Other's Opinion: FDA fell down on the job in baby formula shortage - Austin Daily Herald - Austin Herald

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COVID-driven shortages of everything from toilet paper to new automobiles have become common and accepted in the past couple of years. For the most part, waiting longer or buying an alternative product isn’t a big deal.

But the baby formula shortage that’s intensified in recent weeks is a big deal. Many babies need formula to stay healthy and develop.

The shortages have led desperate parents to drive long distances to find formula. And some have been victims of scammers, sending money for promised formula that never arrives.

And some people have watered down the formula they have left to make it stretch, which can be a dangerous practice according to experts, leading to malnourished babies.

The shortages didn’t have to happen — or at least not to the extent they did.

Last week lawmakers on Capitol Hill hammered officials from the Food and Drug Administration and from Abbott Nutrition, a huge supplier of formula.

The FDA, which is charged with protecting the safety and supply of drugs and food, fell down on the job. Lawmakers said the agency has let problems in its food safety programs deteriorate while it has prioritized drugs and medicines.

The FDA failed to properly inspect baby formula plants, leading to problems at plants that required Abbott to recall formula and slow production.

The FDA also failed to see the looming formula shortage and do something about it, namely importing and stockpiling baby formula from countries whose formula meets U.S. standards.

Abbott, too, drew criticism for failing to operate in a way that would have prevented recalls.

But Congress also bears some responsibility. It has underfunded the FDA for many years.

Thankfully, the formula shortage appears to be easing as the federal government has allowed importing of more formula and is pressuring Abbott to ramp up production.

Government agencies that regulate a wide variety of products and businesses often come under attack by critics who say they spend too much tax money and overregulate. But the baby formula shortage shows just how much the agencies are needed and how they must take their jobs seriously.

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Our Opinion: Flowers offer welcome - Austin Daily Herald - Austin Herald

Photo provided by Bonnie Rietz

One of the surest signs of summer in Austin is one of the most vibrant ones.

Any stroll downtown has likely resulted in your attention being drawn to the many light poles and the colorful flowers suspended beneath.

The Flower Basket Program certainly isn’t a new thing, but rather a longstanding tradition that has become a major part of downtown Austin in the summer.

Largely funded by citizen donation, the flower program has been a colorful marker of welcome, not only for those living in our city, but those who visit as well.

Being welcoming has been a driver in Austin for years now, ensuring that everybody who either visits or puts down roots feels like a part of the community. The flower baskets are one such way the community does this and this year is just as bright as those before it.

If the flowers do nothing else, it should remind people to be happy. These days things can get away from us pretty quickly, but a simple walk among such beautiful flowers can help at the very least sooth away some of those stresses.

We urge you to take a walk downtown on a sunny day and enjoy the light and aromas the flower baskets bring to Austin. This invitation goes out to everybody. Not only for those stopping downtown for a visit to the Spam Museum or to get a bite to eat, but those of us who live in Austin.

As always, it’s a welcome addition to downtown Austin and a testament to all of those involved who want to put the community’s best foot forward.

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Three Tasks After Roe - Public Discourse

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Those who have worked and prayed and labored for the day when Roe was no longer a stain on the nation are rightly eager that it may soon be overturned. Roe is a stain on the Court, an offense to our Constitutional system, and a moral horror. If the Court corrects this wrong, celebrations are in order. I hope Church bells sing out, psalms of deliverance are sung, horns are blared, holidays declared, and people host festivals their children and grandchildren will remember when old themselves. I have bubbly and fireworks stocked and ready to pop.

Injustice is intolerable; deliverance cause for joy.

And then, back to work. The effort, this long effort for which so many heroic men and women have labored, has merely begun.

We know the political struggle will not abate, either at the national or the state level, for many will attempt to enshrine Roe (or worse) as statute. States, cities, and corporations will become more explicitly pro-choice. Abortion “tourism” and abortion “havens” will flourish, as will mail-order abortifacient providers.

There are miles to go before we sleep. A cliché, but true.

In addition to the legal and political struggles, all of which will be difficult, three other areas demand our thought, effort, and perseverance, or so I suggest, without pretending that these exhaust the list or exclude others. In this Featured Collection from the Public Discourse archives, we revisit some excellent articles on these themes.

First, pro-life individuals and groups will need to augment and expand their work. This is a time to celebrate, but not to rest. Neither is it a time for preening. We cannot sink into a torpor of self-congratulation or obnoxious boasting, and the effort to be good friends and fellow citizens with those who experience the overturning of Roe as incomprehensible or cause of fear will not abate, as ably explored by Julia D. Hejduk in “Seeing beyond Roe.” The right to life includes the responsibility to live with others.

Second, I have some sympathy for abortion supporters who claim the pro-life side is not concerned enough for the welfare of the born. I grant this is often a rhetorical cudgel and used disingenuously as a way to circumvent the central issue. At the same time, I cannot ignore the great difficulties of poverty, the incredible costs of home ownership, student debt, and child-rearing which cause many to fear marrying or starting a family. Our society has very little understanding of, or commitment to, the common good or pro-family policy. The big ideals of “one nation” conservatism which defined some forms of conservative thought are now all but vanished from our imagination, and far too many people believe themselves alone. If we really wish to support life, we’ll need to seriously explore pro-family policy. Of course, we can and will disagree on the details and proposals, so we better start thinking and arguing now. For a start, I recommend Serena Sigillito’s “A Conservative Case for Pro-Family Policy,” Patrick T. Brown’s “Pro-Natalism from the Left,” and David Talcott’s “Pro-Life Welfare is a Bad Idea.” Those with Red Tory sympathies, like myself, who believe in a real polity rather than merely an alliance of individuals, should put our best foot forward in support of the dignity of life in its fulness. The right to life includes the responsibility to care for life.

