Tag Archives : Build House

Bloomberg retracts story on Fox News, Dominion lawsuit

Bloomberg News has retracted a story falsely reporting that some executives and talent at Fox News had failed to turn over documents as part of its ongoing litigation against Dominion Voting Systems.

“Bloomberg retracted a story published today saying that some Fox News executives and hosts had failed to hand over documents in a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. Fox News says it met a July 1 deadline to hand over records,” the outlet wrote in a retraction posted on Wednesday. The initial Bloomberg story published earlier Wednesday morning. “Bloomberg regrets the error.”

Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, alleging the cable news giant and its leadership knowingly aired false claims about voter fraud and the voting systems company following the 2020 presidential election.

Fox has moved to have the case dismissed on First Amendment grounds. Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis last month denied a motion from Fox Corp. to dismiss the the suit.

Court records show that earlier this month former Attorney General William Barr was issued a subpoena in connection with the case.

Fox also recently announced that it had hired Dan Webb, a veteran defense attorney and high-profile lawyer as part of its legal team.

Source: TEST FEED1

Michigan GOP governor candidate says abortion ban should include cases of rape, incest

Michigan GOP candidate for governor Tudor Dixon on Monday said she does not support abortions in any case except for protecting the life of the mother, arguing that a woman should carry a pregnancy to term even in the case of rape or incest.

Dixon told Charlie LeDuff on his podcast show No BS Newshour that even in the case in which a 14-year-old was raped by an uncle, she would not support abortion.

“A life is a life for me,” Dixon said. “That’s how it is. That is for me, that’s my feeling.”

Dixon also explicitly differentiated between the “health” and “life” of a mother, arguing she would only support an abortion to save the mother’s life.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade last month, around half of all states have moved to ban or severely restrict abortions in nearly all cases, with some even limiting abortions in the case of rape or incest.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is battling with the Republican-controlled state legislature over a 1931 Michigan law that bans abortions in nearly all cases, including for rape or incest.

Abortion remains legal in Michigan because of an injunction a high court placed in the state, but Republicans are pushing to lift the order after the Roe decision.

Whitmer, who said she can find “no common ground” with Republicans on abortion, is running for reelection in a state where she has grown increasingly unpopular, particularly over her pandemic policies.

In November, Whitmer will take on either Dixon or another GOP candidate, who are vying for the nomination in a packed primary. A Detroit News poll released on Tuesday shows Dixon is leading the pack ahead of the Aug. 2 primary against her challengers.

On Monday, LeDuff asked Dixon if her hardline stance on abortion would alienate some voters, but the GOP candidate said most Michiganders are against “abortion on demand.”

“They think that’s the winning issue, but most Americans do not believe in this third-trimester abortion, partial abortion, ripping babies out and pulling them out of their mother,” she said. “That kind of stuff, that’s on the ballot.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Michelle Obama announces new book to help 'during times of high anxiety'

Michelle Obama is releasing a new book that she says aims to serve as a kind of self-help guide for people “during times of high anxiety and stress.”

Announcing the November release of “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times” on Thursday, the former first lady said the COVID-19 pandemic, last year’s deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, and a “rising tide of hate and intolerance” has often left her “feeling out of balance.”

“I felt vulnerable and, at times, I felt afraid,” Obama said in a video posted on Facebook. “How do we overcome? How do we overcome our fears? How can we channel our frustration into something positive? And how do we rekindle that flame that’s inside each of us?”

The book, Obama said, is a result of lots of reflection since the 2018 release of her best-selling memoir, “Becoming.”

“I think of it as a kind of a toolbox, a collection of some of the perspectives and practices I’ve gathered over the years to help keep me centered,” Obama, 58, said.

“My hope is that we can equip ourselves with new tools and attitudes so that together, maybe we’ll be a little steadier, with the understanding that none of us has to go through any of this alone,” Obama said.

Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, said “The Light We Carry” will include “fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power.”

“Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and first lady, [Obama] shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles — the earned wisdom that helps her continue to ‘become,’” the publisher said.

“I’ve learned it’s okay to recognize that self-worth comes wrapped in vulnerability, and that what we share as humans on this earth is the impulse to strive for better, always and no matter what,” Obama said in a passage from the $32 book’s introduction.

Penguin Random House announced the first printing of 2.75 million copies of Obama’s book.

“The Light We Carry” is poised to be released on Nov. 15.

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Majority thinks Trump to blame for Jan. 6, but don't think he will be charged: poll

Fifty-seven percent of Americans believe former President Trump is to blame for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but 61 percent of Americans say he will not be charged criminally for the attempted insurrection, according to an NPR-Marist-PBS News Hour poll published Thursday.

The 57 percent of Americans who say Trump deserves some of the blame is up from 53 percent in January, with the bump coming after the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol held a series of hearings this summer into what led up to the attack.

According to the new poll, around 58 percent of Americans are paying a lot or some attention to the hearings this summer, which saw former Trump aides testify there was no credible evidence the 2020 election was rife with fraud.

Election officials in battleground states also testified about Trump’s attempt to influence them to swing the election his way.

Others called to testify said Trump pushed to have the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervene to investigate the election and detailed how the former president pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the election results for Joe Biden.

The most explosive allegations came last month, when former aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Trump encouraged armed rioters to storm the Capitol and even lunged for the steering wheel in his motorcade to get to the federal building while the attack unfolded.

The House panel, which has attempted to paint Trump as directly responsible for Jan. 6 by inciting rioters to attack the Capitol with his rhetoric about a rigged election, has said it remains possible they will refer charges to the DOJ but reiterated they are still conducting an ongoing investigation.

Despite the allegations, only 50 percent of Americans say Trump should be charged with a crime, with 45 percent saying he should not be charged, according to the poll.

In contrast to the 61 percent of Americans who say they do not think Trump will be charge criminally for his role in the insurrection, 28 percent say they believe he will be charged criminally.

After all the buzz around Jan. 6, only about half of Americans say the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection, including 86 percent of Democrats, 52 percent of independents and 12 percent of Republicans, according to the poll.

Still, 77 percent of Americans say issues dividing the nation are a threat to democracy.

The House panel is taking a primetime slot Thursday night to present its final hearing into the Jan. 6 attack, which lawmakers say will focus heavily on the riot and what Trump did and didn’t do while the insurrection unfolded.

The allegations against the former president have not made much headway with voters, who say the most pressing issue ahead of the November midterm elections is inflation. In the new poll, 37 percent of Americans said that issue is the most important.

Trump has a 38 percent favorability rating among Americans, around the same percentage he had when he was in office.

The NPR-Marist-PBS News Hour poll was conducted July 11 to July 17 among 1,160 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Netflix is struggling, and that may be good for America

The streaming behemoth Netflix is suddenly not so fashionable anymore. Once the trendy juggernaut of the culture industry, Netflix now finds itself losing subscribers. Netflix stock has dropped over 60 percent since the start of the year. Shareholders sued Netflix last spring for “misleading statements” about the company’s business operations — and, horror of horrors, Netflix will now offer advertising supported plans, a total retreat from its subscription-based model.

Things are so bad that investors celebrated Tuesday’s second quarter financial report showing a loss of “only” 970,000 subscribers — because it was lower than the feared loss of up to 2 million.

Netflix has also had to endure internal “culture” struggles, with a controversy last spring involving employees upset with comedian Dave Chappelle’s show; eventually Netflix issued a corporate memo essentially inviting disgruntled employees to get lost.

All of this bad news for Netflix might actually be good news for America.

A less influential Netflix might be good for American society.

The streaming giant infiltrated Americans’ lives in previously unimaginable ways, establishing norms for the content of “entertainment” and even the magnitude of that consumption.

