Dear Commons Community,

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, who put his academic expertise on the Great Depression to work reviving the American economy after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, won the Nobel Prize in economics along with Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig. The Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said the trio’s research had shown “why avoiding bank collapses is vital.”    As reported by the Associated Press.

With their findings in the early 1980s, the laureates laid the foundations for regulating financial markets, the panel said.

“Financial crises and depressions are kind of the worst thing that can happen to the economy,” said John Hassler of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences. “These things can happen again. And we need to have an understanding of the mechanism behind those and what to do about it. And the laureates this year provide that.”

Bernanke, 68, examined the Great Depression of the 1930s when he was a professor at Stanford University, showing the danger of bank runs — when panicked people withdraw their savings — and how bank collapses led to widespread economic devastation. He was Fed chair from early 2006 to early 2014 and is now with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Before Bernanke, economists saw bank failures as a consequence, not a cause, of economic downturns.

Diamond, 68, based at the University of Chicago, and Dybvig, 67, who is at Washington University in St. Louis, showed how government guarantees on deposits can prevent a spiraling of financial crises.

“Probably the most gratifying thing for us is that policymakers actually seem to understand it, and the insights that we had, which are pretty simple, could be used in the actual financial crisis,” Diamond told The Associated Press in Chicago. He added that he was “very happy” and “quite surprised” to get the call.

When it comes to the global economic turmoil created by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, the financial system is “much, much less vulnerable” to crises because of memories of the 2000s collapse and improved regulation, Diamond said in a call with the Nobel panel.

The trio’s research took on real-world significance when investors sent the financial system into a panic during fall 2008.

Bernanke, then head of the Fed, teamed up with the U.S. Treasury Department to prop up major banks and ease a shortage of credit, the lifeblood of the economy.

He slashed short-term interest rates to zero, directed the Fed’s purchases of Treasury and mortgage investments and set up unprecedented lending programs. Collectively, those steps calmed investors and fortified big banks.

The Fed also pushed long-term interest rates to historic lows, which led to fierce criticism of Bernanke, particularly from some 2012 Republican presidential candidates who said the Fed was hurting the value of the dollar and running the risk of igniting inflation later.

The Fed’s actions under Bernanke extended the authority of the central bank into unprecedented territory. They weren’t able to prevent the longest and most painful recession since the 1930s. But in hindsight, the Fed’s moves were credited with rescuing the banking system and avoiding another depression.

And Bernanke’s Fed established a precedent for the central bank to respond with speed and force to economic shocks.

When COVID-19 slammed the U.S. economy in early 2020, the Fed, under Chair Jerome Powell, quickly cut short-term interest rates back to zero and pumped money into the financial system. The aggressive intervention — along with massive government spending — quickly ended the downturn and triggered a powerful economic recovery.

But the quick comeback also came at a cost: Inflation began rising rapidly last year and now is close to 40-year highs, forcing the Fed to reverse course and raise rates to cool the economy. Central banks around the world are taking similar steps as inflation erodes consumers’ spending power.

In a groundbreaking 1983 paper, Bernanke explored the role of bank failures in deepening and lengthening the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Before that, economists cast blame on the Fed for not printing enough money to support the economy as it sank. Bernanke agreed but found that the shortage of money could not explain why the depression was so devastating and lasted so long.

The problem, he found, was the collapse of the banking system. Panicked savers pulled money out of rickety banks, which then could not make the loans that kept the economy growing.

“The result,’’ the Nobel committee wrote, “was the worst global recession in modern history.’’

“Ben Bernanke’s 1983 paper was startlingly original and of enduring importance—not in explaining how the Great Depression started, but in explaining why it lasted so long,’’ said former Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton University. “That insight has affected economists’ thinking ever since.’’

Diamond and Dybvig showed that banks play a crucial role in resolving a nettlesome financial problem: Savers want instant access to their money, but businesses need time to see their ventures generate profits before they can repay loans in full. In a 1983 paper, Diamond and Dybvig explored the banks’ key role as intermediary between savers and borrowers.

They also found that banks are vulnerable: If savers fear their bank is in danger of failing, they will pull their money out, forcing the bank to call in loans to raise money to cover withdrawals. To stop bank runs — and their economic fallout — governments can insure deposits and act as a lender of last resort to banks.

The insight: “If you could prevent the panic, then the banks would be fine,” said Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written about the financial crisis. “That’s a very, very powerful idea that underpins how people think about financial stability.”

