The Full Belmonte, 8/4/2023
Trump's arrest playbook
Former President Trump steps off his plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this afternoon. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
“On a surreal Thursday afternoon in Washington, former President Trump — for the third time in four months — was placed under arrest.
Trump pleaded not guilty to charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith that he used ‘unlawful means’ in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Axios' Sophia Cai writes from the courthouse.
Why it matters: Trump's lawyers once again indicated they will attempt to delay a trial — setting up a chaotic and unprecedented 2024 election that could be heavily disrupted by court dates.
Trump's appearance came in the same D.C. courthouse, just blocks from the Capitol, that has hosted the trials of Jan. 6 rioters.
Trump's plane passes the Washington Monument before landing in northern Virginia. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Zoom in: A Trump playbook is evident from his multiple arraignments that's designed to keep attention on him and his campaign:
A carefully choreographed route gives reporters and news helicopters a chance to closely follow — and air live pictures of — Trump's motorcade. CNN aired images from inside his caravan today.
Trump has repeatedly cast himself on social media as a victim of ‘Biden's DOJ.’ He's said little around the courthouse, preferring to wait until he's on friendly territory to make statements.
In two of the cases, Trump and his team have attacked the judge in deeply personal terms. The exception: Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in Florida he appointed.
Trump's taken heavy aim at the lead prosecutors. He has also unleashed calls for trials to be moved away from D.C. and Manhattan, heavily Democratic areas.
What's next: The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 28, when a trial date will likely be set.” [Axios]
A bald eagle flies over the Des Moines River, Dec. 21, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
CLIMATE
At the 50-year mark, the Endangered Species Act may be in peril
“Fifty years after the U.S. Endangered Species Act took effect, officials say 99% of the animals and plants it protects have survived. But opposition has grown from industry and landowners who say it hampers economic growth and property rights. Some lawmakers are trying to weaken the law. Read more
Why this matters:
Enacted in 1973 amid fear for iconic creatures such as the bald eagle, grizzly bear and gray wolf, it extends legal protection to 1,683 domestic species. More than 99% of those listed as “endangered” — on the verge of extinction — or the less severe “threatened” have survived.
Environmental advocates and scientists say the protections are as essential as ever because habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
The law has become so controversial that Congress hasn’t updated it since 1992.” [AP News]
The College Board Says A.P. Psychology Is ‘Effectively Banned’ in Florida
The nonprofit said it would not remove a section on gender and sexual orientation, as Florida had requested, and advised districts not to offer the course.
Aug. 3, 2023
“The College Board announced on Thursday that Florida school districts should no longer offer Advanced Placement Psychology, one of the most popular A.P. courses, the latest skirmish in its battle with the state’s Department of Education over how to teach race, gender and sexual orientation.
The College Board, the nonprofit that oversees advanced placement courses and the SAT, revoked its support for A.P. Psychology in Florida, saying it would not abide by the state’s demand to remove a longstanding section on gender and sexual orientation.
‘The Florida Department of Education has effectively banned A.P. Psychology in the state,’ the College Board said in a statement.
The Department of Education fired back, accusing the College Board of ‘playing games with Florida students’ one week before school starts….” Read more at New York Times
POLITICS
Biden’s inaction on death penalty may be a top campaign issue as Trump and DeSantis laud executions
“Capital punishment could emerge as a major campaign issue in the U.S. presidential race for the first time in 30 years, with top GOP rivals Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis already one-upping each other. Meanwhile, Joe Biden hasn’t even spoken about his 2020 campaign pledge to strike capital punishment from U.S. statutes. Read more
Why this matters:
Support for the death penalty has fallen from nearly 80% in the mid-1990s to around 55% in recent years. As support waned, it faded as a campaign issue. But declaring support has long been a way for politicians to send a message that they’re tough on crime.
While the Justice Department announced a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, it’s a temporary pause. Nothing precludes a pro-death penalty candidate elected next year from quickly resuming them.” [AP News]
Expelled Tennesseans win seats back
From left, Tennessee Reps. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) and Justin Jones (D-Nashville) speak to reporters outside the West Wing after meeting with President Biden on April 24. Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP
“Tennessee Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones — who became Democratic heroes after being expelled following a gun-control protest on the House floor — were re-elected in a special election yesterday, The (Nashville) Tennessean reports.
What's next: Lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are preparing to return to Nashville later this month for a special session to address possibly changing the state's gun control laws, AP notes.