Netflix was happy to help establish the concept of binge-watching, and even promotes that unhealthy practice on the front of its website. The headline banner at the top of the page blares, “BingeWorthy TV Shows,” with the subheading reading, “When it comes to great TV, portion control is for suckers.”

Indeed, American consumers have fallen for this drug, wasting countless hours of their lives sitting like blobs under the spell of Netflix and other streamers. Sure, nobody is forcing viewers to lead stationary, detached lives, but even beer cans have warning labels about consuming responsibly.

Netflix’s lack of corporate responsibility has been particularly noticeable in the area of programming targeted at teens. One of Netflix’s highest profile shows, “Stranger Things,” is loaded with profanity and violence, drawing the ire of the Parents Television Council in a newly released study. Another culturally vacuous program called “Big Mouth” is not necessarily intended for young people, but it’s a cartoon, and it features middle school youngsters in sexual situations and using sexually indecent language. Decorum prevents describing the gross content in detail. The parade of potentially harmful content for teens hardly ends there.

Thankfully, Netflix did end the run of ”13 Reasons Why,” the bizarre teen fare that provided psycho-cinematic treatment about depression, sexual assault, drug abuse and suicide. It is hard to imagine a worse way for teens to navigate life’s harsh realities than by having Hollywood producers steer a dark, fictionalized show.

Netflix is not the only streaming service deluging American society with video content. Disney+, Prime Video and others have joined the gold rush to convince viewers there is never enough stuff to watch. The added competition is one reason for recent Netflix struggles. Almost all American homes now subscribe to at least one streaming service, and the average home has as many as four.

The video culture industry has inundated Americans with largely vacuous content that has failed to enhance lives. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow gave his “Vast Wasteland” speech to television executives in 1961, challenging them to serve the nation’s interest and be more socially responsible. Minow only had to worry about three television networks at that time. Sadly, his vision of corporate media being concerned for the interests of society never got traction.

The astute media critic at NYU, Neil Postman, wrote a groundbreaking book in 1985 entitled, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” He warned of the dangers of a television-obsessed society: “Television does not extend or amplify literate culture. It attacks it.” He went on to say, “They (Americans) do not exchange ideas, they exchange images.” The danger of which Postman wrote then has expanded exponentially ever since. Society joked about “couch potatoes” back then, but video-driven society is nothing to laugh about now.

The video culture industry ultimately diminishes the quality of life. Consumption in moderation and of suitable content can serve limited purposes, but the cultural obsession with all things distracting — especially video — has proven a drag on human intelligence, decency, mental health and just common sense. Lives just can’t be modeled or lived vicariously based on the values of detached big media corporations that see dollars in the eyeballs of all viewers.

Americans must wake up and realize that staring at a screen serves only the entertainment industry and not sensible, self-actualized human beings. It’s the latter that’s required for a functioning democracy. The more Americans escape into video binging low-grade “entertainment” cynically spoon-fed from Hollywood, the less likely — and less equipped — we’ll be to be able to process the real challenges facing our country. An unserious citizenry is a very serious problem.

Jeffrey M. McCall is a media critic and professor of communication at DePauw University. He has worked as a radio news director, a newspaper reporter and as a political media consultant. Follow him on Twitter @Prof_McCall.

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Jan. 6 panel to show outtakes from Trump speech day after riot

The House select committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol on Thursday plans to show outtakes of former President Trump’s speech a day after the riot in its prime-time hearing. 

The Washington Post first reported on the clips of the outtakes, which were part of the production of the speech Trump gave after the night after the riot. 

Sources told the newspaper that the outtakes show the former president struggling to condemn the rioters for their actions, attempting to refer to them as patriots, and resisting to say that the 2020 election was over. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan 6. committee, told CNN that the new outtake clips will present what the former president wanted to say about the actions on that day, noting that people urged him to do something to stop the violent attack on the Capitol. 

“You’ll hear the terrible lack of a response from the President, and you’ll hear more about how he was ultimately prevailed upon to say something and what he was willing to say and what he wasn’t,” Schiff told the network on Wednesday. 

