The Full Belmonte, 4/28/2023
Mike Pence
“Former Vice President Mike Pence testified for more than five hours Thursday to a federal grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of then-President Donald Trump and others, sources told CNN. This marks the first time in modern history a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served beside. Pence was set to recount — for the first time under oath — his direct conversations with Trump leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. A federal judge previously ruled Pence could also be compelled to recount conversations when Trump repeatedly pressured him unsuccessfully to block the 2020 election results.” [CNN]
Revealed: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh assault claims contained serious omissions
The 2018 investigation into the then supreme court nominee claimed there was ‘no evidence’ behind claims of sexual assault
“A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was ‘no evidence’ to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.
The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was ‘likely’ mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.
The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.
Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.
Smith wrote to Davis in the 29 September 2018 email that he was in a class behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez (who graduated in the class of 1987) and believed Ramirez was likely mistaken in identifying Kavanaugh.
Instead, Smith said it was a fellow classmate named Jack Maxey, who was a member of Kavanaugh’s fraternity, who allegedly had a ‘reputation’ for exposing himself, and had once done so at a party. To back his claim, Smith also attached a photograph of Maxey exposing himself in his fraternity’s 1988 yearbook picture.
The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.
‘I was not at Yale,’ he said. ‘I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven.’ He added: ‘These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.’
The revelation raises new questions about apparent efforts to downplay and discredit accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh and exclude evidence that supported an alleged victim’s claims.
A new documentary – an early version of which premiered at Sundance in January, but is being updated before its release – contains a never-before-heard recording of another Yale graduate, Max Stier, describing a separate alleged incident in which he said he witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself at a party at Yale.
It has previously been reported that Stier wanted to tell the FBI anonymously during the confirmation process that he had allegedly witnessed Kavanaugh’s friends push the future judge’s penis into the hand of a female classmate at a party. While Republicans on the Senate committee were reportedly made aware of his desire to submit information to the FBI, he was not interviewed by the committee’s Republican investigators.
The committee’s final report claimed there was ‘no verifiable evidence to support’ Ramirez’s claim.
It is not clear how the film’s director, Doug Liman, obtained the recording, or whom Stier was speaking to when it was recorded.
Stier, the chief executive of a Washington nonprofit who formerly served in the Clinton administration, declined to comment to the Guardian.
He is married to Florence Pan, a prominent judge on the US court of appeals in Washington. Pan sits in the seat that was vacated by Ketanji Brown Jackson, the US supreme court justice, and is seen as a possible future candidate for the US high court.
Maxey adamantly denied any allegation that he exposed himself to Ramirez at any time. Asked if he had ever visited Yale at the time of the alleged incident, Maxey said he had visited his older brother, Christopher, who was an older student at Yale, on a limited number of occasions when he was a senior in high school, but that they had not attended any freshmen parties.
Maxey, a Republican activist, has gained prominence in conservative circles for his role in sharing a portable hard drive of data from Hunter Biden’s laptop with members of the media, including the Washington Post. When he was reached by the Guardian, Maxey said he was in Europe and claimed he had ‘just’ given the hard drive to Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary.
Maxey has said he obtained the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani. He previously worked as a researcher for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast but the two have since had a falling out.
While Maxey seemed in his interview with the Guardian to have been annoyed that Smith – whom he said he didn’t know or recall interacting with – named him in an accusatory email, he also separately defended Kavanaugh, who he said had behaved like a “choir boy” while attending Yale.
Smith’s email arrived in Davis’s inbox six days after the New Yorker first published details of Ramirez’s accusation. In the article, Ramirez described how Kavanaugh had allegedly exposed himself drunkenly at a dormitory party, thrusting his penis in her face in a way that caused her to touch it without her consent in order to push him away. Ramirez, who was raised as a devout Catholic, described feeling ashamed, humiliated and embarrassed after the alleged assault, and recalled how Kavanaugh had allegedly laughed as he pulled his pants up.
Kavanaugh has denied the incident took place.
Ramirez, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.
