The Full Belmonte, 1/12/2023
Passengers facing widespread delays and cancellations in the U.S. made their way through check-in lines at Miami International Airport on Wednesday.
PHOTO: ALEXIA FODERE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The White House ordered the FAA to investigate today’s flight-alert system outage that upended air travel nationwide for hours.
“The Senate's transportation committee also plans to look into the Notices to Air Missions glitch, which prevented flight crews from seeing vital safety information. The Notam system had problems last night, and the FAA took steps to reboot it overnight, according to airline and government officials. Around 7:20 a.m. ET, the agency paused domestic departures; they resumed at 9:07 a.m. Over 7,800 U.S. flights were delayed and over 1,200 canceled as of midday, according to flight-data specialist FlightAware, unleashing a day of chaos at U.S. airports. Biden administration officials and cybersecurity experts said that the Notam system outage didn’t appear to be the result of a cyberattack.” [Wall Street Journal]
New push for air upgrades
A traveler at DCA yesterday. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
“Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and airlines have been pointing fingers at each other for months about who's to blame for travel headaches dating back to last summer.
Responsibility for yesterday's computer snafu — 1,300 U.S. flights were canceled and 10,000+ were delayed — falls squarely on the FAA, Axios transportation correspondent Joann Muller writes.
That's a turnabout for Buttigieg, who oversees the FAA and has been pushing to hold the aviation industry accountable for repeated disruptions — including Southwest's holiday meltdown.
Buttigieg rejected the idea of the FAA reimbursing travelers for delays caused by its system failure.
‘Today just encapsulates how archaic our aviation infrastructure system is,’ Brian Kelly, founder of travel website The Points Guy, told Axios.
‘While the airlines ... need to invest in their technology, so does the government. And as taxpayers, we have to hold the government accountable.’
The U.S. Travel Association labeled the disruption a ‘catastrophic’ failure, and said federal lawmakers need to modernize air travel infrastructure.
That's what some airline executives — notably United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby — have been saying for months.
‘The FAA needs more funding for appropriate staffing … [and] we in aviation have to commit to helping them get that,’ Kirby told business leaders at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce aviation summit this fall.
‘We need to modernize air traffic control. They're doing it with old technology, and they're doing it without enough staffing. And we have to fix that, or nothing else is going to matter.’
What's happening: Managing the skies is getting harder for a bunch of reasons.
More people are flying as normality returns, so airlines are adding flights and packing planes.
But airlines have staffing shortages.
The FAA, which has a stellar safety record, is stretched to the limit as it tries to manage 45,000 flights per day — including commercial airlines, cargo carriers and private planes.
The national airspace is getting more crowded and complex with the addition of hundreds of thousands of drones, plus the occasional rocket launch and, soon, air taxis.
With climate change yielding more extreme weather, hazardous conditions are becoming more of a factor in air travel.
What's next: The FAA's five-year funding and authority are up for renewal by Congress later this year. These issues will be under a microscope.” [Axios]
Discovery of More Classified Records Raises Questions Over Biden’s Handling of Documents
The revelation is sure to intensify Republican attacks on the president, who has called former President Donald J. Trump irresponsible for hoarding sensitive documents at his estate in Florida.
By Glenn Thrush
Jan. 11, 2023
“WASHINGTON — President Biden’s aides have found a new batch of classified documents at a second location associated with Mr. Biden, a person familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. It was the second such disclosure in three days, and it was sure to intensify Republican attacks.
Republicans reveled in the new disclosures, accusing Mr. Biden of hypocrisy in calling former President Donald J. Trump irresponsible for hoarding sensitive documents at his private club and residence in Florida. This week, the new Republican chairman of the House oversight committee issued a far-ranging request to the National Archives and Records Administration, which is supposed to receive all highly sensitive materials after an administration leaves office, for documents and correspondence.
It is not clear where or when the records were recovered. But Mr. Biden’s aides have scoured various places since November, when his lawyers discovered a handful of classified files, including briefing materials on foreign countries, as they closed a think tank office in Washington. The Justice Department is reviewing the discovery to determine how to proceed.
