https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/04/04/a-proclamation-on-days-of-remembrance-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-2021/
A Proclamation on Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, 2021
April 04, 2021 • Presidential Actions
On Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — we stand in solidarity with the Jewish people in America, Israel, and around the world to remember and reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust. An estimated six million Jews perished alongside millions of other innocent victims — Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others — systematically murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in one of the cruelest and most heinous campaigns in human history.
We honor the memories of precious lives lost, contemplate the incomprehensible wound to our humanity, mourn for the communities broken and scattered, and embrace those who survived the Holocaust — some of whom are still with us today, continuing to embody extraordinary resilience after all these years. Having borne witness to the depths of evil, these survivors remind us of the vital refrain: "never again." The history of the Holocaust is forever seared into the history of humankind, and it is the shared responsibility of all people to ensure that the horrors of the Shoah can never be erased from our collective memory.
It is painful to remember. It is human nature to want to leave the past behind. But in order to prevent a tragedy like the Holocaust from happening again, we must share the truth of this dark period with each new generation. All of us must understand the depravity that is possible when governments back policies fueled by hatred, when we dehumanize groups of people, and when ordinary people decide that it is easier to look away or go along than to speak out. Our children and grandchildren must learn where those roads lead, so that the commitment of "never again" lives strongly in their hearts.
I remember learning about the horrors of the Holocaust from my father when I was growing up, and I have sought to impart that history to my own children and grandchildren in turn. I have taken them on separate visits to Dachau, so that they could see for themselves what happened there, and to impress on them the urgency to speak out whenever they witness anti-Semitism or any form of ethnic and religious hatred, racism, homophobia, or xenophobia. The legacy of the Holocaust must always remind us that silence in the face of such bigotry is complicity — remembering, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, that there are moments when "indifference to evil is worse than evil itself."
Those who survived the Holocaust are an inspiration to every single one of us. Yet they continue to live with the unique mental and physical scars from the unconscionable trauma of the Holocaust, with many survivors in the United States living in poverty. When I served as Vice President, I helped secure Federal funding for grants to support Holocaust survivors — but we must do more to pursue justice and dignity for survivors and their heirs. We have a moral imperative to recognize the pain survivors carry, support them, and ensure that their memories and experiences of the Holocaust are neither denied nor distorted, and that the lessons for all humanity are never forgotten.
Holocaust survivors and their descendants — and each child, grandchild, and great-grandchild of those who lost their lives — are living proof that love and hope will always triumph over murder and destruction. Every child and grandchild of a survivor is a testament to resilience, and a living rebuke to those who sought to extinguish the future of the Jewish people and others who were targeted.
Yom HaShoah reminds us not only of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but also reinforces our ongoing duty to counter all forms of dehumanizing bigotry directed against the LGBTQ+, disability, and other marginalized communities. While hate may never be permanently defeated, it must always be confronted and condemned. When we recognize the fundamental human dignity of all people, we help to build a more just and peaceful world. In the memory of all those who were lost, and in honor of all those who survived, we must continue to work toward a better, freer, and more just future for all humankind.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 4 through April 11, 2021, as a week of observance of the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, and call upon the people of the United States to observe this week and pause to remember victims and survivors of the Holocaust.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of April, two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
________________________________________
The NBA Competition Committee is also evaluating playing rules and interpretation of rules regarding unnatural shooting motions in connection with perimeter jump-shots and on-ball screens, and the principle of verticality. Do something about it please. Not even faulting the players for exploiting this but man it makes the games hard to watch.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1379158326659981317
The MLB is not known as a progressive league. Its players are mostly white, unlike the NBA & NFL. Its fans do not lean left, unlike the NBA. This made the decision to pull the all star game from GA surprising, and a blowback is possible. The MLB is not the natural place you'd see a fight against a law that its critics believe is intended to harm minorities. Most MLB players are not Black. Just 8% of them were on the Opening Day rosters last year, according to a USA Today study. That's less than their 13% share of the adult population. About 60% of MLB players are White, according to a study from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/politics/mlb-all-star-game-georgia-voting-law-fans-democratic-republican/index.html
DC Police release a picture of the knife that Noah Green was holding when he lunged at a Capitol Police officer last Friday (after hitting two other officers with his car, killing one of them).
https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1379180483490283520/photo/1
A second federal judge issued an order Sunday staying this Trump rule. The Biden administration - going full throttle on deporating all Latin Americans - is still defending it. A federal judge in California last week ordered the federal government to temporarily suspend implementation of a rule that would severely limit avenues for relief in immigration court. The rule went into effect during the final week of Donald Trump's presidency, and the Biden administration has defended its issuance in two lawsuits challenging its implementation. The measure codified a push by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other anti-immigration hard-liners, concentrating decision-making power in the hands of a person selected by a political appointee and restricting the ability of people seeking immigration relief to present evidence that might keep them from being deported.
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/17/biden-immigration-justice-department-trump/
Josh Hawley, a critic of Biden picks' support for wars in Middle East, previously blogged in support of Iraq War
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/politics/kfile-josh-hawley-supported-iraq-war/index.html
Chuck Schumer's office says the parliamentarian agrees with his interpretation of the Senate budget process, which could enable Democrats to bypass a filibuster and use reconciliation once more in fiscal year 2021 (and several more times next year).
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/05/politics/senate-parliamentarian-democrats-amend-budget-resolution-infrastructure/index.html
The Raptors are 11 games under .500, but have a higher net rating (+0.5) than the Blazers who are 11 games over .500 (+0.4)
Jets trading QB Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers for a 2021 sixth-round pick and second- and fourth-round picks in 2022, per sources.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1379161450527215620
The #Jets and #Dolphins essentially did the same thing: *Fired Gase *Hired defensive minded coach who is loved by players *Trade QB (Darnold/Tannehill) for draft capital *Trade safety (Minkah/Adams) for 1st(s) *Draft QB with top-5 pick. *Have double 1s & double 2s the next year.
https://twitter.com/mysportsupdate/status/1379176975537991682
I've learned from sources that #MinnesotaVikings Cornerback Jeff Gladney has turned himself into the Dallas County Jail after the #NFL player posted a $10,000 bond on a charge 3rd degree felony family violence assault.
https://twitter.com/jdmiles11/status/1379172176616652802
Isaiah Thomas dials it up from long range for his first basket as a Pelican
https://streamable.com/8q7jcs
OG Anunoby with a single-leg takedown of Dennis Schröder
https://streamable.com/30pufg
Nikola Vucevic tonight in a win against the Pacers: 32 points, 17 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 3-pointers
Tacko Fall scores right in Embiid's face
https://streamable.com/3ngra8
Clint Capela meets a dunking Zion at the rim and blocks the dunk attempt
https://streamable.com/w5plol
Montrezl Harrell and OG Anunoby are both ejected
https://twitter.com/jovanbuha/status/1379586284633485312
Jokić and Gordon keep passing to each other trying to get the other to shoot it
https://streamable.com/8hzg84
Steph Curry in tonights win against the Bucks: 41 pts, 6 Reb, 4 ast, on 14-21 FGs and 5-10 from 3pt range
Wiggins gets the game-winning block on Middleton
https://streamable.com/r7enbt
Draymond complains about a no call but replay reveals a top 10 anime betrayal.
https://streamable.com/aigfij
Curry butt fumbles the ball but hits the 3 anyways.
https://streamable.com/vipikz
Kemba Walker is now 0-14 against Ben Simmons
Embiid with the Shaq like Power Dunk
https://streamable.com/bl27nz
Jokic with the spin move into yet another dunk
https://streamable.com/n7unjk
Jokic hits the ridiculous turnaround one foot stepback over Plumlee
https://streamable.com/xsnkuo
Steph takes a dribble then splashes a 30-footer in Brook Lopez's face
https://streamable.com/sdlsjp
Embiid with a deep stepback jumper against Kornet late in the shot clock
https://streamable.com/9v6a52
Wiseman gets the dunk on one end and the block on the other.
https://streamable.com/abeko5
TNT fails to show the first of two free throws coming back from commercial with less than one minute left
https://streamable.com/91zupg
The Philadelphia 76ers (35-16) defeat the Boston Celtics (25-26), 106 - 96
Stephen Curry ran 36 pick-and-rolls tonight, tied for his second-most in a game this season. The Warriors scored an elite 1.03 points per chance on those Curry pick-and-rolls. As a team, Golden State tied a season-high with 71 pick-and-rolls.
Damian Lillard has gone 5-28 and 1-14 from 3 in 67 minutes vs the Clippers this season
Dillon Brooks catches fire, pouring in 23 points in the 3rd quarter
https://streamable.com/cskp2h
Draymond Green with two great assists down the stretch
https://streamable.com/heawlt
Robert Covington with the crazy hard triple off of the behind the back pass from Dame
https://streamable.com/4ihwx1
Jeff Teague puts some English on the bounce pass in transition to set up Portis for a dunk
https://streamable.com/414re1
Nikola Vucevic vs Pacers 32 Pts, 17 Rebs, 5 Asts
Russia is testing a nuclear torpedo in the Arctic that has the power to trigger radioactive tsunamis off the US coas
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-tests-nuclear-doomsday-torpedo-in-arctic-expands-military-2021-4
San Francisco school board drops plan to strip schools of their name to pander to racist hateful pro-Trump Asian-American and Native-American minorities
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984919925/san-francisco-school-board-rescinds-controversial-school-renaming-plan
First Lady Jill Biden Dropped Out Of Family Reunification Team, Opting To Pander To Mass Murderers Destroying The Planet Instead Of Helping Latin American Children, Kidnapped By The Trump Administration, Find Their Parents.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-first-lady-jill-biden-sets-course-for-the-next-phase-of-joining-forces/
Robert Anderson, Nominee for Solicitor of the Department of Interior
Robert Anderson is currently the Principal Deputy Solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior. For 20 years he was a law professor at the University of Washington and directed its Native American Law Center. He has been the Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School for the past twelve years. He is a co-author and editor of the leading federal Indian Law treatise, Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, and is a co-author of a leading textbook on American Indian Law. He has extensive expertise and has published many articles in the fields of natural resources law, water law, and American Indian law. He grew up in the small town of Ely in northeastern Minnesota and is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Anderson attended local public schools and received his law degree from the University of Minnesota. He served as the Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs and Counselor to the Secretary under Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. He began his career as a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, where he practiced law for twelve years. Anderson also served on the transition agency review teams for President-elect Obama and President-elect Biden.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-roles-in-the-department-of-interior-department-of-transportation-and-department-of-veterans-affairs/
Mohsin Syed, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of Government Affairs, Department of Transportation
Mohsin Raza Syed currently serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Mohsin previously served for over six years on Capitol Hill, including as the Majority Chief Counsel for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Minority Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security within the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Legislative Counsel for Senator Bill Nelson. Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, Mohsin worked as a career Attorney-Advisor within DOT's Office of the General Counsel, as an attorney in private practice, and as an intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Syed received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Virginia. Syed currently resides in Arlington, VA with his wife and two sons.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-roles-in-the-department-of-interior-department-of-transportation-and-department-of-veterans-affairs/
Patricia Ross, Nominee for Assistant Secretary of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs
Patricia L. Ross is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), where she has served since 2011. Over the past decade, Ross has led a broad domestic policy portfolio in both the Speaker's Leadership and Congressional Offices, covering veterans' affairs and military families, agriculture and nutrition, education and labor. She has spearheaded major bipartisan agreements in these arenas, including the COVID-19 response, CHOICE Act, MISSION Act, Forever GI Bill, Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, Deborah Sampson Act, Every Student Succeeds Act, 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, and ending the Widows and Kiddie Tax. As Senior Policy Advisor, Ross has supported and helped coordinate multiple bipartisan traveling Congressional delegations, including the 75th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy and Battle of the Bulge, as well as staffed multiple State of the Union addresses, Inaugurations, and Joint Addresses to Congress by heads of state. Ross is the daughter, granddaughter and niece of Veterans and a native Ohioan. Ross is a graduate of The College of Wooster (Ohio) and currently lives in Washington, D.C. with her partner, also a Veteran, and two dogs.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-roles-in-the-department-of-interior-department-of-transportation-and-department-of-veterans-affairs/
Shane Bieber vs Royals: 6.1 IP, 3 H, 4 BB, 2 R, 2 ER, 12 K
Emmanuel Clase's cutters today: 101.3 mph, 100.7 mph, 101.3 mph, 101.0 mph, 100.5 mph, 100.6 mph, 100.0 mph, 100.7 mph, 100.9 mph.
