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Tag: Think tanks

  • New analysis shows more US consumers are falling behind on their utility bills

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    WASHINGTON — More people are falling behind on paying their bills to keep on the lights and heat their homes, according to a new analysis of consumer data — a warning sign for the U.S. economy and another political headache for President Donald Trump.

    Past due balances to utility companies jumped 9.7% annually to $789 between the April-June periods of 2024 and 2025, said The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank. The increase has overlapped with a 12% jump in monthly energy bills during the same period.

    Consumers usually prioritize their utility bills along with their mortgages and auto debt, said Julie Margetta Morgan, the foundation’s president. The increase in both energy costs and delinquencies may suggest that consumers are falling behind on other bills, too.

    “There’s a lot of information out there about rising utility costs, but here we can actually look at what that impact has been on families in terms of how they’re falling behind,” Margetta Morgan said.

    Troubles paying electricity and natural gas bills reflect something of an economic quandary for Trump, who is promoting the buildout of the artificial intelligence industry as a key part of an economic boom he has promised for America. But AI data centers are known for their massive use of electricity, and threaten to further increase utility bills for everyday Americans.

    These troubles also come as Trump faces political pressure from voters fed up with the high cost of living.

    Ever since Republicans saw their fortunes sag in off-year elections this month and affordability was identified as the top issue, Trump has been trying to convince the public that prices are falling. Fast-rising electricity bills could be an issue in some congressional battlegrounds in next year’s midterm elections.

    Trump has put a particular emphasis on prices at the pump. Gasoline accounts for about 3% of the consumer price index, slightly less than the share belonging to electricity and natural gas bills — meaning that possible savings on gasoline could be more than offset by higher utility bills.

    The president maintains that any troubling data on inflation is false and that Democrats are simply trying to hurt his administration’s reputation.

    “In fact, costs under the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION are tumbling down, helped greatly by gasoline and ENERGY,” Trump posted on social media Friday. “Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems,”

    Nearly 6 million households have utility debt “so severe” that it will soon be reported to collection agencies, according to the foundation’s analysis, drawn from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel.

    During Trump’s first six months in office, there was a 3.8% increase in households with severely overdue utility bills.

    “Voters are frustrated and families are hurting because these tech giants are cutting backroom deals with politicians, and it’s causing their power bills to go up,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, which contributed to the analysis. “If the Trump administration doesn’t want to do its job and protect families and make life more affordable, I guess that’s its choice.”

    Both Margetta Morgan and Pierce previously worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency formed in part to track trends in household borrowing to prevent potential abuses. The Trump administration has essentially shut down the bureau.

    The administration has so far said it has no responsibility for any increases in electricity prices, since those are often regulated by state utility boards. The White House maintains that utility costs are higher in Democratic states that rely on renewable forms of energy.

    “Electricity prices are a state problem,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC News this month. “There are things that the federal government can control. Local electricity prices are not one of them.”

    The Century Foundation analysis counters that the Trump administration is contributing to higher utility costs “by impeding renewable energy generation” including solar and wind power.

    While the new analysis is a warning sign, other economic analyses on consumers suggest their finances are stable despite some emerging pressures.

    The New York Federal Reserve has said delinquency rates of 90 days or more for mortgages, auto loans and student debt have each increased over the past 12 months, though it said mortgage delinquencies are “relatively low.” An analysis of debit and credit card spending by the Bank of America Institute showed that consumers’ “overall financial health looks sound.”

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  • IMF chief warns of economic uncertainty: ‘Buckle up’

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The global economy is holding up better than expected despite major shocks such as President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but the head of the International Monetary Fund says that resilience may not last.

    “Buckle up,” Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech at a think tank Wednesday. “Uncertainty is the new normal and it is here to stay.”

    Her comments at the Milken Institute come on a day when gold prices hit $4,000 an ounce for the first time as investors seek safe haven from a weaker dollar and geopolitical uncertainty and before the IMF and World Bank hold their annual meetings next week in Washington. Trump’s trade penalties are expected to be in sharp focus when global finance leaders and central bankers gather.

    The worldwide economy is forecast to grow by 3% this year, and Georgieva is citing a number of factors for why it may not slip below that: Countries have put in place decisive economic policies, the private sector has adapted and the tariffs have proved less severe than originally feared.

    “But before anyone heaves a big sigh of relief, please hear this: Global resilience has not yet been fully tested. And there are worrying signs the test may come. Just look at the surging global demand for gold,” she said.

    On Trump’s tariffs, she says “the full effect is still to unfold. In the U.S., margin compression could give way to more price pass-through, raising inflation with implications for monetary policy and growth.”

    The Republican administration imposed import taxes on nearly all U.S. trading partners in April, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China and even the tiny African nation of Lesotho. “We’re the king of being screwed by tariffs,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

    While the U.S. has announced some trade frameworks with nations such as the United Kingdom and Vietnam, the tariffs have created uncertainty worldwide.

    “Elsewhere, a flood of goods previously destined for the U.S. market could trigger a second round of tariff hikes,” Georgieva said.

    The Supreme Court next month will hear arguments about whether Trump has the authority to impose some of his tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

    In her wide-ranging remarks, Georgieva pointed to youth discontent around the world as many young people foresee a future where they earn less than their parents.

    “The young are taking their disappointment to the streets from Lima to Rabat, from Paris to Nairobi, from Kathmandu to Jakarta, all are demanding better opportunities,” she said. “And here in the U.S., the chances of growing up to earn more than your parents keeps falling and here too, discontent has been evident — and it has helped precipitate the policy revolution that is now unfolding, reshaping trade, immigration and many international frameworks.”