A White House spokesman and a member of Mr. Biden’s legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment….” Read more at New York Times
Covid-19
“The Biden administration on Wednesday again renewed the Covid-19 public health emergency, a provision that gives the administration the authority to respond to the pandemic as cases are again on the rise. The public health emergency gives the federal government wide-ranging authority over a number of Covid-19-related areas, including data tracking and allowing pharmacists, rather than physicians, to administer the Covid-19 vaccine. The renewal comes amid the emergence of the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant and a spike in new cases. The latest numbers show that the seven-day average of weekly new Covid-19 cases is up 16.2% compared with the previous week, according to the CDC.” [CNN]
Gas stoves
“The White House on Wednesday asserted that President Biden does not support a ban on gas stoves after a federal consumer safety official suggested that such a proposal was on the table. The federal government isn't going to take away your gas stove, a top consumer regulator told CNN on Wednesday. Richard Trumka Jr, a Consumer Product Safety commissioner, set off a firestorm this week by suggesting the agency could ban gas stoves because they have been linked to childhood asthma. Trumka said ‘everything's on the table’ when it comes to gas stoves, but stressed that any ban would apply only to new gas stoves, not existing ones. President Biden weighed in on the matter, with a spokesperson telling CNN: ‘The President does not support banning gas stoves -- and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.’” [CNN]
Big Tech
“Congress is under pressure to take major steps to rein in big tech companies. President Biden has called on lawmakers to set aside partisan differences and pass groundbreaking legislation focused on improving digital privacy and increasing tech industry oversight. He urged the need to ‘limit targeted advertising and ban it altogether for children’ and reiterated his desire to expose tech platforms to more lawsuits over content moderation. Meanwhile, social media platform TikTok has faced growing pressure in recent months from state and federal lawmakers over concerns about its ties to China. Some lawmakers and researchers are also scrutinizing the short-form video app, saying it could add to the mental health crisis among teens.” [CNN]
House Lawmakers Discuss Discharge Petition to Force Debt-Ceiling Vote
Democrats and some centrist Republicans hold early talks ahead of showdown later this year
“WASHINGTON—Democrats and some centrist Republicans are in early, informal conversations about dusting off a rarely used parliamentary procedure that could force a vote to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, ahead of a showdown in coming months over government spending.
The process, known as a discharge petition, requires 218 signatures, regardless of party—a majority of the House—to dislodge a bill from committee and move it to the floor.
The tactic is seen as a way to potentially circumvent efforts by House GOP leadership and the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus to block a debt-ceiling increase.
But past efforts show that petitions are politically fraught, time-consuming, and rarely work, making them ill-suited to last-minute deal making. On big, must-pass bills, such as funding the federal government or raising the debt ceiling, negotiations often come right to the deadline before an agreement is reached. No discharge petition has been successful since 2015.
Congress must periodically raise the debt ceiling to allow the Treasury Department to issue more debt to pay for existing obligations. At stake is the U.S. government’s creditworthiness, which undergirds much of the American and global financial system. A default on the U.S. debt could trigger financial panic, tip the economy into a recession and raise government borrowing costs for years.
Already a fierce fight is brewing in the newly divided Congress. House Republicans who agreed to drop their opposition to Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid last week said the framework they negotiated with him requires specific spending constraints as part of any deal to lift the debt ceiling, although they provided no details.
Mr. McCarthy reiterated Tuesday he wants to use the debt ceiling as leverage to cut spending. ‘This is our moment to change the behavior to make sure, that hardworking taxpayer, that we’re not wasting their money,’ he said on Fox News.
Democrats, on the other hand, have opposed coupling debt-ceiling increases with spending cuts or other policy demands. President Biden has said he ‘will not yield’ to GOP demands that he reduce spending on federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, as some Republicans have proposed….” Read more at Wall Street Journal
George Santos was paid for work at company accused of Ponzi scheme later than previously known
The New York congressman is said to have received payments from Florida-based Harbor City Capital as recently as April 2021, income he did not disclose as a candidate
“Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has admitted to fabricating key details of his biography, received payments as recently as April 2021 from a financial services company accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of a ‘classic Ponzi scheme,’ according to a court-appointed lawyer reviewing the firm’s assets.