Third, I believe we are in for a lengthy and difficult struggle for parental rights. Family is the home of tradition, the place where we learn to live beyond ourselves in a story of indebted responsibility to the past and in careful stewardship of the future. Family is where we are formed as proper individuals—neither atoms of libertarianism nor clients of the state. The struggle for family and its proper liberty and responsibility, I believe, is in its early days, and the corporations, think tanks, foundations, elites, and agents of government who supported abortion rights will, I think, be unfriendly to parental rights. The right to life bears with it a responsibility to rear and educate that life, and the rights of parents must be protected, as explained by Robert Clarke and Arthur Goldberg in their respective essays on parental rights.

If Roe falls, cry out with joy, for something wicked and irrational has been overcome; after those days of joy our labor continues.

Thank you for reading Public Discourse.

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Opinion: Corporate Landlords Are Taking Over NYC—The Numbers Don't Lie - City Limits

“Corporations exist to make profit. In the housing context, corporate landlords extract as much profit from their investments as possible. The results are rent increases, cost-cutting on building maintenance, reductions in building-wide services, low-cost or inadequate repairs, and evictions.”

David Brand

Tenants and elected officials rallied outside 70 Prospect Park West last fall, where residents say a new corporate owner began evicting tenants last year.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

This month, New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board is expected to greenlight the biggest rent increase in a decade, the latest piece of bad news for tenants facing a record housing crisis. Rents are skyrocketing by double-digits in New York and evictions are soaring to levels not seen since before the pandemic.

The Board has claimed that it’s only looking after small landlords, the “mom-and-pops” who saved up to buy an investment property and now struggle to make ends meet. It’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t support such real estate entrepreneurs, especially Black and brown homeowners, for whom becoming a landlord is a route to building generational wealth.

But do such mom-and-pops represent the typical landlord in New York City? New data that my organization released this week shows that they don’t.

In fact, the data shows that corporate landlords have steadily come to dominate New York’s residential real estate market—and that unless lawmakers take action, such landlords could soon squeeze out the very mom-and-pops that we’re trying to protect.

Our data looks at residential deed transfers, the documents new buyers have to file to show that a home is shifting to new owners. These deed transfers show whether the buyer is an “individual” or “corporation.” To eliminate the chance that corporate buyers could actually just be an individual transferring property to their own LLC, we excluded deed transfers below $100—i.e. a nominal sale price listed simply to transfer ownership. Then, for all New York City property sales over the last two decades, we compared the number of properties purchased by corporations with those purchased by individuals.

The data reveals that, while individuals were the predominant buyers of property between 2000-2010, corporate acquisitions overtook individual purchases shortly after the 2008 economic recession. And since 2011, corporate landlords have remained the primary type of residential real estate transaction. Between 2009 and 2014, corporate acquisition of buildings with three or more units tripled.

The data also reveals that currently, a corporate owner is listed for a whopping 89 percent of units across New York in buildings registered with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Moreover,while in 2003, corporations were the predominant buyers in only 19 percent of city zip codes, by 2014, corporations became the predominant buyers of buildings with three or more units in 70 percent of NYC zip codes.

Why is this bad? Corporations exist to make profit. In the housing context, corporate landlords extract as much profit from their investments as possible. The results are rent increases, cost-cutting on building maintenance, reductions in building-wide services, low-cost or inadequate repairs, and evictions. Our data shows that in neighborhoods where corporate landlords increased their ownership stakes, the rates of evictions also rose.

The landlord lobby argues that limits on rent increases and measures like Good Cause Eviction hurt “mom-and-pop” landlords across the city. They say that these small landlords are already struggling to pay their gas bills, property taxes, and mortgages, and would be crippled by additional tenant-protection measures. Limits on rent increases by the Rent Guidelines Board do not impact owners of market rate housing—the typical small landlord. Good Cause Eviction would not apply to owner-occupied buildings with less than four units.

The numbers don’t lie: Corporations—not stronger rent laws—are here to take down“mom-and-pop.”  Stronger tenant protection laws that prevent huge rent increases and eliminate no cause evictions will serve to protect vulnerable households across the state.

Sateesh Nori is the executive director of JustFix

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The AR-15 is for mass killing — ban it | Opinion - Minnesota Reformer

The U.S. Senate, controlled by Democrats, shamefully went into recess less than 48 hours after a shooter in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two of their teachers. Lawmakers should not have left until they did something about this country’s gun problem. Not every kind of gun, but that with the most potential for damage: The AR-15.

Gun advocates will continue to gripe that the “liberals” want to take their guns away. No. No one is suggesting you can’t own a hunting rifle, shotgun or pistol for sport or self-protection. To my way of thinking, however, what the AR-15 is and does makes it a weapon of mass destruction.

In 1959, Colt Manufacturing Company bought the design, which was created for use by the American military. In 1963, the company began selling a civilian version with improvements for that market. After Colt’s patents expired in 1977, other manufacturers began to produce and sell their own semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles. Colt retained the trademark but subsequently took the rifle off the market in 2019. They brought it back a year later due to great consumer demand and, of course, competition. 

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has estimated that approximately 5 million to 10 million AR-15-style rifles exist in the U.S, though some estimates are even higher. The AR-15 and its knock-offs are now manufactured by dozens of companies in a wide range of configurations and calibers. Colt and its competitors now refer to it as “a modern sporting rifle.” 

Sporting rifle? Like for deer hunting? Duck hunting? Shooting clay pigeons? 

