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Friday, January 28, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: The résumé line Biden loves in judges




 
POLITICO Nightly logo

BY MYAH WARD

Presented by AT&T

With help from Zi-Ann Lum

The U.S. Supreme Court building.

The U.S. Supreme Court building. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

PLAYING DEFENSE In his first year in office, President Joe Biden nominated 81 people to become federal judges, and 42 of them were confirmed by the Senate. They don’t look like the average federal judge: Only 31 percent of the judges confirmed under Biden are white, and only 21 percent are men, according to the American Constitution Society . Nearly 72 percent of sitting federal judges are white, and almost 65 percent of them are men.

As striking as those numbers are, when Nightly asked three experts who follow the courts closely what else they have noticed about Biden’s judicial selections — a hint about what his first nominee for the Supreme Court might have on her résumé — they all pointed to the same thing: career diversity.

An unprecedented number of Biden’s judges have experience as public defenders. 

Fourteen of Biden’s first-year judges, or about a third, have some experience as a public defender, according to an analysis from Brookings visiting fellow Russell Wheeler, who worked at the Federal Judicial Center from 1977 to 2005.

Of former President Barack Obama’s 302 judges, only 14 percent, or 42, had some experience. Former President Donald Trump, who had 231 judges confirmed, appointed only 2 percent, or 4 judges, with experience as public defenders.

It’s far more common to see federal judges with experience working as prosecutors. If you look at federal courts after Trump, who appointed 85 former prosecutors to the bench, only 58 federal judges had experience as public defenders, while 318 had experience as prosecutors, according to a May 2021 analysis from the Cato Institute. In other words, for every public defender on the federal bench, there are roughly five former prosecutors.

The makeup of the Supreme Court reflects that trend: Of the current nine justices, only Amy Coney Barrett never represented the government before becoming a judge. And when Wheeler typed “public defender” in the Federal Judicial Center database of justice bios, his search came up empty.

That doesn’t mean that no Supreme Court justice has ever done defense work. “Justices like Abe Fortas and his pro bono defense of Clarence Gideon remind us that other justices may have performed pro bono defense work in private practice,” Wheeler said. “And of course, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Thurgood Marshall provided representation, much of it civil, to litigants in public interest litigation, as did Louis Brandeis.”

Professional experience, as well as race, gender and personal history, has been shown to influence how a person interprets the law, Gbemende Johnson, a professor of government at Hamilton College, told Nightly. “It shouldn’t be seen as, ‘OK, someone has this background, so they’re going to rule this way’ in these cases,” Johnson said. “But it’s the broader idea that this set of experiences will affect their jurisprudence and the way in which they interpret certain legal issues that appear before them.”

If Biden wants to nominate a public defender, that might help the cause of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is already widely reported to be a top contender for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Stephen Breyer. Brown Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington from 2005 to 2007, in addition to working as a staff member for the U.S. Sentencing Commission early in her career.

“Public defenders have experiences that many other justices on the Supreme Court haven’t had. They have an understanding of the kinds of problems people encounter, particularly poor people,” said Jill Dash, who oversees the progressive American Constitution Society’s work on issues surrounding the judiciary. “It’s so important that our leaders understand the backgrounds of Americans of all walks of life.”

Biden himself was briefly a public defender in Wilmington, Del., when he was 26, Wheeler noted, which could explain in part his push to nominate more former defenders. The president touted that line on his résumé during the first Democratic primary debate in 2019. “I was a public defender,” Biden said, responding to an attack from then-candidate and former prosecutor Kamala Harris. “I didn’t become a prosecutor.”

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard.

 

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WHAT'D I MISS?

President Joe Biden visits the site where the Fern Hollow Bridge bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh's East End.

President Joe Biden visits the site where the Fern Hollow Bridge bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh's East End. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

— Biden visits site of collapsed bridge in Pittsburgh: Biden visited the site of a bridge that collapsed in Pittsburgh during his scheduled trip this morning to deliver remarks on the bipartisan infrastructure package he signed into law last November. Fern Hollow Bridge near Frick Park in Pittsburgh collapsed just hours before Biden was scheduled to visit the city. The president was joined by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, among others.

— Ukrainian president downplays U.S. assessment of imminent invasion: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly downplayed the threat of an imminent Russian invasion, adding to the dissonance between Kyiv and Washington. His remarks put more daylight between the Ukrainian government and the assessments of U.S. officials, who repeatedly have warned that Moscow could move its troops across the border at any moment.

— Pennsylvania voting fight escalates as court strikes down mail ballot law: A Pennsylvania state court struck down the law allowing any voter to cast a ballot by mail, handing a victory to Republican lawmakers who have sought to curtail the practice. A panel of judges from Pennsylvania’s commonwealth court ruled that Act 77 — which passed out of the state legislature with bipartisan support and was signed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in 2019 — violated the state constitution.

 

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— Biden admin blocks military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns: The Biden administration informed Congress that it is withholding $130 million in military aid from Egypt after the country failed to address U.S. concerns over its human-rights record, according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision comes after intense pressure from Democratic lawmakers who wanted to see Egypt’s leaders address human rights abuses, such as the jailing of political opponents, before receiving additional security assistance.

— Hochul extends New York’s ‘mask or vax’ policy amid court challenge: Gov. Kathy Hochul said that she’s extending a contentious state policy that requires New Yorkers to wear face coverings in all public indoor settings or show proof of Covid-19 vaccination through Feb. 10. The governor, who instituted the “mask or vax” requirement as the Omicron variant began to drive a resurgence in Covid cases and hospitalizations across the state, had been undecided publicly about whether she would continue the policy, which was set to expire on Feb. 1.