Santos did not divulge any income from the company, Florida-based Harbor City Capital, on a financial disclosure form required of all federal candidates. The payments the lawyer described to The Washington Post, which have not been previously reported, indicate that Santos received money at least a month after he has said he left the firm — and mere weeks before registering a business called the Devolder Organization that he has claimed as the basis for his wealth. The lawyer, Katherine C. Donlon, declined to tell The Post the amount Santos was paid.
Santos, whose election to Congress from Long Island last year helped the GOP secure its narrow majority, has apologized for what he called ‘résumé embellishment,’ but he has refused to step aside. On Wednesday, he rebuffed calls to resign from fellow New York Republicans, including leaders of the state GOP and the party in Nassau County, which had previously endorsed him.
The congressman’s deceptions have already sparked an investigation by the district attorney’s office in Nassau County, as well as complaintsbefore the Federal Election Commission. Authorities in Brazil are also seeking to revive a fraud case against Santos dating to 2008.
During his first run for Congress in 2020, Santos reported earning a salary of $55,000 from a previous employer in the financial industry. His fortunes then improved dramatically, according to the financial disclosure he filed during his 2022 campaign: He earned an annual salary of $750,000 and received more than $1 million in dividends from the Devolder Organization. He also lent his campaign more than $700,000, according to campaign finance records.
A key unanswered question is how Devolder made its money. The congressman has given various explanations about the firm — including saying it is an operation focused on ‘asset allocations’ and an effort to help ‘all the people who were left adrift’ at Harbor City….” Read more at Washington Post
In Washington, ‘classified’ is synonymous with ‘controversy’
By CHRIS MEGERIAN
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams were undermined by her use of a private email server that included classified information.
Donald Trump has risked criminal charges by refusing to return top-secret records to the government after leaving the White House.
And now misplaced files with classified markings could cause a political headache for President Joe Biden.
The three situations are far from equivalent. But taken together, they represent a remarkable stretch in which document management has been a recurring source of controversy at the highest levels of American politics.
For some, it’s a warning about clumsiness or hubris when it comes to handling official secrets. For others, it’s a reminder that the federal government has built an unwieldy — and perhaps unmanageable — system for storing and protecting classified information.
‘Mistakes happen, and it’s so easy to grab a stack of documents from your desk as you’re leaving your office, and you don’t realize there’s a classified document among those files,’ said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who works on national security issues. ‘You just didn’t hear about it, for whatever reason.’
Now Americans are hearing about it all the time. Political talk shows have been clogged with conversations about which papers were stashed in which box in which closet. Voters are getting schooled in intelligence jargon like TS/SCI, HUMINT and damage assessments.
Clinton’s email server was a dominant storyline of her presidential campaign, and the criminal investigation into Trump has clouded his hopes of returning to the White House. Republicans who recently took control of the House are now poised to examine Biden’s own document practices as well, especially after a second batch of classified material was found.
‘The American people are very well aware of issues involving classified documents in part because we’ve been talking about them for almost eight years,’ said Alex Conant, a Republican political consultant.
That’s when a House Republican committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, discovered that Clinton had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state. The revelation led to a federal investigation that didn’t result in any charges, but 110 emails out of 30,000 that were turned over to the government were determined to have had classified information.
Trump, who pummeled Clinton over her handling of the emails, won the election and swiftly demonstrated carelessness with secrets. He memorably discussed sensitive intelligence with the Russian ambassador to the United States, leading to concerns that he may have jeopardized a source who helped foil terrorist plots.
After disputing the results of his election defeat, Trump left office in haphazard fashion, and he brought boxes of government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Some of them were turned over to the National Archives, which is responsible for presidential records, but he refused to provide others.
Eventually the Justice Department, fearing that national security secrets were at risk, obtained a search warrant and found more top secret documents at the resort.
A special counsel was appointed to determine whether any criminal charges should be filed in the case or a separate investigation into Trump’s attempts to cling to power on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Larry Pfeiffer, a former intelligence official, said the situation with Trump’s documents is far different than ones he encountered while working in government.
During the time that Pfeiffer was CIA chief of staff, classified files turned up in the wrong place in presidential libraries a handful of times, he said.
‘It just happens,’ said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University. ‘Mistakes get made, and stuff gets found.’
He said that seems more likely to be the case regarding the documents with classified markings that were found at an office used by Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after his term as vice president ended.
