The Full Belmonte, 3/24/2023
American contractor killed, troops wounded in Iran-linked drone attack in Syria
“An American contractor was killed and five U.S. troops and a second U.S. contractor were wounded when a suspected Iran-linked drone attacked a coalition military base in northeast Syria late Thursday, the Pentagon said in a statement. The Pentagon said it responded to the attack by launching retaliatory airstrikes on facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. ‘No group will strike our troops with impunity,’ U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement. He said the airstrikes were conducted in response to Thursday's attack as well as a series of recent attacks that have targeted coalition forces in Syria.” Read more at USA Today
TikTok boss pressed for answers in tense hearing
“Both Democrats and Republicans have been increasingly concerned over TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, due to its ties to the Chinese government. Much of Thursday's congressional hearing focused on TikTok's handling of private user data and security practices.
The takeaway: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew tried to convince a skeptical Congress the app poses no danger to national security.
•What happens to personal data? When asked whether TikTok sold data to ‘anyone,’ such as the Chinese government, Chew said he ‘can get back to’ the lawmakers with details.
•Committee members grew frustrated as Chew repeatedly avoided clear yes or no answers to their inquiries. ‘I think quite frankly your testimony has raised more questions for me than answers,’ Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., told Chew.
•What is Project Texas? Chew told lawmakers that the app is taking steps to protect user data through ‘Project Texas,’ a plan to store U.S. user data on American soil in Texas.” [USA Today]
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies Thursday, March 23, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Jacquelyn Martin, AP
Prosecutor in Trump Hush-Money Case Fires Back at House Republicans
The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said the committee chairmen’s attempts to intervene in the investigation were ‘unlawful.’
By Luke Broadwater, Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess
March 23, 2023
“When Donald J. Trump declared over the weekend that the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, was about to have him arrested, he called for his supporters to ‘PROTEST.’ Instead, it was Republican leaders who hurried to the former president’s defense.
Among them were three powerful congressional Republicans who sent a letter demanding that Mr. Bragg provide them with communications, documents and testimony about his inquiry, which is expected to result in criminal charges against Mr. Trump.
On Thursday, Mr. Bragg pushed back forcefully against that demand, which his office called an inappropriate attempt by Congress to impede a local prosecution.
‘The letter’s requests are an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty,’ the district attorney’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, said. Prosecutors are typically barred from sharing information about an active investigation with third parties, and Ms. Dubeck noted in her letter that such information was ‘confidential under state law.’
Mr. Bragg’s office is investigating the role Mr. Trump played in a hush-money payment to a porn star, and there have been several signals that the prosecutors are nearing an indictment. Still, the exact timing remains unknown.
But Mr. Trump’s prediction of his own arrest — which proved inaccurate — and the rapid Republican response come at a time of sharp political tensions and threaten to further weaken public trust in the rule of law. It was once rare for elected officials to comment on independent inquiries for fear of seeming to influence them improperly. But Mr. Trump’s willingness to wade in has led his party to embrace his method: tarring investigations as political while simultaneously politicizing those investigations.
While in the White House, Mr. Trump slammed the inquiry led by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as politically biased, even as his attorney general, William P. Barr, challenged a federal caserelated to the hush-money payment that Mr. Bragg is now investigating. Mr. Trump also trespassed on the Justice Department’s independence and fired both the F.B.I. director and his first attorney general because he viewed them as insufficiently loyal.
Now that Mr. Trump is out of office, his power over the Republican Party is encouraging similar interference — this time into an investigation of a potential state crime by a local prosecutor operating under New York law.
