The Daily Moth 9-24-19
Greta Thunberg blasts world leaders at UN; Trump, Ukraine, and impeachment; Father jumps with daughter in front of subway; Maryland School for the Deaf barred from SpikeOut
Note: We have an issue with the CC for the MSD story, please read the transcript or go to The Daily Moth on Facebook if you wish to view the video with captions. You can read the transcript or watch the video on our website as well: https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/maryland-school-for-the-deaf-barred-from-spikeout
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Tuesday, September 24. I’m back and recovered. Thank you all so much for your words of support, and to the Moth team for keeping the news going yesterday. Ready for news?
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Greta Thunberg blasts world leaders at UN
Yesterday Greta Thunberg, the teenager climate activist from Sweden, had very strong words towards world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Thunberg said how dare world leaders talk about money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth while they are in the beginning of a mass extinction. She said world leaders have stolen her dreams and her childhood and that she shouldn’t be there but at school in Sweden.
Videos of her speech went viral on the internet yesterday. People either applauded her for taking a stand or criticized her by saying she is controlled by liberals.
President Trump mocked her by saying she seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.
Regardless of how one feels about Thunberg, her speech yesterday at the UN has elevated her to one of the top outspoken activists about climate change.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/weather/greta-thunberg-unga-climate-speech-intl/index.html
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1176339522113679360
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Trump, Ukraine, and impeachment
The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Trump ordered the White House to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine for a week before he phoned the Ukrainian president and asked him to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.
Today Trump said he has authorized the release of the full transcript of his phone call and that it would prove that it was a “totally friendly and appropriate call” without any “quid pro quo.” The release is scheduled for tomorrow.
Trump said he did withhold military aid from Ukraine, but that this was not about Hunter but about pressuring European nations to contribute more to military aid.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is expected to announce that there will be a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. This could mean the formation of a special committee tasked with investigating Trump and Ukraine. This would be the first step into a possible House vote to charge Trump with high crimes and misdemeanors. If that happens, then the Senate will hold an impeachment trial with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding. It requires a two-thirds vote from the Senate to remove the president from office.
President Trump said Joe Biden is the one who should be investigated. When Biden was the vice-president, his son Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company called Burisma.
At the time, Biden and other European leaders pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor for not doing enough to investigate corruption cases. But that prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was working on a corruption case on Burisma, which had Hunter on its board. So there’s connections between all of it. This is why Trump has suspected Biden of engaging in wrongdoing.
Joe Biden tweeted that Trump is worried that he will lose to him in the 2020 election so he is trying to ask a foreign government to help him, and that this is an abuse of power.
We’ve seen the word “impeachment” come up often during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, but there were no actual processes on this. But with this Ukraine situation, it seems like we’re going down that road.
[Video clip from Pelosi’s press conference]
UPDATE: Speaker Pelosi confirmed there will be an impeachment inquiry on Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-confirms-he-withheld-military-aid-from-ukraine-says-he-wants-other-countries-to-help-pay/2019/09/24/42bdf66c-ded2-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1175524590359105536
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Father jumps with daughter in front of subway
On Monday at a New York City subway station in the Bronx, a father grabbed his 5-year-old daughter and jumped in front of a train. Both of them went under the train.
People on the platform rushed to help them and were able to pull the girl out — she was safe with minor injuries. The father, who was 45, was killed.
A witness said the father was talking on the phone and then suddenly jumped with the girl. It is not known why the father did this. When the girl was pulled out, she was crying and asking about her father.
The girl’s mother, Niurka Caraballo, met the girl at a hospital and brought her home on Monday night. She said the girl is in perfect condition thanks to God and the angels that protected her.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nyc-man-jumps-in-front-of-subway-train-the-bronx-father-daughter-commuting/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/nyregion/subway-jump-dad-daughter.html
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Maryland School for the Deaf barred from SpikeOut
The Maryland School for the Deaf’s volleyball team was barred from attending SpikeOut, an annual volleyball tournament that typically brings the nation’s largest Deaf school programs.
This year’s host is the California School for the Deaf, Riverside. One of their varsity players, a junior, moved to Maryland several weeks ago and is now on the MSD varsity volleyball team’s roster.
CSDR has accused MSD of engaging in illegal recruiting practices.
The MSD volleyball team posted a video and a change.org petition last night saying that the girls are paying the price by being “caught in a crossfire.”
The SpikeOut tournament is scheduled for October 4 and 5.
The Daily Moth reporter Renca Dunn and I have worked together on this story and talked with several people. We’ll share what we know.
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ALEX:
Hello, Renca! You’ve talked with both superintendent offices for both schools, MSD and CSDR. Can you share what they told you?
RENCA:
Yes. Clearly this situation is severe. Both schools provided official statements, from MSD’s Superintendent Mr. James E. Tucker and CSDR’s Superintendent Dr. Nancy Hlibok Amann. Both of them did try to talk with each other and resolve this, but it appears that CSDR has made up their minds on barring MSD from going to SpikeOut. I will share the official statements from both schools.
Mr. Tucker from MSD said, “Maryland has asked Riverside for evidence regarding their grievances. Riverside promised to produce evidence, but after one week they have not. Maryland is still waiting as due process is one of the cornerstones of our individual rights in this country. Maryland will continue to work hard until there is a positive resolution. That is, Maryland will go to Riverside for the Spike Out Tournament as defending champions, and we look forward to healthy competition with our five sister schools.”
That’s the statement from MSD. Now here is the one from the Office of the Superintendent at CSDR.
