Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 88

Where the Spirit of Mister Rogers Endures

In one of my favorite classic episodes of the PBS series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Roger chats with Jeff Erlanger, an 11-year-old who used an electric wheelchair. After introducing the boy to viewers as his “friend,” Rogers asks straightforward and kind questions about Jeff’s life—his hobbies, his parents, his visits to the hospital—and patiently listens to his answers. Then he invites Jeff to sing the song, “It’s You I Like” with him. It’s an incredibly moving scene that showed young audiences the quiet power of respecting, valuing, and nurturing each person’s emotional world, no matter their age or background.

Rogers’s warmth and earnestness were hallmarks of his show, from the gentle manner in which he’d describe an ordinary experience like going to the doctor, to the way he’d handle more complicated emotions like jealousy or fear. Fifteen years after the last episode of Mister Rogers aired on August 31, 2001, its spirit of affirmation persists in excellent children’s pop culture, such as recent episodes of Sesame Street, Inside Out, and Kubo and the Two Strings.

It also lives on in an unlikely place—the modern advice column. Dear Sugar, Ask Andrew W.K., Ask Polly, and others challenge readers to reimagine the classic advice column as a place where adult problems are considered with dignity, and where feelings are taken seriously. These columns tackle heavy topics including depression, infidelity, drug use, and job dissatisfaction, but all firmly insist that a community can lift up and support an individual through his or her struggles. It’s an idea that directly echoes what Rogers championed through his life and his TV show: the importance of being a good neighbor and valuing each person just as they are.

This sentiment is a radical departure from the original newspaper advice columns, which were meant to offer practical guidance on etiquette and manners. They reiterated traditional values, while also luring readers in with the promise of salacious, though anonymous, stories. One of the earliest such columns came in the late 1890s, when a 20-year-old journalist named Marie Manning started giving advice as “Beatrice Fairfax” (after Dante’s Beatrice) for New York Journal. In a piece for Mental Floss, Linda Rodriguez McRobby described how the original format was more brusque than maternal. “Victims of spousal abuse, desperate unwed mothers, and jilted lovers all crowded for column inches,” McRobby wrote. “Manning’s approach to all: ‘Dry your eyes, roll up your sleeves, and dig for a practical solution.’”

This “bootstraps” attitude has since reigned as the most common approach taken by columnists. From classic examples like Dear Abby and Ann Landers to more contemporary (and risqué) ones like Savage Love, readers often expect particularly clueless letter-writers to get a bit of a tongue-lashing. Even the ’90s kids comedy sketch show All That featured a regular segment called “Ask Ashley” that parodied this style: “Ashley,” played by Amanda Bynes, would yell at and belittle fans who would write in asking painfully obvious questions. Likewise, one of the joys of reading Dan Savage is laughing at his raunchy, merciless responses. He regularly implores letter-writers who are dealing with a hostile or difficult partner to DTMFA (“Dump the motherfucker already”). Even without the same colorful language or ribald imagery, Emily Yoffe’s Dear Prudence would often advise an anguished letter-writer to “get over it.”

In contrast, modern advice columns (which I’d argue includes the latest iteration of “Dear Prudence” where Mallory Ortberg, formerly of The Toast, has taken the helm) feel as though they’re coming from a close confidante, rather than a sadistic personal trainer. In doing so, they achieve exactly what Rogers does in his ’97 speech—they allow each individual the space to be vulnerable.

Take, for example, the musician Andrew W.K.’s advice to a reader who asks how he can better deal with his depression. “Downer in the Dumps” writes, “You always seem so happy, and I really look up to you for that. But do you ever get depressed? How do you stay so positive?” W.K.’s response begins with a personal narrative about his own struggles with depression, and then moves beyond advice for one reader toward a grander reflection.

