Saturday, July 22, 2023

 

Biden picks first woman to lead the Navy after reports of Pentagon snub

Jim Cleveland/U.S. Navy via AP
In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti meets with leadership at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Nov. 17, 2022 in Kittery, Maine. A senior administration official says President Joe Biden has chosen Franchetti to lead the Navy. If confirmed, she would be the first woman to be a U.S. military service chief.

President Biden on Friday picked Adm. Lisa Franchetti to be the next chief of naval operations after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin passed over her when recommending for the role.

The promotion of Franchetti, who has been vice chief of naval operations since last fall, will be the first time a woman has the spot of the Navy’s highest-ranking officer and she will be the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Biden, in announcing his nomination, noted that Franchetti has already made history as the second woman ever to achieve the rank of four-star admiral in the United States Navy. She would replace current Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, whose four-year term is over this fall.  

Austin in June reportedly recommended that Adm. Samuel Paparo become the next chief of naval operations despite Franchetti being considered the front-runner for the top position as the Navy’s No. 2 officer. Biden on Friday nominated Paparo for commander of Indo-Pacific Command.

The president also nominated Vice Adm. James Kilby for vice chief of naval operations and Vice Adm. Stephen “Web” Koehler for commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet.


He also urged the Senate to quickly confirm these nominations and the other pending military nominations that have been held up by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Tuberville is blocking the Senate from moving on military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which allows for paid leave and travel reimbursement for abortions. 

“It has long been an article of faith in this country that supporting our service members and their families, and providing for the strength of our national defense, transcends politics. What Senator Tuberville is doing is not only wrong — it is dangerous,” Biden said Friday.

Biden also called out Republicans in Senate for not stopping Tuberville from continuing the hold and said the Alabama Republican is “risking our ability to ensure that the United States Armed Forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”


Biden Picks Female Admiral To Lead Navy. She’d Be First Woman on Joint Chiefs of Staff

Biden's decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief.

In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti meets with leadership at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Nov. 17, 2022 in Kittery, Maine. (Jim Cleveland/U.S. Navy via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has chosen Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, an unprecedented choice that, if she is confirmed, will make her the first woman to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Biden's decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief. But Franchetti, the current vice chief of operations for the Navy, has broad command and executive experience and was considered by insiders to be the top choice for the job.

In a statement Friday, Biden noted the historical significance of her selection and said “throughout her career, Admiral Franchetti has demonstrated extensive expertise in both the operational and policy arenas.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended that Biden select Adm. Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, several U.S. officials said last month. But instead, Biden is nominating Paparo to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

A senior administration official said Biden chose Franchetti based on the broad scope of her experience at sea and ashore, including a number of high-level policy and administrative jobs that give her deep knowledge in budgeting and running the department.

At the same time, the official acknowledged that Biden understands the historical nature of the nomination and believes that Franchetti will be an inspiration to sailors, both men and women. The official spoke earlier on condition of anonymity because the nomination had not been made public.

Franchetti's nomination will join the list of hundreds of military moves that are being held up by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. He is blocking confirmation of military officers in protest of a Defense Department policy that pays for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care

Biden, in his statement, blasted Tuberville for prioritizing his domestic political agenda over military readiness.

“What Senator Tuberville is doing is not only wrong — it is dangerous,” Biden said. “He is risking our ability to ensure that the United States Armed Forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And his Republican colleagues in the Senate know it.”

Franchetti is slated to serve as the acting Navy chief beginning next month when Adm. Michael Gilday, the current top naval officer, retires as planned.

Several women have served as military service secretaries as political appointees, but never as their top uniformed officer. A woman, Adm. Linda L. Fagan, is currently the commandant of the Coast Guard. She, however, is not a member of the Joint Staff. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Pentagon.

The news last month that the defense chief had recommended Papara stunned many in the Pentagon because it was long believed that Franchetti was in line for the top Navy job.

In a statement Friday, Austin praised the nomination, saying, “I’m very proud that Admiral Franchetti has been nominated to be the first woman Chief of Naval Operations and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where she will continue to inspire all of us.”

A surface warfare officer, she has commanded at all levels, heading U.S. 6th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Korea. She was the second woman ever to be promoted to four-star admiral, and she did multiple deployments, including as commander of a naval destroyer and two stints as aircraft carrier strike group commander.

