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There has never been a political figure in American history like Donald Trump — perhaps one of the few truths on which both his backers and detractors can agree. Even the old phrase “love him or hate him” seems inadequate in describing the level of the bifurcated passions he engenders.
There is no doubt Trump thrives on attention, and he has a carnival barker’s knack for making sure the spotlight is always shining on him. As a former president and de facto leader of one of our two major political parties, he is newsworthy. Yet much of what he does and says is meant only to garner attention for attention’s sake. He is eager to do this at any cost, often by demeaning our political discourse.
This dynamic presents a particular challenge for the press. And it will get more complicated in the days, weeks, and months ahead as Trump’s fate steams onward on two parallel but distinct tracks: one political, the other legal.
How do you find the Goldilocks approach to coverage? Not too much, not too little, but just right?
How do you bear witness to the outrages and injustices without allowing him to suck the oxygen out of everything else to which we should be paying attention?
What is the tradeoff between reporting and amplifying?
There is a school of thought that the press’s elevation of Trump in the primaries and general election of 2016 played a big part in paving the path to his presidency. The amount of free coverage he received was unprecedented. The rallies shown live on cable news with no editing and little real-time context or perspective to the lies and invective he was spewing felt more like campaign ads than responsible coverage.
Once Trump was president, he was impossible to ignore. His statements, no matter how false or unhinged, carried the weight of America’s chief executive. And he certainly drove ratings. Those who loved him wanted to bask in his greatest hits. Many of those who despised him wanted to make sure their worst fears were documented and acknowledged as he swung a wrecking ball at our national order.
Trump is bombastic, outrageous, dangerous, and disingenuous. He lies, sneers, and stokes division. He threatens the very fabric of our national identity. He has fomented a cult-like status, undermined the rule of law, and debased the peaceful transfer of power.
He’s also incapable of going away. And now the drama that swirls around him like a Category 5 hurricane is only going to get worse.
In our own distant corner of the media landscape, we wrestle with how to cover Trump.
How do you approach a newsletter called Steady when the era's dominant political figure (yes, even more so than the current president) embodies the antithesis of the word?
We understand that for many of you the very definition of Steady means not having to read or hear Trump’s name with frequency. Wallowing in what he is doing on a daily basis is not productive. On these points we largely agree.
But at the same time, we believe it would be a mistake to downplay the danger he could wreak on this nation. He is running for president again, and should he win, which is well within the realm of the possible, his second term would probably make his first one seem restrained.
The death knells of many democracies, the transitions from freedom to autocracy, have been initiated at the ballot box. Many autocrats have been endorsed by a popular vote. Voters can get restless, angry, and scared. They can also become complacent, disengaged, or apathetic.
Autocrats know how to feed off both passion and passivity. Then, once installed, they find ways to undermine the governmental checks and balances that would otherwise prevent their worst abuses. Democracy withers, sometimes gradually and with little notice. It is no coincidence that many Trump supporters celebrate Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who followed this despot playbook to turn the country into his fiefdom.
As part of the Steady balance, we intend to continue to confront what Trump is doing and what he represents. It may get repetitive at times, and exhausting. He thrives on making his opposition overwhelmed and weary.
The 2020 election was a decisive loss for Trump, but it wasn’t a decisive end to Trumpism. Neither, likely, will be indictments or the criminal peril that surrounds him.
Trump is still here, and the threat he poses still looms large. As such, we must find ways to cover him without letting him dictate the terms of the coverage.
We hope we can achieve the right balance and look to you, our valued members of the Steady community, for guidance on how we are doing.
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Ukrainian combat medics evacuate a wounded Ukrainian serviceman from the front line near Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (photo: Sergey Shestak/AFP)
While fighting persists in the area, it has lessened in intensity, Cherevatyi said on national television.
According to the spokesperson, the number of assaults on the Bakhmut front has decreased, possibly indicating that the Russian forces are repositioning their reserves.
"Yesterday, there were 18 assaults on the entire Bakhmut front, today there were 17. Before that, there were from 35 to 50 or more. However, this requires more detailed verification and analysis,” Cherevatyi said.
He also noted that Russian forces have shelled the Bakhmut direction 268 times, with 94 attacks specifically targeting the city.
Cherevatyi reported that Russian forces have lost a tank, an amphibious assault vehicle, an infantry fighting vehicle, a Gvozdika self-propelled gun, two drones, a company command and observation post, and ten field ammunition depots in the Bakhmut direction.
