Special counsel got a search warrant for Twitter to turn over info on Donald Trump’s account, documents say
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for missing the deadline to comply, according to court documents released Wednesday. The new details were included in a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that has played out under seal for months. The court rejected Twitter’s claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned. Smith’s team repeatedly mentioned Trump’s tweets in an indictment unsealed last week that charges the former president with conspiring to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, a Republican, has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. He posted on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that the Justice Department “secretly attacked” his Twitter account, and he characterized the investigation as an attempt to “infringe” on his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024. It’s unclear what information Smith may have sought from Trump’s account. Possibilities include data about when and where the posts were written, their engagement, and the identities of other accounts that reposted Trump’s content. The search warrant underscores the breadth of the investigation and the lengths Smith has gone to obtain evidence to build his case. In a recent signal that Smith’s investigation is continuing, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik met Monday with investigators from special counsel Smith’s team. Prosecutors obtained the search warrant on Jan. 17 directing Twitter to produce information on Trump’s account after a court “found probable cause to search the account for evidence of criminal offenses,” according to the ruling. The government also obtained a nondisclosure agreement that had prohibited Twitter from disclosing the search warrant, the filing says. The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump could jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior” or notify his allies, the filing says. Twitter objected to the nondisclosure agreement, saying four days after the compliance deadline that it would not produce any of the account information, according to the ruling. The judges wrote that Twitter “did not question the validity of the search warrant” but argued that the nondisclosure agreement violated its First Amendment right to communicate with Trump. Twitter said if it had to turn over the records before the judge assessed the legality of the nondisclosure agreement, it would prevent Trump “from asserting executive privilege to shield communications made using his Twitter account,” the document says. The warrant ordered Twitter to provide the records by Jan. 27. A judge found Twitter to be in contempt after a court hearing on Feb. 7, but gave the company an opportunity to hand over the documents by 5 p.m. that evening. Twitter, however, only turned over some records that day. It didn’t fully comply with the order until Feb. 9, the ruling says. X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sent an automated reply to a request for comment, saying it would respond soon. In the broader case against Trump, his legal team has indicated it will argue that he was relying on the advice of lawyers in 2020 and had the right to challenge an election he believed was rigged. Trump used his Twitter account in the weeks leading up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to spread false statements about the election that prosecutors allege were designed to sow mistrust in the democratic process. The indictment details how Trump, over Twitter, encouraged his followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6, pressured his Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely suggested that the mob at the Capitol — which beat police officers and smashed windows — was peaceful. The warrant arrived at Twitter amid rapid changes instituted by Elon Musk, who purchased the platform last year. Since taking over, he’s transformed the influential site, laying off much of its staff, including workers dedicated to ferreting out misinformation and hate speech. He also eliminated Twitter’s policy on COVID-19 misinformation and welcomed back a long list of users who had been previously banned, including neo-Nazis, COVID deniers, and Trump, who was kicked off after the attack on the Capitol for glorifying violence. Trump has yet to post to the site since being allowed back on. As Trump once did, Musk has used the platform as a partisan megaphone. Last year Musk urged his many online followers to vote Republican in the midterm elections. This year he hosted Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis for a glitch-filled campaign kickoff. The election conspiracy case is the second case Smith has brought against Trump. The former president is also facing dozens of felony counts stemming from classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump’s legal team, in court papers Wednesday, urged the judge to allow for the reestablishment of a secure facility at Trump’s home where the former president can discuss classified evidence with his attorneys while they prepare for trial in that case. Prosecutors say Trump should only be to do so at sensitive compartmented information facilities — or SCIFs. But Trump’s lawyers say “immense practical and logistical hurdles and costs” would make traveling to government-approved locations difficult. He wants to recreate the same secure facility at Mar-a-Lago in which he was allowed to discuss classified materials as president. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Ron DeSantis announces 2024 White House bid in Twitter announcement plagued by glitches