    She also called for greater internal trade in Asia, more business friendly changes in Africa and more competitiveness in Europe.

    For the United States, Georgieva urged the government to address the federal debt and to encourage household saving.

    The national debt is the total amount of money that the federal government owes to its creditors. The federal debt has increased from $380 billion in 1925 to $37.64 trillion in 2025, according to Treasury Department data.

    The Congressional Budget Office reported in July that Trump’s new tax and spending law will add $3.4 trillion to that total through 2034.

    The IMF is a 191-country lending organization that seeks to promote global growth and financial stability and to reduce poverty.

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  • A Sex Scandal. A Conservative Power Network. And Moms for Liberty.

    A Sex Scandal. A Conservative Power Network. And Moms for Liberty.

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    The ugly news broke during the last week of November: A Florida woman alleged that the chair of the state Republican Party had raped her at her home. The assault had occurred after he and his wife had planned, according to police, to meet her for a three-way sexual rendezvous, as they had previously.

    These were stunning claims given the power couple involved: The GOP chair, Christian Ziegler, who has denied the assault and said the encounter was consensual, is a prominent state political consultant. His Republican-activist wife, Bridget Ziegler, is a founder of Moms for Liberty, the conservative political organization whose members have made school-board meetings partisan battlegrounds across America for the past two years.

    The allegations have sparked a fusillade of condemnations, complaints of hypocrisy, and “Moms for Libertines” jokes. But the situation has also provided a window into the machinations of the movement that helped make the Zieglers so significant in Republican politics—thanks especially to the rapid rise of Moms for Liberty as a national organization.

    Bridget Ziegler started Moms for Liberty with Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice in January 2021, but she was soon wooed away. Within months, she was hired to help run school-board-campaign trainings at the Leadership Institute, an obscure but influential nonprofit.

    Read: The care and feeding of Supreme Court justices

    The institute was founded in 1979 by Morton Blackwell, a longtime GOP activist—so longtime that in 1964, he was the youngest elected delegate for Barry Goldwater in his run for the Republican nomination. Blackwell’s participation in the emerging New Right made him a crucial figure in the Reagan Revolution, Richard Meagher, a political-science professor at Randolph-Macon College, told me. Now 84, Blackwell still serves as president of the Leadership Institute, and is the Virginia GOP’s national committeeman.

    The mission of Blackwell’s institute is to recruit and train conservative activists for positions of influence in politics and the media. Its website lists dozens of classes about get-out-the-vote strategies, digital campaigning, and fundraising tips, but its true value, Meagher told me, lies in its connections. “The Leadership Institute trains people and then plugs them into various networks, whether it’s think tanks or in Congress, in nonprofit groups or advocacy groups,” he said.

    The institute claims to have tutored more than a quarter of a million conservative operatives over the past five decades, including Karl Rove, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and former Vice President Mike Pence. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson has also credited Blackwell for his career in Congress. And few people in Florida were as plugged-in as the Zieglers. But many institute alums are relatively unheralded political players, experts told me. These activists might be the technologists behind campaigns and nonprofits, the staffers for senators, or the drafters of policy.

    When the coronavirus pandemic prompted school administrators to keep kids at home, the institute developed new programs for training suburban women to wage school-board campaigns to keep schools open and masks off—a development that led to the recruitment of Bridget Ziegler, the tall, blond face of this new public arena of conservative activism. (Ziegler did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

    Read: Conservative donors have their own cancel culture

    The Leadership Institute exists alongside dozens of similar but better-known groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, a think tank; Turning Point USA, a youth organization; and the Family Research Council, a social-conservative group. Many of these organizations and their leaders are members of a conservative umbrella organization called the Council for National Policy, of which Blackwell was a founding member. The CNP is a secretive, invitation-only group that gathers conservative activists to coordinate political strategy, Anne Nelson, the author of Shadow Network, told me. Think the Conservative Political Action Conference, but less performative.

    The CNP’s purpose is to “bring fellow travelers together” to coordinate strategy and messaging, Meagher said. Hillary Clinton popularized the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but “it’s not a conspiracy—it’s all out in the open,” Meagher said. “They are very well connected, and there’s lots of crossover between different institutions.” The Democratic Party, of course, has similar resources for training progressive candidates and furthering policy goals. But, Meagher said, the Democratic-aligned constellation is not nearly as ideologically coherent or disciplined as the groups that make up the CNP: “There is no analogy to that on the left.”

    This interlocking structure of funding, training, and schmoozing is key to understanding the quick success of Moms for Liberty in American politics.

    According to Ziegler and her colleagues, the organization was initially launched to address concerns that parents had about school closures and mask policies during the pandemic. But Moms for Liberty was quickly absorbed into the conservative movement’s broader network. Within days of its creation, Moms for Liberty was featured on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. By June 2021, the group was hosting the political commentator Megyn Kelly for a “fireside chat” at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This early success and financial capability suggest that the group “had a lot of resources available that just are not available to other grassroots groups,” Maurice T. Cunningham, the chair of the political-science department at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, told me.

    Now, after only two years in existence, the group has become a mandatory campaign stop for Republican political candidates. At Moms for Liberty’s summit this year in Philadelphia—only its second-ever national gathering—every major presidential-primary candidate stopped by to speak to the crowd, including Donald Trump.

