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The Speaker's Morning Digest
News, Opinion, and More
Current as of June 12, 2020 at 8:00 a.m.
COVID-19
Helpful Links, News, & Opinion


COVID-19 Testing Sites - Florida

  • Drive-Thru Testing sites available are listed by county. Each walk up site can test up to 200 individuals per day. Access the list here

Safe. Smart. Step-by-Step


The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity is now giving daily updates on Florida’s Reemployment Assistance program


Access the Florida Department of Health COVID Dashboard


Graphs, Charts, and Real Time Tracking of COVID-19


Data Sources


Data Sources on Social Media


Other Resources

COVID-19 Charts
COVID-19 News and Opinion


1/ This panic is likely to prove even more embarrassing than previous panics. Here's why: the media is both confused and conflating several different data points in an effort to stir hysteria. (Stop me if you've heard this before.)

What do I mean?

2/ So: you've heard positive tests are up in several states. True. The media refers to these as "cases," as if positive tests have clinical significance by themselves. They do not. The vast majority of people with positive tests do not become ill enough to need hospitalization...

3/ Much less intensive care or ventilator support. For people under 50, this is true in the extreme. But the daily age distribution of positive tests is rarely if ever supported...

4/ Second: you've heard overall hospitalizations are up in some states. This is also true. THIS IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG. Overall hospitalizations are rising because people are returning to hospitals for elective (and in some cases very necessary) surgeries that were postponed...

5/ Now, in some of these states COVID-related hospitalizations have also risen (though they make up a tiny fraction of overall hospitalizations). Scary, right?

No. When people go to the hospital for elective surgeries they are now routinely tested for COVID...

6/ Whether or not they are symptomatic. Hospitals have financial and legal as well as medical incentives to do this. IF THEY ARE POSITIVE, hospitals will report them as COVID patients (since, technically, they are), EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO COVID SYMPTOMS.
7/ This fact accounts for the bizarre disconnect between the fact the number of people going to emergency rooms with influenza-like or COVID-like symptoms is NOT rising (and remains in the low single digits) even in states reporting more hospitalizations...

8/ As well as the fact that fewer hospitalized cases are now progressing to ventilators (I can't swear to this in every state, but it appears to be a trend)...

9/ And the fact that deaths no longer seem to have any relationship to case counts in many states (true even accounting for the fact that deaths lag).

The question you should be asking yourself: why aren't Europe and Asia seeing post-lockdown spikes if this trend is real?

10/ And don't say masks. Masks are not routine in Europe. So either COVID is somehow different post-lockdown in Europe (and different in different states, too)... or this is just one last gasp of panic porn.


When the new coronavirus arrived in early 2020, people with asthma were identified as being at higher risk from the disease. Judgements about who was at increased risk had to be made on the best available evidence – which wasn’t much. Data from China was only just emerging and COVID-19 had yet to reach pandemic status.

Given that asthma is a lung disease and COVID-19 targets the lungs, it made sense that people with asthma would be considered at higher risk, as they are from other respiratory illnesses. But as more data emerged, the picture became less clear.

Hospital data represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to COVID-19 infections. Most people who are infected won’t be ill enough to be sent to hospital. Some won’t even know they have the disease. But without sustained and widespread testing, it’s the only data available.

Early studies from China and the US showed that the proportion of people with asthma coming to hospital with COVID-19 was lower than the proportion of people with asthma in the general population. Yet data from the UK suggests people with asthma are neither over nor underrepresented in hospitalised patients with COVID-19.

It is still possible that people with asthma are more likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19 than people without asthma, but issues with the studies are providing an inaccurate picture. It is also possible that the early findings might be genuine, and due to differences in immune responses or protective effects of certain asthma medications.

It is clear that risks from COVID-19 depend on a lot more than whether or not you have asthma, but most of the available data doesn’t go into this very much. People with more severe forms of asthma are considered at higher risk. There is hardly any information on how asthma might affect COVID-19 infection in young people because so few children become seriously ill with COVID-19.

Once in hospital, preliminary data from the UK shows that asthma is associated with an increased risk of dying with COVID-19.

Risks appear higher in people recently prescribed oral corticosteroids, which is one type of medication used for asthma. This does not necessarily mean oral corticosteroids themselves increase COVID-19 risk. People with more severe asthma are more likely to be prescribed these medications than people with less severe asthma and, as noted above, people with more severe asthma are considered at higher risk from COVID-19. In fact, some have speculated that oral corticosteroids might help protect against COVID-19, but the evidence for this is unclear.


COVID-19 has now stolen over 115,000 lives throughout the United States. The race to find a vaccine or an effective treatment continues. However, to win this race, doctors must understand that COVID-19 consists of two diseases: a known viral infection, but also a subsequent immune-mediated syndrome in a subset of critically-ill patients. The latter can be treated with early and aggressive therapy.

Much of the current search for effective COVID treatments focuses on follow the typical infection course any virus takes. This involves a virus being inhaled or consumed, incorporating itself into the cells that line the respiratory and gastro-intestinal tract, and then taking over those cells to replicate the virus’ genetic material and spread it throughout the body. This is what causes respiratory or abdominal symptoms.

Treatment of viruses, including influenza, typically involves early initiation of anti-viral therapies, which act to inhibit this replication and can help the patient’s own immune system fight off the virus from spreading further. Some people have antibodies to specific viruses; these antibodies signal the immune system that a foreign invader is present and cause the immune system to activate and stop the virus before it progresses into a full-scale disease.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes an infectious disease known as COVID-19, which in many ways may appear similar to the flu. A patient’s symptoms during the first week of COVID-19 illness are due to this process.


Scientists stress that just because someone has recovered from Covid-19 and produced antibodies to the coronavirus does not mean they are protected from contracting it a second time. No one’s yet proven that.

That, then, leaves open the question: What does immunity look like?

Experts anticipate an initial coronavirus infection will lend people some level of immunity for some amount of time. But they still don’t know what potpourri of antibodies, cells, and other markers in a person’s blood will signify that protection. And determining those “correlates of protection” is crucial both so individuals can know if they are again at risk, and so researchers can understand how well potential vaccines work, how long they last, and how to accelerate their development.


The United States was clearly unprepared for the strain that Covid-19 would put on its health-care system, including our limited supply of personal protective equipment (PPE). The scarcity of antigen tests for Covid meant that we could not identify who was infected and, even worse, how they were infected. As a result, the nation adopted a stay-at-home approach to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Since then, we have accumulated some information about the high-risk places where the virus is likely to spread—cruise ships, health-care facilities, nursing homes, prisons, factories, warehouses, and meat-processing plants. We also know, not surprisingly, that Covid can easily spread within a household—in closed indoor spaces, where individuals are constantly mixing at close distances for prolonged periods. We have also learned about super-spreader events such as dinner parties, family picnics, and funerals, where large groups of people congregate temporarily, get infected, and then go on to spread the infection more widely.

