Dear Commons Community,

As sports fans get ready for a weekend of playoff football games, we should take a minute to remember Buffalo Bills’ player Damar Hamlin, who suffered a devastating injury January 2nd.  Remarkable as Damar Hamlin’s recovery has been, the Buffalo Bills safety still faces a lengthy rehabilitation some three weeks after going into cardiac arrest and needing to be resuscitated on the field during a game in Cincinnati, his representative told The Associated Press on Thursday night.

“Damar still requires oxygen and is having his heart monitored regularly to ensure there are no setbacks or after effects,” Jordon Rooney said. “Though he is able to visit the team’s facility, Damar is not in position to travel often, and requires additional rest to help his body heal.”

Rooney provided the update to emphasize Hamlin still faces hurdles since being discharged from Buffalo General Medical Center on Jan. 11. Hamlin’s release came five days after his doctors said the player was breathing on his own, walking, talking and showing no signs of neurological damage.

Rooney’s update also gave perspective to comments made by Bills coach Sean McDermott, who on Wednesday said Hamlin has begun making regular visits to the team’s facility. McDermott, however, stressed the 24-year-old was taking “a baby step at a time,” while adding, Hamlin is “dipping his toe back in here and getting on the road to just getting back to himself.”

Hamlin has not yet made a public appearance except for a photograph linebacker Matt Milano posted on his Instagram account of his teammate at the Bills facility on Saturday. And he’s not yet spoken publicly except for posting messages on his social media accounts.

Rooney said Hamlin is being watched over by his parents and “remains very upbeat and grateful for the support he’s received from his teammates and coaches, Bills Mafia and people from around the world.” That outpouring of support has led to Hamlin’s charitable foundation, Chasing M’s, raising nearly $9 million in donations.

Without saying from where, he added, Hamlin will be cheering for the Bills on Sunday, when Buffalo hosts Cincinnati in an AFC divisional playoff.

Hamlin live-tweeted while watching Buffalo’s 35-23 season-ending win over New England from his hospital bed at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center on Jan. 8. Last weekend, he live-tweeted while watching from home the Bills’ 34-31 win over Miami in a wild-card playoff.

The game against Cincinnati carries additional significance. It marks the first meeting between the two teams since their game was canceled on Jan. 2, when Hamlin collapsed after being struck squarely in the chest while making what appeared to be a routine tackle of Bengals receiver Tee Higgins.

Hamlin’s family and Bills quarterback Josh Allen have defended Higgins in saying he shouldn’t be blamed for what happened.

On Thursday, Higgins said he couldn’t be more appreciative of the family’s support, while expressing hope Hamlin could attend the game so the two could meet.

“Just be happy to see him,” Higgins said. “I haven’t really spoken to him. Just letting his family do what he needs to do with all his loved ones.”

Also on Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul extended her support to Hamlin during a phone call with the player. In a message posted on her Twitter account, Hochul referred to Hamlin as “an inspiration,” and let him know “the hopes and prayers of 20 million New Yorkers have been with him throughout his recovery.”

Hamlin, who is from the Pittsburgh area, replied by writing it was good meeting Hochul and he was “excited to see how our collaborations in the future will help and affect so many.”

May he heal and get well as soon as possible!

Tony

Source:  Layoffs.fyi

Dear Commons Community,

While last year’s labor market was remarkably strong, the tech industry was an exception.  

After a massive hiring spree in the first two years of the pandemic, industry giants like Amazon and Meta reversed course in 2022. There were at least 154,000 layoffs from more than 1,000 tech companies last year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that has been tracking tech layoffs since March 2020. “The number of actual layoffs is going to be much higher than what’s on the site just because most layoffs don’t get reported,” Layoffs.fyi creator Roger Lee told USA TODAY. “Unfortunately, I don’t see the layoffs going away anytime soon.”

Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced yesterday that it  is slashing an estimated 12,000 jobs, marking the latest round of sweeping layoffs to strike the technology industry.

CEO Sundar Pichai informed workers about the staff reductions in an email that was also shared on the company’s news blog. The jobs being shed “cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” he said.

The “roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome” of a “rigorous review,” the CEO said. The cuts will reduce the company’s workforce by about 6%.