    “It might’ve been for five minutes that the moms were selling T-shirts and having bake sales,” Joshua Cowen, an education-policy professor at Michigan State University, told me. “But it was very quickly, within months, that they scaled up to the right-wing avatar they are today.” Recently, the group’s focus has shifted toward advocating against the teaching of gender, sexuality, and race in school curricula, and banning from school libraries certain books that mention those themes. This new front in the group’s campaigning has placed the allegations of sexual impropriety against the Zieglers in sharp relief. (“Never, ever apologize,” Christian Ziegler said during a presentation on dealing with the media at this year’s Mom’s for Liberty summit. “Apologizing makes you look weak.“)

    Read: Anti-abortion conservatives’ first target if Trump returns

    The Leadership Institute has been an integral sponsor of both of Moms for Liberty’s annual summits—donating at least $50,000 in 2022 and serving again as a lead sponsor of the event in 2023—and it has provided training sessions to members. In short, Cunningham told me, “if there’s no Leadership Institute, there’s no Moms for Liberty.” Every year, the group awards a “liberty sword” for parents’-rights advocacy; this year in Philadelphia, Blackwell got the sword.

    That recognition now appears unreciprocated. In the past three weeks, Bridget Ziegler seems to have been scrubbed, Soviet-style, from the Leadership Institute; her name has disappeared from the online staff directory. (As of Friday morning, the Leadership Institute had not responded to a request for comment.) Ziegler has also been asked to resign from the Sarasota School Board.

    There’s no question that her reputation in conservative politics has taken a hit. Even Moms for Liberty’s influence may have peaked for now, given some recent failures in school-board elections. But “what isn’t waning,” Cowen said, “is the influence of the groups behind them.”

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    Elaine Godfrey

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  • Fellow Democrats urge Biden to withhold $320 million in military aid to Egypt over rights abuses

    Fellow Democrats urge Biden to withhold $320 million in military aid to Egypt over rights abuses

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    WASHINGTON — Nine senior Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders urged the Biden administration Friday to withhold part of the United States’ annual military aid to Egypt for a third consecutive year, calling it important to keep up the pressure on President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on human rights abuses.

    More than 20 leading U.S. and international rights groups and think tanks separately made the same appeal, arguing that the U.S. practice of holding back some aid was leading Sissi to make “limited, albeit insufficient ” rights improvements in Egypt.

    About a quarter of a $1.3 billion appropriation is at issue.

    The request may be especially tough this year for President Joe Biden, who is focusing on keeping countries around the world, including Egypt, aligned behind Ukraine as it battles Russia’s globally destabilizing invasion. Neither the State Department nor the Egyptian embassy in Washington immediately responded to requests for comment Friday.

    The letters from senators and advocates to Secretary of State Antony Blinken serve as an opening round in Democratic lawmakers’ annual battle to trim aid funding as a way to pressure Sissi’s government to curb rights abuses.

    The State Department’s annual human rights report has repeatedly faulted Egypt, even as an important strategic ally in the region, for extrajudicial killings and torture, detention of thousands of writers, reporters, advocates and other political prisoners, suppression of news media and other abuses.

    The Washington Post, citing secret U.S. documents leaked online by a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, reported in April that U.S. officials had talked Egypt out of secretly providing rockets to Russia. Egypt agreed instead to provide the United States with artillery rounds for transfer for Ukraine, the Post reported, citing another leaked document.

    Congress in recent years has made the U.S. payment of roughly $300 million of U.S. military aid contingent on Egypt’s government showing progress on rights, although the State Department can partially override that, on national security grounds.

    While shared U.S.-Egyptian security objectives make it important for the U.S. to continue supporting Egypt’s military in general, the senators argued, “we can continue to support these objectives while enforcing the law to withhold $320 million in military aid to Egypt due to a lack of necessary progress on human rights.”

    Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin of Maryland, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Tom Carper of Delaware signed the letter.

    “As the administration’s decision to withhold a portion of Egypt’s $1.3 billion appropriation for each of the last two years demonstrates, the bilateral security relationship can be effectively sustained at a reduced level of assistance while upholding our values,” the senators wrote.

    The administration is expected to make a decision on the matter next month, although the legal deadline is Sept. 30.

    Egypt’s jailing and silencing of critics have drawn international condemnation and are points of friction between the North African country and the West. That includes the United States, the Egyptian military’s most generous supporter.

    Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, PEN International and other rights groups and think tanks in the other letter Friday credited the Biden administration’s financial pressure with helping persuade Egypt to free more than 1,000 political detainees. At the same time, rights advocates say, Egypt has detained nearly 5,000 others, and renewed pretrial detentions of thousands more.

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  • Brazil’s Lula visits Portugal amid Ukraine tensions with EU

    Brazil’s Lula visits Portugal amid Ukraine tensions with EU

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    LISBON — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was set to arrive in Portugal on Friday amid heightened tensions with the European Union over his position on the war in Ukraine, following statements suggesting the invaded country and the West share responsibility for the conflict.

    Lula said last weekend while traveling in the United Arab Emirates and China that both Ukraine and Russia had decided to go to war, and that the U.S. was “stimulating” the fighting. Earlier in the month, he irked Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU by suggesting that Ukraine cede Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, to end the current conflict.

    Lula also welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Brasilia on Monday. The following day, Lula condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” while promoting his proposal for a club of nations, including Brazil, to mediate a peaceful resolution to the war.

    Lula’s trip to Portugal is an opportunity to repair some of the damage to Brazil-EU relations his comments caused, said Guilherme Casarões, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university in Sao Paulo.

    “It could be an important step for Lula to show that he is really willing to adopt a position of balance or equidistance between the parties involved in the conflict, potentially allowing Brazil to play the role of mediator in the medium term,” Casarões said.

    Lula was expected to meet with Portugal’s president and prime minister this weekend and to appear at a Portugal-Brazil summit with various ministers. He is also scheduled to attend a Monday prize-giving ceremony for Brazilian musician and writer Chico Buarque.

