THE GREATEST CANADIAN; TOMMY DOUGLAS,
CCF/NDP LEADER ON FASCISM
Saturday, October 26, 2024
‘Outrageous abuse of power’: Trump spurned disaster pleas amid feud with governor
Thomas Frank and Scott Waldman
Fri, October 25, 2024
In early September 2020, wildfires tore through eastern Washington state, obliterating tens of millions of dollars of property, displacing hundreds of rural residents and killing a 1-year-old boy.
But then-President Donald Trump refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor, an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News shows.
Trump sat on Inslee’s request for the final four months of his presidency, delaying recovery and leaving communities unsure about rebuilding because nobody knew if they would get federal help.
Trump ignored Inslee’s 73-page request even after the Federal Emergency Management Agency found during weeks of inspection that the wildfires easily met the federal damage threshold for disaster aid.
“It really was an outrageous abuse of power,” Inslee said in a recent interview with E&E News.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to E&E News’ questions.
The two men had been feuding in the months leading up to the wildfire with Trump calling Inslee "a snake," a “nasty person” and a "failed presidential candidate" after the governor criticized the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And Inslee, in an open letter two days before seeking disaster aid, assailed Trump’s “reckless statements” on climate change and his “gutting of environmental policies.”
Trump’s spurning of Washington — documented by internal emails, letters, federal records and interviews — is the latest example of how the former president used disaster requests to punish political foes. E&E News reported in early October that Trump had refused to give disaster aid to California after wildfires in 2018 because the state is strongly Democratic.
E&E News’ current investigation found other previously unreported examples of Trump denying or delaying disaster aid to governors who had criticized him, though the reasons for the White House moves are unclear.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican representing the wildfire-damaged area in Washington state, asked Trump at least twice to approve disaster aid and wrote him a desperate letter on Dec. 31, 2020, obtained by E&E News.
“People in my district need support, and I implore you to move forward in providing it to those who have been impacted by devastating wildfires,” McMorris Rodgers wrote. Her district was one of three in Washington state to support Trump in the 2020 election. Washington has 10 congressional districts.
Five months after Trump left office, McMorris Rodgers introduced a bill to require presidents to act on governors’ requests for disaster aid within 30 days. She did not respond to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden ultimately approved Inslee’s request two weeks after taking office — 141 days after Inslee had made it — and has given Washington $45 million.
The time span — nearly five months — is the longest it’s taken a president to approve a disaster request, according to an E&E News analysis of more than 1,000 FEMA damage reports since 2007 when they first became publicly available.
The average time period for presidential approval is 17 days.
Trump has faced scrutiny of his record with disasters as he has criticized the Biden administration during recent campaign stops in Georgia and North Carolina for its response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
But Trump recently endorsed using disaster aid to bully opponents. During an Oct. 12 rally in rural California, Trump celebrated a proposal to increase agricultural water supplies by weakening endangered-species protections and threatened Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“We’ll force it down his throat,” Trump said, “and we’ll say, 'Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the forest fires that you have.'”
Newsom recently told POLITICO that Trump withheld disaster aid to California “on multiple occasions” over political differences and stepped up the threats during his final months in office.
“He was very threatening,” Newsom said. “He was telling me right before the [2020] election … ‘You better work with me now, because I'm going to get reelected, and you’re going down on this.’”
'Everything was gone'
The wildfires in Washington burned 640,000 acres — an area more than three times the size of New York City. Fueled by high winds, low humidity and drought conditions, the fires burned with such intensity that local resident Larry Frick heard ammunition popping from homes across the town of Malden, population 216.
“It looked like a landscape of hell or a war zone,” Frick said. “Everything was gone.”
Fire destroyed 80 percent of the homes in Malden as well as town hall, the post office, library, food bank, fire station and most trees.
Malden is largely rebuilt, but what Frick remembers is “the childishness” of Trump’s refusal to act on Inslee’s request.
“We’re supposed to be taking care of one another, and that didn’t happen at a federal level,” Frick said.
Malden Mayor Dan Harwood said that Trump’s inaction “slowed down the start” of recovery and “made things stressful” because federal aid was uncertain.
“The unknown didn’t help anybody,” Harwood told E&E News.
As wildfire survivors waited, Inslee and other Washington elected officials urged Trump through public letters and private emails.
Casey Katims, Inslee’s director of federal affairs, was in regular contact with the White House, promoting the disaster request and trying to understand the holdup.
In a Nov. 8, 2020, email obtained by E&E News through a public-records request, Katims pleaded with Nicholas Pottebaum, the White House deputy director of intergovernmental affairs.
“Our emergency management teams at the state and local levels are struggling and unable to proceed with response and recovery efforts until we get a decision,” Katims wrote.
“Nic would take my phone calls but was not forthcoming about the reason for the delay,” Katims said in a recent interview.
Pottebaum, now a Republican staffer on the Senate Budget Committee, declined to comment.
The inaction troubled all 12 members of Washington’s congressional delegation.
“There was a feeling of exasperation and frustration that little could be done to persuade the president to grant a declaration for assistance that was so needed and warranted,” Katims said. Katims is now executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of governors.
Four days before Trump left office, an unnamed aide to McMorris Rodgers told the Spokesman Review in Spokane that the “holdup now is the relationship between the president and Gov. Inslee.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said she had called “numerous Trump administration officials” about the disaster aid and her staff engaged with the administration “countless times.”
“Never in my lifetime have I seen a President withhold disaster aid over politics — until Trump came into office,” Murray said in a recent statement to E&E News. “Donald Trump’s treatment of the town of Malden was a complete disgrace.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said in a statement, “Trump let a request for desperately needed federal aid go unanswered while hundreds of residents were left in the dark not knowing whether they had resources to rebuild.”
Inslee said he doesn’t recall what triggered Trump’s inaction and that he never spoke to Trump about the disaster request.
“There was no rationale at all given for this by anybody at any time,” Inslee said. “It was a hugely traumatic experience, and this just added to the trauma.”
Delays in three other states
Trump learned the political value of disasters after Hurricane Harvey overwhelmed southeastern Texas in 2017 and Time magazine wrote a flattering accountof the administration’s response, said Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff.
“It really got stuck in his mind at that point-of-disaster response, that showing up and doing this disaster theater is a way for him to garner support and a way for him to be admired — and that feeds into his personality,” said Harvey, who is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Harvey said that as Trump’s presidency continued, he more frequently delayed disaster aid based on factors that had nothing to do with helping with cleanup and rebuilding.
“It was, 'What looks good for me,' not, 'What's the right thing to do,'” Harvey said.
E&E News found instances that fit the pattern described by Harvey in which Trump, after he lost the 2020 election, delayed or ignored requests for disaster aid from governors who had criticized him. E&E News could not determine reasons for the delays and inaction, which can result from extensive White House review.
In a 2022 book by the journalists Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, and then-Gov. Larry Hogan, a Maryland Republican, recalled that Trump told them to “ask nicely” for additional disaster aid, which he then granted. (Martin and Burns wrote the book while employed at The New York Times but now work at POLITICO, where Martin is the politics bureau chief and Burns is the head of news.)
Pete Gaynor, whom Trump put in charge of FEMA in 2020, said in an interview that he did not recall details of individual requests for disaster aid.
“I will emphatically say I never had a conversation with the president, the vice president, OMB or anyone else in that orbit that said, 'Drag your feet,'” Gaynor said referring to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Gaynor left FEMA at the end of Trump’s presidency and is a senior adviser at McChrystal Group business consultants.
Under federal law, FEMA calculates damage from an event, determines whether it exceeds a threshold for disaster aid and makes a recommendation to the president, who makes the final decision.
Georgia
On Nov. 21, 2020, three days after asking Trump for disaster aid to recover from a tropical storm, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia enraged Trump by certifying election results declaring Biden the winner of the state’s 16 electoral votes.
Trump, who had been urging Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to declare him the winner in Georgia, assailed the governor as a “moron” and a “nut job” after his certification. Trump sat on the disaster request for 55 days before approving it with eight days left in his term.
Kemp, who has endorsed Trump and appeared at campaign rallies with him, declined to comment.
Utah
Trump took 97 days to approve a disaster request by then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, following damaging storms in October 2020 despite a FEMA report showing the state sustained twice as much damage as needed to meet the threshold for providing disaster aid.
While Trump was considering the request, Herbert was one of the first Republican officials to recognize Biden as the election winner and denounced a decision by Utah’s attorney general to join a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in four states that Trump lost.
Herbert, who left office in January 2021, did not respond to a phone message.
Maryland
Trump took no action on a Nov. 12, 2020, request for aid by Hogan after a tropical storm caused damage that FEMA said was sufficient to qualify for federal aid.
Hogan, a moderate Republican in a heavily Democratic state, assailed Trump’s handling of Covid-19 and made a well-publicized trip to South Korea to buy 500,000 test kits.
Ten days after Hogan’s request, Trump mocked Hogan on Twitter, calling him “just as bad as the flawed tests he paid big money for!”
Hogan, who is running for U.S. Senate this year, did not respond to E&E News questions.
After Biden approved the request on Feb. 4, 2021, Maryland Emergency Management Agency Director Russell Strickland told a congressional hearing that the “delay caused us to miss opportunities” to strengthen the state against future disasters.
"Citizens do not have the ability to wait months to receive assistance and return to their homes and businesses," Strickland testified.
US Army entirely redacts statement on Trump campaign Arlington incident
Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 26 for a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
NPR, citing an anonymous source, first reported a cemetery official tried to stop Trump staffers from filming and photographing in an area of the cemetery where soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, known as Section 60. The source told NPR that Trump staffers pushed the official aside when they tried to stop campaign officials from entering the area.