Biden’s personal lawyers discovered the documents and contacted the White House counsel’s office, and the National Archives picked up the records the next day.
The situation appears like ‘an average, run-of-the-mill mistake’ that’s ‘being handled in a by-the-book, textbook fashion,’ Pfeiffer said.
However, he said it would be wise for the government to review its practices for managing documents during transitions between administrations. It’s been six years since Biden left the vice president’s office, meaning classified records have been in the wrong place for a long time.
‘That’s not a good thing, no matter how anyone is playing it,’ he said.
In addition to the files that were found at the Penn Biden Center, more classified material was identified in another location, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday. It was unclear when or where the documents were found. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity.
Attorney General Merrick Garland asked a U.S. attorney to review the matter after the initial discovery, and House Republicans have said they will investigate as well.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday saying that his panel will be investigating Biden’s ‘failure to return vice-presidential records — including highly classified documents.’
‘The Committee is concerned that President Biden has compromised sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents,’ Comer wrote.
Biden said this week he was surprised to learn about the documents, which were discovered in November but whose existence only became public this week. He said he didn’t know what kind of information they contained, and he said his team ‘did what they should have done’ when they were found.
Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman who worked for Biden’s National Security Council last year, said it’s unlikely that such an episode would have made the news if it wasn’t for the concurrent Trump investigation.
‘The Penn Biden Center would have turned this stuff in, it would have gone to the Archives, and that would have been the end of it,’ he said.
Miller said the situation is a reminder that ‘the government classifies way too many documents.’
‘There’s not a good process for declassifying them,’ he said. ‘And when you create this structure, you’ve unnecessarily widened the universe of classified documents that could unintentionally be mishandled.’
It’s not a new problem, and it’s a concern that’s even shared by Biden’s top intelligence adviser, Avril Haines. In a letter to senators last year, Haines said there are ‘deficiencies in the current classification system,’ calling it ‘a fundamentally important issue that we must address.’
However, Miller said, ‘no one has figured out a good answer to this problem.’” [AP News]
Barbara Lee to Become Second Congresswoman to Enter California Senate Race
Sen. Dianne Feinstein hasn’t announced whether she plans to seek re-election
Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents Oakland and surrounding areas, told members of the Congressional Black Caucus she is making plans to run for Senate.PHOTO: TING SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Eliza Collins and Siobhan Hughes
“The California Senate race is shaping up to be a showdown between Democratic House members, even before the state’s sitting Sen. Dianne Feinstein has announced if she plans to run again in 2024.
On Wednesday, Rep. Barbara Lee, 76 years old, who represents Oakland and surrounding areas, told members of the Congressional Black Caucus she is making plans to run for Senate, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Ms. Lee would join Rep. Katie Porter (D., Calif.), a favorite of progressives who represents an Orange County district south of Los Angeles and announced she was running Tuesday. Several other Democratic House members have also signaled they are interested in joining the race, including Reps. Adam Schiff, who represents Los Angeles area cities including Burbank, and Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, hasn’t said if she will run again when her seat is up in 2024.PHOTO: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
On Wednesday, Ms. Lee told reporters that she has spoken to Ms. Feinstein about her interest in running for the seat, but said she wasn’t making an announcement yet.
‘I have no timetable to talk about the Senate until the time is right,’ she said. ‘My focus right now was making sure that I respect and honor Senator Feinstein and her decisions, and that I continue to focus on helping people in California.’
Politico earlier reported on her comments to the Congressional Black Caucus.
Ms. Lee is the highest ranking Black woman in Democratic leadership as a co-chairwoman of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. She is a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She was first elected to Congress in 1998. She is a hero in antiwar circles as the only lawmaker of either party to vote against an authorization for use of military force in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Ms. Feinstein, 89, hasn’t said if she will run again when her seat is up in 2024. Many fellow Democrats have privately said it may be time for her to step aside because of concerns about her age….” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Hunter Biden’s Tangled Tale Comes Front and Center
Federal prosecutors could decide soon whether to indict the president’s son on tax and gun charges, and he faces a fresh round of hostile congressional hearings. But a close look at his story shows that it differs in important ways from the narrative promoted by Republicans.