However, he emphasized that the Russian army has increased its artillery activity in the directions of Lyman and Kupiansk, with 370 shots fired from the barrel and rocket artillery over the past day.
The battle for Bakhmut has been raging for the past eight months, with heavy losses incurred by both sides. Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly said that there is no plan to withdraw from Bakhmut.
On March 23, Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ground Forces of Ukraine, wrote that Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut are preparing to "take advantage" of Russian forces' massive losses and fatigue.
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Justice Samuel Altio speaks at the Notre Dame Law School's Religious Liberty Summit in Rome on 21 July 2022. He was flown there by the Religious Liberty Initiative, whose faculty have filed amicus briefs in at least six high-profile cases since 2020. (photo: AP)
The nation’s highest court relies on justices to judge for themselves if they have a conflict of interest. Often members of the hard-right majority decide they don’t
Alito ruminated on the “proud civilization” achieved by the Romans two millennia ago, asking himself how modern America would be remembered thousands of years hence. “As I think back, I also think ahead, and I wonder what historians may say centuries from now about the contribution of the United States to world civilization,” he said.
Alito did not specify which aspects of contemporary American life he deemed especially worthy of remembrance. One feature that would be unlikely to make the cut in many people’s estimation would be the ethical standing of his own court.
The justice had been flown out to Rome by the Religious Liberty Initiative, an outpost of the University of Notre Dame law school that advocates for religious freedom informed by the Catholic tradition. This was not the group’s first contact with Alito.
The initiative and its faculty have filed amicus briefs with the supreme court in at least six high-profile cases since it was founded in 2020. Two of the group’s fellows filed amicus briefs arguing against the constitutional right to an abortion in Dobbs, the case that led to the court overturning Roe v Wade in a contentious ruling written by Alito.
That the justice should be hosted in grand style by a religious freedom group that has lobbied him multiple times in the past two years raises serious concerns among ethics watchdogs.
“It’s one thing for justices to speak at law schools, but when the Religious Liberty Initiative, which is filing amicus briefs in all sorts of supreme court cases, flies Alito out to Rome, that’s another thing entirely,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a non-partisan group which advocates for reform.
But Alito’s Rome jaunt is just one of many factors that have swung an ethical spotlight over the nation’s highest court in recent months.
A series of ethical scandals have struck the court, the most toxic of which was the refusal of conservative justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a case in which Donald Trump tried to block documents relating to the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol from reaching the congressional committee investigating the riot.
Thomas was the only justice to side with Trump. It emerged soon after that his wife, Ginni Thomas, had been deeply embroiled in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election and that several of her texts to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in the run-up to January 6 had been among the documents that Trump had wanted kept hidden.
The Thomas scandal, and other apparent breaches of fundamental ethical boundaries, have raised questions about the unique status enjoyed by the nine supreme court justices. They are the only state or federal judges in the country who bear no obligation to abide by a formal ethics code.
Unlike judges sitting in any other jurisdiction in the US – from city and county to state, tribal and federal – the five men and four women of the supreme court are left completely to their own ethical devices.
Now that exceptional privilege is coming under pressure. Last month the American Bar Association called on the justices to take on the full sweep of ethical rules, arguing in its resolution that the lack of such a code “imperils the legitimacy of the court”.
Earlier this month the non-partisan government watchdog Project on Government Oversight together with Lawyers Defending American Democracy published a model code that would bring the supreme court into line with other jurisdictions. They said that the dearth of formal guidelines had become “untenable – for litigants, the court and our democracy”.
Congress has waded in too. Chris Murphy, a Democratic US senator from Connecticut, has reintroduced the Supreme Court Ethics Act that would close what the Senate majority whip, Dick Durbin, called an “inexcusable loophole”.
The Democratic senator from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse is spearheading a separate bill that would introduce a mechanism for investigating misconduct by the justices.
Though similar bills have failed in the past, there is a sense that there is wind in the sails of Congress on this subject. Democrats are increasingly concerned about the untethered nature of the increasingly extreme rightwing majority, while Republicans have been unnerved by the leaking of Alito’s draft abortion opinion in Dobbs and the failure to find the culprit.
This ripple of scrutiny comes at an awkward time for the justices. According to Gallup, public approval of the way they do business has fallen to a record low of 40%.
