The Full Belmonte, 1/15/2022
Additional Documents Found at Biden’s Wilmington Home, White House Says
The revelation came as the White House defended its public statements about the extent of the documents that remained in Mr. Biden’s possession.
Jan. 14, 2023
“WASHINGTON — Five more pages containing classified information were found at President Biden’s Delaware home on Thursday, the White House said on Saturday, bringing the tally to six such pages uncovered this week.
The additional pages, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, were discovered hours after a White House statement on Thursday morning that cited only one that Mr. Biden’s aides had discovered the night before in a storage area adjacent to the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington.
Thursday evening, the White House said, Justice Department officials had gone to retrieve that page, and a White House lawyer had met them to oversee the transfer. Five additional classified pages were then identified among the materials with it.
The revelation came as Mr. Biden’s lawyers provided new details about their unfolding discovery over the past two months of classified materials from his time as vice president at his house and an office he used before beginning his 2020 campaign for the White House. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Mr. Biden’s handling of sensitive records.
They also defended their decision not to be fully forthcoming about the matter. The White House has been criticized over its public disclosures, including why it did not reveal the discoveries much earlier, and why, when it acknowledged on Monday that some classified files had been found at Mr. Biden’s office on Nov. 2, it did not indicate that more had been found at his house the next month.
Mr. Biden’s lead personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, said in a statement on Saturday that the president’s legal team had tried to balance being transparent with “the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity.”
“These considerations require avoiding the public release of detail relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing,” he added.
Understand the Biden Documents Case
The discovery at two locations of classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president has prompted the Justice Department to scrutinize the situation.
In Washington: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to investigate the situation drew a mixed reception from Republicans, who had hoped to spearhead the effort themselves.
Two Cases in the Spotlight: Two presidents — Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump — are now under investigation by special prosecutors for how they’ve handled classified documents. Here is how their cases compare.
Presidents and Their Prosecutors: Since the dark days of Watergate, every president but one has faced such an investigator looking into them or their associates.
He cited multiple rationales: Investigators at the Justice Department could object that identifying witnesses, documents, or events as the investigation was underway could compromise their work. And revealing certain details in public also posed the risk that as more information emerged, earlier statements could prove to be ‘incomplete.’
It was the White House lawyer, Richard Sauber, who said in a statement early Thursday that a single-page classified document had been discovered a day earlier among stored materials in a room adjacent to the garage of Mr. Biden’s Wilmington home….” Read more at New York Times
'Extremely dangerous' storm dumps more rain, snow on California; Recovery continues after tornadoes in Alabama
“Rain-soaked Californians are getting another round of storms over the weekend that threaten more flooding, landslides, hail and heavy mountain snow.
The stormy weather came as recovery efforts continue in the state, which has been battered by atmospheric river storms since late December, leaving at least 19 people dead.
A 5-year-old boy also was still missing Saturday after being swept out of his mother's car by flood waters earlier in the week. Local authorities temporarily suspended the search for the boy, Kyle Doan, Saturday afternoon due to ‘unsuitable’ weather, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office said on Facebook.
Forecasts show rain hitting rural areas in Northern California particularly hard this weekend. Previous storms have soaked and damaged the heavily populated San Francisco Bay area and surrounding coastal communities.
‘Each round of rain falling on top of saturated and unstable ground will enhance the risk of new landslides and debris flows,’ AccuWeather Meteorologist Reneé Duff said.
Flooding in Napa, mudslide reported near Dublin, California
There were already reports Saturday of significant flooding in parts of Napa County, the heart of Northern California's wine region, according to the county's sheriff's office. Flood warnings were issued north of San Francisco Bay, including Napa, Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. A mudslide prompted road closures near Dublin, California., according to the California Highway Patrol.
Atmospheric rivers, sometimes called "rivers in the sky," form when a line of warm, moist air, usually coming from near islands across the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast, falls as heavy rain when it reaches cooler air over land.
Another atmospheric river is expected to hit the state Monday.
‘I know how fatigued you all are,’ Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday, urging caution ahead of incoming storms. ‘Just maintain a little more vigilance over the course of the next weekend.’
