Not even our fallen at Arlington National Cemetery escape Trump’s DEI hate | Opinion
EJ Montini, Arizona Republic – March 18, 2025
It turns out that even the dead must suffer idiotic consequences from Donald Trump’s derangement over any hint of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Worse still, the edicts coming from the White House are now dishonoring the heroes buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The military news website Task & Purpose reported that “the cemetery’s public website has scrubbed dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the cemetery, along with educational material on dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and maps of prominent gravesites of Marine Corps veterans and other services.”
Flags are placed at headstones to honor individuals laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
Cemetery officials said it was done to comply with anti-DEI orders from Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Dishonoring Black, Hispanic and female heroes over DEI
The article noted that links to three lists of Black, Hispanic and female service members buried at the cemetery were removed, as well as documents from an education section.
It added that a section talking about Black soldiers in World War II originally saying they had “served their country and fought for racial justice” was altered to say only that cemetery memorials “honor their dedication and service.”
Lesson plans available for teachers covering topics that included Women’s History and Medal of Honor recipients were removed.
An Army spokesperson at Arlington told Task & Purpose, “The Army has taken immediate steps to comply with all executive orders related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) personnel, programs, and policies.
“The Army will continue to review its personnel, policies, and programs to ensure it remains in compliance with law and presidential orders. Social media and web pages were removed, archived, or changed to avoid noncompliance with executive orders.”
Actually, Arlington is the most egalitarian place in America
I’m not sure there is anything at Arlington that could indicate any form of “noncompliance with executive orders” having to do with DEI.
The suggestion that such a thing is possible makes me sick. It should make us all sick.
It is the most egalitarian community in America. There is nothing in the open expanses or tree-covered hills of the cemetery’s 639 acres distinguishing those resting there by way of race or gender or ethnicity.
Only row after row after row of silent heroes, more than 400,000 of them, each of their graves marked by a simple white marble headstone.
EJ Montini is a columnist for the Arizona Republic.
Elon Musk Reportedly Wants A Government Shutdown So He Can Get Rid Of Those Pesky Regulators More Easily
Collin Woodard – March 12, 2025
Elon Musk – Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Republicans in Washington are once again in disarray, as those who want to avert a government shutdown struggle to find enough votes to pass yet another continuing resolution. If they can’t pass something by Friday night, we’ll be forced to deal with yet another Republican government shutdown. You’d think the party that controls all three branches of government, including both the House and the Senate, would be able to do that easily, but nope. And if Republican infighting sends us into another shutdown, you’ll likely have Tesla CEO Elon Musk to thank. And he doesn’t just want a temporary shutdown, either — Musk wants a permanent one, Wired reports.
According to several sources who Wired agreed not to name, Musk wants a government shutdown because he believes that will make it easier to fire several hundred thousand more workers, especially since judges keep reminding the new administration that breaking the law is illegal. Based on what those sources told Wired, it sounds like Musk’s goal is to fire so many workers that it forces every single agency to operate like we’re in a permanent government shutdown.
That would obviously help Musk achieve his goal of crippling the government’s ability to enforce regulations, but once again, the Republican politicians who could do something to stop him would rather anonymously vent to the media. Doing stuff is hard, y’all. “You know none of this is about saving money, right?” one spineless Republican coward told Wired. “It’s all about destroying a liberal power base.”
If Musk could cause a government shutdown, though, all federal employees currently classified as nonessential would immediately be furloughed, which would mean they’d stop getting paid, but more importantly to Musk, they also wouldn’t be allowed to work until Republicans finally managed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government until the next time Republicans shut it down. A 2023 Partnership for Public Service report estimated the number of workers classified as nonessential is somewhere in the 850,000-person range, although the economic impact of a prolonged shutdown would be even worse since essential workers don’t get paid until the government reopens, either.
But while the stock market is already tanking as a result of Republicans’ terrible policies, what they’ll do behind the scenes is arguably even more concerning. “Maybe they decide that entire government agencies don’t need to exist anymore,” Senator Mark Kelly said Monday.
Gunning For A 30-Day Shutdown
Mike Johnson – Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
If Republicans go along with Musk’s plan to shut down the government, workers are still at risk of losing the jobs they aren’t allowed to do or be paid for even before they finally pass another CR. That’s because after 30 days, a Reduction In Force kicks in automatically. Workers with the most seniority and veterans would be prioritized, but triggering the RIF would result in massive staff cuts that would, in turn, cripple all federal agencies. Sure, Republicans would be happy almost no one was left to tell them they couldn’t build giant Give All Employees Cancer machines or whatever it is that the wealthy like to spend money on, good luck getting someone to respond if you try to report the GAEC machine to the feds.
“If you can shut down the government for 30 days, it’s a method of pursuing a RIF,” Nick Bednar, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law, told Wired. That said, an RIF during an extended government shutdown would also be new territory for the federal government even in normal circumstances, and in addition to the likely legal challenges, Bednar said the details are still unclear, adding, “How an automatic RIF applies is still up for debate because we’ve never seen it happen.”
And while Trump and his Johnson claim they don’t want to shut down the government, a February 11 executive order directed agency heads to prepare plans for “large-scale reductions in force (RIFs)” with a focus on “all components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or other law who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations as provided in the Agency Contingency Plans on the Office of Management and Budget website.” If you thought that might mean fewer cops, though, they made sure to include an exception for “functions related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement.”
