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By Frank Bajak | AP
BOSTON — A hacker who reportedly posed as the CEO of a financial institution claims to have obtained access to the more than 80,000-member database of InfraGard, an FBI-run outreach program that shares sensitive information on national security and cybersecurity threats with public officials and private sector individuals who run U.S. critical infrastructure. The hacker posted samples they said were from the database to an online forum popular with cybercriminals last weekend and said they were asking $50,000 for the entire database.
InfraGard's members include business leaders, IT professionals, military, state and local law enforcement and government officials involved in overseeing the safety of everything from the electrical grid and transportation, to health care, pipelines, nuclear reactors, the defense industry, dams and water plants and financial services. Founded in 1996, it is the FBI’s largest public-private partnership, with local alliances affiliated with all its field offices. It regularly shares threat advisories from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and serves as a behind-closed-doors social media site for select insiders.
The latest: Pelosi thanks Democratic caucus for ‘the courage’ to elect a woman speaker | 2022-12-14T22:55:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hacker claims breach of FBI's critical-infrastructure forum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hacker-claims-breach-of-fbis-critical-infrastructure-forum/2022/12/14/52fb0fc8-7bfb-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hacker-claims-breach-of-fbis-critical-infrastructure-forum/2022/12/14/52fb0fc8-7bfb-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Rep. Hakeem Jeffrie (D-N.Y.), the House minority leader-elect, speaks at a news conference Dec. 13 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
House Democrats won two-thirds of the most competitive races in November, leaving them narrowly in the minority but with at least 10 GOP-held seats ripe for the taking in 2024.
“Those discussions are ongoing. According to the caucus rules, the incoming leader will have until the middle of February or so to make that decision. I expect that it will happen much sooner than that,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the incoming House minority leader, told reporters last week.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his allies seem to be squarely focused on trying to tie together the legislative loose ends of the lame-duck session, before the House flips to GOP control when the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3.
Two candidates, Reps. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.), emerged for the DCCC this year, but a clutch of Democrats began to campaign for a different way to pick the chair, leaving it in the hands of whoever the Democratic leader is, rather than an open campaign before the entire caucus.
That change won approval a few weeks ago, but it became clear that, if either Bera or Cardenas were a popular enough choice, the caucus would have just gone ahead and elected one without changing the rules.
This has left Jeffries in a slight bind, trying to find the right person for a complex job that requires good candidate recruiting skills, fundraising acumen and a willingness to travel practically nonstop for two years. But he is also trying to walk the caucus’s delicate tightrope of identity politics, aware that any choice could upset a faction of the caucus.
Democrats start the 2024 campaign in better-than-expected shape given the November’s elections left Republicans clinging to a majority with just 222 seats and Democrats at 213. The battlefield starts out tilting in the Democratic direction.
That’s due, at least in part, to how the GOP committees devoted resources in an uneven fashion, spending heavily to win deep blue seats in suburbs outside New York and Los Angeles. But Republicans left a few more evenly divided seats undernourished in the Midwest, allowing Democrats to win despite a tough political climate.
Republicans hold 18 seats in districts that favored President Biden in 2020, including five in which he defeated Donald Trump by more than 10 percentage points and five more that Biden won by at least 5 percentage points, according to officials with the DCCC and NRCC.
Democratic aides have said that Bera and Cardenas have received interviews with Jeffries, but the field has expanded and the longer the process takes, the less likely the decision lands on one of those two.
Those mentioned include Reps. Don Beyer (Va.), a top DCCC fundraiser; Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), part of the 2012 class that joined Congress with Jeffries; Suzan DelBenne (D-Wash.), a former chairwoman of the New Democrat Coalition; Lizzie Fletcher (D-Tex.), a prolific fundraiser who won a GOP seat in 2018 and is now in a safe district; and Robin L. Kelly (Ill.), who has served as the Illinois Democratic Party chairwoman.
Now, Democrats have given Jeffries the power to make the choice — but he still hasn’t made it.
Schumer’s first excuse for not naming a new campaign chief was Georgia, where Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) had to compete in a runoff election last week to lock down the 51st seat for the Democratic caucus.
But it’s also true that there are very few Democrats angling for the job — and very few might be an overestimate. So far no one has stepped forward to indicate any interest.
And it will take one of Schumer’s best sales jobs to land a DSCC chair, given the political landscape.
Beyond that potential candidates get floated through conversations among campaign operatives, former Senate aides who now lobby and media types, spitballing names into the ether to see if any are interested. HuffPost approached a half-dozen Democrats or their aides earlier this week, and the responses all came back the same: “Zero interest.”
This Senate class has posed previous problems for Democratic leaders to find a campaign boss. In late 2010, heading into the 2012 cycle, then-Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) got rebuffed by several choices before he finally cajoled Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) into taking over the DSCC, in addition to her leadership post and committee chairmanship.
Now, Schumer, who is known for playing his heavy role at the campaign shop, will have to spend even more time finding someone to lead the uphill campaign for the next two years. | 2022-12-14T23:15:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jeffries, Schumer struggle to find next campaign chiefs, despite midterm success - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/14/jeffries-schumer-dscc-dccc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/14/jeffries-schumer-dscc-dccc/ |
16-year-old charged with attempted murder in Suitland High shooting
Police released a 14-year-old who was arrested the day of the shooting after determining he was not involved in the incident
A 14-year-old boy arrested Thursday in a nonfatal shooting at Suitland High School was released after police determined he was not involved in the incident, and a different student was instead charged with attempted murder, Prince George’s County police said.
A 16-year-old boy turned himself in Tuesday and is charged as an adult in the shooting of a ninth-grade student at the high school, officials said. The 16-year-old is in custody at the Prince George’s Department of Corrections, according to police.
The victim, 14, remains hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The shooting, which sent the school into lock down, occurred about 10 a.m. after an argument between a group of students lead to a physical fight outside near the football field, police said. According to an initial investigation, the 16-year-old boy took out a gun and shot multiple times, striking the 14-year-old victim, the department said in a news release.
School resource officers responded after hearing the shooting and rendered medical care to the victim, who was taken to a hospital, police said.
Police said the motive remains under investigation and the investigation is ongoing. | 2022-12-14T23:15:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Student charged with attempted murder in Suitland High shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/14/student-charged-shooting-suitland-high/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/14/student-charged-shooting-suitland-high/ |
Don’t make the wrong mistakes on inflation
Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell speaks following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve announced that it will raise interest rates by a 0.5 percentage point to 4.5 percent. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
I was among those who did underestimate the immediate threat of inflation in early 2021, so I salute those (notably former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers) who warned us about what was coming. But in light of Tuesday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing that inflation slowed more sharply than expected, I also want to make the case that we doves made the right mistake — meaning that we were right that this inflation is quite different from earlier bouts.
The problem is that many hawks made a lot of predictions of that sort over the past three decades that just weren’t born out. Low unemployment did not automatically translate into an inflation spiral. But then, when inflation began spiking last year, such hawks considered themselves vindicated.
The Post's View: The Federal Reserve has a credibility problem
But it’s not the 1970s anymore. Jared Bernstein, a longtime adviser to President Biden and a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, points to three big differences.
First, the inflation of the ’70s was driven by big oil price shocks from the Middle East. The United States is now far less dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
This may help explain why Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell, after running into criticism from the hawks for not tightening quickly enough, made big moves to signal his seriousness about curbing inflation.
There’s another sign that a soft landing is a realistic possibility. The words “supply chain” have become a kitchen table concept because the pandemic had the effect of clogging it so much. Goods in high demand weren’t reaching the marketplace, driving up prices. One of Biden’s bragging points: His administration’s work with ports and trucking to speed goods to market has helped cut supply chain pressures by 72 percent from last December, according to the New York Fed. | 2022-12-14T23:37:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Don’t make the wrong mistakes on inflation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/14/inflation-dove-risks-overtightening-fed-jerome-powell/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/14/inflation-dove-risks-overtightening-fed-jerome-powell/ |
Stuart Margolin, Emmy-winning ‘Rockford Files’ actor, dies at 82
As James Garner’s pal Angel, he won back-to-back Emmy Awards for the NBC detective drama. He was also a prolific television director.
James Garner and Stuart Margolin in a scene from “The Rockford Files.” Mr. Margolin played Angel, the weaselly sidekick to Garner's detective character, Jim Rockford. (Moviestore/Shutterstock)
Stuart Margolin, a veteran actor and television director who won back-to-back Emmy Awards for “The Rockford Files,” in which he played the weaselly pal — and comically dishonest foil — of James Garner’s struggling detective character, died Dec. 12 at a hospice center in Staunton, Va. He was 82.
The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Patricia Margolin.
Mr. Margolin, a craggy-faced character actor who was often cast as authority figures, debuted on-screen in 1961 and remained a TV mainstay for six decades. He appeared in episodes of “Gunsmoke” and “M.A.S.H.” as well as more recent series like “The X-Files” and “30 Rock,” as a World War II veteran believed to be the potential biological father of network head Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin).
But he remained best-known for playing Evelyn “Angel” Martin on NBC’s “The Rockford Files,” which ran from 1974 to 1980. Departing from detective-drama conventions, the series starred Garner as Jim Rockford, a down-and-out private investigator exasperated by criminals, money troubles, crooked cops and his shifty friend Angel, with whom he once shared a cell at San Quentin.
Mr. Margolin “radiated sleaziness and personified sly treachery with a winning charm,” author George V. Higgins wrote in the Wall Street Journal. He was twice honored with the Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series, in 1979 and 1980, and later reprised the role in a series of TV movies, in addition to reuniting with Garner for the short-lived western show “Bret Maverick.”
“Angel is a weasel,” Garner wrote in a 2011 memoir, “The Garner Files.” “He double-crosses Rockford again and again. He’s always getting in trouble, and Rockford always has to bail him out. … I confess that I’ve never understood why Rockford likes Angel so much, because he’s rotten to the core. But there’s something lovable about him. I don’t know what it is, but it’s all Stuart’s doing.”
Mr. Margolin started acting at age 8, playing Puck in a local theater production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” But he “had no great burning desire to be an actor,” he recalled, and instead “had inclinations to show off, make a spectacle of myself” — a tendency toward mischief-making that resulted in his getting kicked out of public schools in Texas and running up a “long list of traffic violations.”
By his early 20s, he was channeling that energy into art, moving into acting, songwriting and eventually screenwriting and directing. Mr. Margolin wrote the screenplay for the made-for-TV movie “The Ballad of Andy Crocker” (1969), one of the first films to address the struggles of Vietnam veterans returning home from war, and helmed episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Wonder Woman” and “Touched by an Angel,” among many others. He received an Emmy nomination in 1987 for his work on “The Tracey Ullman Show.”
Naturally, he also directed a couple episodes of “The Rockford Files,” after overcoming skepticism from network executives who questioned his performance as Angel.
“NBC didn’t want Stuart in the show, but I was crazy about him,” Garner wrote in his memoir. The actors had first worked together on “Nichols,” a western that aired for one season, with Mr. Margolin playing a backstabbing deputy to Garner’s motorcycle-riding sheriff — essentially an early version of his Angel character.
After Mr. Margolin appeared in the pilot of “Rockford,” Garner continued, “NBC said they didn’t like his performance, but we put him in a second episode anyway, then a third. NBC still didn’t want him and they told us point-blank not to use him again. Then he got an Emmy nomination.
“ ‘Do you think we can get him for next year?’ they said.”
Mr. Margolin soon signed “a pretty good deal” with the network, as Garner told it, and appeared in nearly 40 episodes of the show.
The second of four children, Stuart Margolin was born in Davenport, Iowa, on Jan. 31, 1940. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a salesman — his wares ranged from air conditioners to advertisements in the Yellow Pages — whose work led the family to move to Dallas and Scottsdale, Ariz., where Mr. Margolin graduated from high school.
After moving to California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, he made his TV debut in the sitcom “Mrs. G. Goes to College.” His older brother, Arnold, also got into television, working as an executive producer and writer on “Love, American Style,” an anthology comedy series that aired from 1969 to 1974. Mr. Margolin became a series regular and launched his directing career on the show.
His other directing credits included “The Glitter Dome” (1984), an HBO crime drama starring Garner, Margot Kidder and John Lithgow, which Mr. Margolin also co-produced, acted in and — in his down time — wrote the soundtrack for.
By then he had branched into movies, appearing opposite Charles Bronson in “The Stone Killer” (1973) and “Death Wish” (1974) and with James Caan in “The Gambler” (1974). He was also a mill foreman in Terrence Malick’s twilight-drenched classic “Days of Heaven” (1978) and appeared in comedies by Blake Edwards, including as Julie Andrews’s secretary in “S.O.B.” (1981) and a bumbling criminal in “A Fine Mess” (1986).
His marriage to Joyce Eliason, a writer and producer, ended in divorce. In 1982, he married Patricia Dunne, decades after they met at a Texas courtroom, where Mr. Margolin was a defendant and Dunne was a “juvenile judge,” participating in a reform initiative in which young people were judged by their peers.
In addition to his wife, survivors include three stepchildren: Max Martini, an actor; Christopher Martini, a director; and Michelle Martini, a costume designer; as well as two brothers, a sister and four grandsons. His stepsons were both involved in the 2020 movie “What the Night Can Do,” which Mr. Margolin wrote and starred in.
In a phone interview, his wife said that Mr. Margolin had been working on a musical, “Candy Barr,” based on the life of a notorious stripper and burlesque dancer he interviewed decades earlier. The actor and dancer apparently hit it off: Mr. Margolin told the Toronto Star in 1989 that he and Barr once got so drunk in Los Angeles that he tried to check himself into a hospital at 4 a.m., hours before he was supposed to report to the set of “The Rockford Files” to play Angel.
Fortunately, the con-artist part was far from his most demanding role, even if it was one of his most enjoyable.
“I was so blotto,” he said with a laugh. “They just told me to walk it off … so I walked onto the set that morning, did a take and they loved it. What other part could you do that?” | 2022-12-15T00:08:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stuart Margolin, Emmy-winning ‘Rockford Files’ actor, dies at 82 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/14/actor-stuart-margolin-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/14/actor-stuart-margolin-dead/ |
Joint Direct Attack Munition kits incorporate global positioning devices for precision and can be bolted onto a variety of weapons and aircraft
A U.S. Air Force airman adjusts the Joint Direct Attack Munition fin interface to fit an F-16 fighter jet during an August military exercise in Italy. JDAMs can work together with weaponry used on a variety of aircraft. (Senior Airman Jessica Blair/31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs)
The Biden administration is planning to send Ukraine advanced electronic equipment that converts unguided aerial munitions into “smart bombs” that can target Russian military positions with a high degree of accuracy, according to senior U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The kits incorporate global positioning devices for precision and can be bolted onto a variety of weapons, creating what the Pentagon calls a Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM. The U.S. military has used the technology on bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds, usually incorporating it with bomber aircraft and fighter jets.
It was not immediately clear whether President Biden or any of his top national security advisers have approved the proposed JDAMs’ transfer to Ukraine. Those familiar with matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, did not say whether Ukrainian forces would employ the kits on aircraft or ground-based weapons, or what specific systems in Ukraine’s arsenal would be candidates for such augmentation.
The Ukrainian Air Force relies primarily on aging Soviet-era MiG jets, and the Pentagon has sought ways to upgrade them rather than provide newer Western aircraft that would require its pilots and maintainer units to undertake complicated new training.
The Biden administration has previously equipped Ukraine with other advanced weaponry, including air-launched high-speed, antiradiation missiles, or HARMs, to enhance Ukraine’s ability to carry out airstrikes. But those weapons function differently than the GPS-guided JDAM, instead hunting radiation emitted by Russian units and headquarters.
A delivery of JDAMs would mark another significant step by Washington to help Ukraine repel the invading Russian force, providing a new way to target Russian units and headquarters. Since June, Ukraine has relied heavily on the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, another precision system, for significant casualties among Russian troops and disruption of supply lines, Ukrainian and U.S. officials have said.
The Kremlin has reacted angrily to the outpouring of Western military aid, making thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and warning of the potential for a broader spillover war with NATO. For that reason, the Biden administration has sought to move cautiously in approving new capabilities that could be viewed by Russia as escalatory.
On Tuesday, senior U.S. officials told The Washington Post that the Pentagon also was preparing to provide Ukraine with a Patriot missile system, the U.S. military’s most sophisticated air defense weapon. Biden has yet to approve that move either but could do so imminently, officials said.
Ukrainian leaders have pleaded for help bolstering their air defenses as Russia has carried out a relentless assault on the country’s electrical grid, disabling heat for much of the population as the winter cold arrives. Delivery of a Patriot, which relies on radars and long-range missiles to intercept incoming threats, would fulfill one of Ukraine’s biggest and most frequent requests of Washington.
To date, the United States has committed about $20 billion in security aid to Ukraine since the invasion began Feb. 24.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said Monday that the administration is focused on “blunting any Russian effort” to gain an advantage in the war, and predicted the United States would announce new arms transfers soon. | 2022-12-15T00:12:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. planning to give Ukraine smart-bomb kits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/14/ukraine-smart-bomb-jdams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/14/ukraine-smart-bomb-jdams/ |
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) accuses the industry of being ‘easy, too easy’ for corruption
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto exchange FTX, is escorted out of the Magistrate Court building after his arrest, in Nassau, Bahamas, on Tuesday. (Dante Carrer/Reuters)
Lawmakers on Wednesday attempted to grapple with the stunning collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX a day after federal prosecutors laid out a case of brazen financial crimes allegedly perpetrated by its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, who is being held by authorities in the Bahamas.
Bankman-Fried, known frequently as “SBF,” was arrested Monday at his luxury compound in Nassau at the request of the U.S. government, and he was charged with multiple crimes including conspiracy, fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations.
The Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Bankman-Fried, 30, used consumer deposits on his FTX platform to fund risky bets through his Alameda Research hedge fund.
Members of the Senate Banking Committee in a hearing Wednesday considered proposals to regulate crypto markets, including applying strict conditions like those over gambling, classifying crypto assets as securities, and pushing federal agencies to extend existing regulations for banks and brokerage houses into crypto markets.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) accused crypto of being “easy, too easy” for corruption and assailed celebrity endorsers, saying they duped investors in glitzy Super Bowl commercials and online ads.
Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and a leading crypto booster in Congress, called for a more lenient response to the FTX crisis and cautioned against punishing the crypto industry for problems at one exchange.
He compared FTX’s meltdown to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. “Did we decide to ban mortgages?” asked Toomey, who will leave the Senate in two weeks after not seeking reelection. “Of course not.”
He suggested that cryptocurrencies could protect against inflation and allow for private financial transactions.
“Let’s remember to distinguish between human failure and the instrument with which the failure occurred,” Toomey said. “In this case, the instrument is software, and a code committed no crime.”
Before its collapse, FTX had been the third-largest crypto exchange by volume in the world. The firm’s tailspin began this past month, when Changpeng Zhao, chief executive of rival crypto exchange Binance, announced he would sell off $530 million worth of an FTX-issued crypto token. Bankman-Fried was leaning on the native token to secure his firms’ sizable debts.
The move sparked a panic, with FTX customers racing to pull $5 billion worth of deposits off the platform. In a last-minute bid to meet the demands, Bankman-Fried turned to Zhao for help, and the Binance chief executive agreed to buy FTX. But Zhao reneged the next day, saying that a review of FTX’s books revealed “mishandled customer funds.” Two days later, Bankman-Fried stepped down, and the company said it was filing for bankruptcy.
“One put the other out of business intentionally,” Kevin O’Leary — an entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” television personality who was paid $15 million to promote FTX — told the Senate panel.
FTX customers are pursuing a class-action lawsuit against O’Leary and 10 other FTX celebrity endorsers — including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Larry David and Naomi Osaka — arguing that such personalities should bear responsibility for luring consumers into a bad deal.
A spokesperson for O’Leary didn’t respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. Representatives for the other 10 defendants either didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined to comment.
Other witnesses included Hillary Allen, an American University law professor of banking and securities regulation; Jennifer Schulp, who studies financial markets at the conservative Cato Institute; and Ben McKenzie Schenkkan, an actor and star of TV hits “The O.C.” and “Gotham.” McKenzie Schenkkan has become one of the crypto industry’s unlikely but most prominent critics, arguing that it is a bubble filled with malefactors. He is co-writing a book on the industry set to publish this summer.
When Brown asked the witnesses whether FTX-like “carelessness, misconduct or worse” was present at other crypto firms, McKenzie Schenkkan responded that it was “endemic.”
Brown said, “FTX and Alameda Research took advantage of the crypto industry’s appetite for speculation.”
The hearing came as Brown signaled a desire to work with top financial regulators to forge a federal rule book for the crypto industry. Other members of the panel have their own proposals, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is adding to them with a bill — co-sponsored by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) — aimed at cracking down on national security risks posed by cryptocurrency. The measure seeks to more strictly apply anti-money-laundering standards already imposed on traditional financial institutions to crypto businesses.
“Crypto doesn’t get a pass to help the world’s worst criminals, no matter how many television ads they run or how many political contributions they make,” Warren said in the hearing.
If convicted, Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison related to the charges brought by regulators and prosecutors. He appeared to fight the United States’ extradition request during an appearance in a Bahamian court Tuesday. A judge ordered him held without bail after local prosecutors argued that he was a flight risk and could have money stashed in other countries.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers countered that their client suffered from depression and had dietary restrictions that could not be met in prison. They also pledged that Bankman-Fried would appear at future proceedings.
Wednesday’s Senate proceedings came a day after the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing that included John J. Ray III, FTX’s new CEO, who was brought in to clean up the company’s finances. Ray called Bankman-Fried’s actions “plain old embezzlement.” Ray said it would take “months, not weeks” to claw back lost consumer deposits, noting that “we’re not going to be able to recover all the losses here.”
U.S. officials called Bankman-Fried’s actions “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” during a news conference Tuesday, and they hinted that more charges could be forthcoming against other FTX officials and Bankman-Fried’s associates.
The Justice Department indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, implicates co-conspirators “known and unknown.” The SEC complaint includes details of real estate purchases and loans for Bankman-Fried, his parents and FTX executives worth at least $2 billion allegedly derived from ill-gotten gains.
“Neither the fact of the loans and purchases, nor the poor documentation of significant company liabilities and expenditures, was disclosed to investors,” the complaint states.
Before FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried pursued political and pop culture influence. He was the second-biggest Democratic donor in the 2022 midterm elections, fashioning himself as the crypto industry’s top surrogate in Washington. His mop of hair and pledges to philanthropy — an approach known as effective altruism — endeared him to legions of online followers.
But FTX also pursued major marketing ploys to boost consumers’ faith in the industry. It purchased advertising space on the uniforms of Major League Baseball umpires. The National Basketball Association’s Miami Heat said it would terminate its $135 million arena naming-rights deal with FTX in the wake of the company’s collapse. The agreement, signed in 2021, was intended to last 19 years.
Since FTX’s collapse, politicians have grappled with how to distance themselves from Bankman-Fried. In the two years leading up to November’s midterm elections, the crypto executive donated $40 million to federal candidates and campaign groups, according to federal records. Most of his money went to Democrats, though Bankman-Fried has alluded to additional, undisclosed contributions to Republicans.
Two of Bankman-Fried’s biggest beneficiaries in 2022 were the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC, which help elect Democrats to their respective chambers. Those organizations alone received about $7 million from him over the past two years, federal data shows.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, called Bankman-Fried’s donations “dirty money” used to attempt to influence policy decisions.
Two key lawmakers, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.), on Tuesday confirmed that their offices had donated or would donate the money they had received from Bankman-Fried to charity. The two had worked hand-in-hand with the now-disgraced crypto mogul on legislation seen as friendly to the industry.
Even before his arrest, though, some lawmakers had started trying to separate themselves from a man who once had been in their better graces.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who is set to become House minority leader in the next Congress, donated his contributions to the American Diabetes Association several weeks ago, according to an aide. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) contributed his sums to a local food bank before Thanksgiving, the office said. And Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a longtime crypto advocate, gave her donation this past month to a nonprofit fighting poverty, according to a spokesman. | 2022-12-15T00:25:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawmakers grapple with sheer size of FTX’s missing billions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/14/ftx-sbf-crypto-fraud-charges-hearing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/14/ftx-sbf-crypto-fraud-charges-hearing/ |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it is listing the whitebark pine as threatened under the Endangered Species Act
A young whitebark pine grows near a U.S. Forest Service research and restoration site at the Snowbowl ski area in the Lolo National Forest Sept. 19, 2019, in Missoula, Mont. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The whitebark pine is one of a handful of trees that thrive in the cold, wind-swept heights of the Rockies and other rugged western mountain ranges, clinging to slopes for centuries even in the most extreme alpine environments.
But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday that it will protect the whitebark pine under the Endangered Species Act, warning that a number of menaces — a deadly fungus, a hungry beetle, fiercer wildfires and a changing climate — are all conspiring to threaten the hardy tree with extinction.
“As a keystone species of the West, extending ESA protections to whitebark pine is critical to not only the tree itself, but also the numerous plants, animals, and watersheds that it supports,” Matt Hogan, a regional director at the agency, said in a statement.
By finalizing a decision to list the tree as threatened, wildlife managers are warning it is likely to become endangered in the near future unless conditions improve. The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed protecting the tree in 2020, shortly before former president Donald Trump left office.
The pine plays a key role in rugged, high-altitude ecosystems, slowing runoff from snowmelt and providing food for everything including grizzlies and squirrels. The tree depends on a mountain bird called the Clark’s nutcracker to disperse its seeds.
For many pines, the protections arrive too late. More than half of the pines still standing are already dead, federal officials say.
White pine blister rust, an invasive fungus sweeping through the tree’s range of more than 80 million acres in the United States and Canada, poses the greatest threat to its survival. But other risks include a native beetle that burrows into bark and fiercer wildfires fueled by climate change.
“The listing means that whitebark pine is the first widely distributed tree that the federal government has clearly pegged as a climate casualty — sadly, as climate change worsens, it will not be the last,” said Sylvia Fallon, a senior director of Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group that petitioned the agency for protections more than a decade ago.
With the listing, federal wildlife officials hope to spark new research into saving the species and to punish those who chop down the tree on federal lands. In many circumstances, it will remain legal to remove the pines on land not controlled by the federal government.
By growing and planting seedlings that are likely to be resistant to the rust, the species can be restored in many part of its range, said Diana Tomback, policy and outreach coordinator at the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation and professor of integrative biology at the University of Colorado at Denver who has studied the tree since the 1970s.
“We do have the tools to restore whitebark pine,” Tomback said. | 2022-12-15T00:25:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Feds list whitebark pine as threatened under Endangered Species Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/14/whitebark-pine-threatened-endangered-species/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/14/whitebark-pine-threatened-endangered-species/ |
Survivors of the Club Q and Pulse nightclub shootings testified for more than three hours Wednesday on Capitol Hill
From left, Michael Anderson, a survivor of the Club Q shooting; Matthew Haynes, founding owner of Club Q; and James Slaugh, another survivor, on Wednesday. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)
LGBTQ activists and survivors of the Club Q and Pulse nightclub shootings told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, during more than three hours of testimony, that a rise in anti-LGBTQ extremism and violence has left them traumatized and afraid.
Over the past year, they said, extremists in the United States have attacked nearly 150 LGBTQ events. Two dozen hospitals and providers have faced online harassment because they provide gender-affirming care to children, and a record number of transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been slain, they noted. Hate crimes against LGBTQ people have increased 40 percent since 2015, and FBI data shows that in 2020, 1 in 5 hate crimes were motivated by anti-LGBTQ bias.
Those incidents did not occur in a vacuum, said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), who chairs the committee.
“These actions are the culmination of years of anti-LGBTQ extremism that began in statehouses across the country and spread to social media platforms before boiling over into the communities where we reside,” Maloney said.
Maloney had announced the hearing earlier this week, as a means to examine “how the surge of anti-LGBTQI+ policies advanced by Republican lawmakers and the proliferation of extreme anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric are fueling a rise in violence against LGBTQI+ people in the United States.” It came less than a month after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs and a day after President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act.
Wednesday’s hearing opened with testimony from two men who survived the Club Q shooting, in which a gunman killed five people and injured 25. Michael Anderson, a 25-year-old gay man who worked at the bar, said he saw a friend “lying on the floor, bleeding out.”
“I had to tell him goodbye while I continued to fear for my life, not knowing if the attack was truly over,” Anderson said. “I can still hear the rapid firing of bullets today. It’s a sound I may never forget.”
James Slaugh, a fellow Club Q survivor, said he, his sister and his boyfriend all sustained bullet wounds in the attack, and their recovery may be long. Still, he said, it was important for him to travel to D.C. to share what he saw that night and what he has seen across the country this past year.
In all, eight LGBTQ activists testified at length Wednesday about the ways they said anti-gay rhetoric correlated with a rise in attacks on LGBTQ safe spaces.
“Outside of these spaces, we are continually being dehumanized, marginalized and targeted,” Slaugh said. “Hate starts with speech. The hateful rhetoric you’ve heard from elected leaders is the direct cause of the horrific shooting at Club Q.”
The hearing was the third one Maloney has held this year after a mass killing, and it’s likely to be one of the key committee’s last before Republicans take control of the House. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who will take over from Maloney as chair, argued Wednesday that lawmakers need to address not anti-LGBTQ hate specifically but what Republicans described as an increase in violent crime that affects the entire country.
“It’s easier to blame Republicans than have a serious discussion about the rise of violent crimes across the nation,” Comer said. “It’s easier, but it’s also irresponsible and reckless.”
Brandon Wolf, a gay man who watched his best friend die in the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, has spent the six years since the shooting advocating for gun control and LGBTQ rights. Many committee members during the hearing Wednesday directed their questions to him.
“For years,” Wolf said, “cynical politicians and greedy grifters have joined forces with right-wing extremists to pour gasoline on anti-LGBTQ hysteria and terrorize our community.” He specifically called out “my own governor, Ron DeSantis,” who he said “has trafficked in that bigotry to feed his insatiable political ambition and propel himself toward the White House.”
Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.) pushed Wolf to stop blaming Republicans and admit that the gunman had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
“The evil individual that murdered 49 and wounded 53 and probably gives you nightmares and will for the rest of your life, it was not a right-wing extremist,” Fallon said.
Wolf said later that “no one is asking for anyone but the shooter at Club Q to be on trial in Colorado Springs.”
“But what we are saying is that people should be accountable for the things that come out of their mouths,” he said. “When you’re willing to traffic in cheap shots and bigotry against a marginalized community that’s already seeing hate against it on the rise, that’s already seeing violence rising across the country, when you’re willing to traffic in those things to score political points, you have to be accountable for what happens next.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) asked Wolf how the country should move forward. Wolf told her that after the June 2016 Pulse shooting, his community faced a choice on whether “we were going to succumb to terrorism and hate” — and people from both parties came together. Faith leaders showed up for LGBTQ people, and conservatives agreed to make Orlando safer and more inclusive for gay people like him.
“I think that offers a blueprint for how this country moves forward in the wake of such violence and hate,” Wolf said. | 2022-12-15T00:25:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Club Q, Pulse nightclub shooting survivors testify on anti-LGBTQ hate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/14/lgbtq-club-q-pulse-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/14/lgbtq-club-q-pulse-shooting/ |
Tunisia’s leader defiantly rejects U.S. rebuke on democratic erosion
The country’s status as an Arab Spring success story and close U.S. ally is in jeopardy as its president consolidates power
Tunisian President Kais Saied arrives to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Wednesday. (Mandel Ngan/Pool/Reuters)
Tunisian President Kais Saied on Wednesday rejected U.S. criticism of his consolidation of power, making a defiant defense of moves the Biden administration and others say threatens a fledgling democracy that once stood out as the Arab Spring’s sole success.
Saied blamed “fake news” for widespread Western criticism of his steps to strengthen his presidential powers and denounced unidentified “foreign forces” whom he said were attempting to stir up opposition to his rule.
“There are so many enemies of democracy in Tunisia who want to do everything they can to torpedo the country’s democratic and social life from within,” he said in a meeting with the Washington Post Editorial Board and reporters.
Saied spoke at an important moment for Tunisia, more than a decade after the 2011 uprising that ended a longtime dictatorship and touched off a wave of revolution across the Arab World. His visit to Washington, for President Biden’s Africa summit, occurs just days before an election the Tunisian leader hopes will end a period of friction with a principal backer, the United States.
But clashing U.S. and Tunisian narratives about the events since Saied’s 2019 election — and, crucially, following his 2021 suspension of parliament — appeared to signal during the visit a hardening of the two countries’ standoff, as the Biden administration threatens to withhold needed assistance and Saied rebuffs any hint of reproach.
Washington championed Tunisia’s fledgling democracy following the ouster of autocrat Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, scrambling to provide political and economic support. While other Arab Spring nations descended into conflict, chaos or military rule, Tunisia stood out as bright spot. Now, citing democratic reversal, the Biden administration has slashed civilian and military aid to Tunisia by nearly half in its fiscal 2023 budget.
Sarah Yerkes, a former U.S. official who studies Tunisia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Saied’s hopes that the vote set for this weekend, which will elect a legislative body to replace the parliament he suspended, would end strains with Washington were unlikely to bear out. U.S. officials have already complained about steps to weaken legislative powers, alter electoral procedure and overhaul the country’s independent electoral body.
“Saied seems to believe that after the elections on Saturday, things will return to the status quo ante,” she said. “The United States is not likely to let that happen, nor should they.”
Many Tunisians, weary of political deadlock and desperate for jobs and growth, initially supported Saied’s actions. The one-time law professor was elected in 2019 with more than 70 percent of the vote on promises to eradicate corruption and fix the problems that had dogged Tunisia since its heady revolutionary days.
But his support flagged as he has made a series of increasingly authoritarian moves — dissolving the country’s most senior judicial body, firing judges en masse, and introducing a constitution that gives him broad new executive authority — without delivering on the pocketbook problems that seem to worry Tunisians most.
U.S. presses Tunisia, once a bright spot of Arab Spring, on democracy
Saeid’s constitution was approved in a July referendum that was marked by low turnout and brought an unusually sharp public rebuke from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who cited “an alarming erosion of democratic norms over the past year [that] reversed many of the Tunisian people’s hard-won gains since 2011.” Saied’s government shot back, summoning the top U.S. diplomat in Tunisia and decrying “unacceptable foreign interference.”
The government has prosecuted activists and journalists for criticizing authorities, sometimes in military courts, and introduced laws that critics warn are likely to chill freedom of expression. It has also subjected political opponents to trial or travel bans.
Opposition parties, including the Islamist Ennahda party, have labeled Saied’s actions a “coup.” The country’s powerful UGTT trade union recently came out against Saied’s agenda and denounced the upcoming elections.
In his hour-long discussion with The Post, Saied declined to acknowledge any legitimate criticism and outlined a shadowy campaign to undermine his rule.
“It’s a full orchestrated movement that is undertaken by these enemies of democracy who wanted to loot the people, who wanted to rob the people, and who wanted to blow the state up from inside,” he said.
He defended his July 2021 decision to suspend parliament, saying seats were being “bought and sold” in the previous parliament. He said the 2022 constitution provided Tunisians greater rights and protections than the country’s previous constitution. Critics say the charter demolishes checks and balances needed to guarantee such rights and call Saied’s drafting process opaque.
While Biden administration officials say they typically prefer to deliver criticism about partner nations’ records on human and political rights in private, they have taken a sharply critical public stance on Tunisia. It represents a divergence from allies in Europe, who analysts say are more focused on stemming the wave of migrants pouring in from North Africa.
Saied spoke following a meeting with Blinken, who in his opening remarks referenced his hopes for transparent elections.
A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the high-level talks, said that while the Biden administration supported Saturday’s election, it would look for additional steps to put Tunisia on a different course.
“It’s always about more than elections,” the official said. “It’s about implementation; it’s about the democratic spirit that has to transcend the mechanism of elections themselves.”
Even more perilous than foreign critiques for Saied could be the intense economic duress felt by millions of Tunisians, many of whom have risked the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to seek better jobs and pay in Europe.
After contracting by nearly 9 percent at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Tunisia’s economy now faces inflationary head winds caused in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The government is hoping the International Monetary Fund will sign off in coming days on a $2 billion lifeline that could help it avert default.
Asked how he could introduce economic reforms required for the IMF deal without further alienating Tunisians, Saied he would seek to help small businesses and combat unemployment, but provided few details.
“Of course, if we want to successfully implement economic and social reforms, we need a totally neutral and impartial administration,” he said.
Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch, said Saied had been unable to solve the economic hardship that concerns Tunisians.
“Saied now owns the crisis,” she said. “And it’s up to the Tunisian people, with support from friends of democracy everywhere, to demand a return to accountable government, one with checks and balances and human rights safeguards, as the best way forward.” | 2022-12-15T00:25:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tunisian leader Kais Saied rejects U.S. rebuke on democratic erosion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/14/tunisia-elections-kais-saied/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/14/tunisia-elections-kais-saied/ |
The Board of Regents decided on UCLA's move to the Big Ten on Wednesday. (Ashley Landis/AP)
UCLA’s move to the Big Ten remains on track after the University of California Board of Regents on Wednesday declined to block its exit from the Pac-12.
The closed-door meeting was the fourth time the panel, which is charged with overseeing the state’s 10-campus system of public universities, had debated the question of how UCLA’s defection would impact the well-being of Bruins athletes.
After about 90 minutes of closed-door deliberations to discuss “legal issues” related to UCLA’s Big Ten Conference membership, according to the agenda of the specially convened meeting, the panel announced it would not intervene in the decision made by UCLA officials, provided the school met a number of conditions, including mitigating some of the travel impact for athletes and a possible payment to UC Berkeley. The measure was approved by a roll-call vote, 11-5.
That means UCLA will join crosstown rival Southern California in transforming the Big Ten into the nation’s first coast-to-coast conference, with 16 members that span California to New Jersey starting with the 2024-25 season.
Mike Leach, swashbuckling college football coach, dies at 61
USC’s departure was never in doubt after the Big Ten announced its addition June 30 because it is a private university and not subject to the regents’ oversight.
The defection of the two storied programs will have ripple effects across the landscape of college sports.
The Bruins and Trojans can expect a significant spike in annual revenue as members of the Big Ten, able to share in the conference’s recently negotiated billion-dollar media rights deal. But their departure significantly weakens the national profile of the Pac-12 as they take with them the Los Angeles media market and recruiting hotbed.
Moreover, a domino effect in conference realignment is inevitable. The Pac-12 will seek to replace them by poaching new members from other conference. It’s also possible that existing Pac-12 members may follow the example of UCLA and USC in bolting for conferences with more lucrative broadcast deals.
The Big 12, which in 2025 will lose Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, has indicated it is “open for business.”
UCLA’s pending move to the Big Ten had been criticized by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), an ex officio member of the California Regents, who raised questions about its effect on UC Berkeley, the other crown jewel in the state’s public university system, which would be left behind without its rival to the south.
The National College Players Association, which advocates for athletes’ health, safety and economic rights, decried the move in a recent letter urging the regents to block UCLA’s departure. Founded by former UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma, the association cited concerns about the toll of multiple cross-country trips for in-season competition on Bruins athletes’ health, emotional well-being and studies. | 2022-12-15T00:27:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UCLA gets board’s okay to join Big Ten despite concerns, opposition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/14/ucla-joins-big-ten-regents/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/14/ucla-joins-big-ten-regents/ |
Destroyed homes, illuminated by fire engine lights, after a tornado struck near Arabi, La., on March 22. Another tornado hit the area Dec. 14. (Gerald Herbert/AP)
Amid a two-day outbreak of deadly storms across the South, a tornado roared across New Orleans on Wednesday evening — for the second time this year.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 3:45 p.m. local time for New Orleans and confirmed that a twister was on the ground near Arabi and the Lower Ninth Ward, two neighborhoods in the city, at 4:04 p.m. as it raced northeastward at 35 mph.
The same area was also hit by a tornado on March 22 this year; it was rated an EF3 on the 0 to 5 scale for twister intensity. The March tornado, the strongest on record to hit New Orleans, killed a 25-year-old man and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes in Arabi.
As Wednesday’s tornado swept across the region, debris could be seen falling from the sky on New Orleans’ lower Canal Street, tweeted CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano.
Photos and video from social media revealed damage in Marrero, on the south side of the Mississippi River, and below downtown New Orleans, where a shopping center appeared mangled.
As storms continued to pass through southeast Louisiana Wednesday evening, more than 40,000 customers were without power according to PowerOutage.US.
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How tropical storms and hurricanes have hit U.S. shores with unparalleled frequency | 2022-12-15T00:28:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | tornado hits new orleans damaging - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/14/tornado-new-orleans-storm-weather/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/14/tornado-new-orleans-storm-weather/ |
Fans in Rabat, Morocco, watch Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal match. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)
“A taste of victory against France would really make a lot of angry Moroccans happy,” Ali Hamioui said before the match. “They’ve been denying us visas left and right and treating us as second class. This would be a nice revenge.”
After the loss, Moroccan fan Yousra Marrou lamented the outcome — and the opponent — in the capital of Rabat, where he joined crowds who gathered to grieve together.
“I wished [the match] were against anyone else,” he said.
“It’s a huge blow,” said Ahmed Ofir, 23, who was also looking for consolation on the streets of Rabat. “For a team who isn’t used to winning and is suddenly exposed to victory, we did not want to stop.”
His friend, Oussam Semlali, said even though Morocco didn’t advance to the final, the country was still celebrating how far they came.
“The ball simply didn’t want to score. Our team tried hard,” he said. “We were extraordinarily represented. The team did not let go.”
Morocco’s loss Wednesday brought an end to a remarkable World Cup run that energized and united much of Africa and the Middle East, where fans largely came together to support the underdog team that managed to knock off two of its other former colonizers, Spain and Portugal, en route to the semifinals.
As other Arab and African countries were eliminated in earlier stages, the region’s fan base redirected its attention toward Morocco — celebrating the country’s Arab, African and Amazigh heritage. The move by Moroccan players to raise the Palestinian flag also drew accolades across the Arab world. Scenes of players celebrating with their families, including some with their mothers who attended the matches in Qatar, tugged at heartstrings and made the team a sentimental favorite.
In Morocco, the run brought people together in a country that needed something to celebrate.
The last time Hamioui, 30, remembers the country feeling so united was last February, when the plight of a 5-year-old boy who fell down a dry well captured the nation’s attention. For days, efforts to rescue him were live-streamed internationally. When he didn’t make it out alive, a nation’s hope turned to devastation.
“This time we are happy,” Hamioui said. “We deserve to be united in happiness. Moroccans are hungry for happiness.”
The engineer said the team’s World Cup run has provided some of the best days of his life and that the mood in the country was “unlike anything” he has ever experienced. He desperately wanted to be in Qatar for the semifinal game Wednesday, but couldn’t miss work. “I would have spent all my money to go,” he said ruefully.
The match was also followed closely by members of the Moroccan diaspora, numbering some 5 million, many of whom live in France and other parts of Western Europe.
Along the Champs-Élysées, the 1.2-mile-long avenue in the heart of Paris, convoys of honking cars blocked the streets late Wednesday night.
As France supporters headed to the Arc de Triomphe, some wore rooster hats, the French team’s emblem.
Thousands of police officers were deployed to this area in expectation of potential clashes between France and Morocco supporters, and riot police officers were on patrol. But by 11 p.m. local time, most fans, whatever their allegiance, appeared to be in a celebratory mood.
Back in downtown Rabat, Oumaima Moutik, 24, said before the match that the last time he felt so good was after he recovered from covid-19 and emerged from isolation. At that time, “I looked at the streets from a new perspective,” he said. “I am now doing the same. Everything feels so fresh and renewed.”
Ali Cheradi, a high school English teacher in Rabat, said he was reliving the country’s 1986 World Cup run — which took place when he was a child — with his own children.
Then, he, his father and his siblings crowded around an old radio. Now, he said, he is “imparting to [my children] the same love for football and the nation that I had experienced as a child their age.”
“The happiness is really indescribable,” he said. “I’ve taken pictures, hugged, danced and sang with random strangers.”
He planned to watch Wednesday’s game at home with his family. No matter the outcome, he said, they would flood the streets to honor their team’s run.
“Win or lose,” he said, “today will be a celebration.”
Rick Noack in Paris contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T00:56:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Morocco mourns loss to France after World Cup run that energized region - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/14/world-cup-qatar-morocco-france/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/14/world-cup-qatar-morocco-france/ |
Atlanta rapper Gunna released from jail after plea
Rapper Gunna performs at the Wireless music festival in London on Sept. 10, 2021. (Scott Garfitt/AP)
Atlanta rapper Gunna was released from jail Wednesday after pleading guilty to a racketeering charge, though he maintains his innocence, according to his lawyer.
The artist, whose legal name is Sergio Kitchens, had been jailed in Fulton County, Ga., since May, when he was charged with conspiracy to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law intended to combat organized crime. Kitchens and fellow Atlanta rapper Young Thug — whose legal name is Jeffery Lamar Williams — were among 28 defendants named in the May indictment, which alleged that associates of their Young Stoner Life record label were part of a Bloods-affiliated gang called Young Slime Life, or YSL.
Steve Sadow, Kitchens’s attorney, confirmed to The Washington Post that Kitchens on Wednesday entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant pleads guilty while maintaining innocence. Kitchens was sentenced to five years in prison, with credit for the time he had already served and the remainder suspended, Sadow said.
Rappers Young Thug, Gunna arrested on gang-related charges
In announcing the indictment in May, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told reporters that many defendants in the case could be sentenced to life in prison, saying “it is my opinion that violence in our community deserves maximum penalties.”
Had his case gone to trial, Kitchens could have faced a sentence between five and 20 years.
When he first joined YSL in 2016, Kitchens said in a statement through his attorney, he “did not consider it a ‘gang,’ ” but rather a “group of people from metro Atlanta who had common interests and artistic aspirations.”
Kitchens added in the statement that he has not been cooperating with prosecutors and has not agreed to testify for or against anyone else involved in the case.
“I have chosen to end my own RICO case with an Alford plea and end my personal ordeal by publicly acknowledging my association with YSL,” he wrote.
Kitchens’s plea requires him to complete 500 hours of community service. For 350 of those hours, “he will speak to young men and women about the hazards and immorality of gangs and gang violence, and the decay that it causes in our communities,” according to Sadow.
The agreement with prosecutors also prohibits Kitchens from possessing guns or contacting any of the co-defendants, unless it is through his attorneys or the music label.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
Young Thug is latest rapper to have lyrics used against him in court
A two-time Grammy nominee, Gunna has worked with Young Thug multiple times, including earlier this year on the hit “Pushin P,” which had a Top 10 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
In the 88-page May indictment, lyrics and music videos from both of the rappers were cited as evidence — a controversial practice objected by artists.
“It is intensely problematic that the state relies on song lyrics as part of its allegations,” Kitchens’s legal team wrote in a May motion. “These lyrics are an artist’s creative expression and not a literal recounting of facts and circumstances.”
Helena Andrews-Dyer, Julian Mark and Sonia Rao contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T05:00:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gunna released from jail following plea in RICO racketeering case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/gunna-jail-release-plea-rico/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/gunna-jail-release-plea-rico/ |
BATON ROUGE, La. — Angel Reese scored 21 of her career-high 32 points in the first half and had 15 rebounds to lead No. 11 LSU to an 88-42 victory over Lamar on Wednesday night.
SALT LAKE CITY — Alissa Pili scored 25 points, Gianna Kneepkens had 17 points, six rebounds and five assists, and Utah beat Colorado in the Pac-12 opener for both teams. | 2022-12-15T05:01:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reese scores career-high 32, No. 11 LSU women beat Lamar - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/reese-scores-career-high-32-no-11-lsu-women-beat-lamar/2022/12/14/39d0e8e2-7c32-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/reese-scores-career-high-32-no-11-lsu-women-beat-lamar/2022/12/14/39d0e8e2-7c32-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Carolyn Hax: Sister wants a baby with the married man she’s seeing
Dear Carolyn: My sister and I have always been very close, but our relationship has gotten complicated. She’s become very involved with a married man, and it includes every single trope you can think of. He’s being mistreated by his wife. He’s only staying in it for the kids. He’s going to leave any minute, once he can figure out the logistics. It’s very important that my sister stay in the shadows so as to not jeopardize his (eventual) divorce. Blah blah blah! They’re all what a guy would say if he just wanted to screw around and had no intention of leaving his family. But my sister believes them.
Anyway, she got pregnant earlier this year, and I was quite devastated for her, but she seemed really happy about it. Then she miscarried. I think she dodged a tremendous bullet, but she is devastated. She has shared with me that she's going to try to get pregnant again, and reading between the lines I am almost certain her “boyfriend” has no idea.
I know his name and where he works. Do I tell him his side piece is about to potentially ruin her own life and his? Or do I stay out of it because Sis is a legal adult, even if she’s not acting like one?
— Complicated
Complicated: Oh my goodness, stay out of it. Way, way out.
She's not ruining anything without his help.
That she wants this awful entanglement might be your sister’s problem in itself, or a symptom of her much bigger problems. I’m guessing the latter. If that sounds right, then please focus on that bigger thing and not the married-man thing. It’s really hard but it can also be clarifying and more helpful than yelling, “What the hell are you doing?!”
Re: Sister’s mess: You need to find SOME way to tell her “partner” about the suspicion that she’s planning to fake an “oops.” This is reproductive coercion and sexual assault, same as if a man slipped off a condom or threw away birth control pills.
Anonymous: You tell the sister this. You name the evil for what it is. It’s only suspicion, too, not knowledge.
Hello Carolyn: My son and his wife are hoarders. They won’t throw anything away. (They do have a compost bin.)
The small yard is an embarrassment. Every surface in their home is covered, every cabinet and bookshelf chock-full. The unopened mail is in a pile. I don’t think they’ve cleaned the fridge in eight years.
I am so worried. I want to buy them fire extinguishers for every room.
As I see it, my daughter-in-law has undiagnosed OCD. (She jokes about it sometimes.) My son acquiesces to her to avoid arguments.
I hate visiting them, but I love them so much! There’s nothing I can do — is there?
— Silently Screaming Mom
Silently Screaming Mom: I am sorry. It is just so painful to be a bystander sometimes. Please call the help line at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 800-950-6264. Guiding individuals with mental health issues, and their families, is what NAMI does.
· If there are kids and the house is unsafe, call CPS. No kid should be in an unsafe house, be it fire hazard or with trash attracting vermin.
· If there are pets not being cared for properly, call the local Humane Society. | 2022-12-15T05:26:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Sister wants a baby with the married man she’s seeing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/15/carolyn-hax-sister-married-man-baby/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/15/carolyn-hax-sister-married-man-baby/ |
Amid plenty of political and economic turmoil, Britain can still claim to be a global leader in at least one respect: Its universities are some of the world’s best. By luring students from all over, they provide a crucial source of intellectual capital, soft power and hard cash. Unfortunately, this system could soon be undermined by politics.
Alarm bells went off among British conservatives recently, when new data for the year ending in June showed a large jump in immigration. Stemming the flow of foreigners has been a longtime priority for the Tories. Yet even they recognize that the UK is woefully short of fruit pickers, nurses and other kinds of labor. As a result, the spotlight has fallen on foreign students, who make up the largest proportion of non-EU nationals entering the country and more than half of all net immigration.
That has prompted some conservatives to argue that the UK’s student visa policies are being abused, especially by those bringing dependents into the country. They’re demanding that the numbers be curtailed. It’s an idea that should be scrapped in the new year.
For one thing, foreign students are vital to sustaining the country’s universities. Since UK schools don’t have the large endowments that underpin many of those in the US, they’re especially reliant on tuition payments. Foreigners make up about 22% of total students — more than half at some top London universities — and their fees can be double what locals pay. For many schools, these students are the difference between solvency and shutting the doors. Far from crowding out domestic students, moreover, immigrants cross-subsidize their instruction and research.
There are also economic benefits. A typical foreign student contributes more than £100,000 ($124,000) a year to the UK economy. Those who entered university in 2018 are estimated to have collectively added nearly £30 billion over the course of their studies, far outweighing their cost to public services (of about £2.9 billion). Although most leave soon after graduating, those who stay are hardly freeloaders: Like other working people, they pay taxes, VAT, social security fees and so on.
These contributions are felt around the UK — not just in London and the wealthier southeast — making international students an important part of rebalancing the country’s economy. And for all the benefits brought by higher tuition payments, it’s hard to put a price on the network effects and soft-power impact of so many foreign students returning home with strong British ties. Kicking them out to meet an arbitrary immigration target could hardly be more shortsighted.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government hasn’t yet clarified its plans. Although officials at the Department for Education have tried to tamp down the idea of new restrictions on foreign student visas, the policy will ultimately be determined by the Home Office, which is currently led by an anti-immigration hardliner.
Some reports have suggested the government’s main focus will be “student dependents and low-quality degrees,” which might seem like a reasonable compromise. In fact, it’s woolly thinking: There’s no evidence that dependents (who are entitled to work) are a net burden on the country, and a crackdown on foreigners pursuing technical qualifications or “lesser” degrees risks starving lower-tier schools and their local communities of a crucial source of funding and talent, for no good reason.
In a strategy document published last year, the government rightly noted that Britain’s education sector punches above its weight but below its potential. Sunak, who has spoken of his own life-changing experience as a foreign graduate student in the US, should commit to more international students — not fewer. Countries lucky enough to attract foreign students are usually doing something right. Britain should keep doing it.
