Monthly Archives: July 2021

By Robbin Laird

The strategic shift from the Middle Eastern land wars to the high-end fight revolves around effective crisis management. With the 21st century authoritarian powers working hard to make the world safe for authoritarianism, the liberal democracies need to focus on protecting and expanding their abilities to defend their interests.

The USMC has been the nations crisis management force throughout my lifetime.

But after a long period engaged in land operations, how will the USMC effectively become a full spectrum crisis management force which deters peer competitors and contributes most effectively to escalation control?

In part the answer revolves around the Navy in transition working effectively with the USMC to combine sea-basing and mobile basing into an effective engagement force.

When I visited II MEF in April 2021, I learned from its CG, Lt. General Beaudreault, that the Commandant of the USMC gave him very clear guidance when he took over the command: Paraphrasing the guidance: tighten your lifelines with Second and Sixth Fleets. As the Navy shapes itself to do distributed maritime operations, how do we help, and how do we reconfigure?

When I visited II MEF again at the end of June 2021, I had a chance to meet with Lt. General Beaudreault as well as Colonel Garrett Benson and we focused on a way ahead being worked by II MEF with regard to shaping new crisis management and escalation control capabilities,

The initial conversation was with Colonel Benson and highlighted the strategic shift underway. The Colonel had recently been involved with the BALTOPS 50 exercise and operated aboard the C2 ship, Mt. Whitney. And in that capacity worked closely with the joint and coalition force on the C2 aspects of that exercise.

His background in the USMC has been completely wrapped up in the land wars, with his coming to II MEB being his initial engagements with operating from the sea. Indeed, his coming to II MEB is focused upon the integration the Navy and working new ways ahead with regard to joint operations from the sea.

As he put it: Right before I checked into the MEB I was actually CJTF-OIR chief of operations. When I got back to the MEF, it was an uphill ramp for me to get back into the Russian problem set.

He noted that over the past 18 months, ESG 2 and 2d MEB have been engaged in a number of exercises to work ways to craft more integrated approaches. But that is really prelude to the next phase of development.

Lt. General Beaudreault underscored that an agreement was being coordinated with 6th and 2nd Fleets whereby 2d MEB would stand up an integrated headquarters, potentially based at Camp Lejeune that would work integrated operations between the fleet and the MEB.

Although details will need to be worked with regard to the standing up of an integrated naval headquarters, the strategic direction was clear.

Conceptually, this force would be ESG 2 integrating with 2d MEB to form an integrated naval headquarters that supports NAVEUR. When ESG 2 and Second MEB came together and went to a BALTOPS, they went to the Mount Whitney to train and then were disestablished and went back to their respective locations.

But we are interested in creating a permanent structure which stays together. Whether its for exercises, we see it as an opportunity to command rotational forces in the high north. When we send battalions or squadrons or a fighter squadron to Finland, all of those kinds of organizations could be underneath the integrated headquarters. The goal is to create permanent structure, with full-time personnel.

He added that it would function in some ways like Task Force 51/5 which had been established under CENTCOM in 2018.

And as Vice Adm. Jim Malloy, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. 5th Fleet/Combined Maritime Forces, noted concerning the integrated Task Force 51/5 command:

Task Force 51.5 is an integrated force that demands a combination of agility and forethought from its leaders, in part because its a unique command model that is innovative and new. This Task Force remains vital and irreplaceable in this region a catalyst for tailored combat effects and an accelerant for Amphibious Forces from the sea. Their tactical strength and ability to be where it matters, when it matters protects American and partner lives and assets.

The command could work flexibly with the relevant nations in a crisis response as well. And there is a clear interest to work with allies as they transform their force insertion capabilities from the sea as well. An example would be the UKs Littoral Response Group North.

As Johnathan Bentham noted in his article on this new UK force:

The LRG is part of a broader initiative to adapt the UKs amphibious forces to operate in a more dispersed and agile way in response to the increasingly challenging environments that they are now facing. These adaptations include a new Future Commando Force, as reforms to the Royal Marines are being dubbed, with greater focus on technology and raiding missions from the sea. The LRG idea could form part of that, including within a larger UK or multinational force, and the latest deployment has involved exercises with NATO allies and other partners, including this years BALTOPS exercise in the Baltic Sea.

As part of this, the LRG is being used as a testbed for a range of innovative capabilities including uninhabited systems. These changes are also meant to provide force packages able to undertake a range of maritime security tasks, potentially including counter-terrorism, limited interventions and evacuation operations, as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster-relief missions. Another priority for the LRG concept is to maintain forward presence and undertake capacity building and defence diplomacy, a key component of a wider effort to increase the Royal Navys global presence and improve its responsiveness.

Lt. General Beaudreault added: The new integrated command would give the NAVEUR commander a third operational arm.

