Welcome to Free Thoughts, a podcast project of the Cato Institute's Libertarianism.org. Free Thoughts is a show about libertarianism and the ideas that influence it. I'm Aaron Powell, a research fellow here at Cato, an editor of Libertarianism.org. And I'm Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies. Our topic for today's episode is the death penalty. Joining us to discuss it is Ben Jones with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of Equal Justice USA. Ben is also pursuing a PhD in political science at Yale University. Typically in this country we think of conservatives as pro-death penalty, but your group seeks to convince conservatives specifically that they should oppose the death penalty. Why is that? Over the recent years and decades, across the country, conservatives, liberals, everyone in between have really been rethinking the death penalty. And there have been a number of problems in how it's been applied. Most notably, you've had innocent people sent to death row, later found innocent. Some executions go forward despite strong doubts over whether the person was guilty. And I think these factors have led people to really reconsider this issue, and especially among conservatives. So we've had some very high-profile conservatives come out against the death penalty, folks like Richard Bigary, Ron Paul, Brett Bozell, and others. And I think there are several factors that are really driving conservatives to look at this issue again. One is the death penalty is a government program, and like a lot of government programs, there are problems with it and mistakes are made. The thing with the death penalty is that it's a punishment that's irrevocable. So if you make a mistake, there's no way to go back and fix it, and I think that has a lot of people concerned. Also, you look at the death penalty, it's incredibly costly. Study after study keeps coming out and showing that it costs millions and more than the alternative of life in prison without parole. And given the fact that there's not much evidence that it's keeping us safe for or lowering crime rates, that's leading a lot of fiscal conservatives to question whether or not it's really worth the price tag to keep the death penalty in place. And I think, lastly and importantly, a lot of people come at this from a pro-life perspective. And one thing about the death penalty is no one wants to see an innocent life put at risk. And if we have a system that makes mistakes and that time and time again has put innocent life at risk, that leads a lot of people to question the program too. Do we have an idea? Historically, the support on either both the left and the right, if I remember correctly, has been really high for the death penalty in America. Has that been on a distinct downward trend? And maybe on the left, they used to be over 50% mostly for support of the death penalty. Are they still above 50%? You have seen views on the death penalty change pretty significantly in the past couple of decades. We peaked in the 90s, 80%. We're supportive of the death penalty that's taking everyone together. And since then, people have learned about DNA. All these wrongful convictions have come out. And you've seen support for the death penalty drop by about 20 percentage points in the past few decades, which is significant. Furthermore, I think what's really telling about polls on the death penalty is that when you ask people for the crime of murder, do you favor the death penalty or life in prison without parole? When people have that option, support for the death penalty drops even lower, you find it's around people are pretty evenly split in terms of whether they favor the death penalty or life in prison without parole. And what that shows is that when people know that there is an alternative that can keep dangerous folks locked up, keep society secure, they're much more willing to let go of the death penalty. With regards to the question of how it breaks down by political leanings or political party, it is true that you find that generally people on the left are more against the death penalty. I think the most recent Gallup poll actually had it at 50 or below 50% for folks on the left. But I think as more and more conservatives take a new look at this issue, you're going to see support among conservatives drop too. And what was really interesting, there was a poll that came out recently, and it was looking at views among Christians on the death penalty. And what it found was that there was a very sharp generational gap in terms of younger Christians were much less likely to support the death penalty than their parents. And I think you're seeing that more and more there's a generational gap. And just from interacting with folks, working with young Republicans, young pro-life groups, you're seeing among young people a much greater willingness to let go of the death penalty and be supportive of repealing it and replacing it with life in prison without parole. And some states too have also recently changed some of those policies, correct? Yeah, there have been six states in the past six years that have repealed the death penalty and replaced it with life in prison without parole. Through popular measures or mostly state legislators? Mostly state legislators. So I believe five of those states, it was through the legislature. In one of those states, it was the courts. In New York, the court struck down the death penalty is unconstitutional. There was an effort in the legislature to bring it back, but that failed. Your argument so far against the death penalty have been kind of about how it can go wrong in the sense that it can cost a lot of money. It can put innocent people away. But I'm wondering if there's still opposition to it, even if those sorts of problems either are off the table or are minimized. So if we could somehow guarantee that we weren't going to kill innocents or- Too much better, yeah. That would there, is the death penalty contrary to justice as well? Or is it just that we can't do it well enough from a cost or from a accuracy standpoint to overcome these other secondary concerns? People come at this issue from a lot of different perspectives. And I think a lot of people are just, they're fed up with the system. And they also realize what's at risk. We've had the death penalty for centuries and for centuries we've had problems with it. And what's at stake is a potentially innocent life if you make a mistake. So when people see the track record, see everything that has gone wrong and they see what hangs in the balance, people are saying, we need to really step back and not go forward with this. You do see, other people do approach this from a moral perspective. And there's been an interesting debate about this, especially within the Catholic Church, which has done a lot of thinking on this issue. And John Paul II, Pope John Paul II was very vocal in his opposition to the death penalty. And you see that manifests itself in the catechism also, where what the teaching of the Church says is that if there are bloodless means available to keep society secure, then you should not resort to the death penalty. And the idea that if there are alternative ways to keep society secure without executing someone, we should resort to those first, I think, has a lot of appeal to people. Because it's quite a step to, it's one thing to kill someone in self-defense, but once you've rendered them defenseless, should we take that extra step than executing them? And there are a lot of issues that come with that. If we want to have executions, then we have to train people to be executioners. And we found that that also can be very difficult on folks who are charged to carry out executions, especially when things go awry. You a little while back wrote an article for Libertarianism.org, focusing specifically on libertarians and why they should not support the death penalty. And much of that article looked at an argument Murray Rothbard makes in his book The Ethics of Liberty, which you called perhaps the classic libertarian defense of the death penalty. I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about Rothbard's argument. Sure. He bases his defense on the death penalty on the principal portionality. So basically, if someone commits a crime, violates somebody else's rights, then their rights can be deprived to the same extent. And going off that principle, Rothbard then says that the only crime that could merit the death penalty is the crime of murder, because only if you've taken someone's life could you have your life taken from you. Now, one move he makes, which I think a lot of people will be sympathetic to, is that when deciding whether or not someone receives the death penalty, he leaves that decision in the hands of the victims. And that has intuitive appeal, because I think a lot of people are frustrated in the current criminal justice system where sometimes victims are ignored and their needs aren't met or addressed. So he says it's up to the victims to decide whether or not to respond with an execution. And for the crime of murder, they could ask for less, they could ask for restitution, they could forgive the person, not ask for any punishment, or they could ask for the death penalty. Now, there's one complication with the crime of murder, because when there's a murder, the actual victim directly affected is dead, and they're not able to respond. So the way that Rothbard addresses that is he says that people could put in their wills, they could designate someone in their family to make that decision for them, or they could put explicitly, if I'm murdered, I'd like the death penalty or I would not like the death penalty. There's also a somewhat curious wrinkle in his argument too, something that we really don't see today. He says that if there is a murder, the victims, like the victim's family, should have the right to enact justice or vengeance on their own, however you look at it. So if someone in your family is murdered, the family members could, if they believe they know who committed the murder, they could actually go and have that person killed on their own. If they do that, they could have to come to court if the other family argues that, in fact, they killed the wrong person. So there'll be an incentive not to do that, but he still wants to leave that option open to victim's families. Now none of that seems to solve any problem about procedure or whether or not you can obtain these convictions with enough confidence that you could actually kill someone if he's just purely arguing that it is possible that some group of people can proportionally call for the death of someone who wronged them, but then figuring out who that person is through just processes seems to be not accounted in Rothbard's version of that. Yeah, that was one of my biggest concerns with his argument. And I think, especially in recent years, as we have learned more about wrongful convictions and the many different things that can go wrong. The number is now at about 140, isn't it? Yeah, 143 individuals since 1973 in the U.S. have been sentenced to death and then new evidence came out that exonerated them. And there are other cases where executions have gone forward and there are doubts about whether or not the person was guilty.  