A Watershed Moment for Public-Sector Unions

Abstract: In the half century since Wisconsin became the first state to give its public workers the right to bargain collectively, government employee unions have mushroomed in size and power — so much so that they now account for more than half of the nation’s union members. But the legislative push by Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, to slash the collective bargaining rights of his state’s public employees could prove a watershed for public-sector unions, perhaps signaling the beginning of a decline in their power — both at the bargaining table and in politics. Three-fourths of the states allow collective bargaining by some or all of state or local government employees. And labor’s friends and foes alike agree that if the Wisconsin legislation passes, it will create momentum for similar bills in Ohio, Indiana and other states. “These kinds of high-profile public-employee battles have enormous stakes,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor law at Harvard. “We’re still feeling the consequences of President Reagan confronting the union in the air controllers’ strike. For anyone interested in union rights, the fight in Wisconsin couldn’t be more important.” From Florida to California, many political leaders are seeking to cut the wages and benefits of public-sector workers to help balance strained budgets. But Mr. Walker is going far beyond that, seeking to definitively curb the power of government unions in his state. He sees public-employee unions as a bane to the taxpayer because they demand — and often win — generous health and pension plans that help push up taxes and drive budget deficits higher. To end that cycle, he wants to restrict the unions to bargaining over just one topic, base wages, while eliminating their ability to deal over health care, working hours and vacations. Moreover, he wants to require unions to win an employee election every year to continue representing workers. By flooding the State Capitol in Madison with more than 10,000 protesters , labor unions are doing their utmost to block Mr. Walker’s plans. They helped persuade Democratic state senators to slip out of the building this week to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass the legislation. Democrats say the governor’s “budget repair bill” — strongly supported by the Republicans who control both legislative houses — is political payback, intended to cripple public-sector unions, which spent more than $200 million to back Democrats across the country in November’s elections. Mr. Walker denies any such notion, saying he simply wants to curb union bargaining rights and bring public workers’ wages and benefits in line with the private sector. “It’s not about the unions,” he said this week. “It’s about balancing the budget.” Christopher Policano, a spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said his union was willing to negotiate concessions with Mr. Walker, “but he wants to throw out the bargaining table.” Mr. Walker has repeatedly argued that most Wisconsin residents back his legislation. After visiting a factory this week, he said that private-sector workers often complain that public employees receive more generous health and pension benefits than they do. There is no question that public-sector unions and the thousands of contracts they have negotiated over the years have improved wages and pensions of government workers and made government service more attractive. But union leaders are quick to point to studies showing that overall compensation for government employees is slightly lower than for private-sector employees of comparable age and education. Also embedded in the Wisconsin debate — and reaching well beyond that state — is a more fundamental dispute over the role, even the legitimacy, of public-sector unions. Like Mr. Walker, Ohio’s new governor, John Kasich, and Indiana’s second-term governor, Mitch Daniels, both Republicans, see public-sector bargaining as something to be banned or severely restricted because of its effect on taxpayers and government budgets. Some Republicans quote President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, who bridled at public-sector unionism and once said, “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted in the public service.” Republicans say the Democrats have embraced the government employees’ cause because weaker unions would reduce crucial political support for Democratic candidates. Republicans have often denounced what they say is a squalid deal in which public-sector unions spend generously to elect allies to office and then those allies lavish generous wages and benefits on union members. Ever since Wisconsin gave its government employees the right to bargain in 1959, it has generally been Democrats who have extended that right in other states. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave most federal employees the right to unionize and bargain collectively. The national importance of the Wisconsin fight is clear. President Obama weighed in on labor’s behalf on Wednesday, calling Mr. Walker’s proposals “an assault on unions.” And the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, praised Mr. Walker for “confronting problems that have been neglected for years at the expense of jobs and economic growth.” Citing an anticipated budget deficit of $137 million this year and a $3.6 billion shortfall over the next two years, Mr. Walker argues that his measures to curb union power and bargaining are essential to help balance the budget. Union leaders say that several of Mr. Walker’s proposals — including the one that would require elections each year to determine whether a majority of public employees want to keep their union — are really intended to cripple unions, not balance the budget. Other governors, Democrat and Republican, are also grappling with budget deficits. But many of those governors, like Jerry Brown of California and Andrew M. Cuomo in New York, both Democrats, and Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican, are not trying to strip bargaining rights. They are instead using public pressure and the threat of layoffs to persuade public-sector unions to make far-reaching concessions. “Wisconsin has become ground zero for the process of pushing back against unions,” said Steve Meyer, a professor of labor history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “People are waiting to see what happens here. That’s why the labor movement has become so deeply involved trying to stop this process.” As happens so often in today’s increasingly partisan politics, the battle reflects how differently Republicans and Democrats view a particular subject — in this case, unions and their power. Many Republicans see public-sector unions as greedy, powerful special interests that are taking too many taxpayer dollars. Many Democrats see them as natural allies and a vital part of a labor movement that has helped build the nation’s middle class. The furious demonstrators in Madison have shown that public-sector unions still wield real power. But if the Legislature enacts Mr. Walker’s bill, a tipping point might well be reached, with the power of public-sector unions tilting into decline.

American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees


Greek Lawmakers End Golden Dawn Member’s Immunity

Abstract: ATHENS (AP) — Greece ’s Parliament voted Wednesday to lift the immunity from prosecution of a far-right member, Konstantinos Barbarousis, after accusations that he had taken part in attacks on vendors. Mr. Barbarousis’ party, Golden Dawn , rose from the fringes to gain 18 parliamentary seats in June elections by opposing immigration . Last month, videos on the Internet showed Golden Dawn members as they smashed the stalls of vendors in Messolongi, claiming they lacked permits. Mr. Barbarousis appeared with the group in the videos.

Greece
Golden Dawn (Greece)
Barbarousis Konstantinos


Shares Rise as Vonage Settles Fight Over Patent

Abstract: Shares in Vonage, the Internet telephone provider, rose sharply in after-hours trading yesterday after the company announced a settlement in a patent dispute with Verizon . Under the settlement, Vonage agreed to pay Verizon one of two amounts, depending on whether Vonage persuades an appeals court to rehear a lawsuit that Verizon won against it this year. If the court agrees to rehear the suit, Vonage will pay Verizon $80 million, said Charles Sahner, a spokesman for Vonage. If the court rejects the appeal, it will pay $117.5 million. Vonage has agreed to pay an additional $2.5 million to charity. But the settlement also allows Vonage to use technology governed by two Verizon patents that pertain to the way calls made over the Internet are connected to the traditional telephone network. In the spring, a federal court ruled that Vonage had violated those patents and ordered the company to pay Verizon $58 million in damages and a 5.5 percent royalty. Vonage filed and lost an appeal, and the two sides have been negotiating a settlement ever since. Vonage went public in May 2006 at $17 and its shares have generally headed lower since then. But in after-hours trading yesterday, the stock rose around 70 percent, to $2.60. Telecommunications industry analysts said the dispute between the two companies had taken a toll on Vonage, and on its stock price. The settlement “looks like a big win for Vonage,” said Eric Laughlin, chief executive of VoIPReview.org , an Internet site that reviews and compares Internet telephone services. He said the dispute with Verizon had caused uncertainty for Vonage customers and investors, who were not sure how much money the company would pay to settle and license use of the patented technology. “This settlement removes some of the distraction and uncertainty,” said Mr. Sahner of Vonage. “Putting this piece behind allows the company to move forward.” Eric Rabe, a spokesman for Verizon, declined to comment on the settlement. This month Vonage eliminated another stumbling block when it settled a lawsuit with Sprint Nextel for $80 million. In September a court had ordered Vonage to pay Sprint $69.5 million after a jury concluded that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents. Despite the settlements, challenges remain for Vonage. Last week, AT&T became the latest traditional telephone company to file a patent lawsuit against the company. More broadly, Vonage faces intense competition in a market it helped define and build. Even as Vonage has become synonymous with Internet telephone service among some consumers, it has faced increasing competition from cable companies offering phone service over their high-speed Internet connections. Craig Moffett, a telecommunications industry analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said the settlement would do little to change the broader market dynamics that have put Vonage at a disadvantage. Cable companies, he said, could spend less money to acquire and serve customers because they have built-in infrastructure and existing customer relationships. “Getting this litigation behind it gives Vonage a new lease on life, but it does not change the dynamic of the industry very much,” Mr. Moffett said. He added that leadership in the industry had shifted from Vonage and other upstart Internet telephone providers to the cable operators: “It’s Comcast and Time Warner and Cablevision that are doing all the heavy damage right now.”

