish singer Rosalía pulled off another stunning victory Thursday, taking home the night’s most prestigious prize for her genre-bending third album,“Motomani.” In a tearful acceptance speech at the 23rd annual ceremony, the Barcelona native said the critically-acclaimed project was the one she “had to fight the most to make.”
It was an upset only in the sense that going into the ceremony, it looked as if Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny — the most nominated artist at this year’s event — was poised for a sweep. The Latin trap visionary — whose chart-topping album “Un Verano Sin Ti” is the most streamed album of the year — wasn’t at the awards show as he’s slated to perform in Medellin, Colombia, on Friday. Ultimately, the 28-year-old rapper, whose real name is Benito Martinez Ocasio, won five awards in the show’s rap and hip-hop categories.
In concert, Rosalía shows us what living in pop’s future sounds like
It was Uraguayan musician Jorge Drexler who took the most prizes at the awards show, sharing two of the most coveted prizes — record and song of the year — with Spanish rapper C. Tangana. Drexler’s trophy haul also included best pop song (for “La Guerrilla De La Concordia”) in a tie with Sebastián Yatra’s “Tacones Rojos,” best alternative song, best singer-songwriter album and best Portuguese-language song.
Performers at the ceremony, which was broadcast on Univision from Las Vegas’s Michelob Ultra Arena, included Yatra, Rosalia, Angela Aguilar, Rauw Alejandro, Karol G and Romeo Santos. The telecast was hosted by Mexican singer Thalia, Brazilian pop star Anitta, Puerto Rican crooner Luis Fonsi and Italian musician Laura Pausini.
The true highlight of the ceremony was the moment 95-year-old Angela Alvarez won best new artist, in a tie with Mexican singer Silvana Estrada. Read about her speech and other memorable moments; a list of the main category winners is below.
The star-studded show opener
Fonsi, Pausini and Thalia, joined by Mexican duo Sin Bandera, led a tribute to the Latin Recording Academy’s “Person of the Year” Marco Antonio Solis of Los Bukis fame. The tribute also featured Gente de Zona, the Cuban duo who appeared on the 2021 ceremony’s song of the year — the protest anthem “Patria y Vida.” They were joined by Cuban singer Aymée Nuviola and Goyo, of the Colombian hip-hop trio Choquibtown.
Rauw Alejandro’s space-forward medley
The Puerto Rican singer gave one of the best performances of the night sampling from his latest album “Saturno” while looking like a futuristic Sherlock Holmes in an oversized metallic trench coat and statement sunglasses.
A 95-year-old grandmother’s tie for best new artist.
Cuban native Angela Alvarez, 95, tied for best new artist alongside Mexican singer Silvana Estrada, 25, triumphing in a dynamic category whose youngest contender Yahritza Martinez of Yahrita y su Esencia is still in her teens. Alvarez gave one of the night’s best speeches, thanking the Recording Academy “and all those that have helped me arrive at this moment.” It’s a group that includes Cuban American actor Andy Garcia, who produced and narrated a documentary about Alvarez’s life, and her grandson, composer Carlos José Alvarez, who first began recording the songs Alvarez had previously only performed for family.
“I want to dedicate this award to God and to my beloved country, Cuba, which I will never be able to forget,” Alvarez said in her poignant acceptance speech. “To those who have not fulfilled their dream, although life is difficult, there is always a way out and with faith and love you can achieve it.”
Rauw and Rosalia as power couple
Fans of the Barcelona native were treated to definitive proof her relationship with fellow Latin pop star Rauw Alejandro — the second-most nominated artist this year, with eight nods — is going strong. If their playful grinding during Rosalia’s performance of “Despecha” didn’t confirm it, her acceptance speech shoutout to “the love of my life” certainly did.
Four people sharing hosting duties could mean too many cooks in the kitchen, but the Latin Grammys favor multiple hosts, and it rarely seems too crowded. This year’s team struck a balance with the low-key Fonsi and Pausini opposite Anitta and Thalia, who announced upcoming acts with the enthusiasm of Oprah Winfrey giving everyone a new car.
Sebastián Yatra and John Legend perform “Tacones Rojos” (“Red Heels”)
The cabaret-inspired performance by Yatra, also nominated for eight awards at Thursday’s ceremony, was as charming as the Colombian singer and his EGOT collaborator on the “Tacones Rojos” remix.
Christina Aguilera performed with Christian Nodal
The pop star won best traditional vocal album for “Aguilera,” which marked her hotly-anticipated return to Latin music (decades after she released her first Spanish-language album, “Mi Reflejo”). Aguilera teamed up for a powerhouse mariachi duet with Mexican singer Christian Nodal, who later took home best ranchero/mariachi album for “EP #1 Forajido.”
Anitta’s nod to “Vai Malandra”
The Brazilian singer took a brief break from her co-hosting duties to perform a medley that incorporated “Vai Malandra,” the 2017 hit that put the record of the year nominee on the international map.
The “urban” categories
Bad Bunny wasn’t shut out of the main categories, exactly. Rosalia (who collaborated with the rapper on the 2020 hit “La Noche de Anoche”)was a formidable contender in the album of the year category, which also included Bomba Estereo’s “Deja,” Marc Anthony’s “Pa’lla Voy” and Yatra’s “Dharma.” And though Drexler, another album of the year nominee, seemed surprised to win both record and song of the year, those prestigious categories could have gone to a range of artists including Rosalia, Alejandro and Aguilera.
But there is a certain dissonance in Bad Bunny — whose album is the year’s biggest by several measures — not winning in any of the ceremony’s major categories. This year’s results are representative of an ongoing problem that prompted several reggaeton artists including Daddy Yankee to boycott the ceremony in protest of its treatment of chart-topping reggaeton artists, who have often been relegated to genre categories. The Latin Recording Academy added new hip-hop categories in recent years, but what does it mean if genre-transcending artists such as Bad Bunny are regularly sidelined from the main categories?
That said, the Latin Grammys have been lightyears ahead of the so-dubbed “gringo Grammys” when it comes to Latin artists across genres (see: Anitta, who is up for best new artist at a ceremony she’ll attend months after co-hosting and performing at the Latin Grammys). Incidentally, the other Grammys ceremony — which has its own fraught history with hip-hop artists and still has a long way to go in terms of recognizing musical talent on a global scale — announced Bad Bunny as one of the nominees for album of the year at the ceremony, which will be held on Feb. 5.
“Motomami," Rosalia
“Tocarte,” Jorge Drexler and C. Tangana
Angela Alvarez; Silvana Estrada
“Tacones Rojos,” Sebastian Yatra; Jorge Drexler “La Guerrilla De La Concordia”
“Lo Siento BB:/,” Bad Bunny, Tainy, Julieta Venegas
Best urban fusion performance
Best urban album
Best hip-hop/rap song
“Pa’alla voy,” Marc Anthony | 2022-11-18T10:29:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rosalia, Bad Bunny and Jorge Drexel win big at Latin Grammys - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/latin-grammys-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/latin-grammys-2022/ |
Then there is the human toll. Some 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup, many while building the tournament’s gleaming, purpose-built infrastructure in Qatar, including superhighways, hotels and eight showcase stadiums (one designed like a Bedouin tent, another built out of 974 recycled shipping containers). The authorities say they have cleaned up labor practices since.