The Trump campaign blamed the cemetery employee for the incident and accused them of having a “mental health episode” and trying to “physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
The Army itself weighed in to defend the employee’s actions, saying they were trying to enforce rules prohibiting political activities on cemetery grounds when they were pushed aside.
“Consistent with the decorum expected at [the cemetery], this employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption,” the official said, adding the incident was reported to police but “the employee subsequently decided not to press charges.”
The Army said it now “considers this matter closed.”
The Army said it now “considers this matter closed.”
Brett Samuels
Fri, October 25, 2024
The U.S. Army on Friday released a heavily redacted report on an incident at Arlington National Cemetery involving a staffer and aides with the Trump campaign when the former president visited the cemetery in August.
The nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight obtained a copy of the report, which offers very few details about the incident. It lists the offense in question as a “simple assault, and offers a partially redacted description of what allegedly took place.
“While working at the Arlington National Cemetery, [REDACTED] with both of [REDACTED] hands while attempting to move past [REDACTED] did not require medical attention on scene and later refused when offered. [REDACTED] rendered a sworn statement on a DA Form 2023 and stated [REDACTED] did not want to press charges,” the report reads.
But the entire statement about what took place from the cemetery employee is redacted.
Fri, October 25, 2024
The U.S. Army on Friday released a heavily redacted report on an incident at Arlington National Cemetery involving a staffer and aides with the Trump campaign when the former president visited the cemetery in August.
The nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight obtained a copy of the report, which offers very few details about the incident. It lists the offense in question as a “simple assault, and offers a partially redacted description of what allegedly took place.
“While working at the Arlington National Cemetery, [REDACTED] with both of [REDACTED] hands while attempting to move past [REDACTED] did not require medical attention on scene and later refused when offered. [REDACTED] rendered a sworn statement on a DA Form 2023 and stated [REDACTED] did not want to press charges,” the report reads.
But the entire statement about what took place from the cemetery employee is redacted.
Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 26 for a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
NPR, citing an anonymous source, first reported a cemetery official tried to stop Trump staffers from filming and photographing in an area of the cemetery where soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, known as Section 60. The source told NPR that Trump staffers pushed the official aside when they tried to stop campaign officials from entering the area.
The Trump campaign blamed the cemetery employee for the incident and accused them of having a “mental health episode” and trying to “physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
The Army itself weighed in to defend the employee’s actions, saying they were trying to enforce rules prohibiting political activities on cemetery grounds when they were pushed aside.
“Consistent with the decorum expected at [the cemetery], this employee acted with professionalism and avoided further disruption,” the official said, adding the incident was reported to police but “the employee subsequently decided not to press charges.”
The Army said it now “considers this matter closed.”
DESANTISLAND
State alien land laws drive some China-born US citizens to rethink their politics
TERRY TANG and DIDI TANG
Sat, October 26, 2024
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESS
Naturalized Citizens China Land Laws
1 of 4
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESSMore
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
Diana Xue has always followed the politics of her husband, friends and neighbors in Orlando, Florida, and voted Republican.
This Election Day, she'll break that pattern.
When Florida's GOP-dominated Legislature and Republican governor enacted a law last year banning Chinese nationals without permanent U.S. residency from buying property or land, Xue, who became a U.S. citizen about a decade after coming from China for college, had an “awakening.” She felt then that the Sunshine State had, more or less, legalized discrimination against Chinese people.
Florida has proved reliably Republican in recent years, but Xue said, “Because of this law, I will start to help out, flip every seat I can.”
At least two dozen states have passed or proposed “alien land laws” targeting Chinese nationals and companies from purchasing property or land because of China's status as a foreign adversary. Other countries are mentioned, but experts say China is the constant focus in political discussions.
Mostly Republican legislators have pushed the land laws amid growing fears of intelligence and economic threats from China. At the time of the Florida law’s signing, Gov. Ron DeSantis called China the “greatest geopolitical threat” to the U.S. and said the law was taking a stand against the Chinese Communist Party.
Some China-born people with American citizenship are now feeling alienated by the laws to the point that they are leaning Democratic. Many are afraid of being treated wrongly because of their ethnicity.
U.S.-China tensions hit a fever pitch in February 2023 after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana. Shortly after, GOP-leaning states like Missouri, Texas and Tennessee introduced similar land ownership measures.
The measures all involved restrictions on businesses or people from China and other foreign adversaries, including not buying land within a certain distance from military installations or “critical infrastructure.” Under some of the laws, very narrow exceptions were made for non-tourist visa holders and people who have been granted asylum.
The National Agricultural Law Center now estimates 24 states ban or limit foreigners without residency and foreign businesses or governments from owning private farmland. Interest in farmland ownership restrictions emerged after a Chinese billionaire bought more than 130,000 acres (52,600 hectares) near a U.S. Air Force base in Texas, and Chinese company Fufeng Group sought to build a corn plant near an Air Force base on 300 acres (120 hectares) in North Dakota.
Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, raised concerns that such laws not only counter market economy principles and international trade rules, but “further fuel hostility towards the Asian and Chinese community in the U.S., intensify racial discrimination, and seriously undermine the values that the U.S. claims to hold.”
State laws banning Chinese nationals from owning land discourage Chinese investors and spook other foreign investors who would otherwise help the U.S. to rebuild its industrial base, said John Ling, who has worked for decades to attract international, especially Chinese, manufacturing projects to the U.S.
The laws have also thrown off real estate agents and brokers. Angela Hsu, a commercial real estate attorney in Atlanta, said it's been confusing to navigate a law Georgia's governor signed in April restricting land sales to some Chinese citizens.
“The brokers I’ve talked to, they’re just trying to figure out what they can do safely,” Hsu said.
On the federal level, the House in September approved a bill that would flag as “reportable” farmland sales involving citizens from China, North Korea, Russia and Iran. The odds for it to win approval from the Senate, however, are slim.
China “has been quietly purchasing American agricultural land at an alarming rate, and this bill is a crucial step towards reversing that trend,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, of California, joined multiple Asian American organizations in opposing the bill, arguing its “broad-brush approach” of targeting people from specific countries amounted to racial profiling.
China owns less than 1% of total foreign-owned farmland in the U.S., far behind Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the U.K., Germany or Portugal.
After Florida's land law was signed in May 2023, four Chinese nationals filed a lawsuit. In April, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing them asked a federal appeals court to block it.
The saga sparked the Chinese diaspora in Florida to mobilize. Some formed the Florida Asian American Justice Alliance. Among them was Xue. She became interested studying the Legislature and lobbying. She found that only Democrats like state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is Iranian American, agreed the law was xenophobic.
“She said, 'This is discrimination. I’ll stand with you, and I’ll fight with you,'" Xue said.
Hua Wang, board chair of another civic engagement group, United Chinese Americans, said more people are becoming aware that these laws are directly “affecting each one of us.”
“There are people in both Texas and Florida who say for the first time they are becoming interested and they become organized,” Wang said.
Land laws passed in the name of national security echo a pattern from World War II, when the U.S. saw Japanese people as threats, said Chris Suh, a professor of Asian American history at Emory University. It's difficult to argue the laws are unconstitutional if on paper they are citizenship-based and other countries are named, Suh said.
Anti-Chinese sentiment has shaped policies going back over 150 years. Among these was the Page Act of 1875, which strategically limited the entry of Chinese women to the U.S., and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first broad race-based immigration law.
Policies targeting foreigners hurt the bottom line of all Americans, Suh said, noting that excluding Chinese laborers from railroad work or Japanese immigrants from buying homes didn't benefit U.S. railroad tycoons and landowners.
“That's something to keep in today's context as well," Suh said. “One of the key allies of the the people who are trying to overturn the alien land law in Florida are the people who are going to lose money if they lose the potential buyers of their land.”
The law makes Chinese immigrants who achieved citizenship worry about things like racism or accusations of being a spy in their own home, Xue said.
“You think it’s nothing to do with you, but people look at you — how you look, how your last name is,” Xue said. “They are not going to ask you are you a U.S. citizen or not.”
___
Terry Tang reported from Phoenix. Didi Tang reported from Washington.
State alien land laws drive some China-born US citizens to rethink their politics
TERRY TANG and DIDI TANG
Sat, October 26, 2024
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESS
Naturalized Citizens China Land Laws
1 of 4
Diana Xue poses for a photo at her home Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. Xue is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China who used to vote more Republican but has changed her mind after Florida passed the alien land law. (AP Photo/John Raoux)ASSOCIATED PRESSMore
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
Diana Xue has always followed the politics of her husband, friends and neighbors in Orlando, Florida, and voted Republican.
This Election Day, she'll break that pattern.
When Florida's GOP-dominated Legislature and Republican governor enacted a law last year banning Chinese nationals without permanent U.S. residency from buying property or land, Xue, who became a U.S. citizen about a decade after coming from China for college, had an “awakening.” She felt then that the Sunshine State had, more or less, legalized discrimination against Chinese people.
Florida has proved reliably Republican in recent years, but Xue said, “Because of this law, I will start to help out, flip every seat I can.”
At least two dozen states have passed or proposed “alien land laws” targeting Chinese nationals and companies from purchasing property or land because of China's status as a foreign adversary. Other countries are mentioned, but experts say China is the constant focus in political discussions.
Mostly Republican legislators have pushed the land laws amid growing fears of intelligence and economic threats from China. At the time of the Florida law’s signing, Gov. Ron DeSantis called China the “greatest geopolitical threat” to the U.S. and said the law was taking a stand against the Chinese Communist Party.
