DeSantis’ attempt to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion is doomed to fail | Opinion
Ben Wright – February 12, 2023
I’ve had a front row seat for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attempts to overhaul Florida’s university system. My eldest son is currently a junior at New College of Florida which is ground-zero in this struggle. He didn’t choose New College because of some liberal ideology; he was excited about small class sizes, accessible professors, and its designation as an honors college. New College has been a great experience. Now, the rug is being pulled out from under him. His tiny school is the first test in a state-wide experiment that is coming to a campus near you.
It’s almost guaranteed DeSantis is running for president. By claiming that Florida’s universities and colleges are filled with radically liberal professors that are indoctrinating our students, the governor has discovered a way to energize his Republican base and present himself as a champion for conservatives. Are independent voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania going to lose sleep over the reshuffling of Florida’s colleges? Probably not. He has found an issue where he can win the hearts of Republicans without alienating the independent voters that he needs to win the presidency.
The governor is targeting many aspects of higher education, but his main line of attack is focused on eliminating “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs from state colleges and universities. Ironically, under DeSantis, the Board of Governors insisted that universities adopt these DEI programs just a few years ago.
DeSantis’ government overreach may be an important building block in his run for the presidency, but it will do long-lasting harm to Florida’s institutions of higher learning. Florida’s universities spend time, money, and resources to attract talented students and faculty … and they have been successful. There are many jokes about our weird and wonderful Florida, but our higher education system has garnered well-deserved respect in recent years.
Universities in other states are now poised to start poaching these talented folks with promises of true academic freedom. Florida will lose talented professors and students through attrition and find it more difficult to attract quality replacements. The governor’s decision to use these schools as pawns in his political games will cause long-term damage to the institutions and the degrees they issue.
In the real world, corporate America has overwhelmingly adopted diversity, equity, and inclusion. All the Fortune 100 companies have made a public commitment to DEI. Why? Because the young, talented workers they want to attract are demanding it. Employees now expect their employer to promote the values they hold. Why did Disney come out against DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law? Because Disney employees around the country wouldn’t stand for anything less. The unemployment rate is unprecedentedly low … it’s hard to attract top talent. Millennials and Gen-Z are driving the workforce now and they expect DEI to be a priority.
The changes at New College of Florida are just the opening gambit in a much larger plan. DeSantis’ attempt to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion is doomed to fail. It’s akin to closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted. In the meantime, his political ploy will do lasting harm to our state universities and colleges … and undermine the competitiveness of our college graduates.
Tallahassee resident Ben Wright is a third generation Floridian and former captain in the U.S. Air Force. He graduated from Indian River State College, the University of Florida, and Regis University in Colorado with an M.B.A. He works for a Fortune 500 company and his oldest son attends New College of Florida.
Russia ‘suffering unprecedented battlefield casualties’
Jessica Abrahams – February 12, 2023
A line of Ukrainian soldiers proceed through a cloud of smoke, their guns raised, as they take part in training – Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP
Russia is suffering unprecedented casualties on the battlefield, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, as Ukraine reported Russia’s deadliest day of the war so far over the weekend.
In its intelligence update on Sunday, the MoD said Moscow’s military has “likely suffered its highest rate of casualties” in the past two weeks, citing casualty statistics released by Ukraine.
Battlefield casualties are difficult to estimate, and Ukrainian figures on Russian losses have sometimes been higher than estimates from Western officials. But while the MoD said it “cannot verify Ukraine’s methodology, the trends the data illustrate are likely accurate”.
According to that data, Russia is suffering an average of more than 800 casualties a day, more than four times the reported rate in June and July last year.
“The uptick in Russian casualties is likely due to a range of factors including lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front,” the MoD noted. It added that “Ukraine also continues to suffer a high attrition rate.”
On Saturday, Ukraine’s ministry of defence reported that 1,140 Russian fighters had been killed in the previous 24 hours – the highest daily tally of the war so far – bringing its total estimated losses to 136,880 since the conflict began.
While Ukraine provides daily updates, Western officials have only rarely provided casualty estimates. However, the New York Times reported earlier this month that senior US officials believed nearly 200,000 Russians had been killed or wounded.
That echoed an estimate in January from Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s defence chief, who said 180,000 Russians may have been killed or wounded compared with around 100,000 Ukrainian servicemen, alongside 30,000 civilian deaths.
However, he added that there was “much uncertainty” around those figures.
The soaring casualty estimates follow weeks of brutal but largely fruitless fighting in the east, with Moscow believed to be making minimal advances.
