(CN) — A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit on Thursday heard oral arguments for the second time over the sentencing of ex-zookeeper Joseph Maldonado-Passage, better known as Joe Exotic from the hit Netflix docuseries “Tiger King.”
A federal jury in Oklahoma found Maldonado-Passage guilty in 2019 of two counts of murder-for-hire charges, after the flamboyant zookeeper attempted to hire two people, one being an undercover FBI agent, to kill his rival and fellow tiger sanctuary operator Carol Baskin. In addition, Maldonado-Passage was found guilty of eight counts of violating the Lacy Act for falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act.
Molly Parmer, a criminal defense attorney representing Maldonado-Passage, told the appellate judges that the district court imposed an “unreasonable and unconstitutional sentence” when her client was resentenced in January of this year.
“It is solely Mr. Maldonado’s sentence that forms the basis of this appeal,” Parmer said Thursday.
Last year, the Denver-based appeals court overturned Maldonado-Passage’s initial 2020 sentence of 22 years in prison, finding that the two murder-for-hire charges should be grouped together and not considered separately for sentencing purposes, as the district court did. U.S. District Court Judge Scott L. Palk, a Donald Trump appointee, knocked 12 months off of Maldonado-Passage’s sentence in January, lowering it to 21 years behind bars.
Parmer argued that the sentence ordered by Palk essentially punished her client twice for the same crime, which is prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Circuit Judges Carolyn McHugh, a Barack Obama appointee, and Bobby Baldock, a Ronald Reagan appointee, challenged Parmer’s argument and noted the court’s previous ruling in this case was to group the two murder-for-hire counts for sentencing.
“This court sent it back for grouping, that is the issue that we had in that case,” said Baldock. “Did the district court group the sentencings?”
“Yes your honor, the district court did group counts one and counts two,” Parmer responded.
“So what’s left? The district court did what we said to do,” said Baldock.
The back and forth between Parmer and the panel continued, with the judges taking issue with the defense’s interpretation of the appeals court’s previous ruling as well as the jury’s finding that Maldonado-Passage attempted at two separate times to hire someone to kill Baskin.
Parmer claimed the two separate counts constitute a due process violation, as the attempts to hire a hitman made by Maldonado-Passage overlapped in time and should be considered a single count.
Arguing on behalf of the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Creager told the judges that they “hit the nail on the head” through their questioning of Parmer.
“This was a remand for resentencing and in the first appeal, this court affirmed the convictions and remanded for resentencing,” he said.
Creager explained that since Maldonado-Passage’s convictions have already been affirmed, he is not allowed to challenge the multiplicity of the counts he was charged with. He also argued the sentence Maldonado-Passage received was well within the guidelines of the crimes he was found guilty of committing.
“At the end of the day, even if this court were to conclude that a lower sentence would have also been reasonable, that is simply not sufficient,” said Creager.
In her pleas to the court to rule in her client’s favor, Parmer also asked the panel to assign the case to a different district court judge for the appearance of impartiality.
Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Michael R. Murphy, a Bill Clinton appointee, rounded out the panel. The judges did not indicate when they would issue a ruling.
Maldonado-Passage, who is 59 years old and has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, remains hopeful of getting a lighter sentence. During his resentencing hearing at the lower court, he told the judge that “any sentence I get is a death sentence.”
He was the fixture of the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King” that chronicled his life as an outspoken proprietor of a for-profit zoo, amateur musical artist and candidate for political office. The series also touched on the explosive relationship he had with Baskin, detailing the attempts he made to have her killed.
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones appeared in court Thursday in Connecticut as he and his lawyer try to limit the damages he must pay for promoting the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.
More than a dozen family members of some of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting also showed up to observe his testimony in Waterbury Superior Court, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away from Newtown.
Jones was expected to be the first witness called, but there was a delay as the court dealt with Wi-Fi issues in the courthouse.
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Jones has been in Connecticut this week in preparation for his appearance. He held a news conference Wednesday outside the courthouse, bashing the proceedings — as he has on his Infowars show — as a “travesty of justice” and calling the judge a “tyrant.” He made similar comments on his way into the courthouse Thursday, indicating he may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and not answer some questions.
“This is not really a trial,” he said. “This is a show trial, a literal kangaroo court.”
Several victims’ relatives, meanwhile, have given emotional testimony during the trial about being traumatized by people calling the shooting fake, including confrontations at their homes and in public, and messages including death and rape threats. The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the victims.
Judge Barbara Bellis last year found Jones liable by default for damages to plaintiffs without a trial, as punishment for what she called his repeated failures to turn over documents to their lawyers. The six-member jury only will be deciding how much Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, should pay the families for defaming them and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.
Bellis began the day going over with Jones the topics he cannot testify about — including free speech rights, the Sandy Hook families’ $73 million settlement earlier this year with gun maker Remington (the company made the Bushmaster rifle used to kill the victims at Sandy Hook) or the percentage of Jones’ shows that discussed Sandy Hook.
“This is not the appropriate forum for you to offer that testimony,” Bellis said. Jones indicated that he understood.
Bellis said in court on Wednesday that she was prepared to handle any incendiary testimony from Jones, with contempt of court proceedings if necessary.
Jones also was found liable by default in two similar lawsuits over the hoax lies in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where a jury in one of the trials ordered Jones last month to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed. A third trial in Texas is expected to begin near the end of the year.
When Jones faced the Texas jury last month and testified under oath, he toned down his rhetoric. He said he realized the hoax lies were irresponsible and the school shooting was “100% real.”
“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” testified Jones, who also acknowledged raising conspiracy claims about other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, “and I’m sorry for that.”
Jones had portrayed the Sandy Hook shooting as staged by crisis actors as part of gun control efforts.