https://twitter.com/ZackMeisel/status/1379881374275006469
Democrats are done. Racist antisemitic mentally ill terrorist Marjorie Taylor Greene raises $3.2 million in first 3 months in office
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/07/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-fundraising-haul/index.html
Texas Republicans moves to gerrymander state courts after Democrats sweep key judicial elections
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/02/texas-gop-moves-to-gerrymander-state-courts-after-democrats-sweep-key-judicial-elections/
Tsunami Papi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65K7r6yp7IY
With Steph's 41 Points last night against the Bucks he has now scored 40+ Points against 23 of the other 29 NBA teams.
The only Teams remaining are Hawks(37), Nets(39), Bulls(36), Nuggets(38), Pistons(38) and Pacers(39)!
Asked why teachers are still not going back to school, president of the teachers union Randi Weingarten blamed Jews, calling them part of "the ownership class [who] want to take that ladder of opportunity away." Just blatant anti-Semitism on full display.
https://jpost.com/diaspora/randi-weingarten-has-strong-words-for-jews-who-say-unions-are-an-obstacle-663912
Injury report for tonight's game vs. Memphis: Clint Capela (left Achilles soreness): Out Danilo Gallinari (left ankle soreness): Out John Collins: Out De'Andre Hunter: Out Cam Reddish: Out Kris Dunn: Out
https://twitter.com/atlhawks/status/1379922932105945089
D'angelo Russell with a nasty behind the back layup
https://streamable.com/6cxjga
____________________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-initial-actions-to-address-the-gun-violence-public-health-epidemic/
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Initial Actions to Address the Gun Violence Public Health Epidemic
April 07, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing six initial actions to address the gun violence public health epidemic. The recent high-profile mass shootings in Boulder – taking the lives of 10 individuals – and Atlanta – taking the lives of eight individuals, including six Asian American women – underscored the relentlessness of this epidemic. Gun violence takes lives and leaves a lasting legacy of trauma in communities every single day in this country, even when it is not on the nightly news. In fact, cities across the country are in the midst of a historic spike in homicides, violence that disproportionately impacts Black and brown Americans. The President is committed to taking action to reduce all forms of gun violence – community violence, mass shootings, domestic violence, and suicide by firearm.
President Biden is reiterating his call for Congress to pass legislation to reduce gun violence. Last month, a bipartisan coalition in the House passed two bills to close loopholes in the gun background check system. Congress should close those loopholes and go further, including by closing "boyfriend" and stalking loopholes that currently allow people found by the courts to be abusers to possess firearms, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, repealing gun manufacturers' immunity from liability, and investing in evidence-based community violence interventions. Congress should also pass an appropriate national "red flag" law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass "red flag" laws of their own.
But this Administration will not wait for Congress to act to take its own steps – fully within the Administration's authority and the Second Amendment – to save lives. Today, the Administration is announcing the following six initial actions:
The Justice Department, within 30 days, will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of "ghost guns." We are experiencing a growing problem: criminals are buying kits containing nearly all of the components and directions for finishing a firearm within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes. When these firearms turn up at crime scenes, they often cannot be traced by law enforcement due to the lack of a serial number. The Justice Department will issue a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of these firearms.
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will issue a proposed rule to make clear when a device marketed as a stabilizing brace effectively turns a pistol into a short-barreled rifle subject to the requirements of the National Firearms Act. The alleged shooter in the Boulder tragedy last month appears to have used a pistol with an arm brace, which can make a firearm more stable and accurate while still being concealable.
The Justice Department, within 60 days, will publish model "red flag" legislation for states. Red flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to petition for a court order temporarily barring people in crisis from accessing firearms if they present a danger to themselves or others. The President urges Congress to pass an appropriate national "red flag" law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass "red flag" laws of their own. In the interim, the Justice Department's published model legislation will make it easier for states that want to adopt red flag laws to do so.
The Administration is investing in evidence-based community violence interventions. Community violence interventions are proven strategies for reducing gun violence in urban communities through tools other than incarceration. Because cities across the country are experiencing a historic spike in homicides, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking a number of steps to prioritize investment in community violence interventions.
- The American Jobs Plan proposes a $5 billion investment over eight years to support community violence intervention programs. A key part of community violence intervention strategies is to help connect individuals to job training and job opportunities.
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is organizing a webinar and toolkit to educate states on how they can use Medicaid to reimburse certain community violence intervention programs, like Hospital-Based Violence Interventions.
- Five federal agencies are making changes to 26 different programs to direct vital support to community violence intervention programs as quickly as possible. These changes mean we can start increasing investments in community violence interventions as we wait on Congress to appropriate additional funds. Read more about these agency actions here.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-more-details-on-the-biden-harris-administrations-investments-in-community-violence-interventions/
The Justice Department will issue an annual report on firearms trafficking. In 2000, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) issued a report summarizing information regarding its investigations into firearms trafficking, which is one way firearms are diverted into the illegal market where they can easily end up in the hands of dangerous individuals. Since the report's publication, states, local, and federal policymakers have relied on its data to better thwart the common channels of firearms trafficking. But there is good reason to believe that firearms trafficking channels have changed since 2000, for example due to the emergence of online sales and proliferation of "ghost guns." The Justice Department will issue a new, comprehensive report on firearms trafficking and annual updates necessary to give policymakers the information they need to help address firearms trafficking today.
The President will nominate David Chipman to serve as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF is the key agency enforcing our gun laws, and it needs a confirmed director in order to do the job to the best of its ability. But ATF has not had a confirmed director since 2015. Chipman served at ATF for 25 years and now works to advance commonsense gun safety laws.
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____________________________________________
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-more-details-on-the-biden-harris-administrations-investments-in-community-violence-interventions/
FACT SHEET: More Details on the Biden-Harris Administration's Investments in Community Violence Interventions
April 07, 2021 • Statements and Releases
Cities across the country are experiencing a historic spike in homicides, violence that is greatest in racially segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods. Black men make up 6% of the population but over 50% of gun homicide victims. Black women, Latinos, and Native Americans are also disproportionately impacted. The loss of life has devasting consequences for family members and cascading harms for communities. As just one example, research shows that exposure to firearm violence—including as a victim or witness—makes it twice as likely an adolescent will commit a violent act within two years.
But there is reason to be optimistic. We know that a relatively small number of people are involved in urban gun violence, whether as perpetrators or victims. There are proven community violence intervention (CVI) strategies for reducing gun violence through tools other than incarceration. For example, violence interruption programs deploy trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to commit gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to social and economic services to reduce the likelihood of gun violence as an answer. Hospital-based violence interventions engage people who have been shot while they are still in the hospital, connecting them to services to decrease the likelihood that they commit gun violence or are victimized in the future. Programs like these have reduced homicides by as much as 60% in areas where they are implemented.
https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/community-gun-violence/
https://lawcenter.giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Healing-Communities-in-Crisis.pdf
To date, CVI programs have been badly underfunded, even though the economic consequences of gun violence are staggering. One study calculates that gun violence costs America $280 billion annually. For a fraction of that cost, we can save lives, create safe and healthy communities, and build an economy that works for all of us.
https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-economic-cost-of-gun-violence/
Today, as part of a package of initial actions to reduce gun violence, the Biden-Harris Administration announces historic investments in community violence intervention to combat the gun violence epidemic.
American Jobs Plan: President Biden's American Jobs Plan, unveiled last week, calls on Congress to invest $5 billion over eight years to support evidence-based community violence intervention programs that train at-risk individuals for jobs and provide other wraparound services to prevent violence and assist victims. These strategies will help rebuild economies in the hardest hit areas.
Medicaid Funding: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is organizing a webinar and toolkit to educate states on how they can use Medicaid to reimburse certain community violence intervention programs, like Hospital-Based Violence Interventions
Leveraging Existing Grant Programs: Five agencies are making changes to existing federal funding streams across 26 programs to direct vital support to CVI programs quickly as possible. For example:
- The Department of Justice will give priority to applicants proposing CVI strategies in its Comprehensive Youth Violence Prevention and Reductions Programs, a $11 million competitive grant that provides funding for programs that prevent and reduce youth violence. The solicitation will post by the end of April 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
- The Department of Justice will develop guidance to clarify that states can use their allocations from annual Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding—including over $1 billion in FY21—for CVI efforts and will provide training and technical assistance on CVI to grantees.
- The National Institutes of Health will prioritize community-based intervention research for its Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research grant awards. These programs will provide $12.5 million to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, those most at risk (including both victims and perpetrators), and strategies to prevent firearm injury and mortality. Applications are due April 30, 2021, with awards expected in September 2021.