Hes got Second Fleet, he has Sixth Fleet, and now he would have this Task Force to provide him more C2 options to support distributed maritime operations.

And this focuses on a key question: what do we want an integrated naval headquarters to do in support of NAVEUR?

The answer is more effective crisis management and escalation control.

This organization could be a key part of escalation management and help to create both pressure and potential off ramps in a crisis.

Amphibious forces forward deployed in international waters are able to deter, assure, ratchet up or dial down until policy makers can get some kind of resolution to the crisis.

In our discussions with the 2nd Fleet and with the Allied Joint Force Commander, Norfolk, VADM Lewis, he underscored the importance of the command structure as a weapon system.

This would be an additional weapon system in the quiver of the Atlantic fleet commanders.

The featured photo: U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Brian D. Beaudreault, commanding general, II Marine Expeditionary Force, speaks at a Rehearsal of Concept meeting to prelude the official start of MEFEX 21.1 at Fort A.P. Hill, VA, Nov. 3, 2020. A Rehearsal of Concept provides participants within the exercise an opportunity to practice combat mission plans and put contingency plans into place. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Cheyenne Stillion)

II Marine Expeditionary Force: A June 2021 Update

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Shaping Crisis and Escalation Management Capabilities: 2nd ESG and II MEB Work the Challenges - Second Line of Defense

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Announcing that a law will be repealed the day after it is enacted is no way to run a railroad, let alone a country

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Canadians who sell their business to family members rather than a stranger face a heavy tax burden. The government has known about this issue for years: in 2017 it promised to fix the problem but never did. Finally, a private members bill made its way through Parliament this year and received royal assent on June 29.

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A day later, its back against the wall, the government announced that later this year it will repeal the bill with retroactive effect and draft an entirely new set of rules. These new rules will only take effect on January 1, 2022, and, until that happens, many family business transfers will not be able to proceed.

This has been a long and winding road. In October 2017, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced as part of a retreat from his much-maligned private corporation proposals that the government would work with family businesses to make it more tax-efficient to transfer a business to the next generation. In fact, two private members bills had already tried to do exactly that and accommodate transfers to children and grandchildren. The first was sponsored by a Liberal MP in 2015, when the Liberals were in opposition, and the second by a member of the NDP caucus in 2016. Both attempts failed.

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The government continued to dither and so the torch was passed to Conservative MP Larry Maguire. He cut-and-pasted the previous bills with virtually no changes and introduced the bill a third time. This time it passed. Though the government opposed the bill because it included no safeguards against abusive tax avoidance, it allowed a free vote. All opposition party MPs voted in favour, as well as 19 Liberals.

As I wrote here June 29, the poorly-drafted bill created a new high-octane tax avoidance scheme. It would have allowed high-income individuals to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by converting taxable dividends from private corporations into tax-free capital gains even if they had no plans to sell the business. Under the bill, an individual could form a new corporation, cause her children to control it with a small number of fixed-value, voting shares, and sell her existing business to the new corporation. Capital gains tax would apply on the sale of the business but so would the lifetime capital gains exemption of $892,218 (the indexed ceiling for 2021). As a result, the owner could strip that amount of cash out of the operating company with zero tax while continuing to own and operate the business.

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What was the government to do? It had allowed a deeply flawed bill to become law. But an election is on the horizon and the Liberal Party needs all the small business votes it can get. Its response was political gamesmanship at its craftiest. A day after the bill became law, the Department of Finance announced that because the bill does not include a coming-into-force provision the government will introduce legislation later this year to clarify that amendments to facilitate genuine intergenerational share transfers but prevent tax avoidance will come into force next January.

There is in fact nothing to clarify. Under Canadian law, the bill came into full force and effect the day it received royal assent. It is now the law of the land. So, to translate the announcement from political-speak to English, the government intends to repeal a law that was just approved on a bipartisan basis by the House of Commons. And Finance officials will draft a new set of rules to replace what Parliament enacted.

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The framework of the rules to come is fairly predictable: the province of Quebec already has similar provisions that limit this kind of tax relief to genuine business transfers. A new federal bill will likely require that the children or grandchildren own a substantial percentage of both the voting shares and value of the new corporation that is formed, that the parents reduce or eliminate their involvement in the day-to-day operations of the business and that the next generation assume that role.

There is no question that the bill was in desperate need of repair. But announcing that a law will be repealed the day after it is enacted is no way to run a railroad, let alone a country. Canadians including small business owners deserve better.

Allan Lanthier is a retired partner of an international accounting firm and has been an adviser to both the Department of Finance and the Canada Revenue Agency.

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Allan Lanthier: Another Liberal slap-down of Parliament with repeal of family business tax bill - Financial Post

When Joe Biden left public office in 2017, he landed at the University of Pennsylvania, drawn by a global affairs center in his name and a newly created professor position one that paid more than $911,000 over roughly 2 years.