There have been many more exonerations beyond just the folks that have been on death row. And presumably there's a lot of people on death row who no one's going to look at the evidence. No one's trying. But they're executed anyway, so that wrongful death number is probably much, much higher than 140. And that's one of the problems in figuring out, people often ask, how many people have been wrongfully executed? It's a difficult question to answer. And one of the main reasons why is that if an execution goes forward and there are concerns about whether the person was actually guilty, there's not much incentive for the state to actually investigate and figure out what happened in that case. For instance, there was a crime, a murder in Texas, a guy named Cameron Todd Willingham. And he was convicted of killing his three children in an alleged arson fire. It turns out, since his original conviction, arson science has advanced dramatically and basically the whole case against him fell apart. There was a commission set up to look into that case, but the state of Texas really put the brakes on that. And which isn't surprisingly, the state really doesn't want to admit when it's made such a mistake like that, if it does happen, it's usually decades later rather than years later. That seems to bring in another interesting fact here, that we talked about Rothbard's thing, which he doesn't really talk about the politics of it, just the feasibility of restitution system and allowing for someone else's death. But if we bring in politics in the situation and talk about the politics of the death penalty, and whether or not these state agents have good enough incentives to rectify any mistakes, to pursue innocence, and a lot of times it doesn't seem like they do. Yeah, I think when you look at these cases, you can easily sort of come to the conclusion that all these government actors are corrupt. And I think a lot of them do their job well and should not be faulted, but it only takes a few bad apples and you can end up with a spectacular mistake. And one case I discuss in the article is the case of John Thompson. And you read through the details in that case, and it's... I actually did some work on that case. Oh, okay, yeah. And like you read about, so basically what happened in this case, there was a sculpatory evidence at trial, which the prosecutor suppressed, didn't allow to come out. And some very key evidence like blood at the crime scene that would have shown that he couldn't have been the perpetrator. But you read that one of the prosecutors in that case, he got diagnosed with a terminal illness. And he felt really guilty about what he did. He told one of the other prosecutors in the office that this evidence was suppressed. But that prosecutor kept his mouth, didn't spill the beans to anybody. And Thompson, meanwhile, is getting pretty close to his execution. He's like a month away. Things are looking very bleak. They hire a private investigator who's finally able to dig out this evidence. But to have the knowledge that this person on death row is innocent, but not be willing to share that, I mean, that just, it's shocking and very troubling. Yeah, the issue in that case was whether or not he had the malfeasance. I mean, Thompson was eventually let off, but whether or not the practices of the prosecuting attorneys were enough to be a policy or practice, not just a single iteration of a person doing something wrong, but whether if he was going to sue the state, it was a policy or practice of the entire department that they constantly made these mistakes. Because that's the rule that they have for liability. And the only way you can get recovery in that situation, which is part of the problem, if they don't have very high standards of liability, they may not try their hardest or do something like this. Exactly. And I don't know where you come down on the case, but when you look at what was going on in the New Orleans DA's office. It's unbelievable, yeah. It was repeated Brady violations that's withholding the sculptor evidence, numerous cases overturned. And I think Thompson had a pretty good case that there was repeated abuses that merited compensation. It also raised another interesting fact about the level of damages because it seemed like one thing the Supreme Court was doing in that case was saying that he was awarded $14 million, which would have been nearly the entire budget of this parish. And so they had these practical concerns about whether or not you could pay out the entire budget of a local parish if you misconvicted someone. Which it seems to me that if you can't do that, then maybe that's a really good reason you shouldn't put people on death row. If you couldn't even make them whole if you messed up, right? Right. How many people each year are executed in this country? Recently it's been in the low 40s. It got up to close to 100 in the late 90s, but it's been going down. Well, because I'm curious about the public reaction to these stories that we tell, like the 140 individuals who we know were innocent and put to death and the story of John Thompson, like these are really kind of terrifying stories.  But we don't seem, there doesn't seem to be the sense of kind of widespread outrage at that sort of government action in the way that like when you have the memo about the drones. Or Bridgegate. Chris Christie, Bridgegate. The presidents allowed to kind of kill people without due process. But don't keep in traffic going into New York City. The Edward Snowden revelations of the widespread spine, like these are also really awful things the government's doing, but the government killing innocent Americans in fairly large numbers, why do you think we're just not, there doesn't seem to be the kind of ongoing widespread public outrage about that? Well, as I said earlier, I do believe that there is more concern about the process and I think that's good to see. You mean you seem public support for the death penalty go down, executions go down, death sentences go down, more states get rid of it. So I think the trends are going in a positive direction and I think that has a lot to do with these cases of innocence coming to light. I think the reason that you don't see the same level of engagement from the public as you might for NSA or even Bridgegate stuff is that this is an issue that it's hard for people to connect with sometimes because people that are sentenced to death row is a very small part of the population.  I couldn't be wrongfully convicted. And you even hear people sometimes, well, if they weren't guilty of the murder, they must have been guilty of something. They deserve to be there for something. And I think that's why it's so important for people that have been wrongfully convicted to be sharing their stories because, you know, when they are able to engage the public and talk to them, people are shocked and you see a lot of, a lot of minds change because you have folks like Kirk Bloodsworth. He was wrongfully sentenced to death in Maryland. This guy was a former Marine, no criminal record at all. Yet you still had faulty eyewitness identification in this case that ended, and he ended up on death row.  They thought he was just an awful human being who needed to be executed right away. Fortunately, he was able to get DNA testing in this case and be fully exonerated.  So are there widespread kind of disparities in who receives the death penalty, like socioeconomically or racially?  That's when the death penalty was struck down as unconstitutional in the Furman v. Georgia decision. And then it was brought back in 1976. Pre-1972, the disparities were very stark, and it's really hard to deny that. So for instance, before that decision, in some places in the country, you could still be executed for the crime of rape. And you look at the period 1930 to 1967, 450 people were executed for the crime of rape.    The, I mean, the disparities and the racism in the system is very hard to deny. After 1976, states tried to rewrite their death penalty laws to provide more guidance to juries to try to eliminate some of this bias which riddled the system pre-1972. The problem is they really didn't fix the system, and you see these disparities come up in other ways. So specifically what you find is that when the victim is white, prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty than when the victim is black or Latino. So you look at, in the executions that have taken place since 1976, in 77% of those cases, the victim is white. If you look at all the murders during that time period, the victim is white at a much lower rate, around 50%.  You also find, I mean, socioeconomic status does make a difference if someone has high-powered attorneys. A lot of times prosecutors will just decide, you know, we're not even going to seek the death penalty, it's not even worth it. So we've talked a lot about the problems inherent with figuring this out, but some listeners might be thinking, well, even though there are some problems, you always can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, but there's a huge deterrence factor here, right?  