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Want to secure U.S. supply chains? Reform high-skilled immigration

Congress has hung its hopes for securing critical U.S. supply chains on passing legislation that would merge the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and the House-passed America COMPETES Act. One of the bills’ most prominent measures would invest $52 billion to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. 

That funding is badly needed, but bolstering supply chains requires more than just money. As negotiations move forward, a final agreement should also retain a more obscure, but essential, House provision that would help address growing talent shortages in key U.S. industries like semiconductor manufacturing. To give onshoring the best chance of success, the United States must also onshore the STEM talent it needs to compete.

America’s economic and national security depend on secure access to leading-edge technologies. Consider semiconductors, which power all modern electronics — from cars and smartphones to military equipment and critical infrastructure. Ongoing global chip shortages have contributed to sky-high inflation and taken a full percentage point off of GDP over the last year. 

As a result, the need to reduce U.S. chip dependence has become a rare point of bipartisan consensus. In the words of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), “There’s probably no greater vulnerability in the United States from a national security and economic perspective than our dependency on supply chains of semiconductors that are made outside of the country, primarily Asia, and then shipped here to the United States.”

Both the Innovation and Competition Act and the COMPETES Act, therefore, include tens of billions of dollars in funding to bring chipmaking back to the United States. But funding is not the only ingredient needed to bolster critical U.S. industries. The other is talent — which is in short supply. 

“What we’re finding is it’s extremely difficult to find the skills that we need,” Mark Papermaster, CTO of leading U.S. chip company AMD, recently said. The dean of Purdue’s College of Engineering noted that talent gaps are “one of the most vulnerable” parts of the U.S. semiconductor supply chain.

Without significant reforms, these workforce problems will only get worse. In a recent study, we estimated the staffing needs of the chipmaking facilities that would be built with funding from the new innovation bill and found that U.S. chipmakers would need to hire tens of thousands of additional workers — many of them from overseas, where most of the world’s scientists and engineers with the necessary skills reside. Foreign-born STEM talent already makes up approximately 40 percent of all high-skilled workers in the U.S. semiconductor industry. 

Yet immigration bottlenecks are increasingly hitting these much-needed workers. The most serious problem is a cap on green cards that has not been updated since the 1990s. As of 2021, 1.4 million people were waiting to receive employment-based green cards, with backlogs leading to projected wait times of several decades for hundreds of thousands of high-skilled applicants — and these problems are only getting worse.

To address that bottleneck, the COMPETES Act included a provision that would exempt from green card caps those with advanced STEM degrees in national security-relevant industries like chipmaking. But a similar provision wasn’t included in the bill’s Senate counterpart, and it is unclear whether one will be in the final version. Omitting such a provision from the final bill would undercut U.S. competitiveness in semiconductors and other strategic industries. 

The primary concern some members of Congress have about the provision is that, despite its importance, it could “add controversy.” 

“The most important thing we can do is shore up the supply chain vulnerability. Everything else, to my mind, is secondary,” Cornyn said recently. 

But a targeted STEM talent measure is necessary precisely because it would help shore up supply chains. A recent report found that, even before today’s acute shortages, access to talent has been a key motivation for offshoring among U.S. semiconductor companies.

A STEM immigration provision would also carry deep bipartisan support. The provision included in the COMPETES Act was endorsed by 49 national security leaders — including senior defense and intelligence officials from every recent administration — in an open letter that called international talent America’s “most powerful and enduring asymmetric advantage” in its technology competition with China. Both the Biden administration and the House GOP’s China Task Force have also called for STEM immigration reforms.

American universities and firms have long attracted and retained the world’s best scientists and engineers. Allowing immigration bottlenecks to erode this cornerstone of American technological leadership and jeopardize U.S. national security would be a profound mistake.

Will Hunt is a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), and Remco Zwetsloot is a trustee fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Source: TEST FEED1

Rick Scott doubles down on calling for Biden to resign during New Hampshire trip

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the GOP Senate campaign arm, doubled down on his call for President Biden to resign, saying in an interview on Friday that “he can’t do the job.”

