The Washington Post National Weekly - July 1, 2018 by The Wenatchee World

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

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The Fireworks King How one Chinese businessman became the largest supplier of pyrotechnics in the United States. PAGE 12

Politics Will court vacancy drive voters? 4

Nation Trump vs. Harley Davidson 8

5 Myths Fertility 23

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

G R E A T W I N E. G R E A T F O O D. G R E A T F U N. 8TH ANNUAL

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SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

KLMNO WEEKLY

THE FIX

Yet another blow to Democrats BY

A ARON B LAKE

wenty-one months ago, Democrats were poised to reclaim the presidency and maybe the Senate. Donald Trump was supposedly going to damage the GOP brand for years to come. It threatened to be a bloodbath. Today, the bloodbath is squarely on the Democratic side of the aisle. And it’s getting worse before it may get better — if it gets better any time soon. A party already decimated at the state level by gerrymandering and population sorting patterns is in the minority in both the House and the Senate, and it does not hold the presidency. As of Wednesday, those last two things mean it is now confronting an increasing deficit on the all-important United States Supreme Court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement probably means the court will soon have a sturdier 5-4 conservative majority. The court was arguably the one piece of the puzzle that had not completely deserted the Democratic Party. Republicans recently set a record of controlling about two-thirds of state legislative chambers. They set another record with 33 out of 50 governors’ seats. They control the entire government in 25 states, while Democrats have just seven. Democrats’ recruiting base has been almost completely drained, with the vast majority of competitive districts controlled by the GOP — in part thanks to the fact that they drew the maps to make them lean Republican. Trump’s shocking win would have been bad enough by itself. But the GOP also held the Senate that day and did not lose much from its House majority. Even worse, while Democrats appeared primed to win back one or both of

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ERIC THAYER/GETTY IMAGES

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement could solidify the GOP’s hold on power.

those chambers this November, that momentum has been arrested. It could be further arrested by the enthusiasm created by a new conservative Supreme Court justice just before Election Day. Democrats are basically powerless to prevent that from happening. They drew closer in the Senate thanks to an unexpected win in the Alabama special election, leaving Republicans with a bare 51-49 majority and just one vote to spare to confirm their nominee. Democrats will fantasize that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Jeff Flake (RAriz.), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) or Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) will take a stand with them. But that’s likely fanciful; it is much more likely that some of the 10 Democrats seeking reelection in red states will cross party lines in the name of being reelected. With Supreme

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Court nominees needing just a majority thanks to machinations in recent years, the math is just not there. Things still haven’t hit rock-bottom for Democrats. While Kennedy was the supposed swing vote on the court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is its oldest member and comes from its left flank. If she exits before 2020, that would give Trump a third Supreme Court nominee in one term and likely turn the 5-4 conservative edge into a 6-3 one — thereby cementing the conservative majority for potentially decades to come. Kennedy may be the retirement Democrats feared; Ginsburg is the one they dread. It’s an awful, almost steadily deteriorating set of circumstances for Democrats. And just when they thought it may be looking up, it has taken another turn for the worse. n

©The Washington Post

CONTENTS POLITICS THE NATION THE WORLD COVER STORY VETERANS BOOKS OPINION FIVE MYTHS

4 8 10 12 16 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Fireworks are seen at the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival on May 4. Most fireworks entering the United States come through one Chinese businessman. Photo by SALWAN GEORGES of The Washington Post

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POLITICS

Parties use open seat as rallying cry

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

GOP and Democrats see vacant Supreme Court spot as chance to energize voters BY P HILIP R UCKER AND A NNE G EARAN

he fight over President Trump’s intention to replace retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s crucial swing vote, with a reliable conservative immediately became a rallying cry for base voters of both political parties ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. The already-ferocious nomination battle is likely to clarify the choices for voters in Senate races across the country, strategists said, and affect other contests down the ballot. Even if Republi-

cans install a replacement for Kennedy before the November election, the debate is still likely to thrust to the forefront issues that have been largely overlooked on the campaign trail until now. Suddenly, everything seems at stake, according to the messages party leaders delivered on Wednesday, and both parties saw an advantage in boosting voter turnout. Democrats said no less than the future of abortion rights, health care, collective bargaining and same-sex equality is in peril, while Republicans claimed a seminal opportunity to shift the high court’s ideological orientation solidly to the right for a

generation or more. “There’s nothing like a Supreme Court debate to energize partisans,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Whatever advantage Democrats had in terms of voter energy may have just been negated. . . . This is like giving our GOP base voters a shot of adrenaline.” Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said, “The stakes for Democratic voters in this election already were extremely high, and the Supreme Court vacancy supercharges all of that.” Midterm elections historically have been referendums on the president, and there were few

President Trump and Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy make their way back to the Oval Office after Neil M. Gorsuch is sworn in as an associate justice on April 10, 2017.

indications that 2018 would be an exception. But strategists said Kennedy’s retirement will raise other issues, such as abortion or gay rights, that traditionally galvanize key blocs of activists. Campaigning Wednesday night in Fargo, N.D., Trump declared, “Justice Kennedy’s retirement makes the issue of Senate control one of the vital issues of our time.” Electing more Republicans, he said, is “the most important thing we can do.” Democrats have been trying to capitalize on Trump’s chronically low approval ratings with American voters overall — and especially among the well-educated sub-

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POLITICS urban voters who could swing many key House races — to win the majority of seats in the House, and perhaps in the Senate, too. Party officials now hope to use the Supreme Court vacancy as a tool to mobilize progressives, giving them a cause other than their dislike of Trump to volunteer and vote for Democratic candidates. Whereas Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch, had a conservative record in the mold of the late justice Antonin Scalia he replaced, the president could reshape the court by nominating a staunch conservative to replace Kennedy, a moderate whose opinions determined rulings preserving Roe v. Wade and enshrining same-sex marriage. “If there was ever any question whether the November elections would be the most important of our lifetime, Justice Kennedy’s retirement should remove all doubt,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. Though Trump said he would move swiftly to choose a replacement for Kennedy, Schumer and other Democrats argued that the Senate should hold off on considering his eventual nominee until after the November elections, citing similar rhetoric used by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in blocking President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia in 2016. “Given the stakes of this seat which will determine the fate of protected constitutional rights, the American people, who are set to vote in less than four months, deserve to have their voice heard,” Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) said in a statement. Democrats sought to connect Kennedy’s retirement to Tuesday’s court ruling upholding Trump’s travel ban on people from some majority-Muslim countries to scare voters about what a more conservative-leaning Supreme Court might rule. Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.), who is Muslim and serves as DNC deputy chair, said in a fundraising appeal that Republicans are trying to use the high court to “jam any racist, xenophobic, ugly policy down the throats of the American people.” And Sen. Chris Murphy (DConn.) said this was “a red alert

In his final term, Kennedy delivers conservative votes Share of 5-to-4 and 6-to-3 cases where Kennedy was part of the majority Voted with conservative majority in 15 of 20 cases

2017-18 Kennedy voted with liberal majority

Wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage

2010-11

2000-01

Kennedy voted with conservative majority

Overturned D.C.’s gun ban in D.C. v. Heller

1990-91 Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1988

1987-88 50% of close decisions Sources: SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court Database, Oyez

moment for the American people.” Democrats may look to the 1992 elections as a model. Bill Clinton won the White House, and a number of female candidates won Senate and House seats that year, following court decisions limiting abortion rights and sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Now, with America well into the Me Too movement and with the possibility that Trump nominates a justice who could be the decisive fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, a new class of female Democrats are running for Congress. But Democrats face a conundrum: The court battle motivates partisans on the left, but most of the contests that will determine control of the Senate, which votes on all judicial nominees, are taking place on treacherous terrain for their party. Democratic senators are en-

JOE FOX/THE WASHINGTON POST

dangered in five states Trump won solidly in 2016 — Indiana, Missouri, Montana, West Virginia and North Dakota, where the president was campaigning Wednesday night for Rep. Kevin Cramer, the GOP Senate candidate. Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Indiana looks to be “ground zero” for the political fight over the Supreme Court. Trump won the Hoosier State by 19 percentage points, and Sen. Joe Donnelly (D) is up for reelection there this fall. “It’s a socially conservative state that does vote for moderate Democrats,” Luntz said of Indiana, where Mike Pence was governor before becoming vice president. “But if you don’t get behind Trump’s nominee, they will punish you. And if Donnelly does say he’ll support Trump’s nominee, he’ll have Democrats stay home in protest.” Donnelly surely will face pres-

sure to support Trump’s eventual nominee, as will Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Jon Tester (DMont.). During the 2016 presidential campaign — when Scalia’s vacant Supreme Court seat hung in the balance and both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton campaigned hard on the issue — it proved to be a more motivating factor for Trump’s supporters. Of the 21 percent of voters who considered court nominations “the most important factor” in their decisions, 56 percent voted for Trump and 41 percent for Clinton, according to exit polls. Republican leaders have been concerned they will not be able to generate as much enthusiasm among conservative activists to counter the anti-Trump fervor on the Democratic side. Trump repeatedly has urged his crowds at rallies, “Don’t be complacent!” But top Republican strategists are convinced the coming Supreme Court fight will pay dividends in the fall. “Midterm elections are about base turnout,” said Corry Bliss, who runs the Congressional Leadership Fund, a group that aims to spend $100 million to keep Republican control of the House. “And there is no greater issue and no more motivating issue for our base. This just shows how important the election is.” Scott Reed, the chief strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is helping to elect a number of GOP Senate candidates, concurred: “This Supreme Court opening motivates the base like nothing else and ensures an enthusiasm advantage for Team Trump.” Supreme Court fights historically have been important motivators for both parties. But Luntz argued that this one will prove to be an overall advantage for Republicans because, until Kennedy’s retirement, their base did not have a strong motivation to turn out. “The average grass-roots Republican doesn’t love Congress, and while they appreciate the president, there really wasn’t a reason to vote,” Luntz said. “Now there’s a reason — a big reason.” n ©The Washington Post

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DON KNIGHT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) is up for reelection this fall in a state that Trump solidly won in 2016. With his seat at stake, he will probably face pressure to support Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