Vonage Holdings Corp
Verizon Communications
Computers and the Internet
Suits and Litigation
Telephones and Telecommunications


Vodafone Writes Down Units in Spain and Italy

Abstract: BERLIN — Vodafone , the British telecommunications group, on Tuesday wrote down the value of its network businesses in Spain and Italy by £5.9 billion, as it struggles to weather the economic downturn in Southern Europe. The charge, equivalent to nearly $9.4 billion, pushed Vodafone to a £1.9 billion loss ($3 billion) for the six months through Sept. 30, in contrast to a £6.6 billion profit in the period a year earlier. The chief executive, Vittorio Colao, attributed the troubles to rising unemployment and economic stagnation in Spain and Italy, where Vodafone owns the No. 2 carriers behind Telefónica , in Spain, and Telecom Italia Mobile. “Our results reflect tough market conditions, mainly in Southern Europe,” Mr. Colao said. He reiterated, however, that the company’s strategy remained one of cost-cutting and investing in faster networks to increase the sale of wireless data and offset other declines. Shares of Vodafone, based in Newbury, England, fell as much as 4.5 percent in London trading on Tuesday, before closing down 2.5 percent, at 162.5 pence. Vodafone was not the only company to blame the recession while writing down the value of its business on Tuesday. Imperial Tobacco of Britain, which makes Gauloises and Lambert & Butler cigarettes and is the market leader in Spain, said it would take a £1.2 billion write-down on its Spanish business. In the six months through September, Vodafone said its revenue fell 7.4 percent, to £21.8 billion, from £23.5 billion a year earlier. In Southern Europe, the declines were twice as steep, with revenue falling 18.1 percent, to just under £5 billion. Revenue fell 18.4 percent in Italy and 19.3 percent in Spain. About half of the declines stemmed from the weakening of the euro against the pound, which eroded the value of Vodafone’s earnings in the single-currency bloc. The company also faltered in Germany, Vodafone’s largest single market in Europe, where revenue from voice service and text messaging, its traditional source of earnings, is being increasingly eroded by free Internet-based mobile calling and smartphone message applications. Revenue in Germany, where the company and T-Mobile are roughly equal as market leaders, fell 6.5 percent, to £3.9 billion. “Germany experienced a sharp slowdown in revenue momentum as well as pressure on margins,” Jerry Dellis, an analyst in London at Jefferies International, a securities and investment bank, wrote in a note to clients. Huge write-downs are not unknown at Vodafone, which rose to global prominence in the late 1990s through a series of aggressive mergers and acquisitions in Europe and Asia, and the purchase of a 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, the largest United States wireless carrier. But the company has periodically overreached during its evolution, and economic downturns set off large accounting corrections to the value of its business. Twelve years ago, Vodafone wrote down the value of its business by the equivalent of $6.5 billion. Mr. Colao, the son of an Italian military police officer who took over as chief executive in 2008, has streamlined the company, selling stakes in operators in France, Poland, Japan, Sweden and China. In January, he was able to coax from Verizon the first dividend payment for the Verizon Wireless venture since 2005, a windfall worth £2.9 billion to Vodafone. On Tuesday, Mr. Colao said Vodafone would receive an additional £2.4 billion dividend from Verizon Wireless before the end of this year. Philip Kendall, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London, said Vodafone was faring no worse than other operators in weathering the downturn of Southern Europe. “As the No. 2 player in Spain and Italy, we feel Vodafone is holding its own quite well,” Mr. Kendall said. “I’m not suggesting all is good at those operations, just that most operators in those markets are hurting and it would be a little short-termist to get out now.” Vodafone has explored opportunities to consolidate its operations in the region, and in February called off a merger of its Greek carrier with that of a rival, Wind Hellas. But the company is unlikely to leave the region, Mr. Kendall said. “We wouldn’t expect major changes at Vodafone,” he said. “They’ll be exploring opportunities for consolidation and options for cutting costs, but are unlikely to be considering an exit.”

Spain
Italy
Vodafone Group Plc
Wireless Communications
Telephones and Telecommunications
Company Reports
Telecom Italia S.p.A
Telefonica SA
European Union
Euro (Currency)


New Tomb for Father of Alexander the Great

Abstract: Philip II of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, may be buried in a different tomb than was previously thought. A new study relying on the scanning and radiography of skeletal remains suggests that of the three tombs found on the Great Tumulus hill in the northern Greek town of Vergina, the king is likely to be buried in what is known as Tomb 1 , not Tomb 2. The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Philip II sustained a lance-inflicted leg wound three years before he was slain in 336 BCE. Tomb 1 contains an approximately 45-year-old individual with a hole near the knee, suggesting a piercing wound accompanied by inflammation and bone fusion. Tomb 1 also contains the remains of an 18-year-old female and a 42-week-old infant; these are thought to be the king’s wife and their child, both slain shortly after his death.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Iraq: Outburst of Bombings Sweeps Through Baghdad Neighborhoods

Abstract: Twelve explosions hit Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad within 40 minutes on Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 100, security and medical officials said. In one attack in the Husseiniya area in northern Baghdad, a homemade bomb exploded near a restaurant, followed by a car-bomb blast in a nearby parking garage. The two explosions killed eight people and wounded 22. Other car bombs exploded in markets and garages in the neighborhoods of Baya, Saydia, Obaidi, Kamb Sarah, Zafaraniya, Baghdad Jadida, Elam and Bab al-Sharji, striking shoppers and other pedestrians and turning the streets of Baghdad into a chaos of casualties, ambulances, police patrols and blaring alarms. At a checkpoint in Elam, a frustrated security officer was overheard talking to his men after a blast involving a Kia minibus. “I told you this morning to search for a Kia,” he said. A police officer responded: “We did search them all. What can we do?” As ambulances sped by, a taxi driver waiting at the same checkpoint said life was worse now than under the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. “Hundreds are dying every day,” he said angrily. “Everything was better when Saddam was here. Now it’s just a city of the dead and the visitors to their graves.”


Pierre-Paul Will Sit Out; Jets’ Holmes May Not Play, Either

Abstract: Defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul and cornerback Trumaine McBride have been ruled out for the Giants’ game Sunday night at Washington. Coach Tom Coughlin said after practice Friday that the backup running back Brandon Jacobs and cornerback Corey Webster would also miss the game. Receiver Hakeem Nicks, who missed last weekend’s game against Dallas, practiced and was listed as probable for the game. Nicks is in the final year of his contract and is the second-leading receiver for the club, with 42 catches for 620 yards, a 14.8-yard average. The Giants’ defensive coordinator, Perry Fewell, said Jayron Hosley and Charles James would replace McBride and Webster in the secondary. Fewell also said Cullen Jenkins, a defensive tackle, would play some snaps at defensive end in the absence of Pierre-Paul. CONCERNS OVER HOLMES Receiver Santonio Holmes missed his second straight day of practice with a recurring hamstring injury, and Jets Coach Rex Ryan said he was concerned about Holmes’s chances of playing Sunday against Miami. Holmes, who has missed five games this season with foot and hamstring problems, said only that he felt the way he had the previous few weeks. Cornerback Antonio Cromartie returned to practice on a limited basis after sitting out the previous two days with a hip injury. As with Holmes, the Jets will make a game-time decision on whether Cromartie plays. Jeremy Kerley (elbow) was listed as questionable for the game, and Stephen Hill (knee) and Greg Salas (finger), also members of the Jets’ banged-up receiving corps, were listed as probable. ZACH SCHONBRUN TRADING PLACES Todd Bowles has rebounded nicely in Arizona after a tough season coaching in Philadelphia. Vice versa for Bill Davis. Image Cameron Jordan of the Saints sacking the Falcons’ Matt Ryan on Sunday. Jordan was fined $10,000 for a hit on Ryan in that game. Credit Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Bowles and Davis, each a defensive coordinator, will face their former teams when the Cardinals (7-4) visit the Eagles (6-5) on Sunday. Bowles replaced Juan Castillo as Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator six weeks into last season, when the Eagles were on their way to a 4-12 finish. He never had a chance with a team on a downward spiral. But when Bruce Arians was hired by Arizona, he chose Bowles to run his defense. The Cardinals have the N.F.L.’s eighth-ranked defense in terms of yards allowed, and the unit is a major reason the team is in the playoff mix. “If a player has a bad year, they work hard to come back, and it’s no different for a coach,” Bowles said. “No matter what the situation is, you think as a coach you are good enough to turn anything around.” Davis was in Arizona from 2007 to 2010, serving as the defensive coordinator for the last two of those years. His units did not fare well, but Chip Kelly brought him to Philadelphia after he spent two years as Cleveland’s linebackers coach. Davis had a rough first month with the Eagles, but his defense has not allowed more than 21 points in any of the last seven games. “There are highs, lows,” Davis said. “Sometimes you’re doing a good job. Sometimes you’re not. But if you just continue to take it in smaller chunks and don’t overreact to the praise and don’t overreact to the criticism, it’s all a balance that you’ve got to hold to survive.” (AP) FINES FOR ROUGH HITS Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback William Gay was fined $15,750 by the N.F.L. for a hit on Sunday that left Cleveland Browns quarterback Jason Campbell with a concussion. The league said Gay was fined for unnecessary roughness because he delivered a forcible blow to Campbell’s head and neck. Miami Dolphins defensive end Cameron Wake, who hit the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton in the head and neck, drew a fine of the same amount for roughing the passer. New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan was fined $10,000 for a hit Sunday on Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan. (AP)

Jets
Jason Pierre-Paul
Trumaine McBride
Giants
Santonio Holmes
Football
Sports injury