Representative Glenn Ivey, a Democrat from Maryland and former prosecutor, said that he had been ‘astonished’ to see the letter to Mr. Bragg, ‘essentially calling on him to violate grand jury secrecy laws in New York.’ The letter was sent by Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio of the Judiciary Committee, James R. Comer of Kentucky of the Oversight and Accountability Committee and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin of the Administration Committee….” Read more at New York Times
“Asylum traffic | The US and Canada plan to rewrite an immigration accord that has driven people to cross the border between the two countries by foot to refile asylum claims, a point of tension between the governments, sources say. The new agreement will include people walking across the border, closing a loophole in a pact that aims to stop a person from claiming asylum in one country if they have done so before in the other.” [Bloomberg]
Biden and US First Lady Jill Biden with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and spouse Sophie Gregoire Trudeau in Ottawa yesterday. Photographer: Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press/Bloomberg
Flood watches
“The same system that brought rare tornadoes to California this week will trigger widespread severe thunderstorms today for the mid-South and Ohio Valley. More than 20 million people are under flood watches today across a large swath of the US stretching from Oklahoma to West Virginia. The storm already passed through the Oklahoma-Missouri border late Thursday, according to the Weather Prediction Center, drenching parts of the states with several inches of rain. Meanwhile, northeast Louisiana, southeast Arkansas and western Mississippi are also at moderate risk for severe thunderstorms that could bring strong tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind gusts of more than 70 mph. There is also a slight risk for severe thunderstorms from central Texas to southern Indiana through this morning.” [CNN]
School strike
“Los Angeles schools will reopen today following the conclusion of a massive three-day strike over wages and better working conditions. Thousands of school workers began picketing Tuesday after nearly a year of unsuccessful negotiations with the school district, leaving more than 500,000 students out of class this week. Though the strike may be over, frustrated members of the workers' union say they still feel undervalued by low pay, minimal staffing and inadequate hours as they provide essential services to the nation's second-largest school system. Among their requests, workers are calling for a 30% pay raise to boost their average salary -- which currently stands at $25,000.” [CNN]
Passport delays
“Amid ‘unprecedented demand,’ the current wait time for a regular US passport has soared to ‘about 10 to 13 weeks, and for an expedited passport about seven to nine weeks,’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday. The State Department is ‘getting 500,000 applications a week for passports,’ which is 30 to 40% more applicants this year than last year, Blinken told a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing. Staffing and resources have been increased to deal with the surge, Blinken said. This comes after the department had launched a pilot online renewal platform so Americans who already have a passport can renew online, but it has ‘now halted it to make sure that we can fine-tune it and improve it before we roll it out in a bigger way,’ Blinken added.” [CNN]
Rioter charged in Pelosi laptop theft sentenced to prison
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
FILE - Riley June Williams, of Harrisburg, Pa., leaves Dauphin County Prison after being released on Jan. 21, 2021, in Harrisburg. Williams, a Pennsylvania woman linked to a far-right extremist movement, was sentenced on Thursday, March 23, 2023, to three years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with other rioters. (Dan Gleiter/The Patriot-News via AP, File)
“WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman linked to a far-right extremist movement was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with other rioters.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi’s office suite during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder, after a two-week trial. But it deadlocked on two other counts, including ‘aiding and abetting’ the laptop’s theft.
Jurors also deadlocked on a charge of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress evacuated the House and Senate chambers when rioters attacked the Capitol….” Read more at AP News
“A 5,000-mile-long, 12 million-ton seaweed bloom is starting to wreak havoc on Florida's beaches. Go deeper.
Beachgoers walk past seaweed in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“Attempted book bans in 2022 reached an ‘unparalleled’ 20-year high according to the American Library Association. Go deeper.” [Axios]
Where COVID hit hardest
Data: The Lancet. Map: Alice Feng/Axios
“Some of the highest adjusted COVID death rates were in D.C., Arizona and New Mexico, Axios' Tina Reed writes from an analysis published by The Lancet.
The study found as much as a four-fold variation in COVID infection and death rates among states.
Why it matters: The paper is among the first deep dives to explore the social and economic factors at play during the pandemic.
‘What is clear from our study is that COVID-19 exploited and compounded existing local racial inequities, health disparities, and partisan politics,’ said co-lead author Thomas J. Bollyky, director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Health Program.
By the numbers: States with higher poverty, lower education rates, less access to quality health care and lower levels of interpersonal trust saw disproportionately higher rates of COVID infections and deaths.
When adjusting the data to account for age and comorbidities, Arizona saw the highest COVID death rate (581 deaths per 100,000 people) in the nation. D.C. (526 per 100,000) and New Mexico (521 per 100,000) were the second and third worst.
The better news: Hawaii had the lowest adjusted COVID death rate with 147 COVID deaths per 100,000 people. It was followed by New Hampshire (215 per 100,000) and Maine (281 per 100,000).