 

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AROUND THE WORLD

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and three Cabinet ministers address the crisis in Ukraine

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and three Cabinet ministers. | Photo by Adrian Wyld/CP

CONVOYS, CONCERN HEAD TO OTTAWA — Canada reporter Zi-Ann Lum emails Nightly:

As an exhausted Canada heads into Year Three of the pandemic, people want normalcy, whatever that means. For some, normalcy looks like a convoy of protesters, led by truckers, descending Saturday on Parliament Hill in the capital city of Ottawa.

The overarching objective of the convoy, organizers say, is to get the government to drop its vaccine mandate requiring cross-border truckers to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19, despite the U.S. Department of Homeland Security bringing in a reciprocal rule last week . Some extremist supporters along for the ride have made flippant calls to imitate the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

“The demonstrations this weekend will be unique,” Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told reporters today, calling the situation “fluid, risky and significant.” The protests are national in scope, he said, massive in scale.

Far-right individuals haven’t been exactly discreet in hitching their causes to the high-profile rally. As a result, Parliament Hill staffers and media in the capital have spent the past few days making safety plans.

A memo came from Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell late Thursday, warning federal politicians in the area to “close and lock all exterior doors” of their homes and offices. “As a reminder, any individual or group of individuals who do not hinder vehicular traffic or trespass on your property have the right to demonstrate,” the memo read. “However, should the situation escalate, the police will take action.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to budge on the truckers vaccination policy. He blamed opposition Conservatives for fuelling the gathering with foreign stock photos of empty grocery shelves and torqued messaging. He called the convoy a “small fringe minority of people.”

“The fact that close to 90 percent of truckers in this country are vaccinated means that the Conservatives unfortunately are again engaged in a campaign of disinformation,” the prime minister told reporters Wednesday.

Conservative politicians argue that the mandate is irritating Canada’s supply chain, already under pandemic strain. Federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole wants an immediate exemption for border-crossing truckers, calling the policy “ an attack on common sense.”

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos had his own common sense message on the eve of the rally, saying the enemy is not vaccination — it’s Covid-19.

“And the best tool to fight this enemy is to be vaccinated,” he said.

NIGHTLY NUMBER

14

The number of illegitimate GOP presidential electors, who tried to submit their names to Congress in 2020, subpoenaed today by the Jan. 6 select committee. The panel investigating the Capitol riot is seeking documents and testimony from two pro-Trump electors each from seven battleground states — all won by Biden — in which Republicans sought to deliver their own slate of electors to Congress.

PUNCHLINES

MAUS-TRAP — Our scribbler-in-chief Matt Wuerker has some thoughts on the latest news regarding the banning of “Maus” in a Tennessee school district. He also gives us the latest in political cartoons and satire in a new Weekend Wrap , including debates on vaccine mandates and masking in schools, the tensions over Ukraine, and the SCOTUS vacancy.

Matt Wuerker's Weekend Wrap video of political cartoons and satire

 

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

 
 
PARTING WORDS

 DeAndre Carter of the Washington Football Team retruns a kick-off during the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys at FedExField in Landover, Md.

DeAndre Carter of the Washington Football Team returns a kickoff during the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys at FedExField in Landover, Md. | Rob Carr/Getty Images

AVOID DOLPHINS AND SEAHAWKS ON THE SEA — The Navy’s public image has been taking on water. And some of its most notable advocates have thrown a Hail Mary in the hope of bailing it out, Bryan Bender writes.

The recent rumor that the Washington Football team might be called “The Admirals” came as a pleasant surprise to the small flotilla of retired officers who have not so quietly been pushing the rebranding.

“The Navy hasn’t had the best couple of years in terms of some of the publicity,” said retired Adm. James Stavridis, who has steered an online campaign since July 2020 to rename the franchise the “Fighting Admirals.”

“It needs a little punch,” the prolific former NATO commander, commentator and naval historian added in an interview. “This could be a turning point for the Navy.” The team is expected to make a public announcement Wednesday.

 

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Thursday, August 26, 2021

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Outdoor masks are back — sort of. Blame Delta.

 



 
POLITICO Nightly logo

BY RENUKA RAYASAM

Presented by

AT&T

CAN’T HARDLY WAIT — Oregon is about to become the first state to reimpose an outdoor mask mandate.

At the end of June, Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown declared an end to mandatory masks and social distancing in the state, except for public transit and medical facilities. About 70 percent of Oregon’s adults had gotten a shot. Oregon had long had some of the most stringent Covid mitigation measures in the country, but state officials said that they would leave it up to localities on how to handle new Covid cases.

But Brown announced a statewide indoor mask mandate two weeks ago, along with a vaccination requirement for state employees. Now, starting Friday, masks will be required at outdoor public gatherings even for vaccinated people.

Two visitors peer into the room of a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital in Salem, Ore., as a nurse dons full protective gear before going into the room of another patient.

Two visitors peer into the room of a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital in Salem, Ore., as a nurse dons full protective gear before going into the room of another patient. | AP Photo/Andrew Selsky

The news is discombobulating to those of us who thought we understood Covid spread. A rash of news stories this spring confirmed the safety of outdoor gatherings and argued that closing parks and beaches over Covid safety concerns was misguided. Members of Congress called the CDC’s guidance over mask requirements at summer camps too restrictive, leading the agency to revise its recommendations.

“It’s not that they lied to you,” Robert Siegel, a Stanford University microbiology and immunology professor, told Nightly. Siegel and other scientists were bracing themselves last summer for widespread Covid outbreaks in the wake of Black Lives Matters protests. No vaccines were available yet, and protestors didn’t uniformly wear masks. But studies showed the events didn’t contribute to Covid surges across the country, probably because many marches were outdoors.

