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<ul class="summary-list"><li>In March, Russia dealt with its highest-ever number of <keyword id="21428034" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AWOL-cases" source="keywords">AWOL cases</keyword> since the war began, Mediazona reported.</li><li><keyword id="20083063" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Russian-courts" source="keywords">Russian courts</keyword> issued a daily average of 34 <keyword id="21428035" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="awol-sentences" source="Orion">AWOL sentences</keyword> in that month alone, per the outlet.</li></ul>Russian courts assessed 684 absences without leave in March, the highest-ever monthly count since the war in Ukraine began, independent Russian media reported. Citing public records, independent outlet <a target="_blank" href="https://en.zona.media/article/2024/04/12/record">Mediazona</a> reported on April 12 that a daily average of 34 AWOL sentences were carried out in military courts that month. Mediazona reported that almost all of the cases were related to men recruited in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-speech-partial-military-mobilization-draft-reservists-ukraine-war-2022-9">Russia's mobilization,</a> which began in September 2022 and saw some 300,000 men conscripted to fight in Ukraine. The independent report was cited in a <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1783035540897505767">UK Defence Ministry intelligence update</a> on Wednesday. "<keyword id="2149045" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="russian-soldiers" source="Orion">Russian soldiers</keyword>, including those forcibly recruited during the September 2022 partial mobilization, are required to remain in military service indefinitely, with little prospect of release," the update said. Men found guilty of going AWOL were typically handed suspended sentences to allow them to return to their units, some of which are on the front lines, Mediazona reported. At least some of these AWOL cases played out over the last year, including the unauthorized absence of a contract soldier who returned home in May 2023 and was later diagnosed with a mental disorder, per Mediazona. Russian courts have dealt with some 2,300 AWOL cases since the start of 2024, and about 7,400 total cases since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to Mediazona. Moscow was the region with the most such trials, with 496 cases, per Mediazona. The Russian Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular hours by Business Insider. The Kremlin's partial mobilization in 2022 was deeply unpopular, sparking an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-russians-fleeing-draft-bigger-1st-invasion-force-uk-2022-9">exodus of affluent Russians </a>and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/police-arrest-hundreds-russians-protesting-putin-military-mobilization-ukraine-war-2022-9">protests in Moscow</a>. Thousands of draftees were sent to combat units and were widely reported to have initially received <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-not-producing-enough-weapons-equip-new-recruits-ukraine-isw-2024-2">little training and equipment</a>. Some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-mobilization-some-drafted-dead-less-than-month-2022-10">died</a> in their first month of deployment. Grueling conditions on the front line and heavy fighting in the summer of 2023 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-unit-sent-families-video-commander-drunk-bakhmut-ukraine-war-2023-7">slammed Russian morale</a>, with multiple reports and rumors of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-troops-low-on-equipment-and-at-war-with-commanders-experts-2023-8">infighting</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-troops-threaten-to-desert-disrespect-officers-in-ukraine-isw-2023-7">desertion</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-soldiers-see-getting-injured-only-chance-go-home-ukraine-2024-4">malingering</a>. But Russia's all-out push to boost its numbers appears to be taking effect. Its army has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-army-15-percent-larger-when-attacked-ukraine-us-general-2024-4">grown by about 15%</a> since the war in Ukraine started, according to an estimation on April 10 by US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. This spring, Russia is set to call up some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-signs-decree-spring-military-conscription-2024-03-31/">150,000 men for routine, statutory military service</a>, which typically lasts about one year. These men are not legally obliged to fight outside the country. Meanwhile, Ukraine has also struggled to replenish its hard-hit forces, with thousands of military-age men <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-some-ukrainians-dodge-the-draft-escape-fighting-russias-invasion-2023-10">trying to flee the country</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-man-paid-5000-for-diagnosis-avoid-draft-report-2023-8">hide from Kyiv's military draft.</a> To shore up its manpower, Ukraine's parliament on April 2 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-signs-bill-lowering-mobilisation-age-combat-duty-25-2024-04-02/">lowered its draft age</a> for males from 27 to 25. <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1782698925100589223">On Tuesday</a>, the country's foreign ministry also announced that it was temporarily suspending issuing passports to Ukrainian military-age men abroad, requiring them to return home to renew their documents. Russia has slowly been making gains in Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024, with Ukraine saying its troops are struggling without vital ammo and weapons previously supplied by NATO. After stalling in Congress for months, about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-aid-could-arrive-within-week-after-congress-greenlight-2024">$60 billion in US assistance</a> to Ukraine was approved on Wednesday.

Russian courts saw hundreds of AWOL cases in March alone, a record high since the war began: report

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russia's conviction rate for AWOL soldiers soared to 100 a week, UK officials said.</li><li>Lack of training, low motivation, and the dangers of combat were driving the trend, they said.</li></ul>Almost 100 Russian soldiers are convicted every week for refusing to fight in Ukraine, <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1696757973970751746" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UK intelligence said Wednesday</a>, part of a broader manpower crisis in the Russian military.British officials were passing on figures reported by Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet.The UK Ministry of Defence said "the high rate of convictions demonstrates the poor state of morale in the Russian Army and the reluctance of some elements to fight."It pointed to a wider struggle for Russia to motivate people to fight in Ukraine. On Tuesday, British officials <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1696395223574733005" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted that Russia was struggling to recruit</a> despite more than doubling pay for some ranks in its military, making it one of the most lucrative careers in Russia.But the high fatality rates on the front lines make signing up a risky decision, which many try hard to avoid.Mediazona, citing <a href="https://en.zona.media/article/2023/07/19/337" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data from the websites of military courts</a> as of July 19, reported a dramatic increase in cases of Russian soldiers absent without official leave (AWOL) since March 2023.By June, Russian military courts were handing out 100 sentences per week, the outlet said.Two Russian soldiers were last week sentenced to serve at least two years in a penal colony for disobeying orders to return to the frontlines in Ukraine, the UK officials said.It attributed the trend to a "lack of training, motivation, and high stress situations" faced by Russian forces in the war, the MoD added."Although some soldiers have refused to fight and attrition rates remain high, Russia highly likely mitigates their loss by committing a mass of poorly trained soldiers to the frontline."As well as hiking pay, Russian has been reaching beyond its own citizens to staff the army. Tactics have included recruiting Central Asian migrant workers based in Russia and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-army-military-kazakhstan-recruit-soldiers-bonus-manpower-shortage-war-2023-8?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T">offering a $5,200 sign-on bonus to recruits from neighboring Kazakhstan</a>.After mobilizing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-shoigu-says-partial-mobilisation-complete-82000-recruits-conflict-zone-2022-10-28/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">300,000 soldiers</a> in the autumn of 2022, Moscow set a goal of <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/politics/21/12/2022/63a300b09a79470af11ca410" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recruiting 400,000 more</a> by December 2023.Many <a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/06/the-russian-militarys-looming-personnel-crises-of-retention.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">military analysts think the goal is implausible</a>, given that it took far longer to recruit smaller numbers in the past.In addition to low morale, the respected Institute for the Study of War think tank stated last week that the <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-21-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russian military is suffering from infighting and shortages</a>."Russian commanders regularly punish servicemen who keep their vehicles for minor administrative violations, and that Russian personnel feel that they are "at war" with their commanders," the ISW said, citing the influential Russian military-blogger community. Russia's military has suffered 120,000 deaths since the start of the war, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-casualties.html#:~:text=Russia's%20military%20casualties%2C%20the%20officials,and%20100%2C000%20to%20120%2C000%20wounded." target="_blank" rel="noopener">US officials told The New York Times</a>.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers are going AWOL and refusing to fight as morale plummets, UK intelligence says

