Day: October 26, 2023

After thousands of high-profile artists and curators signed an open letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, published in the magazine Artforum on October 19, the public pushback was swift. The following day, the magazine posted a public response signed by prominent gallerists denouncing the original letter as “one-sided.” 

Behind the scenes, however, powerful art dealers and gallerists who control the cultural and monetary tides of the art world began a private campaign to force some of the biggest names on the letter to retract their support, according to a half dozen sources, including letter signatories as well as others informed about the influence campaign. 

Soon after the letter was posted, Martin Eisenberg, a high-profile collector and inheritor of the now-bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond fortune, began contacting famous art world figures on the list whose work he had championed to express his objections to the letter. 

Eisenberg, who owns millions of dollars’ worth of work by Artforum letter signatories, contacted at least four artists whose work he owns to convey his displeasure at seeing their names on the letter. (Eisenberg did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.)

On Thursday, a week after the letter was posted, Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco was summoned to a meeting with Jay Penske, the CEO of Artforum’s parent company, according to three sources. The son of billionaire Roger Penske, Jay oversees the conglomerate Penske Media Corporation. (Penske Media did not respond to a request for comment.) Before the day was out, Velasco was fired after six years at the helm of the magazine.

“This magazine has been my life for 18 years and I’ve given everything to it.”

“This magazine has been my life for 18 years and I’ve given everything to it,” Velasco, who rose from being an editorial assistant to the coveted editor-in-chief job, told The Intercept. “I have done nothing but exceptional work at the magazine for 18 years and this is a sad day. It breaks my heart.”

In a statement to the New York Times, Velasco said, “I’m disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”

The pressure campaign against the letter echoes a wave of repercussions faced by writers, activists, and students who have spoken out for Palestinians. Right-wing groups lobbying for Israel, as well as donors to prominent institutions and various other wealthy interests, are condemning open letters and using the lists of signatories as blacklists across cultural, professional, and academic spheres. 

“Anecdotally, I know that a majority of people in the art world are devastated by the genocide by Gaza but many are scared to speak out or even join the call for a ceasefire,” said Hannah Black, an artist and writer who signed the Artforum letter but was not pressured to remove her signature. “It is absolutely McCarthyite and many of the dogmatic anti-Palestinians within the art world have, as Joseph Welch said of McCarthy, ‘no sense of decency.’ They are willing to destroy careers, destroy the value of artworks, to maintain their unofficial ban on free speech about Palestine.”

In a testament to the efficacy of the campaign against the Artforum letter, artists Peter Doig, Joan Jonas, Katharina Grosse, and Tomás Saraceno all withdrew their support. According to an Intercept analysis, the three artists were among 36 names removed from the online version of the letter between October 20 and October 26. (An additional 32 names were added during that period.)

Artforum, a premier international art publication, published the October 19 open letter calling for humanitarian aid to Gaza, accountability for war crimes, and an end to violence against civilians. The letter — which was not commissioned or drafted by Artforum, but published on the magazine’s website as well as in other publications like e-flux — went on to condemn the occupation of the Palestinian territories and reiterate its demands with a call for peace.

“We believe that the arts organizations and institutions whose mission it is to protect freedom of expression, to foster education, community, and creativity, also stand for freedom of life and the basic right of existence,” the signatories concluded. “We call on you to refuse inhumanity, which has no place in life or art, and make a public demand from our governments to call for a ceasefire.”

In a post on the Artforum website before news broke of Velasco’s firing, the publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza wrote that the publication of the letter was “not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process.”

“The open letter was widely misinterpreted as a statement from the magazine about highly sensitive and complex geopolitical circumstances,” the publishers wrote. “That the letter was misinterpreted as being reflective of the magazine’s position understandably led to significant dismay among our readers and community, which we deeply regret.”

Backlash

Critics of the letter said its failure to mention the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7 — in which some 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed — was offensive and, according to some, antisemitic. Four days after the letter was published, Artforum posted an update reiterating the letter organizers’ condemnation of the loss of all civilian life, adding that they “share revulsion at the horrific massacres” of October 7. 

