The Senate, in a bipartisan 66-32 vote on Monday evening, confirmed Mike Pompeo to be the next CIA director. Pompeo was in his fourth term in the House. The only Republican to vote against Pompeo was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The other 31 votes against Pompeo came from Democrats. As my colleague Russell Berman writes:
Pompeo’s harshest critic was Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a privacy hawk who delivered a lengthy speech criticizing the Kansas Republican’s “enthusiasm” for broad surveillance programs and what he said were Pompeo’s shifting positions on torture and on Russia’s interference in the November election. Other Democrats had said they were satisfied with Pompeo’s assertion during his confirmation hearing that he would not restart the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques in violation of the law, even if Trump ordered him to do so.
Snapchat Filter Not Responsible for Distracted Driver Claim, Judge Rules
Eric Thayer / Reuters
A lawsuit claiming Snapchat was to blame for a high-speed car crash was dismissed by a Georgia court Friday, citing the social media company’s immunity under the Communication’s Decency Act. The case was brought against Snapchat in April by Wentworth and Karen Maynard, who claimed the application’s “speed filter,” which shows how fast the phone is moving at the time the photo or video is taken, caused 18-year-old Christal McGee to crash into Wentworth Maynard’s car while driving at 107 miles per hour (171 kilometer per hour), leaving Maynard with severe brain damage. McGee, who was also sued by the Maynards, claimed she was “just trying to get the car to 100 miles per hour to post it on Snapchat.” In his ruling Friday, Spalding County State Court Judge Josh Thacker said the social media company was exempt from liability under the CDA’s immunity clause, which states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Snapchat’s attorneys told the Associated Press Monday the ruling reaffirms the need for “responsible use of these technologies by the driver.”
The First Drone Strikes Under Trump Target Al-Qaeda in Yemen
Khaled Abdullah / Retuers
The U.S. carried out several drone strikes in Yemen over the weekend targeting al-Qaeda leaders, marking the first drone strikes under the new Trump administration. The bombings hit the country’s southwestern Bayda province, and among the targets was Abu Anis al-Abi, a field commander with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. These strikes did not necessarily require Trump to sign off on them, because the Obama administration enabled the four-star commander of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, to oversee strikes. Drone strikes increased to unprecedented levels under Obama, much to the anger of human-rights groups, which decry their use because of the risk of collateral damage. On Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials released a report saying that under Obama as many as 117 civilians died in drone bombings. These numbers, however, are often viewed as extremely low by human rights groups.
Trump Signs Executive Order Withdrawing From the TPP
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Trump signed an executive order Monday to withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a longstanding campaign pledge. The TPP, a project initiated by the Obama administration, would have placed the U.S. and 11 Asia-Pacific countries in an unprecedented free-trade zone. Trump’s executive order pulls the U.S. out of that deal, an effort to refocus on putting “America first,” as the president repeated in his inauguration address Friday. The trade deal had been a tough sell for both major political parties, with former-President Obama struggling to convince even Democrats of its worth because it had been painted during the election campaign as detrimental to U.S. manufacturing. Until this election, trade deals had received mostly bipartisan support. Trump has also said he wants to renegotiation the NAFTA, which set up a free-trade zone from Mexico to Canada.
Trump Reinstates Mexico City Rule, Blocking U.S. Funding for Abortion Services Worldwide
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Trump, in one of his first acts since assuming office, reinstated Monday a policy blocking U.S. funding for health programs that provide abortions or related services overseas. Known commonly as the Mexico City policy or the “global gag rule,” the policy restricts foreign organizations receiving U.S. family-planning funding from conducting any abortion-related services, even if they are conducted with non-U.S. funds. Since it went into effect in 1984, the policy has routinely been enacted by Republican administrations and rescinded by Democratic ones. As my colleague Anna Diamond writes:
Now, the signing of the order is filled with symbolism. Always falling on or within days of the January 22nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it’s become a way for the incoming president to signal to his party and supporters an initial commitment for or against abortion rights.
A Violent California Storm Destroys an Iconic Concrete Ship
Gregory Bull / AP
A harsh storm hit the California coast this weekend and set surf records, with wave heights reaching nearly 35 feet in some places. They were particularly violent near Santa Cruz, about 80 miles south of San Francisco, where the storm wrecked a local icon, a historic World War I concrete ship called the S.S. Palo Alto. Then-President Woodrow Wilson ordered a fleet of concrete ships built in 1917, and while other ships had been made of this material, none had ever been made so large—420 feet long. The S.S. Palo Alto was one of 24 others built at the time, and it came to rest near Santa Cruz in 1930, where it connected to a pier and became a famous icon of the beach. The ship’s hull had been crumbling for some time, and over the decades it served as a home for the area’s wildlife, like sea lions, fish, and sea birds. In the mid-2000s, a leak in the ship’s tank spilled old oil into the waters and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spent $1.7 million to clean up the fuel. This weekend’s storm sent waves crashing against the hull and split off the stern. It’s unclear what will be done with the crumbling remains.