That matters, said Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia law school. “The supreme court doesn’t have the power of the purse or the sword, it just depends on its ability to influence and persuade. And that requires that it be viewed as legitimate.”
At the same time as public trust is waning, the new six-to-three conservative supermajority of the court engineered under Trump has wielded power in ways that have intimately affected the lives of millions of Americans. In addition to its abortion decision, the court has issued rulings that have left large swaths of the country feeling alienated and disaffected – on the climate crisis, gun laws and the influence of religion in public life.
This term the justices are turning their attention to a slew of new subjects that also have the potential to affect vast numbers of people. The docket includes a critical voting rights case in North Carolina that could radically alter the way federal elections are staged, a challenge to affirmative action in US universities, and Joe Biden’s plan to forgive student debt that would touch more than 40 million Americans.
“The supreme court arguably has more power now than it has ever had,” Roth said. “It is choosing who gets healthcare, who can pray, who has access to guns, who can vote – it even determines matters of life and death. In that setting, it’s only reasonable to expect a certain amount of transparency and accountability from its members.”
One critical area is recusals. The nine justices are bound by the federal recusal law, which states that “any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States” must “disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”.
The statute goes on to require recusal in cases in which the judge’s “spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial interest … or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”
Though no one disputes that supreme court justices are subject to the recusal law, the absence of an ethics code means that there is no provision for enforcing it. The actions of Thomas and his wife, Ginni, over January 6 exposed the problem.
“It’s very clear what the statute says, and it was equally clear that Thomas’s wife had an interest in the case, and yet he didn’t recuse,” Frost said. “So through his actions, Thomas demonstrated that he believes he doesn’t need to follow the law.”
The justices have tried to defend their uniquely unaccountable status by saying it preserves their legal independence and by pointing out that they are not fungible – unlike other judges who recuse themselves, they cannot be replaced. The chief justice, John Roberts, has insisted that the top court has no need to adopt an ethics code because “every justice seeks to follow high ethical standards”.
Which might be fine, were it not for the many recorded failings of those same justices. Fix the Court keeps tallies of ethical lapses and failures to recuse by current and former justices.
They disclose a litany of private plane rides, dinners and gifts, attendance at politically partisan events, and inconsistencies in financial disclosures. By far the longest entry is for Thomas, whose peccadilloes include attending a 2008 retreat in Palm Springs organized by the rightwing Koch brothers at a time when the duo were funding several litigants presenting to the top court.
Occasionally, there have been hints that the justices are aware that they have a problem and that they have discussed the possibility of ethical reform. In 2019, Elena Kagan told the House of Representatives that she and her eight peers were “very seriously” considering an ethics code.
Last month CNN reported that those “internal discussions” were ongoing, and that some justices were hoping to draft a code “in due course”. But it seems that unanimity is proving elusive and, as a result, the silence coming from the bench remains deafening.
“We are dealing with a pattern of neglect when it comes to the justices’ ethical responsibilities,” Roth said. “Our highest legal officials should adhere to a moral code against which they and the public can measure whether they are upholding their oath of office.”
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Axel Vilhelmsen trained Ukrainian soldiers last year as part of the Mozart Group, which two former Marines established to help Ukraine. It disbanded after one founder sued the other, alleging theft and harassment. (photo: Laura Boushnak/NYT)
People who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front, with ready access to American weapons.
Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show.
One retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Virginia is the focus of a U.S. federal investigation into the potentially illegal export of military technology. A former Army soldier arrived in Ukraine only to turn traitor and defect to Russia. A Connecticut man who lied about his military service has posted live updates from the battlefield — including his exact location — and boasted about his easy access to American weapons. A former construction worker is hatching a plan to use fake passports to smuggle in fighters from Pakistan and Iran.
And in one of the more curious entanglements, one of the largest volunteer groups is embroiled in a power struggle involving an Ohio man who falsely claimed to have been both a U.S. Marine and a LongHorn Steakhouse assistant manager. The dispute also involves a years-old incident on Australian reality TV.
Such characters have a place in Ukraine’s defense because of the arms-length role the United States has taken: The Biden administration sends weapons and money but not professional troops. That means people who would not be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war are active on the Ukrainian front — often with unchecked access to weapons and military equipment.
Many of the volunteers who hurried to Ukraine did so selflessly and acted with heroism. Some have lost their lives. Foreigners have rescued civilians, aided the wounded and fought ferociously alongside Ukrainians. Others raised money for crucial supplies.
