“This is one of New Zealand’s darkest days,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Dear Commons Community,

A mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, left at least 49 people dead and the city on lockdown for hours.

“It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference. “From what we know, it does appear to have been well planned. …These are people who I would describe as having extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand and in fact have no place in the world.”   As reported by the New York Times and other media:

“Some of the shootings were streamed on Facebook, a grim development in terrorism that raised questions about the ability of tech companies to block violent content.

The police said three men and one woman were in custody. One of those in custody is Brenton Tarrant (see photo below), who appears to have masterminded the attack.

New Zealand’s police commissioner, Mike Bush, said that a number of explosive devices were found in vehicles stopped by the police. The police warned residents of central Christchurch to stay indoors and asked mosques to close.

“This is and will be one of New Zealand’s darkest days,” Ms. Ardern said at a news conference.

“It is clear that this can only be described as a terrorist attack,” she added.

Mr. Bush said a mosque on Deans Avenue near Hagley Park, in the center of the city, and a mosque on Linwood Avenue, about three miles away, were attacked.

The attacks began at about 1:40 p.m., not long after the midday Friday prayer, when the mosques would be most busy. Ms. Ardern said that many of the victims were most likely migrants to New Zealand or even refugees.

“They are one of us,” she said. “The person who has perpetrated these acts is not.”

Shortly before the shooting, someone appearing to be the gunman publicly posted links to a manifesto on Twitter and 8chan, an online forum. The 8chan post included a link to what appeared to be the gunman’s Facebook page, where he said he would soon broadcast live video of the attack.

The 17-minute video, which appeared to be recorded on a helmet camera, shows his drive to the mosque, followed by a harrowing nearly two minutes of his firing on the worshipers in one of the mosques before fleeing the building and running back to his car and swapping weapons.

He then is seen re-entering the mosque and again begins shooting, continuing to methodically move through the mosque. Several victims can be seen in the footage, many lying on top of one another motionless in a corner of the room.

After another few minutes, he leaves again, gets in his vehicle and drives away, talking to himself throughout.

“There wasn’t even time to aim, there was so many targets,” he says at one point.

The New Zealand police said on Twitter they were “aware there is extremely distressing footage relating to the incident in Christchurch circulating online,” and urged people not to share the link. “We are working to have any footage removed,” the police said.

Facebook said it was alerted by the police shortly after the livestream started. “We quickly removed both the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video,” Mia Garlick, a Facebook representative, said in a statement. “We’re also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware.”

The video and Twitter posts showed weapons covered in the names of past military generals and men who have recently carried out mass shootings.

In his manifesto, Brenton Tarrant identified himself as a 28-year-old man born in Australia. He listed his white nationalist heroes, described what he said motivated him to attack, and said he purposely used guns to stir discord in the United States around the Second Amendment.”

How sad that these poor victims were killed in places of prayer and by such a despicable maniac.

Tony

Brenton Tarrant – One of the Alleged Killers in New Zealand Mosque Attacks

Dear Commons Community,

The big news yesterday without a doubt was that Paul Manafort was sentenced to his second federal prison term in two weeks; he now faces a combined sentence of more than seven years for tax and bank fraud and conspiracy in two related cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.  However, there is concern that President Trump may pardon him at some point. Within hours of the sentencing announcement, Manafort was charged in New York with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies.   Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said that the New York indictments are an effort to ensure Manafort will still face prison time if Mr. Trump pardons him for his federal crimes.  The timing of Vance’s move is most interesting.  It is also a signal to Trump that he too is probably going to face more legal problems in New York.  Here is background on these developments courtesy of the New York Times.

“The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but has no such authority in state cases.

While Mr. Trump has not said he intends to pardon his former campaign chairman, he has often spoken of his power to pardon and has defended Mr. Manafort on a number of occasions, calling him a “brave man.”

Later on Wednesday, the president said, “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” and that he had “not thought about” a pardon for him.

The new state charges against Mr. Manafort are contained in a 16-count indictment that alleges a yearlong scheme in which he falsified business records to obtain millions of dollars in loans, Mr. Vance said in a news release after the federal sentencing.

“No one is beyond the law in New York,” he said, adding that the investigation by the prosecutors in his office had “yielded serious criminal charges for which the defendant has not been held accountable.”