Welcome back to <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/10-things-in-politics">10 Things in Politics</a>. <a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/10-things-in-politics">Sign up here to receive this newsletter</a>. Send tips to <a href="mailto:bgriffiths@insider.com">bgriffiths@insider.com</a> or tweet me at <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentGriffiths">@BrentGriffiths</a>.Here's what we're talking about:<ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-strategy-domestic-terrorism-extremism-federal-agencies-2021-8">The federal government appears to be doing little to implement Biden's plan to thwart domestic terrorism</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-threatens-withhold-paychecks-school-board-defy-his-mask-ban-2021-8">Gov. Ron DeSantis has escalated his fight over masking in Florida schools </a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-avoid-delta-variant-health-experts-advice-2021-8">Here's how health experts are adjusting their behavior to the Delta variant</a></li></ul>With Phil Rosen.1. AN INSIDER INVESTIGATION: President Joe Biden's plan to combat domestic extremism appears stalled at best. Democratic lawmakers praised the strategy Biden outlined earlier this summer, but federal agencies across the country <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-strategy-domestic-terrorism-extremism-federal-agencies-2021-8">appear to have done little in the ensuing weeks to implement any new policies</a>.Here's what else my colleague learned from her investigation:Only one of the 63 federal agencies Insider contacted said they had implemented something new after Biden's June announcement: The State Department has a plan to share more information with its international partners to better understand how to address cross-border racially or ethnically motivated threats.<ul><li>The details of Insider's survey: My colleague surveyed 63 federal agencies that either employ law-enforcement officers or have roles in which employees are allowed to carry firearms legally, asking what they'd done since Biden rolled out his plan.</li></ul>A White House official said in response that they would "stay on it": Some Democratic lawmakers are calling for Biden to do more. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, pointed out that he'd been pushing for more than two years for a comprehensive federal strategy to combat domestic extremism.<ul><li>This isn't going away: The Department of Homeland Security warned state and local authorities on Friday about <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/homeland-security-warns-increasing-moderate-threat-violence-trump/story?id=79324751">increasing calls for violence over election-related conspiracy theories</a>, ABC News reports.</li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-strategy-domestic-terrorism-extremism-federal-agencies-2021-8">Read more about how the federal government is doing little publicly to address the threat</a>.2. Democrats released their massive $3.5 trillion plan: Their proposal would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations to fund the biggest expansion of the social safety net in generations, in an effort to fulfill a key part of Biden's economic agenda. It includes things like tuition-free community college, paid family and medical leave, and expanding Medicare to cover more services. No Republicans are expected to support it. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-democrats-spending-plan-hike-taxes-wealthy-without-gop-reconciliation-2021-8">More on one of the largest spending packages ever taken up by Congress</a>.<ul><li>Meanwhile, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is expected to pass this morning: The nearly $1 trillion legislation is unlikely to resolve a fight over cryptocurrency regulations that nearly derailed progress over the weekend, CNBC reports. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/09/senators-make-deal-on-crypto-amendment-treasury-wont-oppose-it.html">A bipartisan compromise amendment failed to get the unanimous support it needed after Sen. Bernie Sanders blocked it</a>.</li></ul>3. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida escalated a fight over masks: DeSantis is threatening to withhold school-board members' salaries who dare to defy his mask ban. His moves go against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance, which the governor has mocked. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-threatens-withhold-paychecks-school-board-defy-his-mask-ban-2021-8">But one of the nation's largest school districts isn't ready to back down</a>.<div type="image" title="glacier calving splinters of ice fall into ocean" height="1674" width="2232" msid="85206440" hostid="261"></div>4. UN sounds alarm over climate crisis: The Earth won't be the same again for thousands of years. Human activities have altered our planet's systems so dramatically that sea levels will continue to rise and glaciers continue to melt long after the 21st century, a long-awaited report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded. Read the rest of the key takeaways, including that in 2019 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-impacts-to-last-millennia-ipcc-report-2021-8">the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was higher than at any other time in at least 2 million years</a>.5. All service members will soon have to get the shot: All active US military personnel will have to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by mid-September, the Pentagon said. The mandate will be introduced even earlier if the Food and Drug Administration approves the vaccines before the deadline. <a href="https://www.insider.com/us-military-pentagon-require-covid-vaccines-all-staff-mid-september-2021-8">At least 70% of the military's 1.4 million personnel have received one shot</a>.6. Epstein accuser filed suit against Prince Andrew: Virginia Roberts Giuffre sued the royal in New York federal court, accusing him of sexually assaulting her at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion when she was 17. The lawsuit was filed days before the second anniversary of Epstein's death in a New York jail and just before the expiration of the state's expanded statute of limitations, ABC News reports. Prince Andrew's representatives have denied her allegations. <a href="https://www.insider.com/virginia-roberts-guiffre-lawsuit-prince-andrew-sexual-assault-accusations-2021-8">More on the story</a>.7. People continue to quit their jobs at a record pace: US workers quit their jobs at near-record highs in June, making it the third straight month of high-volume quitting and record-low firings. One indicator showed nearly 70% of separations were from quitting, as opposed to firing. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/businesses-dont-want-to-fire-anyone-but-workers-still-quitting-2021-8">Worker confidence is high, but the continued caution over the coronavirus may also be fueling the record quitting</a>.8. How it could end for Cuomo: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York continues to defy calls for his resignation after last week's bombshell report found he sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo and his lawyer have denied some of the report's findings. Top New York legislative leaders say they will move forward with impeachment after the deadline this Friday for Cuomo to submit evidence for his defense. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-cuomo-impeachment-process-resignation-new-york-albany-legislature-2021-8">There are at least three other possible outcomes</a>.<div type="image" title="flight attendant" height="512" width="1024" msid="85206441" hostid="261"></div>9. FAA has investigated more than 600 unruly-passenger incidents this year: From shirking mask requirements to assaulting flight attendants, airline passengers seem to be acting up at alarming rates this year. The number of Federal Aviation Administration investigations in 2021 is staggering - nearly double the combined totals of 2019 and 2020. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-faa-has-investigated-more-than-600-unruly-incidents-in-2021">Here's more on the crackdown and the FAA's struggles given the agency can't file criminal charges</a>.10. How health experts are adjusting their behavior: Because COVID-19 cases in the US are hitting six-month highs, one health expert is having her kids wear masks indoors (though she is still taking planes when necessary). Another is canceling poker games and doubled down on masks - he wears two indoors now. Both are vaccinated. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-avoid-delta-variant-health-experts-advice-2021-8">But despite the precautions they're still traveling, seeing friends, and taking their kids on outdoor playdates</a>.<ul><li>What people are talking about: Read about a colleague's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/las-vegas-mask-mandate-covid-restrictions-resort-testing-mgm-cosmopolitan-2021-8">trip into a Vegas club,</a> where new mask mandates have put "performative masking" on full display.</li></ul>Today's trivia question: Back to vaccines for troops, then-Gen. George Washington has been credited with America's first large, state-funded immunization campaign. Which disease was he trying to stop? Email your guess and a suggested question to me at <a href="mailto:bgriffiths@insider.com">bgriffiths@insider.com</a>.<ul><li>Yesterday's answer: White House press secretaries began a tradition during the Ford administration of writing notes to their successors and stuffing them into what became known as the "flak jacket," though it's really just a men's tuxedo vest. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/09/20/a-trove-of-letters-passed-down-from-white-house-press-secretaries-since-the-ford-administration-has-gone-missing/">The tradition appears to have died out, and the past notes were missing in 2017</a>.</li></ul>

10 Things in Politics: Biden agencies AWOL on domestic terror

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="3828720" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="President-Donald-Trump">President Donald Trump</keyword> loves to fondle American flags and talk blustery about "<keyword id="28482" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="patriotism">patriotism</keyword>," but he'll do anything to get out of serving his country. </li><li>He's a shameless draft dodger and, as president, consistently put his own interests ahead of America's. </li><li>Thousands of Americans are dying every day from <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword>, and the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security were hacked by malevolent foreign actors.</li><li>But Trump couldn't care less; he's focused on his "patriotic education" commission and getting an airport named after him.</li><li>Trump isn't for America — Trump is, and always has and always will be, for Trump.</li></ul>"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious," said the Irish writer <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/">Oscar Wilde</a>. He was talking about performative hypernationalism, which he called the "most insincere form of self-conceit."That fits President Donald Trump to a "T."But if patriotism has any positive connotation, it surely entails putting the interests of the country and fellow citizens over one's own political ambitions and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/20/trump-businesses-empire-tied-presidency-100496">financial enrichment</a>.By that standard, Trump is the least patriotic chief executive we've ever had.Trump is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOSaJhRDCDI">flag-humping</a> fake patriot who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-avoided-the-military-draft-which-was-common-at-the-time-vietnam-war-2018-12">repeatedly dodged the draft</a> during the Vietnam War, relentlessly <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/">insults</a> military personnel, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/777287610/judge-says-trump-must-pay-2-million-over-misuse-of-foundation-funds">stiffs veterans' charities</a> of promised donations, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-does-not-respect-military-uses-them-props-2020-2">cynically uses soldiers as props</a> in his self-gratifying jingoistic passion plays.He's the worst kind of American - the kind who sees himself and his ideological allies as the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/real-americans-worst-confederate-army-bases-tucker-carlson-tammy-duckworth-2020-7">only "real" Americans</a> - while <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/national-guard-commander-contradicts-trump-tear-gas-photo-op-2020-7">trampling Americans' constitutional rights</a> to buttress his hollow tough-American-guy pose.Trump isn't for America - Trump is, and always has and always will be, for Trump.<h2>'America, Second After Me' is Trump's real motto</h2>Trump, that great America-lover, last week announced the members of his "1776 Commission" to promote "<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/18/trump-1776-commission-appointments-448229">patriotic education</a>."The federal government establishing a commission on what should and shouldn't be taught on college campuses should chill the spines of any admirer of the unique free-speech protections afforded by the First Amendment. But this is the Trump era, where conservatives have abandoned their supposed limited-government principles so they can indulge their culture-war grievances.Trump's commission would be a petty slab of red meat to his flag-waving base at any time, but it just so happens that the country actually has some important business that the president could - and should - be attending to right now. This includes a pandemic that continues to ravage the country, even with the first vaccines being administered.The US recently zoomed past the 300,000 COVID-19 dead marker, and as we break daily and weekly records for known COVID-19 cases and deaths we're running headlong into a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-winter-coming-talk-about-your-mental-health-depression-anxiety-2020-12">winter of carnage</a>.Trump, meanwhile, is AWOL, having <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/trump-ignoring-presidential-duties">checked out of even pretending to do his job six weeks ago</a> when it was clear he lost the election. Instead, the president's mind is fixed on the things that are truly important to him, like <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-is-already-wondering-what-airport-will-bear-his-name">getting an airport to bear his name</a>.As thousands of his fellow Americans die every day from a disease he insisted would "miraculously" disappear, the president is completely "done with <keyword id="8764262" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid">COVID</keyword>," one of his closest advisors told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-covid-pandemic-dark-winter/">The Washington Post</a>. "I think he put it on a timetable and he's done with COVID ... It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it."Instead, Trump is spending his last days in the Oval Office <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1341043284542713857">savaging</a> Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, on Twitter for acknowledging that Trump lost a fair and free election.Trump might be done with COVID, but COVID's not done with America.Managing the disaster isn't of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-ruined-kids-school-year-trump-response-next-covid-2020-6">interest to Trump</a>, but one would think that given his "America First" fulminating, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-the-agencies-companies-hacked-in-solarwinds-russian-cyberattack-2020-12">massive attack on the US's national security</a> apparatus - including the Pentagon - by a malevolent foreign actor would drive the patriot-in-chief into action.On the contrary.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated what seemed obvious to almost all cybersecurity observers, which is that "we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians." <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/trump-contradicts-pompeo-over-russias-role-in-hack.html">One expert called it</a> "the most consequential cyber-espionage campaign in history."The consensus view among the cybersecurity community is that the Trump administration is asleep at the wheel while all the stragglers look for new jobs when the boss is kicked out of the White House next month.The president, for his part, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1340333618691002368">directly contradicted Pompeo</a> on Twitter, downplayed the devastating security breach as "far greater in the Fake <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword> Media than in actuality," and <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1340333619299147781">speculated</a> without providing evidence that China was in fact the perpetrator.At the same time, the Trump administration's Department of Defense "paused" <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/acting-pentagon-chief-halts-cooperation-with-biden-team-on-transition-2020-12">vital national security meetings</a> with President-elect Joe Biden's transition team. The department says it's no big deal, just a holiday break. Gee, that's reassuring.It's almost as if Trump and his team couldn't care less about the state of this country.That's because it was never about America; it was about Trump.<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-stop-the-steal-mobs-reminder-political-violence-is-wrong-2020-12">Trump-supporting 'Stop the Steal' mobs are a reminder that political violence is always inexcusable</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-flouting-own-covid-rules-danger-public-health-gavin-newsom-2020-12">Democrats flouting their own COVID rules isn't just elitist hypocrisy - it's a danger to public health</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-know-trump-attempt-overturn-election-dangerous-too-cowardly-fight-2020-12">Republicans know Trump's attempt to overturn the election is dangerous, but they're too cowardly to fight it</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cuomo-obliterates-own-undeserved-covid-19-hero-myth-2020-11">Cuomo is obliterating his own (undeserved) COVID hero myth</a></li></ul>