We can keep getting closer to that truth, and we can let our devotion to it become the centerpiece of our lives ... It’s a truth that tells us that life is more beautiful and awe-inspiring than we can even contemplate—and, most amazing of all, that we are a very real part of it. It tells us that it’s all going to be OK. That you will be OK. That you already are. Never forget this. I love you. Stay strong.

The author Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar columns also emphasizes empathy over scolding. In her column, “How You Get Unstuck” Strayed comforts a woman who is struggling to “get over” her miscarriage more quickly—without serving up platitudes about grief.

Don’t listen to those people who suggest you should be “over” your daughter’s death by now. The people who squawk the loudest about such things have almost never had to get over any thing ... Others are scared of the intensity of your loss and so they use their words to push your grief away. Many of those people love you and are worthy of your love, but they are not the people who will be helpful to you when it comes to healing the pain of your daughter’s death.

They live on Planet Earth. You live on Planet My Baby Died.

Strayed, who now offers listeners “radical empathy” via Dear Sugar Radio with her co-host Steve Almond, would respond to letter writers with intimate nicknames like “sweet pea.” W.K. would end each of his letters, “Your friend.” Each column is surprisingly affectionate, considering they’re exchanges between total strangers. The key to this intimacy is how the columnists see each inquiry as an opportunity to tap into something essential about humanity. In an interview with NPR, for example, Heather Havrilesky, the author behind the wildly successful column Ask Polly, explains how she sees her position as a columnist:

I don’t think I’m someone who’s ever going to be high up on a mountain, looking down at all the sad mortals who are still struggling ... I think a lot of people see themselves as these messed-up shells that need to be filled with something or these imperfect, bad, empty things that need to become better. And what I’m trying to tell people is you’re filled with so much beauty and so much potential and so much brilliance. You just have to believe in it.

This same belief in humility and genuine human connection is what an adult takes from revisiting the world of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Over the years, Rogers not only brought together children and grown-ups, but also people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. In a 1969 episode, for example, Rogers invited the show’s African-American policeman Officer Clemmons to come soak his feet with Rogers in a pool and sing together. In a 2016 interview with NPR, Francois Clemmons recalled how meaningful this scene became to him. “The icon Fred Rogers not only was showing my brown skin in the tub with his white skin as two friends,” said Clemmons, the first African-American to have a regular role on a kids TV show. “But as I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet.”

Rogers offered something different from other TV icons—he used his show as a platform to actually give voice to children: their fears, their hopes, their pains, their purest expressions of joy. Each episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood started with the same reassuring sequence showing the host entering his home, slipping on one of his famous sweaters, and changing his work shoes for comfortable sneakers. In this simple world, every question—big or small—was seen as worthy of respect; every feeling—good or bad—was viewed without judgment. Rogers answered questions in an open-hearted manner, often drawing on his own experiences and speaking directly into the camera, as if personally addressing each member of his TV audience. In one episode, he drew a picture using crayons and reflected, “I’m not very good at it. But it doesn’t matter ... It feels good to have made something.” In another, the camera lingered on one of Rogers’ dead fish with the curiosity and compassion of a child, imploring viewers to look, telling them that it’s okay to cry.

Today’s advice columnists carry on this same tradition of giving their readers the space to explore emotions they might feel they have to downplay, ignore, or hide from others. At a time when millions of adults are snapping up coloring books, and essays bemoan college students for seeking “safe spaces,” it might be tempting to see the gentler column as an outgrowth of a desire to prolong childhood. But the success of these columns points instead to the very grown-up need for settings where feelings are valued, rather than dismissed, and where the primary human response is compassion, rather than anger.  

It’s not a surprise to me that the kinder advice column evolved online, at a time when so many are accustomed to seeing vile or cruel comments from strangers. Just as Mister Rogers showed that TV could be a medium for education, not just mindless entertainment or bad influences, these columns challenge prevailing notions about the internet as an intrinsically dumbed-down or hurtful place. Ask Polly and Dear Sugar showcase the best of the internet, its capacity to provide a space for empathy, rather than outrage or anger. Like Rogers, they assert that children and grown-ups can be wiser and better when they embrace love and kindness toward one another—and toward themselves, too.