The indictment grew out of an investigation that began in 2017, when the Manhattan prosecutors began examining loans Mr. Manafort received from two banks.

Last week, a grand jury hearing evidence in the case voted to charge Mr. Manafort with residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records and other charges. Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Mr. Manafort, declined to comment on the new charges.

Earlier this month, Mr. Manafort, 69, was sentenced in Virginia to nearly four years in prison on one of his two federal cases, far less time than prosecutors had requested; on Wednesday, he was sentenced in Washington, D.C., to serve an additional three and a half years. He could face up to 25 years in New York state prison if convicted of the most serious charges in the new indictment, which is expected to be announced later on Wednesday.

The loans were also the subject of Mr. Mueller’s investigation and were the basis for some of the counts in the federal indictment that led to Mr. Manafort’s conviction last year in Virginia. But the Manhattan prosecutors deferred their inquiry in order not to interfere with Mr. Mueller’s larger investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In recent months, prosecutors in the district attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau resumed their inquiry and began presenting evidence to the grand jury, several people with knowledge of the matter have said.

The district attorney’s office determined some time ago that it would seek charges whether or not the president pardoned Mr. Manafort.

Mr. Manafort’s lawyers likely will challenge the new indictment on double jeopardy grounds. New York state law includes stronger protections than those provided by the United States Constitution, but prosecutors in Mr. Vance’s office have expressed confidence that they would prevail, people with knowledge of the matter said.

State Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley unsealed the charges in the early afternoon, but it will likely be weeks before Mr. Manafort is brought to New York to be arraigned.  The 11-page indictment contains few details about the conduct underlying the accusations, but it says they occurred between December 2015 and January 2017. Several people with knowledge of the matter said the mortgage fraud charges stemmed from loans Mr. Manafort obtained or tried to obtain from Citizens Bank, based in Rhode Island, and Federal Savings Bank in Chicago.

The loans were for properties on Howard Street, in Lower Manhattan; on Union Street in Brooklyn Heights; and in Bridgehampton on Long Island, the people said.

A left-leaning district attorney in a blue state, Mr. Vance is almost sure to face the accusation that his prosecution of a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle is politically motivated. Perhaps even more so because the indictment marks the third time in little more than a week that a New York Democrat has taken action against the president, his company or his associates.

On Monday, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, subpoenaed bank records relating to the financing of several Trump projects. And last week, state regulators in the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo began an examination of insurance policies and claims involving the president’s family business.

And these inquiries are playing out against the backdrop of a Democratic Congress pumped up to investigate Mr. Trump, his administration and his business as the presidential campaign season gets underway.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s Cy Vance or Cy Young,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican consultant who has worked on several presidential campaigns, most recently in 2012 for Mr. Romney. “Any and every action even perceived to be a threat against him or his presidency will be framed as political retribution and an effort to undermine his 2016 victory.”

People close to the president have said privately that they believe the case will play poorly for Mr. Vance, and that the public will see him as piling on the already beaten-down Mr. Manafort.

For Mr. Vance, though, the case against Mr. Manafort will play out before a very different audience, and could provide the prosecutor with something of an opportunity to show his willingness to challenge Mr. Trump.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Brookings Institution had a provocative article (see below) a week ago speculating on whether China or the United States will lead the world in artificial intelligence (AI) development in the not-too-distant future.  In this country and most of the Western world, all of the money is on the United States.  Billions of dollars are being invested into AI by the top American technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook as well as the federal government. However, as the article mentions, China’s government has also made AI a top priority. Where the U.S. has established a strong lead in AI discovery, it is increasingly likely that China may dominate the industrial application of AI. Not only does China have advanced commercial capabilities in AI and machine learning, but more importantly, it has a coherent national strategy. Alongside China’s expertise in factory machinery, electronics, infrastructure, and renewable energy, the country’s government is increasingly focusing on AI leadership, coordinating efforts across both the public and private sectors.  I believe the latter issue is most important and may give China the edge.  

The Brookings article also refers to former Google China head Kai-Fu Lee, who has written a book entitled, AI Super-Powers:  China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, that portends the coming battle between the two countries. Lee describes  China’s innovation system as nurturing a kind of global economic duopoly that will inevitably force countries around the world to choose sides. As Lee points out, the strength of China’s economy is a productive synergy between government policies and market forces. Unlike the U.S., China’s government has become highly invested in leveraging AI to drive its economy. China’s state-led strategy builds on the country’s national champions Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent in a long-term effort to restructure the global technology market.  