“What he ought to do for this country right now is he ought to resign. He can’t do the job,” Scott said while speaking to “New Hampshire Today,” according to Florida Politics. “And we ought to get somebody in there who wants to do the job and can do the job. He clearly can’t.”

Scott noted recent comments from Biden mixing up where the senator was from, in which he referred to Scott as being from Wisconsin, instead of Florida.

“Here’s the way I look at it: the press conference where he attacked me, he didn’t even know what state I was in,” Scott said, according to Florida Politics.

“As a business guy,” he said, “We hired a lot of people. Some of them just couldn’t do the job.”

It is not the first time that Scott has called on Biden to resign, but his remarks are notable as he visits New Hampshire, a high-profile early primary state. Some have speculated Scott could run for president should former President Trump decide against it in the upcoming presidential election.

The Florida Republican and Biden had been engaged in some back-and-forth after Scott called Biden “incapacitated and incoherent” earlier this month.

Speaking to reporters earlier this month, he bashed Scott’s proposed tax plan, which would require all Americans who currently pay no income tax to start paying them and expiring federal legislation, likely Medicaid and Social Security programs among others, after five years.

“It’s the Ultra-MAGA Agenda,” Biden said about Scott’s proposal, after calling the senator from Wisconsin instead of Florida.

“The president just said I’m from Wisconsin … [Biden] is so incapacitated and incoherent, he can’t even keep his states straight,” Scott shot back on Twitter.

“I think the man has a problem,” Biden said when asked to comment on Scott’s remarks.

Scott launched an ad one day after Biden made his comments, goading the president as a narrator in the 30-second ad says “One thing for sure, Rick Scott’s Rescue America plan has gotten under Joe Biden’s skin.” 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Stocks continue to fall, enter bear market

The S&P 500 index of major U.S. stocks continued a 7-week decline on Friday to fall 20 percent since January, officially meeting the definition of a bear market. The index hit 3837 on Friday afternoon, down from a January high of around 4800 points.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 30,830, dropping more than 16 percent from its January high of nearly 36,800.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq has fallen nearly 30 percent to drop below 11,100 off a January peak of more than 15,800 as markets continued to punish big tech stocks.

The stock drops have followed a recent interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve of 50 basis points, as the U.S. central bank seeks to curb inflation, which is at 40-year highs.

The consumer price index (CPI) was up on an annual basis 8.3 percent in April off a high of 8.5 percent in March, according to the Department of Labor.

While the core driver of inflation has been supply chain disruptions and demand hikes following private sector shutdowns in the wake of the pandemic, Republicans have also pointed to the Biden administration’s fiscal stimulus packages, as well as negligence on the part of the Federal Reserve.

“Because both the White House and the Fed were in denial and dismissed [inflation] for all of last year, the likelihood of a recession that’s needed to break that inflation cycle is much higher,” House Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement last week.

An increasing number of economists are also suggesting that the Fed fell asleep at the wheel and has contributed to a bubble in the stock market.

“Powell’s monetary policy last year gave us an equity bubble, a housing bubble, a credit market bubble. What we see in the last four months is that stock prices have dropped 20 percent. That’s a huge move in a very short space of time, and we might not be finished with this,” Desmond Lachman, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said in an interview.

“When you get movement of this kind, generally what happens is you find some dead bodies floating around, some hedge fund blows up or some equity fund blows up, so it’s a very fluid kind of situation,” Lachman said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Congressional progressives warn Biden, EU natural gas reliance may hurt climate goals

Twenty-two congressional Democrats on Thursday urged caution over the European Union’s plan to replace fossil fuel imports from Russia with liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure. 

In a letter to President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the members warned that the transition must incorporate the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The letter came shortly after the EU announced a plan to replace the energy that it would normally import from Russia, including with 50 billion cubic meters of LNG from suppliers including the U.S.  