Reports of specific outbreaks in high-risk places are helpful in designing containment measures for these settings but unhelpful in understanding how the virus is transmitted person-to-person elsewhere—and as we relax stay-at-home orders and reopen social and commercial life across the country, that’s the understanding we need. We rely on epidemiologic models based on imperfect assumptions and laboratory-based experiments to make real-world recommendations about touching surfaces and establishing distance from others. This imprecision is especially problematic as the public looks for guidance on such activities as airplane travel, use of public restrooms, outdoor dining, outdoor sports, and sitting in offices, breathing recirculated air. We need confidence that we can participate in social and commercial life safely


Americans are divided on returning to their regular routines about three months after the country shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a poll released Wednesday. 

A CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that 49 percent of respondents said they feel comfortable returning to their normal routines after the shutdowns, compared to 50 percent who say they do not. In May’s poll, 41 percent said they felt comfortable returning to regular life, and 58 percent said they did not. 

The level of comfort is split among partisan lines, with 73 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and 23 percent of Democrats polled saying they are comfortable returning to regular life.

Out of those who are not comfortable going back to normal life, 17 percent say they will probably or definitely return to their regular routines by the end of the year, while 32 percent say regular life will not begin until 2021. 

A total of 47 percent of respondents said the worst of the pandemic had already occurred, while 46 percent said the worst is yet to come. This is more evenly split than in May, when 52 percent said the worst is yet to come, and in April, when 80 percent expected the worst ahead. 

Respondents were also split on their expectations for the economy, with 36 percent saying it’s worsening, 23 percent saying it’s getting better and 36 percent saying it has stabilized. These views are also split by party, with 40 percent of Republicans saying the economy is recovering and 54 percent of Democrats saying the economy will continue to worsen.


The pandemic is still with us, but the suffocating regime of stigma and shame that once enforced restrictions on social interaction is gone. It disappeared along with the incentives that compelled primarily left-leaning Democrats to wield it like a weapon against those who questioned their remedies for the ongoing outbreak.

“Suddenly,” Politico reported, “public health officials say social justice matters more than social distance.” That dispatch compiled quote after quote from academics, epidemiologists, and medical practitioners in prestigious institutions insisting that the political imperatives of this moment vastly outweigh public health concerns.

This week, more than 1,000 epidemiologists, doctors, social workers, medical students, and healthcare professionals put their names to an open letter affirming that nationwide anti-police violence demonstrations address “the paramount public health problem of pervasive racism.” That word—“paramount”—establishes that which was only conveyed in the subtext: the all-consuming pandemic and the Depression-era levels of unemployment and economic contraction engineered to fight it doesn’t matter anymore.


For individuals, businesses, churches, clubs, and other organizations and events to sensibly manage the risks of COVID-19, especially while reopening and resuming activities, they need information. Not just any information but reliable information that they can trust and that will help them make better decisions.

The Florida Department of Health provides a COVID-19 dashboard with data organized statewide, by county and by ZIP code that focuses on testing, cases and deaths. The Tampa Bay Partnership provides a dashboard that focuses on testing, cases and hospital utilization.

Although this information is useful, on its own it doesn’t help people make good decisions about how to manage the risks associated with COVID-19. Some people, especially those at high risk of severe health consequences from the coronavirus, want information that helps them avoid exposure. Others might only want to know if they’ve been exposed, if they are infected or if community cases are spiking, calling for renewed precautions.

The first information people need, which is not readily available, is about the relative risks of various activities and situations. The one-size-fits-all “just stay home“ approach of the lockdowns does not make sense, nor works well, except possibly as a very short-term emergency measure. It is good that Florida is removing the lockdowns. But now people need risk-based information to safely resume normal activities.
The Constitution
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The Constitution - News and Opinion


Attorney General William Barr told "Special Report" in the second part of an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday that he believes social media platforms are "engaged in censorship" and are acting more like "publishers".

"So you think these [social media] firms are somehow censoring the president and his supporters?" host Bret Baier asked Barr.

"I think there are -- clearly these, these entities are now engaged in censorship," Barr responded. "And they originally held themselves out as open forums where people, where the third parties could come and express their views and they built up a tremendous network of eyeballs.

"They had a lot of market power based on that presentation," the attorney general added. "And now they are acting much more like publishers because they're censoring particular viewpoints and putting their own content in there to to diminish the impact of various people's views.


In South Dakota, the only state in the union to never enforce a government-mandated shutdown, we spoke with cowboys, ranchers, steakhouse owners, hotel managers, great grandparents, actors, bartenders, and even the governor to learn the state of American business. We heard of their successes and perils, those who hadn’t made it and those who still might not.

SOUTH DAKOTA — It’s a long, beautiful haul, driving across Wyoming. Pulling out of Jackson Hole, along the storied Snake River, past Grand Teton Mountain and up into the north. It’s nearly 60 degrees in the town below, but up here the snow is falling fast.

Blizzard in the Tetons. Martin Avila.

Then it’s back down the mountains into the high desert. Towns of less than 50 residents dot the hills below distant snow-capped peaks. The first sign we’ve entered the Wind River Reservation is a black-haired woman stumbling barefoot from a bathroom outside a gas station, eyes wide, red bandanna tourniquet still tied around her sagging bicep. That and the low price on tobacco.

America’s reservations, already suffering from heightened rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse and poverty, have been especially hard hit in the economic shutdown.

Along the sides of Route 26, oil derricks heave up and down like slow-marching hammers. These isolated outposts reach for miles, leading in and out of towns built for and dedicated to the industry. A high school and its impressive football field are the only stone-and-brick buildings in sight.

Just outside Casper, three young cowboys drop a few empty beer cans in the gas station trash before loading back into a rigged-up camper cranking Johnny Cash for everyone in ear shot. One boarded-up building promises travelers the last good meal they’ll find for a hundred miles, and then its north, past a sign warning of toxic orange clouds after mine blasts. Hard work in gorgeous country...


When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met with protestors on the East Front of the Capitol last Wednesday, she echoed the nation’s outrage over the horrific killing of George Floyd while in police custody. She also provided ample justification for ending the constitutionally questionable experiment in proxy voting that the House recently authorized.

It raises an obvious question of double standards: If Pelosi can gather with masses of protestors in Washington, why can’t she convene Congress in person? Officials in Congress have come up with numerous protocols to protect members of Congress as well as their staff from contracting the coronavirus—measures not always used by the protestors. Yet in the past week, several members who refused to travel to Washington for votes in late May personally attended protests in their districts.