Some China-born people with American citizenship are now feeling alienated by the laws to the point that they are leaning Democratic. Many are afraid of being treated wrongly because of their ethnicity.
U.S.-China tensions hit a fever pitch in February 2023 after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana. Shortly after, GOP-leaning states like Missouri, Texas and Tennessee introduced similar land ownership measures.
The measures all involved restrictions on businesses or people from China and other foreign adversaries, including not buying land within a certain distance from military installations or “critical infrastructure.” Under some of the laws, very narrow exceptions were made for non-tourist visa holders and people who have been granted asylum.
The National Agricultural Law Center now estimates 24 states ban or limit foreigners without residency and foreign businesses or governments from owning private farmland. Interest in farmland ownership restrictions emerged after a Chinese billionaire bought more than 130,000 acres (52,600 hectares) near a U.S. Air Force base in Texas, and Chinese company Fufeng Group sought to build a corn plant near an Air Force base on 300 acres (120 hectares) in North Dakota.
Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, raised concerns that such laws not only counter market economy principles and international trade rules, but “further fuel hostility towards the Asian and Chinese community in the U.S., intensify racial discrimination, and seriously undermine the values that the U.S. claims to hold.”
State laws banning Chinese nationals from owning land discourage Chinese investors and spook other foreign investors who would otherwise help the U.S. to rebuild its industrial base, said John Ling, who has worked for decades to attract international, especially Chinese, manufacturing projects to the U.S.
The laws have also thrown off real estate agents and brokers. Angela Hsu, a commercial real estate attorney in Atlanta, said it's been confusing to navigate a law Georgia's governor signed in April restricting land sales to some Chinese citizens.
“The brokers I’ve talked to, they’re just trying to figure out what they can do safely,” Hsu said.
On the federal level, the House in September approved a bill that would flag as “reportable” farmland sales involving citizens from China, North Korea, Russia and Iran. The odds for it to win approval from the Senate, however, are slim.
China “has been quietly purchasing American agricultural land at an alarming rate, and this bill is a crucial step towards reversing that trend,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, of California, joined multiple Asian American organizations in opposing the bill, arguing its “broad-brush approach” of targeting people from specific countries amounted to racial profiling.
China owns less than 1% of total foreign-owned farmland in the U.S., far behind Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the U.K., Germany or Portugal.
After Florida's land law was signed in May 2023, four Chinese nationals filed a lawsuit. In April, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing them asked a federal appeals court to block it.
The saga sparked the Chinese diaspora in Florida to mobilize. Some formed the Florida Asian American Justice Alliance. Among them was Xue. She became interested studying the Legislature and lobbying. She found that only Democrats like state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is Iranian American, agreed the law was xenophobic.
“She said, 'This is discrimination. I’ll stand with you, and I’ll fight with you,'" Xue said.
Hua Wang, board chair of another civic engagement group, United Chinese Americans, said more people are becoming aware that these laws are directly “affecting each one of us.”
“There are people in both Texas and Florida who say for the first time they are becoming interested and they become organized,” Wang said.
Land laws passed in the name of national security echo a pattern from World War II, when the U.S. saw Japanese people as threats, said Chris Suh, a professor of Asian American history at Emory University. It's difficult to argue the laws are unconstitutional if on paper they are citizenship-based and other countries are named, Suh said.
Anti-Chinese sentiment has shaped policies going back over 150 years. Among these was the Page Act of 1875, which strategically limited the entry of Chinese women to the U.S., and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the first broad race-based immigration law.
Policies targeting foreigners hurt the bottom line of all Americans, Suh said, noting that excluding Chinese laborers from railroad work or Japanese immigrants from buying homes didn't benefit U.S. railroad tycoons and landowners.
“That's something to keep in today's context as well," Suh said. “One of the key allies of the the people who are trying to overturn the alien land law in Florida are the people who are going to lose money if they lose the potential buyers of their land.”
The law makes Chinese immigrants who achieved citizenship worry about things like racism or accusations of being a spy in their own home, Xue said.
“You think it’s nothing to do with you, but people look at you — how you look, how your last name is,” Xue said. “They are not going to ask you are you a U.S. citizen or not.”
___
Terry Tang reported from Phoenix. Didi Tang reported from Washington.
NON ENDORSEMENTS ENDORSE TRUMP
The Los Angeles Times building is seen in El Segundo, California
CNN Business · Richard Vogel/AP
Liam Reilly, CNN
Sat, October 26, 2024
The daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong suggested on Saturday that her father’s decision to block the newspaper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris was made over Harris’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Nika Soon-Shiong, a 31-year-old activist who has no official role at the newspaper but has previously been accused of meddling in its coverage, told The New York Times that she and her father made the decision not to endorse Harris.
“Our family made the joint decision not to endorse a Presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I have been involved in the process,” she said. “As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African Apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.”
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire doctor who purchased the Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $500 million, later refuted her comments, saying that she was not involved in the decision.
“Nika speaks in her own personal capacity regarding her opinion, as every community member has the right to do. She does not have any role at the LA Times, nor does she participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, as has been made clear many times,” he said in a statement to CNN.
A representative for Nika Soon-Shiong did not respond to a request for comment.
The comments come days after Patrick Soon-Shiong, in a surprise decision, blocked plans to endorse Harris, igniting outrage within the newspaper and leading to a wave of readers canceling their subscriptions. The newspaper has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since it backed Barack Obama in 2008.
Three members of the Times’ editorial board resigned over the decision. Mariel Garza, the leader of the newspaper’s editorial board who resigned on Wednesday, told the New York Times she was not given a reason why he refused the endorsement.
“If that was the reason that Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris, it was not communicated to me or the editorial writers,” Garza said in a statement. “If the family’s goal was to ‘repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,’ remaining silent did not accomplish that.”
“If the family’s goal was to ‘repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,’ remaining silent did not accomplish that,” Garza added.
Nika Soon-Shiong’s statement comes a day after she addressed the “controversy and confusion over the LAT’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate,” stating in a social media post that “genocide is the line in the sand.”
“This is not a vote for Donald Trump,” she wrote. This is a refusal to ENDORSE a candidate that is overseeing a war on children. I’m proud of the LA Times’ decision just as I am certain there is no such thing as children of darkness. There is no such thing as human animals.”
In an interview this week, Patrick Soon-Shiong said that he had offered the newspaper’s editorial board the option to elaborate on policy differences between Harris and Trump instead of an endorsement.
“My fear is that if we chose either [candidate] that it would just add to the division,” Soon-Shiong told Spectrum News 1 SoCal.
“I want us desperately to air all the voices on the opinion side, on the op-ed side,” he said. “I don’t know how [readers] look upon me or our family as ‘ultra progressive’ or not, but I’m an independent.”
The Times is not alone in announcing an eleventh-hour reversal on endorsement precedents.
On Friday, The Washington Post shared that it would not endorse a candidate in this or any future presidential election. As with the Times, the decision was handed down by the publisher’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the newspaper reported.
The Post has similarly been critiqued for the last-minute about-face.
“To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election that is just highly suspect that is just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point,” Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Washington Post Resignations and Cancellations Begin, Guild Says Bezos Axed Endorsement: ‘Management Interfered’
JD Knapp
Fri, October 25, 2024
The Washington Post Guild condemned Jeff Bezos’ decision Friday not endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years, news that already prompted at least one top editor to resign and a significant number of canceled subscriptions.
The union’s statement confirmed earlier reports that the decision to end endorsements – in this election, and going forward – came directly from the Amazon boss. The WaPo editorial board already had a Kamala Harris endorsement piece ready to go before it was ultimately nixed.
“We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” the guild shared on X. “The role of an editorial board is to do just this: to share opinions on the news impacting our society and culture and endorse candidates to help guide readers.”
Editor at large Robert Kagan has already submitted his resignation from the paper, according to Semafor media writer Max Tani.
“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the editorial board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in editorial. According to our own reporters and guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos.”
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the guild concluded. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
The controversial move echoes a similar situation unfolding at The Los Angeles Times with its own billionaire leader, Patrick Soon-Shiong.
More to come…
The post Washington Post Resignations and Cancellations Begin, Guild Says Bezos Axed Endorsement: ‘Management Interfered’ appeared first on TheWrap.
Washington Post Staff Is Furious That Bezos Nixed Presidential Endorsement
Nikki McCann Ramirez
Fri, October 25, 2024
For the first time in 36 years, The Washington Post will not be endorsing a candidate in a presidential election — and their newsroom is furious.
On Friday, the Post’s publisher and CEO Will Lewis announced in a published statement that they “will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”
“Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be,” he added
The Post itself reported that its editorial leadership was prepared days ago to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris over her opponent, former President Donald Trump, but a last minute intervention by the paper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos killed the planned endorsement.
Lewis — who previously headed the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and cut his teeth in conservative UK publications — was hand picked by Bezos in 2023 to take over the masthead at the Post. His tenure has been marked by a series of ethics scandals, including the ouster of editor Sally Buzbee after she refused to bury a story at his request, and revelations earlier this year that Lewis had offered NPR an exclusive interview in exchange for an agreement to kill a story about Lewis’ involvement in covering up illegal phone hacking by Murdoch-owned tabloids.
Lewis is Bezos’ man and, according to the Post’s report, Bezos ordered him to kill the publication’s endorsement of Harris — which had already been drafted.
When the news broke, the split between staff members at the Post and their management was almost instantly apparent.
“We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” the Washington Post Guild wrote in a statement on Friday. ‘”The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial.”