    Lula plans to address Portugal’s parliament on Tuesday, which is the anniversary of the 1974 Carnation Revolution that ended nearly a half-century of authoritarian rule in Portugal.

    Trade will also be high on the agenda, with Lula pushing for implementation of an agreement between the European Union and the South American Mercosur bloc. It was signed in 2019 but hasn’t yet taken effect as not all EU and Mercosur member nations have ratified the agreement.

    “Through this trip to Portugal, Lula is seeking to draw closer to the European Union itself,” Casarões said. “Portugal is a Brazilian ally within the European Union and can serve as a platform for Brazil to defend its position in the context of these negotiations.”

    During the presidency of Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, France and other EU members voiced concern that the deal could increase destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Lula, for his part, has tried to show that environmental protection is a central priority of his government and promised to end illegal deforestation by 2030.

    As a result, it is unlikely that environmental concerns will be an issue for completing the deal, Casarões said.

    Brazil is a former Portuguese colony. The royal court left Lisbon in 1807 for Rio de Janeiro, which briefly became the seat of the Portuguese empire. Since Brazil won independence in 1822, the two countries have maintained close ties and are part of the Lusophone Commonwealth, officially known as the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

    Many Brazilians have moved to Portugal over the past decade amid an economic downturn and political turbulence.

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  • Trump Has Become the Thing He Never Wanted to Be

    Trump Has Become the Thing He Never Wanted to Be

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    One thing can be said for the proprietors of the MAGA Mall: They know their brand.

    The right-wing-merch retailer’s setup was among the most impressive at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference—a gargantuan display of apparel and tchotchkes meticulously curated to appeal to every segment of the Donald Trump–loving clientele. There were the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hats in “classic” red for those who prefer a timeless look, and the ULTRA MAGA 45 hats for the more trend-conscious. There were T-shirts with Trump as Superman and T-shirts with Trump as the Terminator and—because even the most patriotic T-shirt designers eventually run out of ideas—T-shirts with Trump as the Geico lizard. (You can save 40% off everything by switching to Trump.)

    Read: Republicans’ 2024 magical thinking

    When I stopped by the booth on Friday afternoon, I noticed a smattering of non-Trump-branded products in the mix and thought I’d spotted a clever angle for a story.

    “How’s the Ron DeSantis stuff selling?” I asked two people running the booth.

    “Oh, good, another one,” the woman mumbled. “You’re the third one to ask today. You media?”

    I nodded, feeling somewhat less certain of my cleverness, and sheepishly confirmed that I was a reporter. She seemed to stifle a sigh. “Not great,” she said, gesturing toward a cap that read MAKE AMERICA FLORIDA: DESANTIS 2024. “It’s about 50 to one Trump.”

    As I turned to go, I heard her add, “But, I mean, we have a lot more Trump stuff …”

    It was a perfect microcosm for CPAC’s strange vibe in 2023. Billed as the conservative movement’s marquee annual gathering, the conference was once known for its ability to draw together the right’s various factions and force them to compete noisily for supremacy. In the 1990s, Pat Buchanan rallied paleoconservative activists against the Bob Dole wing of the GOP. In the early 2010s, Tea Partiers in Revolutionary-era garb roamed the premises while scruffy libertarians hustled to win the straw poll for Ron Paul. Yes, the speakers would say controversial things, and yes, presidential candidates would give sporadically newsworthy speeches. But more than anything, it was the friction that gave the proceedings their electric, carnivalesque quality—that rare, sometimes frightening sense that anything could happen.

    This year, that friction was notably absent. Trump, who jump-started his career as a political celebrity with a speech at CPAC in 2011, has so thoroughly captured the institution that many of the GOP’s other stars didn’t even bother to show up. Everything about the conference—the speakers, the swag, the media personalities broadcasting from outside the ballroom—suggested that it was little more than a three-day MAGA pep rally.

    The result: In my decade of covering the event, I’d never seen it more dead.

    I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Eddie Scarry, a conservative writer and longtime CPAC attendee, tweeted that the conference had devolved into a parade of “peripheral figures, grifters, and aging Fox News personalities who show up like they’re rock stars. Not to mention, 80% of it remains a tribute to Trump. Who is that still fun for?” Sponsors grumbled to Rolling Stone that turnout had dropped off from past years. My colleague John Hendrickson, who attended on Saturday, wrote that the conference had a “1 a.m. at the party” vibe, and wondered if 2023 would be remembered as “the last gasp of CPAC.”

    Read: The martyr at CPAC

    The relative dearth of Republican star power this year could be attributed to the scandal surrounding CPAC’s chairman Matt Schlapp, who was recently accused of fondling a male campaign aide against his will. (Schlapp has denied the allegation.) But in an interview with NBC News, one anonymous GOP operative said that top Republicans had already come to view the conference as a chore in recent years. “Someone said to me, ‘We all wanted an excuse not to go, and Schlapp gave it to us,’” the operative said.

    The apparent decline in interest isn’t just about CPAC. It speaks to a serious problem for Trump’s 2024 campaign: His shtick has gotten stale. Which makes it awkward that so many party leaders continue to treat him like he’s still the generational political phenomenon who galvanized the right in 2016—the natural center of attention.

    Writing last year in National Review, the conservative commentator Michael Brendan Dougherty noted that Trump’s appeal in 2016 resided largely in his image as a disruptive outsider who said shocking, outlandish things. To recapture that magic, Dougherty wrote, “Trump needs to re-create the iconoclastic thrill of supporting him, the empowering sense that he is an instrument for crushing the establishment in both parties.”