A Close Look at the Chaotic House Republican Majority
Karen Yourish, Danielle Ivory and Charlie Smart – February 12, 2023
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of Calif., ends the joint session of Congress after President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The tumult that broke out last month during the election of Kevin McCarthy for speaker illustrated the potential for profound dysfunction in the new House Republican majority. And the spectacle created by Republican lawmakers at the State of the Union address showed the unruly behavior of some in the GOP rank and file that is becoming a new normal.
Many lawmakers who were leading a chorus of boos and heckling were familiar faces from the far right, including some who are poised to wield real power in the 118th Congress. The defining dynamic for House Republicans, who have a four-vote majority, may be the push and pull between the far right and the rest of the Republican conference.
Here is a closer look at the fractious House Republican caucus:
Of the 222 House Republicans, more than 50 lawmakers explicitly denied the 2020 election results, were supported by the House Freedom Fund during the midterms or both. The fund is the campaign arm of the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-line faction founded in 2015 that has often (but not always) aligned with former President Donald Trump, has tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and has opposed legislation to protect same-sex marriage rights.
Among them are the 20 Republicans who repeatedly voted against McCarthy for speaker, viewing him as insufficiently conservative and too cozy with the Washington establishment.
More than 50 representatives have co-sponsored articles of impeachment against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, so far this session. Hard-line Republicans intent on attacking the Biden administration see Mayorkas as the face of failures at the border.
Some far-right lawmakers and those who have embraced conspiracy theories have landed seats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, the main investigative organ in the House. They will be in a position to shape inquiries into the Biden administration and on other issues.
Across the ideological spectrum are 119 of the 139 representatives who objected to certifying the 2020 Electoral College results, including all but one member of the House GOP leadership team.
Mainly tilting toward the other end of the spectrum are the 18 Republicans who represent districts that Joe Biden won in 2020. Many of these lawmakers, who include 11 newcomers, have indicated a greater willingness to work on bipartisan legislation than their peers.
And there are also 20 lawmakers who in 2021 bucked Trump and the rest of the party by voting to impeach him or to form an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol.
Departures and Newcomers
The caucus has shifted toward the right in other ways too, because of the departure of conservatives who bucked the party. Nearly three-quarters of Republican House members who did not run for reelection or who lost their primaries in 2022 voted to impeach Trump or to form the Jan. 6 commission. Almost all of that group also voted to certify the 2020 Electoral College results, in defiance of Trump and a vast majority of House Republicans.
Because of redistricting, it is not possible to do a one-to-one match for every seat, but some newcomers who align more closely with the far right were elected to seats previously held by Democrats or Republicans who voted to impeach Trump or to create the Jan. 6 commission.
One of five newcomers who opposed McCarthy’s speaker bid, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, took over a seat previously held by a Democrat, Charlie Crist, who ran against (and lost to) Ron DeSantis for Florida governor. Luna has explicitly said the 2020 election was stolen and has joined the House Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, who has also denied the 2020 election results, defeated Rep. Liz Cheney in the primary. Hageman was appointed by McCarthy to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which will focus on finding evidence that the government has silenced and punished conservatives.
Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, the member who screamed, “It’s your fault!” when Biden called for an end to the fentanyl crisis during the State of the Union address, replaced Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat who retired after redistricting diluted Democrats’ power in the Nashville-area district. Ogles also opposed McCarthy’s speaker bid and has explicitly said the 2020 election was stolen.
In all, more than one-third of the 41 Republican newcomers explicitly denied the results of the 2020 election, were supported by the House Freedom Fund or both.
About a half dozen political experts who spoke with The New York Times said that many members of the Republican caucus have learned there is value in being antagonistic and refusing to compromise — a harbinger of more chaos to come.
“Confrontation attracts attention, and, you know, the attention economy has always been important for politicians,” said Richard H. Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law. “But traditionally you had to go through a series of gatekeepers or mediating institutions to get that kind of attention. The average member of the House wasn’t able to generate that kind of attention for themselves in a way that they, of course, now can very easily.”
Beyond attention, being confrontational appears to have financial incentives as well.
The internet has enabled a flood of money from small donors, which, Pildes said, has allowed politicians to bring in large sums without having to rely on large donors or party funds. Indeed, a Times investigation last year found that objecting to the results of the 2020 Electoral College was politically profitable.
“We’ve come to recognize the role of more extremism and more outrage, provoking more attention, provoking more media coverage, provoking more small-donor contributions,” Pildes said. “And I think that’s part of the story here.”
Natural disasters, boosted by climate change, displaced millions of people in U.S. in 2022
Lucas Thompson – February 12, 2023
Ricardo Arduengo
Natural disasters forced an estimated 3.4 million people in the U.S. to leave their homes in 2022, according to Census Bureau data collected earlier this year, underscoring how climate-related weather events are already changing American communities.