These elected officials have their priorities backward. If members can protest in mass gatherings with their constituents, they can engage in another mass gathering to represent their constituents—by flying to Washington and doing the job that taxpayers paid them to do.

Resolution Passed in May
On May 15, Democrats in the House of Representatives voted along party lines on a resolution permitting the speaker to authorize remote voting by proxy for 45-day periods. The following week, Pelosi issued such an authorization, citing health issues surrounding the coronavirus. The House utilized proxy voting during three sessions from May 26-28, after which House Democratic leaders said they would keep the chamber in recess for most of June.

Pelosi did not count herself alone among House Democrats in deciding the Floyd protests superseded prior health concerns over large public events. A review of their Twitter accounts reveals that at least one-fifth of the 70 House Democrats who utilized proxy voting to avoid assembling in Washington attended some form of mass gathering—whether a roundtable, press conference or protest—in the days following Floyd’s killing.

Pelosi wore a mask when meeting with the protestors, and many of the House Democrats who attended protests did likewise. But particularly given the new social distancing precautions at the Capitol, it becomes difficult to square the notion of voting by proxy, or keeping the House in recess, to avoid gathering 435 House members in Washington during the pandemic when some of those very same folks attend even larger gatherings in their home districts.

The ironies of these circumstances abound. House Democrats who voted to impeach President Trump for abuse of power have increased the authority of Pelosi and House leaders, passing a resolution that permits as few as 20 members physically present in Washington to convene the House of Representatives. Those protesting systemic injustices have temporarily curtailed their ability to change that system, by absenting themselves from Washington for weeks at a time.


It’s chilling to see people forced to accept what they know is rubbish. But watching them willingly embrace fraudulent ideologies and wallowing in their own humiliation is almost worse. Creepy scenes are being played out across America of people dropping to their knees in ritual submission to confess their complicity in systemic racism. It’s like the sheep in Animal Farm falsely accusing themselves of peeing in the water trough. In the Washington suburb where I live, a crowd of perhaps 1,000 white people, mostly kneeling with their hands held up in surrender, recently intoned the words of a young man leading them with a microphone: “I will use my voice in the most uplifting way possible and do everything in my power to educate my community. I will love my black neighbors the same as my white ones.” The sentiments are fine, but the manner of their inculcation is appalling.

It was the religious incantation of a new cult. Yes, the worshippers drank the Kool-Aid of their own volition, but those who don’t will have the poison poured down their throats will-he, nill-he.

In the land of the free.

It is time for America to reject the pursuit of doctrinal uniformity. Time to defy the Minneapolis mob chanting “shame” at Mayor Jacob Frey because he wouldn’t submit to one final grovel and agree to eliminate the city's police force.

There is no appeasing or avoiding today’s militants. You may not be interested in them, but they are interested in you, and they’re coming after your country. It’s past time for good, decent people to reject the corrosive new catechism and fight back. This is meant to be not only the land of the free, remember, but also the home of the brave.
History
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History - News and Opinion


Thanks to a rich historical record, we do not have to imagine the reaction of Gen. George Washington when, on July 31, 1777, he was introduced to the latest French "major general" foisted on him by the Continental Congress, this one an aristocrat not yet out of his teens. Virtually since Washington had taken command of the Colonial Army some two years before, he had been trying to sweep back a tide of counts, chevaliers and lesser foreign volunteers, many of whom brought with them enormous self-regard, little English and less interest in the American cause than in motives ranging from martial vanity to sheriff-dodging.

The Frenchman now presenting himself to George Washington in the Colonial capital of Philadelphia was the 19-year-old Marquis de Lafayette, who was in America principally because he was enormously rich. Though Congress had told Washington that Lafayette's commission was purely honorific, no one seemed to have told the marquis, and two weeks after their first meeting, Washington shot off a letter to Benjamin Harrison, a fellow Virginian in Congress, complaining that this latest French import expected command of a division! "What line of conduct I am to pursue, to comply with [Congress'] design and his expectations, I know no more than the child unborn and beg to be instructed," the commander fumed.

The success of the American Revolution was then very much in doubt. For more than a year, apart from two militarily insignificant but symbolically critical victories in Trenton and Princeton, Washington's army had succeeded only at evasion and retreat. His depleted forces were riddled with smallpox and jaundice, there was not enough money to feed or pay them, and the British, emboldened to dream of an early end to the war, were on their way toward Philadelphia with a fleet of some 250 ships carrying 18,000 British regulars—news that Washington had received with that morning's breakfast. At the dinner where he met Lafayette, Washington had to address the urgent fear of congressmen that Philadelphia itself could fall to the British, and he had nothing of much comfort to tell them.

So a pushy French teenager would seem to have been the last thing Washington needed, and eventually the general was told that he was free to do as he liked with the impetuous young nobleman. How then to explain that before the month of August 1777 was out, Lafayette was living in Washington's house, in his very small "family" of top military aides; that in a matter of weeks he was riding at Washington's side on parade; that by early September he was riding with Washington into battle; that after he was wounded at Brandywine Creek (a defeat that indeed led to the fall of Philadelphia), he was attended by Washington's personal physician and watched over anxiously by the general himself? "Never during the Revolution was there so speedy and complete a conquest of the heart of Washington," his biographer Douglas Southall Freeman wrote. "How did [Lafayette] do it? History has no answer."

Actually, Lafayette's biographers have settled on one: that Washington saw in Lafayette the son he never had, and that Lafayette found in Washington his long-lost father—a conclusion that, even if true, is so widely and briskly postulated as to suggest a wish to avoid the question. In any case it is unsatisfying in several ways. For one, Washington rarely expressed regret at not having a child of his own, and though he had many young military aides, he hardly treated them with fatherly tenderness. His adjutant Alexander Hamilton, who like Lafayette had lost his father in infancy, found Washington so peremptory that he demanded to be reassigned.

Perhaps most discouraging to the father-son idea is that the relationship between Washington and Lafayette was not one of unalloyed affection. The elaborate 18th-century courtesies in their correspondence may be easily read as signs of warmth; they could also disguise the opposite. The two men differed on many things and are sometimes found to be working against each other in secret, each to his own ends. Their interaction reflects the always problematic relations between their two countries, an alliance of which they were also the founding fathers.


The wreck of a high-speed patrol boat commanded by John F. Kennedy during World War II has been discovered in New York’s Harlem River.

Remnants of PT-59 have been dredged up from the Harlem River as part of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) project to build a sea wall to prevent flooding in a Manhattan train yard, according to the New York Times.

Rumors have swirled around the boat’s possible location in the Harlem River for a number of years.


THE tomb of Queen Cleopatra may finally have been found 2,000 years after she committed suicide by poisonous snake bite.