So why is Oregon imposing an outdoor mandate? The fast spread of Delta, even in states with high vaccination rates, has reopened old debates about Covid safety. Oregon is now averaging about 2,000 new cases a day. Hospitalizations are up nearly 50 percent over the past 14 days.

The great outdoors may no longer be a safe haven, Siegel said. “If the same rallies occurred today, I would be concerned that the results wouldn’t be the same,” he said.

Outdoor Covid transmission is still far less likely than indoor transmission, John Volckens, a mechanical engineering professor at Colorado State University who studies aerosol emissions, told Nightly. He admits we still don’t have all the data about outdoor transmission versus indoor transmission from 2020, let alone data about the Delta variant.

Still, think about hanging out with a smoker, he said. Outdoors, those cigarette plumes dissipate into the air or get swept away in the wind. So you’re less likely to breathe in secondhand smoke.

But the Delta variant is like a cigarette with more smoke coming out of it. Even outdoors you are at risk of catching a whiff, though if you are vaccinated you will likely be fine.

“The Oregon rule is not being written for you and 10 other families at a park,” Volckens said. “What it’s being written for are outdoor concerts, where you are shoulder to shoulder with a thousand other people. You are going to share some air.”

Oregon’s health officials suggest that if they wait for the data, they’ll end up waiting too long. The state’s history of acting before all the data is in has kept Oregon’s death toll low throughout the past year and half, Tom Jeanne, a deputy state health officer and deputy state epidemiologist with the Oregon Health Authority, which advises the governor’s office, told Nightly. Oregon has the sixth lowest Covid death rate in the country.

There was some evidence of the need for an outdoor mask mandate based on the spread at music festivals this summer, Jeanne said. Local county officials tied at least 66 Covid cases to an outdoor festival in the eastern part of the state, which also has some of the lowest vaccination levels in Oregon.

The timing of the Oregon’s summer case surge points to at least some outdoor spread, said Dawn Nolt, an infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University. Nolt is skeptical of some reports about outdoor transmission, including the CDC’s Provincetown study, arguing that it’s hard to tease out whether spread occurred indoors or not.

But Oregon is pleasant in the summer and people gather outdoors. She admits that Oregon’s outdoor mask mandate is an extreme measure, but thinks it’s necessary.

There’s a chance that Oregon’s mask mandate proves to be an overreaction — unnecessary and at risk for burning people out so that they don’t comply with even indoor mask mandates.

Jeanne said he knows that people have pandemic restriction fatigue. But given the state’s near-zero hospital capacity — and health care worker burnout — outdoor masking was a better alternative to shutting down businesses and events, he said.

“My perspective,” Jeanne said, “is that not taking action is just as much of a decision as taking action.”

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. A note for next week: Nightly won’t be publishing from Monday, Aug. 30-Monday, Sept. 6. We’ll be back and better than ever Tuesday, Sept. 7. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com and on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.

 

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AFGHANISTAN

Video on evacuation of Americans from Kabul

UP TO 1,500 AMERICANS STILL WAITING IN KABUL — As many as 1,500 Americans are still waiting to be evacuated from Afghanistan and close to 4,500 Americans and their families have already been removed from the country, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this afternoon.

The update on the numbers follows an earlier bungling of exactly how many Americans remain in Afghanistan, a move that frustrated lawmakers.

Blinken noted that the tracking of Americans in Afghanistan was a complicated and swiftly moving process. The State Department originally counted 6,000 Americans in the country as of Aug. 14. “What we’re doing is very carefully tabulating everything we have, cross-checking it, referencing it, using different databases,” Blinken told reporters. “We will have numbers for all those different categories in the days ahead and after this initial phase of efforts to bring people out of Afghanistan ends.”

Within the last 24 hours, the State Department has contacted 500 Americans and is still trying to reach another 1,000, he said, adding that it’s unclear how many in this group want to leave the country.

A young girl points to a bus that will take people evacuated from Kabul to a refugee processing center after arriving to the Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

A young girl points to a bus that will take people evacuated from Kabul to a refugee processing center after arriving to Dulles International Airport in Virginia. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Pentagon scolds Meijer, Moulton for Kabul airport visit: The Pentagon’s top spokesperson publicly reprimanded a pair of congressional lawmakers today for traveling to the international airport in Kabul — saying the unauthorized excursion required a “pull-off” of U.S. military resources during the urgent evacuation of the Afghan capital. Defense Department press secretary John Kirby suggested during a news briefing at the Pentagon that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was personally angered by the secret visit Tuesday by Reps. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) to Hamid Karzai International Airport.

ASK THE AUDIENCE

Nightly asks you: Did you, or someone you know, initially decide not to get vaccinated but then got the shot? If so, what happened to change your mind (or theirs)? Send your response using our form, and we’ll include select answers in Friday’s edition.

 

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Secret Service warned Capitol Police about violent threats 1 day before Jan. 6: Just a day before the Jan. 6 riot, the Secret Service warned the U.S. Capitol Police that their officers could face violence at the hands of supporters of former President Donald Trump , according to new documents reviewed by POLITICO. The Secret Service’s emails shed light on intelligence lapses by the Capitol Police previously highlighted by both the department’s inspector general and a bipartisan report by Senate committees.