Smith did not respond to several requests for comment.
It is not clear whether Smith, a Denver-based partner at Bartlit Beck, knew or had a relationship with Kavanaugh while or after both attended Yale as undergraduate students, or what prompted him to send Davis the email, which was an apparent attempt to clear Kavanaugh of suspicion.
According to his online biography, Smith attended the University of Chicago’s law school after graduating from Yale and – like Kavanaugh – was part of the legal team that represented George W Bush in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida.
Redacted emails show that Smith also appears to have shared his accusation about Maxey with federal investigators. While the name of the accuser and the accused were redacted, records released by the FBI show that an individual made the exact same claim as Smith made to Davis to the FBI shortly after the email was sent to Davis. In it, the individual wrote: ‘I submitted this same information to a staff member of the Senate judiciary committee, Mike Davis, because I know him, and he suggested I also submit it to you.’
Davis declined to comment. The Republican staff on the Senate judiciary committee declined to respond to a request for comment.
The FBI was at the time involved in its own review of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. The investigation, conducted under FBI director Christopher Wray, another Yale graduate, has widely been derided as a ‘sham’ by Democrats led by the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate judiciary committee.
Whitehouse’s office is expected to release a report into the FBI’s handling of the Kavanaugh investigation by the end of this year.” [The Guardian]
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice Enters 2024 Senate Race
Republican is a crucial recruit in a national GOP effort to unseat Democrat Joe Manchin
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was first elected governor as a Democrat and then switched parties.PHOTO: CHRIS JACKSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“WASHINGTON—West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice announced on Thursday that he will run for the Senate in 2024, challenging for the seat currently held by centrist Democrat Joe Manchin.
‘Tonight, I’m officially announcing my candidacy for the United States Senate, and I will absolutely promise you to God above that I will do the job, and I will do a job that will make you proud,’ Mr. Justice said Thursday night in a speech to supporters at the Greenbrier, a luxury hotel he owns in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
His entrance into the race marks a significant recruiting win for Republicans, who see the seat as a top target as they try to win back control of the Senate, where the Democratic caucus currently has a 51-49 majority. Mr. Justice, 72 years old, will be competing against Rep. Alex Mooney for the GOP nomination and is seen as the early favorite in that contest.
Mr. Justice, who owns a sprawling empire of coal mines, processing facilities and agricultural interests, was first elected governor in 2016 as a Democrat and switched parties in 2017. In office, he oversaw the state’s Covid-19 response and has pushed forward major tax and infrastructure bills, easily winning re-election in 2020. Mr. Justice is expected to make a formal announcement late Thursday at the Greenbrier, the luxury hotel he owns in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va….” Read more at Wall Street Journal
This sure doesn't look like a recession
Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
“Neither corporate earnings nor the latest GDP numbers imply we're careening toward an economic contraction, Matt Phillips writes for Axios Markets.
Why it matters: Last year, as the Fed tightened rates at the most rapid clip since the early 1980s — and stocks fell 20% — executives and the press got obsessed with the possibility of a downturn.
Zoom out: To paraphrase the economist Robert Solow, the downturn has been everywhere but in the economic statistics.
Solid corporate profits, low unemployment, and yesterday's sturdy GDP data suggest the U.S. economy is more or less fine.
Sure, it's slowed down — which is necessary to lower inflation. But there's scant evidence the economy is wobbling on the cliff's edge.
Consumers seem hale and hearty:
Real disposable income was up 8% during the quarter — the best gain in a decade aside from when it was juiced by government payouts during the COVID crisis.
That helped drive consumer spending up 3.7%, the fastest since 2021.
In the corporate world, nearly 80% of companies that have released Q1 results have delivered better-than-expected number.
So analysts have started raising their earnings forecasts for the coming year.
The bottom line: For sure, there are weak spots, like the housing market. And things could change if the actual impact of the last year of rate hikes still hasn't fully registered.
But in an economy that's 70% consumption, the current strength of the consumer is tough to square with the idea of a looming downturn.” [Axios]
Long-sought Equal Rights Amendment fails in Senate
“The Senate's latest effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment has failed 100 years after it was first introduced to Congress.