What was once a solid structure, is now in 2 pieces. The S.S. Palo Alto's stern has taken enough beating and gave-in to Mother nature. pic.twitter.com/ljRytxwpf7
Syrian Government, Rebels Meet for Talks in Kazakhstan
(Mukhtar Kholdorbekov / Reuters)
Representatives of the Syrian government and rebel groups are meeting in Astana, the Kazakh capital, for the first time in more than a year for talks on ways to end the more than five-year-long civil war. Russian, Turkish, and Iranian officials are also attending; the three countries brokered a cease-fire between the fighting factions December 30. Bashar Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, and military officials are representing the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Mohammad Alloush of the Army of Islam is leading the rebel delegation. Talks are scheduled to continue until Tuesday.
The Trump Administration's War of Words With the Media
President Trump was inaugurated in Washington, D.C., Friday. A day later, a women’s march in the city, and others across the country and the world, vowed to oppose some of the Trump administration’s policies. Photographs from both events, coupled with crowd estimates, suggested more people turned out to the march in Washington than the inauguration. Trump and his aides apparently disagreed. At an appearance Saturday before the CIA, the president railed against the media, calling it “dishonest.” Later, Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, repeated those claims, adding: “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe”—a demonstrably false claim. On Sunday, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s counselor, went on NBC’s Meet the Press, and countered the view Spicer was lying, adding “our press secretary gave alternative facts to that.” When Chuck Todd, the show’s host, asked Conway why Spicer had said something that was clearly not true, she replied: “If we're going to keep referring to the press secretary in those types of terms, I think we're going to have to rethink our relationship here.” Trump himself initially criticized Saturday’s protest march, saying on Twitter he “was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote?” He later tweeted out a more conciliatory message:
Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.
I spent a lifetime counseling others before my diagnosis. Will I be able to take my own advice?
I have spent a good part of my life talking with people about the role of faith in the face of imminent death. Since I became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1975, I have sat at countless bedsides, and occasionally even watched someone take their final breath. I recently wrote a small book, On Death, relating a lot of what I say to people in such times. But when, a little more than a month after that book was published, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was still caught unprepared.
On the way home from a conference of Asian Christians in Kuala Lumpur in February 2020, I developed an intestinal infection. A scan at the hospital showed what looked like enlarged lymph nodes in my abdomen: No cause for concern, but come back in three months just to check. My book was published. And then, while all of us in New York City were trying to protect ourselves from COVID-19, I learned that I already had an agent of death growing inside me.
The film is a face-off between two visions of the American West—one of promise and the other of hostility.
The banjo may seem like an innocent instrument, but in The Power of the Dog, it’s downright menacing. The swaggering rancher Phil Burbank (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) at the center of Jane Campion’s new film is introduced as a thin-skinned bully who’s quick to insult those around him. But I didn’t realize what a frightening character he was going to be until Phil retired to his bed, pulled out a banjo, and started angrily plucking at it; that humble string instrument hasn’t been played so malevolently on-screen since the notorious “dueling banjos” of Deliverance.
Campion’s first feature film in 12 years, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, is set on a 1925 Montana ranch that’s surrounded by spiky mountains and acres of barren landscape filled with both promise and hostility. There, Phil has proudly carved out a lonely existence for himself as a cattle herder, while his full-hearted brother, George (Jesse Plemons), is dissatisfied with their spartan life and seeking companionship. Into this dynamic wanders local widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). George marries Rose, seeing the newcomers as the beginning of a real family, but Phil derides them as too weak for life on the range.
“How to Build a Life” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness. Click here to listen to his new podcast series on all things happiness, How to Build a Happy Life.
Everyone—even the most privileged among us—has circumstances they would like to change in their life. As the early sixth-century Roman philosopher Boethius put it, “One has abundant riches, but is shamed by his ignoble birth. Another is conspicuous for his nobility, but through the embarrassments of poverty would prefer to be obscure. A third, richly endowed with both, laments the loneliness of an unwedded life.”
Think about your own life and something causing you stress, anxiety, or sadness. For example, maybe you are struggling to find your job or career interesting and fulfilling. Or maybe you aren’t getting much out of your friendships, and feel lonely. How might you improve the situation? Your answer might be, “I should move, get a new job, and meet new people.” In other words, you should change the outside world to make it better for you.
Like it or not, the way we work has already evolved.
In 2019, Steven Spielbergcalled for a ban on Oscar eligibility for streaming films, claiming that “movie theaters need to be around forever” and that audiences had to be given “the motion picture theatrical experience” for a movie to be a movie. Spielberg’s fury was about not only the threat that streaming posed to the in-person viewing experience but the ways in which the streaming giant Netflix reported theatrical grosses and budgets, despite these not being the ways in which one evaluates whether a movie is good or not. Netflix held firm, saying that it stood for “everyone, everywhere [enjoying] releases at the same time,” and for “giving filmmakers more ways to share art.” Ultimately, Spielberg balked, and last month his company even signed a deal with Netflix, likely because he now sees the writing on the wall: Modern audiences enjoy watching movies at home.
Why is Hollywood still hiring this raging anti-Semite?