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the statement continued. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Others were less diplomatic in their response. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t,” one Post opinion columnist told Semafor on Friday. A member of the Post’s editorial department told CNN that the decision was “an outrageous abdication of responsibility,” adding that “democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies when people anticipatorily consent to a fascist’s whims.”
Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Post who edited Jamal Khashoggi — a Post journalist who was brutally murdered by agents of the Saudi government in 2018 — wrote that the non-endorsement was an “absolute stab in the back,” and “an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line, to call out threats to human rights and democracy.”
Post Opinion Columnist Robert Kagan confirmed to multiple publications that he had resigned from the newspaper in protest of the intervention by Bezos.
Longtime Post editor Marty Baron, who retired in 2021, was also dismayed by the news. “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners),” he texted his former colleagues.
Earlier this week, a similar implosion took place at The Los Angeles Times after the paper issued its own non-endorsement for the 2024 race. Earlier this month the Times’ billioniare owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, pulled the plug on plans by the editorial staff to endorse Harris. As a result, Times Editorials Editor Mariel Garza handed in her resignation on Wednesday. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
The New York Times endorsed Harris in September, calling her the “only patriotic choice” for president. Rolling Stone also endorsed Harris in September, noting that she is “a lifelong, dedicated public servant who believes that government exists to help and protect the American people” and that Trump is “demonstrably unfit to ever hold office again.”
The Washington Post ends backing presidential candidates as paper says Bezos axed Harris endorsement
Daniel Arkin
Sat, October 26, 2024
The Washington Post has endorsed a presidential contender in every general election since 1992. Not this year.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
The Washington Post's editorial board will not make a presidential endorsement this year or "in any future presidential election," the newspaper's publisher and chief executive announced Friday.
Post editorial page staff members had drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had yet to be published, two sources briefed on the sequence of events told The Post. The decision not to publish the Harris endorsement was made by The Post’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to the sources. NBC News has not independently verified that account.
"We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way," Will Lewis said in a statement about the decision published on The Post's website.
"We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects," Lewis added in the statement, which has been met with more than 9,000 reader comments. "We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions — whom to vote for as the next president."
In a statement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird said: “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”
In a subsequent statement on Saturday, Lewis said that the newspaper's owner was not involved in the decision, and he, as publisher, believes that endorsements are unnecessary.
"We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds," Lewis said.
The Post has endorsed a presidential contender in every general election since 1992. Lewis said his newsroom is "going back to" the practice of not formally backing White House aspirants, explaining that The Post did not make an endorsement during various presidential campaigns, including in 1960 or 1972.
The move was immediately blasted by Marty Baron, who edited The Post from 2012 until his retirement in 2021. Baron portrayed the decision as an "invitation" for former President Donald Trump to intimidate Bezos, who purchased the newspaper for $250 million in 2013.
"This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others)," Baron said in a post on the social media platform X. "Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
Trump sharply criticized Bezos during his presidency and derided the newspaper as "The Fake News Washington Post." He has repeatedly assailed the news media over the last eight years, sometimes referring to the American press as the "enemy of the people." In the first year of Trump's term, the newspaper adopted the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
The non-endorsement drew backlash from Post employees past and present — including Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the legendary reporters who unearthed the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
"We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post's own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy," Woodward and Bernstein said in a joint statement.
"Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process," the two reporters added.
Eight columnists at The Post called the decision a "terrible mistake" in a one-paragraph opinion article published hours later.
"This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them," the columnists wrote.
The leaders of the Washington Post Guild, which represents members of the newsroom, said in a statement on social media that it was "deeply concerned" by the decision. "This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers' trust, not losing it," the statement said.
X and other social media platforms lit up with posts from users who said they had canceled their subscriptions to The Post.
Lewis' announcement came days after news broke that the Los Angeles Times would not endorse Trump or Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. The news website Semafor reported that the newspaper was preparing to back Harris, but owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial page from getting behind either candidate. (NBC News has not independently verified that report.)
In response, Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned Wednesday. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, Garza said in part: "I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up."
Soon-Shiong, in a post on X on Wednesday, said in part that the editorial board was "provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation."
"In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years," he added. "Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision."
Shortly after The Post announced its decision, Soon-Shiong tweeted a screenshot of an article about the news.
The Washington Post is one of the most storied publications in the nation. The newspaper led the way on coverage of the Watergate scandal and won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for coverage of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The Post endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. In the 2016 opinion piece, the editorial board called Trump a "bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, contemptuous of democracy and enamored of America’s enemies."
"As president, he would pose a grave danger to the nation and the world," the editorial board wrote.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
WaPo Publisher Cops the Blame to Defend Jeff Bezos
Corbin Bolies
Sat, October 26, 2024
Washington Post Publisher, William Lewis and Jeff Bezos
Washington Post CEO Will Lewis took the fall on Saturday for Jeff Bezos' decision to end the Post’s endorsements of presidential candidates, saying in a new statement he himself didn’t believe in presidential endorsements.
“Reporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate,“ Lewis said. ”He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
The statement came after multiple reports indicated Bezos had ordered the paper not to make an endorsement—a mere 11 days before the 2024 election, and after multiple states had already begun early voting.
A draft of a Kamala Harris endorsement had already been in the works. Lewis pleaded with Bezos not to end the Post‘s recent precedent of endorsing presidential candidates, which it has done for nearly every election since 1976. Bezos refused, and it was Lewis—not Bezos—who announced the decision on Friday.
The shock announcement roiled staff across the Post‘s news and opinion sides.
The Washington Post’s editor at large Robert Kagan resigned on Friday following the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” paper’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
More than a dozen Post columnists rebuked the decision in a column on Friday.
“It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love,” the columnists—including Post stalwarts Karen Tumulty, David Ignatius, and Jennifer Rubin—wrote. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs."
Other Post legends expressed the same. “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said in a joint statement on Friday. “Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”
Washington Post reporter ‘heartbroken’ after mom cancels subscription over nixed Harris endorsement: ‘Hurting us, not our owner’
Jon Levine
Sat, October 26, 2024
Washington Post reporter ‘heartbroken’ after mom cancels subscription over nixed Harris endorsement: ‘Hurting us, not our owner’
A mother’s love is more fickle than we thought.
A distraught Washington Post reporter took to X Saturday to reveal that her own mother had nixed her subscription to the paper to protest owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
“My mom just told me she cancelled her subscription to The Washington Post. She reads every one of my stories. It was a heartbreaking call,” said Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion issues for the paper.
“I understand why she did it,” the writer continued. “Post reporters had no part in this decision. But when you cancel, you are hurting us, not our owner …
“I completely understand if you’ve lost faith in our owner, but please, don’t lose faith in us.”
Washington Post reporter Caroline Kitchener’s mother dumped the paper to protest its failure to endorse Kamala Harris. x/CAKitchener
In an X thread, Kitchener said she made this case to her mother and “asked her to reconsider” — but offered no indication that her argument had been successful.
“The Washington Post’s abortion reporter was just rejected by her own mother,” conservative commentator Mark Hemingway quipped.
Bezos’ decision — which will also stand for “any future presidential election,” according to publisher Will Lewis — follows the Los Angeles Times, whose billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, also declined to issue an endorsement, leading to a flood of resignations from its editorial board.
The D.C. newspaper has been bleeding subscribers since the decision to drop presidential endorsements. Candice Tang/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
The decision from Bezos also led to a public temper tantrum by top editors and writers at the Washington Post.
“I didn’t sign up to be a journalist to be silent on what matters most. I didn’t come here to be a coward. Some of us really, truly believe in speaking truth to power. We were betrayed today,” Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah wrote on X Friday.
One WashPo editor, Robert Kagan, has already resigned over the decision, while 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions within 24 hours, which one staffer said was “an unusually high number,” Semafor reported.
JD Knapp
Fri, October 25, 2024
The Washington Post Guild condemned Jeff Bezos’ decision Friday not endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years, news that already prompted at least one top editor to resign and a significant number of canceled subscriptions.
The union’s statement confirmed earlier reports that the decision to end endorsements – in this election, and going forward – came directly from the Amazon boss. The WaPo editorial board already had a Kamala Harris endorsement piece ready to go before it was ultimately nixed.
“We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” the guild shared on X. “The role of an editorial board is to do just this: to share opinions on the news impacting our society and culture and endorse candidates to help guide readers.”
Editor at large Robert Kagan has already submitted his resignation from the paper, according to Semafor media writer Max Tani.
“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the editorial board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in editorial. According to our own reporters and guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos.”
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the guild concluded. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
The controversial move echoes a similar situation unfolding at The Los Angeles Times with its own billionaire leader, Patrick Soon-Shiong.
More to come…
The post Washington Post Resignations and Cancellations Begin, Guild Says Bezos Axed Endorsement: ‘Management Interfered’ appeared first on TheWrap.
Washington Post Staff Is Furious That Bezos Nixed Presidential Endorsement
Nikki McCann Ramirez
Fri, October 25, 2024
For the first time in 36 years, The Washington Post will not be endorsing a candidate in a presidential election — and their newsroom is furious.
On Friday, the Post’s publisher and CEO Will Lewis announced in a published statement that they “will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”
“Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be,” he added
The Post itself reported that its editorial leadership was prepared days ago to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris over her opponent, former President Donald Trump, but a last minute intervention by the paper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos killed the planned endorsement.