China Doubts Bus Blasts Are Linked to Separatists

Abstract: BEIJING — Chinese authorities on Saturday discounted claims by a purported Uighur Muslim separatist group in which the group’s leader threatened the Olympic Games in Beijing and took responsibility for fatal bus explosions in the cities of Kunming and Shanghai. The group, identified as the Turkestan Islamic Party, released a video dated July 23 that featured a statement by a Commander Seyfullah. “Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics,” he said, according to a translation by IntelCenter, a terrorism research firm in Washington, which obtained the video. “We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed.” In recent weeks, the Chinese authorities have increased security across the country as officials have warned about possible terrorist threats to the Olympics, which open on Aug. 8. In particular, the Chinese police have focused on the restive western region of Xinjiang and singled out a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which promotes independence for the region’s Uighur Muslims. The police say that 82 people have been arrested in Xinjiang in connection with possible terror plots. But some analysts have questioned the government’s claims and raised doubts about the true potency of the group. It is also unclear whether the Turkestan Islamic Party, which released the video, is a part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Turkestan is a region of central Asia from the Caspian Sea to the Gobi Desert, extending through a number of countries, including China. In the video, Commander Seyfullah, speaking mostly in the Uighur language, says his group attacked public buses in Kunming last Monday, bombed two buses in Shanghai on May 5, and was responsible for blasts in Wenzhou and Guangzhou. In Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, last week, two buses exploded, killing two people and wounding 14 others. Investigators are still searching for suspects and have tripled a reward to 300,000 yuan, or about $43,500. But on Saturday the authorities played down any terror links. “We have noticed media reports about the claims, but so far, no evidence has been found to indicate the explosions were connected with terrorists and their attacks, or with the Beijing Olympics,” a spokesman for the Yunnan Province Department of Public Security told Xinhua, the country’s official news agency. Meanwhile, the police in Shanghai told state media outlets that the May 5 bus explosion in that city — which killed three people and wounded 12 others — was not related to terrorism. “The blast was indeed deliberate but had nothing to do with terrorist attacks,” said Cheng Jiulong, deputy head of the city’s public security bureau, according to state media reports.


ABC Names Paul Lee President of Entertainment Group

Abstract: ABC made it official Friday, naming Paul Lee president of the ABC Entertainment Group. He succeeds Stephen McPherson, who abruptly offered his resignation on Tuesday, which ABC quickly accepted. Mr. Lee’s appointment had been widely anticipated. Before this assignment, Mr. Lee had been the president of ABC’s Family Channel, a cable network that experienced rapid growth during his tenure thanks to shows like “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and “Greek.” The appointment is effective immediately. Mr. Lee will fly from London, where he had been on vacation, to take part in ABC’s portion of the current press tour in Los Angeles, during which the networks discuss their new programming with reporters. Mr. Lee had no hand in that new programming, all of which was developed under Mr. McPherson. The sudden nature of the change in the network’s top programming position led to a round of rumors about possible reasons for Mr. McPherson’s exit. That, in turn, caused Mr. McPherson to hire a litigation lawyer, who on Thursday denied a list of allegations made about Mr. McPherson’s behavior that had been published on the Web site of the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter. ABC has declined to comment about the reasons for Mr. McPherson’s decision to step down.

ABC Inc
Appointments and Executive Changes


Omanis Arrive in Iran to Aid 2 U.S. Hikers, Paper Reports

Abstract: TEHRAN — An Omani delegation arrived in Iran on Sunday to help secure the release of two American hikers still held on espionage charges after their arrest last year, an Iranian newspaper reported Sunday. The newspaper, Jomhuri-e Islami, citing unnamed sources, stated that the delegation arrived in Tehran to mediate efforts for the release of Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal , both 28, whom the article described as “spies.” Mr. Bauer’s fiancée, Sarah E. Shourd, was released this month with help from Omani officials. The three Americans were arrested in July 2009 while hiking in the mountains near Iran’s border. The newspaper said that Mr. Bauer and Mr. Fattal could return with the delegation to the Omani capital, Muscat, in a similar manner to what happened to Ms. Shourd after her release on Sept. 14 following a payment of $500,000 in bail. The information reported by Jomhuri-e Islami, one of three newspapers whose editors are appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could not be confirmed. Masoud Shafiei, the Iranian lawyer for the two Americans, told The Associated Press that he had no knowledge of the visit. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran described Ms. Shourd’s release as a “huge humanitarian gesture ” last week during his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, but he refused to promise that Mr. Bauer and Mr. Fattal would be accorded similar treatment, insisting in several interviews with United States journalists that the two had “violated the law.” But in other comments, Mr. Ahmadinejad took a softer tone, suggesting that the two men might be released after a trial. “We hope that the other two will soon be able to prove and provide evidence to the court that they had no ill intention in crossing the border, so that their release can also be secured,” Mr. Ahmadinejad told The A.P. on Sept. 19.

Iran
Oman
International Relations
Bauer Shane
Fattal Joshua Felix


Fossil Fuel Industry Opens Wallet to Defeat Obama

Abstract: WASHINGTON — When Barack Obama first ran for president, being green was so popular that oil companies like Chevron were boasting about their commitment to renewable energy, and his Republican opponent, John McCain , supported action on global warming . As Mr. Obama seeks re-election, that world is a distant memory. Some of the mightiest players in the oil, gas and coal industries are financing an aggressive effort to defeat him, or at least press him to adopt policies that are friendlier to fossil fuels. And the president’s former allies in promoting wind and solar power and caps on greenhouse gases? They are disenchanted and sitting on their wallets. This year’s campaign on behalf of fossil fuels includes a surge in political contributions to Mitt Romney , attack ads questioning Mr. Obama’s clean-energy agenda, and television spots that are not overtly partisan but criticize administration actions like new air pollution rules and the delay of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada . “Since Obama became president, gas prices have nearly doubled,” said one advertisement by the American Energy Alliance , a group financed in part by oil executives. “Tell Obama we can’t afford his failing energy policies.” With nearly two months before Election Day on Nov. 6, estimated spending on television ads promoting coal and more oil and gas drilling or criticizing clean energy has exceeded $153 million this year, according to an analysis by The New York Times of 138 ads on energy issues broadcast this year by the presidential campaigns, political parties, energy companies, trade associations and third-party spenders. That tally is nearly four times the $41 million spent by clean-energy advocates, the Obama campaign and Democratic groups to defend the president’s energy record or raise concerns about global warming and air pollution. The Times rated presidential campaign and national policy ads by whether they promoted fossil fuels or pushed clean energy and conservation, regardless of their sponsors, using ad and spending data compiled by Kantar Media , a company that tracks television advertising. The lopsided nature of the energy messages this year contrasts sharply with 2008. Back then, global warming was a top public concern, and green ads greatly outnumbered those for fossil fuels, $152 million to $109 million, according to the analysis by The Times, which looked at 184 energy-related ads. In 2008, Chevron, one of the nation’s leading oil companies, trumpeted its investments in geothermal power , and Mr. McCain spent millions of dollars on ads featuring solar panels and wind farms as part of a solution to global warming. But climate change legislation died in Congress, Republicans gained a majority in the House, and pocketbook issues like the price of gasoline began dominating public discussion. After imposing a yearlong oil and gas drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico in response to the disastrous BP spill in 2010, President Obama recast himself as favoring an “all of the above” energy strategy, allowing the industry to drill offshore as deep as ever and moving to open up new regions like Alaska ’s Arctic waters. The shift left many fossil fuel critics disillusioned and unwilling to do much to support the president. “It’s hard to think of any environmental activist who is enthused about anything Obama does these days,” said Brendan Cummings, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity , which challenges the industry on drilling plans. “Obama’s explicit embrace of fossil fuels and implicit embrace of all the environmental degradation that entails are almost indistinguishable from the policies of the Bush administration.” Mr. Obama’s policy decisions on the Keystone pipeline and clean air rules did not win him friends in the fossil fuel world, either. Many of the industry’s titans are going all out to elect Mr. Romney, who has promised to open up more land and coastline to oil and gas drilling, end wind and solar power subsidies and curb regulations that discourage burning coal for electricity. “The stakes are high,” said Steve Miller, the recently retired president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity , which has spent about $12 million on pro-coal television ads , according to the Kantar data. “Our goal is to assure that whoever is elected will have seen a groundswell for coal in swing states.” The Times analysis shows that ads with energy themes have played an outsized role in the 2012 campaign season, with energy earning more frequent mentions than every other issue except jobs and the economy. Energy first emerged as a major advertising topic during the last presidential election. Back then, one of the biggest spenders was the Alliance for Climate Protection, an environmental group backed by former Vice President Al Gore that spent an estimated $32 million on ads urging legislation to combat global warming. This year, the alliance, now called the Climate Reality Project , is not buying television ads at all, focusing instead on social media, training and organizing. “Whatever we would spend, it would just be washed away in this sea of fossil fuel money,” said Maggie L. Fox, the group’s chief executive. Other clean-energy players, particularly from the solar industry, are also keeping a low profile after Solyndra , a California solar module manufacturer that received half a billion dollars in federal loans , declared bankruptcy and became a favorite Republican target. Certain environmental groups, like the Sierra Club , are still running their own television commercials this year in support of Mr. Obama’s policies. And the wind industry is on a campaign to win renewal of a major tax credit . But “we are being outgunned by orders of magnitude,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club . “There is just no way we can compete with some of the richest companies in the history of the world.” The American Petroleum Institute , backed by the nation’s largest oil and gas companies, is the top energy spender this year with its “I’m an energy voter” campaign. Although the ads avoid explicitly endorsing any candidate, they clearly echo policy stands taken by Mr. Romney and the Republicans: opposing regulations that might slow down drilling and denouncing Mr. Obama’s proposal to eliminate oil industry subsidies . “New energy taxes could hurt drivers and families,” one ad says. “Better to produce more energy here, like oil and natural gas . That will help the economy. That’s good for everyone.” The petroleum institute has spent an estimated $37 million so far on television ads, according to the Kantar data, more than it spent in all of 2008. And it is just one of nearly two dozen groups — including Americans for Prosperity , backed by the oil billionaire David H. Koch , and Crossroads GPS — that are running advertisements this year advocating more fossil-fuel production or condemning spending by the Obama administration on solar and wind projects. “These are companies and industries that clearly feel threatened,” said Ken Goldstein, president of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. “And when companies and industries with resources feel threatened, they air advertisements.” The fossil fuel industries have also used more subtle tactics, like mobilizing miners to wear pro-coal hats and shirts at candidate events and placing a coal industry logo on the cars for Dale Earnhardt Jr. ’s Nascar team. Their trade associations have targeted swing states like Ohio , Colorado , Virginia and Pennsylvania , where there are established operations like coal mines or fast-growing new efforts, like fields where natural gas is extracted through hydraulic fracturing, a technique that could face new restrictions from regulators. “President Obama has placed a de facto embargo on energy production on American lands and shores,” said Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, which expects to spend $7 million on television ads and other media to defeat Mr. Obama. “It’s irresponsible and overzealous.” The imbalance in spending shows up on the campaign finance side as well. Mr. Romney, the Republican National Committee and Mr. Romney’s political action committee have taken in at least $13 million in campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal industry executives or their related groups. By comparison, Mr. Obama and the Democratic National Committee have received less than $950,000 from the fossil fuel industry over the past two years, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The clean-energy industry has hardly made up the difference, with Mr. Obama directly collecting only about $78,000 from it so far, according to the center’s data. The surge in energy-related political spending partly reflects the rise in overall election spending after the Supreme Court lifted limits on corporate contributions in 2010. Mr. Romney, for example, has accepted $3 million in contributions from Oxbow, a coal company controlled by William Koch, a brother of David Koch. At a $50,000-a-plate shrimp-and-steak lunch in Houston last month, Mr. Romney solicited advice on energy policy from scores of oil and gas executives. The group — which included Rex W. Tillerson , chief executive of Exxon Mobil , and Harold G. Hamm of Continental Resources , a top adviser to the Romney campaign — told Mr. Romney that the best thing he could do would be to reduce the regulatory burdens on the industry and permit more drilling on federal lands. “There is a lot more at stake now,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, associate director of the Rice University energy program. “The producers can drill a lot in the United States or they could lose the right to drill in the United States. It’s a campaign about the E.P.A. , how the president responds to a major accident, and it’s about do we or don’t we lease on federal lands.”

