Latest in Campaign 2024
Why voters chose to protect abortion and vote for Donald Trump, according to experts
Four states protected abortion rights but also voted for Donald Trump, which experts chalk up to voting situation, other worries
A Dance Party at the Edge of Disaster
As Trump’s resounding victory became increasingly clear, supporters at Harris’ watch party energetically danced to song after song and expressed hope that Harris might still pull off a comeback.
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Biden calls for unity, peaceful transition in post-election speech
After a decisive defeat of his vice president by his former adversary, Joe Biden addressed the nation in a brief speech from the Rose Garden as his presidency nears a close.
read moreLatest in Politics
Listen: Sen. Casey’s legacy as a champion for disability rights
As Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey nears the end of his term, he, his colleagues, and activists reflect on his career of prioritizing disability rights and discuss what lies ahead.
read moreDOGE leaders Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy meet with Republican lawmakers
WASHINGTON – The world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramswamy met with congressional Republicans on Thursday to brainstorm ideas for the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which President-elect Donald Trump tasked them with leading.
Musk met with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., in the morning, while Ramaswamy met with several other Republican Senators. In the afternoon, both joined House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in addressing a larger group of House and Senate Republican lawmakers.
After leaving Thune’s office accompanied by his son, X Æ A-Xii, Musk told a group of reporters, “I think we just need to make sure we spend the public’s money well.”
In response to a question about ending tax credits for electric vehicles, Musk said, “I think we should end all credits.” Currently, electric vehicle buyers can earn a tax credit up to $7,500 under the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate law that President Joe Biden signed in 2022.
Trump tasked DOGE with advising the government on how to slash the federal budget. In a November 12 statement announcing the formation of DOGE, Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month that they plan to take aim at over $500 billion in government spending and drastically reduce the number of federal employees. “The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long,” they wrote.
Ramaswamy, a former pharmaceutical entrepreneur, challenged Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, but dropped out and endorsed him after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. During his campaign, Ramaswamy called for half of the federal workforce to be fired at random based on the last digit of their Social Security number.
Musk is the longtime CEO of electric car company Tesla and space technology company SpaceX. After purchasing the social media website Twitter in 2022, which he later renamed X, Musk said he fired 80% of the company’s staff.
Addressing a pool of reporters before Thursday afternoon’s meeting, Speaker Johnson said specifics on DOGE’s plans would have to wait. “There won’t be a lot of detail for the press today,” he said. “And that’s by design, because this is a brainstorming session.”
Johnson praised Musk and Ramaswamy as “innovators” and “forward-thinkers,” arguing that their work would be crucial to delivering for taxpayers. “Government is too big, it does too many things, and it does almost nothing well,” Johnson said.
Critics of DOGE have warned it may target entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which make up roughly 50% of the federal budget. “I’m very worried about it,” said Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. “The President-elect has said that they won’t, but I think that they will propose it.”
Earlier this week, Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz became the first Democrat to join the congressional Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus.
The House DOGE Caucus was founded by Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, while the Senate DOGE Caucus is led by Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
Photos: First Lady Jill Biden decks the halls of the White House for the final time
WASHINGTON – First Lady Jill Biden unveiled the White House holiday theme for the final time during her husband’s presidency: a season of peace and light.
The White House offered tours of the decor on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. The theme was intended to encourage viewers to embrace the holiday season’s peace and light, and over 300 volunteers from across the country worked for a full week to deck the halls of the residence, according to a White House press release.
The decor featured a tree made of six stacked gold stars in honor of Gold Star military families, as well as a White House replica made of gingerbread, complete with a tiny skating rink and figure skaters on the South Lawn.
“As we celebrate our final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values we hold sacred: faith, family, service to our country, kindness toward neighbors and the power of community and connection,” the President and First Lady wrote in a statement in the tour’s Holiday Guide Book. “It has been the honor of our lives to serve as your President and First Lady.”
The White House was adorned with 83 Christmas Trees this year. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
Over 28,125 ornaments were strung throughout the White House. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
The library featured ceramic trees and jars of candy. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
A vintage red truck with a teddy bear as its passenger was displayed in the Grand Foyer. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
An ornament on display on one of the East Room’s Christmas trees. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
The decor featured a horse-drawn sleigh. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
This display of bread and pastries was the main display in the China Room. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
A miniature version of the White House was made entirely of gingerbread. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
The U.S. Army Band performed Christmas carols as visitors toured the White House. (Caroline Killilea/MNS)
Latest in Education
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read moreAmid threats of elimination, Trump’s education agenda remains unclear with pro-school choice secretary nomination
When President-elect Donald Trump nominated Linda McMahon as the Secretary for Education in November, it signified more than a routine staffing decision—it reflected his administration’s broader agenda to reshape America’s public education system.
Trump’s announcement of her nomination highlighted McMahon’s work as Chair of the Board at the American First Policy Institute over the past four years, attributing her success to achieving “universal school choice in 12 states” and being an “advocate for parents’ rights.”
McMahon’s strong support for charter schools with more voucher programs aligns with Trump’s “Agenda47” campaign platform, which accuses the current agency of being a “top-heavy bureaucracy” that has “failed to serve the needs of America’s students,” while reiterating his long-standing belief that many of its employees “hate our children.”
Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump has also called for eliminating the department entirely, suggesting that a smaller, more localized approach to education could better serve American families.
The Possibility of the Department’s Elimination
While Trump’s selection of McMahon signifies efforts to push for school choice, Trump’s call to eliminate the department remains in question.
Some experts have said that eliminating it entirely appears unlikely, arguing that the process of shutting down the department would face significant obstacles.
“Part of me feels like it’s a symbolic thing that they talk about, but it’s sort of a low agenda item compared to the other things they want to do,” said Paul Manna, a public policy professor at the College of William and Mary. “I think immigration is the thing that they want to do and that’s where the attention is going to be.”
Historically, the Department of Education, created in 1980 during the Carter administration, was seen by many conservative politicians as a symbol of federal involvement in public education, especially in serving as a platform for the teacher unions to push their political agendas.
A Pew Research survey in March 2023 revealed that 65% of Republicans view the Department of Education (DOE) negatively. Many Republicans have also long opposed teacher unions, which fall in favor of public education efforts.
“Getting rid of the Department of Education would align with their belief in a smaller government footprint in education,” Manna said. “It’s also a way to politically challenge teacher unions, which are often seen as a stronghold for Democrats.”
Despite conservative disapproval of the DOE, many Republican lawmakers are cautious about fully supporting its elimination. Pew Research found that rural areas, which now increasingly lean Republican, largely rely on federal education programs such as Title I funding and free/reduced lunches at low-income schools remain critical to constituents in those regions.
“Title I funding disproportionately benefits Republican districts, making it politically risky for lawmakers to support such cuts,” Manna explained, making the 60 Senate votes required for elimination, even with a red majority, “extremely difficult” to secure.
For example, historically conservative states like Wyoming receive some of the highest Title I funding per child in the nation—more than $3,000 per child compared to the national average of $1,489, based on 2017 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates.
Lewis pointed out that elected officials also fail to grasp the practical realities of dismantling a federal department.
“Those departments implement lots of laws and policies that people want to keep, and so even if you eliminate the department, you’ve got to move those programs and the people that implement them around to other places,” Lewis said.
For example, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which was previously an agency under the Department of Justice, was eliminated in 2003 but its functions were redistributed. Its responsibilities today are divided among agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, such as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection.
Similarly, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare no longer exists; its duties were absorbed by successor agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education in 1980.
Should Trump succeed in dismantling the Department of Education, Lewis said large, essential programs for special education and FAFSA funding in higher education would likely be displaced to other agencies in the already fragmented department. This would potentially create an even less coordinated approach to education policy efforts.
“Right now with the Department of Education…it creates a level of consistency around laws, applications, oversight that would be different if every state was doing it individually,” said Jenny Mattingley, the Vice President of Government Affairs at the Partnership for Public Service.