“It is unfortunate that this had to happen but what MSD did is called a violation of recruitment. So, we had to make this difficult decision to not allow them participate only for this year’s tournament. There will be a meeting for all superintendents and athletic directors from the participating schools to discuss on developing our national level guidelines to prevent this happening again and to protect our students.”
Those are the official statements from both schools.
ALEX:
I had a conversation with a person who is a part of the athletic community among Deaf schools and that person is familiar with internal discussions about SpikeOut. The information that I got is that there is a level of frustration among other Deaf schools that MSD is recruiting — or is making it very easy to bring in other student-athletes from out of state — and that it’s causing an unfair competitive advantage.
There is another issue with affiliation with states’ athletic associations. It’s interesting to note that MSD is an independent…
RENCA:
Right.
ALEX:
MSD is independent of the state’s athletic association and they are officially recognized as an independent.
Text:
[CLARIFICATION: MSD is an "Approved Non Member"
of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic]
CSDR and other schools report to their respective state athletic associations. What is the big difference? Being independent allows more flexibility with certain rules. For example, with the student transfer — if she was to go to another Deaf school in a varsity sports program during the middle of the season, the student would have to be limited to the junior varsity team or sit out a season or there will be some kind of “wait” time. But it seems the MSD student transfer was immediately on MSD’s varsity team roster. So there’s that. Also, the source from the athletic community said this was not the first instance, that there were similar incidents in the past. So that’s why there is not a strong showing of support for MSD, as it seems multiple other schools are on CSDR’s side. I’m talking about Deaf schools who are involved with SpikeOut. It seems there is a consensus.
RENCA:
I know that MSD said it’s not new information, that it is already known that they are a program that is not affiliated with their state program. This gives them flexibility to travel far and play against other Deaf schools. So they feel blindsided and are asking, “Why now?” What makes this situation unique than others? They said this is normal and is the same as past years. So this adds to the frustration from community members.
ALEX:
CSDR did — when I looked at their previous announcements about SpikeOut — they already had MSD as one of the teams set to attend the tournament. It’s there on their pages. Maybe it’ll change with MSD being removed, but as of a few days ago, MSD was on the list. So the issue of state affiliations seems to be a part of the issue, but it is not the issue. It seems to be about the transfer student and it has triggered feelings from past incidents. That’s my impression.
You did have talks with some community members from MSD and I had talks with some community members from CSDR. Can you share from MSD and I’ll share from CSDR?
RENCA:
Sure. From my conversations with MSD community members, they feel frustrated that MSD has always been a big target because they have a good athletic program. They feel like others don’t value their students’ experiences of meeting with other students, that MSD is just a target for others. They feel disappointed this happened and who suffers? The students. The decision to bar MSD did not affect only the students, but also their parents and friends concerning this year’s tournament. There are parents who have bought plane tickets. Some friends bought plane tickets and are excited to visit, but now are disappointed.
Community members have shared their frustrations and heartbreak. They said this situation is not a lighthearted one or something that they can get over easily. No, they are really heartbroken, especially when it comes to seniors, who are the hit the hardest. They want to be viewed as a whole and as a community rather than viewed as specific individuals. That’s what I got from community members.
ALEX:
I can imagine there is a lot of pressure. From my conversations with CSDR members, they said that the time was now, that they had to take a stand, to draw the line. They said there were a lot of frustrations in the CSDR community that specifically MSD was taking away or interfering with their athletic program or other programs. CSDR also said other Deaf school programs were in agreement with the CSDR community by saying the same sort of things happened with them. There are also other underlying, lingering issues and feelings on how MSD allegedly takes away players. So they don’t feel this is solely about the recruiting/transfer issue, but more about the big picture — that someone has to do something to stop it “now.” That’s my impression from them.
RENCA:
I want to add this — one community member from MSD told me that MSD did make an offer for the transfer student to sit out, to not play in SpikeOut, but it seems that CSDR still said no and barred them.
ALEX:
I want to add another thing from the CSDR community. I was told that they have some sort of evidence that someone from MSD had contact with the student and tried to recruit her. This evidence seems to be what Tucker was referring to in his statement. CSDR’s official statement did not mention “evidence,” but CSDR community members told me that there is some sort of a record of a contact. Will that specific information come up?
One interesting thing to note is that there is no governing body for Deaf school student-athletes nationwide. There is some type of gathering for athletic directors, there are some regional programs such as Mason-Dixon and others, but there’s nothing similar to the NCAA to deal with that...
RENCA:
Nationwide.
ALEX:
Yes, nationwide. We don’t have that. Does it mean the Deaf community needs a governing body?
RENCA:
Yes, I think a part of that concept is what the Office of the Superintendent from CSDR talked about when they said there will be a meeting with superintendents and athletic directors from participating schools. This will elevate their discussions to the national level and develop guidelines because it’s obviously necessary. Maybe in the past schools have gone by with holding meetings or having verbal agreements. But now there is a need for something to be set in black and white. It will help with future situations, so they can go back and look at what the policy says. Right now there is no national level policy.
It’s truly an unfortunate situation right now. It appears the situation will continue. The tournament is next week, right?
ALEX:
Yes, next weekend.
RENCA:
Right, it’s not like it’s “next month” or something. It’s next week, so it’s intense and time is another big factor here. So I guess we’ll see as time goes on what the result of this is. But yes it’s definitely an ongoing issue and discussion. We’ll see.
ALEX:
It’s almost out of time. A lot of pressure on both programs and both schools. Thank you so much for sharing.
RENCA:
Sure, definitely.
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
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