Paparo, who if confirmed will replace Adm. John Aquilino, is a naval aviator and a TOPGUN graduate with more than 6,000 flight hours in Navy fighter jets and 1,100 landings on aircraft carriers. A Pennsylvania native, he graduated from Villanova University and was commissioned into the Navy in 1987.

Prior to his Pacific tour, he was commander of naval forces in the Middle East, based in Bahrain, and also previously served as director of operations at U.S. Central Command in Florida.

Biden also said he will nominate Vice Adm. James Kilby to be the vice chief of the Navy and tap Vice Adm. Stephen Koehler to head the Pacific Fleet.

____

By LOLITA C. BALDOR


President Joe Biden has nominated Adm. Lisa Franchetti to become chief of naval operations. (Lance Cpl. Cody Purcell/U.S. Marine Corps)

WASHINGTON — Adm. Lisa Franchetti was five weeks into leading U.S. 6th Fleet when she oversaw the first-ever Tomahawk missile strike by a Virginia-class attack submarine.

Days after Syrian President Bashar Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on his people in April 2018, then-President Donald Trump threatened to use military forces to destroy the Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

Franchetti, then a three-star admiral still settling into her new office in Naples, Italy, was tasked by Defense Department leadership with striking Syria from European waters using naval vessels.

The target was complex: Three facilities in Damascus and near Homs were close to Russian forces and air defense systems, which the U.S. wanted to avoid hitting.

Franchetti and her 6th Fleet team both successfully used the new submarine John Warner to fire upon Syria from the Eastern Mediterranean and rearmed the boat afterward, marking two firsts.

“There were some real challenges there,” retired Adm. James Foggo, then the commander of Naval Forces Europe and Franchetti’s direct superior, told Defense News. “Afterward, we all kind of breathed a sigh of relief because all the elements of that strike mission directed by the president were met: The targets were destroyed, minimal collateral damage, didn’t bring the Russians into it, a strong message sent to Assad, and then the reload afterwards.”

Five years later — and after completing her tour as 6th Fleet commander, serving as the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then becoming the vice chief of naval operations — Franchetti is now President Joe Biden’s nominee for chief of naval operations.

The White House announced the nomination July 21. If confirmed by the Senate, Franchetti would be the first woman to lead the Navy or any Defense Department military service. The Coast Guard was the first U.S. armed service to be led by a female; Adm. Linda Fagan became the 27th commandant of the branch last year.

Franchetti’s nomination is likely to be sidelined by ongoing political fights on Capitol Hill over the military’s abortion access policy. The ongoing hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has stalled more than 250 senior military confirmations over the last four months, with no resolution in sight, over the Defense Department’s abortion policies.


Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
(J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Under rules put in place last fall, troops stationed in states where abortion is limited or illegal can be granted leave time and travel stipends to help cover the cost of moving across state lines for abortion services. Tuberville and a host of Republican lawmakers have decried the policy as illegal.

Top Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Ryan Perry confirmed the nomination in a statement and said that “she has worked across the Navy and the Joint Force with an emphasis on strategy, international engagement, and interagency collaboration, most recently serving as the Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy, J-5.”

Biden also announced the nomination of Adm. Samuel Paparo — who in recent weeks had been rumored to be in line for the CNO post — as commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Foggo said Franchetti has the right character and experience for the job.

“She cares a lot about her people [and] you want a CNO that cares about the troops on the deckplate,” he said. “At the same time, you want a CNO that has experience in some tight, tough situations and some combat situations.”

Surface warrior and policy wonk


If a group of Navy ROTC students at a Midwestern university hadn’t decided to have a cookout one day more than four decades ago, there’s a chance Franchetti would not have embarked on a career that landed her as the nominee.

She grew up in suburban Rochester, New York, according to a 2015 Northwestern University profile of Franchetti.

Franchetti attended Northwestern’s Medill journalism school and wanted to become a reporter covering the Middle East, according to the profile. That changed in 1981 during freshman orientation, when she came upon a group of Navy ROTC students grilling out and playing football, the profile recalls.