    Instead, Trump has followed a different trajectory. His CPAC speech on Saturday night, like so many of his recent appearances, felt predictable and devoid of vitality as he rambled past the 90-minute mark in front of a not-quite-full ballroom. Trump, in other words, has become the establishment—and the establishment, by definition, is boring. He might as well attach an exclamation point to his campaign slogan and start asking voters to “please clap.”

    Jack Malin, a freshman at Florida Gulf Coast University, traveled to CPAC this year for the first time, with a group of college Republicans. When I asked him what he thought of Trump, Malin talked about the transgressive excitement he felt as a high-school kid following the 2016 election. Trump got him interested in politics. But Malin is not so into Trump anymore. “I would say, as much as people love him, his four years have come and gone,” Malin told me. For 2024, he likes DeSantis, the Florida governor, and so do most of his friends.

    As Malin spoke, I glanced past him at a crowd of onlookers that had formed around Donald Trump Jr., who was recording an interview with Steve Bannon. There was a time when these two men were seen—by critics and supporters alike—as dangerous provocateurs. Spellbound fans would hang on their every word; indignant journalists would live-tweet their speeches and interviews. Now their rhetoric about “deconstructing the administrative state” and “draining the swamp” just sounded like white noise. (As Trump and Bannon ranted, I watched some spectators turn their interest toward a baby and mom at the edge of the crowd.)

    Read: American Rasputin

    Nowhere was the general ennui at CPAC more palpable than in Exhibit Hall D, on the ground floor of the convention center in National Harbor, Maryland. In some ways, the scene was the same as in years past: nicely dressed conservatives perusing rows of booths set up by think tanks, lobbyists, and vendors. There were, as ever, exhibits for niche companies such as The Right Stuff, a dating app for Republicans, and Patriot Mobile, “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider” (for those tired of relying on godless liberals for Wi-Fi.) The aforementioned MAGA Mall occupied one corner of the room, competing with at least two other booths peddling Trump-branded paraphernalia. And a mock Oval Office—adorned with various photos of Trump—was available for selfies.

    But there was something perfunctory and rote about all the ostentatious Trump worship. At one booth, a group called the Conservative Caucus was showing off an oversize scroll topped with the message Thank You for Your Service President Trump! (Followed by a disclaimer in much smaller print: Not an endorsement, just a BIG thank you!)

    A friendly guy working the booth, Art Harman, told me proudly about how the scroll contained more than 100,000 signatures and ran 135 feet long when fully unfurled. Once we started talking politics, though, Trump seemed to slip from his mind. When I asked him who he thought of when he pictured the future of conservatism, he answered quickly: DeSantis.

    “He’s a more youthful guy. He’s energizing people a lot,” Harman said, going on to extol the Florida governor’s many virtues. He paused for a moment to think. “He’s kind of the only one who comes to mind offhand.”

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    McKay Coppins

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  • Classified docs probe pushes Biden think tank into spotlight

    Classified docs probe pushes Biden think tank into spotlight

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — As Joe Biden contemplated his next move in 2017 after decades in government, he considered a familiar path — creating a Washington-based think tank to focus on international affairs and diplomacy. It proved an easy sell and a lucrative one, too.

    Soft landings in the capital are common for officials with a resume like Biden’s, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was born, with a grand view of the Capitol.

    The former vice president brought with him trusted staff and boxes of files. Now, a small batch of those files is at the center of controversy because some were classified documents that Biden had no right to retain.

    The gloss of Ivy League academia and high-minded ambitions has been dulled by this month’s disclosure that the sensitive documents were found last fall in a locked closet as Biden lawyers were packing up his former office at the center. That discovery is posing a test for Biden just as he is contemplating a 2024 reelection campaign.

    It turns out politics have been part of the equation all along.

    In an early meeting at the center in February 2018, Biden told longtime foreign policy aides — many of them from the Obama-Biden administration — that he was keeping his options open for a potential presidential campaign in 2020 and that he would welcome them joining his team if he decided to run.

    Sure enough, after hosting a handful of forums at the center and speaking a few times on the University of Pennsylvania’s main campus, Biden announced his candidacy in April 2019. And after that he was rarely at the Capitol Hill center, which has continued to function quietly since its namesake leader moved on.

    Its relatively low profile is now history.

    Congressional Republicans are asking questions about the center’s budget and hiring practices and the FBI may want to search the premises for more documents, as it did Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Affiliated with the Philadelphia school, the Penn Biden Center says it was founded on the principle that “a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and interconnected world benefits all Americans.”

    According to Biden’s tax returns, the university paid him roughly $900,000 over about two years, starting just after he left office when Donald Trump and Mike Pence took over the White House. In addition to the center, Biden also held roles at the school where he would speak on campus.

    While the center’s staff continued to conduct research, serve as experts for the media and write columns on foreign policy after Biden’s departure, there is no new work listed on the center’s website for the past 10 or so months.

    Elliott Abrams, who has held foreign policy positions for presidents in the Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump administrations, said it has not developed as an influential think tank.

    “It started as a parking space for Biden people until he ran for president, and never really outgrew that start,” Abrams said.

    Plenty of current Biden allies at the White House cycled through the think tank, according to public records and the Penn Biden Center website.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the center’s managing director from May 2017 through June 2019. Michael Carpenter had the managing director’s role before he was named U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

    Other center employees included Steve Ricchetti, now a senior counselor to Biden. There are at least seven other Biden staffers who were at the center and are now involved in national security matters in the administration.

    Even Amy Gutmann, the university’s president at the time who helped launch the center, now works for him. She’s the U.S. ambassador to Germany.

    Biden himself has a long history with the Ivy League school; his late son Beau, daughter Ashley, and granddaughter Naomi are all graduates. Biden received an honorary degree from Penn in 2013 after he gave the commencement address.