Between the lines: The analysis found no association between the political affiliation of the state governor and death rates. But one key predictor of infections and total COVID deaths was the share of people who voted for President Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Vaccination rate had a strong association with the state-by-state variation in COVID death rates.
Researchers considered the benefits of protective measures (mandates) vs. consequences like lost employment and drops in test scores.
‘Our study suggests that the policy mandates and protective behaviors adopted in this pandemic were effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections but might have been associated with employment and educational trade-offs,’ the authors wrote.” [Axios]
‘Don’t Say Gay’ could expand in Florida schools
Pedro Portal/El Nuevo Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration is pushing a plan that would ban classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools.” [Vox] [Orlando Sentinel / Leslie Postal]
“The proposal expands last year’s Parental Rights in Education law, better know as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, through the 12th grade, with exceptions for state education standards and optional reproductive health courses.” [Vox] [Associated Press / Anthony Izaguirre]
“Currently the law bans such sexual orientation and gender topics from kindergarten through third grade.” [Vox] [BBC / Brandon Drenon]
“The measure is the latest in a series of Florida Republican anti-LGBTQ bills; DeSantis is waging war on cultural issues ahead of a potential presidential run in 2024.” [Vox] [Axios / Sareen Habeshian]
“Florida’s Board of Education will vote next month on the measure, which doesn’t require legislative approval to become law.” [Vox] [The Hill / Stephen Neukam]
“Meanwhile, the Florida House is weighing a bill that would limit sex education in schools to students above sixth grade, and require narrow instruction on sex and ‘reproductive roles.’” [Vox] [Washington Post / Timothy Bella] [Orlando Sentinel / Leslie Postal]
“The proposal expands last year’s Parental Rights in Education law, better know as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, through the 12th grade, with exceptions for state education standards and optional reproductive health courses.” [Vox] [Associated Press / Anthony Izaguirre]
“Currently the law bans such sexual orientation and gender topics from kindergarten through third grade.” [Vox] [BBC / Brandon Drenon]
“The measure is the latest in a series of Florida Republican anti-LGBTQ bills; DeSantis is waging war on cultural issues ahead of a potential presidential run in 2024.” [Vox] [Axios / Sareen Habeshian]
“Florida’s Board of Education will vote next month on the measure, which doesn’t require legislative approval to become law.” [Vox] [The Hill / Stephen Neukam]
“Meanwhile, the Florida House is weighing a bill that would limit sex education in schools to students above sixth grade, and require narrow instruction on sex and ‘reproductive roles.’” [Vox] [Washington Post / Timothy Bella]
France protests
Protesters gather on the Place de la Bastille in Paris yesterday. (Yves Herman/Reuters)
“More than a million people took to the streets across France Thursday with protests turning violent in some areas as demonstrators voiced their fury at proposed pension reforms. Following flare-ups in Paris and regional capitals, at least 80 people were arrested and 123 police officers injured, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. Thursday was the ninth day of strikes in the country and the first of coordinated action since French President Emmanuel Macron's government pushed a bill to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 through parliament without a vote last week. French unions have planned fresh strikes for next Tuesday, the same day Britain's King Charles is due to visit Bordeaux during his first foreign state visit as monarch.” [CNN]
“Israel passes new law protecting prime minister. On a day of high drama in Israel, the Knesset passed legislation Thursday that limits the conditions according to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be determined to be unfit to govern. The law requires a three-fourths parliamentary or Cabinet majority to remove the prime minister, and stipulates that he could only be removed for psychological or health reasons. The law is thought to make it more difficult for Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, to be impeached.” [Foreign Policy]
”Ukraine Sees Russian Losses in Bakhmut as Paving Way for Spring Offensive - Moscow’s assault on the eastern city is losing momentum, a Ukrainian army chief said, paving the way for Kyiv to launch its own offensives in the spring.” [Wall Street Journal]
Two years in prison for defaming Modi
“An Indian court sentenced opposition leader Rahul Gandhi to two years in prison for criminal defamation over comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” [Vox] [Reuters / Sumit Khanna and Arpan Chaturvedi]
“A lawmaker from Modi’s BJP party, also surnamed Modi, brought the case after Gandhi asked: ‘Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname?’ at a 2019 rally.” [Vox] [BBC / Cherylann Mollan and Soutik Biswas]
“The court found Gandhi’s remarks defamed the prime minister and everyone with the Modi surname. Gandhi denies the claims and plans to appeal the decision.” [Vox] [Guardian / Amrit Dhillon]
“Gandhi, a descendant of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, is a leader in India’s Congress party. If he wins his appeal, he could face Modi in the 2024 elections.” [Vox] [Washington Post / Gerry Shih]
March 24, 2023
Good morning. A federal judge spoke at Stanford Law School. Chaos ensued.