The AR-15 is in no way meant for hunting or “sport.” It’s meant to kill people. Lots of people all at once.

Gun advocates will point to the Second Amendment rights. The amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” 

Makes sense: the colonists’ militia played a big role in the overthrow of British rule in America, and the Founding Fathers wanted to make damn sure it stayed that way.

That was reasonable in 1789. Most militia organizations today envisage themselves as legally legitimate organizations, despite the fact that all 50 states prohibit private paramilitary activity. There is no government-regulated militia. 

Also, in 1789, the founding fathers had something much different in mind when they drafted that amendment. The typical firearms of the day were flintlock muskets and pistols. They could hold a single round at a time, and a skilled shooter could get off three or possibly four rounds in a minute of firing. 

Flintlock muskets were the mainstay of European armies between 1660 and 1840. A musket was a muzzle-loading smoothbore long gun which, for military purposes, was loaded with a lead ball, or a mix of ball with several large buck shot. It had an effective range of about 75 to fewer than 100 yards. Basically it works when a sharp rock hits a metal gizmo that sits in a small pile of gunpowder, causes a spark and shoots out the lead ball at between 390 to 1,200 feet per second.

The AR-15, on the other hand, can fire 45 rounds per minute. Modified with a bump stock, it can fire 400 rounds per minute or more. That means that in 1789 if you wanted to settle a score at school, the workplace or at a backyard barbeque, you’d have to bring along about 130 other colonists to get the same job done that you could today with a single shooter and an AR-15.

Unlike the musket’s lead ball, the bullet from an AR-15 leaves the muzzle at 3,300 feet per second. That’s three times the speed of a modern handgun bullet. Which means it has plenty of energy to do damage inside a body. In fact the bullet is specifically designed not to pass straight through a body, but to “tumble” around, destroying flesh and organs as it works its way through at brutal speed. In terms of damage, think “hollowpoint.”

Admittedly, this piece of popular hardware is not the usual weapon of choice for people who want to shoot people, or themselves. A 2022  Pew Research study found that only 3% of U.S. gun deaths were caused by semi-automatic rifles, including the AR-15. Their destructive potential, however, should concern us, especially as we relive the horrible ritual of mass shootings. 

AR-15 style rifles have played a prominent role in many high-profile mass shootings in this country, and have come to be widely characterized as the weapon of choice for these crimes. AR-15s or similar rifles were the primary weapons used in around half of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern American history, including the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting and the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. 

And now, Uvalde and Buffalo. 

Today in the U.S., AR-15s are legal. Those weapons that are not legal include unregistered, stolen or illegally obtained firearms. Machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, explosives and bombs, switchblades and other illegal knives, including stilettos. Stilettos? Well, they don’t have mass shootings in China, but they do have mass knifings. Most recently they had one in Germany. Seven killed and seven injured in China, and three dead and seven wounded in Germany. Stilettos are banned in both countries.

It seems to me that when a modified AR-15 can do nearly as much damage as a machine gun — which can fire at a rate of 600-plus rounds per minute — its killing power is pretty much six of one, half dozen of another.

Textualists and originalists interpret the Constitution as narrowly as possible. They always say they want to keep the Constitution the way the Founding Fathers meant when they wrote it. 

So let’s allow them their muskets. 

In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned a California ban on semiautomatic rifles, claiming the ban infringed on the right to bear arms. As if mass shootings were being carried out by 131 guys with flintlocks, who could logically be called a “private paramilitary organization” and therefore, illegal.

Apropos of paramilitary organizations: Think back to the attempted sacking of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and the stated intention to overturn a democratic election. We should be deeply worried that the next time the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and Q boys try a putsch, they’ll come with AR-15s.

Imagine how Jan. 6 would have turned out if they’d come carrying “modern sporting rifles,” which is the gun trade group’s appalling euphemism. The vast majority of the Jan. 6 attackers were carrying weapons of one sort or another; a handful have been charged with carrying firearms. Continuing investigations show many of the Jan. 6 participants possess various military-style weapons.

Gun control legislation without control of the deadly AR-15 would just be words on paper.

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Opinion: The NRA isn't the main obstacle in US gun politics anymore - CNN

Nicole Hemmer is an associate research scholar at Columbia University with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the author of "Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics" and the forthcoming "Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s." She cohosts the history podcasts "Past Present" and "This Day in Esoteric Political History." The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)The National Rifle Association is in trouble.

Last year, the organization attempted to declare bankruptcy in response to a New York state lawsuit investigating alleged financial abuses, but a federal judge dismissed the effort, finding that the NRA had filed in "bad faith" and was trying to use bankruptcy to protect itself from litigation. That came after the Senate Finance Committee released a report finding that the NRA, working closely with Russian agents, acted as a "foreign asset" during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The NRA said in a statement to CNN that it will "continue to explore moving its headquarters" to Texas from Virginia -- it had requested to be reincorporated in Texas when it filed for bankruptcy. As for the Senate report, the NRA called it "politically motivated," and counsel for the organization said, "This report goes to great lengths to ... create the false impression that the NRA did not act appropriately. Nothing could be further from the truth."

Following the horrific massacre of schoolchildren and teachers last week in Uvalde, Texas -- which followed the horrific massacre of mostly Black shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York -- the NRA went ahead with its planned annual convention in Houston. The convention reportedly attracted thousands of protesters and repelled a handful of scheduled performers, who withdrew after the killings in Uvalde. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also backed out, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott canceled his appearance, doing a pretaped video instead.

That trouble is hardly all-encompassing -- major speakers such as former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas still appeared before the relatively sparse and intermittently unarmed crowd. But the organization has been noticeably weakened by years of infighting and corruption.