The overwhelming majority of these people were uprooted by hurricanes, followed by floods, then fires and tornados. Nearly 40% returned to their homes within a week. Nearly 16% have not returned home (and may never do so), and 12% were evacuated for more than six months.
The Census Bureau count is based on 68,504 responses it received as part of the Household Pulse Survey conducted Jan. 4-Jan. 16. The data collection is one of the few federal efforts to track displaced people, starting only in 2020. The bureau does note that the data is “experimental,” and is extrapolated based on its sample data.
“These numbers are very distressing,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who was not involved in the data collection. “These numbers are what one would expect to find in a developing country. It’s appalling to see them in the United States. … They’re only going to get worse in the years to come because climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more severe.”
Some states experienced far more of an impact than others. Florida had more than 888,000 people displaced. Louisiana had more than 368,000 displaced.
The U.S. was hit by a series of major disasters in 2022. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that 18 extreme weather events had each caused at least $1 billion in damage. Climate experts have warned for years to expect more intense weather disasters as global temperatures rise.
The Census Bureau estimate, almost 1.4% of the U.S. adult population, is higher than other estimates. Data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, part of the humanitarian organization The Norwegian Refugee Council, previously estimated that disasters displaced an average of 800,000 U.S. residents a year from 2008 through 2021.
“The United States is not in the least prepared for this,” Garrard said. “Our settlement patterns have not reflected the emerging risks of climate change to the habitability of some parts of the country.”
The data showed that the more than half a million people who never returned home experienced multiple hardships, including lack of housing, food, water, sanitation and child care.
“These are all things that we take for granted in a modern society,” Gerrard added. “Its absence is deeply disruptive to physical and emotional health as well as to child development.”
The data also showed disparities between people of different economic status, race and identities. Those earning less than $25,000 a year had the highest evacuation rate of any economic group, and Black and Hispanic residents had slightly higher evacuation rates than white residents.
According to the data, adults who identify as LGBTQ were disproportionately affected — 4% of LGBTQIA+ adults had to leave their homes compared with 1.2% of straight, cisgender people.
“It’s important to note that a lot of these individuals that are LGBTQ are often also considered to be socially vulnerable, and really putting a strong intersectional lens to disaster response preparedness and recovery,” said Michael Méndez, a professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine.
“Much of the LGBT community that’s vulnerable, and most socially vulnerable to disasters, are those that are African American, transgender and low income,” he said. “Oftentimes, that’s why they’re rendered invisible in the context of disaster policy and planning and preparedness. People write them off as not needing to provide extra resources for this community.”
Imperial Valley has made enough sacrifices already in the water rights war
Craig William Morgan – February 12, 2023
There is an old saying in the water world that it is better to be upstream with a shovel than downstream with a law book, which is the position California finds itself in as it stands apart from its neighbors on the Colorado River in negotiations over the use of the river’s water.
On Jan. 31, representatives for the six other basin states submitted a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation describing the measures by which the supply deficit on the Colorado River should be closed in the near term. Not surprisingly, the other basin states have asked that California reduce its water use beyond that which the state had previously proposed last fall. California was right to decline its neighbors’ new proposal notwithstanding its position on the river.
As many readers know, California water users have priority rights to Colorado River water that allow them to receive water first in times of drought. These rights are derived under the appropriative rights doctrine known as “first in time, first in right” that has been a mainstay of western water law for more than a century and a half. Those without such rights are legally bound to reduce their use.
Not surprisingly, those without such rights have developed a new theory of law that effectively says the priority system of water allocation is no longer applicable because of climate change.
The new buzzword describing this change is “aridification.” The terms “shortage” and “drought” that have historically been used they claim are no longer relevant to describing water conditions. The reason for this change in nomenclature is because existing law is very clear that water is apportioned based on priority during times of shortage and drought.
They argue that aridification is somehow different. It is not.
If state and federal courts were to interpret a distinction in such terms, water law would not only be upended along the Colorado River system, but indeed across the entire United States.
The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico have joined the chorus of Nevada and Arizona in arguing that aridification demands the priority system be ignored. They also argue that the requirement under the 1922 Colorado River Compact among the basin states guaranteeing a fixed quantity of water be delivered to the Lower Basin states should be ignored on the same grounds. Their fears are that such a requirement will limit their existing and proposed future diversions of Colorado River water. To date, these states’ diversions have been well below their junior allotment. The imbalance on the Colorado River they argue is a Lower Basin concern, not an Upper Basin concern.