The chamber voted on a bipartisan resolution that would have removed a measure preventing Congress from enshrining the ERA to the U.S. Constitution.
•The passage and ratification of the ERA has never been as urgent as it is now, Democrats said, pointing to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and efforts to restrict access to abortion pill mifepristone as examples.
•The ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923 and passed in 1972, triggering the requirement that 38 states ratify it before it could be enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
•While 35 states adopted the amendment by a 1982 deadline, the required state threshold wasn’t met until 2020, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA. But the Trump administration said the states missed the deadline, requiring Congress to restart the constitutional amendment process.” [USA Today]
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a Democratic measure to revive the Equal Rights Amendment.
J. Scott Applewhite, AP
Abortion bans failed to pass in Nebraska and South Carolina yesterday.
“What to know: A near-total ban failed in South Carolina, hours before a six-week ban fizzled in Nebraska. It means abortion remains legal in both states until 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Why it matters: Conservatives dominate those state legislatures. The failures suggest a fear is growing among some Republicans that abortion bans could cause a political backlash.” [Washington Post]
2 US Army helicopters crash in Alaska, killing 3 soldiers
“JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — Two U.S. Army helicopters collided and crashed Thursday in Alaska while returning from a training flight, killing three soldiers and injuring a fourth.
Two of the soldiers died at the scene of the crash near Healy, Alaska, and a third died on the way to a hospital in Fairbanks. A fourth soldier was being treated at a hospital for injuries, the Army said in a statement.
The names of those killed were being withheld until relatives could be notified, the Army said.
Each AH-64 Apache helicopter was carrying two people at the time of the crash, John Pennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Alaska, said earlier Thursday.
The helicopters were from the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment at Fort Wainwright, based near Fairbanks….” Read more at AP News
Relief for Lake Mead
Lake Mead as seen from the Hoover Dam on April 3. Photo: Brian van der Brug/L.A. Times via Getty Images
“Snowmelt following an unusually wet winter in the Colorado River basin is boosting Lake Mead's long-dwindling water levels, Axios' Jeremy Duda reports.
Yet it's unclear which of the many states, cities and tribes that rely on the massive reservoir might benefit — if any.
Catch up quick: The region is experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years.
But heavy snow in the Rocky Mountains has helped at least partially replenish Lake Mead and other key reservoirs.
What we're watching: Whether the snowmelt affects ongoing debate over how best to ration Colorado River water as the drought continues.
Federal officials have proposed two plans for distributing needed cuts among affected states.
One would favor California and the other Arizona.
Reality check: The snowmelt is helping in the short term, but there wasn't enough winter precipitation to fully reverse Lake Mead's long-term drying trends.” [Axios]
US-Mexico border
“The Biden administration is bracing for a surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border when a Covid-era border restriction known as Title 42 lifts next month. On May 11, when the coronavirus public health emergency ends, the restriction will expire, meaning border authorities will no longer be able to quickly expel certain migrants. Instead, authorities will have to return to decades-old protocols at a time of unprecedented mass migration in the Western hemisphere. Behind the scenes, administration officials have been racing to set up new policies to stem the flow of migrants, but even with those put in place, officials recognize that they could face an overwhelming number of people. A senior Customs and Border Protection official told CNN that the agency estimates "several thousand" migrants are already waiting in northern Mexico to cross the border.” [CNN]
Biden's age-old trap
President Biden takes a selfie at the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn on April 10. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“Polls show that most voters of most ages wonder the same thing: Can President Biden really win the White House again at nearly 82 — and run it competently into age 86?
Why it matters: It's a line of questioning the White House hates, and tries to brush off. But there are so many unknowns to rolling into your mid-80s with more power than anyone on Earth, Axios' Alex Thompson reports.
It's already an issue in the 2024 campaign, with some Republicans bluntly saying Biden might not live through a second term.
‘[T]he idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,’ GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News on Wednesday.
