Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Editorial Roundup
Recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
The Baltimore Sun on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee being withdrawn from consideration (July 23):
Last week, a Trump nominee to serve on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was withdrawn from consideration. What’s notable is not simply that someone with extreme legal and political views wasn’t approved by the U.S. Senate or even that the administration had to withdraw a nominee (a rarity, but it has happened). It’s the cause of Ryan Bounds’ failure: A key Republican couldn’t stomach his racist writings of a quarter-century ago.
In case anyone has failed to notice, displays of bigotry and racism within the current administration aren’t exactly getting a sharp reprimand from Congress, at least not from the party in control of it. From President Donald Trump’s remarks ... to his embrace of the alt-right, his dog-whistle speeches about border security, the cruel treatment of immigrant children or Trump’s pronouncement of “good people” among the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Va., this president’s attitudes ... are well established.
Just recently, Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen echoed her boss’s views on the moral equivalency of the white supremacists who marched in Virginia last year and those who protested them ... “It’s not like one side is right and one side is wrong,” she said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. She was no doubt attempting to make a point about the use of violence, but given the administration’s failure to condemn white supremacy, it’s worrisome that a distinction between Nazis and those who oppose fascism is so elusive to a Cabinet member.
Bounds, 45, an assistant U.S. district attorney in Oregon and darling of the Federalist Society, was nominated last fall to fill Oregon’s seat on the famously liberal-leaning appeals court. Both of Oregon’s senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, opposed him. Last month, however, he was approved by a one-vote majority in the Senate Judiciary Committee and appeared headed toward confirmation. And then something happened. Two Republican senators, first Tim Scott of South Carolina and then Marco Rubio of Florida, announced they could not support the nominee. Their reasoning? They just weren’t able to accept the bile Bounds spewed while in college.
His writings included some pretty heavy handed ridicule of Stanford University campus organizations that promote diversity and inclusion as well as those that identify by race or ethnic group — examples of such entities might include an Asian engineering club or a black law student association ... On another occasion, he wrote that schools should not feel pressured to expel rapists.
During his hearings in the Judiciary Committee, Bounds tried to walk back those inflammatory writings, but his apology did not attract a single Democratic vote. The loss of Scott, who is black, was the telling one, however, particularly with Sen. John McCain too sick to vote. Might this prove a turning point in whether Republicans will rubber stamp nominees or truly pay attention to their records, particularly when it comes to discriminatory writings, speeches or behaviors? It took nine months of review for the Senate to say no to Bounds. Under the circumstances, how can the chamber possibly pronounce judgment on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his far lengthier paper trail before November?
Business Day on Barack Obama’s speech in South Africa (July 19):
It was almost 14 years ago that Barack Obama exploded into the world’s consciousness. The little-known candidate, vying to be the only African-American in the U.S. Senate, gave a rousing speech to the Democratic Party’s national convention. There have been many speeches since then, always with the overriding theme of unity and hope for positive change.
During his time in office and after, he has had his critics.
And there was a lot to criticize. One is his failure to close the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has served as an open-ended prison for terror suspects apprehended mostly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The vast majority of the prisoners were held without ever being charged or facing a trial. Despite his promise to close the facility, there were still more than 40 prisoners held there by the time he left office. There was also the accusation that far from stepping back from Bush-era wars, he maintained and even expanded U.S. intervention. On the U.S. domestic front, he was accused of doing more talking, rather than taking concrete action to reverse race-based inequality and injustice.
In all of that time, he was never accused of making bad speeches, so it was unlikely that he was going to disappoint the people who went to listen to his Nelson Mandela centenary lecture in Johannesburg.
It was a rousing speech that went back to the old themes of openness and unity. Partly a tribute to the hope that accompanied Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and a defense of similar values and hopes that were ignited by his own elevation as the first African-American to win the U.S. presidency ...
Obama’s speech also served to highlight that the world has gone backwards in many ways. The values that were assumed to have been entrenched by the fall of communism and the end of apartheid are suddenly on the back foot again.
In Europe, right-wing populism is rising, marked most prominently by the elevation of the far-right League party into an Italian coalition government, gaining support on voter anxiety about immigration and a stagnant economy ...
Americans watching Obama’s speech would also have been struck by the contrast with his successor, Donald Trump.
Trump shocked Americans across the political spectrum when he declared that he trusted the Russian leader more than his own intelligence services, who found that there was evidence that Russia meddled in the last U.S. election. Almost a year ago, he drew similar criticism when he refused to directly criticize neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Va.