Renewable energy
Coal
Campaign finance
Oil and Gasoline
Campaign advertising
2012 Presidential Election


Little Progress in Hollywood as Contract Expires

Abstract: LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31 — With the clock running out on the contract between Hollywood’s writers and producers Wednesday, negotiators made little progress toward a new deal, and both sides prepared for a strike that could begin as early as Friday. Representatives of the two unions — the Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America West — met with bargainers for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers Wednesday morning after a federal mediator helped jump-start the stalled talks. But the two sides broke off talks Wednesday night, allowing the contract to expire at midnight. Writers had presented freshly drawn proposals that left their principal demands intact, according to a guild leader, and producers made no immediate move to accommodate them. “This is a little bit like doing jury duty in a bullring,” Michael Winship, president of the East Coast guild, said of the wrangle-then-wait pacing of talks at the Encino, Calif., headquarters of the producers’ group. Mr. Winship acknowledged that the unions’ latest proposals did not change the writers’ posture on key issues, including increased residuals for DVDs and payments for new media. If the writers strike, the walkout will at first most noticeably affect talk shows and soap operas that use guild writers, sending the programs into repeats or forcing the hosts to ad-lib. The production of television series would then slow, as producers burn through scripts. Moviegoers will not experience immediate effects, as studios have finished, or are rushing into production, movies that will arrive in theaters through 2008, using scripts that are already written. Leaders of the West Coast guild, which represents more than 9,000 writers under the contract, were to discuss their plans with members at a meeting set for Thursday evening at the Los Angeles Convention center. The East Coast guild, which represents about 2,500 writers under the contract, had no similar meeting scheduled. Mr. Winship said guild negotiators brought cards and poker chips to Wednesday’s session — and some spent quiet time finishing up screenplays on laptops — in anticipation of late-night bargaining. While the sides talked, Hollywood was left on edge about prospects for the next week. The board of the West Coast guild was set to meet Friday morning to discuss its next step, while the East Coast guild council set a meeting for that afternoon, Mr. Winship said. A producers’ representative declined to comment on the talks. Already, the guilds have been forging strike rules, making plans to picket and soliciting support from fellow unions. Two weeks ago, guild members authorized a walkout at their leaders’ discretion. Writers were not ordered to stop work immediately on Thursday, the first day a strike could be called. But the vote opened the way for what could become the entertainment industry’s first shutdown since 1988, when writers struck for five months, and Teamsters and other film workers staged a shorter strike. This time, writers and producers are separated by differences over payments for the use of programs distributed through new media like the Internet and cellphones, and conflicting demands for a change in payments for the reuse of movies and TV shows on DVDs and elsewhere. Wednesday’s meetings following more than a week of jostling, during which producers and writers took steps toward agreement on issues like pension and health fund contributions, and the provision of first-class plane tickets for writer travel. Earlier, the producers withdrew a contentious demand that residuals be paid only after they had recovered the cost of movies and programs. Writers made no matching step, leading to a standoff that persisted this week. Wednesday’s contract expiration also raised the likelihood that producers would soon turn their attention to talks with the Directors Guild of America. The producers’ contract with the directors guild expires on June 30, as does yet another contract, with the Screen Actors Guild. Leaders of the directors guild have been quietly preparing over the last several weeks to begin bargaining toward a new agreement, but have remained in the background, pending the expiration of the writers’ contract.