“While the Joint Statement included specific details for natural gas, it did not contain such specificity for developing clean, renewable energy. The Task Force must develop a plan to swiftly move the European Union and United States off fossil fuels and onto clean, renewable energy by 2035,” the members wrote. “It is critically important that our countries not lock ourselves into decades of further reliance on fossil fuels when climate science, environmental justice, and public health concerns necessitate a rapid transition towards full renewable energy.” 

Infrastructure buildouts for LNG, they noted, can take three years or more, potentially diverting resources from the transition to renewables at a critical moment. In the meantime, the letter cited analysis indicating the EU could replace two-thirds of Russian gas imports with renewables in less time. 

The letter, led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), was also signed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), as well as Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Andy Levin (D-Mich.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Jesus Garcia (D-Ill.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), James McGovern (D-Mass.) and Alma Adams (D-N.C.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-D.C.). 

Von der Leyen earlier this month announced the EU would end fuel imports from Russia in the latest round of sanctions against the country over the invasion of Ukraine. The U.S., which has also ended oil imports from Russia, has stepped in to fill much of the gap with LNG exports. Russia exported 40 percent of European natural gas supplies in 2021, and the U.S. increased its own exports even before von der Leyen’s announcement. In March, weeks after the invasion, Washington authorized a further 720 million in LNG exports. 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Biden team is misleading the public — and themselves — about the Iran deal

Iran’s nuclear program is again set to take center stage when the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors meets on June 6. Tehran continues to flagrantly violate its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, extending well beyond the 2015 nuclear deal.

Nevertheless, senior Biden administration officials continue to lobby for an agreement that was always doomed to fail. Their claims of the deal’s supposed benefits have been almost entirely belied by the stark reality of Iran’s actions since the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) almost seven years ago.

The deal was built on the premise that Iran would accept a détente with the United States — or  at the very least, was prepared to moderate its violent, destabilizing behavior, in exchange for economic (and nuclear) incentives. It took almost no time for Iran to prove that this premise was not just false but fantastical.

The years immediately following the conclusion of the JCPOA were marked by a surge in Iran’s aggression across the Middle East, a more than 30 percent jump in Iran’s “defense” budget and increased funding for terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Calls for “death to America” echoed in state-dominated mosques across the Islamic Republic.

Even as a narrow nuclear arms control agreement, the deal’s terms were always too weak, too limited, and too temporary to be effective at anything other than kicking the can down the road a bit. The deal is so bad that from the start, its proponents have relied on misdirection, overstatement and even outright lies to make their case. 

Iran’s proven ability to violate the deal’s terms rapidly, once it chose to do so, exposed their insufficiency. It is undeniable that the regime deceived, stonewalled and harassed inspectors, despite promises of “unprecedented inspections.” A “one-year break-out time” was calculated using dubious accounting of Iran’s illegally-built uranium enrichment centrifuges. And the agreement’s restrictions on the nuclear program proved to be easily and quickly reversible, debunking the assertions that the JCPOA blocked all of Iran’s paths to a nuclear weapon.

With the original deal thoroughly discredited, Biden administration spokespeople have resorted to a new generation of falsehoods to sell a “return” to the JCPOA. Three stand out.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained that then-President-elect Biden sought to return to the deal “as a platform … to seek a longer and stronger agreement.” Other Biden appointees echoed the argument, which at the time appeared to be a novel admission of the JCPOA’s weaknesses.

A return to the JCPOA would necessarily entail the lifting of many of the sanctions that the U.S. put in place after withdrawing from the deal in 2018. Neither Blinken nor any of his colleagues has explained why Iran would agree to negotiate a follow-on agreement that would impose tougher and longer-lasting restrictions, especially after the removal of the most significant sources of pressure on the regime. Their silence is unsurprising. After a year of serial capitulation to Iranian demands at the negotiating table, and Iran’s repeated, explicit rejection of the “longer and stronger” idea, the expression seems to have been dropped from the administration’s lexicon.