“The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,” Pichai said.

Laid-off staff will receive severance starting at 16 weeks salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google. They will also receive six months of health care, job placement services and immigration support if needed.

Pichai cited the changing “economic reality” in announcing the layoffs. He specifically pointed to the surge in online activity triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has waned in the months since lockdowns were lifted.

“As an almost 25-year-old company, we’re bound to go through difficult economic cycles.” he told employees. “These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”

Pichai added: “Being constrained in some areas allows us to bet big on others.”

The announcement comes just days after Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts, or a nearly 5% reduction of its workforce. Facebook parent company Meta is shedding 11,000 positions, or 13% of its workers, while business software maker Salesforce is slashing about 8,000 employees, or 10% of its staff.

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk reduced the social media company’s workforce by nearly 50% upon acquiring the company back in October. This translated to about 3,700 jobs lost. Amazon has also announced it will cut 18,000 of its 1.5 million jobs.

This surely hurts in a business sector that had been doing so well even during the pandemic.

Tony

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed legislation that restricted how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools. A federal judge blocked part of the law, but it still applies to public schools. Credit…Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald, the Associated Press

Dear Commons Community,

Florida will not allow a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies to be offered in its high schools, stating that the course is not “historically accurate” and violates state law.

In a letter last week, the Florida Department of Education informed the College Board, which administers A.P. exams, that it would not include the class in the state’s course directory. Rigorous A.P. courses allow high school students to obtain credit and advanced placement in college.  As reported by The New York Times.

“… the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” the department’s office of articulation, which oversees accelerated programs for high school students, wrote on Jan. 12. In the future, should the College Board “be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion.” 

The letter, with no name attached to it, did not cite which law the course violated or what in the curriculum was objectionable. The department did not respond to questions asking for more details. But last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed legislation that restricted how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces. The law’s sponsors called it the Stop WOKE Act. Among other things, it prohibits instruction that could make students feel responsibility for or guilt about the past actions of other members of their race.

Yesterday, the College Board said that the A.P. African American studies course was still undergoing a multiyear pilot phase. The course is multidisciplinary and addresses not just history but civil rights, politics, literature, the arts, even geography.

“The process of piloting and revising course frameworks is a standard part of any new A.P. course, and frameworks often change significantly as a result,” the College Board said in a statement. “We will publicly release the updated course framework when it is completed and well before this class is widely available in American high schools.”

Mr. DeSantis, who is widely considered a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly taken on polarizing culture war issues, including teaching about race and gender. Those stances are popular among many parents and helped him win re-election last year by a wide margin. He pledged when he was sworn into a second term this month that he would continue seeking to make Florida “the land of liberty and the land of sanity.”

Last year, a federal judge blocked part of the Stop WOKE Act — officially named the Individual Freedoms Act — that would have regulated workplace trainings on issues such as race and diversity. But the law still applies to public schools. So does another 2022 law, the Parental Rights in Education Act, which critics call “Don’t Say Gay,” that among other things bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

Even before Mr. DeSantis signed the contentious laws last year restricting what can be taught, his administration rejected dozens of math textbooks for use in public school classrooms, claiming their incorporation of social-emotional learning and critical race theory. The rejection of the new A.P. African American studies course was first reported by National Review.

Florida already prohibits schools from teaching “critical race theory,” an academic framework for understanding racism in the United States that was not taught in high schools but became a political rallying cry among parents and political activists on the right.

The state also does not allow educators to teach the 1619 Project, a classroom program that was developed by The New York Times and sought to reframe the country’s history by putting the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the center of the national narrative.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., a former chair of Harvard’s department of African and African American studies and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, who was a consultant to the College Board as it developed the A.P. course, said last year that he hoped the curriculum would not shy away from such debatable topics — not as a framework, but as a way of studying different theories of the African American experience.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading, Global Impacts of the Western School Model: Corporatization, Alienation, Consumerism (Routledge, 2019) by Joel Spring!  