Defending David Against the World’s Goliaths in International Court

Abstract: BEIJING — Paul S. Reichler’s first big break came in the late 1970s, when, not long out of Harvard Law School, he was a litigation associate at a blue-chip Washington law firm. The Sandinistas had just come to power in Nicaragua, and the partners did not mind putting an idealistic young lawyer to work full time to recover national assets spirited away by the Somoza dictatorship . But then Ronald Reagan won the White House, turning Central America policy upside down. Some of the senior partners in the law firm were joining the new administration, which had already made ousting the Sandinistas a major foreign policy goal. Mr. Reichler soon faced a choice: dump the Sandinistas or leave the law firm. He stuck with the Nicaraguans, and in 1986 won a landmark case for them in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The defendant was his own country, the United States, which was ordered to stop mining the ports of Nicaragua. The Reagan White House, which had refused to sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , ignored the ruling, confident it could withstand charges of violating international law. Mr. Reichler, 68, is now a senior partner with Foley Hoag , with a corner office in the high-rent quarter of Washington he left 30 years ago. Of late, though, he had been back in The Hague, where, in the culmination of a three-year case, he won a sweeping victory this week for the Philippines, when an international tribunal swept away almost all of China’s claims in the South China Sea. There are a number of similarities to the Nicaraguan brief. Mr. Reichler is again assisting a small country, the Philippines, battling a big one. And again, the big country, in this case China, refused to participate and publicly denounced the tribunal, calling it biased and anti-Asian. (The United States did appear in the early stages of the Nicaragua case in the 1980s but then withdrew.) With even more ferocity than the Reagan administration, China has vowed to ignore the outcome. For Mr. Reichler, now a member of a rarefied fraternity of lawyers who represent countries before international courts and tribunals, the current behavior of China is more extreme than the United States in the 1980s. Our Boat Was Intercepted by China China has been blocking fishermen from a reef near the Philippines for four years, in another flash point in the dispute over the South China Sea. “The Nicaragua case is an exception, a big exception and a terrible exception,” Mr. Reichler said. “I consider the Reagan administration to be an anomaly in terms of respect for international law. The United States does have a history of complying with the judgments of the International Court of Justice.” The case brought by the Philippines was the first against China in an international court or tribunal in The Hague, although Beijing has been involved in arbitration connected to the World Trade Organization and has complied with adverse rulings, Mr. Reichler said. For outsiders, China’s absence might seem to make the proceedings easier. In fact, he said, the empty chairs in the elegant chamber in The Hague made it more difficult. “In a case like this, the tribunal wants to get it right. Here you have five of the more eminent jurists, and they know there is a lot of interest in the case,” he said. “They know it’s going to be read very carefully.” So rather than just rely on what Mr. Reichler and his team of lawyers and environmental experts presented, the arbitrators conducted their own investigations into the picayune details of the history of the South China Sea, including the depth of water around artificial islands built by China . “After almost 40 years as a litigator, I know it’s always better to have the other party there. The Philippines was asked at least 10 times more questions as in any other case I’ve been involved in,” he said. “Sometimes in developing their arguments, the tribunal gives better arguments than the other side would have made.” The son of Joseph L. Reichler , a famous baseball writer for The Associated Press (he got the scoop on Joe DiMaggio’s retirement), Mr. Reichler grew up on Long Island, infused with a sense of wanting to do good in the world. He was too young to participate in the civil rights movement, but as he was graduating from Tufts University in 1969 he faced the Vietnam draft. “I knew I wasn’t going to fight against the Vietnamese, so it was Canada, jail or the National Guard.” He served in the National Guard while attending Harvard Law School, with the idea of eventually helping the poor. “I was pretty idealistic in those days.” When he landed in Washington at the end of the Carter administration, Mr. Reichler stood out in the crowd of antiwar activists, journalists and celebrities who hovered around Daniel Ortega , the leader of the Sandinistas, said Joseph Eldridge, who recently retired as the chaplain at American University. “From the beginning, it was apparent that Paul was cut from a different cloth,” Mr. Eldridge said. “He left Washington, D.C.’s equivalent of Wall Street — the ‘suits’ on K Street — to defend a government considered a mortal threat to the U.S. and was palling around with the feared and loathed Daniel Ortega.” In assembling the case against the Reagan White House, the youthful Mr. Reichler knew he needed some gravitas on the team. So he recruited Abram Chayes , a former legal adviser to the State Department and a popular professor at Harvard Law School. Mr. Chayes went for the jugular, telling the 15 judges in The Hague with great fervor of the death and destruction inflicted on Nicaragua by the American mining of its harbors. By a vote of 15 to 0, the court ordered the United States to stop. Because Mr. Reichler was the moving spirit behind the case, the credit for the victory fell largely to him. From there, he carved a career as a progressive lawyer on issues that appealed to him — human rights, territorial sovereignty and cross-border environmental damage, among others — and almost always on the side of the afflicted. He made a specialty of representing the underdog in cases involving the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, winning cases for Mauritius (against Britain) and Bangladesh (against India). A third case, Somalia against Kenya, is pending. In a different arena, just four days before the China decision, he won an arbitration case for Uruguay, where strict tobacco control laws were challenged by Philip Morris International. When an American human rights group asked him to represent Ibrahim al-Qosi, one of the early captives in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had no hesitation, he said. Mr. Qosi had fled with Al Qaeda fighters from Tora Bora in Afghanistan and was accused of providing material support — cooking and driving — to terrorists. What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea China has been feverishly piling sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new islets in the region and straining already taut geopolitical tensions. During more than a dozen visits to Guantánamo, Mr. Reichler negotiated with the United States military commission for a plea bargain that allowed Mr. Qosi to serve a reduced sentence. He was returned to Sudan in 2012. He has no qualms about defending the Al Qaeda sidekick, even as Mr. Qosi has recently surfaced on the group’s propaganda videos. “In the early years, the conditions and treatment at Guantánamo were appalling and really contrary to American values,” he said. “I believe in those values, and I believed in fighting for them in representing al-Qosi.” When the Philippines decided its negotiations with China over its disputes in the South China Sea had reached a dead end, the foreign secretary, Albert del Rosario, also a lawyer, decided on international arbitration. Mr. del Rosario said he scoured the world for lawyers who would be unfazed by taking on China, and finally recommended Mr. Reichler to the president, Benigno S. Aquino III. China has staked out an uncompromising position on The Hague’s ruling, vowing not to accept, recognize or execute the judgment, making it a renegade, in the eyes of many, when it comes to accepting legally binding international decisions. Just as in the Nicaragua case, there is no mechanism to enforce the court’s order. But there is hope that, as in the 1980s, the ruling may lead the way to a settlement. In the face of the Reagan administration’s defiance, the 1986 decision helped galvanize congressional opposition and stiffened the resolve of Central American governments to seek an end to the war in Nicaragua. “This could lead them in six months or a year or more to look for a way to settle the dispute with the Philippines,” Mr. Reichler said, “which would mean accommodating themselves to the final judgment in a significant way.”

Paul S. Reichler
Nicaragua
Law of the Sea
Philippines
China
South China Sea
Arbitration
International Court of Justice UN


Cigarette Tax Increased to Keep New York Running

Abstract: ALBANY — New Yorkers who like to smoke will have to dig a little deeper to light up next month, after the Legislature passed a bill on Monday that will give the state the highest cigarette taxes in the country. The new law, part of an emergency budget measure to keep the government running, adds another $1.60 in state taxes to every cigarette pack sold starting on July 1, pushing the average price of a pack to about $9.20. The average price in New York City, which imposes its own cigarette taxes, will be even higher, nearly $11 a pack. Those who prefer other tobacco products will also be forced to pay significantly more. The tax on smokeless tobacco will more than double, to $2 an ounce from 96 cents an ounce, starting on Aug. 1. And the wholesale tax on cigars, dips and other kinds of tobacco will rise to 75 percent from 46 percent . And in what may be the legislation’s most controversial provisions, starting on Sept. 1, the state will begin collecting — or try to collect — taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations to off-reservation visitors, an issue that led to violent protests during the early 1990s. One Indian chief has said that trying to collect taxes would be considered an act of war. Gov. David A. Paterson had proposed a smaller increase of $1 a pack in his executive budget proposal, saying it would forestall deeper cuts to state health care spending. But with the state budget now nearly three months overdue, Mr. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature agreed to insert the revised proposal into a pair of emergency bills to finance a week’s worth of government operations, putting pressure on lawmakers to support or risk a government shutdown. The taxes will provide $440 million in revenue for health care programs, including subsidies for AIDS drugs, money for tobacco cessation programs and $71.6 million for the state cancer research center in Buffalo. In the Senate, where Republicans and many rank-and-file Democrats had opposed the tax increase, the bill including the higher taxes passed narrowly along party lines, with all 32 Democrats voting yes and all 29 Republicans present voting no. As for the other emergency bill, which included only appropriations, one Republican, Roy J. McDonald , joined the Democrats in voting yes. The two bills also passed with only a few votes to spare in the Assembly, where Republicans assailed their Democratic colleagues. “You’ve never met a tax you didn’t like,” Assemblyman Jim Hayes , a Republican from the Buffalo area, said to Democrats. “The governor proposed a buck. You hiked it to a buck-sixty!” But Democrats said that the bill would provide needed revenue and begin closing a legal loophole that let New Yorkers buy cigarettes tax-free on reservations, undercutting other retailers. “Because of the step we took in the Senate today, New York State will now have the added muscle it needs to collect this vital source of tax revenue in full and on time,” said Jeffrey D. Klein, a Democrat from Westchester County and the Bronx who had pushed separate legislation enabling the collection of cigarette taxes from reservations. Higher cigarette taxes have been hailed by health advocates who say they will persuade many smokers to give up their habit. But critics, including tobacco retailers, said they would drive more customers to the black market. It was the 12th emergency bill approved since the state’s fiscal year began on April 1. Mr. Paterson has pledged that if the Legislature fails to reach a budget agreement by next Monday, when the next emergency bill is due, he will insert the remainder of his budget proposal into that legislation. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, told reporters that he remained confident that budget negotiations were progressing. “I think they’re going well — maybe a little slower than I anticipated last week, but I think they’re going well,” he said. Reflecting the secrecy of the negotiations between Mr. Paterson and the Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly, Republican senators repeatedly pressed Democrats during a floor debate to explain how they would make up the rest of the gap — roughly $3.65 billion, according to Senate Democrats. They also accused Democrats of negotiating the budget piecemeal to hide the true cost of their budget priorities and lay the groundwork to claim that only new borrowing or higher income taxes could bring the budget into balance. “I just don’t see how this process is going to result in anything other than taxes and fees and borrowing,” said John A. DeFrancisco, the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Republican member. “This is not a way to run state government.” The Senate also appeared poised on Monday night to approve a series of other budget bills introduced by Mr. Paterson last week and approved by the Assembly on Friday. Those bills involve spending for the criminal justice system, general government operations, the Transportation Department and state economic development efforts. Officials said those bills closed about $1 billion worth of the state’s budget gap of more than $9 billion for this year, achieved through a mix of cuts, new revenue and consolidations. One of the largest cuts would result in New York City’s losing its entire allotment of direct state aid, about $302 million. The bills would also close two upstate prisons, while the State Police would delay, for the second year in a row, training a new class of recruits. The bills also include what are known as “sweeps,” where lawmakers in effect take money out of accounts that aren’t technically part of the state’s budget. For example, the legislation will transfer $65 million from the New York Power Authority into the state’s general fund.