But in Europe’s largest land war since 1945, the do-it-yourself approach does not discriminate between trained volunteers and those who lack the skills or discipline to assist effectively.
The New York Times reviewed more than 100 pages of documents from inside volunteer groups and interviewed more than 30 volunteers, fighters, fund-raisers, donors and American and Ukrainian officials. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The interviews and research reveal a series of deceptions, mistakes and squabbles that have hindered the volunteer drive that began after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for help. “Every friend of Ukraine who wants to join Ukraine in defending the country, please come over,” he said. “We will give you weapons.”
Thousands answered the call. Some joined military groups like the International Legion, which Ukraine formed for foreign fighters. Others took roles in support or fund-raising. With Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, under attack, there was little time for vetting arrivals. So people with problematic pasts, including checkered or fabricated military records, became entrenched in the Legion and a constellation of other volunteer groups.
Asked about these problems, the Ukrainian military did not address specific issues but did say that it was on guard because Russian agents regularly tried to infiltrate volunteer groups. “We investigated such cases and handed them over to law enforcement agencies,” said Andriy Cherniak, a representative for Ukrainian military intelligence.
‘A Million Lies’
One of the best-known Americans on the battlefield is James Vasquez. Days after the invasion, Mr. Vasquez, a Connecticut home-improvement contractor, announced that he was leaving for Ukraine. His local newspaper told the tale of a former U.S. Army staff sergeant who left behind his job and family and picked up a rifle and a rucksack on the front line.
Since then, he has posted battlefield videos online, at least once broadcasting his unit’s precise location to everyone, including the opposing side. He used his story to solicit donations. “I was in Kuwait during Desert Storm, and I was in Iraq after 9/11,” Mr. Vasquez said in a fund-raising video. He added, “This is a whole different animal.”
Mr. Vasquez, in fact, was never deployed to Kuwait, Iraq or anywhere else, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. He specialized in fuel and electrical repairs. And he left the Army Reserve not as a sergeant as he claimed, but as a private first class, one of the Army’s lowest ranks.
Still, Mr. Vasquez had easy access to weapons, including American rifles. Where did they come from? “I’m not exactly sure,” Mr. Vasquez said in a text message. The rifles, he added, were “brand-new, out of the box and we have plenty.” He also tweeted that he should not have to worry about international rules of war while in Ukraine.
He fought alongside Da Vinci’s Wolves, a Ukrainian far-right battalion, until this past week, when The Times asked about his false military service claims. He immediately deactivated his Twitter account and said that he might leave Ukraine because the authorities had discovered that he was fighting without a required military contract.
Mr. Vasquez said he had been misrepresenting his military record for decades. He acknowledged being kicked out of the Army but would not talk publicly about why. “I had to tell a million lies to get ahead,” Mr. Vasquez said in an interview. “I didn’t realize it was going to come to this.”
Public Quarrels
The International Legion, hastily formed by the Ukrainian government, spent 10 minutes or less checking each volunteer’s background early in the war, one Legion official said. So a Polish fugitive who had been jailed in Ukraine for weapon violations got a position leading troops. Soldiers told The Kyiv Independent that he had misappropriated supplies, harassed women and threatened his soldiers.
Ukrainian officials initially boasted of 20,000 potential Legion volunteers, but far fewer actually enlisted. Currently, there are around 1,500 members in the organization, say people with knowledge of the Legion.
Some are experienced fighters working as part of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. But there have been high-profile problems. A former Army private first class, John McIntyre, was ejected from the Legion for bad behavior. Mr. McIntyre defected to Russia and recently appeared on state-run television, which said he had provided military intelligence to Moscow.
Internal documents show that the Legion is struggling. Recruitment has stagnated. The Washington-based Counter Extremism Project wrote in March that the Legion and affiliated groups “continue to feature individuals widely seen as unfit to perform their duties.”
Malcolm Nance, a former Navy cryptologist and MSNBC commentator, arrived in Ukraine last year and made a plan to bring order and discipline to the Legion. Instead, he became enmeshed in the chaos.
Mr. Nance, whose television appearances have made him one of the most visible Americans supporting Ukraine, was an experienced military operator. He drafted a code of honor for the organization and, by all accounts, donated equipment.