When he later launched his presidential bid, his first formal event was at the home of Philadelphia power broker David L. Cohen, where supporters raised more than $700,000 for Bidens campaign.

Now, Cohen and Penns president, Amy Gutmann, are reportedly in line for some of the most prestigious ambassadorships in Bidens administration. Cohen, a Comcast executive, has long been said to be under consideration to become Americas representative to Canada. And Gutmann is expected to be nominated ambassador to Germany, as the German publication Der Spiegel first reported this week. The Biden administration shared the coming nomination with a top German official earlier this month, Reuters reported.

Allies call them a pair of smart, skilled, and deeply experienced professionals who would represent Biden well with foreign leaders. They have each long been part of Philadelphias elite civic circles, leading two of the citys most powerful institutions.

But several foreign-policy experts said the nominations, if they happen, would continue a long-standing bipartisan tradition of using important foreign-affairs jobs to reward friends, political allies, and donors rather than expertise.

No one would put a banker in charge of an aircraft carrier, Barbara Stephenson, a former ambassador and career diplomat, said in an email. No other advanced country routinely puts amateurs in charge of its embassies.

READ MORE: Penn has paid Joe Biden more than $900K since he left the White House. What did he do to earn the money?

The ambassador is a personal representative of the president, so I can see a rationale for having someone very close to the president in that role, said Dalibor Rohac, an expert on Europe and foreign policy at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. But I feel it has really degenerated in America to a situation where it is used as a system of patronage. It does carry a cost for foreign policy.

He said the need for expertise and experience is especially acute as the United States tries to rebuild ties with allies and take on Russia and China. Germany and Canada are among the countrys most significant partners.

The stakes seem to be higher than usual, Rohac said. You need people who are on top of their game.

Neither nomination has been made, so nothing is final, and both would require Senate confirmation. A White House official said Wednesday that only about 30% of Bidens ambassador nominations are expected to go to people with political connections, fewer than in the Trump administration and in line with other presidents.

Spokespeople for Penn have remained silent about Gutmann even as the schools president makes international headlines.

Gutmann, whose contract at Penn ends after next June, is a respected academic whose father fled Germany to escape the Holocaust. She helped recruit Biden to Penn, according to former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. The school created a new post, the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor, and the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

Steve Ricchetti, a senior Biden adviser, was briefly the centers managing director and is now one of the administrations point people on ambassador nominations. Cohen was chairman of the schools board of trustees at the time.

Penn paid Biden $371,159 in 2017 and $540,484 in 2018 and the first five months of 2019, according to financial records he disclosed during his campaign, though that was a relatively small part of the millions he and his wife, Jill, earned after leaving the White House. His exact duties were unclear. He didnt teach regular classes and mostly made big public appearances, including three Q-and-A sessions with Gutmann, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penns student newspaper.

Academic experts have said he was likely hired more for the prestige that could draw donors than his personal impact on campus.

If Gutmann ends up representing Biden in Berlin, Rohac said, shell be there at an important moment, as the United States encourages one of its closest European allies to confront China and Russia and exert more strategic leadership in Europe.

Germany is not an easy post. Its not something that is just going to involve socializing and entertaining and just having a good time, Rohac said. There is a substantive agenda to be attended to.

Cohen, meanwhile, was listed as one of Bidens top bundlers of campaign donations. His Mount Airy home has become a regular fund-raising stop for former President Barack Obama and then Biden.

If he becomes the ambassador to Canada, he would be the face of the administration in dealing with one of Americas largest trading partners, though one nursing frustration over a sometimes rocky relationship with the Trump administration. Cohen declined to comment this week, but he told The Inquirer last month that the nomination really is hypothetical.

Steven Cozen, a longtime Biden ally and donor from Philadelphia, said it makes sense for the president to want people close to him in such key positions. He said Gutmann and Cohen have the right skills for the jobs.

He likes to have friends that he trusts that are of great talent in positions like this, Cozen said. He knows these people as persons, and thats so much more important because the whole role is based on relationships.

Most ambassador posts go to foreign service professionals, but many experts still chafe when some of the most prestigious jobs are handed to people whose main qualifications are political ties. Its a long-standing practice. Donald Trump appointed inexperienced loyalists to key posts in Germany and the United Kingdom, who in turn created international embarrassments with their actions and words.

Stephenson, a former president of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents career foreign service professionals, said the spoils system should go.

The U.S. is an extreme outlier among advanced countries in engaging in this practice, she said. There is a reason all these countries competitors, allies alike all send their best career diplomats to serve as ambassador to Washington.

Neither she nor Rohac criticized Cohen or Gutmann personally.

Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, said the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations gave about 30% of ambassadorships to campaign donors. That jumped to 44% under Trump.