• The US Can’t Afford to Lose Skilled Immigrants: Editorial
• US and UK Should Welcome Talent, Not Drive It Away: Mihir Sharma
• Britain Can’t Look Beyond Oxford for Its Leader: John Authers | 2022-12-15T06:32:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Britain’s Best Export Needs Nurturing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/britains-best-export-needs-nurturing/2022/12/15/8646ae44-7c3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/britains-best-export-needs-nurturing/2022/12/15/8646ae44-7c3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The European Parliament, Bribes and a Question
As many of us obsess over sordid details of fraud in the crypto world, let’s not forget about good old filth with tried-and-true cash. I’m thinking of the suitcases stuffed with €1.5 million ($1.6 million) — much of it in €50 bills — that Belgian police found this week as they raided some apartments and offices in Brussels.
The main hoard allegedly belonged to Eva Kaili, a Greek member of the European Parliament and, until this week, its vice president. She supposedly got the money from Qatar in return for saying nice things about the emirate and helping its efforts to lift visa requirements. Kaili is now being detained by Belgian authorities, as are several others apparently involved. She denied any wrongdoing. So did Qatar, which is already the butt of bad press as it hosts the World Cup.
The scandal naturally has eurocrats hyperventilating and euroskeptics gloating. “European democracy is under attack,” the Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, told the plenary rather breathlessly as she opened a big internal investigation.
That assessment seemed to equate the attempted bribes with, say, the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or this month’s putsch attempt in Germany. But they’re not really comparable. First, Kaili, if she did take bribes, would hardly be the first legislator in human history to be revealed as venal. Second, it’s not clear that the European Parliament matters much.
Viewed in the context of that second parameter, bribes are actually a macabre sort of compliment. Obviously, somebody somewhere considers members of the European Parliament (MEPs) worth corrupting. This implies that the chamber has power within the European Union. Similar signs of respect include the “counter sanctions” that authoritarian China slaps on MEPs whenever the Parliament imposes its own sanctions.
The reality is more humdrum. Yes, the EU as a bloc has enormous heft in global commerce, regulation and a few other other fields. And the Parliament, as one of the bloc’s seven institutions, does have some say in how the proverbial sausages are made. But only some.
When the idea for the Parliament was born in the 1950s, European federalists hoped it would one day become the analog of a lower chamber in the legislature of a “United States of Europe,” similar to the House of Representatives in the US or the Commons in the UK. The Council of the European Union, where member states are represented by their ministers, would function as an upper house; the Commission as a proto-executive; the Court of Justice as the judiciary branch.
But when the first MEPs were elected in 1979, their assembly could only consult, not legislate. It largely stayed that way, although successive treaties between member states gave Parliament a few powers of veto and finally, from 2009, the role of joining the Council in adopting laws written by the Commission. In theory, the Parliament holds the Commission to account. In practice — as this week’s scandal showed — it holds hardly anybody to anything.
In fairness, none of this is really the Parliament’s fault. It remains weak because the EU isn’t and doesn’t want to be a United States of Europe. Instead of “integrating,” member states instead take the European approach and add lots of complexity and confusion. For example, there are nowadays two Councils, which normal people regularly confuse with each other (and even with a third, which has nothing to do with the EU at all). By some counts, the EU has 10 or 11 “presidents.”
In mixing incomprehensibility with outrageous expense, the Parliament fits well into this ecosystem. Most voters in the 27 member states haven’t a clue what goes on there or who represents them. They typically regard “European” elections as national midterms in which they settle domestic scores. Once politicians get to the EP, they sit in transnational party groups that make little sense to anybody.
Another thing that makes the Parliament quintessentially eurocratic is bloat. It has slightly more than 700 members, making it one of the largest legislatures in the world (though not quite as swollen as the UK House of Lords, which has nearly 800). It also has armies of bureaucrats and interpreters who constantly translate the verbiage produced among the 24 official languages, including Irish and Maltese but excluding Basque and Galician.
Then there’s location, location, location. Literally, since the Parliament has three — in Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg. Only the one in Brussels makes sense, but France will never drop the plenary in Strasbourg. The result is a so-called “traveling circus,” as MEPs and their retinues schlep between the cities. Estimates vary of the costs in euros, time, logistics and carbon emissions — but most are impressive.
Not so the Parliament’s caliber, such as it is. There are a few career MEPs, who deliberately chose this chamber. But most are failed national politicians who escaped to Brussels/Strasbourg to sit out their careers in comfort.
One MEP who proudly claims to embody the Parliament’s spirit is Martin Sonneborn, a German satirist. He originally ran on a platform that included reintroducing the famous EU regulation on cucumber curvature. Nowadays he copes — MEPs sometimes decide on 240 issues in 40 minutes, he says — by simply alternating between Yes and No votes.
This week’s suitcases full of €50 bills would seem to be more grist for the satirists’ mills. The Parliament must clean its Augean stables of outright venality, of course. But why stop there? The traveling circus should go next, and then the translators — after all, Europeans do have a lingua franca.
Who knows? Maybe member states will even transfer real power to the Parliament one day. At that point, it might become interesting not only to those with bribes to give but also to Europeans with votes to cast.
44 European Leaders Gather in Prague. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Andreas Kluth
The European ‘ Way of Life’ Isn’t Looking Too Sweet: Lionel Laurent
Europe Can’t Go Into Winter Thinking All Is Lost: Maria Tadeo | 2022-12-15T06:32:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The European Parliament, Bribes and a Question - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-european-parliament-bribes-and-a-question/2022/12/15/875141a0-7c3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-european-parliament-bribes-and-a-question/2022/12/15/875141a0-7c3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Delaware visits Princeton after Nelson's 30-point game
The Tigers are 3-1 in home games. Princeton is the Ivy League leader with 36.4 rebounds per game led by Tosan Evbuomwan averaging 6.7.
The Fightin’ Blue Hens are 0-3 on the road. Delaware ranks sixth in the CAA with 31.7 rebounds per game led by Christian Ray averaging 10.6.
TOP PERFORMERS: Evbuomwan is averaging 13.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists for the Tigers. Ryan Langborg is averaging 11.5 points over the last 10 games for Princeton.
Nelson is averaging 19.9 points, 3.1 assists and two steals for the Fightin’ Blue Hens. Jyare Davis is averaging 16.5 points for Delaware. | 2022-12-15T08:04:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Delaware visits Princeton after Nelson's 30-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/delaware-visits-princeton-after-nelsons-30-point-game/2022/12/15/547944de-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/delaware-visits-princeton-after-nelsons-30-point-game/2022/12/15/547944de-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Incarnate Word takes home win streak into matchup with Bethune-Cookman
BOTTOM LINE: Incarnate Word hosts Bethune-Cookman aiming to prolong its five-game home winning streak.
The Cardinals are 3-1 in home games. Incarnate Word is eighth in the Southland scoring 68.0 points while shooting 42.2% from the field.
The Wildcats are 0-4 on the road. Bethune-Cookman is sixth in the SWAC allowing 74.1 points while holding opponents to 43.9% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jonathan Cisse is averaging 11.5 points for the Cardinals. Trey Miller is averaging 9.3 points over the last 10 games for Incarnate Word.
Zion Harmon is scoring 12.6 points per game and averaging 1.4 rebounds for the Wildcats. Marcus Garrett is averaging 12.1 points and 5.3 rebounds for Bethune-Cookman. | 2022-12-15T08:05:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Incarnate Word takes home win streak into matchup with Bethune-Cookman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/incarnate-word-takes-home-win-streak-into-matchup-with-bethune-cookman/2022/12/15/5e5a68a2-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/incarnate-word-takes-home-win-streak-into-matchup-with-bethune-cookman/2022/12/15/5e5a68a2-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Middle Tennessee hosts the Chattanooga Mocs after Teafale Lenard scored 20 points in Middle Tennessee’s 85-75 overtime victory against the Belmont Bruins.
The Blue Raiders have gone 3-0 at home. Middle Tennessee ranks third in C-USA in team defense, giving up 62.9 points while holding opponents to 41.9% shooting.
The Mocs have gone 2-2 away from home. Chattanooga ranks sixth in the SoCon with 9.2 offensive rebounds per game led by Khristion Courseault averaging 1.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: DeAndre Dishman is scoring 12.2 points per game and averaging 5.8 rebounds for the Blue Raiders. Eli Lawrence is averaging 10.0 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 40.2% for Middle Tennessee.
Jake Stephens is averaging 21.4 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.1 blocks for the Mocs. Jamal Johnson is averaging 10.7 points for Chattanooga. | 2022-12-15T08:05:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lenard and Middle Tennessee host Chattanooga - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/lenard-and-middle-tennessee-host-chattanooga/2022/12/15/70a2441c-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/lenard-and-middle-tennessee-host-chattanooga/2022/12/15/70a2441c-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Georgetown faces the Xavier Musketeers after Amir “Primo” Spears scored 22 points in Georgetown’s 83-64 loss to the Syracuse Orange.
The Musketeers are 1-0 in road games. Xavier ranks seventh in the Big East with 8.5 offensive rebounds per game led by Jack Nunge averaging 2.3.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jay Heath averages 1.9 made 3-pointers per game for the Hoyas, scoring 14.4 points while shooting 37.8% from beyond the arc. Spears is averaging 17.2 points, 4.9 assists and 1.5 steals over the last 10 games for Georgetown.
Souley Boum is averaging 17 points and 4.2 assists for the Musketeers. Adam Kunkel is averaging 1.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Xavier. | 2022-12-15T08:06:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Spears leads Georgetown against Xavier after 22-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/spears-leads-georgetown-against-xavier-after-22-point-game/2022/12/15/664b468a-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/spears-leads-georgetown-against-xavier-after-22-point-game/2022/12/15/664b468a-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Stewart leads Santa Clara against UC Irvine after 24-point performance
BOTTOM LINE: Santa Clara faces the UC Irvine Anteaters after Carlos Stewart scored 24 points in Santa Clara’s 78-75 win over the Portland State Vikings.
The Broncos are 6-1 in home games. Santa Clara is third in the WCC in team defense, allowing 70.0 points while holding opponents to 42.2% shooting.
The Anteaters are 2-2 on the road. UC Irvine is 7-1 in games decided by at least 10 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Brandin Podziemski is averaging 19.2 points, nine rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.4 steals for the Broncos. Stewart is averaging 13.6 points over the last 10 games for Santa Clara.
DJ Davis averages 3.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Anteaters, scoring 16.1 points while shooting 45.5% from beyond the arc. Dawson Baker is averaging 13.6 points for UC Irvine. | 2022-12-15T08:06:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stewart leads Santa Clara against UC Irvine after 24-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/stewart-leads-santa-clara-against-uc-irvine-after-24-point-performance/2022/12/15/62d5a716-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/stewart-leads-santa-clara-against-uc-irvine-after-24-point-performance/2022/12/15/62d5a716-7c49-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The false claim about who committed 2 right-wing attacks
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) falsely claimed Dec. 13 that the individuals behind the Buffalo shooting and the Paul Pelosi attack had liberal political leanings. (Video: U.S. House Oversight Committee)
“The Buffalo shooter, heinous, evil being, absolutely there can be no excuse for it. We hear a lot about right-wing extremists, but this guy was an admitted socialist who was thankful that the conservative movement was dead. … The Pelosi attacking, David DePape was a leftist himself, a radical leftist. And the point is, there’s no exclusivity here.”
— Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), at a House hearing on white supremacy, Dec. 13
The House Oversight Committee held another in a series of hearings on the threat posed by white supremacists and militia groups. After about an hour of testimony by various experts, Biggs made the observations above about two men involved in high-profile attacks this year — Payton Gendron, who has pleaded guilty in the killings of 10 people at a Buffalo Tops grocery, and David DePape, who allegedly attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
One wonders how closely Biggs had been paying attention to the hearing. What’s the evidence that either of these men were leftists at the time of the attacks?
Let’s first look at Gendron. Earlier in the hearing, one of the expert witnesses, Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League, noted that Gendron, 18 at the time of the Buffalo shooting, “was drawn to hateful content on 4chan. He incorporated this content into his online manifesto.”
4chan is a wholly anonymous, anything-goes forum that in recent years has evolved into an incubator of far-right propaganda and conspiracy theories. For instance, QAnon, the conspiracy theory that Democrats are a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, first emerged on 4chan in 2017.
“Extremists are learning from one another, echoing the violence of one attack in the planning for the next — from Charleston to Christchurch to Pittsburgh to El Paso to Buffalo,” Segal said in his written testimony. “Perhaps no one epitomizes this trend more than Buffalo attacker Payton Gendron.” He noted that Gendron posted a “virulently racist” 180-page manifesto explaining the reasons for the attack and chose “a specific store and Zip code because he believed a high percentage of Black people lived there.”
When we asked Biggs spokesman Matthew Tragesser why he thought Gendron was a socialist, he said there was “ample evidence,” both in Washington Post reporting and in the manifesto. One of The Post articles cited by Tragesser noted that in his manifesto, Gendron references “eco-fascism,” an ideology that blames environmental problems on immigration and overpopulation. “I would prefer to call myself a populist,” he wrote. “But you can call me an ethno-nationalist eco-fascist national socialist if you want, I wouldn’t disagree with you.”
National Socialism isn’t the same as what most Americans would consider left-wing socialism. It’s a reference to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, known in German as Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. In English, that translates to National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Gendron, in effect, was a neo-Nazi.
Gendron wore a sonnenrad, a Nazi symbol used by modern white supremacists, and adorned his weapons with symbols and phrases closely associated with white supremacism.
Indeed, eco-fascism “is related to the racist ‘great replacement’ theory, which posits that White people are being intentionally replaced by non-White people,” said The Post article shared by Tragesser. “It has roots in the Nazi emphasis on ‘blood and soil’ and the need for a purified ‘fatherland.’ ”
When we pointed that out to Tragesser, he replied via email: “He is referring to the socialist elements [of the manifesto]. Anti-capitalism, nationalization of industries, abortion, etc. You can’t cherry-pick here.”
Who’s doing the cherry-picking here? At the hearing Biggs did not refer to these issues, though he did mention that Gendron attacked Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch for “being a Christian Zionist” and mentioned conservative commentator “Ben Shapiro multiple times, with rather pejorative terms, because of his Jewish heritage.”
This would suggest Gendron is antisemitic — but that does not make him a socialist.
Another article provided by Tragesser, a commentary published in the Washington Examiner, included a quote that referred to conservatism. But whether it reveals Gendron as a socialist is questionable.
“Ask yourself, truly, what has modern conservatism managed to conserve?” the shooter wrote. “Not a thing has been conserved other than corporate profits and the ever increasing wealth of the 1% that exploit the people for their own benefit. Conservatism is dead. Thank god. Now let us bury it and move on to something of worth.”
As for DePape, who is accused of attacking 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer, The Post reported that he “published hundreds of blog posts in recent months sharing memes in support of fringe commentators and far-right personalities. Many of the posts were filled with screeds against Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people.”
Other posts contained delusional thoughts, including one posted on Oct. 24 — four days before the attack — about an invisible fairy that had attacked an acquaintance and sometimes appeared to DePape in the form of a bird.
Tragesser supplied a Fox News article highlighting that Democrats blamed the attack on right-wing rhetoric, but he otherwise did not explain why Biggs said DePape was a “radical leftist.”
Extremist researchers said that a review of DePape’s life and writings found that he had been radicalized over a period of eight years, moving from Green Party support and nudist activism to a mix of racist, anti-Jewish and misogynistic rhetoric. The turning point appears to have been in 2014 with GamerGate, which The Post described as “the vicious campaign of online abuse against female video game developers and critics, a precursor to the rise of coordinated right-wing or bias-fueled troll attacks.”
The Pinocchio Test
What motivates extreme violence is sometimes difficult to parse. Neither man was especially articulate, and easy categorizations are sometimes difficult. But Biggs is ignoring clear evidence that the Buffalo shooter and Pelosi’s attacker were advocates of far-right ideologies at the time they committed their attacks.
Instead, he cherry-picks the alleged shooter’s writings to claim he was a socialist and reaches back into the Pelosi attack suspect’s past to claim he was a leftist.
Biggs earns Four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios | 2022-12-15T08:42:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The false claim about who committed 2 right-wing attacks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/false-claim-two-right-wing-attacks-were-committed-by-socialist-leftist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/false-claim-two-right-wing-attacks-were-committed-by-socialist-leftist/ |
Purdue NW chancellor apologizes for mocking Asian languages at commencement
Purdue University Northwest’s Chancellor Thomas Keon mocked Asian languages at the school’s commencement ceremony on Dec. 10. (Video: The Washington Post)
A chancellor in Indiana’s Purdue University system apologized Wednesday for making “offensive and insensitive” remarks during a commencement ceremony last week, when he mockingly impersonated speakers of Asian languages.
Thomas L. Keon, the chancellor of Purdue University Northwest, was speaking at a graduation ceremony on Saturday. After approaching the lectern, he spoke in what was intended to be an imitation of an Asian language.
“That’s sort of my Asian version of his,” Keon added before trailing off, referring to a previous speech by local radio host James Dedelow. In an address presented just before Keon spoke, Dedelow had said that he sometimes used a “made-up language” on-air and when talking to family.
Keon published an apology after video of his remarks elicited angry reactions online. “I am truly sorry for my unplanned, off-the-cuff response to another speaker, as my words have caused confusion, pain, and anger,” he said.
In the statement, Keon promised to “take action to prevent such missteps from occurring in the future.”
He also noted the formation of a school task force that aims to encourage “a welcoming climate and culture” and increased diversity in the student body. “We are all human. I made a mistake, and I assure you I did not intend to be hurtful and my comments do not reflect my personal or our institutional values,” he said.
Keon and officials at Purdue University Northwest could not immediately be reached for comment late Wednesday.
The Purdue University Board of Trustees, which oversees Purdue University Northwest, also could not be immediately reached. It said through a spokesman that it was aware of Keon’s statements and had accepted his apology, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Racist anti-Asian hashtags spiked after Trump first tweeted ‘Chinese virus,’ study finds
Others were less receptive.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president and director-counsel of the legal defense fund for the NAACP, called Keon’s apology “utterly insufficient” and questioned whether the Purdue University Board of Trustees was genuinely satisfied with it. She also noted others at the ceremony seen laughing on camera at Keon’s words: “Have they issued statements of remorse?” she said on Twitter.
Stephanie Chang, a Democratic state senator in Michigan, said she had gotten “used to hearing this kind of ignorance … but not from a high ranking educational leader,” she tweeted in reaction to a recording of Keon’s remarks.
The Asian American Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, said Keon had humiliated Asian American students, while undermining their sense of belonging and safety on campus. The foundation said it expects “the university to deliver a comprehensive plan” to fulfill its pledges to help address issues faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and to prevent another occurrence.
Norman Chen, the foundation’s chief executive, said in an emailed statement that Keon’s display “normalizes the narrative that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners” and represents an example of “casual racism in the form of jokes.”
Keon’s remarks further fuel “the current climate of ant-Asian hate,” he added.
Reports of violence and crimes targeting the Asian community in the United States have risen over the past two years amid an increase in anti-Asian hate that some experts say was fueled in part by the coronavirus pandemic. In a survey released this year by the Pew Research Center, 6 in 10 Asian adults said violence against Asian Americans was increasing, while 7 in 10 Asian Americans said they worried about being threatened or attacked.
In an open-ended questionnaire last year from Pew, most who perceived increasing violence against Asian Americans attributed it to racism, racist rhetoric by former president Donald Trump and a tendency by some Americans to blame Asian people for the coronavirus pandemic. | 2022-12-15T09:30:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Purdue Northwest Chancellor Thomas Keon apologizes for racist remarks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/purdue-chancellor-thomas-keon-asian-racist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/purdue-chancellor-thomas-keon-asian-racist/ |
He flew a ‘thin blue line’ flag to honor his son. His HOA banned it.
Tom DiSario flew a “thin blue line” flag outside his house in Pataskala, Ohio, nearly every day for 5½ years to honor his police chief son who was gunned down in the line of duty.
On Nov. 16, he lowered the flag — begrudgingly. DiSario, who is in his mid-60s, hopes the concession is a temporary defeat in a months-long battle with his homeowners association over whether he can publicly display the tribute to his slain son.
Last week, DiSario sued the Cumberland Crossing Homeowners Association and Omni Community Association Managers, alleging they violated his First Amendment rights when they threatened him with fines if he didn’t take down the flag, which they deemed “a political statement.” In his federal lawsuit, DiSario is asking a court in the U.S. District of Southern Ohio to block the homeowners association from punishing him if he raises the flag again.
“He was honoring his son for his service to his community, and he is being attacked because of it,” DiSario’s lawyer, James Bopp Jr., told The Washington Post.
The “thin blue line” is a metaphor for law enforcement being the last line of defense preventing the social order from devolving into chaos. In 2014, a flag was created to symbolize the concept and express support for the pro-police “Blue Lives Matter” movement — a direct response to its namesake. Proponents say it’s a way to express support for law enforcement, while others deride it as a racist response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
DiSario’s son, Steven “Eric” DiSario, was gunned down while responding to a call about an active shooting at a nursing home on May 12, 2017. The gunman also fatally shot a nurse and a nurse’s aide before killing himself. Steven DiSario, a 38-year-old father of five who had a sixth child on the way, had been chief of the police department in Kirkersville, a small village east of Columbus, for only about three weeks when he died.
His father started flying the “thin blue line” flag outside his house in Cumberland Crossings that same month, according to the lawsuit. DiSario did so without issue until May of this year, when he received a “Deed Restriction Violation” notice from Omni. The management company told DiSario that his flag was “a political statement” and demanded that he remove it within 10 days, threatening fines or legal action if he did not, according to the May 13 letter.
“To be honest, when I saw the letter that people are fighting me over something very valuable to me and personal, I broke down and cried,” DiSario told the Newark Advocate at the time. “That’s how much it meant to me.”
Dye, Omni’s president, argued in a July 5 response that DiSario, in moving to a neighborhood governed by a homeowners association and its bylaws, had agreed to limit his freedom-of-speech rights “as a fair exchange for his neighbors’ agreement to limit their right to express themselves, in manners that may be objectionable to him.”
Omni’s demand that DiSario remove the flag had nothing to do with disrespecting his son’s sacrifice, nor disregard for his death, Dye added. “Many of those involved in the operation of the HOA and in its management (the author of this letter, included) have a deep and abiding respect for the police, and mourn Mr. DiSario’s loss.”
“The HOA’s policies and procedures result in the exact same treatment for a sign that says ‘I love x’, as for a sign that says ‘I hate x’. Content is not relevant, and the Board does not judge enforcement based on content,” he wrote.
On Nov. 11, Omni sent another letter, informing DiSario that it would fine him $175 if he didn’t take down the flag and $5 for every day it stayed up. Five days later, he lowered the tribute to his dead son.
The neighborhood squabble had already bubbled up to the Ohio legislature. In August, two Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would make it illegal for homeowners associations, mobile home park operators and landlords to restrict the display of the “thin blue line” flag, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Last month, the bill was referred to a state House of Representatives committee, according to the legislature’s website.
An Instacart driver saw an elderly couple’s ‘thin blue line’ flag. So she ran over their groceries, police say.
The “thin blue line” flag has been flown by white supremacists in recent years, becoming a controversial symbol.
In 2019, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) banned the flag from county buildings, saying he was trying to improve police-community relations. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) rebuked Elrich, saying he was “offended and disgusted” by the decision.
As protests and riots broke out across the country in the days after George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, sheriff’s deputies raised a “thin blue line” flag in front of the Hamilton County Jail in Cincinnati. A city councilman criticized the sheriff for escalating tensions by hoisting a “politically charged” symbol as thousands were protesting police brutality in the city’s streets. The sheriff’s office replaced it with an American flag.
Last year, the chief judge for Maryland’s district courts ordered court employees to stop wearing the symbol while at work after Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe complained that doing so jeopardized defendants’ rights to a fair trial.
Rachel Weiner, Clarence Williams, Rebecca Tan and Laura Meckler contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T10:05:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tom DiSario sues HOA over ban on ‘thin blue line’ flag honoring son - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/thin-blue-line-flag-lawsuit-father/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/thin-blue-line-flag-lawsuit-father/ |
President Xi Jinping’s insistence on adhering to a so-called Covid Zero policy isolated China as other countries that suffered far-worse outbreaks returned to a semblance of pre-pandemic life. Three years after the first documented case, the country has significantly loosened its stringent regime, which has undoubtedly saved lives but also weighed heavily on the economy and fueled protests in several major cities. The abrupt about-turn — during winter and with an under-vaccinated elderly population — raised concerns about the risks of a devastating outbreak.
1. What was the Covid Zero policy?
When SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, first emerged in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, the Chinese government viewed it as a public health threat that had to be eliminated at all costs. Authorities required isolation for patients and their close contacts, as well as quarantine for anyone arriving from abroad. Any outbreak domestically was met with a barrage of targeted testing, contact tracing and quarantines to try to nip it in the bud, with citywide lockdowns sometimes imposed when there were fewer than a hundred cases. The approach, which became known as “dynamic clearing” or dynamic Covid Zero, acknowledged that infections would occur but aimed to stop onward transmission. That goal became more elusive with the emergence of more infectious variants of the virus.
2. What’s the policy now?
After first rolling back many of the Covid restrictions in early November, authorities on Dec. 7 went much further. Those who are infected but have no or mild symptoms and whose residences meet certain conditions can now isolate at home, allowing them to avoid the dreaded quarantine camps that some people fear more than catching Covid. Close contacts of infected people can also isolate at home. Negative tests or a green health code on contact-tracing smartphone apps are no longer needed for domestic travel or to enter most public areas. Authorities were instructed to be more precise in designating areas locked down to prevent Covid’s spread, limiting them to residential units or blocks rather than entire housing compounds, neighborhoods or streets. Mask-wearing remains mandatory in most places, and anyone flying in from overseas must still quarantine, though the time period has been cut from seven days in a hotel and three at home to five days in a hotel and three at home. The number of PCR tests required before entering China is now one rather than two, and a system that penalized airlines for bringing virus cases into the country has been scrapped.
3. What role did protests play in the changes?
The changes were likely accelerated by social unrest in several cities. As the virus became more contagious, it led to more frequent outbreaks, some of which resulted in hardcore lockdowns, where most people were required to stay at home. A handful dragged on for more than a month, such as in Shanghai and the northeastern industrial province of Jilin, leading to economic and social hardship and distress for people with chronic medical conditions. Thousands of citizens took to the streets in several cities in late November to protest the disruptions to normal life — a highly unusual occurrence in a country where dissent generally isn’t tolerated. Smaller conflicts, in which residents refused to be locked down or be carted off to the isolation camps, also proliferated.
4. What are the risks from unwinding Covid Zero?
• Health risks: While nearly 90% of the population have been vaccinated against Covid and a growing number have received boosters, the rates are lower for the elderly, the most vulnerable group. In China, only 69% of those 60 and older and just 40% of those older than 80 have had booster shots. In the US, over 70% of those over 65 have received a first booster, while 44% have received a second. And because infections have been so low, few people in China have immunity from having survived SARS-CoV-2. A study by researchers in Hong Kong found that almost 1 million people in China may die from Covid-19 without a mass vaccination booster campaign and other measures to reduce the impact of the virus. The dangers are aggravated by the timing of the policy changes: just as China enters winter, when respiratory diseases such as Covid tend to surge. In addition, China’s patchy hospital network could easily crash under a sudden spike in infections.
• Economic risks: A major outbreak would darken China’s economic outlook, already clouded by trouble in the domestic property market and the global repercussions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Workers would stay at home, business activity would slow down, factories would struggle to secure supplies and people would stay away from restaurants and shops.
• Political risks: The government has reported fewer than 6,000 deaths from Covid on the mainland, mostly early in the pandemic, compared with about 1 million in the US, which has a population less than a quarter the size. Authorities have used those figures to portray the Chinese system of governance as superior. Having used the importance of saving lives as justification for three years of harsh Covid containment measures, the government may struggle to contain public discontent as the death toll mounts now that the policy has eased.
5. What are authorities doing to mitigate the health risks?
There was a pledge to improve vaccination rates among the elderly, and health officials shortened the list of medical exemptions for the shots to increase the take up. Authorities have urged grassroots medical institutions to help meet health-care demands so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. Large hospitals have been asked to set aside special wards to treat vulnerable Covid patients, while the number of so-called fever clinics will be increased to identify cases. | 2022-12-15T11:06:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How China Looks to Be Easing Its Covid Zero Strategy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-china-looks-to-be-easing-its-covid-zero-strategy/2022/12/15/d1c46c5e-7c5b-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-china-looks-to-be-easing-its-covid-zero-strategy/2022/12/15/d1c46c5e-7c5b-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
A person is dead after a shooting in Prince George’s County
A person was killed on Walker Mill Road in Prince George's County. (iStock)
A person was fatally shot Wednesday night in Prince George’s County.
Few details were immediately available, and the person’s name was not released, pending the notification of relatives.
On Twitter, county police said the incident happened in the 6700 block of Walker Mill Road near Addison Road South. | 2022-12-15T11:06:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Person fatally shot in Prince George's County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/person-fatally-shot-prince-george/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/person-fatally-shot-prince-george/ |
Five friends died from fentanyl in Colorado. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post; Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Meryl Kornfield
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — From the doorway of Apt. 307, District Attorney Brian Mason could see the five bodies inside. They lay awkwardly on the floor and couch, their arms and legs contorted — a sign of sudden collapse.
A man in jeans and closest to the door was splayed on his back, his left leg bent at an odd angle. Not far from him, a woman with long brown hair was slumped on the kitchen floor, her face pressed against a lower cupboard. Another woman, in a black sweatshirt, lay just past the kitchen counter nearby. On a love seat toward the back of the room, a man sat frozen. A woman in a gray T-shirt had toppled over him, her head resting on his chest. Blood dripped from their faces.
A mass murder, Mason thought.
Mason, a slim 45-year-old who grew up in Colorado, had arrived at the suburban Denver apartment complex shortly after 8 p.m. on Feb. 20. It was such a frigid night that his knees were shaking. He climbed the outside staircase to the third floor with Sgt. J.P. Matzke, the supervisor of a local drug task force.
The scene looked like a party gone terribly wrong, Matzke told Mason. Five people down. Crime-scene technicians collecting evidence inside were suited up in Hazmat gear. They were worried that whatever substance had caused so many people to die simultaneously might still be in the air. They had tested for carbon monoxide and ruled that out.
A partly empty Crown Royal whisky bottle stood on the kitchen counter among plastic cups, empty shot glasses and cut orange straws. In the middle was a mirrored tray with lines of white powder. A red heart-shaped balloon floated above, tied by a string to a bouquet, remnants of Valentine’s Day the week before. In the center of the room was an empty baby swing.
The first police officer on the scene, a mother herself, had found a crying 4-month-old baby girl in a pink bassinet in another room. She had been alone for nearly 12 hours. She was one of seven children who lost a parent that night.
Not everyone at the party had died, Matzke told Mason. The police officer had found a disoriented woman inside. At first, the woman tried to shield the white powder and told the officer she and her friends had all just fallen asleep.
“We took cocaine, and that’s it,” she mumbled before she was taken to a hospital.
But that wasn’t correct.
District Attorney Brian Mason of Colorado’s 17th Judicial District is shown in Commerce City, Colo., in September. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
A gloved investigator sealed the white powder into plastic bags and scanned them with a handheld laser tool called TruNarc. Mason watched, fascinated. He had never heard of TruNarc, let alone seen it in action. The $30,000 mass spectrometry device compared the substance with nearly 500 possible drugs.
The small orange screen flashed the word “Fentanyl.”
Exactly what Mason had feared. He had been warning people for months about deadly fentanyl mixed into recreational drugs.
The powerful, intensely addictive opioid has unleashed the most lethal narcotics crisis in U.S. history. Deaths caused by the drug are officially recorded as overdoses, but to Mason, that did not capture what really happened in Apt. 307.
It was a poisoning, he thought.
More than 107,000 people died in the United States last year by overdosing on illegal drugs. That is the country’s highest figure ever, and two-thirds of the deaths were attributed to fentanyl. Fentanyl deaths have nearly doubled since 2019.
Fentanyl death rates
Deaths per 100,000 people
Fentanyl death rates in U.S. counties
Some of the dead had sought out the drug and used too much of it, but many others, like the five in Commerce City, had no idea that they were taking something that would kill them with the speed of cyanide.
Fentanyl is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, putting users on a razor’s edge between intense pleasure — the high — and mortal peril.Under proper medical supervision, it is extremely effective for treating severe pain because of its ability to depress the central nervous system. But when too much fentanyl hits the bloodstream, it can quickly trigger respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.
The Denver area was becoming a transportation hub for the synthetic opioid. Mason had been briefed by the police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration that Mexican cartels were sending massive amounts of fentanyl, either mixed into counterfeit pain pills or in powdered form, across the southwestern U.S. border.
From there, drug dealers moved the fentanyl through Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas and into Colorado, where two large interstate highways converge. The loads were then smuggled to Chicago and out across the country. Police were finding fentanyl in cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
Last December, Mason gave a speech with the Colorado attorney general warning about the terrifying new threat. “Fentanyl is killing our kids,” Mason said.
Then, on the Sunday of Presidents’ Day weekend, the nation’s largest-known mass fentanyl poisoning hit his own district.
Mason left the apartment and walked back downstairs to a huddle of police officials. The parking lot of the North Range Crossings apartment complex was closed off with yellow tape and awash with flashing red lights and dozens of police officers, firefighters and crime scene technicians. Officers were trying to hold back neighbors and distraught family members crying and demanding to know what had happened.
Mason looked over at the reporters behind the yellow tape. He walked toward the glow of the lights readied for the 10 p.m. live newscast.
As a prosecutor for 15 years, Mason had made it a rule not to talk to the news media this early in an investigation. But tonight was different.
Mason, a father of three, was terrified. How much more of this bad batch of drugs was out there? he wondered. How many more people were going to die tonight?
“No drug is safe right now,” he told the reporters. “People who are taking drugs and not knowing that fentanyl is laced within them are dying. And tonight, tragically, it appears that five of our fellow citizens died because of it.”
As he turned away from the cameras, his mind pivoted back to the apartment. Who had sold them the drugs? If investigators found the dealer, could they prove that the person had intentionally added fentanyl? Did the dealer even know it was in the cocaine?
So much felt unknown to Mason that night. But he was sure of one thing: These deaths were not a blameless accident. They were a crime.
Rain sweeps over Commerce City in September. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
‘We’ll find them’
At a meeting of local and federal investigators a week later, Mason learned more about the five people who died in Apt. 307. On a screen, police shared a detailed timeline and what they knew about the victims.
The five were good friends who had gathered for a small party late at night. The hosts were Sabas “Sam” Daniel Marquez and Karina Joy Rodriguez, both in their 20s, who lived with their 4-month-old baby, Aria. Sam and Karina had gone to dinner with his sister, Cora Marquez, 29, and her husband, Humberto Arroyo Ledezma, 32, and invited them over afterward. Two friends from Karina’s waitressing job at Mickey’s Top Sirloin steakhouse, Jennifer Danielle Cunningham, 32, and Stephine Monroe, 29, joined them in the apartment.
(Provided by Derron Reed/Provided by Derron Reed)
The five people who died in an apartment in Commerce City, Colo., on Feb. 20 are: above left, Sabas “Sam” Daniel Marquez, Karina Joy Rodriguez, while she was pregnant with her daughter, Aria, and Stephine Monroe; top right, Humberto Arroyo Ledezma; above right, Jennifer Danielle Cunningham. (Photos provided by Derron Reed, Irma Ledezma and Debbie Kerr.)
From everything the detectives could piece together in the first days, no one at the party had meant to buy fentanyl. Whoever brought what they thought was just cocaine into the apartment had meant to share it for an evening of fun with friends. There was so much fentanyl in the white powder that the drug-testing device did not initially detect cocaine. By snorting the drug commonly sold in counterfeit pill form, the group ingested the fentanyl in one of the most dangerous ways because it hit the bloodstream faster.
Mason and the investigators knew that on Jan. 28, in another fentanyl poisoning, authorities had linked a string of deaths in D.C. to a bad batch of cocaine. The District’s police chief would later call the overdoses “probably the worst I’ve heard of.” In St. Louis, paramedics had returned again and again over a February weekend to an apartment complex where 11 people overdosed and eight died. All had smoked crack cocaine laced with fentanyl.
There would be more fentanyl mass poisonings in the next two months — at least seven separate instances resulting in 58 overdoses and 29 deaths. The drug is disproportionately killing Black people and Native Americans. In Cortez, Colo., three Native Americans died in a motel room. During spring break in South Florida, six young men, including five cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, overdosed but survived. Over an April weekend, 17 Black people in two D.C. neighborhoods overdosed, and 10 of them died.
The sheriff in Gadsden County, Fla., said that fentanyl “was not in my vocabulary” until police linked fentanyl-laced cocaine to at least six deaths and 10 nonfatal overdoses over a couple of days in July. “It hit us like a ton of bricks,” said Sheriff Morris Young.
Many of these people had used what they thought was cocaine or crack, authorities said. A Washington Post analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2021, fentanyl was involved in 74 percent of heroin deaths, 71 percent of cocaine deaths and 54 percent of meth deaths. In fact, yearly cocaine fatalities over the past decade have quintupled, and 90 percent of that rise can be explained by fentanyl.
Mass overdoses in 2022
Fifteen overdosed and nine died in Washington, D.C.
On Jan. 28, 15 people overdosed, nine of whom died from crack cocaine laced with fentanyl. The victims, ranging from 43 to 74 years old, were mostly found in a neighborhood near Nationals Park in Southwest Washington. Investigators linked the deaths to the bad batch.
Four overdosed and two died in Omaha, Neb.
On Feb. 6, two women died and two others overdosed but survived in an apartment. They ingested what they thought was cocaine, but it was laced with fentanyl.
Eleven overdosed and eight died in St. Louis, Mo.
In a three-day span in February, paramedics were repeatedly called back to the same apartment building, responding to 11 overdoses. Eight people later died from crack-cocaine laced with fentanyl.
Three overdosed and died in Cortez, Colo.
When police arrived at a motel room on March 3, they found small blue pills with an M stamp and three people who had died, one person slumped in a chair and two lying on the ground. The three were Native American tribal members; one was a mother of five.
Twenty-one overdosed and three died in Austin, Tex.
On March 4, 21 people overdosed downtown after taking crack cocaine and methamphetamine laced with fentanyl. Three of them died. Fatal overdoses linked to fentanyl were up more than 200 percent in 2021 in Travis County, where Austin is located.
Six overdosed and survived in Wilton Manors, Fla.
Six college students on spring break, including five cadets in the U.S. Military Academy, were hospitalized after two had purchased what they thought was cocaine and brought it into a vacation rental, according to court documents. Two went into cardiac arrest; all six survived.
Seventeen overdosed and 10 died in Washington, D.C.
Over one April weekend, 17 people overdosed, 10 of whom died, in two Northeast Washington neighborhoods after using cocaine laced with fentanyl. The victims ranged in age from mid-30s to about 60. It was the second mass poisoning of 2022 in a city where opioid deaths, the vast majority from fentanyl, nearly doubled from 2018 to 2021.
Three overdosed and two died in Columbus, Ohio
On May 4, police and fire crews responded to an off-campus apartment where two Ohio State University students were found unconscious. One of the students died the next day; the other died 14 hours later. The coroner’s report said they accidentally died from fentanyl intoxication.
Nineteen overdosed and six died in Gadsden County, Fla.
In a four-day span over July Fourth weekend, emergency responders were called to 19 overdoses throughout the majority-Black county in Florida’s panhandle. Six people died from cocaine and fentanyl, the medical examiner later ruled.
Law enforcement officials think many more mass poisonings have not been counted. But the U.S. government does not track mass-overdose events — not the DEA, the CDC or the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
As Mason listened to the investigators, he wondered why someone had put fentanyl in the cocaine used at the party.
Mason was often asked that question. In his many meetings with drug agents, he learned that dealers have been taking advantage of fentanyl powder’s cheap abundance and supreme potency to “spike” their cocaine, heroin and meth. The drug allows them to deliver a more powerful high and keep addicted clients coming back for more.
Counterfeit pills that have caused deaths are sometimes called “kill pills” or “hot pills.” Customers who can tolerate opioids often seek out the dealers who can deliver the more powerful high.
But in some cases, street dealers do not even know that fentanyl is in the cocaine they are selling. And the recipe is not consistent; like the distribution of chocolate chips in cookies, some of the mixed drugs have more fentanyl than others.
At the end of the hour-long presentation, Mason looked around at all the police brass. He was hopeful. The federal officials had said they would contribute any forensic resources investigators needed. Police detectives already had several promising leads.
“We’ll find them,” David Olesky, the then-acting assistant special agent in charge of the DEA’s Denver division, confidently told a local TV reporter.
This was the first big test of leadership for Mason, who just the year before at 44 had become the elected district attorney — the chief law enforcement official for Colorado’s 17th Judicial District. He had political ambitions. Mason, the son of an Air Force captain, had decorated his childhood bedroom not with sports stars but with posters of former U.S. presidents. After college, he got a job as a legislative aide in the Clinton White House and worked as a staffer for a Democratic congressman. His district attorney’s office displays photos of him with four presidents, along with models of Air Force One and Marine One.
Mason’s twin brother, Jeff, had become a prominent White House reporter in Washington. And from his own time in the nation’s capital, Mason knew how important it was for federal agencies to focus their attention and resources on a local case like this. He felt pressure to find those responsible for the five deaths and provide justice for the victim’s families.
Success in the Commerce City fentanyl case could raise awareness of the drug’s alarming dangers — and put Mason in the center of the national campaign.
Karina Joy Rodriguez’s mother, Debby Garcia, and Karina’s sisters, Feliz Sánchez García, left, and Mileiah Rodriguez, display a photo of Karina. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Debby Garcia with her granddaughter Aria, who lost her parents, Karina and Sam. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Aria, the daughter of Karina and Sam, both of whom died of fentanyl poisoning, in September at 11 months old. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Exhaustive investigation
Over the next weeks and months, Mason worked closely with the investigators, who traced the movements of everyone in that apartment in the two days before they died.
Mason learned that a camera on a neighbor’s doorbell had recorded when each person walked into Apt. 307 between 1 and 2 a.m. on Feb. 20. Investigators didn’t know precisely when they died. But they knew that they all fell to the ground suddenly — so quickly that no one had a chance to reach for their nearby cellphones.
About 12 hours later, Celina Fisher arrived at the apartment to check on her brother, Sam Marquez, because he wasn’t answering his phone. No one answered the door, which was unlocked.
She stepped inside and screamed. Her brother was lifeless on the floor near the door.
Jennifer and Stephine lay on the floor on either side of the kitchen counter. On the surface were alcohol and lines of white powder.
On the couch, Sam’s partner, Karina, slumped on top of her brother-in-law, Humberto.
Celina’s stepsister, Cora, was alive but dazed. She stirred. “We’re okay,” she told Celina as she was coming out of a stupor. “We’re okay.”
At first, Celina didn’t notice her brother’s 4-month-old baby in her bassinet. She was behind a closed door to the master bedroom.
Celina ran to her brother, yelling his name, trying to wake him. She pulled out a canister of the naloxone spray Narcan. She carried the overdose antidote because she had used opioids before and was aware of the dangers. She pushed the white tube up his bloodied nose, squeezing the medicine. But he was already cold to the touch. She left him and went around the room, shouting at the others, trying to wake them. No one moved. Celina called 911 at 3:37 p.m.
“There’s one, two, three, four, five people!” Celina shouted into the phone.
When the police arrived, Cora told them her husband, Humberto, was diabetic and needed medicine, not realizing he was dead. They ushered Cora and her baby niece into ambulances. Crime scene technicians spent the next 12 hours collecting evidence at the apartment. Detectives executed 10 search warrants for the phones, cars and homes of each person in Apt. 307.
They searched the GPS history on the victims’ phones to determine where they had been. They pulled together hundreds of hours of videos from surveillance cameras that covered the victims’ workplaces, homes, a bar where two of them had gone beforehand and the apartment where the five died. They read their texts and examined their call records. They scrutinized every detail in their lives — including the money and keys in their pockets and purses and the people in their social media networks.
One of the phones could not be cracked. It belonged to Jennifer, a manager at Mickey’s. Friends and relatives told police they didn’t know the password.
Investigators tested the baggies of white powder and examined the packaging for fingerprints and DNA. They analyzed the quantity and toxicity of the drugs found in the apartment.
Despite record numbers of American deaths, federal officials have been slow to react. U.S. drug agents say it has been nearly impossible to stop the flow of fentanyl. Since July, the volume of fentanyl entering the country has doubled. Tijuana is now the most prolific trafficking hub into the U.S. for the drug.
Nationwide, the DEA has found that the potency of pills with fentanyl has increased in samples taken over the years, from 1.3 milligrams per pill in 2017 to 2.34 so far this year — just above the lethal dose. It is a sign the nation’s opioid tolerance is going up. The cartels are boosting the potency of their fentanyl pills because habituated opioid users want the higher doses. Those who do not frequently use opioids or have never taken them are most at risk of being killed by the stronger drugs.
Autopsies conducted on the five found marijuana, alcohol, cocaine and fentanyl in their blood. The amount of the synthetic opioid in their systems was far more than a lethal dose. Fentanyl reduces blood pressure and slows breathing, and fluid fills the lungs. Lack of oxygen turns fingertips and lips blue or purple and damages the brain. As the heart rate drops, blood seeps from the nose and mouth along with a white foam.
The investigators set up an anonymous tip line to identify suspects. They offered a reward for any information about fentanyl distribution in the area.
Two months in, Mason studied the scattering of evidence that police had gathered. There were the drugs: Police had the white powder found on the kitchen counter. They also found three baggies of cocaine in the apartment — two on the kitchen counter and one in a purse. Two bags were laced with fentanyl, one was not, Commerce City Police said. One was older and had accidentally been washed in the laundry, making it even more difficult to determine who could have sold it.
Detectives had narrowed their focus to three “people of interest” in the area who could have been the source of the drugs. But which of those three was connected to a bag that contained fentanyl?
Text messages showed that Jennifer, Stephine and Karina had met up earlier at Jennifer’s house and shared cocaine. The group then separated: Jennifer and Stephine went to a bar together, and Karina returned to Apt. 307, where she and her partner, Sam, would host the others. About midnight, Karina sent a text to the women at the bar asking if they could get more cocaine. If not, she said, they should come over for a drink anyhow. Stephine replied, saying that Jennifer had a bag she found in her laundry. They told Karina they were trying to get some more and mentioned the names of two people they could ask. But no text message indicated that they managed to find cocaine from a specific source.
Detectives weren’t getting the break they needed. Two potential suspects denied responsibility; the third had died in the apartment. One man police questioned said that he did sell cocaine to someone connected to the party the night before, but that his powder did not have fentanyl in it because he and his brother had sampled it and would have died.
Cora, the sole survivor, cooperated with police but did not provide any information that could help them trace the source of the fentanyl.
Mason’s case was becoming a messy, forensic jigsaw puzzle.
Ezra, 10, and his sister, Kendall, 4, at home in Thornton, Colo., in September. Their mother, Stephine Monroe, was among the five who died in Commerce City. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Photos of Stephine Monroe and her two children are arrayed on her mother’s coffee table in Commerce City. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Tina and Joseph Rosenberger, in Commerce City in September, lost their daughter Stephine Monroe in the Feb. 20 mass fentanyl poisoning. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Prosecuting fentanyl dealers
Even if investigators could make the connection, Colorado did not have a charge for “distribution of fentanyl causing death.” First-degree homicide was off the table because the charge required that the dealer intended to kill the customers — and there was no evidence of that so far. Without being able to tie anyone to the drugs in the apartment, Mason wasn’t even going to be able to bring a misdemeanor charge.
This was a huge case, with shattered family members pleading with Mason to do something. Legislators already had been looking at stronger laws, and the horror of the Commerce City deaths created new momentum.
Even as the details of Mason’s prosecution case remained cloudy, the political urgency was clear.
For Mason, the case was a platform to advocate for harsher penalties for future fentanyl crimes.
In mid-April, he sat before a packed hearing room inside the gold-domed Colorado Capitol in Denver to argue his case for legislation that would make distribution of fentanyl causing death a crime in Colorado. At least 23 states and Congress have passed similar legislation, increasing penalties for dealers whose drugs kill users.
He felt the tension in the room. Several legislators and activists were fighting the bill because they thought it furthered the failed war on drugs, targeting people of color and sending people struggling with addiction to prison rather than providing them treatment.
“As most of you surely know, just a few months ago, we lost five people in one single incident of fentanyl poisoning in Commerce City. And at the time, it was the single largest number of deaths from fentanyl poisoning in the country,” Mason said. “I knew then and predicted then that we would not keep that record for long, and we haven’t. But it is a challenging example and a powerful example of how much fentanyl is ravaging this state.”
Later in the hearing, Karina’s sisters, Feliz Sánchez García and Mileiah Rodriguez, testified.
Karina’s sisters and her mother, Debby Garcia, were still mourning Karina’s death — and caring for her baby girl, Aria, who had been left alone for 12 hours in Apt. 307. They were struggling to comfort Karina’s 10-year-old son, Josiah, who lived with his father.
Feliz vividly remembered the cold night she waited at the edge of the police perimeter for news about her sister. She had spotted an officer who seemed to be in charge. People were shouting at him, trying to find out what happened.
Maybe if I just ask nicely, he’ll say my sister is alive, she thought.
Now a photo of Karina’s smiling face was pinned to her sweater as she sat beside her sister Mileiah in the statehouse hearing room.
The sisters said they hoped their prepared remarks, read from their cellphones, would finally correct the false impression in news reports that their sister was an irresponsible mother addicted to drugs. They feared what their niece and nephew might read online about their mother when they grew up.
“Four month-old girl orphaned after her mom and dad took her to drug-fueled house party in Colorado where they died after taking ‘fentanyl-laced cocaine,’ ” one headline had read.
They testified that their sister was not a regular drug user. She had been devoted to the baby girl she had always wanted, Feliz said. She didn’t use drugs while she was pregnant, nor while she was breastfeeding. Karina spent most nights at home, because she didn’t want to leave her baby with anyone else.
“She didn’t have a drug problem, but she decided to have a little fun one night,” Mileiah, the other sister, testified through tears. “And she was poisoned. Even if she did decide to use cocaine that night, she didn’t deserve to die. She was murdered.”
“She was not a person who struggled with addiction,” added Feliz, who was sitting beside her sister. “She said in the weeks before her death that she was the happiest she had ever been.”
Mason listened to the sisters with rapt attention. Up to this point, he had avoided interacting with any of the victims’ relatives because he knew that investigators were interviewing family members to determine whether any of them might be linked to the drugs.
As Mason watched the sisters testify, he decided he wanted to meet them.
Mason approached them in the hallway outside the hearing. He hugged them.
“I am so sorry for your loss,” he said as they wept.
The hearing lasted 12 hours, and legislators passed the bill in May.
Mason joined Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) on the steps of the Capitol as Polis signed the fentanyl law. Karina’s family and other victims’ relatives stood behind him, holding up photos of loved ones who had been killed by fentanyl.
Feliz and another family member read off the names of 23 people killed by fentanyl whose families had attended the hearing.
“They all had names, and they’ll never be forgotten,” she said.
Mason embraced Feliz. Her testimony had been critical to the bill’s passage. But the district attorney could not use the newly created charge retroactively in her sister’s case.
“No one should die from fentanyl poisoning,” Mason said from the lectern. “This bill is a start.”
As she left the Capitol that day, Feliz wondered when Mason would hold a big news conference to announce that he was charging a drug dealer with murder for the deaths of her sister and the four others.
Derron Reed carries his 4-year-old daughter Kendall at his son Ezra’s football practice in Thornton in September. Stephine Monroe was his partner of 15 years and the children’s mother. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Derron with Kendall and Ezra in the home they had shared with Stephine. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Kendall and Ezra with their father in Arvada, Colo., in September, seven months after Stephine died. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Two months later, on July 27, Mason gathered the federal and local investigators in his office’s law library. He went around the table and asked each of them what evidence had been gathered and whether there were any developments.
When they finished, he had one final question: “So what you all are telling me is that we don’t have the evidence right now to charge this crime?”
They all said yes.
On Sept. 14, Mason gave the news conference he had long dreaded. Flanked by the deputy U.S. attorney in Colorado, J. Chris Larson, and Commerce City Police Commander Dennis Flynn, Mason looked glum.
“Five residents of our community died from fentanyl poisoning in what was one of the largest mass incidents of this nature in the United States,” he began. “Since that time, we have had a multiagency, massive investigation into their deaths.”
“As of this moment today, we do not have the evidence to charge anyone with these deaths,” he said.
For now, the Commerce City case was cold.
“I genuinely hope that someday we will be able to find and hold accountable those who are responsible,” he said. “But, based on the evidence that we have today, we do not have the ability to charge anyone today. And I do not know that we ever will.”
Karina’s sister Mileiah was watching Mason’s news conference on Facebook at the doctor’s office where she worked. Mason had already alerted her family, but she still couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“As a family member, we’re extremely disappointed,” she immediately wrote on Facebook.
Derron Reed, the partner of Stephine, could not even watch Mason’s news conference. He had been frustrated and angry over the pace of the investigation all along. And now, after six months, the police had no answers. How was he ever going to explain to their two children, 10-year-old Ezra and 4-year-old Kendall, that their mother had been killed and that no one was going to be punished?
Derron adjusts Ezra’s gear for football practice, which Stephine used to attend. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
While Ezra is at football practice, Derron spends time with Kendall. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Amid the grief of losing his partner of 15 years, Derron had been struggling to help his children make sense of their mother’s death. He told his son that adults sometimes did things to relieve stress that children should not do.
“She was just having fun. She didn’t take her own life,” he said. “She was poisoned.”
