The Full Belmonte, 4/11/2024
Last month’s hot inflation report upended the case for the Fed to cut interest rates in June.
“The consumer-price index, a measure of goods and services prices across the economy, rose 3.5% in March ( read for free) from a year earlier, the Labor Department said. That was a bit higher than economists had forecast and up from February’s 3.2%. So-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy categories, also rose more than expected on a monthly and annual basis. A third straight month of above-expectations inflation data could convince the central bank to postpone rate cuts until July or later. Its benchmark federal-funds rate is at a 23-year high. The CPI reading rattled U.S. markets.” [Wall Street Journal]
Trump says Arizona went too far in abortion ban ruling
“Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who declared two days ago that abortion rights should be left up to individual states, said today that Arizona went too far in reinstating a 160-year-old law that bans abortion nearly entirely.
‘Yeah, they did,’ the former president said, when asked by reporters if Arizona went too far. ‘That'll be straightened out, and as you know it's all about states' rights.’
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday the state can enforce an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, except to save the life of the mother.
The reinstated law is set to take effect 14 days after the ruling, though Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has vowed that ‘no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state.’
Trump again today touted his role in overturning of Roe v. Wade, calling it ‘an incredible achievement,’ but said would not support a federal ban on abortion.” [NBC News]
Biden administration sets first limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in water
“The EPA has finalized the first-ever national limits on six types of so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
The new rules will require water utility companies to greatly reduce the amount of these chemicals, also known as PFAS, protecting 100 million Americans from exposure, according to the White House.
Toxic PFAS have been associated with a higher risk of illness, including cancer. They’re known as “forever chemicals” because they barely degrade and are nearly impossible to destroy.” [NBC News]
House Republican holdouts blocked a critical but controversial national-security spying law.
House Speaker Mike Johnson holds a press conference at the Capitol today. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
“The procedural vote failed 193-228, leaving the future of surveillance up in the air one week before so-called Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is due to expire. Democratic and Republican administrations have said the program is vital to protect the country from terrorists, hackers and other foreign threats, but critics point to the collection of some American communications without a warrant. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, had urged passage of the legislation, but this morning, Donald Trump on social media encouraged the GOP to kill it. Separately, Arizona will be ground zero for the abortion fight, a major issue for voters in the swing state. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to bring back a 160-year-old near total ban on the procedure has Republicans on defense.” [Wall Street Journal]
Violent storms produce tornadoes, flooding across the Gulf Coast
“There are new reports of tornadoes touching down today in Louisiana and Mississippi, as a line of severe thunderstorms pushes east across the Gulf Coast, bringing heavy rain, flooding, and hail.
A flash flood emergency was issued for New Orleans, where many streets are shut down by high waters. In Slidell, just north of New Orleans, 50 people were rescued from an apartment complex after reports of tornado damage, police said.
Residents who live near a levee on the brink of failing in Yazoo, Mississippi, were told to evacuate ‘IMMEDIATELY!!!’ by authorities. ‘Please get out ASAP!!!’ the sheriff’s department wrote on Facebook.
In Texas, water rescues were underway today in Jasper County, where a disaster has been declared after flooding left the city of Kirbyville underwater, according to the sheriff’s office.
Near Houston, an EF-1 tornado touched down overnight with maximum winds around 90 mph, officials said, causing significant damage to neighborhoods and businesses.
More than 200,000 customers are without power today across Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.” [NBC News]
Presidential debates
“Five of the major US television networks have banded together to draft a letter urging President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump to commit to participating in televised debates ahead of the 2024 election. According to a draft of the letter, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News and CNN urged the presumptive nominees ‘to publicly commit to participating in general election debates’ to share ‘their visions for the future of our nation.’ Biden has not publicly committed to debating Trump, although he has not ruled it out. ‘It depends on his behavior,’ Biden said in March. Trump has said that he will debate ‘anytime, anywhere anyplace.’ However, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee has a proven track record of flagrantly violating debate rules, hurling insults at his opponents, and making false claims.” [CNN]
Former Trump executive Allen Weisselberg sentenced to 5 months in jail for lying
“Allen Weisselberg, a retired executive in Donald Trump’s real estate empire, was sentenced Wednesday to five months in jail for lying under oath during his testimony in the civil fraud lawsuit brought against the former president by New York’s attorney general.” Read More at Wall Street Journal
Former “Goon Squad” officers sentenced on state charges for torture
“Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who were members of a self-described ‘Goon Squad’ were sentenced in state court today to 15 to 45 years in prison for the racist attack on two Black men.