The response published in Artforum the day after the original letter came out was signed by three influential gallery owners: Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan. In their critique, the gallerists wrote:

We are distressed by the open letter recently posted on Artforum, which does not acknowledge the ongoing mass hostage emergency, the historical context, and the atrocities committed in Israel on October 7, 2023—the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. 

We denounce all forms of violence in Israel and Gaza and we are deeply concerned over the humanitarian crisis. We—Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, Amalia Dayan—condemn the open letter for its one-sided view. We hope to foster discourse that can lead to a better understanding of the complexities involved. May we witness peace soon.

The authors of the response letter — the joint directors of Lévy Gorvy Dayan, which has gallery spaces and offices in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong — curate shows with some of the most prolific and highest grossing artists in the world, both living and dead. Their website lists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Joel Mesler, and Adrian Piper as representative artists and collaborators. Dayan is the granddaughter of Moshe Dayan, the Israeli politician and military commander who is alleged to have ordered the country’s military to attack the American naval ship the USS Liberty during the Six-Day War of 1967. 

Lévy Gorvy Dayan is more than a series of galleries; the venture is a powerful consortium, described by the New York Times as a “one-stop shop for artists and collectors,” representing artists, organizing exhibitions and auction sales, and advising collectors. In 2021, Lévy told the Financial Times, “I grew up feeling that art was freedom and fresh air.” She said she did not believe in gallerists and representatives “controlling them” — the artists — “completely.”

According to two artists who appeared as signatories on the first Artforum post, the Lévy Gorvy Dayan letter was a shot across the bow by powerful art dealers and influencers, warning others to stay in line. One artist who spoke to The Intercept said a collector offended by the Artforum letter returned a work by the artist to a dealer. The collector did not contact the artist prior to returning the work, according to the artist, who asked for anonymity to protect their livelihood. 

Another open letter posted under the title “A United Call from the Art World: Advocating for Humanity” called the original Artforum letter “uninformed.” It offered no criticism of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which has killed an estimated 7,000 people in the last 19 days. This letter, issued under the banner of “peace, understanding, and human dignity” garnered over 4,000 signatures. Among them was that of Warren Kanders, who resigned from the Whitney Museum of American Art board following protests over the fact that his companies sell chemical weapons. (The Intercept reported last year that, despite claims of divestment, Kanders remains in the tear gas business.)

“It really shows that they never cared about the art.”

Penske Media Corporation, Artforum’s parent company, drew criticism in 2018 selling a $200 million stake to Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund. That same year, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered under orders from Saudi’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Another artist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their livelihood, said the affair with the Artforum letter showed that many of the gallerists and collectors whose money makes the art world turn did not understand artists’ subject matter.

“It really shows that they never cared about the art,” the artist said. “My art, like a lot of the people facing this, has always been political, about oppression and dispossession.”

The post Bed Bath & Beyond Scion Pressured Artists to Retract Gaza Ceasefire Call in Artforum Letter appeared first on The Intercept.

(New York Jewish Week) — Last fall, when Binyumen Shaechter started putting together the 2023 repertoire for the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus, he thought an apt theme and title would be “Chutzpah! Yiddish Songs of Defiance” to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as well as the 75th birthday of the State of Israel. 

He had no idea that, nearly a year later, when the chorus was gearing up for an encore performance of its June concert celebrating their 100th anniversary, Hamas would invade Israel and slaughter 1,400 Israelis — and that Jews might need to turn to these historical songs of defiance once again. 

“If anything, what’s happening in Israel, in that region and to the innocent Gaza civilians is more of an inspiration and an incentive for us to sing with more passion, emotion and determination and defiance,” Schaechter, the director and conductor of the chorus, told the New York Jewish Week. “These songs made the people who sang them feel good about the things that they were feeling bad about.”

The concert, this coming Sunday at the Upper West Side’s Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, includes three songs about the Jewish people’s relationship to the land of Israel at different points in Jewish history: a setting of Psalm 137, the “Partisans’ Anthem” sung by Jewish fighters in the 1940s and, perhaps most notably of all, “Di Hofenung,” a version of “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, that was translated into Yiddish in 1943 by Hillel Meitin. 