As indicated in its front matter, this timely analysis of the current state of global educational policies focuses on the spread of the Western school model and its impact on creating an urban-consumer culture, increasing economic inequalities, contributing to environmental destruction and diminishing compassion and empathy essential for energizing social justice movements. In his signature straightforward, concise style, Spring describes and analyzes the school’s role in displacing religious with secular values, promoting nationalism, preparing students to work in global corporations, supporting cultural and linguistic homogeneity, and discusses related goals and effects of anti-globalization movements such as the Alt-right, Anti-fascist groups, radical environmentalism and anarchism.  It is an important addition to Spring’s body of work on global educational policies and challenges readers to re-examine what they know about education, globalization and their interconnections.

Spring provides excellent  background material and examples of education in other countries that have been influenced by the Western model. 

I found it an engaging quick read.  

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Supreme Court said yesterday an eight-month investigation that included more than 120 interviews and revealed shortcomings in how sensitive documents are secured has failed to find who leaked a draft of the court’s opinion overturning abortion rights.

Ninety-seven employees, including the justices’ law clerks, swore under oath that they did not disclose a draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, the court said.

It was unclear whether the justices themselves were questioned about the leak, which was the first time an entire opinion made its way to the public before the court was ready to announce it.   As reported by the Associated Press.

Politico published its explosive leak detailing the Alito draft in early May. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation the next day into what he termed an “egregious breach of trust.”

Yesterday, the court said its investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.”

The investigation has not come to an end, the court said. A few inquiries and the analysis of come electronic data remain.

The court said it could not rule out that the opinion was inadvertently disclosed, “for example, by being left in a public space either inside or outside the building.”

While not identifying the leaker, the investigation turned up problems in the court’s internal practices, some of which were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and the shift to working from home.

Too many people have access to sensitive information, the court’s policies on information security are outdated and, in some cases, employees acknowledged revealing confidential information to their spouses. It was not clear from the report whether investigators talked to the justices’ spouses.

Some employees had to acknowledge in their written statements that they “admitted to telling their spouses about the draft opinion or vote count,” the report said.

Investigators looked closely at connections between court employees and reporters, and they found nothing to substantiate rampant speculation on social media about the identity of the leaker.

The investigation concluded that it “is unlikely that the Court’s information technology (IT) systems were improperly accessed by a person outside the Court,” following an examination of the court’s computers, networks, printers, and available call and text logs.

The “risk of both deliberate and accidental disclosures of Court-sensitive information” grew with the coronavirus pandemic and shift to working from home, the report said. More people working from home, ”as well as gaps in the Court’s security policies, created an environment where it was too easy to remove sensitive information from the building and the Court’s IT networks,” the report said.

Roberts also asked former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, himself a onetime federal judge, to assess the investigation. Chertoff, in a statement issued through the court, described it as thorough.

Politico published the draft decision on May 2. Less than 24 hours later, Roberts confirmed the draft’s authenticity and said he had directed the court’s marshal, former Army Col. Gail Curley, to lead the investigation.

Since then, there had been silence from the court.

The court had declined to say anything about the status of the investigation or whether an outside law firm or the FBI has been called in or whether it had taken steps to try to prevent a repeat. Speaking in Colorado in September, Justice Neil Gorsuch said he hoped a report was coming “soon” but he did not say whether it would be made public.

Gorsuch joined Roberts in condemning the breach of trust the leak engendered. Justice Clarence Thomas spoke in even starker terms about the leak’s effect on the justices.

“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it,” Thomas said while speaking at a conference in Dallas less than two weeks after the leak became public.

The leak itself sparked protests and round-the-clock security at justices’ homes. Alito said it made the conservative justices who were thought to be in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade “targets for assassination” that “gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening by killing one of us.”

In early June, a man carrying a gun, a knife and zip ties was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house in Maryland after threatening to kill the justice. The man told police he was upset by the leaked draft.

Responding to protests outside the court, officials ringed the building with hard-to-climb fencing, the same barrier that was in place for months following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

When the final decision was released on June 24, it was remarkably similar to the draft that was leaked. Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted to overturn Roe.

Speculation has swirled since the draft’s release about who might be the source. Only the justices, a small number of staff and the justices’ law clerks, young lawyers who spend a year at the court helping the justices with their work, would have had access to the document.