ROTC midshipmen at Northwestern University listen to speakers about the working relationship chiefs and officers need to have in a command. 
(Scott A. Thornbloom/U.S. Navy)

“They said: ‘We could get you $100 a month, and maybe you could get a scholarship next year if you joined ROTC,’ ” Franchetti said in the piece. “I was whisked away to their office building on Haven Street, talked to a lieutenant who told me how great the Navy was, and next thing, I’m signed up and getting my uniform and some books. And that’s how it started.”

From there, she commissioned as a Navy officer in 1985 — five years after the first woman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, putting her at the forefront of gender integration on ships.

As such, Franchetti began her career on auxiliary ships, or those that support vessels in the naval fleet. She served on the destroyer tender Shenandoah and then the oiler Monongahela, and eventually moved onto destroyers, commanding Ross.

Franchetti became the second woman to serve as vice chief of naval operations on Sept. 2, 2022.

Retired Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, who in 2010 became the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said Franchetti’s resume makes her an ideal candidate to serve as the next chief of naval operations, regardless of gender.

Tyson told Defense News she first worked with Franchetti at the Navy’s Logistics Group Western Pacific in Singapore, and during Franchetti’s leadership of Destroyer Squadron 21.

Franchetti “is probably one of the best, well-rounded officers that we could put in as CNO. And that’s because she’s had, A, the leadership experience; B, she has had a lot of experience working with our allies and partners around the world,” Tyson said.

Later, when Tyson led U.S. 3rd Fleet and Franchetti reported to her as commander of Carrier Strike Group 9, Tyson made the unusual decision to ask Franchetti to lead two strike groups.

“I had the utmost confidence in Lisa,” she said. “Lisa is just a great person and a good leader and has the right values, characteristics, experience, training, whatever, that she’s one of those people that you can trust to get the job done.”

Foggo said Franchetti’s time as 6th Fleet commander put her leadership skills to the test: She came into the job managing ongoing naval aviation strikes against the Islamic State group, and she left in July 2020 after seeing the command through a horrific start to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jonmichael Heldorfer, left, performs a COVID-19 test on Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 2nd Class Nareba Brady aboard a ship while in Gaeta, Italy, on May 6, 2020. (MC1 Kyle Steckler/U.S. Navy)

By March 2020, 1,000 people a day were dying in Italy. Foggo said he and Franchetti had daily meetings to discuss how to keep their people both safe and ready for any missions.

“We were making dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions every day about how we’re going to continue to sustain the warfighting posture of this theater with Americans who are on ships, deployed or in port, or need to be ready to go and meet any contingency when we have this murderous pandemic upon us here in Italy,” he said.

Sailors and their families were scared, he added, but he and Franchetti communicated well during that time to explain their rigid policies. “Lisa was my wingman for this,” Foggo said.

Retired Vice Adm. Ron Boxall was a fellow surface warfare officer who has known Franchetti for years and led the Joint Staff’s resources directorate while Franchetti led the policy directorate.

He said her time in that job meant she “learned a lot about what went on with the [National Security Council] over [at] the White House, a lot of the inner dealings with the political-military side with [the] State Department.”

Foggo noted that, while leading 6th Fleet and Naval Forces Korea, she worked closely with allies and partners.

Breaking gender barriers

While Franchetti’s resume includes many of the same posts as other top surface warfare officers — ship captain, carrier strike group commander, fleet commander — she’s been the first woman to take on many of these roles.

“She’s a role model for a lot of young female officers, mostly surface warfare officers, and she’s always taken it as a personal mission for her to be that mentor that she never had, or that she had very few of,” Boxall said.

But he said that Franchetti, as a woman, may be uniquely positioned to help the surface warfare community and the Navy as a whole address some thorny policy issues that have thus far eluded resolution.


Then-Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, commander of U.S. 6th Fleet, takes a selfie with Midshiman 1st Class Elise Vincent while visiting the destroyer Bainbridge in June 2018. (MC1 Theron Godbold/U.S. Navy)

Speaking about retention — an issue for all the services — Boxall said it would be “refreshing” to see how a female service chief would tackle the challenge.

In a competition for people, he said, “it may be she will be able to come up with policies and confront them head on as a female officer” in a way that male officers have struggled to do.