The investigation had faded, but the impact on Commerce City was lasting. Denver authorities reported a sharp increase in requests for the opioid reversal drug naloxone. The grisly image of five dead men and women flashed back into the mind of the first police officer on the scene every time she drove by the apartment complex. A police trainee was so traumatized by what he had seen that he quit the force. The former Commerce City police chief said that in his nearly 31 years in law enforcement he had never seen anything so horrific.
Celina Fisher, who had found her brother and the others dead in Apt. 307, struggled with the trauma. Her substance abuse worsened, according to a relative.
On Halloween night, Celina was found unconscious in a park. She was rushed to a hospital and died the next day. The medical examiner listed alcohol and methamphetamine toxicity as the cause of death.
Mason returned to the North Range Crossings apartments one more time. He parked his car and walked to the building where the five had died. He hadn’t been back there since that night in February when he saw what he was sure was a mass murder.
The vibrantly colored apartment complex looked and felt completely different to him in the daylight. Mason thought about how everyone had wanted answers that night — and had worked so hard subsequently to get them. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t make a case, and it haunted him.
He walked back to his car. The fentanyl crisis in the Denver area and across the country was growing worse.
Later that week, Mason would announce that he was charging two suspected drug traffickers with the death of their 1-year-old. She had ingested 10 times the amount of fentanyl that would kill an adult.
How are we ever going to be able to stop this? Mason wondered.
In September, Mason, the district attorney, stands in front of the Commerce City apartment building where the five died. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Sari Horwitz and Meryl Kornfield reported from Commerce City, Colo. Nick Miroff and Steven Rich reported from Washington. Alice Crites and María Luisa Paúl also contributed to this report. Photography by Salwan Georges. Video by Jorge Ribas.
Design and development by Tyler Remmel. Additional design and development by Allison Mann, Laura Padilla Castellanos and Rekha Tenjarla. Graphics by Júlia Ledur and Aaron Steckelberg. Data analysis by Steven Rich. Video graphics by Sarah Hashemi.
Trish Wilson and Courtney Kan were the lead editors. Additional editing by Manuel Canales, Sarah Childress, Gilbert Dunkley, Chiqui Esteban, Christian Font, Meghan Hoyer, Jai-Leen James, Jessica Koscielniak, Thomas LeGro, Robert Miller and Martha Murdock.
Data for the fentanyl death rates graphic is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sources for the crime scene graphic are police reports, photos and interviews with family members and first responders. Sources for the mass overdose events box are the DEA, court documents, CBS 3 KMTV, Riverfront Times, Denver Gazette, Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, Columbus Dispatch and Florida’s District 2 Medical Examiner’s Office.
The Post analyzed data from a range of sources to measure the rise of fentanyl in the United States and Mexico. Among other topics, reporters compiled data on drug seizures, overdose and reversals, border crossings and fentanyl potency.
Reporters made open records requests in both countries, retrieved data from government websites to create data sets and obtained and analyzed seizure data from High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, run by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, by submitting a detailed research proposal to gain access.
Visual story: To live and die in Tijuana
Sari Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who covers criminal justice issues for The Washington Post, where she has been a reporter for 38 years. She is co-author of American Cartel: Inside The Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry. Twitter Twitter
Meryl Kornfield is a staff writer on the general assignment desk of The Washington Post. Twitter Twitter | 2022-12-15T11:15:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A mass fentanyl poisoning tests a Colorado prosecutor - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/fentanyl-poisoning-colorado/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/fentanyl-poisoning-colorado/ |
Georgia Republicans, suddenly losing runoffs, float nixing runoffs
A sign depicting former president Barack Obama, the late Rep. John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. appears outside a polling location during last week's runoff election in Georgia. (Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg)
Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has come out in favor of nixing the state’s current runoff system, which requires the top two candidates to run again if nobody gets a majority of the vote.
And the timing is certainly conspicuous. That’s because Republicans have just come off yet another loss in a crucial Senate runoff — their third in the last two years.
As for whether the move would obviously advantage the GOP? That’s less clear.
What is evident is that runoffs aren’t as favorable for the GOP as they once were. In 10 Georgia runoffs held between 1992 and 2018, Republicans won 9 of 10 races and improved their vote shares in 8 of the 10 races. That includes Raffensperger’s own 2018 race, in which he turned a 0.4-point edge on Election Day into a 3.8-point win.
In four of those races, Republicans overturned a deficit. The average shift over that span? In the GOP’s favor by more than five points, on the margin.
The story of the past two years has been very different. Democrats not only won all three Senate runoffs held after the 2020 and 2022 elections, they improved their performances over the general elections in each.
They gained about three points in each 2020 race and nearly two points in the 2022 runoff. In the former cases, they actually took fewer votes than Republicans on Election Day but later won. Democrats also closed the gap in another 2020 runoff, for the Georgia Public Service Commission, by more than two points (though their candidate ultimately lost).
Those are effectively 4 of the 5 best runoffs for Georgia Democrats in the last 30 years — and the three most consequential — all in the span of fewer than 24 months.
To be sure, there is a long history of officials changing election rules in ways that, not coincidentally, would seem to benefit their side. As FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley noted recently noted, that applies to the Georgia runoffs themselves.
The runoffs originated as a Jim Crow-era effort by White Georgians to dilute the political power of Black Georgians, as The Post’s Matt Brown wrote recently. They were initially pushed by a segregationist state legislator who blamed his reelection loss on Black voters and later admitted the change was meant to suppress the Black vote.
Democrats lowered the runoff threshold from a majority to 45 percent in the mid-1990s after Sen. Wyche Fowler (D-Ga.) was forced into a runoff and then lost (he would have won outright under the new, lower threshold). Then Republicans took over the state and changed it back to a majority threshold after the lower threshold enabled Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) to avoid a runoff in 1996 with less than 49 percent of the vote.
Another prominent example this century is Massachusetts Democrats repeatedly changing the state’s rules for Senate vacancies depending upon which party controlled the governor’s mansion and the ability to appoint a senator.
Raffensperger, for his part, has said his recommendation was motivated by the burden that this system places on election officials, particularly after the GOP-controlled state legislature reduced the runoff period to four weeks after Election Day (runoffs were previously held in January). That placed the runoff right in the middle of the holidays and condensed officials’ work. And runoffs are more frequent in recent years, now that Georgia is effectively a swing state: There have been six such elections since 2018 — after every major election — compared to eight total between 1992 and 2015.
Among the ideas Raffensperger has floated are expanding early-voting locations, lowering the threshold back down to 45 percent or adopting ranked-choice voting (as states like Alaska and Maine have). The last option is intriguing and would effectively create what advocates call an “instant runoff,” but it would seem to be a hard sell right now with Republicans who are skeptical of the idea — particularly after Trump-oriented Republicans struggled under the new system in Alaska.
Nixing the runoff would almost certainly be dead on arrival if Republicans were still overperforming in them. But it’s far from certain that Democrats will continue benefiting from them, which might be why some prominent Democrats and civil rights groups appear open to the idea.
Democrats seem to have benefited in the 2020 runoffs because control of the Senate was at stake while Trump focused on trying to overturn his reelection loss — a move that some (including, sort of, Trump) wagered potentially hurt GOP turnout. And in last week’s runoff, the GOP appeared hamstrung by the flawed candidacy of their nominee, Herschel Walker; he had performed better on Election Day, it seemed, because more popular Republicans like Gov. Brian Kemp (R) were also on the ballot. Those are unusual dynamics that are unlikely to be replicated in future runoffs.
But runoffs do appear to have, at the very least, lost much of their utility for the GOP. Now we’ll see if other Georgia Republicans agree that it’s time to do away with (or reform) them. | 2022-12-15T13:21:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia Republicans, suddenly losing runoffs, float nixing runoffs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/georgia-runoff-republicans-advantage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/georgia-runoff-republicans-advantage/ |
The announcement comes as Gunn announces a new project after taking over DC Studios leadership
Henry Cavill in Los Angeles on Monday. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
DC Studios has a new “Superman” movie in the works — but it will not feature Henry Cavill as the eponymous hero of the franchise, according to the studio’s co-director and the British actor himself.
“After being told by the studio to announce my return back in October, prior to their hire, this news isn’t the easiest, but that’s life,” Cavill said in his Wednesday statement. “I respect that James and Peter have a universe to build. I wish them and all involved with the new universe the best of luck, and the happiest of fortunes.”
Gunn and Safran were hired to lead DC Studios this October, and this is their first major project announcement since taking over. Gunn — who is known for directing “The Suicide Squad” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” — said he has been writing the script of the new “Superman” film “for a while” and is looking for a director for the project.
HBO Max and Discovery Plus to merge into single streaming service
Zack Snyder, who directed the four previous “Superman” DC Extended Universe films, which starred Cavill, was asked in a radio interview last month whether he was returning to DC Studios under Gunn and Safran’s leadership. “As far as I know, which is very little … I am doing my thing and haven’t had anyone give me a call or anything,” he responded. “So I am just wishing them all the best and hoping that they make some cool movies.” | 2022-12-15T13:47:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Henry Cavill not returning as Superman in new James Gunn film - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/15/henry-cavill-dropped-superman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/15/henry-cavill-dropped-superman/ |
Ask Sahaj: How do I tell family I’m not coming home for the holidays?
Hi Sahaj: I’m not going home for the holidays, and I’m not sure how much of the truth to tell my extended family. I know that in theory simply saying I have other plans should work, but my family struggles with enmeshment. The truth is, I have a boundary that I won’t be alone with one of my family members, and not being there is the best way to uphold that. I’m not sure what story this family member has created in my absence, and I don’t want to share the full story to anybody anyway. How do I navigate conversations about declining holiday invitations without airing out drama and reliving traumas?
— Opting Out
Opting Out: It’s incredibly difficult to stick to a boundary, especially in an enmeshed family, or a family where boundaries are not encouraged or respected. It’s also brave and scary to put yourself first when you may be expected to choose your family at the expense of your own well-being.
Some of your family will not understand why you are not coming home, especially if this is the first time you choose not to. You should have the conversation as early as possible so they have time to adjust and manage their own feelings. Talking about it early is a kind way to be honest — it saves you from having to lie when they bring up the holidays — and gives them time to process your absence before the holidays come around. And remember, even if your family is disappointed, you can recognize this is the best decision for you. Both things can be true at the same time.
You get to decide how much detail to share and with who when sharing your boundary. With some people, you might feel more comfortable sticking to a short and matter-of-fact response, like, “I know we usually spend the holidays together, but this year I won’t be coming home because [insert explanation here].” While it would be ideal to say you’re not coming home without an explanation, in an enmeshed family, I’d suggest sharing a clear and concise explanation. It’s up to you if you want to be honest or say you have other plans.
With others, you may want to offer a concession, like, “If you’d like to make plans to see each other one-on-one in the new year, I would really like that.” Or “I will give you a call on [holiday]!”
The way you communicate your boundary may vary, but it’s important to be clear, consistent and kind yet firm. You can practice how you’ll respond if you are questioned or challenged. Something like, “I understand it’s upsetting that I’m not coming home this year. It’s the best thing for me right now, and I appreciate you respecting that.”
Make sure you are differentiating between what is your responsibility — how and when you communicate — and what is not your responsibility — managing other people’s emotions. Setting boundaries in an enmeshed family can cause guilt, so it’s important to understand that feeling guilt does not mean you are doing something wrong.
You mentioned not wanting to share the full story, and I want to reiterate that you should not have to put yourself in a situation where you are retriggered because of a family member. However, if there are certain relationships where you feel safe, consider being more honest about why you aren’t coming home to gain support you may need. This is totally up to you. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you’re taking care of yourself. But, it may help you build and nurture the relationships that are important to you.
I want to remind you that you also don’t owe this family member your secrecy. In an enmeshed family, where fierce loyalty is expected, it can feel like we have to protect our relatives and keep their secrets, but it’s not your responsibility to lie for them. Choosing not to be honest with people because you don’t want to is different from choosing not to be honest because you feel like you are not allowed to.
Eventually, you may want to seek out professional support to help you work through any unprocessed trauma you are still experiencing, and in navigating new dynamics with your family because of it.
Since you are opting out of the holidays with family, I want to encourage you to seek out a different tradition — with yourself or with friends — to fill your season with safety and joy in whatever ways you can. You deserve it. | 2022-12-15T14:09:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: How do I tell family I’m not coming home for the holidays? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/15/ask-sahaj-family-not-coming-home-holidays/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/15/ask-sahaj-family-not-coming-home-holidays/ |
Analysis by Alexis Leondis | Bloomberg
If you think high-yield savings accounts offer juicy rates to park some cash, wait until you see what money-market funds are paying.
Yields paid by the typically staid mutual funds, which invest mostly in short-term government bonds, spiked from 0.02% earlier this year to more than 3.6% as of early December, according to Crane Data’s 100 money-market fund index. After this week’s rate increase by the Federal Reserve, money-market fund yields are poised to soar even higher.
Some funds, such as Allspring Money Market Fund, Goldman Sachs Investor Money Market Fund and JPMorgan Liquid Assets Money Market Fund, are already offering yields close to 4% or more.
That compares with a 3% average payout for a high-yield online savings account. Although that’s the highest in at least five years, banks haven’t exactly kept pace with the Fed’s interest-rate increases since May.
That’s because the rates offered by banks are ultimately at their discretion and influenced by factors other than the Fed’s moves. The biggest banks are still flush with pandemic cash so have barely budged from what they’re paying depositors on their savings accounts. (The average for all banks was 0.24% as of Nov. 21, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but if you bank at say, Wells Fargo or Chase, you’re lucky if you get 0.02%.)
Online banks are more eager for customer deposits so have been more responsive at passing on the Fed’s rate increases to their customers. Still, given that money-market funds are investing mostly in Treasuries, their yields tend to move in lockstep with the Fed’s rate. “Money funds always give the market what the Fed gives them,” said Pete Crane, founder of Crane Data.
Money-market funds are often used to safeguard cash that could be needed on short notice, such as for a home down payment or an emergency fund, or as a holding spot between portfolio investments. Given the funds’ attractive yields, more investors should be giving them a second look.
Some already are. Money-market funds have been reeling in assets since April, hitting $4.72 trillion this month — close to the record high of $4.79 trillion in May 2020, according to the Investment Company Institute.
Remember though, money-market funds aren’t synonymous with bank accounts. They don’t have FDIC insurance, and there have been instances where assets have dipped below $1 a share, or “broke the buck,” and customers couldn’t get all their money back.
That’s less of an issue now after regulatory reforms adopted as a result of the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. In addition, most money-market funds just hold government bonds that are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. In the past, the funds that got into trouble invested in short-term corporate bonds.
Still, investors for whom safety is the No. 1 concern should stick with money-market funds that invest solely in government paper, not corporate bonds. The fund name will usually specify what it’s investing in, but check the fund documents to be sure.
Of course, other cash-like investments are also offering high yields (relatively speaking) — looking at you short-term sexy Treasury notes — but it may be more difficult to access your cash than with money-market funds. You can schedule and stagger short-term purchases of certain duration T-bills on TreasuryDirect.gov, but that takes a little more legwork than just buying some money-market fund shares directly.
It’s a similar story with certificates of deposit — they offer potentially higher yields, but investors must commit to locking up their cash for a set period.
For those whose brokerage firms offer money-market funds alongside their accounts as a place in which to “sweep” excess cash, beware. Those funds rarely have the best yields, said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com. If you have a large balance, you should consider switching to a different money-market fund that offers a bigger payout.
Keep an eye on fees, though. Unlike a bank account or a Treasury bill, money-market funds charge for managing your money. When yields were abysmally low, many money funds waived most of their fees, charging an average 0.08% instead of the typical 0.27%, Crane data shows. But with higher yields, fees are back to normal levels.
Finally, if you’re in a high tax bracket, consider money-market funds that invest in municipal bonds, which provide interest that could be exempt from federal or state income taxes. Their yields aren’t quite as high as other money-market funds right now, but Crane says it’s only a matter of time before they bounce back. They tend to see big outflows at the end of the year and on April 15, so as prices fall, yields will head north.
• Not Even AI Is Able to Beat the Market These Days: Aaron Brown
• Forget What You’ve Learned About Investing: Merryn Somerset Webb | 2022-12-15T14:10:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Starving for Yield? Check Out Money-Market Funds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/starving-for-yieldcheck-out-money-market-funds/2022/12/15/63b86ed2-7c7d-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/starving-for-yieldcheck-out-money-market-funds/2022/12/15/63b86ed2-7c7d-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
From 1940 to 1960, the population of the nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay more than doubled to 3.6 million. In a 1959 report, the US Commerce Department’s Office of Area Development projected that it would double again by 1990, and yet again by 2020, when the region was expected to house 14.4 million people.
That’s not what happened. As of the April 2020 US Census, the population of the nine counties was 7.8 million, and according to Census Bureau estimates it has fallen by about 200,000 since then.
Long-run population projections often miss, of course, but what makes the 1959 report such a fascinating historical document is just how it went wrong. If anything, it undersold the region’s economic potential, understandably failing to envision that the Bay Area would establish itself as the world headquarters of a set of at-the-time-unimagined new technology industries. Through 2000, area job growth actually exceeded the projections. (This chart goes back only to 1990 because that’s how far back the jobs numbers are readily available)
But the report also missed the rise of anti-growth attitudes that would come to dominate the region’s politics over the next half century — also understandably, given that those attitudes were only just beginning to emerge in 1959 and were to some extent unleashed by the report itself.
Titled “Future Development of the San Francisco Bay Area, 1960-2020,” it described a future that resembled the immediate past, with what were then the area’s two big cities, San Francisco and Oakland, growing slowly and most new housing in suburban developments. By 2020, it projected, 2,389 of the Bay Area’s nearly 7,000 square miles of land would be devoted to residential, commercial and industrial uses, up from 538 in 1958.
Most of that was to be converted agricultural land, but because the report had been commissioned by the US Army Corps of Engineers, it also examined the prospect of filling in parts of San Francisco Bay, which has a surface area of about 550 square miles. The base forecast foresaw only 18 of those being converted to developable land, but an additional 325 — the majority of the bay, that is — were deemed “susceptible of reclamation.”
It was a map of these “susceptible” areas and the sad, skinny harbor that would remain if they were filled in that “triggered alarm bells” when it was reprinted in local papers, San Francisco Chronicle urban-design critic John King wrote in a 2005 retrospective. The environmental group Save the Bay was founded in 1961, after the city of Berkeley announced plans to double its physical size by filling in the mudflats along its shoreline, and it led a successful effort to halt further encroachment.
Other organizations sprang up around the same time to oppose further loss of open space on land, and while their efforts didn’t completely halt the sprawl, they certainly slowed it. Development continued to swallow up farmland in the region’s eastern and southern fringes, with San Jose coming close to meeting the report’s ambitious population projections and Antioch and Vacaville surpassing them, but in most of the rest of the region, especially the North Bay counties of Marin, Sonoma and Napa, the visions of 1959 came nowhere close to being realized.
As of the most recent (2017) report of the Greenbelt Alliance, a local group that dates its origins to 1958, 1,235 square miles in the Bay Area were devoted to residential, commercial and industrial use — about half what was predicted in 1959 — compared with 1,864 permanently protected from development as parks and other preserves, and an additional 3,353 shielded by “policies such as growth boundaries, hillside ordinances and agricultural zoning.” That makes three-quarters of the region’s land off limits to development.
This turn against growth has long been celebrated in the Bay Area, where I grew up, as having averted dystopia. “Viewed in hindsight, the picture is bleak,” was King’s 2005 take on the sprawl envisioned in the 1959 report. “Napa Valley is filled with homes while thick bands of development connect such Marin County ‘hubs’ as Nicasio and Lagunitas, Olema and Point Reyes Station.” In the 1985 edition of his “The San Francisco Bay Area: A Metropolis in Perspective,” University of California at Berkeley planning professor Mel Scott wrote, “No one can fail to be impressed by the vigor with which conservationists, many political leaders, most members of the city planning profession, and thousands of concerned citizens throughout the Bay Area have challenged some of the frontier values and attitudes of this country in the past twenty-five years.”
It’s not so clear, though, that these efforts succeeded in heading off dystopia. The Bay Area has the country’s highest housing prices, a homeless population of more than 35,000 and, before the arrival of Covid-19, the nation’s largest concentration of “super commuters” who spent more than three hours a day getting to and from their jobs. Since the pandemic and accompanying rise of remote work, it has lost hundreds of thousands of residents for whom great weather and spectacular natural beauty apparently aren’t adequate compensation for the cost and hassle of living there.
Another fascinating historical document, from 1979, offered an explanation for what went wrong:
Resistance to growth began as a very reasonable political shift, concentrating on saving such priceless assets as the San Francisco Bay and Napa Valley wine country. But as it gathered power, and as people discovered they could stop growth at little cost to themselves, the movement became a good deal less reasonable. Soon it turned into general hostility toward homebuilding for the average family, using the rhetoric of environmental protection in order to look after the narrow interests of people who got to the suburbs first.
Those are the words of Bernard Frieden, an urban studies professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who became acquainted with the Bay Area anti-growth movement while spending the 1975-1976 academic year at UC Berkeley. They’re from his 1979 book, The Environmental Protection Hustle, which described how anti-growth activists and sympathetic judges and politicians not only drove up housing prices but harmed the environment by pushing development out to fringe areas “where the new residents will use more gas and pollute more air while they drive longer distances to work.”
Frieden’s book offered detailed accounts of just how this transpired. One especially maddening chapter tells the story of Mountain Village in Oakland. In the early 1970s, a developer bought 685 acres, the last large tract of undeveloped private land in the city, and proposed turning it into a walkable community of 2,183 townhouses and condominium apartments with an average price of $28,471 ($205,000 in 2022 dollars) and a shopping center while preserving 480 acres of the tract for a new park. Despite grumbling from neighbors, the city approved the plan. Then a neighborhood group called Citizens Against Mountain Village sued, contending that Oakland had failed to follow the requirements of the new California Environmental Quality Act. The San Francisco chapter of the Sierra Club chimed in with an amicus brief. Completing the environmental impact report required under the law took years, and the developer concluded that it would face continued lawsuits unless it cut a deal with the neighbors and the Sierra Club. In 1976, it did just that, drastically revising its proposal to 150 to 200 condos and 100 “estate homes” with a combined average price of about $450,000 in 2022 dollars and a smaller park.
This fall I visited the neighborhood, now called Ridgemont, and from the looks of it developers have squeezed in about 200 single-family houses, the prices of which range on Zillow from $1.3 million to $4.8 million, and while I’m not sure exactly how many condos there are it seems like much fewer than 200, with an average price of about $500,000. The adjacent Leonia Canyon Open Space Regional Preserve covers 290 acres, and when I was there the people and dogs who visited (attracted by its leashes-optional policy) appeared to get there mostly by car.
It’s the story of the Bay Area since the 1960s in a nutshell. Activists, courts and local governments put an end to rampant sprawl but also made it nearly impossible to build the kind of dense in-fill development that would have been compatible with the new commitment to preserving open space, affordable for people with median-wage jobs and conducive to less car-dependent, more environmentally friendly lifestyles.
Frieden’s arguments began to resonate in the region only decades later, when impossibly high real estate prices led to the advent in the Bay Area of the Yimby (yes in my backyard) movement, and state officials began to respond with new laws aimed at circumventing local Nimbys. There are signs that the tide may truly be turning — in October, residents of another Oakland neighborhood protested against a proposal to build a new Home Depot on a large vacant lot, arguing that what really needed to go there was a bunch of apartment buildings. But after more than 50 years of running in the other direction, it’s going to take a while to have an impact.More From Bloomberg Opinion:
• California Catching Germany as No. 4 Economy: Matthew Winkler
• San Francisco’s Empty Train Cars Spell Trouble: Justin Fox
• A Housing Market Slowdown Won’t Improve Affordability: Conor Sen | 2022-12-15T14:10:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Happened When the Bay Area Rejected Growth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-happened-when-thebay-area-rejected-growth/2022/12/15/334ab060-7c79-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-happened-when-thebay-area-rejected-growth/2022/12/15/334ab060-7c79-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Pakistan confronts the collapse of its friendship with the Taliban
By Hamid Mir
Manzoor Pashteen, head of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, talks with supporters during a protest in Pakistan on Nov. 27. (Saood Rehman/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
On Dec. 11, Taliban government forces in Afghanistan shelled a town just across the border in Pakistan, killing seven Pakistani civilians. Pakistan responded in kind, killing one Taliban fighter and injuring 10 Afghans. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the “unprovoked shelling” by Afghan forces. On Dec. 15, the two sides exchanged artillery fire across the border, killing at least one Pakistani civilian and wounding 15 others. Pakistan and the Taliban are virtually at war.
It’s time for Pakistan to accept that its decades-old Afghanistan policy has failed. While the world’s attention has focused on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the violence in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has gone underreported — even though the potential for a serious catastrophe grows by the day.
The political elites in Islamabad, Pakistan, once believed they were building “strategic depth” by cultivating pro-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan. Yet now the same groups once hailed as “strategic assets” by Islamabad have turned into a new threat.
When the Taliban took over Kabul last year (violating its agreement with the United States in the process), then-Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan celebrated the event, declaring that the Taliban had broken “the shackles of slavery.” Many other Pakistanis also celebrated.
This illusion didn’t last long. Within just a few days of their victory, the new rulers of Kabul released members of the Pakistani Taliban (known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP) who had been imprisoned in Afghan jails — the same people who have spent years waging war on the government in Islamabad. The new government in Kabul has also pointedly refused to accept the Pakistan-Afghanistan border demarcated more than a century ago by British colonial rulers.
None of this really came as a surprise to me and other journalists who have dealt with the Taliban over the decades. Even before the fall of Kabul, it should have been clear to all concerned that the Afghan Taliban was playing a double game with Pakistan and the United States. Still, Pakistan tried to maintain its support for the Afghan Taliban while simultaneously keeping Washington happy — an ambiguous policy exemplified by its arrest and release of Taliban leaders such as Mullah Baradar.
Yet the U.S. withdrawal has — perhaps ironically — exposed the inherent weakness of that policy. When I wrote in July 2021 about secret contacts between the Afghan Taliban and Islamabad’s archrival India, the Pakistani security establishment was quick to express its displeasure. Unfortunately, my predictions about the Taliban came true after the fall of Kabul. Now the Taliban is openly trying to pressure Pakistan by wooing the Indians.
The Taliban scammed then-Pakistani spy chief Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, who traveled to Kabul last year after the U.S. withdrawal and assured the media that there was nothing to worry about. But he was wrong. He tried to please the Afghan Taliban by releasing many TTP leaders, but the TTP kept insisting that Pakistan do more. Lt. Gen. Hameed visited Kabul again this year to persuade the Afghan Taliban to broker a peace deal with the TTP. He failed.
Terrorist attacks in Pakistan have increased by 51 percent since the Taliban seized power. Pakistan has used air power and drones against insurgents, resulting in significant casualties among the Afghan population. There have even been protest rallies against Pakistan in some Afghan cities.
The killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul in July by a U.S. drone sent already tense relations between the Afghans and the Pakistanis to a new low. The Taliban blamed Islamabad for al-Zawahiri’s death.
The latest Pakistani foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has visited many countries in the past eight months; he has yet to visit Kabul. He sent his deputy, the state minister of foreign affairs, Hina Rabbani Khar, to Kabul a few weeks ago. She was the first female minister to attempt to hold talks with the Taliban. But the Taliban defense minister (the oldest son of Afghan Taliban leader Mohammad Omar) of Afghanistan refused to meet with her.
On Nov. 29, Gen. Asim Munir took over as the new commander of the Pakistani army. The next day, four civilians were killed in a suicide bombing in Pakistan; the TTP claimed responsibility. The former “strategic assets” were sending a message written in blood.
The Afghan Taliban is challenging Pakistan. Its members think they defeated the United States and that they can also defeat a nuclear power such as Pakistan. What they are failing to acknowledge is that, according to World Bank data, Afghanistan is now one of the poorest countries in the world. They need to defeat poverty, not Pakistan.
What all this makes clear is that Pakistan needs a new Afghanistan policy — probably one based on noninterference and refortification of the border to reduce cross-border attacks. Most importantly, though, it should be formulated by civilian leaders in parliament, not in the headquarters of military intelligence. Otherwise, 2023 is likely to be a dangerous year for Pakistan-Afghan relations.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has diverted attention from the brewing conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yet the tensions between the two countries deserves coverage as well. It has the potential to bring a new catastrophe to South Asia when the region can least afford it.
Opinion|An attempt on the life of Imran Khan pushes Pakistan into a fresh crisis
Opinion|The U.S. still doesn’t have an ambassador in this important capital
Obama tells young heath-care activists, ‘stuff that’s worth it is always hard’ | 2022-12-15T14:10:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Pakistan and Afghanistan are almost at war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/pakistan-afghanistan-taliban-border-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/pakistan-afghanistan-taliban-border-war/ |
Here's what's next in the Senate on cybersecurity
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! We’re not publishing on Friday or Monday, so we look forward to next seeing you again Tuesday.
Below: Meta removes accounts linked to an Indian hacking-for-hire firm, and the agency that runs the Medicare program says a subcontractor was hit by ransomware. First:
Where the Senate’s cyber agenda-setters want to go in 2023
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told me his key cybersecurity priorities next year are fortifying cyberdefenses for small businesses, open-source software, federal agencies and vital technology used in industrial facilities.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who co-led the congressionally created Cyberspace Solarium Commission, said in a separate interview that the key priorities ahead for him are improving cybersecurity threat information sharing and protections for the most important infrastructure.
Peters has played a leading role in a boom in cybersecurity legislation of late, while King’s Solarium Commission has gotten a ton of its recommendations enacted. So their plans could also set the cyber agenda for the Senate overall.
“I worked to elevate that as one of the top priorities for the committee,” Peters said. “Rest assured that cyber will continue to be a top priority for me and the committee. My hope is to be as productive the next two years as we were the last two years.”
Peters’s top cyber achievement came at the start of this year alongside the now-outgoing top Republican Rob Portman (Ohio) on the panel: legislation requiring critical infrastructure owners to disclose to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency when they suffer a major hack or pay ransoms to hackers.
He compares the cyber incident reporting law to knowing whether a burglar is in the neighborhood so people can make sure to lock their doors and seek police patrols. “We have to know the landscape,” he said.
In the bipartisan infrastructure law this year, Peters secured $1 billion for state and local cybersecurity grants, as well as $100 million for a fund to help victims of major cyberattacks recover from them. Also this year, Peters led a successful bid for passage of an update to a program that governs the security of cloud products for the federal government.
And late last year, his legislation that orders a CISA study of cyber risks to K-12 schools became law. CISA would then develop voluntary guidelines for securing schools.
Next legislative aims: In the fast-moving world of cybersecurity, Peters said he might have a different answer within a month. But for now:
Legislation designed to protect open-source software like log4j. A vulnerability discovered in that common software tool threatened hundreds of millions of devices, CISA said.
An update to a law that provides an information security framework for federal agencies. A bill to do so “ran into some snags” in the House this year, Peters said. He didn’t want to negotiate in the press, so he wouldn’t discuss those snags. But he’s spoken to his House counterpart, incoming Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), and Peters said “I feel really good about where we are.”
Finding a way to defend operational technology, which keeps industrial equipment running and safe. “Oftentimes, if bad guys are successful attacking some of those physical systems, getting back online can take a whole lot longer than doing some software fixes,” Peters said.
Securing small businesses from cyberattacks. “How do we help smaller companies deal with ransomware?” he asked. “We've seen a huge increase in hacks for those entities.”
Some of his plans are less legislative in nature, such as pressing state and local governments to continue moving toward the safer “.gov” domain and keeping watch over CISA’s implementation of the cyber incident reporting law.
He’ll be working with a new top panel Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), too. “I've had an opportunity to sit down with soon-to-be ranking member Paul about priorities for the committee,” Peters said. “I'm confident we'll have a working relationship that can get things done.” He noted that all of the cyber bills his committee had advanced did so unanimously.
The Solarium Commission is nearing 70 percent adoption of its recommendations since 2020, King boasted.
“If we were the center fielder for the Boston Red Sox with a batting average of .667, what do you think we’d get paid?” he quipped.
As in past years, the commission found a home for its ideas in the annual defense policy bill that’s nearing the finish line in Congress. Among them:
Formalizing a permanent cyber office at the State Department.
Requiring a biennial report from Cyber Command on its election security work.
Increasing funding for Cyber Command’s “hunt forward” defensive cyber missions.
Creating an assistant secretary for cybersecurity at the Defense Department.
Some of the commission’s biggest recommendations didn’t make it into the final version of the defense bill, however.
That means King will have to start fresh on a pair of his priorities: protecting “systemically important” critical infrastructure and establishing a “Joint Collaborative Environment.”
The first idea, which involves labeling and safeguarding potential hacking targets that are essential to national security, the economy or public health, ran into opposition from industry groups that called the idea fatally flawed. “I’m not ready to give up,” King said.
The Joint Collaborative Environment idea — which King described as “a project to set up a kind of virtual meeting space for [the] private sector at the cross-section of federal agencies” — ran into opposition from the National Security Agency.
“Part of the problem is, some of the federal agencies aren’t sure they want to play with the others,” King said. “That’s the biggest one we didn’t get, and we’re going to stay after that.”
Meta takes down accounts linked to Indian hackers
Indian company CyberRoot Risk Advisory Private has targeted people in Angola, New Zealand, Russia and the United Kingdom, with the company focusing on activists, journalists, executives and other people in Djibouti, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, Facebook parent Meta said in a report this morning. Meta took down more than 40 Facebook and Instagram accounts that were part of the network, the company said.
“CyberRoot used fake accounts to create fictitious personas tailored to gain trust with the people they targeted around the world. To appear more credible, these personas impersonated journalists, business executives and media personalities,” Meta said. “In some cases, CyberRoot also created accounts that were nearly identical to accounts connected to their targets like their friends and family members, with only slightly changed usernames, likely in an attempt to trick people into engaging.”
Justice Department seizes websites belonging to DDoS-enabling firms
Authorities charged six people with computer crimes relating to their alleged ownership of “booter” and “stresser” services that enable people to maliciously overwhelm websites with fake traffic in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, journalist Brian Krebs reports. All told, the Justice Department seized 48 domains, Krebs reports.
“Purveyors of stressers and booters claim they are not responsible for how customers use their services, and that they aren’t breaking the law because — like most security tools — stresser services can be used for good or bad purposes,” Krebs writes. “For example, all of the above-mentioned booter sites contained wordy ‘terms of use’ agreements that required customers to agree they will only stress-test their own networks — and that they won’t use the service to attack others.”
Medicare agency says it’s responding after a subcontractor was hit in a ransomware attack
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said up to 254,000 of the Medicare program’s 64 million beneficiaries may have been impacted in the October breach at subcontractor Healthcare Management Solutions. People whose personal information “may have been put at risk as a result of the breach” will get updated Medicare cards, new Medicare numbers and credit-monitoring services, CMS said.
In a sample letter it posted on its website, CMS said the breach occurred Oct. 8. The next day, “CMS was notified that the subcontractor’s systems had been subject to a cybersecurity incident but CMS systems were not involved,” the agency said. “As more information became available, on Oct. 18, 2022, CMS determined with high confidence that the incident potentially included personally identifiable information and protected health information for some Medicare enrollees,” it said. “Since then, CMS has been working diligently with the contractor to determine what information and which individuals may have been impacted.”
CMS said “initial information indicates that HMS acted in violation of its obligations to CMS, and CMS continues to investigate the incident.”
HMS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ex-Twitter employee convicted of spying gets 3 1/2 years in prison (Bloomberg News)
Putin to choose cyber warfare before nuclear weapons, former NSA chief says (The Hill)
Iranian hacking group expands focus to U.S. politicians, critical infrastructure, researchers find (CyberScoop)
China to ban deepfakes that aren’t properly labeled (The Record)
that's a big dog... pic.twitter.com/ENSlAwooJQ
— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) December 14, 2022 | 2022-12-15T14:11:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here's what's next in the Senate on cybersecurity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/here-what-next-senate-cybersecurity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/here-what-next-senate-cybersecurity/ |
Senate passes bill to ban TikTok on U.S. government-issued devices
The Senate passed a bill late Wednesday banning federal employees from using TikTok on government devices, marking the latest attempt by Republicans to clamp down on the popular, Chinese-owned video-sharing app, and suggesting the existence of bipartisan congressional support to regulate it further.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced the bill, said in a Thursday statement that the ban would prohibit individuals from downloading or using the app on devices issued by the federal government, with an exception for those working in law enforcement or national security.
The legislation, which passed the Senate with unanimous consent, would require the approval of the House before the end of the year’s current congressional session, as well as the signature of President Biden to become law. It was not immediately clear if there was any wider support to accelerate the bill.
How TikTok ate the internet
Alabama, Utah, North Dakota and Iowa joined the growing list of Republican states with bans this week. In a statement Monday announcing Alabama’s measure, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said the app “harvests vast amount of data from its users” and that using it on state devices “creates an unacceptable vulnerability to Chinese infiltration operations.”
Maryland, South Carolina, Texas also issued bans on TikTok from some state government devices this month, as did South Dakota in November. Nebraska blocked TikTok on government electronics in August 2020. Indiana sued TikTok last week, saying the app exposes children to harmful content.
Supporters of the bans accuse TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese company ByteDance, of posing a threat to U.S. national security through its links to Beijing, a connection they argue could facilitate Chinese government access to U.S. users’ data.
TikTok has denied the charge. Testifying before Congress in September, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas said the company’s Chinese employees were subject to strict access controls over U.S. data and that “under no circumstances” would data be given to China.
“TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” Hawley said his Thursday statement. “States across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It’s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.”
Democrats are set to maintain slim control of the Senate in the next Congress, with a narrow majority in the chamber that last week withstood Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-Ariz.) announcement she had changed her party affiliation to independent.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post early Thursday. But in a statement reported by Reuters, TikTok said Wednesday of the state-level bans on government employees using its app: “We’re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok that will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States.”
Wednesday’s bill comes amid other far-reaching attempts by TikTok’s critics in Congress to constrain the app — which include a bipartisan bill introduced this week by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to ban the app completely from the United States.
In addition to claiming that the app allowed Beijing to surveil TikTok’s U.S.-based users, Rubio, a prominent critic of China, accused the app’s owners of trying to influence what Americans see and believe. “This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections,” Rubio said in a statement Tuesday.
In July 2020, former president Donald Trump unveiled a similar proposal, vowing to ban the app from operating in the United States completely, before the executive order was halted by a judge in September and then reversed by Biden a year later.
Ben Brasch contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T14:11:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Senate passes bill to ban TikTok on federal government-issued devices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/us-tiktok-ban-federal-devices-senate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/us-tiktok-ban-federal-devices-senate/ |
The Dallas Cowboys can clinch a playoff berth with a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 15. (Tony Gutierrez/AP)
Only one NFL team has clinched a playoff berth through 14 weeks of the season, but more will probably punch their tickets in Week 15. Here’s a look at the postseason clinching scenarios.
The Vikings will clinch the NFC North with a win or tie Saturday against the Indianapolis Colts, or with a Detroit Lions loss or tie against the New York Jets.
The 49ers will clinch the NFC West with a win Thursday over the Seattle Seahawks.
The Cowboys will clinch a playoff berth with a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars; or with losses by the Washington Commanders and Seattle Seahawks; or with a Seahawks loss plus a loss or tie by the Lions. There are other scenarios in which Dallas can also clinch a playoff berth with a tie.
The Bills will clinch a playoff berth with a win Saturday over the Miami Dolphins. There are also scenarios in which Buffalo can clinch a playoff berth with a tie.
The Chiefs will clinch the AFC West with a win over the Houston Texans; or with a Los Angeles Chargers loss to the Tennessee Titans; or with a tie against the Texans combined with a Chargers-Titans tie. There also are other scenarios in which the Chiefs can clinch a playoff berth with a tie against the Texans.
x - 1. Philadelphia Eagles (12-1)
6. Washington Commanders (7-5-1, hold tiebreaker over New York Giants via better division record)
Still in contention: Seattle Seahawks (7-6), Detroit Lions (6-7), Green Bay Packers (5-8), Carolina Panthers (5-8), Atlanta Falcons (5-8), Arizona Cardinals (4-9), New Orleans Saints (4-9), Los Angeles Rams (4-9)
1. Buffalo Bills (10-3, hold tiebreaker over Kansas City Chiefs via head-to-head victory)
3. Baltimore Ravens (9-4, hold division tiebreaker over Cincinnati Bengals via head-to-head victory)
7. New England Patriots (7-6, hold tiebreaker over Los Angeles Chargers via better conference record, hold tiebreaker over New York Jets via head-to-head victories).
Still in contention: Los Angeles Chargers (7-6), New York Jets (7-6), Jacksonville Jaguars (5-8), Las Vegas Raiders (5-8), Cleveland Browns (5-8), Pittsburgh Steelers (5-8), Indianapolis Colts (4-8-1) | 2022-12-15T14:11:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL playoff clinching scenarios in Week 15 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/nfl-playoff-clinching-scenarios-week-15/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/nfl-playoff-clinching-scenarios-week-15/ |
Sinema’s plan is worth embracing. (Bloomberg)
For all the acrimony surrounding immigration politics, a majority of Americans have long supported two goals: giving undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children a pathway to legal status; and securing the country’s southern border. With only days remaining in the current Congress, lawmakers have an opportunity to deliver major breakthroughs on both priorities.
A proposal by Senators Thom Tillis and Kyrsten Sinema would reportedly provide a 10-year path to citizenship for some 2 million undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, who were brought to the US as children and who’ve lived in the country for much of their lives. It would also extend Title 42 — a public-health rule that allows for the expedited removal of border crossers — for at least a year. This would give officials a much-needed tool to ease pressure on the border, which saw a record 2.4 million attempted crossings in the year to October.
More Opinion From Bloomberg Opinion:
• Immigration’s Burden Doesn’t Fall on a ‘Handful of Red States’: Eduardo Porter
• Can Immigrants Save American Democracy?: Romesh Ratnesar
• The Time Is Now For a Deal on the Dreamers: The Editors | 2022-12-15T15:41:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congress Can’t Waste This Immigration Opportunity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/congress-cant-waste-this-immigration-opportunity/2022/12/15/9aad2398-7c81-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/congress-cant-waste-this-immigration-opportunity/2022/12/15/9aad2398-7c81-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The ceremonial lighting of the National Menorah usually includes a high-profile political figure, such as then-Vice President Joe Biden (2014) or second gentleman Doug Emhoff (2021). (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
AFI Holiday Classics at AFI Silver Theatre: Holiday movies have been flooding streaming services for weeks, but there’s no substitute for seeing the classics — “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Elf,” “Die Hard” — in a theater. The Holiday Classics series at the Silver Theatre goes beyond the conventional picks to include the affecting 1952 drama “The Holly and the Ivy” and the newly restored director’s cut of “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” Through Dec. 25. $10-$13. $5 for children ages 12 and younger.
Library of Congress Holiday Celebration: The festively decorated Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress is hosting a holiday party fit for families. Expect musical performances, refreshments and a Christmas-themed story time with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Free; reservation required.
The Do Good Can Can at Pizzeria Paradiso Dupont Circle: This long-running fundraiser for Martha’s Table encapsulates the season of giving: Bring canned goods to donate to the local nonprofit, and bartenders will trade you canned beers from Aslin, Right Proper and other local breweries. Noon to 9 p.m. Free.
Goldie at Flash: Goldie has always been one of electronic music’s most charismatic personalities and most ambitious talents. At his best, he’s backed up the bluster: His 1995 debut “Timeless” has continued to live up to its title by demonstrating both the bottomless depths and soaring heights of drum and bass music, and the label he co-founded, Metalheadz, is the defining imprint for the underground genre. And even as the erstwhile graffiti artist has moved into acting and writing, he’s continued to follow his muse, teaming with engineer James Davidson as Subjective and releasing the genre-hopping “The Start of No Regret” earlier this year. 10 p.m. $30.
‘The Spirit of Kwanzaa’ at Cramton Auditorium: The Dance Institute of Washington has been at the forefront of diversifying ballet in D.C., training and supporting the next generation of “preprofessional” dancers. This year’s production, “Celebrating Life and Harmony,” uses dance, spoken word and music “to portray the struggles and creativity within the Black experience.” Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. $15-$30.
Prince vs Beyoncé at the Black Cat: DJ Dredd has been spreading the gospel of Prince across D.C. for more than two decades. While he’s spun at upscale lounges, frenzied weekend dance parties and bar happy hours, Dredd really made a name for himself with the Prince dance parties at the Black Cat, where he’d alternate classics and remixes by His Royal Badness with tunes from Michael Jackson, Madonna and other pop stars, creating battles royal in which the audience were the real winners. This party finds him returning to the Cat with a new combination: Prince vs. Beyoncé. Get ready to get down to tracks from Prince and the Queen B all night long. 9:30 p.m. $15.
Christmas Illuminations at Mount Vernon: George Washington’s estate is aglow with lantern-lit festive decorations, and around 8 p.m., a fireworks display is set off, choreographed to Christmas music. A market features 18th-century crafts, and an encampment includes a working blacksmith, Christmas carolers and a camel named Aladdin. Saturday is sold out, so this is your only chance to see the fireworks this year. 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. $26-$58.
Holiday Bingoat: As improbable as it seems, goat yoga occurs with some frequency in the DMV. But how often can you play bingo alongside ugly-Christmas-sweater-wearing goats? Yoga teacher Beth Wolfe is hosting Holiday Bingoat at the Faith Lutheran Church hall in Arlington, which is exactly as it sounds: dressed-up goats meeting and greeting bingo players. Expect prizes and goat selfies, and humans are invited to wear holiday sweaters to match the goats. 6 p.m. $40. Children must be 10 or older and accompanied by an adult.
‘A Candlelight Christmas’ with the Washington Chorus: The 160-voice Washington Chorus returns to the Music Center at Strathmore on Friday and the Kennedy Center on Saturday and Sunday with traditional carols, holiday pop classics and a family singalong. It’s joined in festive celebration by two local high school choirs and guest musicians — and, perhaps, a visit from a North Pole celebrity. Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 1 and 4 p.m., and Sunday at 7 p.m. $19-$109.
Crossroads Reunion Weekend at Crossroads Two: Until its closure in 2013, the Crossroads nightclub was the epicenter of the local Caribbean music scene, and no venue has really replaced it. For those who miss the Bladensburg club, or never experienced it, there’s a chance to hear some of the stars of the Crossroads at the Crossroads Reunion Weekend at Crossroads Two, a new name for the former Islands Lounge in Wheaton. The announcement promises Sprang International and DJ Ghost spinning reggae, soca and Afrobeats on Friday, alongside half-price rum punches. Saturday brings DJs Super Slice, Fyah Oats and Cookie — familiar names from the annual Carnival events — beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday wraps up with Afro Dancehall Sundays, a new name for the long-running reggae party, which starts at 5 p.m. Admission is free for early arrivals each night. Times vary. Free-$20.
Holiday beer tasting and ugly sweater party at Valor Brewpub: For his first holiday offering at Valor Brewpub, Jeff Hancock — the co-founder and former brewer of DC Brau — decided to brew a classic Belgian holiday ale. He describes it as “probably a mix of Affligem Holiday Ale and Gouden Carolus Noel,” which sounds, on paper, like a winning combination of strength and warming spice. Try Hancock’s beer at the Barracks Row brewpub’s Friday happy hour. Ugly holiday sweaters are encouraged. 4:30 p.m. Free.
The Starting Line at the Fillmore Silver Spring: Adolescent romantic yearning and shout-along choruses were the twin engines of the Starting Line’s sound in 2002, when the Philadelphia-area emo-punk band released its perfectly titled debut album, “Say It Like You Mean It.” Two subsequent long-players showed little growth in themes and style, but also no flagging of passion or melodic invention. It seemed that lost love, a gentle acoustic-guitar intro and a surging refrain would sustain singer-bassist Kenny Vasoli and his cohorts forever. But in 2008, the quartet went on hiatus, playing only the occasional reunion show until they reemerged in 2016 with a EP, “Anyways.” The three-song comeback’s punchiest song is defiantly titled “Quitter,” and doesn’t slack off at all. The band (now a quintet with the full membership of longtime touring keyboardist Brian Schmutz) hasn’t released any new material since. But the newish stuff jibes neatly with the older material, and both should sound bright, joyous and — at least for now — forever young. 8 p.m. $32.50-$66.50.
Turnover at 9:30 Club: This Virginia Beach-formed quartet debuted a few years after the Starting Line with a similar emo-punk style. Several guitarists later, the band has shifted to a midtempo dream-pop style that’s increasingly tempered by easygoing funk and disco. The band’s fifth album, “Myself in the Way,” was released last month. It mixes such divergent influences as Chic and Pink Floyd while reflecting singer Austin Getz’s pandemic-era outlook: The title song is about both making a long-term commitment to his fiancee and being more appreciative of everyday life. Other tracks include “Pleasures Galore,” whose digitally altered vocals push the band far from its roots, and “Queen in the River,” which layers jazzy leads over reggae-style rhythm guitar. There’s a lot going on in Turnover’s current music, but the band mortars the pieces together skillfully. 8 p.m. (doors open). $25.
Spoons, Toons and Booze Christmas Special at Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse: Charlie Brown and the Grinch get all the love at this time of year, but back in the 1980s and 1990s, it seemed like every Saturday morning cartoon franchise had a Very Special Holiday Episode, from He-Man and the Smurfs to the X-Men and Robotech. The annual Spoons, Toons and Booze screening brings them all together for a morning of classic cartoons, plus an all-you-can-eat “sugary cereal bar,” cereal-inspired cocktails, an ugly sweater competition and more holiday fun. Saturday and Sunday at noon. $15.
Winterfest at the Roost: The Roost’s holiday celebration offers attractions for the whole family, starting with visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus at 11 a.m. and costumed carolers singing familiar songs at noon. Meanwhile, adults can try eight seasonal beers at the Southeast food hall’s Shelter bar, including Masthead’s Robot Santa’s Christmas Ale, Fat Orange Cat’s Baby Elves and DC Brau’s Holiday Ginger. Bring a canned good to donate to local nonprofit Martha’s Table and trade it for a free four-ounce pour of any of the special drafts. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free admission; beer prices vary.
Holiday markets: Time is running out for holiday shopping, as this is the final weekend with a selection of markets with local small businesses and makers. The one-day Procrastinator’s Holiday Market, now in its eighth year, takes over part of the Bryant Street development off Rhode Island Avenue with more than 30 vendors offering a variety of gifts, live music, free train rides and other activities for children, and a holiday card-making station. (Noon to 6 p.m. Free.) All Souls is one of the best corner bars in D.C., and the low-key Shaw hangout is now dipping its toe into the seasonal market scene, offering a small, curated selection of makers and food producers, including textile artist An Made, Bold Fork Books, and sausage maker Meats and Foods. (1 to 4 p.m. Free.) This is also the second and final weekend for the Victura Park Winter Holiday Market at the Kennedy Center, with more than a dozen vendors — and s’mores stations, and warm drinks — outside at the performing arts venue’s Reach expansion. (Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Free.)
Abbondanza! Minimal Intervention at Sonny’s Pizza: We’ve said before that the seasonal natural wine parties at Sonny’s Pizza are some of the best tasting events in D.C., offering endless sips of bottles you haven’t heard of from Spain, France and other countries. But the final Abbondanza of the year turns the focus back to the U.S., with producers of minimal intervention wine, hard cider and beer discussing their techniques while sharing samples. Guests include Virginia’s Lightwell Survey and Midland wineries and Pen Druid brewery, North Carolina’s Pleb Urban Winery, and New York’s Greenpoint Cidery. Tickets include three hours of unlimited drinks and slices of pizza; VIP tickets allow entry one hour early. 1 to 4 p.m. $75-$85.
Takoma Park Book Fair at Busboys and Poets: If someone on your gift list would prefer a good book to the usual holiday maker’s market fare, we suggest heading to the Takoma Busboys and Poets on Saturday afternoon. At least 30 local authors are slated to sell and sign books, and the cafe’s bookstore offers 10 percent off selected titles. Additionally, Busboys is a participant in the Takoma Cocoa Crawl, which finds restaurants and businesses offering hot cocoa and apple cider (regular or spiked) throughout the afternoon. 1 to 4 p.m. Free.
Carter G. Woodson Birthday Celebration at Dunbar High School: A century after Carter G. Woodson purchased a home on Ninth Street in Shaw — a building now known as the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site — the National Park Service is finishing renovations on the property, with plans to reopen the site in 2023. The Park Service and partners honor the birthday of “The Father of African American History” with a tribute at the nearby Dunbar High School, featuring previews of forthcoming exhibits at the house, music from the DC Strings, poetry readings, and a panel of historians and scholars discussing “Woodson the educator.” 1 to 3 p.m. Free.
Roy Boys 4th Anniversary and Last Hoorah: It’s a bittersweet anniversary for Shaw chicken-and-cocktails hot spot Roy Boys, which is closing after one last weekend-long party. Expect cocktails, ’90s jams, hot chicken — and crowds wanting a chance to say goodbye. Through Sunday. Free.
Alma Laprida at Rhizome: Last year, as composer and improviser Alma Laprida prepared to relocate from Buenos Aires to Bethesda, she came across a piece of gear that had been sitting untouched in her closet for years. It was her custom-made trumpet marine: a stringed medieval instrument that, when bowed, generates an ancient sigh. In the D.C. area, Laprida quickly found her way to Rhizome — a venue that routinely hosts the area’s most adventurous musicians and audiences — and she’s appeared there semi-regularly since, performing both composed and improvised pieces on her trumpet marine, often running its two-stringed sound through amplifiers and effects pedals, learning what it can do in real time. “I don’t want to dominate the instrument,” she says. “I want to have a dialogue with it. That’s why I play in a very minimalistic way. I’m trying to play as little as I can and let the instrument do its thing. … Sometimes, I try to not control what I’m doing at all. Just let your arm go a little loose and these harmonics will appear.” 7 p.m. $10-$20.