Full List of Agency Actions
Department of Justice
- DOJ will place a special emphasis on CVI in its FY21 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, a $484 million formula grant that is the leading federal source of criminal justice funding to states, territories, local governments, and Tribes. The solicitation will post by June 1, 2021 and the awards will be made by September 30, 2021. In addition, DOJ will highlight CVI in its National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC) website.
https://bja.ojp.gov/program/jag/overview
https://bjatta.bja.ojp.gov/
- DOJ will issue guidance to raise awareness that the $18.9 million under its FY21 Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation (BCJI) program is available to support CVI efforts. This solicitation was posted on January 11, 2021, and its deadlines are April 26, 2021 on Grants.gov and May 10, 2021 on JustGrants.
https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/o-bja-2021-60003
- DOJ will include CVI as a topic area in its FY21 Community Policing Development (CPD) Micro-Grants, a $3 million program that supports innovative community policing strategies. The solicitation will be posted by April 15, 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://cops.usdoj.gov/cpdmicrogrants
- DOJ will make CVI a priority focus area in its FY21 Cops Hiring Program, a $156 million competitive grant program that funds entry-level law enforcement officers. Law enforcement agencies that partner with community organizations to implement community violence intervention strategies will receive preference points in the scoring of applications. The solicitation will be posted by the end of April 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
- DOJ will give priority to applicants proposing CVI strategies in its FY21 Smart Policing program, which provides $8 million in funding, training, and technical assistance for law enforcement to use data and technology to respond to crime. The solicitation will post by April 30, 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities#OpenSols
- DOJ will issue guidance to clarify that community-based organizations with CVI proposals are eligible for the $12.75 million Second Chance Act Community-Based Reentry Program. This solicitation was posted on January 14, 2021, and its deadlines are April 13, 2021 on Grants.gov and April 27, 2021 on JustGrants.
https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/opportunities/o-bja-2021-58002
- DOJ will make clear to all judicial districts that they can support CVI programs through Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) funding and technical assistance. PSN is designed to make neighborhoods safer through a sustained reduction in violent crime. The solicitation will post by April 30, 2021 and the awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://bja.ojp.gov/program/project-safe-neighborhoods-psn/overview
- DOJ will support CVI through its FY21 Strategies to Support Children Exposed to Violence program, a $7 million program that provides funding, training, and technical assistance to communities to address children's exposure to violence and prevent gun violence. Priority will be given to CVI applicants and technical assistance providers addressing youth violence. The solicitation will post by the end of April 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/programs/children-exposed-violence
- DOJ will give priority to CVI applicants in its Comprehensive Youth Violence Prevention and Reductions Programs, a $11 million competitive grant that funds youth violence prevention and reduction. The solicitation will post by the end of April 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
- https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities#OpenSols
- DOJ will continue to uplift CVI programs via webinars and trainings through the National Gang Center. The National Gang Center will expand its outreach efforts to interested communities about evidence-based models, such as the Comprehensive Gang Model that includes street outreach and violence interrupters.
https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/programs/national-gang-center
- DOJ will support CVI in its FY21 School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP), a $53 million competitive grant program that funds equipment, technology, and training to address school violence. Applicants that have experienced high rates of gun violence will receive priority, with an emphasis on wraparound services for students most likely to engage in or be victimized by gun violence. The solicitation will be posted by April 15, 2021 and awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://cops.usdoj.gov/svpp
- DOJ will support CVI through its FY21 Hospital-Based Victim Services program, a $2 million funding stream for programs that link the victim services field and medical facilities. The solicitation will post by the end of April 2021 and the awards will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities#OpenSols
- DOJ will support CVI through the Office for Victims of Crime's (OVC) new Center for Culturally Responsive Victim Services program, which will provide $3 million to an organization to launch a national resource to improve trauma-informed, victim-centered services in communities of color. The solicitation will post by the end of April 2021 and the award will be made by September 30, 2021.
https://www.ojp.gov/funding/explore/current-funding-opportunities#OpenSols
- DOJ OVC will release guidance to clarify that the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Victim Assistance Rule does not prevent states from using VOCA funding—over $1 billion in FY21—for CVI efforts. The guidance will also inform states that funding CVI programs is a means to meet VOCA's requirement that 10% of funds go toward serving underserved communities. In addition, OVC's Training and Technical Center (OVC TTAC) and its new Center for VOCA Administrators (VOCA Center) will to provide assistance around CVI strategies.
https://www.ovcttac.gov/
https://vocacenter.org/
Department of Health and Human Services
- The National Institutes of Health published two opportunities for Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research in March, PAR-21-191 and PAR-21-192. These programs will provide $12.5 million to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, those most at risk, and interventions that prevent firearm injury and mortality. For grant applications with comparable scientific merit, NIH will prioritize applications about CVI. Applications are due April 30, 2021, with awards expected in September 2021.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-191.html
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a notice of funding opportunity in March for Preventing Violence Affecting Young Lives (PREVAYL), a program that addresses violence impacting adolescent and young adults. CDC anticipates awarding $10 million over 5 years. CDC will highlight CVI strategies in an April 8 informational call, through guidance, and on its website. Applications are due May 1, 2021, with awards expected by August 2021.
https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=329981
- CDC has an open funding opportunity announcement for its National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention (Youth Violence Prevention Centers or YVPCs) program, which builds the evidence base for strategies like CVI that reduce rates of youth violence within geographic communities. CDC anticipates awarding $30 million over 5 years. Applications are due April 21, 2021, with awards expected in September.
https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=329607
Department of Housing and Urban Development
- HUD will encourage applicants for the FY21 Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, a $200 million competitive place-based grant program that transforms underserved neighborhoods, to include CVI as part of their overall public safety strategy to reduce crime. HUD will discuss the importance of CVI in the notice of funding announcement and in grantee resources.
https://www.hud.gov/cn
- HUD will encourage grantees of Community Development Block Grant – CV Funds (CDBG-CV), who received a special appropriation of $5 billion through the CARES Act, to use part of their allocations to support CVI efforts needed to combat violence as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. HUD will publish a guide by June that explains how CVI activities can use CDBG funds, which will also apply to annual formula CDBG funds—approximately $3.4 billion per year.
https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/cdbg-cv/
https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/communitydevelopment
Department of Education
- ED will issue guidance on how grantees can use 21st Century Learning Centers (21st CCLC) funds to support children impacted by trauma and reengage disconnected youth. 21st CCLC provides $1.26 billion for community learning centers with after-school and summer programs for students in high-poverty and underperforming schools. New awards will be made July 1, 2021.
https://www2.ed.gov/programs/21stcclc/index.html
- ED will support states and school districts in investing Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) funds toward CVI activities via a guidance document and technical assistance. SSAE is a $1.22 billion program that boosts academic achievement by improving learning conditions. New awards will be made July 1, 2021.
https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/safe-supportive-schools/student-support-and-academic-enrichment-program/
- ED will launch a new competition in FY22 for Project Prevent, an $11 million program that helps schools increase their capacity to identify and serve students who have been exposed to pervasive violence by expanding access to counseling and conflict-resolution strategies.
https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/states-and-grantees/current-grantees/project-prevent-grants-cohort-2#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department,mental%20health%20services%20for%20trauma
- ED will incentivize applicants to use CVI-focused strategies in two grant competitions for FY22: Full Service Community Schools and Promise Neighborhoods. Full-Service Community Schools supports partnerships between schools and community-based organizations to offer academic and social services for students in high-poverty communities. Promise Neighborhoods supports coordinated community pipeline services to improve educational outcomes in the most underserved neighborhoods.
https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-programs/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs/
https://www2.ed.gov/programs/promiseneighborhoods/index.html
Department of Labor
- DOL will issue guidance to state and local workforce agencies and nonprofits under its Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs, encouraging grantees to incorporate CVI into their activities. WIOA provides $3.5 billion in formula and discretionary grants to support employment and training programs for low-income adults, disadvantaged youth, and dislocated workers. YouthBuild, a WIOA discretionary program, provides $89 million annually for pre-apprenticeship programs for at-risk youth, including youth who are formerly incarcerated.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/wioa/about
- DOL will make CVI an allowable grant activity in Program Year 2021 (July 2021-June 2022) for its Young Adult Reentry Partnership grants, $25 million for organizations providing education and employment training to young adults who left high school before graduation or have had justice system involvement. The grants prepare participants who reside in high-poverty and high-crime communities—those disproportionately impacted by gun violence—for stable, quality employment. The funding opportunity announcement will be posted in early 2022.
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20210317-1
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Mike Malone gets ejected
https://streamable.com/zcfdag
The Phoenix Suns (36-14) defeat the Utah Jazz (38-13) in OT, 117 - 113. Phoenix defeated Utah in both games they played this season.
Pokuchefski finishes the game with 25/9/4 on 9/14 shooting (7/11 from 3).
Kevin Durant in his first game back from injury: 17/7/5 in 19 minutes
TJ McConnell hits the DAGGER and stares down the Wolves bench
https://streamable.com/h5uk7r
With tonight's triple double Russell Westbrook is now 15 triple doubles away from passing Oscar Robertson for the all time record of triple doubles
Chris Paul tonight: 29/4/9/1 steal with a team high +16 +/- in a 4 point win.
The Denver Nuggets (33-18) defeat the San Antonio Spurs (24-25), 106 - 96
Gunman in killing of doctor and 4 others was former NFL pro Phillip Adams, who also killed himself. As a rookie late in the 2010 season, Adams suffered a severe ankle injury that required surgery that included several screws being inserted into the leg. He never played for the 49ers again, getting released just before the 2011 season began and signing with New England. He moved next to the Raiders, where he had 2 concussions in a 3-game period in 2012. Whether Adams suffered long-lasting injuries from his concussions as a player wasn't immediately clear. Adams would not have been eligible for testing as part of a broad settlement between the league and its former players over such injuries, because he hadn't retired by 2014. Adams' father told a Charlotte television station that he blamed football for problems that may have led his son to commit Wednesday's violence. "I can say he's a good kid, he was a good kid, and I think the football messed him up," Alonzo Adams told WCNC-TV. "He didn't talk much and he didn't bother nobody."
https://apnews.com/article/phillip-adams-kills-5-then-himself-south-carolina-aaf71f2618f139ab3781592634c8e37c
I bet the doctor was his drug dealer.....
Along with Fred VanVleet, DeAndre' Bembry and Talen Horton-Tucker suspended one game for leaving bench, OG Anunoby ($30,000) and Montrezl Harrell ($20,000) have been fined for role in Lakers-Raptors altercation this week.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1380189730424389632
Cubs David Ross said the players are still not at 85 percent getting vaccine. He said some have come around to taking it while others are still going through educational process.
https://twitter.com/MLBBruceLevine/status/1380170680839327749
Florida Elections Commission general counsel Eric Lipman arrested on child porn charges. Eric Lipman also served as an officer with a nonprofit soccer league for boys and girls aged 4-17. Eric M Lipman's Florida Voter Registration record records that he is a registered Republican.
