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Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- Korea Herald
Asan Institute pays tribute to Heritage Foundation founder Edwin Feulner
The Asan Institute for Policy Studies has expressed deep condolences over the passing of Edwin J. Feulner, founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation, who died Friday at the age of 83. Feulner co-founded The Heritage Foundation in 1973 and served as its president for 37 years, transforming it from a small research center into a powerful force in conservative politics, expressing values such as free markets, limited government and strong national defense. The Asan Institute noted that during the Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), Feulner's leadership helped shape the conservative policy agenda, earning him the Presidential Citizens Medal in 1989. He later advised Donald Trump's 2016 transition team and supported the creation of the highly controversial 'Project 2025,' which is widely credited in the US as the playbook to consolidate power in the office of the president and reshape the country with right-wing policies. Feulner was remembered by the Seoul institute as a leading expert on Asia and a lifelong friend to South Korea, having visited the country over 200 times and having forged close relationships with leaders across politics and business here. In 2002, Feulner was awarded the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit by President Kim Dae-jung for his contributions to the US-Korea alliance. 'He will be deeply missed,' the institute said. 'His vision and principles remain at the heart of our shared mission.'
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Urban League declares a ‘state of emergency' for civil rights in the US in response to Trump
Report critiques racism entering 'mainstream' of American politics The report, to be released Thursday at the group's conference in Cleveland, Ohio, criticizes the administration for downsizing federal agencies and programs that enforce civil rights policies. The authors aimed to highlight what they saw as a multiyear, coordinated effort by conservative legal activists, lawmakers and media personalities to undermine civil rights policy and create a political landscape that would enable a hard-right agenda on a range of social and economic policy. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It is not random. It is a well-funded, well-organized, well-orchestrated movement of many, many years,' said Marc Morial, president of the Urban League. 'For a long time, people saw white supremacist politics and white nationalism as on the fringe of American politics. It has now become the mainstream of the American right, whose central foundation is within the Republican Party.' Advertisement The report directly critiques Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint for conservative governance coordinated by The Heritage Foundation think tank. Project 2025 advised approaches to federal worker layoffs, immigration enforcement and the congressional and legislative branches similar to the Trump administration's current strategy. Advertisement The Urban League report condemns major corporations, universities and top law firms for reversing diversity, equity and inclusion policies. It also criticizes social media companies like Meta and X for purported 'censorship' of Black activists and creatives and content moderation policies that allegedly enabled 'extremists' to spread 'radicalizing' views. Debates over civil rights enter the center of the political fray The Trump administration has said many policies implemented by both Democratic and Republican administrations are discriminatory and unconstitutional, arguing that acknowledgments of race and federal and corporate policies that seek to address disparities between different demographics are themselves discriminatory. Trump has signed executive orders banning 'illegal discrimination' and promoting 'merit based opportunity.' Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said civil rights groups that oppose the administration 'aren't advancing anything but hate and division, while the president is focused on uniting our country.' The report, meanwhile, calls for the creation of a 'new resistance' to counter the administration's agenda. Morial urged other organizations to rally to that cause. The Urban League and other civil rights groups have repeatedly sued the Trump administration since January. Liberal legal groups and Democratic lawmakers similarly sued over parts of the administration's agenda. Veteran civil rights activists, Black civic leaders, former federal officials, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and seven members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, contributed to the text. Raoul said that civil rights allies have felt 'on the defense' in recent years but that now 'it's time to act affirmatively.' For instance, if rollbacks of DEI policies result in discrimination against women or people of color legal action could follow, he warned. Advertisement 'It all depends on how they do it. We're going to be watching,' he said. 'And just because the Trump administration doesn't believe in disparate impact anymore doesn't mean the rest of the universe must believe that.' The report criticizes the Trump administration's efforts to shutter the Education Department, and denounces changes to programs meant to support communities of color at the departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development, among others. The transformation of the Justice Department'scivil rights division was singled out as 'an existential threat to civil rights enforcement.' The Justice Department pointed to its published civil rights policy and a social media post from its civil rights arm that reads the division 'has returned to enforcing the law as written: fairly, equally, and without political agenda.' Nevada Rep. Steve Horsford, a contributor to the report, said Trump 'betrayed the American people' in enacting plans he said were similar to Project 2025. Lawmakers reflect on the long fight for civil rights Another contributor, Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said civil rights advocates and their Democratic allies must do more to communicate with and educate people. 'When you have an administration that's willing to take civil rights gains and call it reverse racism, then there's a lot of work to be done to unpack that for folks,' the New York Democrat said. 'I think once people understand their connection to civil rights gains, then we will be in a position to build that momentum.' The Urban League originally planned to focus its report on the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for the law's 60th anniversary but pivoted after Trump returned to office to focus on 'unpacking the threats to our democracy' and steps civil rights advocates are taking to pull the country back from 'the brink of a dangerous tilt towards authoritarianism.' Advertisement For many veteran civil rights activists, the administration's changes are condemnable but not surprising. Some lawmakers see it as a duty to continue the long struggle for civil rights. 'I think it's all part of the same struggle,' said Rep. Shomari Figures, an Alabama Democrat who contributed to the report and whose father was successfully brought a wrongful-death suit against a branch of the Ku Klux Klan. 'At the end of the day, that struggle boils down to: Can I be treated like everybody else in this country?'
