#usip

Lee Moran at HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s name has been emblazoned on the side of the building that houses the U.S. Institute of Peace, sparking mockery, and criticism that it’s a dictator-like thing to do, on social media. The State Department confirmed the move on Wednesday. “This morning, the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history,” it wrote on X, formerly Twitter, alongside an image of the change. “Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute Of Peace,” it added, before appearing to channel current U.S. ambassador to Greece (and former Fox News personality and ex-flame of Donald Trump Jr.) Kimberly Guilfoyle’s viral 2020 Republican National Convention rallying cry of: “The best is yet to come.”

This is some Niyazov-esque insanity from Dictator Donnie: his name is on the building that houses the US Institute of Peace (USIP).

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George Foote nonetheless has vivid reminiscences of the day operatives from Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity arrived on the headquarters of america Institute of Peace. The surface normal counsel for USIP, he’s been a part of the hassle to maintain the US authorities from seizing management of the group. When DOGE operatives arrived on the USIP places of work within the…

I don't understand why they don't have to pay for everything they stole or damaged, including returning all the money they stole.

It was illegal on it's face. They knew it was illegal when they did it.

Thank you to Rebecca Turkington ‘12 (@rcturk) for this month’s submission and this beautiful obituary for an amazing Wellesley woman that our community recently lost.

(photograph source can be found here)

There's a group of alums I often call "secret Wellesleys"; badass people I come across who I later find out, from some event bio or side conversation, went to Wellesley. Dr. Virginia Bouvier was one of those alumnae I'd admired for years, and when I finally scrolled to the bottom of her bio and saw she had been the first ever Latin American Studies major at Wellesley in 1980, I thought, "Of course." Ginny passed away suddenly this past weekend, and though she hasn't been part of the pantheon of Wellesley heroes, many of us who work on gender, peacebuilding, or Latin America policy would agree she deserves to be.

Dr. Bouvier headed the Colombia work of the US Institute for Peace, and her expertise was well-known across DC and the globe. When my office began a research project on the Colombian peace process, she was our first call, and she gave generously of her time and energy, excited we were shining a spotlight on the work of women in civil society. She was famous in DC and Colombia for being an influential thinker and activist at the top of her field, but used her platform to give voice to those at the grassroots, traveling back and forth to Bogota for decades to help train and support women peacebuilders. In recognition of her efforts, she was among a small group of foreign guests invited to attend the signing ceremony for the Colombia peace accords. As USIP wrote, the agreement signed last September was "unprecedented in its inclusion of victims, women and minorities, due in no small part to Ginny’s unrelenting support and advice to so many of those involved.”

(source) Ginny Bouvier in Colombia on Aug 24, 2016, celebrating peace deal with Farc rebels with representatives of the Network of Women Mediators

Ginny worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make peace a reality in Colombia, ensuring marginalized communities had a voice in the final accords. She was a resource for scholars, NGOs, policymakers and civil society activists, yet rarely took credit for the work she did. Hers was a critical voice during a time of transition for Colombia, and her loss will be felt deeply.

(Another anecdote from her Wellesley days is that she accidentally caused the entire campus word processing system to crash the night before senior theses were due. Apparently everyone got an extension, "which made me a hero in some circles and a villain in others," she said in a commencement address at William & Mary.)

You can read United States Institute of Peace’s obituary for Ginny Bouvier here.

Among the highlights from Alan Zoellner: swemgovdocs.blogs.wm.edu

ONI: Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections The declassified version of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russian efforts to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, including their use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence U.S. public opinion.  From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

DOJ: Department of Justice investigation of Chicago Police Departments Following a year-long investigation, the report accused the police department of engaging in a pattern of using excessive force, including deadly force, which it blames on deficiencies in training and accountability.  Includes a summary of the report with links to findings, a fact sheet, and the text of the agreement in principle between Chicago and the federal authorities.

USDA: Expenditures on Children by Families, 2015 AKA. The Cost of Raising a Child. Estimates that families will spend an average of $233,610 to raise a child, born in 2015, from birth to age 17.  Includes a range of expenditure levels, from $174,600 for lower income families to $372,210 for higher income families.  Does not include the cost of a college education.  The annual report is used by states to determine child support and foster care guidelines.

POTUS: Remarks by the President in Farewell Address Text of President Obama’s farewell address delivered at Chicago on January 10, 2017. 

White House: Cabinet Exit Memos: Our Record of Progress and the Work Ahead A series of memos from members of the Obama cabinet summarizing accomplishments over the past eight years and offering a vision for the country’s future.  Includes a cover letter from the president. 

DOI BLM: Federal Coal Program: Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement- Scoping Report: Vol.1  Vol.2 Argues the need for modernization of the federal coal program to ensure a fair return on the sale of public coal resources, assess the structure and efficiency of the coal program in light of current market conditions, and consider the impacts on communities and the environment including climate change.

DNI: Global Trends: Paradox of Progress Represents the U.S. intelligence community’s quadrennial assessment of the forces and choices shaping the world over the next two decades. Main section lays out key trends, explores their implications, and offers three scenarios about how different choices and developments could play out in different ways over the next 20 years. 

DOE: Quadrennial Energy Review: Transforming the Nation’s Electricity System This second installment of the The Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) analyzes trends and issues confronting the U.S. electricity sector to 2040, examines the system from generation to end use, and sets out three overarching national goals and 76 recommendations. 