But such a position is inconsistent and self-serving. If in fact, aridification demanded that the priority system be ignored along the river, wouldn’t it make sense that all water users within the Colorado River basin take a reduction, not just those in the Lower Basin as Upper Basin users have proposed? It is noteworthy that Upper Basin states thus far have not meaningfully participated in reducing demands on the Colorado River. Yet they should.
Why haven’t Arizona and Nevada looked harder at the Upper Basin states to reduce their water use to balance demands instead of focusing on California? Perhaps they are hoping that California’s Imperial Valley will once again come to the rescue of the river’s water users as was done in 2003 when the Imperial Irrigation District signed the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA) and reduced its water use by more than 15 %. As the river’s biggest water user (and least politically potent), surely, they must have more water to spare.
The residents of Imperial Valley are right to be concerned about the future of their community. In 2003, the Imperial Irrigation District, despite holding senior water rights to the river for the benefit of its farming community, succumbed to the political pressures within California and from other basin states to reduce their demands on the Colorado River.
The argument made at the time by the river’s other water users was that the district was wasting water. However, the fact of the matter was that the district’s water use was no different than that of other irrigation districts across the west. The QSA water transfers have created significant hardships on the local communities and an ecological nightmare for the Salton Sea.
As the basin states and federal government move forward in crafting solutions to the water shortage problem on the Colorado River, they must consider the sacrifices that have already been made by those living in Imperial Valley: Sacrifices that have been made by those holding senior water rights. They must also consider the damage that would be done to the legal structure governing water use across the west if the priority system is to be ignored.
Craig William Morgan is a water resources engineer who served as consultant to farmers opposing the QSA. He is the author of the recently published book about the QSA and the fight for Imperial Valley’s water called “The Morality of Deceit.”
California fuel pipeline to resume service Saturday after fuel leak caused disruption
Nadine El Bawab – February 11, 2023
A California pipeline, that delivers the majority of fuel to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, is expected to resume operations Saturday afternoon, the pipeline operator announced.
The Kinder Morgan gas pipeline, which supplies about 90% of needed gas, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, experienced a disruption that resulted in a temporary shutdown of the line.
“We have isolated the source of the release within our Watson Station in Long Beach, California. Restart activities are underway for Watson Station’s associated SFPP West and CalNev pipelines. We expect these pipelines to resume operations this afternoon and begin delivering fuel to their respective market areas later today. We continue to be in close contact with our customers and the appropriate regulatory agencies as we work to resolve this issue,” Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, said in a statement to ABC News.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency Friday due to the disruption.
On Thursday, Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, began investigating a leak inside its Watson Station in Long Beach, California, the company said in a statement.
PHOTO: In this March 7, 2011, file photo, a motorist fuels up at a gas station in Santa Cruz, Calif. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP, FILE)
“Watson Station and its associated SFPP West and CALNEV pipelines have been isolated and shut down while we work to resolve this issue. There are no injuries or fire reported as a result of this incident,” Kinder Morgan said in its statement. Kinder Morgan’s 566-mile CALNEV pipeline system transports gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Los Angeles to terminals in Barstow, California, and Las Vegas.
“The appropriate regulatory agencies have been notified, and an investigation into the cause and quantity of the release will be conducted. We are working closely with our customers on potential impacts,” Kinder Morgan said.
The disruption may cause a shortage of fuel supplies in Nevada, according to the declaration of emergency.
PHOTO: In this Nov. 14, 2022, file photo, Nevada Gov.-elect Joe Lombardo speaks at his alma mater, Rancho High School, in North Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images, FILE)
The emergency declaration will allow Nevada to receive federal waivers, resources to repair the pipeline and allow the state to increase the transportation of fuel by other means, according to Lombardo.
“To avoid any unnecessary shortages, I strongly urge all Las Vegas residents to avoid panic buying while awaiting repair timeline updates,” Lombardo said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The declaration expires in 15 days unless it is renewed.
Living with natural gas pipelines: Appalachian landowners describe fear, anxiety and loss
Erin Brock Carlson, Assistant Professor of Professional Writing and Editing, West Virginia University and Martina Angela Caretta, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Lund University – February 11, 2023
Pipeline construction cuts through forests and farms in Appalachia. Provided by Erin Brock Carlson, CC BY-SA
Many of these lines were built in just the past five years to carry natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where hydraulic fracturing has boomed. West Virginia alone has seen a fourfold increase in natural gas production in the past decade.