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday with firm words but a disastrous Twitter announcement that did little to counter criticism that the 44-year-old Republican may not be ready to take on former President Donald Trump. While he tried to project confidence, DeSantis’ unusual decision to announce his campaign in an online conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk ultimately backfired. The audio stream crashed repeatedly, making it virtually impossible for most users to hear the new presidential candidate in real-time. “American decline is not inevitable, it is a choice. And we should choose a new direction — a path that will lead to American revitalization,” DeSantis said on the glitchy stream, racing through his conservative accomplishments. “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback.” While his critics in both parties delighted in the rocky start, DeSantis’ announcement marks a new chapter in his extraordinary rise from little-known congressman to two-term governor to a leading figure in the nation’s bitter fights over race, gender, abortion, and other divisive issues. DeSantis’ path to the Republican presidential nomination will not be an easy one. He enters the race looking up at Trump in early polls while facing serious questions about his far-right policies, his campaign-trail personality, and his lack of relationships across the Republican ecosystem. He has generated significant interest among GOP primary voters by casting himself as a younger and more electable version of the 76-year-old former president. He did not mention Trump even once in his discussion with Musk, which ultimately spanned more than an hour. But he said he was ready to fight. “Buckle up when I get in there because the status quo is not acceptable,” DeSantis said. The ultimate Republican nominee is expected to face Democratic President Joe Biden on the general election ballot in November 2024. DeSantis joins a field that also includes former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Vice President Mike Pence is also considered a likely presidential candidate but has not yet announced a bid. The governor has been courting primary voters in key states for much of the year and using an allied super political action committee to build a large political organization that was essentially a campaign in waiting and claims at least $30 million in the bank. In choosing Twitter on Wednesday evening, DeSantis tried to take a page out of the playbook that helped turn businessman-TV celebrity Trump into a political star. It did not go as planned. The online event started off with technical glitches that Musk said were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. More than 20 minutes passed beyond the scheduled start time with users getting kicked off, hearing microphone feedback, hold music, and other technical problems. “You can tell by the mistakes that it’s real,” said Musk. DeSantis’ Republican opponents piled on. The lead strategist for Haley’s super PAC, Mark Harris, was merciless: “Failed soft launch? Check. Failed announcement? Double check. We look forward to Ron DeSantis’ failed campaign.” “This is a disaster. Not surprising,” tweeted senior Trump adviser Chris LaCivita. DeSantis, who likely would not have become the Florida governor without Trump’s endorsement, has adopted the former president’s fiery personality, his populist policies, and even some of his rhetoric and mannerisms. Yet DeSantis has one thing his rival does not: a credible claim that he may be more electable than Trump, who faces multiple legal threats, including criminal charges in New York, and who presided over Republican losses in three consecutive national elections. DeSantis, just six months ago, won his reelection in Florida by a stunning 19 percentage points — even as Republicans in many other states struggled. He also scored several major policy victories during the Republican-controlled Legislature’s spring session. Aware of DeSantis’ draw, Trump has been almost singularly focused on undermining his political appeal for months. Trump and his team believe that DeSantis may be Trump’s only legitimate threat for the nomination. Hours before the announcement, Trump argued in a social media post that “Ron DeSanctus” cannot win the general election or the GOP primary because of his previous votes in Congress on Social Security and Medicare. “He desperately needs a personality transplant and, to the best of my knowledge, they are not medically available yet,” Trump added. “A disloyal person!” The kitchen-sink attacks and nicknames won’t be DeSantis’ only hurdle. He is a political heavyweight in Florida and a regular on Fox News, but allies acknowledge that most primary voters in other states don’t know him well. Despite his lengthy resume, friends and foes alike note that DeSantis struggles to display the campaign-trail charisma and quick-on-your-feet thinking that often defines successful candidates at the national level. He has gone to great lengths to avoid unscripted public appearances and media scrutiny while governor, which is difficult, if not impossible, as a presidential contender. The Florida governor spent most of Wednesday behind closed doors. In an example of his level of media avoidance, his official Twitter account for governor posted a photo shortly after the FEC filing — a bill signing surrounded by dozens of bikers for legislation to help reduce motorcycle accidents in Florida. The media was not notified of the event ahead of time. Late Wednesday, DeSantis’ office announced that he signed a broad election law bill that contains a provision allowing him to run for president without resigning his post as governor, exempting himself from a state rule known as “resign to run.” Would-be supporters also worry that DeSantis has refused to invest in relationships with party leaders or fellow elected officials, raising questions about his ability to build the coalition he would ultimately need to beat Trump. By contrast, Trump has scooped up an army of endorsements in key states, including Florida. Beyond the primary, DeSantis’ greatest longer-term challenge may rest with the far-right policies he enacted as governor as an unapologetic leader in what he calls his “war on woke.” “We will never surrender
Dan Sutter: Can we halt research?
Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Stability AI founder Emad Mostque have signed an open letter calling for a pause in cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) research. But can we halt research, whether on AI or the gain of function research that may have produced the SARS-CoV-2 virus? How much control would be necessary, and what if others do not pause? The letter reads in part, “Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. … Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. … [W]e call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” Four potential impacts motivate the proposed pause. Three involve economic and political impacts, like automating jobs and rendering humans obsolete. Since I recently discussed economic impacts, today will focus on the potential “loss of control of our civilization.” Will AI produce intelligent, malevolent machines in the mode of the Terminator movies? Top experts do not rule out AI getting out of control. Is it possible to conduct research to prevent this? And if not, should we permanently halt the research? Insurance is how markets ensure safety in research and production. If research could produce an explosion destroying the lab and the surrounding neighborhood, the lab should carry insurance. Insurers would then impose safety and training requirements on the lab as conditions of coverage. Government might only need to require that AI labs carry insurance. If no insurer would cover a lab at any price, the market halts research. I strongly favor markets and insurance over government regulation. But AI presents a major problem. What would a war against the machines, as in the Terminator movies, cost? It may be hard to come up with enough zeros. The losses would (easily) bankrupt the insurance industry. And in any event, a hefty insurance payment will not help people enslaved in the Matrix. Bankruptcy forces consideration of government regulation. Yet we still face problems. Do we even know how malevolent consciousness might develop? Suppose the AI pause letter signatories listed ten ways research might produce a science fiction nightmare. Would the path by which malevolent machines eventually emerge be on this list? If not, government regulation will not save us. Perhaps then we should ban this research. A ban seemingly requires controlling all persons and facilities capable of research. Depending on the nature of the research, this may be very authoritarian. Fortunately, training an AI system like GPT-4 requires enormous computing power, energy, and brainpower. Only a few labs currently possess this capacity, making verifiable compliance at least plausible. But innovators could devise distributed ways to assemble computer power to evade a ban. The Bitcoin blockchain and distributed denial of service attacks demonstrate the potential for coordinated decentralization. Suppose U.S. labs halted AI research. Could we force the ban seems difficult to force on China, Russia, and other nations, especially since AI promises a path to technological superiority and world domination? Research has an arms race element to it. The Manhattan Project was needed in part to keep Nazi Germany from developing atomic weapons first. The Obama Administration halted gain of function research on viruses in 2014. The COVID lab leak scenario, if true, illustrates another potential consequence of halting research. Gain of function may simply have been shifted from highly competent U.S. bioresearch facilities to the Wuhan Institute for Virology with its documented safety issues. Risky research should be performed under the safest conditions possible. I have raised numerous questions, so I will close with a story offering hope- recombinant DNA technology developed in the early 1970s. The potential to create new, deadly viruses was obvious. Leading researchers halted research and organized a conference to set risk thresholds and safety protocols for experiments. The protocols have helped unleash biomedicine while maintaining safety. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Daniel Sutter: ChatGPT and the future
The artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT has created a sensation since debuting in late 2022. ChatGPT can produce papers of comparable quality to college students. AI’s progress raises the specter of humans possibly becoming redundant. ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, was started in 2015 with a founding board including Elon Musk and Peter Theil. OpenAI was originally a non-profit organization but now also has a for-profit company valued, following the release of ChatGPT, at over $30 billion. Does AI promise a bright or nightmarish future? This depends on whether machines remain under human control or if malevolent machines emerge. I can barely use my phone, so I cannot offer insight here. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks out-of-control AI could wipe out humanity, so the nightmare is not just science fiction. The future is very bright if we retain control over AI. Yes, AI will change how we do things, but economics shows that humans need not fear becoming useless. AI and smart machines will not eliminate scarcity or the principle of comparative advantage. Scarcity means that our wants and desires exceed our capacity to satisfy them. Our limited ability to produce goods, services, and life experiences requires resources to be used carefully. Smart machines require significant investment to develop and resources to operate. AI is not a free good, even if ChatGPT is currently available without charge. The principle of comparative advantage demonstrates that specialization based on talents benefits all parties. The key here is relative talents, not absolute abilities. We need not be better than AI, just relatively better at certain tasks. Comparative advantage is why a market economy is not survival of the fittest. AI forces us to rethink our comparative advantages. ChatGPT is currently imperfect (it creates fiction or “hallucinations”), but machines will soon be capable of doing much of our writing. Thousands of people currently earn their living writing in various ways, from