Money Has Nothing To Do With It
SpaceX rocket – Brandon Bell/Getty Images
There are probably plenty of ways federal spending could be streamlined, including taking a much closer look at military spending, but don’t let anyone tell you for a single second that firing workers is about improving efficiency and saving money. Firing every single person currently classified as nonessential would only save about $110 billion in payroll expenses annually. There’s a good chance it would save money in the same way buying the cheapest used tires you can find on Craigslist saves you money, but for the sake of the argument, we’ll give them the $110 billion, which anyone who can count will correctly tell you is a truly massive amount of money. That’s also about $890 billion short of the $1 trillion Musk has claimed he wants to cut from the budget, which some quick mental math tells me is way, way more than $110 billion.
In a world where Republicans actually cared about something other than getting rid of regulations and taxes so billionaires like Elon Musk can do whatever they want, no matter how many people they hurt, they wouldn’t be starting with slashing jobs and driving up the unemployment rate because even if Musk fed the entire federal workforce into a woodchipper, it still wouldn’t get him anywhere close to that $1 trillion he talks about. Firing people before you know what they do isn’t great in the private sector, either, but Twitter crashing because you fired the person who could have prevented it isn’t remotely the same thing as a drunk pilot crashing a plane full of people because you fired the people who stop that kind of stuff.
No, you go after the federal workforce first because people doing their jobs get in the way of billionaires doing whatever they want. The more people you manage to get rid of, the easier it is to break the law without consequences.
Shutdowns Are Terrible For The Economy
Mike Johnson – Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
While a RIF triggered by a shutdown that furloughs workers for more than 30 days hasn’t happened before, we don’t have to look very far into the past to see how much a prolonged shutdown would hurt the economy. When Republicans shut the government down on December 22, 2018, they didn’t allow the government to reopen until January 25, 2019, meaning it lasted 35 days. A later report from the Congressional Budget Office estimated the shutdown reduced Q1 real GDP by $8 billion, all so Republicans could rile up their base and stick it to the libs or something.
Republicans using a government shutdown as a creative way to get around worker protections and slash jobs also open the government up to lawsuits that are far more likely to succeed, at least before the Republican-controlled Supreme Court steps in, than they were in 2013 when furloughed employees sued for back pay after, you guessed it, yet another Republican government shutdown. They may be gambling on SCOTUS letting them get away with it, but as the previous illegal attempt to cut off all funding for USAID showed, Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett can’t be counted on to go along with absolutely everything Republicans want. At the very least, give them a creative theory they can run with that isn’t just, “We won the election, so laws we don’t like no longer apply.”
Is that great news? Of course not. Everything Republicans are doing looks, by any objective standard, like their goal is to send us back to 1929. Heck, Trump’s even doing a redux of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that helped turn a stock market crash into the worst depression this country has ever seen. Hopefully, for the sake of everyone involved except the billionaires, we figure out a way to stop Republicans from succeeding because in addition to the part where we didn’t begin to crawl out of the Great Depression until several years later, it also led to another World War. Surely, unless you’re one of those freaks who believes they can trigger the end times by causing global calamity, you can agree we don’t want that even if you’ve never voted for a Democrat in your life.
Hurricane Helene leaves over 100 dead, millions without power in the Southeastern U.S. Here’s what we know and what to expect next.
With many still unaccounted for, the devastation from Hurricane Helene continues to unfold by the hour.
David Artavia – September 30, 2024
The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is still unfolding across the Southeastern U.S., where more than 100 people have been reported dead, according to the Associated Press, and nearly 2 million were without power as of Monday afternoon.
The storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 140 mph. Now downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, Helene is still lingering over the Tennessee Valley, according to the National Hurricane Center.
In North Carolina, over 200 people have been rescued from floodwaters that washed away homes in several areas. Meanwhile, about 1,100 residents were staying in emergency shelters in North Carolina this weekend as the state deals with widespread damage.
In Atlanta, a partially submerged vehicle sits in flood water after Hurricane Helene passed the area on Sept. 27. (Jason Allen/AP Photo)
Search teams are reportedly still trying to find roughly 600 missing people across several states, President Biden said during a news conference on Monday.
“We’re not leaving until the job is done,” Biden said, noting that he’s committed to traveling to impacted areas “later this week,” having been told that a visit could potentially be “disruptive” to rescue efforts at the present time.
In response to the crisis, Biden further announced the approval of emergency declarations for the governors of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama. He also approved disaster declarations for North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina, allowing for federal funding to cover debris removal and provide direct financial assistance to affected residents.
“I will not rest until everyone is accounted for,” he said.
Here’s a look at the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene — and what to expect in the days ahead.
Death toll rising
As of Monday afternoon, more than 120 people have been killed across several states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. According to the New York Times, the fatalities have reportedly been attributed to various causes, including flooding, falling trees and car accidents.
Emergency personnel are observed on a road as the Rocky Broad River merges into Lake Lure, carrying debris from Chimney Rock, N.C., after heavy rains caused by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
In Florida, where Helene initially made landfall, 13 people have been confirmed dead, per the New York Times. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described “complete obliteration” in parts of the state, with 90% of homes in communities like Keaton Beach on the west coast of Florida, still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia in 2023, reportedly being washed away.
As of Monday, at least 25 people have been confirmed dead in South Carolina, prompting the state’s weather agency to call it “the worst event in our office’s history” in a Facebook post Saturday evening. Over 20 people, including children, died in Georgia as a result of Helene.