(Updates 4th paragraph with additional details.) | 2022-11-18T10:29:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Cup Qatar Will Be Great Football But an Ugly Game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/world-cup-qatar-will-be-great-football-but-an-ugly-game/2022/11/18/7c388666-6726-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/world-cup-qatar-will-be-great-football-but-an-ugly-game/2022/11/18/7c388666-6726-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Austria's Patrick Feurstein skis during the first run of the men's giant slalom last month in Soelden, Austria. (Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)
The women’s World Cup Alpine ski season begins this weekend in Levi, Finland, where Mikaela Shiffrin, Petra Vlhova and an international field of stars will run two slalom races in temperatures that, finally and mercifully, will peak in the teens. This event comes five weeks after the first scheduled competition of the season was wiped out because rain softened the course on a glacier in Soelden, Austria, to the point that it became unsafe to ski.
The only men’s Alpine race of the season thus far was contested the following day in Soelden — without rain but with temperatures in the mid-40s and a deteriorating surface. Since then, two men’s and women’s downhill races — in the shadow of Switzerland’s Matterhorn, with a finish line across the border in Italy — have been canceled because there wasn’t enough snow on the bottom portion of the track. Officials from the International Ski Federation (FIS) scratched a pair of parallel slalom races in Austria because cold temperatures arrived too late to provide a proper course.
The tally: Of eight scheduled races to date, one has been held. The women’s races this weekend will occur more than 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle — which is becoming one of the only fail-safe ways to stage an outdoor winter sports competition. Organizers are desperate to get the season going. Climate change is winning.
“I know a lot of the athletes weren’t super excited about the lengths they were going to to make some of these races happen,” said Steven Nyman, a veteran American downhiller. “It just seems backwards for us to force something to happen, yet it’s in a time where we’re seeing these changes and seeing the issues on Earth that we need to respect.”
The fact that the world is warming isn’t breaking news, and the cancellation of ski races is hardly a tragedy. But increasingly, athletes and advocates who participate in winter sports are using the challenges they experience in training and competing to bring attention to a global issue. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that nine of the 10 warmest years in the planet’s history fell between 2013 and 2021. Winters are shorter. Snowfall is less consistent. Melting comes earlier.
“We know that for certain,” said McKenzie Skiles, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Utah whose research interests include the effects of climate change on mountain snow. “These aren’t changes that we’re waiting to manifest in the future. These are changes that we’re living through right now. It doesn’t mean that we’re never going to have another early-season snowfall event. It just means that those are going to be fewer and farther between.
“The snow is coming later. It’s becoming more variable. And the consistency of snow is really, these days, only at the highest elevations.”
For winter sports, that has a wide swath of ramifications. It means starting a ski season in October will become a less reliable proposition — even on a glacier. It means, according to a study released this year, that of the 22 cities that have hosted Winter Olympics, only one would remain a viable host by the end of this century unless global emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced dramatically. It means that a winter sports and tourism industry that, in good seasons, can generate $20 billion domestically is increasingly fragile.
“We have a later onset of snowfall, and then variable temperatures in the middle of the season,” said Mario Molina, executive director of Protect Our Winters, an advocacy group that includes athletes, scientists and businesspeople who push for policies that would help slow climate change. “A whole lot of stuff is happening to snowpack.”
For athletes whose seasons are struggling to start, the evidence can feel incremental and dramatic. The U.S. cross-country team frequently has held a preseason camp in northern Finland because the conditions were deemed reliable early in the season.
“The last time we were there, it was melting out,” said Jessie Diggins, a three-time Olympic medalist in cross-country skiing. “We jogged home from the man-made loop — on the Arctic Circle, in late November — past green moss and grass and flowers that were blooming.
“That was such a striking visual to me. Like, this feels so wrong. We’re way up there, and here we were skiing through puddles on man-made snow, dodging mud and rocks that were creeping up through the snow that they have. It was crazy.”
From the archives: In the Netherlands, an iconic skating race — and a way of life — faces extinction from climate change
Nyman and many of the American Alpine athletes travel most years to Portillo, Chile, for preseason training, usually in September. There, the normal winter season runs from June to October. The team’s hotel overlooks a lake, Laguna del Inca. For years, it invariably would be frozen solid.
“And it just stopped freezing the past five or six years,” Nyman said. “They used to ski across it. They used to be a ton of water in it, and now it’s low and not frozen.
“It’s not just for us. I talk to the people there about it, and it’s not frozen for anyone all season long.”
On Nov. 12, the temperature in central Vermont reached into the 70s, and the skies soaked the Green Mountains with rain. The slopes at Killington Resort, which had been blown with man-made snow twice in October, turned brown again. Killington is scheduled to host a women’s World Cup giant slalom Nov. 26 and a slalom the following day.
“Publicly, I was very calm,” said Herwig Demschar, a veteran ski coach and industry executive who serves as the chairman of Killington’s local organizing committee. “But my fingernails are a bit shorter.”
Killington has hosted these races since 2016. In preparation for the inaugural event, Demschar pored over 40 years of weather and snow data that showed, in a given year in late November, there would be an 80 percent chance Killington would be able to stage such a competition. As the only domestic women’s stop on the World Cup circuit, the events are crucial for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. Before the pandemic, they drew more than 35,000 people over the course of three days to watch and celebrate the sport. Shiffrin, the American star, has won all five slalom races contested there — a huge publicity boost for the U.S. team on home snow.
But just two weeks before this year’s races, the schedule in Europe was already in turmoil. When the men’s downhill races on a new course that began in Zermatt, Switzerland and ended in Cervinia, Italy, were canceled, officials said they had to consider pushing the races to later on the calendar in the seasons ahead.
“For the future, we absolutely need to review the dates because we need to have more guarantee,” Markus Waldner, the chief race director of the men’s World Cup circuit, told reporters then. “We have to observe the nature. We have this climate change. We had a very extremely warm summer, extremely warm autumn also. These are signals, and we need to respect this.”
To stage the races at Killington, the course must be covered with at least two to three feet of snow, preferably between three and four. By this past Sunday, temperatures dropped below freezing, and staff began blowing the slopes with man-made snow. By Wednesday, when FIS officials had to confirm the races could be staged safely, Demschar said about 40 percent of the necessary snow was on the course. The forecast is “significantly cold all the way to race weekend,” Demschar said. So FIS officials gave the thumbs-up.
“You always look at it and you go: ‘Oh, my God. Are we going to be able to do this?’ ” Demschar said. “Would there be a more relaxed time to do this race, go into December or January? Absolutely. But on the other hand, it’s a really cool time, Thanksgiving weekend, to do an event like this.”
Athletes such as Diggins and Nyman are working with Protect Our Winters to bring hope that such early-season events don’t become dinosaurs. But they want to do more than buy reusable water bottles and recycle their cans. Diggins, who considers skiers “canaries in the coal mines” because they see the effects of a warming planet up close, has lobbied Congress to act on climate change.
