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Ethics watchdog zeroes in on GOP congressman's trip to Aruba

The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) is zeroing in on a trip Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) took to Aruba with his family after the independent watchdog discovered that the congressman may have accepted the trip for free or at a price below market value.

In a report made public on Monday, the OCE said campaign vendor HSP Direct, LLC paid at least $10,803.65 for Mooney’s family vacation to Aruba, including travel, lodging, meals, amenities, entertainment and activities.

The watchdog also said it looked into Mooney’s use of a house on Capitol Hill that is associated with HSP Direct. The group said the congressman may have utilized the house for free lodging, free work and event space.

“Documents and witness testimony strongly support the conclusion that Rep. Mooney violated House gift rules and federal law when he allowed HSP Direct to pay for a portion of his family’s travel to Aruba and nearly all their lodging, meals, drinks, and amenities while staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Aruba. Additionally, Rep. Mooney’s free use of the HSP-associated house likely implicates the gift rule and federal law,” the OCE report reads.

House rules prohibit lawmakers from knowingly accepting gifts, and federal law places restrictions on members of Congress receiving them.

HSP Direct, which operates direct mail fundraising, has worked with Mooney’s campaign since at least Jan. 2, 2020, and has received more than $60,000 in payments from the campaign since that date, according to the OCE.

The company and its top figures have also contributed at least $17,750 to Mooney’s campaign through a PAC since 2015. HSP Direct CEO Jamie Hogan and his wife alone have funneled at least $28,100 to the campaign since 2016.

The OCE, citing statements from the company’s counsel, said Mooney and Hogan have been friends for at least 20 years in addition to having a political and business relationship.

The trip to Aruba, according to emails cited by the OCE, was initially meant to be a PAC event hosted by HSP Direct. The watchdog, however, said that documents and communications from the company and Federal Election Commission filings showed that HSP Direct’s PAC did not have any involvement in financing the trip. It was reportedly planned to reward roughly 160 HSP Direct employees for achieving sales goals.

The OCE first launched a preliminary review into allegations against Mooney in August after receiving a written request for such a probe. In September, a second phase review commenced, and in December, the OCE board voted to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee.

The committee revealed in February that it had received the OCE report the month prior. Details of the probe, which Mooney did not cooperate with, were first made public on Monday.

The independent watchdog also said Mooney likely breached House rules and federal law when he recruited his congressional staff to plan the family trip to Aruba during official time and using official resources. One former staffer for the congressman told the office about hours of work completed in the lead up to the trip, including scheduling COVID-19 tests, acquiring travel visas and obtaining travel insurance.

The night before the trip, the staffer said she worked from roughly 6 p.m. until about 11 p.m. to ensure that all documents were prepared.

Additionally, the OCE said Mooney only partially reimbursed his family’s flights to Aruba.

Aside from the Aruba trip, the watchdog said it has evidence that Mooney used campaign funds for personal use, buying groceries and financing family activities.

The OCE also said the congressman may have authorized impermissible expenditures from his Member Representational Allowance, which is the budget authorized for each member of Congress, and may have withheld, concealed or falsified information during the watchdog’s investigation.

The OCE is able to make referrals or recommendations to the House Ethics Committee, which then has the authority to levy punishments if necessary, and determine if the conduct in question violated ethics rules.

Mooney slammed the OCE report in a statement on Monday, writing that the probe “was tainted from the outset by the OCE’s procedural irregularities and denial of due process.”

“These procedural improprieties are compounded by the OCE’s rampant factual misrepresentations, evidentiary exaggerations, and plainly wrong legal conclusions in its report.  For these reasons, Congressman Mooney believes the only fair outcome in this matter would be the outright dismissal of the OCE’s report and referral,” he added.

The congressman’s office asserted that he reimbursed HSP Direct for the trip to Aruba, arguing that “There was no improper connection between any gift and any official action by the Congressman.”

“No taxpayer funds were used to pay for this trip,” the statement reads.

The West Virginia Republican’s office also said the congressman “flatly rejects the OCE’s allegations of evidence tampering and false statements,” calling the office’s conclusions “biased” and “based on exaggerated ‘evidence’ that does not even satisfy the OCE’s low burden of proof.”

Despite his criticism, however, Mooney has been and will continue to cooperate with the committee, according to his office.