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POLITICS

Court afﬁrms presidential power BY

D AVID N AKAMURA

resident Trump’s victory this past week in the Supreme Court’s ratification of his travel ban marked a milestone in his attempt to paint broad swaths of immigrants as dangerous — a rhetorical strategy that has underpinned the administration’s sweeping efforts to unilaterally curtail immigration. Since taking office 18 months ago, Trump has amplified, and attempted to codify into policy, his campaign-trail warnings of the threats posed by foreigners who attempt to enter the United States, including those who come through legal channels. Pushing aside a Congress mired in a decades-long stalemate over immigration, the president has wielded his executive authority to pursue a hard-line agenda. The Trump administration has ramped up arrests of illegal immigrants, slashed refugee programs, criminalized unauthorized border crossings, attempted to terminate a deferred-action program for immigrants who came as children and — until Trump reversed himself the other week — implemented a policy that separated families at the border between the United States and Mexico. Critics expressed fears that the court’s Tuesday ruling would embolden Trump to further test the limits of his statutory authority to enforce border-control laws without explicit approval from lawmakers. Aides have promised new measures ahead of the midterm elections in November, and Trump ruminated this past week about the power to turn away unauthorized immigrants without offering them due-process rights. “Who’s going to be next?” asked Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), whose state brought the case against the travel ban. “Is the president going to issue an executive order against Mexicans? Is he going to issue an executive order against people from Honduras? Guatemala? What’s next?” The ban, which originally applied to six majority-Muslim nations, represented the audacity of

LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS

Travel-ban verdict could embolden Trump in his executive decisions Trump’s ambition in the early days of his administration — but also, over the past year, the potential legal limits of his authority. The administration suffered several legal setbacks in lower courts to immigrant rights groups that had cast Trump’s order as a xenophobic attack on Muslims that violated the Constitution. The high court’s 5-to-4 decision handed Trump a “tremendous victory,” as he called it during impromptu remarks at the White House. Aides described an air of vindication and even elation in the West Wing just days after Trump acceded to an about-face over his family-separation policy in the face of an international uproar. “This ruling is also a moment of profound vindication following

months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country,” Trump said in a statement. But Trump’s critics agreed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who in her dissent compared the ruling to the high court’s 1944 endorsement of the U.S. government’s imprisonment of Japanese Americans and Japanese citizens in internment camps during World War II. The court’s opinion on the travel ban, though, included a repudiation of the earlier decision, which it called “gravely wrong the day it was decided.” The travel-ban ruling is “a shameful mark on American history,” said Mariko Hirose, litiga-

Protesters gather at the high court as it issued its ruling upholding the travel ban. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a stinging rebuttal, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

tion director at the International Refugee Assistance Project, which successfully blocked an earlier version of the ban last year. Over the past decade, as a politically polarized Congress failed in several attempts to pass major immigration bills, successive administrations have sought to unilaterally amend the laws through executive power. First under President Barack Obama, and now Trump, the immigration fight increasingly shifted from Capitol Hill to the judicial branch. Obama implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected nearly 800,000 younger immigrants known as “dreamers” from deportation. But his effort to expand the

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

POLITICS program to cover millions of parents of U.S. citizens was blocked when a deadlocked Supreme Court in 2016 failed to overturn a lower court’s injunction on the program. Trump’s election turned the immigration fight on its head. In his first week in office, Trump signed an initial iteration of the travel ban during a visit to the Pentagon to swear in Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a symbolic setting aimed at casting the order as an “extreme vetting” measure to combat “radical Islamic terrorists.” Trump also declared that priority for immigration visas be granted to Christians and other religious groups over Muslims. Opponents cited a long history of presidential statements and tweets to challenge the order on the grounds that the ban was not based on legitimate national security concerns but rather constituted bigoted intolerance of Muslims. In his bid to curb immigration, Trump has routinely used inflammatory rhetoric to fan false claims, refuted by statistical evidence to the contrary, that immigrants commit higher rates of crimes than native-born Americans. In recent months, frustrated by a lack of progress on his proposed border wall, Trump has called immigrants “vermin” that are overrunning the country, although arrests of unauthorized bordercrossers remain historically low. He has also accused Democrats of supporting “open borders” and of facilitating the brutality of MS-13, a transnational gang with many members born in the United States. Immigrant rights advocates said the travel-ban ruling is bound to fortify Trump’s conviction to accelerate the administration’s efforts to choke off legal avenues for refugees, foreign students and temporary workers, all of whom have been confronted with new hurdles for entry. “If you can issue an outright ban, there’s no end to what you can accomplish,” said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who served as an aide to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) during the unsuccessful effort to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2013 and 2014. “You can turn it on any country at any time for any reason.” n ©The Washington Post

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A jaw-dropping loss for the Democrats in primaries BY

A MBER P HILLIPS

even states held primaries on Tuesday night — South Carolina, Oklahoma, New York, Colorado, Maryland, Mississippi and Utah — and as usual, President Trump loomed over top races for Republicans. Here are Tuesday’s winners and losers.

MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated a congressman who outraised her 10 to 1 in their New York district.

his seat in 2015 to go to jail for seven months for tax evasion. But his attempts to leverage his conviction for outsider street cred in a pro-Trump Staten Island district failed. Grimm lost the Republican primary to the incumbent, Rep. Dan Donovan, who has lobbied to display Trump’s portrait in post offices and got endorsed by the president. The Republican Party in Oklahoma: Democrats had no problem nominating someone they think is a strong candidate, former Oklahoma attorney general Drew Edmondson, for Oklahoma’s open governor’s race. While he starts campaigning, Republicans will have to muddle through another two months of a runoff since none of the 10 Republican candidates for the open seat won a majority of the vote. The Republican winner of that August runoff will have to then work to shake the outgoing governor’s extreme unpopularity. Democrats have had some stunning state legislative victories in Oklahoma this election cycle, so don’t rule out a competitive governor’s race.

LOSERS

WINNERS

The Democratic establishment: Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) is one of the highestranking Democrats in the House, and he just lost his job to a 28-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated a congressman thought to be next in line to lead House Democrats who outraised her 10 to 1 in the Bronx and Queens district. Her extraordinary upset of a 20-year veteran of Congress will shake the Democratic Party establishment, as it grapples for unity in its efforts to win back the House of Representatives. Con men: Former Republican congressman Michael Grimm was trying to become the first felon in 90 years to be elected to the House, according to one calculation by Roll Call. He resigned

Liberals, especially newcomers: Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t the only unabashed progressive and/or newcomer to politics to win big Tuesday. In Maryland, former NAACP president Ben Jealous, who had the backing of the Bernie Sanders coalition, won the Democratic Party’s extremely competitive primary to challenge Gov. Larry Hogan (R), beating a politician with the backing of the state’s entire Democratic establishment. In Syracuse, N.Y., liberal professor Dana Balter won the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Rep. John Katko despite national Democrats’ efforts to boost the other candidate, Juanita Perez Williams. In Colorado, Rep. Jared Polis (D), trying to be the first openly gay man to be governor in America, won the Democratic nomina-

tion. And in New York, newcomer Adem Bunkeddeko came close to unseating veteran Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, an impressive feat. Trump: For the second time last month, Trump demonstrated he’s got sway over voters in South Carolina. In the state’s June 12 primary, a tweet from the president helped end the career of GOP congressman Mark Sanford. On Tuesday, Trump helped the state’s governor, Henry McMaster, win a runoff against businessman John Warren. McMaster has struggled to shake the label as a corrupt establishment politician and personally lobbied for Trump to hold a South Carolina rally for him the night before the election. As rambling and unfocused as Trump’s rally was, it may have helped McMaster handily win his runoff. Analysts predicted the runoff would be close; McMaster won by more than five points. Trump: No, that’s not a typo. Trump was a clear winner across the country in Utah, too. There, Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat — which, in Utah, is often a bigger hurdle than the actual general election. But Romney got there only after minimizing his criticism of Trump. He went from warning his party that a Trump presidency would “greatly” diminish America’s future, to writing an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune a few days ago that declared “the first year of [Trump’s] administration has exceeded my expectations.” Medical marijuana: Voters in Oklahoma approved legalizing medical marijuana, despite widespread opposition from state Republicans and faith leaders. That could make Oklahoma the 30th state where medical marijuana is legal, though the ballot question could get sliced and diced by Oklahoma’s Republican politicians if the governor calls a special legislative session to do that, as she has warned. n ©The Washington Post

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NATION

Harley Davidson’s uneasy riders D AN S IMMONS in Milwaukee BY

arc Skildum is an avid supporter of President Trump who raises alpacas in nearby Dousman, Wis., and rides Electra Glide Ultra Classics with his wife, Stacey. But he doesn’t share the president’s outrage that Harley-Davidson, headquartered here for 115 years, is moving work overseas to get around Trump’s brewing global trade war. “It’s business,” said Skildum, 48, visiting the company’s museum near downtown Milwaukee. “If they can expand overseas and save money, you do it. Trump himself would do it, I feel.” After Harley announced Monday it would shift work overseas to avoid the fallout from Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs and Europe’s retaliatory tariffs, the president repeatedly criticized the company, threatening it with severe taxes and predicting the decision could represent the “beginning of the end” for the brand. “Harley-Davidson should stay 100% in America, with the people that got you your success,” Trump said in a tweet Wednesday. “I’ve done so much for you, and then this. Other companies are coming back where they belong! We won’t forget, and neither will your customers or your now very HAPPY competitors!” Yet a visit to a motorcycle repair shop and the museum here on Wednesday revealed that Harley customers might not be willing to choose between the president they support and the motorcycle company they love. The company said the retaliatory tariffs by the European Union would increase the cost of its motorcycles by an average of $2,200 in European markets if they were made in the United States. Supporters of the president, who made up the majority of riders surveyed, continue to back him, though with caveats. “He gets himself into all these squabbles that he shouldn’t,” such as this one with Harley, said Jeff Polak, a 54-year-old from Milwau-

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

Customers are not willing to choose between president they support and company they love kee who rides a 2013 Harley FLTRU Road Glide. “I don’t support that.” But he doesn’t blame the president’s tariffs for Harley’s decision to set up more manufacturing operations abroad. “I think Harley has been planning this for years,” he said. The tariffs presented the company with an easy way to explain the move, he reasoned. Harley has built both an enduring brand and a near-peerless reputation for high-quality American craftsmanship, a reputation that Trump himself once celebrated. In February 2017, shortly after his inauguration, Trump joined company executives on the front lawn of the White House, holding it up as an example of a U.S. company that would benefit and expand thanks to Republican policies on tax and trade. The company’s relationship with its home town has been largely unblemished, and a massive party will be held in Milwau-

kee over Labor Day weekend to celebrate its 115th anniversary. Groups from San Diego; Seattle; Portland, Maine; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; will ride in on the company’s motorcycles, converging in what the company calls “the motherland” of Milwaukee. But some here have soured a bit and fought back against the company’s mystique. Jim Mead, a retired Milwaukee man, quit high school for a job on the Harley-Davidson assembly line in 1968 but stopped riding the company’s motorcycles a few years ago in favor of an Indian-brand bike. He doesn’t buy the company’s stated rationale for the overseas move. “Using the tariffs as an excuse to move offshore is weak at best,” he said. “Anyone who knows anything about Harley-Davidson knows that they have been using non-American products in their bikes for years. They have had plans for this move long before Donald Trump started taking a hard line on the trade imbalance.”