California's weekend storm forecast
The storm is expected to peak Saturday as it moves inland throughout the day, according to the National Weather Service.
More flood risk: With the ground already saturated from previous rainfall, more flooding and possible landslides are expected across the state through Monday, according to the weather service forecast.
Heavy snow: Heavy mountain snows of 3 to 6 feet and strong winds are also forecast to create whiteout conditions in the mountains of northern and central California, making travel nearly impossible. The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab said Saturday morning that it received 21.3 inches of snow in 24 hours and that its snowpack of about 10 feet was expected to grow several more feet by Monday.
Strong winds: Wind advisories are also in place Saturday for coastal California and the Central Valley with sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts of 50 mph.
Power outages: Stormy weather may cause more trees to fall and more power outages Saturday, said David Lawrence, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Households without power were down to about 25,000 Saturday evening from about 68,000 at one point during the day, according to poweroutage.us.
‘People will become complacent, but the ground is saturated. It is extremely, extremely dangerous,’ Nancy Ward, the director of the governor’s emergency services office said at a Friday news conference. ‘And that water can continue to rise well after the storms have passed.’
California damage assessments expected to surpass $1 billion
Officials have already begun damage assessments, which are expected to surpass $1 billion.
As heavy rain, mudslides and hurricane-force winds have walloped the state, California has seen homes flooded, roofs torn off houses, levees breached, cars submerged and trees uprooted.
About 14 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Ventura River in southern California as a result of the storms, according to Ventura County health officials. Two sewer lines also leaked into San Antonio Creek this week due to storm damage.
California, long plagued by drought, has reported a total of more than nine inches of rainfall on average across the state over the last 18 days. Some parts of the state have already met their average annual rainfalls, Lawrence said.
President Joe Biden on Monday issued an emergency declaration to support the storm response in more than a dozen counties. But Newsom has said he is still waiting on Biden to declare a major disaster declaration that would provide more resources.
Recovery continues after tornadoes tear through Alabama, Georgia
As severe weather continues to besiege California, the South is recovering from a series of deadly tornadoes.
Recovery efforts continued into the weekend after numerous tornadoes tore through the South, killing at least nine people in Alabama and Georgia.
Residents salvaged belongings Friday, and rescue teams searched for survivors among the rubble, sometimes digging into collapsed homes to free trapped residents.
The massive storm system Thursday flipped mobile homes, uprooted trees, collapsed buildings, snapped utility poles and derailed a freight train.
Tornado damage was reported in at least 14 counties in Alabama and 14 in Georgia, according to the National Weather Service. At least 35 possible tornado touchdowns were reported across the Southeast, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said.
Meteorologists say it may take days to fully understand the strength of the storm.
Among those killed in the storm was a Georgia Department of Transportation worker and a 5-year-old child who was riding in a vehicle hit by a falling tree in Georgia, officials said.
The child was identified as Egan Jeffcoat by his grandmother, ABC News reported. His mother, Tabatha Anglin, wasn't injured, the grandmother said, but another adult in the car had critical injuries, Butts County officials previously said.
A fundraiser for Egan's mother had raised nearly $20,000 Saturday. His mother had picked him up early from school so they could make it home before the storm, but a tree fell on the car, killing Egan, according to the fundraiser, which was verified by GoFundMe.
‘His mom was a single mom, and Egan was her entire world,’ the fundraiser reads.” [USA Today]
Iowa woman charged with 52 counts of voter fraud in scheme to aid husband in 2020 races
“Federal prosecutors say an Iowa woman committed widespread voter fraud to support her husband in two 2020 electoral races.
The Department of Justice announced charges Thursday against Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, of Sioux City.
According to a DOJ press release, Phuong Taylor faces more than 50 felony charges, including 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.
Court filings against Phuong Taylor were not available online as of Thursday afternoon.
Phuong Taylor is married to Jeremy Taylor, a former Iowa House member and current Woodbury County supervisor. Taylor, who is not identified by name or accused of wrongdoing in the press release, ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to replace Rep. Steve King in Iowa's 4th Congressional District.
According to the press release, Phuong Taylor is accused of submitting or encouraging others to submit ‘dozens’ of fraudulent voter registrations, absentee ballot requests and absentee ballots in the 2020 Republican primary.