Lewis — who previously headed the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and cut his teeth in conservative UK publications — was hand picked by Bezos in 2023 to take over the masthead at the Post. His tenure has been marked by a series of ethics scandals, including the ouster of editor Sally Buzbee after she refused to bury a story at his request, and revelations earlier this year that Lewis had offered NPR an exclusive interview in exchange for an agreement to kill a story about Lewis’ involvement in covering up illegal phone hacking by Murdoch-owned tabloids.
Lewis is Bezos’ man and, according to the Post’s report, Bezos ordered him to kill the publication’s endorsement of Harris — which had already been drafted.
When the news broke, the split between staff members at the Post and their management was almost instantly apparent.
“We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” the Washington Post Guild wrote in a statement on Friday. ‘”The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial.”
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the statement continued. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Others were less diplomatic in their response. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t,” one Post opinion columnist told Semafor on Friday. A member of the Post’s editorial department told CNN that the decision was “an outrageous abdication of responsibility,” adding that “democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies when people anticipatorily consent to a fascist’s whims.”
Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Post who edited Jamal Khashoggi — a Post journalist who was brutally murdered by agents of the Saudi government in 2018 — wrote that the non-endorsement was an “absolute stab in the back,” and “an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line, to call out threats to human rights and democracy.”
Post Opinion Columnist Robert Kagan confirmed to multiple publications that he had resigned from the newspaper in protest of the intervention by Bezos.
Longtime Post editor Marty Baron, who retired in 2021, was also dismayed by the news. “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners),” he texted his former colleagues.
Earlier this week, a similar implosion took place at The Los Angeles Times after the paper issued its own non-endorsement for the 2024 race. Earlier this month the Times’ billioniare owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, pulled the plug on plans by the editorial staff to endorse Harris. As a result, Times Editorials Editor Mariel Garza handed in her resignation on Wednesday. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
The New York Times endorsed Harris in September, calling her the “only patriotic choice” for president. Rolling Stone also endorsed Harris in September, noting that she is “a lifelong, dedicated public servant who believes that government exists to help and protect the American people” and that Trump is “demonstrably unfit to ever hold office again.”
The Washington Post ends backing presidential candidates as paper says Bezos axed Harris endorsement
Daniel Arkin
Sat, October 26, 2024
The Washington Post has endorsed a presidential contender in every general election since 1992. Not this year.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways
The Washington Post's editorial board will not make a presidential endorsement this year or "in any future presidential election," the newspaper's publisher and chief executive announced Friday.
Post editorial page staff members had drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had yet to be published, two sources briefed on the sequence of events told The Post. The decision not to publish the Harris endorsement was made by The Post’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to the sources. NBC News has not independently verified that account.
"We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way," Will Lewis said in a statement about the decision published on The Post's website.
"We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects," Lewis added in the statement, which has been met with more than 9,000 reader comments. "We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions — whom to vote for as the next president."
In a statement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird said: “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”
In a subsequent statement on Saturday, Lewis said that the newspaper's owner was not involved in the decision, and he, as publisher, believes that endorsements are unnecessary.
"We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds," Lewis said.
The Post has endorsed a presidential contender in every general election since 1992. Lewis said his newsroom is "going back to" the practice of not formally backing White House aspirants, explaining that The Post did not make an endorsement during various presidential campaigns, including in 1960 or 1972.
The move was immediately blasted by Marty Baron, who edited The Post from 2012 until his retirement in 2021. Baron portrayed the decision as an "invitation" for former President Donald Trump to intimidate Bezos, who purchased the newspaper for $250 million in 2013.
"This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others)," Baron said in a post on the social media platform X. "Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
Trump sharply criticized Bezos during his presidency and derided the newspaper as "The Fake News Washington Post." He has repeatedly assailed the news media over the last eight years, sometimes referring to the American press as the "enemy of the people." In the first year of Trump's term, the newspaper adopted the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
The non-endorsement drew backlash from Post employees past and present — including Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the legendary reporters who unearthed the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.
"We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post's own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy," Woodward and Bernstein said in a joint statement.
"Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process," the two reporters added.
Eight columnists at The Post called the decision a "terrible mistake" in a one-paragraph opinion article published hours later.
"This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them," the columnists wrote.
The leaders of the Washington Post Guild, which represents members of the newsroom, said in a statement on social media that it was "deeply concerned" by the decision. "This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers' trust, not losing it," the statement said.
X and other social media platforms lit up with posts from users who said they had canceled their subscriptions to The Post.
Lewis' announcement came days after news broke that the Los Angeles Times would not endorse Trump or Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. The news website Semafor reported that the newspaper was preparing to back Harris, but owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial page from getting behind either candidate. (NBC News has not independently verified that report.)
In response, Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned Wednesday. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, Garza said in part: "I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up."
Soon-Shiong, in a post on X on Wednesday, said in part that the editorial board was "provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation."
"In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years," he added. "Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision."
Shortly after The Post announced its decision, Soon-Shiong tweeted a screenshot of an article about the news.
The Washington Post is one of the most storied publications in the nation. The newspaper led the way on coverage of the Watergate scandal and won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for coverage of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The Post endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. In the 2016 opinion piece, the editorial board called Trump a "bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, contemptuous of democracy and enamored of America’s enemies."
"As president, he would pose a grave danger to the nation and the world," the editorial board wrote.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
WaPo Publisher Cops the Blame to Defend Jeff Bezos
Corbin Bolies
Sat, October 26, 2024
Washington Post Publisher, William Lewis and Jeff Bezos
Washington Post CEO Will Lewis took the fall on Saturday for Jeff Bezos' decision to end the Post’s endorsements of presidential candidates, saying in a new statement he himself didn’t believe in presidential endorsements.
“Reporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate,“ Lewis said. ”He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
The statement came after multiple reports indicated Bezos had ordered the paper not to make an endorsement—a mere 11 days before the 2024 election, and after multiple states had already begun early voting.
A draft of a Kamala Harris endorsement had already been in the works. Lewis pleaded with Bezos not to end the Post‘s recent precedent of endorsing presidential candidates, which it has done for nearly every election since 1976. Bezos refused, and it was Lewis—not Bezos—who announced the decision on Friday.
The shock announcement roiled staff across the Post‘s news and opinion sides.
The Washington Post’s editor at large Robert Kagan resigned on Friday following the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” paper’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
More than a dozen Post columnists rebuked the decision in a column on Friday.
“It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love,” the columnists—including Post stalwarts Karen Tumulty, David Ignatius, and Jennifer Rubin—wrote. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs."
Other Post legends expressed the same. “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said in a joint statement on Friday. “Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”
Washington Post reporter ‘heartbroken’ after mom cancels subscription over nixed Harris endorsement: ‘Hurting us, not our owner’
Jon Levine
Sat, October 26, 2024
Washington Post reporter ‘heartbroken’ after mom cancels subscription over nixed Harris endorsement: ‘Hurting us, not our owner’
A mother’s love is more fickle than we thought.
A distraught Washington Post reporter took to X Saturday to reveal that her own mother had nixed her subscription to the paper to protest owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
“My mom just told me she cancelled her subscription to The Washington Post. She reads every one of my stories. It was a heartbreaking call,” said Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion issues for the paper.
“I understand why she did it,” the writer continued. “Post reporters had no part in this decision. But when you cancel, you are hurting us, not our owner …
“I completely understand if you’ve lost faith in our owner, but please, don’t lose faith in us.”
Washington Post reporter Caroline Kitchener’s mother dumped the paper to protest its failure to endorse Kamala Harris. x/CAKitchener
In an X thread, Kitchener said she made this case to her mother and “asked her to reconsider” — but offered no indication that her argument had been successful.
“The Washington Post’s abortion reporter was just rejected by her own mother,” conservative commentator Mark Hemingway quipped.
Bezos’ decision — which will also stand for “any future presidential election,” according to publisher Will Lewis — follows the Los Angeles Times, whose billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, also declined to issue an endorsement, leading to a flood of resignations from its editorial board.
The D.C. newspaper has been bleeding subscribers since the decision to drop presidential endorsements. Candice Tang/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
The decision from Bezos also led to a public temper tantrum by top editors and writers at the Washington Post.
“I didn’t sign up to be a journalist to be silent on what matters most. I didn’t come here to be a coward. Some of us really, truly believe in speaking truth to power. We were betrayed today,” Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah wrote on X Friday.
One WashPo editor, Robert Kagan, has already resigned over the decision, while 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions within 24 hours, which one staffer said was “an unusually high number,” Semafor reported.
SPACE/COSMOS
'Yikes': While gaming, Musk inadvertently broadcasts 'scary' near-abort of Starship booster landing
Aria Alamalhodaei
Fri, October 25, 2024
Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video game plays to his social media platform X — but a recent clip includes background audio of a SpaceX engineer telling Musk how the most recent Starship flight test was “one second away” from an abort. The clip, posted on Friday, was caught by Reuters' Joey Roulette on X, but it's not clear if the conversation between Musk and Starship engineers occurred that same day.
“I want to be really upfront about scary shit that happened,” the unnamed engineer said, seemingly as Musk played Diablo IV. He went on to explain that a misconfigured component didn’t have the right “ramp up time for bringing up spin pressure” on the booster.
“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” the engineer says.
“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yikes.”
The same engineer went on to say that right before engine startup on the booster’s descent back to Earth, a cover on the skin of the booster ripped off, apparently in a place that had been spot welded. “We wouldn't have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single point failure valves that must work during the landing burn. So thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that.”
Musk was being briefed on the fifth Starship integrated test flight, referred to as IFT-5, which took place on October 13. SpaceX set its most ambitious mission objectives yet for that test, including returning the Super Heavy booster to the launch site and catching it with a pair of oversized “chopstick” arms that jut out from the launch tower.