Conservatives pointed fingers at the liberal side of the court, speculating that the leaker was someone upset about the outcome. Liberals suggested it could be someone on the conservative side of the court who wanted to ensure a wavering justice didn’t switch sides.

It would have taken just one conservative justice to side with Roberts to alter the decision. Instead of overturning Roe entirely, Roberts favored weakening abortion rights.

We may never know who the leaker was!

Tony

Nemat (Minouche) Shafik

Dear Commons Community,

Columbia University announced yesterday that the economist Nemat (Minouche) Shafik will be its next president, and the first woman to lead the university. Shafik, 60, has served as president of the London School of Economics and Political Science since 2017; her appointment at Columbia makes her the latest among a growing number of women named to lead major American research institutions.

In a news conference, Jonathan Lavine, chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, called Shafik “a real leader and somebody who had incredible empathy for her students, for her faculty, for the community, and all the work that she’s done throughout the globe.”

Shafik will take office on July 1, replacing Lee C. Bollinger, who has led Columbia for the past 21 years. With her appointment, three-quarters of Ivy League institutions will now be led by women.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

That’s “really, really exciting” news, said Andrea Silbert, president of the Eos Foundation, which supports gender equity and diversity in leadership. With Shafik’s appointment, Silbert said, 28 percent of presidents and presidents-elect of R1 institutions — those deemed by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to have “very high research activity” — will be women. That represents an increase of 6 percentage points since September 2021, when 22 percent of R1 leaders were women. (The number of permanent leaders of institutions classified as R1 also rose in that period, from 130 to 146, though Silbert’s analysis of both periods excluded interim presidents.)

During the announcement, Columbia made no explicit reference to Shafik’s race. People of Middle Eastern or North African descent, like Shafik, are officially categorized by the U.S. government as white, though many members of that community disagree. When she was asked as a student if she was Black or white, Shafik reportedly replied, “I’m brown,” according to the Financial Times. But, the paper added, “She refused to tick a box.” (Columbia spokespeople did not immediately respond to a question about how Shafik self-identifies.)

Seven women of color lead R1 institutions, according to Silbert’s data.

“We still have a ways to go, but I think this is a really good indication that search committees are de-biasing. They’re working through whatever biases they may have, and they’re just open to having fair processes,” Silbert said.

We are at a moment in history when universities need to be both scholarly and relevant.

Joining Silbert in praising Columbia’s announcement was Audrey J. Murrell, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies leadership, particularly among women and people of color. “You really are starting to see the glass ceiling crack” at high-profile institutions like Columbia, Murrell said, and to see them mirror greater leadership opportunities that have opened for women at smaller institutions in recent years. “I think that it’s really important for us to see the inclusion of women across the entire spectrum of higher education, and there have been historically some barriers in certain disciplines at higher levels. So the announcement for Columbia is a really impressive and important sign.”

Decisions like Columbia’s, Murrell said, are chipping away at the glass ceiling as well as its companion, the “glass cliff,” a phenomenon whereby women and people of color are offered high-risk leadership assignments, perhaps at institutions that are facing dire economic straits. “If they turn around the institution, they do not get the accolades and the opportunities for being a leader of a turnaround, and if those high risks fail, then it is challenging for them to get another leadership position,” Murrell said. But Columbia’s strong footing, and the fact that Shafik is being entrusted to carry the institution forward, dilutes such concerns, she added.

‘Elite Without Being Elitist’

The 15-member search committee, Lavine said, sat for 400 hours of meetings during a six-month search process that included 600 nominations for the job. Led by Lisa Carnoy, whose term as co-chair of the board ended in the fall, the committee drew on feedback from four advisory groups and four campuswide surveys, among other mechanisms.

Shafik was in some respects an unconventional choice to lead a major American research institution. For the past 15 years she has worked in and out of academe in England. Lavine first met Shafik for breakfast in London last year, saying in a nod to her unusual international background that he took the meeting after “recognizing that I should never just focus on conventional wisdom.”

Shafik is a native of Alexandria, Egypt, but she left the country with her family at age 4 amid political upheaval. She attended schools in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina before graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with an undergraduate degree in economics and politics. She earned a master’s from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a doctorate from St. Antony’s College at Oxford University. In the early 2000s, she held academic appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University. Also on her resume are stints as a vice president at the World Bank, deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, and deputy governor of the Bank of England.