Today, Mr. Nance is involved in a messy, distracting power struggle. Often, that plays out on Twitter, where Mr. Nance taunted one former ally as “fat” and an associate of “a verified con artist.”
He accused a pro-Ukraine fund-raising group of fraud, providing no evidence. After arguing with two Legion administrators, Mr. Nance wrote a “counterintelligence” report trying to get them fired. Central to that report is an accusation that one Legion official, Emese Abigail Fayk, fraudulently tried to buy a house on an Australian reality TV show with money she didn’t have. He labeled her “a potential Russian spy,” offering no evidence. Ms. Fayk denied the accusations and remains with the Legion.
Mr. Nance said that as a member of the Legion with an intelligence background, when he developed concerns, he “felt an obligation to report this to Ukrainian counterintelligence.”
The dispute goes to the heart of who can be trusted to speak for and raise money for the Legion.
Mr. Nance has left Ukraine but continues fund-raising with a new group of allies. One of them, Ben Lackey, is a former Legion member. He told his fellow volunteers that he was once a Marine and wrote on LinkedIn that he had most recently been an assistant manager at LongHorn Steakhouse. In fact, the Pentagon said he had no military experience (and he worked as a server, the steakhouse said).
In an interview, Mr. Lackey said that he had lied about being a U.S. Marine so he could join the Legion.
With Legion growth stalling, Ryan Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, N.C., is seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. Mr. Routh, who spent several months in Ukraine last year, said he planned to move them, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest.
“We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” he said in an interview from Washington.
It is not clear whether he has succeeded, but one former Afghan soldier said he had been contacted and was interested in fighting if it meant leaving Iran, where he was living illegally.
Misdirected Donations
Grady Williams, a 65-year-old retired engineer with no military experience and a methamphetamine conviction from 2019, was a volunteer tour guide at Ronald Reagan’s Santa Barbara ranch when he heard Mr. Zelensky’s plea for volunteers.
“I shot rifles since I was 13,” he said in an interview. “I had no excuse to say, ‘Well, I shouldn’t go.’”
He said he had flown to Poland, hitchhiked to Ukraine and taken a train to Kyiv. He bumped into two Americans in military-looking gear. “They said, ‘Dude, come with us,’” he said.
The volunteers brought Mr. Williams to a base near the front and gave him a gun. Days later, he said, he was nearly blown up while fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers from a trench near Bucha. Within a week, the military realized that he had not registered to fight and sent him back to Kyiv.
From there, he took a circuitous path that ended in raising money for volunteers from the Republic of Georgia. He raised about $16,000, telling donors that their money would buy electric motorcycles for fighters. But the Georgians kicked him out after he got into a conflict with another volunteer. He said he had spent about $6,900 of the contributions on down payments for motorbikes and the rest on his travel and other expenses.
He has since linked up with a new group, which he said had promised him command of a motorcycle unit if he raised enough money. So he moved this month to Odesa, Ukraine, he said, and expects to deliver a single motorbike soon.
Examples of wasted money in the hands of well-intentioned people are common. Mriya Aid, a group led by an active-duty Canadian lieutenant colonel, spent about $100,000 from donors on high-tech U.S.-style night-vision devices. They ended up being less-effective Chinese models, internal documents show.
“We experienced a problem with the night vision,” said Lubomyr Chabursky, a volunteer on Mriya Aid’s leadership team. But he said the purchase represented only 2 percent of the aid the group had provided.
Earlier this year, the Mozart Group, which two former Marines established to help Ukraine, disbanded after one sued the other, alleging theft and harassment.
Absent Paper Trail
Last spring, a volunteer group called Ripley’s Heroes said it had spent approximately $63,000 on night-vision and thermal optics. Some of the equipment was subject to American export restrictions because, in the wrong hands, it could give enemies a battlefield advantage.
Frontline volunteers said Ripley’s delivered the equipment to Ukraine without required documentation listing the actual buyers and recipients. Recently, the federal authorities began investigating the shipments, U.S. officials said.
In his defense, the group’s founder, a retired U.S. Marine named Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV, provided deal documents to The Times. But those records show that, just as the volunteers said, Ripley’s was not disclosed to the State Department as the buyer.
Ripley’s says it has raised over $1 million, some of it thanks to the former Connecticut contractor, Mr. Vasquez, who claimed to be the group’s chief strategy officer and promoted Ripley’s to his online audience.