    Biden frequently worked out of the center on Constitution Avenue as he quietly planned his presidential run, according to his aides, but he did not spend time there after he announced his candidacy. His lawyers had finally gotten around to clearing out the office when they came across the classified documents last November.

    Biden told reporters he was surprised to learn the documents were there. The records were immediately turned over to the Justice Department, but the discovery of records there and at Biden’s home has led to an investigation by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

    Trump, too, faces a special counsel inquiry related to classified documents. In his case, FBI agents executed a warrant that showed they were investigating possible crimes including the willful retention of national defense information and efforts to obstruct the federal probe. Biden voluntarily allowed the FBI search of his home.

    Former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of classified documents.

    Still, the existence of the documents at the Penn Biden Center has trained unwanted criticism on the think tank, particularly by House Republicans investigating the mishandling of classified materials. They have requested a list of all center employees, including dates of employment and salaries, visitor logs and documents and communications related to security.

    A conservative legal group led by former Trump advisers has complained to the IRS about the center’s hiring of Biden and his allies.

    The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has suggested that some of the tens of millions of dollars in foreign gifts to the university from patrons in China went to the Penn Biden Center.

    Donors from Ireland, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Japan and Brazil also contributed to the university in recent years, though the House has focused on donations from China.

    A statement from university said the school would address the committee’s questions in a timely way, but that it has never solicited gifts for the center. There were three unsolicited gifts from two donors that totaled $1,100.

    The budget for the center comes solely from university funds. The total academic operating budget for the university is roughly $4 billion. Penn Biden Center officials did not say how much of that goes to center operations.

    “It is important to reiterate that the Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” according to the statement from the Penn Biden Center.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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  • China security forces are well-prepared for quashing dissent

    China security forces are well-prepared for quashing dissent

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    BEIJING — When it comes to ensuring the security of their regime, China’s Communist Party rulers don’t skimp.

    The extent of that lavish spending was put on display when the boldest street protests in decades broke out in Beijing and other cities, driven by anger over rigid and seemingly unending restrictions to combat COVID-19.

    The government has been preparing for such challenges for decades, installing the machinery needed to quash large-scale upheavals.

    After an initially muted response, with security personnel using pepper spray and tear gas, police and paramilitary troops flooded city streets with jeeps, vans and armored cars in a massive show of force.

    The officers fanned out, checking IDs and searching cellphones for photos, messages or banned apps that might show involvement in or even just sympathy for the protests.

    An unknown number of people were detained and it’s unclear if any will face charges. Most protesters focused their anger on the “zero-COVID” policy that seeks to eradicate the virus through sweeping lockdowns, travel restrictions and relentless testing. But some called for the party and its leader Xi Jinping to step down, speech the party considers subversive and punishable by years in prison.

    While much smaller in scale, the protests were the most significant since the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that the regime still views as its greatest existential crisis. With leaders and protesters at an impasse, the People’s Liberation Army crushed the demonstrations with tanks and troops, killing hundreds, possibly thousands.

    After the Tiananmen crackdown, the party invested in the means to deal with unrest without resorting immediately to using deadly force.

    During a wave of dissent by unemployed workers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the authorities tested that approach, focusing on preventing organizers in different cities from linking up and arresting the leaders while letting rank-and-file protesters go largely untouched.

    At times, they’ve been caught by surprise. In 1999, members of the Falun Gong meditation sect, whose membership came to rival the party’s in size, surrounded the leadership compound in Beijing in a show of defiance that then-leader Jiang Zemin took as a personal affront.

    A harsh crackdown followed. Leaders were given heavy prison sentences and members were subject to harassment and sometimes sent to re-education centers.

    The government responded with overwhelming force in 2008, when anti-government riots broke out in Tibet’s capital Lhasa and unrest swept through Tibetan regions in western China, authorities responded with overwhelming force.

    The next year, a police crackdown on protests by members of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the capital of the northwestern Xinjiang region, Urumqi, led to bloody clashes in which at least 197 were killed, mostly Han Chinese civilians.

    In both cases, forces fired into crowds, searched door-to-door and seized an unknown number of suspects who were either sentenced to heavy terms or simply not heard from again. Millions of people were interned in camps, placed under surveillance and forbidden from traveling.

    China has been able to muster such resources thanks to a massive internal security budget that reportedly has tripled over the past decade, surpassing that for national defense. Xinjiang alone saw a ten-fold increase in domestic security spending during the early 2000s, according to Western estimates.

    The published figure for internal security exceeded the defense budget for the first time in 2010. By 2013, China stopped providing a breakdown. The U.S. think tank Jamestown Foundation estimated that internal security spending had already reached 113% of defense spending by 2016. Annual increases were about double those for national defense in percentage terms and both grew much faster than the economy.

    There’s a less visible but equally intimidating, sprawling system in place to monitor online content for anti-government messages, unapproved news and images. Government censors work furiously to erase such items, while propaganda teams flood the net with pro-party messages.

    Behind the repression is a legal system tailor-made to serve the one-party state. China is a nation ruled by law rather than governed by the rule of law. Laws are sufficiently malleable to put anyone targeted by the authorities behind bars on any number of vague charges.

    Those range from simply “spreading rumors online,” tracked through postings on social media, to the all-encompassing “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” punishable by up to five years in prison.

    Charges of “subverting state power” or “incitement to subvert state power” are often used, requiring little proof other than evidence the accused expressed a critical attitude toward the party-state. Those accused are usually denied the right to hire their own lawyers. Cases can take years to come to trial and almost always result in convictions.

    In a further disincentive to rebel, people released from prison often face years of monitoring and harassment that can ruin careers and destroy families.