Testimony at the current trial also has focused on website analytics data run by Infowars employees showing how its sales of dietary supplements, food, clothing and other items spiked around the time Jones talked about the Sandy Hook shooting.
Evidence, including internal Infowars emails and depositions, also shows dissension within the company about pushing the hoax lies.
Jones’ lawyer Norman Pattis is arguing that any damages should be limited and accused the victims’ relatives of exaggerating the harm the lies caused them.
The relatives have testified that they continue to fear for their safety because of what the hoax believers have done and might do.
Jennifer Hensel, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among the slain, testified Wednesday that she still monitors her surroundings, even checking the back seat of her car, for safety reasons. She said she is trying to shield her two children, ages 7 and 5, from the hoax lies. A juror cried during her testimony.
“They’re so young,” she said of her children. “Their innocence is so beautiful right now. And at some point there are a horde of people out there who could hurt them.”
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By DAVE COLLINS and PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press
HOUSTON (CN) — Moved by a raft of legislation meant to diminish turnout at the ballot box, a bipartisan group of U.S. mayors laid out a goal Tuesday of making voting in America as easy as getting a glass of water.
“It’s about voting, period. … When the basic question of voting comes up, it’s not about Democrat or Republican. It’s about the fact that you’re a United States citizen,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said Tuesday at the National Nonpartisan Conversation on Voting Rights. “We’re not supporting any initiative or any candidate. It’s about voting.”
Backed by the National League of Cities, a group comprising leaders from 2,700 U.S. municipalities, Hancock launched the conference last year to counter what he saw as an alarming trend: In 2021’s legislative sessions, more than 400 bills were introduced in 49 states to restrict voter access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Many of them passed in Republican-led states and statehouse efforts to curtail voting have continued this year.
Hancock said he believes voting is an obligation, not a right, because his Black ancestors marched, bled and died for the right to vote.
“It is our foundational value and anything that impedes our full exercise thereof needs to be obliterated as fast as possible,” said the three-term Denver mayor.
Municipal, faith and business leaders joined with the heads of LGBTQ, youth voting and disability rights organizations, sharing ideas on how to increase voter registration, education and turnout in panel discussions for the three-day conference, with many emphasizing the leading role of local government as partisan gridlock in Congress has impeded reforms at the national level.
Headlining the event are three Democratic mayors: Hancock, Sylvester Turner of Houston and Regina Romero of Tucson, Arizona. Beside them stand three Republican mayors: David Holt of Oklahoma City, John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, and Acquanetta Warren of Fontana, California.
Warren said she came to learn ways to increase voter turnout from her peers.
“Best practices are something that every local person always looks at,” she said Tuesday at a press conference touting the gathering.
“Why reinvent the wheel when you can steal from great mayors right here? So these types of discussions become best practices and before you know it, the entire nation is on one page,” she added.
Warren might have oversold the prospects for national unity, as the conference takes place at a time of deep distrust in U.S. elections. Polls show about two-thirds of Republican voters — influenced by former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories — do not believe that Joe Biden legitimately defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Despite their professed wariness of the system, many of Trump’s acolytes are running for office and have prevailed in primary elections. In this year’s midterms, 60% of American voters will have an election denier running for Congress or a statewide office on their ballots, reports the statistical analysis news site FiveThirtyEight.
Expressing puzzlement at how U.S. elections became so partisan, Turner, the conference host, noted that two Texans from opposing parties had a hand in the country’s landmark voting legislation: President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat, convinced Congress in 1965 to pass the Voting Rights Act, and George W. Bush, a Republican, signed a bill reauthorizing the act in 2006.
Though Trump’s effect on the electorate loomed large over the conference, none of the speakers said his name Tuesday.
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers avoided saying it even as he described Trump contacting him after Biden won the Grand Canyon State by around 10,000 votes in the 2020 election.
Bowers said he got a call from “the president and Rudy” Giuliani, then Trump’s attorney, who together asked him to convene an Arizona House hearing for lawmakers to hear evidence of voter fraud and to back Trump’s efforts to replace the state’s Electoral College electors so they would support him instead of Biden.
“I said, ‘No, I’ve seen the circus. I’m not going to put the [Arizona] House of Representatives through the circus,” Bowers recounted. “They said, ‘Yeah. But you had 6,000 dead people vote and 200,000 illegals and 20,000 people who don’t even live in Arizona.’ I said, ‘Do you have the proof?’ I said, ‘Put the proof, the names of those individuals. And it would help if you told me how they voted.’”
Justin Levitt, Biden’s White House Senior Policy Adviser for Democracy and Voting Rights, said despite the ongoing fallout of the 2020 election — with some experts voicing concerns that Republicans will not accept the results of upcoming elections — in some respects the nation is on the right track.
“In some ways we are getting it right and I don’t want to lose the good news,” he said. “There have been historic firsts in every one of the last few years, including glass ceiling after glass ceiling broke in mayor’s offices for things like gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
“And in 2020, in the midst of a raging pandemic … more Americans voted than ever before,” he added.
Though proposed legislation, backed by President Biden, to create federal guidelines for mail-in and early voting and end partisan gerrymandering died in the U.S. Senate early this year, Levitt said Biden has prioritized restoring confidence in elections by signing a budget this year that allocates $10 billion over 10 years to local election officials, the “largest commitment for federal funding of elections in history.”
“Because we know that local governments that run our elections … have struggled to get the resources commensurate with the access and security voters expect and deserve,” Levitt said.
In addition to concerns about a growing trend of disgruntled voters threatening election officials, some speakers said they fear the Supreme Court will undermine elections, noting the court, in its 5-4 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, decided in 2013, found unconstitutional a section of the Voting Rights Act that had required states and counties with a history of voter discrimination to get federal preclearance before making any changes to voting laws was unconstitutional.