An apartment building can be seen flooded after Hurricane Helene brought in heavy rains overnight on Sept. 27 in Atlanta. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
North Carolina has had 37 weather-related deaths as of Monday, according to the New York Times, and over 1,000 people were unaccounted for in Buncombe County on Sunday. Over 70 people remain unaccounted for in east Tennessee, officials said in a news briefing Sunday morning, per NBC News.
Power outages by the numbers
As of 1:40 p.m. ET on Monday, just under 2 million homes and businesses across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia remain without power.
South Carolina was hit hardest, with over 720,000 residents still in the dark as of the latest update. Georgia follows with more than 560,000 customers without electricity, while North Carolina has just over 439,000 affected. In Florida, around 112,000 people remain without power, and over 94,000 are still impacted in Virginia.
Damages upward of $110 billion
AccuWeather estimates the total cost of Helene’s damages and economic losses will be between $95 billion and $110 billion, positioning it as one of the costliest storms in U.S. history. For comparison, Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Harvey (2017) each caused around $125 billion in damages, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Helene reportedly triggered the worst flooding North Carolina has seen in a century, with Yancey County hit hardest with 29.5 inches of rainfall.
Storm damage in Biltmore Village in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28 in Asheville, N.C. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Atlanta also saw record-breaking rainfall, with 11.12 inches falling over 48 hours, the most the city has endured since the 1800s. On Saturday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said statewide damages may amount to more than the reported $1.2 billion the state incurred following Hurricane Michael in 2018.
In Florida alone, around 84 structures have reportedly been destroyed and over 4,000 have sustained water damage, according to Florida Urban Search and Rescue.
Rescue efforts
Over 800 FEMA staff are working around the clock to provide support and resources in the most affected areas, according to the agency. Evacuations have continued through the weekend as water overtopped several dams, including the Nolichucky Dam in Tennessee and the Lake Lure Dam in North Carolina.
As of Sunday morning, at least 190 people have been rescued in Florida, according to an update from DeSantis, and over 1,300 people are currently seeking refuge in 43 shelters across 21 counties in that state. More than 200 people have been rescued from flood waters in North Carolina.
A fallen tree on a home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28 in Asheville, N.C. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Debris, downed trees and flooding led to more than 400 road closures in North Carolina, per the New York Times. Now, as of Sunday afternoon, there are at least 300 active road incidents, per the state’s Department of Transportation.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency is reportedly in 32 counties across the state of Georgia, as they help local agencies in their rescue efforts.
More rain is expected
The storm has been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone and is now lingering over the Tennessee Valley, according to the National Hurricane Center. Parts of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee — including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg — could see upward of 2 inches of rain through Monday.
While it’s forecast to dissipate by Monday, the National Weather Service warns that heavy rain and flash flooding remain a threat for the Central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic regions, with a slight risk of “excessive rainfall” expected through Tuesday morning.
Additionally, an upper-level low over the Ohio Valley is predicted to gradually weaken as it moves east toward the Mid-Atlantic by Tuesday.
Jon Stewart still has some soul-searching to do. His first RNC show proved it.
Stewart interviewed his longtime interlocutor, frenemy and sparring partner Bill O’Reilly, but failed to address the most important question of all.
By Jacques Berlinerblau, MSNBC Columnist – July 17, 2024
Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” on Tuesday executed what Deadline.com called a “Milwaukee pivot” — a programming change forced upon them by last weekend’s tragic violence in Butler, Pennsylvania. Originally, the idea was to air thepopularfake news show live from the site of the Republican National Convention. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Stewart revealed, scuttled the plan. His Milwaukee venue was placed under lockdown. With “cages built around the theater,” Stewart and his team decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to perform live comedy “without,” the host deadpanned, “people.”
What exactly are entertainers as influential as Jon Stewart supposed to be doing at a point in American history as troubling as this one?
Taped on Tuesday, the episode was stuck rehashing RNC highlights from Monday. Stewart thus missed an opportunity to skewer the speeches of former Trump detractors Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio. Each performed variations, albeit less deserving of our enduring awe, of JD Vance’s ability to forget he once called his new boss “America’s Hitler” and “cultural heroin.” (Vance’s opioid analogy must be the most remarkable observation I’ve ever read about Trump).
Stewart also interviewed his longtime interlocutor, frenemy and sparring partner Bill O’Reilly, and quipped about the two of them being “somewhat fossilized practitioners of the rhetorical arts.” In relation to their past popularity and influence on this generation of political rabble-rousers, Stewart observed, “We made a pretty spectacular living pushing those envelopes.”
This isn’t the first time Stewart has wondered aloud whether he is predator or prey (or peripheral) in the new social media ecosystem. In February he called himself “the captain of this dying medium.” He does seem to intuit that what worked artistically, and maybe even politically, in the Bush and Obama eras is perhaps outdated or irrelevant or actually not entirely helpful in this MAGA moment.
If Stewart is pondering that, then good on him. I guess the venue change, and the terror that prompted it, should compel him to pose hard questions about the intersection between art and politics. Questions like: What exactly are entertainers as influential as Jon Stewart supposed to be doing at a point in American history as troubling as this one?
I’m starting to believe that Stewart and his team actually don’t know how to answer this question. No disgrace in that. I don’t either. The current moment is as baffling as it is frightening. Although, when your theater is caged in and your audience can’t attend for their own safety because yet another young white male tried to murder people with a perfectly legal killing machine — then, well, maybe it’s a good time to reflect.