The OCE released its report less than two weeks after Mooney bested a primary challenger in his race for renomination. He defeated Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) for the GOP nod.

Former President Trump had endorsed Mooney in the primary.

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Republicans demand docs from paused DHS disinformation board

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and four Senate GOP colleagues are demanding documents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) related to its now paused disinformation board.

DHS last week froze the work of its controversial Disinformation Governance Board, and its leader has resigned. But the letter indicates Republicans plan to continue their oversight of a board that has been a popular punching bag for the party.

“We were pleased to read reports that you have decided to shut down the board in response to the concerns we raised. But it is important that this mistake is not repeated. We are therefore demanding transparency into the Department’s decision-making process so that we can learn why the Department ever thought creating a disinformation board would be a good idea,” Hawley wrote in the letter also signed by Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and James Lankford (Okla.).

The letter asks for any communications about forming the board, any legal review that preceded its creation, and any discussion of who to appoint as its leader.

The board, created just three weeks ago, never formally met. DHS officials have complained the board was “grossly and intentionally mischaracterized.”

It was designed to coordinate disinformation work at DHS that has been ongoing for a decade on topics as diverse as migration and natural disasters, with an eye to protecting civil liberties.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers earlier this month that “it was quite disconcerting, frankly, that the disinformation work that was well underway for many years across different independent administrations was not guided by guardrails.”

But while free speech and civil rights groups largely argued that DHS was not transparent enough in outlining the board’s mission to adequately evaluate it, the GOP was quick to borrow a phrase from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” in labeling it the “Ministry of Truth.”

Disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz was tapped to lead the board, but like the entity itself, became a focus of Republican criticism focused on her past comments on social media.

That included comments on a story involving a laptop owned by President Biden’s son Hunter Biden that echoed the opinion of national security experts at the time that the laptop was part of a Russian influence operation.

“It is deeply disappointing that mischaracterizations of the board became a distraction from the Department’s vital work, and indeed, along with recent events globally and nationally, embodies why it is necessary,” Jankowicz wrote in a statement.

While the board is on hiatus, its mission will be reviewed by the DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, which is led by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a George W. Bush appointee, and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a Clinton administration official.

It’s not clear whether the board will continue its work after the review.

Republicans were not alone in their concern over the board.

“Some of the criticism of the Biden admin’s Disinfo Governance Board came from civil liberties and human rights groups,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, tweeted the day the board’s pause was announced, noting he did not support the personal attacks on Jankowicz.

“There were very good reasons to question and criticize the Biden admin’s initiative. It is not true that all of the critics were right-wing, or disinfo-mongerers, or operating in bad faith.”

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Newsom warns of mandatory water restrictions if Californians don't cut back

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) warned Californians on Monday that mandatory water restrictions might be in store this summer if they don’t significantly reduce consumption.

“Every water agency across the state needs to take more aggressive actions to communicate about the drought emergency and implement conservation measures,” Newsom said during a meeting with leaders from the state’s largest urban water suppliers.

Last July, Newsom declared a drought emergency and called upon Californians to voluntarily cut their water use by 15 percent. But by the end of March 2022, after the state failed to meet this goal, the governor issued an executive order asking local agencies to boost their response to the ongoing drought, according to his office.

The governor said that local water agencies have pushed for increased flexibility on water conservation and drought response according to regional water needs, arguing that such approaches would be more effective than statewide mandates.

While Newsom acknowledged that he embraced this approach, he called upon water agencies on Monday to step up their efforts amid extreme drought conditions.

If this localized conservation strategy fails to prove sufficient this summer, Newsom warned that the state could be forced to enact mandatary restrictions.

California’s State Water Resources Control Board is set to vote on a statewide ban on watering non-functional turf in commercial, industrial and institutional settings on Tuesday, the governor’s office noted.

The vote will also include a measure requiring local agencies to implement water use restrictions, amid the possibility that supplies could be 20 percent lower as a result of extreme weather, a statement from Newsom’s office added.

“Californians made significant changes since the last drought but we have seen an uptick in water use, especially as we enter the summer months,” Newsom said. “We all have to be more thoughtful about how to make every drop count.”