Diamond also established, in a 1984 paper, that banks play a crucial role in evaluating borrowers’ creditworthiness and making sure that loans go to worthy projects and get repaid.

The economics award capped a week of Nobel Prize announcements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

Congratulation to this trio  of winners!

Tony

Umpire Alfonso Marquez checks the ear of Joe Musgrove of the San Diego Padres during the sixth inning against the New York Mets in game three of the National League Wild Card Series. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

Dear Commons Community,

Last night, the New York Mets lost their wild card playoff series against the San Diego Padres but Met manager  Buck Showalter stole the show when he asked the umpires to check San Diego pitcher Joe Musgrove’s ears for whether he was using a foreign substance to doctor the baseball.

To be fair to Showalter,  Musgrove’s ears were glistening with what looked like more than just sweat.

The umps stopped the game and gathered around the mound. Umpire Alfonso Marquez checked out Musgrove’s hat, glove… and ears but found nothing and play continued.

After the game, Showalter was unapologetic, saying the team is “privy” to more information, that he “loves” Musgrove as a pitcher and that he feels “kind of bad about it,” according to the LA Times.

“I’m charged with doing what’s best for the New York Mets,” he said. “If it makes me look however it makes me look or whatever, I’m going to do it every time and live with the consequences.”

One of the more immediate consequences was this reaction from Musgrove after he got out of the inning:

“I mean, I get it dude,” Musgrove said after the game. “They’re on their last leg, they’re desperate. They’re doing everything they can to get me out of the game at that point. It is what it is.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Musgrove was part of a cheating club: He was on the infamous 2017 Astros, which used an elaborate ― and illegal ― sign-stealing scheme as they ultimately won a World Series that even Musgrove himself isn’t proud of.

“I still don’t feel great about wearing that ring around or telling people that I was a World Series champion on that team,” he admitted to the Associated Press last week. “I want one that feels earned and that was a true championship. So that’s the goal.”

He ultimately threw seven innings, giving up just one hit and a walk while recording five strikeouts as the Padres won 6-0 to advance to the next round.

Congratulations to the Padres.  The Mets have next year!

Tony

Michael Cohen

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump took classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate as a “get out of jail free card” in the event the government should try to pursue charges against him after he left office, his former attorney Michael Cohen hypothesized. As reported by the Huffington Post.

“That’s exactly what he saw in those documents,” Cohen said on the “Salon Talks” podcast. ”‘You want to play with me? Really? I was the former president of the United States. I have documents that are so damaging to this country’s national security. Go ahead, indict me, try to throw me in prison. See what happens.’ What happens is he turns over all this classified information, not as if he hasn’t already done it, but he turns all his classified information over to our adversaries, right? ‘You want to play that game? No problem!’”

He said his former boss would do “anything and everything in order to protect himself, plain and simple.”

“He doesn’t care about this country. He doesn’t care about democracy. He doesn’t care about QAnon,” he added. “He doesn’t care about the independents. He doesn’t care about Republicans or Democrats. He cares about one thing and only one thing and that’s Donald J. Trump.”

Cohen and others have made similar predictions since the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump’s Florida compound on Aug. 8 to retrieve sensitive government documents he unlawfully took there. During a CNN interview later that month, Cohen said Trump likely viewed the documents as a bargaining chip should he be indicted.

“The second they would put him in handcuffs, he would turn around and say: ‘I have the documentation showing, for example, where our nuclear launch pads are,’” Cohen guessed.

Last month, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who serves on the armed services and foreign relations committees, said he had a similar gut feeling about Trump’s reasons.

“I spend a lot of time in secure Senate facilities. I know what this information is like,” he said on CNN. “The reason Trump took this with him to Florida was probably to try to either sell it or have it as a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

During the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, officials were able to recover at least 20 boxes and 11 pieces of pertinent documents. Trump was found to have had more than 300 classified documents in his possession, including 150 that he returned to the National Archives.

Last week, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department believes there are still more documents in Trump’s possession.

Cohen, who served time in prison after facilitating a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from disclosing an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election, authored a book entitled Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story Of The Former Personal Attorney To President Donald J. Trump, which I read and found to be a very credible depiction of Trump by Cohen. 

I tend to believe Cohen regarding his allegation here against Trump!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A truck bomb (see graphic video below) yesterday caused a fire and the collapse of a section of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to Crimea damaging a key supply artery for Moscow’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine.

The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament immediately accused Ukraine, though the Kremlin didn’t apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge and some lauded the attack, but Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility.