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2021/04/08/tallahassee-man-arrested-child-porn-charges-florida-election-commission-lawyer-attorney/7137060002/
Biden Revokes Illegal And Unconstitutional Medicaid Work Requirements In Michigan And Wisconsin
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/04/07/biden-revokes-medicaid-work-requirements-in-2-more-states
Investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, acting on a grand jury subpoena, took possession of financial records from the apartment of Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of a top Trump Organization officer.
https://washingtonpost.com/national-security/allen-weisselberg-jennifer-weisselberg-trump-investigation/2021/04/08/53e2cd62-97ec-11eb-a6d0-13d207aadb78_story.html
Twelve people found beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Mozambique
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mozambique-insurgency/twelve-people-possibly-foreigners-beheaded-in-mozambique-attack-police-idUSKBN2BV2EW?il=0
Mets win on a hit-by-pitch with bases loaded
https://streamable.com/vcyms3
In two late-night Venmo transactions in May 2018, Matt Gaetz sent sex trafficker Joel Greenberg $900. The next morning, over the course of 8 minutes, Greenberg used Venmo to send three underage females varying sums of money totalling $900.
https://thedailybeast.com/gaetz-paid-accused-sex-trafficker-who-then-venmod-teen
Video shows Donald and Melania Trump meeting pedophile, rapist, and child sex trafficker Jason Pirozzolo, whom sexually trafficked underage females with Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg. The age of the victims ranges between 12 yrs to 17 yrs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jason-pirozzolo-matt-gaetz-b1828736.html
Colorado vaccination site shuts down after 11 medical emergency reactions to Johnson & Johnson shots
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/04/08/covid-news-michigan-variants-vaccine-passport/7126994002/
Ross Stripling on Mike Trout, who is 7-for-10 with three homers against him: "Trout owns me. He knows it. I know it. Maybe by putting it out there into the atmosphere now, it will put some luck back in my favor."
https://twitter.com/rhettbollinger/status/1380370002172276739
In 5-2 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court keeps thousands of voters on the rolls
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/09/wisconsin-supreme-court-keeps-thousands-voters-rolls/7145342002/
Biden Creating Commission to Study Expanding the Supreme Court
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/us/politics/biden-supreme-court-packing.html
Majority of Amazon workers - whom are registered Democrats - in Alabama plant vote against unionizing LOL
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/technology/amazon-defeats-union.html
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/09/president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-creating-the-presidential-commission-on-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states/
President Biden to Sign Executive Order Creating the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
April 09, 2021 • Statements and Releases
President Biden will today issue an executive order forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and the Court reform debate. In addition to legal and other scholars, the Commissioners includes former federal judges and practitioners who have appeared before the Court, as well as advocates for the reform of democratic institutions and of the administration of justice. The expertise represented on the Commission includes constitutional law, history and political science.
The Commission's purpose is to provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals. The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court's role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court's case selection, rules, and practices.
To ensure that the Commission's report is comprehensive and informed by a diverse spectrum of views, it will hold public meetings to hear the views of other experts, and groups and interested individuals with varied perspectives on the issues it will be examining. The Executive Order directs that the Commission complete its report within 180 days of its first public meeting. This action is part of the Administration's commitment to closely study measures to improve the federal judiciary, including those that would expand access the court system.
The two co-chairs of this Commission are Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law and a former White House Counsel, as well as Yale Law School Professor Cristina Rodriguez, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice.
COMMISSIONERS
Michelle Adams
Michelle Adams is a Professor of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and Federal Civil Rights. At Cardozo, she is a Director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy and was a Board Member of the Innocence Project. Adams has published in the Yale Law Journal, the California Law Review, and the Texas Law Review. She recently appeared in "Amend: The Fight for America," a 2021 Netflix documentary about the 14th Amendment. She is the author of The Containment: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North, forthcoming in 2022 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Previously, she was a Law Professor at Seton Hall Law School, practiced law at the Legal Aid Society, and served as a Law Clerk for Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV in the Southern District of New York. Adams holds a B.A. from Brown University, a J.D. from City University of New York Law School, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where she was the first Charles Hamilton Houston Scholar. She is a two-time recipient of Cardozo's Faculty Inspire Award.
Kate Andrias (Rapporteur)
Kate Andrias is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. She teaches and writes about constitutional law, labor and employment law, and administrative law, with a focus on problems of economic and political inequality. Her work has been published in numerous books and journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the Yale Law Journal. In 2016, Andrias was the recipient of Michigan Law School's L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. Andrias previously served as special assistant and associate counsel to President Obama, and as chief of staff of the White House Counsel's Office. A graduate of Yale Law School, she clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Jack M. Balkin
Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. He is the founder and director of Yale's Information Society Project, an interdisciplinary center that studies law and new information technologies. He also directs the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, and the Knight Law and Media Program at Yale. Balkin is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and founded and edits the group blog Balkinization. His most recent books include The Cycles of Constitutional Time, Democracy and Dysfunction (with Sanford Levinson), Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (7th ed. with Brest, Levinson, Amar, and Siegel), Living Originalism, and Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World.
Bob Bauer (Co-Chair)
Bob Bauer is Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the New York University School of Law and Co-Director of NYU Law's Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. Bauer served as White House Counsel to President Obama from 2009 to 2011. In 2013, the President named him to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He is co-author with Jack Goldsmith of After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (2020), books on federal campaign finance and numerous articles on law and politics for legal periodicals. He has co-authored numerous bipartisan reports on policy and legal reform, including "The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration" (Presidential Commission on Election Administration, 2014); "The State of Campaign Finance in the United States" (Bipartisan Policy Center, 2018); and "Democratizing the Debates" (Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform, 2015); ; He is a Contributing Editor of Lawfare and has published opinion pieces on constitutional and political law issues in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications.
William Baude
William Baude is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Constitutional Law Institute at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches federal courts, constitutional law, conflicts of law, and elements of the law. His most recent articles include Adjudication Outside Article III, and Is Quasi-Judicial Immunity Qualified Immunity? He is also the co-editor of the textbook, The Constitution of the United States, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Yale Law School, and a former clerk for then-Judge Michael McConnell and Chief Justice John Roberts.
Elise Boddie
Elise Boddie is a Professor of Law and Judge Robert L. Carter Scholar at Rutgers University. An award-winning scholar, Boddie teaches and writes about constitutional law and civil rights and has published in leading law reviews. Her commentary has appeared multiple times in The New York Times, as well as in The Washington Post, among other national news outlets. Boddie has served on the national board of the American Constitution Society and the board of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and is the founder and director of The Inclusion Project at Rutgers. Before joining the Rutgers faculty, Boddie was Director of Litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. and supervised its nationwide litigation program, including its advocacy in several major U.S. Supreme Court cases. An honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Yale, she also holds a master's degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Boddie clerked for Judge Robert L. Carter in the Southern District of New York. She is a member of the American Law Institute and an American Bar Foundation Fellow. In 2016, Rutgers University President Barchi appointed Boddie a Henry Rutgers Professor in recognition of her scholarship, teaching, and service. In 2021, Boddie was named the founding Newark Director of Rutgers University's Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice.
Guy-Uriel E. Charles
Guy-Uriel E. Charles is the Edward and Ellen Schwarzman Professor of Law at Duke Law School. He writes about the relationship between law and political power and law's role in addressing racial subordination. He teaches courses on civil procedure; election law; constitutional law; race and law; legislation and statutory interpretation; law, economics, and politics; and law, identity, and politics. He is currently working on book, with Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, on the past and future of voting rights, under contract with Cambridge University Press. He is also co-editing, with Aziza Ahmed, a handbook entitled Race, Racism, and the Law, under contract with Edward Elgar Publishing. This book will survey the current state of research on race and the law in the United States and aims to influence the intellectual agenda of the field. He clerked on the Sixth Circuit for the late Judge Damon J. Keith. He has published numerous articles in top law journals. He is the co-author of two leading casebooks and two edited volumes. He is also a member of the American Law Institute. On July 1, 2021, he will become the inaugural Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Andrew Manuel Crespo
Andrew Manuel Crespo is a Professor of Law at Harvard University where he teaches and writes about criminal law and procedure. Professor Crespo's scholarship has been published in multiple leading academic journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Columbia Law Review. Prior to beginning his academic career, Professor Crespo served as a Staff Attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he represented over one hundred people accused of crimes who could not afford a lawyer. Professor Crespo graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review and was the first Latino to hold that position. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before going on to serve for two years as a law clerk at the United States Supreme Court, first to Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and then to Associate Justice Elena Kagan during her inaugural term on the Court.
Walter Dellinger
Walter Dellinger is the Douglas Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law at Duke University and a Partner in the firm of O'Melveny & Myers. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal and is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the American Lawyer, the American Constitution Society and the Mississippi Center for Justice. Dellinger served in the White House and as Assistant Attorney General and head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 1993 to 1996. He was acting Solicitor General for the 1996-97 Term of the US Supreme Court, He has argued 25 cases before the United States Supreme Court and has testified more than 30 times before committees of Congress. He has published in academic journals including the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal and the Duke Law Journal, and has written extensively for the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and other publications. In 1987-88 he was a scholar at the National Humanities Center and has lectured at universities throughout the United States and other countries including China, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Brazil, and Denmark. He graduated from University of North Carolina and Yale Law School and served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.
Justin Driver
Justin Driver is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He teaches and writes in the area of constitutional law, education law, and prison law. His book, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, was selected as a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year, an Editors' Choice of the New York Times Book Review, and received the Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law, among numerous other honors. A recipient of the American Society for Legal History's William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize, he has a distinguished publication record in the nation's leading law reviews and has also written extensively for general audiences. He is an editor of the Supreme Court Review and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He holds degrees from Brown, Oxford (where he was a Marshall Scholar), Duke (where he received certification to teach public school), and Harvard Law School (where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review). After graduating from Harvard, he clerked for Judge Merrick Garland, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (Ret.), and Justice Stephen Breyer.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr., joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in 1982 and is currently Story Professor of Law. He is also an Affiliate Professor in the Harvard University Government Department. Fallon is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School. He also earned a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Before entering teaching, Fallon served as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright and to Justice Lewis F. Powell of the United States Supreme Court. Fallon has written extensively about Constitutional Law and Federal Courts Law. He is the author of The Nature of Constitutional Rights: The Invention and Logic of Strict Judicial Scrutiny (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court (Harvard University Press, 2018), The Dynamic Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2d ed. 2013), and Implementing the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 2001) and a co-editor of Hart & Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System (7th ed. 2015). Fallon is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute. He is a two-time winner of Harvard Law School's Sacks-Freund Award, which is voted annually by the School's graduating class to honor excellence in teaching. In 2021, the Federal Courts Section of the American Association of Law Schools honored Fallon with its lifetime achievement award.
Caroline Fredrickson
Caroline Fredrickson served as the President of the American Constitution Society from 2009-2019. Fredrickson has published works on many legal and constitutional issues and is a frequent guest on television and radio, including serving as a regular on-air commentator on impeachment. Before joining ACS, Fredrickson served as the Director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office and as General Counsel and Legal Director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. In addition, she served as the Chief of Staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, and Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, of South Dakota. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Fredrickson is currently an elected member of the American Law Institute, co-chair of the National Constitution Center's Coalition of Freedom Advisory Board, a member of If/When/How's Advisory Board, and on the boards of American Oversight and the National Institute of Money and Politics. In 2015 Fredrickson was appointed a member of the Yale Les Aspin Fellowship Committee. Fredrickson received her J.D. from Columbia Law School with honors and her B.A. from Yale University in Russian and East European Studies summa cum laude, phi beta kappa. She clerked for the Hon. James L. Oakes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Heather Gerken
Heather Gerken is the Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School and one of the country's leading experts on constitutional law and election law. A founder of the "nationalist school" of federalism, her work focuses on federalism, diversity, and dissent. Gerken's work has been featured in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and the Stanford Law Review as well as The Atlantic, TheBoston Globe, NPR, and TheNew York Times. In 2017, Politico Magazine named Gerken one of The Politico 50, a list of idea makers in American politics. At Yale, she founded and runs the country's most innovative clinic in local government law, the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project (SFALP). Gerken is also a renowned teacher who has won awards at both Yale and Harvard. She was named one of the nation's "twenty-six best law teachers" in a book published by the Harvard University Press. She became dean of Yale Law School on July 1, 2017.