Schaechter believes the Yiddish version of “Hatikvah” is relatively unknown and, to his knowledge, has not been performed since his chorus picked it up. “I happened to find it in a collection of Yiddish war songs written in 1943,”he said. “I would be shocked if anybody has performed it in Yiddish. We’ve made that poem come to life after 80 years.”

“Because everything that’s going on in Israel, we just feel our hearts so full to be singing these songs like ‘Hatikvah’ and the partisans’ song in Yiddish,” Lynne Cassouto, a soprano who has been in the chorus for nine years, told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s just so poignant and so powerful right now to be singing together right now.”

Founded in 1923 on the Lower East Side as the Freiheit Gezang Farein (“Freedom Chorus”) by conductor and composer Lazar Weiner, the chorus was an extension of the Morgen Freiheit, a daily Yiddish communist newspaper. The singers “were native Yiddish speakers and were staunch lefties,” Schaechter said. For the first 15 or so years, the chorus would begin every concert with a Yiddish translation of the French communist anthem “The Internationale.”

In the decades after its founding, the chorus continued to grow as its leaders wrote new choral and solo works. The group performed all over the city, including at Carnegie Hall. In 1948, during the anti-communist backlash of the McCarthy Era, the chorus changed its name to the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus. 

By the 1980s, the chorus’ popularity had waned, and it became more of a community choir — anyone who wanted to join could, regardless of whether they could sing, Schaechter said. 

Schaechter, 60, became the chorus’ conductor and the director in 1995. Born in East New York, Brooklyn, he grew up in the Bronx in a prominent Yiddish-speaking family: His father, Mordkhe Schaechter, was a Yiddish linguist and professor at Columbia, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University and YIVO, the Yiddish research institute. His aunt, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, was a Yiddish poet and songwriter. Binyumen and his three sisters all pursued careers in Yiddish: Rukhl is the editor of Forverts, the Yiddish Forward; Gitl is a Yiddish poet and Eydl teaches Yiddish classes for women in her haredi community in Tzfat, Israel. 

Despite his upbringing, Schaechter said he never planned a career in Yiddish music — he thought he’d become a composer for musical theater. “My dream was to win a Tony Award for Best Score and to give my thank you speech in Yiddish,” he said. He wrote a few shows that weren’t produced, and worked as a substitute conductor at another chorus that shared some members with the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus, who asked him if he’d like to take over as the conductor full time. 

Now, said Schaechter, who also works as a Yiddish translator and lecturer, “I can’t imagine doing anything else.” 

In 2021, the chorus officially changed its name to the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus. “Our raison d’etre for many years has been singing in Yiddish, keeping Yiddish alive and doing it in a way that enlightens the audience about the treasures that Yiddish poetry, song and even choral arrangements can have,” he said. 

In his nearly 30-year tenure, Schaechter has expanded the range and ability of the chorus. The 36 members, ranging from 30-somethings to those in their 90s, had to audition. They hold a weekly practice session on Monday nights and perform anywhere from from three to 12 times a year around the city. 

While knowing Yiddish is not a prerequisite — Schaechter guesses only about a fifth of the cohort could hold a conversation in the language — singers learn how to pronounce and perform the music with gusto while also learning the translation and meanings behind the songs. 

“One of the things I love about the way Binyumen specifically presents a piece of music to us is that he will give us historical context — he will tell us about the composer, the author if it was originally a poem, the dialect, what the part of the world it was from, the context of when it was written,” said Cassouto, who, like Schaechter, hails from a musical, Yiddish-speaking family. 

“I feel very strongly about Jewish continuity through all these art forms,” she added. “So that all, for me, is a piece of keeping that spirit alive and being true to where we come from, and not having it just become history, but really be retained as a part of my identity.”

“This was our culture. This was our language. This is our tradition going back for centuries,” Schaechter said. “There’s such wonderful literature and so many wonderful Yiddish songs that we don’t want to lose them. We want to pass them on to the next generation.”