In a panel titled “Legal Strategy for Voter Access,” Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program and a redistricting expert, said he believes the biggest threat to elections today is the Supreme Court.
There is a rich history of election shenanigans in the United States, Li explained.
“And you’ve always counted on there being an honest broker who will kind of come in and say, ‘You know, that’s not really what we should be doing,’” he continued. “And unfortunately, this is a court that seems willing to do a lot of damage and a lot of damage on its shadow docket … without even fully hearing the case.”
Clarence Anthony, former mayor of South Bay, Florida, and CEO of the National League of Cities, noted that at the first iteration of the conference in 2021, attendees developed a “playbook for nonpartisan voter engagement” with 63 recommendations for city leaders.
Voting should be “as easy as getting a glass of water,” Anthony said. “That’s serious. So I want y’all to make sure that everybody in Texas gets a glass of water and they are able to get it easily. No matter what city, county, state it is. It should be just that easy.”
Around 300 people attended the conference, which concludes Wednesday.
(CN) — Do video streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu have to pay municipalities in Arkansas a franchise fee for beaming their signals along fiber optic cables placed in public rights of way? The small city of Ashdown near the Texas and Oklahoma borders believes so, according to its interpretation of the state’s 2013 Video Service Act.
In a class action complaint filed against the two streaming platforms in late 2020, Ashdown claims that because the defendants are defined as “video service providers” under the statute — just like cable TV providers — they owe the city 5% of gross quarterly revenue derived from the community.
The law requires providers to file an application with the secretary of state for a “certificate of franchise authority,” unless providers negotiate alternative franchise agreements with local political subdivisions. Providers who possess a certificate may install or construct video facilities – namely cables – in public rights of way, provided they pay a fee of not more than 5% of their gross revenue to local municipalities.
The statute does not distinguish between providers who install infrastructure themselves and those that use existing infrastructure, but the defendants didn’t comply regardless, according to the complaint.
“Defendants have failed to comply with the Arkansas Video Service Act, because they have failed to pay plaintiff and the other class members the required franchise fee of 5% of gross revenues,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants cannot escape liability by arguing that they simply were not SICFA holders; they were required to apply for and obtain a SICFA, then pay the franchise fee of 5% of gross revenues derived from providing video service in Ashdown in the manner in which they did.”
But crucially, according to an order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss in September 2021, the state law “specifically exempts from the statutory scheme video programming . . . [p]rovided as part of and via a service that enables end users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the public internet.”
The city argued the exemption should not apply because video streaming represents the entirety of Netflix and Hulu’s “service,” and because the service is only accessible to subscribers, it is not offered over the “public” internet.
But Chief U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey, a Barack Obama appointee, determined “this interpretation reads too much into the statute.”
“A plain and sensible reading of the statute reveals that the exclusion applies to any video programming provided as part of a service,” Hickey wrote. “Video programming is a part of a service that both defendants provide, regardless of whether defendants provide multiple services or just one service.”
Similarly, Hickey accepted an analogy by Hulu that their subscription-based service, offered over public internet, is no different than driving a private vehicle on a public road.
“Whether a driver locks the car doors while driving does not affect whether the road taken is a public road,” the judge wrote.
Ashdown appealed the ruling and met the streaming giants again in St. Louis on Tuesday for oral arguments before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Representing the city, attorney Justin J. Hawal said the district court erred with respect to standing and in its so-called plain language reading of the public internet exception. Hawal said the city has a right under the Video Service Act to clarify its rights and obligations with video service providers, including conducting financial audits and inspections.
With respect to a suggestion from Netflix and Hulu that the remedy was the exclusive jurisdiction of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, Hawal said under that construct, municipalities would have no remedy at all.
“What would happen is it would incentivize video service providers to simply not comply with the act because there is no penalty for past noncompliance,” he told the three-judge panel.
According to Hawal, the law specifically targets streaming services and not internet service providers because the latter, which typically installs and maintains internet infrastructure, do not create or benefit from the sale of the video content Netflix and Hulu provide.
“Netflix and Hulu do not provide access to email as a part of their service, they don’t provide access to information or other services other than video programming … it’s the entirety of their service,” he said.
The judges inquired whether other services provided by Netflix — show production and film curation, title suggestions, marketing emails — make the company more than a simple video service provider. Hawal said they “directly compete” with traditional television providers, including broadcast networks.
On behalf of Netflix, attorney Gregory G. Garre said Ashdown’s interpretation of the law would result in “arming hundreds of municipalities across the state with ad hoc enforcement” powers, “directly disrupting the legislature’s intent.” As written, the law ensures uniform enforcement by the Public Service Commission, and municipalities retain the right to audit those providers whose facilities are in the public right of way. Both Garre and Victor Jih, representing Hulu, argued their clients possess no facilities in the right of way.
“The notion that the city of Ashdown is trying to completely upend the franchising system in the state of Arkansas is a bit of a hyperbole,” Hawal said in rebuttal.
He added, “Ashdown is not attempting to create a system where every single municipality has a right to bring their own action against providers, rather, require a declaration to require Netflix and Hulu to receive authorization from the secretary of state … so they have to pay required fees and give cities the right to audit and take other actions the statute gives them to ensure they are receiving those fees.”
The argument was heard by U.S. Circuit Judges Steven M. Colloton, Roger L. Wollman and David R. Stras, appointed by George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, respectively.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Seven Midwestern states are teaming up to accelerate the development of hydrogen as a clean-energy alternative for automobiles and factories that rely largely on climate-warming fossil fuels, governors said Monday.