Nancy Gertner
Nancy Gertner was United States District Court Judge (D. Mass.) from 1994-2011. She retired to join the faculty at Harvard Law School and has been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School. Prior to 1994, Gertner was a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. Named one of "The Most Influential Lawyers of the Past 25 Years" by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, she has published widely on sentencing, discrimination, forensic evidence, women's rights, and the jury system. Her autobiography, "In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate," (Beacon Press) was published in 2011. She is coauthor of "The Law of Juries" (Thomson Reuters, 2021). She is the author of an edited volume of the dissenting and majority opinions of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Talbot, forthcoming). She is writing a memoir, "Incomplete Sentences" (Beacon, forthcoming) about the men she has sentenced. A graduate of Barnard College, with a M.A in Political Science and J.D. from Yale, she clerked for Justice Luther Swygert, Chief Judge, 7th Circuit. She has received numerous awards, including the ABA's Margaret Brent Award, the National Association of Women Lawyers' Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, and the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association. In October 2014, she was a resident scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy.
Jack Goldsmith
Jack Goldsmith is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founder of Lawfare. He teaches and writes about national security law, presidential power, cybersecurity, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and federal courts. Before coming to Harvard, Professor Goldsmith served as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel from 2003-2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of Defense from 2002-2003.
Thomas B. Griffith
Thomas B. Griffith served on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit from 2005 – 2020. He is now Special Counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth, a Senior Advisor to the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. During his tenure on the D.C. Circuit, Judge Griffith served on the Judicial Conference's Committee on the Judicial Branch, which is concerned with the federal judiciary's relationship to the Executive Branch and Congress, and the Code of Conduct Committee, which sets the ethical standards that govern the federal judiciary. Prior to his appointment to the D.C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was the General Counsel of Brigham Young University. Previously he served as Senate Legal Counsel, the nonpartisan chief legal officer of the U.S. Senate, and before that was a partner at Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Judge Griffith has long been active in the American Bar Association's rule of law projects in Eastern Europe and Eurasia and is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute in Prague. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and the University of Virginia School of Law.
Tara Leigh Grove
Tara Leigh Grove is the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr., Endowed Chairholder of Law and Director of the Program in Constitutional Studies at the University of Alabama School of Law. After graduating summa cum laude from Duke University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Grove clerked for Judge Emilio Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She then spent four years as an appellate attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, arguing fifteen cases in the courts of appeals. Grove has written extensively about the federal judiciary, exploring issues related to judicial legitimacy and judicial independence. Grove's work has been published in prestigious law journals, such as the Harvard Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. Grove has served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
Bert I. Huang
Bert I. Huang is Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia University, where he received the Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching from the law school's graduating class. The university has also recognized him with its Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. At Columbia, he created the Courts & Legal Process colloquium to bring judges, students, and faculty together to discuss new academic research about the judiciary; and he previously served as a vice dean. He has also taught at Harvard. He served as the president of the Harvard Law Review and as a law clerk for Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court. He also clerked for Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He completed his J.D. and Ph.D. at Harvard University, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow. After receiving his A.B. from Harvard, he was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford and worked for the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Sherrilyn Ifill
Sherrilyn Ifill is the President & Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation's oldest and premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. Ifill began her career as a Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, and then as an Assistant Counsel at LDF where she litigated voting rights cases in the South. In 1993 Ifill joined the faculty at University of Maryland School of Law, where she taught civil procedure, constitutional law, and a broad range of civil rights and clinical offerings. Her scholarship focused on the critical importance of a racially diverse judiciary to the integrity of judicial decision-making. Ifill also studies and writes about racial violence. Her critically acclaimed book, On The Courthouse Lawn: Confronting The Legacy Of Lynching In The 21st Century, is credited with inspiring contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation. Since returning to LDF as its 7th President & Director-Counsel in 2013, Ifill has led the organization's bold advocacy in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, on behalf of clients fighting voter suppression, racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, and a broad array of other urgent civil rights issues. Ifill is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She holds an undergraduate degree from Vassar College, a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and numerous honorary doctorates.
Michael S. Kang
Michael S. Kang is the William G. and Virginia K. Karnes Research Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and nationally recognized expert on campaign finance, voting rights, redistricting, judicial elections, and corporate governance. His research has been published widely in leading law journals and featured in TheNew York Times, The Washington Post, and Forbes, among others. His recent work focuses on partisan gerrymandering; the influence of party and campaign finance on elected judges; the de-regulation of campaign finance after Citizens United; and so-called "sore loser laws" that restrict losing primary candidates from running in the general election. Kang previously served as the Thomas Simmons Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. He received his BA and JD from the University of Chicago, where he served as technical editor of the Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. He also received a PhD in government from Harvard University and an MA from the University of Illinois. After law school, he clerked for Judge Kanne on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and worked in private practice at Ropes & Gray in Boston.
Olatunde Johnson
Olatunde Johnson is the Jerome B. Sherman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School where she teaches and writes about legislation, administrative law, antidiscrimination law, litigation, and inequality in the United States. In February 2020, she was appointed by the United States Department of Justice to the Resolutions Committee honoring Justice John Paul Stevens. In 2016, she was awarded Columbia University's Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, and Columbia Law School's Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Previously, Professor Johnson served as constitutional and civil rights counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Professor Johnson graduated from Yale University and from Stanford Law School. After law school, she clerked for Judge David Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court.
Alison L. LaCroix
Alison L. LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She is also an Associate Member of the University of Chicago Department of History. Professor LaCroix is the author of The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (Harvard University Press, 2010), and in 2018 she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for her current book project, titled The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery From the Long Founding Moment to the Civil War (Yale University Press, forthcoming). Before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 2006, she practiced in the litigation department at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Professor LaCroix received her B.A. and J.D. from Yale University, and her A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Margaret H. Lemos
Maggie Lemos is the Robert G. Seaks LL.B. '34 Professor of Law, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, and faculty co-advisor for the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. She is a scholar of constitutional law, legal institutions, and procedure. Her current research focuses on the institutions of law interpretation and enforcement, including both public and private lawyers, and their effects on substantive rights. Lemos is also a co-author of a new multidisciplinary coursebook on judicial decision making. She teaches courses on civil procedure, legislation, and judicial process, and was awarded Duke's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2013. Prior to joining the Duke Law faculty, Lemos was an associate professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; a Bristow Fellow at the Office of the Solicitor General; and a law clerk for Judge Kermit V. Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her B.A. from Brown University.
David F. Levi
David F. Levi is the Levi Family Professor of Law and Judicial Studies and Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Levi was previously the James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke Dean of the Duke Law School. He served as dean for 11 years from 2007-2018. Prior to his appointment at Duke, Levi was the Chief United States District Judge for the Eastern District of California with chambers in Sacramento. He was appointed to the district court in 1990. From 1986-1990 he was the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California. Following graduation from Stanford Law School in 1980, Levi served as a law clerk to Judge Ben C. Duniway of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then to Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court. Levi has served as member and chair of two U.S. Judicial Conference committees — the Advisory Committee on the Civil Rules and the Standing Committee on the Rules of Practice and Procedure. He was chair of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the American Judicial System (2014-2016). He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author or co-author of several books, articles, and published speeches mostly on the judiciary, judicial independence, and judicial decision-making. He is President of the American Law Institute.
Trevor W. Morrison
Trevor Morrison serves as Dean of NYU School of Law, where he is also the Eric M. and Laurie B. Roth Professor of Law. He previously held faculty appointments at Cornell Law School and Columbia Law School. Morrison's research and teaching interests are in constitutional law (especially separation of powers), federal courts, and the law of the executive branch. After graduating from Columbia Law School, he served as a law clerk to Judge Betty Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between those clerkships, he was a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Justice Department's Office of the Solicitor General, an attorney-adviser in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and an associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale). Morrison also served as associate counsel to President Barack Obama. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Caleb Nelson
Caleb Nelson is the Emerson G. Spies Distinguished Professor of Law and the Caddell and Chapman Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College and his J.D. from Yale Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court. He joined the Virginia faculty in 1998. At Virginia, he has taught Federal Courts, Civil Procedure, Legislation, and Constitutional Law. His articles have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review (forthcoming), the Virginia Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. He is also the author of a casebook on statutory interpretation, published by Foundation Press. He is a member of the American Law Institute and a past winner of the University of Virginia's All-University Teaching Award. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and as the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School.
Richard H. Pildes
Professor Richard H. Pildes is Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and one of the country's leading experts on the legal aspects of American democracy and government. His academic work focuses on all aspects of the political process, as well as legal issues concerning the structure of American government, including the powers of the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. His two casebooks, The Law of Democracy and When Elections Go Bad, created the law of democracy as a field of study in the law schools. In addition to editing the book, The Future of the Voting Rights Act, he has published more than seventy academic articles. Pildes has represented numerous clients before the Supreme Court. He served as a law clerk at the Court to Justice Thurgood Marshall and to Judge Abner J. Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He has testified several times before the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Born in Chicago, he began his teaching career at the University of Michigan Law School, before moving to NYU. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, as well as a Guggenheim Fellow.
Michael D. Ramsey
Michael D. Ramsey is Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, foreign relations law, and international law. He is the author of The Constitution's Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press 2007), co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press 2011), and co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (Aspen 2015) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (12th ed., West 2015). His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal and the American Journal of International Law. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and at the University of Paris – Sorbonne, in the Department of Comparative Law.
Cristina M. Rodríguez (Co-Chair)
Cristina M. Rodríguez is the Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her fields of research and teaching include constitutional law and theory, immigration law and policy, and administrative law and process. Her new book, The President and Immigration Law (with Adam B. Cox) was published by Oxford University Press in September 2020, and explores the long history of presidential control over immigration policy and its implications for the future of immigration law and the presidency itself. Rodríguez joined Yale Law School in 2013 after serving for two years as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was on the faculty at the New York University School of Law from 2004–2012 and has been Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia Law Schools. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and a past member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a past recipient of the Yale Law Women Award for Excellence in Teaching. She earned her B.A. and J.D. degrees from Yale and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where she received a Master of Letters in Modern History. Following law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kermit Roosevelt
Kermit Roosevelt is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he teaches constitutional law and conflict of laws. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. Before joining the Penn faculty, he practiced appellate litigation with Mayer Brown in Chicago and clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.