The bombing came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin turned 70, dealing him a humiliating blow that could lead him to up the ante in his war on Ukraine.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the truck bomb caused seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in a “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.”

The Crimean Peninsula holds symbolic value for Russia and is key to sustaining its military operations in the south. If the bridge is made inoperable, it would make it significantly more challenging to ferry supplies to the peninsula. While Russia seized the areas north of Crimea early during the invasion and built a land corridor to it along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to reclaim them.

The bridge has train and automobile sections. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee specified that the explosion and fire led to the collapse of the two sections of one of the two links of the automobile bridge, while another link was intact.

Russia’s Energy Ministry said Crimea has enough fuel for 15 days, adding that it was working on ways to replenish stock.

Authorities suspended passenger train traffic across the bridge until further notice. Putin was informed about the explosion and he ordered the creation of a government panel to deal with the emergency.

The 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov opened in 2018 and is the longest in Europe. It has provided an essential link to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The $3.6 billion project is a tangible symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea. It was Russia’s only land link to the peninsula until Russian forces seized more Ukrainian territory on the northern end of the Sea of Azov in heavy fighting, particularly around the city of Mariupol, building a land corridor to Crimea earlier this year.

The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament blamed Ukraine for the explosion, but downplayed the severity of the damage and said it would be promptly repaired.

“Now they have something to be proud of: over 23 years of their management, they didn’t manage to build anything worthy of attention in Crimea, but they’ve managed to damage the surface of the Russian bridge,” Vladimir Konstantinov, Chairman of the State Council of the Republic, wrote on Telegram.

The parliamentary leader of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party on Saturday stopped short of claiming that Kyiv was responsible for the incident but appeared to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea and attempts to integrate the peninsula with the Russian mainland.

“Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode,” David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People party, wrote on Telegram.

“And this is just the beginning. Of all things, reliable construction is not something Russia is particularly famous for…” he said.  Other Ukrainian officials were more celebratory while still stopping short of claiming responsibility. The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, posted a video in his Twitter with Kerch Bridge on fire on the left side and video with Marilyn Monroe singing her famous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” on the right side.

An advisor to Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted: “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature.”

In August, Russia suffered a series of explosions at an airbase and munitions depot in Crimea, which underlined its vulnerability.

The blast on the bridge occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city’s medical institutions and a nonresidential building. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The blasts came hours after Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 17.

On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organizations in his Russia and Ukraine, and to an activist jailed in Belarus, an ally of Moscow.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, the committee’s chair, said the honor went to “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence,” though it was widely seen as a rebuke to Putin and his conduct of Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War II.

Putin signed documents on Wednesday to illegally claim four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory, including the Zaporizhzhia region that is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, whose reactors were shut down last month.

That move was foreshadowed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, which was carried out after Moscow alleged residents of the peninsula had voted to join with Russia. That move was widely condemned, and prompted sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd has a column this morning comparing Donald Trump and Hershel Walker, referring to them as an “unholy alliance” because they both support each other even when  caught in vile behavior against women.  She reviews the histories of both men who engage in misogynistic proclivities yet continue to be supported by their party and the religious right.  Here is an excerpt:

“Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn’t care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a “Handmaid’s Tale” world, on the rest of us.

Christian-right leaders made clear that, no matter what Trump said or did to women, he was preferable to Hillary Clinton, who supported abortion rights.

As Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the time, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot,” noting, “We’re all sinners.”

Well, Falwell certainly was. Four years later, he was ousted from running Liberty University after a sex scandal of his own.

Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.

Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.

The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.”

Hypocrisy knows no limits when it comes to the Republicans and religious right leaders.

Ms. Dowd’s entire column is below.

Tony

The New York Times

Donald and Herschel: The Unholy Alliance

Oct. 8, 2022

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist

WASHINGTON — This will sound quaint.

In May 2016, The Washington Post ran the story of how Donald Trump, in his real estate days, would call reporters, pretending to be his own spokesman, to brag and leak nuggets about nonexistent romances with famous women. I thought that would knock him out of the race.

The story hit on a Friday, so I scrambled to rewrite my column on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t last the weekend.

But the scoop didn’t make a dent.

The next day, The Times splashed a piece on the front page reporting that dozens of women had accused Trump of “unwelcome romantic advances” and lewd and “unending commentary on the female form.”

Again, he emerged unscathed with his base.