Interview: Alma Laprida is creating a futuristic sound with medieval tools
Hanukkah celebrations: The most prominent event marking the beginning of the Festival of Lights is the lighting of the National Menorah on the Ellipse. Attended in past years by the president, vice president (including Joe Biden in 2014), and members of the Cabinet and Congress, this festive celebration includes performances by the U.S. Army Band and free latkes and doughnuts. (4 p.m. Free; reservation required.) Other Sunday night events include a “Glow in the Dark” celebration at Bethesda Row with glowing jugglers, arts and crafts, and face painting, as well as free doughnuts and latkes (4:30 p.m. Free); Chanukah on Ice at the Pentagon Row ice rink, with skating, refreshments for sale and the lighting of a six-foot menorah (5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Free admission; ice skating $13); and a First Night of Hanukkah party at Metrobar, where guests can BYO menorahs and enjoy vegan doughnuts and hot drinks (4:30 to 8:30 p.m. Free).
Hanukkah at Chai-vy and Cohen-y: At this time of year, Shaw neighborhood bar Ivy and Coney transforms into the Hanukkah-themed Chai-vy and Cohen-y, adding latkes and Manischewitz to its usual menu of hot dogs and canned beer. In addition to lighting candles at 7 p.m. each night, the bar offers a Shotnorah — a menorah-shaped contraption that allows up to eight people to take shots simultaneously. The blue-and-silver decorations stay up through the end of the year, and on Dec. 25, the bar opens to celebrate “Chinese Food and Movie Day.”
Latke Pop-Up at the Green Zone: The Green Zone in Adams Morgan is known for its Middle Eastern drinks, music and food, exposing customers to a wide variety of flavors from across the region. To mark the beginning of Hanukkah, those Lebanese gins and Iraqi sandwiches are joined by a special one-night-only latke pop-up. No reservations are available for the fifth annual event, so arrive early: We can tell you from personal experience that the traditional potato latkes, zucchini fritters and sufganiyot tend to sell out. 5 p.m. Free.
Holiday markets: Since the early 2000s, the Black Cat’s Rock ’n’ Shop has been the place to pick up presents for your coolest/punkiest friend: Vintage dresses and purses, secondhand vinyl, prints and posters, concert T-shirts, and handmade knickknacks regularly feature at the event, which is soundtracked this year by DJs Sally Go Round and Les the DJ. (5 p.m. Free.) If you like to combine shopping with a cold, refreshing beer, there are two chances in Northeast Washington on Sunday: Red Bear’s Hoppy Holidays Market returns to the NoMa brewery with a lineup of local makers; previous iterations included everything from children’s clothing to ornaments to candles. (Noon to 6 p.m. Free.) Atlas Brew Works is hosting a Festivus party in its Ivy City taproom — BYO grievances — that includes a pop-up makers’ market. Ugly sweaters are encouraged. (1 to 5 p.m. Free.)
Holiday Concert and Sing-Along with the Capital City Symphony at the Atlas Performing Arts Center: This singalong holiday show features the 55-year-old community orchestra at the H Street NE arts center. If you missed a chance to get tickets for the sold-out Gay Men’s Chorus Holiday Show series, don’t fret — the symphony will be joined by Potomac Fever, an a cappella group made up of members of the chorus. 3:30 p.m. $35; free for ages 16 and younger.
Oddisee at 9:30 Club: D.C.-born, Brooklyn-based hip-hopper Oddisee established himself as a producer, then added his own fast-paced raps to his intricate, sophisticated tracks. He’s still known for sometimes making mostly instrumental music such as “Rock Creek Park,” an album inspired by bike rides through the D.C.-to-Maryland slice of forest. After demonstrating his skill with synth beats and classic soul samples, the musician formed Good Compny, a jazzy trio that will back him at this show. Whatever the underlying music, Oddisee offers sharp, wide-ranging observations that forgo gangsta posturing. As he puts it in “Back of My Mind,” “negativity ain’t worth the exertion.” 7 p.m. $30.
D.C. Holiday Cocktail Seminar at Last Call: If you’re planning to entertain during the holiday season, you might be wondering — or panicking — about what beverages to serve your guests. Making festive drinks for friends need not be the most stressful part of the evening. Let some of D.C.’s most accomplished mixologists, including Todd Thrasher of Tiki TNT, Andra “AJ” Johnson of Serenata and Deke Dunne of Allegory, guide you through their favorite holiday cocktails at Last Call, during an annual event hosted by author and historian Philip Greene. The seminar includes sample drinks and light bites. 6 to 8:30 p.m. $60.
Hanukkah parties: The Edlavitch DC JCC hosts a family-friendly party with dreidel games, snacks, music and “fun Chanukah-themed activities.” (7 to 8:30 p.m. $10.) Meanwhile, a group of organizations for Jews in their 20s and 30s, including the DCJCC’s EntryPointDC, are joining forces for the “Hora and Heat” happy hour at Franklin Hall. Take Israeli dance lessons, sample spicy olive oil and hot sauces, sip Hanukkah-themed cocktails, or spin a dreidel. Guests are asked to bring winter socks or gloves for a clothing drive. (5:30 to 9 p.m. $5.)
‘The Hip Hop Nutcracker’ at Strathmore: There are many versions of “The Nutcracker” at this time of year, and “The Hip Hop Nutcracker” includes the familiar melodies and leitmotifs from Tchaikovsky’s score. But it also features a modern urban setting and a crew of street-style dancers who windmill, helicopter and flip their way across the stage while a DJ and violinist remix the music into something that feels remarkably fresh. MC Kurtis Blow — creator of the groundbreaking “Christmas Rappin’” — is the host and opening act. Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. $34-$68.
Yerin Baek at Fillmore Silver Spring: Like most products of the K-pop assembly line, Yerin Baek began as a teenager in a prefab group. But the limpid-toned soprano went solo at 19, pursuing her own version of Western pop-soul, often with English lyrics. (Her family moved to New York City when she was 15, which no doubt boosted her proficiency.) Baek is an Amy Winehouse and Avril Lavigne fan who sometimes sings and plays guitar with a rock-oriented side project, the Volunteers. But the music she makes under her name is gentler in sound, if not always in content. Her second album, “Tellusboutyourself,” includes a synth-pop shuffle, “Hate You,” that deploys multiple f-bombs above its tinkling piano. That was no corporate decision: Unlike many K-poppers, Baek writes all her own material, which should give her staying power in a biz that’s usually ready to move on to the next pretty face. 8 p.m. $40-$150.
Late-Night Season’s Greenings at the U.S. Botanic Garden: With the U.S. Botanic Garden closed to the public last winter, the wildly popular model train exhibit moved to the outdoor gardens, where locomotives, including Thomas the Tank Engine, chugged past elaborate reproductions of agricultural scenes, with all structures made from plant materials. While the buildings have reopened, the Botanic Garden will keep the trains alfresco for another season. Meanwhile, the annual display of poinsettias and famous D.C. landmarks constructed with gourds, corn husks, bark and other natural materials has moved back to its usual place inside the Conservatory. On Tuesday nights in December, both indoor and outdoor areas are open until 8 p.m. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Free.
Holidays Cocktail Tasting: Eggnog is the drink of the season, but six Washington bars near the Navy Yard are trying to prove that festive cocktails can go beyond the classics. One ticket is good for a signature holiday drink from each location, including a winter spiced palmer at Tap99, an apple cider margarita at Agua 301 and a creamy winter-chata at Silver Social. The bars can be visited in any order throughout the night. 6 to 10 p.m. $20.
Arlington holiday lights bike ride: With tons of elaborate (and expensive) light displays appearing in the area, don’t miss the holiday lights around your own neighborhood. Dress up your bike in Christmas garb and start at Trek Bicycle in Clarendon for a 90-minute ride around the Arlington area. Helmets and lights are required (sets will be on hand for those who don’t have them), and the pace will be slow and social. 6 to 8 p.m. Free with reservation.
Winter Solstice Forest Bathing at Oxon Run Parkway: Mark the darkest day of the year with a sunset walk in the woods, courtesy of Ward 8 Woods Conservancy. This nonprofit dedicated to helping maintain the more than 500 acres of forest in D.C.’s Ward 8 is inviting the public to participate in a contemplative stroll through Oxon Run Parkway. Forest bathing activities are meant to connect participants with nature, and as the sky grows dark, everyone will gather around a glowing campfire. 4 to 6 p.m. $10. | 2022-12-15T15:42:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Holiday markets, concerts and Hanukkah celebrations in the D.C. area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/holiday-markets-hanukkah-events/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/holiday-markets-hanukkah-events/ |
Up to a foot of snow could fall in the interior Northeast after the storm delivered killer tornadoes in the South and a blizzard in the Upper Midwest and Plains
Anna Chiasson on Wednesday sweeps her neighbors porch, which was damaged by a tornado in Gretna in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish, which borders New Orleans. (Matthew Hinton/AP)
A massive storm system is rolling across the country, bringing deadly tornadoes, dangerous blizzard conditions and even an ice storm along its 2,000 mile trek eastward. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are next in line, bracing for double-digit snow totals inland in northern regions and a slick glaze of ice in the Appalachians.
Fifteen million Americans are under blizzard, ice storm or winter storm warnings, with 32 million more blanketed by winter weather advisories. Tornado and flood watches have been draped across the South, meanwhile, where the storm’s warm side is delivering a full-fledged severe weather outbreak.
Nearly three dozen preliminary reports of tornadoes were received by the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center on Wednesday, with at least three deaths in Louisiana resulting from the storm rampage. A twister carved a path through Arabi, which is adjacent to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, causing serious damage. Arabi also was hit by a deadly EF3 tornado on March 22.
The sprawling storm system brought a chaotic assortment of high-impact weather across the Lower 48 on Wednesday. Here’s a look at the latest:
Exceptional snow fell on the High Plains and across the Upper Midwest on the cold side of the system, which was centered near the Nebraska-South Dakota border on Wednesday. Deadwood, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, had picked up three feet by Thursday morning, and nearby Cheyenne Crossing tallied 30 inches. Pierre, S.D., had about 10 inches, although several totals of 20-24 inches were realized in northwestern Nebraska and southern South Dakota.
Most of North Dakota recorded double-digit totals, and northern Minnesota and Wisconsin also received a plowable snowfall. The National Weather Service office in Duluth, Minn., reported 19.9 inches around sunrise; with eight inches or more still to fall, it is likely that the city will see its fourth-biggest two-day snowstorm on record. Duluth also had not one but two stretches where blizzard conditions were observed — an eight-hour span on Wednesday and a secondary burst of snow Thursday morning.
Severe thunderstorms ravaged parts of the South, prompting the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center to hoist a level 4 out of 5 moderate risk of severe weather. Strong tornadoes were advertised as a hazard. Thirty-three tornado reports were received.
A tornado in New Orleans injured four people and traced a path similar to that taken by a deadly EF3 tornado on March 22. Damage was reported in Jefferson Parish near the Westbank Expressway. A 56-year-old woman perished after home was destroyed in nearby St. Charles Parish.
Other tornadoes tore through Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, including an EF3 in Unish Parish, La. The National Weather Service in Shreveport rated it an EF3 with 140 mph winds. Fourteen people were injured along its 9.1 mile path.
The storm’s progress on Thursday
At present, the larger overarching storm system, which is positioned over Madison, Wis., is completing a “handoff” ― transferring its energy to a new storm center that will form along the cold front over the Appalachians. That new low will shift toward New England and become a secondary winter storm.
Ice in the Mid-Atlantic
Ice storm warnings are in effect along the Interstate 81 corridor in Virginia, the Panhandle of Maryland, eastern West Virginia and a stretch of west central Pennsylvania. That’s where a quarter inch or more of ice accretion could occur.
The morning weather balloon launch at Dulles Airport west of Washington, D.C., tells the story. At 4,750 feet elevation, the air temperature was 40.3 degrees — allowing liquid rain to fall. Below 4,250 feet, a shallow layer of subfreezing air is present, and temperatures plummet to 25 degrees just 2,360 feet above the ground. While surface temperature near Washington D.C. are near or above freezing, regions closer to the Blue Ridge, the Potomac Highlands and the Alleghenies are reporting freezing rain.
Updates: Mostly cold rain around D.C. area, some ice far west and north
As of 9 a.m. Eastern time, La Vale in Allegheny County, Maryland reported 0.25 inches of ice accretion, and Grantsville in Garrett County was up to 0.3 inches.
East of Route 15, an onshore flow was keeping temperatures slightly warmer, which is limiting ice.
Northeast Snow
The moisture associated with the developing secondary low will ride into the Northeast, where chilly temperatures inland will support heavy snow. Winter storm warnings occupied most of interior Pennsylvania and New York State and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as the entirety of Vermont. New Hampshire and much of Maine are under winter storm watches.
Widespread totals of 8 to 12 inches are likely in those regions, with a few folks closing in 15 inches in the highest peaks of the White and Green Mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, respectively. Snowfall totals will also be robust in Maine, although they’ll drop off markedly near the Seacoast.
Closer to the Interstate 95 corridor, only a cold rain is expected. A general 1 to 2 inches is probable in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Hartford, Concord and Portland, Maine. | 2022-12-15T15:43:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Storm lumbering into Northeast after unleashing a blizzard and tornadoes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/15/northeast-storm-tornadoes-south-blizzard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/12/15/northeast-storm-tornadoes-south-blizzard/ |
Thousands demonstrated in Paris in May of 1978 before Argentina's World Cup. (MICHEL CLEMENT/AFP via Getty Images)
The 2022 World Cup, nearing its conclusion after four weeks of thrilling soccer and off-field controversies, has a snug place in the history of the sport’s biggest showcase. The human rights concerns, drumbeat of criticism and resulting defiance from government and sports officials carry distinct echoes of FIFA’s past.
Benito Mussolini’s fascist government hosted the 1934 World Cup in Italy, just the second one in history. FIFA staged the 2018 World Cup in Russia, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vice-like grip on power and his 2014 annexation of Crimea. And in perhaps the most pertinent example, 44 years ago Argentina hosted the 1978 World Cup, even as the country’s military dictatorship was “disappearing” thousands of people, engaging in systemic torture and crushing dissent in what became known as the “Dirty War.”
That’s not an exact parallel with Qatar, which has been criticized for its treatment of migrant workers and its intolerance of homosexuality. But from the goals of the host country to the rhetoric of FIFA officials to the misgivings raised by observers, this World Cup seems less historical outlier than exemplar.
“There's definitely a real revisiting now of various World Cups because it shows you a little bit of FIFA’s pattern,” said Clemente Lisi, a journalism professor at The King’s College in New York City and author of the book, “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event.”
Human rights groups say that there have been thousands of unexplained deaths among the migrant workers who helped ready Qatar for the World Cup as the tiny nation built stadiums and infrastructure. Qatar has disputed the figures, but in an interview that British journalist Piers Morgan posted online last month a top Qatari official pegged the number of migrant worker deaths at between 400 and 500 — much higher than previous government figures, although officials later attempted to walk back those comments. The country’s criminalization of homosexuality has also generated protest and outrage.
Like Argentina in the ‘70s, Qatar has chalked up outside condemnations to bias, with Qatar’s foreign minister calling criticism of the nation’s human rights record “very arrogant and very racist.” FIFA President Gianni Infantino has denounced European critics for “moral lesson-giving,” which he labeled “hypocrisy.”
Those comments might have sounded familiar at the 1978 World Cup, when Argentina’s president, General Jorge Rafael Videla, accused opponents of harboring “anti-Argentine” sentiments.
And FIFA never considered changing course. The FIFA president at the time, João Havelange, was a Brazilian, and he took satisfaction in playing the World Cup in South America. On the eve of the tournament, Havelange praised the host nation, telling local reporters: “I am among those that most depended on the hard work that your country undertook and I haven’t been disappointed. It fills me with pride, first from knowing that Argentina responded to the challenge and second because I am also South American. We have achieved everything we proposed.”
‘We should not play soccer amid the concentration camps’
In the year and a half leading up to the 1978 World Cup, the United States was moving to a new approach on human rights. The 1976 coup that had overthrown the democratically elected government of Argentina had taken place during the administration of Republican Gerald Ford, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, known for his realpolitik foreign policy, advised the junta to act quickly before opposition to human rights violations grew in the United States. He told Argentina’s foreign minister, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly,” a declassified memo shows.
But President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat who took office in January 1977, made human rights a priority and took a more critical approach to Argentina. In June of that year, his secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, told the Organization of American States that the U.S. would tie aid to human rights in Latin America. Argentina’s government was already bristling at “interference” from outsiders, The Post reported at the time, and arguing that harsh measures were required to combat terrorist guerrillas.
After the coup, there were calls to boycott the World Cup, including by a group of French journalists and intellectuals, who declared in a manifesto, “We should not play soccer amid the concentration camps and torture chambers.” Amnesty International supported the group, warning that the real Argentina of prisons, torture, and repression of political opposition would be masked at the World Cup. But the efforts were unsuccessful, and as the soccer tournament approached, the Argentine military dictatorship took a page from the 1936 Nazi Olympics, using the international sports competition to burnish its image on the world stage.
“Holding the tournament will show the world that Argentina is a trustworthy country, capable of carrying out huge projects,” boasted Admiral Emilio Massera, a member of the ruling junta and one of the leaders of the coup. “And it will help push back against the criticism that is raining on us from around the world.”
Yet less than a mile away from the Buenos Aires stadium that staged several games, including the final, Massera was running the notorious Navy Mechanics School. At this clandestine prison, security forces were torturing and killing political opponents — some of whom could hear fans cheering from the stadium. An estimated 5,000 people were sent to the facility.
“This event, which draws worldwide attention to the host country every four years, is regarded by Argentina's military Government as a major test of public relations,” the New York Times wrote in a preview story. “It is concerned about its reputation as a battleground of extremist violence and brutal repression and is hopeful that the country will be found to be more normal and a friendlier place than it has appeared abroad.” The military junta spent millions of dollars on PR efforts in Europe and the U.S., the Times reported.
Opponents of the regime also sought to take advantage of the international attention of the tournament by highlighting the government’s practice of disappearing dissenters, but these efforts sometimes ended with tragic results. Six months before the World Cup, on Human Rights Day in December 1977, a group of Argentine mothers known as “Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo” took out a newspaper ad listing the name of their missing children.
One of the founding mothers of the human rights group, Azucena Villaflor, was kidnapped by armed men that very night and taken to the Navy Mechanics School. Her remains weren’t identified until nearly 30 years later, after her body had washed up on a beach and been buried in an unmarked grave.
Thousands of police circled the stadium and helicopters hovered overhead, but the regime also tried to put on a peaceful face, releasing hundreds of white doves. “We hope these games will contribute to strengthen peace, which we desire for all the world and among all men,” Videla said to a mix of clapping and whistles of disapproval from the upper tier of the stadium, the Times reported. The first match ended in an anticlimactic 0-0 draw between West Germany and Poland.
Lisi said that the regime’s main concern was making the tournament look good on TV.
“I think at the time fans didn't travel with the ease they do now,” he said. “So it really was a made-for-TV event. Basically it was a fresh coat of paint on everything, they spruced up their stadiums. Because they knew it would serve as a distraction, but it could also be an effective propaganda tool to solidify their power.”
And Argentina’s success in the World Cup helped unify the country. “This must be the happiest city in the world,” The Post reported after Argentina beat Peru 6-0 to make the World Cup final. “Imagine carnival in Rio, Mardis Gras in New Orleans or the end of World War II in New York City and you have an idea what Buenos Aires is like. … Argentines are wild about soccer. They love it more than their husbands, their wives, their children — or so it seems.”
Kissinger attended the World Cup as a private citizen and a guest of the Argentine regime, but he was causing headaches for the Carter administration. A June 27, 1978 declassified cable from the U.S. ambassador to Argentina at the time, Raul Castro, summarized Kissinger’s meeting with Videla, the Argentine president. Castro wrote that he was concerned that “Kissinger’s repeated high praise for Argentina’s action in wiping out terrorism and his stress on the importance of Argentina may have gone to some considerable extent to his hosts’ heads.”
‘The beginning of this trouble’
The tournament couldn’t have gone better for the ruling junta. Argentina went on to win the championship, defeating the Netherlands, 3-1. Videla took a victory lap not just for the title but in securing a propaganda coup as well, thanking FIFA for allowing his nation to host the World Cup and giving “the Argentine people a chance to show what it is capable of.” He called the World Cup “the symbol of peace.”
During that championship game, a few prisoners at the nearby Navy Mechanics School got the chance to watch the game on a small black-and-white TV. After Argentina won, the guards took some of the prisoners on a drive to observe the mass celebrations.
“One car stopped at a local pizzeria and the prisoners, many who hadn’t been outside the compound’s walls for years, stood there, pale, trembling and terrified as patrons jumped on tables and sang triumphant soccer songs. Nobody seemed to notice when they were put back in the cars and taken back to their torture chambers,” wrote Ken Bensinger, author of “Red Card,” a book about the global FIFA corruption scandal.
Argentina wasn’t shy about using the victory to strut on the international stage — and to push back on criticism from the United States on its human rights record. In August 1978, about six weeks after the final, the State Department’s top human rights official condemned the government for using “systematic torture” and “summary executions.” But the military dictatorship, newly emboldened by its victory, called the American official’s statement “false and tendentious, an offense to the Argentine people and harmful to ties between both states.”
“In recent weeks, as Argentines bask in the glory of staging and winning the World Cup soccer championship in June, they have begun to strike back,” The Post reported at the time. “There has clearly been a reawakening of the nationalistic spirit that has been a factor in Argentine political life since Juan Perón first came to power at the end of World War II. The new militancy has appeared at a time when U.S.-Argentine relations are at their lowest ebb in years.”
Some Argentine media played the whataboutism card against the United States. That summer, an Argentine newsmagazine, SIETE DIAS, featured President Carter on the cover along with photos of Philadelphia police officers stomping on the heads of African Americans, as well as troops allegedly shooting at rioters in an unidentified American city. Inside, according to The Post story, the magazine ran a photo of soldiers aiming guns at a terrified Black woman, under a headline which read, “The United States today. Mr. President, is this the bulwark of human rights?”
Thirty years later, Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the mothers group that had protested the disappearances under the regime, held a commemorative match at Estadio Monumental for players and survivors of the Dirty War, according to a 2018 Esquire story.
“The 1978 World Cup was a gold brooch for repression, a mundial that was made to wash the faces of the murderers in front of the world,” said one of the organizers of the event, Mabel Gutiérrez. (The World Cup is known as the Copa Mundial in Spanish.)
“I think ’78 is the beginning of this trouble FIFA gets itself in, and this is the culmination of it now,” said Lisi, calling the two World Cups bookends. “FIFA wants to clean up its act, they want to be less corrupt, they want to be more transparent, but I think as long as they’re awarding World Cups to countries like this, it’s not going to help them at all.” | 2022-12-15T16:38:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When Argentina hosted the 1978 World Cup, human rights were left behind - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/1978-world-cup-argentina/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/1978-world-cup-argentina/ |
Alex Ovechkin celebrates after scoring his 800th career goal Tuesday. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Will never ever forget it. An incredible moment. https://t.co/C2dMW5KshU
“This is not about me,” Beninati told the Team 980′s Kevin Sheehan on Wednesday. “Selfishly, you’d love to be there. More than anything, I want our entire TV team to be there. It’s not just the guys with the microphones attached to their faces. It’s not just me and Locker and Alan May and Al Koken and Brent Johnson and Alexa Landestoy. It’s not just those people that I’m talking about.”
“We have the next little run here,” Beninati told Sheehan. “This is Alex’s moment. We’ve been really fortunate. If I’m not mistaken, with respect to Ovechkin, we had one, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, so we did okay there. We unfortunately didn’t have the elite 800, which would’ve been pretty special.”
#OTD in 2007, Ovi potted his 100th career goal in a duel between the #Gr8 and the 👑.#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/yR4i0uco84
400: Dec. 20, 2013, at Carolina Hurricanes
“Backdoor look, Ovechkin, rips, he scores! In a flash! Welcome to the club. No. 500 for the Great 8.” | 2022-12-15T16:38:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ESPN's call of Alex Ovechkin's 800th goal was lacking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/alex-ovechkin-800th-goal-call/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/alex-ovechkin-800th-goal-call/ |
The Board on Professional Responsibility preliminarily found Giuliani violated the terms of his license but is still weighing what discipline he should face
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to reporters after a court hearing in New York. (Michael Sisak/AP)
An arm of the D.C. Bar found Thursday that Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and personal attorney to President Donald Trump, violated the terms of his license to practice law in the nation’s capital when he filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania trying to block certification of the results in the 2020 presidential election.
The preliminary finding by the D.C. Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility means Giuliani and his legal team will have to file additional briefs detailing his defense and his role in the lawsuit, as officials consider what discipline he should face. Robert Bernius, the board’s chairman, said after a private 15-minute discussion Thursday that the finding was “preliminary and nonbinding.”
Hamilton “Phil” Fox III, the lead prosecuting attorney for the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, told the board that Giuliani’s conduct “calls for only one sanction, and that’s the sanction of disbarment.”
But Bernius asked whether disbarment was extreme, noting that former D.C. administrative law judge Roy Pearson Jr. was suspended from practicing law in the city for only 90 days when he sued a dry cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants. That D.C. case garnered national attention.
In hearings last week, Fox argued that Giuliani had “weaponized” his law license in filing the lawsuit in Pennsylvania that falsely claimed that the November 2020 presidential election in that state was riddled with fraud. Those claims, Fox said, were “unfounded.”
He told the board that Giuliani had a “distinguished” career as a former federal prosecutor and a former U.S. attorney in New York. But “that was 20 years ago,” he said. “It’s like there are two different people. I don’t know if something happened to Mr. Giuliani or what.”
During his own testimony, Giuliani often minimized his role in the lawsuit and asserted that he had done nothing wrong.
The Republican former New York mayor told board members that other attorneys were responsible for the language in the suit and that he had little time to thoroughly investigate the allegations himself before filing it. He claimed doing so is common practice, as allegations in lawsuits often are investigated after cases are filed.
“You have to plead fraud with specificity with what you have, with what is available,” Giuliani said. “But in discovery you get the additional information. This was specific enough for this stage of the pleading. That’s why it’s evidence and not a conclusion.”
Fox disputed that.
“There was a conspiracy, and he was the head of it,” he said. “It was shoot first, ask questions later. Lawyers can’t do that.”
Giuliani’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of then-President Trump, was rejected by a judge. And a federal appeals court refused to let the campaign file a revised complaint.
Giuliani’s attorney, John Leventhal, a retired New York judge, argued that because Trump’s Pennsylvania legal challenge did not go forward, there was no legal reason for Giuliani to have his law license revoked. He said Thursday that doing so would “chill any advocacy,” and that the board should consider a letter of reprimand or private admonishment.
Last year, the New York State appellate court temporarily suspended Giuliani’s law license on the recommendation of a disciplinary committee, after finding he had sought to mislead judges, lawmakers and the public as he helped shepherd Trump’s election results challenge.
Giuliani has been licensed in the District since 1976, though his license had been inactive when it was suspended amid allegations of impropriety.
After hearing testimony over three days last week and closing arguments from both sides, the D.C. Bar allowed Giuliani to testify Thursday about his efforts to interview witnesses in Philadelphia who claimed that they were barred from viewing the opening of election ballots.
Giuliani said that he interviewed about four or five individuals but that doing so at voting sites “was very chaotic” in the hours after the election.
“It was on the verge of violence, with a lot of yelling,” Giuliani said. “It was like being at a Philadelphia Eagles football game.”
In July, the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel also levied ethics charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department assistant attorney general who worked on efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The board alleged in particular that Clark engaged in dishonest conduct when he drafted a letter he wanted the Justice Department to send to Georgia state officials demanding that the state legislature call a special session to examine votes in the presidential election.
Hearings in Clark’s case could begin as early as next month. | 2022-12-15T17:08:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Bar lawyer calls for Giuliani’s disbarment, as board weighs case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-bar-giuliani-law-license/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-bar-giuliani-law-license/ |
A new look at Marguerite Duras, who, at 70, shocked the literary world
A new translation of the French novelist’s second novel, ‘The Easy Life,’ is an exercise in experimentation — and melodrama
Review by Marion Winik
At age 70, Marguerite Duras published, to much acclaim, “The Lover,” an autobiographical novel about her sexual awakening at age 15 in Saigon, with an older, wealthy man. She had alluded to this deflowering in other of her many novels, but this one got the most attention, winning her the Prix Goncourt in 1984 and turning her into something of a literary icon. This explains the excitement, in some corners of the literary world, over the publication last month of the first English translation of Duras’ novel “The Easy Life,” which initially came out in 1944, in French, when the author was 26.
Among those excited by the book’s new life is Kate Zambreno, an avant-garde autofictionist who contributed the introduction to the English edition.
Taking a cue from her literary heroine, Zambreno gets personal in explaining her approach to the book: “I take notes on Duras with my breast still out. The baby’s father and her sister are in the kitchen, making hot chocolate, tofu for soup.”
With a well-thumbed stack of Duras novels on her nightstand, Zambreno has background on the book to impart: Despite being criticized for its “muddled narrative” and a “lack of control,” Gallimard published “The Easy Life” (“La Vie Tranquille,”) anyway, recognizing “a true writer’s voice.” Zambreno praises the book’s fractured nature. It’s a style, she says, that will become the author’s “trademark in later works — the instability of point of view, of her sense of self, a woman alone in a room, staring at a mirror, attempting to both disappear and find herself.”
Annie Ernaux writes about deep pain with cool restraint
I confess I had not read Duras before “The Easy Life,” so I prepared myself for an undisciplined, experimental work — an idea that was both alluring and off-putting. What I found was indeed unruly and unusual.
The opening of the book struck me as almost comical, with its torrent of melodramatic plot combined with a total absence of character development. As the curtain rises, the narrator Francine’s brother Nicolas has killed their uncle Jerôme because Francine spilled the beans on Jerôme’s affair with Nicolas’s wife, Clémence. In the wake of this, Clémence takes off, leaving her young child Noël in the care of Francine. Nicolas tentatively reconnects with his own longtime other-woman, Luce, but eventually lies down on the train tracks and kills himself. After his death, Luce comes after Francine’s own boyfriend, Tiène.
“Chaos, boredom, chaos,” as the narrator summarizes it.
For my part, I couldn’t help recalling what they used to say at the end of every episode of “Love of Chair,” the Electric Company’s soap opera parody — “And … what about Naomi?”
But back to the so-called easy life.
In Part 2, Francine takes off for the beach to absorb the weightiness of it all. “It did happen, Jérôme’s death, but Nicolas is also dead. Clémence is gone, Noël is abandoned. My parents have become quasi-insane, finished.” But she’s begun to doubt that it really is her fault after all. If it were, she thinks, shouldn’t she feel some remorse? In any case, the chaos and boredom continue as she watches impassively from the beach when a man drowns himself in the sea. The people at her hotel are so appalled by her flat reaction to the death that they kick her out!
The famously unstable point of view surfaces in the beach hotel section. The narration begins to alternate between first and third person — “Here, in my room, it’s me. It’s as if she no longer knows it’s her” — and what seems to be the main idea of the book emerges. “If I had known that one day I would have a story, I would have chosen it, I would have lived with more care to make it beautiful and true so that I would like it. Now it’s too late.”
Now she’s stuck with this chaotic, boring story, which she’ll be playing with for the rest of her writing life — dead brothers, crazy mothers, unclear responsibility for one’s actions, the constant undertow of the erotic.
Those of us who read mainly to escape chaos and boredom are not the target audience for “The Easy Life.” More intellectually and philosophically motivated readers, and certainly anyone who already knows and loves Duras, should plunge right in.
You can hope to have an experience similar to that rhapsodically described by the translators, Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes, in their afterword. “We channeled Francine’s boredom, her chaos, her youth and inherent old age. We let ourselves feel her fatigue, her containment, and her fragmentation, in turns. That’s how you translate Duras: you become one of her dreamers and degenerates.”
I, on the other hand, remain a philistine and a hayseed. Perhaps Annie Ernaux can cure me.
Marion Winik, a professor at the University of Baltimore, is the author of numerous books, including “First Comes Love,” “The Big Book of the Dead” and, most recently, “Above Us Only Sky.”
By Marguerite Duras. Introduction by Kate Zambreno. Translated by Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes
Bloomsbury. 208 pp. Paperback, $18 | 2022-12-15T17:13:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review: 'The Easy Life,' by Marguerite Duras - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/15/marguerite-duras-easy-life/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/15/marguerite-duras-easy-life/ |
A North Atlantic right whale in Cape Cod Bay, off the coast of Plymouth, Mass., in 2018. (Michael Dwyer/AP)
Saving whales is probably a good way to save the planet, according to a group of scientists who examined the animals’ potential to act as a carbon sink — something that helps reduce carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere by absorbing more carbon than it releases.
“Understanding the role of whales in the carbon cycle is a dynamic and emerging field that may benefit both marine conservation and climate-change strategies,” wrote the authors, led by Heidi Pearson, a biologist from the University of Alaska Southeast.
This scientist uses drones and algorithms to save whales — and the rest of the ocean
The ocean is by far the world’s largest carbon sink, having absorbed about 40 percent of all carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution.
“Whales consume up to 4 percent of their massive body weight in krill and photosynthetic plankton every day. For the blue whale, this equates to nearly 8,000 pounds,” the scientists wrote. “When they finish digesting their food, their excrement is rich in important nutrients that help these krill and plankton flourish, aiding in increased photosynthesis and carbon storage from the atmosphere.”
A 2019 report published by the International Monetary Fund estimated that a great whale sequesters 33 tons of carbon dioxide each year on average, while a tree absorbs only up to 48 pounds a year — a figure the report’s authors used to suggest that conservationists could be better off saving whales than planting trees.
The new paper explores how a recovery in whale populations to pre-whaling levels — between 4 million and 5 million, from slightly more than 1.3 million in 2019, according to the IMF report — could increase the animals’ ability to act as a carbon sink. (Commercial hunting, the main reason whales’ numbers have dwindled, has decreased their populations by 81 percent, the researchers said.)
Among a number of whale species, the amount of carbon that was being sequestered “jumps up by one or two orders of magnitude” with a recovery in the whale population, said Stephen Wing, a co-author of the paper and a marine science professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
The numbers are “relatively small” considering the scope of the global climate challenge, “but relative to the promises that some nations make on reducing CO2 emissions, they’re relatively large,” he added.
“We’re kind of hind casting and saying the recovery could achieve pre-whaling numbers because the system has previously sustained that number of whales,” Wing said.
Whales, along with a number of ocean animals, are vulnerable to climate change, as rising temperatures drive them into new habitats. They rank among the world’s most endangered marine mammals, including the North Atlantic right whale, only about 340 of which remain.
Whales are still being killed in startlingly high numbers, years after commercial whaling was banned, in waters brimming with ships that strike them and ropes that entangle them. Offshore wind turbines — part of President Biden’s clean energy agenda — are also poised to encroach on their habitat as the administration tries to balance tackling global warming with protecting wildlife.
Scientists just discovered a new whale. Now they fear it may go extinct.
“Whale recovery has the potential for long-term self-sustained enhancement of the ocean carbon sink,” the authors wrote. “The full carbon dioxide reduction role of great whales (and other organisms) will only be realized through robust conservation and management interventions that directly promote population increases.”
The authors were cautious on the math behind including whale carbon in any wider climate-change mitigation strategies just yet, however, as there are still many scientific unknowns. They argued that recent studies valuing the carbon contribution of a single blue whale at $1.4 million “are based on assumptions beyond our understanding of whale ecology and biological oceanography.”
Dino Grandoni and Tatiana Schlossberg contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T17:14:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whales may help reduce carbon in Earth’s atmosphere, scientists say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/15/whales-carbon-sink-climate-change-sequestration/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/15/whales-carbon-sink-climate-change-sequestration/ |
NCAA names Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker to succeed Mark Emmert as president
Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker will take over as president of the NCAA in March. (Elise Amendola/AP)
Charlie Baker, whose second term as governor of Massachusetts ends next month, has been selected to replace NCAA President Mark Emmert when his term ends March 1.
The selection of Baker, who played basketball at Harvard, by the NCAA Board of Governors gives the organization a president with political and business experience. But Baker, a Republican, is also the first NCAA leader who does not have a professional background in higher education or college sports. The 66-year-old Baker has spent most of his career in Massachusetts state government and also worked for a decade in health care administration.
“Gov. Baker has shown a remarkable ability to bridge divides and build bipartisan consensus, taking on complex challenges in innovative and effective ways,” Linda Livingstone, the Baylor University president and Board of Governors chair who led the search committee, said in a statement. “As a former student-athlete himself, husband to a former college gymnast, and father to two former college football players, Gov. Baker is deeply committed to our student-athletes and enhancing their collegiate experience. These skills and perspective will be invaluable as we work with policymakers to build a sustainable model for the future of college athletics.”
Emmert announced in April that he would step down after 12 years in the job. A former University of Washington president and LSU chancellor, he was the second NCAA leader from the world of academia after Myles Brand, his predecessor. Emmert, who earned $2.99 million for the fiscal year that ended in 2021, will remain with the NCAA, helping with the transition, until June.
Baker will head up an organization that has faced severe challenges over the last few years, including a sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, which landed Emmert in lawsuits; an academic scandal at North Carolina, over which the NCAA took criticism for its inability to pursue penalties; inequities between men’s and women’s sports; and a federal investigation of recruiting in men’s basketball, during which the NCAA was derided as slow and ineffective. The organization has also been rocked by the liberalization of name, image and likeness rules, allowing college athletes to capitalize on their brands. There has been increased discussion over the lasting relevance of the organization in recent years, even as athletes’ power has increased.
“The NCAA is confronting complex and significant challenges, but I am excited to get to work as the awesome opportunity college athletics provides to so many students is more than worth the challenge,” Baker said in a statement. “And for the fans that faithfully fill stadiums, stands and gyms from coast to coast, I am eager to ensure the competitions we all love to follow are there for generations to come. Over the coming months, I will begin working with student-athletes and NCAA members as we modernize college sports to suit today’s world, while preserving its essential value.”
Jenkins: Don’t misinterpret Mark Emmert’s failure. The NCAA can be saved.
Baker’s name surfaced in a conversation between Sam Kennedy, CEO of the Boston Red Sox, and Len Perna, chairman of TurnkeyZRG, who assisted with the search, according to Sports Business Journal.
“I mentioned to Sam the NCAA is looking for an executive who has four things: passionate about higher education; ran a business as CEO; was also in government; and was a student-athlete and could dunk a basketball,” Perna told the outlet. “Sam laughed and said: ‘I think I might actually have somebody. Ever heard of Charlie Baker?’”
Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) praised Baker said in a statement to The Post for “having steered our Commonwealth through some of the most difficult moments in recent history. ...
“The NCAA is at an inflection point where athletes and the millions of fans who root them on have largely lost faith in it as an organization. The Association desperately needs a proven leader who personally understands the unique needs of the nearly 500,000 college athletes it serves and who is prepared to do what’s necessary to right the ship. I commend Gov. Baker for taking on this new challenge, and I believe his experience as a college basketball player coupled with his extensive career spanning both the public and private sectors will serve him well in this position.” | 2022-12-15T18:01:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker will be next NCAA president - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/charlie-baker-ncaa-president/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/charlie-baker-ncaa-president/ |
The Commanders are headed up, but is it sustainable? (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
This is without question rarefied air for the Washington Commanders. Television executives, who know everything about the viewing habits of red-blooded, football-thirsty Americans, decided those red-blooded, football-thirsty American would tune out a game involving Bill Belichick’s post-dynasty New England Patriots going up against one of his proteges, and would prefer some Taylor Heinicke vs. Daniel Jones.
The last time this franchise reached the playoffs in back-to-back years: 1990, ’91 and ’92, the twilight of the era in which it was a league powerhouse. There are 31 other franchises in the NFL. Only one, the Cleveland Browns, has gone longer without consecutive playoff appearances; its last run came from 1985-89.
And yet, somehow, it feels … fragile. Sustainability should have a sturdiness about it, an underlying tone that what’s already been accomplished is just the beginning, that more is possible. With the Commanders, the possibilities don’t feel, at the moment, limitless. They feel decidedly limited. | 2022-12-15T18:31:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are the Washington Commanders built to last? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/washington-commanders-playoffs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/washington-commanders-playoffs/ |
Prince Harry and Meghan. (Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex/Netflix)
The series, produced under the Archewell Productions banner as part of the couple’s Netflix deal, claims that the palace planted negative stories about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in British tabloids after her popularity threw off an existing power dynamic. Prince Harry addresses the “wedge” that came to exist between him and his brother, Prince William, amid Harry and Meghan’s decision to relocate and step back from their royal duties.
In last year’s sit-down television interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan said that the constant barrage of negative press contributed to her experiencing suicidal thoughts. She expresses the same sentiment in the Netflix series, in which she also states that palace officials, who exercised great control over her day-to-day, denied her the ability to seek help because they were concerned how it would reflect upon the “institution,” or the palace and royal family.
Meghan confided in her mother, Doria Ragland, about what she was going through. Ragland tears up in the series as she recalls the moment. “I knew that it was bad, but to be constantly picked at by these vultures, just picking away at her spirit, that she would actually think of not wanting to be here — that’s not an easy one for a mom to hear,” Ragland says. “And I can’t protect her. H can’t protect her.”
“What took over my feelings was my royal role,” he says. “I had been trained to worry more about: ‘What are people going to think if we don’t go to this event? We’re going to be late.’ And looking back at it now, I hate myself for it.”
Harry recalls William yelling at him over his desire to step back from royal duties.
“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” he says. “But you have to understand that from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things, and her ultimate mission, goal-slash-responsibility, is the institution.”
When rumors spread that William had “bullied” Harry and Meghan out of the family, the palace issued a statement attempting to squash the idea. Harry says he was never informed of the statement, and laments that “they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
The proceedings went on for years, stretching into when Harry and Meghan moved to Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2020 while she was pregnant with their second child. She suffered a miscarriage on their first day in the home, an experience she later wrote about in a New York Times column.
After Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal responsibilities and relocated to Vancouver Island, off Canada’s Pacific Coast, the palace stripped them of their security detail. They were still experiencing widespread harassment and death threats — even receiving suspicious packages, according to the couple. The moment their rental property’s location was published in the tabloids, they knew they needed to relocate quickly.
When their daughter, Lilibet, was born, Harry and Meghan asked Perry to be the godfather. He agreed, on the condition that he wouldn’t have to attend a christening in Britain with the royal family in attendance. | 2022-12-15T18:45:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Harry & Meghan’ on Netflix: 5 standout revelations from Volume 2 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/15/meghan-harry-netflix-part-2/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/15/meghan-harry-netflix-part-2/ |
The Roffignac is one of the classic cocktails featured in 'Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em,' by Neal Bodenheimer and Emily Timberlake. (Scott Suchman for The Washington Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post)
“Which all makes it sound like I’m … insane … but it wasn’t meant to be that way,” Bodenheimer says, noting how the pandemic played hell with so many plans and threw off so much original project timing. But he knew he’d never get the book done without help, and Timberlake, a longtime food writer and editor based in Oakland, Calif., proved to be the perfect partner in the project. Their calls and planning sessions for the book helped keep him sane during the pandemic, when so much seemed to be coming apart.
Bodenheimer knew he “didn't want to do another bar-bar book, because so many bars have made bar books that I think it's a pretty complete genre. And I didn't want to do a vanity project either … . I want to talk about what Cure is and what it's done, but I want to put it into the larger context of New Orleans drinking.”
Exploring the historical component of New Orleans drinking required some wrestling with the ghost of Stanley Clisby Arthur, the journalist whose 1937 book, “Famous New Orleans Drinks And How to Mix ’Em” inspired the subtitle of the Cure book.
“We used ‘Famous New Orleans Drinks, and How To Mix ’Em’ as a guide when we were opening Dauphine’s,” Bodenheimer says, and that meant he ended up spending a lot of time with the book. “So I have this deep appreciation for him, because he really created this canon of New Orleans drinks. … Without him, I don’t think New Orleans would hold that important place in world drinking. At the same time, I look at some of his history, and I’m like, ‘Man, you were really winging it.’ But that’s also kind of perfect, because that is like the bar world, too. There are a lot of people who are faking it till they make it.”
Scale and get a printer-friendly, desktop version of the recipe here.
This upgrade on an old New Orleans drink makes for a more balanced take on what was originally a very sweet drink. The old recipe in Stanley Clisby Arthur’s classic cocktail book called for whiskey, but this version from the bar Cure’s new cocktail book uses Darroze 8 Year Les Grands Assemblages Bas-Armagnac, a French grape brandy, for the base. Co-author Neal Bodenheimer notes that the recipe works “surprisingly well with any number of unaged spirits,” but doesn’t like it with the original whiskey. The raspberry shrub can be refrigerated for several months and can be added to sparkling water, lemonade or other drinks.
Storage: Refrigerate the shrub for up to 3 months.
Adapted from “Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em,” by Neal Bodenheimer and Emily Timberlake (Abrams, 2022)
Tested by M. Carrie Allan. | 2022-12-15T18:45:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New cocktail book is the Cure for tired New Orleans cocktail recipes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/15/cure-cookbook-roffignac-recipe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/15/cure-cookbook-roffignac-recipe/ |
Joaquina Kalukango poses for a portrait on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, in New York. Kalukango has been named one of The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2022. (Matt Licari/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK — Winning a Tony Award as best lead actress in a musical cemented Joaquina Kalukango’s place in the Broadway firmament. But it also, surprisingly, cemented Kalukango’s belief that she could actually do musicals. | 2022-12-15T18:45:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Joaquina Kalukango, in paradise - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-joaquina-kalukango-in-paradise/2022/12/15/dadd5c16-7c9b-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-joaquina-kalukango-in-paradise/2022/12/15/dadd5c16-7c9b-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
American elections are getting much closer
New Hampshire Ballot Law commissioners David Campbell, left, and Christopher Messier review ballots that were challenged during a recount in a state House race. (Holly Ramer/AP)
Almost everyone knows how closely decided the 2016 election was. Many people don’t realize how close 2020 was, as well. But the 2022 election was right there with both of them.
One of the undersold trends in American politics is just how narrowly elections are suddenly being decided. After a series of mostly wave elections from 2006 to 2014, three of the past four elections have been decided by exceedingly fine margins.
Shifts of less than one percentage point across the board could have flipped both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The current and next Congresses account for two of the five most closely divided Houses in the past century, with either side winning just a nine-seat majority. And the Senate has moved from a 50-50 Senate controlled by Democrats to a 51-49 Senate controlled by Democrats.
This is something of a hobbyhorse of ours, and it’s worth running the numbers again, now that all the election results are in.
Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin beat us to some of that this week. He calculated that Republicans won the House by fewer than 7,000 votes across the five closest contests — contests that, had Democrats won, would have kept the House under their control. (Those contests: Colorado’s 3rd District, California’s 13th, Michigan’s 10th, Iowa’s 3rd and New York’s 17th.)
The largest margin in those five races was 0.8 of a percentage point. That means that if you shift the House vote nationwide by less than one percentage point, Democrats would’ve kept their “trifecta” of control in Washington.
And that, as it turns out, is a significantly closer result even than in 2020, when Democrats won the same nine-seat majority. Back then, they won their majority by fewer than 35,000 votes combined in the five decisive districts. But the median district was decided by 2.2 percentage points, meaning Republicans would have needed a bigger across-the-board shift to flip the majority.
Rubashkin calculated that every other House election since 2012 featured a vote margin in the decisive races that was north of 100,000, compared with less than 7,000 in 2022.
For comparison, in 2020 Democrats won the House by the exact same spread: 222-213. But in their 5 closest victories, Democratic candidates outpaced their GOP opponents by 34,734 votes - nearly 4x. And both of those years were far narrower than the GOP dominance of 2014 and 2016. pic.twitter.com/vgDOjvgb5M
The fact that a shift of 0.8 of a percentage point would’ve swung the 2022 battle for the House is on par with how close the 2016 and 2022 elections were.
In 2016, Donald Trump won the three decisive states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all by 0.8 points or less.
And despite President Biden’s sizable 2020 popular-vote win, he won the three decisive states — Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin — all by 0.6 points or less. (Technically, flipping those states would have deadlocked the electoral college at 269 votes each, but the House would have broken the tie, and most delegations were controlled by the GOP.)
Republicans were also effectively one-quarter of a percentage point away from keeping control of the Senate in 2020; that’s the margin by which Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) missed avoiding a runoff, which he later lost.
So that’s four cases, in the past four elections, in which less than 1 percentage point determined who would control the White House (twice) or whether Democrats would have a trifecta in Washington (twice).
The story was similar in some key races for control of state governments, to wit:
In Arizona, Democrats prevented a GOP trifecta by winning the governor’s race by 0.6 of a percentage point.
In Kansas, they prevented a GOP trifecta by winning the governor’s race by 2.1 points — or about 21,000 votes.
In Nevada, Republicans prevented a Democratic trifecta by winning the governor’s race by 1.5 points — or about 15,000 votes.
In Minnesota, Democrats won the trifecta thanks to a 321-vote win for one state Senate seat, which handed them control of the chamber.
In New Hampshire, Republicans maintained their trifecta thanks to just a four-vote win for a state House seat in Grafton. That gave them a 201st seat out of 400. (Another state House race is being run again because it ended in a tie, but the best Democrats could do even if they win that one is 199 seats.)
It remains very unlikely that any one person would ever cast a decisive vote with large-scale implications. But, of late, relatively small numbers of votes are proving extremely important in American politics.
Analysis: There’s bipartisan potential on China, if the GOP wants it | 2022-12-15T18:45:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | American elections are getting much closer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/american-elections-are-getting-much-closer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/american-elections-are-getting-much-closer/ |
Biden announces presidential visit to Africa next year
The president also formally announced U.S. support for the African Union to permanently join the G-20
President Biden announced Thursday he would make his first presidential visit to Africa next year as he seeks to convince African leaders that the United States is serious about engaging them in international decisions and countering China’s rising influence in the region.
During remarks at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Biden also formally announced the United States’ support for the African Union to become a permanent member of the Group of 20 nations, a step that would give African nations a long-sought prize and could make it easier for Biden to secure their cooperation on issues like Ukraine and climate change.
“I’m eager to visit your continent,” Biden said. “Some of you invited me to your countries. I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for because I may show up.’”
“I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in your home countries,” Biden added. He said Vice President Harris and first lady Jill Biden would also visit Africa, in addition to several Cabinet members.
Biden hosted the first U.S.-Africa summit in eight years; the last such summit was in 2014 under President Barack Obama. Biden has also worked to repair the relationship with many of the continent’s leaders after Trump denigrated and cast aside the region during his presidency.
Many African leaders expressed hope that Biden would visit, which they said would signal a level of seriousness about his administration’s engagement with Africa that has been lacking.
As Beijing invests billions of dollars in African infrastructure projects and Russian-backed paramilitary forces help train African militaries, the United States has countered with promises of food assistance and investments in farming and green power. This week’s summit included sessions on agriculture and food security, issues that African leaders have been eager to discuss — particularly as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has aggravated a growing food crisis on the continent and elsewhere in the Global South. | 2022-12-15T18:45:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden announces presidential visit to Africa next year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/biden-africa-visit-2023/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/biden-africa-visit-2023/ |
Who convinced Donald Trump that Trump NFTs were a good idea?
President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up during a campaign rally in Goodyear, Ariz., on Oct. 28, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
It’s very easy to see how NFTs — non-fungible tokens; bits of digital art created to be unique — would appeal to Donald Trump. People were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for exclusive ownership of a drawing of a monkey! All you had to do was make a picture, hit some internet buttons somewhere, and suddenly you’re vacuuming up cash like there’s no tomorrow. For Donald Trump, a guy who used his name to sell everything from steaks to water, the idea would be irresistible.
So, on Thursday, the former president of the United States — a guy who two years ago oversaw the vast power of the American government, a man who at one time could command armies and navies as he saw fit — announced that he was getting into the NFT game.
There are ... just a few problems.
The first is that those NFT creators weren’t vacuuming up cash but crypto — that is, digital currency that is only loosely tethered to the actual economy. A lot of those hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars sales were in currencies that have since lost a lot of value, making them, say, thousands-of-dollars sales.
The second is that people were paying lots of money for NFTs. Crypto went through a boom in 2021 that helped power the NFT market. By January, there were more than 322,000 sales of collectible NFTs a week, generating hundreds of millions of dollars. But by September, trading volume had collapsed by 97 percent. In the most recent week, according to NonFungible, there were only about 33,000 sales of collectible NFTs.
This is in part because crypto itself has been hammered. It is also, in part, because the NFT fad has deflated. NFTs were hyped as a big innovation in art and collecting — but it quickly became apparent that “ownership” didn’t mean much, given how images could be shared, and that fraud was rampant. CNN figured it would jump into NFTs ... and then quickly jumped back out. And that was two months ago!
The third problem with Trump’s effort is that the entire thing is far more Trump Steak than Trump 2016. For all of his obsession with presenting a glamorous lifestyle, his aesthetic has long been more Queen of Versailles than Versailles. And the art in the NFT line largely consists of clumsily Photoshopping Trump’s head onto manly, svelte figures — not necessarily the sort of thing that someone might find worth an initial $99 investment.