The partnership includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, whose economies are dominated by agriculture and heavy industry such as steel and automobile manufacturing.
“The Midwest will continue leading the future of mobility and energy innovation and has enormous potential for transformative hydrogen investments,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said.
Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas that already powers some cars, trucks, buses and trains. But a shortage of fueling stations limits their appeal. Some environmentalists are skeptical because most commercially produced hydrogen in the U.S. comes from natural gas, which emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants.
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But hydrogen can be derived using electric currents from wind, solar or other means that produce few if any emissions contributing to global warming. Such “clean hydrogen” releases only water as a byproduct when used in a fuel cell.
“We don’t have to choose between clean energy and clean air and creating good-paying jobs and a strong economy — we can do both,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said.
The federal infrastructure law enacted last year included $8 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy to fund regional “hubs” that would step up clean hydrogen production and distribution.
Climate legislation that President Joe Biden signed last month offers a tax credit intended to make clean hydrogen more competitive.
Those measures “made it almost certain that clean hydrogen development will become a major alternative for producing energy both in the Midwest and nationally,” said Zachary Kolodin, Michigan’s chief infrastructure officer.
States in the Rocky Mountains and the Deep South announced regional associations earlier this year. Another was proposed for the Los Angeles Basin in California.
The Midwestern Hydrogen Coalition hasn’t committed to joint pursuit of federal funding, although smaller groups of states or industries might seek grants.
Instead, the seven-state partnership will focus on boosting development, markets, supply chains and a workforce for clean hydrogen, according to a joint statement.
It will take advantage of assets such as the region’s pipelines and tanks for distributing and storing ammonia, which consists largely of hydrogen and is a key ingredient in fertilizer.
(CN) — Reversing the decision of a lower court, the 10th Circuit on Friday granted qualified immunity to an Oklahoma police officer who shot and killed a 17-year-old boy who was naked and having an apparent mental health crisis at the time of his death.
The ruling means the officer, Denton Scherman, will not have to face civil rights claims over the 2019 killing of 17-year-old high school student Isaiah Lewis.
Last year, U.S. District Judge David Russell, a Ronald Reagan appointee, granted qualified immunity to another officer involved in the incident but declined to do so for Scherman, who had fired the deadly shots.
“A reasonable jury could conclude that … deadly force was not justified,” even if nonlethal force was “clearly necessary,” Russell wrote in his opinion. Among other factors, Russell noted that it was “undisputed” that Lewis did not have a weapon.
Scherman appealed to the Denver-based 10th Circuit, which on Friday found that Russell had improperly denied Scherman qualified immunity. The three-judge panel reversed Russell’s order, effectively ending the yearslong case against the cop.
The case stemmed from a bizarre incident in Edmond, a suburb of Oklahoma City, in April 2019.
Responding to a false report of domestic violence at the home of Lewis’ girlfriend, local police found Lewis naked and running through the woods. They pursued Lewis for roughly an hour as he continued running naked through the neighborhood and “generally behaving strangely,” according to court filings.
At one point, two officers who were not involved in the initial domestic violence call — including Scherman, an officer in training — spotted Lewis hiding in a backyard. They tried to arrest him.
Instead of stopping, Lewis broke into a nearby home. The officers pursued him. Inside, Lewis allegedly attacked the other officer, Sergeant Milo Box. Box attempted to use his Taser on Lewis, but it had “no effect,” according to court records.
Lewis then allegedly turned to Scherman, who argued in federal court in Oklahoma that he reasonably viewed Lewis as a threat. Scherman fired five shots at Lewis, hitting him four times. Lewis died from his injuries.
The local district attorney’s office declined to press charges against the officers, saying in a statement that Scherman was lawfully defending himself and Box when he fired his weapon. Lewis’ family filed a civil rights lawsuit against both officers and the city of Edmond, accusing them of violating Lewis’ Fourth Amendment rights by allegedly using excessive force against him “while he was in emotional distress.”
Andrew Stroth, an attorney representing the Lewis family, told a local ABC affiliate last year that the case was a “very clear” example of police misuse of force.
“There was an unarmed, 17-year-old teenage young man who was suffering from a mental health crisis,” Stroth said.
The 10th Circuit disagreed. In its ruling on Friday, the court zeroed in on the moments before Scherman shot Lewis.
When Scherman entered the house, he saw Lewis “pummeling Box” and could therefore “reasonably presume” that Box was “rendered immobile if not seriously injured,” wrote Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Bobby Baldock, a Reagan appointee.
Lewis “had not responded to non-lethal force” in the form of a Taser and “had, by whatever means, rendered Box immobile,” Baldock added — all factors that strengthened Scherman’s arguments for using deadly force.
The unanimous three-judge panel also found that because Scherman was in a “confined area” when Lewis allegedly advanced on him, it was “difficult if not impossible for Scherman to retreat.”
Last but not least, the panel turned to precedent in other cases involving police killings. Given the unusual nature of this incident, lawyers for Lewis’ family had not identified a case where an officer was found in violation of the Fourth Amendment under the same circumstances faced by Scherman, the ruling states.
Because of this, Baldock wrote, Scherman did not have “fair notice” that “his repeated use of lethal force was unconstitutional.” As such, lawyers for Lewis’ family had not “clearly established” that every reasonable officer in Scherman’s position would have found his use of force excessive.
Baldock was joined on the panel by U.S. Circuit Judges Harris Hartz and Carolyn McHugh, appointees of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively.
What happens next in the case is unclear. While Lewis’ killing prompted outrage and protests in the Oklahoma City area, the civil rights claims against Scherman have effectively been on hold since he appealed last year.