The way Republicans tell it, President Biden has been complicit in a long-running scheme to profit from his position in public life through shady dealings around the world engineered by his son, Hunter Biden.
Taking a first step in their long-promised investigation, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday demanded information about the Bidens’ banking transactionsfrom the Treasury Department. And in an earlier report on the Bidens intended to lay the groundwork for hearings they plan to hold, they said they had evidence ‘demonstrating deliberate, repeated deception of the American people, abuse of the executive branch for personal gain, use of government power to obstruct the investigation’ and more.
The real Hunter Biden story is complex and very different in important ways from the narrative promoted by Republicans — but troubling in its own way.
After his father became vice president, Hunter Biden, a 52-year-old Yale-educated lawyer, forged business relationships with foreign interests that brought him millions of dollars, raised questions about whether he was cashing in on his family name, set off alarms among government officials about potential conflicts of interest, and provided Republicans an opening for years of attacks on his father.
And after the death of his brother, Beau, in 2015, Hunter descended into a spiral of addiction and tawdry and self-destructive behavior.
He is sober now and no longer entangled in foreign business deals. He is a visible presence in his father’s life — his oldest daughter was married at the White House in November, and he attended a state dinner last month.
But his travails remain front and center in Washington in ways both legal and political.
David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, is closing in on a decision about whether to prosecute Hunter Biden on charges stemming from his behavior during his most troubled years.
Investigators have pored over documents related to and questioned witnesses about his overseas business dealings. They include his role on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company led by an oligarch who at the time was under investigation for corruption — a position that Hunter accepted while his father, as vice president, was overseeing Obama administration policy in Ukraine.
They also include his equity stake in a Chinese business venture, and his failed joint venture with a Chinese tycoon who had courted well-connected Americans in both parties — at one point he gave Hunter Biden a large diamond as a gift — but was later detained by Chinese authorities.
Investigators have similarly sought information about interactions between Hunter Biden’s business associates and his father.
But Mr. Weiss, people familiar with the investigation say, appears to be focused on a less politically explosive set of possible charges stemming from his failure to meet filing deadlines for his 2016 and 2017 tax returns, and questions about whether he falsely claimed at least $30,000 in deductions for business expenses.
Mr. Weiss is also said to be considering charging Hunter Biden, who has openly acknowledged his years of struggle with drugs and alcohol, with lying on a U.S. government form that he filled out to purchase a handgun in 2018. On the form, he answered that he was not using drugs — an assertion that prosecutors might be able to challenge based on his erratic behavior and possible witness accounts of his drug use around that period.
A veteran federal prosecutor, Mr. Weiss was nominated in 2017 as U.S. attorney by President Donald J. Trump. He was kept on by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland after President Biden took office to avoid any suggestion of political meddling in the investigation. Mr. Weiss has been given the authority by the Justice Department over whether to bring charges and could make a decision at any time.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers have argued to prosecutors that the potential charges are considered so narrow by the department that even if prosecutors believe they can prove them, they are almost always dealt with through civil actions without bringing criminal charges.
Regardless of what the department decides, Republicans who now control the House intend to intensify their scrutiny of Hunter Biden in a bid to inflict damage on his father as he prepares for his likely 2024 re-election bid…..” Read more at New York Times
House Passes Bill That Could Subject Some Abortion Doctors to Prosecution
As part of an anti-abortion rights effort, Republicans pushed through a bill laying out criminal penalties for doctors who fail to resuscitate babies born after an attempted abortion.
By Annie Karni
Jan. 11, 2023
“WASHINGTON — Republicans used their new power in the House on Wednesday to push through legislation that could subject doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties, underscoring their opposition to abortion rights even as they stopped short of trying to ban the procedure.
The measure, the second policy bill Republicans have brought to the floor since taking control, has no chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Its consideration was an early effort by the G.O.P. to appeal to its conservative base, which has made opposition to abortion rights a litmus test, without alienating a broader group of more moderate voters that recoiled last year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, helping Democrats hold off an expected red wave.
The House approved the bill on Wednesday almost entirely along party lines, on a vote of 220 to 210. One Democrat, Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, joined Republicans in favor and another, Representative Vicente Gonzalez, also of Texas, voted ‘present.’ The bill would require that infants born alive after an attempted abortion receive the same protection under the law and degree of care as any newborn, and threaten medical providers with up to five years in prison for failing to resuscitate babies born alive during abortions.