I have read Lee’s book and it is most illuminating.  In addition to the points made in the Brookings article, Lee vividly describes the ultra-competitive culture of Chinese technology companies as an advantage over their American counterparts.

Tony

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Brookings

Who will lead in the age of artificial intelligence?

By  Daniel Araya

Accelerating trends in artificial intelligence (AI) point to significant geopolitical disruption in the years ahead. Much as the Industrial Revolution enabled the rise of the United States and other advanced economies, so AI and machine learning are poised to reshape the global order. Forecasts suggest that AI will add a massive $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

Prospects for sustaining global competitiveness are now directly tied to the industrialization of AI. The industrial application of AI to a wide array of industries will mean a constant state of innovation. AI is predicted to reshape manufacturing, energy management, urban transportation, agricultural production, labor markets, and financial management. Governments that can successfully cultivate a culture of disruptive innovation will be strategically positioned to lead in the twenty-first century. By contrast, governments that resist AI will find themselves facing a daunting future.

Battle of the Titans

At the research level, the United States remains highly invested in AI and other disruptive technologies. The National Science Foundation currently invests over $100 million each year in AI research. DARPA recently announced a $2 billion investment in an initiative called AI Next whose goal is advancing contextual and adaptive reasoning. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has created a new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to oversee service and defense agency efforts. More recently, the Trump administration has introduced a new executive order for developing a national strategy around AI but has offered little in terms of effective coordination.

By contrast, China’s government has made AI a top priority. Where the U.S. has established a strong lead in AI discovery, it is increasingly likely that China may dominate the industrial application of AI. Not only does China have advanced commercial capabilities in AI and machine learning, but more importantly, it has a coherent national strategy. Alongside China’s expertise in factory machinery, electronics, infrastructure, and renewable energy, the country’s government is increasingly focusing on AI leadership, coordinating efforts across both the public and private sectors.

According to former Google China head Kai-Fu Lee, China’s innovation system is nurturing a kind of global economic duopoly that will inevitably force countries around the world to choose sides. As Lee points out, the strength of China’s economy is a productive synergy between government policies and market forces. Unlike the U.S., China’s government has become highly invested in leveraging AI to drive its enormous economy. China’s state-led strategy builds on the country’s national champions Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent in a long-term effort to restructure the global technology market.

The Chinese Century?

China’s government asserts that AI is critical to its future growth. Where China has commoditized computers, electronics, smartphones, infrastructure, telecommunication technologies, and supercomputers, Beijing has now set its sights on ubiquitous AI. This includes autonomous vehicles (AVs), advanced medical equipment, robotics, and financial technologies.

Until very recently, most of the AI-driven innovation deployed by Chinese industries has been incremental rather than disruptive—but this is changing. China’s technology sector is reaching a critical mass of expertise, talent, and capital that is realigning global power. In fact, the Chinese government plans to lead the world in AI by 2030, announcing more than $110bn worth of technology merger and acquisition deals since 2015.

China expects to widen its lead in the industrialization of AI by leveraging massively abundant data and rapid prototyping. The country’s growing internet economy generates vastly more data than any other country, particularly through its fintech industry. The Chinese telecom market is the largest in the world and is expanding into emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. China alone has more than 800 million internet users—98% of whom are mobile users. With instantaneous mobile payments, for example, China’s telecom infrastructure is providing a tsunami of data for training AI algorithms.

Dominating Industrial AI

One very real question today is which country’s economic system will be more successful in the era of industrial AI? China’s highly efficient planning model has become a force to be reckoned with. Even as the big five U.S. technology giants—Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Google—redefine Western capitalism, China is inventing a kind of “technonationalism”. As the US-China Economics Review Commission explains, the Chinese government has a defined and very comprehensive industrial strategy for deliberately replacing foreign technology and products, both at home and abroad. Building on its domestic firms, China is leveraging massive subsidies for R&D as well as government procurement, foreign investment restrictions, and the recruitment of foreign talent, to lead the field in the industrialization of AI.