That might sound like good news to gun reform advocates, who have for decades seen the NRA as the primary driver of gun absolutism in the United States. But even if the NRA went away tomorrow, gun politics in the United States would not change. In many ways, the NRA has already won: It has fundamentally transformed the Republican Party, gun jurisprudence and conservative political identity in ways that will continue even if the NRA fades.

The radicalization of the NRA, from its origins as a hunting and marksmanship organization to one that pushes conspiracy-laden messages in support of full gun deregulation, has been well-documented over the years. The right-wing takeover of the group in the mid-1970s turned, by the early 1990s, into an all-out push to reshape the Republican Party into an anti-gun control institution.

That was not an easy sell. As has also been widely documented -- we've had enough mass shootings and enough GOP indifference to have rehearsed this history frequently over the last few decades -- in the early 1990s, leading Republicans supported gun regulation.

Ronald Reagan, who had been receding from public life after leaving office, nonetheless came out forcefully for both the 1993 Brady bill, which mandated background checks and a five-day waiting period for gun purchases by an unlicensed individual, and the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which prohibited gun manufacturers from creating assault weapons for civilian use and banned large-capacity magazines.

In the early '90s, the NRA began shifting its funding to Republican candidates, using its endorsements and funds to help defeat Republicans who had voted for gun control and support candidates who took hardline positions.

The language of the NRA became increasingly apocalyptic during this period, in concert with a rapidly growing militia movement fueled by anti-government sentiment and paranoid conspiracy. After two men who moved in militia circles bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, the NRA did not curb its rhetoric. Instead, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre initially defended a letter warning about "jackbooted government thugs." The letter led former President George H.W. Bush to resign his membership in the NRA and the reported loss of a half-million members.

But within a few years, the NRA had decided that its initial instincts -- to never waver, to never apologize -- were politically effective. As was the case with Uvalde, a massacre took place at Columbine High School in 1999, the NRA's annual convention was just a few days away -- and miles from the site of the mass slaughter.

The organization's senior leadership met to discuss strategy in a series of private conversations that, it turns out, were recorded by a participant and obtained by NPR last year. An NRA spokesperson told NPR when asked for comment, "It is disappointing that anyone would promote an editorial agenda against the NRA by using shadowy sources and 'mystery tapes' in order to conjure up the tragic events of over 20 years ago."

But those tragic events are still repeating themselves. And in those recorded conversations after the Columbine shootings, NRA leaders professed their belief that both the Republican Party and the gun industry would follow their lead, and that any show of regret over the shooting would be an admission of guilt. "If we tuck tail and run," one official said, explaining why the group shouldn't cancel its convention, "we're going to be accepting responsibility for what happened out there." Another also rejected the idea of canceling the convention, saying, "The message that it will send is that even the NRA was brought to its knees, and the media will have a field day with it."

The convention went ahead with a now-familiar message that liberals and media outlets were politicizing the shooting, while calling for fewer regulations.

In the decades that followed, the NRA would return to that playbook while broadening its influence on a generation of politicians and judges. Its victory was total: The US Supreme Court radically broadened its interpretation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, the Republican Party made gun deregulation a litmus test issue for candidates, and state legislatures began to respond to mass shootings by loosening gun regulation.

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These actions, though shaped by the NRA in the 1990s, were not carried out solely to appease the organization. No, the NRA's victory was inculcating the idea that an unrestricted right to own and carry weapons of war was the most fundamental right in the United States. Though the NRA does donate heavily to politicians who reflect its views, it is no longer a necessary part of gun politics. In fact, one of the biggest threats to the NRA now is the rise of more radical gun groups.

For those Americans desperate for more gun regulation, a singular focus on the NRA is not enough. Instead, they must work to strengthen and broaden the infrastructure of gun safety and gun regulation organizations, support a judiciary commitment to a narrow reading of the Second Amendment and make clear that the radicalization of the right on guns is not solely about donations from the NRA, but a deeper commitment to the most radical gun absolutism in US history.

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Opinion: Grab your popcorn -- the summer's big blockbuster could feature Donald Trump - CNN

Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio's daily program "The Dean Obeidallah Show" and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)"Top Gun: Maverick" is summer's first blockbuster, boasting breathless reviews and what will likely be the biggest box office in Tom Cruise's storied, 35-plus-year Hollywood career.

But there's another potential blockbuster coming that I hope eclipses the audience for "Top Gun": I'm talking about the January 6 committee public hearings, set to premiere on June 9. Just look at the advance buzz:

• "The story of the worst presidential political offense against the Union in American history," declares US Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 committee.

• "It's going to blow the roof off the House," Raskin exclaims.

• The hearings will have "tens of thousands of exhibits" and a cast of "hundreds of witnesses," says Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee chairman.

And while "Top Gun" was just one film, the January 6 committee hearings are expected to be an eight-episode extravaganza. Some installments are even scheduled to air in prime time.

There are obviously big differences between the two attractions, starting with the degree of star power. In the "Top Gun" sequel, Cruise, who gets top billing, is joined by Hollywood A-listers Miles Teller and Jon Hamm.

But the roster of potential talent lined up for the January 6 hearings is not too shabby. The final cast has still not been locked in but could reportedly include a handful of former officials from the Department of Justice who Trump allegedly pressured for help in his failed bid to overturn the 2020 election. We might even see cameo appearances, via video clip, of previously recorded testimony by marquee players such as Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner.

However, the key difference between the two dramas -- and it's not a small one -- is that the only objective of the new "Top Gun" movie is to entertain.