As Shafik takes over, she will have to navigate hot-button issues like race-conscious admissions and the potential fallout of Columbia’s drop in college ranking, because of alleged data-accuracy problems, to its lowest point since 1988.

In her introductory remarks, Shafik pointed to open science, international collaboration, inclusive curricula, and commercializing research as keys to a university’s success, and said universities must engage with their local communities as a means of combating skeptical public perceptions of higher ed.

Shafik said she’ll emphasize connections with the broader New York and global communities and pointed to a need to be “elite without being elitist.”

“We are at a moment in history when universities need to be both scholarly and relevant,” she said.

Congratulations President Shafik!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

On Tuesday, I was briefly interviewed by reporter,  Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly, for  Observer regarding my opinion of ChatGPT that is causing concerns among faculty throughout academia.   I specifically discussed with Alexandria the projected expansion of GPT-3 as shown above.

GPT4 is slated to be released later in 2023.  Presently GPT-3  has approximately 175,000,000,000 (175 billion) parameters stored in its databases.    GPT-4 will have about 100,000,000,000,000 – 170,000,000,000,000 (100-175 trillion) parameters.

Below is an article published this morning where I am quoted.

Tony

—————————————————————–

Observer

Professors Are Scrambling as Students Turn in AI-Generated Homework

Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

January 19, 2023

When ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence text generator, was released by OpenAI in November, it quickly garnered widespread attention and frustration from educators. 

In the subsequent months, professors have been forced to contend with the prominence of the new AI tool and its lack of guardrails concerning student use. “It takes time for institutions to institute policies that are fair and responsible towards their students,” said Andrew Piper, a language and literature professor at McGill University. “In the meantime, there’s just chaos.”

Citing concerns about ChatGPT being used by students to produce essays and assignments, the New York City Department of Education banned the chatbot from public schools across the city earlier this month. But in universities, the onus on how to approach ChatGPT has largely been left to professors.

The reaction from teachers has been widespread, said Antony Aumann, a philosophy professor at Northern Michigan University. Some professors are attempting to outsmart the text generator with clever prompts, while others have primarily focused on catching students using it. “It’s interesting how diametrically opposed different professors are to this.”

Others are less concerned about the technology. “I think the vast majority right now are trying to figure out what, if anything, to do,” said Anthony Picciano, an education professor at Hunter College who isn’t planning on making any significant changes to his teaching. “If this helps the students formulate ideas, I’m not against it.”

Some universities, like the University of Texas at Austin, have begun redrafting their plagiarism definitions to include ChatGPT and AI-generated responses, according to Frederick Luis Aldama, a professor in the school’s english department. Aldama also said the school is waiting for Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software, to incorporate ChatGPT into its detection services.

Is ChatGPT the next calculator?

In the meantime, to thwart potentially cheating students, Aldama said some professors have been using GPTZero, an app developed by Edward Tian, a 22-year old college student, which claims to detect AI-generated text. Aldama, who said he’s already been able to identify AI-generated assignments with GPTZero, isn’t punishing students for their use of the chatbox, but instead asking them to critique ChatGPT-created work. “What are you going to do, start punishing kids who see it as one other instrument available out there?”

OpenAI,  Turnitin and Tian did not respond to requests for comment.

“We’ll be using it as a tool, just as how we would use a calculator in a math class,” said Aldama. He also believes the new prominence of AI in higher education could cause more professors to assign work on lesser-known texts which will have less information readily available online for ChatGPT to form into an essay. “Let’s use this opportunity to reflect on what we’ve been teaching,” he said.

Other professors also plan on using the AI-generator in classroom discussions. “It’s going to be out there once they graduate, whether they like it or not,” said Aumann. “We have to train them how to use it wisely.” He’s incorporated ChatGPT into assignments, encouraging students to add a paragraph explaining how they used it for feedback and grammatical help.

However, Picciano is keeping an eye on GBT-4, a new version of OpenAI’s text generation software posed to significantly advance ChatGPT. No official release date has been announced by OpenAI, and Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, recently stated the software won’t be released until it can be done so safely.