    The massive spending and sprawling internal security network leaves China well prepared to crackdown on dissent. It also suggests “China’s internal situation is far less stable than the leadership would like the world to believe,” China politics expert Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation wrote on the Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank’s website.

    It’s unclear how sustainable it is, he said. “This could have the effect of either changing Chinese priorities or creating greater tensions among them.”

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  • Conservative PACs inject millions into local school races

    Conservative PACs inject millions into local school races

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    As Republicans and Democrats fight for control of Congress this fall, a growing collection of conservative political action groups is targeting its efforts closer to home: at local school boards.

    Their aim is to gain control of more school systems and push back against what they see as a liberal tide in public education classrooms, libraries, sports fields, even building plans.

    Once seen as sleepy affairs with little interest outside their communities, school board elections started to heat up last year as parents aired frustrations with pandemic policies. As those issues fade, right-leaning groups are spending millions on candidates who promise to scale back teachings on race and sexuality, remove offending books from libraries and nix plans for gender-neutral bathrooms or transgender-inclusive sports teams.

    Democrats have countered with their own campaigns portraying Republicans as extremists who want to ban books and rewrite history.

    At the center of the conservative effort is the 1776 Project PAC, which formed last year to push back against the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which provides free lesson plans that center U.S. history around slavery and its lasting impacts. Last fall and this spring, the 1776 group succeeded in elevating conservative majorities to office in dozens of school districts across the U.S., propelling candidates who have gone on to fire superintendents and enact sweeping “bills of rights” for parents.

    In the wake of recent victories in Texas and Pennsylvania — and having spent $2 million between April 2021 and this August, according to campaign finance filings — the group is campaigning for dozens of candidates this fall. It’s supporting candidates in Maryland’s Frederick and Carroll counties, in Bentonville, Arkansas, and 20 candidates across southern Michigan.

    Its candidates have won not only in deeply red locales but also in districts near liberal strongholds, including Philadelphia and Minneapolis. And after this November, the group hopes to expand further.

    “Places we’re not supposed to typically win, we’ve won in,” said Ryan Girdusky, founder of the group. “I think we can do it again.”

    In Florida, recent school board races saw an influx of attention — and money — from conservative groups, including some that had never gotten involved in school races.

    The American Principles Project, a Washington think tank, put a combined $25,000 behind four candidates for the Polk County board. The group made its first foray into school boards at the behest of local activists, its leader said, and it’s weighing whether to continue elsewhere. The group’s fundraising average surged from under $50,000 the year before the pandemic to about $2 million now.

    “We lean heavily into retaking federal power,” said Terry Schilling, the think tank’s president. “But if you don’t also take over the local school boards, you’re not going to have local allies there to actually reverse the policies that these guys have been implementing.”

    In a move never before seen in the state, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed a slate of school board candidates, putting his weight behind conservatives who share his opposition to lessons on sexuality and what he deems critical race theory. Most of the DeSantis-backed candidates won in their August races, in some cases replacing conservative members who had more moderate views than the firebrand governor.

    The movement claims to be an opposing force to left-leaning teachers unions. They see the unions as a well-funded enemy that promotes radical classroom lessons on race and sexuality — a favorite smear is to call the unions “groomers.” The unions, which also support candidates, have called it a fiction meant to stoke distrust in public schools.

    In Maryland’s Frederick County, the 1776 group is backing three school board candidates against four endorsed by education unions. The conservatives are running as the “Education Not Indoctrination” slate, with a digital ad saying children are being “held captive” by schools. The ad shows a picture of stacked books bearing the words “equity,” “grooming,” “indoctrination” and “critical race theory.”

    Karen Yoho, a board member running for re-election, said outside figures have stoked fears about critical race theory and other lessons that aren’t taught in Frederick County.

    The discourse has mostly stayed civil in her area, but Yoho takes exception to the accusation that teachers are “grooming” children.

    “I find it disgusting,” said Yoho, a retired teacher whose children went through the district. “It makes my heart hurt. And then I kind of get mad and I get defensive.”

    In Texas, Patriot Mobile — a wireless company that promotes conservative causes — has emerged as a political force in school board races. Earlier this year, its political arm spent more than $400,000 out of $800,000 raised to boost candidates in a handful of races in the northern Texas county where the company is based. All of its favored candidates won, putting conservatives in control of four districts.

    The group did not respond to requests for comment, but a statement released after the spring victories said Texas was “just the beginning.”

    Some GOP strategists have cautioned against the focus on education, saying it could backfire with more moderate voters. Results so far have been mixed — the 1776 Project claims a 70% win rate, but conservative candidates in some areas have fallen flat in recent elections.

    Still, the number of groups that have banded together under the umbrella of parental rights seems only to be growing. It includes national organizations such as Moms for Liberty, along with smaller grassroots groups.

    “There is a very stiff resistance to the concerted and intentional effort to make radical ideas about race and gender part of the school day. Parents don’t like it,” said Jonathan Butcher, an education fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

    The foundation and its political wing have been hosting training sessions encouraging parents to run for school boards, teaching them the basics about budgeting but also about the perceived dangers of what the group deems critical race theory.

    For decades, education was seen as its “own little game” that was buffered from national politics, said Jeffrey Henig, a political science and education professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has written about outside funding in school board elections. Now, he said, local races are becoming battlegrounds for broader debates.

    He said education is unlikely to be a decisive issue in the November election — it’s overshadowed by abortion and the economy — but it can still be wielded to “amplify local discontent” and push more voters to the polls.

    Republicans are using the tactic this fall as they look to unseat Democrats at all levels of government.