The company pulled it off, and made history as a result. The full context of the conversation is not clear, as the clip posted to X is only about three minutes long, but it shows that even seemingly flawless rocket launches (and in this case, booster landings) can come perilously close to disaster. And that after each test, SpaceX is furnished with a "butt load," as the engineer put it, of post-flight data to inform future testing.
“We’re trying to do a reasonable balance of speed and risk mitigation on the booster” prior to the next flight attempt, the engineer said. The engineers note that this will be the first Starship test flight whose schedule is not set by the FAA. While SpaceX has typically outpaced the regulator in terms of launch readiness, versus the FAA’s launch license approval schedule, the FAA actually gave approval for IFT-5 and IFT-6 at the same time.
'Yikes': While gaming, Musk inadvertently broadcasts 'scary' near-abort of Starship booster landing
TechCrunch · Image Credits:SpaceX
Aria Alamalhodaei
Fri, October 25, 2024
Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video game plays to his social media platform X — but a recent clip includes background audio of a SpaceX engineer telling Musk how the most recent Starship flight test was “one second away” from an abort. The clip, posted on Friday, was caught by Reuters' Joey Roulette on X, but it's not clear if the conversation between Musk and Starship engineers occurred that same day.
“I want to be really upfront about scary shit that happened,” the unnamed engineer said, seemingly as Musk played Diablo IV. He went on to explain that a misconfigured component didn’t have the right “ramp up time for bringing up spin pressure” on the booster.
“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” the engineer says.
“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yikes.”
The same engineer went on to say that right before engine startup on the booster’s descent back to Earth, a cover on the skin of the booster ripped off, apparently in a place that had been spot welded. “We wouldn't have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single point failure valves that must work during the landing burn. So thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that.”
Musk was being briefed on the fifth Starship integrated test flight, referred to as IFT-5, which took place on October 13. SpaceX set its most ambitious mission objectives yet for that test, including returning the Super Heavy booster to the launch site and catching it with a pair of oversized “chopstick” arms that jut out from the launch tower.
The company pulled it off, and made history as a result. The full context of the conversation is not clear, as the clip posted to X is only about three minutes long, but it shows that even seemingly flawless rocket launches (and in this case, booster landings) can come perilously close to disaster. And that after each test, SpaceX is furnished with a "butt load," as the engineer put it, of post-flight data to inform future testing.
“We’re trying to do a reasonable balance of speed and risk mitigation on the booster” prior to the next flight attempt, the engineer said. The engineers note that this will be the first Starship test flight whose schedule is not set by the FAA. While SpaceX has typically outpaced the regulator in terms of launch readiness, versus the FAA’s launch license approval schedule, the FAA actually gave approval for IFT-5 and IFT-6 at the same time.
US nuclear regulator kicks off review on Three Mile Island restart
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. nuclear regulators kicked off a long-winding process to consider Constellation Energy's unprecedented plans to restart its retired Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in an initial public meeting held on Friday.
Constellation, which announced last month that it had signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that would enable reopening the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island, made its case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restore its operating license for the plant.
The company also sought to extend the life of the plant and change its name to the Crane Clean Energy Center.
Three Mile Island, which is located in Pennsylvania on an island in the Susquehanna River, is widely known for the 1979 partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor. That unit has been permanently shut and is being decommissioned.
Members of the NRC requested details about the emergency evacuation plans for the restarted plant and information about the commercial deal with Microsoft, while imploring Constellation to quickly work on permitting related to its water use for the plant.
The NRC also raised questions about how the restart of Unit 1 would intersect with the decommissioning of Unit 2, which began last year, nearly 45 years after the partial meltdown.
Utah-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions owns Unit 2 and related infrastructure, while Constellation owns Unit 1 and the site's land.
Unit 1 shut down due to economic reasons in 2019, some 15 years before the operating license was set to expire. At the time, Constellation said it did not anticipate a restart.
Constellation now expects to restart the 835-megawatt Unit 1 in 2028, delivering power to the grid to offset electricity use by Microsoft's data center in the region.
A recent jump in U.S. electricity demand, driven in part by Big Tech's energy-intensive AI data center expansion has led to a revival of the country's struggling nuclear industry.
No retired reactor has been restarted before. The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, owned by Holtec, is also in the process of being resurrected.
Earlier this year, Constellation completed initial testing on the reactor and determined it was physically, and financially, possible to resurrect it.
"We understand how we shut it down and we have a good idea of how we are going to restart this," plant manager Trevor Orth said at the NRC meeting.
The physical work to restore Three Mile Island, which is expected to start in the first quarter of 2025, cost at least $1.6 billion, and could require thousands of workers, still needs licensing modifications and permitting.
Local activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and environmental concerns, including the storage of nuclear waste on the site.
Scott Portzline, who is with nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert in Harrisburg, questioned the site's backup power and criticized the proposed nuclear control room simulator used for training.
"I have a constitutional right to know how my nuclear plants are operating and the utility ought to be able to answer that," Portzline said during the meeting.
Local businesses and the building trades made comments in support of plant's comeback in the meeting.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the NRC will be required to complete an environmental assessment within the final year of any restart. The plant will require other environmental permits, including ones for air emissions and water pollutants.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. nuclear regulators kicked off a long-winding process to consider Constellation Energy's unprecedented plans to restart its retired Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in an initial public meeting held on Friday.
Constellation, which announced last month that it had signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that would enable reopening the Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island, made its case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restore its operating license for the plant.
The company also sought to extend the life of the plant and change its name to the Crane Clean Energy Center.
Three Mile Island, which is located in Pennsylvania on an island in the Susquehanna River, is widely known for the 1979 partial meltdown of its Unit 2 reactor. That unit has been permanently shut and is being decommissioned.
Members of the NRC requested details about the emergency evacuation plans for the restarted plant and information about the commercial deal with Microsoft, while imploring Constellation to quickly work on permitting related to its water use for the plant.
The NRC also raised questions about how the restart of Unit 1 would intersect with the decommissioning of Unit 2, which began last year, nearly 45 years after the partial meltdown.
Utah-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions owns Unit 2 and related infrastructure, while Constellation owns Unit 1 and the site's land.
Unit 1 shut down due to economic reasons in 2019, some 15 years before the operating license was set to expire. At the time, Constellation said it did not anticipate a restart.
Constellation now expects to restart the 835-megawatt Unit 1 in 2028, delivering power to the grid to offset electricity use by Microsoft's data center in the region.
A recent jump in U.S. electricity demand, driven in part by Big Tech's energy-intensive AI data center expansion has led to a revival of the country's struggling nuclear industry.
No retired reactor has been restarted before. The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, owned by Holtec, is also in the process of being resurrected.
Earlier this year, Constellation completed initial testing on the reactor and determined it was physically, and financially, possible to resurrect it.
"We understand how we shut it down and we have a good idea of how we are going to restart this," plant manager Trevor Orth said at the NRC meeting.
The physical work to restore Three Mile Island, which is expected to start in the first quarter of 2025, cost at least $1.6 billion, and could require thousands of workers, still needs licensing modifications and permitting.
Local activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and environmental concerns, including the storage of nuclear waste on the site.
Scott Portzline, who is with nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert in Harrisburg, questioned the site's backup power and criticized the proposed nuclear control room simulator used for training.
"I have a constitutional right to know how my nuclear plants are operating and the utility ought to be able to answer that," Portzline said during the meeting.
Local businesses and the building trades made comments in support of plant's comeback in the meeting.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the NRC will be required to complete an environmental assessment within the final year of any restart. The plant will require other environmental permits, including ones for air emissions and water pollutants.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Reuters exposé of hack-for-hire world is back online after Indian court ruling
Reuters
Updated Sat, October 26, 2024
A metro train moves past next to commercial buildings in Netaji Subhash Place area of New Delhi
(Reuters) - Reuters News has restored to its website an investigation into mercenary hacking after a New Delhi court lifted a takedown order it issued last year.
The article, originally published on Nov. 16, 2023, and titled “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailed the origins and operations of a New Delhi-based cybersecurity firm called Appin. Reuters found that Appin grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians and wealthy elites around the globe.
Prior to publication, a group calling itself the Association of Appin Training Centers filed suit in a New Delhi district court to prevent the report from running. In court filings, the association claimed it was the successor to Appin’s network of educational franchises in India. It accused Reuters of damaging the reputations of these schools and their students, claims the news agency denies.
Asked for comment Friday morning India time, a lawyer for the plaintiff said they weren’t being given enough time to respond, but noted that there were multiple proceedings pending between their client and Reuters. By Saturday evening India time, the attorney hadn’t replied.
The district court granted the association an initial injunction, then ordered Reuters to take down the article on Dec. 4, 2023. Reuters removed the published report from its website while it appealed that takedown order.
On Oct. 3, 2024, the same court vacated the injunction, noting that “as yet, the plaintiff has not been able to show any prima facie case to make interference in the process of journalism.”
The lawsuit remains pending.
Reuters
Updated Sat, October 26, 2024
A metro train moves past next to commercial buildings in Netaji Subhash Place area of New Delhi
(Reuters) - Reuters News has restored to its website an investigation into mercenary hacking after a New Delhi court lifted a takedown order it issued last year.
The article, originally published on Nov. 16, 2023, and titled “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailed the origins and operations of a New Delhi-based cybersecurity firm called Appin. Reuters found that Appin grew from an educational startup to a hack-for-hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians and wealthy elites around the globe.
