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| Presented By Walmart |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Feb 15, 2022 |
| Good Tuesday morning. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,467 words ... 5½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu. 📱 At 12:30 p.m. ET today, please join Axios' Astrid Galván and Russell Contreras for a virtual event spotlighting change-makers in the Afro-Latino community. Guests include Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) and "Sesame Street" actor Sonia Manzano, who portrayed Maria. RSVP here. |
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| 1 big thing: Small business boom |
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| Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios |
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| Americans are continuing to start new businesses at a rapid clip, a great sign for the pandemic-era economy, Axios' Erica Pandey reports. - 5.4 million applications were filed to start companies in 2021 — a 53% jump from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to census data.
Why it matters: In this hot labor market, even "folks who fail can land on their feet," John Haltiwanger, an economist at University of Maryland at College Park, told an Economic Innovation Group roundtable. What's happening: A slew of factors are creating an environment ripe for entrepreneurship. - The pandemic gave people time and resources — including stimulus checks and money saved by staying home — to start new businesses, Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, tells NPR.
- The rise of the stay-at-home economy created new opportunities in food delivery, H.R. consulting and e-commerce.
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| 2. The TikTok war |
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| Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Alexandra Stanescu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images |
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| Videos of Russian troops massing on Ukraine's borders are being widely disseminated on TikTok, giving the world an unprecedented view of what's happening ahead of a potential war, Axios' Sara Fischer and Zachary Basu write. - Why it matters: The world has moved away from a top-down view in which the public learned about major military movements through big media outlets and governments. The troop buildup around Ukraine is there for everyone to see.
Russian military and open-source intelligence experts, including Michael Kofman of CNA and Rob Lee of King's College London, have compiled Twitter threads with hundreds of crowdsourced videos of military equipment and units on the move toward the Ukrainian border. - Many are sourced from everyday Russian citizens posting on TikTok, Telegram, Twitter and other platforms about the unusual sight of tanks rolling through their local stretch of highway.
The big picture: The open-source intelligence community has evolved from a niche corner of the internet to a major player in one of the biggest stories on the planet. It has often preempted government warnings about Russia's military movements by a wide margin. - The investigative journalism group Bellingcat has won multiple awards for open-source reporting on the Russian military's covert activities.
Flashback: This isn't the first time social media has been used to shed light on a conflict from the ground. It was an enormous organizing force during the Arab Spring, in the early 2010s. - Since then, smartphone adoption around the world has significantly increased, and new platforms like TikTok have made it much easier for users to upload video faster.
- TikTok's algorithm amplifies user-generated content over professional content, helping these videos about geopolitical conflicts go viral quickly.
⚡ The latest: Russia's defense ministry posted videos overnight of some forces beginning to pull back from the border, but experts caution that Moscow still has the capacity to launch a large invasion. |
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| 3. Washington wakes up to Beijing-Moscow alignment |
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| Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios |
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| The Ukraine crisis is forcing Washington to grapple with Russia's increasingly close relationship with China, Axios China author Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports. - Why it matters: Russia and China aren't full-fledged allies, but have been coordinating their economic and security interests with greater clarity over the past several years.
Xi Jinping's support for Vladimir Putin's NATO concerns has led observers to warn of a China-Russia "axis of authoritarianism." Reality check: The ties don't rise to the level of a true alliance, and are more accurately described as "transactional" and a "marriage of convenience," Alexander Gabuev, chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told Axios. |
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| A message from Walmart |
| Walmart leads the industry with new emissions reduction program |
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| Partnering with HSBC and CDP, Walmart is supporting businesses along its supply chain to enact sustainable emission reductions. Read more about the industry-leading action, just one of many from Walmart to avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from the global value chain by 2030. |
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| 4. 📷 More Americans deploy to Europe |
| Photo: Nathan Posner/AP Army soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division clean weapons at Fort Bragg, N.C., yesterday before deploying to Poland to show American commitment to NATO allies worried about Russia invading Ukraine. Photo: Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images Above: A soldier works a Rubik's Cube at Fort Bragg yesterday before deploying to Europe. |
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| 5. ⚖️ Appeals could keep Palin v. NYT going for months |
| Sarah Palin leaves the courthouse in New York yesterday. Photo: Seth Wenig/AP By dismissing Sarah Palin's lawsuit against The New York Times yesterday, a district judge kept one of the media's landmark legal protections in place — at least for now, Axios Media Trends expert Sara Fischer writes. Catch up quick: Palin sued The Times over a 2017 editorial — quickly corrected — that falsely linked her to the 2011 mass shooting that wounded former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). - Judge Jed S. Rakoff said Palin failed to prove that the paper acted with "actual malice" — the standard the Supreme Court established in the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan.