While the U.S. retains a significant commercial and research dominance in AI, resources are fragmented and national leadership is weak. Though Congress has recently passed legislation introducing a national security commission on AI, the U.S. still lacks a coherent vision for coordinating AI. Perhaps an even more challenging problem is the deep divide between the public and private sectors. In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, technology professionals now repudiate government, wary of colluding with an opaque military-industrial complex.

The bottom line is that China and the U.S. are pursuing very different paths in the race to lead AI. China is reimagining the world as a single complex network of supply chains and trade arteries. Its ambitions in the field of AI are coordinated and strategic. Meanwhile, President Trump’s national populism and protectionist trade policies have effectively undermined the very liberal order that once justified U.S. leadership. This will need to change. Just as a post-war generation built a liberal global order, so today the U.S. is in need of a new and compelling vision for an AI-driven global society.

Dear Commons Community,

Fifty people including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were arrested and charged in a nationwide college admissions cheating scam, according to court records unsealed in Boston this morning.

In a press conference announcing the mail fraud charges, officials shed light on the so-called “Operation Varsity Blues,” which investigated California businessman William Singer, who ran what they described as “the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.” Officials said that they suspect more are involved in the alleged scheme.

Among those indicted in the case include three people who organized the alleged scheme, two administrators, one proctor, one college administrator, nine athletic coaches at elite schools and 33 parents who payed “enormous sums to guarantee their children’s admissions to schools” like Yale, Stanford, the University of Southern California and Georgetown.

According to the charges, the bribes ranged from several thousand dollars to $6.5 million, resulting in roughly $25 million being paid to Singer between 2011 and 2018.

Officials said that Singer and Stanford’s sailing coach John Vandemoer, are expected to plead guilty to the charges. Us Weekly reported that Huffman was in custody and that an arrest warrant had been issued for Loughlin, though she is “out of the country.” Her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was arrested, too.

Authorities reportedly uncovered the scheme after discovering last May that Singer had been helping parents get their children into their top-choice universities. Parents would allegedly pay the man to get an SAT or ACT administrator of a college athletic coach to help their children get into the schools. They would reportedly pay Singer through a bogus charity organization that he set up to funnel the payments through.

Test administrators would reportedly hire proctors to take the test on behalf of the student or correct their answers. Coaches would allegedly arrange fake profiles pretending that the students were athletes, oftentimes using stock photos of athletes and Photoshopping the students’ faces onto the bodies in the photos.

In most cases, the parents knew exactly what was going on, prosecutors said, while most of the students didn’t know that their parents were issuing bribes on their behalves.

Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, reportedly “agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team — despite the fact that they did not participate in crew — thereby facilitating their admission to USC.”

Loughlin’s daughters, Isabella Rose, 20, and Olivia Jade, 19, are currently enrolled at USC.

Meanwhile, Huffman allegedly “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000…to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter. Huffman later made arrangements to pursue the scheme a second time, for her younger daughter, before deciding not to do so.”

“Ultimately, Huffman’s daughter received a score of 1420 in the SAT, an improvement of approximately 400 points over her PSAT,” the report added.

This is just another mark against our college admissions systems or as Frank Bruni said this morning:  “What else is new?”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York State Attorney General’s office issued subpoenas yesterday to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records relating to the financing of four major Trump Organization projects and a failed effort to buy the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League in 2014. As reported by the New York Times:

“The inquiry opens a new front in the scrutiny of Deutsche Bank, one of the few lenders willing to do business with Donald J. Trump in recent years. The bank is already the subject of two congressional investigations and was examined last year by New York banking regulators, who took no action.

The new inquiry, by the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, was prompted by the congressional testimony last month of Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, the person briefed on the subpoenas said. Mr. Cohen testified under oath that Mr. Trump had inflated his assets in financial statements, and Mr. Cohen provided copies of statements he said had been submitted to Deutsche Bank.

The inquiry by Ms. James’s office is a civil investigation, not a criminal one, although its focus and scope were unclear. The attorney general has broad authority under state law to investigate fraud and can fine — or in extreme cases, go to court to try to dissolve — a business that is found to have engaged in repeated illegality.

The request to Deutsche Bank sought loan applications, mortgages, lines of credit and other financing transactions in connection with the Trump International Hotel in Washington; the Trump National Doral outside Miami; and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, the person said.

