Latest news with #Sumner
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Manhandling of Alex Padilla Was a Red-Line Moment for America
In May 1856, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner took to the floor of the Senate to deliver a speech denouncing slavery. Sumner was a fiery abolitionist; in his maiden speech on the floor of the Senate four years earlier, he had called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, which an Alabama senator disparaged thus: 'The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm.' Sumner continued to inveigh against slavery and its apologists throughout his first term. Clearly, he suffered from Pierce Derangement Syndrome (Franklin). Among those Sumner attacked directly in his May 1856 speech was his Senate colleague Andrew Butler of South Carolina. His words were, to be sure, impolitic: '[Butler] has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, Slavery.' Two days later, in one of the most infamous incidents in American political history, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, a first cousin once removed of Butler's, walked over to the Senate chamber, waited until no women were present in the gallery (Southern chivalry!), and attacked Sumner on the Senate floor with a metal-topped cane, beating him within an inch of his life. Alex Padilla, the Democratic California senator, did not bleed Thursday. He wasn't even hurt. But the sight of a U.S. senator being manhandled by FBI agents was shocking enough. Lawrence O'Donnell said Thursday night that Padilla was the first senator in history to be so accosted by law enforcement officials. I don't know for sure that that's true, but (1) I suspect if there were another, we'd know about it, and (2) even if he's the second or third, that wouldn't make how he was treated any better. The incident didn't last that long. But the real damage came after, when the lie machine reliably revved itself into action. It started with Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary whose press conference Padilla had interrupted. She went on Fox News within the hour to say he 'burst in' and was 'lunging' toward her and 'did not identify himself.' All lies. As anyone can see from the video, he was a good 10 feet away from Noem. But even if he had lunged—and even if he were not a senator but a mere citizen, or really any human being who is not threatening violence—this is how Donald Trump's FBI treats such people? Escort them away—OK. But push them to the ground and cuff them, when they've left the room and are no longer in any way a plausible 'threat'? And it was in that moment—the decision by the agents to take the matter to a totally unnecessary, completely gratuitous extreme—that we find lurking the essence of Trumpism. The essence of Trumpism is just this: Dig in the heel of the boot; step on the enemy's neck; determine in any situation the action that would be appropriately small-d democratic, and then do the opposite—go intentionally overboard, do something that shocks and offends the democratic sensibility. And then lie about it and try to reverse reality—to convince America that it didn't see what it just saw. That truth is the opposite of what it seems. A few Republican senators, and I mean a precious few, responded appropriately. Like, one: Alaska's Lisa Murkowski said, 'It's horrible. It is shocking at every level. It's not the America I know.' Susan Collins emitted the usual timorous excretion. Otherwise? Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on Morning Joe Friday that he and colleagues Cory Booker and Brian Schatz waited on the Senate floor—who knows, perhaps not far from Sumner's Desk 29, occupied today by New Hampshire Democrat Jean Shaheen—for their GOP colleagues to appear and denounce what happened. Not only did they not do that, Murphy said: 'They basically said he deserved what he got simply because he was disrespectful to the president.' But Trump was surely most pleased by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who put all the blame on Padilla and called on the Senate to censure him: 'I think that that behavior at a minimum rises to the level of a censure. I think there needs to be a message sent by the body as a whole that that is not what we're going to do; that's not what we're going to act.' Note the 'at a minimum,' which leaves dangling the insane possibility that Padilla should … what? Just be expelled? Again, the essence of Trumpism is found in those three words. This is what they do. All the time. Trump federalizes the National Guard and sends in the Marines; he crows that if he hadn't acted, Los Angeles would have been 'completely obliterated.' Think about the scale of that lie, referring to protests in a four- or five-block area in a city of 500 square miles. He told it over and over in various forms, as did Noem and others. The behavior has its precedents in the United States: Southerners accused Sumner of faking his injuries. They argued that the cane was not heavy enough to