Tickets for the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus’ upcoming concert on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 1 p.m. can be found here, starting at $50. A recording of the concert can also be purchased.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post The Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus celebrates its 100th anniversary with a rare Yiddish rendition of ‘Hatikvah’ appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) – Like many American Jews, Matt Greenberg has been bombarded with requests to sign open letters about the state of affairs in Israel and Gaza.

One that he received this week in a WhatsApp group particularly incensed Greenberg, who helms a Jewish social services nonprofit in Stamford, Connecticut. Saying that it would be published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, the letter called for a ceasefire in Gaza as the top priority of global health workers.

The letter also included little condemnation of Hamas, the terror group that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages. And a clause calling for the immediate release of all hostages was removed after signatories complained.

Greenberg was incensed by what he saw and decided to sign a competing pro-Israel letter also circulating in the medical community. So he clicked the link and added his name to “Call to Action: An Open Letter from Global Health Professionals.”

Only later did Greenberg realize he had signed the wrong letter. This passionate Israel supporter and head of his regional Jewish social services organization had mistakenly added his name to a petition that included a health advisor to the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, and couldn’t figure out how to remove it.

“I originally thought it was a pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian letter,” Greenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Obviously it was the reverse.”

He added, “I unfortunately didn’t read the letter well enough and properly to understand what it meant and what it was saying.”

Greenberg’s experience is a window into the dizzying stream of petitions and open letters that have been circulating in the weeks since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the start of Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Gaza. Open letters and social media posts have become a major currency of protest, with statements from Hollywood celebrities, students at elite universities, and titans of arts and culture weighing in. So many letters are flying that even people who want to sign ones that align with their values can’t track them all.

Greenberg’s experience also points to the fact that deep division over what to say and do about the Israel-Hamas war extends into the global medical community, where there was apparently a dispute over whether to call for the release of the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas.

The most immediate priority listed in the Lancet letter is a ceasefire in Gaza, followed by establishing humanitarian corridors and “the recognition of human rights of all people in the region.” Hamas broke a 2021 ceasefire when it attacked Israel, and Israel and its allies reject the idea of a ceasefire because it would leave Hamas in control in Gaza.

The Lancet letter also pushes for organizations to be allowed access to investigate “alleged war crimes,” singling out the bombing of a hospital in Gaza that Hamas blamed on Israel but which multiple news organizations and countries, including the United States, have attributed to a failed Palestinian rocket. The letter says it ultimately hopes to address “antisemitism and Islamophobia worldwide.”

A note attached to the open letter explains that one addendum, “The immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” was added during the drafting process only to be removed 24 hours later “based on debate and feedback.” No further explanation was given. Hamas is currently holding an estimated 220 Israeli hostages.

“I can’t for the life of me imagine why any rational person would want to have that removed,” said Greenberg, who is CEO of the Schoke Jewish Family Service of Fairfield County. “There’s so much talk of humanitarian aid and all that kind of stuff, you’d think that would be a given.”

The open letter had not been published by Thursday afternoon, only saying that it had been submitted for publication to The Lancet, which has published an array of pieces on the conflict, including a call for humanitarian aid to Gaza and a separate letter, signed by 1,500 Israeli health care professionals, calling for “the immediate release of Israeli hostages.”

But the letter was still continuing to amass signatures, crossing the 2,700-signature threshold before pausing. Matt Greenberg was still listed at 1,743.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post More than 2,700 health workers signed a pro-ceasefire letter that excised a call to free Israeli hostages appeared first on The Forward.

NEW | The #IDF conducted a raid into the #GazaStrip on October 26, which Israeli media framed as preparation for the ground operation. Read today’s update from @criticalthreats and @thestudyofwar: https://t.co/V6niy5Llid pic.twitter.com/xxOXOCUKe5

— Critical Threats (@criticalthreats) October 27, 2023

Today, the DoD released its Annual Report on Suicide in the Military for 2022. There is no single solution to preventing suicide, but I remain focused on actions that will make a real difference and change the culture around this critical challenge. pic.twitter.com/YdLc6VApse

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 26, 2023

An Iranian court on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to pay $420 million in compensation to victims of an abortive 1980 operation to free hostages held at the U.S. Embassy, the judiciary said.

Shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the Western-backed shah, Iranian students stormed the embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 Americans hostage for 444 days.

The students called for the extradition of the deposed shah, who was receiving medical care in the United States.

In April 1980, Washington attempted to free the hostages in the top-secret Operation Eagle Claw, which ended in disaster after running into sandstorms and mechanical problems.

As the rescue force withdrew, two U.S. aircraft collided, killing eight servicemen.

In its Thursday report, the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency said that during the operation, U.S. forces had attacked a bus carrying Iranian passengers. It did not elaborate.

“Following the complaint filed by families of the victims of U.S. Operation Eagle Claw, a court ordered the U.S. government to pay $420 million,” Mizan said, without specifying the number of the victims.

Iranian media have reported that a local commander of the Revolutionary Guards was accidentally shot and killed by Iranian forces while standing guard over U.S. military equipment abandoned during the operation.

Five months after the hostage crisis, Washington severed diplomatic relations and imposed an embargo on Tehran.

The hostages were released in January 1981.

In August, a Tehran court ordered the U.S. government to pay $330 million in damages for “planning a coup” in 1980 against the fledgling Islamic republic.

The suits filed against Washington in Iranian courts followed a series of multibillion-dollar compensation awards against Tehran by U.S. courts.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that Iranian assets frozen in the United States should be paid to victims of attacks that Washington blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and a 1996 blast in Saudi Arabia.

This March, the International Court of Justice ruled that Washington’s freezing of funds belonging to several Iranian individuals and companies was “manifestly unreasonable.”

But it ruled it had no jurisdiction to unblock nearly $2 billion in Iranian central bank assets frozen by the United States.

Tehran, which denies all responsibility for the attacks blamed on it by Washington, has said that U.S. court judgments have awarded victims a total of $56 billion in damages.

The United States and China have disagreements and need “in-depth” and “comprehensive” dialogue to reduce misunderstandings and stabilize ties, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said on Thursday, kicking off a long-anticipated visit to Washington.

Standing next to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Wang said the two countries share important common interests and challenges that they need to resolve together.

“Therefore, China and the United States need to have dialogue. Not only should we resume dialogue, the dialogue should be in-depth and comprehensive,” Wang said, speaking through an interpreter.

Dialogue would help reduce misunderstandings, help stabilize the relationship and “return it to the track of healthy, stable and sustainable development,” he said.

Blinken responded: “I agree with what the foreign minister said.”

Before Wang spoke, Blinken had said he looked forward to constructive talks with his Chinese counterpart.

Wang’s three-day visit is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic engagements between the two strategic rivals as they seek to manage their differences to avoid conflict. The trip primarily is to prepare for an expected summit between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping in November.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has added a fresh dynamic to the testy relationship of the superpowers, and Washington is hoping Beijing can use its influence with Iran to prevent an escalation into a wider war in the Middle East.

Wang is expected to meet with U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday. He is also expected to speak with Biden during his visit to the White House, although it is unclear how substantial their interaction will be.

The Biden administration’s priority with Beijing has been to prevent intense competition between the two largest economies and disagreements on a host of issues – including trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea – from veering into conflict.

However, while both Beijing and Washington have spoken of looking for areas where they can work together, and Xi on Wednesday said China was willing to cooperate on global challenges, experts do not expect immediate progress.

Policy analysts in China and the U.S. say both sides share an interest in averting a wider war in the Middle East and that China, as a major oil purchaser, could exert considerable influence on Iran. Whether it will remains to be seen.

“The Chinese certainly have an interest in preventing a direct U.S.-Iranian confrontation, as they are major oil consumers and that would spike prices,” said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Still, the Chinese are unlikely to do any heavy lifting here. I expect they’ll want a seat at the table when the Israel-Gaza struggle gets resolved, but they don’t feel much need or ability to hasten resolution.”

Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, said Beijing exerting its influence over Iran was “almost the only serious and practical U.S. expectation of China on the Middle East situation.”