Ripley’s spent about $25,000 on remote-control reconnaissance cars last year, but they never arrived, shipping records show. Colonel Rawlings said the Polish authorities had held them up over legal concerns.
Colonel Rawlings has said that his group is awaiting American nonprofit status. But he has not revealed his spending or proof of a nonprofit application to The Times or to donors who have asked. So it is not clear where the money is going. “I believed these guys,” said Shaun Stants, who said he had organized a fund-raiser in October in Pittsburgh but was never shown the financial records he asked for. “And they took me for a fool.”
Corporate records in Poland and the United States show that Colonel Rawlings also started a for-profit company called Iron Forge. In an interview, he said he expected his charity and others to pay Iron Forge for transportation, meaning that donor money would be used to finance his private venture. But he said no conflict of interest existed because Iron Forge would ultimately send money back to the charities. Details are being worked out, he said.
In the days after The Times approached Mr. Vasquez and others, members of the squabbling groups — Ripley’s, the Legion, the dissident Legion members and more — escalated their feud. They accused one another of misappropriating funds and lying about their credentials.
After a former ally turned on Mr. Vasquez, Mr. Nance came to his defense.
“James was NOT fake, he was troubled,” Mr. Nance said on Twitter. “He did a lot for Ukraine but has challenges to face.”
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Sonia Glenn from Fairfax, Virginia wears a Statue of Liberty costume at the rally in Lafayette Square park before the Women's March in Washington, D.C., to protest the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. (photo: Tyrone Turner/WAMU/NPR)
The state is targeting abortion providers — but not for violating the 15-week ban.
Florida legislators approved the law in 2015, but it remained in limbo after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged it. After a judge upheld the law in April, Florida’s abortion regulator, the Agency for Health Care Administration, almost immediately began issuing fines.
Abortion-rights advocates say providers were given little chance to prepare for the law, which requires patients to wait 24 hours between clinic visits. In some instances, clinics were not in compliance with the “24 hour” law because of paperwork issues or computer problems.
Florida has become a hub for abortions since the fall of Roe v. Wade last year, despite a new law limiting abortions after 15 weeks. Thousands of people have come to Florida from across the southeast to get abortions as other states in the region impose even stricter limits on access, and abortion rights groups say the “24 hour” rule will further burden people traveling to Florida who will be forced to stay in the state longer.
“We have a lot of independent clinics in this state that are working hard to provide women with access, so it’s a shame,” Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said in an interview. “And women are getting hurt in the process, especially the ones coming from out of state.”
So far, the agency has issued almost $500,000 in fines to 14 of Florida’s 52 abortion clinics. While Planned Parenthood has an advocacy arm that helped prepare its 38 Florida clinics for the “24 hour” law, smaller independent clinics couldn’t afford the same luxury, Goodhue said.
The “24 hour” rule is another example of Florida restricting abortion access, though it’s not has high profile as the 2022 law banning abortion at 15 weeks that the Republican-controlled Legislature approved last year. The law doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest.
This year, with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ support, Florida Republicans are seeking to ban abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. Republicans hold supermajorities in the state House and Senate, so Democrats have no power to even slow the GOP from approving the measure. The new proposal, and “24 hour law,” are strong indicators that some GOP-led states will continue to crack down on abortions in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe.
Florida Democratic House leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell had especially harsh words for Republicans.
“It’s very easy to be tough on abortion when you’re sitting hundreds of miles away in your ivory tower in Tallahassee versus these doctors and nurses who are dealing with women who are about to make one of the most consequential decisions of their lives,” Driskell said.
State inspectors levied the maximum $1,000 fine on clinics whose individual patient files didn’t include any notes or paperwork showing compliance with the 24-hour law. The state issued the largest fine, $193,000, against an Orlando abortion clinic that inspectors alleged violated the law for 193 patients.
The clinic, Center of Orlando for Women, however, challenged the fine and a lawyer representing it, Julie Gallagher, argued that imposing the maximum fine for each violation was arbitrary and unfair, according to records filed with the state Division of Administrative Hearings.
Gallagher and lawyers representing six other clinics that are challenging the fines claimed state inspectors also failed to account for clinics’ ongoing efforts to comply with the law.
“At trial, the agency had no justification, or explanation, for the maximum fine other than ‘we always start at the maximum’ or ‘we always do it this way,’” Gallagher wrote in an email to POLITICO. “This is not a valid use of agency discretion.”