“This is brand new, this is infancy,” said Picciano. “My concern is what is to come.”

Hector LaSalle

Dear Commons Community,

The New York State Senate Judiciary Committee dominated by Democrats voted against New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s nominee to lead the state’s highest court, handing the governor a  defeat at the hands of members of her own party ― and a victory for progressive lawmakers determined to hold the line against a judicial pick they deemed too conservative.

After a nearly five-hour hearing yesterday, the 19 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted narrowly to block the nomination of Judge Hector LaSalle, whom Hochul tapped to serve as chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals.

Ten Democratic members of the committee voted “no,” while nine committee members ― three Democrats and six Republicans ― voted to advance his nomination for a floor vote. Of the latter group, two Democrats voted “yes” and the rest voted to advance his nomination “without recommendations,” indicating issues with the nominee that stopped short of a desire to block him from advancing.

In a statement reacting to the outcome, Hochul argued that several state senators’ statements opposing LaSalle’s nomination prior to the committee hearing undermined the hearing yesterday.  As reported by the Huffington Post.

“While this was a thorough hearing, it was not a fair one, because the outcome was predetermined,” she said.

LaSalle’s nomination is not yet officially dead. Hochul believes that the state Senate’s constitutional role to provide “advice and consent” on executive branch nominees entitles LaSalle to a vote on the floor of the Senate where the math may be more favorable to his confirmation.

“While the Committee plays a role, we believe the Constitution requires action by the full Senate,” Hochul said Wednesday.

The State’s Senate’s Democratic leaders maintain that they can fulfill that role through a committee hearing and vote alone, though Hochul has indicated that she plans to petition a court to force a floor vote.

“I hope that we turn the page on this chapter, and that the governor finds a nominee that my colleagues can coalesce around,” Judiciary Committee Chair Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D), who voted against advancing LaSalle’s nomination, told reporters after the hearing.

Although LaSalle’s defeat in a committee vote was highly anticipated, the outcome has major implications for Hochul and intra-Democratic Party dynamics in New York.

LaSalle, who would have been the state’s first Latino chief judge of the highest court, had the support of a number of Latino groups and politicians in New York. A number of Hochul allies, including U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, also spoke up in LaSalle’s defense in recent days.

But skepticism from a host of Democratic-aligned interest groups, including organized labor, abortion rights advocates, and civil rights activists and their allies in the state Senate, ultimately doomed his candidacy.

Criticism of some of LaSalle’s rulings on union rights, as well as abortion and civil rights policies, carried extra resonance for Democratic senators in light of the increasingly conservative turn of the U.S. Supreme Court and a desire to see New York’s judiciary as a counterweight to those decisions.

“We have a [U.S.] Supreme Court that is in full-on battle mode against our civil liberties, both as New Yorkers and as Americans,” Hoylman-Sigal said at Wednesday’s press conference. “So I think we understand … how crucial the chief judge position is, and that I think resulted in the attention and examination thoroughly of this nominee’s record.”

In addition, the legacy of former Chief Justice Janet DiFiore, whose resignation in July created the opening for Hochul to fill, loomed over state Senate Democrats’ consideration of LaSalle.

DiFiore, a former Republican turned conservative Democrat, infuriated Democrats with her April decision effectively throwing out the state legislature’s new congressional and state senate district maps on the grounds that they violated the state constitution’s ban on partisan gerrymandering.

Following DiFiore’s departure, a number of state Senate Democrats suggested that they wanted a more progressive replacement.

“It’s time for a new direction in our judicial branch,” Hoylman-Sigal said in July.

By the time Hochul officially nominated LaSalle in late December, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions had already declared him “unacceptable.”

Some critics objected to LaSalle, who is presiding justice of the largest branch of the state’s intermediate appellate courts, based on biographical details, noting his stint as a prosecutor on Long Island.

But plenty of opponents of LaSalle’s nomination pointed to specific rulings he made. Soon, opposition to his confirmation grew to rapidly encompass a range of groups within the Democratic coalition.