“We’re in a society where the people who stand the most to gain from us not transitioning away from fossil fuels have very much made it about personal accountability and nothing else,” Diggins said. “We recognize that’s not how we change things. We need huge policy changes. It’s like focusing on a tap that’s leaking when there’s a waterfall down the street.”
Diggins starts her cross-country season Thanksgiving weekend in Ruka, Finland, where she will begin defense of her World Cup overall title. Nyman and the men’s Alpine circuit travel to Lake Louise, Canada, that same week. Each will be focused on the competition. But they’re also very much focused on the future. Diggins, 31, said it’s “really scary” that her grandkids might not be able to sled or build a snowman. Nyman, 40, has two daughters, ages 5 and 2.
“I want my kids to have the opportunity to ski, to experience the snow, experience the joy of gliding down the hill, the freedom of it,” Nyman said. “But we’ve got to keep our eyes open and be aware.
“When this is in our face and we talk about it yet they’re blowing snow on a glacier to make a ski track in a time of year that’s still questionable, that’s on the brink? It’s tough.” | 2022-11-18T10:38:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Cup ski races are disrupted by lack of snow, climate change - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/11/18/alpine-skiing-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/11/18/alpine-skiing-climate-change/ |
Bartees Strange’s surreal journey from FCC staffer to indie-rock stardom
Bartees Strange headlines 9:30 Club this month in Washington, D.C., a city whose music scene he has long admired. "Maybe I’m an underdog at heart," he says, "but I’ve always been drawn to doing it from here." (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Bartees Strange points to a lengthy text message inviting him to visit the Hudson Valley residence of Aaron Dessner, the prolific music producer and multi-instrumentalist known for playing guitar in the National. Strange’s voice rises slightly in pitch: “I can’t believe I’m talking to these people,” he says. “Literally 2½ years ago, I was like, ‘How do you become one of these people? How do you meet them?’ ”
After a brief stint playing college football in Kansas, Strange graduated from the University of Oklahoma and moved out east to D.C. He worked at Kramers alongside three guys who had all been on “Jeopardy!” — “different seasons,” he specifies — and made his way through a series of public relations jobs that led him to the Obama administration, for which he worked in 2014 as a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission. Strange once aspired to a career in politics, romanticizing the moving and shaking of it all. It was when he landed the FCC position that he realized he didn’t want that life one bit: “I actually hate myself right now,” he remembers thinking.
In 2019, Strange moved back to D.C., finding a cheaper apartment in Northeast and renegotiating his salary so he could work four out of five weekdays and reserve the last for music. “Baby-step vibes,” he says. “A lot of people are like, ‘How’d you quit your job and do music?’ I’m like, ‘Over 10 years.’ I did both forever.”
“I wanted to be a band from here,” he says. “When I was in Brooklyn, I really enjoyed it, but I’m not a Brooklyn band. I wasn’t from there like that. … I wasn’t part of that community like I was when I was in D.C.” | 2022-11-18T11:13:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rising indie rocker Bartees Strange feels right at home in D.C. scene - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/bartees-strange-music/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/bartees-strange-music/ |
U.S. companies and investors have already begun to shift supply chains, investment patterns
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before a meeting at the Group of 20 summit on Nov. 14 in Bali, Indonesia. (Alex Brandon/AP)
JIMBARAN, Indonesia — This week’s face-to-face meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping may represent a welcome easing of tensions, but it is unlikely to arrest a slow erosion of financial and economic ties between the United States and China.
The past five years of U.S.-China acrimony over trade, technology and Taiwan have set in motion a realignment that is playing out in financial markets and corporate boardrooms across the globe.
Investors in October pulled $8.8 billion from Chinese stocks and bonds, continuing an exodus that began after the United States and Europe imposed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). At the same time, manufacturers trying to bolster vulnerable supply chains are turning to Vietnam or India instead of China.
“There’s a huge shift going on,” said Andrew Collier, an economist with GlobalSource Partners in Hong Kong.
Divided over Ukraine war, G-20 struggles with economic agenda
Business groups applauded Biden and Xi for stepping back from open confrontation and said planned follow-up meetings between senior U.S. and Chinese officials could herald further improvement. But, at least for now, the relationship between the world’s two largest economies seems stuck midway between rupture and rapprochement.
The three-hour meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali differed from Trump-era summits, which were dominated by trade and tariffs. This time, the U.S. readout of the talks mentioned Taiwan and human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong before referring to “ongoing concerns about China’s nonmarket economic practices, which harm American workers and families.”
For its part, the Chinese government dismissed notions of an inevitable clash. Biden, who last month banned China from acquiring advanced U.S. computer chips and related equipment, assured Xi that the United States is not seeking to “decouple” from China or limit its economic development, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Starting a trade war or a technology war, building walls and barriers, and pushing for decoupling and severing supply chains run counter to the principles of market economy and undermine international trade rules. Such attempts serve no one’s interests,” the Chinese account of the meeting said.
The session, however, did little to clear the clouds that have enshrouded financial links between the giants. Numerous investment funds this year, including public employee retirement plans in Florida and Texas, have reduced or eliminated their Chinese holdings.
On Tuesday, S&P Global Ratings warned investors about the consequences if the United States were to impose Ukraine-style sanctions on China. With the Chinese economy several times larger than Russia’s, the economic fallout would be enormous.
Blocking Chinese financial institutions from using the U.S. dollar — perhaps in response to a future attack on Taiwan — might leave them unable to make required interest payments on their bonds, S&P said. Of 170 bond offerings by Chinese banks, investment firms and insurance companies over the past three years, none allow for repayment in a currency other than the dollar, the ratings agency said.
Mounting national security alarms already have cast a chill over what were once routine investments.
BlackRock, which manages more than $10 trillion in assets, scrapped plans to market a new fund that would invest in Chinese government bonds, fearing it might run afoul of a bipartisan anti-China mood in Washington, according to the Financial Times.
It’s easy to see why the firm balked: This week, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the potential national security risks associated with allowing U.S. financing of “foreign rivals and adversaries.”
If some investors fear Washington’s reaction, others are equally concerned about political developments in China. Tiger Global Management, an American investment firm, reduced its Chinese stock holdings after Xi last month broke with recent norms and began a third term as China’s president — leaving some analysts convinced he plans to rule indefinitely.
The company soured on Chinese investments because of rising geopolitical tensions and the economic fallout from Xi’s rigid zero-covid policy, according to an individual familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company deliberations.
In the wake of China’s recent 20th Communist Party Congress, investors fret that market-oriented economic development is no longer the government’s priority. Instead, Xi is increasing the state’s role in the economy and cementing one-man rule.
Starting in 2019, foreign investors poured into China’s bond market to take advantage of higher returns than they could earn in the United States. But in recent months, those flows have reversed.
Foreign investors dumped roughly $70 billion in Chinese bonds over a four-month period starting in March, according to IIF.
Both Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and the start of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes in March caused investors to rethink their positions, said David Loevinger, managing director of the emerging markets group for TCW, a Los Angeles-based asset management firm.