Live births during an abortion procedure are exceedingly rare, experts said, and federal law already requires that a baby who survives an attempted abortion receive emergency medical care. The new bill would clarify the standard of care to which doctors are held and lay out penalties for violators. Policy organizations supporting abortion rights said the measure was an effort to discourage women from seeking abortions and doctors from performing them….” Read more at New York Times
White House: Jill Biden has two cancerous lesions removed
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Surgeons removed a cancerous lesion above first lady Jill Biden ’s right eye and one on her chest, the White House said Wednesday, while a third lesion on her left eyelid was being examined.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the physician to President Joe Biden, said examinations showed that the lesion over Jill Biden’s right eye and one newly discovered on her chest were both confirmed to be basal cell carcinoma. The lesion on her left eyelid was ‘fully excised, with margins, and was sent for standard microscopic examination,’ according to O’Connor’s report.
Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer, but also the most curable form. It’s considered highly treatable, especially when caught early. It is a slow-growing cancer that usually is confined to the surface of skin — doctors almost always can remove it all with a shallow incision — and seldom causes serious complications or becomes life-threatening….” Read more at AP News
In Israel, a Hard-Right Agenda Gains Steam
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is pushing to upend the judiciary, entrench Israeli control of the West Bank and strengthen ultraconservative Jews, fueling protests and deepening Israel’s divisions.
Reporting from Jerusalem
Jan. 11, 2023
“Less than two weeks into its tenure, the new government in Israel has moved quickly on a wave of far-right agenda items that would weaken the judiciary, entrench Israeli control of the West Bank and bifurcate the military chain of command to give some far-right ministers greater control of matters related to the occupation.
On Wednesday night, the government moved forward with the centerpiece of its program — releasing for the first time a detailed plan for a sweeping judicial overhaul that includes reducing the Supreme Court’s influence over Parliament and strengthening the government’s role in the appointment of judges.
Coalition leaders have also taken a more combative stance toward the Palestinians than their immediate predecessors. Funding to the Palestinian Authority has been cut, and the new minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has angered Palestinians and many Arab countries by touring a sensitive religious site and ordering the police to take down Palestinian flags.
The program launched by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a combination of policy announcements, agreements within the coalition and draft legislation, has quickly exacerbated splits in Israeli society. Critics of the prime minister and his allies fear that the agenda threatens Israel’s democratic institutions, its already fraught relationship with the Jewish diaspora and its efforts to form new ties with Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia — and that it effectively sounds the death rattle for long-ailing hopes for a Palestinian state.
Currently on trial for corruption, Mr. Netanyahu has presented his plans as the legitimate program of an elected government. He has also portrayed the push for judicial changes as a valid attempt to limit the interference of an unelected judiciary over an elected Parliament.
‘We received a clear and strong mandate from the public to carry out what we promised during the elections and this is what we will do,’ Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech this week. ‘This is the implementation of the will of the voters and this is the essence of democracy.’
But his critics present it as a constitutional coup. ‘This is not a reform, this is an extreme regime change,’ said Yair Lapid, the previous prime minister, in a speech on Monday. ‘This does not fix democracy, this destroys democracy,’ he added.
Returning to power for the third time, Mr. Netanyahu now heads a government that is Israel’s most right-wing and religiously conservative administration ever, bringing together far-right parties supported by settlers and ultra-Orthodox parties that have vowed to reshape Israeli society….” Read more at New York Times
Russia Replaces Commander for Ukraine War, as Signs of Dissension Grow
Allies of President Vladimir V. Putin contradicted each other about battlefield progress, as a war command shake-up put another Kremlin loyalist in charge.
Jan. 11, 2023
“Russia has replaced the general in charge of its trouble-plagued war against Ukraine, amid signs of dissension among President Vladimir V. Putin’s top allies — a shake-up that critics said would not address what ails the Russian military.
Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, whose appointment the Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday, is a longtime Kremlin ally, chief of the military general staff since 2012, and an executor of the failed plan for the initial invasion in February. It was the second time in just three months that the ministry replaced the chief of the war effort….” Read more at New York Times
“UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is caught under a wave of strike action that’s brought the country to a halt at times, and while negotiations with trade unions are continuing today, there’s little prospect of a deal soon.
