Tuesday, July 19: Free All the Homies
Yesterday the White House unveiled a new executive order meant to deter international hostage taking and wrongful detentions, in cases similar to the Brittney Griner situation we’ve previously discussed. This new executive order ensures the power to impose sanctions and limit visa availability for countries that wrongfully imprison Americans, ideally increasing transparency and fostering the sharing of intelligence information.
"We wanted to have a tool that was useful and that took a long time to try to make sure that all the stakeholders got a chance to weigh in so we could find something that was going to be useful, powerful, and going to achieve the end states that we were hoping to achieve. So it took a while, but if you want to get it right, sometimes you have to invest the time, and I think that's what is the case here."
-Unnamed White House official with the wordiest word salad I’ve heard since Kamala Harris last opened her mouth
All the executive order is missing now is proper enforcement. Will Biden (or whoever comes after him) have the courage to stand against foreign dictators and autocrats that they probably helped install? High profile cases like Brittney Griner’s demand action, as do cases like that of Asim Ghafoor, currently being held in the UAE on charges of money laundering and tax evasion. These are just a few of the many unjust international detainments and imprisonments that we know of, sadly there are many more we’ll never hear about.
Side Items
Colorado police fired into a crowd of civilians outside a bar on Sunday night, after a man allegedly pointed a gun at officers. Five people were shot, including the suspect, who was charged with felony menacing… not a crime I was aware of
A report was released this weekend by the Texas legislative committee investigating the school shooting in Uvalde. The report details the myriad mistakes that law enforcement officers committed, from taking too long to make decisions to simply not seeming interested in helping
An interesting look into what the richest people in the world spend their money on (and an NSFW look at the world’s wealthiest beluga whale)