A Business Background
McMahon is the former CEO of the WWE, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince McMahon. She also served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2019 and currently sits on the board of the Trump-Vance transition team.
Several critics of McMahon point to her limited experience in education policy, which is limited to her being a longstanding member of the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private college in Connecticut, and two years on the board of Connecticut’s Department of Education.
David Lewis, a professor of Political Science and Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt University said that many of Trump’s nomination choices, including McMahon, are more business-oriented and “focused around efficiency” and less on “transparency and fairness” typically expected in public work.
“I think that he has a view that many of these jobs can be done by smart people that have demonstrated competence in other areas – and many of them don’t require significant subject area expertise,” Lewis said.
McMahon defended her record in a post on X, saying she has firsthand experience of seeing the “power of education.”
“All students should be equipped with the necessary skills to prepare them for a successful future,” McMahon wrote.
Are Voucher Programs the Future?
At the core of Trump’s education philosophy is a strong belief in states’ rights and local control, a principle shared by McMahon, a staunch advocate for school choice. McMahon has been a vocal proponent of using public funds—through mechanisms such as vouchers and tax credits—to support private education options.
“Anytime you have public schooling, you’re making choices about curriculum, and those choices are contested, with parents sometimes objecting to how material is presented or what is taught,” Lewis said. “There is an increasing number of parents that would prefer that their children go to private schools or charter schools where they have curriculums that are more in line with the values as parents.”
Pew Research revealed that overall enrollment in public schools has declined between 2011 and 2021, from roughly 47 million in 2011 to about 45 million in 2021. Meanwhile, enrollment in charter schools increased from about 2 million students in 2011 to nearly 4 million in 2021.
According to Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy and political science at Brown University, Trump attempted to promote many pro-school choice efforts during his first term. However, they largely failed due to constitutional restrictions that prevent public funding from being used in private schools.
McMahon’s challenge, like that of Trump’s previous Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will be navigating the federal government’s role in advancing school choice while adhering to legal and regulatory boundaries.
“They will have to find a way to get around those kinds of constitutional issues across a number of states,” Wong said. “I think it’s very likely that Trump will work very closely with governors and legislatures in…states that are ready to do more school choice.”
One potential avenue outlined in Project 2025, a policy initiative outlined by Trump loyalists at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, involves reshaping federal funding streams to give parents greater control over resources intended for students in low-income communities and those with disabilities.
However, such changes would likely face substantial opposition in Congress due to many Republican constituencies being affected by the redirection of public funding away from rural regions.
Another potential strategy outlined in Project 2025 is instituting a federal tax credit program designed to indirectly support private school tuition. This approach would allow nonprofits to distribute scholarships that families could use to cover private education costs. Legislation proposing a similar tax credit, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, has already been introduced in the Senate, signaling that this concept may gain traction when Republicans take control of the Senate in January.
Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-Va.) of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has come out against Trump’s education agenda, calling it detrimental to America’s students.
“I am staunchly opposed to President-elect Trump’s education agenda which seeks to abolish the Department of Education, eliminate funding for low-income and rural K-12 schools, scrap the expansion of school meals, and make it more difficult for student borrowers to repay their loans,” Scott said in a statement released on November 20, 2024.
He also emphasized the importance of equal access to high-quality education and pledged not to support McMahon’s nomination if she aligns with Trump’s plans to dismantle the progress of the Biden-Harris administration.
The Future is Uncertain
If confirmed by the Senate, McMahon will play a pivotal role in shaping U.S. education policy. However, dismantling a department that has existed for over four decades presents significant challenges, suggesting that Trump’s education overhaul may diverge from his campaign promises.
“Phasing it [the Department] out takes three or four years. Creating a new one takes three or four years. The question is whether Trump has the patience and the persistence to really think this through,” Wong said.
House subcommittee cannot agree on what its role should be in primary and secondary education
WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the pressing issues facing U.S. education during a hotly debated hearing on Wednesday held by the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. Republicans took aim at the alleged teaching of “critical race theory” in schools, while Democrats emphasized the need to rebuild America’s school infrastructure.
Republicans invited Ian Rowe, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a DC-based conservative think tank, to speak about the need for an “America-centered” curriculum.
He argued that America is plagued by “discredited and wrong” history such as the 1619 Project, a curriculum supported by the Pulitzer Center that was developed from reporting in the New York Times in 2019 about slavery and the founding of the United States. He noted that thousands of teachers instead chose to teach resources provided by the American Enterprise Institute.
Rowe, who touted his involvement with multiple local schools, told the committee that students at his schools recite the preamble to the Constitution of the United States every day along with the pledge of allegiance.
Committee chair Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., applauded this sentiment enthusiastically. He introduced each member of the “all-star panel” with an opening statement lambasting the state of American education, saying it teaches “race-inspired ideology.”
Democrats, on the other hand, invited Brian Kennedy, a representative from the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, to testify about the state of American school buildings.
The ranking member, Democrat Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., made clear the federal government has no role in local curriculum, and said the committee should focus on what is under its purview.
“We [should not be spending] time interfering with state and local decision-making,” she said. “We should talk about issues that Congress does have the power to influence.”
Kennedy spoke about faltering facilities at American public schools. He said the average age of a school building in the U.S. is 47 years—making it possible for children, parents, and grandparents to have all attended the same school building.
He stressed the need for federal funding to rebuild, telling the representatives that local boards of education do not have the money to act alone. He added that “investment in infrastructure creates growth, and pays for itself in that way.”
Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., who herself was a teacher and received her degree in education from Southern Connecticut State University and the University of St. Joseph said there is “no teaching of critical race theory in secondary schools.”
“This is a theory in law school, not anywhere else…so I don’t know why we’re all here,” she said. “The way we teach is decided at the local level, not in Congress, not here.”
Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., seemed to bridge the gap between the two parties. He opened his questions with a plea to Congress to fully meet its educational obligations, before transitioning to the importance of civics education.
“Congress is just not footing the bill,” he said. “We don’t need more bureaucracy—we need to do our jobs.”
Michael Weiser, the chair of the Jack Miller Center, a Philadelphia-based educational nonprofit, said the “cruelest form of inequity is the lack of curiosity in education, that should be the focus.”
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., agreed that “education is not listed anywhere in the constitution…the federal government should not be involved in what we are teaching in schools.” He went on to contradict this point a few moments later by adding, “this critical race theory should not be allowed in schools.”
Jessica Ellison, director of the National Council for History Education, highlighted the need for history education in a statement writing, “[students must] have a space to grapple with history’s complicated nature.” She added, “the actions of humans are challenging, painful, progressive, and resilient…history education is as critical for a student’s growth as English or math.”
Health & Science
Supreme Court appears to side with state’s ban on transgender youth treatments
During oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, conservative justices appeared skeptical toward a challenge to Tennessee’s bill which bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
read moreLawmakers spar with NIH director over vaccine rhetoric, racial equity
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers sparred with Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), over vaccines and the future of the agency under President-Elect Donald Trump at a House Appropriations Committee Hearing on Tuesday.
The hearing was held just days after Trump tapped former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH. Kennedy, a vocal vaccine skeptic, has called for an overhaul of HHS’s agencies, claiming that federal agencies are allied with food and drug companies that are worsening the health of Americans. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said he had spoken to Kennedy about his plans for the department.
“America’s getting sicker and not healthier,” Harris said. “There’s a reason why Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Musk are going to have a study in this, because I think they realize that we have to make America healthy again.”
Harris pressed Bertagnolli on the NIH’s study of nutrition-related diseases in the U.S. He cited a phone call to the NIH’s Office of Nutrition Research during which he claims his staff was informed that the agency does not have a scientist specializing in nutrition-related diseases.
“Obesity, hypertension, diabetes-these are the drivers of huge costs in our Medicare program,” Harris said. “Do you really not have a scientist at NIH who specializes in studying diet-related disease?”
“That perception could not possibly be more wrong,” Bertagnolli said in response. “I can’t think of a single institute or center across NIH that doesn’t, in some way or form, have research that touches on nutrition.”