Rail staff, postal workers and border employees are among those who’ve walked out in recent weeks, but the most damaging stoppages are in the National Health Service, where nurses have taken action for the first time in their history.
The NHS is already under pressure from the Covid-19 fallout, as well as immense structural problems ranging from under-funding in critical areas to a shortage of staff made worse by the UK’s departure from the European Union. The striking workers want better pay, but also policies to solve these issues.
It’s becoming Sunak’s No. 1 problem in 2023, perhaps more so than curbing inflation. Polling suggests that much of the public has sided with striking workers, with the country shocked by reports of heart attack and stroke patients being unable to get ambulances.
England and Wales had one of the worst years for deaths in more than a decade, throwing a spotlight on the turmoil engulfing the NHS. Almost 35,000 more people died in 2022 than normal, with excess deaths climbing in the last three weeks of the year amid a surge in flu and pneumonia cases, official figures show.
Sunak needs to end the strikes before they spread to other areas. Doctors and civil servants are considering industrial action next. The prime minister is looking at options to increase pay and improve conditions, but it’s uncertain whether they’re enough to prevent a year of pain.
Added to a series leadership reshuffles and botched policies, a health-service crisis and a country at a standstill would provide an ominous backdrop for the Conservative Party as it heads into next year’s general election already trailing the Labour opposition by about 20 points in the polls.” — Alex Wickham [Bloomberg]
A demonstrator at a strike by NHS nursing staff in Liverpool on Dec. 20. Photographer: Anthony Devlin/Bloomberg
“Another shift | Russia’s head of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, was appointed to lead its forces in Ukraine, a surprise move that follows a number of reshuffles in Vladimir Putin’s military leadership. The decision pushes aside General Sergei Surovikin, who will become one of Gerasimov’s deputies. Surovikin took the top post in October and oversaw Russia’s withdrawal from the southern Kherson region and unleashed waves of missile attacks targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Half of food retail chains in Ukraine are operating again, often under the power of diesel generators following Russian attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure, allowing shops to provide Ukrainians a place to work, stay online, charge devices and keep warm.
The US-conceived price cap on Russian crude oil exports is showing signs of success — for now, pushing Moscow’s budget deficit to a record and undercutting the price of Russian oil.” [Bloomberg]
European nations have made gains in slashing their dependence on imported natural gas, speeding the shift to clean energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it’s also meant burning a lot more coal in countries such as Germany. Although that should be temporary, it will require the region to move faster to keep its climate goals on track.
Taliban ban on women workers hits vital aid for Afghans
By RIAZAT BUTT
“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Last June, a team of female doctors and nurses drove six hours across mountains, dry riverbeds and on unpaved roads to reach victims of a massive earthquake that had just hit eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1,000 people.
When they got there, a day after the earthquake hit, they found the men had been treated, but the women had not. In Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, the women had stayed inside their tents, unable to come out to get medical help and other assistance because there were no women aid workers.
‘The women still had blood on them,’ said Samira Sayed-Rahman, from the aid agency International Rescue Committee. It was only after she met local elders to tell them about the arrival of a female medical team that women came out to get treatment. ‘That’s not just the situation in emergencies; in many parts of the country, women don’t go out to get aid,’ she said.
It’s an example, Sayed-Rahman said, of how vital women workers are to humanitarian operations in Afghanistan — and shows the impact that will be felt after the Taliban last month barred Afghan women from working in non-governmental organizations.
The ban, announced Dec. 24, forced a widespread shutdown of many aid operations by organizations that said they cannot and would not work without their female staff. Aid agencies warn that hundreds of thousands are already hurt by the halt in services and that, if the ban continues, the dire and even deadly consequences will spiral wider for a population battered by decades of war, deteriorating living conditions and economic hardship.
Aid agencies and NGOs have been keeping Afghanistan alive since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. The takeover triggered a halt in international financing, a freeze in currency reserves and a cut-off from global banking, collapsing the already fragile economy. NGOs have stepped into the breach, and providing everything from food provisions to basic services like health care and education.