Their state sentences will run concurrently with the federal sentences they received last month, ranging from 10 to 40 years in prison.
All six former officers pleaded guilty to the torture of those two men, after entering a home without a warrant in January 2023.
Prosecutors said the officers beat the two men, assaulted them with stun guns and a sex toy, and shot one of the victims in the mouth in a mock execution.” [NBC News]
“Ebony Parker, the former assistant principal of a Virginia school where a 6-year-old student shot his teacher last year, has been indicted on child abuse charges related to the day of the shooting, court records show. Parker could not be reached for comment.” [NBC News]
Japanese astronaut to become first non-American to land on moon
READ FULL STORY→USA Today
Israeli airstrikes killed three adult sons of the head of Hamas’s political leadership.
“Israel said they were members of the group’s military wing. Four of Ismail Haniyeh’s grandchildren also died in the attack in Gaza on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, according to Hamas. Haniyeh said his sons’ deaths wouldn’t affect the militant group’s negotiating stance. It has largely rejected a U.S. cease-fire plan, mediators said earlier. The dismissal reflects Hamas’s growing confidence that pressure on Israel to end the war gives the U.S.-designated terrorist group the upper hand in negotiations. Hamas said it would put forward its own plan. The U.S. proposal has the group releasing 40 of its hostages in exchange for 900 Palestinians in Israel’s jails, including 100 serving long sentences on terrorism-related charges. Many of the 133 hostages held in Gaza are believed dead.” [Wall Street Journal]
Israel-Hamas War
Israeli border police officers in the West Bank. Mohamad Torokman/Reuters
“Iran is smuggling weapons to Palestinians in the West Bank to stoke unrest, according to Iranian, Israeli and U.S. officials.” [New York Times]
“Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that Israel would invade the crowded city of Rafah in southern Gaza. ‘No force in the world will stop us,’ he said in a speech to military recruits.” [New York Times]
“At the top U.N. court, Germany rejected an accusation from Nicaragua that it had aided genocide by shipping arms to Israel. It said most of the equipment was nonlethal.” [New York Times]
“The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, told a Senate committee that the Pentagon had no evidence that Israel was carrying out a genocide in Gaza.” [New York Times]
“Turkey said it would limit exports to Israel until there’s a cease-fire in Gaza. Israel threatened to retaliate.” [New York Times]
Europe
“England’s health service restricted medical gender transition for minors after a four-year review cast doubt on the treatment’s benefits. Several other European countries have similar rules.” [New York Times]
“Europe’s top human rights court ruled that Switzerland violated its citizens’ rights by not doing enough to stop climate change.” [New York Times]
“Ireland is now led by its youngest ever prime minister: the 37-year-old Simon Harris.” [New York Times]
“Ukraine’s military has turned to drones from China after models sent by Silicon Valley start-ups failed in combat, The Wall Street Journal reports.” [New York Times]
An ‘Unbreakable’ Partnership
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (center) delivers remarks alongside U.S. President Joe Biden during an arrival ceremony at the White House in Washington on April 10.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Wednesday to announce a more than 70-point plan to bolster bilateral defense and intelligence cooperation. The multiday summit aims to address rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, including Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea and concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program.
The U.S.-Japan partnership is ‘unbreakable,’ Biden said, celebrating the ‘monumental alliance between our two great democracies.’
Biden and Kishida also planned to discuss upgrading the United States’ military command headquarters in Japan to better coordinate with Japanese forces. The two leaders also announced a ‘military industrial council’ to explore what types of defense weapons Washington and Tokyo can jointly produce. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara are expected to finalize the details over the next few months.
Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the country established a pacifist constitution that limits its military to self-defense. Kishida, however, has continued a shift away from that doctrine that began under his predecessor, Shinzo Abe. Since coming to office in 2021, Kishida has eased restrictions on lethal weapons exports, promised to raise defense spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, purchased U.S. Tomahawk missiles to increase counterstrike abilities, and helped establish security groupings such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.
‘Today the world faces more challenges and difficulties than ever before,’ Kishida said. ‘Japan will join hands with our American friends, and together, we will lead the way in tackling the challenges of the Indo-Pacific region and the world.’
During the summit, Biden and Kishida announced plans for a joint lunar space mission; research cooperation on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and clean energy; and a new scholarship for U.S. high schoolers to participate in exchange programs with Japanese schools. Much of the two leaders’ conversation also touched on ways to boost Tokyo’s sensitive intelligence protection efforts. Japan has long sought to join the Five Eyes intelligence network (consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to better combat perceived Chinese provocations.