In a new documentary, experts suggest the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh is buried in a mysterious site on the Nile Delta.

Archaeologists are digging at the site of Taposiris Magna, just 60 miles from Cairo, in hopes of unravelling the mystery behind this elusive queen. 

Their search will be revealed on the Science Channel special: “Cleopatra: Sex, Lies and Secrets” that premieres on June 21 at 8 pm ET/PT.

"In Egypt, on the edge of the Nile delta, a massive archaeological dig is underway as experts search for the tomb of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh," explains Science Channel in a statement.

"A new theory about Cleopatra’s burial ground introduced by archaeologist Dr. Kathleen Martinez, suggests her tomb may be found in a place known as Taposiris Magna."


Researchers recently identified the unnamed sitter in this portrait as Mary Boleyn, older sister of Anne Boleyn.

Aportrait of an anonymous woman in Tudor garb has adorned the walls of Great Britain’s most prominent royal residences for hundreds of years. Researchers had long thought that the sitter’s identity was lost to history, but now, a new discovery has enabled experts to put a name to the face: Mary Boleyn, older sister of Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII.

A team from the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project (JVDPPP) announced the find in a statement last month. The painting, previously known simply as Portrait of a Woman, is part of the United Kingdom’s Royal Collection and currently hangs in Mary, Queen of Scots’ bedchamber at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.


Pirates, shipwrecks, mutiny, and murder are hallmarks of fictional swashbuckling adventures. But they were also features of an ill-fated French expedition to colonize part of North America. Now, human bones discovered in the wreckage of the expedition’s flagship are adding a new level of mystery to the story thanks to cutting-edge DNA analysis.

In 1682, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle explored and claimed the Mississippi region for France, naming it La Louisiane after King Louis XIV. Two years later, La Salle set sail from France with 400 sailors and colonists aboard four ships, intending to colonize the mouth of the Mississippi River.

But the expedition didn’t go according to plan. Privateers plundered one ship en route and the remaining vessels, including the flagship La Belle, mistakenly landed at Matagorda Bay, some 650 kilometers southwest of the Mississippi in what is now Texas. Then one ship ran aground and another returned to France, leaving only La Belle afloat to support the remaining expedition.

After several failed attempts to locate the Mississippi, La Salle started building a settlement inland called Fort St. Louis. In 1686, however, La Belle was sunk by a storm while anchored in the bay, taking the expedition’s remaining provisions with it. Ultimately, La Salle led a party to seek help, but mutineers murdered him before turning on each other. Later, the few colonists in Fort St. Louis who had survived hunger and disease were killed by the local Karankawa people.

Details of the doomed expedition exist in accounts written by the expedition’s chronicler, Henri Joutel, and five other survivors who reached Canada before sailing back to France. But it was only in 1995 that archaeologists found and recovered La Belle and its contents. Much of the ship had decomposed long before, but the bottom third survived buried in mud which, lacking oxygen, prevented aerobic organisms such as shipworms from consuming the wood and other organic matter.

Among the 1.8 million artifacts was a complete human skeleton which was found on top of a coil of anchor rope. Leg, foot, and hand bones from another person were found in a cargo hold. Those bones were from a man who appeared to be taller and tougher—with bigger, denser bones—than the average 17th-century Frenchman.

In the 1990s, researchers attempted to use DNA analysis to glean more information about these two people, but there was insufficient genetic material for the techniques of the day. That left researchers with little choice but to assume that the bones were those of two French colonists who drowned when the ship sank.

Now, however, state-of-the-art techniques have allowed forensic scientists to extract and analyze the bones’ preserved DNA for the first time, offering a new narrative of the wreck.

“The work detailed is extraordinary, as the researchers used multiple methods and multiple tests per sample to estimate biogeographic affinities, genetic sex, eye and hair color,” says Graciela Cabana, an anthropological geneticist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who wasn’t involved in the study.

As expected, the complete skeleton belonged to someone of Western European descent. His genes were common to people from the part of France where the expedition began. However, the partial skeleton did not fit the existing narrative: the extracted DNA had features common among North American Indigenous peoples.


A preliminary map of Falerii Novi, an ancient Roman city located 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Rome, has been compiled with data taken from ground-penetrating radar. It’s “preliminary” because it wasn’t humanly possible for the researchers to fully analyze the 28 billion data points collected during the course of the project, explained Martin Millett, a co-author of the study and an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, to Gizmodo.

The researchers were able to document the locations of buildings, monuments, passageways, and even water pipes—all without having to pick up a single hand trowel. In addition to documenting these previously unknown architectural features, the scientists were able to chronicle changes to the city over time and discern unique elements not seen elsewhere in ancient Rome. The new research was published today in the scientific journal Antiquity.

Falerii Novi is well documented in historical accounts, representing just one of roughly 2,000 cities across the Roman Empire. It first appeared in 241 BCE and was occupied until the Medieval period, when it was finally abandoned around 700 CE.


As scholars of civic engagement and women’s suffrage, we have compiled “19 Things to Know” about this landmark amendment. Together they reveal the strength and determination of the suffrage movement as it battled for this fundamental right of citizenship.

1. Many early suffragists were also abolitionists. They include Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

2. The first women’s rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19-20, 1848. Of the 11 resolutions demanding equality – in the workplace, family and education, for example – only women’s right to vote drew opposition before it was approved. Although abolitionists had called for women’s voting rights before 1848, suffragists later viewed the convention as launching the U.S. women’s suffrage movement.

3. In 1869 the movement split over disagreements about the 15th Amendment, which granted voting rights to African American men but not women.

The National Woman Suffrage Association lobbied for a federal amendment, while the American Woman Suffrage Association pursued a state-by-state strategy. Recognizing that a divided movement was hurting their success, the groups merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, or NAWSA.

4. Suffrage was a mass movement with diverse voices. They included the National Association of Colored Women, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, farmers’ organizations and the Women’s Trade Union League. Most of these organizations became active in suffrage after the creation of NAWSA.

5. Women’s suffrage depended on male supporters, among them state legislators and members of Congress. Only men could vote in state referenda to extend the vote to women. Men did so in Colorado, New York and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, thousands of women opposed suffrage. They thought it would undermine women’s influence in the home and family.

6. Several political and social movements during the Progressive Era, 1890-1920, prioritized suffrage. Women realized they needed voting rights to reform child labor laws, promote public health, and prohibit alcohol and prostitution. These suffragists framed their roles, as wives and mothers, as political virtues to advance a more moral government.

7. Besides the leadership provided by the national women’s suffrage associations, hundreds of local and state organizations engaged thousands of volunteers as well. Some of the earliest state associations were organized in Kansas in 1867, Iowa in 1870 and Washington state in 1871.