— Delta Air Lines will force unvaccinated employees to pay health care surcharge: Unvaccinated Delta Air Lines employees will soon be forced to pay an additional $200 per month for the company’s health care plan, CEO Ed Bastian announced today, one of several steps the airline is taking to mitigate Covid risk. Bastian, in a memo to employees published online today, said the $200 surcharge for unvaccinated Delta employees is meant to offset medical costs from a coronavirus infection, which is more likely to occur in unvaccinated individuals.

— OnlyFans reverses decision to ban pornography: Online content subscription firm OnlyFans backtracked today on its decision to ban sexually explicit content, after protests by adult content creators who rely on the company for their livelihoods. The platform announced last Thursday that it would be banning pornography from its platform from Oct. 1 to “comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers.”

— J&J says second-dose study supports use of booster shots: Johnson & Johnson said today that giving a booster shot of its vaccine produced a sharp increase in antibodies against the coronavirus . The findings, which the company said it would submit to the Food and Drug Administration, come as the Biden administration is firming up plans to roll out booster shots to adults in late September.

 

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

12,000

The number of additional deaths from Covid-19 that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration recognized today and were previously excluded from the state’s official tally. In one of her first acts as the new leader of New York, Hochul overhauled how the state releases Covid-19 death data to ensure that it is more consistent with federal reporting standards — an issue that dogged former Gov. Andrew Cuomo administration and sparked allegations of a cover-up.

 

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PARTING WORDS

COAST TO COAST — California Gov. Gavin Newsom can’t stop talking about Florida as he campaigns to save his job . He’s using Florida as the ultimate threat of what California could become if the complex recall process leads to Republican leadership in the deep blue state next month, Mackenzie Mays writes.

Meanwhile, Republican hopefuls have repeatedly evoked the East Coast alternative as something to aspire to, fighting to replace Newsom and his public health orders with someone more like mask-averse conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The latest state-on-state tensions show just how much power governors have amassed during the Covid-19 pandemic as they’ve set policies on masks, closures, schools and vaccines. DeSantis and Newsom have become party figureheads in their own right, the former a stand-in for open rules, the latter for strong mandates.

Polling suggests California is closer to having a DeSantis-like governor than anyone thought. And those Florida comparisons — with anti-recall proponents begging voters not to “DeSantis my California” — are escalating as the Sept. 14 election looms. Ballots have already been mailed to California voters.

“Your daily reminder that on September 14th the Republican party is trying to drive CA off the same cliff as Florida and Texas,” Newsom said in a recent tweet , urging people to vote. “They want to pretend COVID doesn’t exist. Reverse the progress we’ve made on vaccines. Ban masking. And put partisan games over people’s lives.”

 

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Wednesday, August 25, 2021

RSN: Andy Borowitz | FDA Withdraws Approval From "Whatever Drug Rand Paul Is On"

 

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Rand Paul. (photo: Getty Images)
Andy Borowitz | FDA Withdraws Approval From "Whatever Drug Rand Paul Is On"
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Explaining that it was taking the action 'out of an abundance of caution,' the Food and Drug Administration has withdrawn its approval from 'whatever drug Rand Paul is on.'"
READ MORE


Charlie Watts, drummer with The Rolling Stones, Great Britain, circa 1970. (photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Charlie Watts, drummer with The Rolling Stones, Great Britain, circa 1970. (photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images)



Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones' Drummer and Inimitable Backbone, Dead at 80
Joe Gross, Rolling Stone
Gross writes: "Charles Robert 'Charlie' Watts, the Rolling Stones' drummer and the band's irreplaceable heartbeat, has died at age 80."
READ MORE


A health care worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. (photo: Roger Kisby/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
A health care worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. (photo: Roger Kisby/Bloomberg/Getty Images)


Why the FDA's Pfizer Approval Could Be the COVID Game-Changer America Desperately Needs
David Axe, The Daily Beast
Axe writes: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday finally gave America's most popular COVID-19 vaccine - the two-dose messenger-RNA jab from New York pharma Pfizer - full, unqualified authorization."
READ MORE


New York's chief judge, Janet DiFiore, swears in Kathy Hochul, right, as the first woman to be New York's governor in Albany. (photo: Hans Pennink/AFP/Getty Images)
New York's chief judge, Janet DiFiore, swears in Kathy Hochul, right, as the first woman to be New York's governor in Albany. (photo: Hans Pennink/AFP/Getty Images)


Kathy Hochul Sworn in as First Female Governor of New York State
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "Kathy Hochul, the first woman to become governor of New York state, will make her debut speech from the executive mansion in Albany on Tuesday, after she was sworn into the post in a private ceremony in the early hours."
READ MORE


Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced on Aug. 23 to five months in jail for two crimes, including burning a stolen Black Lives Matter flag. (photo: Reuters)
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced on Aug. 23 to five months in jail for two crimes, including burning a stolen Black Lives Matter flag. (photo: Reuters)


Proud Boys Leader Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio Sentenced to Five Months in Jail
Paul Duggan, The Washington Post
Duggan writes: "Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, a national leader of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, was sentenced Monday to five months in jail for two crimes, including setting fire to a stolen Black Lives Matter banner during a tumultuous demonstration in Washington after the election defeat of President Donald Trump."

Noting that the Constitution protects the right to protest, D.C. Superior Court Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. said Tarrio’s conduct in the Dec. 12 demonstration “vindicated none of these democratic values. Instead, Mr. Tarrio’s actions betrayed them.”

The banner was stolen from Asbury United Methodist Church, a historic Black church at 11th and K streets NW, as far-right protesters marched in Washington in support of Trump’s effort to delegitimize President Biden’s election victory. Tarrio pleaded guilty last month to burning the banner and to a charge of attempted possession of a high-capacity ammunition magazine.