Shortly after the inauguration, President Trump joined company executives on the front lawn of the White House, holding Harley Davidson up as an example of a U.S. company that would benefit and expand thanks to Republican policies on tax and trade.

An unwavering Trump supporter, Mead said his moves on trade make sense. “The president is, in my opinion, doing exactly what he should do to correct the imbalance and bad deals on trade that haven’t been addressed ever,” he said. Bob Franz didn’t vote for Trump, sitting out the election entirely, and doesn’t support his tariffs. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more avid Harley supporter. In his younger days, he rarely met weather not suitable for riding a Harley. Now 76, he still puts about 100 miles a week on his 2002 Road King but takes winters off. Like many in the city where Harley-Davidson got its start, Franz not only rides the company’s motorcycles but also worked there, as a mechanic in the 1960s. The pending move to overseas manufacturing can’t be avoided because of the tariffs, he said. “I don’t think they have any other choice,” Franz said. But it won’t work in the long term, he said. He pointed to the company’s sale in 1969 to American Machine and Foundry. AMF moved some manufacturing overseas, he said, which only created problems because factory hands weren’t used to making Harleys. Quality suffered, the company’s finances went south and a group of 12 investors that included Willie G. Davidson, grandson of company co-founder William A. Davidson, bought the company back in 1981. “You start sending stuff overseas, and nothing works,” Franz said. “History repeats itself . . . . In a couple of years it will all be back in Milwaukee.” On that point, Stacey Skildum, a strong Trump supporter, agrees. “Made in America,” she said, raising her hands in a celebratory pose. “Buy American. Support your country. Support your neighbor who needs a job.” Trump’s tariffs make that possible. “They aren’t designed to punish,” she said. “It’s if you want the privilege [to bring goods to U.S. markets], you have to pay for it.” n ©The Washington Post

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NATION

KLMNO WEEKLY

Shooting sparks new round of enmity BY

M ARC F ISHER

he first tweet was urgent and spare: “Active shooter 888 Bestgate please help us,” wrote Anthony Messenger, an intern at the Capital Gazette, a struggling smalltown newspaper in Annapolis. Minutes after that 2:43 p.m. tweet Thursday, a devastating shooting in a suburban office building prompted reactions that again demonstrated the country’s wrenching divisions. On Twitter and other social media, shreds of good news — reporters and editors at the Capital pronouncing themselves safe — were quickly overwhelmed by accusations and assumptions, mostly unfounded, about who was responsible and how the shootings fit into the story of a divided and angry nation. With five of his colleagues dead and two others wounded, Jimmy DeButts, an editor at the Capital, felt compelled to offer a defense of the work his colleagues do. He begged people on Twitter to “stop asking for information/interviews. I’m in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays — just a passion for telling stories from our community.” A shooting at a newspaper, even a local paper that mostly steers clear of national politics, opens a window into the economic dislocation that has altered the way Americans work and how they learn about their communities. “We keep doing more with less,” DeButts tweeted. “We find ways to cover high school sports, breaking news, tax hikes, school budgets & local entertainment . . . We try to expose corruption. We fight to get access to public records . . . The reporters & editors put their all into finding the truth. That is our mission. Will always be.” From inside the Annapolis newsroom, reporter Phil Davis provided an immediate narration of the chaos around him. “Gunman shot through the glass door

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

The Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., clung to its mission as a polarized nation mined for blame to the office and opened fire on multiple employees,” he tweeted an hour after the attack. “Can’t say much more and don’t want to declare anyone dead, but it’s bad. There’s nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload.” In a country where trust has been in sharp decline, suspicions about what might be behind a shooting in a newsroom quickly became a dominant part of the story of the tragedy in Annapolis. On Fox News Channel, reporter Trace Gallagher told anchor Neil Cavuto: “We checked in earlier, Neil, with the ideological bent of the Capital, again, it’s one of the oldest newspapers in the country . . . we kind of looked at the editorial board, who’s on it, what topics they cover, it’s very much a local newspaper. . . . Doesn’t really seem to have a major ideological bent, if that

plays into the motive at all.” Cavuto felt the need to assure his audience that the paper was not overly controversial: “Eyeing through it on the Internet, I don’t notice any rabid editorials or polarizing coverage. It just seems like a very solid local paper.” Journalists offered their support to their colleagues in Annapolis, and many added a defense of their craft: “On this horrific day, let’s establish that journalists are not ‘the enemy of the American people,’ as President Trump has tweeted,” wrote NPR correspondent Melissa Block. On his radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity immediately questioned whether Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’s call for continuing public harassment of Trump administration officials might have inspired the Capital shooting. “Honestly, I’ve been saying now for days that something horrible’s going to happen because of the rhetoric,” Hannity

A police officer hugs a woman coming from the direction of the Capital Gazette’s office in Annapolis on Thursday after a gunman attacked the newspaper’s office, killing five and injuring two. Police arrested suspect Jarrod Ramos, 38, who had a long history of conflict with the newspaper, and he has been charged with murder. But accusations flew before the suspect had been identified.

said. “Really, Maxine, you want people to call your friends, get in their faces?” The far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos had sent out a message to reporters on Tuesday saying, “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” Now, without knowing who shot up the Capital newsroom, some people were connecting dots. Yiannopoulos put out a statement saying that his inflammatory words were “a private, offhand troll to two hostile reporters,” “a joke” that was never meant to be widely distributed. In Annapolis, the shootings were a blow not only against the local paper, but against neighbors. “The Capital Gazette is my hometown paper,” Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said in a statement, “and I have the greatest respect for the fine journalists, and all the men and women, who work there. They serve each day to shine light on the world around us so that we might see with more clarity and greater understanding.” With a daily print circulation of about 29,000 as of 2014, the Capital had only 31 people on its editorial staff. “We are close,” tweeted reporter Danielle Ohl. “We are family.” Sportswriter Bill Wagner put word out that “I am okay. Thank God I was not at the office . . . However, many of my colleagues and friends are not okay and that is solely where my thoughts are right now.” The surviving staffers, augmented by colleagues from the Baltimore Sun, which bought the paper in 2014, worked against the most crushing deadline of their careers. “I am okay physically, so far, mentally I am a mess,” wrote Capital photographer Paul W. Gillespie, who was in the newsroom when the shootings took place. “I am in shock trying to process this horrible situation.” “I can tell you this,” Capital reporter Cook tweeted. “We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” n ©The Washington Post

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WORLD

Austria’s leader seizes the moment BY G RIFF W ITTE AND S OUAD M EKHENNET in Vienna

y 24, Sebastian Kurz was a member of the Austrian cabinet. By 27, he was foreign minister. And by 31, the debonair university dropout with the slicked-back mane and Hollywood grin became the world’s youngest leader. Now, just six months into his term as chancellor, Kurz is seizing a febrile moment in European politics to make himself into one of the continent’s power players. In the next few weeks alone, he is trying to seal Europe off from asylum seekers arriving by sea, orchestrate the planned summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and, critics say, undermine Germany’s Angela Merkel, the most consequential European leader of the past decade. Merkel could see her government collapse as soon as this weekend. If it does, she will have mutinous members of her own conservative bloc to blame. But equally important will be the role of Kurz, who has repeatedly appeared in public with the German rebels to bolster their zero-tolerance immigration stance and not so subtly take aim at Merkel. “You don’t do what he’s doing if you don’t want to be part of the conflict,” said Cengiz Gunay, deputy director of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. “It looks like he’s interfering in German politics.” It looks that way to the Germans, too. “There seems to be a new kind of cross-border coalition between politicians, but also media outlets and individuals, who have decided to push Chancellor Merkel out of her position,” said a nonpartisan senior German official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “Chancellor Kurz comes across as one of the biggest forces behind this plan.” Kurz’s allies vehemently disagree that he is trying to meddle in a country that has 10 times the

MICHAEL KAPPELER/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Some see the immigration hard-liner exploiting his German neighbor’s vulnerability on the issue population of Austria or that he wants Merkel gone. But there is little question that he is, at the very least, using Merkel’s vulnerability to gain influence. Merkel has fiercely resisted concessions to the anti-immigrant far right even as its popularity has surged on her watch. Kurz, who claims credit for shutting down the asylum route that he blames Merkel for popularizing, swept to power last fall by mimicking the far-right’s policies on the campaign trail, then chose as his coalition partner a far-right party that has been known to use anti-Muslim and anti-refugee rhetoric. Fortunately for Kurz, migration is the issue of the moment in Europe. And he has proved adept at channeling the continent’s angst with a Fortress Europeesque plan to halt the flow of asylum seekers that he has said will be at the center of his agenda when Austria takes over the rotating European Union presidency

Sunday. Kurz has found allies for his vision in the populist new Italian government, and within the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian branch of Merkel’s conservative coalition. In June, he stood side by side with German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer — a CSU heavyweight — to warn against another “catastrophe.” That was a pointed reference to Merkel’s decision to open German borders — at Austria’s quiet urging — to people fleeing war, oppression and poverty starting in 2015. Kurz was foreign minister at the time. Although numbers are dramatically down since then, with flows shifting from the western Balkans to the far more treacherous central Mediterranean, Kurz said an “axis of the willing” from Berlin to Vienna to Rome would work together to prevent a recurrence. Awkwardly, Merkel is not part of that alliance. Instead, she balked at Seehofer’s plan to start turning back asylum seekers at

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz at the chancellery in Berlin on June 12.