To be fair, the initial pitch from Trump doesn’t dwell much on the potential for that investment to increase over time, one of the reasons people got excited about NFTs in the first place. Instead, the initial pitch presented at CollectTrumpCards.com comes off more like you’re being asked to buy a pack of baseball cards. After all, included in every sale is the chance to win an amazing prize, from dinner with Trump — “I don’t know if that’s an amazing prize,” Trump says in a video promoting the sales, “but it’s what we have” — to one hour of golf with him to personal Zoom calls.
The promotional video is very Trump. He begins, for example, by speculating that he is probably the viewer’s favorite president of all-time, more than Washington, more than Lincoln. It’s a weird reminder that he was president, offering a jarring contrast with the sales pitch that follows. This is what our favorite president is doing? Trying to get people to pony up $99 for a picture of Trump dressed as a NASCAR driver for some reason?
A picture, mind you, that you “own” only conceptually. It’s a bit like those kiosks at the mall where you could buy pictures of Jesus doing different jobs, letting you, say, get a mug of Jesus helping a school-bus driver to give to your friend who drives a school bus. But at least then you got the mug.
When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he found a way to generate a ton of money despite losing power. Through incessant email appeals, he managed to scoop up tens of millions of dollars from supporters who believed they were helping him fight to retain his position. Now, it seems, he’s trying a new angle. He probably feels empowered by the success of his coffee-table book of pictures from his presidency. If people are paying $75 for that book (or more than $200 if signed!), why wouldn’t they pay $99 for these? One reason, of course, is that with the book, you at least get the book.
(I really cannot stress enough how bad the Photoshopping is here.)
What’s really remarkable about this is that Trump is theoretically a candidate for the presidency. His campaign, announced last month, has not really done much yet, to the frustration of his allies. But here he is, spending time hyping a product unrelated to the campaign, one that lines his own pockets. (As has often been the case with Trump’s business ventures, he’s licensing his name to the company offering the NFTs.) He is tapping into his supporters’ limited pool of good will and money to benefit himself, not his purported presidential campaign.
I got out of the Trump-prediction-making game back on Nov. 8, 2016, so I will make no predictions about whether Trump’s NFT play will work. I will note, however, that Melania Trump tried to make waves with NFTs a lot closer to the market’s peak — and wound up buying her own offering.
But, then, it wasn’t a really cool picture of her dressed like a football player, standing at the “45” yard line. That plus the chance to be part of a “group Zoom call” with Trump? As Trump says in the video, the $99 cost “doesn’t sound like very much for what you’re getting”!
The onetime proprietor of Trump University certainly wouldn’t steer you wrong. | 2022-12-15T18:46:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who convinced Donald Trump that Trump NFTs were a good idea? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/trump-nft-digital-cards-presidency/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/trump-nft-digital-cards-presidency/ |
Transcript: 117th Congress: The Lame-Duck Session
Joining me today is Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who is also right now the Democratic whip.
Representative Clyburn, thanks so much for joining us today.
REP. CLYBURN: Well, thank you for having me.
MS. CALDWELL: And to our audience, we, of course, love to hear from you. So please feel free to tweet at us if you have any questions for the Congressman.
So, Congressman Clyburn, we are at the very end of the year, the end of the Congress. Congress is still working to try to fund the government for the remainder of the year. First, I want to ask you; there has been some deal on a framework that has been reached. Do you know how much spending, how much the government is going to spend, for the rest of the year, what that number is?
REP. CLYBURN: No, I don't.
Thank you very much for having me, first of all.
I don't know the answer to that question simply because I understand that within this framework, agreements have been made on defense spending but not on domestic spending, and that's always a big problem for us Democrats to get domestic spending at a level that we think will help to make this country's greatness accessible and affordable for all of its people. That's always a problem. You take care of the defense and you don't take you into domestic; that's a problem for us. So I don't know what it's going to be, and we still could have some problems if that's not sufficient.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah. So, I mean, the new deadline is expected to be December 23rd, a week from tomorrow, assuming they pass this short-term extension. So are you saying that the agreement is not set in stone, that they don’t have a number yet on what is going to be spent on non-defense spending?
REP. CLYBURN: That's my understanding. I don't know of any agreement on that, and when you start talking about top lines and we don't see the details, that could still be a problem, certainly could be a problem for me.
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah. So this is also the last vehicle that's supposed to leave the station for the year. There could be a lot of things attached to it, including potentially the Electoral Count Act. Of course, that's reforming the counting of the electoral votes to ensure that a January 6th, 2021, doesn't happen again. There's two different versions: There's a Senate version and a House version. Are you supportive of the Senate version being attached to whatever government funding bill passes through Congress this year?
REP. CLYBURN: Yes, I am supportive of that. I do believe that you cannot allow perfect to be the enemy of good. If they've got a good bill, it's better than no bill. I think what we did on the House side is better. I usually do think that way, but I will be accept--you know, appreciative of whatever they do.
MS. CALDWELL: And getting back to this non-defense spending, the domestic spending, it’s estimated that there’s about $158 billion for defense. That was the number that was part of the annual Defense Authorization Act. Are you going to insist that that number is equal, that it is also the same for non-defense spending?
REP. CLYBURN: No. I don't make any insistence on anything like that. I think, just to be fair, my whole thing is I'm always going to be for more domestic spending than we will ever get. In the last day, infrastructure bill, ours for $95 billion for broadband. We only got $65 billion. But I'm not going to say $95 billion or nothing. If I can get $65 billion, maybe we can come back and get the other $30 billion later.
So same thing here. I never cast myself in stone on any of these issues. I lay out what I think is the best way to go, what I think is best to do, and fight for it. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose.
MS. CALDWELL: Democrats are in control of both houses, both chambers right now. We're up against another deadline. Why wasn't Congress able to do its job to fund the government on time? Why are we in this place again?
REP. CLYBURN: Because I think we just make a big mistake, fooling around with this so-called debt limit. I have advocated for more than 20 years now that we ought to get rid of this. No other country like ours or anything akin to it has got anything called a “debt limit.” You ought to just get rid of that and do what we know should be done year in and year out. To keep putting this so-called “debt limit” and every year raising it, it’s just a bit sophomoric to me. Get rid of this notion and do what we need to do to run the country.
Every other country is doing that. I think that we and one other, I believe--the only country in the world that's got a debt limit. What does it do? Why do we have it?
MS. CALDWELL: Yeah. Do you think that it's going to be attached to this government funding bill, an increase to the debt limit?
REP. CLYBURN: I really don’t know, and I don’t know that --and, well, there was some discussion about this sometime ago, but I had no idea what may be going on with the Senate negotiations at the moment.
But we aren't going to shut the government down. So, if it is required to fund the government, that is, raising the debt limit, yes, I think it should be attached. There's no way for us to attach it once we come back here and get out of here on time. So they ought to attach it and send it over, and I think we'll all approve it, if we can get domestic spending done in a fair way.
MS. CALDWELL: Great. I want to ask you about immigration. There’s a lot of reporting out today about the Biden administration, worried about an influx of migrants coming over the border. December 21st is the -- when the Title 42, the health emergency rule, is going to be lifted. What is -- what does the Biden administration need to do to improve the-- what’s happening on the border?
REP. CLYBURN: You know, I really don’t know, and I hate to pitch-hit an opinion about that, simply because I’m not in the room with all of this. I know that we were expecting a big surge within the last several hours or days, and it’s supposed to be a pretty -- one bigger than we’ve had in a while.
I chatted on yesterday with a gentleman who had just left the border and asked him what his feelings were. This is someone who had just spent some time down there with TSA, and he was pretty pleased with things or with the way things are. He thought a lot of humanity was on display down there, but I didn't get into any intricacies about what may or may not be going on with this administration. We just talked about what's taking place with the human beings who are coming across the border. I know they're being placed in a temporary category until such time as we can make a decision about what to do with this legislation.
I really don't have any strong opinions about it. I want to see immigration reform take place. I want to see DACA made permanent. These things, I think we ought to do and take people out of limbo.
MS. CALDWELL: Should the administration extend Title 42 for the time being?
REP. CLYBURN: I don't have an opinion on that or not.
MS. CALDWELL: Okay.
REP. CLYBURN: I just would leave that up to those people who've got all the information.
REP. CLYBURN: I'm not keeping notes on how many people may be coming across the border or when or where they're coming from, and I'll just leave it up to them.
MS. CALDWELL: You wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post -- I think it was out today -- about covid investigations, and you are taking issue with some investigations that the Republicans plan to do next year regarding covid. Some Republicans already released a preliminary report on the covid origins. Do you think that covid origins should be investigated, that that should be a priority for Republicans when they take control of Congress next year?
MS. CALDWELL: I don’t know whether it should be a priority for Congress under the Republicans. Look, that kind of investigation needs to be done by the proper people, the scientists, the people who deal in this day in and day out, our intelligence community. That’s who should be dealing with this. This is a federal -- a national government in China, and for us, a subcommittee -- not even a full committee. This is a select subcommittee, got no authority to do anything. So what should -- why should we spend our time investigating the origin of this? That is sophomoric at best. Our job -- and it’s right there -- was to oversee the monies that’s being appropriated to make sure that PPP loans and other monies appropriated by the Congress, that that money is spent efficiently, effectively, and equitably. We aren’t there -- they wanted your attention on the origin of this while their friends fleeced the government.
We had one group -- what’s that? Kodak? They make great cameras -- survive when we giving them $750 billion -- or $750 million to do medical stuff. We stopped that. $109 million from nursing homes that they should not have gotten, we got that money back. We have been doing what we are supposed to do. So we going to be talking about the origin while these people fleeced the government. We are not in that business. Let the scientists and the intelligence community study that, find out where it came from, how it got into human beings. But for the select subcommittee, we were patterned after the Truman committee after World War II --
REP. CLYBURN: -- that went into business in order to keep people from fleecing the government as happened after World War I.
MS. CALDWELL: Republicans are going have --you know, made no secret of the fact that they plan to investigate the Biden administration, including his son, Hunter, and his business dealings. Should the Biden administration, should the White House cooperate with these investigations and respond to requests for documents, requests to testify, and subpoenas?
REP. CLYBURN: If it makes sense, yes. If it doesn't make sense, no. And I don't think a lot of this makes sense.
They’re worried about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and they need to be worried about people’s pocketbooks. We need to worry about people’s ability to improve their lives, plan for their children, and get their communities safe and sound. We cannot -- and I hope the American people will not allow these people to get them focused on things that don’t make sense.
Now, maybe they can't read as well as I can, and I think I can read voting patterns pretty well. And I think that what we saw on November 8th was a rejection of that foolishness, and I think that if didn't want to keep going down that rabbit hole, go at it. But for the fact that I'm in the business of trying to improve people lives, I will let them and hope that they stay going at it, and they'll pay dearly for it on the Election Day.
MS. CALDWELL: So, Congressman, I'm told that you have to go to votes, but I'm going to ask you one question, if you can answer very quickly, and that is, are you confident that President Biden is going to run for reelection?
REP. CLYBURN: I'm hopeful that he will. I'm hopeful.
MS. CALDWELL: Great.
REP. CLYBURN: He has not asked me, but if he were to ask me, I’ll say, “Run, Joe, run.” Why? Because you have demonstrated with this administration that you know the American people. His Rescue Act, his infrastructure bill, his science and CHIPS bill, inflation reduction, PACT Act for our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and all the way back to Vietnam with Ancient Orange, Safer Communities Act, we have done more under his administration than was done since the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson. And he kept us off -- I’ve said to him time and time. Time and circumstances line you up when with the administration of Harry Truman, and please, if you were to run, look at Harry Truman in 1948, and look at what this Congress, the next Congress is going to do, and run against these two nothing Republicans like Harry did, and the result will be the same.
MS. CALDWELL: Representative Clyburn, we are out of time. We have to cut it a few minutes short because you have to do your day job and go vote.
Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
REP. CLYBURN: Thank you very much for having me.
MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm. And we will be back in a few moments talking to two influential economic policy experts. Stay with us.
MS. UMOH: This year has arguably been one of the most consequential in recent memory for issues related to gender justice. I'm Ruth Umoh, leadership editor at Fortune, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Melissa Boteach, vice president for Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning with the National Women's Law Center, one of the leading national organizations fighting for gender equality with a particular focus on women and girls.
Melissa, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
MS. BOTEACH: Thank you for having me.
MS. UMOH: Absolutely.
Well, Melissa, we are in what is known as the, quote/unquote, “lame-duck session,” which on its face sounds ineffectual but, in fact, is an incredibly important time. Can you give us a brief breakdown of what this time period is, and what’s on the line for gender justice issues?
MS. BOTEACH: Sure. Well, essentially, the lame duck describes the time period between the election and the start of a new Congress, and in this case, control is shifting in the House of Representatives from Democrats to Republicans, which means Democrats in Congress are in a race to the finish line to get as much done as they possibly can before the new Congress is sworn in, in January. And there's a lot on the line for gender justice, because as much as was accomplished in the last two years by this Congress, there's a number of things that need to be resolved in the next few weeks, and time is ticking.
So, first and foremost, Congress every year passes a spending bill, and this includes just funding our government, and it's supposed to be addressing core functions like childcare, housing, all the things that we think of government in the annual appropriations process.
Well, Congress has to make a decision about whether or not they’re going to actually have a bipartisan agreement on a bill that’s going to fund the government next year or just flat-fund things in it what’s called a “continuing resolution,” which amounts to basically a cut, and so we’re pushing for them to really think holistically about funding the government, especially because a lot of our priorities like childcare and early learning for women and girls are involved in that bill.
Secondly, there is the Pregnant Worker's Fairness Act. So this is a bipartisan bill that essentially makes sure that pregnant women can be healthy and have healthy and safe pregnancies and, at the same time, keep and do all of their jobs, and so this is another piece of legislation that's sort of in a race to get wrapped up before the end of the year.
We also have ahead of us the debt ceiling, and so this is -- should be a fairly routine vote about whether or not we are going to pay our bills as the U.S. government, but traditionally, in the past few years, it’s become a little bit of political football with hostage taking about whether or not there’s going to be forced cuts or other kinds of actions if the government does not -- or if the Congress does not vote to pass that bill. And so Congress really needs to take care of that before the new session.
And then, finally, there’s a big tax conversation happening right now, and wrapped up in that is the fate of some improvements to the child tax credit, which have dramatically slashed child poverty and meant that 19 million kids and their families have been able to breathe a little bit easier, pay their rent, make sure that they can put food on the table. This was a provision that was in place during the American Rescue Plan, expired, and now we really need to make sure that we fight in this year-end battle to get it back into place.
MS. UMOH: Yeah. To your point, we've moved the needle on certain aspects and regressed on others. So let's look at the year in review and certainly into 2023. The Law Center and other partners have been leading the fights to fix the broken childcare system in this country. What are you proud of achieving this year for women and families, but also what's left to do?
MS. BOTEACH: So I think we’re incredibly proud that Congress passed historic relief for childcare. So, even before the pandemic, childcare was in a state of crisis. Providers are earning poverty wages for taking care of our children, and the parents are struggling to afford the price of childcare, because we’ve taken what should be a public good and made it something that is an individual burden. And so part of that is that the relief dollars that were in the -- that were in the American Rescue Plan stabilized the sector, and every single state benefited from these -- from these dollars.
Now those dollars are set to expire next year in September of 2023 and September of 2024. If we don't find a way to build on those stabilization dollars, we are going to see the childcare sector back again in an even worse crisis than it was before the pandemic, and this has implications for everyone, whether or not you have children or not, because we're seeing a nursing shortage, we're seeing a teacher shortage. All these workers out there that rely on childcare, if they can't find it, we're going to see the ripple effects for families, communities, and the economy.
And so part of the unfinished business is making sure that we address those cliffs, making sure that we fund childcare in that year‑end appropriations bill that I spoke about, and then, finally, making sure that we get back to business on what should have been passed as part of the Build Back Better legislation in terms of a long-term transformational investment in our childcare system.
MS. UMOH: There are still so many gaps to plug. What should be priority number one for the new Congress?
MS. BOTEACH: So the new Congress and the Senate, in particular, has an opportunity to confirm judges. We need to confirm more judges as well as to make sure that we're preserving reproductive rights and freedom. Those abortion and reproductive rights were on the ballot in 2022, and we need to see Congress be responsive to the voters.
MS. UMOH: And what issues are you expecting the new Congress to tackle, and more importantly, what does accountability even look like?
MS. BOTEACH: So one of the things Congress has to do next year is, in addition to making sure that they confirm judges and advance reproductive rights and freedom, address the childcare cliffs, make sure that they make those changes to the child tax credit if they don't get to it in the lame duck, and in general, we need to see them being responsive to the demands that women made in the past election, which is investing in care infrastructure, protecting reproductive rights, and ensuring that we can have a more equitable recovery.
MS. UMOH: Well, it's December. We've got just two weeks left in this year, and it's admittedly been a tough one. But I know NWLC works to center joy in all that you do. So what has brought you joy this year that you are taking forward?
MS. BOTEACH: So one of the things that brings me joy is, you know, when you talk to people who are directly impacted by these policies, they're not giving up, and so even though there were setbacks this past year, including with some of the care priorities not being included in the Build Back Better and reconciliation bill, the families that I've spoken to, the childcare providers that I've spoken to, they're organizing, they're continuing to fight, and I take a lot of joy and inspiration from them.
MS. UMOH: Yeah. Well, women caregivers are not only the backbone of families, they're also the bedrock of the nation in many regards. So here's looking to continued progress in 2023.
Thank you, Melissa, for your time, and now back to The Washington Post.
MS. CALDWELL: Welcome back to Washington Post Live. I'm Leigh Ann Caldwell, anchor at Washington Post Live, coauthor of the Early 202 newsletter.
Now joining me for the second part of our program is former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Glenn Hubbard, and president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Maya MacGuineas. Welcome to both of you.
DR. HUBBARD: Thank you.
MS. MacGUINEAS: Thank you.
MS. CALDWELL: And the timing is so perfect that we are talking to you guys at the end of the congressional year, at a tumultuous time in our economy, so thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it.
A reminder that we want to hear from our audience. So, if you have any questions, feel free to tweet at us.
So, Glenn, I want to talk to -- ask you first about just the state of the economy. Yesterday the Fed increased interest rates again. Is this working to control inflation, and is it working on the broader impacts of the economy?
DR. HUBBARD: Well, it’s a great question. I think it is working in the sense the Fed is making progress, but, you know, an old saying in economics, the Milton Friedman -- and there are “long and variable lags in monetary policy.” So it’s going to take a while to work. The Fed’s job is not yet done.
Inflation remains a very big problem in the economy, and apropos of our discussion here, it's very related to fiscal policy too. Part of the inflation problem we had was a fiscal policy that had aggregate demand levels growing too fast. So the Fed has a challenge, and part of that challenge is actually in Washington.
MS. CALDWELL: Part of the challenge is -- I’m sorry--you said Washington.
DR. HUBBARD: In Washington meaning the growth in aggregate demand from excessive spending, partly at the end of the Trump administration and certainly in the American Rescue Pan has been problematic. So, as we discuss the lame‑duck session and spending levels, let's remember that it's only making the Fed's job harder to the extent that we push aggregate demand too hard.
Chair Powell is right. This is not going to be pain-free.
MS. CALDWELL: And so, Maya, do you think that the government, this Congress should tighten its belt? It’s right now negotiating a massive end-of-the-year spending bill to fund the government, something that’s necessary to do for the rest of the fiscal year until September 30th. They’re talking about $860 billion for defense. We don’t yet know what they’re talking about for domestic spending. What, you know, do they need to restrict the spending to help the economy?
MS. MacGUINEAS: Yeah. Thank you. It's a great question, and it's really nice to be with you on the show, which I think is an excellent show.
Yeah. I agree with Glenn. Let me start by taking a step back and saying it is preposterous that we are talking about how to fund the government now, many months into the fiscal year, right? Our budget process is so broken that we don't budget anymore. This is like the 26th year, I believe, we found that we have not passed these appropriation bills on time, and in fact, the budget committees did not even come out with budgets this year. This is no way to run a small company, let alone a country. So it's clear that we have to change the way we do budgeting in the first place so that we are dealing with these, wrestling with these issues in an appropriate time, not at the last minute.
And then to your point about where we are in the economy and how fiscal policy plays in, this is a very tricky moment when you are stuck between high levels of inflation. There's been some recent, minorly, good news, but still, it is a bad situation where we are with inflation and the risk of going into a recession. There are a lot of considerations in monetary policy and fiscal policy.
What you want to do in terms of fiscal policy is not make the problem worse, and the way that you do that is by creating more demand, putting more money into the economy. And so, yes, this is a time where not only do we need to worry about our borrowing because we have debt that is at near-record levels, this is only time -- the only time that the debt, as a share of GDP, was higher than it is right now is right after World War II. So we are in a bad debt situation.
But more immediate is the fact that exacerbating that from more borrowing actually makes the inflation challenge worse, and so given how many members of Congress you have saying inflation is the number one economic problem we're trying to address, anybody who is about to vote for new borrowing is going to make that inflationary situation worse.
MS. CALDWELL: Well, Glenn, Democrats would obviously argue against what both of you guys are saying, saying that this money was absolutely necessary. We are in a global pandemic. The government would shut down the economy. People needed assistance. We’re still seeing challenges in the workforce with some people not coming back to work. So, Glenn, should -- you know, hindsight is different than in the moment and looking ahead, but do you think that it was a mistake that the government pumped so much money into the economy during a global pandemic?
DR. HUBBARD: Well, I think you have to break it up into phases. So the CARES Act, which was the first big piece of legislation, was very good in many respects. It was the follow‑on additions, particularly the American Rescue Plan, that I think economists on both sides of the political spectrum have said was simply too large. In fact, I don't know of too many people who think it was not.
And so the question is not digging the hole any further, and that, I think is the problem. So I don't think it takes too much Monday‑morning quarterbacking here. I think a number of us at the time said that's just too big, but it doesn't mean all fiscal policy is bad. You know, the CARES Act at the beginning, a very reasonable foundation. So you don't want to ignore the pandemic, but you don't want to make the Fed's job worse, and that's where we are now.
MS. CALDWELL: Well, Maya, government spending has been a problem, not just for, you know -- or it has increased, I should say. I shouldn’t call it a problem, but it has increased during the Biden administration, during the Trump administration, during the Obama administration, during the Bush administration. The Clinton administration, you know, balanced the budget. So, you know, it’s been 20 years. So what -- you know, is this -- this is not a partisan issue. How does that need to change?
MS. MacGUINEAS: Yeah. That's a great point, and let me start by making a distinction between government spending and government borrowing.
So government spending has more to do with the size of government and what can actually be fiscally responsible and want a lot of government. It just means are you willing to pay for it.
So, from our organization, which is nonpartisan -- I’m a political independent -- excuse me -- we look at this issue as not whether you’re spending more or cutting taxes but whether you’re willing to offset those things so that you’re not adding to the borrowing. And the borrowing, of course, creates big problems in that it slows economic growth, lowers our standard of living, makes us more dependent on borrowing from abroad, which can be at odds with our foreign policy, leaves us poorly prepared for the next economic emergency. So there are a lot of reasons to avoid excessive borrowing.
Spending is more about the size of government. That will be ideological differences that will always persist.
And there are also times where you should be borrowing, and as you all just discussed, borrowing for covid was absolutely appropriate. We needed to do that. It was necessary to fill in the huge gaps in the economy. At the end, the American Rescue Plan was excessive, and it fueled inflation. And there were many of us warning at the time, this is more money than you should put into the economy, but if you take that apart, many -- all the bipartisan spending bills, borrowing bills, that worked to fight covid were absolutely important at the moment.
The issue is now we're in a very different place in our economy. We no longer have an economic struggle from the pandemic. We, in fact, are dealing with inflation. So you have to kind of reverse your fiscal policies.
Secondly, none of that is to cast judgment on the specific policies. You said many Democrats would disagree with these points. I actually think many Democratic lawmakers -- and I talk to them all the time -- understand that borrowing is bad for the debt and bad for the inflation.
I think the problem here, and as you have said, this excessive of borrowing has been absolutely bipartisan. This administration has borrowed almost $5 trillion in new borrowing since they've been there. The Trump administration borrowed over $7 trillion when the economy didn't call for it. So this is a bipartisan problem, that really where we are is politicians no longer try to pay for their priorities. They say what they want, and then they come up with a storyline for why they shouldn't pay for it.
It may be don’t worry; tax cuts will pay for themselves. It may be don’t worry; we can just print more money, I think a pretty debunk theory now but one that was in vogue for a couple years because it’s free-lunch economics. And what we really hear right now at the end-of-the-year spending bill, where not only are we looking at double-digit increases, we are looking at a lot of possible things being tacked on from tax cuts to health care spending to retirement spending. What you’re hearing from both sides of the aisle is “My priority is too important to pay for.” The same politicians understand we’re borrowing too much. They understand it’s bad for inflation, but we are frankly absolutely out of practice of ever trying to pay for something.
If something’s worth doing -- and there are a lot of things that people are talking about in this end-of-the-year package that I would say are worth doing, but if something’s worth doing, you then decide how you’re going to pay for it. Are you going to raise taxes? Are you going to cut spending, or are you going to borrow? And right now, if you’re choosing to borrow, you’re putting dangerous pressure on the debt, you’re pushing inflation up, and you’re basically saying to younger workers in the next generation, “Hey, we don’t want to pay for it. So we’re going to do it, but we’re going to have you pay for it.” And that’s not a sustainable fiscal policy, and as you said, it’s been going on for many, many years now.
MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm. Glenn, many economists said that the -- we were headed into a recession. Are we still headed into a recession?
DR. HUBBARD: I think we are likely to see a recession in 2023 as the Fed's policy continues to work to constrain demand. You know, it's fairly straightforward to get inflation down to, say, 4 percent, just as supply chain issues resolve themselves. But, if Chair Powell really means 2, that's going to take a significant restraint of demand and a significant increase in unemployment. So I think while a recession isn't baked in the cake, it's certainly more likely than not.
MS. CALDWELL: And, Maya, do you have an opinion about that? What do you think?
MS. MacGUINEAS: Yeah. I agree with that. The unfortunate thing is that -- it’s just what Glen said, that you can get down to 4 percent pretty much naturally. A lot of things are going to do -- a lot of problems will be fixed, and the aggressive and I think productive actions of the Fed will help that. But it’s those last 2 percent that may be very difficult.
I think there’s a problem here, which is inflation really causes harm, particularly on low-income families, and it’s very painful. And there’s a desire to give as much help as possible, but the problem is all of those forms of help, whether it’s wage increases or subsidies for gas or different things that’ve we’ve been talking about for a while in D.C., all of those things actually fuel inflation.
So, when you’re trying to get in front of inflation, what you want is people to spend less and save more and the government to spend less and save more, and that’s at odds with actually helping people. So there’s some real tensions here, and politicians aren’t very good at explaining those tensions because, again, they are kind of eager to do the free-lunch route whenever possible.
But the more that we exacerbate the problem through excessive borrowing, the harder it makes the job of the Fed. The Fed will have to raise interest rates even more to fight that inflation. That is more likely to put us in recession, and so there are a lot of tensions here. This is why you don't want to get into an inflationary environment in the first place, but the Fed definitely has challenges if it really wants to get back to that 2 percent goal.
MS. CALDWELL: Glenn, do you agree? Is there more that the Biden administration can do?
DR. HUBBARD: Well, the old expression of “When you’re in a hole, stop digging”-- so I think it would imply some fiscal restraint that is not putting in overly ambitious fiscal spending plans.
I agree with Maya. There are lots of things we would like government to do probably even more of. I would add to the list, education and training and aid to places left behind. We also have to make some choices and figure out what else would we stop doing or do less of. That's the conversation I think that would be helpful, but certainly, stop the excessive spending in the middle of an inflation problem.
MS. CALDWELL: Maya, I want to ask you about congressional gridlock. You kind of -- you touched on this earlier on. You know, as you pointed out, we’re in the last two weeks of the years as far as working is concerned on Capitol Hill. It’s been difficult for them to find agreement on funding bills -- spending bills, funding bills. It’s only going to get worse next year with a Republican-led House of Representatives. So what is your advice to Congress to ensure that they’re able to fund the government on time, and do you have any advice on the debt limit, a fight that is sure to happen next year if they don’t solve it this year?
MS. MacGUINEAS: Yeah. I mean, you're touching on what I think is the single biggest problem in the country right now, which is the high levels of polarization and the division and dysfunction and distrust that that has led to. And, in fact, we have built an additional project at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called "FixUS." It's just looking at how we got to this moment of such high levels of polarization, because you can't tackle any of the important issues when our two parties are more busy trying to beat each other up and talking about us and them instead of the country. You can't tackle any of the hard issues, and the debt is really one of the hardest issues.
The reason is the fixes for the fiscal situation that we're in are things politicians don't like. Here's the reality: We have to raise taxes, and we have to cut spending. The problem is so big, we have to do both of them to really tackle this problem in a way that doesn't create huge problems for us, both economically and from a geopolitical sense.
And so this lack of the ability to get things done, there’s been -- there’s actually been some good bipartisan work this year where they accomplished a lot of things, but every one of those bipartisan bills wasn’t paid for. And so I would say the one exception when it’s you can get bipartisan legislation is if the end result isn’t, like Glenn just said, figuring out the tradeoffs of what you want to do -- and I agree with him, more human capital, for instance, something we should do -- what you want to do and how you pay for it. The only way that they seem to get to yes is if the answer is “I know. We’ll do something Republicans want to do and not pay for that and also something Democrats want to do and not pay for that,” and that’s what I think we’re going to see in this end-of-the-year bill.
The debt ceiling is separate, and it's, of course, this very risky situation where if our leaders aren't able to lift the debt ceiling on time, it will create absolute chaos, not just in our economy but globally.
The debt ceiling in the past, looking back a number of years, decades, in fact, used to be used productively. When we hit the debt ceiling, we also-- when we increased it in a timely manner, we also would usually add different things, either policies or processes, which would help control additional borrowing. And the debt ceiling, by the way, is just saying I’m going to pay for the bills of legislation that borrowed that we already approved. So you have to increase it. But, at the same time, you could say, well, how are we going to try to get a hold of not borrowing so much? What new things could we do? And we used to do that routinely.
Then there was a huge period, a damaging period, where it really looked as though some people might not vote to increase it. We could default. That should never be contemplated. It was very disruptive.
The problem that we've seen more recently is we do lift the debt ceiling, but at the same time, in four out of the six past debt ceiling increases, we also put in policies that increased the debt, that borrowed even more, hundreds of billions of dollars, in fact.
So what I think we should do with the debt ceiling is return to the way we used to do it. We should lift it immediately. We should have lifted it yesterday. We should lift it today. We should lift it in January, whatever. We should not wait until the last moment, and we should try to attach maybe a process that would help improve the situation, not make it worse and not threaten default.
MS. CALDWELL: Glenn, do you agree? Should Congress do something to get rid of the debt limit? There's talks about, you know, a permanent extension or something that just automatically lifts. Should Congress go that route so it's not a fight every time?
DR. HUBBARD: It shouldn't be a fight, and I certainly agree with Maya. This should have been done already. We cannot hold the nation hostage to this.
I think a better route is to let the debt ceiling be a way to bring people to the table, as Maya was suggesting. If Congress can't be responsible in that regard, then no, we shouldn't have the debt ceiling constraining the country.
I think that talking longer term about slow changes in fiscal policy is the way to go. You know, we did this once successfully. The Social Security reforms of the 1980s happened gradually over decades. We need to have that kind of conversation again. Unfortunately, the temperature in the Congress is, shall we say, a little bit high right now for having that conversation.
MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm. And, Glenn, I want to ask you about the global ramifications, the war in Ukraine on the economy. How do you see this playing out this winter?
DR. HUBBARD: Well, it's very interesting. It's certainly going to be a problem in Europe, obviously most important for the people of Ukraine who are suffering from Russia's attacks, but throughout Europe, through high energy prices, through elevated public spending that's required to help Ukraine and to cushion domestic economies. And in this country, we see it both through energy markets and through supply chains as well as America's own role in the world.
Longer term, this raises a big question for us militarily about relationships with autocratic countries. It also raises questions for business about supply chains. Does it make sense to have open global supply chains in a world of geopolitical disruption? I think we're going to see a lot more of this conversation in 2023, whatever the pace of the war in Ukraine is.
MS. CALDWELL: Mm-hmm. And, Maya, we’re almost out of time, but quickly, what do you think that the biggest threat to the global economy is?
MS. MacGUINEAS: Well, I think in the immediate, what Glen was talking about, I think we're going to see a pullback from openness in our global economy, and it's going to be more done regionally. The kinds of diminished open trade, open borders is going to lead to higher inflation, I think, in the medium term. So we're going to see more of that.
I think the absolute biggest threat that we have is the new kinds of warfare that there are with countries where there's tension, where we have all sorts of new threats, from cyber to bio to disinformation and all of these things. I worry about the debt, but I worry about the debt because it's the underpinning of a global economy, and it's the underpinning of our national security. And we can't deal with all the challenges we have, whether it's the need for a new social contract that's horribly outdated or the aging of the population or all of these new threats and the big tensions that are going on around the world. They will have economic effects as well as security effects, and our high levels of debt leave us dangerously unprepared to deal with them. So I have a lot of concerns, but the fiscal situation makes it harder to deal with all of them.
MS. CALDWELL: Glenn, Maya, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you joining me.
DR. HUBBARD: Thank you. A pleasure.
MS. CALDWELL: And thank you all for tuning in. To find this program and all of our programs, please go to WashingtonPostLive.com, and we’ll see you next time. | 2022-12-15T18:48:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: 117th Congress: The Lame-Duck Session - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/15/transcript-117th-congress-lame-duck-session/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/15/transcript-117th-congress-lame-duck-session/ |
Armed men claiming to be FBI agents invade home in Southeast D.C.
A police vehicle at a crime scene in Southeast Washington. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
Men armed with guns, dressed in tactical gear and claiming to be FBI agents forced their way into a residence near Capitol Hill on Tuesday, assaulted residents and stole a safe, an Audi and a Rolex, among other items, D.C. police said.
Authorities said they had made no arrests but were searching for four men, three who had firearms and a fourth who had a crowbar, according to a police report. The break-in occurred about 6:10 a.m. in the 1700 block of Bay Street SE, which is lined with duplexes and sits a few blocks from the old RFK Stadium.
Police said in a report that the men, who also carried flashlights, used the crowbar to force their way into the home through the front door. Once inside, the police report says, the men “stated that they were the FBI.”
Police said two of the occupants escaped and called police. Three of the victims live at the Bay Street residence, the report says, and two have addresses elsewhere in the District and in Maryland.
Efforts to reach the occupants were not successful. According to the police report, the items taken include a red iPhone, a black safe, $3,300 in cash, a silver Audi Q3 sedan and a Rolex watch valued at $12,000. | 2022-12-15T19:33:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Armed men claiming to be FBI agents invade home in Southeast D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-home-invasion-fbi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-home-invasion-fbi/ |
Va. students with disabilities win legal right to request masking in class
A discarded mask lies on the grounds of the Park View High School in Sterling, Va., in February. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
Parents of students with disabilities in Virginia public schools have won the right to require that their children’s peers and teachers wear masks, after the state government agreed to a settlement with several families who had filed a lawsuit challenging a statewide mask-optional policy.
The parents of 12 immunocompromised students with disabilities filed suit in February over an executive order issued by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and a subsequent state law, both of which forbid school districts from requiring mask-wearing as a coronavirus mitigation measure. The parents, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, alleged that the imposition of mask-optional guidelines violated national disability law by making it impossible for their children to attend school safely to receive their federally guaranteed free and appropriate public education.
On Monday, Virginia state officials agreed to settle the case with the plaintiffs, whose children attend 10 different school districts, range in age from preschool to 11th grade and who have conditions including asthma, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, cancer and diabetes, all of which put them at higher risk for coronavirus infection. Under the 11-page settlement, the state Education Department has agreed to issue guidance to Virginia’s 130-plus school districts informing them that students with disabilities shall be granted universal masking in their classrooms, if their families request it.
Virginia school districts drop mask mandates to comply with state law
“The school must engage in the interactive process with the student and his or her parents to determine … whether some amount of masking is necessary to satisfy” federal disability law, that guidance will read. “The school must not require a student with disabilities to be segregated or excluded solely because of his or her need for peer masking as a necessary reasonable modification.”
“We’re hopeful that every school in Virginia will view this settlement as a sign that they should make similar accommodations for their students,” Eden Heilman, legal director of the Virginia ACLU, said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Youngkin wrote in an email Thursday that “this was a fair settlement for all.”
The judge in the case, Norman Moon, has not yet approved the settlement, although he is almost certain to do so. In March, Moon issued a ruling favoring the plaintiffs — asserting that the particular schools their children attended must be allowed to mandate face masks if necessary to protect the immunocompromised students involved in the suit. The case was filed in federal court in Charlottesville.
The settlement released this week also says the Commonwealth of Virginia will pay the families who sued $295,000 “in full and complete satisfaction of any and all claims, allegations, or causes of action for attorney’s fees, costs, disbursements, and expenses incurred.”
Youngkin issued his mask-optional order as one of his first actions in office. It was immediately controversial, drawing lawsuits and dividing families, schools and students. A majority of Virginia public schools opted to disobey the order and continue mandating masks for weeks, according to a Washington Post analysis. Seven prominent districts sued to halt the order.
Amid the chaos, state lawmakers passed a bill that required schools to make masks optional, which Youngkin signed in early March. After that, Virginia school districts dropped their mask requirements, some of them reluctantly.
Tasha Nelson, one of the parent plaintiffs in the suit, said in a statement that the settlement this week is “a step toward righting a wrong.”
She added: “Children like mine should not be told they cannot participate safely in school.” | 2022-12-15T19:33:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Masking can be required in classes for Virginia students with disabilities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/15/virginia-students-disabilities-mask-requirement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/15/virginia-students-disabilities-mask-requirement/ |
A person holds a Puerto Rican flag in front of the Capitol building during a protest of teachers demanding salary increase and better working conditions in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Feb. 9, 2022. (Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)
The House on Thursday passed a bill that would allow Puerto Ricans to decide their future governing status, a long-sought goal on the island territory.
The vote was 233-to-191, with 16 Republicans breaking ranks and joining Democrats in backing the measure.
The legislation would authorize a vote in Puerto Rico to chose whether to become a state, an independent nation, or a country “in free association with the United States.” The island has been a territory since 1898, and residents there were granted citizenship in 1917.
The White House signaled its strong support for the bill earlier Thursday, but the measure is unlikely to make it through the Senate, where 60 votes would be required for it to advance, by the end of the year. And prospects for passage in the House next year, with Republicans in control, are significantly diminished.
During House debate on the bill, proponents argued that the 3.3 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico deserve greater self-determination, including the option of statehood. Only Congress can decide on statehood.
“Because we are a territory we are treated as a second-class citizen,” argued Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R-Puerto Rico). Underscoring that point, she noted that she is a nonvoting member of the House and therefore was unable to vote on the bill.
Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) said “It’s time to set our people free,” as he recalled his late grandmother, who “lived in a colonial territory as a second-class citizen in the greatest democracy in the world. What a tragedy. What an irony.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sought to put the issue in historical context. “Today, for the first time in our nation’s history, the United States will acknowledge its role as a colonizing force and Puerto Rico’s status as an extended colony.”
Statehood for Puerto Rico has been debated for years. Residents of the island voted three times to become a state, most recently in 2020, but those votes were not binding.
Republicans countered that the bill would short-circuit a deliberative process.
Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) said “we’ve abrogated all of our responsibilities and authority because it doesn’t come back to Congress for any kind of approval.”
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said the island territory has struggled for years with high debt, low employment and poor academic performance. “So, how does it benefit America to admit a state that would be the most indebted, uneducated, poorest and least employed state in the nation?” he asked.
The last time the U.S. added new states was nearly six decades ago. The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia (for $7 million) in 1867, and annexed the islands of Hawaii in 1898. Both were admitted as states in 1959.
In a statement of administration policy earlier Thursday, the White House said the legislation would provide “a fair and binding” democratic process for Puerto Ricans to determine their status.
“For far too long, the residents of Puerto Rico — over 3 million U.S. citizens — have been deprived of the opportunity to determine their own political future and have not received the full rights and benefits of their citizenship because they reside in a U.S. territory,” the statement said. “H.R. 8393 would take a historic step towards righting this wrong by establishing a process to ascertain the will of the voters of Puerto Rico.”
Puerto Rico has for years struggled with enormous debt, which was recently restructured, and a wave of natural disasters that has left millions of people without reliable access to clean drinking water or electricity.
In a statement after the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) noted the treatment of Puerto Rico by former president Donald Trump.
“For more than a century, Puerto Rico has been governed under a political system imposed by outside forces rather than established by its own people,” Pelosi said. “Denied the right to a vote in Congress or for president, Puerto Rico’s territorial status has often left it vulnerable to unequal treatment — including the previous administration’s cruel withholding of disaster aid in the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma.”
She said with the vote, the Democratic-led House “has proudly voted to tear down the vestiges of colonialism — honoring the dignity, equality and basic rights of more than three million American citizens.”
With slim prospects in the Senate, the House vote is likely the final word before Republicans take over in January. | 2022-12-15T19:41:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House passes bill calling for binding vote on statehood for Puerto Rico - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/puerto-rico-house-territory-independence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/puerto-rico-house-territory-independence/ |
Perspective by Jackie Spinner
The author's son, waving a towel from his birth country of Morocco, during the World Cup. (Jackie Spinner)
My 8-year-old came home from school this week with some bad news. His third-grade teacher, he told me, was an Argentina fan.
In fact, among his close peers, my Moroccan-born son couldn’t find anyone rooting for his homeland in the World Cup.
And with that, it felt like nobody was rooting for him.
Although he attends a culturally diverse school in Chicago, with multiple languages spoken, my son and his brothers are some of the few Black students. They also are adopted and neurodiverse, which sets them apart even from the other Moroccan kids.
It’s hard to be 8 and to be different.
But the World Cup and Morocco’s Cinderella advance to the semifinals this week gave my middle son, like so many others in the Moroccan diaspora, a chance to celebrate his identity, no matter how complicated, no matter that it is still forming.
It’s been moving to watch him and his brothers embrace their heritage in a way I don’t typically see outside Morocco. After each win, I met them after school with the good news. Morocco beat Canada! Morocco beat Spain! We waved flags all the way home.
On Wednesday, I took them out of school for the semifinal match against France. This was more than a soccer game. This was a historic moment for the world’s African, Arab and Muslim global citizens. The semifinal against France, which is home to a huge Moroccan diaspora, also was a social studies lesson about politics and colonies and fights for independence.
It was a lesson about choice and what, of our past, we decide to keep.
We talked about all of that as we walked to the storied Alhambra Palace on the west side of Chicago where the Moroccan community was gathering to watch the game on giant screens. My Moroccan colleague, who is president of the Institute for Global Arab Media and Democracy, had invited us and then sat us in the front. My sons felt like Moroccan royalty.
My oldest son, who is 10, wrapped himself in a Moroccan-flag beach towel purchased at the Marjane supermarket on our last trip there in 2020. He was dressed in the national team’s jersey, as he had been for every game during the cup. I have jerseys in every size for the boys as they grow older, just in case there are years in between our visits to Morocco.
As their mother, raising three boys in a transracial family, I am responsible for giving my sons Morocco until they choose their allegiance for themselves. They are dual citizens, and our home is filled with Moroccan treasures. I laugh when Moroccan friends tell me our home is more Moroccan than theirs. But it has to be, because I don’t have a Moroccan history of my own to give them.
Because they are still young — the smallest brother is just 4 — I often think I love Morocco more than my boys do, especially when I ask them to wear traditional Moroccan clothes for special occasions.
I love Morocco because this is the country that made me a mother. In a matrimonial dance, I take their customs as my own, because it is the only way I can hold Morocco for them until they reach for it on their own.
For Morocco’s diaspora, numbered at 5 million globally, the Atlas Lions gave them a chance to stand together, without the usual explanation demanded of people with accents or brown skin who have different religious observances or customs, who aren’t European and White.
When the Lions walked onto the field in Qatar, the first Arab country to host a World Cup, my sons stood with their compatriots in a gilded ballroom in Chicago. I then watched as my 8-year-old mouthed the words to the Moroccan national anthem, his ball cap and hand over his heart like the American boy he also is.
It’s one of the greatest gifts that their American citizenship gives them. America is a place of people from everywhere in the world. In its ideal, it is a place that makes room for all of us. I believe this potential exists even when it falls short. I have to believe this. I am raising immigrants in America.
My sons are not avid soccer fans. My 8-year-old plays American flag football with his best friend, who is of Puerto Rican and Lebanese heritage and roots for Ohio in college football. But in that moment on Wednesday, even in the heartbreak of the loss to France, none of that mattered.
They were Moroccan boys, and they were home. | 2022-12-15T19:54:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Watching my Moroccan-American boys savor the World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/15/world-cup-adopted-sons-morocco/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/15/world-cup-adopted-sons-morocco/ |
López Obrador’s proposed overhaul of Mexican elections sparks protests
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador greets supporters at a Nov. 27 rally in Mexico City for his proposal to overhaul the country's electoral institute. (Jeoffrey Guillemard/Bloomberg)
MEXICO CITY — After months of debate and huge demonstrations, Mexico’s Congress moved Thursday to pass legislation that will reduce the powers of the National Electoral Institute, a government agency that has won praise internationally for putting an end to decades of blatant voting fraud and setting the country on a course to democracy in the 1990s.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador argues that the National Electoral Institute (INE, for its initials in Spanish) has become a bloated, expensive agency penetrated by political interests. But the popular leader’s proposal to overhaul the independent body has prompted the biggest public backlash since he took office four years ago. Hundreds of thousands of people have protested nationwide.
Senior electoral authorities said the cuts to the institute’s staff included in the bill could harm their ability to run a smooth national election in 2024. López Obrador, a longtime leftist, is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term, but his sizable political base and the growth of his Morena party make him a potential kingmaker.
The official in charge of maintaining the national voter registry, René Miranda, resigned in protest after the Senate began approving sections of the bill on Wednesday night, the Reforma daily reported.
The Senate finished passing the measure Thursday and sent it back to lower house, which is also expected to adopt it. López Obrador then plans to sign it into law.
How a crucial U.S.-Mexico alliance fell apart as fentanyl took off
Uuc-kib Espadas, one of the 11 members of the INE’s ruling council, said the legislation “will force us to experiment with a new and fragile structure for a presidential election that promises to be — like most presidential elections — difficult, tense and probably polarized.”
As in the United States, where followers of former president Donald Trump have challenged the electoral system, the proposed changes have provoked fears for the future of democracy itself.
“The fairness and trustworthiness of elections depends on the electoral referee,” said Sergio Aguayo, a political scientist. “That’s why this debate is so central in Mexico and the United States.”
López Obrador, who has led a far-reaching government austerity drive, initially sought deeper cuts in staff and budget at the INE. “We spend more on organizing elections than any country in the world,” he said.
He also sought to have citizens elect top electoral officials, to replace a system in which they’re named by lawmakers after a battery of tests of their expertise. Critics said his proposal would have given outsize influence to his ruling party, which already controls Congress and most state legislatures.
Business organizations, the Catholic Church, human rights groups and opposition politicians have blasted López Obrador’s efforts. On Nov. 13, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans took part in marches nationwide in support of the INE. López Obrador, who has maintained high approval ratings despite a devastating coronavirus pandemic and recession, responded by packing the streets of Mexico City with his own supporters.
Yet, when his initial electoral proposal went up for a vote in the lower house of Congress, he wasn’t able to muster the supermajority needed to alter the constitution and implement his changes. He settled for the more modest version taken up by the Congress this week, dubbed “Plan B.”
AMLO is Mexico's strongest president in decades. Some say he's too powerful.
The ferocity of the opposition to the president’s proposal reflected Mexicans’ still-fresh memories of the one-party system that existed for seven decades, until 2000.
“The biggest frauds in Mexico were committed when the president controlled the electoral machinery,” Aguayo said.
Human rights groups are warning of democratic backsliding throughout the hemisphere. In Brazil, supporters of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro have refused to acknowledge his defeat in October elections. Peru has suffered more than a week of violent protests since President Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve the legislature and was impeached and arrested. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has announced he’ll run for a second consecutive term next year, even though the constitution forbids it. Nicaraguan authorities detained most of President Daniel Ortega’s most serious challengers before elections in November 2021, clearing his path to claim a fourth straight term.
Democratically elected leaders in other parts of the world have also sought to consolidate their power in recent years by manipulating electoral or judicial authorities. “If you can capture the referee, by packing courts or electoral authorities, or bullying them, you can tilt the playing field,” said democracy scholar Steven Levitsky, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.
The creation of Mexico’s independent electoral authority in 1990 was hailed as a turning point in its transition to democracy. Mexico set up the Cadillac of voting systems, with high-tech voter ID cards, strict rules on candidates’ campaign activities, guaranteed government funding for political parties, and state and federal electoral tribunals to resolve disputes.
The elaborate electoral machinery ended a history of outright fraud that included the theft of ballot boxes and manipulation of the vote count. (Still, it was not enough then for López Obrador, who refused to recognize his narrow defeat in the 2006 race, alleging irregularities.)
Even the INE’s defenders have acknowledged its problems, such as a poor record in preventing candidates from abusing campaign finance limits. In trying to clean up its elections, critics say, Mexico went too far, passing such strict rules about when and how government officials could campaign that they were effectively muzzled.
López Obrador's cost-cutting spree is transforming Mexico
The rules were aimed at ending a tradition in which the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party used its control of the government machinery to ensure its candidates’ election.
“It’s not in the distant past here, it’s in the very recent past,” said Tyler Mattiace, a Mexico researcher at Human Rights Watch. López Obrador’s legislation, he said, would take away some of those safeguards and limit the INE’s ability to sanction violators.
The reactions to the electoral bill reflect the concerns of some Mexicans that the government is resurrecting authoritarian practices of the past. López Obrador regularly attacks journalists, academics, human rights groups and others who criticize him; he has proposed shrinking the federal freedom of information institute.
The president, for his part, says many of Mexico’s democratic changes were window-dressing for a system still dominated by a wealthy elite.
Each side is threatening to escalate the dispute. The opposition is vowing to go to court, and the president is promising to campaign for more changes to the electoral system.
“This has barely begun,” López Obrador told reporters.
Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul and Gabriela Martínez contributed to this report. | 2022-12-15T20:08:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | López Obrador draws backlash over electoral reform - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/lopez-obrador-electoral-reform-mexico/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/lopez-obrador-electoral-reform-mexico/ |
Fla. pastor, son scammed $8 million in covid aid to buy Disney home, feds say
Authorities say the men got a PPP loan by falsely claiming their ministry had hundreds of employees.
Police in Florida arrested Evan and Josh Edwards, pictured above, on Wednesday on suspicion of scamming the government out of more than $8 million in covid-19 relief money. (Screenshot via YouTube/WESH)
As businesses across the U.S. were seeking government relief in response to covid-19 upending the world in 2020, Pastor Evan Edwards and his family were among the millions who applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan.
His son, Josh Edwards, filed an application for $6 million to cover payroll, rent and utilities for his family’s ministry in Florida, writing that the nonprofit employed nearly 500 people and had a monthly payroll of more than $2.7 million, according to federal records.
The ASLAN International Ministry was approved for an $8.4 million PPP loan. And then the faith-based charity — whose mission was to “communicate Christian love in doctrine and service to the poor” — tried to buy a $3.7 million luxury home near Walt Disney World.
After authorities began investigating the ministry in late 2020, they discovered the family had filed claims about the organization and their needs that the authorities alleged were false, meant to scam the government out of millions in covid relief funds.
In fact, nearly everything the pastor and his son wrote in the PPP application was a lie, according to an indictment from federal authorities.
Evan Edwards, 64, and Josh Edwards, 30, were arrested Wednesday at their home in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., after prosecutors said the family defrauded the government out of $8.4 million in PPP loans. The arrests came months after an NBC News report questioned why they had not been charged in an alleged scheme that authorities had identified about 18 months earlier.
While authorities named Mary Jane and Joy Edwards, Evan Edwards’s wife and daughter, in the criminal complaint, neither woman was facing charges as of Thursday afternoon.
The father and son are each charged with six counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud and visa fraud, related to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Josh Edwards is also charged with making a false statement to a lending institution, according to the Justice Department. They each face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
“The United States previously obtained seizure warrants and recovered more than $8 million in proceeds from the charged criminal conduct,” the Justice Department wrote in a Thursday news release.
Messages left for the Edwards family were not immediately returned Thursday. It’s not clear whether the family has an attorney.
The Edwards family’s case is the latest in a string of cases where people were convicted or accused of trying to scam the government out of PPP money as covid ravaged the country. As much as $80 billion, or about 10 percent of PPP funding, was stolen from the government, NBC News reported. Much of the defrauded money went toward extravagant purchases, from multimillion-dollar homes to luxury vehicles like Lamborghinis.
A Florida man received millions in coronavirus aid. He used it to buy a Lamborghini, prosecutors say.
A number of people involved with churches and religious organizations have been accused of misusing covid relief money. Last year, Robert Brooks Jr., the pastor of a Northeast Washington church, was charged with fraudulently obtaining more than $1.5 million from PPP. Brooks, who is accused of buying 39 used luxury automobiles and property in Baltimore, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted.
Last week, three pastors at a defunct Houston church pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, according to the Justice Department. All three face up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million.
Evan Edwards was born in Canada as Ian Heringa, and changed his name after living in Turkey, where he did missionary work for years, according to authorities. When the family moved to New Smyrna Beach, about an hour outside Orlando, in 2019, Edwards set up ASLAN International Ministry Inc., a nonprofit that “purportedly provided religious services,” according to the federal indictment.