Source: TEST FEED1

How the Food and Drug Administration saved thousands of lives

As the COVID-19 calamity has droned on, we have become accustomed to criticisms in our nation’s response. However, some things were done right.  Two years ago, in the darkest days of the early pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the unprecedented decision to make convalescent plasma (CP) available to American citizens before complete evidence of efficacy and safety had emerged. This was done by creating a Mayo Clinic registry in April 2020, that allowed physicians to administer CP while collecting clinical information on the patients and on their course of disease.

Convalescent plasma is a form of antibody therapy. People infected with a microbe make antibodies that aid recovery and protect from repeat infection. Convalescing patients have these antibodies in their plasma, which can be used to protect others from the same infection. Antibody therapies were first developed in the 1890s and an enormous body of medical knowledge shows that they are effective when used early in the course of disease. The FDA action relied on solid historical evidence as well as reports from China that CP was safe and likely effective.

The Mayo Clinic registry rapidly produced evidence that CP was safe, dispelling any concerns that antibody administration would worsen infection through a mechanism known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This finding also reassured the then-nascent vaccine efforts because prior coronavirus vaccines had been plagued by concerns about ADE. One can only imagine the detrimental effect on vaccine development in the event the registry had found evidence of harm from antibody administration. At the very least, vaccines rollouts would have been delayed as more safety data would have been needed.  The CP effort made a quiet, unsung, yet critically important contribution to the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Mayo Clinic registry also found strong evidence of CP efficacy. In early summer 2020, Mayo scientists found a dose-response relationship of antibody levels in plasma to mortality— the more antibody given, the lower the death rate, which is a powerful indicator of efficacy. The analysis showed that patients needed to be treated early during hospitalization and that the mortality benefit was limited to those not receiving mechanical ventilation. But these findings were ignored by many randomized trials then ongoing, which often treated late in disease and without confirming antibody levels in administered CP. Not surprisingly these trials produced negative results.  However, four better designed and more appropriately targeted randomized clinical trials in the U.S. — from Columbia, Einstein, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins universities — produced results that in aggregate confirmed the registry finding of CP effectiveness.

Based on the Mayo Clinic safety and efficacy results the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for CP use on Aug. 23, 2020. Unfortunately, the announcement was marred by exaggerated claims during a presidential news conference, sowing distrust in the medical community. The FDA decision was criticized by many physicians on the grounds that it was inappropriate to authorize a therapy without thorough evidence of efficacy. Making CP available for treatment, it was argued, might prevent the launching of rigorous clinical trials to establish its safety and effectiveness. Now, with the experience of the past the past two years, it is evident that none of these criticisms were accurate or relevant. Today, CP is recommended by the Infectious Society of America and Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.

With the EUA, CP began to be widely used for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in the United States.  By the fall 2020, about 40 percent of all inpatients were being treated with plasma, and by March 2021, approximately 500,000 patients had been treated with CP.  The use of CP correlated with significantly reduced mortality — we estimate that the deployment of CP in the U.S. saved around 100,000 lives.

We can now begin to assess things done well and things done poorly in response to the pandemic. The FDA decision to authorize CP use six months into the pandemic was correct and courageous.  The U.S. was the only nation to take this approach for CP, providing a much-needed therapy for the American public early in the pandemic when other effective treatments were absent.

The United States went from using zero units of CP in March 2020 to more than 20,000 units per week by the fall. That was possible because the blood industry mobilized along with thousands of altruistic donors stepping forward. Citizen organizations like Survivor Corps worked to promote it and a dedicated core of physicians used it.

Today, we know that early use of CP is effective against COVID-19 and, as the variants have defeated most monoclonal therapies, CP has emerged as an important antibody therapy, especially for immunosuppressed patients. In a pandemic response punctuated by many foibles, the FDA actions on CP shine brightly and provides a roadmap for future actions during infectious disease outbreaks.

Arturo Casadevall, MD, Ph.D., is a Bloomberg distinguished professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Nigel Paneth, MD, is professor emeritus of epidemiology, biostatistics and pediatrics at Michigan State University.

Casadevall and Paneth are members of the leadership group of the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project and have been co-authors with FDA and Mayo Clinic scientists in publications about plasma

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden's Fed nominees sworn into office

President Biden’s Federal Reserve nominees were sworn in Monday, nearly filling out the central bank’s board of governors as it battles a record surge of inflation.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard, and board members Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson began their terms Monday. The Senate confirmed the nominations of Powell, Cook and Jefferson earlier this month and confirmed Brainard in late April.