I know that if they made jaywalking death penalty tomorrow, I would never jaywalk again. So isn't that something we'd be getting benefit out of? Maybe even at the expense of a few innocent lives, but we try our best and maybe don't do it right. But there are also innocents out there whose crimes are not committed against them because people fear the death penalty. Well, for the jaywalking example, if you knew that you would get life in prison without parole for jaywalking, that probably would also be a pretty big incentive not to jaywalk. Yeah, well, it might be right on the edge there. Now, I'm not advocating life in prison without parole for jaywalking by any means, but when answering that question, what we have to look at is not whether or not the death penalty is a deterrent. It is a punishment and just by itself, yes, it can be a deterrent. The real question is, is it a deterrent over and above the alternative of life in prison without parole? Good point. When you look at that, there's really not much evidence out there that it is reducing murder rates, reducing crime. You can look at broad statistics, you look at states with the death penalty, those that don't have it, states with the death penalty have higher murder rates on average than states that don't. Obviously, there are a lot of different factors that figure into crime rates so that by itself doesn't make the argument. But when you talk to criminologists, you talk to police chiefs, you also talk to the public at large, time and time again, majorities of all those groups say the death penalty is not a deterrent over and above life in prison without parole. And if we are really concerned about preventing violence, lowering crime, we have to ask ourselves, is it worth spending all these millions of dollars on the death penalty that really has zero impact on murder rates? Or should we use that money in other ways that actually have some proven track record of being effective? Well, or someone might say that, well, we said that there have only been 40 people killed. So you have a pretty low probability of getting the death penalty. And even if you get it, people know that you'll spend 20 or 30 years on death row, which means that it's less deterrent because you might be 40 years old, so that might be about your expected lifespan anyway.  That seems like that would raise the amount of deterrence factor. There may be a point there. I mean, if we were executing lots and lots of people, there's a chance it could have a more deterrent effect. I don't know. The only way you can do that is running an experiment and it's going to be hard to get funding for that. But one thing that is pretty certain that if we started executing people at much higher rates, we'd be making a lot more mistakes. One thing about deterrence is that for punishment to have any sort of deterrent value, it has to be swift and also certain. And the death penalty is neither of those. The reason why is because we've had all these mistakes. The courts have said you have to go through a super due process in capital cases before you can carry out an execution. And what we find is that in states that do sentence more people to death, do carry out more executions, we find more mistakes in those cases. Florida is one example. Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations with 24 since 1973. Wow. What's shocking is that if you had that track record, you would think the response is maybe we should get rid of this system or try to do more to keep the wrong people from ending up on death row. Instead, they passed a bill last year to speed up the appeals process to try to execute people faster. Given their track record, I'm very troubled to think what the results may be down the road. A lot of these stories are told of people being wrongfully convicted or the disparities between say the races in terms of who receives the death penalty seem to speak to a level of corruption going on. Like the prosecutors intentionally withholding evidence or knowingly giving the death penalty to certain groups more than others. And I'm wondering does the death penalty in particular exacerbate that sort of corruption? Do we see say more of that sort of stuff if prosecutors can get the death penalty than if they can only get life in prison? There are two factors to consider that may lead to that result. One is certain very high profile murder cases often present a lot of pressure to find somebody to define who did it to be able to get a conviction. And if the community is demanding that there be some sort of response, sometimes you may find folks in law enforcement rush the process, narrow in on someone they think committed the crime and get tunnel vision. And so that's one thing to keep in mind about capital cases because you always hear the argument, well we need the death penalty for the worst of the worst and the most heinous murders. I have a problem with that argument because tell any murder victims family member that they're lost wasn't the worst of the worst or the most heinous. I think it's very hard to say that to anybody. But if you keep the death penalty as used in these very high profile crimes, that's often times when there's the most pressure to find somebody and mistakes can result from that. Another thing to keep in mind is sometimes the death penalty is justified on the grounds that we need it to get plea deals. So prosecutors can threaten the death penalty to get somebody to plead to something less. And the problem with using the death penalty as a stick in plea negotiations is that sometimes people are scared and they'll confess to a crime they didn't even commit. And I think that's a very important, you know, we've had cases like this, Beatrice Six in Nebraska. They were wrongfully convicted of a murder that they didn't commit.  So I think that's, we need to be very careful about using the death penalty in that manner. Yeah, a lot of people who haven't read a lot of these cases and don't have a sort of lawyer's mindset on this would be shocked how often that actually happens. But another one that I find surprising, which I'm sure you have something to say is the level of eyewitness convictions that lead to, that is usually good enough evidence in many cases to lead to a death penalty conviction. And eyewitness testimony is actually not that good, is it? Yeah, it's, we're learning more and more about the mistakes that can be made and oftentimes honest mistakes. I mean, there's no bad intentions there. It's just people identify the wrong person. One case that is particularly telling is the one of Jennifer Thompson Canino. And she was a college student in, believe it's North Carolina, and she was raped. And she was a straight A student. And she made sure to study the face of the perpetrator because she wanted to send him away and make sure he never got out. She identified who she believed to be the killer was seen as the best possible witness you could have on the stand.  It's actually an amazing story. They, they reconciled and are now friends. But that's, I think that story really shows the mistakes that can be made with eyewitness testimony. You know, one of the more surprising things I thought in your article on libertarianism.org, which we'll link in the show notes, but you talk about the costs too. I think a lot of people would say, well, this costs less than keeping him in prison for 40 years or 50 years and putting him up with cable TV and everything, but it doesn't seem to be accurate. The main reason for that is that lawyers are more expensive than prison guards. When prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty, they set in motion a legal process that's more drawn out. You're going to have more attorneys, more investigators, more preparation before the trial even starts. And this is all because we've made mistakes in the past and the courts have said you need superdue process in capital cases before you can execute someone. So just at the trial stage itself, and what's unique about capital cases is you have two separate phases. You have one phase to find out is the person innocent or are they guilty? Then you have a whole separate phase where the jury is presented with mitigating and aggravating factors and they have to decide whether or not to give the person the death penalty or life in prison without parole. So just at the trial stage itself, a capital case often costs hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars more than a non-capital case. So you spend all that money up front and that's really hard to make up regardless of how long the person ends up sitting in jail. But then after the conviction, the person usually sits on death row for quite a long period of time, which is expensive because it's a higher security setting. Plus you're going through the appeals in capital cases, those cost more money. Then by the end of the process, it's millions of dollars more than if you just would have gone with life in prison without parole as the sentence. And you said also there are some municipalities who've been had to raise taxes for that, which is a very big libertarian no-no, right? Yeah, I live in Kansas and we had a hearing on a bill to repeal the death penalty a few weeks ago and the chair of the Libertarian Party testified for the bill and he's from Osage County here in Kansas and they had to do that. There was a capital case and they had to raise taxes and he was not very happy about that.  