ASLAN submitted its application for a PPP loan in April 2020, as many businesses and organizations were doing in the early months of the devastating pandemic. In the application, the Edwards family claimed ASLAN employed 486 people and averaged monthly payroll expenses of more than $2.7 million. In May 2020, the loan money was sent to a family bank account that previously held just $25, according to the federal civil complaint.
“Based on the false representations made in the loan application, the defendants received into their bank account approximately $8,417,200 in PPP loan funds,” the Justice Department wrote.
Two months later, the family sought to use $868,250 for a down payment on a $3.7 million home in an upscale neighborhood in Orlando, according to federal records. When authorities recognized that the money used to attempt to buy the 4,700-square-foot home was from PPP relief, the funds were seized — and the legitimacy of ASLAN’s application came under scrutiny. Investigators soon discovered that the rest of the money was spread out among multiple bank accounts “in an attempt to hide and conceal their whereabouts.”
Authorities found several holes in ASLAN’s application, according to the complaint. No one ever worked at the office where the business was registered, the complaint says. The man listed on the application as ASLAN’s accountant had not done any work for the ministry since 2017, as he suffered from dementia. Prosecutors say Evan and Josh Edwards knew that the ministry’s real number of employees and payroll expenses were “significantly lower, or entirely nonexistent.”
A federal judge in Florida ordered the forfeiture of the $8.4 million in PPP relief in April 2021, a seizure the Edwards family did not challenge. Yet, as NBC pointed out in July, authorities were slow to bring criminal charges.
Video of Wednesday’s arrests obtained by WESH, an Orlando NBC affiliate, show agents pushing Evan Edwards out in a wheelchair. | 2022-12-15T20:17:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida pastor Evan Edwards scammed $8 million in covid aid to buy Disney home, feds say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/florida-pastor-disney-covid-ppp-fraud/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/florida-pastor-disney-covid-ppp-fraud/ |
A definition of ‘dreamers’ that strains belief
Susana Lujano, left, a "dreamer" from Mexico who lives in Houston, joins other activists to rally June 25 in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Ordinarily, I am on the same page with George F. Will. However, in his Dec. 12 op-ed, “How the Tillis-Sinema immigration bill would right two glaring wrongs,” he jumped the shark by defining “dreamers” as aliens brought here “under age 16” and “having known no home other than America.”
As a military brat, I moved with my family to a different state or country every three years. From ages 6 to 8, from kindergarten through the second grade, my family resided in Arlington. Although less than half of Mr. Will’s age marker, I clearly remember every room in the home where we lived, as well as the names of our next-door neighbors, the kids with whom I played, and my teachers and schoolmates.
I recently drove through that neighborhood and had no trouble identifying where I went to school, the stores where my family shopped, and where my friends and I lived. That is a “home” that I have “known.”
William W. Chip, Washington
The writer was senior counselor on immigration policy to the secretary of homeland security in the Trump administration.
George F. Will, in his Dec. 12 op-ed urging passage of a last-minute immigration bill, defined “dreamers” as “the 2 million … under age 16 when brought here by parents who were not lawfully here. They have lived under threat of deportation from the only country they have known.” Almost none of those words appear in the executive order issued by President Barack Obama in June 2012 for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or in any of the Dream Act legislative proposals that have never passed.
Though the majority of initial DACA beneficiaries came from Mexico, increasingly, the millions of potential dreamer applicants come from Asia, many overstaying legal non-immigration temporary work and foreign student permits. Some say that a potential passage of a dreamer-to-citizenship act is incentivizing visa overstayers — now the largest source of illegal immigration.
Of course, just about everyone can agree that anyone who meets the media’s fantasy DACA requirements — brought in innocently, by a parent at a very early age and only knowing the United States as their country — should have an expedited process to get a green card. That obvious group could number about 500,000. It could be done in an easy-to-define stand-alone bill. But that will not happen. It has been tried but always fails because dreamers have been used by both parties as bait-and-switch for larger, comprehensive and law enforcement provisions for more than a decade. No one wants to take the dreamer leverage off the table.
Margaret Orchowski, Washington | 2022-12-15T20:17:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Dreamers deserve a chance in the United States - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/dreamers-deserve-chance-united-states/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/dreamers-deserve-chance-united-states/ |
A Richmond restaurant was wrong to refuse to seat a Christian group
Metzger Bar and Butchery canceled a reservation for the Family Foundation, a conservative political organization. (Jay Paul for The Washington Post)
Regarding the Dec. 7 Style article “Restaurant in Va. refuses to seat Christian organization”:
Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation, noted the double standard of liberals who insist a Colorado baker should make wedding cakes for gay couples yet who condone ejecting Christians from restaurants. The Post then quoted “legal experts” to shoot down the analogy — except The Post cited only one expert: a cherry-picked liberal.
The expertise of the “expert” is questionable. Law professor Elizabeth Sepper insisted the issue is “not about Christian vs. non-Christian.” Of course it is. The Christian views of the Family Foundation are the very reason the restaurant refused to seat its members. Discrimination based on religion is a fundamental violation of civil rights.
Ms. Sepper’s logic was so tangled, she contradicted herself. The restaurant’s refusal, she said, “is about the overall positions and policies” of the group — i.e., religious beliefs. She then said, in The Post’s words, that “the restaurant’s refusal had to do with the group’s actions.” Which is it? Action or belief?
Moreover, Ms. Sepper’s “actions” defense wouldn’t hold up in court. By her logic, a restaurant could refuse to seat gay people based on their “actions”: having sex with people of the same sex. In fact, you could apply her “actions” defense to any group, but it would be just as unconstitutional.
I disagree with the views of the Family Foundation. Instead of cheerfully welcoming its members, however, the restaurant missed a golden opportunity to change their minds. Now the foundation will associate gay people with intolerance.
Gary Parker, Washington | 2022-12-15T20:18:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Richmond restaurant was wrong to refuse to seat a Christian group - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/richmond-restaurant-was-wrong-refuse-seat-christian-group/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/richmond-restaurant-was-wrong-refuse-seat-christian-group/ |
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is leaving office next month, outlines preliminary budget recommendations he is making to the incoming administration of Gov.-elect Wes Moore during a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022 in Annapolis, Md. Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford is standing right, and Hogan’s budget chief, David Brinkley, is standing left. (AP Photo/Brian Witte)
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan highlighted preliminary budget recommendations Thursday for the incoming administration of Gov.-elect Wes Moore at a time when the state has a big budget surplus.
“With continued inflation and economic uncertainty at the national level, we believe this is critically important, and it would be a mistake for the legislature to use its newly expanded budgetary power to return to the old habits of raiding the Rainy Day Fund or recklessly spending down the surplus,” Hogan said at a news conference.
The new budget powers for the legislature were approved by voters in a constitutional amendment in 2020. Previously, Maryland’s governor had unusually strong budget authority in the Maryland Constitution, because the legislature was only allowed to cut from the governor’s plan. In the upcoming legislative session, which begins Jan. 13, lawmakers will be able to increase, decrease or add items to the budget, as long as the changes don’t exceed the total proposed by the governor.
“This is an idea that the community has been pleading for for years, if not decades,” Hogan said. “It’s desperately needed, and we are finally in a financial position to be able to make this critical investment.”
The governor said the budget proposal includes $10 million for Meritus Health’s plan to construct a new School of Osteopathic Medicine in Hagerstown, as well as $10 million for Kennedy Krieger’s plan to build a new Innovative Care Center on its East Baltimore campus.
Brian Jones, a spokesperson for Moore’s transition team, said the incoming administration appreciates Hogan’s suggestions and will continue to work with his administration on the transition. He said the incoming administration’s final budget proposal will reflect Moore’s “vision and priorities to move Maryland forward with bold and disciplined investments in transportation, strengthening our competitiveness, and providing Marylanders with a world-class education.” | 2022-12-15T20:18:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amid budget surplus, Hogan recommends his last spending plan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-budget-surplus-hogan-recommends-final-spending-plan/2022/12/15/a230e4b0-7cae-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-budget-surplus-hogan-recommends-final-spending-plan/2022/12/15/a230e4b0-7cae-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Ben Brode and Hamilton Chu attend the 2022 Game Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Dec. 08, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Washington Post illustration; Leon Bennett/Getty)
Ben Brode, a co-founder of game development studio Second Dinner, recalls a moment that drove him to make a snappy Marvel card game: At least six years ago, his friend was playing the mobile game “Hearthstone” on the toilet with a control warrior deck. He matched up against another control warrior deck user, and the game took 40 minutes.
“At the end of the match, he stood up and his legs had fallen asleep. And he fell over and broke his leg in the bathroom,” Brode said during an interview with The Washington Post in Los Angeles while his Second Dinner co-founder Hamilton Chu guffawed. “And I felt somewhat responsible for this.”
Brode, who was a lead designer on “Hearthstone,” said that while matches are supposed to be more like seven minutes long, they occasionally drag out. And that’s why he and Chu wanted to explore even shorter card games, and eventually settled on making “Marvel Snap.” His control warrior friend yelled for help on the bathroom floor and ended up in a cast, Brode said.
Last week, “Marvel Snap” won best mobile game at the annual Game Awards, beating out popular titles like “Genshin Impact” and “Apex Legends.” The developers, formerly senior leadership at “Hearthstone” developer Activision Blizzard, started their own studio Second Dinner in 2018. “Marvel Snap” is their first game.
Chu said that Marvel’s name lends credibility to a start-up like Second Dinner, and it makes the card game hold more excitement for players since the characters are instantly recognizable. A former Blizzard co-worker who is now an executive at Marvel Games helped make the collaboration happen.
“Marvel Snap” is easy on beginners, taking them through a tutorial where players slap down cards from a 12-card deck featuring characters like Iron Man, the Hulk and Hawkeye.
The developers hope to add the ability to play against friends to the mobile app by next month.
“It’s our biggest thing we’re working on right now,” Brode said. “But you know how things go sometimes, last minute bugs, things slip.”
When it comes to taking initiative with Marvel’s intellectual property, Chu talked about being able to skip the layers of bureaucracy that come standard when working for a large company like Blizzard.
“That game could not have been made if we were still inside Blizzard. Blizzard, why would they work with somebody else’s intellectual property? That’s just not strategically the right thing for Blizzard to do,” Chu said. “But we can do it because we don’t have to worry about stuff like that, and it does make sense for us.”
Chu said that if he had tried to pitch “Marvel Snap” to Blizzard, he would have had to clear approval with many people, including a business presentation and months of convincing.
When to snap in ‘Marvel Snap’
Brode and Chu left Blizzard in 2018, years before the company was hit with several lawsuits over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and before Microsoft proposed to acquire it for $68.7 billion. When asked how Second Dinner can avoid the same corporate culture issues that Blizzard faces, Brode said, “It’s a really complicated answer.”
“Hiring is a really big piece. Doing that really well and making sure that we have opportunities to hire people from a ton of diverse backgrounds to help make sure that we’re not homogenous,” Brode said. “Making sure that people feel very empowered to come raise their hands when stuff does go wrong. And then creating policies and a company culture where there aren’t opportunities for things to go wrong in the first place.”
Second Dinner is one of several game studios started by ex-Blizzard employees. There’s also Notorious Studios, started by former “World of Warcraft” developers, making an untitled fantasy game. And Frost Giant, created by ex-StarCraft developers, plans to open up a new game “Stormgate” in a testing phase next year.
For Brode and Chu, starting their own company was risky and scary, but having a pedigree from Blizzard helped them have brand name recognition. Choosing a new name for the studio also proved to be a fun task.
“I have a really weird sleep schedule, and I’m a vampire, basically,” Chu said. “And so I have second dinner every night. It’s my favorite meal I have at around 3 a.m. by myself.
“And also, while we were thinking about what would become Second Dinner, what we would do is we’d work all day at Blizzard, and then we’d go home, take care of our families and be like ‘All right, meet up at 10.’ And we’d have second dinner and dream about the future.”
Since “Marvel Snap” came out in mid-October, players have asked a lot of questions about the game on social media. Some have tweeted that after rank 80, it feels like “Marvel Snap” gives more advantages to players who spent real money.
“If it was pay-to-win, then anybody should be able to win. And that’s just not the case, you have to be very good at the game,” Brode said.
He added that the competition heats up after rank 80, and that’s “just the nature of competition.”
The odds of getting a card from a collector cache is about one in four, he said, and other variants and cosmetics that fit into the cache are to “surprise and delight” the player. On the back end, players are matched up in duels based on their collection size, and as they play and get more advanced, they’ll be matched with players of similar skills.
Finally, the “Marvel Snap” developers reacted to The Post’s recent article about avoiding bathroom perils when playing games like “Marvel Snap” on the toilet.
“ ‘Snap’ saves you from hemorrhoids,” Chu said. “The Washington Post said so.” | 2022-12-15T20:20:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marvel Snap developer was inspired by friend's toilet gaming mishap - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/15/marvel-snap-ben-brode-game-awards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/15/marvel-snap-ben-brode-game-awards/ |
Judge sentences three men in plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
The men, members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a far-right paramilitary group, received at least seven years in prison
Joanna Slater
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, seen last year, was the target of a kidnapping plot that prosecutors said was fueled by anti-government extremism and anger at steps that the governor took to combat the coronavirus pandemic. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)
Three men who aided a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) received prison sentences of at least seven years on Thursday, capping legal proceedings that highlighted the growing reach of right-wing extremism and political violence.
The sentences were handed down in Jackson County Circuit Court, where Joseph Morrison, Paul Bellar and Pete Musico had been convicted in October of providing material support for terrorist acts, possession of a firearm while committing a felony and being members of a gang.
The three men, along with two others who had been convicted in an earlier trial, were members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a far-right paramilitary group.
Morrison, Bellar, and Musico were charged under the state “anti-terrorism act” enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They faced up to 20 years in prison for the terrorism and gang charges and up to two years for the firearm conviction.
But Judge Thomas Wilson handed down different minimum sentences for each man.
Morrison, who was considered the group’s “commander,” received a sentence of 10 to 42 years in prison. Musico, who was Morrison’s father-in-law, received 12 to 42 years in prison. The group’s “field training” exercises took place at their family’s home in Jackson County.
Wilson gave Bellar, who prosecutors allege was the group’s “sergeant,” the lightest sentence. He faces a prison sentence of at least seven years.
In a statement, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said she was pleased with the sentences.
“The defendants’ ultimate goals were to kill police and elected officials and kidnap the Governor of Michigan,” Nessel said. “These extraordinarily violent ends, coupled with the unequivocal conviction from the jury, demand the maximum sentence.”
Whitmer, who in November was reelected to a second term, did not immediately comment on the sentences. But in October, after the trio was convicted, Whitmer said the “verdicts were further proof that violence and threats have no place in our politics.”
“No threat, no plot, no rhetoric will break my belief in the goodness and decency of our people,” the governor posted at the time on social media.
In all, more than than a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the plot to kidnap Whitmer, which prosecutors said was fueled by anti-government extremism and anger at steps that the governor took to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
In August, two other men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted on federal charges of plotting to kidnap Whitmer. Prosecutors said they planned to capture Whitmer at her vacation home, detonate a bridge and ignite an armed rebellion ahead of the 2020 presidential election. | 2022-12-15T20:38:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge sentences three men in plot of kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-plot-sentencing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-plot-sentencing/ |
The social scientist will become the university’s 30th president on July 1.
Claudine Gay. (Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University)
She will take office on July 1, succeeding Lawrence S. Bacow, the university’s retiring president, Harvard said. Gay will be the second woman to serve as president.
“Claudine has brought to her roles a rare blend of incisiveness and inclusiveness, intellectual range and strategic savvy, institutional ambition and personal humility, a respect for enduring ideals and a talent for catalyzing change,” Penny Pritzker, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation and chair of the presidential search committee, said in a statement. “She has a bedrock commitment to free inquiry and expression, as well as a deep appreciation for the diverse voices and views that are the lifeblood of a university community.”
Gay said in a statement on the Harvard website: “With the strength of this extraordinary institution behind us, we enter a moment of possibility, one that calls for deeper collaboration across the University, across all of our remarkable Schools. There is an urgency for Harvard to be engaged with the world and to bring bold, brave, pioneering thinking to our greatest challenges.”
Gay earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University in 1992, and she earned a doctorate in government from Harvard in 1998. She was on the Stanford faculty from 2000 to 2006 before joining the Harvard faculty.
In her research, Harvard said, Gay “has explored such topics as how the election of minority officeholders affects citizens’ perceptions of their government and their interest in politics and public affairs; how neighborhood environments shape racial and political attitudes among Black Americans; the roots of competition and cooperation between minority groups, with a particular focus on relations between Black Americans and Latinos; and the consequences of housing mobility programs for political participation among poor people.”
In a video accompanying the announcement, Gay said: “As a woman of color, as a daughter of immigrants, if my presence in this role affirms someone’s sense of belonging at Harvard, that is a great honor.” | 2022-12-15T21:49:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harvard University names Claudine Gay as its first Black president - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/15/harvard-president-claudine-gay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/15/harvard-president-claudine-gay/ |
FILE - Michael Bivins, from left, Ronnie Devoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill of New Edition appear in the press room at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles on Nov. 21, 2021. The group will perform on ABC’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-12-15T21:49:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'New Year’s Rockin’ Eve' to feature Duran Duran, New Edition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/new-years-rockin-eve-to-feature-duran-duran-new-edition/2022/12/15/a86b0c76-7cb7-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/new-years-rockin-eve-to-feature-duran-duran-new-edition/2022/12/15/a86b0c76-7cb7-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
A skier was buried by an avalanche. Then an off-duty medic happened by.
Authorities rescued a skier buried up to the chest in snow following an avalanche in Utah on Wednesday. (Courtesy of Salt Lake County Search and Rescue, Utah Department of Public Safety and Utah Avalanche Center)
Tom Elbrecht and his cattle dog mix Wiley were about 30 minutes into their Utah backcountry skiing Wednesday when they heard yelling.
Elbrecht thought it was an animal until he clearly heard a word: “Help!”
He trudged toward the voice and found a 35-year-old man pinned perpendicular against a tree with only one arm and his head above the snow.
Elbrecht is a firefighter and medic with Salt Lake City’s Unified Fire Authority. He was able to make a two-minute phone call to 911 before the signal dropped.
“It was enough to get the ball rolling,” he told The Washington Post on Thursday.
Unified Police Department public information officer Sgt. Melody Cutler said they have not publicly identified the stuck skier but confirmed that the avalanche had broken his femur.
The avalanche occurred in Neffs Canyon, in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest — a 2.2-million-acre expanse that spans northern Utah and southwestern Wyoming. It was 200 feet across and two feet deep, according to a report from the Utah Avalanche Center. The UAC is one of the 14 backcountry avalanche centers run by U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service that report current conditions and track incidents.
Avalanches kill an average of 28 people every winter in the United States, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Elbrecht said he has been a backcountry skier for nearly a decade and knew the signs of an avalanche when he saw the skier. He said he quickly formed a plan that minimized the chances of triggering a second snow shift.
Snow from avalanches, which can move at speeds of 60 to 80 mph, can become solid like concrete when they stop, the federal emergency preparedness website says.
In addition to the remote location and risk of another avalanche, a snowstorm prevented rescuers from using a helicopter to free the man.
With helicopters unable to help, it took eight hours from the time Elbrecht saw the skier to when the man left for the hospital.
That presented another fundamental and deadly challenge: hypothermia.
The skier was dressed for physical activity, Elbrecht said, with a light middle layer and a waterproof shell. But the man was trapped within snow, and it was in the mid-20s on the mountain.
Elbrecht took a down jacket from the skier’s backpack and put it on the man. Realizing that may not be enough, Elbrecht shoved his own extra puffer down the skier’s clothing and placed his own vest and waterproof layer on the man’s legs to keep him warm.
“I wish I had more with me,” he said.
What he did have with him was Wiley, whom Elbrecht said has been his ski partner for the last three to four years. “He really took it in stride,” Elbrecht said. “For all he knew, we were just hanging out in the slope with a stranger.”
Elbrecht and Wiley stayed with the man until a snowmobile took the skier to an ambulance. Elbrecht said he was overcome with relief getting back to his car.
He is certainly used to high-pressure situations, but those typically last 30 minutes or less before patients are transported. Here he stumbled upon a significant medical emergency that lasted eight hours without any of the tools he would typically have available.
“It was pretty overwhelming for a while there. But it’s what we do,” he said. | 2022-12-15T21:49:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Utah medic Tom Elbrecht rescues skier buried by avalanche - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/utah-skier-avalanche-rescue/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/utah-skier-avalanche-rescue/ |
The intelligence community repeatedly warned the president in early 2020 about the impending pandemic, a Democrat-led House committee report notes.
President Donald Trump, with Vice President Mike Pence, and the rest of the coronavirus task force, speaks about covid-19 in the briefing room at the White House on Monday, March 9, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Beginning in late January 2020, U.S. intelligence agencies reported to senior Trump administration officials that the coronavirus spreading in China threatened to become a pandemic and spark a global health crisis.
But then-President Trump’s public statements over the next two months “did not reflect the increasingly stark warnings coursing through intelligence channels,” including the president’s daily brief, available to Trump and senior members of his administration, according to a report issued Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee.
U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic
Trump administration’s hunt for pandemic ‘lab leak’ went down many paths and came up with no smoking gun
Indications that a novel coronavirus might be spreading in China caught the attention of U.S. intelligence as early as Dec. 31, 2019, the committee found, when an analyst at the NCMI reviewed a notice shared on ProMED about a mysterious respiratory illness spreading in China, and that had been discussed on social media. The analyst uploaded the notice from ProMED, a publicly accessible system for monitoring disease outbreaks, into an intelligence database called Horizon, which disseminates reports to military intelligence directorates.
In the first week of January 2020, “alarming information was circulating throughout the U.S. government,” but most of it came from public health sources, the committee found.
On Jan. 7, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took note in a cable of the growing outbreak. Some officials at the National Security Council wanted more information but were frustrated that the intelligence community couldn’t provide unique insights from its own clandestine sources.
In the U.S., too, the president kept downplaying the coming storm.
On Jan. 22, Trump said in an interview with CNBC that the United States had the virus “totally under control,” a statement that didn’t reflect the “growing level of concern” in the intelligence community’s reports, the committee found. The next day, Trump was reportedly told about the virus in his daily intelligence briefing, and officials told the committee that an article was drafted for inclusion in the president’s daily brief, or PDB, a classified document shared with Trump and his senior advisers.
Intelligence agencies elaborate on theories of covid-19 origins
“Public health officials will wait until all the data is there before making a call,” said the investigator, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the committee. While the early warning the community provided wasn’t comprehensive, it was a notable example of “where the professional culture of intelligence analysts really shines through,” the investigator added.
The intensity and frequency of the alerts would soon grow. On Jan. 30, the CIA began preparing short intelligence reports called “executive updates” on the spread of the virus. A PDB from early February 2020 warned that covid “could not be contained.” Another report around the same time predicted that the virus would become a global crisis before May.
But the House committee could not determine precisely which reports Trump read or the totality of information that was presented to him. Historically, the executive branch resists sharing full copies of the PDB with investigators, as was the case here, the committee said.
“We don’t know exactly what went up to President Trump,” the investigator said, “but it’s not the intelligence community’s practice to tell the president one thing and the rest of the national security community another.”
The report did not investigate the origins of covid-19, which continue to be a subject of debate. Trump administration officials, led by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, advocated for the hypothesis that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan and escaped possibly through an accidental transmission to lab workers. To bolster that claim, officials cited reporting that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill in the fall of 2019 with symptoms similar to covid-19.
But the House committee staff called those arguments “deeply misleading,” because the U.S. doesn’t know what made the workers sick and whether they had covid-19. | 2022-12-15T21:49:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump downplayed drumbeat of intelligence warnings on Covid, report finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/trump-covid-intelligence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/trump-covid-intelligence/ |
Help us, auto-correct. You are the last best hop for democracy.
(Washington Post Staff illustration)
If the texts to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that have been acquired by the House Jan. 6 committee reveal anything, it is that a lot of members of Congress wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of [unusual emoji] no return [unusual emoji] in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!” texted Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), according to Talking Points Memo, which obtained and published the text message this week.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote, in a text first reported by CNN. “I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him.”
In other words: The only thing standing between us and an even worse situation for democracy is the fact that people who want to overturn the election cannot exactly spell what they want. The last, best defense of freedom is... auto-correct.
INT. AUTO-CORRECT HEADQUARTERS — DAY — January 2021
The crew of the auto-correct all sit at their stations. Klaxons. The helmsman looks up at an incoming text.
“Captain,” he says. “Representative Norman is typing.”
“I see it,” the Captain says. She frowns. They watch as the words continue to build up on the screen: Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly and reading about the Dominion law suits
“Dominion ‘law suits’?" asks the First Officer.
“Could be clothing,” the Captain says. “Don’t engage. Steady as she goes.”
Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!
“Do we engage, captain?"
A hush falls.
“He said ‘invoke,’ ” points out the grammar officer, with a growl of dismay. “It’s got to be martial law. That’s got to be what he means. What a sad day.”
“Does it?” the first officer asks. “You can invoke other things. Precedents. He could think it’s a precedent set by Chief Justice Marshall, or something.”
“That wouldn’t be a law,” says the helmsman quietly.
“It could be case law!” pipes up the bright-eyed young ensign sitting in the auto-correct control center for the first time.
“After invoke?” the grammar officer asks. “It’s got to be martial law. No, that’s what the sentence is obviously building toward. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. I think we have to change it. We have to send a text to the president’s chief of staff asking him to get the president to invoke martial law.”
The helmsman sighs heavily. “I never thought this day would come,” he says. “What a sad time for our democracy. And it is not technically what he typed, so it’ll be on our hands.”
“Shall I engage, captain?” asks the First Officer. “After invoke?”
The captain raises her hand. “You have a good case with ‘invoke,’ ” she says. “But look at the capitalization. That’s capitalized like a name.”
“Are we so sure it’s martial law? There’s no hint of a 't’, or we would have wound up on a path toward Martian law. This person typed Marshal — a perfectly good word, and then kept going. Why would he do that, if he didn’t mean to do it? No. He must know what he means. I think he doesn’t mean a law at all. I think he’s thinking of a person, a person unknown to you or to me, and Marshall Law is his name. Maybe a cowboy of some kind. Maybe it’s a pun. Maybe he texts puns to his friends.”
“But captain,” the grammar officer begins feebly, “wouldn’t the pun be on the well-known phrase ‘martial law’?”
The captain ignores him. “No, we let it stand as written. I can think of lots of reasons to text a friend the name Marshall Law. It’s a funny name. But I can’t imagine texting the chief of staff that you want to end democracy just because you don’t like the outcome of the election. That strains my credulity. No. He must be talking about something else. Do not engage. There is no need for us here. If they want to end democracy, if they want to bring in martial law, they’re going to have to learn to spell it correctly. Or my name isn’t Captain Kathryn January.”
The starry-eyed ensign begins applauding and is quickly hushed.
“We’re getting another Marshall, Captain,” says the first officer. “This one’s a text from Marjorie Taylor Greene. Same spelling. Correct?”
“Do not engage. Steady as she goes.” | 2022-12-15T21:50:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Auto-correct is the last best hop for democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/autocorrect-is-best-hop-for-democracy-satire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/autocorrect-is-best-hop-for-democracy-satire/ |
In the ‘new scramble for Africa,’ Africans must come first
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, second from left, President Biden and Macky Sall, Senegal's president, center right, participate in a U.S.-Africa Summit leaders session in Washington on Thursday. (Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg)
Much of this century’s history will be written in Africa. The summit President Biden hosted this week with 50 leaders from across the continent is an overdue acknowledgment of that fact.
“When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds,” Biden said Wednesday in a keynote address to the gathering. “Quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well.”
But in this “new scramble for Africa,” success should be defined by Africans themselves. And investing in the continent can’t mean simply importing American values; it requires recognizing the achievements, and seismic shifts, that are already underway on the continent.
The case for Africa’s rising significance is undeniable. By 2050, according to United Nations projections, Africa will be home to one-fourth of the world’s population; by 2075, that fraction will have risen to one-third. By 2100, the list of the 10 most populous nations on Earth will include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Tanzania and Egypt.
No wonder countries such as China have invested heavily in relationship-building on the continent, particularly through Beijing’s Belt and Road development initiatives that have helped improve many nations’ infrastructure, from ports to railroads and hydropower. Biden’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, at which he promised $55 billion in U.S. investments in Africa over the next three years as initial proof the United States is “all in on Africa’s future,” is an effort to catch up.
But this new race for influence needs to be about more than who gets to extract and exploit the continent’s resources. It has to be about lifting hundreds of millions of Africans into the global middle class and beyond — and treating African leaders as real partners.
That is where the United States has an advantage over Beijing and Moscow. Those countries are funding the nuts-and-bolts of a modern economy. But the United States is far better positioned to help with human and societal infrastructure — health, education and good government — that move a nation from subsistence to flourishing.
The summit amply demonstrated the challenges involved in resetting the relationship between these former colonies and the new imperial powers eager to influence them.
Biden held a private meeting with six leaders whose nations will hold elections in 2023 — Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC, Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, George Manneh Weah of Liberia, Andry Nirina Rajoelina of Madagascar, Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone — to discuss dangers such as foreign interference and political violence. The Biden administration plans to spend $165 million to support elections and good governance in Africa next year.
In nations across the continent, however, citizens are already demanding more transparency and accountability from their leaders. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who did not attend the summit, is fighting for his political survival amid allegations he hid at least $580,000 in cash, of unknown provenance, in a sofa at his game ranch. Ramaphosa survived an impeachment vote on Tuesday but still faces a challenge to his leadership of his party, the African National Congress.
African nations are also confronting a massive wave of urbanization, impelled by rising living standards, agricultural mechanization and climate change. Cities such as Lagos, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam are becoming megalopolises sorely in need of adequate housing, rapid transit and other expensive infrastructure. The challenges are huge, but so are the opportunities to experiment with new approaches to housing design and public transportation that could be models for more-developed countries.
African leaders are well aware that they are objects of competition. Rwandan President Paul Kagame said that his country and others will not be “bullied into making choices between [the] U.S. and China.”
Nor should they be. It is in the interests of the United States, China and the European Union to invest in African nations and speed their development. Middle-class populations provide markets.
Forty-five percent of the mobile phones sold in Africa are Chinese brands, some of them customized with language-specific keyboards and cameras adjusted to accurately render brown skin. Engineering products for African consumers is a growth business, and one that might well drive innovations that could be valuable to customers elsewhere.
Economic advancement across Africa will also contribute to global stability. Nigerians or Tanzanians or Congolese who see no future in their countries will seek — and find — ways to migrate to Europe or the United States. Well-resourced governments with adequate infrastructure can deny havens to terrorist groups such as Boko Haram or the Islamic State.
Real medical infrastructure, of the kind colonists constantly promised to build but never delivered, can ensure that diseases such as Ebola don’t become pandemics. Building first-class educational institutions in Africa will pay off in discoveries and advancements we cannot yet imagine.
Colonialism has a way of reinventing itself. This new scramble must not be done to Africans, but with them and for them. | 2022-12-15T21:50:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden's "all in" on Africa. Africans get to decide what that means. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/biden-africa-summit-colonialism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/biden-africa-summit-colonialism/ |
Nancy Pelosi prepares for her exit — but her work will endure
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the Capitol on Tuesday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Nancy Pelosi has never been an easy person to interview. Especially when the subject turns to herself. In a new documentary about the speaker of the House streaming on HBO, her filmmaker daughter, Alexandra, grows exasperated as she tries to get Pelosi to open up during a tense election season: “You are impossible to crack! You are always on message. How do you do it?”
But now that her last march leading her troops in a national campaign is behind her and her final landmark piece of legislation, protecting the right to same-sex marriage, has been signed by the president, even Pelosi recognizes that the season has come to pause, look back and take what in the legislative trade is known as “a point of personal privilege” for valedictories and reflection.
So I found Pelosi unusually expansive during a Tuesday lunch she held with a handful of female journalists. She talked about how much things have changed since her early years as a backbench congresswoman from San Francisco in an institution where only 23 of the 435 members were women; about the choices she made and the chances she took during her unlikely rise to becoming the most powerful woman in U.S. history; and about the challenges that will be faced by those who will succeed her.
Pelosi not only became the first female speaker, but also exercised the power of that office more effectively than anyone other politician in modern times — two things that once would have seemed unimaginable, even to her. So hidebound was the House when she arrived in 1987, at the age of 47 after raising five children as a stay-at-home mom, that Pelosi said she believed she would see a woman in the Oval Office before one would hold the speaker’s gavel. The Democrats, who had run the House continuously since the 1950s, had established what she called a tight — and male — “pecking order.” The only time she heard from anyone in the top echelon of her caucus was when they wanted her to hostess a fundraiser in California.
“You know the first time I was in the Democratic Speaker’s Office?” Pelosi said at the lunch. “The first time I was in the Democratic Speaker’s Office was when I was speaker.”
Karen Tumulty: How Nancy Pelosi’s unlikely rise turned her into the most powerful woman in U.S. history
When she made her audacious bid for a top post in House leadership — at a time when the Democrats’ fortunes had turned and they were haplessly mired in the minority — the reaction Pelosi said she heard from some of her more sclerotic male colleagues was: “Who said she could run?”
“Poor babies,” Pelosi added with a laugh.
When her male colleagues suggested that the women just make a list of what they wanted and give it to the guys to handle, Pelosi said she replied: “No, we’ve been waiting over 200 years.”
Nancy Pelosi says she was raised to be holy, not speaker of the House. Now, as she turns 80 on March 26, she is the most powerful woman in American history. (Video: Joy Yi, Shane Alcock/The Washington Post)
Growing up the daughter of the mayor of Baltimore, Pelosi learned how to win elections, a vote at a time. And it turned out there were enough of her colleagues who also wanted to see an overturning of the old order. In the 2001 secret ballot for Democratic whip, Pelosi came out on top, by a vote of 118 to 95. Just over a year later, she became minority leader. In 2006, she drove the midterm elections strategy that won back a majority for the Democrats and made her speaker.
Later, in 2018, Pelosi would become the first speaker since Sam Rayburn to have lost the majority and then returned to hold the gavel a second time. She remained and fought for eight years in the minority, she said, because she was determined that the Republicans not be allowed to make good on their promise to dismantle her most significant and masterful legislative achievement. “That’s why I stayed,” she said, “to save the Affordable Care Act.”
No spot in the U.S. Capitol more symbolizes that old get-along-go-along order Pelosi first encountered than the storied room in which she held the luncheon on Tuesday. Lately, it has become a favorite meeting spot for her while her grand official office is being packed up. Tucked in a quiet corridor where tourists rarely venture on the first floor of the Capitol, it is known as the “Board of Education” in which Rayburn, the Texan who served as speaker three times between 1940 and 1961, would gather a select few for bourbon and scotch after the day’s business was over.
This hideaway was where Vice President Harry S. Truman was relaxing over drinks when he got an urgent call from the White House switchboard informing him that Franklin D. Roosevelt had died, putting Truman in the Oval Office. And where a 28-year-old freshman congressman from Texas named Lyndon B. Johnson got his early lessons in legislative tactics, along with the juiciest tidbits of intelligence to pass along to the New Dealers in the White House. LBJ biographer Robert Caro would later write that entree to the Board of Education was “the greatest favor Rayburn had bestowed on him.”
The current speaker has had the Board of Education redecorated. Long gone are the Rayburn era’s threadbare carpet, tufted chairs and portrait of Robert E. Lee. A seal of Texas still decorates one wall, but another features a bright scene of the Golden Gate Bridge and a third one a mural depicting the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote. “Tomorrow I’m having the women members to come in and see it, because it’s brand, brand new,” she said.
Pelosi describes today’s Democratic caucus as “about 70 percent women, people of color, LGBTQ, and 100 percent courageous.” She prides herself on appointing a diverse collection of committee chairs and opening the doors that were once shut to junior members — starting with the speaker’s own office. “They’re in there all the time,” she said. “It’s a different day.”
Over the years, Pelosi came to hold some of her adversaries in high regard — notably, President George W. Bush, whom she considers, “despite the war in Iraq, beautiful, lovely, a wonderful person to work with.” Of their work together, she said, “Many meetings in this room have been energy and other things. Nobody even knows about this room, so nobody even followed us, his secretaries or whatever.”
As she prepares to once again become just another member in the House chamber, Pelosi knows what lies ahead for her fellow House Democrats, who narrowly lost their majority in the midterms, and for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who will take her place as head of the caucus. “I’ve been speaker and minority leader with three presidents — President Bush, President Obama, and President What’s His Name — and then speaker with President Biden,” Pelosi said, adding that being effective in the minority means putting an even higher premium on party unity, even though it sometimes means members will have to do things that are unpopular in their districts.
As for her own plans, Pelosi spoke of writing her memoirs — which seems surprising for someone who has always held things so close. “I’ve got to set the record straight about certain things that I’m hearing about how we did this and how we did that,” she said, and launched into a harrowing story about the 2008 financial crisis, and how close things got to a complete collapse of the financial system before she finally helped muster the votes for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
“I think that’s why we lost the election in 2010, because it created the tea party on one side, Occupy Wall Street on the other,” she said. “Everybody unhappy we’ve bailed out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It wasn’t true, but that’s how it was perceived.”
The commentariat didn’t always get things right about Pelosi, it’s true, but history surely will. At the unveiling Wednesday of her official portrait, the soon-to-be-former speaker recalled the slogan of her first race for Congress: “A Voice That Will Be Heard.” No one, not even Pelosi herself, could have imagined how true that would turn out to be — not only in her own time but for generations to come. | 2022-12-15T21:50:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Nancy Pelosi prepares for her exit — but her work will endure - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/pelosi-historic-speaker-exit-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/pelosi-historic-speaker-exit-interview/ |
Disposable KN95 masks. (iStock)
After a brief lull, coronavirus cases are again on the rise. At the same time, hospitals are inundated with patients infected with RSV, influenza and other viral infections. New York City health officials have strongly recommended masking, and the Los Angeles area is considering a return to mask mandates.
I don’t think governments should implement mask requirements, but I would urge people to consider masking in high-risk situations.
I’ve written before about my apprehension toward government mask mandates. In short, I believe these should be reserved for dire situations — five-alarm fires in which there are no other options. Imposing such mandates at lower levels of emergency would only further erode trust in public health, especially if more effective and less controversial tools exist to protect people.
I don’t want public health officials to become like the boy who cries wolf: What happens in the future when a new, deadly virus for which we have no vaccines or treatments emerges?
That said, while I oppose a government-imposed mask mandate, I do support increased masking, especially as this “tripledemic” is underway and hospital capacity becomes limited.
Masks work to reduce your risk of contracting a respiratory illness. If you’re going to wear a mask to protect yourself, you should wear the highest-quality one, and that’s the N95 (or its equivalent, KN95 and KF94).
A lot of people don’t mind wearing masks. But many people find them to be uncomfortable and an impediment to social interactions. Those in the latter category should consider that risk is cumulative. Mask-wearing doesn’t have to be all or nothing; the choice is not between wearing them all the time and shedding them for good.
Instead, consider which situations are highest-risk for virus transmission. I’ve been traveling a lot for work recently, and I’ve been surprised by how few people are wearing masks in the middle of crowded airports and train stations where they’re standing shoulder to shoulder with many other people. Even if you have returned to all pre-pandemic activities and normally don’t wear a mask, consider keeping one in your purse or pocket and deciding, moment to moment, about whether to mask.
You might decide, for example, not to wear a mask in an airport’s empty security lines or while walking through spaces where people are spread out, but then slip one on during boarding, when dozens of people are packed together in an unventilated jet bridge. And you might keep the mask on before takeoff and after landing, when airplane ventilation often hasn’t kicked in, but then take it off during the flight, when ventilation is running.
Maybe you put one on if the people around you are symptomatic. On my last flight, I sat behind a parent with two young kids who both had runny noses and were coughing. This family probably shouldn’t have been traveling, but since they were, and I had no choice but to sit near them, I made sure to mask during the entire flight.
What if you’re attending work or social functions where there is the expectation of seeing one another’s facial expressions? You could unmask during settings that are of greatest benefit — for example, a board meeting or presentation — and then keep it on in crowded elevators and during transit.
Everyone should assess the covid-19 risk of their household. If you or someone you live with is still susceptible to severe illness from the coronavirus, then you should all take additional precautions while community virus levels are high. Those visiting people who are vulnerable should also take precautions for the three to five days before the gathering, including wearing masks in all indoor crowded settings.
Masking has become a major source of controversy during covid, but it shouldn’t be. A better approach would be to take mandatory masking out of the equation and empower people to make reasonable decisions based on individual circumstances. There are other tools, too: It’s not too late to get the flu vaccine and the coronavirus booster. And careful handwashing and knowing how to access treatments can also help reduce risk during this tripledemic.
“My 70-year-old wife just received what we thought was booster No. 3 at our primary-care clinic. However, there was an error at the clinic pharmacy, and what she really received was the original vaccine. We were notified of this error and told that the effectiveness against omicron should be good for about two months. Is that an accurate assessment? And if so, should she get the real booster after that? If it is not accurate, what would you recommend we do?” – Ken from New Mexico
Ken, I’m sorry this happened to your wife. I am sure it’s distressing to hear that you received a vaccination in error.
Here’s what I hope is reassuring news: It’s not entirely clear yet that the bivalent booster is necessarily better than the original monovalent booster. There are some studies showing that the new booster will give a better antibody response, suggesting that it might have an edge over the original one. And one study reported an enhanced temporary response against symptomatic infection in individuals who got the new booster. But we also know that the original vaccine also works as a booster. It will give excellent protection against severe illness and offer some protection against symptomatic disease, at least for a short period.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that someone is eligible for the new bivalent booster if it has been at least two months since their last coronavirus vaccine. Your wife could get the updated booster in two months. She could also wait three or four months, as the vaccine she received, even in error, is still likely doing its job to protect against severe disease.
“I am a physician and starting a new in-person job. It may require me to commute on the New York City subway during rush hour. With an N95 mask, how safe is it to ride a crowded subway of maskless people? I still haven’t had covid and prefer to avoid it. I’m fully vaccinated and boosted.” – Gilbert from New York
A well-fitting N95 mask, when worn during the entire time you are in public settings, is extremely protective. It has been effective in keeping health-care workers who are treating covid patients from getting the virus, so it should do its job for you in the subway.
If your goal is to continue avoiding covid, I’d also urge you to keep masking in your in-person job and to be aware that you could contract the virus in indoor, unmasked social settings, too.
“I am up-to-date with covid vaccinations, having received the new booster early in September. This was my fifth covid shot. I am elderly (73) and therefore at risk. My question: When will it be appropriate to receive the next booster?” — Don from Florida
Many readers are asking this question. I don’t know the answer.
At the moment, people who received the new bivalent booster are considered up-to-date with their covid shots. The updated booster provides at least some temporary protection against infection, but this effect probably wanes within several months. The protection against severe illness should be longer-lasting, but we don’t yet know for how long.
The Biden administration has said that most Americans should expect the coronavirus shot to become an annual one. It’s possible that those at greater risk — people who are immunocompromised, the elderly and people with chronic medical conditions — might benefit from more frequent boosters. But there’s no such recommendation at this time.
A new study in JAMA Network Open provides further evidence that coronavirus vaccines are essential for older individuals. Researchers found that the original booster lowered hospitalization or death by 80 percent and 64 percent across two multistate nursing home systems. This underscores the importance of older folks and vulnerable people in congregate settings to follow federal health recommendations and keep up-to-date with vaccines. Unfortunately, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 45 percent of nursing home residents have received the updated booster.
Data from the National Vital Statistics System indicate that deaths from opioids among adults 65 and older increased more than threefold between 2000 and 2020. There was a marked jump from 2019 and 2020 — 53 percent in that one-year period alone. Overdose rates in this age group are lower than in some younger ones, but the alarming trend points to the need for targeted intervention among older adults.
Researchers from the Food and Drug Administration authored an article in the journal Pediatrics that warns parents against giving young children cough suppressant medications. One such drug, benzonatate (known by its trade name, Tessalon Perles), is commonly prescribed for adults. Children 10 and older are able to take it, but only at prescribed doses. The FDA had previously issued guidance that children younger than 2 have died from ingesting as little as one or two capsules. This article found that between 2010 and 2018, there were 3,590 cases of unintentional benzonatate ingestion resulting in calls to poison control centers, with most of them in children younger than 5, highlighting the need for more medication safety education. | 2022-12-15T21:50:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Should mask mandates return? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/should-mask-mandates-return-covid-risks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/should-mask-mandates-return-covid-risks/ |
House Republicans who opposed 2020 electoral votes paid no price
The certification of electoral college votes for the state of Arizona is unsealed during a joint session of the House and Senate convened to confirm the electoral votes cast in the presidential election, at the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
In the hours after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, hoping to block Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win and retain Donald Trump as president, more than 130 Republican members of the House voted to do precisely that. The rioters tried to use intimidation and physical obstruction to achieve that goal. The Republican legislators used votes.
Specifically, they voted to reject the elector slates submitted by Arizona, Pennsylvania or both. The putative rationale for rejecting those electoral votes was an evolving, vaguely articulated set of concerns about the results and fraud. It didn’t really matter; Republicans had decided that the path for Trump to retain power was for them to block electors, so that’s what they tried to do.
Immediately afterward, there was outcry. Corporations pledged not to support their campaigns. Media outlets were deliberate about noting which politicians had tried to reject the electoral votes.
Then the 2022 midterm elections arrived and, of those who had opposed counting electoral votes and who were running for reelection, all but two won.
The potential political costs for those rejecting the Arizona and Pennsylvania results came to mind this week as Talking Points Memo published newly obtained text-message chains between then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican legislators. Those messages show that many of those who ultimately tried to block Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electors were generally agitating to keep Trump in power. So it was natural to ask: Was their own political influence dampened by the effort?
Around 30 Republicans who voted on the issue that night weren’t on the ballot in November. There’s a pattern to the reasons they weren’t: politicians who’d voted to block both Pennsylvania and Arizona often left the House to seek higher office. Those who sided with the Democratic majority in accepting the electors were more likely to retire (rather than run for reelection) or to lose primaries (against Republicans friendlier to Trump).
Notice that three Republicans lost in November — one who voted to reject both slates of electors, one who voted to reject only one and a third who voted to reject neither.
You can see them below, on a plot of the final vote margin in 2022. On average, those who voted to reject both states’ electors won by 41 points. Those who voted to accept both states’ electors won by only 30 points.
But those who voted to accept both slates were also from more-Democratic districts. According to DailyKos analysis, districts represented by those who voted to accept the electors preferred Trump by 18 points in 2020. Districts represented by people who rejected both electoral slates backed Trump by 25 points.
If we compare the 2022 results in districts to 2020, we see that there’s not much difference between the two groups of legislators. One might think, for example, that legislators who tried to block electors might fare better than those who didn’t if this was a salient issue for voters. But, on average, those who voted to support both slates saw margins (excluding uncontested races) that were 9 points more Republican than the 2020 presidential margin in their districts. Those who voted to oppose both slates had results that were 8 points more Republican.
The reason for this is obvious. Polling repeatedly showed that, while both Democrats and Republicans expressed concern about American democracy, they differed in the nature of those concerns. Democrats were worried about things like blocking electors. Republicans were more worried about baseless claims of voter fraud.
This will no doubt be frustrating to the former group. The only political accountability tool American voters have is ousting someone from office. Voters in these districts, themselves heavily Republican, rewarded the objectors with another term in office. | 2022-12-15T21:50:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Republicans who opposed 2020 electoral votes paid no price - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/house-republicans-trump-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/house-republicans-trump-elections/ |
President John F. Kennedy is seen riding in a motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. In the car with Kennedy are Jacqueline Kennedy, right, Nellie Connally, left, and her husband, Gov. John Connally of Texas. (Jim Altgens/AP)
A large number of the documents released Thursday belonged to the CIA. Several focused on Oswald’s movements, his contacts and even whether it was his signature on a visa application for Cuba. Other documents focus on requests from the Warren Commission.
In an initial review, the documents that were released did not appear to contain explosive new evidence of the decades-old assassination, and sweeping fallout that followed.
Rather, many of the documents appeared to summarize stories referencing the murder that stunned the world, or showed how officials responded to news inquiries (“advising that his scoop may, in fact, be old news.”) At least one document recalled how a low-level government clerk erroneously believed that documents about Oswald had been tampered with. | 2022-12-15T21:50:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thousands of secret JFK assassination documents released - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/jfk-assassination-documents-released/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/15/jfk-assassination-documents-released/ |
As the Russian hockey star takes aim at the NHL’s greatest scorers, his off-ice legacy is becoming harder to define. And he’s still not ready to talk about it.
By Dave Sheinin
Ovechkin during the Washington Capitals' media day. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
One morning in the fall of 2001, players for HC Dynamo Moscow were waiting to take the ice for practice ahead of the upcoming Kontintental Hockey League season, as the Zamboni completed its lazy, ovaloid circuit around the rink, making the ice gleam like glass. Luzhniki Small Sports Arena in Moscow’s southwestern corner was otherwise empty, the team enforcing a strict, no-spectators rule. There were no exceptions — not even for the parents of the 16-year-old Dynamo phenom who would be playing that season alongside grown men as old as 32.
But as he waited, that kid, Alexander Ovechkin, spotted something: In the windshield of the Zamboni, where normally there is only the face of the driver, a second face could be seen peering through the fogged-up glass. It was Ovechkin’s father, Mikhail — and when he caught his son’s eye, he grinned fiendishly.
“I’m looking around, and I see his little head,” Ovechkin recalled with a laugh. “He would never miss my practices.”
Ovechkin, now, at 37, the living fulfillment of all the outrageous promise that 16-year-old phenom once harbored, told that story on a gray Monday afternoon in a lounge off the lobby of the Washington Capitals’ team hotel in Chicago, near the end of a grueling stretch of road games, in the middle of a season of extraordinary achievement for the three-time NHL most valuable player.
The next night against the Chicago Blackhawks, Ovechkin would record the 798th, 799th and 800th goals of his storied career, becoming just the third player in more than a century of NHL history to reach that milestone. On Thursday at Capital One Arena, he will take the ice for the Caps standing just one goal behind Gordie Howe for second place all-time and 94 goals — or roughly two full seasons at his current pace — behind Wayne Gretzky for first place.
“He’s historic. How else do you explain what is happening here?” marveled Ted Leonsis, who has owned the Capitals for the entirety of the Ovechkin era. “Wayne Gretzky’s record — nobody thought it could be broken. When Alex had his first couple of great years, people said, ‘We’ve seen this before — guys score 50, 60, 70 goals.’ But to maintain that over this period of time and not get hurt? And now, it seems like every game there’s some record he’s breaking.”
It may not have been Ovechkin’s intention, but the story of his father and the Zamboni managed to pull together all the major themes swirling around him as he bears down on Howe and turns his sights toward Gretzky: his deep Russian roots and nearly decade-long friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, with all the complexities therein during a time of war; the enduring bond of family for a man who is both a devoted son and father; the hockey legacy Ovechkin has been authoring on two continents since childhood; and the defining sense of loyalty that has tethered him to just one Russian team (Dynamo) and one American team (Washington) for the entirety of his 22-year professional career.
“I only played [for] two teams. If there was no NHL, I’d probably stay with Dynamo for whole career,” he said in English, his second language. “Obviously, I didn’t know much about city or the team when I came to Washington. But the people who was around me welcomed me to the team, to the country, help me grow up. That’s why you are thankful and don’t want to change it. All the guys who stay with one team, they have a chance to go somewhere [else] for more money, but they didn’t — because it became home, a place where you want to stay. I probably couldn’t [picture] myself in another uniform.”
He has been thinking a lot lately of his parents, Tatyana and Mikhail. Mom was the standout point guard for the Soviet Union basketball team that took gold at the 1976 and 1980 Olympics, and Dad was a soccer player. Once fixtures at Ovechkin’s many milestone moments across his 18-season NHL career, they can’t travel to the States anymore due to Mikhail’s declining health. The best they can do now is stay up late — or wake up early, depending upon what time the puck drops — to watch his games and congratulate him via a postgame phone call when he scores. (Reached at home this week, Tatyana Ovechkin declined an interview request.)
“When I was growing up,” Ovechkin said, “parents always telling me, ‘You have to stay who you are. You can’t change. Doesn’t matter how much money you have.’”
Four years ago, Ovechkin became a father himself, when he and wife Nastya welcomed son Sergei, named for the brother who died when Ovechkin was 10. A second son, Ilya, arrived in 2020. They factor into every aspect of Ovechkin’s future, and the boys’ burgeoning love of the game gives him extra motivation to continue playing — to share with them the legacy he is building on the ice. And in the meantime, 4-year-old Sergei, nicknamed “Little Ovi,” has already demonstrated an excellent lefty shot.
Asked how good can Little Ovi be, Ovechkin paused and said without a trace of irony, “Hopefully better than me.”
The first sentence of Ovechkin’s Hall of Fame plaque, whenever it is ultimately cast, is likely to trumpet his goal-scoring mark, the only question being whether he is first or second all-time. The second sentence is likely to note the Stanley Cup title he helped earn for the Capitals in 2018 after years of frustrating flameouts in the playoffs.
The championship was a moment that marked both a climax and a turning point for Ovechkin, allowing the autumn of his career to proceed without the suffocating pressure and scrutiny of being the guy who couldn’t win it all — a tag that wounded him both externally and internally.