BOEM: BOEM Denies Atlantic Seismic G&G Permits Agency press release announcing the denial of permits for further surveys of oil and gas deposits in the Mid- and South-Atlantic Planning Areas of the Atlantic Ocean.  Cites a diminished need for additional survey information, because the Atlantic Program Area has been removed  from the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.

2016 Report to Congress on China’s WTO Compliance Describes the various ways the U.S. is working to hold China to its World Trade Organization commitments, especially in such areas as intellectual property rights enforcement,  the protection of trade secrets, and industrial policies.  From the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

State Department: Report on Human Rights Abuses or Censorship in North Korea Report on human rights abuses in North Korea, mandated by 2016 law, which identifies persons responsible for serious human rights violations and describes such violations and acts of censorship.  Covers extrajudicial killings, forced labor, torture, prolonged arbitrary detention, rape, forced abortions,  and other sexual violence.

CDC NCHS: Births: Final Data for 2015 Presents 2015 data on U.S. births according to such characteristics as race, Hispanic origin, maternal age, live-birth order, marital status, attendant at birth, method of delivery, period of gestation, birthweight, and plurality.  There were 3.9 million births and a fertility rate of 62.5 per 1,000 women.

State Department: Apology for Past Discrimination Toward Employees and Applicants Based on Sexual Orientations Brief statement from the Secretary of State apologizing for past discrimination against LGBTI employees and applicants.

USIP: Women in Nonviolent Movements Examines the influence of gender dynamics on women’s contributions to nonviolent movements, and how women capitalize on these dynamics to create special opportunities for participation and tactical innovation.

Paul Waldman at Public Notice:

Donald Trump has always loved slapping his name on things. It reflects a desperate desire for acknowledgement, a yearning to be seen and known by others, a cry of “I exist, and I am important!” shouted to the universe. Now, with the power of the federal government in his hands, he’s doing more of it than ever — much more than in his first term. It goes beyond an exercise in branding. Trump is seeking a physical legacy, a collection of signs and structures that will pay eternal tribute to his greatness. Which is why it is so important — and why it will be so rewarding — for the next Democratic president to tear it all down and smash it to bits. This isn’t just about petty revenge, even if there is undoubtedly some of that going on here. Emerging from this dark period in our history will require a sweeping, comprehensive strategy of repudiation and repair, one that encompasses the substantive, the procedural, and the symbolic. Fortunately, removing the physical remnants of Trumpism will be much simpler than reconstituting the federal workforce or rebuilding our security alliances.

The totems of Trumpism are multiplying

In just the last few months, Trump has embarked on a frenzy of construction and renaming that is proceeding so quickly it can be hard to keep track of. It’s almost as if he suddenly realized — after doing almost none of this in his first term — that amidst all the other laws, rules, and norms he so enjoys breaking, there was one he had overlooked: We don’t name things after sitting presidents, often not even after living ones. In the past, a president had to merely hope that if he achieved greatness, the nation would one day express its thanks to him by erecting statues and putting his name on elementary schools. To hell with that, Trump said.

So the US Mint is going to create a commemorative $1 coin with his face on both sides. The US Institute of Peace has been renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The Kennedy Center has been (illegally) renamed The Trump Kennedy Center. Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House so it could be replaced with a monument to his sleaze, a ballroom he’ll probably end up naming after himself (though for now he claims “I don’t have any plan to call it after myself”). He wants to build a gigantic triumphal arch. He recently announced plans for a “Golden Fleet” of new battleships, named the Trump Class, and explained that he’d be working on the design because “I’m a very aesthetic person.”

And that’s after Trump Rx (a web site for comparing drug prices), Trump Accounts (a version of baby bonds), and the Trump Gold Card, a way for rich foreign jagoffs to buy their way into permanent US residency.

[...] In the first hours and days of the next president’s term, there must be a concerted effort to utterly expunge the name “Donald Trump” from every federal building, outpost, sign, website, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse, except where necessary for historical accuracy. And not just the name, but every vulgar trace of him: Chisel off the letters, take down the photos, melt down the stupid coins, tear out his patio and replant the Rose Garden, strip all the chintzy gold appliques from the walls of the Oval Office. Maybe even demolish the ballroom, but at the very least remodel it so it doesn’t look so much like an obscene mashup of the Winter Palace and Saddam Hussein’s bathroom, then rename it for someone he hates. The Obama Ballroom has a nice ring to it.

This is vital: Do it all in a way that is public, planned, and staged in order to create imagery that will live on. The symbolism matters; every American should see video and photographs of Trump’s legacy being wiped clean as a vivid embodiment of a new beginning for the government and the nation. The images of Trump’s erasure should live on for years, reproduced and memeified, until they become as familiar as Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon or the sailor kissing the nurse on V-J Day in Times Square. In the end, the visual memory of Trumpism should have two parts: His repulsive desecration of our nation’s capital, leading to the restorative and redemptive eradication of every trace of him. When it happens, Republicans will object (and you can only imagine the meltdown Trump himself will have on Truth Social). The answer Democrats give to them should be simple: Too bad. We have the power now. A strong message must be sent to the country and future generations that Trump will not be honored or celebrated.