Tuesday night’s program indicated that the usually self-aware Stewart is still thinking this through, and has not yet made any discernible pivot. His jokes about odd noises made by Marjorie Taylor Green were funny enough. The analysis of how Lee Greenwood refused to cede the stage while introducing Trump was fairly hysterical. Trump himself gestured that the long-winded singer-songwriter should move this along (“Is it possible to bring out another band to play a band off?” Stewart quipped).
The Bill O’Reilly interview best encapsulated many of these contradictions that Stewart has to confront. These men, by my count, have interviewed each other some two dozen times over the years. They have excellent chemistry. They like each other. (Or, perhaps, they like to hate each other.) O’Reilly even recently attended Stewart’s show. The hard-charging conservative “newsman,” who was fired by Fox News in the wake of five sexual harassment suits (which he has denied), is sort of avuncular when conversing with Stewart.
O’Reilly made reasonable points about rage and today’s politics. “We are now in a society,” he opined “where hatred is rewarded.” Stewart jumped in: “It’s incentivized, it’s monetized!” Dialogue. Consensus. I like it!
I am going to say that Jon Stewart has to figure something out. When he’s choppin’ it up with Bill O’Reilly is he: a) fostering open and honest discussion across the ideological divide, thereby enriching our liberal democracy? Or, b) platforming a voice that is both cause and effect of the lethal danger that is threatening the existence of liberal democracy itself? Because it sure as hell can’t be both.
When O’Reilly started reading off unflattering statistics about Biden’s economy, Stewart did push back, literally. He prompted his guest to explain how Biden is solely responsible for high food prices, gas prices, mortgage rates, etc., given what he inherited from his predecessor. When O’Reilly responded he didn’t know, Stewart guffawed, comically pushed back his own chair, got up and walked away.
An interesting gesture, that was. No one is asking Stewart to walk away from his comedic throne. But I’d hope the events of the past few months might stimulate deeper reflection on what artists are supposed to do in dark times.
Jacques Berlinerblau is a professor of Jewish civilization at Georgetown University. He has authored numerous books about the subject of secularism, including the recent “Secularism: The Basics” (Routledge). He has also written about American higher education in “Campus Confidential: How College Works, and Doesn’t, For Professors, Parents and Students” (Melville House). With Professor Terrence Johnson, he is a co-author of “Blacks and Jews in America: An Invitation to Dialogue” (Georgetown). His current research concentrates on the nexus between literature and comedy on the one side and cultural conflicts on the other.
Forcing Biden Out Would Have Only One Beneficiary: Trump
By Charles M. Blow, Opinion Columnist– July 3, 2024
Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York Times
Joe Biden refuses to drop out of the presidential race even as some liberals, rattled by the incumbent’s frightening debate performance last week, keep pressuring him to do so.
Who’s surprised by that?
The inertia of a presidential campaign is one of the most powerful forces in politics. Ending one after a party’s nomination has been secured is almost unfathomable. The candidate is already strapped to the rocket.
Furthermore, all serious presidential contenders, particularly those who hold or have already held the office — this year, we have both — have a God complex. They must. And doubt doesn’t exist in the presence of God. There are throngs of advisers, boosters and confidants around Biden to keep that doubt at bay; to introduce it is blasphemy.
Biden can’t be forced out of the race; he would have to be persuaded to leave it. And that eventuality, while not impossible, lives next door to “Never!”
And Biden staying the course may be the best course.
The American University historian Allan Lichtman, a prescient predictor of presidential election results, told me on Sunday that pushing Biden out of the race would be a “tragic mistake for the Democrats,” because he believes that the president remains his party’s best chance at winning the election.
As for the alternatives, Lichtman adds, “It’s not as if there’s some, you know, J.F.K. out there just waiting to jump on the white horse and save the Democratic Party.”
I agree with him: There are no potential replacements that would stand a better chance of defeating Donald Trump than Biden.
Yes, a CNN-SSRS poll conducted in the days after the debate found that Vice President Kamala Harris performed slightly better than Biden against Trump, within the margin of error but still trailing. (But note that a brand-new Reuters-Ipsos poll found that only one-third of Democrats think Biden should exit.)
If Biden were replaced, yes, Harris would be Democrats’ safest option. But approval ratings and standings in one poll before she becomes the actual candidate could be a bit of a mirage.
During stretches of Hillary Clinton’s time in the Senate and her tenure as secretary of State she enjoyed solid approval ratings, but when she ran for president against Trump, her approval numbers gradually diminished.
There were lots of reasons for this, and one of them, I am convinced, is the patriarchal nature of our society. That would likely be revisited for Harris, only this time amplified by patriarchy’s twin evil: racism.
Harris is competent and capable, regardless of what her needling detractors suggest, but unfortunately, I do not believe that she is more electable than Biden in the current climate.
Yet if Biden did stand aside and Harris was passed over in favor of another candidate, there would very likely be strong protest from her legions of Democratic supporters, many of them Black women, a voting bloc that is essential to a Democratic victory.
On top of that, a free-for-all selection process would be sheer chaos. Factions would fiercely compete, egos would be bruised and convention delegates would select a candidate, effectively bypassing direct participation by Democratic voters.
This would all play out just a few months before Election Day, and opposition researchers would have a field day vetting the list of probable Democratic alternatives, several of whom are governors with only regional name recognition, increasing the possibility of a devastating October surprise.
To be clear: I’m not saying that Biden should continue to run because an eventual victory is assured. It isn’t. He was struggling before the debate kerfuffle and will continue to struggle if he survives it.