While Jones and Pearson won't make a significant dent to the Republican supermajority inside the legislature, they are expected to push back heavily against GOP proposals.” [Axios]
Stepping Up
Police officers patrol a neighborhood amid gang-related violence in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on April 25.Richard Pierrin/AFP via Getty Images
“Haiti may finally be getting the international intervention its prime minister has been pleading for. Kenya has offered to send 1,000 police officers to the island to lead an international force in support of Haitian police efforts to curb gang violence there. Although Kenyan officials haven’t dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s just yet, Nairobi said it would send an assessment team to Port-au-Prince in the coming weeks to determine operational requirements for establishing a multinational force and a potential timetable for action.
The international community has been quick to support Nairobi’s proposal. On Tuesday, the United States said it would put forward a United Nations Security Council resolution this month to support a Kenyan-led police mission to Haiti, and the government of the Bahamas said it would commit 150 people to the mission if the U.N. authorizes the force. This comes days after an American nurse and her daughter living in Haiti were kidnapped; their whereabouts are still unknown. Washington has also ordered the evacuation of all non-emergency personnel.
Of Haiti’s almost 12 million residents, there are only 9,000 active-duty police officers on the island, with barely 3,500 individuals on the streets on any given day. That is far too little to make a dent in Haiti’s growing gang violence epidemic, which escalated in July 2021 with the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse. Now, gangs control 80 percent of the nation’s capital, and killings and kidnappings have become rampant. ‘In Haiti, gang members are not independent warlords operating apart from the state,’ wrote Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, in Foreign Policy. ‘They are part of the way the state functions—and how political leaders assert power.’
However, Kenya’s offer is not without controversy. Rights activists have accused the Kenyan police of committing human rights abuses, such as shooting civilians who violated the nation’s COVID-19 curfew and killing demonstrators protesting the rising costs of living. In addition, although Kenyan security forces have participated in security assistance operations and international peacekeeping missions in places such as Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone, Kenya’s police forces have little overseas experience in deployments of this size and do not speak French or Haitian Creole, Haiti’s official languages. Given Haiti’s troubled history of foreign intervention, the new proposal has some people concerned.
‘We should care about what happened in peacekeeping missions in the past,’ Espérance told the New York Times. ‘We need to be careful. I don’t know why they chose Kenya.’” [Foreign Policy]
“Anti-French backlash. Protests swept Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Thursday as hundreds of demonstrators came out to support the country’s coup leaders. Among their many demands, the protesters called for the Economic Community of West African States to end its sanctions campaign and stop former colonizer France from intervening in the country’s politics. Thursday marked the 63rd anniversary of Niger’s independence from Paris.
Anti-French sentiment has grown across West Africa as other former French colonies, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, have kicked out French forces following military coups in their countries. Paris began evacuating hundreds of its citizens from Niger on Tuesday, though there has so far been no announcement of a withdrawal of the roughly 1,500 French troops in the nation. The United States also ordered some non-emergency U.S. Embassy personnel to leave the coup-stricken state on Wednesday.” [Foreign Policy]
“Tragedy in South Korea. At least one person was killed and 13 people injured in Seongnam, South Korea, on Thursday after a man drove his car onto a sidewalk and began stabbing shoppers at a local mall. Neither the suspect’s identity nor his motive has been confirmed; however, the country’s police have called it ‘virtually an act of terrorism,’ and some reports indicate that the perpetrator may have suffered from mental illness.
This is the second mass stabbing to rock South Korea in less than a month. On July 21, a South Korean man killed one person and injured three others near a subway station in Seoul. His motive was never released, but locals reported that he’d expressed suicidal ideation while being apprehended by police.” [Foreign Policy]
“Sunak’s set change. If you were to take a wee sightseeing tour in the United Kingdom, then you might have noticed a decoration change to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s private mansion. On Thursday, Greenpeace activists draped black cloth over Sunak’s home to protest his new policy that would “max out” oil and gas developments in the North Sea by expanding fossil fuel drilling licenses there. Five Greenpeace protesters were arrested after they managed to climb onto the roof of Sunak’s house, where they remained for five hours. No one was home at the time.
Sunak’s energy policy is part of a larger campaign to transition Britain into using more domestically sourced energy as the island works to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. However, many climate change activists have condemned Sunak’s latest tactic, saying it will hurt the environment far more than it will help it.” [Foreign Policy]
“The pandemic is over, but Chinese President Xi Jinping still isn’t really traveling. Instead, he’s making foreign leaders come to him.
Xi has left China for only two days and hosted dignitaries from 36 nations since January. That flurry of domestic diplomacy sounds substantial after his years-long Covid isolation, but it’s actually a decline compared to pre-pandemic engagements when he hosted an average of 48 dignitaries by this point in the year from 2013 to 2019.