8. African American women reformers saw suffrage as an important goal. They began forming their own clubs in the 1880s and founded the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. Unlike predominantly white suffrage organizations, the NACW called for other reforms to address the economic, educational and social welfare of African American women and children, such as job training programs, fair wages and child care.

9. Millions of women enjoyed the right to vote before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Women had full voting rights in 15 states and the Alaska territory, and limited suffrage, including voting in presidential elections, in another 12 states before 1920. Their influence helped build momentum for the 19th Amendment.

10. In 1913 Alice Paul organized NAWSA’s first women’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. The police failed to provide the suffragists with adequate protection, and spectators attacked the marchers. Paul formed a rival suffrage organization, the National Woman’s Party, in 1916.
Free Markets & The Economy
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Free Markets and the Economy - News and Opinion


The tide has turned in the economy. Jobs are coming back and Americans are returning to work. The latest figures make it clear that the nation is on the road to recovery, with a decline in unemployment. In staying with the trend under President Trump of surpassing expectations, the jobs report blew the predictions out of the water. Instead of 8 million additional lost jobs, as some estimated, gross employment rose by more than 2 million jobs, and unemployment fell to 13 percent. What could be next?

Let us see if Congress takes this great news to heart and uses some time to reassess its coronavirus response. The latest figures tell us that further spending is unnecessary. Workers and businesses across the country are powering the economy rather than corporate bailouts and aid packages. As the economy restarts, the need for more stimulus evaporates.

We are not out of the woods yet, as more spending seems inevitable. But Congress has to keep spending down and target funding where it will be needed the most, such as hospitals and health care facilities. At the same time, businesses will open responsibly. Americans get far less credit than they deserve for taking this pandemic seriously without all the lockdown restrictions. I am confident employers will take all steps to keep workers safe and protect members of society who face the greatest risk.

To help speed our recovery, Congress has other fiscal options on the table besides massive spending bills. A payroll tax holiday and capital gains tax relief would give workers the help they need and businesses the freedom to operate. The coronavirus is a big gift to bankruptcy attorneys. We need substantial liability shields for businesses, or else trial lawyers will have a field day by sending even more businesses into bankruptcy. By providing businesses with a liability shield, we would be granting the much needed regulatory certainty to a country that is plagued by uncertainty.

Another fantastic option for lawmakers to spur our recovery would be the introduction of a capital gains tax holiday. Although the stock market has begun to rebound, investment has been incredibly stifled for the past few months amid the pandemic. As Jason Pye, our vice president of legislative affairs, explained, “A capital gains tax holiday for stocks purchased during the crisis and in its immediate aftermath will incentivize more investment and, in turn, help retirement accounts recover from the recent losses and supply many businesses with the necessary capital to expand.”


People who want to work should be allowed to work. That includes people who once went to jail.

With President Donald Trump's support, Congress spends your money giving ex-cons "employment assistance."

Why bother? State laws often make such employment impossible.

Courtney Haveman had an alcohol problem. When she was 19, she got a DUI. Then she took a swing at a security guard. "I made dumb decisions," she admits in my new video. "Served three days in jail."

Eight years later, and now sober, Courtney enrolled in beauty school. Such schools invite applicants to "turn your interest in beauty into a rewarding career."

The schools do provide good careers—to owners of cosmetology schools. In Pennsylvania, where Courtney applied, they typically charge $6,000 tuition and require 1,000 hours of courses.

All that training is required by the state to work.

Courtney had worked in a salon and wanted to do more. Unfortunately, "doing more" requires not just serving customers well, but getting permission from bureaucrats.

Byzantine state laws demand you get a state-approved license before you may become a hairdresser, tour guide, travel agent, house painter, and all sorts of other jobs where customer happiness should be the guide.

So after taking hundreds of hours of cosmetology courses, Courtney paid more to apply for a Pennsylvania cosmetology license.

Pennsylvania then told her she couldn't do cosmetology there because she has a criminal record.

The bureaucrats said she could appeal. She could prove she has good moral character.

"I sent letters, and people in my 12-step program wrote letters on my behalf, character letters," she says.

The result?

"They sent me a rejection letter that said, 'Sorry. You lack the good moral character requirement'," says Courtney. "One time in my life that I felt like a productive member of society, I was proud of myself…people were proud of me, and then it was just like, you're not good enough still."

This is wrong.


There isn't much that Americans agree on these days, but one of the few issues that brings most of us together is the no-brainer effort to reform the tangle of occupational licensing rules that are strangling Americans' mobility and prosperity. But as party-line-crossing as support for this reform may be—and despite the accumulating evidence of the damage these laws do—state governments across the country continue to launch legal assaults on entrepreneurs and willing customers doing business without government permission.

Earlier this month, Ivanka Trump urged states to end "excessive licensure." And Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang called for easing licensing requirements that make it hard for people to move between states. "Americans are moving across state lines at multi-decade lows. This is bad for our labor market and for people who are seeking new opportunities," Yang pointed out.

Yang's proposal for encouraging state regulatory authorities to recognize licenses issued by other states won support from Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican. Whatever their differences, the two men agree that restrictive licensing rules are bad for Americans. "@AndrewYang – good policy knows no party," Ducey tweeted. "Arizona has led as the first state to recognize out-of-state occupational licenses. Would love to hear this issue brought up at the next debate."

In April, Ducey signed a law under which his state recognizes all occupational licenses issued by other states, when such licenses are required to work in Arizona. It's an effort to alleviate the damage to mobility done by occupational licensing, since people whose work requires licenses usually must pay the fees and take the time to get licensed all over again when crossing a state border.

"The share of the workforce that falls under some sort of licensing requirement has risen from 5 percent in the 1950s to almost 25 percent in 2008," urbanist Richard Florida noted in 2017. "Such licensing requirements make it hard for people in those professions to move from place to place, where wages are higher or where their services are more needed."

Our ability—or inability—to move is "dividing Americans into three classes," Florida added. "The mobile, who derive the benefits of economic dynamism; the stuck, who are trapped in place and unable to move; and the rooted, who are strongly embedded in their communities and choose not to."


The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic shutdown have wreaked havoc on state budgets. Certain state leaders, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, have urged Congress for an injection of federal funds to save state finances. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rightly responded that such a policy would constitute a federal bailout of spendthrift, big government states at the expense of fiscally conservative states. Progressives glibly replied that it is actually “blue states” that bail out “red states.” This sophomoric switcheroo gets more than its fair play in the media but rests on several false equivalencies and bad logic.  