The January 6 committee hearings, meanwhile, have the vitally important goal of making the case to the American public that Trump and key players in his entourage engaged in a behind-the-scenes effort to overthrow the 2020 election. And the proceedings aim to show that they may have had more than a bit part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Now, we don't truly know what to expect once the hearings begin. As with the "Top Gun" film that was kept secret from the public for nearly two years after its completion to allow shuttered theaters to reopen following the pandemic, January 6 committee staffers are working in secrecy on final edits before the big release date.

But if rumors swirling around the production are correct, the hearings will open with an overview of the panel's 10-month investigation, then introduce the riveting storyline and a number of key players in the political melodrama.

Like a matinee that hasn't opened yet, but which the audience has seen the trailer for, the public is hungry to know more about the coming attractions.

Will there be surprise appearances -- maybe a cameo from someone such as former Vice President Mike Pence? And how will Donald Trump respond to allegations about his potential role in the drama, including reports this past week that he allegedly welcomed chants from January 6 protesters of "hang Mike Pence"?

Another riveting question is whether the Department of Justice will prosecute some or all of the figures implicated in the January 6 unrest -- assuming the committee's case is sufficiently compelling. And what if one of those individuals implicated happens to include the former President? Just a few weeks ago, the department requested witness transcripts from the committee, so federal prosecutors might be keeping their options open on that front.

If the January 6 hearings do lead to the criminal prosecution of Trump, that could of course lead to a blockbuster that will blow the current attraction out of the water. It would be a sequel even bigger than the original "Trump on Trial" miniseries -- his two impeachments. And who knows? Down the road, a future spinoff of Trump's hit network reality show might be called "The Apprentice: Rikers Island edition."

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It's been more than 500 days since the January 6 attack on our Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. I'm reminded of one of the most famous lines from the original "Top Gun," when the two main protagonists, Maverick and Goose, declared: "I feel the need ... the need for speed." From where I sit, it's no longer about speed. I desperately "feel the need ... the need for justice."

If the January 6 committee hearings can help achieve that, it will truly be the biggest blockbuster of this summer.

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OPINION: Supreme Court's forced-arbitration ruling is a win for workers - Anchorage Daily News

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 17, 2021. (Bloomberg photo by Sara Silbiger)

It would have been easy to miss what at the Supreme Court earlier this week in a case about arbitration of employment disputes. But the justices’ unanimous decision in Morgan v. Sundance might have far-reaching implications for employers.

The facts of the case may be quickly stated. The plaintiff, an employee of a Taco Bell franchisee, filed a lawsuit challenging the company’s overtime practices. The defendant’s motion to dismiss was denied. Mediation was unsuccessful. Finally, after eight months, the company moved to put the litigation on hold because the employee’s contract required that such disputes be submitted to binding arbitration. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 9-0, held that by waiting so long, the company waived its right to enforce the arbitration clause.

OK, fine: a fair caution to corporate defendants to make sure to raise the arbitration clause promptly, or risk losing its protection. But the Morgan case should be set against its context. These days, the clauses are ubiquitous — and under fire.

A consumer can’t buy a product or service online without agreeing to one. They’re increasingly common in employment contracts. And nowadays, cases involving arbitration clauses almost always arise from “adhesive” contracts, where the employee who wants the job or the consumer who wants the product has no choice to agree to terms written by the company. The mandatory arbitration clause may be buried deeply in the boilerplate that not even contracts professors read before clicking “I agree,” but it’s still valid, as long as the user is clearly on notice that terms exist and that the click will create a contract. (The user might escape if the notice is too inconspicuous.)

Activists loathe what they consider “discriminatory” provisions that disproportionately harm those of lower income. Critics of binding arbitration argue that it’s bad for both employees and consumers. Others sharply dispute that claim. At minimum, one must concede that the evidence is complex. Although I understand what drives the critics, I myself am a bit of a fence-sitter; I think the clauses have upsides and downsides, and that they exist to solve an actual problem.

In 1924, the legal scholar Edwin W. Patterson coined the term “juridical risk” to refer to the uncertainty over how a court might apply existing law to any given set of facts. If a company can’t predict whether a jury will award $100,000 or $10 million should an accident occur, it’s difficult to decide how much to invest in precautions. Patterson argued that businesses needed legal tools to manage the uncertainty. Over the years, those tools have included everything from explicit warnings to limited warranties.

Since early in the 20th century, another key tool has been a binding arbitration clause, authorized by Congress in the Federal Arbitration Act, which was passed the year after Patterson’s article appeared. When the parties agree to arbitrate their differences, they’re giving up the right to sue. Except in rare circumstances, they’re also giving up their right to appeal the arbitrator’s judgment. In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the act makes clauses barring litigation enforceable — a trend for which the justices have been much criticized.

Once an arbitration clause is understood as a device that manages juridical risk, it’s easy to see that without such a clause the company faces greater uncertainty. That uncertainty, in turn, will likely be priced into the contract: slightly lower wages for the employee, a slightly higher price for consumers. If wages or prices prove too sticky, the company may try to “reprice” other contract terms to provide some protection against the additional risk.

None of this means that mandatory arbitration is good, particularly when buried in the boilerplate. Perhaps the costs of reducing the ubiquity of the clauses are worth bearing. But those costs do exist.

The edifice of mandatory arbitration has stood now for decades, but even before the Court’s decision in Morgan v. Sundance, there had been considerable chipping away. In March, President Joe Biden signed into law a ban on enforcing mandatory arbitration clauses in cases alleging sexual harassment, aligning federal policy with rules already adopted in many states. It’s worth noting that the concern crossed the political spectrum. The tally in the House of Representatives was 335-97; the Senate adopted the measure by voice vote.