The second is Blinken’s claim that the United States seeks “a return to full implementation” of the JCPOA. Blinken knows full well that it is physically and temporally impossible to do so. Iran’s work on advanced centrifuges, high levels of uranium enrichment and uranium metallurgy — in violation of the original deal’s terms — has equipped the regime with irrevocable experience and knowledge needed to develop nuclear weapons.

Nor does the United States really seem to be demanding a return to full implementation. In a renewed deal, Iran reportedly would be allowed to store, rather than destroy, the centrifuges it has built in numbers and capabilities beyond those specified in the JCPOA. Blinken is undoubtedly aware that he cannot deliver the fabled one-year break-out time. Despite knowing these things, he continues to tout returning to “full implementation” or “full compliance.”

The third falsehood is an old deception wrapped in a new layer of untruth. In 2015, President Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden and others insisted that the JCPOA was limited to nuclear matters and would not affect the maintenance or imposition of American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, human rights violations, arms trafficking or other illicit activities. In practice, the U.S. subordinated all other policy concerns to the nuclear deal, including coming to terms with Iran’s complicity in the atrocities of the Syrian civil war and reportedly putting the brakes on a worldwide, multi-agency investigation of Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah.

Iran has now demanded that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) be removed from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations as a condition for re-upping the JCPOA. Biden, according to his own promises, should have dismissed this out of hand as irrelevant to the nuclear question and contrary to the JCPOA’s terms. Instead, his administration’s various spokespeople have floated a series of trial balloons that include acceding to the Iranian demand, but keeping other sanctions in place, or designating only individual IRGC members or specific IRGC components such as the Quds Force.

That the IRGC killed over 600 American soldiers in Iraq and is today plotting to assassinate former high-ranking American officials should have made Biden’s decision even easier. But for the White House, the IRGC question is a useful distraction from the real issue: The JCPOA never did and never will solve the Iranian nuclear problem. This is the heart of the matter and will remain so, whatever Biden decides about the IRGC.

The day is rapidly approaching when the president will have to contend with the most dangerous lie of them all: The JCPOA forces its supporters to pretend that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful when clearly it is not. With or without the JCPOA, Biden must formulate a genuine solution to the Iranian nuclear threat. If he fails, either Iran will acquire nuclear weapons or rival powers will try to use force to prevent that outcome, potentially sparking a broader regional war. To avoid these grave outcomes, Biden and his team must stop lying about the JCPOA — not just to Congress, the press and the public, but to themselves.

Jonathan Schachter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Source: TEST FEED1

Actor who played Red Power Ranger among 18 charged with COVID relief fraud

(WJBF) — Austin St. John, the original Red Power Ranger, is among 18 people in Texas facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The indictment was handed down by a grand jury on May 12.

St. John is known through the entertainment industry as Jason Lee Scott, the original red Power Ranger, in the television show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

St. John and the other individuals in the indictment are each accused of taking part in a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

As part of the CARES Act, enacted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the PPP provided small businesses and other organizations loans to cover expenses such as payroll, interest on mortgages, rent and utilities.

The indictment states that the individuals were led by Michael Hill and Andrew Moran in a plan to use existing businesses or create businesses to obtain PPP funding. Moran is accused of then assisting them in fabricating documentation and applications, misrepresenting information such as the nature of the business, the amount needed for payroll or the number of employees.

Investigators said the defendants did not use the money provided as intended and instead paid Hill and Moran, transferring funds to their own personal accounts and making various personal purchases.

The indictment states that some defendants sent money to Jonathon Spencer to invest in foreign exchange markets.

Altogether, the total amount of fraudulently obtained funds through at least 16 loans amounted to at least $3.5 million.