Those arguing that “blue states” are the ones bailing out “red states” point to the federal “balance of payment” ratios, or federal tax dollars collected compared to federal money received, on a state-by-state basis. The states with lowest balance of payment ratios (collecting more federal taxes than they receive in federal funds) are Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York. The states with the highest balance of payments (receiving more federal funds than they collect in federal taxes) are Kentucky, New Mexico, Mississippi and West Virginia. Therefore, “blue states” are bailing out “red states” — or so they say.

But federal balance of payment ratios are not as indicative as pundits think they are. New Mexico is often deemed a “blue state” and West Virginia had Democratic control of the governor’s mansion and both state legislative chambers as recently as 2014. The relationship between state policy and balance-of-payment ratios becomes even weaker considering that North Dakota, New Hampshire and Nebraska — so-called “red states” — all have balance of payment ratios of less than 1.00. This means they receive less in federal funds than they collect in federal taxes, just like Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York.


Last month, US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Joe Simons said he was prepared to do what many investors have feared for months: break up major Tech or Tech-like companies, namely Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google. While regulatory risk hogs headlines, we don’t view it as a sound reason to avoid Tech and Tech-like firms in the near term. Uncertainty and political chatter may heighten volatility but, in our view, any material changes are likely much further out in the future—if they even happen—and may end up watered down considerably from campaign trail proposals.

For years, many pundits and politicians have claimed Internet behemoths are too powerful and monopolistic—preventing competition, hurting small businesses and stifling innovation. This year, politicians started trying to do something. In March, the government created the “FTC Tech Task Force” to review pending and completed mergers. Then, in June, the House’s antitrust subcommittee announced they would launch a probe into Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook’s alleged anti-competitive and anti-consumer business practices. The first hearings happened in July to much fanfare. That same month, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced it would conduct its own antitrust review.

Some of the loudest voices supporting a shakeup are 2020 presidential hopefuls. Most prominent is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has suggested dismantling Internet giants by designating an “online marketplace, an exchange, or platform for connecting third parties” as “platform utility.”[i] Some of her fellow candidates, including Bernie Sanders, agree. Other candidates and politicians simply believe big Internet companies should be subject to more regulation to address concerns over competition or suppressed content (the latter a pet issue among many GOP lawmakers). Because of this bipartisan fury, investors fear anti-Tech sentiment from both Republicans and Democrats may yield a big break up, significant business model changes or huge fines—roiling the sector.


Asset managers and allocators surveyed for the II Fear Index reported a sharp increase in optimism this week regarding the economic prospects of their countries. Thirty-six percent said they felt more optimistic this week compared with the previous week — a 12-percentage-point jump from last week’s index. 

It’s the highest increase in optimism recorded by the II Fear Index so far, and the first time that optimistic responses outweighed pessimistic responses. Among this week’s 170 respondents, 28 percent felt less optimistic this week about their economic prospects, while 35 percent felt the same as last week.
Science
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First, there were murder hornets. Now, invasive, poisonous toads are the latest bizarre creature to go wild in the U.S. As South Florida enters its wet season aka hurricane season, the cane toad—an ugly, warty, brown amphibian with poison can kill pet dogs—is thriving. That’s not only concerning for pet owners. These toads are highly destructive to the environment.

The cane toad is native to South America, Central America, and parts of southern Texas. Florida, though? Nope. Humans are to blame for the species’ presence there. In 1936, people brought about 200 of these ugly boys to Florida in an attempt to keep insects from damaging sugarcane fields. That failed miserably as the cane toads just ate, well, everything.

The toads decimate the food available for other native species that contribute to a healthy ecosystem, including insects and other small lizards. At the same time, their poison protects them from any predators. The Fish and Wildlife Service designated them in 2018 as a “high” risk species due to the damage the animals inflict on the environment.


At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) later this month, Apple plans to announce the beginning of its transition from Intel-based Macs to ARM-based ones with internally designed CPUs, according to a report from Bloomberg. The report comes from Mark Gurman, who has had a generally good track record on reporting the internal workings of Apple and cites "people familiar with the plans."

The sources say that Apple is working on at least three different systems-on-a-chip for Macs. The first would be based on the A14, a processor planned for the new iPhone models coming later in 2020. The Mac processors would be manufactured by Apple partner TSMC “using a 5-nanometer production technique.” The project is codenamed Kalamata within Apple's walls.
WWDC begins on June 22. For the first time in its history, it will be an online-only event this year—a result of concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bloomberg report notes twice that world events and other factors make it possible Apple will delay the announcement. But the company's leadership wants to share the plans at WWDC if possible as a way to give Mac software developers ample time to adjust to the change, which is expected to begin with the launch of the first ARM Mac hardware in 2021.

Apple last made a major transition in architecture when it moved from PowerPC processors to Intel ones in 2006, and it adopted a similar strategy of giving developers significant notice and providing tools for the change. As was the case between PowerPC and Intel, differences between Intel and ARM processors are substantial and will require developers to make changes to their apps.


AN EXOTIC fifth type of matter has been created in one of the coldest places in the universe – a device on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) was launched to the ISS in 2018 to investigate a strange kind of matter, known as a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). This suitcase-sized device chills atoms of rubidium and potassium in a vacuum chamber, using laser light to slow their movement. Magnetic fields then contain the resulting cloud of atoms, which is cooled to nearly absolute zero at -273°C, producing a BEC.

This chilly substance was initially theorised by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose in the early 1920s as the fifth state of matter, following solids, liquids, gases and plasma. It is a supercooled gas that no longer behaves as individual atoms and particles, but rather an entity in a single quantum state.

“This is pretty remarkable because this gives you a macroscopic-sized quantum mechanical object,” says Maike Lachmann at Leibniz University Hannover in Germany.

BECs have been produced in a variety of experiments on Earth since 1995, but these are hindered by gravity, which collapses the clouds in a split second. The microgravity environment of the ISS keeps them stable for multiple seconds, allowing them to be studied in more detail.

Robert Thompson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and his colleagues have been operating the CAL remotely and have published their first results. While mostly just a demonstration that the machine works, there are some tantalising glimpses of what might be possible one day.

“It’s more of a technological achievement,” says Thompson. “But in the future, it will enable a wide spectrum of science.”

The initial results show that BECs behave differently in orbit. The team found that about half of the atoms form into a halo-like cloud around the main body of the BEC. On the ground, these atoms would simply fall due to gravity, but in microgravity on the ISS, the cloud remains suspended (Nature, s41586-020-2346-1 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2346-1).

In the near future, the researchers hope to use the experiment to watch atoms collide on a quantum level. They also want to probe ripples in space-time called gravitational waves by monitoring disturbances in the movement of the atoms.