Franchetti could lead on these issues because she’s lived them all herself. She spoke to the Northwestern University magazine about caring for sailors and maintaining a work-life balance, even with a demanding profession.

“I have my work sphere, my mom and wife sphere, and my mental and physical health sphere. When I was younger, I thought: ‘I can do all of this at the same time!’ ” Franchetti was quoted as saying.

“But when I became older, I realized, ‘OK, this week I’m going to focus on work because it’s going to be really busy,’ ” she added. “‘And next week I’m going to take a day off and go to the zoo with my family. And then next week I’m going to make sure my running is going well and get that back on track.’ A lot of rethinking and reevaluating your priorities is really important. Every day you have to think about this.”

Tyson, the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said that Biden selecting Franchetti to lead the service sends two messages to young women in the Navy or considering joining.

“First, a woman can do that; I can go as far as I want to go. And two, the Navy as an organization has the right values that they put the right person in the right place for the right reason,” Tyson said.

Foggo said he spoke to Franchetti several times about the intersection of being a naval officer and a woman.

“One of the things she said is, I learned a lot a long time ago that you do not have to sacrifice your femininity or your gender identity to be a good leader in the Navy,” Foggo explained. “In other words, you don’t have to lower your voice. You don’t have to yell. You don’t have to use bad language. You can just lead. You can be an effective leader by listening to your people, caring for your people, understanding your people, knowing something about your people.

“That’s leadership, and it has nothing to do with gender.”


Leo Shane III contributed to this report.

About Megan Eckstein and Geoff Ziezulewicz

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com


 

Democrats put RFK Jr. on blast in change of strategy

Democrats are no longer trying to ignore Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and have taken to calling him out in public after a week of controversies.

National party leaders for the first time acknowledged Kennedy’s disruptive presidential bid with sharp criticism, and lawmakers met his claims of censorship head-on during his testimony on Capitol Hill. 

It’s a notable change from their previous approach, in which Democratic leaders and party officials hoped Kennedy would simply fade away on his own. It also serves a purpose for President Biden, who has so far been cautious about addressing his primary rival directly.

“On his own, he was doing a really good job of showing everyone his initials stood for Real F—ing [K]razy, so made sense to let him be,” said Eddie Vale, a strategist who has worked on numerous Democratic campaigns.

“This week was different and made sense for folks to engage, because of the combination of outright antisemitism and being a witness for Republicans’ nonsense hearing,” Vale said.

Kennedy this week drew backlash for asserting without evidence that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” — a claim infectious disease and ethics experts refuted. Kennedy was caught on video by a reporter saying Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews were not targeted as much as other races, including Black and white people. 

“I’ve never even believed that he was a legitimate candidate,” said Arthur Caplan, a biomedical expert who’s spoken out about the various public relations storms that have dominated Kennedy’s campaign.

“COVID just doesn’t lend itself to being that kind of weapon,” added Caplan, who has written extensively about bioweapons and viruses. “I knew he was basically talking out of his rear end.”

But while Kennedy has frequently drawn negative attention for his views on vaccines, his remarks this week seemed to be even more offensive to many. A wave of White House officials and congressional Democrats rushed to criticize Kennedy, accusing him of spreading misinformation and making antisemitic and racist comments. 

In a rare showing of condemnation toward a rival from the same side of the aisle, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took to the podium to portray Kennedy’s comments as factually inaccurate and an “attack” on people.

“If you think about the racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those types of things, it is an attack on our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans,” Jean-Pierre said on Monday. 

“It is important that we essentially speak out when we hear those claims made more broadly,” she added. 

Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called the candidate’s COVID-19 comments “reprehensible” and said they were disqualifying.

“Last week, RFK Jr. made reprehensible anti-semitic and anti-Asian comments aimed at perpetuating harmful and debunked racist tropes,” DelBene said in a statement.

“Such dangerous racism and hate have no place in America, demonstrate him to be unfit for public office, and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” she added.

Adding fuel to the fire for Democrats, Kennedy on Thursday testified before a House Judiciary select subcommittee examining the “weaponization” of the federal government, using the event to argue he was being censored despite receiving widespread coverage from major news outlets. Although House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) defended him, Democrats — led by Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) — made their disapproval of him clear.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also waded into the intraparty conflict, questioning why the GOP would grant Kennedy a forum in Congress.