The defendants, listed below, each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

• Michael Lewayne Hill, aka Tank, 47, of Mineral Wells, Texas
• Andrew Charles Moran, 43, of Lewisville, Texas
• Peter Keovongphet, aka Lil’ Pete, 34, of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
• Ty Alan Burkhart, 34, of Frisco, Texas
• Jason Lawrence Geiger, aka Austin St. John aka the Red Power Ranger, 47, of McKinney, Texas
• Eric Reed Marascio, aka Phoenix Marcon, 50, of Allen, Texas
• Christopher Lee McElfresh, 43, of Frisco, Texas
• Cord Dean Newman, 44, of Homosassa, Florida
• Elmer Omar Ayala, 45, of Midlothian, Texas
• Gregory Fitzgerald Hatley, Jr., 38, of Allen, Texas
• Alexander Eric Cortesano, 52, of Dallas, Texas
• Arthur Atik Pongtaratik, 33, of Carrollton, Texas
• Miles Justin Urias, 34, of Richardson, Texas
• Fabian C. Hernandez, 44, of Lake Alfred, Florida
• Daniel Lee Warren, 33, address unknown
• Rajaa Bensellam, 49, of Allen, Texas
• Hadi Mohammed Taffal, 50, of Allen, Texas
• Jonathon James Spencer, aka Spence, 33, of Rowlett, Texas

This case is currently being investigated by the FBI and the IRS.

St. John played the role of Jason from 1993 to 1994, making sporadic returns throughout the 90s and most recently in 2020.

Source: TEST FEED1

Florida appeals court reinstates DeSantis's congressional map

A new congressional map signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was reinstated by a Florida appeals court on Friday, reversing a circuit court judge’s decision against it last week.

Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that Judge Layne Smith’s temporary injunction against the map had “a high likelihood” of being “unlawful.”

“Based on a preliminary review, the court has determined there is a high likelihood that the temporary injunction is unlawful, because by awarding a preliminary remedy to the appellees’ on their claim, the order ‘frustrated the status quo, rather than preserved it,’” the appeals court said in its ruling.

At issue is a new congressional district map signed by DeSantis that got rid of a congressional district spanning from Tallahassee to Jacksonville that is historically Black and is currently held by Rep. Al Lawson (D). That district had previously been kept in place by the map initially approved by the state legislature. 

Last week, Smith ruled against the new map, saying, “I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair District Amendment because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice.” 

The state appealed Smith’s ruling shortly thereafter, and the appeals court’s decision was lauded by the executive office of the governor on Friday.

“We’re pleased with the First District Court of Appeal’s decision to reinstate the automatic stay. As the First District correctly noted, there is a high likelihood that the circuit court’s temporary injunction is unlawful,” the executive office of the governor said in a statement.

“To avoid uncertainty and confusion in the upcoming 2022 primary and general elections, it’s important to move forward expeditiously to implement the congressional map passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.”

Lawson, in his own statement, said he believed the issue would be taken up with the Florida Supreme Court and reversed. 

“While I’m disappointed in today’s decision by the appellate court to reinstate DeSantis’ unconstitutional map, I am confident that the Florida Supreme Court will soon take over this issue and protect the rights of Black voters in North Florida,” the Democratic congressman said. 

“The trial judge was correct to protect minority voting rights by following prior Supreme Court rulings and maintaining the current status quo for North Florida. I am confident that the Florida Supreme Court will undo today’s action and reinstate constitutional districts for North Florida in time for the 2022 election.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Sweden in NATO: Prepared from day one

Sweden and its neighbor Finland have submitted membership applications to NATO. Time and again, news accounts of Sweden’s application have characterized this decision as a sea-change in the country’s strategic posture. Once it becomes a member of the alliance, it will have put aside, it is said, its non-aligned status and nearly two centuries of neutrality when it comes to regional and global conflicts.