Xi’s lingering preference to work from home comes as he faces a slew of domestic challenges that even his precedent-defying third term can’t insulate him from.
China’s economy is fending off deflation, his protege foreign minister, Qin Gang, has been ousted, and his nuclear-missile force has been rocked by reports of corruption probes. Record rainfall hitting Beijing this week has posed another problem, as officials’ calls to prioritize protecting Xi’s flagship new city, Xiong’an, have caused outrage among flood victims.
Still, Xi can’t stay home forever. A BRICS summit in South Africa this month is expected to be his first overseas multilateral event of this year. Beijing has been pushing for the five-nation bloc to expand beyond Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with an announcement expected in Johannesburg, though other member states are less keen on the idea.
A bigger BRICS would give Xi an important tool to counter the US. In a larger format, BRICS would start to look more comparable to the Group of Seven major economies.
It would also put Xi in a stronger position going into next month’s Group of 20 summit in India that’ll likely bring him into President Joe Biden’s orbit for the first time since November.
If there’s one thing that would inspire Xi to leave home, it’s a chance to notch up a win over Beijing’s biggest rival.” — Jenni Marsh [Bloomberg]
Xi with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on March 21. Photographer: Pavel Byrkin/AFP/Getty Images
“Russia is mounting an ‘assault on the global food system’ with its invasion of Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a United Nations debate on efforts to combat global hunger. He led a session the US billed as a broad call to address a hunger crisis as demand for food grows and climate change reduces supply.
Russia’s commodity export hub in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk was closed for several hours today after a Ukrainian drone damaged a navy warship.” [Bloomberg]
“Some of the worst religious violence in years threatens to taint Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts as host of the Group of 20 nations to showcase India as a strategic counterweight and investment alternative to China. Clashes between Hindus and Muslims this week left six people dead near New Delhi’s international airport, close to where world leaders are set to arrive for the summit starting Sept. 9.” [Bloomberg]
“New Zealand will invest in a ‘combat-capable’ defense force and protect its interests in the Pacific as China seeks more influence in the region. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Defence Minister Andrew Little said the country is facing more geostrategic challenges than it has in decades, including ‘competition in our region which, up until recently, we thought was protected by its remoteness.’” [Bloomberg]
“The son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he would turn over evidence that money from crime found its way into his father’s presidential campaign, according to a prosecutor.” [Bloomberg]
“US Navy sailors and Marines are in training for a possible mission to board merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz to counter Iranian aggression, according to a US military official.” [Bloomberg]
“Two US Navy sailors have been arrested on charges of providing sensitive military information to China in exchange for money in what the Justice Department called a relentless effort by Beijing to get US secrets.” [Bloomberg]
America's big World Cup test
U.S. national team stars Megan Rapinoe (left) and Alex Morgan during the second half of Tuesday's tie with Portugal. Photo: Carmen Mandato/USSF/Getty Images
“More Americans are watching the Women's World Cup than ever before — just as other countries are catching up to the U.S. national team, typically a behemoth in the sport.
Why it matters: Record-breaking viewership for U.S. games in the tournament's opening stage points to surging interest in women's sports, Axios' Ivana Saric writes.
Those gains will be tested if the U.S. loses its round of 16 match against undefeated Sweden (5 a.m. ET on Sunday).
The U.S. — a four-time winner of the World Cup and the No. 1 ranked team — barely made it this far with a win and two draws.
‘The chemistry is all off. ... There is none of the joy and ruthlessness that has defined U.S. women's soccer for decades,’ WashPost's Steven Goff writes.
‘There's still time to improve the vibe. But not much,’ WSJ's Jason Gay concludes.
By the numbers: TV viewership for the U.S. team's three games so far is still up 11% over four years ago, according to Fox Sports.
Ratings have increased even though U.S. fans are contending with a much bigger time difference for this year's tournament in Australia and New Zealand than with the 2019 event hosted by France.
The team's last game — a 0-0 tie with Portugal — started at 3 a.m. ET.” [Axios]
NYC making dining sheds permanent
A sidewalk shed at a restaurant in Greenwich Village in Manhattan in 2021. Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
“Outdoor dining along New York City streets is set to become permanent — "but in a way that could drive many restaurant owners to take down their streetside sheds for good," the N.Y. Times reports (subscription).
Under a bill passed by the New York City Council yesterday, ‘restaurants will be allowed to continue to offer outdoor dining in roadways under a new licensing system. But those structures will have to be removed for the winter, and reconstructed in the spring — a requirement that some restaurateurs say will be a costly and onerous burden.’” [Axios]