Such fast growth has also brought hundreds of safety and environmental violations, particularly under the Trump administration’s reduced oversight and streamlined approvals for pipeline projects. While energy companies promise economic benefits for depressed regions, pipeline projects are upending the lives of people in their paths.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
As a technical and professional communication scholar focused on how rural communities deal with complex problems and a geography scholar specializing in human-environment interactions, we teamed up to study the effects of pipeline development in rural Appalachia. In 2020, we surveyed and talked with dozens of people living close to pipelines in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
What we found illuminates the stress and uncertainty that communities experience when natural gas pipelines change their landscape. Residents live with the fear of disasters, the noise of construction and the anxiety of having no control over their own land.
‘None of this is fair’
Appalachians are no strangers to environmental risk. The region has a long and complicated history with extractive industries, including coal and hydraulic fracturing. However, it’s rare to hear firsthand accounts of the long-term effects of industrial infrastructure development in rural communities, especially when it comes to pipelines, since they are the result of more recent energy-sector growth.
For all of the people we talked to, the process of pipeline development was drawn out and often confusing.
Some reported never hearing about a planned pipeline until a “land man” – a gas company representative – knocked on their door offering to buy a slice of their property; others said that they found out through newspaper articles or posts on social media. Every person we spoke with agreed that the burden ultimately fell on them to find out what was happening in their communities.
A map shows U.S. pipelines carrying natural gas and hazardous liquids in 2018. More construction has been underway since then. GAO and U.S. Department of Transportation
One woman in West Virginia said that after finding out about plans for a pipeline feeding a petrochemical complex several miles from her home, she started doing her own research. “I thought to myself, how did this happen? We didn’t know anything about it,” she said. “It’s not fair. None of this is fair. … We are stuck with a polluting company.”
‘Lawyers ate us up’
If residents do not want pipelines on their land, they can pursue legal action against the energy company rather than taking a settlement. However, this can result in the use of eminent domain.
Eminent domain is a right given by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to companies to access privately held property if the project is considered important for public need. Compensation is decided by the courts, based on assessed land value, not taking into consideration the intangibles tied to the loss of the land surrounding one’s home, such as loss of future income.
Through this process, residents can be forced to accept a sum that doesn’t take into consideration all effects of pipeline construction on their land, such as the damage heavy equipment will do to surrounding land and access roads.
One man we spoke with has lived on his family’s land for decades. In 2018, a company representative approached him for permission to install a new pipeline parallel to one that had been in place since 1962, far away from his house. However, crews ran into problems with the steep terrain and wanted to install it much closer to his home. Unhappy with the new placement, and seeing erosion from pipeline construction on the ridge behind his house causing washouts, he hired a lawyer. After several months of back and forth with the company, he said, “They gave me a choice: Either sign the contract or do the eminent domain. And my lawyer advised me that I didn’t want to do eminent domain.”
Pipeline construction cuts through a farmer’s field. Provided by Erin Brock Carlson, CC BY-SA
There was a unanimous sense among the 31 people we interviewed that companies have seemingly endless financial and legal resources, making court battles virtually unwinnable. Nondisclosure agreements can effectively silence landowners. Furthermore, lawyers licensed to work in West Virginia who aren’t already working for gas companies can be difficult to find, and legal fees can become too much for residents to pay.
One woman, the primary caretaker of land her family has farmed for 80 years, found herself facing significant legal fees after a dispute with a gas company. “We were the first and last ones to fight them, and then people saw what was going to happen to them, and they just didn’t have – it cost us money to get lawyers. Lawyers ate us up,” she said.
The pipeline now runs through what were once hayfields. “We haven’t had any income off that hay since they took it out in 2016,” she said. “It’s nothing but a weed patch.”
‘I mean, who do you call?’
Twenty-six of the 45 survey respondents reported that they felt that their property value had decreased as a result of pipeline construction, citing the risks of water contamination, explosion and unusable land.
Many of the 31 people we interviewed were worried about the same sort of long-term concerns, as well as gas leaks and air pollution. Hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas processes can affect drinking water resources, especially if there are spills or improper storage procedures. Additionally, methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and volatile organic compounds, which can pose health risks, are byproducts of the natural gas supply chain.
Oil spills are a major concern among land owners. Provided by Erin Brock Carlson, CC BY-SA
“Forty years removed from this, are they going to be able to keep track and keep up with infrastructure? I mean, I can smell gas as I sit here now,” one man told us. His family had watched the natural gas industry move into their part of West Virginia in the mid-2010s. In addition to a 36-inch pipe on his property, there are several smaller wells and lines. “This year the company servicing the smaller lines has had nine leaks … that’s what really concerns me,” he said.
The top concern mentioned by survey respondents was explosions.
According to data from 2010 to 2018, a pipeline explosion occurred, on average, every 11 days in the U.S. While major pipeline explosions are relatively rare, when they do occur, they can be devastating. In 2012, a 20-inch transmission line exploded in Sissonville, West Virginia, damaging five homes and leaving four lanes of Interstate 77 looking “like a tar pit.”