“Why would you give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a congressional platform to spew his hatred? Here’s the answer: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a living, breathing false-flag operation,” the New York congressman said. 

The growing chorus of criticism poses a challenge for Kennedy, who always faced an uphill climb to defeat Biden. But the events of the past week could turn off even those voters who had been more open to his campaign. 

Adding to the feeling of many Democrats that Kennedy is playing into the hands of the GOP, former President Trump recently praised the insurgent candidate as “a very smart person,” saying he “hit a little bit of a nerve.” Kennedy had expressed during a town hall hosted by NewsNation — owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill — that he was “proud” Trump liked him.

“His whole campaign is being run by right-wing political operatives who have one objective: try to take down President Joe Biden,” Jeffries argued this week. 

That sentiment is shared by many others in the party. The Hill reported earlier this week that two pro-Israel House Democrats said he should not be allowed to serve in the Oval Office if elected following his COVID-19 remarks. 

Still, Biden has been careful not to pile on, and some Democrats argue it’s better to disregard him again. Reached for comment, spokespeople from the Biden campaign and the White House also declined to comment on the record beyond what Jean-Pierre said at the podium this week. 

As long as he teeters around the same polling numbers, Democrats say they should continue paying him no mind.

“I think it makes most sense to go back to ignoring him,” Vale said. “Let him just hang out with Steve Bannon and do weird push-ups in jeans.”


Dan Goldman to RFK Jr.: Should I 'be worried about my genetics as an Ashkenazi Jew?'

David Edwards
July 20, 2023

YouTube/screen grab
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if he should be worried about his genetics to highlight a rant connecting Covid-19 to race.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Goldman presented a recently-unearthed video of Kennedy talking about Covid-19's impacts on Black and Jewish people.

In the video, Kennedy said, "Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people" and "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."

Goldman, an Ashkenazi Jew, asked Kennedy if he should be concerned because he contracted the virus early in the pandemic.

"And my question to you is whether you think I should be worried about my genetics as an Ashkenazi Jew because I did contract Covid?" Goldman wondered.

"No, not at all," Kennedy replied.

"And that statement that you saw there is a truncated version of a larger statement," the witness protested. "I was describing a study."

 

White House marks rejoining UNESCO, says Trump-era absence harmed US interests

FILE - The logo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is seen during the 39th session of the General Conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. UNESCO's 193 members states are gathering Thursday June 29, 2023 for a two-day meeting in Paris aimed at voting on the United States' plans to rejoin the U.N. cultural and scientific agency, after a decade-long dispute sparked by the organization's move to include Palestine as a member. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
FILE – The logo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is seen during the 39th session of the General Conference at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. UNESCO’s 193 members states are gathering Thursday June 29, 2023 for a two-day meeting in Paris aimed at voting on the United States’ plans to rejoin the U.N. cultural and scientific agency, after a decade-long dispute sparked by the organization’s move to include Palestine as a member. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

The White House marked the United States rejoining the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ahead of first lady Jill Biden’s trip to France, four years after former President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement.

Senior administration officials outlined that the U.S. not being a part of the international organization was harmful to its interests.

“In recent years with UNESCO, it became clear that the U.S. absence from this organization was actually harming our interests,” officials said, adding that U.S. competitors are “working hard in the U.N. to shape the global agenda on issues ranging from emerging technology to sustainable development.”

“If we aren’t in the room, we can’t push back and if we don’t show up, we can’t fight for the American people and defend our allies abroad from unfair attacks,” officials said.

The U.S. in 2019 officially withdrew from UNESCO, two years after the Trump administration cited anti-Israel bias for the decision to leave the group. The withdrawal was largely procedural, and came as the Trump administration more broadly raised concerns about the United Nations’ agenda and attitudes toward Israel.

The first lady will deliver remarks at the UNESCO flag-raising ceremony. She is set to leave Sunday evening and return on Wednesday.

Officials cited rejoining UNESCO as part of President Biden’s overall focus on U.S. leadership and participation on the global stage following the Trump years.

“From the very early days of this administration, we took steps to strengthen our global partnerships and recommit to American leadership at the U.N. and international organizations,” officials said.