On Thursday, Kishida will become the second Japanese leader in history to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. He will also attend a trilateral meeting with Biden and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to discuss repeated hostile encounters between Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels in the South China Sea. Biden’s planned meeting with Kishida and Marcos aims to ‘flip the script and isolate China,’ a U.S. official told Reuters.” [Foreign Policy]
“Expected opposition victory. South Korea held legislative elections on Wednesday to determine all 300 seats in the country’s unicameral National Assembly. Early exit polls predicted that the opposition Democratic Party and its allies would secure at least 178 seats—granting them majority control. President Yoon Suk-yeol’s conservative People Power Party is likely to only win around 100 seats. Final results are expected on Thursday.
Yoon won the presidency in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in the country’s history. Since then, he has relied heavily on presidential decrees to pass laws, as they don’t require legislative approval. During his first year, Yoon issued 809 executive orders compared to his two immediate predecessors’ 660 and 653 decrees, respectively. Analysts said the opposition’s expected win on Wednesday will deliver a significant blow to Yoon’s administration as he faces decreasing public approval and a cost-of-living crisis in Seoul.” [Foreign Policy]
“EU migration policies. The European Parliament passed a wide-ranging legislative framework on Wednesday that restructures how the bloc handles asylum cases. Under the new policies, which took years to finalize, European Union member states are no longer solely responsible for processing asylum-seekers who arrive at their borders. Instead, responsibility will be shared across all 27 members to ease the burden that southern states—such as Greece, Malta, and Italy—have faced, whether that be through relocation or other types of financial or physical assistance.
EU leaders, including European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, praised the vote, calling it a ‘historic day for Europe.’ However, rights groups accused the bloc of signing a deal that could cause suffering in the long run. ‘These reforms will mean less protection and a greater risk of facing human rights violations across Europe—including illegal and violent pushbacks, arbitrary detention, and discriminatory policing,’ said Eve Geddie, the head of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.” [Foreign Policy]
“Chinese cybercrime. Zambian authorities uncovered a ‘sophisticated internet fraud syndicate’ during a raid on a Chinese-run company outside the capital of Lusaka on Tuesday. Officials arrested 77 people, including 22 Chinese nationals. This is a ‘significant breakthrough in the fight against cybercrime,’ authorities said. The monthslong intelligence mission was led by Zambia’s Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) alongside local police and the nation’s immigration department and antiterrorism unit.
The Chinese company, known as Golden Top Support Services, allegedly used equipment to disguise call agents’ locations to commit internet fraud and other online scams, DEC chief Nason Banda said. People in Singapore, Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and numerous African countries were reportedly targeted. Chinese cyberattacks have increased in recent months, with the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand all accusing China of espionage and data theft, among other cyberthreats.” [Foreign Policy]
April 10, 2024
Good morning. We’re covering abortion’s role in the 2024 election —
In Amarillo, Texas. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
A new majority
“No American president has done as much to restrict abortion as Donald Trump. When he was running in 2016, he promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and his three nominees helped do precisely that in the 2022 Dobbs decision. Twenty-one states have since enacted tight restrictions. Yesterday, Arizona’s highest court reinstated an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions.
These laws have proven to be unpopular. When abortion access has appeared on the ballot since 2022, it has consistently won, even in red states like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana. A Wall Street Journal poll last month found that abortion stood out from immigration, inflation and foreign wars as the only major issue on which most voters trusted President Biden more than Trump.
All of this helps explains why Trump has tried to reduce his vulnerability on the issue — and why the Biden campaign is already running advertisements about abortion. ‘Donald Trump did this,’ reads the onscreen text at the end of an ad released this week. It focuses on a Texas woman who nearly died during a miscarriage after a hospital refused to treat her.
Trump released his own video this week, meant to serve as his defining statement on the issue. He said that states should be free to set their own laws, which is the post-Dobbs status quo. In so doing, he tried to distance himself from his past support for a federal ban.
This back-and-forth will be a theme of the 2024 campaign. Democrats will try to focus voters on abortion, while many Republicans will try to shift attention elsewhere. Today’s newsletter offers four key points to help you make sense of the debate.
The four points
1. The politics of abortion have changed.
Before Dobbs, polls suggested that the issue didn’t offer a big political advantage to either party. Most voters favored both significant access to abortion and significant restrictions, which put them to the left of Republican politicians and to the right of Democratic politicians.