Investigators also requested records connected to an unsuccessful effort to buy the Bills, the person said. Mr. Trump gave Deutsche Bank bare-bones personal financial statements in 2014 when he planned to make a bid for the team, The New York Times has reported. The deal fell through when the team was sold to a rival bidder for $1.4 billion.

Mr. Trump worked with a small United States-based unit of Deutsche Bank that serves ultra-wealthy people. The unit lent Mr. Trump more than $100 million in 2012 to pay for the Doral golf resort and $170 million in 2015 to transform the Old Post Office Building in Washington into a luxury hotel.

New Jersey-based Investors Bank was subpoenaed for records relating to Trump Park Avenue, a project it had backed.

Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank declined to comment. The Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

The subpoenas are a culmination of months of threats from Ms. James that she would aggressively investigate Mr. Trump. In August, referring to the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election, she said “the president of the United States has to worry about three things: Mueller, Cohen, and Tish James.”

Go for it Ms. James!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that barring “overwhelming” new evidence she would not pursue impeachment against President Trump because it would be too divisive and “he’s just not worth it.”

“I’m not for impeachment,” said Pelosi in an interview with the Washington Post published yesterday. “This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Impeachment by the House of Representatives, which Democrats control, can be accomplished by a simple majority. But to remove Trump from office would require a two-thirds majority vote in the Republican-led Senate.

Pelosi’s comments echo those by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, in an interview with Politico publisher earlier yesterday.

“You don’t want to divide the country, so you have to think you have such a case that once the case is finished being presented, enough people understand you had to do it,” said Nadler.

A poll of Iowa Democrats released over the weekend found only 22 percent of respondents saying they cared “a lot” about impeachment, far lower than issues like health care (81 percent), climate change (80 percent) or income inequality (67 percent).

Other Democrats are more enthusiastic. Freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., made headlines in January for saying of the president “We’re going to impeach this mother***er” at a MoveOn event in Washington, D.C. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Cal., first introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for obstruction of justice in July 2017.

I think this is a wise and judicious view on Pelosi’s part.  Of course everyone is waiting with bated breadth to see what Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation will yield.

Tony

The Marlboro cowboy and Joe Camel were mainstays in cigarette advertising.

Dear Commons Community,

Jeneen Interlandi has an editorial in today’s New York Times entitled, “Vaping Is Big Tobacco’s Bait and Switch,” which raises concerns about the popularity of vaping with teenagers.  She asks alarming questions that our health regulatory organizations should consider  Below is the entire editorial.

Tony

——————————————————————————————————————————

Vaping Is Big Tobacco’s Bait and Switch

By Jeneen Interlandi

Ms. Interlandi is a member of the editorial board.

March 8, 2019

I was 15 when I started smoking, and so were most of my friends. We smoked to rebel against our parents but also to identify with them — of course they smoked, even as they told us not to. We smoked because it was feminine and sexy, and also masculine and tough. Because celebrities did it, and they looked cool. Because the prissy kids didn’t do it, and we weren’t them. Because cigarettes were both forbidden and easy to get: ten quarters in a cigarette vending machine, which you could still find in most pizza joints and doughnut shops in suburban New Jersey in the early 1990s.

All of that — the appeal, the access, the illicitness of cigarettes — was by design. By the time my friends and I were born, cigarette makers had stitched their products into the fabric of our culture so thoroughly that not even a century’s worth of research tying those products to an array of slow, painful deaths was enough to deter many of us.

Tobacco companies made cigarettes a diet tool and a matter of high fashion. They made smoking a feminist act. They didn’t just assure the public that it was safe to smoke; they used doctors to push their brands. And the more they came to understand their own product, the more they advertised cigarettes to the young. Most people who don’t start smoking by the end of adolescence never will. The cigarette makers knew that. They used cartoon camels, pictures of Santa Claus and larger-than-life cowboys in their ads.

It helped that their key ingredient was highly addictive. It also helped that they were willing to lie. When concerns emerged about nicotine dependence, cancer and heart disease, they kept regulators at bay by playing up scientific uncertainty. Then they bought off scientists and disguised corporate propaganda as independent research. By the time their deceptions were exposed, a new generation of smokers — promising billions of dollars in industry revenue — was already hooked.