novels, poems, and plays to technical manuals and travel stories. Much of my job (these columns, my professional research) involves writing. How will this change? For perspective, consider students writing papers with ChatGPT. This original content would evade plagiarism detection software. Yet ChatGPT is hardly the first way students could cheat. Students today can purchase papers written by others in the college “cheating industry.” AI provides original papers at a lower cost. ChatGPT is another writing tool, like typewriters and word processors. Keep focused on comparative advantage. AI might perhaps generate first drafts of new columns or papers writers can personalize through revisions. Some scholarly papers already list ChatGPT as a co-author. AI lets us do things we currently do faster, allowing us to do more or have more free time. Readers will help determine if AI totally replaces human writers. Will we read machine-written travel stories, or should the words reflect the impressions of another human being? If the latter, the challenge will be guaranteeing human-generated content. I’ll leave the technical details for others. Many websites already feature audio versions of pieces; we might see more blending of a contributor’s voice, face, and words. Whether we enjoy doing tasks will also affect automation. Craft production illustrates the tradeoff. Small breweries, vineyards, family farms, and hand-made products do not fully exploit mass production. People both enjoy making and drinking craft beer, so it survives despite higher production costs. I suspect people will want to express their thoughts and emotions through fiction for years to come. Others will want to do and publish research. These will persist. I suspect AI will write our technical manuals. Machines will have awesome power but require investment, while people can quickly learn and master complicated tasks. Humans will always possess some comparative advantages over AI. We will be able to do more or have more free time as smart machines do more for us. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Daniel Sutter: Economics and conspiracies
Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications, the “Twitter Files,” confirmed the shadow banning of conservative politicians and pundits, previously dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Studying economics generates wariness of conspiracy theories in two ways, by highlighting the organizational difficulties and demonstrating the potential for unplanned order in society. Let’s first consider what constitutes a conspiracy. For one, multiple people, as a lone wolf, merely has a plan. And generally, secrecy, which implies illegal or unapproved actions. Dozens of police officers investigating a murder is not a conspiracy. Collective action problems make the organization and execution of conspiracies difficult. Economics employs methodological individualism to study markets, a fancy term meaning building up from the choices and actions of individuals. For example, demand represents the buyers’ half of a market, and we build demand from the choices of each consumer. Groups are comprised of individuals with their own goals and incentives. Methodological individualists are unlikely to commit the unitary actor fallacy or focusing exclusively on a leader’s choices. Generally, a tension exists between individuals and the group. Frequently groups pursue what economists call public goods or ameliorate public bads. Emphasis here is on publicness, meaning that all members share the outcome, like, say, a fun block party or noise pollution from a factory. But action is costly. Group members are better off letting someone else do the work and still benefitting, or what economists call free riding. Collective action problems do not necessarily doom groups. People can recognize their common interest, and mechanisms exist to control free riding. Still, conspiracy theorists must detail how conspirators are motivated to actively participate rather than let others do the heavy lifting. Organizing a conspiracy involving a criminal or despicable act is even harder. Now each potential conspirator can, in addition to free riding, reveal the plot to the authorities or the public, possibly earning fame and fortune as a whistleblower. We might observe leaders exhorting contributions to the common cause. Such pleas, especially when part of a written historical record, appear to prove conspiracy. But these statements are often aspirational; we should still look for evidence of action, not just for words. In addition to collective action problems, economics also teaches about spontaneous order, which refers to institutions which are the product of human action but not human design. To take an example, consider the emergence of money. People engaging in barter recognize difficulties, like searching for a “double coincidence of wants” or making ten trades to get what they want. Someone realizes that a widely liked good is easier to trade and accepts it even though they want something else; others follow along. Eventually, a medium of exchange emerges because it makes people’s lives better. Enormous societal change can occur without anyone issuing orders. Urbanization and the Industrial Revolution occurred as rising agricultural productivity freed up labor. At the same time, harnessing steam power allowed the mass production of things like textiles provided workers could be found. Factories offered high enough wages to get people to move to cities. Freedom and the desire for better lives can change society. If you do not recognize spontaneous order, patterns in society will appear planned by someone, and presumably for their benefit. And if we cannot identify the designers, a secret cabal must be at work. One of the world’s most successful conspiracy theorists, Karl Marx, attributed the Industrial Revolution to factory owners (the capitalists), who made everything happen to exploit the proletariat. Unplanned order renders theories of control, including conspiratorial control, unnecessary. Collective action problems and spontaneous order are general considerations, not evidence against any conspiracy. Maybe the CIA did kill John F. Kennedy. Conspiracies are difficult to disprove, in part because secrecy is usually an element of the conspiracy. But massive conspiracies, like the Loch Ness monster, are highly unlikely to both exist and remain hidden. Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