Another Government Execution in North Korea

NEWS BRIEF North Korea has executed one of its highest ranking ministers and punished two others, a South Korean government official said Wednesday.

Jeong Joon-hee, Seoul’s unification ministry spokesman, said the North Korean government executed Kim Yong-jin, the 63-year-old education minister, last month by firing squad after labeling him an “anti-party and anti-revolutionary” element. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports the minister was brought under investigation in June for his sitting posture at a parliamentary meeting. Severe punishment, including death, for such perceived crimes are not uncommon in North Korea.

The two North Korean officials undergoing punishment for crimes related to abuse of power and mishandling of work are 71-year-old Kin Yong-chol, the head of the United Front Department, and 62-year-old Choe Hwi, a vice department director of the ruling party’s central committee. Seoul’s Unification Ministry said both men were sent to undergo re-education in rural areas of the country.

Although reports of North Korean executions are relatively frequent, they are difficult to independently verify. As the BBC notes, South Korea’s record of accurately reporting such incidents can be variable and North Korea rarely confirms the deaths of key officials themselves:

The strongest confirmation is usually that an executed official simply disappears from media reports.

If this report turns out to be untrue, Kim Yong-jin may well appear in public or be listed as in attendance at a major public event in Pyongyang.

Another clue to his fate might emerge if North Korea announces a replacement vice premier. Again, this does not necessarily mean he has been executed.

If the execution is confirmed, it would mark the latest crackdown in Pyongyang since Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011, succeeding his father and grandfather as the country’s leader. Since then, Kim is believed to have executed more than 100 government and military officials, including the high-profile execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, in 2013.

The announcement comes shortly after the high-profile defection of a senior North Korean diplomat to South Korea this month. Defections by North Koreans have become more common since the UN Security Council voted unanimously in March to impose sanctions on the country for conducting nuclear and missile tests.

What Does Enrique Peña Nieto Want From Trump's Visit?

A meeting in Mexico City on Wednesday will bring together two of the most unpopular men in Mexico.

On the one hand, there’s Donald Trump, widely reviled and frequently bashed in papier-mâché effigy over his derogatory comments about the country and its citizens—from the suggestion, in his campaign launch, that Mexican immigrants to the United States are by and large criminals and rapists, to his declaration that Mexico is an “enemy” of the United States.

On the other, there’s Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, a telegenic and glamorous politician who has nonetheless been plagued by scandals and tainted by alleged ties to organized crime, a plagiarism scandal, and deep unfavorable ratings among women. Perhaps the two men will have some things to talk about when they convene at Los Pinos, the Mexican executive residence.

Related Story

Trump’s Visit to Mexico

Peña Nieto, who is commonly known as EPN, faces troubles that run deep. In a poll conducted by the newspaper El Universal in July, 63 percent of respondents disapproved of his performance. (For comparison, Trump is at 75 percent unfavorability.) That’s the result of a slow but steady erosion since shortly after he took office in 2012, when 56 percent approved and 29 percent disapproved. A full two-thirds said Mexico was on the wrong track. Eighty-four said they felt Peña Nieto was not in control of the country’s problems. Almost six in 10 said the country was worse off during his presidency.

EPN’s biggest problems are straightforward: Voters say Mexico’s economy is too weak (though the peso tends to wax with Trump’s troubles and wane when he does well). They are upset about widespread government corruption across the country—though that’s not exclusively a problem restricted to Peña Nieto’s  Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). And they’re angry about how EPN has fought drug trafficking. Mexicans feel that he has not done enough to combat the narcotics trade, and the escape of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the highly wanted cartel boss, from prison in July 2015 was widely viewed as evidence of government incompetence at best—or of collusion and complicity at worse. Peña Nieto must have been extremely relieved to be able to break the news on Twitter, in January, that El Chapo had been recaptured.