Trump is the least patriotic president in US history

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A 2012 survey from the German-language spa and hotel guide Wellness Heaven surveyed hoteliers around the world for information on items that had been stolen from their properties.</li><li>Among the lifted items were a gold-plated hairdryer, a Tesla supercharger, and mattresses.</li><li>What's more, the likelihood of theft at pricier hotels was higher than it was at less expensive hotels.</li><li>Pilfering among one percenters isn't driven by need. Instead, it's a phenomenon known as "nonsensical shoplifting."</li></ul>It was the gold-plated hairdryer that surprised him the most, and not just because gilding that gadget seems so unnecessary.Tassilo Keilmann, the CEO of German-language spa and hotel guide <a href="https://www.wellness-heaven.de/">Wellness Heaven</a>, surveyed hoteliers from across the world seeking details on the items stolen from their properties in September and October last year. He was astonished at the loss of that "Goldfinger"-worthy trinket, pilfered from the bathroom of a six-star hotel in Dubai. Just as surprising was the story of how professional mechanics dismantled a Tesla supercharger from the garage of another property in Italy.As for mattresses, GMs told him it was commonplace for them to go AWOL. Usually, Keilmann explains, they're bundled into service elevators late at night, but at one high-end hotel, the thieves were more brazen. "They caught them on the security camera, throwing it out of the window — it bounced into the parking lot, where someone drove up and put it in their car," he told Business Insider. Aside from the ingenuity of such dishonesty, another element of the survey stood out to him: the likelihood of high-end items, whether TVs, pianos, or even artwork, being stolen at the priciest hotels was higher than at four star properties. Wealthy guests, in other words, had stickier fingers than ordinary travelers. "It's the perfect crime, because five star hotels don't really want to go to the police and risk their reputation, with officers walking around among the other guests," Keilmann said.It isn't just hotels that face such elite underhandedness, either. Consider the shoplifting problem at high end retailers. One 2008 study in the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104590/">American Journal of Psychology</a> suggested that wealthy people — considered as those with family incomes over $70,000 for the study's purposes — were 30% more likely to steal from any store than those who made $20,000.<div type="image" title="Shoplifters" height="2328" width="3103" msid="77130489" hostid="261"></div>Of a series of high-profile cases in past years, perhaps the most infamous is Winona Ryder's. The movie star made headlines almost two decades ago when arrested trying to steal from Saks. She initially claimed it was research for a role, then blamed a rogue prescription; she was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/07/us/actress-sentenced-to-probation-for-shoplifting.html">convicted and sentenced to probation</a>. In 2011, police nabbed model and party staple Beata Boman for stealing an $11,000 scarf from a department store in Connecticut; her dog-ate-my-homework excuse involved a distracted state induced by a phone call from a sick friend. "Anyone who knows Beata knows she has no need and no reason to steal anything," <a href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Lawyer-says-Manhattan-fashionista-innocent-of-1425884.php">said her lawyer</a> in her defense. Two years later, after Boman completed an 18-month rehab program, charges against her were <a href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/policereports/article/Charges-dismissed-against-socialite-accused-of-4334220.php">dropped</a>.And last year, multimillionaire Andrew Francis Lippi III was <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/04/09/florida-man-rich-enough-to-buy-private-island-busted-for-shoplifting/">arrested for trying</a> to bilk Kmart via fraudulent returns worth around $200; he had bought an $8 million island in the Florida Keys a week earlier. He had little explanation to offer.<h2>Don't call it petty theft. It's 'nonsensical shoplifting'</h2>Such petty pilfering among one percenters isn't driven by need; it's a phenomenon known as "nonsensical shoplifting."Criminologist and former <keyword id="6354851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="retail">retail</keyword> store detective <a href="http://johncbrady.com/">John C. Brady</a> has spent his career tracking this phenomenon. One former patient, who lived in a $10 million mansion in the hills of Silicon Valley, was arrested for stealing a tube of toothpaste at 4 a.m. from her local supermarket. "She was already on probation and when she was arrested, she said to the cop 'Go ahead and shoot me!'" Brady, the author of "Why Rich Women Shoplift," told Business Insider.<div type="image" title="san jose silicon valley" height="1499" width="1999" msid="77130494" hostid="261"></div>Another was chased back to her equally lavish home by a store detective in her Mercedes. As she pulled up the circular drive, she tossed the evidence of her larceny — a can of corned beef from the local gourmet market — out of the window. After her arrest, she focused mostly on the inconvenience of being banned from shopping there again."It was more important for her to have social recognition than face the fact she was a shoplifter," Brady said.Brady sees consistency between all his five-finger discount-prone one percenters: "There's a sense of entitlement, wrapped in deeply buried psychological drivers; sine qua non, bottom line, they're addicted to stealing."<h2>One percenters don't steal in spite of being rich — they steal because of it. </h2>Why, then, do rich people steal? It's the wrong question to ask, according to Paul Piff. He's a <a href="https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/piff/">professor at the University of California Berkeley</a> who's spent his career exploring the relationship between money and morals. Better to ponder, instead, why they don't steal."The more money you have, the higher in status you are, the more self-focused you become and are more prioritizing of your own self-interest," Piff told Business Insider. "They tell themselves justifying narratives that excuse their behavior, not as immoral, but rather a necessary outcome of their circumstances."In 2010, he had worked with 124 participants, a combination of community members and students, on another research project that explored the same terrain. When Piff gave $10 to volunteers, he offered them the chance of keeping it or gifting a portion of it to an anonymous stranger. As income went up, giving went down consistently. Participants earning $150,000 or more per year averaged a $3 giveaway. The overall average for the entire study was $7.<h2>Want to take candy from a baby? Ask a rich white friend to do it. </h2>In a study Piff conducted with his colleague Dacher Keltner, he looked at whether rich people were more likely to take candy from a baby.First, they asked 129 female undergraduates volunteers to rank themselves with relation to 10 socioeconomic groups — where did each woman see herself, comparatively? Mindset adjusted, Piff and co then handed each participant a jar of sweets containing around 40 pieces of candy. The candy, they were told, was for kids in a lab nearby but they could have some if they wished. Sure enough, those who considered themselves wealthier — that is, placed themselves at the higher end of that 10-step economic ladder — grabbed larger handfuls.The low risk of the activity for wealthy folks helps drive this behavior, according to Rachel Shteir. She's the author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IYJEIS/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1">The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting</a>.""To a lot of wealthy people, it becomes like a video game, trying to get away with it and outsmart store surveillance," Shteir told Business Insider. "I've interviewed very wealthy people and they often feel that they're entitled to swag."Race and class safeguard them from feeling vulnerable, or even criminal, she said: "If you're a middle class, white shoplifter, it's really hard to get a prison sentence. Judges are just not that eager to send people to jail for this." If you're born and brought up rich, you're also indemnified from consequences, or much guilt — Paul Piff's recent work suggests that inherited <keyword id="6383453" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wealth">wealth</keyword> exacerbates these self-regarding tendencies more than self-made money might. <h2>Sex and shoplifting make for a natural pair </h2>Perhaps that's the explanation for the most unusual culprit John Brady ever tracked down: a woman, married to a neurosurgeon, who had a secret room her husband and kids were not permitted to enter. There, she stored hundreds of designer purses she had stolen from department stores, much like a shrine; he estimates the contents were worth around $500,000.Her shoplifting wasn't about self-regard, or lack of consequences, though: "Some people have fantasies about stealing, and for her, that was the case: she would go in there to feel sexually aroused."

Why rich people steal

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BoweBergdahl.png">wikimedia commons</a>Bowe Bergdahl</div></div></div>Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant who returned to the US after being held captive for five years by the Taliban, will now face a general court-martial on charges of desertion.Bergdahl will be tried by a panel of at least five senior military officers, called members, and a military judge. In most cases only a two-thirds majority among the members is needed for a conviction, according to the <a href="http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/military-tribunals.html">Constitutional Rights Foundation</a>. In a civilian court, juries consist of six to 12 people and generally must have a unanimous vote for either an acquittal or a conviction.Bergdahl left his base in remote Paktika Province, Afghanistan in the early morning hours of June 30, 2009 and was subsequently captured by Taliban-aligned groups. He was returned to the US in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bowe-bergdahl-prisoner-swap-violated-law-gao-obama-2014-8">a 2014 prisoner swap for five Taliban militants.</a>The general court-martial that Bergdahl faces is the military court reserved for the most serious offenses - those that would be classified as felonies under civilian court. The announcement marks a full turn-around from an Army officer's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/army-recommends-low-level-court-martial-for-bowe-bergdahl-2015-10">recommendation in October</a> that Bergdahl should face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of prison.Bergdahl is facing two distinct charges before the general court-martial. If convicted on the first charge, desertion, he'll be sentenced to a maximum of five years in military prison. The second charge, misbehavior before the enemy, is far more serious: If convicted, Bergdahl, 29, could face life in prison, according to The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/bowe-bergdahl-to-face-court-martial-on-desertion-charges.html">New York Times</a>. <h2>How else do military courts differ from civilian courts?</h2>Courts-martial are specifically designed to try military offenses based on military <keyword id="6355470" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Law">law</keyword> - the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/subtitle-A/part-II/chapter-47">Uniform Code of Military Justice</a>.Members of the US military, prisoners of war, and members of certain government organizations working with the military are subject to courts-martial, according to the <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-guide-military-justice/what-court-martial">Reporters Committee</a> for Freedom of the Press. There are three classes of courts-martial. Summary courts-martial apply to minor offenses, while more serious offenses are tried in special courts-martial, according to the <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-guide-military-justice/what-court-martial">Reporters Committee</a>. General courts-martial, where Bergdahl will now be tried, is the highest-level military court, according to the <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-guide-military-justice/what-court-martial">Reporters Committee</a>.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">ScreenshotBowe Bergdahl, seen with his Taliban captors in the prisoner swap video</div></div></div>Here's how a general court martial works: Before the court is convened, there's a pre-trial hearing, called an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_32_hearing">Article 32</a>, where the initial charges are examined. This is similar to a grand jury, where a jury determines whether there's sufficient evidence to indict someone. In the Article 32 hearing, defendants are allowed to offer their own arguments and cross-examine witnesses. In a civilian grand jury, defendants would not have this privilege. Though he has the option of using free military counsel, Bergdahl has opted for civilian counsel. He'll be represented by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_R._Fidell">Eugene Fidell</a>, a Yale professor who specializes in military law. Berghdal <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c3479b106f5e4d7b9e216273a45784b5/look-sgt-bowe-bergdahls-article-32-hearing">had his Article 32 hearing in the fall</a>, and he'll now be tried by a panel of at least five military officers, called members, and a military judge.If it's a capital case, there needs to be a unanimous verdict for the accused to be sentenced to death. If the case involves 10 or more years of imprisonment, like Bergdahl's, there needs to be a three-fourths majority among the presiding military officers for a guilty verdict, according to the <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-guide-military-justice/what-court-martial">Reporters Committee</a>. When asked about the move to try Bergdahl in front of a general-courts martial, Eugene Fidell told Business Insider: "I have no comment on what would be an appropriate punishment. I can, however, tell you that in my closing statement at the public preliminary hearing in September I said that all the government had shown probable cause for was a 1-day AWOL. FYI, the punishment for a 1-day AWOL is 30 days' confinement." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/teamwork-military-navy-seals-ego-focus-2015-12">This is how Navy SEALs succeed on the battlefield and in business</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ZxdDU5eToAtliP9fWIclcJg-JiwCC3eB" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Bowe Bergdahl will face a military court martial - here's how that's radically different from a civilian court