New ‘Twitter files’ allege Biden administration worked with Twitter to control COVID conversation
A new batch of “Twitter files” released Monday allegedly indicates the Biden administration worked with Twitter to control the public conversation about COVID, which included censoring accounts skeptical of the vaccine. This update is the latest in a string of internal Twitter revelations since billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter and vowed to make public any wrongdoing previous to his ownership that might have gone on behind the scenes. Since then, Musk has released a trove of troublesome information, including evidence federal law enforcement worked closely with the social media giant to censor Americans. The Biden administration has pushed back against these allegations, but the Twitter files are not the only source giving evidence to that collusion. Musk shared a Twitter thread Monday posted by author and journalist David Zweig, where Zweig laid out some introductory points, though Musk said more details are coming soon. Zweig said Twitter “rigged the COVID debate” by “censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. Policy” and “by discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed” as well as “suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*.” “So far, the Twitter Files have focused on evidence of Twitter’s secret blacklists; how the company functioned as a kind of subsidiary of the FBI; and how execs rewrote the platform’s rules to accommodate their own political desires,” he said. “The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19.” Zweig, who says he personally reviewed internal documents, said both the Trump and Biden administration participated in the collusion. He said Donald Trump’s team was more worried about “panic buying” at grocery stores, while Biden was interested in shutting down accounts skeptical of the vaccine. “When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on ‘anti-vaxxer accounts,’” he said. “In the summer of 2021, president Biden said social media companies were ‘killing people’ for allowing vaccine misinformation.” “But Twitter did suppress views – many from doctors and scientific experts – that conflicted with the official positions of the White House,” he added. “As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing.” The Twitter files have sparked calls for accountability. House Oversight Committee Republicans, who will have the majority come January, promised an investigation into the Twitter censorship and the Biden administration’s role earlier this month. This latest dump will likely only add fuel to that fire. “Committee Republicans continue to investigate whether U.S. government officials have participated in suppression and censorship of lawful speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Reports continue to surface that social media companies acted on behest of government agencies and officials when removing, restricting, or disclaiming content,” the House Republicans wrote in a letter earlier this month. “The American people and their elected representatives must know the extent to which their government has engaged in prohibited censorship to expose and prevent this unlawful conduct.” As The Center Square previously reported, critics have also lambasted the FBI after Musk’s document release appeared to show the FBI gave social media companies information leading them to believe the Hunter Biden story could be part of a disinformation campaign. Social media companies banned or shadow-banned the Hunter Biden story just before the last presidential election. Two years later, more and more details of the Hunter Biden story have been verified by leading news outlets. But the idea of law enforcement pressuring social media companies on COVID is not new. House Oversight Republicans launched an investigation last month into a “taxpayer-funded censorship campaign” after media reports indicated the Department of Homeland Security had been pressuring big tech companies to censor certain viewpoints on several issues, including COVID. The lawmakers sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling out DHS in particular, saying it “leverages partnerships with left-leaning private organizations – who have received millions of dollars in federal money – to identify and then take action against political speech unfavorable to the Administration, especially around its handling of COVID-19 policy.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
U.S. sending Patriots to Ukraine under $1.85B aid package
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will provide $1.85 billion in military aid to Ukraine, rolling out funding for a Patriot missile battery as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for his first known trip out of his country since Russia invaded in February. The White House announcement came just hours before Zelenskyy landed at Joint Base Andrews, just outside the capital. The package includes $1 billion in weapons and equipment from Pentagon stocks, including the Patriot battery for the first time, and $850 million in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Part of the USAI will be used to fund a satellite communications system, which likely will include the crucial SpaceX Starlink satellite network system owned by Elon Musk. “As Russia continues its brutal attacks against critical infrastructure in Ukraine, the United States welcomes President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington, D.C. today to underscore our enduring commitment to the people of Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, adding that the U.S. will be providing “critical new and additional military capabilities to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s ongoing brutal and unprovoked assault.” Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have pressed Western leaders to provide more advanced weapons, including the Patriots, to help their country in its war with Russia. The Patriot would be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has provided to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks. Also included in the package are two other key items. The Pentagon will send an undisclosed number of Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits, or JDAMs, to Ukraine. The U.S. also will fund satellite communications terminals and services, to shore up a potential vulnerability for Ukraine after Musk said his company could no longer afford to provide the services for free. The kits will be used to modify massive bombs by adding tail fins and precision navigation systems so that rather than being simply dropped from a fighter jet onto a target, they can be released and guided to a target. The satellite money would act as a hedge against the possibility that Musk again threatens to stop funding them. Musk shipped the first Starlink terminals to Ukraine just days after Russia invaded in February, and as of October, there were more than 2,200 of the low-orbiting satellites providing broadband internet to Ukraine. In October he asked the Pentagon to take over the costs for operating Starlink in Ukraine, and tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support the country’s communications needs. The system has “been the game changer” in allowing Ukraine’s military and infrastructure to continue to operate, said John Ferrari, a senior fellow and space expert at the American Enterprise Institute. While Wednesday’s funding announcement is for satellite communications terminals and services and doesn’t specify Musk’s company, it would be difficult to introduce other systems onto the battlefield because they often won’t operate well together, Ferrari said. The decision to send the Patriot battery comes despite threats from Russia’s Foreign Ministry that the delivery of the advanced surface-to-air missile system would be considered a provocative step and that the Patriot and any crews accompanying it would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military. But the White House is pushing back against the notion that delivery of the Patriot amounts to an escalation of U.S. involvement on behalf of Ukraine. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that Joe Biden has been clear that his administration would “lean forward” in supporting Ukraine, but it is “not seeking to engage in direct war with Russia.” It’s not clear exactly when the Patriot would arrive on the front lines in Ukraine since U.S. troops will have to train Ukrainian forces on how to use the high-tech system. The training could take several weeks and is expected to be done at the Grafenwoehr training area in Germany. To date, all training of Ukraine forces by the U.S. and the West has taken place in European countries. Also included in the aid package are more rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS; 500 precision-guided artillery rounds for howitzers; 30 mortar systems and 10,000 mortar rounds; 37 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles; 120 Humvees; six armored trucks; more than 2,700 grenade launchers and other weapons, an undisclosed number of HARM air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles; Claymore anti-personnel mines; demolition munitions and other equipment and body armor. The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for longer-range purchases, will fund more than 200,000 rounds of various types of ammunitions, satellite systems, and ongoing training and maintenance. This is the 28th time that the Pentagon has pulled weapons off the shelf to deliver quickly to Ukraine, often arriving within days to Europe and the war. Overall, the U.S. has provided about $21.3 billion in military aid and equipment since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The aid comes as Congress is poised to approve another $44.9 billion in assistance for Ukraine as part of a massive spending bill. That would ensure that U.S. support will continue next year and beyond as Republicans take control of the House in January. Some GOP lawmakers have expressed wariness about the assistance. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump’s Constitution remarks put Mitch McConnell, GOP on defense
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that anyone who thinks the Constitution should be suspended would have a “very hard time” becoming president in the United States, trying to distance himself from Donald Trump’s new White House bid. It’s the second time McConnell has been forced to open his weekly press conference preemptively responding to questions about the former president’s remarks and behavior. Last week, it was over Trump’s dinner meeting with a white nationalist Holocaust denier. “Let me just say that anyone seeking the presidency who thinks the Constitution can somehow be suspended or not followed, it seems to me, would have a very hard time being sworn in as President of the United States,” McConnell said at the Capitol. The remarks come as Trump, who announced he is running again for the presidency in 2024, is putting his party into the familiar position of responding to his ideas, statements, and outbursts, forcing Republicans to publicly answer for his behavior. Trump, over the weekend, called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” after new revelations of what he said was Twitter’s unfair treatment of him during the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden. Reaction from Republicans has been critical, even as many GOP officials remain unwilling to directly confront Trump as the leader of their party. Speaking Tuesday in South Carolina, Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, said, “I think anyone who serves in public office, anyone who aspires to serve in public office or serve again in public office should make it clear that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” McConnell, as the Republican leader trying to steer his party in a post-Trump era — the two have not spoken since McConnell agreed to