Trump’s support has gelled while Biden’s has frayed. Many Americans haven’t felt the benefits of what is a structurally sound Biden economy, and the young, activist portion of the Democratic base is angry about Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.
I, like many others, wish Biden hadn’t sought a second term. I wish that the Democratic nominee was a young visionary with verve.
But retrospective wishing is worthless.
Biden is the Democratic candidate. He’s the only person standing between us and Trump’s destructive, retributive impulses and the ever-increasing latitude that the Supreme Court has granted him.
The fact that an 81-year-old is increasingly showing signs of being an 81-year-old doesn’t panic me; what Trump has signaled he’ll do with another term does.
There’s another way that calls for Biden’s withdrawal could backfire on liberals. One of my favorite TV lines comes from Omar on “The Wire,” paraphrasing Emerson: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” A failed attempt to usurp a man in power risks his vengeance.
But I’ve been thinking of that line in another way as it relates to Biden. By building a case for Biden’s incapacity and his need for capitulation — without convincing him of the same — liberals risk further wounding their standard-bearer and increasing the probability of the thing they most desperately seek to avoid: Trump’s re-election.
And if Biden should decide to leave the race, as The Times reported on Wednesday that he is considering, his withdrawal would only add credence to the idea that some Democrats had, in effect, conspired to conceal a disqualifying impairment and only changed course when forced. The taint of this would linger over the party and any replacement candidate.
Instead of clearing the way for victory, liberals may well be paving the way for defeat.
Biden Campaign Lists Former Trump Officials Who’ve Turned Against Him And… Wow
The contempt with which former Trump officials hold the former president is laid bare in the lengthy thread.
By Lee Moran – March 22, 2024
President Joe Biden’s campaign on Thursday shared a thread on X (formerly Twitter) of damning comments that 17 former top officials in Donald Trump’s administration have made to condemn the former president and presumptive GOP nominee.
“The people who know Trump best won’t support him. Why should you?” the Biden campaign began the thread featuring videos of high-ranking White House officials ripping their former boss.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr called Trump “a consummate narcissist” who “constantly engages in reckless conduct” in one clip.
Dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin think Trump is “a laughing fool and they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him,” said former National Security Adviser John Bolton in other footage.
Former Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin called Trump “unfit” for office again, a claim echoed by former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham who said she was “terrified” of his 2024 campaign.
Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned Trump puts the American military in danger.
Trump’s own Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to endorse Trump is also highlighted.
And former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci’s condemnation of Trump as a “domestic terrorist” is mentioned too.
Criticism also came from former Defense Secretary John Mattis, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Mark Milley, former White House chiefs of staff Mick Mulvaney and John Kelly, former Secretaries of State Mike Pompeo and Rex Tillerson, former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
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World to reckon with future of fossil fuels at COP28 climate summit
Valerie Volcovici, Kate Abnett and Maha El Dahan – November 29, 2023
Climate activists denounce fossil fuel companies near the Eiffel Tower in Paris‘Cop28 UAE’ logo is displayed on the screen during the opening ceremony of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) under the theme of ‘United on Climate Action Toward COP28’, in Abu Dhabi
WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS/DUBAI (Reuters) -Delegates from nearly 200 countries will convene this week for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, where conference host and OPEC member the UAE hopes to sell the vision of a low-carbon future that includes, not shuns, fossil fuels.
That narrative, also backed by other big oil producer nations, will reveal international divisions at the summit over how to combat global warming.
Countries are split over whether to prioritise phasing out coal and oil and gas, or scaling up technologies such as carbon capture to try to diminish their climate impact.
The annual United Nations summit from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 takes place as the world is poised to shatter another record for the hottest year in 2023, and as reports confirm countries’ climate pledges are not enough to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
Among the decisions nations must make in the gleaming, high-tech city of Dubai will be whether to agree, for the first time, to gradually “phase out” global consumption of fossil fuels and replace them with sources including solar and wind.
The International Energy Agency, the West’s energy watchdog, issued a report ahead of the conference defining its position.
It called the idea of widespread carbon capture, to contain emissions from burning fossil fuels, an illusion and said the fossil fuel industry must decide between deepening the climate crisis or shifting to clean energy.
In response, OPEC accused the IEA of vilifying oil producers.
Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the biggest cause of climate change.
OIL MAN AT THE HELM
The arguments for and against continued use of fossil fuel have focused on COP’s incoming president Sultan al-Jaber.
His position as CEO of the UAE’s national oil company ADNOC has raised concerns among campaigners, some U.S. Congress members and EU lawmakers over whether he can be an impartial broker of a climate deal.
Jaber has vehemently denied a report from the BBC and the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) that he planned to discuss potential gas and other commercial deals with over a dozen governments ahead of the summit.
“These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, are not accurate. And it’s an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency,” Jaber told a news conference on Wednesday.
Jaber has said the phase-down of fossil fuels is “inevitable”, but also that the industry needs to be included in the debate of finding climate solutions and presented himself as ideally placed to mediate.
Climate campaigners are not reassured.
“We have a world which has more fossil fuels than ever,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, a climate NGO. “What we should be looking for is a commitment to actually reduce fossil fuels.”
Jaber says he has been rallying support from companies for COP28 pledges aimed at reducing emissions from oil and gas operations.
Many representatives of the industry will be present in Dubai as this year’s gathering of 70,000 registered attendees takes on the character of trade show.