Zoom in: The White House rarely puts Biden in improvisational settings — or in front of hostile questions from reporters. So it's tough for anyone outside his tight bubble to truly appraise the reality of Biden being the oldest president in U.S. history.
Behind the scenes: Biden's close advisers say he's mentally sharp. But even some of them concede his age has diminished his energy, significantly limiting his schedule.
Many White House officials say they're amazed at Biden's stamina — often adding the caveat: ‘for his age.’
Some White House officials say it's difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends: The vast majority of Biden’s public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Jen Psaki, who was Biden's first White House press secretary, acknowledged this dynamic: She noted that the president's remarks on the Silicon Valley Bank crisis must have been a high priority since he delivered them at 9:15 a.m.
‘President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m.,’ she said last month on MSNBC's ‘Morning Joe.’ ‘He is a night owl.’
Biden has said he takes his time in the mornings. ‘I'm up at 7, 7:15,’ he told the ‘Smartless’ podcast last November, adding that he works out from about 8 to 8:45 a.m.
By the numbers: A breakdown of Biden's schedule so far in 2023 reveals how his staff tries to ensure he's at his best:
Only four public events before 10 a.m.
Just a dozen public events after 6 p.m. — mostly dinners and receptions with foreign leaders or fundraisers.
12 full weekends with no public events.
In response to this reporting, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O'Malley Dillon sent a one-word reply: ‘False.’
Reality check: Biden has remained an active traveler, with more than 20 trips this year— including a long, risky and complicated visit to war-torn Kyiv.
Flashback: As president, Donald Trump started his Oval Office days late, with hours of "Executive Time" scheduled in the morning.
If Trump wins in 2024, he'd be 78 on Inauguration Day 2025 — a few months older than Biden was when he took office in 2021.
The intrigue: The White House is basically hiding Biden as he auditions for another term.
Some White House aides privately have compared Biden to an aging king: He has a tight-knit palace guard of longtime aides whose first instinct is to protect him, and not take chances.” [Axios]
Bacterial outbreak
“A bacterial outbreak has caused 31 infections at a Seattle hospital, officials announced this week. Numerous cases of Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria at Virginia Mason Medical Center were reported since October, with the most recent confirmed case identified on April 3. Klebsiella is a type of bacteria that lives in the intestines that can lead to illnesses in health care settings such as pneumonia and meningitis as well as bloodstream, wound or surgical site infections, according to the CDC. Patients in a health care facility may be exposed to the bacteria through person-to-person contact or through ventilators or catheters, the CDC said. The hospital said it is investigating the source of transmission and is taking precautions to prevent additional cases.” [CNN]
Russian missile and drone attack in Ukraine kills 16 people
By ANDREA ROSA, HANNA ARHIROVA and DAVID RISING
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a Russian attack at a residential building in Uman, central Ukraine, Friday, April 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
“UMAN, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine early Friday, killing at least 16 people, most of them when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in the center of the country, officials said. Three children were among the dead.
The missile attacks included the first one against Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in nearly two months, although there were no reports of any targets hit. The city government said Ukraine’s air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles over Kyiv.
The strikes on the nine-story residential building in central Ukraine occurred in Uman, a city located around 215 kilometers (134 miles) south of Kyiv. Fourteen people died in that attack, according to the interior ministry, including two 10-year-old children and a toddler.
Another of the victims was a 75-year-old woman who lived in a neighboring building and suffered internal bleeding from the huge blast’s shock wave, according to emergency personnel at the scene….” Read more at AP News
“A presidential election in Paraguay is hardly a global event. But Sunday’s vote in the landlocked South American nation has suddenly turned into another chapter of the US-China competition.
That’s because Paraguay is one of a dozen countries that still has full diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Initiated in 1957 under the fiercely anti-communist dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, the relationship has evolved over the decades thanks to his Colorado Party retaining power for all but five years.
More recently, the cost of ignoring China for Paraguay, one of the world’s top soy exporters and a significant beef producer, has become hefty. Enter Efrain Alegre, the opposition figure fighting head-to-head for the presidency against the government’s candidate, Santiago Peña.