Critics of the country’s admittance will argue that this Johnny-come-lately effort will add yet another member unprepared to contribute to NATO’s core defense responsibilities. Yet the reality is, Sweden might well be the most prepared new member since the end of the Cold War.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Swedish governments, with a broad cross-party consensus, have been increasing military capabilities and reviving the country’s civil defense preparations. Although admittedly starting from a low level, the defense budget has gone up every year since 2015 and will have increased by 95 percent by 2025. In addition, the government has now pledged to meet the NATO goal of spending at least 2 percent of a member’s GDP on defense. How fast that happens will depend on how quickly it can expand its forces and acquire new equipment.

In the meantime, Sweden is expanding its active-duty force and its “home guard” from around 55,000 to 90,000. New capabilities include plans for new submarines, new fighter jets, new cyber capabilities, a new mechanized brigade, Patriot air defenses, new fast patrol boats, upgraded tanks, offensive mine-laying capabilities, new division-level command structure and reinforced defenses for the strategically important Baltic Sea island of Gotland. To top things off, conscription, which had ended after a century in 2010, was reintroduced in a modified form in 2018.

The Swedes are realistic about the size of the country they must defend and the limits of what it can field to fend off a major conventional attack. While Russia might not be as formidable a military power as we in the West thought, it still presents a significant conventional threat to Sweden. The country cannot assume that it will be able to repel an invasion.

As a result, Sweden is reviving a civil defense structure from the Cold War that will attempt to hold out for several months of a conflict, until help arrives from neighbors and allies. This new “Total Defense” includes expanded training and equipment for the Home Guard forces, stockpiling necessary supplies for both the military and the civilian population, provisions for handling mass casualties, shelters and bunkers, updated continuity of government plans, and resilient communications for both the government and the public. It’s back to the future for Sweden when it comes to civil defense.

But what is relatively new, and little understood by many, is that Sweden’s security ties to America and its European allies have grown exponentially in recent years. To start, Sweden ended its policy of neutrality when it joined the European Union (EU) in 1995 and then ratified the Lisbon Treaty in 2008, which, under Article 42.7, obligates a member state to assist fellow members against armed aggression. And, as an element of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, Sweden has, since 2008, led the Nordic Battlegroup.

And even before becoming an EU member, Sweden joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and is one of a handful of countries in the alliance’s Enhanced Opportunities program intended to increase military interoperability.

In addition to having signed defense cooperation agreements with the U.S., Poland, Finland and Denmark in recent years, Stockholm offered Swedish military personnel for NATO’s Response Force and forces for Afghanistan. It also signed an agreement with the alliance to provide logistical support for NATO exercises on Swedish soil — which, in time of an actual conflict, would make receiving support from allied militaries easier. Sweden also participates in the NATO-run strategic airlift consortium, NATO’s Cyber Defence Centre and is regularly involved in NATO-sponsored exercises involving air, land, sea and cyber forces.

Is Sweden a military powerhouse? No. But it has increasingly become a serious military, headed in the right direction with its reforms and capable of working with the United States and our allies from the day it becomes a member. Given its own close working ties with Finland, the addition of the two countries to NATO’s roster is a net strategic gain. It will immediately bolster both the alliance’s High North and the Baltic region’s capabilities — adding a needed level of deterrence to an area short of it.

Gary Schmitt is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Craig Kennedy is the former president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Source: TEST FEED1

Heard, witnesses slam Depp on abuse, drug use

Former celebrity couple Amber Heard and Johnny Depp wrapped up their fifth week in court Thursday, nearing a verdict in what has become one of the country’s most-watched trials. 

Heard, who is being sued for defamation by Depp because of a 2018 op-ed she wrote about sexual violence, told her side of the story and called on witnesses who alleged Depp became more aggressive while addicted to drugs and alcohol, physically and mentally abusing Heard.

Depp’s lawyers are most focused on Heard’s line that says, “Then two years ago, I became a public figure, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”

Since the article was published in 2018, two years prior would be when she left Depp, with lawyers arguing that Heard is insinuating he was the domestic abuser.