Later in the hearing, Harris questioned the NIH’s biological research involving transgender individuals, asking Bertagnolli whether the agency would report a transgender woman as a biological male or female.
“We assign them according to the biological research question we are trying to answer,” Bertagnolli said. “We’re not going to say they’re a man or they’re a woman. We are going to base it off the science and the scientific question we’re trying to answer.”
“And that’s why nobody trusts the NIH,” Harris responded.
The Appropriations Committee, which oversees federal discretionary funding, discussed the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. The budget requests a $1.2 billion increase in federal funding for the NIH, which plans to boost funding for women’s health and vaccine development.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) expressed concern about anti-vaccine rhetoric among members of the incoming administration, seemingly critical of Kennedy, and asked Bertagnolli about the risks of not vaccinating children in the U.S.
“If all vaccination suddenly stops, we will see much more severe illness and death in children,” Bertagnolli said. “There are other places in the world that have this, that do not have widespread vaccination of their populations, and look at the tragedies that we see there. I think it would be very disturbing.”
Bertagnolli was also pressed by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) on a “deeply concerning” 2023 investigation into NIH officials’ use of personal email accounts to evade the Freedom of Information Act.
Bertagnolli refused to comment on ongoing personnel matters within the agency, but Clyde persisted. “Congress is an investigative body. We are doing an investigation here,” he said. When I ask you a question, I need a response.”
Bertagnolli promised that she would look into the matter and that the NIH will abide by all legal requirements, including preserving records and being transparent with the incoming Trump administration.
She also cited the NIH’s study of gene therapies for rare diseases, which the for-profit sector is unlikely to invest in, as a way to make health care more accessible. Once the NIH develops effective treatments, the agency can sell the therapies to the private sector under strict regulations to keep therapies affordable for Americans.
“We have a researcher who is doing in-utero gene therapies. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if we could test a baby even before it’s born, deliver a treatment and eliminate suffering from things like this?” Bertagnolli said. “NIH needs to take even these very rare diseases under our wing and really champion the gene therapies that can be ideally curative for these individuals.”
Why voters chose to protect abortion and vote for Donald Trump, according to experts
WASHINGTON– Experts say the successful protection of abortion rights in seven states Tuesday shows reproductive rights are popular among voters. However, an interesting scenario in four states is raising questions about the issue.
Voters in Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Missouri voted for both state amendments to protect reproductive rights and former President Donald Trump, helping him win the 2024 presidential election.
The former President has taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing federal protections for abortion rights. Trump nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom voted to overturn the 1973 decision in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The two outcomes represented a stark “dissonance” among voters, according to Melissa Goodman, Executive Director of the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy. She said that voters simultaneously voted to protect and harm those rights.
“We have these overwhelming wins in ballot measures to protect abortion rights around the nation and a majority of voters obviously elected Donald Trump, which will unquestionably have extremely devastating consequences for reproductive health care access and gender equality in our country for the next four years,” Goodman said.
Exit polling shows abortion was not the most important thing on voters minds in the voting booth. According to a Washington Post report, 66% of voters felt the economy and “the state of democracy” were the most important issues. On abortion, polling found just 14% of voters had reproductive rights as their top issue.
Goodman contends that a big reason for the lesser concern and disconnected results was that Donald Trump effectively “obfuscated” his own views and policies on the issue. She points to the former president’s repeated commitment to leave things to the states and at times murky view on signing a national abortion ban.
“In these states where they had the ability to kind of express their views about abortion in the way of a state ballot measure, that was the way they expressed their feelings on that subject, and then possibly felt free to express their opinion on other topics in their candidate votes,” Goodman says.
Long-time Democratic party pollster Celinda Lake agrees. She said the state amendments “almost gave [voters] permission” to vote on their other concerns by making it “impossible for [politicians] to act further on the abortion issue.”
Lake said that Vice President Kamala Harris did a “brilliant job on the abortion issue,” and that her loss was not a failure in her messaging on reproductive rights. She said the results of the election and abortion amendments shows Harris fell short in her messaging about the economy, something Lake says is a long-time issue in Democratic platforms. But the issue in Lake’s eyes isn’t the quality of the policy, but trouble with getting the word out about them.
According to Lake, she found through focus groups that 60% of people don’t really know what Democrats stand for economically, and that lack of clarity may have impacted voters when deciding who to give the economic reins to for the next four years.
“We don’t have an economic brand, and we start out every campaign 20 points behind on the economy,” Lake says. “We have to step back and have an economic brand that works for working people.”
Goodman and Lake both said that pollsters, strategists and academics will have to work to find out what happened this election, and understand how abortion was outshone by other concerns.
But they agree the takeaway here should not be that abortion does not matter to voters.
“There remains extremely strong support for abortion rights throughout this country, despite the actual presidential election result,” Goodman said.
Latest in Environment
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read moreCongress presses Coast Guard on Arctic icebreaker shortfalls amid growing international competition
WASHINGTON — Transportation committee ranking member Richard Larsen (D-Wash.), questioned Coast Guard leadership on the U.S. ability to ice break in the Arctic Circle compared to competitors Russia and China after the Government Accountability Office released a scathing report about the operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard is tasked with managing American responsibilities in the Arctic through its presence in Alaska. This team’s primary aim is icebreaking recapitalization, which involves regulating the quantity of and patrolling ice in the Arctic Circle.
Despite this, the American fleet has only two ships capable of breaking heavy ice in the Arctic. Russia has 55 vessels and China, which does not have an Arctic coast, has four.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), appeared frustrated about the timeline for new ships still being many years away. He asked the panel whether the U.S. is threatened by our lack of ships.
“We have a national security threat now,” Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier said. “We need eight to nine ships as soon as possible, but it’s going to take a long time to build them.”
In recent years, this task has become more difficult, with longer and colder winters affecting much of the northern hemisphere. Alaska and, by extension, the Arctic Circle are valuable to United States national security, serving as the closest domestic military port to Russia.
Chairman Daniel Webster said the U.S. needs to catch up in our need for more icebreaking ships.
“It is well beyond time to carry out our mission with new ships,” Webster said. “Nearly a year has passed [since Congress first inquired] and we don’t have a plan.”
Vice Admiral Thomas Allan Jr. emphasized that the Coast Guard must receive support from the Navy in this process, as these new ships will be the Coast Guard’s first icebreakers in more than fifty years.
“We do not have enough to complete ship one,” Allan said. “The Coast Guard is a capital intensive operation, and we fall further and further behind the Department of Defense each year.”
Larsen, whose district features the third largest domestic port with significant shipbuilding facilities, echoed this sentiment and insisted that “our presence in the Arctic equals our sovereignty.”
Heather MacLeod, who authored the GAO report and directs the Homeland Security and Justice team, testified before the subcommittee.
“The Coast Guard has done a good job at assessing risk in the region,” MacLeod said. “But its reliance on an aging fleet has hindered the service’s ability.”
MacLeod said the program to build new ships has experienced design challenges as it does not have its own facility. The Coast Guard leases its hangar space in Alaska.
Gautier, who has served in the Coast Guard for 37 years, said the committee must consider providing more funds to Arctic operations to see successful reinvestment rather than just focusing on vessels.
“The Coast Guard is more valuable today than ever before,” Gautier said. “We promote a peaceful, stable and cooperative Arctic in this unique and challenging maritime environment.”
Allan said the first of these ships will be approved to begin production before the end of the year.
Warnings over climate finance, Paris Agreement take center stage at COP29
WASHINGTON – World leaders discussed climate change solutions at the United Nations’ climate change conference in Azerbaijan this week, amid the increasing threat of global warming during the hottest year on record.
The conference, known as COP29, brought together roughly 70,000 people from 196 countries. Talks focused on investing in ways to combat climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
“The world must pay up, or humanity will pay the price,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said to world leaders at the opening of the summit.
2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record nearly a decade after the Paris Agreement, where 196 countries pledged to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius. In order to reach this goal, emissions must peak before 2025 and decline 43% by 2030, according to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
As global temperatures continue to rise, world leaders began to discuss plans to meet the lofty goals of the agreement at the conference.