    In Michigan, the American Principles Project is paying for TV ads against the Democratic governor where a narrator reads sexually explicit passages from the graphic novel “Gender Queer.” It claims that “this is the kind of literature that Gretchen Whitmer wants your kids exposed to,” while giant red letters appear saying “stop grooming our kids.”

    Similar TV ads are being aired in Arizona to attack Sen. Mark Kelly, and in Maine against Gov. Janet Mills, both Democrats.

    ———

    The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Jimmy Carter celebrating 98 with family, friends, baseball

    Jimmy Carter celebrating 98 with family, friends, baseball

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    ATLANTA — Jimmy Carter, already the longest-living U.S. president in history, turned 98 on Saturday, celebrating with family and friends in Plains, the tiny Georgia town where he and his wife, 95-year-old Rosalynn, were born in the years between World War I and the Great Depression.

    His latest milestone came as The Carter Center, which the 39th president and the former first lady established after their one White House term, marked 40 years of promoting democracy and conflict resolution, monitoring elections, and advancing public health in the developing world.

    Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson now leading the Carter Center board, described his grandfather, an outspoken Christian, as content with his life and legacy.

    “He is looking at his 98th birthday with faith in God’s plan for him,” the younger Carter, 47, said, “and that’s just a beautiful blessing for all of us to know, personally, that he is at peace and happy with where he has been and where he’s going.”

    Carter Center leaders said the former president, who survived a cancer diagnosis in 2015 and a serious fall at home in 2019, was enjoying reading congratulatory messages sent by well-wishers around the world via social media and the center’s website even before the actual birthday. But Jason Carter said his grandfather mostly looked forward to a simple day that included watching his favorite Major League Baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, on television.

    “He’s still 100% with it, even though daily life things are a lot harder now,” Jason Carter said. “But one thing I guarantee. He will watch all the Braves games this weekend.”

    James Earl Carter Jr. won the 1976 presidential election after beginning the campaign as a little-known, one-term Georgia governor. His surprise performance in the Iowa caucuses established the small, Midwestern state as an epicenter of presidential politics. Carter went on to defeat President Gerald Ford in the general election, largely on the strength of sweeping the South before his native region shifted heavily to Republicans.

    A Naval Academy alumnus, Navy officer and peanut farmer, Carter won in no small part because of his promise never to lie to an electorate weary over the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency in 1974. Four years later, unable to tame inflation and salve voter anger over American hostages held in Iran, Carter lost 44 states to Ronald Reagan. He returned home to Georgia in 1981 at the age of 56.

    The former first couple almost immediately began planning The Carter Center. It opened in Atlanta in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind effort for a former president. The stated mission: to advance peace, human rights and public health causes around the world. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He traveled internationally into his 80s and 90s, and he did not retire officially from the board until 2020.

    Since opening, the center has monitored elections in 113 countries, said CEO Paige Alexander, and Carter has acted individually as a mediator in many countries, as well. Carter Center efforts have nearly eradicated the guinea worm, a parasite spread through unclean drinking water and painful to humans. Rosalynn Carter has steered programs designed to reduce stigma attached to mental health conditions.

    “He’s enjoying his retirement,” said Alexander, who assumed her role in 2020, about the time Jason Carter took over for his grandfather. But “he spends a lot of time thinking about the projects that he started and the projects that we’re continuing.”

    Alexander cited the guinea worm eradication effort as a highlight. Carter set the goal in 1986, when there were about 3.5 million cases annually across 21 countries, with a concentration in sub-Saharan Africa. So far this year, Alexander said, there are six known cases in two countries.

    In 2019, Carter used his final annual message at the center to lament that his post-presidency had been largely silent on climate change. Jason Carter said the center’s leadership is still exploring ways to combat the climate crisis. But he offered no timetable. “We won’t duplicate other effective efforts,” Carter said, explaining that one of the center’s strategic principles is to prioritize causes and places that no other advocacy organizations have engaged.

    On elections and democracy, perhaps the most unpredictable development is that Jimmy Carter has lived to see the center turn its efforts to the home front. The center now has programs to combat mistrust in the democratic process in the United States. Carter Center personnel monitored Georgia’s recount of U.S. presidential ballots in the state in 2020 after then-President Donald Trump argued the outcome was rigged. Multiple recounts in Georgia and other states affirmed the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory.

    “Certainly, we never thought we would end up coming home to do democracy and conflict resolution around our elections,” Jason Carter said. “(But) we couldn’t go be this incredible democracy and human rights organization overseas without ensuring that we were adding our voice and our expertise … in the U.S.”

    Ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, the center has asked candidates — regardless of party — to sign onto a set of fair election principles, including committing to the peaceful transfer of power. Among those who have signed commitments: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams.

    Carter himself has mostly retreated from politics. For years after his 1980 defeat, Democrats steered clear of him. He enjoyed a resurgence in recent election cycles, drawing visits from several 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls and, in 2021, from President Joe Biden, who in 1976 was the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter’s presidential bid. With inflation now at its highest levels since the late 1970s and early 1980s, some Republicans are bringing up Carter again as an attack line on Biden and Democrats.

    Jason Carter said the former president reads and watches the news daily, and sometimes accepts calls or visits from political figures. But, he added, the former president isn’t expected to appear publicly to endorse any candidates ahead of November.

    “His people that he feels sort of the closest connection with now are the folks in Plains, at his church and other places,” Jason Carter said. “But, you know, his partner No. 1, 2 and 3 is my grandma, right? He has outlived friends and so many of his advisers and the people that he accomplished so much with in the past, but they’ve never been lonely because they’ve always had each other.”

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    Online: https://bit.ly/Happy98PresidentCarter

    ———

    Associated Press journalist Alex Sanz contributed to this report.

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