Peña Nieto, who turned 50 last month, has been president since 2012, when he won a bitterly contested election. He was the candidate of the centrist PRI, which held power in Mexico from 1929 until 2000. But at the turn of the millennium, Mexican voters finally turned the PRI out, installing Vicente Fox, who hailed from a more conservative party called the National Action Party. EPN represented the PRI’s return to power after 12 years. Before running for president, Peña Nieto was governor of the state of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City to the west, north, and east. In the 2012 election, his primary opponent was Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a leftist. Allegations of fraud and vote-buying tainted the election and led to widespread protests in the weeks immediately following the July 2012 balloting.

EPN’s presidency has seen several rocky stretches. He pushed constitutional reforms and market openings, which have been met with mixed response; the Universal poll showed his reforms rated among both the most and least popular things he’d done. Despite promising to reduce violence connected to the drug trade, there have been several spikes in crime—including in the capital. The most notable is the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, in which local officials are widely suspected of conspiring with drug cartels.

Peña Nieto has also introduced measures to stop corruption, but his efforts and credibility in that direction have been hurt by his own proximity to scandal. In the summer of 2015, it emerged that EPN’s wife and finance minister both bought houses with financing help from a contractor who received hundreds of millions in government contracts. The president himself had lived rent-free in another home belonging to the contractor during his election campaign. A government investigation cleared EPN and his wife, though there are now new allegations that he took real-estate favors from a government contractor.

Just last week, investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui reported that EPN plagiarized nearly a third of his undergraduate thesis.

The good news for EPN, if not for the PRI, is that he does not face re-election: Presidents in Mexico are constitutionally limited to a single six-year term. Nonetheless, he’s taking some political risks by welcoming Trump to Mexico City on Wednesday.

Peña Nieto has not minced words about Trump in the past, and like Trump, he has courted controversy. In fact, the president seems to have found the American candidate a useful punching-bag for improving his own standing. He has, unsurprisingly, said that Mexico will not pay for a wall along its border with the United States, even as Trump insists it will. (Trump likes to say that every time a Mexican official says this, he adds 10 feet to the wall’s height.) Peña Nieto also accused Trump of  “xenophobic speech that reminds us (of the speech) of Hitler and Mussolini.” More recently, EPN has seemed to soft-pedal his remarks about Trump, though he has made the comparison to Hitler and Mussolini repeatedly over the last year.

The political calculus for Trump in visiting Mexico is tough to figure out, as Dan Drezner and Philip Bump both explain. For Peña Nieto there is perhaps a more obvious payoff, though also some substantial risks. By inviting Trump to Mexico, EPN could distract from his own troubles, and he might appear statesmanlike—having lured the great ogre Trump to visit Mexico and reckon with the country face-to-face, in a meeting where Peña Nieto will presumably once again solidly reject any prospect of Mexico paying for the wall. After news of the meeting broke last night, he tweeted, “I believe in dialogue to promote Mexico’s interests in the world and, principally, to protect Mexicans, wherever they might be.”

On the other hand, politicians much more well-versed with Trump than EPN have found themselves flummoxed by the Republican nominee. Who knows what Trump might do or say in the meeting, or report about it afterward? New York Times reporter Elizabeth Malkin reports that Mexicans were immediately outraged by the invitation, and she wondered how the Mexican president planned to counteract Trump’s spin. Her colleague Kirk Semple speculated that there could be large protests in Mexico City, and NBC and The Washington Post both reported that the U.S. Embassy had warned Trump’s campaign against making such a trip on short notice.

“This is appeasement of the worst kind. Peña Nieto is like [Neville] Chamberlain to his Hitler,” Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official, told The Wall Street Journal. Fox, the former president, who has jousted in the media with Trump over the wall and other issues, blasted his successor. “He will even be considered like a traitor because we don’t accept to be offended. I think this is a big mistake on the part of President Peña,” Fox said.