New York State
Smoking and Tobacco
Taxation
State Legislatures
Budgets and Budgeting
Paterson David A


More Than One Kind of Truth in Journalism

Abstract: PARIS — If there were an unchallenged model for a particular kind of foreign correspondence in the late 20th century, one that evoked not only events but the passions that cast them into relief, it was the work of the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, whose chronicles elevated reportage to literature and came close to winning a Nobel Prize . But in the past few weeks, a flurry of British reviewers studying the English translation of a magisterial Polish biography of Mr. Kapuscinski have reached differing conclusions, arguing that his legacy since he died in 2007 at the age of 74 has been diminished by a record of falsehoods and confabulations. The post-mortems, prompted by Artur Domoslawski’s “Ryszard Kapuscinski: A Life,” may well coax forth regret, or even schadenfreude, among some of his near contemporaries, particularly in light of the hagiography of Mr. Kapuscinski as a journalist who alone eschewed the onetime comfortable perquisites of Western foreign correspondence to live among those whose ways and revolutions he interpreted to a distant world. Not for him the five-star watering hole or comfortable airline seat. “Unlike his glitzy Western counterparts, he traveled by bus and lived in cheap hotels,” The Economist magazine said — repeating a myth about Western reporters that does not always bear scrutiny. (Many others traveled the same African trails as Mr. Kapuscinski, using modes of transport as varied as bush taxis, dugout canoes and the flatbed of trucks, in addition to the more conventional ways of getting from A to B.) That is, though, a side issue. However repugnant it may be to his admirers, the dissection of Mr. Kapuscinski’s reputation raises other issues in a world that has changed irrevocably since the day he would head to the public post office to send his dispatches by telex. “Kapuscinski would not have lasted in today’s digital world,” Ian Birrell wrote in The Observer, the British Sunday newspaper. “He would have been just another journalist felled as a fantasist by snapping packs of online critics.” None of the latest reviewers has seriously challenged the literary merit of Mr. Kapuscinski’s best-known works like “The Emperor,” a study of the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, or “Shah of Shahs” on the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Iran. What has drawn criticism though, is Mr. Kapuscinski’s relationship with the facts and its impact on the way his work may be defined for new generations. “Literary reportage is probably more of an attitude than a genre,” Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, said in an article in The Financial Times. “In any case, the ‘literary’ in ‘literary reportage’ doesn’t absolve you of your duty to the facts.” “Once an element of fiction is introduced into a text everything immediately turns into fiction — maybe fiction with a strong resemblance to the real world, but still fiction,” Mr. Englund said. Early on in Mr. Kapuscinski’s biography, indeed, Mr. Domoslawski asks whether the journalist in fact represents himself in his books as a “real person.” “To what extent is he also a literary character?” Mr. Domoslawski asks. “Did Kapuscinski create his own legend? How? Why?” The re-evaluation of Mr. Kapuscinski’s works has been under way for several years; the process has been particularly intense since the publication of Mr. Domoslawski’s study in Polish in 2010. And it touches on the very nature of a foreign correspondent’s work in an era when outsiders may no longer claim a monopoly in explaining distant events to their audiences at home. Beginning with the street protests in Iran after the disputed 2009 presidential elections and reaching its most recent form in Syria, the news has been shaped not only by the close observation of outsiders, seeking objectivity under an array of restrictions and sometimes mortal perils, but also by activists on the ground with a far more direct political agenda: regime change. That phenomenon, in turn, redefines the role of outsiders casting themselves as interpreters of far-flung lands whose people now have the means on their mobile phones and laptops to bypass intermediaries from elsewhere. Foreign correspondents no longer have an exclusive lien on the narrative. Yet, the outsiders in what is sometimes dismissively called the mainstream media still have a critical role to play in shaping history’s first draft. Confronted by the welter of unverifiable sound bites and video clips, claims and counterclaims pouring forth on the Web, foreign reporters wield a power of authentication, granted to them in the trust of readers and viewers, able to grant or withhold their imprimatur on the protagonists’ claims of advance and retreat, victory and defeat. That was not a role that Mr. Kapuscinski saw in quite the same light, evoking a counterargument about the balance of fact and feeling in the quest for a passable truth. “I do not believe in impartial journalism,” Mr. Domoslawski quotes Mr. Kapuscinski as saying. “I do not believe in formal objectivity,” he said. “A journalist cannot be an indifferent witness.”


Part of Sierra Leone’s History Is Being Dismantled Board by Board

Abstract: FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — On a busy roundabout in the heart of this nation’s capital stands an ancient cotton tree, marking the spot where Freetown was founded by freed slaves from North America more than 200 years ago. Walk for a few minutes toward the southeast, past the vendors who line the derelict remains of Victoria Park and through the bustling streets of the city center, and you will find at the corner of two rutted dirt roads a house that looks more suited to the American South than to a steamy West African capital. The Young House, as it has been known for as long as anyone can remember, is a two-story dwelling constructed primarily from wooden boards and painted a bright lemon yellow, clashing starkly with the squat concrete buildings around it. It is what is known here as a board house (or bod ose in the local Krio language), one of an ever decreasing number still standing in the capital and the surrounding villages. Its style is as old as the city itself, brought over from the Americas by the settlers who arrived in several waves from 1792 onward. But amid rapid urbanization, rampant poverty and a cultural preference for concrete, this architectural legacy of the city’s founding is fast disappearing. “Every day, more are being pulled down, to be replaced by modern concrete-and-glass buildings,” said Isatu Smith, who as the chairwoman of the country’s Monuments and Relics Commission is responsible for making sure that does not happen. “The scale of it is alarming,” she said, sitting in her cramped office a stone’s throw from the cotton tree. “If we cannot protect these houses, it will be a major part of our history and our heritage erased. They are a testament to the resilience of people who came from slavery to found this city. They’re iconic.” Sylvester Johnson, a 35-year-old anesthetist who lives at the Young House, said he did not know how old the building was, only that when his great-grandmother Cecilia Young was born there in 1904, the house had been in the family for generations. “It’s a legacy,” he said. “I went from a baby to a man in this house. Everyone here knows its history.” Fatmata Dean, a matriarch who has lived her whole life in a small board house nearby, is also proud of her home. “Everyone has a different style, but I’m proud of my bod ose,” she said. “We take care of it. When a part of it gets damaged, we change it.” But their enthusiasm for these old homes is not typical, and Ms. Smith says she knows she is fighting an uphill battle. After decades of neglect, many of the board houses are rotting through, the mahogany boards that make up the walls finally succumbing to the relentless battering of successive rainy seasons. Others teeter at precarious angles and shake when the wind is strong. Many have been fixed up so many times that any remaining boards are concealed behind a patchwork of rusting corrugated zinc sheeting. Lamin Sesay, 30, said the worst thing about his home, a weather-beaten board house in the center of town, was the pests. “Anytime you put down food, the rats will eat it,” he said. “And bedbugs are a problem, too.” He complained that the noise of the street passed straight through the thin wooden walls and kept him awake at night. The board houses are also expensive to maintain. With the once-thick forests of the Freetown Peninsula now bare or protected, timber is hard to come by and is much more costly than concrete. But perhaps the toughest challenge, Ms. Smith said, goes deeper than practical concerns: overcoming a mind-set ingrained through decades of Western-oriented education that denigrated local traditions. “The history we were taught had a Western bias,” she said of the education system under British rule, which ended with independence in 1961. “We were taught to be ashamed of our traditional practices, and to glorify the white man.” As a result, she said, many Sierra Leoneans do not have pride in their cultural heritage and rarely go out of their way to preserve it. “The bod ose is not fashionable now,” said Fatmata Thomas, whose family of 35 lives in an elaborate concrete building adjacent to the rickety 130-year-old board house where she grew up. “Concrete is more beautiful. When I have the money, I will pull it down and build a new one out of concrete, three or four stories high.” Through an intensive campaign, using television and radio ads and community workshops, Ms. Smith and her team are working to instill in Sierra Leoneans a greater sense of pride in their history. Image A view of central Freetown. A handful of board houses are scattered among the concrete ones. Credit Tommy Trenchard Her team is not the only one fighting to save the board houses. About two years ago, Architectural Field Office , a small international charity focused on urban architecture in postconflict countries, set about trying to map the city’s remaining historical buildings. The head of the organization, a Northern Irishman named Killian Doherty, lives here in a three-story concrete apartment block that has tinted windows and is typical of the new construction springing up around the city. “What’s great is that these aren’t empty relics,” he said, explaining what drew him to the board houses. “People’s lives still play out inside them.” Mr. Doherty called the houses a “declaration of independence.” “And we’re at a time now when we can still save them,” he said. Ms. Smith and Mr. Doherty estimate that there are still a few thousand of the houses here and in the coastal villages of the Freetown Peninsula, but no one has a precise tally. Architectural Field Office hopes that documenting and mapping the buildings will make it easier for the government to take action to preserve them. But the organization’s initial efforts were unfortunately timed: No sooner had they begun than the Ebola epidemic hit West Africa, bringing normal life to a sudden halt. As the virus spread rapidly westward from the remote northeast of the country toward Freetown, all work stopped. With the outbreak in Sierra Leone now virtually over , Mr. Doherty hopes to resume the project. Persuading people to maintain their board houses — many of them on prime real estate in an increasingly crowded city — instead of tearing them down or selling them to developers will require significant financial incentives, but neither the Monuments and Relics Commission nor Architectural Field Office has the money. Finding a donor to support the work has been a challenge. In a country where education, health services and infrastructure are in a state of chronic disrepair, restoring impractical wooden houses is not high on anyone’s list. “Architecture wasn’t a priority even before Ebola,” Mr. Doherty said. For now, the burden of keeping up the board houses lies with their owners, and many doubt whether it is worthwhile. “To keep it like this, you have no idea how much time I have put into it,” said Mr. Johnson, the anesthetist, from the wood-paneled living room of the Young House. “Sometimes, the boards wear out and I have to replace them. And to maintain the wood, we have to paint the house twice a year.” Mr. Johnson says he wants to keep the house in the family, but some relatives want it sold. And the fate of the Young House, like many of Freetown’s board houses, hangs in the balance.