Miami Herald
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Miami Republicans are feigning disbelief after supporting Trump's immigration policies
Predictable outcome In the June 7 online Miami Herald story, ''Inhumane:' Latinas for Trump founder condemns White House immigration crackdown,' State Sen. Ileana Garcia said, 'This is not what we voted for.' She and her Republican colleagues, U.S. Reps. Maria Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart, can feign disbelief that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was rescinded and cruel deportation measures implemented against law-abiding people, but this is exactly what Garcia and others voted for. They knew Trump's plan and didn't care. These politicians played a dangerous game for their political gain. They bet Trump wouldn't follow through on an unconstitutional plan against immigrants — and they lost. They ignored glaring evidence that 'Trump 2.0' didn't want any 'brown' immigrants in our country. Trump also repeatedly maligned legal immigrants, saying they were 'poisoning the blood of our country' and 'eating pets' in Springfield, Ohio. Furthermore, The Heritage Foundation's 'Project 2025' initiative states as an objective: 'withdraw Biden Administration regulations…Repeal TPS designations.' No matter whether Garcia and others allowed immigrants to be thrown under the bus by political calculation or stupidity, they are too incompetent to do their jobs. They should be ashamed, as they share the same or similar immigrant stories as those deported and detained without due process. Vote them out. Kristin Battista-Frazee, Big Pine Key Even-year election Miami's voter turnout is notoriously low, as the Miami Herald has often indicated. However, there's mounting evidence that voter turnout in municipal elections is higher in even-numbered years. The city should move elections to even-numbered years because it has an obligation to make it easier, not harder, for voters to show up and pay attention. Greater voter participation helps reduce corruption by forcing elected officials to appeal to a larger number of constituents (instead of their voter base). However, a new proposal pushes the 2025 city elections to 2026 to accommodate for this change, effectively giving current officials an extra year on their terms. This action is unnecessary. Even-year elections can be implemented simply by having officials elected in 2025 (who would be up for re-election in 2029) serve a three-year term ending in 2028. While officials scheduled to run and/or get elected in 2027 (who would be up for re-election in 2031) serve a three-year term ending in 2030. Reducing terms temporarily to three years is better than a five-year term. As a candidate for city office in 2025, I am fine with having a three-year term to make this critical change for the greater good. Rob Piper, Miami To be or not to be The Historic Coconut Grove Playhouse is a publicly-owned, civic-zoned property intended for cultural and community use. Miami-Dade County plans to replace the Playhouse with a tiny 300-seat theater, surrounded by more than 52,000 square feet of offices, restaurants and retail spilling directly into Historic West Coconut Grove / Little Bahamas. The people of Miami are tired of politicians handing over our public assets to commercial developers. Miami City Commissioner Damian Pardo and County Commissioner Raquel Regalado should recognize this and address the community's valid concerns. Anthony Vinciguerra, Miami Boating tragedy Re: the June 8 story, 'FWC chair and Miami-Dade state attorney texted about Pino boat crash.' Rodney Barreto should be removed as chairman of Florida Fish and Wildlife, along with the FWC officers who were at the scene and did not follow procedures. The FWC's handling of that horrible boat crash in September 2022 is inexcusable. George Pino, the vessel's operator, was at first minimally charged (a misdemeanor), although two passengers were seriously injured. One died the next day and the other still is re-learning how to walk. Pino should have received a sobriety check immediately. I have been boating on Biscayne Bay for at least 65 years and I am very familiar with Cutter Bank, where the crash took place. As he headed south, Pino should have been on the starboard side of the channel, clearly marked with red markers. He hit a green marker, which is used for boats heading north; that's like driving north in the south bound lane of I-95. Further, the statement that 61 containers of alcohol found on board were given to Pino by other boaters is not credible. Jack Dresner, Miami American smugglers Based on limited information at this writing, it appears Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man deported to an El Salvador prison without due process, has now been returned to the U.S. to face 'smuggling' charges for transporting immigrants — across state lines — from Texas to Tennessee. Isn't that what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did in busing migrants from Texas to northern cities? Isn't that what our Gov. Ron DeSantis did in flying immigrants from Florida to Massachusetts? And all at taxpayer expense, no less? Who are the criminals? Richard Masington, Coral Gables Give us a rest Re: the Herald's June 8 In Depth story, 'New order in the courts.' After reading the article concerning President Trump's bashing of the Federalist Society, I was left primarily with one feeling: fatigue. I have no idea where Trump gets the time and energy to juggle so many foreign policy and domestic issues daily while, at the same time, indulging in feuds with individuals and entities such as Elon Musk and the Federalist Society. I respectfully ask him to give us all a couple of weeks off this summer to recuperate from the constant storm out of Washington, D.C.. Make America relax again! Robert E. Panoff, Pinecrest Wise investment Floridians know that strong health systems — at home and abroad — keep us safer. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria still claim millions of lives each year. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, alongside PEPFAR, has helped cut those deaths nearly in half — saving 65 million lives and strengthening healthcare systems in more than 120 countries. This is a proven, bipartisan solution that costs a tiny fraction of the U.S. budget. Drastic cuts won't balance the budget — they only reverse progress. Clinics close, testing declines and without daily anti-retroviral medications, preventable deaths rise. The abrupt halt of promising HIV vaccine research happened just as we approached a breakthrough. As HIV and TB cases begin to rise again, backsliding puts the world and our country at risk. U.S. leadership has always been essential. Congress must honor its commitments to us and the world. This is a smart investment — for our safety, our values and the millions of lives we can save. Karyne Bury, Hollywood Bad judgment The U.S. Supreme Court recently voted to 'green light' DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data on millions of Americans. The conservative segment of the Court that voted this way, no doubt, will be sorry. This is a short-sighted decision and should have been left alone. David Myles, Aventura Mar-a-Lago wing? Re: the June 9 story, 'As FIU's prospects fade, push for Trump's library site shifts to downtown Miami.' I would tell Eric Trump, who is charged with vetting the sites, that after all his father has done to Latins and Haitians, does her really think they want his library here? Get real. Put it in West Palm Beach, where his mansion is located. Carole L. Hamilton, Miami Springs
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jamie Metzl and Steven Yates on China, national security threats
(NewsNation) — A Chinese scientist was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle a dangerous fungus into the country. Author Jamie Metzl and Steven Yates with conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation say China is not taken as a serious threat by the U.S. and it should be. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Channel 4
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Channel 4
What did Musk achieve and was there anything in it for him?
This is the time of the year that, in centuries gone by, politicians used to get out of town to escape the unpleasant humid conditions. Perhaps unsurprising, then, that Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is escaping the White House. The president has never made a secret of his disdain for the current state of Washington DC and those who dwell there. In his winning election campaign , he pledged to 'dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption, once and for all!' The people he holds responsible for that corruption? Not just political opponents, but federal workers – the 'bureaucrats'. Just days into the presidency, it was a message Mr Musk – clad in a baseball hat and with young son in tow – reiterated in the Oval Office, standing beside a seated president. 'We have this unelected fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy. Which has, in a lot of ways, currently, more power than any elected representative. It's just something we gotta, we gotta fix.' It is talk like that which has conservatives like Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, excited. For him, letting DOGE loose on federal bureaucracy is a correction nine decades in the making. 'All this noise that Mr Trump is generating… there is something happening under that noise.' Now, rather than elected politicians, he believes, it is unelected bureaucrats who exercise power. 'That's not the way the system set up by the founders was supposed to work. There's a huge democratic deficit that should worry all of us.' Of course, the side-effect of Mr Musk's chainsaw has been to make the many thousands of federal workers who live and work in Washington worried again. Civil servants are facing a reckoning with political power. For Mr Gonzalez, it's overdue: 'I can feel bad for the people who are being, in some cases, unceremoniously fired, who thought they were going to be there for life, who all of a sudden have to find another job. But as an American and a taxpayer and somebody who wants the country to succeed, I can be definitely very happy that we're finally doing something about this.' And Elon Musk has been clear: 'The people voted for major government reform.' If you're wondering why so many Americans voted for Trump's promise to unleash Elon Musk on the federal government, Haywood Talcove has some thoughts. He's a former law enforcement official, now involved in tackling fraud and waste as chief executive officer for the government division of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Like Mr Gonzalez, he's worried about the US government's massive deficit – well over a trillion dollars. 