Thursday’s prime-time hearing is expected to focus on Trump’s inaction at the White House during the Capitol insurrection, and include pressing details from prior hearings such as Trump spreading false theories on how he had actually won the 2020 election. 

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who is expected to co-lead Thursday’s hearing alongside fellow committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), said in an interview earlier this month that the panel plans to focus on the 187 minutes between Trump leaving the rally stage while the insurrection was in progress. 

Former White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger are both expected to testify during Thursday’s hearing as well, giving detail of what they saw transpire during the day. 

Both Matthews and Pottinger resigned from their positions following the Capitol insurrection.

Source: TEST FEED1

Want change at the Supreme Court? Try generosity

Want change at the Supreme Court? Try generosity. Congress should offer justices buyouts for early retirement. Less punitive than term limits or court expansion, buyouts could be effective without harming the integrity of the institution. Most importantly, they stand a chance of getting through the Senate.

Buyouts are optional and frequently large payments contingent upon retirement or resignation. During economic crises, they are a common, legal and effective means for companies to maintain profitability. But governments facing budget crunches use them too. Congress has empowered federal agencies to offer buyouts, which the Office of Personnel Management praises for bringing “needed organizational change with minimal disruption to the work force.”

The Supreme Court needs some organizational change of its own. Recent polling revealed that its public approval is at an all-time low, and that was before its latest week of controversial rulings. Notably, the most pronounced turn in favorability coincided with the recent shift to a 6-3 split in favor of Republican-appointed justices.

Two weeks ago, Justice Stephen Breyer retired. Though he denied that the timing of his departure was a partisan calculation, it nevertheless satisfied the political commandment of Supreme Court retirement: Stay on until a president of your party is in office and your age or health make it likely that your tenure will end during the presidency of the opposing party.  

By complying, Breyer was able to avoid criticisms that befell his former colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose failure to retire during the presidency of Barack Obama helped lead to the demise of Roe v. Wade.

While Breyer’s timing gratified Democrats, the commandment is at the root of their Supreme Court malaise. So long as our two main parties trade the Oval Office in four- or eight-year intervals, adherence to it will likely keep the 6-3 split in favor of Republican-appointed justices intact. 

It also gives justices very long tenures. Were they to wait until health or age forced them into the retirement calculus, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett would likely serve on the Court for 35 years or more. There is a good possibility that a President Biden or Trump nominee will be serving 120 years after the birth of those men.

The judiciary is our least democratic branch by design, but extended stays on the court greatly increase the probability that the values and ideologies of our justices will radically depart from the will of the majority.

All of this assumes that justices will time their retirements in furtherance of their ideological interests. There is evidence to support this assumption. A study of court retirements through 2006 published in the peer-reviewed journal Demography found that justices were almost three times more likely to retire when the incumbent president was of the same party as the president who nominated them and was in the first two years of a term.  

But Supreme Court justices are human, and humans care about more than just politics. They care about money, too. The same study showed that becoming eligible for a pension more than quintupled the likelihood that a justice would retire that year.

While the influence of pensions may have waned in recent decades – indeed, four current justices are already eligible for full-salary pensions – it is unlikely that today’s justices have suddenly become indifferent to money. Moreover, the prospect of comfortable retirement might look more enticing now that justices are unpopular and require around-the-clock security.

To deter them from following the commandment, Congress should offer substantial buyouts to any Supreme Court justices who retire when they reach 10 years of service on the High Court. The five justices who have already exceeded that number should be eligible for the payment if they retire within one year. To overcome the considerable allure of ideological power, the sum should be in the millions. 

To the many people who are angry at the Court, buyouts might seem like rewards for bad behavior. Critics have naturally gravitated towards retaliatory reforms, such as amending the Constitution to impose mandatory retirement ages or term limits or passing a statute that will increase the number of justices from nine to a dozen or more. 