The first lady will engage with UNESCO leaders on ethics of emerging technology, press freedom, and education, which is notable for her as a longtime teacher.

She will also meet with France’s first lady Brigitte Macron, a fellow teacher, while in Paris. And, she will visit Brittany American Cemetery in Normandy to honor World War II troops. UNESCO was co-founded by the U.S. after World War II.

How Jimmy Carter has changed the conversation around hospice

Former President Carter’s public disclosure in February that he was entering hospice care — where he remains nearly six months later — is shifting the perception of end-of-life care for patients and their families.

Many assumed the 98-year-old former president was on his deathbed, but his family says he has continued to enjoy ice cream and stay up to date on the work of the Carter Center.

Ben Marcantonio, interim CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, told The Hill this week that the belief that hospice care is a short-term situation “can be a very common understanding.”

“The main marker identified in the benefit [of hospice care] is six months or less,” Marcantonio said. “Yet it also says that’s if the course of the illness or illnesses run their normal course. And so, it’s not like a definitive marker.”

The average length of hospice care is roughly 90 days, which Marcantonio notes includes situations where it only lasts a few days or less. So, while some people may be surprised by how long Carter has been in hospice, his situation falls within the norms of what many patients experience.

Those who work in the hospice realm say Carter has really opened up the conversation for a general population reluctant to think about issues surrounding death and end-of-life care.

“I don’t think we can understate the significance of someone as prominent and well-respected as Jimmy Carter … openly and publicly making that decision,” said Davis Baird, director of government affairs for hospice at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

Carter’s decision to publicly disclose his choice to go into hospice has served to highlight the multitude of benefits that patients enjoy, Baird said.

“Just the positive experience he’s having is, I think, really important for the public to have that model,” he said. “These things often happen behind closed doors. Other celebrities that use hospice — you know, whether it’s an old movie star, a sports star or someone — you often find out after they passed away that they were on hospice, and the journey isn’t articulated.”

While the Carter Center is not providing any additional information about the former president’s health and declined to comment for this story, the rare anecdotes from family members have brought attention to the purpose of hospice care, which is to ensure a higher quality of life after a patient has decided to no longer pursue medical treatment.

At the time Carter entered hospice, it was shared that the decision had been made following a series of short hospital stays for an undisclosed condition. According to hospice experts, this is a common course of action among patients who get tired of constantly going in and out of hospitals.

Marcantonio said the thought process for many patients is: “We don’t want to keep on this cycle of returning to hospitals or to seek some sort of other medical interventions to prolong life. Rather, we want to focus on quality of life and alleviating any discomfort, pain, any sorts of emotional challenges that might come with this process.”

Apart from the duration of hospice stay, Baird said another common misconception is that the process involves a precipitous decline in a person’s health. In fact, many patients stabilize after leaving the “ringer” of the health care system, he said.

Baird noted that treatment for terminal illnesses can be extremely depressing for an individual who would rather be doing more enjoyable things with their time. Transitioning to a space where their goals and desires are prioritized over treatment can result in the patient and their family feeling better.

As Carter, the longest-lived U.S. president in history, completes his fifth month in hospice care, he nears a significant milestone for many patients like him. After six months — 180 days — in hospice, patients on Medicare will have to go through a recertification process to see if they still meet the criteria for coverage.

Many people continue to live past the six-month mark, at which point a hospice medical director or hospice doctor will need to recertify them for Medicare to continue covering the cost of care.

These evaluations can sometimes result in grim outcomes for patients.

“If that patient is not, for example, showing fast enough decline in their medical profile, sometimes the contractors will come and take a look at that hospice and say, ‘Oh, this person’s not declining fast enough.’ So, you know, they weren’t eligible,” Baird said.

If this happens, hospices may have to go through an audit that could lead to all their claims for a patient being denied.

“It’s not something they like to do very often, but it does happen,” Baird said.

For the most part, recertification for hospice is a standard administrative process that commonly occurs, due to the fact that predicting when someone will die is an “extremely inexact science.”

Marcantonio hopes that Carter’s openness encourages others in similar situations to consider hospice care. He noted that just more than half of people who are eligible for hospice are receiving it.