But Dobbs — and the reality of statewide bans, as opposed to the mere prospect of them — altered public opinion. Gallup’s polls suggest that almost 10 percent of Americans on net switched from an anti-abortion position to a position favoring abortion access:
Source: Gallup | By The New York Times
2. Democrats still have a challenge: salience.
In the 2022 midterms, several high-profile Democratic candidates highlighted their Republican opponents’ role in restricting abortion access. Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Beto O’Rourke in Texas were among them. So was Nan Whaley, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio. “We think it is the issue,” Whaley said.
It wasn’t. These candidates all lost by substantial margins. Nationwide, not a single Republican governor or senator has lost a re-election bid since the Dobbs decision. In House elections, the decision may have played a decisive role in a small number of races.
How could this be? In today’s polarized atmosphere, most voters have already made up their minds. ‘There’s no one issue in this day and age that can be a silver bullet,’ Danielle Deiseroth, executive director of Data for Progress, a left-leaning research firm, told me.
If anything, Democrats may have a harder time focusing attention on abortion in a presidential election, when a larger portion of the electorate doesn’t follow politics closely and prioritizes pocketbook issues. Some of these voters are Black and Hispanic working-class Americans who tend to care less about abortion policy than white voters, Rachel Cohen of Vox has written.
3. Trump’s has his own problem: suburban swing voters.
Democrats who tried to run on abortion in the 2022 midterms were trying to oust incumbent Republicans. Biden has an easier job this year: He’s trying to reassemble a winning coalition.
His 2020 coalition included many college graduates — and women — in metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Phoenix, who allowed him to win swing states. Abortion access is popular with these voters, Deiseroth notes, especially when framed in terms of freedom and government overreach.
A recent poll found that only about one in four independents blame Trump for recent abortion bans. Biden hopes to increase that share — and win back people who voted for him four years ago.
4. Trump hopes voters ignore the past.
Trump’s latest position on the issue is a middle ground for Republicans, in favor of Dobbs but implicitly against a new federal law restricting abortion. This stance is meant to suggest that voting for him won’t lead to new laws forbidding abortion. That may be true (if he were to veto a Republican-passed federal ban, which he didn’t promise in his video). Yet it also ignores some important facts.
As president again, Trump could appoint dozens more federal judges who would interpret existing laws to reduce access. And Trump is effectively asking voters to ignore his first-term record. He remains arguably the most important opponent of abortion access in American history.” [New York Times]
Elon Musk picks his speech battle
Musk’s X is defying orders from Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, shown here, who has accused him of the ‘criminal instrumentalization of X.’ (Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images)
“Though Elon Musk often insists his goal with X is to promote free speech, his actions have rarely been those of the ‘free-speech absolutist’ he once claimed to be. Yes, he has rolled back the social platform’s policies on hate speech, cut back on content moderation and reinstated banned extremists under the free-speech banner. But he has also made up rules to ban accounts he doesn’t like, suspended journalists and sued nonprofit advocacy groups in what one judge ruled was a bid to silence critics.
In the United States, the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act give X a free hand to moderate or tolerate speech as it sees fit. And while many on the left have decried Musk’s policies, they’ve been widely cheered on the right. But it’s worth remembering that most X users are not American. And other countries have their own speech laws, some of them much more restrictive.
Since acquiring Twitter, which once prided itself on protecting dissidents abroad, Musk has proved unusually compliant when it comes to government censorship and surveillance requests.
In April 2022, Musk tweeted what seemed to be his clearest definition yet of what ‘free speech’ means to him in the context of social media, saying it’s simply ‘that which matches the law.’
While Musk hasn’t always held true to that principle domestically, he has generally adhered to it overseas. In India, for example, X agreed to block links to a BBC documentary that cast a critical lens on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and it has since capitulated to systematic censorship there. In Turkey, the company restricted tweets at the behest of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the eve of a critical election. Musk defended both decisions on the grounds that X had no choice but to comply.
In fact, as of a year ago, Rest of World reported that the company had not refused a single censorship request since Musk took over.
In recent days, however, he has dug in for a high-stakes battle in Brazil that shows he is willing to take a stand against foreign governments — if the speech of right-wing activists is at stake.
The standoff is over orders from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to block a number of accounts for ‘spreading anti-democratic ideas that undermine the Brazilian democratic state.’ As my colleagues Niha Masih and María Luisa Paúl reported, those include far-right figures allied with former president Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters stormed Brazilian government buildings on Jan. 8, 2023, following Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat.
On Saturday, Musk posted on X that the platform was defying those orders and ‘lifting all restrictions’ on the accounts in question. ‘This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil,’ Musk wrote, referring to Moraes. ‘As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.’