After Taylor was defeated in that race, Phuong Taylor is accused of doing so again in his general election campaign for county supervisor. Among other things, according to the press release, she wrongly signed documents on behalf of other voters or told people they were allowed to sign documents on behalf of relatives who weren't present.
Taylor, who serves as vice chair of the county board, did not immediately return messages seeking comment, and it was not clear if any attorney is currently representing Phuong Taylor.” [USA Today]
Britain Says It Will Give Ukraine Tanks, Breaching a Western Taboo
Western countries have balked at giving Ukraine tanks and other powerful weapons. As increased spring fighting looms, that seems to be changing.
By Megan Specia and Ben Hubbard
Jan. 14, 2023
“KYIV, Ukraine — After years of resisting providing Ukraine with some of the West’s most high-powered weaponry, Britain indicated on Saturday that it would give battle tanks to Ukrainian forces to help prepare them for anticipated Russian assaults this spring.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine about his ‘ambition’ to provide British main battle tanks and additional artillery systems, according to a statement from Downing Street. Before the British statement, Mr. Zelensky thanked Mr. Sunak for ‘the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.’
The British Challenger IIs would be the first Western-made battle tanks to be sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February. Officials in the United States and Europe have long worried that sending tanks and other powerful weapons that would substantially increase Ukraine’s ability to hurt Russian forces could prompt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to escalate the conflict, even by potentially attacking Western targets or deploying small-scale nuclear weapons.
But that calculus has begun to change in recent weeks, as Western officials worry that time is tight to help Ukraine prepare for an anticipated Russian offensive this spring and, some say, a counteroffensive of its own. They have become more willing to take risks, in part because the Ukrainians have performed well on the battlefield and used other sophisticated Western weapons capably and within limits set by their allies.
Kyiv has been pleading for Western tanks almost since the start of the war to supplement its Soviet-era and Russian-made tanks and those supplied by other countries in Eastern Europe. Those tanks are wearing out fast after months of battle, and are also running low on ammunition that is no longer in production.
The push to satisfy Kyiv’s pleas gained speed this week as the British and Polish governments publicly urged a change in the Western alliance’s stance. The British announcement could increase pressure on Germany to send its coveted Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, or at least to allow other European countries that have those German-made tanks to give them to Ukraine. Poland said this week that it would send some of its German-made tanks, although Berlin would need to allow it.
Designed more than a century ago to break through trench warfare, tanks combine firepower, mobility and shock effect. Armed with large cannons, moving on treads and built with more protective armor than any other weapon on a battlefield, tanks can cross rough, muddy or sandy terrain where wheeled fighting vehicles might struggle.
In Ukraine, officials say armored vehicles — including the infantry fighting vehicles that France, Germany and the United States said last week they would send to Ukraine — will play a key role in battles for control of the fiercely contested towns and cities in the eastern provinces that border Russia. Ukraine’s most senior military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, has said his military needs some 300 Western tanks and about 600 Western infantry fighting vehicles to make a difference.
The British news media has reported in recent days that only a small number of tanks, around a dozen, are being considered. And there are some weapons that Ukraine’s Western allies still refuse to send, including fighter jets and long-range missiles that could hit occupied Crimea and military targets inside Russia itself.
The Biden administration, while leading the coalition supplying Ukraine with weapons, is still holding back American-made M1 Abrams tanks, gas guzzlers that require constant upkeep and, in any event, are too scarce to spare, officials say.
Also on Saturday, Russia launched two waves of strikes far from Ukraine’s front lines, jolting residents out of two weeks of relative quiet during a festive holiday period.
One of the strikes tore into a nine-story apartment building in the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine, local officials said, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens.
Photos from the scene showed a massive fire burning in the aftermath of the strike, with significant damage to the residential building.
In Kyiv, the explosions caused by Russian missiles were heard minutes before air-raid sirens sounded in the city, a rare occurrence. Hours later, a countrywide air-raid alert was put into place….” Read more at New York Times
China sharply revises death toll linked to covid outbreak to 60,000 from 37
“China on Saturday made a significant revision of its official death toll in the latest outbreak of the coronavirus — to nearly 60,000 deaths linked to covid-19 since December, when pandemic restrictions were lifted and infections surged across the country, up from just 37.