“That day I made a grave mistake, a very, very bad mistake,” Tarrio, 37, said, appearing in court via video from Miami, where he lives. Wearing glasses and a patterned leisure shirt and occasionally sipping from a water bottle, he sat mostly expressionless throughout the half-hour proceeding.

“I’d like to profusely apologize for my actions,” he said, before Cushenberry sentenced him to 155 days in the D.C. jail. The judge rejected defense lawyer Lucas Duncie’s request for a sentence of community service, to be performed in Miami.

The judge ordered Tarrio to report to the jail within two weeks.

In a victim impact statement, Asbury’s senior pastor, the Rev. Ianther M. Mills, wrote of the “emotional and psychological impact” of the banner-burning on the church’s “aging congregation, many of whom, if not part of it themselves, are direct descendants of individuals who traveled north during the Great Migration” in the early and mid-20th century, when millions of African Americans fled oppression in the Jim Crow South.

“They migrated here in search of opportunity, but also to escape the stress, fear and anxiety of terror, including acts of social and racial injustice,” Mills wrote.

“Imagine, if you please, a marauding band of seemingly angry white men moving about the city, apparently looking for trouble,” she added. “Now imagine the images conjured up in the minds of Asbury’s congregants as a result of these white men burning the BLM banner: visions of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, cross burnings. . . . ”

When he pleaded guilty on July 19, Tarrio said in court that if he had “known that the banner came from a church, it would not have been burned.” Authorities said the banner was stolen by “unidentified members” of the Proud Boys before being set afire on a street corner. Tarrio was not charged in the theft.

“Mr. Tarrio does not seem to have yet fully accepted responsibility,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul V. Courtney told the judge Monday. “Now he denies knowing that the banner came from a church at all, even though there is video that shows him standing on the church’s lawn . . . at the time other members of the Proud Boys were stealing and marching with the banner.”

The Dec. 12 demonstration, during which several far-right groups roamed through downtown Washington, fighting with counterprotesters and others, was a prelude to the violent unrest of Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, trying to stop Congress from confirming Biden’s election victory.

Prosecutors have charged numerous alleged members or associates of the all-male Proud Boys with having various roles in the Jan. 6 riot, including aggressive attacks on police that helped the mob breach the Capitol. Four alleged Proud Boys leaders are accused of directing the Jan. 6 assault, including a man who had been with Tarrio during the Dec. 12 demonstration, authorities said.

During a previous court hearing, Courtney said the plea agreement under which Tarrio was sentenced does not “prevent the government from bringing different or additional charges” against him in the future “based on his conduct on January 6th, 2021, or any other time.”

Tarrio, who has not been charged in the Jan. 6 riot, has denied being involved in planning the assault on the Capitol.

More than three dozen people were arrested Dec. 12, and four people were stabbed in a clash involving supporters and opponents of Trump. Police said four churches, including Asbury Methodist, were vandalized that night. One of them, Metropolitan AME Church, on M Street NW, has sued Tarrio and the Proud Boys organization. The civil case is pending in D.C. Superior Court.

“Tarrio made very clear that he was proud of his crime,” Courtney said in a sentencing memo filed in court ahead of Monday’s hearing. “He sought to exploit and profit from his criminal conduct in an apparent effort to bring himself and the Proud Boys increased media attention.”

After the Dec. 12 demonstration, but before he was arrested, Tarrio told The Washington Post that he did not regret burning the banner. He said he thinks the BLM movement, and the movement known as antifa, short for anti-fascist, are threats to the United States.

Around the same time, on the far-right social media platform Parler, Tarrio, who is of Cuban descent, said he had burned the banner “out of love . . . for a country that has given my family SO MUCH.”

He wrote: “The burning of this banner wasn’t about race religion or political ideology it was about a racist movement that has terrorized the citizens of this country. I will not standby and watch them burn another city,” an apparent reference to last summer’s racial justice protests.

In last year’s first presidential debate, on Sept. 29, Trump was asked whether he would be willing to denounce extremist groups such as the Proud Boys. Trump replied: “Proud Boys — stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”

In his sentencing memo, Courtney, apparently referring to Jan. 6, said, “It was certainly foreseeable to Tarrio” that his boasting about Dec. 12 on social media “sent his followers the message that traveling to Washington, DC, to engage in violent and destructive activity was not only acceptable but encouraged.”

As for the Proud Boys’ ideology, Courtney relied on a description published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a research organization in the social sciences department of the U.S. Military Academy.

The center said, “The group’s narratives amplify anti-Marxist and anti-communist sentiment . . . and distorts those sentiments by mixing in misogynistic, fascistic, and ethno-nationalist worldviews.”

After the Dec. 12 demonstration, D.C. police obtained an arrest warrant for Tarrio in the banner burning, charging him with destruction of property, a misdemeanor.

On Jan. 4, two days before the mob besieged the Capitol, police stopped a car in which Tarrio was riding shortly after it entered Washington. While taking him into custody, they said, they searched his book bag and found two high-capacity ammunition magazines bearing Proud Boys symbols.

The magazines, illegal in the District, were empty but capable of holding a total of 60 rounds. They were compatible with AR-15 and M4 rifles, authorities said. Tarrio told police that he sold such magazines on the Internet and had planned to deliver the two in his bag to a buyer who was in the city for the Jan. 6 pro-Trump march.

In addition to the destruction-of-property offense, Tarrio was charged with two felony counts of possessing high-capacity magazines.

As part of a deal with prosecutors, one of the felony charges was dismissed, and the other was reduced to a misdemeanor count of attempted possession. On July 19, he pleaded guilty to that offense plus the destruction-of-property charge.