Bertrall Ross
Bertrall Ross is the Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, election law, administrative law, and statutory interpretation. Ross's research is driven by a concern about democratic responsiveness and accountability, as well as the inclusion of marginalized communities in administrative and political processes. His past scholarship has been published in several books and journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the NYU Law Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review. Ross is currently working on book projects related to separation of powers, gerrymandering, and voter data as a tool for disfranchisement. Ross has been the recipient of the Berkeley Law Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Princeton University Law and Public Affairs Fellowship, the Columbia Law School Kellis Parker Academic Fellowship, and the Marshall Scholarship. He is currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Ross earned his law degree from Yale Law School and Masters degrees from the London School of Economics and Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to joining Berkeley Law, he clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
David A. Strauss
David Strauss is the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Living Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2010) and the co-author of Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court (Oxford University Press, 2019), and he has written many academic and popular articles on constitutional law and related subjects. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a co-editor of the Supreme Court Review. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Georgetown. He has served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has argued nineteen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Laurence H. Tribe
Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University. Tribe has taught at Harvard since 1968 and was voted the best professor by the class of 2000. The title "University Professor" is Harvard's highest academic honor, awarded to a handful of professors at any given time and to fewer than 75 professors in Harvard University's history. Tribe clerked for the California and U.S. Supreme Courts; was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980 and the American Philosophical Society in 2010; helped write the constitutions of South Africa, the Czech Republic, and the Marshall Islands; and has received eleven honorary degrees, most recently a degree honoris causa from the Government of Mexico in March 2011 (never before awarded to an American) and an LL.D from Columbia University. Tribe has argued 35 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. He was appointed in 2010 by President Obama and Attorney General Holder to serve as the first Senior Counselor for Access to Justice. He has written 115 books and articles, most recently, "To End A Presidency: The Power of Impeachment." His treatise, "American Constitutional Law," has been cited more than any other legal text since 1950.
Adam White
Adam White is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, where he directs the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. He writes on the courts, the Constitution, administrative law, and regulatory policy. He is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and he serves on the board of the Land Conservation Assistance Network. Previously he practiced constitutional and administrative law in Washington, D.C., and he clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In 2005, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy published his study of the Senate's constitutional power to grant or withhold its "advice and consent" for judicial nominations.
Keith E. Whittington
Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University and is currently the chair of Academic Freedom Alliance. He works on American constitutional history, politics and law, and on American political thought. He is the author of Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present and Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History, among other works. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Texas School of Law, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University.
Michael Waldman
Michael Waldman is the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to strengthen the systems of democracy and justice so they work for all Americans. The Center is a leading national voice on voting rights, money in politics, criminal justice reform, and constitutional law. Waldman has led the Center since 2005. He is the author of The Fight to Vote (2016), a history of the struggle to win voting rights for all citizens, The Second Amendment: A Biography (2014), and five other books. Waldman served as director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995-1999, and special assistant to the president for policy coordination from 1993-1995. He was responsible for writing or editing nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the Union and two inaugural addresses. He is a graduate of NYU School of Law and Columbia College.
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/04/09/executive-order-on-the-establishment-of-the-presidential-commission-on-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states/
Executive Order on the Establishment of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States
April 09, 2021 • Presidential Actions
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment. There is established the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States (Commission).
Sec. 2. Membership. (a) The Commission shall be composed of not more than 36 members appointed by the President.
(b) Members of the Commission shall be distinguished constitutional scholars, retired members of the Federal judiciary, or other individuals having experience with and knowledge of the Federal judiciary and the Supreme Court of the United States (Supreme Court).
(c) The President shall designate two members of the Commission to serve as Co-Chairs.
Sec. 3. Functions. (a) The Commission shall produce a report for the President that includes the following:
(i) An account of the contemporary commentary and debate about the role and operation of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system and about the functioning of the constitutional process by which the President nominates and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints Justices to the Supreme Court;
(ii) The historical background of other periods in the Nation's history when the Supreme Court's role and the nominations and advice-and-consent process were subject to critical assessment and prompted proposals for reform; and
(iii) An analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals.
(b) The Commission shall solicit public comment, including other expert views, to ensure that its work is informed by a broad spectrum of ideas.
(c) The Commission shall submit its report to the President within 180 days of the date of the Commission's first public meeting.
Sec. 4. Administration. (a) The Office of Administration within the Executive Office of the President shall provide funding and administrative support for the Commission to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations. To the extent permitted by law, including the Economy Act (31 U.S.C. 1535), and subject to the availability of appropriations, the General Services Administration shall provide administrative services, including facilities, staff, equipment, and other support services as may be necessary to carry out the objectives of the Commission.
(b) Members of the Commission shall serve without compensation for their work on the Commission, but shall be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, to the extent permitted by law for persons serving intermittently in the Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707).
(c) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. App.) (Act), may apply to the Commission, any functions of the President under the Act, except for those in section 6 of the Act, shall be performed by the Administrator of General Services.
Sec. 5. Termination. The Commission shall terminate 30 days after it submits its report to the President.
Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 9, 2021.
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A Proclamation on National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day, 2021
April 09, 2021 • Presidential Actions
Throughout our Nation's history, those who have served in our Armed Forces have steadfastly stood in defense of the United States and of freedom throughout the world. Although countless courageous service members and civilians have given their lives for our Nation, more than half a million others have sacrificed their own freedom as prisoners of war so the cause of liberty always prevails.
Enduring with limitless dignity and determination, these former prisoners of war are a powerful reminder that their indomitable spirit could not be broken, even by brutal treatment in contravention of international law and morality. Despite the terrible suffering inflicted upon them by their captors in harsh prisons and camps in Europe and Asia, American prisoners of war steadfastly demonstrated their devotion to duty, honor, and country.
On this day and every day, let us honor all who have borne the hardships of captivity in service to our Nation, remember the brave men and women who were held as prisoners in foreign lands during our Nation's past conflicts, and recognize those at home who anxiously awaited their loved ones' return. Their faith in G-d, love of family, and trust in our Nation are an inspiration to all Americans, and we will always remember their sacrifices.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 9, 2021, as National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day by honoring the service and sacrifice of all former prisoners of war as our Nation expresses its eternal gratitude for their sacrifice. I also call upon Federal, State, and local government officials and organizations to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of April, in the year of our L-rd two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX_(rapper)
Charles Barkley: "I've been poor, I've been rich, I've been fat, I've been in the Hall of Fame, and one thing I can tell you is that the Clippers have alway sucked."
https://streamable.com/c7yp53
DMX, born Earl Simmons, had a much-publicized battle with drug addiction throughout his entire career, which he spoke and rapped openly about. Considered one of the most influential rappers of the late 1990s and 2000s, DMX breathed new life into the rap game when he released his debut album, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, in 1998, spearheaded by hit singles like "Get at Me Dog," Ruff Ryders' Anthem" and "Stop Being Greedy." He followed up the same year with his sophomore effort, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, and became the first artist to put out two platinum albums in a year. He would go on to release eight solo studio LPs in total as well as delving into acting with major roles in films like Belly, Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds. Throughout his career, X struggled to balance fame and staying on the right path. He had been arrested on many occasions in the past two decades, and served a one-year jail stint for tax evasion, for which he was released in 2019. In September of 2019, he signed a new recording contract with Def Jam, reuniting with his first major label home. A month later, he entered into a drug rehabilitation facility. In August of 2020, he announced he was working on his first album since 2015's Redemption of the Beast with frequent collaborator Swizz Beatz. Always remembered for his gruff style, strong spirituality and uncanny personality, DMX will truly be missed.
Bye Bye Terrorist Who Arrested Tens Of Thousands Of Latin American Children And Imprisoned: Ambassador Roberta Jacobson's leadership in serving as the Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for the Southwest Border at the National Security Council has been an invaluable contribution to the Biden-Harris Administration and to the United States. Ambassador Jacobson dedicated her career to working tirelessly to advance U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, including as the United States Ambassador to Mexico, and President Biden knew there was no person better to usher in a more safe, secure, and just approach to our Southern Border. Consistent with her commitment at the outset to serve in the Administration's first 100 days, Ambassador Jacobson will retire from her role as Coordinator at the end of this month. She will do so having shaped our relationship with Mexico as an equal partner, having launched our renewed efforts with the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and having underscored this Administration's commitment to reenergizing the U.S. immigration system. President Biden has asked Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Administration's work on our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle, a testament to the importance this administration places on improving conditions in the region. The Vice President is overseeing a whole-of-government approach supported by outstanding public servants across the interagency including Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who were tasked by the President at the beginning of the administration to rebuild our immigration system.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/09/statement-from-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-on-the-service-of-ambassador-jacobson-coordinator-for-the-southwest-border/
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/09/president-biden-announces-his-intent-to-nominate-key-members-for-the-department-of-veterans-affairs-department-of-labor-department-of-energy-and-department-of-transportation/
President Biden Announces his Intent to Nominate Key Members for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Labor, Department of Energy, and Department of Transportation
April 09, 2021 • Statements and Releases
WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Matt Quinn for Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, Doug Parker for Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, Department of Labor, Ali Nouri for Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, Department of Energy, and Nuria Fernandez for Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, Department of Transportation.
Matt Quinn, Nominee for Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs
Major General (Retired) Matthew Quinn served nearly 37 years in our US Army and Army National Guard, culminating in his selection as the 27th Adjutant General for the State of Montana. He is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, commanding Soldiers at the company and battalion level. Prior to selection as the Adjutant General, Quinn was the President of ELM Locating and Utility Services, while serving in the Montana National Guard as a traditional (Drill status) Guardsman. Like all National Guard and Reserve women and men who serve, he carefully balanced his family, military and civilian careers.
MG (Ret) Quinn has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering degree from Montana State University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Montana, and a Master of Strategic Studies from the US Army War College. Quinn is married to Jody Quinn and they are the proud parents of five children, Jon, Braeden, Maddi, Kailyn, and Megan ranging in age from 32 to 18. They enjoy everything that Montana has to offer in the great outdoors while spending time with family.
Doug Parker, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, Department of Labor
Douglas L. Parker of San Francisco, California, previously served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, and was a member of the Biden-Harris transition team focused on worker health and safety issues. He also held positions as a senior policy advisor and special assistant at the Department of Labor. He currently serves as chief of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), a position he has held since 2019. Prior to his appointment to Cal/OSHA, Parker was executive director of Worksafe, an Oakland, California-based legal services provider.
Before serving in the Obama Administration, Parker was a partner at the law firm Mooney, Green, Saindon, Murphy and Welch, in Washington, DC. He began his legal career as a staff attorney at the United Mine Workers of America. Prior to law school, Parker worked in the private sector as a sales and marketing director, in communications for the Democratic National Committee, and was a staff assistant for the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Parker earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.A. in history from James Madison University. He is married and has two daughters. Parker is originally from Bluefield, West Virginia, and grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Ali Nouri, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, Department of Energy
Ali Nouri, PhD joined the Administration in January and was serving as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Energy's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. Previously, he was the President of the Federation of American Scientists, a public policy organization focused on countering WMDs, addressing emerging infectious diseases, and crafting solutions to energy and innovation challenges. Under his leadership, the organization also tackled science denialism and COVID-19 misinformation by providing timely, science-based information to policy makers and to the public.
Previously, Nouri served as an advisor in the US Senate for nearly a decade, including 6 years for a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. During his time in the Senate he served in various positions including as an Energy and Environment Advisor, a National Security Advisor, and as a Legislative Director. Prior to that, Nouri served as an advisor to the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan where he developed initiatives to block biotechnology from being used to produce biological weapons. He earned a BA in biology from Reed College and a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University. He resides in Washington DC with his wife, Logan Gibson, and their two sons.