But Heard testified this week that the op-ed titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change” wasn’t about Depp at all and denied ever wanting to initially name him.

“It’s not about Johnny,” she said. “The only one who thought it was about Johnny was Johnny.

“There was a greater cultural conversation being had around gender issues and I was happy to weigh in on what I saw as a unique phenomenon that typically women experience in our culture when they come forward against somebody more powerful,” Heard added.

To prove that Heard defamed him, Depp needs to show that she published the op-ed with a reckless disregard for the truth and with knowledge that her claims were false. Depp, who has denied abusing Heard and has alleged that Heard abused him, has an uphill battle to climb.

Heard argues she met “different versions” of Depp and oftentimes he didn’t remember what those versions said or did to her. She also claimed he hallucinated and accused her of acts like cheating in the beginning of their marriage in 2015.

“I was constantly doing a juggling act of what kind of version of Johnny I was dealing with,” Heard said.

She alleged that arguments would often escalate to violence, presenting photographs of scars on her arms while on the red carpet and saying that Depp threw her into furniture, slapped her in the face and punched her in the jaw.

“My perception was that no matter what I did, no matter what I did to deescalate, walk away from him, to confront him, nothing I did made a difference,” Heard said. “Nothing I did changed his rage at me.”

Heard filed for divorce from Depp in May 2016, two days after a fight took place in their Los Angeles penthouse. Paparazzi snapped photos of Heard’s facial bruises when she showed up to the courthouse that same week to obtain a restraining order against Depp.

Supporting Heard’s allegations, some of her witnesses provided their own personal experiences in dealing with Depp, including his ex and former costar Ellen Barkin, claiming in a 2019 pre-recorded deposition that he was “jealous” and “controlling.”

“I had a scratch on my back that once got him very, very angry because he insisted it came from me having sex with a person who wasn’t him,” Barkin said about his behavior during their relationship.

Two people who used to be very close to Depp – his longtime agent and former business manager – also testified on behalf of Heard, outlining Depp’s fall from grace in Hollywood, largely due to drugs.

“It also got around town,” Tracey Jacobs, his former agent, said about his bad behavior and unprofessionalism. “It made people reluctant to use him.”

Joel Mandel, his former business manager, said Depp’s quick rise in fame after he starred in the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” film caused him to dive into “a bigger life and a more expensive one” which included an increase in drug and alcohol use and “more erratic behavior, more stressful behavior.”

He said Depp’s spending made his lifestyle extremely hard to maintain, saying he spent periods paying $100,000 a month to get sober and $300,000 a month on full-time staff.

“I was extremely concerned and on a very, very regular basis expressing that concern and it seemed like an increase in expressing my concern, there was a level of anger directed in my direction,” Mandel said.

Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez countered Heard’s claims that she didn’t want to receive any publicity from her op-ed by arguing that her donation of her divorce settlement to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was meant to elevate her accusations against Depp.

Heard previously said she didn’t want any monetary gain from the divorce. Vasquez pressed her on why she never actually donated half of the $7 million settlement to the charity despite her statement in October 2018 saying that she did.

“I pledged the entirety of the settlement to the charities and I intended to fulfill those obligations,” Heard said about her 2018 statement, saying that she uses the words “pledge” and “donate” interchangeably. 

“Sitting here today, you have not donated the $7 million – donated, not pledged – donated the $7 million divorce settlement to charity,” Vasquez pressed, arguing that Heard couldn’t use the excuse that Depp’s $50 million lawsuit prevented her from doing so since she received the settlement months before.

“I have not been able to fulfill those obligations yet,” Heard replied. “My interest is clearing my name and at the time I was being called a liar and my motives were being questioned and I did see it as important to clear that up.”

“You wanted to seem altruistic publicly,” Vasquez said to Heard. “You wanted to remind everyone of your claims of domestic violence against Mr. Depp.”

The trial will resume next Tuesday with proceedings expected to end on May 27.

Source: TEST FEED1