Later the same month, the House passed legislation that would bar the clauses in most employment and consumer contracts. Although at the present moment, the bill’s prospects in the Senate seem dim, the wind of change is blowing. It would take a foolish company indeed to ignore the direction of the gusts.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Yale University, he is author, most recently, of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.” This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

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What about my right to life? | Opinion - Minnesota Reformer

In 1983, I was 22, with an unexpected pregnancy, residing in Texas. A government-forced birth would have traumatically altered the course of my life, physically and mentally.

Roe v Wade was my safeguard. The recent leak of a draft of Supreme Court Judge Alito’s opinion overturning Roe is sure to seal the fate of a federal safety net that has protected women since 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled for a pregnant woman’s liberty and right to privacy.  The current turn of events will have devastating consequences to the human rights of women in America, a betrayal of the 14th Amendment. 

My abortion story does not contain sexual violence, incest, date rape or a medical catastrophe — the horrific scenarios in which anyone with decent moral compass should be able to comprehend why abortion must remain a human right: safe and legal.

I was in a steady live-in relationship with a man I loved. I had been training for months for a physical agility test — part of a series of tests to become a Fort Worth firefighter. My monthly cycle had been erratic from the intense training.

My partner and I practiced three types of birth control conjunctively: The rhythm method, the Billings method and condoms. Birth control choices were limited and the pill, with its side effects, made me terribly sick. 

One month, breast tenderness confirmed my greatest fear — our birth control had failed. I was in tears. He was out of state on a work contract, my family was in Minnesota, and there I sat in Texas, feeling very much alone. We did not want this pregnancy — resolutely — neither of us. 

My boyfriend made arrangements for me to join him in California and then get to a women’s clinic. I called my parents, who offered comfort and support, solidly backing my (our) decision to terminate. 

I told my boss I needed immediate time off, which was graciously granted when I explained the urgency. I also withdrew my application from the firefighting pool and told the captain, my mentor and supporter, why.  He hugged me and said he understood. Like my father, he was a father to daughters. 

Today, in Texas, the men who sympathetically supported me, could be the same compassionate men sued under the current Texas abortion ban for “aiding” me in our decision to abort. Private citizens with no knowledge of circumstances and no connection to the people involved can report others, creating an abortion police state.

I arrived in California, my boyfriend at my side. The women’s clinic physician talked us through every step of the first trimester process. The procedure was short and done, discomfort far less than the monthly cramping I often had during my period. The safe medical abortion was nothing like the propaganda spun by abortion foes. 

The abortion narrative needs to be changed: the trauma lies in the unwanted pregnancy. Yet our society has created shame, stigma and the burden of secret, which places guilt on the women impregnated. 

Abortion opponents, with total disregard to the social and gender justice of the living women, demand forced birth, a dystopian view eerily played out in Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” and the recent TV adaptation.  

Amnesty International declares: “Forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy, or forcing them to seek out an unsafe abortion is a violation of their human rights, including rights to privacy and body autonomy.”  

The following year, 1984, age 23 and single, I returned to Minnesota and to my hometown doctor.  I told him about the unwanted pregnancy, our decision to terminate, and my ambivalence towards a society that condemns human sexuality for one gender while championing it for the other. 

I paid for and secured a tubal ligation to ensure I would never get pregnant again. My friends — several of them OB/GYN providers — have told me that under the same circumstances today, I could be denied my request for a tubal as a matter of clinic, doctor or insurance decision.  

Again, this would place my body autonomy and health choice in the hands of others.  The number of women like me are growing — women who want to be child-free.   

I am grateful for the federal law that allowed me freedom over my own reproductive health.  Women, infamous and famous have stated, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”  I agree. 

My parents supported me because they came from a day and age prior to Roe v Wade, when girls were shuttled out of town to “visit relatives” and conveniently returned home after several months. The book “The Girls Who Went Away” should be a staple on every high school bookshelf as a reminder of a society that shamed unwed pregnant girls to give up their babies or face condemnation in their families, churches, and schools. Forced adoptions were a secondary trauma to an unexpected pregnancy.  

My mom, Jacqueline Dowell, chose nursing as her profession (after my parents divorce in 1972) to fight for women, healthcare, and reproductive rights. She went on to become a volunteer for Planned Parenthood.  

The author’s mother, Jackie Dowell, at an abortion rights rally. Photo courtey of Pam Dowell.

As recently as May 14, at 88 years, she actively participated in a Bans Off Our Bodies rally. Her sign, with a drawing of a large coat hanger, declared: “Never going back.” 

No regrets. Ever. 

Nearly one in four women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Her story may not fit your belief system, but her story, her rights, her body, and her privacy are central to her life. This is the life that must be protected: ethically, constitutionally, and free from religion. 

Minnesota must keep abortion legal to counter states like Texas. Women have always known we will never go back — not to dangerous, secret, unsafe abortions, not to second class. 

I am more determined than ever to battle this cause. I have a car. I will transport others across state lines to safe, legal abortions.  Why? Because each one of these women are me. I am not pro-choice, I am pro-abortion. Period. 

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Opinion: The cost of Trump's chaos just keeps accumulating - CNN

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. His new paperback is "The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World", from which this essay is adapted. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN)On January 20, 2021, Donald Trump departed the White House on a helicopter that took him to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where he delivered the final remarks of his presidency to some of his supporters. Before boarding Air Force One for the flight to Mar-a-Lago, his gilded palace in Florida, Trump promised them, "We will be back in some form."

Some Americans took that as an exciting promise; others took it as more of a threat. Either way, Trump is, indeed, back.