Such political appointees usually get placed in friendly nations that require little diplomatic work or places that are safe and elegant and wonderful places to live, Holman said.

This is a corrupt practice that we have not had any success at changing, Holman said.

Ambassadorships are sometimes alluring to donors because they dont come with the same level of scrutiny about financial entanglements as other top administration positions.

READ MORE: David Cohen was a 2020 political player. His sway at home in Philadelphia has become another question.

Cohens potential international departure would continue his trajectory as a master of behind-the-scenes politicking in increasingly broad arenas.

He was chief of staff when Rendell was Philadelphia mayor, helping pull the city away from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s. Cohen has been a fixture in Philadelphias political, business, philanthropic, and educational worlds ever since, later becoming an executive vice president of Comcast.

He also became a consummate Washington insider for Comcast, leading high-stakes efforts such as securing regulatory approval for the companys acquisition of NBCUniversal.

He has also stepped back from his role at Comcast, transitioning from executive vice president to senior adviser to CEO Brian Roberts.

Staff writer Jonathan Tannenwald contributed to this article.

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Penns Amy Gutmann and Comcasts David Cohen could land plum ambassador jobs thanks to Biden ties - The Philadelphia Inquirer

The good news is that three wonderful books about North Carolina will be published soon. The bad news is we must wait a few months to buy them.

In the meantime, here is what I know about each of them.

Wiley Cashs new novel When Ghosts Come Home comes out in September.

Cash may be North Carolinas most promising and popular young fiction writer. His first three novels, A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy and The Last Ballad, were highly praised bestsellers.

In A Land More Kind Than Home, we met a storefront preacher, Pastor Carson Chambliss, a handler of snakes and a manipulator of people, one of the most complicated and interesting villains I have ever encountered. A more sympathetic important character was Sherriff Clem Barefield, who thinks of himself as an outsider in Madison County even though he has lived there for 25 years. The lead character of Cashs new book will remind readers of Sherriff Barefield.

Cash built his second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, on the personal disasters that followed the unsuccessful career of a Gastonia minor league baseball player in deep trouble with the law and a criminal gang.

The Last Ballad, his third novel, was based on Ella May Wiggins, a real person, who was killed while participating in a major strike at Loray Mills in Gastonia.

Ghosts builds on the strengths of his earlier novels, blending family and personal challenges with the larger ones the major characters and their communities face. Set in Brunswick County in 1984, Sheriff Winston Barnes awakes in the middle of the night to hear noises at the nearby airport. There he finds a large airplane has landed. Its cargo section is empty and there are no signs of pilot or crew. But Barnes finds the dead body of the son of a local Black leader on the site.

From this beginning scene, Cash weaves a story of drugs, racial conflict, local politics, family challenges, and petty jealousies among law enforcement agencies. His story is a compelling one, well worth waiting for its September release.

Bland Simpsons lovely descriptions of North Carolina waterways in previous books have made him a revered figure in the North Carolina literary and environmental circles. His upcoming North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky, with brilliant photos by Ann Cary Simpson, Scott Taylor, and Tom Earnhardt, may turn out to be his very best. He takes his reader across the entire state, blending his memoir with history and landscape in ways that will make even the most cynical North Carolinian acknowledge the special greatness of our state.

The only bad thing about this book is that you will have to wait until Oct. 26 to buy a copy.

William A. Link is a distinguished historian at the University of Florida. But we know him best as a historian of North Carolina, having written strong books about U.S. Senator Jesse Helms and University of North Carolina President William Friday. Both Helms and Friday were influenced by the life of a man who was both a U.S. senator and a UNC president, the subject of Links forthcoming biography: Frank Porter Graham, Southern Liberal, Citizen of the World.

Even in a North Carolina that was much more conservative than today, Graham was a strong New Deal liberal. Link explains how Grahams talents as a negotiator and his genuine belief that there was good to be found in almost everybody opened doors for him to influence a wide variety of people.

Graham was the inspiration of a generation of North Carolina liberal political leaders including Kerr Scott, Terry Sanford, and Jim Hunt.

Even today, it is hard to understand North Carolinas political divides without knowing the history of Frank Graham. Links book comes out in October.

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 5 p.m. on PBS North Carolina (formerly UNC-TV). The program also airs on the North Carolina Channel Tuesday at 8 p.m. and other times.

Excerpt from:

One on One with D.G. Martin: Three great books you must read but not yet - warrenrecord.com

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," July 6, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS HOST: -- condo collapse to 36. Now, we talked to Governor DeSantis at the outset of the show. He said, it is much easier now to access the rubble particularly the original rubble site from which all of these bodies that have been discovered have come. Four more just now. Here comes "The Five."

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello. I'm Greg Gutfeld with Katie Pavlich, Geraldo Rivera, Jesse Watters and for the Olympics she platform dives into a thermos, Dana Perino, "The Five."