“After all the disappointments we have in previous years, it’s like, ‘OK, is this my fault or is this organizational thing?’” Ovechkin said of his own introspection. “Sometimes when you look at the roster or the team that we have, this is championship [caliber] team. We have depth, we have skills players. But we didn’t do it. So you asking yourself what you can do better… If you lose, obviously people going to put a finger on you and say like, ‘Ah, this guy, he’s not a winner.’ Oh yeah, I heard it a lot. From the fans, you [media] guys. But people have to understand, it’s team sport. It’s not about one guy.”
Ovechkin has clearly thought about his legacy beyond the record book. He has always kept one foot in Russia, where he spends much of his offseasons and remains the most famous sports star in the country, and one in America. He has a youth hockey academy in Moscow and has dreams of opening another in the D.C. area. Of late, he has told friends of a desire to have a role within the Capitals’ organization once he retires from playing.
But the legacy question isn’t one he is ready to address. Last month, in the aftermath of an on-ice ceremony marking Ovechkin’s NHL record for most goals scored with one franchise, Capitals President Dick Patrick tried to thank him for everything he has brought to the organization, and Ovechkin brushed it off, saying, “No, no, no. Thank me when I retire.”
On Monday in Chicago, when asked what he hoped his legacy would be, Ovechkin, never known for his defense, swatted the question away like a penalty-kill grinder who would take a puck to the face to stop a goal.
“First of all, I’m not done yet,” he said. “And secondly, it’s a long way to end of my career. We’ll see at the end.”
Legacies, it is true, are ever-evolving and fragile. And in this, of all years, the question of Ovechkin’s has grown complicated.
Loyalty’s costs
At an alumni reception two months ago at Capital One Arena, a building that sits roughly 10 blocks from the White House, former Capitals players mingled with current ones. Handshakes were exchanged. Selfies were taken. Stories were told.
And then suddenly, Dmitri Khristich was standing in front of Alex Ovechkin.
Khristich, a Capitals forward from 1990 to 1995 and again from 2000 to 2002, was the last Washington player of consequence to wear sweater No. 8 before Ovechkin, who chose the number because his mother wore it, took it as his. Over that alumni weekend, some of Khristich’s ex-teammates had taken to calling him “Original Eight,” to differentiate him from Ovechkin, “the Great Eight.”
Khristich, 53, is Ukrainian. He and his family — wife Oleksandra and 16-year-old stepson Ilya — were forced to leave their home in Kremenchuk, an industrial city roughly 200 milessoutheast of Kyiv, after Russia invaded the country in February. He is working part-time for the Ukrainian hockey federation, helping prepare its under-25 national team for next month’s World University Games in Lake Placid, N.Y.
At the alumni function, Khristich said later, Ovechkin was startled at first to see him. But eventually Ovechkin asked politely, “How are things over there?”
“They are bad,” Khristich replied. But rather than elaborate and risk escalating the situation, he let it go at that, and the two soon moved on to other faces.
“We weren’t there for that kind of reason,” Khristich explained recently in a Zoom interview from Philadelphia, where his family has settled for the time being. He spends much of his time watching games from the Ukrainian Hockey League, which is in the midst of a patchwork regular season schedule that, according to Khristich, sometimes sees games interrupted by bomb sirens, with everyone decamping to a bomb shelter until the threat is over.
Asked about Ovechkin’s public stance, Khristic said, “We condemn anyone who supports in any way that terrorist country… Obviously, [Ovechkin] is here for the reason of to play hockey, and that’s what he does. His other point of view, I totally condemn his point of view.”
But what is Ovechkin’s point of view? The answer is elusive, perhaps even fluid. His longtime support for and friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, dating at least as far back as 2014, is well-known and oft-dissected. He famously started a social media movement called Putin Team in 2017, ahead of the 2018 Russian elections, and his Instagram profile picture remains a posed shot of him and Putin.
“I have never hidden my attitude toward our president, always supporting him,” Ovechkin wrote in Russian in 2017. “I am confident that there are many of us, supporting Vladimir Putin. So let’s unite and show everyone a united and strong Russia!”
At a news conference in February, days after the Ukraine invasion began, Ovechkin distanced himself from that support, though not as adamantly as some would have preferred. “I am not in politics,” he said then. “Like, I am athlete.” Later, he added, “Please, no more war.” In May, when pressed about his support of Putin, Ovechkin told The Washington Post, “He is my president, right? I am Russian. What else can I say?”
Ahead of Ovechkin’s interview with The Post on Monday, a Capitals spokesman said Ovechkin would not make any further comments about the war or Putin. When asked during that interview if that were true, or if he wished to clarify or amend anything he said in February, Ovechkin said, “I think it’s enough, what I said.” Asked if the criticism has diminished his enjoyment of this moment, he said, “Not really. Because it’s a situation [where] you can’t do anything.”
People close to Ovechkin defend his neutral stance, saying there are complex reasons for it, including his massive visibility in Russia, the fact his parents remain in Moscow and a censorship law the Kremlin enacted in March making it a crime to criticize the war effort. Others see Ovechkin’s closeness with his parents, his one-team tenure in the NHL and his Russian patriotism as different aspects of the same defining character trait: deep loyalty.
Even the decision to keep Ovechkin’s Instagram profile photo with Putin is fraught with consequences: Keeping it invites unwanted scrutiny in America. Changing it would have invited even more scrutiny, if not worse, in Russia.
“In his mind, he’s doing the right thing,” said one person who has known Ovechkin since his Dynamo days, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about a sensitive subject. “He thinks of himself as a patriotic Russian who loves his country. Hopefully in the last nine months he has realized [Putin] is out of control, and maybe he has changed his opinion. But he has been behind [Putin] so long, he’s in a precarious situation. It’s better for him to say nothing.”
Both the NHL and the Capitals have managed to contain the issue this season, though it still rages on social media and elsewhere. In western Canadian cities such as Calgary and Edmonton, where there are large Ukrainian populations, Ovechkin has been met with sustained boos.
In the Capitals’ locker room, meantime, the topic is studiously avoided.
“We all decided not to talk about that,” said veteran center Nicklas Backstrom, who has played in more than 1,000 games alongside Ovechkin. “I know the war was wrong, but I’m not going to sit there and discuss that with him. He’s in a tough position. He didn’t start the war, so it should definitely not take away from what kind of athlete he is. He’s just a regular guy chasing records and wanting to be a great hockey player.”
The same goes for the executive offices. In March, the team released a statement condemning the war, adding that it stands “in full support of our Russian players and their families overseas. We realize they are being put in a difficult position and stand by to offer our assistance to them and their families.”
Asked recently what he would say to fans who feel conflicted about Ovechkin given his public, pro-Putin stance, Leonsis said, “I think you don’t have to be conflicted. I just think he’s playing hockey. And the joy that he has given us, the love he has shown for the fans, for the community — everyone should have permission to return it. I certainly do. “
“I keep my politics out of [it]. I have my political leanings and opinion,” Leonsis continued. “But when I’m at a game and I’m watching him play, I’m admiring how he plays. And I’m not thinking about what country is he from and what’s happening. I understand why you have to address it, but no, people have permission to return the love that he has been giving everybody.”
But not everyone is willing to accept the compartmentalization that allows Ovechkin’s hockey persona to be kept separate from his political one.
“I know it’s a sport, but you can’t pull the sports away from the politics, with what is going on now,” Ukrainian defenseman Alexei Zhitnik, who spent 15 years in the NHL before retiring in 2008, said in a telephone interview. “I don’t know [Ovechkin’s] mind. Maybe he’s against the war but he’s afraid to say it. But also, if you don’t say anything, you’re for it. You have to speak out. Tomorrow it’s too late. You had 10, 11 months [since the invasion began] to say anything. If you’re quiet, you are either afraid or you love war.”
Hall of Fame goalie Dominik Hasek has also been outspoken about Ovechkin’s ties to Putin, using an expletive on Twitter to describe Ovechkin’s brief February news conference and calling for the NHL to suspend the contracts of Russian players until the invasion is over.
While some international sports federations, including the International Ice Hockey Federation, have banned teams from Russia from international competition, the NHL, with nearly 50 Russian players on its rosters, is not known to have considered a similar ban of individuals. In a March statement, it said those players “play in the NHL on behalf of their NHL Clubs, and not on behalf of Russia.”
Reached via WhatsApp in his native Czech Republic on Thursday, Hasek remained unrelenting, saying in a text message that Ovechkin “by his actions helps Russian politics and all the crimes that are connected with it,” and that the NHL, by permitting Russian players in the league, “is thus responsible for both huge economic damages and many lost lives.”
“I don’t even blame Alex himself, but above all the NHL,” Hasek continued. “… Speaking positively about the NHL and [Ovechkin] at this moment means supporting the war and being responsible for everything connected with Russian aggression. And I won’t do that. That is against my good conscience.”
‘A goal is a goal’
One afternoon in Philadelphia in early December, Ovechkin sat opposite Mark Howe in a pair of cushy chairs arranged under TV lights. As producers threaded clip-on mics through their shirts, preparing to tape a television special that would air when Ovechkin got closer to Gordie Howe’s mark, Ovechkin and Howe’s son made small talk.
They talked about some of the uncanny resemblances between the two superstars: How both Gordie Howe and Ovechkin were huge for their eras. How they are both associated almost exclusively with one NHL franchise (Howe spent 25 of his 26 NHL seasons with the Detroit Red Wings). And, oddly, how both were right-handed shooters who produced two hockey-playing sons who shot left-handed.
“Your dad, he came back to play with you, right?” Ovechkin asked Mark Howe, himself an accomplished player who followed his father into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011, as well as a gracious man who has taken it upon himself to fill in for Gordie, who died in 2016, on the welcome committee for the 800-goal club.
“That’s right,” Howe said, recalling how Gordie Howe came out of retirement in 1973 at age 45 to play with his teenage sons, Mark and Marty, on the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association. “And then he played until he was 52.”
Ovechkin grew quiet, the gears in his brain practically humming with thought, then shook his head. He wanted the math to work, but it just wouldn’t. If Sergei and Ilya Ovechkin make it to the NHL, their dad will be long since retired. And he won’t be coming back.
“Even if it’s possible,” Ovechkin said later, with perfectly paradoxical logic, “it’s not possible.”
If it wasn’t clear back when he signed his current five-year $47.5 million contract with the Capitals in July 2021, it is clear now that the deal had dual purposes: to allow Ovechkin to finish his career in Washington and to carry him to the doorstep of Gretzky’s record, and hopefully beyond.
“He was insistent on that [term]. I thought maybe three years, and go from there,” recalled Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan. “But in his mind, it was, ‘Here’s what I need [to get to Gretzky]. And he was adamant about it: ‘I want five. I can play five. I won’t let you down. I’m going to play five.’”
Asked how long he intends to play, Ovechkin said, “It’s still fun. You still want to go out there and play the game. As soon as I don’t have that enjoyment, I probably retire. I respect this game so much and love this game so much, I don’t want to be embarrassing out there and do something that people gonna say, ‘Well, that’s it.’”
The math for 900 goals — to pick a convenient, round number just beyond Gretzky’s mark — is outrageous. A player could average 45 goals per season for 20 years — a threshold neither Howe nor Gretzky ever reached after turning 30 but that Ovechkin has already hit five times in his 30s, with a current pace that would give him a sixth this season -- and just barely get there.
Gretzky, through a spokesperson, declined an interview request for this story. But he predicted on a TNT telecast in October that it was a matter of “when not if” Ovechkin passes him.
“It's insane, that number of goals,” Caps veteran T.J. Oshie said. “But he’s a different type of player. He’s the most natural goal scorer I’ve ever seen, without a doubt. He finds areas where the puck is going to go in. He has the shot, the strength, the power behind it. But even more than that, you appreciate how many times he’s played through injury, how few games he’s missed. I’ve missed 115 more games than him in our careers. That’s a lot of games.”
Even if players wore numberless uniforms, it has always been easy to pick out Ovechkin on the ice. He was the tank with the Porsche engine, the one with the patented bunny-hop of a first step. At 6-3, 238 pounds, he was bigger than anyone who ever had a shot as deadly as his and more talented than anyone as big. He announced his presence in the first shift of his NHL debut at age 20, smashing poor Radoslav Suchy of the Columbus Blue Jackets so hard into the boards it broke the glass.
Seventeen years later, with salt-and-pepper hair and an engine that can no longer go 200 mph for 20 minutes of ice time each night, Ovechkin has had to make subtle concessions to his age.
“He’s adjusted. He’s older. He’s not as much of a rush player as he used to be,” MacLellan said. “He used to take guys on one-on-one. He has to limit that now. He used to be able to take over games physically. Now, once in a while, he picks his spots. He’ll throw a really good check. But you can’t play that way at that age or you won’t last.”
The way the Capitals deploy Ovechkin certainly helps make a run at Gretzky possible. According to hockey analytics site MoneyPuck.com, while Ovechkin’s five-on-five scoring rate (1.0 goals per 60 minutes) is near a career-low, he remains an elite power-play scorer, and the Caps use him on that unit at a near-league-high rate (95.2 percent of possible 5-on-4 ice time). Additionally, he starts 23.3 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone, near the highest in the league, and only 2.1 percent in the defensive zone, near the lowest in the league, reducing his end-to-end mileage.
“Basically,” said Peter Tanner, MoneyPuck’s founder, “if hockey had a designated hitter, it would be Ovechkin.”
But designated hitters can still rake, especially when given a steady diet of meatballs. Career goals number 794, 795, 796 and 797 for Ovechkin, coming in a dizzying three-game span last week, were all empty-netters. But they counted all the same, and the calls still came through from Mom and Bad in Moscow afterward.
“A goal,” explained the man who is his generation’s leading expert on the subject, “is a goal.”
With Ovechkin having already lost some 150 games in his career to a pair of lockouts and a global pandemic — and with all his years of good health perhaps tempting fate — nothing can be taken for granted. Even another 50-goal season in 2022-23 wouldn’t guarantee more healthy years. Gretzky himself was finished by 38. The Caps figure to blow out the celebration for Ovechkin’s 802nd goal because there is no guarantee there will ever be an 895th.
“It’s such an historic story for him to be with one organization all that time,” Leonsis said, extolling the virtues of the shared loyalty between the Capitals and Ovechkin. “And I pray for a happy ending.” | 2022-12-15T21:50:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The legacy of Alex Ovechkin, at 800 goals and counting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/alex-ovechkin-gordie-howe-goals-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/alex-ovechkin-gordie-howe-goals-russia/ |
U.K. airports will phase out tiny toiletries by 2024
High-tech scanning machines will allow travelers to bring up to two liters at a time
The United Kingdom government has set a June 2024 deadline for most major airports to install high-tech screening machines, which means travelers will no longer have to restrict their liquids to tiny bottles or remove their electronics at security checkpoints.
U.K. officials announced the news Thursday in a release that characterizes the changes as “the biggest shake-up of airport security rules in decades.”
Since 2006 — the year British officials thwarted a terrorist plot to sneak liquid explosives onto flights to Washington, New York and California — passengers have been limited to 100 milliliters (or 3.4 ounces) of liquids in a quart-size plastic bag. With the new CT scanners, travelers can bring two liters (about 67 ounces) through security checkpoints at many U.K. airports.
For context, a growler of beer is 64 ounces and a bottle of Mane ’n Tail contains 32 ounces of shampoo or conditioner. In addition, travelers will not have to remove their larger electronics but can keep them tucked inside their carry-on bag.
“The tiny toiletry has become a staple of airport security checkpoints, but that’s all set to change,” U.K. Transport Secretary Mark Harper said in a statement. “I’m streamlining cabin bag rules at airports while enhancing security.”
The government had set an earlier deadline for the end of this year but pushed the date back when the pandemic hit.
“We think this is a huge step forward in terms of security,” Lauren Beyer, vice president of security and facilitation with Airlines for America, said of the development, “and it also comes with efficiency and customer facilitation benefits.”
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Transportation Security Administration has been acquiring and installing CT scanners in airports around the country. The 3D machines, which are commonly used in hospitals, display a more complete and comprehensive image of the scanned objects. Security officers can also closely inspect individual items and skip the manual bag search, expediting the security queue.
At this time, the TSA does not plan to increase the amount of liquids allowed on airplanes departing from the United States.
“We are supportive of getting liquids back in bags as long as TSA has completed all of its testing,” Beyer said.
Passengers in the United States can leave their quart-sized bag of liquids and their gadgets in their bags as long as they are in a security lane with a CT scanner. TSA urges travelers to look for signage at security checkpoints and listen to the officers’ instructions. | 2022-12-15T21:52:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.K. airports will make tiny liquids irrelevant by June 2024 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/12/15/uk-airports-tiny-liquids-security-rules/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/12/15/uk-airports-tiny-liquids-security-rules/ |
Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Elegance Bratton
MR. CAPEHART: Good afternoon. I’m Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor at The Washington Post. Welcome to Washington Post Live in another in our series on Race in America, coproduced with the “Capehart” podcast
The Inspection is the beautifully written, acted, and directed debut film by--not "by"--of Elegance Bratton. Not only is Bratton the writer and director, the movie is based on his life, and it's getting him noticed. Variety recently named Bratton one of the ten directors to watch in 2023.
As you see, joining me now is Elegance Bratton. Welcome to "Capehart," on Washington Post Live.
MR. BRATTON: Thank you for having me. This is amazing. Thank you so much.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, I'm so excited to talk to you I can barely speak, getting through that intro.
So, Elegance, I read that you considered writing an autobiography but you chose to make a film instead. Why this medium to tell your story?
MR. BRATTON: You know, it's a cliché, but they say a picture says a thousand words, and I did not feel like I would be able to write my life story in a timely enough fashion, so I just cheated with the camera. It had to be the camera.
And it's also that I wanted to do something that was, like, available to people and emotional to people, and I think sometimes books can be a bit intimidating, but a movie? Everybody can sit down and watch. So I wanted to make something that was really accessible for the culture.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, in one interview you said people don't read books. And so, that was one of the things--
MR. BRATTON: I was trying to be nice. I was trying to be nice because it's a newspaper thing. I didn't want to say that.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, I mean, I read that and burst out laughing because I was like, that's true. But there's something that your husband--or, as I know you call Chester your "thusband," said, is that the thing you do best as an artist--you do best as an artist is take the audience to a place that they can't ever go without you, and your first feature should be intensely personal.
MR. BRATTON: Yes. Yeah, yeah, my husband was and is my greatest supporter. I wrote the first draft for this script in 2017, and I was just, like, you know--I had just sold my first TV show, "My House" to Viceland. I had a little bit of money in my account, and I'm like, I'm never going to have a chance where I don't work a normal job for six months. Let me write three scripts, and "The Inspection" was one of them. And you know, I've always got to say thank you to Chester because Chester makes me believe in myself even when I'm full of doubt. And this movie would not be around--it wouldn’t be here if it wasn't for Chester encouraging me to keep pushing for it.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, shoot, where's Chester, because I want to thank Chester for pushing you to make this movie, because it really is just so superb.
So, The Inspection explores themes of belonging and identity through your protagonist, Ellis French. We have a clip that captures the super complicated and heart-wrenching relationship Ellis, played by the divine Jeremy Pope, has with his mother, Inez, played by the divine Gabrielle Union. Let's take a look.
MR. CAPEHART: I mean, that--and that's just a piece of an incredible back-and-forth between mother and son. It's Ellis' first time in the apartment in five years. She kicked him out. Aside from being straight, meaning Inez, the character Inez, what are her dreams for her son?
MR. BRATTON: Anything to be safe. My name is Elegance. Pretty much every room I ever walked into in my life, people have assumed that I'm Black and gay before I ever got there. And that meant that I was, a lot of times, walking into situations that could be quite dangerous, if not truly physically, but emotionally.
And I think a lot of parents out there, especially Black moms, want their boys to be safe in a world that seems to be consumed with, you know, their annihilation, at times. So, yeah, that's what she wants for us, and she wants him to be safe. She wants him--and to her, the only way to be safe is to, you know, adhere to the status quo. Be a heterosexual, get married, have a job, have some kids; that's where safety lies. Anything else is too dangerous for her to contemplate.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, not to give away too much in the movie, but that is sort of my--sadly, my thing. There is a scene toward the end of the movie where Ellis and Inez, mother and son, are reunited, and you're thinking, wow, this going to--there's reunion, here. And then, it just--it just blows up.
I'm wondering, replaying a lot of these scenes, can you tell me, which of these really deeply emotional scenes actually did happen, and which are, say, composites of things that happened?
MR. BRATTON: Sure.
MR. CAPEHART: For instance, the scene we just showed, did that scene really happen in your life?
MR. BRATTON: Yes, yes, it did. When it comes down to it, this movie is 100 percent autobiographical, when it comes to Ellis' hopes, fears, desires, and motivations. Even if it's a situation that I personally haven't been through--but when it comes to the stuff between him and his mom, all of that is from my life. Every one of those words are words that I've heard.
I wish I could say I was brave like Ellis and I said some of the things that he says in the movie, but you know, at the time, I was very young and it was all coming at me. But yeah, you know, that birth certificate scene is 100 percent out of my life. And it wasn't the first time I've gone back to get my birth certificate, mind you. But it was the [audio distortion] that I had to go back and get it.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, you've called Ellis a much more heroic version of yourself who does things you would never do. For instance...
MR. BRATTON: Yeah, so--
MR. CAPEHART: And this is so unfair to the people who are watching who haven't seen the movie.
MR. BRATTON: Yes, yes. And again, I don't--spoiler alert, I don't want to give anything away. But you know, Ellis--what I can say is that this isn't a movie about someone trying to figure out if they're gay or not, right?
When I joined the Marine Corps, I came to the Marine Corps after about, you know, a decade out of the closet and living my life, and I honestly felt like my identity was a catastrophe. It resulted in me being homeless for 10 years, from ages 16 to 25. So, when it comes down to it, Ellis is a Black gay man trying to figure out how to get by in the world and where his place is in the world. It wasn't like I hadn't tried a thousand different things before I joined the Marine Corps to try to become relevant to the society. But I was just met with a lot of ostracism and rejection at every turn.
And in the Marines, I finally found a team that would accept me. So, one of the things that Ellis does is, like, there is a scene in it with warpaint. And this is very much out of my life, too, but basically, you know, I got to boot camp and warpaint, and you've seen those pictures of Marines and they've got, like, the camouflage on their face. So, Ellis [audio distortion] and gives himself a drag-worthy beat. And beat--beating their face with makeup for those who do not know.
MR. CAPEHART: Right, with makeup, yeah.
MR. BRATTON: For the uninitiated. But nonetheless, I would never do that. I would never go--I wanted to be the wallpaper. I was trying to blend into the background. I just was trying to get through so I could go to college one day.
So, you know, but the funny thing is, though, when I was--when it was time for me to put my warpaint on, I remember my drill sergeant remarking, like, man, you put that warpaint on fast and you're doing everybody else's warpaint. Where you learn how to do this? He didn't know I picked that up at drag bars as a teenager, but, you know, that's where I got it from. And I wasn't brave enough to show them that the way Ellis is.
MR. CAPEHART: I love, you're doing your warpaint and everybody else's warpaint.
I want to talk more about Jeremy Pope, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe portraying Ellis French. He said that, after reading the screenplay for the first time, he said, quote, he "wanted to protect you because of how much you put yourself out there."
How did you protect yourself emotionally while working on this film, because I know you've said that you can't even watch the movie before doing a Q&A about the movie, it's so painful.
MR. BRATTON: I'm still figuring out how to protect myself emotionally, to be honest with you, because this is my first fiction film. I'm so grateful to be on a platform like The Washington Post. I subscribe, I read, I love The Washington Post.
MR. CAPEHART: Oh, thank you.
MR. BRATTON: My husband is from PG County, Maryland, so we are--you know, it's part of our family. That being said, I've never had a work of art with this level of scrutiny, and it also is a work of art that's about my life.
And I'm--every day is a process of understanding how--what is too much exposure; what do I need to protect? So, unfortunately and fortunately, a lot of that burden falls on my husband, Chester, and my therapist, because I don't have an answer for how to protect myself. All I can say is that I tried to create--and it comes back to Chester. Chester told me when I got onto set, he said, listen, you have to be vulnerable. You have to say what you're feeling.
You know, my mom, she was killed about three days after the movie was greenlit, and I very much made this movie--you know, I made it for the world, but I very much made it to reach my mom. I knew that by casting Gabrielle Union that somebody would go up to her--that was her favorite actress. You know, I knew that people would go up to her, look what your son did; watch it. You know, and I was hoping that she would watch it and it would change her. And to have her die so tragically, man, that was a lot for me. And Chester was like, you gotta be vulnerable. You can't stuff these emotions down, because everyone is going to know something's wrong and if you don’t tell them where it's coming from, then they're going to feel unsafe with you.
And once Chester said that to me, I was just like, you know what? I'm going to try to do this every day. So, every day we got on set--like, for instance, you know, there's a lot of violence in this movie, a lot of kind of gay bashing in this movie--not "a lot," but it happens. And I remember [audio distortion] those scenes, and any traumatic scene, I would go to the crew and I'd be like, listen, guys, I know we don't have enough money, we definitely don't have enough time, but we're all--and my crew was very diverse: They're Black and Queer and they're White and they're female and they're male. And you know, everybody has gone through some form of trauma that's in the script. And I was like, listen, guys, just tell someone how you're feeling when you're feeling it. Tell me if you need to tell me, but don't just walk around being triggered by this without saying something. Even though we have to rush, we still have to take care of each other.
So, I tried to create an environment of healing on set where, when we needed to talk about it, we could talk about it, and in a process that made us such a great unit, such a great family. And it made us--you know, we shot this move against all the odds, you know, and I'm just really, really grateful. So, I can't--I wish I could give you a simple answer of how to protect myself. All I can say is I try to remain open and honest with what I feel all the time. I don't shame myself for how I feel and I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who love me and support me through it all.
MR. CAPEHART: Yeah, people--I think those of us, the movie-going public, we sometimes forget when we're watching actors and they're portraying characters, but there are real emotions behind those portrayals. And when it's an autobiographical film, there are real people who live those lives and have those feelings.
And in your case, you wrote this and you directed it. You were there reliving all of these things. Your movie is also about--which I found interesting when you take a step back, it's about manhood and masculinity. And you said, and I'm going to quote you, "When I joined the Marine Corps, I found a team of men, straight men, ostensibly, who couldn't reject me. I received an education in manhood and in masculinity that I had been denied my whole life."
And through going through that journey, what did you learn about yourself?
MR. BRATTON: I learned that--people ask me all the time, like, how are you here now after what you've been through? Where do you draw the strength from? And honestly, my sense of strength and power is drawn from forgiveness, my ability to forgive. And that's what I learned about myself in the Marine Corps is that I have a profound capacity for forgiveness and that that forgiveness is what makes me a real man. And that's what this whole movie is about, is like challenging the notion of what masculinity is.
Like, Ellis French, just like me, when he joined the Marines, he thought he would be the weakest guy because he's gay and effeminate. And then, he finds out that every Marine has been given the impossible task of being a real man and being a good Marine, and that inevitably each one of them is going to fall short. So, being homeless, Black, and Queer, I have learned a system I call radical, defiant, empathy, you know, where if I see where you're weak, I'm going to step in and try to make you strong, because I hope that you'll appreciate that and do the same for me.
So, you know, I think that one of the things I learned, and I hope that when people watch this movie, that there starts a conversation between left and right about forgiveness as being a tenet of real, true masculinity. Like, a lot of times when you're a forgiving man, people act as if you're--you know, you can't settle your debts. You don't know how to fight so you have to forgive them. No, forgiveness is actually how you move on and you make the world better around you.
So, that's what I learned, is I learned that I can forgive.
MR. CAPEHART: Wow. One thing that I had a hard time--a hard time doing is trying to understand how--and I'll just say it, the character, how Ellis French is still, from the beginning of the movie through the end of the movie, trying to do--I don't know, win his mother back, win her love, despite all that rejection. And I'm just wondering, and I couldn't help but wonder, given the things Inez says to Ellis, I kept thinking, did she hate him?
I know she says, I love you, but I don't like who you are, or something like that. But I don't know. I'm also a single kid, the single mom, also grew up in New Jersey.
MR. BRATTON: Yeah.
MR. CAPEHART: And I would have a hard time--I would have a hard time forgiving my mom or having a--or even wanting to go back to try to win her approval or acceptance after a lot of things we see Inez do to Ellis in this movie.
MR. BRATTON: You know, my mother was a really complicated woman. She was the first person to ever love me completely; she was also the first person to ever reject me wholly.
My mom was an orphan. She was--from the age of 10 years old. She had me at 16, and a part of it in this film is you start to realize that people can't give you what they haven't been given, and the unconditional love that Ellis is looking for from his mother, no one had ever given her. So, she doesn't know how to provide it to him.
And mind you, like, we were speaking about Jeremy earlier, but as a Black gay man, I don't really see movies with Black gay heroes very often. Most times, we're the accessory to the hero, you know, the handbag to the hero. And the reality of it is I think people go to see movies to see themselves and to see aspirational versions of themselves. You know, one out of two Black gay men are projected to be HIV positive in their lifetime; we're eight times more likely to be homeless; eight times more likely to commit suicide.
You know, there's hell to pay when you're living in this skin and you're trying to be the best, most authentic version of yourself. It's not easy. And what I'm hoping to do with this is to inspire a generation to keep fighting. You know, I made this movie for anyone who has ever felt alone, anyone who has ever felt overlooked and abandoned. And I hope that by the end of watching this, you know that you are worthy, that you're valuable, that you're enough.
You know, so, long story short, me loving my mom makes me feel better about what she did to me. And I can't say that I have all the answers to it, but what I can say is this film explores these very complicated emotions.
MR. CAPEHART: What do you think, or what do you hope LGBTQIA+ kids, young people, even adults, take away from this film?
And I would just love to get also your thoughts on where we are as a country right now, where've got mass shootings at either Pulse or Club Q. We've got laws being put on the books that sort of put targets on the backs of trans people and trans kids.
MR. BRATTON: Yeah, I--in terms of what I want people to learn, like, the greatest lesson I learned in the Marine Corps is how to talk to people who are different from me and to find a middle ground.
You know, and I'm not trying to make the Marine Corps sound like sort of Pollyanna situation, right? It's America. It's a concentrated, intensely concentrated, version of the United States. So, you've got the racism, the homophobia, the sexism, the classism, the ablism. All of that is still at play. But as a Marine, we're taught that there's no such thing as Black Marines or White Marines, right, that we are all dark green or light green.
We have an intimate understanding, an essential understanding, that our lives could quite possibly rest in the hands of someone that is really different and sees the world in a different way from us. And thus, we have to resolve our conflicts before we get to the battlefield. We have to get to that place where we can trust each other to look out for one another.
So, what do I hope people take away from this? All 8 billion of us on this planet, all 400 million of us in this country, we are all interconnected. We all survive because of one another. There is no such thing as us versus them; we are only us. And as a result, we owe it to each other to talk across our differences and to find a middle ground.
Like, we are in a highly polarized country, the Senate and the House split right down the middle between red and blue, and people seem to think that these ideologies and this way of seeing the world is going to lead to one side winning over the other. There is no winning unless we all win, and that's what I learned in the Marine Corps: No man left behind. And I hope that that message, regardless of what you think about the military, I hope that message seeps through.
In terms of where we are as a country and all these mass shootings, you know, I think queer people, we--especially queer people of color, we exist in the blind spot of a supposedly colorblind society, one that hopes to wish racism away by any means necessary, but is totally intimidated and overwhelmed by the actual work of rooting out structural inequality. Simultaneously, we are living in a world where people are very uncomfortable with queer desire and, as a result, queer existence.
And where does that leave queer people of color? We're in the blind spot. It's not until someone shows up to a bar and starts shooting people that we start to think that maybe, just maybe, we haven't solved our homophobia problem yet as a society, and I think that that's a shame. I think that we're at a point now--and Florida has this "Don't Say Gay" bill and are trying to outlaw queer history in America's high schools. If you want to stop these mass shootings and this horrible violence directed at queer people, then we must create space for queer people to be their full authentic selves and to be accepted.
The last 50 years has been about--you know, it's been about tolerance, not acceptance. And tolerance means that I have to shave down what makes me different so you can tolerate me being in the room with you. But guess what, no one has the stamina not to be their full selves all the time.
So, I'm hoping that this film is a nice marker in the road of the next 50 years being less about tolerance and more about acceptance, and acceptance is a bit more of a demanding pull.
MR. CAPEHART: And so, speaking of acceptance, then, what would you say to someone who has a parent like Inez, and maybe they haven't talked to each other in a while, maybe the LGBTQ+ person is the one who wants to reestablish a connection, but it's just not happening.
What would you say to them?
MR. BRATTON: What I would say is, like, you know, Ellis' is like--his ability to forgive is only bolstered by his sense of self-preservation. You have to do what is safest for your spirit and your emotional self.
I'll tell you a little story. When I was 29 years old, you know, I had gotten restationed--I was stationed in Hawaii as a combat filmmaker and I was restationed to New York City. And my mother called me up and she asked--well, she didn't ask--she demanded that I film my little sister's elementary school graduation because she felt like, you know, oh, you're a big, bad military filmmaker? Why don't you show up and film your sister's graduation?
And I went and none of my sister's friends knew she had an older brother; none of my sister's teachers knew my mother had an elder son. And it was in that moment that I resolved to be a filmmaker, to become a famous filmmaker, right? You're not going to ignore me. You will not erase me. You're going to turn on the TV and see my name. You're going to go to the theater and see my name. People are going to ask you if I am yours, forever.
And within that, I had to make a choice. I could not get where I am right now--I knew that I would never get here if I continue to show up to be abused by this person. If I continue to allow her to treat me like a second-class citizen, how could I ever trust my instincts as an artist? How could I ever get to the place where I trust my intuition, that I actually had it in me to be successful if I continually go to a place where failure is the only thing that I'm going to get out of it? So, I had to make a choice to say, you know what, do not talk to me unless you can treat me like a full human being.
So, what I say to those people who are going through this with their parents, you can love someone from afar. To me, it was too heartbreaking to give her up and to give up her loving her. I couldn't do both those things. So, I said, you know what? I'll give up physical contact with you until you know how to do better, but in my heart, I'm going to hold that love for you, because in that love there is hope for myself, too. Ellis French doesn't give up on people. That's his greatest strength and that strength allows him never to give up on yourself.
So, my advice is you do not give up on yourself. Protect yourself. And you deserve good things. You deserve love. And if these people that you love can't love you equally, you can still love them at a distance.
MR. CAPEHART: I'm going to get you in two more things in the--we're going to go overtime; I'm just telling people right now.
After your mom died, as you say, three days after "The Inspection" was greenlit, you found clippings among your mom's belongings, clippings of you, stories about you. Real quickly, how did that make you feel?
MR. BRATTON: It was--aw, man, I don't want to cry. It was--it made me feel really, really happy that she loved me, even though she didn't really know how to show it in the way that I needed it, I knew that, in her heart, I was still there, just like she was in my heart, and that made me feel really good.
MR. CAPEHART: And in--
MR. BRATTON: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
MR. CAPEHART: Oh, please, never apologize for feeling--feeling the feels, as the kids say.
But Elegance, I think it was a story in the Associated Press where your--I think you're sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, and the opening of this profile on you is about you talking about, 20 years ago, I was homeless on that bench. I walked down these sidewalks hungry; I walked hungry down these streets. You know, I did this down these streets.
You and I are sitting here right now talking about your Golden Globe-nominated film. How does that make you feel, being at this part of an incredible journey?
MR. BRATTON: Oh, my God. I feel blessed by God. I grew up in a very religious household and I was told that people like me were an abomination and that I could never expect anything good out of life because I wasn't putting anything good in life being myself.
So, to have a movie that's inspired by the moment--the lowest moment I was in where I really truly believed these things. You know, when I was in a homeless shelter, I said a prayer for this, for this moment, to be at a place where I could thrive instead of being in that constant survival loop: never having enough to actually thrive but just enough to get through the next day. I prayed to God to end this in my life, to end this cycle, and to show me how to get somewhere better.
And I didn't know it at the time, but God had already answered my prayers. God had already said yes. I was already, by virtue of having that thought, I was doing the work to get here. So, to get here now, I feel like--I'm just so grateful. I feel so much joy and so much pride, and I'm so happy that Jeremy is getting the notice that he's getting and Gabby is getting the notice that she's getting, because it's like not only do I get to be here, but I get to bring this incredible Black woman and this incredible Black queer artist along with me.
And in our community, I get to represent our community to the world, and to get here from where I started, I mean, all I have to say, God is good. And people--there's a lot of talk out there about gay films--why does every gay Oscar movie have to be about trauma, and I don't think those conversations are entirely wrong. But what I will say is, you know, being Black and queer, you have hell to pay to be yourself.
There is--it's like "Paris is Burning." There is the military realness guy who talks about how being Black--
MR. CAPEHART: Yeah.
MR. BRATTON: --[audio distortion] the greatest social experiment every. And I think a part of that is because this whole American Dream thing, nobody really imagined it being for us. So, every step you're a pioneer. You know, James Baldwin is a pioneer. Ru Paul is a pioneer. You know, all of us are pioneering in some way. So, the fact that I get to be an example for somebody else, that they can do it, too, that they can overcome the adversity that they're guaranteed to face in this skin, I'm just grateful to God. I'm so happy that I got to the other side of this. I really am.
MR. CAPEHART: Elegance Bratton, boy do you live up to your name. Elegance Bratton, writer and director of The Inspection, congratulations on the film. Thank you very much for coming to "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.
MR. BRATTON: Thank you for having me. This is such a real dream come true, and I hope we run into each other again on the next one. Thank you for having me.
MR. CAPEHART: Oh, don't worry. I'm finding you. I'm coming to find you.
And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up, head to WashingtonPostLive.com. Once again, I’m Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor at The Washington Post. Thank you for watching “Capehart” on Washington Post Live. | 2022-12-15T21:52:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with Elegance Bratton - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/15/transcript-race-america-giving-voice-with-elegance-bratton/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/12/15/transcript-race-america-giving-voice-with-elegance-bratton/ |
He doesn’t work there anymore.
Journalist Bill Spindle spent part of 2022 traveling throughout India to study the effects of climate change. Over some 5,000 miles, he visited struggling mangrove forests and tea plantations, massive petrochemical plants and coastal areas facing flooding from rising sea levels.
His conclusion: Climate change has accelerated into an emergency. “We have to make changes, and we have to make them in a hurry,” Spindle told The Washington Post.
So when he went to work covering climate issues for the start-up news site Semafor, he had some firm beliefs about the role of fossil fuels in the planet’s warming. And he blanched when he saw who was sponsoring one of his first newsletters: Chevron, the second-largest oil and gas company in the United States.
Spindle protested that Chevron’s logo atop his newsletter was an example of “greenwashing,” or giving polluting companies the sheen of environmental responsibility.
Greenwashing 101: How to decipher corporate claims about climate
But while Chevron disappeared as a sponsor of his newsletter, the company’s ads continued to accompany Spindle’s articles elsewhere on the website. Barely three months into the job, he was dismissed from Semafor.
“I made clear to them that I didn’t see a path forward,” he said.
Bold move @semafor having Chevron sponsor your climate newsletter🧐 pic.twitter.com/7l5EBAC4G5
— Jake Hobart (@twankseverybody) October 28, 2022
Semafor is reluctant to address the specifics of Spindle’s employment but said his dismissal had nothing to do with its advertising partnerships. The site’s editor and co-founder Ben Smith deferred to the company’s previous statement, which cited its “robust” advertising policy and added, “We did not remove advertising due to editorial requests and have a number of rotating sponsors of the climate newsletter.”
Spindle’s public criticism of Semafor’s ad policies offers an unusual glimpse into discussions that typically stay behind the scenes. Mainstream journalists tend to avoid raising objections to advertising that supports their work — which they typically have little say over anyway. And media outlets are often loath to turn down ads or sponsorship when the news industry is facing cutbacks and layoffs.
But Spindle, a 60-year-old former Wall Street Journal editor and reporter, argues that it’s time the news media makes a hard choice about associating with the makers of fossil fuels, which scientists overwhelmingly believe are destabilizing Earth’s climate by pumping massive amounts of heat-trapping molecules into the atmosphere. He compares the industry to tobacco marketers, whose ads were banished from radio and television by a federal law in 1970 because of rising health concerns.
Oil, gas and coal are “inherently harmful products,” Spindle said. “The decisions we make in the next five years are going to be absolutely critical. We may not be able to get rid of our dependence on [fossil fuels] in that time, but that really needs to be the goal.”
He’s up against a juggernaut, estimates of the oil industry’s marketing and public-relations expenditures suggest. One calculation, based on publicly available tax records, found that the industry’s main trade and lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, alone spent $663 million on its communications between 2008 and 2017.
This is dwarfed by the annual communications budgets of such oil and gas giants as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and the French firm TotalEnergies. These five companies spent roughly $750 million on messaging last year, according to InfluenceMap, a London-based organization that specializes in climate research.
While many news organizations accept the industry’s ads, allegations of greenwashing efforts have periodically flared. Houston Public Media pulled the plug on a video series in which energy executives spoke of their commitment to sustainable energy earlier this year, after acknowledging it was not produced by journalists and was sponsored by Chevron.
The Washington Post’s website hosts what resembles a news article titled “Why natural gas will thrive in the age of renewables,” complete with utopian illustrations of blue waters and green hills. A banner at the top of the page notes it was created by The Post’s branding studio for the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s leading trade organization. The New York Times’ marketing arm has produced similar “native” ads for ExxonMobil and Chevron.
News organizations typically enforce ethical standards that prevent advertisers from influencing their newsrooms. And Spindle has made clear that Chevron’s sponsorship never influenced his reporting. But for him and others, even a superficial association between news coverage and the fossil fuel industry is problematic.
Emails uncovered by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and released last week showed executives of some of the world’s major oil companies dismissing the notion that renewable energy would replace fossil fuels quickly, even as their firms publicly portray themselves as leaders in the effort.
“These documents demonstrate how the fossil-fuel industry ‘greenwashed’ its public image with promises and actions that oil and gas executives knew would not meaningfully reduce emissions, even as the industry moved aggressively to lock in continued fossil fuel production for decades to come,” the committee’s chair, Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), chair of the environment subcommittee, said in a memo outlining their findings.
InfluenceMap’s research found that 60 percent of the public messages from five large oil companies contained claims to be proactive on climate change. Yet the outfit estimates that those companies will spend only about 12 percent of their capital budgets on “low-carbon” projects this year.
The only major English-language news organization known to have publicly spurned the industry’s ads has been the Guardian. The British-based news company announced in early 2020 that it would no longer accept ads from “fossil fuel extractive companies,” citing “the decades-long efforts by many [energy companies] to prevent meaningful climate action by governments around the world.”
Spindle doubts that many news organizations will follow the Guardian’s lead anytime soon. But he says that media bosses should consider an “easy” first step: segregating fossil fuel advertising from climate news coverage. Doing so would prevent industry sponsors from creating the “disingenuous” impression that the companies are supportive of news about efforts to combat climate change, he said.
Some European governments are starting to restrict fossil fuel advertising, just as the U.S. government did with cigarette advertising decades ago. In August, France banned ads for fossil fuel products, including gasoline. Amsterdam banned such ads from its subway stations and city center last year. And Britain’s official advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority, in October banned two ads for HSBC bank, saying they were misleading because they failed to mention the bank’s role in financing fossil fuel projects.
“We’ve all got to acknowledge that this isn’t easy,” Spindle said. “And it’s certainly not easy to say, ‘Be gone with it.’ … But business as usual is just not going to cut it anymore.” | 2022-12-15T23:07:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Semafor hired a climate writer. Then Chevron ran ads on his stories. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/15/semafor-bill-spindle-chevron/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/15/semafor-bill-spindle-chevron/ |
Two court cases show the civil liberties toll of Jan. 6
Alaska state Rep. David Eastman (R) speaks on the floor of the Alaska House in Juneau on Jan. 31. Eastman faces having his November reelection overturned for being a member of the right-wing group Oath Keepers. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)
Is the answer to the attempted overturning of one election the overturning of another? That question is being litigated this week in Alaska, where David Eastman, a Republican and a member of the Oath Keepers, represents Wasilla in the state legislature. Eastman won reelection in November — but the seat could go to the election’s runner-up if a judge disqualifies Eastman under the 1956 state constitution’s disloyalty clause.
The clause bars from office anyone who “aids or belongs” to a group that advocates “the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States.” The Oath Keepers is a small-government, right-wing group created in 2009. More than 38,000 people have reportedly paid for membership since then, according to a 2021 leak. A number of Oath Keepers played significant roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol siege, and the group’s president, Stewart Rhodes, was convicted last month in D.C. under the federal seditious conspiracy statute.
Eastman, an Oath Keepers member since 2010, traveled to Washington for Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 speech, but he has not been charged with any crime. The disqualification lawsuit centers not on his conduct but on his affiliation with the Oath Keepers (and refusal to renounce it).
Barring Americans from elected office because of their membership in radical political organizations could violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free association. But the practical scope of the Bill of Rights has often narrowed in U.S. history in periods of heightened political tension.
Alaska’s disloyalty clause has its origins in such a period, as the Alaska Beacon’s James Brooks explained in a historical overview of the case. In the wake of World War II, some members of Congress feared the admission of Hawaii as a state because of purported communist influence there. As a result, Congress leaned on both Hawaii and Alaska to include disloyalty clauses in their state constitutions before their 1959 admissions to the Union, though the more liberal Hawaii later narrowed its language.
There has been debate about whether participants in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election can be barred from office under the provision of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualifying former Confederates who had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The Reconstruction-era analogy is a convenient one for advocates of disqualification — the McCarthy era, less so.
After all, many of the measures taken during the 1940s and 1950s to root communists out of institutions are now viewed as betrayals of American commitments to freedom of speech and association. But now the political context has changed: A liberal president has declared a global struggle between democracy and autocracy, and the government is focused on right-wing subversion in the United States.
It would not be a ringing endorsement of democracy if one of the remedies for Trump’s effort to deny the American people the ability to select a president of their choice is to deny the people of Wasilla the ability to select a representative of their choice. But this isn’t the only novel question about government power in the wake of Jan. 6 tested in an American courtroom this week.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments Monday on the limits of one of the most serious charges federal prosecutors have brought against members of the Jan. 6 mob — obstruction of an official proceeding, which carries a maximum 20-year sentence. The three defendants in the case at issue were each charged with other crimes, including “assaulting, resisting or impeding” police. But they claim that the obstruction statute was never intended to apply to their conduct at the Jan. 6 riot.
They have a case. The statute was passed in the wake of the 2001 Enron scandal to clamp down on document-shredding. It creates criminal liability for anyone who corruptly “alters, destroys, mutilates or conceals a record” or “otherwise obstructs” a proceeding. The legal merits hinge on the interpretation of the word “otherwise,” but the history and context of the statute suggest that Congress was primarily concerned with protecting the integrity of investigations, not any proceeding, from interference.
A basic principle of due process is that criminal laws must be clear. But according to the defendants’ brief, signed by a Pennsylvania public defender, the government created a “novel interpretation” of the statute when applying it to Jan. 6 defendants. This interpretation could expand the range of criminal laws available to punish political activists. Did the protests in Senate buildings during the Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which led to hundreds of arrests, corruptly obstruct congressional proceedings?
Jan. 6 was an especially threatening event. But as the history of Alaska’s disloyalty clause reminds us, civil liberties tend to contract in times of threat — often genuine threat — to the political system. That’s no guarantee of how the government’s new powers might be used when political coalitions change and new threats arise. | 2022-12-15T23:20:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Two court cases show the civil liberties toll of Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/civil-liberties-toll-from-january-sixth-cases/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/15/civil-liberties-toll-from-january-sixth-cases/ |
Fans celebrate Morocco’s win Saturday against Portugal in the World Cup quarterfinals. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)
This year’s World Cup has been mired in debates about its host country, Qatar. But it’s more complicated than that, according to Ishaan Tharoor: “I think being there helped me think a bit more deeply and hopefully with a bit more nuance.” For him, being there gave him a unique insight into how the country prepared for the tournament and how players and attendees are reacting to the results. For many watching, the most exciting victories were those of the Moroccan team, which became the first African team to make it to a World Cup semifinal.
As the tournament comes to a close on Sunday, two of the world’s most talented soccer stars will face off. Sunday’s final is expected to be veteran Argentine player Lionel Messi’s last shot at winning a World Cup. He’ll be playing Kylian Mbappé, the young French forward who has led his team to its second final in a row.
What it’s like being at the World Cup.
Morocco’s showdown with France carries complex political baggage.
After enduring insults and threats, Iranian team exits the World Cup.
How far can the U.S. men’s national team go?
At the World Cup, Wales finds itself.
No beer, but plenty of scandal at Qatar’s World Cup. | 2022-12-15T23:20:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The journey to Qatar's World Cup final - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-journey-to-qatars-world-cup-final/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-journey-to-qatars-world-cup-final/ |
A Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II aircraft lands on the flight deck aboard amphibious assault carrier USS Tripoli in August. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Malcolm Kelley)
A U.S. pilot ejected from a fighter jet following a bizarre slow-moving crash in Texas on Thursday, video shows.
The aircraft, an F-35B, descended toward the ground from a hover at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. The landing gear made impact on the ground, then bounced back into the air before crashing nose first and entering a spin, which appeared driven by the system that provides its vertical thrust.
The pilot then ejected into the air for a seven-second descent back to earth.
It is unclear if the pilot was injured in the crash. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the jet is owned by Lockheed Martin but flown by a “U.S. government pilot,” without specifying if they were military or civilian personnel. He referred questions about the incident to Lockheed, which did not return a request for comment.
It is also unclear how the crash occurred. Other videos of similar aircraft show small bounces that occur once their landing gear hits the ground, though the landings are dampened by shocks. In the incident Thursday, the aircraft bounces as if were landing on the moon.
The F-35B is the Marine Corps variant of the advanced fighter jet capable of short takeoff and vertical landing. That capability helps aircraft fly in and out of places where space is limited, like assault ships. | 2022-12-15T23:21:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | F-35 ejection: Video shows pilot's escape after bizarre crash in Texas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/f-35-ejection-video/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/f-35-ejection-video/ |
ATLANTA — Five people arrested on charges including domestic terrorism as authorities tried to remove the protesters from the site of a planned public safety training center will remain in custody without bond, a prosecutor said Thursday.
The arrests happened as agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta police officers, and other state and local law enforcement officers removed barricades blocking some entrances to the site, the GBI said in a news release.
The five people arrested had their first court appearance on Thursday, and DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a news release that they will remain in custody. They range in age from 20 to 25, and only one is a Georgia resident, according to the release.
“I strongly believe in the right to peacefully protest for what one believes is right and just,” Boston said in the release. “However, I draw the line at violence, destruction of property, and threatening and causing harm to others.”
Opponents of the training center have been protesting for months by building platforms in surrounding trees and camping out at the site. They say that the $90 million project, which would be built by the Atlanta Police Foundation, involves cutting down so many trees that it would be environmentally damaging. They also oppose investing so much money in what they call “Cop City,” which they say will be used to practice “urban warfare.” | 2022-12-15T23:21:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 5 protesters arrested at Atlanta police training center - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/5-protesters-arrested-at-atlanta-police-training-center/2022/12/15/5576e7a2-7ca7-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/5-protesters-arrested-at-atlanta-police-training-center/2022/12/15/5576e7a2-7ca7-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry sustained a left shoulder injury during a road loss to the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Curry, 34, sustained the injury while defending Jalen Smith during a 125-119 road loss to the Indiana Pacers. As Smith drove to the hoop, Curry swiped down on the ball in an attempt to get a steal. Smith maintained possession, and Curry immediately clutched his shoulder in pain. The two-time MVP then departed for the locker room with a little over two minutes remaining in the third quarter, and he did not return, finishing with 38 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in 30 minutes.
Golden State ruled out Curry with a shoulder injury midway through the fourth quarter, and he underwent an MRI on Thursday. His initial recovery timeline would see Curry miss at least seven games, including the final four games of Golden State’s ongoing road trip and a much-anticipated Christmas showdown with Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies. ESPN.com and The Athletic first reported Curry’s injury prognosis, and the Warriors said Thursday that further specifics on his return to play would be “provided in the coming days.”
“[Curry] was in good spirits. We’ll hope for the best,” Kerr said to reporters Wednesday night. “My message to the group was that it’s about competing, it’s about weathering the storm. This has been a tough start to the season. We’re in a tough stretch. Maybe it’s going to get tougher if Steph is out for a little while. If he’s out, it will for sure get tougher. You’ve just got to persevere. You just keep playing and keep fighting. It’s a long season.”
The Warriors enter Thursday’s action with a 14-15 record during a campaign that has been marked by major swings in their quality of play. Golden State is 12-2 at home, including a dominant showing against the Eastern Conference-leading Boston Celtics on Saturday. But the road, where the Warriors have posted a 2-13 record, has been a much different story. Unfortunately for Golden State, Curry was injured in the second game of a six-game trip through the East that includes upcoming games against the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets.
Since Kevin Durant’s departure in 2019, the Warriors have struggled mightily whenever Curry has missed time. With Curry in the lineup over the last four seasons, the Warriors have gone 97-61 (.614), equivalent to a 50-win pace across an 82-game sample. Without Curry, Golden State has posted a 24-66 (.267) record, which is a 22-win pace over 82 games.
When Curry missed all but five games during the 2019-20 season due to a hand injury, the Warriors, who were also without Klay Thompson that season, finished with the NBA’s worst record. Two years later, a healthy Curry led the Warriors to their fourth title since 2015 and captured his first Finals MVP.
