Today’s Lineup
The U.S. Senate should have skipped this year’s August recess State Work Period, facial recognition technology leads to false arrests, Christians against the Sermon on the Mount, Republicans working to ban birth control, Vice President Harris’ comeback, the most influential people in Sacramento, and efforts to improve forensic laboratories.
#1
3 military branches without Senate-confirmed leaders for first time in history, Defense Secretary says (Eleanor Watson, CBS News)
The Navy on Monday joined the Army and Marine Corps in operating without Senate-confirmed military leaders because of Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on top military nominations.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday in a ceremony Monday morning relinquished his office as required by statute, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti took over in an acting capacity.
It’s the first time in the history of the Defense Department that three military services are without Senate-confirmed leaders, according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“This is unprecedented. It is unnecessary and it is unsafe. And this sweeping hold is undermining America’s military readiness,” Austin said in remarks at Monday’s ceremony.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama, even though he potentially doesn’t live there anymore) has placed a hold on all military nominations this year. He’s protesting a Pentagon policy that grants military members leave and travel cost reimbursements when they need to go to a different state to seek reproductive health care. The Senate traditionally handles confirming these nominations in bulk to save time, but that process requires the unanimous consent of all 100 Senators. Tuberville has been refusing to go along with this Senate norm. The delay negatively impacts military readiness and harms service members and their families, who cannot plan for their futures. Tuberville, however, cannot stop the Senate from going through the process of considering each nomination individually. After an inquiry from Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the Congressional Research Service estimated it would take 668 hours to confirm all these military nominations currently in the queue. (This CRS report explains the process required to overcome a hold.) So I’d like to know why the Senate is now on a five-week recess, I mean, State Work Period? Why didn’t the Democratic majority cancel this break to stay in session 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to address this backlog? It would have forced Tuberville and his Republican enablers to pay a price for this obstruction. It would give reporters a reason to cover this story every day. Would Republicans still be seen as the party of the military when it became clear that Tuberville didn’t care if anyone got a promotion (as he said yesterday)? Politics sometimes requires theatrics. The current Democratic leadership missed an opportunity to make an important political point and help military families get on with their lives.
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#2
Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match (Kashmir Hill, The New York Times)
Porcha Woodruff was getting her two daughters ready for school when six police officers showed up at her door in Detroit. They asked her to step outside because she was under arrest for robbery and carjacking.
“Are you kidding?” she recalled saying to the officers. Ms. Woodruff, 32, said she gestured at her stomach to indicate how ill-equipped she was to commit such a crime: She was eight months pregnant.
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After being charged in court with robbery and carjacking, Ms. Woodruff was released that evening on a $100,000 personal bond. In an interview, she said she went straight to the hospital where she was diagnosed with dehydration and given two bags of intravenous fluids. A month later, the Wayne County prosecutor dismissed the case against her.
The ordeal started with an automated facial recognition search, according to an investigator’s report from the Detroit Police Department. Ms. Woodruff is the sixth person to report being falsely accused of a crime as a result of facial recognition technology used by police to match an unknown offender’s face to a photo in a database. All six people have been Black; Ms. Woodruff is the first woman to report it happening to her.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Why do we accept that prosecutors and police can use technology with demonstrated failure rates to arrest the wrong people? This is just the latest case where a facial technology vendor’s software made a false positive—and the police acted even though the person they were seeking could not have been the pregnant person they arrested. In this case, the prosecutor continues to defend the wrongful arrest warrant issued to Woodruff. We also should consider how faulty facial recognition technology can combine with flawed eyewitness processes to result in false arrests and convictions. (The California Innocence Project explains how eyewitness testimony can identify innocent people in this article.) Wrongful arrests and accusations take a toll on the people and families they impact, so we should demand better from our police and prosecutors.
#3
He was a top church official who criticized Trump. He says Christianity is in crisis (Scott Detrow, Gabriel J. Sánchez, Sarah Handel, National Public Radio)
[Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell] Moore spoke to All Things Considered’s Scott Detrow about what he thinks the path forward is for evangelicalism in America.
On why he thinks Christianity is in crisis:
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Can one still be a Christian if they reject one of the core teachings of Jesus? Shouldn’t that require some reflection on the part of the religion’s leaders? Are evangelicals followers of Christ or radical conservative activists abusing a tax exemption? Moore has been raising these issues since his shock resignation as a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention in 2020. Is it surprising that people who see Jesus as subversive would continue to support Donald Trump despite everything? Should we be surprised that members of a group rejecting the Sermon on the Mount’s message would resort to violence and murder to achieve its political ends?
#4
The GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control (Part I) (Jessica Valenti, Abortion Every Day)
One of the primary ways Republicans think that they’ll get away with banning birth control is by lying about what birth control actually is. Specifically, they’re trying to redefine common types of contraception—like hormonal birth control and IUDs—as ‘abortifacients’.
Redefining birth control as abortion not only makes it easier for lawmakers to prohibit contraception, it also gives them semantic cover: Conservatives never have to admit that they’re trying to ban birth control; they just claim they’re opposing abortion.