Powell, a Republican, will serve another four years leading the Fed board after being renominated by Biden in November. Powell was elevated to Fed chair by former President Trump in 2017 and joined the Fed in 2012 as a governor after being nominated by former President Obama.

Brainard, a Democrat, had served as a Fed governor since 2014 before Biden nominated her to serve as the bank’s No. 2 in November. While some Democratic lawmakers and progressive activists pushed Biden to nominate her over Powell, Biden opted to promote Brainard to the vice chair position instead.

Both Cook and Jefferson join the Fed from academic positions, the former departing from a professorship at Michigan State University and the latter from Davidson College, where he served a vice dean.

Cook also served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors during the Obama administration and serves on the executive committee of the American Economic Association. Jefferson was an economist for the Fed board, an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley and Swarthmore College before joining Davidson in 2019.

Powell and Brainard can serve in their roles as chair and vice chair through May 2026, but can remain on the Fed board after those terms end if they are not renominated. Powell’s term as a member of the Fed board does not end until January 2028, and Brainard can remain on the Fed board until May 2026.

Cook was nominated to finish the remainder of an unexpired term, which will run out in 2024. Jefferson’s term expires in January 2036, giving him nearly a full 14-year term as a governor.

Source: TEST FEED1

Equilibrium/Sustainability — Global fish trade leaves poorest on the hook

International fishing fleets from rich countries are pulling nutrients from the mouths of some of the world’s poorest people. 

China, the U.S.’s biggest seafood supplier, is one of the worst culprits, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 

Other wealthy countries like France, Japan and South Korea are also major beneficiaries of poorer countries’ fish stocks, the researchers found. 

In addition to depleting fish supplies, these fleets — operating in waters of poorer nations like Guyana, Namibia, the Maldives and New Guinea — are pulling protein and “vital micronutrients” away from those who most need them, Christina Hicks of Lancaster University said in a statement. 

Those micronutrients include many compounds crucial to brain and body development, from omega-3 fatty acids to zinc and selenium. 

“If fisheries are to achieve their potential to reduce global malnutrition — and the terrible health consequences associated with it — then nutrition security needs to be considered more centrally,” Hicks added.

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll explore the environmental toll that Russia’s invasion has taken on Ukraine. Then we’ll head across the world to Australia, where climate claimed victory in a national election. Finally, we’ll visit Georgia, where a divide over an enormous electric vehicle push is fueling the contest for the Republican governor’s slot.

War ravages Ukraine’s environment

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken a devastating toll on human lives and communities, the war has also ravaged the country’s environment and natural resources. 

The region of Irpin, about an hour northwest of Kyiv, is home to “some of the worst atrocities committed by Russia in this war,” with at least 1,200 civilian bodies discovered since Russian troops withdrew from the area, according CNN.  

Scorched earth: But the destruction to the region’s landscape is also “brutal and omnipresent,” featuring “scorched earth, forest floors ravaged by missiles and trees broken down and uprooted, while abandoned military equipment litters the ground,” CNN reported.  

“We have a beautiful forest here, but this year there won’t be any walks, there won’t be any mushroom picking, there won’t be berries,” Irpin resident Anzhelika Kolomiec told CNN. “We are not allowed to go in because of mines and unexploded missiles.” 

More damage litters the country: Satellite images reveal that huge portions of eastern and southern Ukraine are now engulfed in wildfires — triggered by explosions and made worse due to the inability of emergency services to get to them, CNN reported.  

Smoke is polluting the country’s air, while heavy metals are contaminating its fertile soil and fuel is flowing into groundwaters and ecosystems, according to CNN.  

Breaking it down: The Center for Environmental Initiatives in Kyiv has assembled an interactive map of categorized incidents across Ukraine — including nuclear and chemical pollution events, livestock waste dangers and both land and marine degradation, CNN reported.  

Bringing the environment to court: Ukraine intends to seek compensation for the environmental damage caused by Russia in international courts, Reuters reported last week.  

Ruslan Strilets, Ukraine’s minister of environmental protection and natural resources, told reporters that the invasion had destroyed ecosystems, contaminated land and deprived wildlife of natural habitats, according to Reuters. 