I'm just curious if you have insights into why that is, like what is it about America that makes us, even if the trend lines are drifting away from support for the death penalty, what makes us still support it much more than... Almost anyone else except for maybe North Korea and Cuba or other regimes like that. It's hard to say that this has been a subject of a lot of debate. When you look, when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972, it looked like the U.S. was in line with a lot of the rest of the world because you had Britain, France, some other... Canada all striking down the death penalty around the same time. You look back at the U.S.'s history, the first English-speaking territory to ever get rid of the death penalty was the state of Michigan. So there's actually quite a long history in America of having some suspicion of the death penalty. But, you know, what happened after 1972 is that crime rates started to rise and I don't think that had any connection with the death penalty, but some people went ahead and made that connection. And then it became... Every politician, regardless of which party you were in, felt the need to run on a pro-death penalty platform to show that you're tough on crime. And the public, you know, responded to that at least in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. You're not seeing that the same way today. For most people, it's not their top priority issue. And you're not seeing it win elections like it did in the past. But once that became ingrained in the political landscape here in the U.S., it became a very entrenched practice, which was very difficult to undo. That's why what's happened in the last six years with six states ending the death penalty is historic and is such a sharp contrast to what happened in the preceding decades. And you also have sort of the disturbing trend, which you see occasionally just with loud mouths, I guess, of people championing the death penalty and how we're not like the rest of the world, like we kill them quick down here in Texas type of stuff, which doesn't seem to be at least very heartening. Yeah, yeah. I've always had a real problem with using the death penalty as a way to win political points. Because reducing crime is a very complicated issue, and there's a lot of different factors that go into it. And politicians basically started, you know, I don't want to think about that problem. I'll just say I'm against the death penalty and try to get people to vote for me in that way. And, you know, if we want to be serious about reducing crime, then there's a lot of different things to consider, and we shouldn't just take a shortcut by saying we're against the death penalty, which does very little to reduce crime. What sort of things, just out of curiosity, should we consider if we're looking at reducing crime? That is a good question, one I don't have all the answers to. But I think, you know, it's interesting what the folks down at Right on Crime are doing. They, you know, they've put out some interesting stuff, and they got started in Texas. You had, you know, this constant push to build more prisons in the state of Texas. And finally, some people were like, hey, this is pretty costly, and this is quite a burden on taxpayers. Maybe we should look for a different way to respond. And, you know, focusing more on, you know, especially for nonviolent offenders, having treatment programs, instead of just sticking them in jail, and sometimes they come out worse than when they went in.  Yeah, and of course, crime has been going down a precipitous rate since the early 90s, really, and people are all scratching their heads about why. And there's a lot of weird, interesting to very far out there theories. There's a recent paper about maybe it's lead in the air. The amount of lead has reduced violent tendencies. But yeah, everyone's scratching their heads. The crime problem is very hard to figure out. So we have to ask you the big question, the one I think everyone would be thinking about, as all discussions eventually have to end up, what about Hitler? I mean, if we're going to oppose the death penalty, would you still oppose it for Hitler or some incredibly cruel person with everything on video and no one doubts that they did this? Is that a concern you have or something we should be addressing? I mean, we're against the death penalty in all cases, and whether it's Hitler or serial murder domestically, people commit awful crimes, and unfortunately that's been the case throughout the history of humanity. The problem is once you leave the door open for the death penalty, we're just going to have it for the worst of the worst. You end up making mistakes and innocent people get caught up in the process. I also think too, I mean you often find this, especially at the state level, you have a particularly notorious murderer and they get sentenced to death. After they get sentenced to death, news stations are rushing to get interviews with them. Every time there's appeal, they're back in the media. And I think a lot of times if we just life in prison without parole, lock them up and forget about them. That's it. They're not going to get the same level of media attention that you often find in capital cases. We're running out of time, so I wanted to ask you just where do you see the debate right now and where do you see things going? We're at a very interesting point in the country at the moment on this issue because you're seeing a number of states reject the death penalty, get rid of it, replace it with life in prison without parole, more states considering going down that path. And then you're also seeing a smaller group of states really digging in their heels and trying to hang onto this practice as it becomes more and more difficult to carry out. There have been a number of problems recently with corrections departments having problems getting the drugs necessary for executions. So you've seen some somewhat strange bills in Virginia. There's a proposal to bring back the electric chair in Missouri. There's been a proposal to bring back the firing squad. Some states are really trying to speed up the appeals process despite having a very long history of making mistakes in capital cases. Disturbing. Yeah, and so it will be very interesting to see what happens in those states. I'm concerned that as they really dig in their heels, you may see some more spectacular mistakes going forward. I hope it doesn't happen and I hope we're actually able to stop it everywhere. But that's a real concern. I think as that happens more and more, people are going to keep turning away from the death penalty and eventually it go away entirely. But that is one worry is these states that are really digging in their heels, what could potentially result from the policies that they're pushing. And your organization is working hard on this issue, correct? Yeah, so we work, it's conservatives concerned about the death penalty and online that's conservativesconcerned.org. We're on Facebook and Twitter. Definitely keep folks up to date on updates on what's going on, ways you can get involved in your own state on this issue. If you have any questions or comments about today's episode, you can find me on Twitter at arossp, that's A-R-O-S-S-P. And you can find me on Twitter at tcburris, t-c-b-u-r-r-u-s. Free Thoughts is a project of Libertarianism.org in the Cato Institute and is produced by Evan Banks. To learn more about Libertarianism, visit us on the web at www.libertarianism.org.


Good afternoon everyone. Just a few things at the top and then I'll get right to your questions. So as many of you are aware today is the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Secretary Austin released a statement earlier today on this notable milestone which is available on the DOD website. Formed in the wake of World War II, NATO promotes security in the North Atlantic area, safeguards freedom and democracy, and provides collective defense for the Alliance. Starting with an original group of 12 countries to the most recent accession of Sweden as the 32nd member, NATO was stronger and more united than ever. As we look forward to hosting NATO's historic 75th anniversary summit here in Washington this July, we will continue to strengthen our collective defense and deterrence through the development of advanced systems across all domains, combined training, and common purpose to defend each other against all emerging threats today and in the future. To quote Secretary Austin's statement, quote, America's network of allies and partners built and sustained by successive generations of wise and bipartisan post-war American leadership remains a core strategic strength that no rival can match and that no foe should doubt. Today we salute NATO's achievements and we pledge to build upon them, end quote. Today also marks the official start of Defender 24, the largest U.S. Army exercise in Europe, as ships depart the United States carrying equipment for the event. Scheduled to occur through May 31, Defender 24 will involve more than 40,000 service members from over 20 allied and partner nations demonstrating the strong defensive relationships that are the foundation of European peace. The exercise, linked to NATO's steadfast defender, consists of three sub-exercises, saber strike, immediate response, and swift response. Defender 24 focuses on strategic deployment, interoperability, and readiness while seeking to deter potential adversaries and strengthen the NATO Alliance. For questions about the exercise, I'd refer you to U.S.-European Command Public Affairs. Switching gear, Secretary Austin spoke by phone yesterday with Israeli Minister of Defense Joav Galant. The two leaders continued their regular dialogue on U.S. and Israeli efforts to ensure the defeat of Hamas and secure the release of all hostages. As was highlighted in our readout last night, Secretary Austin expressed his outrage at the Israeli strike Tuesday on a World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including an American citizen. Secretary Austin stressed the need to immediately take concrete steps to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza after repeated coordination failures with foreign aid groups. Secretary Austin also urged Minister Galant to conduct a swift and transparent investigation into this incident to share their conclusions publicly and to hold those responsible to account. Additionally, Secretary Austin again raised the need for a rapid increase of aid coming through all crossings in the coming days, particularly to communities in northern Gaza that are at risk of famine. During the call, the Secretary also reiterated U.S. support for Israel's defense against a range of regional threats. A full readout is available on Defense.gov. And to close out, sharing some good news, this week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reached a milestone in Maui where they cleared hazardous debris from the 500th residential property since the devastating wildfires. The Army Corps of Engineers is working hand-in-hand with FEMA, EPA, the state of Hawaii, and others to ensure these sites are safe for the people of Hawaii. For more information, please contact U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs. That'll be glad to take your questions. We'll go to Associated Press first on the phone. We've got Lita. Hi, Pat. Thank you very much. A couple questions on the call he had with Galant. Can you say whether or not the Secretary is involved in any