But practicality demands a different approach. A statute, particularly one that favors a single party, is unlikely to get through a filibuster. A constitutional amendment has no hope at all. 

By contrast, buyouts are easy to enact. Like pension plans, they use public funds to address government staffing issues. Therefore, they can be passed through the reconciliation process, making them filibuster-proof. Indeed, the Senate parliamentarian recently concluded that increased funding to support failing union pensions was appropriate for reconciliation.

While some measures have failed because the parliamentarian found their budgetary dimensions to be incidental to their non-budgetary purposes, the outlay of funding here is essential to its purpose — it is the very incentive for retirement.  

If Congress cannot be persuaded to pass a buyout plan, then President Biden might be able to gather sufficient discretionary funds for that purpose with money under his control.

The buyout proposal here also has the virtue of being a soft measure. Since it changes the court’s composition only if justices, themselves, choose to opt in, it does little to threaten judicial independence. Yes, five justices (Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) would be incentivized to seek immediate retirement, which could create a windfall of vacancies for Biden. But there are nearly as many eligible Democratic as Republican appointees. And ideological motivations make it at least as likely that Justice Sotomayor would seek a buyout as Justice Thomas, since her replacement would be chosen by a Democratic president. Even if buyouts skew the partisan divide on the court toward equilibrium, the poll data suggest that would only ease the favorability crisis.

It is possible that buyouts will not persuade any justices to retire. No matter. A justice’s refusal will provide useful information to the public, making it easier to assess the degree to which they are beholden to the power of the office and, in turn, to the political commandment. Besides, the unspent funds can be directed toward other useful purposes. 

Offering large sums of public money to the powerful is not an ideal solution. The legislative impasse, however, forces us to consider second-best measures. The Supreme Court might not deserve a carrot, but a big one can get it to move when the stick is broken.

Brian Sheppard is a professor of law and associate dean for J.D. and graduate admissions at Seton Hall Law School.

Source: TEST FEED1

Federal privacy legislation that protects civil rights is critical for all Americans

We should celebrate the fact that Congress is considering legislation that would give all Americans robust privacy protections. Equally important, pending privacy legislation would implement the first significant, nationwide expansion of civil rights protections in over a decade. In addition to provisions that would give individuals more control over their information, the bill would bar businesses and nonprofits from using personal data in a manner that discriminates on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability. While work remains to ensure Congress’s efforts are protective and practical, we must seize the opportunity to advance the civil rights of all Americans in this digital era. Risks stemming from digital services have never been more complex, and the need for meaningful safeguards has never been more urgent. 

Civil rights are the nonpolitical rights of a person, enshrining the laws and values crucial to a functioning democracy and society. We think of civil rights as affecting only a few, but civil rights affect everyone. Civil rights protections have expanded to include a broad array of communities that we, as a society, recognize need further protection as a result of historical and societal harms. These groups are not limited by race, and include people with disabilities, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those from different national origins, and those subject to age discrimination. Each of us depend on someone whose civil rights are at stake in this country. 

In many ways, privacy — particularly in the context of digital services, electronic data flows and personal data — is a civil right. In addition to privacy, it’s crucial that a data protection law incorporates explicit legal safeguards against direct discrimination and indirect harms (disparate impact) to marginalized communities. For example, a data protection law should prohibit data-based discrimination in areas such as housing, lending, education, and employment, where modern harms and denials of opportunity are now, for the most part, decided by algorithms. As a result, data can be used against people, with consequences that we are just now beginning to appreciate, and existing laws do not clearly provide the protections needed in a modern age. 

It is these rights — civil rights — that are directly addressed by current bills pending in Congress. What is at stake is bigger than the interests of individual states: it affects the lives of a majority of Americans. State laws, including the California Privacy Rights Act and laws passed in Colorado, Utah, Connecticut, and Virginia, typically codify existing civil rights laws, but to date have not extended civil rights protections. The U.S. needs a law that will implement clear and meaningful civil rights safeguards. 