The intrigue: The judge took the unusual step of throwing out the case while the jury — unaware of his decision — is still deliberating. He said he'll let the jury continue so its verdict can be part of the record for appeal. - Palin has suggested she ultimately wants to challenge the "actual malice" standard — which would have to go to the Supreme Court.
Go deeper: Timeline for Palin v. NYT. |
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| 6. Axios investigates: D.C. mayor's WhatsApp dodge |
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| The District Building. Photo illustration: Allie Carl/Axios. Photo: The Washington Post via Getty Images |
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| D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's administration uses the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp widely across city government, current and former staffers tell Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil. - WhatsApp is seen as the top way to get in touch with the mayor and her inner circle, two sources said.
Why it matters: WhatsApp can help shield official communications from Freedom of Information requests. The practice flies in the face of Bowser's pledge to boost transparency in government. How it works: WhatsApp messages can be destroyed. The app has a feature that can be turned on to delete conversations within a period of time. The mayor's office didn't respond to multiple queries about whether the administration forbids the use of the auto-delete feature, and how it ensures communications are archived. - The mayor's office said in a one-sentence statement: "We communicate using a variety of methods to accomplish our work in an expeditious manner."
D.C. Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams' Jan. 24 order in a Washington Post public-records suit for Mayor Bowser's communications related to the Capitol riot. 👀 What we're watching: The Washington Post sued in D.C. Superior Court for access to Bowser's communications about the Capitol riot. - Discovery proceedings could dig into city WhatsApp records.
Get Axios D.C. ... Share this story. |
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| 7. 🔎 First look: Pentagon restrained Nixon, new book says |
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| Cover: Avid Reader Press |
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| In the final hours before President Nixon resigned, his Defense secretary moved to restrict the commander-in-chief's access to nuclear assets, Garrett Graff writes in "Watergate: A New History," out today. - Why it matters: With the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in coming in June, Graff told me his 216,000-word, 793-page book is the first "start-to-finish narrative history of Watergate written since the 1990s — and the story as we understand it has changed significantly."
Garrett tells me it's been rumored "for 50 years that Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger issued an order in the final days/hours of the Nixon presidency ... that ... took away Nixon's nuclear launch powers." - "Schlesinger claimed as such in the 1970s, but no one ever found proof," Graff continued.
- "Until now. I located a front-line soldier in a nuclear-armed unit in that August of 1974 who remembers the order ... It's an unprecedented extra-legal order ... since the president has unchecked nuclear launch authority."
"The message was blunt," the front-line officer told Graff, requesting anonymity to speak about classified orders even a half-century later. - He paraphrased the order he saw that night in Bavaria: "No troops shall be deployed unless co-signed by Dr. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State. Please inform Command. Sent: James R Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense."
Share this story ... Read an excerpt ... Order the book. |
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| 8. 📚 First look: Nina Totenberg on RBG |
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| Cover: Simon & Schuster |
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| Nina Totenberg, NPR's legendary Supreme Court whisperer, will be out Sept. 13 with "Dinners with Ruth," a memoir of her nearly 50-year friendship with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. - Why it matters: The book is described as "an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace."
The backstory: In 1971, four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, and 20+ years before Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Simon & Schuster says, "Nina called Ruth." - "A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth's legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated 'on the basis of sex' to be unconstitutional."
- "In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched [their] friendship."
Totenberg, represented by Robert Barnett, also weaves together portraits of cherished NPR colleagues Cokie Roberts and Linda Wertheimer + her friendships with multiple justices, including Lewis Powell, William Brennan and Antonin Scalia. |
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| A message from Walmart |
| Walmart supports small- and medium-sized suppliers in climate goals |
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| Did you know 80% of a company's carbon footprint resides in its supply chain? Support for smaller suppliers is essential to meet the urgency of climate action. Learn how Walmart is taking on this challenge with an industry-leading program supporting small businesses in emissions reduction. |
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