As foreign markets go, Brazil is no small potatoes. It is one of X’s largest markets outside the United States, and it plays a similar role there, with politicians and activists using it as a megaphone and water cooler to debate public issues. So Musk really is risking X’s business. But where did those principles come from all of a sudden?
Musk’s showdown with Brazil’s Moraes comes after a “Twitter Files” installment that detailed how Moraes and other Brazilian officials pressured social media companies to remove content.
As I wrote when Musk’s handpicked journalists began publishing the Twitter Files in late 2022, they have helped Musk justify his takeover of Twitter by casting him as a crusader exposing the ‘censorship’ of the company’s previous leadership. Focusing almost exclusively on content moderation against conservatives, they have also helped endear him to Republicans, providing them fodder with which to sue the Biden administration and pressure disinformation researchers.
For Musk and his backers on the right, Brazil presents a parallel scenario in which a liberal government is trying to hold its populist-right predecessor to account for attempting to subvert a democratic election.
Still, Musk’s own credo would seem to imply that he should be complying with Brazil’s laws.
In Musk’s 2022 defining of free speech, he added that ‘If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.’ Brazil’s laws do in fact allow for government restrictions on certain kinds of speech. The country became a democracy only in 1985, after decades of authoritarian rule, and its leaders regard that democracy as fragile — especially in the wake of the 2023 insurrection, which was fueled partly via social media. Accordingly, for better or worse, the country is now cracking down on speech it deems a threat to that democracy.
One can argue those laws go too far or give the government too much power to silence its opposition, said Thiago de Aragão, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who advises companies on risks in Latin America. But he said it’s hard to see Musk’s stand as principled, given how he has gone about it.
‘It would be more understandable if he had exhausted all legal means and lost,’ de Aragão said. ‘Instead he’s beginning from the end’ by publicly defying the orders and even calling Moraes ‘a dictator’ who has Brazil’s president ‘on a leash.’
That suggests Musk’s real motive is to provoke a confrontation that serves his own ends, de Aragão said.
‘Personally, I believe he actually wants very much for Moraes to ban [X] at least temporarily, because that would crown and legitimate his narrative’ that he’s ‘a champion of free speech.’” [Washington Post]
Ford recalls nearly 43,000 SUVs due to gas leaks that can cause fires, but remedy won’t fix leaks
“Ford is recalling nearly 43,000 small SUVs because gasoline can leak from the fuel injectors onto hot engine surfaces, increasing the risk of fires. But the recall remedy does not include repairing the fuel leaks. The recall covers certain Bronco Sport SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years, as well as Escape SUVs from 2022.” Read More at Wall Street Journal
A new Boeing whistleblower raised concerns about its 787 Dreamliner.
“The details: A longtime Boeing engineer alleged yesterday that sections of the plane are improperly fastened together and could break apart. The FAA is investigating.
Zooming out: This follows a slew of incidents involving Boeing planes, including one Sunday when the engine cover of a Southwest plane fell off during takeoff.”
Read this story at Washington Post
AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani
“French athlete Anouk Garnier set a new world record for rope climbing today, ascending 361 feet to the second story of the Eiffel Tower.” [Axios]
Pioneering US-born sumo wrestling champion Akebono dies aged 54
Akebono competes in the 1993 San Jose Basho sumo wrestling tournament held June 4-5, 1993
David Madison/Getty Images
TokyoCNN —
“Pioneering US-born former sumo wrestling champion Akebono has died, his family announced in a statement Thursday.
Widely considered to have blazed a trail for other foreign sumo wrestlers, the 54-year-old died of heart failure at a hospital in Japan.
Born Chad George Ha’aheo Rowan in Hawaii, Akebono became the first non-Japanese yokozuna – a sumo grand champion, the highest rank in the sport.
‘It is with sadness that we announce Akebono Taro died of heart failure earlier this month while receiving care at a hospital in the Tokyo area,’ his family said in a statement via the US military in Japan.
‘He led the sumo boom as the 64th yokozuna, and achieved many accomplishments, including winning 11 championships.’
After becoming Yokozuna in 1993, Akebono became a Japanese citizen in 1996. He retired from sumo in 2001 before debuting as a pro wrestler under Japanese mixed martial arts promotion K-1 in 2003.
According to the Japan Sumo Association, Akebono was rushed to hospital after a wrestling match in 2017 and had been unwell ever since.
He is survived by his wife, daughter and two sons….” Read more at CNN