Organisers say the record attendance will include the biggest business participation for any U.N. climate summit yet.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Britain’s King Charles are also set to attend, although U.S. President Joe Biden will not.
TAKING STOCK
Away from the high-profile visitors, a major task for the country delegations at COP28 will be to assess how far off track the world is from a goal set in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while aiming for a cap of 1.5C.
This process, known as the global stocktake, should yield a high-level plan telling countries what they need to do.
Governments will then have to turn that global plan into national policies and targets to submit to the U.N. in 2025.
Leading up to the conference, the European Union, U.S. and UAE have rallied support for a deal to triple global renewable energy installed by 2030. Over 100 countries have backed this deal, officials told Reuters, but countries including China and India have not.
U.S. officials and others are hopeful a climate deal agreed earlier this month between the world’s biggest emitters China and the U.S. may also set a positive tone for the talks.
The two countries agreed to boost renewable energy and “accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation”.
CLIMATE FINANCE
Another task for the conference is to launch the world’s first climate damage fund to help countries that have already suffered irreparable damage from climate change impacts, such as drought, floods and rising sea levels.
Representatives from developed and developing countries have struck a tentative agreement on its design, but all countries at COP28 need to approve it for it to lead to a final deal.
Gayane Gabrielyan, Armenia’s negotiator on the fund, told Reuters it is crucial the “loss and damage” fund agreement is approved now, ahead of elections next year in countries, such as the U.S. that could shatter the political consensus.
Another test is whether wealthy nations announce hundreds of millions of dollars needed to launch the fund at COP28. The European Union and the U.S. have already said they will contribute and are pressuring countries like China and the UAE to follow.
“Speaking from previous experience, unfortunately most of the global agreements, most of the global climate related pledges went uncompleted,” said Najib Ahmed, National Consultant at Somalia’s Climate Ministry.
“But again, we cannot lose hope.”
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Kate Abnett; Editing by Josie Kao and Barbara Lewis)
In the northeast corner of Indiana, soybean and corn fields stretch across the landscape, separating the schools of the East Noble School Corporation by as much as 20 miles. Last summer, when interim food service director Roger Urick geared up to offer summer meals to the district’s 3,400 students, pandemic-era waivers allowing him to offer to-go meals to families had expired, forcing him to go back to the old model.
Instead of being able to offer take-away meals at several locations in the area, Urick was required to serve meals at two designated locations where kids had to come in and eat their meals on site. (In the school nutrition world, this is known as a “congregate” setting.)
Participation dropped to half of what it had been the two summers prior. “We found it was difficult for parents and kids to come to our two buildings and eat on site,” says Urick.
Before the pandemic, an estimated 6 out of 7 kids who qualified for free or reduced lunch could not access food in the summer largely due to the mandate that it be eaten on site, a problem that’s particularly acute in rural regions.
“We have known for a very long time that structural, fundamental changes were needed in the summer meals program because of barriers like transportation to meal sites,” says Carolyn Vega, associate director of policy at Share Our Strength, the nonprofit whose No Kid Hungry campaign focuses on access to summer meals. “School buses aren’t running over the summer. A lot of summer meals would be (served) outside, but there can be extreme heat or rain.”
Early in the pandemic, though, congregate anything was forbidden and restrictions around summer feeding were stripped away. Families were allowed to pick up several days’ worth of meals in the summer or even have them delivered. As a result, the number of summer meals served nationwide in July 2020 was nearly triple the number served in July 2019, according to No Kid Hungry.
In December 2022, as part of the end-of-year $1.7 trillion budget bill, Congress approved $29 billion in meal programs for low-income kids, and permanently loosened the rules around congregate feeding during the summer—a win for child nutrition advocates. But it came with a cost, as Democrats agreed to end pandemic-era SNAP “emergency allotments” a few months early. (The end to those allotments has left millions of Americans with slashed benefits.)
“We would have liked to see those allotments continue,” says Clarissa Hayes, the deputy director of school and out-of-school time programs for the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). “We never like to see one program cut to prop up another program.”
The boost in school meal funding will pay for two major changes. Starting this summer, families in rural areas will once again be allowed to pick up meals or have them delivered, if districts and community groups are available to do so. This “non-congregate” option is expected to benefit up to 8 million children living in rural areas, according to a USDA spokesperson. And come next summer, families of children who qualify for free and reduced meals at school will receive a $40 monthly grocery stipend when school is out, creating permanent summer assistance.
These two changes will “work together to end summer hunger and fill that gap that many families face,” says Hayes.
Long Overdue Option
The history of summer food service dates to the late 1960s, when the federal government provided grants to states to offer meals over break. Decades later, summer feeding programs have greatly expanded and are entrenched in many low-income and rural communities.
School districts participate in the Seamless Summer Option (SSO), which provides reimbursement for all meals delivered to kids under the age of 18. All children eat free in communities where at least 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), meanwhile, offers reimbursement to summer enrichment programs (such as camps and religious organizations) that offer meals in low-income areas.
Over the last few months, after the USDA greenlit “non-congregate” meal services in rural areas, most states opted to participate, and school districts, along with community groups that provide summer meals, have been busy submitting plans to whichever state agency oversees SFSP or SSO.
Vega, at Share Our Strength, says offering more flexible feeding options in rural areas is long overdue. “There aren’t a lot of community locations that [rural] kids can regularly and easily get to during the summer, much less twice a day for breakfast and lunch,” she says. “This is the level of service our rural communities have needed all along.”