“At the [Winter] Olympics [in Beijing], Xi gave Putin the big bear hug and two weeks later, the tanks rolled,” said Loevinger, a former U.S. Treasury Department official. “People were asking if China would be subject to sanctions. Definitely, that was a concern.”
Additional capital outflows would be a drag on Chinese financial markets. But the bigger issue is how companies are retooling their supply chains.
For decades, U.S. and other manufacturers were drawn to China by its low-cost labor. But recurring production interruptions during the pandemic convinced them to establish multiple supply lines, despite the added cost.
Companies are looking for alternative sites outside China for several reasons. The overall U.S.-China relationship has steadily deteriorated. Repeated covid lockdowns have made Chinese factories less dependable. And a bipartisan Washington hostility toward China makes executives wary of betting too heavily on a country that is out of favor.
Among the companies beefing up production elsewhere is Apple, which will rely on India for a growing share of smartphone output.
The Biden administration is also promoting efforts to reduce U.S. dependence upon China for key minerals, pharmaceuticals and electric vehicle batteries.
U.S. imports from China today are below their pre-trade war trend, according to a recent analysis by economist Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The United States now buys products such as clothing and footwear from Vietnam that it once purchased from Chinese suppliers.
While trade data shows no wholesale decoupling, direct investment across the Pacific is evaporating. Chinese investments in building or acquiring American factories peaked in 2016 at almost $49 billion, before sinking to less than $6 billion last year, according to the Rhodium Group, a New York-based consultancy. U.S. direct investment in China has fallen from its 2008 peak of nearly $21 billion to about $8 billion in 2021.
For now, the shift away from China appears to be about redirecting future development rather than a broad retreat from an existing footprint.
A third of U.S. companies in China said they had steered new investment to other countries in the past year, almost twice the percentage that did so in 2021, according to a recent survey by the American in Shanghai. Just 1 in 6 companies are considering moving their existing China operations somewhere else.
“Xi Jinping’s clear signals about the contours of his administration’s economic policies, which will be less favorable to private enterprise, are likely to discourage U.S. investments in China and lead to continued gradual economic and financial decoupling,” said former IMF official Eswar Prasad, who’s now an economics professor at Cornell University.
Biden's Asian summit partners hit by U.S. rate hike, Chinese slowdown
To be sure, after four decades of growing U.S.-China integration, there is little prospect of a complete divorce. Roughly $700 billion worth of goods will move between the two nations this year, an increase over last year’s level and more than six times as much as in 2000, according to Census Bureau statistics.
Increasingly affluent Chinese consumers are critical to the profit hopes of U.S. companies including General Motors and Microsoft.
Companies also cannot easily duplicate elsewhere their Chinese production arrangements. Ports, roads and rail networks in China are among the best in the world, complicating any plans to abandon the country.
“Unless there is real political pressure, I don’t see it,” said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Tsinghua University’s Guanghua School of Management in Beijing. “Once covid is behind us, all that really matters is that if you move manufacturing outside China, you immediately become less competitive.”
Still, national security considerations are overshadowing pure economics in both nations. In Washington, the Biden administration is working on new regulations to constrain outbound investment to China. Xi wants China to produce more of the advanced technologies that are required for military and commercial supremacy.
Expanding U.S.-China commercial ties under these conditions will not be easy.
“It is hard to manage competing interests,” said Eric Robertsen, global head of research and chief strategist for Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai. “But we have to find areas where we can cooperate. It’s in nobody’s interest for things to go off the proverbial cliff.” | 2022-11-18T11:21:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden Xi meeting could slow but won't stop fraying economic and trade ties for U.S., China - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/china-trade-investors-markets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/17/china-trade-investors-markets/ |
I've been to sporting events, concerts and airports that have a bank of 20 or more stalls in the ladies' room, and that does not bother me as much because those restrooms are noisy — toilets flushing, women talking, faucets running, etc. And even when those restrooms are not so active and noisy, you can at least select a stall that's not directly next to an occupied one. You can distance yourself.
Welp. There goes breakfast. And not, Miss Manners reluctantly assures you, by the same means as your unnecessarily graphic description.
I thanked the friend in a text, and said I would wait to open it until my birthday. She replied, “I hope you don’t have it already!” When I opened it later, I did, in fact, have it already. I sent her a text, thanking her for the lovely present, and telling her it was perfect.
The response may be relayed politely, as in, “Yes, but I am excited to have two scalp massagers. I can put one in the bathroom and one in the living room.” | 2022-11-18T12:01:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: I can’t deal with my colleagues pooping next to me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/miss-manners-bathroom-private-work/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/miss-manners-bathroom-private-work/ |
The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house includes a separate English basement apartment.
A view of rowhouse's first-floor living room with unusual blue chandelier. (Trish Hamilton)
When Todd Turner decided to move back to Washington after a decade abroad, he limited his house search to a few blocks in the Dupont Circle neighborhood — the same streets he had called home five or six times, in as many residences near the intersection of 17th and R streets NW.
“You walk out a few blocks, and you’re in what feels like a city,” Turner said. “Then, by the time you hit that little section of 17th … all of a sudden it just feels like a neighborhood. I really liked that.”
But the location, on R Street west of 17th, wasn’t this 1895 house’s only draw for Turner. He said renovations by the previous owner — including an open-concept main level and floating stairs — were among the reasons he was “taken” with the house from the first time he saw it.
“A lot of the walls that you typically have dividing the rooms in these old houses that would normally have a hallway … that makes the rooms even smaller, there’s none of that,” Turner said. “It’s just completely open.”
Having lived in the area before, he already knew the neighbors when he bought the house in 2014. It was like living in a “Seinfeld” or “Friends” episode, he said, because people visited so often. And the house’s layout, with a bedroom suite on the bottom level, made it comfortable for guests to stay for months at a time.
The guests “had a whole first floor,” he said, with the primary suite two floors away, and “it felt so private, even though there was still the camaraderie of having folks under the roof for long periods of time.”
Turner has rented parts of the house to tenants, including the British Embassy. The house has an English basement, a legally separate apartment with a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and space for dining and lounging. The unit has refinished hardwood floors, a washer and dryer, built-in shelving and a refurbished gas fireplace.
He has lived in the basement unit himself when the rest of the house was leased.
Turner’s favorite part of the house, he said, is the primary bedroom suite, with en suite bathroom, on the top (third) floor, which includes views of the D.C. skyline. With wall-to-wall carpet and a 75-inch television, the primary bedroom “feels like a hotel suite,” Turner said.
“I did a lot of work in there to really make it cozy,” he said. “It just sort of feels like you’re above the treetops and away from everybody when you’re up there.”
The top story also has a second bedroom and a hall bathroom.
The first floor has a spacious living room, as well as the guest bedroom with connected bathroom. Blue chandeliers hang above the living room, which is also lighted by oversize bay windows near an alcove suitable for a desk or a seating area. The living room has hardwood floors and two gas fireplaces.
Up the floating stairs, the second floor has an open layout, with a family room set apart from the kitchen and dining area by a green double-sided malachite marble gas fireplace. Turner said he was nervous about the fireplace’s installation.