cause severe injury. Others, more direct about matters, piped up that Sumner deserved a caning every day. And the right-wing media, like the Southern press in the 1850s, reliably echoed every word Trump, Noem, and the others said. Meanwhile the mainstream media failed dramatically this week by accepting the lazy frame that immigration is a 'winner' for Trump. Two polls came out—this one and this one—showing this emphatically not to be the case. The second poll, from Quinnipiac, was bleak for Trump across the board. Only 27 percent of the country supports the big ugly bill. That's not even all of MAGA America. People are beginning to understand that they indulged themselves last year in some fantasy projection of 'Donald Trump.' They're seeing the real article now, and they're remembering his viciousness, his ignorance, his incompetence, and his lawlessness. And it's going to get worse. Trumpism proceeds by the successive breaking of taboos. Each time a new one is broken, the previous one is normalized, made to look not so bad by comparison. The cuffing of Padilla was a red-line moment. And yet: There's plenty of reason to worry that in four months, we'll look back on it as a moment of comparative innocence. This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
America's $75 Billion Nuclear Bet: Westinghouse vs. the Future of Energy
Westinghouse is going all-in on America's nuclear revival. Backed by Brookfield and Cameco, the Pennsylvania-based firm is in active talks with US officials, tech firms, and utilities to build 10 large nuclear reactors under President Trump's new energy directive. The order sets a 2030 deadline to begin construction and aims to quadruple US nuclear output by 2050. That kind of ambition could translate into a $75 billion opportunity, based on Department of Energy cost estimates. Interim CEO Dan Sumner says Westinghouse has the edgeits AP1000 design is approved, the supply chain is intact, and it's already delivered units in the US and China. We believe we can do them all, Sumner told the FT, pointing to hyperscaler interest and government loan programs as signs of momentum. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 2 Warning Sign with AMZN. But it's not a done deal yet. Nuclear still faces stiff economic headwinds in the US. While Washington may be on board, local utilities and regulators still have the final sayand memories of the Vogtle project's ballooning costs still linger. Analysts warn that the current US power market structure doesn't guarantee cost recovery for mega-projects, making investor appetite uncertain. Even so, Sumner argues that lessons from past delays have been baked into the new build model: We're the only ones who've done modular nuclear at scale. And now, the learning's embedded. Meanwhile, SMR developers aren't staying quiet. NuScale is pitching a 12-pack of its 77MW modules to rival traditional plants in capacity, while Holtec's 320MW units could be grouped to matchand beatWestinghouse on cost and complexity. We fully intend to compete with the big plants, Holtec's president said. The big question now: Will deep-pocketed buyersthink Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)step up to fund these nuclear ambitions, or wait for the small guys to scale first? Either way, the race is on. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Los Angeles Times
07-06-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
CdM's Max Douglass races to school record in 1,600 meters at state meet
The weather was a hot topic of discussion heading into the CIF State track and field championships, but in many cases, it was the athletes that brought the heat last weekend. Corona del Mar coach Bill Sumner looked at the temperature and saw it was a scorching 101 degrees when Max Douglass — the Sea Kings' distance running star — toed the starting line at Clovis Buchanan High on Saturday. Douglass had dug in during the state preliminaries on Friday to secure the school record in the boys' 1,600 meters. It could have been the last four laps of an illustrious high school career. That qualifying effort earned the Notre Dame commit a spot in the state final, a chance he took advantage of to drop his time to 4 minutes 7.65 seconds in a sixth-place, medal-winning performance. Sumner shared that he resorted to a trip to the hardware store to drive home race strategy during the postseason. He first utilized traffic cones and then string to make Douglass exercise patience in picking his desired spot on the field from the start. 'I put a string from the cut-in mark to the 200 lane one,' Sumner said. 'And I said, 'Max, you cannot cut in. You have to stay on the right side of that string for the whole workout.' … Sumner said that Douglass noticed a difference right away. The message was clicking. 'I said, 'That way, you get to pick your spot of where you want to be,'' Sumner recalled. 'When you get to the end of the first 180 [meters], you're going to say, OK, let me run there, and then you go there.' He's a strong enough kid, he gets to do that if he's fast enough. 