In Indiana’s Noble County, where about half of the student population is eligible for free and reduced lunch, Urick says he’s “excited” to once again offer a service that should help ensure that more kids get access to meals after last year’s low participation rates.
The summer, families are able to pick up meals at seven different sites in the area, including a public library and two public housing apartment complexes. When Urick announced the change to the community, he says he was “overwhelmed” by grateful emails and calls. Though many school kitchens face staffing shortages, Urick has had no problem finding workers eager to earn some summer money preparing and delivering meals. But not all rural districts are that fortunate.
Becky Woodman, cafeteria operations manager at the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District in Northern California, says she’s not participating in a grab-and-go or delivery option for summer feeding largely due to staffing. “We’re just not in a position to do that,” she says. “All of our cafeteria staff are 10-month employees.”
During the height of the pandemic, Woodman says, meal delivery to families was a huge challenge. The furthest delivery site was an 80-minute drive down a one-lane road. During the school year, she was able to lean on bus drivers and other district employees to help. “It took a lot of people working really hard and being creative and making things work,” she recalls. Over the summers of 2020 and 2021, though, that meal delivery service paused.
This summer, she has hired two people to serve breakfast, lunch, snacks, and supper at an elementary school located on the Hoopa Valley Reservation, where the majority of the district’s roughly 1,000 students live. The meals are included in a month-long summer school that typically only attracts about 70 students. She expects “100 percent” of those students will take advantage of the meals. And in a district in which nearly 68 percent of kids qualify for free and reduced lunch, she says many in the community will likely turn to nonprofits and other outreach programs during the summer for help with groceries and meals.
As we age, our memory declines. This is an ingrained assumption for many of us; however, according to neuroscientist Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist and clinical professor at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health, decline is not inevitable.
The author of more than 20 books on the mind, Dr. Restak has decades’ worth of experience in guiding patients with memory problems. “The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind,” Dr. Restak’s latest book, includes tools such as mental exercises, sleep habits and diet that can help boost memory.
Yet Dr. Restak ventures beyond this familiar territory, considering every facet of memory — how memory is connected to creative thinking, technology’s impact on memory, how memory shapes identity. “The point of the book is to overcome the everyday problems of memory,” Dr. Restak said.
Especially working memory, which falls between immediate recall and long-term memory, and is tied to intelligence, concentration and achievement. According to Dr. Restak, this is the most critical type of memory, and exercises to strengthen it should be practiced daily. But bolstering all memory skills, he added, is key to warding off later memory issues.
Memory decline is not inevitable with aging, Dr. Restak argues in the book. Instead, he points to 10 “sins,” or “stumbling blocks that can lead to lost or distorted memories.” Seven were first described by the psychologist and memory specialist Daniel Lawrence Schacter — “sins of omission,” such as absent-mindedness, and “sins of commission,” such as distorted memories. To those Dr. Restak added three of his own: technological distortion, technological distraction and depression.
Ultimately, “we are what we can remember,” he said. Here are some of Dr. Restak’s tips for developing and maintaining a healthy memory.
Pay more attention.
Some memory lapses are actually attention problems, not memory problems. For instance, if you’ve forgotten the name of someone you met at a cocktail party, it could be because you were talking with several people at the time and you didn’t properly pay attention when you heard it.
“Inattention is the biggest cause for memory difficulties, ” Dr. Restak said. “It means you didn’t properly encode the memory.”
One way to pay attention when you learn new information, like a name, is to visualize the word. Having a picture associated with the word, Restak said, can improve recall. For instance, he recently had to memorize the name of a doctor, Dr. King, (an easy example, he acknowledged). So he pictured a male doctor “in a white coat with a crown on his head and a scepter instead of a stethoscope in his hand.”
Find regular everyday memory challenges.
There are many memory exercises that you can integrate into everyday life. Dr. Restak suggested composing a grocery list and memorizing it. When you get to the store, don’t automatically pull out your list (or your phone) — instead, pick up everything according to your memory.
“Try to see the items in your mind,” he said, and only consult the list at the end, if necessary. If you’re not going to the store, try memorizing a recipe. He added that frequent cooking is actually a great way to improve working memory.
Once in a while, get in the car without turning on your GPS, and try to navigate through the streets from memory. A small 2020 study suggested that people who used GPS more frequently over time showed a steeper cognitive decline in spatial memory three years later.
Play games.
Games like bridge and chess are great for memory, but so is a simpler game, said Dr. Restak. For instance, Dr. Restak’s “favorite working memory game” is 20 Questions — in which a group (or a single person) thinks of a person, place or object, and the other person, the questioner, asks 20 questions with a yes-or-no answer. Because to succeed, he said, the questioner must hold all of the previous answers in memory in order to guess the correct answer.
Another of Restak’s tried-and-true memory exercises simply requires a pen and paper or audio recorder. First, recall all of the U.S. presidents, starting with President Biden and going back to, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt, writing or recording them. Then, do the same, from F.D.R. to Biden. Next, name only the Democratic presidents, and only the Republican ones. Last, name them in alphabetical order.
If you prefer, try it with players on your favorite sports team or your favorite authors. The point is to engage your working memory, “maintaining information and moving it around in your mind,” Restak wrote.
Read more novels.
One early indicator of memory issues, according to Dr. Restak, is giving up on fiction. “People, when they begin to have memory difficulties, tend to switch to reading nonfiction,” he said.