Lawyers for AHCA, however, wrote in agency documents that the Center of Orlando for Women failed to conduct due diligence to prepare for the “24 hour” law, including hiring a legal adviser or calling other clinics for advice.
The lawyers also wrote that the agency is under no legal obligation to promptly alert clinics about changes in law.
The state began enforcing the 24 hour law after a Leon County Circuit Court Judge Angela Dempsey tossed out the legal challenge to the law in April, which was first filed by the Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center in Gainesville. Lawyers from the ACLU argued on behalf of the clinic that the law violated a privacy right in the state Constitution that had been successfully cited in the past to uphold abortion protections.
Dempsey, however, wrote in an order that standards for several medical procedures also require that patients wait 24 hours. She was appointed to the bench by former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush.
“Twenty-four hours is the minimum time needed to sleep on such an important decision,” Dempsey wrote. “And it is shorter than or the same waiting periods for other decisions that implicate significant constitutional interests — privacy.”
The state started issuing fines 17 days after Dempsey issued her final ruling on April 25, AHCA spokesperson Bailey Smith said.
“The 17 days between the circuit court judge’s orders provided ample notice of her decision for clinics to comply,” Smith wrote in an email. “The Agency’s Division of Health Quality Assurance has surveyors throughout that state that are efficient and diligent in their work to protect the health and safety of Floridians.”
Of the 14 clinics fined, at least three settled with the state for reduced fines. Today’s Women Medical Center in Miami, for example, was initially levied a $2,000 fine but the state settled for $500 after the medical director of the clinic provided additional information showing that the violations were not as serious as reported by an inspector. For instance, the medical equipment at the clinic used to observe the fetus records the date and time of each examination, but the equipment was not programmed to include the date and time information in patient files.
A doctor with the clinic declined to speak on the record, fearing backlash from anti-abortion groups.
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FTC chair Lina Khan wants you to be able to click to cancel. (photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg)
ALSO SEE: Frustrated Over Canceling a Subscription? Relief May Be Coming.
The FTC wants to make it easier for you to cancel that gym membership, among other things.
The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday that it’s proposing a “click to cancel” rule, which would force businesses to make it just as easy to sign off as it was to sign up.
If the rule gets approved, that means no more in-person visits, handwritten letters, or waiting on hold for hours to cancel. No more manipulative designs that trick consumers into paying for services. No more being forced to endure various sales pitches and pleas before you can finally cancel your subscription or membership. These are some of the most common complaints the FTC gets, the agency said, and what it hopes the click to cancel rule will fix.
“I’m sure this is an experience that all of you can relate to, where you tried to cancel a subscription and the company has made you jump through an endless number of hoops,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a call with reporters. “Companies should not be able to manipulate consumers into paying for subscriptions that they don’t want.”
You can probably relate to that: Gym memberships are notoriously difficult to end. Free trials, as you surely know, aren’t so free. And monthly subscriptions you didn’t even know you subscribed to sure get expensive when you don’t realize you’ve been paying for them.
The click to cancel rule, which is just a notice of proposed rulemaking for now, will amend and update the existing negative option rule, which, Khan said, typically applied to businesses that sent consumers products and then charged them if they didn’t send those products back quickly. But these days, the business model has shifted from physical products you get in the mail to ongoing subscriptions for access to products or services. The agency believes its rules should be updated accordingly.
“We’ve seen a dramatic growth in subscription-based business models over the last few years, which just underscores the urgency here,” Khan said.
In addition to requiring businesses to make it as easy to cancel as it is to sign up, the rule would also mean new requirements that businesses better inform consumers that they’re signing up for a paid service. They would also have to get users’ express consent to pay for that service and remind them before those services are automatically renewed. They must also spell out how long a free trial will last so a customer knows how and when to cancel it before the free part ends. Businesses would be allowed to offer consumers various special offers or discounts to try to get them to maintain their subscriptions, but only if the customer agrees to see or hear them.
Finally, the rule would give the FTC the authority to get civil penalties from offenders and redress for consumers.
Businesses that engage in these practices surely won’t like this new rule, but they shouldn’t be surprised to see it. The FTC signaled that it would be looking at negative option marketing back in October 2021, and it’s been investigating how to deal with dark patterns, or web designs meant to trick or manipulate consumers into choosing what the website wants them to, since before Khan even got there. President Biden has made protecting consumers from deceptive business practices like junk fees one of his administration’s initiatives.