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the new edition of <keyword id="9095853" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="insider-today">Insider Today</keyword>. Please <a href="https://www.insider.com/insider-today">sign up here</a>.Please take a moment to complete the <a href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Finsidertoday.questionpro.com%2F">following three-minute survey</a> so that we can better deliver you Insider in your inbox.QUOTE OF THE DAY"Tripped and fell" — how the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/video-protester-shoved-by-police-bleeds-ears-buffalo-2020-6">Buffalo Police Department originally described</a> an incident where cops shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground, causing him to bleed out of his ears.<h2>BLODGET &amp; PLOTZ</h2>America has become a nationwide body cam — and it's helpingIn 1965, on Bloody Sunday, TV cameras captured Alabama state troopers beating and gassing civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, causing outrage that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The lesson of the George Floyd protests is: Everything is on video. Today it is not just TV cameras, but also Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, and more broadcasting images of thuggish police attacks on nonviolent protesters. Everyone is carrying a high-definition video camera in their hand.America is a body cam. And the resulting videos are capturing truth and changing the world.Yesterday brought us one of the most shocking of these scenes yet. For no apparent reason, Buffalo Police officers shoved a peaceful protester to the ground. As this protester — a 75-year-old man — lay motionless, blood pouring out of his ears, none of the dozens of police officers nearby moved to help or offer medical care. Rather they charged at witnesses and journalists and rousted them away. Later the department had the gall to issue a statement that was a lie, saying the man "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/video-protester-shoved-by-police-bleeds-ears-buffalo-2020-6">tripped and fell</a>." Twitter exploded at the shove, the callous neglect of the wounded man, and the lie, and now the Buffalo department has suspended two officers without pay. And this is just one of hundreds of episodes of violent police misbehavior captured on camera in the past few days. <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1268391718086422528?s=20">Here are cops beating a woman</a> who pushed away an officer who detained her. Why did she push him away? Probably because he was groping her, as the camera clearly shows. That clip comes from a Twitter thread showing 300 different instances of police violence toward nonviolent protesters — almost every example apparently unprovoked or disproportionate or both. As New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo <a href="https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/1268728535994101760?s=21">tweeted</a>: "The violent police response to the protests is totally proving the point of the protests: hard to make the case that police brutality is a matter of a few 'bad apples' when scores of video shows the whole culture is violent and rotten to the core."America needs police, who are essential to public safety and order. The vast majority of police officers — probably even the ones committing these brutal acts — want to help and protect the communities they serve. And this moment of protests is a glorious opportunity for the nation to reckon with the shortcomings of law enforcement, and bring genuine reform. But cops must stop this violence. They must understand what it means to be seen and filmed. They must recognize that they're delegitimizing their work when we see them assaulting the citizens they are assigned to protect. America is a body cam. — DP Where is Mike Pence?<div type="image" title="Mike Pence" height="1000" width="2000" msid="76225206" hostid="261"></div>Has there ever been a politician cannier at protecting his self-image than Vice President Mike Pence?It's no surprise he's practically vanished during the George Floyd crisis. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-insiders-answer-the-question-where-is-mike-pence-2020-6">Insider's Tom LoBianco reports</a> that the Veep has been doing interviews for local TV stations in swing states, and meeting quietly with black conservatives. He avoided the St. John's Church photo-op debacle. He hasn't said anything inflammatory about protesters or the military.In short, he has Penced it. At almost every sensitive moment of the Trump campaign and presidency, any time in which Pence could tarnish himself, the vice president has vanished. He's present when he can burnish his conservative reputation, but mysteriously absent at the hottest moments. AWOL during Access Hollywood. Behind the scenes during Charlottesville. MIA during the worst of impeachment. Disappearing is a brilliant career move for Pence. He never has to disavow President Trump's worst actions or overtly endorse them. He's never disloyal, but also never reckless. That's why even if Trump loses badly in 2020, Pence will still be clean enough to run for president in 2024. — DPCould President Trump take military control of DC?<div type="image" title="DC police protests" height="900" width="1800" msid="76225208" hostid="261"></div>The showdown between Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Trump administration is escalating. President Trump's actions suggest that, if he's going to deploy troops against protesters, he would do it in Washington first. The administration has positioned <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-leaked-document-reveals-details-of-federal-law-enforcement-patrolling-washington-amid-protests-154138680.html">hundreds of federal officers from various agencies </a>— <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unidentified-prison-agents-patrol-dc-amid-protests-curfew-2020-6">many who refuse to identify themselves</a> — around federal property in the city. Hundreds of National Guard troops from Utah and other states have been deployed, and there are active-duty forces waiting just outside Washington. Bowser is opposing the federal presence as forcefully as she dares. On Friday morning, she asked that Trump withdraw "all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from our city." <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/06/05/utah-national-guard/">The Utah Guard troops and others were kicked out of their hotels</a>, apparently because Bowser's administration decided to stop paying the bill for troops it doesn't want in the city. Bowser also successfully compelled the feds to shrink the perimeter around the White House on the grounds that the DC government controls the streets outside a narrow federal zone. Bowser is also writing her answer to the feds on the streets. City workers painted <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-paints-black-lives-matter-on-street-near-lafayette-square/2323647/">an enormous Black Lives Matter mural</a> on 16th street, as close to the White House as they can get. This showdown is constitutionally fascinating but also worrisome. For the vast majority of its history, DC was a federal colony, ruled by congressionally-appointed officials and with no self-government. There's been limited home rule since 1974, but it's always provisional. Article 1 of the Constitution grants Congress exclusive control over the federal capital in "all cases whatsoever." Does that apply to city streets outside the federal zone? Does it grant the President, as opposed to Congress, any of that control? Does it apply to District citizens or just federal land? These questions are untested in court, and it's not at all clear how this Supreme Court might answer them. — DP<h2>OTHER <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">NEWS</keyword></h2><div type="image" title="john kelly" height="1000" width="2000" msid="76225211" hostid="261"></div><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/john-kelly-chief-of-staff-agrees-mattis-trump-is-bad-for-the-country-2020-6">Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly agrees with Mattis's criticisms of the President.</a> The former general also says deploying active duty troops against protests would be a mistake.<h2>BUSINESS &amp; <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="economy">ECONOMY</keyword></h2><div type="image" title="nfp growth may 2020" height="1250" width="1667" msid="76225213" hostid="261"></div><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/may-jobs-report-unemployment-rate-declines-nonfarm-payrolls-surprise-increase-2020-6">Another shocking jobs report… except this one was good! </a>The US economy added 2.5 million jobs in May. The experts were expecting a loss of 7.5 million. So the experts were 10 million off. But, happily, the surprise was positive, not negative, and the unemployment rate fell to a still-staggering 13.3%. The report suggests that the economy is recovering more quickly than expected from the coronavirus shock. Investors liked the news, and stocks continued their upward surge. —HBAmerica's billionaires have cheaped out during the pandemicThe Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-pandemic-is-testing-the-generosity-of-americas-billionaires-a-washington-post-survey-of-the-50-richest-americans-looks-at-who-has-given-and-who-hasnt/2020/06/01/28149f42-96d2-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html">surveyed the 50 richest Americans</a> about what they've done to help others during the pandemic, and it's a disgrace. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-the-50-richest-americans-have-given-for-covid-19-relief/2020/06/02/bb70b94c-9a10-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html">Here are the details.</a> They've publicly given $1 billion to fight COVID-19, which sounds like a lot till you compare it to their collective net worth of $1.6 trillion. Put another way, what they've given away is the equivalent of the average American household giving away about $60. The $1 billion is also shocking when you consider that their collective wealth increased $430 billion between March and May.There are a few outliers: Jack Dorsey, Ray Dalio, and Bill Gates are putting huge sums to work. Our billionaires are so smart about making money and so fortunate to live in a country that enables them such rewards: It's shameful that they're so stingy and unimaginative when it comes to the great economic and health crisis of their lifetimes. — DP<h2>LIFE</h2><a href="https://www.insider.com/harry-potter-theme-song-washing-machine-video-2020-6">TikTok producer re-created the Harry Potter theme using a washer and dryer. </a>JK Rowling liked it. <a href="https://www.insider.com/watch-black-teenager-moving-tiktok-video-unwritten-rules-mother-taught-2020-6">A young black man's video of the "unwritten rules" his mom taught him to keep him safe</a>. Such as: Don't put your hands in your pockets. Don't touch anything in a store unless you're buying it.<h2>REVIEWS</h2><a href="https://www.insider.com/how-to-clean-dogs-ears">How to clean your dog's ears and what you need to do it. </a>It's gross but essential.<h2>THE BIG 3*</h2><div type="image" title="Minneapolis Police aim gun at journalists" height="400" width="800" msid="76225218" hostid="261"></div><a href="https://www.insider.com/authorities-searching-maryland-cyclist-assaulted-girl-viral-video-george-floyd-2020-6">Maryland authorities looking for cyclist who assaulted a girl posting George Floyd flyers.</a> The video of the incident has gone viral. <a href="https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-city-council-members-look-to-disband-police-department-2020-6">Several Minneapolis city councilmembers seek to disband the police department.</a> They propose to start over with "community-oriented, non-violent public safety."<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/home-depot-bernie-marcus-donate-fortune-trump-2019-7">Home Depot cofounder decided how to bequeath his $5.9 billion fortune.</a> Bernie Marcus will leave up to 90% of his fortune to help disabled veterans and autistic children. He's also planning to spend a lot on Trump's reelection campaign. *The most popular stories on Insider today.