However Shi added: “The U.S. position on Iran is far from acceptable to China and vice versa. Mutual compromise on this issue could be too limited and small to be of any significance.”

Wang’s visit to Washington comes after several top U.S. officials, including Blinken, visited Beijing in the past several months.

Analysts expect Wang’s talks to focus on preparations for an anticipated meeting between Biden and Xi on the sidelines of the summit of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries in San Francisco from Nov. 11 to 17. It would be Biden and Xi’s first in-person meeting since a summit in Bali last November.

The two sides go into APEC from different economic perspectives, with economic policy analysts saying the U.S. has weathered challenging global conditions after the COVID-19 pandemic somewhat better than China.

U.S. and Chinese officials held a virtual meeting on Monday on macroeconomic developments.

U.S. officials said Taiwan and the South and East China Seas, where they accused Beijing of “destabilizing and dangerous actions” against rival territorial claimants, would also be on the agenda. Re-establishing military-to-military ties with China remains a top priority to avoid unintended conflict, they said.

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A New York state Republican on Thursday made a privileged motion in the U.S. House of Representatives to expel indicted fellow Republican George Santos from Congress, a move that forces the chamber to hold a vote on the question.

The action was precipitated by the filing of 23 fresh federal criminal counts against the first-term U.S. congressman earlier this month, accusing him of inflating his campaign’s fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors’ credit cards without their consent.

“George Santos is not fit to serve his constituents as a United States representative,” said Representative Anthony D’Esposito, who stood on the House floor flanked by fellow New York Republicans Nick LaLota, Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler.

Santos, who represents a district including parts of New York City and its eastern suburbs, has been enmeshed in scandal since his November 2022 election, first facing accusations that he fabricated much of his resume and then criminal indictment.

Santos pleaded not guilty to an initial May indictment and has said he will do the same for the new one. Free on $500,000 bail, he is due back in court on Friday for a status conference.

“Three points of clarification: 1. I have not cleared out my office. 2. I’m not resigning. 3. I’m entitled to due process and not a predetermined outcome as some are seeking. God bless!” Santos tweeted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, after D’Esposito’s motion.

Under House rules, lawmakers must act on a privileged motion within two legislative days. The House is next expected to hold votes on Wednesday.

With a narrow 221-212 majority, the House’s Republican leadership has not taken action against Santos.

It was not clear how newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson would handle the issue. Republican leaders could try to avoid an expulsion vote by moving to table the measure or refer it to a committee.

D’Esposito and his fellow New York Republicans announced plans to seek Santos’ expulsion on Oct 11. But until Wednesday, the House had been shuttered for three weeks following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The charges against Santos include false statements, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud, accusing him of using the credit card information of people who had already donated to his campaign to make additional contributions.

“He has had plenty of time to do the right thing and resign,” LaLota said in a statement. “The only logical step is to expel him from Congress.”

In order to pass, the motion would require support from two-thirds of members in the House, meaning 290 votes. Democrats have repeatedly called for Santos to be expelled, and over a dozen Republicans have done the same.

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Byron Wien, who guided investors on what to buy and sell and authored a widely anticipated yearly list of “10 Surprises” as one of Wall Street’s most prominent and enduring market strategists, has died, Blackstone Inc (BX.N) said in a statement.

Wien was 90.

Wien built his wide following on Wall Street during two decades at investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N) where he rose to be the firm’s chief investment strategist of the United States. He also wrote the annual list, a monthly strategy essay, and worked with colleagues on putting together a model portfolio of stocks.

He moved from the investment bank to hedge fund Pequot Capital Management where he worked until it went out of business in 2009. Soon after, at age 76, when most people were enjoying retirement, Wien joined private equity firm Blackstone to offer direction and guidance. He was vice chairman of Blackstone’s Private Wealth Solutions group.

“Byron’s life was remarkable in so many ways,” Blackstone Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman and President Jon Gray said in a statement to Blackstone employees. “He was always building new relationships and pushed everyone around him to think about the risks and opportunities that lay ahead.”