The announcement follows criticism by international health experts and complaints by citizens that the government has been understating the number of deaths caused by the virus.
Authorities have recently come under added scrutiny following reports of overwhelmed funeral homes and hospitals. A report by The Washington Post last week documented a surge in traffic outside funeral homes, according to satellite imagery, firsthand videos and interviews with crematorium staff and residents.
The National Health Commission said in a news briefing that hospitals recorded at least 59,938 covid-19-related deaths between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12. Of those deaths, 5,503 involved respiratory failure caused by the virus, and the rest of the deaths were caused by underlying diseases combined with covid-19. The average age of patients who had died was 80.3 years old….” Read more at Washington Post
At least 30 dead after plane crashes at Nepal airport
“KATHMANDU, Nepal — At least 30 people were killed after a Yeti Airlines flight carrying 72 people crashed at the country’s new Pokhara Airport, officials said.
Anup Joshi, a spokesperson for Pokhara International Airport, said the bodies of 30 people had been recovered so far, with 11 women, 18 men and one child confirmed dead.
The plane left Kathmandu about 10:30 a.m. local time Sunday and was carrying 68 passengers and four crew members to Pokhara, a city about 125 miles to Kathmandu’s west and a 25-minute plane ride away. The city is known for its serene lake at the foot of forested mountains and is popular with tourists.
The plane crashed as it approached landing, Yeti Airlines spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula said.
According to an airline statement, 53 Nepalese nationals and 15 foreign nationals were on the flight, including five from India, four from Russia, two from South Korea, one from Argentina, one from Australia, one from France and one from Ireland. The nationalities of those confirmed dead were not immediately clear….” Read more at Washington Post
January 15, 2023
Good morning. Israel’s new right-wing government is moving quickly to transform the country.
Supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel last year.Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
A rush to change
“Israel’s government, the most right-wing in its history, is barely three weeks old and already leaving its mark, quickly pressing ahead with legislation that critics fear will erode Israeli democracy. Benjamin Netanyahu has returned as prime minister, this time leading a coalition of conservative, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
I spoke with Isabel Kershner, a correspondent in The Times’s Jerusalem bureau, about the right’s push to transform Israel.
Ian: What is the new government trying to accomplish?
Isabel: The right-wing parties in the coalition are all extremely ideological, and Netanyahu has made a lot of concessions to them. The new minister of national security is an ultranationalist who has been convicted of inciting anti-Arab racism. He got more authority over the police. The new hard-right finance minister is claiming more authority over Jewish settlements and civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank. Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers want more autonomy and more funding for religious students and schools.
The government is also moving to radically overhaul the judiciary. There’s a perception on the right that the Supreme Court is overly activist and sides with liberals on issues like settlements. Now the coalition wants to give parliament more power to select judges and override Supreme Court rulings. Critics say the coalition’s proposed changes would completely change the nature of Israel’s liberal democracy, which is dynamic but also fragile. Israel doesn’t have a formal constitution; it has basic laws that can be changed with 61 out of 120 votes in the parliament. Netanyahu’s coalition has 64.
Netanyahu is on trial for corruption. Has that made him more reliant on the far right?
Israel’s whole political morass — the deadlock that’s produced five elections in four years — is basically because Netanyahu has been indicted on corruption charges but won’t step aside. In the past, Netanyahu preferred to form governments with more centrist or even center-left parties. This time, the centrists refused to align with a prime minister on trial, so Netanyahu was at the mercy of far-right parties after the election. They were the only partners he could form a government with, and they knew that.
How has the country reacted?
What’s taken many Israelis by surprise is the dizzying speed and determination with which the new government has moved ahead. That’s really galvanized the opposition. Before the election, the liberal and centrist parties in parliament basically failed to cooperate with each other. Suddenly you’re seeing them sitting together, planning the next demonstration and making radical statements of their own. Yair Lapid, the centrist opposition leader, said the judicial overhaul constituted ‘extreme regime change’ and could eliminate Israeli democracy.