ongoing U.S. assessment to determine if Israel has made any of these tangible changes that the White House talked about a short time ago? Can you say whether the Secretary was one of the people dialed in with the President's call? The White House mentioned Secretary Blinken and others were. Was Secretary Austin also listening in on that call? And finally, did the Secretary mention at all to Minister Galant anything about the U.S. limiting or conditioning military sales on any of these improvements? Anything else, Lita? I think those are all the questions for the day. All right, so just taking it from the top. You know, in terms of the concrete steps that have been highlighted and that the White House highlighted, you know, Secretary Austin, of course, maintains a professional relationship with Minister Galant that communicate frequently, as you know. And so I expect that to be a topic of discussion going forward. In terms of today's call with the Prime Minister, to my knowledge, the Secretary was not in on that call or listening in on that call. And then as far as your last question, you know, what I've provided in the readout is what was discussed. And again, the Secretary reiterated U.S. support for helping Israel defend itself from a range of regional threats. So I just leave it there. Let me come back into the room here. Jennifer. Pat, are you rethinking the employment of the so-called Jaylots, the seaborn delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza in the wake of the World Central Kitchen disaster? No. The Jaylots continues to be en route. We expect to achieve full operations capability by the end of the month, early May, as we talked about, approximately 60 days. Although, of course, we are working to move as quickly as we can on that front. And so once operational, again, the capability that that will provide is the ability to send upwards of 2 million meals per day into Gaza. And so planning for that continues. We're on track in terms of the timeline, and we continue to work closely with partners in the region. As you've heard others say, Israel has committed to providing security on the shore for that effort. When it comes to the receiving and then onward distribution of that aid, we're working with USAID and others to finalize those details. I don't have anything to provide to you now. There are so many groups now saying they won't distribute in Gaza. They're pulling out. The UAE has just frozen relations. How do you plan to distribute aid and not have either chaos or a security situation? Yeah, again, I mean, the situation there, and of course this strike certainly doesn't make that job easier. But that has not deterred us from continuing to work with groups and NGOs to come up with solutions. That's what we've been tasked to do, and we'll continue to do that. What's the Pentagon's assessment of Israel's plan to enter Rafa? To my knowledge, we haven't seen a detailed plan at this point, as has been mentioned. We've been briefed on concepts. As you know, there was a meeting at the White House virtual meeting earlier this week to continue having that conversation. And so again, I'd refer you to Israel in terms of their plan, but we continue to highlight the fact that any operation needs to incorporate civilian safety and ensuring that, you know, humanitarian assistance can get in. But essentially no plan has been shared with you. There's no plan at this point. To my knowledge, we have not received a detailed plan. After a call with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the President in the statement said, you know, the U.S. will change its policy if Israel doesn't make some changes in its sort of Gaza war effort. Given that you're a planning organization, have you at least started planning and looking at what it would condition if those sort of benchmarks aren't met set out by President Biden? Yeah, thanks, U.S. At this point, I'm just not going to get into hypotheticals. And secondly, in the call yesterday, did the Secretary get a better understanding of how the Israelis could unintentionally strike three vehicles over one-and-a-half kilometers? You know, again, obviously, as we highlighted in the readout, the strike did come up. The Israelis have initiated an investigation. I think they've spoken at least initially on some of the preliminary findings. But of course, we don't want to get ahead of that investigation, so we need to wait and see what comes out of that. And last one, why does the Secretary feel that Minister Galant will now listen to him? I think the last time they spoke, the Israelis then killed aid workers a week later. So why now? Why would he listen now? Again, the Secretary and the Minister have had an ongoing dialogue. The Secretary respects Minister Galant. You know, they have obviously communicated very closely on the situation, and Secretary Austin has very clearly communicated our position on what needs to be done in terms of safeguarding civilians. And so expect those conversations to continue. Let me go to Warren. Pat, we're now roughly the six-month point of the war. Can you say, looking back, having spoken repeatedly about the need to protect civilians, do you have seen Israel take some sort of concrete steps that has improved their protection of civilians and their strikes? Because from what we see, it doesn't look like it. Yeah, well, I mean, clearly not enough has been done, which is again what I've highlighted in the readout and was part of the conversation that the Secretary had with Minister Galant. That conversation is happening at multiple echelons within the U.S. government. I mean, to answer your question, in certain areas we have seen them take action, but clearly not enough. And so, again, we're going to continue to set that expectation, and we're going to continue to have those conversations. Yes, sir. Yes, Daniel Compatangio for Italian Lassetti News Journal. I have two questions. One is about Gaza and the other one about Ukraine. The first question is, what are the steps suggested from the Secretary to de-escalate the situation in Gaza, looking to de-escalation between Israel and Iran, who is very dangerous at this time? So what are the steps suggested toward peace? And then the second question, it would be about Ukraine and Russia, the situation in Ukraine from the European perspective. Although there are a lot of A's coming in, it seems stunning. And so, again, what the Pentagon suggests to move this situation and find a solution toward peace, because Europe is afraid of a war. Sure. Well, when it comes to the situation in Gaza and, you know, broader escalation throughout the Middle East, the Department of Defense continues to remain focused on four primary areas. Number one is the protection of U.S. citizens and service members throughout the region. Number two is working with Israel and others in the region for the release of hostages that are being held by Hamas. And then the other two objectives are ensuring that Israel has the ability to defend itself from future terrorist attacks and broader regional threats, and then finally preventing a broader regional escalation. And so that has included, you know, not just on the Department of Defense side, but across the U.S. government, both diplomatic efforts, but then also by us having forces in the region that are able to support regional deterrence, as well as provide us options should we need to respond. Again, at the end of the day, we recognize Israel is engaged in a very difficult conflict with Hamas in Gaza. But, you know, we're going to do everything we can to, again, prevent this from spreading further. Prime Minister Netanyahu is not really listening, it looks like, to what the President is suggesting. Yeah, I can't speak for the Prime Minister. And I'm sorry, your second question. If you briefly can say something about the situation in Ukraine, the stalling of the war, what is the Pentagon is suggesting to move forward and maybe finding some sort of solution? Yeah, I mean, you know, our focus is on supporting Ukraine and its ability to defend itself and take back sovereign territory, and so that will continue to be our focus. Let me go to Missy. Hi, Chad. Just going back to the Golan call, did Secretary Austin convey the same message that Biden conveyed to Netanyahu that the U.S. policy on Gaza would depend on these particular things? No. Okay. And, you know, because the assistance to Israel is mostly military, I want to ask you the question sort of that John Kirby was asked today, which is that, you know, if they're suggesting that the U.S. could change its policy, be it to be Gaza, if Israel doesn't take these specified steps, it suggests that the U.S. could curtail or suspend military aid. Is that an accurate understanding of what that means? Well, again, like I know that Mr. Kirby spoke to this. I'm not going to get ahead of the White House on this or preview it, so I think, you know, I'll let the President's words, the White House's words stand on their own. Thanks. Thank you, General. I believe when the Secretary was at the Hill, he mentioned another, back then, 25,000 civilian death in Gaza, and he said majority of whom were women and children. And yesterday, on the call for the first time, we read that he expressed outrage at the death of aid workers. Why wasn't the Secretary outraged before yesterday? The Secretary has been clear all along that this is a tragic situation. None of us want to see innocent civilians killed in this conflict. That is a conversation that he has had with Minister Galant from the very beginning of this conflict. So to make the accusation that somehow one set of people killed is unacceptable versus the other, that's just an inaccurate characterization. I didn't make that accusation. You made that comparison. No, you made it. I would have said it, you know, I'm very frank, but thanks for making that comparison. The second question, we've been asking the same question over and over again and we received the same answer that there are no conditions on USA to Israel. At the end of the day, this is an Israel operation. Suddenly today, we hear a different tone, that there's going to be conditions if Israel doesn't do this and this and this. Would such a warning coming before today, would it have saved innocent lives in Gaza, including an American aid worker? I'm not going to