The agenda
The World Leaders Climate Action Summit opened Tuesday morning with speeches from dozens of heads of state. Speakers emphasized commitment to a green future and called for increased action from G20 countries.
Climate finance took center stage at the conference, and U.N. speakers urged world leaders to pledge more money to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, which finances climate change mitigation and relief in developing countries.
Speakers also cited the potential toll of climate change on the global economy to incentivize state and business leaders to act.
“Worsening climate impacts will put inflation on steroids unless every country can take bolder climate action,” U.N. Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell said.
Stiell urged leaders not to make the same mistake they did during the pandemic in acting too slowly when supply chains were disrupted. He called on leaders to create a global climate finance goal at the conference.
Business leaders set the tone for climate finance at the conference with an announcement on Tuesday from a group of multilateral development banks that their collective climate financing would reach an estimated $170 billion by 2030.
Leaders from small island nations, some of the most significantly affected by climate change, urged G20 nations to contribute to international climate resilience efforts and relief funds.
“In this hour of crisis, it seems some would choose isolation over unity, self-interest over collective action,” said Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis. “But we, the nations most at risk, do not have the luxury to retreat.”
Davis implored his fellow world leaders to contribute to global climate finance and warned against inaction. But only some answered the call.
Major players
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer made headlines with his announcement of new targets for emissions and climate change action. Starmer said the U.K. will aim for an 81% cut in emissions by 2035.
“There is no national security, there is no economic security, there is no global security, without climate security,” Starmer said at the conference.
Some major leaders were notably absent at the conference including U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, heads of the top two countries in greenhouse gas emissions. Other key powers like India, France and Germany also did not send their heads of state.
John Podesta, Biden’s senior advisor on international climate policy, led the U.S. delegation at the conference, during which the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a new policy to reduce methane emissions.
The policy requires oil and gas companies to pay a fee for excessive methane emissions, following the directive of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which the Biden administration and environmental groups have called the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history.
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. has increased climate finance for developing countries from $1.5 to $9.5 billion from 2021 to 2023. Biden pledged to work with Congress to scale this number up to over $11 billion by 2024.
Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election makes U.S. negotiations at the conference somewhat futile. The president-elect is expected to roll back many Biden-era environmental policies and regulations. Trump has promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as he did in his first term, reversing Biden’s act of rejoining it in 2021.
Despite the uncertain future for U.S. climate policies, Podesta reiterated the country’s ongoing commitment to fighting climate change at the conference.
“Science is still science,” Podesta said. “The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle and one country.”
Azerbaijan in the limelight
The location of the climate conference has also garnered outrage from many activists due to Azerbaijan’s position as a major oil producer and the country’s recent conflicts with Armenia.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev acknowledged the irony of a climate change conference hosted in the city where the first industrial oil well was drilled. Aliyev called oil and gas a “gift of the God,” while also emphasizing the country’s commitment to a “green transition.”
Climate activists have accused Azerbaijan of “greenwashing,” attempting to appear more environmentally friendly than the country actually is.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg gathered with fellow activists in Tbilisi, Georgia on Tuesday to protest Azerbaijan’s hosting of the conference, where she accused the country of being a “repressive, occupying state” in a video from the Associated Press, referring to its displacement of ethnic Armenians in September 2023.
Despite the underlying controversies, the conference opened as usual and will continue through Nov. 22 as countries evaluate the progress of old agreements and negotiate new solutions.
Latest in National Security
The only US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty is nearing its end. What’s next?
The last remaining strategic arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia—the New START Treaty—is set to expire on Feb. 5, 2026, and negotiations for a new one are far from underway. Experts say the path forward is uncertain, with a looming possibility of another nuclear arms race on the horizon, although some remain optimistic.
read moreHouse Task Force hearing investigating Trump’s assassination attempts explodes into shouting spree
WASHINGTON — Emotions ran high as lawmakers grilled U.S. Secret Service Acting Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. on the agency’s security failures leading up to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13.
Thursday’s hearing was the final meeting for the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump before the release of their final report about the two attempted assassinations of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, and in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15.
Rowe testified as the solo witness, acknowledging that “July 13 was a failure.”
“We did not meet the expectations of the American public, Congress and our protectees,” Rowe said.
On July 13, Trump was injured in his right ear after being shot by Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Crooks fired eight rounds from an AR-15 rifle from the roof of a nearby building. The attack also resulted in the death of one attendee and left two others critically injured.
Chairman of the Task Force Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., pinpointed three key areas of failure with the July 13 assassination attempt: planning errors that led to confusion among local law enforcement partners, public access to the building during the rally and a lack of rapid communication between Secret Service personnel.
Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said, “It’s just wild to me that in 2024, our nation’s premier law enforcement agency on July 13th was using text messages on their personal cell phones, literally sending emails in some cases to deliver real-time information, and scribbling messages on paper and not using a system.”
Other representatives criticized the culture of the Secret Service.
“Your guys showed up that day and didn’t give a shit!” Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn, said. “This is a leadership issue.”
When Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, asked Rowe why he was pictured behind Vice President Harris, President Joe Biden, President-elect Trump and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at a 9/11 remembrance event, even though he wasn’t the special agent in charge of the detail that day, the exchange quickly evolved into a screaming match.
Rowe yelled, “Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!”
After the hearing, Fallon said that Rowe was the one “politicizing” the 9/11 remembrance event.
“That’s a bunch of bullshit. He could have been there to respect 9/11 as every American wants to and not interrupt [the security detail],” Fallon said.
Despite becoming defensive over his appearance at the 9/11 event, Rowe owned up to Secret Service’s “failures” at today’s hearing.
“The terrorist, the nation state actor, the sniper, the lone wolf gunman — they must be lucky once, but the men and women of the Secret Service must be perfect every time,” Rowe said.
The Task Force is set to release its final report within the next few days.
Holocaust Survivors’ Compensation At Stake in Supreme Court Case
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justices signaled uncertainty over whether survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust and their heirs could seek monetary compensation from property confiscated during the genocide in a case Tuesday.
Over 560,000 Hungarian Jews, more than two-thirds of the country’s pre-war Jewish population, were killed during the Holocaust, with the Hungarian government actively collaborating with the Nazis. In 1944, the Hungarian government declared Jewish-owned valuables part of the national wealth and confiscated property, including cash, art and jewelry.
In 2010, 14 survivors and their heirs filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia against the Hungarian government and its national railway, MÁV, accusing them of aiding Nazi atrocities and stealing property.
Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), foreign nations are generally immune from U.S. lawsuits, but exceptions exist. Through the so-called “expropriation exception,” defendants are subject to suit if any of the taken property is present in the U.S. as commercial activity or owned in part of a foreign state which is involved in commercial activity with the U.S., according to the American Bar Association.
The respondents asserted that Hungary profited from the liquidation of the assets through the “commingling” of the property into the country’s government funds.
The judges expressed uncertainty over how to feasibly trace the assets over the 75-year period, using hypotheticals to question the attorneys on their interpretations of the law.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave an analogy of stealing Justice Neil Gorsuch’s car, selling it, and then buying a painting with the cash, to question Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General Sopan Joshi about the definition of “exchanging” as it is worded in the FSIA.
“Twenty years later, I sell it, and then I buy a beach house. Would we really say that I’ve exchanged Justice Gorsuch’s car for the beach house?” Barrett said. “What I’m trying to figure out is why any of that is an ‘exchange’ once we go beyond the first step.”
The United States, who appeared in court as amicus curiae and supported the petitioners, argued that ruling in favor of the respondents may open the floodgates for foreign nationals to sue the U.S. government for expropriation cases.
Justice Samuel Alito questioned Joshi on if there were plausible causes for foreign countries or nationals to sue the U.S. in retaliation.
“I’m not saying that’s going to happen. I’m saying it risks it happening,” Joshi said in response.