In the late 1990s, Big Tobacco was finally brought to account for its practices, and a string of public health policies were put in place that over the past three decades have all but eliminated the scourge of teen smoking. But many of us who became tobacco consumers at 13, 14, 15 remain so at 39, 40, 41. And in recent years, we have watched history repeat itself.

The tobacco industry is pushing a new kind of smoking device — the e-cig or vape pen — that it says is far healthier than traditional cigarettes: no tobacco, no tar, just nicotine and flavored vapor. These devices, the industry says, will finally help us adult smokers quit or curb our habit. But here’s the rub: E-cigs have brought smoking back into vogue for teenagers. As a result, the cost of this new cure may be another generation exposed to the same addiction we are still fighting.

Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Smoking kills some 480,000 people a year — more than AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs and suicide combined — and costs $170 billion in annual health care expenditures, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. E-cig makers say, and some health experts believe, that e-cigs could help lower these terrible numbers, because they contain far fewer toxins than traditional tobacco cigarettes. The thinking goes that if all current smokers switched to these devices, the burden of disease and death could be dramatically cut.

Few have been more captivated by this argument than Scott Gottlieb, the departing commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency responsible for regulating tobacco and nicotine products.

Since he assumed his role at the agency two years ago, Dr. Gottlieb has tried to strike a balance between encouraging adult smokers to switch to e-cigs and keeping the devices away from minors. Children and teenagers face disproportionate risk from smoking, in part because nicotine is known to harm the developing brain. In 2016, the F.D.A. prohibited the sale of e-cigs to minors, and issued a string of new regulatory requirements for vaping devices. Then, under Dr. Gottlieb’s tenure, the agency extended the deadline for meeting those requirements by several years, while also announcing plans to curb the nicotine content of regular cigarettes.

That plan backfired last year, when teen vaping reached epidemic proportions. Dr. Gottlieb has since tried to put the industry in check by, among other things, forcing e-cig makers to devise plans for keeping their products away from kids and issuing thousands of warning letters to retailers caught selling nicotine products to minors.

have responded to that pressure with a bait-and-switch that would make their Big Tobacco predecessors proud.

Juul, the company most responsible for the surge in teen vaping, scrubbed its Facebook and Instagram accounts and agreed to dramatically restrict sales of its most youth-friendly flavors, like mango, crème and fruit. But the company also received a $12.8 billion minority investment in December from the tobacco giant Altria, a move that will allow Juul products to be displayed alongside regular cigarettes in the nation’s brick and mortar retail outlets. For its part, Altria volunteered to withdraw all of its flavored-pod products from the market until the youth vaping epidemic was resolved. Dr. Gottlieb and others say the Juul combination with Altria severely undercuts that promise.

Dr. Gottlieb’s boldest antismoking efforts, which include reducing nicotine levels and banning menthol flavors in traditional cigarettes, are still in the planning stages. It’s unclear whether his successor will shepherd them into policy.

In the meantime, according to Reuters, a slew of Juul copycats are making their way into convenience stores in defiance of an F.D.A. rule banning the sale of new e-cig products after August 2016. Juul is promoting itself as a health-conscious company, even as it develops new, potentially more addictive vaping products. And Philip Morris International has created a nonprofit — the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World — through which it has tried to partner with the World Health Organization. The foundation’s stated goal is to reduce the global health burden of cigarette use. But according to tobacco industry watchdogs, leaked P.M.I. documents suggest that its true aim is to promote the company’s own vaping products.

None of this should come as a surprise. The tobacco industry was built around a product that is inherently dangerous and unhealthy. And it has a long history of duplicity.

There are still many unanswered efficacy and safety questions about e-cigs. It’s unclear how well they work as a smoking cessation tool. And while they are almost certainly safer than regular cigarettes, they are not necessarily safe. Health officials know next to nothing about the flavorings or about other chemicals generated by the heating of e-liquids. They also don’t know how many teenagers who start using e-cigs will move on to tobacco products.

In the absence of such information, some e-cig proponents have fallen back on a trope from the previous tobacco wars: Smoking should be a matter of personal choice and personal responsibility. That argument is not entirely wrong. Nicotine and tobacco are, after all, legal substances, and if e-cigs do prove safer than regular cigarettes, adult smokers should be encouraged to switch.