This season, Golden State has gone 0-3 without Curry in the lineup, including a 45-point blowout loss to the New Orleans Pelicans last month. The Warriors have outscored opponents by 145 points in his 894 minutes, placing Curry in the NBA’s top-10 by total plus-minus, but they have been outscored by 127 points in the 503 minutes that he’s been off the court.
Though his team has struggled to maintain a winning identity, Curry has again played like an MVP candidate, averaging 30 points, 6.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game while shooting 50 percent from the field, 43.4 percent on three-pointers and 91.9 percent from the free throw line. The last time Curry reached the 50/40/90 shooting benchmarks in 2016, he was named the unanimous MVP.
In Curry’s absence, Kerr will lean more heavily on Jordan Poole, and he will hope that Thompson and Draymond Green can pick up leadership responsibilities. Poole enjoyed a breakout season last year and excelled when Curry missed time with a late-season foot injury, and the 23-year-old sixth man was moved into the starting lineup earlier this month with all-star forward Andrew Wiggins sidelined by an adductor injury. Wiggins, who has missed Golden State’s last five games, was cleared Thursday to return to practice.
Still, the Warriors find themselves in a precarious position, sitting in the West’s 10th seed, barely clinging to a spot in the play-in tournament. While the conference’s playoff landscape remains bunched up almost two months into the season, Golden State had already found itself playing from behind. With six of their next eight games coming against opponents with winning records, the challenge will be to avoid falling off the cliff before Curry’s return.
“The thing I’m very, very confident about is that if we’re healthy, we feel like we can beat anybody,” Kerr said. “This team has proven that. Our job is to get there. We have to find a way to navigate this season. … I feel good about our team long-term, even if it may be a rocky ride.” | 2022-12-15T23:22:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stephen Curry out with should injury for at least two weeks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/stephen-curry-shoulder-injury/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/stephen-curry-shoulder-injury/ |
The U.N.’s refugee agency has decided to send USD Coin to displaced Ukrainians for things like rent and heat. It’s sparking concern from crypto critics amid broader market turmoil.
People fleeing from Ukraine amid the war. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)
The United Nations said Thursday it will start aiding people displaced by Russia’s war in Ukraine with cryptocurrency.
The organization’s refugee agency, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which often sends funds to those displaced from their homes for things like rent, food and heat, will transfer USD Coin (USDC) — a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar and considered a stable coin — to uprooted Ukrainians who can ultimately exchange it for cash at MoneyGram locations worldwide.
Proponents said it will help displaced people get money quicker and limit loss or theft in transit — but some skeptics say that adding another layer to getting aid at a time when the cryptocurrency market is in upheaval could be problematic and risky.
“They are basically telling people to get into crypto,” said Molly White, a crypto critic who writes the blog Web3 Is Going Just Great. But there are “parts of the crypto industry that involve enormous risks.”
UNHCR wasn’t immediately available for an interview.
“Speed is of the essence in humanitarian action,” Karolina Lindholm Billing, the UNHCR representative to Ukraine, said in a statement announcing the move. “It’s also essential to provide people with a range of options for receiving aid, as one size does not fit all.”
Now, the United Nations will pilot its crypto aid program in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Lviv and Vinnytsia. It has been tested for six months and will expand to more “war-affected” people inside the country and Ukrainian refugees in 2023, officials said. It is unclear how successful the tests have been.
Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, said that using cryptocurrency to dole out humanitarian aid is a good use case and will be crucial for the safety of his citizens.
“For fleeing Ukrainians, and primarily for those whose banks are inaccessible, this pilot project … will serve as a possible lifeline for survival,” he said in a statement.
Insomnia, addiction, depression: The dark side of life trading crypto
“Most crypto wallets are constantly trying to get you to buy more crypto,” she added, leading her to worry people might end up dabbling in other cryptocurrency such as bitcoin or “crazy altcoins,” which many regard as akin to gambling.
The real winners in these programs, she said, are cryptocurrency companies who get coverage saying that they’ve found a powerful reason for cryptocurrency to exist.
“It isn’t actually helping people,” she said. | 2022-12-15T23:23:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The U.N.'s refugee agency is sending crypto to Ukrainian refugees - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/15/un-crypto-ukraine-refugees/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/15/un-crypto-ukraine-refugees/ |
A top public safety official committed to implementing a gun violence reduction plan published earlier this year
Linda Harllee Harper, director of the office of gun violence prevention, will be tasked with putting the gun violence reduction plan into effect. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
Top D.C. public safety officials said Thursday that they are committed to implementing a gun violence reduction plan published earlier this year by an independent city agency, following mounting public pressure to bolster the District’s crime-fighting efforts as shootings of juveniles soar.
The plan includes 16 recommendations that experts say would decrease violent crime in the near-term, through investment in public health and law enforcement strategies. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council released the report in April. At the time, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said it was an “excellent document to build on,” but that city officials were also “working urgently on a comprehensive approach.”
City Administrator Kevin Donahue, who is filling in for deputy mayor of public safety and justice after his predecessor stepped down, said at a city council roundtable on Thursday that the mayor “supports the plan’s recommendations, and we have already begun implementing them.”
He also said Linda Harllee Harper, director of the city’s office of gun violence prevention, would be in charge of putting the plan into effect.
“You’ve got some talented talented talented people in the District, who are completely capable of making this happen,” said David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which developed the gun violence reduction plan. “It really is just bringing it all together.”
Public safety has been a top issue of discussion among D.C. officials in recent years. The number of people killed in the city per year increased throughout the pandemic, according to police data. The uptick in gunfire has proven especially dangerous for youth, with 16 people under the age of 18 fatally shot so far this year. That number, as of Dec. 1, has more than doubled compared to the same time last year.
This year in the District, however, there have been fewer homicides compared to the same time in 2021, and violent crime has dropped over the same period in almost every category. Those trends have encouraged public safety leaders, who said they have been focused on bringing services from a number of government agencies and community to help quell the violence.
The plan released by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council aims to reduce the number of homicides by 10 percent compared to the previous year — a metric the city is on track to meet this year. Specific recommendations in it include establishing a “Peace Room” to coordinate immediate responses to shootings that extend beyond the police, and creating a citywide database to coordinate services between agencies.
The city has already implemented some aspects of the plan, such as convening weekly meetings of service providers to review every shooting incident. People of Promise, a program meant to funnel government services toward about 230 residents deemed most at risk of committing or becoming victims of crime, was developed in part from the plan — though officials said previously they were reviewing and revamping it after reporting in The Washington Post about its struggles.
“I have had a series of very promising discussions with the administration on implementing parts of the plan that haven’t been started yet,” Muhammad said. “And I am very encouraged by parts of the plan that have begun implementation, like the People of Promise.”
The Thursday roundtable was convened by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the judiciary and public safety committee.
Delano Hunter, interim director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, spoke about a leadership academy that has expanded from three to six schools. Nakeda Gilbert, director of learning for the D.C. Peace Academy, discussed her organization’s training for violence intervention workers — who mediate conflict in D.C. streets. And Harllee Harper, whose office has shifted from working with detailed staff to hiring full-time employees, said she has started regular meetings with each community organization that has received funding from a government program called Building Blocks DC, which was supposed to route resources to the city’s most troubled blocks.
“No city has arrested their way out of the gun violence challenge, but no city has simply programmed their way out of violence,” said Thomas Abt, founding director of the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction. “You must have both.”
Donahue said the city is working on a website to track the status of the recommendations in the gun violence reduction plan, which he described as the “backbone” of the city’s approach to public safety.
Warees Majeed, the founder of the nonprofit Yaay Me, which is involved in a number of the city’s violence prevention programs, said the city should focus on developing the Peace Room and expanding the number of violence interrupters. He also encouraged a focus on programming for youth.
“Belonging and recreation are some central things that all youth are looking for,” Majeed said. “I believe this plan starts to address those things.” | 2022-12-16T00:08:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As youth shootings soar, D.C. officials vow to bolster efforts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-gun-violence-reduction-plan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-gun-violence-reduction-plan/ |
The Vanguard building is being transformed into the Elle Apartments, a high-end complex with more than 160 residential units. (Karina Elwood/TWP)
For years, the Vanguard building in downtown D.C., once home to the Peace Corps, has sat empty. On Thursday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) celebrated the future of the 1960s-era Vanguard — and housing in downtown — at a ceremony kicking off the building’s conversion into swanky new apartments.
After the coronavirus pandemic accelerated already rising vacancy rates in the city’s central business district, city leaders are looking at alternatives to fill unused office space and attract people back to downtown. Converting commercial buildings such as the Vanguard into residences is a solution leaders have looked at for years and hoped could accomplish two things: add more housing stock to combat D.C.’s affordable housing crisis and revitalize the city’s struggling downtown.
Nearly 2.5 million square feet of office space in downtown D.C. is already dedicated to residential conversion projects. But with more than 20 million square feet of vacant office space across the city — a record high — the District is actively encouraging more builders and developers to consider conversions through promises of property tax relief for new office-to-residential projects.
Draft regulations for the Housing in Downtown (HID) Abatement Program, to be released in January, will allocate $2.5 million for the abatement annually from fiscal 2024 to 2026 before increasing to $6.8 million in 2027 and then by 4 percent each year after that. The program will require 15 percent of the units to be affordable at 60 percent of the median family income — helping contribute to Bowser’s mission to build 36,000 housing units by 2025, 12,000 of them affordable to families making up to 80 percent of the region’s median family income, or $103,200 for a family of four.
The office-to-residential conversions are part of an effort to keep up with the shift from office-centric downtowns to mixed-use “live, work, play” communities, like those in neighborhoods such as Navy Yard and NoMa. The pitch on Vanguard’s 163-unit Elle Apartments website emphasizes its work, live and play bona fides: “A dynamic offering of buzzy ground floor retail with a relaxing rooftop social scene — all within minutes of four Metro stations.”
“We’re not going to have as many workers downtown as we had before the pandemic. So our job is to make sure that we are getting more people downtown,” Bowser said Thursday. “So this project, converting from office to residential, we think can actually be a win for the city’s bottom line.”
D.C. is competing with places such as Arlington and Reston in Virginia and Bethesda in Maryland, which are attracting large corporations that promise to bring thousands of residents and jobs.
The Federal City Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit working on the advancement of civic life in the nation’s capital, hosted eight of the city’s 13 council members on a bus tour of the region Monday morning. With stops at National Landing, Reston Town Center and Marriott headquarters in Bethesda, city leaders witnessed the booming development first hand.
“The District no longer has a monopoly over great places,” said Anthony A. Williams, the organization’s CEO and executive director. “The District no longer has a monopoly as a place to work. All the more reason to pay attention.”
Across the country, downtowns have more vacant office spaces than the suburbs for the first time in more than 25 years, according to the CBRE Group, a commercial real estate and investment firm. CBRE estimates that there is nearly 22 million square feet of empty office space in the District. That figure was less than 2.5 million in 2000.
“We are exceeding our worst expectations when it comes to office vacancies,” said Ian Anderson, senior director of research and analysis for CBRE.
Over two years after workers first made their mass exodus to makeshift home offices during the pandemic, there are doubts that the city’s white-collar workforce will return to downtown offices in the same numbers as before the pandemic. As of early December, only about 45 percent of business workers in the D.C. area came into the office on any given day.
Businesses that do want to maintain offices are looking elsewhere for more modern and efficient buildings than the historic and outdated properties that downtown has to offer. Amazon selected Arlington, Va., as the home for its second headquarters, as did Boeing, Nestlé and Gerber.
“This is a good way for us to kind of understand that we can’t rest on our laurels. We’ve got a lot of great attributes,” John Falcicchio, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said on the bus tour. “But we’ve got to put things together to make sure that we keep delivering for our residents.”
Residential conversions seem like an obvious use for the abundance of empty buildings, but some analysts aren’t confident that they’re an effective solution. Downtown offices, designed for rows of cubicles, can be difficult to transform into hundreds of bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, rooftops and amenity spaces.
And the volume of conversions may not be enough to put a meaningful dent in the District’s need for housing, according to a 2019 report from the Office-to-Affordable Housing Task Force.
Nevertheless, city leaders are hoping conversions can offer some relief. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), proposed a measure last year that would have created a 35-year abatement program to encourage developers to convert office space in downtown to mixed-use buildings.
“As we noted, that’s not going to solve all of our problems,” Pinto said on the bus tour. “But it is perhaps one tool that we can utilize.” | 2022-12-16T00:52:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. wants to turn vacant offices into housing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-office-residential-conversions-downtown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/dc-office-residential-conversions-downtown/ |
Hogan urges new legislature not to ‘recklessly’ spend huge surplus
Outgoing governor proposed big investments in mental health services and urged Gov.-elect Wes Moore and the General Assembly to be judicious with the state’s surplus.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is leaving office next month, outlines preliminary budget recommendations he is making to the incoming administration during a news conference on Dec. 15 in Annapolis, Md. (Brian Witte/AP)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday unveiled a preliminary budget with large investments in mental health facilities and warned the incoming administration that it would be unwise to spend down the state’s large cash stockpile.
His proposal could serve as building blocks of what Gov.-elect Wes Moore presents to the General Assembly in January and largely represents the needs of state agencies, but Hogan chose to release his plan publicly and highlight some of his own priorities.
It did not include an overall sum for proposed state spending. The final budget will go through a process unlike any Maryland has had before: starting next year, the legislature can rewrite budgets, thanks to a state constitutional amendment that passed in 2020 after years of Democratic lawmakers tussling with Hogan over spending choices.
“It would be a mistake for the legislature to use its newly expanded budgetary power to return to its old habits of raiding the rainy day fund or recklessly spending down the surplus,” Hogan told reporters at an Annapolis news conference. Maryland has a $2.5 billion surplus plus another $3 billion in its “rainy day” savings account.
Hogan (R) spelled out proposals for community grants, hospitals, police retention and the environment, among other initiatives. But he did not recommend using the huge pool of extra cash to finance tax relief, which had been a chief priority for his administration.
“Obviously, we could recommend that they continue that trend, but I’m not sure that they have the same philosophy as us,” Hogan said of the incoming administration.
Moore, a Democrat, will take over with a General Assembly that holds even larger Democratic supermajorities than the ones Hogan faced during his two terms.
Maryland has seen record budget surpluses since the pandemic began.
Infusion from billions in federal aid — both directly into state bank accounts and indirectly circulating through the economy from stimulus checks — has left the state with enormous sums to spend for three years in a row.
Previous surpluses have gone to an array of construction projects, checks to the working poor, the state’s education system and many other destinations. Hogan proposed keeping the state’s savings account — its “rainy day” fund — at almost 2.5 times the amount recommended by budget experts.
He also pitched hospital projects, including $100 million for upgrading a University of Maryland Medical System facility in Easton, on the Eastern Shore, and $100 million for Sheppard Pratt to expand mental health services, including a new children’s hospital for mental health in Towson. Hogan proposed another $10 million for a Hagerstown osteopathic medicine facility run by Meritus Health, plus $10 million for a new pediatric center in East Baltimore run by the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
The governor also highlighted nearly $6 million targeted to address hate crimes and acts of antisemitism, with $5 million headed toward local governments and $800,000 to the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism to create a training program focused on Asian American issues and communities.
Hogan said his administration has been working with members from Moore’s transition team in developing the proposal. Brian Adam Jones, a Moore spokesman, said in a statement: “We appreciate Gov. Hogan’s suggestions.”
Moore campaigned on an inclusive message to “leave no one behind” and end systemic problems such as child poverty and income inequality, arguing the state’s huge surplus could finance sweeping change to difficult problems.
“Our current fiscal position demands that we are strategic, intentional, and responsible,” Jones’s statement continued, suggesting the administration would have a different proposal.
Jones said the next administration’s budget will reflect “Moore’s vision and priorities to move Maryland forward with bold and disciplined investments in transportation, strengthening our competitiveness, and providing Marylanders with a world-class education.”
Responding to a reporter’s question, Hogan said that he would refrain from criticizing the new administration if it moved the state in a different direction.
“I always pretty much tell people what I think, but I’m going to do my best to not comment on the daily decision-making of the next administration,” Hogan said.
“I’m very content that we’ve completed the job that we set out to do, and I wish them the very best in their future endeavors,” he added. “But I don’t think I’m going to spend my time commenting on their actions.”
Hogan is contemplating whether to launch a presidential campaign after he leaves office. | 2022-12-16T00:52:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hogan proposes investments in mental health, urges spending restraint - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/hogan-maryland-budget-surplus/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/hogan-maryland-budget-surplus/ |
In this image provided by the Hawaii Department of Transportation, emergency personnel work at the scene of a plane crash in Lihue, Hawaii on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. Two people were injured when a single-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Lihue Airport on Kauai Island in Hawaii, authorities said Thursday. (Hawaii Department of Transportation via AP) (Uncredited/Hawaii Department of Transportation) | 2022-12-16T00:52:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 2 injured in single-engine plane crash on Kauai in Hawaii - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2-injured-in-single-engine-plane-crash-on-kauai-in-hawaii/2022/12/15/327f112a-7cd9-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2-injured-in-single-engine-plane-crash-on-kauai-in-hawaii/2022/12/15/327f112a-7cd9-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Ken Balcomb, a champion of killer whales, dies at 82
His research helped orcas obtain endangered status
Ken Balcomb, senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research, in 2016. (Elaine Thompson/AP)
Ken Balcomb, a researcher who spent five decades studying the Pacific Northwest’s charismatic and endangered killer whales — and whose findings helped end their capture for display at marine parks in the 1970s — died Dec. 15 at 82. The cause was prostate cancer, the Seattle Times reported.
He died at a ranch on the Olympic Peninsula’s Elwha River, according to the Center for Whale Research, the organization he founded. They bought the property two years ago to protect spawning grounds of Chinook salmon, which is prime food for orcas.
Mr. Balcomb began his life’s work with orcas in 1976, and his research two decades later helped raise alarm that the whales were starving from a lack of salmon — which formed the basis for their listing in 2005 under the Endangered Species Act.
Following the lead of a Canadian researcher named Michael Bigg, who pioneered the use of photographic identification of individual orcas by the shape of the white “saddle patch” by their dorsal fin, Mr. Balcomb in 1976 established an annual survey of the whales.
Though Bigg’s findings had largely been doubted, Mr. Balcomb confirmed that there were only about 70 remaining orcas in the Pacific Northwest — after about 40 percent of the population were taken into captivity or killed during roundups.
Mr. Balcomb continued the survey every year, following the orcas with his binoculars in a boat, photographing them and constructing family trees of the three pods of Southern Resident killer whales.
Mr. Balcomb founded the Center for Whale Research, with little in the way of financial support. He documented the mid-1990s recovery of the population to 97 whales before its sudden collapse to fewer than 80 in the following years — a decline that Mr. Balcomb observed and that formed the basis for orcas getting endangered status.
“I don’t think we would have known if it hadn’t been for Ken,” said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with NOAA Fisheries. “He laid the foundation for and significantly contributed to the understanding of these animals we have today. We just wouldn’t be where we are without Ken’s research.”
An eccentric and sometimes gruff scientist with a gray beard and a weathered look, Mr. Balcomb had a single-minded devotion to the whales, with their bones displayed around his San Juan Island home in Washington state. On a stereo he often listened to passing whales’ clicks and whistles through underwater devices sunk in kelp beds.
One of Mr. Balcomb’s most public fights involved beaked whales. He was in the Bahamas in March 2000 when a beaked whale stranded itself in front of him. It was one of 17 marine mammals, mostly whales, that were stranded in the Bahamas that day.
After trying with others to save as many as they could, he cut the heads off two whales that died and had them frozen for study — he suspected that they had been driven from the water by military sonar exercises happening offshore.
Another scientist conducted necropsies and CT scans and found that the whales had bleeding in their ear canals. When federal officials demurred about the cause of the strandings, Mr. Balcomb held a news conference in Washington, D.C., and spoke out, blaming the use of a new generation of anti-submarine sonar technology.
Kenneth C. Balcomb III was born in Clovis, N.M., on Nov. 11, 1940, and grew up in Carmichael, Calif. He first worked as a whale biologist for the U.S. government in 1963, after graduating from the University of California at Davis. He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War as a pilot and oceanographic specialist.
A complete list of survivors was not immediately available. | 2022-12-16T00:53:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ken Balcomb, a champion of killer whales, dies at 82 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/15/ken-balcomb-orcas-killer-whales-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/15/ken-balcomb-orcas-killer-whales-dead/ |
The $858 billion legislation, directing more military aid for Ukraine and Taiwan, now heads to President Biden for his signature
The U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
The Senate on Thursday voted to approve the annual defense policy bill, sending the $858 billion legislation to President Biden for his signature, though it remains unclear how many of the new initiatives it contains will be funded.
But with the two parties locked in a face-off over how to fund the federal government, it remains unclear exactly how much of the defense bill — which tops out at $45 billion more than the Biden administration wanted to spend on such initiatives next year — will be underwritten. Though the Senate is expected on Thursday to pass a measure to continue funding the government through next week, mirroring the House’s action and narrowly avoiding a shutdown, a deal on an omnibus spending measure to carry through 2023 remains incomplete.
The defense bill, which passed in the House last week by a vote of 350 to 80, came together after a series of high-stakes negotiations this fall, resulting in the Biden administration giving ground to Republicans on some key initiatives — including the Pentagon’s politically divisive mandate, issued in August 2021, that all military personnel be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Democrats were forced to capitulate to GOP demands to curtail the vaccine mandate after a large segment of the party threatened to withhold their support for the legislation otherwise. Republican leaders who cheered the deal to strike the mandate have since pledged to seek retribution for its existence, demanding reinstatement for service members discharged for refusing to take the vaccine, and warning they will investigate President Biden and his advisers for having ever instituted the requirement.
A GOP effort to provide remedies for service members discharged for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate failed to pass the Senate on Thursday, after more than half the chamber objected to tacking it onto the defense bill.
Several lawmakers have tried to add initiatives to the legislation, considered one of the few must-pass measures Congress considers each year, over the course of their negotiations. Democratic negotiators had to abandon an effort to attach legislation to the defense bill championed by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to restructure the way permits are awarded for energy infrastructure projects. A vote on the bill had been a key part of the deal to get Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to support the Inflation Reduction Act that passed Congress this summer and that Biden signed in August.
Democrats try to salvage Manchin's side deal on energy projects
Manchin did ultimately get that vote on Thursday, as an amendment to the defense policy bill. But it failed to secure support from the majority of the chamber, failing to pass on a 47-to-47 vote, despite Biden having strongly endorsed the legislation earlier in the day as a “critical” and important step” toward helping energy projects “to cut consumer cost and spur good-paying jobs.”
Had either amendment been approved in the Senate, it could have severely complicated the progress of the defense bill, which earned the approval of the House without the permitting legislation included.
Biden is expected to sign the legislation regardless, giving his stamp of approval — or in some cases acquiescence — to a 4.6 percent raise in base pay for service members and a number of new initiatives to militarily assist U.S. allies in the crosshairs of some of Washington’s main rivals.
Ukraine aid and military assistance for NATO allies are heavily addressed in the bill, in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Lawmakers directed more than $6 billion toward the European Deterrence Initiative — an increase of approximately $2 billion over last year’s levels — as well as $800 million in security assistance funds specifically dedicated for Ukraine. But the money comes with some strings attached: The bill requires a series of oversight and accounting measures, in the form of reports from the Pentagon and the inspectors general that oversee the Ukraine assistance operations, in a bid to better track the weapons being shipped to the front lines.
The measures, which have bipartisan backing, are an opening act of what is likely to come when Republicans assume control of the House next year. GOP leaders have already promised additional and more invasive audits, while sounding alarms that certain lethal weapons might end up on the black market if shipments are not more stringently policed — a suggestion that has earned sharp pushback from the administration officials in charge of weapons monitoring.
The bill also envisions an increased windfall for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, focused on countering China, by increasing the authorization for that pot of funds from slightly more than $7 billion last year to more than $11 billion in fiscal 2023. Over the next five years, the defense policy bill also seeks to devote $2 billion annually for Taiwan’s training and weapons purchases, plus another $1 billion annually in presidential drawdown authority — a category of assistance that allows the White House to send allies weapons from the U.S. stocks. The authority has been used frequently by the administration over the last year in its efforts to send arms to Ukraine swiftly.
The measure challenges the White House and the Pentagon when it comes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal, an increasing source of concern in Washington’s posture vis-a-vis rival powers Moscow and Beijing, which are both pursuing robust initiatives to update and expand their holdings. The Biden administration declared earlier this year that it would be retiring the B83-1, a megaton-plus gravity bomb, as well as shelving plans to develop a submarine-launched cruise missile known as the SLCM-N, consider a lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapon, in order to pivot resources and attention to other programs.
But Congress said no. The defense bill pumps another $25 million into SLCM-N research and forbids the executive branch from using funds to decommission more than 25 percent of the B83-1 bombs in the U.S. arsenal, until after the Pentagon completes a study on the weapons at its disposal capable of striking hardened underground targets. | 2022-12-16T01:44:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Senate passes defense bill that ends Pentagon's covid vaccine mandate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/senate-defense-bill-covid-vaccine-mandate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/senate-defense-bill-covid-vaccine-mandate/ |
Youngkin wants to transform Va.’s struggling behavioral health system
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin participates in a roundtable discussion with education officials and school faculty at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford in September. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed $230 million expansion in the state’s behavioral health system was met with applause and questions on Thursday from reform advocates who wonder how the state will attract the hundreds of health-care providers during a historic workforce shortage.
Calling for a “revolution” in crisis services, Youngkin (R) on Wednesday proposed a wide-ranging plan to hire 30 mobile crisis teams, fund intake centers, expand mental health programs in schools and provide in-home services to 500 people waiting for Medicaid waivers.
The proposal — intended to shore up a strained behavioral health system that serves as a public safety net for people in need of care — is one of many changes, including $1 billion in tax cuts, that Youngkin wants to make to the two-year budget lawmakers will consider when they meet in Richmond in mid-January.
“We face a level of mental health and substance abuse use issues never seen before, all too often resulting in violence, suicide and murder,” Youngkin said in a video of the announcement made at a suburban Richmond hospital. “The behavioral health crisis is not unique to Virginia but let’s be clear, here in Virginia we are in crisis.”
Virginia’s state-run psychiatric hospitals have been stressed for years. Officials last year closed several public hospitals to new admissions when the pandemic exacerbated overcrowding and staff shortages. Youngkin’s plan aims to provide precrisis, crisis and recovery services to patients before they need inpatient psychiatric care.
On Monday, his office created a Prompt Placement TDO Task Force to quickly find services for people court-ordered to crisis care who often languish in emergency departments for days, require constant law enforcement minding and may be transported far from their families and support systems when a bed is available.
Youngkin announced his behavioral health initiative, called Right Help, Right Now, at Parham Doctors’ Hospital, a campus of Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, operated by HCA, which hospital officials say is the largest private provider of mental health care in the state.
Public and private hospitals have been at odds over who is responsible for patients with nowhere to go; private hospitals admit the highest number of patients in crisis, but mental health advocates say they avoid the most challenging cases, leaving a state hospital to handle violent and agitated patients.
Youngkin said the scale of the problem is huge: jails, emergency departments and hospitals are seeing too many people in crisis and law enforcement, teachers and health-care providers are overwhelmed. He lamented Virginia’s ranking of 48th in the nation in youth mental health, which plummeted from 21st the previous year, according to data from Mental Health Virginia. The rating is based on several factors, including the number of young people with at least one major depressive episode in the past year, the number of those who did not receive mental health services and the number with private insurance that did not cover mental or emotional problems.
Virginia’s reform efforts have long been driven by tragedies that thrust the state into the national spotlight: a high-profile shooting in 2007 by an unstable undergraduate student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech; the 2013 suicide of state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds’s son, Gus, who attacked his father after efforts to secure emergency mental health treatment fell through. Last month a man colleagues said displayed troubling behavior fatally shot six people at a Chesapeake Walmart.
John Littel, Youngkin’s secretary of health and human resources, said in an interview Thursday that the plan was informed by months of meetings, surveys and a comprehensive review of recommendations of the Behavioral Health Commission, informally known as the Deeds Commission. In the fall, the state hired McKinsey consultants to complete the work.
The plan is inspired by the Arizona model, which links crisis hotlines, mobile crisis units and intake centers like the kind Youngkin proposes expanding to deliver care in the first 24-hours of a mental health emergency, Littel said.
Littel acknowledged staffing would be a challenge, but said it’s too soon to say how many people must be hired; a detailed implementation plan is scheduled to be completed early next year, including a dashboard tracking initiatives.
“We recognize that it’s going to take some really extreme efforts to ensure that we have a pipeline,” he said. “I don’t think we have any magic wand here.”
Anna Mendez, executive director at the Haven, a day shelter and homelessness services provider in Charlottesville, said she was hesitant to downplay the potential for transformative change but noted that next steps would be critical. For example, although the plan includes $8 million for housing for 100 people with serious mental illness, she said that without qualified discharge planners to place clients “100 new slots won’t matter.”
“What is left to be determined is are we willing to invest in paying people enough money that they’re going to want to do the work to make this happen,” she said.
Deeds (D-Bath) said he was impressed by the level of engagement from Youngkin, who called him Saturday to fill him in on the plan, but said two or three times as much funding is needed to address the dearth of services, including the workforce shortage. Statewide, the agencies that form the spine of Virginia’s public behavioral health system, community service boards, have a 28 percent vacancy rate, he said.
Last year, about $100 million for behavioral health, including $37 million in CSB pay increases, was cut out of the final budget in compromises made to achieve the governor’s tax cut, Deeds said.
He questioned if the scope of the plan was sacrificed to pay for part of his proposed tax cut.
“He says we’re going into a recession, so their idea maybe of a big, bold plan has to be looked at in that context,” Deeds said. “They want to do other things so this plan doesn’t appear as bold as maybe they would want it to be.”
Deeds said he hopes Youngkin’s plan is the floor of what the legislature will spend on bolstering public behavioral health services.
“I will work like the devil for more,” he said. | 2022-12-16T01:48:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Youngkin proposes $230 million investment in behavioral health system - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/youngkin-virginia-mental-health-deeds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/15/youngkin-virginia-mental-health-deeds/ |
Analysis by Ian Buruma | Bloomberg
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - NOVEMBER 15: DNC welcomes Donald Trump to the 2024 GOP Primary by driving a mobile billboard around Mar-A-Lago on November 15, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images for DNC) (Photographer: Jason Koerner/Getty Images North America)
In the postwar era, three nationwide referendums have been held in Britain. Two of them asked the British people to answer a simple question about a complicated issue. In 1975, the question was whether Britain should join the European Economic Community. Roughly 2 out of 3 voters said yes. In 2016, it was whether Britain should stay in the European Union. Just under 52% voted no.
Similarly, an increasing number of Americans take the view that electing an ignorant, huckstering, celebrity-obsessed narcissist as president of the United States — in the same year as Brexit — was unwise. The midterm elections show that Donald Trump’s brand has been tarnished and that his grip on the Republican Party might be slipping.
Trump’s four years were bad enough, to be sure. He coarsened political discourse, inflamed already severe divisions in the US and lied so shamelessly that trust in politicians has been seriously eroded. Also, by refusing to abide by the results of a presidential election and whipping up popular rage against the institutions on which any democracy rests, including an independent judiciary and free press, he undermined trust not only in politicians but in the democratic system itself.
Still, the election of a bad candidate to the highest office is not unheard of, and a robust liberal democracy can survive blundering, even crooked leaders. Whatever one thinks of President Joe Biden, he has restored some calm in the body politic. The worry among liberal Americans that the end of US democracy was at hand is not as acute as it was just a year ago. US allies are also a little less nervous about the world’s most powerful democracy.
The same thing cannot be said about Brexit. That Britain opted not only to leave the EU but also the single European market will continue to hurt the British economy for years to come. The promise that this setback will be more than compensated by terrific new trade deals with the US, Japan and other countries far away from Europe is proving to be a pipe dream. As a result, most people in Britain will be worse off and the country will continue to lag behind its neighbors for the foreseeable future.
The former prime minister, Harold Macmillan, once claimed that postwar, post-imperial Britain could only remain a significant power inside Europe, rather than in “splendid isolation,” in the phrase used by 19th century chauvinists. That is why he wanted his country to join the EEC in 1961. While Britain only managed this in 1973 because of obstruction by French leader Charles de Gaulle, Macmillan turned out to be correct. Despite frequent frictions with Brussels, Britain played a major role inside Europe as a staunchly democratic power which finely balanced the statism of France and the naive federalist dreams of Germany.
The 2016 referendum destroyed that balance and has doomed Britain to be a much less significant power. That is the problem with referendums. Unlike elections with unfortunate results, they cannot be easily undone. The British people were asked an unfair question. To stay or to leave was an absurd choice. People were not asked under what conditions Britain should leave, what kind of country they wanted as a result and what the future relationship with the EU should be.
When Winston Churchill suggested holding a referendum in Britain in 1945 to decide whether to extend his wartime coalition government, Labor Party leader Clement Attlee refused. The idea of a referendum was “just not British” in his view. In fact, he said, it was “an instrument of Nazism.”
Margaret Thatcher, who adored Churchill, and whose own politics were a challenge to everything the socialist Attlee had stood for, called referendums “a device of dictators and demagogues.”
(Corrects number of UK referendums in first paragraph.) | 2022-12-16T02:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Was Trump or Brexit the Bigger Mistake? The Answer Is Clear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/was-trump-or-brexit-the-bigger-mistake-the-answer-is-clear/2022/12/15/77201dae-7ce5-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/was-trump-or-brexit-the-bigger-mistake-the-answer-is-clear/2022/12/15/77201dae-7ce5-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The move is meant to protect an apex predator that keeps ocean ecosystems intact. But U.S. fishing operators say the ban will do nothing to curb overfishing overseas.
Workers remove shark fins at a fishing port in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on June 16. (Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty Images)
To save a fearsome predator from extinction, the United States is on the verge of putting in place a near total ban on buying and selling fins sliced off of sharks.
Late Thursday, the Senate approved language making it illegal, with few exceptions, to trade shark fins. The provision, which the House had inserted into an annual military policy bill, is now headed to President Biden for his signature.
U.S. lawmakers hope to put a dent into a worldwide shark trade that harvests between 26 million and 73 million sharks a year, according to one estimate. Fishers abroad often chop the fins from sharks while still alive and dump the bodies overboard.
The practice, called finning, leaves the fish unable to swim and survive.
“We understand that sharks are critical to life in the ocean,” Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D), a nonvoting delegate in the House for the Northern Mariana Islands who spearheaded the bipartisan bill with Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), said in a statement. “Yet, despite their importance ecologically and economically, sharks are in serious trouble.”
But American shark fishers warn that banning fin sales here will result in fishers throwing away fins and do nothing to curb overfishing in foreign waters that are not as well regulated as U.S. fisheries. And some members of Asian communities, where shark fin soup is served at celebratory meals, have criticized past limits on shark fin sales as unfair.
“It’d be like telling a farmer to waste half of a chicken or half of a cow,” said Kevin Wark, a commercial fisher who catches shark and monkfish out of Barnegat Light, N.J. “It’s just not going to work out for us.”
Orca vs. shark: Rare drone footage shows killer whales mauling great whites
In fish markets, the fin is the most valuable part of a shark. The flat appendage is a main ingredient in shark fin soup, a delicacy in China and other countries where, for centuries, the brothy dish has traditionally been served at weddings and other big events.
But in Earth’s oceans, the apex predator is prized for a different reason.
In the popular imagination, sharks have recently gone from a demon fish that terrorizes swimmers to a conservation darling, recognized for helping to keep prey populations in check in its position atop the ocean food web.
But sharks tend to grow slowly and, for some species, produce few pups per litter, making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Many species are now in serious trouble.
A third of sharks, rays and related fish are at risk of extinction, making the group of species among the most threatened vertebrates in the world.
At least a dozen states have already banned shark fin sales, according to the environmental group WildAid. And finning is already illegal in U.S. waters. Boats that catch sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast need to bring the entire fish ashore.
U.S. fishers will still be able to catch sharks and sell the rest of their meat. After New Jersey put in place a statewide fin sales ban, Wark said he must cut off and throw away the fins to bring the rest of the shark to market.
The ban, he added, is a “poster child of people doing something to make themselves feel good and think that they’re going to save the species.”
“It just creates a system of waste,” he added.
When California moved forward with its own fin ban about a decade ago, it caused consternation among many Asian-Americans, even those that supported the prohibition.
“It’s not that this ban is ‘racist’ as some have put it, it’s that it’s the kind of thing that smells a bit of cynical political posturing,” cookbook editor and radio host Francis Lam wrote in a 2011 Salon article, which he said in a direct message on Twitter that he still stands by today.
Shaun Gehan, a lawyer who represents commercial fishers, said the industry has already been hit hard by a slump in sales after pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong and the coronavirus pandemic limited access to Asian markets. The local ban, he added, does little to solve unsustainable fishing practices abroad.
“It certainly hurts a small, sustainable sector of the domestic fishing industry. But it’s also stupid,” Gehan said. “It does nothing to solve the problem where it actually occurs.”
Gib Brogan, a campaign manager at the advocacy group Oceana, which supports the fin sales ban, said, “The shark fin legislation is going to be a strong signal from the United States that the shark fin trade is not sustainable and that the United States won’t be part of it.”
“This has been many years and many Congresses that we’ve been pushing for this,” Brogan added.
Almost all species in global shark fin trade to be protected
The legislation comes on the heels of a November vote by countries participating in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to expand the number of shark species protected.
The U.S. ban comes with a few exceptions, including allowing the sale of fins from certain dogfish sharks. The defense authorization act also would reauthorize programs supporting the conservation of coral reefs and the rehabilitation of marine mammals.
“This will be a very good thing for the oceans, not just for sharks,” Brogan said. | 2022-12-16T02:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. is about to ban the sale of shark fins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/12/15/shark-fin-ban-us/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/12/15/shark-fin-ban-us/ |
Teacher sues school district after resigning over students’ pronouns
The middle-school English teacher said using transgender students’ pronouns violated her Christian beliefs
Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio. (Courtesy of Google Maps)
Two of Vivian Geraghty’s students at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon, Ohio, were undergoing transition-related care and wanted people, including their teachers, to use their proper pronouns.
But Geraghty, a third-year English teacher, went to school administrators in August to report a problem. Her Christian beliefs prohibited her from using the transgender students’ pronouns or their new names, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.
School officials allegedly issued her an ultimatum: do so or quit. Geraghty chose the latter but did so under duress, the suit states.
Four months later, Geraghty, who’s in her mid-20s, is suing her former employer to get her job back. She’s alleging Jackson Local School District leaders violated her constitutional rights when they punished her for exercising her free speech rights and religious beliefs. Instead of trying to accommodate those beliefs, school officials allegedly tried to compel her to follow directives “that she believes are dishonest and harmful to her students.” She’s asking the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio to force school officials to reinstate her.
“Vivian loves her students and wants what’s best for them,” said Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization representing Geraghty in her lawsuit. Langhofer told The Washington Post that “the district really had no interest in doing what was best for teachers and students but instead went on a crusade to compel this ideological conformity on the issue of sex and gender.”
School officials dispute that. In a letter to parents and staff, the school board’s president, Christopher Goff, vowed Thursday to “vigorously defend” the district against Geraghty’s accusations as he urged patience during a situation involving “polarizing issues, which draw emotional reactions that can tear a school community apart.”
“This district always will strive to provide a safe, comfortable environment for all of our nearly 6,000 students in which to learn,” district officials said in an email to The Post.
A Christian teacher was suspended for refusing to call students by the pronouns they use. Now she is suing.
At the start of the school year, two students requested on Aug. 16 that Geraghty participate in their social transition by using names associated with their gender identities rather than their legal names, her lawsuit states. Social transitioning is the process by which transgender people, often teenagers, adopt names and pronouns that match their gender identity, which they can express in other ways such as wearing new clothes or cutting their hair differently.
On Aug. 22, a school counselor emailed Geraghty and other teachers, instructing them to comply with the students’ request, the suit alleges.
But that violated Geraghty’s “sincerely held religious beliefs,” she claimed.
Her “faith teaches her that God immutably creates each person as male or female; these two distinct, complementary sexes reflect the image of God; and rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person,” the suit states. Using the students’ pronouns “would violate biblical commands against dishonesty and lying,” it adds.
In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy that “variations in gender identity and expression are normal aspects of human diversity, and binary definitions of gender do not always reflect emerging gender identities.”
“We encourage families, schools and communities to value every child for who they are in the present, even at a young age,” Cora Breuner, chairperson for the academy’s committee on adolescence, said in a news release at the time.
FAQ: What you need to know about transgender children
Around 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 26, Geraghty approached Kacy Carter, Jackson Memorial Middle School’s principal, “in the hope of reaching a solution that would allow her to continue teaching without violating her religious beliefs and constitutional rights,” the suit states. She told him that she wouldn’t address the students by their pronouns, leading Carter to allegedly convene a meeting between the two of them and Monica Myers, the district’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.
Geraghty was told “to put her beliefs aside as a public servant” and use the students’ proper pronouns and new names, according to the suit. Not doing so would amount to insubordination, Myers allegedly said, and “continuing to teach without violating her beliefs would ‘not work in a district like Jackson.’”
When Geraghty said she wouldn’t change her mind, Carter sent her back to her classroom, the suit states.
Around 10:30, the principal summoned her back to his office where he and Myers allegedly told her that if she wouldn’t change her stance, she had to resign immediately. Geraghty argued that forcing her to resign would violate her constitutional rights, the lawsuit states.
But Myers insisted, according to the suit.
“Unwilling to violate her convictions and believing she had no other choice, Ms. Geraghty tendered her resignation,” the suit states.
She was allegedly escorted out of the school.
School officials should have worked with Geraghty to find a “reasonable accommodation” that would allow her to address the students in a way that wouldn’t cause harm without violating her own religious beliefs, Langhofer told The Post. One option would have been to allow her to refer to students by their last names, he said.
Instead, they resorted to “summarily terminating her,” the suit alleges.
And she hasn’t taught since, which she claims has caused her “irreparable harm.” Geraghty has applied to several teaching jobs since she left Jackson schools but had no success in landing any of them, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom. Instead, she’s working at a local coffee shop.
“She wants to be back into the classroom teaching English,” Langhofer said. “It’s what she loves to do.” | 2022-12-16T03:33:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teacher sues Ohio school district after resigning over students' pronouns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/teacher-lawsuit-gender-pronouns-religion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/teacher-lawsuit-gender-pronouns-religion/ |
A migrant shelter in Mexico. (Luis Torres/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
President Biden had campaigned on putting an end to the policy. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Biden had the right to end the program, but the case was sent down to Kacsmaryk’s court to determine whether the October 2021 memo that outlined how the policy would be dismantled complied with administrative laws.
The Amarillo, Tex., judge wrote Thursday that the 2021 memo did not consider the policy’s “deterrent effect on illegal border crossings and the reduction of unmeritorious asylum claims,” and said it prioritized dangers in Mexico over dangers of crossing the border “in the first instance.” | 2022-12-16T03:37:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. judge halts Biden from ending 'Remain in Mexico' immigration policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/remain-in-mexico-policy-immigration-texas-judge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/15/remain-in-mexico-policy-immigration-texas-judge/ |
Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger stops Alex Ovechkin on the doorstep during the first period of Thursday's 2-1 Capitals loss at Capital One Arena. Oettinger had 45 saves and Ovechkin was held without a goal on a night many hoped he would match — or pass — Gordie Howe on the NHL's all-time list. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
All eyes were on Alex Ovechkin on Thursday night at Capital One Arena with the Washington Capitals’ captain just one goal from tying Gordie Howe for No. 2 on the NHL’s all-time goals list. The arena was giddy, the excitement palpable.
The Dallas Stars wanted no part of it.
The visitors opened the third period with a pair of goals in the first 127 seconds and held No. 8 in check, leaving with a 2-1 victory that snapped the Capitals’ five-game winning streak. Ovechkin, coming off a hat trick Tuesday in Chicago that pushed him to 800 career goals, was held without a goal for the first time in five games.
Forward T.J. Oshie knows Ovechkin’s time will come but was quick to keep the focus on team goals after the loss.
“We’re trying to win games here,” he said. “Ovi’s going to do it and we’re all going to be the first ones that congratulate him and be super, super proud of him. But we’re also in a little bit of a hole here. So we’ll take care of his business and as a team we got to focus on getting more wins.”
Ovechkin set up the Capitals’ only goal, sending a slick feed to Conor Sheary to give Washington a 1-0 lead with 10:37 remaining in the second period. But that was the only time the Capitals beat Stars goalie Jake Oettinger (45 saves).
Capitals netminder Charlie Lindgren took a shutout into the final period but lost it just 48 seconds after the puck dropped when Jamie Benn beat him on a rebound. Barely a minute later, Colin Miller’s point shot deflected off Lars Eller’s back and ricocheted into the net.
“It [stinks] because you’re kind of shifting into the shot and then it goes the other way,” Lindgren said of the deflection. “It’s extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, just got to put it behind us and move on.”
Alex Ovechkin's 800th goal was missing Joe Beninati and Craig Loughlin
Dallas (18-8-5) held on from there to grow its lead atop the Central Division. The Capitals (15-13-4) made a late push, but Oettinger held firm — with some help from the post when Dylan Strome appeared to have an open net in the final minutes. Marcus Johansson couldn’t corral the puck on a last-second chance in front.
“I thought we still battled back and, after the year we’ve had, it would have been easy to get down a goal there and go away. But we kept working and we were right there till the very end. Just ran out of time,” Oshie said.
Ovechkin, who came into the contest with seven goals in his previous four games, had two shots in the first period and a couple of big one-timer attempts late in the second. He also had a chance in front of the net with less than six minutes to go in the third. He finished with five shots on goal in 22:16 of ice time.
Ovechkin’s next shot at matching — or passing — Howe comes Saturday at home against Toronto. Former Capitals netminder Ilya Samsonov is slated to be in net for the Maple Leafs. Samsonov is coming off consecutive shutouts.
Sheary’s goal came off a nifty slap pass from Ovechkin in the left circle. It was Sheary’s 10th goal and put him on pace for a career-high 25.
For the Stars, the idea of being on the wrong side of Ovechkin’s milestone was plenty of motivation.
“Nobody wants to be part of history that way,” Coach Peter DeBoer said. “And for sure [Oettinger] doesn’t want to be that guy on the highlight reel 50 years from now being scored on in that situation.”
When Alex Ovechkin was an NHL rookie in need of a roommate
Milano out
Winger Sonny Milano took part in the morning skate but did not play. The Capitals announced that he has a non-covid illness. Milano had been a catalyst on the second line with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Oshie over the past few games and has three goals and eight assists in 19 games.
Eller back
Eller returned to the lineup after he missed Tuesday’s game in Chicago with an upper-body injury. The 33-year-old center left Tuesday’s morning skate early and did not return. It was the first game Eller had missed this season.
Eller said Thursday morning that he was feeling good but did not detail his injury.
Ovechkin honored
Ovechkin was honored for reaching 800 goals with a lengthy video tribute in the first period. He waved to the home crowd as it gave him a standing ovation. Right after the tribute, his 4-year-old son, Sergei, flipped the Ovechkin goal counter to 800.
Alex Ovechkin getting honored here at Capital One Arena for his 800th goal. pic.twitter.com/4HJe9FwpKU | 2022-12-16T03:55:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stars rally past Capitals as Alex Ovechkin's bid for history on hold - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/capitals-stars-alex-ovechkin-gordie-howe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/capitals-stars-alex-ovechkin-gordie-howe/ |
Drew Brees returns to Purdue as assistant coach ahead of Citrus Bowl
“I see it not only as an opportunity to coach and mentor this group of young men,” said Drew Brees, “but represent all the former Purdue players that care so much about our program.” (Tyler Kaufman/AP)
Unranked Purdue won’t be favored when it takes on No. 16 LSU in the Citrus Bowl, but the Boilermakers will have the help of a favorite son.
The school announced Thursday that Drew Brees, who set records at Purdue before doing the same in the NFL over a 20-year professional career that ended after the 2020 season, is joining the Boilermakers as an assistant coach. Brees, 43, is set to participate in preparations for the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 2, when Purdue meets LSU for the first time.
Purdue said Brees is being brought aboard in an official, if temporary, capacity as a countable assistant coach per NCAA guidelines. That will allow him to not only engage in on-field work with Boilermaker players but also to assist in recruiting.
Earlier this week, Purdue hired a new head coach in former Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters following Jeff Brohm’s departure for Louisville. While Walters focuses on recruiting, building his staff and other transitional tasks, Purdue will be coached in the Citrus Bowl by offensive coordinator Brian Brohm, Jeff’s brother.
Brees is helping prepare Purdue for its first meeting with LSU. As fate would have it, he is also a very popular figure among Tigers fans, given his accomplishments over 15 seasons with the New Orleans Saints. He helped the franchise win its first Super Bowl and at his time of departure held league records for career passing yards, completions, completion percentage, seasons with 5,000-plus passing yards and games with 300-plus passing yards, among others.
Brees entered the NFL as a second-round pick in 2001 by the San Diego Chargers, with whom he spent his first five seasons. Before that, he won the Maxwell Award while at Purdue, led the Boilermakers to their second Rose Bowl appearance and set program records for yards, completions, attempts and touchdowns.
Coach Brees 🐐@drewbrees is returning to @BoilerFootball as an assistant coach for the Citrus Bowl.
Seems like a good time to relive some of his college highlights. 👀 pic.twitter.com/Nj7XO7hd45
“When I first heard about Drew coming back to help coach our guys for the bowl game, I was hoping the rumors were true,” Walters, 36, said in a statement. “Our players have the opportunity to learn from one of the greatest leaders in football history, a valuable experience that they will never forget. Drew taking time out of his busy schedule to coach the bowl game is a perfect example of Purdue Football being one big family, and I cannot wait to see him on the sidelines in Orlando.”
Walters was hired less than a week after Jeff Brohm, who led Purdue to its first Big Ten West title in his sixth season with the program, left for the head coaching job at Louisville, where he had played quarterback. The Cardinals had a vacancy following the departure of Scott Satterfield, who opted to replace Luke Fickell as the head coach at Cincinnati ahead of a bowl game between the Bearcats and Louisville. Fickell had been hired in late November to become Wisconsin’s head coach. | 2022-12-16T03:55:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drew Brees to serve as Purdue assistant coach vs. LSU in Citrus Bowl. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/drew-brees-purdue-assistant-coach/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/drew-brees-purdue-assistant-coach/ |
Carlos Rodón is headed to the Yankees after reportedly signing a six-year deal worth $162 million. (Jim Mone/AP)
The best left-handed starting pitcher available this winter is available no more after Carlos Rodón agreed to a deal with the New York Yankees on Thursday.
The deal will pay the 30-year-old $162 million over six years, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Only nine starting pitchers in baseball history have signed deals guaranteeing more.
Rodón is a late-bloomer who emerged as a legitimate ace in 2021 and has been an all-star the past two seasons. Since the start of 2021, he has pitched to a 2.67 ERA and averaged more than 12 strikeouts per nine innings — best of any starter who threw more than 300 innings in that span. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 and has dealt with injuries throughout his career.
He joins Gerrit Cole and Luis Severino in a Yankees rotation that will now rely on two impossibly different lefties — the hard-throwing Rodón and the crafty savant Nestor Cortes. Rodón’s arrival signals the first major improvement to a team that limped into October and was swept by the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series.
The Yankees began their offseason by re-signing first baseman Anthony Rizzo. They validated it by re-signing Aaron Judge. They are optimistic the injured foot that transformed infielder D.J. LeMahieu from two-time batting champion to off-the-playoff-roster spectator is finally healing. But they have not necessarily weatherproofed their lineup as much as last year’s second-half and postseason struggles suggested they should.
And as was the case last winter, the Yankees are not even having the splashiest offseason in their own city as owner Steve Cohen and the New York Mets continue to spend. The Mets also re-signed key outfielder Brandon Nimmo and gave a massive deal to closer Edwin Diaz.
When Jacob deGrom left for Texas, the Mets replaced him with Cy Young winner Justin Verlander. When they needed more starters, they signed Japanese star Kodai Senga for $75 million over five years, and committed $13 million annually to lefty Jose Quintana for two years. They signed veteran reliever David Robertson and traded for proven lefty reliever Brooks Rayley. Their payroll projects to be somewhere around $345 million on Opening Day, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, which projects their luxury tax payment on that payroll to be just less than $76 million.
Because the new collective bargaining agreement implemented a tax penalty that significant, many free-spending teams have taken a similar approach to megadeals this winter. They are drafting long-term deals with a huge amount of guaranteed money but spreading it over enough years to ensure the payroll hit in any one season is not debilitating. While teams are signing older players such as Verlander to short-term deals for high yearly salaries to help minimize long-term team risk, they are signing position-playing superstars to deals that seem to incorporate some risk of decline on the back end.
Carlos Correa, for example, agreed to a 13-year deal with the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday, a deal that will guarantee him a behemoth $350 million over the life of the deal but never cost the Giants more than $27 million annually. The Philadelphia Phillies signed Trea Turner for $300 million over 11 years that will pay him just more than $27 million annually. The San Diego Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to a deal that pays him $280 million overall but averages less than $26 million against the luxury tax each year.
Deals such as those have been staples in a somewhat frenetic free agent market, one in which most of the top projected earners have signed well before Christmas. Before last year’s lockout, which inspired a flurry of deals in late November, recent offseasons had seen free agency drag out until nearer to spring training.
But with the Yankees plucking another top talent from the market Thursday, most of the blockbuster transactions to come will likely be trades. | 2022-12-16T03:55:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yankees snag left-handed ace Carlos Rodón with a six-year deal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/yankees-carlos-rodon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/15/yankees-carlos-rodon/ |
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