Sierra Leone
Freetown
Wood
Slavery
Historic preservation
Restoration and Renovation


U.S. Struggles With Goal of Admitting 10,000 Syrians

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama invited a Syrian refugee to this year’s State of the Union address, and he has spoken passionately about embracing refugees as a core American value. But nearly eight months into an effort to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States, Mr. Obama’s administration has admitted just over 2,500. And as his administration prepares for a new round of deportations of Central Americans, including many women and children pleading for humanitarian protection, the president is facing intense criticism from allies in Congress and advocacy groups about his administration’s treatment of migrants. They say Mr. Obama’s lofty message about the need to welcome those who come to the United States seeking protection has not been matched by action. And they warn that the president, who will host a summit meeting on refugees in September during the United Nations General Assembly session, risks undercutting his influence on the issue at a time when American leadership is needed to counteract a backlash against refugees. “Given that we’ve resettled so few refugees and we’re employing a deterrence strategy to refugees on our Southern border, I wouldn’t think we’d be giving advice to any other nations about doing better,” said Kevin Appleby, the senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York . “The world notices when we talk a good game but then we don’t follow through in our own backyard,” Mr. Appleby said. The delay is frustrating for Mr. Obama, who has made a point of speaking out against anti-immigrant sentiment both in the United States and abroad, arguing that Republicans, particularly the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, are playing on misplaced fears about terrorism. “We’ve got to push back against anti-immigrant sentiment in all of its forms, especially by those who are trying to stoke it just to seek political gain,” Mr. Obama told a gathering this month of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in Washington. At the White House, he has instructed his top advisers that they must not fall short of meeting his goal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States by the fall. But an onerous and complex web of security checks and vetting procedures, shared among several government agencies, has made the target difficult to reach. At the same time, White House officials concede that the challenging election-year politics surrounding the issue — 47 House Democrats joined Republicans in November in voting for legislation to further tighten the screening process — make it impossible to quickly take in substantially more Syrians by removing any of the tough vetting procedures. Mr. Obama “has been very clear that he expects us to find a way to make this happen consistent with our security standards,” Amy Pope, a deputy homeland security adviser, said of reaching the target of 10,000 refugees. “The dynamics within Congress have certainly made it difficult to lean far forward in terms of refugee processing, but our obligation is to leave the refugee process in better shape than we found it.” Image Central American families in Roma, Tex., in April after crossing into the United States to seek asylum. Credit John Moore/Getty Images The Central American migrants pouring across the Southern border pose a different but no less challenging problem. Individuals who enter the United States illegally do not necessarily qualify as refugees, although a growing proportion of Central Americans are arriving with claims of asylum, asserting that they are seeking refuge from violence and mortal threats in their home countries. While administration officials say they are working to address the root causes of the migration and to set up new programs to extend humanitarian protection to those who need it, their primary response has been to try to deter Central Americans from making the dangerous journey to the United States. One method has been to deport those whose asylum claims have been rejected. “We have to control the border, that’s our job, and we have to honor our humanitarian obligation,” Cecilia Muñoz, the director of Mr. Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, said in an interview. “The situation in Central America, as terrible as it is, the legal standard may not be fully up to addressing why people are leaving.” Humanitarian groups have denounced the administration’s approach, arguing that the president must recognize the Central American migrants as refugees. “The administration’s entire foreign policy has been built upon enforcement, not protection,” said Anna Greene, the director of policy and advocacy, United States programs, for the International Rescue Committee . “If this situation was playing out far from our borders, our government would be funding a humanitarian response and demanding that other countries abide by their international obligations.” The criticism comes as some of Mr. Obama’s allies on Capitol Hill are arguing that he has not done enough to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. Twenty-seven Democrats led by Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, who was Mr. Obama’s partner in the Senate and maintains close ties with the president, told him in a letter this month that the administration “can and should do much more” to accept Syrian refugees. “The Syrian situation is the most pressing humanitarian crisis of our time,” Mr. Durbin said in an interview, “and if we do not respond in a positive and proactive way, we’re going to have future generations asking, ‘Where were you?’” The administration has scrambled to pick up the pace of resettling Syrian refugees, officials say. The Departments of State and Homeland Security sent a surge of personnel to Jordan this year to interview about 12,000 refugee applicants referred by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , and officials have begun processing cases in Beirut, Lebanon, and Erbil, Iraq. But the numbers remain stubbornly low. Germany has not said how many refugees it might accept. In 2015, it registered 447,336 new applicants for asylum, about 25 percent of them Syrians. A program begun by the United States in 2014 to allow Central American children with a relative in the country to qualify as refugees has approved only 300, an administration official said. Secretary of State John Kerry announced in January that he would create another initiative to admit as many as 9,000 refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after processing outside the United States, but the program has not begun. Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama is doing more than most — the United States admits more refugees over all than any other country and is the largest contributor to humanitarian relief. “When you step back and look at the longer-term picture in terms of the United States’ record on the U.N. refugee program,” Josh Earnest, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, said this month, “it’s hard for other countries to criticize.”

US
Deportation
Central America
Barack Obama
Immigration
Refugees,Internally Displaced People
Syria
Right of asylum
US Politics


Microbes Hitch a Ride on the Subway

Abstract: Norman R. Pace , a microbiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, pioneered the use of DNA to study microbes. He has searched for extremophiles (organisms that can exist in extreme environments) in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park and once descended in the submersible Alvin to examine microbial life on hydrothermal vents. He greets visitors, like any microbiologist who has seen too much, with a fist bump. Dr. Pace has also surveyed an exotic environment much more familiar to New Yorkers: the subway. The goal? To find out exactly what we’re breathing down there — and if any of its invisible critters are cause for worry. His study also provides a “pre-event” baseline, an idea of what’s normal — useful in the event of a bioterrorism attack, recent flooding or other catastrophe. Image Credit Ron Barrett At each of seven sites — Times Square, Grand Central (the No. 7 line as well as Nos. 4, 5 and 6), Union Square, Chambers Street, Bowling Green and the abandoned IRT station at City Hall — Dr. Pace’s team collected two samples that were each five to six cubic meters of air, roughly equal to the volume a person breathes every day. For reference, the team also sampled the air above ground at Union Square and inside Grand Central’s mezzanine. The findings were published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Each sample contained almost one million bacteria and, surprisingly, tended to reflect outdoor air quality , Dr. Pace and his colleagues found. They noted one key difference underground: “Fungus loads are somewhat higher, but there’s also a lot of rotting wood, so that’s not so surprising.” The team identified no known human pathogens and found that about 5 percent of the microbial species (a fifth of those identifiable) probably came from human skin — our heels, heads and forearms, mostly. Video Researchers are just beginning to understand the sheer number and type of organisms that live inside the home with us. “Every time you step down, you pressurize the air that’s in your shoe,” Dr. Pace said. “You stomp down, you squirt out a little warm air, carrying foot microbiology.” This so-called convective plume radiates from some 1.6 billion riders annually and disperses throughout the subway system. Skin-associated bacteria even showed up at the abandoned station downtown. The verdict: The air down there is no cause for alarm, and microbially speaking, the dank underground appears no more unusual than any crowded outdoor space. “We saw nothing unusual, certainly nothing threatening,” Dr. Pace said. “At least, no more threatening than the people standing next to you on the platform.” PETER ANDREY SMITH