“Over the past 20 years, this is the first military conflict in the world that has caused such large-scale environmental damage,” Strilets added.  

Huge financial losses: Strilets said that Ukraine has endured more than $85 million in financial losses in the region around the defunct Chernobyl atomic power station — where fires have ravaged nearly 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land, Reuters reported.  

In total, Ukraine has recorded 1,500 cases of environmental degradation or land contamination, according to Reuters.  

An environmental war: In an analysis that delved into how “Vladimir Putin weaponized the environment in Ukraine,” the U.K.-based New Statesman magazine mused about the disappearance of a rare type of flower called the spring meadow saffron. 

“It might seem absurd to talk about flowers when men, women and children are being murdered and raped,” the analysis stated.   

“But Russia is also waging an environmental war, and this casual destruction of a protected species is only one symptom,” the author added.

Climate wins in Australian election

The battle to combat climate change landed a decisive victory in Australia this weekend, following the election of Labor leader Anthony Albanese as prime minister. 

Ending climate wars: In the Western nation — and U.S. ally — that has earned international notoriety “as a global climate laggard,” Albanese has promised to transform climate change into an impetus for economic growth, The New York Times reported.  

“Together we can end the climate wars,” Albanese told supporters. “Together we can take advantage of the opportunity for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower.” 

Seeking consensus on climate change: Albanese is set to meet with President Biden at the Quad summit in Tokyo on Tuesday, where he plans to seek a new consensus on climate change, according to Western Australia news site WAtoday.  

The prime minister spoke with Biden on Sunday about how Australia and the U.S. can cooperate on clean energy, including a possible future United Nations climate summit in Australia and the Pacific region, WAtoday reported.  

An end to green despair?: Australian environmental activists, scientists and voters have “spent years in despair, lamenting the fossil fuel industry’s hold on conservatives who have run Australia for most of the past three decades,” according to the Times.  

The country has thus far only proposed minimal greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals, while abiding by “a deny-and-delay approach,” the Times noted.  

Decades of inaction have led Australia to become “one of the world’s highest per capita emitters” of greenhouse gases, according to Bloomberg.  

Ousted leader Scott Morrison — who once brought a lump of coal to parliament — has long been criticized for his refusal to prioritize the climate, only agreeing last year to a net-zero target for 2050.

Weaning off fossil fuels: Despite the potentially transformative election outcome, Australia, like the U.S., will face difficulties as it tries to reverse decades’ worth of petroleum-based energy practices, according to the Times.  

Australian government entities provided about 11.6 billion Australian dollars
($8.2 billion USD) worth of subsidies to fossil fuel industries last year, while committing an additional 55.3 billion Australian dollars ($39 billion USD) to other related subsidies, the Times reported. 

Stance on coal remains unclear: While Albanese has pledged to adopt more ambitious emissions targets, he has thus far refused calls to phase out coal or to stop the opening of new coal mines, the BBC reported.  

“Australian businesses know that good action on climate change is good for jobs and good for our economy, and I want to join the global effort,” Albanese told the BBC.

EV plans divide Georgia GOP governor hopefuls

An electric vehicle (EV) plant that ranks as the largest economic development program in Georgia’s history has divided the state’s Republican party on the eve of a pivotal primary. 

The winner of Tuesday’s race for the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee could determine whether two enormous EV plants will soon begin producing hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year in the southeastern state. 

Picking up controversy: California-based EV startup Rivian wants to spend
$5 billion to build nearly half a million electric pickups per year in a new facility outside Atlanta, NBC reported. 

That would employ 7,500 workers in a deal negotiated by Gov. Brian Kemp, according to the company. 

Kemp’s challenger isn’t interested: The incumbent’s primary challenger, David Perdue, recently told local activists that Rivian is “a woke California company whose mission is to turn the world green,” according to the Morgan County Citizen. 

Big money: Perdue also attacked the unprecedented $1.5 billion in incentives that Georgia offered the company, according to the Citizen. 

Environmental qualms: Residents are also concerned about the toll the massive plant will take on local wetlands, water supplies and wildlife, The Associated Press reported in April. 

Two big plans, two big plants: Rivian’s December announcement was just the first of two new EV investments that outside companies have made in Georgia in the past six months, CNN reported. 