So, this is a big week for us. Yes, it's bigger than Dana finally potty training Jasper who now flushes twice as a courtesy. And it's bigger than Jesse finally getting the hair transplant. Thanks to the Bronx Zoo for donating the minx.

No, but its way bigger than that. "The Five" is turning 10. This show is officially old enough for Anthony Weiner to start texting it. It's true. The show, probably one of the biggest hits and cable news has outlasted everything from "24" to "Lost" to Brian Stelter's hair. To put 10 years in perspective, that's four Geraldo marathons (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

I still remember when I was asked to do this show, one boss called me and said hey, we are doing this thing. You want to be on the thing? You have to write a mono for the thing. I said what's this thing pay? We had no expectations. All we had was our good looks and prescription medications.

But I remember sitting here on the first day next to Dana Perino, both on our booster chairs. She had ghosted me the entire time she was at Fox. But now she was stuck with me and against her better judgment and the restraining order, we bonded.

And the rest is what liberals hate, history. The show succeeds for one reason that other networks can't replicate. We are real and they aren't. Even though this show is seen by millions, it could just be one person. The cameras are on, the cameras are off, we don't change. There is no difference between us talking here and talking in the green room, except for Dana's filthy mouth.

She curses more than Jeb Zukker looking at this show's ratings. We are deliberately unpredictable. We just can't help it. We've just done something like 2,000 shows.

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Wow.

GUTFELD: And like Trey Gowdy's hairdos, you'll never find one that's the same. They are all mutant snowflakes. But "The Five's" biggest reason for success is you, the viewer. You treat us like family. And by that, I don't mean showing up unexpectedly, eating all our food and then stealing our booze.

Instead, you welcomed us into your living room. I always know that if I'm down on my luck, you would lend me money just before payday. If Dana is on the run from the law for violating the height requirements at Six Flags or Jesse pulled another runner at another expensive dinner bill, you'd hide all of us. That's a true friend. And the reason for that is easy. Because while it's always 5:00 somewhere, the best somewhere is here. Is that --

PERINO: I love it.

GUTFELD: Thank you.

PERINO: Do it again.

GUTFELD: All right, I'll do it one more time. So Dana, what do you remember most about the early days?

PERINO: Well, I know that you think I ghosted you. I kind of did, because I didn't really know what I was doing.

GUTFELD: I have witnesses.

PERINO: I remember being, one, I didn't think the -- remember they told us it was a five-week temporary show?

GUTFELD: Right.

PERINO: So we all -- I think one of the reasons why we are like okay, let's just have fun is because we didn't think it was ever going to be anything.

GUTFELD: Right, exactly.

PERINO: And so it's like being on a high wire without a net, even though I wrote so many notes and I became so prepared. And then basically, they had to throw them away. And also, I remember this from those first days with two things.

One, that they sat us together, which was a really great -- turned out to be a blessing in my life. But it was really because we were the shortest people.

GUTFELD: Right.

PERINO: And for the lighting purposes, they had to sit us next to each other.

GUTFELD: Exactly. Yes.

PERINO: And the other thing I remember --

GUTFELD: Thank god I wasn't six feet tall.

PERINO: I remember how -- I think I was pretty reticent really to share any of my personal opinions on anything. I kept reverting back to whatever the Bush administration policy had been and I really credit you with helping me come out of my shell, and thanks for that.

GUTFELD: You're welcome.

PERINO: And thankfully I haven't been fired yet.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: By coming that far out of the shell.

GUTFELD: I remember I was so paranoid over doing these in-depth political stories that I was seeking help from all over the building. I don't know what to do. Like we were talking about these esoteric topics like --

PERINO: And 27 of them in one hour.

GUTFELD: Yes. We'd have like -- we'd have 20 topics, and I was freaking out and then I got over that. Jesse, you came late to the show and I've always said this, before "The Five," I could not stand you. Right, but -- it's honest. So what did "The Five" do that brought this Jesse out that we didn't know existed?

JESSE WATTERS FOX NEWS HOST: Well, one correction, you said we are the same on and off camera. I think I'm much worse off camera.

GUTFELD: Probably.

WATTERS: Much worse and I think everybody would agree. I do kind of feel like a woman right now. Let me explain. You know how --

PERINO: Hold my hand.

WATTERS: You know how women celebrate their birthday the whole week?

GUTFELD: Right.

WATTERS: That's what we're doing here on "The Five." Like celebrating the whole week. I got to say, I like how a woman feels. Yes, you said the other day you were like, Jesse, you've been here four years and now you are officially part of the family.

Four years? But, I mean, I think we've all changed in four years. I think Greg, you've gotten funnier and skinnier and much richer. And I think I have been more mature. I don't make personal attacks about people's physical appearance as much anymore.