'When your own government agency, the Government Accounting Office, is saying to you that you have $521 billion in improper payments, you've got a problem and there's an opportunity to get better. Some people argue they don't like his tactics. On the other hand, we are facing a financial issue unlike anything that we've ever seen. Like, you can't continue to borrow a trillion dollars every 100 days.' 'The fraud rate in the private sector in the United States is around 3%. The fraud rate in the public sector in the U.S. is at 20%.' 'What DOGE is trying to do is stop the criminals from stealing, right?' Of course, the Department of Government Efficiency isn't the first attempt at tackling waste and bureaucracy in the federal government. Some in Washington DC noted the irony in developing a department with 'efficiency' in the title when many of the functions DOGE is supposed to be carrying out were already being carried out by other federal workers. Robert Storch was one of those federal workers. Until recently, he was inspector general at the US Department of Defense. 'One of the things we developed following the Watergate scandal and some other corruption scandals in the 1970s were a series of measures to ensure integrity in government,' he explains. Inspectors general were introduced in all government departments and agencies, with powers to inspect and audit. 'I believe the total amount saved by inspectors general exceeds a hundred billion dollars every year. I think the return on investment for the American taxpayer is approximately 26 dollars for every dollar that's spent on IGs.' Mr Storch's counterpart at the Department of the Interior, Mark Greenblatt, a man twice appointed by President Trump, greeted news of Mr Musk's arrival in Washington with some relish. 'When the president first started talking about the Department of Government Efficiency, which we call DOGE here, Elon Musk was being bandied about and there was all this sort of hubbub. I was actually excited.' 'I said, well, these are going to be good allies for us in the fight against waste, fraud and abuse. This is a good thing for us and for America. But their mission has turned out to be very, very different.' Different because, despite saving the taxpayer huge amounts of money, President Trump fired Rob Storch, Mark Greenblatt, and at least 15 of their counterparts at other agencies. 'It seems like for DOGE it's not improving government efficiency,' says Mr Greenblatt in the sunshine outside his old office. 'It's just cutting government, which is a different goal' A number of those fired by Mr Trump, including Mr Storch, are now taking legal action against the government, concerned their removal was illegal. Whether DOGE has improved efficiency or not, the act of cutting government seems to have been hard enough for Elon Musk. His claims about the amount of money that can be saved have changed over time. In October 2024, he told voters at Madison Square Garden that 'we can do at least two trillion'. By February this year, at cabinet, he told the room 'we can actually find a trillion dollars in savings'. By 30th April, with his exit from the White House nearing, he said so far US$160 billion of savings had been identified. Mr Musk has always maintained that DOGE's progress is clear for taxpayers to see. 'All of our actions are maximally transparent,' he said in the Oval Office in April. 'I don't know of a case where an organisation has been as transparent as the DOGE organisation.' Not everyone in Trumpworld agrees. In an interview with Semafor, the former Trump confidant Steve Bannon called for a forensic accounting of the savings: 'We need to know exactly what he found because we went from $2 trillion a year to $1 trillion a year to $150 billion next year with nothing this year. None of this makes sense…' Kedric Payne, of the Washington-based government watchdog group, the Campaign Legal Center, says that with Mr Musk's government role, 'there seems to be a long list of financial conflicts of interest, but no mechanism that is working right now to stop that problem'. 'The legal system that we have in place to govern against conflicts was one of the many ethical reforms that took place in the wake of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s,' explains Don Fox, the former acting head of the US Office of Government Ethics. 'Is the system itself adequate to deal with potential conflicts of interest and prevent them? I think it is. But it takes effort on the part of the government officials involved, and it takes a certain amount of goodwill and norms of behaviour, which the Trump administration, in both its first iteration and in the first 90 plus days of this administration, tends to ignore. So my confidence level that the system is working in the case of Mr Musk and his associates is quite low.' Mike Gonzalez, of the Heritage Foundation, speaking before Mr Musk announced his departure, expressed confidence that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was acting to mitigate potential conflicts of interest: 'There was a meeting to discuss China. And because Elon Musk does have some manufacturing in China, he did not attend the meeting. And I think that's fine.' But with such privileged access and power, could the world's richest man really disentangle his business interests? Musk's supporters say he's a patriot not a profiteer. After all, despite money-can't-buy advertising from his boss, the performance of his car maker Tesla has its shareholders worried. But for Don Fox, the dual role as government cost-cutter-in-chief and corporate CEO was always deeply problematic: 'If he were honouring both the