Prior to publication, a group calling itself the Association of Appin Training Centers filed suit in a New Delhi district court to prevent the report from running. In court filings, the association claimed it was the successor to Appin’s network of educational franchises in India. It accused Reuters of damaging the reputations of these schools and their students, claims the news agency denies.
Asked for comment Friday morning India time, a lawyer for the plaintiff said they weren’t being given enough time to respond, but noted that there were multiple proceedings pending between their client and Reuters. By Saturday evening India time, the attorney hadn’t replied.
The district court granted the association an initial injunction, then ordered Reuters to take down the article on Dec. 4, 2023. Reuters removed the published report from its website while it appealed that takedown order.
On Oct. 3, 2024, the same court vacated the injunction, noting that “as yet, the plaintiff has not been able to show any prima facie case to make interference in the process of journalism.”
The lawsuit remains pending.
The 'Black Insurrectionist' was actually white. The deception did not stop there
BRIAN SLODYSKO
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — “Black Insurrectionist,” the anonymous social media persona behind some of the most widely circulated conspiracy theories about the 2024 election, can be traced to a man from upstate New York.
He's also white.
With a profile photo of a Black soldier and the tagline “I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS,” the account on the platform X amassed more than 300,000 followers while posting dubious claims about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Some were amplified by former President Donald Trump, his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and their Republican allies in Congress. The most salacious claims have come in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Last month, the account posted what Black Insurrectionist claimed was an affidavit from an ABC News employee, alleging Harris was given questions in advance of the network’s debate with Trump — which ABC News vigorously disputed. Trump approved, though, declaring, “I love the person.” More recently, Black Insurrectionist posted a baseless claim alleging inappropriate behavior between Walz and a student decades ago, a falsehood that U.S. intelligence officials said sprang from a Russian disinformation campaign.
The reach that the Black Insurrectionist account attained with assistance from Trump and his allies demonstrates the ease with which unverified information from dubious sources can metastasize online to shape public opinion. The speed and scale of disinformation has been an animating force in the presidential campaign, with the potential to affect the outcome in a close election.
The Black Insurrectionist account is linked directly to Jason G. Palmer, who has his own questionable backstory, starting with the fact that he isn't Black, according to an Associated Press review of public records, open source data and interviews with a half-dozen people who interacted closely with Palmer over the past two decades. The records and personal accounts offer a portrait of an individual who has repeatedly been accused of defrauding business partners and lenders, has struggled with drug addiction and whose home was raided by the FBI over a decade ago. He also owes more than $6.7 million in back taxes to the state of New York.
“He's far from African American,” said Kathleen Albano, who said her deceased husband was involved in a failed business venture with Palmer.
In emails and phone conversations, Palmer, 51, made a series of seemingly contradictory claims about his ties to the account, which was deactivated last week several hours after the AP first reached out to Palmer for comment.
He acknowledged in an email that he was involved with the account, but said that he did not create it. He also claimed to have owned it at one point before selling it in April or May to a person who he declined to identify.
“I do not know what is going on with this account,” Palmer wrote in an email last Thursday.
But in an interview on Tuesday he said he participated in making claims about Walz that were posted to the account this month. And he suggested that he worked as a “researcher” with a broader group.
“We did that with big people. National people,” Palmer said. “I have no comment on anything else regarding that.”
He also said that the account was primarily operated by a friend of his who is Black. He repeatedly declined to identify who that was, or put the AP in touch with the person.
A spokesperson for X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, did not respond to a request for comment.
The AP traced the account to Palmer based on posts made by Black Insurrectionist that included biographical details about living in upstate New York, a screenname and an email address. Those details cross-referenced with information available online that the AP tracked down with assistance from Gisela Pérez de Acha, an open source reporting specialist for the Human Rights Center at University of California, Berkley.
A video posted in March by Black Insurrectionist shows a computer screen displaying the docket of Trump's election case in the Georgia. His initials “JP” are visible in an icon on the web browser’s toolbar. And Palmer's email address can be seen in the corner of the screen, indicating that he used it to log into the state's online court system.
The email address is linked to a phone number, according to opensource data provider Osint.Industries, that is listed for Palmer in New York court records. The same email is also linked to a Skype account with the username “jg palmrt,” according to the opensource data provider Epieos. Palmer’s middle initial is “G.”
Palmer also used similar iterations of the email address in the past, according to court records.
A separate Black Insurrectionist post on X from January 2024 complained about Microsoft Network's content moderation policies and included a screenshot revealing that an individual with the username “jg palmrt” had posted a comment on a news story that was censored by MSN.
The suggestion that Palmer was involved with an account that spread falsehoods about the upcoming election was not a surprise to those who have had business and personal dealings with Palmer over the past two decades.
“He owes me a ton of money,” said Albano, whose late husband had a business relationship with Palmer. “He has a way of roping people in. I always had his number. I knew exactly who he was. But unfortunately my husband got caught up in a lot of those dealings."
Albano said Palmer purchased a Webster, New York, home from her and her husband but failed to make payments. She said Palmer talked her husband into a investment venture to recoup the money, which also ended poorly.
"None of it materialized ever," Albano said.
Unlike other Palmer business associates, Albano said the couple chose not to sue because "you can't get blood from a stone.”
Palmer denied Albano's account. He said that Albano’s late husband was his accountant and that he paid off a mortgage on the home. He denied that they ever had extensive business dealings.
In the mid-2000s, Palmer embarked on a real estate venture, buying up commercial properties in downtown Rochester. It ended with a string of lawsuits from creditors and former business partners, seeking tens of millions of dollars in unpaid loans and assets. Palmer blamed his troubles with the venture, in part, on an opioid addiction he had at the time.
Some former business partners alleged Palmer tried to seize control of buildings using documents with their signatures forged, according to court records.
In a 2020 case in Oneida County, New York, a forensic specialist conducted a detailed analysis of a document signing over an apartment complex to a company in which Palmer held a stake. The specialist concluded that “the evidence indicates that the signatures and the notary seal” were produced “by way of cut and paste or digital manipulation.”
Palmer said that it was actually his former business partner, William Mendick, who had defrauded him. The case, which was brought by Palmer, was dismissed in 2022.
Maureen Bass, a bankruptcy attorney in Rochester, said she wasn't shocked by Palmer's connection to an X account spreading conspiracy theories. Bass represented Wells Fargo in a commercial foreclosure case against Palmer and recalled that he once sent her old firm a lengthy email “manifesto” that accused local government officials of conspiring against him.
“It was rambling. He had been a victim of the ‘Axis of Evil.’ Politicians had done things to him, and had taken his assets," Bass said. “So this doesn't surprise me."
BRIAN SLODYSKO
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — “Black Insurrectionist,” the anonymous social media persona behind some of the most widely circulated conspiracy theories about the 2024 election, can be traced to a man from upstate New York.
He's also white.
With a profile photo of a Black soldier and the tagline “I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS,” the account on the platform X amassed more than 300,000 followers while posting dubious claims about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Some were amplified by former President Donald Trump, his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and their Republican allies in Congress. The most salacious claims have come in the closing weeks of the campaign.
Last month, the account posted what Black Insurrectionist claimed was an affidavit from an ABC News employee, alleging Harris was given questions in advance of the network’s debate with Trump — which ABC News vigorously disputed. Trump approved, though, declaring, “I love the person.” More recently, Black Insurrectionist posted a baseless claim alleging inappropriate behavior between Walz and a student decades ago, a falsehood that U.S. intelligence officials said sprang from a Russian disinformation campaign.
The reach that the Black Insurrectionist account attained with assistance from Trump and his allies demonstrates the ease with which unverified information from dubious sources can metastasize online to shape public opinion. The speed and scale of disinformation has been an animating force in the presidential campaign, with the potential to affect the outcome in a close election.
The Black Insurrectionist account is linked directly to Jason G. Palmer, who has his own questionable backstory, starting with the fact that he isn't Black, according to an Associated Press review of public records, open source data and interviews with a half-dozen people who interacted closely with Palmer over the past two decades. The records and personal accounts offer a portrait of an individual who has repeatedly been accused of defrauding business partners and lenders, has struggled with drug addiction and whose home was raided by the FBI over a decade ago. He also owes more than $6.7 million in back taxes to the state of New York.
“He's far from African American,” said Kathleen Albano, who said her deceased husband was involved in a failed business venture with Palmer.
In emails and phone conversations, Palmer, 51, made a series of seemingly contradictory claims about his ties to the account, which was deactivated last week several hours after the AP first reached out to Palmer for comment.
He acknowledged in an email that he was involved with the account, but said that he did not create it. He also claimed to have owned it at one point before selling it in April or May to a person who he declined to identify.
“I do not know what is going on with this account,” Palmer wrote in an email last Thursday.
But in an interview on Tuesday he said he participated in making claims about Walz that were posted to the account this month. And he suggested that he worked as a “researcher” with a broader group.
“We did that with big people. National people,” Palmer said. “I have no comment on anything else regarding that.”
He also said that the account was primarily operated by a friend of his who is Black. He repeatedly declined to identify who that was, or put the AP in touch with the person.
A spokesperson for X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, did not respond to a request for comment.
The AP traced the account to Palmer based on posts made by Black Insurrectionist that included biographical details about living in upstate New York, a screenname and an email address. Those details cross-referenced with information available online that the AP tracked down with assistance from Gisela Pérez de Acha, an open source reporting specialist for the Human Rights Center at University of California, Berkley.
A video posted in March by Black Insurrectionist shows a computer screen displaying the docket of Trump's election case in the Georgia. His initials “JP” are visible in an icon on the web browser’s toolbar. And Palmer's email address can be seen in the corner of the screen, indicating that he used it to log into the state's online court system.