Trump has said repeatedly that Mexican leaders are outsmarting American ones, and on Wednesday, Trump and Peña Nieto will engage in a battle of wits to see who fares better. The visit confirms an essential truth about politicians: Unpopular leaders will try all sorts of risky maneuvers to improve their standing.

The Ghosts of Olympic Games Past

NEWS BRIEF For some Olympic athletes, the 2008 games in Beijing are still not over.

Six athletes will be retroactively disqualified from participation in the competition eight years ago because of doping, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) said Wednesday.

Olympic officials had tested samples submitted by the athletes in 2008 and found the presence of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The athletes include three from Russia and one each from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. Five are weightlifters and one is a runner. Not all won medals at the games; the four who did will be stripped of the accolades.

The illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs drew national attention last November after the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), the international anti-doping authority, released a report that described a culture in Russian sport that was accepting of doping. A second report, carried out by a Canadian lawyer on behalf of WADA, found evidence in July that Russian government encouraged and covered up doping among athletes.

The scandal led the IOC to ban Russia’s entire track-and-field team from 2016 Olympic Games, which recently concluded in Rio. The committee decided not to bar the remaining Russian delegation. Of Russia’s 389-athlete team, the IOC cleared 271 to participate. It also instructed the governing bodies of each individual sport to determine whether Russian athletes should be allowed to compete. But the Russian Paralympics team received a worse fate; the International Paralympic Committee banned all those athletes from participating in the games in Rio, which begin next week.

The Mass Graves ISIS Left Behind

NEWS BRIEF As Islamic State fighters retreat in northern Iraq and Syria, human-rights groups, government officials, and journalists are finding mass graves filled with thousands of bodies left in their wake, according to a new report from the Associated Press.

Through interviews, photos, and research, the AP found the Islamic militant group has buried at least 5,200 and as many as 15,000 bodies in 72 mass graves, “with many more expected to be uncovered as the Islamic State group's territory shrinks.” The news service reported Tuesday it had identified 17 mass graves in Syria, “including one with the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe” that ISIS massacred when it took control of their region. In Iraq, the report said, at least 16 of the mass graves are in locations that are too dangerous to excavate, and officials cannot make estimates about the number of dead buried there.

ISIS-controlled territory has shrunk in Iraq and Syria in recent months. In June, Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, said the group had lost half of its territory in Iraq and about 20 percent in Syria since the summer of 2014. McGurk attributed the losses to coalition air strikes and ground offensives by Iraqi forces and local militias.

On Sinjar mountain, where ten of thousands of members of Iraq’s oldest religious minority group, the Yazidis, took refuge from ISIS in August 2014, there are several mass graves. According to the AP, Sinjar mountain contains “six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people.”

In its report, the AP included an account of ISIS’s killing of Iraqi inmates from the Badoush prison, outside of Mosul, after the militants captured the city on June 10, 2014. As Human Rights Watch wrote, ISIS militants “forced the Shia men to kneel along the edge of a nearby ravine ” and then shot them, though several men survived. Identified only as H.K., one survivor told Human Rights Watch:

A bullet hit my head and I fell to the ground, and that’s when I felt another bullet hit my arm. I was unconscious for about 5 minutes. One person was shot in the head, in the forehead, it [the bullet] went out the other side, and he fell on top of me.

The survivors lived because they pretended to be dead or were shielded from the bullets by men who fell on top of them. The AP said a Colorado-based satellite-imagery company used their testimonies to find and identify the mass grave, in which the “bodies are believed to be packed tightly together, side by side in a space approximately the length of two football fields end to end.”

“They don’t even try to hide their crimes,” Sirwan Jalal, the director of Iraqi Kurdistan’s agency in charge of mass graves, told the AP. “They are beheading them, shooting them, running them over in cars, all kinds of killing techniques, and they don't even try to hide it.”