the Electoral College tally for Biden at the end of 2020 — faces an endless task of reacting to the former president’s outbursts. Still, McConnell deflected questions over whether he could support Trump if he becomes the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee. Instead, the Senate GOP leader reiterated the difficulty of taking the oath, which requires the president-elect to defend the Constitution. “It would be pretty hard to be sworn into the presidency if you’re not willing to uphold the Constitution,” McConnell said. Over the weekend, Trump latched on to a report from new Twitter owner Elon Musk suggesting favoritism on the social media platform during the 2020 presidential race. Twitter was asked to moderate content about Biden’s family, particularly his son, Hunter Biden, that Republicans wanted to amplify in their attacks against the Democrat. Trump, on his social media app, had said that, “Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He later accused the media of distorting his comments and “trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution.” Two weeks ago, Trump came under criticism for having dinner with Nick Fuentes, a known white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Trump said he was unaware of Fuentes’ beliefs. Republicans have been unable to firmly reject Trump as their potential nominee, even as many of them try to distance themselves from his recent activities. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to become the House speaker when Republicans take control in the new year, has yet to fully weigh in on Trump’s latest comments. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a staunch Trump critic, tweeted directly at McCarthy to respond: “This week Trump said we should terminate all rules, regulations etc ‘even those in the Constitution’ to overturn the election. Are you so utterly without principle that you won’t condemn this either?” Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Joe Guzzardi: Tech layoffs may give U.S. IT workers opportunities
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new Chief Executive Officer, and the firings he immediately called for that included H-1B visa holders, as well as the tech industry’s mass, across-the-board layoffs, raise a three-decade-old question: should the H-1B visa be eliminated, and should U.S. tech workers be put first in line for the white-collar, well-paid jobs? Musk, who completed his $44 billion Twitter takeover last month, declared that he would end lifetime bans from his platform and tweeted that diverse viewpoints would be welcome. He has a golden opportunity not only to end censorship and restore free speech as he’s promised, but to also hire U.S. tech workers when the workforce needs to grow again. Going forward, Musk would have a chance to replace the Twitter employees that he’s fired with U.S. tech workers. The firings – about half the Twitter staff, or around 3,700 employees – are allegedly a cost-cutting measure. He summarily dismissed big earners like CEO Parag Agrawal, $30 million annually; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, $18.9 million; Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, $17 million; and General Counsel Sean Edgett, whose salary is unknown, but likely in the same range as his peers. A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court, claiming that the employees were not given the mandatory 60-day notice prior to the layoffs. Many of the fired Twitter workers may be in the double-whammy vortex. As H-1B employees, unless they find another job within 60 days or successfully change their immigration status, they must leave the U.S. or, no longer legally present, risk deportation. H-1B holders who are legally required to leave must depart and not overstay their visas which the federal government clearly identifies as temporary. The U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services estimates that about 8 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, between 625 and 670, have H-1B visas. Tech and social media are either laying off workers by the thousands or imposing hiring freezes. With Intel’s 20 percent slash, Snapchat’s 20 percent cut, and hiring freezes at Amazon and Apple, H-1B holders are on edge. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, cut 11,000 jobs, 13 percent of its staff after Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his so-called metaverse project was a $15 billion bomb. Meta/Facebook is in a tough spot vis-à-vis its H-1B layoffs. Per the Department of Labor classification, this means 15 percent or more of Meta’s full-time employees are H-1B nonimmigrant workers. For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley and other employers have falsely claimed that without nonimmigrant H-1B visa employees, their businesses would suffer. Yet now, with widespread tech layoffs that include H-1B holders, admitting 85,000 international workers in 2023, the visa’s annual cap, would further hurt U.S. tech workers who are either displaced and forced to train their replacements or denied interviews. Because H-1B employees are cheaper to hire than U.S. tech graduates, the corporate elite prefer them over more skilled, more well-educated Americans. The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place. The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said. The Journal debate represents the challenge that H-1B critics face. No matter how many H-1B visa holders lose their jobs, or how economically depressed the tech sector is, the demand for more visas will remain. Pro-immigration media supporters like the Journal, immigration advocacy groups, lawyers, corporate America, and the powerful Chamber of Commerce will incessantly lobby Congress for more, more, more H-1B visas. Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s Labor Secretary and University of Texas Professor Emeritus, gave a no-frills summary of the H-1B that its advocates should heed: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Musk has an opportunity to set an example for Meta and others to follow: hire U.S. tech workers. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