Subway
Microbiology
Bacteria
Public Transit
NYC


Paternity Makes Punch Line of Paraguay President

Abstract: ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — The baby jokes just keep coming. Fernando Lugo , the former priest who is now the country’s president, shocked the nation last month by admitting to fathering one child — and possibly more — before the Vatican had returned him to layman status. Now the Internet here is buzzing with an irreverent video showing him in a baby carriage, magically impregnating each woman he passes on the street. A popular television show in neighboring Argentina has dedicated a tango to him and recommended that he use contraception. A local cumbia song is even mocking his campaign slogan. “The playboy has heart, but he doesn’t use a condom,” goes the refrain, playing on the slogan that helped get him elected, “Lugo has heart.” Even his closest advisers say they were stunned and dismayed by the revelations — and cannot rule out the possibility of more secret babies turning up. “He isn’t sure, so we can’t be sure of exactly what could be coming,” said Miguel López Perito, his chief of staff and a close friend, speaking about the current paternity claims and any others. “He didn’t open up about this issue to me,” he said. “I respected that, as he is not a person who talks about his personal life. Although I knew this could explode at any moment, I never knew specifically what was out there.” When he assumed the presidency of Paraguay last August, Mr. Lugo took on a heavy task. After 61 years of one-party rule, the country was consistently rated one of the world’s most corrupt. Mr. Lugo, a bearded former Roman Catholic bishop, had no political experience, yet he stormed into office on the faith of the nation’s poor. He had run a campaign focused on ethics, morality and transparency — attributes he associated with the church — so Mr. Lugo’s admission that he was not quite the innocent servant of Scripture he seemed has devastated and disillusioned many here, some of whom are calling for his resignation. “I feel betrayed,” Gladys Bernal, a 50-year-old nurse who broke from the long-entrenched Colorado Party to vote for Mr. Lugo, said at an outdoor meeting recently organized by women who made speeches and waved signs like “Who will defend us from Lugo now?” Since news broke last month about a 2-year-old that the president has recognized as his, two other women have come forward with similar assertions. One woman is awaiting DNA test results to confirm paternity and says that Mr. Lugo, now 57, was still a bishop when they became involved, when she was 18. The mother of the boy he did accept as his, Viviana Carrillo, originally said in a court filing that she was only 16 when they first had sex, but appeared to change her story recently to avoid statutory rape charges against Mr. Lugo. He is not the first priest to father a child, something that is surprisingly common in this deeply Catholic country of 6.8 million people. In Paraguay’s traditional, macho culture, men are actually revered for fathering children with multiple women. But Mr. Lugo was seen as a departure from the politics of patronage that characterized the Colorado Party, even after its longtime leader, the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, was ousted in 1989. Now the disenchanted voters who elected Mr. Lugo worry that the scandal will scuttle their chance for change. “For the foreigners, this will be just a story about a bishop having children,” said Gustavo Arzamendia, 35, a hotel clerk here. “But for the Paraguayans, it is much more than that. He was our last hope, the person people really believed could make a real break from the past.” The president has not acknowledged having more than one child, though he has hinted that it is possible. After the second and third women came forward last month, he apologized for the scandal and asked for forgiveness, but he did not refute the women’s assertions. His lawyer, Marcos Fariña, said Mr. Lugo would have no problem recognizing paternity if the claims were proved in court. Mr. Lugo resigned from the diocese in San Pedro in 2005 and requested laicization in order to run for office. Ms. Carrillo, the mother of the child he acknowledges, now says their sexual relationship began only three years ago when she was 23 — not 16 as her original paternity suit asserted. Mr. Lugo continued to serve as a priest, offering Mass and administering the Sacrament, until at least December 2006, and Pope Benedict XVI did not grant Mr. Lugo status as a lay person until last July, after the baby was born. The unceasing jokes aside, bomb threats at government buildings and anti-Lugo public gatherings in recent days have led Mr. Lugo’s supporters to suggest that there is a conspiracy afoot to destabilize him. The Colorado Party dismissed that claim. “We don’t need any conspiracy,” said Liliana Samaniego, the party’s president. “President Lugo has conspired against himself. He presented himself as the candidate of ethics, of morality, of transparency, and in the end that image was a big lie.” The administration has had other early problems, including the replacement of six government ministers in the past three weeks. Mr. López Perito, the president’s chief of staff, also acknowledged that despite Mr. Lugo’s quest to do away with entrenched patronage, he has so far been able to oust only about 1,200 of 230,000 state employees. A promise of agrarian reform is being impeded by problems figuring out who owns what land; the official registry says people have title to one-fourth more land than there is national territory. Then there are the accounts of Mr. Lugo’s supposed lovers to contend with. The latest to come forward was Damiana Hortensia Morán, 39, a former Lugo campaign worker who said she began a love affair with him in 2006. He insisted on keeping the affair secret, she said, never staying all night with her, but she got pregnant despite her use of an IUD, which she called a miracle. “I love him unconditionally,” said Ms. Morán, whose son is now 17 months old. “And I want my son to know this man, whom I admire so much.” For Benigna Leguizamón, any feelings of admiration are now stained by anger. She asserts that Mr. Lugo seduced her over three months in 2001, at the diocese in San Pedro. Then 18, she already had a 6-month-old daughter. Now 25, she says that they have a son, Lucas Fernando — named after Mr. Lugo — who is 6. Mr. Lugo continued to see her until he was 2, she said, but did not keep his promises to support her financially. Ms. Leguizamón has filed suit and is seeking DNA confirmation that Mr. Lugo is the father. Mr. Fariña, the lawyer, declined to say whether claims of the affair were true. He said Saturday that DNA tests might be sent out of the country and take as much as a month. “What is important to me is that he takes care of his child,” Ms. Leguizamón said. “No one is paying me, and I am not interested in the least in whether his presidency fails or not.”

Paraguay
Babies
Priests
Lugo Mendez Fernando
Roman Catholic Church
Politics and Government


G.O.P. Hopefuls Display Differences on Education

Abstract: In saying on Wednesday that he supported annual standardized tests for public school students, Jeb Bush invoked his brother. “When we neglect that, the kids who are left behind are kids in poverty, African-American kids, Hispanic kids, and then we blame it on the social circumstances of their life,” Mr. Bush, a former governor of Florida, said at an unusual panel discussion on education in Londonderry, N.H., which featured six Republican candidates. He also quoted one of George W. Bush’s signature phrases. “And that is what a former president called the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations,’ and we should reject that out of hand,” he said. Staking out a more conservative stance, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said he did not want the federal government overseeing public schools. “The federal government doesn’t have a very good track record of holding anybody accountable,” he said. “My solution is, I would like to take the money and the power from Washington in education and send it back to the states.” He added, “I’m going to be challenging some in my own party.” Education has been a divisive issue for Republicans, and the differences were on full display as the presidential contenders vied to prove how small a role they would permit the federal government to play in public schools. Video Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin defended his education reforms at a Republican education summit meeting in Londonderry, N.H. Credit Credit Jim Cole/Associated Press The candidates performed a balancing act as they tried to embrace high standards for schoolchildren while shying away from the Common Core, education guidelines that have become intensely controversial among conservatives, parents and teachers. Some, including Mr. Walker and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, spent a lot of their time criticizing teachers’ unions. For several decades, Republicans have lurched on where they stand on education. For years, particularly when Newt Gingrich led Republicans to power in the House, they called for the abolishment of the federal Education Department. But President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind , significantly expanded the role of the federal government in requiring annual standardized tests and prescribing interventions in schools judged failing. These days the biggest battles are over the Common Core, supported by businesses pushing for a better-educated population but rejected by conservatives who say the benchmarks for what students should know and be able to do in reading and math have been pushed by the Obama administration through incentives that created a de facto federal mandate. During the forum — sponsored by the American Federation for Children, a group that advocates school vouchers, and the Seventy Four, an education news website — Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Mr. Christie and Carly Fiorina, a former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, reiterated their opposition to the Common Core. But Gov. John R, Kasich of Ohio, a supporter of the standards, said, “I’m not going to change my position because there’s four people in the front row yelling at me.” Video Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey appeared at a Republican education summit meeting on Wednesday and said that if there were to be a revolution in teaching, the revolutionaries should be better armed. Credit Credit Dominick Reuter/Reuters Mr. Walker once supported the Common Core standards, which were originally developed and adopted by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, a nonprofit group that represents state education commissioners. At the forum, he defended his change of stance; after his initial support, Mr. Walker passed a budget measure in Wisconsin that stripped funding for tests aligned to the standards and said local districts were no longer required to follow the Common Core, which has been opposed by some teachers and a growing tide of parents. Still, on Wednesday, he said that although he favored tough academic standards for schoolchildren, “I just want them set by people at the local level.” Mr. Bush, a strong supporter of the Common Core, said the standards should not be “federally driven.” “If people don’t like Common Core, fine,” he said. “Just make sure the standards that you have are higher than the ones you had before. We can’t keep dumbing down standards.” When Campbell Brown, the former CNN journalist turned education advocate who moderated the discussion, asked him how people should recognize high standards, he said: “It’s not like pornography where you know it when you see it. Clearly low standards, you know it.” The effort to distance themselves from the Common Core standards poses a challenge for Republicans to assure voters that the party has a vision for how to improve the education of their children. “Republican candidates are absolutely right to be appalled by the Common Core as it stands because of the way it was rolled out and how it’s been pursued and what it has actually meant,” said Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “But then they need to have an answer to ‘O.K., so then what?’ It doesn’t need to be standards, but it needs to be something that shows Americans that they have a clear and coherent vision of how you expand educational opportunity.” Mr. Kasich, in many ways the most moderate of the Republican contenders, warned Republicans that they needed to make sure they courted independent voters. “When we use the rhetoric that we’re going to kill the Department of Education, you know what independent voters heard? ‘Oh, so Republicans want to kill education,’ ” Mr. Kasich said. “You have to be careful about the ways we use our rhetoric.” Voters often want to hear about public education because it speaks to their families and their belief in education as an engine of economic advancement. “Republicans need to find a way to talk about education and how important it is, especially for poor kids to climb out of poverty, and talk about education as the great equalizer to upward mobility,” said Michael J. Petrilli , the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education policy group in Washington. “Voters want to hear about that and middle-class voters want to hear about candidates talking about how to improve all schools, not just for poorer kids.”

Republicans
Scott Walker
American Federation for Children
K-12 Education
2016 Presidential Election
US
The 74
George W Bush
John R Kasich