“It was just dropping right in the middle of a room,” he said. “I think my contractor thought I was a little bit nuts. I was going into probably the most inconvenient location in the house, the middle of a room on the middle floor. But it was worth it. I was just so pleased with the end results of it.”
1731 R St. NW
Bedrooms/bathrooms: 4/5 (including basement apartment)
Approximate square-footage: 3,581
Features: This 1895 rowhouse in the Dupont Circle neighborhood in Northwest Washington has a one-bedroom English basement apartment as well as the main three-story residence. The rowhouse has unusual lighting fixtures, a double-sided malachite marble gas fireplace, floating stairs and an open-concept main area. Garage parking half a block from the house is prepaid for a year.
Listing agent: Gary Jankowski and Michael Schaeffer, Coldwell Banker Realty | 2022-11-18T12:01:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dupont Circle rowhouse offered at $2.1 million - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/dupont-circle-rowhouse-offered-21-million/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/dupont-circle-rowhouse-offered-21-million/ |
How Xi’s Unquestioned Grip on China Fuels Economic Unease
Analysis by Tom Hancock | Bloomberg
More than four decades ago, Deng Xiaoping opened China to trade and investment with Western capitalist countries following the death of Mao Zedong. The combination of state ownership and planning with private enterprise and markets transformed the nation into the world’s factory floor, raising the living standards of hundreds of millions of Chinese — and making lots of money for international investors. Under President Xi Jinping, the party is undergoing another shift, with vows to rein in the “disorderly expansion of capital” and promote “common prosperity.” The result has been confusion as investors try to figure out where Xi — having secured a groundbreaking third term as party chief — plans to take the country over the next five years.
1. How did Xi cement his control?
At the party’s once-every-five-years congress in October, Xi installed allies in the Politburo and the even-more elite Standing Committee, while party elders played a diminished role. Li Qiang, who served as Xi’s chief of staff in the eastern province of Zhejiang about 15 years ago, was catapulted to the party’s No. 2 position, putting him in line to become premier despite a lack of any central government experience. The spectacle of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, being hustled out of the congress’ closing ceremony underscored how much Xi had put his stamp on Chinese politics. The official explanation — that Hu, at 79, had health problems — was plausible. But the official most clearly associated with Hu’s pragmatic, growth-oriented legacy, Hu Chunhua, not only didn’t make it onto the Standing Committee, but was also no longer a member of the Politburo.
2. What concerns investors?
One worry is that with more centralization of decision-making, it could be harder to correct policy mistakes. At the congress, Xi broke with a decades-old system for orderly succession intended to prevent a repeat of Mao’s turbulent, 27-year rule. He also surrounded himself exclusively with close allies and sidelined alternative voices. The congress reinforced fears that Xi would continue his campaign to constrain the private sector.
3. How has Xi hemmed in the private sector?
At the end of 2020, he torpedoed a massive initial public offering planned by fintech giant Ant Group Co. and launched a regulatory onslaught that has swept through the economy and stock market. Beijing reduced the power of the country’s largest internet and video game companies with new rules and tough fines and moved to slow growth in the mountains of debt accumulated by real estate developers, a massive industry that’s dominated by private-sector firms. A huge business field offering for-profit tutoring to schoolchildren was outlawed entirely. From a peak in February 2021, the total selloff in Chinese equities onshore and in Hong Kong had grown to around $6 trillion by the end of October. The party congress produced another market rout led by international investors. But after securing his grip on power, Xi moved to stabilize the world’s second-biggest economy, which was growing in 2022 at close to its slowest pace in four decades. Over a few days in November he delivered plans aimed at stabilizing the battered property sector and reducing the economic burden of the country’s strict policies to prevent Covid outbreaks.
4. What’s Xi’s philosophy?
At the congress, Xi repeated his mantra that China has entered a “new development phase,” the essence of which is that there’s to be less emphasis on the pace of economic growth and more on its quality. That means growth that’s more evenly distributed, is less energy intensive and more technology-based. Xi didn’t define the level in numerical terms, but economists see Beijing targeting growth rates below 5% for the next decade, slowing from pre-pandemic rates above 6%. The congress came just after the US had unveiled unprecedented sanctions limiting China’s ability to access foreign-made microchips, citing national security. Xi has made clear that “winning the battle” over “core technologies” such as advanced semiconductors will be a priority. Curbing inequality was also emphasized as a continuation of Xi’s “common prosperity” drive. In that vein, China may impose property and inheritance taxes on the wealthy, and financial firms were considering capping executive salaries and deferring bonuses to narrow the pay gap with junior staff.
5. What role does Xi see for the private sector?
Xi vowed to support private business and enhance the role of equity markets in China’s economy, and to open up more sectors to foreign investment. Rather than designing policy around the whims of investors, however, Xi’s vision has markets serving the goals of the party. | 2022-11-18T12:01:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Xi’s Unquestioned Grip on China Fuels Economic Unease - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-xis-unquestioned-grip-on-china-fuels-economic-unease/2022/11/18/eabec0d2-6730-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-xis-unquestioned-grip-on-china-fuels-economic-unease/2022/11/18/eabec0d2-6730-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), speaks at the European Banking Congress in the Alte Oper (Old Opera) in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. The 32nd European Banking Congress is being held in Frankfurt under the motto ‘Coping with transformational change’. (Hannes P. Albert/dpa via AP) (Hannes P Albert/DPA) | 2022-11-18T12:01:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lagarde warns ECB may do more than withdraw stimulus - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lagarde-warns-ecb-may-do-more-than-withdraw-stimulus/2022/11/18/c1f6d480-672d-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lagarde-warns-ecb-may-do-more-than-withdraw-stimulus/2022/11/18/c1f6d480-672d-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates of the extremist group face seditious conspiracy and other counts punishable by up to 20 years
U.S. prosecutors say this image shows Oath Keepers and affiliates of the right-wing group gathered outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C.)
The trial of Rhodes — a former Army paratrooper and Yale Law graduate who has become one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement — poses a major test of the Biden Justice Department’s strategy of countering domestic terrorism and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s vow to hold “all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”
Rhodes did not enter the Capitol that day. But prosecutors over a seven-week trial at a federal courthouse blocks from the riot scene accused him of plotting an “armed rebellion” to prevent the lawful transition of presidential power after the 2020 election, organizing followers to come to the Washington area prepared for violence and ready to die if President Donald Trump called on private military groups to help him hold power.
Rhodes and four co-defendants that day staged an “arsenal” of firearms in nearby Virginia and several seized the opportunity to forcibly breach the Capitol with a mob to prevent Congress from confirming President Biden’s 2020 election victory “by any means necessary,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said during the trial.
The defense accused prosecutors of treating Rhodes’s “rhetorical” and “bombastic” statements as criminal. Rhodes himself testified that his only goal was to lawfully lobby Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. He argued the president could legally call on the military and private military groups, overturn the election and keep power.
“All my effort was [aimed] at what Trump was going to do,” Rhodes testified, adding that the group brought firearms as part of Oath Keepers’ “standard operating procedure” for defensive purposes, or to be prepared for Trump to take lawful action.