letter and the spirit of the law, then he would recuse himself from any official activities that in any way could benefit his professional interests, whether it's Starlink, whether it's Tesla, or whether it's SpaceX. So while he's serving, that's a tremendous concern.' One of those concerned is Evan Feinman. Until recently he ran a multi-billion dollar project to provide broadband to some of America's most rural communities, including places where people voted in their droves for the president. The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment programme, he explains, 'is the largest broadband infrastructure programme ever created by the federal government. It was set up to deliver an affordable, reliable, high-speed internet connection to every single American home and business.' It was mandated by law to 'to get fibre connections to as many homes and businesses as possible'. The Trump administration expressed concern about the speed of the programme's rollout, so Mr Feinman had a plan ready to adapt it to make it more to the liking of his new boss. He was surprised by what happened next. 'After the confirmation of Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, we received instruction that we were to rewrite the programme rules, which rewrite is still occurring, to increase the amount of satellite usage and decrease the amount of fibreoptic connectivity. 'There isn't enough capacity in satellite networks to connect every American who needs a connection today… You decrease the availability of those satellites for the places that truly rely on satellite, for whom there is no other option. 'A fibre optic network costs more upfront, but then costs very little to operate and delivers extraordinarily high speeds, both download and upload speeds, well in excess of what households need today, but likely able to accommodate what future needs those locations are going to have… satellites by and large offer just above the minimum standards for what is a broadband connection today.' The Trump administration decided to replace Evan Feinman, but his departing email to staff was highly critical of Secretary Lutnick's action. 'The practical outcome of the changes that the new administration has pushed forward will be that more people will get worse connections and more money will be pushed toward Elon Musk's Starlink programme.' 'I will leave it to the government ethics experts to say whether or not something illegal has happened or something officially improper has happened. The standard I've always used in my professional conduct is the appearance of impropriety. And this certainly appears improper.' Channel 4 News approached the US Department of Commerce for comment, but did not receive a response. Democrats have been raising concerns about Musk's team's involvement in another department. The fatal crash of American Airlines Flight 5342 has put the Federal Aviation Administration under pressure like never before and focused attention on the United States' ageing air traffic control infrastructure. DOGE wrongly fired 132 staff despite a shortage of air traffic controllers, and they've recently been forced to reinstate them. But Elon Musk wasn't just interested in personnel. He criticised FAA contracts with the company Verizon to overhaul air traffic control systems. On his X social media platform he espoused his Starlink system as a potential replacement for the existing, elderly system. Kedric Payne, of the Campaign Legal Center, is one of those with concerns: 'It appears that Elon Musk has improperly been involved in the business transactions between the Federal Aviation Administration and his company Starlink,' he alleges. Starlink staff are already testing kit on FAA property, to the alarm of some air traffic controllers and concern of ethics campaigners. Though the FAA told Channel 4 News the tests are at non-safety-critical sites. Mr Payne says: 'Those types of comments followed by the immediate change in the policy with the FAA to use Starlink suggest that he was involved in that decision to profit his own company.' Channel 4 News approached Elon Musk, Starlink and the White House for comment, but did not receive a response. When Tesla's profits slumped 71% in the first three months of the year, it was clear Elon Musk would have to choose between government or business. He promised investors in the electric car firm that the amount of time he would spend with DOGE would 'drop significantly'. And while he dismissed reports he could leave the White House altogether as 'fake news', he now appears to have confirmed them. Elon Musk's feed on X has played down suggestions of a rift with the president. But, when asked by reporters about Mr Musk's criticism of the Republicans' 'big, beautiful' tax and spending Bill on Wednesday 28th March, the president defended the bill and failed to mention Musk by name. America voted for change in Washington. And it's clear there is waste, fraud and abuse waiting to be tackled. Elon Musk is optimistic DOGE will 'strengthen and continue' as 'way of life throughout the government'. But with its figurehead now gone, billions short of his initial savings target, supporters will wonder: if the world's richest man can't fix Washington, who can? Producer: Matthew Cundall Picture Editor: Manos Koutsavakis Cameras: Ben Martin, Dickon Mager What Donald Trump and Elon Musk's alliance is really about Elon Musk v Donald Trump – who has the real power? Team Trump in 'civil war' as Musk falls out with hardline Republican base