America has become a nationwide body cam

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The US traditionally sets a model for other countries during global crises and uses its resources to assist them, but that has not been the case during the coronavirus pandemic under President Donald Trump. </li><li>Not only is the US struggling to contain its own outbreak, but close allies like the UK and South Korea that traditionally look to the US for help are fighting the pandemic on their own.</li><li>"Trump's ineptitude is exposed, but more than that, the US is not there to help others. We are not a global power in this pandemic, and people will remember that," <a href="https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RhIZAA0/cynthia-schneider">Cynthia Schneider</a>, who was the US ambassador to the Netherlands from 1998 to 2001, told Insider.</li><li>Governors in the US have had to handle acquiring crucial medical supplies on their own. After Trump rejected New York's request for more ventilators, the state received 1,000 ventilators from China - a massive influx of critical aid that's more typical of the US reponse to disasters.</li><li>"The lack of a global health defense network that could have been empowered by American medical expertise meant that the virus blossomed wherever underpreparation and slowfootedness prevailed," said Jack Chow, who was a US ambassador for global HIV/AIDS during the George W. Bush administration.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>As Ebola ravaged West Africa in September 2014, President Barack Obama stood in front of the United Nations and implored the leaders of the world to do more. Though Ebola never posed a significant threat to the US domestically, Obama presented it as a problem the globe had to face together. "This is also more than a health crisis. This is a growing threat to regional and global security," <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/25/remarks-president-obama-un-meeting-ebola">Obama said</a> at the time. "In an era where regional crises can quickly become global threats, stopping Ebola is in the interest of all of us."Later that same week, Obama hosted health ministers from more than 40 nations at the White House for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/world/africa/after-ebola-outbreak-obama-calls-for-global-effort-to-help-prevent-epidemics.html">a global health security summit,</a> where he renewed calls for a coordinated, international response to Ebola.Trump has taken the polar opposite approach to the coronavirus pandemic. He's blamed other countries for the virus, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cutting-who-funding-amid-coronavirus-could-cost-american-lives-2020-4">cut funding from the World Health Organization (WHO)</a> on Tuesday, moved to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/04/coronavirus-canada-trudeau-china-164969">restrict the exportation of medical supplies to Canada and Latin America</a>, and been accused by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-us-accused-of-diverting-medical-equipment-from-countries-2020-4">at least five countries</a> of blocking or seizing shipments of vital supplies. "What the Trump administration has never really understood, and you see it again here, is that global leadership is not about telling other countries what to do, it's about being willing to be the first in line to do it... The world follows the signals we send with our own actions," Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who oversaw the Obama administration's response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as director for foreign disaster assistance at USAID, told Insider. Trump's disastrous coronavirus response has not only embarrassed the US in front of the entire world - with the US still struggling to provide widespread tests for Americans as its 612,000 confirmed cases outstrip every other nation - it's created a gaping hole in global leadership that China has rushed to fill, warn former US officials who served under three different administrations. "Trump's ineptitude is exposed, but more than that, the US is not there to help others. We are not a global power in this pandemic, and people will remember that," <a href="https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RhIZAA0/cynthia-schneider">Cynthia Schneider</a>, who was the US ambassador to the Netherlands from 1998 to 2001, told Insider. "When there's a void, there's always something to fill the void. China is filling the void."If the US is not "robustly engaging and showing leadership" in global institutions then it creates a vacuum for others to do so, Konyndyk said. "By the US pulling back and getting into fights with these institutions, we're just leaving more space for others to occupy. I don't think the Trump administration has ever really understood that," Konyndyk added. <h2>Trump set the US up for disaster and has failed to bring the world together to fight coronavirus</h2>After years of taking steps that weakened America's ability to thwart pandemics, including scrapping the National Security Council's global health unit, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-all-the-times-trump-was-warned-about-pandemic-2020-3">Trump ignored myriad warning signs of an impending global health catastrophe.</a>Even after he'd been briefed by the intelligence community and senior advisers on the potentially devastating impact of the virus on both public health and the economy, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pence-falsely-said-trump-never-belittled-coronavirus-2020-4">Trump downplayed the threat for weeks</a>. As a result, the US was left largely unprepared for a public health crisis of this magnitude and too preoccupied to help mobilize the world to defeat the virus at a time when global cooperation could not be more important.It also did not help matters that Trump had spent the last three years attacking global institutions the US played a vital role in founding and building up. "Fighting the epidemic globally requires nations to unionize and act in synchrony and coordination, and the Trump administration has failed to have America activate any conventional international consortium to confront the epidemic: UN Security Council, G7, G20, NATO, central banks - all have not coalesced around any grand strategy due to Trump's abdication of leadership in those US-anchored alliances," Jack Chow, who was a US ambassador for global HIV/AIDS during the George W. Bush administration and former World Health Organization assistant director-general, told Insider. <h2>'The US is not helping anyone. The US isn't even helping itself.'</h2>The US is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with the most confirmed cases and fatalities in the world. It's been far outpaced by other countries in terms of testing for and containing the virus - including South Korea, which had its first reported case of the virus on the same day as the US in January. Meanwhile, states across the US are struggling to obtain lifesaving medical supplies as hospitals nationwide are overwhelmed.In the absence of help from the Trump administration, governors have rallied together to help one another, and in some cases have also received assistance from other countries. New York, which has been hit harder than any other state by the pandemic, recently <a href="https://time.com/5815687/cuomo-ventilators-china-coronavirus/">accepted 1,000 ventilators from China</a> after Trump rejected calls from Gov. Andrew Cuomo for more. "We are not only not providing leadership in terms of how people should be behaving at a time like this, but we are ourselves requiring and relying on aid from other countries. Our states are receiving aid from China," Schneider said. "Even countries that might have had criticism for the US...they knew they could depend on it to be there as the strong global power to help them as they needed it. And that is completely absent. The US is not helping anyone. The US isn't even helping itself, much less other countries. And, thanks to 24/7 global communication, that is visible for all the world to see," Schneider said. "The world does not have red states and blind Trump followers," Schneider added. "The world can see the absolute terrifying and fatal ineptitude of the Trump administration. There's no global Fox News that's going to tell a different, false story."Many Americans also appear to have caught on to the ways in which the US is racing to keep up with the world, rather than setting the pace, in terms of its response to the pandemic. As of this week, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/55-percent-americans-say-us-government-not-prepared-coronavirus-poll-2020-4">55% of Americans</a> now say the federal government was not prepared to handle the coronavirus pandemic, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/just-25-percent-americans-us-doing-better-other-countries-coronavirus-2020-4">just 27%</a> think the US is doing a better job at containing the virus than other developed countries, according to Insider polling.But Trump has explicitly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-rejecting-responsibility-could-cost-lives-and-re-election-2020-4">refused to take any responsibility for his administration's failures</a>, and routinely berates reporters who question his handling of the pandemic. "The US has never been a perfect world power and one of our strengths has been our capacity for self-criticism, recognizing our faults, and trying to correct them. That is of course completely absent in the Trump administration," Schneider said.<h2>'It is striking that we look so far behind the curve'</h2>Though the US has hardly been a wholly benevolent actor in foreign affairs since World War II, it's traditionally set a model for the world during global crises and looked to international institutions as crucial tools in solving them. That's not happening under Trump."The US is just not taking the kind of role it would normally take, neither in terms of engaged moral leadership, basic coordination, getting joint statements at the G7. It's not doing any of that. It's jaw-dropping...It is striking that we look so far behind the curve, are so absent, and are not doing so great ourselves on the crisis. I can't think of anything like this, honestly," Daniel Nexon, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University and co-author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Exit-Hegemony-Unraveling-American-Global/dp/0190916478">"Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order,"</a> told Insider. "The US is no longer a sole, global hegemon...But certainly the US is perfectly capable of exercising more leadership. Particularly under an administration that is more conventional - Republican or Democratic - you would not see the US quite so AWOL in a fight against a pandemic," Nexon added.Since he entered the White House, Trump has operated on a theory that weakening or sidelining global institutions means the US will have more bargaining power. In doing so, the president repeatedly attacked organizations like NATO and the United Nations, contending they've been unfair to the US and taken advantage of its generosity. Nexon said this has made the US appear a less reliable partner, and opened the door for countries like China and Russia to push their agendas more effectively. "It's ironically made the old-style institutions much more attractive to powers who disagree with the US because the US is less influential there and they can get more of what they want," Nexon said. "It's left the US much more isolated and flailing."With the US viewed as a less credible and consistent partner as a consequence of Trump's leadership, key countries that would normally look to an American president for guidance - South Korea, Italy, Spain, and the UK - have largely sought to fight this pandemic on their own. This has resulted in a "checkboard pattern of gaps and vulnerabilities that failed to stem the virus's exponential progression," Chow said. "The lack of a global health defense network that could have been empowered by American medical expertise meant that the virus blossomed wherever underpreparation and slowfootedness prevailed," Chow added. "The crisis has laid bare the need for localities, countries, and alliances to work as one organism to break the chains of transmission."Do you have a personal experience with the coronavirus you'd like to share? Or a tip on how your town or community is handling the pandemic? Please email <a href="mailto:covidtips@businessinsider.com">covidtips@businessinsider.com</a> and tell us your story.Get the latest <a href="/coronavirus-business-impact">coronavirus business &amp; economic impact analysis</a> from Business Insider Intelligence on how COVID-19 is affecting industries.

The US is 'not a global power' thanks to Trump's disastrous coronavirus response as China fills the void, former US officials warn

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USA_PFC_BoweBergdahl_ACU.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></div></div>Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's release after five years in Taliban captivity has raised questions about the circumstances of his initial capture, with some members of his unit <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/02/we-lost-soldiers-in-the-hunt-for-bergdahl-a-guy-who-walked-off-in-the-dead-of-night.html">accusing</a> him of desertion. But there's reason to assume that Bergdahl won't face a court martial when he returns to the United States.
Desertion is a very specific charge under U.S. military law. And there are crucial differences between civilian and military criminal justice that make Bergdahl's conviction, or even a trial, unlikely.
As former Judge Advocate General lawyer and South Texas College of Law professor Geoffrey Corn told Business Insider, in the U.S. military, a conviction for desertion requires very narrow criteria to be met. The prosecutor would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bergdahl "quit his unit with an intent to remain absent permanently - and he had to have that specific intent," Corn explained.
Corn believes that it would be difficult to prove either of these in Bergdahl's case. The Pentagon has never considered him a deserter, and didn't removed him from the army's roster. "The military has to process paperwork so that you can't get back pay and leave and so that the unit can get a replacement," Corn says of the bureaucratic process of designating a soldier a deserter. "According to the Pentagon there's no evidence he was ever dropped from the rolls."
An AWOL conviction only requires proof that a soldier left his unit without permission. But that would also be difficult to obtain, Victor Hansen, a former JAG officer and professor at the New England School of Law, told Business Insider. Prosecutors would have to interview members of Bergdahl's unit about events that happened five years ago. "It would be challenging because of the time that's elapsed to piece together all the circumstances of him leaving the unit," Hansen said. 
Bergdahl is also insulated from prosecution by an important difference between the U.S.'s civilian and military criminal justice systems. Corn explained that in civilian life, a suspect is mirandized as soon as they are arrested, which means that statements made during any subsequent interrogations are admissible in court.
In the military, a suspect is mirandized only after there's reason to believe a crime has been committed. Bergdahl's debriefers - the officers who will question Bergdahl upon his return to the U.S. - could render much of the evidence they collect inadmissible depending on when and if they mirandize him. 
Bergdahl can be mirandized only after debriefers suspect he's committed a crime, a protection that could greatly limit the amount of evidence a military prosecutor could legally be able to use against him. Bergdahl's lawyers could also claim that debreifers delayed mirandizing him in order to extract additional evidence - a claim that could be used to make the entire debrief process inadmissible in court.
And there's one remaining hurdle to a court martial. Courts martial are the responsibility of the commander of a soldier's unit. Barack Obama has already <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/bowe-bergdahl-american-soldier-is-freed-by-taliban.html">called</a> Bergdahl a prisoner of war, and Bergdahl was never designated as a deserter or taken off of the army's rolls. In fact, Bergdahl was <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=122375">promoted to sergeant</a> in absentia. And he was freed in exchange for five high-value Taliban detainees.
It's doubtful that there would be much desire to prosecute Bergdahl unless the evidence of desertion or aiding the enemy is overwhelming. An AWOL charge might not even be worth the trouble in a commander's mind, Corn thinks. "If it turns out he just wandered off, I'm not so sure there would be much of an appetite to court martial him," Corn says.
From a commander's perspective, there would also be challenges attached to administratively discharging Bergdahl - effectively firing him from the military, with his benefits revoked. "They can't do that without giving him notice and opportunity for a hearing," says Hansen. 
Bergdahl's case is troubling for a number of soldiers he fought alongside. In the Daily Beast, Nathan Bradley Bethea reached the blunt <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/02/we-lost-soldiers-in-the-hunt-for-bergdahl-a-guy-who-walked-off-in-the-dead-of-night.html">conclusion</a> that "Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down."
But the law isn't concerned with the morally unsatisfying dimensions of Bergdahl's story - the fact that soldiers were killed in attempts to free him, or that the U.S. paid what some believe to be an unacceptably steep price to secure his release, is irrelevant to the evidentiary and procedural questions that go into a criminal prosecution. Unless debriefers determine that there's far more to Bergdahl's story than has been reported publically, the only U.S. prisoner of war in the Afghan theater likely won't be facing criminal charges when he returns home.