Rhodes called it “stupid” and “off-mission” for co-defendants to enter the building. He said he had “nothing to do with” stockpiling of weapons, and asserted that his calls to resist federal authority were meant to apply after Biden took office, not to keep Trump in power.
Evidence at trial left unanswered whether Rhodes and accused co-conspirators acted independently of political actors. Rhodes and several charged followers were in contact with Trump post-election advisers who spent weeks making unfounded allegations of election fraud. Some served as security guards for longtime Trump political confidant Roger Stone, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, and former national security aide Michael Flynn, witnesses testified.
On the day networks declared the election for Biden, Nov. 7, 2020, Rhodes allegedly shared a text with Stone and others asking, “What’s the plan?” He then shared an action plan with the same “Friends of Stone” group as well as with an Oath Keepers leadership group chat that included bullet-points from an anti-government uprising in Serbia that suggested storming its parliament.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit,” Rhodes told Oath Keepers at the time. He repeated the message in encrypted chats and open letters to Trump with mounting urgency. Even four days after Jan. 6, 2021, he told an alarmed intermediary, who recorded Rhodes and later assisted the FBI, that it was not too late to use paramilitary groups to stay in power by force.
“If he’s not going to do the right thing, and he’s just gonna let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said on the recording. “We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang f----ing Pelosi from the lamppost,” referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif).
On trial with Rhodes are Kelly Meggs, 53, an auto dealership manager from Dunnellon, Fla., who prosecutors described as the “Florida state lead” on Jan. 6; Kenneth Harrelson, 42, a medically discharged former Army sergeant and father of two from Titusville, Fla., who prosecutors called the “ground team lead”; Jessica Watkins, 39, another Army veteran and bartender and organizer from Woodstock, Ohio; and Thomas Caldwell, 68, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Berryville, Va.
All are accused of conspiring to engage in sedition, to obstruct Congress’s affirmation of President Biden’s victory and to impede lawmakers from performing their official duties on Jan. 6. The first two charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Meggs, Harrelson and Watkins, who went into the Capitol, are also accused of damaging property, and all but Watkins are charged with destroying evidence. Four additional defendants indicted with the same group in January face a second trial next month.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol riot
All were among the first 11 defendants hit with the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot in January, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Two co-defendants have pleaded guilty but did not testify in Rhodes’s case. Five leaders of the right-wing group Proud Boys, including Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, were also charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol breach in June and are scheduled for trial in December.
Meggs and Harrelson did not testify, but their attorneys argued that they helped police inside. Watkins on the stand apologized for interfering with police by yelling “Push!” with a mob trying to break through a line of officers blocking a hallway to the Senate, but said there was no plot to block a vote certification she thought was already completed or to oppose federal authority.
Caldwell testified that charges against him were a “great exaggeration.” He likened his role to that of a “tour guide” for Oath Keepers and asserted that messages by him about staging and transporting “heavy weapons” across the Potomac River by boat were “creative writing.” He said his statements on Jan. 6 were a “play-by-play” describing actions by others, not himself.
Watkins said she recruited her five-person Ohio State Regular Militia to join the Oath Keepers in late 2020 not to keep Trump in power by force but to protect Americans from “enforced vaccination” under President Biden and U.N. forces, or a Chinese invasion through Canada.
“There was talk of the Insurrection Act, but no one was taking it seriously. I would put it below the Chinese invading,” said Watkins, explaining why immediately after Jan. 6 she texted co-conspirators about having a “bug-out” plan for Oath Keepers to retreat to the Kentucky hills to fight like the “NVA,” or North Vietnamese Army.
Those two — former Florida Oath Keepers members Jason Dolan and Graydon Young — each admitted conspiring to obstruct Congress. They testified that they had a “common-sense” understanding or awareness that it was Rhodes’s “commander’s intent” to stop Congress from confirming Biden’s election victory through armed combat if necessary, knowing that doing so would be treasonous.
“I participated in a conspiracy to obstruct Congress,” Young said. “We were going to disrupt Congress, wherever they were meeting.” | 2022-11-18T12:02:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oath Keepers trial: Closing arguments scheduled for Friday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/oath-keepers-jan6-trial-closing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/oath-keepers-jan6-trial-closing/ |
By Akilah Johnson
During pregnancy, this woman developed gestational diabetes. Now, her son is 1½ years old, and she continues getting care at Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor, Maine. (Sofia Aldinio for The Washington Post)
BANGOR, Maine — All the reasons people in this rural region seek reproductive care — and the barriers they must overcome in accessing it — were on full display from the moment the first patient stepped into this clinic nestled amid towering evergreens.
There was the 32-year-old struggling to pay out of pocket for a medication abortion because her credit card wouldn’t go through. A first-time patient who was referred to the Mabel Wadsworth Center — more than an hour from home — because her provider wasn’t sure how best to treat her disabling premenstrual syndrome. Another woman who developed hypertension while pregnant arrived to have her blood pressure checked. And a couple was there for their first prenatal visit.
The nation is in a maternal mortality and morbidity crisis that grows year after year and is particularly acute in rural communities, where it is normal for the nearest hospital to be a long drive away and poverty is too often prevalent.
Each year, tens of thousands of people experience unexpected pregnancy complications — cardiovascular issues, hypertension, diabetes — and about 700 die, making pregnancy and childbirth among the leading causes of death for teenage girls and women 15 to 44 years old. Black women are three times as likely to die as a result of pregnancy as White women, and Native American women are more than twice as likely to die, disparities that persist regardless of income, education and other socioeconomic factors.
And considerable gaps in death exist based on geography, too, with women who live in rural communities about 60 percent more likely to die from pregnancy complications than their urban counterparts.
Mabel Wadsworth Center is an island of integrated care in this rural community, where state reports show there is one primary care physician for every 1,300 residents and one psychiatrist for every 14,000. Its mission is to provide full-spectrum reproductive care, telegraphed by the art lining the walls: colorful renderings of uteruses and vaginas and black-and-white images of the bellies of women who have given birth, had miscarriages, abortions and stillbirths.
The ratio of primary care providers to patients in Penobscot County, where the clinic is located, is comparable to statewide figures but worse when it comes to mental health providers, and state officials acknowledge a shortage of health-care providers in this largely rural state.
More and more, people want their reproductive health needs addressed in a primary care setting because of the convenience and the relationship established with their provider.
“Patients actually do better when their care is provided by the clinicians that they have grown to trust,” said Julia McDonald, medical director of abortion services at Mabel Wadsworth Center. “As a full-spectrum family physician, the fact that I can provide contraceptive care, provide prenatal care, catch somebody’s baby, provide abortion care, go on to provide well-children care and annual physical exams, just strengthens the bond.”
Said one patient recently as she waited to be seen: “They have my whole history.” She has been coming to the clinic for more than a decade.
Clinicians and public health experts worry the crisis caused by the pandemic, staffing shortages and increased abortion restrictions will tax an already-strained health-care system, further eroding access to comprehensive reproductive care and putting more people who give birth at risk.