His annual list, which he published for 38 consecutive years, focused on a range of topics from who might win U.S. presidential elections, to the role China would play in markets, to where the stock index would move next.

He called the list a “defining product” adding people all over the world identified him with it. “I put myself at risk by going on record with these events, which I believe are probable and hold myself accountable at year-end,” he said earlier this year.

While the list was closely watched, it also drew some scorn.

“My wife hopes I give this up as soon as possible,” Wien told the New York Times about writing it. “While people are enjoying the holidays, between Thanksgiving and Christmas I am in a total panic, working quite hard on developing these,” he told the newspaper in 2001.

In addition to calling how markets might move, he offered life advice and encouraged people to “read all the time,” to “get enough sleep” and “travel extensively.”

Wien was orphaned as a young man but was sent by a guidance counselor at school to apply to Harvard where he ended up earning his undergraduate and graduate business degrees.

He found his way to Wall Street after stints in advertising and consulting.

He told the New York Times in 1985 “I’m not sure I can do this job,” about the strategist role at Morgan Stanley. “But if I can do it, I will derive more satisfaction from this job than from going somewhere else and being a portfolio manager.”

One of his life lessons, published in February, was “never retire.”

“If you work forever, you can live forever. I know there is an abundance of biological evidence against this theory, but I’m going with it anyway,” he said.

When the US Supreme Court made a correct but surprising ruling striking down racial gerrymandering, it meant that Black voters in southern states were going to get more fair representation in Congress. It also indirectly meant that the Democratic Party was going to gain some seats, thanks to new majority-Black districts that were highly likely to elect Democrats. Now we’re seeing that ruling play out in real world terms.

After the ruling, Alabama Republicans tried drawing a map that was slightly less gerrymandered but still highly gerrymandered. Once the courts stopped laughing, the courts drew their own map for Alabama. And because no one ever gets to magically defy the U.S. Supreme Court, Alabama Republicans then gave up and swallowed the fair map for 2024 that had been drawn for them. Accordingly, the Democrats have picked up a 2024 House seat in Alabama.

Today the federal courts also struck down Georgia’s racially gerrymandered map, ordering that it be redrawn to include an additional majority-Black district. So now we’re going to see the same process play out in Georgia that played out in Alabama. Georgia Republicans can complain all they want, and submit all the non-compliant maps they want, but at the end of the day the courts will force a fair map on Georgia for 2024. And the Democrats will pick up another House seat accordingly. The same will likely happen in Louisiana, as that court battle plays out.

On the other side of that, North Carolina Republicans just proposed a 2024 map that’s cartoonishly over the top in terms of racial gerrymandering, and would remove three Democrats from the House. There has been a lot of doomsday hype about this, because most observers think this map is a done deal. But in reality, North Carolina Republicans are simply trying to start with something so over the top that perhaps they’ll still have a slightly favorable map by the time the federal courts end up cracking down on it.

We don’t know precisely what the outcome will be as far as the 2024 North Carolina map. But it’s important to understand that the US Supreme Court ruling already came down months ago and isn’t going to change. For whatever reason, the US Supreme Court has decided that gerrymandering in general is okay, but racial gerrymandering is not. So that’s what the 2024 maps will end up looking like.

No state legislature can just magically defy a US Supreme Court ruling. State legislatures in places like Ohio have managed to defy rulings from their own state supreme courts, but that’s an entirely different thing.

We’ve already seen Alabama Republicans being forced to fold and abide by a fair 2024 map. Now we’re seeing Georgia Republicans in the process of being forced to do the same. North Carolina will likely play out in similar fashion. There’s no such thing as “running out the clock” in this instance. If there were, we’d have seen Alabama Republicans run out the clock. But it’s simply not a thing.

It’s important to understand that even with the Democrats gaining seats in newly drawn districts in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, and even with the doomsday hysteria over North Carolina not being based in reality, the 2024 House majority is still going to be a close call. It’s going to come down to whether we all decide to put in the work to make sure the Democrats win the competitive toss-up races, which always come down to a point or two in either direction. So let’s take the win with these court rulings, and go out and score ourselves a real win in terms of the House majority.

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