And the sooner that eligible people elect to enter hospice, not only do they experience a higher quality of life, but it’s less costly overall, a recent study has found.

The research from NORC at the University of Chicago, which was published in March, found that Medicare spending for hospice patients was $3.5 billion less than if they had decided not to enter hospice.

Regardless of how long patients were in hospice, the study also found that patients and their families experienced “increased satisfaction and quality of life, improved pain control, reduced physical and emotional distress, and reduced prolonged grief and other emotional distress.”

“We’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Gosh, I wish I had less time on hospice,’” Marcantonio said. “The more we can get past those myths … and those misperceptions that we mentioned, the more people will get the care that they need when they need it.”

—Updated at 4:30 p.m.

Internet once again fooled by AI-generated images of satanic Target merch | Fact check

The claim: Video shows satanic merchandise at Target

A July 11 Facebook video (direct linkarchive link) shows a man speaking in front of a picture of a Target.

"So it looks like Target is at it again," the man says. "More of their evil agenda trying to be pushed on our little kids. ... Check out these pictures that I'm about to show you of what Target has in store for our little children and every one of you."

The video then shows images of satanic-themed decorations and clothing.

The video garnered more than 4,000 shares in 10 days, while the original TikTok garnered more than 70,000 likes in less than six weeks.

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Our rating: Altered

The images were created using AI. Target doesn't sell any such merchandise.

Satanic images are AI-generated

The set of images was originally shared on Facebook by a user named Pumpkin Empress on May 27.

"2023 Spring Target New Store line," reads the post's caption. "Ai pics : by yours truly, feel free to fall for it."

The user confirmed the images weren't real in the comments, adding that they were created to poke fun at those who previously accused Target of selling satanic merchandise.

"It’s a mockery of the people who 'heard' target had a satanist designing stuff for them and flipped out and boycotted the store," reads one of the user's comments beneath the post.

As is typically the case with AI-generated images, all the signs feature illegible symbols instead of English. Hive Moderation, an AI-detection tool, found the images were 99.7% likely to be AI-generated.

The user describes themselves as a digital creator on their Facebook page as well.

Fact checkImages of satanic statues at Hobby Lobby are digitally created

The New York Times mentioned the creator, Holly Alverez, in a June 28 article about AI-detection tools. The article features an image created by Alverez as part of an AI-generated set showing a satanic library club for children.

In a similar series of events, the set of images was shared online by conservative social media users who believed it was real.

In a May 8 Facebook post, Alvarez explained that the series of images were created using Midjourney, an AI-generating tool.

No such satanic-themed merchandise could be found on Target's website.

USA TODAY has previously debunked claims that AI-generated images show satanic-themed merchandise being sold at Target and Hobby Lobby.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. The TikTok user couldn't be contacted.

The claim has also been debunked by PolitiFact.

Our fact-check sources:



Beth Ailes to Newsmax:


 'Industrialized Devil


 Worship' at Fox



Reacting to reports that Fox News is promoting far-left and even "satanic" charities through its employee donation portal, Beth Ailes, widow of Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, told Newsmax on Friday that what the country is seeing from the network is "industrialized devil worship."

On Friday, The Blaze reported that Fox News' company portal app, Fox Giving, matches employee donations of up to $1,000 to the Satanic Temple, the Trevor Project, Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other liberal charities.

Beth Ailes, whose late husband established Fox News Channel as a conservative broadcasting pioneer, appeared on "Eric Bolling The Balance" and said she couldn’t believe it when she first learned about what Fox News was doing.

"I talked to my son, Zach, about this when I first heard and he said, 'Mom, I could just hear Dad saying, "Come on, guys. What are we doing here? This is completely nuts, stupid. Let's find the evildoer who thought this thing up and fire him."' And I concur with Zachary's assumption that [his father] would say that," she said.

Calling the network's actions "a betrayal of the Fox News core audience" that her husband "had sought to serve for so long," Ailes said it was also "an example of how the Murdochs have decided that they will give us all these reasons why this is OK. They will seek to have a triumph of reason over instinct.

"All of us know that devil worship, [gender-transition] care, you name it, some of the themes of these organizations that are available to match the donations ... they are evildoers," she continued. "As Christians, we have an obligation to call them out.