I think Dana has probably changed the most. She started making sweeping generalizations about people based on skin color. I don't like that. So I think you need to watch your mouth. It is funny, like I started covering the Trump presidency, and that's a funny presidency to start from the set. Permission to make an analogy?

PERINO: Absolutely.

WATTERS: It's kind of like your first kiss as a supermodel. You set the bar really high and now we are covering Biden --

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: -- the presidency, if you can call it a presidency, and I think we have shifted pretty gracefully to cover Joe Biden. We work together really well. If you have an off day, I carry the show.

GUTFELD: Yes, that's true.

WATTERS: And I think that works and people enjoy it.

GUTFELD: Also, I mean, the ratings are amazing and like, you would think with a shift like that to go from the most interesting president to the most -- the ratings are like skyrocketing.

WATTERS: Still dominating.

GUTFELD: It's still dominating. Geraldo, you've been in TV for decades. You're a TV legend, so you know what works.

WATTERS: True.

GUTFELD: You know what works and what doesn't.

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: How did we manage to last 10 years?

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think you are very unpredictable and I think the writing is excellent and I think you come up with great notions. And I like the chemistry, obviously, between you three main characters.

I've always been in an awkward role here, you know, filling in for Beckel first then Juan Williams and as the oddball, quasi-progressive person, but it works. I don't mind being the foil from time to time. You know, and you two together it's like teen kids news or something like that.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Teen kids news.

RIVERA: And I was thinking about Trey Gowdy. Doesn't he remind you of Draco Malfoy? I mean, I'm surprised that you haven't used that comparison.

PERINO: I don't know.

RIVERA: I know but you've really -- you've become superstars in this universe. It is without question, unequivocally a huge smash, a big hit. Your success is well-earned and it is undeniable. So I'm pleased to be here.

PERINO: There were many doubters.

GUTFELD: Yes, there were.

RIVERA: Many, many.

GUTFELD: Katie, you --

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS HOST: There still are.

GUTFELD: Yes, there still are. I think when we first started, there was a guy that predicted that we would be done in months.

PERINO: There was a guy who told me not to unpack.

GUTFELD: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: Yes, you used to work for him

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Katie, so your interaction is you're a regular coming in. What's your -- I would like to get your input on working with our producers.

PAVLICH: Oh.

GUTFELD: Who we have not mentioned yet, who often prepare you and prepare us for the show and deserve a lot of the gratitude that we, you know, and a lot of the success.

PAVLICH: Yes, the folks behind the scenes.

WATTERS: That was very hard for you to give --

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: -- Gutfeld. Way to go. It was like pulling teeth right there.

GUTFELD: Didn't you notice I was having problems with putting the words together.

PAVLICH: There's time for Greg to spread around the credit for the success of the show, but we're not being able to do that with your co-host and with the production team today. I think as you've seen over the course of 10 years and you will see throughout the week, there are so many amazing things that get planned for the show.

Things have to change around a lot. Breaking news changes things. Weather changes things. The rain if we had something planned outside, for example, we can't do it because of the humidity or a massive thunderstorm that may be coming through.

So the production team is amazing in the sense of answering your questions if you need extra information, briefing you on important topics, you know, following the facts so you don't say something that maybe isn't true.

PERINO: Dealing with us.

PAVLICH: And dealing with Greg mostly I think is the biggest challenge that they've had and they are very, very good at doing that.

PERINO: They are an excellent team.

GUTFELD: And you're going to tell us what's up this week, but to that point that's important about the whole idea that's being -- maybe we are over using the phrase cancel culture. But "The Five" is like on the forefront of that because we're live and we're daring people every day by what we do.

Like, there are over -- the people that hate this type of stuff listen to it hoping that we screw up.

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: So we're right there on the front. We're live every day. We don't have the blessing of editing stuff out. And so you actually have people that work for a competing organizations and little blogs hoping that one of us screws up and that they can, you know --

PERINO: But then -- and to that point, we back each other up.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: The audience backs us up and then we are backed up by the people that work here.

GUTFELD: I'm often backed up.

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'The Five' on the rise in crime, Maxine Waters' tweet - Fox News

Processes of socio-economic differentiation alter balances of power. This article explores the possibility that the current wave of farmers protests partly reflects a resetting of class alliances in the Indian countryside centred on small farmers and farmer-labourers who now account for over 85% of farming households. It does so by returning to the new farmers movement mobilisations of the 1980s and 1990s, and comparing three key relations between then and now: relations between farmers and the state, between farmers and large capital, and relations within the countryside between larger and smaller farmers and landless labourers. Smaller farmers, it is argued, are now more likely to ally with farmer-labourers and the landless, who are in turn less dependent on larger farmers than they used to be because of the growth of non-agricultural wage labour. The neo-liberal Indian states pro-corporate farm bills mean that contradictions within the countryside are for now overshadowed by external contradictions. And if implemented, they will accelerate processes of socio-economic differentiation in ways that make a new centre of political gravity in the Indian countryside more likely.