Director of the Loyola Justice for Atrocities Clinic Rajika Shah co-wrote an amicus brief submitted by The 1939 Society, an organization of Holocaust survivors and descendents. Shah called the United States’s argument “insulting.”
“If the United States ever committed anything anywhere near approaching the atrocities of the Holocaust, I would be absolutely delighted to see claims being brought in any forum… or any other country around the world,” Shah said. “That argument just simply cannot hold any water whatsoever.”
Other justices, including Justice Elena Kagan, seemed skeptical about overruling the expropriation clause of the FSIA.
“Doesn’t this provide a roadmap to any country that wants to expropriate property?” Kagan asked. “In other words, just sell the property, put it into your national treasury, and insulate yourself from all claims for all time?”
The Supreme Court’s decision is not expected to be released until mid-2025.
Latest in Living
Biden pardons ‘Peach’ and ‘Blossom’ ahead of Thanksgiving
The White House continued an annual tradition of pardoning turkeys before Thanksgiving.
read morePhotos: Embassy Row’s fashionable trick-or-treaters
WASHINGTON — Embassy Row opened its doors to candy-seeking trick-or-treaters on Thursday as children of all ages celebrated Halloween.
While some embassies, such as Indonesia’s, offered imported candies from their country, others opted for more common American staples, placing Snickers, Twix and Tootsie Rolls in baskets.
Amanda Lee took her 8-month-old daughter Harper to trick-or-treat at the embassies.
“We were looking for daytime activities and culturally unique things to do,” Lee said.
Beyond parents and young children, many college students also participated in the Halloween tradition.
Sophie Carr, a senior at Georgetown University, said she discovered which embassies were open for trick-or-treating through a Washingtonian magazine article.
“We always wanted to do embassy trick-or-treating, but it’s hard since we have class during the day,” Carr said.
This year, Carr and a friend decided to skip class and celebrate Halloween by picking candy up on Massachusetts Avenue.
“It’s our last year in D.C. and we wanted to make memories,” she said.
“Enter if you dare,” reads a sign hung on the Embassy of Indonesia’s fence. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
Trick-or-treaters climb the steps of the Embassy of Greece. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
A trick-or-treater takes a water break while walking up Embassy Row. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
Two trick-or-treaters walk up Embassy Row. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
A trick-or-treater dressed as The Lorax. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
Three trick-or-treaters walk past the Embassy of Turkey. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
A trick-or-treater dressed as an astronaut checks their phone. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
A trick-or-treater enters the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
A trick-or-treating duo walks up Embassy Row. (Sarah Lin/MNS)
DC Residents Highlight Strengths and Shortcomings of Housing Authority Restructuring
WASHINGTON — Residents and prospective tenants appeared appreciative of new leadership, but eager to see more change at the first District of Columbia Housing Authority public oversight roundtable on Tuesday, which saw benefit recipients directly address the councilmembers overseeing the fraught government agency.
“[DCHA’s new director] Keith Pettigrew is our black panther,” voucher recipient Rhonda Hamilton said. “He knows and is experienced in how to manage a housing authority.”
This hearing was part of the authority’s three-year plan to restructure and increase transparency in the agency after a 2023 controversy involving overpaying landlords alongside an uptick in housing insecurity in Washington.
Residents currently receiving housing assistance raised concerns that the restructuring of the DCHA organizing board only maintains one seat for local representation, while previous boards had multiple neighborhood seats.
“We want our other residents to have a vote,” Christine Spencer, a DCHA housing recipient, said. She added though that she does appreciate that she can “walk out the door and see [DCHA community] events in your neighborhood…it’s refreshing.”
Councilmember Zachary Parker (Ward 5) agreed with the need for representation. “It feels like there’s a firewall between tenants and DCHA employees,” he said.
A 2023 Washington Post investigation revealed that the DCHA, which is an independent agency of the DC government, incorrectly overpaid rent for more than 15,000 households, totaling over one million dollars per month. The investigation also reported that many units provided for by the authority lacked adequate facilities, such as electricity and accessible entrances. This led to a turnover in management.
DCHA’s new leadership said they will need time to address these critical issues and point to the three-year plan, which involves more considerable structural changes to the authority’s operation, including better landlord oversight.
Residents also worried about problems that the DCHA takes too long to address.
“The biggest problem I think is a breakdown in communication,” Ronald Smith, who received his voucher after twenty years on the waitlist and requires extra room for his medical equipment, said. “My voucher is only for a one bedroom unit. The space [my wife and I] live in now is deplorable. I don’t know what to do, I need to leave this place but I can’t fit in a one-bedroom.”
The plan, which would be carried out through 2027, would also provide more resources to the Office of Customer Engagement, aimed at boosting assistance and support for residents in need.
“Whenever there’s a new administration and communication changes…it feels like I’m starting over,” Linda Brown said, a resident who worries these organizational changes will make her home unaffordable. “I just don’t feel represented.”
Despite these issues, local elected officials generally approved of the new leadership.
“Since Keith Pettigrew took over the agency has taken big strides,” Housing Committee chair Robert C. White (At-Large) said. “It’s about creating a foundation for lasting improvement. That’s what residents want and deserve.”
Latest Business
Paul Atkins’ Nomination to SEC Could Carve a Future for Crypto Regulation
While Paul Atkins’ appointment has been celebrated by cryptocurrency enthusiasts, experts expect him to bring a more structured regulatory framework, rather than offering the industry a free pass.
read moreOpenAI’s prospective shift sparks uncertainty over educational access
For its 200 million weekly active users worldwide, ChatGPT is an invention of convenience. In seconds, the tool can offload hours of menial work in coding, writing and studying, just a few of the product’s many applications.
But as the company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, bids to become a for-profit corporation for the first time, users are starting to seriously evaluate if they would pay to use the free platform if it becomes paywalled, or worse, riddled with advertisements.
In September, Reuters reported that OpenAI planned to restructure itself from a nonprofit to a for-profit benefit corporation, a break from its founding mission to conduct artificial intelligence research without financial obligations to stakeholders. While this change hasn’t been executed yet, Bloomberg reported last month that OpenAI was in talks with the California attorney general’s office to change its corporate structure.
However, it is unclear how ChatGPT might transform under a new, for-profit OpenAI.
ChatGPT currently operates on a freemium model, offering a free version of its large language model (LLM) that individuals can access with restrictions and caps on the number of times the features can be used. For individuals, there is also the “Plus” plan, which costs $20 a month, and the “Pro” plan, which lists at the significantly heftier price point of $200 a month.
Celia Quillian, a creator who teaches followers how to implement ChatGPT and AI in their lives through her TikTok page @smartworkAI, said she doesn’t anticipate a for-profit OpenAI will alter the free aspect of the freemium model.
“It’s better for them to give something away for free, so that people that really enjoy using it at a higher extent and need those more premium features will trial it, try it, and then upgrade,” Quillian said.
Quillian noted that ChatGPT’s LLM competitors, which include Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Claude, will likely keep many of their features free, putting pressure on OpenAI to continue doing the same.
Angela Virtu, a professorial lecturer at American University’s Kogod School of Business, agreed that ChatGPT will keep a freemium model — but anticipates that OpenAI might raise prices on the premium plans, as well as begin adding advertisements to the free chatbot.
“In my mind, that’s where they would make the most money, because they have all of this knowledge about all the individual users, an unprecedented amount that is going to rival the social networks,” Virtu said.
ChatGPT for education
As the workforce increasingly adapts to using AI tools to aid in various fields, such as legal, health care and consulting work, universities across the U.S. are also making concerted efforts to introduce students to generative AI implementation in schoolwork. For instance, Northwestern University announced it would provide free ChatGPT 4.0 access to students, faculty and staff at the start of the 2024-2025 academic school year.
Virtu said she encourages students to leverage generative AI to brainstorm assignments or debug code.
“If our students don’t get exposure to this technology in school, to start learning the balance and understanding the ethical implementations and responsible use of it, they’re not going to be prepared for the workforce,” Virtu said.