Amid disappearing maternity wards as rural hospitals struggle to stay afloat, some experts view more fully integrating reproductive care into primary medicine as a way to expand care and improve patient outcomes.
Primary care providers deliver a significant share of women’s reproductive and preventive health care in rural settings, but not all providers offer the same services. A 2020 study in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found that just 40 percent of family medicine doctors who recently graduated from residency programs offered long-acting, removable contraception implantation and about 26 percent provided maternity care. Roughly 3 percent terminated pregnancies.
Rural communities in huge swaths of the country don’t have an obstetrician-gynecologist, said Charlotte M. Lee, a resident in the obstetrics and gynecology program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. As a medical and public health student at Brown University, she researched ways to better integrate abortion services into primary care medicine.
“What I had been told, or what I had seen, was only OB-GYNs or nurse-midwives really provide this type of care, then I went to medical school and my world was totally opened up in realizing that family doctors are providing this care all across the country,” Lee said, stressing that she was speaking from her professional experience and not on behalf of her institution.
As a medical student, Lee said she did a rotation at an abortion clinic, where she met family doctors and asked if they performed the procedure in their practices. Some did. Others did not. Curious about the divergence, she interviewed primary care doctors throughout New England.
What she found, according to the study published in August in the medical journal Contraception, was that a mixture of explicit and implied institutional policies, government regulations, stigma and friction among medical specialties kept primary care doctors from being able to provide patients with full-spectrum reproductive care.
“This is not complicated medicine,” she said.
It is, however, controversial.
Here, at Mabel Wadsworth, they try to bring down the barriers that contribute to the nation’s maternal health crisis and knit together a fractured medical system, with its balkanized patchwork of providers and insurers. Primary care, mental health counseling, Pap smears and abortion services are all provided inside this small clinic sandwiched between an allergist and an oral surgeon.
“It’s absurd that there are not clinics like ours everywhere,” said Abbie Strout-Bentes, Mabel Wadsworth’s director of education and community engagement.
Mabel Wadsworth is Maine’s only private, independent not-for-profit health center providing full-spectrum reproductive care and just one of a handful nationwide.
The care Mabel Wadsworth provides is controversial because offering full-spectrum reproductive care means performing abortions, along with prenatal and postpartum care. So, despite the center’s founders being given keys to the city, the clinic is not welcomed by all.
A small group of “antis” regularly pickets the clinic, where patients spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety. Many of the small-town family medicine doctors who work on “clinic days” when abortions are performed travel from more than 75 miles away and don’t broadcast their work at Mabel Wadsworth in their home communities, which are more conservative than Bangor. Here, storefront window displays in downtown show support for abortion rights.
“Abortion has been sort of siloed in the sexual and reproductive health world, which is not helpful,” McDonald said.
Research shows in an ideal maternal health system, women would have access to comprehensive and seamless medical care — and not just when they show up pregnant but before, during and after pregnancy. That often doesn’t happen in the United States, which among high-income nations is the worst place to give birth, especially for Black, Native American and rural women.
In the decade starting in 2010, at least 90 rural hospitals closed in the United States, according to a 2019 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And while the study said New England was largely spared the brunt of those closings, population loss and financial pressures have resulted in maternity wards shuttering at hospitals. As of 2019, 22 of the 75 hospitals across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont lacked a maternity ward, the report found.
The study said rural communities with more African American and low-income families have suffered more rapid loss of maternity wards than have other rural communities. More than half of the nation’s Black population lives in the South, which experienced a disproportionate share of hospital closures, federal reports show, while upper New England remains overwhelmingly White.
The consequence of closing maternity wards and rural hospitals: Patients must travel farther for care, which is more than a matter of convenience. Community health suffers as prenatal care, preventive care and maintenance of chronic conditions becomes increasingly challenging.
More than 60,000 women in northern New England live farther than 15 miles from a maternity ward, and in a large swath of Maine, which is as big as the five other New England states put together, the nearest maternity ward is more than 25 miles away, the Federal Reserve report said.
About one-third of Mabel Wadsworth patients travel from outside the county to receive care.
The hospital where one patient, a 42-year-old mother of four, delivered her babies no longer offers obstetric services. She had driven an hour south to Mabel Wadsworth after being referred by her primary care provider. She’d seen multiple doctors, begging for them to take seriously her extreme mood swings, heavy bleeding and severe pain associated with her period.
“If you’re going to be treating women and doing gynecological care, you can’t dismiss women,” she said, describing her struggles while waiting to be seen. The high school graduate who works two jobs said one doctor told her, “‘You’re just not managing your anxiety.’ ”
“Mind you,” the woman said, “I’m on three different anxiety medications. I live in this body. I know when something’s not right.”
When she finally was diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder and referred to Mabel Wadsworth, “I just cried,” she said.
Here, she figured she would at least be believed — and she was.
“Honestly, the importance of the work that we do has been amplified through the past couple of years,” Strout-Bentes said. At Mabel Wadsworth, affordable care is provided regardless of cost or insurance status, with private insurance and Medicaid accepted and a sliding scale for patients who must pay out of pocket.
“We’re a very small organization, and we can’t always meet all the demand there is. That’s been something the pandemic has shown us,” Strout-Bentes said, noting the clinic cared for 2,782 people last year and that there is a waiting list for primary care services.
Sitting in the lobby, before the nurse-midwife called her back to an exam room about 9:25 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, a 34-year-old said she has been a Mabel Wadsworth patient through various life phases.
The mother of two said she started seeking care at Mabel Wadsworth as a college student needing emergency contraception and has received gynecological, prenatal and postnatal care here since. On this day, she had come just to have her blood pressure checked — or so she thought. She developed hypertension while pregnant with her son, who’s about 1½ years old, and is still being screened for it.
The 30-minute appointment included updating her medical history and a conversation about her wedding officiating.
“Symptoms of menopause?” — hot flashes or insomnia — Melissa Libby, the nurse-midwife, asked before moving on to the next question after being told no.
“You’re young for it, but I like to ask,” Libby said. “Any symptoms of anxiety or depression?”
This time, the answer was yes — and scrolling through social media wasn’t helping. The woman took Libby up on her offer for help when she mentioned a therapist on staff sees patients through telehealth.
“You can put me on her waitlist,” the 34-year-old said. “Maybe I’ll need it when it comes up.”
After the questions and answers, the provider decided to do a more comprehensive exam. She listened to the patient’s heart and lungs, palpated her abdomen and thyroid, did a breast exam — and checked her blood pressure.
When it comes to figuring out why the nation is in a worsening maternal morbidity and mortality crisis, experts acknowledge they need to better understand how a constellation of life events that start long before pregnancy — racism, housing policy, policing, climate change, pollution — affects expectant mothers.
And they point to something else: the stigma and shame associated with sex, which can lead to mistreatment, misunderstandings and mistrust.
A 31-year-old, who sat in the lobby reading parenting magazines with her husband as they waited for their first prenatal appointment, said she encountered only “compassion” and care “without judgment” since first coming to Mabel Wadsworth more than a decade ago. She started out getting gynecological exams, testing for sexually transmitted infections and then, about six years ago, counseling for an unplanned pregnancy.