Over his decades of treating patients, Dr. Restak has noticed that fiction requires active engagement with the text, starting at the beginning and working through to the end. “You have to remember what the character did on Page 3 by the time you get to Page 11,” he said.
Beware of technology.
Among Dr. Restak’s three new sins of memory, two are associated with technology.
First is what he calls “technological distortion.” Storing everything on your phone means that “you don’t know it,” Dr. Restak said, which can erode our own mental abilities. “Why bother to focus, concentrate and apply effort to visualize something when a cellphone camera can do all the work for you?” he wrote.
The second way our relationship with technology is detrimental for memory is because it often takes our focus away from the task at hand. “In our day, the greatest impediment of memory is distraction,” Dr. Restak wrote. As many of these tools have been designed with the aim of addicting the person using them, and, as a result, we are often distracted by them. People today can check their email while streaming Netflix, talking with a friend or walking down the street. All of this impedes our ability to focus on the present moment, which is critical for encoding memories.
Work with a mental health professional if you need to.
Your mood plays a big role in what you do or do not remember.
Depression, for instance, can greatly decrease memory. Among “people who are referred to neurologists for memory issues, one of the biggest causes is depression,” Dr. Restak said.
Your emotional state affects the kind of memories you recall. The hippocampus (or “memory entry center,” according to Dr. Restak) and the amygdala (the part of the brain that manages emotions and emotional behavior) are linked — so “when you’re in a bad mood, or depressed, you tend to remember sad things,” Dr. Restak said. Treating depression — either chemically or via psychotherapy — also often restores memory.
Determine whether there is cause for concern.
Throughout his career, Dr. Restak has been asked by dozens of patients how they can improve their memory. But not all memory lapses are problematic. For instance, not remembering where you parked your car in a crowded lot is pretty normal. Forgetting how you arrived at the parking lot in the first place, however, indicates potential memory issues.
There is no simple solution to knowing what should be of concern, Dr. Restak said — much of it is context-dependent. For instance, it’s normal to forget the room number of your hotel, but not the address of your apartment. If you’re concerned, it’s best to consult with a medical expert.
Hope Reese is a journalist who writes for Vox, Shondaland, The Atlantic and other publications.
The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act
Nina Totenberg, Heard on All Things Considered – May 25, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on May 16.Alex Brandon/AP
The U.S. Supreme Court Court on Thursday significantly curtailed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation’s wetlands and waterways. It was the court’s second decision in a year limiting the ability of the agency to enact anti-pollution regulations and combat climate change.
The challenge to the regulations was brought by Michael and Chantell Sackett, who bought property to build their dream house about 500 feet away from Idaho’s Scenic Priest Lake, a 19-mile stretch of clear water that is fed by mountain streams and bordered by state and national parkland. Three days after the Sacketts started excavating their property, the EPA stopped work on the project because the couple had failed to get a permit for disturbing the wetlands on their land.
Now a conservative Supreme Court majority has used the Sacketts’ case to roll back longstanding rules adopted to carry out the 51-year-old Clean Water Act.
While the nine justices agreed that the Sacketts should prevail, they divided 5-to-4 as to how far to go in limiting the EPA’s authority.Sponsor Message
Narrowing the scope of the law
Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the navigable waters of the United States regulated by the EPA under the statute do not include many previously regulated wetlands. Rather, he said, the CWA extends to only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and those wetlands with a “continuous surface connection to those bodies.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by the court’s three liberal members, disputed Alito’s reading of the statute, noting that since 1977 when the CWA was amended to include adjacent wetlands, eight consecutive presidential administrations, Republican and Democratic, have interpreted the law to cover wetlands that the court has now excluded. Kavanaugh said that by narrowing the act to cover only adjoining wetlands, the court’s new test will have quote “significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”
In addition to joining Kavanaugh’s opinion, the court’s liberals signed on to a separate opinion by Justice Elena Kagan. Pointing to the air and water pollution cases, she accused the majority of appointing itself instead of Congress as the national policymaker on the environment.
Reaction to the opinion
President Biden, in a statement, called the decision “disappointing.”
It “upends the legal framework that has protected America’s waters for decades,” he said. “It also defies the science that confirms the critical role of wetlands in safeguarding our nation’s streams, rivers, and lakes from chemicals and pollutants that harm the health and wellbeing of children, families, and communities.”Sponsor Message
Two former EPA chiefs saw Thursday’s decision as a major setback for the nation’s environment, and its future in combating the effects of climate change. William K. Reilly, who served as EPA administrator in the George H.W. Bush administration, said that while he understands the economic objections of farmers and builders to many wetland regulations, the Supreme Court’s decision is “too broad” and will only limit further the already disappearing wetlands that protect many parts of the country from flooding and drought.
Carol Browner, who served as EPA administrator in the Obama administration, echoed those sentiments, calling the decision “a major blow to the landmark Clean Water Act and the federal government’s ability to protect our people from pollution and its negative health side effects.”
The decision also dismayed environmental groups.
“I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say it’s catastrophic for the Clean Water act,” said Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation. Wetlands play an “enormous role in protecting the nation’s water,” he said. “They’re really the kidneys of water systems and they’re also the sponges. They absorb a lot of water on the landscape. So they’re very important water features and they’re very important to the quality of the water that we drink, swim, fish, boat and recreate in.”
As in last year’s case limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate air pollution from power plants, the decision was a major victory for the groups that supported the Sacketts — mining, oil, utilities and, in today’s case, agricultural and real estate interests as well.