After two decades on the sidelines, Indian farmers movements are back at the forefront of national politics, dominating the news and unsettling Indias neo-liberal, pro-corporate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. This article locates the current wave of farmers protests in a broader historical context of agrarian political dynamics, and suggests that itmayreflect a resetting of class alliances in the Indian countryside with an emerging centre of gravity among small farmers and labourersin contrast to the last major wave of farmers protests a generation ago which was anchored among better-off male farmers who mostly hailed from dominant castes.

The farm bills threaten the interests of labourers as well as the bulk of farmers, and particularly smaller farmers. Many smaller farmers have already seen their relative socio-economic position slipa predicament rendered more acute by damagingCOVID-19-induced lockdowns, which have also affected rural-based labourers.1Structurally, the Indian countryside is well set for a broad alliance of less wealthy sections: 79% of rural households and 68.45% of farming households own less than a hectare of land (Table 1). While this is enough for some to get by, most Indian farmers cannot survive from their land alone, and have to work as wage labourers as well. The overlapping economic concerns of labourers, farmer-labourers and struggling smaller farmers who fear the loss of their land have thepotentialto reset agrarian politics in India, in spite of divisive caste ideologies.

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A New Class Alliance in the Indian Countryside? : From New Farmers' Movements to the 2020 Protest Wave - Economic and Political Weekly

On a day when BJPs Haryana spokesperson and Karni Sena chief Suraj Pal Ammu called for Muslims to be thrown out of this country, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat repeated several positive statements about Muslims. Whether the consistency with which he makes such statements shows a radical change in his or the Sangh Parivars thinking is still difficult to say. But if there is someone who can initiate perestroika in the RSS, it is Bhagwat. In a gradual manner, he has been trying to change the Sanghs attitude towards Muslims. Let us try to understand this vital and now clearly visible change.

Bhagwat is an outspoken person. He speaks his mind and that, too, without any fear of retaliation from the extreme Hindu right. Lately, he has addressed the question of minorities in general and Muslims in particular. His comments do not reveal an abrupt change of heart. In fact, the Rashtriya Muslim Manch (RMM) was formed in December 2002 under the patronage of the RSS chief K S Sudarshan and is currently led by Indresh Kumar, who, like Bhagwat, believes that when Hindus and Muslims share ancestors, culture and the motherland, there is no scope for confrontation. He rightly believes that once Hindus and Muslims understand and realise the spirit and soul of India, all the artificial barriers between the two communities would vanish. As a matter of fact, 15-17 crore Muslims cannot be thrown out of India. No NRC can exclude all of them. No country can accept them. Pakistan did not even accept the Bihari Muslims who chose to migrate to East Pakistan in 1947. How then can it accept those Indian Muslims who chose to live in a liberal and secular country rather than a feudal and theocratic Pakistan?

The RMMs primary function is to have a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim community. In order to do so, it should engage with those Muslims who are widely respected by the country as a whole. It should try to appreciate the Muslim perspective on several contentious issues. It must gain some credibility in the eyes of liberal Hindu activists and intellectuals, who enjoy much greater respect in the eyes of ordinary Muslims than their own clergy or political leaders.

Speaking at an RMM event on Sunday, and, in a way, acknowledging that many Muslims today indeed live under fear, Bhagwat urged them not to get trapped in the cycle of fear that Islam is in danger in India. The RSS chief should also simultaneously tell Hindutvas foot soldiers and BJP leaders that Hindus, too, are not in danger at all, even if recent electoral compulsions have tried to make it a dominant political theme. Bhagwat condemned instances of mob lynching in the strongest words, saying that such incidents are against Hindutva and those who indulge in it are not Hindus. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, had used similar words against acts of lynching.

The RSS chief went on to assert that the only solution to Hindu-Muslim conflict is dialogue, not discord. Snubbing those who celebrated the coming of the Modi government as the accession of a Hindu ruler after 800 years, the RSS chief boldly reiterated, We are in a democracy. There cannot be a dominance of Hindus or Muslims. A few months ago, in an interview to a Hindi daily, he had also asserted that the Constitution nowhere says Hindus alone can live in India or that only Hindus will have a say in this country or to live in India one has to accept the supremacy of Hindus. He also pointed out that in the battle of Haldighati (1576), fought between Mughals and Rajputs, a large number of Muslims were on the side of Maharana Pratap Singh and fought bravely against the Mughal army led by another Rajput Raja Man Singh.

The RSS chief deserves appreciation for repeatedly saying that Muslims are equal citizens of this country, while Hindutva forces have historically made a distinction between indigenous religions and Abrahamic religions. By saying Hindus and Muslims have the same DNA, he has demolished the greatest argument against Muslims being foreigners. But he should also say that in case of absence of citizenship documents and exclusion from NRC, DNA-matching with Indian citizens must be used as the ultimate test to give or deny citizenship.