It reminds me of the mood in the U.S. after Donald Trump got elected.
There was a pro-L.G.B.T.Q. protest on the day the new government was sworn in, because Netanyahu’s coalition includes some extremely anti-gay lawmakers. There have since been protests, including a big one last night, in Tel Aviv, a more secular, liberal city about an hour from Jerusalem.
Israel has seen big protests before. In recent years anti-Netanyahu demonstrators protested outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem. But that was a much more grass-roots, bottom-up movement. What we’re seeing now is the leaders of the opposition parties calling on people to come out into the streets.
What does the new government mean for relations with the Palestinians?
The levels of confidence are below zero. One of the main concerns for the Palestinian Arabs who make up one-fifth of Israel’s citizens is a surge in crime, murders and criminal gang warfare. The previous Israeli government, which for the first time included a small Islamic Arab party in the governing coalition, prioritized fighting crime in conjunction with Arab local authorities. Now the minister overseeing the police has a history of being an anti-Arab activist and provocateur. Meanwhile, the situation regarding the Palestinians in the occupied territories was already tense, and things have quickly become confrontational.
How has all this left Israelis feeling about the state of their politics?
Things here feel more polarized than ever, and there’s a lot at stake. The country is split over what kind of democracy Israel should be and how it’s going to relate to Palestinians. Even among the half of the country that did vote for a right-wing party, not all of them are happy. It’s gone a bit further than some of them wanted. Some are throwing their hands up or switching off the news. Anecdotally, I’m hearing about more people applying for foreign passports. Among those who oppose the government, there’s a kind of doomsday feel.
More about Isabel: She grew up in the United Kingdom, speaks Hebrew and studied Arabic at Oxford University. She spent a gap year in Israel, then another year in Egypt. An early obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led her to journalism.” [New York Times]
Hunting for Truffles Is a Perilous Pursuit, Especially for the Dogs Who Dig
Truffles are big business, and some are trying to take out the competition by poisoning the dogs that accompany those known as ‘truffle hunters.’
Jan. 14, 2023
“CAMERATA NUOVA — On a bright morning in the mountains above the sleepy central Italian town of Camerata Nuova, a small and curly coated dog named Bella raced among the birch trees. As her owner leaned on a long, harpoon-shaped spade and shouted encouragement, she darted toward a tree and dug under a frosted carpet of dead leaves.
‘Black gold,’ Renato Tomassetti, 80, said as Bella emerged with what looked like a scorched, deeply aromatic tennis ball. He and a group of other truffle hunters then followed Bella deeper into the woods of the Simbruini mountains, where she picked up another scent by another tree. ‘Stop!’ Mr. Tomassetti screamed. ‘Leave it! Leave it!’
The younger men ran ahead and shooed Bella from the corpse of a fox. The body bore the hallmarks of death by strychnine poisoning — bloodied eyes, canines bared in painful grimace, outstretched limbs. Mr. Tomassetti quickly put a muzzle on Bella, an energetic Lagotto Romagnolo (Italy’s “Truffle Dog”) as the truffle hunters hovered somberly over the dead fox. The local Carabinieri police brought out their measuring sticks and a freezer bag, treating the area as a crime scene.
‘It could have been one of our dogs,’ said Mr. Tomassetti, blaming unknown ‘assassins’ for trying to kill off the competition to keep the truffle-rich woods ‘all to themselves.’ The men around him nodded their heads, smoked their cigarettes and declared exasperation with Italy’s forever truffle wars.
‘This massacre must end!’ Belardo Bravi, 46, shouted in anguish.
Few things evoke as enchanting an Arcadian ideal — and as romantic a vision of the Italian old world — as the intense bond between truffle hunters and their dogs. The two work together through the autumn mists and winter snow to unearth the ambrosial tubers, treasures that are shaved onto pastas, grated into sauces or infused into oils for the most sophisticated, and wealthy, palates.
Truffle hunting is a tradition often imagined as an upper-class past time, Italy’s answer to fox hunting, and has inspired luxury tourism ‘experiences,’ museums and films. (‘If my dog dies I would die, too,’ says one older man in the 2020 documentary ‘The Truffle Hunters,’ while another climbs in the bathtub to blow dry his dog.)