"Christianity is under attack. And what we're seeing from Fox is industrialized devil worship."

Beth Ailes called it "pure hypocrisy on the part of the corporate suits" that Fox News would match employee donations to such radical left groups, yet they wouldn't match dollar for dollar with the Franklin Graham Charity, which advertises on the network.

"I think that Roger and [late political commentator] Rush Limbaugh are very sad today," she said. "This is a sad revelation that we've been made aware of. But actually, I think people who were loyal to Fox have plenty of other options now, and I think that the way [Fox] treated Roger, Tucker [Carlson] ... they will suffer the consequences.

"Every action has a reaction, and we are seeing that their decisions in the boardroom are going to cause the decline and fall of Fox, which we are watching in real time."

Newsmax has reached out to Fox News for comment regarding The Blaze's report.

 

Decertifying Starbucks Unions

 
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Starbucks employee Tim Swicord and Gailyn Berg pose for a portrait outside of a Starbucks in Springfield, Va on April 13, 2022. (Michael A. McCoy for NPR)

Starbucks, working with the lovely people at the National Right to Work Committee, is presently figuring out ways to get workers to file decertification petitions against the unions they formed last year. It’s very clear how they are doing this–it is not changing workers’ minds. It is using the turnover in this job to screen for anti-union positions in hiring at these stores.

Jorge Franco, one of the original union organizers at the Mall of America Starbucks, quit working at the store last fall to return to school. Franco said the people he worked with have all since quit. He said he has never heard of the barista who filed the petition to get rid of the union, Rebecca Person.

In response to a request for an interview with a current barista at the Mall of America, Starbucks Workers United shared a statement from a barista at a store in New York.

“As a 12-year partner, I am disappointed to see Starbucks, a company that claims to have progressive values, align itself with extreme right-wing organizations like the Right to Work Foundation. Starbucks is providing partners with the contact information for the Right to Work Foundation to encourage them to file decertification petitions,” said Michelle Eisen, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based Starbucks barista, in a statement. “This is just union busting on top of union busting, and we are confident that these petitions will be dismissed due to the company’s own actions.”

Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said in a statement that the company is prohibited from assisting workers — or “partners” in Starbucks parlance — in decertifying the union, but he noted workers at 11 other stores and the NYC Roastery have filed for decertification elections, which the company is sharing information about on its website.

“As with any NLRB petition, our focus is to ensure partners can trust their voice is heard and the process is fair,” Trull said.

Opponents of the union have seized on Starbucks Workers United’s use of “salts,” who are union organizers who seek work at Starbucks and other businesses with the goal of rallying workers to join the union.

“The deceptive tactics SBWU officials took in gaining control of multiple Starbucks locations are finally coming back to haunt them,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said in a statement. “Starbucks partners nationwide are seeing how the union organizers, including those secretly paid by the union pretending to be genuine coworkers, manipulated them to do what is best for union bosses but not in the best interests of rank-and-file workers.”

The National Right to Work Foundation also supported efforts to get rid of the unions for nurses and support staff at the Mayo Clinic’s Mankato Hospital.

It’s that first quoted paragraph that tells you everything you need to know. And that is two things. First, the issue over screening for anti-union positions. We don’t actually know this but it doesn’t take a genius to see that is clearly what is happening. Starbucks is probably offering more money or something for being against the union. Sure it is illegal. So what. The NLRB has declared all sorts of things Starbucks has done illegal and it has made no meaningful difference.

Second is the fact that the worker who used to be at that store not only doesn’t know who this person is but that everyone who worked with him as quit.

This is a huge issue in organizing service work. No one is going to blame someone for quitting a Starbucks or other service job. There’s lots of reasons to do so. But this is also why unions don’t want to spend major resources–money we need to remember is the dues of its own members–to organize service work. What you need to actually win the contract is workers committed to the job itself. They have to be willing to work for years to get that contract and solidify that union. That’s why the UAW or Steelworkers succeeded. Many of those workers were there for years and knew they would be their for their whole working lives. With no one actually committed to these jobs, it creates a situation where it is very easy for the companies to just wait out the union movement, do some manipulation behind the scenes, and then defeat the union in the end.

This is why we should believe service worker can be successfully organized only at the point that it is successfully organized.