Here's Why Bowe Bergdahl Probably Won't Be Court Martialed For Desertion

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AP Photo/Andrew HarnikFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a drink of water as he testifies before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 2018.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Some old Facebook posts by CEO Mark Zuckerberg have disappeared, and the company says it "mistakenly deleted" them.</li><li>"A few years ago some of Mark's posts were mistakenly deleted due to technical errors. The work required to restore them would have been extensive and not guaranteed to be successful so we didn't do it," the spokesperson said in a statement.</li><li>The disappearances includes Zuckerberg's Facebook posts about key moments in the company's history, including the acquisition of Instagram. </li><li>Facebook has also made changes to the way it saves its archives of previous corporate announcements and blog posts that make it that much harder to parse the company's historical records. </li></ul>Old Facebook posts by Mark Zuckerberg have disappeared - obscuring details about core moments in Facebook's history.On multiple occassions, years-old public posts made by the 34-year-old billionaire chief executive that were previously public and reported on by news outlets at the time have since vanished, Business Insider has found. That includes all of the posts he made during 2007 and 2008.Reached for comment, a Facebook spokesperson said the posts were "mistakenly deleted" due to "technical errors.""A few years ago some of Mark's posts were mistakenly deleted due to technical errors. The work required to restore them would have been extensive and not guaranteed to be successful so we didn't do it," the spokesperson said in a statement."We agree people should be able to find information about past announcements and major company news, which is why for years we've shared and archived this information publicly - first on our blog and in recent years on our Newsroom."The total number of vanished posts could be significantly higher, as the very nature of the issue makes it extremely difficult to make a full accounting of what exactly what has gone missing over the years. The spokesperson said they didn't know how many posts in total were deleted.These disappearances, along with other changes Facebook has made to how it saves its archive of announcements and blog posts, make it much harder to parse the social network's historical record. This makes it far more difficult to hold the company, and Zuckerberg himself, accountable to past statements - particularly during a period of intense scrutiny of the company in the wake of a string of scandals. <h2>The curious case of Mark Zuckerberg's vanishing Facebook posts</h2>In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram - a now-pivotal moment in the growth of the Menlo Park, California technology giant. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/facebook-instagram-features/">Multiple</a> <a href="https://marketingland.com/facebook-acquires-instagram-for-a-reported-one-billion-dollars-9637">news reports</a> from the time quoted from a public post that Zuckerberg made on his timeline about the acquisition - but that post now inaccessible. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100318398827991">The links to that post from old news articles</a> no longer work, and it's nowhere to be seen on his profile. It was an important document in the history of Facebook, particularly given <a href="https://marketingland.com/facebook-acquires-instagram-for-a-reported-one-billion-dollars-9637">Zuckerberg promised that</a> "we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently" - a commitment he has since walked back. Facebook is now integrating the photo-sharing app into itself ever-more closely, and tensions around this <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45635736">contributed to the departure of Instagram's two cofounders in September 2018</a>.The most drastic deletions involved entire years. Throughout both 2006 and 2009, Zuckerberg was regularly active on the social network - but there are no posts visible of any kind for the two full years in between. The spokesperson confirmed that all the posts during 2007 and 2008 were deleted.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">FacebookThis is the error message you see when you click on a link to one of Mark Zuckerberg's vanished Facebook posts.</div></div></div>Another, specific example from later on: Facebook's beloved head chef Josef Desimone died in a motorcycle crash in July 2013. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/22/josef-desimone/">TechCrunch reported at the time that</a> Zuckerberg shared the news <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100895107738711">in a post on Facebook. </a>However, that post is now inaccessible as well.Facebook would go on to throw a party in Desimone's memory at its headquarters the following month. Hundreds of people were invited, and booze flowed freely - and it subsequently descended into chaos. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-2013-memorial-party-chef-violence-gangs-2019-3">As Business Insider previously reported, multiple fights broke out among attendees</a>, which security staff believed were gang-related. Numerous other posts by Zuckerberg from these time periods remain publicly available.<h2>Facebook has also made it harder to navigate its archives of old announcements</h2>Lastly, there have been issues accessing Facebook's archive of older blog posts. In years past, Facebook had a dedicated blog that announcements would often be posted to and which was navigable by month; <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090618174214/http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208197130">an archived example of a post is available here, via the Internet Archive</a>. But at some point - it's not clear when, exactly - Facebook launched its new <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/">"Newsroom,"</a> a repository for its key announcements, and broke the public links to old blog posts.Now, when you click on a link to a blog post included in an old news story, it redirects you to the Newsroom. The Newsroom doesn't have copies of many of these old blog posts, meaning there's no easy way to access them. They do still exist in one form - as a "note" saved to Facebook's public "Facebook" page on the social network. But until today there was no centralized archive through which to browse them, like what was available for the Facebook blog, or like what exists today for Newsroom posts.Instead, to read a specific one, you had to either know about it already and search for keywords on Google, or scroll back through the Facebook page's thousands of posts over the years.After Business Insider reached out for comment, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/facebook/notes/?ref=page_internal">Facebook added a "notes" tab to the Facebook page to access them</a>. However, as of press time, no notes are showing up in it.Take, for example, the 2006 launch of the News Feed, which is now an <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> juggernaut that now makes billions of dollars for the company. Zuckerberg tried to quash early user backlash against the News Feed with a blog post called "Calm down. Breathe. We hear you," but <a href="http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208197130">a link to it</a> in a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/06/facebook-users-revolt-facebook-replies/">TechCrunch news report from the time</a> now just redirects to the Newsroom homepage.There's no copy of the blog post in the Newsroom, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/calm-down-breathe-we-hear-you/2208197130/">it's currently only available as a note from Facebook</a>. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090618174214/http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208197130">Here's how it looked prior to the closure of the blog</a>, according to the Internet Archive.The net effect of this change to the archives was to drastically obfuscate Facebook's historical record - making it far harder to find past statements and announcements from the company about itself.<h2>Mark Zuckerberg's content has gone AWOL before</h2>This isn't the first time Zuckerberg-related material has disappeared without warning from Facebook.In April 2018, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/zuckerberg-deleted-messages/">TechCrunch reported that messages sent by the CEO were being deleted from other people's inboxes</a> without their knowledge or consent - a feature that wasn't available to ordinary Facebook users at the time. And back in November 2016, public posts from Zuckerberg about the media and Facebook's role in the 2016 US election also disappeared, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/29/13777018/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-fake-news-election-post-disappeared">The Verge reported at the time</a>.At the time, a spokesperson told the Verge that their removal was an accident and subsequently restored them. Do you work at Facebook? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at <a href="https://twitter.com/robaeprice">@robaeprice</a>. (PR pitches by email only please.) You can also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tip-business-insider-securely-guide-signal-securedrop-2017-6">contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop</a>.<h3>Read more:</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-facebook-physical-security-protect-mark-zuckerberg-employees-2019-2">Car-bomb fears and stolen prototypes: Inside Facebook's efforts to protect its 80,000 workers around the globe</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-kills-building-8-portal-facebook-reality-labs-2018-12">Facebook quietly killed its Building 8 skunkworks unit as it reshuffles its cutting-edge experiments and hardware</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a16z-data-startup-executives-salary-equity-bonus-pay-2018-9">Leaked Andreessen Horowitz data reveals how much Silicon Valley startup execs really get paid, from CEOs to Sales VPs</a></li></ul> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-10-operating-system-everything-wrong-2019-3">Windows 10 is the world's most popular desktop operating system, but users still have major complaints about design inconsistencies and buggy updates</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Years of Mark Zuckerberg's old Facebook posts have vanished. The company says it 'mistakenly deleted' them.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersLarry Page, CEO of Alphabet, which is in the middle of a leadership crisis.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>It's become increasingly clear that Alphabet needs new leadership.</li><li>The recent scandals and controversies and scandals at the company, most notably over its handling of sexual harassment allegations, have highlighted the shortcomings of its top leaders.</li><li>CEO Larry Page, for example, hasn't made a public appearance in years.</li><li>Behind the scenes, though, he and other top leaders have been enabling bad behavior among high-level employees, by all reports. </li><li>They've also repeatedly chosen expediency over doing the right thing by employees or the public.