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Palestinians wait in line to have their documents checked before crossing the Rafah border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, June 6, 2021. (photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
Palestinians wait in line to have their documents checked before crossing the Rafah border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, June 6, 2021. (photo: Felipe Dana/AP)


Egypt Closes the Border With Gaza Indefinitely
teleSUR
Excerpt: "On Monday, Egypt indefinitely closed the Rafah border crossing, which had been reopened to provide humanitarian assistance during Israel's attacks on the Palestinian people in May."
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This border crossing is practically the only exit door to the outside that the Palestinians have.

n Monday, Egypt indefinitely closed the Rafah border crossing, which had been reopened to provide humanitarian assistance during Israel's attacks on the Palestinian people in May.

The closure decision comes after the violent incidents in Gaza on Saturday, when Israeli troops fired at the civilian population, injuring 41 people. The Palestinian protests occurred in response to the Israeli bombing of alleged military targets of the Islamist movement Hamas.

The closure of the border crossing would have occurred as a security measure taken in reaction to the breaking of the promise made by Hamas to maintain calm in the territory under its control.

Hamas authorities argued that the protests were caused by the Islamic Jihad, a movement which is “opposed to political engagement with Israel and is sharply critical of the Palestinian Authority and its policies,” as ECFR explained. Egypt. however, did not accept that explanation.

Gaza’s Interior Minister spokesperson Eyad al Bozzom, who said that the Egyptian authorities informed them about the closure of the border crossing on Monday, explained that he remains in contact with the Egyptian authorities to make the crossing operational again as soon as possible.

Since May, the Rafah border crossing has allowed the evacuation of the wounded from Gaza, the entry of humanitarian assistance, and the transport of materials for the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory, which was severely affected as a result of the Israeli bombings.

Previously, the border crossing was closed most of the time. This border crossing is practically the only exit door to the outside that the Palestinians have. In order to use it, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip need a special permit from the Egyptian authorities to access their territory.

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Smoke billows from a large steel plant as a Chinese laborer works at an unauthorized steel factory in Inner Mongolia, China, on Nov. 4, 2016. (photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Smoke billows from a large steel plant as a Chinese laborer works at an unauthorized steel factory in Inner Mongolia, China, on Nov. 4, 2016. (photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)


Michael T. Klare | China 2049: A Climate Disaster Zone, Not a Military Superpower
Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch
Klare writes: "In recent months, Washington has had a lot to say about China's ever-expanding air, naval, and missile power."
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This will be the last TomDispatch piece until September 7th. As always, I’m taking these two weeks off. I hope, in the (quite literal) heat of the moment, some of you get a break, too. As always, I urge TD readers to do what you’ve done so movingly all these years: visit our donation page and consider contributing something to the site so that it can continue to wander into our ever-stranger future. Tom]

Think of it as an irony of the first order that Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team came into office promoting new cold-war policies against the rising power on this planet, China. After all, even if it is that, it’s rising in a world that only recently experienced its warmest month on record. The very term “cold war,” in fact, seems like an artifact of ancient history at a time when, among other places, the U.S.Europe, and Canada have all been setting new heat records and experiencing fires of a sort seldom seen before. In this sense, the Biden foreign-policy team and the Pentagon, as they maneuver to confront the Chinese Navy not off the California coast but from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea to the Taiwan Strait, couldn’t seem more out of touch with the deeper realities of our world.

I guarantee you one thing: at the moment, they’re doing their planning for forming alliances against a rising China in air-conditioned rooms, because it’s been hot as hell in Washington — or by Zoom because it’s still a pandemic country. Yes, against all reason and sense, the U.S. continues to build ultra-expensive new nuclear weapons (having in recent years dumped several nuclear treaties), while fretting eternally about China’s upgraded but still relatively modest nuclear arsenal. As it happens, though, the future “battles” the U.S. and China might find themselves in, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare, author of All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, writes today, could be of a very different, even if still world-endangering nature. To be won, they would have to be fought not against each other, but together. Welcome to a new-style hot-war world. Tom

-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch



China, 2049
A Climate Disaster Zone, Not a Military Superpower


n recent months, Washington has had a lot to say about China’s ever-expanding air, naval, and missile power. But when Pentagon officials address the topic, they generally speak less about that country’s current capabilities, which remain vastly inferior to those of the U.S., than the world they foresee in the 2030s and 2040s, when Beijing is expected to have acquired far more sophisticated weaponry.

“China has invested heavily in new technologies, with a stated intent to complete the modernization of its forces by 2035 and to field a ‘world-class military’ by 2049,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified in June. The United States, he assured the Senate Armed Services Committee, continues to possess “the best joint fighting force on Earth.” But only by spending countless additional billions of dollars annually, he added, can this country hope to “outpace” China’s projected advances in the decades to come.

As it happens, however, there’s a significant flaw in such reasoning. In fact, consider this a guarantee: by 2049, the Chinese military (or what’s left of it) will be so busy coping with a burning, flooding, churning world of climate change — threatening the country’s very survival — that it will possess scant capacity, no less the will, to launch a war with the United States or any of its allies.

It’s normal, of course, for American military officials to focus on the standard measures of military power when discussing the supposed Chinese threat, including rising military budgets, bigger navies, and the like. Such figures are then extrapolated years into the future to an imagined moment when, by such customary measures, Beijing might overtake Washington. None of these assessments, however, take into account the impact of climate change on China’s security. In reality, as global temperatures rise, that country will be ravaged by the severe effects of the never-ending climate emergency and forced to deploy every instrument of government, including the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), to defend the nation against ever more disastrous floods, famines, droughts, wildfires, sandstorms, and encroaching oceans.