Attorneys for Lewis’ family did not respond by press time to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the city of Edmond declined to comment on the ruling.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just rocket fuel propelling America’s first moonshot after a half-century lull. Strategic rivalry with China’s ambitious space program is helping drive NASA’s effort to get back into space in a bigger way, as both nations push to put people back on the moon and establish the first lunar bases.
American intelligence, military and political leaders make clear they see a host of strategic challenges to the U.S. in China’s space program, in an echo of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that prompted the 1960s’ race to the moon. That’s as China is quickly matching U.S. civil and military space accomplishments and notching new ones of its own.
On the military side, the U.S. and China trade accusations of weaponizing space. Senior U.S. defense officials warn that China and Russia are building capabilities to take out the satellite systems that underpin U.S. intelligence, military communications and early warning networks.
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There’s also a civilian side to the space race. The U.S. is wary of China taking the lead in space exploration and commercial exploitation, and pioneering the technological and scientific advances that would put China ahead in power in space and in prestige down on Earth.
“In a decade, the United States has gone from the unquestioned leader in space to merely one of two peers in a competition,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, declared this week at a Senate Armed Services hearing. “Everything our military does relies on space.”
At another hearing last year, NASA administrator Bill Nelson brandished an image transmitted by a Chinese rover that had just plunked down on Mars. “The Chinese government … they’re going to be landing humans on the moon” soon, he said. “That should tell us something about our need to get off our duff.”
NASA, the U.S. civilian space agency, is awaiting a new launch date this month or in October for its Artemis 1 uncrewed test moonshot. Technical problems scrubbed the first two launch attempts in recent weeks.
China likewise aims to send astronauts to the moon this decade, as well as establish a robotic research station there. Both the U.S. and China intend to establish bases for intermittent crews on the moon’s south pole after that.
Russia has aligned with China’s moon program, while 21 nations have joined a U.S.-initiated effort meant to bring guidelines and order to the civil exploration and development of space.
The parallel efforts come 50 years after U.S. astronauts last pulled shut the doors on an Apollo module and blasted away from the moon, in December 1972.
Some space policy experts bat down talk of a new space race, seeing big differences from John F. Kennedy’s Cold War drive to outdo the Soviet Union’s Sputnik and be the first to get people on the moon. This time, both the U.S. and China see moon programs as a stepping stone in phased programs toward exploring, settling and potentially exploiting the resources and other untapped economic and strategic opportunities offered by the moon, Mars and space at large.
Beyond the gains in technology, science and jobs that accompany space programs, Artemis promoters point to the potential of mining minerals and frozen water on the moon, or using the moon as a base to go prospecting on asteroids — the Trump administration in particular emphasized the mining prospects. There’s potential in tourism and other commercial efforts.
And for space more broadly, Americans alone have tens of thousands of satellites overhead in what the Space Force says is a half-trillion dollar global space economy. Satellites guide GPS, process credit card purchases, help keep TV, radio and cell phone feeds going, and predict weather. They ensure the military and intelligence community’s ability to keep track of perceived threats.
And in a world where China and Russia are collaborating to try to surpass the U.S. in space, and where some point to private space efforts led by U.S. billionaires as rendering costly NASA rocket launches unnecessary, the U.S. would regret leaving the glory and strategic advantages from developing the moon and space solely to the likes of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Tesla magnate Elon Musk, Artemis proponents say.
The moon programs signal that “space is going to be an arena of competition on the prestige front, demonstrating advanced technical expertise and know-how, and then also on the military front as well,” said Aaron Bateman, a professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and a member of the Space Policy Institute.
“People who are supportive of Artemis and people who see it as a tool of competition, they want the United States to be at the table in shaping the future of exploration on other celestial bodies,” Bateman said.
There’s no shortage of such warnings as the Artemis program moves toward lift-off. “Beijing is working to match or exceed U.S. capabilities in space to gain the military, economic, and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership,” the U.S. intelligence community warned this year in its annual threat assessment.
A Pentagon-commissioned study group contended last month that “China appears to be on track to surpass the U.S. as the dominant space power by 2045.” It called that part of a Chinese plan to promote authoritarianism and communism down here on Earth.
It’s sparked occasional heated words between Chinese and U.S. officials.
China’s space program was guided by peaceable principles, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in July. “Some U.S. officials are constantly smearing China’s normal and reasonable outer space undertakings,” Zhao said.
Flying on the mightiest rocket ever built by NASA, Artemis 1 aims for a five-week demo flight that would put test dummies into lunar orbit.
If all goes well with that, U.S. astronauts could fly around the moon in 2024 and land on it in 2025, culminating a program that will have cost $93 billion over more than a decade of work.
NASA intends that a woman and a person of color will be on the first U.S. crew touching foot on the moon again.
Lessons learned in getting back to the moon will aid in the next step in crewed flights, to Mars, the space agency says.
China’s ambitious space program, meanwhile, is a generation behind that of the United States. But its secretive, military-linked program is developing fast and creating distinctive missions that could put Beijing on the leading edge of space flight.
Already, China has that rover on Mars, joining U.S. ones already there. China carved out a first with its landing on the far side of the moon.
Chinese astronauts are overhead now, putting the finishing touches on a permanent orbiting space station.
A 1967 U.N. space treaty meant to start shaping the guardrails for space exploration bans anyone from claiming sovereignty over a celestial body, putting a military base on it, or putting weapons of mass destruction into space.
“I don’t think it’s at all by coincidence or happenstance that it is now in this period of what people are claiming is renewed great-power competition that the United States is actually investing the resources to go back,” said Bateman, the scholar on space and national security. “Time will tell if this turns into a sustained program.”
Competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Does rivalry with the Chinese “ensure greater sustained interest in our space program? Sure,” Coons said. “But I don’t think that’s necessarily a competition that leads to conflict.