The email address is linked to a phone number, according to opensource data provider Osint.Industries, that is listed for Palmer in New York court records. The same email is also linked to a Skype account with the username “jg palmrt,” according to the opensource data provider Epieos. Palmer’s middle initial is “G.”
Palmer also used similar iterations of the email address in the past, according to court records.
A separate Black Insurrectionist post on X from January 2024 complained about Microsoft Network's content moderation policies and included a screenshot revealing that an individual with the username “jg palmrt” had posted a comment on a news story that was censored by MSN.
The suggestion that Palmer was involved with an account that spread falsehoods about the upcoming election was not a surprise to those who have had business and personal dealings with Palmer over the past two decades.
“He owes me a ton of money,” said Albano, whose late husband had a business relationship with Palmer. “He has a way of roping people in. I always had his number. I knew exactly who he was. But unfortunately my husband got caught up in a lot of those dealings."
Albano said Palmer purchased a Webster, New York, home from her and her husband but failed to make payments. She said Palmer talked her husband into a investment venture to recoup the money, which also ended poorly.
"None of it materialized ever," Albano said.
Unlike other Palmer business associates, Albano said the couple chose not to sue because "you can't get blood from a stone.”
Palmer denied Albano's account. He said that Albano’s late husband was his accountant and that he paid off a mortgage on the home. He denied that they ever had extensive business dealings.
In the mid-2000s, Palmer embarked on a real estate venture, buying up commercial properties in downtown Rochester. It ended with a string of lawsuits from creditors and former business partners, seeking tens of millions of dollars in unpaid loans and assets. Palmer blamed his troubles with the venture, in part, on an opioid addiction he had at the time.
Some former business partners alleged Palmer tried to seize control of buildings using documents with their signatures forged, according to court records.
In a 2020 case in Oneida County, New York, a forensic specialist conducted a detailed analysis of a document signing over an apartment complex to a company in which Palmer held a stake. The specialist concluded that “the evidence indicates that the signatures and the notary seal” were produced “by way of cut and paste or digital manipulation.”
Palmer said that it was actually his former business partner, William Mendick, who had defrauded him. The case, which was brought by Palmer, was dismissed in 2022.
Maureen Bass, a bankruptcy attorney in Rochester, said she wasn't shocked by Palmer's connection to an X account spreading conspiracy theories. Bass represented Wells Fargo in a commercial foreclosure case against Palmer and recalled that he once sent her old firm a lengthy email “manifesto” that accused local government officials of conspiring against him.
“It was rambling. He had been a victim of the ‘Axis of Evil.’ Politicians had done things to him, and had taken his assets," Bass said. “So this doesn't surprise me."
Union's rejection of Boeing offer threatens jobs at aerospace suppliers
By Allison Lampert
(Reuters) - Striking workers' rejection of planemaker Boeing's latest contract offer has created a fresh threat to operations at aerospace suppliers such as family-run Independent Forge.
If the strike by more than 33,000 U.S. Boeing workers persists another month, the Orange County, California supplier might need to cut its operations from five to three days a week to save money and retain workers, president Andrew Flores said.
While Independent laid off a few employees already, letting more go is not an appealing option, he said. The 22 workers who remain are critical for the company, especially when the strike eventually ends and demand for its aluminum aircraft parts rebounds.
"They are the backbone of our shop," Flores said this week. "Their knowledge, I can't replace that."
Wednesday's vote by 64% of Boeing's West Coast factory workers against the company's latest contract offer, further idling assembly for nearly all of the planemaker's commercial jets, has created a fresh test for suppliers such as Independent, which opened in 1975.
Boeing's vast global network of suppliers that produce parts from sprawling modern factories or tiny garage workshops, was already stressed by the company's quality-and-safety crisis, which began in January after a mid-air panel blow-out on a new 737 MAX.
Demand for parts has dropped, hitting suppliers after they spent heavily to meet renewed demand for planes in the post-pandemic era.
How small suppliers such as Independent navigate the strike, which began on Sept. 13, is expected to affect Boeing's future ability to bring its plane production back online.
MORE JOB CUTS?
Five Boeing suppliers interviewed by Reuters this week said continuation of the strike would cause them to furlough workers, freeze investment, or consider halting production.
Boeing declined comment.
Seattle-area supplier Pathfinder, which runs a project to attract young recruits to aerospace and trains them alongside its skilled workers, will likely need to lay off more employees, CEO Dave Trader said.
Pathfinder, which let go one-quarter of its 54 workers last month, will also need to send more of its aerospace students back to their high schools, instead of training them in the company's factories, Trader said.
Suppliers on a regular call on Thursday with Boeing supply-chain executives said they expect the strike will continue for weeks, one participant told Reuters.
About 60% of the 2.21 million Americans who work in the aerospace industry have jobs directly linked to the supply chain, according to the U.S. industry group Aerospace Industries Association.
Those suppliers' decisions to reduce staffing could create a vicious cycle, as they will put added strain on Boeing's efforts to restore and eventually increase 737 MAX output above a regulator-imposed cap of 38 after its factories re-open, analysts say.
"Once we get back, we have the task of restarting the factories and the supply chain, and it's much harder to turn this on than it is to turn it off," CEO Kelly Ortberg told an analyst call on Wednesday.
"The longer it goes on, the more it could trickle back into the supply chain and cause delays there," Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said of the strike on Thursday.
Shares of Boeing suppliers fell on Thursday. Howmet lost 2%. Honeywell and Spirit AeroSystems fell 5% and 3%, respectively, following weak results.
Spirit Aero, Boeing's key supplier, which has already announced the furlough of 700 workers on the 767 and 777 widebody programs for 21 days, has warned it would implement layoffs should the strike continue past November.
"It’s starting up the supply chain that is likely to be the biggest worry, especially if they have taken action to cut workers due to a lack of Boeing orders," Vertical Research Partners analyst Rob Stallard said by email.
A strained supply chain, Spirit Aero's challenges and increased regulatory oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration over MAX production, means it could take up to a year from the strike's end to get 737 output back to the 38-per-month rate, Stallard said.
(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal; Additional reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bangalore and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Rod Nickel)
By Allison Lampert
(Reuters) - Striking workers' rejection of planemaker Boeing's latest contract offer has created a fresh threat to operations at aerospace suppliers such as family-run Independent Forge.
If the strike by more than 33,000 U.S. Boeing workers persists another month, the Orange County, California supplier might need to cut its operations from five to three days a week to save money and retain workers, president Andrew Flores said.
While Independent laid off a few employees already, letting more go is not an appealing option, he said. The 22 workers who remain are critical for the company, especially when the strike eventually ends and demand for its aluminum aircraft parts rebounds.
"They are the backbone of our shop," Flores said this week. "Their knowledge, I can't replace that."
Wednesday's vote by 64% of Boeing's West Coast factory workers against the company's latest contract offer, further idling assembly for nearly all of the planemaker's commercial jets, has created a fresh test for suppliers such as Independent, which opened in 1975.
Boeing's vast global network of suppliers that produce parts from sprawling modern factories or tiny garage workshops, was already stressed by the company's quality-and-safety crisis, which began in January after a mid-air panel blow-out on a new 737 MAX.
Demand for parts has dropped, hitting suppliers after they spent heavily to meet renewed demand for planes in the post-pandemic era.
How small suppliers such as Independent navigate the strike, which began on Sept. 13, is expected to affect Boeing's future ability to bring its plane production back online.
MORE JOB CUTS?
Five Boeing suppliers interviewed by Reuters this week said continuation of the strike would cause them to furlough workers, freeze investment, or consider halting production.
Boeing declined comment.
Seattle-area supplier Pathfinder, which runs a project to attract young recruits to aerospace and trains them alongside its skilled workers, will likely need to lay off more employees, CEO Dave Trader said.
Pathfinder, which let go one-quarter of its 54 workers last month, will also need to send more of its aerospace students back to their high schools, instead of training them in the company's factories, Trader said.
Suppliers on a regular call on Thursday with Boeing supply-chain executives said they expect the strike will continue for weeks, one participant told Reuters.
About 60% of the 2.21 million Americans who work in the aerospace industry have jobs directly linked to the supply chain, according to the U.S. industry group Aerospace Industries Association.
Those suppliers' decisions to reduce staffing could create a vicious cycle, as they will put added strain on Boeing's efforts to restore and eventually increase 737 MAX output above a regulator-imposed cap of 38 after its factories re-open, analysts say.
"Once we get back, we have the task of restarting the factories and the supply chain, and it's much harder to turn this on than it is to turn it off," CEO Kelly Ortberg told an analyst call on Wednesday.
"The longer it goes on, the more it could trickle back into the supply chain and cause delays there," Southwest Airlines Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said of the strike on Thursday.
Shares of Boeing suppliers fell on Thursday. Howmet lost 2%. Honeywell and Spirit AeroSystems fell 5% and 3%, respectively, following weak results.
Spirit Aero, Boeing's key supplier, which has already announced the furlough of 700 workers on the 767 and 777 widebody programs for 21 days, has warned it would implement layoffs should the strike continue past November.
"It’s starting up the supply chain that is likely to be the biggest worry, especially if they have taken action to cut workers due to a lack of Boeing orders," Vertical Research Partners analyst Rob Stallard said by email.
A strained supply chain, Spirit Aero's challenges and increased regulatory oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration over MAX production, means it could take up to a year from the strike's end to get 737 output back to the 38-per-month rate, Stallard said.
(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal; Additional reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bangalore and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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