the border. Thus began a showdown that could tear her government apart. To avoid that fate, she will need concessions from her fellow European leaders — Kurz included — at this weekend’s E.U. summit. But Kurz’s words and actions suggest he’s more interested in emboldening the German rebels than in bailing out Merkel. On Tuesday, his government carried out border-patrol training exercises to prove it could block asylum seekers from entering the country. Kurz told the German tabloid Bild that the border measures would kick in if Seehofer limits access to Germany — a move the chancellor described as welcome because it “could trigger a domino effect which will deter illegal migration.” Merkel has said she is determined to avoid such a chaotic outcome — just as she was in the spring of 2016 when Kurz, as foreign minister, preempted her efforts to reach a Europe-wide strategy by closing Austria’s borders along the western Balkan migration route, setting off a chain reaction that stranded people farther down the trail. Now as then, Merkel has struggled to achieve consensus. Without progress at this week’s European summit, Seehofer has said he will unilaterally implement the border controls. That would force Merkel to either fire him or back down. Either way, it could imperil her grip on power. Members of Kurz’s party say destabilizing Merkel is not their goal. But they also note with pride that the German leader has been forced to shift in her Austrian counterpart’s direction — including on the question of requiring asylum seekers to make their claims at centers in North Africa rather than in Europe. “When Kurz started to talk about camps outside the E.U., she was not positive about it. But now she sounds quite different,” said Reinhold Lopatka, a Kurz ally in parliament. “It’s essential for her to reach agreement, and she knows it.” n ©The Washington Post

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WORLD

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In the Xi era, a return to tradition B Y E MILY R AUHALA in Zhenjiang, China

t a college in southern China, Duan Fengyan is studying to be an accountant. She is also getting lessons in how to be a woman in the time of President Xi Jinping. In a course launched in March, not long after China abolished presidential term limits, Zhenjiang College and the All-China Women’s Federation have been teaching female students how to dress, pour tea and sit just so — all in the name of Xi’s “new era.” “You must sit on the front twothirds of the chair — you cannot occupy the whole chair,” said Duan, 21, demonstrating. “Now, hold in your belly, relax your shoulders, legs together, shoulders up.” The class, offered only to female students, aims to develop “wise,” “sunny” and “perfect” women. The Communist Party wants women educated, but with economic growth slowing and the population shrinking, it is bringing back the idea that men are breadwinners and women are, first and foremost, wives and mothers. The college launched the New Era Women’s School to heed Xi’s call for education in traditional Chinese culture, to help women in the job market and prepare them for domestic roles, said Sheng Jie, who runs the program. Forty years into China’s great economic transformation, Chinese women are, on average, healthier, wealthier and better educated than ever before, but they are losing ground relative to men. Since the start of Xi’s tenure, China’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index has dropped significantly — from 69 out of 144 countries in 2013 to a 100th-place finish in 2017. The country’s top cadres do not seem concerned. The party is worried that educated women will decide not to marry men and have kids, compounding the surplus of males caused by the onechild policy and potentially de-

YUYANG LIU FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

At a Chinese college, a course aims to prepare women to become ‘perfect’ wives and mothers stabilizing the country. “The direction of the future is that women are supposed to play the role of wife and mother in the home,” said Leta Hong Fincher, author of “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.” The Zhenjiang program appears to be the first college course in feminine virtue under Xi. The Washington Post was the first foreign media outlet granted access to the campus and was allowed to interview students — while their teachers listened in. “According to traditional culture, women should be modest and tender, and men’s role is working outside and providing for the family,” said Duan, 21, before a class on tea ceremonies. In his first five years in power, Xi cast himself as a champion of women’s rights, declaring that women’s equality is a “great cause.” But his words were undercut by

actual policy. China has detained five young feminists and thwarted some LGBT activism. Xi has not made significant progress on getting more women into the highest levels of leadership, nor has he focused on fixing the gender pay gap. His tenure has been less about pushing for equality than promoting a vision of “harmonious” malefemale households with a working father and a virtuous mother. The party insists that this reflects the Confucian values at the core of Chinese culture. Critics counter that culture changes and that China should look forward, not back. Last year, news broke that a company in northern China was operating a “traditional culture school” where women were told to “shut your mouths and do more housework” and practiced bowing to their husbands. When the story went viral, local officials said its message violat-

Students in Zhenjiang College’s New Era Women’s School practice a tea ceremony. The program prepares women for the job market but also domestic roles, said Sheng Jie, the course’s director.

ed “socialist core values” and called for an investigation. But Feng Yuan, a Beijing-based campaigner against domestic violence, said the focus on wifely virtue persists — and is promoted. “At the moment, we only see emphasis on women’s family role,” she said. “There’s never any emphasis on men’s role.” In the halls and classrooms of Zhenjiang College, self-improvement is indeed women’s work. The course was the brainchild of the local branch of the All-China Women’s Federation. The students are women. There is no equivalent course for men. Li Ziyi, a 19-year-old studying early-childhood education, said she had been taught years ago that, for women, good grades are not enough. “When I was in secondary school, my teacher told us that the college entrance exam is the last fair exam in your life, because it doesn’t look at your face,” she said. Yes, handsome men have an advantage, she added, but “society still has a higher requirement for girls.” Her classmate, Wang Caidie, 18, a nursing student, said female nurses are advised to wear “light makeup” to look professional, while male classmates are given no instructions at all. The double standard was not lost on them, but neither were the lessons in how to sit, stand and serve tea — which they considered fun and useful. “Even before the job interview starts, we will deliberately pay more attention to how we sit, how we stand up. That is our advantage compared to those who haven’t attended these classes,” Duan said. Sheng, the program director, declined to talk much about women’s rights — she is a teacher, not a feminist, she said. Her goal is to teach young women what they need to know and, in doing so, help the nation. “The country is emphasizing traditional culture, so we are providing courses,” she said. “This is a new era. History is moving in a better direction.” n ©The Washington Post

A crowd watches the fireworks show at the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival on May 4. SALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST

COVER STORY

The man lighting up the night Where are most U.S. fireworks from? One company in China.

oughly 70 percent of all Chinese fireworks entering the United States come here under the control of a Chinese businessman who has used his influence to raise prices and block competitors, leaving many U.S. executives fearful of losing access to their most important Fourth of July inventories. ¶ Ding Yan Zhong — known to industry insiders as “Mr. Ding” — has managed the flow of fireworks for a decade through the two companies he founded, Shanghai Huayang and Firstrans International. ¶ He has broadened his empire by consolidating power in China, expanding his reach into California and becoming the most important player in fireworks logistics on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. ¶ Now, Ding’s control of the fireworks delivery chain is nearly complete, according to two dozen shipping and fireworks executives, more than 40,000 fireworks shipping records, numerous court documents and other sources. ¶ From the southeastern Chinese city of Liuyang, where the majority of U.S.-bound fireworks are made, producers often load their products onto Huayang trucks. After they are stored in a Huayang warehouse, Huayang runs access to the barges they float down on the Yangtze River toward Shanghai. Once there, Huayang arranges for their shipment across the ocean. ¶ In the United States, these containers, often stuffed with 30,000 pounds of pyrotechnics, are frequently received by Firstrans, which was founded by Ding seven years ago, completing an 11,000-mile journey connected to Ding every step of the way. BY DAMIAN PALETTA AND EMILY RAUHALA

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COVER STORY

Ding’s volume and fees rose just as the spectacular fireworks he delivers do, and they are passed along to U.S. consumers, paid by everyone from hobbyists buying sparkling comets at roadside stands to municipal governments buying professional-scale shells for their annual Fourth of July celebrations, according to fireworks industry officials in China and the United States. “Everything going through Shanghai goes through Mr. Ding and Huayang,” said Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, a U.S. trade group for fireworks companies. “We have no choice.” But Steve Houser, secretary of the National Fireworks Association, said U.S. companies don’t have to rely on Huayang exclusively because several smaller firms also were able to ship fireworks to the United States from China. Still, he added, “Mr. Ding, as everybody calls him, is better to have as a friend than an enemy, I’ll tell you that.” So far this year, companies founded by Ding have arranged the transportation of 241 million pounds of fireworks, loaded onto 7,400 containers from China to the United States, according to Panjiva, a firm that tracks companies involved in global trade. Panjiva allowed The Washington Post to analyze its database of import records to assess the scope of Huayang’s market share. These records show how most U.S. importers rely on Ding’s companies to bring fireworks to the United States. The dynamic is well-known within the industry, but executives at some U.S. firms supplied by Ding’s companies say they are extremely wary of speaking out against Ding. A number of executives interviewed for this story refused to speak on the record, worried they would lose access to fireworks. Panjiva data show Ding’s companies have shipped more fireworks this year than any other, despite tensions that are pushing the U.S. and China closer to a full-scale trade war. Ding has used the complexities of that relationship to build powerful businesses in both countries. Trump wants U.S. firms to be able to compete more freely with Chinese counterparts, but the pipeline that Ding’s companies have established in both countries demonstrates how difficult this goal is. Ding, through one of his most senior advisers, Hu Yulu, agreed to meet with Post reporters for an interview in Shanghai. But he never appeared. Instead, Ding’s vice general manager — Danny Zhou — said the interview had been canceled after concerns raised by a “relevant authority” he would not identify. He provided little information besides saying that Ding was from Shanghai and was born in 1969. Little else is known about Ding outside of his role in the fireworks industry, and his business partners declined to provide a photograph of him or point to one. “We hope that your story will be about Huayang, not Mr. Ding,” Zhou said.

PHOTOS BY YUYANG LIU FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

THE EXPLOSION THAT STARTED AN EMPIRE This fireworks story begins with an explosion. On Feb. 14, 2008, in Foshan, a city in southern China, 15,000 cartons of fireworks spread across 20 warehouses mysteriously exploded in the middle of the night, creating a tremendous blast that damaged windows and doors a half-mile away. Surprisingly, no one was seriously hurt. Before the explosion, companies could ship fireworks out of numerous ports, fireworks industry executives said. But after, Chinese authorities cracked down, requiring almost all of the pyrotechnics to be moved out of Shanghai. And, perhaps most significant, to ship fireworks, companies now needed to obtain special permits, the executives said. Only three were initially given out by Shanghai’s Maritime Safety Administration to transfer fireworks onto container ships there, several fireworks and shipping executives said. Of those three, Ding was the only recipient who could move his vessels through the Shanghai port for export to the United States, according to Liu Jihua, owner of Hunan Hongguang

Fireworks shells, top, dry at a Huahui Fireworks Manufacturing warehouse in Liuyang, China. A worker then fills the shells with gunpowder.