I still didn’t learn my lesson, though. That October, when the “Access Hollywood” tape showed Trump yucking it up about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, noting that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” I once more figured he couldn’t survive as leader of the party of “family values” and the religious right.

He could.

Once, there were limits, things that could disqualify you from office, especially in the party that claimed a special relationship with Jesus.

But those limits don’t exist anymore.

Conservatives have sacrificed any claim to principle. In an unholy transaction, they stuck with Trump because there was a Supreme Court seat and they were willing to tolerate his moral void in order to hijack the court. They didn’t care how he treated women as long as he gave them the opportunity to rip away rights from women. They wanted to impose their warped morality, a “Handmaid’s Tale” world, on the rest of us.

Christian-right leaders made clear that, no matter what Trump said or did to women, he was preferable to Hillary Clinton, who supported abortion rights.

As Jerry Falwell Jr. said at the time, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot,” noting, “We’re all sinners.”

Well, Falwell certainly was. Four years later, he was ousted from running Liberty University after a sex scandal of his own.

Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.

Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.

The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.

On Friday, The Times published a story confirming The Daily Beast’s reporting, and in a startling development added that in 2011, Herschel pressured the same woman to have another abortion. They ended their relationship when she refused; she had their son, now 10.

There’s more: His ex-wife claimed he pointed a pistol at her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out; he has four children with four different women, but hadn’t publicly acknowledged three of them. His 10-year-old was one of those hidden.

Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit.

Privately, some Republicans are mortified by the Walker spiral, but they’re going to brazen it out for the win.

Dana Loesch, the right-wing radio host, was blunt: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

Republicans have exposed their willingness to accept anything to get power that they then abuse. As Lindsey Graham said out loud, with his fellow Republicans shushing him, they want a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. And Herschel Walker is key to that.

Trump got to know Walker when he bought the New Jersey Generals in 1983, which Walker had joined after he won the Heisman Trophy and dropped out of the University of Georgia to turn pro.

“In a lot of ways, Mr. Trump became a mentor to me,” Walker wrote in his memoir in 2008, “and I modeled myself and my business practices after him.” Trump led the cry “Run, Herschel, run!”

Walker takes after his mentor with his lies, hypocrisy and know-nothingness on issues. Still worse, he’s following his mentor by denying his transgressions as a womanizer, even as he tries to smash women’s rights.

Dear Commons Community,

Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos are now the longest-serving pair of hosts ever on any ABC, CBS and NBC morning show, together for more than thirteen years on “Good Morning America.”  As reported by the Associated Press.

“We wear very well together, George and myself,” Roberts said.

Asked about the feat, Stephanopoulos laughed and made reference to his age (he’s 61). Roberts, also 61, became emotional. Between doubters and serious health issues, the longevity is a meaningful achievement.

They’ve presided during a time “Good Morning America” took over from “Today” as the most popular morning show and have kept that distinction for a decade, yet also as the shows diminished in audience and influence.

“I’m proud,” Stephanopoulos said. “It’s been a great run. Robin has been a joy to work with. We’ve had a lot of fun and great success and covered a lot of consequential things. It’s been an incredible experience.”

But, yes, he estimated he turned down then-ABC News President David Westin’s job offer three times when the network was looking to replace Diane Sawyer.

“It took a fair amount of persuasion,” Westin recalled. Stephanopoulos, who started at ABC News on Inauguration Day 1997, was an entrenched Washington insider from his days in the Clinton administration and as host of “This Week,” a job he retains. Westin believed he was ready for a bigger stage.

“When you put things together you don’t think about how long it will last,” Westin said. “You think about whether the fundamentals are good. You’re never sure.”

Morning shows have their share of frivolity, cooking and celebrity segments, yet also need to be ready when a big story breaks. Westin wanted Stephanopoulos for those days.

Thirteen years in, Stephanopoulos “is laughing more than I’ve ever seen him laugh,” said Michael Strahan, who joined the pair as a host in 2016. “I definitely feel like he has loosened up. I don’t know if I can take credit for it.”

Even after she’d been working on “Good Morning America,” Roberts said she was aware of doubts among some ABC News executives that she wasn’t right for the job because her background was in sports broadcasting, not news.

Don’t think she’s forgotten that, even as some of the naysayers have since apologized to her.

“I get weepy when I think of how I beat the odds,” she said.

The New York-based Roberts in the past few weeks has flown to London and back for coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death — twice — gone to Los Angeles for tapings of her Disney+ interview series “Turning the Tables,” traveled to Mississippi for a family function and did a round trip to Ghana for “GMA” stories.