But digging just below that surface reveals a sinister, murderous and money-hungry underside to truffle hunting that casts the fungi less as a fragrant Italian delicacy than as the bloodhound diamond of a secret, deadly and perpetual war.
To protect areas rich in lucrative truffles, territorial hunters have sought to scare off outsiders and knock out the competition by blowing up pickup trucks, shooting up cars and whacking one another with their vanghetto spades. In 2018, a Springer Spaniel named Willa became the sixth dog murdered in two years in Brignano Frascata, a small town in Piedmont, the Italian region renowned for its lavish white truffles.
‘There are hundreds of dogs killed a year,’ said Mr. Tomassetti, who is also the honorary president of the Lazio region’s truffle hunter association, which he said had angered locals by successfully fighting the town’s attempts to prevent outsiders from prospecting its hills for black gold. ‘It happens all over Italy.’
Much of the violence seems to have taken place in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, which borders Camerata Nuova, and where poisonings have been numerous enough to be mapped. Truffle hunters say that much of the violence, though, rarely emerges because dog owners do not want their secret truffle fields known. Instead, retribution is delivered through a poisoned water well or field. Sometimes there are civilian casualties….” Read more at New York Times
Who is Olivia Dunne? The college gymnast has 6.7 million TikTok followers
Olivia Dunne, a gymnast at the Louisiana State University and a social media influencer, was at the center of a controversy last weekend that has forced LSU to increase their security measures. During a gymnastics meet between the LSU Tigers and Utah Utes, fans of Dunne nearly fell over one another chanting her name, carrying life-size cutouts of her, and holding handwritten signs reading ‘We Want Livvy,’ making so much noise they disrupted the routines of other competing athletes.
Afterward, throngs of young men surrounding the arena’s entrance and exits waiting for Dunne forced LSU to move its bus so the team could board safety. The incident was called ‘unhinged’ and ‘disturbing’ by reporters and people in the gymnastics community.
Dunne is no average college athlete. She has more than 6.7 million followers on the social media platform TikTok and is one of the highest paid NCAA athletes….” Read more at Washington Post
Casey Hayden, a Force for Civil Rights and Feminism, Dies at 85
While working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s, she helped write two memos that spurred the modern women’s movement.
Jan. 13, 2023
“Casey Hayden, an important organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during its push for civil rights in the early 1960s and the co-author of two papers that called out sexism within that organization and in society in general — documents that are credited with helping to inspire second-wave feminism — died on Jan. 4 in Arizona. She was 85.
The SNCC Digital Gateway, an internet archive of the movement, posted news of her death on its website. No cause was given.
Ms. Hayden, a native Texan, was a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin in early 1960 when she joined Black students in anti-segregation protests. According to newspaper accounts at the time, she was one of the first white students to do so.
Later that year she was a delegate to the United States National Student Association Congress at the University of Minnesota. The congress, Ms. Hayden wrote in an essay in ‘Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC’ (2010), consisted mostly of white students, many from the South and ‘all for law and order.’ A contingent of Black students representing the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was not finding much sympathy and went looking for ‘a pro-sit-in white Southerner’ to add to a panel on civil disobedience. Ms. Hayden took the assignment.
‘Twenty-two years old, I had a strong Southern drawl and hardly spoke above a whisper,’ she wrote. But her words resonated.
‘I cannot say to a person who suffers injustice, ‘Wait,’ she told the audience that day. ‘Perhaps you can; I can’t. And having decided that I cannot urge caution, I must stand with him.’
The crowd gave her a standing ovation, and the event gave a boost to the idea of student activism, bringing new credibility to S.N.C.C. and other groups, including Students for a Democratic Society, which became known for its opposition to the Vietnam War. Ms. Hayden was on her way to becoming a force in the peace and social justice movements.
She had met Tom Hayden at the conference, and she joined him and others in getting Students for a Democratic Society off the ground. She and Mr. Hayden married in 1961, and though the marriage lasted only two years, Wesley Hogan, a research professor at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University who has studied Ms. Hayden’s life, said Ms. Hayden was at the center of things in those formative years….” Read more at New York Times