Labor unions decried his 2015 ruling overturning a precedent barring companies from suing union leaders for defamation. Abortion rights groups faulted him for a 2017 ruling upholding the right of an anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center” not to comply with a subpoena from the state attorney general seeking the personal information of its employees. And civil rights advocates objected to a 2014 ruling in which LaSalle said it was not unconstitutional for a prosecutor to strike jurors based on their skin color, since skin color, rather than race, is not a category of people constitutionally protected from discrimination.

The fight over LaSalle also divided younger Latino politicians from their older counterparts, who are more likely to prioritize ethnic solidarity over ideology. While New York state Sen. Luis Sepúlveda, Democratic consultant Luis Miranda Jr., and former New York City Council President Melissa Mark-Viverito were ardent supporters of LaSalle’s, many younger Latino lawmakers with progressive leanings, such as Sens. Gustavo Rivera and Jessica Ramos, came out early against him.

“I would much rather see a white judge, an Asian judge, a Black judge, a purple judge, who has better politics,” said one Latino New York lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

At the same time, the battle over LaSalle’s nomination became a proxy battle for power between rival factions of New York’s reigning Democratic Party. Many of the same labor unions and progressive groups with misgivings about LaSalle felt that Hochul’s actions reflected insufficient gratitude for the work they had done to help carry her across the finish line in her closer-than-expected bid for a full term as governor in November.

But Hochul, a moderate who enjoyed a brief honeymoon with the left after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation in August 2021, had a different take-away from her near-defeat in the election. Her GOP challenger, former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R), had hammered her over rising crime and a law restricting use of cash bail that Cuomo signed into law in 2019. She has suggested that further rollbacks of the cash bail law will be a priority this year, indicating that she is prepared for a fight with left-leaning Democrats in the legislature.

Hochul saw LaSalle’s nomination as a chance to reclaim lost ground for moderate Democrats, and perhaps set the tone for future battles, according to a New York Democratic strategist sympathetic to the governor, who requested anonymity for professional reasons.

“At some point it became a bigger fight about who’s going to control Albany,” the strategist said.

To that end, she engaged in a last-minute push to confirm LaSalle by rallying with Latino leaders.

In a speech at a church on Sunday ahead of Martin Luther King Day, Hochul even claimed that the opposition to LaSalle was a betrayal of King’s legacy.

But in the end, it was too little, too late. Last week, New York Senate Democrats expanded the judiciary committee to include four more lawmakers ― one Republican and three Democrats, including Ramos, the labor committee chair who was already on record against LaSalle.

To many observers, it was the final sign that LaSalle’s bid was dead on arrival.

It ain’t over yet.  We will see more on this in the weeks ahead!

Tony

Jacinda Ardern

Dear Commons Community,

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was praised around the world for her handling of the nation’s worst mass shooting and the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, said yesterday she was leaving office.

Ardern was facing mounting political pressures at home and a level of vitriol from some that hadn’t been experienced by previous New Zealand leaders. Still, her announcement came as a shock to people throughout the nation of 5 million people.

Fighting back tears, Ardern told reporters in Napier that Feb. 7 would be her last day as prime minister. As reported by the Associated Press.

“I am entering now my sixth year in office, and for each of those years, I have given my absolute all,” she said.

Ardern became an inspiration to women around the world after first winning the top job in 2017 at the relatively young age of 37. She seemed to herald a new generation of leadership — she was on the verge of being a millennial, had spun some records as a part-time DJ, and wasn’t

To many, she was the antithesis of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In 2018, she became just the second world leader to give birth while holding office. Later that year, she brought her infant daughter to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

In March 2019, Ardern faced one of the darkest days in New Zealand’s history when a white supremacist gunman stormed two mosques in Christchurch and slaughtered 51 people. She was widely praised for the way she empathized with the survivors and New Zealand’s Muslim community in the aftermath.

Less than nine months later, she faced another tragedy when 22 tourists and guides were killed when the White Island volcano erupted.

Ardern was lauded globally for her country’s initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic. after New Zealand managed to stop the virus at its borders for months. But she was forced to abandon that zero-tolerance strategy as more contagious variants spread and vaccines became widely available.