The 10,000 Civilians Killed in Yemen

NEWS BRIEF The United Nations said Tuesday at least 10,000 civilians have been killed during Yemen’s 18-month civil war, an estimate that surpasses previous reports.

Jamie McGoldrick, a UN humanitarian official and the agency’s representative to Yemen,  said the new estimate is based on statistics from medical facilities in the country—a number that may rise as many people are often buried without official records, Reuters reports. Previous estimates ranged between 4,000 and 9,000 casualties.

“We know the numbers are much higher but we can’t tell you by how much," McGoldrick told reporters Tuesday at a news conference in the capital city of Sanaa. “The figures we have are probably incomplete because we take the numbers from functioning health services, and in some of these areas there are no functioning health services.”

Medical facilities, where they exist in the country, have not been immune to the escalation in hostilities. A Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital was bombed in northern Yemen this month, killing 11 people and wounding 19. The medical charity said it was the fourth attack against one of their facilities in less than a year, further endangering the already limited access to health care in the country.

McGoldrick added that the conflict has caused the internal displacement of at least 3 million people, and forced at least 200,000 to leave the country. More than half of the country’s population—26 million—is in need of food aid.

Hostilities in the war-torn country resumed last month after UN-sponsored peace talks between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and the Iran-allied Houthi rebels broke down in Kuwait without an agreement. A Saudi-led coalition of nine countries began launching airstrikes against Houthi-controlled areas, including the Yemeni capital, in March 2015.

On Monday, McGoldrick called on relevant authorities to reopen the Sanaa airport, which was ordered closed last week by the Saudi-led military coalition after air strikes resumed. He cited the need for humanitarian and medical assistance:

In Yemen, in addition to fighting and insecurity, the continued closure of Sana’a airport to commercial flights is having serious implications for patients seeking urgent medical treatment abroad, given the inability of the national health system to treat all medical cases, particularly chronic or life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Initial statistics from the national airline indicate that thousands of people cannot leave while many others remain stranded outside of Yemen, facing financial hardship and administrative hurdles due to expired visas.

Last week, UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called for an internal investigation to respond to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which he said has been allowed to continue “absent any form of accountability or justice.” The UN Human Rights Council previously voted in 2015 to defer an investigation into human-rights violations by all involved parties.

The Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

NEWS BRIEF It’s been nearly two-and-a-half years since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished over the Indian Ocean on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. After a $180 million effort that spanned 40,000 square miles of water, the crew in charge of the search now says it may have missed the wreckage.

Officials told The Daily Beast Tuesday there were gaps in their search for the plane, including deficiencies in sonar coverage on the ocean floor. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has led the search for the Boeing 777 since its was presumed to have crashed on March 8, 2014, killing all 239 people on board.  Australia took over the investigation nine days after the crash when the search led crews to the country’s maritime search region.

Officials said they would begin in October another sweep of the area where the plane is believed to have crashed. The search been suspended in July by the governments of Malaysia, Australia, and China.

Recovery efforts could stretch into next year. More from The Daily Beast:

The ATSB says that a second sweep of the search area in the southern Indian Ocean will be made using a remotely operated vehicle “to investigate sonar contacts that are judged to warrant a closer look.”

“These targets are scattered throughout the greater search area, and have been identified over the course of the underwater search,” Dan O’Malley, a spokesman for the ATSB, told The Daily Beast.

In October, when the weather in the Southern Hemisphere should be more cooperative, a Chinese-owned search vessel, the Dong Hai Jiu 101, equipped with the ROV operated by a Maryland-based company, Phoenix International, will leave Fremantle, Australia and begin the second more precisely targeted search.

Experts say the wreckage could be hidden by volcanic activity in the ocean or be scattered over great distances.

Several small pieces of debris have been recovered in the last year off the coast of Mozambique, Maldives, and Madagascar, and sent to Australia for analysis. The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Obama Commutes Another 111 Prisoners, Will Add ‘Many More’

President Obama commuted the sentences of 111 federal inmates on Tuesday, bringing his total to 673. The move adds to a recent surge in the number of commutations being issued by the White House.