OpenAI also launched ChatGPT Edu in May, a version of ChatGPT built to “responsibly bring AI to campus,” according to OpenAI’s webpage.
Xiaoming Zhai, director of the AI4STEM Education Center at the University of Georgia, said that while he believes ChatGPT Edu is a big step forward for students, parents and teachers concerned about data privacy issues, cost may be hindering OpenAI from tailoring more of their product’s efforts to focus on education.
“I do wish that OpenAI would open some opportunity or program to use their models in school settings. Hopefully that can be free for students, so that it can really make a difference to education,” Zhai said.
Will Tuggle, a junior at George Washington University, occasionally uses ChatGPT to review concepts his professors discuss in class or to generate random trivia questions to quiz his friends. But as a polyglot, Tuggle said he mainly uses the AI chatbot to practice and learn languages — namely Japanese, the language he is currently focusing on mastering.
However, Tuggle believes that utilizing the chatbot alone will not help students to accurately learn the native speech and culture surrounding language.
“If you learn French from a textbook, it’s going to be so formal. But when you go and ask someone a question on the street, they’re not going to speak that way,” Tuggle said. “I think the big thing that the AI is missing is the absence of a listening function.”
While generative AI may not be a fully competent tool to solely support students wishing to learn foreign languages, Tuggle believes that ChatGPT’s integration into education is generally positive. However, he is uncertain about whether he would ever pay for access to ChatGPT’s more premium features in light of the for-profit restructuring.
“It’s a great tool to use, but it’s not the end of the world if it becomes less accessible to everyone, because there are still so many great resources out there,” Tuggle said.
SCOTUS justices appear divided over upholding federal fraud charges
WASHINGTON– Supreme Court justices appeared split over whether to uphold a federal mail and wire fraud conviction Monday, questioning a Pennsylvania-based construction business’ misrepresentations in using federal funding.
Stamatios “Tom” Kousisis and his company Alpha Painting & Construction Company, Inc. were awarded state money to work on Philadelphia-area projects in 2009, with the understanding he would utilize contributions from disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE’s), as part of a federal program meant to advance diversity.
Kousisis had agreed to buy paint supplies from Markias, Inc., a registered DBE. However, he instead chose to use Markias as a checkpoint, buying the supplies from another, non-DBE company. Kousisis completed the projects, but broke the DBE regulatory requirements, submitting false documentation to make it appear that he was complying with them.
Kousisis and his company were convicted in a district court for charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2018, which the defendant then appealed. His convictions were upheld in 2023, prompting the defendant to appeal to the high court.
Jeffrey Fisher, on behalf of the petitioner, presented a three-fold argument against the charges, most notably arguing the government’s application of the fraud statutes is too far-reaching.
Fisher asserted that because the government’s argument is about a breach of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s interests and not about money, then it does not satisfy common law requirements for fraud– which holds that a scheme to harm a traditional property interest is proof.
The court’s conservative wing appeared skeptical of applying the fraud statutes more widely, with several of them discussing the implications of upholding the conviction.
“The tricky part for the government is, if there is no injury requirement, then every material misrepresentation that results in no injury to anyone becomes a federal crime,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said.
Many discussions also revolved around the nature of the exchange in the case, and whether Kousisis had provided a service of lesser value than the money he received through his actions.
However, Gorsuch challenged the notion, and the U.S.’ application of “materiality” in the case– a concept which Miriam Baer, Vice Dean and Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, says comes up often. Baer says materiality reflects on whether a misrepresentation “undermines the purpose of the deal.”
Feigin contended that the DBE agreement was essential to the agreement between Pennsylvania’s DOT and Kousisis’s company, something he called the “essence of the bargain” and that materiality should be the grounds for confirming the conviction.
But, Gorsuch said the concept’s application “has never been that high of a bar.”
“You seem to be try to make it a little higher here by really importing, the benefit-of-the-bargain idea with respect to individual items that can sometimes give rise to injury even when you’re given a thing of equal value,” Gorsuch said to deputy solicitor general Eric Feigin, who represented the U.S.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed to push back on another part of the government’s argument– that overturning the conviction would be “highly destabilizing.” When Feigin said he could not provide a specific number of cases of a similar nature prosecuted, Kavanaugh questioned how he could assert an overturned conviction would cause destabilization.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also sought a response from Feigin on the idea of over-federalization of fraud cases– that many of them should just be decided in lower courts.
“A lot of these things could be dealt with under state law, and you don’t have to federalize every jot and title in a large contract,” Roberts said. “We’ve expressed in many precedents that the federalization of something as simple as nuances of contract law, it’s a very serious matter.”
Justices from the court’s liberal wing, on the other hand, seemed to take special interest in the nuances of misrepresentation in the case, particularly as a tactic Kousisis employed to obtain the contracts.
“You have these folks, your clients, understanding the materiality of this so much so that they concoct a scheme whereby they misrepresent the extent to which they really are relying on such DBE subcontractors,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said to Fisher. “I don’t understand why, given our just classic understanding of fraud being deceit with the object of obtaining money or property, why this doesn’t count.”
However, Fisher held steadfast to his argument on the necessity of monetary or property harm in his responses. He also argued that getting money through misrepresentation does not qualify as fraud based upon previous decisions by federal courts in Arkansas and Kansas.
“There can be extravagant lies and — and whopping tales that are told,” Fisher said to Justice Clarence Thomas. “it can be tempting to want to punish that person, but unless there’s harm to the property interest involved, there’s no case”
Legal experts say a look at the court’s recent history might signal how they’ll rule.
“You start to see the Supreme Court and some other lower courts start to say this statute is too broad, and it’s providing too much discretion to federal prosecutors,” says Miriam Baer, Vice Dean and Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. “It’s kind of criminalizing everything that relates to deception, and not everything that’s deceptive should be falling under the mail and wire fraud statute.
The narrowing of how property and fraud are defined was taking shape in older judgments, such as with Cleveland v. United States (2000), where the court, then only having one current Supreme Court justice in Clarence Thomas, said that state and municipal licenses do not count as property.
Another case of interest is Ciminelli v. United States (2023) according to Todd Haugh, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics at Indiana University. In that case, the government decided whether the “right-to-control” theory, which the U.S. government is employing in their argument in Kousisis, is viable grounds for federal fraud charges.
Haugh says the theory as applied means, “because of how [someone] defrauded me, or the fraudulent statements that they made, they have made it so I can’t do the business that I want,” In Ciminelli, the high court ruled against the government by unanimous decision.
Alito seemed to express reservations along the same line.
He said that looking at recent rulings, you’d find “the Court really doesn’t like the federalization of white-collar prosecutions and wants that to be done in state court and is really hostile to this whole enterprise.”
The court will hand down their decision next summer.
SOTU: Health Care
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Congress should approve his plan to replace Obamacare with a new health care program that would provide “affordable alternative” insurance options and criticized Democrats for trying to impose “a socialist takeover of our health care system.”
“A good life for American families requires the most affordable, innovative and high-quality health care system on earth,” Trump said in his third State of the Union address.
Trump said he has proposed health care plans that would be up to 60% cheaper than the Affordable Care Act plans. Both the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond when asked if a specific replacement plan has existed or ever will.
The president blamed Democrats for not providing the American people with the health care reforms he has promised.
“As we work to improve Americans’ health care, there are those who want to take away your health care, take away your doctor, and abolish private insurance entirely,” said Trump, referring to the Democrats.
Democrats stood up at this comment, pointed their fingers at Trump and shouted “YOU.”
Trump said 130 Democrats endorse legislation to impose a “socialist takeover” of the health care system by “taking away the private health insurance plans of 180 million.”
Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are pushing for a “Medicare for All” plan that would end private health insurance while other candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., are pushing to expand on Obamacare.
“We will never let socialism destroy American health care,” Trump said.
Trump emphasized the administration’s efforts to protect patients with pre-existing conditions, to which Democrats threw up their hands and shook their heads in disagreement. Led by House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate and House Democrats brought more than 80 patients, doctors and health care advocates from across the country as guests to the speech.