get into hypotheticals, but thanks. Yes, sir. Thanks, Joe. At the White House briefing, John Kirby said that in the past couple of months the U.S. hasn't provided any emergency military aid to Israel. Is that because Israel hasn't requested any aid along those lines or has the U.S. been turning down the Israeli way? No, look, I mean, as you know, we've got a longstanding security relationship with Israel and as he also highlighted, foreign military sales, foreign military financing. Many of those requests are years in the making and so it's a combination of the two. But as we've highlighted shortly after October 7, very shortly, we were able to rush some additional security assistance to help meet Israel's immediate needs. And no additional assistance has been rushed in that way since the sort of meeting? I mean, we continue to support Israel with the capabilities that they've purchased as well as requested, but I don't have anything specific to read out to you. Let me go to Jeannie. Thank you, General. Two questions. Experts said North Korea's recent launch of a solid fuel-resistant missile could pose a threat to the U.S. air station during bomb. What is your comment on this or how did you assessment on this? Well, you know, look, we're aware, of course, of the testing. We're consulting closely with our allies in the region. But I'll just leave it at that. The second one. And President, Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be meeting in next month. And regarding what concern do you have about the military cooperation between China and Russia as well as movement in military cooperation between North Korea, China, and Russia? Well, again, look, our focus in the region is on working with allies and partners to ensure regional security and stability. And that will continue to remain our focus. Each of the nations that you highlighted are sovereign nations, and they're going to make decisions about who they cooperate with and who they don't. Where it becomes a problem is when we start to see malign activity in terms of providing Russia, for example, with capabilities that they're then, in turn, using to attack Ukraine. So, again, we'll continue to monitor that closely. All right, let me go to the phones here real quick. Let me go to Patty, task and purpose. Hi, Pat. So there was reporting from an Israel-based magazine, 972, about the IDF's lavender system, which found that they were systematically targeting individuals while they were in their homes at night, while their families were present, rather than military activity. I understand that you won't that you can't comment on IDF policy, but I'm wondering if you can just talk about, does the U.S. support using AI for targeting? Yeah, so I've seen those press reports, Patty. I don't have anything as you highlight. I'd refer you back to the Israelis to talk about any capabilities they may or may not have. Laura. Thank you. The Jalot's capabilities, when is that expected to arrive in Gaza, and do you have a committed partner yet that will distribute aid from this peer when it's built? I think I answered that earlier, but right now, again, we are expecting Jalots to be online by the end of the month, early May on schedule. Again, we continue to work closely with USAID and other partners, NGOs, to discuss the aid delivery and distribution. And so as we have more information to provide on that front, we will. Are you going to continue setting up the peer once they arrive if you don't have a committed partner in terms of security for the U.S. personnel setting up the peer and in terms of... Yeah, again, as I highlighted, Laura, and sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. Israel has committed to providing security onshore, so we're continuing to work with them on the details of that. And again, we're not changing the mission. We've been tasked to provide a temporary peer. Everything is on track, on schedule at this point. And so, again, as more details come in, we'll be sure to give you an update. So just to be clear, even if you don't have anybody that's going to distribute a... Yeah, I'm not going to get on hypotheticals. Well, I mean, that's not hypothetical. That's true. No, you're saying if you don't, we're not there yet. The peer has not stood up yet, and they haven't arrived in theater yet, and we're continuing to work through those things. So we'll keep you updated. Courtney. Just one clarification on that. So the Israelis have agreed to do security on the shore. Are they doing security for the distribution, though, as well? Again, we're working through all the details. Clearly, Israel will be an important partner when it comes to security for all the obvious reasons in Gaza. I'm not going to get into the specifics. Again, we're working through a lot of those details, but as this comes online, we'll have much more to say. Was that part of the conversation last night, those kinds of specifics, or yesterday afternoon with the secretary and Israeli counterpart? They did discuss maritime delivery of aid, yes. Including the IDF for providing security throughout the whole process. Well, providing security, yep. Okay, Louie. Going back to one of your earlier answers, I think the Jen's question about distributing the aid coming through the maritime corridor, you said that this strike certainly doesn't make that job easier. Can you provide some context as to what you're talking about there and how it makes it more difficult for Pentagon? Yeah, well, a couple of things, Louie. First of all, I was reading an article earlier today that highlighted the fact that this is a dangerous place. It's a combat zone. Certainly, the aid groups that are there are operating in that environment under extremely difficult circumstances. The fact that you are delivering aid within a combat zone, the fact that you saw what we saw earlier this week in terms of the Israeli strike, despite the fact that by all accounts the World Central Kitchen had coordinated with the Israelis to be able to access that area, those kinds of things need to be flushed out and ironed out to ensure that any aid distribution can safely do that. So I know that USAID and others are working closely on that issue. And I'll just leave it there. Thanks. Let me go back to Jennifer. A quick follow-up on the Lavender system. Is there any indication that the Lavender system or any AI-generated targets was responsible for this World Central Kitchen attack? Again, I can't get ahead of an Israeli investigation. I know they're looking into this, so I'd have to refer you to them. And why wasn't Secretary Austin on the call with the Prime Minister given the military component of this current operation and discussion? Yeah, look, I don't think that that's, again, unusual. I mean, we do a series of phone calls. Senior leaders do a series of phone calls all the time, depending on the topic to be discussed based on schedules, so that in and of itself is not unusual, actually. Just a quick follow-up questions. Since it's an evolving situation right now and things are rapidly changing, is the U.S. prepared to do its own investigation into the strike on the aid workers? That's my knowledge. And then also, do you have a total you could provide us of military aid provided to Israel since October 7th? I don't have anything in front of me here today, actually. Thank you. Valerie Shelborn with USA News. Has there been any impact to U.S. operations with the Danish frigate that had the faulty missile launcher that's locking entrance to the Baltic shipping lanes? I don't have anything on that. Thanks. Let me get a couple other folks that haven't called on here. Mike. Yeah, thanks, Pat. In August 21, 2021, the U.S. launched a drone strike that killed seven children and three adults. For several days, people in this building, including your predecessor and the former chairman, insisted it was a righteous mission. Nobody was punished for it. Nobody lost their job over it. I mean, is the U.S. really in a position to be outraged about what happened in Israel since it seems to almost mirror what happened and what the U.S. did in Afghanistan? Yeah, Mike. I mean, I appreciate the question, but I'm not going to be able to talk about the past. All I can talk about today is the present, and the fact is seven civilians who are delivering food to people who are in extreme need were killed in an airstrike. So it's a tragic situation. I think we can all agree. And so I'll just leave it there. Sir. Thank you, General. Alan Fisher from Al Jazeera English. Do you remember yourself any time that the Secretary has expressed publicly his outrage at the death of aid workers in Gaza, including the more than 160 that died before the attack on World Central Kitchen? And if you can, can you point me in the direction of times where he expressed publicly his outrage at the death of aid workers before that incident? Yeah, look, the Secretary clearly feels this is an important issue. He's addressed the situation, the civilian and humanitarian situation in Gaza on multiple occasions. Nearly every single time he speaks to Minister Galant, this is a topic of discussion, and it will continue to be an important topic. Let me go to the phone here, Constantine. Just a follow-up. Can you remember any time he expressed his public outrage? Because it seems to me this is the first time he's done that when an American has died, and there's a lot of publicity globally about what's happening to World Central Kitchen. Look, again, the Secretary feels this is an important issue. I appreciate the opportunity to, you know, communicate your sentiment in that way, but I can assure you that this is an important topic for the Secretary. Let me go to ConstantineMilitary.com. Thanks, Pat. On the JLOTS plans, I know you said that plans are still ongoing and that you guys are committed to putting the system in place, but has the World Food Kitchen Strike altered those plans or caused you guys to think about any aspect of these plans differently? And sort of related to that, I suppose, can you speak as to whether those plans involve any U.S. Navy warships being present in the area? Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Constantine. You know, so the short answer is we continue to plan a pace and continue to, as I mentioned, work towards implementation of JLOTS on schedule. Certainly, like any military operation, you're going to take factors in the operating environment into consideration to include the things that I mentioned earlier as far as the security situation and ensuring that security is taken into consideration as it relates to aid distribution, and so that will be taken into account. As far as any additional assets like Navy ships, I don't have anything to announce right now, but again, we're always going to put the safety and security of our forces as a top priority in any of these operations. Thanks. Lara. Just as a follow-up, you said that the Israelis have committed to providing security for the pier. Why would you trust the IDF to protect the U.S. personnel setting up the pier when they struck the food assistance convoy after they had already cleared their route with the IDF? Look, again, I know Israel is investigating in terms of the strike on World Central Kitchen, and we trust that Israel will provide the security that we need on the shore. Let me go to Jared. Is there, nearly a month ago, a group of UN experts reported, quote, over 14 recorded incidents of Israeli forces shooting, shelling, and targeting groups gathered to receive urgently needed supplies from trucks or airdrops between mid-January and the end of February 2024. The quote goes on. Israel had also opened fire, has also opened fire on humanitarian aid convoys on several occasions, despite the fact that convoys share their coordinates with Israel. That statement was issued on March 5th. Does the department see the strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy as part of a pattern and have department officials told their Israeli counterparts to stop the IDF from firing on aid convoys or civilians gathered to receive it soon? Well, look, Jared, I think I addressed that. You know, in the top there were Secretary Austin, again, highlighted to Minister Galant the need to take concrete steps to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians after repeated coordination failures with foreign aid groups. And so I think our expectation is that, yes, they will obviously need to do much better when it comes to ensuring that that aid is not only delivered more frequently into Gaza, but done so in a way that's safe and secure for those who are receiving that aid. So the subject of Israeli forces open firing on civilians gathered to receive aid, this has been a subject of discussion in the past, in past weeks and months. I think that the topic of taking civilian safety into account when conducting operations has been a topic almost since the beginning of this conflict. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I want to encourage any one of the Pacific. What does the Pentagon think about the idea voiced by Jens Stoltenberg about moving the Ukraine Defense Content Group under NATO leadership, giving the concerns about the lack of support from the United States? So I don't have any announcements to make regarding a shift in the overall, you know, management of the UDCG. As you know, Secretary Austin continues to convene this international forum. We just held our most recent session at Ramstein last month. Of course, you know, there's always conversations that are going on to look at how we can work with allies and partners to ensure that support for Ukraine is done in a systemic, sustainable, deliberate way. That's why you see things like the capability coalitions that have been stood up, the National Armaments Directors meetings. So going forward, we'll continue to work with allies and partners on that front. But when it comes to, you know, NATO playing a bigger role, I just don't have anything on that. Another one from Art Golly. So Dr. Kirby told Voice of America today that the Pentagon would have more on joining U.S., Japan, and Philippine naval operations today. Can you give us some details about those operations? So I don't have anything to announce today. We will in the very near future. So just stay tuned. Nancy. You mentioned that the Secretary wasn't a part of today's phone call with the Prime Minister. Has he been a part of any of the phone calls between the President and the Prime Minister? You're talking, like, over the history of time? Let's say since October. I don't have an answer to that. Is that something we can answer on? You know, look, you know, again, as I highlighted, there is going to be phone calls that the President does if he wants Cabinet ministers to join. You know, certainly that's his prerogative, but I'd refer you to the White House to talk about who's joining White House calls. It's really not my purview to be able to respond to the White House. Not your purview to say what the Secretary was all to call? I guess I don't understand why it's secret or unreleasable if the Secretary participates in such an important call. There haven't been that many since October. Any other questions? No, I just think I'd appreciate you taking the question. Okay, I'll take the question. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Thank you. Just one quick question. So Ukraine has struck a number of Russian oil refineries, and it seems like they're ramping up those attacks. Has the Pentagon communicated with Ukraine about this, and do you support these attacks at all? Ukraine attacks against Russian oil refineries. You know, look, the assistance that we're providing to Ukraine is intended for them to defend their sovereign territory and to take back their sovereign territory. We don't provide any assistance for use outside of that. I'd refer you to Ukraine to talk about their operations. Certainly, our focus is on making sure that they can defend themselves. Have you communicated with them about these? We have frequent conversations with our Ukrainian counterparts on a variety of topics. Did you have one more? Yes, thank you. The administration now is willing to use leverage against Israel to enact some changes in Gaza. Fadi, again, I'd point you back to the readout, the President's phone call on the readout and just leave it at that again. I can't get into hypotheticals. I can't preview any potential future actions other than to say I'd refer you back to the President's statement. It signals a certain shift, whether this is my reading or others. What would you say led to this point to make hints at conditional support? Again, I appreciate the question. That's a presidential decision, so it's really more appropriate for the White House to address that question. I can take one more. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, General. Are the Japan-U.S. summit scheduled for next week? The security issues such as mobilization of U.S. Japan are set to expected to be a main topic. I know you're not going to get ahead of the outcome, but as DOD, what results do you expect from the summit? And a trilateral summit between U.S. Japan and the Philippines also is scheduled and considering the current situation of South China Sea, what kind of cooperation do you expect from those three countries? Sure. So, as you highlight, I don't want to get ahead of the summit other than to say, you know, we certainly look forward to the opportunity to talk with our Japanese allies and further bolster our cooperation and our relationship as one of our most pivotal allies in the region. When it comes to the United States and the Philippines and working trilaterally in the South China Sea, again as I highlighted earlier, our main focus is on working together to ensure that the Indo-Pacific region remains free, it remains open and that there's security and stability throughout the region. That is what our focus is. And so, we'll continue to coordinate with one another and look at areas where we can cooperate to ensure that that's the case. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.


In this study, researchers found that women who had a caesarean section delivery were more likely to experience postpartum depression than those who delivered vaginally. This association was stronger among women with antinatal psychological distress. This article was authored by Sachiko Baba, Satoyo Aikara, Yehab Esashak, and others.


This is the copyrighted work. Unauthorized copying or distribution is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Scholastic Audio presents Dark Sky Rising, Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr. with Tanya Bolden. Red by Dionne Graham Hello, my name is Henry Louis Gates Jr. You're listening to the audio edition of my book Dark Sky Rising, Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow. My very first venture in writing for young readers. The book and its topic are very special to me for several reasons. When I was growing up in Piedmont, West Virginia, our American history lessons were mainly focused on the founding fathers and other great figures in American history, such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. My teachers didn't dig deeply into the reasons for slavery or why racial segregation happened. Back then, history class was all about dates and names, but not much about black people, or the historical causes and effects of slavery and racism. This is one of the reasons I became a professor of African and African-American studies. Fortunately, I come from a family that love to read and love to discuss current events. My parents always taught me that knowledge brings meaning to one's daily life, and therefore to one's future. In fact, my mother and father often told my brother Paul and me that knowledge is power. And so when the chance came to write about one of the most turbulent and intriguing times in the shaping of America, I was very eager to present this important aspect of history to young readers. The Reconstruction era remains one of the most pivotal, yet least understood chapters in American history. Beginning with the Civil War and its aftermath, the United States struggled to heal the sectional divide that slavery and secessionate caused, while living up to the promise of equal citizenship for all, including the four million formerly enslaved African-Americans who had played a decisive role in saving the Union and fighting for their own liberation. During Reconstruction, the Constitution was transformed. African-Americans built businesses and religious and educational institutions, advanced in energetic... Sample complete. Ready to continue?