Marginalized communities across the nation deserve and require robust privacy and civil rights protections. This includes Indigenous communities in Kansas and Oklahoma, Latino communities in Arizona, and Black people in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Without a federal standard, these communities will be even more vulnerable to discrimination in housing, credit, and employment opportunities, which are increasingly determined by data-driven algorithms or artificial intelligence that can easily reproduce societal biases or lead to discrimination based on training data that does not reflect the diversity of America.

An example of how to implement these protections can be in the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA), a significant bipartisan bill currently being considered in the House. The proposed law has some shortcomings, which many have been engaged at addressing. ADPPA does not include some provisions that civil and human rights groups would prefer, such as enhanced damages (or treble damages) for victims of civil rights violations. Additionally, portions of the bill could be revised to provide greater regulatory clarity for covered entities, including small businesses and nonprofits.

ADPPA’s approach to civil rights, however, is commendable. For instance, ADPPA clarifies that online discrimination is illegal and would be the first federal law explicitly extending civil rights protections online. As technologies and business practices have evolved, civil rights laws drafted in the 1960s and 1970s have not kept pace. ADPPA would modernize civil rights for the digital age: It is significantly stronger than the current frameworks in place and would update existing civil rights protections, further clarifying that digital discrimination is illegal and mandating that companies take meaningful steps to address algorithmic discrimination, not just against marginalized communities, but against children as well. 

Marginalized communities across this country deserve privacy protections that explicitly name them as protected, now more than ever. The civil rights provisions of the ADPPA offer a concrete path to substantial protections for these communities. Policymakers must consider what it would mean to lose this important opportunity by failing to come to the table. We cannot walk away from this proposal, and instead must ensure that all of our leaders in Congress and across all sectors of the digital economy meaningfully engage. Only when these protections are codified will we be assured that more people are able to fully participate in a connected future with protection against discrimination. The stakes are too high to waste this opportunity.

Bertram Lee is Senior Policy Counsel, Data, Decision Making, and Artificial Intelligence at the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), a non-profit that serves as a catalyst for privacy leadership and scholarship, advancing principled data practices in support of emerging technologies.

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An opening for NATO in the Arctic

In her first testimony as Coast Guard Commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan emphasized the importance of maintaining a persistent U.S. navigational presence in the Arctic. Citing Russian and Chinese ambitions in the High North, Fagan asked for continuing support for the $1.8 billion Polar Security Cutter program, which is slated to deliver three new heavy icebreakers by 2027. Yet she left unanswered — and her congressional inquisitors left unprobed — the precise strategic aims for this hefty investment. What is the United States’s long-term strategy for an increasingly navigable Arctic?

Rarely has the question been riper. In March, seven members of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum for Arctic coordination, paused their work and condemned the council’s eighth member, Russia, for invading Ukraine. The seven others later resumed coordination on projects unrelated to Russia, in effect sidelining Moscow indefinitely. Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland, the only non-NATO Arctic states other than Russia, took the momentous step of pursuing NATO membership — a move Congress recently voted to support.

In the wake of this geopolitical reshuffle, the U.S., together with its partners and allies, can set a clearer direction for the Arctic’s geopolitical future. In particular, the U.S. should consider a greater role for NATO in Arctic affairs, for at least four reasons.

First, the status quo no longer suffices. If Arctic geopolitics once distinguished itself as a model of cooperation, the Arctic Council’s ejection of Russia heralds a more contentious era. The other Arctic nations can refuse to talk to Russia but they cannot ignore Moscow’s activities in the region. Russia is, after all, the 800-pound gorilla of the High North, with a formidable Arctic fleet and 15,000-mile northern coast — stretching nearly halfway around the Arctic Circle — as well as a 1.7 million-square-mile exclusive economic zone that grants it certain rights to ocean resources. The Arctic Council can neither solve Russia’s aggression in Ukraine nor counterbalance Russia’s Arctic ambitions. NATO can step into this breach.