It’s a remarkable, perhaps inadvisable, schedule for someone who has faced down health difficulties She insists she feels great.

Roberts had chemotherapy and was off the air for five months starting in 2012 after undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat MDS. She contracted the blood and bone marrow disease from treatment for breast cancer. Roberts still keeps a close watch on her immune system.

“Viewers come up to me to this day and say, ‘I prayed for you,’” Roberts said, her voice betraying the emotion. “Whew! I mean, come on. After all this time. I’m 12 years out, 10 years from my bone marrow transplant. It just really gets me that people come up and say those things and that I give them hope for a person they know in their life who is going through a similar journey.”

Roberts’ connection to people, and her spirituality, is a key to her success, Westin said.

Not everything has gone smoothly on “Good Morning America.” Its former top producer left abruptly last year and was later sued for sexual assault and creating a hostile workplace, a case that was dismissed.

Like most television programs, “GMA,” “Today” and “CBS Mornings” have fewer viewers than they used to: from 12.4 million cumulatively in the first six months of 2010 to 8.7 million in the first half of this year, the Nielsen company said. Despite holding the lead, the “Good Morning America” audience is down 26 percent in that time.

“Do I think people are getting up and reaching for the remote the first thing in the morning like they used to?” Roberts said. “No, they reach for their phone.”

The morning shows, not just “Good Morning America,” are adapting by producing more material for different formats, like podcasts, and segments not necessarily tied to the time of day. “GMA” is making a conscious effort to appear less New York or Los Angeles-centric by featuring more guests and experts from other parts of the country, said Simone Swink, the show’s executive producer.

Roberts and Stephanopoulos have kept engaged through projects outside of “GMA.” Both have their own production units: Rock ’n Robin Productions made a Lifetime movie about Mahalia Jackson, and Stephanopoulos makes news documentaries.

Hulu just premiered “Power Trip,” a series where young reporters are embedded in midterm election campaigns, with Stephanopoulos as a mentor. If it goes well, expect “Power Trip” back for the 2024 campaign.

That first dinner meeting left Roberts wondering what type of partnership she would have with Stephanopoulos. Now she can’t imagine “GMA” without him and credits her partner with introducing her to meditation, helping her get over the constant tiredness morning anchors often feel.

Roberts said: “We would never, ever do anything to make each other look good at the expense of the other,” she said. “That’s such a comfort. To have that, it makes you take chances, and I think the audience picks up on that — the way that we are so different in many ways but so common in others.”

GMA is a good way to start off a day.

Congratulations to both of them! 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The school district of Uvalde, Texas, suspended its entire campus police force yesterday, saying new developments have “uncovered additional concerns with department operations” following officers’ response to a deadly mass shooting at a district elementary school in May.

The suspension will last “for a period of time,” the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (UCISD) said in a statement. The district has asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide additional troopers for now.

“We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition,” the UCISD statement said.

The district has also placed Lt. Miguel Hernandez on administrative leave. Hernandez had taken over as UCISD police chief a month after the deadly shooting when his predecessor, Pete Arredondo, was himself placed on administrative leave. Arredondo was ultimately fired for how long it took officers to confront the gunman, who killed 19 young children and two adults at Robb Elementary on May 24.

Ken Mueller, the district’s director of student services, was also placed on leave but elected to retire instead, UCISD said Friday.

The district said it’s still cooperating with two investigations into the shooting response ― one by a team of private investigators the district hired, and one by the Texas Police Chiefs Association. Aside from saying it had recently developed “additional concerns,” UCISD didn’t provide any information about what led to Friday’s decision.

Police in Uvalde have come under immense scrutiny for their response to the Robb Elementary shooting. Surveillance footage from the day revealed that after officers arrived on the scene, they did not break into the classroom where the shooter had stationed himself until an hour and 14 minutes had passed.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has laid much of the blame on Arredondo, the school police chief at the time who acted as the on-scene commander during the massacre. The department says Arredondo erroneously told officers to treat the situation as a barricaded gunman, which calls for a slower response process, when they should have categorized it as an active shooter situation and moved much more quickly.

Some of this tragedy could have been averted with a proper police response!

Tony

Ales Bialiatski

Dear Commons Community,

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this morning to the human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organization Memorial and the Ukrainian rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, in what was one of the most closely watched announcements in the prize’s recent history as war rages in Europe.

The Nobel committee said it had chosen the three laureates because it wanted to honor the champions of “human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence” in the neighboring countries Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.  As reported by The New York Times.