Ardern faced growing anger at home from those who opposed coronavirus mandates and rules. A protest against vaccine mandates that began on Parliament’s grounds last year lasted for more than three weeks and ended with protesters hurling rocks at police and setting fires to tents and mattresses as they were forced to leave. This year, Ardern was forced to cancel an annual barbecue she hosts due to security fears.

Ardern last month announced a wide-ranging Royal Commission of Inquiry would look into whether the government made the right decisions in battling COVID-19 and how it could better prepare for future pandemics. A report is due next year.

Some experts said that sexist attitudes played a role in the anger directed at Ardern.

But her government also faced criticism that it had been big on ideas but lacking on execution. Supporters worried it hadn’t made promised gains on increasing housing supply and reducing child poverty, while opponents said it was not focusing enough on crime and the struggling economy.

Ardern had been facing tough reelection prospects. Her center-left Labour Party won reelection in 2020 with a landslide of historic proportions, but recent polls have put her party behind its conservative rivals.

Ardern said the role required having a reserve to face the unexpected.

“But I am not leaving because it was hard. Had that been the case I probably would have departed two months into the job,” she said. “I am leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead, and also, when you are not.”

She said her time in office had been fulfilling but challenging.

“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple,” she said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Ardern “has shown the world how to lead with intellect and strength.”

“She has demonstrated that empathy and insight are powerful leadership qualities,” Albanese tweeted.

“Jacinda has been a fierce advocate for New Zealand, an inspiration to so many and a great friend to me,” he added.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked Ardern on Twitter for her friendship and “empathic, compassionate, strong, and steady leadership.”

Ardern charted an independent course for New Zealand. She tried to take a more diplomatic approach to China than neighboring Australia, which had ended up feuding with Beijing. In an interview with The Associated Press last month, she’d said that building relationships with small Pacific nations shouldn’t become a game of one-upmanship with China.

Labour Party lawmakers will vote for a new leader on Sunday. If no candidate gets at least two-thirds support from the caucus, then the leadership contest will go to the wider party membership. Ardern has recommended the party chose her replacement by the time she finishes in the role on Feb. 7.

Arden was truly an inspiration to world leaders.  Her handing of several catastrophes was nothing short of outstanding.

Tony

Photo from Wee 1 Tactical Website

Dear Commons Community,

Just weeks after a 6-year-old shot his teacher, a gun trade show in Las Vegas is hosting a manufacturer promoting its “JR-15,” a child-size AR-15 rifle. As reported by The New Republic.

The JR-15 was first launched last year by gun manufacturer WEE1 Tactical. The launch sparked outrage as the company promoted the J.V. death machine with cartoon skulls and crossbones stylized as boys and girls. The presumed boy skull had a blonde mohawk and green pacifier, while the girl skull sported blonde pigtails and pink bows and a pink pacifier. Both cartoons had one eye patched with a rifle sight.

The company’s website from last year claimed that the JR-15, while smaller, “operates just like Mom and Dad’s gun.” The site also boasted “SWAG for Adults and Young Shooters” that matched the cartoonized promotional materials. “The BRAND is meant to be EDGY,” the site read.

Now, as WEE1 Tactical heads to the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, where the deadliest mass shooting by an individual in U.S. history took place, it is preparing to re-promote the same gateway gun with a more muted tone. The company’s latest flyer skips the “edgy” branding to focus more on the product specifications of the JR-15. One page is dedicated toward explaining the company’s “tamper resistant safety” switch that “requires strength and dexterity to release.”

Instead of lauding the gun as “just like Mom and Dad’s gun,” the company focuses on the “American Family Values” to be had by buying its gun, which helps “introduce young enthusiasts to the shooting sports.”

“WEE1 Tactical has adopted this supposedly kinder, gentler marketing approach because it knows from experience that most Americans are shocked and disgusted by the idea of manufacturing semiautomatic assault rifles designed for grade schoolers,” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center.

AR-15s or similar rifles were the primary weapons used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in recent American history: the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting.

Just among this handful of American shootings, three were at schools. Most might recoil at a gross push to get even more weapons into people’s hands, especially young people’s. (After all, there’s an estimated 120 guns for every 100 people in America.)

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, however, responded to the tragic Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde by suggesting they would have been safer with JR-15s.

What insanity we allow in this country when it comes to guns!

Tony