“President Trump will speak to an audience filled with Americans who are suffering because of his broken promises on prescription drug costs and his all-out assault on Americans with preexisting conditions,” Pelosi said in a press release Tuesday morning.
The president also called upon Congress to pass legislation to lower prescription drug prices.
“Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it into law without delay,” the president said.
Democrats responded to this by booing and holding up three fingers to represent H.R. 3, legislation proposed by the late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings that would require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to negotiate certain drug prices. The bill has been on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk for over a month after being passed in the House.
Generic prescription drug prices dropped 1% in 2018, the first price drop in 45 years, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump said it was the first time in 51 years. Brand-name drug prices, however, are still increasing.
Trump said the administration will continue to make health care more transparent by requiring hospitals to make their prices negotiated with insurers public and easily accessible online. He also pointed to the passage of administration-backed legislation called “Right to Try,” which allows terminally ill patients access to drugs not fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration if they feel they have tried all other options.
He also said he has launched new initiatives to improve care for Americans with kidney disease, Alzheimer’s and those struggling with mental health challenges, in addition to pursuing new cures for childhood cancer and AIDS.
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday afternoon to further discuss Trump’s health care policies and overcoming pharmaceutical barriers in particular.
Trump Sticks By Wall in State of the Union Address
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s call for a wall to secure America’s southern border in his State of the Union address Tuesday night was no surprise to opponents.
Jennifer Johnson, the policy director at the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said Trump continually characterizes the southern border as a violent area.
“More of a reality check, these are families and children seeking protection, fleeing spiraling violence and poverty,” she said.
Chris Montoya, who served as a Customs and Border Protection agent for 21 years, said that “crime rates are pretty low in border cities. Being a border patrol agent is one of the safest law enforcement jobs. All those things together means a safe border.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., invited as his guest a mother who had been separated from her children at the border.
Other Democrats brought undocumented immigrants as their guests, including Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
Rep. Sheila Jackson, D-Texas, was enthusiastic about their attendance at the address. “Their presence here today is representative of the big tent that America is,” she said.
In his address, Trump attributed what he called at crisis at the border to America’s “reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, and hospitals that are so crowded you can’t get in.” He referenced San Diego and El Paso as being cities that were once violent, and now safe with the addition of physical barriers.
Trump also mentioned the prevalence of MS-13 within the country. “They almost all come through our Southern border,” he said.
Montoya said MS-13 members do enter through the southern border on rare occasions, but it is uncommon for CBP agents to make an arrest.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin is the ranking member on the Senate Subcommittee for Border Security and Immigration. He said nothing changed in Trump’s rhetoric. “If we’re waiting on him, we’re not going to get this solved,” he said.
Washingtonians alternately protest, celebrate the State of the Union
WASHINGTON – DC-area residents had very different reactions to President Donald Trump’s second State of the Union address Tuesday night. But whether they celebrated or denounced the event, emotions were strong.
Around 40-50 people gathered at each of two intersections near the Capitol ahead of the address — far fewer than the 400 people who protested last year, according to Resist DC, the community action group that organized both years’ protests.
People lined the sidewalks along the streets that President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other Trump cabinet members’ motorcades were expected pass by. They held homemade signs lit with string lights so they would be visible to government officials in their cars and chanted anti-Trump messages to music and drums.
Eileen Minarick, 70, said she was protesting simply “because the state of our union is terrible.”
Elsewhere in the city, local bar patrons gathered to drink beer, compete in presidential bingo and watch the State of the Union.
Grassroots activist group CODEPINK hosted a number of guest speakers, including actor Danny Glover, for a lively discussion before the main event. Topics ranged from the Bolivarian revolution to ending domestic violence.
Anita Jenkins, spokeswoman for Stand Up for Democracy, riled the crowd with a call to establish the District of Columbia the 51st state in the United States.
“The people of D.C. have no representation… We have nobody to speak for us,” she said. Modifying the words of America’s early founders, she said, “Taxation without representation is a rip-off.”
As President Trump appeared on the projector, shouts of disapproval rose from the bar patrons. The State of the Union 2019 had begun and the energy was energetic in its moroseness.
Across town, the atmosphere was also charged. Members of DC Young Republicans and Arlington Falls Church Young Republicans filled a restaurant for a celebratory viewing party.
“In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall… but the proper wall never got built,” said Donald Trump. He paused and then said, “I’ll get it built.” Hoots and hollers erupted in the bar and two girls were seen smiling and hugging each other.
Though Trump stressed unity in his national address, DC-area residents remained divided in their reactions.
2020 Candidates Alternate Cheers, Hisses to Trump Wall, Immigration Proposals during State of Union
WASHINGTON – Several Democratic 2020 presidential candidates expressed their displeasure with many of President Donald Trump’s policies during the State of the Union address Tuesday.
Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., could be seen shaking their heads when Trump mentioned controversial topics such as his commitment to building a border wall and the dangers of migrant caravans heading to the U.S. southern border.
Harris, who announced her candidacy on Jan. 21, shook her head and visibly mouthed, “They’re not,” as Trump said, “Large, organized caravans are on the march to the United States.”
In a Facebook Live address before the State of the Union, Harris told viewers, “It’s a moment for a president to rise above politics and unite the country with a vision that includes all Americans, not just the ones who may have voted for them. It’s a moment to bring us together.”
Early in the address, Harris was often reluctant to give Trump a standing ovation, asking her colleagues, “Really?” as they cheered the president’s comments about space exploration.
The candidates and their Democratic colleagues booed and hissed as Trump labeled the numerous investigations into his campaign finance and relationship with Russia “ridiculous partisan investigations.”
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” he said. “It just doesn’t work that way!”
Democrats cheered later as Trump mentioned that women have filled 58 percent of new jobs in the past year. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has formed a presidential exploratory committee, pointed at the newly elected House Democrats, who stood up and chanted, “USA, USA.”
“I think he didn’t realize that all the female jobs he created were for [congresswomen],” Gillibrand said after the speech.
The Democratic candidates stood and applauded with everyone in the chamber when Trump recognized World War II veterans, a SWAT team member and a childhood cancer survivor.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., sat stoically as Trump denounced socialism. Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, is widely considered likely e to enter the presidential race. Unlike Sanders, Gillibrand and Harris stood and applauded as Trump said, “America will never be a socialist country.”
TRUMP STRIKES CHORD WITH WOMEN, FALLS FLAT ON BIPARTISAN BORDER WALL PITCH
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump got one of his biggest rounds of applause during his State of the Union address Tuesday night when he noted that Congress now has a record-high number of elected women, but it wasn’t lost on the crowd that when the women rose to cheer they were mostly on the Democratic side of the aisle.
“Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before,” Trump said as the women lawmakers rose to clap and celebrate. He then advised them “Don’t sit. You’re going to like this.”
“Exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than at any time before,” he said. There were 117 women elected to Congress in 2018.
Bipartisan chants of “USA! USA!” filled the chamber as both the Democrats and Republicans broke into uproarious applause. Many of the Democratic women wore white and donned pins that read “ERA YES,” in a nod to the women of the suffragette movement.
Trump called his list of priorities “the agenda of the American people” in his second State of the Union address Tuesday, which was delayed a week because of the 35-day government shutdown, which didn’t end until the previous Friday. The address was the first the president has delivered before the new Democratic majority in the House.
The president remained on-script for the duration of the 84-minute speech and touted his administration’s achievements from the past two years. He also laid out several legislative priorities going forward, including a “smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier,” an infrastructure bill and the eradication of HIV and AIDS.
Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., was glad that health care was a topic in the speech, while Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., described the speech as “terrific.”
“We haven’t gotten that right when it comes to protection our citizens with pre-existing conditions, correcting all the problems and costs associated with the ACA,” French said. “I like that he kept an emphasis on that while also tackling the prescription drug process.”
For Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., laying out these broad initiatives wasn’t enough.