The commutations granted today bring the August total to 324, according to the Department of Justice.  Another 61 people saw their sentences commuted in May.  The administration has previously boasted that he has granted more such executive orders than the previous ten presidents combined.  

Nevertheless, my colleague Vann Newkirk analyzed the president’s clemency record after a round of 214 commutations was announced earlier this month, noting that the Obama administration’s number of commutations ranks highly only when compared to a post-Cold War tradition of presidents making scant use of their clemency powers.

Today’s group of commutations includes prisoners hailing from 28 states, with most convictions stemming from offenses related to possession and intent to distribute drugs or controlled substances. Most of the prisoners are set to be released by December 28, 2016.

Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said in a statement, “The clemency initiative is about more than the 111 people who learned today that their sentences have been commuted; it’s also about the families and communities who will welcome them home as they work to build a new life.” Some observers anticipate more commutations will follow before the end of Obama’s term, and Yates confirmed it in her statement: “[W]e expect many more men and women will receive that same opportunity in the months to come.”

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which is part of Clemency Project 2014, a working group that supported 72 of the 111 prisoners receiving clemency, celebrated the announcement.

Cynthia W. Roseberry, project manager for the project, said, “I want to express how pleased I am with the continued commitment that President Obama has shown toward commuting sentences. We are looking forward to many more grants during the remaining months of President Obama’s term in office.”

Roseberry oversees an organization that has trained thousands of volunteers to screen over 30,000 applications for assistance in clemency applications. It has filed over 1,600 petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney so far.

Obama’s actions are another part of the administration’s efforts to reduce the federal prison population. Just over a week ago, the DOJ announced it would phase out the contracts for private companies that house federal inmates.

What Happened to the Islamic State's Spokesman?

Updated on August 30 at 3:06 p.m.

NEWS BRIEF The official spokesman for the Islamic State has reportedly been killed in Aleppo,  a jihadist-monitoring organization said Tuesday.

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a senior leader within the Islamist militant group, died in the Syrian city, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks potential jihadist activity on the internet. SITE said the news was reported by Amaq Agency, a news operation set up by ISIS in 2014. According to SITE, ISIS announced his death in Arabic and English Tuesday on its channels on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app.

More from SITE:

In comm on #ISIS spox 'Adnani's death, ISIS threatened revenge with a generation born in ISIS territory & that "loves death more than life"

— SITE Intel Group (@siteintelgroup) August 30, 2016

Al-Adnani’s death has not been independently confirmed. The nature of his death is not yet clear.

It was Al-Adnani who announced the establishment of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in an audio recording in June 2014. He was considered one of ISIS’s most senior members, and believed to have planned the group’s operations outside of the two countries. He led the terrorist organization’s intelligence unit known as Emni. Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times reporter known for her coverage of ISIS and terrorism, described Al-Adnani’s role on Twitter after news of his death:

10. But for me, the most detailed confirmation came from the jailhouse interview I was able to do with German member of ISIS Harry Sarfo

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) August 30, 2016

(Read about that interview in Callimachi's story from earlier this month here.)

11. It's Harry who spelled it out for me: Adnani, he said, is head of the Emni, ISIS' secret service. He is also the head of propaganda

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) August 30, 2016

12. He described how Adnani chaired a monthly meeting where ISIS reviewed all the gory videos they had shot and decided which to promote

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) August 30, 2016

Al-Adnani was born in Syria in 1977, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. government has offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

Did Colin Kaepernick's Protest Fail?

Colin Kaepernick won’t stand for the national anthem because of what he sees as systemic racism in American society. But in the days that followed the San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s protest, the national debate hasn’t been about his motivation for sitting, but the method of sitting.