Second, traditional objections to NATO’s involvement in the Arctic have begun to lose their appeal. It is said that NATO leaders have shied from Arctic affairs to avoid provoking Russia in what historically has been a quiescent region. But the Arctic is no longer quiescent; it is stirring. And a measured NATO presence can be no more provocative than Sweden and Finland’s accession to the alliance. The greater risk, history tells us, is failing to deter Russian maximalism.

It also has been said that NATO leaders have heeded the objections of smaller Arctic nations, who view Arctic issues as regional in scope — not the business of Paris, Lisbon or Ankara. But now that Sweden and Finland are poised to join the alliance, all Arctic nations (except Russia) will be NATO members, ensuring that each has a voice in NATO business. In addition, as I have argued elsewhere, non-Arctic stakeholders deserve a say in the fate of this global commons. NATO can serve as one additional, if imperfect, proxy for non-Arctic voices.

Third, NATO is well-equipped to ensure freedom of navigation, a cornerstone of our rules-based order and the backbone of the law of the sea. Freedom of navigation also serves as a bulwark against parochial, maximalist claims to maritime territory and resources that buck international law. To promote this freedom and reinforce international law, NATO navies and coast guards can perform varying levels of freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS).

This is where Adm. Fagan’s icebreakers can support a greater strategic vision. As she noted in her testimony, Russia’s icebreaker fleet exceeds 40, ranging from nuclear-powered cutters to vessels of lesser capability. By contrast, the U.S. fleet is modest — currently two. But Finland’s 10, Canada’s seven, Sweden’s seven, Denmark’s four, and others under construction make for an allied fleet capable of a more formidable circumpolar presence. To be sure, comparisons of fleet size without regard to quality can mislead, but the point stands: An Arctic-involved NATO is a better guarantee of public order than what any Arctic country alone can do.

Some may object that a FONOPS risks military confrontation in the Arctic. This is a strawman. Not all FONOPS are created equal. And as a legal matter, a FONOP need not test “red lines” to vindicate navigational freedoms. The “actual presence,” to use Adm. Fagan’s term, of coast guard vessels performing lower-profile regulatory and scientific tasks is sufficient to reinforce international law.

Others may worry that Arctic FONOPS could needlessly rankle Ottawa by raising questions about the Northwest Passage, which Canada deems an internal water subject to its regulation, although international law strongly implies it is a freely navigable international strait. This concern, too, is misplaced. Just last year, the U.S. cutter Healy transited the Northwest Passage in what the Coast Guard characterized as a non-FONOP scientific mission in collaboration with Canadian and Danish personnel. This diplomatic compromise of sorts allowed the U.S. to project presence without sowing disagreement with its neighbor to the north — one model for future NATO operations in the Arctic.

Some argue that the discourse on Arctic competition is too often alarmist, anticipating a more freely navigable Arctic that is still decades away. Even if so, this does not mean the U.S. and its NATO allies should forego the strategic opportunities emerging now.

Timothy Perry is a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, government official and adjunct professor. He frequently writes about matters of national and homeland security. Follow him on Twitter @timothycpereira.

Source: TEST FEED1

Don’t let Venezuela walk between the raindrops

As best I can tell, the American novelist W.E.B. Griffin popularized the phrase “walk between the raindrops” that means a person (or country) is not held accountable for nefarious actions. It is one of my favorite political risk quotes, since all too often in this mediocre age — and in defiance of how republics are supposed to work — the mediocre and even the evil prosper, despite their horrendous “call record” in life.

Presently, the distracted, confused Biden administration is letting the thuggish, inept Venezuelan administration of Nicolas Maduro walk between raindrops. The White House has allowed the gradual removal of sanctions on Caracas to give America’s enemies real hope that they can withstand the economic pressure the U.S. heretofore has brought to bear. At literally every level, this amounts to a disastrous policy. As Edmund Burke is (wrongly) supposed to have said, “All that it takes for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.”