He was obviously not very far from Obama’s thoughts when he declared that “strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, where those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning.”
The New York Times on the European Union’s decision to fine Google $5.1 billion (July 19):
The European Union’s decision to fine Google $5.1 billion for abusing its dominance in the smartphone business unearthed some dubious corporate practices, but the penalty and an order for Google to change its practices are, regrettably, unlikely to make the technology industry more competitive.
After a yearslong investigation, Europe’s top antitrust official, Margrethe Vestager, this month said Google had unfairly exploited its market power by imposing restrictions on manufacturers like Samsung that use the company’s Android software on their smartphones. This case is important because about 80 percent of smartphones sold in Europe and globally run on Android, and Google is by far the largest player in internet search. The company is also the biggest player in online advertising, with a nearly 40 percent market share last year, and it has a commanding presence in a number of other internet businesses, like video, email and maps.
The European Union had three main complaints: Google required cellphone companies that wanted to offer its Play app store or search to preinstall 11 of its apps as a bundle, whether they wanted all of them or not. The company gave the largest manufacturers money if the only search they installed was Google’s. And the company prohibited manufacturers from developing phones on altered versions of Android not approved by Google if they wanted to use any of its other services. The company strongly disputed the allegation that its practices are anticompetitive, arguing that they are designed to help recoup Google’s investment in Android, which it licenses free to device manufacturers. Google, which plans to appeal the decision, asserts that Android is a much more open and competitive platform than its main rival, which is used by the iPhone, in which Apple controls both the device and the software. Indeed, Android devices tend to be cheaper than iPhones because manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola and LG make competing phones.
The European case is strongest when it argues against Google’s exclusionary requirements — that cellphone makers not produce devices with other versions of Android and that they install only the Google search app . ... But the larger problem with the union’s case is that it’s unlikely to shake Google’s dominance. For starters, while a $5.1 billion fine is large in absolute terms, it’s a relative bargain for Google and its parent company, Alphabet, which had $103 billion in cash and securities warming its accounts at the end of March and had nearly $13 billion in profits last year. Even more important, billions of people around the world are already accustomed to using the company’s apps and services on their Android phones and are likely to stick to them. Even new users will most likely gravitate toward Google even if the company’s apps are not preinstalled because of the superiority of many of its products and because so many other people use them — the so-called network effect.
This case highlights the importance of more proactive and thoughtful antitrust enforcement and regulation.
Antitrust officials have a difficult job: By the time they bring enforcement cases, it can be hard to reverse the harm that has already been done. It is also difficult to foresee and prevent bad outcomes. That’s why it is important that lawmakers and regulators use all the tools they have to encourage competition and fair play.
Dallas Morning News on the release of an American from a Vietnamese jail (July 24):
Being in the news business, it’s all too easy to become jaded and lose faith in the ability to effect change. But we’re happy to report that William Nguyen’s release from a Vietnamese jail gives us hope — not only in the ability of individuals to make a difference, but in our elected representatives to put partisanship aside and come together for a common cause.
Nguyen was beaten and arrested by Vietnamese police June 10 while taking part in peaceful protests in Ho Chi Minh City against “special economic zones” that would lease land to foreign investors for up to 99 years.
Most of the leases are expected to go to Chinese investors, which many Vietnamese see as a threat to their sovereignty. China and Vietnam have a long and tumultuous history, including ongoing territorial disputes and a 1979 war that left more than 25,000 Vietnamese dead. Protesters were also marching against a new cybersecurity law, which many say gives the Communist-ruled state more power to crack down on dissent.
Nguyen, an American citizen whose mother emigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. in the 1970s, was visiting Ho Chi Minh City on a stopover before graduating from a master’s program in public policy at Singapore University. He reportedly was arrested and beaten after asking police to remove barricades to the demonstrators’ path. In a video, Nguyen is shown being dragged through the streets, his face bloodied, by plainclothes policemen.
Tried and found guilty of “disrupting public order,” Nguyen was deported Friday after appeals from his family, this newspaper, the U.S. embassy in Vietnam and elected officials. He reportedly is safe and in good spirits in Singapore and will return to the U.S. shortly.