A gas line explosion near Sissonville, West Virginia, sent flames across Interstate 77. AP Photo/Joe Long
Amplifying these fears is the lack of consistent communication from corporations to residents living along pipelines. Approximately half the people we interviewed reported that they did not have a company contact to call directly in case of a pipeline emergency, such as a spill, leak or explosion. “I mean, who do you call?” one woman asked.
‘We just keep doing the same thing’
Several people interviewed described a fatalistic attitude toward energy development in their communities.
“It’s just kind of sad because they think, once again, this will be West Virginia’s salvation,” one landowner said. “Harvesting the timber was, then digging the coal was our salvation. … And then here’s the third one. We just keep doing the same thing.”
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.
Amsterdam plans to ban weed from Red Light District streets
Hannah Sampson – February 10, 2023
Amsterdam, Netherlands – October 1, 2012: Amsterdam’s red-light district at night. There are about three hundred cabins rented by prostitutes in the area. (sborisov via Getty Images)
In their latest effort to rein in carousing visitors, Amsterdam officials announced plans this week to tamp down disruptive behavior in the city’s Red Light District, including barring pot-smoking on the streets, reducing hours for restaurants and brothels, and tightening some alcohol restrictions.
The rules are meant to ease the impact of hordes of sometimes-rowdy tourists on people who live in the area. An announcement from the city council referenced an alcohol- and drug-fueled atmosphere at night that makes the neighborhood unsafe and prevents residents from sleeping.
Officials are taking public comments on many of the proposed measures for the next four weeks before finalizing amendments to municipal bylaws.
Under the measures announced Thursday, the smoking ban would go into effect in mid-May. The city could take more action if the ban doesn’t go far enough to reduce nuisance behavior.
Also under consideration: banning to-go sales of drugs at coffee shops at certain times and potentially restricting smoking on cafe terraces.
The Netherlands has a tolerance policy for weed, meaning people will not be prosecuted for buying up to five grams of cannabis, which is classified as a “soft drug” and sold in coffee shops. Only visitors 18 and older can enter cannabis cafes, which are not allowed to sell alcohol. While weed can be consumed in coffee shops, most clubs or bars do not allow people to smoke pot on-site.
The city issues permits for brothels and sex clubs to operate. Under rules that had already been decided, brothels will only be able to stay open until 3 a.m., not the 6 a.m. closing time in place now. Restaurants and sex establishments with catering licenses will have to close at 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, rather than 3 or 4 a.m.
No new visitors would be allowed into businesses with a catering license after 1 a.m., the English-language publication NL Times reported. The time changes would go into effect April 1, the publication said.
Officials also want to close terraces at 1 a.m. in the summer, a change from the previous closing time of 2 a.m.
Alcohol sales at stores and cafeterias in the district will continue to be blocked starting at 4 p.m. from Thursday through Sunday. The city says alcohol displays must also be removed from the shops or hidden from view. Visitors are already not allowed to drink on the streets.
Amsterdam has tried for years to address overtourism concerns, restricting some tours of the historic Red Light District before the pandemic and voting to move sex workers to an erotic center outside of the district in 2021. According to a November story in the Guardian, however, residents of the proposed neighborhoods for relocation don’t want the businesses – and the workers also don’t want to move.
Late last year, authorities said they planned to take steps to combat tourism problems, including limiting river cruises, curbing rowdy bachelor parties, cracking down on organized pub crawls and taking other measures. Part of the plan included some of the rules announced this week, such as reducing hours for sex businesses and catering establishments and banning smoking in some parts of the city.
A campaign is expected to start this year discouraging global visitors who want to party hard in the city.
“Amsterdammers live in every neighborhood, including the Red Light District and Leidseplein,” the official visitor information site I amsterdam says. “Limit noise and drunkenness, clean up your mess and don’t pee in the canals. Keep in mind the locals and they will welcome you with open arms.”
It was the last Friday of January. In Washington, Vice President Kamala Harris was set to host a White House summit about lead-pipe replacement. It’s a key component of the administration’s infrastructure push and would become part of the president’s looming State of the Union Address. And it was also almost guaranteed to get scant buzz in Washington’s attention industry.
Meanwhile, Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, was on a trip to Poland to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz. He was joined there by Joe Scarborough, the favorite morning host of many of the insiders whose worries about the Vice President’s electoral prospects regularly make news. Scarborough and Emhoff’s much-promoted conversation occupied the better part of an hour on Morning Joe. That’s the sort of exposure a lot of elected officials can only dream about — the political-media equivalent of an invite to the popular kids’ table.