The couple’s living and financial situation at the time “would not support a child,” she said by email after the appointment. She considered having an abortion but miscarried, saying the situation “scared us into going back to school.”
Afterward, she had an intrauterine device inserted as a form of birth control but said her body rejected it. So, she had a different type of long-acting reversible contraception implanted in her arm with the help of the clinic’s sliding-scale payment plan.
Now, she said, the couple is married and in a “beautiful and intentional place in our lives.” Something, she said, that wouldn’t have happened without the “education, access and support” they received. | 2022-11-18T12:02:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reproductive care access shrinking after abortion restrictions, pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/18/reproductive-care-access/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/18/reproductive-care-access/ |
Our adoption policies have harmed families and children
The Clinton-era Adoption and Safe Families Act is 25 now. It’s time to reexamine its origins.
Perspective by Mical Raz
Mical Raz is a professor of history and health policy at the University of Rochester, and a practicing physician.
A couple helps a child on a snow-covered embankment in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., in 2021. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Twenty-five years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Passed in 1997, with broad bipartisan support, ASFA reflected a genuine commitment to the well-being of children and concern over them spending long months and even years in different foster care homes. Adoption was positioned as a positive and permanent solution for children in temporary care placements.
Today, adoption is in the news again, especially with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which ended the legal right to an abortion. Indeed, the debate about adoption has long been intertwined with debates on abortion. Conservatives have positioned adoption as a bipartisan common ground priority. Democrats also embraced adoption, eager to support children who needed homes — but also keen to promote a noncontroversial “answer” to the problem of abortion.
Yet this focus on adoption has put parental rights at risk. With the passage of ASFA and a renewed focus on child welfare, more children were removed from their homes of origin and permanently placed in new homes. ASFA, as many legal scholars and activists have argued, has destabilized families and communities, often with the greatest harm done to poor families and families of color. Adapting key views of antiabortion pro-adoption activists, and circumventing unpopular discussions over how to effectively address poverty and addiction, a broad coalition of policymakers and child advocates have shaped a system that devalues families.
In the 1970s, increased mandatory reporting and expanded definitions of abuse helped set the stage for a growing number of children hurriedly removed from their homes and placed in foster care, where they were often abused. The process was expensive, inefficient and often dangerous for children.
The 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (AACWA) was designed to reduce the number of children in foster care, through family preservation efforts on the front end of the system, and support for adoptions on the back end. Foster care rolls declined only briefly. Implementation was particularly tricky. By the mid-1980s, as the Reagan administration cut funding for social programs for families and turned its attention to the drug wars, child removals increased and support for family preservation efforts dwindled. Opponents of family preservation argued that it had been tried and failed.
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration adopted Republican-inspired work requirements for welfare eligibility, spurring debates over the fate of children in struggling families. Infamously, in 1994 then-House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) suggested that some children of poor mothers would be better off in orphanages, indicating that institutional care would be an important component of welfare reform. Softened with focus-group tested words, the Republican idea of removing children from poor families would help lay the groundwork for the passage of ASFA.
Adoption advocates seized the moment as an opportunity. The National Council for Adoption (NCFA), a powerful adoption advocacy organization, often described a “trade association” for private adoption agencies, worked to broaden support for adoption as an important component of the child welfare system. Between 1993-1995, the NCFA co-organized a series of conferences highlighting adoption as a solution to the foster care crisis. This was a clear departure from previous approaches that highlighted family preservation as the goal for child welfare intervention. NCFA explicitly portrayed these conferences as a response to Republican policy goals as articulated in the 1994 “Contract with America” and to ongoing debates over orphanages and adoption.
NCFA’s vice president for policy, Carol (Cassie) Statuto-Bevin, gave testimony on behalf of the NCFA and shared the conference’s main recommendations at congressional hearings on child welfare in February 1995. She subsequently became the lead congressional staffer for ASFA and the main force in developing the House version of the ASFA bill and popularizing an adoption-centered view of child welfare.
Thus, key components of ASFA began with a blueprint of Republican policy priorities, developed into professional language by child welfare experts, published in a report by Statuto-Bevin and then endorsed by bipartisan legislators and a Democratic President.
Adoption became a key priority for the Clinton administration. In 1996, Clinton announced his Adoption 2002 plan to double the number of children adopted from the public child welfare system by 2002. Clinton also embraced tax credits for adoption, which had been a Republican priority in the “Contract with America.” First lady Hillary Clinton, a staunch child welfare supporter, eagerly backed adoption initiatives, stating plainly: “instead of yelling at one another about abortion, we should spend our energy making adoptions easier.”
Many of those who helped ensure ASFA’s passage were passionate advocates for children. Some were appalled by how long children waited in foster care, how they were bounced between placements and sometimes experienced abuse or neglect. Many believed adoption was a positive solution, particularly for children already removed from their homes and in need of care.
But without the consideration of children’s biological parents — and without their testimony in hearings — parents were framed as expendable barriers to adoption rather than key partners in caring for children.
Just one Democrat voted against the House bill to establish the ASFA. Rep. Patsy Mink pointed out that Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform would collide with ASFA and leave many more children vulnerable to being removed from their families. Without a robust social safety net, she cautioned, more families would be impoverished, and then child welfare agencies would be compelled to remove these children and place them in foster care. Mink warned that it was unjustified for “the national government to establish adoption as a penalty due to poverty of the parents.”
But ASFA became law — and had elements that did just that. It required states to move forward with termination of parental rights if children spent 15 out of the previous 22 months in care outside the home, regardless of whether child abuse or neglect had even occurred. The timeline was an arbitrary compromise between legislators, with dire consequences for families. Contemporary memos indicate that ASFA specifically was designed to place the onus on states to justify why they did not terminate parental rights.
A quarter-century later, the impact of ASFA is clear. Parents, predominantly Black, poor, and many struggling with addiction, have experienced the ultimate loss, or what has been termed by advocates the “civil death penalty”: the permanent severing of legal ties with their children. The timelines to termination do not align with what is currently known about addiction, and do not allow parents the possibility for redemption.
ASFA increased the number of adoptions from foster care, but it did not address the main reasons that children end up in foster care — a system that faults parents for their struggles, and offers few material resources and supports. Terminations of parental rights are practically commonplace; one in 100 children will experience this parental loss. It also created an unknown number of legal orphans: children who no longer had parents, due to termination of parental rights, but also had not been adopted, and might never be.
ASFA has become a key component of a system that disproportionately targets poor families and families of color, leading to excess investigations, child removal, foster care placements and culminating in the termination of parental rights — what advocates have termed the family policing system.
It is imperative to remember the bill’s origins and recognize that it was designed to serve an antiabortion, pro-adoption political agenda, supported by private adoption agencies and incentivized by federal subsidies for adoption. These interventions have created real harm to families and children. On this anniversary of ASFA, we should relieve ourselves of outdated notions of providing “new families” for children, and instead work vigilantly to support communities and families in which all children can thrive. | 2022-11-18T12:02:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Adoption and Safe Families Act incentivized adoptions — not families - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/18/adoption-parental-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/18/adoption-parental-rights/ |
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