Nuria Fernandez, Nominee for Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, Department of Transportation
Nuria Fernandez was appointed as the Deputy Administrator and senior official of the Federal Transit Administration on January 20, 2021. With more than 35 years of experience, Fernandez has made a name for herself as an inspiring leader in the transportation industry. She comes to FTA after serving as the General Manager and CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), delivering projects, programs, and transit services that provide mobility solutions for more than two million people who live and work in Silicon Valley.
Prior to leading VTA, Fernandez held leadership positions at some of the busiest transit agencies in America, including Chief Operating Officer of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Sr. Vice President of Design and Construction for the Chicago Transit Authority and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, consecutively. She also served as Commissioner for the Chicago Department of Aviation, overseeing O'Hare and Midway Airports. Fernandez is the immediate past Chair of the American Public Transportation Association, and served on the boards of the Mineta Transportation Institute, The Transportation Learning Center and on the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board.
Nuria Fernandez was born and raised in Panama City, Panama. She holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, and an M.B.A. from Roosevelt University in Chicago.
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Four months into the national vaccination effort, what's most mystifying is the number of states waiting to order all the doses they've been allotted, based on their adult populations and the supplies available that week
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/09/vaccine-distribution-delays/?tid=ss_tw
As Kremlin masses troops on Ukraine's borders, SecDef plans debut visit to NATO HQ to discuss "how alliance is tackling destabilizing behavior by Russia."
https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Advisories/Advisory/Article/2566427/secretary-austin-travels-to-israel-germany-nato-hq-and-united-kingdom/
The Biden administration is considering stripping restrictions put in place by Trump's presidential determination to cast a wider net of refugees who can arrive in the US, until the ceiling is raised. YOU RAN ON A PLATFORM OF ELIMINATING THE RESTRICTIONS AND RESTORING THE REFUGEE ALLOWANCE. YOU SIGNED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER TO DO THAT. THEN INSTRUCTED THE IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT TO IGNORE THE EXECUTIVE ORDER.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/refugees-us-cap-biden/index.html
SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. All right. Thanks a lot, Jen. And thanks, everyone. It's a real honor to be here, especially at such an important and exciting moment for the country. I'm convinced that this is the best chance in our lifetimes to make a generational investment in infrastructure, and that's what the American Jobs Plan does. The need is clear. It's growing by the day. After decades of underinvestment, we have fallen to 13th place globally in infrastructure. Delays caused by traffic congestion alone cost over $160 billion per year, and motorists are forced to pay over $1,000 every year in wasted time and fuel. Americans are spending too much of their money on transportation in the wrong ways or don't have access to it at all. And the American people are making clear to all of us, regardless of party, that they want us to get it done and they are not asking us to tinker around the edges. We've risen to this challenge before as a country. In fact, building bold infrastructure has always been central to America's story. We built the Erie Canal, we connected east to west through the transcontinental railroad, and we developed the Interstate Highway System. And each of those projects was audacious, was transformative, and — partly because it challenged the American people to expand our concept of infrastructure. But in doing so, these projects have transformed our nation for the better, and they fueled the U.S. economy and way of life for the long run. So now it's our turn. The American Jobs Plan will again transform America's roads and bridges, rail and transit, ports and airports for the better. It's going to help modernize our transportation infrastructure so we can compete in the 21st century and connect communities. It will create millions of good jobs in communities across the country. I want to point out again that this is the biggest investment in American jobs since World War Two. But I think it's important to demystify the kinds of jobs that this plan is going to create. These are good jobs; they're not mysterious or overly futuristic or inaccessible. We are going to need workers who are good with steel to make the cars and trucks of the future. We're talking about building retrofits that are going to require union carpenters and insulators, painters, and glaziers. We're going to need electrical workers more than ever. And we're not going to be able to build the roads we need to build without construction workers, laborers, operating engineers. Plumbers and pipefitters are going to be a huge part of the story of how we overhaul those lead service lines. So this is a jobs plan that is building America's economy from the middle class out, coming at just the right time. It's meeting the challenges that we face today. And it is fully paid for by making corporations pay their fair share. We think it's unacceptable that there are major profitable corporations in this country paying less in taxes than a teacher or a firefighter, not in terms of a percentage, but in terms of dollars — specifically, in many cases, paying zero. And there's been a lot of talk at this moment, as you know, about what infrastructure is and isn't. I would argue that infrastructure is the foundation that makes it possible for people to live and work well. And you can't live or work or thrive without things like roads, clean water, electricity, broadband — yes, that's infrastructure. And investing in a full vision of infrastructure is how we build a safer and more prosperous America, and ultimately, I believe, critical to the American Dream. So that's why I'm thrilled to be in this role, delighted by the American Jobs Plan announcement, and spending time every day speaking to stakeholders about how to make sure we get it through.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/09/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-transportation-pete-buttigieg-april-9-2021/
SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG: I think because it's really important to understand that American competitiveness happens in a context. And when you see other countries — our allies; also our strategic competitors — doing more than we are, it challenges that fundamental idea that American life is what it is partly because America is in first place in so many of these aspects of our national life. Only America is not in first place in infrastructure. Like I said, we're in 13th. So when you have a strategic competitor, like China, investing sometimes multiples of what we are in forms of transportation, we have to make a decision about whether we're content to be left behind or whether we actually want to remain number one. And for my dime, there's no good reason why we should settle for less, why we should be content that — it's nothing against Chinese citizens, but I'm not content that a Chinese citizen can count on a dramatically better standard of, let's say, train travel than a U.S. citizen. I think Americans should always have the best, and I think that's the tone that the President sets every day.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/09/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-transportation-pete-buttigieg-april-9-2021/
Q And have Republicans given you, so far, alternative suggestions for how to pay for it that you believe are viable?
SECRETARY BUTTIGIEG: Not in any detail, no.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/09/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-transportation-pete-buttigieg-april-9-2021/
___________________________________
Why It's So Hard for America to End Its Wars
Is there any way for Biden to achieve peace with honor in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan?
By Robin Wright
April 9, 2021
In March, General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., an Alabama-born marine who commands U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, took a whirlwind tour of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon—America's most volatile theatre of operations. Some legs of the trip were made on a C-17, a cavernous aircraft that can hold a hundred and thirty-two caskets, arranged in three rows and stacked on pallets four atop one another, the crew told me. Seven thousand American troops have been killed, and another fifty-four thousand have been injured, in the post-9/11 wars. When President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. troop presence in the four countries was down to just two per cent of peak deployments, and, technically, these troops are no longer fighting. Their missions are largely limited to helping equip local allies, map strategy, share (or get) intelligence, occasionally provide airpower, and support local peace processes. Yet this last phase of America's military engagements may be the most confounding. As things now stand, the U.S. can't "win" in any country. Its allies are still weak militarily. Its adversaries have adapted or even gained strength. And the political morass in each place is as bad—and often worse—as when the U.S. first got involved.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf
For millennia, politicians, from Cicero to Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon, have opined about "peace with honor" to end military engagements; writers, from Shakespeare and Edmund Burke to A. A. Milne, have waxed eloquent on the challenges. Biden is the fourth President to try to achieve it in the Middle East and South Asia in the twenty-first century. There's a lot of debate in Washington about what he should do—and whether the U.S. should simply pack up and pull out of the region, which is what it did in Vietnam, in 1973, and in Lebanon, in 1984, under pressure from ragtag militias with vintage weaponry who were better strategists and willing to sacrifice more lives. With the pivot to Asia—a.k.a. China—and American energy independence, why stay longer? From a distance, it's appealing; from the ground, it's a more challenging call.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-withdraws-from-vietnam
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/31/world/us-withdrawing-its-military-force-on-lebanon-coast.html
For Biden, his legacy could be either of two extremes—a President who finally extricated America from quagmires in the messy Middle East, or a leader who ceded ground to ISIS jihadis and the dictatorial Assad regime in Syria, Sunni extremists and well-armed Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not to mention Russia, which now has access to bases on the Mediterranean, in Syria, and in Libya, farther west than it's ever been. Biden's legacy will shape America's legacy, too.
McKenzie's trip coincided with Operation Ready Lion, a massive air campaign against ISIS fighters along the Iraqi border with Syria. U.S. warplanes conducted a hundred and thirty-three air strikes over ten days—more than in all of 2020—pounding dozens of mountain caves and desert redoubts. Two years after the caliphate collapsed, in March, 2019, there are still between eight thousand and sixteen thousand Islamic State fighters carrying out assassinations and suicide bombings in Iraq and Syria, a Pentagon report noted in February. The latest air strikes killed fewer than thirty fighters. The parallel problem is that Iraq's flash points—sharing political power and oil revenues among its sectarian, ethnic, and political blocs—have still not been resolved, eighteen years after the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein. Even eliminating ISIS might not end the threat because the tensions that produced extremism have not been addressed. "There's going to be something that follows ISIS," McKenzie told me. "The conditions that gave it birth still exist. So why should we expect different outcomes? The future is not going to be bloodless."
https://www.airforcemag.com/coalition-aircraft-iraqi-forces-continue-large-offensive-targeting-isis/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/isis-still-has-global-reach-despite-the-caliphates-collapse
https://media.defense.gov/2021/Feb/09/2002578750/-1/-1/1/LEAD%20INSPECTOR%20GENERAL%20FOR%20OPERATION%20INHERENT%20RESOLVE.PDF
Just as dangerous in the longer term are the new Shiite militias in Iraq that cropped up to fight ISIS, between 2014 and 2017, and then physically and politically moved into the spaces that the Sunni jihadis vacated. American Presidents have a bad habit of ordering the military to defeat one bad guy only to generate a cycle of new bad guys that evolve into bigger local or global military threats. Iraq is a prime example. The Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, a Shiite, has vowed to use his limited leverage to rein in the Shiite militias, which have attacked both the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi bases used by the American military. It's a condition for U.S. forces—whose numbers have dropped from a hundred and sixty-five thousand, in 2007, to twenty-five hundred today—to stay and fight ISIS. Al-Kadhimi has had little success—and at a political price. Iraq's Shiites are now split between supporters of al-Kadhimi and backers of the militias—basically over whether they want the U.S. to stay or go. The chasm is so deep, with elections due in October, that American officials worry about a civil war between Shiite factions.
https://thearabweekly.com/kadhimi-forced-make-difficult-decisions-crisis-lingers
In Syria, McKenzie visited the Green Village, a community of decrepit apartment blocks near a bombed-out oil facility that served as the operational headquarters for the final push to erase the caliphate, in 2019. These days, the only military action there is from U.S. forces firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, "just to say we're here," one officer told me. The U.S. military presence—nine hundred troops in the northeast provinces—provides "critical enabling capabilities" to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are still fighting the ground war against ISIS in Syria, McKenzie said. "If we left, those capabilities would go away." Forcing ISIS underground in Syria has also contained its ability to plot attacks on the United States and Europe, as it did until 2018. "It's difficult to plan to attack Detroit if you're listening to a drone overhead and wondering how you're going to make it through the night," McKenzie said.