Stanford University.Ben Margot/Associated Press
A heckler’s veto
“Stuart Kyle Duncan — a federal appeals court judge appointed by Donald Trump — visited Stanford Law School this month to give a talk. It didn’t go well.
Students frequently interrupted him with heckling. One protester called for his daughters to be raped, Duncan said. When he asked Stanford administrators to calm the crowd, the associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion walked to the lectern and instead began her remarks by criticizing him. ‘For many people here, your work has caused harm,’ she told him.
After Duncan described his experience in a Wall Street Journal essay last week, the episode has received national attention and caused continuing turmoil at Stanford. The associate dean has been placed on leave. Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, and its law school dean, Jenny Martinez, have apologized to Duncan. Students responded to the apology with a protest during Martinez’s class on constitutional law. On Wednesday, Martinez wrote a 10-page public memo criticizing students’ behavior at the judge’s talk and announcing a mandatory half-day session on freedom of speech for all law students.
The conflict is a microcosm of today’s political polarization. Duncan is a pugnacious conservative who opposed the right to same-sex marriage before becoming a judge. During his five years on the bench he has issued rulings restricting abortion, blocking Covid vaccine mandates and refusing to refer to a prisoner by her preferred pronoun. His critics see him as a bully who denies basic rights to vulnerable people. His defenders call him a good conservative judge (and emphasize that the prisoner in the pronoun dispute was convicted of child pornography).
Stuart Kyle Duncan in 2019.Samuel Corum for The New York Times
But even many people who disagree with Duncan’s views have been bothered by the Stanford students’ behavior. And it seems possible that the episode may affect the larger debate over free speech on campuses.
Dignity and curiosity
Over the past few years, some American universities have seemed to back away from their historical support for free speech. Hamline University in Minnesota effectively fired a teacher who showed a 14th-century painting of the Prophet Muhammad in an art history class. A Princeton student lost her leadership position on a sports team after privately expressing an opinion about policing. Stanford itself allows students to file anonymous complaints against other students, including for speech.
Now, though, Stanford seems to be drawing a line in defense of free speech. “The First Amendment does not give protesters a ‘heckler’s veto,’ Martinez, the law dean, wrote in her memo. Stanford, she vowed, will not become ‘an echo chamber that ill prepares students to go out into and act as effective advocates in a society that disagrees about many important issues.’
Martinez also wrote: ‘The cycle of degenerating discourse won’t stop if we insist that people we disagree with must first behave the way we want them to … The cycle stops when we recognize our responsibility to treat each other with the dignity with which we expect to be met. It stops when we choose to replace condemnation with curiosity, invective with inquiry.’
The latest: Tirien Steinbach — the associate dean who rose to speak during the event and is now on leave — published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal yesterday explaining her position. She said that she was trying to de-escalate the situation and noted that she defended Duncan’s right to speak during her remarks. ‘While free speech isn’t easy or comfortable, it’s necessary for democracy,’ Steinbach wrote.
Below, my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick has compiled a selection of commentary on the episode.
Commentary
David French, in Times Opinion: ‘It is entirely appropriate to ask any judge difficult questions during the question and answer session after a speech. But protests that go so far as to shout down or disrupt speeches or events aren’t free speech but rather mob censorship.’
Elie Mystal of The Nation defended the students: ‘Everybody has the right to speak; nobody has the right to be heard over the din of the crowd.’ Mystal also criticized Duncan for insulting the students during the event. (Duncan said to one, ‘You are an appalling idiot.’)
Steven Lubet of Northwestern University’s law school, in The Hill: ‘The judge, the student protesters and an on-scene administrator all played to type, exhibiting arrogance, intolerance and irresponsibility, respectively, that combined to make the afternoon a fiasco for all concerned.’