Alegre suggested during the campaign that Paraguay isn’t getting enough out of the relationship and should consider changing sides. While his position appears to be purely pragmatic and he hasn’t explicitly pledged to start relations with China, just floating the issue was enough to stir unease in Washington.
China has wooed several Latin American countries over to its side in recent years, including Panama, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and, last month, Honduras. The Asian giant’s growing influence has been irresistible in a region that produces commodities from copper to grains. Guatemala, the largest economy of the pro-Taiwan group, picks its president in June.
Meanwhile, the US has taken the unusual step of sanctioning two top Paraguayan government figures, Vice President Hugo Velázquez and Colorado Party leader and former President Horacio Cartes, alleging involvement “in systemic corruption that has undermined democratic institutions.”
Regardless of their merits, imposing sanctions on the eve of a crucial vote in a country that has been a historic ally of Washington has the potential to tilt the election as corruption remains a main concern among Paraguayans.
It’d be a geopolitical irony if the US move unintentionally sends Paraguay into China’s arms.” — Juan Pablo Spinetto [Bloomberg]
Alegre supporters at a rally in Asuncion on April 16. Photographer: Santi Carneri/Bloomberg
“Six months after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, the future of the company and the platform have never been less certain. After acquiring the social media platform for $44 billion in late October, Musk reportedly now values Twitter at around $20 billion — and some analysts believe that estimate is likely high. Additionally, Musk has laid off 80% of Twitter's staff and is allegedly failing to pay some of its bills, according to multiple lawsuits. This comes as Musk's primary growth strategy through an overhauled subscription strategy has resulted in much chaos and a limited number of actual subscriptions. Twitter has also lost several top advertisers, and a number of users, celebrities and media organizations have said they plan to leave. One of the latest corporations to ditch the platform is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, North America's largest transportation network serving millions of metro and bus passengers in New York and connecting states.” [CNN]
Meta win in states' antitrust suit
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of an antitrust suit against Meta yesterday — a win for the social media giant in a case brought by 48 U.S. states and territories over its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, Ashley Gold writes for Axios Pro-Tech Policy.
Why it matters: Meta is developing a track record of winning antitrust cases in the U.S., even as it faces continued challenges in court and from regulators here and abroad.
The court said states waited too long to file suit and were aware of the acquisitions when they were happening.” [Axios]
SVB collapse
“The Federal Reserve will release a report today on the findings from its investigation into what caused Silicon Valley Bank to collapse last month. Randal Quarles, former vice chair of supervision at the Fed, told CNN that he doesn't expect the report to uncover any smoking guns. However, new details could shed light on how the bank imploded and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent it. Quarles said the report will likely hint at or formally propose more restrictive banking regulation without outlining specifics. In particular, he thinks there will be a lot of discussion around rolling back rules that allowed banks the size of SVB to skirt certain capital and liquidity requirements they had been subjected to in prior years.” [CNN]
April 28, 2023
Good morning. Long school closures have put public education — and Randi Weingarten, the leader of a major teachers’ union — on the defensive.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press
The long shadow of school closures
“During the early months of the Covid pandemic, Randi Weingarten and the teachers’ union she leads faced a vexing question: When should schools reopen?
For years, advocates of public education like Weingarten had argued that schools played an irreplaceable role. School was where children learned academic and social skills. It was where low-income children received subsidized meals. Without public schools, their defenders argued, society would come apart.
On the other side of the ledger, however, was the worst pandemic in a century. Teachers and parents feared that reopening schools before vaccines were available would spark Covid outbreaks, illness and death.
In 2020, the pandemic’s first full year, Weingarten came down strongly on the side of keeping schools closed. Safety measures were not enough to reopen them, she argued. Instead, Covid became an opportunity for her union, the American Federation of Teachers, to push for broader policy changes that it had long favored. As my colleague Jonathan Mahler writes in a new story in the Times Magazine:
The A.F.T. had issued its own reopening plan in late April calling for adequate personal protective equipment, new cleaning and sanitization regimens in school buildings, a temporary suspension of formal teacher performance evaluations, a limit on student testing, a cancellation of student-loan debt and a $750 billion federal aid package to help schools prepare to reopen safely and facilitate ‘‘a real recovery for all our communities.’’