The U.S. military presence could create leverage for its allies in an eventual resolution of Syria's protracted conflict. What happens in Syria is ultimately going to be a political matter, not a military matter, Lieutenant General Paul Calvert, the commander of U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, told me during McKenzie's visit. "We're holding the space with the S.D.F. to enable a political solution." The S.D.F. has a big bargaining chip: control over Syria's major oil fields, which yield revenues that the Assad regime needs to reconstruct the country after a decade of war. U.S. troops are not in charge of the oil fields, as President Donald Trump once claimed. But they do back up the S.D.F. patrols. The U.S. presence also keeps away Russian, Iranian, and Syrian government forces who control most of Syria but don't want a war for the territory while the Americans—or their airpower—are around. "It's important that we remain, at least for now, and work with our partners," McKenzie said.
Coping with the aftermath of the caliphate has produced a separate danger. The S.D.F., a militia that has neither large jails nor a state judicial system, still holds twelve thousand former ISIS fighters and more than sixty thousand of their family members, whose home countries refuse to take them back. Most of the families are in al-Hawl, a displaced-persons camp that is more like a prison. The family members come from fifty-eight nations, including two dozen in Europe; two-thirds are children under the age of twelve, who get more indoctrination than education. Al-Hawl has become a hotbed of radicalism, a kind of mini-caliphate. More than forty adults and two children have been murdered—some by guns with silencers—in the past three months. In late March, five thousand S.D.F. troops swept the camp during a five-day operation to try to restore order. "This generation's going to become a violent, radicalized generation," McKenzie warned. "It's all they know. You shouldn't expect it to be any different if that's all they're exposed to."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/23/thousands-foreigners-unlawfully-held-ne-syria
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/two-children-killed-al-hol-camp-syria
https://news.yahoo.com/syrian-kurdish-forces-end-sweep-151653008.html
In Lebanon, McKenzie visited four bases where small U.S. Special Operations Forces train the Lebanese Armed Forces and coordinate on counterterrorism. ISIS has penetrated the eastern mountains; members of two cells have been arrested this year. More worrisome, Lebanon has been without a government since August. Its economy is in free fall, and its currency has lost ninety per cent of its value. More than half the population in a country once dubbed the Switzerland of the Middle East now live below the poverty line. The Lebanese military is the lone state institution still functioning, even as its troops receive a fraction of their promised pay. "We view the L.A.F. as our best hope in that country," McKenzie said, even as he acknowledged that many of its troops are going hungry. In an aside, one of the commanders who briefed McKenzie told me, "We're losing Lebanon. It's only months away." After the state, the most powerful institution—politically, militarily, and economically—is Hezbollah. Of the many militias in the Middle East, it is the most professional and has the deepest political penetration, the deadliest arsenal, and the biggest treasury.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/world/middleeast/lebanon-government-resigns-beirut.html
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/lebanese-pound-lost-almost-90-its-value-18-months
The most imminent decision for Biden will be in Afghanistan, where the Taliban controls half the territory, even after two decades of war and a trillion-dollar investment by the U.S. After a seven-month deadlock, the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to hold peace talks, on April 16th, in Istanbul, but prospects of an enduring agreement seem slim. Last month, Secretary of State Tony Blinken urged a power-sharing government, which was rejected by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. He proposes new elections, which the Taliban rejects. Meanwhile, in its own deal with the Taliban, the U.S. is committed to withdrawing the final three thousand troops in Afghanistan—down from more than a hundred thousand, in 2011—by May 1st. Without U.S. support, the Afghan Army is almost certain to lose more turf, potentially even most of the country, to the Taliban. McKenzie's Central Command estimates that Al Qaeda could regroup under Taliban rule and be able to attack the U.S. within two or three years.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-peace/afghan-leader-proposes-peace-road-map-in-three-phases-document-idUSKBN2BR0E1
As his policy review wraps up, Biden faces tough decisions on each country. All four are either failing or in existential crisis—which is one of several reasons that more than seventy per cent of Americans want troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to come home, a Koch Institute poll reported in August. "Many Americans view the region mainly as a mess to be avoided," the retired Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the former national-security adviser who was fired by President Trump, said during testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on March 2nd. He argued that the U.S. should not disengage for three reasons: competition with Russia and China for influence in the global bastion of energy resources, containing jihadism, and the long-term impact of leaving. "U.S. disengagement from the Middle East would neither conciliate the region's violent passions nor insulate America from them," he said.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/510851-poll-about-three-quarters-support-bringing-troops-home-from-iraq-afghanistan
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/McMaster--Statement%20for%20the%20Record_03-02-21.pdf
But others want out. "Washington suffers from a hubristic confidence in its ability to accomplish political goals through military interventions," Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. "Instead, the most significant effect of recent U.S. Middle East adventurism has been to fuel perpetual wars that embolden extremist groups and allow anti-American sentiment to grow."
From afar, it's easy to make a decisive call. From the ground, it's a terrifying policy conundrum.
https://www.murphy.senate.gov/about
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/mcmaster-and-commander
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-02-19/americas-middle-east-policy-outdated-and-dangerous
___________________________________
LaVine drills his 7th three of the game, giving him 39 points for the first half
https://streamable.com/psgjun
Eye Sore Sequence By The Sixers and The Pelicans
https://streamable.com/sf7a7z
Zach LaVine has 39 points (7/8 3's) with 1:30 minutes left in the 2nd quarter
Jayson Tatum gets a technical foul for bouncing the ball
https://streamable.com/mgztc1
Los Angeles Clippers say Patrick Beverley suffered a fracture in his left hand and underwent surgery that’ll keep him sidelined at minimum 3-4 weeks.
https://twitter.com/ChrisBHaynes/status/1380672839775182853
MVP candidate Nikola Jokic finishes with 26 points, 13 rebounds and 14 assists as he dominates against the Spurs
Zion Williamson Tonight: 37/15/8 on 15/28 shooting, 0/1 from three and 7/11 from the line
Zach LaVine Tonight: 50/8/5 on 18/31 shooting, 7/12 from three and 7/8 from the line
Trae Young Tonight: 42/8/9 on 15/25 shooting, 1/6 from three and 11/14
Russell Westbrook Disappointed After His Teammates Keep Missing Layups After Making Crazy Passes
https://streamable.com/3b26hs
A Braves fan attempts to heckle Bryce Harper by saying he will never be as good as "Acoon". Bryce corrects his pronunciation. Acuna is an Atlanta Braves. The Atlanta Braves fan heckled Bryce (a Philadelphia Phillies player) by calling his own Atlanta Braves player Acuna "a coon".
https://twitter.com/legates23/status/1380700139396956162?s=21
Reggie "Goggles" Jackson puts up 26 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 0 turnovers on 10-14 FG, 6-9 from 3 in 30 minutes in the Clippers 17 points victory against the Rockets
Nazi atrocities at Stalingrad revealed in declassified documents
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-nazism-world-war-two-red-army-atrocities-1582286
Undercover footage shows 'gratuitous cruelty' at Madrid's animal testing facility
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/08/undercover-footage-shows-gratuitous-cruelty-at-spanish-animal-testing-facility-madrid-vivotecnia
The Los Angeles Lakers (33-20) defeat the Brooklyn Nets (36-17), 126 - 101
Gary Trent Tonight: 44/7/4 on 17/19 shooting, 7/9 from three and 3/3 from the line
Kyrie and Schroeder get ejected for talking to each other
Curry shoots over Christian Wood for his 20th point in a row, 23rd of the quarter
https://streamable.com/se0zbz
Chris Paul was coaching Devin Booker so hard in the middle of a blowout that Galloway has to drag him off the court
https://streamable.com/q2d38r
Enes the board menace sets the Trail Blazers franchise record for rebounds in a single game
https://streamable.com/lzumg1
Donovan Mitchell's Last 3 Games: 41 points, 37 points, 42 points.
Steph Curry after tonight is now 2nd in league efficiency and 2nd in volume (minimum 15 FGA, 35 games), averaging 29.9 ppg on 64.9% TS
Devin Booker threads the needle to Mikal Bridges on the fast break
https://streamable.com/mx9pev
Steph uses his bruised ass to screen for Bazemore and get him the open layup
https://streamable.com/qfsov4
Wiggins with the maple syrup against fellow countryman Olynyk
https://streamable.com/615pvr
Statement by President Joe Biden on the Electric Battery Dispute Settlement
April 11, 2021 • Statements and Releases
This settlement agreement is a win for American workers and the American auto industry. A key part of my plan to Build Back Better is to have the electric vehicles and batteries of the future built here in America, all across America, by American workers. We need a strong, diversified and resilient U.S.-based electric vehicle battery supply chain, so we can supply the growing global demand for these vehicles and components – creating good-paying jobs here at home, and laying the groundwork for the jobs of tomorrow. Today's settlement is a positive step in that direction, which will bring some welcome relief to workers in Georgia and new opportunity for workers across the country. I want to thank Ambassador Katherine Tai for her tireless work to resolve this dispute and facilitate a settlement that is good for America's future in the electric vehicle industry, and good for job creation. My American Jobs Plan will help build on this momentum, creating millions of new jobs, supporting a stronger American auto industry and making sure that we win the electric vehicle markets of the future.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/11/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-the-electric-battery-dispute-settlement/
MLB.com hasn't updated Rougned Odor's photo yet, so we have a Yankee player with a beard.
https://i.redd.it/m6iqqpuxyks61.jpg
LaDonna Tamakawastewin (Good Earth Woman) Brave Bull Allard (June 8, 1955 – April 10, 2021) was a Native American Dakota and Lakota historian, genealogist, and activist.[1] In April 2016, she was one of the founders of the resistance camps of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, aimed at halting the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.[2][3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaDonna_Brave_Bull_Allard
The crippled Atlanta Hawks (29-25) move to 4th place in the East by coming back in the 4th to defeat the hobbled Charlotte Hornets (27-25), 105-101
Clint Capela against the Hornets, 20/15/3 on 75% shooting and a +14 in a close win.
Suns clinch winning record for first time since 2014
Miles Bridges detonates on Clint Capela for the vicious poster
https://streamable.com/gyxhlc
"Over the years, this horrific case has come full circle: The father who brought his daughter in last summer to report abuse by Rose was the boy allegedly abused at age 12 in the 1995 case." Horrifying. For years, the Boston Police kept a secret: the union president was an alleged child molester. Despite 1995 evidence, Patrick Rose kept his badge, worked on child sexual assault cases, and ascended to power in the police union. He went on to molest five other children. In 1995 the Boston Police concluded that one of their officers had molested a 12-year-old child. They kept it hidden from the public, and even chose him later as union president. Six more children came forward to accuse him in August. Then-mayor now Labor Secretary Martin Walsh's administration would not release the files. Martin Walsh must be immediately removed from the cabinet and investigated.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/10/metro/years-boston-police-kept-secret-union-president-was-an-alleged-child-molester/
News: Israel, once again, sets back the nuclear weapons program of the regime in Iran, the country funding 100% of Islamic terrorism across the Middle East and Central Asia.
Echo chamber: How dare they do that when regime needs that nuclear leverage to extort the US at the negotiating table.
"Sometimes I've heard people...saying, 'You know, if I'm faithful, God's going to take care of me.' I guess what I would consider is that a vaccine is a part of god's plan for how you will take care of yourself."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1381237103577731076
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