Logistics, a Liuyang company that specializes in shipping to Southeast Asia. At the time, Ding was a relatively unknown entrepreneur who had mostly specialized in exporting fireworks to Europe. He had a collection of warehouses in Hunan, the southern Chinese province that has made fireworks for more than 1,000 years, according to a person who has visited the facilities. His property was very basic and lacked paved roads, a dangerous omission when transporting explosives, the person said. The dirt road could become unnavigable when it rained. And it rained a lot. But in China, permits are power. As a result, most of the producers in China and the buyers in the United States needed to funnel all their orders through Ding’s company. Huayang eventually upgraded its warehouse and bought nine barges to transport containers along the snaking Yangtze River, connecting Hunan to Shanghai, according to a presentation Zhou gave to the American Pyrotechnics Association this year. In 2008, Huayang transported 64,217,430 pounds of fireworks, according to Panjiva. The next year, its volume increased to 79,541,209. This year, Ding’s company has shipped triple that amount in the first five months. The American Pyrotechnics Association estimates that Americans spend more than $1 billion on fireworks each year. Ding’s control allowed him to bump up prices sharply. The cost of shipping a container of fireworks before the explosion was about $5,000. But within several years, Ding charged between $8,000 and $15,000 to ship a container of the consumer fireworks sold at roadside tents and nearly $20,000 for the larger fireworks used at professional shows in July, according to officials at U.S. and Chinese companies who have relied on him for access. If U.S. companies wanted fireworks from China, they had no choice. They had to pay Huayang. And they did. But Ding’s ambitions stretched across the ocean. COMING TO THE UNITED STATES Ding had almost complete control of the containers leaving China. But he still needed someone to collect them in the United States. Ding already had a U.S. partner in JT Worldwide, a Chicago logistics company run by a Shanghai-born businessman, Junyuan Tsang. So when Ding wanted to expand his U.S. operations, Tsang said, he reached out to him. For Tsang, at first, life was good. Huayang put the containers onto vessels in Shanghai, and Tsang would arrange for their collection at U.S. ports. The fireworks were then loaded onto trains and rumbled through the United States. It would take between 30 and 45 days to move a container of fireworks from Liuyang in China to Kansas City, Kan., and there was always a crush of containers arriving in April, May and June as everyone prepared for Fourth of July,

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COVER STORY

Tsang and other industry officials said. “It became a big part of our operation,” Tsang said in an interview. “They grew so fast, very fast actually. So fast we cannot catch up with the pace.” By 2010, more than half of Tsang’s business was arranging pickup for Huayang’s containers. But Ding wanted a bigger presence, Tsang said, and he wasn’t satisfied with sharing. Ding wanted to buy Tsang out, he said. During a business trip to Shanghai, Tsang said, he met Ding and several of his associates for dinner. Tsang was told that Ding’s favorite color was red, so he wore a red shirt, hoping for a great offer. “You are wearing red; that’s a good sign!” Ding told him, according to Tsang. The offer was low. Tsang declined to say how much Ding offered, but he said it was embarrassingly low, and he turned it down. Ding had a Plan B. He would start his own logistics company, call it Firstrans International and base it in Southern California, between the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to Tsang and California state records. Tsang said he felt morally compelled to help Ding with the endeavor. He agreed to train Firstrans’s manager, at no charge. Documents filed with the California secretary of state in 2011 show Firstrans was created by a man named Yan Zhong Ding, who is listed as president of Hua Yang Transportation Co. Soon after that, Ding sent most of the containers he shipped to the United States through Firstrans, according to Panjiva data and Tsang. Ding was starting to control the entire process on both continents. Tsang said the change has hurt his business, but he would not say by how much. In 2008, Tsang received roughly 100 percent of Ding’s

A truck transfers a shipping container to a Huayang warehouse in Liuyang, China, on June 1.

U.S. imports. By 2017, his share had fallen to 12 percent, according to Panjiva. RIVALS VANQUISHED Around the time Ding was creating Firstrans, an upstart shipping company run by Danish executives tried to enter the global fireworks business. They launched the Containership Co. and planned to use a single vessel to run between Taicang, another port that was going to allow fireworks shipments, and California, according to court documents from Containership Co.’s later bankruptcy. Some U.S. fireworks companies and Chinese manufacturers thought this would give them a way to work around Ding, as they wouldn’t be stuck going through Shanghai, several fireworks executives said. At first, they appeared set for success; a number of logistics firms, responsible for arranging exports on behalf of U.S. buyers, had agreed to use the Containership Co. for transport. But these companies rapidly backed out, and one said it received threats from officials at the Shanghai port. In a federal bankruptcy filing, U.S.-based Globe Express said it was told by Shanghai officials that if it shipped through Taicang, it could forget ever shipping through Shanghai again. The company also said it went beyond business maneuvers to something more sinister. “This disruption included threats against Globe Express’s staff, the active blocking of transport and unloading of Globe Express’s cargo on other carriers’ container ships at Shanghai and other actions that made it impossible for Globe Express to conduct the

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majority of its business in China,” the company said in a court filing. John Brooke, an Indiana lawyer who helped Ding set up Firstrans in 2011, said he met with Ding a year or so earlier at the Shanghai port and was struck by how the officials there deferred to Ding on a variety of issues, frequently asking him questions and for his expertise. Brooke, Heckman and fireworks executives all said Ding had personally intervened on several occasions and persuaded officials at the Shanghai port or at shipping companies to move containers of fireworks, speak with Chinese officials and ensure that fireworks were moved through the Shanghai port after delays. “For this industry, you have to have solid power,” Zhang said. “Huayang is from Shanghai. It has connections.” Companies without those connections have had little success doing business in Shanghai. B.J. Alan, an Ohio company, struck a deal with APL, a major shipping liner, to transport fireworks out of Shanghai, according to two people briefed on the episode who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of crossing Huayang. B.J. Alan officials declined to comment. B.J. Alan officials were surprised, though, when the contract was quickly canceled by APL, with little explanation given, the two people briefed on the event said. That meant B.J. Alan would still have to rely on Huayang to move hundreds of containers of fireworks each year to the United States, not just from Shanghai but along the Yangtze as well. ‘I DIDN’T KNOW ONE GUY WAS CONTROLLING EVERYTHING’ In 2010, Huayang shipped 61.4 million pounds of fireworks to the United States, according to Panjiva. By 2015, Huayang’s total volume exceeded 172 million pounds packed on more than 5,200 containers. This year, Ding’s company had exceeded that volume by Memorial Day. Firstrans is the primary receiver of fireworks entering the United States. B.J. Alan and dozens of other firms use Ding’s companies to import fireworks, and these pyrotechnics will be used at many of the 16,000 local celebrations across the country next week. Among those shooting off these fireworks will be Tim Jameson, a Maryland pyrotechnician who didn’t realize the Shanghai businessman played a role in shipping all of the fireworks he used to light up the sky. Jameson’s company will conduct large-scale Fourth of July shows next week, and he prides himself on the rush of color and sound and adrenaline that comes with each performance. But the cost is never lost on him. He can pay more than $100,000 for a container of fireworks and then another $18,000 for shipping, depending on the fees set thousands of miles away by Ding’s company. “I knew that part was costing a lot,” he said. “But I didn’t know one guy was controlling everything.” n

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VETERANS

Bob Dole’s ﬁnal mission BY

S TEVE H ENDRIX

ach Saturday, before Bob Dole sets off on his latest vocation, he has cornflakes, a little sugar on top, and a bottle of chocolate Boost. It takes less time to get dressed now that the 94-year-old finally allows a nurse to help him, but it remains a rough half-hour on a body racked by injury and age. The blue oxford has to be maneuvered over the dead right arm and the shoulder that was blown away on an Italian hillside. The pressed khakis over the scarred thigh. A pair of North Face running shoes, the likes of which his artilleryblasted hands have been unable to tie since 1945. Then comes the hard part — getting there. On this particular June Saturday, the Lincoln Town Car with the Kansas plates is unavailable, so Nathanial Lohn, the former Army medic who serves as Dole’s nurse, helps the nonagenarian into Lohn’s Honda Insight. It’s tight, but good enough for the 20-minute drive to a monument the former senator all but built himself. There, from a handicapped parking spot, he eases into the wheelchair as the greetings begin — “Oh my gosh, Bob Dole!”— finally rolling into his place in the shade just outside the main entrance to the National World War II Memorial. And then they come, bus after bus, wheelchair after wheelchair, battalions of his bent brothers, stooped with years but steeped in pride, veterans coming to see their country’s monument to their sacrifice and to be welcomed by of one of their country’s icons. “Good to see you. Where you from?” Dole says, over and over, as they roll close, sometimes one on each side. New York, Tennessee, Nevada, the old roll-call once again. “Let’s get a picture.” “Thank you for your service.” “What about your service?” “How old are you?” “I’m 90.” “I’m 94.” “Where you from?” “Good to see you.” He’ll do it for more than three

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The former senator spends Saturdays with other WWII veterans at the monument he championed hours on this muggy day, more than six hours on others, staying until the last veteran has gone on by to see the grand columns and fountains behind him. They pump his left hand — the one with some numb feeling left — and squeeze his shoulders, and sometimes he gets home not just tired but gently battered by humanity and humidity alike. “Physically, it takes a toll,” Lohn says, watching his charge from a few feet away with a waiting bottle of water. “I may find five new bruises on him tonight. But he won’t miss it.” Dole has been coming for years — weather and his health permitting — to greet these groups of aging veterans, brought at no cost from throughout the country by the nonprofit Honor Flight Network. As the many missions of a mission-driven life have faded into history — combat hero, champion for the disabled, Sen-

ate majority leader, 1996 Republican presidential candidate — this final calling has remained, down to just Saturdays, sometimes derailed by the doctors, but still a duty to be fulfilled. “It’s just about the one public service left that I’m doing,” he says. “We don’t have many of the World War II vets left. It’s important to me.” But it’s important for him, too. He seems to get more energized with each encounter, frail in his chair but his still-bright eyes locking in on the next old tail gunner or rifleman or supply corps clerk trundling toward him. “I tell them it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what war you served in, whether you were wounded or not wounded,” Dole says. “We’re all in this together.” He has watched the proportion of World War II veterans fall over the years, from half the bus to just a few per group, the sun setting

Navy veteran Leon Brooks of Nevada, second from right, gets out of his wheelchair to greet Bob Dole while Air Force veteran James Howerton, far left, watches, at the National World War II Memorial during an Honor Flight trip on June 9. Dole was severely wounded in Italy just before the end of the war in Europe.

on the generation that saved the world. “I just met a fellow who was 103 years old,” he says. “Sometimes I’m the kid.” Maybe it keeps him young, these Saturdays in the shade of history and heroism. Lohn thinks they do, with this year a vast improvement over 2017, when serious health problems kept Dole grounded for months. Dole’s wife, former senator Elizabeth Dole, says her husband is wired to serve. She joins him frequently on the Saturday outings, helping to direct the receiving line, sharing the tears, doubling the number of Senator Doles in the pictures and stories visitors take home. “It’s great, all these tremendous men and women,” she says. “Bob has a goal. He wants to make a positive difference in one person’s life every day.” One Saturday, it was Willis Castille, who walked into a Navy recruiting station when he was 15 and spent six years at Saipan, Iwo Jima and other Pacific hot spots. A lot of years in steel mills and auto factories have passed since, and the 90-year-old wasn’t so sure he was up to a one-day flying visit just to see some fountains. At his home in Indian Mound, Tenn., he keeps an article about Bob Dole, detailing how the Kansan was struck by a shell while aiding a radioman in Italy’s Po Valley. He earned the Bronze Star for valor and was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries that hospitalized him for 2½ years. Sitting in a wheelchair just outside the memorial, Castille found a story more moving than any marble wall. “He made this worthwhile,” Castille said after his chat with Dole, the senator’s injured hand resting on Castille’s arm while they talked of age and life and the Navy. “The only person I’d rather meet is [Fleet Adm.] Chester Nimitz. But he’s dead.” Some give Dole military “challenge coins,” which Lohn puts in his backpack to be stored — or displayed — in the Watergate apartment where the Doles have lived for more than 40 years.