“I think it can be a competition — like the Olympics — that simply means that each team and each side is going to push higher and faster. And as a result, humanity is likely to benefit,” he said.
HOUSTON (CN) — A married couple just wanted the curly fries they had paid for in the drive-thru of a Jack in the Box in Houston. But they say in a lawsuit an employee of the restaurant yelled at them to leave before pulling a gun and firing at them.
Seeking $250,000 to $1 million damages, Anthony Ramos and his wife Jeraldin Ospina, for herself and their 7-year-old daughter, sued Alonniea Fantasia Ford, Jack in the Box Inc. and its franchisee A3H Foods General Partner LLC, which operates the restaurant near George Bush Intercontinental Airport where the incident occurred.
Ramos and Ospina live in Florida but Ramos’ employer sent him to Houston in February 2021 to help restore electricity in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri, according to their lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Harris County District Court.
Pregnant at the time, Ospina took a flight from Miami to Houston with the couple’s then-6-year-old daughter on March 21, 2021, to visit Ramos, as recounted in the complaint.
He picked them up in his friend’s SUV and they pulled into a Jack in the Box drive-thru around 11:30 p.m. and ordered a meal with curly fries. Ford handed them their bag of food and they told her it was missing the fries.
They say Ford refused to give them their fries and became irate after they asked to speak to a manager.
“Ford began cursing at plaintiffs and yelling at them to ‘get the f*** outta here!!’ Plaintiffs started arguing with defendant Alonniea Fantasia Ford. At some point during the argument, defendant Alonniea Fantasia Ford threw ketchup, ice, and other items at plaintiffs inside their car,” the complaint states.
Ford pulled out a gun. Ramos hit the gas as Ford squeezed the trigger and a bullet grazed the back of the SUV. The couple’s daughter was sitting in the back seat.
“I was dumbfounded about it. I couldn’t believe it happened. I’m glad I reacted the way I did. It was scary. Very, very scary. … And my initial reaction was to call the police once I was in a safe area,” Ramos said during a virtual press conference his attorneys put on Wednesday to publicize the lawsuit.
Houston police arrested Ford, 29, and she was charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She spent six days in jail but reached a deal with prosecutors in June, pleading guilty to misdemeanor deadly conduct.
She was sentenced to one year of deferred adjudication, a type of probation that allows a defendant to avoid having the conviction permanently on their record if they abide by the terms of their release.
Ford’s rap sheet includes a September 2012 misdemeanor conviction for making a terroristic threat. She pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, court records show.
“Jack in the Box, of course, with just the simplest of research could have found that,” said Randall Kallinen, a Houston civil rights attorney representing the family. “Anybody in the public can find it within a matter of minutes. You just go to the Harris County District Clerk’s website and it pops up, the whole criminal history.”
According to Ramos and his lawyers, they filed suit in part to raise awareness about the hiring practices of Jack in the Box and its franchisee A3H Foods.
“What’s important in these kinds of cases is the control the corporate parent has over the local franchise. And through the exercise of that control with its policies, procedures and training, much has gone wrong to allow this to happen,” said the family’s co-counsel Mark Underwood of McKinney, Texas.
Jack in the Box’s corporate legal department did not immediately respond Wednesday to a phone message seeking comment on the lawsuit. An employee of A3H Foods, which operates more than 15 Jack in the Box restaurants in Texas and Oklahoma, declined to comment.
The shooting frightened Ramos’ and Ospina’s daughter so much she is seeing a counselor, Kallinen said.
Ramos, Ospina and their daughter brought claims of gross negligence, negligence and negligent hiring against Jack in the Box and A3H Foods. They sued Ford for assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress, in addition to negligence claims.
ATLANTA (CN) — The U.S. Treasury asked the 11th Circuit on Tuesday to overturn a decision handed down by an Alabama federal judge last year which blocked the federal government from enforcing a restriction in the American Rescue Plan Act that prohibited states from using the pandemic relief funds to offset new tax cuts.
An attorney for the Treasury Department called the lawsuit filed by 13 states “a very strange constitutional challenge” which asks the Atlanta-based appeals court to “adopt an onerous interpretation” of the tax cut rule.
Justice Department attorney Daniel Winik urged the panel to reverse the lower court’s decision, arguing that the provision of the law does not prevent states from offsetting tax cuts by other means.
“The statute simply doesn’t mean what the plaintiffs fear it does,” Winik said.
Designed to hasten the nation’s recovery from the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the American Rescue Plan distributed $195.3 billion in flexible relief funds directly to the states. The money represents an average of roughly 25% of the plaintiff states’ annual budgets.
But the money comes with strings attached. Before a state can receive the funds, it must certify to the Treasury secretary that it will comply with certain conditions.
Among those conditions is a rule barring states from using the funds to offset a decrease in their net tax revenue through the end of 2024.
The mandate prompted six federal lawsuits, including the one before the 11th Circuit filed by Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.
The states claimed that the tax cut rule could be read to prohibit states from passing tax relief of any kind since it is unclear how reductions in net tax revenue will be measured to determine compliance.
An Alabama federal judge permanently blocked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen from seeking enforcement of the rule against the states last November.
U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler sided with the states, calling the mandate “a federal invasion of state sovereignty” and ruling that it was an “unconstitutionally ambiguous spending condition.”
The judge found that the rule violated the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution. The provision made it impossible for states to make informed choices about the costs of receiving relief funds because they could not know how to exercise taxing authority without putting the funds at risk, Coogler decided.
West Virginia Solicitor General Lindsay See, who represents the states, told the 11th Circuit panel on Tuesday that the rule is unclear about what it means to “directly or indirectly” offset tax cuts with relief funds.