Kia and Hyundai announced a joint plan last Friday to invest $5.5 billion in a new plant in the state’s coastal East — the flagship of both companies’ EV and battery production programs — where they aim to produce 300,000 vehicles per year by 2025, according to CNN. 

Hot words in the low country: Coming on the eve of the primary, Hyundai’s announcement gave Kemp an extra boost, the AP reported. 

In a campaign stop in Savannah, Ga., near the future Hyundai plant, the incumbent fired back at Perdue, whom he accused of sending U.S. jobs overseas during his time as an executive for textile companies, according to the AP. 

A future harvest: Kemp stressed on Friday that manufacturing facilities like those proposed by Hyundai and Rivian could revitalize the state, the AP reported. 

“You’ve seen downtowns that used to be ghost towns, they’re vibrant communities now,” he said. “These are investments that we’ll be reaping the benefits of 20 to 30 years down the road.”

HURRICANE SEASON STARTS EARLY

In an early omen of the hurricane season to come, a spinning blob of thunderstorms is dumping rain across the Florida panhandle on Monday. 

Birth from a blob: It’s the first tropical disturbance of the 2023 hurricane season, and it comes a week before that season usually starts, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. 

While unlikely to form a hurricane, such disturbances are the raw materials from which hurricanes form, according to the Sentinel. 

Busy season: The Atlantic is facing its seventh-straight above-average hurricane year, a team at Colorado State University predicted in April. 

The researchers predicted up to 19 named storms by the end of November.

Monday Miscellanies

Avian democracy, family camps threatened by fires and the potential for life in binary star systems. 

Jackdaw-mocracy governs these flocks 

• Large flocks of jackdaws — a small relative of crows and ravens — use a form of democratic consensus to decide when to take off en masse, according to study in Current Biology. 

Climate change threatening Berkeley family camps 

• Historic “family camps” owned by the city of Berkeley, Calif., but located in the Sierra Nevada, are increasingly facing the threats of climate change, according to the independent news site Berkeleyside. 

Life may lurk on dual-star systems: study 

• Scientists on the hunt for extraterrestrial life are turning to a new target: Binary star systems, in which two suns orbit each other, a new study in Nature has found.

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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Afghan male journalists wear masks on-air in solidarity with female colleagues

Male journalists at several major news outlets in Afghanistan have covered their faces on-air in recent days, protesting the Taliban’s order that women, including television presenters, cover their faces in public.  

Their moves prompted other Afghan men to post photos with their faces covered as part of the #FreeHerFace social media campaign, Human Rights Watch reported. 

Earlier this month, the Taliban issued a decree that women and older girls must cover their faces in public and avoid being outside if possible. 

Last week, the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue said female television presenters had to cover their faces as well, adding that “the decision was final and that there was no room for discussion.”  

Few female newscasters complied when the rule was initially announced on Thursday, but by Sunday it appeared the policy was being enforced. 

“The rule blatantly violates women’s rights to freedom of expression, as well personal autonomy and religious belief,” Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Associate Director Heather Barr and researcher Sahar Fetrat wrote of the decision. 

“It will also prevent access to information for people who are deaf or hard of hearing who lip read or rely on visual speech cues to help them understand people speaking,” they added.

Since taking over Kabul in August, the Taliban have quashed many rights of women in Afghanistan, despite promising a more equitable regime.

The hard-line group has limited girls’ access to education by barring them from secondary schools, restricted women’s employment opportunities and eliminated systems intended to protect women from violence. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Harris calls for greater attention to mental health in hospital visit

Vice President Harris spent Monday afternoon at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., paying tribute to the country’s health care workers and putting a spotlight on mental health in the industry.  

Harris recognized the work of the health care community particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and said that the United States must do a better job of offering mental health services for its health care workforce.

“Your compassion I truly believe is light in the midst of darkness often, and you do so much to take care of your patients in their time of need, which is why I’m here to say we need to do a better job taking care of you,” Harris told a small audience of nurses and doctors on Monday.  

“I think for too long when we think about health care, we act as though the body just starts from the neck down instead of understanding we also need to address health care from the neck up — mental health,” she said. “So, if you are struggling, please know you are not alone, that you are seen and that you deserve to receive the help you desire and the help you need.”  