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

FOOD Mostly they just swap niceties. “I’m 95. I’ve got you beat,” one says, before his escort leans down to correct him. “Oh, I’m 94. We’re both 94.” “Let’s get a picture,” Dole says. “I voted for you,” say more than one. A Korean War vet from Nevada asks Dole his opinion of that state’s Republican senator, Dean Heller. “I think he’s all right” is all Dole will say, still the laconic Midwesterner and practiced pol. He prefers to leave the politics outside this shrine to national unity, where “E Pluribus Unum” is carved in a nearby wall. But one tourist asks about President Trump, whom Dole endorsed when he clinched the Republican nomination. “What about all the tweeting?” she asks. “I thought tweeting was for birds,” Dole says. “But he loves it, and he’s not going to quit.” Even two hours in, Dole perks up at the passing of any dog or a pretty woman, asking their names (the dogs), leaning up for a peck on the cheek (the women). “Oh, you want a kiss,” cries Lisa Velez, a middle school teacher escorting a student group from San Clemente, Calif. “Oh, another one? You’re delightful. Thank you, Senator!” He says he has more fun when his wife doesn’t come with him. “That’s okay,” Elizabeth Dole says. “When I’m there, I’m hugging and kissing all the men coming through.” These outings are the highlight of his week, she says. They make it to brunch many Sundays, the Hay-Adams or the Palm. During the week, while she’s busy with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports military caregivers, he may go into his office at Alston & Bird, an international law firm, for a few hours. Until recently, he was raising money for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, just as he led the campaign that raised more than $170 million for the World War II Memorial, which opened in 2004. But if his dialing-for-dollar days are largely over, his duty post at the grand marble pond he had built on the Mall endures. “I sort of have a proprietary interest in the place,” says retired 2nd Lt. Dole of the 10th Mountain Division. “It’s another opportunity to say thank you.” n ©The Washington Post

KLMNO WEEKLY

New technology could keep produce fresh much longer BY

C AITLIN D EWEY

he new avocados rolling out to Midwest Costco stores don’t look like the future of fresh produce. But they’re testing technology that could more than double the shelf life of vegetables and fruits. That technology, developed by the start-up Apeel Sciences, consists of an invisible, plant-based film that reinforces the avocados’ own skin. The company hopes to expand to stores nationwide — as well as to other produce. Experts say the product, which has quadrupled shelf life in a lab setting, has the potential to make foods less perishable — with huge boons for consumers, the environment and the food industry. Fresh fruit and vegetables account for more than 40 percent of wasted food in the United States, according to the food waste coalition ReFED. Apeel and other companies are working on technologies that could help slash those figures, and enable produce to travel farther and with less refrigeration, improving quality, selection and carbon footprint. “Already, we’re able to bring avocados to places that didn’t have access to top-quality before, or that often ran out,” said James Rogers, Apeel’s chief executive. Apeel works much like the skins and peels on many types of produce. Made from cellular material extracted from plants, the semipermeable film adheres to the outside of the avocado and slows the rate at which it loses water and carbon dioxide and absorbs oxygen. Fresh produce spoils as it respires, which is why packers and distributors chill produce or spray it with coats of wax. Unlike wax, Apeel is designed to optimize water and oxygen exchange, boosting quality and shelf life, Rogers said. Consumers won’t pay more for Apeel produce, he added, because retailers who use it save money by reducing their losses from spoilage.

APEEL SCIENCES

Apeel avocados, now on sale at some Costco stores, have twice the shelf life of other avocados thanks to an invisible, plant-based film.

Few dispute the notion that waste represents an enormous cost to the food industry. According to ReFED, the United States wastes roughly 63 million tons of food each year, 40 percent of that in grocery stores and restaurants. ReFED estimates that reducing fruit and vegetable waste would represent an $18.2 billion opportunity for retailers. Extending shelf life, experts say, could also avoid wasting water and fertilizer on food that consumers will never eat. Down the line, Apeel’s technology could have other benefits: improving the selection of fresh produce or reducing the need for refrigeration. The company has experimented with a film for tomatoes, which are typically picked and shipped long before ripeness to arrive fresh at stores. A longer shelf life could mean they remain on the vine, absorbing flavor and nutrients, far longer. Apeel has received significant funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a film for cassava, a staple crop in Africa, and has tested a version for mangoes and bananas as part of a Rockefeller Foundation project in Eastern Kenya. Places such as Kenya lack reliable, refrigerated supply chains, which causes them to lose large portions of their har-

vests, said Betty Kibaara, an associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation. Apeel is awaiting regulatory approval in Nigeria and Kenya. Closer to home, Rogers said, Apeel will let farmers ship niche products — such as finger limes — to more distant and profitable markets. Experts said Apeel’s promises have potential, even if it’s too early to evaluate them. “I think we’ll have to wait and see if all these things pan out,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the head of the Food Institute at George Washington University and the former deputy secretary of agriculture under the Obama administration. “But we know that all Americans need to increase their fruit and vegetable intake. Anything that makes that supply chain more efficient and cost effective is great.” For now, Apeel is focused on shipping its avocados to more stores — and expanding the range of fruits and vegetables that use its technology. Within the year, Rogers said, he hopes to have Apeel avocados in Costco stores nationally. The company has also developed skins for strawberries, bananas, mangoes, peaches, pears, nectarines, green beans, citrus fruits and asparagus. n ©The Washington Post

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

KLMNO WEEKLY

BOOKS

7 business books that double as beach reads BY

J ENA M C G REGOR

business news pages — seemingly always there, yet somehow not rising to attention unless you’re closely listening for it. Yet it is an epic story filled with legal conflicts, boardroom battles, angry ex-girlfriends, family drama and a 95-year-old media mogul whose health, Hagey wrote in April in the Wall Street Journal, where she is a reporter, “has declined so significantly he cannot speak much beyond grunts.”

t’s summer. A time for light beach reads, juicy tell-alls and comic memoirs. When it comes to poolside reading, business books about teambuilding, strategy or management metrics written by “thought leaders” or management gurus can hardly compete. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t books related to business, leadership or careers that aren’t worth taking on a summer road trip or day at the shore. Below, seven recent or soon-to-be published books to consider for your pool bag from business writers or academics that hold their own with the rest of summer reading.

“The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age” by James Crabtree (expected July 3)

“The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos” by Christian Davenport (March)

The Post’s Christian Davenport chronicles the outsize figures leading the commercial space race — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post), as well as Richard Branson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Writing in the New York Times, biographer Walter Isaacson called the book “an exciting narrative filled with colorful reporting and sharp insights,” one that “sparkles” with “crisp storytelling” because of Davenport’s access to the main players.

“Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think” by Hans Rosling with Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling (April)

Though not a business book per se, its goal of helping people think clearly and outline 10 instincts that distort people’s perspective will surely come in handy at work. Plus its argument — that the world is doing better than we think — is a lot more enjoyable poolside than doomand-gloom stories about all the robots coming for your job.

“Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou (May)

The Wall Street Journal reporter’s front page exposés of the now nearly collapsed blood testing start-up were gripping reads themselves, but the booklength version offers readers a case study of deception and poor governance told “virtually to perfection,” wrote author Roger Lowenstein in his New York Times review of “Bad Blood.” Carreyrou not only tells the story of how Elizabeth Holmes managed to build the white-hot start-up, drawing in billionaires and other luminaries along the way, but also illustrates the danger of ignoring the people closest to the work, the perils of star-studded boards and what can happen when evidence is ignored. “The Ambition Decisions: What Women Know About Work, Family, and the Path to Building a Life” by Hana Schank and Elizabeth Wallace (June 19)

That doesn’t mean there aren’t books related to business that aren’t worth taking on a summer road trip or a day at the shore.

Books about women’s careers are often written by executives with billions to spare, academics with little experience in the corporate trenches or celebrities whose lives seem to barely resemble those of most professional working women. Journalists Wallace and Schank took a different route, interviewing the careers of sorority sisters from Northwestern University in the early 1990s about the decisions they’ve made and strategies they’ve taken about their work, their lives and their families. Though narrow in scope, those looking for some solidarity reading or ideas about how other professional women mesh work, family and the decisions related to them can find it here. “The King of Content: Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire” by Keach Hagey (June 26)

The power struggles that have surrounded Viacom and CBS are like the background noise of the

Crabtree, formerly the Mumbai bureau chief of the Financial Times, offers an in-depth look at India’s billionaire class, profiling the figures at the top of a society where the spoils of the world’s largest democracy’s growth have been particularly unequal. Crabtree, notes Publisher’s Weekly, has written “an invaluable commentary on Indian democracy and the forces that threaten it,” one that argues the “takeover of Indian politics by huge sums of private money has led to a boomand-bust cycle in India’s industrial economy.”

“Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” by Anand Giridharadas (expected Aug. 28)

At the end of the summer, anyone following the debate about the role of philanthrocapitalists, corporate foundations or tech billionaires in solving the world’s problems will want to watch for this new book by former New York Times foreign correspondent and columnist Anand Giridharadas. As questions swirl over income inequality and the influence of elite givers’ money on public institutions, Giridharadas’ book wrestles with the ways the world’s richest wants to help solve the world’s problems — without making clear their role in creating them or changing their position at the top. n

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

BOOKS

KLMNO WEEKLY

How the Grateful Dead stayed alive

A queer take on the espionage tale

N ONFICTION

F ICTION

REVIEWED BY

R OBERT C OSTA

here is already a small collection of books about the Grateful Dead, from bassist Phil Lesh’s memoir, “Searching for the Sound,” to “Home Before Daylight,” an insider account by longtime roadie Steve Parish. But until now, the shelves had mostly been stocked with nostalgic chronicles that go deep on the rockers’ early acid tests or their decades of electric romps through dimly-lit hockey arenas, where the cities and set-lists blurred together and the swelling crowds roared. What’s been missing is a tale about what happened once the Deadhead sticker was plastered on the Cadillac, to steal a line from Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.” And for the Grateful Dead, that juncture of lost innocence occurred on Aug. 9, 1995, when guitarist Jerry Garcia died. Garcia’s bandmates — Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann — were left stunned, wealthy and famous, with no plan for what to do once the music stopped. Veteran music columnist Joel Selvin’s “Fare Thee Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead’s Long, Strange Trip” smartly steers clear of tie-dyed ’60s mysticism, offering instead a reported look at the lives of the remaining “core four” members. It is a breezy history, not only of the many incarnations of Dead bands but also of how the four men grappled with their own ambitions. Escaping the looming shadow of Garcia is not easy. By 1995, Garcia had become the reluctant leader of a booming global business. The “core four” briefly discuss carrying on as rumors fly about possible Garcia stand-ins. Ultimately, the band decides against it and effectively closes shop that winter. It was more like the beginning of a brief hibernation. Weir deals with the fallout by hitting the road with his band, RatDog. Kreutzmann flees to Hawaii where he

haunts beachside bars. Hart branches off and records eclectic percussion albums. Yet the siren song of the Dead keeps calling, along with baby boomer fans and younger devotees who never saw Garcia jam but want to experience the band’s sprawling catalogue played on a hot summer night. Selvin, perhaps at times too dryly, observes how a darkness lingers in the wake of Garcia’s passing. Addiction and health issues hover, and former Dead keyboardist Vince Welnick eventually cuts his own throat. Garcia’s widows clash over money and the rights to “Tiger,” Garcia’s legendary guitar. The bouncing rhythms keep rambling on amid the bleak flashes. It’s this front where Selvin is most comfortable, tracing how versions of the Dead emerge year after year with names like “The Other Ones,” “Furthur” and “Phil Lesh and Friends,” depending on who’s getting along. Even as the “core four” struggles with how to move forward, Selvin also reveals how the band’s spirit lives on through a new generation of artists. Phish, Dave Matthews Band and Umphrey’s McGee follow the model of grass roots, improvised rock-and-roll as a means of joyful survival in a music industry being upended by downloads and streaming. Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, joins the “core four” for a triumphant, sold-out return to Soldier Field in 2015. Selvin shines here, capturing the side figures who make their way back to a band and a lifestyle they never really left. Filling the gap left by Garcia has been both an impossible task and a redeeming journey. The musicians could not replace his presence, but they have been lifted by the many shows and bands that have emerged since 1995 — and, by the way, the Deadheads have never stopped dancing. n Costa is a reporter for The Washington Post.

M FARE THEE WELL The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead’s Long, Strange Trip By Joel Selvin with Pamela Turley De Capo Press. 288 pp. $22.99

WHO IS VERA KELLY? By Rosalie Knecht Tin House. 274 pp. $15.95

REVIEWED BY

M AUREEN C ORRIGAN

ystery and suspense tales often begin with a knockout opening — a murder, a chase scene or a fateful knock at the detective’s door. (Think of all those distraught clients who’ve turned up at 221B Baker Street seeking Sherlock Holmes’s help or the parade of femme fatales who’ve slinked into the offices of Spade, Marlowe, and Co.) Sometimes, though, a suspense tale takes longer to get going and, so, in this Age of Distraction, runs the risk of losing readers. Rosalie Knecht runs just that risk in her unusual novel, “Who Is Vera Kelly?” Part espionage tale, part coming of age/coming out novel, Knecht’s narrative requires a lot of setup, which gives the first half of her story a cumbersome stop-and-start rhythm. Readers who have the patience to stick with it, however, will find themselves rewarded with an off-road tale of political intrigue and youthful naivete. Vera Kelly introduces herself to us in flashbacks about growing up that are scattered within a spy story. In the first flashback — to the fall of 1957 — the teenage Vera, who lives with her mother in Chevy Chase, Md., has just come home from the hospital. Vera overdosed on pills she found in her mother’s handbag; she was in a deep funk because her best friend, Joanne, had been abruptly transferred to a Catholic girl’s high school. It turns out that even before Vera herself could acknowledge “the love that dare not speak its name,” Joanne’s mother had become suspicious of the intensity of Vera’s friendship with her daughter. This lesbian bildungsroman alternates with the larger tale of James Bond derring-do set in 1966 in Buenos Aires, where a grown-up Vera is spying for the CIA. A military coup in the works will put Gen. Juan Carlos Ongania in power. Vera, posing as a

foreign student at the university, deploys an array of listening devices to eavesdrop on her fellow students, particularly those suspected of Communist sympathies. This is a strange gig for a young woman like Vera whose own politics are Kennedy-era progressive and whose sexuality, were it to become known to the CIA, would land her on a blacklist. As imagined by Knecht, however, Vera’s situation is plausible. After her mother had Vera legally declared “incorrigible,” she spent some time in a juvenile detention facility and eventually made her way to New York City. There, Vera was on her own, working at typist jobs, living in crummy boardinghouses and awkwardly testing out the underground dating scene in lesbian bars such as “The Bracken.” An accidental job at a radio station gives Vera the technical skills that catch the attention of CIA recruiters. Vera’s queer spin on comingof-age in “Happy Days” America is interesting, but “Who Is Vera Kelly?” really transforms into taut suspense mode after the coup takes place and Vera is left to fend for herself amid the chaos of the new dictatorship, when all foreigners are suspect. The pacing of “Who Is Vera Kelly?” is uneven, but it ends up being a pretty satisfying adventure romp. Given the current popularity of “women-in-trouble” psychological suspense tales, where much of the action takes place in the heroine’s anxious mind, it’s refreshing to read a novel where a capable young woman not only knows how to fix an electrical short in a transformer, but also how to maneuver around the homophobic biases of her own era. n Corrigan, who teaches literature at Georgetown University, is the book critic for the NPR program, “Fresh Air.” This was written for The Washington Post.

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

KLMNO WEEKLY

OPINIONS

Don’t open the door to more intolerance PETULA DVORAK is a columnist for The Washington Post.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a little schadenfreude when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant last weekend based on the content of her character. Sanders, after all, gave the thumbsup to the idea of a bakery hanging up a sign denying wedding cakes to gay couples. This happened in early June, after the Supreme Court sided with a baker who doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage and who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The ruling didn’t say the Supremes are down with the cakeman’s beliefs, though. It scolded the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for being biased instead of impartial when it looked at the baker’s case. But those are details. And details — plus facts — are unfashionable these days. So the Trump administration hailed the nuanced ruling as a way for religion to excuse bigotry. No wonder the gay staff members at the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., didn’t feel great about serving the woman who, as press secretary, contorted the meaning of that complex ruling. Karma, baby. Right? Not so fast. I ditched that little glee party pretty quickly, and we all should consider doing the same. Because this is dangerous territory for our society. When American businesses stop serving people they don’t like, we’re breaking the social compact of a civilized society. In the same week that Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen before getting to dig into her high-dollar farm-totable meal, these things also happened in the land of the free: l A transgender woman was asked to leave a lively Cuban restaurant in downtown

Washington, D.C., for trying to use the women’s bathroom. l A pharmacist in Arizona cited moral objections and refused a woman’s prescription for miscarriage medication. l A black man was banned from shopping at his neighborhood grocery store in Maine after asking the clerk why both he and his wife were asked to show their IDs to buy a bottle of sake. l The folks at a Louisiana Burger King refused to take the order of two hungry sheriff ’s deputies because they don’t like cops. How soon before I have to fill out a questionnaire making sure my personal philosophy aligns with my mechanic’s before he works on my brakes? In most of these cases, the businesses were wrong because their customers belong to a legally protected class. In the case of Sanders, well, obfuscators, abusers of the free press, indignant sneerers and promoters of racially biased policies are not a protected class. So the Red Hen was probably in the clear legally. And so was the Alexandria gym that revoked the membership of white nationalist Richard Spencer after a Georgetown University professor publicly shamed him for his bigotry during his workout. Those folks may be morally right — especially the gay staff members at the Red Hen who feel their rights are threatened

DANIEL LIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Passersby take photos in front of the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., the day after it refused to serve the White House press secretary.

by the work Sanders does. But the actions aren’t ethical and fair business practices. I think it opens the door to the kind of abuse Sanders encouraged in the wedding cake case. From Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who famously wouldn’t do her job and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples a few years ago, to the Virginia hardware store clerk who didn’t want a Boy Scout in his shop the other month because the Scouts allow gay members, the imposition of morals, values and fears in the workplace can hurt us all. If your religion doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage, then marry the opposite sex. If you believe that Sanders is helping in the destruction of American democracy, then don’t vote for her boss or anyone associated with him. Knock yourselves out, protest on public streets, express how you feel in public, let them know how repulsive the turns our country have taken are. But do not slide back into an atmosphere where businesses have free rein to discriminate. In the 1970s, D.C. officials saw the peril of political discrimination when they listed “political affiliation” as a reason you can’t discriminate against someone.