China will hardly be alone in this. Already, the increasingly severe effects of the climate crisis are forcing governments to commit military and paramilitary forces to firefighting, flood prevention, disaster relief, population resettlement, and sometimes the simple maintenance of basic governmental functions. In fact, during this summer of extreme climate events, military forces from numerous countries, including AlgeriaGermanyGreeceRussiaTurkey, and — yes — the United States, have found themselves engaged in just such activities, as has the PLA.

And count on one thing: that’s just the barest of beginnings. According to a recent report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), extreme climate events, occurring with ever more frightening frequency, will prove ever more destructive and devastating to societies around the world, which, in turn, will ensure that military forces just about everywhere will be consigned a growing role in dealing with climate-related disasters. “If global warming increases,” the report noted, “there will be a higher likelihood that [extreme climate] events with increased intensities, durations and/or spatial extents unprecedented in the observational record will occur.” In other words, what we’ve been witnessing in the summer of 2021, devastating as it might now seem, will be magnified many times over in the decades to come. And China, a large country with multiple climate vulnerabilities, will clearly require more assistance than most.

The Zhengzhou Precedent

To grasp the severity of the climate crisis China will face, look no further than the recent flooding of Zhengzhou, a city of 6.7 million people and the capital of Henan Province. Over a 72-hour period between July 20th and July 22nd, Zhengzhou was deluged with what, once upon a time, would have been a normal year’s supply of rainfall. The result — and think of it as watching China’s future in action — was flooding on an unprecedented scale and, under the weight of that water, the collapse of local infrastructure. At least 100 people died in Zhengzhou itself — including 14 who were trapped in a subway tunnel that flooded to the ceiling — and another 200 in surrounding towns and cities. Along with widespread damage to bridges, roads, and tunnels, the flooding inundated an estimated 2.6 million acres of farmland and damaged important food crops.

In response, President Xi Jinping called for a government-wide mobilization to assist the flooding victims and protect vital infrastructure. “Xi called for officials and Party members at all levels to assume responsibilities and go to the frontline to guide flood control work,” according to CGTN, a government-owned TV network. “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army and armed police force troops should actively coordinate local rescue and relief work,” Xi told senior officials.

The PLA responded with alacrity. As early as July 21st, reported the government-owned China Daily, more than 3,000 officers, soldiers, and militiamen from the PLA’s Central Theater Command had been deployed in and around Zhengzhou to aid in disaster relief. Among those so dispatched was a parachute brigade from the PLA Air Force assigned to reinforce two hazardous dam breaches along the Jialu River in the Kaifeng area. According to China Daily, the brigade built a one-mile-long, three-foot-high wall of sandbags to bolster the dam.

These units were soon supplemented by others, and eventually some 46,000 soldiers from the PLA and the People’s Armed Police were deployed in Henan to assist in relief efforts, along with 61,000 militia members. Significantly, those included at least several hundred personnel from the PLA Rocket Forces, the military branch responsible for maintaining and firing China’s nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.

The Zhengzhou disaster was significant in many respects. To begin with, it demonstrated global warming’s capacity to inflict severe damage on a modern city virtually overnight and without advance warning. Like the devastating torrential rainfall that saturated rivers in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands two weeks earlier, the downpour in Henan was caused in part by a warming atmosphere’s increased capacity to absorb moisture and linger in one place, discharging all that stored water in a mammoth cascade. Such events are now seen as a distinctive outcome of climate change, but their timing and location can rarely be predicted. As a result, while Chinese meteorological officials warned of a heavy rainfall event in Henan, nobody imagined its intensity and no precautions were taken to avoid its extreme consequences.

Ominously, that event also exposed significant flaws in the design and construction of China’s many “new cities,” which sprouted in recent years as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has worked to relocate impoverished rural workers to modern, highly industrialized metropolises. Typically, these urban centers — the country now has 91 cities with more than a million people each — prove to be vast conglomerations of highways, factories, malls, office towers, and high-rise apartment buildings. During their construction, much of the original countryside gets covered in asphalt and concrete. Accordingly, when heavy downfalls occur, there are few streams or brooks left for the resulting runoff to drain into and, as a result, any nearby tunnels, subways, or low-built highways are often flooded, threatening human life in a devastating fashion.

The Henan flooding also exposed another climate-related threat to China’s future security: the vulnerability of many of the country’s dams and reservoirs to heavy rainfall and overflowing rivers. Low-lying areas of eastern China, where most of its population is concentrated, have always suffered from flooding and, historically, one dynasty after another — the most recent being the CCP — has had to build dams and embankments to control river systems. Many of these have not been properly maintained and were never designed for the sort of extreme events now being experienced. During the Henan flooding in July, for example, the 61-year-old Changzhuang Reservoir near Zhengzhou filled to dangerous levels and nearly collapsed, which would have inflicted a second catastrophe upon that city. In fact, other dams in the surrounding area did collapse, resulting in widespread crop damage. At least some of the PLA forces rushed to Henan were put to work building sandbag walls to repair dam breaches on the Jialu River.

China’s Perilous Climate Future

The Zhengzhou flooding was but a single incident, consuming the Chinese leadership’s attention for a relatively brief moment. But it was also an unmistakable harbinger of what China — now, the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases — is going to endure with ever-increasing frequency as global temperatures rise. It will prove particularly vulnerable to the severe impacts of climate change. That, in turn, means the central government will have to devote state resources on an as-yet-unimaginable scale, again and again, to emergency actions like those witnessed in Zhengzhou — until they become seamless events with no time off for good behavior.