You may know that you're good at something And you may feel very confident about it But they will tell you that they never liked it They will tell you they were just being fake Because it's meant to raise everything you did To make you think you were never significant or beneficial to their lives to dismiss you as unimportant So they will tell you they were faking They will tell you they didn't care much about it Which is why you need to know yourself You need to have confidence in your own qualities and abilities You need to know what you're good at Because these tactics are meant to mess with your mind And it will leave you to become unsure of yourself as you begin to move forward It will affect your confidence. It will cause you to become shy Because they told you they never liked something about you So now you may begin to question if other people were lying to you too. You may question if other people were just being nice Which is why you need to know who you are You need to know what you've done. You need to know what you've put out You need to celebrate who you are Because no analysis is going to celebrate your achievements like you can do for yourself And you need to gray rock So that you're not giving them the satisfaction of feeling like they're bothering or hurting you Because then you're taking that power away from them Because it doesn't even affect you So they don't get a reaction But this is why they like to see your face They like to do it in person Because then they can see your facial expressions But even over the phone they can pick it up on your voice So they will know if something is bothering you and even through text They can tell if you're angry They can tell if they've got you So they're always looking for a reaction Because they want to know if they've affected you and they may have liked everything you did for them They may have been satisfied with it But because they want to hurt you They will lie and say that they didn't like it They will say that they didn't care about it Because they understand the effects that will have on you They understand that it will make you feel insignificant When you deserve more recognition than that But when you gray rock the narcissist It takes that satisfaction away from them And this is why they don't like you to see them going through something Because they don't want you to have the satisfaction of seeing their struggles and pain They don't want you to see that They don't want you to laugh at them They don't want you to know Which is why they will ghost you Which is why they will stay hidden When you gray rock the narcissist It takes their pleasure away from them It stops them from being able to enjoy your pain It stops them from being able to bother you It stops them from getting under your skin And when they don't get a reaction out of you They will leave you alone and move on quite quickly Thank you for watching If you found this video helpful, please give it a thumbs up Share your thoughts in the comment section Hit the subscribe button to receive the notifications If you would like to support the channel You could donate at paypal.amyslashnarksurvivor You could book a one-on-one with me on my website It's Narksurvivor, the Cuddy UK Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


So let us start introducing a couple of concepts that we will use in order to walk you through some of the features of the product we are going to showcase today. And an IoT solution made simple and open integrated and managed. So the first part is we were talking about open source, open standards, and open hardware. Just a little step back and talk about Eurotec. It's a company that has been around for 20 years. It started with the embedded systems and it has been an evolution from the hardware part. So we definitely come from the IT part of the OT-IT integration. There has been an evolution and we decided and we realized that connectivity was one of the most important parts in the offerings. So we started providing the software solution apart from the hardware products in there. The verticals we actually provide solutions in a pretty wide extent of verticals from industrial to transportation, defense and healthcare. This is a pretty typical stack of the IoT architecture and everywhere IoT is our name before the combined implementation from a solution that goes from the devices and centers and constrained devices from the bottom, connectivity to the gateway in the middle. And in the middle you can see the everywhere software framework which is the Eurotec middleware for IoT gateways. And then everywhere cloud is the Eurotec IoT integration platforms that provides connectivity to the IT part and integration to the IT part of the spectrum. And you can see on top all the different applications and business applications that can be connected through these architecture. And here there are some of the details in there. Okay, so one of the first topics we talk about open source. So we see here in close to everywhere software framework is Kura and Kapua that actually has been already presented by Eclipse. Those are two projects from Eclipse that Eurotec contributed to. The code base was donated to Eurotec. Kura is the middleware for IoT gateways that was donated some three years ago. More recently the Kapua, the upper part of the cloud implementation was donated last year. There are many contributors to these two Eclipse projects at the center. Eurotec and Red Hat of course and contribution from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Bosch and GE. So these two projects are actually inside the IoT working group of Eclipse. The IoT working group was founded in 2012 by three companies, Eurotec, IBM and share a wireless. And you can see that is one of the most active projects inside the Eclipse community. Here are the code contributions. And you see that Eurotec definitely it's together with the open group of communities is definitely one of the biggest contributors to the IoT working group at Eclipse. And one topic for which Eurotec is not very well known but actually it's one of the founder together with IBM and developers of the MQTT standard that has become an OASI standard last year. It's Eurotec and here it's one of the open standards, one of the many open standards that we adopted in our solution. And open hardware that was the third topic that we want to introduce. So at the gateway level, this middleware for multi-service gateway, we see that ESF which is based on Qura, Eclipse Qura, can be installed and actually we provide distributions of that for also open hardware like Raspberry Pis and BeagleBones all the way to our devices and gateways in the middle, all the way up to industrial, ruggedized gateways on the top. The next topic is integrated. And we will divide integration in two parts, integration at the edge, integration at the data center and see how these solutions are actually modular. This is the previous architecture and now we will focus on the part in the middle, the middleware for gateways. And well the title was Simplifying IoT Solutions and how we do that. Here we are really talking about the core, the most important part of the entire architecture, which is the connectivity at the gateway level from the devices and then up to the clouds. That in the new versions of Qura 3.0 that has been just announced and the ESF product 5.0, we are showcasing wires which is a way to graphically set up device connectivity and device configuration and abstract protocols that are connected with devices. So in here you see we see at the middle a little data flow diagram that has been composed graphically or composing and wiring together some components that are available from a palette of components. And in this way you can specify connectivity using different industrial protocols with some data consumers and publish the data all the way up to the cloud without writing a single line of code. So this is a zoom in into the wires editing, graphical editing program. It's a data flow tool to compose these graphs and you can see that you can specify for each component also the connectivity and the channels of data communication again without writing a single line of code. So these abstraction it's important because you can actually reuse part of these diagrams across different applications. This is zooming in the core part of the middleware for gateways and you can see many different parts. One in specifically the addition in this release of drivers and assets these are the abstraction that allow you to reuse the same concept of for example an industrial protocol or a data consumer that you have specified across different applications. Now let us zoom on the second part the everywhere cloud part and talk about integration at the data center. Here you see from this diagram that there are many many services and modular services that are built the everywhere cloud part from the data management of real-time analytics and storage to also the device management. Here it's a sample of the everywhere cloud web console in which you can actually see an inventory of all the devices connected to the cloud. You can see the data that is being published to the cloud and the status and health of all the devices connected and then finally the third concept the third theme that we brought together which is managed and managed in three different ways managed at the OT level, managed at the IT level and a security of the connection between the two of the bridge between the two. From my team management we talked about everywhere cloud we know that is the integration platform that has been contributed to the Kapua project and now it comes in three different versions the public version that uses the Docker technology. We also have an on-premise version that can be on a software appliance or actually on any public private cloud that the client wants. There will be and it has been announced that everywhere cloud in Kapua can actually run on top of the Red Hat OpenShift stack. Now the OT management is the management of the OT level so the most important thing in here is that at the cloud level you can really do remote management of your devices, secure management of devices, there is an entire certificate management the PKI certificate management of the cloud level, device batch operation and device provisioning. Device provisioning and actually it's one of the most important features of our system in which there is a handshake between the requester and a device in order to create a secure connection establish exchange some certificate and being able to have the device up and running connected to the cloud in a secure matter. Another interesting feature is the possibility of connecting from the cloud all the way down to the gateway and down to the device using a virtual private network and last but not least there's actually all the features of security that we provide from the cloud level we have a full PKI integrated certificate management we validate the server identity we validate also the device identities we can do optional a two-factor authentication for the connections at the device level we use we can actually deploy code that has been signed and only signed code is going to be executed at the device level and the communication between the two obviously we have full encrypted communication and host name verification which is a typical weakness that can be addressed by middleman attacks and digitally sign messages this is an important part because everything that gets communicated and remember we are not only taking data from the field but also we are remotely managing the devices is sent through and signed with digitally signed messages okay so these were the three themes that we used to to describe how our solutions are very simple open integrated and managed thank you