David Lat, Substack: ‘In hindsight, would it have been better if Judge Duncan had not lashed out at the protesters? Yes … [But] I’m not going to sit here and judge the judge for not acting more judicially in response to verbal abuse.’
Ed Whelan, a conservative legal activist, has criticized Martinez for not punishing any of the students. (In her memo, she explained that it would be difficult to determine who deserved punishment and suggested that the associate dean’s implicit support for the heckling made it difficult for the school to sanction students afterward.)
David Bernstein of George Mason University called Martinez’s memo passionate and excellent but criticized Stanford for having only one known conservative among its law professors: ‘Intentionally or not, the Stanford faculty is sending its students the message that right-of-center views are not respectable, and not worth listening to.’” [New York Times]
New Utah laws place sweeping restrictions on how kids use social media.
“What to know: Utah’s governor signed the two bills yesterday. They’re some of the most aggressive social media laws passed by any state, and there are some First Amendment concerns.
What they do: Force companies to verify Utah users’ ages; give parents monitoring capabilities; require parental consent to create accounts; and require design changes to protect minors.” [Washington Post]
Bracket Watch
Stephanie R. Sylvanie / USA Today
Gonzaga survives
“Too much great basketball and too little time to preamble. Some winners from last night’s bonkers slate of NCAA Tournament games:
Julian Strawther. Buddy, get a load of this shot. In what was the best game of an action-packed night, Strawther’s absurdly long 3-pointer helped Gonzaga avoid one of the bigger collapses we’ve seen this tournament. The Zags led by 10 with just over two minutes to play, and gave up the lead with 13 seconds left. Down two, Strawther opted against the tie and went for the throat. The Pulse’s national champ is still alive. Whew.
UConn’s title chances. I’ll own it: That Arkansas upset pick was bad. The Huskies humiliated the Razorbacks, 88-65, with one of the tournament’s best performances. It’s becoming easier to remember this team was ranked No. 2 in the AP poll just three months ago. UConn plays Gonzaga on Saturday for a spot in the Final Four.
Florida Atlantic. It’s incredible that they’re here at all. The team that came within two seconds of losing its opening-round game to Memphis is now one of the last eight remaining. The Owls dominated Tennessee in the second half of last night’s upset win, which was shocking on both ends. This is a Tennessee team that just walloped Duke, one of the tournament’s hottest teams. The Vols also beat Alabama, Kansas and Texas this year. If you had Florida Atlantic going this far in your bracket, no you didn’t.
Markquis Nowell. In Kansas State’s last two games, the smallest man on the floor has played with the most confidence. The New York City native scored 20 points and distributed a tournament-record 19 assists in last night’s overtime win against Michigan State, in Madison Square Garden no less. His 18th, which tied the record, came on what looked like another classic football-style design by the Wildcats.” [The Athletic]
The old fake-argument-with-the-coach route strikes again! Nowell and Kansas State coach Jerome Tang said after the game that the argument was authentic and there was no play called. But just look at it. It’s too smooth. We politely reject the assertion.
Four more Sweet 16 games to go before the Elite Eight begins this weekend:
No. 5 seed San Diego State vs. No. 1 Alabama
6:30 p.m. ET on TBS
No. 5 Miami vs. No. 1 Houston
7:15 p.m. on CBS
No. 15 Princeton vs. No. 6 Creighton
9 p.m. ET on TBS
No. 3 Xavier vs. No. 2 Texas
9:45 p.m. on CBS
“Lives Lived: Fuzzy Haskins joined the Parliaments as a teenager. It later became Parliament-Funkadelic, one of the wildest vocal acts of the 1970s. He died at 81.” [New York Times]
Meet the Pickles
The baby tortoises. Photo: Jackelin Reyna/Houston Zoo
“The oldest animal at the Houston Zoo just became a father of three.
Mr. Pickles, a 90-year-old radiated tortoise, and his partner, Mrs. Pickles, 53, are now the parents of Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño, Axios Houston's Shafaq Patel reports.
Why it matters: Mr. Pickles is the most genetically valuable radiated tortoise in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan, making his offspring an important contribution to the future of this critically endangered species.
Plus: They're adorable.” [Axios]