A CNN poll released in February found that among Republican voters who were considering candidates for the 2024 presidential race, 54% supported Trump, which made him the top choice for securing the party's nomination. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis polled second at 21%, while other possible candidates such as former Vice President Mike Pence polled at no more than 1%.

There is a strong possibility that Trump will win his party's nomination should he run again, which seems as likely as warm weather at Mar-a-Lago this summer.

Also, should he be nominated, Trump could even win the general election since only 39% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden's performance in office, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research poll released earlier this month.

Given Trump's dominance of the GOP going into 2024, it's a propitious moment to assess his failures and successes as commander in chief, which I attempt to do in my book, "The Cost of Chaos, The Trump Administration and the World."

Trump has the distinction of being the only US president who publicly and consistently refused to accept his electoral loss. His lies about the 2020 election have poisoned America's politics for the foreseeable future, as Trump has made signing on to those lies a de facto litmus test for many Republican candidates running for office.

Meanwhile, the bravery of the Ukrainians now fighting the Russians underlines the idiocy of Trump's embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin and also of his efforts to hold back military aid to the Ukrainians.

And when Trump was confronted by a real crisis -- the Covid-19 pandemic -- he largely embraced wishful thinking and quackery over any real leadership of the nation, resulting in much unnecessary further suffering.

But before examining in more detail Trump's many failures as President, it's worth stipulating that Trump also had some successes.

What Trump got right

Trump got one big foreign policy issue mostly right, which was China. While the United States was distracted by its post-9/11 wars, China made great advances economically and militarily -- in part, by stealing American secrets through cyber espionage.

The Trump administration correctly identified China as a strategic US rival. This was an important conceptual shift because previous administrations had emphasized US engagement with the Chinese, believing that they would play by the rules of the international system and liberalize their economy and then, as they prospered, they would also liberalize their authoritarian form of governance. As it turned out, that was a fantasy that the Trump administration correctly called out.

Trump's 2017 national security strategy asserted that the Chinese were "building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own." The Trump strategy also warned that Chinese "land reclamation projects and militarization of the South China Sea flouts international law, threatens the free flow of trade, and undermines stability." As a result, the Trump administration authorized at least double the number of US Navy ships transiting the South China Sea performing "freedom of navigation" exercises.

Also, the Trump administration's "Operation Warp Speed" saved many lives during the pandemic. Under it, the US invested $2.5 billion in Moderna, which produced a testable vaccine on humans in only two months using novel mRNA technology. Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech didn't take US government funding, but the government placed a $1.95 billion order for 100 million doses, and in doing so guaranteed demand for its vaccine. After the first clinical trials, both Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna produced vaccines that were more than 90% effective, an efficacy that eventually waned. These were astonishing results given that the US Food and Drug Administration had put its threshold for approval for any vaccine at 50% effective or above.

Trump also presided over the destruction of the ISIS geographical "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria. Trump was largely following the battle plan that the administration of President Barack Obama had waged to defeat ISIS, but it was during Trump's presidency that ISIS was finally defeated. And Trump ordered the Special Operations raid in 2019 during which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS, died.

The worst deals

But so many other of Trump's actions as commander in chief were spectacular failures. The seizure of Afghanistan by the Taliban last year was one of Trump's most disastrous foreign policy legacies. Biden certainly deserves blame for claiming that he was bound by Trump's 2020 "peace" deal with the Taliban, which really was a "surrender agreement" to the Taliban in the mordant words of H.R. McMaster, Trump's former national security adviser. And Biden also deserves blame for the botched execution of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer.

But it was Trump, not Biden, who had laid the groundwork for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. In 2018 Trump authorized his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to begin negotiations with the Taliban, an effort that was led by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Khalilzad made an agreement with the Taliban that, in exchange for a total US withdrawal from Afghanistan, they would break with al-Qaeda and engage in genuine peace talks with the Afghan government. The Taliban simply ignored those agreements.

Trump often asserted he was as a great deal maker, but his administration's agreement with the Taliban was one of the worst deals in American diplomatic history. The Taliban received everything that they wanted without offering anything substantive in return, other than an agreement not to attack US forces as they withdrew from Afghanistan. Since the Taliban's main goal in their negotiations with the US was a total American withdrawal, this was an easy concession for the Taliban to make.

And so it went with many other of Trump's foreign policy initiatives. He apparently believed that by dint of his personal charm he could persuade the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, to give up his nuclear weapons. American Presidents going back to Bill Clinton had tried to persuade the nuclear-armed hermit state to rein in its nuclear weapons program, and all of them had failed.

While he was President, Trump met with Kim three times, first in Singapore in 2018, a year later in Hanoi and then at the border between North and South Korea. Those meetings generated intense media frenzies and gave Kim and the US President equal billing on the world stage, which was a huge coup for the dictator of a country whose GDP was around the size of the state of Vermont.

At the Singapore meeting, Trump unilaterally gave a key concession to Kim -- canceling joint US-South Korea military exercises, which were a longtime cornerstone of containing the North Korean rogue state -- and got nothing in return. Trump and Kim also exchanged 27 letters, some of which had the ardent tone of suitors writing each other. Trump publicly described the missives as "love letters."

Yet, these summits and exchanges of letters yielded nothing. While Trump was in office the North Koreans continued producing fissile material and tested short range ballistic missiles in contravention of UN Security Council prohibitions. They also developed hard-to-detect submarine-launched missiles.

Trump's efforts to constrain North Korea's nuclear program failed, while his erratic diplomacy encouraged Iran's nuclear ambitions. Trump regularly castigated Obama's 2015 nuclear agreement with the Iranians as the "worst deal ever."