“The Peace Prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. “They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.”

“They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power,” she added.

Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, did not shy away from the award’s political significance. “On Putin’s 70th birthday, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to a Russian human rights group that he shut down, a Ukrainian human rights group that is documenting his war crimes, and a Belarusian human rights activist whom his ally Lukashenko has imprisoned,” he said on Twitter.

Asked whether this year’s choice of winners was “a timely birthday president,” Ms. Reiss-Andersen said, “This prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday or in any other sense — except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists.”

The Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine has engaged in efforts to identify and document evidence of Russian war crimes since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ms. Reiss-Andersen said, adding that the group was “playing a pioneering role with a view to holding the guilty parties accountable for their crimes.”

The committee praised the organization for taking a stand to “strengthen Ukrainian civil society and pressure the authorities to make Ukraine a full-fledged democracy.”

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 137 laureates since its inception in 1901. It is the only Nobel not presented in Sweden.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden announced yesterday that he will pardon all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana.

The president is also calling on governors to pardon state marijuana offenses. He will also ask the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the attorney general to review how the drug is scheduled under current federal law.  As reported by various news media.

“We can’t do it alone. The president is calling on governors to take this action as well,” a senior administration official said. “This is important, as the vast majority of marijuana convictions are state convictions.”

The forthcoming pardons are set to clear the convictions of some 6,500 people who had federal charges of simple possession of marijuana from 1992 to 2021, officials said. Thousands more who were convicted in the District of Columbia will also be pardoned.

“Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” Biden said in a statement. “And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”

The announcement still stops short of decriminalizing marijuana, even as a growing majority of Americans say the drug should be legal. The president also intends to keep the current regulations relating to trafficking, marketing and underage sales in place.

Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, like heroin and LSD. The Justice Department said it will work with the Department of Health and Human Services to review how marijuana is classified under federal law.

“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” Biden said. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

Good move, Mr. President!

Tony

Ben Sasse

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a prominent voice in the Republican Party who voted to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, plans to resign from the Senate by the end of the year to take a job as the president of the University of Florida.

The move caught Republicans off guard given that he was just reelected in 2020 and will give the state’s GOP governor a chance to make an appointment to fill the vacancy. Sasse, a conservative member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, often votes with his party, but emerged as a leading Trump critic in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump supporters.

Sasse has had a distinguished academic career, earning a PhD from Yale University and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University. Sasse spent five years as the president of Midland University, where he is widely credited with transforming the institution. Prior to that, Sasse had a varied and impressive career in academia and the private sector. Sasse’s passion for teaching started at Yale University and continued as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to winning the Egleston and Theron Rockwell Field best dissertation prizes, he is also the author of two New York Times best-selling books. 

As reported  by  CNN.

Sasse has made little secret of the frustration he felt with the Senate and the changing nature of the Republican Party. He explained his decision to vote to convict Trump by saying that the former President’s lies about the election “had consequences” and brought the country “dangerously close to a bloody constitutional crisis.” He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump after the House of Representatives impeached him for incitement of an insurrection.

A Sasse resignation would not change the balance of power in the Senate, with his seat to be temporarily filled by an appointment made by outgoing Nebraska Governor  Pete Ricketts, a Republican.

The senator informed close friends and advisers earlier this week that he was likely to leave his seat in the Senate for a possible position at the University of Florida.

He made the announcement yesterday with KFAB radio during an interview conducted by a former Senate staffer, who now hosts a conservative talk show in Omaha.

In a statement, Sasse praised the university and said he is “delighted to be in conversation with the leadership of this special community about how we might together build a vision for UF to be the nation’s most-dynamic, bold, future-oriented university.”

The University of Florida’s presidential search committee voted unanimously to name Sasse as their sole finalist for president of the university, the source said. Now, Sasse will go to Florida and meet with students and staff. Then there needs to be a vote by the University of Florida board of trustees and board of governors to formalize the process. All that is expected to happen over the next several weeks and into November.

“When he accepts that offer, he would resign,” the source said. “We anticipate this will happen by the end of the year.”

In a statement released by the university, Rahul Patel, chair of the presidential search committee, said, “Ben brings intellectual curiosity, a belief in the power and potential of American universities, and an unmatched track record of leadership spanning higher education, government and the private sector.”

Sasse has long been critical of the way the Senate functions and operates. After he was reelected in 2020, he told friends he was unlikely to ever run for the seat again.

Congratulations to Dr. Sasse!

Tony