On January 1, at the launch of JK Bajaj and MD Srinivass book Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background of Gandhijis Hind Swaraj, Bhagwat also went against Hindutvas narrower concept of nationalism, where land and territory is given excessive importance. In his characteristic style, he said that the love for the country does not mean land only, it means its people, rivers, culture, traditions. Recently, the Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, too, said that nationalism is not about territory but people.

The RSS chief has emerged as a ray of hope in an atmosphere of hate and bigotry. Along with the Prime Minister, he can restore sanity, tolerance and accommodation, the essential attributes of classical Hinduism.

India would be a much stronger nation if this Hindu-Muslim binary is quickly brought to an end. Let civic nationalism with a focus on the celebration of our shared composite cultural heritage be our motto rather than some narrower, regressive and communal ideology of the 20th century.

Those wedded to a constitutional vision may have serious problems with an aggressive and exclusionary Hindutva but certainly not with the liberal, tolerant and inclusive Hinduism. Let the RSS chief lead a movement from Hindutva to Hinduism. Was not Raja Ram Mohan Roys Hindu renaissance all about going back to the Vedas and Upanishads?

This column first appeared in the print edition on July 6, 2021 under the title The moderating voice. The author is Vice-Chancellor NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Views are personal

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Are Mohan Bhagwats recent remarks a sign of moderation in Hindutva? - The Indian Express

As an N.C. State alum and avid fan, I was dismayed and disappointed when the NCAA threw the Wolfpack baseball team out of the College World Series.

Then it got political.

Politics was the word Head Coach Elliot Avent used when pressed about his teams COVID vaccinations: If you want to talk baseball, we can talk baseball. If you want to talk politics or stuff like that, you can go talk to my head of sports medicine.

Then the politicians piled on. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who is running for U.S. Senate, started a petition: The NCAA may have tried to CANCEL the NC State Wolfpack, but we wont let their nonsense continue. Sign our petition to DEMAND the NCAA President be FIRED and that NC State be able to compete for a championship!

The controversy reignited what The News & Observer called a years-long feud between North Carolina Republicans and the NCAA. The NCAA had cancelled events in North Carolina after the legislature enacted and McCrory signed the controversial House Bill 2 transgender-bathroom bill. The bill contributed to his narrow loss to Democrat Roy Cooper in 2016.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis took a swing at bat. He said the NCAA embarrassed itself and the Wolfpack deserved a shot to play for the championship. More than 60 Republican legislators, and three Democrats, signed a letter demanding that NCAA officials answer questions about the disqualification.

All this raises a question: Why didnt the players get vaccinated long ago and avoid the risk of disqualification?

The answer may be that universities were told they couldnt require vaccinations. In an April 29 memo to university chancellors, UNC System President Peter Hans wrote: Public health officials across the country are working toward full vaccination by lowering barriers to access, creating incentives, and persuading hesitant community members. In the absence of clear legal authority for a mandate, the UNC System will follow a similar approach.

Hans statement about no clear legal authority for a mandate is arguable, some lawyers maintain. The government can require seat belts, said one. Another noted, Decades ago the US Supreme Court held that a New York city could require citizens be vaccinated for smallpox.

Universities can require them too. Duke University and Wake Forest University, both private universities, require vaccinations. The University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, both public universities, do too. Students entering the UNC system students have to prove theyve had a series of immunizations diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella and Hepatitis B.

Hans, the UNC president, is a savvy and experienced political player. Hes a Republican who is liked and respected by Democrats, myself included. He has to be sensitive to the legislature, which appoints the Board of Governors, which has the power to hire and fire presidents.

UNC-Chapel Hill has been embroiled for weeks now in the Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure controversy. In todays climate, Hans may well have felt the need to consult with powerful Republican politicians like Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and Speaker Tim Moore about vaccination mandates.

Just as some people at UNC-Chapel Hill believe Berger opposed Hannah-Jones, some people at N.C. State are certain Bergers hand was behind Hanss stance.

Since the pandemic erupted last year, Republican politicians in North Carolina and across the country have mocked mask-wearing, opposed shutdowns and resisted vaccinations.

Now, when you see some of the same politicians blaming the NCAA for the Wolfpacks fate, ask yourself where the ultimate responsibility lies. COVID vaccinations have become political, and that has consequences. N.C. States lost dream of a national baseball championship is the latest consequence.

Gary Pearce was a reporter and editor at The News & Observer, a political consultant, and an adviser to Gov. Jim Hunt (1976-1984 and 1992-2000). He blogs about politics and public policy at http://www.NewDayforNC.com.

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Did politics cost Wolfpack their shot? - The Robesonian