Every day, as dawn’s rosy fingers reach through my window, I arise and check in with Twitter, to see what fresh hell awaits. Generally, by about 6:30, I’ve been made furious by the outrage du jour. But recently, I experienced more of a sense of bemusement than ire, as I took in Deadline’s headline: “Mel Gibson in Talks to Direct Lethal Weapon 5.”
Gibson is a well-known Jew-hater (anti-Semite is too mild). His prejudices are well documented. So my question is, what does a guy have to do these days to get put on Hollywood’s no-fly list? I’m a character actor. I tend to take the jobs that come my way. But—and this hurts to write—you couldn’t pay me enough to work with Mel Gibson.
Now, I love the Lethal Weapon movies (at least the first few). And Danny Glover’s a gem. But Gibson? Yes, he’s a talented man. Many horrible people produce wonderful art. Put me down as an ardent fan of Roald Dahl, Pablo Picasso, and Edith Wharton; can’t get enough of what they’re selling. But these three had the good taste to die. That makes it a lot easier to enjoy their output. Gibson lives. And Tinseltown need not employ him further.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest is inviting the public to vote for their favorite image, selected from a group of shortlisted entries.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest is inviting the public to vote for their favorite image selected from a group of shortlisted entries in this year’s competition. Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open until February 2, 2022. Organizers have shared a handful of the candidates below. Be sure to click through to their site to see the rest of the images. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London. Captions are provided by the photographers and WPY organizers, and are lightly edited for style.
There was a time when someone like Jones would have been too toxic to embrace.
Earlier this week, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, the host of the top-rated news show on cable, rose in defense of the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
“Jones is often mocked for his flamboyance,” Carlson said, “but the truth is he has been a far better guide to reality in recent years—in other words, a far better journalist—than, say, NBC News national-security correspondent Ken Dilanian or Margaret Brennan of CBS.”
Flamboyance is a rather interesting word to apply to Jones; there are others.
Last month Jones, the host of Infowars, was found liable for damages in a defamation lawsuit brought by parents of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, whose victims included 20 young children. Jones claimed that the shooting was a “false flag” operation carried out by “crisis actors.” He mocked grieving parents, saying, “I’ve looked at it, and undoubtedly there’s a cover-up, there’s actors, they’re manipulating, they’ve been caught lying, and they were preplanning before it and rolled out with it.”
Jack Dorsey’s decision to leave Twitter, like Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to the metaverse, shows us where the internet is heading.
Jack Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter’s CEO this week, holds the dubious distinction of being one of Silicon Valley’s most important woolgathering sages. Speaking with him can be incredibly disorienting, the journalist Ashley Feinberg once remarked, “not because he’s particularly clever or thought-provoking, but because he sounds like he should be.” That echoes my own experience: Dorsey is quiet and reserved in interviews—a departure from the usual chief-executive bravado—and he seems genuinely interested in giving thoughtful answers, also rare. Yet however earnest his engagement, he almost never gives a straight or satisfying response. Press him to account for specific problems on his platform, and he’ll launch into a game of tech-founder Mad Libs that takes the conversation nowhere.
The Celtics player is getting support for all the wrong reasons.
The NBA player Enes Freedom is showing the danger of attracting the wrong kind of supporters.
Formerly Enes Kanter, the 29-year-old Boston Celtics center took a new surname when he became an American citizen on Monday. For months, he has been a vocal critic of the Chinese government for its many human-rights violations—specifically its repression of Tibetans, democracy advocates in Hong Kong, and Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group that, according to Amnesty International and extensive news reporting, has been subjected to concentration camps, torture, and systematic efforts to erase its culture.
Freedom, who himself is Muslim, has also been calling out the NBA for prioritizing its business relationship with China over the rights of Uyghurs and others. It was an admirable and understandable position for Freedom to take, because he has firsthand experience with an authoritarian regime. Freedom has been exiled from his home country of Turkey for speaking out against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In 2018, Freedom’s father was sentenced to 15 years in prison for allegedly supporting a group that Erdoğan blames for a coup attempt, but those charges were eventually dropped.
The logic being used against Roe could weaken the legal foundations of many rights Americans value deeply.
The consensus of Supreme Court watchers after Wednesday’s oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is that the demise of Roe v. Wade, or at least its dilution to a point that virtually any government-imposed “burden” on abortion would be constitutionally acceptable, is coming. After all, this Court allowed a Texas law effectively banning most abortions after six weeks to stand pending litigation, rejecting multiple pleas for a temporary stay—as clear a signal as any that at least five justices on the current Court have no problem with women’s constitutional rights (as currently recognized) being violated in the interim.
Many of the dangers of overruling Roe have been long discussed. If women lose the right to an abortion, pregnancy-related deaths are estimated to rise substantially and suddenly. (Currently, 26 states have so-called trigger laws on the books that would outlaw most abortions the moment the Court reverses Roe.) The impact of Roe’s fall would hit low-income women especially hard, as they’re five times as likely as affluent women to experience unplanned childbearing and twice as likely to face sexual violence.
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