Not long ago, it might have confounded Washington to hear that a middle-aged corporate-lawyer white-guy dad figure would be a breakout media star of the Biden administration even as the Beltway smart set tsk-tsks the barrier-breaking veep’s political chops, the subject of grim stories in the past two weeks in both the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Plainly, Emhoff shines in some ways Harris doesn’t — which reflects his own innate political touch, the kind of instinctive connection that even some Harris supporters worry she doesn’t show.
“He is just a very approachable, normal guy who, within the span of a decade, went from going on a blind date with the California attorney general, to, literally less than 10 years later, flying out on an Air Force jet representing our country at Auschwitz,” says Brian Brokaw, a longtime California Democratic strategist who knows both of them well. “He’s a trailblazer in his own way, one that I don’t think he necessarily sought out to be. But he also seems to be doing a pretty good job at it.”
“People are just charmed,” says Jamal Simmons, Harris’ former communications director. “He’s genuinely a nice guy.”
But Emhoff’s media success might just say even more about the kinds of traits that earn favor in the capital, which makes it a more complicated and fascinating dynamic to watch.
While many of his other forays into the spotlight involve making public appearances around largely ideology-free political-spouse causes like suicide prevention and school reopenings, he’s also snagged attention on trickier issues: When Texas Gov Greg Abbott sent two buses of migrants to be dropped off in front of the home Emhoff and Harris occupy, the Second Gentleman spoke out, calling it “shameful” in an unscripted media interaction that came as news to the Vice President’s communications team, according to Simmons, who was on staff at the time.
The administration has apparently come to see him as a useful tool on the inside-Washington game, too: On Tuesday, ahead of the State of the Union Address, he was the guest star of a call convened by senior advisor Anita Dunn with Democratic allies designed to spark excitement and convey talking points.
There’s only so much you can attribute to the notion that Emhoff is sprinkled with political pixie dust while his wife may not be. To a large extent, the quality of the respective rides he and Harris have gotten from the chattering class is a function of the wildly different jobs they have.
As the principal and the occupant of the position one predecessor said wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm spit,” Harris was always going to have a much trickier task when it comes to generating positive coverage. It doesn’t help that in the Biden administration she’s been handed thankless portfolios like the border — and, for two years, has been obliged to stay close to home lest she have to cast a tie-breaking vote in the 50-50 Senate. Bottom line: It’s a hard job to ace.
Emhoff, by contrast, holds a position where the historic binary hasn’t been whether a person is loved or hated by the general public, but whether the person is noticed at all. A Second Gentleman, like a First Lady, gets to avoid polarizing issues and focus on warm-hearted public events. Unlike a president’s spouse, the veep’s significant other also doesn’t get blamed for White House social booboos, East Wing staff turmoil, unpopular holiday decor, and other pomp-and-circumstances controversies. Bottom line: It’s a hard job to flub.
“He doesn’t have any formal policy responsibility,” Simmons, who left Harris’ team last year, told me this week. “So if you’re attacking the second gentleman, it’s purely a personality or political play. It can’t possibly be based on anything policy related.” No one is dissecting rambling Doug Emhoff speeches on TV because he doesn’t have to make them.
Yet it’s also clear that Emhoff’s presence in the Washington conversation exceeds that of Karen Pence, Jill Biden, or even Lynne Cheney, who was a genuine public figure well before her husband became Vice President — and also could come across as a better public kibbitzer than her guarded spouse. The prior vice-presidential spouses are a much better comparison. But they’re a comparison that also shows some of Emhoff’s strengths as a public figure as well as some bigger things about the Beltway’s built-in assumptions.
Consider the aspect of Emhoff’s persona that people inside Harris’ camp cite most often: his loyalty. “He’s ride or die,” one former Harris staffer told me. “His number one goal has always been, from the jump, to be extremely supportive of his wife.” Of course, being supportive has always been the core of a political spouse’s persona — it’s just that women spouses didn’t typically get credit for it. To his credit, Emhoff has noted this too. But as welcome a model as it is, it’s hard not to think he benefits in Washington’s estimation from playing against millennia of history involving men who do something other than put their wife first.
Likewise, think about a factor dear to the heart of narrative-definers: Being a trailblazer. Like Harris, Emhoff is a first, the inaugural Second Gentleman of the United States. But where her novelty has drawn detractors even as it galvanized admirers — it’s at the core of mean-spirited, sometimes explicitly racist and sexist suggestions that she’s not up to the job because her pick delighted a politically important constituency — his is all upside. Attend charity teas and you look good for deigning to take on historically feminine roles that men of his generation never expected to play; do something less traditional and you look thoughtful for innovating to build a new role.