But unlike Trump's peace agreement with the Taliban, the Iranians were observing their end of the nuclear deal. Trump's own intelligence agencies concluded that the Iranians were adhering to the terms of the 2015 deal. Yet, Trump was determined to get out of Obama's Iran agreement, which he did in 2018.

As a result, by the time Trump left office in January 2021, the Iranians were planning to enrich uranium up to 20% purity, far above the 4% purity agreed to in their deal with the Obama administration, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. While this was well short of the 90% purity needed for a nuclear bomb, the Iranian nuclear program took a large step forward as a result of Trump's ham-handed approach to the Iranians.

Undermining NATO

Throughout his presidency, Trump embraced Putin, while regularly taking pot shots at key American allies such as the British, French and Germans. What was the strategic benefit to the US of all this geopolitical trumpery? It was never clear, although it was certainly a key aim of Putin's to weaken the NATO alliance, which Trump's own Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, described as the most successful alliance in modern history.

The importance of that alliance was underlined when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The Ukrainian military, trained by NATO advisers, imposed huge costs on the Russian invaders, and the Biden administration together with its NATO allies transferred large numbers of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to the Ukrainians.

Undermining democracy

Trump's affinity with dictators overseas -- a key part of his foreign policy -- dovetailed with his attempts to undermine democratic processes and norms at home, best exemplified by his continued refusal to accede to the will of the people in the 2020 presidential election and his support for his followers, who stormed the US Capitol days before Biden's inauguration.

Trump's antidemocratic stance -- which he still promotes with the "Big Lie" conspiracy theory -- has poisoned American politics.

In part because of Trump's anti-democratic tendencies, during his presidency current and former senior military leaders issued more than 250 public statements that were critical of Trump's leadership, according to a tally by New America, the research institution where I serve as a vice president.

This was unprecedented, as military leaders, both those in uniform and in retirement, generally stay out of politics. Following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, Trump threatened to send the federal military to quell the unrest that was roiling American cities. On a call about the protests with the nation's governors on June 1, Trump told them, "If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time. They're going to run all over you, you'll look like a bunch of jerks."

Later that evening protesters gathered outside the White House and were met with violence when Trump walked to St. John's Episcopal Church wielding a Bible, which resulted in a now-infamous photo op.

Mattis broke his long silence about Trump, issuing a blistering statement: "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people -- does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort."

The events of January 6, 2021, further turned the leaders of the US military against Trump. On that day a crowd of many thousands of his supporters gathered outside the White House -- some wearing body armor and many wearing quasi-military outfits. To the assembled crowd Trump spouted a geyser of baseless conspiracy theories about his loss in the presidential election. Trump then urged them to go to the Capitol. A mob then assaulted the building.

That evening, Trump was unrepentant about the mayhem he had helped to foment, tweeting: "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!" This tweet was later deleted. Twitter then suspended Trump from its platform.

The service chiefs of all the branches of the military -- led by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley -- took the extraordinary measure of sending a joint letter to the 2 million members of the active-duty, National Guard and Reserve units of the US military decrying the insurrection and confirming that "President-elect Biden will be inaugurated and will become our 46th Commander in Chief."

The message was clear: The US military would not be assisting Trump in any of his efforts to mount a coup against the Constitution they had sworn an oath to serve.

The assault on the Capitol triggered Trump's second impeachment trial. He was once again acquitted by the Senate, but he now had the distinction of being the only American President to be impeached twice.

The Covid disaster

It was, above all, in his mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that Trump revealed his many weaknesses as a leader. First, he never did any homework, meaning his understanding of complex issues, such as how best to mitigate a pandemic, was always cartoonish. Related to Trump's first failing was his second: He always believed he knew more than the experts about any given subject. Third, Trump always trusted his own gut. This was not likely to produce relevant knowledge or coherent policy. And it didn't.

Trump had a lot to say publicly about the coronavirus, a great deal of it misleading or simply false, and he also modeled and even encouraged irresponsible behavior.

Before effective vaccines, there were two tools that worked to stop the spread of the virus; they were social distancing and wearing a mask in public. Trump denigrated mask-wearing and he also hosted events at the White House with large numbers of attendees socializing without masks, such as the celebration of Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court on October 26, 2020.

As Americans first became aware of the threat from the coronavirus, Trump said on February 26, 2020, that cases of the virus would go down to zero "within a couple of days." He also wrongfully claimed that the coronavirus was no more dangerous than the seasonal flu.

In the first phase of the pandemic, the federal government abdicated its role by not issuing a national shutdown order and a mandate to wear masks. In late April 2020, Trump suggested that injecting bleach might prove to be a treatment for the virus. A month later Trump said that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, was likely a "game changer." In June 2020, the FDA revoked "emergency use" of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 patients because it could cause heart problems.

Even when Trump had the chance to make a public statement that really might have made a difference to the scope of the pandemic, he failed to do so. He and his wife, Melania Trump, were vaccinated at the White House during the closing days of his presidency. Any leader with the slightest regard for his own people would have allowed the media to cover this event, especially given the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy in the country. Trump chose instead to be vaccinated in secret.

His weak leadership produced grave results: More than 400,000 Americans died from Covid-19 during Trump's final year in office, which was more than the death toll of all the Americans who had died in wars going back to World War II. Many of those deaths could have been avoided with better leadership; Covid mortality in the US was 40% higher than the average of other advanced nations such as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to a report from the medical journal The Lancet.

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Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump's coronavirus response coordinator, told a congressional committee in October that "we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30-percent-less to 40-percent-less range."

The first duty of the commander in chief is the protection of US citizens, and Trump clearly was derelict in this duty. In short, Trump was the most incompetent President in modern American history.

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