The U.S. government should actively support and protect American citizens who lend their voices to the preservation and proliferation of human freedom. And we’re happy to report that’s exactly what happened. While in Vietnam this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Nguyen’s arrest with officials and “encouraged a speedy resolution to his case,” according to a State Department spokesperson.
Moreover, our elected representatives in Texas and across the country came together to call for Nguyen’s release and safe return. On July 18, a bipartisan group of 19 senators and members of Congress, including John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, sent a letter to Pompeo reiterating that “one of our most important responsibilities as elected representatives is to protect the American people both at home and abroad” and urging him to “use all diplomatic means” at his disposal “to ensure Mr. Nguyen’s safe return to the United States.” Those efforts paid off.
The Los Angeles Times on immigration (July 24):
Two recent stories about heinous crimes allegedly committed by people living in the country illegally have again prompted immigration hard-liners to mischaracterize such migrants as a menace to public safety. The crimes at issue here are indeed serious, but the suspects’ immigration status has little to do with their criminal acts.
One man in San Francisco stands accused of posing as a Lyft driver to rape female ride-hailers, and another man in Whittier has been charged with taking a chainsaw to his wife, who somehow managed to survive the horrific attack. The alleged rapist is from Peru; the alleged chainsaw-wielder is from Mexico, and had been deported back there 11 times since 2005, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told reporters.
To suggest that these men reflect the threat posed by people living in this country illegally, however, is just as ridiculous as suggesting that Timothy McVeigh illustrates the threat posed by Army veterans. A number of studies have found that immigrants — whether here legally or not — commit crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans. In fact, one study of people living in Texas found that immigrants who are undocumented commit fewer crimes than legal immigrants.
Some hard-liners shrug off that reality and argue that an individual crime would not have occurred if the perpetrator had been kept out of the country. But that argument doesn’t persuade. It echoes the death penalty advocates who say executions might not deter others from killing, but executing a convicted killer deters that particular person from killing again. That’s no way to frame policy.
Violent criminals living in the country illegally shouldn’t be here, and the government is right to track them down and seek their deportation. But holding up individual violent crimes as a broad indictment of immigrants does nothing to suggest a solution for the problem of illegal immigration. That the chainsaw assailant had been deported nearly a dozen times is evidence that border enforcement needs to be more effective . ... It is not evidence that people living here under the radar pose a public safety risk. The vast majority of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, are here trying to improve their lives and those of their families . ...
A country has the right, of course, to determine who gets to cross its borders and how long they may stay. But the fear-mongering propelling the anti-immigrant attitudes from the White House not only rises from a blinkered sense of what America is as a country and a society, it imperils both.
Orange County Register on safeguarding election integrity (July 23):
In the recent indictment by special counsel Robert Mueller of a dozen Russian intelligence officers, there is an alarming detail.
“In or around July 2016,” the indictment states, “(Anatoliy Sergeyevich) Kovalev and his co-conspirators hacked the website of a state board of elections and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters, including names, addresses, partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers.”
We knew the Department of Homeland Security had notified 21 states in 2017 that they had been targeted by Russian hackers during 2016. Although the list was not made public, Illinois identified itself as a state that had its voter database breached by hackers. Election officials in Illinois previously notified 76,000 residents that their information had been stolen.
A spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections said that state isn’t aware of others that “experienced an actual breach.” But election integrity activists in Georgia were startled to see the Mueller indictment identify it, for the first time, as one of the states targeted by the Russian operation. “On or about Oct. 28, 2016, Kovalev and his co-conspirators visited the websites of certain counties in Georgia, Iowa and Florida to identify vulnerabilities,” the indictment states.
In California, Secretary of State Alex Padilla has approved the use of electronic poll books and other computerized voting equipment. Local polling places are being replaced by larger vote centers, and counties will begin mailing absentee ballots to every registered voter without waiting for a request.
Does the secretary have procedures in place to verify that voter files have not been breached and election equipment has not been hacked? Do election officials in California’s 58 counties have adequate training and personnel to prevent or catch security breaches?
It does not appear so. In Los Angeles County, 118,000 registered voters were inexplicably left off the printed voter rolls in the June primary. Until we know why and how that happened, voters should be deeply concerned about the integrity of California’s elections.
For decades, political opponents have traded charges of voter fraud and voter suppression whenever the issue of election integrity was raised. That’s not helpful. We now have incontrovertible evidence that a hostile foreign power hacked voter registration files in U.S. states and counties. We should all be on the same side in the fight to secure our elections from interference.