Students for Life, for example, one of the country’s most powerful anti-abortion groups, classifies IUDs, emergency contraception and every single kind of hormonal birth control—from the pill to patches—as ‘abortifacients’. The only forms of birth control they believe aren’t abortions are sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
For years pundits and supposedly moderate elected officials claimed that feminists and abortion rights supporters were exaggerating when they warned people about efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yet they were sadly correct. So I hope we will take their warnings about ongoing efforts to restrict and ban contraception seriously. Jessica Valenti has been writing about Republican efforts to ban abortion and contraception since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in Abortion, Every Day. She exposes what forced birth advocates are trying to do around the country. We must not get caught by surprise again.
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#5
With passionate case against MAGA, Harris comes into her own (Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post)
Vice President Harris has taken her share of lumps over the past 2½ years. No doubt, her gender and race increased scrutiny and raised the level of vitriol coming from right-wing media. Some of her difficulties reflected the challenges any vice president faces: namely, to be simultaneously impressive and invisible. Some of her difficulties can be attributed to her eagerness to take on thankless tasks (e.g., stemming the tide of migrants from Central America).
Her relatively short time on the national stage — in contrast to the president’s long political career — raised the question of where she would add value. But with time and increased confidence, she has more than demonstrated her worth and played a key role for the administration.
Even the hypercritical mainstream media has taken notice. “Kamala D. Harris Takes on a Forceful New Role in the 2024 Campaign,” the New York Times told us. Time magazine declared, “Kamala D. Harris Subtly Emerges as Powerful White House Asset,” and, recently, “Joe Biden Finally Gets It: Kamala D. Harris Is the Key to 2024.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The Biden-Harris team may have finally figured out how to put the Vice President into situations where she can do well. Given President Biden’s age, it is inevitable that Republicans and pundits would attack her as they question the president’s fitness for office. Until recently, I fear the White House was helping her critics by putting Harris into situations where she had little chance of succeeding. Things have changed over the past few months. As Rubin notes, Harris has been particularly effective in making the case against MAGA politicians and defending our democracy. She has also led in championing abortion and reproductive health care after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The latter is essential given how uncomfortable (and therefore ineffective) President Biden is when discussing abortion rights.
#6
The Top 100 Turns 15 (Rich Ehisen, Capitol Weekly)
And with that thought in mind, welcome to the 15th edition of the Capitol Weekly Top 100 list.
Each Top 100 has its own unique challenges, and putting together this year’s list was no different. Because, let’s be real: this is a completely subjective process. There is no way we or anybody else can definitively say who the most influential hundred people are in the Capitol community. There is no quantitative way to make that judgement. Maybe we’re fools to even try, but color us foolish, because after all these years we’re still at it.
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The result is a list we’re pretty happy with, though I know others might not be. I’m okay with that, because in addition to building a list that reasonably reflects a snapshot of the Capitol’s power dynamic at this point in time, I wanted to start an evolution in how we approach this project and to spark a healthy discussion about what it might look like in the future.
The foundation of that evolution has been developing for a while now. In recent years, the list has gradually become more diverse and dynamic, much like California itself. More than anything, we wanted this year’s effort to build on that foundation.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The Capitol Weekly’s annual list of the most influential people in Sacramento is always interesting to review to get a snapshot of what’s happening in California public policy and politics. It’s also an efficient way to learn about the people behind the scenes who have an impact on what happens here. I applaud the choice to add a focus on the chiefs of staff, policy experts, and consultants who may not get quoted in news stories but have a tremendous amount of influence on what policies make it—or die—in the legislature. This year’s list is also majority female for the first time. Everyone will have a different list, but this one is a great way to start the conversation.
#7
A Q&A with the visionary “nerd” who’s trying to make expert testimony more reliable (Radley Balko, The Watch)
Peter Stout runs the best crime lab in the country — or at least the most scientific one. After scandals rocked the Houston Police Department crime lab throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the city created a new lab that would be independently funded, would report to its own board (as opposed to, say, police or prosecutors), and would operate on a commitment to accuracy and scientific principles. Stout was brought on to head up the new project — called the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) in 2015. In the years since, he has emerged as a pioneer of forensics reform.
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Stout is wonky. He has a corny, disarming sense of humor, and he wears his nerdiness like a science fair ribbon. His most important innovation — or at least the reform for which he’s best known — is implementing blind testing into the day-to-day routines of the analysts he oversees. While many crime labs and forensic disciplines have been resistant to rigorous proficiency testing, Stout not only embraces the idea, he’s revolutionizing it.
Most proficiency tests are given outside the lab. This means the analysts are aware they’re being tested. We know that people tend to change their behavior when they know they’re being evaluated. External tests also lack the pressure analysts often feel to plow through casework quickly, or the subtle, often subconscious bias that can prod them to produce results favorable to the party that ordered the analysis. In state labs, this is almost always police or prosecutors. All of this means that even the most well-designed proficiency tests probably aren’t all that accurate a measure of how crime lab analysts perform day to day.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Faulty forensic methods have been responsible for many wrongful convictions around the country. Balko’s interview with Peter Stout highlights a significant effort to demonstrate how systems reform and better scientific methods can prevent such mistakes. Making sure these labs deliver accurate results should be a national priority. The goal should be accuracy—not to help the prosecution get a conviction.
The Closer
Now this is a bat!
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“With contraception, legislators will start the same way they did with abortion: Banning certain types of care, passing parental consent laws, and stripping public funding so that patients on Medicaid lose access to the most effective contraceptives. And why shouldn’t they? It’s worked for them before.” (Christina Cauterucci)
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