The ambiguity leaves states on uncertain ground, without an understanding of how they can avoid being asked to repay the money due to an indirect offset of net tax revenue, See argued.
U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Luck, a Trump appointee, questioned the attorneys about whether the mandate was specific enough to allow states to understand the agreement they were getting into.
Winik argued that a regulation put forward by the Treasury Department in January should have cleared up any confusion. He added that Congress is not obligated to spell out the details of how a condition should be applied.
But Luck appeared unconvinced. “There has to be some ascertainable basis to see what that net reduction is,” the judge said. “How could states possibly know?”
Luck also said regulations might not be enough to “fit the bill” due to their ephemerality, noting that policies can change depending on who is in office.
Winik put forward that states could naturally measure a reduction by comparing pre-pandemic budget numbers.
But See told the panel that the regulation to clarify the restriction is “not legally relevant.”
“Under the spending clause, Congress must speak clearly,” See said. “The rule of law has to be clear from the law itself… We’re not arguing that regulations can’t clear up some details. But it’s not clear from the statute what the baseline is going to be.”
Even with the regulation, See said the states “still don’t know what it means to cut taxes with ARPA funds.”
Luck was joined on the panel by fellow Trump appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Ed Carnes, a George H.W. Bush appointee.
The panel did not indicate when it will make a decision in the case.
BOSTON (CN) — Millions of children are headed back to the classroom this fall and finding themselves in Ground Zero of a furious culture war that has produced a torrent of legislative skirmishes over what teachers can say about race and gender — but may be getting in the way of addressing students’ more serious problems.
Many children need mental health support as a result of pandemic isolation, said Marie Wright, a former school board member in Colorado, and there’s a high rate of suicide attempts, but as a result of partisan bickering “anyone who brings up a serious concern about this gets shut down.”
“We have people who want to eliminate all school counselors because they believe they’re converting kids to LGBTQ and Marxism,” Wright said. “And on the other side you have people who want more services — but only for transgender kids, who are a tiny fraction of the population.”
As a result, “teachers are afraid to talk to kids and ask them how they’re doing because they’re afraid they’re going to get targeted. We can’t even teach kids that you need to be polite to each other.”
The political battle has often pitted teachers — and especially their unions — against parents, which poisons the educational atmosphere for everyone.
In New Jersey, the state teachers’ union recently released an ad that shows scary, threatening images of parents and condemns them as “extremists” who are “attacking our schools.” Meanwhile in Wisconsin, a county Republican party funded an ad claiming teachers are indoctrinating students that “all white people are racist” and “all people should have equal outcomes.”
Ordinary citizens who don’t have a dog in the ideological fight are unhappy about the conflict. More than two-thirds of Americans in political battleground states now rate public schools as a top issue, according to a poll by a Democratic research firm. And the biggest complaint isn’t about class size, teacher shortages or online learning; it’s that schools have become “too politicized.”
The controversy began in the spring of 2021 with the deluge of news stories — often amplified by conservative media — about critical race theory, sexually explicit materials and transgender discussions in elementary school. Republican lawmakers started backing bills to clamp down on such practices, and the following laws have been enacted in the interim:
It’s now illegal to teach that white people are inherently racist. (Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee)
It’s illegal to teach that America is a racist country. (Georgia, Iowa, North Dakota and Tennessee)
It’s illegal to teach that white people living today are morally responsible for slavery. (Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah)
It’s illegal to teach that one race is morally superior to another. (Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah)
Florida and Virginia prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, Montana prohibits asking students to reflect on their privilege, and Oklahoma doesn’t allow teaching that meritocracy and a work ethic are racist concepts.
Similar bills are actively being considered by lawmakers in Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states.
In North Carolina, the legislature passed a bill that would have outlawed teaching that one race is superior to another, that white people are inherently racist or oppressive, and that meritocracy is a racist idea. But the bill was vetoed by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.
And in Wisconsin, Democratic Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill that would have outlawed training for public school teachers that encourages “race or sex stereotyping.”
A man holds up a sign against critical race theory during a protest outside a Washoe County School District board meeting in Reno, Nev., on May 25, 2021. (Andy Barron/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, File)
A large number of bills have also been introduced relating to gender issues, although these have not been quite as successful. The one that has garnered the most attention is Florida’s statute that prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity before the fourth grade, which has been derided by critics as a “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Alabama adopted a similar law this year. Arkansas, Montana and Tennessee approved laws that require schools to give families advance notice of lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity and allow them to opt out. And a new Oklahoma law prohibits children from receiving “mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling.”
Other gender-related bills now being considered in 15 states would, among other things, limit the sports teams on which trans girls can play and require them to use male bathrooms, prohibit teachers from discussing their sexual orientation or gender identity, prohibit teachers from encouraging students in the perception that their gender identity differs from their biological sex, require parents’ written permission for students to join gender-related clubs or be addressed with a different pronoun, require parental notification if a student exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria, and ban classroom materials and library books that encourage alternative sexual lifestyles.
Another spate of bills is designed to create “curriculum transparency” by allowing parents to more easily see what’s being taught to their children. Transparency legislation has been introduced in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. Such bills were vetoed by Democratic governors in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Many teachers complain that curricula are already accessible and that the proposed laws would simply create opportunities for ill-informed outsiders to object and meddle.
“A lot of the people who show up at meetings and complain don’t even have kids in the school,” Wright said.
Finally, there’s a move to restrict how U.S. history is taught. Florida and Texas have banned the “1619 Project” — a controversial curriculum that claims the American Revolution was fought largely over slavery — and a new Kentucky law says that children should be instructed that slavery was bad but that “defining racial disparities solely on the legacy of this institution” is also wrong.