Looking further ahead, the experiment could also tackle ideas like Einstein’s equivalence principle, which says that all masses in a given gravitational field accelerate in the same way. Tests in microgravity could reveal whether there are any violations of the principle. “It’s usually unwise to bet against Einstein,” says Thompson. “But it’s always important to test these things.”


Over the course of the summer, the federal government plans to fund three phase III clinical trials for experimental coronavirus vaccines.

Each of the three vaccines will undergo this final phase of testing on about 30,000 human participants, The Wall Street Journal reports, half of whom will receive a vaccine injection and the other half an inert placebo.

The vaccine developed by Moderna Inc will begin its phase III trial in July, followed soon after by those developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Normally, reaching this point can take years, but coronavirus vaccines have been developed and tested on a vastly-accelerated timeline.

“There’s a lot of optimism in our community that a vaccine should be possible, but we are very focused on the fact that that has to be proven in clinical trials,” John Mascola, vaccine research director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a recent conference attended by the WSJ.

There are multiple phases of clinical research necessary before a medication or vaccine is granted regulatory approval. Phase 0 studies how the human body processes a drug. Phase I identifies dangerous side effects and other safety concerns, and phase II trials measure whether the drug actually treats the condition it’s supposed to.

Finally, there’s phase III: large-scale tests that compare the drug or vaccine against a placebo. Many drugs don’t ever reach this final stage of the process, so the fact that three COVID-19 vaccines are already there is a promising sign for the fight to end this pandemic.


Long-term studies show that people who are physically active on a regular basis can halve their risk of getting Alzheimer's. Why doesn't everyone use such easily accessible 'medicine'?

When Professor Linda Hildegard Bergersen first read about this research finding, she thought, “How does anyone dare to not exercise?”

Especially when it’s such an incredibly readily available medicine.

Bergersen is a professor of physiology at the University of Oslo. She is also a professor of ageing and neurobiology at the University of Copenhagen.

“We’ve changed our lifestyle so dramatically in such a short time,” she says.

“I was born in the 1960s and belong to a generation that walked, biked or skied to school. Today, a child who isn’t involved in organized sports may end up sitting all day,” says Bergersen.


The first confirmed “heartbeat” of a supermassive black hole is still going strong more than a decade after first being observed, according to Chinese and British astronomers.

That makes it the longest-lived ever seen in a black hole, they say, and tells us more about the size and structure close to its event horizon – the space around a black hole from which nothing, including light, can escape.

Writing in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Durham University report that X-ray satellite observations spotted the repeated beat after its signal was blocked by our Sun for a number of years.

“This heartbeat is amazing,” says lead author Chichuan Jin. “It proves that such signals arising from a supermassive black hole can be very strong and persistent.”

The Quasi-Periodic Oscillations (QPO) were first detected in 2007 at the centre of a galaxy called RE J1034+396, which is approximately 600 million light-years from Earth.

The signal repeated every hour, and this was seen in several snapshots taken before satellite observations were blocked by the Sun in 2011.

In 2018 the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray satellite was able to finally re-observe the black hole and to scientists’ amazement the same repeated heartbeat could still be seen.

Matter falling on to a supermassive black hole as it feeds from the accretion disc of material surrounding it releases an enormous amount of power from a comparatively tiny region of space, but this is rarely seen as a specific repeatable pattern like a heartbeat.

The time between beats can tell us about the size and structure of the matter close to the black hole’s event horizon.
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THERE ARE WAYS TO stimulate the economy other than spending trillions of more taxpayer dollars.

Lowering out of control health care costs, which are an enormous drag on the nation, would boost patients' pocketbooks, employers' balance sheets, and governments' budgets – all of which are under tremendous pressure due to the coronavirus-induced economic crisis.

Lawmakers can dramatically lower health care costs and stimulate the economy, at no cost to the taxpayer, by including a systemwide health care price transparency provision in the forthcoming "Phase 4" coronavirus relief legislation. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently signaled that this next stimulus package is "not too far off."

As a former hospital executive and a former insurance executive, respectively, we've seen firsthand how health care costs have grown to the point where they consume 18% of the national economy and place 16% of Americans in debt.

Waste, administrative bloat and intermediaries drive up health care costs, which are then passed on to health care consumers – namely, patients, employers and government entities. A recent JAMA study estimated that waste accounts for one-quarter of health care spending, or about $1 trillion annually.

Price gouging, overbilling and upcharges make prices far higher than anything reflecting value or cost. People generally point to inflated prices – as opposed to, say, overuse – as the main reason for stratospheric American health care costs. "It's the Prices, Stupid" is the title of an influential 2003 paper on the topic.

Yet these cost-drivers are just symptoms of an underlying disease: the lack of clear prices in the health care sector. Under the status quo, health care consumers do not know what they'll pay until after treatment occurs. As a result, providers can charge far more than if patients had pricing information to inform their treatment decisions before receiving care.


stion became why state medical restrictions were necessary in the first place. Is there a legitimate difference between the quality and necessity of additional certifications for a physician in Alabama versus Arizona?

The medical‐​school requirement, national medical‐​licensing examination requirements, and residency‐​training requirements are nearly identical in all state‐​licensing processes. Yet in most cases, a medical license is not transferrable from state to state.

A physician in New York City cannot practice medicine in New Jersey or Connecticut without three separate medical licenses using the same national‐​board examination, medical degree, and specialty training. These same licensing regulations prevent patients from receiving telemedicine from out‐​of‐​state providers. It’s akin to a state prohibiting someone from driving on their highway with an out‐​of‐​state driver’s license.

Furthermore, having a license does not ensure quality care. Private credentialing and certification organizations, such as the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Neurological Surgery, do the vetting of practitioners’ training and competency that health‐​care consumers need when seeking medical advice. Health‐​care consumer‐​rating sites such as Healthgrades or Vitals rate health‐​care providers, while sites lsuch as Leapfrog or Consumer Reports rate health‐​care facilities. Licensing boards provide no such tangible function.

Once they get a license, physicians in most states may practice any specialty they choose in their offices. Many hospitals or insurance companies, on the other hand, may require their panels of providers to be specialty‐board certified. For example, a physician with no formal training or certification in psychiatry can post “psychiatrist” on the office door but would not be able to practice psychiatry in a hospital. Licensing doesn’t protect people. Credentialing protects people by carefully examining and verifying physicians’ depth of training and experience in the area in which they claim to have expertise.


The COVID-19 crisis is exposing a tragic reality. There are serious problems with America’s health care system that are standing in the way of doctors, nurses, and medical researchers helping people and saving more lives.

Outdated laws and restrictions inhibit the ability of innovators and health experts to slow the spread of coronavirus or provide life-saving medical treatment — limiting the availability of surgical and N95 masks, preventing qualified doctors and nurses from treating more patients, causing severe shortages of life-saving equipment, and much more.