Critics have called his actions unpatriotic and disrespectful. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has even chimed in, saying Kaepernick “should find a country that works better for him.”

The wide array of criticism not only comes from political figures (Hillary Clinton hasn’t addressed the incident, while White House officials called his perspective “objectionable”), he’s also facing pushback from his own colleagues in the NFL.

Players have been widely quoted as saying they disagree with what they say is disrespect toward the American flag. Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback, said Kaepernick “can speak out about a very important issue,” but it shouldn’t “involve being disrespectful to the American flag.” He told ESPN on Monday:

Like, it’s an oxymoron that you’re sitting down, disrespecting that flag that has given you the freedom to speak out.

Even former 49ers great Jerry Rice took exception to Kaepernick’s protest:

All lives matter. So much going on in this world today.Can we all just get along! Colin,I respect your stance but don't disrespect the Flag.

— Jerry Rice (@JerryRice) August 30, 2016

There’s something about invoking the image of the American flag that fires people up. The strong reactions speak a lot to the culture of the NFL itself. As Robert O’Connell noted Tuesday in an Atlantic article, Kaepernick’s protest questions “the NFL’s narrow definition of patriotism,” usually illustrated in weekly presentations of flyovers and salutes to troops.

But it was Kaepernick’s former coach who framed the entire debate. Jim Harbaugh, who now coaches the University of Michigan football team, said, “I support Colin’s motivation. It’s his method of action that I take exception to.”

Reaction isn’t about his motivation. It’s about his method. Kaepernick’s motivation was lost.

Take the White House’s reaction: spokesman Josh Earnest did say Kaepernick “certainly is entitled to express” his viewpoints, but Earnest failed to even address criminal justice reform, an issue President Obama has extensively spoken and Kaepernick’s main reason for sitting.

Players who defended Kaepernick, like Miami Dolphins running back Arian Foster, were forced to focus on his right to protest.

the flag represents freedom. the freedom to choose to stand or not. that's what makes this country beautiful. ... https://t.co/Ev5D9ACe78

— Feeno (@ArianFoster) August 27, 2016

Even the official NFL reaction surrounded the method of his protest: “Players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the National Anthem.” The statement reads more like an employee handbook than anything else.

After Carmelo Anthony spoke out against shootings, both against and by police, the NBA took a wholly different approach. Adam Silver, the league’s commissioner, praised the New York Knicks star for taking a public stand on an important social issue, saying he is “absolutely in favor” of it. He told reporters:

I’m not one to say they have an obligation to do it, but I think those who feel comfortable doing it and want to speak out, they have this incredible forum to do it, whether it’s in a formal way through media members who are in this room or whether it’s through social media. I actually think it demonstrates that these are multidimensional people. They live in this society, and they have strong views about how things should be. So I’m very encouraging of that.

To be sure, the NBA expressly prohibits its players from sitting during the national anthem, and athletes have generally followed that rule. The most notable exception happened in 1996 when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a Muslim who played for the Denver Nuggets, refused to stand for the national anthem, saying it was against his beliefs. The NBA suspended him for one game that March. The league eventually worked out a deal with Abdul-Rauf, where he would stand for the national anthem but could look down and recite a prayer.

If Anthony’s protest involved the national anthem or the flag, reaction to his protest may have been different. What if Jackie Robinson had sat during the national anthem during the 1947 World Series, as the baseball great wished he had 25 years later, knowing “that I am a black man in a white world?”

But if the discussion, for the most part, centers on whether sitting for the national anthem is an appropriate means of protest, did Kaepernick fail? He sat because of what he perceives is racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. That’s not what his colleagues or politicians or even the media are talking about four days after the incident.

Or did others fail in this debate? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA legend and activist, wrote in The Washington Post:

What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick’s choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after [Muhammad] Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities. Failure to fix this problem is what’s really un-American here.

Kaepernick sat for the national anthem to spark a debate on racial injustice, but he sparked a debate about how we should protest in this country.