'We practiced that for three weeks, I had put a string out, and he would not cross over that string. … Not the last meet, but the two meets before it, he stayed out there, came over, got third place or second place, whatever he wanted, and just tried to stay there as long as he could.' Douglass shed nearly two full seconds off his time from the day prior, creating separation between himself and Jim Robbins, who had held the CdM record in the event at 4:10.74 since setting the standard in the Southern Section Masters Meet in 1988. Sumner added that both Robbins and Brian Hunsaker, the Sea Kings' record-holder in the 3,200 at 8:53.7 since 1975, reached out to Douglass after the race. Douglass received an invitation into the Nike Outdoor Nationals at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. 'If you would have told me he was done Sunday morning, I was fine,' Sumner said. 'Every goal that he set, we reached — every single one. Everything that he wrote down, we did. It's like, 'You've got nothing to prove, you got the school record, you got a 1:53 [in the] 800, you got a sub-nine-minute two-mile [time].' That's it. That's a lot of stuff, but he still wants to give it one more try, man. One more try before he goes on to be a big college guy.' Ocean View's Jack Paavola also closed his career on the podium, claiming eighth in the boys' discus throw with a mark of 174 feet, 4 inches. The Seahawks senior's state performance was just half a foot off his career-best throw at the Masters Meet. Paavola has committed to Harvey Mudd.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Guilford County Schools bond dollars will only get half of priority projects done
GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Think back to 2020 and 2022 when you had a question on your ballot about bond dollars for the school district. Voters approved $2 billion for Guilford County Schools to make massive and much-needed updates to its facilities. The master plan came out in 2019. Those were pre-pandemic prices. But now, in 2025, things have changed, and there is no way the district will get all 51 of their top priority projects done with the cash they have on hand. 'The writing was kind of on the wall,' Superintendent of GCS Dr. Whitney Oakley said. She said when they returned from the pandemic, they knew this would be tricky, but in the 2021 to 2022 school year, it really sunk in that this is the new reality of pricing. 'No one had a crystal ball about construction. I can't go to Lowe's and get a piece of wood or go to the gas station and fill up for what it cost in 2019,' Oakley said. Now, with tariffs on the table, pricing is even more unpredictable. 'We are constantly evaluating how far those dollars will go, how we can use some strategies like replicating a building plan … If you think about the Allen Jay and Sumner that are coming up, they have the same layout, which saves in design,' Oakley said. In the 2019 facilities master plan, there are 51 priority projects listed to use the bond dollars. But because of rising costs, Oakley said they won't get very far down that list with the $2 billion. There are four projects no longer needed, so Oakley expects they will make it to about halfway down to project 25 on the list, which leaves about 25 projects in limbo. 'It was decades in the making, and it is going to take decades to get out … I think we need to think about how we make a more predictable stream to be able to continue to do the work because the buildings didn't get in that condition overnight,' Oakley said. It starts with the ballot. Oakley said she wants to see bond referendums more often to keep cash flowing. 'I think putting energy and resources behind being able to say what dollars are for on the ballot increases transparency, increases accountability, and our community stands behind public education,' Oakley said. You can look at the list of priority projects to see if your school's project could be funded. Today, everything before project 25 should be funded. With tariff impacts, that could change. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fairfield Twp. woman charged with desecrating graves
May 29—A Fairfield Twp. woman is charged with desecrating graves at Rose Hill Funeral Home and Burial Park. Police claim that on Monday Christina Sumner, 42, purposely mistreated multiple graves at the cemetery, including removing flowers and tossing them aside, throwing rocks at graves, moving flowers from one grave to another, and removing American flags planted next to several graves. In addition to being charged with desecration, Sumner is also charged with obstructing official business, both of which are second-degree misdemeanors. Sumner could face up to a 90-day jail term and $750 fine for each of the charges. Sumner had a preliminary hearing on Wednesday in Area II Court and remains in the Butler County Jail on a $5,000 bond. She is scheduled to appear back court for an arraignment on Wednesday.