“I wrote down a number of initiatives — defense spending, cancer research, transportation, infrastructure — and never heard anything of how we’re going to pay for them,” he said.
The president also pushed his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and to reduce drastically the number of troops in Afghanistan.
Among Democrats, reactions were mixed as Trump highlighted his achievements. When Trump lauded the U.S. increase in gas and oil production, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who has championed a Green New Deal to address accelerating climate change, remained seated.
Many Democrats applauded Trump’s push for a new infrastructure bill and decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who sat behind Trump with Vice President Mike Pence, was clearly following a printed version of the speech. She applauded when Trump mentioned criminal justice reform and bipartisan efforts on lowering drug costs and furthering women’s rights.
After praising a recent bipartisan effort to secure criminal justice reform, Trump shifted to a project he said would require the same bipartisan effort: a southern border wall.
“Simply put, walls work and walls save lives,” he said. “So let’s work together, compromise and reach a deal that will truly make America safe.”
However, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was not encouraged by the president’s attempt to strike a bipartisan tone.
“I just don’t think he is to be trusted,” she said. “This is not a president who is working for the middle class of this country.”
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said that while parts of Trump’s speech were good, he was too combative at times.
“There should have been more emphasis on the fact that the government was shut down and we all need to work together to bring it back,” he said. “Blaming the Democrats is not going to keep the government open.”
Freshmen members of Congress excited, disappointed at their first State of the Union address
WASHINGTON — Before attending his first State of the Union address, Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, D-N.J., felt a sense of excitement and joy, but also feared the president might once again fan partisan flames by rehashing controversial issues.
“I hope that right now, he doesn’t talk about closing the government again. I hope he doesn’t talk right now about declaring a national emergency. I would so much rather see that we try to work together and get something done. That requires flexibility on Democrats side as well. Both sides have to do this,” said Van Drew.
Partisanship is the reason the approval rating for Congress is so low, but issues like border security, and infrastructure deserve cooperation between the two parties, said Van Drew.
“Rather than just argue and disagree and investigative and be hurtful on both sides, maybe we can actually get something get done.”
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Chris Pappas, D-N.H.
Although having been full-fledged members of Congress for a little over a month, the freshmen class of senators and representatives still retains a “sense of awe” about the State of the Union address, said Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H. Pappas said he hoped Trump would strike a conciliatory tone with Democrats, allowing lawmakers to avoid a second government shutdown.
Pappas brought a transgender military veteran from his home state to hear the president as a symbol of his hope that Trump’s transgender military service ban will be lifted.
“That doesn’t make us any safer and in fact plays politics with the military,” he said.
In addition to passing social justice reform, Pappas said he would like Trump to speak about the opioid crisis, prescription drug costs and infrastructure — and Trump did.
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Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill.
In Illinois Rep. Sean Casten’s dreams, Trump’s State of the Union address would make climate change a priority, but said his expectations were low. Trump did not in fact mention the environment.
“Truth is what I hope he doesn’t say is what I fear he will say,” Casten said, “which is that he’s going to threaten to shut down the government again if he doesn’t get a wall.”
Casten’s guest was Julie Caribeaux, the executive director of Family Shelter Service, which receives federal aid and provides support for victims of domestic abuse. He said domestic violence victims are some of the “primary victims” of Trump’s rhetoric.
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Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y.
Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-NY, was hoping for a message of bipartisanship and unity, things that “the American people are calling for.” Trump did call on Congress to act together on many issues.
Brindisi’s top priorities this year are trying to find common ground with the Republicans on immigration reform, infrastructure and lowering prescription drug costs. On infrastructure, he said he specifically wanted to hear Trump’s ideas on investing in job training programs. Trump mentioned all the issues, but with little specificity except that he wants a border wall and enforcement to stop what he called “caravans of migrants” heading to the southern border.
“Those are things that I talked about during the campaign that many people back in upstate New York are calling for and those are things I hope he does say,” Brindisi said.
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Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev.
Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., said she gets excited every time she walks onto the House floor, and Tuesday was no exception. Although there were parts of the speech she did not agree with, namely Trump’s insistence on a border wall, Lee said she appreciated the call for bipartisanship.
Lowering prescription drug prices, investing in infrastructure and a comprehensive border control strategy — these are all components of his speech Lee said she could agree with.
“These are all ideas I can get behind and they work together to produce some results for American families,” she said.
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Rep. Deb Halaand, D-N.M.
Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., said she was dismayed about Trump’s urgency regarding funding for a border wall.
“I wasn’t surprised. Let’s put it that way about the president’s speech. I mean, of course, we don’t want a wall,” said Halland. “He instilled fear and everybody about the danger, you know, the danger that’s coming across the border.”
Haaland hopes to focus on promoting awareness about climate change and wished the President would be more receptive to the diverse issues and people around the country.
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Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., said he enjoyed his first State of the Union in a historical sense, but wanted President Trump to address issues he feels are important, including raising the minimum wage and healthcare.
Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill.
He said while the president did mention lowering prescription drug costs, there was another area of healthcare that was not noted, such as the millions who do not have healthcare at all.
“He wrapped himself around a lot of patriotism and recognition of your courageous battles and victories and but in the end, I think he failed to address important things more,” Garcia said.
Post-SOTU Interviews with Illinois Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowski and Cheri Bustos
Our Alex Lederman sat down with Illinois Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowski and Cheri Bustos after the State of the Union to hear their thoughts on President Obama’s address.
Schakowski — Evanston’s congresswoman since 1999 — said “(Obama)’s vision of what makes our country strong was so human and so true.”
Bustos said Obama is focused on the future — our children and grandchildren — and working together to solve the nation’s problems.
Medill’s State of the Union night on social media
Medill on the Hill produces live State of the Union broadcast
WASHINGTON — It was the third day of reporting for the 21 students in Medill on the Hill. It also happened to be the day the president would deliver his final State of the Union address.
Months ago, buoyed by the excitement of the possibilities and the folly of youth, some of us came up with the idea of taking Medill on the Hill to a new level — producing live TV while also finding new ways of storytelling for the website and social media.
On State of the Union night, Jan. 12, the Washington web team led by Alex Duner and Celena Chong managed the flow of copy and constant web updates streaming in from reporters around Capitol Hill and elsewhere in D.C. There also was a constant stream of @medillonthehill tweets and snapchats as well as several Periscopes.
Tyler Kendall, Allyson Chiu and Shane McKeon were responsible for the main story, and Chiu said the experience was, “the highlight” of her journalism career.
“It was hectic, crazy and we were definitely all running on adrenaline by the end of the night,” she said.
Other reporters were assigned to stories on specific issues the president mentioned, or how local college students reacted to the speech. One even tweeted the speech in Spanish.
My task was to produce the Washington end of a live television broadcast.
Nine months ago Jesse Kirsch came back from 2015 Medill on the Hill with an idea for Carlin McCarthy, another producer with the Northwestern News Network, and me.
He said, with the optimism of a television anchor, that for the 2016 State of the Union we should produce a live broadcast with analysts at our home studio in Evanston and reporters in our D.C. bureau and on Capitol Hill. I said, with the skepticism of a television producer, that I thought he was crazy.
It took long nights, patience and a lot of support from the Medill faculty and staff, but we pulled it off.
Jesse opened the show in Evanston and before we knew it Isabella Gutierrez was doing a live hit from the Washington bureau. Then we were live in Statuary Hall with Noah Fromson, followed by a live report from graduate student Ryan Holmes on what to watch for just minutes before we streamed the live feed of President Barack Obama addressing a joint session of Congress for his final State of the Union.
We did a live interviews with Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, wrote scripts while we counted down the seconds until they were read and gathered quotes from senators and members of Congress. Alex Lederman also provided quick-turn video interviews with two congresswomen.
Associate Producer Geordan Tilley, who interviewed Durbin, was nervous before the show, but she said she is proud of the Medill effort.
“I thought the show was some of our best work, Tilley said. “Especially considering how many firsts were involved, not the least of which was our first time going live.”
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Medill Today | November 21, 2024
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