Rather than continue down the same path, now is the time for us to reimagine health care.

Over the last several weeks, we have watched in real time as federal restrictions have impeded our ability to produce enough coronavirus test kits, while  FDA regulations  prevented distillers from changing over their operations to produce hand sanitizer to help keep up with demand.

Doctor shortages exacerbated by occupational licensing restrictions are hindering care for individuals in many states, while hospitals don’t have enough beds or live-saving equipment as a result of restrictive certificate-of-need laws.

Across the world, we are seeing similar scenarios play out in the United Kingdom, where ventilators are in short supply; in Italy, where doctor shortages and hospital overcrowding is rampant; and in France, where Paris hospitals are having to send patients to neighboring countries for care.

Meanwhile, our long-running debates on health care policy miss the point.
Proposals like Medicare-for-All and the public option simply expand the current system and so would only double down on the failures that we see today which tie the hands of patients and caregivers. They don’t fix the problems the pandemic has revealed. 


President Donald Trump said on Friday he would be giving U.S. states the right to buy prescription drugs from other countries, as part of a bid to boost consumer access to cheaper medicines.

“I’m going to be giving governors the right very shortly to buy ... their prescription drugs from other countries,” Trump said at a White House event accompanied by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, among other officials.
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On Saturday, more than 1,000 members of the West Point Class of 2020 will graduate, with President Trump as their commencement speaker. The ceremony will conclude their 48 months at the United States Military Academy. The last few months at West Point have been an unorthodox time because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but their preparation for the profession of arms is on par with more than 70,000 members of the Long Gray Line that preceded them.  

The U.S. military has continued to function in the shadow of the pandemic. Several things distinguish West Point from other institutions of higher education, given that its task is to not only graduate productive members of society but also build and deploy the next generation of U.S. Army officers. Doing so during a pandemic forced us to rewrite the playbook on how to teach and model leadership for our cadets.

West Point is the premier leadership-development institution in the world. Its specialized curriculum combines academic excellence, military fundamentals, physical endurance and character development into a single course of instruction for the purpose of cultivating leaders. Our graduates will be looked to by subordinates and trusted by superiors — all in the context of a cause greater than themselves, within months of graduation. 

This spring we remained duty bound to meet the challenge of readying our graduates for that which awaits them, while employing a methodology far removed from the one to which we are accustomed. Those who graduate on June 13 — and future classes at West Point — will be tested in their first jobs, not on their ability to recall academic tenets but on their ability to make decisions in the face of adversity. Graduating against the backdrop of a global pandemic has given these young men and women experience with confronting ambiguous situations and charting an intentional course toward mission accomplishment. 

At West Point, our military faculty brings real-life leadership experience into the classroom to couple with academic instruction. What we teach is predicated upon years of active military service, leading soldiers through activities that range from routine training to deployments abroad in theaters of conflict. 

The Army is in the “people business.” As a global force, people are our most potent asset. West Point emphasizes interpersonal relationships as an integral part of our curriculum, and it is why we mentor and foster developmental relationships with students that collectively result in the best achievements for the Army.  

In more typical times, our classroom role enabled us to survey the faces in front of us and to detect signals of distraction, even among high-performing cadets. Typically, these distractions emanated from their lives beyond the classroom and cued us to interact with those cadets on topics other than the academic subject at hand — to ask the questions that would elicit candid responses, and to help them to chart a path that enabled them to meet their challenges. That type of interaction is critical to the success of raising up the next generation of resilient military officers, who, in turn, will employ the same skills to build those under their command...

Zachary Landis and Nicholas Lewis are majors in the U.S. Army. Both served in Afghanistan, among other assignments. They are 2008 graduates of the United States Military Academy West Point and teach in its Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. Both are contributors to The MirYam Institute. The views expressed here are their own and do not reflect the position of the academy, the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.


For the first time in history, half of the senior leaders of the National Security Council are women. Twelve of the 24 directorates are led by women now, including three of the six regional directorates that cover the world.

While the White House press corps has not yet noticed that fact, and Vanity Fair didn’t have Annie Leibovitz come do a photo shoot, as would have been obligatory in the previous administration, women in the White House noticed and appreciated the historic first.

“President Trump has demonstrated his commitment to empowering women in the U.S. and across the world, implementing a pro-growth, pro-family agenda that lifts up women of all backgrounds. It’s no surprise that women are leading the way across the Trump administration, including more women leaders at the National Security Council than at any other time in history,” adviser to the President Ivanka Trump said.

The National Security Council has both functional and regional directorates. The functional directorates tackle issues such as international organizations, border security, and COVID response, all three of which women now lead. Three of the six regional directorates covering the globe — Africa, Asia, and South Asia — are now led by women.


The Congressional Budget Office has released new projections for federal spending and revenues through to 2030.

Federal budget policy is a disaster. The government will spend $4.6 trillion this year, raise $3.6 trillion in tax revenues, and fill the gap with $1 trillion in fresh borrowing. That is like a worker earning $36,000 in income but spending $46,000 and putting $10,000 on credit cards. Maybe he can get away with the excess spending for a while, but eventually his finances will crash.

The CBO’s baseline projections show spending rising faster than revenues in coming years, with the result that annual deficits by 2030 are expected to hit $1.74 trillion. Spending in 2030 at $7.49 trillion will be 30 percent higher than revenues of $5.75 trillion, as shown in the chart below.

Those projections are ugly, but they are optimistic if policymakers do not enact major reforms. One optimistic CBO assumption is that discretionary spending will decline as a share of GDP in coming years, which seems unlikely given that both parties these days push for higher spending. So I’ve included on the chart a “more likely” spending projection that assumes discretionary spending stays at today’s share of GDP.

On the revenue side, CBO includes the expiration of the GOP tax cuts after 2025, but it is likely that some or all of those cuts will be extended. Democrats may agree to extension in return for more low‐​income benefits. So the chart includes a “more likely” revenue line, which assumes the tax cuts are extended, which I roughly calculated by assuming revenues stay at the 2025 share of GDP.

The more likely spending line also includes my rough estimate of the higher interest costs created by higher spending and lower revenues.

Under the more likely scenario, the annual deficit by 2030 will be $2.37 trillion, up from $1.74 trillion under the CBO baseline. The more likely scenario has spending in 2030 at $7.79 trillion, which will be 44 percent higher than revenues that year of $5.42 trillion.

Our economy is growing and we are at peace, so federal deficits and debt should be falling. But deficits are soaring and debt is at record high levels for peacetime as a share of the economy. The outlook is particularly scary because neither party is even talking about spending reforms. We are marching into a fiscal crisis and our elected leaders seem to have no idea how to tackle it and do not even seem to care.