The Trump administration, and many other Western countries, withdrew diplomatic recognition of Maduro’s socialist, anti-American regime after his obvious rigging of Venezuela’s 2018 presidential campaign. For the past five years, the U.S. instead has recognized Juan Guaido as president and put in place punishing financial and personal sanctions directed against the country’s criminal elite, all the while supporting the domestic democratic opposition, in an effort to topple the former bus driver turned dictator.

However, in March, the Biden administration began to lose its nerve. U.S. officials traveled to Caracas to meet with Maduro and his team. The trigger for change was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed. Venezuela, for all its economic problems, sits atop the world’s largest supply of oil. For the desperate Biden administration, being politically destroyed by its tone-deaf response to the energy and cost-of-living crises, and facing an uphill battle in the November midterms, the temptation to try to bring pariah Venezuela back on line to pump more oil is proving too great to pass up.

After the meeting, as a gesture of goodwill, Maduro freed two U.S. prisoners held in his country’s overflowing jails and promised to restart the perennially fruitless talks he has held with the opposition (he uses the negotiations as a diplomatic weapon to forestall any meaningful political change in the country). President Biden predictably fell for these token gestures, entranced by the fool’s gold of bringing energy-rich Venezuela back into the community of nations. Duly, the U.S. lifted some minor sanctions on Caracas, but the larger message is clear: The White House is open to letting Maduro walk between the raindrops, if the price is right.

There is no doubt the anti-American chavista president is a menace to his own people and the wider world. Despite Venezuela’s oil reserves, Maduro’s socialists have so mismanaged the country’s economy that three-quarters of its people live in extreme poverty — that is, on less than $1.90 a day. It is little wonder that 6 million Venezuelans have voted with their feet, fleeing the economic Dumpster fire in the past few years.

At the international level, Maduro has been similarly vicious and inept. He has been accused by U.S. officials of conspiring to flood the U.S. with cocaine, using the drug trade as a blunt instrument against America. Geopolitically, in line with his mentor, the populist leftist Hugo Chavez, Maduro has aligned himself with America’s rivals, China and Russia — an obvious strategic no-no in the Western Hemisphere.

What has transpired at the country level has been mirrored by peculiar goings-on at the individual level by chavista criminals. For example, Roberto Enrique Rincon-Fernandez, a Venezuelan chavista who improbably now lives in opulence in Houston — with his $5.8 million estate, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini, a private jet, and other houses in Aruba and Spain — was arrested in 2015, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) bringing 13 bribery charges against him.

The centerpiece of the DOJ’s broader investigation into corruption in Venezuela, Rincon has pleaded guilty to “oil bribery,” masterminding and participating in bribery schemes involving three high officials with the country’s national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). This malfeasance led to rigging bids in order for Rincon to win contracts supplying energy equipment to PDVSA, according to U.S. officials.

In 2016, Rincon accepted a plea bargain wherein he pled guilty to three of the DOJ cases against him. This ridiculously lenient deal took his estimated jail time down from a maximum of 100 years to 13. Better still for Rincon, he was released on $5 million bail and has had his sentencing postponed 20 times, most recently to August 2022. If this is not walking between the raindrops, it is hard to think of what is.

The moral problem of letting countries and individuals off the hook for their bad behavior is that they are likely to be encouraged in following their anti-American ideology, come hell or high water. The U.S. was right to impose some sanctions on Russia, which is a second-order U.S. problem in terms of its national interests. Why should it do less with Venezuela, sitting as it does in the Western Hemisphere, which, since the Monroe Doctrine, is the definition of a primary American interest? 

No, the Biden administration letting Venezuela walk between the raindrops corrodes an American foreign policy desperately in need of clarity. 

Dr. John C. Hulsman is president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a global political-risk consulting firm headquartered in London, Milan and Bavaria. A life member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, he is a contributing editor for Aspenia, the flagship foreign policy journal of The Aspen Institute, Italy. Follow him on Twitter @JohnHulsman1.

Source: TEST FEED1