</li></ul>When they walked out of their jobs by the thousands on Thursday, Google employees did more than bring attention to the company's handling of sexual harassment allegations.They put an intense public spotlight on the acute shortcomings of the company's top brass.Executives at Google, and its parent company Alphabet, didn't just let gender discrimination fester at the tech giant. In some cases, they enabled it. And then, when employee rage over what they'd done sparked the largest protest ever seen at the company - and perhaps at any tech firm ever - top managers were nowhere to be seen.Google CEO Sundar Pichai <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-sundar-pichai-sexual-misconduct-2018-11?r=UK&amp;IR=T">was attending a tech conference in New York,</a> on the other side of the country from the company's headquarters, which represented the epicenter of the walkout. And Alphabet CEO Larry was … well, who knows?It would be bad enough if this were the only issue that Page and company had handled poorly lately. But it's not. From a significant security breach, to the company's anticompetitive behavior, to its efforts to develop a censored search engine in China and artificial intelligence technologies for the US military, Google's top brass has been fumbling issue after issue in recent months.Throughout many of these controversies, Page has been absent from the public scene; he hasn't made a public appearance or spoken on behalf of the company in years.However, the company is suffering from more than just a leadership vacuum. The way it's handled its recent trials has made its executives look amoral, myopic, reckless, and even incompetent.Alphabet needs new leadership, particularly at the very top. But that's the crux of its problem. Because his particular shares of Alphabet give him outsized voting rights, Page has almost no accountability to shareholders or anyone else. There's almost no way to force him out without his consent.So we're likely stuck with him for the foreseeable future. That's bad news for the company and investors, but also - because Alphabet is so large and so influential - for the rest of us.The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googlers-walked-out-by-the-hundreds-at-its-headquarters-2018-11">walkout</a> that highlighted the company's executive deficiencies was sparked by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html">an article last week in The New York Times</a> about how the company handled sexual misconduct allegations made against high-level employees. In particular, the article focused on Andy Rubin, who helped invent the Android operating system.A former girlfriend of Rubin who had been one of his subordinates when he was running Google's Android effort charged that he had pressured her into oral sex after their relationship had ended, according to the report. Google ended up finding the charges credible and forced Rubin out - but not before it <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andy-rubin-90-million-exit-package-google-sexual-misconduct-investigation-2018-10">agreed to give him a $90 million severance package</a>, The Times reported.That result was remarkable only because of its size, according to the Times. Google routinely protected or gave large payouts to high-ranking officials accused of sexual misconduct. And when conflicts arose between top-level managers and underlings with whom they were having relationships, the underlings were the ones who frequently lost out, according to the report.Indeed, the company's willingness to accommodate sexual harassment seems to have been widespread. At the protests on Thursday, numerous women got up and told stories about how they had been sexually harassed at the company. Organizers of the protest said they had collected hundreds of such stories on an internal website.Read this: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googlers-walked-out-by-the-hundreds-at-its-headquarters-2018-11">Google's famous Googleplex headquarters was the epicenter for its worldwide walkout over gender discrimination - here's what it was like on the scene</a>When such behavior is that pervasive, it's a good indication of a tone being set by those at the top of the org chart.<h2>Beyond the walkout</h2>But Google's leadership failings can be seen well outside the controversy over its handling of gender discrimination issues.Take the recent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-shutters-google-social-network-after-wsj-reports-a-huge-security-lapse-2018-10?r=UK&amp;IR=T">security vulnerability at Google+</a>. The company had known about the vulnerability, which exposed the private information of hundreds of thousands of users, for some seven months. But it chose not to acknowledge the bug, because, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-shutters-google-social-network-after-wsj-reports-a-huge-security-lapse-2018-10?r=UK&amp;IR=T">reportedly, it didn't want to draw the attention of regulators</a>.It was happy to let Facebook continue to take a beating over its Cambridge Analytica security scandal and didn't want to take its own lumps for a similar situation. Public relations, it seems, was more important to the company than informing and protecting its customers.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Matt Weinberger/Business InsiderA sign at the Google walkout in San Francisco.</div></div></div>Company officials have a growing track record of similar expediency. For months now, they've been publicly denying that Google is particularly far along in developing a censored search engine for China. But the Intercept recently <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/10/09/google-china-censored-search-engine/">put the lie to those denials</a>, publishing company documents that showed it was further along and more serious about launching the service than officials had acknowledged.Something similar happened with Project Maven, the US defense department effort to tap into artificial intelligence technologies, particular computer vision, to improve its weapons systems. Not only did Google stay quiet about its involvement in the project, but it's work with the government was much more extensive than it initially acknowledged, including working with the military to develop technology that could spy on entire cities, <a href="https://gizmodo.com/google-plans-not-to-renew-its-contract-for-project-mave-1826488620">Gizmodo reported</a>.Meanwhile, the payout to Rubin and others accused of harassment aren't the only examples of Page and company rewarding those accused of bad behavior. Page <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-googles-intellectual-property">personally fought to keep and reward Anthony Levandowski,</a> who helped spearhead Google's self-driving car effort, even though he skirted company rules and set up personal companies that could have potentially competed with Google, according to a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-googles-intellectual-property">recent report in the New Yorker</a>.Levandowski's flaunting of the company's rules governing its autonomous vehicles even led to an accident that seriously injured a coworker and caused a collision with another vehicle, according to that report. But Page made sure he remained highly compensated and had Google buy the companies he set up outside of Google, the New Yorker reported.<h2>Truth and consequences</h2>These controversies have had real consequences for the company. Its handling of the sexual harassment claims led to Thursday's walkout. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googler-who-quit-over-project-maven-says-values-changed-2018-6">Employees have been up in arms</a> over over its involvement in Maven and its development of the censored search engine, and numerous workers have left the company over them. And it faces lawsuits and government investigations over its handling of the Google+ vulnerability.This evidence of mismanagement is coming amid growing scrutiny of Google's power and accountability by policymakers. In just the last two years, the company has been hit with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-fined-by-eu-android-2018-7">two multibillion-dollar fines</a> from the European Commission for engaging in anticompetitive behavior and faces another potentially costly fine in a third such investigation. US policymakers have been shining a spotlight on Google - along with Facebook and Twitter - over concerns that Russia and other countries are attempting again to disrupt American elections by hijacking the companies' networks and online ad systems to spread propaganda and misinformation.Normally a company facing even just one of these scandals would put its CEO out front to be its public spokesperson. Part of a typical CEO's role is to reassure investors, soothe regulators, and calm employees. It's usually the CEO's job to take responsibility on behalf of his or her corporation in such instances, and to show that he or she will be accountable for them and for the company's response.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">GettyGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai.</div></div></div>But Larry Page seems to have missed that memo. Instead of being the face of Alphabet amid all these controversies, he's been AWOL.Page <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-senate-tears-into-google-for-refusing-to-send-top-executive-to-testify-2018-9">infamously didn't show up</a> in September when the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the heads of the top social networking companies to come and testify at a hearing about foreign interference in US elections. Senators on the committee took note of his absence, and the absence of Brin and Pichai, and took the company to task for it.But the only thing that was really notable about Page's absence at that hearing was just how obvious it was. Although he apparently has met with employees on occasion behind Alphabet's closed doors, he's been a public no-show for years.In his stead, Pichai has become the face of the company. Pichai was the one <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sundar-pichai-sorry-google-record-on-sexual-misconduct-2018-10">who released a statement apologizing to employees for how the company handled harassment allegations</a>, for example.But even he has left a vacuum. He too ducked the Senate hearing in September. And instead of being in Mountain View to meet with protestors on Thursday, he was chatting with Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin.This leadership problem would be one thing if Alphabet were a simple startup. But it's not. It's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googles-control-of-the-search-market-deserves-more-scrutiny-2018-8">one of the most powerful companies on the face of the planet</a>. It employs tens of thousands of people. It has a monopoly or the dominant position in multiple markets. It's amassed a vast amount of data on billions of the world's citizens. And in a very real way, it shapes what we think and know about the world around us.The women at the company who've had to contend with the company's frequent indifference to sexual harassment deserve new leadership at Alphabet. But so do the rest of us.<h2>Now read:</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/richard-devaul-leaves-alphabets-x-after-sexual-misconduct-report-2018-10">An executive with Google's parent company resigns with no severance after sexual misconduct allegations come to light</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googles-security-bug-dragonfly-and-maven-show-its-not-trustworthy-2018-10">Google's recent behavior shows the troubling reality of an internet superpower that abandoned its vow to not 'be evil'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/googles-control-of-the-search-market-deserves-more-scrutiny-2018-8">Donald Trump is right about Google - but for the wrong reason</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-margarethe-vestager-wrong-to-oppose-google-breakup-2018-7?r=tgw">Europe's competition czar is wrong - it's long past time to break up Google</a></li></ul>Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/diehard-android-user-switches-iphone-xs-2018-10">After using Samsung Galaxy phones for 5 years, I made the switch to the iPhone XS</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