Then there’s some only-in-2023 stuff that comes into play. Even by the standards of Beltway celebrity, the Biden administration is one of the least star-studded in recent memory; against that backdrop, any administration-adjacent person who gets regularly spotted around town (let alone one whose daughter is a model) is going to seem downright exciting.
And while it’s not something Emhoff or anyone else this side of Ye’s entourage would want, the news environment has also meant that the Second Gentleman’s supposedly non-controversial personal cause — fighting antisemitism — has suddenly become a live issue.
For all the editorial-page paeans to moral seriousness, though, Washington is a place whose likeability economy rewards people who are able to play the loveable golden retriever type — something that, even beyond the embedded gender coding, is much easier for someone in Emhoff’s apolitical position than Harris’ excruciatingly political one. It’s even easier still if you’re genuinely new to the game: Emhoff only married into politics on the cusp of Harris’ Senatorial win. By this point in the electoral ascent, a lot of political spouses have decades of scar tissue, or at least decades of familiar affect that makes them seem less genuine.
Several people around the Vice President told me this week that loyalists have been seething about the recurring Harris-is-doomed pieces, with old allies swapping texts about the pack-mentality behavior that they think drives the coverage. Particularly against that backdrop, they’re leery of any implicit comparison with the kind of coverage Emhoff gets, given the couple’s vastly different jobs, and the respective jobs’ even more different degrees of difficulty.
There are occasional moments, though, when a comparison of how they are deployed feels apt. Just as Emhoff’s issue was elevated by a year of appalling incidents, Harris has also taken on a role as the administration’s spokeswoman on abortion rights. Like Emhoff’s cause, it’s the sort of issue that has hit the news over and over in the past year. But her own role sometimes gets obscured, eating into opportunities to drive news.
Last summer, when national attention was focused on the horrific story of a 10-year-old abuse victim from Ohio who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion, and GOP politicians threatened to investigate the gynecologist who treated her, Harris reached out to the embattled doctor. It was a smart move for a Democratic pol, standing up against an outrage. And it only reached the media nearly a month after the incident, when the doctor talked about it to CBS news. Simmons says that’s because the office was attentive to privacy and legal concerns and the like, befitting the vice president’s careful, prosecutor background. Still, someone whose job description and personal style enabled a looser disposition might have gotten an earlier publicity pop from it.
Which brings us back to this: Watch Emhoff’s media appearances and it becomes clear that he’s pretty good at this stuff. I don’t mean policy or leadership, which he doesn’t try to do. I mean the work of making audiences like you, which involves some combination of seeming loose and genuine and personable.
Is that easier to do when you’re not being vetted as a possible president and subject to the crosswinds of modern U.S. politics? Yep. Does a man in our society get more permission to play the loveable golden retriever sort that Washington tends to value? No doubt. But he’s still pretty good at it.
“I wouldn’t say he has skills that she doesn’t have,” says Simmons. “I would say he has opportunities she doesn’t, because he doesn’t fly with the same footprint. He doesn’t come with the flashing lights, dozens of Secret Service agents and vans and cars full of aides. He can show up in his SUV with a couple of agents and maybe an aide or two and go grocery shopping or walk into a mall or go to a restaurant. … It’s an ability he has that the other three principals don’t really have.”
Russia, showing its advantage from the skies, attacked crucial infrastructure, sending much of the country into another blackout. Zelensky, who asked Europe for fighter jets and air protection, used the attack to underscore what he is missing most in the invasion-turned-war.
The southern city of Zaporizhzhia—which took 35 incoming missiles—and the western city of Khmelnytskyi were particularly hard hit in the Friday attack. Zelensky had warned that Russia would ramp up its offensive in the coming months and that fighter jets especially would be most helpful.
Europe has so far sent tanks and munitions and air-defense systems, but has resisted sending U.S. made fighter jets. They formally asked the Netherlands for help, which was met with hesitencey. “Ukraine has indeed requested to also help with fighter jets,” Netherlands Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said. “We always take all of Ukraine’s requests very seriously. They are fighting that war, they are being attacked by Russia. But fighter jets, that is very complex.”
Despite a cozy dinner between Emmanuel Macron and Zelensky on the eve of his address to the European Parliament, France has also denied Zelensky the weapons it really wants—at least for the moment. “There is no way that fighter planes can be delivered in the next few weeks, as time is needed for training, delivery, and training for planes unfamiliar to Ukrainian pilots,” Macron said. “So I am not ruling it out.”
Reluctance to give Ukraine stronger airpower and even longer range missiles is hinged on fears that Ukraine could then attack Russia inside its own territory—which could drastically change the face of the year-old conflict.