But the next F.D.A. commissioner would be wise to carry out the work that Dr. Gottlieb started — to keep all nicotine products from reaching underage users. I take full responsibility for choosing to smoke. But I wish that someone would have made it harder for 15-year-old me to do so. I hope the powers that be will do at least that much for the teenagers of today.

Dear Commons Community,

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is demanding Jeanine Pirro be fired from Fox News after she said on her Saturday program that Congresswoman’s Ilhan Omar’s hijab may be “antithetical to the Constitution.”

Fox News issued a statement yesterday  saying the network strongly condemns Jeanine Pirro’s attack on Omar (D-Minn.).

On Saturday, the Fox News host said Omar wears a hijab because the Koran “tells women to cover so they won’t get molested.” She also said the congresswoman’s religious dress may be “antithetical to the Constitution.”

The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and free speech rights.

Fox offered no details about any possible consequences for Pirro.

There was no immediate response from Omar.

The hijab attack was part of Pirro’s insinuation that Omar’s criticism of Israel must also be coming from her Sharia handlers.

In response, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the U.S., demanded that Fox News fire Pirro.

“Such an open and un-American expression of religious bigotry should be rejected by any media outlet seeking even a modicum of credibility,” CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement provided to Huffpost. “Jeanine Pirro should be fired, and Fox News should apologize to its viewing audience.”  

Pakistani American Hufsa Kamal, a producer on the “Special Report with Bret Baier,” reminded Pirro that she actually works with Muslims at Fox News.

Pirro is an Islamophobe and an embarrassment and should be let go.

Tony

Ken Jennings and Alex Trebek

Dear Commons Community,

Earlier this week, Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy, announced that he had stage four pancreatic cancer. Those of us who have been fans of his for decades were stunned and hope he wins his battle with this deadly disease.  Ken Jennings, who won 74 consecutive games on Jeopardy, has an op-ed tribute to Mr. Trebek in today’s New York Times.  Entitled, “What Alex Trebek Is really like:  An ode to our generation’s Cronkite,” Jennings open up a little window to give us a sense of the real Trebek.  Below is the entire op-ed.

Our prayers are with Alex!

Tony

=====================================================

Ken Jennings: What Alex Trebek Is really like:  An ode to our generation’s Cronkite.

By Ken Jennings

March 9, 2019

It was about a month into my 2004 run on “Jeopardy!” that Alex Trebek made me laugh out loud. “And now we come to our returning champion, Ken Jennings,” he said, “who has won 29 consecutive games.” He paused for one perfectly timed beat as he turned and nodded offhandedly to me. “You may now call me Alex.”

The joke, of course, was that everyone already calls him Alex. Cronkite was “Cronkite” and even Johnny was often “Carson,” but we all think of Trebek as “Alex,” that avuncular, Canadian-accented presence who has been in our homes every weeknight for 35 years. Whether we watch it regularly or not, we all rely on “Jeopardy!” always being there. It’s no longer an entertainment property; it’s an institution.

Alex Trebek announced a few days ago that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and that he plans to keep working as he fights the disease. Let me be clear: This is not an elegy. I hope Alex will be hosting “Jeopardy!” for a long time to come. It’s impossible to even imagine the show with anyone else. But he’s been doing one job so long, and so well, that I think we sometimes take him for granted. Let’s make sure that we appreciate the man as long as we have him.

“Jeopardy!” contestants are, by strict policy and even the weight of federal law, kept far away from anyone who actually runs the game. Apart from what home viewers see on camera, you don’t hang out with Alex. He remains, I like to say, a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a Perry Ellis suit. And yet, to be a contestant, whether you’re on one show or 75 shows, is to spend the rest of your life answering one question: “Oooh, what’s Alex like?”

Alex Trebek fascinates America, but we don’t quite get him. He’s a game show host, but he’s not hearty or ingratiating. He’s a comedy signifier, most famously lampooned by Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live” for many years, but he also seems to be in on the joke. My picture of him has been built up in little glimpses over the years, to the point where I finally feel confident handling the endless stream of “What’s Alex like?”

In person, he’s decidedly not the stern, judicial presence you might expect. On TV, he’s all business. He has 61 clues to get to, and not a lot of time. Hosting such a dense, fast-moving game is an insanely hard job, but he makes it look effortless. Here’s the belief that lies at the core of Alex’s TV persona: “Jeopardy!” itself, not he, is the star of the show. It’s all about the format, the players, the facts, the dissemination of answers and questions. It’s hard to imagine any modern TV personality deftly avoiding the spotlight like that.