Some of the new laws are being challenged in court, and it’s not clear if they’re constitutional. While teachers are public employees and their free-speech rights on the job are limited, in theory the laws could violate the First Amendment right of students to receive ideas and information.
One of the few relevant cases is a 2015 Ninth Circuit ruling on an Arizona law that prohibited public school courses that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people,” “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals” or “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.” The court said the first two restrictions were valid under the First Amendment but rejected the third on the grounds that it could ban a course on Chinese history even if it were open to everyone.
On remand, however, a district court struck down the law on equal protection grounds because it was targeted at one specific program for Mexican-Americans and was motivated solely by racial bias.
Despite the political and legal furor, there’s little hard evidence that America’s schools are suddenly experiencing an epidemic of Marxist indoctrination.
There are more than 3 million public schoolteachers in the U.S. (and another half million in private secondary schools), and undoubtedly some of them broadcast extreme views in the classroom. Some have admitted as much in social media videos that are highlighted on conservative media.
However, “we find little evidence that a large percentage of teachers are systemically imposing a radical political agenda in K-12 classrooms,” the conservative Heritage Foundation concluded after conducting a nationwide survey in 2021.
Danbury High School sophomore Alanna Smith speaks during a Feb, 12, 2020, news conference at the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, Conn. Smith, the daughter of former Major League pitcher Lee Smith, is among three girls suing to block a state policy that allows transgender athletes to compete in girls sports. (AP Photo/Pat Eaton-Robb)
While teachers as a whole are slightly more likely than the general public to believe in systemic racism, “teachers are not extremely ideological,” the survey concluded. “In most cases, teacher views are moderate or slightly left of center. The average teacher response was consistently more moderate than that of the average liberal in the nationally representative sample.”
In a 2017 survey conducted by Education Week, 43% of teachers described themselves as politically moderate. Only 29% said they were liberal or very liberal, while 27% said they were conservative or very conservative.
An Ipsos poll this year found that the vast majority of parents had no objection to the way that race and gender are being handled in their children’s schools.
With regard to the teachers who say inappropriate things in the classroom, Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, called these “extremely isolated incidents involving a small handful of people..”
“And we already have systems in place to address such misconduct,” DiMauro continued. “But there’s a narrative that all teachers need to be held in mistrust and the way to solve it is with sweeping legislation.
“I’m sure I could find a few bad people in any profession,” DiMauro added. “It’s just like the police. People like to put a spotlight on a few egregious examples but that doesn’t mean that all police officers are bad.”
While there’s little broad evidence of teachers indoctrinating students, there’s some examples of education authorities trying to train teachers in leftist concepts, especially in liberal areas. Fox News reported that the Los Angeles Unified School District, for instance, required all teachers to undergo an “antiracist” training program taught by an advocate of critical race theory.
But even these claims are sometimes overblown. A group called the Sunlight Policy Center alleged that the New Jersey Education Association, “the state union that represents 125,000 teachers of our children … is training teachers to become political activists and push for radical education policies in local school districts.” The evidence for this turned out to be a link on the union’s calendar page to a program called “Advocating and Organizing for Social Change” that was offered by a separate organization and that was completely optional, cost $150 and was limited to 20 people.
But regardless of the facts on the ground, turning schools into a political battlefield has benefits for the political combatants. For instance, Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for President Trump, said on a podcast that the route to success for the conservative agenda “is very simple — it’s going to go through the school boards.”
“This is how we are going to win. I see 50 [additional House Republican] seats in 2022,” Bannon said.
On the other side, the country’s two national teachers’ unions, which regularly donate tens of millions of dollars to Democrats in hopes of obtaining policies in their favor, see a benefit in pouring gasoline on the flames in ways that please the party’s progressive wing.
At its annual meeting last year, the National Education Association voted to allocate funds to support critical race theory and the 1619 Project in K-12 schools. The union also vowed to oppose “white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”
This is not the first time that public schools have been turned into a political football. There’s a widespread belief that in the past teachers were always held in high community regard but “that’s a myth,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
Whereas previous school culture wars often centered on religion — including battles over evolution, sex education and school prayer — Zimmerman said it is politics that has typically gotten teachers fired. In the past teachers were fired for expressing misgivings about slavery or World War I, for alleged Communist sympathies during the 1950s, and for their views on the Vietnam War.
“What’s new, though, is that the attacks on teachers now are far more organized and national in scope,” Zimmerman said. “Historically public schools were a state and local matter. But [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis this making it a big part of his presidential campaign. It’s become a national political project.”
The resulting controversy is leaving millions of rank-and-file teachers, parents and students, like refugees in a war zone, ducking for cover as the ideological bullets fly overhead.
A third of teachers say they’re stressed out by the politicization of schools, and 14% report experiencing “hostility or aggression” in the past year regarding the teaching of race — with the bulk of the hostility coming from people who have no connection to the school, according to a study by the RAND Corporation.
“I am terrified to teach in this polarized environment,” one civics teacher in rural Massachusetts confessed anonymously.
“We are supposed to contact the school committee before teaching ‘controversial topics’; however, what these issues are is murky,” the teacher added.
DiMauro said that teachers feel “caught up in a culture war they didn’t create” and regularly avoid talking about topics that could in any remote way be considered controversial even if they’re perfectly appropriate and part of the approved curriculum.
The conflict also makes it hard to help children in other ways, he said. “If you can’t have a conversation about gender, what do you do about students who are being harassed because of their sexual orientation? We can’t support them even if they come to us for help.”
According to Wright, “We have a board member who describes anyone who is LGBTQ as a groomer, and on the other side there are people insisting that everything is systemic and institutional, and they want the whole history curriculum redone.” In this hyperpartisan environment, she said, “conversations about what kids actually need are impossible.”