It's become increasingly clear that Alphabet, Google's parent company, needs new leadership

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AP Photo/Eugene HoshikoTrump addresses the US military in Japan.</div></div></div><ul><li>Trump has failed to fulfill his campaign promise of beefing up the military's budget.</li><li>As a result the US military's readiness, performance, and accident reduction efforts have faltered, and America's ability to keep peace worldwide may be affected.</li><li>Congress has been unable to unilaterally increase spending.</li></ul> Sherlock Holmes once solved the mystery of a disappearing racehorse by noting "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." But, a Scotland Yard detective objected, "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes's laconic reply: "That was the curious incident."Today, in Washington, the dog that isn't barking is the <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Defense">defense</keyword> budget. It is the biggest issue that no one - at least no one outside the defense policy community‚ is talking about.There are plenty of warning signs that the defense budget is too small to meet the United States' global commitments, and that military readiness is suffering with dangerous consequences. Back in June, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that having returned to the military after four years of retirement, he <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1213034/mattis-says-dod-needs-years-to-correct-effects-of-sequestration/">was</a> "shocked by what I've seen with our readiness to fight."<h2>The military's readiness and performance has been affected by budget shortfalls</h2>What shocks a hardened warrior like Mattis? Defense analyst Dan Goure <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-military-suffering-crisis-strategy-not-just-one-20918">notes</a>: "the Army has only three brigade combat teams out of more than 50 fully manned, equipped and trained for major conflict…. Due to a lack of spare parts and insufficient maintenance dollars, only about half of Navy and Marine Corps front line fighters are currently available for combat. In addition, the Air Force is short some 1,000 pilots even though its size has shrunk significantly over the past decade."Yet despite these shortcomings, the "operations tempo" for the military, especially the Navy, Air Force, and Special Operations Forces, remains as high as ever. The Navy has seen its fleet <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2017/09/overburdened-navy-must-just-say-no-spencer/">reduced</a> from 594 ships in 1987 to just 278 ships today, yet it still keeps roughly the same number of ships deployed outside of home waters. That means crews have to work at a frenetic pace; naval expert Seth Cropsey of the Hudson Institute says it's common for sailors to work 100-hour weeks.This punishing ops tempo is believed to have contributed to two terrible accidents suffered by destroyers this summer - both the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald collided with merchant ships, killing a total of 17 sailors. The ship shortfall will only be exacerbated by those collisions, with the Fitzgerald likely to be <a href="https://news.usni.org/2017/09/20/uss-fitzgerald-repair-will-take-year-uss-john-s-mccain-fix-shorter">out of service</a> for more than a year. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2017/09/overburdened-navy-must-just-say-no-spencer/">says</a>, "We have been punching way above our weight and possibly robbing Peter to pay Paul to get our missions done, and now the bills are coming home."The Marine Corps is also paying a terrible price for the shortfall of defense dollars. According to <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2017/09/marine-aviation-deaths-are-six-times-navys/">data</a> obtained by Breaking Defense, "aircraft accidents have killed 62 Marines in the last six years, compared to just 10 personnel from the much larger Navy." The deadly accidents include the crash of a MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in August, killing three, and of a KC-130T transport aircraft in July, killing 16.The problem is that the Marine Corps is flying aging aircraft such as AV-8 Harrier jump jets (which entered service in 1985), early models of the F/A-18 Hornet (1984), and the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter (1981). The money simply isn't there to rapidly phase out these aging aircraft with newer models such as the F-35.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usairforce/5951281277/in/photolist-eaPXZq-a4TKDZ-a4THWP-a4WHzs-a4WCWJ-a4WFLA-a4TQYg-a4WCLE-qyGQ2U-a4TUSx-a4WHES-DAZWoA-BJW8wn-B7CFWi-mhqEa8-egbLJB-BkWCah-boJv1j-a4TUXa-CuZLN7-7zgiAG-9sa5vc-zRHcX7-CoBJfR-Ep3jnW-ziLvaA-BZBij1-CUMFxd-AK8r2W-CPPYFn-EGu9rQ-yupyAG-syhT4U-sysXSz-a4TSzT-qJZ3FA-pcwrzA-a4TMUX-z5LR5i-B2qQPp-LQ9cUB-LUcfdE-LMCyBb-Ldxawz-Ldxarp-JRsqgB-KF4qAL-KB3jaa-KhLVTU-KF4q9d">Samuel King Jr./US Air Force</a>An F-35A joint strike fighter crew chief, Tech. Sgt. Brian West, watches his aircraft approach for the first time at Eglin Air Force Base on July 14, 2011.</div></div></div>Overall, the Heritage Foundation <a href="http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/2018_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength-2.pdf">finds</a> in its 2018 Index of U.S. Military Strength that "the United States' military posture is rated 'marginal' and is trending toward 'weak.'" Heritage analysts rate the Army and Marine Corps as "weak" and the Navy and Air Force as "marginal." The military has had to abandon its historic, post-1945 commitment to fight two major wars at once - that is simply beyond its current capabilities.Those trends are all the more alarming when we see America's rivals - including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea - rapidly building up their arsenals. Russia has rebounded from the nadir of the 1990s to field increasingly professional military forces equipped with high-tech weapons that allow Vladimir Putin to project power as far away as Syria. China, meanwhile, is building aircraft, missiles, submarines, and even aircraft carriers to tilt the balance of power in the Western Pacific in its favor. Both Russia and China now field ultra-quiet diesel submarines that are hard for the U.S. Navy to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/article_email/a-russian-ghost-submarine-its-u-s-pursuers-and-a-deadly-new-cold-war-1508509841-lMyQjAxMTA3OTIyMTUyMzE5Wj/">detect</a>.These are dangerous developments that threaten to unravel the post-1945 Pax Americana and leave the United States and its allies vulnerable to aggression. The problem is widely recognized in both Congress and the Trump administration, and yet it is unlikely that anything will be done about it.During last year's campaign, Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-calls-increased-defense-spending-more-military-might-n644056">promised</a> more defense spending to increase the army from a planned active-duty end strength of 450,000 personnel to 540,000; the Marine Corps from 24 infantry battalions to 36; the Navy from 278 combat ships to 350; and the Air Force from 915 combat-ready fighter aircraft to 1,200. Those are good goals. But the defense budget that the Trump administration released in March doesn't come close to funding those commitments.<h2>Trump's priorities have shifted to non-military matters since the end of his campaign</h2><div><div>Trump proposes adding $54 billion, or 10 percent, to the core defense budget (excluding wartime costs). Although the president boasts that this is "one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history," it is, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/fact-check-trump-military.html">in reality</a>, only the 16th-largest increase since 1977. And it is wholly inadequate to the size of the challenge. Given the limited capacity of U.S. shipyards, it would take 18 years to create a 350-ship navy at a rate of four new ships a year. The Trump defense budget <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2017/04/355-ship-navy-takes-at-least-18-years-cbo/">funds</a> just one, or possibly two, new ships for 2017-2018.Recognizing the shortfall, the Senate and House of Representatives just <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/16/senate-defense-spending-budget-trump-165974">approved</a> a $700 billion defense budget - a significant increase from Trump's $603 billion request. So, problem solved, right? Wrong. This is only an "authorization" bill, and its passage is largely symbolic.The actual money for the Pentagon has to come from appropriations bills, and the appropriators are unlikely to be so generous, because they have competing priorities. Republicans want tax cuts; the tax bill passed by the House last week would add <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/08/house-tax-reform-plan-would-raise-deficit-by-1-point-7-trillion-cbo.html">$1.7 trillion</a> to the already large federal budget deficits, crowding out defense spending. Democrats don't like the tax cuts, but most of them want more domestic, not defense, spending. Although there are defense hawks on both sides of the aisle, neither caucus, at the end of the day, prioritizes defense spending over other ideological commitments.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Luke Sharrett / Stringer / Getty Images</div></div></div>And neither, for that matter, does the Trump administration. Note that the president - who has plenty of time to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-each-scene-of-his-presidency-trump-casts-a-villain-or-two-or-three-/2017/10/16/d29d2330-b287-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html">opine</a> on the NFL, the "fake media," Jimmy Kimmel, the mayor of San Juan, Hillary Clinton, Gold Star families, "Little Rocket Man," "Al Frankenstein," and other favorite targets - has absolutely nothing to say about defense spending. It simply isn't a priority for him, or for his aides. Even Defense Secretary Mattis, who favors more defense spending, has not made it a single-minded priority in the way that Caspar Weinberger did in the 1980s.Back in the Reagan administration, the president settled the debate between Weinberger and budget director David Stockman firmly in favor of the Pentagon. Today the widespread sense is that budget director Mick Mulvaney calls the shots more than Mattis does. Mattis is a probably distracted simply preventing Trump from launching World War III, with little energy left over for budget fights. In any case he is by nature and experience a warrior, not an accountant.The result of the bipartisan, bicameral lack of urgency is that the Pentagon is being funded with a three-month "continuing resolution" that was passed in early September and expires in early December. There is a real risk, in fact, that congressional leaders will fail to agree to a budget by then and will simply pass another continuing resolution, even though the military complains that this make it impossible to do long-term planning or budgeting. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, rightly called this "<a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2017/09/so-fricking-stupid-year-long-cr-likely-adam-smith">fricking stupid</a>" and describes it as "borderline legislative malpractice."Yet, with presidential leadership on this issue (or any other) effectively AWOL, there is scant chance of fixing what ails defense. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/senate-pentagon-spending-bill.html">said</a>, "We are gambling with the lives of the best among us and we're now seeing the cost - the tragic but foreseeable costs of an overworked, strained force with aging equipment and not enough of it." The gamble is going to continue, with the losers being the men and women in uniform sworn to protect the United States.</div></div>This is an <keyword id="6356002" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="opinion">opinion</keyword> column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/great-pyramid-of-cholula-worlds-largest-pyramid-2016-9">The world's largest pyramid is not in Egypt</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

America's military doesn't have enough money to do its job

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Don_Knotts_Jim_Nabors_Andy_Griffith_Show_1964.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></div></div>On the list of common things people are afraid of, managing a large team for the first time falls somewhere between getting attacked by a shark and having dinner with your in-laws.
But your transition from lowly associate to all-powerful manager didn't happen overnight. Since your first summer internship you've been preparing for this role. Your experience and work ethic have finally been recognized. You've been promoted to a title and paycheck that reflect your real worth. You've been given a team of talented underlings to lead confidently into success and financial prosperity.
… Now what?
If you've recently found yourself in a managerial position and have no idea what you're doing, don't worry: You're in good company. Most first-time managers are stellar individual performers who are highly effective at delivering results on their own. However, they likely have little-to-no experience getting things done through other people.
Thankfully, there's an entire industry devoted to helping you become the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-become-a-manager-that-people-actually-want-to-work-for-2014-1">manager everyone wants to work for</a>. We spoke with Jerry Hauser, CEO of <a href="http://managementcenter.org/">The Management Center</a> in Washington, D.C., to get some practical tips on how new managers can delegate like a seasoned pro.
<h2>Don't make it a popularity contest. Focus on results.</h2>
According to Hauser, the first thing new managers should do is "get clear on why you're getting paid the big bucks." While you may be the most sociable guy in the cubicle, chances are good that you aren't being promoted to keep people happy and make new friends. You were promoted so that you could deliver a certain set of results, and sustain and grow those results through the effective management of your group. "We see a lot of new managers who get so hung up on wanting to be liked or wanting to be popular," Hauser says, "that they don't end up delivering what they're supposed to deliver."
If your team is running a user survey for a big client meeting, you need to make sure those results are on your desk with time to spare, even if that means keeping them late to get it finished. Be considerate of your team's time, of course, but don't forget: Besides managing your staff, you have your own work to deliver, and more importantly, your own boss to keep happy. So while it might not put you in the running for Most Fun Boss of the Year, remember that your first responsibility is to the company that gave you this opportunity.
<h2>Provide a road map, and stay within reach.</h2>
How do you go about delivering results? Most new managers take one of two approaches: Either they assume their teams are completely self-sufficient and need no guidance whatsoever, or they think they're dealing with utter incompetents who can't do anything without significant hand-holding. Both of these approaches typically end up causing more work for you in the long run.
Hauser advises managers to guide more and do less. "Spend more energy on the guiding than most managers do," he says, "and you'll get to spend less energy actually doing the work yourself." What does that look like in practice? Hauser suggests using something called the Delegation Cycle:
<h3>Step 1: Lay down the law.</h3>
<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image">The Management Center</div></div>When you give a team member a project, don't just do a quick rundown of what you want and when it's due. "Invest the time in sitting down and saying, 'Let's be really clear and talk through what success looks like on this,'" Hauser suggests.
In other words, what would it take to delight you? What are the key components of this project that must be included, and what extra step could your staff take that would make your life a whole lot easier? Give them quantitative and qualitative targets to aim for, but let them figure out how to get it done. Your team will feel more empowered to take initiative - and you'll do less of the legwork.
<h3>Step 2: Don't go AWOL.</h3>
After you assign a task, don't disappear. "So often new managers think that's it: 'I've had a conversation with somebody, I've asked them to do something, my piece here is done and now it's up to them to deliver,'" Hauser says. Inevitably, they learn the painful lesson that assuming things will happen the way they're supposed to without some continued guidance is a recipe for disaster. "Even incredibly well-intentioned, skilled staff members will deliver something different from what you expected if you're entirely hands-off through the process."
Staying engaged doesn't mean suffocating your team. After all, Hauser notes, "you don't need to eat the whole pie to know what it's going to taste like." Instead, take a slice of the pie. Check in at key points along the way to see how the work is shaping up. If it's a memo, ask for a bullet-point outline so you can see the direction he's going. If it's a fundraising appeal, ask to see the first paragraph. That way you can keep your hands in the process just enough to ward off any major structural or miscommunication errors <a href="http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2008/5/20/the-cake-that-started-it-all.html">before it's too late</a>.
<h3>Step 3: Connect the dots for next time.</h3>
The report is in, the event is over, the case is closed, but… your manager responsibilities are not quite finished. Whether your team executed the project without a hiccup or the whole thing was a complete disaster, it's now your job to turn it into a learning experience for the next time.
Build debriefs into the process so that your staff comes to expect both positive and constructive feedback on a routine basis. This helps to reduce <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-give-negative-feedback-2013-12">the fear associated with feedback</a> and sets expectations for performance on the next task. "It can be a quick chat on the way home from an event or an hour-long debrief after a major project," Hauser says. Either way, the reviews let your team know you mean what you say, and that when you ask them to do something at a certain level, that's what you expect every time.
<h3>Step 4: Consider the best approach on a per-project basis.</h3>
The same delegation techniques won't be applicable for every situation. Before you hand out a project, assess the stakes involved and evaluate the team member who'll be carrying it out. "If it's a brand new staff member who's never done something before, and it's high stakes - you're delivering something for the CEO of the company or for a major client - you're going to be really hands-on along the way," Hauser says.
Conversely, "if it's a staff member who's done something a million times before, they're highly skilled at it, they're motivated to do it, and/or it's not the most high-stakes project, then you're going to be a little more hands off on the project."
<h2>Put "manage team" on your to-do list - literally.</h2>
Now that you've gotten your team working seamlessly, it's time to build management techniques into your schedule, so they don't get pushed aside by your own day-to-day tasks. While check-ins, debriefs, and expectation-setting can happen on an ad hoc basis, Hauser suggests designating a set time at the beginning of each week to go over your team's workload and track progress on ongoing projects. That way, if something comes up and you don't have time to debrief after an event or a major deadline, you have a safety net built in so you can still give your staff constructive feedback on schedule.
Good management takes years of practice, but so long as you understand the basic fundamentals, you'll be able to do your job effectively and ensure your team can do theirs.

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