But when the cameras stop rolling, Alex is a looser, even goofy presence. He takes studio audience questions at every break, sometimes slipping into funny accents or even bits of soft-shoe. He still has the slight testiness, the dry imitation hauteur you can see when he spars with contestants in the interviews, but he’s gracious and candid and self-deprecating. The audience eats it up.

“And does he actually know all those answers?” I get asked. Not everyone likes that a big part of the “Jeopardy!” host’s job is to correct wrong answers — er, questions — no matter how gently Alex offers his traditional “ooh, noooo, sorry.” Of course Alex has all the responses on a big sheet of paper in front of him, but he’s also well-read and well-traveled, the kind of dad with a basement full of old National Geographics. When he pronounces the name of an Italian aria hyper-accurately, or explains that a contestant got George V and George VI confused, he’s not putting on airs. Yes, he really knows that stuff.

Carson and Cronkite are long gone, but Alex Trebek remains, the last of the old-school broadcasters who once visited us every night as a matter of ritual. When the syndicated modern “Jeopardy!” began in 1984, he was perhaps an odd choice to replace the show’s original host, the dignified Art Fleming: He was young, sexily mustached, fresh from dopey daytime game shows like “Battlestars.” But two generations of youngsters have now grown up on his clipped syllables. College students and retirees alike plan their evenings around his reassuring presence. He takes it seriously, being the face of “Jeopardy!,” the voice of facts in a post-fact world. I’ve seen him with the beaming tourists who sit in his studio audiences and the awe-struck, bookish kids for whom he was the host of the National Geographic Bee for 25 years. He knows how much he means to people, and I hope it gives him comfort that so many people are pulling for him now.

I remember that sense of awe myself, when I watched Alex walk onstage at the top of my very first show. After decades of loyal home viewing, it’s a little surreal to have the game suddenly come to life and surround you, like “Jumanji.” But the funny part was how ordinary and comforting and right it felt to have Alex Trebek standing a few feet away, welcoming you to the stage.

Who else could it be?

Dear Commons Community,

Bill Shine, the former Fox News executive who joined the White House staff last summer to manage President Trump’s communications operation, has resigned and will move to the president’s re-election campaign, the White House announced yesterday.  As reported by the New York Times and The Huffiington Post.

“Mr. Shine’s departure came as a surprise to many in the White House and was revealed as the president was on Air Force One leaving Washington.

While described by some White House colleagues as a rare adult in the room, Mr. Shine has sometimes been absent during key moments, including the president’s trip last week to Vietnam. Colleagues said he had developed little chemistry with Mr. Trump, and critics increasingly focused on Mr. Shine’s ties to Fox, where he was forced out for his handling of sexual harassment claims.

In a meeting yesterday morning with communications staff members, Mr. Shine told colleagues that he was leaving for two reasons, according to a person familiar with what took place. He said that he lived a solitary existence in Washington and missed his family, who remained in New York. But the second reason, he said, was that he had become a distraction for Mr. Trump and did not see that changing.

The White House sought to present Mr. Shine’s resignation as amicable and issued statements in the name of the president and other officials praising him. But people close to the White House described the campaign job as a way to save face.

Shine joined the White House last summer, after being forced out at Fox News in the wake of several sexual harassment scandals. Shine himself was not accused of improper conduct himself when he left in 2017, but was involved in protecting and enabling those who were, including former CEO Roger Ailes and top-rated evening host Bill O’Reilly.

The announcement comes just a few days after a startling New Yorker story detailed the symbiotic relationship between the Trump White House and Fox News. New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer characterized the Fox news as “the closest we’ve come to having state TV” in the United States.

Among the most shocking claims in the report was that Trump allegedly ordered former adviser Gary Cohn to meddle in a proposed Time Warner-AT&T merger.

Another alarming tidbit involved Stormy Daniels; according to The New Yorker, a Fox News reporter knew about Trump’s alleged affair with the porn actress but the outlet quashed the story.

A Fox executive reportedly told the journalist: “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert [Murdoch, owner of Fox News] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.”

Goodbye and good luck, Mr. Shine.

Tony