In retrospect, the strategy seems to have failed.
Today’s newsletter, like Jonathan’s story, looks at the lingering costs to public education.
A lost year
Many other education leaders took a different approach in 2020 and came to favor a faster reopening of schools. In Europe, many were open by the middle of the year. In the U.S., private schools, including Catholic schools, which often have modest resources, reopened. In conservative parts of the U.S., public schools also reopened, at times in consultation with local teachers’ unions.
Some people did contract Covid at these schools, but the overall effect on the virus’s spread was close to zero. U.S. communities with closed schools had similar levels of Covid as communities with open schools, be they in the U.S. or Europe. How could that be? By the middle of 2020, there were many other ways for Covid to spread — in supermarkets, bars, restaurants and workplaces, as well as homes where out-of-school children gathered with friends.
Despite the emerging data that schools were not superspreaders, many U.S. districts remained closed well into 2021, even after vaccines were available. About half of American children lost at least a year of full-time school, according to Michael Hartney of Boston College.
And children suffered as a result.
They lost ground in reading, math and other subjects. The effects were worst on low-income, Black and Latino children. Depression increased, and the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in children’s mental health. Shamik Dasgupta, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, who became an advocate for reopening schools, called the closures ‘a moral catastrophe.’
The closures also caused some Americans to sour on public schools. Nationwide enrollment fell by 1.3 million, or 3 percent, according to the latest federal data. The share of U.S. adults with little or no trust in public schools rose by a few percentage points, to 33 percent, according to Gallup. In last year’s elections, political candidates who supported vouchers — which effectively reduce public-school funding — fared well, as Jonathan explains in his story.
‘It’s pretty undeniable that the last few years have been bad for public schools — even very bad,’ he told me.
A democratic failure
I recommend his story because it’s a nuanced look at Weingarten and the challenges she now faces. Republican officials have spent years trying to demonize teachers’ unions, and Weingarten in particular (including during a House hearing this week), and have been less successful than they hoped. In Michigan, where Weingarten campaigned for Democrats last year, as she frequently does, the party won a sweep of major offices. In Chicago (an overwhelmingly Democratic city), a former teachers’ union organizer, Brandon Johnson, was elected mayor this month.
These results reflect the fact that many Americans are sympathetic to teachers and grateful to their children’s own teachers. Teachers do vital work and don’t make big salaries. Many spend their own money on teaching materials when schools don’t do so.
In the case of Covid, the risks associated with reopening schools were unclear in the spring of 2020, and teachers were understandably frightened. Over the course of the summer, however, evidence increasingly suggested that schools could reopen without accelerating the spread of Covid — and that the costs of keeping them closed were steep. Despite this evidence, many schools remained closed for months on end, even after vaccines became available.
Dasgupta, the Berkeley philosopher, has a thoughtful way of framing this failure. As he wrote to me in an email:
It is clear that extended school closures were a mistake — they harmed children while having no measurable effect on the pandemic. It is also clear that teachers’ unions were a major factor behind the closures. But remember that the unions were just doing their job. Their remit is to advocate for their members and that is exactly what they did.
Seen like this, the problem was not the teachers’ union per se — I am personally in favor of public sector unions — but the absence of a comparable organization at the bargaining table to represent the interests of students and their caregivers. It was a failure of democratic decision-making.
Looking ahead, my colleague Jonathan puts it this way:
The question (and political debate) is where do we go from here — double down on public education, try to address the learning loss and emotional damage caused by the pandemic closures and make an effort to restore the nation’s confidence in public schools, or create more alternatives via school choice?
As Jonathan notes, public education is likely to be a major issue again in the 2024 campaigns. Read his story about Weingarten here.” [New York Times]
SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC
“N.F.L. Draft: Bryce Young went No. 1 overall to the Carolina Panthers, but the Houston Texans — who picked at Nos. 2 and 3 thanks to a last-second trade — earned the night’s spotlight.