Harris, whose speech came in the middle of Mental Health Awareness Month, said the Biden administration is working to improve mental health care for all Americans, including those in the health care field.  

The vice president’s appearance at the hospital alongside Surgeon General Vivek Murthy was meant to highlight a new surgeon general’s advisory that makes new recommendations to address health care worker burnout. The administration has also dedicated more than $100 million from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law passed last year to address burnout. 

In addition to giving a speech, Harris toured a wing of the hospital, hearing from doctors and nurses there about their experiences. She also shared some words with a young patient at the hospital, an impromptu moment that saw Harris delight when she learned the young girl was the vice president of her class.  

“Look at this, it’s the meeting of the vice presidents,” Harris said. “You’re so strong and smart. I love meeting our young leaders.” 

Asked by a reporter what her message was to health care workers, Harris replied that she wanted to promote a greater understanding of the mental health impact of their work and call for more resources to address them. 

“We’re here to say let’s understand what they’re doing, let’s support them and in part let’s understand it’s a lot. They grieve also. They experience pain also when they see human suffering,” she said.  

Harris also made a point at the beginning of her prepared remarks to share an update on the domestic infant formula shortage and the Biden administration’s efforts to address it. 

Harris noted that the first military plane carrying infant formula from overseas arrived on Sunday and that another is scheduled to land in the U.S. later this week.  

“I know this is a scary situation for our parents and the caregivers who are taking care of these babies,” Harris said, adding that the Biden administration is working “around the clock” to ensure there is enough formula and that the issue is one of its highest priorities.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Executive privilege for ex-presidents? Not this time

President Biden’s decision not to support former President Trump’s assertions of executive privilege over certain documents that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol is a significant victory for government transparency and the exercise of power. 

To many Americans, executive privilege is an obscure doctrine that is too often shrouded in partisan controversies. Executive privilege is a recognized constitutional-based power of presidents to withhold information from those who have compulsory powers such as congressional committees.

But it is not an absolute right, and, when asserted, it must be weighed against other governmental needs such as access to information germane to an investigation. The balancing test between competing government interests, though, becomes less complicated when the claim of privilege is made by a former president who no longer can claim to possess constitutional-based authority of any kind.

Despite the extraordinary nature of the House investigation at hand, the issues of ownership and disclosure in this case are clear. All records produced by a president and his administration during his time in office are property of the United States and more generally of the American people. Such papers and records are not private property to be controlled by former presidents. 

Indeed, there are occasions when the public release of information may compromise the national interest, particularly in matters pertaining to national security. But it is difficult in the current controversy to find any such basis for upholding the former president’s claim. 

The issue of former presidents and executive privilege have been debated in the past. In 2001, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that expanded the scope of executive privilege and placed high hurdles to the public access of presidential records by giving former presidents the ability to withhold records against disclosure requests. Soon after taking office in 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that effectively stripped from former presidents the ability to create blanket secrecy orders. 

President Biden, in so refusing to act to stonewall Congress, did well to uphold the value of transparency in our constitutional democracy. But he also acted as president to refuse a privilege assertion by his predecessor. This is exactly what the Constitution intended, as only one person is given the duties and power of president. No one else, especially a private citizen – even a former president – can also exercise presidential power. Despite arguments to the contrary, there are no laws or executive orders which can change that fundamental proposition. 

The current guidance on the use of executive privilege claims by former presidents dates to the 2009 executive order issued by Obama. Congress created the existing law on access to presidential records in the late 1970s. Although Biden is right to have upheld transparency and proper government actions, it is long past time for Congress to act to update the existing legal authority. 

The current law sets forth a reasonable requirement for incumbent presidents to make privilege claims on their records while they hold office. Like other private citizens, former presidents can restrict access to records only by way of the Archivist of the National Archives and Records Administration.

But the fact that former presidents have issued executive orders and otherwise made claims to expand the limits of executive privilege should give everyone pause on the permanency of this arrangement. That is why it is imperative for Congress to act and update the laws on presidential records.

Mark J. Rozell is dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Mitchel A. Sollenberger is professor of political science at University of Michigan-Dearborn. They are co-authors of numerous studies on executive privilege and most recently co-authors (with Jeffrey Crouch) of the book “The Unitary Executive: A Danger to Constitutional Government” (2020, University Press of Kansas).

Source: TEST FEED1