Again, because this is a notice of proposed rulemaking, it’s not yet final, and it will take several months before it’s approved — assuming it’s approved at all.
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The deep-sea mining robot Patania II is lowered into the Pacific Ocean to begin a descent to the sea floor in April 2021. (photo: GSR/Reuters)
Businesses want to trawl for nickel, manganese and cobalt to build electric cars and windfarms
The report, to be published on Monday by the international wildlife charity Fauna & Flora, adds to the growing controversy that surrounds proposals to sweep the ocean floor of rare minerals that include cobalt, manganese and nickel. Mining companies want to exploit these deposits – which are crucial to the alternative energy sector – because land supplies are running low, they say.
However, oceanographers, biologists and other researchers have warned that these plans would cause widespread pollution, destroy global fish stocks and obliterate marine ecosystems.
“The ocean plays a critical role in the basic functioning of our planet, and protecting its delicate ecosystem is not just critical for marine biodiversity but for all life on Earth,” said Sophie Benbow, the organisation’s marine director.
Fauna & Flora first raised concerns about ocean mining in a 2020 report. Since then, scientists have intensified their study of deep-sea zones and highlighted further dangers posed by mining there. These form the focus of the organisation’s report. “It has become increasingly clear in the last couple of years that, apart from other dangers, deep-sea mining poses a particular threat to the climate,” said Catherine Weller, Fauna & Flora’s director of global policy.
“The deep sea holds vast reservoirs of carbon which could be completely disrupted by mining on the scale being proposed and exacerbate the global crisis we are experiencing through rising greenhouse gas levels.”
Recent research has also emphasised that our knowledge and understanding of biodiversity is woefully incomplete. “Each time an expedition is launched to collect species, we find that between 70% and 90% of them are new to science,” said Benbow. “It is not just new species, but whole genera of plants and creatures about which we had previously known nothing.”
This view is supported by David Attenborough, who has called for a moratorium on all deep-sea mining plans. “Mining means destruction, and in this case it means the destruction of an ecosystem about which we know pathetically little,” he said.
Delicate, long-living denizens of the deep – polychaete worms, sea cucumbers, corals and squid – would be obliterated by dredging, researchers have warned. Nor would there be any chance of a quick recovery. At depths of several kilometres, food and energy are limited, and life proceeds at an extraordinarily slow rate. “Once lost, biodiversity will be impossible to restore,” says the report.
The battle over our planet’s deep-sea resources focuses primarily on the trillions of nodules of manganese, nickel and cobalt that litter the ocean floor. These metals are critical to the manufacture of electric cars, wind turbines and other devices that will be needed to replace carbon-emitting lorries, power plants and factories.
As a result, mining companies are now jostling to dredge them up in vast quantities using robot rovers – attached by pipelines to surface ships – that would trundle over the ocean floor, sucking up nodules and pumping them to their mother craft.
But operations like these would devastate our already stressed oceans, destroy their delicate ecosystems and send plumes of sediments, laced with toxic metals, spiralling upwards to poison marine food-chains, say marine biologists.
For their part, mining companies have defended their plans by pointing out that drilling for mineral reserves on land is even more damaging to the planet’s stressed ecosystems. If we focus all our efforts to dig up cobalt, nickel and manganese there, we will degrade the environment ever further. Better turn to the ocean depths instead, it is argued.
The claim is dismissed by Weller. “These companies are presenting deep-sea mining as a new frontier but they really mean it to be an additional frontier – for none of these companies is suggesting that if we started mining the deep seabed then they would stop mining on land. We would just be adding to our woes.”
Ocean experts are concerned about the prospects of deep-sea mining operations beginning in the near future, following the decision of the Pacific Island state of Nauru to accelerate exploitation of the sea bed. In June 2021, it notified the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – responsible for regulating mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction – of its intention to sponsor an exploitation application for nodule mining in the Pacific.
In doing so, Nauru triggered a ‘two-year rule’ – a legal provision which creates a countdown for the ISA to adopt its first set of exploitation regulations for deep-seabed mining and could result in the green light for deep-seabed mining this year. Discussions among the 167 member states of the ISA are now under way.
“This is a critical year,” said Weller. “The newly agreed UN High Sea treaty signifies a clear global recognition of the importance of ocean conservation but collaborative efforts are still needed to keep the brakes on deep-sea mining.”
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