After the ban, 11 major international aid groups along with some smaller ones suspended their operations completely, saying they cannot operate without their women workers. Many others have reduced their work dramatically. A post-ban survey of 151 local and international NGOs found that only about 14% were still operating at full capacity, according to U.N. Women….” Read more at AP News
“Deepening ties | The US and Japan announced plans to strengthen defense cooperation on land, at sea and in space as they expressed unease about the growing challenge posed by China, and its ties with Russia. The meeting of the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee at the State Department yesterday was a precursor to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington this week and followed Japan’s deal with the UK that will allow them to deploy their militaries on each other’s territory.” [Bloomberg]
“The Ebola outbreak in Uganda is over, says WHO. The World Health Organization declared Uganda’s Ebola outbreak over on Wednesday. This Ebola outbreak lasted for roughly four months, tore through nine districts, and took dozens of lives. It was the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in the history of Uganda (the worst, in 2000, killed over 200 people). The outbreak was caused by the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus. For the WHO to declare an Ebola epidemic over, there must be no confirmed or ‘probable’ cases for 42 days (42 days being two times the Ebola infection incubation timespan).” [Foreign Policy]
Going home: Bills’ Hamlin released from Buffalo hospital
By JOHN WAWROW
“ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The “Prayers for Damar 3” have been answered. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is finally home.
Nine days after he stunned and saddened his teammates by going into cardiac arrest and being resuscitated on the field in Cincinnati, and placed the NFL on hold, Hamlin was released from a Buffalo hospital on Wednesday, the Bills announced.
‘We have completed a series of tests and evaluation and in consultation with the team physicians, we are confident that Damar can be safely discharged,’ Dr. Jamie Nadler said in a news release issued by the team.
This marks the next major step in what doctors have called Hamlin’s remarkable recovery, which came two days after he was deemed healthy enough to be transferred from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center to the Buffalo General Medical Center. Nadler said the 24-year-old Hamlin will continue his rehabilitation with the Bills….” Read more at AP News
Jeff Beck, Guitarist With a Chapter in Rock History, Dies at 78
His playing with the Yardbirds and as leader of his own bands brought a sense of adventure to their groundbreaking recordings.
By Jim Farber
Jan. 11, 2023
“Jeff Beck, one of the most skilled, admired and influential guitarists in rock history, died on Tuesday in a hospital near his home at Riverhall, a rural estate in southern England. He was 78.
The cause was bacterial meningitis, Melissa Dragich, his publicist, said.
During the 1960s and ’70s, as either a member of the Yardbirds or as leader of his own bands, Mr. Beck brought a sense of adventure to his playing that helped make the recordings by those groups groundbreaking.
In 1965, when he joined the Yardbirds to replace another guitar hero, Eric Clapton, the group was already one of the defining acts in Britain’s growing electric blues movement. But his stinging licks and darting leads on songs like ‘Shapes of Things’ and ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ added an expansive element to the music that helped signal the emerging psychedelic rock revolution.
Three years later, when Mr. Beck formed his own band, later known as the Jeff Beck Group — along with Rod Stewart, a little-known singer at the time, and the equally obscure Ron Wood on bass — the weight of the music created an early template for heavy metal. Specifically, the band’s 1968 debut, ‘Truth,’ provided a blueprint that another former guitar colleague from the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page, drew on to found Led Zeppelin several months later.
In 1975, when Mr. Beck began his solo career with the ‘Blow by Blow’ album, he reconfigured the essential formula of that era’s fusion movement, tipping the balance of its influences from jazz to rock and funk, in the process creating a sound that was both startlingly new and highly successful. ‘Blow by Blow’ became a Billboard Top 5 and, selling a million or more copies, a platinum hit.
Along the way, Mr. Beck helped either pioneer or amplify important technical innovations on his instrument. He elaborated the use of distortion and feedback effects, earlier explored by Pete Townshend; intensified the effect of bending notes on the guitar; and widened the range of expression that could be coaxed from devices attached to the guitar like the whammy bar.
Drawing on such techniques, Mr. Beck could weaponize his strings to hit like a stun gun or caress them to express what felt like a kiss. His work had humor, too, with licks that could cackle and leads that could tease….” Read more at New York Times