In the decades to come, every nation will, of course, be ravaged by the extreme effects of global warming. But because of its geography and topography, China is at particular risk. Many of its largest cities and most productive industrial zones, including, for example, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Tianjin, are located in low-lying coastal areas along the Pacific Ocean and so will be exposed to increasingly severe typhoons, coastal flooding, and sea-level rise. According to a 2013 World Bank report, of any city on the planet, Guangzhou, in the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong, faces the highest risk of damage, financially speaking, from sea-level rise and associated flooding; its neighbor Shenzhen was described as facing the 10th highest risk.

Other parts of China face equally daunting threats from climate change. The country’s densely populated central regions, including major cities like Wuhan and Zhengzhou as well as its vital farming areas, are crisscrossed by a massive web of rivers and canals that often flood following heavy rainfall. Much of China’s west and northwest is covered by desert, and a combination of deforestation and declining rainfall there has resulted in the further spread of such desertification. Similarly, a study in 2018 suggested that the heavily populated North China Plain could become the deadliest place on Earth for devastating heat waves by century’s end and could, by then, prove uninhabitable; we’re talking, that is, about almost unimaginable future disasters.

China’s distinct climate risks were brought to the fore in the IPCC’s new report, “Climate Change 2021.” Among its most worrisome findings:

* Sea-level rise along China’s coasts is occurring at a faster rate than the global average, with resulting coastal area loss and shoreline retreat.

* The number of ever-more-powerful and destructive typhoons striking China is destined to increase.

* Heavy precipitation events and associated flooding will become more frequent and widespread.

* Prolonged droughts will become more frequent, especially in northern and western China.

* Extreme heatwaves will occur more frequently, and persist for longer periods.

Such onrushing realities will result in massive urban flooding, widespread coastal inundation, dam and infrastructure collapses, ever more severe wildfires, disastrous crop failures, and the increasing possibility of widespread famine. All of this, in turn, could lead to civic unrest, economic dislocation, the uncontrolled movements of populations, and even inter-regional strife (especially if water and other vital resources from one area of the country are diverted to others for political reasons). All this, in turn, will test the responsiveness and durability of the central government in Beijing.

Facing Global Warming’s Mounting Fury

We Americans tend to assume that Chinese leaders spend all their time thinking about how to catch up with and overtake the United States as the world’s number one superpower. In reality, the single greatest priority of the Communist Party is simply to remain in power — and for the past quarter-century that has meant maintaining sufficient economic growth each year to ensure the loyalty (or at least acquiescence) of a preponderance of the population. Anything that might threaten growth or endanger the well-being of the urban middle-class — think: climate-related disasters — is viewed as a vital threat to the survival of the CCP.

This was evident in Zhengzhou. In the immediate aftermath of the flooding, some foreign journalists reported, residents began criticizing local government officials for failing to provide adequate warning of the impending disaster and for not taking the necessary precautionary measures. The CCP censorship machine quickly silenced such voices, while pro-government media agents castigated foreign journalists for broadcasting such complaints. Similarly, government-owned news agencies lauded President Xi for taking personal command of the relief effort and for ordering an “all-of-government” response, including the deployment of those PLA forces.

That Xi felt the need to step in, however, sends a message. With urban disasters guaranteed to become more frequent, inflicting harm on media-savvy middle-class residents, the country’s leadership believes it must demonstrate vigor and resourcefulness, lest its aura of competency — and so its mandate to govern — disappear. In other words, every time China experiences such a catastrophe, the central government will be ready to assume leadership of the relief effort and to dispatch the PLA to oversee it.

No doubt senior PLA officials are fully aware of the climate threats to China’s security and the ever-increasing role they’ll be forced to play in dealing with them. However, the most recent edition of China’s “white paper” on defense, released in 2019, didn’t even mention climate change as a threat to the nation’s security. Nor, for that matter, did its closest U.S. equivalent, the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, despite the fact that senior commanders here were well aware of, even riveted by, such growing perils.

Having been directed to provide emergency relief operations in response to a series of increasingly severe hurricanes in recent years, American military commanders have become intimately familiar with global warming’s potentially devastating impact on the United States. The still-ongoing mammoth wildfires in the American West have only further reinforced this understanding. Like their counterparts in China, they recognize that the armed forces will be obliged to play an ever-increasing role in defending the country not from enemy missiles or other forces but from global warming’s mounting fury.

At this moment, the Department of Defense is preparing a new edition of its National Defense Strategy and this time climate change will finally be officially identified as a major threat to American security. In an executive order signed on January 27th, his first full day in office, President Joe Biden directed the secretary of defense to “consider the risks of climate change” in that new edition.

There can be no doubt that the Chinese military leadership will translate that new National Defense Strategy as soon as it’s released, probably later this year. After all, a lot of it will be focused on the sort of U.S. military moves to counter China’s rise in Asia that have been emphasized by both the Trump and Biden administrations. But it will be interesting to see what they make of the language on climate change and if similar language begins to appear in Chinese military documents.

Here’s my dream: that American and Chinese military leaders — committed, after all, to “defend” the two leading producers of greenhouses gases — will jointly acknowledge the overriding climate threat to national and international security and announce common efforts to mitigate it through advances in energy, transportation, and materials technology.

One way or another, however, we can be reasonably certain of one thing: as the term makes all too clear, the old Cold War format for military policy no longer holds, not on such an overheating planet. As a result, expect Chinese soldiers to be spending far more time filling sandbags to defend their country’s coastline from rising seas in 2049 than manning weaponry to fight American soldiers.



Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

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