Bryce Young, left, poses with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after being selected first overall by the Carolina Panthers during the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft at Union Station on April 27, 2023 in Kansas City, Missouri.
David Eulitt/Getty Images
The jilted QB: Kentucky’s Will Levis was projected to be picked in the top 10 of last night’s N.F.L. draft, but was still in the green room at the end of the first round.
The East gets clearer: The Boston Celtics closed out the Atlanta Hawks, securing a second-round matchup with the Sixers. The Heat and Knicks begin their second-round tilt Sunday.” [New York Times]
The death of late-night TV
Data: Vivvix (includes "The Tonight Show," "Late Night," "The Late Show," "The Late Late Show," "The Daily Show" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live"). Chart: Axios Visuals
“The shift toward streaming is claiming another legacy TV victim — late-night television, writes Tim Baysinger of Axios Pro: Media Deals.
Why it matters: The rapid decline in both viewers and ad revenue is forcing networks to turn to cheaper alternatives, threatening the future of the 70-year-old genre.
CBS aired the final episode of ‘The Late Late Show with James Corden’ last night. Rather than find a new host, the network is ending the 28-year-old show entirely. (Corden was the show's fourth host.)
In its place will be a trivia-themed game show based on Comedy Central's internet-themed "@Midnight," which ran from 2013-2017, a source with knowledge of the plans tells Axios.
The new show, which will be produced by Stephen Colbert and Funny or Die, is expected to debut in the fall. It will also be significantly cheaper to produce than ‘The Late Late Show,’ the source adds.
The big picture: Late-night TV is expensive, with the top hosts like Colbert and Jimmy Fallon making north of $15 million per year. The social media age has dramatically changed how viewers watch them, choosing online clips the next morning over live viewing.
Corden is the second late-night host to voluntarily leave within the last six months without a replacement. Trevor Noah abruptly left Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" in December, and the network has filled his spot with rotating guest hosts since.
Reality check: The three top late-night hosts on broadcast TV — Colbert, Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel — aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Kimmel and Fallon have contracts through 2025 and 2026, respectively.
Colbert's latest deal for "The Late Show" expires in August. But a new deal is expected to be reached, the source said.” [Axios]
White woman whose claim caused Emmett Till murder has died
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
FILE - This 1955 file photo shows Carolyn Bryant. Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 has died Tuesday night, April 25, in hospice care in Louisiana, according to a death report filed Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office in Louisiana. She was 88. (AP Photo/Gene Herrick, File)
“JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of whistling at and accosting her in Mississippi in 1955 — causing his lynching, which galvanized a generation of activists to rise up in the Civil Rights Movement — has died at 88.
Carolyn Bryant Donham died in hospice care Tuesday night in Westlake, Louisiana, according to a death report filed Thursday in the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office.
Her death marks the last chance for anyone to be held accountable for the kidnapping and murder that shocked the world.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago so the world could see her 14-year-old son’s mutilated body, which was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos.
In August 1955, Till had traveled from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi. Donham — then 21 and named Carolyn Bryant — accused him of making improper advances on her at a grocery store where she was working in the small community of Money. The Rev. Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till who was there, has said Till whistled at the woman, an act that flew in the face of Mississippi’s racist social codes of the era….” Read more at AP News
Jerry Springer, politician turned TV ringmaster, dies at 79
By DAN SEWELL
“CINCINNATI (AP) — Jerry Springer, the onetime mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show featured a three-ring circus of dysfunctional guests willing to bare all — sometimes literally — as they brawled and hurled obscenities before a raucous audience, died Thursday at 79.
At its peak, “The Jerry Springer Show” was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with lurid drama. Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favorite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show….” Read more at AP News
Jerry Springer speaks in New York in 2010 (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
“Lives Lived: Dick Groat helped lead the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series victory while earning an M.V.P. award. Yet he insisted he was better at basketball — and played a season in the N.B.A. He died at 92.” [New York Times]