This doesn’t mean that folks shouldn’t be free to let their opinions fly when they’re out in public. The shunning and shaming of Trump staff has become sport in Washington. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen left a Mexican restaurant in D.C. when protesters hounded her, chanting “Shame! Shame!” Chief Orchestrator of Immigrant Family Separation Stephen Miller was also at a trendy Mexican restaurant recently when other patrons shouted him out as a “fascist.” (Funny, their love of Mexican food.) Those were individuals, doing what Americans have always done — speak their minds. But for businesses to decide who can and can’t be a patron, well, that may take us somewhere none of us wants to go. David Axelrod, one of the chief strategists for President Barack Obama’s campaigns, had little use for the Red Hen action, too. “Disgusted with this admin’s policies? Organize, donate, volunteer, VOTE!,” was part of his tweets about the incident. “Rousting Cabinet members from restaurants is an empty and, ultimately, counterproductive gesture that won’t change a thing.” Take action, yes. But do it where it counts. n

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

OPINIONS

KLMNO WEEKLY

TOM TOLES

Trump’s assembly-line deportation KAREN TUMULTY is a columnist for The Washington Post.

mcallen, tex. — When Magistrate Judge Peter E. Ormsby stepped into the federal courtroom here Tuesday morning, 75 defendants rose. Their ankles were shackled, and they wore headsets through which the proceedings would be translated into Spanish. In the hallway, just beyond the door, was a pile of handcuffs that had been removed before they entered the courtroom. Most of the defendants appeared dressed in the same filthy, sweat-saturated clothes they had been wearing two days before, when they were apprehended crossing the Rio Grande aboard rafts. In all but 11 of their cases, this criminal misdemeanor was the first time they had ever been charged with violating U.S. law. Ormsby informed them this was not an immigration court. Many had already signed away their rights to further proceedings and had orders for what is known as “expedited removal.” They had done that before the 17 lawyers of the public defender’s office had met with any of them for the first time, just hours before. The next two hours would see each one of them plead guilty and be sentenced, most to time already served.

With few exceptions, each case would be dealt with in under 75 seconds. This was just the morning docket. It is what President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy looks like here, where busloads of recently detained migrants roll up to the federal courthouse several times a day. The president contends that even this assembly-line version of justice is more than what those caught entering the country illegally should get. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.” On that latter point, the

president is correct — but it is for the reverse of the reasoning he offers. His “zero-tolerance” policy is putting even more stress on a legal system that already gives migrants far less than their day in court. The outcome for many might be different if they had fuller access to the legal system, to which they are entitled in theory if not practice, and given an opportunity to make their case to stay in this country. Trump has mocked proposals for adding to the number of immigration judges, who handle separate proceedings for those who want to remain. “We have thousands of judges already,” he has claimed. That is incorrect. The number actually stands at fewer than 350 across the country. They are facing a backlog of more than 700,000 cases. Just as critical as the scarcity of judges is the fact that so few migrants ever have a chance to consult an attorney. Only about 14 percent of those who are detained have access to counsel, says American Bar Association President Hilarie Bass, who was here from Miami. She added that migrant adults with lawyers win slightly more than half their cases and get to stay in this country, while

9 out of 10 of those without representation lose and are deported. In the current crisis, platoons of lawyers are arriving weekly to volunteer their services, but there are not nearly enough, says Kimi Jackson, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project. “What we need most here are Spanish-speaking immigration attorneys, particularly ones who can stay a little longer.” The need will remain for the foreseeable future, long after the journalists and cameras have moved on to the next story. Even if help comes, it will be too late for most of those who appeared before Ormsby. As he worked his way through their cases, he expressed sympathy for the circumstances of poverty and violence that brought them from dangerous places in Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico to his courtroom. He wished them and their families well, and urged them to go through the process of coming to the United States legally. “Seeing the type of people you appear to be,” the magistrate added. “I hope that you will be successful with that.” But everyone there knew that was a wish, and one unlikely to come true. n

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

KLMNO WEEKLY

OPINIONS

ROB ROGERS FOR ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

The NHL’s brain-injury problem KEN DRYDEN is a former goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens, an inductee of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a member of Canada’s Parliament between 2004 and 2011. His books include “Game Change: The Life and Death of Steve Montador and the Future of Hockey.” This was written for The Washington Post.

Extensive portions of video depositions related to a concussion lawsuit brought against the National Hockey League by about 150 former players became public last month. The videos include sworn testimony from Commissioner Gary Bettman, Boston Bruins owner and chairman of the league’s Board of Governors Jeremy Jacobs, other team owners, senior league executives and doctors. The video depositions make for infuriating viewing. “You’ve seen all the research and the data,” Bettman said, responding to an opposing lawyer during his July 2015 examination, which lasted several hours. “There’s no medical or scientific certainty that concussions lead to CTE.” Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a degenerative brain disease that has been found in athletes including professional hockey and football players, as well as soldiers and others who have suffered repeated brain injuries. Symptoms of CTE include cognitive impairment, depression, emotional instability and suicidal thoughts. Bettman was consistent in answering the questions in his deposition: Because there is no medical or scientific certainty, he said, there is no reason to warn NHL players about the risks of

CTE. Nor is there reason, even after the premature deaths of several NHL “enforcers” such as Bob Probert, Wade Belak, Rick Rypien and Derek Boogaard, to look for a link between fighting in hockey and brain injuries. “I think the sample has been too small,” Bettman said when asked about the players who died. “I would respectfully suggest that, as tragic and as unfortunate as it is, there isn’t even enough circumstantial evidence to draw any conclusions.” Phil Anschutz, owner of the Los Angeles Kings, said he was not aware of the term “chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” During Jacobs’s deposition, when he was asked whether he had “ever heard of the neurodegenerative disease known as CTE,” the Bruins’ owner’s answer was succinct: “No.” Asked whether he was aware CTE had been found in the

HORSEY FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

brains of former professional hockey players, Jacobs replied: “I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Bettman, Anschutz and Jacobs are smart people, and everybody who sees them in these depositions knows they are smart. But almost anyone who sees the videos has heard of CTE and has heard of athletes damaged by concussions. Hockey fans have seen players go down hard, never to play the same way again. They have seen the obituaries for players only a few years after they retired. Hockey fans know something is going on. The former players’ case has proceeded at a crawl through U.S. District Court in Minneapolis for more than four years. Regardless of the suit’s fate, it has already performed an important service. During a deposition, a clever dodge is heard as a clever dodge, and it makes an observer wonder: Why the cleverness? Why the dodge? Team owners who say they haven’t heard about CTE — how does that make their players and the players’ families feel? The players need to believe the league is doing its absolute best. How about team doctors who already deal with the skepticism or jealousy of colleagues? What do they think now? Or the referees, whose job, in

part, is to protect the players. Do they feel betrayed when they read the words of one longtime NHL executive in an email revealed by the lawsuit: “We need to make sure every elbow to the head is not a major penalty. Five-minute majors attract attention. Twominute minors go away quickly, especially with the media”? Or even the team owners themselves. They fight a lawsuit to avoid a payout to players that they don’t think is merited. They use arguments that made sense for so long inside the NHL’s community of experts but suddenly in the public light of day are just embarrassing. Losing face is something team owners dislike even more than losing money, especially in front of their families, friends, neighbors and members of the same clubs. For Bettman and the league’s owners, this isn’t going to get any easier. These video depositions are revelatory, but they will look tame compared with what is likely to air if the case goes to trial. In the meantime, just as Congress held its first hearing about brain injuries and professional football in 2009, lawmakers in the United States and Canada must surely be readying themselves to start asking questions about the slippery sport of hockey. n

SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2018

KLMNO WEEKLY

FIVE MYTHS

Fertility BY

B RENNAN P ETERSON

Infertility — the inability to get pregnant after 12 months of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse — affects about 1 in 10 American couples. A diagnosis can alter relationships, lead to depression and anxiety, and threaten lifelong expectations of parenthood. Thankfully, medical advances such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) have made it possible for certain couples to conceive, but these treatments carry risks and are often poorly understood. Here are five common misconceptions about fertility. MYTH NO. 1 Stress causes infertility. Anyone who has personally experienced infertility has heard some variant on the advice: “Relax, you’re trying too hard. Just take a break and you’ll get pregnant.” While stress and infertility can be connected, stress does not cause infertility or treatment failure. A meta-analysis of 14 studies with 3,583 women undergoing fertility treatments found that pretreatment emotional distress was not associated with outcomes. Research showing an association between stress and infertility usually does not fully account for the indirect effects of stress, such as alcohol use, increased smoking, infrequent sex and dropping out of treatment. Ultimately, the myth that stress causes infertility unfairly places the responsibility for treatment failure or success on the shoulders of the woman, a conclusion that is not supported by science. MYTH NO. 2 Women are more likely to be infertile than men. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website correctly notes that infertility is not always a woman’s problem, it still incorrectly reports that in just 8 percent of infertile couples, the man is solely responsible. In fact, men and women are equally responsible for an

infertility diagnosis. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health and the National Institutes of Health, about one-third of cases are attributable to men, one-third are attributable to women, and the rest are a combination of male and female factors or unexplained problems.

While IVF holds promise, the overall success rate for having a child using one round in the United States is between 25 and 29 percent.

MYTH NO. 3 Science and healthy living have extended the biological clock. In 2003, a “60 Minutes” report found that educated professional women who intended to delay childbearing to pursue their careers had misperceptions about age and fertility, believing that medical treatments and good health could extend the biological clock well into a woman’s 40s and even 50s. Because of the progressive decline in the quality of a woman’s oocytes (eggs) over time, there isn’t a way to naturally extend the biological clock. Nutrition, exercise and healthy living are great in other ways, but they can’t halt this inevitable decline, which begins at age 32 and becomes more rapid at 37. The closest we have come is temporarily stopping the clock through oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing), but this has limitations and isn’t always an ideal solution.

MYTH NO. 4 In vitro fertilization works for most patients. In an IVF procedure, a sperm and an egg are fertilized outside the body, and the resulting embryo or embryos are transferred to the uterus. Although it has promise, its success rates and stresses are largely misunderstood. The overall success rate for having a child using one round of IVF in the United States is between 25 and 29 percent, according to the CDC. Because an average round costs $10,000 to $15,000, this can be an expensive gamble for couples. IVF is also stressful, emotionally taxing and physically invasive, which can lead patients to postpone the treatment or drop out altogether. Unsurprisingly, IVF success rates are linked to age. Women under 35 have the best chances of ultimately giving birth (43 percent). After age 37, success rates drop dramatically. Women ages 4142 have a only a 10 percent chance of IVF success, while women over 44 have only a 2 percent chance.

KRISZTIAN BOCSI/BLOOMBERG NEWS

MYTH NO. 5 My doctor will tell me what I need to know about infertility. Research indicates that gynecologists and nurses have gaps in their knowledge about issues such as the management of polycystic ovary syndrome and the impact of smoking and age on fertility. Even when physicians do have the right information, many are reluctant to engage with patients for fear they may increase their patients’ emotional distress or be seen as pushing childbearing. One solution is for physicians to practice preconception counseling with patients during their peak fertility years. By doing so in a neutral way, they can give patients information that maximizes their reproductive choices. n Peterson is a professor in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. This was written for The Washington Post.

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